Spin it, let's begin it

So... could the Nats make the playoffs? 

This is a transition season for the Nats. After two years of trying to keep the window open using chewing gum and bailing wire and failing miserably, the Nats are accepting they won't be competitive this year. But just because you accept it doesn't mean it will happen.  Can we work out a way that the Nats will be in the hunt for the playoffs this year? Of course we can! I can make the Pirates contenders if I best case scenario everyone on the team. A better question is : how crazy does that work have to be?

Let's start with the biggest factor in the Nats favor.  They expanded the playoffs. It's likely that teams in the 83-85 range will make the playoffs, so if the Nats can break .500 they have a shot.  How far are they away from .500?

 While the Nats only won 65 games last year they were a better team than that.  They pythag numbers (runs scored and runs allowed) pegged them at something more like 71 wins and the 2nd and 3rd order wins (trying to peel even more luck away) put them around 77-78.  This isn't wishful thinking. The offense had the best BA and OBP in the NL and the 5th best slugging. They should have scored more runs. They lost more games by 2 (12-19) and 3 (8-18) runs that one would think. They should have won more with the runs they did score. 

So let's say this is true. Last year's team was a 75 win team that got pretty damn unlucky. They only need to get 6 wins better to do it!  

But wait!  That can't be the starting point though.  They lost Max. And Trea. And Yan and Josh and Schwarber and Zimm and Daniel Hudson. That's lets see... carry the one... factor in the wind... like 10 wins, let's say.  Replace them with blank slates and you have a 65 win team. Can they make it from there to 81? 

Let's make Strasburg, who gave the Nats nothing last year, around peak Stras.  That's 5 wins himself. 70 wins. Corbin is somewhere around his useful 2017 level. That's 3 more.  Bingo bango 73 wins. The guys that replace all those won't be nothings... let's replace Max with a 1.5 win guy... 74.5. Gomes with a ROY type Ruiz, let's say 2.5 wins... 77.  The other guys... welll they manage not to hurt 1 win 78 total.  We're getting close.  

Cruz you say! Well yes, we could in theory get 3 wins just from Cruz BUT everyone is getting a Cruz in the NL. Well not a Cruz but a DH. So that will effect the relative wins for everyone.  I'll say Cruz gives the Nats a good season, 3 wins, and is about 1.5 wins better than the average DH... 79.5.   Hell from here you can "maybe the pen is a little better" the rest of the way.  You could probably do that and add 2-3 wins. We're there!  The Nats have ~82 wins!  Nothing crazy! We didn't ask for Soto's best year ever or Josiah Gray to be a ROY candidate or anything! 

Does the NL East getting better matter?  Probably not. The Nats tanked against the league last year going a combined 19-38 against the Braves, Mets and Phillies combined. It would hard to do worse even if their improvement doesn't track with the rest of the division.  AL Opponent?  It is the AL West which is not super strong, Angels & Rangers could be better, Mariners should be less lucky and A's are tanking. But the Nats did a surprisingly decent 10-10 against the AL East last year that was 4 teams deep with 90 wins teams. They probably won't improve on that. 

Nope if everything goes right - just right not crazy - the Nats could be good enough to challenge for a playoff spot.  The bottom of the playoffs sure but it's there. The division?  Probably not. The Braves were a better team than their 88 and haven't made themselves worse. The Mets should have been around .500 and could be much better. The Phillies.... well they could be better than that 82 wins too. Chances of ALL these guys failing in a way that the Nats catch them would be the same as the chances we find another 5 wins for the Nats... unlikely. Could a huge signing (Correa) or a couple smart not huge signings do it? It's possible I guess. I think it would still take at least the Braves falling off.  

But playoffs? Maaaybe. It basically does mean there can't be disappointments.  Bell can't be close to average. Ross can't be missing all year and have Sanchez bomb. Ruiz can't have growing pains. The pen can't be below average. There also can't be fall-offs from some better-case scenarios.  Strasburg can't just be Strasburg for 20 starts, it needs to be close to 30. Corbin can't be usable, he needs to be good. Soto can't be only All-Star level, he has to challenge for an MVP.

But... could the Nats make the playoffs?

Crazier things have happened.*

*Ed note - I do not think they will make the playoffs

More moves - but not much in the NL East

The big NL East move... well I guess the big one is Olson signing long-term, which cemented the Braves as a "win-now but long-term" team I pegged them as yesterday. Acuna, Albies, and Olson are now all in ATL forever. None of the young pitchers are up for FA until after 2024. This isn't a death knell for the rest of the NL East. The Braves weren't THAT good last year, rather they were good enough and got hot at the right time (these things happen), so without improvement they are beatable the next couple years.  BUT I'll add they are young enough in a lot of places that that may happen. They also should have money to supplement what they do have. It COULD be a death knell. 

Of course the Mets are trying to force the issue for the next couple of years and the Phillies did something! They signed Kyle Schwarber to a 4 yr 79 million deal. That's a lot! Schwarber might be worth it - the tear he went on last year was crazy but everyone has loved him for years as a pure hitter. While he has tried to improve on D, he feels more like a natural DH and it might just keep him hitting at that highest level.  He also might NOT be worth it but given his history he'd still be giving the Phillies something at the plate. It probably helps last year's Nats hitting coach, Kevin Long, is now on the Phillies. Still they need rotation help and bullpen help and probably another OF... They are a clear third here. 

Rizzo re-signed with the Yankees, Chapman was traded to the Blue Jays, Bryant signed with the Rockies, Freeman ended up with the Dodgers, Giants signed Boyd and Pederson, Greinke went back to the Royals, Cutch is on the Brewers now... it's a lot. But a lot that doesn't directly affect the Nats unless you care about draft picks.

Who's left? Correa, Story, Castellanos, Conforto, Villar, Jansen, Tepara, Danny Duffy.

As far as the NL East goes it's dead quiet when it comes to any of these players. It would be wise of the Phillies to grab BOTH those reliever. Seems far more likely they'll try to get the injured middling pitcher who managed a surprising good stretch Duffy on the cheap. A Matt Moore move. 

Could the Nats be in on any of these?  Probably not. Any reliever would work but they aren't giving out the multi-year deals these guys are looking for. Correa would make sense - the Nats don't have a SS close to ready. Brady House is there but he is far down there so who knows if when and at what position he ends up. Correa could be the guy for Soto to look at and believe the Nats are serious about competing and stay.  But it'd still be a surprise bc if Correa isn't getting the money (which is like at least 300 mill) you figure he'd go back home. No, unless one of these guys wants to sign a 1 yr challenge deal (Story?) I can't see it happening.

Tuesday - Doolittle and the NL East

The Nats didn't stop signing people, yesterday bringing in old friend Sean Doolittle. Like a lot of Nats relievers (Clippard, Storen, Soriano, Treinen, Kelley) people tend to forget the good and remember the bad. I don't know why I guess a reliever that isn't outright dominant is like a good umpire - you don't notice them. But Doolittle was good for the Nats more than he was bad.  He excelled for the remainder of the season he was traded over (2017), the complete next season, and through nearly mid-August of the Championship year. But the Nats bullpen was ridden extremely hard that season and Doolittle broke in the dog days of 2019. He managed to come back to throw some decent innings but if possible the Nats kept him out of important situations.  The exception being holding down the fort at the end of Game 1 of the World Series after Hudson, himself stretched into a second inning, had given up a run and left a man on second, with two outs in the eighth. 

Anyway Doolittle tried unsuccessfully to get right in the pandemic year then signed with Cincinnati and pitched middling until he was waived, where he was snatched up by the Mariners to do the same.  He is still very good against LHB but the "No LOOGYs" rule means the opportunities to use that to your advantage are limited. He could fit into this pen, but that's more telling of this pen than of Doolittle's potential to be good again. 

 

As pointed out yesterday the Nats also brought in Aaron Sanchez a former highly touted arm who broke, then stunk, then got hurt again, then pitched a little for the Giants with good results then got hurt again. The guy is not an injury risk, he's an injury certainty. But maybe he can give the Nats a month or two of better 4/5 starting then they are looking at now. Maybe. Look the staff is a mess. 

The rest of the NL East has not exactly stayed quiet post-lockout, either.  Lets take a look at the competition. 

Braves - The Braves traded for Matt Olson who had a little break out season after flirting with excellence for several seasons. This means Freddie Freeman is out (and likely in LA but we'll see).  What's the trade off there? Olson had been a better fielder - legit gold glove material - though seemed a little off last year. You don't judge D by one year though so I'd assume if he isn't near best he's still very good. Freeman is starting to age into being bad, though isn't quite there yet. At the plate... well it depends on how much you believe last year.  If you buy into it Olson would be just as patient as Freddie while showing more power which makes up for the fact Freddie is a better pure hitter.  If you don't buy into it Olson is a little worse hitter and a little less patient and Freddie very likely to outhit him. 

Of course the second biggest thing is Olson is 3-4 years younger than Freeman meaning he's likely to maintain being what he is vs Freeman who's likely to slip a little. At worst the Braves got an equal player in terms of production. The biggest thing is Olson is far cheaper probably doing this at half the cost of Freeman with no 35+ years hanging out there as would for Freeman on another deal. 

The Braves gave up a bunch of decent prospects for this haul.  Cristian Pache (23) everyone was once very high on and is going to be in the majors. The question is as a super 4th OF because of his D and base running or a very good everyday player. Shea Langeliers (24) is college guy who looks good in limited games and is very likely to be a major league catcher in the next year or two. Ryan Cusick (22) was the Braves #1 pick last year with fantastic swing and miss stuff (but control issues). Joey Estes (20) is another live arm who's biggest weakness (too many fly balls) plays well in Oakland. It's a haul that empties out the Braves system and paints them as a win now team, albeit that NOW period stretches probably 3-5 years given their relative youth.

Mets -  The Mets traded for Chirs Bassit who you may remember as the Oakland pitcher who got hit in the face last year. He has always been pretty good but in the past couple years matured into something even better, as he seems to be learning how to optimally pitch. At 33 he's not in NY for the long haul but he's an EXTREMELY good #3.  The prospects given up were fine but nothing like the Braves haul, as to be expected for a guy Bassit's age with one year left.

