No More Mr. Nice Guy

Books: I've Been Busy!

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 00:12:00 +0000

Short Post.

Here are list of titles I have published and written:

I left off this blog at 300 posts. Well, now, 301. This was a culmination of 14 years of searching and work. The first title took 7 years (2014). Then, I got busy with life, work, school (MBA) and improving my health as I discussed in blog here a few years back in 2015. Results here from August 2016. Stronger today, working to keep the muscle and improve as I approach 50.

In mid-2019, I took the time to put together all the thoughts I had for the initial release of the book above. Thereafter, I added things I always wanted to publish on - poetry, healthcare, self-improvement.

There is more to do. But I think, this puts the right capstone on this blog. I developed over the years. I changed political views. Stopped feeling sorry for myself - as much I think I could.

Anyways, if you stop by, this was not an overnight change.

And still miles to go before I sleep...

Jason

Intimate Relationships: Start With Self-Examination (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 16:01:00 +0000

From: http://howtodealwithme.blogspot.com/2015/02/love-february-self-worth.html

Self, Interrupted

The primary and ultimate barrier to your ability to have a successful and stable relationship starts with yourself. Unfortunately, it is nearly universal that individuals (myself a “leader” in this aspect) lack a good relationship with themselves at some point, or many points in their lives.

The causes are most often tied to: abuse, a lack of introspection, focused misplaced on materialism, success trappings, and repeated failure(s) in prior intimate experience(s). Sometimes, all of these are present and interacting – making the process within one’s self an even more difficult trek.

The Fragile King or Queen of Pain

Abuse, in its many forms, leaves you in a state of: Why me? What did I do to deserve this? How can I…go on?

With abuse, repression of the events, or creation of a scar that never heals right, are natural defense mechanisms that allow one to forge ahead. To survive, but not thrive. To march on, but not to march through obstacles. Instead, you create a wall – with the words shame, humiliation, blame, fear, sadness, and most prevalent of all – anger – written and built to last forever, if need be.

A fortress of solitude or the castle of whispers that you rule without a corresponding confidence in either its existence, or its necessity. Yet, you rule it nonetheless; because it makes you feel “real” – its tangibility to something you know is real to your life: your pain.

Often too, as an outgrowth of the abuses (or even perceived ones – as neurologists have concluded can exist), a sheer lack of introspection, a focus on item obtainment/attaining success (each a soothing mechanism to one’s bruised psyche), or repeated failures in intimacy will follow, or concurrently arise. A person no longer acts authentically; rather, it is all a well-crafted façade, a way to cope with what ails them.

Reflexively, people that interact with you, aren’t sure about your actual identity. Because while they see you, attempting to be that better person, something real is held back. It’s a perception issue; the amazing human mind can sense the hurt and missing part of what was the total you. This will interfere with successful relationships – and explains the coping mechanisms engaged in.

Alleviating Pain: Remove and Deny the Source

This isn’t your fault at all. But the solution is your ultimate task and is your responsibility: to review, reflect, and bring to closure these deep wounds and bring down the wall. Grief the past and let it go are the answers to seek out. You’ve likely heard this for a very long time from the well-intentioned, and not-so-well intentioned sources.

Potential loves and true friends meant well in advising and should be kept in your life. The easiest identification of true friends: they want your company, not what you have, and are consistent and respectful with others of all classes and walks of life.

But, the very ones that hurt you so much – often, they lack both empathy and a conscience, with their manipulative and self-serving actions and facility with lies. Address this immediately, with no contact, it is ultimately the best, and most realistic solution.

As these predatory influences too have substantial work (urgently and significantly on themselves) to ever prove that they are human, and have a conscience. That of actual, sustained and unforced therapy, brain diagnostics and deep work, proven empathy (elsewhere), and no repeated failures towards you. A two strike rule can apply (only if you decide that is warranted, given the nature of the events). But finally: Never let yourself be invested or dependent on giving any second chances. Actions are greater than any words.

The Personality Disordered

This moves the conversation into abnormal psychology realms – that of typical Cluster B personalities (Anti-Socials, Narcissists, Borderlines and Histrionics) and Psychopaths that have impacted your life with their abuses. It is proven by Drs. Robert Hare and Martha Stout, and a multitude of neurologists, that these disorders are inflexible, and nearly incurable, due to biochemical brain patterns existing; and their equally sustained behaviors.

Traits of Cluster B Personalities and Psychopathy (Hare, et. al.)

Emotional Presentation	Social Presentation
Glibness/ Superficial Charm	Impulsiveness
Ego Centric/Grandiose	Poor Behavior Control
No Remorse/Guilt	Need Excitement & Create Drama
No Empathy	Lack Responsibility
Deceitfulness & Lying	Early Behavioral Incidents
Shallow Emotions	Anti-social – Outside social norms
Boredom	Criminally Versatile

Genetics will play a substantial (35-50%) role in the reason for those that have engaged in abuses against your person, violating trust, boundaries and causing stress and duress. Environmental and approved social maladaptive behavior (during their upbringing) furthers embeds, or installs, a toxic program of not being able to treat any other with any respect.

In the case of Borderlines (due to the label being tied predominately to female disordered patients), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), developed by Marsha M. Linehan, PhD, is used to treat the thinking patterns seen in Borderlines: all or nothing reasoning, suicidal ideations, from dysregulation of emotions –as they present with low empathy. Linehan, was diagnosed in her teens with a mental disorder and received chemical treatments prior to 1965.

DBT Therapy Foundational Pillars

§ Mindfulness: the practice of being fully aware (in the present)

§ Distress Tolerance: tolerate pain in difficult situations, not to change it or distort it

§ Interpersonal Effectiveness: ask for what you want and say no while maintaining self-respect and relationships with others

§ Emotion Regulation: change emotions that you want to change

This said, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has revealed that those with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have lowered brain activity in regions important for empathy. (August 2015 Psych Central post by Rick Nauert, PhD.)

So, not all hope is lost. But, also beware.

Fighting against the above high-conflict seeking disorders, this author knows how hard this path is. The identifiable traits of those disorders listed above have been routinely experienced from one’s closest relatives through to romantic interests to one-off friends.

An entire book could be written on these experiences and years wasted trying to come to grips with violations and poor responses had in those “relationships.” Maybe, such will also be cathartic.

But, at the heart of those chapters on the whys of those interactions – lay another label, Codependency – the often transferred traits of the truly disordered onto unwitting, but no longer completely, healthy people. A few tell-tale signs of being in such a dynamic:

§ Having difficulty making decisions in a relationship

§ Having difficulty identifying your feelings

§ Having difficulty communicating in a relationship

§ Valuing the approval of others more than valuing yourself

§ Lacking trust in yourself and having poor self-esteem

§ Having fears of abandonment or an obsessive need for approval

§ Having an unhealthy dependence on relationships, even at your own cost

§ Having an exaggerated sense of responsibility for the actions of others

Beth Gilbert, January 2016, Everydayhealth.com

Codependency Personality Disorder Traits

Caretaking
Low self-worth
Repression
Obsession
Controlling
Anger
Denial
Dependency
Lack of Trust
Poor Communication
Weak Boundaries
Sexual Problems

As a result, many years can pile up on regrets, bargaining with ghosts, and the phantoms of what-ifs. The finding of ways to avoid that which you really want – or substituting that with a lesser ideal, a common codependent trait. The hiding away from others or even incapacitation in having just simple conversations becomes a rule, not an exception. Finding adverse outlets into drugs or alcohol accompany this behavior. This behavior is a way to dull pain, avoid responsibility for your life, and makes matters only worse, never dealing with the root causes of your problem.

The New Self

Even when you accept this required, recovery journey and cross that bridge from the hurt castle (and set fire to all of it), thus also peeling away that scab that covered up a bruised inner self, the fresh air hurts still on that raw revealed wound. You will feel too exposed. Naked. Alone. A fraud again, at first.

And well, so you have another trek ahead – to finding out who you really are. Or more importantly, who you want to be now.

This is alone makes discovering who you are, and loving that flawed person, the most important goal you have in your life. Not to be ever narcissistic about it, the currently modern social media daily showing off sessions, but rather: quietly able to stand your own presence, your thoughts, and the times, when, your brain doesn’t provide immediate answers to your relationship questions.

Instead, to be quite blunt, the learning the how: of a human being – one without a cell phone, computer, email or TV for days – that doesn’t require stimulation from everything going on, out there. To dream about simple things, and ambitions, tied to a real outcome of developing yourself, a little at a time.

This is at the root of you. Before the recent industrial and internet ages, didn’t people get by with a few books, a simple fire, a reoccurring chore, and a shared trek with another (or others) in making their lives special? While we “love” our possessions and connectivity, this has just filled needlessly a space between us – that used to serve a different, and very useful function. That breath of air, time, and silence slowly went away in just the last 150 years.

Get back to that bit of finding yourself able to be, at peace, without.

(Side Note: the growth of psychology has intertwined with the industrial and internet ages. Not to say disorder and psychopathy didn’t exist prior to 1865. The “crazy houses” then, didn’t know what they didn’t know. Also, the last thirty-five years show a trend.)

Five Year Mission Complete: Boldly, But Not Always As Such

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 18:45:00 +0000

Cancer and Taking Actions (2010-2011)

Five years have elapsed since I made the decision to take action and leave a difficult situation. November 2010 was a crossroads, not only for myself, but most unfortunately, my mother, Donna. Renal cell carcinoma reoccurred and metastasized to her brain, leaving her with only a few months to live. A day before Thanksgiving, while millions of others would sit down and break bread, my mother was in emergency brain surgery to remove a mass on her brain stem. I waited at UIC Medical Center throughout that fateful day.

At that particular moment, the family situation in my life was constant conflict and struggle. My aunt was at the very crux of that – as she and my mom shared a century old home that was falling apart, in foreclosure, and full of pets (at one time, 15). I was ghost employing for my mother, as a newspaper carrier delivering 350 papers nightly – providing needed income to sustain extreme financial neglect on both their parts. I too had been unable, and later, rather accepting of not being able to find a good job due to a felony conviction in 2001, and a short prison sentence thereafter. But I had spent several years doing self-improvement and writing a book, and my feelings had adapted from self-pity to seeking ways to move on. Meanwhile, my aunt had always been difficult – due to severe and unresolved childhood issues – and so, my mother was the glue and the buffer in this family dynamic that was now evaporating right before my eyes.

I had given up on discussing options with my aunt. My mother’s care was paramount – and the home she had wasn’t going to provide any hope of recovery. So, after my aunt made several suicidal statements and struck my mom (at least that was what my mom expressed to me in her altered state), I had no choice but to leave my aunt and care for my mother.

It was late November – I had $500 to my name, and a car that didn’t work – an 88’ Grand Marquis with a heater core failure. I took Power of Attorney over my mother’s affairs which gave me authority to take a vehicle from my aunt (a 99’ Camry with payments on it) to continue the delivery route. I left for a Days Inn for a week; subsequently moving over to a Value Inn for $225/week. My mother was out of post-op, and began her arduous trek from Veterans’ Home, to multiple hospitals, to our Value Inn room, and finally, a hospice over the course of the next 7 months of her remaining life.
This was the most difficult experience of my life – trying to care for my mom, and support us on a paperboy’s delivery fees. I applied for her Social Security and received enough to pay for my mother’s funeral services, and little more. I worried about money constantly, though improved the resources six fold before my mother’s passing. I dealt with the largest institutions in America: the IRS (my mother messed up her taxes in 2008 – early onset dementia likely the reason); JPMorganChase; Social Security; the Veteran’s Administration; Sallie Mae (an old parent loan – and the nastiest of this lot.)

My mother went through radiation treatment at University Illinois at Chicago; got 2nd and 3rd opinions from Loyola and Northwestern. We drove up to Chicago over 30 times during the course of the next few months from Northwest Indiana. My mother had overnight stays at St. Elizabeth’s in Lafayette (after a perceived attempt at suicide while at the Veteran’s Home –the staff push me to take her out the home in December, when I was scrambling around to secure a host of other things) and St. Anthony’s in Crown Point.

In short, this was both freeing in terms of decision making, and trying in terms of barriers to resources and time. I did this without personal help – only the medical staffs or others met on that route provided me with a solace that I could make it. My mother though was a trooper. For all the changes, and odd places, and unimaginable loneliness when in hospitals, she kept on fighting. Her dementia and mental state was severely compromised – she was no longer the mom I’d known for nearly forty years – but there was a fighter there, and I was thankful for all the time I spent alongside her. She became a new friend that I knew…wasn’t long for this world.

Post Mom & Purdue (2011-2012)

After my mom’s passing, I had choices to make. I decided on going back to school in West Lafayette, Indiana. I needed a break from reality – and school isn’t reality. I had graduated with an industrial engineering degree in 1996, but it had been a decade since I held a job as an IE. My life no longer was that title or that daily grind. I signed up for another undergraduate – and obtained financial aid.

I moved into a very prison-like dorm room (see video) in early October 2011. I soon watched my mother’s last asset, that Camry, be repossessed. (The note remaining on the car - $3000 – was more than it was worth; and I could register the car without transfer of title, meaning, I had to pay it off.) So, started my Purdue University adventure.

Gimme Shelter

I achieved a 3.87 taking Economics prerequisites that spring. That was the highest semester GPA at Purdue by a full letter grade. Even with grade inflation, I was proud. Yet, I wasn’t really going far on that route as I soon discovered…

After a summer of painting dorm rooms, busting plaster, and other upkeep jobs at Purdue Village, I started the fall of 2012 with the full bore of 18 credits of classes in Economics and an undergraduate Constitutional Law class thrown in. About one month in, I received an out-of-the-blue call tied to a recent resume update from Butler America. They had a contract IE job for TRW at $45/hour but with an underdetermined length: 3 weeks or 3 months, no telling. I jumped at the opportunity – as finances were still front and center. Yet, as I was still enrolled at Purdue, this would become another fork in the road.

Valparaiso & ZF TRW (2013-2015)

My other job during the summer was studying for the GMAT. I knew two undergraduate degrees aren’t worth much as a MBA would be. My intent, if I could afford it, was to get in to Krannert’s MBA program as it has always been a leader in operations management, my industrial engineering focus. Yet, financial realities and timing made the choice to garner admission to Valparaiso an easier and quicker route.

I took the GMAT, scored only a 620, meaning I was about 30-50 points below an upper tier admission. However, Valparaiso University admits fairly pedestrian GMAT scores. But my GPA – 2.07 before my readmission to Purdue – was always going to be a question mark. So, I put together my application – and they admitted me for 2013.

My contract with TRW ran out about a month after I started an MBA. To my credit, I had saved a bunch of money – enough to survive on, and supplement with student loans from Valparaiso’s attendance. I worked hard on doing well in all my MBA classes. Yet, it wasn’t that demanding – as it turned out. Certainly, anyone can achieve work hard enough to do the work I did there. Meanwhile, I finished my book, and published it in August 2014 to little fanfare. But I know I did it – and dedicated it to my mother.

In mid-2014, I got a follow up call from TRW about an industrial engineering position available. So, I took the interview and accepted the position. Since that time, I have worked on facility improvements, layouts, labor routings, bills, and lean events as they come about. It’s challenging, at times; rewarding, at least from my financial perspective.I have moved to a better apartment, a real one, bought a car, set up a routine in the West Lafayette area. I still need to accomplish more – more focus and time spent on specific items, but in taking risks and jumping at opportunity, I think there is hope always.

The Next Five Years (2016-2021)

This five year plan will be focused on health and relationships. I spent the last five years tied to financial health, formal educational self-improvement, and career reestablishment. But finding good people to be apart of and improving my physical health is to be the focal point as those things have been backburnered for too long. Being bold, trying to go where I haven't found myself before, is the objective. It won't be easy - as you get older it is harder to form the type of relationships that are going to last. As they say, some are for a reason, a season, or a lifetime...

Johnny Marr plays How Soon Is Now by The Smiths

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 21:32:00 +0000

Johnny Marr never fails to impress.

Bob Moses - Tearing Me Up (Official Video)

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 18:08:00 +0000

Love the smooth sound.

A 2015 Man's Life: The New Working Economy of Males (Personally Experienced)

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 04:45:00 +0000

Nowadays, whole families abroad in "emerging markets" do a man's job, a substantial part of his life, but there, the ages are 15-39. But here's a money stat:

"The poll found that 85 percent of prime-age men without jobs do not have bachelor’s degrees. And 34 percent said they had criminal records, making it hard to find any work."

So these men are either undereducated or integrity-challenged. But we don't want to change that stat too quickly. The first, would take 4-6 years, if you can afford that amount of time; the later, well, a lifetime, if ever.

As Wall Street cowboys rode a bull market for 5 years (see above), and Fortune 500 companies sit on substantial coffers of cash, the rodeo riders from Rodeo Drive to Silicon Valley to FDR Drive in NYC just can't bear to offer jobs with a decent wages to anyone they feel doesn't "deserve" the next chance.

"They’re not working, because it’s not paying them enough to work,” said Alan B. Krueger, a leading labor economist and a professor at Princeton. “And that means the economy is going to be smaller than it otherwise would be.”

I understand this predicament. I worked a delivery route for 7 years; it paid enough, in theory, to pay my immediate families basics. However, I didn't have all the control on how this passable wage was spent. After that, I took a job hiatus, and risked a lot to improve education, in the hopes of landing better work. I did, and I have...but it was years in the coming for both the reasons above.

As the NY Times article linked states:

"Like turtles flipped onto their backs, many people who stop working struggle to get back on their feet. Some people take years to return to the work force, and others never do. And a growing body of research finds that their children, in turn, are less likely to prosper.

'The long-run effects of this are very high,' said Lawrence F. Katz, a professor of economics at Harvard. 'We could be losing the next generation of kids.'

Let us not forget, even if you despise the sinner, the unemployable man, you should forgive the sin, else, you will foist more problems on his offspring.

