Hitting a "Fan's Cycle"

Angels pitcher Jered Weaver reacts to throwing a no-hitter May 2 (Getty Images)

Baseball has always been in my blood. I was attending professional games even before I was born.

For me, no matter how much snow was on the ground, mid-Febraury was a sign that spring was just around the corner. And Major League Baseball's Opening Day has always been one of my most anticipated days of the year.

I consider myself fortunate to have been able to go to so many baseball games.

And I am lucky to have witnessed some amazing feats on the diamond in person, none more impressive than watching Los Angeles Angels pitcher Jered Weaver throw a complete game no-hitter.

I first took notice Wednesday night that Weaver had given up no hits in the middle of the fourth inning, but thought it was way too early to be watching history.

It wasn't until a perfect sixth inning when Weaver shut down the Minnesota Twins speed batters, Denard Span and Jamey Carroll, both whom did not even show bunt, that I thought we might be on the cusp of a special game.

For the last two innings, Angel fans stood, imploring the umpire to call strikes and for Weaver to finish off the no-hitter. When right fielder Torii Hunter caught Alexi Casilla's fly ball for the last out, the stadium erupted, a crescendo that had been building for the last 30 minutes of the game.

"I couldn't believe it," Weaver said after the game. "I never thought in a million years I'd first of all be in the major leagues pitching and to throw a no-hitter in the big leagues - it was very surreal."

It was a surreal game to watch. As a former work colleague put it, Weaver's no-hitter was the final piece to my fan's cycle. Four stunning baseball feats that rarely happen.

I've also seen then-Baltimore Oriole Aubrey Huff hit for the cycle, former Washington National Dmitri Young smack a grand slam on Fourth of July, and Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Mickey Morandini turn an unassisted triple play in 1992, the first such play in 24 years in the majors.

Those types of plays make baseball fun for the fans. You never know what you might see on a random Wednesday night.

Now I can just hope my Pittsburgh Pirates raise another World Series pennant in my lifetime, but I might just settle for a winning season at this point.

MLB Playoff 'Fix' Will Do More Harm

Major League Baseball appears to be tinkering with something that's not broken in the sport, its postseason.

Word is, the league and its players' association are close to announcing a playoff expansion that would give one-third of all teams a berth in October starting this year.

Under the new playoffs, the fourth and fifth place wild-card teams in each league would meet in what will likely be a one-game playoff with the three division winners sitting out awaiting the winner.

Commissioner Bug Selig has pushed hard for an extra wild-card team to 'fix' the perceived problem that game do not matter September off. In fact two years ago, the New York Yankees purposely lost the division to Tampa so they could get extra rest and draw a more favorable matchup with Minnesota.

The new playoff structure would put the onus on winning a division. Wild-card teams will have to throw everything, just to make sure they keep playing. But giving division winners an added October advantage will come at the expense of the regular season.

More mediocre teams will have a chance to get hot at the right time and make a postseason run.

If the five team playoff structure had been in place over the past five years, that fifth place team would have averaged just 88 regular season wins. What baseball does not need is another slightly above .500 team playing in October.

Baseball's last postseason change came in 1995, when the field doubled from four to eight teams. That's the number baseball should stick with. It rewards good teams for the 162 games the slug it out, and means every so often a good team stays home.

Less is way more, and adding more playoffs teams will just water down one of the most special postseasons.

Angels Turn Tide on AL Rivals

The Los Angeles Angels kept swinging in the free-agent market and they finally hit one out of the park on Thursday.

Angel fans can forget about not keeping Mark Teixeira and missing out on Carl Crawford and Adrian Beltre in year's past, because Albert Pujols, the best hitter of this generation, will be calling Angel Stadium home.

The deal that brought Pujols to Southern California will cost owner Arte Moreno $254 million over the next decade, that's nearly $70 million more than Moreno paid for the franchise when he bought it in 2003.

It's way too early to start talking about whether signing Pujols, who's turning 32 next month, to a 10-year deal is worth it, because the Angels sent a giant message they want more than division banners.

Now if the Angels raise more World Series pennants, more than Pujols, its other free-agent signing Thursday could push them over the top.

