Author: Shaun P Kernahan

MLB 2015 NL Central Preview

No shortage of noise here this off-season either. The Cubs appear to be serious about making a run, after signing Jon Lester, trading for Miguel Montero, and bringing in Joe Maddon, without even the slightest hint of skullduggery, to manage. Nope, Rick Renteria didn’t get boned one bit there.  The road to the NL Central crown still runs through St. Louis, though, because it always freaking does. That pitching is just better top to bottom than the rest of the division. The Pirates have found a way to make things interesting in recent years, but the departure of Russell Martin north of the border is going to hurt. It’s hard to tell if the Reds are looking to be a factor or slowly edging into a rebuilding era. If they’re trying to add young pieces, I’d have started by flipping productive veterans Brandon Phillips and Joey Votto rather than staff ace Mat Latos, but what do I know. And you have the team from the land of beer and sausage races.

Quick, how does a team with two of the best all-around players in the game (Carlos Gomez and Jonathan Lucroy) and a former PED-enhanced MVP who is still productive without all the junk project to finish last? Well, turns out, you have to pitch the ball too. I’d love this Brewers team, Ryan Braun notwithstanding, if they just had the pitching to keep them in games. 

Projected Winner: The Cardinals. Because this is America. And three things are constant. Death, taxes, and the Cards winning the NL Central. Why? Pitching wins ballgames and they have it in spades. You could nitpick a little bit and say they have some holes in the lineup, and Matt Holliday and Yadier Molina aren’t getting any younger. But as they say, you don’t have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than your buddy. And they’re faster. 

Is there a Wild Card, perhaps?: This is where the real intrigue lies. Slide any of the teams other than the Cards into one of the other National League divisions and you can make an argument that they’re a legitimate Wild Card contender. However, as it stands, they’re all going to beat up on one another 19 times each over the course of the season. The other divisions have walk-over teams, where the big boys can realistically hope to go 15-4 or even 16-3. No such luxury here though. So if all plays out the way I think it will, you’ll be looking at a division winner with a win total in the high 80s and the rest of the gang between 78 and 85. And that may not be good enough to surpass the second place team from the NL West or East that has some weak opposition to beat up on. Is the NL’s deepest division really going to be its least represented in the postseason? I don’t know, but I consulted with a fortune cookie and the little paper inside said I was destined for traveling to exotic locations…so there’s that.

MLB 2015 National League West Preview

Well, this division certainly made a lot of noise in the offseason, didn’t it? San Diego acquired seemingly every available slugging outfielder not named Cespedes. The Dodgers retooled the front office and subsequently, a large chunk of the roster. The overachieving Giants and their best-in-the-game manager Bruce Bochy are coming off yet another surprising World Series championship.

But let’s start with the bottom. The Diamondbacks and Rockies were terrible last year, and that doesn’t figure to change. For the 20 something year in a row the Rockies still don’t have any pitching, and even if Jon Gray and Eddie Butler break out, it’s not enough. The D Backs are now led by Chip Hale, and have added Cuban slugger Yasmany Tomas, and while some of their young guys (see: Enciarte, Ender; Peralta, David; Owings, Chris) look like future studs, they’re still a couple of years away. Neither of these teams will factor.

With only a hint of sarcasm, the poor Giants. They lose the Panda to free agency, Hunter Pence to a broken arm for a while, Angel Pagan’s back is reportedly a concern, and their rotation is counting heavily on Tim Hudson and Jake Peavy, combined age over 70. Bochy can work magic, but look for a big step back this year. The Padres were serious about improving their putrid offense. Enter Justin Upton, Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, and Derek Norris, and to a lesser degree, Will Middlebrooks. Their starting pitching remains a strength, if on potential alone. They might very well miss Huston Street, however, at the back end of ballgames. Very quietly, he has been baseball’s most effective closer for the last three years.

Projected Winner: The Dodgers. They just have a spectacularly good starting rotation, even if the criminally underrated Hyun Jin Ryu’s barking shoulder keeps him out the first month. There are very few lineup questions, if any, (the Pads still don’t know if Yonder Alonso, Tommy Medica, Carlos Quentin, or a Partridge in a Pear Tree will be starting at first base, or whether its Middlebrooks or Yangervis Solarte at third) and the departures of Brian Wilson and Chris Perez give Don Mattingly fewer catastrophic options to insist on using in high leverage situations out of the pen – even if closer Kenley Jansen misses the first 4-6 weeks after foot surgery. The Padres will keep it interesting, but probably finish four or five games back at the end of the season.

Is there a Wild Card, perhaps?: It’s not outside the realm of imagination, that’s for sure. The Padres have a good shot. Here’s why: The NL Central has the Cardinals, Pirates, and an improved Cubbies team that figure to contend. The Reds are still potent enough to play some spoiler, and the Brewers, while probably ticketed for a last place finish, shouldn’t be walkovers. That division could beat up on itself and struggle record-wise. Meanwhile, teams like the Padres and, perhaps, the Marlins in the NL East can fatten up against legitimate bottom dwellers in their divisions and lock down one of the two wild cards. Will they? The magic eight ball says check back with us in July for a clearer picture.

Snake-bitten Sam

Quick, apart from the position they play(ed), what do Tim Tebow, Jimmy Claussen, Colt McCoy, Mike Kafka, John Skelton, and Rusty Smith have in common with Sam Bradford?

If you said that they were the next 6 quarterbacks drafted following Bradford in the 2010 NFL draft, you would be correct. More on this later.