I did as the man below did in the article, nearly a copy:

"José Flores, 45, who lives in St. Paul, said that after losing a job as a translator for the University of Minnesota’s public health department in 2011, he struck a deal with his landlord to pay $200 a month instead of $580, in exchange for doing odd jobs. He has a cellphone that costs $34 a month and an old car he tries not to drive, and 'if I really need clothes or shoes, I go to the thrift store.' He picks up occasional work translating at hospitals, but he has not looked for a regular job since August.

'If for some reason I cannot live in the apartment where I live anymore, then that will be basically a wake-up call for me to wake up and say for sure I need a full-time job,' Mr. Flores said. He added, 'If I start working full time the rent will increase' — because he would no longer be available for odd jobs.

This is a real problem, folks with more ideal lives. Ones that didn't make life-altering mistakes (prison), and then, had life-shaking circumstances (mother's dementia and cancer) along with family-less help. While we say, "Take action," appropriately, some do so out of short-term getting by against the hopes of a long-term improvement path. Flores did so; and so did I from 2010-2014.

I took odd jobs - painted, cleaned out and repaired dorm rooms at Purdue Village in 2012; taught at Purdue - TAed - for a Microsoft Office class. Landed, luckily, a high-paying contract job for 4 months. Mostly, though, I skimped like Jose did - $325 per month on rental room (with electric, heat, water, and wi-fi included) and lived off student loans, now at $70,000, but have only 1 course left for an MBA.

Other reasons embedded in the New York Times article show it's a tough world:

“When the legal, entry-level economy isn’t providing a wage that allows someone a convincing and realistic option to become an adult — to go out and get married and form a household — it demoralizes them and shunts them into illegal economies,” said Philippe Bourgois, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied the lives of young men in urban areas. “It’s not a choice that has made them happy. They would much rather be adults in a respectful job that pays them and promises them benefits.”

Illegal - does not mean just drugs and weapons and bad dealings. It means "black" as in cash-only and off-the-books of otherwise respectable enough businesses. People are bartering for services - I also did some work for my landlord for cash. And worked in 2014 for a guy putting together a beat-up old home. So, I scrapped and painted and moved his belongings. $1,600 came in handy.

Again, the facts are saddening for the ones actually looking for a job (the map above show the non-working rate):

Mr. Katz, the Harvard economist, said, however, that some men might choose to describe themselves as unwilling to take low-wage jobs when in fact they cannot find any jobs. There are about 10 million prime-age men who are not working, but there are only 4.8 million job openings for men and women of all ages, according to the most recent federal data.
Millions of men are trying to find work. And among the 45 percent of men who said they had looked in the last year, large majorities said that to get a job they would be willing to work nights and weekends, start over in a new field, return to school or move to a new city.

In 2015, a man's life is more fixed or tied to this new, transient economy, and is less a matter of friction with work or workplaces: as in job swapping, and seeking out more pay. Instead, it seems a man's value has to come from an internal source of pride, and no longer, the external joys of hugs by family around the hearth after a long day at work - a work that will be availed him daily.
A man's life isn't like it once was for his grandpop in America. The Salad Days of post-WWII work are indeed gone.

Gotta Get Back In Time: The United States, World History, and Your 2015, er, 1945 Chicago Cubs

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 07:29:00 +0000

Who knew, 30 years ago, when NL MVP Ryne Sandberg and 1984 Cubs were coming off a glorious ride, that the Cubs would still be in search of that elusive WS title. Here's just a few historic milestones since the Cubs last saw a World Series without buying a ticket:

1) Space exploration. Result: lots there, but far away for any human to get at in a normal lifetime. Oh well, Matthew Mcconaughey will make that happen.
2) TV "matures." Well...it has evolved into reality shows and really bad NBC, the originators of your broadcasts.
3) Desegregation. When the Cubs were in the 1945 World Series, Jackie Robinson was still unknown to "white America." Now: everybody knows who is our POTUS. Who would have called the odds on that taking place...back in 1945. Red Barber surely wouldn't have.

1945: The view is uncluttered. There are no billboards visible. No Under Armour logos, Budweiser signs, et. al. Simple times if cheap times...

President in 1984. SAG Prez after WWII.

4) Rise of China. In 1945, China still ostensibly had Chiang Kai-shek in charge and the US as an ally. By 1949, Chairman Mao took control. Economically, the Chinese struggled until Mao's death. Great Leap Forward was a great leap backward - around the same time, the Cubs spiraled into oblivion from 1946-1966. China's "doesn't matter if the cat's black or white, as long as it catches mice" new economic reforms take shape after Deng Xiaoping came to power. Now: China will surpass U.S. economic (GDP) output, depending on who's projecting, sometime in the next 5-7 years.
5) The Fall of USSR. So, "we" beat the communists. Through proxy wars, arms races, covert OPs, and extolling the virtues of economic freedom, the war was fought and won over 45 years until the Berlin Wall came down. Unlike the Cubs, who never saw a nickel they couldn't ration out during that time, the U.S. quickly spent like rapper on holiday in Vegas for 45 years. The man credited by many with the Fall of the Wall, Ronald Reagan, was just a mediocre, but powerful, actor in 1945. Who just so happened to start out as a broadcaster of baseball games in Iowa for the Cubs in the 1930s.
6) Internet and Social Media. At some point, back in 1945, you had to talk face to face to your sweetheart. Sure, phones were a commodity. But long-distance wasn't "free" by any stretch. Heck, you had to dial on a rotary, and the operators were the NSA of their time. Cubs probably had a strict limit on phone calls made from the train stops, or if PK Wrigley allowed, after plane flights. Now: you get to see one-time, "stud" CF Grady Sizemore's junk. Or can follow any Cubs player's tweets to the adoring public. Yeah.
7) The Decline of the U.S. Ok, this has gotten long. In 1945, the United States was by far the most powerful entity on this Earth. The Pacific Fleet at the conclusion of WWII numbered: 23 battleships, 26 full-size carriers, 64 escort carriers, 52 cruisers, 323 destroyers, 181 subs, 14,847 combat planes The U.S Army: 8.3 million strong. (Think Magazine, 1950). U.S. GDP was around 50% of the World output. Now: because of the U.S.'s propensity to build up other economies, the numbers were always in decline. But I doubt anyone would say the U.S. has better infrastructure, education, or addresses problems of incarceration or health care, well at all. Meanwhile, the lovable losers haven't muster much either...maybe they do have to win, in order for the United States to finally reverse its curse...
8) Technology-driven world. The mid-20th century was still the Industrial Age. Factories driven more by basic common sense and gut instincts, than business sense and stats and programs that do all the "thinking" for you. People liked technology for its long-term practicality for their lives. Now: People get tech for a 6 month high of having the latest gadget that the Joneses don't have. The Cubs never invested much in their team's foundation from the 1930s forward. Poor facilities to play in, train in, hamstrung their hopes to get good players developed or free agents coming to town. No always, but certainly a factor.

9) The Song Remains the Same. It is said the more things change the more they stay the same. Or also, the problems of the past are not all that much different from the present ones. Odd to think that a firm linkage of 70 years - 40 years between the Cubs final World Series appearance, and the aftermath of their best played season, and 30 years after Back to the Future - exists. In Back to the Future II, the 2015 Cubs win the World Series.

Now: The Power of Now. As a 40-something, I remember those 1984-85 Cubs teams. How I rooted for their victories, and struggled with them in defeat. I hoped a lot. The music, like the Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News, played on the radio. That told of hope to a budding teenager in love with sport, girls, and music.

Today, the echoes of those long ago memories rang true. The brilliance of that moment meant I should create a present tense as good as I remembered that time and place. The responsibilities are different of the now. The headaches of mid-life: career improvement, relationship management, the planning for one's after-work life, to name a short few. The world has changed, innovated, grown in turmoil, and left scars on many souls. It is the path we trek as we grow in age, and think back, while thinking ahead, as we live in the now.

The Cubs are no longer in 1945; or 1985; but in the now of 2015. Will they do it? Will they be like these fellars:

The Power of Then: http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/visuals/post/_/id/9483/yearbook-oct-10-cubs-in-the-world-series

Cubs Thinking World Series In 2015

espn.go.com

A Book and OODA Loop: A Worthy Read? OODA Loop in One's Life

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sun, 21 Sep 2014 22:48:00 +0000

A Decade in the Making

It has been a great while since I have posted here. As most long-time readers (probably less than five) know, I had been plugging away or finishing up my pièce de résistance, a baseball book, titled, Bringin' Gas and Dialin' 9: A Seven Score Addiction to the National Pastime (1869-1949), Volume 1. Quite a mouthful, and well, I say a lot over 517 pages (with appendices).

While I could give you a quick synopsis about all the topics, ranging from the faithful beginnings of the game to macrosabermetric analysis of top baseball prospects and their intrinsic value in the present day, I'd rather not. Instead, I want to say that while I accomplished something nearly a decade in the doing, I feel a severe let down in this moment.

Maybe it comes from the personal energies expended this summer to rewrite and edit together many working parts in the last section, in particular. Or the dissatisfaction I still have that I could have expounded more on the game, through its first century (the actual time frame is longer than the title suggests) of the game. Or even the much harder task of marketing the book - as I'm not all that keen to that proposition - even as I attend Valparaiso's MBA program and work on a Global Marketing class at the present. I should be really thrilled to apply lessons on branding, creating channels to the product, pitching it, finding markets, and otherwise, making people more aware of it through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Outbrain, and all the baseball websites in existence. (And create an outlet on Amazon - which is another story, tied to formatting.)

No, those things are in mix, to be sure, but don't quite nail down what is driving the undercurrent of the recent letdown. I wish those loved the most dearly in life were alive to see the final outcome of the project: my mother atop that list. I acknowledged this here and here. I won't recount the story in this blog, but we all have reasons we do things and for people we admired and inspired us to just try. Just try. Give it the college try - as the cliche goes.

But motivation to carry on - that daily will to endeavor on something of greater significance - has been absent. Other priorities, namely, the pressing venture back to full-time employment and those unknowns (at the moment), seem hollow, and a bit underwhelming. If recent contacts and recruiters are of any indication to those prospects. (To a future employer: Look, if you are happy every single day with your career, family and daily tasking, I commend you. But I suspect that's not what is really going on. My realism on this subject is acknowledging a verity, for me, at least: I have a sinusoidal curve when it come to my emotions about things.)

OODA Loop

I guess to show I am making efforts to break this funk, I will include something of recent learning in my marketing class, which I have shared a few places online. The OODA loop, which like the DMAIC cycle and other ideas on learning, quick decision-making, or dramatic process improvement methods, has application towards creativity, breaking out of a rut, and acting based off all appropriate information and acknowledgement of internal biases versus an external world through feedback. Air Force Colonel John Boyd is given the most credit for creation of this concept. His thinking behind it significantly altered businesses, military strategy, and even, litigation methodology.

Quote from Wikipedia:

Boyd’s diagram shows that all decisions are based on observations of the evolving situation tempered with implicit filtering of the problem being addressed. These observations are the raw information on which decisions and actions are based. The observed information must be processed to orient it for further making a decision. In notes from his talk “Organic Design for Command and Control”, Boyd said,

The second O, orientation – as the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences – is the most important part of the O-O-D-A loop since it shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act.

From Mindtools - the first two concepts break out into questions one should ask themselves.

Stage 1. Observe
At this initial point in the loop, you should be on the look-out for new information, and need to be aware of unfolding circumstances. The more information you can take in here, the more accurate your perception will be. Like an F-86 pilot with a wide field of vision, you want to capture as much incoming data as possible. The kind of questions you need to be asking are:

What's happening in the environment that directly affects me?

What's happening that indirectly affects me?

What's happening that may have residual affects later on?

Were my predictions accurate?

Are there any areas where prediction and reality differ significantly?

Stage 2. Orient
One of the main problems with decision-making comes at the Orient stage: we all view events in a way that's filtered through our own experiences and perceptions. Boyd identified five main influences:

Cultural traditions.

Genetic heritage.

The ability to analyze and synthesize.

Previous experience.

New information coming in.

Orientation is essentially how you interpret a situation. This then leads directly to your decision.

Interpretation of events is analysis or synthesis part. Previous experiences (conformation bias) leads to all sorts of unfortunate "processing errors" (called Decisions cum Actions) once we move on into the decision and action phases of the OODA loop. Even with feedback - as we can readjust our observations or orientations in REAL TIME - many don't.

I have often failed at this. As a flawed human being, I have more than my fair share of biases and erroneous observations that have resulted in bad conclusions. Guilty as charged.

Sadly, many millions, and billions, do this also. Even those that proclaim what is right, and defend their ideas quite arrogantly - because, well - it behooves them to in order to maintain face, credentials as an "expert," their current control, or status in life. Or to keep things just the way they want it - heritage or tradition in the orientation - because who really wants to change anyways? We all want to feel we are good enough at present - even when we add more complexities or technologies or stuff into our lives? (With an undergrad in "change" engineering, industrial, I found most workplaces saying all the right things, "we want things to improve, run better, cost less, be more competitive," but somehow this also meant, someone's job or career would invariably be altered, or cut out from the team or reduced in some way. As a result, creative destruction is apart of any such cycle. It's also called a dirty word: progress.)

The Synthesis of These Connections

Synthesis of these two topics together: I am feeling caught in orientation traps unable to DECIDE what is the best path ahead. I know it. My prior experiences say, "what gives now?" How do I take a route I haven't been on before? Because those have worked out so well - insanity doing the same.

Observe. The world is not getting easier to stomach as it is. The facility in this country to seek some version of the American Dream correlates to how adept one is/becomes with an accelerating technological path at home, or abroad. At 42, I don't feel that's my best use of my time: to dive head long in technology field. Namely, I am no coder; no app writer; and not one that's gonna make a mark writing code in whatever programming language is gonna be hot. Not saying it has to be "totally" about that - but you still have to find your place in that technology pie. And get on the inside somewhere.

Yet, I feel I can identify the useful mechanisms to improve myself, and more importantly: society.

So, at 42, I don't want to operate at all on a "should schedule" unless I get a whole new life experience from that. By that, I mean, I don't want a 9-5 that (maybe) pays high XX,XXX dollars or devolves into me showing up at the same plant or factory for 2 years. Because that's the sheer limit of my patience - 2 years. I get restless very easy. And I can't afford to jump ship (probabilistically) anymore.

Orientation. Independence. I want that too. We are told erroneously we all have our bosses. Well, aside from God, I tend to feel I have to answer to no one. That means I deem society's rules just a mish-mash of current propensities to favor whatever is the most vocally expressed and the most convenient for a politician to vote on to keep the masses mildly contented, at best. And most superiors found at work are generally hypocritical and loyal only to themselves - if Ayn Rand had remotely a clue. (Not that I agree much at all with her dogmas.)

But, I think I can follow the minimal, 'big rules': don't kill, don't steal, covet a neighbor's wife, and don't bear false witness. Do unto others as you'd like them to do unto you. Honor a father and a mother. Well, 50% ain't that bad on that particular one. The other rules of 'humanity' are getting really tired and unfortunate in their concept and usages. And depending on where you are - and yes, culturally, the rules are starkly different if you have the slightest concept of the globalized world - the rules and values are pretty fungible. To succeed in one cultural arena likely means you are doing some wrong in another part of the world. Keep that straight for a while, and you'll find yourself doing what others want more than you want. (As the movie Road Trip taught us about cheating.)

At Valpo, they implored us to explore values-based leadership. Well a few of my values are: loyalty, honesty (bluntness), invested, and determination. Once you show I can depend on you, I am loyal to you, almost to a fault. Quite a few people in my life haven't understood this about me to their loss. (As they became undependable for support; or sadly, I gave them too much loyalty before they were dependable on too many occasions - such are the erroneous judgments that abound my life.)

I am damnably blunt - I don't think beating around the bush, or using PC language helps us understand the way the world works or addresses the crises very well at all. Invested in doing better, or time on something to get it better (not perfection), and locked on a path, a direction, of some redeemable nature. Determination - if persistence and perseverance can't win, well, nothing can aside from divine intervention can. So be determined to accomplish a good goal. Maybe God will too.

Stage 3 Decide.

I look at it in this calculated way. We sleep or rest 1/3 of our life away.

As of now, if I live to 70 - 28 more years - I got about 18 plus years of wake time left to do something I think will survive me. 20 years, if I don't sleep in too much. If 80 years of age, that puts me at 25 plus years. So, should I do more than half of it working for some monolithic company, knowing, as I know, once I die, my efforts with them will be basically a blur, a forgotten, an unnoticed cog? (Maybe a retirement dinner - ha!)

Leaving me with less than 10 years of time to accomplish much else? (Mom, and both her parents, passed away at 59-64 years of age. So, I am being quite generous - OODA genetics and heritage, folks!)

I realize I could start a family. Well, she hasn't presented herself to me. I've looked, and I've waited too. Time's a wasting on that idea. I'd like to have a couple of kids. Teach baseball. Would even be a stay-at-home dad, if she desires to be the "career person," my ego will not be crushed. (This doesn't mean I am lazy...) I suppose she'd have to love me first. Applications are taken here.

Stage 4 Action.

See, I do have many more thoughts, in book form. I'd rather do that instead - if for nothing else - to somehow leave a record on things I noticed: history, people, the journey, love and the mysterious sadness of it all too. Sadly too, the book market ain't gonna pay the bills. So, I asked myself: "what is the minimal amount of money I need to do what I want, but still survive?" Or: "What can I do that I can work 3-4-5 months and get enough out of, then spend 6 months writing and researching?" Or: "Should I get a PhD in Business? (4 years of school on a stipend with the dissertation to complete? Can I even get accepted? This delays the decision of what to really do too.)

I'd like feedback - from my outside environment, my peers, the external events that could lead to other choices.

