Wednesday, March 29, 2006

2006 American League Predictions

Ah, my least favorite column of every baseball season. Predictions are a tricky, tricky thing. To paraphrase Billy Beane, they're a crapshoot. You don't know the affect of injuries, or whether rookies will perform, or which veterans will suddenly lose it, or a whole host of other issues that will seriously impact each team during the course of a long season.

All you have is the data available and some gut instinct. Plus, it helps immeasurably to know which data to look at. For instance, last year's actual win totals are pretty much meaningless when it comes to predicting the upcoming season. If I mention them at all in the upcoming paragraphs, it won't be frequent and it won't be because I feel they are a hallmark of future performance.

AL EAST

Here are the 2005 Pythagorean records of each team:

W

L

Yankees

90

72

Red Sox

90

72

Blue Jays

88

74

Orioles

74

88

Devil Rays

65

97


These totals are based upon the runs scored and allowed by each team, respectively, and they are generally considered a much better indicator of a team's true quality. Note that both the Sox and Yankees dropped five wins. Had the four AL playoff spots been based upon Pythagorean winning percentage only, both clubs would have missed the post-season last year. Also note how close the Blue Jays were.
These teams are not quite the dynamic duo they have been in past years. In reality, Toronto was a closer team than anyone thought, and the AL East as a whole wasn't that good last year. Now that we know the off-season changes made by each team, we can use last year's projections as a base and start to project ahead.

I think the Yankees got a bit better offensively with the addition of Johnny Damon, but they treaded water on their pitching staff and collectively got a year older. They got essentially healthy years from Jeter, Matsui, A-Rod, Sheffield, Giambi and Posada, a bunch of aging regulars who simply can't be expected to repeat that performance. I suspect they'll score a bit more than last year, but not by nearly the amount some people are expecting.

At the same time, my guess is that their pitching will regress. Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina are each a year older and fragile, while Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano and Chien-Ming Wang each missed time through injury last year. To Wang may become a good, reliable pitcher, but to expect Wright or Pavano to return to form, or to expect Johnson and Mussina to replicate their combined.400+ innings, 30 wins and 4.06 ERA, would be foolish. It would be similarly foolish to expect Kyle Farnsworth to post the kind of number Tom Gordon regularly provided, and one of these days, 36-year old Mariano Rivera's single pitch will lose one or two miles an hour and he'll become pretty ordinary.

Now, many, perhaps even most, of these things won't happen this year. But some will, and the Yankees system-wide lack of major league-ready depth is going to take its toll eventually. I'm guessing that will happen this year. They'll still be good, probably in the area of 90 wins, as they projected last year, but that total makes them more likely to miss the playoffs than make them.

Meanwhile, the rival Red Sox are in a slightly different boat. They are aging in in many areas just as badly as the Yankees, with the key difference that Boston's front office has stockpiled a lot of talent in the high minors that could contribute this year, either directly or through trades that bring in reliable veterans. Plus, they have built in flexible, young depth at the key questionable roster spots. Mike Lowell coming off a poor year? No problem, we've got Kevin Youkilis to slide over to third base if needed. J.T. Snow showing his age this spring? That's okay, Hee-Seop Choi is sitting in Pawtucket waiting for some playing time. Trot Nixon's knees giving out? There stands Wily Mo Pena or Adam Stern. A starter finally feeling his age? Enter Jonathan Papelbon or Jon Lester. On top of that, the club got younger in center field, and third base, and shortstop and first base, as well as a key rotation slot with the addition of Josh Beckett, a proven Yankee-killer. Their entire bench got younger except for Snow, and while the pitching staff collectively got older, that is also the area where the club has the most talent in the minors ready to contribute.

Toronto's case is a hard one. The numbers tells me they were a better team than their record showed last year, and I know they added some nice pieces in the off-season. But their top two starters are injury prone, and they gave up their vacuum cleaner second baseman who was so key to that staff's success. I don't think they'll regress at all, but I don't see them passing either of the two traditional powers.

Baltimore will be better simply by virtue of having their luck change. After the Rafael Palmeiro debacle last year, the parts started falling off the Oriole bandwagon faster than they fell of Apollo 13. Then Brian Roberts suffered his ugly elbow injury and the team dropped like a rock. They should be better this year, and their young arms look pretty promising, but I doubt they'll reach .500.

