30 Teams In 30 Days

Oakland Athletics: Moneyball Madness
(Over the next 30 days, BERNing on Sports will be previewing every team in the Majors, yes, even the Royals. Only one a day, every day, so try not to get too hooked.)


Finally Some Pressure To Win
The Oakland A's normal course of action when they have a top flight player entering their prime is to let him walk at the end of his contract or trade him for four or five prospects before his deal expires. Remember the Mark Mulder trade to St. Louis? Or when Tim Hudson was dealt to Atlanta? How about letting go of Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and Miguel Tejada, all in their respective primes? The rationalization for these peculiar management decisions was always that they could be replaced by players using Moneyball (more on that later). But considering Oakland is a combined 21 games below .500 over the last two years, management told General Manager Billy Beane to go get some bats in this lineup. Enter Matt Holliday acquired via trade, resigning an older yet still effective Giambi, picking up former White Sox shortstop Orlando Cabrera and taking Nomar Garciaparra off the scrap heap, all of a sudden this lineup may not be so bad. Is it great? No. But when was the last time Oakland was the team making key free agent acquisitions? Exactly, I can't think of a time either, at least before this off season. I'm not saying the A's will be good, but at least they'll be more watchable this season.

Would You Want Any Of These Five Men In Your Starting Rotation?
If you're an educated baseball fan, and you were told your opening day starter would be some girl named Dana Eveland (kidding), and he'd be followed by Justin Duchscherer (say that 5 times fast), Sean Gallagher, Dallas Braden and Gio Gonzalez, would you think your team had a fighting chance this season? The answer, clearly, is no. This rotation might be the weakest in baseball, at least in terms of name recognition, and as Scott pointed out, the Royals rotation at least has two viable pitchers in it. Beane usually constructs a pitching staff full of young talent, but other than Duchscherer, this staff has youth but not much talent. Starting pitching will be the Achilles of the A's all season long unless one of these guys blossoms in that big ball park (which is an atrocity, by the way). Otherwise, Oakland will struggle again in the AL West.

A Three Month Solution?
While I did give some props to the A's for acquiring Matt Holliday, let's reserve some of those props for the end of the season. Because those props go right out the window if the Athletics go par for the course and trade Holliday at the deadline or let him go after this season. Holliday is a young player, and while his splits do suggest he was helped a bit by Coors Field in Colorado, he's a good player who could be the the face of the franchise for a while if they keep him around. When asked about his future on "Jim Rome is Burning" on ESPN a couple days ago, Holliday said he was told by management he likely wouldn't be sticking around very long. As he put it, management told him they "don't really do long term contracts" and that they may not have the money to offer him anyways. We can cut the A's a little slack because they're trying to finance a new ballpark but can't get it, and the franchise appears to be in limbo. But if Holliday hits by the bay this year, this guy should be kept in the fold. Unless Beane has a left fielder in AA who has a .405 on base percentage. Groan.

How Great Is Moneyball Anyway?
Michael Lewis wrote a book about it, and the topic has been discussed and analyzed around baseball ever since it came out. The truth is, "Sabrmetrics" the system that is money ball has been around since Bill James came out with those boring stat magazines almost thirty years ago that no one took seriously at the time. Moneyball has certainly had an influence on the game since it was re-popularized by Beane in the 199os, in that on base percentage has become a far more important statistic than it ever was before. Bu the teams that seem to be most successful using Moneyball tactics also employ good baseball wisdom: signing good free agents, developing quality pitching, etc. I'm not saying that Beane hasn't or doesn't do that, because his track record certainly shows that he did and still does. But what I am saying is he relies too much on his system and not enough on common sense. Look at the pitching staff he has? It's terrible from top to bottom. I don't care how many of these guys throw a high percentage of strikes with a 1-1 count. It's still bad.

Bold Predictions

1. Oakland will finish in last place in the American League West. Yes, last place. This team won't be able to win enough games out-slugging people and their pitching is bad, as I have already mentioned.
2. Matt Holliday will prove his doubters wrong and have a big year in a big park. 30HR, 100RBI for the special occasion.
3. Nomar Garciaparra will return to being a good MLB hitter. If he gets the at-bats, expect 20 homers and 85RBI.

Up next...Friday, Angels.

Canseco Smelling Like a Rose

Who would have thought that Jose Canseco was actually right all along?

Apparently, that's the case.

When he came out pointing fingers at all the players in an attempt to clean up the game, everyone tried to discredit him. To be fair, it's not like they didn't have good reason. Canseco himself cheated the game by taking steroids. He has been arrested four times, most recently in October. He's not a model citizen.

But everything he keeps saying about who was and wasn't on steroids continues to be accurate.
In his book "Juiced" he named Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro, Ivan Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez. All of them except Pudge were named either in the Mitchell Report, and just take a look at a picture of Pudge in 2003 and now, and you tell me whether he was on steroids or not.

Good work, Mr. Canseco.

In his newer book "Vindicated" Canseco fingers A-Roid and Albert Belle, among others. Correct again.

Maybe we should have taken Canseco more seriously when he started making these allegations. Turns out all of his "allegations" were actually facts. Granted, the guy is a boob of a human being, but he's actually done a tremendous amount of good for baseball. He's been the one that despite a ton of public criticism has done a tremendous amount of legwork that Major League Baseball would have never done to clean up a game ridden with a drug problem.

So after all this, who would have thought it would be Canseco who comes up smelling like a rose?