Where Are They Now: Melana Scantlin of Average Joe v. Life Love

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Melana Scantlin: Then on Average Joe

A little over 10 years have past, and the craze of reality TV has ramped up a bit from the days of Joe Millionaire, The Bachelor, Average Joe, and the "grand Puck" of the genre, The Real World. The Real Housewives, Jersey Shore, Survivor, and too many others have turned the genre into a whack-a-doodle, oh-no-she-didn't-uh integrity-less food fight for ratings and audacious behaviors. But back a decade, some limits and slight decorum existed. A social psychology experiment, if you will.

For instance, the premise of Average Joe was to get ordinary Joes dating and marrying "up" to extraordinary looking women. It pitted former beauty queens, Melanie Scantlin and Larissa Meek, versus a trove of ordinary guys that soon faced the ideal male: those that work on pecks and their tans well and guys who usually land these inherently, socially pretty women.

In the inaugural season, Ms. Scantlin did not use her final selection wisely: if you were comparing the successes of Adam Mesh versus Jason Peoples. On one hand, Adam did not look the part of a successful trader and owner on The Street; whereas, Jason Peoples, looked awesome, but was not particularly well off, or successful in his life, then. Melana judged, or at least, picked a book by its cover. That cover selection turned out to never fulfilled her needs.

Meanwhile, Adam later published a book on trading, and still runs a website that is about investing. Later, he got married in 2006. His turn on the show boded well enough.

Melana Scantlin has went on to be a host of the World Series of Blackjack, and works for E!TV/Hollywoodlife.com, as I found out just today in reviewing the Emmy Awards on Youtube. (This was why I wrote this post.)

In the world of 'Reality TV' this is the normal ending. The parties never stay together. If anything, its just a stepping stone to something else for them, or the 15 minutes of Warholian fame. The show too becomes part of the recycling bin of Hollywood where it will be revamped and hurled at the next generation. The where are they now? posts, like this one, usually end here.

But I am here to provide advice and a lesson demonstrated via the wits of academia and my own logic.

Scantlin is yet to tie the knot- and she's now in her mid-30s. While not a huge problem for her - she hosts exercise shows and blurbs and looks in good health - it seems ironic that the lead, is yet to find the right one. Scantlin, who according to Florida State professor and psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and Ohio State professor in psychology and communications Brad J. Bushman, "wanted to meet and marry a man with good inner qualities (324)," but has yet to do so. In their academic book on Social Psychology and Human Nature, the professors went into further detail on Melana's quirks of choosing:

"she had eliminated every man weighing over 200 pounds. Meanwhile, one man clearly regarded himself as better looking...and this narcissistic fellow engaged in a variety of bullying and putdowns that made most regard him as a jerk, but Melana went out of her way to convince herself that he was not a jerk...she was seen lying on the floor with the narcissistic fellow with arms around each other, kissing passionately."

The attraction of two people comes down to physical, emotional (or mood), and spiritual (philosophical) aspects. It is natural to find instant attraction with the eyes - many of us are visual-first creatures. Some though go further, and adapt better to those whose outward mood or spirit is lively or in sync with theirs, despite obvious physical disparities. Lastly, philosophical mirroring or acceptance takes a while to find out. Certainly longer and more in-depth than the Reality TV time frame. Additionally, social acceptance means people have come to like you, respect you, approve of you, and include them in their groups and relationships. While rejection means other(s) exclude you and will not form a social bond with you. Again, the reality show time frame make this a cruel game of excluding based on the lowest denominator of selection: that which we see through eyes only.

So what makes a person attractive for a mate?

As the professors intone, "Melana Scantlin may someday recognize, is that the traits that make someone attractive upon first meeting are not the same traits that make for a successful relationship."

Melana Scantlin may have learned this advice. But I suspect fear or inability to adapt towards a different trek may have taken place. (I don't know her; so she may be in a committed, if unannounced, relationship.)
But if she had, I suspect she would make it public enough. It did not stop her participation a decade ago in a very public display of both her and the men that sought an opportunity to date and build something with her.

Nevertheless, what we thought then is not necessarily what we think now, and so, it should be remembered: things change and we do change with them, if just in the march of time. And not all that glitters turns into gold.

Many times, it is pretty average.

The Wolf of Wall Street: A Fun Ride Up Until the End

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 00:41:00 +0000

The Minor Model and the Chicago Cubs: It Still Comes Down to Money, Honey

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 08:35:00 +0000

The Minor Model and the Chicago Cubs: It Still All Comes Down Money, Honey

The Present and Past: The Minor Model to World Series Success

The model Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer have sold the last two seasons to the faithful Cubs fan is one of small and varied investments and flipping short-term assets to achieve a top-notch minor league system. Every now, and again, mentioning the Cardinals, almost harkening the ghost of Branch Rickey, when he too built the Cardinals from a derelict franchise to the World Champions of the NL in 1926. Then Branch moved on to the Dodgers in 1942 – creating the Jackie Robinson-led Dodger way – and then, Pittsburgh and their rebirth in the late 1950s to league prominence with the likes of Mazeroski, Groat, and Clemente.
It took Branch approximately seven seasons to build the Cardinals to champions. After World War I ended in November 1918, he came back to the struggling and financially troubled National League team. First, he tried his hand at field management, primarily, to only middling success. But it was his destined role as a general manager that help the Cardinals the most as he bought out low level minor league teams and installed new methods (or revived old ones) to get more quality from that new found and harnessed quantity in farm systems. By 1939, his Cardinals had 28 affiliated teams. 1940: 30 teams. 1940 Cubs: 6 including the LA Angels and the Milwaukee Brewers (soon to be owned by William Veeck for $25,000.)
This model does have the long-term result of working. Others have tried this…some better than others, as at some point, money has to be employed, large trades, better scouting, and revenues increase to make a final push to the top of the league.

Baltimore Orioles: Paul Richards & Jim McLaughlin

The defunct Browns/new Baltimore Orioles succeeded with GM/field manager Paul Richards took the reins, but only after he built them up through various trades, better evaluation and a new stadium produced good attendance. From SABR Bioproject:

He traded the Orioles’ lone star, fireballer Bob Turley, to the Yankees in a seventeen-player deal that was the largest in big league history. The trade brought the Orioles an eventual all-star catcher in Gus Triandos, while Turley helped the Yankees win the 1955 pennant and won the first Cy Young Award three years later. When local sportswriters and fans complained that Richards had handed the Yankees another pennant, he responded, “What concern is it of mine who wins the pennant? I need to get the Orioles out of seventh place.”
It took him six years to lift the Orioles above .500, but he stuck to his plan: build through the farm system, concentrating on young pitchers. He kept the scouting and farm director he inherited, Jim McLaughlin. Although the two arrogant, stubborn men squabbled constantly, it was the best decision Richards ever made. McLaughlin believed in a scientific approach to appraising young players. He was one of the first to use cross-checkers to put a second pair of eyes on every prospect. One of his scouts, Jim Russo, said McLaughlin was “years ahead of his time.”

Richards moved on Houston before the Baby Birds flew; his prospects and bonus babies landed their 1st big league championship in 1966. From 1964-1983, the Orioles won 90+ games 16 times.

Montreal Expos: John McHale, Jim Fanning, Mel Didier

While Richards took over Bill Veeck’s first defeat in ownership, McHale came from the commissioner’s office to Canada as lead executive to billionaire Charles Bronfrom to build a franchise from scratch. Like Richards, McHale had to find money when and where available and make trades to go with likely the best decade of drafting seen at the outset of a franchise. Their first star, Rusty Staub, came to Montreal through a trade controversy that stirred around Donn Clendenon, who refused to report to New York Mets in what would be their championship year.
Thereafter, McHale, general manager Fanning and director of scouting Mel Didier found the likes of Steve Rogers, Gary Carter, Warren Cromartie, Andre Dawson, Tim Wallach, and Ellis Valentine, and Tim Raines to name the well known names of 1970s. With enormous stadium issues at the outset, and mediocre attendance due to those struggles and sterility, it took Montreal 11 seasons to crack into the top tier of the National League. And then, they fell short in 1981 in game five of the NLCS to the LA Dodgers.

Cubs Finances: Baseball LBO

Is the model for success a one-route only plan?
In the prior examples, all during very different financial times (Pre-free agency), making a successful team hinged on judicious use of resources, expert and differentiating scouting, and signing players more as prospects than ever as finished products. An incubation period of 5-7 years was a given; no matter how much a team wanted to win now, that could not happen. That said, the 2014
Cubs are not that destitute. Or at least, they should not be.
But when the ownership changed hands from Sam Zell to Tom Ricketts, and his family of board directors, a substantial debt load too was placed on the team, by business reports $674 million in notes. In 2010, in their first season, as full owners, they reduced payroll by $10 million, overcame some bad press about their Dominican Republic facilities (and thus put a $7 million investment into that area), and then put together a future plan to succeed at baseball. Their private investors likely required that – due to their heavy backing of the team, which was just in the playoffs two straight seasons. (But likely no nothing of the game…)
From Crane’s Chicago Business, January 4, 2010, calling this Creative Debt:

Mr. Ricketts and his financial advisers brought in institutional investors — such as insurance companies, pension funds and banks — to refinance $250 million in short-term debt provided by three banks, according to a Ricketts family spokesman….
Documents related to the deal, reviewed by Crain’s, provide a glimpse into how Mr. Ricketts, an investment banker who specializes in debt markets, orchestrated the highly complex deal, creating an unusual structure at a time when credit markets were nearly inert.

So, to make this leverage work, the Chicago Cubs needed to follow a plan that maximized returns to the investors in their debt. In 2012 payroll paid dropped to $80.4M from $136M. In 2013, the amount dropped to $61.6M. Added up from the 2011 near peak: 56 + 75 = $131 million in saved monies to meet $175million term loan in October 2013. The plan revised further with Theo Epstein’s arrival to be:

The Steps (in no particular order):

Cut payroll – and stop large investments in top-tier FA contracts as debt service was needed first
Find the right baseball man to rebuild the team (Theo Epstein & Jed Hoyer)
Draft in top 5-10 for several seasons. This after making only half-hearted attempts to win
Secure low-risk FAs that could be traded mid-season
Trade away any high priced assets for younger controllable talent
Renovate Wrigley Field for $300-500M- amenities to ballpark functionality for ballplayers once revenues are in place
Renegotiate local TV contracts on the level of the Rangers, Dodgers, Angels deals
Remove obstacles to revenues – Rooftop ownerships cutting into their business
Add new revenue streams – advertising, signage, hotel operations
Build up minor league scouting and development system
Build up front office staffing well versed in business analytical techniques and sabermetrics
Install a field manager that operates well with the leadership at the top
Never pay out long-term deals (4+ years) to free agents over 30
Sign young talent (22-24) to longer-term deals (5-7 years) once they are proven capable
Draft top bats – less risk; add quantity of pitching in drafting
Trade for top-tier pitching when timing suits the plan

A big chunk of that debt came due in October 2013, $175 million. It is likely was paid down via sinking funds to retire debt in short order. $13.65 million of payroll savings in 2013 season made its way back to the Cubs as they did a massive sell off mid-season when they were no worse record wise than the National West champion Dodgers in just early June.
The Sun-Times quoted Andrew Zimbalist, an expert on baseball economics:

“He’s behaving like he’s a mid-market team,” famed sports economist Andrew Zimbalist said of Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts, whose family owns the most profitable team in the majors in the third-largest market in the country.
In terms of their timeline to be competitive, the Cubs could have a problem because their mid-market behavior appears to be caused as much by the debt left from the Ricketts’ highly leveraged purchase of the team as any premeditated rebuilding process.
Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., cautions against using baseball spending levels as a basis for criticizing ownership, pointing out the light correlation between performance and payroll and what might be nothing more than a function of a longer-range business plan.

A Minor Setback: FO Change of Managerial Direction

So, after two completely disastrous seasons of 197 defeats, resulting in the firing manager Dale Sveum, one can expect that new manager Rick Renteria will have at least two more seasons before their substantially promoted crop of minor talent comes to change the 106-107 year old curse. Renteria’s seemingly first duty is to reverse the regressions of Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro from their quite disappointing 2013 seasons for Cubs faithful. He will have also set out to install a winning approach, with a team lacking vets, aside from Jeff Samardzija, the lone holdover from the 2008 97-win Cubs, or Edwin Jackson, coming off a sabermetrically decent, but traditionally bad season. The new manager may find Samardzija gone, as the Notre Dame grad wants to a pricier extension, and to cash in on his first 200-IP season at two years before free agency. His demands may drive him out of a Chicago job; or the front office might find prospects more appealing than keeping a nearing thirty #2 pitcher with #1 velocity. Even Jackson’s 4yr-$52 million FA contract has resulted in some backtracking too from the GM Jed Hoyer, saying, “we got a bit ahead of ourselves.” At the end of the day, newbie manager Renteria has his work cut out for him.
Yet, these installers of this Minor Model want to keep Cubs fans interested and thinking they will be competitive going forward. This after losing about 650,000 fans in 2013 from their peak at 3.3 million in 2008. At $50 per head, this is $32.5 million in revenues lost. But, never fear, the new MLB TV deal(s) will add over $25-75 million (depending on source of income) to the coffers starting in 2014. But then, the Cubs still kick in approximately $39 million to revenue sharing. And then more importantly, only insiders know the actual size of debt repayments (installments) and if the ghost of Sam Zell is floating around in the books too.
Sidetracking the critics, are reports of interest in uber pitching free agent Masahiro Tanaka, at least a 100-plus million dollar investment in just ONE arm, seem overblown, given the cost structures in place. Jacoby Ellsbury, a Theo draftee, would be another high price add, that the checking account is unlikely to pry open so wide that Scott Boras and Ellsbury are ever seen in Wrigley proper. But “interest” can be had at the low price of free. And it keeps fans hoping one day will be today.

The 7-Year Wait: Adds to the 106 Year Old Cubs Tradition

So, what should be next? From history, it takes 5-7 years, at minimum, to reach critical mass for a successful baseball build. The 1962 Mets did it in seven seasons; the Toronto Blue Jays reach playoffs in nine seasons, World Series, 15. Florida Marlins only five, then a massive sell off of assets. The Montreal Expos were a decade plus, but had Olympic Stadium and Canadian monetary issues to boot. Tampa Bay Rays made it to a World Series in a decade. Baltimore took a decade. Rickey, the absolute master, took five years with a team that had just visited the World Series in Brooklyn (1941). (But he had the misfortune of trying to usurp his former employer.)
So, Cubs faithful, this Minor Model will require much more sacrifice. Much more time. 2017 is, at best, the first window. The revenues will come on line. Financing will be redone again by the expert investment banker. The prospects named Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Albert Almora, and C.J. Edwards will make their presence felt. Maybe a couple of trades in late 2013/early 2014 will land catcher Kevin Plawecki, RHP Rafael Montero, LHP Tyler Skaggs, or RHP Archie Bradley, or RHP Kyler Zimmer. Or some other interesting names in the top 50 of Baseball America’s ranking.
No one outside the minor plan in place can estimate who else is available for trade exodus – but the Cubs team is leaned out because the finances are at the very heart of it. So, patience is a virtue Cubs faithful. It has to be.

Report: Cubs expected to trade Jeff Samardzija this winter (outsidepitchmlb.com)
Cubs Ranked 5th Best Farm System, White Sox 25th (chicago.cbslocal.com)
Report: 99 pe rcent chance Cubs will trade Jeff Samardzija by Opening Day (tracking.si.com)
Cubs should sign Jac oby Ellsbury (espn.go.com)

2014 Baseball HOF Class: A new system, a non-moral standard devised

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Wed, 27 Nov 2013 04:36:00 +0000

Greg Maddux: Dealing from HOF Strength

My Current 2014 HOF Class Selections and Reasons:

Greg Maddux - wins aside, he compiled a healthy WAR in his career. Won on great teams, and the Cubs. 1st ballot is a no brainer.
Tom Glavine - same token on wins (305-203). He benefited from a wider strike zone and used it to great advantage. Teammates should go in together - John Smoltz will join soon enough.

(Edit and Note: Baseball Reference has Tom at 74.0 WAR using Runs Allowed method; Fangraphs (based off FIP, which is weighted on underlying metrics such as Ks, BB, HRs) has him at 64.3 WAR. At Fangraphs, Tom had 12 seasons above 3 WAR, with low strikeouts per IP lifetime, and 3.95 FIP ERA, whereas his actual ERA was 3.54 and his lifetime BABIP was a very favorable .280. To me, if you can stick around to pitch 14 years of 200+ IP, that is Hall worthy in the teeth of the prevalent offensive boom. He was able to parlay all that from a pitching platform of not getting all those juicy Ks while keeping it in the ball in the park. Craftiness in this case, deserves such a reward.)

Roger Clemens - controversial now, but no doubt, the most dominating guy on the bump in either league for many seasons.
Mike Mussina - a very, very consistent guy. Pitched solely out of the AL East, and amassed both a substantial standard record (270-153) and quality sabermetrics record (82.7 WAR at Baseball Reference).
Curt Shilling - as outspoken against guys like Clemens, he got it done when it mattered. A money pitcher, who now has, less money (due to a bad business investment.)
Barry Bonds - Best hitter of his generation. Not really even that close. (See below.) Never suspended for PEDs, even while he was playing under close monitoring. His legacy as a bad guy (and interview) pretty much relegates him to being on the outside looking in. Pete Rose is his much lighter-hitting companion.
Larry Walker - Colorado was the best thing for his numbers. That said, he was a damn good hitter. Very good RF for a number of seasons, and it is not his fault, anymore than it was Ott's or Ruth's, that he destroyed his home haven.
Mike Piazza - He compiled a .300+ BA as a catcher for a career. Slugging, check. He was no gold glover, but he put on the tools of ignorance, and proved you can survive there for a decade plus.
Craig Biggio - Assured inclusion this time. 3000 hits. Those counting stats, his overall production, at 2B and versatility is his ticket to Cooperstown.
Edgar Martinez - As mostly a DH, he still played over 500 games as a 3B. Wore out pitchers with .418 OBP, routinely 40 doubles, 20 jacks, and 90 walks. Team construction in Seattle was not his fault; he could have been a 1B for, at least, 500 games if the Mariners didn't constantly add the David Seguis or John Oleruds of the world to the equation. But DH was available. And he was lethally suited for the role.

