MLB Game Picks - Sunday, April 5, 2015

And so it begins. The 2015 Major League Baseball season beings tonight in Chicago in a torn up ballpark that used to be and may someday again be Wrigley Field. ESPN will cover the game. Check that...it is ESPN2. MLB doesn't even rate the prime network. This is the first Game Picks post of the year.

What are Game Picks? Every day, I will give a preview of each game and predict which team will win. This is not a betting feature and not meant to help you with your wagers, if that is your thing. There are a lot more scientific tools to use than this! I do this for fun and has run for several years now. I haven't missed a day for over three years.

So here we go.

The Cardinals over the Cubs: The Cardinals are the perennial NL Central champs and until they are dethroned, have to be considered the favorites again. The pitching match-up is an interesting one. Adam Wainwright is pitching under a cloud of concern after the way he broke down at the end of the season. Jon Lester is starting fresh with the Cubs after signing on to be their ace in years ahead. I'm expecting the game to go against type and become an offensive battle with the Cards out-slugging the Cubs.

The amazing career of Anthony Young

Anthony Young is the answer to a trivia question. Feel free to use it at your next party. The record for most consecutive losses in which a pitcher had a decision belongs to Young with 27. Between May 6, 1992 to July 24, 1993, Young did not win a game. He pitched for the Mets those two seasons and they were really bad teams. But the Mets' winning record for those two seasons at least led to a .404 winning percentage. Anthony Young's winning percentage for those two seasons was a combined .100. He went 3-30. Those numbers are just the start of a whole lot of numbers fun concerning Anthony Young.

Anthony Young first arrived on the seen for the Mets in 1991. That season, he went 2-5. By the time he was mercifully traded to the Chicago Cubs (for Jose Vizcaino) before the 1994 season, his final record with the Mets was 5-35, good (or bad) for a .125 winning percentage. The teams' winning percentage during that span was .420. Young started 31 games in those three seasons and pitched in relief another 70 times. He actually compiled 18 saves for the Mets. But he couldn't win.

Young fared a little better for the Cubs in 1994 and 1995. He was a starter for them in 1994 and pitched in relief in 1995. His record for the Cubs was 7-10. At least that was good for a .412 winning percentage. His last season was with the Astros. It was his only season not in the red and he finished at 3-3.

Those last three seasons at least allowed him to finish his career with a .238 winning percentage (15-48). Only Fernando Abad has pitched in 180 games or more and has a lower winning percentage. And only two pitchers in baseball have pitched in as many as 480 innings with a lower career winning percentage. Dolly Gray pitched between 1909 and 1911 and had a .227 winning percentage. Ike Pearson lead the way as he pitched between 1939 and 1948 and compiled a .206 winning percentage.

What is sort of amazing about that last paragraph is that Gray and Pearson had an ERA+ for their careers in the 70s. Anthony Young's career ERA+ was 100. We'll get to that a bit later.

There is so much more fun to explore first. As a starter, Anthony Young went 7-27 (.206). As a relief pitcher, Young went 8-21 (.276). He was 0-7 in save situations (though he did successfully save 20 games). He went 8-28 at home (.222) and 7-20 on the road (.259). June was a particularly bad time for Anthony Young. He went a combined 2.16 in June (.111).

Young went 9-32 in the first half (.220) and 6-16 in the second half (.273). He went 8-28 at night (.222) and 7-20 during the day (.259). Young went 9-33 on grass (.214) on grass fields and 6-15 on artificial turf (.286).

Remarkably, Young finished with a 2-20 record in games he pitched at Shea Stadium. Shea was a pitchers park. His other dark place was Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, where he went 0-5.

The only way Anthony Young could win as a starter was if his team scored six or more runs. He went 6-0 in such situations. But that happened fourteen times when he started games. In other words, there were eight times his team scored more than six runs and Young could not even manage a decision.

Anthony Young's teams scored five or less runs 37 times. Young went 1-27 in those games. He was 0-18 when his team scored two runs or less and 1-9 when they scored three to five runs.

One of the biggest arguments between old school baseball observers and the new statistically minded writers is what makes a good pitcher. The old school thought was: Did the guy win and did he have a good ERA. Now we look at FIP and WAR and other things. By old standards, Anthony Young was awful in that he could not win. But his ERA (and ERA+) were often quite acceptable. His ERA+ was over 100 (league average) in four of his six seasons.

FIP tells us another story. Young had a FIP of 3.38 in 1992, which isn't half bad. But it went up every season after that by more than fifty points. And, as mentioned, he finished with a 100 career ERA+. There are a lot of mixed signals in his career numbers. Baseball-reference.com gives him 1.1 rWAR for his career. Fangraphs.com gives him 2.5 fWAR including positive WAR for all three years he was a Met. Hmm...

The truth is somewhere in the middle. The Mets were dead last in fielding efficiency in 1991, next to last in 1992 and in the bottom half in 1993. In other words, his fielders did not help him. Since he was not a strikeout guy and put the ball in play, that had to hurt him. For his three years with the Mets, he allowed 148 runs, but only 115 of them were earned or 78%. Compare that with the 84% of his runs were earned with the Cubs and 94% with the Astros.

The numbers also tell us that as a right-handed pitcher, Young did not pitch well against left-handed batters. They had an .828 OPS against him in his career with a batting average over .300.

An old school guy would say that Anthony Young did not know how to win. But he did go 15-3 in Double-A in 1990. But perhaps a well-balanced look at everything overall tells us that Anthony Young had an extraordinary run of bad luck with the Mets and while not one of the best pitchers ever, did pitch better than his record.

The losing streak was amazing. Fans were sending him rabbit feet and all kinds of things to help him. The family of the previous record holder, Cliff Curtis, even made a video telling him to pitch a no-hitter so not to break the family's record. Young broke it anyway. The losing streak created a life of its own and colored his career forever.  Perhaps he deserved a kinder fate. But at least this way, his career will never be forgotten.

Joe Maddon jumps sinking ship

Much of the focus of this week's Joe Maddon escapades centers around the benefit to the Cubs and the hose job to Rick Renteria, the (now) former Cubs manager displaced by Maddon. Personally, I can't blame the Cubs for what they did and I think they handled things with Renteria the best they could. The thing is, thus far, this has been a Cubs story. But what about the Tampa Bay Rays?

Joe Maddon became a "free agent" due to the jumping ship of Andrew Friedman to the Dodgers. The two associated geniuses are given much of the credit for building the Rays to a perennially contending team using smarts and research. They were the modern twosome superheroes of the information age of baseball.

Looking at the decisions both made at face value, you could call this a salary grab. The Rays do not have deep pockets and neither Friedman or Maddon were likely to make the kind of money staying in St. Pete than they receive with their new ventures. We could just leave it there if we want since so many of us consider money the most important consideration to humanity.

How many of us have made a truly financial decision without considering the situations we are leaving and the ones we are heading to? Would most of us take a salary leap if we had to work in a no-win situation? I think most of us would hesitate. Would we pause if we were really happy where we were? Many of us would. It's not always about money. The important goals of anyone's pyramid of needs are complex once you get beyond the survival block at the bottom of the pyramid.

All that said, perhaps it can be stated that Joe Maddon and Andrew Friedman jumped ship at the right time. The losing record put up by the Tampa Bay Rays in 2014 after a handful of 90+ win seasons could indicate that baseball has caught up to the Rays. The Rays have made hay because they were smarter than most teams and had to be because they could not pay high priced talent. The pipeline of talent from the minors, often enhanced by well-timed trades of expensive talent, may be drying up.

