The Curious Case of John Jaha

With a promising film by David Fincher set for release on Christmas Day, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt, it got me thinking. Pitt's character, Benjamin Button, ages backwards throughout life. Meaning he starts out as an old man and slowly grows younger throughout his life. The F. Scott Fitzgerald classic mimics what happened to many Major Leaguers in the 90's and early 2000's. The most blatent example of what I will coin the Benjamin Button reverse aging disorder is John Jaha. Jaha dominated for the Oakland A's in 1999, but his numbers did not logically follow suit with his career numbers.

In 99 Jaha hit 35 homers, had 111 RBI's, a .414 OBP, and an OPS+ of 152. He was top ten in seven different offensive categories. Jaha's only good full season was in 1995 with Milwaukee. All other seasons were mostly plagued with injuries. In 2000 and 2001, he combined for a total of one home run and his -6 OPS+ in 2001 led to his retirement. So how does one go from MVP consideration to flat out one of the worst hitters in baseball in one year? I mean, even the decline of Andruw Jones was more subtle than this.


John Jaha (39) in 2005

To me, it seems obvious to think Jaha was a steroid abuser like most of that 1999 Oakland team, highlighted by admitted user Jason Giambi. Actually, that year Jaha made the All-Star team and Giambi did not. Giambi ended the year with 33 HR, 123 RBI, and an OPS+of 153; almost identical to Jaha's numbers. Who else was on that team? Well another proven juicer, Miguel Tejada. Also, Matt Stairs and Ben Grieve had power surges that season. Grieve is another guy who had his power numbers magically disappear like the fried chicken platter at Bob Wickman's family reunion.

So how does one magically hit his prime at age 33, then becomes washed up at age 34? Well there is one of two scenarios. Either Jaha juiced more than that girl from the Welch's grape juice commercials from the 90s, or he is a medical marvel. We are all quick to label certain guys steroid users to explain their dramatic decline. However, what if this is more common that we may think? If this was simply a case of natural dropoff, shouldn't teams be more weary of other such late bloomers? I mean lets say on some distant reality Jaha naturally hit his prime that late.

Why would a team right now give someone a huge contract who hit their stride late in their career? For example, why would the Cubs give Ryan Dempster a huge contract? Or why would St. Louis give Kyle Lohse millions more than he deserves? Can anyone say Carl Pavano? Lohse had an ERA+ of 113 last season, the best of his entire career. Four years, 41M, and a full no-trade clause? What! He has a career ERA+ of 97, less than league average.

Maybe certain players do bloom late, however, I would be willing to bet not many stay blooming. Just as Benjamin Button hit his prime later than others, his decline to child-like performance should be noted among GM's in baseball. When a GM finds a diamond in the ruff for one season they should feel thankful, but not committed. Thankful to find such a bargain, and also thankful someone else is about to waste payroll on signing this guy. Mark my words: Kyle Lohse will go down in history next to the names of Darren Dreifort, Carl Pavano, and Jaret Wright.

Three different organizations gave up on a Lohse before his 29th birthday. Yet the Cardinals gave the man 41 million dollars because he had an above average season. That is catastrophically stupid. Oh and get this, Lohse will make about three million less than Albert Pujols next year, the best player in the league. Ironic eh? Pujols should have played his cards right and bloomed during a contract year.


"Kyle could have obtained a more substantial contract on the open market, but decided to settle for a lesser contract and stay in St. Louis."
-Scott Boras, Professional Conman

The Machiavellian Value Formula, Episode 2: The N.L.

