Great guy. Self-made, one of a lot of kids, the last one in the line, father died when he was a young teenager. Worked his rear end off, smart, serious, engaging, good husband, father, thoughtful, dependable, good neighbor, just a wonderful person.
We went to the Phillies game the other night, had a fun time, as the hometown nine won, this time in convincing fashion. We enjoyed the game and used it as a vehicle, as many do, to get caught up. We touched upon a lot of subjects, including the expense of going to a baseball game. My first reaction was to joke that the expense seemed to pale in comparison to going to a 76ers' game (where there are 41 home games to the Phillies' 81) or an Eagles' game (where there are only eight home games and the Eagles' make sure to get their monies' worth). But we did some basic math -- parking costs $20 if you want to park close enough not to exhaust your young kids by the time they get to the ball park. Tickets on the second level can cost roughly $35 apiece, which means that's $140 for a family of four. Let's say you need four waters -- at $5 apiece and you purchase food for four people. It's not cheap there, so let's say by the time you buy the French fries, chicken tenders, and perhaps other artery-clogging food and ice cream you spend say $30 on water (two for the adults) and another $70 on food. (Beers go for about $12 apiece, so let's surmise that the adults will not drink in front of the children -- not the best assumption at the ballpark). So the interim math is $20 for parking, $140 for tickets, and say $100 on food. Already that's $260 dollars. And for good measure perhaps you purchase a souvenir or two, you know, a Phillie Phanatic hat or a team hat or a jersey shirt or something, and let's say you spend another $60. That's about $320 for a family of four.
For one game. And let's suppose you want to go to several more during the season. That could be roughly $1,000 for four games. That's a lot of money, especially where the average income in the region is less than $60,000. Is it reasonable to expect someone to pay more than 1% of his/her income for the luxury of going to a baseball game and for an increasingly strange and hard-to-fathom product? Last year there were more strikeouts than hits in the game -- for the first time ever. And it took on average four minutes for a ball to go into play. Even taking into account the odd turns the game has taken, it remains expensive to go to a game.
So, some questions must be asked. Is it good business to charge $5 for a water as opposed to encouraging people to bring their own reusable water bottles and filling stations so that they can save money? Is it good business to charge what they do for food, too, and $20 for parking while they are at it? The principal owner of the team is worth more than $1 billion and vowed in the off-season to spend "stupid money" to sign free agents, and then gave Bryce Harper $330 million over 13 seasons for a guy who is about half as good as the unavailable and area native Mike Trout. Perhaps John Middleton paid "market" for Bryce Harper, and it stands to reason that he believes he bestowed many good things on his fans with that signing, the signing of Andrew McCutcheon, and the trades for Jean Segura and J.T. Realmuto. What he and his fellow owners -- all seemingly well-intentioned, good folks -- did not do was improve upon the fan experience in the one way that would help the fans -- making the game more affordable.
Those who defend baseball will argue that the game still draws a lot of fans and that only a few franchise have financial/attendance problems. And they might be right. I have gone on and on about the average age of a fan being 58 and how the younger generations are not flocking to the game because climate change has meant it is very hot to sit out there for 3.5-plus hours, because the game is increasingly boring with pitching changes, mound visits and strikeouts and such. When the average age of a fan is 58, what that means is that you have people who are making more money presumably in their jobs because they are at a point where they are highly paid or they are retired and have save up enough to spend their discretionary money on leisure.
Perhaps. But there is a big "but" in all of this. Most people do not have enough to retire on. The good economy will not last forever; we have not had a recession in 10+ years. Parking is not all that close to the stadium, and as people age they will not be able to get to the ballpark or do the necessary walking within the stadium to get to their seats. After all, the average person in the country is not in the best shape. Discretionary income might not be as discretionary for people as it is now. At some point people might say "are you crazy, I will not pay $5 for a water or $11 for a beer or $10 for crab fries. That is insane." (My family already is saying it). And with brutal competition for your internet/cable dollars, people might be content to watch at home (and that gets into a whole other set of issues -- loneliness and isolation, which could end up being bigger killers than heart disease and cancer). Putting all of this together, baseball has a unique opportunity to create a wonderful experience for a community -- where people can gather -- outside -- for a fun event that creates community. It really can do this.
If it doesn't price people out of the market. Especially when there are 81 games and the games are not as scarce as football (which has its own set of issues).
So back to our conversation. His refrain -- "how can the average guy afford this?"
The answer is, increasingly, that he cannot.
Even with a growing population. Even with a good economy.
Businesses can make decisions when they are on top or perceive that they are that can render themselves extinct. Boxing and horse racing used to be among the top five spectator sports. There is nothing to say that other games will not evolve them into more fringe sports. Minor league baseball is fun, fast and affordable. But the big-league game is not.
All you have to say is $5 for a water and you lose me at hello.
The Lords of Baseball should think hard about this.
And make some changes.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Friday, April 19, 2019
Kate Smith and the Philadelphia Flyers
The Philadelphia Flyers became the hot ticket in Philadelphia in the early 1970's. It was not that hockey was all that understood or cool. Their popularity, in part, resulted from the abysmal performances of the major sports teams in the city at the time. The 76ers set an NBA record for futility, and the Phillies and Eagles were doormats. Enter the Flyers, with their swashbuckling, fighting style, and a gritty city was captivated. I mean, how could you not be, with larger-than-life characters such as Dave "The Hammer" Schultz, Andre "Moose" DuPont, Bob "The Hound" Kelly and Don "Big Bird" Saleski, along with all-star Bobby Clarke, stand-on-your-head goalie Bernie Parent, elegant forwards Rick MacLeish and Reggie Leach, along with leader-of-men defenseman Barry Ashbee?
The team was also superstitious after a bit. They would play a recording of Kate Smith's "God Bless America" before games, and, as it turned out, had an astounding record of something like 33-0-1 during the 1973-1974 season when they played a recording of this song before games. The more they won, the more they played Kate. Her rendition of that song was a motivator -- it inspired players and fans alike.
I was there -- in the fifth row behind the bench -- for the pivotal Game 6 in the 1974 Stanley Cup finals. The Flyers were up 3 games to 2 on the favored Boston Bruins, yes, the Bruins with all-world Bobby Orr and Hall of Famer Phil Esposito among many others. A friend of my dad's could not go, and there we were, amidst all the excitement. The lights dimmed during the pre-game warm-ups, and they rolled out a red carpet. Out walked Kate Smith, and the place went wild, people were on their feet, cheering, as if she were the star of the team. And she delivered a great performance -- just electric, in a perfect environment -- a hugely supportive audience at a very big moment. It was something to behold. The Flyers won that game, 1-0, in a hard fought game, and pandemonium ensued -- in the Spectrum, and on the streets. The Broad Street Bullies captured the hearts and minds of the city. And Kate Smith was their balladeer, signing an American classic before a Canadian game played mostly by Canadians in the city where the United States was born. Only in America.
Today, the Flyers (and New York Yankees) announced a very public divorce from everything and anything having to do with Kate Smith. The Flyers are covering a statue of her that is near the Wells Fargo Arena, where the Flyers currently play. And neither the Flyers nor the Yankees will play her rendition of 'God Bless America" ever again. The reason -- she sang some songs in the 1930's that had racist lyrics -- and there is no doubt that the lyrics in question were and are racist.
I take a deep breath when I say that the Flyers have done the right thing. I am not a person of color but only could imagine how I would feel if I were and the team continued to honor a person who proudly sang the lyrics in the songs in question. I would like to think that Kate Smith regretted these lyrics at some point in her life, that she disowned them at some point, and that if she were around today she would have gone nowhere near them. But I do not know that, and she is not here now to speak for herself or defend herself. And she did many good things for people, including raising money for war bonds during the Second World War at a time when the country really needed the money. People are complex, people have pasts, people make mistakes, sometimes big ones. Kate Smith made some big ones.
I have/had fond memories of that day at the Spectrum, with my dad, watching a team win a championship. Entwined in that memory are the pre-game festivities, and the surprise appearance of the icon Kate Smith. It was a huge deal then. My dad died about 10 years later, too young, and unexpectedly. My memories of times with him are not abundant, and many have faded. This was a big one. We cheered this unusual team in a sport with which we were not familiar (and my father also thought that it became popular in many circles in Philadelphia because the players were white and so were almost all of the fans -- something he disdained as he was a basketball fan at heart). And now what we have come to learn is that a person who generated part of the buzz and a lot of excitement either was a racist or at a minimum participated in some awful racist songs.
I will not take the joy from that as I did back then and as had become etched in my memory of that day. I can separate the two -- the game and Kate Smith's performance -- but I am less sure about the players and other fans, as that's how big Kate Smith's presence was during the season. I still cherish the time with my dad, and I know he would agree with the step that the team is taking. As do I, for that is what he and my mother taught me -- that all people are created equal and deserve to be treated with fairness and dignity -- deserving of an equal chance. The continued presence of Kate Smith would not represent those values. In the end, what my dad taught me is the best memory of all.
The team was also superstitious after a bit. They would play a recording of Kate Smith's "God Bless America" before games, and, as it turned out, had an astounding record of something like 33-0-1 during the 1973-1974 season when they played a recording of this song before games. The more they won, the more they played Kate. Her rendition of that song was a motivator -- it inspired players and fans alike.
I was there -- in the fifth row behind the bench -- for the pivotal Game 6 in the 1974 Stanley Cup finals. The Flyers were up 3 games to 2 on the favored Boston Bruins, yes, the Bruins with all-world Bobby Orr and Hall of Famer Phil Esposito among many others. A friend of my dad's could not go, and there we were, amidst all the excitement. The lights dimmed during the pre-game warm-ups, and they rolled out a red carpet. Out walked Kate Smith, and the place went wild, people were on their feet, cheering, as if she were the star of the team. And she delivered a great performance -- just electric, in a perfect environment -- a hugely supportive audience at a very big moment. It was something to behold. The Flyers won that game, 1-0, in a hard fought game, and pandemonium ensued -- in the Spectrum, and on the streets. The Broad Street Bullies captured the hearts and minds of the city. And Kate Smith was their balladeer, signing an American classic before a Canadian game played mostly by Canadians in the city where the United States was born. Only in America.
Today, the Flyers (and New York Yankees) announced a very public divorce from everything and anything having to do with Kate Smith. The Flyers are covering a statue of her that is near the Wells Fargo Arena, where the Flyers currently play. And neither the Flyers nor the Yankees will play her rendition of 'God Bless America" ever again. The reason -- she sang some songs in the 1930's that had racist lyrics -- and there is no doubt that the lyrics in question were and are racist.
I take a deep breath when I say that the Flyers have done the right thing. I am not a person of color but only could imagine how I would feel if I were and the team continued to honor a person who proudly sang the lyrics in the songs in question. I would like to think that Kate Smith regretted these lyrics at some point in her life, that she disowned them at some point, and that if she were around today she would have gone nowhere near them. But I do not know that, and she is not here now to speak for herself or defend herself. And she did many good things for people, including raising money for war bonds during the Second World War at a time when the country really needed the money. People are complex, people have pasts, people make mistakes, sometimes big ones. Kate Smith made some big ones.
I have/had fond memories of that day at the Spectrum, with my dad, watching a team win a championship. Entwined in that memory are the pre-game festivities, and the surprise appearance of the icon Kate Smith. It was a huge deal then. My dad died about 10 years later, too young, and unexpectedly. My memories of times with him are not abundant, and many have faded. This was a big one. We cheered this unusual team in a sport with which we were not familiar (and my father also thought that it became popular in many circles in Philadelphia because the players were white and so were almost all of the fans -- something he disdained as he was a basketball fan at heart). And now what we have come to learn is that a person who generated part of the buzz and a lot of excitement either was a racist or at a minimum participated in some awful racist songs.
I will not take the joy from that as I did back then and as had become etched in my memory of that day. I can separate the two -- the game and Kate Smith's performance -- but I am less sure about the players and other fans, as that's how big Kate Smith's presence was during the season. I still cherish the time with my dad, and I know he would agree with the step that the team is taking. As do I, for that is what he and my mother taught me -- that all people are created equal and deserve to be treated with fairness and dignity -- deserving of an equal chance. The continued presence of Kate Smith would not represent those values. In the end, what my dad taught me is the best memory of all.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Jason Kelce -- Warrior or Crazy? Or Both?
I don't know if any of you have this problem watching football -- I watch it less and less as stories emerge about how the game's participants are maiming themselves for life and making themselves more likely for all sorts of debilitating and life-ending conditions. The NFL will downplay this, of course, as it is a multi-million dollar business, and the owners seem deaf and dumb to the problems. If they paid attention -- and had hearts -- they would pay the players more, guarantee more money and provide for them once these awful injuries manifest themselves. But they don't, and we read stories of broke and broken down players in all sorts of awful circumstances, stories that go beyond the poor souls that took their own lives or passed away from ALS or early-onset Alzheimer's and other dementia-like diseases. Those stories are crushing, and, absent a formal reporting system, it is difficult to discern the depth of the problem but relatively easy to believe that it is bigger than what gets reported.
How many more brain tissue samples must the group at Boston University test positive for chronic traumatic encephalopothy (CTE) before the game changes dramatically? There are too many sad cases, too many tough, rough stories, stories that are far in addition to the problems that players face immediately after leaving their sports -- depression, bankruptcy, divorce. First, the money, attention and adrenaline go, then the mind and the body.
Read this article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer by Bob Ford about the Philadelphia Eagles' All-Pro center Jason Kelce, he of the heroic play and the wonderful, heart-on-his-sleeve speech at the team's post-Super Bowl victory parade in the winter of 2018. If Kelce were a car, the insurance company would have considered him totaled, provided a check to the owner and sent him to the junkyard. He'd probably be worth more in parts than as a whole. As a football player, and someone undersized for his position, he puts himself through an inordinate amount of pain and physical damage to put himself out there every week, and it gets tougher as the years mount and the season progresses. My commentary is not a reflection of his character -- he is a leader, he says what is on his mind, and he produces at his job -- but a reflection on the game, on society, on decisions people make and to a degree on Kelce's sanity. Why put yourself through this? Kelce has skills and probably could make a considerable amount of money doing commentary in the studio, on games or on talk radio. None of those job descriptions require him to take painkillers, bang into people or go to work barely able to walk in order to earn a paycheck.
Not everyone, of course, is as fortunate. Kids get recruited out of high school, shunted to football factories where coaches make very good money and the primary reason the kids are there is to help the coaches keep their jobs, to help the university fill stadiums, earn money off television rights and also merchandise. They get scholarships, but they are renewable after one year, which means that if the coach has a change of heart or there is a new coach, the kid could be sent packing. As it is, many kids are channeled into easy majors, including those where they get credit for playing football, and come out of college having used up their eligibility without a degree or, if they graduate, who knows how meaningful the degree is. I get it that not everyone can master calculus or become a mechanical engineer, but our system should provide more support to these young men than it does now. Especially given how much attention football gets in our society and how much money is generated from it.
Our society is a reflection of the games we watch and cherish. There are many American "things" that have taken off in the world, among them medical innovations, smart phones, silicon computer chips, cars, basketball rap music. Baseball has not supplanted cricket, and neither basketball (which is very popular worldwide) or American football has replaced soccer as the world's most popular sport. Not even close. And a strong reflection of the uniqueness of American sport is that American football has not become popular anywhere else. Oh, sure, it draws crowds in England and there are minor attempts to play it in other countries, but let's face it -- it's violent, and most of the people who play it weigh a lot more than they should for their height (according to the National Institutes for Health, among others) and short-, mid- and long-term health. That those large people collide with one another creates major problems for them1950 , for their teams and for the league.
So let's circle back to Jason Kelce. There is little doubt that he is a warrior, and there seems to be little doubt that you have to be somewhat crazy to choose a job where you bang into people incessantly over several hours (even if practices are more tame than twenty years ago, there are rules to protect players more, there is concussion protocol, etc.). And then there is longstanding question of assumption of the risk and whether societal rules should protect people from each other (most would agree to that) or themselves (most would disagree, sometimes very strongly, on that). Should society step in or adopt a "survival of the fittest"/"let people do what they want" approach? President Teddy Roosevelt stepped in to reform the rules at the beginning of the 20th Century when young men were dying in games. Threatening legislation, the game reformed itself. I would submit, though, that the pace of reform has been slow and not all that much has changed since 1965 for the long-term health and welfare of the players.
Here are some somewhat random thoughts/factoids. Hall of Famer Ed Reed was quoted as saying that he played the game as a way out of poverty so that his sons would not have to. Go back fifty years, and that's what boxers said. Boxing was one of the five most popular sports fifty years ago -- it is not anymore. Fewer kids are playing the game, although HBO reported, sadly, that poor kids -- many of whom are kids of color, -- are still playing it at the same rate or even a higher rate. That is disturbing, too. That suggest that those who need their football fix -- the collisions, hard tackles -- are content to satisfy their needs with someone else's kids, but not their own. 80% of FBS (Division 1) schools have athletic departments that lose money. Many play to stadiums that are not full. Big-time college football in some parts (on Saturdays) and the NFL have become a big part of our culture. Many revolve their Saturdays and Sundays around football; it has become part of the ritual of tens of millions of people. And American football is an easy game to bet on -- there is a point spread (I confess I still have not figured out the difference between -150 and +430 for baseball games). It is the most popular spectator sport in the country.
