Top 10 Questions Coming Out Of The Baseball Winter Meetings

Now that the annual baseball winter meetings have wrapped up and all the job seekers, stringers, and agents for backup catchers have caught their flights home, it's time for folks to declare "winners" and "losers" of the deals that went down.

Which is ridiculous. Because nobody's playing a game for another three and a half months and moves don't get made in a vacuum, and besides, nobody's signed Yoenis Cespedes yet.

If (Oakland Version)

If...

If Coco Crisp hadn't hurt himself in an 11th inning that never should have happened, he would have been out there to snag that fly ball that found turf in the twelfth. Or Sam Fuld is in left, where he belonged, and he gets it, and lovable but immobile Jonny Gomes is on the bench, a minimum safe distance from his glove...

Nobody Knows Nothing, Baseball Edition

Let's rewind a few weeks to the MLB trade deadline. We didn't know a lot of things, but we knew these for dead sure:

• By trading for Jon Lester to go with Jeff Samardzjia and Jason Hammel, Oakland had locked up the AL West
• By trading for David Price, Detroit had created an unbeatable FrankenRotation that meant they, too, could make October reservations
• The Brewers had salted away the NL Central, while the Pirates were, err, dead in the water.
• The Braves were mounting their usual late-season charge and the Nationals were in trouble.
• The Royals were, well, the Royals. 

Time-Is-Moneyball

There is a certain rhythm to a baseball season. It starts off in a mad rush, with small hot streaks by bad teams and unknown players exciting all sorts of cloud cuckoo-land extrapolation. (See: This April's Miami Marlins, and everyone who thought they'd win 100 games based on their first week).  Then it settles into the process of shaking itself out, as good teams separate from bad, and injuries knock off contenders without depth. Flashes in the pan fade out until everyone's got a pretty good idea of whether they're contenders or pretenders, and then the trade talk starts. This tends to be a ton of nothing until July, at which point trade talk starts bubbling up ahead of the July 31st deadline. 

It is, as they say, the way things done. Teams will wait until the last minute to be sure to extract the best possible deal for the pieces they're attempting to move, which means that acquiring teams get that much less of their new players, which in turn makes them that much less interested in surrendering quality for them, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing, and, well, oy.

On a Walkoff Win By The Bay

Why so serious?

Here's the situation.

First and third, none out. Bottom of the ninth, tie game. Your offense has done nothing against a rookie all game. Your starter is gone and your pitcher is gassed. The guy at the plate has power.

No More Clevelands

There are two possible conclusions that can be drawn from last night's umpiring fiasco in Cleveland, and they are predicated on whether or not umpiring crew chief Angel Hernandez is full of it. Hernandez, partially off the record, said that the replay they had of Josh Donaldson's home-run-that-was-ruled-a-double was inconclusive, and privately grumbled to Jayson Stark that the equipment the umps have for doing instant replay reviews is subpar for the job.
If Hernandez is full of it - and he does  not exactly have a spotless track record - then he deliberately sandbagged the call because he didn't want to be overturned by replay. That's unacceptable professional behavior and baseball shouldn't put up with it. Fans come to the ballpark expecting to see a fair contest, millions of dollars are on the line with playoff spots, and having a team's fate hinge on a case of "Idowanna" makes no sense. So someone needs to get in there, see the replays that Hernandez and his crew saw, and determine if they were actually good enough to show what happened.
If, on the other hand, Hernandez is telling the truth and the equipment was subpar - worse angles than the TV cameras and worse equipment to view it on - then this is also unacceptable. If umps are making calls that decide the outcomes of games on 17" black and white Zeniths with rabbit ears, that needs to stop right now. MLB can pay for one less "surprise appearance" by Puddle of Mudd at the MLB Fan Cave, rip a few of those flatscreens off the wall, and distribute them to the umpires' clubhouses so they can get the goddamn calls right.
It isn't hard, people. One thing or the other has to stop. Figure out which and do it.
Now.

MLB Preview - AL West Edition

Mariners outfield headed this way? No problem.