What Is The Point Of It All?

What does all of this tattle-telling do? What do we all get from this back and forth bickering nonsense?

Former players ratting out teammates, brothers dropping dimes on brothers. Trainers and confidants coming from out of the woodworks. And so I ask, where are we now?

Where are we after knowing all of this? How much different are our lives after the infamous Mitchell Report?

Players seem to take one of two paths. They either deny it and do so arrogantly (Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens) and are later found to be guilty. Or, they come clean, maybe cry, and are forgiven (Jason Giambi, Andy Pettitte, Marion Jones etc.).

I, for one, am tired of the whole charade. I don't want Congress involved any longer (concentrate on the more important things) or ever again. I don't want to watch some ga-gillionaire get on TV and either cry for forgiveness or wag a finger in my face like I'm a jerk for even thinking he did steroids or HGH or whatever.

My view on the game is already tainted. As Jordan mentioned, McGwire had already been convicted in the court of public opinion. But, the honest truth is, we all have players in our own minds, Mitchell Listed or not, that we think did steroids. Personally, there's about 20 or 30 players that I wouldn't be surprised to hear about having done something.

And so I ask, where do we all stand? Baseball's popularity's at an all-time high, people are flocking out to games in record numbers, and, despite a recession, teams are still spending money. Hell, the Cubs are about to be bought for nearly a billion dollars.

Does finding out that a certain player did steroids make you not want to watch the game? It would bother me, sure, but I'm not just going to stop my love. So, I beg, let's stop this. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and this is one of those times.

A lot of these guys messed up, and there's no defending that or making it right. But, after a while, it's time to move on. Until there is some real action taken on these players (like strike some records from the books or ban someone from the Hall), I'll be content being kept in the dark.

Hump Day Headlines

In this week's Hump Day Headlines, we discuss the stumbling Celtics, Jeff Jagodzinski, the A's actually signing free agents, and taking a page out of Mike Tyson's book...

• After a record setting 27-2 start, which was actually ahead of the pace of the '95-'96 Bulls, the Boston Celtics are coming back to earth.  Well, to be fair, they're likely somewhere between the all-world start they had and their recent struggles.  Boston has lost 5 of 7, including losses at Golden State, at New York, and last night in Charlotte.  This is the same team that won 19 straight games, and now they've lost to the Knicks and Bobcats.  "We told our team before the season it will be 82 game 7s,"  Celtics coach Doc Rivers said after last night's puzzling loss to the 13-22 Bobcats.  "On the nights we're not ready mentally for that, we're going to have to get lucky and play over our head to win."  The Celtics are obviously the team to beat in the NBA, regardless of the fact that they now have more losses than the Lakers and Cavaliers, since they are defending their NBA championship of last season.  And, thankfully, unless they go 43-3 the rest of the way, the Bulls record will stay in tact.
• Boston College head football coach Jeff Jagodzinski met with the New York Jets yesterday to discuss their head coaching vacancy, despite the fact that he would likely be fired for accepting the interview.  ESPN.com is reporting that Jagodzinski will not be retained by B.C. for interviewing with the Jets, and Yahoo! Sports says Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo will meet with Jagodzinski today to discuss his situation.  Jeff Jagodzinski must know one of two things:  either A) he knows he's going to be hired by the Jets, or B) he has another college or NFL job locked up as a back up plan if he is not hired by New York.  Otherwise, he is willingly being fired from his job.  But more importantly, and check out the podcast for more on this, the fact that Boston College is doing this to him makes them an utter disgrace of a place to work.  It is understood in this industry and in many others that coaches will bounce around from job to job to advance their careers.  If B.C. can't understand that, I pity the fool that agrees to be their next football coach.
• Quietly, the Oakland A's are actually making strides to be a legitimate force in the AL West next season.  First they added Matt Holliday by making a deal with the Rockies, and now they're close to signing Jason Giambi.  That's a lot of pop to add to the middle of your lineup, even if the Giambino is no longer the player he once was.  Still though, while he only hit .247 last year, he hit 32 home runs and drove in 96 runs.  He also got on base at a .373 clip.  Granted, the 2002 MVP would not be returning, but a good power bat would be.  As for Holliday, people always want to question how good he really is since he's played his entire career in Colorado.  Now that he'll be playing in the cavern in Oakland we'll see how good he truly is.  I believe he will be very good, even though his career batting average at Coors Field was .357, a whopping seventy-seven points higher than his career average of .280 on the road.
• Since many people don't follow hockey, here's something even the non-hockey fan would find disturbing, and probably amusing at the same time.  First, check out the headline of this Yahoo! Sports article and tell me you don't find the childish innuendo amusing: "Ruutu bites Peters in Sabres 4-2 win over Senators".  Now that you've had a chance to snicker, or chuckle, or decide I'm pathetic for finding this funny, here's what happened.  Senators winger Jarkko Ruutu bit the thumb of Sabres winger Andrew Peters in a fight last night between the two teams.  Peters' thumb was still in his glove at the time.  "Just the fact that that happened it's unfortunate," Peters said after the game.  "It's not good for the game of hockey."  Clearly, it's not.  And here's the best part, Ruutu was not penalized, and Peters was.  Since the fight was instigated by Peters, he served time in the penalty box.  Maybe Ruutu was inspired by this little ditty from our old pal Mike Tyson:

• This video is still unbelievable.  But the incident last night?  Just another black eye for the sport of hockey.