The Mets also brought in Adam Ottavino who had surprised in Colorado but hadn't been great in NY or Boston outside of a little luck.  He is still a decent arm in the pen and if you can keep him facing primarily righties, maybe even good.

Phillies - They got Aaron Barrett! Barrett if you somehow forgot is the Nats guy who looked real good in 2014 into 2015 but then his arm "broke" and he needed Tommy John and then after rehabbing that his arm BROKE (no quotes) and he needed a full year to get back from that. He persevered and did it.  Unfortunately his very limited major league stints were terrible and the Nats couldn't bring themselves to give him another shot in 2021 despite good AAA stats. The Phillies will try and given their pen that makes sense - of course same for the Nats! What were they thinking?

They also signed Jeurys Familia who is in theory decent but always seems to be a problem. If you are a Phillies fan reading this last year did look a lot more like his better seasons with some bad luck HR wise. If you are not a Phillies fan, he got hit more and gave up more homers last year so if the Ks go back down he could be toast. Seems like a Phillies reliever to me.

And they signed Brad Hand. Back to the very first sentence of this post Brad Hand was actually good for the Nats, until he wasn't and then he was very quickly very bad and he went to the Jays and kept being that bad. But after the Jays kicked him out he ended up on the Mets and seemed ok again. Just one of those years? If so the Phillies could have a great arm for relatively cheap. But who wants to bet on the Phillies pen?

finally they brought back Odubel Herrera who is just a guy. If he's their worst every day player that's pretty good, but he's usually not.

Marlins - the Marlins have done nothing with suggests the rumors that Jeter left because they weren't going to try to supplement an exciting young pitching staff with the offense it needs is probably true. But hey, maybe Correa signs there today! 

The Nats are better than they were pre-lockout but it's not in a vacuum. Braves aren't better today BUT aren't worse, they are better probably for 2023 and their fortunes this eyar mostly rely on how good Acuna is when he returns (Likely in May).  The Mets are better than they were pre-lockout and they were already better with Max. And the Phillies, well they are at least doing something, throw enough junk at a pen and one year it'll work (rotation still needs work). The Nats might have popped back past the Marlins for 4th but beyond that well it depends on Strasburg. He's supposed to throw today. Let's see how he looks

Monday Quickie - STUFF! Lots of it!

 The shortened Spring was going to give us a flurry of moves and even a team like the Nats, presumably out of it and rebuilding, would be involved in someway.  They haven't disappointed making one of the biggest signings so far (granted there have been very few BIG signings post lockout). Let's review what they did

Steve Cishek - Nats signed this submarining righty reliever to a 1/1.75M deal. They NEED relievers so this is no surprise. Cishek is mostly good? Probably? His ERA always seems better than his FIP which is good because his 3 year FIP paints him as middling at best. He doesn't have great control.  He doesn't strike out a bunch. But his delivery is hard to square up leaving things to the gods on when those few hits fall or when he blow a pitch. Hard to see him being unusable, might be good? That's a good signing for that price. 

Ehire Adrianza - Utility player who has been consistently... usable since 2016.  He is a contact hitter who doesn't K, or walk, or hit for power, or high average. But he plays decently all over the field and the average is ok. At 1.5 M you think he's bound for the majors but the Nats are now stacked with just decent utility players who'd normally fill out the last spot on a teams 25 man.  Want a take? Nats are willing to deal Kieboom (a bad season away from being untradable) AND Garcia (mildly disappointing so far but very young so still intriguing to Nats and other teams) and doing that would leave two IF roster spots to fill.

Gerardo Parra - Baby Shark guy was here last year and stunk then. AAAA filler who might get another chance to be brought up for cheap pop.

Anibal Sanchez - There's some excitement for his return on a minor league deal but there isn't any reason for there to be. After catching a late career rebirth for a couple season with the Braves and in a lesser way on the mound but greater way in the title getting with the Nats Sanchez was terrible in 2020 and no one wanted an old formerly terrible now terrible again pitcher in 2021. Chances of him being terrible are very good and while I dislike Fedde and Rogers and Espino they aren't likely to be TERRIBLE. 

Nelson Cruz - the big deal. The guy has been one of the premier HR hitters for over a decade now. He's close to 500 though very unlikely to get there this year.  He doesn't walk too much (but has gotten a little better at that), he does strike out a bunch but not a crazy amount especially in this day and age.  He should make good protection for Juan Soto. Should.  Ultimately with a guy like Nelson Cruz you can't ignore the fact he'll turn 42 halfway through the season. At this age guys lose it overnight. There is no ability to compensate for an injury or for the loss of a skill.

And worrying is the 2nd half stats of .221 / .279 / .438. He still hit homers - 14 in 62 games which would be 30+ for a season, but that's all he did and given he's a DH, flawed hitter is not exactly what you want. 

For a team trying who needs a DH Cruz is still a decent gamble. He will be bad. Probably some season soon. But he was good last year and he only needs to be good this year for you.  But for the Nats I'm not sure.  Are they trying?  

It makes them better. There's no denying that so for the fans in 2022 this signing is a good one. Does it make sense beyond that? We have to see what else the Nats do/

SEASON RESET

I won’t go over the details because other people will do it more thoroughly.  The way I read it the main takeaway is the players got a foot in for pre-arb money while the owners got spending levels below inflation/revenue putting more money in their pockets. Also the players got a change to the worst of the option abusers while the owners got protection from one year crazy spenders. 

The macro view I'll take away is that the players rolled over to a point in the past few negotiations and had to reset themselves in this one. They did that. Who won or lost? It's all a moving target based on where they are, where they could be, and a bunch of things we won't know that'll play out between now and the end of the deal. In the moment, seems reasonable and that's all we can ask for. 

OK so where are we baseball wise?  The Nats depth chart stands like this (with my comments): 

C : Keibert Ruiz (most interesting guy next year - FANTASTIC contact hitter. Should anchor position for years)

1B :  Josh Bell (best case - hidden near All-Star.  worst case - very average bat at a premium position. worth a shot)

2B : Cesar Hernandez (maybe Nats luck into an average season but probably not)

SS :  Luis Garcia (the best ready prospect - I consider Ruiz a starter - needs his ABs.)

3B : Alcides Escobar (if he's not garbage I'll eat an... eskimo bar? Wait do we say Eskimo anymore? It's like Indian right where it's not a slur but there are better terms to use? This is getting off track. Anyway this is real bad. A worst in baseball year if he plays everyday is not impossible)

UTIL : Carter Kieboom (looks terrible, but you decided to ride with him so play him some more and pray)

LF : Yadi Hernandez (really? Yadi? Questionable in the field, maybe average at the plate. Another teams AAAA call-up) 

CF : Lane Thomas (Is he what the Nats saw in 45 games last year? Probably not. But just "probably not" not "no" and last year he was very good so there's at least something to be interested in other than Ruiz) 

RF : Soto (what is there to say other than maybe the best hitter in baseball this generation. Going to get SOOOOO many walks)

4TH : Robles (probably last chance to get head on straight before being jettisoned, should be good enough to start) 

SP : Strasburg? (Simple fact : If he's not healthy, this season starts out nowhere) 

Corbin (Bar has been reset to a low level - just give the Nats 180IP of 4.20 ERA ball. I think he can do it) 

Gray (A half-step better than Ross/Fedde which means he should be in the rotation. But is he good or not? Can he stop giving up a million homers. Third most interesting thing for the team, imo and MOST important) 

Ross? (Good when right, rarely right.)

Fedde? (Good occasionally, a better team's long relief) 

Rogers (lucky bastard, but sometimes 5th starters are like that and you ride that hot streak)

Closer : Kyle Finnegan? Tanner Rainey? Mason Thompson? (Might be the worst bullpen this team has put together to start a year and that's saying something. The Nats NEVER care about their bullpen to start a year)

This is a team that was bad last year and has only gotten worse. The focus is not on 2022 it's on 2024 and keeping Soto for 2025 and beyond. To that end you'd like to see a big long term signing (Correa) but you won't.  Failing that you'd like to see all the Nats young players get good.  You probably will see a couple do that, but not enough. Failing THAT, you'd like to see all the Nats top prospects continue to develop. Who knows? 

Assuming no big roster changes - if things start with Strasburg out things could get very bleak very quickly and the worst case scenario is nothing but Soto trade talk that the team at least entertains (probably wouldn't do it this year) for a squad who might be the worst in baseball.  Best case - with Strasburg starting and healthy - hard to see playoffs but maybe Corbin is good and Ross is healthy enough and the team stays over .500 for a while giving fans an unexpectedly decent season through Labor Day? 

Baseball is back. Good baseball back in DC though... that's probably too far to say.

We’re back!

 And by “we” I mean baseball players. Major league ones.  In Florida.  

And by “back” I mean have agreed to a collective bargaining agreement to restart the season

Getting closer

 No seriously they are! 

One could argue (if they were me) that the owners made their first serious offer yesterday. The minor league minimum is now just window dressing (MLB is 700K gradually to 770 by end, MLBPA is 725K to 745 to 765K followed by a CPI adjustment in last years).  The Pre-arb bonus pool is still a bit away but common ground seems findable (MLB is 50 mill flat, MLBPA is 80 mill rising up to 100 mill). Players seem amenable to quicker rule changes the owners want.  Players might give on international draft (which will help suppress salaries but might help curb some of the worst of the things going on internationally with pre-teens being hounded but also might hurt the "immediate help" aspect for younger players in need.  It's a complicated topic) IF owners agreeable to ending the QO system (which helps suppress salaries by tying FAs to teams. It's not as complicated). That'd be a slight win for the owners - the QO system not being used much and more and more of their money going to international signings that wouldn't happen in a draft system.

But it comes back to the CBT

MLB : 230 to 242, new extra penalty level so penalties at 20/40/60 over (unclear current levels - last I saw was 45% / 62% / 95%)

MLBPA : 238 to 263, penalties at 20/40 million over (12%, 45%)

MLB wants its cake (Lower total for salaries) and to eat it, too (defacto cap with onerous penalties).  MLBPA wants its cake (Higher total) basically already can't eat it because there's almost a defacto cap as is.

I can see the players accept a lower total, even another penalty level, but not those penalty rates. They want teams who want to spend to spend. Owners want to save themselves from themselves.

