In early issues of National Review, readers were treated to debates over Abraham Lincoln’s place in American history, especially in relation to the growth of the federal government that occurred under Lincoln’s watch. Harry Jaffa, the great Lincoln historian, and Frank Meyer, the originator of conservative fusionism, were the two main belligerents in these debates, with Jaffa defending Lincoln and Meyer criticizing him.

Meyer argued that the expansion of the federal government during the Civil War laid the groundwork for the New Deal and future expansions of the state. In 1965, Meyer wrote in the pages of NR, “Were it not for the wounds that Lincoln inflicted upon the Constitution, it would have been infinitely more difficult for Franklin Roosevelt to carry through his revolution, for the coercive welfare state to come into being and bring about the conditions against which we are fighting today.” In other words, FDR never would have gotten away with creating Social Security if Lincoln, 70 years prior, hadn’t bothered to save the Union. The relationship between the two men is tenuous at best.

Harold Hutchison’s article “Eject Gaylord Perry” reminded me of Meyer’s line of thinking. Like Meyer, Hutchison connects an event several decades old with contemporary problems. Major League Baseball’s problem with players abusing performance-enhancing drugs, Hutchison contends, has its roots in Gaylord Perry’s unpunished use of the spitball. 

Gaylord Perry, a Hall of Famer, frequently used the spitball, which is exactly what it sounds like. A pitcher who lubricates the baseball enjoys certain advantages. The ball slips off his fingers with more ease, creating more spin, and the ball’s weight is no longer evenly distributed, which can affect its course in the air and make it harder for the batter to hit. The spitball, like the corked bat, is a serious though eccentric baseball transgression that baseball fans have been willing to forgive. 

Not Hutchison, though. He is outraged that MLB never threw the book at Perry, going so far as to call for his ejection from the Hall of Fame. He explains:

Much of the steroid use between 1991 and 2006, before testing became common, was by players who when in high school, college, and the minor leagues in the 1970s and early 1980s saw Gaylord Perry get away with flouting the rules. . . . The Steroid Era may get the headlines, and it may fuel the debate today, but the seeds were planted when baseball let Gaylord Perry get away with throwing the spitball.

Sure, these young and impressionable athletes may have been aware of Perry’s spitballs, but they were probably much more familiar with the widespread use of amphetamines, or “greenies,” as they were called. They might have even heard about Dock Ellis’s claim to have thrown a no-hitter while hallucinating on LSD. 

Hutchison continues: “Baseball’s failure to deal with a pitcher who routinely violated the rules against doctoring the baseball sent a signal to players that cheating didn’t necessarily have consequences.” Perhaps, though he presents no evidence that players actually learned that lesson.

Why did they put dangerous chemicals into their bodies? Because Gaylord Perry cheated also, and, you know, Que sera, sera? Or did they think that the proper mixture of chemicals could transform them into baseball gods and, in the process, millionaires? Did MLB’s failure to properly condemn Perry lead to the Steroids Era, or did the promise of hitting 62 home runs in one season? 

Forget Gaylord Perry and his spitball. He could have been hanged, drawn, and quartered and it still wouldn’t have stopped Mark McGwire from becoming Big Mac. Remember the attention that he and Sammy Sosa received in the summer and fall of 1998. They met world leaders, graced the covers of magazines, and received endorsements left and right. Sosa won the Most Valuable Player award that season, too. The temptation to cheat was so great, and the restrictions against it were so minimal — it seems almost inevitable that cheating would have occurred. 

Yes, Gaylord Perry cheated, and yes, Abraham Lincoln expanded the role of the federal government. But not all cheating is created equal. (Neither is all big government.) It shouldn’t need to be said, but, here goes: Gaylord Perry isn’t Barry Bonds. 

He isn’t even Abraham Lincoln.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• In the wake of a telephone interview with Bud Selig, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports appears convinced that the commish will step down on January 15, 2015, the date that his current contract expires.
• Baseball Nation’s Rob Neyer is irked at the Mariners’ decision to bench arguably the best defensive player in the game, shortstop Brendan Ryan (2012 Fielding Bible Award winner), who admittedly also happens to be one of the worst offensive players (.148/.232/.148). Neyer explains why starting Robert Andino over Ryan is a head-scratcher:

Since Opening Day in 2011, Ryan’s got a terrible 69 OPS+, while Andino’s got a terrible 72 OPS+. They’ve been the same for three years, and they’ve been the same for their whole careers.

As hitters. As fielders, Ryan’s been outstanding and Andino’s started only 108 games at shortstop in his whole career. He’s played mostly second base, and has been just decent there.

• Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times profiles 75-year-old Manny Mota and his new gig with the Dodgers after 33 years as a coach with the club.
• Fangraphs’ Jeff Sullivan shows how Alfonso Soriano’s historic over-aggressiveness can make him a liability in high-leverage situations.
• Ted Berg of USA Today’s For the Win profiles six prospects who are poised to make big contributions in the majors, although one, Zack Wheeler of the Mets, is currently struggling with his control.  
• The Hardball Times’ Chris Jaffe notes the 20th anniversary of Royals manager Hal McRae experiencing an unforgettable meltdown:

At any rate, on April 26, 1993, the Royals lost a game 5–3 to the Tigers, dropping their record to 7–12. This wasn’t the Royals record McRae expected.

