NEW YORK, NY – We’ve all heard these morons calling into sports talk radio, right? You know the ones: “Hey, let’s give the Angels…Kirk Niewenhuis, Matt Den Dekker, Ruben Tejada, Omar Qunitanilla, The Guy from the disgusting and incessant Stop Smoking Ads, Alan Ruck and a few minor leaguers for Mike Trout! They’d be crazy not to do it! They’re getting like 7 guys for 1!”
You know what happens to yellow cake uranium when it’s left to go rancid in the sun? Neither do I. But sitting on “prospects” too long is fool’s gold. For most Met fans, names like Harvey, Wheeler, Syndergaard and DeGrom are off-limits. No way should these guys even be considered as bait to attract some big time hitting to a team desperate for it. To this I ask: “Why the F’ not?”
For more than a century, the most commonly held axiom in the game has been that Pitching is THE NAME OF THE GAME; that good pitching beats good hitting every time, and momentum is whomever tomorrow’s starting pitcher happens to be. For 100 years this has been largely irrefutable.
But here’s the thing. That old “saw” about great pitching? It’s no longer true. Here’s why. After nearly 20 years of watching offensive fireworks obliterate virtually all hitting records, the worm has turned. We are no longer in the throes of artificially enhanced ballplayers ruling the sport. Mostly gone from the sport are the Performance Enhancing Drugs that turned entire MLB lineups into Sunday morning beer league softball teams. With rare exceptions-Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez being two-the grotesquely enhanced sluggers dominated baseball and pitchers like no other time in history. For 20 years. Yes, I know all about new and undetectable synthetic steroids and HGH that some guys still mess with. But the results of the PED “purge” are unmistakable. Nearly every Major League team now has a viable starting rotation. Nearly every team has a bullpen loaded with young power arms. Pitching, has re-taken the game. By eliminating PEDS, the quality of pitching and the ability of pitchers is now at its highest, most pure, and operating on the most “level” playing field since the 1960’s. During the 1990s it was not unusual for teams to have one, maybe two competent starters at most. Pitchers were abused. Batting practice lasted for 4 hours in places like Houston and Cleveland where hitters put up Ruthian numbers and pitchers offered no resistance.
In 2014, the single most valuable commodity is elite level hitting. More specifically, elite power hitting. It’s in very short supply at the moment. Intelligent baseball men saw this coming. They saw that in the age of diminished PED use, hitters would become more scarce and power-so abundant for so many years-would be the most desired and least available of all skills. Theo Epstein and Ben Cherington saw this coming. Epstein’s Cubs for example, are sitting on a mountain of young elite power hitters-several of whom also play premium defensive positions like SS and Center Field. His farm system is the envy of all in the game. Theo didn’t care that he lacked pitching prospects-knowing that pitching had become less valuable, more available than in the previous generations of MLB. Who did NOT see this coming? Well, Sandy Alderson for one. He has loaded up exclusively on pitching prospects. He has remained devoted to a belief whose time has now passed. Baseball is now flush with decent #2 and # 3 starters-guys capable of giving quality starts while their offensive counterparts deliver the hitting. Most of the industry has failed to see this coming. But the problem is worse with the Mets as they hold on for dear life to pitchers whose values are diminished, who no longer can fetch elite hitters in trade. Theo beat Billy Beane this Summer when he acquired stud SS wunderkind Addison Russell for overrated Jeff Samardzija.
And Cherington of the Red Sox beat Beane again by acquring power bat Yoenis Cespedes for a 2 month rental of Jon Lester. You have to admire Beane for going for it as he has this season. His A’s are close and have had a great season, but it’s actually their lack of hitting that will likely keep them from realizing a championship in 2014. Sandy Alderson? No admiration, no “going for it,” no effort and no recognition of a turning tide. Badly out of touch-too old to compete in today’s game. Sandy’s got 10,000 spoons, and all he needs is a knife.
https://youtu.be/xFQypLPZejA
Different Matt, tomorrow.