I remember earlier in the season when Maddon was asked about all the teams shifting infielders--something the Rays pioneered. Maddon said that things were getting harder because everyone is using information when the Rays were one of the few in the past to do so.

Friedman and Maddon had to be somewhat discouraged of having to trade away their best talent all the time. David Price had to be particularly galling to jettison due to money reasons. Constantly having to retool after moving talent that gets too expensive had to be exhausting and frustrating.

Friedman can take what he learned in St. Pete and now has unlimited pockets in Los Angeles. That has to feel really good. The chance to turn the Cubs around with so much talent in the system and the Cubs' willingness to spend to get to the next step had to be appealing to Maddon. Plus, it has to be any manager's dream to be the one to break the 107 year drought in Chicago.

My totally speculative suggestion is that perhaps both Friedman and Maddon knew that they had taken the Rays as far as they could take them and that a drought is about to begin anew for the Rays. Ben Zobrist is getting too expensive and a decision will have to be made there and the minor leagues look thinner than at any point in the past five years.

I am not saying that talented people still do not sit in positions of authority for the Rays. There is every indication that Michael Silverman, Chaim Bloom and Erik Neander are talented executives. What I am saying is that financial limitations will always exist for the Rays with their current stadium situation and that they currently have less talent to cull from than in years past.

The Andrew Friedman and Joe Maddon years in St. Pete were exciting and fun. Perhaps both men knew the fun would be harder to come by in the next few years and this might be the best time to sell their abilities to new teams. They have sold themselves at the highest peak of their financial worth to teams which could blossom in the next few seasons.

That potential along with what seems to be a sinking of the Rays' current situation make the timing of these moves. The Rays should be watched closely in the next couple of seasons. As for Joe Maddon and Andrew Friedman, they have parlayed their success for the Rays to set themselves up for life.

Five tool players

I admit it. I brought you here under false pretenses. Here you thought you were going to read about players or prospects that had the proverbial five tools like running, throwing, power, high batting average and character. But that is not what this post is about. I'll leave such tool worship to the scouts and prospect writers who are good at what they do. Instead this post is about players whose names come from tools. There are five of them.

The first is named after a garden instrument. You have all heard of the common garden hoe. They are great for taking care of weeds that always seem to grow better than your vegetables or flowers do. If you have more than one hoe, you have hoes. That's where L.J. Hoes comes in. He was drafted by the Orioles in the third round of the 2008 draft and was part of the deal that sent Bud Norris to the Orioles from Houston in 2013. Hoes has seen limited duty in parts of three seasons and is currently in the minors. His real first name is Jerome.

With the terrible fashion statement today of men having scruffy faces and beards, it's doubtful that many are going to barbers these days to get a shave. But if they did, they would see the barber with a piece of leather hanging near his equipment. That leather thing is called a strop and helps him/her keep the blade sharp.

Pedro Strop currently pitches for the Chicago Cubs. Strop also has ties to the Baltimore Orioles as he pitched there for a few seasons. He was originally signed by the Colorado Rockies in 2002 out of the Dominican Republic and has also pitched for the Rangers. He has had two very fine seasons for the Cubs in 2013 and 2014.

A thatcher is also called a de-thatcher, which makes little sense. Both are correct, but that's kind of like flammable and inflammable. Why do we need two words that mean the same thing? Anyway, the tool is designed to thin out your lawn so that the plants that make up your lawn have more room to breathe and grow freely. I want to buy one for my lawnmower, but you have to get cinder blocks to put on top of it to keep it thatching. Why wouldn't they design a product that could stay down in the first place?

Joe Thatcher is a relief pitcher that you cannot keep down either. He has pitched parts of eight seasons with significant relief appearances since 2010. He was recently acquired by the Angels from the Diamondbacks so Joe must not be one of those rah-rah types. He hasn't pitched well for the Angels so far, but he is a good relief pitcher with a proven track record. He currently makes $3.75 million which means that he could afford a lot of cinder blocks.

The fourth one is my least favorite examples because it is kind of a blah tool. But we all need them to run our cars, lawnmowers and engines of all sorts. They also keep our pants up. I am talking of the belt.

Brandon Belt was drafted by the Giants so he is a home grown guy. He had sort of a break out season a year ago as he took over first base. But things haven't worked out this year and it's been pretty much a lost year for him. He still seems to have a bright future and can keep the Giants' offensive motor running for years to come.

The fifth is my favorite. It is the peavy. A peavy is a logging tool and has a broom like handle with a metal spike on the end and a metal hook. It was invented to help move logs that were stuck in log drives that jammed up in rivers. They are simply useful in maneuvering logs. The reason I like it so much is that it was invented right here in Maine by Joseph Peavy of Upper Stillwater, Maine and the Peavy Manufacturing Company is still making variations today.

Jake Peavy is in the business of trying to separate wood from batters. As a pitcher, he tries to out-maneuver them so they either strikeout or hit the ball weakly for an out. Peavy is a former star who lost favor in Boston and was traded to the Giants. He is doing better for that team and seems to have a big of his swagger back.

I apologize that you did not find any information about five-tool players. But I hope you enjoyed this little bit of nonsense in the midst of a overly-serious baseball world.

Ralph Kiner and the 1955 pennant race

Ralph Kiner's play in 1955 almost made a difference in the pennant race between the Indians and the Yankees. Unfortunately, his back broke down in the home stretch and it was the Yankees who went to the World Series. Check out my post on It's About the Money, Stupid.

Starlin Castro and his nosedive

Starlin Castro of the Chicago Cubs burst onto the scene as a twenty year old kid in 2010. In his next 445 games for the Cubs, he belted out 529 hits including 96 doubles, 26 triples and 27 home runs. He looked like the brightest young shortstop in the game. Before the spring of 2013, there were legal troubles and the entire 2013 season was a wash for him offensively as everything went downhill. What went wrong with Starlin Castro and will he right himself in 2014?

If you look at the counting stats, you can see just how far Castro fell in 2014. Here are his string of OPS figures for his seasons thus far: 755, 773, .753, .631. Which number doesn't fit in there? Yeah, it is that obvious.

There are many opinions as to what happened. Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs.com believes that a more patient approach was forced on him and it backfired.  Another source, which I cannot seem to find at the moment, believed that BABIP was at least partially to blame.

Let's look at a couple of these insights to see what they are about. First. Sullivan makes a good point in that the Cubs encouraged Castro to see more pitches and he did. The problem, as Sullivan points out, was that Castro was very successful on the first pitch and by not swinging at the first pitch, he lost one of his best weapons.

Sullivan also shows that despite seeing more pitches, Castro did not walk any more than he did in the past and in fact, walked less. His walk rate was the lowest of his career and the strikeout rate was his highest.

The BABIP theory might be part of Sullivan's theory. Perhaps losing the first pitch to jump on, Castro's contact success suffered. If you look at Castro's heat maps for each of his years, his contact led to over a .300 average on just about every quadrant of the plate and even just off the outside corner and middle in as well.

If you look, then, at his heat map for 2013, only the upper third of the plate led to contact that was productive and just off the plate, middle-in was his happy zone. Every other quadrant of the plate was awful.

