Steve Strasburg, Pink Jerseys and the Derek Jeter Saga

The following is a guest post from David Meadvin, who previously penned "A common-sense approach to contracts" and "The Strasburg experience from someone who was there" for Yankeeist.

Two days after Stephen Strasburg made his record-breaking debut for the Washington Nationals this past summer, my friend's one-year-old girl was tottering around the house in a brand-new #37 jersey. She wasn’t alone. In fact, I was at that first start vs. the Pirates on June 8th. Before the last out was recorded, the line to the team’s clubhouse shop stretched practically around the concourse, and the next day, it seemed like everyone in the DC area was wearing one.

I should be clear off the bat: I’m confident that before long, Derek Jeter and the Yankees will agree to a new contract that’ll keep the captain in pinstripes for the rest of his career. But if his free agency evolved from a cat-and-mouse game between the team and their franchise player to a real bidding war with multiple teams, I wouldn’t be shocked. The baseball media who assume that it’s a foregone conclusion that Jeter re-signs with the Yanks are missing a huge part of the equation.

What does this have to do with Steve Strasburg? Running a baseball team in 2010 really means running two separate -- and sometimes conflicting -- businesses. The first is the business of producing a quality on-field product. The second is building a team that makes the most possible money for the team’s owners and shareholders.

Yahoo! Sports speculated that the Strasburg debut was worth at least $1.5 million in additional revenue for the Nationals, based on additional ticket sales, concessions and parking. They predicted that Strasburg’s rookie season alone might generate enough revenue to more than pay his 4-year, $15 million deal.

The prevalent view that a Jeter/Yankees deal is a foregone conclusion is probably right on the baseball side of the ledger, but might be wrong on the business side. True, the current 3-year, $45 million deal on the table would almost certainly pay Jeter more than he produces on the field. According to Fangraphs, Jeter was only worth $9.8 million on the field in 2010, and that total should continue to decline as he ages into his late 30s.

But what about the business side of the ledger? Nate Silver considered this a few days ago and concluded:

"How much those off-the-field contributions are worth is hard to say. Baseball statisticians are just starting to get a handle on how to value on-the-field performance, and there has been little work done on the attendance and marketing premium provided by popular players."

But one thing’s for certain: Derek Jeter is worth more outside the foul lines to almost any team besides the Yankees. All those pink Jeter #2 shirts the Yanks sold to every teenage girl in the Tri-State area? They won’t go out and buy another one if Jeter re-ups for three more years. Much of the merchandising value Jeter has for the Yanks has already been realized. Same with ticket sales: the day the new deal is announced, you won’t see a surge in 2011 ticket sales (nor, I would suspect, would you see a dramatic drop in sales if Jeter departs).

But let’s look at it another way. The Giants are known to have contacted Jeter’s agent. The Nationals apparently have money to spend and could use a veteran face of the franchise. Maybe Jeter wants to return home to Michigan, and the Tigers always seem to have money to throw around. If one of these teams -- 0or almost any other -- announced that they had signed Jeter, they would score the PR win of the century. Ticket sales would skyrocket. And there’d be an entire new city of teenage girls to buy those pink shirts.

Maybe it would take a 4-year, $80 million deal to get it done. Would that kind of money make sense from an on-field performance measure? Heck no. But it just might pay for itself in ticket sales and merchandising. The value of bringing the sport’s most beloved and recognizable face to your city can’t be understated, yet it seems like most observers of these contract negotiations are all but ignoring it.

Not every team will see it this way, but all it takes is one for these contract talks to get interesting. In a sense I admire Brian Cashman’s hardline stance that Jeter’s agent should talk to other teams if he doesn’t like the Yanks’ offer. It shows a radically new tactic in the aftermath of the absurd extension the team gave Alex Rodriguez after his opt-out tantrum. Cashman’s poker face is impressive, but all it takes is one adventurous team to call his bluff.

By night, David Meadvin is a diehard Yankees fan and Yankeeist reader. By day, he is president of a Washington, DC speechwriting and communications firm, Inkwell Strategies.

Negotiating with that other Yankee legend

Note from Matt: Hey all! I’m hoping everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday; I know I sure did! After a couple of gravy-saturated hours of gluttony, I idled away the rest of my afternoon on the couch watching football. By the third quarter of the Cowboys/Saints' game, I might as well of had tryptophan circulating intravenously throughout my body.

Anyway, I realize I haven’t contributed much material over the past two weeks and for that, I apologize. Work has been relentless of late as 2011’s first quarter rapidly approaches. Then last week, despite being on vacation, I found my time completely preoccupied with traveling and family obligations. Fortunately, now that the madness has subsided somewhat, I can get back to writing about the Yankees. Thanks for your patience.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably rolled your eyes on occasion in exasperation as Derek Jeter's saga rages on. At this point, all the non-news being disseminated throughout the media has become more monotonous than a poorly-scripted sitcom. I am unsure as to whether Larry or Mike will chime in on the situation, but I'm not particularly interested until something tangible occurs. What does intrigue me though is the similar circumstance (and seeming disinterest) of another Yankee legend who'll soon be transitioning out, Mariano Rivera.

Once again, the most prolific closer in baseball history has managed to evade the proverbial spotlight. Except unlike Jeter, Mo isn’t returning from a season marked by all-time lows. At age 40, Mo produced a 1.80 ERA (238 ERA+, 2.81 FIP, 3.65 xFIP) and a 0.833 WHIP through 60 innings of work. He allowed only two home runs (good for an impressive 0.3 HR/9 ratio) which is especially desirable given the friendly offensive confines of the new stadium. According to B-Ref, he was worth a 3.0 WAR (Fangraphs wasn’t quite as generous, listing Mo at a 1.7 fWAR). This production came at the not-so-humble price of $15M.

Apparently, the closer is seeking a 2/$36M commitment from the Yankees for his services going forward. Granted, Mariano has mastered the art of mitigating hitter effectiveness (career .210/.263/.290 opposing triple slash) while simultaneously posting epic career postseason results (0.71 ERA/0.766 WHIP/139.2 IP). Make no mistake though; this is a staggeringly high price tag even for the richest team in baseball. Even if Yankee Brass is capable of lowering the salary to $16M (that'd "only" be a $1M raise), he'd still be enormously expensive. I'm sure Mo's agent will cite the age-old adage, "you get what you pay for." Yet, can you think of another closer even remotely close in salary? I certainly can't blame Mo for trying to earn the maximum amount, but I also cannot accept the offer as a financially fiscal solution. Hence the eminent conundrum -- at what point does talent cease to warrant the cost? At what point does iconic status translate into excessive burden?

Of course, the benefit is not without risk. Rivera has experienced lingering pain in his shoulder. According to Fangraphs, Mo’s infamous cutter has been steadily declining in terms of velocity and horizontal movement since his 2008 surgery. I was also surprised to learn that after posting a K/9 rate of 9.34 in 2007, 9.81 in 2008, and 9.77 in 2009, this stat fell rather precipitously to 6.75 in 2010. While the strikeout rate isn’t totally alarming in and of itself, it’s not exactly a point of conversation one ideally wants to have when considering an older pitcher preparing for another jaunt in a hitter-friendly park, in a hitter-laden league.

