The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

As a sports fan, we all know that it’s going to be a rollercoaster ride of emotions throughout the years as we root for superstars, underachievers, and overachievers that suit up and wear the same colors that most of us are willing to proudly display somewhere in our everyday life. But whenever you boil everything down, it usually falls into one of three categories. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Watching the NBA draft lottery in 2008 as my beloved Chicago Bulls lucked into getting the 1^st overall pick and thus being able to select hometown boy Derrick Rose is a great memory. Finding out about Darryl Kile’s death back in 2002 was one of the worst moments I’ve been through as a sports fan, and it doesn’t get much uglier then Rex Grossman being your quarterback when your team reaches the Super Bowl for the first time in your lifetime. But yesterday was one of the most unique days I’ve ever had as a sports fan, and this is why.

First things first, the good. The Cardinals were down 1-0 to the hated Brewers but Albert Pujols showed why he’s the best player in baseball and why if anyone isdeserving of a $300 million dollar contract, it’s him. He finished the night with 3 doubles and a home run to bag 3 runs and 5 RBIs as the Cardinals won in Milwaukee to even the series up 1-1 as it heads to St. Louis tomorrow tonight.

The bad was that I stayed up to watch my Bears get gashed by Calvin Johnson early and Jahvid Best late as the offensive line was busy either committing 9 false starts or giving Jay Cutler no time to throw. Cutler and Forte looked great and if the Bears had not committed so many costly penalties and been able to keep from giving up the big play (like the Cover 2 is designed to do) they probably would have won the game. Instead they fall 3 games behind the Packers and Lions and are left with huge questions about what they need to do going forward.

And the ugly was the inevitable but painful news that the first two weeks of the NBA season had been lost. I’m going to be writing more about this obviously because I’m such a huge basketball fan but I couldn’t help but feel the sting whenever the news became official. More is going to get canceled, possibly the entire season, but the lockout is finally really sinking in. I was only 10 when the NBA lost games before so this is the first time I’ve really experienced lost games (I’m not an NHL fan) and let me tell you, it’s ugly.

As a sports fan, you expect a lot of ups-and-downs throughout not just the years but from game-to-game and quarter-to-quarter, or inning if we’re talking baseball. But yesterday I was taken on quite possibly the biggest rollercoaster of my sports life, getting jam-packed with all three emotional trips from my three favorite and most closely-followed teams all in the span of a few hours. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take some Ambien and get some rest, I don’t think I can handle another night like that for a while.

Bautista and the Blue Jays Caught Stealing

If you haven't heard yet, Jose Bautista is a really good baseball player. And when he's playing up north of the border, he's one of the best and most feared hitters in baseball. After his first boost in 2010 that saw him go from a season high of 16 home runs to a total of 54 and his OPS jump .240 points the rumors started swirling about steroids. But with the lack of a positive test, the claim that Bautista made an adjustment to his swing accounting for the added power, and that most of his home runs were pulled to the same side of the field left the steroid rumors without a lot of fuel to put on the fire.

Well, now it isn't just rumors that are going to around about Bautista and the rest of the Toronto Blue Jays and it doesn't have anything to do with performance enhancing drugs. Players and managers are accusing the Blue Jays of using the aide of people in the outfield to steal signs and the stats are backing up those claims.

There is a great article about it up here from ESPN and in that article it has the stats that suggest there is something going on whenever the Blue Jays step up to the plate at the Rogers Centre. The numbers are so out of control that Cris Myers, a writer for Baseball Prospectus, even wrote a piece on how in was more then just a statistical anomaly before this report came to light. It isn't as if it's just for Bautista either, there are other players that are having huge splits between home and away games.

As for what is allegedly happening, it boils down to this. There is man in a white shirt in the perfect spot to be seen by a batter in the outfield seats. The batter wouldn't even have to adjust his stance to be able to see this fan, and the placement is obviously of the utmost importance. Somehow, whether someone else is watching the signs through binoculars and relaying the signs or something else, the “fan” is being told what pitch is being thrown. If it's an off-speed pitch such as a change-up, curve, or slider the “fan” will raise his arms up over his head. And if he doesn't raise his arms, the players know that they can sit on a fastball and swing for the fences.

Personally, I think that it's the truth. Teams will try anything to get an edge, especially in your division includes the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Add that to what the players have said and the stats that back up the idea that it's more then just a conspiracy theory and you have a believer in me.  

Why Baseball Needs a Salary Cap (and Not the Kind You Think)

If you're a baseball fan then you've probably noticed that for the first time in a very long time the Pittsburgh Pirates were in first place in the NL Central in the month of July. The same team that hasn't had a winning season since 1992 finally looks to be on upswing and should finish above .500 for the first time in nearly two decades. And with every underdog story there are plenty of fans from other teams that aren't having good seasons jumping on the bandwagon and cheering them on. So other then the exceptionally well ran Tampa Bay Rays, the surprise small-market team underdog story doesn't come around nearly often enough.

