Category Archives: Opinion - Page 2

There’s Always One…

Posted by on 15 November 2013 Comments Off on There’s Always One…

Questionable ballots continue despite transparency

Nothing gets fans riled up like a good voting controversy. Hall of Fame voting is still a few weeks away, but awards season is always good for some backlash. As an unpaid (and unread) blogger, I don’t get a vote in any of this. That makes it a bit more frustrating when I see some of the ballots turned in by people who are paid actual real money to cover this sport. Unlike Hall of Fame voting, which can include ballots from people who haven’t covered baseball in decades but instead put in their time long ago and then were fortunate enough to live very long lives, awards voting is handled by a select group of professionals who really should know better. The processes are further distinguished by the publishing of the full details of every awards ballot for maximum transparency while Hall of Fame voting is done in secret to allow the ignorant, prejudiced, and sanctimonious voters to remain hidden if they so choose. But even with full transparency, there’s always one who decides to be the guy who takes a stand for some selfish, uninformed, misguided, or just plain idiotic reason.

AL Rookie of the Year

BBWAA AL Rookie of the Year Results

This year’s Rookie of the Year races were down to two players in each league by the end of the season. On the AL side, Wil Myers was the clear favorite and took the award with 23 first place votes, 5 second place votes, and 1 third place vote. The third place vote from Cleveland Plain Dealer writer Dan Hayes is a bit suspect (especially considering that second place finisher Jose Iglesias wasn’t even on that ballot), but fellow Cleveland representative Chris Assenheimer of the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram went a step further and left both Iglesias and Myers off his ballot. Now, there are only three spots on the ballot, so we can assume that Myers and Iglesias would have still been in the top five, but it seems a bit odd for both Indians writers to be so down on the top two finishers. Only two other writers left Iglesias off their ballots (Joe Haakenson representing Los Angeles, who cast the lone second place vote for Angels rookie J.B. Shuck, and Gregg Wong representing Minnesota) and nobody except Assenheimer forgot Myers. Hayes and Assenheimer combined for the only first place votes by second and third runners up Chris Archer and Dan Straily, respectively. Archer and Straily each appeared on a fair number of other ballots, so their elevation to the top two spots on the Cleveland ballots isn’t too much of a stretch (and there’s a legitimate case for valuing starting pitchers over position players or the other way around). Assenheimer’s third place vote for Indians rookie Cody Allen over both Myers and Iglesias though is just shameful homerism. Allen pitched just over 70 innings with a 2.43 ERA, 88 strikeouts, 28 walks, and just 7 home runs for 1.4 bWAR. That’s a good showing for a middle reliever of any age, but is it better than position players who logged more time and by bWAR provided more value (2.0 for Myers and 1.9 for Iglesias)? Allen faced 301 batters, while Myers and Iglesias each had more than 370 plate appearances on top of their time in the field. All I can figure is that Cleveland overvalues relievers or just doesn’t like Myers and Iglesias. Somebody must have said something nasty about the place on Twitter I guess…

NL Rookie of the Year

BBWAA NL Rookie of the Year Results

Over in the NL, there was more of a consensus on the top two rookies. The Marlins made a bizarre gamble by rushing Jose Fernandez straight to the majors, skipping over both AA and AAA, in a season where they were only contending for not being the worst team in the majors (they finished with an NL-worst 100 losses, still ahead of the 111-loss Astros). While most teams were holding back their prospects to gain an extra year of control or delay arbitration eligibility, the Marlins were getting solid performances out of one of the best pitchers in baseball. Fernandez finished with just over 172 IP, an ERA of 2.19, 187 strikeouts, and a ton of really good numbers that put him in contention for the Cy Young. His 6.3 bWAR was more than the bWAR of the top three AL RoY finishers combined. All on a team that won just 62 games. Seems like a waste, but I guess the gamble paid off, as much as anything pays off in Miami. Fernandez received 26 first place votes and 4 second place votes in a runaway Rookie of the Year victory.

And yet I’m sure there are more than a few people who feel that Jose Fernandez was not the best rookie in the NL this year. Enter Yasiel Puig, the Cuban sensation that made everyone forget how much the Dodgers still owe to Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, and Carl Crawford. Puig’s high-energy style of play sometimes rubbed both opponents and teammates the wrong way, but the young outfielder provided enough offense to give hope that he’ll mature into a legitimate superstar. In just 104 games, Puig accumulated 5.0 bWAR with an OPS of .925 (.319/.391/.534, 19 HR, 11 SB, 160 OPS+, etc.). It’s clear that Fernandez and Puig were the top rookie pitcher and hitter, respectively, in all of baseball this year. Fernandez deserved the award, but Puig wouldn’t have been a bad choice either. He got the other 4 first place votes and the other 25 second place votes. Wait, 25? What happened to the other one?

That brings us to John Maffei of the San Diego Union-Tribune. His ballot has Jose Fernandez first, Cardinals pitcher Shelby Miller second, and Padres infielder Jedd Gyorko in third. Miller, along with Hyun-jin Ryu and Julio Teheran, was in the second tier of 2013 rookie pitchers. Predictably, Miller, Ryu, and Teheran split the majority of the third place votes. Second is a bit high, but it’s not too unreasonable if you value starting pitching over hitting. Jedd Gyorko had a great rookie season and certainly deserves some recognition (his 2.2 bWAR beats AL RoY Wil Myers, though Gyorko did have 40% more plate appearances), so a third place vote behind Fernandez and Puig can be seen as a symbolic gesture. But a third place vote over Puig? Puig had more hits, more triples, more stolen bases, more walks, and fewer strikeouts than Gyorko in almost 100 fewer plate appearances. Gyorko topped Puig in doubles 26-21 and home runs 23-19 (though their home runs per plate appearance was roughly identical). And the triple slash of .319/.391/.534 for Puig vs. .249/.301/.444 for Gyorko is just humiliating. Gyorko had a good start while Puig had a great season. So why did a San Diego writer pick a San Diego player over a Los Angeles phenom? I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

