The Big Red Mistake

Since his defection from Cuba more than three years ago, Cincinnati Reds left-hander Aroldis Chapman has done nothing but strike guys out. Despite his relatively young age (25) and lack of minor league seasoning (just over 100 innings), Chapman has quickly harnessed that skill to become a dominant major league relief pitcher. His career strikeout rate is 14.1 per nine innings, the third-highest ever by any pitcher who's thrown at least as many innings as Chapman has (135). From 2011 to 2012, he cut his walk rate from 7.4 per nine innings to just 2.9 while simultaneously increasing his strikeout rate up to a ridiculous 15.3. The result was a 1.51 ERA, a 0.80 WHIP, and 38 saves while taking over as the Reds' new closer. He owns the major league record for the fastest recorded pitch in history, at 105 miles per hour. He's as close to unhittable as it gets. And his incredible talents are being wasted in the bullpen.

Chapman was a starting pitcher in Cuba but has made exactly zero starts at the major league level. The Reds' rotation has been so strong these last few years that they've had the luxury to use Chapman as a weapon out of the bullpen. That strategy hid Chapman's major weakness -- control -- while getting him valuable major league experience. The plan was to transition him into the rotation once he had harnessed his arsenal and limited his walks. It certainly appears like he's done just that. Yet the Reds announced several days ago that he will again serve as their closer in 2013. 

It's become clear that Dusty Baker, the Reds' manager, feels strongly about keeping Chapman in the closer role for 2013 despite what his bosses might prefer. Some of his reasons are sound. Most are not. For instance, there's this one:

"There's a point that your No. 1 starter is worth more than your closer," Baker said. "But how do you know if he's your No. 1 or not?"

Well, Dusty ... you don't know because you refuse to try it.

There are lots of other arguments for keeping Chapman in the closer role. Some of them are even coherent. But none are good enough.

1. "He's more valuable as a closer!"

Not a chance. Even an average starting pitcher is more valuable than a closer and there's a good chance that Chapman would be a better-than-average starting pitcher. Right now, Chapman is being used to get three outs a few times a week, in games where his team is already winning. Guys who can do that grow on trees. But guys who can serve as solid starters? Those are far more valuable. Which is why Kyle Lohse got twice as much money this winter than Rafael Soriano.

2. "The Reds already have five starters!"

They do. They have four guys locked into the rotation. The weak link is Mike Leake, who put up a 4.58 ERA last year. Removing Leake from the rotation to accommodate Chapman isn't exactly a game-changing loss. Anyway. the Reds got insanely lucky last year in that none of their starting pitchers got hurt. At all. The odds of that happening once are stupendously low; the odds of it happening in two consecutive years are closer to nonexistent. One of their guys is going to get hurt. So even if Leake doesn't start the year in the rotation, chances are he'll be back in at some point when that inevitable injury strikes.

3. "Messing with his role could ruin him for good!"

This argument is motivated by the recent high-profile failures of certain pitchers who tried to convert from relieving to starting. Three come to mind immediately, though people tend to ignore the other circumstances surrounding their demises: Joba Chamberlain (actually hurt himself while dodging an errant throw from the catcher), Daniel Bard (never had the track record of success as a starter like Chapman does), and Neftali Feliz (had Tommy John surgery, which is now common for pitchers of all sizes and roles). It's easy to point and scream at the failures without acknowledging the differences between their situations and Chapman's. It's also easy to ignore the recent success stories of converted relievers, like C.J. Wilson or Chris Sale.

4. "He's too important to the bullpen!"
Actually, the bullpen would manage fine without him. The Reds committed $21 million to Jonathan Broxton in the offseason; he'd be a fine closer. Sean Marshall is one of the game's best setup men. And so on. The Reds have a remarkably deep bullpen that could easily withstand the loss of Chapman.

5. "There's no guarantee he'll even be a good starting pitcher!"

This argument is also known as Dusty Baker's Circular Logic. "We won't try him as a starter because we don't know if he'll be any good, and we don't know if he'll be any good because we won't try him as a starter." First of all -- if Chapman's control is too shoddy for starting, then the Reds can always transfer him back to the bullpen. At least then they'll know and can move on without being bothered anymore. Secondly, and most importantly ... what if this guy is really good? Then the Reds will have struck gold. And there's at least one reason to believe in that potential: the existence of a similar pitcher out there who has a lot in common with Chapman and ended up being wildly successful. Like Chapman, this pitcher was also a left-hander who threw really hard and struck out gobs of batters but struggled through command issues early on. Through the age of 28, his career walk rate was an unacceptable 5.7 per nine innings and unsurprisingly his ERA was pushing 4.00. Then, from age 29 until retirement, he threw over 3,000 innings with an ERA of 3.13, a walk rate of just 2.7, and a strikeout rate of 11.0, winning five Cy Young Awards along the way. That pitcher was Randy Johnson. What if someone along the way -- like, say, Dusty Baker -- had stuck Randy Johnson in the bullpen and kept him there for good? Baseball would have been robbed of one of its greatest pitching careers. But hey, I'm sure the Big Unit would've made a heck of a closer. And Curt Schilling could've been a dynamite setup man, too.

