BASEBALL: “Game On”---the Standings; Colorado Rockies; NBA Playoffs.

(For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com.  .  .  SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner).  NOTE to readers: NEXT SPORTS NOTEBOOK POSTING WILL BE ON TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2013. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE /// Of course, feel free to scroll far down for additional stories.

BASEBALL  ---    ONLY four of the 30 MLB teams have double-digit wins as of Thursday, the National League East's 12-2 Atlanta Braves ahead of all, the American League’s Oakland Athletics at their heels, 12-4, and the NL’s Colorado Rockies and the AL’s Boston Celtics tied at 10-4.

Not that the St. Louis Cardinals leading the NL’s Central Division at 8-4, and the Detroit Tigers atop the AL’s Central Division at 8-5 are bad raps, even if three other clubs that are second and third place holders within their respective divisions have scored better, the NL West’s San Francisco Giants at 9-6, the NL East’s Washington Nationals also at 9-6, the AL West’s Texas Rangers, 9-5.

Commendable is that 18 MLB clubs are at .500 and above, 12 of the 18 belonging to the NL. Not so commendable are the three currently worst MLB clubs, the NL East’s Miami Marlins, at 3-12/.200, the NL West’s San Diego Padres, 4-10/.286, the AL West’s Houston Astros, 4-11/.267.

Sadly, of the five teams that finished the 2012 MLB season at the bottom of the heap, four are still at the bottom, the Astros, Marlins, the NL’s Chicago Cubs, now 4-9/.308, and the AL Central’s Cleveland Indians, 5-8/.386.

The current big turnabout belongs to NL West’s first place team, the Colorado Rockies, which finished sixth from the bottom last year, 64-98.

Surprises in the other direction are the AL West’s fourth place Los Angeles Angels, at 7-7/.500, when expected to be a division and league leading club straight out of the gate. Add the Red Sox, a below .500 team in 2012, now leading the AL East. And there's good news for the AL Central’s Minnesota Twins; having finished fourth from the bottom in 2012, the Twins are at 6-7, close to .500.

Colorado Rockies    Winning six competitions right after losing three is a story with a happy ending but a story that exists within a 162 game spectrum, and so no-one can be certain about what’s next for that which Colorado fans hope will continue into late September, the skills and power of a caliber that brought the Rockies to the World Series in 2007.

Right now that which was missing in 2012 for the Rockies has reappeared, e.g., a defense more capable for construction of opposing team “outs” than was seen in 2012, when the Rockies finished the regular season two losses shy of 100; it’s a defense that includes a pitching staff that seems better than last year at sacrificing speed of the throw for precision, their primary objective the pressure from two strikes pasted on to the man at the plate.

Since April 1, observers have witnessed a rehabbed/improved LH Jorge De La Rosa, a more confident RH Juan Nicasio, an improved and more cunning LH Jeff Francis, plus RH Rafael Betancourt and LH Rex Brothers closing efficiently, all this with Rockies hitters suddenly matching expectations born of their best stats of previous seasons, OF's Carlos Gonzalez and Michael Cuddyer, IF’s Troy Tulowitzki, Todd Helton, Josh Rutledge, catcher Yorbit Torrealba, catcher Wilin Rosario, lead-off hitter and OF, Dexter Fowler.

Of course, consistency of wins is what the Rockies are now aiming for, and the team’s mettle for this will certainly be tested during April’s remaining games, which will include a series vs. the NL West’s 8-6 Arizona Diamondbacks (2 games behind the 10-4 Rockies). Next will be a series versus the NL’s number one ballclub, the East’s 12-2 Atlanta Braves, another series vs. the DB’s, followed by three vs. the now 7-7 Los Angeles Dodgers.

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NBA   ---   The 2012/13 NBA playoffs will begin on Saturday, April 20, eight teams per conference, each hoping to reach the finals and beyond. The West’s been predictable for quite awhile, posting for the playoffs the San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder and the Denver Nuggets, the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers and the Memphis Grizzlies, with the Houston Rockets and L.A. Lakers less predictable until late March and April. The East’s Miami Heat, the New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers seemed slated for the playoffs, mid-season. The East’s surprises since mid-March have been the Atlanta Hawks and the Milwaukee Bucks reaching the playoffs as they had---winners in the stretch.