AL Cy Young

BBWAA AL Cy Young Results

For a race that was essentially a toss-up between a bunch of equally deserving pitchers, the outcome was about as decisive as they come. Max Scherzer’s 21 wins seemed to be the tiebreaker that got him 28 of the 30 first place votes for AL Cy Young, with the remaining ballots listing him second and third. So many pitchers had a good case that you really can’t fault anyone for their choices. Sale over Scherzer? Sale had the edge in bWAR, 6.9 to 6.7. Darvish over Sale? 277 strikeouts to 226. Colon over Darvish? 3 shutouts and 2.65 ERA to Darvish’s 0 and 2.83. Even though both LA writers had unique views of the AL Cy Young race, I can’t really hold it against them. J.P. Hoornstra of the Los Angeles News Group had Sale first followed by Darvish and Scherzer, while Sporting News writer Anthony Witrado was the only one to leave Darvish out of the top five. Move along, nothing to see here…

NL Cy Young

BBWAA NL Cy Young Results

How about that Clayton Kershaw? Only a Dickey away from three straight Cy Young Awards, Kershaw has emerged as one of the game’s elite at the age of 25. Matt Harvey may have gotten the All-Star Game start, but Kershaw took home his second Cy Young with a nearly-unanimous 29 first place votes. The 30th one went to Adam Wainwright, who had a pretty good season himself (as 15 Kershaw voters acknowledged with their second place votes). Rookie Jose Fernandez finished third and Matt Harvey and Craig Kimbrel answered the eternal question of “Elite closer or ace starter whose season ended early due to injury?” with a tie for fourth place. With five spots on the ballot, it’s actually a bit surprising how few ballots each of the four runners up appeared on. Wainwright was the only one of the bunch with a first place vote, but he didn’t even place in the top five on four ballots. Fernandez was left off six ballots, while Kimbrel and Harvey combined for a mere 33 votes. Of the next five, Cliff Lee was second to Kershaw in bWAR with 7.3, Jordan Zimmermann led the NL in meaningless Wins with 19, Zack Greinke was, um, fourth in ERA behind Kershaw, Fernandez, and Harvey, Madison Bumgarner was next on that list, and Francisco Liriano was also a pitcher in 2013.

What the hell, NL Cy Young voters? CSN Bay Area writer Ray Ratto had Bumgarner 5th and left out Wainwright. Seriously? Bumgarner’s other vote was a fourth place vote from CSN Bay Area writer Andrew Baggarly, who had Jose Fernandez fifth and Harvey off the ballot. Sure, Bumgarner had a great season, but better than Wainwright, Fernandez, and/or Harvey? bWAR says no (3.8 vs. 6.2, 6.3, and 5.2, respectively), ERA is a stretch (2.77 vs. 2.94, 2.19, and 2.27, respectively), strikeouts maybe (199 vs. 219, 187, and 191, respectively), and ERA+ no way in hell (120 vs. 123, 176, and 157, respectively). I get that you want to put your guy on the ballot somewhere, but maybe you could be a little more tactful.

Francisco Liriano is an even more baffling choice. Interestingly, none of his two votes came from Pittsburgh writers but instead came from the teams to the east and the west. Liriano had about the same season as rookies Shelby Miller, Hyun-Jin Ryu, and Julio Teheran. He wasn’t among the leaders in just about anything and his 161 IP isn’t exactly anything to write home about unless you’re a rookie or a releiver (though even the three rookies pitched more). He’s not a top 10 NL pitcher in 2013, much less top 5. Yet At Large writer Hal McCoy ranked Liriano fourth behind just Kershaw, Wainwright, and Zimmermann and Kevin P. Cooney of the Bucks County Courier Times had him fifth. Obviously, Liriano’s choice over some of the other starters isn’t because they didn’t pitch enough innings. Neither voter had a hometown pitcher on their ballot, though Cliff Lee would have been a better choice. So what’s going on here? Damned if I know, some guys just really like average starting pitchers, I guess.

AL MVP

BBWAA AL MVP Results

Unlike the previous awards, the interpretation of “value” in the Most Valuable Player award varies from person to person. Some vote for the best player, others factor contributions to getting their team to the postseason. With no clear way to evaluate worthiness and 10 spots on the ballot, this won’t be easy to sort out. Complicating matters further is a Miguel Cabrera vs. Mike Trout matchup for the second year in a row. Trout is the leader in WAR (bWAR or fWAR, take your pick), but the Angels were never really in contention. Cabrera led in all three triple slash categories and was second behind Chris Davis in Home Runs and RBI for a Tigers team that made it to the ALCS. If you like WAR, Trout is your guy. If you like the old school stats, Cabrera is your MVP. If you think a player’s contribution to making the postseason is most important, your pick is Josh Donaldson. Wait, Josh Donaldson? Unlike Trout’s Angels, Donaldson’s Athletics won their division (and finished 18 games up on the Angels). And unlike Cabrera’s Tigers, which had a superstar pitching rotation headlined by Cy Young winner Max Scherzer, Anibal Sanchez, Justin Verlander, and Doug Fister, Donaldson had Coco Crisp and Bartolo Colon backing him up. That makes Donaldson’s contribution to his team’s playoff run much more valuable than Cabrera’s. Any way you slice it, the AL MVP is Trout, Cabrera, Donaldson, or maybe Davis. And that’s exactly where all of the first place votes went.