Edgar Martinez: A .418 OBP Machine.

From Fangraphs the Entire List Eligible for the Hall by Their WAR Calculation:

Name	WAR
Barry Bonds*	164.1
Roger Clemens*	139.9
Greg Maddux*	114.3
Curt Schilling*	83.5
Mike Mussina*	82.3
Jeff Bagwell	80.3
Frank Thomas	72.4
Rafael Palmeiro	70.0
Larry Walker*	69.0
Tim Raines	66.3
Mark McGwire	66.3
Edgar Martinez*	65.6
Craig Biggio*	65.3
Tom Glavine*	63.9
Alan Trammell	63.7
Mike Piazza*	63.6
Sammy Sosa	60.4
Fred McGriff	57.2
Jeff Kent	56.6
Luis Gonzalez	55.3
Jack Morris	52.7
Moises Alou	48.2
Kenny Rogers	47.2
Don Mattingly	40.7
Ray Durham	30.3
Lee Smith	27.6
Hideo Nomo	24.0
Paul Lo Duca	17.8
Richie Sexson	17.2
Sean Casey	16.1
Jacque Jones	13.1
Mike Timlin	13.1
J.T. Snow	12.6
Eric Gagne	11.9
Todd Jones	11.2
Armando Benitez	9.0

Baseball writers with their precious votes will not agree with me. I'm right on these selections, this year.

You may notice I selected the top 5 WAR producers, specifically Bonds and Clemens outpaced their compatriots in the game by a wide margin. But neither will get in because of the turmoil of the PED scandal. The sportswriters, who are voting, are like women who just got cheated on, or dumped for a hotter woman, or divorced from their once well-loved husband after he cheated on her with a less attractive option (this happens in real life, unlike Hollywood.) They duly want revenge; want groveling; and a measure of superiority over these selfish louts called baseball players.

Meanwhile, Maddux is the 'faithful' one; and he's the surest lock there is in this entire group.

After Mussina, there is gap. I jump down to Walker, Biggio, Martinez, Glavine, and Piazza. For good reasons: Walker is an lifetime RF, who distinguished himself enough with the glove and stuck at the position even in his twilight. Biggio played catcher, centerfield, left field and second base. That's versatility, especially going from a catcher, to speed positions, and deserves its due. Piazza - catcher, primarily - was a hitting machine. Martinez, again, played the hot corner and raked. Glavine as discussed above.

So all of these are more worthy than Frank Thomas, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Fred McGriff, Jeff Bagwell, or Don Mattingly. Or even the sentimental choice in Jack Morris (who I really do like - but well...Veteran's committee can do that).

Tim Raines looks the part until you realize he amassed more than half of his WAR in just 5 seasons (1983-1987). This is not problematic, per say, but look at his 1990s. Does that speak HOF? He might get in around 2017, or a bit later. He too has character issues from those white lines that nabbed guys like Lonnie Smith in the 1980s.

So, the remaining six I left out are all 1B/DH types. If you look up their numbers they have various ranges, but if I showed you a .298/.385/.520 lifetime statistical line, could you guess which one is above or below that? And by how much?

Would you punish Palmeiro for not being a peak guy - but a consistent 35-110 guy with good OBP, but burdened with the 1st HOF career tied to a steroids suspension?

Or Frank Thomas for poor defense and solely a DH in his twilight?
Or McGwire for those 2-3 enormous seasons, but poor batting average/above average OBP, but lights out great slugging?
Or Fred McGriff's stats compiled in the pre-1993 era of the non-juiced baseball and steroids? Why not some love for the Crime Dog?
Or Jeff Bagwell who hit darn well in that old Houston Astrodome, walls moved in a touch (.303/.421/.536), but also got some benefits out of the Juice Box in Minute Maid...He deserves it by WAR alone. But again, I have problems with that sole measure - adjustments for positions made to that calculation aside.

So, I was not going to split hairs over this huge grouping, this year. I think 3-4 first sackers are worthy of inclusion someday, maybe in 2015-16. But those above I selected, to me, had the virtual locks by the positions played and stats achieved.

1B, again, is not the hardest position to play. It is the easiest. It is why all of these guys got huge numbers there. A 1B with a .500 plus slugging and a .375OBP is about All-star level/HOF worthy if we turned back the clock to the 1960s and 1970s. And these guys aside from McGriff and Mattingly benefited from the juiced ball theory I feel people constantly leave out of their equations. (And yes, Walker had plenty of juice in his ballpark - Colorado set the humidor conditions wrong, initially. Furthering the point of a 'juiced ball' era.)

But I had 10 votes, and took my logical 10 based on performances, position criteria, and differentiation from the pack. I could not immediately see clear reasons why any first sackers should be in over the rest of my selections, this year. And that speaks to the problem of the HOF.

The Non-Moral Argument to the Baseball HOF

Meanwhile, I think it's uniquely disturbing that people base their votes on baseball's HOF, which, in theory, is about best performers while in the game - statistically speaking - and not at all about the best human beings.

If we want a HOF of good characters, high integrity, blah, blah blah, THEN we should start anew and have a separate, and new HOF. I only say "blah, blah, blah," because what defines this quality is amorphic as to what era you judge it from.

Is late 19th century baseball operating morality code than disallowed minorities, improperly hued, the baseline?
Is it the mid-1930s version of this code, upon creating this special grouping of HOF players, voted on by well-known sportswriters like Grantland Rice, who was fairly overt in his racism, the next hurdle?
Is it the mid-20th century, that still didn't have too much problem with boozing, womanizing, or drugging, even if it were known (as media access often required a Gee Whiz Sports writing), our next leap?
Is subtle cheating (spitters, frozen balls, amphetamines popping) from the 1960s-1970s ok to do, if they were 'good' guys according the new media guys, who picked out their favorites?
Or is the 1990s tinkering with the ball, pumping iron, shrinking ballparks, growing paychecks and swelling, 'roided muscles the creme brulee we should talk from, if sportswriters wrote more positive pieces, and trumpeted the stats we wanted to hear about?
Maybe we politically correct all discussions? Because we know what is right, now?

Roger: Dodger of PED suspensions

Whatever you do, it should be consistent and fair and simple. That is why the ONLY measure is what took place between the lines. Call me what you will, I am not going to parse out which guy is a better human being based on sportswriter's vendettas, or dislikes, or run-ins with ballplayers that are human and flawed.

Trying to elaborately devise a methodology to test all ballplayers retroactively - is he a steroid witch or not - without a 100% fool proof PED test in the present, seems oddly hopeless to my way of thinking about it.

If you technically were never caught with PEDs in your bloodstream by MLB, as Bonds NEVER was suspended, even after the first PED suspensions on April 3, 2005 came out, then how can you logically dismiss him now? Because he's an obstructionist of justice? Or a liar?

You can despise him all you like, but you should be consistent on your analysis, else you travel a slippery slope...it is the reason we have a messed up HOF, as it stands now. And those, that were overlooked until they died, i.e., Ron Santo (70.9 fWAR).

What happens on the field is one arena; and what happens in life outside the final out is quite another.

President Bill Clinton. most historians consider him a 1st-2nd tier president, if you look at that logically. But his womanizing does not make him as appealing as a human being, at least as he left the office, nearly impeached. Bill lied about his relationships... JFK. God rest, had the same issues with women, and is praised more out of respect more than accomplishment. FDR. Women issues to the very end, and still top 5-7 U.S. Presidents. And that list can go on, and on. Their accomplishments in their expert field should not be undermined by their flawed human relationships. Because, then, many of us need to reassess our very nature.

But this method is also how you can divorce one criteria from another. Because what a guy does to achieve success in one arena, should not be tied to what he does outside that arena, even if, it allegedly helps him to achieve undue results. Because until we know the direct amount of help, we are just surmising based on broad premises we barely understand the science and results behind.

Social Media & Personal Responsibility

I think too, ALL of us today, have tended to blend our lives into this social media petri dish for all to see online. It leads us to sometimes believe that our sports stars, even when they are eagerly willing (in tweeting), are really just like us, only richer, and therefore, available for our personal chidings. That their failings are fun, consumable pieces of information and thus require our witty commentaries. And so, these typically labeled 'special people' behave accordingly, lying, lashing out, and fighting back against being this pinata of social critique, often as not, without the entire story behind their lives as a sports icon/athlete. And their failings, very public in nature, as any athletes or entertainer will undoubtedly succumb to, someday, will outstrip or trump their glories. So they MUST super achieve constantly. No room for actual humanity in that equation. "We don't pay you for that," a fan now very aware of the billion dollar nature of the beast - often to the nickel - responds with derision.

This is wrong. 100% dead wrong.

Or, more recently, such athletes are held to some very high/higher moral standards because of their public nature. (Thank marketing for that - and those advertising revenues generated.) Again, this is totally wrong. That type of social norm (depending on where you live in this world applies differently, as not people see things like alike) applies really to an athlete's basic privilege of playing the game. They are not paid for moral decisions or likeability, or should not be. You don't pay a neurologist for tax advice. You don't pay a plumber for his translation skills if he was at the United Nations. And you don't pay athletes for their personal life choices - aside for those to which they agree to. (And even that was once heavily weighted to the ownership class, and their agents (GMs), in baseball's case. Instead of a fair contract, they got a lopsided deal until 1976. Since then, the owners have been looking to circumvent gains made; were guilty of collusion in the 1980s; and waited, patiently, to spring to action on the recent steroids scandal. Don't be fooled, they knew.)

But to want to affect change or to stop this problem, those ownerships could have suspended these athletes "1-and-done" AND paid off their remaining contracts, foregoing any future playing benefits. (If the MLBPA would have collectively bargained away such rights. Player reps would have to convince their cohorts it is best for the game.) That measure would have rid any acquisition of "cheaters" - as we saw with recent healthy contracts for Marlon Byrd, Jhonny Peralta, and likely now, Nelson Cruz. Or you, the rabid fan, can stop going to all games involving any and all unethical louts that set a bad examples - and tell your kids all about the right way to be in the game. Until those examples are set, we should corral our MORAL HIGH HORSE. Because we are not making a very strong case to stop such behaviors by our own ethical hypocrisy. If anything, we undermine the premise "cheating is bad" by rewarding it later with high contracts (which too have their risks, but until you stop the practice, it does not show any ethical commitment.)

But I don't think that's the answer to the problem. It's draconian and arbitrary and even, the appeals will be lengthy, and the evidence has to reach the level of beyond a reasonable doubt. No, the question to answer rightly is HOF performance, solely. It side steps the issue of enhancements. Because it is only about what it takes on the field...

The NEW Hall of Fame: A Trial by Stats

As suggested, the Hall of Fame is a different matter. Because moral judgments are inherently flawed, and biased by a personal value system. So we need a set criteria based on a thorough system.

You see, you will have selection bias, and select only information that matters to you, and discard the rest. I acknowledge I am guilty of it (see my choices), and even if you say you are not, then you are, actually. (You are human and flawed. And therefore, at some moment you have been biased solely by your limited amount of time to gather complete understanding of a person/or situation/or object. We make generalities to survive, else we would drive ourselves nuts. Therefore, you are biased.)

I suggest a new system based solely on numerical analysis. Adjusted to the standards of the offensive eras created within that system. Does not overvalue one era, or group, over any another. It will be sabermetric-based; detailed in its analysis; and ties directly to statistics and inflicts as little personal bias as any system can designed by such flawed humans. Therefore, if set correctly, only the highest level of achievement will be praised.

Of course, the current HOF has prestige. But old institutions outlast their usefulness, and new ones come along. This will happen in baseball like OBP replaced BA; xFIP has replaced ERA; WAR replaced any statistical variant that incorporated a hodge-podging of RBI, HR, SB, W, ERA, IP, or Runs. It inevitably comes. It will again.

We love asterisks, it seems. So, we will include a review of all that achieve the level of HOF, but is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a panel of baseball experts of enhancement by strictly artificial means, doping, cheating in baseball, amphetamines, if any of these or obviously artificial methods seems most prevalent to their statistical accumulation, outside the ways we know existed in all eras. (Read: not sportswriters, but historians and analysts that take each reported case up as if they were the U.S. Supreme Court. I'd personally say a rotating group of 9 fellows at this new HOF. Two-year review cycle - and therefore, an appeal by said HOF candidate, to present evidence to overturn a "guilty" opinion. In essence, a fair review where a player (or his legal representative) can produce contrary/mitigating evidence that refutes or colors a "guilty by enhancement" ruling.)

Even then, those of guilt will just be included with the dreaded asterisk. We don't apply this without logic to new HOF. New system, analyzing a far different game across seven scores of time (140 years) means I am not allowing the current/ongoing scandal to ruin this HALL at the start.

Managers and other worthy candidates will be under a different methodology, yet to be determined here.

That's my baseball HOF rant.

Masahiro Tanaka to the Detroit Tigers: Is the plan for Dombrowski & Towers to Improve by Risk Analysis?

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 09:03:00 +0000

Masahiro Tanaka: The Next Ace of Detroit???

First Dombrowski Domino: Miguel Cabrera Can Deliver At 1st Base

Last week, Detroit and Texas pulled off one of those trades that shook the MLB world because it made so much sense. Prince Fielder to Texas and Ian Kinsler to Detroit, and Miguel Cabrera to first base, a place he stops by frequently en route to a .320 plus average with 5+ WAR. In that trade, Fielder moved to a hitter's haven; Kinsler provides decent 2B glove, good contact, and most importantly: a much shorter, less pricier commitment. Cabrera replacement at 3B potentially Nick Castellanos.

Ian Kinsler vs. Prince Fielder Analysis @ Various Rates of Returns

Rate of Return	8%
Time	0	1	2	3	4	5	6
Year	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	Value($M)
Ian Kinsler	$16.0	$16.0	$14.0	$11.0	$11.0			$68.0
Det Adj. Payroll	$16.0	$14.8	$17.1	$13.5	$12.5	$4.1	$3.8	$81.8
Prince Fielder	$24.0	$24.0	$24.0	$24.0	$24.0	$24.0	$24.0	$168.0
Detroit Pays TX			$6.0	$6.0	$6.0	$6.0	$6.0	$30.0
Texas Adj. Payroll	$24.0	$22.2	$15.4	$14.3	$13.2	$12.3	$11.3	$112.8

Differential	$M	Prefers		Yr-W	Ian	Prince	$Ian/WAR	$Prince/WAR
5%	33.85	Detroit		0	3.5	5	4.57	4.80
6.50%	32.34			1	3	4	4.94	5.56
8%	30.95	Neutral		2	2.5	3.5	6.86	4.41
10%	29.28			3	2	3	6.75	4.76
12%	27.78	Texas		4	2	2.5	6.25	5.29
				5	0	2	-	6.13
				6	0	1.5	-	7.56
				Total	13	21.5	6.29	5.24

The breakdown of the financials at various Rates of Returns shows the relative savings Detroit got and the potential upside from this domino falling in place. In real terms the savings is not $70M. Detroit depending on interest rates (the cost of capital and return rate expected for such risks) will be more in line to obtain only $31,000,000 in actual real savings at 8% Rate of Return.

Detroit will save the money, to be sure, but it hinges on how Prince declines or Ian declines. I made a very modest assumption on the fall off of Prince. I think he's start off well in Texas, all-star. Meanwhile, Ian will be about his normal rate of WAR, aside from one monster year in 2011. The differential of cost per WAR reflects Ian as a cheap front side option, whereas, Prince costs a bit more in those first years and his final years. Others peg it this way from MLB Trade Rumors:

Dave Cameron of Fangraphs loves the trade for Detroit, as they escape the burden of Fielder's contract and replace him with a player Cameron feels will post a similar WAR total in 2014. Plus, he adds, the $76MM savings would be enough to potentiall add Curtis Granderson and Joe Nathan to the fold. "Kinsler, Granderson, and Nathan, or Prince Fielder? These aren’t even close," writes Cameron.
Cameron also analyzed the deal from the Rangers' point of view, and while he's not as quick to heap praise on Texas, he understands the thinking and doesn't consider it a loss for the team. GM Jon Daniels found a good way to move Kinsler and add a first baseman, and opened up a hole for someone who is expected to become a very good player, says Cameron, "...But it was an expensive trade to make, and no team has unlimited resources."

The Next Step: Japanese Import Lands in Detroit

Detroit can now do various things with that money saved. Owner and former minor leaguer Mike Ilitch, at 84, likely can't spend all his money made from pizzas, Little Caesar's, and other numerous ventures. So, he may have given permission to Dombrowski to go for broke on a few candidates: Robinson Cano, Jacoby Ellsbury, Shin Soo Choo, or Masahiro Tanaka.

Tanaka? Why? Tigers had plenty of pitching for they post season, they just came up short, partly due to Fielder.

Well, Max Scherzer, represented Scott Boras, is in his final arbitration/soon-to-walk year. Boras also represents Ellsbury and Choo, and once did Cano, now represented by Jay-Z's new agency. So, no matter what you will be dealing with either Boras, or the new Boras, who wants to bid up Cano to astronomical levels ($300 million over a decade!) Even the mighty Yankees balked.

Scherzer's extension will be based off his last two seasons. Boras will move the needle towards a 5-6 year deal at $25 million on a 30-year old pitcher, who has been durable and reliable, but is: 5 years older than the Masahiro Tanaka.

