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The MLB Awards, At (Near) the End of the Season, Part I

Call them the Sully Awards.  Call them the SullyOnSports awards. Actually, call them whatever you want because I really don’t care.

These are my thoughts on the MLB awards for the 2015 season.  These players (and managers; they’re people too) have separated themselves from the rest this year, having seasons for the ages and leading their teams to the playoffs.  Of course, what I would do with my ballot is not necessarily in alignment with popular thought, and my choices don’t really reflect what will actually happen with the awards.  But it’s been a really fun, competitive season in baseball, and a lot of the award races are the same way.

I’ll do the MVP and Cy Young awards in this post.  The Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year winners for both leagues will be a separate post.  So let’s get down to business.

AL MVP: Josh Donaldson, Toronto Blue Jays

This one is much closer than you think.  Donaldson leads the American League in runs scored, RBI, and most significantly, WAR. His heroics led the Blue Jays through a mediocre 50-51 showing in the season’s first 101 games.  The team’s season changed, however, on July 28, when the Jays landed star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki.  Two days later, they acquired pitcher David Price and were well on their way.

However, there is another MVP candidate that should be discussed, and it’s Mike Trout.  Trout, the AL MVP from last season, may be having his best season yet, setting career highs in home runs and slugging percentage.  He is second to Donaldson in WAR, but the difference is minuscule (8.2 to 8.1).

And as Rob Arthur of FiveThirtyEight writes, that stat may not even tell us all we need to know:

However, like all statistical estimates, WAR calculations come with uncertainty. Here’s where things get pretty statsy, so bear with me: You’re about to get a crash course in confidence intervals. The true value of a player varies from what you find on the leaderboard — but we’re not sure by how much. That’s because of sample size. Although a whole season of baseball seems like a lot, it still doesn’t provide enough data to allow us to be completely sure of each player’s value. So Harper’s 8 WAR could be 6 or it could be 10, but the number on the leaderboard represents our best guess.

When the uncertainty about a player is small, we can be more sure that the player who looks like the best really is the best. If the uncertainty increases, though, we become less able to distinguish his performance from those of his competitors. Trying to determine the magnitude of this uncertainty is tricky, but it’s an important part of good statistical practice.

All right, I think we get it.  It’s very close, but I’ll take Donaldson, because being the best player on what will probably be the best team going into October does bear some weight in this discussion.  While I don’t think of that as the be-all-end-all, with such a small difference between these two players, we’ll use it as the tiebreaker.  And Donaldson will win the award, for one simple, stupid reason: voter fatigue.

Top 5

  1. Josh Donaldson
  2. Mike Trout (Angels)
  3. Chris Davis (Orioles)
  4. Edwin Encarnacion (Blue Jays)
  5. Nelson Cruz (Mariners)

NL MVP: Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals

I wrote back in July that I thought Paul Goldschmidt should be the National League’s MVP.  This is what I wrote back then (edited, because I repeated the same line twice in the span of a few lines):

Anyway, this discussion, as you can already tell, is extremely complicated.  Harper’s team has done better this season, record-wise (three games up on the Mets in the woeful NL East) , but it’s hard to argue that the Diamondbacks would be where they are right now (42-42) without Goldschmidt.  While Harper’s slugging percentage, OPS, and on-base percentage are better than Goldschmidt’s, I’m giving Goldschmidt the advantage.  The advantage for all of the above listed reasons, as well as a very simple one: the acronym MVP stands for “Most Valuable Player”.  If the award was for “Most Outstanding Player”, Harper would be the clear-cut winner.  But Goldschmidt has been more valuable for his team this season, and the stats demonstrate that.

Goldschmidt has the edge here.

Well, what can I say?  I didn’t necessarily say that Goldschmidt was going to hold on to the award, I just said that he was in the lead on July 10.  And since then, the debate has gone from “complicated” to “duh”.

Harper leads Goldschmidt in every major category except for stolen bases and RBI.  However, Harper has less ABs than Goldy, and would likely pass him in RBI (he has no chance of catching him in steals; he’s down 21-6) had he gotten 43 more plate appearances, which is the difference between the two.

This, unlike the AL award, is as clear-cut as it gets.  Harper’s team losing is simply not his fault, and if it weren’t for him, there is no telling where the Nationals would be.  For that, he’s the obvious MVP.

Top 5

  1. Bryce Harper
  2. Paul Goldschmidt (Diamondbacks)
  3. Andrew McCutchen (Pirates)
  4. Joey Votto (Reds)
  5. Yoenis Cespedes (Mets)

AL Cy Young: David Price, Toronto Blue Jays

The Canadian flavor continues here as David Price is my choice for the Cy Young.  Price was always in the running for this award, but he has really separated himself recently, as Jayson Stark points out:

That’s the kicker here: recency bias.  And I’m completely guilty of it, but Price has been the best pitcher in the AL of late, and probably the best pitcher for the season, as well.

Also, Price has gotten better as the season has gone along, unlike some of his competitors for the award.  Anthony Witrado of Bleacher Report wrote about this yesterday:

The main one is Houston Astros ace Dallas Keuchel, who has earned that ace title over his last two seasons and pitched to a 2.51 ERA, 2.90FIP and 1.023 WHIP this year. He is also 18-8 with a chance to win 20 games, and even though wins as a stat have been mostly discredited in this era, we still celebrate that milestone as a high level of excellence.

It is also possible that Keuchel’s stumble last week will cost him the Cy Young Award. In a start against the Texas Rangers in the Astros’ most critical series of the season, he lasted just 4.2 innings and was torched for nine runs, six of them in the first inning to sink his team before the Rangers even made three outs.

Price has also guided his team to the verge of a division crown, and at worst, an assured playoff berth.  That should be more than enough to win him the award, even if he’s only played with the Blue Jays for two months.

Top 5

  1. David Price
  2. Dallas Keuchel (Astros)
  3. Sonny Gray (Athletics)
  4. Chris Sale (White Sox)
  5. Chris Archer (Rays)

NL Cy Young: Jake Arrieta, Chicago Cubs

Recency bias strikes again here, and again, I think it’s right to go with the guy who has pitched the best down the stretch of this season: Jake Arrieta.

Arrieta has been the best pitcher in baseball for the last month, and the combination of him and Jon Lester in the playoffs is making the Cubbies look more and more dangerous by the day.  While Lester is still an outstanding pitcher, he’s had somewhat of a rough season this year (whatever this is not withstanding.)

And the race between Arrieta and the two Dodgers in this race (Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw) has become really close recently, a fact that Sports Illustrated’s Cliff Corcoran attests to:

Arrieta is pitching so well that Greinke isn’t even guaranteed to finish the year with the league’s best ERA, a distinction which provides the bulk of the argument for his winning this award. If Greinke allows three earned runs in seven innings in each of his final two starts, he’ll finish with a 1.79 ERA, a mark Arrieta would match by allowing just one earned run in 15 innings in his last two starts. That might sound like a lot to ask from Arrieta if not for the fact that he allowed just one earned run in 17 innings over his last two starts and two earned runs in 54 innings over his last seven (0.33 ERA).

I still expect Greinke to finish with the league’s best ERA, but Arrieta could make things close enough that the ERA crown won’t be enough to bring Greinke the award. Meanwhile, Kershaw has three chances to make his own case, which will be based on his likely innings lead and his significant advantages in strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio. Speaking of which: With 272 strikeouts on the season and three starts remaining, Kershaw has an outside chance to become the first pitcher to whiff 300 men in a season since Randy Johnson in 2002. As it stands, he need just six strikeouts to reach the highest total since Johnson’s 290 in 2004.

This race is very, very close, and it may even hinge on the very end of the season for each team.  However, Arrieta has a slight edge because of how dominant he has been over the most important stretch of the season.

