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My 2015 Pittsburgh and Pro-Sports Wishlist

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Dec 312014

I consider myself a lucky sports fan. At least I’m not a Cleveland sports fan. I can find hope without looking too hard. BUT! C’mon, everyone wants some of their teams to do better. So here’s a short wishlist for my pro teams and pro-sports in general in 2015 (in no particular order).

Steelers

Upgraded Secondary. The defensive secondary has played particularly well the past couple weeks but there’s no doubt that these guys aren’t suited to being long-term front-line players. Will Allen, William Gay, Brice McCain and Antwon Blake have played above their pay grade. It is highly, highly unlikely though perhaps not impossible that McCain and Blake could become front-line players. Still, with the withering of Ike Taylor and the failures of extending Cortez Allen and signing Mike Mitchell, the secondary needs a huge infusion of new talent.
A Dignified Exit for Troy Polamalu. There was significant debate on 93.7 The Fan last night as to whether Troy should even play at the expense of a roster spot for a special teams player, let alone start against Baltimore. Troy’s jersey was the first I ever bought so I don’t like the thought of the end of his career. I would give him a spot for the Baltimore game, not start him, and substitute him into certain packages. And then I hope he retires at the end of the season (mmm… hopefully after holding aloft another Vince Lombardi Trophy?).
The Return of Linebacker Nation. A 3-4 defense is not supposed to have an Defensive End tie or lead the team in sacks. Cam Heyward has fast become an exceptional player and the emergence of Stephon Tuitt bodes well for the future as well but this defense is predicated on getting pressure from its linebackers. Jason Worilds is almost certainly gone after the season; his price tag will be too high after recording a ~~colossal~~ 7.5 regular season sacks. Vince Williams and Arthur Moats are good depth guys but Ryan Shazier and Jarvis Jones absolutely must pick up the slack in seasons to come.

Penguins

Health. Every team suffers injuries but between career and life threatening injuries, cancer and the mumps, this team has had way too many kids called up from the Baby Penguins farm team this season.
Earn that Cash. Franchise players are paid the big bucks to show up in critical high-pressure situations. Management did a good job of adding toughness and grit to the team this off-season. But Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury cannot go another playoffs without playing to their potential in the highest pressure games. If Fleury plays well, so too must Sid & Geno. If Geno plays well, so too must Fleury and Sid. This isn’t the most stacked team the Penguins have had but they are a team that can win a Stanley Cup.
More Noise!! It’s been said that Penguins crowds haven’t been as animated since the move to the Consol Energy Center as they were in the old Civic/Mellon Arena. Part of that may be to do with the new building’s acoustics and part of that may be more expensive tickets pricing out the (increasingly eviscerated) proletariat. In England, the landed gentry who can afford futbol games and aren’t loud or involved are called the Prawn Sandwich Brigade. I tend to think the CEC crowds still do get pretty loud but not for as long as they might have done in the olden years. Or perhaps I’m getting old and you should stay the hillel off my lawn.

The Folly of Playoffs

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Jan 242014

I’m not a huge fan of playoffs (unless my team does well in them). They’re a vastly imperfect method of determining a champion. They usually only determine the team that is playing the best, that is the hottest at that end point of the season. A balanced, season-long race should be the only way that a Champion is determined.

This is the way it’s done in world Soccer (ie, Association Football). Each team plays every other team twice throughout the season. Winner gets 3 points. Loser gets 0 points. Tie gets 1 point for each team. Add up each team’s points and you have a winner. Home-and-home. No such thing as Strength of Schedule. A true league champion.

There are separate Cup Championships (elimination tournaments or playoffs, if you will) that run concurrently through the season. When an FC Barcelona fan talks about the club’s 22 titles, that number doesn’t include Cup Championships.

This is my definition of a true champion. I realize it will always be impossible to determine a true champion in the NFL, College Football and College Basketball. (As well as the other college sports). There are too many teams within each league to play a round robin schedule or even one-to-one.

But the NBA, NHL and MLB could have true champions. Eliminate conferences and divisions, which are remnants of the days when travel costs weighed more heavily on teams. Have each team play the same number of games against their brethren. Everyone’s travel costs will be the same if you play each other the same number of times. 3 points for an win (or shootout win in the NHL), 0 points for a loss.