As to that unexpected downside, last year the Phoenix Suns and the Orlando Magic were third place teams within their divisions. This year, the 24-56 Suns dropped to last place within the West, and the Magic are bottom-feeding alongside the Charlotte Bobcats, each finishing the season with only 20 wins.

How does the playoff line-up compare with 2011/12? As expected, there have been changes, namely the Nets being seeded number four for this year’s playoffs when the former New Jersey, now Brooklyn team finished the 2011/12 season in last place of the East’s Atlantic Division (22 wins, 44 losses). Last season, the Rockets finished second from the bottom of the West’s Southeast division, 34 wins, 32 losses, and the Bucks were 31-35 last season.

Here’s this year’s playoff schedule, ROUND ONE---

Saturday:

East:  Knicks vs. Celtics // Nets vs. the Bulls

West: Nuggets vs. Warriors // Clippers vs. Grizzlies

Sunday:

East: Heat vs. Bucks // Pacers vs. Hawks

West: Thunder vs. Rockets // Spurs vs. Lakers

END, ml ///  Reminder: Sports Notebook will be away from this site until May 6, 2013.

 

BASEBALL: Jackie Robinson, “42;” Colorado Rockies, Still Above The Margin.”

(For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com.  .  .  SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner).

BASEBALL  ---    THE recently released movie “42” succeeds at so many levels it’s hard to pick one being more significant, more valuable to viewers, than others. For example, in the film is the adult life of a hero and his being a spark for calibration, for a giant leap forward in American history and for social justice, for an America becoming more like the nation intended by its founding fathers, less like the overlord/underdog countries that immigrants crossed the Atlantic to get away from. Also in “42” is what a partnership among men committed to what they love best should look like, both refusing to allow adversity to chip away at that commitment, each supporting the other (Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey, baseball player Jackie Robinson).

And, in “42” there’s husband/wife bonding that couples viewing the film would surely want to strive for (the Robinsons), especially if couples watching are from the realm of sports, where one spouse travels away from home often.

Also in ‘42” is the positive effect that a sports hero can have on children; and there’s sports leadership and management flying the flags of principle, of unblemished competition, of healthy team transformation, doing so against pressure from the herd (Rickey, and Dodgers manager, Leo Durocher).

In “42” there’s what racism looked like in the late 1940’s, its awful vulgarity contrasted with Robinson’s dignified hunt for deserved acceptance inside baseball, accelerating toward the M.L. King era of the mid- and late 1960’s, albeit slowly and though today America’s battle versus racism isn’t completely over.

Stylistically, “42” is a perfect balance of feel-good moments interspersed with the idiocy of prejudice based on skin color, neither overshadowing the other in ways confusing viewers as to whether they are watching something meant only to stir up emotions or a documentary meant to indict, strongly suggesting that “42” isn’t telling us that its hero was a hero because he was African-American, instead that the hero of “42” was a hero because he was morals-based Jackie Robinson, one of the greatest baseball players ever and a super advocate for civil rights.

Simultaneously, the villains of “42” aren’t “all white men,” the villains are racists who happen to be white, one of them a former manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, as easy to hate in the film as during baseball of the 1940’s.

A most powerful “other hero” in the movie is baseball itself, the sport taking to its roots that skin color isn’t character and it isn’t talent, attaching to a fundamental truth, that whether black, yellow, red, olive or white the athletes within those colors is the reality to be accepted or rejected based only on skill-sets and rational behavior.

Even for fans preferring football, basketball, soccer, hockey, or another sport, the  movie “42” is definitely elevating, underscoring what is just and fair for all of us.

Colorado Rockies.     Let’s paraphrase an old song lyric, “Soon as you think you’re losing, you’re winning again,” emblematic of the recent six baseball games played by the Colorado Rockies, which included three losses to the San Francisco Giants, thus a sweep of the Rockies, followed by a three-game Rockies sweep of the San Diego Padres, leaving the Colorado ballplayers at 8-4, extending a decent MLB-2013 start for them.

Particularly noteworthy about the Rockies sweep of the Padres is that within its third game there occurred signs of hope against what had at San Francisco signaled that mediocrity could be around the corner, that is, Rockies starter LH Jorge De La Rosa diminsihed the effects of his throw in San Francisco to hitter/outfielder Hunter Pence, which resulted in a 3-run homer for the Giants, doing so by pitching six innings at San Diego without giving up any runs, walking but two players and striking out seven., leaving the mound with the Rockies ahead, 3-0, a score resulting from Rockies first baseman/team veteran, Todd Helton, having produced a 2-RBI home run.

