The World Baseball Classic, Strat-o-matically Speaking

If you’ve been following the World Baseball Classic, you’ve noted a variety of surprises. From bad play by predicted winners to thrilling performances by upstart scrappers to a no-hitter from an unlikely source, it’s been wildly entertaining if you’ve bothered to tune into the games. In much the same way, the “real” WBC played out in a crazy manner this weekend.

Yes, that’s right, we followed through with the threat to manage a Strat-o-matic WBC of our own this weekend. Rob came beachward with the three cases of beer that he owed me, and we hunkered down for a weekend of televised sports, bottled beers, and simulated baseball. (His wife and daughters joined mine for the weekend as well, but that was clearly secondary to the task at hand.) The dazzling smorgasbord of micro-brews provided by Rob (my micro-friend) matched the array of nationalities to be sorted and assembled. In the end, there were a few reaches on the rosters, but (a) so is Mike Piazza on Team Italy, (b) no Asian catchers played in the bigs in 2004, and (c) after 12 hours of drinking, they all made sense. I emphasize the alcohol consumption not merely because drinking has been the backdrop, if not the foundation of athletic contests since ancient Greek and Roman days, but also because it might help to explain some of the peculiar outcomes to the Strat-o-WBC.

The Teams
The usual suspects were all there, but when it came to filling out our eight-team pool, the executive management was a bit hamstrung. After all, quite a few of the WBC players you’ve been watching this spring are not on major league rosters. Some squads had to be mixed and matched just to field a team, and even then it was paper-thin. At times there were logical groupings (e.g., Team Asia had geographic commonality; Canada and Panama were combined because, obviously, they rhyme), while at other times it was a scramble (Mexicubombia was Leftover Soup). These were the eight clubs, in order of their seedings:

1. Dominican Republic
2. USA
3. Venezuela
4. Puerto Rico
5. Mexicubombia
6. Asia
7. Italy
8. Canama

The Set-Up
With our free time not what it was in the summer of ’90, when Rob and I each played out a 162-game schedule of the 1985 Red Sox and Mets, respectively, we were forced to sacrifice fairness and completeness in the name of completing the Classic in two days. Instead of the World Cup pool systems, we went with a standard eight-team single-elimination tournament. While we’d intended to have the finals be a 2-of-3 affair, that was truncated to a single contest. Alas, real life affecting Strat-o-matic games; the rest of the world needs to adjust its priorities, no?

The Outcome
Pitching and defense are what counts in baseball, and such was the case in the Strat-o-WBC. Credit good pitching or blame bad hitting, but when star-studded, power-laden line-ups can’t make bat meet ball, there’s no bailing out even the heaviest of favorites.

Game 1 - #1 Dominican Republic vs. #8 Canama
Pedro pitched well enough to win, relinquishing just three hits over 6+ innings, though two of those hits were homers. A batting order which includes names like Albert, Vlad, Papi, Manny, Miggy, and Adrian is (snickered at in grade school, but is) one that only needs moderate pitching to advance. In theory. Rich Harden, seemingly on a mission since the opening notes of “O, Canama,” utterly stifled the Dominicans for six innings before turning the ball over to Canamaniac relievers Mo Rivera and Eric Gagne. Though Rivera was tagged for back-to-back taters by Ortiz and Tejada, permitting the D.R. club just three runs overall was a coup. Meanwhile, Corey Koskie’s three-run job off Francisco Cordero, his second of the game, propelled underdog Canama to shocking victory. A stunning opener. Canama 7, D.R. 3

Game 2 - #4 Puerto Rico vs. #5 Mexicubombia
By far the sloppiest game of the round, at least in terms of managerial BAC, this game was a 2-1 barn-burner into the 7th. Joel Pineiro, in a mildly foreshadowing moment, handcuffed the Mexicubombians over six innings, while Rodrigo Lopez nearly matched him until a disastrous stretch in Bottom 7. Five consecutive “bombies” reached base, including Lopez’s Oriole battery mate Javy Lopez, whose Baltimore special incurred the most severe damage. Roberto Hernandez allowed a pair to score before closing the door on the win. [Most of this is guesswork, as the scoresheet looks somewhat hieroglyphic in the light of day.] Puerto Rico 7, Mexicubombia 3.

Game 3 - #3 Venezuela vs. #6 Asia
The Asians grabbed an early two-run lead on singles by Hideki Matsui and fan favorite Trent Durrington, but the Venezuelans put six on the board in the second and third to seize control. After Johan Santana calmed down, there was little Team Asia could do in the middle innings. Later in the game, however, Santana tired and K-Rod looked shaky; Matsui and Ichiro led a charge – they each finished with three hits – that sent the tying run to the plate in the top of the ninth. Alas, So Taguchi whiffed to end it before Japanese-born Dave Roberts could spark another team to dramatic victory. Venezuela 8, Asia 5.

