No Suspense Necessary for the A-Rod Suspension Appeal

A decision on Alex Rodriguez’s arbitration hearing to reduce or overturn his suspension is reported to be imminent. There’s no suspense here, however. It’s fait accompli. And he’ll lose.

Do you really and truly believe that MLB is going to undercut itself by reducing Alex Rodriguez’s suspension from 214 games to something less? Anything that will allow him to play this season?

Think again.

In spite of A-Rod’s litany of high-priced, smooth-talking and experienced lawyers, the entire appeal process was a non-starter. Like Captain Kirk standing before the Klingon tribunal trying to convince them of his innocence of the murder of their Chancellor, A-Rod has no chance of winning this appeal; no possible benefit from it other than garnering some sympathy from those who see how unfair it’s been. Forgetting the Trekker fiction, this show trial was only entertained because A-Rod had a right to it and is pursuing every avenue to try and reduce his penalty and get paid for at least a portion of the next season-and-a-half. In reality, it’s like a trial in North Korea. If MLB could put him before a firing squad and purge him from their sight (and the Yankees’ payroll), they would do that. That’s the equivalent of this supposed arbitration hearing meant to give A-Rod his say.

Because A-Rod has become the poster child for the flouting of the flexible and self-serving rules baseball has enacted regarding performance-enhancing drugs, they have to keep using him to validate their new tough stance on the behavior of players who ignore and try to circumvent the testing process.

This is not a defense of A-Rod.

He repeatedly lied and formulated different methods to use the drugs that he clearly doesn’t believe he can perform without. From the lies to the feigned contrition to the Biogenesis revelations to his public displays regarding the suspension and pleas for widespread sympathy to his plight, A-Rod is not worthy of mercy for what he did. But in the context of MLB and its own complicity in PED use, A-Rod should not be punished like this unless Bud Selig and his minions are taken to task as well.

The 214 game suspension is exemplar of MLB’s “get tough” tack to warn the players not to do it again; that their punishments have teeth and there won’t be the wink-and-nod at PED use there was post-1994 to the flashpoint hearing before congress in which Rafael Palmeiro‘s finger-wagging did more to antagonize the public than any anti-social Barry Bonds gesture of self-entitled arrogance ever could. There won’t be the “yeah whatever” suspensions that are so impotent that it’s worth it for an average player to use the drugs to make himself an All-Star and get an All-Star contract even if he gets caught. A-Rod is the key to send that message. It’s not the fact that A-Rod was getting busted again and again that spurred this massive and unprecedented suspension. It’s that he was the sexiest name they could have ever asked for as evidence that they were serious about putting forth the perception of cleaning up the game.

No matter your position on A-Rod and whether or not he’s deserving of what amounts to a death penalty for his career, it’s impossible to claim that this arbitration process is a fair one. It’s being heard by Fredric Horowitz, the hand-picked arbitrator employed by MLB. He is not finding in favor of A-Rod under any circumstances. Horowitz is relatively new on the job after replacing Shyam Das when Das was fired after—to MLB’s shock—finding in favor of Ryan Braun when Braun appealed his failed drug test after the 2011 season.

The other members of the three-person panel are MLB COO Rob Manfred and legal counsel to the MLBPA David Prouty. Prouty will obviously find in favor of A-Rod. Manfred is even more in MLB’s corner than Horowitz and testified for MLB. How can he be viewed as a fair judge?

A-Rod’s histrionics, desk-kicking, hand-slamming, storming out of the hearing and running right into Mike Francesa’s warm studio embrace aside, this is not an evenhanded hearing with an independent judiciary making the decision based on facts. From the beginning, the process was weighted to convict. Talking out of both sides of their mouths regarding legality and fairness, the head of Biogenesis, Anthony Bosch, was paid for his testimony. MLB purports itself to be as reasonable and objective as a court of law simultaneously using tactics that would immediately call the testimony of the star witness into question. They have Manfred testifying against A-Rod in a case in which Manfred will have a substantial say in the decision. If it sounds like North Korea, it may be because these are the methods used in North Korea.

The problem with MLB choosing not to come to a closed-door agreement with A-Rod regarding a suspension that both they and he could live with is that there’s always the potential of a federal lawsuit turning baseball’s heavy-handedness and dictatorial edicts back on itself as happened with collusion and the reserve clause. Both times baseball thought they’d win easily. Both times they lost badly. Both times it cost them an exponentially greater amount of money than if they’d just decided to treat the players as partners rather than a beaten down society of hindrances to furthering their own ends.

