The Bias has to send out bitter congratulations to the 2006 World Champion St Louis Cardinals. Going into any series as the underdog is never easy, going into three of them, and winning all three of them, is near impossible. The Cardinals not only did that, but did it in incredible fashion, knocking out a hot Padres team in 4-games, knocking out the team that was crowned the NL Representative for the World Series in July, and restoring some faith in the National League and invalidating six months of Quadruple A jokes by taking out the Tigers in just five games.
I was in an awkward position as I watched this World Series as I couldn’t bring myself to root for either team. Since I’m a fan of baseball (not AL HomerunDerbyball) I enjoy the National League game better. Being tired of the inane Quadruple-A jokes that are all the rage, I really couldn’t root for the American League. Being a Met fan, I couldn’t possibly root for the Cardinals. Since the Cards won, I find myself moderately satisfied, kind of like I just ate a McGriddle without the egg. Still yummy, not satisfying.
Now that the season is over, I thought I’d preview a few things to watch for in the coming months. As I’ve noted before, I’m way better at predicting team moves than the outcomes of games. This is why I don’t gamble.
1) The Barry Zito Lottery. The price tag for ace pitching has been set at 5/$73, Roy Oswalt’s deal from the Astros. Zito is 28 years old, which means it’s time for him to look around for THAT contract. The jaw-dropping, non-arbitration, Boras-is-your-agent, set you for life contract. Expect Boras to remind everyone that Zito is a lefty and that AL pitchers are thriving in the NL (two of them just won a bunch of post-season games). Expect the asking price for Mr. Zito to be around 6/$85 to start and maybe settling around 5/$78. With this price-tag, Zito will probably be leaving the West Coast.
Who takes him? The Yankees are getting ready to throw all their resources at retaining Daisuke Matsuzaka and, with newly minted baseball-bot Robert Abreu’s contract on the books for the next two seasons, I don’t expect them to get on board for two free agent aces. The Mets are rumored to have interest and Zito has a relationship with Met pitching coach Rick Peterson. With the Mets ancient pitching staff breaking down in the post-season, a young arm could be just what the doctor ordered. Toronto has been stacking their team of late and adding Zito would give them a holyshit rotation (Halliday/Lilly/Burnett/Zito). The Rangers are always in the mix for these free agent signings. The Marlins certainly have room and can sell Zito a new park and the centerpiece of the rotation. The Red Sox could be in the mix, too, but as recent events have indicated, they aren’t really into the whole “bidding” process.
Interesting sub-plot here; Boras is representing both Zito and the Japanese guy. Be interesting to see if he manages to get them both ace money or if one of them ends up cannibalizing the other. I predict the Mets get Zito (because of Peterson) and the Yankees get Matsuzaka (because of Godzilla).
1a) The Alfonso Soriano Lottery. You’re going to see the Astros in the mix for a lot of these big-bat free agents this season. They finally get Bagwell’s $20 million albatross contract off their backs. If Roger Clemens decides to hang it up next season, that’s another $20 million. The Yankees should be out of this race as offense is the absolute dead last thing they need, they have a homegrown 2b who finished 4th for the batting title this season, they have a stacked outfield, and they already ran him out of New York once. (Funny story, as the season ended, Yankee fans immediately started in on how they always liked Soriano better than A-Rod. Meanwhile after his 26 strikeout, .225 performance in the 2003 post-season, they couldn’t wait to get rid of him. Who’d they get in trade? A-Rod. Destiny is, in fact, a wheel). Whether or not the Nationals sign him will be a good indication on the direction the new ownership is going to take this franchise. There were rumors earlier in the month that he’d turned down a 5 year, $70 million offer from the Nationals. They denied this rumor. If he did turn it down, 40/40/40 season or not, he’s crazy. The supply/demand curve here isn’t in his favor, as there are a lot more bats available than pitching. 5/$70 is the high-end for what any power bat is getting this offseason. (See also: Lee, Derrek, who turned down a decent offer from Milwaukee to test the free-agent market after a trade).
1b) The Barry Bonds Saga. Bonds said he refuses to take a pay cut from the Giants and refuses to have an incentive laden contract. Bonds wants his same 20 million per year. Oh, and they can’t rebuild this season, either. If the Giants have any rocks it all, they’ll tell Bonds to take a walk. If they do, he’ll probably replace Tim Salmon, the retiring Angels’ DH. Oakland seems likely to bring back Frank Thomas for another season, the Mariners can’t afford him, and I can’t think of any East Coast AL teams that would want him. However, I think Bonds is crazy if he thinks anyone is going to pay $20 million for a guy who played 10 games 2 years ago. He’s either going to take less money, or not hit any more home runs. He’s not going to retire less than 40 homers away from 755, it’s just a matter of who pays him for it. The Giants have nothing to lose as there’s no way he goes into the HOF as anything but a Giant, assuming he goes in.
2) Very few inter-league trades. American League GMs are going to want extra value for any pitchers sent to the National League and the NL is likely going to tell them to kiss-off. After all of the hubbub about how much better the AL pitchers are faring in the NL, most of them washed out with about the same record as they had last season. ERAs dropped, but that’s normal. AJ Burnett, on the other hand, proved an NL pitcher really can fare OK in the American League.
