Should Yasiel Puig Be An Allstar?

The man-child of the Los Angeles Dodgers, also known as Yasiel Puig has been the subject of intense debate over whether or not he should participate in this year's Allstar Game. Puig has been inhuman since being called up to the Dodgers batting .409 with 25 runs scored, 19 RBIs, 8 Home Runs and 5 stolen bases. Now I'm not here to talk about how great of a player he is or how great he is going to be because we just can't tell after only a month. However, has his performance over that single month warranted him a spot in one of the great honors that any player could hope to claim? 

Many Argue that Puig shouldn't be an Allstar, that he doesn't deserve it because he has only played a month and there are other players who show a greater body of work and are therefore more deserving. However, Puig's month hasn't just been a great month for a rookie. It has been one of the greatest months that the Major Leagues has ever seen. He has achieved 52 hits in only 32 games, he has had a multi-hit game in nearly half of those games, he has helped the Dodgers climb back into the race for the NL West and he has captured the attention of everyone around baseball.

Now Puig did not get selected by the fans or by the players in the initial voting for the Allstar Game, but there is still a chance for him to make it into the game. A final spot on the roster is voted for by the fans and Puig is on the 5 man ballot with Freddie Freeman, Hunter Pence, Ian Desmond, and teammate Adrian Gonzales. Even though many argue that it is not fair to other players if he makes it over them, that is not what the Allstar Game is about. The Allstar game is for the fans and they should be allowed to see what and who they want to see. If that includes Yasiel Puig, then there is a very good chance  that we see the Cuban Cannon-armed Puig at Citi Field next week. 

--Daniel Kolodin

7 Good Closers, 3 Bad Ones

A team’s ability to win close games is often the difference between a playoff berth and an October vacation. A team’s ability to win those close games is dependent on their bullpen, and more specifically their closer. Up to this point, the 2013 season has been an interesting year for closers, some have been great, others suspect. Here’s a list of my top 7 closers and three bad ones.

Bad Closers

     1.  Heath Bell

Since his departure from San Diego, Heath Bell has been suspect in the back of the bullpen. In his defense, JJ Puts was supposed to be the closer, but he was worse, so Arizona has been subject to an adventurous last three outs. Heath has blown only three saves, but his ERA and WHIP are 5.02 and 1.64 respectively, OUCH.

2. Brandon League

The Dodgers settled in with Kenley Janson last year as their closer, and he had a very good year. Then they acquired Brandon League, who was awful for Seattle as a closer, and fell in love with his 95 mph sinker and promoted him to be the closer. Turns out tattoos and sinkers aren’t enough to be a good closer, (5.08 ERA 4 Blown Saves) and the Dodgers have reverted back to Jansen as their closer. Look for the Dodgers ninth inning pitching to improve.

3.  Jose Valverde

Papa Grande made an admiral comeback, after last years playoff implosion, to resign to a triple A contract with the Tigers and work his way back to the closer role. However, Valverde already has 3 blown saves and only nine saves, looks like Detroit’s closer problem is still up in the air.

Good Closers

7. Aroldis Chapman

Chapman has the ability to be the best closer in the big leagues, but lack of save opportunities and 3 blown saves have knocked him down the list a little. He has a solid 2.53 ERA and he will be important in the Reds push for a playoff berth.

6. Joe Nathan

 

No one thought the Rangers would be this good, partly because they didn’t appear to have to pitching to compete. The experts were wrong and Nathan’s 24 saves and sub 2 ERA have been a big part of that.

5. Grant Balfour

Balfour has had a stunning 0 blown saves, with a miniscule 1.17 ERA. He ranks 10^th in the MLB with 18 saves, but he has been very important in the A’s success this year.

4.  Craig Kimbrel

Craig Kimbrel has the best slider in the game, and his fastball is an unhittable compliment. His 3 blown saves keep him from being higher on the lis

3. Edward Mujica

The Cardinals have the best record in the MLB, and that’s partly because when they go into the ninth with a lead Mujica has converted it into a victory every time. He has come out of nowhere and done more than a great job replacing the injured Jason Motte.

2. Mariano Rivera

The best closer of all time is having another unbelievable season. He is tied for first in the bigs with 26 saves and has a 1.61 ERA.

1. Jason Grilli

Grilli has been unbelievable this year for the Pirates converting a league best 26/27 saves and a 1.31 ERA. He rarely lets runners on (WHIP 0.82) and he leads all closers with 57 strikeouts.

