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Managers of the Year
Joe Maddon of the Rays and Kirk Gibson of the Diamondbacks won their respective Manager of the Year awards today. A while ago Neil DeGrasse Tyson suggested on Twitter that the awards should go to the managers with the most wins per dollar of payroll. Interestingly, this seems to be exactly what happened (though I’m not sure if the BBWAA knew this).
The Rays this year had the second lowest payroll in the American League, $41.9million. Their 91 wins mean thus gave them 2.17 wins/million dollars. The Royals were next best in the AL with 71 wins to show for our Major League lowest $36.1 million payroll. (A ratio of 1.97 wins/million.) The Rays and Royals were not only the best in the AL, but they were the best in the Majors. The next best, and best in the National League, were the Diamondbacks. Arizona had 94 wins with a $53.6 million payroll.
On the other side of the coin, the Yankees won 97 games in 2011, the most in the American league. They had far and away the highest payroll, however, $201.7 million. This makes for a Major League worst 0.48 wins/million. (One-fourth that of the Royals.) The next worst were the Red Sox, with only 0.56 wins/million. In the NL, the Cubs fared the worst with 71 wins for their $125.5 million, but the Phillies were next; their 102 wins cost $173 million.
The full lists (wins/million):
AL: Tampa Bay Rays (2.17), Kansas City Royals (1.97), Cleveland Indians (1.63), Toronto Blue Jays (1.30), Oakland A’s (1.11), Texas Rangers (1.04), Detroit Tigers (0.90), Baltimore Orioles (0.81), Seattle Mariners (0.78), Los Angeles Angels (0.62), Chicago White Sox (0.61), Minnesota Twins (0.56), Boston Red Sox (0.56), New York Yankees (0.48).NL: Arizona Diamondbacks (1.75), Pittsburgh Pirates (1.57), San Diego Padres (1.55), Florida Marlins (1.27), Washington Nationals (1.26), Milwaukee Brewers (1.12), Cincinnati Reds (1.04), Atlanta Braves (1.02), St Louis Cardinals (0.85), Colorado Rockies (0.83), Houston Astros (0.79), Los Angeles Dodgers (0.79), San Francisco Giants (0.73), New York Mets (0.64), Philadelphia Phillies (0.59), Chicago Cubs (0.57).
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Martin Johnson steps down
Martin Johnson has stepped down as England’s rugby union coach. It’s not too surprising; I think the only reason Capello survived leading a disappointing World Cup campaign was that he had a lot of time left on his contract. Johnson didn’t, though it was he who decided to go; the RFU did not sack him. It’s probably a good decision for England to be able to start afresh, though I think Johnson would have had a better time of it in four years. It’ll be interesting now to see how England’s starting XV at Murrayfield in February looks; I think we might actually see fewer changes. Johnson said that he was more disappointed in the players than the coaching staff, so I wonder if he might have made more wholesale changes than his successor will.
I don’t really know enough about the possible choices to replace him to form an opinion on the best one, but whoever it is will at least have a few months to get set into the job before the Six Nations.
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Club v Country
It has been confirmed that Australia’s tour of the West Indies next year will clash with the IPL. Having seen the full schedule, I don’t really mind this. The tour starts before the IPL does, so we won’t have the ridiculous scenario where players fly in two days before a Test match. And it should come as no suprise to anyone that I do not care one jot about the success of the IPL. It will probably raise the question again of whether there ought to be a window for the IPL, though. I don’t think there ought to be, of course. We don’t have a window for County Championship matches, which still form the premier domestic league. We don’t have windows for any other T20 competition either and if we did there would not be any time for international cricket. So there shouldn’t be a window for the IPL.
It would, however, still be best for both Test cricket and the IPL if they didn’t clash. The last thing the Windies need is for their crowds to be watching IPL matches on TV instead of watching the Tests at the ground. And the IPL is more of a draw when there are international stars around. The IPL fancies itself a football league, however, and that provides a possible solution. European football leagues have a hiatus when there are international matches to ensure that the players are available. I don’t see why the IPL could not do the same. There aren’t any six week holes in the calendar, but there are gaps throughout the summer especially if the number of useless ODIs are decreased. (And actually I don’t think anyone would care too much if the IPL clashed with an ODI.) The IPL would probably benefit from spreading out it’s matches anyway; crowds were down last year and this would make it more of an event. Next to abolishing the IPL completely, I think this is the best solution.