But at what cost? To our national psyches, our national soul, our national caring, the quest to provide a good and decent society for all? Yes, there are many more significant problems in the United States and the world to solve for -- aging populations, rising healthcare costs, decaying infrastructure, staggering amounts of student loan debt, the absence of general practice medical doctors, income inequality, climate change among many others. Perhaps this issue even is a high-class problem, given all of the other problems facing us.
But watching people take this type of risk and clobbering each other? Is this a safer form of Christians versus lions or even watching lumberjacks beat the daylights out of each other in an empty box car in the train yard on the far side of down, with people throwing down money betting on who would prevail? Or are we kidding ourselves, and we really have not advance all that much over thousands of years?
Then ask yourself this question -- would you let your kid play this game? And if the answer is no, then why are you watching it? And why do Americans pay so much money to support it?
What does that say about you, us, our society?
How many more brain tissue samples must the group at Boston University test positive for chronic traumatic encephalopothy (CTE) before the game changes dramatically? There are too many sad cases, too many tough, rough stories, stories that are far in addition to the problems that players face immediately after leaving their sports -- depression, bankruptcy, divorce. First, the money, attention and adrenaline go, then the mind and the body.
Read this article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer by Bob Ford about the Philadelphia Eagles' All-Pro center Jason Kelce, he of the heroic play and the wonderful, heart-on-his-sleeve speech at the team's post-Super Bowl victory parade in the winter of 2018. If Kelce were a car, the insurance company would have considered him totaled, provided a check to the owner and sent him to the junkyard. He'd probably be worth more in parts than as a whole. As a football player, and someone undersized for his position, he puts himself through an inordinate amount of pain and physical damage to put himself out there every week, and it gets tougher as the years mount and the season progresses. My commentary is not a reflection of his character -- he is a leader, he says what is on his mind, and he produces at his job -- but a reflection on the game, on society, on decisions people make and to a degree on Kelce's sanity. Why put yourself through this? Kelce has skills and probably could make a considerable amount of money doing commentary in the studio, on games or on talk radio. None of those job descriptions require him to take painkillers, bang into people or go to work barely able to walk in order to earn a paycheck.
Not everyone, of course, is as fortunate. Kids get recruited out of high school, shunted to football factories where coaches make very good money and the primary reason the kids are there is to help the coaches keep their jobs, to help the university fill stadiums, earn money off television rights and also merchandise. They get scholarships, but they are renewable after one year, which means that if the coach has a change of heart or there is a new coach, the kid could be sent packing. As it is, many kids are channeled into easy majors, including those where they get credit for playing football, and come out of college having used up their eligibility without a degree or, if they graduate, who knows how meaningful the degree is. I get it that not everyone can master calculus or become a mechanical engineer, but our system should provide more support to these young men than it does now. Especially given how much attention football gets in our society and how much money is generated from it.
Our society is a reflection of the games we watch and cherish. There are many American "things" that have taken off in the world, among them medical innovations, smart phones, silicon computer chips, cars, basketball rap music. Baseball has not supplanted cricket, and neither basketball (which is very popular worldwide) or American football has replaced soccer as the world's most popular sport. Not even close. And a strong reflection of the uniqueness of American sport is that American football has not become popular anywhere else. Oh, sure, it draws crowds in England and there are minor attempts to play it in other countries, but let's face it -- it's violent, and most of the people who play it weigh a lot more than they should for their height (according to the National Institutes for Health, among others) and short-, mid- and long-term health. That those large people collide with one another creates major problems for them1950 , for their teams and for the league.
So let's circle back to Jason Kelce. There is little doubt that he is a warrior, and there seems to be little doubt that you have to be somewhat crazy to choose a job where you bang into people incessantly over several hours (even if practices are more tame than twenty years ago, there are rules to protect players more, there is concussion protocol, etc.). And then there is longstanding question of assumption of the risk and whether societal rules should protect people from each other (most would agree to that) or themselves (most would disagree, sometimes very strongly, on that). Should society step in or adopt a "survival of the fittest"/"let people do what they want" approach? President Teddy Roosevelt stepped in to reform the rules at the beginning of the 20th Century when young men were dying in games. Threatening legislation, the game reformed itself. I would submit, though, that the pace of reform has been slow and not all that much has changed since 1965 for the long-term health and welfare of the players.
Here are some somewhat random thoughts/factoids. Hall of Famer Ed Reed was quoted as saying that he played the game as a way out of poverty so that his sons would not have to. Go back fifty years, and that's what boxers said. Boxing was one of the five most popular sports fifty years ago -- it is not anymore. Fewer kids are playing the game, although HBO reported, sadly, that poor kids -- many of whom are kids of color, -- are still playing it at the same rate or even a higher rate. That is disturbing, too. That suggest that those who need their football fix -- the collisions, hard tackles -- are content to satisfy their needs with someone else's kids, but not their own. 80% of FBS (Division 1) schools have athletic departments that lose money. Many play to stadiums that are not full. Big-time college football in some parts (on Saturdays) and the NFL have become a big part of our culture. Many revolve their Saturdays and Sundays around football; it has become part of the ritual of tens of millions of people. And American football is an easy game to bet on -- there is a point spread (I confess I still have not figured out the difference between -150 and +430 for baseball games). It is the most popular spectator sport in the country.
But at what cost? To our national psyches, our national soul, our national caring, the quest to provide a good and decent society for all? Yes, there are many more significant problems in the United States and the world to solve for -- aging populations, rising healthcare costs, decaying infrastructure, staggering amounts of student loan debt, the absence of general practice medical doctors, income inequality, climate change among many others. Perhaps this issue even is a high-class problem, given all of the other problems facing us.
But watching people take this type of risk and clobbering each other? Is this a safer form of Christians versus lions or even watching lumberjacks beat the daylights out of each other in an empty box car in the train yard on the far side of down, with people throwing down money betting on who would prevail? Or are we kidding ourselves, and we really have not advance all that much over thousands of years?
Then ask yourself this question -- would you let your kid play this game? And if the answer is no, then why are you watching it? And why do Americans pay so much money to support it?
What does that say about you, us, our society?
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Mike Trout Gave the Angels a Great Deal
I happened to run into a former Phillie, still involved with the club, recently, and offered that after Bryce Harper set the market with his 13-year $330 million dollar deal that Mike Trout, Philadelphia-area native and one of the top ten position players of all-time, even in his age 27 year, gave the Angels a great deal when he signed for 12 years and $430 million. That Phillie was puzzled, perhaps because of the old sports reporting that seemed to pair Harper and Trout together as equivalents. I offered to this former player, who probably was thinking "who is this nerd and both are getting way too much money at the expense of good positions players like I was," that the career production numbers bore this out.
Let's take a look at career Wins Above Replacement Player --
Mike Trout -- 9 seasons, 66.1
Bryce Harper -- 8 seasons, 27.6.
So even if you extrapolated for Harper and added 3.5 to his WAR to provide a more precise comparison, Harper would be at 31.1 for career WAR, which still would be less than half that of Trout's.
Here is some more perspective:
Trout's career WAR going into this season put him tied with Hall of Famer Goose Goslin for 92nd on the all time-list. It took Goslin 18 seasons -- twice as many -- to achieve the same WAR. The only active players -- all in their twilight -- ahead of Trout are Albert Pujols (39 years old, 19 seasons, 99.9 WAR -- 21st all time), Miguel Cabrera (36 years old, 17 seasons, 69.5 career WAR -- 71st all-time) and Robinson Cano (36 years old, 15 seasons, 69.0 career WAR -- 75th all time). So, it stands to reason that Trout will pass all of them during his career, and Cabrera and Cano pretty soon.
In contrast, Harper's career WAR puts him tied for 607th all-time, with, among others, Clete Boyer, Dave Henderson, Davey Johnson, Tip O'Neill, Randy Winn and last year's NL MVP, Christian Yelich (who has seven seasons under his belt and was 27 going into this season.). Active players ahead of Harper include Kyle Seager (31 years old, 8 seasons, 28.0 WAR), Anthony Rizzo (29 years old, 9 seasons, 29.0 WAR), Hunter Pence (36 years old, 13 seasons, 29.7 WAR), Martin Prado (35 years old, 14 seasons, 29.8 WAR), Elvis Andrus (30 years old, 11 seasons, 30.4 WAR), Howie Kendrick (35 years old, 14 seasons and 30.8 WAR), Jacoby Ellsbury (35 years old, 11 seasons and 31.1 WAR), Brian McCann (35 years old, 15 seasons, 31.6 WAR), Nick Markakis (who has a shot at 3,000 hits) (35 years old, 14 seasons and 32.6 WAR), Nolan Arenado (28 years old, 7 seasons, 32.9 WAR), Adam Jones, (33 years old, 14 seasons, 33.0 WAR), Edwin Encarnacion (36 years old, 15 seasons, 33.1 WAR), Freddie Freeman (29 years old, 10 seasons, 33.6 WAR), Nelson Cruz (38 years old, 15 seasons, 33.8 WAR), Shin-Soo Choo (36 years old, 15 seasons, 33.8 WAR), Andrelton Simmons (29 years old, 8 seasons, 34.5 WAR), Lorenzo Cain (33 years old, 10 seasons, 34.8 WAR), Manny Machado (26 years old, 8 seasons, 34.9 WAR), Justin Upton (31 years old, 12 seasons, 35.1 WAR), Jayson Heyward (29 years old, 10 seasons, 35.6 WAR), Jose Altuve (29 years old, 9 seasons, 35.6 WAR), Mookie Betts (26 years old, 6 seasons, 35.9 WAR), Alex Gordon (35 years old, 13 seasons, 36.3 WAR), Brett Gardner (35 years old, 12 seasons, 37.2 WAR), Russell Martin (36 years old, 14 seasons, 37.5 WAR), Ryan Zimmerman (34 years old, 15 seasons, 37.7 WAR), Hanley Ramirez (35 years old, 15 seasons, 38.0 WAR), Yadier Molina (36 years old, 16 seasons, 38.9 WAR), Josh Donaldson (33 years old, 9 seasons, 39.1 WAR), Giancarlo Stanton (29 years old, 10 seasons, 39.7 WAR), Buster Posey (32 years old, 11 seasons, 41.1 WAR), Paul Goldschmidt (31 years old, 9 seasons, 41.1 WAR), Andrew McCutcheon (32 years old, 11 seasons, 42.9 WAR), Troy Tulowitzki (34 years old, 13 seasons, 44.2 WAR), Ben Zobrist (38 years old, 14 seasons, 45.2 WAR), Ryan Braun (35 years old, 13 seasons, 45.9 WAR), Curtis Granderson (38 years old, 16 seasons, 47.7 WAR), Dustin Pedroia (35 years old, 14 seasons, 51.7 WAR), Evan Longoria (33 years old, 12 seasons, 51.7 WAR), Ian Kinsler (37 years old, 14 seasons, 57.0 WAR), Joey Votto (35 years old, 13 seasons and 58.9 WAR), and then Trout and the three players ahead of him.
Now, the list of players head of Trout has many players ahead of him who are older and played more seasons, and it's not totally fair to have a WAR per season stat because of partial seasons (not fair to count a season with 700 plate appearances the same as one with say 50 when a player was a September call-up as a youngster). Some of these players are there because of longevity, true, and their performance has tailed off and/or they are at the tail end of their careers. That said, performances do level off (ask Andrew Jones about how much fun he had during this past free-agent season), which means there is no guarantee that Harper's current WAR projects to another 3.5 WAR per season over the 13 seasons to give him a career war of over 72 and a perch in the Hall of Fame. But history and the data suggest that Harper may have his struggles come his age 31 or age 32 season. Recent history compels critical thinking along those lines.
But back to the comparison. Trout already is ahead of the following Hall of Famers in career WAR -- Craig Biggio, AndrewDawson, Willie McCovey, Dave Winfield, Richie Ashburn, Billy Williams, Billy Hamilton, Lou Boudreau, Home Run Baker, Jackie Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Zack Wheat, Yogi Berra, Mike Piazza, Vladimir Guerrero, Ichiro (a first-ballot shoo-in), Bill Dickey, Hank Greenberg, Willie Stargell, Luis Aparacio, Bill Terry, Tony Perez, George Sisler, Joe Sewell, Jimmy Collins, Harry Hooper, Joe Tinker, Kirby Puckett and Orlando Cepeda. Harper is behind such non-Hall of Famers as Terry Steinbach, Dennis Menke, Cesar Tovar, Sixto Lezcano, Coco Crisp, Mickey Tettleton, Chris Speier, Darin Erstad, Robby Thompson, Don Money, Mark Belanger, Chuck Knoblauch, Brian Giles and Johnny Damon, among others.
This is not to say that Harper is a bad player. This is not to say that Harper is not a very good player. This also is not to say that Harper has no shot at the Hall of Fame, when, in fact, he has a good shot. This is not to say that Harper is not magnetic, that he did not sell jerseys and jersey shirts and that he did not sell tickets. While his WAR negatively compares to that of Manny Machado, Harper sold about eight times as many tickets upon the announcement of his signing than Machado did in San Diego. But what this comparison does say is how exception a player Mike Trout is. Year after year, he has put up amazing numbers. Harper's numbers do not compare.
You could make the argument that if Harper was worth 13 years at $330 million, Trout was worth not $430 million over 12 seasons, but $609 million over those same 12 years (formula -- $330 million x 2 divided by 13 and then times 12). The Angels got a bargain.
Like Harper.
Love Trout.
Take a look at Baseball Reference or Baseball Prospectus and compare the numbers. They are not that close.
Let's take a look at career Wins Above Replacement Player --
Mike Trout -- 9 seasons, 66.1
Bryce Harper -- 8 seasons, 27.6.
So even if you extrapolated for Harper and added 3.5 to his WAR to provide a more precise comparison, Harper would be at 31.1 for career WAR, which still would be less than half that of Trout's.
Here is some more perspective:
Trout's career WAR going into this season put him tied with Hall of Famer Goose Goslin for 92nd on the all time-list. It took Goslin 18 seasons -- twice as many -- to achieve the same WAR. The only active players -- all in their twilight -- ahead of Trout are Albert Pujols (39 years old, 19 seasons, 99.9 WAR -- 21st all time), Miguel Cabrera (36 years old, 17 seasons, 69.5 career WAR -- 71st all-time) and Robinson Cano (36 years old, 15 seasons, 69.0 career WAR -- 75th all time). So, it stands to reason that Trout will pass all of them during his career, and Cabrera and Cano pretty soon.
In contrast, Harper's career WAR puts him tied for 607th all-time, with, among others, Clete Boyer, Dave Henderson, Davey Johnson, Tip O'Neill, Randy Winn and last year's NL MVP, Christian Yelich (who has seven seasons under his belt and was 27 going into this season.). Active players ahead of Harper include Kyle Seager (31 years old, 8 seasons, 28.0 WAR), Anthony Rizzo (29 years old, 9 seasons, 29.0 WAR), Hunter Pence (36 years old, 13 seasons, 29.7 WAR), Martin Prado (35 years old, 14 seasons, 29.8 WAR), Elvis Andrus (30 years old, 11 seasons, 30.4 WAR), Howie Kendrick (35 years old, 14 seasons and 30.8 WAR), Jacoby Ellsbury (35 years old, 11 seasons and 31.1 WAR), Brian McCann (35 years old, 15 seasons, 31.6 WAR), Nick Markakis (who has a shot at 3,000 hits) (35 years old, 14 seasons and 32.6 WAR), Nolan Arenado (28 years old, 7 seasons, 32.9 WAR), Adam Jones, (33 years old, 14 seasons, 33.0 WAR), Edwin Encarnacion (36 years old, 15 seasons, 33.1 WAR), Freddie Freeman (29 years old, 10 seasons, 33.6 WAR), Nelson Cruz (38 years old, 15 seasons, 33.8 WAR), Shin-Soo Choo (36 years old, 15 seasons, 33.8 WAR), Andrelton Simmons (29 years old, 8 seasons, 34.5 WAR), Lorenzo Cain (33 years old, 10 seasons, 34.8 WAR), Manny Machado (26 years old, 8 seasons, 34.9 WAR), Justin Upton (31 years old, 12 seasons, 35.1 WAR), Jayson Heyward (29 years old, 10 seasons, 35.6 WAR), Jose Altuve (29 years old, 9 seasons, 35.6 WAR), Mookie Betts (26 years old, 6 seasons, 35.9 WAR), Alex Gordon (35 years old, 13 seasons, 36.3 WAR), Brett Gardner (35 years old, 12 seasons, 37.2 WAR), Russell Martin (36 years old, 14 seasons, 37.5 WAR), Ryan Zimmerman (34 years old, 15 seasons, 37.7 WAR), Hanley Ramirez (35 years old, 15 seasons, 38.0 WAR), Yadier Molina (36 years old, 16 seasons, 38.9 WAR), Josh Donaldson (33 years old, 9 seasons, 39.1 WAR), Giancarlo Stanton (29 years old, 10 seasons, 39.7 WAR), Buster Posey (32 years old, 11 seasons, 41.1 WAR), Paul Goldschmidt (31 years old, 9 seasons, 41.1 WAR), Andrew McCutcheon (32 years old, 11 seasons, 42.9 WAR), Troy Tulowitzki (34 years old, 13 seasons, 44.2 WAR), Ben Zobrist (38 years old, 14 seasons, 45.2 WAR), Ryan Braun (35 years old, 13 seasons, 45.9 WAR), Curtis Granderson (38 years old, 16 seasons, 47.7 WAR), Dustin Pedroia (35 years old, 14 seasons, 51.7 WAR), Evan Longoria (33 years old, 12 seasons, 51.7 WAR), Ian Kinsler (37 years old, 14 seasons, 57.0 WAR), Joey Votto (35 years old, 13 seasons and 58.9 WAR), and then Trout and the three players ahead of him.