Game 4 - #2 USA vs. #7 Italy
As if drawing confidence from the fine play of the tournament’s other underdogs, the scrappy Italians punched their way to a 3-0 lead through the top of the 2nd, taking advantage of Jake Peavy’s wildness and a two-run single by Paul LoDuca. Meanwhile, the U.S., as if learning from the hare-like napping of the D.R. earlier, awoke in the bottom of that frame, batted around, and plated six off Carl Pavano. Dan Miceli entered and held the Americans to just one more run, but the 7-3 lead looked comfortable. Too comfortable, as feisty Italy added two in the 5th and another in the 7th to trim the lead to one and send Peavy to the showers after a lackluster performance. Keith Foulke dodged a bullet and Brad Lidge closed it out in the final two innings to preserve the win and stave off the round's second enormous upset. USA 7, Italy 6.

Game 5 - #4 Puerto Rico vs. #8 Canama
Another squad not looking to repeat the mistakes of the Dominicans was the Puerto Rican club. After Javier Vazquez retired the side in order, striking out two, in the top of the 1st, Carlos Beltran started the bottom of the frame off with a double and ended it with a groundout. In between, there were singles and walks galore as P.R. scored four. Vazquez dominated early, allowing just a Matt Stairs solo shot by the Canamaniacs through six. When Carlos Lee doubled home Jason Bay and was subsequently splated by a Justin Morneau sac fly, however, the Puerto Rican manager reached for the nearest antacid, aka Sierra Nevada barleywine. (At 10% ABV, it’s twelve quick, cold ounces of middle relief.) Soon enough, though, J.C. Romero settled down Canama, and Jose Valentin pummeled a two-run dinger, ending the dream run of those Cinderellas from Canama City. Puerto Rico 6, Canama 3.

Game 6 - #2 USA vs. #3 Venezuela
Roger Clemens took the hill for the U.S., giving a kind of confidence to their skipper that is usually reserved for folks named Custer and Steinbrenner. Sure enough, five batters into the game, the Americans trailed by a 3-0 margin, thanks to a Miguel Cabrera double and a Magglio Ordonez home run. Clemens finally stopped trying to figure out what the nickname “Venezuelan Jennings” meant and went to work, allowing a handful of hits but keeping any further runs from crossing. Meanwhile, the ever-fading US bats struggled to produce runs. A Jim Thome (who was a candidate for the ill-fated French team) double scored Jason Varitek in the 5th, and solo shots by Adam Dunn and Jeff Kent helped them break through and knot it up in the 6th. In the bottom of the 8th, Lance Berkman doubled on a pitch from Ugie Urbina to score pinch-runner Juan Pierre (also a Team France guy) with the go-ahead run. Joe Nathan snuffed out Team V. in the 9th without incident. A hard-fought win, but the hitting woes set the stage for an otherwise startling result the next day. USA 4, Venezuela 3.

Game 7 – The WBC Final - #2 USA vs. #4 Puerto Rico
Randy Johnson took the mound for the Americans in the final, taking on Joel Pineiro and the Puerto Ricans. While the Big Eunuch had gone through a painful 2004 of allowing next to zero runs but getting absolutely zero in support, he would be backed up this go-around by this line-up:

Jeter SS
Varitek C
Helton 1B
Thome DH
Dunn LF
Edmonds CF
Berkman RF
Rolen 3B
Kent 2B
(Kind of makes you wonder why Matt Holliday, Vernon Wells, and Michael Barrett are starting games for the US in the real world, huh?)

Anyway, for all of that power in the line-up, the game still takes shrewd management (a little) and luck (a lot). The Americans got an abundance of the former and not a whit of the latter. Joel Pineiro cruised, walking a few here and there but escaping damage. At the same time, Randy Johnson mowed down the Puerto Ricans like an out-of-control El Camino, save one. In a performance to be duplicated in a World Series in the near future, Carlos Beltran recorded the only two hits for his team. Fortunately for the P.R. squad, one was a home run.

Meanwhile, Pineiro was unhittable. Literally. The U.S. hadn’t notched a single hit when Pineiro walked the bases full with one out in the 8th. Then Helton popped up and Thome fanned, perpetuating the dearth of hits and nearing the brink. After Brad Lidge eliminated a threat in the 9th, the Yanks (not those Yanks, though their line-up may look like this before too long) garnered a two-out walk, but Scott (0-for-the-WBC) Rolen grounded weakly to third to seal the no-hitter for Joel Pineiro. Read that again: Joel Pineiro no-hit the American team to win the Strat-o-World Baseball Classic for Puerto Rico. Yikes. Puerto Rico 1, USA 0.

What have we learned? The lessons are plentiful.
1. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
2. The tortoise and hare story has real-life examples.
3. Randy Johnson’s bad luck follows him everywhere.
4. “On paper” is a silly expression best left to instructions for housebreaking dogs.
5. Total Wine really is an adult candy store.
6. Carlos Beltran is poised for an amazing year.
7. ARod was banned because of his wishy-washy Dominican/American status. Barry Bonds was banned because of the obvious controversy surrounding his being an enormous jackass. The US could have definitely used them both, and yet nobody complained afterwards.
8. There is a better brand of baseball being played in Canama and Mexicubombia than anyone had ever thought, I promise you.
9. Despite playing the advanced version, we could not account for some factors, like park size, day versus night, and turf versus grass; our games were played at night in a standard park on natural grass, and the dizzying outcomes reflect that.
10. A handful of injuries were sustained, including a pair of serious wounds to Canama’s best players against D.R. (making their win even more heroic); unlike any experienced in the “real” WBC, these will have no effects upon regular-season play, which is why this method is, in fact, the best approach to determining the world’s best baseball team.

