Around The Horn

Free Agent Fallout The definition of this term would be: How a player starts his new career in a new city, directly after signing a huge contract. In the past signing for $20 million would put you in that category. Those would include Jose Offerman and Jack Clark, but today a $20 million FA doesn’t even get a special signing press conference, such as Matt Clement. But if you sign for $40 million, like Edgar Renteria and start off poorly, you get the wrath of the fans. This could cause an adversely negative effect on the performance of the million dollar baby. You can go from a gold glove to Don Buddin, before you even get your first $10 million bonus. It also seems that teams cheat when it comes to releasing the salary amounts. If a player signs for 4 years and gets $40 million, shouldn’t his salary be $10 million a year? Look at Jason of NY. 7 years $119 million, isn’t that $17 per year? Why do they list him as only $13? There are other ways that teams cheat during the season. For example when a player is suspended, like Bronson Arroyo, the team should only have 2 options, first would be to accept the penalty, when it is handed down, or to have a specified amount of time until a hearing could be held. One week should be the timetable used by the sport. Another form of fraud used by teams is the use of the disabled list. If a team selects a rule 5 pick he must keep him on the 25 man roster. Having a player stay on the DL until June because of a sore thumb the way Adam Stern has done, is not an ethical way of doing business. One might say it is only a coincidence, but this is the second year in a row, ( last year it was Lenny Dinardo) the same team, that went on to win the World Series did the same ploy. One solution would be to increase the amount of acquiring a rule 5 player. Increase it to $100,000, with 50 going to the former team, and 50 to the player. Then this player would be on the 40 man roster for one year, and if not on the 25 man roster, the next year, then he would be declared a minor league free agent. Or you could have the team that wants to pluck someone from another team, give up one of its June draft picks. Either way, it would make for a more equitable league, where all teams would be playing fair, not with deceit.

I am The Fan’s Commish

Rick Swanson

Now that Congress is closing in on a universal drug policy for all major sports, maybe there is one other reform they could enforce that would create a level playing field. Baseball is the only major sport that does not have to adhere to Anti-trust laws. It is also the only one without a salary cap. Why is it that one sport is exempt and all the others abide by the fair play rules? What would be the impact to baseball if the Anti-trust exemption was to be removed? First one must examine what the Anti-trust really means. The Anti-trust laws were enacted by Congress: Any business that operates across state borders — and therefore participates in interstate commerce — is subject to antitrust legislation. Attempts to control trade and monopolize may be deemed illegal by federal circuit courts under the Sherman and Clayton acts.. In baseball terms it would be that one team or city, or state, could not have a monopoly over other teams. Now what place do you think would be most affected if they had to play by the same rules as everyone else? Since we are talking about money and baseball, the team that comes to mind is the New York Yankees. When you take into account the total amount this team pays its players, compared to all the other teams, it is easy to say that they control a monopoly over the top talent in the game. If they are spending $300 million including taxes, and 8 teams are spending less than $50 million, it just isn’t fair. The first step in remedying this would be to have some type of salary structure where all teams could compete on an equal basis. The problem isn’t completely the Yankees. Those teams that are spending below the mean need to ante up if they want to compete. If you add up all the money given to the 750 players in baseball the total, considering the average salary is $2.6 million that would be $1.95 billion. Now if you divide that equally by the 30 teams it would mean each team should have a salary of $63 million. Currently half of the teams in baseball have a salary base less than the mean. Even if you raised the amount to $75 million per team, the average salary would increase, but all teams would have an equal chance of winning. This would make the players salary pot grow to $2.25 billion. Step one would be to get all the teams spending less than this amount to increase to this $75 million salary threshold. Step 2 would be for those teams over that amount to decrease their salary base to that amount. Step 3 would be to devise a draft where those teams over the $75 million would have to give back players, to even things out. Football, basketball, and soon hockey all play by this salary cap rule. Why can’t baseball realize that by keeping their 1922 ruling that gives them Anti-trust exemption that the reality of this is to give a monopoly to one team? One team that currently has 10 out of the top 50 salaries. In 2005 one team will pay these 10 players $155 million. That is a monopoly on the top talent. All teams need the same amount to build their team fairly. Only by Congress revoking the antitrust clause will baseball be a sport where there is hope for all teams. The hope is that someone in Congress will realize that anti-drug and anti-trust belong on the same committee’s agenda, so that hope will spring eternal for all teams.
There are currently two committees in Congress dealing with anti drug sports reform. The Energy and Commerce, and the House Government Reform. What Congress needs is the House Judiciary to look at Anti-trust. The monopoly in the game is not only the Yankees, it is all of New York. MLB is NY. From the office is in Manhattan, to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. With the Yankees playing the Mets 6 times every year, look how MLB caters to NY. Look at how both teams control the top salaries of the game. The top free agents ended up in NY in 2005. Pedro, Randy, Beltron, Pavano, that is more money than half the teams are spending on their whole roster, and it is all part of the NY cartel for 05. Each day the Yankees pay $40,000 just in luxury tax. Every other team in baseball needs to stop this NY monopoly. If Congress would revoke that Anti-trust exemption, baseball could level the playing field for all the fans of the sport, not just those that live in the Empire State.