Tanaka was analyzed on this blog. At that moment, I felt $90-100 million felt about right. I have reconsidered that once you factor in the new $25M per team in TV MLB revenues, also discussed on this blog he's gonna be well over a $100 million dollar add option. The market is slim on top tier pitching as teams are generally risk-adverse to give up young pitchers who are evaluated as top-of-the-rotation possibilities, until their market prices (20M+/yr) drives them out of price range of mid-to-small market teams. Those teams then look for other top-tier prospects in return - pitching if possible - and then repeat the cycle as needed.

The short of it on Tanaka: It is not necessarily more risky if you think Masahiro Tanaka and his 24-0 record in Japan and stuff can be a six-year-$150 million dollar deal, plausibly producing 30WAR in his prime years. Even at 20 WAR, while you potentially overpay $44.6M, accounting for rate of return at 8%, that will be mostly negated by $31M in savings from the Fielder deal if you were Detroit in this example. If Tanaka lives up to Yu Darvish-lite comparisons, he's worth the $80 million bid and $70 million sign over 6 years.

That said, the upfront investment costs of $80M is substantial and a regular sign would provide unique savings too. But the New York Daily News puts it this way:

Masahiro Tanaka, a 25-year-old right-handed pitcher for the Rakuten Golden Eagles, has what a teammate describes as a bulldog competitive nature and has drawn comparisons to Greg Maddux for his pitching precision. He threw an eye-popping 160 pitches in the only game he lost all season - Game 6 of the Japan Series - and then closed out the championship clincher the next night.

Several baseball folks said they could see Tanaka eventually scoring between $50-75 million, or more, for Rakuten in a posting fee and then getting perhaps $75 million more in a contract from his new team. That’d made him the priciest Japanese pitcher ever, passing Yu Darvish, who commanded a $51.7 million posting fee and a $60 million contract two winters ago.

For all that money, a club would be getting a pitcher who was 99-35 with a 2.30 ERA over seven seasons in Japan. Tanaka can “touch 97 (miles per hour) with his fastball and pitch around 93,” says a big-league scout sent to Japan last season to evaluate him.

The scout says Tanaka’s fastball is his best pitch of the six (fastball, curve, slider, changeup, cutter, splitter) he can throw.

Tanaka vs. Scherzer Financial Analysis

Masahiro Tanaka -

As you see, it ain't simple financially. But there are other motivations aside from just picking a relatively unknown to America, but obviously well-scouted Japanese pitcher, over a Cy Young award winner. That's leads to the final step.

The Final Step: Max Scherzer Traded back to Arizona

This one, cooked up by my zombie brain, takes place in a world with AZ President Kevin Towers being goaded a little more and then lubricated with alcohol. However, bare with me as I try to improve two teams to battle their nemeses in their respective leagues.

Detroit has 2013 Cy Young award winner Max Scherzer in his final season. He's now an ace, his xFIP (used for that Wins Above Replacement calculation) has always been mid 3's, but went down to a sparkling 3.16 last season. His stuff is every bit of that label - Ace.

So, his final season is gonna cost Detroit over $10M but maybe under $15M. Cheap. And extension would be undoubtedly be in the 5/6-year range for upwards of $150 million, especially since, an older Jason Vargas just got a 4-year deal at $32 million for being a 1-1.5 WAR/year pitcher. Scherzer's valuable floor, so far, is that of a 3WAR pitcher, while he just topped out at 6.4, according to Fangraphs. That range is part of the discussion used in comparing him to Masahiro Tanaka.

I think Scherzer is still at least a 20WAR pitcher for 6 seasons. Maybe a bit more (18-24 would not be implausible). However for this analysis, Arizona needs a 6WAR+ pitcher in the fold today, in 2014, if they are to match the payroll-is-no-object moves of the LA Dodgers, who just signed Dan Haren, ex-Arizona pitcher, and 2B Guerrero to friendly terms. Or San Francisco, who corralled their own 2-time Cy Young winner in Tim Lincecum, and good vet, coming-off-unfortunate injury in Tim Hudson to go with RF Hunter Pence for about $150 million, all total. Even San Diego signed Josh Johnson, the brittle man, hoping to get a recharge in park friendly PETCO before trying to land another payday.

So, Arizona needs to step it up a notch...or just bide time until Hillary gets elected in 2016.

The Trade : Ace for Potential Ace, a vet Bullpen Ace, and Middle Infielder that hits (so far)

Arizona does have limited payroll ability to sign guys in 2014-2015, however, they maybe can entice Detroit, who had bullpen problems, to take a package of veteran closer in J.J. Putz, top pitching prospect 21-year old Archie Bradley, and 22-year old SS/2B Chris Owings.

1) JJ Putz is a decent veteran closer, that could be an option for Detroit. 1 year left on the contract. So no commitment. A 2014 push for World Series...via the motivated vet wanting that title.

2) Bradley is a future ace potential. But that is still to be seen. Yet, as a top 10 prospect, his WAR value probably can't be under the 15-20 range as his floor for 6 seasons. He's 1 year away- or likely midseason - depending on the Arizona development plan, and arbitration clock for monetary reasons.

3) Owings did well in his call up and is very young. Detroit can pair him with Jose Iglesias or Kinsler. Basically, they have a guy that can fill in the middle infield, and hits well enough so far, that maybe he spells Kinsler or picks up Jose Iglesias's slack.

But Arizona gets a top of the rotation horse they know well. They traded him off to Detroit. Now, the Cy Young award winner, is signed and traded back? The new TV revenues will help Arizona out, one can presume, as does revenue sharing system that garnered $27M for the team. Their pitching lineup is better with Scherzer, Corbin, Miley, Cahill, Delgado, and Skaggs. They shop Brandon McCarthy as back end option - getting out from under the contract a bit. And therefore, can do a Scherzer deal.

Of course, this conjecture only works if Arizona values Scherzer for potentially an offset to the LA duo of Kershaw/Greinke, or SF's trio of arms in Bumgardner, Lincecum, and Cain, not necessarily in that order.

Now, is Archie Bradley not potentially a Max Scherzer? Sure. It could happen. But is that going happen immediately in 2014? Or 2015? Is Arizona built to win somewhat today, or are they going to wait, hoping the Dodgers collapse due to age factors? (While they have similar problems on several less meatier contracts...)

Arizona has been kicking the tires on Jeff Samardzija, the 3WAR pitcher, has 4-5WAR potential ace-like stuff. And another year of control to the equation...and a year younger than Scherzer. Yet, Theo & Jed are probably asking for Bradley and Skaggs back at minimum. Does Arizona no good. And it's a poor sell to Diamondbacks fans. A CY Young winner, former AZ stud, easier to spin that trade as a good deal.

For Arizona, it can be ok in the future...but it's gonna be hard to finish .500 because you can't stop the Dodgers' bats at present.

Dombrowski too has multiple ways to do things if cash is not his constraint. But at some point it always is. Tanaka may not post in 2014...then this idea goes bust!

And then he's back to Choo or Ellsbury as the missing piece at $125million plus. But a Tanaka add will not cost that 1st round pick - even as low as Detroit will pick - and this has a way of detracting those that know minor league talent keeps the major league team alive better.

So Dave: Swap talent, get younger, and add potential ace material and a potentially good bat to your order today. Arizona - you need a top of the rotation guy for at least 4 seasons. Scherzer will do so at a price. And Bradley is just a pop away from being cut open...hopes dashed.

Risk analysis at its finest!

My Final Analysis

So: 2014 World Series, or bust for Detroit!

Arizona, wait until Bradley becomes an ace...or spend on the gamble I have laid out.

JFK 1961 Inaugural Address: 50 Years since his passing

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 21:04:00 +0000

I was not born when the shots rang out that fell John Fitzgerald Kennedy, this date, 50 years ago. Kennedy was a hopeful man, in a critical time, that was found more wanting of his positive spirit after he perished. He made errors, to be sure, we are but mortal and flawed, but he wanting more for the United States, as this address showed. He was not given the time to make good, alone, on his dreams. Those came under different men that took up the causes he spelled out. And still have to, in order to achieve the measure of his and other presidencies.

So, enjoy this Youtube video. Watch and learn from a fallen leader.

Hitting Instructor Wanted: Barry Lamar Bonds

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 06:08:00 +0000

It's been awhile. Since I could hold my head up high...

Barry Bonds was locked in a battle with Major League Baseball for the last decade. He was followed around by ESPN's Pedro Gomez. The FDA/IRS's Jeff Novitzky made him steroid enemy number #1. BALCO & Barry. Barry & BALCO. The two were married, clinically. A jilted ex-girlfriend testifying to his lack of performance where it mattered to her; a trainer who had freedom to lose, and little to gain, got incarcerated but stayed mute; and it seemed Bonds marched on to the HR title without missing a beat. But he did...it showed like the steroids bloat that got him on the hot seat.

But this is not a full recounting of the travails of that lost decade. Bonds was found guilty of obstructing justice, and is still on appeal, though he has decided to do home detention/sentence recently. Which might present the opening for a MLB team short on hitting instruction to take a flier on Bonds, the hitting coach.

MLB proper may not allow or concede it is irrelevant to continue to punish a guy who is no longer playing in the game; as they spent plenty of time deriding and defiling the best hitter of his generation. And his numbers, prior to 2000, were 1st ballot HOF despite what some have dreamed up in their heads as reasons to question his abilities. Thereafter, given the reality he took PEDs, his prior achievements are all tarnished. Yet, he proved it still as testing came on-line and close scrutiny undoubtedly curtailed those visits to BALCO. But again, not the focus of this.

MLB's current nemeses are A-Rod in a laughable trial/hearing, and the standing suspension of Ryan Braun. After the craziness behind those two stories, even Bond's travails do not seem remotely close. Moreover, the road to MLB hitting instruction was paved well for Mark McGwire. Matt Williams got a job as a manager after his listing in The Mitchell Report. Jason Giambi still swung a bat in violence in 2013 at 42. Andy Pettitte threw the pill impressively in 2013 at 41.

So, Bonds is due for some redemption. As intelligent as any ballplayer when in his prime, can those playing skills translate to coaching or mentoring young ballplayers?

In a Sports on Earth article, Gwen Knapp recounts several instances where this took place:

Jim Warren, one of his personal trainers in the days before his body ballooned, has worked with countless professional athletes and calls Bonds "the hardest-working guy I've ever trained, by far. I've never had anybody work harder than Barry."
Teammates knew that Bonds could read situations better than anyone in the game. From the dugout and on deck, he would call a pitch before its release. He picked up on tells like a poker champ. "His baseball intelligence was off the charts," Van Slyke said.
Bonds studying a reliever as he warmed up, spotting a vulnerability the way a cat homes in on a wounded bird. "He couldn't throw his slider, it was all over the place, and Barry looks at me and says, 'You think he's going to throw me that slider, when he can't get it over the plate when no one's up there?" Snow said. "And he was right. The guy couldn't throw him a slider, because he didn't have confidence in it. Barry said, 'I'm not even going to look for that pitch.'" Did that help Snow? He shook his head. "I still had to look for it, because I wasn't the hitter Barry was."

It isn't that Bonds was the man you wanted as your best friend when you were teammates. He had mood swings and seemed preoccupied by the trivial and a weight of resentment he now seems free of in his new life and with his cycling girlfriend, who testified against the very thing Barry was accused of doing.

Bonds with his girlfriend and his new athletic endeavor

So it begs to question, can this supreme expert at OBP, SLG and playing left field, have the patience, the teaching skills, and the sticktoitiveness to face down the harshest critiques of those who will choose to see only the Bonds of old?

The hunger of an eager-to-bash media is about that sort of angle. Fans too, that are frustrated with their teams, will vent mercilessly online via Twitter or name-your-outlet. Could a team, such as the Cubs, do the PR campaign well? Take the focus off Bonds, the PED user, and focus it, if the results come, on Bonds, the instructor?

One can hope such things. Bonds has been detached from the game proper for 6 years. His trial has been over for quite a while. The sentence is done (probation, I suppose, remains?). And he might be ready for an entirely different life.

But I guess if you asked him to coach 1 season, he'd come. To prove he can train some talent to be the next Barry Bonds. Sometimes, you don't learn your lessons and gain the wisdom until long after you are defiled beyond forgiveness.

Staind puts a truthful melancholy on what Bonds did:

And everything I can't remember
As fucked up as it all may seem
The consequences that I've rendered
I've stretched myself beyond my means

But it's been awhile...

"Now instructing, Barry Lamar Bonds."

2013-14 Hot Stove: The Starting Pitcher Options

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 00:37:00 +0000

Since it would be inordinately difficult to post on 10-15 options in the market, and all the statistical analysis or insights, I have decided to put this up at DOC STOC and below.

It details the following pitchers, their recent numbers and graphics of importance gathered at the typical sources of Fangraphs, Brooks Baseball:

Erik Bedard
AJ Burnett
Scott Feldman
Roy Halladay
Dan Haren
Tim Hudson
Phil Hughes
Joe Saunders
Edison Volquez

This powerpoint shows the basic insights I had about these pitchers and salary expected for them. None are the top tier market setters. (You must download the PPT to get the information correctly (as I used animation to get less slides, but more analysis on them...))

I have also done analysis on Matt Garza, Ricky Nolasco, Scott Kazmir, and Masahiro Tanaka earlier this year. Those are found here (Garza v. Nolasco) and one for Kazmir plus Erik Bedard.

The man who changed baseball pitching by his surgery: Tommy John

Pitching is a premium commodity. Too many wind up hurt, as 1/3 now undergo Tommy John Surgery. Shoulder surgery on the labrum is more problematic in respect to what the Tommy John surgery success rate stands at now. As such, it seems the thin pitching market will continue on. Pitchers will get nice salaries not based on top-end performance, but potential to continue to pitch. As teams will lock up their gems if they can get to 25 without incident of arm trouble.

Yet, the offense in the league is down. So, if you got a decent enough 4.00 FIP pitcher, it's not so bad. As long as you can score around 4.5-4.7 runs, on average, to support him, wins will come a plenty.

Enjoy the presentation below! DOWNLOAD and view in Powerpoint!

FA OF Analysis: David Murphy, Curtis Granderson, Chris Young, Rajai Davis

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 18:18:00 +0000

The Tales of the Tape for 4 FA OFs

Curtis Granderson (left) pulls more hits, given Yankee Stadium in 2012-13; Murphy more spray, but power to Left Center in this 275 feet or greater hit/ out chart (red is an out)

It is a constant argument among baseball fans and analysts to find guys that will make their team the big winners for the next season. Today, will breakdown four outfielders that aren't named Choo or Ellsbury.
David Murphy(33 in October), Chris Young(31 in September), Rajai Davis(34 in October) and Curtis Granderson(33 before 2014 season) provide a good swath of potential targets for teams not looking to go $100M plus on the Boras' Megadeals yet consummated.

Granderson, just 1 season plus removed from 40+ homers, is the sexy pickup, a marketing campaign plus accolades and talent. Yankees offered a qualifying offer, which makes him less attractive to teams outside of the protected draft zone, the worst 10 teams in 2013. His more pressing problem: is he able to do what he once did? Can he bound back after a broken hand? His last two months of 2013 were a push: August good - September bad - with lots of strikeouts, few walks, and likely, a ton of frustration.

David Murphy and Chris Young suffered too at the plate, clocking a .227 and .237 BABIP. Rajai Davis had the most average season, as the triple slash of .260/.312/.375. Davis, never blessed with power, is also a few years removed from above league average OBP (.318-.319 was the MLB average, counting those pitchers.)

The Chart above reflects how these player swing at balls outside the zone. Davis is pretty much a free swinger, and has stayed that way. Murphy and Young are your consistent guys year in and out, Young is well above league average on not swinging at pitches astray. Murphy is as consistent as one can be. Granderson, has progressively gotten worse on swinging at balls out the zone. He could regress back to say 27.5%, but I am betting this could be a product of age decline.

David Murphy, Davis, and Granderson all started out their early careers within the same contact zone of around 90%. By 2010, though, the pattern broke. Murphy has stayed a good contact man on strikes. Chris Young seems to have improved as his career went on. Meanwhile, Granderson has slipped the last 3 seasons, becoming a 80% hitter in the zone. This patterns as a slugger that falls in love with jerking the ball out the park. It's not a judgment on the value of power over other things, but take him out of New York, and this flaw may not play well in parks less suited for lefties pulling everything.

Quickest thing: Murphy and Chris Young have BABIP about .075 points of the normal league average. So, regression to the mean is likely in 2014. Chris Young has never had a high BABIP, so his may be a function of other factors.

This decline struck all players. But who improves? The youngest Chris Young, or Murphy, have possibilities with BABIP, higher contact, and consistency with balls not in the zone.

Before 2011, each were likely options based on a range of expectations. Now, in 2013 off-season, it boils down to how you see Chris Young and Davis versus the travails of Granderson, and the ups and downs of Rajai Davis. Looking at the evidence, one can put a better spin on David Murphy if this has told us anything. Granderson would rank 3rd on the list behind Young as an option.

Granderson's age while maybe not as bad in the year 2014, compared to 1984 or 1954, is still on the decline side of a career.

Our last graphic is Davis and Young's spray chart:

Both are pull side hitters, though Davis seems less likely to ever hit one out past Left Center. Young has some straight away power, but not overwhelming.

The Final Call on OFers

So, if you are in the market for an OF, David Murphy has the best mix of tools, potential luck, and relative patience to get a starting job and make a difference. Chris Young rates next best. Granderson should take the $14.1M and be glad to stay in New York to pull balls to his content. Rajai Davis will stay at it, but I am not expecting big things out of him.

TV Economics of Baseball: Bubble of Money Will Drive Up Salaries And Burst

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Fri, 08 Nov 2013 11:55:00 +0000

Your Dollars At Work To Fuel A Bubble

Unless you have been in a coma since 2008, you have heard that the U.S. Fed has employed quantitative easing (QE) to increase liquidity for their BFFs: the U.S. Banks. From investopedia:

A government monetary policy occasionally used to increase the money supply by buying government securities or other securities from the market. Quantitative easing increases the money supply by flooding financial institutions with capital, in an effort to promote increased lending and liquidity.

