Injury Report: Entire Colt's Defense Out Two Week with Hurt Feelings

For the past month and a half, I've been living in a hotel way out in California for work. And one of the perks of living in this particular hotel (besides free breakfast seven days a week, free dinner four days a week, racking up Hilton points and people making my bed and giving me fresh towels) is that I get the USA Today delivered at my doorstep. I don't read the paper much anymore, I get most of the things I need online, and the USA Today is to news as McDonalds is to meals, but it's just nice to have something delivered every morning on your doorstep, as if I was living in a true home or something.

Or at least it was. I got up early this morning because I'd fallen asleep before I could do my laundry. I'm walking out with my bag of clothes and look down to see the USA Today at the foot of my door, like it always is. The headline is something about tainted cafeteria lunches in our schools, alarmist no doubt, but something I might look at later. On the top left corner there's a small headline about Sunday nights, Colts-Patriots games that made me do a double-take- "Colt's D Felt Disrespected By Play-Call!" What!!!

If you're not a sports fan, what they're refering to is the Patriots going for it on 4th and 2 with 2 minutes left deep in their own territory. Punting the ball is conventional wisdom in that scenario and it's pretty much what every team would do. Only the Patriots didn't, thinking that getting the first down on 4th and 2 would ice the game. Only they failed (controversially) and the Colts went on to score the game winning touchdown. Belicheck was destroyed in the press and on TV for his decision, for everything from being too arrogant to showing no faith in his defense.

I personally do not think it was a bad call. The numbers are actually with Belicheck in the situation, about 60% of 4th and 2's are successfully converted, and I think it's always good to challenge your offense in those situations. I like aggressive play-calling, and I think in the long haul it helps to win games. But conventional wisdom is hard to break, especially in athletics, which is steeped in tradition and has long been a bastion of conservatism, both on and off the field. So I understand why people took Belicheck to task even though I don't agree with it.

But the Colts D saying they felt disrespected! That is beyond stupid; it's almost like an Onion headline. In fact, it's pretty similar to this headline from last week. They felt disrespected because the Patriots wanted to go for the win in that situation, because they went for it on 4th down? Isn't that what teams are supposed to do? Offenses try to get yards, defenses try and stop them, that's it. There's not respect or disrespect in that. Did the defensive line feel disrespected everytime the Patriots ran a running play? "Oh, they don't think we can stop a draw play, we'll show them!" I bet Bob Sanders feels disrespected everytime they throw in his direction, because you know, that's saying he can't defend a pass. In fact, the Patriots even stepping on the field is disrespect to the Colt's defense, since the Patriots offense is explicitly saying that they believe that they can score on them. Think about this Colts D- maybe Belicheck wasn't disrespecting you, maybe he was respecting your Hall of Fame quarterback, not wanting to put the ball in his hands with the game on the line. Or even better, maybe he was RESPECTING his Hall of Fame quarterback, the one that convinced him to go for it, the one that shredded up your defense pretty good for most of the night, the one that he's been to four super bowls with and won three championships. Either the Colts defensive players are the most sensitive group of people in the Western Hemisphere, or the whole "disrespect" thing that athletes always shout about, has gone way way too far, to the point where its as much a cliche as "taking it one game at a time" or "no one believed in us."
__________________________________________________________
On another note, I want to emphasize one thing, timing aside, 4th down is JUST ANOTHER DOWN. Yeah, in many situations you punt because you're worried about giving up the ball in prime territory, but you don't have to punt and in many situations it's probably best not to. You make your decisions based on whether or not you think it will win you a game. I will say this: in football, the most important posession you have are your four downs (like in baseball your most important posession is outs). Conventional wisdom in football, because of the natural risk-aversion of coaches, is that you almost always give one of those downs away. But that means giving away your most prized posession freely; it's not that teams should ALWAYS go for it, but that the decision, particularly in the "maroon zone" shouldn't be as automatic as people suggest.

