It’s Been a Long Time
or Things I’ve Thought About in the Meantime
I haven’t been able to write much what with school and all, but there is a handful of issues that have passed us by that I want to comment on. This installment of Wrecking Trains is kind of a mixed-bag affair. I’ve got a few things I want to talk about, but none of them are deep enough to warrant an entire column. And since I don’t have enough readers yet, I can’t turn this into a mailbag, either.
World …[rain delay]
It was an interesting Fall Classic this year. There’s not much to be said; it was pretty boring, there was a ginormous rain delay (2 days to finish 3.5 innings of game 5), and an incredibly anticlimactic finish for the 2008 (Devil) Rays. They reminded me of the 2006 Tigers for obvious reasons. They came out of nowhere to make the playoffs, everyone spent all season waiting for them to falter and return to earth, and they beat a perennial playoff powerhouse to reach the World Series. Oh yeah, and when they got there they completely forgot how to play baseball and got trounced. They couldn’t hit (sound familiar?), couldn’t pitch (yep), and couldn’t play defense (pretty sure that happened to the Tigers, too). So Philadelphia took home the trophy, and brought a championship to the most tortured city in sports for the first time since Dr. J and the Sixers secured the Larry O’Brien trophy in 1983.
For all the arguments that the pundits make about the American League being so much better than the National League, the Phillies’ win in 2008 pulls the leagues even in titles over the last eight years. If you look at the interleague splits over the last twelve seasons (since 1997, when interleague play began), the AL is ahead 1,536-1,420. This is not the absolute dominance that some would have you believe. Sure, the AL leads 440-316 over the last three years, but they’ve also lost two of the three World Series over that same period. And honestly, what matters more, the interleague play record during the regular season, or World Series wins? It all goes back to the basic premise in all of sports: any team can beat any other team on any given day. There are no ‘sure things’ in sports.
Personally, I think the bigger issue is that 2008 is the fifth straight World Series in which the losing team has won no more than just a single game. It’s the sixth straight series without a Game 7. This is a problem, folks. Why is the World Series not competitive anymore? Well, once again, there were long layoffs between (and in the middle of) the series. Is this really the problem? Until this year, that was the consensus. After all, the Rockies (9 days off in 2007; swept in Series) and Tigers (8 days off in 2006; lost Series 4-1) both had long breaks between the LCS and World Series, and both lost the momentum and mojo they had in the first two rounds of the playoffs. That was the reason, right?
Not so fast. The (Devil) Rays turned this theory on its head. This time around, it was the Phillies that disposed of the Rays after sitting on their tails for over a week. But baseball is a game of streaks and slumps, and injecting unnecessary breaks in the action will inevitably affect the quality of play. Either way, the breaks in the playoffs are ridiculous. The teams play 162 games in 180 days during the regular season, then play just 13 games in 25 days (2006 Tigers), 11 games in 22 days (2007 Rockies), or 14 games in 27 days (2008 Phillies). Why is that? Having a day off for every day they play (on average) is not helping these teams. Sure, a long season can take its toll on players, but if the concern is really about injuries and fatigue, then the regular season should be shorter. Yes, there will be inevitable delays, like when one LCS goes to 7 games, but the other is decided in only 4. But that’s a difference of 3 days, so why did these teams have 8 or 9 days off?
It’s all about TV revenue. MLB wants prime-time matchups in prime TV slots. So it sacrifices the flow of the playoffs to accomplish this end. But this self-serving purpose is also self-defeating. It undermines baseball’s credibility when, in an effort to boost television ratings, baseball tampers with scheduling, and in turn diminishes the quality of the World Series. Sure, this juggling act may help ratings for LDS and LCS games, but it’s killing the competition in the World Series, and fans have stopped watching.
0-16! Congratulations!
Kudos to the Lions for completing Jim Rome’s dream. It takes a cohesive team effort to go out and lose every single game you play for an entire season. No, seriously. Wow. Not even a single victory. See my first blog post if you want a further explanation for why this happened. Matt Millen is a moron. And the team’s not getting any better if all they’re going to do is hire his underling to replace him.