The best part of football and basketball is the illusion of parody. No matter what team you like there is almost always a reason to be optimistic most seasons. Sure, some teams have been having some down years but I simply can not think of any team in the NFL or the NBA suffering for the last 15 years without at least something to cheer for. The difference between the two leagues, at least to me, is that the bottom level teams are at least spending money while the bottom level teams in baseball are usually considered less of a major league team and more of a farm team for the Boston and New York's of the world.

I don't think the problem is that the teams at the top are spending to much though, I think the problem is the exact opposite. The at the end of the 2008 season the Pirates had just finished up their 16^th losing season. They had traded away their best players for prospects and cash because they are a small market team and they simply couldn't afford to be a middle-of-the-pack team and be forced to pay their talent enough to keep them around. But then the Pirates financial papers leaked and between those two seasons, the Pirates made $69 million dollars in revenue sharing alone.

That's right, $69 million dollars in just revenue sharing. That doesn't include any money the team actually made themselves, just the money that was basically given to them. Last year the Pirates estimated payroll was right about $35 million and with the increase in how much the top teams spent in 2010 compared to 2008 and I would almost guarantee that the Pirates won't have to shell out a dime from their own pockets to pay any of their players.

If you ask me, that's the problem. There are to many teams out there looking to find ways to simply maximize profits rather then field a competitive team. So what I propose is a salary cap floor plan for all MLB teams. Right now teams are simply required to spend their revenue sharing on the baseball team but as we all know, there are plenty of ways to write off money as a company expense and get away with it. I propose requiring that every dime that is given to a team has to spent on payroll and that so much money from each ticket is required to be spent on the team. This way, given money is helping level the playing field and the fans spending their money to go to the game are assured that at least some of their money is going to help pay the players instead of lining the players pockets.

Just as an example, say the Pirates were required to spend $10 from every ticket they sold in 2010 and the (rough guess from 2007 and 2008 numbers) $35 million from revenue sharing on the team in 2011. They would have had to increase their payroll by $16 million dollars from the $34 million they spent in 2010 on players and had a payroll of at least $51 million. Take into consideration the talent they could've added with an extra $16 million to blow and the idea of small market teams competing more often becomes less of a fantasy and more of a reality.

And it wouldn't have to be every single year. Once every 5 years you could allow the owners to be under the number. A second time in that 5 year span and maybe take 10 percent of their revenue check, then a third year take 20 percent. It would allow the owners to still have a season or two to cash in before making a big push towards putting together a solid team. The Pirates counter to all of this would probably be that they have to pay for PNC Park. Of all the modern stadiums it is probably the best of the bunch and that is certainly something worth paying for. But what's the point of having such a great place for baseball if no one is going to come and watch?

My Solution to the Problem That is Baseball's All-Star Game

I know baseball doesn't want to admit it and I certainly understand why, but man is it boring. Now don't get me wrong, I love the sport, but in today's world it just seems to drag on forever. With technology keeping everyone in touch with everyone and everything else all the time, we feel like there shouldn't be anything known as “free time”. Hell, whenever a commercial comes on a video online I roll my eyes and pop open a new tab on Chrome and come back to the video once the ad is finished. Thirty seconds is to much for my attention span to handle without being occupied. And with baseball, you've got nothing but free time.

It wouldn't be nearly as big of a problem if there weren't so many games in the regular season. I'm a St. Louis Cardinals fan and have been ever since I was in diapers. But if I watch more then 10 games from start to finish this year, I'll be surprised. Usually, I'm checking on my phone and if it's a close game in the 7^th inning or so I'll flip over and watch the last little bit. Of course there are a lot of fans out there that are much more devoted to their favorite baseball team, but there are a lot more fans like me. They wouldn't call them die-hards if everyone could do it.

So if you're trying to rope in those casual fans like myself for the All-Star game, how are you going to go about doing that? They're latest idea is making it matter by having the winner of the game getting home field advantage in the World Series. I'd be ok with that if they didn't have fan voting for the starters because did anyone from the AL really want Derek Jeter and the year he is having to be a deciding factor on whether or not they got home field advantage? And if it is such an important game, why force managers to make sure that every team is represented? Not to mention the fact that after players backed out either because they pitched two days before, they were injured, or just didn't feel like participating, the total number of All-Stars this year was 84.

But here I am complaining about it without offering up a solution. Baseball is about numbers and tradition more then anything, so what not try and build the festivities around that? Find a way to get Jeter invested in coming to the game and make a big deal about his 3,000^th hit. He's the first ever Yankee to get to that number and even people who don't really like the Yankees like myself are ready to admit that it's really cool he got all 3000 with the same team so why not have the Yankee heroes of old show up to congratulate him for the 7^th inning stretch? That way to see it live you have to at least be flipping back and forth instead of just watching the pre-game stuff.

And with as many players and numbers as baseball has to work with, they can certainly find at least one thing to celebrate every year. They could even have a break between the 2^nd, 4^th, and 7^th innings to different players, teams, or milestones. I'm not saying that would solve the problem, but it's a suggestion worth thinking over if nothing else. It isn't as if anyone is paying attention anyway.