Then came the post-game conference. It started off fairly generically, with McRae holding court in his office. Then a reporter asked a question McRae didn’t like. And history was made.

The question was whether he’d considered using the aging George Brett as a pinch hitter in the seventh with two outs and the bases loaded. Something inside McRae snapped.

First he called it a “stupid a** f***ing question.” Well, that’s a nice little quote. But before anyone could go on, he got up, and started throwing things. Just whatever was in front of him on the desk. He screamed some more at the reporter, threw some more objects—most notably his phone, which caught a reporter in the face, drawing blood.

McRae chased everyone out of his office, followed them out, and screamed at them some more before concluding, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

• Meanwhile, Jaffe’s colleague, Dan Lependorf, asks, “Which agencies negotiate the best contracts for their clients?” and discovers that, lo and behold, Scott Boras’s reputation is well earned.

•  Giancarlo Stanton hit his first home run of the season on Saturday evening and it was quite memorable. Mike Axisa of CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball has details. 

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Watch Victor Martinez get thrown out at home plate on a strike from Jeff Francoeur in last night’s game at bone-chilling Comerica Park. Notice anything pecuilar, other than the participants wearning enough thermal attire for a climb up Mount Everest?

Yup, Martinez chooses neither to slide nor take out the opposing catcher. He avoids home plate altogether and instead makes a beeline for the dugout.

Dayn Perry of CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball doesn’t blame the slugger for the detour; au contraire, he questions the third-base coach’s decision to give the go sign:

The problem here was three-fold:

1. Martinez was already slow.
2. He’s a season removed from having his ACL (knee) repaired.
3. Royals right fielder Jeff Francoeur sports one of baseball’s most lethal throwing arms.

Fortunately for the Tigers, the out at the plate was not all that costly; Detroit defeated Kansas City, 7–5.

This week’s Reveille readers saw the video of a fan at Safeco Field catching a ball with his suds.

Now witness the dad in the right-field bleachers at Minute Maid Park nabbing a home-run ball using a vat filled to the brim with movie-theater popcorn.

Alas, while the Mariners fan was able to proudly gulp down most of the cup’s contents — with the ball resting inside, no less — all of this family’s kernels were lost, most ending up as uninvited guests of the warning track.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• When Jean Segura of the Brewers on Friday evening got thrown out stealing second after he had already stolen it, Mickey Mantle’s quote, “It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life,” immediately came to mind. Sports Illustrated’s Cliff Corcoran offers his thoughts on this bizarre occurrence.
• Rob Neyer of SB Nation reminds us yet again not to read all that much into Cactus and Grapefruit League statistics:

Essentially, Jackie Bradley Jr.’s spring is a case study for aspiring statistical analysts. It’s just possible, is it, that a player could collect 28 hits in 62 at-bats . . . and then 3 hits in 31 at-bats? Well, yes, it is possible. Obviously. It’s not at all likely. Those 28 hits in 62 at-bats did suggest that Jackie Bradley Jr. is a capable major-league hitter. Of course, his .271 batting average in 229 Double-A at-bats last season suggested something else. And suggested it more strongly.

Bradley actually turns 23 today, and is still a fine prospect. But he will, I suspect, live for some years as an object lesson for Red Sox fans (and yes, writers too). Spring-training statistics are a lot of fun, but they’re merely a snapshot in time, and they describe the random nature of raw performance statistics as much as they describe fundamental abilities.

• Daniel Nava made sure that the first game at Fenway Park since the Boston Marathon terrorist attack was not only memorable but included a joyous outcome.
• Some buckethead is looking pretty silly at the moment in the wake of the Rockies’ red-hot start (13–5). Troy Renck of the Denver Post profiles leadoff hitter Dexter Fowler, one of the keys to Colorado’s success to date:

He hit seven home runs in his first 40 at-bats left-handed this season, leaving him among the league leaders. For his career, the switch hitter has never hit more than 10 home runs left-handed in a season. . . .
When the 6-foot-4 Fowler arrived with the Rockies in 2008, straight from the Beijing Olympics, he weighed roughly 145 pounds. He could have been faxed to Denver. Looking at that player, it’s easy to see how opinions formed about his future. He could run, and without much muscle, he profiled as a slash-and-dash leadoff hitter.

Problem is, that’s not Fowler.

“I can see why, but a lot of people wanted him to be a different player than he wants to be. Right now, he wants to be a guy who can mash. That’s who he is,” said Bichette of Fowler, who’s now a much stronger 195 pounds. “Look in his eyes. That’s who he wants to be.”

• NBC Hardball Talk’s Bill Baer finds it rather amusing that Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., who claimed back in January that he didn’t “care about walks,” is now flabbergasted that the lineup isn’t — wait for it — drawing walks.
• It seems that the fans at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park are hooked on both their closer and grilled cheese.
• According to Fangraphs’ Paul Swydan, what makes Robinson Cano and Pablo Sandoval special is that they not only hit for power but also for contact:

Cano and Sandoval really do separate from the pack. Their SLG [slugging], ISO [isolated power] and wOBA [weighted on-base average] marks stand out as the best among the group. You could squint and put Crawford in the same group, but then Crawford has struck out far more frequently across this span than have Cano and Sandoval. …

Cano and Sandoval, on the other hand, are still swinging with the best of them this season. Cano’s swing rates are down from his 2011 peak, but he is his O-Swing% [the percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone] and Swing% are still five percent above league average as of today. And Sandoval trumps just about everyone. Sandoval’s swing rates are 15-20% above league average. Only two players are swinging at more pitches this year than Sandoval — Josh Hamilton and Jeff Francoeur — and neither of them have contact rates even resembling league average.