De La Rosa began this season after a long rehab that followed Tommy John surgery, therefore under the usual shroud of uncertainties that accompany any rehabbed athlete. And, Helton experienced injury last year, and has suffered perceptions of being “the older player, not enough juice left.”

So, if a return to skill-superiority is now in the cards for De La Rosa and for Helton, then the Rockies will have additional value for consistency of wins as the MLB season progresses, providing, of course, that team manager, Walt Weiss, can exploit the talents of the two athletes favorably, which means “cautiously” since both athletes are returnees from rehab, in Helton’s case adjustment to being 39 years old also a factor.

For positive emphasis re. De La Rosa and Helton, Rockies manager Weiss will probably maintain a very watchful eye for rostering the two out of perfect insight. If De La Rosa can continue to keep opposing teams from scoring runs, Weiss will surely attempt to help maintain that value with the right amount of rest for De La Rosa and surely the proper mound follow up, i.e., the right reliever + closer for building enough insurance for a De La Rosa win, with hitters like Helton, and before him in the line-up Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, and catcher Wilin Rosario, delivering the needed RBI’s. 

Significant is that Helton’s home run vs. the Padres on Sunday wouldn’t have been enough to give the Rockies their win. Making the difference were the two men on base that Helton’s deep hit had sent home. Helton may still be the batter capable of pushing base-runners across the plate when needed most. Helton’s Sunday RBI-homer signaled that whether at mid-lineup or as a pinch-hitter, he may not be anywhere near recruitment for lesser roles.

 END/ml       

MLB:  Ascents & Turnabouts; Colorado Rockies.

(For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com.  .  .  SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner).

MLB   ---   IT’s Spring, in baseball spring forward, spring back, lots of good, bad and downright nasty shifts that can occur in just two days. On Wednesday, the then 6-2 Texas Rangers were leading the American League and the AL’s West Division, today it’s the 8-2 Oakland Athletics. Also on Wednesday, the then 5-3 Kansas City Royals led the AL’s Central Division two games up on the Chicago White Sox, but now the 4-5 White Sox are third behind the 5-4 Detroit Tigers, the latter only one game behind the Royals.

Two days ago, the then 5-2 Boston Red Sox led the AL’s East Division, with the 4-4 New York Yankees directly behind, but today the 5-4 Baltimore Orioles are the AL East’s number one team, the Red Sox second, Yankees third.

Wednesday also saw the then 7-1 Atlanta Braves leading the National League plus the NL’s East Division, a single game atop the Washington Nationals, and all that’s changes is that the Braves are now 8-1, the Nationals 7-2.

Nor have the NL’s Central Division teams shifted, the 5-4 Cincinnati Reds still ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals as the division’s leading team.

However, the NL’s West Division 7-3 San Francisco Giants jumped from third to first after a three-game sweep over Wednesday’s NL West second place team, the now 5-4 Colorado Rockies, the latter sinking to fourth in the division.

And, of the six ball clubs in last place of their respective divisions on Wednesday, only the AL West’s Houston Astros ascended, now at 3-6 and fourth from the bottom within the AL West, ahead of last place team, the 2-7 Los Angeles Angels, currently the AL’s worst club, a game up on the NL’s worst, the 1-8 Miami Marlins.

The only surprising success story to date in the MLB season are the 4-5 Chicago Cubs, last year’s third worst MLB franchise, finishing 61-101. The Cubs are now at third position, AL Central.

Of the 30 MLB clubs, only three have leap-ahead records after each has played 10 games so far---the AL’s Athletics, also the Braves and the Giants.

Yet at the heels of the above-cited three leading organizations are clubs that are but one game behind, which advises that expectations about any franchise holding up high throughout April and into the summer should stay somewhere between low and low-moderate.

Colorado Rockies --- Broomed! Ugh, three games lost sequentially to division rival, the now 7-3 San Francisco Giants, surely a volcanic eruption for the curretly 5-4 Rockies after being .625 on Wednesday, now .556. The team went from NL West second to fourth in just 48 hours. The last of the three losses to San Francisco being 10-0, it probably has had players, managers, coaches and front office thinking, “Shame on us!”