To me, the biggest "tell" is his success on line drives, or I should say the lack of it in 2013. Here are Castro's BABIPs on line drives for his career (starting in 2010): .738, .739, .716 and .593. Again, which number doesn't fit?

That is a naturally low BABIP on line drives. The Major League average is around the .660 mark. Castro has been super consistent in the number of line drives he hits per season. The difference was that in 2013, less of them found free space.

Starlin Castro also hits about 1.5 ground balls for every fly ball, or nearly 50% of his batted balls. Whether it is due to poorer contact, better defensive positioning or what, but his BABIP on fly balls also suffered. After being in the .228 to .254 range for his first his first three years, it fell off to .177 according to Baseball-reference.com.

The thing that hurts the most about Castro's season in 2013 is that he was particularly awful against teams in his own division. He was good against the Cardinals. He has always been good against the Cardinals. But look at these OPS figures against the rest of the division: Reds - .432 (!), Brewers - .599 and Pirates - .491. He has always been pretty successful against all those teams in the past.

So what does the future hold for Starlin Castro? That depends on a few things that helped cause such a bad season. Perhaps his head was in a bad space between the legal troubles last spring and the lawsuit and counter-lawsuit going on in the Dominican Republic. Perhaps he was just unlucky with his line drives and twenty more of them will fall in for him in 2014. Perhaps the Cubs will allow him to go back to hacking at first pitches. After all, he is never going to be a patient hitter. That is just not who he is.

The important thing for the Cubs is that Castro is a plus player at a thin position around the Majors if he has an OPS of .750. But another season in the .630 range will have to force them to rethink the future with him.

For the Cubs, Starlin Castro has to be better against his NL Central opponents and he has to have be better than he was in 2013. It will be one of the more interesting stories to watch in the coming season.

Jeff Samardzija under the radar

After years of being the golden boy and fan favorite who couldn't quite get there, Jeff Samardzija arrived as a starter in 2012. His record and ERA perhaps belittle the type of season he really had. His record of 9-13 with an ERA of 3.89 in 28 starts might not excite anyone. If you dig a little deeper, there was a lot of impressive stuff about his season considering it was his first full one in the rotation. Let's look a little closer.

Baseball-reference.com uses a statistic called the Game Score which has been talked about here before. Basically, what the statistic does is start a pitcher at 50 points. And then the pitcher gains points for innings pitched in the game and for strikeouts. He loses points for walks and hits. Anything over 50 was a good start and under 50 is a bad start. 50 is an average start. Samardzija had a Game Score average of 55.1, which was 5.1 points over average. And 61% of his starts were quality starts when the league average there is 51%.

Now you are getting a little better picture of how good Jeff Samardzija was in 2012. Also remember that the Cubs were a brutally bad club. The team lost 101 games in 2012 and the offense ranked fifteenth in a National League that sports sixteen teams. That offense was so bad that the team scored two runs or less in eleven of Samardzija's 28 starts. Nine of his thirteen losses came in those games. He was 6-4 in his fourteen games when the team scored from three to five runs, which is still not a lot of run support. Only two of his starts featured an offense that scored six or more runs.

And for a guy who was putting in his first full season as a starter, he got better as the season went along. In fact, he was killer in the second half. He was shut down early, of course, after he reached 170+ innings, but in his eleven second half starts, his ERA was 2.58 and his strikeout to walk ratio was a brilliant 4.21. His most dominating month was in August when in six starts, his strikeout to walk ratio was 6.0. He walked only seven batters in those six starts and still went 1-4 that month. Ugh.

A case could be made that if you could just throw out June, he would have been right up there with the pitching leaders. It was like he hit a wall in June or something. It was the only month that his strikeouts per nine innings fell under nine. Most of his months show him in the 1.050 WHIP rate or lower. But in June it was over two. He made five starts that month and lost four of them and had an ERA of 10.41. That is a lousy month!

But again, he was brilliant after and really the two months before it.

According to PitchF/X, Samardzija threw seven different pitches: four-seam and two-seam fastballs, a cutter, a curve, a slider a change up and a split-fingered fastball. His fastball averaged a very impressive 95 MPH for the season! But that wasn't his best pitch. The splitter was his best pitch. In fact, Fangraphs rated his splitter as the best in baseball both in total score and in value per 100 pitches.

The split-figured pitch probably accounts for the 34% of the time Samardzija enticed batters to swing out of the strike zone. It probably also helped him have the fifth highest swing and miss rate in baseball among qualifying pitchers too.

There is a lot to like here looking at his numbers and that is why it was a little disappointing to see the Cubs recently back off making a multi-year offer to extend him. It looks now like he will just sign a one-year deal to avoid arbitration. But then again, the Cubs control him through 2015 so there is time.

Jeff Samardzija had a very good first full season as a starter. It was an encouraging season that got better as it went along. If you take out June, he was one of the most dominating pitchers in baseball and really flew under the radar because of the team on which he played. It will be interesting to see if Samardzija can improve on his great season or if he will regress. If he improves, now that will be exciting! And the coolest thing about the pitcher? I can now spell his name without looking it up.

Judging Alfonso Soriano by his contract

When a baseball player signs a historically bad contract, he ceases to be judged by his play on the field. Instead he is judged against his contract. There seems to be something unfair about that. Alfonso Soriano, like Zito on the Giants, will always be looked at with skepticism. He is ridiculed and derided for the fact that he cannot earn his pay. Is that really fair? The Cubs, who gave Soriano that contract, should be the ones ridiculed. They are the ones that gave him all that money. Because if you take away the money, Soriano has not been that bad a player for the Cubs.

It is not like Alfonso Soriano rolled up in a ball and quit playing. To date, the Cubs have paid him $97 million. And according to Fangraphs, Soriano has been worth $84.3 million for his time with the team. That's not terrible. Average that out over six seasons with the Cubs and that is an average playing value of $16.05 million a season. How would we perceive Soriano if he did not make that kind of money? We would perceive him totally different.

First, we all know that Soriano has holes in his game. He will never be the prettiest outfielder. And that was after he was a pretty disastrous second baseman. He has not had a Hall of Fame career. But he has had a nice career. His career wOBA is .351--not Hall of Fame material, but productive nonetheless. His career triple slash line is: .273/.323/.505. He has 836 career extra base hits including 372 homers. He has scored more than a thousand runs and driven in more than a thousand runs.

In his prime, he reached the 30/30 mark in homers and stolen bases four times. He has 270 career stolen bases with a 78% success rate. He is 103 hits away from 2,000. That is not a bad career. That is a pretty good career.

And how come a guy like Soriano is not given the benefit of the doubt when he was underpaid for several years before he struck it rich? Soriano has built a playing value (again, according to Fangraphs) of $147 million in his career and he has been paid $121+ million. In the grand scheme of things, he has earned his keep.

There is an inherent unfairness that Soriano will always be judged for his contract. It seems petty. This has been stated many times in this space, but bears repeating one more time: Which of us would not put a pen to such a contract? Which of us has ever said to our bosses, "No, really, Joe, you are overpaying me. Stop it already." None of us.

What a player makes is the team's problem and purview. The team either takes a gamble or a calculated risk. Sometimes the team loses. The Cubs lost this one. That has nothing to do with Soriano. Their decision should not make Soriano a scorned and ridiculed player. Separate the player from his contract. And when you do that, Alfonso Soriano has given baseball more good moments than bad ones.