Regardless of what the Yankees choose to do on the Mariano front, one simple point remains static. There is not really a better (available) external option. Names like Rafael Soriano have been (and will continue to be) tossed around until Mariano is resigned. Realistically, guys like Soriano also mandate a small fortune along with a significant contract duration (not to mention the draft picks!). A ridiculous precedent was set earlier this offseason when the Tigers elected to sign Joaquin Benoit for 3/$16M. I don’t consider Benoit “elite,” but I have no doubt that his contract is indicative of what’s to come for quality bullpen arms. Perhaps a better point of reference might be Jonathan Papelbon, who earned $9.35M in 2010 and is set for a potential raise via arbitration despite deflated peripheral stats. Young, quality, dynamic hurlers simply do not come cheap.

Honestly, I’d have to assume there is almost no chance of Mo landing anywhere other than in pinstripes and I wouldn't want it any other way. On a more pragmatic note, the Yankees need a closer. More importantly, the Yankees want a dominant, proven closer who is capable of representing the imposing Metallica lyrics synonymous with the ninth inning. On the other side of the coin, Mariano needs a home and certainly wants to remain in pinstripes. However, he’s an athlete insisting on a big payday. Hell, there’s even a chance he’ll be on par with El Capitán in terms of salary. Just like Jeter, Rivera realizes the relationship with the Yankees is symbiotic and yet a compromise will surely come at great expense.

Like many of you, I’ll be elated when this discussion is also over. I’ll feel much more comfortable once I know the Yankees have resigned the greatest closer in baseball history. Like many of you, I’ll also rue the day Mo becomes mortal. Let’s just hope it doesn’t happen while he’s earning an obscene amount of cash. Otherwise, the storyline will mirror that of his counterpart even more closely.

2010 Season in Review: Phil Hughes

In the history of Yankeeist, only two players have been tagged in more posts: CC Sabathia, with 78, and Alex Rodriguez, with 77. Phil Hughes is third, having been tagged (coincidentally enough) 65 times. Of course, those tallies only account for the posts in which we bothered to affix their names to the labels at the bottom; in reality those three have appeared in many more Yankeeist posts, but the category tallies are a reasonable benchmark.

However, what those tallies don't account for is that (as many of you already know) I've been writing about Phil Hughes for just under three years now, having developed -- like pretty much every other Yankee fan who spends way too much time on the Internet -- an affinity for the young hurler after first reading about the ridiculous promise he carried way back when the Yankees first drafted him in 2004.

One of my most exciting moments as a Yankee fan was hearing word that Hughes was being tabbed to make his Major League debut back in 2007. Though the game on April 26 was a bit of a rude awakening for young Phil, there were still plenty of things to be excited about, and no one expected the youngster to come up and flat-out dominate right out of the gate. Only, he actually did in his very next start. On the fateful night of May 1, 2007, Hughes tantalized us all with 6 1/3 innings of no-hit ball in Arlington, his bid coming to an end on a pulled hamstring after a pitch to Mark Teixeira. Hughes would miss several months, and got knocked around during his return in August (6.40 ERA, 5.25 FIP) before becoming a critical asset to the Yankees during their stretch run bid for a Wild Card berth in the last month of the season, pitching to a magnificent 2.73 ERA (4.12 FIP) in the final month of the season. Hughes also picked up his first career postseason victory in relieving an ailing Roger Clemens in Game 3 of that year's ALDS (a game I'll never forget), and ended the year on about as positive a note as one could hope for the youngest pitcher in Major League Baseball.

We're all familiar with Hughes' injury-riddled and disappointing 2008 campaign, and of course his rebirth as a lights-out 8th-inning guy in the 2009 championship campaign. Prior to the 2010 season officially getting underway, Hughes was announced as winner of the last rotation spot in Spring Training and Yankee fans were finally going to get an opportunity to see what Phil Franchise could do during his full season as a starting pitcher.

Here's how he fared:

As we discussed in both the Positive and Negative Storylines from the 2010 Season posts, Phil's season had its share of ups and downs, but on the whole has to be considered a success. With a season line of 4.19 ERA/4.25 FIP/4.33 xFIP, Phil was also one of the few starting pitchers in the American League to post a "what you see is what you get" season, as only four other hurlers carried ERAs within +/- 0.10 of their FIPs (Shaun Marcum, Jered Weaver, John Danks and Ricky Romero -- not a bad foursome to be grouped in with), ostensibly relegating luck out of the equation.

Phil of course got off to that banner start during the first two months of the season, lowering his ERA to a microscopic league-leading 1.38 after eight shutout innings in Detroit on May 12. Though his season was only six starts old, it was hard not to start to get carried away with visions of a season ERA in perhaps the low-threes. For what it's worth, the various projection systems pegged Phil for an FIP from anywhere from 3.35 to 3.98, a range which likely would've resulted in a season ERA below 4.00 -- more than respectable in the toughest division in baseball.

Unfortunately Phil gave up five runs in five innings to the BoSox the very next start, and followed that up with four runs to the Mets in 5 2/3 innings. Though he did finish May strongly, with 7 innings of two-run ball against Cleveland. Despite the unsightly 5.17 ERA in June, Hughes wasn't actually that bad that month; as his numbers were skewed by two lousy starts -- one against Houston (and he was actually one out away from completing six innings of one-run ball in that game before coughing up four straight runs on a Tommy Manzella two-run single and Kevin Cash two-run homer) and one against Seattle, which was one of his worst outings of the year (only 5 2/3 IP, six earned runs). Interesting that Hughes' struggles that month not only came against two of the worst teams in Major League Baseball, but two of the worst players in Major League Baseball (Cash's wOBA was .272; Manzella's .238).

Even Hughes' July wasn't terrible, though his numbers (5.52 ERA; 5.91 FIP) say it was, as his line took a hit primarily due to two bad outings. Phil finally started to show some significant improvement as the season wore on, and had a fine August (4.30 FIP) and a good September, even though again, the numbers don't quite bear that out. He had two bad starts and two great starts in the final month of the season, and those two stellar outings came as the team was trying its best to lock up its postseason berth, which went a long way toward easing the sting of the sub-par outings. In fact, Hughes was at his best in one of the biggest games of the season, helping to stave off the charging Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Red Sox and finally effectively eliminating Boston from playoff contention.

Phil was able to ride those good feelings into the playoffs, where he was masterful in his first career postseason start against the Twins. Of course, Phil faltered pretty badly in his two ALCS outings, but the entire team spit the bit against Texas so I'm willing to give him a pass.

Phil Hughes showed a ton of promise in his first full season in the starting rotation, and to get to that next level, he'll have to focus on cutting that home run rate down (1.28 HR/9, sixth-worst in the AL) -- though as Joe at RAB pointed out, to Phil's credit a lot of those bombs came off the bats of the Toronto Extra-Base Hits, a team unlikely to slug an MLB-high .454 again (not to mention a league-high .595 off Hughes); and the ever-important putting hitters away with two strikes.

As I noted in the afore-linked Negative Storylines post, Phil led the league in Foul Ball Percentage, and if he can get that in check, it'll only help him work even deeper into games by keeping his pitch count down. Given new Yankee pitching coach Larry Rothschild's apparent emphasis on missing bats, hopefully he can help Hughes figure out how to be more aggressive and throw two-strike pitches that look good enough to swing at but aren't close enough for the hitter to catch a piece of.

Ultimately, as a 24-year-old coming off a 176.1-inning season of 102 ERA+ ball in the AL East, Yankee fans have nothing but even better things to look forward to with The Man Who Would be Franchise.

How the Yankees have fared on their big contracts

While its fun to speculate, the reality of the Yankees hot stove situation is that Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera will be jerks about this, but they're not going anywhere, and it is unlikely that Cliff Lee lands anywhere else because few other teams in baseball can pay anyone $25 million a year. Only the Yankees can stop the Yankees. If the team is willing to expand its payroll about $25 million then all the team's offseason targets will eventually come under tow. If it's unwilling to expand its payroll then Yankee fans will still have one hell of a ballclub to root for in April.