Pujols Should Be The First $300 Million Man

All off-season, with apologies to Cliff Lee, the biggest story in baseball was the contract negotiations between Albert Pujols and the St. Louis Cardinals. Baseball fans all across the country made up their minds rather quickly on whether or not they thought Pujols or any other athlete was really worth such a large amount of money. But with all of the talk about the numbers, one of the things rarely talked about in baseball circles was the numbers that we all had at our disposal and how that should effect the Cardinals upcoming decision on the greatest baseball player of our generation.

The Cardinals were bought by Bill DeWitt Jr. in 1995 for the nice, even, amount of $150 million dollars. A big investment of course, but one that has certainly proven to be a wise one. Forbes ranked the Cardinals at the end of last year as being worth $518 million dollars. That is a 245% increase over the last 17 years and means the team is worth $368 million more today than it was when DeWitt purchased them, or am increase of $21.6 million a year. Struggling to make ends meet is not something I think the Cardinals ownership is going to have to worry about for the foreseeable future and while that should be an assumption, it's also important to note just how much money this team is worth today compared to when the team was sold in 1995.

Team worth is only half of the picture though when it comes to crunching the numbers for the owners over the past 16 years. Forbes has done a wonderful job of compiling enough information for every team that they are able to tell us what the operating income (or profit) is for each team on a year-to-year basis. I looked back to the end of 1996, the end of the first year of ownership, to see just how the Cardinals have performed financially each year. Surprisingly enough, there have been a total of 5 years where the Cardinals lost money, including a staggering $11.1 million in 2004. But since 2006, things have turned around dramatically with the team posting earnings of $14.0, $21.5, $6.6, $12.8 and $19.8 the last 5 years. Since 1996 the team has made a total of $71 million dollars, an average of $4.4 million a year and an average of $14.9 million the past 5 years.

Right now, the Cardinals are paying Pujols 16 million dollars a year. Assuming the Cardinals make the same amount of money as they did on average the past 5 years, they would be right at breaking even for the year. The goal for any business is evident; to make money. Owners of a sports team though, and especially a team with fans like the Cardinals, are expected to compete. The DeWitt family has shown that they are willing to spend money to do that in the past so this certainly isn't a Florida Marlins situation. What could the Cardinals do to try and mitigate the blow of a 30 million dollar contract?

Lance Berkman is under contract this season for 8 million dollars and Kyle Lohse for 12 over the next two years. Adam Wainwright is scheduled to make 9 and 12 million in team options over the next two years but with his injury this year, you might be able to convince him to take a small pay cut. He's making almost 7 million this year so if you could get him for that over the next couple years you would have to consider that a success. Those are the most obvious options for saving money when it comes to the team and if you replaced Berkman and Lohse with guys that made 5 million a piece, that would still be a 10 million dollar difference once those two are off the books.

Also, in the years from 2006 to 2009 the Cardinals have averaged 43,767 fans per home game, or 3.5 million fans each year. The Cardinals fans love Pujols unconditionally and would hate to see him go, and I think it would be more than fair if the Cardinals added just one dollar to each ticket as a “Pujols tax” to help with the burden of such a large contract. If you did that, the contract would run the team 26.5 million a year and while that is still a massive amount, it certainly looks a lot more manageable then 30 million. And if you were going to pay any baseball player, wouldn't it be Pujols?

In his first 10 seasons he has never had less then 30 home runs or 100 runs batted in. He ranks in the top 15 all time in both OPS and adjusted-OPS and is most likely going to finish among the top 10 position players in the history of the sport. I could go on and on about his accomplishments but everyone that enjoys the game of baseball has heard time and again how he stacks up against the greatest players to ever play the game. What Pujols has achieved to start his career is unprecedented and if he can keep to the level of play he is accustomed to over the next 5 years he will be off to the best start ever for a baseball player. He would have 2850 hits, 1780 runs, 640 doubles, 612 home runs, and 1845 RBIs after 15 years. That would put him 42nd in hits, 18th in runs, 9th in doubles, 7th in home runs, and 11th in RBI's all-time, placing him ahead of many of the greatest hitters to ever swing a bat.

Even so, how are the Cardinals going to be able to pay such a high salary and still be competitive? Well for comparisons sake, the average salary of the top ten highest paid players in 2001 was 14.25 million and for this season it has ballooned up to 21.69 million, an increase of 7.44 million. Even if you only increase the number by 5 million which is below the average, that number would still be an average of 26.75 a year for a top ten salary guy. That number is very close to what the salary would be costing the Cardinals if they implemented the “Pujols tax” I mentioned earlier.

Finally, Alex Rodriguez is the player most closely associated with Albert Pujols. Both players have been huge successes since their careers began and Pujols is looking to take the title of highest paid baseball player that A-Rod has held onto since he signed that massive contract with the Texas Rangers. So in Rodriguez's first ten seasons, how much did he earn? From 1996-2005 he made $120 million dollars compared to $96 million for Pujols. Now remember that the $120 million is starting from 5 years earlier so it would translate to an even bigger difference. Pujols has been underpaid for his entire career. Combine that with all of the other data from above and honestly, I don't understand why the Cardinals wouldn't want to keep the best player in baseball, in their uniform for his entire career, no matter the cost.