Tampa? They still play baseball there? No, to be serious, the Devil Rays will hit this year, but their pitching is a joke and their new front office didn't make any serious moves with their wealth of outfielders to acquire help for the rotation or bullpen. I guess I'm just don't know what direction this team is going, but I know it won;t be up in the standings.

Predicted Finishes:

W

L

Red Sox

94

68

Yankees

90

72

Blue Jays

86

76

Orioles

77

85

Devil Rays

70

92


AL CENTRAL

2005 Pythagorean Standings:

W

L

Indians

96

66

White Sox

91

71

Twins

84

78

Tigers

75

87

Royals

60

102

It shouldn't shock anyone that the White Sox were playing way over their heads last year. Their offense was subpar, as they posted the lowest percentage in the entire league of team plate appearances by players with above-average on-base percentages. Almost 60% of the team's plate appearances wee by someone who doesn't reach base at least at a league-average level. The team OBP was just .322, 12th in the AL. That's bad, because OBP is one of the primary building blocks of offense, along with power. Thankfully for the Sox, they had plenty of that, muscling up for 200 team homers. They'll need to do that again, because no one besides Jim Thome was brought in to help the situation, and he's got a chronically bad back. Couple that with a regression to normal performance levels for some of their pitchers, especially in the bullpen, plus a normal leveling out of luck on the injury front, and I think Chicago is due for a fall.

The Indians, as last season's projections indicate, were the class of the division. They're a bit weaker offensively, but can still expect some development from their stars because none of them are terribly old. Plus, they have several solid hitters in Triple A, just waiting for someone to falter. The solid bullpen should return and backstop a rotation that will be no worse for the losses of Kevin Millwood and Scott Elarton.

Detroit will be much better, with young arms coming out of their ears and a new manager who knows which buttons to push. Plus, they don't really have a lineup weakness, though no one stands out as a star either. I think Leyland will push this club to the .500 level or better.

Minnesota, on the other hand, continues to do nothing in the off-season to impress me. Knowing they have glaring offensive weaknesses, the Twins decided to do nothing but sign Luis Castillo to play second base and Rondell White to DH, while praying that Torii Hunter is healthy and Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer finally cash in on their promise. That's a shaky plan at best. I think they'll pitch their way to contention, meaning they'll linger at .500 or a few games above, but I just don't think they've got the sticks.

Which brings me to my Royals. Only Chicago was worse at sending good on-base men to the plate last year, and the Royals tried to address that with three guys who traditionally reach base at a decent rate, Mark Grudzielanek, Reggie Sanders, and Doug Mientkiewicz. That will help, as will healthy season from David DeJesus and Mike Sweeney, and continued development from John Buck and Mark Teahen. I won't be shocked at all if the Royals approach league average levels of offense. I don't expect it, but it wouldn't be a shock.

The pitching, on the other hand, is still highly questionable. And I mean that literally. Can Scott Elarton be league-average again? Can Joe Mays return to his pre-injury form? Is Jeremy Affeldt really a starter? Can Denny Bautista cash in on his talent? Will Zack Greinke find his way? Will Runelvys Hernandez find a lock for his refrigerator? Will Scott Redman's knees hold up? Or Mike MacDougal's shoulder? It's a really sad state of affairs when the least question marks on the entire staff are in regard to the long man out of your bullpen, Mike Wood, who is pretty much a known quantity at this point, and a mediocre one at that.

All in all, I think the Royals will be better. But since they're now in a division where all four other teams will likely be at or above .500, "better" means it will still be a struggle to avoid triple digits in the loss column.


Predicted Finishes:

W

L

Indians

95

67

White Sox

91

71

Tigers

85

77

Twins

84

78

Royals

63

99


AL WEST

2005 Pythagorean Standings:

W

L

Angels

93

69

A's

93

69

Rangers

82

80

Mariners

76

86

Last season, the only thing keeping the A's from being just as good as the Angels was luck and inexperience. Statistically, the two clubs were of equal quality. The difference was that the Angels played a touch over their heads, due in large part to a solid bullpen that always helps win a one-run game or two that they otherwise shouldn't have won. At the same time, Oakland had some terrible luck, losing their best pitcher, Rich Harden, and player, Bobby Crosby, for extended periods. Plus, they were just very, very young, and experience counts to a degree when you're in crunch time.