Given that I believe Cliff Lee is about to become the latest Yankee to join the ranks of the amazingly overpaid, I began wondering how the Yankees have fared on these budget buster deals. Baseball wise this is the right move, especially for a ball club that can eat a bad season or two as well as the Yankees can. But how have the Yankees fared on their budget busting contracts financially? Let's take a look.

All data are from both Fangraphs and Baseball Reference, where salary data wasn't published on Fangraphs.

The flagship big Yankee contract hasn't been that good an investment for the team. 2006 and 2009 were the only seasons Derek was worth more than his salary. Most seasons he was just a few million below his paycheck, the kind of money I'm sure his iconic status earns the Yankees in marketing dollars, but this past season he was eight figures below his pay grade. But, by all means, give him a raise.

Remember him? Apart from maybe Mike Hampton, no player embodies the notion of "buyer beware" more than Jason Giambi. The Giambino was as-expected in pinstripes for all of one season. After that he suffered from everything from steroid withdrawal to intestinal parasites. Mostly, his batting average fell off a cliff and the Bombers couldn't play him in the field.

Fangraphs only provides value data as far back as 2002. If it went back further it would show that the Yankees actually got quite the return on Moose because he was excellent in 2001, his first season in Pinstripes. It never felt like the Yankees had an ace in Moose. I think of him as something of an also-ran Yankee. The numbers suggest otherwise. He was certainly paid like a Yankee, and he played like one too, the first player to earn his value so far.

The Yankees didn't sign Alex Rodriguez to his first monster contract, but was on the team for a fair chunk of it. Alex has been dominant on the baseball diamond every season of his career in the Bronx, and the Yankees have lost money. He's a testament to why fans of other teams hate the Yankees. The team can afford to lose money on him, season after season. Even if we remove 2010, his worst season as an every day player, the Yankees would still be just below even on their investment in A-Rod.

What a difference a year makes. In 2009 Mark Teixeira was the Yankees best player. In 2010 he was a solid hitting, excellent fielding first basemen, and a sunk cost. Tex's salary will only go up from here, meaning that he has to perform at 2009 levels for the remainder of his contract if the Yankees are going to see a positive return.

This is more of a joke than anything else. If you were as bad at your job as A.J. Burnett is at his you'd be fired.

Fangraphs' value data are always a bit suspect. CC Sabathia's 2010 may be why. What is certain is that pitching improved across baseball in 2010, while CC largely stayed the same, which is to say he remained phenomenal. The problem is that even phenoms may not be worth $24 million, which is what the numbers suggest. CC is due to be paid $23 million the remainder of his contract. There is an excellent chance the Yankees will at least break even on him.

The big take away from all this is that baseball players, even the great ones, are seldom worth $20 million or more a season. That's why, really, only the Yankees pay them at those levels. Cliff Lee is a great pitcher, but only two of the players listed above have generated positive returns in the Bronx, so the most basic odds suggest he's about to get overpaid. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go hug a Pirates fan.

Projecting the 2011 Yankee Payroll

Tuesday was a big day for the Yankee Hot Stove. The biggest rumors surrounded top Yankee target Cliff Lee. First, it was rumored that the Yankees were considering offering Lee $115 million over five years, an expensive but fair evaluation of his worth. Yesterday those numbers were revised upwards to $140 million over six years.

Although extravagant, that rumor was plausible because it didn't quite represent over-paying Lee relative to CC Sabathia or Johan Santana. Also, if it were true then you may as well have fit the lefty for Pinstripes because no team in baseball is matching that offer. Finally, it was reported that all this speculation was bunk because the Yankees hadn't made an offer to Lee. One thing is certain, the market for Lee looks to be about $23 million a year for five or six years, which is expensive, but probably right about where Lee's eventual contract will land.

Cliff Lee wasn't the only free agent in the Yankees' cross-hairs making waves. Mariano Rivera is rumored to want an extortionate contract of $36 million for two years, while fellow core-four team member Andy Pettitte is said to want back for the 2011 season (I'm STUNNED). No number was reported when it was said that Andy wanted to come back, but he has been surprisingly reasonable the last few seasons with his demands. Here's hoping he won't ask for much more than $13 million.

Derek Jeter's agent, meanwhile, is baffled at the Yankees' strategy of dealing with the Captain, a strategy that apparently entails over-paying Jeter for too many years to the tune of three years for $45 million. The rumor is that Jeter wants a five- or six-year contract, which is not going to happen. Suffice it to say $15 million is a floor for Jeter's salary next season, and a final contract is a ways off.

Finally, Javier Vazquez is the only Yankee who will be offered arbitration. He is expected to decline the offer. So long as he's honest this is nothing to get concerned about, but it is newsworthy.

Piecing all this together sheds some light on where the Yankees may be headed with their 2011 payroll. Baseball-Reference currently projects the Yankee payroll to be $157.3 million, accounting only for players currently under contract, adjusting for players who are due a pay raise, and using league minimum players to fill out the roster. It is therefore reasonable to estimate that the Yankees have committed to about $150 million in 2011 already, removing the league minimum players who aren't going to be on this squad. Let's see where the team winds up if we add in the rest of the free-agent targets, at realistic prices (all dollar figures in millions, obviously):

All of these values are straight from the horse's mouth, except my estimate of the bench. The Yankees are said to be in the market for at least one lefthanded reliever, and may also be searching for a setup man, so my estimates are probably on the low end. Either way, the Yankees are due to break their own record for the highest payroll in baseball history next season.

This seems to be a certainty because Lee's contract is the major new addition to the payroll. He'll get his money from the Yankees, or from another club, so if the Yankees are serious about signing him they'll have to elevate payroll from its 2010 level. This doesn't mean, however, that the team can't extract value from other sources.

Those sources are going to be the Core Four. Of the three name-brand Yankees without contracts only Pettitte is payed his fair value. Jeter just finished the second-largest contract in baseball history and Rivera was overpaid on his last deal, which he signed when he was younger than 40. If both Jeter and Rivera are overpaid, and both are too old to be of much value to other clubs for more than a season, then the only way the Yankees can control payroll is if they take a hard line with both of them. Neither of their families is about to starve, but the Yankees need to reduce their salaries, and make sure they understand that they are being compensated well above market value.

Rivera has more leverage than Jeter because 2010 was one of his best seasons ever, which is to say that he was as good as he always is. Another team is unlikely to enter the bidding for two seasons, but if negotiations get fractious between him and the Yankees he may have suitors for one year at around $10 million, which means that while $18 million may be wishful thinking it is also unlikely Rivera gets much less than $15M a year from the Yankees, and two years is probably a certainty. The contract negotiations with Jeter, meanwhile, will be painful.

As upsetting as it may be for many die-hard fans, the Yankees are doing the right thing with their veteran talent. Derek Jeter just had the unfortunate timing of coming first. The reality is that if the Yankees are going to avoid entering collective bargaining negotiations next season with a target on their backs for their bloated payroll, and if the team is going to be able to continue to be able to afford new players as many current position players age, then stalwarts like Jeter and Rivera will have to eat humble pie. The alternative is a pair of 40-year-olds on the left side of the infield in a few years, which no one wants. Expect it to be a long winter before all of this is over.

