Baseball Nation: All Posts by Steven Goldman

Lou Gehrig, Steve Gleason and a timeless case of stupidity

2013-06-18T12:30:05Z

Stupidity is a timeless part of the human condition. Times change; stupidity remains the same. Witness the events of Monday, when three radio personalities associated with the morning radio show on 790 The Zone in Atlanta decided to do a humorless sketch mocking former New Orleans Saints player Steve Gleason, who is suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, more commonly known to Americans as Lou Gehrig's disease. They did not stop to think that this might be offensive to many, even those who, before that moment, might have had little or no awareness of Steve Gleason. They only knew that they had time to fill.

And so they plunged ahead and attempted to use ALS as a vehicle for -- what? It's clear listening to the bit that even they were uncomfortable with what they were doing. But if a blank page is oppressive to a writer, dead air is downright frightening to a radio man. There are broadcasters who fill those minutes intelligently and tastefully, regardless of how little material they might be supplied with at a given moment in time. Others, who can only supply "Mayhem in the AM," sacrifice credibility, dignity, and respect, both of self and of others, to the frantic attempt to gain and retain an audience. In that pursuit, anything is fair game, even the suffering of others.

This was hardly the first time someone in the media attempted to score points by attempting to capitalize on someone suffering from ALS. What the Atlanta hosts attempted to do by way of Steve Gleason, a New York newspaper columnist named Jimmy Powers tried to do to Lou Gehrig: bring notoriety to himself at the expense of a deeply ill man.

Everyone with the slightest knowledge of baseball or American culture knows the Lou Gehrig story: Herculean first baseman for the Yankees, never came out of the lineup, ultimately playing (with the help of a couple of dodgy now-you-see-him-now-you-don't appearances) in a record 2,130 straight games. In 1937, at 34 years old, he had a fairly typical Gehrig year, hitting .351/.473/.643 with 37 home runs. In 1938, he got off to a painfully slow start, and although his bat came around, his final numbers -- .295/.410/.523 with 29 home runs -- were soft by his high standards. There was no reason to think anything other than Gehrig was 35 and getting towards the end of things. Unfortunately, that assumption was correct, but not in the way they meant.

The next season, Gehrig could barely move around the infield, had difficulty doing simple physical tasks, and struggled to connect even with the straight fastballs of batting practice. On May 2, 1939, hitting just .143 in eight games and deeply shaken, he asked out of the lineup. It had been nearly 14 years since the Yankees had played a game without him.

You know the rest: Gehrig underwent a series of bewildering examinations to try to find out why he felt so weak, why a once-great athlete could no longer walk without dragging his feet. Finally, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota diagnosed Gehrig with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a degenerative disease affecting the motor neurons in the brain.

ALS is one of the more frightening afflictions that can beset a human being. The sufferer's consciousness is usually unaffected, and as the disease progresses he becomes entombed in his own body, ultimately losing the ability to walk, care for himself, or even speak. As James Lincoln Ray put it in his biography of Gehrig, "Patients are usually fully cognizant and coherent until the final weeks. They are condemned to witness their own slow demise. This was Lou Gehrig's fate, and he learned of it on his 36^th birthday."

That was June 19. Two days later, the Yankees held "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day." The Yankees reunited the 1927 lineup, and Gehrig and Babe Ruth, who had been estranged for years, embraced. Then Gehrig, overcome with emotion, made his famous statement, "Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break... Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."

Wikimedia Commons

The newsreels and "Pride of the Yankees" tastefully end there, but Gehrig went on, at least for a little while. Although there have been some long-lived ALS sufferers, such as the physicist Stephen Hawking, who has lived with the disease for approximately 50 years, an ALS diagnosis is very often a rapid death sentence. Gehrig passed away about two weeks shy of the second anniversary of his trip to the Mayo Clinic.

The point here is that ALS is not a disease to be taken lightly, not 74 years ago and not today. As with any degenerative disease, like Alzheimer's, or one with a debilitating progression, like cancer, it is in many ways as hard on the family as the patient, as they must watch their loved one slip away from them piece by piece until there is nothing left.

That doesn't mean that someone won't try to use it to score some easy points. In Gehrig's case, the opportunity for mischief arose from the manner in which his illness was disclosed. When his diagnosis was made public, the Mayo Clinic's press release put it this way: "After a careful and complete examination, it was found that he is suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. This type of illness involves the motor pathways and cells of the central nervous system and in lay terms is known as a form of chronic poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis)."

The analogy to polio might have confused some people. Though ALS is popularly known (if "popular" is the right word, as if some night "Family Feud" might put up a category like, "Ways to Die that Scare the Snot Out of You" and this year's Richard Dawson manqué will look up at the board and shout, "Do we have, ‘Being decapitated by driving into the back of a stopped tractor trailer, just like Jayne Mansfield?'") known in the United States as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," it isn't because he was the first case. The disease had been known since the mid-1800s, even if it wasn't (and isn't) well understood. Gehrig's was merely the most famous case to that point, the first to make the general public aware that this terrible fate could befall them. However, they did know polio quite well, and they understood that polio is communicable. Until the polio vaccine was developed in the 1950s, epidemics were routine.

A little knowledge, as they say, is a dangerous thing. Polio is a virus and thus can be transmitted from human to human. ALS arises from a chromosome malfunction, not from a virus or a bacteria, and thus, as far as is known, cannot be transmitted, except perhaps in the hereditary sense. That provides a bit of cover for what happened in 1940, though it does not excuse it.

Jimmy Powers was a longtime columnist for the New York Daily News. He wrote for them from 1928 through 1959, and, as an aside to those of us in the media who think we're special because we have managed to wrest for ourselves a little soapbox of our own, Powers' paper had a daily circulation of something like 3 million at its peak and he also did television work. He is not one of the 22 New York-based writers that have been honored with the BBWAA's J.G. Taylor Spink Award. There are no collections of his work today. The Library of America has not and will not be issuing a standard volume of his work to stand alongside their handsome editions of Ring Lardner, Red Smith, and A.J. Liebling. His one book, a collection of thrice-told anecdotes called Baseball Personalities, is long out of print. By the time he died, age the age of 92 in 1995, no one knew who the hell he was. He doesn't even have a bloody Wikipedia page. When Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg, "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here," he should have been talking about sportswriters.

On August 18, 1940, Powers had some inches to fill and a slumping team of Yankees to write about. The team, trying to win its fifth straight pennant, were just 57-53 and in fifth place, 10 games out. Here's how he chose to handle it: He attributed the team's poor showing to illness, with the Iron Horse serving as the vector.

The Yankees, who for the past four years have been one of the greatest baseball machines in history, and almost universally selected to win the pennant again, have collapsed.

Why?