Now, the list of players head of Trout has many players ahead of him who are older and played more seasons, and it's not totally fair to have a WAR per season stat because of partial seasons (not fair to count a season with 700 plate appearances the same as one with say 50 when a player was a September call-up as a youngster). Some of these players are there because of longevity, true, and their performance has tailed off and/or they are at the tail end of their careers. That said, performances do level off (ask Andrew Jones about how much fun he had during this past free-agent season), which means there is no guarantee that Harper's current WAR projects to another 3.5 WAR per season over the 13 seasons to give him a career war of over 72 and a perch in the Hall of Fame. But history and the data suggest that Harper may have his struggles come his age 31 or age 32 season. Recent history compels critical thinking along those lines.
But back to the comparison. Trout already is ahead of the following Hall of Famers in career WAR -- Craig Biggio, AndrewDawson, Willie McCovey, Dave Winfield, Richie Ashburn, Billy Williams, Billy Hamilton, Lou Boudreau, Home Run Baker, Jackie Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Zack Wheat, Yogi Berra, Mike Piazza, Vladimir Guerrero, Ichiro (a first-ballot shoo-in), Bill Dickey, Hank Greenberg, Willie Stargell, Luis Aparacio, Bill Terry, Tony Perez, George Sisler, Joe Sewell, Jimmy Collins, Harry Hooper, Joe Tinker, Kirby Puckett and Orlando Cepeda. Harper is behind such non-Hall of Famers as Terry Steinbach, Dennis Menke, Cesar Tovar, Sixto Lezcano, Coco Crisp, Mickey Tettleton, Chris Speier, Darin Erstad, Robby Thompson, Don Money, Mark Belanger, Chuck Knoblauch, Brian Giles and Johnny Damon, among others.
This is not to say that Harper is a bad player. This is not to say that Harper is not a very good player. This also is not to say that Harper has no shot at the Hall of Fame, when, in fact, he has a good shot. This is not to say that Harper is not magnetic, that he did not sell jerseys and jersey shirts and that he did not sell tickets. While his WAR negatively compares to that of Manny Machado, Harper sold about eight times as many tickets upon the announcement of his signing than Machado did in San Diego. But what this comparison does say is how exception a player Mike Trout is. Year after year, he has put up amazing numbers. Harper's numbers do not compare.
You could make the argument that if Harper was worth 13 years at $330 million, Trout was worth not $430 million over 12 seasons, but $609 million over those same 12 years (formula -- $330 million x 2 divided by 13 and then times 12). The Angels got a bargain.
Like Harper.
Love Trout.
Take a look at Baseball Reference or Baseball Prospectus and compare the numbers. They are not that close.
Friday, March 29, 2019
Phillies Opening Day
Drove down to the Bank yesterday to watch the Phillies' most anticipated opening day since 2011 (let's face it, in 2012 no one expected the team to fare well, and it finished .500).
The good:
1. The buzz was amazing. I felt it in the late 1970's with the Carlton-Schmidt teams and then in the mid-to-late 2000's with the Utley-Rollins-Howard teams. At times I felt it with the 1993 team, but no one thought on opening day then that the Daulton-Dykstra-Kruk team was going places (in fact, it was a lightning strike, as that team was a one-year wonder). Fans were festive, the lines were long (why they planted annual plants along Pattison Avenue with the anticipated crowds was beyond me, but the fans did their best not to trample them).
2. The fans have returned. Okay, so that's part of the buzz, but how many times did fans witness half-empty stadiums (and this stadium was not 100% full, even if they sold all the tickets -- there were chunks of empty seats at all levels)? Ghost-laden parking lots? Plenty.
3. The joint was jumping. It was loud, it was enthusiastic, it was hopeful, all the things that you want to see in a crowd. If you haven't experienced the union of a team on the rise and its fans, it is something special to see. The atmosphere can be electric.
4. The team delivered. The Phillies have not played their first game at home normally (my memory suggests that mostly they have been on the road) and over the past 50 years they have lost many more openers than they have won (even with some of the excellent teams that I mentioned above). Andrew McCutcheon homered to lead off the bottom of the first, the oft-maligned Maikel Franco hit a three-run frozen rope and then Rhys Hoskins capped the day with a grand slam -- after the Braves walked Bryce Harper to load the bases. This was a team whose offense was paltry, putrid, weak, non-existent at times last season. This year's lineup -- with half of the eight position players new to the squad -- has zing and oomph.
5. Aaron Nola is a treat to watch even when he does not have his best stuff. As one scout put it in Sports Illustrated, he pitches like Greg Maddux. Nola was not at his best yesterday, but what he did was good enough.
6. Bryce Harper has star power, even when he strikes out twice, which he did. Harper wore bright lime green kicks with images of the Phillie Phanatic on them. Those were fun to see.
The bad:
1. Traffic. The Phillies blew it yesterday with their messages to fans. They did warn fans to get to the stadium complex early because they were expecting a big crowd. What they failed to do -- and they must take ownership for this -- is warn their fans that the lots at the Wells Fargo Center -- where fans historically have parked when the Phillies have had sell-outs -- would be closed because the 76ers were hosting the Nets at 7 p.m. (the Phillies' game started at 3:05). This lot closure caught many fans unaware, created a massive traffic jam even for fans who arrived at the complex 90 minutes before game time, and spoiled for some what should have been an early arrival, the ability to watch the pre-game festivities and to see McCutcheon's home run, which many missed. I called the Phillies to register a complaint about this -- and got hung up on, clearly by someone without training in customer service. And I was polite, too.
2. Alcohol. It is bad enough that they charge over $10 for a beer, but worse that so many people believe that consuming multiple beers is a wise investment of their hard-earned $. But the bigger problem is how many people seemed inebriated. There were four early twenty-somethings sitting next to us who were wasted and asking my friend the dumbest of questions about the game and the scoreboard. And they were not alone. I don't know what the answer is except to limit fans to 2 beers per game (by stamping a hand, and, of course, the heavy drinkers could get more sober friends to purchase extras for them). But the fans who drink too much can take away from the experience of others.
3. Sad to see as a sign of the times bollards surrounding the stadium (to prevent a terrorist or shooter from driving up on the sidewalk amidst fans and coming out shooting) the armed Homeland Security guards in strategic locations. Yes, all of these measures are for the public good, but it is sad to see all of the measures that need to be taken.
4. Hector Neris. Great guy, apparently, and someone whose teammates love him. He was once "Hector the Lead Protector" but got sent down mid-season last year when he was more "Hector the Launch Master." He developed a new pitch at AAA Lehigh Valley, and worked on his game, improved, only to yield a home run in relief yesterday. The team is counting on Neris, and, yes, yesterday is only a single data point. But his performance is something to keep an eye on.
Good day, overall, at the Bank, even if it took me from door to door about 2.5 hours to park and get inside. The Phillies might be onto something -- and they will be if their #2-#5 starting pitchers can throw with consistency.
The good:
1. The buzz was amazing. I felt it in the late 1970's with the Carlton-Schmidt teams and then in the mid-to-late 2000's with the Utley-Rollins-Howard teams. At times I felt it with the 1993 team, but no one thought on opening day then that the Daulton-Dykstra-Kruk team was going places (in fact, it was a lightning strike, as that team was a one-year wonder). Fans were festive, the lines were long (why they planted annual plants along Pattison Avenue with the anticipated crowds was beyond me, but the fans did their best not to trample them).
2. The fans have returned. Okay, so that's part of the buzz, but how many times did fans witness half-empty stadiums (and this stadium was not 100% full, even if they sold all the tickets -- there were chunks of empty seats at all levels)? Ghost-laden parking lots? Plenty.
3. The joint was jumping. It was loud, it was enthusiastic, it was hopeful, all the things that you want to see in a crowd. If you haven't experienced the union of a team on the rise and its fans, it is something special to see. The atmosphere can be electric.
4. The team delivered. The Phillies have not played their first game at home normally (my memory suggests that mostly they have been on the road) and over the past 50 years they have lost many more openers than they have won (even with some of the excellent teams that I mentioned above). Andrew McCutcheon homered to lead off the bottom of the first, the oft-maligned Maikel Franco hit a three-run frozen rope and then Rhys Hoskins capped the day with a grand slam -- after the Braves walked Bryce Harper to load the bases. This was a team whose offense was paltry, putrid, weak, non-existent at times last season. This year's lineup -- with half of the eight position players new to the squad -- has zing and oomph.
5. Aaron Nola is a treat to watch even when he does not have his best stuff. As one scout put it in Sports Illustrated, he pitches like Greg Maddux. Nola was not at his best yesterday, but what he did was good enough.
6. Bryce Harper has star power, even when he strikes out twice, which he did. Harper wore bright lime green kicks with images of the Phillie Phanatic on them. Those were fun to see.
The bad:
1. Traffic. The Phillies blew it yesterday with their messages to fans. They did warn fans to get to the stadium complex early because they were expecting a big crowd. What they failed to do -- and they must take ownership for this -- is warn their fans that the lots at the Wells Fargo Center -- where fans historically have parked when the Phillies have had sell-outs -- would be closed because the 76ers were hosting the Nets at 7 p.m. (the Phillies' game started at 3:05). This lot closure caught many fans unaware, created a massive traffic jam even for fans who arrived at the complex 90 minutes before game time, and spoiled for some what should have been an early arrival, the ability to watch the pre-game festivities and to see McCutcheon's home run, which many missed. I called the Phillies to register a complaint about this -- and got hung up on, clearly by someone without training in customer service. And I was polite, too.
2. Alcohol. It is bad enough that they charge over $10 for a beer, but worse that so many people believe that consuming multiple beers is a wise investment of their hard-earned $. But the bigger problem is how many people seemed inebriated. There were four early twenty-somethings sitting next to us who were wasted and asking my friend the dumbest of questions about the game and the scoreboard. And they were not alone. I don't know what the answer is except to limit fans to 2 beers per game (by stamping a hand, and, of course, the heavy drinkers could get more sober friends to purchase extras for them). But the fans who drink too much can take away from the experience of others.
3. Sad to see as a sign of the times bollards surrounding the stadium (to prevent a terrorist or shooter from driving up on the sidewalk amidst fans and coming out shooting) the armed Homeland Security guards in strategic locations. Yes, all of these measures are for the public good, but it is sad to see all of the measures that need to be taken.
4. Hector Neris. Great guy, apparently, and someone whose teammates love him. He was once "Hector the Lead Protector" but got sent down mid-season last year when he was more "Hector the Launch Master." He developed a new pitch at AAA Lehigh Valley, and worked on his game, improved, only to yield a home run in relief yesterday. The team is counting on Neris, and, yes, yesterday is only a single data point. But his performance is something to keep an eye on.
Good day, overall, at the Bank, even if it took me from door to door about 2.5 hours to park and get inside. The Phillies might be onto something -- and they will be if their #2-#5 starting pitchers can throw with consistency.
Wednesday, March 06, 2019
Is WAR the Answer?
Many of my friends think not. One goes so far as to question the work of Baseball Prospectus in its entirety because while it discusses its metrics, it does not explain them or define them. So while a statistic like WAR intrigues him, he puts little stock in it because he does not know how it is calculated.
Oh, I tell him, look at Baseball Reference for career WAR and you have to conclude that it is a robust statistic because all the all-time greats rank at the top of the lists. Ergo, the BP people are getting something right. No, is the vigorous counter, all that means is that human observations and the old stats told us who was good, and those were good enough to tell us who the stars were and are. What he is protesting, when you get down to it, is that the stat guys have taken all of the fun out of debates as to who was better, a province of the liberal arts guys who liked baseball without having to have earned a degree in higher math to understand it.
The purpose of this writing, though, is not to discuss the topic in the headline, which is a teaser. WAR seems here to stay. Assuming, for purposes of this argument, that it has merit, what does it mean for player salaries? Whose salaries am I thinking of particularly -- well, those of Mike Trout and Mookie Betts. Why, do you ask? Simple? Both are better players -- and you could argue significantly better players -- than both Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. In WAR terms, twice to three times as good. So, if Harper just signed a 13-year, $330 million contract, how much are Trout and Betts worth?
Let's say Harper had a WAR of 4.0 last season, Trout 8.3 (he was injured for a while) and Betts 10. Simple math tells you that both of them could be worth double what Harper is worth per year, perhaps even more than that. The numbers do not lie -- these two players, right now, are the best position players in the game. Both will get huge paydays.
And, in the meantime, because analytics' influence progressed more rapidly than the assumptions on which the Collective Bargaining Agreement is based, the mean salary will continue to drop. The very productive will get paid richly, but the other 80% will get paid lower than the average. Watching how MLB and the MLBPA address this issue, along with the fact that the average age of a fan is 55 and the games take too long to play, will be compelling theater. But make no mistake about it, the superstars can help a good team become great and an a so-so average attendance rocket.
So is WAR the answer? How about PECOTA, BABIP, True Average and a lot of terms that get tossed out there but are unexplained, leaving the rest of us to bob our heads or else risk revealing that we are ignorant about baseball's important numbers. My guess is that not only is WAR the answer, there are other sub-WARS that figure into a team's analytics too. And while such analytics might be good to help a team win games, they also help further alienate a fan base that simply wants to relate to a national pastime, two-out rallies, the pop of a fastball into a catcher's mitt, a hot dog with spicy mustard and a cool breeze coming in from center field.
WAR is not the answer for fans. It is the answer for management and for the elite players. That is, until the owners and the players' union go to war.
Oh, I tell him, look at Baseball Reference for career WAR and you have to conclude that it is a robust statistic because all the all-time greats rank at the top of the lists. Ergo, the BP people are getting something right. No, is the vigorous counter, all that means is that human observations and the old stats told us who was good, and those were good enough to tell us who the stars were and are. What he is protesting, when you get down to it, is that the stat guys have taken all of the fun out of debates as to who was better, a province of the liberal arts guys who liked baseball without having to have earned a degree in higher math to understand it.
The purpose of this writing, though, is not to discuss the topic in the headline, which is a teaser. WAR seems here to stay. Assuming, for purposes of this argument, that it has merit, what does it mean for player salaries? Whose salaries am I thinking of particularly -- well, those of Mike Trout and Mookie Betts. Why, do you ask? Simple? Both are better players -- and you could argue significantly better players -- than both Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. In WAR terms, twice to three times as good. So, if Harper just signed a 13-year, $330 million contract, how much are Trout and Betts worth?
Let's say Harper had a WAR of 4.0 last season, Trout 8.3 (he was injured for a while) and Betts 10. Simple math tells you that both of them could be worth double what Harper is worth per year, perhaps even more than that. The numbers do not lie -- these two players, right now, are the best position players in the game. Both will get huge paydays.
And, in the meantime, because analytics' influence progressed more rapidly than the assumptions on which the Collective Bargaining Agreement is based, the mean salary will continue to drop. The very productive will get paid richly, but the other 80% will get paid lower than the average. Watching how MLB and the MLBPA address this issue, along with the fact that the average age of a fan is 55 and the games take too long to play, will be compelling theater. But make no mistake about it, the superstars can help a good team become great and an a so-so average attendance rocket.
So is WAR the answer? How about PECOTA, BABIP, True Average and a lot of terms that get tossed out there but are unexplained, leaving the rest of us to bob our heads or else risk revealing that we are ignorant about baseball's important numbers. My guess is that not only is WAR the answer, there are other sub-WARS that figure into a team's analytics too. And while such analytics might be good to help a team win games, they also help further alienate a fan base that simply wants to relate to a national pastime, two-out rallies, the pop of a fastball into a catcher's mitt, a hot dog with spicy mustard and a cool breeze coming in from center field.
WAR is not the answer for fans. It is the answer for management and for the elite players. That is, until the owners and the players' union go to war.
Monday, February 11, 2019
Baseball and E-Bay
Have you ever lost an auction on e-Bay? For something you wanted, too, right? You bid right when the item came up for auction, perhaps impatiently so, even if you knew that the auction would expire in one week. You had a price set in your head, as you're practical, you don't want to overpay. You follow the auction loosely, and in the last 12 hours or so perhaps you even watch it more closely. Perhaps you're the only bidder, and perhaps if there was another bidder she dropped out after your last bid. And with four hours to go, you feel pretty good. With two hours to go, even better. You might be getting the product at a reasonable price, perhaps well below it. You might even go to bed.
Only to wake up that you lost the auction. To someone who had not been in the bidding all along. And perhaps there was not one bidder at the end, but even two, because their theory was to use you as a stalking horse and then wait until the last minute to save energy and bid the bare minimum. You weren't even a factor, really, they knew they would beat you because you were in cruise control at the finish line. They were worried about clones of themselves, the free-rider bidders who don't do any of the work to further the auction, and then come in late to try to steal it from those who started bidding at the jump.