• Thanks to Blake Murphy of Beyond the Boxscore, we now know that the hitters on the 2010 Diamondbacks deserve the distinction of putting less than 63 percent of balls in play, the lowest percentage of any MLB team in history. Their walk, strikeout, and home-run rates were 9.5 percent, 24.7 percent, and 2.91 percent, respectively.

• Watch a bon vivant attending a Mariners game demonstrate what to do when a batted ball lands in an $8 brew.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Writing in the New Yorker, Roger Angell, now 92 years young, recalls an incident at a game in mid-July 1948. Robinson, in his sophomore season with the Dodgers, started to lose his composure standing on third at the Polo Grounds, home of the rival Giants:

Robinson, a Dodger base runner, had reached third and was standing on the bag, not far from me, when he suddenly came apart. I don’t know what happened, what brought it on, but it must have been something ugly and far too familiar to him, another racial taunt—I didn’t hear it—that reached him from the stands and this time struck home.

I didn’t quite hear Jackie, either, but his head was down and a stream of sound and profanity poured out of him. His head was down and his shoulders were barely holding in something more. The game stopped. The Dodgers’ third-base coach came over, and then the Giants’ third baseman—it must have been Sid Gordon—who talked to him quietly and consolingly. The third-base umpire walked in at last to join them, and put one hand on Robinson’s arm. The stands fell silent—what’s going on?—but the moment passed too quickly to require any kind of an explanation. The men parted, and Jackie took his lead off third while the Giants pitcher looked in for his sign. The game went on.

The essay from the “poet laureate of baseball” is short but effective, conveying to readers something of the agony Robinson felt during those first few years of his in a Brooklyn uniform.

More here.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Tax Day Monday a bit more bearable:

• As a consequence of Carlos Quentin’s rushing Zack Greinke shortly after being struck with a 3–2 pitch in a one-run game, the Dodgers pitcher suffered a broken collarbone. In response, Quentin, who has led the big leagues in hits-by-pitch for the past two seasons, was suspended for eight games. In addressing the question why Quentin snapped last week, Jim Margalus of South Side Sox blames Ozzie Guillen for not standing behind the Padres outfielder during a 2009 plunking when Quentin was on the White Sox and Greinke pitched for the Royals.
• Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports explains why this individual may be the best player on the diamond over the past four years:

A lot of his offensive value is based off walks, which are generally undervalued. He runs the bases very well. He rarely grounds into double plays. And pretty much all the defensive metrics agree that he’s a fantastic fielder. He can play shortstop in a pinch, but plays all over the field otherwise and generally does a very good job of it.

Add that all together, and it makes for a pretty valuable player.

• On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the opening of Royals Stadium (a.k.a. Kauffman Stadium), Royals Review’s Craig Brown looks back at how the magnificent ballpark came into existence.
• Writing in the Hardball Times, Matthew Callan suspects that the “crazy closer” genre began with Joe Page, a Yankees reliever in the late 1940s.
• Rob Neyer of SB Nation interviews Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Carl Erskine about Jackie Robinson, his teammate from 1948 to 1956, and about the new film 42:

Neyer: As I’m sure you know, for many years Jackie was publicly critical of Major League Baseball’s complete lack of black executives or managers. In fact, there wasn’t a black manager (Frank Robinson) until after Jackie’s premature death. Do you think the players of your era would have played for a black manager? Do you think Jackie would have been a good manager?

Erskine: Jackie had a sense of urgency, as though he felt he didn’t have time to wait. He had already had a long wait, so every time he had a chance, he more or less said, “Just because I made it, don’t think we’re there. Look at what is not happening.”

In a way, our team already had a black manager. We, the Dodgers, recognized that Roy Campanella was destined to become a major-league manager. He had the experience and the temperament. So yes, our team would have willingly played for a black manager.

But I don’t believe Jackie would have wanted to manage. He had ideas to help black businesses, and black businessmen and -women, excel. He co-founded Freedom National Bank in Harlem to make loans to black businesses, and he also continued to be active in the Civil Rights Movement for the rest of his life.

• The Mets are presently in second place in the National League East, but, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Brian Costa, they are No. 1 in uniform choices.
• In ESPN’s SweetSpot, Joseph Werner asks whether a modern-day Nolan Ryan would be given a chance to crack the starting rotation.
• Elaine Benes is not amused: Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick informed fans that they were prohibited from sitting in luxury seats behind home plate unless they first removed their Dodger gear. 

• Regarding the aforementioned Quentin–Greinke brawl, it would seem that not everyone on the Padres bench was in a rush to join the scrum. 

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Whose bright idea was it to build a stadium without a roof anyway?

We are a mere 8-10 games into the 162-game regular season but there is no shortage of euphoria and misery surrounding how teams and players are faring.

