Is One Man's Trash Another Man's Treasure?

A moderately interesting development has just occurred in Knoxville, TN. The Tennessee football program has dismissed their former 4-star freshman QB, Kaidon Salter, after a second off-field issue. How is the state of the quarterback depth chart on a second-tier SEC program interesting, you ask?

For those that may not remember, one of the aspiring starters now at Tennessee is transfer QB Joe Milton, late of the Michigan Wolverines. Yep, there's the connection.

Michigan's head coach Jim Harbaugh as been under fire for the past few seasons, especially after the abbreviated disaster of the 2020 campaign. Among the many problems the Wolverines face is the perceived talent gap between Michigan and other elite programs. But that gap may not be as great as it seems: Harbaugh's recruiting classes are typically among college football's best. That being the case, is it an indictment of Harbaugh and his staff that they can't get the best out of these prized recruits?

Enter Joe Milton, the perfect test case. Milton's cannon arm and imposing size had recruiters drooling, but he never developed as a competent passer at Michigan. In the hands of Josh Heupel, a coach who has a reputation for high-powered offense and elite QB play, will Milton fulfill his 4-star promise? Can Heupel's guidance transform Milton into an All-American at Tennessee, or will he be the same inconsistent and ultimately disappointing player we saw at Michigan?

While the Volunteers will have a rather crowded QB room this summer, without Salter there's one less hurdle for Milton to clear. Should Milton land the starting job in Heupel's offense, who knows what passing stats he could produce? It's a real-time experiment worth watching this season. 

If It Walks Like a .500 Team...

Frustration in the Bronx

It's June 15th, and the Yankees sit in 4th place in the American League East with a record of 33-32. They are not playing well, having lost 13 of their last 18 games, including a brief, 2-game sweep at the hands of the Phillies. Despite all that, the Yankees haven't given up. At least not in the press:

"I don't think there's any getting used to freakin' losing." -- Aaron Boone

 "Really, the one thing we can do is focus on our work and our preparation, understanding we do have a lot of games ahead of us." -- Domingo German

"We’ve got quite a bit of season left. We do have a little bit of time left to figure that out." -- Brett Gardner 

The Yankees are saying the right things, but is there really "quite a bit of season left" to play? New York has played 65 games in 2021. That represents about 40% of the entire season. How late is too late to turn it around? To quote an old coach from another sport:

“You are what your record says you are.” -- Bill Parcells

And right now, the record says that the Yankees are a .500 team. If the season ended today, not only would the Yankees finish 9 games out in the East behind the Rays, but 4 games out of even the second Wildcard. Is this simply what the 2021 Yankees have to offer? 

In April, it was easy to write off the Yankees' slow start. Only 22 games into the season, there was still plenty of time to right the ship, for the silent bats to awaken. But here we are in June, and the same issues still plague the team: 27th in runs scored, 27th batting with RISP, grounding into the most rally-killing double-plays.

Ever reliant on the home run, even that has failed the team. Though the "Bronx Bombers" are tied for 13th in baseball in homers -- a marked improvement since April -- they are rarely game-changers. Of the 80 home runs the Yanks have hit, 54 of them were solo shots, the 4th-most with the bases empty. Somewhere, Earl Weaver is shaking his head.

Beyond the rah-rah, beyond the speeches and the promises to get grindin', lies a reality that the Yankees need to face: this team, as presently constituted, is not good enough. An over-abundance of strikeout prone, right-handed hitters has doomed the lineup. Injuries and inconsistencies have led to a decline on the mound. The Yankees were 5th in ERA in April, 6th in May. Thus far in June, the Yankees team ERA is 5.38, 22nd in baseball. 

The Yankees also fall on the wrong side of history. Since 1996, the first season with the Wild Card, 85 of the 144 teams that eventually won their division held at least a share of that division lead entering June 1st, nearly 60% of the time. Simply put, good teams that sit atop the division by mid-season tend to stay there. Conversely, there are probably many reasons why a 33-32 team doesn't suddenly climb the standings. Not that it can't happen, but logic tells us otherwise.

If the Yankees continue to slide and miss the playoffs in 2021, what happens next? Will Hal Steinbrenner finally be motivated to make a change in the front office? Will 12 years without a title be a long enough drought for a franchise that spends like a champion? It remains to be seen what happens the rest of the way, and perhaps over a long, cold off-season in the Bronx.

Don't Throw the Boone Out with the Bathwater

Much is being said about the terrible state of the Yankees in 2021, and rightfully so. After a loss to a middling Orioles team last night, the Yankees suffered the indignity of falling into last place in the A.L. East with a record of 9-13. The calendar says that it’s almost May, which by definition would be past the point of dismissing a slow start by saying "It’s only April." As Yogi Berra once said, "It gets late early out there."