Onto the MLB. The TV powers that be, have employed a similar type of quantitative easing, providing a huge liquidity bump for the 30 MLB teams bottom lines. (For the actual watching of Fox, TBS, or ESPN a fan can just watch with sound on mute while listening to someone more tolerable.)

The megadeals: ESPN will increase their contribution from $306 million to $700 million per year until 2021. Meanwhile, TBS and Fox were busy slicing and dicing the playoff schedule, weekends game slots, and otherwise, putting more into the collective TV revenue pie. From Fangraphs Wendy Thurm, their resident payroll specialist:

...a new national TV contract with Fox and TBS, which also covered the 2014 through 2021 seasons. Under that deal, MLB will receive $800 million per year in combined revenue from the two networks, in exchange for broadcasts rights for the Saturday game of the week on Fox, the Sunday game on TBS and all of the postseason games — save for the one that will be broadcast on ESPN. Fox also retains the rights to the All-Star Game.

As she calculated, this is $1.5 Billion per season for 30 MLB teams, or a more pedestrian $50 million per team, doubling the old amount that split up to only $25 million per team. TV broadcasters (acting as the Fed) has eased any MLB's liquidity issues (as often espoused by any number of cry-poor billionaire owners). So what is the influence of such influx of fresh capital to MLB teams?

Anticipating TV Money

One saw the first signs of the QE-driven money growth in the land of big: Texas. In 2010, the Texas Rangers were first to the money trough , garnering a hefty $80 million per year in local TV revenues from their $3 billion, 20-year deal. (Reflecting about a 40% cut to MLB of $1.4 Billion.)

The Angels (of the West Coast), just two weeks before Christmas 2011 doubled down on Albert Pujols and lefty C.J Wilson in lieu of their jackpot sized $3-Bill TV deal. I discussed the potential downfall of that acquisition/deal here. To quote myself:

Going back to the 1970s, the free agent market consistently (and by various more profound and professorial sources) has disappointed many teams - great big market franchises and the small markets shops. Small markets have been burnt the most. Colorado great shopping spree for Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle. Texas and A-Rod. Cincinnati and Ken Griffey, Jr. San Francisco and Barry Zito. (San Fran [then] hit big on Cain and Lincecum.) Chicago and Alfonso Soriano. Boston (so far) with Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, as we (the fans or the analysts) will have to give that buy some time. But time and again, to be cliché, these high-end (and long-term) deals get no where close to being a successful merger, turning out more like AOL and Time Warner than anything Apple touches lately.

At this holiday season, Pujols has to be smilling and saying, "Hey! Hey! Hey!" or "Ho! Ho! Ho!" to all his friends and family. Because, when you look at the history, the ghosts of contracts past, the evidence is fairly dooming for the Angels. The chains of cash, the debt load, usually snap, and ownerships that behaved like a reformed Scrooge giving Bob & Co. gifts galore, will soon be uttering "Bah humbug!!!" once again.

Ah, tis the hot stove season.

not to be outdone, in 2012 the LA Dodgers seemed to lose perspective by acquiring numerous over 30 players with heavy contracts. The massive August 25, 2012 trade by the Boston Red Sox put Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Nick Punto, Adrian Gonzalez, and cash in the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers for players to be named later: Ivan De Jesus, James Loney and Allen Webster. The Dodgers later sent Rubby De La Rosa and Jerry Sands to the Red Sox. This trade maneuver has grown greatly out of favor among baseball's new intelligentsia; the MBA-statistical clad front offices that populate the Majors from Boston, Tampa, to Texas and Chicago, and onward westward ho to Oakland, but just not LA LA.

The on-the-field reasons for the Dodgers likely laid in their arch-rival, San Francisco Giants, winning a World Series in 2010, who reupped the ante by completing the feat again in 2012. Dodgers were sans championship status for nearly a quarter century, and just freed of the debacle of ownership that Frank McCourt brought in through a messy divorce from wife, CEO of the Dodgers. (At one point the crux of a settlement hinged on TV deal: that of Major League Baseball approving a 17-year television contract between the Dodgers and FOX Television. That fell through. But Guggenheim Baseball Management took over, buying the Dodgers north of $2Billion.)

But lo, the Dodgers came out in early 2013 with a $8.5 Billion deal over 25-years with Time Warner Cable. After MLB gets its slice of the pie, the Dodgers were likely to retain in the neighborhood of $6 billion over that 25-year cycle. Calculate that: $240 Million per year into the LA Dodgers coffers.

As The LA Times reported, "In its first year of ownership, Guggenheim put $100 million into an initial round of Dodger Stadium renovations and took on more than $600 million in player salaries. The spending spree — and the record $2.15 billion Guggenheim paid for the team, stadium and land — was fueled partly in anticipation of the billions that would flow when the Dodgers sold their television rights." This deal also created the SportsNet LA network. Money is flowing like LA lava out of the Tommy Lee Jones debacle, Volcano.

Players Salaries UP!

You don't need to know much economic theory (hey I stayed at Holiday Inn, so I'm good) to figure this money will not just reside in the hands of those billionaire owners. Players have eyes; and their agents that smell money like Kanye West finds more ways to be more annoying. Chief among the super-agents, Scott Boras commented, "These days, a franchise's No. 4 hitter is no longer in uniform. The No. 4 hitter is the guy who negotiates the contract for the TV rights." Doesn't that say it all?

As Jeff Passan reinforces, "baseball's more than seven-fold growth over the last 21 years – from a $1.2 billion business to an $8.5 billion behemoth – first came on the backs of taxpayers with municipality-backed sweetheart stadium deals and today balloons thanks to consumers' monthly television bills." Again, one can thank a plethora of QE practice, as interest rates were held down several times (post-9/11) and since the 2007-9 Great Recession have been conveniently low so banks can get their balance sheets in order.

The sweatheart deals came at threats of leaving for a better marketing area. This in concert with increasing entertainment dollars spent to satiate an otherwise unhappy middle American, whose finances have been linked to a unholy triumvirate: mortgages as ATMs, stagnant wages, and debt over savings. But I digress.

Passan omens too the inflationary pressures and bubble-creating problems of these TV deals: "And some are wondering if the billions of dollars being tossed around are dangerous for the game's long-term health. The most interesting debate in baseball these days isn't Bryce Harper vs. Mike Trout. It's bubble or no bubble with TV dollars."

The economics of baseball is so important to the game's functionality, that those eager-quantifying MBAs are now every bit as important (if not even more vital) as those scouts, and coaches, and managers who generate reports on a players' potential and abilities. You see, on one hand, the locking up of players earlier, to avoid slightly over-priced arbitration years, and high-priced free agent seasons as LHP Martin Perez just got a cost-controlled contract; and then, on the other, the Money Bowl of Free Agency, an action-packed hot stove struggle between the hedge fund MLB teams and the super-agent shilling for his star client as the answer to everything up to cancer's cure for a .500 team that got a new TV deal.

The San Franciscans were the first out of the box in late 2013 to plunk down their chips on over 30 players, signing Hunter Pence to 5yr/$90M and Tim Lincecum 2yr/$35M contracts. The analytical types who feel this is antithetical to say a Tampa Rays Model of success (trade before expensive or close to 30), forget the market is influenced by perceived ability to pay for and obtain solid contributions from marketable players.

Agents, like Boras, are pumping prices for Jacoby Ellsbury and Shin-Soo Choo to average annual salaries to $22-24 million for 5-7 years, matching the low-end of the top 100 paid CEOs in 2012. Last I checked, neither of these men, are Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, or even, Sandy Koufax.
Not to be outdone, Ervin Santana desires $100 million and Ricky Nolasco north of $80 million. The latter, I made a rather harsh analysis of his stuff back in July of this year. But they are just following the TV market trend, ample money for 30-year olds that look like they can hold up for 5 more seasons. The 2012 FA market for pitching saw Edwin Jackson and Anibal Sanchez, roughly .500 pitchers with mid 3.00- to mid-4.00 ERAs getting paid handsomely (yes, I know about advanced metrics such as xFIP; that's a different conversation.)

So believe, I say, earn all you can: but I would say also, "at what price will this trend be a detriment to the game, the economics of which is unsustainable?"

The Billion Dollar Media Baby to Burst

MLBTradeRumors put together a nice snapshot of current payroll outlays at present:

Clearest Booms: the Dodgers have over $500 Million on their books through 2020. The Angels, only at $400 million, with San Francisco and Detroit in the high 300's. Then, you drop to Cincinnati at $300 million flat. But all of that barely tickles the projected revenues going forth as Bloomberg related in the annual, "we are guessing, but its good," MLB revenues/valuation piece.

The graph of the valuation of all 30 teams is up above. Note: None are below $500 million in estimated value.

Currently, per the Bloomberg Model, 10 teams are above $1 Billion in potential selling price. (Which would of course be financed by acquiring a lot of debt, with slim equity, so as to enhance returns on investment under the U.S. Tax Code, a.k.a. the Leverage Buyout.)

So, the health of the real estate of baseball seems very good. But, like the boom market in real estate in 2001-2006, what goes up, will, eventually, at some point, go down, and hard. Even in the make believe land of this closed sports system, something will give. Such TV deals are hinged on viewership and marketing to them products via those lovely 2 minute and 2 second breaks.

The media world is also going through cataclysmic time: print is out, iPads in; network out, on-demand in; old-school cable out, Sat TV, or Youtube-streaming, in. And this is from someone that liked the old, as much as the new. It is not that MLB will not continue to see attendance at their games. Or won't acquire a foothold in the new ways to do things, MLB.TV and minor leagues on separate channels, being apart of that. But those pieces are small parts of the revenue puzzle.

Again, Passan, puts this scenario together:

"The thought goes like this: When a network pays huge money for a sports team's TV rights, it hikes its carriage fee for cable providers. The best regional sports networks (RSNs) cost upward of $3 a month for cable and satellite providers to provide to each household. With monthly TV bills already exorbitant and more options to provide entertainment, from Netflix to Hulu and beyond, consumers could rebel against the single-payment system and choose what they view a la carte. One executive who has negotiated TV deals worries that the sport will find itself embroiled in litigation and needing an entirely new method of distribution to cater to the on-demand generation."

That hasn't stopped anyone yet from going to the TV money trough. The Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies are next up for renegotiating their deals from whatever TV dosey-doe partner they choose from. They will get in on the action, drive up the FA prices, as they both have plenty of room to get to at least Detroit levels of payroll. (Chicago might not seem as eager; debt loads from the Ricketts purchase and a $300 million renovation, held up by their rooftop neighbors, seems where the funnel of cash will flow first.)

The final problem is: Can these long-term deals (remind you of those sub-prime mortgages then packaged up) actually hold up under the dispersion of people's eyes to other places not baseball. (Or the cheating the system to watch things free - streaming is very popular: ask Game of Thrones fans.) And once people tire too of hearing about Robinson Cano's getting anywhere near $30 million; or five-seven years hence, the $40 million per year wunderkind who tosses a fastball 100MPH for 7 innings; or hits a ball 500 feet once a month, those revenue shortfalls will affect the game. (Not today, but soon, maybe 2020-2023, as you can only print money so long before inflationary pressures began to take tolls on the greater economy.)

Unless China, Africa, or Europe, start giving big love to the bigs, and furthermore, want to indefinitely support the United States debts and entertainment complex thereof, this Model for Money to Multi- Millionaires and Billionaires (MMMB) is gonna to blow up like the housing bubble. Not that many non-baseball fans will care. But, others will - like me - who feel the sport has just become a MBA-Marketing project designed to sell me Coke, iPads, Samsung phones, and whatever vehicle gets me to their ballpark best, will suffer.

Though, once the game breaks down, a dearth of the money, maybe like politics, it might become a brave new sport all again. To quote Craig Calcaterra, "It’s a new world out there. Or will be soon."
Just don't expect all the glitters to become TV gold.

As Shakespeare wrote in the Merchant of Venice:

“All that glitters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life has sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold
Had you been as wise as bold,
Your in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been in'scroll'd
Fare you well: your suit is cold.' Cold, indeed, and labour lost: Then, farewell, heat and welcome, frost!”

As the National League approaches its seven score existence, we should wonder what those founders would think.

Free Agent Analysis CF Franklin Gutierrez: New Tools for Big Data and Old Fashion Park Factors

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 10:56:00 +0000

The New Tool: Online Spray Charts for Players Comparisons/Parks/Yearly

Recent technology is great. New ways are being created and adapted daily to handle and analyze Big Data. For baseball, this is highly important. As it is at the heart of understanding who is able to do what on a field which is now upwards of a $200+ million decision for the elite free agent players. For perspective: the Anaheim Angels (LA) were bought for under $200 million barely a decade ago. Now those Angels have Albert Pujols, one of those $200 million dollar investments on their books for a decade.

That said, Fangraphs (where the tool below was found), Brooks Baseball, Baseball America, Baseball-Reference, Cot's Contracts, MLBTraderumors, and quite a few others provide the backbone of substantial fan-based research. All one has to do is seek and ye shall find. (There is even a Baseball Bible.)

So, analysis has to be done in a variety of ways, and represented in ways people can wrap their brains around. Which, for the analysts, requires more pictures, maybe less numbers, for some decision makers. (All people have their unique tendencies on how they like 'Data': some like verbal convincing or appealing word choices, some visual and graphic representation, while some are more about the emotive/feeling, or, if you will, the gut/visceral. Connecting across the spectrum is the only way to be more inclusive. Yet, this is difficult unless you know your crowd/audience.)

But back to baseball.

Franklin Gutierrez 2012-2013 Long Ball Spray Charts

Learn About Tableau

The above shows all balls Gutierrez hit over 300 feet at home (left) and away (right). Playing in Seattle, he is at a negative disadvantage on hitting the long ball as the park is pitcher friendly (table below). As time has worn on, he is decidedly a pull hitter on all balls. Typically many older guys fall into a few categories: becoming more pull-happy; more able to go the other way, as they are in more control and experienced on the pitching they see; or, increasingly becoming unable to catch up with good heat, or nasty pitches and either missing them or fouling them off even when in the zone.

From Brooks Baseball Landing Page for Gutierrez:

Against All Fastballs (480 seen), he has had an exceptionally poor eye (0.67 d'; 63% swing rate at pitches in the zone vs. 37% swing rate at pitches out of the zone) and a steady approach at the plate (0.01 c) with an above average likelihood to swing and miss (21% whiff/swing).

Against Breaking Pitches (206 seen), he has had a league average eye (0.80 d'; 62% swing rate at pitches in the zone vs. 31% swing rate at pitches out of the zone) and a steady approach at the plate (0.09 c) with an exceptionally high likelihood to swing and miss (47% whiff/swing).

Against Offspeed Pitches (77 seen), he has had a poor eye (0.77 d'; 71% swing rate at pitches in the zone vs. 41% swing rate at pitches out of the zone) and a steady approach at the plate (-0.17 c) with an above average likelihood to swing and miss (39% whiff/swing).

2013 Ball Park Factors (Bottom 5, courtesy of Rotogrinders)

BALLPARK	TEAM	HOME RUNS	RUNS SCORED	HITS	DOUBLES	TRIPLES	LHB-Rating	RHB-Rating
PNC Park	Pittsburgh Pirates	0.580	0.907	1.007	0.950	0.677	0.89	0.91
Marlins Park	Miami Marlins	0.715	1.072	1.030	1.189	1.383	0.95	0.91
AT&T Park	San Francisco Giants	0.741	0.850	0.951	0.989	1.914	0.99	0.94
Safeco Field	Seattle Mariners	0.781	0.921	0.989	1.070	0.661	0.94	0.95
O.co Coliseum	Oakland Athletics	0.801	0.910	0.979	1.089	1.400	0.90	0.98

Gutierrez is now a dead pull guy in a bad park for home run generation. But 2013, offered him hope as the Seattle's Safeco Field walls were slightly moved in to increase home runs. A total of 88 dingers were seen at Safeco, as the Mariners (from Baseball Reference), did not enjoy the park that much:

B-R 2013 Seattle Mariners

(Over 100 favors batters, under 100 favors pitchers)

Multi-year: Batting - 92, Pitching - 92; One-year: Batting - 97, Pitching - 98

So what value does The Death to Flying Things have?
He's a platoon guy against lefties that can plausibly hit soft tossing right handers as the slugging graph below reflects and this Brooks Baseball link will further bare out for RHP woes from 2011-2013.

Guiterrez, you pair in a platoon with a lefty hitter that cannot face lefties. The Death to Flying Things has a deadly problem against right-handed pitching. Only soft tossing righties who live on only cutters and curves are fine. Gas. Sinker/sliders put the Gut on the bench. In 2013, Seattle attempted this usage best they seemingly could as both May and July were totally lost due to injury.

If one can hope for optimal health, Gutierrez plays against 30-40 LHP starters, Pinch hits against lefties, plays against those rare righties without gas or wicked sliders, so he can marginally be effective against that, and one would hope as a fielding substitute in RF. Get around 225-250PAs.

Optimally you pair him with Nate Schierholtz if you are the Cubs. Who can handle the other 450-500PAs, optimally. Here's why:

So you have the ideal match up of guys that have flaws but together could be a slugging force in Wrigley, where it plays to Gutierrez natural pull tendencies on windy days. Gutierrez is the more part-time player, likely at best a .5-1.0 WAR player, if you get optimal results. Scheirholtz is the 1.0 to 2.0 type of player.

Together, it works for the salary it will entail to have both.

2014 Cubs Plan B (Hitting): The Low Cost and Unloved Over 30 Male

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 02:45:00 +0000

In the pitching part, I discovered a few quality buys for the Chicago Cubs. Today, will explore the hitting side of the equation. Fielding too is important, but since Rizzo, Castillo, and Castro and Barney, are likely as not, going anywhere with their contracts, gloves, and age the reasons, that leaves all 3 OF spots, 3B, and backup catching.