For example, how many of these figures do we think will hold up over time:

• The A’s lead the majors in home runs hit (16).
• The Tigers are tied for 24th in home runs (5). (Miguel Cabrera has only one round-tripper in 37 plate appearances.)
• The Mets batters are no. 1 in Fangraphs’ version of wins above replacement (2.2).
• The Amazins’ top score is in large part a consequence of perennial back-up catcher John Buck being tied for third in dingers (5).
• Carlos Santana leads all players in weighted on-base average (.601).
• Chris Davis is on pace to collect 364 runs batted in by season’s end (18 RBIs in 8 games).
• The Phillies pitching staff is dead last in earned run average (6.04).
• The Yankees pitchers have the third worst strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.74).
• The Blue Jays staff is worst in the American League in on-base-plus-slugging to opposing batters (.845).
• The Tigers are the only team in the bigs that has not committed an error. (Really? Have no balls been hit in Cabrera’s general direction?)

My guess: Only the first stat may endure much longer. Even playing at cavernous O.Co Coliseum, the A’s clubbed no fewer than 195 home runs in 2012.

Was that Leslie Nielsen Enrico Palazzo behind home plate in the ninth inning of the Rays-Rangers game last night? If so, Ben Zobrist and Joe Maddon wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised:

Despite umpire Marty Foster’s postgame admission, [Joe] Nathan still had his milestone save after a 5-4 Rangers victory Monday night that ended on a curveball that was low and outside.

“I saw the pitch and of course don’t have the chance to do it again,” Foster told a pool reporter after the game. “But had I had a chance to do it again, I wouldn’t call that pitch a strike.”

After Ben Zobrist took the full-count pitch, he started toward first base and even Nathan appeared to anticipate a ball being called. But Foster called strike three.

Zobrist put both hands on his helmet and took it off in disbelief. Maddon argued with Foster and the other umpires for several minutes after the game ended.

Soon after that Maddon tweeted, “That can’t happen in a major league game.”

Check out the chart below: See the red square located just a bit outside? Yup, that’s the pitch in question.

Consequently, instead of the Rays having two on with Evan Longoria strolling to the plate, they were saddled with a hard-to-swallow loss.

More here and here.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• Ben Lindbergh and Jon Shepherd of Baseball Prospectus remind us why we shouldn’t seek too much meaning in spring-training statistics — in this case, the hope of projecting which position players are due for breakout years at the plate.  
• A few days ago, Right Field took note of Michael Morse’s hot start. U.S.S. Mariner’s Jeff Sullivan advises Seattle fans on why they should embrace the 31-year-old left fielder in his second stint with the club, even though he is signed only through the end of the season:

And one shouldn’t overlook the fact that Morse is apparently absolutely thrilled to be in Seattle. This is a guy who the Mariners dealt away for a backup, a guy who only found success somewhere else, and this is a guy who got traded back to Seattle from a title contender. The Nationals are probably the best team in baseball; the Mariners are probably not. Morse easily could’ve reacted the way that Cliff Lee initially reacted. But Morse didn’t just go along with things — he told everyone he could get a hold of that he was beyond ecstatic with things. Unless Morse is a hell of a convincing liar, he wants to be a Mariner, and again, we get another parallel with Felix. One of the things that sets Felix apart in our hearts is his loyalty to the city and the organization. A lot of players seem like they’d be happy anywhere, just so long as they’re playing, and free agency typically bears this out. It renders as somewhat silly the idea that we should support a specific team in a specific place, since the players don’t really care. A guy like Felix, or Morse, indicates that there’s something special about this team, and it’s satisfying when loyalty feels like it’s a two-way street. Put another way: who the hell would want to be a Mariner? Michael Morse does, and that’s an unusual characteristic.

• With chatter growing louder over the possibility that the National League will adopt the designated hitter in the next few years, Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts, no fan of the DH, wonders why the NBA hasn’t gotten with the program and adopted a designated free-throw shooter.
• In an interview with Howie Rose, Amazin’ Avenue’s Chris McShane asks the Mets radio broadcaster about the use of the designated hitter. Rose doesn’t try to hide his disgust:

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. The only thing I like about it is that it makes for a cleaner scorecard, it’s an easier scorecard for a broadcaster to keep. But I’m not interested in the DH from a clerical standpoint, I’m interested in its ramifications from a strategic and a purity-of-the-game standpoint. And I hate it, and I despise it, and I never liked it, and I like it even less now, if that makes any sense.

• Wendy Thurm of Fangraphs informs readers that the cost of going to the ballpark has remained roughly the same from 2012 to this season, although there are noteworthy exceptions. Many fans of the Nationals, Tigers, Giants, Angels, and Rangers are seeing price hikes.
• Sabermetrics has spread to the Astros’ radio booth, and, according to Steve Eder of the New York Times, it did not happen by accident:

When the Astros interviewed [Steve] Sparks, a journeyman knuckleball pitcher, and [Robert] Ford, a Bronx native who previously called minor league games, the topic of advanced statistics came up repeatedly. The Astros, who have eagerly embraced analytics, wanted to know if the broadcasters could grasp the data being used, in part, to build the team.

“We need them to tell the story of how we are making decisions and putting the organization together,” said George Postolos, the Astros’ president and chief executive, who added that the team would not want a broadcaster who was uncomfortable explaining the front office’s strategy.