Has the mysterious "polio" germ, which felled Lou Gehrig, also struck his former teammates, turning a once-great team into a floundering non-contender? According to overwhelming opinion of the medical profession, poliomyelitis, similar to infantile paralysis, is communicable. The Yanks were exposed to it at its most acute stage. They played with the afflicted Gehrig, dressed and undressed in the locker room with him, traveled, played cards and ate with him. Isn't it possible some of them also became infected?

It's hard to believe mere coincidence can explain away the whole failure of individuals. In Gehrig's case, one of the most prominent symptoms was loss of muscular power. The same symptom can be found in many of the Yanks today. So far no one has been able to advance a satisfactory reason for it.

Gehrig was appalled and filed suit for libel, as did Bill Dickey and other still-active players with the Yankees. Powers and the Daily News lawyers claimed they had been confused by the Mayo Clinic report inaccurately comparing ALS to poliomyelitis. It is not clear, all these years later, that if ALS was then understood to be distinct from polio, as it is now, why the Mayo Clinic worded its release the way it did; possibly something had been garbled in the communication between doctors and the public, and what had been intended was something along the lines of, "This type of illness involves the motor pathways and cells of the central nervous system and in lay terms [the effect is somewhat analogous to] chronic poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis)."

Either way, the Daily News published a retraction under the headline, "OUR APOLOGIES TO LOU GEHRIG AND THE YANKEES." Powers wrote that he should not have written about medical concepts of which he had no understanding. Gehrig kept up his suit, later settling out of court for $17,500. The Yankees, who were an old ballclub, not an ill one, had the best record in baseball from that point on, going on a 31-13 (.705) run to finish the season. They finished third place, just two games out of first in a tightly-bunched American League. The same group won the pennant again in 1941. And 1942. And 1943. Infantile paralysis indeed. In the end, germs didn't stop them, the U.S. Army did -- it took away Joe DiMaggio.

When Gehrig died, thousands mourned, either in person, at one of two public wakes held for him, or vicariously, the same way they did when he was alive and playing first for the Yankees. Steve Gleason is not Lou Gehrig, but he does not need to be. He only need be what he is -- a man coping bravely and publicly with a very serious illness, and doing his best, as he indicated in the column that began all this idiocy, to turn a grave disease into a chronic condition. We can only wish him success in this endeavor, and hope that, like Stephen Hawking, even if ALS makes his remaining years ones of hardship, that there are many of them, that he is able to enjoy the love of his friends, family, and fans, and that, if the disease does eventually claim him, it is in the fullness of time, so long from now that it truthfully cannot be said that he was cheated of even a single moment.

As for the now-unemployed Atlanta radio personalities, I end where I began: their ignorant escapades remind me of Jimmy Powers, only they had less excuse than he did. More than that, they remind me of Jimmy Powers' fate. I note that in the many articles describing their antics on this day, few of them bother to identify them by name. They are only "the three individuals involved." Their names aren't important, and no one cares to investigate further.

Sources for this article include the aforementioned SABR biography, by James Lincoln Ray; Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time, by Ray Robinson; and Luckiest Man, by Jonathan Eig.

More from SB Nation:

• Is Yasiel Puig's MLB start the best ever?

• Neyer: Rays summon Wil Myers ... just in time

• Kershaw, Dodgers 'making progress' on extension

• Rays’ Cobb hit in head, suffers "mild concussion"

• Succeeding without "stuff": Learning from plodding pitchers

• Longform: The prospect who lied to play ball

MLB suspensions: 10 games seems like little, but is actually a lot

2013-06-14T21:54:40Z

On Friday, Major League Baseball announced suspensions and fines relating to the brawl between the Diamondbacks and Dodgers that took place on Tuesday at Dodger Stadium. The most severe punishment, 10 games, was meted out to Diamondbacks pitcher Ian Kennedy, "or intentionally throwing a pitch in the head area of Zack Greinke of the Dodgers in the bottom of the seventh inning, after a warning had already been issued to both Clubs earlier in the game." Baseball punishments generally rely on precedent, and in this case the precedents seem to be mostly inadequate.

I did a quick search for some notable incidents involving on-field fighting and found that while penalties in the days before the players unionized could be severe, generally the approach since has been gentle. Now, this was hardly a systematic search, and perhaps you might recall some examples that deviate from the norm, but on the whole Baseball has gone with the slap on the wrist approach:

On July 4, 1932, Yankees catcher Bill Dickey was suspended indefinitely after he broke Washington Senators outfielder Carl Reynolds' jaw with a punch. There had been a lot of hostility between the Senators and the Yankees. There was a close play at the plate, and Dickey momentarily lost track of Reynolds. He heard motion behind him and thought Dickey was about to attack him, so he jumped up and punched Reynolds before Reynolds could punch him. We'll never know what Reynolds' real intentions were, but the contemporary accounts suggest he was just getting to his feet. Reynolds spent the next month eating through a straw and at one point nearly choked to death on his own vomit, because with your mouth wired shut you really can't get out of the way of that sort of thing. Dickey's suspension was clarified to 30 days and a $1000 fine, which was actually a significant chunk of his year's salary.

That was in the days before the Players Association. Before we skip forward to a sampling of more recent incidents, note that any suspensions at all actually represent a heavier punishment than was typically issued in earlier days. The Dickey incident was an outlier -- for example, a 1973 brawl between the Yankees and Red Sox that began when Carlton Fisk collided with Thurman Munson on an attempted squeeze play was met with only fines. Nor can I find a record of suspensions being issued in the aftermath of the Yankees-Red Sox brawl on May 20, 1976 that resulted in pitcher Bill Lee suffering a separated pitching shoulder.

On March 30, 1993, Cleveland Indians pitcher Jose Mesa gave up consecutive home runs to Barry Larkin and Chris Sabo, then threw behind Hal Morris's head. Morris charged the mound and tackled Mesa, separating his shoulder in the process. Both Morris and Mesa were fined and suspended three games of the regular season. Since Morris was going to be out for four-to-six weeks, his suspension was slated to being with his second game after being activated.

In the third inning of the April 15, 1998 game between the Mariners and the Indians at Jacobs Field, Randy Johnson threw at Kenny Lofton's head. Lofton walked out towards the mound and the benches cleared. Indians catcher Sandy Alomar got between the two players and tensions were eventually defused. Lofton took his place in the box, Johnson returned to the mound... and he threw another pitch at Lofton's head. The benches cleared again. This time, Johnson, Lofton, and Alomar were ejected. I can't find video of the incident, so I don't know why Alomar was ejected, but I would like to think that he was extra-violent because Johnson showed him up by restarting the fight after he had talked Lofton down. "Hey, be cool. I know this cat. He's all right, seriously... What? Make me out to be a liar, will you?" Anyway, Johnson got three games.

Armando Benitez of the Orioles ignited a massive fight at Yankee Stadium on May 19, 1998 when he hit Tino Martinez with a pitch. Five players were suspended, with Benitez getting the most severe penalty, eight games. In yet another incident that year, nine players were suspended between one and fivegames and both managers suspended eight games each for a fight between the Angels and Royals in late May. The game featured two brawls, five hit batters, and 12 ejections.

