Cooperstown at the Bat

Baseball has a problem.  Well, to be accurate baseball has several problems, an aging fan base, slow play, and the ever-changing “unwritten code” among them.  However, the Hall of Fame enshrinement highlighted another problem.  Cooperstown is not the idyllic baseball sanctuary that a Hall of Fame should be for players and fans.  Controversy from the field has bled into the balloting process.

Changes made to the balloting process by the Hall of Fame, the first such changes since 1991, have resurrected the baseball story that never fades away, steroids.  Previously, recently retired players were eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot for fifteen years.  That number is now ten years.  The timing of this decision raised eyebrows.

 

Officially, this move eases the glut of ballot eligible players.  The bonus for some voters is that they have shortened the immediate Hall of Fame eligibility of notable steroid users.  Mark McGuire has been on the ballot seven times and needed the additional five years to have any hope of raising his balloting percentage from this 2013’s 16.9 percent to the 75 percent required for induction.  Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds have only appeared on two ballots apiece.  This means that the two best natural talents implicated by steroids have eight years to crack Cooperstown.

            It is a natural conclusion to believe that an extra five years of eligibility would have provided the distance from the steroid controversy, and the voter turnover, to allow some of the tainted talents to enter the Hall.  The new process will likely saddle the veteran’s committee with the decision making process.  The advocates for banning and the advocates for allowing steroid users into the Hall of Fame each have compelling arguments.  That is not the issue.  Steroid debate fatigue among casual fans is the problem.  The Hall of Fame already has the tedious “tradition” of never inducting a player unanimously.  The Hall of Fame is now also responsible for passing the steroid question onto another committee.

The NFL Gets It Right (and Then Gets It Wrong)

The NFL Draft has changed drastically in the last year.  The date of the Draft is in flux and it will no longer be in New York City.  Either Chicago or Los Angeles will host the 2015 NFL Draft.  These changes are cosmetic.  Another announced change will have a lasting impact on the NFL.

 

The procedure for underclassmen to declare for the Draft has been considerably and quietly overhauled.  Previously, an underclassman could request a draft grade evaluation from the NFL.  This evaluation would cover the first three rounds.  Now prospects will be informed if they are slotted in the first two rounds of the NFL Draft.  This is an intelligent response to the 98 underclassmen that entered the 2014 Draft.  Many watched their stock plummet and 37 of those players went undrafted.  Louis Nix III went from a consensus mid first round grade to the third round.  Fortunately, Nix found a home in Houston but his inexplicable fall illustrates the vagaries of the drafting process.

Any step that limits the number of athletes who ill-advisedly forego their education for the NFL dream is a positive step.  Leaving college to be plunged into the uncertain depths of rookie free agency rarely pays off as well for the player as an additional season on campus.  Of course, the NFL benefits from this as well.  Unprepared prospects staying in school enriches the depth of the next draft class.  A win-win for the NCAA and NFL is also a winning proposition for the players and the fans, at least in this instance.

Unfortunately, there is a second component of the new procedure.  The NFL will now only grade five underclassmen per school.  This translates into players at talent-laden schools, such as LSU, who had six underclassmen declare in 2014, not receiving any guidance as to their draft stock.  Everyone, aside from the average twenty year old, knows that the average twenty year old does not have the optimal decision making process.  Asking an underclassman who has emptied himself physically, mentally, and emotionally to press pause and return to school with his NFL dream in sight is counter intuitive.  Deprived of an official evaluation players will listen to agents and friends for advice.

           The two round advisement is good but limiting the number of athletes who have access to that information is self-defeating.  Men who have watched their families struggle in order to support them are desperate to return the favor.  It is no rarity for a draftee to announce that his first NFL paycheck will pay family bills, buy mom a new house, or move his family to a better neighborhood.  Restricting information may lead to more gambling among underclassmen despite the best intentions of the NFL.

The Circle of LeBron

LeBron James is coming home.  The best basketball player on the planet has announced his return to the Cleveland Cavaliers.  An outcome that was unfathomable four years ago has become reality.  If you have not had the opportunity to read his letter, take a few minutes to do so.  His letter illustrates his maturation as a person.

Make no mistake this was the right basketball decision.  Kyrie Irving is an All-Star point guard, something James has never played with in the NBA.  Number one overall draft pick Andrew Wiggins is raw but skilled and last year’s number one pick, Anthony Bennett, struggles with conditioning but has undeniable skills.  Throw in Tristan Thompson and Anderson Varejao and Cleveland is one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

Then there is Kevin Love.  If Cleveland is able to trade for the most underrated and under appreciated talent in the NBA, they will be the best team in the Eastern Conference regardless of where Carmelo Anthony signs.  The new big three will take time to come together just as the South Beach trio did but once James, Love and Irving figure it out it will be dynamic.  Irving and Love have already given us a sample.