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Mustn’t laugh, mustn’t laugh…
The fact that Yorkshire were relegated last year still makes me happy. Not as happy as Lancs winning the County Championship, of course, but still very happy. I shouldn’t laugh of course, I don’t want to be too cruel to the White Rose. And it’ll be quite disappointing not having any Roses matches next year. I really enjoyed doing the double over them last year and we’ll have to wait until 2013 to do it again.
Obviously Yorkshire are intent on returning to the top flight in 2013, but the extend of their shake-up is surprising. They’ve revamped their coaching set up and Jason Gillespie is the new first team coach. The biggest surprise for me, however, is that Phil Jaques is rejoining the club as their overseas player next year. I had been under the impression that they still would not be able to afford one, so I’m curious as to where they got the money. From a Yorkshire standpoint it looks like a very good series of moves. Both Geoffrey Boycott and Michael Vaughan were involved and it’s hard to imagine any pair with better Yorkshire credentials than that. I think Yorkshire were probably going to be favourites to win promotion next year (though it’s obviously very early and it isn’t clear how their opponents will look next April) and this ought to boost their chances. The lack of an overseas player this year clearly hurt them; Rudolph’s brief appearance was not enough. Their coaching staff was unable to make the most of their homegrown talent in the same way Lancashire did, so this probably addresses their two biggest problems.
My desire for schadenfreude aside, it’s probably a good thing that Yorkshire have gone to unprecedented lengths to ensure that there will be Roses cricket in 2013. They are one of the most historic counties, and the Championship is probably better off with them in the top flight. I still enjoy seeing them lose though.
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Verlander wins AL Cy Young award
Justin Verlander was the unanimous choice for the 2011 AL Cy Young award. That Verlander would win was almost a given having won the pitching Triple Crown; the only competition was for second place. What will be very interesting to see is whether Verlander can also win the AL MVP next week. I think he ought to. I can’t think of anyone who did more for a team than he did. Certainly from the standpoint of a Royals fan he was the player, pitcher or position, that I least wanted to see in an opponent’s starting IX. There are always arguments over whether a pitcher should be able to win the MVP, but I don’t think there is no reason why a pitcher shouldn’t be more valuable than a position player. Even if a pitcher only starts once every five days he can go much farther to winning that game than a position player. I would like to see more pitchers win MVP.
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G+ and fb pages
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A deserted Eden
Apparently the crowd for the second Test between India and the West Indies is as sparse as the crowd for the first Test and without the excuse of being in the middle of nowhere. Of course, there are mitigating circumstances. The Indian public have been saturated with cricket this year and may be a bit burnt out. The West Indies are a long way from the force, and thus the draw that they once were, whilst India have not played well this year either. Also, the Test started on a Monday, which is certainly a questionable decision. So there are reasons besides the imminent collapse of Test cricket in India why the turnout might be low.
Still, it’s very troubling. If Indian crowds continue to favour the shorter forms then so will the BCCI and if the BCCI favour the shorter forms then so will the ICC. We’ve already seen that in the postponement of the Test Championship. It may get worse in the future; the Indian team look like they will get worse before they will get better. Without knowing the intricacies of the situation in India I can’t think of a good way to boost interest, but hopefully someone will. India is a big enough market that there must be a fair number of people who still love Test cricket, or would if given the proper opportunity.
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Hoz finished third
Eric Hosmer came third in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. Jeremy Hellickson, of the Rays, won and Victor Trumbo came in second. Hellickson had a 2.95 ERA and 13 wins for the Rays, and it’s very difficult compare pitching and batting stats so it’s a fair choice. It’s amazing that Trumbo got more votes than Hoz though. Trumbo hit .254 for the Angels, 39 points behind Hoz and had only eleven more RBIs in over a month’s more games. Hoz also had more hits and runs scored than any other AL rookie.
On the bright side, Hoz got more votes than Ivan Nova, so the voters aren’t hopeless.