On April 22, 2000, the White Sox and Tigers fought at Comiskey Field when Sox starting pitcher Jim Parque hit Tigers third baseman Dean Palmer in the seventh to start things off, but there were two fights, the second coming with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and 11 ejections. Tigers pitcher Jeff Weaver hit Carlos Lee in the sixth inning. That may or may not have been intentional, but Palmer perceived the Parque pitch to be intentional. Five Tigers were ejected: Palmer, Weaver, Doug Brocail, Rob Fick and Danny Patterson. The White Sox had six players bounced: Manager Jerry Manuel, coach Joe Nossek, Bob Howry, Bill Simas, Tanyon Sturtze, and Magglio Ordonez. Parque was not among those ejected because Palmer rushed the mound whereas Parque did not leave his position. Ordonez was ejected for kicking.

In the aftermath of the game there were 16 suspensions. Tigers manager Phil Garner and White Sox manager Manuel were suspended for eight games each. Tigers coach Juan Samuel was suspended 15 games for throwing punches during the fight. Ordonez got five games, Parque three, Howry (who hit a batter to start the second fight) three, Keith Foulke (who exited the fight with a bloody gash under one eye) three, Sturtze three, and Lee three. Palmer was hit with an eight-game suspension for charging the mound. Note that players and coaches are not covered by the Players Association and therefore MLB can treat them as it wishes.

During spring training in 2003, Dodgers pitcher Guillermo Mota hit Mets catcher Mike Piazza. Piazza not only charged the mound, but also sought out Mota after the game. They each were suspended five games. The famous Alex Rodriguez-Jason Varitek fight of July, 2004 resulted in suspensions of four games for each of the combatant, and three-game suspensions for Tanyon Sturtze, Gabe Kapler, and Trot Nixon.

Finally, almost three years ago, on August 10, 2010, a brawl erupted between the Reds and Cardinals after Brandon Phillips and Yadier Molina exchanged harsh words. During the fight, Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto kicked Cardinals utilityman Jason LaRue in the head, giving him a concussion. Oddly, only managers Dusty Baker and Tony La Russa were ejected. Cueto was suspended for just seven games.

Your browser does not support iframes.

In summary, 10 games, tantamount to two starts, hardly seems like an adequate response to buzzing a pitch at a batter's head given the possible risks involved, but MLB has generally done far less.

More from SB Nation:

• MLB trade rumors: Who's buying and who's selling?

• Cougars love David Wright

• Jonny Gomes will fight you if you bunt

• Tim Tebow ... baseball player?

• Succeeding without "stuff": Learning from plodding pitchers

• Longform: The prospect who lied to play ball

Baseball thinks your bladder is failing

2013-06-14T16:38:04Z

There was a time when I was in my 20s and the Internet was not the resource it is now that I was still in the habit of watching the evening news on one of the three major networks, as had been the tradition in American homes going to the 1950s.

I knew I was acting out of my demographic doing this, because of a quiet tug of war I would fight with my college roommate over the one television we had in our dorm room. We both tended to get back from classes at roughly the same time on most days. If I got back first, I would claim the TV and watch the evening news. If he and his girlfriend got back first, they would watch a "Cheers" repeat. I've never been one to just watch the television if I didn't have a specific reason to be watching it, so if they got their choice, I would read or do my homework or pursue some other activity, whereas if they found me watching the news, they would settle in and watch, partially because they just liked being anesthetized by the screen, partially so they were poised, vulture-like, to claim the box once I was done.

One day, as the news was going on, my roommate's girlfriend raised her hand to ask me a question. "Yes, Simone?"

"Who is that guy who is always on TV?"

"That's the president, Simone."

So, I had the sense that I was out of step, though that was nothing new. This was driven home for me in the mid-1990s when the commercials on the evening news began to skew older, I mean way older. Every ad was about coloring the grey out of your hair or regrowing hair that wasn't there at all anymore, correcting erectile dysfunction, signing up for end-of-life care or insurance, and padding your underwear in case of incontinence. It was easy to get the sense that the networks' research suggested that the age of the average viewer was about 75. This may have been accurate, but the cumulative weight of the messages was a tremendous turn-off and undoubtedly contributed to my decision to, well, turn it off and get my news by other means.

Baseball is getting to that point. Keep in mind that as a two-time cancer survivor, I'm a bit sensitive to reminders of my condition at otherwise innocuous moments. I spend quite enough time thinking about tumors and the risk of metastatic disease to want to have the subject placed in front of me during the half-dozen pitching changes that typically take up the last three innings of a ballgame. Yet, in my area of the country, the New York City metro region, commercials involving death, disease, decay, and mortality far outnumber those for Budweiser.

The proliferation began with the Michael Bloomberg administration's war on smoking, a laudable cause but one which nonetheless does not require plastering every change of sides with images of diseased lungs, people who have lost limbs due to circulatory illness, and testimonials from people who speak through a hole in their throats. It rapidly expanded to a series of commercials for hospitals that includes narratives of near-death experiences, concluding with the tagline, "St. Ralph's Hospital didn't just give me back my life, it gave back the life I love to live."

I was a 46-year-old woman in Olympic-level condition. I was getting ready to run my third triathlon of the week when I felt a sudden explosion about midway up my abdomen. It turned out I had suffered from SPD, spontaneous bladder decompression. My kidneys stopped working and my heart exploded -- total myocardial infarction. I was in a coma for three days. I was taken to St. Ralph's, and they did something with a machine that has these spoon attachments and I woke up just fine, in fact, I'm in better shape than when I was in college. They didn't just give me back my life... they gave me back the life I love to live.

First of all, unless you were suicidal before you nearly checked out, I assume that this is the life you love to live. Second, as a non-triathlete likely sitting on my couch for the fourth hour of the evening and possibly polishing off a pint of Ben & Jerry's, I don't need to know that even people in great condition have massive heart attacks. It's kind of a buzz-kill, you know? More to the point, I have never understood the purpose of such ads. I've had enough unplanned medical procedures to know that they don't usually arise through choice. That is, your doctor says, "Son, our tests show you need a headectomy." Maybe you do a little shopping at that point just to make sure the surgeon he recommends doesn't have any drunk driving conditions or the hospital he's affiliated with doesn't have a history of hiring killer nurses or consistently removing the wrong leg during amputations, but you basically do what's directed so you can get the cancer out or the bone braced or the tear repaired.

For something with a longer time frame, a problem that you can get corrected next week or next month without altering the outcome, you might shop around a little bit more, but you're not going to sit around and wait to be persuaded by advertising. You're going to go with the provider who has the best record you can find, not the one with the best commercial. Besides, in that situation you really have to hope that a hospitals ability to resuscitate the nearly dead isn't going to have any relevance to someone going in to have their hernia tucked in.