Top 5

  1. Jake Arrieta
  2. Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers)
  3. Zack Greinke (Dodgers)
  4. Gerrit Cole (Pirates)
  5. Madison Bumgarner (Giants)

What did I get right and what did I get wrong?  Please let me know in the comments section.  Also, the second half of this post (Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year) will be out soon, most likely on Monday. Thanks for reading!

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Who Should Be College Football’s Number One? You Tell Me

If you weren’t around to digest all of the action in college football this weekend, well, sorry.  Week 3 of the season brought the first (and probably not the last) Saturday of wild and wacky happenings, as Ole Miss beat Alabama, Ohio State looked ready to lose to Northern Illinois, and SEC West ex-hopefuls Auburn and Arkansas withered against LSU and Texas Tech, respectively.  And while there weren’t exactly that many upsets, per se, this Saturday just felt… different.

This is why it was different: virtually every team in the top 10 got tested in some fashion.  #1 ranked Ohio State was pushed to the brink by the pesky Huskies of Northern Illinois.  For basically the entire game, the Bucks looked terrible, and even made a QB change from Cardale Jones to JT Barrett in the second quarter; Jones threw two picks in the early going.  It’s worth noting that they did win 20-13, but so many questions remain for the defending champs.

As for Alabama, they encountered an even worse fate.  They would be dispatched by Ole Miss in a tight, high-scoring, and rather long 43-37 affair.  While Ole Miss did have some luck in pulling off the upset (see play below), the Tide were dominated and were down 43-24 in the late going.

TCU also had to deal with a test, this one against in-state rival SMU.  At home, the Horned Frogs let the Mustangs pull within five with just over eight minutes to play in the fourth quarter.  While Gary Patterson’s team was able to pull away late, SMU did have the ball with a chance to take the lead and six minutes to play; however, they would turn it over on downs, and TCU survived.

As for the other major upset, #6 ranked USC was toppled by perennial foe Stanford at home; the Cardinal, after being left for dead after a stunning opening week loss to Northwestern, have crept back into the AP Top 25 at #21.  They won the game against USC by controlling the ball in the second half and limiting the potent Trojan offense to just 20:31 of possession for the game.

The other top 10 teams (Michigan State, Georgia, Notre Dame, Florida State, UCLA) all won, and #5 Baylor was off.  And even that being said, last Saturday certainly did not disappoint.

But it also left us with a serious conundrum: who should be #1?

If you like sticking with the status quo, then you’re probably going with Ohio State.  And if you’re going with Ohio State, then… I’m sorry. I would strongly disagree with you.

They just don’t look good.  They sleepwalked through their second straight home win Saturday (they turned in a similarly sleepy performance against Hawaii in a 31-0 win the week before) and it looks like they will be facing the same curse that has befallen every team (other than Alabama) this side of 1995 Nebraska; the curse of trying to become a repeat champion.

And, as Stewart Mandel of Fox Sports writes, it isn’t happening this year, either:

Alas, it appears we will go yet another season without seeing college football’s elusive unicorn – The Unbeatable Preseason No. 1 Team. Following in the footsteps of 2005USC, 2009 Florida, 2013 Alabama and 2014 Florida State, 2015 Ohio State appears to be yet another ostensibly loaded defending national champ that, it turns out, has issues just like everyone else.

Mind you, the Buckeyes’ are particularly puzzling. How does an offense with Cardale Jones, J.T. Barrett, Ezekiel Elliott,Braxton Miller, Michael Thomas and four veteran O-lineman score just 13 points against Northern Illinois? Like those aforementioned teams, Ohio State will likely remain a contender into December but hardly the overwhelming favorite it appeared a couple of weeks ago.

This should serve to us as a lesson of how difficult it is to repeat in sports.  And Ohio State won’t be doing it this year, so why make them #1 now?

As for Michigan State, they have a case, but not a strong one.  While they moved up to #2 in this week’s poll (leap frogging TCU for no particular reason), they haven’t looked overly impressive, either, save for a strong game against Oregon in East Lansing on September 12. Western Michigan and Air Force both played them well, and this may be something to remember as Sparty gets into its conference slate. But if they and the Buckeyes can both win out against fairly easy schedules, it could set up a Game of the Century in Columbus on November 21.  Stay tuned.

The aforementioned Horned Frogs have also looked somewhat uninspired, and, other than a cupcake game against Stephen F. Austin, have been pushed by Minnesota and SMU.  It should be duly noted that Minnesota, whom TCU beat on the road on the season’s opening night, has beaten Colorado State and Kent State in its last two games by a combined total of six points.  That being said, I would actually put them at #1, if only for this week.  They have most of the players back from last year’s squad and have come to play in both of their games.  Their defense is nowhere good enough to win or even compete for a national title right now, but they have a track record and a history of success with the players currently on the team. While their defense has been disappointing, their offense looks as if it is firing on all cylinders, and most importantly, they have passed the eye test so far in this young season.

And as for the other team I would put in my top 4 for this week? Baylor.  Yes, they haven’t looked great either, but, again, track record must be absolutely critical when ranking teams.  And after all, I picked Baylor to win the national title, so that has to bear some consideration, right?  Only kidding.

Yes, Ole Miss did look dominant against Alabama, but to be very honest with you, I thought Alabama was overrated in the first place. They should have never been as high as #2 and, by extension, Ole Miss shouldn’t be as high as tied for third in the latest AP poll.

My point is that it is far, far too soon to be passing out judgment on the college football season, because there is probably more carnage on the way.  We still have to remember that it’s early in the season, and even though Ohio State looks like a cross between 2014 Florida State and 2011 Auburn, it’s still a little to early to be overreacting to teams looking unimpressive.  But if we get another week like this one, well, I’ll have to write another one of these articles.

I don’t know for sure who number one should be.  But I did take a guess, at least.  I’m more than happy to put my name and face to putting TCU at #1 and picking Baylor as my national champion.

But I can’t pretend to have any idea what’s coming next week, or in that case, the rest of the season.

*P.S.: This is what my top 10 would look like if I had an AP ballot. I don’t, obviously, but this is what I would have done. Here it is:

  1. TCU
  2. Ohio State
  3. Michigan State
  4. Baylor
  5. Notre Dame
  6. Georgia
  7. Ole Miss
  8. UCLA
  9. LSU
  10. Florida State

Let me know what’s right and wrong in the comments section!

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Chris Coghlan’s Slide on Jung Ho Kang Was Legal, but Should It Be?

Yesterday afternoon, the Cubs and Pirates concluded their critical four-game series in Pittsburgh.  The Cubs would ultimately win the game 9-6 and the series 3-1, but the real story came in the first inning, before the Cubs even recorded an out.

The North Siders loaded up the bases against Pirates’ starter Charlie Morton.  They sent MVP candidate Anthony Rizzo to the plate and he hit a double play ball to second baseman Neil Walker.  Walker threw to shortstop Jung Ho Kang and Kang, like many middle infielders before him, was slid into by the Cubs’ Chris Coghlan.  Only, unlike said middle infielders, Kang wasn’t able to get up and shake off the dirt after the play.

Here is the video, in case you missed it: (WARNING: Video may be disturbing to some.)

Kang suffered a broken leg on the play and is out for the rest of this season and very well could miss the beginning of next season.  His loss affects the Pirates’ playoff chances directly, as he could play every position effectively and hit for average and decent power.  But this discussion can be put to the back burner for a while; let’s talk about the play.

And here’s the caveat that should come with it while it looks ridiculously dirty, it’s actually a perfectly “clean” play, according to the rule book.  Here is the definitive proof (or lack thereof), in MLB rule 7.09:

(f) If, in the judgment of the umpire, a batter-runner willfully and deliberately interferes with a batted ball or a fielder in the act of fielding a batted ball, with the obvious intent to break up a double play, the ball is dead; the umpire shall call the batter-runner out for interference and shall also call out the runner who had advanced closest to the home plate regardless where the double play might have been possible. In no event shall bases be run because of such interference.