Congrats to Team Puerto Rico. There’s little chance the guys on your television will be able to match the excitement of our tournament, but it’s probably still worth watching just in case.

A Word from Our Sponsor

I saw baseball on television for the first time yesterday, straining through a barside smokescreen to catch a glimpse of the season's initial spring training contests. Never fails - the sight of green grass mowed into diamond patterns sets my cold-fatigued soul to smiling. This morning, I heard birds singing, and smelled just a whiff of that renewed earth scent - could've been my daughter's dirty diaper, but I'm going with the Baseball Poets.

You won't see much in the way of season previews in this space, as Whit and I generally traffic in the absurd and leave the hardcore analysis to much smarter and more industrious types. We'll gear it up over the next several weeks, and come out firing on at least 1 cylinder come late March. In the meantime, please visit our unofficial sponsor, Narragansett Beer. Unofficial (and somewhat unilateral, though I'm certain Whit will approve) because the good folks at Narragansett have no idea that we're touting them and frankly, would probably rather we didn't. However, Whit and I have a friend from our less respectable days who is a part of the rebirth of 'Gansett, and we just want to do our part to help out. Jimmy, if we're violating any copyrights, send Whit an email and he'll make restitution.

In the words of the late, legendary Curt Gowdy, "Hey neighbor, grab a 'Gansett".

Breaking News II: The Sequel

I was going to reply to Rob (and ECA Mike) with merely a Comment, but my sentiments were upgraded to an actual post after I started ranting. Here goes:

For the record, Mike, I am going through the same exact battle I do every year. Last year it was documented that I thought the Mets were a .500 team, but I settled on 83 wins. I listened to Rob's harangue about Pedro and Beltran and how I was sandbagging. I then upped it to 85 and still took grief.

83-79.

This year I get to hear about Wagner and Delgado and how I am sandbagging again. To focus on the stars is to once again ignore large holes at 2B and RF (expounded upon nicely at ECA). It's also to pretend that the rotation of Pedro/Glavine/Trachsel/Heilman/Zambrano (or whatever it turns out to be) matches up well with Schilling/Beckett/Wells/Clement/Arroyo (or Papelbon or whomever). Yes, Schilling's been hurt, but so has Pedro, to the point where he's forced to wear a special shoe to alleviate his degenerating toe condition, and oh yeah, many think his shoulder is held together by the labrum equivalent of celery strings. I won't let my prognostications for the season plummet because of a horrible what-if scenario, but I will temper my own enthusiasm about the Mets' fortunes.

Meanwhile, it seems the Braves are engaging in the age-old tactic of trying to defer the target on their backs to someone else, damning the Mets to the hell of overhype and overconfidence with some shallow praise. It's been a decade and a half since the Braves were true underdogs in the division (the playoffs are another story, heh heh), and they're itching to be labeled anything but the front-runner. Atlanta loved the melodrama of the miracle Bobby Cox, Leo Mazzone, John Schuerholz and the rest pulled out last year, and if anyone in this wily web (consisting of Rob, me, and the city of Atlanta) is sandbagging, they are. The Braves certainly stand in the way of both the division and the Vegas-laid 91-win threshold for the Mets.

Rob may have been swayed by those over/under figures, or he may just be craftier than we give him credit. But 91 Met wins also reflect a skew for the growing fan-swayed consensus that the Mets are the team to beat in the NL East, if not the NL. Likewise, the Sox are more than glad to shed some of the pressure from the Nation with a 10-game deficit to the Yankees in expectations, and Rob is glad to apply that 90/91-win figure to the Case Bet.

The Bottom Line: if Rob is just stingy and looking for free beer (God bless him), we can keep this bet at even. But my baseball judgment says that the Sox should win 93 games and the Mets should win 89, maybe 90.

Let the squawking commence.

Breaking News

After a protracted negotiation marked by brinksmanship from both parties, escalating tensions, and one man's admission that he was grocery shopping when the Federal government expected him to be "working from home", Whitney and I have reached agreement on the terms of this season's Red Sox/Mets case bet.

And the verdict is: Even. We're going pick 'em this season, which is either evidence that the Mets have had a banner offseason, or the Sox are poised for a steep declince. Boy, I hope it's the former.

To recap, if the Sox win 1 more game than the Mets in 2006, I'll be the gleeful recipient of a case of something alcoholic and New Englandy, like Harpoon IPA (my current ale of choice). If the Mets top the Sox in the standings, Whit gets a case of Brooklyn Brewing Co. product. If the 2 teams are tied, we do upside-down kegstands until we pass out in a pile of our own sick.

Game 6

There have been a handful of mutterings around MLC about a possible new movie entitled Game 6 about the '86 Series. I know Rob used to dread this topic, but after the salve of 2004 was applied, he might have found some inner peace when it comes to this subject.