We can go all pop-philosophy, get into self-help mode and say, “There are no losses, only lessons,” which is baby aspirin compared to the kickass, “You’ve got to regroup, get your act together, and pronto!”

To keep from having to say “There’s no crying in baseball,” it could be that an overarching lesson for the Rockies now is to look a few streets away from Coors Field to Pepsi Center, where the NBA’s Denver Nuggets are making history; they’ll be third seed during the NBA playoffs, which starts April 20. The Nuggets are now 54-24, third best inside the NBA’s Western Conference, behind the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Rockies, here’s the lesson: “At the start of the current NBA year, the Nuggets lost seven games in a row---four in the pre-season, followed by  three in the regular season, four of these defeats quite devastating, the Nuggets having lost them by 10 and more points per.” Since January 1, 2013, the Nuggets won six straight, then nine straight, soon after 15 straight, and they've won their last five. 

Our guess here is that the three games lost by the Rockies to the Giants can be the year’s team exception. Like those Nuggets losses in October/November, 2012, they can be a lost baseball series with kinks that can be smoothed away providing that any panic being felt now by Rockies owner, GM and manager is kept from unnecessary position/pitching rotation + relief changes. The Rockies are still a .500+ team, only two games behind the NL West’s leading club, the Giants, a game behind second and third place teams, respectively the L.A. Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Besides, in 2012 several MLB teams that finished the regular season well above .500 had experienced one or more incredibly humiliating losses, the 2012 World Series winning Giants among them. Also, even the best teams in the majors lose more than 60 games a year, which is more than one third of a season’s scheduled competitions. Last season, the Washington Nationals led both MLB leagues with 98 wins, but the Nat's lost 64.

So, the Rockies will lose again, so will the Giants lose games in April and afterward. How defeat is handled and minimized is therefore more than a third of professional American baseball, and it’s what the Rockies manager, Walt Weiss, his staff and, of course, players need to be thinking about today, “building on strengths, and turning vulnerabilities into strengths,” right now personnel and player throwaways being the easiest but least productive tactic available.

END/ml

NBA: Close to the finish line; Denver Nuggets, challenged by injuries “still formidable” // MLB-2013:Early Standings; Colorado Rockies & the good start.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com.  .  . 

.  .  .   SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner.

NBA   ---   WHILE college basketball held center stage in March, the NBA experienced some unexpected changes. The East’s now 44-32 Brooklyn Nets started losing steam and the New York Knicks rocketed upward, now 50-26, locking onto first place within the East’s Atlantic Division, the second place Nets six games behind instead of the one or two that had continued for months during the current season.

Also in the East, number one team the 60-16 Miami Heat became the league’s first franchise to win 60 games this year, 10 ahead of the Knicks, 12 up on the East’s third place team, the 48-29 Indiana Pacers.

In the West, the 57-20 San Antonio Spurs held onto first place but with just one game ahead of the 56-21 Oklahoma City Thunder. The West’s 53-24 Denver Nuggets grabbed third place, but at a price, losing guard, Ty Lawson, and forward, Danilo Gallinari, to injuries, meanwhile two other Western teams collecting 50 and more wins for the season---the 52-25 Memphis Grizzlies, the 51-26 Los Angeles Clippers.

Not that the Nets are done and gone. Being fourth in the East with only a few games left to play, they are playoff-bound. Given that the NBA post-season requires that each conference send their eight teams with the most wins, the East’s 42-34 Chicago Bulls, 42-36 Atlanta Hawks, the 40-37 Boston Celtics and the 37-39 Milwaukee Bucks will be joining the Heat, Knicks, Pacers and the Nets for those rounds.

In the West, also with but a few games to go the 44-33 Golden State Warriors, 43-34 Houston Rockets, the 41-37 Utah Jazz and the 40-37 L.A. Lakers will be the likely teams accompanying the Spurs, Thunder, Nuggets and Clippers for post-season play.

Adding up all of the East’s 2012/13 wins as of last Sunday, we have around 90 fewer than than the West accrued, and of the top five teams of the East only two have won 50 and more games. Of the West’s top five, all have won 51 and more games per. We could therefore argue safely that the West has a considerable edge over the East, though the latter’s top team is leading the league and was last year’s NBA championship team.  