But we need something to nitpick, so how about Trout’s 7th place vote from Worcester Telegram & Gazette writer Bill Ballou? (Full disclosure: I was a Telegram & Gazette subscriber for a year or so back when subscribing to newspapers was a thing people did.) Ballou’s ballot was also the only one with Davis in the top spot, which really only makes sense if you like home runs and RBI over everything else. Also interesting is that Trout is sandwiched between Boston players Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz. I would wonder about hometown bias, but where’s Shane Victorino? Victorino was more deserving than Ortiz and was about on par with Pedroia, but he got only a single 10th place vote while the other two finished in the top 10 overall. I guess I just don’t see any logic at work here, let’s move on.

How about the lone Donaldson first place vote from Oakland Tribune writer John Hickey? Bias? Or is his ballot of Donaldson-Cabrera-Davis-Trout-Jones-Kipnis-Cano-Longoria-Crisp-Beltre just weighted by level of postseason contention. Wait, what’s Coco Crisp doing on there? Crisp was the second most valuable position player on the Athletics, but there are a good 20 or 30 players ahead of him in the overall AL. There you have it, our first clear-cut case of hometown bias with an 8th place vote. Not exactly earth-shattering.

I give up, let’s move on to the NL.

NL MVP

BBWAA NL MVP Results

This one isn’t nearly as easy to call as the AL MVP race, so we’re probably wasting our time here. Andrew McCutchen took 28 first place votes and was in everyone’s top 3. After that though, 10 more players had votes in the top 5 spots and another 13 received votes. WAR isn’t going to help us; Carlos Gomez was first in bWAR and second to McCutchen in fWAR, but appeared in the top 6 on just one ballot (much of his value was from defense, which isn’t highly valued). Michael Cuddyer took the batting crown but received only three 10th place votes. Paul Goldschmidt led in OPS, home runs, and RBI, which was enough to make him the clear second place choice for half of the voters and anywhere from third to sixth for the rest. Third place finisher Yadier Molina was all over the map with votes from first to 10th, though he did appear on every ballot.

Wait a second, where’s David Wright? Wright racked up big numbers in just 112 games, finishing 2013 with 5.9 bWAR / 6.0 fWAR, which has to count for something, right? Not according to the voters, who went for players with lesser numbers in more games. If you don’t believe he’s valuable, try watching some of the Mets’ games without him.

So how exactly did Yadier Molina get a 10th place vote? That would be from Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald, whose ballot is largely unremarkable except for including Yasiel Puig, which isn’t entirely unreasonable (makes more sense than Coco Crisp). Molina’s first place votes are a bit more suspect, with both coming from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. That alone isn’t too bad, but Rick Hummel’s second place vote for Matt Carpenter over McCutchen is pretty far out there. I can see Carpenter over Goldschmidt, but not McCutchen. Hummel’s ballot also included Allen Craig at 8th and Russell Martin at 10th, so I’m pretty sure this ballot came from a different year and/or universe.

Hawk Harrelson Award for Blatant Homerism

Most sportswriters and broadcasters are accused of bias of some sort (ESPN’s Buster Olney for instance has been accused of being biased for and against every team and geographic region in MLB), but few take as much pride in their bias as Chicago White Sox broadcaster Ken “Hawk” Harrelson. One of the last media personalities to embrace the idea of relentlessly rooting for the home team, Harrelson is a relic of a bygone era when only local fans would ever see and/or hear you calling a game. Actually, I don’t even know if it’s an era thing, because the opposite end of the spectrum is represented by the eternal Vin Scully. Whatever the reason, anyone who isn’t an obnoxiously outspoken White Sox fan probably can’t last more than five minutes into a Harrelson broadcast before reaching for the mute button or something to throw at the TV. It is in honor of the distinguished Hawk Harrelson that we present the first-ever award for blatant homerism to Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch!

Voting went as follows:

Writer, Affiliation 1st 2nd 3rd Points
Rick Hummel, St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1 3
Chris Assenheimer, Elyria Chronicle-Telegram 1 2
John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune 1 1

Here are the individual ballots:

Full Name Affiliation 1st 2nd 3rd
Matthew M. Lug Collect the Mets Hummel Assenheimer Maffei

Pablo Sandoval Award for Most Homer City

If you’re from San Francisco, you may not realize that other teams have third basemen. That’s the only reason I can think of why Pablo Sandoval gets so many All-Star votes every year despite being nothing more than an average starter. It is in honor of the great city by the bay and its hot corner hero that we present the first-ever award for the most homer city to San Francisco!

Voting went as follows:

City 1st 2nd 3rd Points
San Francisco 1 3
St. Louis 1 2
Cleveland 1 1

Here are the individual ballots:

Full Name Affiliation 1st 2nd 3rd
Matthew M. Lug Collect the Mets San Francisco St. Louis Cleveland

Voter eligibility was limited to anyone who expressed an interest in participating, which was limited to me because I just made these things up. If you want in for next year’s awards, let me know and I’ll get back to you if I do this again next year. Or just make your own, whatever.

Holding Myself Accountable

Posted by on 1 October 2013 Comments Off on Holding Myself Accountable

A look back at a look ahead at the Mets in 2013

Earlier this year, I answered a few questions about the upcoming 2013 season.  To see if I had any clue about what I was talking about, I pulled out my answers and compared them to the reality of the 2013 season.

Offseason grade: B-

You can’t really judge the process by the results, but the Mets’ problems in 2013 weren’t caused by their offseason deals.  Buck and Byrd performed at least as well as expected and brought back a couple of prospects, so Mission Accomplished there.  Shaun Marcum was Shaun Marcum, Collin Cowgill’s stay was mercifully short, and Travis d’Arnaud didn’t get much of a look due to injury.  As for the big-name outfielders the Mets didn’t get in the offseason, well, Victorino was probably the only one worth his contract and I think I’m the only Mets fan who wanted to see him on the Mets.