MLB has been notoriously clumsy in using its corporate connections and power in high places to its best advantage as the NFL does. What are they going to do when A-Rod—with nothing left to lose and seeing no logic in backing down now—chooses to toss it to the courts for an injunction allowing him to play in 2014 while the case winds its way through the legal process? Wouldn’t it have been easier to shun the attempts to use A-Rod as the conduit to wash away all baseball’s collective sins? To quash it for the good of everyone who looked the other way while the public was oohing and aahing at the record-breaking power numbers and other byproducts of the drug use? Would A-Rod have taken a 100 game suspension just to get it over with? They’ll never know. From the beginning, they were hell-bent on getting the conviction because they hate A-Rod and want to use him as their fulcrum to leverage the rest of baseball to fall in line; as the case study of what can happen if they take the same road he did.

The A-Rod decision is imminent and we know the result. But this case is far from over. And it’s MLB’s own fault if they lose again.

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The MLB Hall of Fame Rules Cultivate Randomness

Whenever you get into the vagaries of voting—for anything—the reaction to the result is contingent on the individual. If, for example, you’re a Republican you were no doubt pleased with the Supreme Court deciding that George W. Bush won Florida and the presidency in 2000. Al Gore supporters, on the other hand, were crestfallen. Both sides had a foundation for their position. Both sides could have been judged as “right.” The bitterest blamed Ralph Nader for siphoning votes away from Gore. Others held the state of Florida responsible for their confusing butterfly ballots. Many blamed Gore himself as he wasn’t even able to win his home state of Tennessee.

For whatever reason, Gore lost. There may have been a basis in all claims for why it happened even though he won the popular vote. It could have been a confluence of events that led to Bush’s presidency. At any rate, the rules were in place and up for interpretation to make it possible. No amount of anger and second-guessing will change that.

When members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) cast their votes for the Baseball Hall of Fame, they have met the criteria to be eligible to vote. That includes being active baseball writers for ten years. There are no other rules they have to adhere to to be deemed eligible. That means they don’t even have to know much of anything about baseball to cast a ballot.

As for the players they’re allowed to vote for, the rules are the following:

A. A baseball player must have been active as a player in the Major Leagues at some time during a period beginning twenty (20) years before and ending five (5) years prior to election.

B. Player must have played in each of ten (10) Major League championship seasons, some part of which must have been within the period described in 3 (A).

C. Player shall have ceased to be an active player in the Major Leagues at least five (5) calendar years preceding the election but may be otherwise connected with baseball.

D. In case of the death of an active player or a player who has been retired for less than five (5) full years, a candidate who is otherwise eligible shall be eligible in the next regular election held at least six (6) months after the date of death or after the end of the five (5) year period, whichever occurs first.

E. Any player on Baseball’s ineligible list shall not be an eligible candidate.

4. Method of Election:

A. BBWAA Screening Committee—A Screening Committee consisting of baseball writers will be appointed by the BBWAA. This Screening Committee shall consist of six members, with two members to be elected at each Annual Meeting for a three-year term. The duty of the Screening Committee shall be to prepare a ballot listing in alphabetical order eligible candidates who (1) received a vote on a minimum of five percent (5%) of the ballots cast in the preceding election or (2) are eligible for the first time and are nominated by any two of the six members of the BBWAA Screening Committee.

B. Electors may vote for as few as zero (0) and as many as ten (10) eligible candidates deemed worthy of election. Write-in votes are not permitted.

C. Any candidate receiving votes on seventy-five percent (75%) of the ballots cast shall be elected to membership in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

5. Voting: Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

6. Automatic Elections: No automatic elections based on performances such as a batting average of .400 or more for one (1) year, pitching a perfect game or similar outstanding achievement shall be permitted.

7. Time of Election: The duly authorized representatives of the BBWAA shall prepare, date and mail ballots to each elector no later than the 15th day of January in each year in which an election is held. The elector shall sign and return the completed ballot within twenty (20) days. The vote shall then be tabulated by the duly authorized representatives of the BBWAA.

8. Certification of Election Results: The results of the election shall be certified by a representative of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and an officer of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. The results shall be transmitted to the Commissioner of Baseball. The BBWAA and National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. shall jointly release the results for publication.

9. Amendments: The Board of Directors of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. reserves the right to revoke, alter or amend these rules at any time.

You can read all the rules here.

It seems that every time there’s a vote of some kind in baseball, there’s an visceral reaction from those who don’t get their way; whose judgment of what makes an individual “worthy” isn’t adhered to. As with the MVP, Cy Young Award and Rookie of the Year voting, it turns into a “right” and “wrong” argument based on personal beliefs as to what the winners should have accomplished.

Here’s the problem though: the rules dictate that there is no right and wrong. So if there’s no specific right and wrong and the voters are sticking to the parameters they’re given, how can there be so vast a reaction when preferred candidates of a certain faction lose or are excluded?

The players who “should” be elected is irrelevant once the baseline rules are understood and accepted. The rules are the stop sign. If a voter chooses to place Jack Morris on his or her ballot for any reason—whether you agree with it or not—it is protected by the fact that Morris fulfills all the rules of eligibility.