But there is nothing there that addresses a runner sliding into a shortstop or second baseman to try to break up a double play.  This practice has been in place for decades, but it is pretty rare to see someone actually get hurt on the play.  Of course, just because players don’t usually sustain injury on a play like this one doesn’t mean that said play is not dangerous.

That applies here; the tactic that Coghlan used to get Kang off-balance is so commonly used that most fans don’t even react when it happens. This is something that ESPN’s Jesse Rogers addressed yesterday:

Neither the Pittsburgh Pirates nor Jung Ho Kang, through his agent, have indicated a belief Chicago Cubs outfielder Chris Coghlan’s slide into second base, which ended Kang’s season on Thursday afternoon, was dirty.

Anyone who believes it was dirty must also believe every takeout slide has the potential to be dirty. If the infielder isn’t going to jump or move out of the way, then a collision is inevitable.

That’s not to blame the victim here. The blame is on the situation. It came on a double play that developed later than normal on a ball hit by Anthony Rizzo in the first inning of the Cubs’ 9-6 win. Kang bravely stood his ground as second baseman Neil Walker flipped him the ball while Coghlan came at him with a hard-but-legal slide. It’s a slide you see several times in every game — a little off the base but within striking distance of it.

I can understand and even agree with this point of view; while the end result was horrible, slides like the one Coghlan performed are 1) legal and 2) effective.  While Coghlan’s slide didn’t break up the double play, there have been too many slides that have to count.  That being said, the rule may be in line for slight modification; the game can be made safer without completely removing the play from the sport.

Here is another example to demonstrate why I don’t think much of this “controversy”: many slides, as Rogers mentioned, wander slightly outside of the base.  Take, for instance, an aggressive slide into home, one where the runner himself does not actually slide over the base, but one part of his body does: his left hand.  The catcher isn’t in the way on the play, so no one really thinks anything of it.  But seriously, how could a person look at this slide and think it isn’t designed to avoid the tag?

This is completely beside the point, but Holliday was so out on that play that it wasn’t even funny.  Anyway, let’s get back to yesterday’s business.

The best comparison for the second base takeout slide is likely the since-outlawed practice of running over a catcher at home plate.  In 2014, Major League Baseball took preventative steps to curtail dangerous, concussion-inducing activity at home plate by implementing rules that prevented catchers from blocking the plate and runners from running outside the baseline.

However (and this is important), the changes weren’t as earth-shattering as they were made out to be.  This is what Fangraphs’ Craig Edwards wrote on the two subjects today:

It is important to note that MLB did not actually outlaw collisions at home plate. They addressed the principal causes of collisions, instructed teams on the same, and while the rule did cause some confusion in its first year, the rule appears to be by and large successful.

Unfortunately for our concern regarding the takeout slide, the same factors at home plate do not exist at a force at second base. Where the catcher can get in front of the plate once he has the ball, at second base, almost all takeout slides occur after the fielder has the ball. This makes the second option, arguably the more important and successful of the rules, untenable for takeout slides.

Of course, the rules were clarified last September in fear of the possibility of a Rule 7.13 World Series, one that gets decided by a home plate collision.  However, Edwards’ point is absolutely crucial; baseball didn’t actually ban home plate collisions, they just made the rules such that these plays were strongly discouraged and much more rare.

And that is what baseball should do in this case, as well. Commissioner Manfred can make a rule that states that a runner cannot go outside of the baseline to make contact with a fielder trying to complete a double play.  The play wouldn’t be removed from the game; rather, it would be made more difficult to pull off and less likely to occur.  If a fielder is on the base, then, and only then, can a runner take him out.  That seems fair enough to me.

To be perfectly clear, the slide and result were not Chris Coghlan’s fault.  He made the right play in that situation and, especially in a game of that magnitude with the Cubs hurtling toward October baseball, gave a complete effort on that play when he could have easily stopped running.

But he didn’t, and now Jung Ho Kang’s season is over.

An outcome that should be avoided at all costs in the future.

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You Left a Team No Option: The Seahawks Need Kam Chancellor in the Worst Way

You may have heard that Seahawks’ safety Kam Chancellor is holding out for a new contract.  Chancellor, one of the starting safeties on Seattle’s super bowl teams of the last two seasons, is making $5.65 million against the cap in 2015 and also has two more years left on his contract.  The hard-hitting stalwart of the Legion of Boom thinks he can get more than that, but his organization isn’t budging.

And while the Seahawks have been unwilling to pay Chancellor, they may soon be left with no other choice.

The Hawks, who led the NFL is total defense last season (with Chancellor) gave up 352 total yards to their opponent, the St. Louis Rams, on just 52 plays.  The L.O.B. gave up 276 of those yards to Rams’ quarterback Nick Foles; 37 of them came on a game tying touchdown pass from Foles to Lance Kendricks with 53 seconds to play.

To be completely fair, the Seahawks at least partially lost to St. Louis because of, well… themselves.  They tried to sneak an onside kick past Jeff Fisher’s squad at the commencement of overtime.  It was really meant to carry much further down the field, but kicker Steven Hauschska accidentally kicked it about the same distance as a typical onside kick would go; the Rams recovered and subsequently kicked a field goal.

After that, the Seahawks drove into Ram territory but were held to a fourth and one.  Needing a first down with one yard to get, Pete Carroll rightly decided to hand the ball to Marshawn Lynch, in a turn of events from the end of Super Bowl XLIX.  The result was… yeah, he didn’t make it.

And it’s true: the Seahawks didn’t lose on Sunday just because of Chancellor’s absence.  Bleacher Report’s Mike Tanier wrote to this point today:

Russell Wilson endured six sacks. Lynch rushed for 73 yards but needed to break about 63 tackles to do it. When you watch Lynch get stuffed in overtime, watch right tackle Garry Gilliam get shoved into the backfield by Michael Brockers.

Gilliam is one of the Seahawks’ pet projects. Instead of drafting a tackle in a fairly deep draft for offensive linemen, they tinkered with Gilliam, an undrafted 2014 rookie who started his college career at tight end. They talked themselves into naming Gilliam the starter when Justin Britt moved inside to guard. The Seahawks hadn’t bothered drafting a guard until the fourth round, either.

Even with the offensive line blocking like ushers at a free concert and the secondary operating at 75 percent capacity, the Seahawks still had a chance to avoid an upset at the hands of the Rams thanks to Nick Foles getting surprised by a shotgun snap, Isaiah Pead somehow getting meaningful carries that led to meaningful fumbles and Cary Williams making a spectacular defensive play and then pulling a Cary Williams by taking the rest of the afternoon off.

The Rams won the overtime toss and chose to receive, making the Seahawks’ path to victory clear: Pin the Rams at or inside their own 20, unleash the Legion of Boom, get good field position and either parlay that into a win.

Instead, the Seahawks onside-kicked, giving the Rams great field position for their cannon-legged field-goal kicker and a chance to win the game with their defense, the one the Seahawks couldn’t block at all.

Self-outsmartment.

All of this is true; it isn’t just because of Kam.  (Interesting side note: Gilliam’s claim to fame is catching a touchdown pass on the fake field goal in last year’s NFC Championship game.)  But the Seahawks absolutely need him, and this is why: their defense is a shell of itself without him.

Rookie Dion Bailey filled in at Chancellor’s position on Sunday, and he failed miserably, particularly on the most important play of the game:

On the play, Bailey fell down, leaving Kendricks open and giving the Los Angeles Rams new life.  While it is impossible to say for sure, it isn’t likely that something like this would happen to Chancellor, even considering the knee problems he suffered at the end of last season.