Any time a quarterback is taken with the first overall pick in the draft, the standard of Face of the Franchise is, either fairly or unfairly, bestowed upon that man. Sam Bradford was no different. From the moment his name was the first one read in 2010, he was going to change the fortunes of one of the most moribund franchises in all of professional sports. Apart from a three year period at the turn of the millennium, the Rams…well, they were awful.

Plagued by brutally inept leadership that consistently assembled rosters permeated by sub-professional level “talent,” failure was unavoidable. Bradford was the turning point, however. His on-field excellence was matched only by his spotless character. And with his Abercrombie model looks, the whole face of the franchise thing could literally be taken…well, literally.

If there were concerns about Bradford, they were about a shoulder injury that ended his junior and final season at Oklahoma, and kept him from participating at the combine. To date since then, it has never been an issue.

Being the first overall pick in any sport’s draft is both a blessing and a curse. Ultimately, you end up being a smashing success or a dismal failure, a “bust” if you will. There isn’t any middle ground. When I make this argument to people, for some reason they always point to Eli Manning as the example of why I’m wrong – the “other” Manning is the perfect example of the middle ground for a first overall pick. I argue back that two Super Bowl rings means smashing success unequivocally. Eli is hardly the most skilled quarterback of the last 20 years – his predecessor as top pick was the more talented and two Super Bowls lighter Carson Palmer, for example – but his status as big game leader is beyond reproach.  

The Rams brought in respected veteran AJ Feeley to both challenge Bradford for the starting gig as a rookie, but more to help the young quarterback become accustomed to life as an NFL player. Bradford played well enough to earn the starting job and it appeared a star was born.  Key word, “appeared.”

Those of us who have been Rams fans for the last few decades (guilty!) have a complex. An old work buddy of mine who was a huge Rams fan from the pre-Kurt Warner days used to truly (I think) believe that God had it in for the Rams. For the purposes of this article, and also for the purpose that it was actually his name and I’m too lazy to come up with a pseudonym for him, we’ll call him Chris. Chris once speculated to me that someone would have to sell their soul to reverse the cosmic law that forever and for always, the Rams would suck. Then, something strange happened. The heaven-ordered moratorium on competent personnel decisions was briefly lifted. They traded for the awesome multi-purpose back Marshall Faulk, signed Trent Green, a quality free agent quarterback from Washington, drafted promising receiver Torrey Holt, and things were looking up. Then, a single cheap shot by Rodney Harrison in preseason game number three changed everything. Shortly thereafter, the news became public: Trent Green’s season was over due to a knee injury.

“We’re f*****.”

That was the email I got from Chris, except that the little stars weren’t little stars. They were, in fact, letters of the alphabet. I don’t think I need to explain which ones.

The rest of that season of course was historic. Who knew that Kurt Warner would come in and play Hall of Fame level football?

Bradford won the offensive Rookie of the Year honors in 2010, and a franchise devoid of any hope for the better part of a decade had some. The Rams even had a chance to back into the playoffs with a final week win in Seattle. Now, these Seahawks weren’t anywhere near the juggernaut that today’s squad is, but still a beast of an opponent at home.

The Seahawks ended up beating the Rams that day, 16-6, but three pivotal plays shaped the game. Two beautifully thrown bombs by Bradford, one down the middle and another down the left sideline, to rookie Danario Alexander, and a late key third down strike to tight end Daniel Fells. The normally sure-handed Alexander let both passes go right through his hands, and Fells allowed the ball to carom from right between the numbers on the front of his jersey harmlessly to the ground. Both plays to Alexander could have gone for 50 or more yards, and the play to Fells would have kept a critical late drive alive. And to be clear, all three of these passes were throws that an NFL receiver should catch 90% or more of the time. 

As frustrating as the loss was, there was a curious lack of foreboding among Rams fans. We had a young stud quarterback, we nearly made the playoffs, and things could only get better. Chris and I had long since lost touch, but I imagined that even he remained cautiously optimistic. Little did any of us know that the Seahawks game was only the beginning of, with a nod to Lemony Snickett, a lengthy series of unfortunate events for Bradford.

We’re not even talking about the injuries yet. Regular season, 2011, Game 1 against the Eagles. On the Rams’ first series, Steven Jackson thundered through the entire Philly defense for a long touchdown run. It was also his last contribution to the game as he pulled quad muscle on the run. Jackson frequently pulled muscles in the early part of seasons, leading one to believe he bit his thumb at the time-honored practice of stretching, but that’s neither here nor there. On the subsequent possession, Bradford threw a long strike to a wide open Lance Kendricks who could have waltzed into the end zone with all the urgency of molasses in January, had he only remembered the minor detail of actually catching the perfectly thrown ball.

Week 2 against the Giants, the teams were close until the game turned on a third down play deep in Giants territory where Bradford threw a lateral pass to a wide open Cadillac Williams. Williams dropped the well-thrown ball, and then inexplicably didn’t make any attempt to recover it, allowing the Giants to return it for a touchdown. Game, set, match.

The play of Bradford and his surrounding cast only deteriorated from there, culminating in a catastrophic high ankle sprain in week 7 against the Cowboys. This injury not only ruined the rest of 2011 for Bradford, it never quite healed right and cost him valuable mobility for all of 2012 – essentially making him a sitting duck for opposing defenses which penetrated the Rams’ putrid offensive line with minimal effort and remarkable ease. It’s worth noting, however, that Bradford managed to lead the Rams to seven wins in spite of terrible pass protection, and the fact that he now was working under his third offensive coordinator in three years, the appallingly incompetent Brian Schottenheimer.