The NHL, NBA and MLB each have 30 teams. Hockey and Basketball would play a home-and-home (2 games/opponent), which gets them to 58 games. MLB would play double home-and-home (4 games/opponent), which gets them to 116 games. That’s a not-insignificant decrease in inventory so add in simultaneous elimination tournaments (Cup Championships) and you should be able to replenish the inventory sufficiently.

I know, I know. I’m tilting at windmills. Americans can’t stomach regular season champions. We crave the supposed-certainty of a playoff. We would rather be provided with certainty, with absolute rules rather than any teeny-weeny sign of ambiguity. Bollocks to that.

My 2014 Pittsburgh and Pro-Sports Wishlist

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Jan 042014

Steelers

A healthy offensive line. I think the o-line improved a bit towards the end of the season. You could see it in the way that Le’Veon Bell started running. Part of that is on Bell. The light seems to be coming on for him. He seemed more decisive. Add back a healthy Maurkice Pouncey and a continually developing David DeCastro and that’s a foundation. Regardless of who’s lining up, the offensive line needs time and health to develop chemistry.
More no-huddle. I think I heard on 93.7 The Fan that the No-Huddle will be the Steelers’ default offense next year? Well, if it makes Ben happy and more productive, I’m ok with that. Frankly, I think quarterbacks don’t have enough play-calling responsibility anymore and I think they can handle the weight. Terry Bradshaw called his own plays; you think Ben can’t do the same consistently? Continue reading »

AL Central > NL Central? Pah

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Jul 262013

I was reading a Paul Krugman analysis comparing the Detroit bankruptcy to the struggles of Pittsburgh in the 1980’s and 1990’s. As far as that goes, it was pretty simplistic. There are way too many causes for Detroit’s Chapter 9 to detail in a short post like Krugman’s. The comments take him to task for shallow analysis and as someone who has spent many hours defending my hometown, I get the sensitivity of Detroiters regarding their city’s dire situation.

However, I couldn’t let this comment pass. Arbitrot writes:

I don’t want to be testy, but as a native Detroiter I’d like us all to focus a bit here.
The Tigers currently leads the toughest division in the Majors by a game and a half, while the Pirates are two games back in the League’sd wussiest division — and dropping.
I mean, the Cardinals leading the division, without Albert Pujols? What’s that all about?

Wussiest? The NL Central has produced two World Series winners in the past decade. The AL Central is 1-2, with one of those losses being the Cardinals over the Tigers. As far as dropping – both the Pirates and Tigers are 6-4 in their last 10 games.

Another Pirates Rebuilding Plan

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Jul 312009

The Pittsburgh Pirates have completed a huge purge of the vast majority of their roster since Neal Huntington took over leadership of the franchise a few years ago. They’ve traded a large number of serviceable major leaguers including the likes of Jason Bay, Nate McLouth and Jack Wilson.

All these trades have provoked a huge amount of outrage among the Pirates’ fanbase. (Yes, there still is a fanbase). I think most fans would have preferred to keep that lineup largely intact and then perhaps raise the bar on the pitching staff by going after some free agents. Wishful thinking. Free agents wouldn’t want to come to the Pirates right now.

Andrew McCutcheon (pic)

The alternative is to develop great pitching. But by the time the pitching could catch up, the offense would have started to go down. It’s a half-assed approach. You either spend more to bring the pitching staff up to par quickly, which won’t happen, or you tear it all down. In almost all the recent trades, Pirates GM Neal Huntington has gone after pitching, pitching and more pitching.

The Pirates went 67-95 playing a large part of the last season with the most productive outfield in baseball. There was solid, if unspectacular play, from the likes of Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez. But whither the pitching.

Now I have my doubts as to whether Pirates owner Bob Nutting will pony up the money to keep a developing team together if recent drafts and trades start to pan out as we all hope. But the plan itself is solid. Some fans may have been content for the team to make a run at .500 this year, which may have been doable with the collection of players that came out of spring training. But in the City of Champions, we cannot accept anything less than a team that wants to win titles. We don’t do Loveable Losers.

Failures of the MLBPA

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Jul 152009

As the Pittsburgh Pirates purge their roster for the umpteenth time in the past 16+ years, I’m reminded of the little-noted failure by the MLBPA of its membership. A trade union, by definition, is supposed to use collective bargaining with management for the overall betterment of its membership. The MLBPA has lost sight of the fact that this collective bargaining should not be strictly limited to wage increases.