And there’s something else that Chancellor brings: physicality. Intimidation.  Demorilization.  A physical offense and a hard-hitting defense have been the hallmarks of this golden age in the Pacific Northwest, and Chancellor brings to the offense what Lynch brings to the offense: attitude, determination, and the will to destroy the opponent and rally the troops.  The Seahawks have missed both with him gone.

Consider this hit he made on Julian Edelman in the Super Bowl:

While Edelman holds on for the catch, his bell is rung and suspicions are aroused that he played the rest of the game with a concussion. The play turned the fortunes of the Patriots, but really only because Edelman survived the hit from the much bigger and scarier Chancellor.

The players are naturally taking notice of Chancellor’s absence, and while they aren’t saying boo in the press about it, one has shown his support.  That one is none other than the Kam Chancellor of the Seahawks’ offense: Marshawn Lynch.  He wore Chancellor’s jersey at practice for one day last week, but changed back into his usual jersey the next day; after all, he is really just there so he won’t get fined.

So the players (at least Lynch, anyway) are starting to understand; the Seahawks really need Kam Chancellor.  While it’s extremely difficult to blame him for, you know, trying to get more money (who has ever done that before?), it’s also understandable to feel empathy for the plight of the Seahawks here; one of their employees is basically refusing to come to work because of his salary (or lack thereof).

But no matter whose fault it is, the 12th man will assuredly be sleepless is Seattle, and here’s why:

Kam Chancellor has left the Seahawks no other option.  They have to bring him back.

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The Steelers Did Not Lose to the Patriots Because of Headsets

The Patriots and Steelers played Thursday night in the NFL’s first game back from its disastrous offseason.  The game was quite a spectacle; even before it started, the Patriots got their rings, quarterback Tom Brady took a victory lap to the tune of Nas’ “Hate Me Now” and rapper T-Pain performed his hit “All I Do is Win”; there was even a performance from the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. If all that wasn’t surreal enough, the actual game itself began, and the Steelers almost immediately had some problems with their headsets.

This is what happened, as told by Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com:

It wouldn’t be a New England Patriots game without some drama involving off-the-field strategy.

Pittsburgh Steelers coaches were upset that their coach-to-coach headsets picked up the Patriots’ radio broadcast for the majority of the first half of Thursday night’s game, which New England went on to win 28-21.

When pressed after the game, an unhappy Mike Tomlin said headset issues have occurred repeatedly in New England.

“That’s always the case. Yes. I said what I said,” Tomlin said.

Blake Jones, NFL director of football operations, went down to the field to help with the headsets. The league described the reception problem as “intermittent.”

When asked if he got a satisfactory resolution, Tomlin said: “Eventually.” Tomlin is a member of the league’s competition committee.

Because it was not a complete system failure, New England’s coaches were not required to shut down their headsets during the repairs. However, the Patriots said they experienced issues as well.

“We had a lot of problems,” Bill Belichick said. “We had to switch headphones a couple of times. The communication system wasn’t very good. We deal with that, it seems, weekly.

Unfortunately, this just so happened to occur during a New England Patriots game.  And as is often the case with the Patriots, some, and in particular Steeler fans, are jumping to the conclusion that the headsets are the reason why they won, and that simply isn’t the case.

It wasn’t the headsets, it just wasn’t.  While they probably didn’t help their cause, the Steelers had plenty of opportunities to get on the scoreboard while the technical difficulties were occuring.  For example, Pittsburgh’s first drive took all of five plays to get 56 yards down field to the Pats’ 24; 33 of these yards came by way of fill-in running back DeAngelo Williams’ ground exploits.  Then, offensive coordinator Todd Haley dialed up this play, which was, um, something:

The drive stalled after that play and a 10-yard holding penalty subsequently after.  Kicker Josh Scobee came onto the field and proceeded to shank a 44-yard field goal attempt well wide to the right.

After a second-quarter New England touchdown, Big Ben and the Steeler offense got back to work, and Roethlisberger connected with Darrius Heyward-Bey on a 43-yard bomb to the Patriot 35.  After a Williams 6-yard run, the drive came to a halt, bringing Scobee back into the game for a 46-yard try.  Scobee would miss to the right again, and the Patriots would be well on their way after a score on their next drive.

New England would go up 21-3 at the beginning of the second half, and while the Steelers would mount a mini-comeback in the fourth quarter, it wouldn’t be nearly enough.  The Patriots would win 28-21, and that score was in part because of an Antonio Brown touchdown catch with two seconds to play.

So why did the Steelers lose this game, anyway?  If you listen to them, they might talk at length about the headset issues and how they were negatively affected by them.  And they may also complain about something else, as reported by USA Today’s Tom Pelissero:

Trouble with headsets wasn’t all that had the Pittsburgh Steelers upset during Thursday night’s loss to the New England Patriots.

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger vigorously protested after left tackle Kelvin Beachum was called for a false start on third-and-goal from the Patriots’ 1-yard line – an infraction triggered by the New England line sliding during Roethlisberger’s snap count.

“I thought that there was a rule against that,” Roethlisberger told reporters. “Maybe there’s not. Maybe it’s just an unwritten rule. … We saw it on film, that the Patriots do that. They shift and slide and do stuff on the goal line, knowing that it’s an itchy trigger finger-type down there.”

Left guard Ramon Foster, who also moved on the play, confirmed the Steelers had seen it on film and players were told it’s legal, provided the Patriots don’t cross the line of scrimmage.

“They time it up in the cadence,” Foster told USA TODAY Sports, smiling and shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s one of the things they do. Welcome to Foxborough.”

There is a rule against “attempting to disconcert Team A at snap by words or signals,” but a routine line slide wouldn’t seem to expressly violate that. An NFL spokesman did not immediately respond to a request seeking clarification early Friday morning.

Okay, let’s be perfectly clear here.  The Patriots’ pre-play activity in the trenches is 100% legal.  Sliding defenders from side to side to affect the cadence of the offense is a legal maneuver because the Patriots did not jump offsides.  It’s even a move that I used to attempt to pull in Madden; it never worked for me, but it worked beautifully for Belichick’s team on Thursday.

There are myriad reasons why the Steelers lost to the Patriots Thursday.  It certainly could not have helped them that they were without three of their best players (Le’Veon Bell, Martavis Bryant, Maurkice Pouncey) due to injury and, in the cases of Bell and Bryant, suspension.  In part because of this, as well as the motivation the Patriots got from the DeflateGate ruling, Brady’s Bunch was simply the better team Thursday.

A malfunctioning headset or two can’t change that fact.

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Deflategate Needs to Go Away, For Everyone Involved

This isn’t ISIS; no one’s dying. – Tom Brady

A ruling in Deflategate is supposedly coming in the next day or two, which means that the story may finally, mercifully go away.  There has never been, in the history of American civilization, more of a fuss made by the removal of a half-pound of air from a football.  But, alas, the story has dragged on.  And on.  And on.

Tom Brady, the accused culprit in this never-ending saga, was initially suspended four games for his presumed role in the deflation of the footballs.  However, in a report published by attorney Ted Wells on May 6, it is stated that it is “more probable than not” that Brady and the Patriots knew that the balls were inadequately inflated.  And you know what “more probable than not” means; it isn’t a 100% certainty that Brady and the Patriots staff were doing this on purpose.  For example, it was more probable than not that the 2007 Mets were going to win the NL East; of course, they choked away a seven-game lead with 17 games left to play and missed the playoffs.  And it was more probable than not that the U.S. hockey team would lose to the U.S.S.R. in the 1980 Olympics.  That didn’t happen, either.