This year, things have changed. The A's are now a year older, and picked up two solid veteran bats, Milton Bradley and Frank Thomas, plus a solid 200-inning fifth starter in Esteban Loaiza. They have their star player, Crosby, back healthy, as is Harden. At the same time, the Angels did little to improve other than clear space for some youngsters. I'm all in favor of that, particularly in the Angels' case because the people they let go really were blocking better young players, but it does have the effect of putting some inexperience on the field, the same situation the A's faced last year. In essence, it's a blend I don't like, since too many of the veterans who were kept are well overrated (Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad, Orlando Cabrera, Bartolo Colon), and generally have health questions, while the younger guys just don't have much time under their belts.

I like what the Rangers did this off-season in dumping Alfonso Soriano, not only because he was nearly useless when he wasn't hitting for power, but because they got the better everyday player, Brad Wilkerson, in return. Just watch as Wilkerson blossoms in Texas, assuming he can stay on the field. They also added some pitching, which was desperately needed. I just don't think they added enough given the two solid teams ahead of them.

Do I have to talk about the Mariners? Well, I guess they're still in the league, but the reality is that I don't see them making much noise. They're not bad, and have some fine players in Richie Sexson, Ichiro Suzuki (who I refuse to call by just one name), Adrian Beltre and pitching phenom Felix Hernandez. But they're going to be buried by the unbalanced schedule, having to play the other three clubs in their division so much. Plus, the American League is just so loaded with quality teams that the ones who struggle will probably struggle mightily. The Mariners qualify.

Projected Standings:

W

L

A's

97

65

Angels

89

73

Rangers

84

78

Mariners

72

90


Playoffs:

ALDS: Oakland over Chicago; Boston over Cleveland

ALCS: Boston over Oakland in a classic

The two final teams are both playoff savvy to a large degree, and are balanced teams with good pitching and a solid offense. Plus, they don't really like each other from previous years of playoff showdowns. It has all the makings of a classic series, and it could go either way, but given the playoff experience of the Boston rotation and most of their lineup, I think they'll take the ALCS in seven games.

Yes, I'm speaking with my heart a bit on his one. But it's not like I'm picking the Royals.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Welcome!

I hope you enjoy the new format for Lost In Left Field. Please bear with me as I transition from the previous site. It may take a while to get all of the earlier content loaded, but I promise to get that done as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience, and enjoy!

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Alfonso Soriano - The Next Curt Flood?

Is it possible that Alfonso Soriano’s recent struggles with the Washington Nationals allow him to be placed in the same company as Curt Flood?

Um, no. And, sadly in the end, he wasn’t even close. But there was an opportunity in the Soriano case that was missed. An opportunity to make a statement about a cold business. About fairness. It was an opportunity to do the right thing. And, unfortunately, Soriano chose to pass it up.

Let me refresh your memory about Curt Flood. After the 1969 season, when he was still just 31-years old and coming off a Gold-Glove winning, .285-hitting season as the Cardinals center fielder, Flood and three other players were unceremoniously traded to the Phillies in exchange for Dick Allen and two others. Flood refused to report to the Phillies, citing the racism displayed by their fans, the poor performance of the club, and the awful condition of their stadium as reasons why he didn’t want to play in Philadelphia. And, in his view, not wanting to play there meant that he shouldn’t be forced to play there. This was America, after all, where a man could choose to work wherever he saw fit.

Unfortunately for him, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn didn’t see things the same way. Citing the ages-old reserve clause that bound a player to one team for his entire career unless released (or traded, which transferred that right to his new team), Kuhn refused to approve a request by Flood that he be declared a free agent. Flood sued, claiming that the reserve clause had the effect of treating him and other players like property rather than people, an inherently un-American principle.

The case reached the Supreme Court, which upheld lower court rulings in favor of Major League Baseball. The impact on Flood’s career was extreme. Having sat out the entire 1970 season, he signed with the Washington Senators for the 1971 season, but faced with widespread criticism for his actions, he performed poorly, and retired after playing only thirteen more games. He was just 33-years old, and for all intents and purposes, had sacrificed five or six years at the end of his career, at six-figure salaries each year, to make the point that baseball players should have the same rights as other workers in this country. Thankfully, in Flood’s case, his sacrifice wasn’t fruitless, because the reserve clause he fought against was finally struck down just five years later.

