Joey Votto is Apparently Ruining Baseball

Or so Tom Verducci would like you to think.

Verducci is a fairly visible and well-known writer for Sports Illustrated who recently penned an article (which can be read in its entirety by clicking here) entitled "Virtue, and victory, no longer synonymous with patience at the plate." Alliteration aside, this title is clearly making no effort to disguise its own absurdity.

Verducci basically spends 1,400 words complaining about how extremely-patient hitters like Joey Votto are hurting baseball because their at-bats are too long, they strike out too much, and they're causing the recent decline in offense across the majors. Without copying-and-pasting the entire diatribe, there are a few notable or entertaining gems in the piece worth commenting on. Like this, for instance:

Welcome to the state of the art in hitting these days, where aggressiveness is disdained and passivity is exalted. The modern hitter is guided by the accepted wisdom in catchphrases such as "driving up pitch counts," "taking pitches" and "quality at-bats."

Particularly enjoyable in this paragraph is the way Verducci puts sarcastic quotes around legitimate baseball strategies, as if "quality at-bats" don't lead to "walks" and "hits" and "runs."

Verducci:

There is one serious flaw in this groupthink strategy. It isn't working. Hitters are striking out more than ever before in baseball history while runs, walks, hits and home runs have been on the decline for years.

It is now Verducci's job to convince the reader that this decline in offense has been caused by the baseball cancers known as "quality at-bats" and "driving up pitch counts." Spoiler alert: he fails to do this.

And while teams still preach the religion of driving up pitch counts to "get into the bullpen" of the other team, they may be pushing an outdated agenda. So fortified are major league bullpens these days, especially with hard throwers, that last year relievers posted an ERA more than half a run lower than starters and averaged almost one strikeout for every inning."

That last sentence there is worth a jaw-dropping double-take. "... last year relievers posted an ERA more than half a run lower than starters." I mean ... no kidding, man. It's almost like relievers ALWAYS have lower ERAs than starters because of the inherent nature of their job. It's almost like relievers are asked to get only two or three outs at a time while starting pitchers are expected to pitch six or seven innings. It's almost like many relievers are specialized to only face same-sided hitters -- lefties on lefties and vice versa. Saying that relievers posted a better ERA than starters last year is like saying, "hitters who bat leadoff have higher batting averages than hitters who bat ninth." That's some super sleuthing, Sherlock.

Verducci is right when he says that many bullpens are now fortified with hard throwers and elite strikeout relievers. But most teams only have one or two of those shutdown pitchers. Chances are that the reliever a team will likely face in the sixth or seventh inning is going to be a lot weaker than that day's starting pitcher. Driving up a starter's pitch count, tiring him, and knocking him out of the game as early as possible is just a good baseball strategy. The only exception is when a truly miserable starter is on the mound and you're better off just pulverizing him (a.k.a., whenever you're playing the Twins).

The proliferation of measurables in baseball is helping a generation of hitters turn offense into a passive aggressive pursuit. While batting average rightly has lost much of its inflated value, the flip side is that ubiquitous pitch counts, pitches per plate appearance, walks and on-base percentage are influencing how hitters go about their jobs.

The horror!

What we are left with is a sport in which games keep getting longer but with less and less action. The ball is not put in play on 81 percent of the pitches, an all-time record of inactivity. The knottiest issue for baseball is not the stadium issues of Oakland and Tampa Bay or the Biogenesis scandal; it's the increased lack of action in your average baseball game.

So we've arrived at the crux of the problem: Tom Verducci is bored watching baseball. Look, buddy, I don't know what to tell you. Presumably you knew what you were getting into with this sport. Baseball is slow. It always has been. Hitters taking more or less pitchers can't really change the sport's inherent nature. If your attention span is lacking, the NBA Playoffs will be on TV for the next, like, six months. That Pacers-Hawks series looks particularly riveting (hahaha nope).

Nobody swings 3-and-0 any more. You're supposed to take the pitch to drive up the pitch count and lengthen your at-bat, nevermind that it might be the best pitch the hitter sees. Last year major league hitters managed only 94 hits on 3-and-0 counts, or about one hit on a 3-0 pitch every 26 games. (They hit .348 when they did put 3-0 pitches into play). The 94 hits on 3-0 were down 24 percent in just a decade, down from 123 hits in 2002. So because hitters swing less often on 3-and-0, Werth gets criticized for doing something "wrong," even though the average big leaguer slugs .767 when he does put such pitches into play.