Okay, to be fair, Aroldis Chapman almost certainly isn't Randy Johnson. But there's also a very small chance that he might be. It's worth the risk to find out. And the Reds would be foolish not to.

I Know You Just Wrote This to Stir Controversy, But...

Relievers can't win the Cy Young Award.

I mean, they can, theoretically. If they put up a truly unprecedented, historic, dominant season, while simultaneously no starting pitcher has a particularly good year. That's never really happened. The voters have deemed a reliever worthy of the Cy Young Award nine times, and each time you can find starters who were far more worthy of the reward.

Why is this? Starting pitchers are always more valuable based on the number of innings they throw and how difficult they are to replace. It's relatively easy to find a pitcher who throw as hard as they can one inning a time without the need to worry about pitch counts or facing batters multiple times.

So, naturally, someone named Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports.com thinks that the two front-runners for the 2012 NL Cy Young Award are both relievers. And, according to him, it's not even close. He writes:

R.A. Dickey is having a Cy Young sort of season. So is Johnny Cueto. Maybe a few other starting pitchers in the National League, too, but especially Dickey and Cueto. They're on pace to win 20 games, lose fewer than half of those and finish among league leaders in ERA and strikeouts -- which is to say, they're having seasons typical of a Cy Young winner.

But Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel are having seasons that have never been done before.

So let's give the Cy Young to one of them.

Terrible, miserable logic. Hey, check this out: Aaron Cook of the Boston Red Sox is succeeding in the major leagues despite, quite literally, not striking anyone out, which has pretty much never been done before. Does he deserve the Cy Young? Simply because he's having a season that has "never been done before"? Of course not. This is stupid. Justin Verlander might win the AL Cy Young by doing the exact same thing he did last year. This does not detract from his candidacy.

Problem is, Chapman and Kimbrel are relievers, and relievers aren't supposed to win this thing.

Correct!

A closer will win it from time to time, but usually he has to have some bitchin' facial hair or 50-plus saves or just do like Sparky Lyle did in 1977 and pitch for the Yankees.

Well, that's one problem with my position. There are several, all of which can be explained away, but only in the hands of an expert. Which is where I come in. But first, I'll take your top three complaints.

1. It's too early to be talking about the Cy Young!

In a vacuum, yes -- if this were a typical season for the NL Cy Young, meaning it would go to the best starting pitcher, it would be way too early. (...)

But this isn't a typical season, because Chapman and Kimbrel aren't typical candidates. They're not even typical closer candidates. Chapman has 25 saves, which is nice but isn't going to lead the league -- and Kimbrel might not lead the league either, seeing how he's one behind Joel Hanrahan's league-leading 32. How do you give the Cy Young to a closer who doesn't lead the league in saves (or have bitchin' facial hair or pitch for the Yankees)?

You don't. And if the season ended today, voters wouldn't.

The ONLY thing in the universe worse than giving the Cy Young to a reliever is giving the Cy Young to a reliever based on the most arbitrary, dreamed-up statistic ever engineered: the save.

Without telling them why, I asked four baseball writers at CBSSports.com and one at Yahoo Sports for their top-three Cy Young ballot if the season ended today. None of them named Chapman or Kimbrel.

You should've taken the hint, dude.

So I'm here to get the word out, start a conversation about the NL Cy Young, because the right thing must be done. And the right thing is for Chapman and Kimbrel to be sitting in the lead at this moment.

2. Chapman and Kimbrel can't be THAT good.

They can, and they are. Again, they're historically good, both of them, which is weird because it's happening in the same season. (...)

This isn't the question. Of course they're THAT good. The question is whether they're good ENOUGH to overcome the very large natural gap that exists between starters and relievers. (Spoiler alert: they're not).

3. They don't work as many innings as starters.

No kidding. That's an argument-ender for lots of people, and on the surface, it makes sense. Dickey, Cueto, Cain, Kershaw -- lots of starters having great seasons are on pace to throw 200-plus innings, potentially tripling Chapman or Kimbrel.