All of which brings us to Alfonso Soriano. In a modern repeat of Flood’s situation, Soriano was traded against his will to a team he had no interest in, that plays in a league in which he has never played, in a stadium that doesn’t suit his skills, and with the expectation that he would switch to a position, left field, that would likely decrease his free agent value a year later.

From his perspective, it was a crappy deal, and he rightly was upset about it. Now, keep in mind that this isn’t a troublemaker. Soriano is a kid from the Dominican Republic who went to Japan for a couple of years as a teenager to establish himself as a professional ballplayer, and took it upon himself to learn to speak Japanese in order to fit in. He eagerly moved from his naturally position, shortstop, to left field when the Yankees acquired him. He did it without complaint and actually played the position well in Spring Training of 2001. Then, when the Yankees finally decided that Chuck Knoblauch’s throwing problems weren’t going away, Soriano agreed to change positions again, to second base. He flourished there, becoming one of the most dangerous power hitters in the history of the position and nearly winning the 2001 World Series by hitting an 8th-inning homer in Game Seven that gave the Yankees the lead. Only Mariano Rivera’s famous blown save kept Soriano from being the hero.

After doing all of this for New York, they dealt him to the Rangers before the 2004 season in exchange for Alex Rodriguez, essentially because the Yankees had a unique opportunity to acquire a great player and because they considered Soriano expendable after he had a terrible 2003 post-season.

So here we have a guy who has done nothing but work hard and travel far and wide to become a big league ballplayer, who has selflessly changed positions not once but twice for the good of his team, only to have that team trade him away when it suited their interests, and now he was faced with being dealt again and asked to change positions again, because the team that acquired him already had a second baseman.

How much more “good of the team” behavior should really be expected of this guy? He had already proven, time and again, that he’s a team player. And what did that get him? It got him the reputation of being a guy who could be moved around to suit the team’s needs, leading the Nationals to make the deal without ever asking him in advance if he would be willing to move to left field. Of course he would move, they must have thought. He’s done it before, twice.

Well, this time was different. Soriano had all the leverage in this case, since he was slated to make a ton of money and the Nationals desperately need him in their lineup, plus the fact that he’s going to be a free agent after this season, meaning the Nationals could lose him and get nothing in return if they make him unhappy.

Plus, he had every right to make a stink about how he was treated. The Nationals and Rangers, like the Cardinals and Phillies years ago with Flood, treated Soriano like property. They didn’t care about where he wanted to play, or which team he wanted to play for, or how much money a move to left field would cost him. They acted like all big businesses do these days, they treated the employee like an expendable asset instead of like a human being. This was a case of Corporate America at its finest.

“You’ve got Little League practice for one of your kids? Tough, I need this PowerPoint pitch done tonight.”

“You just bought a house here in town? Oh well, I need you to move to Detroit. You can commute back home on the weekends if you don’t want your kids yanked out of school mid-year.”

“I know you’re eighteen months away from retirement, but the company is restructuring after the recent merger, and your former job is no longer necessary, so we’re letting you go.”

Workers in Corporate America aren’t people anymore. They’re not even “personnel”. They’re “headcount”, all subject to some quaint euphemism for being forced out of a job they perform perfectly well. Reduction in Force. Laid Off. Downsized. Subject to Synergy. That last one is my favorite.

And yet, in Soriano’s situation, he has been widely criticized for standing up like a man and saying “Enough.” He didn’t take one for the team, and that makes him the bad guy.

Well, my question is this; when is the team going to take one for Alfonso Soriano? Sure, they pay Soriano a ton of money, and that makes his case even less sympathetic, but with that kind of money at stake, isn't is just good business for the Nats to make sure Soriano would be happy with the move? When did the Nationals become exempt from caring about their players’ well-being? Haven’t they just revealed themselves as an organization that has no interest in doing what’s right for their players? How hard do you think it’s going to be to attract quality people to play for them now?

I won’t criticize Soriano for the stand he started to take. I think it was noble, or at least qualifies for that description under today's standards. What I criticize him for is giving up. He caved in yesterday when he trotted out to left field, despite having all of the leverage on his side. Soriano passed up the opportunity to be this generation’s Curt Flood, a man who would sacrifice his own interests to make the point that ballplayers, and other workers in America, aren’t just inanimate assets for companies to spend as they see fit. They’re people, and you shouldn’t treat people, especially good people like Alfonso Soriano, the way the Nationals treated him. It would have been a great statement for Soriano to make.