In truth, even objectively this project sounds very intriguing. Here's what I heard -- I know, don't believe everything you hear, but it was a reliable source and it does make a lot of sense. Check it out:

It's going to be a feature film on the '86 season. Filming around Shea begins next week. Reports out of Hollywood indicate they've tapped Oscar-winner Paul Giamatti to be Gary Carter, Denzel Washington as Doc Gooden, and Todd Bridges as Darryl Strawberry. Keith Hernandez will play himself, convinced that anyone else would "butcher me."

Horatio Sanz was recently cast as Sid Fernandez, and MVP Ray Knight will be played by Corbin Bernsen, since the writers found his character of Roger Dorn to be "eerily similar." Former Young Guns co-stars Emilio Estevez and Lou Diamond Phillips will reunite to portray Wally Backman and Jesse Orosco, respectively.

Reportedly, either Ving Rhames or Malcolm-Jamal Warner will tackle Kevin Mitchell, maybe both. Meanwhile, the part of Mookie Wilson was a highly coveted one for obvious reasons. Danny Glover was deemed a little too old, Chris Tucker lacked the "veteran resonance" Mookie displayed, and Wesley Snipes had "too much Willie Mays Hayes baggage." The gutsy decision to cast Jamie Foxx in the role has Oscar written all over it. Foxx is currently spending 12 hours a day with cinematic batting stance specialist Dick Helms to nail down Wilson's unique plateside manner and the Game 6 pitch dodge that will climax the film.

Ron Darling will be a computer-generated animation with James Woods adding the voice.

Filling out the rest of the Mets clubhouse are Billy Dee Williams as mid-season trade George Foster, Benjamin Bratt as Bobby Ojeda, and Hilary Swank as a pre-juice Lenny Dykstra.

Kevin Costner, desperate for any baseball-related movie, apparently pitched himself as being able to do "a kick-ass HoJo," but was turned down for every role on the 25-man roster. He later accepted a role as Peanut Vendor #2. Howard Johnson will instead be portrayed by Pauly Shore.

Rounding out the rest of the Mets' side of the film will be John Ratzenberger as skipper Davey Johnson, Tom Hanks in a dual role as Mr. Met/Tim Teufel, and Leslie Nielsen as Enrico Pallazzo.

-----
Perhaps Rob has some inside scoop on who theyll get to play the Sox. I haven't heard any specific names being thrown around except Tom Arnold as Clemens, and just something about "a whole lotta moustaches."

Bloggers and Readers

Hard to get terribly excited about baseball when the thermometer reads 36 and the view from my palatial office features grey drizzle and afternoon traffic. I haven't had a cc of caffeine all day, which adds a dull throb in my temples to the localized pain from a dental procedure conducted this morning. True professionals, though, grit their teeth and fight through the pain and apathy to deliver for their fans.

Just a few stretching exercises today before the whole squad shows up:

2006 will mark the first year in the history of MLC that both the Sox and the Mets have reasonable expectations of success. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the Mets are probably more likely to win their division than are the Sox. The New Yorkers significantly enhanced their roster during the offseason, and while the Sox will put a quality team on the field, their competition got stronger and deeper. And if you think I'm only saying this to tilt the odds in the annual case bet, well, you're not as dumb as you look.

I haven't read the Globe or Herald today - intentionally. The Sox have excused Manny Ramirez from the first few days of Spring Training, permitting him to come to camp on March 1st. Dollars to donuts Shaughnessy's in full uproar about Manny's prima donna routine, facts be damned.

The departures of Kevin Millar and Johnny Damon leave the Sox without a native English speaking class clown. Bronson Arroyo auditioned for the part in a NESN interview yesterday, but he's just not...how shall I say this...all that bright. And when you lag Millar and Damon in that category, well, you should feel pretty damn blessed that you can throw a baseball, because the economic viability of mediocre guitar-playing stoners from Key West is questionable.

For whatever reason, baseball season still seems a looooong way off, even though it's less than 6 weeks from Opening Day. I'm headed to Whit's new abode in a few weeks for our own version of Spring Training, so I'll have about 4 weeks to allow my liver to recover before the season starts.

Fixing The Classic

Rob mentioned the World Baseball Classic, or WBC (for folks who aren’t boxing aficionados). I’ve gone back and forth on how I feel about this event, and I’ve come to what I feel is a rational solution for all parties.

Initially, without having delved too deeply into the matter, I agreed with my cohort’s comment that the WBC was something contrived. Perhaps because Bud Selig was involved with its promotion (I swear, he could make a proclamation against the Holocaust and instinctively, we’d defend the Nazis), or perhaps because using our professionals in other international competitions has waned rather than piqued my interest, I just couldn’t get enthused. Upon further reflection, however, I began to see the merit.

First of all, what with that pinnacle of responsibility the IOC clipping baseball from the Olympic Games for the foreseeable future, there is actually a need for a World Cup of baseball. Until baseball edges out handball, pong, and the other mainstays (not rugby, of course) and wedges its way back into the Games, the WBC will have to suffice.