To demonstrate the ridiculousness of the report and the entire story itself, the entire thing hinges on a series of text message exchanges between Jim McNally, the attendant of the officials’ locker room and Patriots locker room assistant John Jastremski.  They went like this, in no particular order, per NESN:

McNally: Tom sucks…im going make that next ball a (expletive) balloon

Jastremski: Talked to him last night. He actually brought you up and said you must have a lot of stress trying to get them done…

Jastremski: I told him it was. He was right though…

Jastremski: I checked some of the balls this morn… The refs (expletive) us…a few of then were at almost 16

Jastremski: They didnt recheck then after they put air in them

McNally: (Expletive) tom …16 is nothing…wait till next sunday

Jastremski: Omg! Spaz

Jastremski: Can‟t wait to give you your needle this week 🙂

McNally: (Expletive) tom….make sure the pump is attached to the needle…..(expletive) watermelons coming

Jastremski: So angry

McNally: The only thing deflating (Sunday)..is his passing rating

Jastremski: I have a big needle for u this week

McNally: Better be surrounded by cash and newkicks….or its a rugby sunday

McNally: (Expletive) tom

Jastremski: Maybe u will have some nice size 11s in ur locker

McNally: Tom must really be working your balls hard this week

McNally: You working

Jastremski: Yup

McNally: Nice dude….jimmy needs some kicks….lets make a deal…..come on help the deflator

McNally: Chill buddy im just (expletive) with you ….im not going to espn……..yet

To be fair to Wells and the NFL, the texts do portray the equipment managers, and especially Brady, as being pretty aware of what was happening.  But we can’t be sure that these two weren’t joking, and we can’t be sure that they are credible sources, either.

But the story has become such a joke.  The NFL and Brady are fighting over a small piece of air.  Brady was suspended four games by NFL dictator commissioner Roger Goodell, and Brady filed an appeal of the suspension almost immediately.  The drama that ensued was insane; Pats’ owner Robert Kraft said he wouldn’t fight the penalties levied against his organization after saying he would demand an apology from the league if his team was found innocent.  More on him later.

We later find out that Brady destroyed his phone to potentially hide the deflating evidence.  The NFL’s autocrat “independent arbiter”, Roger Goodell, upheld Brady’s suspension on July 28, at which point you would figure the story would be over.  And if you figured this, you would be so wrong.

The day after, Kraft would pull back his support in the league and Brady would file another appeal.  This one wouldn’t be heard by Goodell but rather by Richard Berman, an independent judge, in New York.  Berman is expected to rule this week, and there is virtually no likelihood of a settlement between the two parties.

The story has become tiring; heck, it was tiring 24 hours after it broke.  It’s a silly controversy.  Worst of all?  The Patriots won the Deflategate game 45-7 over the Colts; meaning, they probably would’ve won the game without the air being taken out of the balls. In this case, though, their reputation precedes them, and the finger will be pointed, just like it was during Spygate, at Brady and the former HC of the NYJ.

And the NFL is not blameless here, either.  How could they want this story to go on forever, especially at a time when the public opinion of Goodell is as negative as ever?  With Brady being one of the best players in the game, why would the league want to provoke what seems like a witch hunt against him?  And why would the NFL be wasting so much effort and energy with Deflategate when it has far, far bigger problems?

These bigger problems were addressed by Nate Scott of USA Today’s For The Win this morning:

This is arrogance of the highest order. The NFL has major issues (and you better believe the release of Concussion on Christmas Day is going to be a major issue for the league) and the league’s commissioner is in a protracted legal battle over whether or not he can suspend one of his star players for four games instead of one or two.

Yes, Commissioner Goodell is wasting league time and resources to try and keep one of his most marketable stars off the field. This doesn’t even make good business sense. All those sports marketing reporters can’t wipe Goodell’s chin and explain to us how what he’s doing is actually good for the bottom line. It isn’t.

This is about showing off the power of The Shield, and not allowing one player to show up the Commissioner, who fought long and hard in those CBA negotiations to have the total power to do whatever he wants. Goodell earned that right, and he’s not going to give it up just because no one in the actual sport cares. This is his show.

Concussion.  About that.

Concussion‘s trailer hit exclusively on MMQB.com yesterday, and it looks like it could be a PR disaster for the NFL.  It stars Will Smith as Bennet Omalu, a doctor who became famous for discovering the brain disease CTE.  CTE has served in part to claim the lives of former players Junior Seau, Dave Duerson, and others.

The movie will likely showcase the league’s years of denial in terms of concussions, and it may be all we are talking about this winter; the movie will be released on Christmas Day.  But this isn’t what Goodell is worried about right now; he’s worried about a little chunk of air.

This story has gone far past its saturation point.  The public and the players have had more than enough (a Bleacher Report poll said 70 percent of players don’t consider the Pats cheaters, and most players simply don’t care about Deflategate at all), so why can’t the parties involved make up and compromise?

In terms of winners and losers in this scandal, well, there are only losers; it’s a no-win situation for everyone involved.

Which is why Goodell, Brady, Kraft, and everyone else involved need it to go away.

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Bud Foster’s Proposed Fines Are College Athlete Exploitation 101

College football season is now just four days away; that’s awesome, awesome news.  One of the headline games of the sport’s opening weekend will occur Monday night in Blacksburg, when the Hokies of Virginia Tech bring their lunch-pail D, their Beamer Ball, and their Enter Sandman into Lane Stadium as they host the defending champion Ohio State Buckeyes; again, wonderful.

However there is one piece of not-so-awesome news that pertains to college football, and specifically Virginia Tech, and that is the thought of fining players for various transgressions.

Now, you must be thinking that this is some kind of sick joke; that’s what I was thinking when I first heard the story.  But it isn’t, and there is even photographic evidence:

Yeah, a fining system makes perfect sense… in the pro game.  For the record, Virginia Tech Athletic Director Whit Babcock put an end to the system that was initially proposed by Defensive Coordinator Bud Foster.  So how was Virginia Tech going to get away with this, if Foster got his wish?

On January 17th, the schools in the Power 5 conferences got together at the NCAA convention and voted 79-1 in favor of a cost-of-attendance stipend.  These schools were able to get this done because, as you may remember, they were given autonomy by the NCAA last August to make their own rules, free of those set by the NCAA.  This is what ESPN’s Mitch Sherman wrote about it at the time:

Stipends, determined by institutions under federally created guidelines, have been estimated at $2,000 to $4,000 annually. They are designed to cover the cost-of-living expenses that fall outside athletic scholarships.

Group of Five and other non-football playing Division I conferences can opt to enact the proposals passed Saturday as early as next fall.

And many schools are doing just that; Virginia Tech is one of them. As I understand it, this stipend is designed to help the players pay to live on campus and keep a roof over their heads.  There isn’t anything wrong with that; even if you are opposed to the payment of college athletes, this rule tangibly benefits the players without actually paying them, per se.

Another godawful element to the Foster Fine System?  The inconsistency.  Go take another look at the chart and you’ll notice something.  That something is the difference between, say, missing a Monday class and getting an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.  Not being in that Monday, Wednesday, or Friday class will set you back $30, but a lapse in judgment on the field will cost you $100.  The other things that will cost a player more than missing a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday class?  Forgetting your equipment for practice, having a dirty dorm room, and having a dirty locker.  That’s nice.

And you’re still thinking that Virginia Tech is the only school even thinking of doing this.  No, no, no, no, no, there’s another school and another coach deliberating the adoption of this practice, per ESPN’s Joe Schad:

Yes, now there are two schools who have at least given thought to the idea of taking a chunk of the little money the players get because of minor off-field transgressions.  Kevin Trahan of VICE Sports wrote to this point a couple of days ago:

This time, the athletic director was on the coach’s side, as Cincinnati AD Mike Bohn said that he supports using fines as “a tool”—a tool to take money out of a supposed academic-based scholarship due to “accountability” related to athletics.

That’s all well and good, but expect Bohn to get a memo from the NCAA soon enough. Subject line, Re: Shut up. There will be no fines at Virginia Tech this season, or at Cincinnati, because nobody riding the gold-plated gravy train of big-time college sports administration wants the association to lose its future legal battles.