The value formula perfected by this author was proved to be a sound and accurate management of total player value for a given team. So I figured, why not prove it for the National League as well? However, I would like to add in some rules. To be considered for Most Valuable, under my theory, one has to also check off the following:
1.) > 500 plate appearances
2.) Statistics accumulated in another League during the season will not count towards the 500 plate appearances, as the MVP is a league award, not a "Major League Most Valuable Player" award.
3.) A pitcher cannot qualify for the MVP unless they pitch 324 innings in a season; as that is the only way they would be more valuable than a position player. If a pitcher ever pitches 324 innings in a season, he will automatically be awarded the unanimous MVP regardless of statistical performance.
4.) A designated hitter can qualify. However, his VORP and Fielding statistics will be nil.
5.) Cost vs. Reward tie breaker. Should two player tie in points, if one player makes five million dollars or more less than the other player, he will be the MVP. Should they have salaries within five million dollars from one another, they tie for the award.
6.) To be considered an MVP candidate a player must score 20 or above on the MVP formula. Any player with less than 20 points will not be listed in the top finishers.
7.) TIER's. Whatever the top leading tier is (ie: three players finish in tier A), then it is acceptable for any of those players to be voted MVP and I will not critique the vote. However, if a player from Tier F wins the MVP when there are seven players in Tier B, then it is unacceptable.
For example...
UNANIMOUS - Obvious selection for MVP, should not be anyone else winning even in consideration.
TIER A - Assuming no unanimous, any player from this group would be an excellent and near perfect MVP choice.
TIER B - Any player from this group would be a "good" choice.
TIER C - Average choice, and there were clearly better candidates.
TIER D - Pretty bad choice, near failure.
TIER F - Horrendous MVP selection.
No tier - Pretty much a worthless choice, and all players in above Tiers should kidnap this man and beat him to near death until he agrees to burn his MVP trophy in protest.


Ok, so here goes for the National League. Their actual MVP ranking is in (here).
UNANIMOUS
1. Albert Pujols - 70 points **perfect score, utter domination** (1st)
TIER A
2. Lance Berkman - 57.5 points (5th)
3. Chipper Jones - 56 points (12th)
TIER B
4. Hanley Ramirez - 46.5 points (11th)
5. David Wright - 40.5 points (7th)
TIER C
6. Matt Holliday - 31.5 points (18th)
7. Ryan Ludwick - 31 points (16th)
TIER D
8. Chase Utley - 25 points (14th)
RESULT
Pujols was the obvious MVP. Perfect MVP choice.

-Ryan Howard finished second behind Pujols in MVP voting, yet his teammate Chase Utley was drastically more valuable, and he finished 14th in voting. Also, his teammate, Brad Lidge, finished eigth despite pitching in less than five percent of his team's games.
-Even though five Mets got MVP votes, only Wright was worthy. Carlos Delgado finished 9th (ahead of five of the top 8 on my list), yet his teammates Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran, were more valuable than Delgado and they barely had any consideration.
-There were no Cubs even sniffing MVP consideration. However, they were first in the league, leading writers feeling compelled to vote for a Cub. That screwy logic led to three Cubs getting votes, including Aramis Ramirez (10th) who failed to even eclisple a .900 OPS for the year. In fact, he finished ahead of Chipper Jones, who had equal the hits in over 100 less at bats! That's right, Chipper could have gone 0 for 100 and had as many as hits as Aramis.
-Three assclowns voted for Jose Valverde for MVP, despite Jose nearly leading the league in blown saves.
-Two Ryan's finished in the top 3 in voting. Howard 2nd, and Ryan Braun 3rd. However, another Ryan, Ludwick that is, completely shattered Braun's statistics in every way. Ludwick even matched his power. They each had 37 home runs. Ludwick was 12 homers shy of Howard. Although Lud's OPS+ was an ungodly 26 points higher than Howard and 22 ahead of Braun.
-Hanley Ramirez played in 153 games for his team. Manny Ramirez played in 53. Their voting? Manny 4th, Hanley 11th. You might argue "The Dodgers made the playoffs" as an argument. However, the Marlins matched the Dodgers with 84 wins, and did so at a fraction of the cost.
-Also, Manny finished 4th. Why was he even in this league? Because his teammates voted him off. He was so un-MVP-esque in Boston that veteran teammates hungry for a World Series cast him off their island. They willingly said to hell with one of the greatest hitters of all time. Yet in 53 games he's an MVP? Not only that, had his team been in any other division they would have been selling at the deadline, not buying.

I hope you have taken away two facts from this article. One - baseball needs to seriously re-vamp their MVP process. And two - Albert Pujols is a man among boys.