2013 looked to be the first season since his rookie campaign that offered a glimpse of what a healthy Bradford may be capable of, though any real chances of a prosperous year were scuttled by a comically cataclysmic attempt at installing something resembling a spread passing attack, which ultimately spread only despair. After a particularly horrifying display at home against the 49rs, where a shell-shocked and panicky Bradford was desperately and aimlessly heaving passes in the face of a relentless San Francisco pass rush,  coach Jeff Fisher came to his senses and went to an uninventive but not calamitous power run approach behind bruising rookie Zac Stacy. Bradford’s play and that of the team improved, but giving the other teams in the stacked NFC West a four week head start is too much to overcome. Oh, and there was that whole ACL tear thing against Carolina in week 8 too.

The Bradford story for 2014 is a short one. It ended in the preseason with another ACL tear.

What is my point, you may be thinking? Well, with the trade earlier this week of Bradford to the Eagles for fellow quarterback Nick Foles, an era came to an end. It’s weird to call something that lasted just five short years an era, but it was. Bradford’s time with the Rams was a saga of unfulfilled potential and abysmal luck. It also leaves unanswered questions. Now that Bradford has been freed from any curse there might be over the Rams, as well as the lofty expectations that come along with being an obscenely overpaid quarterback before you ever even take a single NFL snap (he’s still obscenely overpaid if accomplishment is used as a barometer for what salary should be, but it’s in a new city), will he finally become the superstar that people thought he would? Or, is it just him? Remember those six guys I mentioned at the beginning? Maybe Bradford only seemed to be as good as he was in college because of who his contemporaries were. I’m among the dwindling crowd that still thinks Tim Tebow deserves to be employed as a quarterback, though probably not a starter, somewhere in the NFL. He has a playoff win to his credit (he threw for three hundred yards that game!!!!) ((though much of it came on the final play…)) (((shut up, voice in my head!!!))) and his career win-loss numbers are far from terrible. But apart from him, nobody in that crowd has accomplished anything of note in the NFL.

What do I think? Well, I think the good Lord has too many other important things to do to waste His time ensuring the continuing futility of an NFL franchise, though I haven’t entirely discounted the possibility that more sinister forces may be at work. That’s the kind of answer you’ll get from a self-aware conspiracy theorist and unapologetic pessimist. But I think Bradford is good. I think his struggles are far more a result of unfortunate circumstances and buzzard luck than they are of not being any good. Is he Andrew Luck good, to reference another number one overall pick at quarterback? No, very few people are Andrew Luck good. Is he Cam Newton good, also a first overall pick? Yeah. They’re not the same player but they’re close in terms of goodness. And you’ll see that in 2015. Or…you won’t if he gets hurt again.

Now, about Nick Foles. How good will he be? I don’t know, to be honest. The Rams offense should improve exponentially by the departure of Schottenheimer alone, but it will all be academic anyway if the Rams indeed are cursed, and Foles suffers some kind of horrible injury in preseason.

I sure hope curses aren’t real.

Time for the Beast to Talk

The ongoing business of Marshawn Lynch and his continued middle finger at the NFL regarding talking to the media has been a source of amusement, bemusement, social media fodder, and scorn as the season has gone along. 

Now that the Seahawks are back in the Superbowl, in spectacular fashion no less, it will be interesting to see how Lynch responds to the ongoing and increasing media demands. 

There shouldn’t really be any suspense though. Odds are, he’ll do what he’s been doing; either giving terse and irrelevant answers or shirking his responsibilities altogether, fines be damned.

Surprisingly, Lynch has been getting quite a bit of admiration, sympathy, and other positive sentiment for his actions (inactions?) with the media. 

One close friend of mine went so far as to tell me that the league needs to recognize his severe social anxiety and grant him an exception to his media responsibilities.

That kind of sent me over the edge. There are people in my life who are close to me that have what would qualify as acute social anxiety, and that’s not Lynch. If anything, what he has is a mild form, but more likely, he just hates the media. 

Well, you know what dude, suck it up. Those of us who work everyday jobs couldn’t dream of behaving the way he does. Lynch is one of the best players in the NFL, irrespective of position, but an employee of a company nonetheless. One of his responsibilities is to talk to the media. If any of us in the real world would stick up our bird fingers to our bosses the way he has done, we’d be summarily fired.

If the NFL has any backbone at all, it’s time for them to stand up and say to Lynch, if you don’t honor your responsibilities to the media like all other players have to, you are not eligible to play in the Superbowl. Done and done. 

And if Lynch really does have social anxiety to the point where speaking with the media causes him to experience severe mental anguish, he certainly has the means to get an independent and accredited therapist to testify as such to the NFL. And then, and only then, should he be given any kind of reprieve. 

We’re talking about a guy who is building a Hall of Fame resume. It certainly would be a shame if this bull, uh, excrement, was a factor in that voting a decade from now. 

 

College Football Playoff Preview

Let’s face it, we all wanted to get rid of the BCS, but is the current version of the College Football Playoff really that much better? Every Tuesday, 12 supposedly un-biased members of a playoff committee flew to Dallas to meet and discuss the playoff rankings which were announced on a weekly special on ESPN. If “weekly special on ESPN” doesn’t make you question the honesty of a committee, I am not sure what will, but then they went out and blatantly showed that is was all for money and ratings at the end of it all. TCU was ranked as the number three team in the playoff standings with one week to go, meanwhile Baylor was left out despite having beaten TCU head-to-head. Then, in the final week, TCU goes out and absolutely destroys Iowa State 55-3 leaving anyone with any sense about them to reasonably conclude they had secured a spot in the Playoff. Not only was that not true, but they fell all the way to sixth, behind the Baylor team that many had been arguing should have been ahead of TCU all along.