In the NFL, teams can fine players because those players are employees earning salaries, and they’ve agreed to having those salaries docked through collective bargaining. In college football, players don’t have those same fundamental economic rights. At least not yet.

Absolutely.  Players in the NCAA don’t have collective bargaining. Whether they should or not is a matter of much debate; after all, the NLRB recently denied the request of Northwestern football players to unionize.  No matter what you think, it simply isn’t fair that players who have no workers’ rights have to also allow their coaches to take their money.

Before you ask: sure, players should be going to class (that’s why they’re there) and there’s nothing wrong with coaches wanting to incentivize class attendance/good in-class behavior.  But, in Foster’s case, fining the players only $30 for missing certain classes but a full $100 for unsportsmanlike conduct?  Come on, especially when you consider that the stipend the players receive may only be $2,000.  So a player could hypothetically lose 5% of his stipend because of one dumb play.

It should bear repeating, however, that Virginia Tech’s AD killed the idea very shortly after Foster announced it.  He probably killed it because he didn’t think that the Hokie players were employees of Virginia Tech or head coach Frank Beamer.

And this is something that Spencer Hall of SBNation has already written about:

Virginia Tech laid waste to the system in a matter of hours for a good reason. Fining athletes is something professional leagues do because they are professionals — paid, well-compensated employees of a corporation, the kind of companies that have definite labor laws, obligations to their employees, and rules for behavior. (In the NFL, the person in charge of some of those rules is Roger Goodell, so maybe “rules” and “consistent standards” are misnomers, but let’s get back on topic.)

If you are a student-athlete — a designation Virginia Tech and every other college football program would love to keep around — then you are not an employee. You play for the love of the game alone, plus a scholarship and cost of attendance and maybe a few under-the-table fringe benefits on the side. Those side benefits are vastly overrated in value. Mostly a few hundred here, maybe a few thousand there if you’re lucky.

We’ve had this discussion before, and we’ll have it again right now. Things are not free, unless they’re classified as amateur sports. The company store has been theoretically outlawed in the United States for years, unless we call it amateur sports. We are completely opposed to paying people with things they often don’t want or need, unless it’s amateur sports. You can’t underpay people for decades on end, unless we’re talking about amateur sports.

You don’t defend a system that deliberately shorts people their worth unless: amateur sports.

And this is the way of amateur sports: screw over the players while the coaches and institutions get all of the wealth and power.  And who does a good lion’s share of that work for the coaches and institutions? The players.

For the record, this isn’t an essay in favor of paying college athletes. But there is no doubt that these players should be able to make money off themselves and their likenesses; their inability to do so has at least partially helped to rob our conglomerate of the delightful NCAA Football video game series.  But that game shouldn’t be made again until the players can make money off their appearance in it; we all know who this dude is, from NCAA Football 14:

QB #2 was the previous year’s Heisman winner and maybe the most unstoppable sports video game character this side of Madden 2004 Michael Vick.  QB #2 went on to be a first round pick in the next year’s NFL draft.  QB #2 couldn’t make any money off of his awesomeness in the game, but he did try to make money off other things.  And QB #2, like the Virginia Tech and Cincinnati football players, had no collective bargaining rights to protect himself in case of something like a fine system being enforced on him.

You’ve figured it out; QB #2 is Johnny Manziel.  Anyway, let’s get back to the point.

While I understand why student-athletes want to be paid, the value of receiving a free education in the greatest country in the world is kind of a huge benefit, too.  While some student-athletes are really more athlete than student, many athletes do go to college for the education. But this is why it’s easy to understand the plight of college athletes: they are being treated like employees without being compensated like employees would be.

And it would be fair for employees to be fined for shortcomings; NFL players are fined every single day.  That’s fair; those players are getting paid to do a job, and are expected to do it well.  But, in amateur sports?  The players are being fined, even though they are nothing near employees.

They’re volunteers, playing for the love of the game and being exploited time and time again by the amateur system.

The system that allowed Foster and Tuberville to think about fining their players in the first place.

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The WDBJ Tragedy Should Give Us a New Respect for Journalists

Journalism keeps you planted in the earth. – Ray Bradbury

This is a sports blog.  You know that by looking at the name.  But today is different.  I can’t stick to sports today.  I just can’t.  And it’s because of what happened at 6:45 this morning in Moneta, Virginia, just outside of Roanoke.

At that time, reporter Alison Parker was interviewing Vicki Gardner, a high-ranking official in the local Smith Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, about the current state of tourism in the area.  Routine interview.  Or so it seemed.

Then, as Gardner was speaking, a gunshot rang out.  It was captured in this video (WARNING: Video contains extremely disturbing content).

The end result was the worst possible one: Parker and her cameraman (Adam Ward) were dead; the general manager of WDBJ confirmed this much on the air later in the morning.  Parker was 24; Ward was 27.

But then, the shooting took an even more horrifying turn.  The shooter, 41-year old Bryce Williams, posted a video (presumably taken from a GoPro) of the shooting on Twitter and Facebook.  As bad as this, too many people were subjected to it; due to auto-play on both applications, many on both social media accounts saw the shared or retweeted video on their timelines and were unable to stop it.

This was as surreal of a story as there you could ever imagine.  What made it more unbelievable was the fact that all of it was caught on live television, or, as we found out later, a GoPro.  So why I am I writing this article on a sports blog?

Well, it’s a complicated answer, but the main reason is at I am an aspiring future journalist.  I think of myself as something of a journalist now, with this blog, but not really.  I’m not in the industry, I’m not out covering stories, and I’m not subjecting myself to harm like Ward and Parker did.  And I have all the respect on the planet for real-world journalists, especially after the events of today.

On-camera reporters often face distractions during their reporting, and they’re usually very innocuous.  Most of the time it’s people like this (WARNING: video contains a brief moment of mature content).

But, in reality, the Baba Booey guy is representative of the distractions field reporters face 95% of the time.  There also exists another popular, sexist, and extremely inappropriate phrase that many reporter-hecklers have used in a live shot (you can find out for yourself what it is).  But, the consequence of those occurrences?  The reporter throwing back to the studio, the studio anchor apologizing, and the newscast moving on.  No one is physically harmed.

So this is a new frontier.  And it should make us realize: a journalist/reporter’s job is really hard.  We often see certain people on TV and think, “That’s just another teleprompter-reading, stupid TV anchor/reporter”, and that could not be further from the truth. Even singer Don Henley crooned in his solo hit “Dirty Laundry”, “We got the bubble-headed bleached blonde, comes on at five/she can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye”.  Again, this opinion of reporters couldn’t be further from the truth.  TV, and in particular, reporting, takes so much more than a smile and a hair color.  Unfortunately, part of that includes shutting out extraneous distractions, something that Parker and Ward had to do in the last moments of their lives.

And a piece written by Jaye Watson on her blog absolutely knocks it out of the park.  Read it.  It is the best piece of writing I have read on this senseless tragedy and maybe one of the best essays I’ve ever read. Here is the last part of it, which perfectly encapsulates the role of a journalist in making the world a better place:

It’s enough to make you wonder, who in the hell would want to do a job like that?

Us.

Because deep down inside, we are the same in believing that we can make a difference.

We can change things.

We can expose rot.

We can give a voice to the voiceless.

We can make people happy.

We can make them angry.

We can be the catalyst for change.

We are the ones at the shooting, the city council meeting, the hospital bedside, the big high school game, the war zone, the grieving family’s living room.

We take what we hear and I swear we do our damndest to regurgitate it back to you the best we can.

We want you to know what we know.

I didn’t know Alison Parker or Adam Ward, but I would bet they entered this business with an idealized, deep desire to make the world a better, more informed place. They wanted to tell good stories. They wanted to be part of the change.