The Halos essentially stole C.J. Wilson, the best free-agent pitcher on the market, away from division rival Texas.

Just how valuable was Wilson?

Last year, Wilson had the fourth highest Wins Above Replacement (WAR) rate at 5.9 in the American League, finishing ahead of Angels ace Jered Weaver. WAR is an attempt to summarize a player's total contributions in one statistic.

Take six wins away from Texas and add six for the Angels, and Los Angeles takes the AL West crown.

Wilson was an integral part of the Rangers rotation, going 31-15 with a 3.14 ERA the past two seasons. He was the ace in Arlington, but now Wilson will likely be the No. 3 starter in Anaheim behind Weaver and Dan Haren.

It's a huge addition to the rotation for the Angels, but it's an equal loss for Texas. 

The Angels have watched the playoffs from home the last two years, while the Rangers have made it to back-to-back World Series.

Those fortunes could be changing, because the Halos just got significantly better.

Expanded Playoffs Reward Mediocrity

Major League Baseball has decided to dramatically change its October look, and not for the better.

The playoffs will be expanded by two teams as early as next year. That means one-third of baseball's 30 teams will make the postseason, in what feels like another Yankees-Red Sox exception.

The first Yankee-Sox playoff exception states if the team with the best overall record and the wild-card team are from the same division, the wild card team will face the team with the second-best record.

Since Boston has been absent from the last two postseasons, and New York was left out four years ago, a fifth playoff team appears they are getting a backdoor playoff admittance. If a fifth playoff spot existed, the Red Sox, and their rabid fans, would have watched at least one game in October.

Ensuring more big market teams make the playoffs isn't the whole story.

Commissioner Bud Selig and Co. are trying to fix the September problem that many division pennant races, particularly in the AL East, lack drama because both teams are resting up for October.

In order to put the premium on winning a division title, MLB is only further watering down its laborious 162-game season.

This past year, the additional wild-card teams would have meant the most exciting night of baseball in years wouldn't have mattered. All teams would have lived another day.

"You don't do things for one year. You do things for a long period of time," Selig said.

Rewarding mediocrity is not going to help over the years.

Under the expanded playoffs, it will happen that a 97-win wild card team is going to lose to a team that finishes seven to eight games behind them.

Playoffs ought to reward the best teams, and expanding the postseason will do just the opposite.

MLB is breaking something that isn't broke.

The Bird is Back!

Everything old is new again, and that's especially true in Baltimore.

The Orioles announced a much needed uniform upgrade this week, bringing back its retro cartoon bird to grace hats for nearly all of the 2012 baseball season.

The new-old logo replaces the ornithologically-correct Oriole, which was given it's own makeover in 2009 and from far away was little more than a blob of color.

The cartoon Oriole Bird should evoke the glory days of the franchise. Cartoon birds were employed on caps from 1966 to 1988, a span that included six pennants, three World Series titles and 18 consecutive winning seasons.

The logo overhaul is one of the first positive things this franchise has done since erecting Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Despite showing some age at 20-years-old, Camden is one of the best places to watch a major league baseball granted it's not 95 degrees with 90 percent humidity.

A new logo doesn't change the fact the Orioles have experience 14 straight years of losing. Every year they start with the disadvantage of having to chase the Yankees and Red Sox who have unlimited resources.

But it's a promising sign, ownership may finally be figuring things out.

Winning Isn't Key, Timing Is

The Cardinals were only the best team when it mattered (AP Photo)

Fresh off their second World Championship parade in six years, the St. Louis Cardinals are going to go into the history books as one of the baseball's more improbable champions.

The Redbirds were 10 games out of playoff contention on Aug. 1, a strike away from defeat before staging a legendary comeback in Game 6, and erasing an early deficit in Game 7 to claim its 11th World Series title, second-most all-time.

They'll no doubt go down as the "Comeback Cards" or "Cardiac Cards."

But it shouldn't come as a surprise that St. Louis, who eked into the postseason, rolled to another World Series title.

With the advent of the Wild Card, baseball's playoffs are not about the best team winning anymore, it's now about who's the hottest team come October.