• To the millions of Twins fans reading Reveille: Be sure to read Aaron Gleeman’s post on his personal blog discussing Minnesota’s chances in the AL Central this year.
• “Remember the Alamodome!” screams the Hardball Times headline for Frank Jackson’s piece explaining, among other things, why San Antonio, the country’s seventh most populous city, does not host a triple-A franchise, let alone a big-league team.
• Back when he was a Northwestern University law student, current White Sox owner Jery Reinsdorf put into a motion a fairly ambitious scheme to level the playing field in the annual student-faculty softball game.

• First baseman Chris Davis had a monster first week of the season, but Will Middlebrooks (above) has had the game of the year for any position player. Yesterday, the 24-year-old third baseman belted three home runs, a double, and a long fly ball that died on the warning track in a Red Sox rout of R. A. Dickey and the Blue Jays.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Michael Morse, the towering outfielder who delighted crowds in D.C. with his eclectic walk-up music, had a blast during a just-completed four-game series in pitcher-friendly O.Co Stadium. In 16 plate appearances over the four games in Oakland, the 31-year-old clubbed no fewer than four home runs and posted an OPS of 1.537. One of those jacks was a three-run poke to right field off A’s starter Jarrod Parker.

If you’re trying to recall how Morse ended up back in the Pacific Northwest, here’s a primer.

Yu Darvish came oh so close to pitching a perfect game this evening in Houston.

The 26-year-old Rangers hurler and 2012 American League Rookie of the Year threw 111 pitches over 8 2/3 innings and K-ed 14 batters in tonight’s mastery against the Astros.

Alas, ninth-place hitter Marwin Gonzalez came up with the score 6–0 and Darvish just one out from a perfecto. The light-hitting shortstop swung at the first offering — a down-the-middle, 90-mph fastball — and knocked it through the pitcher’s legs and into center field.

Darvish was removed after the base hit, but the next Astros hitter, Jose Altuve, struck out to end the game.

Congrats, all the same.

After Monday afternoon’s 8–2 loss to the Red Sox, the Yankees find themselves one full game out of first place with only 161 games left to go.

All kidding aside, it is clear that the mood among many sportswriters and the team’s fans is anything but optimistic. Feel free to check out my recent interview with diehard supporters Guy Benson of Townhall, Robert George of the New York Post, and Rick Klein of ABC News to learn their thoughts on the state of the Bronx Bombers in 2013.

Here’s a snippet:

EPSTEIN: The Yankees haven’t experienced a losing season since 1992. How should fans too young to remember names like Mel Hall, Eddie Whitson, Andy Hawkins, and Brien Taylor prepare for the possibility that the bottom drops out in 2013?

GEORGE: After seeing those names listed, I’m rapidly thinking that this entire exercise is a sadistic venture on the part of Met fan Epstein to take joy in suffering of Yankees fans pondering the aimless late ’80s to early ’90s era. One interesting point about that period, though, is the year 1993 — the last time the Yankees and the Red Sox missed the playoffs. Considering how good Toronto and Tampa look in the East, that could possibly happen again in 2013.

BENSON: Whoa, I don’t remember any of those names. I came of age as a baseball fan in the waning years of the Mattingly era, so a losing Yankees season has literally never been on my radar. The question is, will fans fork over top dollars to see a lousy team in a nice new (and expensive) stadium? I think Mets fans have answered that question resoundingly over the last few seasons.

KLEIN: We didn’t know we were bad back then, or at least we tried to forget. This will sting more if they’re sub-par — probably like the post-Mantle, Shea years. Hurting more because we had so much plenty so recently.

GEORGE: Guy brings up a great point: There’s a whole generation of Yankee fans who’ve only known playoffs every single year and a World Series appearance every three years (on average). The team has only missed the playoffs once since 1995 — and they won it all the year afterwards. We could be heading into alien territory for many in Guy’s generation.

BENSON: And the 2008 playoff miss was sort of appropriate. A somber benediction for the old stadium. They certainly christened the new stadium appropriately the next year, though.

More here.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make Opening Day a bit more interesting:

• With season three of Game of Thrones and the 2013 regular season having started within one hour of another, Larry Granillo of Baseball Prospectus proposes 10 sigils for current MLB players.
• The Tigers signed Justin Verlander to a seven-year contract extension totaling $180 million. The average annual value — $25.71 million — is the highest ever for a multi-year deal, topping the one that Felix Hernandez signed in mid-February.
• Buster Posey inked a nine-year extension with the Giants valued at $168 million. According to MLB Trade Rumors’ Zach Links, “Posey’s contract covers his three remaining years of arbitration and five years of free agency, plus an option [worth $22 million] that could take care of a sixth free agency year.” Overall, Grant Brisbee of McCovey Chronicles gives the extension a thumbs-up, but briefly wonders why the Giants needed to do the deal now, considering that he was still three years away from free agency:

There’s a great chance Posey makes a lot of money for a little production by the end of it. But that’s not really the point — they’re paying him a premium to make sure he’s around for his 29-through-32 seasons in addition to the 26-through-28 seasons that he was already locked up for. As happy as this deal makes me, I still would have waited a year. But when you’re complaining about too much Buster Posey, you’re kind of an ass. So I won’t.