But below the surface of that number are other numbers. Kimbrel's ERA is 1.29. Chapman's is slightly behind that at 1.34, but against National League foes, his ERA is 0.19.

But...you completely ignored that whole innings thing. You tried to distract me with those shiny ERAs. Nice try.

Because of the whole innings thing, ten NL starters have been as valuable or more valuable than Aroldis Chapman based on Wins Above Replacement. 21 have been at least as valuable as Craig Kimbrel. As Doyel pointed out, Chapman and Kimbrel's innings totals will be tripled by other top starting pitchers, like Johnny Cueto.

Chapman's ERA in 48 1/3 innings against National League opposition is zero point one-nine. Again, that's Little League stuff. (...)

He's pitching one inning at a time. You can't compare this to a starting pitcher's ERA. They are completely different things.

Actually, here's a good test. Both Johnny Cueto and Aroldis Chapman pitch for the first-place Cincinnati Reds. Chapman has a 1.34 ERA. Cueto has a 2.58 ERA. One would assume that Chapman > Cueto. Now: take Chapman off the Reds, and they'd lose a few more games, but they'd be fine. Take Cueto and his 100 additional innings off the Reds? They probably wouldn't be in first place. One of these players is far more difficult to replace than the other. Extrapolate from there.

You can see who would get my vote Cy Young, if the season ended today: Aroldis Chapman. But I would settle for Craig Kimbrel.

Anyone else? There isn't anyone else.

It's a complete fallacy to put relief pitchers in consideration for the same award as starting pitchers for reasons that go even beyond the innings gap. It's like comparing apples and oranges, or like giving the MVP award to a specialized bench player over an everyday player. For one, relievers are inherently replaceable (just look at Fernando Rodney, a scrap-heap pick-up converted into shutdown closer). Top aces, on the other hand, are the rarest, most-sought-after commodity in the game. Furthermore, Chapman and Kimbrel don't need to worry about fatigue or pitch counts or facing hitters multiple times. They get to throw as hard as they possibly can for one inning at a time. Who's to say that Stephen Strasburg or Clayton Kershaw couldn't do what Chapman and Kimbrel do? Quite frankly, it's easier. But most importantly of all:

Relief pitchers are almost always failed starting pitchers.

Again, because it's that important:

Relief pitchers are almost always failed starting pitchers.

That makes the reliever inherently inferior to the starter. If Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel were good enough to start, they would, because of how exponentially more valuable that role is compared to a bullpen arm. But they can't start. They can't do what Johnny Cueto and Matt Cain and R.A. Dickey and Cole Hamels do so well, for a variety of reasons. Chapman relies on superhuman velocity to beat hitters, which wouldn't hold up over a six-inning start. Plus, he would walk too many guys to be effective. Kimbrel can't start because he doesn't have the stamina, and his mechanics are far too wacky to survive the wear-and-tear of 200 innings. And neither Chapman nor Kimbrel has the third or fourth pitch that a starting pitcher needs.

Appreciate Chapman and Kimbrel for what they are, and acknowledge their brilliance within its proper context. But rewarding either of them--or any relief pitcher--with a Cy Young would represent a gross misunderstanding of how pitching works.

Kevin Millar Is An Idiot

MLB Network is, for the most part, a fantastic resource. For the most part. Its lone blemish is "Intentional Talk," a talk show for people who perversely enjoy asinine, loosely-based-on-fact baseball banter between Chris Rose and Kevin Millar. On Friday, the two were discussing the dominance of left-handed Reds closer Aroldis Chapman--he has yet to surrender a runs this season in 27 innings, and he has 47 strikeouts to just 8 walks. Rose asked Millar whether his scoreless streak would extend through June. Millar said no, it wouldn't, because the following player would eventually touch up Chapman for a homer:

"Bryan LaHair. Lefty. For the Cubbies."

Now, obviously, it's hard to call a prediction "wrong," because it's an opinion. But this is wrong. LaHair is hitting .308 and slugging .582 on the season, but he doesn't even play against left-handed pitchers because he he's so bad against them:

LaHair vs LHP: .136/.296/.273

Chapman, meanwhile, destroys left-handed hitters. He's faced 34, and struck out 21 of them without allowing an extra-base hit. As a whole, left-handed batters are hitting .094 against him. That's very low.

So you've got someone who can't get a hit against lefties, and a pitcher who doesn't give up hits to lefties. The mismatch is so great that there's no way Cubs manager Dale Sveum would ever let LaHair bat against Chapman in a meaningful situation. Out of all the great hitters in the National League, Millar picks this guy to hit the first home run off of Chapman?