This article is like a scavenger hunt for all the different types of logical fallacies. The problem with Verducci's point here is selection bias. He wants hitters to swing at 3-and-0 pitches more often because those who do are hitting .348 and slugging .767. The assumption is that if more hitters swing 3-and-0, they too will hit .348 and slug .767. But obviously that's not the case. Presumably, hitters are already swinging at the most desirable 3-and-0 pitches, which is why that average and slugging percentage are so high. Logically, if they began swinging at more 3-and-0 pitches, they would be less successful and those impressive rates would drop.

Verducci then provides the centerpiece of his argument: a graph that shows how players are swinging at the first pitch just 26% of the time in 2013, down from 33% in 1988. It also depicts the rise in overall strikeout rates, from 14.7% to 20.2%, across the same time period. His reaction to this data:

Do the math: hitters are swinging at the first pitch less and less and striking out more and more.

No, there is no math. The logical error here? Verducci hasn't proven in any way that there's a correlation between "swinging at the first pitch" and "increased strikeout rate." Anyone can make a graph with two trends side-by-side and claim a correlation. With that method, I could claim that an increase in hot dog consumption at ballparks since 1983 is the reason behind the increased strikeout rate. Do the math!

You hear so much talk about "grinding out at-bats" and "making the pitcher throw more pitches" that you would think seeing a lot of pitches is a denominator to success. You would be wrong. There is no correlation between seeing more pitches and winning more games. Entering this week, only one of the six first-place teams ranked among the top 11 teams in pitches per plate appearance. Five of those 11 teams that saw the most pitches had losing records.

There might be no worse crime in sports analysis than using three weeks of baseball games to make broad, sweeping conclusions. The month of April would also have us believe that Buster Posey and Giancarlo Stanton are bad at baseball, but Coco Crisp is an MVP candidate and the Colorado Rockies are World Series favorites. It's three weeks! And you're citing first-place teams! Good lord.

Last year there were 13 teams that ranked above average in most pitches per plate appearance. Nine of those 13 teams did not make the postseason.

Come on, man. This is ridiculous. There is no ONE SACRED STATISTIC that correlates to baseball success. If there was -- I'm pretty sure we would know about it. Using this argument to discredit an entire school of thought about plate discipline is really weak. Of course seeing a lot of pitches doesn't guarantee a winning season by itself. The Red Sox and Twins both ranked within the top five in pitches-per-plate-appearance last year, but both were awful and missed the playoffs by a wide margin. Why? Because their patient approach at the plate failed miserably? No. Because they had the third- and fourth-worst pitching staffs in baseball.

The two pennant winners, San Francisco and Detroit, ranked 25th and 27th in pitches per plate appearance.

Again -- trying to prove a point using the eensy-weensy sample size of a singe postseason is cruelly misleading. The Detroit Tigers were pushed all the way to Game 5 in the first round by the Oakland Athletics, the team that happened to see the MOST pitches-per-plate-appearance in the majors. What if the A's had won that game? Would that lone result have ruined Verducci's entire narrative? Basically, if the point you're trying to make hinged on the result of a single baseball game, it's probably not a point worth pushing.

Oh, and the Tigers had Justin Verlander. The Giants had Matt Cain. What are we even doing here.

If there is one hitter who best personifies the modern passive aggressive approach it is [Joey] Votto. He has phenomenal patience, balance and hand-eye coordination. Last year he came to the plate 475 times and suffered the embarrassment of the one-pitch out only 19 times. This year Votto is off to a wildly efficient start. In 20 games he has reached base 49 times, including 25 times by way of a walk. His on-base percentage is a robust .500. According to the favored modern measurables, he is an offensive dynamo of historic proportions.

Joey Votto is getting on base a lot. His team, the Cincinnati Reds, ranks third in the majors in runs scored. Now there's a correlation you can believe in.