• Meanwhile, San Francisco’s ownership group extended the contracts of general manager Brian Sabean and skipper Bruce Bochy through the 2016 season.
• Two other noteworthy contract extensions were signed last week: The Cardinals and Adam Wainwright agreed on a five-year deal worth $97.5 million, while the Diamondbacks and Paul Goldschmidt agreed on one worth five years and $32 million, with a team option for 2019 worth $14.5 million.
• The final free agent of consequence, Kyle Lohse, signed a three-year deal with the Brewers worth $33 million.
• RIP Bob Turley, 82. He may have earned the 1958 Cy Young Award while playing for the world-champion Yankees, but Orioles fans will always remember Turley for starting and earning the win in the franchise’s first ever home game four years earlier.
• RIP Gus Triandos, 82. When Turley and Don Larsen were sent to the Bronx after the 1954 season, Triandos was one of the players Baltimore received in return. The catcher spent eight seasons with the Orioles and slugged 142 home runs and was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in 1981.
• The Jays sent Ricky Romero, their Opening Day starter for the past two seasons, to their Single-A affiliate in Dunedin, Florida. Beyond the Boxscore’s Andrew Ball explains what prompted Toronto to take such drastic action and why Romero stands to benefit from the demotion.
• Wendy Thurm of Fangraphs says that confusion reigns on the question of whether MLB intends to allow teams to opt out of the current mandatory defined-benefit pension system for non-union employees.

• A re-tear of his shoulder capsule means that Johan Santana has almost certainly thrown his last pitch for the Mets and may not take the mound again, period. Sports Illustrated’s Jay Jaffe believes that the catatrsophic injury has probaly doomed his chances for entry into Cooperstown.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

P.S. My foolish fearless 2013 predictions may be found here.

Had Eddard Stark spent his years in the United States, rather than Westeros, he might have uttered during winter, “Baseball is coming.”

After an unbearably long period of anticipation, this evening’s match-up between the Rangers and Astros at Minute Maid Park will mark the beginning of a six-month odyssey otherwise known as the 162-game regular season.

Below you will find my 2013 MLB predictions and a few comments. For a good chuckle, check out my 2012 prognostications.

American League East: Tampa Bay, Toronto, New York, Baltimore, Boston

Despite the loss of workhorse James Shields, the Rays have the fewest roster question marks in the division, which should enable them to hold off the new-look Jays in the final week. Third, fourth, and fifth place are up for grabs.

AL Central: Detroit, Cleveland, Kansas City, Chicago, Minnesota

With Victor Martinez back in what was already a powerful lineup and return of a similarly dominant starting rotation, the Tigers run away with the division. The Indians improve markedly but fall just short of the second wildcard berth.

AL West: Texas, Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, Houston

Between Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, and newcomer Josh Hamilton, the Angels have tremendous offensive firepower, but the Rangers possess the superior pitching staff. Like Cleveland, the A’s fall narrowly miss out on the postseason.

AL Wild Card Winner (Play-in): Angels

AL Champion: Detroit

AL MVP: Albert Pujols (runner-up: Robinson Cano)

AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander (runner-up: Matt Moore)

AL Rookie of the Year: Jurickson Profar (runner-up: Wil Myers)

National League East: Washington, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York, Miami

A surplus of above-average talent and weaker division pushes the Nationals over 100 victories for the season and enables the Braves to finish with a wild card berth. As for the Phillies, Ryan Howard is healthy again but otherwise the Phillies pitchers will have to carry the load.

NL Central: Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago

These teams will sorely miss the deprated Astros, who took their 55-107 record and staggered over to the AL West. The Reds will cope the best while the Pirates, Cardinals, and Brewers battling each other to stay at .500.

NL West: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Arizona, San Deigo, Colorado

The Dodgers go into ‘13 with a starting rotation arguably better than their hated rivals, the defending world champion Giants. Although some Diamondback offseason transactions raised eyebrows, the club still has sufficient talent to make a run at a wildcard spot.

NL Wild Card Winner (Play-in): Atlanta

NL Champion: Cincinnati

NL MVP: Joey Votto (runner-up: Matt Kemp)

NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw (runner-up: Stephen Strasburg)

NL Rookie of the Year: Gerrit Cole (runner-up: Travis D’Arnaud)

World Series Champion: Detroit in five games

Your thoughts on these picks, constructive and otherwise, are always appreciated.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make the final Monday before the start of the regular season a bit more bearable:

• In the past week we learned that at least three everyday players — Adam Eaton, Derek Jeter, and Hanley Ramirez — and two top pitchers — Jason Motte and Johan Santana — will almost certainly begin the regular season on the disabled list.
• Twenty years ago last Friday, two Indians pitchers, Tim Crews and Steve Olin, were killed in a boating accident, “the first active major leaguers to die since a small plane piloted by New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson crashed in 1979.” A third pitcher, Bob Ojeda, was badly hurt. Jon Saraceno and Bob Nightengale of USA Today talk with Crews’ widow about the horrific accident.
• Steve Treder of the Hardball Times poses and then answers five questions concerning the world-champion Giants. Among them:

Whither the Freak?

Tim Lincecum has now logged five full major league seasons, and dazzling though his overall performance has been, a disturbing sequence is emerging.

