140 CC's of Recklessness

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3703112

It's tempting to call this the most predictable move of the young baseball offseason, and there's certainly a lot of truth to that. But this baseball analyst thinks (hopes?) that there's still a lot that can be learned from this. Namely, that Hank Steinbrenner will follow in the wayward footsteps of his father.

See, the decline of the Yankees dynasty was marked by a practice of finding the best-performing free agent from the past season and making him an offer he couldn't refuse. It's a strategy that will net you some good players, to be sure, but there are two problems with it. For one, it's awfully inelegant; if you're a baseball GM, you're supposed to be able to predict who will perform above their market value next year, not look at a list of free agents from last year and go, "Look! He had the lowest ERA!" But more importantly than that, you end up dishing out long-term contracts to players who may just have had their peak year.

This Sabathia offer, in my opinion, is in keeping with that errant Steinbrenner tradition. Obviously, going after C.C. isn't an inherently bad idea--he's still a tremendous pitcher. But six years is a long time, $140 million is a lot of money, and there's also this:

C.C. SABATHIA'S 2008 ERA, BY LEAGUE

NL: 1.65

AL: 3.83

Something tells me that if you bring C.C. back to the land of designated hitters, you're not going to get that gaudy 1-something ERA you think you're paying top dollar for. But hey--he had the lowest ERA! Let's see if we can break the $200 million mark!

re: Invaluable

let me start first and foremost by declaring that tim lincecum is as deserving as any for the NL cy young award (there you go, d.r.w.). and if he and the indians' cliff lee get their dues, it will certainly produce some interesting precedent for the yearly discussions when people whine about mvp candidates on losing teams.

that is just it, though. why all this convention/tradition around what player should be declared the most valuable player? is there a reason why the person must play for one of the eight teams that make the playoffs? or, in the case of k.c.r.'s post, does the person have to have been with the team the entire season - or just long enough to make an impact?

sabathia and ramirez actually provide great material for a comparison.

without a doubt, cc has been one of the best pitchers in the national league in the second half of the season. if you want value, sabathia is your man, helping milwaukee do its best tampa bay impression. but, this is where we can bring the idea of value into focus. given that the brewers now sit 10 games out in the NL central and 2.5 back in the wild card race, does sabathia's performance have the same allure? indeed, the necessity to be a player on a winning team features less prominently in cy young conversations than mvp ones (although the reason for that is not altogether clear). but if you were to put cc's value in a sentence, would you say that he was valuable because he helped the brewers almost make the playoffs? or because he helped the brewers avoid another season in the NL cellar? perhaps that adds value from a fan and/or revenue perspective, but it seems tough to say - especially given the brevity of his tenure in sausagetown - that he has been the savior that could bring a ring to wisconsin.

ramirez, on the other hand, has revitalized himself and his new team. after crying game after game in the yankees' dugout, joe torre is enjoying watching manny play on his side, with or without a real haircut. like sabathia, ramirez has put up gaudy numbers after coming to the national league (albeit over a shorter time period). with arizona sputtering, the dodgers look poised to return to the postseason and to perhaps even win a playoff series. value? how about hitting nearly .400 with a home run almost every 3 games, putting up bonds-ian OPS numbers? if LA holds on to take the NL west, ramirez will be hailed as the man who boosted his team into october.

does it matter that he joined the team after playing 100 games in boston? if you take a look around chavez ravine, there doesn't seem to be a single fan that remembers the pre-manny era. and as for opposing managers in the NL west, they're feeling the same sinking feeling that they grew all too accustomed to whenever barry lamar stepped into the batters' box.

that fear, that presence - that is what value is all about, as bonds' seven mvp awards attest. choosing manny may not jive with tradition, and it may not fit the baseball honor code. but as captain barbosa famously remarked, the code is more like guidelines, anyway.

sabathia hasn't been able to put his team over the top, and for that reason, he will not win the cy young. but manny's performance may be enough to make people forget that he ever relieved himself inside the green monster. alfonso soriano surely his has fingers crossed, but manny's got as good as chance as any to take home the trophy this season.

p.s. vote lincecum for NL cy young! can you hit that changeup?

Invaluable

Most Valuable Player. Those three words have stymied journalists and baseball fans alike for years, as it seems as if every season there is the same annual debate over what exactly they are supposed to mean. March Madness chose to take the easy route with its "Most Oustanding Player" award, which you hand to the best player and move on, but baseball (along with many other sports) does it the hard way, insisting that the recipient must not simply be outstanding, but "valuable."

It's an especially intriguing question this year, because two of the athletes in consideration for the National League award are recent arrivals to their league: Manuel "Manny" Aristedes Ramirez Onelcida and Carsten Charles "C.C." Sabathia. Both players are being mentioned as candidates for an award that they could not possibly have won at the season's halfway point, when they worked for American League clubs (and were not in MVP form).

Having both been reborn when traded to the Senior Circuit, the question concerning both players becomes: how do you interpret "value?" Many would argue that the award is best interpreted in the sense of value to one's team--how much that particular club's season was improved by the presence of that player. By this (very common) logic, however, both players would seem to be entirely undeserving of the award. As terrifically as Manny and C.C. have played for their new teams, it seems unrealistic to think that the Brewers, for example, have benefited more from half a season of C.C. than they did from a full season of Ben Sheets. Few players in the history of the game, if any, have actually been twice as good as their next greatest contemporary, and that would be the message if Sabathia or Ramirez were deemed to be the most valuable to their teams.

There is, of course, another way of looking at the term "value"--the run-scoring (or run-preventing, in Sabathia's case) value of the player's production over the course of the year. It generally isn't an MVP contender's fault if he gets traded (although an exception applies to Mr. Ramirez), the argument goes, so why should they be deprived of an award for their hard work (again--exception for Mr. Ramirez) if their team decided to ship them off and rebuild? When evaluated not by their value to their new team, but by their value as score-affecters over the course of the entire season, Manny and C.C. are quite legitimate NL MVP candidates.

Neither way of interpreting the MVP award is correct, although the second line of reasoning does have some interesting implications. Part of the MVP tradition is that it generally can only go to a player on a contending team. This is entirely consistent with the "team value" line of reasoning, since if a player's club doesn't make it to the postseason, they may not have provided as much value as the stars of playoff teams. However, if the half-and-half seasons of Manny and C.C. are going to be considered for the award, it means we are using a "player value" framework, in which case any player on any team is eligible. Manny or C.C. may end up winning it, but if they are even going to be considered, it means there are many other players to look at as well.

sabathia proving his worth

the way sabathia is pitching these days, mariokart fans will be calling him 150 cc - a level reserved for only the very best.

since joining the brewers, sabathia is 9-0 in 11 games started and has allowed more than 2 earned runs in just one of his past 10 starts, giving up 3 to the seemingly unstoppable cubs. his ERA has dropped to 1.43, which would be the lowest in the national league by over a run if he had enough innings to qualify. still not convinced? how's this for a clincher: sabathia leads the NL in complete games (5) despite having spent just two months in the league. (CORRECTION: sabathia actually has six complete games; the espn stats page i was referring to had not yet been updated.)

sabathia was not a deadline deal - he came over to wisconsin from cleveland in early july - but he is the kind of impact player that conniving general managers hope to pick up as the summer wraps up to make a difference in a pennant race. after sabathia threw what may still turn out to be a no-hitter tonight, the brewers are 10-1 in games started by their new ace and have a 5.5-game lead in the wild card. the rays may be the underdog darlings of 2008, but the brewers have to be the feel-good story in the national league.

at this rate, sabathia will be moving on to mirror mode pretty soon.