Back ups & Catching: Cheap is the Route

Here is the dearth of the MLB, good catching. The options are always "good glove, no hit" or "power/high average but poor ass glove." If you have a catcher like Posey, Mauer, and now, Yadi Molina, you count your blessings.

For all but the crazy risk takers, catching is at best, 125-135 game per season job. If a guy doesn't rest at least 1 day per week, he'll be wore out by end of August. Pretty much when pennant races are reaching the climax, a good catcher, playing every day, is gonna be spent. So like every smart manager does, they sign a backup that can either:
1) Hits, but doesn't field well
2) A personal catcher for a 'certain' pitcher
3) Great field, can't hit the Pacific with an aircraft carrier
4) Switch hitter or opposite of the plate from the starter
5) Or: Promotes up a catcher from the minors to learn for the next two seasons
6) Or lastly: Cheap, but old, before all the rest

Here's your cheap options:

1) Brayan Pena is 32. Switch hitter. Makes contact. Very cheap fit. Not great, but he’s passable defense and offense. No pop, or OBP plus.
2) Carlos Ruiz? But he’s much older, and will likely want 10M plus.
3) Geovany Soto? walks over 10% in 2013. Has pop (ISO .221), but K% is 32%. Right hand hitter who knows Chi town. Will also want cash. May not like Chicago anymore.
4) Kurt Suzuki? BABIP was .245 in 2013. Makes contact, low K rate. Push with glove, could bounce back on the glove.

So those are your cheap options, but here's your expensive ones.

1) Brian McCann and Jarrod Saltalamacchia

McCann is your Lefty OBP guy who hits the righties substantially better. Saltalamacchia is another good hitter; switch hitter that is better against the righties. Both are at 29/30 years of age. The golden marker for decline in a career. Some decline like a roller coaster, and others, are more like a cruise down the Cumberland Gap.

Both guys will be at the zenith of $10M plus per year. With Yadi Molina making $15M per, you will see McCann approaching that. Both will want 3-4-5 years. How are you gonna afford that, when you currently have no one paid over $13 million (Jackson) or Soriano ($13M) on another team?

Cubs: Brayan Pena is at Kinzer Management Group. Starlin Castro and Junior Lake are represented there. He's a potential cheap option for the Chicago, given they are all hopeful Welington Castillo will follow up his breakout with several seasons of production.

The Veteran Corner Infielder: Kevin Youkilis

Youkilis was hurt, injured, and is no longer the Greek God of Walks. He'll be 35 in March 2014. Coming off three straight poor seasons. He's made his money, $56M to be close to exact. He's no longer the full-time player he once was. But, is he healthy? Is he able to play 50 or 60 games? Pinch hit? Make a difference by helping young guys Rizzo and Bryant or Olt become better players at 1B/3B?

Youkilis could rebound and with his decent eye and hopeful power, a MLB contract for 2M in 2014, with an incentive for 2M for 80 games or 225ABs, which turns into a vesting for a 4M deal in 2015, could plausibly entice. Theo Epstein's prior relationship with the veteran will either help, or hurt. (Don't know the nature of that.) What Youkilis brings is veteran leadership, a prior World Series, and winning ways.

I envision Youkilis can be a guy like Richie Hebner was with the Cubs in his final playing seasons. He played 3B, 1B and LF for the Cubs, but mainly pinch hit. The "Grave Digger" was great in his 1984 Cubs role. A guy that hit .333 and had an eye and contact on his mind. Youkilis doesn't have to be great, just able to accept his decline with aplomb.

Center Field Platoon: Gutierrez and Grady, or more likely, The Rajai

Franklin Gutierrez and Grady Sizemore. Sizemore first. As a injury victim, he is the riskiest part of this plan. His days may be over completely. 32 in August 2014, he hasn't played since 2011. So, his career might be over. Nevertheless, attempting to see if he's able to play is a low-risk move. Offering him an incentive-laden contract of 2 years, based on making the club out of spring training, is a deal. Offer him more potential than he's had for years. And putting him with Gutierrez, both Cleveland guys in the minors in 2004 IL with Buffalo, makes it workable. Grady the lefty, Gutierrez, the righty. (Though they maybe both corners at this point, Gutierrez played some in CF, but putting Ryan Sweeney in the CF slot is possible.)

Gutierrez was oft injured in 2012 and 2013. In his 150 ABs in 2013, he popped 10 home runs. He finished the season with a homer in his last game. So, we must be beer googling for hope he'll rebound in health.

Other, more healthy options are Rajai Davis - he's a centerfield option, makes good contact, but walks only about 5% of the time. He swings way too often (35.8%) at pitches outside the zone. Compare this to a guy like Shin Soo-Choo (22%) and you get the reason why Choo is potentially a $100M player according to MLB Rumors or Jacoby Ellsbury (28.1%).

Without the cash, the Cubs are without quick answers in the outfield. Their best minor options are in A+/AA (Albert Almora and Jorge Soler), while Brett Jackson and Matt Szczur have likely no chance of staying in Chicago come 2014. These acquisitions come at a lower cost. Davis is represented by SFX, who handle a number of Cubs clients, would be an in. So: Davis, Gutierrez, and a flier on Sizemore.

The Corner OF Man: David Murphy

Murphy is a healthy guy whose swing at balls outside the zone is above par (29.3%), good strike zone contact (93.6% - 8th for 105 corners outfielders with over 50PAs), but was unlucky in 2013 as his BABIP (.227) will undoubtedly rebound. He's likely to require a bit more commitment and salary than nearly all the others. 3 years for $20M, seems about right even at 32. (He will be 33 come next October.)

Cubs Infield in 2014:

Catching - Castillo, Pena 1B - Rizzo, Youkilis 2B- Barney, Valbuena, Alcantara (June) 3B- Olt, Youkilis, Valbuena, Bryant, Baez(June or Sept) SS - Castro, Valbuena, Baez (again, June to September)

The Outfield:

Schierholtz, Sweeney, David Murphy, Gutierrez, Davis, Lake, Soler (Sept)

Pitching (See Part 1 for Kazmir and Bedard Analysis)

Starting Pitching: Jackson, Kazmir, Samardzija, Wood, Bedard (Arrieta)

Bullpen: Strop, Russell, Villanueva, Grimm, Bard, Arrieta

In The End...

No plan is perfect, or without risk. The players must want to come, the injury bugs pass over your house, the guys start performing like its 1999, but this is a low-cost way to become competitive. Risk is spread out, not lumped into a $120M plus contract like Barry Zito, Alfonso Soriano, Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, Mike Hampton, Denny Neagle, and that list grows longer, yearly.

With the influx of talent coming in the minors, you don't lose much cash either if you put on waivers or trade away these vets on short deals. 2-3 years is all I would go on a over 30 guy. These guys will be lucky, and glad, to get these sort of deals.

And who knows? You might get a 1984 Cubs-like run with vets: Cey, Matthews, Eckersley, Sutcliffe, Bowa, and Hebner who all contributed with the young bucks in Sandberg, Durham, Dernier, Davis, Moreland, etc.

Will see.

Cubs 2014 Plan B (Pitching): If at first you don't succeed, you try to convince again!

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 08:12:00 +0000

Free Agency Moves on the Pitching Side

I felt it necessary to revise my offseason for the Cubs, focused on Free Agents that are affordable, and less on trade pieces. For one, the best mechanism I can predict is the free agent market. Trades, its a matter of the two teams agreeing on much more than can be predicted via the outside eye. As such here are the targets, their positives and negatives, and projected contract offers.

Scott Kazmir

Rebound pitcher with ace-like stuff. Represented by the The Legacy Agency, the same agency that Edwin Jackson used to get a 4yr/52M deal. Francisco Liriano is also represented by Legacy. So to Kazmir. At 30 in 2014, Kazmir showed increasing velocity in 2013, which Fan Graphs notes a down tick at the end, Brooks Pitch F/X is more accurate, as they do adjustments, game to game, park to park.

Late Season Games	4Seam	Sinker	Change	Slider
ANA@CLE (8/9/13)	93.97	90.65	81.29	85.60
CLE@OAK (8/18/13)	93.32	90.25	80.34	83.88
MIN@CLE (8/25/13)	94.37	93.82	80.51	86.25
CLE@DET (8/31/13)	94.14	91.20	80.75	83.36
NYN@CLE (9/6/13)	94.28	94.11	80.75	85.03
KCA@CLE (9/11/13)	95.62	93.79	80.78	83.69
CLE@KCA (9/16/13)	94.51	92.52	81.04	83.87
HOU@CLE (9/21/13)	93.66	92.85	80.27	84.04
CLE@MIN (9/28/13)	92.85	92.64	78.83	83.27

Moreover, his 9.2K/9IP, 2.7BB/9IP in 158 IP is impressive also.
His RH/LH splits bode well also: RH hitters were .342 BABIP. This happened on all pitches but his cutter and curve, where those averages where decidedly better, .273 and .286. LH hitters had a pedestrian BABIP, and Kazmir exploited a 7.1K/BB ratio. Amazingly good.

So the downside? Injury risk. He's never crack 175IP since 2007, his sole 200+IP season. So that's the concern.

Kazmir's potential contract:
Year 1: 5M base, 3M incentive for 150IP
Year 2: 5M base, 6M incentive for 160IP
Year 3: 8M base on a vesting option of 300IP in Year 1 and 2, incentive of 4M. Player opt out clause.

Kazmir might be a break the pattern type. And 2-3 seasons of stability could be what he needs.

Erik Bedard

Another buy low candidate. Erik Bedard is older, slightly less impressive version of Scott Kazmir, afflicted by injuries, and lost velocity. Represented by SFX, who has Cubs players Daniel Bard, Welington Castillo, Carlos Villanueva, and minor leaguers Tony Zych and Dan Vogelbach in the fold.
Bedard's 2013 season was decent enough for 26 starts in 151IP. He struck out 8.2 batters per 9IP. Walk a bit more than one would tend to like. However, he's at the age when he should be losing velocity, yet that did not happen in 2013 as this chart indicates:

The slight uptick in velocity bodes well for a potential 2-year deal at 4.5M plus 2M for staying off the DL for consecutive days, or over 135IP in year 1, then 150IP in year 2. Bedard pitches better with more rest (6 days), as his BABIP is .025 below his 4/5 day totals.
His pitch selection has changed to Fastball (50%), Cutter (17.5%), Change (13%) and Curve (19%) according to Fangraphs.

Mostly, he's a safety valve sign. Both these guys are sign-worthy because you can never have too much pitching, ask: the 2013 LA Dodgers, the 2004-2006 Chicago Cubs. Dodgers had Billingsley and Beckett on the DL. Cubs, as we know, were Prior and Wood.

Other Contenders: Johan Santana (health proven first) is also represented by The Legacy Agency.

Grant total potentially for 3 years of Kazmir and 2 years of Bedard: $39.5M.

The point is to buy low, diversify the portfolio of pitching. The Cubs never have enough lefty starters. As it stands, over the last 16 seasons, getting on base in Wrigley as a lefty has been a better proposition than as a righty. Righties still have the slugging average won. But, as we know, OBP leads to runs. So we should want guys that can stop this. Kazmir is a definite lefty split option. Bedard, not as good, but cheap.

Analysis of Wrigley Field OBP for all RH and LH Cubs Batting

In the late 1990s, lefties loved getting on base in Wrigley: Mark Grace, Mickey Morandini, Brant Brown, Henry Rodriguez are some of them.

So, I am reasonable to think having good lefties can counteract teams that can hit in Wrigley. Plus, it never hurts to have 2-3 lefty starters. Right now, Travis Wood is the lone southpaw. And his stuff is not dominating as a .248 and .244 BABIP has assisted him greatly in 2012/2013. In short, adding two lefties, or at least, 1 LHP is a must.

Tomorrow will discuss offensive adds: David Murphy, Franklin Gutierrez, Kevin Youkilis, and others.

Potential Moves for 2014 Chicago Cubs:Break On Through to the Other Side

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 08:56:00 +0000

Breaking Down The Ball Club

The primary goals of the last two years have been accomplished: lose, while acquiring talent via trades, drafts, and international signings. Some of this intentional plan was the only way to get a minor league system built up to support a longer term vision: that of winning perennially. This Cubs administration is attempting to carve out a new organization, renovate Wrigley, build new facilities and a trigger a growth in revenues.

So, why is 2014 the time and the place to finally break on through to the other side?

1) Payroll cleared in 2013. 2013 Cubs season was a fire sale. All non-on-the-field performing assets, those that could not be seen as helping the future squads (except by return of cash, prospects) were cut loose. An estimated 13.65 million was trimmed before the season ended.
2) Talent acquired. Since Theo/Jed hiring in late 2011, the Cubs have been stockpiling talent as my prior post on Girardi's fit as their 2014 manager cited.
3) Renovation, even stalled, has ad revenues being moved on. The signage will come...
4) TV contract. 2014 is the renewal for 50% of it. So, I suspect part of that negotiation is selling them on the idea of a competitive team in 2014, 2015, etc. To do so, free agent acquisitions, increased movements on minor talents are the only way to properly motivate a such rights value upward.
5) Cubs remaining payroll is rather small (under $100M), and can still with this revised 25-man roster (without overpriced FA adds I made earlier):

		Player	Payroll
1	SP	FA Pitcher: Scott Kazmir	$ 7,500,000
2	SP	Travis Wood	$ 3,600,000
3	SP	Jeff Samardzija	$ 4,900,000
4	SP	Edwin Jackson	$ 13,000,000
5	SP	Jake Arrieta	$ 1,350,000

6	RP	Daniel Bard	$ 1,862,500
7	RP	Justin Grimm	$ 550,000
8	RP	Carlos Villanueva	$ 5,000,000
9	RP	Hector Rondon	$ 550,000
10	RP	Fyuji Fujikawa	$ 4,500,000
11	RP	James Russell	$ 1,700,000
12	CL	Pedro Strop	$ 1,000,000

13	C	Welington Castillo	$ 750,000
14	C	FA Catcher: Brayan Pena	$ 2,500,000

15	1B	Anthony Rizzo	$ 1,250,000
16	2B	M. Ellis	$ 7,500,000
17	3B	Donnie Murphy	$ 1,000,000
18	SS	Starlin Castro	$ 5,860,000
19	UT	Mike Olt *	$ 525,000
20	UT	Luis Valbuena	$ 1,500,000

21	LF	Carlos Beltran	$ 10,000,000
22	RF	Nate Schierholtz	$ 3,800,000
23	CF	Junior Lake	$ 525,000
24	OF	Brian Bogusevic	$ 550,000
25	OF	Ben Zobrist	$ 7,500,000
		Additional Contracts	$ 21,870,000
		Total	$ 108,692,500

Off-season Moves (No David Price, But the Prices Are Right)

Biggest Trade: Ben Zobrist acquired from Tampa. He is on an option year. $7.5M is pricey for a potential free agent that Tampa could parlay into prospects, and vets. Cubs could trade Darwin "No Hit, Gold Glove" Barney, Josh Vitters, and Dan Vogelbach to the Rays; maybe a starter/relief pitcher too (Chris Rusin), but then the Cubs would acquire a minor leaguer back (2B Ryan Brett) from Tampa. Vogelbach is a power hitting DH/1B that may stick get to stick in 2 seasons. Rays can employ him down the road... Vitters is another potential 3B/1B or LF, but hasn't done it yet. Vitters, at 23/24, is more a throw-in than anything else but could be potentially another Josh Donaldson acquisition made by Oakland.

2nd Trade: Acquire Kevin Plawecki from the Mets and LHP Steven Matz for 2B Arismendy Alcantara and RHP Pierce Johnson and RHP Blake Parker. Normally, prospects don't swap. But, the Mets are struggling for offense; and are losing bullpen guys Latroy Hawkins and David Aardsma. Blake Parker proved a decent option, and is cheap. Chicago gets a good prospect catcher since New York has Travis D'Arnaud now in the bigs; and a lefty starter to develop. Meanwhile, the Mets get a very good RHP prospect in Johnson and Alcantara is the highest ranked of these prospects. It is mutual value decision.

Or Option #2 (likelier): trade Gold glove winner Barney to the Mets for C Plawecki plus cash (Barney's arbitration $1-2M in 2014). Send Vogelbach, Alcantara, Rusin, and Johnson to Tampa for Zobrist. Sign Mark Ellis for 2-10M. Move Zobrist to corner OF, Szczur stays in the minors, or goes in trade to Rays, with a minor leaguer coming back from Tampa.

Note: I truly believe Plawecki will be a 10-year catcher in the bigs...and that has value for the Cubs.

Sign FAs Carlos Beltran, Brayan Pena, (Mark Ellis) and Scott Kazmir. Beltran has done well in Wrigley before. As a switch hitter, he provides some flexibility also. His fielding is not what it once was...but he's an offensive upgrade over the current options. He's a 2-3/30-36 million player at this stage in his career, one would hope.

Brayan Pena can be easily had for $2.5 million over 2 years - say $3.5 for 2 years; he's an ok backup, no walk guy. But the Cubs need a band aid on this one. He provides that for cheap, and could possibly surprise.

Scott Kazmir is a cheapish flier.After doing well in his rebound in Cleveland, he is an incentive player. But this works only if the Cubs are serious about competing going forward. (I think he'd want to play for a contender...) His 2013 stats were great bounce back types: 3.45 K/BB ratio. Over 9K/IP. He still is not a workhorse; just a 150IP type with improving stuff (fastball), coming back from injury.

Maybe an incentive (Innings Pitched vesting options) for 3 years. 8M in Year 1, 150IP; 10M in Year 2, 175IP; 3yr year if 325IP in total in year 1+2, 14M in Year 3. Base pay of 5M plus the incentives of 3M, 5M for seasons 1 and 2.