Every person who responds with a rage bordering on murderous religious fanaticism at the voting decisions of the likes of Murray Chass, Ken Gurnick and anyone else is missing the foundational point that the rules listed above are the rules that the voters go by. So if Chass chooses not to cast his vote for a player who he suspects as being a performance enhancing drug user, he can do that. The context of baseball itself winking and nodding at the PED use and tacitly encouraging it from the commissioner’s office on down has nothing to do with that reality. Chass thinks they cheated and he’s using that as justification not to give his vote. If Gurnick votes for Morris and refuses to place Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and any of the other candidates who are considered no-brainers on his ballot, he can do that as well.

Are they doing it with an agenda? Yes. Are those saying Morris doesn’t belong doing the same thing? Yes. Is it allowed? Going by the rules of the voting, absolutely.

Until those rules are changed—and they won’t be—the Hall of Fame will not have a statistical standard. Nor will it fit into the conceit of those who think they have the key to unlock what makes a Hall of Famer. The Hall of Fame was once a fun debate as to who belonged and who didn’t. Now it’s just a contest as to who can scream the loudest, make the snarkiest insults and indulge in a dazzling array of childish name-calling. “Disagree with me and you must be an idiot. It’s innate.”

There are still those who believe the Hall of Fame is for the best of the best meaning Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Tom Seaver, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams shouldn’t be sullied by having to share their eternal baseball resting place with the likes of Bill Mazeroski. Others voted players in when they hit the so-called magic numbers of 3,000 hits, 300 wins and 500 home runs. It didn’t matter if they were stat compilers who hung around long enough to accumulate those stats. They hit the number and the doors magically opened. Now it’s gotten more complicated with the alleged PED users like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds being eligible for election and falling short for allegations that have not been proven. Is it wrong to exclude them? Is it right?

Before answering, refer to the rules again. It is up to the voter to decide what’s important. Nothing trumps that. Yankees fans lobbying for the election of Mike Mussina don’t want to hear that Phil Rizzuto was elected in spite of him being a good but not great player who benefited from the support of Williams and Mantle and an extended campaign from Rizzuto himself to be inducted. In his later years, Rizzuto was known as a goofy and affable broadcaster, but his failure to be elected as a player earlier was hallmarked by a self-righteous and apoplectic response from Rizzuto himself. There are many cases like that of Rizzuto with players who were borderline getting in because of likability and a convincing argument lodged by close personal friends.

Other players who were disliked or had off-field controversies found themselves left out. Did Steve Garvey’s hypocrisy and womanizing hurt his candidacy in the immediate aftermath of his career as the life he’d spent being the epitome of the goody-two-shoes, America, mom, apple pie and Dodger Blue was found to be a carefully calculated series of self-promotional lies? As a player, Garvey had credentials for serious consideration, especially back then before the Hall of Fame argument turned into a holy war between stat people and old-schoolers. He hit 272 career homers, had a .294 career batting average, won four Gold Gloves, an MVP, played in 1,207 consecutive games and, in perhaps what would’ve gotten him over the top, had a post-season batting average of .338 with 11 homers and the 1978 and 1984 NLCS MVPs. Yet he fell far short of enshrinement.

Should Rizzuto be in and Garvey not? Rizzuto, who has as one of the players in his Baseball-Reference similarity scores Jose Offerman, is a Hall of Famer. Garvey, who has Orlando Cepeda as one of his “similars” is out. Rizzuto’s supporters will reference that he was the linchpin of the Yankees championship teams from the 1940s and 50s. His detractors will look at his numbers, roll their eyes and wonder why he’s there. That’s the Hall of Fame.

Go through the entire roster of Hall of Famers and with every player not named Ruth, Seaver, Cy Young, Ty Cobb and a few others, they will have a question mark next to them as their frailties are pointed out as reasons not to have them with the best of the best. Then go back to the rules and understand the randomness. Voting is as expansive as staring out into space. You can see anything you want and justify it because there are no fundamental principles other than what the rules entail. Therefore, no one can be called wrong.

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Granderson Not An Ideal Signing, But A Good One For The Mets

In a utopia, the Mets would have the goods to pry Troy Tulowitzki away from the Rockies without gutting their farm system. Or they would have the money available to sign one of the big free agent outfield names like Shin-Soo Choo. Tulowitzki isn’t available and the Mets can’t afford to give up the prospects if he was. They don’t have the money nor the willingness to meet Scott Boras’s asking price for Choo. The same held true for the recently signed Jacoby Ellsbury and a reunion with Carlos Beltran wasn’t a fit.

Instead of complaining about the players they couldn’t sign or acquire via trade, the Mets did the next best thing given the market and their circumstances and signed Curtis Granderson away from the Yankees. Granderson received a four-year, $60 million contract. There was debate within the organization as to whether they could get him for three years – general manager Sandy Alderson’s preference – but the team stepped up and guaranteed the fourth year. This saved them from the embarrassment of Granderson walking away and leaving the Mets even more desperate and needing to do something worse to placate an enraged and disgusted fan base. Even if it wasn’t necessary, it was needed.