One person, a Glock and GoPro toting person, stole the promise of their lives, ensuring they would experience no more ‘firsts,‘ of any kind.

I beg of you to remember one thing.

He was not one of us.

And this is why journalists are so important; they make the world better.  They force change through ingenious investigative reporting. Going back to sports for just one second, if it weren’t for two journalists (Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru), we wouldn’t have had the information about Cris Carter’s fall guy comments at last year’s NFL rookie symposium.  And if it weren’t for great investigative reporting, we likely wouldn’t have ever found out about Watergate, the horror of the Vietnam War, or the unethical surveillance ways of the NSA.

Journalism is essential.  It was attacked today.  Whether you like it or not, today was an attack on free speech and journalism, by a disgruntled reject from the outside.  We shouldn’t be talking about the shooter’s motive right now (he killed himself this afternoon) but it probably had nothing to do with attacking free speech.  From all accounts, the gunman had been fired from several outlets, was not easy to work with, and had an anger issue.  He was fired from WDBJ in 2013 and reportedly refused to leave the offices.  (He would later file a wrongful termination lawsuit against WDBJ; it was unsuccessful.)

But we can try to figure out motives later.  This moment is about remembering Alison Parker and Adam Ward, two aspiring journalists, doing something they did every day: their job.  Two innocent lives, put in danger by a savage gunman aiming to finish them.  And, the saddest part, two soon-to-be-spouses.

Ward was engaged to one of the producers at the station, and (this is terrifying), she had to watch his death from the control room.  It was her last day at WDBJ, and Parker had supposedly brought in balloons for the celebration.  Parker had moved in with fellow station reporter Chris Hurst, and according to Hurst, they had future plans for their lives, too:

This is the real shame of today; they were young.  They had most of their lives ahead of them.  But that all ended at 6:45 this morning.

But this is what I hope comes out of this: I hope people respect the role of journalists in our society.  The job always brings its perils, and while we usually equate reporters being harmed with their reporting in war zones, those perils walked into the living rooms of the greater Roanoke area just after dawn today, and maybe changed the journo industry forever.  While the piece Parker and Ward were doing was an everyday, routine piece, people like them serve a big role in our society, as a conduit to the American public.

But they’re gone now.  And may they rest in peace.

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The MLB Playoff System Is a Problem, but Its Solution Is Simple

If you follow baseball, you’re probably at least decently aware that both the American and National leagues have three divisions each; this has been the way of baseball since 1994.  And winning the division has always meant a ticket into the playoffs.  But, inevitably, as is the case with the NFL and just about every other major sport, some divisions are evidently better than others.

This year, the best division in the majors has been, by a wide margin, the NL Central.  It’s about to field three playoff teams (Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs) and each one of those three teams is at least 20 games over .500.  The three playoff teams in the Central also happen to be the three best teams in the NL.  However, with the way the playoff structure works, the Pirates and Cubs will be subjected to a one-game playoff to decide which one advances to the division series.  The worst part?  The winner of this game is going to have to play the Cardinals, the best team in the game and a potential 100-game winner.

So even though the Pirates and Cubbies are the second and third best teams in the NL by record, one of them will be left out of the senior circuit’s final four.  But two of the teams that will be one of the last four standing in the NL will be the NL West champ (either the Dodgers or Giants) and the NL East winner (most likely the Mets). Both teams currently sit at 67-56, a whole 4.5 games worse than the Cubs.

Hypothetically, let’s just say that the Pirates win the Wild Card game. In this case, the Buccos would be forced to play the Cardinals in a match-up of the NL’s two best teams record-wise.  One of them would be eliminated in this series.  The winner would then play the winner of the Mets-Dodgers series (that’s what we’ll call it for the sake of this discussion).

So, here’s what would happen under the current format: two of the three best teams in the NL would be out before the League Championship Series.  Does this sound like a fair way to decide a champion?  I don’t think so.  We could be left with a very interesting LCS matchup (the Mets and Dodgers are two of the most dangerous teams in baseball if they make the playoffs) but the system won’t reward the most successful regular season teams.

So I came up with a very simple way to fix the big issue plaguing the MLB playoffs, the one in which the best teams knock each other out early in October.  Here is my solution so that problem.

The Win-Loss Record, Stupid

 

I’m not calling anyone stupid; I just wanted to inject a little James Carville into this article to make it a tad more interesting.  Anyway, let’s get back on track.

The way to fix this simple issue has everything to do with rewarding the teams with the best records in baseball.  In my playoff format, I would disregard division winners and not automatically reward them with a reprieve from the Wild Card game.  I would treat divisions as a way to geographically separate the teams as well as a process to solve tiebreakers.  For example, if two teams had the same record, the first tiebreaker would be in-division records.  I feel that it is a fair enough way to hash things out if two teams with the same record either get into the playoffs or are fighting for the last ticket to the dance.

So how would this seeding work?  This is how.

  1. Best record
  2. Second-best record
  3. Third-best record
  4. Fourth-best record
  5. Fifth-best record

Not that much would really change from the format we have now. The only difference would be that seeding would be determined by record, not winning the division.  Tiebreaker would be the aforementioned in-division record.  And the four and five seeds would play in a one-game playoff, just like in the current system.  It’s not perfect, but I believe that this is definitely better than having two of the three best teams knocked out of the postseason before the Championship Series.

So how would the playoff picture actually shake out using this method?  Here are the playoff seedings for both leagues, sorted by win-loss record.

AL

  1. Kansas City Royals- 75-48
  2. Toronto Blue Jays- 69-55
  3. New York Yankees- 68-55
  4. Houston Astros- 69-56
  5. Texas Rangers- 64-59

NL

  1. St. Louis Cardinals- 78-45
  2. Pittsburgh Pirates- 74-48
  3. Chicago Cubs- 71-51
  4. New York Mets- 67-56
  5. Los Angeles Dodgers- 67-56

*Note: Mets win in-division record tiebreaker.

If you look closely at the teams in my playoffs, you’ll notice something: the teams that would make the postseason if the regular season ended today are the exact same teams that would make it in with the current system.  I’m just rearranging the deck chairs, if you will, to reward the teams with better records.

And, this is just a personal aside, but I think the match-ups in this version of the playoffs would be more scintillating than they would be in real life.  A one-game playoff between the Dodgers and Mets, along with a potential clash of Jacob deGrom and Zack Greinke, the two best pitchers in the game by ERA?  Yes, please.  An in-division meeting of the Yankees and Blue Jays?  I’ll take that.  And the potential of either another Dodgers-Cardinals meeting or a bout between the two best pitching staffs in baseball?  That would be good. The possibilities are endless.

One More Note on How This Would Work

 

In my baseball, home-field advantage would not be decided by the All-Star game.  I would decide my World Series home-field by regular season performance, but that leaves one small ambiguity to clear up. Hypothetically, let’s say the Cubs (the NL’s three-seed) and the Blue Jays (the AL’s two-seed) meet in the World Series.  While the Blue Jays have the better seed, the Cubs have the better record (this is a general theme; the NL is better than the AL this year).  This would leave a conundrum as to who would get home-field.  Here is the answer, if I ruled baseball (imagine that for just a second):

The Chicago Cubs.

This is the fair way to conduct the World Series, and this is how home-field advantage would be decided; not by seeding or meaningless exhibition game, but by win-loss record.  It’s consistent with the way the rest of these playoffs work: rewarding winners, regardless of what division they play in.

So, other than re-seeding, I’d keep the exact same playoff format.  The Wild Card game is great, especially considering its urgency and random nature.  It’s given us awesome:

And, at worst, talked about:

And the winner of my Wild Card game would play the one-seed, just like in the current format.  Not much really changes.