2010 Season in Review: The Bullpen

Though Mariano Rivera really deserves his own post, we're including him in our bullpen Season in Review, primarily because we've already done so many individual player reviews that it just seemed easier this way.

We touched on the Yankee bullpen in the Positive Storylines from 2010 post a few weeks ago, noting that in 2010 the unit posted the third-best ERA (3.47) in the American League (and best mark of Joe Girardi's three-year tenure) and the fifth-best FIP (4.06).

Here are the numbers for the pitchers who threw in relief for the Yankees this past season, sorted by FIP (note: yWAR is simply an average of fWAR and bWAR):

Once again Mariano was the Yankees' best reliever for the 14th straight season. Mo's triple slash of 1.80/2.81/3.65 was as good as it's ever been, and he has continued to defy all logic and reason by remaining one of the AL's elite closers despite being 40 years old (Mo turns 41 at the end of November). While WAR isn't the ideal metric for analyzing relievers, Mo still had the third-best fWAR among AL relievers, tying Neftali Feliz at 1.7. And to the surprise of no one, Mo's cutter was the best in the league, rating at 16.7 runs above average.

Baseball Prospectus' WXRL, which combines the individual adjustments for replacement level (WXR) and quality of the opposing lineup (WXL) to the basic WX calculation, and is considered one of the stronger relief pitcher metrics available, had Mo at 3.72, good for 7th-best in the AL. In case you were wondering, Joakim Soria was the AL leader in WXRL, at 6.53. Another BP metric, Adjusted Runs Prevented (ARP), which is a counting stat that compares a reliever's performance to how an average (not replacement-level) relief pitcher would have performed in the same situations, saw Mo finish 12th in the AL at 15.7. For some additional context, Joaquin Benoit was first in the AL, at 28.8.

The much-maligned Joba Chamberlain, as has been pointed out by many people including ourselves, actually had a pretty strong season peripheral-wise. His 2.98 FIP was actually the 13th-best mark among American League relievers, his K/9 the 11th-best and his BB/9 18th-best (and second-best on the Yankees). Joba's beloved slider, which he threw 26.5% of the time (and seemingly 100% of the time in 3-2 counts) was worth 3.6 runs above average, for 30th-best in the AL. In 2009, he threw the slider 22.2% of the time (of course, he was also starting), and it was worth 7.6 runs above average.

So why is everyone so quick to run Joba out of town these days? He certainly didn't endear himself to the fanbase by (and this is of course based on selective memory) seemingly coughing up runs in key circumstances more often than not, although the numbers do back this up to a certain extent, with Chamberlain posting a fairly mediocre 1.29 WXRL, good for 34th in the AL and behind such luminaries as Matt Guerrier, Brandon League and Brian Duensing. Stripping away context, Joba had a 6.9 ARP. Let's put it this way: Kyle Farnsworth had an 8.5 ARP. If the Farns is outdoing you in anything, something is wrong.

In the postseason, Joba was serviceable though far from great, throwing what ended up being a critical scoreless 5th inning in Game 1 of the ALCS; allowing an inherited runner to score in an inning of work in Game 2; and giving up a run in 1.1 innings of work in Game 4. However, in the latter two cases both games were essentially already out of hand when Joba did his damage. Of course, that also tells us everything we need to know about how far Joba fell in the bullpen pecking order this season.

All told the 2010 version of Joba Chamberlain was an enigmatic and frustrating young hurler, although the good news is that there's still time for him to finally figure out how to harness that potential we've all been so high on for so long. The bigger question is whether he does it in a Yankee uniform. Though if he does, unfortunately he won't be doing it as a starting pitcher.

After coming aboard via trade at the end of July, Kerry Wood emerged as the team's best non-Mo reliever, posting an insane 0.69 ERA in 26 innings. I don't know if it was the change of scenery or a corrected mechanical flaw, but Wood's fastball went from -3.87 runs above average with the Indians to 4.7 runs above average with the Yankees. I wonder how many other pitchers in MLB experienced an 8.57-run (or higher) swing on their fastball during the course of the season? Many expected Wood to experience a drastic correction given the massive overperforming of his FIP (-2.69 E-F!), but it never really came. After two masterful performances in the first two games of the ALDS Wood did struggle a bit in Game 3, but on the whole he was great in the postseason, with a 2.25 ERA and 3.20 FIP.

The Yankees' other key bullpen pieces in 2010 were David Robertson and Boone Logan. D-Rob posted a 3.82/3.58/3.79, 0.7 fWAR season in 61.1 innings, a year after posting a 3.30/3.05/3.20, 0.8 fWAR season in about 18 less innings. D-Rob had a weird year, with four brilliant months and two awful ones (May: 5.90 FIP; August: 5.18), but despite some ups and downs was probably Joe Girardi's third-most reliable reliever after Mo and Wood. Unfortunately Robertson completely bombed in the postseason, getting shellacked to the tune of a 16.20 ERA and 5.78 FIP in only 3.1 innings of work.

After a frustrating start, Logan emerged as a key bullpen piece upon returning from his second AAA banishment in mid-July. He threw 5 innings of 1.80 ERA ball in July, and gave up zero earned runs for the entire month of August (with a 2.20 FIP, to boot). Unfortunately the wheels came off for Boone as well in the playoffs, as he got torched for a 10.80 ERA and even scarier 11.48 FIP in a mere 1.2 innings. Though the Yankees' loss in the ALCS against Texas was primarily due to the offense going into a coma, the bullpen did its part in pouring gasoline on the fire in both Games 3 and 4, and Robertson and Logan were two of its primary arsonists. They obviously had help from Sergio Mitre, but the mere fact that Mitre even saw innings in the playoffs tells you everything you need to know about the Yankees in this year's ALCS.

Moving on we have Ivan Nova, who actually pitched about as well as anyone could've hoped in his first four Big League starts (including a rather big win in Chicago on August 29) before getting savaged by the Rays on September 14. On the whole Nova's numbers as a starter weren't terrible -- -- although if the Yankees actually intend to use him as a starter down the line, he'll have to figure out how to get turn lineups over during the third time through the order. He was actually quite good in the majority of his outings during the first few innings, holding the opposition to a .554 OPS the first time through the order and .713 the second time through. However, the wheels really came off for Nova come the third run through the order, with opponents teeing off to the tune of .400/.531(!)/.480. If Nova can't improve those numbers then he'll obviously be relegated to the bullpen, although that'll be his destination anyway assuming the Yankees sign Cliff Lee and Andy Pettitte decides to come back.

The Yankees' other spot starter, Dustin Moseley, was pretty bad, putting up a 5.29/6.02/5.02, -0.3 fWAR line, though he did have a few bright spots. Most notably stifling the Red Sox on national television on August 8 and also holding the absurdly potent Toronto Extra Base Hits to two runs over six innings on August 24. Moseley was also the unsung hero of the bullpen in the ALCS, pitching two huge perfect frames in Game 1 of the ALCS, keeping the Yankees' deficit at five at a point in the game where there was almost no chance (the Yankees' WE was as low as 2.9% in the sixth!) for them come back. Moseley's two-inning ALCS stint was so great it resulted in a negative FIP; not something we see all that often.

The remainder of the Yankee bullpen was pretty useless in 2010. Jonathan Albaladejo, despite destroying the International League, continued to struggle at the Big League level, posting an ugly 5.46 FIP in 11.1 innings. 2009 bullpen savior Alfredo Aceves was done for the season after May 8, but had pitched to a smooth 3.00 ERA in 12 innings to that point, and was sorely missed. Damaso Marte continued to perform rather poorly (5.23 FIP) before also being lost for the season, while Chan Ho Park and Mark Melancon pitched poorly enough that the former was released and the latter traded. Romulo Sanchez got a 4.1-inning cup of coffee and didn't surrender any runs, so I suppose that's something. Royce Ring came up in September and despite being awful (15.43 ERA) was actually being talked about as a potential member of the postseason roster in some circles.