Unfortunately, I guess we’ll have wait for someone else to make it.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

A Major Mistake

Pretend for a moment that next season, a new baseball league is formed.

This new league will exist for exactly one season, during which many of its teams will cease to exist or re-locate in mid-season. Replacement teams in replacement cities will be hastily formed, some playing as few as nine games, but those games will be included in the standings nonetheless.

Administration of the league will be shoddy, at best. No statistics will be kept for RBI, or strikeouts, or double plays, or stolen bases. Of the twenty-two men who will come to bat for the league champion, it will be unclear from league records which side of the plate eight of them bat from, including the starting catcher and left fielder. Three men from the eleven-man pitching staff also won’t be identifiable as lefty or righty.

The players will be comprised of journeymen, some of them with brief, undistinguished major league experience, but over two-thirds with no big league experience of any kind. For instance, the starting shortstop on the league champion will be a 22-year old whose sole year of professional baseball experience will be this one season in this new league.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the level of talent is such that almost two-thirds of the players will never be given another chance at the big leagues. The league’s MVP, upon returning to the National League, will manage to hold a job as a regular for just three more seasons, and won’t post an OPS higher than the league average after age 29. Someone like Ryan Freel, currently the primary bench player for the Cincinnati Reds, can be one of the league’s stars. He will be the league’s best third baseman, starting at that spot for the league champion, and he will finish in the top-five in the league in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, doubles, home runs, and walks. His batting average will be nearly 50 points higher and his OPS 140-points higher than his career marks in the National League, in large part because the new league’s teams average nearly six runs per game. After the league disbands, Freel will return to the National League, but will last parts of just two more seasons, hit .186, and retire.

Now imagine that, forever more, baseball historians would consider Freel’s season in this rogue league to be the functional equivalent of Albert Pujols’ rookie season.

All together now…“Huh?”

Before you call me crazy, let me assure you that I’m not making any of this up. This exact scenario has already happened.Way back in the 19th Century, back before the major leagues were as organized as they are today, there was a one-year blip just like the one described above. Its was called the Union Association, and, incredibly, it is considered to be a “major league” to this day.

In perhaps the first instance of players feeling crapped on by ownership, the Union Association formed in late 1883 with the intent of raiding disgruntled players from the National League and American Association, the two recognized “major” leagues, both of which exercised reserve clauses in their player contracts. Such a clause tied players to a team until that team didn’t want them anymore, a situation that would be so for almost 100 more years, and it never sat well with players. Many of them hated it enough to give the new league a look.

The problem for the Union Association was that few of those established players took them up on their offer. Of the 238 different positional players who played at least one game in the Union Association, over 68% had never played major league baseball. Of the group that did have big league experience, few had played much. They averaged just 105 big-league games upon joining the Union Association. When the players with no previous experience were counted, all of the hitters in the league averaged just 33 games of major league experience.

The talent level was such that one of the league’s few players with real major league experience, Fred Dunlap of the St. Louis Maroons, had little problem establishing himself as the league’s best player. With four years as the regular second baseman for the National League’s Cleveland Blues under his belt, he easily led his new league in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, runs, hits, total bases, doubles, home runs, adjusted OPS, runs created, extra-base hits, and time on base. A solid player in Cleveland, Dunlap suddenly was Babe Ruth in the Union Association. His .412 batting average was 86 points higher than his previous career best. His OPS+ mark of 250 was higher than all but one of the seasons in Ruth’s career. Upon returning to the National League the next year, Dunlap’s OPS+ was halved, to 122, a mark he never matched again.

And that was the league’s best player. Lesser lights were much less distinguished. Orator Shaffer finished second in most of the league’s hitting categories, despite being a 32-year old journeyman outfielder who had already played for eight big league teams. His OPS+ the previous year was 103, barely above league average and just fifth-best on his 1883 Buffalo Bisons team, yet he managed to bat .360 in the Union Association, 85 points higher than his career mark, and his OPS+ of 196 was a mark never glimpsed by the likes of Hank Aaron, Willie Mays or Joe DiMaggio. Upon returning to the big leagues, Shaffer batted .249 and had an OPS+ of 100, both league-average marks.