Johan Santana won’t matter

As it turns out, Santana landed squarely on the worst case scenario line.  While I didn’t pick that as the likely outcome, I didn’t think Santana would be a factor in 2013 and he certainly wasn’t.

The Mets had to keep David Wright

Take a look at the Game 162 lineup.  Now picture it without Wright.  Yeah, the Mets need him.  We got a look at the Mets without Wright when he was on the DL and it wasn’t pretty.

Zack Wheeler: Impact Rookie

Wheeler did well in his rookie stint, but he didn’t blow everyone away like Harvey did.  Still, he’s a solid starter in a rotation that featured Daisuke Matsuzaka and Aaron Harang at the end.  Travis d’Arnaud will take his rookie eligibility into 2014, so he wasn’t the right pick either.  The real impact rookie this year was Juan Lagares, who was one of the top defensive outfielders in baseball in 2013 while being merely replacement-level at the plate.  He set a Mets rookie record with 16 outfield assists, just three short of the Mets season record.  Lagares was overshadowed last year by Matt den Dekker, but an injury in spring training kept den Dekker in the minors until the end of August.  Lagares is on his way to becoming a star if he can get it together at the plate, but that’s a big if.

An honorable mention has to go to Scott Rice, who made his MLB debut with the Mets on Opening Day and pitched himself to hernia surgery in September.  Along the way, he earned his first Rookie Card, though he has yet to appear in an MLB-licensed product (Lagares on the other hand is still waiting for his first Rookie Card).  Not bad for someone originally drafted in 1999.

Mets finish at 76-86, 4th in the NL East

I was a couple of wins over on the record and one place under in the standings.  Who knew the Phillies could fall so far so fast?  With the Marlins seemingly loaded with prospects, the Phillies could find themselves in the basement as early as next year.

On the plus side, the Mets didn’t contend for half a season and then flush themselves down the toilet.  2013 was a series of ups and downs, though the end result was the same as last year.  Take out the injuries and add some better players and maybe you have a team that can stay strong all season.  But that’s still a bit of a stretch.  They didn’t fail in their usual way, so that’s something.

Ike Davis Strikes Back

Well, three words out of four ain’t bad…  Davis looked terrible at the start of the season, even worse than he did last year.  A month in Vegas helped him a little, but the power never came back.  He finished with just 9 home runs in 103 games, well off his usual pace.  A full season of Ike was not something to look forward to after all.

Elsewhere, there were some fun moments.  Sweeping the Yankees in four games, including a walkoff to end Mariano Rivera’s final appearance at Citi Field, was nice.  Matt Harvey’s starts were always must-see TV, even if the Mets often found a way to lose.  The Harvey/Wheeler doubleheader may have been the most anticipated day of Mets baseball all season.  And of course Harvey’s start at the All-Star game and the Futures Game started by a pair of Mets prospects were memorable, even if they weren’t actual Mets games.

The Jordany Valdespin question has been answered.  Wilmer Flores is still largely an unknown, as is the pronunciation of Familia’s first name.  Bobby Parnell did a great job as closer, though injury ended his season early and gave us LaTroy Hawkins, Vic Black, and Frank Francisco as possible closers.  Gabriel Ynoa is a stud, Luis Mateo not so much, and Hansel Robles regressed.  Las Vegas seems to be working out, but there may only be another year of it left.  And no, the outfield question did not get resolved in 2013.  There was a lot to see this year, even if we already knew how it would end.  The season is a journey and this one is over.

Fixing the Rookie Card

Posted by on 19 September 2013 2 comments

Bringing the thrill back to the hobby’s most cherished institution

Yesterday, we took a look at all of the Rookie Cards and associated prospect paraphernalia that have been released for the Mets so far this year.  After that lengthy exercise, we learned a few things about Rookie Cards.  Here’s a brief summary.

These are Rookie Cards:

Seems pretty straightforward.  These are also Rookie Cards:

Now things are getting a bit strange, but this still seems reasonable.  However, these are also Rookie Cards:

So just what the heck isn’t a Rookie Card?  Well, these for example:

How are those not Rookie Cards while the ones above are Rookie Cards?  This isn’t making much sense anymore.  And that’s when we get to these:

Rookie Cards?  Well, they say RC at least, so maybe?  But these definitely are NOT Rookie Cards:

Even though they are the first MLB-licensed cards for the players depicted.  Just for fun, let’s jazz things up a bit:

Still not Rookie Cards.  Neither are these, even though these guys are rookies in 2013:

And especially not these minor league cards:

So the guys with Rookie Cards didn’t do much of anything during the season, while the guys who were actual rookies this year have to wait until after the season to get their first Rookie Cards?  And none of them are the first MLB-licensed cards for any of them?  What’s the point of even having Rookie Cards if there’s nothing special about them?  It’s easy to see what’s wrong here, but what we need are solutions, not more problems.  Luckily, I’m here to offer my services in solution management to get the Rookie Card back on track.

Step 1: Close the Prospect Loophole

When the MLBPA came up with the new rules for Rookie Cards starting in 2006, they seemed to be able to keep all pre-rookie players out of base sets.  And then the manufacturers reconfigured base sets to put all prospects in insert sets or base-like insert sets, thus rendering the MLBPA’s efforts largely moot.  If we want the Rookie Card to mean anything, it can’t be preceded by several years worth of non-RC prospect cards.  That means either giving up on the new RC rules or getting the prospects out of MLB-licensed products.  Some leeway needs to remain to allow non-players and possibly prospects not presented as players, but taking a picture of a kid playing college ball and slapping some MLB logos on it shouldn’t be the way these guys get their first MLB cards.  That’s just crazy.