Monday Quickie - holding in place

There's nothing to report lockout wise. The MLBPA came back with an offer a tiny bit closer to the MLB one to which the MLB said "YOU ARE GOING BACKWARDS!!!" which tells you the state of things. 

Alternate baseball

There is baseball right now! In America! College baseball.  

I'm assuming most of you live in the NoVA, DelMarVa, whatever dumb acronym that doesn't really capture the area that you like. If so Maryland Baseball is pretty good - last ranked 21st in the country but losers of 2 of 3 in a little showcase to end last week which will probably drop them out of the rankings, but still pretty good. They have a home and home against VCU this week and a couple games against Georgetown after that.  I don't know DII or DIII schools off the top of my head but I see Johns Hopkins and Lynchburg and Washington & Jefferson and you can view the pre-season polls here : http://baseballnews.com/

In a few weeks, there will definitely not be major league baseball but their will be minor league baseball. The Nats farm system, if you don't know it, is :

Fredericksburg Nationals (Low-A) : the Fred Nats who AREN'T EVEN LISTED AS AN AFFILIATE  Man, what a second rate org the Nats became after winning the title. In theory the drive is an hour or so and Brady House should be here at least to start.

Wilmington Blue Rocks (High-A) : before you head to the beach that's Delaware, not NC. 2 hour drive

Harrisburg Senators (AA) : The little city with nothing in the middle of everything usually has the best prospects though the Nats system is slim and the best guys will be in AAA and Low-A to start the year.  Hmm not selling it. It is only a 2 hour drive!

Rochester Red Wings (AAA) : You want to see Cavalli? Get a hotel in NY's "Oh yeah I guess Kodak built something here a long time ago.  Wait, it's not on the lake outside of a technicality?" city, Rochester! 6 and a half hours away.   

If you don't have to see Nats players there are even more choices

Aberdeen Ironbirds (High A - Orioles) 

Reading Fightin Phils (AA - Phillies) 

Delmarva Shorebirds (Low A - Orioles)

Bowie Baysox (AA - Orioles)

Richmond Flying Squirrles (AA - Giants) 

and that's just the closest

PA has Altoona, Allentown,  and Scranton / Wilkes-Barre, NJ has Somerset and Lakewood (Jersey Shore) VA has Norfolk, Lynchburg and Salem. A bit of a drive south and NC has the most of any state with 10. And this is just the affiliated teams. You gotta have family somewhere!

Put any recommendations you have in the comments. I can answer any NC Qs you might have.

Well I guess I should write something

On Tuesday the talks fell apart.  It's probably more accurate to say the talks were never actually building as we had hoped and the pieces remained unassembled on the ground, but why quibble?  The results are the same - no baseball, not now, probably not soon. 

There are a faction of hardline owners who have drawn a line in the sand. They must make more money out of baseball regardless of what happens going forward and that means limiting salaries. The best way to do that is to keep salaries for controlled young players low; so a lower minimum than the players' ask and no arbitration expansion, and to limit the amount anyone can spend for players; with a cap that doesn't increase with revenues or inflation and harsher penalties for going over.  Why do they want this? Because who doesn't want more money and more security? But its not about the difference between making or losing money. Don't believe that. It's about making money or making more money.

Sports labor fights are hard for fans.  I often have said fans are likely to side with owners because we understand what ownership does. They might not actually do the day to day stuff but someone is doing real work as we understand it. They run a business. You've got to hire and fire, and deal with contractors, and worry about prices, etc. etc. It might be a crazy lucrative spin on jobs we know of in a weird industry, but it's still a spin on jobs we know of.  

Athletes though, that's not a job to us. There is no relation for us to think "ok this guy should get paid just for playing a game" on an instinctual level. It goes against everything we took in growing up. We PLAY sports, for fun, all throughout our youth. We don't play at being boss. It's a game for kids. It's something most of us would love to do for a fraction of their salaries. Of course if we step back and think about it, it makes sense.  An entertainer draws a crowd and you pay to see them. These guys aren't just playing a game, but playing a game better than anyone can right now. But it takes those extra steps.  That makes a difference. That often makes fans side against the players. 

It's also tough because when we think of labor fights we aren't really thinking of people getting paid fair wages, but reasonable ones. We want people to be able to have the basics; food, clothes, shelter. We want people to be able to pay their bills and not worry about health care and be able to put their kids through school.  If a business is profitable we don't want the CEO driving his fancy car to his mansion to pack for a week his vacation home if the guy on the line can't take his family to the beach once a year. But what is reasonable when nearly everyone involved lives like that CEO? 

OK yes, minor league players and guys who have cups of coffee in the majors aren't living that life. A prorated 2-3 seasons doesn't set you up for life and a guy like... let's say James Borque might have played 8 years of baseball for about 100K total.  But the CBA isn't about them, officially so. It's about major leaguers. About major leaguers who stick around.  Changes to the minimum salary and arbitration are nice and needed but they don't really change the facts on the ground.  If you can stick on a roster for the equivalent of 3+ years, you are set for life (assuming you are smart enough to invest some, not waste money, and are planning on doing SOMETHING for income) If you can make it on a roster the full team control time you may not even have to do all that, and if you can get one contract post control you are officially idle rich.

So how does one deal with that? How does one deal with a labor issue that the guy we see as incredibly rich being robbed of some money by the guy with unimaginable wealth? How do we deal with it when this robbery materially changes nothing for the rich guy? He is still rich.  How do you get us to care? 

 It's very hard! Which is again why most of these things have ended with the majority of fans booing the players. Just get rich playing your game and shut up!

But this time it's a little different. We've come to back the players more because the owners haven't even bothered to try to make us care. They are the ones locking the players out. They spent a month doing nothing. Their offers to the players haven't shown movement. They sent up the unlikable Manford to smile his way through public appearances. Why? Because they don't need us to care. It's nice not to be yelled at.  It's nice for the fans to put pressure on the players. But this plays out the same with or without fans. This isn't about the fans. 

What now? 

The owners have some money coming in their mind from additional revenue sources in the CBA; Ads on jerseys, extra playoffs. That extends the time they can have no games. Eventually though that pressure of having no income will wear on ownerships and around 140 games TV deals start to break down into per game payments costing them a lot of money.  Does it wear more than on players? Maybe so.  The players have their personal pressures but it's internal. The ownerships often have external pressures. Other ownership members, debt collectors, shareholders, gambling partners; that don't care about wringing the last dollar from baseball. This is why ownership often loses. 

This is going to go on for a while. Ownership is willing to play chicken with the season . Players are willing to take that bet.  Since everything so far has gone as worse as possible I'll assume the same without the armageddon of losing a whole season. I'll say we're out until somewhere near Memorial Day.

Monday Quickie - nothing quick about it

 Still negotiating with the CBT still being the sticking point.  The players basically caved already and said - we'll take very little improvements in a couple places and salary increases that don't even line up with revenue increases - and the owners said no.  I'm no longer optimistic this gets done but when the owners crack they tend to do it fast and hard.  Baseball players don't get paid but their pressure is their own. Owners pressure comes from a million different directions; advertisers, cable companies, streaming deals, retailers, and now importantly online gambling partners. They're coming for your thumbs, Monfort! Your thumbs! 

Today is a "deadline" day where they said they'll have to cancel Opening Day (they don't - though they still might). We ARE getting closer to not having 162 games.  That's probably a week or two away. 

While others squabble the Lerners keep signing garbage to fill out the organization (and maybe play some scrub baseball?) and this is a not so friendly soulless automaton reminder that 

• The Nats were terrible last year 
• They lost their 2nd (Trea), 4th (Harrison), 5th (Schwarber) best hitters from 2021 AND their veteran leader and likely DH Zimmerman AND their best pitcher (Max) and best reliever (Hudson) 
• They've signed absolutely no one
• The minor league organization is still ranked as one of the worst in baseball.

Maybe there's a bright side to a lost season? 

Went on vacation - missed nothing

 Enjoyed a solid President's Day (Presidents' Day?  Presidents Day'?) of signing bills into law and making public appearances.  Hope you enjoyed yours underneath the presidential seal hanging up in your own home. 

Nothing has happened. My own deadline has come and gone which I kind of knew would happen a week before because the progress has been so glacial and not in the important points. 

The whole thing has cleared up as we moved along and it's pretty much all about the CBT.   The owners want to make it harsher and lower (when you think about inflation) the players want it looser and higher. The owners are coming from a place of "Man that pandemic year was hard" The players are coming from a place of "what about every other year? Plus those valuations still look good".  It is millionaires vs billionaires, but the millionaires to me have the stronger case.  Your take may differ a la former Nats GM and basically criminal Jim Bowden who is shilling for the owners in a particularly embarrassing way. 

Fangraphs put out their Top 100 prospect list for 2022.  This includes Cavalli at 74 (lower than most), Henry at 82 (higher than most) and House at 98 (goldilocks). They worry about Cavalli's injury history keeping him from shouldering a starter's load.  They really like Henry's mix of pitches... as a reliever.  House is, you know, super young still. 

What to think of the list?  Well I looked at the 2019 Fangraphs list and the relative positions and basically one guy is an impact major leaguer as of last year (Jonathan India).  The rest are either not good, hurt, or still working their way up.  While every prospect is his own man, this gives you an idea that Cavalli AND Henry AND House being good major leaguers for the 2024 Nats is extremely unlikely and akin to hitting the jackpot.  Hope for one to be good by then, or two to be useful. That would be a very good outcome. 

In the meantime would you trade them?  I never like holding prospects but if you *gasp* *shudder* aren't going to keep Soto long-term or don't like your chances to do so, there is really no reason to trade. Hold on see what you got. Also if you aren't going big time into trying these next few seasons there isn't reason to trade either.  The Nats aren't a player away. If you want to sign a couple guys and trade for a couple guys and make a real go at it, fine, trade. But I'm not seeing that as the Nats path right now. 

How do the other NL East teams show in this "top of minors" listing? 