Over the past five years, World Series winners share one common factor, they all carried winning baseball from September in to October.

Just one World Series Champ in the past five years can truly claim to be the best team. The 2009 New York Yankees had the best record in the regular season (103 wins), but the Bronx Bombers played great in September that continued into the postseason.

Only the 2007 Boston Red Sox had a final month regular season winning percentage that was less than 63 percent. The Sox went 16-11 down the stretch, which translates to a 0.592 winning percent.

In the '07 World Series, Boston cooled off the then red-hot Colorado Rockies, who grabbed the Wild Card by winning three out every four games in September.

The Rockies were a perfect 7-0 in October and might have won the World Series if they didn't have to wait nine days between the NLCS and the start of the Fall Classic.

This year, St. Louis won nearly 70 percent of their games down the stretch, going 18-8 catching Atlanta for the NL Wild Card.

The Cards had to win to clinch a playoff spot, and did so on the final day of the regular season.  That's nearly identical to last year's World Champs.

Like the Cards, the San Francisco Giants barely made the postseason winning the division on the final day of the regular season. But playing desperate and winning in September, San Fran was 19-10, was key for the Giants ending a 56 year pennant drought.

It doesn't pay to be the best team in the regular season anymore. It only pays to win in September.

MLB Can't Toot Its Horn, But Don't Buy It

MLB playoffs are in full swing and Bud Selig and Co. want you to believe it's not the same old October story.

But it is.

Three of the eight playoff teams this year (Milwaukee, Arizona and Tampa Bay) are in the bottom half of team payrolls.

Arizona went from worst to first, while the Brewers won its division for the first time in 29 years, and those bottom dwellers are who the commissioner wants fans to focus on.

They want you to believe there's a weakening correlation between player payroll and postseason participation.

While the statistics show that narrative is true, it doesn't tell the whole story.

In the first five years of the wild-card (1995-1999), just one of the 40 playoff spots was earned by a team in the bottom half of player payroll.

However, in the past five years (2005-2010) things have opened up with 12 of the 40 playoff spots going to the bottom payroll teams.

Selig was recently quoted saying: "I used to say, my job is to try to make the dollar less important than good management. I think we have done that."

Actually, Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane did that. Beane changed the way nearly every organization approaches the game.

Still, it takes money to win.

In fact 10 of the 13 MLB teams that had records above .500 in 2011, were in the top half of league payroll.

It's great that three of the four most recent World Series participants ranked among the bottom five in payroll -- the Texas Rangers last year, the Rays in 2008 and the Colorado Rockies in 2007.

But the glass ceiling remains, only the Florida Marlins in 2003 won a World Series with a low-budget team.

Despite what they may claim, baseball's still got an October problem. And money still buys championships.

Dodger Sets Dubious Records

It was 70 years ago Ted Williams set a baseball record that has been untouched by any professional since, hitting .400 for a season. The Boston great actually hit .406 in 1941.

As the 2011 season ended, another record was set that probably won't be broken for a while. LA Dodgers infielder Eugenio Velez set a two dubious marks for futility.

Velez grounded out to second as a pinch hitter in the eighth inning of Dodgers forgettable regular-season finale.

That meant he finished the season with a .000 batting average. That's right.

The LA infielder went 0-for-37 for the year, the most at-bats in a hitless season by a non-pitcher.

But Velez also broke the modern-day major league record for a non-pitcher by going hitless in 46 consecutive at-bats.

Ouch!

Actually, he hasn't recorded a hit since May 2010.

The previous record of 45 straight hit-less at-bats belonged to Pittsburgh's Bill Bergen (1909), Dave Campbell who played for San Diego and St. Louis (1973) and Milwaukee's Craig Counsell (this season).

Velez hasn't always been horrible at the plate. In his first three season with San Francisco, he batted a respectable .264.

So I suggest admiring this recording setting bad season, since the chances are good we won't see a swing do so little for a long time.

A Not So Wild Idea

Even in Major League Baseball's long, arduous season every game matters.

In what will likely go down as one of the wildest endings to a regular season ever, two teams popped champagne, while two picked up the pieces from their epic September collapses.