Step 2: Send Minor League Products Down to the Minors

If you look at products like Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects, Bowman Inception, and Bowman Platinum, it becomes obvious that the few actual MLB players they contain are only there as token representatives to make the product qualify as a Major League product.  Let’s just end the pretense and make these official Minor League products alongside Pro Debut and Heritage Minors.  It already seems a bit odd that there is no Bowman MiLB product when minor leaguers are supposed to be what Bowman is all about.  There are also no premium MiLB products, which this move would fix.  Is the concern that nobody will buy premium products that aren’t MLB-licensed?  If so, Panini should have done away with that.  Plus, it would give us more shots of players in their proper minor league uniforms, which are often more diverse and unique than their big league counterparts (Brewers excepted).

Step 3: Push Back Release Dates on RC-heavy Products

Topps Series 1 launches about a month into the year, well before offseason deals can be accounted for.  Topps Series 2 launches in June, before most rookies who debut in April can be incorporated.  Bowman launches on April 30 next year, just one month into the season.  That leaves most rookies who make their debuts during the season waiting until October or next year for their first Rookie Cards.  If the new rules were supposed to match up Rookie Cards with rookie players, they are failing miserably.  Push the release dates of these products back a month or two into February/March, July/August, and June/July, respectively, and this problem should go away.  Assuming that Topps can get its production chain running smoothly.  Given their recent staffing issues, there may be bigger issues in play.

Step 4: The Nuclear Option – Bring Back the One True Rookie Card

I wouldn’t be doing this issue justice if I didn’t bring things to the point of absurdity, so let’s go crazy.  What people are longing for here are the days before we had new products every week, dozens of parallels and inserts in every product, and cards produced of players who wouldn’t reach the majors for several years, if ever.  In 1981, our innocence was lost forever when we were given a choice of baseball card products and competition resulted in the hobby we have today.  MLB has done its part by returning us to the One True Manufacturer, but the legacy of the non-monopoly era remains in the form of the dozens of products competing for our attention.  Some players end up with Rookie Cards in most of them, while others have to settle for one or two, punished for debuting at the wrong time of the year.  There’s one way to fix this and I’m sure it won’t be a popular one.  Do away with official Rookie Cards as base cards entirely.  Instead, produce all Rookie Cards in a common design inserted into all products, with the exact mix of players changing as rookies debut.

While a silly idea on the surface, it does solve several problems in one elegant solution.  All players, regardless of when they reach the majors, will be able to have Rookie Cards distributed in equal numbers in a consistent design.  It would also eliminate the inconsistent application of RC rules regarding inserts.  Instead, there will be only one Rookie Card for each player – no parallels, autographs, relics, etc.  Players could still have rookie cards (lowercase) in any products released after their debut, but the big RC would only apply to one card.  Lead times will also be less of a factor, as the Rookie Card mix could be changed at any point up until packout without affecting checklists or insert ratios.  This also has the advantage of taking the MLBPA definition of Rookie Card out of the base products and limiting it to one set of cards, allowing the hobby to decide how to handle cards released in a player’s Rookie Card year or cards released of players who never appear in the official Rookie Card set.  It’s a solution that would probably be universally hated by the MLBPA, Topps, other manufacturers, dealers, and collectors alike, but it’s better than what we have now.  Makes you wonder if the point of absurdity is where we already are.

Marlon Byrd Has One 2013 Baseball Card

Posted by on 7 September 2013 2 comments

A breakout season on the field but not in cardboard

Lost among the disappointments and the disasters that make up the Mets’ 2013 season is Marlon Byrd’s breakout season after being traded, released, and suspended for a banned substance in 2012. In 117 games with the Mets, Byrd hit .285 with 21 home runs, providing a much needed power boost alongside a surprising (in April at least) John Buck. He did all this after signing a minor league deal for a mere $700,000, barely more than the league minimum with no guarantee of major league playing time. Byrd made the team out of spring training and the rest is history. A late August trade to the Pirates with Buck brought back two promising prospects, so Byrd’s impact could be felt for years to come. After all of that, let’s take a look at all of Byrd’s cards from the first 8 months of the year:

No, the others aren’t underneath it, that’s the only one. No base cards, parallels, regular inserts, autographs, or anything else. Just one card in the online-only Topps Mini with a piece of Cubs jersey. Now, he didn’t sign with the Mets until after 2013 Topps Series 1 was released, so you can’t fault Topps for skipping him in that and some of the other early releases. He wasn’t a lock to appear in the majors until late March, so production lead times would make Topps Series 2, released in June, his first chance at a Mets card. It was mostly prospect-oriented products from that until Topps Mini came out, so at least they got to him on the second real opportunity. And then skipped over him in Allen & Ginter’s and Tier One. Maybe we’ll see more of him during the release blitz with Topps Chrome, Bowman Chrome, Topps Finest, Topps Update, and Topps Triple Threads launching on consecutive weeks from late September to the end of October.

After seeing Byrd’s 2013 checklist to date, you wouldn’t expect much from the rest of the Mets’ newcomers. Shaun Marcum signed with the Mets on January 30 and started the season on the DL; some doubted that he would even appear in a game in 2013. Marcum would have to settle for numerous cards in Heritage and Gypsy Queen in a Brewers uniform before his first start with the Mets on April 27, then his first Mets card in Bowman two weeks later. Huh? His Bowman cards were followed up by a redemption autograph in Topps Series 2, a season-ending injury after his final start on July 6, then more cards in Allen & Ginter’s and Tier One in August. Um, he appeared in 14 games over 10 weeks and is now practically a hobby mainstay for some reason. What gives?