ATL - Two guys 70/72 - both older (24+/23+) - they've emptied out their system over the past couple of years through trades and call-ups so this isn't surprising or worrisome. They will need a bat - either Freeman or a replacement for him, but they can probably hope someone internal replaces Morton (who was merely good) so they have leeway to set up the lineup without a trade

NYM - Four guys 7/44/63/64 - all younger (20/22) - an interesting situation as these are all bats, the prize being Francisco Alvarez who is in that "it'd be surprising if he failed" level and is a catcher. Their pitching screams WIN NOW but their batting though hasn't kept up. It'd be hard to justify signing another big name with this talent coming and already the highest payroll. So do you trade or do you wait? There's a way this could be either a nice little multi-NL East title run or a disappointing 4-5 year "sneak into a single WC" situtation. 

PHI - Two 20/34 - one 20+ one 24+.  It'd be great for the Phillies if the guy ready was the starter but it's a bat and the prospect bats have not been kind to Philadelphia with one disappointment after another from what looked to be a stacked system. They desperately need Stott (SS) to be everything he can be as it looks likely they'll have to bludgeon their way to wins. 

MIA - Five total, two super young (18+) others on the verge (22/23).  They got four SP in here, three we could see next year. They could really have dominant pitching very soon and dominant pitching that would last through like 2026. Of course you have to score runs too and the Marlins are neigher young nor good at the plate so they'll have to get some FA. I see MIA as an underdog Soto location

Juan Nogo

Word got out yesterday that the Nats offered Soto a long term contract (that's good!) and it was rejected (that's bad!) but exactly how good/bad it is is up to interpretation. 

The contract itself was 13 years for 350 million or just under 27 million per year.  It buys out his remaining 3 arbitration years and controls him through his age 35/36 season. 

It's not a good contract for Juan. 

Juan Soto might be the best player to have on any baseball team going forward for the next 5-8 years. At the plate it's hard to see anyone surpass what he's doing, only perhaps match his production from a different path. His combined stats for the past two seasons are clearly a step better than anyone else so they first would have to catch him. A guy like Bryce might slug enough or Trea might hit for a high enough average to catch his value that way, but it would take Soto slipping a bit or one of those two doing something special. The juniors, Guerrero and Tatis, might develop into the same bat - but right now they aren't quite there.

Juan is a good athlete and is still very young (will be his age 23 season) and that keeps his value up on the base paths and in the field, where in neither place he's a natural. Still it's possible, I suppose, you could see someone put up a single combined all-around season that has more value but to do so continually going forward?  Of the names I mentioned so far - not Bryce who is an underrated athlete and might sneak one in but at 29 compared to Soto's 23 can't be counted on doing that for half a decade. Not Vladdy Jr, who is already playing a less demanding position (1B) and appears far more likely to age ungracefully in the other aspects of his game. Not Trea, who yes is a solid baserunner and good enough in the field to do it regularly, but would need to morph into a consistently different player at 28. He'd have to do 2020 for a whole year over and over.

Some other names : 

Ramirez - criminally underrated but old. 

Acuna - Has a Trea profile where he wouldn't hit as well but could use great baserunning and decent fielding to outpace Juan, though with more of a chance to pull it off for the time frame needed given his age. 

Bichette - He's not so good in anything to even contend now. Needs another gear in something.  

Devers - a defensive liability who doesn't hit as well as Soto to start.  

Robert - oooh all sorts of interesting but at 23 he gets no benefit of the doubt trying to catch Juan. He's gotta put a full season together first 

Trout - The all-around master, the new Willie Mays, he's been getting hurt and seeing his plus baserunning shut down for his protection and he's 30.  No offense to an already HoFer but give me Juan for the next 5.

There are basically three guys I can think of  a team might rather have in the 5-8 year range . 

Ohtani - no, he isn't the hitter Soto is (and never will be) but he's not just a hitter and the combination in value is hard to beat

Tatis Jr - he could improve to hit like Soto, he's already a better baserunner. His defense is not good but that's not Tatis' fault that the Padres for bringing in Machado and blocking 3rd.

Franco - This is a gamble. He hit very well in half a season last year but nothing close to Soto. He can handle short, unlike Bichette who can hang in and Tatis who should move. There's a lot of ground to make up but he has something everyone else on this list does not. Time. He's two and a half years younger than Soto.

Anyway - this is a very long winded way of saying - the best player needs the best contract and 13/350 is not close to that. It's less that Trout, and Betts and Lindor. It's barely more than Stanton who signed his older and not as good 8 years ago.  It is bigger than Tatis yes but Tatis had injury concerns AND was having an extra cheaper contract year being bought out.

The Nats usually make one and done offers, not negotiating after setting a fair price then moving on.  I'm not 100% sure that's what's going on here. It's further out from FA than usual and before a CBA has been set.  It might be better seen as a "while we're hear this is the best we'll do" but all I can tell you is this won't do.

There's no Ryan in baseball

Like I said yesterday Ryan Zimmerman has retired. 

Even though he was only ever a National there were very distinctive parts of Zimmerman's career.  

He began as the hometown wunderkind. The guy from the Tidewater, who went to Virginia, who was the first Nationals draft pick, drafted in June of the Nats inaugural year, and who was the first hot prospect to be brought up to the team that very same year. He would excite fans with three weeks of great play and quickly settle down to play some great D while figuring it out at the plate and suffering through what would be the first of a career full of injuries. He was something positive to focus on as the team reset.

He morphed into one of the best players in baseball.  For two years (2009-2010) he not only played his regular top notch D, but he hit at another level. As basically a .300 30HR guy with 70 walks a year, Zimmerman wasn't the best player in baseball (Pujols was hitting THAT well at this point) but he was right up there. With Strasburg and Bryce being drafted in back to back years it looked like the Nats had a bright future. 

But this time frame was exceedingly brief, as next came the injuries and subsequent defensive woes. He had abdominal surgery to start 2011. He'd injure his shoulder to start 2012, undergoing surgery before 2013. The shoulder one cost him the ability to throw the ball with any confidence and ended his career as a third baseman.  He could still hit well, but the near great .300 / 30 / 70 became the perfectly good .280 / 25 / 60.  He was a cog in the Nats but just that, not the difference maker, not the perennial all-star. 

If it remained there it would have been disappointing but fine. However, it would get worse and we'd get to what looked like the end for Ryan. The missed time would pile up and he'd play only 270 games over the next 3 years. He'd break his thumb and strain his hammy in 2014. He'd begin experiencing plantar fasciitis and hurt his oblique in 2015.  He'd strain a rib and take a baseball to the wrist in 2016. Right when the Nats were peaking as a team, winning the NL East for the third time in 5 years, Zimmerman put out a half-season of terrible baseball. It looked like Ryan was breaking down right out of the game.

But a contract extension signed in 2012 saved his career and allowed for the late career renaissance.  The Nats had to pay him until 2019 so even if he looked done in 2016, he was going to get that chance to come back. And come back he did. Finally he again played close to a full season (144 games) Finally he was free to find his groove and the .300 30 guy came back. We knew it wouldn't last. Despite the fans (and the media!) trying to tell us that Ryan was just missing Spring Training in 2018 because he wanted to, we could read the writing on the wall. But that was ok, because 2017 showed both the fans and the Nats Ryan wasn't completely done. If he could be healthy, he could hit. While he wasn't healthy much over the next couple of years, he was healthy enough to get at bats and hit ok and more importantly he got to be around for 2019. 

He did not hit well in 2019 but he did everything he needed to in the playoffs. He got a key single to with two outs in the 8th that would help set up Soto/Grisham's game winning combo. He hit well in the NLDS, including a mid game 3-run bomb that help put that game 3 away for Max. He didn't hit all that well the rest of the way but he did homer off Gerrit Cole in G1 setting a tone for the World Series and giving the Nats fans a moment. 

After that it was gravy, though thin and watery. The pandemic ruined the victory lap season and even if it didn't, Zimm, with an Mom suffering from MS, chose to sit out 2020. He'd play in 2021 and hit with some pop but also definitely looked his age hitting for the worst average of his career (.243) and barely walking as pitchers saw no reason not to challenge him. If the end wasn't here, it was imminent. So while the retirement is a mild surprise (see two posts ago) it's in no way a shock.

 

What could he have been without the injuries?  Zimm himself put out 400 homers, 500 doubles, 8GG and a hall of famer. It's hard to go ahead and say "with no injuries" because hardly any player has NO injuries, but if we just fill out 2011-2016 with .300 30 which he was in 09-10 and was in 2017, we get 81 more homers, 450 hits, 100 more doubles.  This is probably optimistic but it also has him crashing out at 33 to make up for it. Something like 2300 H, 500+ 2B, 360HR.  Yeah unless Zimm morphed into a 40 homer guy he wasn't getting to 400 easily.  8 Gold Gloves?  He was already not getting his respect winning only in 2009... I suppose if he won in 2011 and 2012 (over Placido Polanco and Chase Headley) he might have gotten 1 or 2 inertia GGs over Arenado, who started winning in 2013, but 8 is way too many. Five tops, and I'd probably guess 3.  

Now does all that put him in the HoF?  Let's say a .285 average 375 HR, 520 doubles, 1700 RBI, 3 GG, probably 5-6 All-Stars. Well Rolen is at what? .281 316HR 517 doubles, 1300 RBI, 8 GG, 7 All-Stars... Both around 125 OPS+... It's tough. You see the issue Rolen has getting in despite being the best 3B for a decade. I don't think Zimm would quite have enough. I think for him to do it, because he wouldn't be seen as that other worldly fielder, you'd have to assume the injuries kept him from hitting another level as a batter. I'm not sure about that.

It's hard to get exactly what Zimmerman meant and I think it's best to see him as the rock. The guy that tied the franchise together, from that magical 2005, to the garbage reset as cheaply as possible teams, to the first window of maddening back and forth success, to the more consistent second window of continued last chance questions, to the frustrating denouement of a team that couldn't keep getting lucky. He was there for it all. He wasn't always the best player, but sometimes he was. He wasn't always the most beloved player, although he was always up there. But he was was always THERE. Which for a fan means a lot.

Happy trails.

Ryan Zimmerman retires

Just when I though I had something interesting to say, Zimm makes that moot by hanging up the spikes. 

Long career, lots of money, title.  Not much more you can ask for short of a HoF shot (which he does not have).

More tomorrow of course.  