Break Up the Yankees Part 1

My favorite sportswriter, Joe Posnanski, wrote a blog post about the tremendous financial advantage the Yankees have and how that financial advantage translates into a payroll that absolutely dwarfs every other team in the entire league (including the second place Red Sox). As a result, the Yankees are a team of all-stars that can, if not win the championship every year, at least dominate the regular season and always have a chance at the end of the year to play for the title. Even last year, when they missed the playoffs, the Yankees tied with the White Sox and Twins for the fourth best record, and most surely would have made the playoffs had they played in the AL Central. In the post, Joe doesn't come up with any solutions (which disappointed me a little), but just puts the question out there for discussion, after laying out how truly monumental the Yankees payroll is. The discussion that ensued was very vibrant, at times heated, but genuinely informative. I had a hard time arranging my thoughts so I didn't comment on it then. I'll try my best to do it now.

I remember back in 2000, the Yankees had just won their third straight championship and fourth in five years. I just kind of figured that the Yankees would go along winning championships for the rest of my adolescence. Cries for higher luxury taxes, salary caps, anything to stop the Yankee menace, were at a fever pitch, on sports pages and from the mouths of every non-Yankee baseball fan. Bud Selig was on top of his milk crate talking about how small market teams just could not compete in this environment, that some teams might even need to be contracted from the league.
At the time, I was in complete agreement with the proponents for a salary cap. A burdgeoning fan of a small market team (Milwaukee Brewers) I thought the competitiveness of my favorite team and the very survival of my favorite sport was at stake. The only way to fix it, it seemed, was to make sure that no team could spend more than a certain amount of money. I had a friend who was a big Yankees fan in high school, I use to always tell him his teams championships were tainted because they were bought rather than earned. I went into the 2001 postseason scared as ever that the Yankees would win yet another World Series.
Only something happened, something glorious to quiet all us small market fans, the Yankees stopped winning championships. They lost the World Series to the Diamondbacks in 2001 (Game 7 was one of the happiest moments of my life). Lost in the ALDS to the Angels in 2002, lost in the World Series in the Marlins to 2003, lost to Red Sox in the ALCS in 2004, lost to the Angels in the ALDS in 2005, lost to the Tigers in the ALDS in 2006, lost to Indians in the ALCS in 2007. Didn't even make the playoffs in 2008. The Yankees were spending more and more money, their payroll reaching ungodly levels, but since they weren't winning championships, not too many people cared. If anything, they became something of a punchline- the best team money could buy, only they couldn't win when it counted. Countless stories were written about how the free agents they signed for megabucks, men like Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi, and especially, Alex Rodriguez, weren't "true Yankees" and didn't have the heart to win a championship.

Of course it was all ridiculous, the Yankees were still winning tons of games, still scoring tons of runs, still dominating the regular season year in and year out like few teams ever have. Pretty much every Yankee team from 2001 to today has been better than the 2000 champions. But baseball on any given day is a crapshoot, much more so than the other major team sports, and that counts double for playoff baseball. The baseball season is long because it takes a much larger sample size to separate the good teams from the bad. Even the worst baseball teams win 40% of their games (equivalent to a 33 win basketball team or a 6 win football team), and even the best teams only win 60% (49 win basketball team or a 10 win football team). Give me a sample size of 16 games and I can make just about any team in baseball have the best record in the league, depending on the dates chosen. To think that we could determine what team from a best of 5 and two best of 7 series in a sport like baseball is ridiculous. But here are the Yankees, back on top of the "world" again, and the conversation turns to how to stop the team from leveraging its advantage to winning all of the championships. But the thing is, nothing's really changed. This conversation should have stayed front and center throughout the entire decade, because the Yankees were still the best in the area where the best teams are truly determined, the regular season. The only difference is that this time they weren't quite lucky enough to get through the playoffs unscathed.