How does the above compare with the previous season? Last year, the Bulls finished the 2011/12 season with the most games won in the East, 50, followed by the Heat’s 46, the Pacers third with 42. The Knicks won but 36 games last season, and, with only 22 wins the Nets fell to last place in the Atlantic Division and to fourth from the bottom within the East. In the West, the Spurs led with 49 wins as the 2011/12 season ended, the Thunder second with 47, the Lakers third, 41, the Clippers next, 40.

Yes, there’s variance among the two seasons, but not greatly, the surprises in the East this year being the Nets rising as they have, also the Bulls and Celtics hanging back, and the Orlando Magic performing poorly compared to last season---19 wins as of Monday.

In the West, 2012/13’s surprises have included the rise of the Clippers, and of the Warriors, plus the Nuggets multiple winning streaks: six, nine, then 15 since January 1. Also, the Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks have fallen back from previous year standings. What’s been truly steady are the losers, for instance, the Charlotte Bobcats again being the worst team in the NBA---18 wins, as of today. Any hope here? Well, that’s 11 more Bobcat wins than achieved during 2011/12.

High numbers are what drives a team into the NBA playoffs. However, regular season numbers begin losing significance as the first round commences. Last season’s teams with the most end-of-season wins were eliminated before the league’s title run. Had it only been about the regular season’s numbers, last year the Bulls and the Spurs would have battled for the NBA championship, not the Heat going against the Thunder, not Miami ascending the way it had.

So, what are the likely outcomes regarding this year’s NBA finals? That’s really anyone’s guess.

 Denver Nuggets  ---     It would seem that nothing could be worse for an NBA team headed for the playoffs than losing to injuries two players who have held the team’s highest ppg records since January 1, who have been the only ones to score more than 1,000 points since the current season began, and who have had the team’s highest number of successful field goals, free throws, plus a high number of steals and assists. Not so for the Denver Nuggets, coached by George Karl, who knows a great deal about dark circumstances and how to attain victory in spite of them. At the personal level, Karl has beat cancer twice in his life, and two seasons ago the Denver Nuggets were gutted when star athlete and forward, Carmelo Anthony, left to play for the New York Knicks, the departure of forward/center, Kenyon Martin, and guard, J.R. Smith, riding the same wave. Without a 20+ ppg player in sight, Karl put together a team capable of overcoming shooter dominance via what could aptly be called “coordinating fires,” that is, fusion of accurate shooting, multiple rebounding, high speed to the glass, fast transitioning from offense to defense, increased steals and assists, lots of second chance shots, improved shots from the corners and other angles, and in-your-face defense. As of April 3, six Nuggets players had double-digit ppg averages, the lowest being 11.8, the team’s total ppg average 105.7, higher than the combined total re. all teams that the Nuggets have played against during the 2012/13 season. And, becoming insurance against loss of top starting players has been one of the best bench-rosters in the NBA, therefore the 16 ppg/speed-skating guard, Ty Lawson (injured) can be substituted for by guard, Andre Miller, a perhaps slower but a more canny playmaker and as good a shooter from any position on the court, 9.5 ppg for a third fewer minutes than Lawson has played since October, 2012. Add, above-the-margin guard, Evan Fournier, taking Miller’s place on the bench. Forward Danilo Galinari, the other leading Nuggets player out for the year from an injury, he, too, will turn out to be other than indispensable, in spite of his super contribution to the Nuggets victories throughout 2012/13 (16.9 ppg avg.). Forwards/centers Kenneth Faried, Corey Brewer, Wilson Chandler, Andre Igoudala, Kosta Koufas and Timofey Mozgov won’t be mere fill-ins during the playoffs, in that Faried, McGee, Koufas and Mozgov have higher FG percentages, than Gallinari. Note, too, that during the current season the Nuggets defeated each of the seven other Western teams likely to be rostered for the year’s playoffs. The Nuggets also defeated the West’s Miami Heat and the N.Y. Knicks during the current season.

*          *          *

MBA:        OF MLB’s 30 teams, three that last year finished far below .500 and so within the bottom 10, they are now leading their divisions, the National League’s 5-2 Colorado Rockies, the American League’s 5-2 Boston Red Sox and the AL’s 4-2 Chicago Cubs. The remaining three divisions are being led by teams from last year’s top 15 and that last year won more than 90 games.

And, last year’s World Series winner, the NL’s now 3-4 San Francisco Giants and the AL championship team that it beat for the WS crown, the now 3-3 Detroit Tigers, they are second from the bottom within their respective divisions.