You may like or dislike Obamacare, but regardless of your side in that debate, it seems clear that an incontrovertible indicator that our national health care system is screwed up is that hospitals have the disposable income to run ads like these during baseball games.

More than that, though, so much morbidity just detracts from the joy of watching the game. Even though my job requires me to spend a lot of time consuming sports on television, when I do so I try to maximize my time, ignoring the commercials to read something useful or work on my next column. Still, the constant drumbeat of death tends to break through the barriers I have put up; even if I mute the sound, the picture of a blackened lung still somehow catches my eye at least once a game.

Broadcasters, including team sports networks, want to make every dollar they can. Still, we know that there are ads that they will turn down. Even if you have the cash to run a promotion with an explicitly political viewpoint, they might eschew the spot. Similarly, teams would not want their brands associated with pornography or other materials that their fans might find distasteful. Somehow, though, death is an acceptable option. If you think about it, though, these commercials are the ultimate pornography. If porn is material without artistic merit that exploits our base instincts, what could be more base than the fear of dying? In America, dying is more socially acceptable thing to do than acknowledging sex, so the existence of these ads rather than those for the Internet's most prolific genre is not unexpected, but really the difference is only one of perception.

In the end, these ads may say more about what Major League Baseball and its advertisers think of as baseball's main demographic. If they thought the game's audience was made up of vital 18-year-olds, we'd be seeing commercials that matched their interests, not those that sought customers in the market for a good brain tumor therapy.

When I was a kid, every Yankees home run came with a beer commercial. As soon as the ball went over the wall, Bill White would joyously intone, "Hey, Don Mattingly! This Bud's for you!" Now it seems like, "Hey, Robinson Cano! Your bile ducts are clogged!" would be more appropriate. Is that really the kind of association Baseball wants to promote?

Trade-deadline buyers and sellers part 1: Catcher and first base

2013-06-14T13:00:07Z

The trade deadline has existed since 1923. The year before, the Yankees and the Giants were in tight pennant races with the two St. Louis teams, the Browns and Cardinals, respectively. Looking for an edge, the Yankees exploited their close relationship with Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee to replace their fading third baseman, future Hall of Famer Home Run Baker, with the more sprightly Jumping Joe Dugan. The Giants also made a trade with their Boston counterparts, sending three players and $100,000 to the Braves for starting pitcher Hugh McQuillan.

Both moves were looked on as terribly unsporting. In those days, teams largely did their trading in the offseason and then played the hand they had dealt themselves, not trying to overturn the winter's verdict with fresh faces. That there was something unseemly about the Yankees-Red Sox relationship (Dugan was approximately the 432^nd player the Yankees had taken from the Red Sox, a chain that began with Babe Ruth) no doubt entered into the bad feeling as well. Things actually got violent for the Yankees when they next played in St. Louis, with center fielder Whitey Whitt getting knocked out by a bottle to the head.

Both New York teams won the pennant, the Yankees by only one game, and that increased the bad feelings around the deals (that neither of the acquired players was all that good seems not to have entered into it). At that point, Commissioner Landis created the first trade deadline, June 15.

Today, the non-waiver trade deadline is set for July 31. The later cutoff is meant to give teams more time to improve themselves, but it actually diminishes the value of a deal: the later a team gets a player, the less time that player has to impact the pennant race. Just to pick one example, by the time the Angels picked up Zack Greinke last July 27, they already had 100 games in the books. One-third of a season isn't much time for even the best players to do much.

Still, teams are hesitant to jump out early, waiting for problems to resolve themselves with the tools on hand or hoping that their position in or out of the pennant race will become clearer. The second wild card has made this process of self-assessment harder than it ever was. Right now, there are four teams in the AL within six games of the wild card leaders (the Rangers and Yankees) and two in the National League (the Reds and Pirates). It's not too early for those teams to consider themselves solidly in it or the rest of the teams, the 15 with less than a 40-percent chance of making the postseason to cut their losses. What follows is the first of a three-part position-by-position look at what the contenders might need and who might have the depth to make a deal. The conversation may be premature by the standards of the trade deadline, but not for those teams truly wanting to recast their fates.

USA TODAY Sports

Catcher
Possible Buyers: Tigers (.210/.286/.328), Reds (.196/.298/.284), Yankees (.248/.311/.361)
Possible Sellers: Braves (Brian McCann), Mets (John Buck), Twins (Joe Mauer)

Alex Avila seemed to establish himself as a force behind the plate with his .295/.389/.506 season in 2011. The power and 50 points of batting average vanished last year, but 61 walks in 116 games meant that Avila was still contributing. Now everything is gone and shows no signs of coming back. Reserve Brayan Pena has hit well but there's probably not much more where that came from. The Tigers have a few interesting backstops in the minors (James McCann, Ramon Cabrera, Bryan Holaday), but none of them look like they'll hit much -- though, they might hit better than that. The club may be more focused on a closer given the adventures they've had in the late innings, but an upgrade at catcher might actually pay dividends in both regards -- more offense means fewer close games.

The Reds have received the second-worst production in the majors from their catchers. They have two perfectly serviceable players in Ryan Hanigan and Devin Mesoraco, but the former has been in a season-long slump, perhaps due to injuries. Mesoraco, who hit .289/.371/.484 at Triple-A in 2011, was considered a top prospect as recently as last year, but Dusty Baker has shown little interest in playing him, giving him as many as three consecutive starts just once this year. Even when Hanigan was out, Mesoraco was frequently benched for sub-journeyman Corky Miller, a career .187 hitter. Walt Jocketty has never been shy about making moves, and the Reds have good pitching depth in the minors, so a deal is always a possibility.

The Yankees have gotten good results out of Chris Stewart, who at .282/.336/.369 is hitting at the top of his range. That's not a lot, but with his pitch-framing skills he makes a contribution. The same can't be said about rookie reserve Austin Romine, but Francisco Cervelli is expected back off the disabled list at the end of the month -- assuming the Biogenesis monster doesn't eat him first. Yankees ownership has seen what fielding a lackluster lineup has done to their teams marketability, and while the Yankees may have a long-term solution at catcher in High-A backstop Gary Sanchez, if the Steinbrenners free Brian Cashman's hands, this may be one place the Yankees can make a high-impact deal.

Normally you wouldn't expect a contender to dump a player at the deadline, but Brian McCann is going to be a free agent at the end of the season and even though Evan Gattis's on-base skills might be found wanting over the remainder of the season, he's hit well enough to make the gamble worthwhile if the team could get a good return on a McCann rent-to-buy. What makes a deal hard to predict is the team's roster. The Braves certainly have needs, but they're also locked into most of their players, for good or ill. With Eric O'Flaherty and Jonny Venters both Tommy John cases, you could make an argument that they could use another veteran lefty in the bullpen, but it's not (or shouldn't be) a bleeding need with Luis Avilan and Alex Wood in the majors. Alternatively, the Braves don't have to trade for need -- they might be the rare contender that can add to its prospect depth by dealing off a veteran in the midst of a pennant race.

