A Random, Mostly Pointless Observation About Basketball

I watch a fair amount of basketball and I have noticed over the years that, more than any other sport I watch, seemingly more than any other major, popular sport, early leads in games tend to evaporate. Even supposedly substantial leads of nearly 20 points. There is no sport where what seems like a substantial early lead will more reliably be erased. I feel like 80% or more of basketball games I watch, early leads of up to around 20 points, maybe even 25, are eventually completely erased later in the game. I am not sure what an equivalent lead in other sports would be- 2-0 in hockey? 4-0 in baseball? 10-0 in football? I feel like those leads in those sports are roughly equivalent to a 15-25-point lead in the first two quarters of basketball, and I feel like they are much less consistently erased than such a lead is in basketball.

I could be wrong, would love to see it studied. Just my own feeling.

I have thought a lot about this. It seems equally often that basketball game scores are within a 10-12-point difference in the last 5 minutes of the fourth quarter.

This all suggests to me that basketball is, way more than other sports, a game of chance. The competitors are much more often of fairly equal skill and who wins the game more often comes down to little more than who was lucky enough to get the shots to fall.

And yet, the same two teams have reached the NBA Finals in each of the previous 3 seasons. Sooo... is my theory disproven? Or is it that only a small handful of teams are ever destined to rise to a tier above the rest?

I don't know, but I remain convinced that basketball is way more susceptible to erasure of big leads than other major sports. I'd like to see this investigated.

2017 World Series Game 1 Notes

Player of the game: Home-plate umpire Phil Cuzzy. Not because he did a great job but because he had the greatest impact on the game, frequently calling strikes that were outside of the strike-zone. Sure seems that starting pitchers Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers) and Dallas Keuchel (Astros) pitched well. At the same time it didn't hurt that they were able to throw strikes below batters' knees and outside the plate.

Justin Taylor, the two-headed monster of the Dodgers lineup, provided all the Dodgers offense. Chris Taylor led-off the game with a monstrous home-run. Joe Buck asked during a replay, "did that ball *actually* get outta here?" It reached the back rows of the stands, that's for sure.

Major League Baseball got its wish: a short game, 2 hours 28 minutes (or was it 24?). Now is that really what baseball wants to increase its fan appeal? A pitcher's duel where the hitters don't hit, and the pitchers are aided by Phil Cuzzy? It certainly didn't seem to be the game George Springer, Jose Altuve, and several other Astros wanted when they were called out on strikes that weren't in the strike zone. 2 hours and 28 minutes, featuring 2 minutes of offense. That's really gonna draw the fans.

It's the climate-change world series. 103 degrees at the time of first-pitch.

I'm guessing this was the first world series game to feature a commercial explicitly calling for the impeachment of the sitting president of the united states. And I am sure he was sitting. Thank you, Tom Steyer, for buying ad time calling for said impeachment. I checked out the website and signed the petition, even though I kinda sense the whole Russia-hacked-the-2016-election is a Democrats' fever dream.

Dear Gophers, There a Problem?

In which I document a troubling trend among my favorite University of Minnesota Golden Gopher sports.

Adding Insult

Her: Also, I think baseball is REALLY boring.

Me: A nicer thing to say to me, other than what you just said about baseball, would have been "you strike me as a guy with tiny junk who is absolutely clueless in bed." I would feel less insulted.

An actual, verbatim exchange between me and a woman on a dating website.

A Little League Memory

To this day, when I think of some of the happiest memories involving my dad, I remember a little league game of mine in 5th grade. The umpire in this game was making a lot of bad calls. I was running home and a throw to the catcher beat me to the plate. In little league, if the catcher actually fields the throw ahead of you before you get to home (as happened in this case), it is a near guarantee that you will be out. 

I miraculously managed to slide feet-first towards the back of the plate and under the catcher's tag. I swear in my memory there is this frozen moment, lasted for a 1/4th of a second, where I realized I was safe but the ump hadn't actually made the call yet so I anxiously expected my awesome slide to go for naught and be called out. That feeling shot through my mind before, miraculously, the bad umpire correctly called me safe. 