The toxic situation surrounding the Mets and perception that there was a lack of commitment to winning led to players either using them as a lever to get better money elsewhere or not considering them at all. Granderson wasn’t a player who was left without options. Had he held out and waited until the other dominoes fell, he might have been able to surpass the contract he got from the Mets with another club. The Mets couldn’t risk that. Truthfully, nor could Granderson. It’s a marriage of convenience to be sure, but considering how free agents (and marriages) tend to be disastrous even if they seem so perfect at the time, it could be a boon to both sides.

Granderson is not without his flaws. He strikes out a ton and it’s unlikely that he’ll hit 40 home runs playing half his games in Citi Field as he did aiming for the short right field porch in Yankee Stadium. But he is a legitimate threat in the middle of the lineup who will hit a mistake out of the ballpark and provide protection for David Wright in the lineup. He’s a good defensive outfielder, has extra-base power, will walk around 70 times, and is a tremendous person – exactly the type the Mets would like to pair with Wright to represent them publicly.

He’s an actual, established big leaguer with credentials and not someone like Marlon Byrd who they picked up off the scrapheap after a PED suspension or Chris Young who was a former All-Star only available to them because he was injured and terrible in the past two seasons and Alderson promised him regular playing time.

Often it takes an overpay to send a message to the rest of baseball that a club is serious. As criticized as former GM Omar Minaya was for paying Pedro Martinez $50 million for one-and-one-half productive seasons, the signing of Martinez was a signal that it wasn’t the same old Mets with legacy contracts doled out to the likes of Al Leiter and John Franco because of what they once were and that the ownership liked them. Shortly after securing Martinez, the Mets signed Beltran. The next year, they acquired Carlos Delgado and signed Billy Wagner. They paid the highest amounts for the players they signed, but given the way the Mets were perceived back then – and now – players might have shunned them for better circumstances no matter how much money they offered.

In addition to their minor league system stacked with pitching, the Granderson signing is a foundational move for credibility and a signal to other players that it’s okay to join him and Wright on the Mets helping them back to respectability. He’s not great, but he’s an affordable cog. He fills what the Mets currently need.

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Jeter’s Wants and the Yankees’ Needs Can’t Function Simultaneously

Derek Jeter has gone from being an ageless wonder bent on proving his critics wrong to an aging albatross who might not even be able to play next year. That’s according to the media. To make matters worse, the Yankees can’t consider moving Jeter to another position like third base if they don’t have Alex Rodriguez because it would be an “insult” to their heroic captain. Nor can they import a legitimate veteran shortstop just in case he needs to play regularly for fear of usurping Jeter’s spot.

The Yankees biggest mistake in Jeter’s 2013 season was entertaining the notion that he could push his rehab from ankle surgery so hard that he’d be ready for opening day. The club is allergic to placing Jeter and A-Rod in the same category, but the restraint they showed with A-Rod and his hip surgery should have been implemented with Jeter as well.

Of course, they didn’t want A-Rod to be able to play at all and Jeter is a monolithic institution at shortstop who’s not afraid to use his cachet to get what he wants even if that hurts him and the team.

Jeter came back too soon in the spring and reinjured his ankle. He returned in July, played one game and strained a quadriceps. He came back late in July and strained a calf in early August. Now his ankle is barking again. He’s also hitting .190 and can’t function effectively at shortstop. He shouldn’t be playing.

Amid all the accolades doled out to Jeter for playing clean during the steroid era and refusing to use those little extra helpers to boost him, the little extra helpers are what keep a player on the field when he’s 39-years-old and breaking down physically after two decades of playing hard and playing the extra games the Yankees played on an almost annual basis with post-season berths. This is what happens to older players.

The same appellations of Jeter being a marvel who shoves it to his doubters are applicable in the opposite direction as well as his status makes the Yankees keep acquiescing to his demands and he’s shoving it to the hand that feeds him. He’s not able to contribute but is forcing his way into the lineup by the sheer fact that he’s Derek Jeter and the Yankees have to give him what he wants. If they want to contend next year, however, they’re going to need to at least find a competent backup shortstop whom they can trust every day if need be and it’s clear by now that Eduardo Nunez isn’t it. Or they can move Jeter to third base if and when A-Rod is suspended.

The “I’m a shortstop” bit has to end sometime especially if he’s no longer capable of being a shortstop. Jeter rebelling or accepting these facts will show how cognizant he is of the new reality and how far he’s willing to go to sabotage the team to get what he feels is rightfully his whether it’s good for the 2014 Yankees or not.