It is not illegal. It is not immoral. It is not unethical. It is not unfair. It is not wrong. It's good game theory. Why spend a lot of time at the beginning helping set the price if you have a sense that there will be a reasonable price at the end and once others have spent their energy come in late to take the auction and the product? It happens all the time.
Now let's consider what's happening in the Bryce Harper sweepstakes. First, the Nats, his former club (and perhaps his future club) made a 10-year, $300 million offer to him during last season, the Albert Pujols contract fiasco be good gosh darned. And Harper passed, demurred, what have you, because he is the great Bryce Harper and there were sure to be better offers out there.
The expected suspects showed interest. The Yankees, with all their might, salivated over a 2-3-4 order of Harper, Stanton and Judge, and the Phillies, vowing to go crazy with spending despite not having anyone credible to bat before or after Harper, expending a lot of energy. The Dodgers, what with their newly found love of spending and a trade that created a position for Harper in a previously crowded outfield, baled. So it looked like a two-horse race, and Harper's agent, Scott Boras, would try to pit those two clubs -- and the Nats -- against one another to drive the price up.
Except it seemed that those teams had placed their close-to-final bids on the table, and it seemed that Boras is in no hurry to get his player in camp when position players report at month's end. Boras and his team probably worked the phones to probe teams that Harper would be interested in playing for, particularly those on the west coast. There's a saying that if you're good, pursue where you want to work and not just the open jobs. Well, the Dodgers baled, the A's would never do something like that and the Angels will pay Pujols until Bobby Bonilla is an octagenarian. So that leaves the Padres, who have been rebuilding for the past couple of decades, and the Giants, a shadow of the team that won three World Series in six-year time frame not that long ago.
Those teams just sat and waited. Sure, the left coast teams don't grab the attention that those in the Northeast do -- they play after everyone else goes to bed. Yet they garner enough attention for the average fan to discern that already Mike Trout is one of the top-ten position players of all time. So it stands to reason that proximity (to his hometown of Las Vegas) trumps vanity (in terms of basking in the east coast-driven media spotlight) for Harper. Translated -- he is interested in San Diego and San Francisco.
And perhaps they always were interested in him, it's just that akin to an eBay auction, they had no reason to get into the sweepstakes early. Harper, so goes the reasoning, wants the west coast, so the Padres, with the nation's best weather, and the Giants, with a recent tradition, have an advantage over the Phillies, who had a dreadful offense last year and while there are many who love the City of Brotherly Love, it's hard to argue that it compares favorably with those two cities in California save for real estate values and lower taxes. Let the Phillies, Yankees and Nats exhaust themselves until the hammer falls, so reason the Padres and Giants, we'll come in at the end of the process and take the auction.
Right now, one Vegas bookmaker makes the Giants the favorite to land Harper. They weren't even in the conversation say two months ago. The Phillies are third in the running, at least in the eyes of this betting house.
It's just like an eBay auction. Let others set the pace, spend their energy, and come in with the best big and for the kill right before the hammer falls. If the Giants prevails, their front office people will be laughing their heads off. If the Phillies lose out, their front office people will utter a profane version of Seinfeld's "Newman" and scratch their heads as to how others blindsided them and beat them at an auction they believed they were fated to win.
And then Bryce will learn that it gets very cold in San Francisco, the taxes are high, he won't draw that much attention out there compared to other places (read: he's also not a Warrior) and perhaps the team is not on the upswing. But he'll have gotten his big payday, some way and some how.
And then once Manny Machado signs, the free-agent season will come to a merciful end. And the Lords of Baseball and their protectors in the media once more will be in denial that the onetime national pastime is still sliding down a hill toward a cliff with rocks beneath it. The Lords have enough problems with their product,, and then they stink at something that should be easy -- creating an exciting off-season. Hard to believe that they could create something worse to watch than a 3:45 minute game with 9 pitching changes, 28 strikeouts and very few hard hit balls, but in this free agency season, they have done just that.
Only to wake up that you lost the auction. To someone who had not been in the bidding all along. And perhaps there was not one bidder at the end, but even two, because their theory was to use you as a stalking horse and then wait until the last minute to save energy and bid the bare minimum. You weren't even a factor, really, they knew they would beat you because you were in cruise control at the finish line. They were worried about clones of themselves, the free-rider bidders who don't do any of the work to further the auction, and then come in late to try to steal it from those who started bidding at the jump.
It is not illegal. It is not immoral. It is not unethical. It is not unfair. It is not wrong. It's good game theory. Why spend a lot of time at the beginning helping set the price if you have a sense that there will be a reasonable price at the end and once others have spent their energy come in late to take the auction and the product? It happens all the time.
Now let's consider what's happening in the Bryce Harper sweepstakes. First, the Nats, his former club (and perhaps his future club) made a 10-year, $300 million offer to him during last season, the Albert Pujols contract fiasco be good gosh darned. And Harper passed, demurred, what have you, because he is the great Bryce Harper and there were sure to be better offers out there.
The expected suspects showed interest. The Yankees, with all their might, salivated over a 2-3-4 order of Harper, Stanton and Judge, and the Phillies, vowing to go crazy with spending despite not having anyone credible to bat before or after Harper, expending a lot of energy. The Dodgers, what with their newly found love of spending and a trade that created a position for Harper in a previously crowded outfield, baled. So it looked like a two-horse race, and Harper's agent, Scott Boras, would try to pit those two clubs -- and the Nats -- against one another to drive the price up.
Except it seemed that those teams had placed their close-to-final bids on the table, and it seemed that Boras is in no hurry to get his player in camp when position players report at month's end. Boras and his team probably worked the phones to probe teams that Harper would be interested in playing for, particularly those on the west coast. There's a saying that if you're good, pursue where you want to work and not just the open jobs. Well, the Dodgers baled, the A's would never do something like that and the Angels will pay Pujols until Bobby Bonilla is an octagenarian. So that leaves the Padres, who have been rebuilding for the past couple of decades, and the Giants, a shadow of the team that won three World Series in six-year time frame not that long ago.
Those teams just sat and waited. Sure, the left coast teams don't grab the attention that those in the Northeast do -- they play after everyone else goes to bed. Yet they garner enough attention for the average fan to discern that already Mike Trout is one of the top-ten position players of all time. So it stands to reason that proximity (to his hometown of Las Vegas) trumps vanity (in terms of basking in the east coast-driven media spotlight) for Harper. Translated -- he is interested in San Diego and San Francisco.
And perhaps they always were interested in him, it's just that akin to an eBay auction, they had no reason to get into the sweepstakes early. Harper, so goes the reasoning, wants the west coast, so the Padres, with the nation's best weather, and the Giants, with a recent tradition, have an advantage over the Phillies, who had a dreadful offense last year and while there are many who love the City of Brotherly Love, it's hard to argue that it compares favorably with those two cities in California save for real estate values and lower taxes. Let the Phillies, Yankees and Nats exhaust themselves until the hammer falls, so reason the Padres and Giants, we'll come in at the end of the process and take the auction.
Right now, one Vegas bookmaker makes the Giants the favorite to land Harper. They weren't even in the conversation say two months ago. The Phillies are third in the running, at least in the eyes of this betting house.
It's just like an eBay auction. Let others set the pace, spend their energy, and come in with the best big and for the kill right before the hammer falls. If the Giants prevails, their front office people will be laughing their heads off. If the Phillies lose out, their front office people will utter a profane version of Seinfeld's "Newman" and scratch their heads as to how others blindsided them and beat them at an auction they believed they were fated to win.
And then Bryce will learn that it gets very cold in San Francisco, the taxes are high, he won't draw that much attention out there compared to other places (read: he's also not a Warrior) and perhaps the team is not on the upswing. But he'll have gotten his big payday, some way and some how.
And then once Manny Machado signs, the free-agent season will come to a merciful end. And the Lords of Baseball and their protectors in the media once more will be in denial that the onetime national pastime is still sliding down a hill toward a cliff with rocks beneath it. The Lords have enough problems with their product,, and then they stink at something that should be easy -- creating an exciting off-season. Hard to believe that they could create something worse to watch than a 3:45 minute game with 9 pitching changes, 28 strikeouts and very few hard hit balls, but in this free agency season, they have done just that.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Marcus Spears is Right
Who asks the players?
It's a very good question, and one that Marcus Spears asked when the discussion on Mike Greenberg's morning show turned to expanding the FBS playoffs from four teams to eight.
Commercially, it makes sense. More revenue for college football, loosely defined.
Competitively, it makes sense. The Lords of College Football can end the debate that sometimes pops up when the fourth of four teams gets selected, thereby leaving out a worthy team. Few, if any, will care, if there is a controversy about the eighth and ninth teams, if only because it would be unlikely that any of them can get to the championship game and, also, because the Lords of College Football presumably would have gotten the selection of the first seven teams right.
But let's turn to the vantage point of the student-athletes. One more game means, as Marcus Spears so capably put it, one more chance to get injured. One more chance to get hurt and hurt one's stock in the draft. One more chance to get banged up enough not to be able to be at one's best for the evaluation processes for the draft that start almost immediately after the college football season ends. Implicit in this conversation is that college football players do not get paid, so the risk is all theirs. Oh, sure, they get a "free education," but what does that really mean and what is that really worth? Why? Because some outstanding players are not great students or afforded the time to major in subjects that they can leverage into well-paying jobs after football. Many are shoehorned into majors whose courses will not interfere with the football program and many get credit for playing football. Why is this relevant? Because the conversation is about economic risk -- it is all on the player.
Spears makes compelling arguments against expanding the playoffs. Another pillar of his discussion is that the season once had 10 games in it, and now all of a sudden it's 12, 13, 14 and even 15 games. That is a lot -- each additional game increases the chance for a life-altering injury for those who have the chance to play at the next level.
Perhaps the answer is to shorten the "regular" season to 10 games and then have playoffs. In this fashion, NFL teams will get plenty of film on each player, the playoffs still can be meaningful, but the economic risk is no worse for the participants. Of course, the whole equation changes if the players were to get paid beyond their one-year renewable scholarships or have money put away for them for a life after football. But right now, the risk is all theirs.
So, despite how compelling an eight-team FBS playoff might be, right now the motivations for it are money and, yes, greed. Until the risk profile changes, it is all about the schools' adding to their coffers with little regard for the young men who play the game.
That is not right and most certainly contrary to the mission of every university -- which is to help provide and improve the public good, and not to grab as much money as they can because it is easy to do so.
It's a very good question, and one that Marcus Spears asked when the discussion on Mike Greenberg's morning show turned to expanding the FBS playoffs from four teams to eight.
Commercially, it makes sense. More revenue for college football, loosely defined.
Competitively, it makes sense. The Lords of College Football can end the debate that sometimes pops up when the fourth of four teams gets selected, thereby leaving out a worthy team. Few, if any, will care, if there is a controversy about the eighth and ninth teams, if only because it would be unlikely that any of them can get to the championship game and, also, because the Lords of College Football presumably would have gotten the selection of the first seven teams right.
But let's turn to the vantage point of the student-athletes. One more game means, as Marcus Spears so capably put it, one more chance to get injured. One more chance to get hurt and hurt one's stock in the draft. One more chance to get banged up enough not to be able to be at one's best for the evaluation processes for the draft that start almost immediately after the college football season ends. Implicit in this conversation is that college football players do not get paid, so the risk is all theirs. Oh, sure, they get a "free education," but what does that really mean and what is that really worth? Why? Because some outstanding players are not great students or afforded the time to major in subjects that they can leverage into well-paying jobs after football. Many are shoehorned into majors whose courses will not interfere with the football program and many get credit for playing football. Why is this relevant? Because the conversation is about economic risk -- it is all on the player.
Spears makes compelling arguments against expanding the playoffs. Another pillar of his discussion is that the season once had 10 games in it, and now all of a sudden it's 12, 13, 14 and even 15 games. That is a lot -- each additional game increases the chance for a life-altering injury for those who have the chance to play at the next level.
Perhaps the answer is to shorten the "regular" season to 10 games and then have playoffs. In this fashion, NFL teams will get plenty of film on each player, the playoffs still can be meaningful, but the economic risk is no worse for the participants. Of course, the whole equation changes if the players were to get paid beyond their one-year renewable scholarships or have money put away for them for a life after football. But right now, the risk is all theirs.
So, despite how compelling an eight-team FBS playoff might be, right now the motivations for it are money and, yes, greed. Until the risk profile changes, it is all about the schools' adding to their coffers with little regard for the young men who play the game.
That is not right and most certainly contrary to the mission of every university -- which is to help provide and improve the public good, and not to grab as much money as they can because it is easy to do so.
Monday, December 10, 2018
Why Soccer's Popularity is Growing at Such a Fast Clip in the United States
There are so many reasons:
1. You don't have to be a giant to play the sport.
2. More kids play soccer than football or baseball.
3. Soccer is easier to understand than football or baseball.
4. Climate change has made watching baseball difficult given the length of the game.
5. Commercial breaks have made football and basketball much less watchable than they have been in the past.
6. Kids play the FIFA Soccer video game, which is the best team sports' video game out there.
7. You can get most major European leagues' games live in the U.S.
8. Those games require a time commitment of less than two hours.
9. It is a global game. The winner of the World Cup is the best in the world; the winner of the World Series is the best in the U.S.
10. Baseball's post-season games usually go past most people's bed times and sometimes start after potential young fans' bed times.
11. The violence within football that potentially maims the participants for life is disturbing and not a positive factor for the NFL.
There are many other reasons. The average age of a fan of MLB is 55 years ago. My family went to one game this year -- to say goodbye to Chase Utley -- whom we watched in his prime -- in July. My 19 year-old son says that baseball was the game that I went to with my father; he goes to basketball and soccer games with me. My 21 year-old daughter likes baseball; it's a dad-and-daughter thing, and we go a couple of times a year. We like the sounds, the smells, the sight lines, and all of the things that go into the atmosphere of a baseball game. Besides, with the ball's being in play for only 15 minutes out of the three hours plus you are at the stadium, you can catch up on life.
And soccer is diverse. The fans are diverse. and what a better way to bring people together than to celebrate a truly international game? Basketball at times can come close, but you cannot make the same arguments about football or ice hockey.
Baseball and football have serious issues. Their leadership should remember that about 45 years ago among the most popular sports were boxing and horse racing, the latter because the track was the only place one could place a bet legally outside Nevada. Fast forward to today, and whither boxing (a shadow of its former self and suffering in comparison to MMA) and horse racing (you can bet anywhere, and tracks are fewer and farther between; the sport lives for its major events)? This is not to argue that football and baseball could suffer the same fate, but it also is not to argue that such a fate is impossible. Baseball should consider shortening its games; football should consider all sorts of technology to protect its participants. And both should do it fast.
Just look at Atlanta -- the soccer team there is more popular than the Braves, and the Braves had a great season with some of the game's rising stars. And yet. . .
Pick a soccer team, learn the game, relate better to your neighbors and co-workers, and your kids. You will be glad that you did.
1. You don't have to be a giant to play the sport.
2. More kids play soccer than football or baseball.
3. Soccer is easier to understand than football or baseball.
4. Climate change has made watching baseball difficult given the length of the game.
5. Commercial breaks have made football and basketball much less watchable than they have been in the past.
6. Kids play the FIFA Soccer video game, which is the best team sports' video game out there.
7. You can get most major European leagues' games live in the U.S.
8. Those games require a time commitment of less than two hours.
9. It is a global game. The winner of the World Cup is the best in the world; the winner of the World Series is the best in the U.S.
10. Baseball's post-season games usually go past most people's bed times and sometimes start after potential young fans' bed times.
11. The violence within football that potentially maims the participants for life is disturbing and not a positive factor for the NFL.
There are many other reasons. The average age of a fan of MLB is 55 years ago. My family went to one game this year -- to say goodbye to Chase Utley -- whom we watched in his prime -- in July. My 19 year-old son says that baseball was the game that I went to with my father; he goes to basketball and soccer games with me. My 21 year-old daughter likes baseball; it's a dad-and-daughter thing, and we go a couple of times a year. We like the sounds, the smells, the sight lines, and all of the things that go into the atmosphere of a baseball game. Besides, with the ball's being in play for only 15 minutes out of the three hours plus you are at the stadium, you can catch up on life.
And soccer is diverse. The fans are diverse. and what a better way to bring people together than to celebrate a truly international game? Basketball at times can come close, but you cannot make the same arguments about football or ice hockey.
Baseball and football have serious issues. Their leadership should remember that about 45 years ago among the most popular sports were boxing and horse racing, the latter because the track was the only place one could place a bet legally outside Nevada. Fast forward to today, and whither boxing (a shadow of its former self and suffering in comparison to MMA) and horse racing (you can bet anywhere, and tracks are fewer and farther between; the sport lives for its major events)? This is not to argue that football and baseball could suffer the same fate, but it also is not to argue that such a fate is impossible. Baseball should consider shortening its games; football should consider all sorts of technology to protect its participants. And both should do it fast.
Just look at Atlanta -- the soccer team there is more popular than the Braves, and the Braves had a great season with some of the game's rising stars. And yet. . .
Pick a soccer team, learn the game, relate better to your neighbors and co-workers, and your kids. You will be glad that you did.
Tuesday, December 04, 2018
Kaep
Mark Sanchez.
