Baseball Musings

Thought I'd discuss a few points in baseball.

1. The Mets are incredibly stupid for signing Pedro Martinez for 4 guaranteed years. Absolutely stupid. Even if as some have surmised, his ERA falls because he will be playing in more pitching friendly parks, there's no way his shoulder holds up for more than 2 years. I thought the Red Sox were crazy for guaranteeing him 3 years. Only the Mets or Orioles would do something this stupid.

2. I guess I'm glad the Mariners are on the verge of signing Richie Sexson. I'm worried about a 4 year contract for a guy who was just hurt all year, but hey, how are the Mariners going to "compete" without making a big signing. I don't understand why they would want to sign both Delgado and Sexson. Sounds like they've been taken over by Orioles management. I would rather them go after Beltre or Matt Clement for God's sake. Regardless, this offseason is a million times better than last year, when they gave away Carlos Guillen and gave up a 1st round draft pick to sign Raul Ibanez. But hey, Edgar and Ibanez are friends. So what's the problem?

3. The Red Sox on the verge of becoming the Evil Empire part 2. They are taking a very Yankees path this offseason. David Wells is a huge question mark and this team is older than dirt. Plus they are buying their way into championship contention the same way that the Yankees do. To some extent they have to because their farm system is still so dry. But in the way they are exploding their budget to the point that they are more like the Yankees than even a team like the Dodgers, they are acting pretty evil. It was real easy to root for them last year because of the curse and how much I hate the Yankees and because of the personality of the team. But now they've won and the charm is significantly less. To put it this way, in a playoff series I would definitely root for the Twins and Angels over the Sox and even the Rangers or A's. And in a World Series, I would root for the Red Sox over the Mets certainly but I'm not sure who else.

4. Good bit on the Sports Illustrated website about the lost generation of pitchers, as they put it. Last year there were 11 pitchers who threw 200 innings, won 15 games, and had an ERA less than 4. 3 were over 38 (Schilling, Johnson, Clemens). 6 were under the age of 28 (Pavano, Oswalt, Marquis, Santana, Buerhle, Zambrano) and only 2 were between the ages of 28 and 37 (Schmidt, Martinez). For some reason, the early and mid 90s really produced almost no pitchers who are worth a damn. And this has to be part of the reason that offensive numbers were so high during that time. People talk about how no one will get to 300 wins again, and that may be true because pitchers don't start as many games as they used to. But also this talk could be in part because there was an age when Pat Hentgen won a Cy Young award.

The lack of good pitching has definitely changed however. In addition to the 6 under 28 starters listed above, consider who didn't make that list--Hudson, Mulder, Zito, Prior, Halladay, etc. etc. There are some really good young pitchers today, thank God, and hopefully we are returning to a more normal age of offensive statistics.