Topps, with Photoshop, in Series 2…

John Buck was one of the few newcomers practically guaranteed to make the team straight out of spring training. As salary ballast in the Dickey trade, Buck was the only veteran catcher left in the Mets’ system. With only 6 weeks between the trade and the release of Topps Series 1, there just wasn’t enough time to get him in that product. Instead, his Mets debut had to wait until Topps Series 2 in the base set with countless parallels. That was it for Buck other than the expected base and parallel cards in Topps Mini. Collin Cowgill was about as likely as Byrd to make the team out of spring training, so it wasn’t a surprise that he wasn’t in any of the early products. His production was all downhill after his Opening Day grand slam, so there was no real reason to put him in any of the later products. Cowgill made his Mets debut with a random autograph card in Topps Series 2, released the day after his final game with the Mets. You’d have to be pretty insignificant to get worse treatment than that.

Or apparently one of the most productive players on the team. Why no love for Marlon Byrd? As I see it, there are two possibilities. First, the culprit could be the Topps release schedule, which is so heavily front-loaded that a player who debuts in April usually has to wait until October for their first card (unless they are Yasiel Puig, in which case they will be in every product for the rest of eternity within a month). With Series 1 launching before spring training starts and Series 2 usually scheduled for well before the All-Star break, there is little time to reflect current-season players in a year’s product. This makes no sense. Pushing the release dates back a month or two would allow Series 1 to reflect offseson deals and Series 2 to incorporate early-season call-ups. Instead, we get Jason Bay, Jon Rauch, and Scott Hairston shown as Mets in 2013 with Jeurys Familia and Collin McHugh as the only Mets “rookies” in the base product.

I couldn’t end this without a conspiracy theory, but this isn’t one that originated with me. It has already been speculated that Topps cuts back on the cards of players who have received PED suspensions. There isn’t really enough data to work with to come to any conclusions (that should change soon), but the lack of Byrd cards given the season he’s had (even considering lead time issues) is suspicious. Maybe we’ll be flooded with Byrd in October as Byrd’s season continues with the Pirates and the suspension can be ruled out as a factor. But if not, shunning by Topps could be yet another consequence of PED use.

Sports Illustrated as Seen by a Non-Subscriber

Posted by on 1 September 2013 Comments Off on Sports Illustrated as Seen by a Non-Subscriber

Wait, I thought print journalism was dead

I get a lot of magazines in the mail.  That probably makes me unusual in today’s “print is dead” world where a journalism degree is worthless without a concentration in food service.  Some of these magazines are gifts, some are the result of impending airline mile expirations, some are misdelivered by the post office, and I don’t know how I got on Good Housekeeping’s mailing list.  The one common thread is that I don’t pay for any of them.

Occasionally, I’ll find something in the pile that I would have actually considered paying for.  Stephen Colbert’s issue of Newsweek (remember Newsweek?) is at the top of that list.  Other times, there’s an article that stands out, like a short interview with Darryl Strawberry in another issue of Newsweek (I swear, this is a thing that used to exist).  And sometimes I subscribe to something like The New York Observer just hoping to get an interesting Mets ad or two (and after a few Yankees ads and a full-page tasteful nude print, there actually were several large Mets ads).  Mostly, it helps me to fill my recycle bin and earn a few more cents for my town to not spend on making my road look less like a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

Enter Sports Illustrated.  Actually, it was more like “Enter code from a Coke bottle cap.”  Because when I did just that, I got a special offer to get a 28-issue subscription to Sports Illustrated for only 95 Coca-Cola points.  What a bargain!  With a cash value of “250 points will get you one coupon good for a free 12-pack of soda”, that’s actually cheaper than the “92% off the cover price!” deals they offer all the time.  The only catch was that I had to decide immediately.  Was it worth using up a quarter of my points for another magazine?  Well, that’s the question I’ve now set out to answer.

General Content

As the name implies, Sports Illustrated covers a lot of sports and has a lot of pictures.  I, on the other hand, only have an interest in baseball and don’t really care about pictures unless they have something to do with the Mets.  Given the team’s struggles, that could limit the amount of applicable content.  Starting my subscription at the start of the year didn’t help matters any, but it could not be avoided.  The deal expired at the end of 2012, so I had to activate my 6-month subscription deep in the football, basketball, and (in theory) hockey seasons.  At least I should be able to get most of the way to the All-Star break, not that I’ll miss any important content by waiting to the last minute.  And then R.A. Dickey appeared on the cover.  There were no baseball covers between October 1, 2012 and February 25, 2013, but there’s Dickey on December 17, 2012.

The first six months of the year aren’t very good for baseball coverage.  With playoffs in football, basketball, and hockey on top of college finals, there’s not much room left for stories about spring training and small sample size successes that will fade over a 162-game season.  Overall, the amount of baseball coverage wasn’t even worth the time it took to flip through many of these issues.  Baseball content started to take over once basketball and Hockey wrapped up in June, but then football was back in the picture by the end of July, well after my subscription was supposed to have expired.

Specific Issues

The typical issue of SI went through this life cycle: appear in my mailbox, get flipped through for a minute to find anything of interest, retire to the recycle bin and await curbside pickup.  Some didn’t even get that much use if I got the electronic version first (the print version won the race a few times, as unlikely as that sounds).  A few issues managed to avoid this fate, so that must say something about their value.

15 February 2013 – Swimsuit 2013

OK, I have a confession to make – I haven’t even opened this issue.  It sat in my mail pile for a few weeks and then went into a binder sleeve.  A lot of effort went into making this issue, and I’m not talking about the numerous pictures of scantily-clad ladies that I have been told can be found inside.  This is a heavy-duty glossy magazine that is clearly meant to be treasured for many years and passed on to first-born children when they are of age.  I can’t bring myself to toss something like that into the recycling bin.  As for the content, it seems to be a bit of an anachronism straight out of the early ’60s.