The Redskins signed Mark Sanchez to back-up Colt McKoy after Alex Smith broke his leg. They also signed troubled and perhaps felonious linebacker Reuben Foster after the 49ers released him owing to additional charges of domestic abuse. Sanchez has participated in most teams' rodeos, that is, teams looking for insurance QBs have thought of him, worked him out, or even signed him. He has become the Harry "Suitcase" Simpson of the NFL.
The reason that teams sign him is that they believe he is predictable (sure he is -- he has thrown as many interceptions in his career as touchdowns) and accepts the role of a backup quarterback. That and he is still young enough to function but old enough to have more reps as a starter than anyone else available.
The problem is that he is not any good. Teams keep recycling him, but he just does not play any better than his past statistics suggest he would. They sign him because he led the Jets to road playoff wins -- plural -- when he was their starter. But he is no longer that quarterback, and when he was that quarterback he wasn't THAT good.
Last night, Mark Sanchez was thrust into action after McCoy broke his fibula against the Eagles. What also exacerbates the Redskins' situation is that their offensive linemen seem more injury prone that octogenarian widows walking to the corner store for bread during an ice storm. Sanchez, well, looked like Sanchez and not, say, Frank Reich off the bench for the Bills (you can Google what he did), and the Redskins lost. He is not even as good as the proverbial "replacement player" anymore.
Which brings us to Colin Kaepernick. In golf they have a saying that someone is "the best player never to have won a major." Right now, Kaep is the best available QB who does not get signed. Remember, he did QB his team to a Super Bowl (even if his performance in a subsequent season or two was among the worst in the league). By the logic that gives Mark Sanchez additional opportunities to play quarterback in the league, teams should be shoving each other out of the way to sign Kaep. But they don't.
Why not? Is it because he is a run-pass-option quarterback and some teams don't run that offense? Is it because his last body of work was not good? Is it because of his role in leading NFL players in kneeling to protest racial injustice? Is it because he once wore socks that portrayed policemen as pigs? Is it because of the looming media feeding frenzy that might ensue if a team signs him? (Some respected pundits suggested that this was the case with Tim Tebow -- that teams refrained from looking at him because they did not want a media circus -- that is, until Tebow proved that he could not play quarterback well in the NFL). Some say it's because management won't want to be called racists if they sign Kaep and then bench him or let him go.
It could be a little of all of the above. If you want a pure dropback passer, Kaep probably is miscast. If you base it on his recent body of work, you have a point, but remember, the question is not one of whether he can start for your team as the #1 quarterback for a full-season, but whether he might be able to vie and hold a back-up's job (with the possibility -- perhaps -- of someday becoming a starter again). Many back-ups are back-ups precisely because they did not fare well as starters; Kaep is no different. The kneeling? For me, this is a serious issue -- as the President of the United States threw down a gauntlet to the NFL about saluting the American flag. Some owners will not want to draw that criticism; others must disagree with Kaep's point of view and just wouldn't want him around. The socks? They are a corollary to the kneeling, go hand in hand. The feeding frenzy? Another compelling reason. It's hard enough to coach an NFL team let alone field endless questions about a back-up quarterback. Typically, in a league as conservative as the NFL, the back-ups are expected to be seen and not heard. Draw too much attention to yourself for non-football reasons, the argument goes, and they will find someone who is lower maintenance.
With all that said, the Redskins are desperate. Kaep has shown he can run and at times pass very well. Who are the alternatives? The team was willing to take a chance on Reuben Foster, so why not be willing to take a chance on Colin Kaepernick. The Redskins are well-equipped to handle all the attention from the media -- after all, they are in Washington.
The Redskins signed Mark Sanchez to back-up Colt McKoy after Alex Smith broke his leg. They also signed troubled and perhaps felonious linebacker Reuben Foster after the 49ers released him owing to additional charges of domestic abuse. Sanchez has participated in most teams' rodeos, that is, teams looking for insurance QBs have thought of him, worked him out, or even signed him. He has become the Harry "Suitcase" Simpson of the NFL.
The reason that teams sign him is that they believe he is predictable (sure he is -- he has thrown as many interceptions in his career as touchdowns) and accepts the role of a backup quarterback. That and he is still young enough to function but old enough to have more reps as a starter than anyone else available.
The problem is that he is not any good. Teams keep recycling him, but he just does not play any better than his past statistics suggest he would. They sign him because he led the Jets to road playoff wins -- plural -- when he was their starter. But he is no longer that quarterback, and when he was that quarterback he wasn't THAT good.
Last night, Mark Sanchez was thrust into action after McCoy broke his fibula against the Eagles. What also exacerbates the Redskins' situation is that their offensive linemen seem more injury prone that octogenarian widows walking to the corner store for bread during an ice storm. Sanchez, well, looked like Sanchez and not, say, Frank Reich off the bench for the Bills (you can Google what he did), and the Redskins lost. He is not even as good as the proverbial "replacement player" anymore.
Which brings us to Colin Kaepernick. In golf they have a saying that someone is "the best player never to have won a major." Right now, Kaep is the best available QB who does not get signed. Remember, he did QB his team to a Super Bowl (even if his performance in a subsequent season or two was among the worst in the league). By the logic that gives Mark Sanchez additional opportunities to play quarterback in the league, teams should be shoving each other out of the way to sign Kaep. But they don't.
Why not? Is it because he is a run-pass-option quarterback and some teams don't run that offense? Is it because his last body of work was not good? Is it because of his role in leading NFL players in kneeling to protest racial injustice? Is it because he once wore socks that portrayed policemen as pigs? Is it because of the looming media feeding frenzy that might ensue if a team signs him? (Some respected pundits suggested that this was the case with Tim Tebow -- that teams refrained from looking at him because they did not want a media circus -- that is, until Tebow proved that he could not play quarterback well in the NFL). Some say it's because management won't want to be called racists if they sign Kaep and then bench him or let him go.
It could be a little of all of the above. If you want a pure dropback passer, Kaep probably is miscast. If you base it on his recent body of work, you have a point, but remember, the question is not one of whether he can start for your team as the #1 quarterback for a full-season, but whether he might be able to vie and hold a back-up's job (with the possibility -- perhaps -- of someday becoming a starter again). Many back-ups are back-ups precisely because they did not fare well as starters; Kaep is no different. The kneeling? For me, this is a serious issue -- as the President of the United States threw down a gauntlet to the NFL about saluting the American flag. Some owners will not want to draw that criticism; others must disagree with Kaep's point of view and just wouldn't want him around. The socks? They are a corollary to the kneeling, go hand in hand. The feeding frenzy? Another compelling reason. It's hard enough to coach an NFL team let alone field endless questions about a back-up quarterback. Typically, in a league as conservative as the NFL, the back-ups are expected to be seen and not heard. Draw too much attention to yourself for non-football reasons, the argument goes, and they will find someone who is lower maintenance.
With all that said, the Redskins are desperate. Kaep has shown he can run and at times pass very well. Who are the alternatives? The team was willing to take a chance on Reuben Foster, so why not be willing to take a chance on Colin Kaepernick. The Redskins are well-equipped to handle all the attention from the media -- after all, they are in Washington.
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Princeton's First Undefeated Football Season Since 1964
Okay, so truth be told I wasn't planning on going. Yes, it was Penn, and yes, Penn had a winning record and if you live in the Philadelphia area one of life's pleasures is to beat Penn, which has many more alums than your school. Penn alums abound, not as much as the "We are Penn State crowd," but they do make their presence known. Your own school rose to the top ten in the FCS rankings, somewhat meaningless in that football is the only sport where the Ivies forbid teams to compete in the post-season. The reasons are hard to fathom, but as with legislation, once a group makes up its mind, it's hard to get them to change it. The "they' in this case, of course, are the presidents of the Ivies, who, perhaps when pushed hard, would tell you that the lobbying they receive on sports issues at allegedly some of the most prestigious schools in the country is a royal pain in the posterior. But I digress. . .
A good friend called on his ride home the night before and thought it would take a lot of convincing for me to go to the game. Quite frankly, I hadn't thought about it, what with Thanksgiving coming up and both kids away at college. And it was going to be cold, and I thought that I had sworn off cold-weather events since going to many football games as a kid with my dad and then through college, watching my kids play spring sports in February and going to the Eagles' parade last winter. Then again, I had watched Arsenal in North London at night a few weeks ago in 45-degree weather and the forecast was for about 46 degrees and sunny at game time. My friend thought it would take more convincing; I said yes in a heartbeat.
I mean, we had to go watch some history, right? We were at the best game played at the prior stadium, Palmer Stadium, in the fall of 1981 when Yale marched into Tigertown undefeated and ranked 19th in all of Division I (there was no BS about FBS and FCS then) and Princeton scored with 4 seconds to go to upset the Elis 35-31 and end a 15-game losing streak to Yale. We were at the Palestra in the mid 1990's when Penn went up 29-3 with a few minutes to go in the first half and was up 40-15 with about 15 minutes to go, only to have the Tigers storm back and silence the red-and-blue faithful with a 50-49 victory that marked at the time the fifth-best comeback in NCAA men's basketball history. This time, though, the Tigers were the favorites.
They had not always fared so well as favorites, and in the Ivies for the most part any team can beat any other on any given day because, well, that's what usually happens. Okay, except this year when the Cornell Big Red came to Central New Jersey and lost 66-0; it would have stood to reason that Cornell did not have much of a chance going into the contest. as 66-0 is usually a score one associates with Alabama when it plays its cupcake pre-season schedule, paying half a million to some mercenary school without a chance in heck to win in Tuscaloosa, so as to give a chance for the first three units to get a tuneup and the alums to tailgate. Was that game evidence of the gridiron hegemony of Princeton this season? Or did they just beat a bad Cornell team?
I don't know why I am so focused on that game given that it was lopside and Cornell was the worst team in the league. The Tigers scored at will as if the Ivies were Madden Ivy 2018, throwing, running at will and doing much more on defense than a depleted squad last year could do. They beat Dartmouth in a battle of wills, a game which Dartmouth led most of the way before Princeton scored late a few weeks early to pull out a 14-9 win at home, the type of game that the Tigers had trouble closing out in some prior seasons. The week before they could have scored 85 on Yale before they took their foot off the pedal, only to have the Yale QB have a memorable day where he looked like Dan Fouts from the old Charger Air Coryell days and racked up 460 yards passing despite throwing four picks. This after the Tigers led 21-0 four minutes into the contest.
Tiger fans tailgated, donned their orange and black, some beige, and wondered whether the Tigers could close out the season in fine fashion. Penn needs no extra motivation to beat Princeton and to ruin any opponent's undefeated season, but it turned out to be not much of a contest. The Tigers went up 14-0, then were up 21-7 at the half before Penn scored on a long play at the beginning of the second half to make it 21-14. But then Princeton scored three unanswered touchdowns to make it 42-14 in a game where the defense forgot the troubles of the prior week against Yale and the offense showed that the QB could run well and that the star wide receive could run by and behind the Penn secondary. That receiver -- Jesper Horsted -- also a fine baseball player -- set the Tigers' career record for receptions in a season, breaking a 34-year old record held by a crafty, wonderful receiver named Kevin Guthrie, who did not play varsity ball his freshman year because back then freshmen were not eligible to do so. Guthrie was in the end zone, and friends joked that with the offense that head coach Bob Surace has deployed he might have had 250 catches in his career; as it was, he had 194 in three seasons. The crowd in the end zone -- always the heartiest of fans -- gave him a rousing ovation for his accomplishments.
And then it ended. The Tiger players and staff fan onto the field, sang the alma mater, "Old Nassau," in front of the Princeton band near the tunnel leading out to the stadium, and the players, their families, the coaches and alums partied into the evening. The last time Princeton won the league while going undefeated was in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson was President and before things like personal computers, the internet and smart phones were on the scene. Many seasons and good memories have come and gone for Princeton football, but this season ranks among the finest accomplishments since that year.
It would be nice to say that the sun shone brightly, that the stadium was packed, that the crowd was loud, that the home fans wore only orange and black, but that is not the essence of Ivy League football. There are no "card alignments" in the stands, no 350-piece synchronized marching bands (although I do love Ohio State's and Bethune-Cookman's) no "orange outs," no "Game Day" from ESPN (although the fellahs once covered Amherst-Williams and Harvard-Yale). My guess is that more than half the students did not go to this game, because the Ivies being the Ivies they got in because of their unique talents that require them to spend time elsewhere on Saturdays (after all, as some Ivy snoot once said, you don't get offered admission being a spectator). I don't know what to think of the overall lack of student support, save that the kids so have a lot more to do while aging alums look for comradery in the stands (and perhaps at some point in life it is okay to watch and not to participate). Beside which, with all of the discussions regarding joint replacements, sitting in the standings offers a better alternative for most than over-50 sports leagues.
Again, I digressed, as when you have something to celebrate one is wise to remember all that was right about the day -- a nice, innovative coach, a team that dusted its opposition this season and rose to the occasion against its toughest opponent (okay, not a dusting, but a true revealing of character), bantering with friends in the end zone and enjoying a crisp day. It really doesn't get much better than that, and if you wear warm socks, bring a good pair of gloves and hat the weather actually can be quite enjoyable.
Tiger, Tiger, Tiger! as they say on campus to start the "locomotive" cheer that Princeton alums are so fond of. To seal the championship at home, in front of friends, family, classmates, alums, to win convincingly, to leave no doubt. . . a very memorable day.
A good friend called on his ride home the night before and thought it would take a lot of convincing for me to go to the game. Quite frankly, I hadn't thought about it, what with Thanksgiving coming up and both kids away at college. And it was going to be cold, and I thought that I had sworn off cold-weather events since going to many football games as a kid with my dad and then through college, watching my kids play spring sports in February and going to the Eagles' parade last winter. Then again, I had watched Arsenal in North London at night a few weeks ago in 45-degree weather and the forecast was for about 46 degrees and sunny at game time. My friend thought it would take more convincing; I said yes in a heartbeat.
I mean, we had to go watch some history, right? We were at the best game played at the prior stadium, Palmer Stadium, in the fall of 1981 when Yale marched into Tigertown undefeated and ranked 19th in all of Division I (there was no BS about FBS and FCS then) and Princeton scored with 4 seconds to go to upset the Elis 35-31 and end a 15-game losing streak to Yale. We were at the Palestra in the mid 1990's when Penn went up 29-3 with a few minutes to go in the first half and was up 40-15 with about 15 minutes to go, only to have the Tigers storm back and silence the red-and-blue faithful with a 50-49 victory that marked at the time the fifth-best comeback in NCAA men's basketball history. This time, though, the Tigers were the favorites.
They had not always fared so well as favorites, and in the Ivies for the most part any team can beat any other on any given day because, well, that's what usually happens. Okay, except this year when the Cornell Big Red came to Central New Jersey and lost 66-0; it would have stood to reason that Cornell did not have much of a chance going into the contest. as 66-0 is usually a score one associates with Alabama when it plays its cupcake pre-season schedule, paying half a million to some mercenary school without a chance in heck to win in Tuscaloosa, so as to give a chance for the first three units to get a tuneup and the alums to tailgate. Was that game evidence of the gridiron hegemony of Princeton this season? Or did they just beat a bad Cornell team?
I don't know why I am so focused on that game given that it was lopside and Cornell was the worst team in the league. The Tigers scored at will as if the Ivies were Madden Ivy 2018, throwing, running at will and doing much more on defense than a depleted squad last year could do. They beat Dartmouth in a battle of wills, a game which Dartmouth led most of the way before Princeton scored late a few weeks early to pull out a 14-9 win at home, the type of game that the Tigers had trouble closing out in some prior seasons. The week before they could have scored 85 on Yale before they took their foot off the pedal, only to have the Yale QB have a memorable day where he looked like Dan Fouts from the old Charger Air Coryell days and racked up 460 yards passing despite throwing four picks. This after the Tigers led 21-0 four minutes into the contest.
Tiger fans tailgated, donned their orange and black, some beige, and wondered whether the Tigers could close out the season in fine fashion. Penn needs no extra motivation to beat Princeton and to ruin any opponent's undefeated season, but it turned out to be not much of a contest. The Tigers went up 14-0, then were up 21-7 at the half before Penn scored on a long play at the beginning of the second half to make it 21-14. But then Princeton scored three unanswered touchdowns to make it 42-14 in a game where the defense forgot the troubles of the prior week against Yale and the offense showed that the QB could run well and that the star wide receive could run by and behind the Penn secondary. That receiver -- Jesper Horsted -- also a fine baseball player -- set the Tigers' career record for receptions in a season, breaking a 34-year old record held by a crafty, wonderful receiver named Kevin Guthrie, who did not play varsity ball his freshman year because back then freshmen were not eligible to do so. Guthrie was in the end zone, and friends joked that with the offense that head coach Bob Surace has deployed he might have had 250 catches in his career; as it was, he had 194 in three seasons. The crowd in the end zone -- always the heartiest of fans -- gave him a rousing ovation for his accomplishments.
And then it ended. The Tiger players and staff fan onto the field, sang the alma mater, "Old Nassau," in front of the Princeton band near the tunnel leading out to the stadium, and the players, their families, the coaches and alums partied into the evening. The last time Princeton won the league while going undefeated was in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson was President and before things like personal computers, the internet and smart phones were on the scene. Many seasons and good memories have come and gone for Princeton football, but this season ranks among the finest accomplishments since that year.