So, every ranking before the final rankings were clearly just a made for TV special so ESPN could make a few extra bucks and boost their ratings. If the rankings are so blatantly manipulated for ratings and discussion, why didn’t they manipulate the final rankings for premium viewership? Alabama got the number one seed, allowing them to stay in the South and play in the Sugar Bowl, and Oregon gets to stay on the West Coast and play in the Rose Bowl. That left Florida State and Ohio State as the next two team in the playoff, and the seeding is obvious right? Send Florida State to the Sugar Bowl to play Alabama and Ohio State to the Rose Bowl to create a traditional Pac-12 vs. Big Ten matchup. No, apparently a couple months of lip service BS specials on TV was enough devious manipulation for the committee and the easiest one would be too obvious for them. So Ohio State heads to the Sugar Bowl and undefeated, yet third ranked, Florida State heads West to the Rose Bowl.

Enough about the garbage that was the committee, let’s take a look at the games. The Playoff could feature the top three overall picks in the coming NFL draft, and a third string quarterback who said on Twitter “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS”. Yes Cardale Jones, you got a free ride to a premier university to be a third string quarterback and not go to class, I am sure you will be wildly successful in life after college.

So the third string QB who hates college despite playing college football will face the number one team in the nation, the Alabama Crimson Tide. This is a matchup that is as interesting for the coaching matchup as it is the players on the field. There might not be two better college football coaches in the game today than Urban Meyer and Nick Saban, so it will certainly be fun to watch. Also fun to watch is receiver Amari Cooper, who is likely to be the first receiver taken in the coming NFL draft. In the end, Alabama should be able to win this game rather easily with their defense against a quarterback who has just one start under his belt.

In the Rose Bowl, the last two Heisman Trophy winners take the field in Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota. Winston’s off-field issues will likely cause him to drop some in the NFL draft, but these two could end up being the top two pick come April 30th. Florida State has not lost a game in two years, but they also haven’t faced a team like the Oregon Ducks. The Ducks obviously have a high powered offense, but their defense gets underrated and I see them just pulling out a very close game.

That would set up a National Championship matchup of Alabama and Oregon in Jerry’s World in Dallas. Oregon has not faired well against premier SEC teams in recent years, but this team has the best chance to get it done. While I would be rooting for an Oregon victory, and could see it happening, if I had to place good money on the game, I would have to go with Alabama purely because of Nick Saban. The Tide is playing as well as any team in the nation down the stretch and they have the best big game coach in the country, but it won’t be a blowout, instead a very competitive game.

Why is My Seat Warm? NFL Coaches Who Might Soon be Jobless

As another NFL regular season draws to a close, a hot topic of discussion is always the coaching hot seat. It can be an awkward and unpleasant topic. In many cases it’s not 100% fair to blame the coach for a team’s underperformance. The NFL season is a short one; 16 measly games. A solid baseball team can go through a brutally bad 16 game stretch and have plenty to time to right the ship over its 162 game season. In basketball and hockey, it’s not quite as easy, but over an 82 game schedule, it’s still well within the realm of possibility to recover from a rough 16 game patch.

But football? No, entire seasons can go south in a mere 4 or 5 weeks. The quarterback can get hurt. The schedule makers can be merciless. The referees can be horrifyingly inept, or just plain cheat. Or the oblong ball made of pigskin might take an inopportune bounce. It really takes very little. The final playoff participants are frequently separated from the Just Missed Its by one lousy game…or even a tie-breaker.

And someone has to take the fall. The NFL is a gazillion dollar enterprise, and failure is not tolerated for extended periods of time; not by a fan base that spends ungodly amounts of money on season tickets and memorabilia. Not with television networks throwing around billions. Not in the social media era, where anonymity is an ancient relic from a bygone era, and everything gone wrong can instantly go viral. Every move, every mistake is under a microscope.

You can get rid of an underperforming player or two, and try to sell your fan base that an upgrade here or there was really all you needed. But put too much on the players, the guy who makes the decisions is indirectly pointing the finger at himself, since he’s the guy that went out and got those players. No no, we can’t look too hard at the GM. Well, that leaves the coach.

Again, it’s not always fair. Football can’t be painted in black and white, and there isn’t always a direct cause and effect correlation. Then again, the lowest paid nfl head coach makes 100 times what the average blogger with a day job makes, so my sympathy goes only so far. Well, for right or for wrong, here are The Stain’s top 5 coaches who may be filing for unemployment insurance sooner rather than later. 

5. Andy Reid, KC: Didn’t take us long to get to the surprises, did it? But wait a minute, you might be saying. The Chiefs have been halfway decent the last couple of seasons. And, you’d be right. In fact, they went 11-5 as recently as 2013. But there were rumblings that the record was fluky. They got off to a good start, just kind of held on at the end, and then predictably went nowhere in the playoffs. Apologists will point out that as far as the regular season goes, it doesn’t matter in what order you win the games, just that you do. And they’d be right, to a point. But this year, the team will either finish 8-8 or 9-7, barring a tie, and miss the playoffs regardless. That’s a startling regression from a team that won 11 games just one season ago, and doesn’t appear to have any age-related player regression concerns. The defense is solid, they have an all-galaxy running back in Jamal Charles. Alex Smith almost never turns the ball over. The right blueprint seems to be in place. But it didn’t happen. You look at some of the games they lost, like the one against the Raiders. A team that had just beaten Seattle should be able to win that game, right? And there was the winnable game at home against the Broncos. Charles carried the ball 10 times in that game. For perspective, the Broncos’ CJ Anderson carried it 32 times in the same game. Even if you count his four receptions, 14 times is not enough for your best player to get the ball in a game against a division opponent with Super Bowl aspirations. Some tough questions could be asked of Reid after this season. It remains to be seen whether he can come up with answers. I think he’ll get one more year, but if the brass in KC thinks that this could have been the year for them, it may be a story with an unhappy ending for Reid.