Six of nine lives lived by Dioner Navarro

Mediocre catchers play forever. If you can squat behind the plate and block a few balls in the dirt and not totally embarrass yourself with your arm, somebody in Major League Baseball will employ you. Hitting is optional. Thus, catchers will bounce from organization to organization and play over a dozen seasons and like cats, live out nine lives as a baseball player. Dioner Navarro will play for his sixth organization (the Cubs) in 2013. He is only 28 years old. Navarro just might beat that nine lives limitation.

Navarro has already been in pro baseball for twelve seasons. He was signed by the Yankees out of Venezuela as a seventeen year old kid in 2000. He rode the buses in the Yankees' minor league system for five seasons before getting a cup of coffee with the big club in 2004. Perhaps that was to get Arizona and Los Angeles scouts to see him.

Following the 2004 season, he was traded along with Javier Vazquez and Brad Halsey to the Diamondbacks for the 41 year old Randy Johnson. That same day on January 11, 2005, he was packaged along with four other nondescript players to the Dodgers for Shawn Green. He was 21 years old.

He got into fifty games for the Dodgers in 2005 and hit pretty well and despite not throwing many runners out (21 percent on base steal attempts), fielded his position fairly well. His .729 OPS in 199 plate appearances for the Dodgers wasn't bad for being so young. He started pretty well for the Dodgers in 2006 when he became part of a trade on June 27 to the Rays along with two other players.

The Rays quickly installed the 22 year old catcher as their number one for the rest of the 2006 season and he would remain that team's number one catcher for three and a half years. His first full season and a half with the Rays was also the new era begun in the front office and run on the field by Maddon. And Navarro's struggles at the plate in 2006 and 2007 would mirror the team's struggles.

But it was clear that something was building and in 2008, the Rays busted on the scene and went all the way to the World Series. Navarro also became an All Star catcher that season. His .295 batting average and .757 OPS was the best of his career. That season earned him 1.7 of his career 1.8 rWAR. It also got him a pretty penny.

The following season, he was rewarded with a $2.1 million salary after earning $412,000 the season before. Whether it was the sudden riches combined with his young age or what, things in St. Pete went downhill from there. His OPS in 410 plate appearances plummeted to .583 good for only a 54 OPS+.

Still making his $2.1 million in 2010, he started even worse and lost his job to John Jaso. He would eventually even lose his backup job to Kelly Shoppach. When the Rays made the post season in 2010 and were set to meet the Rangers in what would become an epic five game ALDS, Navarro was left off the post season roster. The highest paid catcher on the team did not take the news well and deserted the team. It was a big story at the time. His career with the team was over.

He was a free agent after the season and the Dodgers picked him up for an even million dollars. It did not go well. Navarro got into 64 games with the Dodgers and by the time August had rolled around, he was batting .194 and the team released him. Was that the end of Dioner Navarro?

Heck no, he is a catcher. After the 2011 season, the Reds signed him as a free agent and started him at their Triple-A team at Louisville. He played really well there in 62 games and the Reds called him up on August 4, 2012. He would get into twenty-four games for the Reds and he hit .290 and compiled a .755 OPS in 73 plate appearances. This time he would make the post season roster for the Reds and he got into two games of the NLDS and went one for four with a walk. The Reds lost the series to the Giants.

Dioner Navarro became a free agent again and based on the fact that his limited appearances were successful and because he was a catcher and only 28 years old, the rebuilding Cubs have scooped him up. The price was very near what he was making with the Rays and at $1.75 million seems like a risk for the Cubs.

But who knows? Perhaps Navarro has found his career again. Perhaps the Cubs have little to lose. After all, their catchers combined for a .612 OPS in 2012. Navarro should be able to beat that pathetic allotment. And perhaps the Cubs heard good things about where Navarro is in his head these days. Time will tell.

But the point of all this is, is that it does not matter how far a catcher falls in baseball. There is always an opportunity waiting. Perhaps even more than left-handed relievers, catchers will always have a job waiting for them somewhere. Navarro has only had one good full season and a couple of decent partial seasons. But he is a catcher. And with any luck, Navarro can do this for another ten years and perhaps six or seven more lives.

Chris Volstad is 0-9

When a pitcher makes twelve starts and has an 0-9 record, is there really a point to try and figure out if the guy is just unlucky or just plain not pitching well? Probably not. Is there a need to break it all down when reaching back to last season, Chris Volstad has lost fourteen straight decisions? Perhaps not there either. Volstad is not threatening (yet) Anthony Young's losing streak, but it sure is becoming a, "thing." But perhaps the discussion would still be interesting since Volstad was a former first round draft pick (2005) and is still only 25 years old.

His season is staggering in its consequences. The Chicago Cubs have won only one of the games Volstad has started this season. Going back two seasons, Volstad is now 5-22 in his combined 2011 and 2012. If the Cubs were to shut him down right now, or if inexplicably, Volstad went the rest of the season without a win, he would become only the sixth pitcher ever to pitch twelve or more starts and not win a game. The list:

• Russ Miller (1928) - twelve starts, twelve losses.
• Steve Gerkin (1945) - twelve starts, twelve losses. He put his team in a pickle?
• Vida Blue (1983) - fourteen starts, 0-5
• Vladimir Nunez (2000) - twelve starts, 0-6
• Bruce Chen (2006) - twelve starts, 0-7

The good news from that list is that no one has ever pitched more than fourteen starts and gone without a win. So if he keeps pitching, a win is bound to happen. Oh, and Marco Estrada of the Brewers is in the running to join this list and is 0-5 in twelve starts.

So is Chris Volstad that bad a pitcher? He is not great according to his peripherals. But he is better than his results if you are to believe the statistics. First, he is a contact pitcher who only gets 5.4 percent of his pitches swung and missed. He is more of a ground ball pitcher with healthy ground ball to fly ball rates. And yet his BABIP is .317 this season and .310 last season. You can't really say he has pitched in front of terrible defenses. The Cubs are in the upper end of the middle of the pack this season and the Marlins the same last season.

Volstad has also limited walks better in the last two seasons than before in his career. That means that his strikeout to walk ratio is the highest of his career the last two seasons. So what then? His ERA is a whopping 6.96. But his FIP of 4.57, while not great, is still in line with the rest of his career. 

On the other hand, Fangraphs does not give any of his pitches a positive score. So Volstad does not have a single pitch that can be dominant. Perhaps that is part of the reason his homer rates have been so high the last two seasons. Whatever the case, his high homer rate and 11.8 hits allowed per nine innings haven't helped. His WHIP is an extremely high 1.55.

Another thing way off for Volstad this season is his strand rate. He has only been able to strand 57 percent of the batters he has put on base. That will hurt you. Batters have an OPS against him of .830.

Too many base runners. Too many homers. Not enough strikeouts. Six games where his team has supported him with two runs or less. Those will all add up to a record that has nary a win. There is certainly some bad luck thrown in there too for good measure. Whatever the case, Chris Volstad is not winning and his .000 winning percentage cannot be any fun for Volstad or his team. He is still in the Cubs' rotation and we'll have to see how this ends.

The coolest thing ever

A big hat tip to Justin Jabs for this one. How fun is this site? Type anything you want (if short enough) and make your own marquee on the Wrigley Field sign. Huzzah! Love it.