It all transpired simultaneously, in minutes, and much like March Madness was spectacular nail biting drama.

And to think it could all be naught if MLB gets its way and adds another wild-card. Before we get there here's how it played out in real time:

9:56 p.m. (EDT): Atlanta Braves rookie sensation Craig Kimbrel wilts under the pressure. Three walks to Phillie batters results in a game-tying sac fly from Chase Utley. Free baseball in Hotlanta.

10:23: Evan Longoria caps a six run inning with one swing of the bat. His three-run homer cuts the New York Yankees seven-run lead to one.

10:26: The St. Louis Cardinals finish off a 8-0 thrashing of the Houston Astros and tune into to watch the Braves games.

10:47: Tampa's down to its last strike, when Dan Johnson (batting .108) smacks a pinch-hit game-tying home run. The Rays are heading to extra innings.

10:58: The Boston Red Sox resume their game against the Orioles after a popup Baltimore thunderstorm.

11:17: BoSox's Carl Crawford, who hasn't lived up to his mega contract, doubles, but Macro Scutaro hesitates as he runs to third and is gunned out at the plate. Red Sox still lead 3-2, but an insurance run is lost.

11:28: Philly's Hunter Pence squibs a broken-bat single in the unlucky 13th inning in Atlanta. Phillies lead 4-3.

11:40: At the start of September, Atlanta led the NL wild-card by 8 1/2 games. Braves Freddie Freeman grounds into a double play. Game over, season over -- St. Louis is October bound.

11:59: Orioles Nolan Reimold is down to his last strike, but ties the game with the second of back-to-back doubles off Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon.

12:02: The wheels fall off in Baltimore. O's Robert Andino smacks a single to left field. Crawford can't make the sliding grab and his throw to the plate is off the mark. Red Sox await their fate that hinges in St. Petersburg.

12:05: Tampa's Evan Longoria hits another home run just feet from the foul pole that just clears the fence. Tampa Bay completes two improbable comebacks -- winning 8-7 after trailing 7-0 and catching Boston in the standings who once held a 9 game wild-card lead on Sept. 3.

The Red Sox collapse was the biggest blown lead in the final month ever, and the Braves weren't too far behind.

But all of Wednesday's drama wouldn't have mattered if Bud Selig's proposed plan to add a fifth wild-card team was in effect.

All four teams vying for the final playoff spots would have mirrored the Yankees pre-playoff mode, playing the next best guy on their 40-man roster.

The idea of a second runner-up making the baseball's postseason is ludicrous. The Red Sox don't deserve another chance after a 7-20 September. Neither does a team that finishes 6 games behind the first wild-card participant (like the same Red Sox did last year in missing the playoffs).

Baseball should not be trying to emulate the NBA. The Association plays a way too long season, followed by even longer playoffs which half the teams make. What's the point?

A 162-game season is designed to reward the winners and punish the teams that don't deserve to play in October. Wednesday night proved just that.

Cy Young, MVP Hinge on Winning

The MLB season is drawing to an end, which means awards season is right around the corner.

Voters, of which I am not, will face their typical dilemma, how much does winning matter?

You can basically chalk up that college football's Heisman award will be given to the best player on the best team.

Looking at past MLB award winners, playing on a winning team does matter. That's unfortunate, because two of the players who are having the best seasons this year play for the dreadful LA Dodgers.

Southpaw Clayton Kershaw picked up his 20th win of the year Tuesday night. Kershaw, by himself accounts for 25 percent of all LA's wins and has beaten San Francisco ace Tim Lincecum four times.

His numbers are off the charts this year, 2.27 ERA (1st in the NL), 20 wins (tied for 1st), 242 strikeouts (again 1st). But his team is third the NL West, 7th best in the NL and barely pushing .500.

Kershaw's competition for the award, Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee of the Phillies and Ian Kennedy of the Diamondbacks, are all on playoff bound teams.