4. Marc Trestman, Chi: The Bears have to go down as one of the season’s biggest disappointments. It started week 1 at home against Buffalo, and just never really got any better. What may hurt Trestman is that he brought with him the reputation of being a sort of quarterback whisperer, someone who could coax extraordinary results from his signal caller. Well, that may or may not be true, but Jay Cutler leading the league in turnovers would jade just about anyone’s 10,000 foot judgment on that. If you look at little deeper, yeah, Cutler hasn’t been very good. But he also hasn’t been as terrible as the numbers would indicate. Quite a few of his interceptions have been of the second half variety while his team has abandoned the run and desperately tried to claw back into a game it was losing by multiple scores. This would be because the defense, by in large, showed an alarming lack of ability to stop anyone. Sure, age, injury and some personnel decisions that were questionable have had a negative impact on this unit. But Defensive Coordinator Mel Tucker has to shoulder his fair share too. For years, Lovie Smith had success with a reasonably uncomplicated Tampa 2 scheme. Whatever Tucker is running currently for Chicago is neither Tampa 2 nor uncomplicated. That said, Tucker came from Jacksonville with a sterling reputation. And Trestman came from the CFL. In a logical vacuum, Tucker would seem the guy who may be responsible for more of this season’s calamity. But Trestman, at least on the surface, can be called the bigger risk when he was brought in to coach. So, logically, he’d be the guy that would make more sense to fire.

3. Jeff Fisher, Stl: Fisher has always been overrated, largely because he had a Super Bowl appearance with an absurdly talented Tennessee Titans team which he lost by half a yard. Apart from that, mediocrity abounds across his resume. When he joined the moribund Rams franchise three years ago, he was anointed some kind of savior, which was completely unfair to both him and the gullible fan base. But that said, he still represented an improvement over previous coaching regimes, so optimism spread like wildfire. After the third, and arguably worst of his three seasons in charge, the luster has worn off. However, upon closer inspection, he’s been perfectly serviceable as a head coach this year. The real issue is that as long as Brian Schottenheimer is in charge off offensive play-calling, the Rams will never be good enough. Schottenheimer is so brutally incompetent at running an offense, the Rams could eliminate his position entirely, have whomever is playing quarterback call every play at the line of scrimmage, and immediately see a drastic improvement. At the very least, there would no longer be a concerted effort made to keep the ball out of the hands of the team’s most explosive weapons. But the poop rolls down hill as they say (And by they I mean me), so Fisher is more likely to face the scrutiny. Couple the teams offensive troubles with questionable coaching selections (Gregg Williams the first time, then Tim Walton), there’s a real chance that GM Les Snead looks elsewhere. If Fisher has a saving grace, he can honestly and accurately say “look, I haven’t had a healthy starting quarterback for two consecutive seasons.” 

2. Jim Harbaugh, SF: Media outlets pretty much have already punched his ticket to Michigan, or Oakland, or…well, anywhere but San Francisco. It would have been hard to predict at the beginning of the season that the Niners would miss the playoffs. After all, the team made it to three consecutive NFC Championship Games, including one Super Bowl, and the core elements of what got them there were intact; rock solid defense, uber-athletic quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and of course, bulldozing running back Frank Gore. Looking back at the 2014 season, it’s not hard to see why it went south. The team essentially anchored Kaepernick to the pocket, taking the most explosive element of his game out of the nightmares of defensive coordinators. They also showed a Schottenheimerian reluctance to give Gore, arguably the team’s best player, the ball. Suspensions and injuries hampered the defense a little, but largely, the unit performed well. The struggles were on offense. Now, was it offensive coordinator Greg Roman who messed with a winning formula? Or was it head coach Harbaugh? I don’t know that the question will be answered. But one thing is for sure. Where there’s smoke, there’s often fire. And if Harbaugh wants out, as has been rumored all year, nobody would benefit by him staying.

1. Mike Smith, Atl: If the Falcons happen to lose on Sunday, they will have gone a combined 10-22 the last two seasons. TEN and TWENTY-TWO!!! And mind you, this is a team that boasts Matt Ryan, Roddy White, and Julio Jones on offense, and shows no aversion whatsoever to getting the ball to its best players. The players, especially Ryan, love Smith. But the players are also not the ones making the decision on whether Smith stays or goes. And football is very much a what have you done for me lately game. If the Falcons happen to win on Sunday, they’ll actually win the NFC South division with a record of 7-9, and possibly save his job. But even that might be prolonging the inevitable. All you have to do is Google him and you’ll see multiple media outlets urging, albeit somewhat apologetically, for Smith’s dismissal. When it’s gotten to that point, it’s a long road back.

 

Honorable Mention. Sean Payton, NO: After nine years of coaching the Saints, you’d be hard to find many detractors of Payton. He’s universally regarded as a great coached, and he’s beloved in New Orleans. It would be hard to imagine him getting fired. But this could end up being a case of the team throwing Payton a bone and letting find a contender to coach next season. (San Francisco?) It’s time for a bit of a rebuild in New Orleans. They have some nice offensive pieces in place, with Drew Brees, Jimmy Graham, Kenny Stills, and a suddenly good Mark Ingram. But they’re lacking in youth and depth. Even with a good framework in place of stars to build around, it can take a couple of years to restructure a roster to perennially compete. It takes patience, and most often multiple successful drafts. Odds are Payton will stay, but would you really be overly surprised if a coach accustomed to success didn’t want to suffer through a rebuild?