-Blake Dale Lepire

America's Pastime is Past its Cap Time

In 1999 Royals’ fans proved they had enough. In a game against the New York Yankees on May, 1 fans at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City donned T-shirts that read “$hare the Wealth.” They staged a protest against the financial disparity in Major League Baseball. That year, the Yankees had the highest team payroll in baseball at $188.13 million, compared to the Royals’ fourth-lowest team payroll of $16.53 million (The Daily Barometer). The Yankees were coming off their twenty-fourth World Series title; the Royals hadn’t made the playoffs since 1985. Royals’ fans turned their backs every time a Yankee hitter stepped up to bat and threw fake $100 bills into the outfield (The Daily Barometer). The group of 3,000 walked out of the stadium together in protest. In the next fourteen years, the Yankees won three more World Series titles and made the playoffs sixteen of the last seventeen years, and they still lead the league in team payroll at a whopping $197.96 million. The Royals still hold the fourth-lowest payroll, $60.92 million, and still haven’t been to the playoffs since 1985 (The Daily Barometer). The 27-year postseason drought is the longest in Major League Baseball.

The Royals are just one example of the many loyal fans crying for help because their team is hopeless; and if it doesn’t change their allegiance to baseball will be weakened. Fans have driven baseball to be known as America’s Pastime, they follow the players, buy the merchandise, attend the games and pass down their experiences to their kids. It’s not secret that fan attendance has a direct correlation with the team’s success, so it should be a priority to make sure all teams are on an equal playing field. However, that’s clearly not the case, many teams are suffering because of their financial predisposition, rich teams are taking advantage of their privileges and as a result the fan experience is effected. Baseball fans that follow poor, unsuccessful teams will lose hope in the sport, and baseball will eventually be “past its time.”

Even though there are many examples of organizations that are fighting the economic disparity in major league baseball, the implementation of a salary cap is still very controversial. The debate on how major league baseball should handle payroll regulations has created a schism between baseball executives because fiscal regulations are believed to have an effect on certain organization’s ability to succeed. Currently major league baseball has a luxury tax system, which is the softest cap of all of the major American sports. In result, small market organizations don’t have the financial means to compete for players in free agency with the economic superpowers of the Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees or Los Angeles Dodgers. Shorthanded organizations are subject to either accept their shortcomings, or create alternative non-monetary based philosophies in order to give themselves a chance to compete.

The only salary regulation in Major League Baseball is called a luxury tax, and it is a meager attempt to control the top spending organizations. Under the current system every organization is allowed to spend as much money as they want, but if they exceed 178 million dollar threshold, they will be fined. The Yankees have been fined for ten consecutive years, and they continue to pursue the most expensive players without a flinch. The Dodgers are currently fifty million dollars over the threshold, which is almost as much as the Padres entire payroll. The way a salary cap would work is once a team has reached the magic payroll number, they are forbidden to spend more, and as stated in an article on espn.com by Neil deMause, “This reduces salaries in two ways: Teams over the cap are taken out of the bidding for free agents (or for pricey trade targets), giving available players fewer options and reducing bidding pressure, and teams just below the cap will resist blowing their budget on a single player.” This would give small market teams a better chance of competing for free agents and celebrate meritocracy rather than purchasing power.

Despite the economic disparity, there are people satisfied with the existing fiscal policies. The biggest naysayers are the executives representing the player’s union. Adding a hard salary cap would decrease competition over free agents, and the player’s union will not let their players take a pay cut. Disregarding their monetary bias, the players’ union also makes the argument that Baseball is by far the most stable of the American professional sports, and it is the only one without a salary cap. In just the past few years, fans of the other major sports have experienced shortened seasons, lockouts, and a divide between players and owners only paralleled by the political parties in Washington. Using that alone as evidence, it seems a salary cap is the worst thing baseball could have happen to its player and owner relationship. There are other people who argue that the economic disparity has not created a competitive imbalance. David Schoenfield, from ESPN analyzed how baseball’s current system has effected the competitive sphere of the game and he concluded that, “Major League Baseball playoffs are actually far less predictable than the other sports. While the NFL has had just three Super Bowl winners that didn't have the best or second-best record in the league, the '05 Steelers were tied for fifth, the '01 Patriots sixth, and the '97 Broncos fourth, and the NBA has had just one champ that didn't have one of the two best records the '04 Pistons were sixth, baseball has had just two World Series champs which did have the best or second-best record, '05 White Sox and '98 Yankees” (Schoenfield). Schoenfield went on to conclude that adding a salary cap is unnecessary because baseball does not have a competitive balance issue. Jayson Stark of ESPN.com also makes the argument that baseball is the most competitive of all the major sports. “Even though the Cardinals had won the World Series as recently as 2006, baseball has still had nine different champions in the last 11 years. Nine. Had Neftali Feliz been able to get one more out in Game 6, it would have been 10 different champs in 11 years, for just the second time in the history of the sport. The only stretch in baseball history that can top the current run of nine winners in 11 years was 1982-92, when 10 different teams won. How 'bout that?, So where does the NFL stand? Glad you asked. The almighty NFL has had eight winners in the last 11 years. And when was the last time it had nine champs in 11 seasons? How about never. Ever. Not in the Super Bowl era. Not prior to the Super Bowl era.” (Jayson Stark). In conclusion, if baseball is the most stable and the most competitive of the major sports, the current system should remain the same.