While it's perfectly fine to get on the Yankees, I'm also hearing a lot of chatter about their manager, Aaron Boone. Yes, the same Aaron Boone who won 203 games in his first two seasons as the New York manager and has guided the Yankees to the postseason all three years he's been at the helm. Unfortunately for Boone, when a team is slumping as the Yanks are now, the manager is an easy target. But is he the right one?

Of the four major sports, a baseball manager probably has the least effect on a game's outcome. Cumulatively over a 162-game season, even a bad manager will only cost his team a few games versus a "true tactician" pulling the levers. Even the most maligned manager's decisions, typically involving a pitching change (or lack thereof), ultimately come down to whether the player executes or not. Second guessing may be a part of sports, but no manager ever puts a player into a situation where he doesn’t expect that player to succeed.

Bottom line: the players with the NY on their caps and bats in their hands are not getting the job done this season. The Yankees are ranked dead-last in MLB in batting average, a woeful .203 as a team. They are 27th in runs scored, and sport an anemic .650 OPS. Only the Detroit Tigers, who not coincidentally own the worst record in baseball, have had less success at the plate. By contrast, the surprising Red Sox lead the majors in OPS: the team's whopping .795 mark has certainly contributed to their 5th-best record in baseball and first place standing in the East. 

Another popular angle to attack Boone is his seemingly rigid reliance on analytics. Every move he makes, from his lineup to the pitching matchups or to defensive shifts, can be tied back to a mathematical model. Worse, from the average fan's standpoint, is the contention that Boone can't make a decision without checking upstairs first. 

Whether or not Boone is Brian Cashman's puppet is a different debate, but we can all agree that OF COURSE Boone shares Cashman's analytical outlook. That's why he was hired, and why Joe Girardi is managing in Philadelphia. Anyone who thinks that Boone's hypothetical replacement would not follow in lockstep with the Yankee GM is being foolish. (If you'd like to argue that Cashman shouldn't be the GM, well, I've got a lot of columns that support that premise.)

I'm not saying that Boone is the reincarnation of Casey Stengel, or that he doesn't sometimes leave us scratching our heads. It's just that as managers go, Aaron Boone is not the reason the Yankees are 9-13. The players in that lineup are not hitting. Reclamation pitching projects might pitch well for a few innings, but ultimately the bullpen will bear the brunt. To put it another way, don't blame the chef for your meal if the guy buying the groceries keeps shopping on the "Clearance" shelves.

Rules? Where We're Going, We Don't Need Rules

By now you've heard the unsurprising and predictable news that the Big Ten has reversed course and eliminated the minimum-game requirement to qualify for the Big Ten Championship Game. In so doing, they named Ohio State as the winner of the East Division despite the Buckeyes having only played 5 games this season. Reaction was swift and about what you'd expect.

Perhaps the only surprise for me was just how quickly the Big Ten member schools rolled over to support this about-face. (Playoff appearances = CA$$$H! for member schools, in case you were questioning motivation.) But even Indiana, who would have been playing in their first Big Ten championship game, stood by the league's decision. Said Indiana Athletic Director Scott Dolson:

"From the start of the year, we have said we can only control what we can control. We had a chance to earn our spot in the Big Ten Championship Game, but ultimately fell a touchdown short on the road against a great Ohio State team."

That is certainly true, and even had Ohio State lost to Michigan, OSU would have held the tie-breaker and beat out Indiana for the East title. Few could argue that had OSU played a full slate of games they wouldn't be considered among the sport's best. But the arguments here didn't necessarily center on how good the Buckeyes looked, but rather how many opportunities they had to show it (or not).

Let's not forget that even in their best years, OSU could be counted on for at least one clunker, close call, or outright upset. Playing 10 games versus 5 certainly invites the possibility of a similar outcome to Clemson-Notre Dame or Florida-LSU. Speaking of Florida...  

Questioned after that consequential upset, Florida Head Coach Dan Mullen had some choice words when asked about his team's now dim prospects of heading to the playoffs:

"I know we’ve played 10 games so I guess probably the best thing to do would’ve been play less games. Because you seem to get rewarded this year for not playing this year in college football."

No pulling punches there, as Mullen echoes what many have said all during this crazy 2020 season. How does one compare the resume of a program with 10 games against SEC competition (four teams in the top 11 of the AP Top 25) to another that has played only half as many games? Do the results matter? If not, to Mullen's point, why play at all?

That outrage wasn't limited to the Big Ten. Last week, the ACC decided that neither Notre Dame nor Clemson needed to risk a possible upset and cut their seasons short in advance of their own ACC title game. This could potentially pave the way for two 10-1 teams to make the playoffs should Clemson avenge their earlier season loss.

In the end, there will be four teams set to face off in whatever version of the College Football Playoffs the 2020 season has to offer. Whoever they are will have a chance to settle the argument of "Who's best?" on the field. But the question of who deserves to have a chance to prove who's the best will echo throughout the sport long past when the games are played.