So, making one little change to the way the Playoffs work would make a world of difference, in my opinion.  It’s not some huge, earth-shattering change like getting rid of divisions all together, and because we are keeping the divisions, we can still have the same wild and crazy in-division rivalries that we do now.

So all this is is a very minor change to the system; some may argue otherwise, but I don’t think it’s a big deal.  It rewards regular season performance while still giving an incentive to win inside the division. It’s the little change that can go a long way to fixing the problem with the MLB playoffs.

It’s the win-loss record, stupid.

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The ‘Elite’ Discussion is Ridiculous; Joe Flacco is Proof Positive

You’ve probably heard, especially recently, the discussion of NFL quarterbacks, and particularly which ones are “elite” and which ones aren’t.  This debate has extended to, among others, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.  Flacco led his team to a Super Bowl title in 2013, and his postseason run got him a new six year, $120.6 million contract.

As you can imagine, pundits have taken their time to debate Flacco’s eliteness.  But first, we have to understand what elite means. According to dictionary.com, the definition of “elite” is: “representing the most choice or select; best.”  Okay, so with that out of the way, NFL fans have had hypothetical debates, especially recently, over the eliteness of Flacco and others.  And you are going to hear the word elite a lot in this article.

But this debate has become utterly ridiculous.  Why?  Because it’s gotten so far out of control it can’t be saved.  It started two years ago, in the midst of the Ravens’ Super Bowl run.  As transcribed by Rodger Sherman of SBNation, the Ravens’ website has fed the elite fire.  Here are a few article titles since then:

Jan. 14, 2013: “Joe Flacco not elite? ‘You’re crazy.’“

June 5, 2013: “Pres. Obama to Joe Flacco: ‘You’re elite.’“

Dec. 12, 2014: “Joe Flacco sending ‘elite’ subliminal message?“

Jan. 3, 2015: “Joe Flacco ‘The best quarterback in football’“

(We are counting this as an assertion of eliteness.)

Jan. 3, 2015: “Joe Flacco leaves elite tip in Pittsburgh“

(To be fair, we had the same headline.)

Jan. 5, 2015: “Why isn’t Flacco considered elite?”

Jan. 8, 2015: “Is Joe Flacco an elite QB?“

(The answer was yes.)

Feb. 18, 2015: “Is Joe Flacco elite? Gary Kubiak’s awesome answer.“

May 28, 2015: “Why Joe Flacco will break into elite QB club under Marc Trestman“

WAIT I THOUGHT HE’D BEEN IN THE CLUB THIS WHOLE TIME

July 24, 2015: “Torrey Smith’s brilliant response to Joe Flacco elite question“

Aug. 20, 2015: “Eagles head coach Chip Kelly calls Joe Flacco elite“

That, in and of itself, is the reason why we shouldn’t be debating this stuff.  It’s perfectly easy to understand the team promoting its best player, but their borderline obsession with his being “elite” is insane. And this is from the same people that brought you this gem last summer.  But they aren’t the only ones.

On August 6, the Republican Debate was held in Cleveland, Ohio. MSNBC, among other networks, was there to cover it.  During Chris Matthews’ “Hardball”, a man bearing a sign with a very specific message could easily be seen behind Matthews’ set.  (Keep in mind, “Hardball” is a political show on a political cable news network.)  Here’s the image:

Yes, that is someone with a sign asking if Joe Flacco is an elite quarterback.  While the occurrence was extremely funny when it happened, it was really just a denotation of our infatuation with a completely random debate like this one.

To show how obsessed we are in America about football, and debate like this one, the guy holding the sign has a known identity.  While we don’t know his real name, he goes on Twitter by PFTCommenter; PFT stands for NBC Sports’ football blog, Pro Football Talk.  He’s no joke, either: he has 56.7 thousand followers.

And he also has a Wikipedia profile.  Here it is:

PFT Commenter (alternatively spelled PFTCommenter or Pro Football Talk Commenter) is a pseudonymous and satirical sportswriter who covers the National Football League for online publications including Kissing Suzy Kolber, SBNation, Football Savages, and his own site, StrongTakes.com, as well as on Twitter. PFT Commenter, whose name references Profootballtalk.com, mimics the “macho posturing and racism”,[1] or “hot takes“,[2] in the website’s comment sections.

His writing style is characterized by “didactic misspelling, erratic punctuation, barely veiled racism, not-quite-latent homophobia, conspiratorial anxiety, and arrogant disdain for critical thought” and the character is “dumb on purpose”,[3] earning a comparison to the Stephen Colbert character on The Colbert Report[1] with his ability to “undermine the league’s resident apologists and party-liners.”[3] PFT Commenter often overpraises white players for their blue-collar attitudes, criticizes black players for being selfish and overrated, and “eagerly takes the truth-y NFL party line on every possible issue”.[1] In response to criticisms of his poor spelling, he wrote, “Im on record that I dont care about spelling, I care about TELLING.”[2]

PFT Commenter began as a commenter on ProFootballTalk.com[4] before starting the @PFTCommenter Twitter account in 2012 and eventually becoming a contributor for SBNation, Kissing Suzy Kolber and Football Savages.[2]

PFT Commenter has also written a self-published[2]e-book, Goodell vs. Obama: The Battle for the Future of the NFL, which imagines a dystopian future in which PresidentBarack Obama attempts to turn the Dallas Cowboys into a soccer team in Kenya, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell fights him in a boxing match to stop him.[5]

PFT Commenter (alternatively spelled PFTCommenter or Pro Football Talk Commenter) is a pseudonymous and satirical sportswriter who covers the National Football League for online publications including Kissing Suzy Kolber, SBNation, Football Savages, and his own site, StrongTakes.com, as well as on Twitter. PFT Commenter, whose name references Profootballtalk.com, mimics the “macho posturing and racism”,[1] or “hot takes“,[2] in the website’s comment sections.

His writing style is characterized by “didactic misspelling, erratic punctuation, barely veiled racism, not-quite-latent homophobia, conspiratorial anxiety, and arrogant disdain for critical thought” and the character is “dumb on purpose”,[3] earning a comparison to the Stephen Colbert character on The Colbert Report[1] with his ability to “undermine the league’s resident apologists and party-liners.”[3] PFT Commenter often overpraises white players for their blue-collar attitudes, criticizes black players for being selfish and overrated, and “eagerly takes the truth-y NFL party line on every possible issue”.[1] In response to criticisms of his poor spelling, he wrote, “Im on record that I dont care about spelling, I care about TELLING.”[2]

PFT Commenter began as a commenter on ProFootballTalk.com[4] before starting the @PFTCommenter Twitter account in 2012 and eventually becoming a contributor for SBNation, Kissing Suzy Kolber and Football Savages.[2]

PFT Commenter has also written a self-published[2]e-book, Goodell vs. Obama: The Battle for the Future of the NFL, which imagines a dystopian future in which PresidentBarack Obama attempts to turn the Dallas Cowboys into a soccer team in Kenya, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell fights him in a boxing match to stop him.[5]

To be honest, good for him.  He has built a cult following out of giving hot takes on the game’s most talked about players and made a living off of it.  He is popular mainly because of our football-obsessed culture in America and our constant need to talk about something related to the sport.  But as they say, don’t hate the player.  Hate the game.

That game is the Flacco debate.  But here is why we shouldn’t be doing this: it won’t help the Ravens win or lose any games.  It’s a futile discussion to have.  Most of all?  Joe Flacco has one more ring than anyone debating whether he is elite or not.  That says it all.

There’s no reason to debate this; it’s not important.  It fills the time until the NFL season starts and gives sports pundits something to talk about related to football.  And, do you know the best part?  People will probably try to determine his “eliteness” by quantifying his value to their fantasy teams.  That is the culture of NFL fandom, ladies and gentlemen.

So this debate is stupid and ridiculous.  But here’s the problem:

It’s not going away anytime soon.