But last year’s worst MLB club, the AL’s Houston Astros, they are at the bottom of both leagues, 1-5, and second worst of last year, the Miami Marlins, they are 1-6, second from the bottom.

Among today’s six second place ball clubs, two finished last season under .500, the New York Mets and the Kansas City Royals, and a third, the Arizona Diamondbacks finished 2012 at .500, thus 81 wins and 81 losses. Except for the NL’s St. Louis Cardinals, which had 88 wins in 2012, today’s remaining division second place holders won more than 90 last season, the AL’s Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles.

Rarely are the first weeks of a baseball season anywhere near proof of what final standings will look like, but should today's standings be the exception and an indicator of what’s in store, then 2013 will include many surprises, though doubtful is an Astros/Marlins WS. 

Colorado Rockies   ---    The good start is usually the wise start, coming from something crafted, something thought through, rarely from scheduling vs. teams as weak or weaker. Last year’s poor Rockies record evolved mostly from consistently weak pitching and several top batters experiencing injuries, disallowing the usually powerful Rockies line-up from being able to offset what the pitching staff couldn’t do. What’s been seen since April 1 of this year is an improved pitching staff, including proper starter/reliever match-ups and a line-up reinforced with improved hitters, among them, lead-off batter, Dexter Fowler, a strengthened OF, Carlos Rodriguez, a crusher in catcher, Wilin Rosario (all three have posted home runs since April 1) and the return of  shortstop, Troy Tulowitzki, and first baseman, Todd Helton, thus a better defense/offense balance than the Rockies had for but 64 wins last season. Seen thus far is that LH hurler Jeff Francis may be throwing slower but he’s throwing smarter, and LH starter, Jorge De La Rosa, kept the Giants scoreless for five innings last night, though a single pitch turned the game at AT&T park around for the Giants, Rockies losing to them, 4-2, mainly from Giants OF Hunter Pence’s three run homer off of De La Rosa. Last night’s loss ended a five game winning streak for the Rockies, a streak that even early in a season is hardly ever a fluke.

END/ml

MLB: “Smart Money, Crazy Money!”

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com.  .  . 

.  .  .   SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner.

EVERY year, financial wizards like Warren Buffet watch manufacturing and service-providing firms compete to be King Of The Hill, keying in on those that invest large in order to profit large, and on those that invest little and collar high profit. Ask these wizards if both strategies work to advantage, and they’ll probably answer, “Yes,” then massage their chins, and say, “Not always.”

Makes you wonder how either strategy applies inside one of the planet’s biggest money ventures, Major League Baseball.

Even a brief glance at 2012’s winningest MLB teams yields proof that spending large can have super-huge results. Nearly each of 2012’s 10 teams finishing the regular season with 88 or more wins has long been a franchise pouring more than $100 million annually into salaries and operational activities, while other teams have been spending much less.

Yet last year’s Oakland Athletics, a team among those that will be spending the least in 2013 (around $63 Million), won 94 games, only one less than the team that spent the most money in 2012 and that, in 2013, will again spend the most---the New York Yankees, its 2013 budget being close to $228 million.

For years, the Athletics have been a symbol of “lean and mean,” of least dollar for more than enough bang, which is why 2012’s last place team, the 55-107 Houston Astros (only 55 wins in 2012), will be the team spending less in 2013 than any other MLB club (approximately $26 million), and has chosen to follow many of the team-striving methods of the A’s general manager, Billy Beane, he of Moneyball fame.

The Tampa Bay Rays, they are another ball club that spent under $100 million in 2012 and managed to accrue 90 wins. The Rays will spend around $57 million in 2013, highest salary for LH David Price---$9.8 million. If the Rays end up with 90 or more wins this year, they’ll be the MLB club getting most per dollar spent.     

Still, of the 15 teams that continue to budget around $84 million or less per year, only three were well above .500 in 2012, the A’s, the Atlanta Braves (also 94 wins) and the Rays; and, 12 of the 15 were  the 12 clubs with least games won in 2012.

Much implied, then, is that big money can beat “lean and mean” in the first round, of MLB’s 30 clubs the A’s, Braves and Rays 2012’s exception.    