How Money Makes an Albatross

Say the word, "Zito," to just about any baseball fan in some sort of psyche test and you get a response of, "Bad Contract." And the funny thing about us as fans is that we turn Zito into some kind of pariah. There were two things that are not Zito's fault. First, his skills faded. Secondly, despite the signs that his skills were eroding, some schmuck gave him scads of millions of dollars. That's hardly Zito's fault, is it? Why hate on the guy? There is another player almost equal to Zito in terms of fan antipathy. Before the big reveal of who he is, let's pull out the old comparison trick.

• Outfielder A: .274/.332/.467, OPS+ career of 109, career Total Zone Fielding Runs of -30, UZR for career of 1.1 bWAR total of 29.7, fWAR of 36.2.
• Outfielder B: .274/.323/.506, OPS+ career of 112, career Total Zone Fielding Runs of -54, UZR for career of 61.6, bWAR total of 23.4, fWAR of 35.3.

How can fielding stats be so different? Anyway, outfielder A has played 15 seasons and 1,807 games. Outfielder B has played 13 seasons and 1,606 games. So the WAR per games played evens out some. They sound like pretty darn similar careers, don't they? Yet, one is reviled and the other adored (perhaps not by analysts though). In case you haven't guessed, outfielder A is Torii Hunter and outfielder B is Alfonso Soriano. Surprised? You shouldn't be.

But the money Alfonso Soriano gets paid skews all thoughts of him as a player. Well, sure, he has iron hands and no instincts in the outfield. He is perceived as selfish. Hunter is the darling of center fielders who will always be remembered for his catch against Barry Bonds in the All Star Game. But the honest truth is that for their careers, their relative worth has been extremely close. It's the money that spoils our perception.

It's a sad fact of life that the Chicago Cubs gave Soriano a contract that was well above his worth. The contract was back-loaded so the first couple of years of the deal actually made Soriano a bargain. According to Fangraphs, Soriano was paid $24 million in total those two years and was worth $48.5 million with his play. That's a steal. But the pay scale kept getting larger and Soriano got older and now he's making $19 million and has no way he can earn that kind of money. But again, is that Soriano's fault? Would you not sign that contract if it was put in front of you? Sure you would. It's not his fault the Cubs were stupid.

Somehow we take the knowledge of contracts like that and with most of our blue collar histories expect a player to become transcendent of the deal. A player's strengths and weaknesses are pretty much established after eight years in the majors, are they not? A guy with concrete hands are not going to soften no matter how many cans of Jergens Lotion you put on them. It's similar to a guy marrying a girl who has always been a planner and worker bee to suddenly become a free spirit after the marriage. People don't change. They are what they are. It's not the doughty girl's fault the groom had misguided expectations. Wow, how did this get autobiographical?

Alfonso Soriano hasn't been a bad major league player. He's hit more than twenty homers ten straight seasons. He's hit more than forty doubles four times and once hit more than fifty. He's never been noted for his plate discipline, but that was well established before the big contract. If you took away all that money, people would look fondly at his career. He's not Hall of Fame player, but he could be in the Hall of Good.

The money makes Alfonso Soriano an albatross and a weight around the Cubs' necks. But it's not Soriano's fault. He just signed his name on the dotted line when it was put in front of him. Blame the former Cubs' regime, but don't blame Soriano. He was what he was and he is what he is and that would have been the same not matter how much he got paid. Oh, and that other guy--Torii Hunter--is going to make only a million less than Soriano this coming season. That freakin' albatross!

Trading a Z for a V is Good in Scrabble

Chicago is going to be a sleepy baseball town in 2012. No more Ozzie Guillen managing the White Sox and if reports are correct, no more Carlos Zambrano on the Cubs. That would be like the Republican Party losing Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. This author will let you decide if that's a bad thing or not. What this author intends to decide is if Chicago losing Carlos Zambrano is a good thing or not. The temptation is to write a single word sentence and move on to other things: Yes.

But that would be taking the easy way out. Zambrano will only be 31 in June. So it's not like he's an over-the-hill, washed-out arm. He has lost a couple of MPH on his fastball of late. But that could be due to all the time he has missed for his antics. He hasn't pitched 200 innings since 2007. He was worth three and a half wins in 2009 but sunk down to less than two and a half in 2010. He bottomed out last year with a value less than a win. For a guy making $18 million, that wasn't a good value proposition for the Cubs.

Frankly, if this Fan were a pitcher and played in front of that Cubs' defense, which was second from last in defensive efficiency last year, this Fan might have also had a hissy or two. Good luck to him with that Marlins' defense, which wasn't much better (though they did upgrade at shortstop this off season). If you were really old school, you might love Zambrano's career win-loss total. The guy has won forty-four more games in his career than he's lost. Even last year, he was 9-7. The guy's a winner, right?

But nobody thinks like that anymore, do they? Well, okay, maybe they do. His winning record sure does look good when placed side by side with Chris Volstad. Volstad might be on the Vernon Wells' even/odd year vortex. Volstad was a combined 18-13 in 2008 and 2010. But he was a combined 14-26 in the odd years of 2009 and 2011. If we believe in such random events being a pattern, then 2012 should be a good year for him.

Now that the Fan has covered things from the Murray Chass angle, what have we really got here? The Cubs basically are paying $16 million for Chris Volstad's services in 2012. $15 million of that goes to the Marlins to cover most of Zambrano's salary. The other million or so is what Volstad will make in his first arbitration year. We've got a problem here because Volstad has never had a season (even or odd) that was worth more than $7.2 million. So the Cubs are overpaying for him by more than double in 2012. But Volstad will be under Cubs' control until 2015, so even if he is only worth $7 million a season, he'll be a value in 2013 and 2014 and the Cubs won't have to worry about Zambrano anymore.

It's hard to believe that this deal was only based on the desire to get rid of Zambrano. Though Theo Epstein has done that before when he got rid of MannyBManny in Boston. Volstad has to have an upside that the Cubs see and to this author's hazel eyes, there just might be one. Volstad suddenly became homer-plagued in 2011. Could that be flukish? The homers were essentially his problem in both odd year meltdowns. His homer to fly ball rate the last four years looks like a Wall Street chart: 3.9 percent, 17.5 percent, 8.8 percent and 15.5 percent. Volstad also gave up his highest rate of hits per nine innings in 2011. Was that flukish as well with a BABIP of .310? Remember, the Marlins defense was awful too in 2011.

There are things to like in Volstad's numbers. He lowered his walk rate (6.8 percent compared to a career 8.1), increased his ground ball rate (52.3 percent compared to a career 50.4) and sported a 3.64 xFIP and 3.84 SIERA, both decidedly lower than his actual ERA.

Volstad has to improve to three-win pitcher for 2012 to pay off Zambrano. That's somewhat unlikely, but not impossible. But Volstad doesn't have to be a three-win pitcher after 2012 to be a bargain. Zambrano for the Marlins? He's only going to cost them $3 million this season and it shouldn't take much for him to be better for them than Volstad was in 2011. It would be great if he could find his fastball again and lower his walk rate (not to mention his personality pain threshold). It will be costly for the Marlins if Zambrano has a remarkable season. According to the report linked earlier, Zambrano has a $19 million option for 2013 if he finishes in the top four in Cy Young voting. But who sees that coming?

One other thing. Carlos Zambrano can really hit. Volstad can't. That might be worth another half a win by itself.

All Zambrano has to be is solid for the Marlins to make this worth their while. When playing Scrabble, you'd rather have a V than a Z, but if you can make a word with a Z, it's worth ten points. V words only gain you eight points. Take that however you want.

