Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.

 
Enjoy the football this weekend. The main site should be up and running at our new url soon (http://www.thedump.org, link doesn't work just yet), so it should be considerably easier to remember and tell other people about if you're so inclined. The content over there, like here, should be flowing regularly again starting today, so keep checking it out if you're liking what you're reading. As always, if you've got feedback for us, we'd love to hear it. On to baseball.

No Colon, Marlins trade for Redman
Florida Marlins get: Mark Redman
Detroit Tigers get: two unnamed minor leaguers

I was pretty skeptical about that Colon-Penny trade actually happening, and I guess the acquisition of Mark Redman ends any possibility that it will. Redman, in his brief major league career (which consists of about two and a half season with the Twins and Tigers) has been a very serviceable, average major league lefty starter. There's been some talk of endurance problems with him in the past, but his 203 innings last season in Detroit are an indication that perhaps that's no longer the case at age 28. While he doesn't strike out a whole lot of guys (109 in said 203 innings), the bottom line is, he doesn't allow a whole lot of guys to cross the plate (4.21 ERA) either. He was just about exactly league average last season (100 ERA+ on the button) and for the $300,000 he's making, he'd be a fine innings eater for most staffs and will be a bottom of the rotation starter for the Marlins next season, one would think. No word on which two minor leaguers are going back to Detroit here, so we'll have to wait and see. This is actually a fairly intelligent deal by Florida, assuming of course that they aren't sending back some of their farm system's jewels (as they were rumored to be doing for Colon). As usual, not clear on what the Tigers are thinking, as starting pitching (particularly cheap starting pitching) isn't that easy to come by.

Selig's No-Star idea
I'd like to get my two cents in on the Selig All-Star Game proposal, as this seems to be a fairly big baseball news story the last several days, though I think Pete did a pretty good job of tackling it yesterday. Very simply, it's a stupid idea, not that I'd expect anything less. When I hear Selig make a suggestion or statement, I really do consciously try to divorce myself from my dislike of him and look at what he's saying in an attempt to find some merit, as there has to be some reason why this guy has gotten where he has. Again, he's blown me away with ridiculousness. What's wrong with just having the team with the best record get home field advantage? I realize it's a flawed system because teams in different leagues play different schedules, but you can only play who you're scheduled to play and can only be judged based on your demonstrated performance. How is this any different from the NFL? Within each conference, teams play wildly different schedules and yet they're all held to the same standard when it comes down to home field through the championship games. Teams care a lot about having the best record in their conference, and if this system were in place, you'd potentially have teams that are way ahead in their division (even their league) playing hard until the end of the season in an effort to beat out teams from the other league. There's really no downside to this that I can see, especially when compared to Selig's plan, which would leave the fates of contenders in the hands of scrub All-Stars from the Brewers and Devil Rays. We could also just leave it the way it is. Does anyone really have a huge problem with the alternating system? I understand the objective here is to develop some incentive for playing hard in the All-Star Game, but this isn't the way to do it. You can't (shouldn't) tinker with something that's really important in games that really count just to make an exhibition game more entertaining.

So what can be done to improve the All-Star Game? I think expanding rosters is a pretty crappy idea. Part of the fun of All-Star selection process is that every year there are inevitably guys who are very deserving and don't make it. That's how it's been for years. You've got to be really, really good and distinguish yourself from your peers, or you need to have a manager who likes you coaching the team. Or you can have the fans adore you and vote you in. Talking about All-Star snubs is one of the more enjoyable parts of the All-Star process, I'd hate to see that lessened at all, and it's certainly not a necessary step in avoiding last year's debacle. The real way to get into players/managers and make them want to win the All-Star is through personal incentives, not team ones. Once that game is over, they all go back to their respective teams and get on with their own business. Let's say the Red Sox are real bad one year and the Yanks are running away with the American League's best record. Where's the incentive for the Red Sox representative to make his best effort to win that game? Let's say the Red Sox went to the Series the previous year and their manager is the AL manager. Where's his incentive? The way to make them interested is through money. Contracts should be written be drawn up going forward giving a bigger bonus to players who are on the winning team in the All-Star game rather than just getting there. Bottom line is, the All-Star game isn't that important and people are going to watch it anyway, just as they do for the NBA, NHL and NFL, who have far worse games than baseball. Selig's idea is really awful though and detrimental to the sport, so I really hope it gets squashed.
posted by VZW Watcher at 11:49 AM -