Once, long ago, I was privileged to attend a game at Safeco Field in the company of the esteemed Derek Zumsteg, a man who is both a gentleman and far more knowledgeable about baseball than I will ever be. During the announcement of the Mariners' starting lineup - one that featured Willie Bloomquist hitting second, shortly after his unfortunate "clamming" incident, and Miguel Cairo playing first base - he started booing.
'nuff said. Here's the AL West.

Reasons to Root For Each Team In the MLB Playoffs

Jim Leyland on Casual Fridays

The New York Yankees
Another chance to watch the ageless Derek Jeter and resurrected Andy Pettite on the big stage. And, err, that's about it. Screw the Yankees. They've won enough already.

The St. Louis Cardinals
Overcame a staggering number of injuries to reach the postseason. Made it in despite losing one of the best players in baseball history to free agency in the off-season, and filling the gaps with guys named Kozma and Craig and (the other) Carpenter. No brawls with the Cincinnati Reds all year. Rookie manager Mike Metheny had the stones to start Kyle Lohse - THE Kyle Lohse - in a win-or-go-home playoff scenario. And the chance that this might be the last go-round for Fat Elvis Berkman.
Plus, they're not the Yankees.

The Cincinnati Reds
They're the best team nobody's heard of. Their closer throws faster than Sammy Hagar is capable of driving. Bronson Arroyo rocks (literally). Joey Votto is a beast. Jay Bruce is a slightly smaller beast. Brandon Phillips is the second-funniest tweeter still playing (sorry you're home, @TheRealTPlush). Johnny Cueto had the best season by a pitcher you didn't hear about. All they do is win ballgames. They had the stones not to overload their playoff roster with starting pitchers they'll never use.
And of course, they're not the Yankees.

The Detroit Tigers
Miggy and Prince shouting "Si, motherfucker!" as they jack bombs in batting practice. The Koufaxian transcendence that is Justin Verlander - and the fact that he's damn funny in commercials, too. Closer Jose Valverde's untucked shirt and obvious love of pie. All other arguments aside, Miggy won the Triple Crown, and that's awesome. They finally divested themselves of Brandon Inge. Doug Fister, and the agony a simple typo caused Craig Calcaterra. Jim Leyland looks more like Solid Snake every year - or is it that Solid Snake looks more like Jim Leyland?
And they ain't the Yankees.

The Baltimore Orioles
A streak of 14 straight losing seasons snapped unexpectedly and astonishingly. An army of scrap-heap pickups like Nate McLouth and Joe Saunders rising to the occasion. Manny Machado, stealth third baseman, who in a year of no Trout would be the big rookie fish - he's that good. Adam Jones, putting it all together. A closer out of nowhere, with more saves than strikeouts. An astonishing job of shuffling personnel between Baltimore and AAA by former punchline GM Dan Duquette and manager Buck Showalter. The damn bird logo, which should beat the Cardinals bird up and take its beer money. And they're not the Yankees.

The Oakland A's
Because they have no goddamn business being there. Because Brandon McCarthy won Twitter when he got out of the hospital after taking a line drive off the face. Because wearing green and gold on national television when you're not a leprechaun takes balls. Because Yoenis Cespedes is in fact Batman. Because Chris Carter finally got a real shot. Because of the terrible, terrible thing that happened to Pat Neshek and his wife. Because of a rotation full of rookies and because there needs to be a giant "Screw you!" to all the troglodytes who routinely use Moneyball as a blunt weapon because reading it is too damn hard.
And as you might have guessed, they're not the Yankees.

The San Francisco Giants
Because every night, somebody's getting Poseyed. Because The Freak had a bad year, but he's still The Freak, and you can't not root for the guy. Because of the ongoing train wreck that is the Barry Zito contract. Because nobody's going to be talking about that goddamned beard. Because Matt Cain is a walking, talking statistical outlier, and because his perfect game was a masterpiece. Because the universe still owes Willie McCovey one.
And because they're so not the Yankees, they left New York half a century ago.

The Washington Nationals:
They've got a $126M caveman in right field. They're a year ahead of schedule. Their oh-so-brash underaged superstar spent the pennant-clinching celebration drinking apple juice with one of his teammate's kids. And most of all, if the Nationals don't win it all, we will never, ever hear the end of the armchair pitching coaches chewing on Nats GM Mike Rizzo for his decision to sit down Stephen Strasburg.
Also, they're not the Yankees.