 Did we miss anyone on our list? Let us know in the comments. Happy holidays, all.  

The Bastardization of the Prospect

That title used to mean something. The population of players between Rookie Ball and AAA were all collectively known as “minor leaguers.” But if you were a prospect, you were different. There were expectations of you. Greater things were imagined. People knew your name. From the moment you were drafted, your future was determined. The barrier between AAA and big leagues would be broken by you. At least that was the hope. There was always the chance, a significant chance in fact, that you would become a statistic – a tale of what could have been. 

Now, anyone with spikes and a bat is a prospect. Really. The truth is this. Tons of guys get drafted by organizations who know full well that they’re never getting to the bigs. But hey, mop up middle relievers are needed in blowouts at the AA level too, right? Why have some kid with a future risk his precious elbow when you could have some cheap labor handle it. But in the new world of baseball journalism, that guy is a prospect too. 

By very definition, prospect means that there’s a probability, likelihood, or at the very least, chance for future success. Here’s a couple of headlines and intros from this week’s baseball news. 

Kemp to Padres for C Prospect Grandal

Dodgers Acquire Prized Catching Prospect for Kemp

Gordon to Marlins for Three Prospects 

Yasmani Grandal is 26 years old. He’s been in the big leagues since 2012. That’s long enough for him to have raised expectations with solid rookie campaign, albeit in a tiny sample size, get suspended 50 games for PED use, return and blow out a knee, return from that and forget how to hit, as evidenced by his absurd 115 strikeouts in only 445 plate appearances in 2014. But he’s a prospect. Now, Grandal’s supporters will point to his 15 home runs, not a bad power display in Petco Park from a switch hitting catcher, as well as his proficiency in the ridiculously overblown metric of pitch framing. His detractors will point to his ludicrously bad contact rate, inability to even remotely control the running game, and the tricky nature of knee injuries for catchers. The fact that he possesses the ability to hit the occasional long ball will make him useful on a big league roster, but is that enough, irrespective of whether you believe he was enough of a return for Matt Kemp, to be given the label of prospect? At age 26!? 

Chris Hatcher, referred to by multiple media outlets as a pitching prospect acquired in the Dee Gordon trade, is 29 years old with an ERA of nearly 5 over 81 career games. He was originally drafted as a catcher, but couldn’t hit enough. Shifted to the mound, he stuck for the majority of a big league season for the first time in 2014. He’s a sort of success story who is easy to cheer for, and probably deserves a job pitching in a major league bullpen if his 5 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio last season isn’t a fluke. But even the most fervent of optimist would have to admit that age 29, it’s likely he’ll never progress very far past where he is now, a potentially somewhat useful middle reliever. Is that a prospect? Can a 29-year-old even be a prospect? 

I don’t know if it’s the English language I’m grieving for, or if it’s the slow and painful death of insightful baseball writing. I’m appealing to you, Buster Olney, and you, Jonah Keri, and Bill Plaschke, and…and…hell, anyone with a keyboard. If you’re going to write about baseball, or any sport for that matter, can we start calling things what they are again?

Pitch Framing: Just Stop it Already

Ok, enough already. Admittedly, I’m a little old fashioned when it comes to baseball and sabermetrics. I’m coming around a little bit, though. While I still think the multiple formulas out there for WAR (wins above replacement) still seem awfully arbitrary to me, they generally seem to be in the neighborhood of making sense most of the time. Guys like Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Giancarlo Stanton, and Yadier Molina get justifiably awesome scores. Guys like Ryan Ludwick, Gordon Beckham, and Travis D’Arnaud get suitably poor scores. And perpetually and criminally underrated guys like Hunter Pence and Brett Gardner get a bit of deserved props. And then there’s the curious notion that Corey Kluber (excellent, don’t get me wrong) had a higher WAR than Kershaw. Just sayin’, who would you rather have as your number one guy?

Then there are stats like UZR (don’t worry, we’re getting to pitch framing in a second) which measure a fielder’s defensive value based on how many runs they purportedly save based on defensive prowess. Ok, Billy Hamilton somehow outscored Juan Lagares in this metric. Hamilton’s blazing speed is indisputable, and it no doubt helps him chasing down batted balls. But he takes poor routes, and isn’t fast to react to the ball being hit. Lagares lacks the speed of Hamilton, but reacts practically instantly to batted balls, and takes near perfect routes every time. How do you figure? Chase Headley leads the pack for third basemen, far ahead of the immeasurably superior Nolan Arenado. Somehow, Luis Valbuena and Cody Asche chart, while the outstanding Juan Uribe isn’t even on the list. Soooooooo, yeah. 

Finally, we get to pitch framing. Admittedly, this is a bit of a homer area for me, being a Dodger fan. In brief, before he signed with the Blue Jays, Russ Martin was a popular pick to go to the Dodgers in free agency because of his high pitch framing stat, something new VP Andrew Friedman is supposedly high on. Couple that with the fact that incumbent AJ Ellis is ranked low in that “statistic,” the writing is on the wall, right?

Let’s just put this to bed as simply as possible. This “metric” is as close to absolute crap as you can get. Here’s why. If you have pitchers that throw predominantly strikes, you don’t have to “frame” pitches. 

Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t value in being able to receive a pitch in a manner that doesn’t resemble a seizure. There are plenty of catchers who stab at every ball thrown to them. And they’re all in AA ball or below. 