Baseball's $100 million men

Sport's Illustrated's Web site recently posted a gallery of baseball's 16 $100 million men. It got me thinking about the success of the players' teams since handing out these massive contracts. The players are: Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Manny Ramirez, Todd Helton, Johan Santana, Alfonso Soriano, Vernon Wells, Barry Zito, Mike Hampton, Jason Giambi, Carlos Beltran, Ken Griffey Jr., Kevin Brown, Albert Pujols, Carlos Lee and Miguel Cabrera.


"This is how many wins I will give you for your $14.5 million in 2008."

The fundamental problem with handing out contracts like these is that the players are always looking for an extremely long-term deal, and are already established stars, which means they are likely in their late 20s or early 30s. Giving a long-term deal to a player that age means a team will have him until his late 30s at least, and will be paying him the most during those later years since the salaries in these contracts typically go up each year. A team that hands out a contract like this get a few years of the player's prime, but they will end up paying him the most during his later (and likely, worst) years.

The other problem is that teams that blow so much money on one player do not leave enough money left over to surround their superstar with other quality players. As the Rays proved this year, a championship-caliber team does not need a high-priced superstar to be successful.

Let's take a look at how these teams with loose wallets have fared since signing their big-name free agents:

Alex Rodriguez - $275 million, 10 years
Yankees, signed in 2008
Age when contract will be complete: 42
World Series' won by Yankees since signing: 0

Derek Jeter - $189 million, 10 years
Yankees, signed in 2001
Age when contract will be complete: 37
World Series' won by Yankees since signing: 0

Manny Ramirez - $160 million, 8 years
Red Sox, signed in 2000
Contract completed at age 36
World Series' won by Red Sox since signing: 2

Todd Helton - $141 million, 9 years
Rockies, signed in 2001, took effect in 2003
Age when contract will be complete: 39
World Series' won by Rockies since signing: 0

Johan Santana - $137.5 million, 6 years
Mets, signed in 2008
Age when contract will be complete: 34
World Series' won by Mets since signing: 0

Alfonso Soriano - $136 million, 8 years
Cubs, signed in 2007
Age when contract will be complete: 38
World Series' won by Cubs since signing: 0

Vernon Wells - $126 million, 7 years
Blue Jays, signed in 2007
Age when contract will be complete: 35
World Series' won by Blue Jays since signing: 0

Barry Zito - $126 million, 7 years
Giants, signed in 2007
Age when contract will be complete: 35
World Series' won by Giants since signing: 0

Mike Hampton - $121 million, 8 years
Rockies, signed in 2001
Contract completed at age 35
World Series' won by Rockies since signing: 0

Jason Giambi - $120 million, 7 years
Yankees, signed in 2002
Contract completed at age 37
World Series' won by Yankees since signing: 0

Carlos Beltran - $119 million, 7 years
Mets, signed in 2005
Age when contract will be completed: 34
World Series' won by Mets since signing: 0

Ken Griffey Jr. - $116.5 million, 9 years
Reds, signed in 2000
Contract completed at age 38
World Series' won by Reds since signing: 0

Kevin Brown - $105 million, 7 years
Dodgers, signed in 1999
Contract completed at age 40
World Series' won by Dodgers since signing: 0

Albert Pujols - $100 million, 7 years
Cardinals, signed in 2004
Age when contract will be complete: 30
World Series' won by Cardinals since signing: 1

Carlos Lee - $100 million, 6 years
Astros, signed in 2006
Age when contract will be complete: 36
World Series' won by Astros since signing: 0

Miguel Cabrera - $153.3 million, 8 years
Tigers, signed in 2008
Age when contract will be complete: 32
World Series' won by Tigers since signing: 0

Total - $2.22 billion, 124 years
Combined World Series' won: 3

The moral of the story is that paying players big money does not even come close to guaranteeing a World Series appearance or win, but teams still hand it out because if they do not some other team will. If a team does decide to do it, they should make sure it is a bona fide superstar (Rodriguez, Pujols), that the player is not already old at the time of signing (Brown) and that the player has not shown even the slightest sign of decline (Zito).