It would be nice to say that the sun shone brightly, that the stadium was packed, that the crowd was loud, that the home fans wore only orange and black, but that is not the essence of Ivy League football. There are no "card alignments" in the stands, no 350-piece synchronized marching bands (although I do love Ohio State's and Bethune-Cookman's) no "orange outs," no "Game Day" from ESPN (although the fellahs once covered Amherst-Williams and Harvard-Yale). My guess is that more than half the students did not go to this game, because the Ivies being the Ivies they got in because of their unique talents that require them to spend time elsewhere on Saturdays (after all, as some Ivy snoot once said, you don't get offered admission being a spectator). I don't know what to think of the overall lack of student support, save that the kids so have a lot more to do while aging alums look for comradery in the stands (and perhaps at some point in life it is okay to watch and not to participate). Beside which, with all of the discussions regarding joint replacements, sitting in the standings offers a better alternative for most than over-50 sports leagues.
Again, I digressed, as when you have something to celebrate one is wise to remember all that was right about the day -- a nice, innovative coach, a team that dusted its opposition this season and rose to the occasion against its toughest opponent (okay, not a dusting, but a true revealing of character), bantering with friends in the end zone and enjoying a crisp day. It really doesn't get much better than that, and if you wear warm socks, bring a good pair of gloves and hat the weather actually can be quite enjoyable.
Tiger, Tiger, Tiger! as they say on campus to start the "locomotive" cheer that Princeton alums are so fond of. To seal the championship at home, in front of friends, family, classmates, alums, to win convincingly, to leave no doubt. . . a very memorable day.
Monday, November 12, 2018
Naming Rights for the Palestra
It is as silly as it sounds. An Ivy League school, has tons of money, home to THE iconic arena in college basketball. Sorry, Dookies, but this is so. And what does Penn do? It sells the naming rights to the court at the Palestra to an Australian investment firm named Macquarie.
A few things jump out. First, what the heck are the Aussies thinking? Who in the Palestra will care one iota about this naming event, except for those who are offended that Penn decided to sell the naming rights to a sacred place? Will anyone be influenced to park his nest egg with this group? If I were a shareholder of Macquarie, I'd grill the management team hard as to why they ponied up monies to name the court at the Palestra.
Second, it could be worse for Penn alums, Penn fans, hoop fans. Oh, yes it could be. Given that universities tend to name buildings after famous people, it could have been the case that a certain real estate conglomerate in New York wanted to pony up the bucks to name the facility after its organization or the 45th President of the United States. Think Trump Court at the Palestra. Has a certain ring to it, doesn't it? That would not have been beyond the realm of the possibilities, even if the President probably has a popularity problem in University City. The possibilities there would be endless. Would recruits turn down the Quakers because of the naming rights? Would players want their teams to play Penn on the road so that they could take a knee during the national anthem?
The Palestra is iconic, classic, a great place to play and to watch a game. Why on earth did Penn go out and feel compelled to sell naming rights to the place? Even its rival Princeton, which seems to sell naming rights to everything too (and let former eBay CEO Meg Whitman pay a paltry $35 million or so to name a residential college after herself when it could have gotten more), named the basketball court at Jadwin Gym after legendary coach Pete Carril. So why couldn't Penn have gone that route and named the court after one of Dick Harter, Chuck Daly or Fran Dunphy?
The naming rights and commercialism surrounding all things sports remind me of a scene in the movie "Wall Street," which is an apropos reference because of Penn's highly regarded Wharton School of Business. There is one scene where Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) and Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) are talking, and Gekko says to Fox, "It's all about the bucks, kid."
Touche. Nothing more, nothing less.
It could have been Dunphy Court at the Palestra. Instead it is Macquarie Court at the Palestra. What's next, the Aeroflot Penn Relays?
A few things jump out. First, what the heck are the Aussies thinking? Who in the Palestra will care one iota about this naming event, except for those who are offended that Penn decided to sell the naming rights to a sacred place? Will anyone be influenced to park his nest egg with this group? If I were a shareholder of Macquarie, I'd grill the management team hard as to why they ponied up monies to name the court at the Palestra.
Second, it could be worse for Penn alums, Penn fans, hoop fans. Oh, yes it could be. Given that universities tend to name buildings after famous people, it could have been the case that a certain real estate conglomerate in New York wanted to pony up the bucks to name the facility after its organization or the 45th President of the United States. Think Trump Court at the Palestra. Has a certain ring to it, doesn't it? That would not have been beyond the realm of the possibilities, even if the President probably has a popularity problem in University City. The possibilities there would be endless. Would recruits turn down the Quakers because of the naming rights? Would players want their teams to play Penn on the road so that they could take a knee during the national anthem?
The Palestra is iconic, classic, a great place to play and to watch a game. Why on earth did Penn go out and feel compelled to sell naming rights to the place? Even its rival Princeton, which seems to sell naming rights to everything too (and let former eBay CEO Meg Whitman pay a paltry $35 million or so to name a residential college after herself when it could have gotten more), named the basketball court at Jadwin Gym after legendary coach Pete Carril. So why couldn't Penn have gone that route and named the court after one of Dick Harter, Chuck Daly or Fran Dunphy?
The naming rights and commercialism surrounding all things sports remind me of a scene in the movie "Wall Street," which is an apropos reference because of Penn's highly regarded Wharton School of Business. There is one scene where Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) and Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) are talking, and Gekko says to Fox, "It's all about the bucks, kid."
Touche. Nothing more, nothing less.
It could have been Dunphy Court at the Palestra. Instead it is Macquarie Court at the Palestra. What's next, the Aeroflot Penn Relays?
Thursday, November 01, 2018
Wallace Loh Should be Your University's Next President if There is an Opening
He has made mistakes; people at the top of the leadership pyramid frequently do.
But when it came to investigating the death of Eric McNair this summer at a pre-season football practice, University of Maryland's President, Wallace Loh, went by the book. He placed his athletic director and head football coach on administrative leave. He compelled the severing of the university's relationship with the school's strength and conditioning coach, for it seemed that even a preliminary investigation demonstrated that the coach should not be working at Maryland any more (that is a polite way of saying that the coach's behavior at a minimum left a lot to be desired and at a maximum was grossly negligent). He hired investigators to dig deeply into the death of a 19 year-old young man, the types of investigators who know that you keep turning over rocks until there are no more rocks to turn over. Those investigators provided a 192-page report that expressed reservations -- some serious -- about the culture within the football program at Maryland.
Loh, displaying an appropriate sense of, if not adherence to, good university governance, shared the report with the Board of Regents, and the inference here is that he intended to fire the football coach. That led to a donnybrook apparently with the Chair of the Board, who ostensibly told Loh that he couldn't do that. Loh perhaps said, "well, if that's the case, let's negotiate my exit from the university. I cannot work here anymore." (Whether because he thought his authority was undermined or because the Chair's judgment was so poor remains an open question to me). So, the Regents and Loh put together a statement that said the A.D. and Durkin would be reinstated, and that Loh would be leaving in say eight months. Put differently, Loh probably thought, "This is bleep, and if that's how they want to run this place, I'm out of here." Both the Regents and Loh put as good a face on his exit as they could have, motivated, perhaps, by Loh's desire to get good severance from the university (in other words, he had motivation not to torch the reputation of the place). That's how these things work.
What Wallace Loh did was speak truth to power. What Wallace Loh did apparently was stand up for the harder right decision. What Wallace Loh did was make a statement that character matters in the short and long runs and that a student's life is more precious than winning a football game or games with a certain coach. What Wallace Loh also did was ensure that if a university employee created a culture that led to a death under these circumstances, he/she would not have a job with the university. Wallace Loh did the right thing.
And it cost him his job. That said, who would want to work for a Board of Regents or a Chair who felt so compelled to restate D.J. Durkin that he put the university's relationship with its president on the line? Who would want to work at a university where the football coach's future was more important than straightening out a culture that he perpetrated than a young man's life. Of course, no corrective action will bring back Jordan McNair. But what it can do is set an ironclad tone that will ensure that players are cared for on and off the field, in real time, and are not bullied or shamed. Challenging them is one thing, but mistreating them is another.
Wallace Loh can work at my university, were I to work at one. He can be its president because what he did was to take a stand for doing the right thing over, well, the omnipotence of the football program, a football program that struggles almost yearly and is an arms race to be a championship team with little chances of doing so. It is about time that a university president focused on character and integrity at the expense of a revenue-producing program. And that's a Division I problem. You know, in Division III, the coaches don't make a ton and they certainly don't make more than the college president. But where you pay them millions in Division I, they own the school (like the old banker's line -- "lend someone $100 dollars, you own them; lend someone $100 million, and they own you). Loh said enough is enough.
Okay, it wasn't perfect. Why didn't he stick with his plan to fire Durkin the day before, consequences with the Board chair be darned? Only he can tell us that. And, yes, there was a huge outcry from students, faculty, alumni about Durkin, mostly totally negative. Even some players refused to meet with the reinstated coach, and some walked out of the meeting. So you can argue that he watched the wind and blew with it. Mostly a fair point, except that he did not rescind his agreement to resign, which is telling because it means that Loh had little to gain by sticking to his principles a day late and terminating Durkin.
But he reclaimed his conscience and the moral authority of the President of the University of Maryland to have one of the last words, if not the last word, on matters of principle that matter the most.
Wallace Loh did the right thing. So will another university when they hire him as president.
But when it came to investigating the death of Eric McNair this summer at a pre-season football practice, University of Maryland's President, Wallace Loh, went by the book. He placed his athletic director and head football coach on administrative leave. He compelled the severing of the university's relationship with the school's strength and conditioning coach, for it seemed that even a preliminary investigation demonstrated that the coach should not be working at Maryland any more (that is a polite way of saying that the coach's behavior at a minimum left a lot to be desired and at a maximum was grossly negligent). He hired investigators to dig deeply into the death of a 19 year-old young man, the types of investigators who know that you keep turning over rocks until there are no more rocks to turn over. Those investigators provided a 192-page report that expressed reservations -- some serious -- about the culture within the football program at Maryland.
Loh, displaying an appropriate sense of, if not adherence to, good university governance, shared the report with the Board of Regents, and the inference here is that he intended to fire the football coach. That led to a donnybrook apparently with the Chair of the Board, who ostensibly told Loh that he couldn't do that. Loh perhaps said, "well, if that's the case, let's negotiate my exit from the university. I cannot work here anymore." (Whether because he thought his authority was undermined or because the Chair's judgment was so poor remains an open question to me). So, the Regents and Loh put together a statement that said the A.D. and Durkin would be reinstated, and that Loh would be leaving in say eight months. Put differently, Loh probably thought, "This is bleep, and if that's how they want to run this place, I'm out of here." Both the Regents and Loh put as good a face on his exit as they could have, motivated, perhaps, by Loh's desire to get good severance from the university (in other words, he had motivation not to torch the reputation of the place). That's how these things work.
What Wallace Loh did was speak truth to power. What Wallace Loh did apparently was stand up for the harder right decision. What Wallace Loh did was make a statement that character matters in the short and long runs and that a student's life is more precious than winning a football game or games with a certain coach. What Wallace Loh also did was ensure that if a university employee created a culture that led to a death under these circumstances, he/she would not have a job with the university. Wallace Loh did the right thing.
And it cost him his job. That said, who would want to work for a Board of Regents or a Chair who felt so compelled to restate D.J. Durkin that he put the university's relationship with its president on the line? Who would want to work at a university where the football coach's future was more important than straightening out a culture that he perpetrated than a young man's life. Of course, no corrective action will bring back Jordan McNair. But what it can do is set an ironclad tone that will ensure that players are cared for on and off the field, in real time, and are not bullied or shamed. Challenging them is one thing, but mistreating them is another.
Wallace Loh can work at my university, were I to work at one. He can be its president because what he did was to take a stand for doing the right thing over, well, the omnipotence of the football program, a football program that struggles almost yearly and is an arms race to be a championship team with little chances of doing so. It is about time that a university president focused on character and integrity at the expense of a revenue-producing program. And that's a Division I problem. You know, in Division III, the coaches don't make a ton and they certainly don't make more than the college president. But where you pay them millions in Division I, they own the school (like the old banker's line -- "lend someone $100 dollars, you own them; lend someone $100 million, and they own you). Loh said enough is enough.
Okay, it wasn't perfect. Why didn't he stick with his plan to fire Durkin the day before, consequences with the Board chair be darned? Only he can tell us that. And, yes, there was a huge outcry from students, faculty, alumni about Durkin, mostly totally negative. Even some players refused to meet with the reinstated coach, and some walked out of the meeting. So you can argue that he watched the wind and blew with it. Mostly a fair point, except that he did not rescind his agreement to resign, which is telling because it means that Loh had little to gain by sticking to his principles a day late and terminating Durkin.
But he reclaimed his conscience and the moral authority of the President of the University of Maryland to have one of the last words, if not the last word, on matters of principle that matter the most.
Wallace Loh did the right thing. So will another university when they hire him as president.
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
The Maryland Debacle
University with a spotty football history (perhaps attributable to Bear Bryant's leaving the place over 60 years ago) and an unquenched thirst to hit the bigtime.
Hires aggressive young coach with pedigree. University hires aggressive strength and conditioning coach. All universities do it -- musclehead motivators who are employed by the athletic department and can have contact with the players all year round. In contrast, team coaches have limits as to when they may be in contact with players. Strength and conditioning coaches are well paid; I would submit that there are a few out there who make more than their university presidents. They have a lot of power, in essence serving as the eyes and ears and factotums for the head coaches when the head coaches are not permitted to be in contact with players. These strength and conditioning coaches are not shrinking violets.
Young kid is big, gets a reputation for being able to move opponents around against their will on a football field. Many coaches sweet talk his parents. If the parents have been around the block, they realize that their kids' reality will change markedly once they join a football program. They will go from the romanced to bound by a strict regimen, a class schedule that must not conflict with football and a commitment to be on campus year-round so that they can benefit from the oversight of the nutrition and fitness efforts of the university. They get a full scholarship for this commitment, a laughably tiny stipend for incidentals, all the while the head coach makes millions, the assistant coaches make very nice livings and at times the kids don't have money for pizza. Each recruiter, including many a head coach, promises the parents -- and at times there is only one in the picture -- that he will take care of their son and help him grow into a better person through the development of strong habits and character. So goes the story line.
Jordan McNair died on a practice field in blistering Maryland summer heat in the summer of 2018. He was 19 years old. He wasn't feeling well in practice. Instead of adhering to protocols to make sure that he was not suffering from dehydration or an overly high body temperature, the athletic trainers were absent and the strength and conditioning coach bullied him. He died a few weeks later in a hospital. The university suspended the head football coach, head athletic trainer and strength and conditioning coach. They subsequently let go the strength and conditioning coach, paying him a settlement to take his talents elsewhere.
Yesterday, the University of Maryland shocked the world. The university president wanted to terminate the athletic director and head coach after a 192-page report that the board of regents had commissioned painted a dire picture of the culture within the football program at Maryland. The board of regents felt otherwise. Perhaps because they love the head coach and think he is a good fit and that what happened was a lamentable aberration. Perhaps because they got legal advice that they do not have a case for terminating the head coach for cause and that they would have to pay him over $10 million to part company were they to want to negotiate a settlement. Perhaps because in this day and age they figure that the next scandal will eclipse this one, everyone will forget about their decision and the storm will pass and that they have enough power and support to weather it. Perhaps because, while football parents protested and several players walked out of a meeting with the newly reinstated head coach, a larger core threatened to pull their kids out of school and off the team if the head coach were not reinstated. It is hard to know. The university president, by the way, lost the political and was forced out, announcing his retirement at the end of the year. He should have quit on the spot and sued the university for everything it has.
This episode further buttresses my long-standing maxim that I never wanted to send my kids to a school where a coach has too much power and makes more than the university president. Universities are supposed to educate kids meaningfully and to set standards for good behavior and the building of better character. What happened yesterday with the decision of the board of regents abandoned those lofty goals and revealed that the board of regents does not have much character at all. The death of a player -- in a toxic culture -- happened on the watch of this athletic director and this head football coach. It should not have happened. The entire football program owes a responsibility to all its players and it let not only the family of the deceased player down, but also the players who remain and their families. How can they trust this athletic director, this coach, this board of regents?
The answer is that they cannot. The University of Maryland has made a mess of this situation and has demonstrated that something is rotten within it and its culture. They should have cleaned house, they should have read the report more carefully and they should have realized that the culture this head coach created was so bad that someone died. Yes, this coach is worth a second chance somewhere in some type of job -- he made a grave mistake, many grave mistakes. Just not at Maryland and not right now.
The very sad truth right now is that had the head football coach put his hand on the breast of a cheerleader he would have lost his job. But create a harassing culture that causes a death?
He gets to keep it.
How does that make any sense at all?
Hires aggressive young coach with pedigree. University hires aggressive strength and conditioning coach. All universities do it -- musclehead motivators who are employed by the athletic department and can have contact with the players all year round. In contrast, team coaches have limits as to when they may be in contact with players. Strength and conditioning coaches are well paid; I would submit that there are a few out there who make more than their university presidents. They have a lot of power, in essence serving as the eyes and ears and factotums for the head coaches when the head coaches are not permitted to be in contact with players. These strength and conditioning coaches are not shrinking violets.