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What Ryan Braun And Lance Armstrong Have In Common

Lance Armstrong’s long-awaited admission for using performance enhancing drugs set the standard for non-apology apologies. At the time I called it a half-hearted allocution and stated that there’s a certain nobility in blatant unrepentance. Armstrong’s performance combined a clear lack of regret with the type of combativeness that you’ll rarely see in someone who wants to regain public support.

Like most other athletes and celebrities who have to publicly confess to save their careers after a scandal, Ryan Braun has failed to learn from the mistakes or follow the examples of others, especially Armstrong. Rather than take the next step from Armstrong and do the one thing that might have granted him forgiveness—admit what he did without excuses or context—he stuck to a safety-first script hoping it will fly. All he succeeded in doing, however, was to make himself appear to be the same seedy, self-involved liar he was before. This time, rather than openly lying, maligning the character of others and relying on technicalities to be set free, he decided to qualify his behaviors with more excuses.

You can read the statement here. It’s a general, run-of-the-mill public apology made because he had no other choice. Braun claimed that he was dealing with a “nagging injury” and used a “cream and a lozenge.” Then he went into the dull clichés of someone who’s been backed into a corner and can’t lie his way out of it.

If Braun wanted to be forgiven, he should have said the following:

I did it because I wanted to compete and win. I was on a team that was a championship contender, I knew other players were doing it and I was under the impression that what I took wouldn’t be detectable. I knew I was breaking the rules and did it anyway. A lot of other guys were doing it and, while that’s not a justification and not something you want to hear from your children let alone a grown man who’s supposed to be a role model, it’s the truth. The reason I’m standing here is because I got caught. Had I not gotten caught, the likelihood is that I would still be using PEDs simply because they work. After the test came back positive, I knew I was busted and found a technicality to overturn my suspension. In so doing I said some terrible things about an innocent man and lied to everyone. I was desperate and didn’t know what else to do. I’m truly embarrassed about what I’ve done and I only hope that in the future the fans, my fellow players and Major League Baseball will see fit to give me another chance to prove myself as someone worthy of respect.

This would have been a refreshing change from the feigned emotionality that is a prerequisite for a public apology. It would’ve worked. And it had zero chance of happening.

What Braun and Armstrong have in common is that they were perfectly willing to steamroll over anyone who got in their way and threatened the foundation upon which their lies were built. Armstrong had his extended middle fingers hidden behind his back while he was confessing. Braun had his fingers crossed for luck that the public would believe it. Intentionally or not, Armstrong’s way was more honest as it was cohesive with the way he was acting. Braun is still trying to trick people. In the end, they’re both liars and they found methods to justify their lies. They don’t want forgiveness, they want the public’s adoration and approval. The sad fact is that they think these “apologies” were steps toward getting that back, but still have the impenetrable fortresses of arrogance constructed around their egos to be stunned when they don’t.

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MLB Hot Seat – Alex Anthopoulos, Blue Jays

The Blue Jays have to make a series of decisions at the conclusion of this season and the first one will be what to do with general manager Alex Anthopoulos. For the first three years of his reign, he received a pass mostly because he wasn’t former GM J.P. Ricciardi. In what was considered a fresh start, the Blue Jays didn’t play much better under Anthopoulos than they did when Ricciardi was the GM. They were mostly mediocre and were never contenders. The focus seemed to be on stockpiling youngsters, staying relatively competitive at the big league level and waiting for the chance to bolster Jose Bautista and the other power bats.

After the 2012 season, a 73-89 disappointment, manager John Farrell was traded to the Red Sox to be their manager and the Blue Jays began a massive reconstruction by acquiring Josh Johnson, Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle and Emilio Bonifacio from the Marlins for a large chunk of their farm system. They then acquired reigning National League Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey from the Mets for even more prospects and signed Melky Cabrera. Finally, Anthopoulos rehired the same manager who had run the team in the midst of Ricciardi’s tenure, John Gibbons. Needless to say, it hasn’t worked.

Anthopoulos runs the club without the outspokenness, bluster and controversy that seemed to follow Ricciardi around like the stink of a weekend bender, but he hasn’t had any more success than his former boss. In fact, the argument could be made that he’s done worse. Anthopoulos is a frenetic tinkerer who doesn’t seem to have a plan. They dealt with the Ricciardi hangover, built up the minor league system, hired and fired a couple of managers and decided to spend a lot of money to go all in for 2013. They’re in last place.

What now? They can make more trades, free agent signings and bring in another manager and different coaches, or they can fire Anthopoulos and let the new GM plot a course.

If the Blue Jays make a GM change, the call will be for Tony LaCava to get the job. Would it make sense to bring in another GM who worked under Ricciardi and Anthopoulos? The Blue Jays didn’t interview anyone when they elevated Anthopoulos to replace Ricciardi. Safe in the “anyone but Ricciardi” theory, they went with the next guy. They can’t do that again no matter how impressive LaCava is.