Of course my team on the bench erupted, but I vividly remember looking up at my dad and little brother: Dad on his lawn chair cheering so hard he was laughing (it's a fairly sophisticated play for a 5th-grader), and my little brother standing and pumping his fist in amazement. I hit home-runs in little league, but that slide may be my happiest memory thanks to the look I immediately saw on my dad's and brother's faces. In case you wonder why someone can be so passionate about a sport.

Twins Fans to Yankees: We're Not Impressed

Despite the exhilaration of the Minnesota Twins’ late-season hot streak which propelled them to the playoffs, Twins’ fans are sore after another early exit from the playoffs for a Minnesota pro sports team. The Minnesota Timberwolves with Kevin Garnett were notorious for such season conclusions. The Minnesota Wild (NHL) and Vikings (NFL) have had similar fates in their few postseason appearances.

All four teams appeared in a semi-final round of the postseason early in the decade; the Wild reached the Western Conference Finals in 2003, the Vikings the NFC Championship in 2000, the Twins reached the ALCS in 2002, and the Timberwolves reached the NBA Western Conference Finals in 2004.

Since then, a Vikings first-round win over the Packers in the 2004-2005 season is the extent of postseason advancement the Twin Cities have seen. The Timberwolves traded away their superstar and have been irrelevant since. The Twins, Vikings, and Wild have done no better than first-round playoff exits. The fans are starting to feel like brides’ maids and they’re looking for answers.

With the latest humiliation coming at the hands of the all-powerful Yankees, Major League Baseball’s payroll disparity is in focus. Twins’ fan Nick Nelson, keeper of a blog linked-to by ESPN.com while the Twins were in the playoffs, writes:

“…it's not difficult to see why this Yankees team is so dominant. Just look at who New York's big contributors were in this ALDS series. In Game 1, the Yankees received a dominant start from C.C. Sabathia, who they purchased for $161 million during the offseason. In Game 2, they got another strong start from A.J. Burnett, another spendy offseason rotation addition. That game ended when Mark Teixeira, their $180 million first base acquisition from the past winter, hit a walk-off homer. And the Yankees' biggest offensive game-changer throughout the entire series, Alex Rodriguez, is an admitted steroid user who made $32 million this season.”

Star Tribune sportswriter (and resident Minnesota sports grump) Patrick Reusse (ROY-see), argues that the Twins have done plenty of spending of late, and that it was not the difference in the series. His strongest support of this is that Twins’ closer Joe Nathan is not low-priced talent. The Twins have paid him well, and he blew Game 2 “because he couldn’t breathe”. Reusse is silent on the fact that the two runs scored off Nathan in that game were scored by $20 million man Mark Texeira, and $33 million man Alex Rodriguez. Nathan made $11 million this year, making him the 2^nd-highest paid Twin in 2009, behind Justin Morneau. He’d be the 10^th-highest paid Yankee at that price.

Reusse’s also quiet about the fact that when the Yankees needed a 3^rd-baseman years ago, they went and bought the game’s top shortstop (Rodriguez) and turned him into a 3^rd-baseman. The Twins, unable to shell out $20-$30 million per year to grab Mark Texeira and turn him into a 3^rd-baseman, settled for injury-plagued castoff Joe Crede when they had such a need.

When the Yankees develop talent from their own system, they can afford to keep it (Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter). When the Twins develop talent, the New York Mets (Johan Santana) and Los Angeles Angels (Torii Hunter) can afford to keep it. Imagine how different the series might have been had the Yankees not been able to afford just Alex Rodriguez and Mark Texeira, and had the Twins been able to start Johan Santana against $15 million man C.C. Sabathia (taken by the Yankees last season cause the Milwaukee Brewers could not afford a competitive salary offer) in Game 1 rather than league-minimum-earning Brian Duensing.

The other three major professional sports in the United States (the NFL, the NBA, the NHL) all consider salary caps fair enough to impose on their leagues.