Two of the leaders in the pitch framing “stat” in 2014 were Martin and the Rays’ Jose Molina. One of the worst was the Dodgers’ AJ Ellis. Martin caught the likes of Gerrit Cole and Francisco Liriano. Both guys have superb stuff but struggle with command from time to time because of youth in Cole’s case, or persistent mechanical issues in Liriano’s case. In Molina’s case, he’s catching guys like Jake Odorizzi, Chris Archer, and Alex Cobb; brilliant young talents who have the ability twirl gems any time they are on the mound…but also have the command issues that come with being hard throwers in early stages of what might become brilliant careers.

Plenty of pitches to frame for both of those catchers, right?

Here are a few names for you. Clayton Kershaw. Zack Greinke. Dan Haren. Hyun Jin Ryu. Every single one of those pitchers, even Ryu in his brief career, are universally recognized as having good command. Exactly how often does the catcher need to “steal” a strike by “framing” a pitch?

AJ Ellis’ 2015 status with the Dodgers was secure the moment that Clayton Kershaw told Andrew Friedman that AJ was his guy. You don’t eff with your all-universe pitcher and his favorite catcher.

But none of that matters. The bottom line is, guys that throw strikes get calls. Let’s put it this way. Catchers who have to catch a staff of pitchers who don’t necessarily know where the ball is going are going to have to “frame” more pitches than catchers with a staff of guys with solid command.

Guys who throw the ball where the catcher is set up are going to get more strike calls than guys who make the catcher reach for the pitch. Ask any umpire from little league to the pros.

Now for part two of why this pitch framing crap is just that…crap. The two most impactful pitches a pitcher can throw are strike three or ball four. Strike three gets you an out, ball four means a base runner, at the risk of stating the obvious. Those two pitches also share something in common. They signify the end of an at bat. If a borderline call goes against the pitcher on the first pitch, he can still recover to make good pitches after that and get the hitter out. Or, if Jose Molina perfectly frames a borderline pitch for a strike on the first offering, there is nothing to say that the hitter can’t line the next pitch into the gap for a double. 

So can we please knock off this bull butter about pitch framing?  Can we please stop helping Scott Boras get richer? Please?

Wouldn’t it be Funny…

Silly me for thinking I was the mad genius. The elephant in the the Washington Redskins’ room has been the appearance that Robert Griffin III will simply never develop into a quarterback that can justify the king’s ransom in draft picks they sent to the St. Louis Rams a couple of years ago to get him. It just seems that nobody wanted to say the obvious. “It probably ain’t working…”

Then along comes ESPN’s John Keim, who would know better than most, with this article.

Immediately, I cackle to myself. Wouldn’t it be great if the Rams traded for him? As a Rams fan, I don’t actually want this to happen. But as someone who adores satire and unintentional comedy, it would be classic, wouldn’t it? I’m a genius! Let me brag to everyone…

Of course, nobody informed me that Grantland’s Bill Barnwell had already published this beauty. It’s a fun read, but probably should have been confined to the top five, rather than top ten, as a few of the teams listed are wholly unreastic.

So spoiler alert, the Rams are Barnwell’s most likely destination for RGIII to end up. It makes sense because Sam Bradford and his obscene price tag won’t be back after nearly two full seasons lost to injury. Shaun Hill is an adequate back up, but nobody’s idea of a starting quarterback for a team with playoff aspirations in 2015. And Austin Davis, the early season darling of Rams fans, proved he has the competitive spirit to be a leader but the physical tools best suited to be the guy with the clipboard.

In addition, it’s unlikely the Rams will be able to draft their next starting quarterback. Despite a general dearth of competence at nearly every level of leadership, there’s enough talent on the roster to keep them from having a record bad enough that nets a top draft pick. Immediately, that removes them from the running for guys like Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston.

There won’t be a lot in the free agent pool as far as quarterbacks go, so a trade is the most likely scenario, leaving Griffin and probably Jay Cutler as the only feasible targets. Cutler is a turnover machine and is owed a Brinks truck in gold boullion in salary so he’s out. That leaves Griffin. Essentially, that would mean the Rams got something like Greg Robinson, Alec Ogletree, Michael Brockers, and Janoris Jenkins for whatever conditional mid-round pick it would cost them to bring Griffin to St. Louis. (or Los Angeles, for that matter)

As entertaining as the notion is, here’s why it would end badly. First, all indicators so far in Griffin’s admittedly brief career are that he would need to be in an offense tailored to his skillset. He’s a gifted athlete with a cannon for an arm, but it’s pretty clear at this point he will never be the Michael Vick/Peyton Manning hybrid some envisioned him to be. Still, in the right system, he can thrive. Well, Brian Schottenheimer is one of the most brutally awful offensive coordinators in this history of offensive coordinator being an actual gig. Without any shadow of a doubt, you could reassign Schottenheimer to a position he’s qualified for, say…cotton candy vendor, and have whomever is in at quarterback make every play call at the line, and the offense would improve exponentially.

For perspective, there was a three game span in 2013 where the Rams actually started to get the ball to their most dynamic playmaker by far, Tavon Austin, and resembled a good NFL offense, even with Kellen Clemens at quarterback. Then, it appeared, Schottenheimer panicked because something his offense was doing worked, and immediately abandoned all future plans to get Austin the ball. It is now 13 weeks into the 2014 season, and Austin remains on the distant periphery of the Rams’ offensive game plan.

Secondly, for all of their flaws, the Rams are stocked with clubhouse leadership. Veterans like James Laurinaitas, Robert Quinn, Chris Long and others don’t tolerate any “me first” nonsense, and Griffin with his perpetual soap opera would in all likelihood be ostracized in short order.

But still…it would be hilarious, wouldn’t it?