Here's the head-to-head comparison:

Kershaw: 20 Wins (1), 2.27 ERA(1), 242 K's (1), 5 Complete Games
Halladay: 18 Wins (3), 2.41 ERA (4), 217 K's (3),  8 CG
Lee: 16 Wins (5), 2.38 ERA (3), 232 K's (2), 6 CG
Kennedy: 20 Wins (1), 2.88 ERA (9), 194 K's (7) 1 CG

You can make a case for any pitcher, though Kershaw's numbers are slightly better than the rest. The determining factor for whoever takes the award the home might be team wins, advantage Phillies aces.

Same goes for the NL MVP race.

Again, outfielder Matt Kemp is having a tremendous season for a woeful team.

Kemp's leading the NL in RBI's (116), second in homers (35) and third in batting average (.322).

Still it's hard to make the argument for an MVP to come from a .500 ball club.

All of Kemp's competition in the MVP race, Brewers Prince Fielder or Ryan Braun and Diamondbacks Justin Upton, are on playoff bound teams. Who knows if the Cardinals make the postseason, you can never discount Albert Pujols.

I'm happy there's finally some baseball drama this September, but you just have to look at the individual level. Like in the pennant races, winning is everything.

19 Years and Counting ...

It was sure fun while it lasted.

The Pittsburgh Pirates managed to climb seven games above .500 in late July and even spent a few days atop the division, in July.

Then reality set in.

The Bucs soft-toss pitching staff started getting hammered. Kevin Correia, Charlie Morton and company have allowed the most runs in the NL since the All-Star break. And the offense, which was never good, couldn't buy a hit.

Since July 29, Pittsburgh is 5-11 in one-run games since the break and allowed at least 10 runs eight times in that same span.

Add a 10-game losing streak that started immediately after a controversial (to say the least) 19-inning loss in Atlanta where the Pirates got the brunt end of a blown call, and you have a recipe of the same.

The Pirates fell for the 82nd time last Wednesday, clinching the clubs 19th consecutive losing season. A streak untouched by any team in American sports.

In 19 years since the Pirates last had a winning season, Major League Baseball added four teams (Florida, Colorado, Arizona and Tampa), all have made the World Series, and two have won it.

Things are starting to look up for the Pirates.

Still there's a glimmer of hope for the faithful fans.

Instead of dumping all the players that had pseudo major league talent, the Pirates were active buyers at the trade deadline, not breaking the farm system adding two veteran bats (Derrek Lee and Ryan Ludwick).

Pittsburgh has been more aggressive during the draft, this year shelling out $13 million to sign top picks pitcher Gerrit Cole and high school outfielder Josh Bell.

The mastermind behind the Pirates new strategy, general manager Neal Huntington, has signed on for a few more years, as has outfielder Jose Tabata.

Future success might hinge on Pittsburgh going outside its comfort zone to lock up the team's only bone-fide star, Andrew McCutchen. And outside third baseman Pedro Alvarez the team still needs to find some power hitting.


There's a long way to go still.

While I doubt the streak is going to stop at 19, for the first time in two decades there's room for optimism.

Fixing MLB: Salary Cap

The Yankees would be stretched if they had to develop their own prospects.

The National Football League's biggest strength over the past decade has been the leveling of the playing field with a salary cap.

The biggest team the Dallas Cowboys has to play by the same financial rules as the Buffalo Bills.

Leveling the playing field with salary cap is one thing that would help MLB.

Unfortunately, during All-Star game festivities last month, commissioner Bug Selig crushed any hope of even entertaining a cap.

Citing Pittsburgh and Cleveland's resurgence, Selig claims the economic system in baseball has changed, and it's working. At the break, he suggested, the league had about 20 clubs who were still very much in it.

Really that number is much smaller, it's always smaller.

In the past decade there have only been four teams with a pay role outside the top half of the league to play in the World Series (Florida in '03, Colorado in '07, Tampa in '08 and Texas last year). Only one team in that group has won.

Every year, half the league really has no hope of winning a world title. League pennants are nice, but at the major league level you play to win it all.

Salary caps put a stronger emphasis on organizational identity, and it itself would help pull the Yankees and others back with the rest of the league.

Sadly, Selig seems to have bought into the idea that having the Yankees, Red Sox and other big market teams dominate October is best for baseball.

Let's be honest, who was the last prospect the Yankees actually developed into a star?