Garza and Nolasco are Interesting Comps

Charlie Saponara had a great post yesterday on his Fantasy Baseball 365 site about his love/hate relationship with Ricky Nolasco of the Miami Marlins. The read itself spurred some curiosity from this Fan about Nolasco, who has always seemed like a bit of an underachiever. It was great to have a little chat about Nolasco on Twitter with Saponara after reading his post. The post, the chat and looking at Nolasco's numbers reminded the Fan about another seeming underachiever, Matt Garza. So his numbers were checked as well. Amazingly, the two pitchers, both of whom threw for Florida-based clubs, have very similar comps.

Before getting into the similarities, we should get their differences out of the way. Garza is a full year younger than Nolasco. Garza has a bigger fastball that's three MPH faster than Nolasco. Garza was the more touted prospect and was a former first round draft pick. Nolasco was drafted in the fourth round. Garza was drafted out of college and Nolasco right after high school. Nolasco toiled in the minors for several years before getting the call to the majors. Garza was pitching in the bigs the year after his draft. Garza is slightly taller and thinner. Those are the differences.

There are far more similarities. Both are California dudes. Garza was born in Selma, a western-California city in central California. Nolasco is from Corona, with is also a western-California community, though much further south. Nolasco has thrown 922.1 innings in the big leagues. Garza has pitched 923.1. Nolasco has struck out 7.67 batters per nine innings, Garza, 7.50. Garza's career FIP is 3.98. Nolasco's career FIP is 3.83. Nolasco has six complete games in his career and two shutouts. Garza has eight complete games and three shutouts. Nolasco has thrown a two-hitter. Garza has thrown a no-hitter. Nolasco's career WHIP is 1.289. Garza's career WHIP is 1.303.

Both pitchers have made an attempt to change their pitching style in the last year, which is serendipitous as well. In 2010, Ricky Nolasco threw a two-seam fastball only 5.6 percent of the time. Garza in 2010 threw his 10.5 percent of the time. But in 2011, Nolasco increased his use of that pitch to 14.9 percent while Garza increased his two-seam usage to 15.5 percent. As a result, both pitchers saw a jump in their ground ball rates.  Thus, Nolasco's 45.1 percent ground ball rate in 2011 was the highest of his career. Garza's 46.3 percent ground ball rate was also the highest of his career. Both pitchers saw spikes in their line drive rate in 2011. Nolasco's was the highest of his career. Garza's was his highest since his rookie season.

Matt Garza has a clear edge on Nolasco in WPA with a career number of 2.42 compared to Nolasco's -0.67. But that is understandable considering that Garza pitched on a highly successful Tampa Bay Rays team in 2009 and 2010 while Nolasco's Marlins have muddled around a bit. Their "clutch" numbers are remarkably similar with Garza rated at -0.64 in his career compared to Nolasco's -0.69.

Baseball-reference.com and Fangraphs have widely divergent views of Nolasco's career value but agree pretty much on Matt Garza. Garza has compiled 12.7 rWAR compared to 14.6 fWAR. Nolasco, however, is only given 4.7 rWAR by B-R while Fangraphs is much more bullish at 15.4. Baseball Prospectus has Nolasco at 10.6 WARP and Garza at 10.1 WARP for their careers. Two of the three sites, then, rank the two pitchers remarkably similar in value.

What's the point of all this? Well, you could just take it at face value as a piece that simply compares two pitchers and their careers. Of course, you have to take into account park effects, defenses behind them (Nolasco has had awful defenses behind him), and competition. But on another level, you can see two pitchers that haven't been quite as good as they seem capable of being. For whatever reason, their careers have sputtered around. Garza's past season for the Cubs gives hope that he is starting to put it together as he posted the top ERA and FIPs of his career. Nolasco? Not so much. In many ways, the two pitchers have been the same pitcher for their big league careers. Garza now has shown a greater upside going forward.

Dumas, Cologne and Third Base

For the second night in a row, this Fan's first-ever bout with insomnia ever is getting really...well...tiresome. It's truly amazing the things you think about when prone in a bed for hours attempting to find that magic solution to falling asleep. At one point the thoughts drifted back to the mid-1970s when a slack-eyed teenager from New Jersey went away to New Hampshire College. It was there that the first experiences with fragrance and love occurred.

New Hampshire College in Manchester was a very new college when this writer first arrived there. Only a few hundred students lived on the campus in those early years and it was definitely a party school. It was mostly a dumping ground for rich kids then as the school didn't even require an SAT score to attend. While your Fan was far from rich, it was the only application a lazy teenager managed to finish during high school. Wouldn't you know that application was accepted. 

It was hard for a shy momma's boy of a Sicilian mother to fit in. One of the ways found was to become a disc jockey for the college radio station. Toward the end of the first semester, the station's manager was trying to come up with ideas to boost the station's profile and somehow the idea was mentioned of doing a marathon and publicizing the heck out of it. The original idea was for the marathon to happen in tandem. But your favorite Fan was first up and never got off the air. It started on Monday and the broadcast was continuous and without sleep until Friday. It went a total of 99.5 hours. It was a world record for about two month and didn't even get this fool into the Guinness Book of World Records.

But the marathon did have its perks. One of them was that the wire services picked up the story and the Fan's picture was in every major newspaper in the country. Talk about your fleeting moment of fame. The local television station interviewed during and after the event, so there was some notoriety there too. The other perk was that this girl from the campus got wrapped up in the event and out of the blue started bringing the jockey food and would message his shoulders during the broadcast. She was a beautiful girl, dark-haired with a Mediterranean-featured face and flawless skin. She was of french heritage and she was not a party girl. 

Needless to say the disc jockey was smitten. During her visits, we would debate the merit of female singers. The disc jockey was a music snob who didn't think much of the fair sex behind a microphone. The beauty gushed on about Barbra Streisand. After the marathon was over and life got somewhat back to normal, the beauty suggested that the disc jockey go up to her dorm room on a Friday night to listen to Streisand. The disc jockey readily agreed. He knew that she had this big strapping boyfriend back home, but what the heck, miracles could happen, right? Oh, you should know that this writer had never had a girlfriend to that point. Yeah, what a stooge, eh?

So the appointed day, the disc jockey went up to the girl's dorm and hunted up the beauty to listen to Streisand. After knocking several times, a pretty blonde across the hall came out and told the disc jockey the beauty had unexpectedly gone home for the weekend and suggested the blonde pinch hit for the Streisand lesson. Somewhat crestfallen, he agreed. To make a long story short, that lesson involved five hours of listening to Streisand and the Beatles and hours of conversation with the pretty blonde. The disc jockey and the blonde married two years later.

After the disc jockey and the blonde became inseparable, your writer got a cushy work-study job hosting the campus movie night. It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it. The pretty blonde was studying one night and didn't attend the movie. But the dark-haired beauty did. Since there was still friendship there, the dark-haired beauty sat next to the work-study kid to watch the movie. She was wearing perfume. It was Estee by Este Lauder. The combination of the perfume and the beauty was so intense that it was all that work-study kid could to to keep from jumping on her and mauling her right there and then.

Being a frank kind of person, the work-study kid told the beauty about his predicament and they moved another foot apart. She promptly told the pretty blonde that the blonde better go out and purchase that perfume, which she did. Since this was this author's first experience with scents and such things, it was decided to purchase one of the male varieties. The choice was Aramis and the blonde thoroughly approved. You should know that this guy is pretty unpretentious. No jewelry, not tattoos, no earrings and that cologne was seldom used but on rare occasions. It didn't exactly go well with flannel shirts.