The Mets, going nowhere in a hurry, have a veteran to deal in ol' John Buck, a free agent at the end of the season. John Buck hit 10 home runs in his first 25 games, hitting .263/.294/.611 along the way. Since then, he's hit .175/.259/.227 with one home run in 108 plate appearances, and one gets the sense his persistence in the lineup is largely due to Travis d'Arnaud being hurt. Buck isn't much of a hitter, but with .234/.301/.406 career rates, he could be an offensive upgrade for a team in even worse straits. It seems doubtful he would bring much. D'Arnaud is recovering slowly from a broken foot, but at some point in July he should make Buck's expendability a practical reality.

I include Twins face-of-the-franchise Joe Mauer here just to honor the annual discussion as to whether the Twins should attempt to push their rebuilding along by dealing their batting title-winning catcher. Given Mauer's full no-trade protection and the $23 million he's owed annually from now until through 2018, the point is probably moot.

USA TODAY Sports

First Base-Designated Hitter
Possible Buyers: Rays, Tigers, Orioles.
Possible Sellers: Blue Jays, Mariners
It's hard to be a contender without decent production at first base (it happens, of course, but it's much easier to get your production from the traditional spots), so the teams at the top of the standings are either taken care of in that department, have players returning from injury (the Yankees with Mark Teixeira), or players that promise to be better in the future (the Giants, say, with Brandon Belt). The average big-league gatekeeper is hitting .264/339/.439. Until Brandon Moss's recent surge the A's were a little below that mark, but with Moss hitting three home runs in his last two starts and platoon partner Nate Freiman chipping in a few singles, that's no longer true.

Rather than consider first base in a vacuum, let's also consider designated hitter as part of the equation. Several contenders have gotten surprisingly little from their various DH-men, including the Tigers (.243/.294/.358, primarily from Victor Martinez), the Rays (.183/.293/.322 from Luke Scott and assorted others), and the Orioles, who at .181/.254/.354 have had the worst output on the circuit. In this regard they have been greatly aided, if that's the word, by Steve Pearce and Nolan Reimold, who have combined to hit .152 with four home runs in the role. Reimold is on the disabled list with a strained hamstring, but is expected to go on a rehab assignment soon, so... hooray? V-Mart has heated up a bit recently and is signed through next year, so the Tigers will probably continue to give him rope. The Rays should soon have their outfield-DH situation crowded by Wil Myers, so they might not be in any rush to upgrade either.

Still, if the Blue Jays stay out of it they will have an interesting choice to make with Adam Lind. After three years at roughly the same level (.246/.296/.428 overall), Lind is hitting again, carrying .3445/.418/.540 rates into Thursday. He's added a new selectivity to his repertoire -- last year he took 29 walks in 353 plate appearances; this year he has 23 in 189. His services are under club option for the next three years at relatively low prices -- for example, next year, he has a $7 million option or a $2 million buyout. Getting a 900 OPS for a marginal cost of $5 million is something of a no-brainer, but if you're the Jays, do you bet on the player showing consistency at this high level when he's never shown any at all throughout his career, or do you try to cash in by flipping him?

Mariners first baseman/designated hitter Kendrys Morales will be a free agent at the end of the season. At .292/.351/.465 he could be dangled for the pitching or offensive depth the Mariners need.

Next: The rest of the infield.

More from SB Nation:

• How much security at the ballpark is enough?

• Tim Tebow ... baseball player?

• Robot helps teen toss first pitch

• Hot Brawl Time Machine: McGwire, Williams scrap | Reactions

• Succeeding without "stuff": Learning from plodding pitchers

• Longform: The prospect who lied to play ball

Report: Florida judge declines to toss Biogenesis suit

2013-06-12T21:00:13Z

According to a report on ESPN, on Wednesday a Miami-Dade County Circuit Court judge elected not to dismiss the lawsuit Major League Baseball had filed against Tony Bosch and other figures associated with the Biogenesis clinic.

This is significant in that the existence of the lawsuit has provided baseball with a tool by which they can try to force reluctant witnesses -- like Bosch himself -- to provide testimony against players such as Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun. Reportedly, part of MLB's incentives to get Bosch to cooperate was a promise to drop the lawsuit.

What's fascinating about this latest development is not just that MLB gets to retain its hold over Bosch, but that a judge feels that its novel legal strategy of suing on the basis of "intentional and unjustified tortious interference" has at least enough merit to let the lawsuit go forward. Tortious interference is the legal term for when a person who is not a party to a contract does something that induces one of the parties to breach that contract. In concluding the Joint Drug Agreement the Players Association and Major League Baseball made a contract to keep the game free of certain prohibited substances. According to MLB's reasoning, Bosch, in (allegedly) supplying the players with those substances, caused them to breach the JDA.

There's a lot here for the non-lawyer to grapple with. Typically, a tortious interference claim might arise from one company hiring away another's employee by offering them more money, or from someone dropping out of an agreement as the result of receiving a better offer -- I agree to sell Marc Normandin my mint copy of "Adolescent Hormonal Boxer Rabbits #1" for $10. We shake on it, but then Rob Neyer appears and offers me $15 for it, so I flip Marc the bird and give the funny-book to Rob. At that point, Marc could sue me for breach of contract and Rob for tortious interference, since he provided the incentive for me to break the contract.

What's less clear is a situation in which two parties have a contract not to do something, but then one party goes ahead and does it anyway, if a third party can be blamed for giving them the tools by which they broke the agreement. Alex Rodriguez agrees in his contract to keep himself in game shape. He then goes off to Home Depot and purchases some electric hedge clippers and amputates one of his fingers (Bobby Ojeda actually did this during the 1988 season). Is Home Depot guilty of TI? Better yet, Alex Rodriguez agrees as part of his contract not to undertake hazardous activities like brahma bull riding. The operator of Miami's "Bob's House of Brahma Bulls" franchise knows this to be the case, yet welcomes in A-Rod for a bull ride. The bull then tramples A-Rod into tiny smithereens. Can MLB sue Bob? And the bull?

Also: How long of a tasteful wait would the Yankees observe before throwing a party? I would take the under on .2 nanoseconds.

We may never find out, because MLB's real interest here seems to have been in compelling the witnesses -- with the company's deep pockets, it could fight this lawsuit beyond the Supreme Court to some intergalactic tribunal as yet undreamt of, whereas Bosch and pals don't have any money to speak of. As the attorney for one of the defendants said of his client earlier this week, "He is a broke, broke, broke little nothing individual." Once MLB has obtained the result it wants, something it seems well on its way to doing, it will have lost all incentive to pursue the suit, assuming they don't want to see this strategy vindicated so it can be put in a "break glass in case of juicing" box to be pulled out whenever the next rogue clinic pops up.