The debate begins with the discussion of the competitive imbalance in baseball. If the competitive imbalance is insignificant, then there is no need to change to a system that has proven to be sketchy in other major sports leagues and associations. David Schoenfield and Jayson Stark make their argument by comparing championships in baseball to other professional leagues. Just because there is parity in the World Series winners, doesn’t mean there’s parity among all thirty teams. Of the eleven teams to which Stark refers, only the Florida Marlins in 2003 were not in the top half in the MLB in team payroll. The last seven champions have been in the top 11 in team payroll, with at least $98 million to spend. Stark and Schoenfield failed to recognize that baseball is the least star-player driven league of the three major sports. Basketball only has five players on the court at a time, and a great player like Kobe Bryant has the opportunity to touch the ball every time on offense. Football is a quarterback driven league, and the team with the best quarterback gives themselves the best chance of winning. In each respective sports league, there are select few star-players in the league that can single handedly propel their team into playoff contention. Therefore, if a team is able to retain a star player, give themselves a great chance of winning. Baseball is completely different; a star pitcher only affects one out of every five games and a star hitter typically only gets four at bats during a game, meaning it is more of a team-oriented sport so its playoffs have a lot more parody.

The competitive imbalance in baseball clearly exists in the bottom tier of teams. Brad Pitt may have said it best while he was portraying the Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane in the movie Moneyball, “the problem we're trying to solve is that there are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then there's fifty feet of crap, and then there's us.” Successful baseball teams are competitive in many facets, which requires organizations to sign multiple players with a variety of skills. If baseball were like basketball or football, organizations could build around one or two players and find a way to win. Instead baseball organizations must build an entire team of worthy competitors. The more players a team needs, the more expensive it costs, which is why there are many baseball organizations who have trouble sifting through the “crap.” The Kansas City Royals have missed the playoffs twenty seven years in a row, in fourty-four years the Padres have only made the playoffs five times, the Pirates have missed the playoffs for twenty one straight years, the Milwaukee Brewers have made it to the playoffs twice in the last thirty years, the Cleveland Indians have been hopeless the past decade, the Toronto Blue Jays haven’t sniffed the playoffs since they won the World Series in 1992 and all of these organizations are in the bottom ten in total player salary (Baseball-Reference.com). Of the 82 teams that made the playoffs since 2003, forty-three have come from the top-third in team payroll, and only twelve have come from the bottom-third (The DePaulia). If Major League Baseball executives analyze the competitive balance from the bottom up, there are clearly many organizations suffering. Baseball fans shouldn’t be subjected to a team with no chance of winning, especially when it’s caused by an uncontrollable predisposition.

In order to fix the competitive imbalance action needs to be taken. There are two different types of caps that baseball can use, one is the "hard salary cap," in which the sports league sets the maximum amount of money a team can spend on player salaries and flatly declares that no team can exceed it, period. The other, more reasonable form of payroll regulation is the "soft salary cap," in which the established limit can be exceeded under a small and specific list of circumstances, chiefly in situations when teams want to hold onto franchise players or iconic players that would sustain the value of their franchise