But for as bad as some members of the 2010 Yankee bullpen pitched, no one sucked quite as badly as Chad Gaudin, who managed to compile a 4.50/6.25(!)/5.29, -0.7 fWAR line in 48 innings for the Yankees. That was the second-worst FIP among all relievers in Major League Baseball (somehow Brian Tallet and his mustache were even worse, at 6.96), and Gaudin's full-season -1.0 fWAR was also second-worst in all of MLB after Tallet. I know every team needs a mop-up guy, but good grief was Gaudin epically bad this year.

2011 CAIRO projections: Yankee pitching

SG has released the first round of 2011 Yankee pitcher projections. Please click here for my analysis of CAIRO's 2011 hitting projections.

The below pitching projection table shows what I expect would be the starting rotation (in the event that Cliff Lee doesn't sign), the four known members of the bullpen, and everyone else (sorted by FIP).

The "everyone else" batch is primarily made up of the guys in the Yankees' minor league system who appear to be closest to reaching The Show, but obviously most of them have never thrown a pitch in the Majors (and most are still unlikely to do so in 2011), and so like any other projection system should be taken with several grains of salt.

A couple of notes: As SG notes in the comments of the aforelinked post, Phil Hughes' projection is "still a hybrid of his starter and reliever performance. From 2007-2010 he started 61% of his games, and with the extra weight on 2010 his projection is probably around 80% starter/20% reliever." Same goes with Joba Chamberlain, although more or less in reverse. If Joba is indeed permanently affixed to the bullpen, he obviously won't be tossing 106 innings, and per SG, "if he’s a pure reliever he should project about a half run better across the board (RA, ERA, FIP)."

Ivan Nova's projection is presumably part starter/part reliever, though regardless it's a pretty gloomy one. I wouldn't expect any of Manuel Banuelos, Graham Stoneburner, David Phelps, D.J. Mitchell or Dellin Betances to see any Major League innings in 2011. Ryan Pope and Hector Noesi, having both recently been added to the 40-man roster, may see time in the 2011 'pen. Andrew Brackman still needs more seasoning, but he could see some time in the Majors as he only has three more years of team control. I didn't realize Adam Warren's stock had risen to the point that he projects to be as good if not better than A.J. Burnett, so I imagine we might see Warren at some point.

As for the starting rotation, the CC Sabathia projection is just where you'd expect him to be, as is the Andy Pettitte projection. I would like to see a bigger jump from Phil Hughes next season, and considering his projection includes hypothetical relief innings I imagine his projection with 100% starting innings would probably be slightly worse than 4.11 ERA/4.17 FIP SG has now, which would mean Hughes would more or less repeat his 2010. As encouraging as Hughes' season was this year, there'll be a fair amount of disappointment in Yankeeland if he doesn't take a fairly substantial step forward.

The A.J. Burnett projection is way more realistic than Bill James', although I'd hope that A.J. could do better than a 4.77 ERA, even if it is a 0.49 run improvement on his 2010.

SG has the four known members of the bullpen each posting worse FIPs than they did in 2010, with the most significant drop in FIP coming from Joba, though again, he does have that partial starter projection. SG does have Joba's ERA improving, albeit fairly minimally. Based on these numbers, Mariano Rivera and David Robertson are, on paper, the two key cogs of the 2011 Yankee bullpen. If Alfredo Aceves can come back healthy he projects to be a valuable piece again as well.

Why we can expect a better OBP from Alex Rodriguez in 2011

In the grand baseball scheme of things, Alex Rodriguez had a solid, if unspectacular season in 2010, posting the 4th-best fWAR (3.9) among third basemen in the American League. However, the gap between A-Rod and the third-best fWARs (Jose Bautista and Evan Longoria at 6.9 each) was pretty massive, and along with the fact that Alex recorded career lows in a host of meaningful statistical categories it's hard to characterize A-Rod's 2010 anything other than a disappointment.

However, there are a lot of encouraging signs pointing to an A-Rod recovery in 2011. Though his power stroke went missing for much of the season, he seemed to find it during the last two months of the year. More distressingly, the most significant decline in A-Rod's game was his OBP, which, at a career-low .341, was his worst full-season mark since 1999's .357. The good news is that so far both projection systems that have been released see an OBP bump for Alex in 2011, with Bill James forecasting a (perhaps overly optimistic) 40-point jump to .381, while SG's CAIRO system sees Alex at .372. Either of those would of course be a most-welcome improvement.

James' projection calls for Alex's BB% to climb from 9.9% to 12.2%, and also sees a rebound in Alex's career-low 2010 BABIP of .274 to .306. While I don't think it's unrealistic to expect Alex to pick up 14 more hits, I'm slightly more wary of the 17 additional walks forecasted. If Alex is going to make those 31 less outs, he's going to have to work on a couple of things.

First and foremost, he'll need to get his timing back. Alex looked overpowered by the fastball -- historically his bread-and-butter -- for much of the season, and only his late-season adjustments enabled him to still post a relatively respectable 17.2 runs above average mark against the four-seamer. Somewhat surprisingly that was the 13th-best mark against fastballs in the AL, although it still represented his lowest number in pinstripes. In 2009, he was at 25.5 runs above average against the heat, good for 11th-best. Alex's worst pitch in 2010 was the slider, with -2.6 runs above average down from 0.0 in 2009 and significantly down from 10.3 in 2008 and 12.8 in his historical 2007 campaign. A-Rod actually had his best year as a Yankee against the curveball this past season with a 5.8 runs above average showing, good for 7th-best in the AL. And he was basically right around where he usually is against the change, at 1.4 runs above average.

Alex's struggles against the fastball led to a slight uptick in the number he saw in 2010 (60.5% compared to 58.9% in 2009) and his success against the curveball resulted in a decline (6.7% compared to 8.0% in 2009).

Secondly, he'll need to get his patience back, and this is the area of his game that if he can improve will enable him to reach those lofty OBP projections. For starters, Alex swung at more than a quarter (25.3%) of the pitches he saw out of the strike zone, by far a career high and significantly above his career mark of 20.9%. He also swung at more pitches in the zone (68.5%) than he had since 2004, and his overall swing percentage of 45% was significantly higher than 2009's 42.6% and a slight jump on his 44% career rate.

Like his pal Derek Jeter, as a result of all of this extra swinging, A-Rod wound up making a lot of bad contact, connecting with an absurd (for A-Rod, anyway) 65.6% of the pitches out of the zone that he swung at, up from 2009's 58.8% and way up from his 52.1% career rate. He also made contact with a career-high 86.1% of the pitches he swung at in the zone, and taken together these two marks resulted in a career-high 79.8% contact percentage (75.7% for his career).

Pitchers were able to take advantage of A-Rod's expansion of his strike zone, as he saw a career-low 45.6% of pitches in the strike zone (compared to 49% career). All of this additional swinging at bad pitches led to a career-low LD% of 13.8% (17.8% career) and career-high GB% of 46.0% (42.2% career). His FB% was actually up over 2009 (40.2% compared to 37.7%), but more of those flies ended up being easy fly-outs, reflected in his career-low 17.1% HR/FB rate.