As entertaining as Uncle Drew and Wes are, James will still be the linchpin player.  Despite the perceived long odds to his return to Northern Ohio, and many were convinced it would never happen including this writer, it has become apparent that this narrative was inevitable.  American sports fans love two things, aside from dollar beer night and free giveaways.  Those two things are underdogs and comebacks.  James has never been an underdog.

However, this is his Simba moment.  Any number of books or movies fit the following analogy.  Perhaps a more academically inclined article would use Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage.  However, James was born in 1984, which means he was approximately ten years old when Disney’s The Lion King debuted in theaters.  There is no question he saw the movie.  Undoubtedly, he can identify with the cliché but apropos story arc.  The young prince, Simba, oozed promise but an ugly event derailed his storybook life.  Simba felt responsible for his father’s violent demise and James found himself saddled with fifty years of Rust Belt sports frustration.

Simba and James each spent time exiled in a tropical paradise where two new friends rebuilt the fallen king.  It is doubtful that Dewayne Wade and Chris Bosh like the equation to Timon and Pumbaa but such is life.  After a period, the child prodigy has become a man.  In The Lion King, his childhood friend Nala came to the jungle and convinced him to return home to restore the luster to a fallen kingdom.  Cavaliers’ Owner Dan Gilbert journeyed to Miami to the same effect.  (Is calling Gilbert a lioness worse than calling Wade and Bosh a meerkat and warthog?)  As it is a Disney movie, Simba becomes king of his homeland and restores luster to it.  Time will tell if King James can finish his story with the Larry O’Brien Trophy in Cleveland.

When List Making Goes Wrong

The NFL Network has revealed 90 of the top 100 players as voted on by the players.  At least NFL Network says the players voted.  As is the case every summer, some players have taken contention with the Top 100 list.  Donte Whitner, now of the Cleveland Browns, is among these players.  His tweets and comments are here.  Whitner feels that he is among the Top 100 players in the NFL.  His exclusion from the list serves as launching point into the flaws of the Top 100. 

Looking at the safeties ranked in the Top 100 does raise questions.  The list is as follows: Earl Thomas (17), Eric Berry (50), Troy Polamalu (61), Kam Chancellor (65), Antrel Rolle (72), T.J. Ward (82), and Eric Weddle (92).  Looking at raw statistics is a dicey approach as safeties are required to emphasis pass defense or stopping the run depending on scheme and team personnel.  That makes Pro Football Reference’s Approximate Value (AV) metric particularly useful.  The football junkies at Pro Football reference have boiled down the 2013 season’s stats and placed a value on each player that transcends raw statistical inequities as much as possible.

Based on the AV metric, where higher is better and the scale runs roughly from zero to 15, the rankings for safeties are flawed.  Listed in order with the AV value in parenthesis it should read, Thomas (11), Chancellor (11), Rolle (10), Ward (9), Berry (8), Polamalu (8), and Weddle (8). That shuffled line up should raise some eyebrows at NFL Network.

Whitner scored an AV of nine and his rookie teammate Eric Reid posted an AV of nine.  As a measuring stick for Whitner’s effect on his teammates, Dashon Goldson had an AV of ten in 2012 playing with Whitner but managed only a four this past season in Tampa Bay.  It seems safe to say that Berry and Polamalu have coasted on reputation and been ranked far too high.  Polamalu cannot claim to be raising his teammate’s performance either.  Ryan Clark posted an AV of six in 2013 after an eight in 2012.

To further, bolster Whitner’s claim that the voting not as advertised one only needs to look at J.J. Watt.  Watt came in as the 12^th player on the Top 100 list.  Meanwhile, Pro Football Focus graded him as the number one player in the NFL and it was not close.  Click to read how Watt almost broke the grading scale, again.  It is also worth perusing the most authoritative and credible ranking of NFL players based on the 2013 season.

 

              How does a player playing on an unseen level only merit the 12^th spot in the Top 100?  If the goal of the Top 100 was to generate debate and attention prior to training camps then the NFL Network deserves a pat on the back.  If the Top 100 list’s intent was credibility, then the NFL Network should save time and trees by ditching their balloting process.  A blindfolded, inebriated, primate flinging darts would be just as credible.