Derek Jeter comes to mind, but he's 37, and the Bronx Bombers lucked out he didn't get traded. More recently, Robinson Cano fits the shoe, but again the Yanks got lucky he's not another team.

It's been fun to see fans coming out and filling the ball parks in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. No one wants to suffer through a season with 100 losses, but they occasionally happen.

When you put a good product on the field people will come. And baseball needs a good product in 30 cities, not just eight.

The way to do that is mimic the NFL, and make all teams play by the same financial rules.

Raising the Jolly Roger

One of baseball's feel good stories of summer, near and dear to my heart, might just walk off the plank.

Two weeks ago the Pittsburgh Pirates were actually leading the NL Central. That never happens.

Then at the trade deadline, instead of shipping away the entire starting lineup, the Pirates actually added two over-the-hill bats. Derrek Lee and Ryan Ludwick are minor upgrades, but again that never happens.

Even after getting back to "normal" in recent days, a strange tide is rising along the Three Rivers.

There's hope for Pirate fans, hope that hasn't existed since 1992. Sadly that year is seared into memory.

Three outs away from a pennant, an unfortunate series of events culminated in a Barry Bonds throw that couldn't catch former Bucco Sid Bream, the slowest man in baseball, running on one leg.

After watching the NL pennant slip away the previous two years, Pittsburgh struck out.

It's been 18 years and counting since they've even sniffed at winning, until now.

Following the Pittsburgh's 2011 season, I've maintained that I'm anxiously optimistic that the organization could really be turning around.

While the tide is rising, this season success is starting to fell like a facade.

Aside from centerfielder Andrew McCutchen, who's a bona fide star, the Pirates have two serviceable young guns (Neil Walker and Jose Tabata) and not much else. Offensively it shows, they're at the bottom of the NL in just about every batting category.

Somehow pitching has been the strength of this team. But it feels like the soft-tossing starting rotation was built on a house of cards. Kevin Correia, Paul Maholm and Charlie Morton had all been surprisingly good through 95 games, but not so much recently.

Just like 1992, this season appears to have been derailed in Atlanta.

A horrendous home plate call in the 19th inning cost Pittsburgh a chance at win. Where did umpire Jerry Meals have to go at 2 a.m.? Then the next night, they again lost in extra innings.

As the Pirates fade out of the pennant and into oblivion, it's easy to overlook all their success. This team is relevant again.

I hope the Buccos can right the ship and get back on track today. Is 82 wins too much to ask this year?

Fixing MLB: Rules of the Game

Melky Cabrera fails to make a play on a ball that lands fair but was call foul in the '09 Playoffs.

Everyone rails against blown calls in baseball, especially when their team gets the short end.

But whether in the playoffs or a Wednesday game in July, baseball just wouldn't seem right if everything was perfect.

We've reached and passed the point where technology could completely take over umpiring.

Anybody watching a game on TV these days knows exactly whether the ball crosses the strike zone. And if you slow down most close plays on the bases, about eight of the 10 times you could tell if the runner was safe or out.

Still, uncertainty sneaks up.

I'm not ready for robo-umpires just yet. One addition that wouldn't dramatically change baseball if they added it today, would be instant replay on fair or foul calls in the outfield.

It's hard not to think about Joe Mauer's 2009 Playoff extra-inning base knock that was taken off the board. It was clearly fair by several inches and everyone knew it but the umpire.

Umps during the regular season typically don't have the best view on plays in the outfield. Add replay on calls down the line, if it's called wrong, it essentially turns into a ground rule double.

A simple fix that wouldn't expand replay too much more.

Strike Zones Enforcement

The other rule change MLB should start implementing today, make umpires call the full strike zone and dock their pay if they don't.

Even without the full strike zone most of the time, pitchers have the upper hand on batters right now. Strikeouts are up, in fact there are three more punch outs per game this year than 20 years ago.

But MLB should be concerned about game length which stands around 2 hours 55 minutes. If the full strike zone were in place it would help length.

It's not a cure all, since you can't stop managers from using three relief pitchers to throw to one batter each. Any little bit to speed up the game and get that average time to 2 hours 30 minutes is a good one.