Ford: “So, what qualifications do you have for this position?”
Mayhew: “Well, I worked and studied under Matt Millen for eight years.”
Ford: “You’re hired!”
Is that how Martin Mayhew’s interview actually went? Here’s a thought, William Clay: 0-16 is karma for being one of the worst owners in all of sports. Well, at least one of the worst owners that hasn’t moved his team to another city.
And speaking of 0-16, I think it’s important for Lions fans that the team got a big ol’ goose-egg in the win column this year. That’s right, I said fans. Everyone is going to remember the 2008 Detroit Lions as only team to go 0-16. Which, in a twisted, sadistic way is good for Lions fans. Things can’t get better until they get worse. By Because of 16 games of epic failure, the 2008 Lions have cemented themselves in history as the worst team ever. Fans have abandoned all hope. Most of them realize that the only way to fix this is a complete overhaul, and may finally take steps to accomplish it.
The reason William Clay Ford never spent the money to put a good team on the field is because he didn’t have to. Why pay more to make the same amount of money? Every game was sold out. Fans bought jerseys, shirts, and hats. Ford counted his money, and thought nothing of the 2-14, 3-13, and 4-12 teams that mired in mediocrity. Oh, sure, coaches were fired, players were cut, rookies were drafted, and free agents were signed. But there wasn’t much rhyme or reason to it all, because the end results didn’t matter to the bottom line. The team was still going to make the Fords money.
But now that the team exactly one win in their last 24 games, and none in their last 17, fans may actually stop attending games. They may stop buying memorabilia. If this happens, the money supply dries up. And the Fords have to fix it, starting with the product on the field.
Closing the Door on the Bullpen
It only took most of the offseason. But Dombrowski finally signed a closer. It’s not K-Rod, it’s not K-Wood, and it’s not some Putz (pootz, not putz, apparently, is the correct pronunciation). But it’s also not F-Rod (or F-Bomb, based on what comes out of most fans’ mouths when he enters the game) or the Roller-Coaster. Enter Brandon Lyon. Dombrowski and Leyland expect him to compete with Zumaya to be the everyday closer.
Lyon’s career ERA is 4.46, so he’s not exactly Rivera-esque. But he is a better option than Fernando Rodney, who looks like a criminal. When he glances around the park while he pitches, you wonder if maybe he’s keeping an eye out for his parole officer. Which may explain his erratic pitching, not having his full focus on the game at hand. Needless to say, it will be infinitely more pleasing to watch a closer whose primary sequence isn’t either [single – single – walk – warning track fly ball – strikeout – double – FAIL] or [single – 0-2 count beanball – home run – single – home run – FAIL]. High comedy, and entertaining as hell if you don’t care about the outcome of the game. On the other hand, if winning brings you joy, following the 2008 Tigers was probably painful, especially in the later innings.
Look at it this way. The Tigers bullpen had 34 saves as a team last year. But that’s not even the worst part. Those 34 saves were all the team could muster in 63 opportunities! That’s a 54% success rate. Fifty-four percent is a failing grade in just about every college course ever. In other words, the bullpen failed. Lyon, on the other hand, converted 26 of 31 chances last year. That’s 84%, which is about a B or B-minus. Given that the Tigers won 74 games last year, and 89 wins took the division, this is bad. They blew 29 saves in 2008. If you turn just half of those blown saves into wins, the Tigers are right there in the divisional race. If Brandon Lyon converts 84% of his saves, given 63 chances he saves 53 games. Nineteen more games than the bullpen did, in fact, save last year. Add that to their actual win total of 74, and the Tigers have 93 wins, taking the division. However, Leyland and Dombrowski determined that Todd Jones and Fernando Rodney were the right guys for the job last year, so the egg is all over their face.
Thanks for listening to my ramblings. I know some of the topics are pretty old, but I couldn't let them go by without commenting on them at least a little. Hopefully I'll be a bit more consistent with my posting. Stay tuned because I've got a piece on Bud Selig that I'm working on. After that I'm going to try to post every week or two, even if it's just something small.
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