Designated 'Hoo

The baseball negotiations continue as the owners try to make themselves out to be poor and those mean old players are not helping trying to take their money. Yesterday Manfred talked and he tried to convince people that owning a baseball team isn't a good investment. I believe he said something like "worse than the stock market".  It's not a straight lie. There are a million different ways you can cut things to make things true; what exact parts of the team are you including, what's the time frame, what assumptions are you making about stock market growth, but in the sense most people would think - "If I own a baseball team for 15-20 years and sell it - is that a good investment?" the answer is yes, better than a lot of other ones, including the stock market. As smart people have said, rich people wouldn't keep buying them if they were bad investments, especially in the modern days were there are far fewer "Guys with a 100 million dollars to spend" out there and more "companies with a billion dollars" getting into the game. 

The owners are drawing a line in part I assume because the pandemic was hard on them.  They might have actually lost money, and they certainly made less than they usually do.  Rich investors don't like that! They want security. They want to know they'll make a ton regardless. Minimal risk, maximum reward. 

We'll see the owner's latest counter offer Saturday but without a real expansion of the luxury tax thresholds it won't be accepted.  Which by the way Manfred DID flat out lie about that saying the punishments were the same as they had been. The league itself had to follow up and say "oh no penalties for going over have been increased".  The players might take more stringent penalties with a BIG bump in limit (probably not though).  

What was confirmed yesterday was that the DH will be universal next year.  I've explained what I think about the DH (it's "better" baseball, but less fun. Think of it kind of like if you had uniform stadium dimensions. It continues the game down a path where batting and fielding are separated and likely sets up a second DH sometime down the line. Well down the line but it will be argued in the next 20 years I bet) but it was always coming because both sides want it. The owners want more offense because they see scoring as good. The (veteran) players who have the most sway want more ways to hang on in the league. 

What this means is the Nats will have a DH next year, which means Zimm will likely be back. 

After hurting his shoulder in 2010-2 Zimm quickly went from near elite to unplayable in the field. They tried for a couple of years then shifted him where they could, corner OF, but primarily 1B since he couldn't throw. He's been mostly fine but a few years ago his feet started bothering him as well and he's either been a statue in the field or can play half a season. Your choice. 

With the DH now he can play every day and hit and Zimm.. well he was still an above average hitter last year, if only barely. He's never hit particularly well as a DH but it's been so limited per year it's hard to read anything from that. He did look best in April and May when he'd be freshest so that might give you an idea of a "best case" scenario on how he could hit. But it's also limited data. 2019 didn't show that.

Zimm could pass both 2000 hits and 300 homers, which are nice numbers (only like 100 players have done that) but not by themselves HoF worthy. In part because like half of these seasons have come from players in the first 85 years of the game (almost all HoFers) and half in the last 35 years of the game (a mix). If he'd had remained a top notch third baseman he could have played a "Scott Rolen" card when Rolen gets in. Rolen is at 316 / 2077. But Zimm didn't.  He'd have to become a great DH for a few years to maybe get talked about. I don't see it happening. 

He already has all the franchise records*, even throwing in Montreal. His 284 homers are 50 ahead of Vlad. His 1846 hits are 150 ahead of Tim Wallach. Other things he's already first in : Games Played, PA, Runs, Doubles, RBI, SO, GIDP (almost 50% more than Tim Wallach). He's far behind in one's you'd expect (3B, SB, HBP**) Zimm is 2nd in BB but he doesn't actually walk much and Tim Raines had a great eye and is way ahead on that. It'd take like 3-4 more years for Zimm to pass him. Really the only thing he could get a lead on he doesn't already have is sacrifice flies where he is two behind Andre Dawson. 

So what this is would be just a guy playing baseball because he likes it and he's good enough to keep doing it. That's good enough for me.  Also for you guys it's a chance to see him off like he deserves, with what hopes to be a normal full season of baseball. Even if he does walk away with no fanfare, instead of the self-serving "retirement year" you'll have your chance to keep seeing him and accept each time on out might be the last.

*Soto is really good. Is he close to a leader in anything? Nope. Although in three seasons he could challenge for the BB title - he's got that good an eye and is making up that much ground. It's almost certain he'll be 2nd when FA comes around unless he gets hurt.  IBB almost certainly 3rd, same conditions.  But a lot of franchise records come just by being there a long time so Soto would have to re-sign and hang around in order to obliterate the franchise books. 

**Ryan doesn't really get hit all that often. 16th in franchise totals. Werth actually got him more in his stay.  The "Nats" leader is Danny Espinosa at 73 with Victor Robles next at 54.  Rendon, and Nick Johnson (even taking out the Expo year) are also ahead of Zimm.  The franchise leader might be unassailable by any National though. Ron Hunt played only 4 years in Montreal but the guy was one of baseball's best lean-iners. Lead the league with 50 HBP while with the Expos - 15 more than anyone in the past 120 years. Racked up 114 total in his time. That would be like the 63rd best career where like 25% of those are pre-dead ball. In other words his short time in Montreal alone would be a Top 50 HBP career in the usual baseball time we keep stats for.

Still nothing

The players said no to federal moderation because they felt the owners actually hadn't done much negotiating. That's probably true.  The owners are meeting over the next couple of days and the CBA will be discussed a lot but any formal offer is not expected. Gotta say this is killing my blog, dropping my ad revenue an undefined percentage from $0 to $0.  And don't even talk about my non-existent subscriber substack. Brutal. 

So what to talk about?  How about lists?  ESPN put out their list of the Top 100 players and of course people took the bait.  We can't help it.  We like arguing.  It's fun.  

Of course lists like this are stupid, and in baseball more so.  The game has been fundamentally around in the same way for 120 years. So much has changed in that time.  In 1900, which is when we usually put the starting point because the American and National Leagues formalized, there weren't computers... or television... or radio... or automobiles or motion pictures really. There weren't anti-biotics and they JUST figured out germs caused diseases instead of like "bad air".  The US had 45 states. Why are we trying to compare someone from then to now? 

People know this intrinsically so they do try to dismiss a chunk of time from analysis. Most often it's saying "I'm not considering anyone before integration. That's like 20% of the population who weren't allowed to play" But if it's just a population thing (instead of like a punishment) then we can't ignore the explosion of players from Latin American countries in the 80s or the introduction of players from Asian countries in the last 20 years when pointing out population differences. There's also considering the percentage of population who WANTED to play the sport. In the 20s what could you do instead? Box? Everyone who wanted to be an athelete pretty much wanted to be a baseball player.  Now? Football is dominant in the culture. Basketball can be played anywhere. You aren't getting the same level of interest. But does that really even matter considering baseball growth hasn't matched population growth? We're more than 4 times bigger but don't even have twice as many teams.  And that's not considering all those other countries we talked about. So are there more young men who could and want to play now or less?

It's impossible and that's just wrangling the "population involved" question.  Former players didn't have to travel across time zones... but also traveled the same amount of time by train in some comfort but nothing like players have today.  Players today have modern medicine and training methods. Players in the old days played in a era where the system didn't quite optimize the best players and had wider variety between the best and the worst*.  But then again players in the old days had to hit against balls that could be mushed up, spit on, and gunked up but then again again it was on worse maintained fields and guys with gloves the size of big hands. Impossible. 

I'm not saying don't rank players. Do! It's fun. I just say if you are going to do it cross-era you need to admit it is an exercise in opinion. There is no fact here. Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Barry Bonds.  Who's better? Whoever you want to be. 

If you want to take it more seriously then you are going to have to split up eras in some way.  Even that is fraught. When to make the cut and who falls into where is hard.  Dead ball to live ball makes sense.  Pre 69 expanision and field changes and after makes sense. But players' careers don't always fall neatly into one or the other. Failing doing like 5-10 rankings of different eras I prefer the "does anyone alive really remember this time" breaking point. Basically we are coming into that split being around WWII right now.  Players before that are numbers on a page, and a bit on film if we are lucky.  They are legend and stories. That can't possibly be ranked in the same way as people you actually saw play.

*this is part of the theory why we don't have .400 hitters anymore. But of course it was part of the theory on why we didn't have 60+ homer hitters anymore and we saw that can change. You can always tweak the game.

Slow movement is better than no movement I guess

Yesterday was the real first bit of bad news in the lockout front. Now, some might take that to be a delay in opening in Spring Training, but as you might guess from my "Feb 21st" estimate of an agreement date, I expected that and don't honestly care about it.  However, this negotiation period didn't seem to make any progress. The MLBPA did lower the pre-arb bonus pool money request... and are still way off from what the owners want (It's like 100 mill vs 10 mill)  They also made changes to their attempt to stop at least one or two instances of service time manipulation, for which the owners are like "nah, want to keep doing that". The MLBPA bent a little. MLB has to show a bend now. They were supposed to talk more yesterday and today on marginal things that have to be agreed upon in the CBA, not on anything that matters negotiation wise. And we've now learned MLB wants the federal government to try to come in and help with negotiations and an arbitrator.  What people think that means is all over the place from "Trying to show the handful of hardline owners they can't do any more" to "setting up another long 1994 type lockout"

Expanded playoffs and expanded DH are on the table for owners as "prizes" but the latter is almost certainly happening no matter where the negotiations end up. Both sides want it. I don't. It makes the game better but less fun, if that makes any sense.  

This all picks up again early next week. What you want to see is the owners make some movement on that pre-arb money and service time thing for at least the very best players (really they should agree to the player's deal which helps like 2 young players a year and one owner would probably be able to avoid it if they tried). The former is a no-brainer and if they don't move it's the first really bad sign. The latter... well they don't want to open the door even a little to losing service time control so I could see that not move at all. 

 So you want to hear about chasing sun? (one random person) 

It's not actually chasing sun, although if you never ran from impending shade from small clouds on a mostly sunny day that's a fun way to spend a day outside. Granted it's more of a rural activity than a suburban or urban one, but I digress. No "chasing sun" is about being kind of obsessed with time zones and getting maximum (or minimum) sunlight.  