As such, this story is merely a way-station on the road to the suspensions that Commissioner Bud Selig apparently so desperately wants. The courts have decided not to deprive him of his best tool. Perhaps some higher-level court will, but by then it may be too late for Braun, Rodriguez and company.

More from SB Nation:

• Hot Brawl Time Machine: McGwire, Williams scrap | Reactions

• Gerrit Cole's big-league debut a success

• 2014 MLB season will open in Australia

• Do doctors belong in the Hall of Fame?

• Succeeding without "stuff": Learning from plodding pitchers

• Longform: The prospect who lied to play ball

The Dodgers win the night, but Alan Trammell won the 80s

2013-06-12T16:34:11Z

This morning, my old Baseball Prospectus colleague Jason Parks tweeted this item regarding Zack Greinke:

I asked a FO source about Greinke: "Really good pitcher. Would welcome him on my team. But he's a total punk and I can't stand him." #want
— Jason Parks (@ProfessorParks) June 12, 2013

One of baseball’s great truisms was uttered by Dodgers manager Leo Durocher (more or less, he didn’t quite say it the way it was reported) circa 1948: "Nice guys finish last." Some of baseball’s greatest stars have been true S.O.B.s. Ty Cobb was pathological, Ted Williams was more interested in hitting and marlin fishing than human contact, and when you hear Tim McCarver tell one of his countless Bob Gibson anecdotes, you get the sense that he loved Gibson a lot more than Gibson liked him (broken parallel intentional).

Meanwhile, Don Mattingly, New York’s Donnie Baseball, who has never been accused of anything more offensive than nose hair, is a perennial also-ran. He failed to make the playoffs in his prime, and when, in the dregs of his career, the Yankees got good again and he finally got to the postseason, he did himself proud by hitting .415 and driving in six runs in five games -- and yet, his team was denied. He joined the Yankees as hitting coach, hitched his star to Joe Torre’s just as the older man’s career was fading, and then inherited the Dodgers in their most confused and dysfunctional period since the 1930s, when the team was split evenly between two feuding ownership factors and Wilbert Robinson, the manager and team president, couldn’t use his office because one of the partners lurked outside each morning waiting to thrash him with his colostomy bag.

There have been times this season when Don Mattingly called out his team, but it came across as petulant, not peremptory. The man who George Steinbrenner once derided as "Jack Armstrong from Evansville, Indiana," doesn’t do bitterness well, and it’s saddening to think that this year’s Dodgers might be teaching him how. And yet, if Durocher was right, then Mattingly needs to learn. No one asked you to be a manager, to get down in the dirt, but if you’re going to do it right, you can’t be a tourist. In this regard, a player like Greinke, "total punk," or not, wouldn’t be a bad role model to have.

For Dodgers conversation so blue it would impress Muddy Waters, visit True Blue LA

The tweet above was no doubt solicited in reaction to Tuesday night’s brawl with the Diamondbacks, and its assessment may or may not be true, but it doesn’t change anything about who initiated the fight. Ian Kennedy of the Diamondbacks threw up and in to Yasiel Puig in the bottom of the sixth and hit him in the face. Greinke retaliated by hitting Miguel Montero in the back to lead off the top of the seventh. That should have been the end of it, but Kennedy escalated by buzzing Greinke’s head in the bottom of the frame. Given that Kennedy had already demonstrated that his control is no longer fine enough that he can pitch in the region of the head without risking homicide, this was a decidedly irresponsible gesture for which he was ejected and will properly be disciplined by Major League Baseball (though possibly not disciplined properly, which is a separate matter).

Yet, some things don’t change. Don Mattingly’s son Preston tweeted this in the game’s aftermath:

This video of my dad throwing down Alan Trammell like a rag doll gets me so hype!!!!i.imgur.com/Iqa0DRE.gif
— Preston Mattingly (@Pmoney30) June 12, 2013

Well, great, but here's the thing: Alan Trammell hit .450 with two home runs in the 1984 World Series and personally knocked the Yankees out of a couple of pennant races. I will never forget the three-game series played between the Yankees and Tigers at Detroit from June 20-June 22, 1988. The Yankees came in leading the division by half a game. The first game went to extra innings tied 1-1. Cecilio Guante pitched a scoreless ninth for the Yankees and manager Billy Martin left him in for the tenth. With one out, Tom Brookens hit a walk-off home run. The next day, the Yankees took a 6-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth. Neil Allen allowed the first two batters to reach, and Martin brought in closer Dave Righetti. Rags got two outs, then loaded the bases. Consecutive walks forced in two runs and brought Trammell to the plate. Martin went for Guante again. Cue the walk-off grand slam.

The next day the Yankees looked broken. The third game was tied going to the bottom of the 10^th. The Tigers won that one too, though they walked off on a Luis Salazar single, not a home run. Martin was fired for the final time. The Yankees went back into first place about a month later, but you knew it was a tease. An era was over. Mattingly's team was done until the mid-90s, and so too was he -- his back had already begun to erode his power and would destroy him almost completely within a couple of years. Meanwhile, Trammell would go to the postseason again in 1987, missed getting there by one game in '88, and will make the Hall of Fame someday, even if the voters are presently being obtuse about it.

As such, throwing him to the ground seems like it falls short of evening things out.

Stephen Dunn

For one night, the Dodgers were in the right. Kennedy did something unconscionable. Greinke may or may not be a punk, but the epithet seems irrelevant. The Diamondbacks are still in first place, the Dodgers are still in last place. The moral victory is secured to punk and failing manager alike. The true winning awaits, as it has for about 30 years.

More from SB Nation:

• Hot Brawl Time Machine: McGwire, Williams scrap | Reactions

• Gerrit Cole's big-league debut a success

• 2014 MLB season will open in Australia

• Do doctors belong in the Hall of Fame?

• Succeeding without "stuff": Learning from plodding pitchers

• Longform: The prospect who lied to play ball

Yankees vs. Athletics Q & A with Alex Hall of Athletics Nation

2013-06-12T00:00:06Z

1. Because of "Moneyball," there always seems to be the perception that the A's win through some kind of sleight of hand -- a trick. It seems to me, though, that this team has won by virtue of a very unmystical emphasis on players that, looked at on some other team's depth chart, might always have been their second or third choice for a position, but put them together on one roster and they make a very competitive team. Is that a correct way of appraising the way this roster has been constructed?

It's easy to mistake Billy Beane's strategies for sleight of hand, because the reality is that he has to find different ways to win than many other GM's. Everyone knows that you want a 30-homer slugger in the middle of your lineup and an ace starter at the top of your rotation, but the A's can't go out and sign those guys so Beane has to find a different way to get that production. What he excels at (and stop me if you've heard this one before) is identifying players whose strengths have been overlooked by other teams. In Moneyball, those were the players with low batting averages and high OBP's, because they still got on base and scored runs. In 2012 and 2013, it's been platoon players (Seth Smith, Jonny Gomes, Nate Freiman, John Jaso, etc.) and soft-tossing control specialists (Tommy Milone, A.J. Griffin, Bartolo Colon). Beane can't afford a 30-homer slugger, but he can get a guy who hits 15 in a half-season vs LHP and another guy who hits 15 in a half-season vs RHP and still end up with about the same level of production. He can't afford a Sabathia or a Verlander or a Price; pitchers like Milone and Colon aren't as flashy, but at the end of the day you look at the box score and they've thrown seven innings with two runs because they didn't issue a bunch of free baserunners.