But that's not the whole story. Votto, who won the 2010 NL MVP Award when he hit 37 home runs, has become an extreme version of himself. He is swinging the bat less often with each passing year. No one should advocate Votto start chasing more pitches out of the strike zone, but it's interesting to see how Votto is letting more and more good pitches go by without attempting to swing. His percentage of swings at strikes has gone down four straight years: 74, 73, 69, 62, 60. Votto has told me the more pitches he sees, the more he believes the at-bat swings in his favor.

If Joey Votto says that seeing more pitches is a good thing, I'm inclined to believe that seeing more pitches is a good thing.

Now consider what Votto has done this year with runners on base. The Reds' number three hitter has come to the plate 51 times with runners on and produced zero extra-base hits. His slugging percentage with runners on is .188. Only twice this year has he driven in a teammate with a hit. But he has an awesome on-base percentage.

This obsession with tiny sample sizes is infuriating. Verducci is judging Votto on 51 plate appearances. Fifty-one. That's nothing. Any baseball player can look like Ted Williams or like a Double-A scrub in 51 plate appearances. Vernon Wells, whose OPS was .682 last year, and .660 the year before, is at .930 through 79 plate appearances this April. Mike Trout hit .220 in his first 135 plate appearances of his career. Meaningless.

What makes Verducci's point here even more hilarious is this: in 1,425 career plate appearances with runners on base, Joey Votto has hit like a god: .336/.455/.578. Last year, with runners on base, he was even better: .353/.510/.673 in 210 plate appearances. Joey Votto is awesome with runners on base. He's awesome with no one on base. He's awesome whenever he's wearing a baseball uniform (and maybe even when he isn't, though I don't have that kind of access). It took me like, five seconds to look up these numbers. Verducci apparently couldn't be bothered.

The problem is the state of the art isn't working. Few hitters are as good as Votto. More teams than ever deploy two batting coaches, not one. More ballparks have constructed multiple batting tunnels that almost never go empty from four hours prior to the game to the last out. Video is more abundant and portable than ever. More data is available. And yet the modern approach to hitting is failing. Pitchers are four years into a run of dominance and there are no signs that their run is abating, especially when the modern passive aggressive approach to hitting has become so ingrained.

Having read the entire article, at no point did Verducci convince me that the recent decline in offense can be explained by a new "passive-aggressive" ideology on plate discipline. In fact, Verducci is probably overstating the trends he's slamming. In 2002 (the year before "Moneyball" was published), hitters swung the bat, on average, 46.5% percent of the time. That percentage has dropped, like Verducci claims, but only down to 46.0% last year -- a decline by half of one percentage point. Similarly, hitters saw an average of 3.74 pitches-per-plate-appearance in 2002, and 3.83 last year. An increase, but again a slight one, by just a tenth of a point. So it's hard to see how this "passive-aggressive" ideology has taken over the game like Verducci seems to be claiming.

Yes, a slightly more patient approach at the plate across the sport is probably one of the factors behind the current low-run-scoring environment in baseball. But by no means is it a major one, or even the only one. Offense is down because drug testing ended the steroid era, and because pitchers are throwing harder than ever before, and because teams are putting a new premium on defensive value often at the expense of offense, and because bullpens are becoming more and more specialized, and because Yu Darvish and Stephen Strasburg and Craig Kimbrel exist. Joey Votto is certainly not one of the reasons why baseball is scoring fewer runs. On the contrary, Joey Votto is doing literally everything he can to generate more runs, and people who are actually paying attention know that he's gotten quite good at it, too.

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.

Christian Bale No-Hits Pirates

Congratulations to 38-year old right-handed actor Christian Bale, who no-hit the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday night. Bale's roles include psychopathic serial killer Patrick Bateman, vigilante superhero Bruce Wayne, and fireballing young Cincinnati Reds pitcher Homer Bailey. It's Bale's first career no-hitter.

How They Did It: The 2012 Cincinnati Reds

On Thursday afternoon, the Reds trotted out a lineup featuring Miguel Cairo, Xavier Paul, and something called Didi Gregorious. It was a lineup one would expect to see from a team long removed from playoff contention. But by beating the Cubs 5-3 with their B-team squad, the Cincinnati Reds moved to 91-59 and clinched the first playoff spot of the 2012 season. Entering the season, most people thought the NL Central would be closely contested deep into the final month of the season, but the Reds may end up winning it by double-digit games. Here are the five biggest factors behind Cincinnati's fantastic season.