Kazmir, Beltran, Ellis, and Zobrist all have significant playoff experience. World Series experience. It could be the right thing to put guys on the roster that know what the post season is all about. By mid-season, call-ups could push out the Murphys, Bogesevics, and Valbuenas for the prospects itching to debut in Cubs Blue.

Total FA potential signings: 3YR/32M Kazmir; 2YR/12M Ellis; 2/28M Beltran; and 2/5M Pena plus Zobrist 2/15M. Short term competitiveness made possible by 2-3 year deals. Under 100M in 2014 signings.

Those like Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, and Kyle Hendricks could be the boost they need.

Put Eric Wedge as the manager, latest rumored, well, I think a 80+ win team is plausible in 2014.

Masahiro Tanaka: 25-year Japanese Starting Pitcher worth $90-100 million to any MLB club?

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 22:31:00 +0000

The business of baseball has evolved significantly over the past 35 years. As the free agent market grew more expensive, with ownerships setting aside first $3-5 million (the price of a smallish mansion) for entire player's contract in 1978, to now, $200+ million (roughly the cost of 3 Gulfstream G550s plus its operating costs). The ownerships are now, pinching pennies, and hitting hard the international markets for lower cost talents in investing at the low end on those young and impoverished souls of the Caribbean region. Here, you still can buy potential top talent at the $3-10 million for those developing years. Or pay $25-45 million for a 5-8 year contract with a Cuban defector. Those markets are fairly deep in talent still untapped, but raw, and with the typical high flame out rates seen with any labeled "can't miss" tags.

In between this range of options lays the Japanese professional leagues. For years, prior to 1990, the Nippon Professional Baseball (Puro Yakyū) was largely ignored for talent acquisition. Then, in 1995, Hideo Nomo made the successful jump to the majors. Since, approximately 50 Japanese-born players have played in at least 1 MLB game. Of those, Ichiro, Hideki, Hideo, and now, Yu Darvish, or Yu, are known by their singular name, so unusual they are.

Next up: Masahiro Tanaka. At 25 (November 1st), he has dominated the NPB in 2013, going undefeated (20-0). A 6'2" righty, who throws in the low 90s and relies heavily on his slider (28-30%), Tanaka is not necessarily comparable to Yu Darvish (6'5"), who can consistently bring it at 94-96MPH, when he chooses. However, Yu does depend on that slider (32%) to get threw his pitch sequences (best by pitch value).

Masahiro Tanaka's Velocity (Averages from NPB Tracker, akin to Brooks Baseball)

Season	Fastball	Curve	Slider	Changeup	Cut Fastball	2-Seamer	Forkball	Sinker
2012	90.67	74.63	83.39	80.58	86.09	89.62	85.41
2011	90.99	75.72	83.28	80.11	88.86	89.75	86.66	83.26
2010	89.86	74.88	81.89	81.35	84.74	88.77	83.25
2009	90.99	75.20	83.42	80.46	84.38	90.10	83.29

This table does not do justice to what Tanaka's pitching really is like. He adds and subtracts quite a bit from his Fastball and 2-seamer, showing an understanding of craft, if you will, at least from the information available through 2012. (The site above came under some sort of cyber attack.)

From a scouting report compiled in August 2013, the following were key observations (italics and underlines are mine):

1) While it has some moving parts, it really looks like a low effort delivery to me. For the most part, he has been a workhorse in Japan, throwing at least 150 innings every season since he first came into the NPB. So handling a full season in the Majors is no problem.
2) He has a small injury history, but obviously no major injuries (and we will see that his fastball velocity is actually going up).
3) The conundrum is that even at age 24, his arm already has a lot of miles on it.
a: He threw 186.1 innings as an 18 year old, and he has had a few 130 plus pitch outings this year and like many Japanese aces.
b: He is strong, every pitcher is different, and he could handle all the innings when he was younger and can handle above average pitch counts when needed
c: This [possibly] means that he will not age as well as most 24 year old pitchers would, and he is due for an injury as shoulder and elbow (or just general body) fatigue catches up.

4) Tanaka seems to be more of a high ball pitcher, especially above the strike zone, than a low ball pitcher. He is going for the strikeout, not the groundball. He also has a good balance of glove side and arm side pitches.
5) He doesn't have a real sinker, but it can work like one. He can show the traditional 2-seam movement, coming back arm side, or he can throw what looks like a straight fastball down and away from lefties.
6) Though he uses the slider more, this is his best pitch in my opinion. The movement is both arm side and down, more aggressive than a traditional changeup, but not the straight down movement of a true forkball. Some of the worst swings I have ever seen in high level professional baseball have come off Tanaka's splitter.

Tanaka's pitch usage:

Season	Fastball	Curve	Slider	Changeup	Cut Fastball	2-Seamer	Forkball	Sinker	Special
2012	36.7%	4%	28.8%	1.9%	0.4%	13.2%	15%	0%	0%
2011	39.3%	3.9%	29.6%	2.3%	0%	10%	14.9%	0%	0%
2010	38.7%	4%	29.2%	3.7%	0.3%	11.7%	12.5%	0%	0%
2009	41.9%	3.8%	30.6%	2.4%	0.3%	8%	12.9%	0%	0%

Another analysis has to be done on his metrics versus comparable players in the same league. We have very few data points, so I improvised based on the known quantities and qualities. Yu Darvish and Daisuke Matsuzaka are the most comparable track records to use when determining whether Tanaka is a $90 million investment option of worth. (Both Yu's and Daisuke contract's within the Japanese posting system topped $95 million.)

A few graphs:

What one can surmise from these few data points for each player (I'd like 10-12, but 7/8 will do):

1) Tanaka's K rate has not be influenced by his getting older, little correlative value (5%). This concerns because he does tend to go after strikeouts from the scouting report, pitching up in the zone. His K rate does not jibe with his success in 2013. However, he walks very few batters; and did escape the juiced ball effects in Japan that others fell victim to in 2013.
2) Tanaka's control and command is his best tool, as he started out better than Yu, and has trended very well downward.
3) His ERA has trended well with age too. Experience has served him well, developing into a top arm in his league.
4) His Inning Pitched pattern is more Daisuke Matsuzaka's than Yu Darvish's. At this point, it could mean nothing; or, it does bode for a breakdown in effectiveness?

So, is Masahiro's pitching worth the $90 million?

Well, a few things. The Japanese posting system is projected to change this year. It will open up the market, which will likely effect the pricing. Teams in New York and LA and even, Texas, might like to add Tanaka. Experience and successes with Asian-born players (Ryu in LA; Kuroda and Ichiro, both now in NY) makes it more likely to do more of the same.

The 2014 free agent class of pitching is rather dull in the MLB. No pitcher is under 26 hitting the market. Those with stock rising are #2 class pitchers (Garza, Santana, Shields); a couple once were the blue chippers - Lincecum and Halladay - but injuries and lost velocity pretty much makes them in-name-only pitchers. The rest are flawed in any number of ways.

With that, paying $13-16 million for 5-6 seasons (with a portion going to Japan, with currency implications having some potential impact, depending on how the posting is paid out and the value of the Yen/$), I will say this: it depends.

If a team like Chicago is willing to spend $80-95 million to land Tanaka, they best do a long hard look at the implications of his failure. Can that money be spread around to 2-4 position free agents for 3-4 years? Or a key offensive player or two with an MLB track record? Or could they target someone else?

Chicago, as a fan, has come off the worst 2-year offensive stretch in franchise history, and 5 years straight of a declining offense. The pitching, in 2013, was not their problem. (Though it never hurts to get better.) They play in a finicky ballpark. Wind blows out - look out. Wind in - nice if you could walk and steal a base. Pitchers that can't get ground balls consistently, get burnt badly. (See below graph of Tanaka's pitch location.)

Year	W	Runs	Allowed	BatAge	PitchAge	Batters	Pitchers
2013	66	600	672	27.9	28.7	56	31
2012	61	613	759	27.8	27.9	53	30
2011	71	654	756	29.3	29.4	42	22
2010	75	685	767	29.4	28.2	44	23
2009	83	707	672	29.9	28.4	45	24
2008	97	855	671	30.1	28.9	42	23
2007	85	752	690	29.3	28.4	47	22
2006	66	716	834	28.6	28	46	23
2005	79	703	714	29.7	28.2	46	22
2004	89	789	665	30.1	29.1	43	19
2003	88	724	683	31.3	28.2	42	17
2002	67	706	759	30.2	27.6	44	22
2001	88	777	701	30.7	29.8	43	20

Cubs 2014 Manager: Joe Girardi, if the PRICE is RIGHT

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 02:09:00 +0000

Note to Cubs MGMT Team:

Joe Girardi and his resume is EXACTLY what the Cubs need.

As Ken Rosenthal quipped in this report:

You met Kim when you both were at Northwestern. You were the Cubs’ fifth round-pick in 1986 and then made your major league debut in ’89. You made five stops during your 15-year playing career, including the Cubs twice, and you’ve managed the Marlins and the Yankees.

And now you have to wonder:

Are the Yankees your best long-term option?

My Argument picks up where Rosenthal's reporting leaves off

First, Girardi's IE degree from Northwestern means he thoroughly understands statistical applications and motivating people and how and when to use both. IEs are the engineers usually promoted to run operations – plant managers – and so, I think it fair to say Joe has been an excellent plant manager in baseball. Being a catcher, a position well known to turn out excellent baseball minds – from Connie Mack to Branch Rickey on up to the present day in Joe Maddon, Jim Leyland, Joe Torre, Mike Scioscia, Bob Brenly, and Bruce Bochy – leads one to think we should be interested in this Chicago Catching Joe.

Second, his most recent time in New York reflects an ability to deal with a whole array of issues. He has managed the oldest team in baseball (31.8), the A-Rod circus, the Jeter decline, and now, a Yankee record 56 players in 2013. Oh, and they are above .500 with their biggest mid-season acquisition being Alfonso Soriano, who got religion, and put up better stats in NYC. (Maybe Girardi, maybe not….)

Third, he’s dealt with dip shit owners (Loria & Steinbrenner); and can manage pretty well with a massive payroll (2009 WS Champs) or the lowest ($15 mil) in Florida. He can handled the youngsters (Florida had the youngest by age in 2006); instills rules, and seems able to get good results. So, by and large, he’s:

1) Successful with a wide array of circumstances
2) Can handle cranky owners (so imagine what happens when they are on the same page)
3) Has the educational background and baseball pedigree to go with on-field successes to support a hire

Maybe Theo & Jed are happy and content with Sveum. But if Girardi is interested in talking, and they are interested in him at all, it is a no brainer to me. The salary he may want is negotiation – and that comes when it comes.

Managers may not win you more games, some argue, but at the margins, anyone in Girardi's position has direct influence on the lineups, pitching changes, and in-game stuff I hear plenty bitch about at BleacherNation.

Girardi is a very complete manager, and has the overall records and the intellectual horsepower from a prestigious university to support his worthiness as the Cubs manager. As the Cubs farm system has the list of talents (below) ready (hopefully) to blossom in 2014-2015, I think having a flexible, intelligent, effective and successful manager is as important as the talent you put on the field.

A Few Cubs Prospects arrival date/notes:

Javier Baez SS: Mid 2014 seems possible, depending on Castro and slotting on the field.
Jorge Soler OF: Start of 2015. His salary drives his development path; if AA/AAA works out in 2014, 2015 starts off in MLB.
Mike Olt 3B: Trade bait. His recent struggles make him an option out. However, he could surprise and land on the MLB team in 2014.
Kris Bryant 3B: Late-2014. His arrival is dependent on success at AA next season. Else, 2015 is reasonable for the 2nd overall 2013 pick.
Albert Almora OF: Mid-2015. Injuries and youth are two good reasons to leave Almora until mid-2015 at best. He'll be only 21 in April 2015.
Justin Grimm RHP: Bullpen in 2014. He hasn't quite developed a good 3rd pitch. But youth and experience early in the MLB could get him quite a look.
Pierce Johnson RHP: 2016. Another 200-250 minor league innings will develop him.
Dan Vogelbach 1B: Possible trade or hope the NL goes DH. But he's 2 years away - from that decision for the Cubs.
Christian Villanueva 3B: Early 2015 or a trade candidate. Villanueva has AAA to accomplish in 2014; how the Olt, Bryant, Villanueva scenario works out is about probabilities.
Rob Zastryzny LHP: 2016. Just drafted, he threw only 24 innings. But could accelerate, since he is 21 right now.
Arismendy Alcantara SS: Mid-2014. The Darwin Barney era has run its course. Alcantara is younger, cheaper, and has potentially more tools aside from his glove.
CJ Edwards RHP: 2015. His 2014 season at AA will decide how fast he comes. So far, the Garza centerpiece has not disappointed.
Kyle Hendricks RHP: Mid-late 2014. 2013 Minor league pitcher of the year is not flashy or fastball gifted, just gets outs. That's always a plus. Strikeouts are nice; but outs are what we are hoping accrues in games.

My 1st Online Class: EdX, Age of Globalization

noreply@blogger.com (Nomarless) — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 23:48:00 +0000

This post comes from my first online class at EdX, a free online course offering taught by John Hoberman on Globalization. This is what I think globalization has done at the intersection of my life and times.

When I was born, Mao was still in high regard and control in China. Japan had begun to creep up the ranks of industrialize nations, still lagging, but about to take advantage of the first oil crisis. Europe was still split; not yet the Union that makes for a greater economic power, but also, greater risks enhanced by long existing turmoils still not quite healed. The United States had matured to stand as the superpower that made things; created economic policy in the free world; drove innovation through its consumer-based desires than require at home creation and the virtues of free trade abroad.

By 1978, I was just six - but the world was evolving quickly before my eyes. Cable TV was taking hold in the United States, even as hostages in Iran became a nightly occurrence from my immature viewpoint. Apple and Microsoft, just infant companies, would grow exponentially in my lifetime to reach the pinnacle of business: the stock market's most valuable company. Star Wars and Star Trek projected possibilities too in technology, as video games took off, and by the early 1980s, I plunked quarters aplenty into Ms. Pacman or Defender or Space Invaders. Home systems - Atari platforms - brought technology to a new level for U.S. consumers.

Abroad, Mao was dead. His successor, Deng Xiaoping, cultivated an open economy to undo the damage of 25 years of Maoist tendencies to sacrifice the people willingly for the sake of ideological desires, often to catastrophic results: The Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s being but one example. Deng visited the United States in 1979, to discuss primarily, business and creating a way for China to catch up with its neighbor, Japan. Japan was now an industrial power, having built Toyota and Honda from smaller car and motorcycle manufacturers into competitors of the Big Three - GM, Ford, and Chrysler. So well that the oil crisis of 1979, in driving interests rates skyward, had also drove Americans to look at the smaller fuel efficient cars of Japan.

Meanwhile, Chrysler was bailed out on the cusp of Carter's departure and Reagan's entry into the White House almost in mirror to the release of the Iranian hostages as Carter literally left the office. These particular events point to a turn in America's once assured dominance: the faltering of a manufacturing giant; the growth of a WWII rival to supplant them as "innovative" and "successful"; the business leg up given to the backward and Communist-led Chinese. It also reflected a world becoming more connected - as my parents, grandparents, and other relatives saw their checks disappear in the 1981 recession - and Unions and Big Government being blamed for these problems by Free Market Reagan Administration.

The financial and credit boom in America launch one abroad. Money pumped into the financial system, growing technology, computers and the early attempts at connectivity, began to shape a more unified world, global events intertwined. The ease of information and financing created opportunities never seen abroad - investment fuel from Americans leveraging their personal assets, homes and jobs, to garner more credit - created industrial plants in low-labor cost countries, and allowed Americans to believe they were still living the American Dream, for another 25 years. The Wall Street man found a best friend in Reaganomics, and the nerd, in Bill Gates, that would soon underscore the transformation of people's daily lives. By then, I had begun to employ Microsoft products, save files on diskettes, saw the fall of the Berlin Wall opening Europe to a new economic and integrated world. The TV showed a widening world view - MTV colored - and computer offered more chances to reach out and touch people in far flung places.

"Whether a cat is black or white makes no difference. As long as it catches mice, it is a good cat." said Deng Xiaoping. He was speaking, at least, to the idea that the political stripes a country has no bearing on the economics of what the country does. His country was still 15 years away from surpassing the Japanese Miracle, when Xiaoping died in 1997. Nevertheless, the vision was there in his mind.
The internet was rising and fueling more speculation and what-ifs than seemingly all the Industrial Age offered before it. My adventures in college led me to employ the internet for dating a woman 1,000 miles from my location. The internet led me to my first post-college job. It, the net, had all the answers, even when the questions were roughly formed - it would still spit out an answer.

By the aughts, A second Bush presidency meant more free money - this time - Americans leveraged up their newly bought homes without equity. The Wall Street barons relied on their Internet Age physicist-created pricing models, and innovative financial products to keep the boom going. The Asia Miracle - including Australia, India, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, China, and now, a struggling Japan - was battling the United States and the European Union for economic rights. Oil and energy, money and technology, food stuffs and water (Africa usually left out, Brazil, Russia, and the Middle East, not completely left behind) formed battle grounds across the globe. Internet connected them together, often by the ebbs and flows of financial trading. A collapse, like the 2007-2008 U.S. housing bubble, triggered a worldwide panic, that only faith in U.S. money, and the printing of it, allayed fears until the next big boom-bust cycle.

At my own home, my mother and aunt shared a home that was refinanced during the bubble. A difficult financial stretch caused an eventual foreclosure. Brain cancer and dementia resulted in my mother's death. My path through corporate America has seen 2 bankrupt businesses (car part maker), a dying industry (newspapers), and a choice to give college another try. This globalizing trek has been exhausting and yet could be potentially beneficial, depending on what day, year, or decade the wave hits your shore, and whether, you are prepared for the outcomes.