More puzzling is that investing high dollars in a single player isn’t always wise, often doing little for a team wanting win after win. It definitely wasn’t NYY money spent on IF, Alex Rodriguez, in 2012 that empowered the team for another post-season World Series opportunity, lost to the Detroit Tigers. For 2013, A-Rod will be the highest paid player in baseball, his salary around. $28 Million---he batted under .300 in 2012, partly due to a weakened hip. Last year’s World Series winning club, the San Francisco Giants, will this year spend a similar amount, “but for three position players instead of just one,” each with 2012 batting averages higher than .300, catcher Buster Posey, OF Hunter Pence, IF Marco Scutaro.

Odd, too, is that some of the marginal pitching staff of the Colorado Rockies will be earning lots more money than many of the team’s best position-players/batters that in 2012 performed in ways saving each starting hurler and receiver from full disgrace. The Rockies LH Jorge De La Rosa (still at the effect of an injury) will earn around $11 million in 2013, but All Star/.300+ hitter/OF Carlos Gonzalez will earn $7.9 million, and still super-hitter at 39 years of age/IF Todd Helton (the reigning face of the franchise), will receive around $6.5 million.

Last year’s MVP/triple-crown IF Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers will earn around $21 million in 2013, teammate IF Prince Fielder, $23 million, RH starter, Justin Verlander, $20 million, DH Victor Martinez, $13 million. That’s four players among 25 earning more than half of the Tigers 2013 budget, apprx. $148 million.

The only other team that will be spending more than $200 million in 2013 will be the Los Angeles Dodgers ($216 million, more than a third going to just four players). And, if 2012 repeats in 2013, the ball club getting least bang for total dollars spent will likely be the Chicago Cubs, set to spend around $104.3 million. The Cubs were second from the bottom last year, with 61 wins, 101 losses.  

An upshot is that were our nation’s top economists to analyze how money is spent in professional baseball, they’d surely be driven to hangovers from long hours spent at a local bar. There’s not the uniformity that they’d prefer to see, there’s too much risk here, not enough there, lots of cost/benefit ratios making very little sense, or cents. There’s monumental waste of revenue, there’s also excessive frugality.

For several years, MLB team-owners have been shouting about dwindling bottom-lines. Note to the game’s commissioner, “Maybe Washington’s budget-creating back rooms and Wall Street aren’t the only places needing the rational fix.”

END/ml  

MLB 2013: Observations; Opening Day;  NBA: the Elite.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com.  .  . 

.  .  .   SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner.

MLB 2013   ---    THE pendulum swings, for sure. It’s been repeated to ad nauseam that in professional baseball an era of pitcher dominance can be replaced suddenly by that of home run hitters. Then the game could go back to men on the mound and strikeouts galore. Some years, baseball’s been a game highlighted and hiked incredibly by On-Base Percentages, and other years the game has seemed to be overtaken by pitchers going for control rather than speed, by resurrection of the knuckleball, or it’s the “cutter” gaining esteem. Then, bam! Home run artists are back on stage, and a few years later the game’s all about the Whiffs.

Surely from last year’s data and recent scouting reports, analysts can argue that 2013 won’t be a year of enough record-breakers either side of the ball, with neither throws from the mound nor hits being crowned the game’s leading factor by an unusually wide margin. Instead, some analysts have pointed out, there will probably be a kind of status quo in 2013, a slight edge belonging to the mound’s several masters from a rising number of strikeouts, as has been the case each season since 2005. However, this edge will be a minor one because OBP’s have also risen over the years from many hitters deliberately allowing a first pitch to be a strike and then another, forcing the opposing team’s pitcher to throw “in the zone” more often than desired, increasing likelihood of the hit.

In spite of the Chicago Cubs 2003 record of most strikeouts ever during a single season almost being matched in 2012 by the Milwaukee Brewers, MLB pitcher-dominance still isn’t of an extraordinary lead over the task of hitting, though hitting probably won’t see truly remarkable strides in 2013, either, that is, according to analysts we’re not to expect 60+ plus HR’s from any batter in 2013, no .400+ batting averages across a hefty number of games played.

Last year, 15 clubs of MLB’s 30 managed to finish above .500 after each played 162 games, and two of the franchises were tied at .500, each finishing 81/81 (the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Philadelphia Phillies). A child can do the math and get it right: of 30 teams, half have to win and the other half must lose. The disparity comes in win/loss ratios among teams as a season closes. Nine of last year’s 17 teams that finished the season at or higher than .500 won more than 90 games, while seven teams from among the 13 that were below .500 had won fewer than 70 games, the Houston Astros becoming last in the MLB with but 55 wins.