Additionally, as Major League Baseball’s international quotient becomes more and more substantial, a competition broken down by country of origin (some "origins" more distant than others, Signore Piazza) becomes increasingly intriguing. While plenty of red-blooded, xenophobic middle Americans who are tired of pro ballplayers waving their flags all over the U.S. of A. just want to see the American club squash the other countries and re-assert its dominance in the sport our forefathers invented, there is actually some value to such games. We’ll get a geography lesson and a better sense of many players’ homelands, particularly for guys we categorically label "Hispanics" but who are in actuality Dominicans, Venezuelans, Puerto Ricans, and Panamanians, among others. We’ll get to bear witness to a legion of ballplayers we automatically associate with greed, selfishness, and a skewed economic system simply play baseball for their country. Okay, it’s a far cry from true "patriotism," but there’s more altruism and pure passion for the sport in a handful of WBC contests than in 162 regular season games. And finally, we’ll just get to see something out of the ordinary. A jumbled pile of new teammates, rosters, schedules, venues, and outcomes.

If it’s well-organized, well-represented, and well-scheduled, this could be even better than the Olympics, since summer games conflict with the MLB season. Ay, there’s the rub. The scheduling – right in the middle of spring training – could make this the disaster it's being depicted as in the media. As Rob pointed out, any injury that occurs in the WBC will turn the fans against the event. Not only that – a WBC player who tires down the stretch in September will also be cause for resentment. It’s a no-win situation for the players; either they aren’t in regular season shape and risk torn hammies and shoulders, or they are and risk fatigue toward the end of seven months of play, travel, and spotlights. There’s no good time to schedule this tournament, but spring training, when clubs are figuring out who will and won’t be part of their season, is clearly not the time.

So what’s the answer? Fear not, lads and lasses, Dr. Lester has the panacea for your World Baseball Classic jones, and it comes in a 1’x3’ box for about $30 or $40. Yes, in lieu of actually trotting out each country’s best players – or not, since they’re realizing the risk and fleeing like rats from a sinking ship lately – and jeopardizing their 2006 futures for an exhibition, we’ll ensure the safety of the individuals while accurately determining which country sports the finest baseballers in all the land.

That’s right. Rob Russell and I are going to sit down with Strat-o-matic Baseball, each of the 2004 players, a legal pad, and two cases of beer. We’ll divvy up the squads by nationality and compile teams to represent some fair competition. (I don’t think that the Netherlands, for example, can compete on its own, so maybe we pool a few nations together based on proximity, language similarities, and peaceful co-existence throughout history.) Then we’ll script lineups, manage some games, and declare a winner. But let’s face it, compared to the way it’s actually going to go down, everyone will be a winner with our solution.

We’ll let you know how it goes.

Long Tossing

Shaking off the rust from a long winter's layoff, ingesting lots of masking agents just in case the new MLB steroid policy extends to bloggers, and stretching the little-used muscles in my brain as pitchers and catchers start to head south:

I'm mildly interested in the World Baseball Classic, mostly because I'm a sucker for international competitions, even contrived ones. That said, I really don't see any way for this to work, especially given the timing. If Johan Santana blows out his elbow in March pitching for Venezuela, or Miguel Tejada gets hit in the wrist by some Italian-American kid, Bud and his boys will be swamped under an avalanche of negative public opinion. Hell, it might even get Wayne Gretzky's wife off the front page of the Sports section for a few hours. I get that baseball's trying to open new markets, but the risks seem to outweigh the rewards.

The Hub is all atwitter about the possibility that Roger Clemens may come back to finish his career in Boston. 2 years ago, I'd be revving up a fully righteous indignance, but today I'm struck by my utter indifference. For starters, I think his agents are using Boston and New York to drive up the price for the Astros - I'd be stunned if Rajah actually leaves home. And if he does come to Boston, he'd likely not join the team until June, and he'd only show up on the day of his scheduled start. So I could safely pretend that he wasn't really on the team 80+% of the time. And on the days he did start, I could focus really intently on the catcher, batter, and umpire, which would improve my understanding of the tools of ignorance - in more ways than one. So, as you can see, I'm completely at peace with this news.

Nomar Garciaparra's not a Mexican. In other news, General Francissimo Franco is still dead.

In local baseball news, the Nationals have offered Sammy Sosa a contract. That's just what the nation's capital needs in the wake of a bizarre stadium lease negotiation, a roster with Sosa, Jose Guillen, and Alfonso Soriano competing to see who can create the most resentment in the ranks of their teammates. I hear Jim Rome's on the short list of color commentator candidates.

I'm on a pitch count, just like the World Baseball Classic participants. Whitney's on his way with more pointless drivel.

Paging Mr. Hagman

So I'm hanging out in Patrick Duffy's bathroom (don't ask), and he comes out of the shower and asks me how I'm doing.

"Not bad", I reply. "How are you?"

His response: "It's the damnedest thing. I went to bed last night certain that Theo Epstein left the Red Sox 3 months ago, walking away in a gorilla suit mumbling something about Misery Loves Company being dormant. Then, I wake up this morning and find out that it was all a dream; Theo's the GM and Executive VP of the Sox, and Whitney's in mid-season form."