This Is Why They Play 162 Games

Playoff odds? They're ABOVE 9000!

You only need to be in first place for one day. The last day.
It doesn't matter if you're 13 games out midseason. That you're starting a rotation made up of five rookies. That your best starting pitcher tested positive for performance-enhancing hollandaise sauce and got suspended for the stretch run. That your outfield was composed of guys who'd signed long-term leases in Pawtucket and guys who'd bombed in Kansas City and a guy who was better known for his workout video than anything else. That your midseason power upgrade came from a guy who looked like he was locked into a AAAA career path. That your bullpen was put together with duct tape and rejects and former minor league first basemen. That you play in a cavernous shell of a stadium that the city fathers have gutted for their cheating boyfriend of a football team, that your payroll is tiny and your location status is in limbo and your decade-ago success has been turned into a punchline by every jock-sniffing sports radio blatherer who decided in grade school that fractions were proof that math was just too damn hard.
That you're down, 5-0, in the last game, against the team that you've got to beat, against their big mid-season pitching pickup. That you're pulling guys out of the bullpen whom the announcers have never heard of because your starting pitcher imploded in the 3rd. That you're relying on guys named Moss and Smith and Donaldson.
A's 12, Rangers 5. This is why they play 162 games.

The Collapse

Sad Pirates fan is sad.

There's never room for all the underdogs.
A month or two ago, if you'd asked me which of the unlikely upstarts charging pell-mell toward a playoff spot was most likely to collapse, I would have picked the Baltimore Orioles. They had a negative run differential. They had an offense built out of spare parts and castoffs. They had the Yankees ahead of them and the pitching-blessed Rays coming up behind them. They were the team of Jeffrey Maier and Raffy Palmiero's butt injections, of desperate flailing in the GM's office and an owner odd enough to rouse Et Tu, Mr. Destructo away from politics for a brilliant, devastating profile.
Or maybe it was the Oakland A's, who'd shed established starting pitching over the offseason like it was RIMM stock, whose outfield looked suspiciously like last year's Pawtucket Red Sox, who ran a rotation full of rookies out there because they had no other option, who were buried under so many bad Moneyball jokes and stadium issues and are-they-moving-to-San-Jose distractions that it was a rare miracle anyone ever talked about what was going on on the field.
The Pittsburgh Pirates, I figured, were safe. They had a budding superstar in Andrew McCutcheon. They had a solid supporting cast. Pedro Alvarez had figured out that hitting baseballs was better than eating cheeseburgers. Closer Joel Hanrahan was a beast, A.J. Burnett had reinvented himself on returning to the National League, and James McDonald had taken steps toward being considered a top-flight starter. They were 16 games over .500. They had a lead in the Wild Card, and they were in striking distance of the NL Central.
And then the wheels fell off. Epically. Historically. Legendarily. They're 5 games under .500 now, with  3 to play. Their run differential is -24, while the Orioles, who clinched a playoff spot tonight, have climbed into positive territory. For the 20th straight year, it's losing baseball in Pittsburgh, and this year may be the biggest heartbreaker of all.
But the thing is, that's baseball. Short attention span types may grumble about the length of the season, but it's the only major sport season long enough to develop extended narratives. The rise and fall, the upstart conqueror, the nail-shredding tension of the pennant race - this is what you get from 162 games that you don't get from 82, or 81, or 16. And if the season was just too long for the Pirates this year, that's a narrative, too, a tragic one for the fans who bought into the magic of early summer, but a real and important and interesting one.
There's not room for all the underdogs, even in a year when payroll-heavy beasts like Philadelphia and Boston come crashing down. There's only a few playoff spots, and if the elegiac tale of Chipper Jones' final go-round takes a slot and the resilient Cardinals post-Pujols take another, then there's no place for the Pirates to go. Not this time, anyway.
But not every story ends in triumph. Tragedy's got its place on the stage, too. And in the words of my people, who dwelt for many years in the shadows of Ebbets Field, "Wait 'til next year."