Now of course it could be very simple - from March to September the Northern Hemisphere gets more light and the opposite from September to March. The further you are from the equator the more extreme it gets.  This is neat to think about around the inflection point.  If you take a place near the equator, let's say Aruba (I've been there!) and a place far from it, let's say Yellowknife (I have not been there), at the beginning of March Aruba has 11:36 hours of light* and Yellowknife has 10:20. Around March 15th they'll both have about 11:45 of light. At the end of the month Aruba has 11:53 and Yellowknife 13:21!** So go as far N as you can in the summer and S as you can in the winter, for the most part. 

Now my thoughts break into two arenas.  First is where I can get the most or least sun in the continental US. I'm the type that if I have the free time would drive to the middle of nowhere to see that. Second is where could I live in the world that's reasonable for me that would give me the most overall sunlight. For the sake of rambling savings we'll only deal with the US right now. 

Now two things can come into play here. One is the fact we aren't feudal farmers. What I mean by that is that we don't live by the sun, we live by the clock. We live by a construct of time that we ourselves set through time zones. Second is we aren't robots. We need to sleep. Even us soulless automatons try to get 5-6 hours. 

Why do these matter? Well for the clock in a perfect world the time zones would be equally 15 degrees apart, however countries, states, hell even towns would be split if you did that. So we don't do that. But because we don't do that and time zones differ by size we can't simply say "the furthest northwest spot in any time zone will work. We have to actually look. For the sleep - if all you care about is sun after you wake up - then it's not the most sunlight that matters as much as the most sunlight starting from time X.  In the longest days in the Northern US it's quite usual for the sun to rise pre-6 AM.  For me that's just wasted sunlight. 

So knowing that what matters more latitude or longitude, going north or going west? Again that depends on when you set that wake up time. If it's say... 6:30 well in most time zones even as far south as you can go the sun will be up by then on the longest day so you would be more concerned with longitude.  If you set it at 5:30 it might be either. 

Let's for the sake of argument set wake up time at 6:30 which means that all but the very furthest south and west parts of the timezones are up for grabs. Intuitively you'd then think "if the highest latitude spots in each time zone aren't that different then the widest time zone would give us the latest sunset".  Good guess but WRONG. Why? Well, because of the imperfect sizes some time zones "start" the day earlier than others. In the USs case, sunrise hits the eastern time zone, which is the widest, on June 20th around 4:40 in the morning.  Sunrise hits the central time zone at about that same latitude around 5:05.  That difference is enough difference to make up the width difference and so the latest sunset in the continental US happens in the Central time zone.  Specifically in the NW corner of North Dakota. Fortuna, ND if you are looking for an incorporated town. 10:03 PM 

Sunrise hits the other time zones at roughly the same time but if we are doing this, we're doing this and the earliest sunrise is in the furthest eastern reaches of Maine. I will note it's possible maybe someplace the mountainous border of Idaho and Montana it's earlier but there are no towns there and if you aren't in a town well then you might as well be that feudal farmer. 

And you can flip all this if you are some sort of night lover. The earliest sunset is in Maine, a tear inducing 3:50. The latest sunrise is back in NW ND. 8:49 which isn't as terrible. But it's on November 5th not on the shortest day of the year in late December. It only gets to 8:46 on that day. This is why we have daylight savings time, people! 

The take away from all this is that if you want to have the most sunlight, for most people that don't mind a little darkness in the morning, you should definitely move to the western part of a time zone. In the summer you should move north. Indianapolis, is a choice.  Detroit if you want all 4 major sports. You might think Seattle but actually the Pacific time zone is pretty narrow.  In the winter you should fly South. Atlanta would be the big city sports related choice.

Some other notes 

If you just wanted most sunlight and don't mind sitting in the car all day you can try to literally race the sun.  Like start in Thunder Bay in Canada*** at sunrise and just start driving west.  Back of the envelope calculations say you get yourself an extra hour and half of sunlight that way.  It's not very effective - the world spins fast. 

World wise the southern Hemisphere is pretty empty compared to the North.  All the major cities peter out in the 34-38 longitude range. In the N Hemisphere that's vaguely Charlotte to DC range. So your choices are pretty limited for major places to live. in the N Hemisphere they peter out more around 60 degrees north.  Time zones are very funky worse that US.  China is all one time zone. Parts of Canada and Argentina and Alaska spread out basically two time zones behind where they "should" be. Mostly though it's because these are unpopulated area so it's not a big deal. 

*This is based on sunrise and sunset. There are actually different definition and times for "when the light goes away" and if you ever were a kid playing outside in the summer you should be familiar with the ideas if not the names. It technically depends on degrees under the horizon the sun is but it's easier to think of it in practical terms since you can't see the sun yourself.  

Civil Twilight is after sunset when you can still pretty much see as normal. You can still be playing wiffleball, basketball, or a some 2x2 football. 

Nautical Twilight is basically when there's still enough light to see the horizon and but dark enough that enough stars are out where sailors can navigate. For us not on the sea the sky is light enough to see things in contrast against it but the ground is pretty dark. You can probably squeeze out an end to that wiffle ball game because the white ball will still seem bright enough (being white helps a lot but it's also because of the way our eyes work in dimmer light), but it won't be easy.  Basketball will be ok enough shooting the ball but every rebound could be an adventure. Football is mostly done as only lofty Hail Marys will be seen. 

Astronomical Twilight is when you look around and say "I guess it's not completely dark". No one is playing without lights.

** sunset zooms along faster than sunrise for various reasons. It'll go from 6:00 on March 1st to closing in on 8:30 on March 31st. 

 *** looking for a major E-W highway as far N as I could go. Can't waste time going north/south or heading through too many mountains. 

YAWN

Meeting today maybe. I don't expect anything to get done (I'll hold to my Feb 21st guess) and this and the next player proposal (which should follow shortly) will outline exactly the things to argue about. Essentially all we are missing out on are "truck days" which are stupid and are actually still happening because minor leaguers go to Spring Training too. It's just that we're not going to see big deals made out of it when this whole lockout thing is going on. 

I could ramble but that didn't see to interest a population of readers curated over a decade of baseball talk. What you don't want to hear my thoughts on defining generations? how to best chase sunlight? The seasons? So we'll wrap it up here. On like #39 of Posnanski's book - so I'll finish that probably before the season starts. It's good.

NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING

Does anyone notice how Ortiz is like the only HoF to get appreciably BETTER in his late 30s? I think they do, but with a lot about Ortiz people like to look the other way like they are Sally Jenkins talking about Lance Armstrong. Once you do that well Ortiz is a Hall of Famer, there's no doubt there. In my "Psychology of the Hall of Fame" post Ortiz hits several points. He's not undeniably great or even undeniably great for his position given his time split, or undeniably great at one thing. He DID hit the magic number of 500 homers (541). He was certainly great at the right time as he was basically the face of the curse-breaking Red Sox. If you can twist yourself like a pretzel saying voting for Ortiz is ok and not Clemens or Bonds or A-Rod or Schilling then yes he's easily the best thing left on the ballot. He's remembered for something "great" (the post Marathon speech). It's not close. Again, if you can deny what's in front of you. 

Which apparently a lot of people can. I thought the desire to vote for Ortiz would be so strong it would help pull Bonds and Clemens over the finish line. Clearly you would either land on "no cheater" or "ok cheaters" but apparently that wasn't the case.  You learn something new everyday and this week I learned not to underestimate the power of hypocrisy.*

ANY WAY 

the negotiations are ... ongoing? The players have made concessions. We're waiting to hear from the owners. There's no sense of when the next counter (by the owners) will come but I'd expect early next week.

*It sounds like I'm mad Ortiz is in but I'm really not. (1) I've said many times HoF who cares and I stand by that. I'm not going to walk in an shake my fist at his plaque or anything and (2) I would have put him in (along with all the other cheats).  I'm mad that people made a big show to try to prove they were not hypocrites when they clearly are. It's like dealing with a little kid. I'm probably going to care more about if you lie to me than if you did something I don't like.

Counter Offer Made

The players have really started the process, sitting down with MLB and making a counter offer. Some things we know :

• They cut out the age based FA thing.  That never had legs for like a million reasons and while it seems like a concession I (and maybe the owners) take it more as something tossed in there to be pulled out purposely to make it look like they were doing something. 
• They reduced revenue sharing to 30 million less to the cheap teams rather than 100 million.  That IS a concession and might slip through?  I think it will be some number... we'll talk about it more in a minute. 
• They nixed two of the owners dumb ideas they threw out there (rewarding teams who start draft pick early with draft picks* and a formula based salary system**)
• An interesting thing I didn't mention yesterday is the "draft lottery" which in the non-playoff teams all have a shot at the first X picks (think NBA). The owners said Top 3 picks, the players said Top 8. I can't imagine it matters at all and it's the dumbest thing being argued about. Teams aren't tanking to get better nor does a single baseball draft pick have that much impact on a team. These ideas will change nothing. 
  
• They still want a raise in minimum salary (will happen), a bump in the luxury tax (will happen). 

Ok well what's the lay of the land?  

The minimum salary and luxury tax are your standard back and forth number arguments that will get worked out one way or another at a compromise number. Depending on how other things work they could favor the owners or the players more but these aren't the sticking points. These are the things they can use to get past the sticking points. 

The sticking points are arbitration and that revenue sharing. 

The revenue sharing is the new version of an old argument. For the players having all the teams be able to spend as much money as possible is good for them. Rich teams and teams going for it spend more, which not only give those players they sign more money directly but raise the market for everyone else. So the more money those team have to spend the better. For the owners... well reverse it. It's not like the owners WANT to have their money shared but it keeps the overall market down, it helps curb their spending influences, and it keeps those one or two rogue teams that will spend anyway under some sort of control. 

That's it in a nutshell - it's a money fight. But both will frame it as competitive balance. The owners will say the teams that receive revenue sharing will have more to spend and will be better - even though that has never actually happened. They just use the money to cover their other costs (and pocket some). The players will make a twisty argument that teams spending more force other teams to spend more because they'd be too bad or something. If anyone really cared there would be a salary floor or a demand all shared revenue go to player salaries, but there isn't. Because like I said it's a money fight - not a competitive balance thing. 