1. A Healthy Starting Rotation: It is truly stunning that the five starters in the Reds' original rotation have accounted for all but one of the team's starts this year. Congratulations to Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, Bronson Arroyo, Homer Bailey, and Mike Leake, all of whom will make over 30 starts this season. Cueto will be in consideration for the Cy Young with another sub-3.00 ERA season.

2. An Unheralded Rookie: Sharing a league with Bryce Harper is tough, but Reds infielder Todd Frazier was the better player in 2012 and might win the Rookie of the Year award. His .284/.345/.517 line was crucial for a team that lost both Joey Votto and Scott Rolen to injuries at the corner infield positions.

3. A Free Agent Bargain: After a disastrous 2011, Ryan Ludwick's career was on life support. The Reds picked him up on a one-year deal and were criticized for giving playing time to an over-the-hill veteran instead of a youngster like Frazier. At the moment, Ludwick has a better OPS than Albert Pujols. The outfielder has hit 26 home runs while slugging .532. The Reds caught lightning in a bottle here.

4. A Shutdown Bullpen: The Reds signed Ryan Madson to be their closer for 2012. When they lost him for the season before he even threw a pitch, the assumption was that the Reds bullpen would take a massive hit. Instead, it was probably the best in baseball. The dominance of replacement closer Aroldis Chapman has been well-documented (he's striking out nearly half the batters he's facing and his WHIP is below 0.80). The Reds also had five other relievers throw at least 50 innings, and the highest ERA among them was 3.18. That doesn't even include midseason trade acquisition Jonathan Broxton, a former closer now pitching the 7th and 8th innings for the Reds. This unit will be a huge asset come playoff time.

5. Homegrown Players: The Reds are great at developing their own talent, which they use in two different ways. They have developed young players into long-time starters, like Joey Votto, Jay Bruce, and Johnny Cueto. They also use their prospects to trade for more pieces, which they did this year to get number-two starter Mat Latos and setup men Sean Marshall and Jonathan Broxton. And it's not like the pipeline is drying up; despite those trades, the Reds still had talented rookies Todd Frazier, Zack Cozart, Chris Heisey, and Devin Mesoraco to plug into the lineup in 2012. Cincinnati's only notable free agent signings this offseason were Ryan Madson, who didn't pitch at all, and Ryan Ludwick, who came dirt-cheap. And the Reds are massively outperforming teams that spent tens of millions of dollars, like the Angels, Tigers, and Marlins. This is how you thrive in a small market.

Different teams find success in different ways. Cincinnati's formula was a simple one. They only had three superstars: one in the lineup (Votto), one in the rotation (Cueto), and one in the bullpen (Chapman). To fill in the rest of the roster, they didn't spend big money on free agents. Instead, they found effective complementary players in their own system and on the trade market. Their reward was an NL Central title despite a sub-$90 million payroll.

As more teams clinch playoff spots, their methods of crafting a winning roster will be examined too, and we'll see which strategies were the most successful. It's hard to beat what the Reds have accomplished here.

Cincinnati's Formula: Healthy starting pitching, dominant bullpen, and balanced lineup achieved through homegrown talent and low payroll.

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.

Johnny Cueto and the Importance of All-Star Selections

One of the more glaring All-Star snubs this year was Cincinnati Reds ace Johnny Cueto, who as of this very moment has a 2.35 ERA in 114.2 innings, which is very good. Rather than picking Cueto to his team, NL manager Tony La Russa instead chose Jonathan Papelbon, who has inferior numbers in far fewer innings (as a reliever). It was a baffling decision, and one that looks a little shady considering Cueto's role in an ugly brawl between the Reds and LaRussa's Cardinals a few years back. Was LaRussa getting revenge by keeping Cueto from his rightful spot on the All-Star team? Not according to what LaRussa said:

"If [Reds manager] Dusty [Baker] had been more interested in Cueto being on the team, then he wouldn't be pitching him on Sunday."