In any given year, there are 4-6 teams with a realistic shot at winning a title. Minnows, through careful scouting and not a little bit of luck, will occasionally pop up in the ranks to disturb the big boys. But if you knew little of baseball, it wouldn’t be totally unreasonable to assume that in a given year, the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Cardinals, Mets and Braves will be the main contenders.

You can switch a name or two here and there but, in general, this leaves 24 out of 30 teams that, for all their fuss and bluster, don’t have a shot to contend. This is the nature of sports and I won’t dispute that. But it’s also partly a result of the revenue/salary structure of modern baseball.

In leagues with a tight salary cap/luxury tax, such as the NFL, NHL or NBA, well-managed teams can contend year-in, year-out regardless of market status. A small-market team in MLB can contend for maybe 2-3 years out of every 8 years. Build up, torn down by free agency, build up, torn down by free agency. Ask Billy Beane, one of the best GM’s in baseball, how MLB’s cost structure is working out for him.

Let’s look at it from a Union’s viewpoint. Is it better for a Union to seek the highest individual salaries regardless of how those left behind in middling teams fare? Or should a Union seek the greatest possible distribution of salaries among its membership. One player makes $20mil while four players make $3mil. The average is $6.4mil. The median is $3mil. The high outliers skew the average salary.

Furthermore, for every team that can pay $200mil+ for its roster, there will be more teams with salaries around $50-$80mil. The team that can pay $200mil+ will compete year-in, year-out. The teams with $50-$80mil can compete only for a short time before being raided by the $200mil team. And with roster size limits, not everyone can sign with the $200mil team so that money is allocated to only a few players.

In a more egalitarian system, such as the NFL’s, the overall number for salaries will stay the same. But the distribution becomes wider. Yes, it’s called spreading the wealth. But a Union that negotiates distribution in addition to overall number is doing its job. The NFLPA, by agreeing to a salary cap, ensures wider distribution of monies as well as giving a greater percentage of its membership a realistic chance of landing with a team that can build a contender.

Photo Credit: Details Magazine

All-Star Nada

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Jul 142009

A few years ago, MLB designated that the winning team of the All-Star Game would clinch home-field advantage for its League in the World Series. The move is supposed to liven up the game and get the players to care about the outcome. The allegedly heightened circumstances are also supposed to get the fans to care a little more as well. This year, MLB is using the slogan, “this one counts.”

I fail to understand why World Series home-field advantage would matter to poor unlucky schlobs like Freddy Garcia or Zach Duke of the Pirates or whatever token schlomo got in from the Washington Nationals. Unless they’re expecting to be traded to a contender, perhaps. (In the case of Garcia, the answer is no because the Mets aren’t in contention this year).

In the unbalanced world of Major League Baseball, few teams are in real contention by this point of the season, despite any protestations to the contrary. Why should their few representatives really care about handing home-field advantage to an opposing team. It seems to me that since they are already out of contention, Orioles, Athletics, Pirates, Padres or Diamondbacks players and fans wouldn’t be particularly in favor of handing home-field advantage to potentially the Yankees, Angels, Cardinals or Dodgers.

Oh, I’ve heard that the players are putting forth more of an effort since this scheme was adopted but Bug Selig can’t seriously think that it will bring back the level of competition that resulted in Pete Rose crashing into home plate so many years ago. Way to come up with another gem, Bud.

Standards of Expectation

Baseball, Basketball, College Basketball, College Football, Football, Futbol/Soccer, The Bigger Picture 1 Response »

Mar 292009

By and large, I consider myself to be a fortunate sports fan. My teams generally do well. Two Superbowl titles, 2 Stanley Cups, 7 Sweet Sixteens, 1 Elite Eight, 1 Champions League, 1 FA Cup, Curtis Martin, Larry Fitzgerald, many others. And someday the Pirates will get to .500 and all of Pittsburgh will go nuts.

I think a reasonable standard of expectation for a fan is for one’s teams to be in the hunt, in any given year. Nothing more, nothing less. All the crazies who expect a title every single season can stay in Lexington or Tuscaloosa or the Bronx.

In any given year, I expect that the Steelers will win 10+ games and have a shot at the Superbowl. I expect the Penguins to make the NHL playoffs and have a shot at the Stanley Cup. I expect that Pitt basketball will make the Field of 65 and have a shot to make a run to the Final Four. I expect Liverpool FC to contend for the Premiership, Champions League, and/or FA Cup titles. Eventually, I would like to expect that Pitt football will win 8-9 games in most years and once every few years when the pieces fall into place, they should contend for a national title.