Another thing that makes this prediction wrong: the Cubs don't even play the Reds in June. So yes, Bryan LaHair hitting a home run off of Aroldis Chapman in June of 2012 is one of the least likely events to occur on this Earth.

When Chris Rose pointed out this fact to Millar--that his stupid pick to hit a homer against Chapman this month won't even face Chapman this month--Millar chose to change his pick:

"Okay. Ryan Braun."

Oh, one of the best hitters in baseball. You couldn't choose him the first time around?

Stop Talking Up the Tigers, And Other Tidbits

• There's something about the Detroit Tigers that has everyone all in a tizzy. They're ranked #1 in the Power Rankings for ESPN.com, FoxSports.com, and CBSSports.com. That last website has accompanied Detrot's ranking with this bit of sickening hyperbole:
  
  1. Tigers. Evidently the Doug Fister injury was just to give everyone else a chance to stay close.
  
  The Tigers do have the best chance of making the postseason out of all 30 teams, given their weak division. However, they are not the best team in baseball. They have three legitimate stars that cloud everyone's judgment: Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, and Prince Fielder. But for the Tigers to win 96 games last season, they needed remarkably good health (outside of Brennan Boesch) and career seasons (or half-seasons) from Verlander, Cabrera, Victor Martinez (now out for months), Jhonny Peralta, Alex Avila, Delmon Young, Doug Fister, and Jose Valverde.
  
  Every single one of those players (except, well, Cabrera) will experience natural regression to the mean this season (and Martinez will regress all the way to zero, considering he may not suit up until the playoffs). Also, most of the Tigers' rivals in the AL Central will be stronger in 2012 than they were in 2011. Prince Fielder and full seasons from Fister and Young can't possibly make up this gap by themselves. So the question is: can the Tigers make up for the expected regression through improvement in other areas?
  
  That means: if you think the Tigers are the best team in baseball, you are betting on Austin Jackson, Brennan Boesch, Ryan Raburn, Max Scherzer, Rick Porcello, and Drew Smyly. I'm not ready to do that.
  
  If I were ranking the best teams in baseball, the Tigers would likely come in sixth, after the Rangers, Yankees, Rays, Cardinals, and Angels. They're comparable, I think, to the Red Sox and Diamondbacks. Good teams, but not among the best in baseball, like everyone seems to think.
  
  In the words of Charles Barkley: I may be wrong, but I doubt it.
  
  
• While everyone's been fawning over the Tigers, the most impressive team for me has been the Cardinals, and it's not particularly close. Gone are Pujols and LaRussa; Chris Carpenter is out indefinitely; and Adam Wainwright is coming off Tommy John surgery. None of it has mattered in their 5-2 start. Their offensive stars so far:
  
  David Freese: .429/.448/.750, 3 HR, 10 RBIs
  Lance Berkman: .375/.565/.625, 6 BBs
  Carlos Beltran: .320/.393/.680, 3 HR
  Rafael Furcal: .407/.467/.593
  Yadier Molina: .304/.385/.739
  
  Freese looks like a star. Beltran looks like a steal. The Cardinals have the best offense in the National League, and the starting pitching has been impressive even without Carpenter. They look like the favorites in a muddled National League.

• What are the Reds doing with Aroldis Chapman? They're clearly in win-now mode given the Votto and Phillips extensions, but the highest-ceiling pitcher on the roster is wasting away in middle relief. He seemed to put his command issues behind him during an outstanding spring, yet he was still bumped to the bullpen in favor of the relic formerly known as Bronson Arroyo. He struck out five Cardinals in two scoreless innings on Wednesday. When will he get another chance at starting? There's no in-between for Dusty Baker: either he's pushing Mark Prior to 130 pitches per start, or he's limiting Aroldis Chapman to five innings a week out of the pen.

• The team with the worst ERA in the National League? The Giants. Even after Barry Freaking Zito threw a complete-game shutout against the Rockies at Coors Field. The main culprit here is Tim Lincecum, who has been brutally shelled early on. His fastball has averaged under 91 mph, and he hasn't located it well, either. Given how miserable San Francisco's offense is (gotta love that Emmanuel Burriss/Brandon Crawford double-play combo), there's no way the Giants make the playoffs without Lincecum at his best.

• Johnny Damon signed with the Cleveland Indians, and his contract allows him to opt out on a specified date after Grady Sizemore returns. If he wasn't already perceived as a mercenary looking to bolster his Cooperstown chances with a few extra hits, he must be now.