Still, MLB is ailing from other issues. More on that coming up.

'Field of Dreams' Gets a Web Sequel

"Field of Dreams" holds a special place among the dozens of movies I love. When baseball season starts it's been a tradition to watch the classic sports flick and of course eat a hot dog.

So it caught my attention when I saw "Field of Dreams 2" was trending on Google.

I thought Hollywood couldn't be that desperate, it's going to make "something totally illogical" -- a sequel to "Field of Dreams."

Nope, we're spared of that for now. It was just the people over at Funnyordie.com poking fun of the NFL lockout.

Taylor Lautner, a household name for his shirtless role in the "Twilight" films, channeled his inner Kevin Costner in the spoof. But, Costner and Ray Liotta, who starred in the original, make a couple cameos. So do a litany of NFL stars.

I don't know how they come up with this stuff, but check it video if you haven't already:

Field of Dreams 2: NFL Lockout with Taylor Lautner from Taylor Lautner

Fixing MLB: The Season Structure

One of the issues plaguing Major League Baseball is happening right now.

American Leagues pitchers are venturing into uncharted territory having to bat, while most National League teams are adding a mediocre bat to its lineup in the form of a designated hitter. It's the joys of interleague baseball.

Aside from ruining the fun and specialness of the World Series, interleague play creates a lot of matchups that nobody cares about. For every great series like Yankees-Cubs and Angels-Dodgers, there are just as many Rays-Brewers and Rockies-Indians.

MLB should do us all a favor and end this. There's no reason to get excited about playing a team you won't see for another three years.

All-Star Game

Bud Selig has a number of black marks on his tenure as commissioner. One of the bigger ones, calling the 2002 All-Star game in his hometown of Milwaukee an unsatisfactory tie game.

But Selig out-did himself the next year, by "fixing" the Midsummer Classic and making it determine who had home field advantage for the World Series.

It's absurd to have a glorified exhibition actually count.

MLB should abolish the rule today.

Let's actually validate the 162 game regular season and when two teams meet in the World Series, award the one with the best regular season record with home field.

It works for the NHL and NBA. It would be perfect for baseball too.

Shorten the Season

In an effort to make sure baseball stops before Thanksgiving, Selig put a blemish on Opening Day. Rather than starting on the first Monday in April, baseball started on March 31 a Thursday.

That hardly solves the issue that baseball, a summer sport, typically slogs through the unpredictable autumn weather. It's a bad mix.

It would be great to just ax eight games and go back to 154, but that won't every happen. So MLB needs to shorten the postseason. It's very doable, just cut down on travel and off days just plough through the postseason.

There's something wrong that teams can essentially have a two man starting rotation and win a pennant (aka 2001 Diamondbacks).

Teams should have to go four or five deep and mirror the regular season. Just tighten up the postseason would help capitalize on lost potential, since football (both pro and college) doesn't really get good until October.

But these aren't the only tweaks needed to make the game better, and I'll be writing more in the coming weeks.

MLB Wrong in Discussing Realignment

Any mention of change by Major League Baseball is big news. That's why sports writers coast-to-coast have been giving their two cents on the big "r" word -- realignment.

Commissioner Bud Selig has sanctioned a committee to study a possible shake up, making both the American and National Leagues even with 15 teams a piece. That would be the fair thing to do.

As a baseball traditionalist I wouldn't mind going back to the old days where there were two leagues, no divisions and teams were actually rewarded for playing its full grueling 162-game schedule.

As it stands with 30 major league teams, the only good way to avoid major changes, such as boring interleague games all season, is to bring up a forbidden word -- contraction.

Two 14 team leagues would work perfectly, with the four best making the playoffs, as would two 16 team leagues, but there aren't enough great ball players to fill out 30 teams, much less 32.

Now if MLB were to expand there's not a great option out west, where a new team would be needed. Portland, Ore. is one option, but the city's ill-supported Triple-A team just left. Indianapolis might work in the heartland, but MLB does not need to put another team in the Midwest.

Other top markets all have flaws too. Sacramento cannot support one pro-franchise, and Raleigh and Charlotte, which are in basketball-football states, are also out.