The career record of Harry Moore, the starting left fielder for the Washington Nationals, reads pretty quickly:

Debut – April 17,1884
Final Game – October 19, 1884
Bats – Unknown
Throws – Unknown
Birth – Unknown
Death – Unknown
Major league games before joining the Union Association – zero.
Major league games after leaving the Union Association – zero.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the Union Association’s third-best hitter, with a batting average of .336.

It should be abundantly clear that the talent level in the Union Association was nowhere near that of the major leagues. It was essentially Triple A. And yet, there are the stats from the Union Association in “Total Baseball”, next to the numbers players posted in the National League, American League, and every other league that could reasonably be called “major”.

Some may not consider that to be a big deal. I do, and not because the numbers in question affect any records or corrupt any career marks. They don’t. But as long as the UA is considered a major league, historians and statisticians are going to have to account for it. They have to measure its players and compare them to players from real major leagues. The results are often ridiculous.

For instance, remember the Ryan Freel example? The player in question was Jack Gleason of the UA’s St. Louis Maroons. Prior to jumping leagues, Gleason was a mid-level starter in the American Association, at the time a major league. After a one-game debut in the National League at age 22, Gleason failed to make a big league roster again for five years. He resurfaced as the third baseman for the American Association’s St. Louis Brown Stockings in 1882, batting .254 and posting an OPS that was about 5% better than the league average. After a slow start the next season, he was dealt to the Louisville Eclipse and had a solid year, batting .299. His OPS was 31% higher than the league average, a very respectable mark, but apparently he wasn’t kept very happy by his new club because he bolted for the UA when the opportunity presented itself.

Gleason was easily the UA’s best third baseman. He batted .324, fourth-best in the league, and posted an OPS+ mark of 164. The Maroons were easily the best team in the league, so when the UA folded after its only season, the National League absorbed the Maroons as a new addition. Gleason went with them, but could never replicate his success. He played just two games for the Maroons in 1885. The next year proved to be his last in the majors, when he batted a terrible .187 as the regular third baseman for the Philadelphia Athletics of the American Association.

That’s it, the entire career of Jack Gleason summarized in two paragraphs. It was an unremarkable career in every respect, but for his one season of glory in the UA. A good comparison for Gleason would be Keith Miller or Dirty Al Gallagher. Solid utility players who aren’t memorable in any way, unless you count Gallagher’s classic nickname.

But since Gleason’s great year happened in a minor league that is improperly called major, he gets analyzed by all the new-fangled sabermetric measurements. According to Bill James’ Win Shares measurement, Gleason’s 1884 season accounted for 20 win shares. Since win shares are a counting statistic, it matters that Gleason compiled his total in just a 113-game season for his club, because those twenty win shares would interpolate out to 29 in a modern 162-game season. To give you some perspective on that number, it’s the same total Albert Pujols managed in 2001. To refresh your memory, that was Pujols’ first season, one in which he hit 37 homers, drove in 130 runs, batted .329, slugged .610, finished in the top-10 in the league in average, slugging, hits, total bases, doubles, RBI, runs created, extra base hits, time on base, OPS, and adjusted OPS, made the All-Star team, won the Rookie of the Year Award and the Silver Slugger, and finished fourth in the MVP voting. And, according to Win Shares, it was the functional equivalent of Jack Gleason’s nifty season in a high minor league called the Union Association more than a hundred years earlier.

Fred Dunlap, clearly the UA’s best player, had 38 win shares in the Maroons’ 113 games, which equates to 54 in a full 162-game season. That’s the same number Barry Bonds posted in 2001, the year he hit 73 home runs. Yes, according to the measurement system currently considered to be the most advanced in the history of baseball analysis, Fred Dunlap’s best year and Barry Bonds’ are equals.

Congratulations. You have just read the first sentence ever that included both Fred Dunlap’s and Barry Bonds’ names.

I, for one, am tired of this kind of silly game. It’s foolish to say that the best player in a league full of minor leaguers is the equal to the season that gave us the all-time home run record. It is both asinine and easily fixed.

Hit the Delete key, all of you guys over at “Total Baseball”. Remand the Union Association to history’s dustbin, where it belongs.