"Huh. Guess you picked the wrong time to stop sniffing glue."

Clearing the Cobwebs

My hibernation is over, sooner than I’d hoped and expected. It wasn’t a gentle rousing that woke me, but a horrific nightmare whose lasting image still shakes me.

I dreamed that Jorge Julio was a Met.

It’s curious, even to myself, that this particular transgression, er, transaction was the one to stir me to dust off the keyboard. As I’ve written before, I consider Major League Baseball’s offseason to be mine as well, and I appreciate the time away from all things New York Mets. Half my year is filled with the dashing of hopes and the gnashing of teeth; the other six months are mine own to fill however I choose, says I, even at the expense of this blog’s dedicated readership.

After every baseball season ends – with the Mets and me on the outside looking in, naturally – I prefer to scale back my constant focus on the squad and the damage such focus incurs upon my being to merely occasional, supervised visits into my subconscious, always accompanied by court-appointed grains of salt. Cursory scans of the Transactions column in the sports section; quick trips around the horn of Mets blogicians to ascertain as much of the Township’s vibe as I can in a 6-4-3 instant; the briefest of glimpses at the current roster and a flash of a thought of what the Opening Day lineup might resemble. That’s all I’ll permit myself, and that’s why there’s little to warrant a post at MLC in the wintertime.

Why don’t I invest more in the hot stove chatter? There’s certainly plenty of offseason observation and speculation among baseball analysts, salaried and otherwise. It’s can’t-lose time for predictions and definitive statements; with any sort of result months away, misguided assumptions and blowhard assertions – basically putting the "ass" in "assessments" – will be long forgotten by the time they’re disproved. Meanwhile, dead-on forecasts can be easily retrieved electronically later, so egos can be self-stroked with a few strokes of the keys. (The jury finds the defendant Whitney guilty on all charges.) And baseball is baseball is baseball, so even if there aren’t plates being crossed and scorebooks being inked, surely there’s enjoyment to be extracted from daily discourse on the subject.

Though there is some truth in all of this, it’s just not enough to shake me from my routine of slumbering through the winter months and warming up sometime during Spring Training. Consider what I seemingly slept through, unperturbed. The Mets:

• Dumped Braden Looper, Doug Mientkiewicz, and Kaz Ishii. This move eliminated a bundle of frustration for me in ’06, mostly via not having to type Doug’s last name.
• Sent Mike Cameron to San Diego for Xavier Nady. Seemed like a precursor to something, but apparently not.
• Received Carlos Delgado for Mike Jacobs and Yusmeiro Petit. This deal chafes like leather chaps; the Mets nearly claimed Delgado last year in free agency, but now they have to deal two of their finest prospects for him after Florida rented him for one year of a heartily back-loaded deal. The Fish ate the Mets’ lunch on this one, and here’s hoping Mike Jacobs’ swing isn’t achingly "beautiful" (as the Mets announcers waxed) as he punishes the Metmen 19 times a year.
• Signed Billy Wagner to a high-priced, overlong deal with questions about his long-term health. And I couldn’t be more pleased. The Mets have needed a stopper since pre-decay John Franco. My doctor has advised me against it, otherwise I’d also mention Armando Benitez here.
• Damn.
• Nabbed Paul LoDuca from the (not-long-for-) Florida Marlins for a couple of as-yet insignificants. This one might be redemptive for the Delgado swindle.
• Signed Jose Valentin, Julio Franco, and Bret Boone. In an unrelated comment, Jerry Garcia’s old bluegrass side band Old and In the Way is worth digging up if you have half an inclination.
• Traded Jae Seo to L.A. for a couple of middling relievers. Sorry, that should read "middle relievers."

None of these additions – and additions by subtraction – spurred me to comment. The New York Mets have thrust themselves into the forefront of the National League outlook for 2006, and I have little to say about it. I’m sorry.

There are a couple of things at work here. First of all, my chatter during months April through September is idle enough, but MLC content outside that timeline is beyond idle. Speculation about the possible outcomes of baseball season when we’re so far away from Opening Day simply seems silly. The Mets’ moves have made them a January contender, and my further analysis of it isn’t worth the paper that technology has made obsolete. I can’t get excited about their prospects yet, as too much can happen between now and the first pitch of the season. Meanwhile, the venom I usually have at season’s end has now faded. I currently possess neither the naïve optimism nor the bitter cynicism that do battle every day amid my in-season posts. And so this site, at least my half of it, becomes blatantly outdated while the rest of the Mets ‘sphere carries on diligently. (Even our comrades at East Coast Agony updated their site, promising more action, and I couldn’t be tempted to follow suit.)

Another substantial reason that my enthusiasm about the bevy of acquisitions isn’t sharper is the vague uneasiness I’m increasingly feeling about the whole direction of the team. It’s not that the Mets aren’t improving the talent level (at least outside of the rotation) and dedicating themselves to winning; they are. It’s more that they’re doing it as if following a particular blueprint that has not only proven fallible, but also makes me cringe at its very mention. Meet the Mets: your new New York Yankees.