I guess one other thing is different too, I've started to care less, or at the very least had a chance to see the situation from a more nuanced point of view. There are plenty of owners who are far richer than the Steinbrenners (including the owner of the Royals who happens to have a share of the Walton families riches), plenty of owners who take the luxury tax or shared revenue money and pocket it instead of spending it on player development and salaries. Many of the teams that say they can't compete don't even really try to and are perfectly content with putting a losing product on the field if only to make sure that their income statement looks pretty. I would rather see a salary minimum before a salary cap, see what will happen if teams had to put more effort in assembling a competitive roster. As a fan, I don't care too much about inherent advantages. I think it's logical that a team in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago has an advantage over a team in Milwaukee. Flattening the advantages some is cool with me, but I also don't think we should do away with them. My expectations are that the ownership group will try its best to build a quality team with the resources that it has. I don't think I'm owed a playoff spot every year or even the hope of one. It comes with the territory of being a fan of a small market team, and I do think that there are ways in baseball to compete under the current system.

But that doesn't change the fact that many fans see this as a huge problem and in the case of entertainment that's all that matters. The fans see the Yankees buying their way into the playoffs every year and see the entire system as unfair. And as long as that is the perception then it's going to be a problem, something that MLB has to address.

Is there a solution to the problem? I think it truly depends on what is truly the primary concern. Is it having a number of different champions every year? Baseball already does a pretty good job of that, the crapshoot nature of the sport makes it so that a hot team has a good chance of winning a championship in any given year. To give even more teams a chance to win a championship, they could open the playoffs to more teams. Baseball opens its playoffs to a lower percentage of teams than any of the major sports, but I there would be plenty of people crying foul saying that the regular season would be even more diluted (people howled when the wild card was implemented).
Or they could shorten the regular season enough to where a fluke team can get in with greater frequency. If a larger sample size separates the good (i.e. high payroll) teams from the bad teams, then a smaller sample size would make there be less separation. But, itt would mess with all kinds of season and career records, and no one would want that.

Is the primary concern competing for a playoff spot? If that's the case, then I think the only real problem area is the AL East, where there are two teams (Boston and New York) that have a confluence of many advantages that make it hard for the other three teams in the division to compete (large media market, ownership groups willing to spend, populations with high incomes, rich history and tradition that stretches back over 100 years). I truly don't think that teams in divisions other than the AL East have a too much of an argument that they can't compete.*

Let's take the teams that haven't made the playoffs in a decade in the other divisions- Kansas City and Texas in the AL; Washington, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati in the NL.

Texas: Up and coming team, and actually had a better record than either of their; they made the playoffs three straight years in the mid to late 90's. Their only problem is that Tom Hicks can't or won't pay his bills.

Kansas City: Hasn't made the playoffs since 1985, but they have a very wealthy owner. The only truly big market team they have to compete against is the White Sox, the second favorite team in a football town. Minnesota and Cleveland are able to compete with those teams just fine. Kansas City has no excuse but their own bumbling, cheapskate owner.

Washington: Special circumstances, didn't have an owner, moved from Canada. Give them a few more years to try and build a fanbase and team

Pittsburgh and Cincinnati: Call it the curse of Barry Bonds and the curse of Davey Johnson. All I know is, if Milwaukee can compete in that division, then any team can. It's a shame what terrible ownership has done to these once proud baseball towns.

Finally, is the primary concern simply think that no team should have a payroll so far in excess of the other teams, whether or not the Yankees won 13 consecutive championships with the highest payroll or spent the last decade losing 100 games a year with the highest payroll. I'm not convinced by the fairness argument (why care about fairness in something as trivial as sports), but I think that many people would put their Yankee opposition under this tent. The people who are most concerned about this are in favor of a salary cap. I'm not, or rather, I think that there's a way to get the features of a salary cap without having a salary cap, and I think, that, along with other solutions will help to flatten some of the advantages that big markets have without taking them away. But that's for my next post......