Another important characteristic about Oakland's current roster is its depth. After years of watching the team get decimated by injuries to key players, Beane has loaded up his roster with enough solid players that there is rarely a gaping hole at any position. We have joked on Athletics Nation that the new Moneyball is "Stuff Happens," meaning that you can't predict who will get hurt so you should have as many contingency plans as possible. One way that Oakland has achieved this is by (as you mentioned in your question) loading up on merely "good" players rather than going all-in on a couple of superstar players; by refusing to put all of his eggs in one basket, he isn't in a situation where the whole season will be tanked if the star hitter gets hurt or slumps. Similarly, he doesn''t build a 5-man rotation; he builds a 162-game rotation. If you begin the season with only 5 good starters, then you're probably going to be scrambling for pitching help by midseason. Beane likes to have 7 or 8 good starters in April, so that he can withstand the inevitable injuries. What if the A's hadn't re-signed Bartolo Colon to the already-crowded rotation last winter? They'd either be rolling with an ineffective fill-in, or rushing top prospect Sonny Gray to the Majors. As it is, stuff happened and A's fans are now thankful that Colon is on board.

Another Stuff Happens method involves defensive versatility. Most of the guys on the roster can play multiple positions - a great example of this came a couple of weeks ago when starting first baseman Brandon Moss (an outfielder for most of his career) played half a game in center field because the four other capable center fielders on the roster were all out for one reason or other. The A's aren't finding themselves in positions where they have to play Vernon Wells at 3rd or Lyle Overbay in right.

So no, there's nothing mystical about what Beane is doing, it's just creative. He's still going after power and patience and good pitching, just like any other GM would be. He just has to find other ways to get those 30 homers in the #3 spot - complementary platoon players, an unproven international free agent, etc. And young pitching. Always with the young pitching.

2. Jed Lowrie has always been a bit of a mystery to me. He's been a shortstop who can't play short, a SHINO (Switch-Hitter In Name Only) who struggles from the right side of the plate, and of course he's been very fragile. He seems to have reversed some of those qualities with the A's, and it's hard to argue that he hasn't been a plus at the plate. The defensive metrics still don't like him though, with the result that the total package would seem to have been barely above replacement level. What's his real value been?

Lowrie has been absolutely fantastic. Remember that last year, Oakland got nothing out of its middle infield except for solid defense from Cliff Pennington. Jemile Weeks was useless on both sides of the ball, Stephen Drew was underwhelming, and Pennington is one of the worst hitters in baseball. So despite Lowrie's defensive deficiencies, the simple fact that he's been a great hitter at a traditionally weak-hitting position has been a huge boost for Oakland. He's also started to get more playing time at second base (with Adam Rosales at short), and he doesn't look quite as bad there.

Overall, Lowrie has been worth about one win already this year despite his awful defense. That should suggest to you just how valuable his bat has been. He's unlikely to hit .300 all year, but his plate discipline is fantastic and he sprays line drives all over the field. There's no reason why this couldn't be a career year for him if he can stay on the field for 140 games. He was a crucial acquisition and might end up as Oakland's All-Star rep.

3. As of August 31 last year, Josh Reddick was hitting .262/.327/.505. From September 1 until today he's hit .177/.252/.297 in about 280 plate appearances. I know he's had some wrist problems, but is that the whole story?

Josh Reddick is a fascinating player. He showed up last year as a complete unknown, and ended up as one of the most complete players on the team. We saw both sides of his Jekyll & Hyde offensive profile last year: the great power stroke which can punish mistake pitches, and the overly-aggressive hacker who can be beaten with the right assortment of breaking balls.

At the end of last season, I think the league simply figured him out. He swung at everything, and you just didn't need to give in to him to get him out. He seems to have changed his approach this year, though, and I think that he was doing a bit of "learning on the job" in April. He's swinging less than ever, and is doing a better job at laying off pitches out of the zone...but it's also coming at the expense of passing on some hittable pitches, too. His vastly improved K and BB numbers suggest that he's on the right track, but he needs to balance that patience with the ability to identify the pitch he's looking for and take advantage of it. I also think that some of his early-struggles were related to the wrist injury, but that's just my speculation.

Since his return from the DL, though, Reddick seems to have righted the ship. He's 10-for-35 (.286/.342/.429) with 3 walks to only 4 strikeouts, he hit a monster homer in Chicago, and he's had several sharp line drives robbed by defenders. He's hitting the ball hard again, and I expect to see good things from him this summer. The best thing about Reddick is that his offense is just icing on the cake. He (deservedly) won the Gold Glove in right last year, and showed why in Chicago - he threw out a runner at the plate in an eventual one-run game on Thursday, and then robbed a game-tying homer in the 9th inning on Friday. He's also an excellent baserunner and high-percentage base-stealer (16-of-17 as an Athletic).

4. Over his last six starts, Jarrod Parker has had a 2.43 ERA. Pror to that he'd been hit around pretty hard, with an ERA of 7.34 entering his second start in May. What has the difference been?
Parker was a mess in April, but he figured it out in early May. It's tough to say what was wrong. There was news of a minor neck injury which may have affected his mechanics, but I mostly chalk it up to the natural struggles of a young pitcher. His control was off (lots of walks) and he was missing his spots (lots of homers), but he was throwing all the same pitches at the same velocities as he had in 2012. He seems to have worked through the kinks and is back to the pitcher he was last year: about 2.5 strikeouts per walk, limiting the hits, and keeping the ball in the park (3 homers in his last 5 starts).

5. There are so many surprises with this A's team that it's hard to know which to pick -- Coco Crisp's power in the early going, Bartolo Colon's apparent ability to never walk anyone, or Josh Donaldson taking another forward after his strong finish last year -- so I leave it to you: What has been most surprising to you about this A's team?

That's one of the fun things about being an A's fan - you never really know who is going to steal the show every year. Last year, Jonny Gomes was one of the faces of the team and Brandon Inge was the sparkplug that pulled them out of the early-season doldrums. Say what??

Coco's power has been impressive, but he's always had a bit of pop and several of those homers were Minute Maid Specials (i.e., only homers in Houston's tiny ballpark). More impressive has been his incredible plate discipline (29 walks, 19 K's). For the first time in his career, he actually profiles as an ideal leadoff hitter - he's taking pitches, working counts, getting on base (.381 OBP), and then going wild on the basepaths.