There are some clear winners (Pujols, Ramirez) and losers (Zito, Hampton, Brown, Giambi) in this group, and some that the jury is still out on (Cabrera, Santana, Soriano). Others, like Rodriguez and Jeter, have played well but their teams have nothing to show for it.

The way things are working now, if a team does not want to pay somebody's huge contract demands, that player can always find a more willing team waiting with open arms and an open wallet. What I want to see this offseason is for every team to refuse to hand out huge contracts and force superstars to futilely hold out for the big money. How awesome would it be to see Mark Teixeira or Francisco Rodriguez starting the 2009 season with the Long Island Ducks or Atlantic City Surf?

The First Annual "The MVP is Irrelevant Because the People Voting are Idiots" Rant

I've ceased trying to understand why we let some people vote on the MVP. Typically, one player is so damn dominant that the choice is clear cut and doesn't afford Woody Paige the opportunity to vote for a guy because he's a gritty grinder who plays the game right. However, whenever there is not an obvious, Barry Bonds circa 2001-2004 player, the writers tend to...well...you get Jimmy Rollins last year (Rollins was actually quite deserving, as he made the most outs of anyone in the league and had an OPS at least 70 points lower than anyone in the Top 10 not named Jake Peavy. Over the last two months, all I've been hearing is how Dustin Pedroia is a "legitimate MVP candidate" and now he has been crowned as the Junior Circuit's Most Valuable Player.

Firstly, saying something is "legitimate" does not make it so. That would be like me saying that David Wright was the legitimate Silver Slugger winner at 3B. Secondly, Dustin Pedroia as the AL MVP is egregious in that he wasn't even the most valuable player in his division. Hell, he wasn't even the most valuable on his team. Kevin Youkilis OPS'd .949 (143+) to Pedroia's .869 (122+). He was more than twenty percent better than the little guy at the plate this year before taking into account the fact that Youkilis jumped from 1st to 3rd and even the OF for the Sox, while providing Gold Glove calibur defense. To all of which some say that Pedroia was more valuable because he provided of all this offense at a key defensive position (which sounds vaguely familiar to the Jimmy Rollins claims from '07).

If one were to look at the WARP3, which takes defensive positioning and league into account, Pedroia holds the slight advantage, worth approximately a single win more than Youk. This is in spite of the fact that Youk's defensive numbers fell dramatically when he made about half his errors in the month that he was forced to play out of position at 3rd. Pedroia's offensive value is also somewhat inflated when the number is normalized, since his .870 OPS is being compared to such offensive stalwarts as Brian Roberts (.830), Javier Lopez (.765), and Alexei Ramirez (.790). The only second baseman who hit remotely close to him is Ian Kinsler who outperformed Pedroia until he was lost for the year. Youk's offensive value is degraded as his normalization occurs against comparisons to notorious sluggers Justin Morneau, Miguel Cabrera, Mark Teixeira, Jason Giambi, and Carlos Pena--all of whom OPS'd over .860.

Also, Youk managed only 3 less RC (123-120) than Pedroia in over 100 less PAs. The dude was just a beast this year. Sure, having a 5' 7" guy win the MVP is a great story (if you're Dan Shaughnessy), but having a guy on his own team win that out-performed him in every way all year, or one of the top two guys in VORP in the AL, A-Rod and Sizemore, win makes a hell of a lot more sense.

I have no beef with Pujols winning in the NL, but in a mini-rant, there is no way in hell Chipper Jones finishes 12th. Carlos Delgado was cast aside and "washed up" according to everyone and their mother by July. Aramis Ramirez had a good year, but "only" mangaed a 128 OPS+ to Chipper's 174. David Wright I feel like I addressed above in re: it's a joke he beat Larry for anything. And how the hell does Hanley finish 11th? The guy was second in ALL OF BASEBALL in VORP. He OPS'd .940 FROM THE SS POSITION. How the hell does J-Roll win it hitting a paltry .860 ish and Hanley can't even get any damn consideration at all?

It's time to revisit letting completely inept people vote for something they may or may not know about.