So the moral of the story is, if Alex Rodriguez is going to bounceback and have the kind of 2011 we know he's capable of having, he has to stop swinging at so many pitches, especially of the outside-the-zone variety. Fortunately, 2010 aside, A-Rod has shown over his long career that he is a very patient hitter, with his .387 career OBP coming in at 18th among active players, and given that plate discipline is one of the few baseball skills that anecdotally doesn't tend to deteriorate (and sometimes even improves) as a player ages, Alex should be a good bet for a significant improvement in OBP in 2011.

The Yankees' Top 10 WPA Games of 2010

Following up on yesterday's Top 10 WPA Swings of 2010 post, today we'll take a look at the Yankees' Top 10 WPA Games of this past season.

As you might expect, the list has a fair amount of overlap with the top individual plays list, but by adjusting our criteria to full games we also get to include pitchers, namely CC Sabathia.



Here are the Yankees' Top 10 WPA Games from 2010:

The September 17 game featuring Alex Rodriguez's go-ahead, eventual game-winning winning blast off Koji Uehara -- which was the second-highest individual WPA swing -- was the Yankees' top WPA game in 2010, due to the fact that A-Rod also hit a solo homer earlier in that contest.

Nick Swisher's huge July 16 game, which I was surprised to see not make it to the individual plays list, obviously shows up here, considering Swish had both the game-tying and game-winning hits in the Yankees' first game after the death of The Boss.

The September 8 walk-off game against Uehara checks in at third on this list for Swish, though his blast was the single-biggest WPA swing on the year as we saw yesterday.

Robinson Cano's biggest overall game came on July 31 against Tampa Bay, when he hit the go-ahead HR in Tampa against Rafael Soriano.

CC Sabathia shows up twice on this list, with the first instance being his utterly masterful eight-shutout-inning domination of the Rays, which was unfortunately matched practically pitch for pitch by David Price, in a tense game the Yankees would go on to lose. In fact, that's the only game on this list that resulted in a Yankee loss. Sabathia's second-biggest WPA game was on September 2 against Oakland, in another eight-shutout-inning masterpiece in which CC basically made the A's look like a bunch of little leaguers. Seriously, they mustered up one lousy hit and only got four balls out of the infield.

Unsurprisingly the A-Rod and Marcus Thames dual two-run jacks against Boston on May 17 both make appearances on this list. And Derek Jeter and A-Rod round the list out; with Derek's biggest game of the season coming back on April 29 against the White Sox, while A-Rod's third entry on this list coming in the Seattle game on July 8 that also showed up in yesterday's post.

The Yankees' Top 10 WPA Swings of 2010

After toying around with the Yankees' cumulative WPA scores, I became increasingly curious to find out the individual plays that were the most impactful on the Yankees' 2010 season, and it appears that neither Fangraphs or B-Ref contains sortable lists of team (or league) leaders with said data. I also discovered that full-season WPA scores, while a helpful benchmark, like any other isolated statistic doesn't always tell the full story.

Hitting on that latter point first, it's no surprise that Robinson Cano led the Yankees with a 3.64 WPA on the year, followed by Alex Rodriguez and his 3.58. Nick Swisher was third, at 2.09, followed by Brett Gardner (0.99), Mark Teixeira (0.79) and Curtis Granderson (0.39). I imagine this is roughly the order one would expect this past season's iteration of the Yankees to fall in line in terms of WPA, although it is a bit surprising to see Gardy ahead of Tex and Grandy.

However, in 2009, Cano managed a -1.51 WPA, the worst mark of his career -- not to mention the fifth-worst in the American League -- in a season that he wOBA'd .370. I'm not aware of a metric that measures the delta between a player's wOBA and WPA, but if someone were to take the time to create one I'd have to imagine Cano's 2009 would be up there with some of the widest gaps of all time. None of the other bottom 10 WPA players in 2009 (including the likes of Yuniesky Betancourt, Alexis Rios, Vernon Wells, Jhonny Peralta, Mark Teahen and Orlando Cabrera, among others) came anywhere close to a .370 wOBA -- the nearest was Jermaine Dye's .344. We all know Cano struggled with runners in scoring position in 2009, but it's hard to argue against the fact that he still had a fantastic year, one good enough for a 4.4 fWAR.

Moving back to 2010, only six of the Yankees' everyday players even posted cumulative positive WPA marks. Marcus Thames was at 0.10 (for what it's worth, Nick Johnson was 0.28), but 237 plate appearances isn't an everyday hitter. Somewhat surprisingly -- although when you look at how poorly he ended the year, it probably isn't that surprising -- is Jorge Posada's -0.17 WPA in 2010. The Yankee who added the least win probability in 2010? Why, none other than Derek Sanderson Jeter, at -1.18 (down from +1.41 in 2009). Well, technically Austin Kearns was worse (-1.43), but we only had to live with the damage he inflicted for two months.

Anyway, getting back the initial impetus behind this post, I went into Fangraphs and culled the top 10 individual WPA scores for the Yankees in 2010:

Quite the trip down memory lane, isn't it? I didn't realize that Swish's walk-off two-run bomb against Koji Uehara (who has the indignity of yielding the top two largest WPA swings the Yankees would see in 2010) was the biggest WPA swing of the season, but it makes sense considering the circumstances. Prior to that point it had been one of the Yankees' most frustrating games of the season, with the offense getting shut down by Brad Bergesen of all people and the O's about to complete the first-ever sweep of the Bombers at new Yankee Stadium.

Alex Rodriguez pops up quite frequently on this list, which is weird considering how clutch he's not (SARCASM ALERT). A-Rod's biggest hit of the season was that absurd three-run bomb off Uehara nine days after Swish's walk-off, in another game the Yankees really had no business winning. I was watching that one at Bleecker Heights with MJR, and we couldn't believe how pathetic Kevin Millwood was making the Yankee bats look. Thankfully A-Rod made it all better with one monster swing of the bat.

Alex's other biggest WPA moments were the game-tying bomb against Jonathan Papelbon in that fateful May 17 game (Marcus Thames' game-winner in that May 17 Papelbon game checked in at slightly less (.428 WPA) than Alex's bomb, which carried a .454 WPA); the bases-clearing double against Matt Harrison in Texas; and the two-run single (Alex reached third on an error) against Seattle on July 8. Interestingly, that game against the Rangers is the only one on this list the Yankees lost.

Tex's biggest swing of the year was his go-ahead three-run shot against Tony Sipp and Cleveland on the Sunday before Memorial Day. I remember following that game along on my BlackBerry at my family barbeque in Westchester that day and being enraged that the Yankees were on the cusp of splitting the series with the Indians and subsequently losing my mind upon being informed of Tex's blast.

Robinson Cano's biggest moment of the season was his memorable go-ahead two-run blast against George Sherrill and the Dodgers on June 27, capping off one of the Yankees' biggest comebacks of the season. Curtis Granderson checks in at #8, with his monster go-ahead two-run shot against Jake Westbrook in Cleveland bringing the Yankees another victory they really didn't deserve, as Westbrook had been utterly masterful up to that point.

And Nick Swisher sandwiches the list out with his mammoth tie-breaking solo shot against Jon Rauch at Target Field. Prior to checking the numbers I would've expected Swish's second-biggest hit to have been either the game-winning single off Lance Cormier or tie-breaking solo jack off Joaquin Benoit in the July 16 game, but those two plays checked in at 3rd (.379) and 6th (.279) on Swisher's WPA log.