Time Will Be Telling

In November of 2018 (which seems more like 20 years ago than just two), the Yankees acquired James Paxton from the Mariners in exchange for their top pitching prospect at the time, Justus Sheffield. On the face of it, the trade seemed like a good deal, if only because Paxton was a major-league starter, ready to contribute to a championship contender. Meanwhile, Sheffield was only a prospect, that glorious time when a player's value can only be calculated by an organization's imagination. 

At the time, I wrote that the trade could play out in one of three ways.  Last season, Paxton started slowly but finished strong, but the Yankees didn't win. Meanwhile, Sheffield didn't look good at all in 2019.  Scenario #2, a wash for both teams, played out in Year One.

Year Two, which also happens to be Paxton's last season under contract, is nearly in the books. Paxton took a step back, battling health issues and making only 5 mostly unimpressive starts. It remains to be seen if the Yankees will win a title this year. Less likely will be Paxton making a significant contribution to that title run.

Meanwhile, something funny happened in Seattle. The Mariners made an unexpected push towards the playoffs. Leading that charge was a dominant Justus Sheffield. In September, Sheffield won his last 4 starts, averaging over 6 innings per start without giving up more than 2 runs. While only a small sample in a short season, those are looking like "ace" numbers.

Although no one could fault Cashman at the time for making a move -- it's what General Managers are paid to do -- hindsight is always 20/20. As with any trade, its success or failure may not be known for years. (Ask the guys who traded away John Smoltz or Jay Buhner.) 

If the Yanks let Paxton walk after two seasons without a championship, his acquisition would be no more than a footnote had Sheffield continued to pitch as he had in 2019. But if Sheffield builds upon his 2020 breakout and continues his upward trajectory, this deal may not so easily fly under the radar anymore.

A Moot Point Can Still Be A Sore Point

As we await the start of what could be the 2020 college football season, or rather, what's left of it, there is plenty of time to fill. To that end, the Associated Press named their pre-season All-America Teams this week. Included on those teams were players from the Big Ten and PAC-12, schools that will not actually be playing in 2020 due to the cancellation of their conference seasons. Therefore, "not playing" would not excuse the fact that not a single player from Michigan made the lists.

I've been down this road before with Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines. He seems to recruit good talent, but that talent doesn't equate with winning. In fact, if one compares the strength of Michigan's recruiting classes with the lack of representation on All-America teams, it does make you wonder what happens once those prize recruits arrive in Ann Arbor.

Atop the list of All-Americans are few surprises: the SEC leads all conferences with 12 representatives, 8 first-team selections and 4 second-team. The Big Ten also landed 12 players on the list, though only 6 were first-teamers. As for the most-lauded schools, the Crimson Tide of Alabama scored 6 players combined on the first- and second-teams. Both Oregon and Ohio State had 3 representatives each.

Losing out to Alabama and Ohio State is nothing new. (Michigan already does plenty of that on the field.) But as you dive further into the lists and notice the schools represented, it does make you wonder where the Wolverines stand in the college football world.

The Big Ten was represented by 8 different schools, including perennial powers OSU, Penn State and Wisconsin. But players from mid-tier schools like Purdue, Iowa, and Minnesota were also on the list, along with one rep each for Northwestern and Rutgers. No, one All-American does not a team make, and no one would confuse the Michigan program with Rutgers. But it's not a great look, even if Rutgers' best player is their punter. (He does get a helluva workout.)

Even though we won't be able to bash Harbaugh and the Wolverines this fall, it seems like there are still ample opportunities to complain about the state of the program. Bring on 2021!

A Sprinter's Chance

PLAY BALL!

Or if the latest headlines are to believed, Major League Baseball will be back on either July 23 or 24. Since we are living in unprecedented times, the upcoming season will be unprecedented, too: a 60-game season, regionally isolated, leading up to a full slate of playoff series.

Conventional wisdom says that in a short series, the better team may not always win. A strange bounce, a hot starter, or an ill-timed slump and the underdog emerges. Could the same hold true for a short season? 

MLB teams are built for a war that stretches for 162 games. Over the course of a long season, the best teams rise to the top. It's hard to be a 90-win fluke. But throughout the season, even a mediocre team can get hot for a stretch. At the same time, even good teams run into a roster-wide slump now and then. Over time, these small bursts of hot play and cold spells tend to even out.

So what happens in a 60-game season when a mediocre team plays well, say for a 12-game stretch? That's 20% of the entire season! Put another way, those same 12 games in 2020 would represent the equivalent of a 32-game span in a normal 162-game season. A team that goes 8-4 over two weeks would have to go 21-11 to have the same impact. 

It will be interesting to watch if another team can make a Nationals-like run, this time over the regular season. Get hot at the right time and make a push for the playoffs and beyond.