Young kid is big, gets a reputation for being able to move opponents around against their will on a football field. Many coaches sweet talk his parents. If the parents have been around the block, they realize that their kids' reality will change markedly once they join a football program. They will go from the romanced to bound by a strict regimen, a class schedule that must not conflict with football and a commitment to be on campus year-round so that they can benefit from the oversight of the nutrition and fitness efforts of the university. They get a full scholarship for this commitment, a laughably tiny stipend for incidentals, all the while the head coach makes millions, the assistant coaches make very nice livings and at times the kids don't have money for pizza. Each recruiter, including many a head coach, promises the parents -- and at times there is only one in the picture -- that he will take care of their son and help him grow into a better person through the development of strong habits and character. So goes the story line.
Jordan McNair died on a practice field in blistering Maryland summer heat in the summer of 2018. He was 19 years old. He wasn't feeling well in practice. Instead of adhering to protocols to make sure that he was not suffering from dehydration or an overly high body temperature, the athletic trainers were absent and the strength and conditioning coach bullied him. He died a few weeks later in a hospital. The university suspended the head football coach, head athletic trainer and strength and conditioning coach. They subsequently let go the strength and conditioning coach, paying him a settlement to take his talents elsewhere.
Yesterday, the University of Maryland shocked the world. The university president wanted to terminate the athletic director and head coach after a 192-page report that the board of regents had commissioned painted a dire picture of the culture within the football program at Maryland. The board of regents felt otherwise. Perhaps because they love the head coach and think he is a good fit and that what happened was a lamentable aberration. Perhaps because they got legal advice that they do not have a case for terminating the head coach for cause and that they would have to pay him over $10 million to part company were they to want to negotiate a settlement. Perhaps because in this day and age they figure that the next scandal will eclipse this one, everyone will forget about their decision and the storm will pass and that they have enough power and support to weather it. Perhaps because, while football parents protested and several players walked out of a meeting with the newly reinstated head coach, a larger core threatened to pull their kids out of school and off the team if the head coach were not reinstated. It is hard to know. The university president, by the way, lost the political and was forced out, announcing his retirement at the end of the year. He should have quit on the spot and sued the university for everything it has.
This episode further buttresses my long-standing maxim that I never wanted to send my kids to a school where a coach has too much power and makes more than the university president. Universities are supposed to educate kids meaningfully and to set standards for good behavior and the building of better character. What happened yesterday with the decision of the board of regents abandoned those lofty goals and revealed that the board of regents does not have much character at all. The death of a player -- in a toxic culture -- happened on the watch of this athletic director and this head football coach. It should not have happened. The entire football program owes a responsibility to all its players and it let not only the family of the deceased player down, but also the players who remain and their families. How can they trust this athletic director, this coach, this board of regents?
The answer is that they cannot. The University of Maryland has made a mess of this situation and has demonstrated that something is rotten within it and its culture. They should have cleaned house, they should have read the report more carefully and they should have realized that the culture this head coach created was so bad that someone died. Yes, this coach is worth a second chance somewhere in some type of job -- he made a grave mistake, many grave mistakes. Just not at Maryland and not right now.
The very sad truth right now is that had the head football coach put his hand on the breast of a cheerleader he would have lost his job. But create a harassing culture that causes a death?
He gets to keep it.
How does that make any sense at all?
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Gabe Kapler Should Hire a Lawyer; Phillies Should Be Worried About Future of Their Skipper
The Department of Justice is conducting an extensive probe of international activities of Major League Baseball teams. You can read one report on that probe here. You can ready another report on the alleged activities and what has prompted DOJ (as those in the legal biz refer to the Department of Justice) to investigate heavily, this one from Sports Illustrated.
Here are some things to think about:
1. DOJ turns away prosecutions in 80% of the matters that it looks into.
2. Allegations are, just that, allegations.
3. Shady and unethical behavior does not make it criminal.
4. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act came about in the late 1970's after a bunch of international scandals involving U.S.-based companies (somehow the name International Telephone and Telegraph comes to mind). Essentially, it makes it a felony to provide anything of value to foreign governmental officials to enable your company to get business.
5. It is unclear to me right now how the FCPA could be implicated in the signing of Latin American baseball players, unless teams offered payments to government officials to enable them to sign certain players.
6. The information that has emerged from the Dodgers is particularly troubling. My guess is that the Dodgers have lawyered up and are cooperating with Federal prosecutors to avoid a subpoena and to respond to whatever questions the government has at this time. Where it will get tricky for the Dodgers is the line between good cooperation designed to gain favor with DOJ when it comes to a remedy (that is a fine, a consent decree, a corporate integrity agreement, etc.) versus asserting the attorney-client privilege and ceasing their willingness to cooperate. That said, internal documents and e-mails that the business people created are not privileged, including the document in which someone in the Dodgers' front office assessed the ethics and compliance of various of the international operatives. Some of what is contained in that report should have prompted those executives to elevate the problem to senior management and the team's general counsel. (Of course, perhaps a reason for not doing so was that whoever created the report was worried that had he reported the concerns, he might have been terminated for hiring too many rogues or for not running a tight enough ship).
7. Gabe Kapler was the head of player development for the Dodgers for a few years, and perhaps for during the years that the DOJ is looking into. If that's the case -- or if he had anything to do with the assessment of the compliance and ethics of his colleagues -- at a minimum the DOJ will want to talk with him. My guess is that the Dodgers will offer to pay for his counsel and indemnify him up to a point, but there could be a point where the Dodgers give him the corporate version of the Miranda warning and advise him to get his own counsel (whether the Dodgers ultimately pay for that counsel could depend on whatever written agreement they have with Kapler about such things, if any, or what their policy is about such things, if any). All of this assumes, of course, that Kapler was in the middle of the alleged conduct.
8. The DOJ will dig in hard on matters like this. The more time it spends on this investigation, the greater the likelihood that it will want to come away with a settlement. And with MLB it could be easier pickings, because if they find violations of the FCPA it strikes me that they also could find that no team has an effective compliance program when it comes to its foreign business practices. And, if this is the case, it could be hard for MLB or its teams to try to isolate the behavior to a few rogue individuals because the teams themselves lacked policies, auditing, training, oversight. These, again, are big assumptions; it could be that MLB teams do all of that and that a few rogues "left the reservation" and behaved badly. But it also could be that the teams had an attitude of "get it done, beat the competition, just don't tell us how you got it done." The documents uncovered in one of the linked articles suggest a rather loose culture.
9. So, circling back to the focus of the investigation, or the apparent focus, the Braves and the Dodgers. Both teams should be worried, as should the individuals who ran the operations within those teams that are under scrutiny.
10. And if you are the Philadelphia Phillies, trying to rebound from many years of sub-.500 performances, you want to make sure that you have a manager with a clean record and without any distractions. Again, allegations are just that; we do not try people by newspaper on FCPA matters. The distractions, though, are another thing. Then there is the waiting -- the teams will turn over information to the DOJ and, mind you, this matter is far from the only one the Assistant U.S. Attorneys on the matter are involved with. It will take them time, along with their staffs, to review information. Then they will go back to the teams with questions and requests for more information and keep on turning over rocks until there are no more to turn over. They will interview many people in and outside baseball, mainly without the knowledge of the teams. And it will be a long and expensive process; it will not conclude until the DOJ is done.
At many levels this is a sad state of affairs for Major League Baseball. Latin America historically has been like California during the beginning of the Gold Rush, lots of activity, not a lot of rules, and now MLB has a big mess on its hands, at a minimum in terms of publicity and at a maximum if teams are charged and individuals indicted. MLB has an opportunity to clean this up and put in much more structure in this area. Whether the owners are willing to do so remains to be seen.
As for the Phillies and Kapler, well, neither need this problem at this time. The Phillies were about 15 over .500 on August 5 and had the worst record in baseball after that, a complete collapse that makes fans wonder whether the team can improve on a 78-win season or whether the team is a bucket of average players with a superstar pitcher atop the pecking order. Kapler presided over the good and, at the end, the bad and the ugly. That should be enough to worry about.
And now there is this.
Here are some things to think about:
1. DOJ turns away prosecutions in 80% of the matters that it looks into.
2. Allegations are, just that, allegations.
3. Shady and unethical behavior does not make it criminal.
4. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act came about in the late 1970's after a bunch of international scandals involving U.S.-based companies (somehow the name International Telephone and Telegraph comes to mind). Essentially, it makes it a felony to provide anything of value to foreign governmental officials to enable your company to get business.
5. It is unclear to me right now how the FCPA could be implicated in the signing of Latin American baseball players, unless teams offered payments to government officials to enable them to sign certain players.
6. The information that has emerged from the Dodgers is particularly troubling. My guess is that the Dodgers have lawyered up and are cooperating with Federal prosecutors to avoid a subpoena and to respond to whatever questions the government has at this time. Where it will get tricky for the Dodgers is the line between good cooperation designed to gain favor with DOJ when it comes to a remedy (that is a fine, a consent decree, a corporate integrity agreement, etc.) versus asserting the attorney-client privilege and ceasing their willingness to cooperate. That said, internal documents and e-mails that the business people created are not privileged, including the document in which someone in the Dodgers' front office assessed the ethics and compliance of various of the international operatives. Some of what is contained in that report should have prompted those executives to elevate the problem to senior management and the team's general counsel. (Of course, perhaps a reason for not doing so was that whoever created the report was worried that had he reported the concerns, he might have been terminated for hiring too many rogues or for not running a tight enough ship).
7. Gabe Kapler was the head of player development for the Dodgers for a few years, and perhaps for during the years that the DOJ is looking into. If that's the case -- or if he had anything to do with the assessment of the compliance and ethics of his colleagues -- at a minimum the DOJ will want to talk with him. My guess is that the Dodgers will offer to pay for his counsel and indemnify him up to a point, but there could be a point where the Dodgers give him the corporate version of the Miranda warning and advise him to get his own counsel (whether the Dodgers ultimately pay for that counsel could depend on whatever written agreement they have with Kapler about such things, if any, or what their policy is about such things, if any). All of this assumes, of course, that Kapler was in the middle of the alleged conduct.
8. The DOJ will dig in hard on matters like this. The more time it spends on this investigation, the greater the likelihood that it will want to come away with a settlement. And with MLB it could be easier pickings, because if they find violations of the FCPA it strikes me that they also could find that no team has an effective compliance program when it comes to its foreign business practices. And, if this is the case, it could be hard for MLB or its teams to try to isolate the behavior to a few rogue individuals because the teams themselves lacked policies, auditing, training, oversight. These, again, are big assumptions; it could be that MLB teams do all of that and that a few rogues "left the reservation" and behaved badly. But it also could be that the teams had an attitude of "get it done, beat the competition, just don't tell us how you got it done." The documents uncovered in one of the linked articles suggest a rather loose culture.
9. So, circling back to the focus of the investigation, or the apparent focus, the Braves and the Dodgers. Both teams should be worried, as should the individuals who ran the operations within those teams that are under scrutiny.
10. And if you are the Philadelphia Phillies, trying to rebound from many years of sub-.500 performances, you want to make sure that you have a manager with a clean record and without any distractions. Again, allegations are just that; we do not try people by newspaper on FCPA matters. The distractions, though, are another thing. Then there is the waiting -- the teams will turn over information to the DOJ and, mind you, this matter is far from the only one the Assistant U.S. Attorneys on the matter are involved with. It will take them time, along with their staffs, to review information. Then they will go back to the teams with questions and requests for more information and keep on turning over rocks until there are no more to turn over. They will interview many people in and outside baseball, mainly without the knowledge of the teams. And it will be a long and expensive process; it will not conclude until the DOJ is done.
At many levels this is a sad state of affairs for Major League Baseball. Latin America historically has been like California during the beginning of the Gold Rush, lots of activity, not a lot of rules, and now MLB has a big mess on its hands, at a minimum in terms of publicity and at a maximum if teams are charged and individuals indicted. MLB has an opportunity to clean this up and put in much more structure in this area. Whether the owners are willing to do so remains to be seen.
As for the Phillies and Kapler, well, neither need this problem at this time. The Phillies were about 15 over .500 on August 5 and had the worst record in baseball after that, a complete collapse that makes fans wonder whether the team can improve on a 78-win season or whether the team is a bucket of average players with a superstar pitcher atop the pecking order. Kapler presided over the good and, at the end, the bad and the ugly. That should be enough to worry about.
And now there is this.
Monday, October 08, 2018
Could a better financial model help all elite European football leagues?
Too few teams can contend for the title. Too many teams are "average" or a step ahead of relegation. While it might be fun to be a fan of Bayern Munich, Juventus or Barcelona, how much fun is it to see them beat up on weak opponents for most of their seasons? And how can those weak opponents sustain interest in their franchises over the long term if they realistically have zero chance of winning?
I believe that while studies have shown that higher payrolls do not guarantee championships, they also reveal that if a team is not in the top 5-10 in spending it will have a hard time qualifying for Champions League play. As Val Fitch, Nobel laureate in physics once put it -- "Excellence cannot be bought, but it must be paid for."
Suggestion to the European Leagues -- take Financial Fair Play a step further. Examine the salary caps in the National Hockey League, National Football League and National Basketball Association, along with their collective bargaining agreements, and also the luxury tax system in Major League Baseball. And come up with something that will give the Hudderfields, Real Betises, Sampdorias and Hoffenheims a real chance of winning your league.
That would make for more interesting weekends, better football, and a better experience for everyone.
I believe that while studies have shown that higher payrolls do not guarantee championships, they also reveal that if a team is not in the top 5-10 in spending it will have a hard time qualifying for Champions League play. As Val Fitch, Nobel laureate in physics once put it -- "Excellence cannot be bought, but it must be paid for."
Suggestion to the European Leagues -- take Financial Fair Play a step further. Examine the salary caps in the National Hockey League, National Football League and National Basketball Association, along with their collective bargaining agreements, and also the luxury tax system in Major League Baseball. And come up with something that will give the Hudderfields, Real Betises, Sampdorias and Hoffenheims a real chance of winning your league.
That would make for more interesting weekends, better football, and a better experience for everyone.
Tuesday, October 02, 2018
Goalkeepers
How can soccer experts tell that Jan Oblak of Atletico Madrid is the best keeper in the world (assuming that Bayern Munich's Manuel Neuer is rusty or lost something after missing most of last season)? For that matter, how can the experts tell which goalies are better than others.
Here's my thinking: Goalie A plays for the team that gives up 2.5 goals per match in the Premier League. He also has more saves than any keeper because his team's defense is porous and he gets more chances. Goalie B plays for the team that gives up 0.83 goals per match in the Premier League. He also ranks at the bottom of the save tally because his team's defense is the best in the league. Is either goalkeeper the best keeper in the league? And if not, who is?
Of course there is plenty of empirical evidence about the quality of footwork or not, the quality of the reactions on set pieces, the quality of positioning, and the quality of the pass that starts a counterattack. And those facts have to contribute. And perhaps today with all of the cameras and collection of data conclusions are much more than anecdotal -- they are factual. It would be helpful if the pundits should share that data to provide us with a measuring stick as to why Oblak, Becker, Courtois and De Gea are better than, say, Ederson, Lloris and Buffon. And if they are better, by how wide a margin?
Here's my thinking: Goalie A plays for the team that gives up 2.5 goals per match in the Premier League. He also has more saves than any keeper because his team's defense is porous and he gets more chances. Goalie B plays for the team that gives up 0.83 goals per match in the Premier League. He also ranks at the bottom of the save tally because his team's defense is the best in the league. Is either goalkeeper the best keeper in the league? And if not, who is?
Of course there is plenty of empirical evidence about the quality of footwork or not, the quality of the reactions on set pieces, the quality of positioning, and the quality of the pass that starts a counterattack. And those facts have to contribute. And perhaps today with all of the cameras and collection of data conclusions are much more than anecdotal -- they are factual. It would be helpful if the pundits should share that data to provide us with a measuring stick as to why Oblak, Becker, Courtois and De Gea are better than, say, Ederson, Lloris and Buffon. And if they are better, by how wide a margin?
On General Electric's Firing of John Flannery
Jack Welch was a GE legend. He definitely changed GE. He introduced concepts of Lean Six Sigma and basically trying to streamline operations, eliminate wasteful steps, make things more efficient. Retrospectively, what he did not do was to provide GE with a sustainable process for assessing businesses or a vision as to how GE could harness and own part of the future. In contrast, IBM, which once mastered the business of mainframe computers and then switched to PCs, had half of its income come from artificial intelligence this past year. So, was Welch the Alex Ferguson of GE? Or was he more the Arsene Wenger? Both are legends; the former, though, accomplished much more. The former has proven hard to succeed; the latter just left after last year, had a great run of qualifying for the Champions League (if not doing much in it) but last won the English Premier League in 2004.
Jeff Immelt succeeded Welch and last 16 years. During that time GE continued to focus on its "operational excellence," did not evolve, had dinosaurs for some business units that turned into albatrosses. It did not innovate. At all. Yet, Immelt survived for 16 years and had he put up Wenger-like results he would have been hailed as a hero. Instead, he fell somewhere in between Connie Mack (post-1932) and Jeff Fisher. The former had some of the worst teams in baseball after having some of the best; some suggested that July 9 be called "Jeff Fisher Day" because of the propensity for his teams to go 7-9.