The arbitration is a newer one. For a long time young players got to arbitration in three years. The MLBPA was fine with this because (1) good players could make it up in FA and (2) older players were the ones negotiating. But recently the owners decided that the increase in variance in using younger players was acceptable and so paying market for older (re: like early 30s) FA with similar expectations of production just wasn't necessary. In other words you couldn't make it up in FA anymore. Not as much for as many at least. To counter that - the players are trying to get arbitration started earlier. Arbitration is not market but it's a lot better. Soto is an extreme example but he was getting paid under 600K. Arbitration starting took that to 8.5 million and it'll only go higher. That's a big difference. 

It's such a big difference it could likely be a sticking point for the owners. Their current plan isn't built of paying under market for three years. It's built off paying ridiculously under market to be insulting for three years (and that helping keep the last 3 years of controlled costs down).  This would be a bump in tens of millions in salary that they just pared off. If anything causes us to lose games, it'll be this.  The players need it. The owners really don't want it. There isn't much of a compromise to be had.

*wouldn't matter. A draft pick isn't worth the difference unless it's super high and this won't be super high

**never going to agree on a formula

Counter Intuitive

MLB Players make their first counter today and really negotiations will officially begin again, since the owners opening salvo was really just restating their stance when the lockout was put into place. It'll be interesting to see what the players ask for here, but what they really want is more money spent on players to get back to the usual split- which honestly was in place a couple years ago but has moved away in the past couple of years and it's fair for the players to be worried that it wouldn't shift back without negotiations. 

What would shift it back? And what do I think will happen?

• Raising the cap is an obvious ones. Expect that to be in there and some compromise to be reached.
  
• Shifting free agency earlier would help, since teams are purposely going younger. There are two ways to attack this: earlier FA in general and stopping the "guy called up in early May" service time manipulation. The first one is straightforward but is such a shift that it will be a huge fight to change that if the players really want to make a stand. The latter is more promising, especially if teams bother to look and see it's not sure to matter down the road. Plus the limit it crazy, its being active for 90%+ of the season.  I'd expect some tweak to it adjusting that percentage down to like 75%.  That won't stop service time manipulation. It won't even make a big dent in it, but it'll help a handful of players on contenders get called up.  I Not much but even if you got down to the logical number - 50% that still won't make a huge dent. This is more about fixing an specific obvious unfair situation that 
  
•  Getting more teams to want to compete is another goal but this is a vague goal. It mainly boils down to revenue sharing where the players want teams to spend money on players and a lot of cheap teams are pocketing that revenue sharing money. But REALLY the players want good teams to have money to spend on players so they want less revenue sharing in general rather than stricter guidelines to spend this money on players.  The owners as a group don't like that because there will always be a rogue owner or two when given free reign to spend will do so and drive up costs for everyone.  They could probably agree on some sort of forced spending (bc the very rich teams don't like the normal rich teams not spending either), but it'll take a perspective change on this by the players
• Another way to get teams to compete is to somehow make tanking less appealing but it's pretty much a very minor benefit now once you look at things and that hasn't stopped anyone. The public (media + fans) buy into rebuild narratives for at least a few cycles.
  

Ultimately I think the deal will raise the cap and will do SOMETHING else but not much.  If you think that is too little I agree, but anything that keeps the lights on.

Still nothing

 Might get a counter proposal soon.  

At least the too early "They are going to miss games! Baseball is doomed!" talk will get more lively. That's good if you like to be annoyed.

Kevin Frandsen is replacing FP in the booth.  We never got a full accounting of what FP did.  It seems like nothing criminal actually took place and rather it was a bunch of questionable carousing and general skeeviness. If you are popular enough you could probably apologize, straighten up a little and survive, but FP was a guy in a booth. He had some fans but for most he was easily replaceable. It's easier just to move on from that guy at your first opportunity, and so MASN did.

Frandsen is an uninspired choice. Former scrappy but not good ballplayers abound in this business* But from all we hear he was pretty good with Philly, so it could be worse. Morse nor Maxwell were ready to step in.

*So you can't be ALL bad and usually get these jobs. You usually have to have a decent season or two and otherwise not be terrible so you hang around for a long enough time to make a name and some friends. Obvious reason it skews toward these types is they need the job more than a great player who are more likely just to pop in a few games a year along with other guys who need work and/or want to stay in the game. I guess also there are a lot more middling players than good ones, but really I'd imagine a network would want a good player for the name recognition so they definitely are enjoying retirement.

Now why these are completely white non-Hispanic guys except for Keith Hernandez... well I'll let you think about that. The pop-in types are a little better representative of the guys who played the game. 

Note :  Mets often go three man enough that both Darling and Hernandez would be primary. Philly splits 50/50 Kruk and Ben Davis, both are here. Pittsburgh rotates 5 guys in and out so none are in here. Matt Capps is one!

Primary TV Color Guys

Not middling pitchers - Jim Palmer, Dennis Eckersley, Mark Gubicza, Orel Hershiser

Middling pitchers - Steve Stone, Dallas Braden (yes yes injury), Brian Anderson, CJ Nitkowski, Jim Deshais, Chris Welsh, Ron Darling**, Mike Krukow, Mike Grant

Not middling players - Kirk Gibson, Justin Morneau, Paul O'Neill, John Kruk, Keith Hernandez, Jim Edmonds

Middling players - Rick Manning, Geoff Blum, Rex Hudler,  Mike Blowers, Pat Tabler, Jeff Franceour, Jeff Huson, Todd Hollandsworth, Bill Schroeder, Ben Davis, Kevin Frandsen

Other - Bob Brenly (middling player - but also a bad but lucky manager)

**In my head he's good but really in my head I stop thinking about him in 1986. He WAS good in 1986 and the couple years before that. He was middling for far longer after that. 

Still nothing nationally, a little internationally

 Last week was the international signing period and the Nats did what you want them to. They IDd a top prospect and they paid money to sign him. In fact they paid the most money they ever spent on an international prospect.  So welcome Cristhian Vaquero.

 What does that mean? Well a ton of players come internationally, more than their share drafted.  Of course part of that is the fact baseball drafts a ton times a ton of players. But international players are very important and signing the best ones is usually the best bet. 

That being said one only needs to look at who held the Nats record previously to see how much of a crapshoot this really is. It was held dually by Armando Cruz, who as a 17 year old put up a "talented 17 year old in the Dominican Summer League" season which is to say - not very good in general, but he's super young (in fact his 18th birthday was just a couple days ago) and by Yasel Antuna, who as a 21 year old MI now OF put up a "averagish for a 21 year old in High A" season - which is to say also not very good, but he's still young for his league. If you want to be positive, they've hung on in levels above their ages. If you want to be negative, they haven't done anything outside of Antuna's 17yo rookie league season. If you want to be fair, Antuna is getting toward a make or break time since it was hoped he'd be knocking on the door by now, and it wasn't a good start for Cruz but it's so far off writing him off that you can ignore it other than to say he's probably not a first ballot HoFer to be. 

 I went over international signings a while ago and I felt they were best described as lottery tickets, even more so than draft picks.  Generally if you have a top half first round draft pick you should end up with a ML player. If you didn't you either got bad injury luck or messed up. But the Top 15 international signings? No guarantee. The variance is wild. But you hope that you got the Juan Soto* of the year and not the Yadier Alvarez. 

 

Juan Soto at 17? Had a fantastic Gulf Coast Rookie season. Juan Soto at 21? That was 2020.

Everything a reboot?

More ramblings as the MLB negotiations opened exactly as I thought they would.  It wasn't a continuation of negotiations, but a restart as the owners basically reiterated their initial demands with a minor tweak or two. We had a 6 week pause where nothing happened and this highlights that. 

We'll continue with the TV theme and as you probably know the Fresh Prince is getting a gritty reboot. Who doesn't love a gritty reboot? ... Huh. Everyone.  I think it isn't a bad idea - they actual set-up of the show isn't necessarily comedic and works well for a drama. But keeping everything the same makes it sillier than it needs to be. He doesn't have to go to Bel-Air, the characters all don't have to have the same names. He probably does have to come from Philly, just because it's Will Smith's show, but other than that play around and change things up so it feels like an inspiration, not a parody. 

Any way everything gets a remake or reunion or restart because it's easy. You have a built-in audience to check it out to start and that's better than most anything new you can put out. The two that seem a bit impervious to this are kid/teen shows and doctor shows. Kid/teen shows generally appeal to kid/teens - so you don't have a built in audience if you simply reboot, you either got to convince adults to watch teen or kids stuff or get new kids. If you want the original audience you have to do like a "20 years later" but then you have to get the original cast to agree, not always easy. Also the "best" ones are generally not well watched and short lived*. Doctor shows are so ubiquitous you can just easily make another and people will watch. 

To prove it I pulled a a random list of the Top 50 TV shows of the 90s (80s might be too old for some of you, we're not quite at the full 00s being able to be rebooted yet - takes about 15/20 years to really cycle through) and we'll see one by one where they went after ending. I'm gonna leave out continuations like the X-Files movies or Saved By the Bell the New Class that happened soon after the originals ended

Friends - all rich now don't have to redo the show but had the reunion

Twin Peaks - limited follow up season in 2014 on Showtime

Seinfeld - also all rich, instead had a fake reunion in a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm

My So-Called Life (ed note- hey I didn't pick the list! I didn't like this show and in fact generally hate "this is real life" dramas but I made my choices apriori here) - Teen show. No real reboot (I don't count a post show novel) Cast got famous.

Fresh Prince - see above

X-Files - Got a revival for a couple new seasons in 2016 and 2018

Freaks and Geeks - Teen show. Cast got famous.

Wonder Years - Reboot is on now and is supposed to be pretty good

Saved by The Bell - Revival is on Peacock

Simpsons - Still on! 

Boy Meets World -  Revival "Girl Meets World" ran from 2014-17 on Disney 

Buffy - several undeveloped spinoffs and a planned revival in 2018 that didn't go anywhere

In Living Color - attempted reboot in 2012 didn't get past pilot episodes

Full House - Revival Fuller House streamed on Netflix for 4 seasons? I don't know and my kid isn't home to ask

Murphy Brown - Forgive yourself if you don't remember the one-season 2018 revival 

Mr. Show - Bob and David got around to putting out 4 new episodes for Netflix in 2015, but it's a two-man show and Odenkirk got pretty busy

Unsolved Mysteries - Revived in 2007 for three years on Spike. Revived again in 2020 on Netflix.  