Some 35-year-old with a spreadsheet and a degree from MIT making grandiose proclamations isn’t going to fly again. It has to be a totally different approach from the past decade.

Once the question shifts from, “how do we take the next step?” to “what now?”, it’s over. Anthopoulos is on the hot seat because he’s the only one left to blame and there’s no other move the Blue Jays can make that combines the sense and simplicity as firing the general manager.

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Ryan Dempster Is Your Self-Anointed Sheriff

The swinging doors of the Fenway saloon burst open. A shadowy figure with a scruffy beard and unruly hair slowly ambled in. He surveyed the gathered imbibers and stated with certainty in his voice and the twinge of a Canadian accent, “There’s a new sheriff in town. And his name’s Ryan Dempster.”

The patrons paused for a moment…then burst out laughing.

Let’s get past the stupidity of Dempster for declaring himself as the judge, jury and executioner of Alex Rodriguez for whatever it was that A-Rod did. Initially it was believed that Dempster threw at A-Rod for his PED use and swirling controversies including allegations that he’s also an informer, but it was revealed in this Yahoo piece that Dempster apparently threw at A-Rod because A-Rod had snubbed him.

Yes, we’re back in the eighth grade and cool kid A-Rod wouldn’t let Dempster play first base in punchball.

The Red Sox fans gave Dempster a loud ovation when he was removed after a performance in which he:

• Handed a Red Sox lead back to the Yankees in large part because he hit A-Rod.
• Had A-Rod shove his face in the sandbox with a tape measure home run later in the game.
• Allowed seven earned runs and nine hits in 5 1/3 innings.

There’s a cost for frontier justice and if it was necessary for the good of the entire community, then there’s a justification for it regardless of the consequences. But business comes first. Will the Red Sox fans think it was worthy of a loud ovation if their team winds up losing the AL East to the Rays by this one game that they could have won had Dempster done his job instead?

“At least we got A-Rod,” is not a suitable gap-filler for a missed playoff spot or division title. The days in which it doesn’t matter whether a team makes the playoffs as a division winner or a Wild Card team are over. I don’t agree with the stat guy assertion (excuse) that the playoffs are a “crapshoot” when it comes to a five or seven game series. However, a one-game playoff as is in place for the Wild Card winners is the ultimate in crapshoots. It can take one great pitching performance, one play, one bad pitch, one home run, one error to send a team home. Was it worth it for Dempster to show A-Rod not to “snub” him? Or not to use PEDs and lie? Or for whatever idiotic reason Dempster decided to do what he did?

Perhaps Dempster was of the opinion that he was bulletproof. “Everyone hates A-Rod and no matter what the reason, selfish or not, I’ll be given a pass.” It was a ridiculous thing to do on all counts. Forgetting about the division race for the Red Sox, this was a two game swing for the Yankees as well. Had the Red Sox won, the Yankees would’ve been 9 1/2 games out of first place and essentially done in the division. They also would have been eight games behind the Rays and Athletics in the Wild Card race. Now the division deficit is 7 1/2 and six in the Wild Card standings. It’s going to be hard for the Yankees to come back considering all the teams they have to jump over, the difficulty of schedule, their age and current struggles on and off the field, but it’s doable.

Dempster made A-Rod into a sympathetic figure at least for a moment; probably got a large faction of his organization mad at him; let the Yankees out of the noose because he decided to play the clumsy assassin himself; and put his own team’s playoff prospects in jeopardy. Managing to combine all these factors into one giant lump of brainless absurdity is an unusual accomplishment on the part of Dempster. If I were the Red Sox, I’d fine him a significant amount of money and move him to the bullpen when he gets back. This was an important game and and he had his own ego on his mind in lieu of the state of the team.

The only salvation the Red Sox have in Dempster’s likely and well-deserved suspension is that he’s been mostly awful and another pitcher taking his spot will be a step up from what he’s given them all season long. And last night he made it worse.

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A-Rod the Trophy Wife and Robinson Cano

Like most trophy marriages, Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees is comparable to a Hollywood union that wound up in marriage counseling with one side wanting a divorce and the other wanting a substantial payoff to leave. To make matters worse, there’s tantamount to a conviction hanging over the head of one of the participants and financial issues hovering around the other. It’s getting worse and worse with each passing day with no end in sight. There’s no point in analyzing the contretemps and accusations because by the time you read this, there will have been five more statements from each side to outdate the latest war of words.

The Yankees can’t say that after they traded for A-Rod, they didn’t get on-field production. If it was ten years ago and A-Rod was an MVP-contender, the team would be far more willing to stand behind him regardless of what he’s been accused of doing. They owe him $86 million from 2014 through 2017 and don’t want to pay him because he’s an average player at best.