A League of 12 (plus 2 or 3)

The MLB playoffs in recent years have played out as if roughly 5 of the 8 playoff spots are reserved for teams in the top 12 of payrolls, and the other three playoff spots are reserved for teams good enough to make it on a smaller payroll, usually with at least one other team coming from the top-half of payrolls.

Listed below are the playoff teams by year, categorized by teams from the Top 12 of payrolls for that year, teams that round out that top half of payrolls (#13 - #15), and teams from the bottom half (15 teams) of payrolls for the league.

*note: these rankings are based on payroll at the beginning of the season. it's not necessarily the same at season's end. The 2009 Cardinals, for example, ended the season 13th in payroll.

2009

Top 12: Yankees (#1), Red Sox (#4), Angels (#6), Phillies (#7), Dodgers (#9)

#13 – 15:

Bottom Half: Cardinals (#17), Rockies (#18), Twins (#24)

2008

Top 12: Red Sox (#4), White Sox (#5), Angels (#6), Dodgers (#7), Cubs (#8), Phillies (#12)

#13 – 15: Brewers (#15)

Bottom Half: Rays (#29)

2007

Top 12: Yankees (#1), Red Sox (#2), Angels (#4), Cubs (#8)

#13 – 15: Phillies (#13)

Bottom Half: Rockies (#25), Indians (#23), Diamondbacks (#26)

2006

Top 12: Yankees (#1), Cardinals (#11), Dodgers (#6), Mets (#5)

#13 – 15: Tigers (#14)

Bottom Half: Padres (#17), Twins (#19), Athletics (#21)

2005

Top 12: Yankees (#1), Red Sox (#2), Angels (#4), Cardinals (#6), Braves (#10), Astros (#12)

#13 – 15: White Sox (#13)

Bottom Half: Padres (#16)

2004

Top 12: Yankees (#1), Red Sox (#2), Angels (#3), Astros (#12), Braves (#8), Dodgers (#6), Cardinals (#9)

#13 – 15: n/a

Bottom Half: Twins (#19)

The strategy for increasing your team’s chances of making the playoffs seems straightforward: get the team’s payroll into the top 12 of MLB payrolls. Notice I said “increasing your team’s chances”, Yankees fans determined to maintain their sense of superiority to everyone else will quickly observe their neighbors to the south, the New York Mets, as evidence that high payroll is no guarantee of a postseason berth.

Of course it is no guarantee. It is extremely difficult to maintain, however, that it is no advantage compared to teams in the bottom 12 of payrolls.

Almost no one would argue that all 30 teams should have precisely equal payrolls. Victors are entitled to some spoils, and I'm not just talking pennant-winners. Winning is well-known to be a great revenue-generator, but if a team manages to find other creative means of generating revenue, it is not fair to ask them to share it equally with teams that put a poor product on the field or fail to market well or field a team of steroid-users or whatever.

Another interesting facet of the debate is the St. Louis Cardinals' presence in the Top 12 of payrolls of many seasons. They are in a smaller market than the Twins, by multiple measures. This is not entirely a small market vs. big market issue. It is, for sure, just not entirely.

The New York Mets have shown repeated futility lately, but their big-market position gives them enough revenue that they could turn it around any given season. The Kansas City Royals, in MLB's smallest market, seem doomed to mediocrity for a long time to come given their small market and poor output.

How much should MLB alter the system to offer Kansas City Royals fans more of a chance to hope that any season could be the beginning of a turn-around? Have teams like the Twins of this decade, the Marlins of 1997 and 2003, and the Rockies of 2007 found a formula for consistent winning that could be followed by the Royals, Reds, and Pirates of the league to engineer seasons of consistent winning without a cap? Would a cap be a fair way to even the playing field?

We Twins fans take enormous pride that our team has found its way into the playoffs despite the obvious disadvantage it's had with its low-payroll position. We see it as the result of honorable, collective effort by every member of the organization, on the field, in the front offices, down on the farm, in the scouting field, etc. So long as the system stays as it is, we will continue to be unimpressed by a team that corners the market on the big-name players as the Yankees do, even if they beat our team 100 straight times. We'll be impressed once they do it with our team's payroll.