The seven teams with 70 or fewer wins in 2012 experienced the lion’s share of MLB’s 36,000+ strikeouts for the year, while most of the teams that finished .500 and above had the better number of hits and led in OBP’s. This surely indicates that in 2012 the power-differential between pitching and hitting wasn’t tremendously wide. Neither pitching nor hitting caved sorrowfully one far behind the other.

So, what does any of the above mean? Mostly that players and fans will benefit, that professional baseball in America will remain a lot more suspenseful, more challenging, more interesting and more entertaining than if one side of the ball were to be super-dominant at nearly all stadiums on most game-days.

So, if we’re talking “Mound Vs. Batter,” then “Fairly Level Playing Field” is an accurate way to describe what will be seen during MLB 2013.

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OPENING DAY   ---   Of course, MLB’s first game day is more about psychological and spiritual impacts than being an indicator of what will happen across the season’s remaining 161 games. Last year’s World Series championship team, the San Francisco Giants, they lost game one, they’re starting the season in last place of National League-West, while last year’s third worst team, the then 61/101 Chicago Cubs, won yesterday and now leads the NL-Central. Some fans are already wringing their hands, and more than a few franchise owners have just cried in their beer, though in a week or two all will probably be quite different.

And, were it not for Bryce Harper hitting two HR’s, the Washington Nationals may not have had a 2-0 win over the Miami Marlins, the 20 year-old Harper’s feat the record for youngest major league player belting two HR’s during an opening day game. Is Harper the Nationals only shot at another year of high standing? No way, not when teh Nat's also have starting right-hand pitchers Gio Gonzalez and Stephen Strasbourg, 21 and 15 wins last year, and hitters OF Jayson Werth and IF Ryan Zimmermann, .300 and .282 respectively re. 2012.  

The highest number of 2013’s opening day winning runs belonged to the NL East’s New York Mets, 11-2 vs. the NL West’s San Diego Padres. Second was the AL East’s Boston Red Sox, scoring 8, N.Y. Yankees, 2.

All other first day scores were close, e.g., the NL West’s Colorado Rockies lost to the NL Central’s Milwaukee Brewers, 5-4, after 10 innings. More than two thirds of 2013’s first day games were won by four or fewer runs, and only four teams went scoreless.

The upshot here is that while some of us have been saddened by our favorite team losing a first game of a new season, across-the-board MLB’s Opening Day was a winner for “Mound Vs. Batter” competition, thus for a season of opportunities either side of the ball, either league.

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NBA, Countdown   ---   IF there’s an elite within the NBA today, it’s of the five franchises that have won 50 or more of their scheduled 82 regular season games, the Eastern Conference’s Southeast Division Miami Heat far ahead with 58, newest to join the group being the West’s Northwest Division Denver Nuggets, 50. All are either leading their respective divisions, or they are holding second place with comfortable leads over third place teams.

In the West, the San Antonio Spurs are leading with 55 wins, the Oklahoma City Thunder next, 54. Closest to the Thunder in wins within the West are the Los Angeles Clippers, 49. In the East, the Heat has been the only franchise to reach and then exceed 50 wins, the Indiana Pacers being closest---47 wins.

What is it about 50 and 50+ wins? Surely they’re the numerical symbols for “Post-season-bound,” and, depending on future regular season wins such can mean being seeded in the upcoming playoffs according to preference.

With 16 teams (eight per conference) participating in post-season games, it appears that the current elite (50 wins & more) are locked in for playoff appearances and will be challenged by those teams now nearing the golden 50. In the East, for instance, the now 40+ New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets, the Pacers, Atlanta Hawks, the 40-32 Chicago Bulls, the 38-36 Boston Celtics and maybe even the 36-37 Milwaukee Bucks will comprise the East’s post-season challenges, while in the West it will certainly be the Spurs, the Thunder, the Nuggets, Clippers, the Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors, and possibly the Houston Rockets, and maybe the 39-36 Utah Jazz or the 38-36 L.A. Lakers.

If today’s numbers are to be a reflection regarding the future, the West will be won by the Spurs, the East by the Heat, neither reaching the finals seriously battered. But isn’t the NBA’s post-season competition that which begins at Zero? Until then, Las Vegas, knock yourselves out! Money on, say, the Nuggets and Pacers reaching the finals isn’t a fool’s bet.

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