It’s typical that the sides in such a marriage enjoyed a honeymoon of several years when all was good and wonderful. A-Rod began to show his age and underlying problems that the Yankees either glossed over or ignored as long as he was hitting 35+ homers a year. When he opted out of his contract after the 2007 season, it was right after his second MVP season in three years in pinstripes. He’d kept his hotness that attracted the Yankees to him. Factions in the Yankees organization, notably general manager Brian Cashman, wanted to let him leave. Hank Steinbrenner stepped in and lavished a new $275 million contract to keep the marriage together with money. In spite of the idea that the contract was a disaster from the start, A-Rod hit 30+ homers in the first three years of the deal. Then the injuries and controversies began in earnest and he stopped being productive.

This is how these types of marriages end. To avoid a repeat, the Yankees have to examine what made them get into bed with A-Rod in the first place. They and other clubs need to think critically about such a bow to expediency for his star power and ability to put fans in the seats. With A-Rod, they became the Yankees as an entity rather than a cohesive team.

The Yankees teams from 1996 through 2003 were a group that knew and trusted one another. There was a definition of purpose with the club. And that’s with having begun the process of bringing in mercenaries and nuisances like Roger Clemens and David Wells. With A-Rod, they made the conscious decision to bring his sideshow and contract with him. They collected stars instead of getting players that fit on and off the field. That can work as long as there isn’t an albatross of a contract hanging over the team’s head in the latter years of the deal. Had A-Rod not had this PED nightmare of his own doing, the Yankees would have bitten the bullet, dealt with his age-related decline and injury and lived with what he could provide, waiting out its (and his) expiration. Now they just want him gone and they don’t want to pay him. In essence, they’re trying to break the agreement that came with the marriage. While they couldn’t have predicted it would degenerate into this, they had to know that eventually they’d be paying him for what he was a decade earlier.

This directly ties into their current construction of the club and what they’re going to do about Robinson Cano.

Cano’s lack of hustle is getting to the point where he’s not going to bother running on a ground ball at all; he’s simply going to walk back to the dugout as if he’d just struck out. In reality, there’s no difference between the two because with his current effort, if the infielder bobbles or outright muffs a grounder, Cano will still be out by five steps. The combination of the A-Rod mess, the $200+ million contracts that are already disastrous (Albert Pujols), Cano’s age and burgeoning laziness could spur the Yankees to decide that they’re not going to hamstring the franchise in the same way again just to placate the fans and media to keep an admittedly great player who wants an amount of money he cannot possibly live up to.

The Yankees set a line in the sand with Derek Jeter during his last free agent negotiations. They made their offer, Jeter was unhappy with it and they told him to see if he could do better elsewhere. With Jeter, they were safe in knowing he wasn’t going to leave and the rest of baseball wasn’t going to bother pursuing him because they also knew he wouldn’t leave. Cano isn’t Jeter and another team would pursue him if there was an opening. But the situation is similar in that few other teams have the capability and willingness to give Cano $200+ million. The Dodgers are the only ones that come to mind who could and they might shy away from the pursuit.

The Cardinals wound up looking completely innocent and retrospectively brilliant by letting Pujols leave when no one thought he would. That they had just won the World Series gave them some wiggle room, but in the end Pujols chased the money and the Cardinals hid behind their own financial circumstances to justify him departing. The combination of circumstances with the Yankees is different, but their own issues could result in Cano leaving as well. It’s either that or take the amount of money the Yankees offer to stay even if it’s far below what he clearly wants. It will be an amount of money that no one could ever spend. Whether Cano’s ego can deal with not surpassing that magic number of $200 million is the question. But he might not have much of a choice and A-Rod could be held, in part, responsible for that too.

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MLB’s Expanded Replay—Did They Miss Another Call?

Baseball’s incurable habit for getting things wrong has grown so common that even when they get something right, they can’t win. In cases like the performance enhancing drug investigation, their crackdown is almost a doubling-down on the wrong to trample on players’ rights and the collective bargaining agreement. The players brought much of it on themselves, but from the time the 2003 PED test results were leaked, there’s been a concerted effort on the part of baseball to “get” the players who are using PEDs even if that means trusting someone so furtive and lacking in credibility as Anthony Boesch. That’s not a defense of Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez or any other player who went to Biogenesis, just an analysis that MLB’s methods weren’t exactly clean themselves. They got down in the dirt to get the dirty, exhibiting audacious hypocricy for cracking down on a culture that they cultivated themselves. Now they’re dirty—well, dirtier—too. They’ve gotten their results, but it comes at an obvious cost that’s yet to be determined.

As the fallout from the Biogenesis suspensions continues to be felt with A-Rod’s continuing soap opera, MLB finally got something right on the money with their expansion of instant replay. The details of what they’re doing can be found here, but the gist is:

• Managers will be given one challenge for the first six innings of the game and two from the seventh inning on.
• There will be no challenges on judgment calls such as balls and strikes, check swings and hit by pitches.
• The plan was created with significant guidance from Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa and John Schuerholz.
• The players, owners and umpires still have to approve it.