Contraction is a sticky issue, but doable if fairness is truly the aim of "realignment."

The easiest contraction target is Toronto. Sure, the Blue Jays had a few good years in the 90s, but Canada has room for only one true love, hockey.

Miami is the other best option. On a list of 40 things to do in the summer in Miami, going to watch pro-baseball is 41st on the list.

Cutting MLB to 28 teams, would mean more stars per team, and more importantly actually provide a balanced schedule. One teams plays the 13 others, 12 times each, that's 156 games (six less than right now).

With the issue of balancing the leagues out without making some big decisions MLB can focus on fixing its other ailments. More to come on those soon.

A Year Later, Far From Perfect

The moment is etched in baseball history.

Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga runs over to cover first base for the 27th out in his thus-far perfect game, except it didn't happen.

Umpire Jim Joyce threw his arms wide, calling the runner safe. Replay clearly showed the runner was out. Joyce later apologized for the blown call.

Galarraga struggled after the "28-out perfect game," being demoted to Triple-A Toledo for a time, and finishing the year with 1-7 record and a 4.52 ERA in his final 15 starts with the Tigers.

In January, Armando got a fresh start in Phoenix, but things soured quickly in the desert. In eight starts with Arizona Diamondbacks Galarraga went 3-4 with a 5.91 ERA.

Today, he's laboring with the Triple-A Reno Aces. Galarraga really is slogging it out: 0-1 record, 11.00 ERA, given up 16 hits it two starts, and has 8 K's to 9 walks.

At 29-years-old, Galarraga has some time to turn it around.

But no matter what else happens in Galarraga's career, and right now it doesn't look like much, June 2, 2010, will be remembered forever.

Good or bad, not every ball player is immortal.

And There Was One ...

As a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, it is nauseating to think about the amount of talent that's been traded away from the Three Rivers over the past two decades.

But there's a reason why the team hasn't turned in a winning season in 18 years.

As it stands, since the start of general manager Neal Huntington's reign over the club, catcher Ryan Doumit is the only 2008 Opening Day starter left on the roster, and pitchers Paul Maholm and Evan Meek are the only other 25-man-roster holdovers.

It's truly an epic roster makeover.

That makeover started in 2008 with two trade deadline deals, one of which shipped All-Star Jason Bay off to Boston for four prospects.

Right now, it appears the Pirates have nothing to show for the Bay deal.

With Brandon Moss and Andy LaRoche already gone, Pittsburgh released pitcher Craig Hansen last month, who appeared in 21 games for the Bucs.

Hansen posted a 6.95 ERA with twice as many walks (24) as strikeouts (12) and was hampered by a rare nerve ailment over two seasons.

For the Buccos to salvage anything from the Bay trade, Bryan Morris probably has to win a Cy Young award. But Morris is still in the minors.

The Jason Bay trade probably won't go down as the worst deal, but it could come in a close second to the highway robbery that sent Aramis Ramirez to the Cubs.

That's just life in Pittsburgh.

Friar's Latos Flummoxed So Far

San Diego Padres ace Mat Latos looks like the hard-luck pitcher for 2011.

Most analysts did not think Latos could repeat his rookie year success which saw him earn 14 wins, strike out 189 and post a sub-3.00 ERA (2.92).

But one month into the new season it looks like Latos is going to be that pitcher who just can't buy a win.

Through his first five starts he's 0-4 with a 4.55 ERA. If you toss out Latos' worst start his ERA is sub-4.00, so he's not pitching horribly.

Last night against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Latos did everything in his power to notch a "W." He allowed two runs on five hits over six innings and led off the third inning with a homer into the second deck in left field.

It was the first ever home run for Latos, a career .088 hitter, and the first homer by a Padres pitcher in Petco Park which opened in 2004.

What happened, the bullpen promptly blew the lead taking Latos off the hook for the win.

The six runs San Diego managed scored in the comeback win is rare. When Latos takes the mound the Padres are averaging a paltry 2.2 runs per game. Such is life these days in San Diego, so far the Friars have been blanked eight times this season.

Looks like if Latos wants a win this year, he might just have to be perfect.