3) A-Rod. After calling out Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera in Sports Illustrated back in September, A-Rod proceeded to have another atrocious October. He was so bad that Joe Torre dropped his quarter-billion dollar player to eighth in the batting order. Brian Cashman has said they are not looking to trade A-Rod, which is GM-ese for “We’re not looking to trade him, but make me an offer and we’ll talk.” Scott Boras reminded the world that A-Rod has a no-trade clause and would not entertain a trade, which is Agent-ese for “We’re going to need a lump-sum payout (which I get a cut of) to waive our no-trade clause.” I wrote an entire column about this not too long ago, coming to the conclusion that he would only accept a trade under certain circumstances, and only then to certain places. That “certain place” is Chicago. Everyone involved with A-Rod says there is no chance of a trade happening, which is par for the course.
I honestly still expect to see A-Rod playing in a Cubs uniform next season. It’s possible he starts for the Yankees next season, but it’s getting to the point where being a Yankee is hurting his career. He’s got a punche’s chance at breaking every record in baseball and being the centerpiece of a team who is two seasons out of their centennial of being cursed. Being on that team, assuming they can pull out a win, makes him the biggest thing in baseball maybe ever. I think it’s a tempting bill of goods to be sold.
4) Joe Girardi. Girardi took a $15 million payroll and threatened the Wildcard until Mid-September. As he apparently did too well for Jeff Loria’s liking, he was canned at season’s end. The job he wanted was taken by Lou Piniella. Girardi’s managerial style seems like it won’t fit in many places and, considering his age, it’s likely he wouldn’t be well accepted on a team full of veterans. The problem is that the only team fitting his managerial style is the Athletics and Beane doesn’t care much for hot-headed, willful managers. With Joe Torre likely bowing out of the Bronx when his contract expires next season, I expect Joe Girardi to be a studio guy for YES and wait to take over Don Mattingly’s job when Mattingly replaces Torre next season and bide his time until either a job he likes opens up or Mattingly fails to make the playoffs with the team of old men Joe leaves him with in 2008.
Attached to this, I was having a conversation recently with Mike Hulse whether or not I would take the Marlin’s manager job. He said no because of Jeff Loria, I said I’d take in a heartbeat if the conditions were right. If I were Lou Piniella, absolutely not. If I were a guy like Manny Acta or another guy trying to break in, I’d take it in a second. It’s win/win. If the team loses, you have Loria to point at and say “I couldn’t work with him, he wouldn’t let me do anything.” If you win 70 games, you’re manager of the year. Career-wise, you can’t lose.
5) The Wildcard. Bobby Cox and the Braves have been complaining about the Wildcard format for years now, since the Wildcard team is not penalized at all, occasionally even managing to duck the best team in the first round via the Yanks/Sox CS Ratings Rule (teams from the same division can’t play each other in the DS). Now that their ratings darlings have been bounced in the first round two years running, expect the MLB version of the NFL Competition Committee to start analyzing ways to make life harder on the Wildcard.
I actually agree with this, with nothing to do with the Yankees. The NBA has similar problems toward the end of the season, as occasionally a team actually needs to lose games to draw a better seeding and playoff path. If the Wildcard doesn’t actually have a harder path than the division winners, why even have division winners? A fancy banner? It also discourages the things we’ve seen in the last couple seasons (last season with the Yankees and Red Sox, this year with the Twins and Tigers) where teams don’t really compete down the stretch to win their division when they have a wildcard berth locked up already, preferring to set their rotation for the playoffs.
Of the things I’ve heard discussed, there are two that seem the most likely. First is switching the home/away/home structure from 2/2/1 to 2/1/2 thus giving the wildcard team only 1 home game in the series. The other option is to add a second wildcard team and have those two wildcards play a one game play-in the Monday between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs. If your 162-game season comes down to one play-in game, you’ll have to go all out to win that game, and you likely wouldn’t have seen the Tigers cruising down the stretch.
With a play-in game on Monday you could simply have the two series involving the Wildcard teams start on Wednesday since the Wildcard team will have to travel following their game and work on the schedule from there.
6) The Marlins. This team, with their current payroll, can be in the mix for every huge free agent. Three good middle relievers and they’re over .500 next season. They can score and they have starters; they just need guys to bridge the gap to Borowski. The primary thing to watch is whether or not the Marlins decide to compete next season by spending money to fill in their gaps or field the same 15 million. The Marlins have to play one more season in Dolphin Stadium before their lease is up, so the decision on whether they’re moving or not should be made pretty soon. If they do decide to hold off until 2008 to spend money, there’s an enormous free-agent pool they’ll be choosing from (including Andruw Jones to fill their giant gap in center field).
That closes baseball for me, most likely, until late-December to talk about the Winter Meetings and maybe the Rule 5 draft. For now, it’s time to hop back on the Big Blue Manningwagon and gloat to Eric about my 12-4 call for the Bears likely being closer than his 10-6 call.
And just wait until the Giants/Bears NFC Championship Preview in a couple weeks. Hoooooooo, Doktah.