I think this is as close as MLB or any sports organizing body can come to getting it right. The arguments that have been presented against it are selfish and weak. Mike Francesa had callers complaining about it yesterday.

One said that he didn’t want to have to wait for a challenge to be upheld or rejected before celebrating if Derek Jeter hits a game-winning single to win game seven of the World Series. I don’t think he’s got anything to worry about regarding the scenario he presented considering that the Yankees aren’t making the playoffs and Jeter is building a lavish home on the disabled list. As far as the spontaneity, it’s far better than the umpire getting the call wrong and having a respectable career sullied for it as Don Denkinger did for his gaffe in the 1985 World Series between the Cardinals and Royals with the Cardinals losing their chance to win a title.

Another caller complained that the manager-umpire arguments wouldn’t be as prevalent or intense. I don’t think there will be that great a decrease in the number of ejections and probably slightly fewer arguments. If you watched Bobby Cox for his entire managerial career, you’ll know that the vast majority of his record number of ejections came as a result of arguing ball and strike calls. That’s not reviewable and will still be fodder for great debate until MLB takes the next logical step and implements a universal strike zone and forces the umpires to adhere to it. The human element will still be in baseball, but it won’t result in calls so badly blown that teams wind up losing because of them. The number of managers who put on a great show as Lou Piniella, Earl Weaver and Billy Martin used to are gone. And trust me, there will still be enough mistakes made that arguments will happen.

This system won’t take a lot of time, it won’t interfere with the game, and it will make the calls more accurate. It’s not 1960, 1980 or even 2000. Baseball was so resistant to the implementation of a logical replay system that they did nothing to contradict the reputation of the game as stuck in a different century—the 19th. The bottom line is that no matter what they did, there would be a percentage of people who would complain about it for its own sake. They’ve made the game better with this decision. That’s all that counts.

Now, to do something about getting the DH put into the National League. Then we’ll be in business.

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Mike Trout Declares A Hardline Punishment For PEDs

How many 22-year-old sports commissioners are you aware of? Judges? Lawmakers? Political pundits? Editorialists?

None. That’s how many. This is the inherent problem with giving weight to Angels’ star Mike Trout’s opinion as to what should happen to players who use performance enhancing drugs in baseball. He thinks they should be banned for life. Trout shared his views with Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton yesterday and it made moderate headlines because of his status as the new face of baseball and his emerging greatness. Without Trout being such a huge star, no one would pay attention to what he says. They definitely wouldn’t listen to him if he was just a run-of-the-mill 22-year-old making an uninformed statement without having the education or life experience to back them up.

This has nothing to do with age discrimination, but these are the kinds of things young people say from a position of self-anointed knowledge based on a misplaced, inexperienced view of life. Whether it’s due to the safety of not having many responsibilities; because the bulk of one’s life is still in front of him or her; or having been asked a question that was probably not appropriate to be answered by someone so young, the reply has to be put into the context of the person who’s giving it. Trout is not in a position that other people would be in when coming to a determination of an appropriate punishment.

When a player is this talented, he has a tunneled view of life in how it relates to him. It’s the conceit of youth. Trout was in the majors at 19, an MVP candidate at 20 and a superstar at 21. He seems to think that everyone should do it clean because he’s doing it clean. Life doesn’t work that way though. What Trout is saying that any player who is trying to keep his career, earn a paycheck and do what many others are doing to keep his job should be banished for life. It’s akin to chopping off a thief’s hand for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family. The punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Players have failed tests due to over-the-counter supplements that they didn’t realize had banned substances in their ingredients. Should they be banned forever? What about a 15-year-old kid from the Dominican Republic who grew up without shoes and used a milk carton as a glove taking a pill not knowing what it is, going only on the advice of a middle-aged white guy telling him that it’ll send him to the big leagues in half the time? Does he get suspended for life?

When Trout is 30, then maybe he’ll understand that he’s not going to have all the energy in the world to play 162 games, run hard on every play and do things that most players only dream about and still be able to live the off-field life of a guy just out of his teens. Perhaps he’ll have an injury someday—someday soon—that makes him realize that his gifts are extremely fragile and they can be taken away in an instant. Then he might be willing to do whatever is necessary to get back on the field and perform.

Trout is still waiting for his mega contract. He’s making $510,000 this season. It’s a lot of money for anyone, especially a guy who’s 22. As far as athletes go, it’s not a lot of money. When factoring in his production, it’s nothing. As long as he stays healthy, he’ll get a $250-300 million contract when his free agency comes up. Trout received a significant bonus of $1.215 million when he was drafted by the Angels. Not every player can say that. Not every player has Trout’s abilities. It’s not a simplistic situation where there should be an across the line penalty regardless of the circumstances and that penalty certainly shouldn’t be decided upon by a guy who’s in his second full year in the big leagues, no matter how great he is.

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