In 2008 and 2009, Lincecum was completely spectacular, racking up 7.5 and 8.0 WAR and sweeping twin Cy Young Awards. In 2010 and 2011, he was very good, but less than spectacular, his WAR totals at 4.7 and 4.1. And in 2012, at age 28, Lincecum labored through a dismal campaign, his walk rate and home run rate both bloated, and he squeaked out just 1.5 WAR over 33 starts. Giants’ fans really don’t like where this movie seems to be heading.

There are rays of hope to be found. One is that Lincecum, demoted to long-reliever status in five outings during last fall’s post-season, performed like the Freak of yore, and how: 13 innings, three hits, one run, two walks, 17 strikeouts. Another is that Lincecum reported to this year’s spring training sporting a good 10 pounds of newly-added muscle—as he had done in 2011, and, pointedly, not in 2012.

For whatever it’s worth, Lincecum is also now sporting a neatly-trimmed coiffure, which is probably trivial but might symbolize a newfound maturity, the sort which tends to discover motivation in the looming presence of a massive contract year.

The Giants won the 2012 division title despite a terrible season from Tim Lincecum. That’s a formulation highly unlikely to be repeated. In 2013, an outcome far more liable to play out is simply this: as goes the Freak, so will go the Giants.

• Having failed to convince the Orioles to move up the starting time of their home game against the White Sox on the evening of Thursday, September 5, the Super Bowl–champion Ravens will instead kick off the 2013 NFL season that night in Pittsburgh.
• When Andy McCollough of the Newark Star-Ledger asked Brian Cashman about the Yankees’ newfound thriftiness, the general manager responded, “Look at Vietnam. The biggest payroll didn’t win there, either.” (Come to think of it, the Yankees didn’t win during the Vietnam years, either.) Cashman subsequently acquired contract albatross Vernon Wells from the Angels but will need to pick up only $10–13 million of the $42 million that remains on the outfielder’s deal.
• Meanwhile, Red Sox principal owner John Henry gave an interview to the Boston Herald’s Steve Buckley. Here’s what Henry had to say about the future of Fenway Park:

The architects and engineers tell us Fenway Park will be viable and usable in its present form for at least 30 to 40 more years, with regular maintenance and care, of course. Our recent 10-year renovation plan was more than cosmetic; it was also highly structural, containing elements such as massive waterproofing.

• Twenty-five-year-old Sami Samir Hassoun, a native of Beirut, apologized to a U.S. district-court judge for dropping what he believed to be a bomb in a trash receptacle on a crowded street next to Wrigley Field in 2010. Federal prosecutors are seeking a 30-year sentence for Hassoun, who last year pleaded guilty to weapons charges.

• Here’s a must-read: Grantland’s Jonah Keri sits down with Coco Crisp, 33, and gets the center fielder, who has posted a highly impressive 88.2 percent success rate for attempted steals over the past three years, to reveal trade secrets.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Winning the Super Bowl last month earned the Ravens the right to host the 2013 NFL season opener.

There’s just one itty-bitty problem: M&T Bank Stadium shares its parking facilities with nearby Orioles Park.

Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Biscotti said his team and the NFL are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the season opens at M&T Bank Stadium on Thursday, Sept. 5, so it’s up to the Baltimore Orioles to give a little themselves.

The Baltimore Sun reported that Biscotti has offered to cover any lost revenues the Orioles might incur if they agree to move their 7:05 p.m. ET game against the Chicago White Sox at Camden Yards to an afternoon start time.

“In fairness to Major League Baseball and the Angeloses, we’re trying to dump a pretty big problem on them and we’re asking them to make a lot of concessions that will benefit us and potentially harm them though it doesn’t necessarily harm them,” Bisciotti said, according to the newspaper. “The bottom line is if they wanted to do it, they would find a way to do it. From the Ravens and the NFL standpoint, we’ll do whatever we have to do in order to keep that tradition.”

The defending Super Bowl champion has opened the season on a Thursday night since 2004. . . .

The Orioles are scheduled to play the Indians in Cleveland on Sept. 4 at 7:05 p.m. Under baseball’s collective bargaining agreement, getaway games are not to be scheduled or rescheduled to start later than 5 p.m. if either club is required to travel for a day game, scheduled the next day, between cities in which the in-flight time is more than one and a half hours.

The rule can be waived by a vote by the players on the team it affects, in this case the Orioles.

The Ravens do not want to move the game to a day earlier, as was done last year to avoid conflict with President Obama’s Democratic Convention acceptance speech, because that would be September 4, the first night of Rosh Hashanah.

I suspect that, in addition to the issue collective-bargaining agreement noted above, Orioles owner Peter Angelos isn’t thrilled with the idea of scheduling a matinee during the first day of Rosh Hashanah, when many of his Jewish patrons will still be in synagogue.

“Jolly Old St. Nick Done Sink the Ship” made clear his thoughts on a related Baseball Think Factory thread:

The whole brouhaha stems from the NFL’s all-of-nine-year-old “tradition” that the season should open with a Thursday night marquee matchup at the home of the Super Bowl Champion. I sincerely hope that the Orioles just tell the NFL to stuff it, and I say that as a huge Ravens fan.

(Emphasis mine.)

No argument here, St. Nick.

Or, if the NFL values so much the idea that the season opener should be on a Thursday, let it relocate the game to Cleveland, where the Indians and the new Browns don’t have to share parking facilities.