 

1 April 2013 – The Best Player You Never Saw

The focus of this issue is the start of the 2013 baseball season, but the big draw is the story about Mets prospect Brian Cole.  I wrote about Cole’s cards after seeing a preview of this article.  As it turned out, my look at Brian Cole’s brief baseball card history was one of this site’s biggest draws this year, largely because people weren’t sure if the story was real or yet another April Fool’s joke about a too-good-to-be-true Mets prospect.  Unlike the story of Sidd Finch though, this April 1 article was about a genuine tragedy.

 

22 April 2013 – Boston

This one became buried in a pile of papers for reasons unrelated to its contents, so it was a bit out of date when I realized that it was still here.  I’m not sure why I held on to it; I haven’t even read it.  After being bombarded by the media coverage of the bombing and subsequent manhunt, I’m not sure there’s anything to be gained from a few more stories and pictures.  Still, this seems too significant to dispose of.

 

 

6 May 2013 – The Gay Athlete

This one is just full of contradictions.  On the one hand, the story of the first American professional athlete in one of the major sports to come out as homosexual is very well-written and compelling.  On the other hand, why should this even be newsworthy in this day and age?  It turns out that the story behind the story is what is most significant here – that, in 2013, American sports are one of the last major institutions to face the issue of how its homosexual participants are treated.  This shouldn’t be a big deal, but for some reason, we’re only just starting to have the conversation, like parents sitting down with their middle-aged kids to discuss the birds and the bees.  The rest of the world is getting all of this sorted out, why are sports only getting started on recognizing that homosexual athletes exist?

20 May 2013 – The Dark Knight of Gotham

This is the real prize from my subscription.  Matt Harvey in full (clothed) glory on the cover.  Even better, this arrived when my subscription was winding down, so it came in a “Last Chance” renewal cover, keeping Harvey pristine underneath.  This was worth 95 Coke points and then some.

 

 

29 July 2013 – Why Pujols can’t hit Jennie Finch

My 28th issue arrived on July 8.  So why was I still getting the magazine on July 29?  I have no idea, but I was glad I did.  Inside is an excerpt from a book about how athletes become as good as they are.  As it turns out, the discussion about how baseball players are able to hit a ball was relevant to a post I was working on about photographing baseballs at home plate.

 

 

And that’s about it.  I received the next issue (number 31 of 28) electronically and then my expired subscription finally expired.  So what’s the verdict?  Well, the 95 Coke point price was right, but I doubt I could be persuaded to part with the 400 or so points a 28-issue subscription normally costs.  As for cash, forget it, I can read most of this online.  Even on the off chance that I wanted an issue for the cover, paying full newsstand price (assuming that newsstands still exist and I can find one) would get me a clean copy.  For free, it’s a great deal.  Otherwise, these issues have issues.

The Good

Writing
As noted in the issue discussion above, there are several very good articles in there, some that aren’t fully available online.  Unfortunately, there are maybe two from these seven months that I would consider paying for.  That’s not enough to justify a subscription.

Mobile Support
Being able to download and browse an entire issue on my phone before the print version arrived was very convenient.  Unfortunately, sometimes the print version arrived first.  That really shouldn’t happen, unless the electrons are stuck in traffic or something.

The Bad

Mobile Support
Remember what I just said?  Well, while the mobile experience was great when it was working, it would frequently have authentication errors that required signing out or even reinstalling the software.  I also did not like the notifications it would push, though I suppose that could be turned off somewhere.

Content Diversity
I would be fine with nothing but baseball coverage, but this is a general sports magazine, so I can live with a variety of coverage.  Unfortunately, that variety is largely limited to football, basketball, hockey, and baseball.  I have no interest in the first three, so many issues had absolutely nothing of interest to me.  What would be of interest?  No, not soccer, golf, tennis, etc.  It’s not an Olympic year, so that’s out.  How about some coverage of sporting events I don’t know much about?  MMA is getting some coverage, so that’s a start.  There are plenty of fast-growing athletic competitions out there that may not be as polished and commercial as the big four sports, but that’s just what makes them interesting.  Roller derby is making a big comeback as a serious sport with a sense of humor.  Obstacle courses are growing in popularity; American Ninja Warrior is getting big ratings on NBC (though it is classified as non-sports for some reason) and even Citi Field hosted an obstacle course race this year.  There’s a lot more out there than will fit in your fantasy football draft or NCAA bracket, but there isn’t room for it in SI.

The Ugly

Advertising
Ads are a necessary evil in media, but something seems a bit wrong with the ads in SI.  Some make sense, like athletic clothing, sports drinks, personal hygiene products, media services, etc.  Cars, travel, financial services, watches, electronics, and other luxury goods are also reasonable.  Snacks and fast food, well, I guess you need something to munch on when watching the game on your tablet (though I’m not sure what’s going on in some of those peanut ads).  Then we get to the hard stuff: viagra, alcohol, and cigarettes.  I’ll admit, I was a bit surprised to see cigarette ads in this magazine, especially since they seem to be clustered two or three to an issue when they do appear.  Back in the ’80s, cigarette advertising was everywhere.  Today, it has largely vanished, or so I had thought.  Some of these issues brought back memories of old issues of TV Guide, mainly because I think they’re still using some of the same ads.  Now, I’m not advocating legislating away this type of advertising, but I would think that Sports Illustrated would want to stay away from drugs given the countless high-profile examples of athletes abusing even legal drugs and the message this sends to kids.  It’s not like this is an adult magazine.

Women
Or is it?  Back to the swimsuit issue, something seems a bit off with that.  I don’t have a problem with the issue itself, and you can always opt out if you would rather have an extra non-swimsuit issue instead, but why is it there?  Where’s the relevance to sports?  And why is it only women in (or out of) swimsuits?  ESPN Magazine has its annual body issue, but it addresses both of those issues by featuring male and female athletes, not exclusively female models.  There are some great stories (in the digital edition at least) about the locations and the photography, but I don’t see the connection to the magazine’s core subject matter, unless that connection is supposed to be what its subscribers like to see.  And I’m not sure that holds up anymore.