2010 Season in Review: A.J. Burnett

The Yankees' fortunes always seem to be linked to A.J. Burnett. In 2009 he was the x-factor in the postseason rotation. Every Yankee fan had confidence that CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte would show up for October. A.J. was a different story. If the unpredictable righty could harness his stuff then the team was set. If bad A.J. took the mound the Bombers were in trouble. Fortunately, we got enough of a taste of good A.J. for the rest to be history.

That same scenario played itself out, in microcosm, in the 2010 ALCS. If the Yankees had won the pivotal Game Four they would've evened the series, with CC Sabathia taking the mound in game five. And who was starting that critical game? None other than Arkansas' own Allan James Burnett. Once again, he was the ingredient to determining the team's eventual success or failure. I sense a trend here.

The Yankees signed A.J. to be their number-two starter. His five-year, $82.5 million contract was heavily criticized at the time it was announced. Burnett was known to be erratic, and had a history of injury problems. For one season, however, Burnett more or less silenced his critics. He was worth 3.4 fWAR in 2009, or about $15.4 million, just about matching his salary. He was also a critical part of the Yankees championship run. He was never good on the road in the postseason, but he pitched exceptionally well in each of his three home starts.

Burnett also demonstrated an amazing unpredictable streak. Unlike Pettitte or Sabathia, pitchers who can keep a team in the game even when they are struggling, Burnett is a binary outcome. He's either unhittable or he gets creamed. All of this made his 2010 that much more predictable:

A.J.'s splits show that his 2010 was a magnified version of any one of his erratic performances. It started well enough. He was brilliant in April, and sharp in May. But in June he was ghastly, 2009-Chien-Ming Wang bad. Although he managed to right the ship a bit in July, he unraveled again in August and September. In total, 2010 was Burnett's worst season in the majors.

Burnett is a two-pitch pitcher, with a plus velocity fastball, and a curveball that is as enigmatic as the pitcher himself. His ability to get batters out stems from his curve. Although Burnett can air it out, running his fastball up to 96 mph, it actually rates as a below average pitch. In 2009, for example, it rated 14.4 runs below average. Although Burnett threw it a mile slower on average in 2010 (averaging 93.2 mph), its value barely budged, rating 14.3 runs below average this time. With such a weak fastball it should come as no surprise that the secret to A.J.'s success in 2009 was his curve, which rated 16 runs above average that season. His success flows from that pitch. And, just as he lived by his curve in 2009, he died by his curve in 2010. It fell from being devastatingly above average to just about four runs below average, leaving Burnett without a single plus pitch.

The sudden weakness of A.J.'s curve appears to be the primary culprit behind his ineffectiveness in 2010. Most of his peripherals were the same from 2009 to 2010, except that batters were far more inclined to swing at pitches outside the zone, and were making contact more. Anyone who has watched Burnett pitch knows his curveball breaks far out of the zone. In 2010, for whatever reason, batters were swinging at the pitch outside of the zone more, and connecting more. The results were bad.

The Yankees are inextricably linked to A.J.'s fortunes, and not only because the team owes him about $50 million more. If the Bombers manage to sign Cliff Lee, then A.J.'s ability to bounce back from his miserable season is the difference between the Yankees having a solid rotation and a spectacular one. If Lee slips away, then Burnett may be the difference between the Yankees having an average rotation or a better-than-average one.

Fortunately, it seems that Burnett only needs to do two things (although neither is particularly easy). Obviously, he needs to figure out how to make his curveball work for him again. This is his weapon and he has demonstrated already that he can succeed with only two pitches. But he also needs to learn to work in his changeup more. It's not his best pitch, but it's also not terrible, yet he only throws it two or three times a game. If Burnett is moving into a phase of his career when he can no longer count on the sharp break in his curveball then he will have to learn to mix in a third pitch, or go the way of the Dodo.

It pains me to say this, but I can't help but like Burnett. He seems like a good guy, who plays a positive role in the clubhouse, and he is clearly upset when he fails, all of which are qualities that I appreciate in professional athletes. Unfortunately, this also means I'm naturally positive about A.J.'s chances. As erratic as he's been, I believe he'll bounce back. For all of our sakes, let's hope my optimism is not misplaced.

Why baseball needs to get rid of the rigid six-division format, shorten the playoffs and move to a tiered system

I'm pleased to present the following guest post from friend-of-the-blog Lenny Vaisman. Lenny's a die-hard Yankee fan and was actually a semi-regular contributor to my initial foray into Yankee blogging, Save Phil Hughes, posting as HitMan23. Lenny comes to us today with a great (and fairly radical) argument for how baseball can vastly improve the regular season and playoffs.

To paraphrase Howard Bryant from Ken Burns' "The Tenth Inning," there are two ways to measure the success of Major League Baseball: If your only criterion is money, then MLB is more successful than ever. But if you measure baseball’s ability to maintain its mythic qualities and capture the hearts and minds of its fans, then baseball has become a depressing failure.

The point is not to mock capitalism. After all, baseball is an industry like any other. What I am trying to highlight is the feeling that Bud Selig and his cronies at both MLB and MLBPA have given making money an infinitely higher priority over their custodial duties relating to what used to be America’s Pastime. The attitude, at least from an outsider’s perspective, is "the fans pay, so who cares?" But the more I talk to knowledgeable and passionate baseball fans -- some of which romanticize the game and its past and some who don’t -- the feeling seems to be pervasive.

There are many ways that this is evident but with the recent conclusion of the latest postseason, there is one particular facet of baseball that I want to focus on here: the method by which baseball crowns its annual champion. My biggest problem with the current structure is that it rarely crowns the best team and effectively wipes away the longest season in professional sports with a roll of the dice. While the playoff entrants are often the best teams, the eventual World Champion is almost always the hottest team.

The regular season is, in and of itself, an effective playoff structure for MLB. Seems to me that baseball waits for the first eight competitors to finish the 26 miles of a marathon and then subjects them to a 100-yard dash to decide who wins. The season is a long, arduous grind -- and then it gets decided by whoever has the least noticeable limp. There’s a reason why NFL regular season games’ television ratings blow World Series games out of the water: MLB is selling a watered-down crapshoot tournament which rewards teams that are better at dealing with attrition and managing their starting rotation based on the given schedule rather than actually playing good baseball.

And now Commissioner Selig is talking about adding two more Wild Cards to the postseason. I’ve heard the arguments in favor of this idea -- that it makes it a fairer, more balanced sport. I’ve even heard that adding another layer, the single play-in game that would be played by the two Wild Cards in each league, is incentive to play for the division. However, if you want to create incentive to win the division, wouldn’t eliminating the Wild Card accomplish that? And why does baseball have to become fairer and more balanced? Is this youth soccer in the politically correct 1990s, where every kid gets a trophy? And someone please tell me why the justification is always to point at the NFL? Baseball doesn’t have to be anything but baseball, with its own charms. But more games equals more revenue, so Bud and Co. will continue to degrade the sport, using that empty logic as long as the fans keep showing up and paying.

My agenda as dictator of baseball would be to reverse the “NFL-ing” of MLB. I love football, but I breathe baseball and I want it to become special again. My plan would be as follows:

1) Eliminate the divisions. The divisions were created as a response to the growth of the league and the need for more playoff entrants, as well as to make geographical sense of arduous travel. Travel is much more commonplace, simpler, and quicker than it was in the 1960s, and MLB franchises are much wealthier. We can go back to two whole leagues without horizontal divisions, without geographic boundaries and without unbalanced schedules – another horrible concoction (Editor's Note: I'm completely on board with all of this). Furthermore, I’d really love it if they stopped selling me this bag of goods about regional rivalries and how they affect the composition of divisions -- the Yankees and Tigers used to be huge rivals, as were the Yankees and Indians. Your rivals are whoever you have to go through to get to your goal.