After getting married, it was discovered that one of the pretty blonde's favorite writers was Alexandre Dumas and her favorite actor was Richard Chamberlain. Thus, the Three Musketeers was a must see. The blonde loved it. The husband watched politely and without comment. But wouldn't you know, one of those musketeers was named Aramis!

So finally, after that giant story that rambled through a sleepless night's brain, we get to the third part of our story which gets us back to baseball, which is what this site is supposed to be about. With two major Aramis life moments already in tow, lo and behold, there was a baseball player named Aramis Ramirez. How about that? This Fan always thought it would be cute if some Spanish American mother named her child, "Aramis Colon," but the Fan has never seen one.

Anyway, Ramirez caught the Fan's attention early on in his career for the reasons already mentioned. And after watching him a few times, particularly in 2007 when the Cubs made the playoffs,a funny thing happened. The Fan didn't like him. There is no rhyme or reason for why such judgments happen. It's simply one of the things fans do. He just seemed like an arrogant prig. But then again, most players are, so why was Ramirez singled out? Don't know. He just was.

And so when Aramis Ramirez bottomed out in 2010 and became one of the symbols of a failed Cubs team, there was some gratification that apparently his (up to then) good career was over. Except it wasn't. Quietly--because the Cubs were terrible--Aramis Ramirez had a beautiful season in 2011. According to Fangraphs, he was the fifth most valuable third baseman in baseball in 2011. His .871 OPS was good for a 136 OPS+. His 3.6 fWAR would have been better if he wasn't such a lead-butt base runner and was a better fielding third baseman. Even so, he had a tremendous season.

Which of course, wasn't all that welcome in this household. From a perfectly subjective standpoint, there was some satisfaction that he turned down arbitration from the Cubs and is currently plying the market for the best deal. With third base being pretty much a wasteland around baseball, he's going to make some coin. The only question is how long a team is going to go with the duration of the contract. All biases aside, it was good for the Cubs and Ramirez to part ways. The Cubs need a fresh start and need to cut out a lot of those old faces to erase their losing ways. And that's not to say that it was Ramirez's fault. But sometimes you need to start clean.

Again, all biases aside, Aramis Ramirez has had a fragrant career. See what the Fan did there? Ramirez has amassed 702 extra base hits in his career, good for a .500 lifetime slugging percentage. He's hit over .300 six times in his fourteen year career. For every 162 games he has played in his career, he has driven in 108 runs. And he has accumulated 33.8 fWAR in his career to go along with a career wOBA of .358. Heading into his 34th year, he just might have a few productive seasons left in him in the right situation. It will be interesting what ballpark he calls home. Some of his stats have been helped by a career .925 OPS at Wrigley Field, but his homer splits at home and on the road are nearly identical.

This long and meandering post is what happens with no sleep. Your Fan is not going to go back and reread it because that might be embarrassing. To sum it all up, Aramis has been a pleasant memory and a not so favored ballplayer. But even so, teams could do worse by signing him. He'll help somebody.

Aramis Ramirez Opt Out Good for Cubs

One of Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer's first decisions leading the Chicago Cubs was picking up the one year option for Aramis Ramirez, the Cubs third baseman for the past nine years. The option was for over $16 million. And thus it was surprising when the Cubs did indeed pick up that option. Fangraphs did peg Ramirez's worth in the field at $16.2 million for his 2011 campaign. But his last three year average due to injuries and a downturn in his play comes in at just under $9 million a year. So what the heck were Epstein and Hoyer thinking? Turns out that they might have known just what they were doing.

Ramirez had made it clear that it would take a multi-year contract from the Cubs for him to stay. And as reported here, had a contractual option to opt out of the option and forfeit the $2 million buyout as well. And that's exactly what Ramirez has done. The Cubs still have the option to offer him arbitration, which they most likely will do so that when Ramirez walks as a Type B free agent, they will get one draft pick as compensation. 

Losing Ramirez in this manner is the best of all worlds for the Cubs. They save $16 million. They save $2 million on the buyout and they get a draft pick. They also lose a player that has been part of the entrenched culture of the Cubs for the past nine seasons. There are wins all around in this scenario for the Cubs. Let's start with the performance issues.

Metrics show that Aramis Ramirez has declined in the field to pretty dramatic levels. In his peak years, he rated from -1.5 to -3.0 in that department. His last two years have come in at -6.5 and -9.4 respectively. His base running has also declined. While he was never great on the base paths, he's compiled a combined -10.7 in that category the past two years.  He did have a good year at the plate in over 600 plate appearances in 2011. He surpassed his career wOBA and wRC+ with his 2011 play. But his ISO is down from his peak years and realistically, you can't expect him (at the age of 34 and onward) to repeat those kinds of numbers going forward.

Then there is the culture issue which isn't as black and white as the numbers are. The last few years seem to show a large dysfunction behind the scenes for the Cubs. Whispers have been that there are factions in the clubhouse. These were allowed to develop during the Lou Piniella years and it's hard to know how much success Mike Quade had at squashing that kind of problem. Even if all this speculation is hooey, there is a culture of losing in Wrigley that can only be washed out by letting some of the most entrenched players move along. It simply is time for Aramis Ramirez to move along.

Of course there are drawbacks for the Cubs in allowing Ramirez to leave. Third base was a virtual wasteland for MLB last year and there won't be any great shakes for third basemen on the market this winter either. Oh, perhaps the Cubs could pry David Wright from the Mets, but he's a worse defender at third than Ramirez, though he is younger and could presumably replace whatever offense is lost by Ramirez's departure. And there are not exactly a plethora of minor league replacements either.

But sometimes a team has to make additions by subtraction. And that philosophy seems to apply here with the Cubs losing Aramis Ramirez. It's time for the Cubs to move in different directions. Ramirez, meanwhile, has probably cost himself a few million in pocket change. Will any team seriously give him $16 million for his services in 2012? It seems highly unlikely. It seems even unlikelier for any team to offer him that kind of money long term considering his recent injury history and the fact that he will be 34 for the 2012 season. It seemed more in the third baseman's interest to get max value for one more season before having to settle for what he could get from 2013 forward. It will be interesting to see what he gets for offers.

As for the Cubs, a good move and a smart play by the new chiefs in town.

Theo Epstein is a Good Man

Ian Tasso is a Twitter buddy under the moniker of @Tasso_SPORTS. He is one of those follows that make Twitter such a lovely place to be sometimes. Tasso is an up and coming sports broadcaster who at a very young age already has radio award feathers in his cap and a tenure at The Boston Globe. He just landed a job as the play by play man of the Las Vegas Wranglers. He's one of those young people you can vicariously live through as he makes his dreams a reality. Anyway, Tasso tweeted a link to a piece in his former newspaper written by Theo Epstein to the fans of the Boston Red Sox. As a writer, it was an event that would have been missed if not for this wondrous age of social media. So thanks, Ian.

The piece in question can be found here and you are encouraged to read it in its entirety. As we often comment on the goings on in sports, we always lose sight of the fact that the people we are talking about are real people. That seems like an obvious statement as they are real people. But when these real people become successful or reach the top of their profession, we tend to create caricatures of them. Theo Epstein's caricature has been as the young wunderkind of the successful Boston Red Sox franchise. He's also painted forever by a gorilla suit. His caricature certainly changed this year from the preseason of ambitious moves as another jewel in his crown to the overlord of all that can go wrong with a team in the final month of a season.