I am The Fan’s Commish

Rick Swanson

Pitching in the game today has become just like Real Estate, location, location, location. Ever since the game has evolved into a lap top statistical approach, coaches, scouts, and now even players are able to view everyone’s tendencies. A batter knows that on a 2-2 pitch with two outs in a tie game, a certain pitch will be thrown 88% of the time in a certain location. That is one reason Boston is able to hit Mariano so well. They know where is pitch is going each time he throws it. Then when you get a pitcher that misses his spots he becomes a sitting duck for batters. You are Kevin Millar; Dotel comes in and is not throwing the ball to where the catcher is giving his target. Now you know you have a chance that if he misses his location, and you are waiting for that spot, you can hit it to the light tower. All this has come about from players looking at, and understanding pitch sequence charts, and pitchers knowing batters hit spray charts. It was one thing when the scouts and coaches understood the advantage of these computer generated statistics, but now many of the players are taking advantage of this information. The MLB player of this millennium does not just go up to bat with the idea of just seeing the ball and hitting it anymore. He must be able to digest statistical analysis in his head, and use this to his advantage on every swing. In this realistic video generation we live in, more numbers are being used to help batters and pitchers gain on edge. One can only guess where the next piece of useful information will come from. My guess is defense, the last frontier of statistical information. The first way to look at the field is from a different angle. A new view. Most of the game viewed from a camera shows the view from behind the pitcher, toward the batter. What if you reverse the camera, and looked from the batter toward the field? Defense will be viewed in a new light. When a left fielder like Byrnes ranges 45 feet, dives and makes a catch on a ball that took 3 seconds from the bat to the glove, you can now measure what a great play it really was. Simply dividing that time 3 by the distance 45 gives you a Reaction and Range statistic of .067. Then when you take missed plays this number becomes even more valuable. Right before Byrnes hit his home run off Foulke Wednesday he hit a high fly that landed foul, but nobody reached. Once you get the player (Payton) to look at the play and show him that in the 5.5 seconds that it took for the ball to land foul, he should have been able to cover the 50 feet from where he was positioned on the play, and make the catch. Soon in the future, just as pitchers and batters understand new statistical information, fielders too will understand if they can’t make plays they will be held accountable for poor plays in the field. Conversely a player like Orlando Hudson will have so many great numbers on his defensive resume, that not only will his value as a superior second baseman go up, so too will his contract. Once teams start using these numbers in arbitration players will not only understand their short comings in fielding, they will also improve on reacting better and ranging further, because they will figure out it will put more cash in their pockets, by improving their defense.

I am The Fan’s Commish
Rick Swanson

With the horrific start the New York Yankes have gotten off to in 2005, there is cheering in Boston and wherever haters of Steinbrenner’s guys exist - and that’s a lot of places. The current team is old, brittle, over-paid and over-rated - that’s the gleeful line put out there by legions of Yankee haters.

The whole scenario conjurs up the memory of what many feel was the “worst Yankee team” - the 1990 edition.

The Yankees began their season in New York. Billy Martin’s son threw out the first ball to the cheers of 50,114. By day’s end the Yanks had a 6-4 win over the Indians. It was Luis Polonia’s hit that broke a tie to put the Yankees ahead. No gratitude, though. Two weeks later he was traded to the Angels for Claudell Washington.

The 1990 Yankees were relatively young, average age 28.2 years. Bucky Dent had been on the scene as manager from August 18, 1989. On June 6, 1990 with the Yankees in seventh place at 18-31, Dent got the axe and was replaced by Stump Merrill up from the Columbus farm team.

“Here we have a fellow who doesn’t come with a whole lot of glamour,” George Steinbrenner smiled as he said it. “For the first five years I knew him I kept calling him ‘Lump.’ He was madder than hell.” There were lots of times through the 1990 season and also 1991, Stump’s last a Yankee pilot, that he was “madder than hell.”

The 1990 Yankees scored 603 runs but allowed 749 runs. Their pitchers didn’t lead the league in any category except for Tim Leary who had the most losses - 19.