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Alternative formats for the Test Championship
The ICC today confirmed what had already been very strongly expected, that the inaugural Test Championship would not take place before 2017. I blogged a month ago about the stupidity of the decision, and I stand by that. It is a blow to the purest form of the game and reminds us that the ICC are impotent at best.
It does mean, however, that there is now time to alter the format of the Test Championship, which I never liked. The current plan is to have four teams play a semi-final and a final in England. The first problem with this is the time. Even if the semi-finals are not held concurrently that is only three weeks and three matches, which is a bit short for something of the stature that they want. I think it will be hard to make people properly care about something that short. The second problem is that one match a side leaves more room for fluke results. Upsets themselves are not bad, but these would not be the giant killings of the FA cup. A side coming to England for at best two test matches will have a hard time warming up and getting acclimatised to the conditions. With that in mind, I think people will have trouble viewing the Test Champions in the same way as the World Cup winners. More broadly, I don’t think the current format would do a lot to add meaning to Test series; England, South Africa and India don’t look like slipping out of the top four anytime soon. Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, New Zealand and the West Indies don’t look like breaking into the top four anytime soon. The only battle is between Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Australia for fourth place.
So I think the ICC need to spend the next six years looking for a better format. If the goal is to add context to other Test series then I think there needs to be a clear benefit from being ranked number one or two. Right now there isn’t so England, South Africa and India have nothing for which to play. It would also help if lower level teams had a decent chance of playing in the knockout. Both those problems can be solved in one go, however. Instead of just semi-finals and a final there should be a qualifying round where the top two teams have a bye. With the current tables that would be India v Pakistan and Australia v Sri Lanka in the qualifying round. The lowest ranked winner would then play England in the semi-final and the highest ranked would play South Africa. I would also like just the final to be at a predetermined venue. If it could be fit into the schedule (no guarantee), the qualifiers and semi-finals should be three match series hosted by the higher ranked team. This would decrease the likelihood of a fluke result and would provide a strong incentive to have a higher ranking. The final would still be a one-off match at Lord’s, but would then be the result of a proper tournament (albeit one spread out over the course of a few months).
If the goal is simply to have a knockout tournament, however, I think something along the lines of the FA cup would be best. The associates ranked 3-10 would play each other in the first round and the winners would be drawn with the top two associates and the bottom two full members in the second round. The winners from the second round would be drawn with the full members ranked 5-8 and the top four full members would come in at the fourth round/quarter-finals. This does not fix the problem of travelling to a country to play one Test match, but it would allow the knockouts to run alongside the existing Test series, so it would not have the same scheduling problem as the above proposal. It would also help the associates, as at least one would be able to play a money spinning match against a Test side. Anyone who read the comments on my piece about the importance of Test cricket will recognise this as being part of that plan. On the whole, however, I prefer the first one.
It is, of course, unlikely that the ICC will review their format, as we have already seen how much difficulty they have in doing anything. We’ll have six years to discuss it, however.
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A small gripe
I’ve spent a lot of time today watching American Rules Football. (Please don’t judge me; I live in the US and it’s kind of ubiquitous on Sunday.) I generally get irritated at the general dearth of brain cells present in the analysts, but usually the commentators are only slightly below average. Today, however was more irritating than usual. On two different occasions two different sets of commentators described a particular situation as a ‘scrum’. Which is all well and good, except they weren’t scrums. If anything, they were rucks. The ball was on the ground and players from each side contested it.
For the benefit of any NFL commentators who may be reading this, a scrum is a relatively orderly restart. It’s most akin to the start of every NFL play; everyone stays on their feet and push against each other. It looks like this:
(Source: Wikipedia Commons)
Watching how they play out, you will see that, when done properly, no one goes to ground and there is never any fighting for the ball.Compare that to a ruck:
(Source: Wikipedia Commons)
Several players are on or near the ground, and although there are much stricter rules on how the ball can be retrieved it is clearly much closer to a fumble in a Yank Rules match. Unlike in the scrum, the players around the ball are actively contesting it, though not to the same extent as seen in a Yank Rules match.I admit that it can be confusing for those who aren’t familiar with it. I would suggest that Yank Rules commentators simply avoid the word ‘scrum’ altogether, especially those who can’t speak English properly at the best of times.
Defensive Indifference 