So, you would have figured that after years of Immelt, GE would have permitted his successor, John Flannery, some time to rip things apart, create a new vision, put GE on a course with all of its resources and learning to become part of everyone's future, the same way IBM did. Okay, perhaps it won't be an Amazon or a Microsoft or a Google, but it could have owned some portion of the future. After all, it was not as though Flannery was replacing a Hall of Fame skipper. So what happened? They canned him after about a year, turning him into David Moyes but he wasn't replacing a guy like Ferguson. He was replacing someone whose stock was among the worst investments over a 15-year period, missing out on some big bull runs.
I am not an expert on GE. Hardly. And from the Wall Street Journal's account the board, after tolerating Immelt for 15+ years, grew impatient with the pace of change and some unforeseen writeoffs that Flannery sprung upon them. Fair enough. They also went outside their succession plan for the first time ever to tap a guy who ran a more successful conglomerate (Danaher) in Larry Culp, who became in essence the board's bench coach a year ago when he joined as "lead director." What he really was, in retrospect, was the head coach in waiting. He should remember that if the board he just joined lost patience with his predecessor, it could lose patience with him, too.
What GE needs to realize is what Jeff Bezos did. It isn't so much that you have industrial might; it is more so that you need algorithmic, analytic and algebraic might. Harness your data and math and figure out a way to transform yourself from a clunky conglomerate that makes good products and has offered at times some decent services into a real player into the future.
Just don't expect that vision or the radical change that is needed to occur in the same time they gave John Flannery to try to begin to turn things around.
For if the board does, it will change CEO's again, and then Culp turns into Louis van Gaal and GE will be searching for its version of Jose Mourinho. And last time I looked, the Hall of Fame skipper was having a rough time of it at the bellwether franchise.
Messes take a while to clean up. What is needed is not a passion about leaning things out and fixing things, but plotting a course for the future. IBM did it.
Can GE?
Jeff Immelt succeeded Welch and last 16 years. During that time GE continued to focus on its "operational excellence," did not evolve, had dinosaurs for some business units that turned into albatrosses. It did not innovate. At all. Yet, Immelt survived for 16 years and had he put up Wenger-like results he would have been hailed as a hero. Instead, he fell somewhere in between Connie Mack (post-1932) and Jeff Fisher. The former had some of the worst teams in baseball after having some of the best; some suggested that July 9 be called "Jeff Fisher Day" because of the propensity for his teams to go 7-9.
So, you would have figured that after years of Immelt, GE would have permitted his successor, John Flannery, some time to rip things apart, create a new vision, put GE on a course with all of its resources and learning to become part of everyone's future, the same way IBM did. Okay, perhaps it won't be an Amazon or a Microsoft or a Google, but it could have owned some portion of the future. After all, it was not as though Flannery was replacing a Hall of Fame skipper. So what happened? They canned him after about a year, turning him into David Moyes but he wasn't replacing a guy like Ferguson. He was replacing someone whose stock was among the worst investments over a 15-year period, missing out on some big bull runs.
I am not an expert on GE. Hardly. And from the Wall Street Journal's account the board, after tolerating Immelt for 15+ years, grew impatient with the pace of change and some unforeseen writeoffs that Flannery sprung upon them. Fair enough. They also went outside their succession plan for the first time ever to tap a guy who ran a more successful conglomerate (Danaher) in Larry Culp, who became in essence the board's bench coach a year ago when he joined as "lead director." What he really was, in retrospect, was the head coach in waiting. He should remember that if the board he just joined lost patience with his predecessor, it could lose patience with him, too.
What GE needs to realize is what Jeff Bezos did. It isn't so much that you have industrial might; it is more so that you need algorithmic, analytic and algebraic might. Harness your data and math and figure out a way to transform yourself from a clunky conglomerate that makes good products and has offered at times some decent services into a real player into the future.
Just don't expect that vision or the radical change that is needed to occur in the same time they gave John Flannery to try to begin to turn things around.
For if the board does, it will change CEO's again, and then Culp turns into Louis van Gaal and GE will be searching for its version of Jose Mourinho. And last time I looked, the Hall of Fame skipper was having a rough time of it at the bellwether franchise.
Messes take a while to clean up. What is needed is not a passion about leaning things out and fixing things, but plotting a course for the future. IBM did it.
Can GE?
Friday, September 21, 2018
NFL Owners and Healthcare
The Dallas Cowboys just were valued at $5 billion.
About 20 years ago Jeffrey Lurie bought the Philadelphia Eagles for $185 million, and the team is worth billions today.
The owners rely upon a flawed collective bargain process to avoid paying long-term healthcare for those whose labors create the value in the franchise. The process has an inherent flaw because careers are so short; players cannot afford to sit out a season in exchange for long-term benefits for past and present players. The best players would give up too much money in the prime of their careers to do so and historically have not been willing to hold out for a very long period of time. The owners know that, so they wait out the players. And then the owners anesthetize themselves that it is okay not to provide these benefits because they negotiated in good faith and the players did not insist upon them.
A friend once said, "business is business, don't judge," and I think that is just flat out wrong, especially when, in his case, he is an unapologetic liberal. He did so in the context of defending his best friend from high school, who is wont to question, challenge and attack competitors despite the fact that his own organization has many shortcomings. A mentor who negotiated big transactions for a living once offered, "It's always best in a deal to live a little extra on the table. It's a partnership, and you'll get more out of it if you don't negotiate down to the last penny. Because if you do, and you get too good of a deal, the other side will figure it out and things could go badly." That logic is better.
The owners don't win by being right all the time. Their logic works as far as it goes, but they should take my mentors' advice and leave a little more on the table. Be magnanimous, offer the long-term healthcare. Relations with the players' union are awful for many reasons, and I think part of the reason is the anxiety that the players have for what might happen to them after they are done playing. The owners, who are very wealthy, should do the right thing. Imagine what the gesture will do for the long-term relationship of the players and owners and correspondingly the fans and the league. And, then, go one step further, invest heavily in research to help make the game safer.
It's hard to pinpoint why ratings are down. The games have a lot of interruptions. The overblown flag controversy contributes. As, perhaps, does NFL Red Zone, which cannibalizes game viewership because why watch a game with all of its fits, starts and stops when you can just watch the highlights. Fewer kids are playing the sport; more are playing the soccer video game and watching international soccer. I have not studied the issue the way a marketing company or academic would, but the NFL has some serious issues.
No fun. Cold, Heartless. Greedy owners. Insensitive toward, and uncaring of, those who get maimed for life. Arrogant. Self-congratulatory.
Take care of the guys who make your franchises worth what they are, owners. Suppose those players were your family, your kids.
What would you say then?
About 20 years ago Jeffrey Lurie bought the Philadelphia Eagles for $185 million, and the team is worth billions today.
The owners rely upon a flawed collective bargain process to avoid paying long-term healthcare for those whose labors create the value in the franchise. The process has an inherent flaw because careers are so short; players cannot afford to sit out a season in exchange for long-term benefits for past and present players. The best players would give up too much money in the prime of their careers to do so and historically have not been willing to hold out for a very long period of time. The owners know that, so they wait out the players. And then the owners anesthetize themselves that it is okay not to provide these benefits because they negotiated in good faith and the players did not insist upon them.
A friend once said, "business is business, don't judge," and I think that is just flat out wrong, especially when, in his case, he is an unapologetic liberal. He did so in the context of defending his best friend from high school, who is wont to question, challenge and attack competitors despite the fact that his own organization has many shortcomings. A mentor who negotiated big transactions for a living once offered, "It's always best in a deal to live a little extra on the table. It's a partnership, and you'll get more out of it if you don't negotiate down to the last penny. Because if you do, and you get too good of a deal, the other side will figure it out and things could go badly." That logic is better.
The owners don't win by being right all the time. Their logic works as far as it goes, but they should take my mentors' advice and leave a little more on the table. Be magnanimous, offer the long-term healthcare. Relations with the players' union are awful for many reasons, and I think part of the reason is the anxiety that the players have for what might happen to them after they are done playing. The owners, who are very wealthy, should do the right thing. Imagine what the gesture will do for the long-term relationship of the players and owners and correspondingly the fans and the league. And, then, go one step further, invest heavily in research to help make the game safer.
It's hard to pinpoint why ratings are down. The games have a lot of interruptions. The overblown flag controversy contributes. As, perhaps, does NFL Red Zone, which cannibalizes game viewership because why watch a game with all of its fits, starts and stops when you can just watch the highlights. Fewer kids are playing the sport; more are playing the soccer video game and watching international soccer. I have not studied the issue the way a marketing company or academic would, but the NFL has some serious issues.
No fun. Cold, Heartless. Greedy owners. Insensitive toward, and uncaring of, those who get maimed for life. Arrogant. Self-congratulatory.
Take care of the guys who make your franchises worth what they are, owners. Suppose those players were your family, your kids.
What would you say then?
Monday, September 17, 2018
The Importance of Adjustments in Sports
According to Baseball Prospectus, Mike Trout could have retired after the season before last at the ripe old age of 25 and gone down as one of the ten best position players ever to play Major League Baseball. Not only is Trout an amazing talent, he also has been terrific at making adjustments. Early in his career scouts thought he might be vulnerable to the high fastball; Trout adjusted and thwarted attempts to stymie him. Trout was frustrated with his ranking as a centerfielder; he did drills to improve his reaction time to fly balls and rejoined the top third of all defensive centerfielders. That is what the great teams do. Some players and coaches and teams can do this; others cannot. Whether they can do this or not defines their careers.
Juan Samuel was supposed to be the next great Phillies player after Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton and started out his career red-hot. Then opponents figured out a weakness -- the outside breaking ball. Samuel could not lay off it, ending up striking out a ton and playing himself into the role of a super utility players. He just did not remain good enough to be an every day player -- his weakness would get exposed if opposing pitchers saw him too often.
Andy Reid right now is the best coach not to win a Super Bowl. His main flaws -- bad clock management and inconsistencies picking talent in Philadelphia. Every year the team went into the season with a pronounced weakness or two that, despite public statements to the contrary, came back to bite the head coach and his ambitions. Since he has been in Kansas City he only has had the role of head coach -- perhaps this season could be the charm for him.
Chip Kelly dazzled at Oregon in what retrospectively was a relatively short tenure. College coaches have all the power and can be dictators. History has told us that what has worked in college does not necessary work in the pros. Kelly, with his innovative thinking, got off to a good start with the Eagles. But then he kept on doing the same thing, to the point where former offensive lineman Evan Mathis said the rest of the league knew what was coming and when. Sure, the Eagles could get a play off quickly. The problem was that the other team could guess what it was. Chip Kelly is now back in college, trying to rekindle his old magic.
Buddy Ryan was an innovator with the 46 defense with the Chicago Bears. Ultimately, the league adjusted to that scheme, but before it did Buddy's defenses were something to behold. In contrast, Buddy was a lame thinker on the offensive side of the ball and refused to innovate or adjust. He had a unique, transcending talent in Randall Cunningham and couldn't figure out how to make him into the best quarterback in the league. Poor Cunningham played without a running game and with replacement-player-plus level receivers and a tight end with a big reputation who dropped the ball a lot. He deserved better; Ryan ended up out of a job because he refused to adjust his thinking as a head coach and value the offense half as much as he valued his defense.
The Philadelphia Phillies were terrific in the 2007-2011 time frame. Part of their success resulted from their outstanding development of three perennial MVP candidates -- Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. Part of their success resulted from their maximizing the value of retrospectively vastly overrated prospects to land the likes of Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. But the team kept on getting older after their World Series victory of 2008, when the average age of a player was about 29. They added the ultimately underperforming Raul Ibanez when he was 36 and the oft-injured Placido Polanco when he was in his early 30's. They also failed to embrace the type of analytics that other teams, particularly the most innovate ones, were using, teams like Boston, St. Louis and Houston. What resulted was their slide from a perennial contender into a team whose season was over by the All-Star break.
Pick your city, pick your discussion. The Mets loaded up on starting pitchers with a tremendous amount of promise -- DeGrom, Syndergaard, Wheeler, Harvey, Matz, Gsellman. The problem is that when you have so many young pitchers before the age of 25 throwing as hard as they can for long periods of time, they are bound to get hurt. And many of them did. The tragic part for the Mets is that this happened before with pitchers named Isringhausen, Wilson and Pulsipher. Only Isringhausen had any type of career, and that was as a reliever. The other two got so injured -- as did the Cubs uber-talented Kerry Wood and Mark Prior -- that you knew that what portended to be a team that could get everyone out might end up being a squad that would have difficulty getting players off the disabled list.
Failing to adjust or persisting in doing things the old way get management and teams into trouble. Doing something the same way over and over again and expecting a good result but then failing has been called by some the definition of insanity. Teams that truly innovate -- the elite soccer teams are among them -- videotape players and do a computer analysis of their workouts and their repetitive motions to ensure that the work they do strengthens the players and does not put undue stress on one part of the body to cause a recurring injury. They have adopted cryotherapy rooms to take down a player's inflammation after working out and also focus strictly on sleep and diet. Oh, sure, Chip Kelly did that in Philadelphia, I forgot. The problem was that the didn't do enough to get the respect of the players with his communications and style to get them to buy in.
Examples abound. Adjustments are critical. The teams that win, adjust, even if they are Golden State by maxing out their payroll to remain more than very relevant when they inked Kevin Durant. That's an adjustment too.
Juan Samuel was supposed to be the next great Phillies player after Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton and started out his career red-hot. Then opponents figured out a weakness -- the outside breaking ball. Samuel could not lay off it, ending up striking out a ton and playing himself into the role of a super utility players. He just did not remain good enough to be an every day player -- his weakness would get exposed if opposing pitchers saw him too often.
Andy Reid right now is the best coach not to win a Super Bowl. His main flaws -- bad clock management and inconsistencies picking talent in Philadelphia. Every year the team went into the season with a pronounced weakness or two that, despite public statements to the contrary, came back to bite the head coach and his ambitions. Since he has been in Kansas City he only has had the role of head coach -- perhaps this season could be the charm for him.
Chip Kelly dazzled at Oregon in what retrospectively was a relatively short tenure. College coaches have all the power and can be dictators. History has told us that what has worked in college does not necessary work in the pros. Kelly, with his innovative thinking, got off to a good start with the Eagles. But then he kept on doing the same thing, to the point where former offensive lineman Evan Mathis said the rest of the league knew what was coming and when. Sure, the Eagles could get a play off quickly. The problem was that the other team could guess what it was. Chip Kelly is now back in college, trying to rekindle his old magic.
Buddy Ryan was an innovator with the 46 defense with the Chicago Bears. Ultimately, the league adjusted to that scheme, but before it did Buddy's defenses were something to behold. In contrast, Buddy was a lame thinker on the offensive side of the ball and refused to innovate or adjust. He had a unique, transcending talent in Randall Cunningham and couldn't figure out how to make him into the best quarterback in the league. Poor Cunningham played without a running game and with replacement-player-plus level receivers and a tight end with a big reputation who dropped the ball a lot. He deserved better; Ryan ended up out of a job because he refused to adjust his thinking as a head coach and value the offense half as much as he valued his defense.
The Philadelphia Phillies were terrific in the 2007-2011 time frame. Part of their success resulted from their outstanding development of three perennial MVP candidates -- Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. Part of their success resulted from their maximizing the value of retrospectively vastly overrated prospects to land the likes of Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. But the team kept on getting older after their World Series victory of 2008, when the average age of a player was about 29. They added the ultimately underperforming Raul Ibanez when he was 36 and the oft-injured Placido Polanco when he was in his early 30's. They also failed to embrace the type of analytics that other teams, particularly the most innovate ones, were using, teams like Boston, St. Louis and Houston. What resulted was their slide from a perennial contender into a team whose season was over by the All-Star break.
Pick your city, pick your discussion. The Mets loaded up on starting pitchers with a tremendous amount of promise -- DeGrom, Syndergaard, Wheeler, Harvey, Matz, Gsellman. The problem is that when you have so many young pitchers before the age of 25 throwing as hard as they can for long periods of time, they are bound to get hurt. And many of them did. The tragic part for the Mets is that this happened before with pitchers named Isringhausen, Wilson and Pulsipher. Only Isringhausen had any type of career, and that was as a reliever. The other two got so injured -- as did the Cubs uber-talented Kerry Wood and Mark Prior -- that you knew that what portended to be a team that could get everyone out might end up being a squad that would have difficulty getting players off the disabled list.
Failing to adjust or persisting in doing things the old way get management and teams into trouble. Doing something the same way over and over again and expecting a good result but then failing has been called by some the definition of insanity. Teams that truly innovate -- the elite soccer teams are among them -- videotape players and do a computer analysis of their workouts and their repetitive motions to ensure that the work they do strengthens the players and does not put undue stress on one part of the body to cause a recurring injury. They have adopted cryotherapy rooms to take down a player's inflammation after working out and also focus strictly on sleep and diet. Oh, sure, Chip Kelly did that in Philadelphia, I forgot. The problem was that the didn't do enough to get the respect of the players with his communications and style to get them to buy in.
Examples abound. Adjustments are critical. The teams that win, adjust, even if they are Golden State by maxing out their payroll to remain more than very relevant when they inked Kevin Durant. That's an adjustment too.
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