LaRussa's excuse: the old rule that pitchers starting the Sunday before the All-Star Break are ineligible to pitch in the game. The problem with that: the rule was changed this year. Pitchers who start on Sunday can be named to the game, and even pitch an inning. Oops.

So, Johnny Cueto lost his rightful designation as an All-Star EITHER because Tony LaRussa is acting on an old grudge OR Tony LaRussa did not have a complete grasp of the All-Star selection rules. That seems...unfair.

But not to Jon Heyman. He writes:

"N.L. manager Tony La Russa doesn't hold a grudge against the Reds. And even if he does, I can't say I entirely blame him.

Johnny Cueto was deserving of making the team based on his first half, but if Reds manager Dusty Baker is correct that La Russa didn't pick Cueto or second baseman Brandon Phillips because those two players played significant roles in a noted brawl between the Cardinals and Reds, well, so be it. Picking All-Stars is one of the benefits of winning the World Series.

If La Russa recalls that Cueto didn't just play a significant role in the brawl (as Baker characterized it), but actually kicked ex-Cardinals catcher Jason LaRue in the head, causing LaRue to have a concussion and to have to retire, well maybe Cueto should think twice before behaving that way."

That's right. As Cueto's foot was in the air, flying toward Jason LaRue's head, he should have paused and thought to himself, "Wait. Hang on a tick. What if, in a few years, I'm up for a spot in the All-Star Game, and the guy in charge of deciding whether or not I make it turns out to be the manager of the team whose catcher I'm about to clobber, and that manager will keep me from pitching in this future hypothetical All-Star Game because of a petty, long-standing grudge?" Come on. No one's saying that kicking LaRue in the head is acceptable behavior. But Cueto was in a brawl with a bunch of other players, from both teams. I'm guessing none of those other players involved that day were denied from All-Star Games. Punishments were handed down by MLB authorities. That should be the end of the matter. It's ridiculous to suggest that Cueto should still be paying for that day years later, especially at the hands of a retired manager entrusted with objectively choosing the most worthy All-Star participants.

Of course, I don't think LaRussa left Cueto off the roster as revenge. I think it's totally within the realm of possibility that the guy didn't know the Sunday rule had changed. But Heyman seems convinced that this whole operation is a "revenge is a dish best served cold" thing, so here we are.

"La Russa didn't suggest he was paying Cueto back for LaRue, nor would I expect him to. But it's a hard thing to forget.

To summarize, Cueto has won no World Series and caused one Cardinals concussion. What should he expect?"

To be judged fairly on the basis of merit alone? To be properly recognized for his accomplishments in 2012?  And docking points from Cueto for not winning a title yet ranks pretty high on the Crazy Scale, since Cueto hasn't even spent five years in the majors yet. And hang on, take a step back: since when is winning a World Series part of the criteria for All-Star Game selections, anyway? (answer: never.) This is lunacy.

"Apparently, he expects to be on the team. I see on the Internet where Cueto might challenge his non-selection, citing the fact La Russa had Cueto's pitching schedule wrong in explaining his omission. Here's my take: Suck it up, Johnny. Try to win a title this year, then wait 'for Dusty to take you next year."

Again, with the title. Why, suddenly, is Johnny Cueto the only player in baseball who needs to win a World Series to warrant an appearance in the All-Star Game?

In a perfect world, none of this would matter much. It should just be an entertaining diversion and an interesting side-plot for the All-Star break. I couldn't care less about it. But here's the thing: to Jon Heyman, All-Star selections actually matter. A lot. He votes for the Hall of Fame, and actually uses figures like "X Number of Times He Was An All-Star" to judge which players he votes for. It apparently doesn't matter that this very article, written by Heyman himself, shows how flawed that "statistic" is. He thinks it's okay that a deserving All-Star, like Cueto, can be denied that designation just because the manager of the defending World Series champion has a bone to pick, or just because the manager of the defending World Series champion isn't entirely familiar with the selection rules. Immediately, we see that "Number of Times He Was An All-Star" is a "statistic" so completely subject to personal bias and randomness that it's almost useless when it comes to building Hall of Fame cases.