and, by extension, maintain the popularity of that sport in all of its league markets (The DePaulia). The soft cap makes more sense for a sports league, because it is in the best interest of a league to do what it can to ensure that beloved players can more easily stay with the teams that value them, and by extension, with the fan bases that love them. In the NBA this is called the Larry Bird Exception, and according to Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post, “encourages players to re-sign with their current teams in hopes of providing loyalty and stability with fans” (The Daily Barometer). Baseball also needs to implement a salary floor (The Daily Barometer). In the NFL, as a part of its salary floor, teams are required to spend nearly ninety percent of the cap on player compensation. This would allow for players in small markets to make more money, because their team would need to spend the money or face penalties. This would make profit focused owners hesitant to own a team, and encourage owners to strive for victories. The players union would never agree to a salary cap because it would decrease the competition over players and lower the average player’s income. To combat with this, adding a salary cap would allow Major League Baseball to get rid of arbitration. All players are under team control on the league-minimum salary of $480,000 during their first six years. After three years of service, players are eligible for arbitration (The Daily Barometer). If teams and players can’t come to an agreement, they go to an arbitration hearing. After three years, players could be eligible for free agency. The best young players often deal with arbitration for three straight years before they hit free agency. This would cut through the red tape and allow players to make money on the open market three years sooner.

Large market teams will always have an inherent advantage, but changing the economic structure will give smaller markets like Milwaukee and Toronto a fighting chance. The New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers will still be able to attract players because of their big spotlight, great living areas and storied success (HubPages). However, they wont dominate free agency, giving smaller market teams a smaller hill to climb.

Baseball has never been about money; it is special in this country, has been since its invention and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. The game is nuance, romance and passion all rolled into one. Let’s fix the financial woes and get down to what baseball is all about. 

-Blake Dale Lepire

Whats up with the Angels?

The offseason signing of MVP candidate Josh Hamilton was supposed to propel the Angels to the AL West team to beat, but the Angels’ loss to the Twins last night gives them a sad record of 4-9 on the young season. They are playing worse than the rebuilding Houston Astros, who are expected to be the worst team in the bigs. They are last in the AL West in offensive scoring, and second to last in runs allowed. The “Big 3” aka Trout, Pujols and Hamilton have had a very average start, and to make matters worse Vernon Wells is actually playing pretty well in pinstripes.

 

But it is still early, the Halos have 134 games to figure it out. Assuming  that their problems can be “figured out,” and that these last 13 games have been a simple slump rather than an exposition of glaring weaknesses. However, my 10^th grade history teacher told me that assuming makes and ass out of u and me, and the numbers say there is real cause for concern in Orange County.

Their offense will come around, Trout may not hit .330 this year but he is too good to keep batting .260 the whole year and once he gets going that will give Pujols and Hamilton prime RBI opportunities, assuming (there it is again) Josh Hamilton RElearns for the millionth time how to lay off a curveball in the dirt. They need to get Aybar back to solidify two spot, because Bourjus is too inconsistent to be at the top of the lineup. I think Howie Kendrick would benefit the most from hitting in front of Pujols but Scioscia seems to think Hamilton needs protection from protecting Pujols. Anyways, their offense is slumping, but when all of those guys are on, it may be the best one through nine in the game.

But, as the great Paul Bear Bryant said, “Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships,” more specifically pitching wins championships, and the Angels’ staff needs Walt Disney’s magic to come to life if they are going to make the playoffs.

Weaver’s freak injury made their starting pitching really, really thin. CJ Wilson needs to step up and be an ace while Weaver heals, but lack of control has led to three average starts (1-0 4.00 ERA 1.5 WHIP). After Wilson, their starting pitching drops off a cliff, Joe Blanton is the new number 2 and he just received his third consecutive loss last night and is averaging 8.59 earned runs every nine innings. Tommy Hanson, and Jason Vargas sum up their rotation, and they have combined for 1-quality start.

If a team’s starting pitching is struggling, the bullpen has to find a way to pick them up, and that’s nowhere close to happening. Ernesto Frieri has had a good start as the closer, only giving up one run in five innings, but he has also walked three in that span which would be detrimental if he didn’t have ten strikeouts on top of that. Mark Lowe and Kevin Jepsen are tied for second on the team in appearances, and they both only have one pitch that they can kind of throw for a strike, and when they do, it has been getting raked. Lowe has an ERA of 12 and Jepsen has given up an average of 9 earned runs.

These numbers are awful, and they should get better over the next 134 games, but how much better? Can they improve enough to compete with the A’s who have scored 30 more runs and allowed 20 less runs to date? Or How bout the Rangers, who are only allowing an average of 3 total runs per game without their opening day starter? It doesn’t look good for the Halos, they have very glaring weaknesses in their pitching staff, so it may be early, but Angel fan definitely have grounds to ‘freak out”

-Blake Dale Lepire