Oh, and by the way, weren’t the baseball–football scheduling conflicts supposed to go the way of the dodo bird when we tore down all of the hideous multipurpose stadiums? What was Baltimore thinking when it elected to plop a 70,000-seat football stadium next to Orioles Park?

More here.

Fernando Rodney had quite a comeback season in 2012, and closing for the Dominican Republic’s squad in the World Baseball Classic this spring, he has been nearly unhittable. Last night, the birthday boy — the Rays’ reliever turned 36 — notched his sixth save of the tournament in a 4–1 semifinal victory over Curaçao the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Apparently, Rodney believes that plantains are at least partially responsible for his still-dominant fastball and wants everybody to know. And what better way from him to show off the lucky plantain than by having it, er, poke out of his pants during the game? (The protuberance is clearly visible below.)

Meanwhile, Rays skipper Joe Maddon is not all that amused at the frequency with which the D.R.’s manager, Yankees’ bench coach Tony Peña, is using Rodney. 

The problem is that Rodney is also Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon’s closer, and Maddon isn’t too keen on Rodney pitching so much.

“You’re pitching at such a high level, the way the Dominicans are dealing with this, it’s almost like a playoff situation so there’s a lot of amperage going on there,” Maddon told reporters Sunday. “We’ll see how this all plays out. . . . There’s going to be some kind of ‘woof’ after this whole thing’s over.”

Rodney and his Dominican teammates face off against Puerto Rico for all the marbles tonight at 9 p.m. EDT on MLB Network.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make the second Monday of March a bit more bearable:

• ESPN SweetSpot’s David Schoenfield congratulates the Puerto Rican squad in its WBC elimination-game triumph over the American team while bemoaning the inability of the U.S. squad to pull out a vicotry in the 4-3 affair.
• To say that the Astros, currently at 300-to-1 odds to win the 2013 World Series, are in rebuilding mode is an understatement. Brian Costa of the Wall Street Journal shows how the current front office is going where few clubs have gone before:

Trading current wins for future wins isn’t a novel concept. And building through player development is an industrywide mantra. But most teams make at least some effort to ease their pain in the short term. . . .

The Astros are treating this season as a form of spring training—a time to evaluate young players. They’ll have the youngest team in the majors. “Are they going to be part of our core in four or five years?” Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said of the kids. “We need to find out. If you take away their job and give it to a veteran, you delay finding it out. It doesn’t push the organization forward.”

Operating with such little regard for the current season is something other baseball executives likely fantasize about. If it weren’t for the annoying chore of appeasing fans in the interim, many teams could build a championship core within five years. But few have the gall to take the Astros’ approach.

“They’ve had, frankly, more nerve than I might have had in going 100 miles per hour in the direction they’re going in,” said Los Angeles Dodgers president Stan Kasten, who once looked into buying a piece of the Astros. Speaking at a conference last week, Kasten added, “They’ve had the fortitude to do it the right way.”

• According to Chris De Luca of the Chicago Sun-Times, White Sox broadcasters Ken “Hawk” Harrelson and Steve Stone have addressed the tension betwen them in the booth and the duo expect a much friendlier on-air rapport in the future.
• Jeff Sullivan, arguably the most talented team blogger in the business, has departed Mariners-centric Lookout Landing:

The bottom line is that it’s time to cut back. . . . I’m not leaving Lookout Landing for another opportunity. I’m just going to do less, and this has absolutely nothing to do with SB Nation or Vox Media. . . . This network is going to continue to grow and it’s going to accomplish spectacular things, and that progress isn’t going to stop just because they’re down a Mariners blogger. I don’t know where I’d be without SB Nation, and I owe those guys more than I can express.

But I started blogging about the Mariners in November 2003, when I was a freshman in college. Since then, almost every day, I’ve written about the Mariners. Since then, every regular season, I’ve stayed up to watch Mariners games and write too much about them too late at night. That’s nine regular seasons of midnight recaps — nine negative run differential regular seasons — spanning the entirety of my adulthood to date. It’s time to see what it’s like to be an adult without that responsibility. It’s time to try to become more of a well-rounded person. (#YOLO) You know what I don’t know about? Lots of things. I’d like to start changing that.

• An increasing number of Yankee fans are feeling uneasy about the 2013 season. Bruce Markusen of the Hardball Times thinks they have good reason to worry, as he sees shades of 1989 when looking over this year’s club. (The Bronx Bombers went from a 85-win team in 1988 to one that won only 74 games.)
• If the Orioles are planing for a return to the postseason, Beyond the Boxscore’s Blake Murphy writes in “One-Run Game Performance Is Unsustainable,” Baltimore had better not rely on another 29–9 record in those nail-biters.
• Gwen Knapp of Sports on Earth profiles the family of former closer Rod Beck, who died at age 38 from a drug overdose in 2007. In response to Beck’s passing, the family founded a non-profit organization to help children of substance abusers.

• Via Ben Lindbergh and Harry Pavlidis of Baseball Prospectus: Erick Aybar offers home-plate umpire Angel Hernandez some choice thoughts on Craig Kimbrel’s 1–1 pitch, which Pitch F/X data estimated at being a good eight inches outside. On the very next pitch, however, Aybar singled home what proved to be the winning run.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!