Kids in the Hall -  the original cast was filming something for Amazon but I don't see if it went anywhere

The Adventures of Pete & Pete - Kids show. Nothing.

Married... With Children - In 2014 the production company asked for pitches for a Bud Bundy show but it didn't go anywhere. 

OK that's 20 - I'll peruse the rest for what I know off the top of my head...  Quantum Leap's reboot was just announced, Daria is having a spin-off, Magic School Bus was redone at least once, Animaniacs came back, Law & Order (original flavor) is coming back I think?, Beavis and Butthead definitely had several revivals, Rugrats came back in new animation, Mad About You did new shows, the was a new Melrose Place at some point I think, 90210 was BH90210's revival, MST3K rebooted, The Nanny is doing a reboot. 

So that's at least 12+15 like 27 out of 50? And I bet it's closer to 40 if I dug down into those other 30.  Maybe later.

Even though it feels like "We have no new ideas" I can't imagine it's all that new.  Pick a classic show. It's gonna have something in the future. There's money on the table and they aren't going to leave it there. The only difference is now there are a bunch of streaming channels along with the usual suspects trying to get programming and that's digging down a little deeper into our memory holes.

*nothing separates a critic from the real world more than their love of a "realistic" teen drama. Real teens want Riverdale.

Thursday Ramblings

Huh - so still no baseball talk. That's odd. Wonder what's going on. 

Look there isn't going to be anything really here baseball wise for a month. And chances are most of what will come about is - "That's a ridiculous offer by the owners" "The players still need to make a couple concessions" "Ok now the owners are serious" type stuff, but that only makes for three posts as you see. If you make me guess I'll say Feb 21st for an agreement date (with ST starting a few days late) so that's still more than a month away.  You guys don't want three posts do you? You need content to fill your lives! 

So what content shall that be. I can definitely ramble. I have the correct thoughts on pretty much everything. You tell me. 

I'm working my way through Posnanski's Baseball 100 - which is sort of his Top 100 players with a few "article in a newspaper" pages on each as opposed to "this is their career" dryness. It's very good.Some thoughts

The first players that make his list started in 1890 which may seem like a long time ago but cuts out probably 20 years of decently viable baseball. The big loser there is Cap Anson who was kind of baseball's first superstar but also a virulent racist so no tears shed - especially considering this is a personal list not trying to be THE objective 100 best players.  Most of the others come from the fact sometimes you threw 500 innings. That's kind of hard to translate to now terms if it was actually any good. If you want to feel bad for someone maybe Roger Connor is the best choice from this group. The guy was the HR king of baseball from the end of his career in 1895 until Ruth took the crown after like his second big season. He was the first one to really HOLD it and was a great hitter. Maybe Dan Brouthers - baseball's first slugger. But still the game was admittedly a bit wonky until you get to the 1890s and the leagues start to gel so I can see denying those 1880s stats.

The guys after 1900 who were kind of snubbed were

Eddie Plank - a rubber armed dead ball pitcher who was good but primarily got his value from never getting hurt and throwing a ton. 

Tom Glavine - you know Glavine. He's sort of the same as Plank but was very good. Honestly the difference between Glavine and a guy like Blyleven (who does make it at #71) is more era than anything. If you are going to adjust for old timers and for now timers you should adjust for the subtle changes in between as well. 

That's probably it honestly.  Once you try to adjust for adding in Negro Leaguers and historically under appreciated catchers you shift everything like 15 spots and a guy in the 70-80 WAR range (which is where we are now) is in 85-95 and if you like someone better at 105 or 115 should we really call that a snub?

He probably overrates the stars of his youth (21 of this list debuted in the 15 years period between 1959 and 1974). Even limiting baseball to 1900-2000 that would be a bit of a stretch. And then again the stars of his early work (another 16 pop up between the decade of 1986-1995).  Did 37% of baseball's greats appear in like 22% of it's years? Maybe I guess. These things aren't going to be exactly distributed.  Most likely though there are one or two here that wouldn't be on others.

Ok so there you go - some baseball talk.

Wednesday ramblings

Talks coming? Well of course they were coming, but the first talks are finally starting up this week. Despite what you might hear the season is not in jeopardy right now, neither is any Spring Training in fact. Pitchers and catchers report around Valentines Day so as long as the deal is struck within a couple days of that date things will be basically normal.  You can probably even go a week+ later and have minimal impact because do pitchers and catchers REALLY need to come early in this day and age where everyone is working out and keeping fit all winter long? No. The answer is no.  The MLBPA still probably strikes a week of ST because they can and the owners don't really care but they don't have to until we actually get TO the ST games. I concede they do need some time to get together and warm up and have eyeballs on players, etc. 

So the timeline as of today is like 5 weeks.  Anything more than that likely causes a disruption. Anything more than like 7 weeks causes major disruption and might cause a delay in the start of the season, mostly because they'll want time to get FA and arbitration sorted out then any actual physical reasons. 

Lester retires. Lester was signed last year with the hopes he could pitch a bit better or get a bit lucky or both and anchor the back of the Nats rotation. That quickly became a moot point as the rest of the rotation fell apart with Stras' injury, Ross and Fedde continuing their "not quite good and healthy enough to stick, not quite bad and old enough to dismiss" dance, and Patrick Corbin suddenly becoming truly terrible. But even though the point was moot we should note he did not pitch better nor did he get lucky.  He was a 5.00+ERA pitcher and basically got those results. That's a passable 5th for most teams but not good enough for a team hoping to compete with other rotation issues 

As it is a passable 5th he might have been able to sneak out another season somewhere, eating up innings, mentoring some young arms and throwing to 5.00 ball but he has succumbed to the late career apathy that takes many stars. Lester has enough money and traveling around the country with a bunch of guys he doesn't know dealing with aches and pains of trying to pitch while aging for no real end goal is not super appealing.

Where does he stand in MLB history? One of the best LHSP of the first post steroid era. Good story recovering from a treatable form of cancer. Not a HoFer.  Somewhere better than a guy like David Price, worse than a guy like Tim Hudson. 

Tuesday Ramblings

Hey there isn't baseball news so I'm going to ramble today

Something you learn growing up watching TV is that all the kids you see on TV are probably older than they are playing. Sometimes a year or two, sometimes several, but it's unlikely that that 13 year old is really 13.  Why? Several reasons. Older kids are usually better actors. Older kids can work longer. Older kids have already gone through puberty so you don't have to worry about awkward transitions (see that youngest kid from Home Improvement) But on the flip side they also cast parents far younger than  they should be. Why? This one is simple. Young people are better looking. Old people look old! Yuck!

Getting to the point - when Bob Saget died it led me to look up exactly how old he was when he started Full House. This is what happens when you get older and people who remember as adults in your youth die - you start wondering about your age in comparison. Turns out he was 31.  Which is weird because in theory he had a 10 year old kid and he married his wife after college but such is the TV parent life. If we take your actual age and put it against the supposed age of the kid you have, it rarely makes sense. 

For a service to you here are some parents' ages when they had their first kid based on the actor's birth year and the supposed age of the kid (I worked backward from HS graduation episodes assuming 17 for that to give the parents the biggest benefit of the doubt I could)

Full House - Danny Tanner 21

Family Ties - Steven and Elyse Keaton 19 (Fun fact - Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter share an exact birthday)

Growing Pains - Jason Seaver 23, Maggie Seaver 17 

Who's the Boss - Tony Micelli 22, Angela Bower 27 (this sort of makes sense for a former baseball player and a woman who at least got something going business wise)

Cosby Show - Cliff Huxtable 27, Clair Huxtable 16 (this got really messed up because after the show started Cosby wanted a child already in college and seemingly successful so they added they several year older than Denise, Sondra. The actress that played her was only 10 years older in real life than Phylicia Rashad. But that was nothing special. The actor that played Cosby's Dad was only 11 years older than him)

Family Matters - Carl Winslow 24, Harriet Winslow 26- This works? I mean certainly in comparison with almost everything else here

My Two Dads - Greg Evigan's Dad 22, Paul Reiser's Dad 19.  Don't ask me why this made my list

Boy Meets World - Alan Matthews 32/30,  Amy Matthews 27/25.  This also works but you are probably wondering why the slash. Well the first season they are clearly 11 year olds in sixth grade.  In the second season they are in high school and spend four years there.  It isn't a time jump. It isn't explained. They just age them up 2 years. 

Fresh Prince - Uncle Phil 27, Aunt Viv 1 - 16, Aunt Viv 2 - 24.  Gotta guess here on Hilary because she's already in college and doesn't graduate. I went ahead and did 18 but she could be older and the parents younger. But let's at least keep Uncle Phil in the legal in some states territory.

Home Improvement - Tim Taylor 28, Jill Taylor 30. Times change. I guess. We're no longer in the time where parents had to get married out of HS and pop out a lot of kids because half would die like... the mid 1970s.

 Maybe there will be baseball news tomorrow. 

Happy January 5th

Yeah look nothing is going on. 

Worse than that - since MLB is probing its deep library for content in the meantime, that means the Nats website is back to showing Expos stuff. 

There's a bit on minor leaguers (they aren't locked out as they aren't part of the MLBPA).  They talk about who they thought might be the breakout prospect and who was.  They thought Yasel Antuna might be. The 21 year old was bumped up again and responded with the same kind of bad average / bad patience year he had in his last full season (2018), but with some increased power. .227 / .307 / .385. Not a breakout, not a disappointment. If he goes to AA next year, likely the case, and does something similar that's fine. If he stays in High A he'll need to do better.  They admit the real breakout was Cade Cavalli, and yep he was. Obvious choice. Probably will see him at the end of next year. 

The fun thing is out of 30 teams they only correctly picked 4 breakout prospects. That's not to say their picks all were terrible - but still. Prospect evaluation is hard! Everyone has a limit and you don't know what that really is until they get to it. 

They also put out a guess on the prospect most likely to bounce back. For the Nats it was Jackson Rutledge - a good pick too because he was bad! His ERA was a little unfair but he did pitch pretty poorly overall while fighting injuries.  Healthy it's a pretty good bet he'll do better. Will he pitch well? I don't know about that. But better? Sure.