While Colon has been good, he's doing it in the ways you would expect. He was a control specialist last year as well, his ability to paint the corners allows him to get strikeouts, and the spacious Coliseum helps him keep the ball in the park. He's probably a bit over his head right now, but his numbers are quite similar to what they were last year. The walk rate will creep up a bit as the season wears on, but his control is for real.

No, the real surprise has been Josh Donaldson. He turned a major corner last year, and A's fans were confident that his solid 2nd-half hitting would continue into 2013. I don't think anyone saw this coming, though. He had power and patience in the minors, so those skills haven't appeared out of nowhere, but I think that moving out from behind home plate has been a huge benefit to his hitting - he was miscast as a catcher. He's also improved his approach, becoming more selective at the plate and then unloading when he gets the pitch he's looking for. He's tightened up his zone and isn't chasing nearly as many pitches, he's making more contact, and everything he hits is an absolute bullet. Like Cespedes, Donaldson tends to homer not on towering fly balls, but on sharp line drives that are so huge that they carry over the fence. It's tempting to point to his .364 BABIP as a sign of inevitable regression, but he's always had high BABIP's in the minors and not many of his hits are cheap. Oh, and he's going to win a Gold Glove in the next few years; he's an absolute vacuum at 3rd base with a cannon for an arm, and he's only been playing the position for about two years. He'll be the best player not to make the All-Star team this year, hands down. Donaldson is for real, and a .300/.370/.500 line isn't out of the question at season's end.

I answered questions for Alex at Athletics Nation, which can be read here.

Yankees vs. A's: A difference of philosophy

2013-06-11T21:00:04Z

The folks at Athletics Nation were nice enough to ask me to answer some questions and in return proposed to answer some questions of mine. The first thing that occurred to me was a quality of the A's roster that I found really appealing:

Because of "Moneyball," there always seems to be the perception that the A's win through some kind of sleight of hand -- a trick. It seems to me, though, that this team has won by virtue of a very unmystical emphasis on players that, looked at on some other team's depth chart, might always have been their second or third choice for a position, but put them together on one roster and they make a very competitive team. Is that a correct way of appraising the way this roster has been constructed?

Presumably you'll read Alex Hall's answers later today, but at the risk of his saying that the above is pure banana oil, allow me to say that this is the kind of team-building that a team in straitened circumstances like the Yankees could benefit from. Those circumstances are, in any order you want to take them, (1) Steinbrennerian austerity, (2) declining veterans with immovable contracts, (3) a farm system not yet ready to give up its young, and (4) a free-agent market increasingly devoid of the best talent.

That last is terribly important. During the MLB network's draft coverage, Harold Reynolds said something like, "The Yankees tend to screw up the draft, but it doesn't matter because they can always buy more free agents." Harold, that is so last year -- with so much new TV money in the game, teams are locking up their best players, and the chances of a Clayton Kershaw wandering his way to the Bronx have become relatively small. That means building through the draft and being very smart about acquiring those players who do become available.

Which is to say, not Vernon Wells.

None of the players on the A's have Wells' profile or price tag, but with the possible exception of Yoenis Cespedes, they weren't anyone's first choice, either. The Mariners, though desperate for OBP, made John Jaso part of the Mike Morse trade. Brandon Moss was a middling Red Sox prospect who couldn't break through with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Jed Lowrie can hit well for a middle-infielder, but only from one side of the plate, and perhaps cannot field well for a middle infielder, normally a disqualifier. Josh Donaldson wasn't even the A's' first choice at third initially -- he was an uncomfortable catcher who didn't look to hit much, but when Brandon Inge got hurt late last summer, he became a two-way star at the hot corner. Seth Smith always seemed like an afterthought with the Rockies, but with the A's he's another positive piece of the puzzle, a player who does a lot of things well without excelling in any single department.

You can keep going down the list and through the pitching staff. With the possible exception of Cespedes and Donaldson , none of these players would be a star on any other contender, and maybe they aren't exactly stars here either. That's not to say that they don't have a star-like following among the team's fans, but rather that calling them stars would be missing the point: the A's are not going for wattage, but basic overall competency -- it would be nice to have Superman in the middle of your order, but if he's either unaffordable or unavailable, maybe you go for depth and just try to be pretty good across the board. They haven't quite achieved that -- Derek Norris hasn't done much except walk, so his part of the catching tandem has been soft, and thanks to Josh Reddick's extended trip to the Twilight Zone (since last September he's hit .177/.252/.297) they're bleeding out in right field -- but in this case the aspiration is more important than the results -- a team doesn't need names, it needs production.

(In this, I am reminded of the key insight by Generals Sherman and Grant in the Civil War. While everyone else was shouting "On to Richmond" and chasing their own tails, they realized that taking the enemy's cities wasn't half as important as destroying his ability to make war.)

I mocked the Vernon Wells acquisition before, but in a sense it was understandable given the way things were falling apart for the Yankees -- Brian Cashman just reached for the first readily available name, one who at least had some history of high-level production, and for a month or so it looked like he had gambled brilliantly. The time for making the kind of measured acquisitions the A's have is largely in the offseason, and in the offseason the Yankees slept, apparently by executive order.

Going forward, that will have to change, but the difference can't come from a reversion to high-spending form. After all, you can't buy what's not there. Rather, success in the future will come from being canny when it comes to those no-frills players who typically crowd the minor league free agent market. The difference between the Yankees' and A's' approaches can be summed up in the difference between Brandon Moss and Ben Francisco. You can argue about whether that difference is luck or design -- I'd argue design given what Moss had accomplished at Triple-A from 2010 through the first third of 2012, as well as all that Francisco hasn't accomplished in recent years. It's also the difference between giving Brennan Boesch more than a handful of at-bats and letting him rot at Triple-A. Not that Boesch is Charlie Keller, but he's also not 39.

The Yankees haven't been totally inflexible; they've given David Adams an extended trial and it hasn't paid off. His is just the first of what has to be many trials. What the Oakland experience suggests is that if you keep trying to catch lightning in a bottle you eventually will, so long as you make informed choices. You can be good without being expensive, and it doesn't take anything like a new-age philosophy either. We knew that, but it's a pleasure to see it being done so well in Oakland.

Baseball Nation: All Posts by Steven Goldman

Lou Gehrig, Steve Gleason and a timeless case of stupidity

More from SB Nation:

MLB suspensions: 10 games seems like little, but is actually a lot

When 10 games just isn't enough

More from SB Nation:

Baseball thinks your bladder is failing

Trade-deadline buyers and sellers part 1: Catcher and first base

More from SB Nation:

Report: Florida judge declines to toss Biogenesis suit

More from SB Nation:

The Dodgers win the night, but Alan Trammell won the 80s

Dodgers-D'backs brawl in two easy lessons

More from SB Nation:

Yankees vs. Athletics Q & A with Alex Hall of Athletics Nation

More from Pinstriped Bible

Yankees vs. A's: A difference of philosophy

More from Pinstriped Bible