And yet...I know that in a few months, Jack Morris will once again appear on the Hall of Fame ballot, and Jon Heyman will be writing an article that vehemently claims Jack Morris deserves to be a Hall of Famer because he started three All-Star Games, and was an All-Star a total of five times. And Jon Heyman will try to convince me that those numbers actually mean something. And I will think back to this article, when Jon Heyman tried to convince me that Johnny Cueto, of the 2.35 ERA, didn't deserve an All-Star spot because of an old brawl and a grudge. And then I will remember just how subjective, unfair, and utterly useless the "Number of Times He Was An All-Star" statistic really is.

MLB Season Preview: Cincinnati Reds

A couple of bold offseason moves have the Reds firmly in 'win now' mode.

Votto will be paid $20 million to play
for the Reds until he's 75.

Offense: The Reds are an intriguing mix of elite sluggers, exciting prospects, and broken-down veterans. Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips are known quantities; they're two of baseball's best players at their respective positions. Jay Bruce offers a ton of power even if he never develops into the offensive superstar he was hyped to be. It would be nice if Drew Stubbs didn't lead the league in strikeouts, but he remains a speedy center fielder with pop. How the rest of the lineup shakes out may come down to whether Dusty Baker doles out playing time to youngsters or veterans. Will promising shortstop Zack Cozart keep his job all season? Who has the upper hand in left field: the power of Chris Heisey or the corpse of Ryan Ludwick? When Scott Rolen inevitably gets hurt, will his at-bats go to Todd Frazier or Miguel Cairo? And will catching duties be entrusted to potential Rookie of the Year Devin Mesoraco, or platoon partner Ryan Hanigan?

Fortunately for Mat Latos, Dusty Baker has a spotless
track record when it comes to handling young aces.
Just ask Mark Prior, as soon as he comes out of his coma.

Pitching: The Reds gutted the farm system to acquire 24-year-old right-hander Mat Latos, who should be overpowering enough to alleviate concerns about the transition from spacious Petco to homer-happy Great American Ballpark. Cincinnati really needed Latos, because there isn't another pitcher like him on the staff. Johnny Cueto's 2.31 ERA is due for some serious regression towards his 3.83 career figure. Mike Leake and Homer Bailey look like mid-rotation starters at best, and Bronson Arroyo somehow managed to surrender more home runs (46!!) than walks (45) last year. For whatever reason, the Reds are still relegating Aroldis Chapman to bullpen duty even though he has Randy Johnson upside. Hopefully Chapman will be given a chance to start at some point, especially since the presence of Sean Marshall will allow the Reds' bullpen to remain solid even after the season-ending injury to Ryan Madson.

"What's that? A lefty who hits 102 on the radar gun?
He'll be one of our best middle relievers!"

Breakout Candidates: Since he's the only rookie pretty much guaranteed playing time, Zack Cozart should be a Rookie of the Year candidate thanks to dependable defense and solid across-the-board skills. With the potential to put up bigger power numbers, Devin Mesoraco has more upside at catcher, but he may get stuck sharing at-bats with Ryan Hanigan. Aroldis Chapman could be great if he is ever freed from the purgatory of middle relief.

3 Key Questions: Can Latos lead this underwhelming pitching staff? Do Mesoraco and Cozart get enough chances to succeed in the majors? And did the Reds even notice that Chapman struck out 18 and walked two in 17 spring innings?

Best Case Scenario: Latos and Cueto are aces, Votto wins the MVP, Chapman replaces Arroyo in the rotation by May, Marshall is a dominant closer, Mesoraco and Cozart finish 1-2 in the Rookie of the Year voting, and Reds win the Central and go all the way to the World Series.

Worst Case Scenario: Latos surrenders an Arroyo-esque number of home runs, Ryan Ludwick gets 200 at-bats to hit .230, Chapman becomes the permanent left-handed specialist, Votto offers to void his massive contract if he could just please get the heck out of Cincinnati, and the Reds finish fourth, without a playoff berth.

Predicted Finish: The Reds aren't spectacular. But they've got a solid, balanced team with major-league-ready prospects even after the farm system was raided. Their recent bold moves (the Latos/Marshall trades and Votto extension) would imply that they'll be willing to upgrade the team midseason if necessary. Cincinnati finishes second in the NL Central and grabs one of the wild cards.