There’s a Catch-22 associated with the new era of economics in Major League Baseball. You bemoan the inequity of the system, vilify the haves, and romanticize the have-nots. Then your team decides they’ve had enough of this messing around and ponies up some cash to contend, and your team becomes everything you thought was wrong with the league.

[Well, truth be told, the Mets have long been a "have" in this league, but their ineptitude with all those millions of dollars made them the court jester instead of the evil emperor. It even gave some sort of pseudo-credibility to Yankee supporters who pointed to the Mets as an example of why big bucks don’t automatically buy you a title. Then the Yankees unwittingly gave themselves all of the support for that claim they needed by failing to secure a trophy since the Clinton administration.]

So the Mets, like the Red Sox before them, realized that for all of the outcry about the need for a financial revolution in this sport, such change is not even on the distant horizon. With SportsNet New York gearing up for this season (more on this soon), Mets ownership will find itself even more solvent, hence the shopping spree before the holidays. But as any fans of the game can tell you, there is smart spending and then there is the formula that has gotten the Yanks into – and bounced from – the playoffs for five straight years. Fat, lengthy deals with big-name, big-question players; more egregious, the trading off of future stars for a boost to the current club: this is what looms over Shea for me, and it tempers the excited anticipation of the new season.

These are the ponderous ponderings that have bounced around my brain in these chilly months, but they and I have lacked the focus to make them meet the pages of Misery Loves Company until now. One piece of news has crystallized things for me, however. It made it all so clear and refreshed my outlook entirely.

• Acquired RHP Jorge Julio and RHP John Maine from the Orioles in exchange for RHP Kris Benson.

In one fell swoop, the Mets went from the new M.O. of freely mortgaging the future to acquire the brightest stars of the present to the old school routine of bungling deals and misreading the needs of the team. Kris Benson, selected more than once by Peter Gammons as a pre-season Cy Young winner, has never lived up to his billing, but he was still a very solid #3 pitcher in a not-very-solid Mets rotation. He and his charming wife depart for the Charm City in favor of John Maine and Jorge Julio. I’ll let Maine off the hook with a simple "minor league hero, major league zero" barb and say that his future is clouded at the moment. Meanwhile, Jorge Julio . . . deserves his own paragraph.

The scouting report on Jorge "Boo" Julio tells most of the story. His numbers have worsened with some regularity over the last few years. He throws hard, but painfully straight. The only mention of "movement" when it comes to his fastball refers to the pants-soiling he encounters in nearly every tight situation. And that’s what the reports don’t usually relay, what I’ve witnessed for several years while watching the pitiful Orioles. The bigger the game, the bigger the amount of pressure, the bigger Jorge Julio’s collapse. Baltimore hasn’t even had that many true pressure situations in recent years, but he’s left his mark on many of them. Here’s my interpretation of a Jorge Julio outing:

9th inning, up 2 runs.
1st batter: Walks.
2nd batter: Walks on 4 straight pitches.
3rd batter: Bunts to pitcher, who fires it into center field. Runner scores, runners on 1st and 3rd.
4th batter: Strikes out swinging. One out.
5th batter: Flies out to deepest center. Runner scores, tie game, two out.
6th batter: Puts 0-2 fastball into the mezzanine.

As Julio hits the showers, the PA belts out the usual refrain, "Me and Julio Down By Two Runs."

Maybe I’m being overly harsh, but he just reminds me way too much of a certain other reliever the Mets acquired from Baltimore once upon a time. Threw hard, crumpled under pressure, drove me to the brink of insanity. You remember him.

Anyway, I’m sure it’s not inherently obvious how another acquisition that’s sure to beget regret can brighten my stance on the Mets. I guess it comes down to the notion that the Mets have now placed themselves in not one but two positions which make me happy: they are in a definite position to challenge for the 2006 World Series trophy, and I am cautiously optimistic that their pursuit of that goal will enthrall me all the way; meanwhile, they are just as much in a position to receive even greater ridicule than we’ve hurled their way in a long time. If they do stumble and fall short of the goal, there’s so much fodder amidst that portly payroll that we’ll have scathing sarcasm and sardonic smiles a-plenty. Nobody will be immune, and lambastings will occur daily. It’ll be like Life of Brian. ("Crucifixion? Good. Out the door, line on the left.") You can poke but so much fun at the Kansas City Royals these days. But the marquee, hundred-million-dollar Mets? Oh, yeah.

Either way, it looks like fun for 2006, doesn’t it? Happy New Year, everyone.

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

I was wandering around on the information backroads this morning (because MLC certainly isn't an exit on the superhighway) and came across this cute little Yankee blog. Not terribly noteworthy (Hi kettle, I'm pot. You're black as shit.), but I did get a midwinter's emotional lift at Yankeefan's glee at the gnashing of teeth in the Nation over Johnny Rockstar's defection. Seems that Yankee Nation's traffic in schadenfreude has increased substantially over the past, oh I don't know, 14 months or so. How they must miss their disaffected superiority, gone now like so many hairs from Johnny Damon's head. Like memories of that first girl that really stole your heart, the 2004 postseason just keeps on coming back, and brings a smile every time.

Idiot

WWJDD? Take the money and strike a deal with the Devil, apparently.