The hitters were even worse. As a team the Yankees batted an American League low .241. Bragging rights for the team’s best player belonged to 30 year-old Jesse Barfield, .246 average, 25 homers. He also struck out 150 times becoming the first Yankee to earn that dishonor. It was partly due to Jesse that the Yankees came within sixteen strikeouts of their worst ever total, 1,043 in 1967. Roberto Kelly, who would not walk, had the best batting average (.285). But he fanned 148 times.

The catching position was woeful. The full time catcher was Bob Geren, .213 average, never a full time catcher again. His backup was Matt Nokes (eight home runs, .238). His backup was Brian Dorsett who had five hits in 35 at bats.

The best Yankee starting lineup most of the time that season featured Geren at backstop. Don Mattingly played first base, sometimes. He complained of a bad back, got into only 89 games, batted .256 with just 5 homers and 42 RBIs. Steve Sax 2B (who made the All Star team wound up with a .260 average, 43 stolen bases), Randy Velarde, .210 average, was at third base a lot. Shortstop Alvaro Espinoza finished the season with two home runs and 20 RBIs.

The starting outfield was Mel Hall (12 homers, 46 RBI), team batting champ Roberto Kelly (.285, 42 stolen bases), and Jesse Barfield. Oscar Azocar also played the outfield and in 214 at-bats, walked twice. He never saw a pitch he didn’t like. He batted .248.

Other non-pitchers taking up roster space included: rookie utility man Jimmy Leyritz (.257, 5 home runs) and Dave Winfield who hit .213 in 38 games before he was traded on May 11th to the Angels for Mike Witt. The lanky and controversial outfielder at first balked at the trade and then realized the Yankees were doing him a favor. Five days later he reported to the Angels.

On August 2, rookie first baseman Kevin Maas hammered his 10th home run in just 77 at bats. It was the quickest any player reached that mark. But predictably, the Yankees lost another tough game, 6-5 in 11 to the Tigers. Maas wound up with 21 round-trippers in 254 at-bats and writers raved about his sweet lefty swing, just made for Yankee Stadium’s short right-field porch. He fizzled, but at least he flamed for a while which was not what could be said about a lot of the other 1990 Yanks.

There was also Steve (17 homers but only a .192 batting average) “Bye Bye” Balboni, Matt Nokes, Rick Cerone, Mike Blowers, Deion Sanders, Hensley Meulens, Claudell Washington, Wayne Tolleson, Luis Polonia and Jim Walewander.

The only Yankee starting pitcher to win more than seven games was nine game winner Tim Leary. But he also lost 19 before Stump Merrill showed some pity and took him out of the rotation.

Other starters were Dave Lapoint (7-10) Chuck Cary (6-12), Andy Hawkins (5-12) who did get everyone excited on July 1, 1990 when he threw and lost a no-hitter, 4-0, against the White Sox, Mike Witt (5-6). Steve Adkins made his debut on September 12, 1990. He didn’t allow a hit but he walked eight batters in just 1 1/3 innings. The 25-year-old rookie was 1-2 with a 6.38 ERA in five starts and never pitched again in the Majors after 1990.

Others who took the ball to the hill with not that much success for the Bombers included: Greg Cadaret, Eric Plunk, Jimmy Jones, Alan Mills, Dave Eiland, Mark Leiter, Clay Parker, Lance McCullers, Pascual Perez, John Habyan and Rich Monteleone and Jeff Robinson. One of the few bright spots on the pitching staff was closer Dave Righetti who had 36 saves. Lee Guetterman went 11-7.

On June 30, George Steinbrenner was banned by Commissioner Fay Vincent from the day-to-day operations of the Yankees because of his alleged dealings with a known gambler. “The Boss” became the first American League owner ever to be removed by disciplinary action. Then Steinbrenner resigned as managing general partner of the Yankees and watched from the sidelines the miserable season finally ended.

The hapless New Yorkers finished 21 games behind Boston in the AL East, the first time during the Steinbrenner era that the Yankees finished in last place.

HF

Harvey Frommer is the author of 34 sports books, including the classics: “New York City Baseball,” “Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,” “Rickey and Robinson: The Men Who Broke Baseball’s Color Line,” “The New York Yankee Encyclopedia,” “A Yankee Century: A Celebration of the First Hundred Years of Baseball’s Greatest Team,” and the updated and revised 2005 edition of “Red Sox Vs. Yankees: The Great Rivalry” (with Frederic J. Frommer). Frommer sports books are available - discounted and autographed - direct from the author.