IBWAA Awards Ballot

Both the BBWAA and the IBWAA have announced all their awards this past week. I am a voter for the IBWAA, and it was certainly interesting to see how my ballot varied from the final vote, although I don’t have any major gripes with any of the awards, outside of maybe Manger of the Year. Fellow IBWAA member and ESPN SweetSpot Blogger Dave Scheonfield did an excellent job breaking down the votes, so I will more speak to the winners and my ballot.

The top reliever matched my votes as I too had Greg Holland and Craig Kimbrel atop my ballot. In the AL, I chose Dellin Betances and Zach Britton to round out my ballot. Betances was a dominant late inning reliever for the Yankees and looking past the completely overrated save statistic, he was as good as there was, but Holland was simply the best. In the NL, I also gave votes to Mark Melancon and Tyler Clippard. Melancon was the best reliever to me on a very good bullpen, and Clippard seemed to be the lone reliever that remained consistent throughout the year for the Washington Nationals.

For Manager of the year, Buck Showalter won in the AL, who was also my top choice. Showalter was able to help lead the Orioles to the AL East title despite major injuries/ suspensions to his top two players, Manny Machado and Chris Davis. I also selected Mike Scioscia despite the fact I largely don’t agree with his managing style, you can’t ignore his success over his tenure with the Angels and his team’s improbable division title. Lloyd Mclendon got my third vote as the work he did to keep the Mariners competitive all season was impressive.

In the NL, Matt Williams won, but he didn’t even crack my ballot. Outside of the Dodgers, the Nationals had the most talent of any team in the NL. Williams made the headlines with his dealings with Bryce Harper far too often. My top choice was Bruce Bochy, and yes this was before the postseason (our ballots were turned in September 28th). Bochy somehow keeps the Giants competitive regardless of talent and injury woes. Also making my ballot were Clint Hurdle and Mike Matheny.

The Rookie of the Year winners were quite simple. Jose Abreu and Jacob DeGrom were clearly the best in their respective leagues; the trouble was filling out the other two spots. In the AL, there were too many options to choose from, while the NL there weren’t enough. Masahiro Tanaka was a popular recipient of votes, but his injury shortened season just didn’t cut it for me. Coming in second for me in the AL was Yordano Ventura, who was purely dominant at times, which he continued to show into the postseason. My third vote in the AL was Danny Santana who flew under the radar of casual baseball fans, as he plays for the woeful Minnesota Twins, but he hit .319 in 101 games while stealing 20 bags and playing solid defense at both shortstop and centerfield.

In the NL, Billy Hamilton came in third on my ballot but, while his numbers leap off the page and he hit better than many expected, his season as a whole was a bit disappointing, but still good enough to crack my ballot. I was happy to see fellow IBWAA voters recognized the person I had second on my ballot, even if he finished third in the IBWAA vote. While playing for the awful Arizona Diamondbacks, Ender Inciarte has an excellent year.

Was there any question as to who would win the NL Cy Young? Of course Clayton Kershaw ran away with the vote, being selected as a unanimous winner. The next two on my ballot were obvious as well, Adam Wainwright and Johnny Cueto, but that is where I think I differed from most. Fourth on my ballot was Jake Arrieta, who seemed to take a no-hitter into the fifth of every outing this season, and wound up with a 2.53 ERA while striking out more than 9.5 per nine innings of work. My fifth and final spot in the NL was a Washington Nationals pitcher, but not the one that jumps out to most people. To me, and according to Baseball Reference’s WAR, the best pitcher for the Nationals this season was Tanner Roark and his 2.85 ERA and walking less than two per nine innings.

In the AL, Felix Hernandez won the vote, but my top pitcher was the same as the BBWAA, Corey Kluber. I actually selected Chris Sale ahead of Hernandez, but all three had excellent seasons. My final two spots on the ballot went to current free agents, Jon Lester and Max Scherzer.

In the MVP voting, Mike Trout was a pretty simple choice. We submitted ten names for the MVP votes, so let me run those off in order; Trout, Victor Martinez, Miguel Cabrera, Josh Donaldson, Alex Gordon, Nelson Cruz, Jose Altuve, Robinson Cano, Jose Bautista, and Michael Brantley. The one that jumped out to me when crunching the numbers and selecting my top MVP votes was Altuve. He led all of baseball in hits with 225; the only other player to reach the 200 mark was Brantley who hit it right on the nose. Altuve broke the Houston Astros team mark for hits in a season, eclipsing a player who should make the Hall of Fame this year, Craig Biggio. Altuve also led all of baseball in batting average and the AL in steals.

For the NL, Kershaw won the vote, but he didn’t even make my ballot. I have always been pro-pitchers on the MVP ballot until I had to fill one out myself. This is surely a topic that will be discussed on this coming weekend’s podcast here on The Stain, but I just couldn’t put Kershaw on my ballot. He was clearly the best player in baseball, but having to go 10 deep on the ballot made me realize that Kershaw would be the only pitcher that cracked the ballot in either league. This is simply because it is nearly impossible to compare a pitcher to a hitter, and it also wouldn’t be right to give the top spot to a pitcher but not have a pitcher land anywhere else on my ballot. It was then that I decided that my MVP ballot would be for position players only.

My votes went as follows; Andrew McCutchen, Jonathan Lucroy, Anthony Rendon, Giancarlo Stanton, Buster Posey, Yasiel Puig, Josh Harrison, Jason Heyward, Hunter Pence, and Matt Holiday. The NL voting was tough once I removed pitchers from the conversation. Stanton probably would have come out on top for me had it not been for his incredibly unfortunate and ugly injury to end his season early. Yadier Molina didn’t even make my ballot, despite me constantly trying to find a spot for him, but his injury plagued season just didn’t allow him to play enough to make my ballot. In the end it really felt like a war of attrition, but McCutchen won out for me.