2) Create tiers. Most major sports league outside of North America operate in a promotion and relegation system. It’s time for MLB adopt this practice. As I’ll get to in a minute, my plan involves having only one layer of playoffs – the World Series. However, there are too many teams in each league for there to be only one prize to compete for. Promotion and relegation divides the teams into vertical tiers that are based on performance during the past season. Using the final regular season standings of the American League in 2010 as an example, the tiers would look like this for 2011:

Top
Tampa Bay
New York
Minnesota
Texas
Boston

Middle
Chicago
Toronto
Detroit
Oakland
Los Angeles

Bottom
Cleveland
KC
Baltimore
Seattle

Under this system, every team would play every other team an equal number of times, but only the five teams in the “Top” tier would be competing for a spot in the World Series in 2011. The teams in the “Middle” and “Bottom” tiers (I’m open to more creative names) would by vying for the top spot in their tier, which would entitle them to a promotion to the next-highest tier for the following season, as well as a larger share of MLB’s shared revenue. Concurrently, the team that finishes last in its tier gets relegated to the next lowest tier, swapping places with the team that is promoted from the lower tier.

I recognize that this system’s major downside is that it does away with baseball’s time-honored tradition of spring renewal, since two-thirds of teams will literally have no chance at a title that season. But all that does is effectively acknowledge reality and give the fans of teams in the bottom and middle tiers something real to root for: A promotion and accompanying financial windfall that would make it more difficult for them to be relegated just as quickly. So now the drama wouldn’t be reserved for only the top teams vying to win something, as teams will also fight tooth and nail down to the wire to not be relegated and lose shared revenue. This is also a more intelligent way to share MLB revenue since the current system just allows the Pirates and Marlins to pocket their shares without plowing it back into their teams.

3) Eliminate every round of playoffs prior to the World Series. No longer do we have to watch a field of the walking wounded stumble to the finish line. No longer do we have to watch baseball, a summer sport, play its most important games in the cold. No more inferior teams winning their way to the crown with three starting pitchers. No more drawn-out playoffs with unnecessary off days. No more uninteresting matchups, only the season's true heavyweights playing for a title. MLB will play a long season and just as the dog days of summer are winding down and the cool, crisp autumn rolls in, the winner of the top tier of each league will match up in the World Series.

4) Get rid of Interleague play. Another half-baked idea that makes more money but hurts the sport in the long run. Bring back the sacredness of separate leagues – it creates a youthful, exciting energy when those beams do finally cross.

It’s not like baseball’s playoffs can get worse. I find them boring and drama-free – a side-effect of a number of things, parity included. Allowing more entrants into the field will make more money for the league and will involve more regions, but it won’t create a better fan experience. On some level, I suppose I’m railing against parity. But the parity baseball is trying to create is an artificial, socialist one. Baseball -- or any professional sports league, for that matter -- is better off with a consistent and familiar upper class.

Admittedly, the changes I propose here are drastic, but the idea is to address the length of the playoffs (too long), the number of entrants into what should be a select field (too many), and the crapshoot nature of the playoffs (too fractured). In conjunction with limiting the playoff field, the point of implementing vertical tiers is to hang an economic carrot in front of lesser teams that can lead to long-term, sustainable success, which is a better solution for the sport than a system that gives everyone false hope and rewards mortgaging the future for limited opportunities.

Look no further than the Milwaukee Brewers, who began to develop a successful foundation in the middle of this past decade and found themselves in the midst of a playoff race in 2008, compelling them to put together a package for a CC Sabathia rental. There is something inherently wrong with a system where a small-market team that hasn’t made the playoffs in decades feels that it should mortgage the future for one shot at reaching the postseason instead of building for sustained success. Sure enough, the Brewers floundered in the divisional round, CC left as a free agent, and while none of the parts the Brewers moved have panned out thus far (Matt LaPorta, Zach Jackson, Rob Bryson and Michael Brantley), the team hasn’t come close to competing since falling short in 2008. And even if the Brewers had managed to go on a magic carpet ride through the playoffs, can anyone outside of Wisconsin honestly say they would have been interested in, say, a Brewers-Rays World Series? So instead of having a team like the Brewers become an annual player, and have the ability for the club and MLB to market the likes of Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun, the team is mired again in neutral mode after taking their one shot.

Would anyone be shocked if the Reds, a team with limited financial resources (read: regenerative ability), were nowhere to be found next year? Sure, the run was great for Cincinnati this year, just as it was for Colorado last year, Milwaukee in 2008, Cleveland or Arizona in 2007, etc., but wouldn’t it be better for these teams and regions and MLB if they had the ability to sustain a level of success? When those perennial also-rans break through temporarily, we end up with watered-down, drawn-out, and generally forgettable playoffs, boring matchups that no one outside of the immediately involved markets really cares about or will remember. It’s better for these teams to achieve success and sustain it, something that would be fostered by the tiered system I propose.

As a Yankee fan, it’s easy to cite recent playoffs where I was riveted (most of the time, it was actually desperation more so than pure enjoyment, but that’s just what the Yankees experience has become to me), and 2001 and 2003 stick out as particularly dramatic postseasons. It’s been far more challenging to get wrapped up in other teams’ recent postseason runs, something I didn’t find as challenging in the past. I recall being gripped by the 1986 postseason during the 1986 postseason, with the unbelievable magic and drama behind both the Mets-Astros NLCS and the Red Sox-Angels ALCS, not to mention the World Series; the 1988 postseason, where Tommy Lasorda’s Dodgers, led by Orel Hershiser, Mike Scioscia, Mickey Hatcher, and a hobbled Kirk Gibson battled through Dwight Gooden and the powerhouse Mets, leading to an all-time classic World Series against the upstart Oakland A’s of Bash Brothers fame; the 1989 NLCS battle between Will Clark’s Giants and Mark Grace’s Cubs, leading to the Bay Area Series; the 1990 Cincinnati Reds, who went on to shock and sweep the A’s; the best World Series any of us will ever see, where two well-built teams, the Braves and Twins, battled down to a John Smoltz-Jack Morris, 10 inning, 1-0 classic Game 7 in 1991; and in 1992 and 1993 when the Toronto Blue Jays, who first defeated an emerging Braves team and then a strong Phillies team, capped their run on a Joe Carter season-ending bomb.

My memory may serve me poorly, but I don’t remember any of these playoffs being decided by who got the most rest, who had the hottest three starters -- the things that regularly decide champions today. They were decided by recognizable, marketable teams playing two rounds of exciting baseball. The Yankees of the mid- to late-'90s were good for baseball in that they were a consistent enemy for all yet they played a brand of baseball and fielded players that garnered respect. But the end of the Yankees’ dynasty, ushered in by a Luis Gonzalez bloop single, signaled the end of an era for me.

Stepping out of my Yankees fan shoes for a minute, I have to ask – which playoff series has been a truly memorable one, on par with the ones mentioned above, since 2001? There were some great moments for the Yankees since, namely 2003 and 2009, but one of those ended in losing the title to the 2003 Marlins, the model for short-term success. And there have been some great moments for baseball, namely the Red Sox’s comeback in 2004, which ended in quite possibly the most anti-climactic World Series ever played. Outside of that, the MLB playoffs have drummed up local support at times, but have created very little drama and have done very little to coalesce the sport and its fans. It’s time we try reversing course.