I don't begrudge Johnny Damon his hard-earned right to make as much money as he possibly can during an elite professional athlete's limited window - hell, I may well have done the same thing as the erstwhile Sox center-fielder did yesterday, signing a 4-year, $52m deal with the Yankees. (I do take a bit of offense at his CYA press conference and at the fact that as recently as a year ago he publicly stated that he'd never take the money and go to New York.)

And I don't blame the Sox for not following the Yankees over that financial precipice - their 4-year, $40m offer was fair, if not truly market value in this Furcal-inflated spending season. They looked at Johnny Rockstar and saw a 32 year-old with an awful throwing arm and a more than passing resemblance to Bernie Williams and didn't want to be carting that corpse around Fenway in 3 years.

Neither of those things make this news any easier to take - I saw it last night on the ESPNews ticker and sat bolt upright in bed, exclaiming, "No!". I love(d) Johnny Damon. I loved his happy-go-lucky approach, his slaphappy little swing, the way he could just as easily bloop a ball over short as rocket one into the right-field bleachers in Yankee Stadium, the way he tracked fly balls and got to nearly everything - even if he had to use Manny Ramirez as a cutoff man, the way he stole bases efficiently and effectively, and far more importantly, the way he got my daughter interested in baseball.

My oldest daughter is 4 years old, and this morning I had to tell her that Johnny Damon plays for the Yankees now. "Why, Daddy? Why?", she asked me several times during breakfast. The whole $12m difference in salary is hard to explain to a kid, especially during The Wiggles. This evening, we renamed her pink Sox cap (the cap formerly known as her Johnny Damon Hat) - it's now her Trot Nixon Hat, at least until the Sox' right fielder gets traded this offseason. (I pushed for the Tizzle Hat, for what it's worth.)

In the parlance of SOSH, Johnny was 1 of the 25, and for that he'll always own a special place in my heart.

But Johnny Damon is also the first man to break my daughter's heart, and for that I hope he takes his $52m and makes Yankee fans longingly recall Bernie Williams' 2005 season. Enjoy your corporate haircut, Johnny - you're dead to me.

How 'bout a Little Something for the Effort?

So the Mets get Delgado, Wagner, et al and all the MLC community gets is a few comments from TJ? That's a helluva deal.

Hey There, Good Looking

We interrupt this winter-long slumber to gape at the Sox' recent headline-grabbing effort.

For a team without a GM, the Sox sure pulled off a dandy deal yesterday, grabbing 25 year-old stud righthander Josh Beckett from the Marlins for stud prospects Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez, and a lower-level arm. The Sox also got 3b Mike Lowell in the deal. Manny Ramirez and Bill Mueller, that bell tolls for thee.

My first reaction when I heard about the deal borders on heresy, but here goes: I see Beckett as Pedro Lite. For the second time in 8 years, the Sox have swung a deal for a young, potentially dominant power arm entering the prime of his career. I have no illusions that Josh Beckett will ever be Pedro Martinez, but he doesn't have to be. He just has to be Josh Beckett plus 40-50 more innings every year, and he doesn't have the Messiah pressure that was placed upon Pedro from Day 1 in Boston. Beckett's proven he has the makeup to withstand big game heat, pitching gems in the NLCS and World Series in 2002 - neutering the Yankees in the latter on short rest, no less. All he has to prove now is that he can eat a few more innings during the regular season, and with Curt Schilling as mentor for at least 1 year, I'd place odds on his ability to do just that.

While it places me squarely in the minority, I'm a little bit excited about Mike Lowell, too. The erstwhile slugger put the p.u. in putrid last season, but his dead-pull stroke in combo with Fenway's inviting left-field environs may be just the ticket to his redemption. Couple that with his reputation for hard work, and the Sox may be able to catch lightning in a bottle next year. And if not, we'll have someone to replace Kevin Millar as the object of the Nation's scorn.

Finally, a bit of good news in an off-season of discontent. And for what it's worth, I'm still waiting for Theo to walk back in that door, and I will until they drag some stiff up to a podium to announce his hiring. Please Lord let it not be Jim Bowden.

Thud

That sound you hear is the figurative jaw of Red Sox Nation dropping at yesterday's news that Theo Epstein has walked away from the Sox' GM position. There's a wellspring of speculation surrounding the issue, but no really good facts, so I'll refrain from commenting on the circumstances. I won't refrain from commenting on how much this sucks.

The Sox are left in quite a lurch a week before the league's winter meetings. Heir apparent (in retrospect, because nobody thought Theo needed an heir for say, 30 years, or so) Josh Byrnes is the new GM in Arizona, and smart money has the entire Sox front office in a land grab to join him now that Theo's out. Senior management must now rebuild a front office, develop an offseason plan, and execute said plan. Starting essentially from scratch. Why do I feel like I'll be looking at the Butch Hobson Era, redux?

Theo was one of us - a really smart, really driven, really lucky one of us, but one of us nonetheless. He had the job that every red-blooded male in, from, or of New England wanted once we realized we weren't going to make the Sox starting lineup. He's 31 years old and the undisputed King of Boston. And he walked away. Damn. Just, damn.