A 1997 SF Gate article puts the percentage of female Sports Illustrated subscribers at 14%.  The most recent numbers I’ve found put that number at 23%.  Anyone looking at those numbers should be able to tell two things: the number is going up (though two data points are far from conclusive) and there’s a big untapped market out there.  You’re not going to have much luck tapping into that market though when your biggest issue of the year is something that a teenage boy would hide under his bed.

Markets are what they are though, so 23% might be the right balance for the content type, swimsuits or no.  After all, that’s about what the female enrollment at my college peaked at, despite continued efforts to attract female students.  Sometimes the root causes are greater than any one institution.  It isn’t fair to hold SI responsible for who does or does not choose to subscribe to their magazine.

But it is fair to criticize the content they choose to publish.  And that’s where, in addition to any sports behind the big four, professional female athletes come up short inside SI’s pages.  Open up any issue and you’ll probably be more likely to find female athletes in the ads than in any of the feature articles (I haven’t conducted the study, but someone looking for a school project might want to try that one out).  I flipped through the five regular issues mentioned above and found just four articles with more than half a page about female athletes.  One that caught my eye was a short interview with Lexi Thompson that I recognized at the time as one of the rare instances where a professional female athlete was featured in the magazine.  Then I noticed that it was sponsored by McDonald’s, complete with a full-page ad on the facing page.

There is a tremendous opportunity to improve the coverage of female athletes not just for the benefit of female readers but for all readers.  If there is little interest among the male readers, how much of that is simply because there is no coverage?  I had no idea that UFC was against creating a women’s division until I read about how Ronda Rousey’s dominance in the sport demonstrated that there was value in accepting female fighters.  I hadn’t even heard of Ronda Rousey before.  How many great stories are being overlooked because of the conventional wisdom that readers aren’t interested in stories about female athletes?

The Verdict

Well, enough of that, I didn’t intend to go so long on one topic.  Let’s just say that Sports Illustrated and I have parted ways and leave it at that.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get caught up on American Ninja Warrior.  It sure beats football.

Getting Through to the MLB Shop

Posted by on 7 August 2013 Comments Off on Getting Through to the MLB Shop

Taking customer service to its logical conclusion — angry shouting

Like many Mets fans, I placed an order for discounted All-Star merchandise after All-Star fever had subsided.  After all, when’s the next time we’ll be able to buy orange and blue All-Star gear?  Despite everything on my order being listed as “In stock,” several items were initially backordered.  That’s to be expected when you get a large quantity of orders placed in a short time.  Some shipped a few days later, others remained in indefinite backorder.  And then I decided to cancel one.

The e-mail made everything seem simple.  “To cancel your order, please contact the Customer Service department at 1.888.MLB.SHOP (1.888.652.7467) and we will gladly issue a full refund.”  Sounds easy enough.  So I called the number and dove straight into phone tree hell.

There are lots of reasons to call the MLB Shop, so the first couple of menus made sense.  A couple of quick button presses had my reason for calling narrowed down to a question about an existing order.  Everything was using the “press or say” a number system, which is a lot more useful than the “say a phrase describing what you want and hope it works, or wait for it to fail and we might reveal what numbers go with what options” systems that are the latest infuriating fad.  Next, it asked for my billing zip code.  Again, simple enough.  This might take a few more menus, but at least it was going somewhere.  Or so I thought.

I should have just found a way out when I heard what was up next.  They found 7 orders from my zip code and wanted the 10-digit order number.  Or I could choose an order from the list.  I had the order number, so I typed it in.  And it repeated my options.  I typed it in again, and it once more ignored me.  All of a sudden, the system had turned on me.  It failed into the list of orders, giving the last four digits and assigning each a keypad number.  The order I wanted was number 2.  As in, “What bodily function would you equate this experience to?”

My mission: press or say 2 to select the order I wanted.  The first dozen or so attempts to press two were complete failures.  The system showed no sign of recognizing my key presses and just kept looping back to the start.  Pressing 2 was not getting me anywhere.  Next, I tried saying “two.”  This caused the audio on the other end to drop out for a second or two, but the options kept coming.  After a couple more attempts, it finally registered and it asked if it had the right order number.  It did not.  After saying no, it was back to the list of orders.

This was a slight setback, but at least something was happening, unlike the previous 30+ key presses.  I said “two” again, the audio dropped out, then the options kept coming.  Finally, I shouted “TWO!” and it brought up an order.  The correct order.  Yes!  Is what I said in response.  Almost there…

My order has been split into three shipments.  Well, yes, but I’m not calling about the shipped items.  So let’s just select the option to go to unshipped items…  Which doesn’t exist.  Instead, I get to listen to it list the contents of the first shipment.  The only options after that are to get more information about that package or move on to the next package.  There’s no “press or say” here, so I say “next package.”  Which the system doesn’t recognize.  After another time through the options, I say “next package” again and am ignored again.  Even if I get through this, it will take another shipment listing, another “next package” battle, and yet another shipment listing to get to a menu that might, but probably won’t, contain a relevant option.

So I did what worked in the previous round and shouted “NEXT PACKAGE!!!” at the top of my lungs.  And as if by magic, I was connected to an actual human being who was able to cancel the item in a fraction of the time I spent in battle with the world’s worst phone menu system.

So that’s the lesson here: the only way to win is not to play.  If you for some reason have no choice but to call the MLB Shop for something, pretend you’re Jordany Valdespin getting demoted to AAA and let their phone system know just how you feel.  Because if you didn’t feel that way when you picked up your phone, you will soon enough.