Pitt vs Villanova

But even with what I believe are reasonable expectations, you inevitably get heart-breaking losses. I don’t have to tell you which loss I’m “mourning” today. I would have to say that Pitt’s loss to Villanova ranks second only to Francisco Cabrera’s single for Atlanta vs the Pirates in the 1992 NLCS. Even the Penguins recovered from David Volek. The Pirates have never recovered from that loss.

Pitt basketball is a strong program and they’ll rebound, rebuild and contend again. I know we had a successful season. I’m proud of how they battled and banged with the big boys. We’ll be back. I expect it.

Capping a Run to Daylight

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Mar 262009

I want a salary cap and comprehensive revenue sharing in baseball. It’s the only way to ensure a proper competitive balance in the sport. It’s the only hope a small market team, such as my Pirates, have for contending on a regular basis. Every game that the NY Yankees or the Boston Red Sox play make this point even more painfully clear to me.

But the naysayers will point out that other small market teams have contended and even won the World Series. True though that may be, it hides the ugly reality that a well-run small market team (such as the Minnesota Twins or Oakland Athletics, NOT the Pirates) can only compete for a couple years in a given cycle. They will build a team, contend for a time, maybe even reach/win a World Series and then watch as their best and brightest leave for the big money spenders, such as New York, Chicago or Boston. Does anyone remember that Manny Ramirez began his career with the Cleveland Indians? Talk about the model small market franchise. The Indians drafted well, managed their payroll, tried to sign their stars to manageable contracts before their hit arbitration or free agency. They made the World Series and then went kerplunk!

World Series Trophy

A salary cap does NOT guarantee that every team will contend. But it does provide cost certainty such that any team, big market or small, will have a shot to retain its hard-earned, home-grown talent when the big money comes calling (without having to revert to the Reserve Clause).

In the NFL’s infancy, New York Giants owner Wellington Mara decided to give up what could have become a Yankees’ sized advantage in monies in favor of comprehensive revenue sharing. Later, the NFL adopted a salary cap that gives cost certainty to all teams. Today, Ben Roethlisberger is in the midst of a $102 million contract, Troy Polamalu is one of the highest paid players at his position and a team like the Washington Redskins is spending itself into oblivion. Well-run teams like the big market New York Giants or the medium market Pittsburgh Steelers continue to thrive by building rather than poaching.

If MLB did institute a salary cap, perhaps the Pirates would continue to lose; that wouldn’t surprise me one bit. But I think Wellington Mara would be pleased with the idea that well-run, well-built baseball teams would be afforded the opportunity to prosper for many, many years, not just 2-3 years.

Hating the Red Sox More Than the Indians

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Oct 232007

It’s simple really – bandwagon jumpers and obnoxiousness.

In baseball, you either love or hate the Yankees. But after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and broke their curse (and sadly, Maher did root for the Red Sox to beat the Yankees in the ALCS that year), they’ve almost become the new Yankees. Suddenly there are scores upon scores of people claiming to have been Red Sox fans all along – so many people in Pittsburgh even began wearing that disgusting red B. Seriously?

Normally I would ignore the Indians. But because the Red Sox nation is peopled by a bunch of sanctimonious sh*ts, we root for the Indians. Doing so in this limited instance does not mean that we approve of the very existence of Cleveland or Ohio, in general. However, the Indians do not materially affect the Pirates’ fortunes, unlike the Browns.

Keep in mind though that had the Indians won the ALCS, we would have turned and rooted for the Rockies. Of course, we are not surprised that the Red Sox came back from 3 games to 1 down to win the ALCS. It is less testament to their excellence than the collective karma of the Mistake by the Lake. We will continue to root against the Red Sox.

Another reason is Boston’s sports writers/sports personalities – people like Bob Ryan, Jackie MacMullen and Bill Simmons. Oh to hear them go on and on and on about Boston this and Boston that. Kill me now!

We all know that any East Conf team stands little or no shot at beating a Western Conf team in the NBA finals. But now that Celtics have acquired Ray Allen & Kevin Garnett to go along with Paul Pierce, their national exposure will increase exponentially. Even though Allen & Garnett have been two of my favorite players over the course of the past decade or so (and who could forget Allen’s role as Jesus Shuttlesworth in He Got Game), I will be hard presst not to begin to hate the Celtics given the disproportionate amount of hype they are about to receive.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled hatred (of Cleveland).