The final result of that final month was a goodbye to Terry Francona and now the wunderkind takes his act to Chicago to see if he can end the drought of title success there like he did in Boston. Certainly, the inglorious end to the Red Sox season sent waves of criticism in Epstein's direction. And in his editorial to the fans, he owns the criticism fully casting the blame on himself. His honest assessment of the team's demise and his role in it are noteworthy and praiseworthy. This isn't a young man that will throw others under the bus. 

From his piece, we learn that he is a fan, just like us. That he lived his dream. That he had great support from his employers and that he had the time of his life. He notes the relationships he made while serving the team and he lists the reasons for his departure. His reasons all make perfect sense and he makes us understand why he left for Chicago. The piece was as human and honest as any bit of writing this author can remember.

The Fan has seen this Boston Red Sox - New York Yankees rivalry for decades. It used to be ugly. The two teams hated each other. But under Epstein and Cashman, his counterpart in New York, the rivalry has become one of mutual respect and gentlemanly. Of course, we fans continue with the hate part. But both teams have acted so professionally for so long that if you are a rational Fan, a grudging respect for the other team happens despite whatever antipathy you naturally have as that fan. This mutual respect is something admirable and comes straight down from the general managers who run each team.

As such, it was difficult to hate Theo Epstein at any time during his run as the Red Sox general manager. Oh certainly, there was some exultation that the normally super-smart franchise in Boston had a few moments of dumbness this past season. But deep inside, you have to know that the events that occurred snowballed from a dozen different directions that no one shovel could overcome. Others can assign blame for the Red Sox collapse, but not this writer. This writer knows it was just one of those things. But still, on a cursory level, there was some inner gloating at the humbling of that great franchise.

But again, Theo Epstein has reminded us that the franchise is run by people...by human beings. And these people are just like us except they have cooler jobs than we do.  Epstein's letter to the fans hit all the right notes for this Fan. He was humble and he was thankful. He was encouraging and he was excited about his new job. He paints a picture of a man who gave himself to his job in Boston and left the franchise in good hands with his successor. He felt it was time for a new challenge as well as a new perspective in Boston. No one can argue with his logic or his understanding. If anyone can have hard feelings toward Theo Epstein after the class he displays in this letter, such people are hard and narrow in their thinking.

Theo Epstein could not fake a letter like this. The writing and feelings he displays ring true and deep. His humility is refreshing. There will be more time later to analyse what Epstein is up against as the new leader of the Cubs. But for now, after reading such a letter, the only logical response is to root like crazy for Theo Epstein in his new job and hope like heck that he finds success there. Theo Epstein is one seriously good man.

Fly on the Wall of Theo Discussions

Don't you wish you could be a fly on the wall when important negotiations are taking place? The current negotiations between the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox over compensation for the last year of Theo Epstein's of contractual obligation to the Red Sox must be fascinating. Since none of us are privy to such conversations, all we can do then is to imagine what must be going on. Since this writer has an overactive imagination anyway, it might be a fun exercise to imagine what is going on behind closed doors. What follows then is a totally fictional view of the negotiations between Tom Ricketts, owner of the Cubs and John Henry, owner of the Red Sox.

• Ricketts: Hello, John, thanks for coming.
• Henry: Thank you, Tom, but it's not like I had any choice. We need to get this done.
• Ricketts: Right. It was good of you to allow us to talk to Theo. I understand you could have said no when we asked if we could talk to him and I appreciate it.
• Henry: We'll see how much you appreciate it. But you're welcome. This is what Theo wanted apparently and we weren't going to stand in his way. Why he wants to go from the Ivy League to the ivy is beyond me but that's where we are.
• Ricketts: Where's Lucchino?
• Henry: I can handle this. I have Larry running down a development with the soccer team.
• Ricketts: Oh yeah, right. Soccer. Why would you want to get involved with soccer?
• Henry: It was a business move and something we were interested in to bring on board. I love soccer.
• Ricketts: Right.
• Henry: What? Soccer is fantastic.
• Ricketts: If you say so. Anyway, about Theo...
• Henry: We're not going to just give him away, Tom.
• Ricketts: Nor should you. He's terrific. But things haven't been that great between you and we shouldn't get carried away. You probably would have fired him anyway.
• Henry: No, we wouldn't have fired him. We would have had some discussions next year when his contract ran out. But we were fine with him.
• Ricketts: But you did criticize his signing of Crawford. You said you were against that idea.
• Henry: Don't read too much into that. Do you think I would sign off on that big a paycheck without approving the deal?
• Ricketts: Then why did you say that?
• Henry: Because I was pissed at how the deal turned out. It really is Epstein's fault since it was his idea.
• Ricketts: I see. We have our own...umm...crosses to bear.
• Henry: You mean like Soriano and Zambrano? Yeah, I would have fired that guy a long time ago for those moves.
• Ricketts: But you have Lackey.
• Henry: Ouch.
• Ricketts: Sorry.
• Henry: No, that's fine. We deserved that. You want him? Take him off our hands and we're done here.
• Ricketts: No thanks. We already have one jerk on our pitching staff.
• Henry: [[chuckle]] Yes you do. And don't even offer him as compensation. We don't want that guy. We'll take that Castro kid though.
• Ricketts: Uh. No.
• Henry: But the kid won't take a walk. 
• Ricketts: No.
• Henry: How about Randy Wells?
• Ricketts: No. I like that kid.
• Henry: But he would play better in Boston than in Wrigley with the wind blowing out.
• Ricketts: I wish I could give you Wrigley. That stupid name haunts me in my sleep. What a dinosaur.
• Henry: Make it work. We have with Fenway.
• Ricketts: We are stuck with Wrigley. Where am I going to put seats? Our fans think it's an Eiffel Tower or something. Ah geez. Drives me crazy.
• Henry: I hear you.
• Ricketts: So what's with the chicken and beer thing?
• Henry: Oh God. Let's not talk about that, okay?
• Ricketts: Heh. I appreciate your situation but also have enjoyed someone else's team getting a personnel black eye besides us. So what else do you want?
• Henry: [[looks at his papers]] Geez, Tom, you've got a lot of crap here. Uhh...what about Sahmahjah?
• Ricketts: [[laughs loudly]]  I love the way you said his name with that Harvard accent. No, we like him. You could have Marmol.
• Henry: Too much indigestion. I'd have a heart attack by the time his contract is up.
• Ricketts: Saw through that, did you?
• Henry: Nice try. Seriously, though, you've got nothing we want. Let's just do a cash thing.
• Ricketts: I was afraid you'd say that. How much?
• Henry: How about two million?
• Ricketts: Interesting. But we wouldn't be able to go that high.
• Henry: You want the guy, don't you?
• Ricketts: Well, yes. But that's a lot of money, John.
• [[phone rings]]
• Ricketts: Excuse me a minute...
• [[Ricketts talks in a muffled voice on the phone]] Okay, Bye.
• Ricketts: That was Selig.
• Henry: What the heck did he want?
• Ricketts: He wants us to wrap this thing up before the Series starts. Doesn't want the distraction.
• Henry: Screw him.
• Ricketts: Ah, he has his priorities. We have ours. Are you hungry?
• Henry: Indeed. Let's go to dinner. We can pick this up tomorrow. You're buying.