Editor’s Note: This is the second installment of Michael Stevens’ two-part piece celebrating the start of a new baseball season, Last week, Michael looked at two exceptionally interesting slices of baseball history, both with resonance beyond the field of play. This week, he looks ahead, speculating on how the 2013 season will unfold.
Ah, the 2013 season—130 years after the summer of beer and whiskey flowing in the rickety American Association ballparks, and 80 years since that summer when Satchel Paige showed up in Bismarck and an integrated team beat all comers on the high plains. In some ways, the game hasn’t changed that much, despite the passage of time. In other ways, it’s changed profoundly.
A lot of the talk about baseball nowadays focuses on giant salaries and long-term contracts. But what about bargain-hunting: teams that get the most from relatively modest investments? I’ll start out at the furthest reach from my own sphere of baseball knowledge and interest, the NL West. The Padres seem to be the logical choice to begin with, since they’ve been in bargain mode for many years, as their $67 million total payroll attests. Among the ineligible players for our bargain-hunt, we find Carlos Quentin (wait, when did he leave the White Sox?) at $9.5 million, Huston Street (wait again, isn’t he still the A’s closer?) at a cool $7 million, and, down the ladder a bit, Jason Marquis (wait, has he now pitched for every major league team—twice?!) at $3 million. Alas, San Diego has no clear candidates for low-budget star, just several guys on the DL, and Jedd Gyorko, whose name is cool and who is the only player on the roster at the absolute league minimum of $490,000 (I know, if kind of stretches our usual sense of the term “minimum,” doesn’t it?). The Padres seem to be less bargain-gifted than simply impoverished. Let’s move to Colorado, where the Rockies sport a modest $71 M total, with predictable payout for the stars of the team: Helton makes about $6 M, Gonzalez $8 M, Tulowitzki $10 M. But I like Jon Garland bringing a veteran arm (euphemism for 87 mph fastball?) to the team for a mere $500,000, and for just a thousand dollars less, a backup shortstop with a medieval name like Reid Brignac. The Rockies have potential this year—keep an eye on them! Arizona has a quirky layout to its salary chart—catcher Miguel Montero is the highest paid player at $10 M? Eric Chavez is still worth $3 m. as a back-up third sacker? That’s all a bit shaky, but I like first baseman Paul Goldschmidt at a mere half a million, and I think this team will compete into September. The Dodgers have now matched the Yankees with four players over $20 M, but the illogic of Ted Lilly making more than Clayton Kershaw (though neither is hurting, as both are well over $10 M) will be a strike against this overpriced club. The real trouble is that they have only a handful of guys under a million a year, and Paco Rodriguez and Tim Federowicz are just not adequate bargain-boons. The Dodgers fade under media and fan pressure in the heat of August, despite the presence of the hero and exemplar of my high school baseball days, Don Mattingly, at the helm. What are you doing out there, Donnie Baseball? Last but surely not least come the Giants, who will win this division with Spartan efficiency and heartlessness—but it won’t be the three starting pitchers at $20 M and above (Lincecum, Cain and Zito, can you spare a dime?), but rather the shrewd work at the other end of the pay scale, with quality pitcher Madison Baumgarner just under a million, and starting infielders Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt right around $500,000 each. That’s baseball bargain brilliance, and that means late October baseball for San Fran.
In the NL Central, the Brewers don’t look good on the bargain front; at the top, we find that Ryan Braun makes less than Rickie Weeks (!), and below the million-dollar mark, the best possibility is Yuniesky Betancourt at $900,000. The Brewers star is on the wane, it would appear, unless catcher Martin Maldonado ($494,000) hits like a young Candy Maldonado! The Pirates are all screwed up in this regard, with their lowly $66 M payroll nevertheless not well-crafted for this bargain-hunt. How is the rusty-kneed former Tiger struggler Brandon Inge making over a million dollars? The bottom of the payroll doesn’t register on the super-bargain meter at all, though if Chase D’Arnaud gets off the DL, we at least can try that “medieval-sounding name” ploy again. Now what of the Cubs, run by former wunderkind Red Sox GM Theo Epstein? Could $104 M be spent more strangely? Why do the aged Alfonso Soriano, who had his best season as a rookie with the Yankees, and former middling D’Backs/Tigers/Nationals pitcher Edwin Jackson, together consume almost a third of this team’s payroll (earning $19 M and $13 M respectively). Likely not. The Cardinals also have an apparent bargain-phobia, since $50 M of their payroll goes to four sets of aged knees, in Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina, Carlos Beltran, and Rafael Furcal. But the Cards also feature quality contributors John Jay and Daniel Descalso at around $500,000 each, and that could get them a run at the division in the last two weeks of the season. In fact, though I like the way the Reds’ payroll seems equable and sensible—Joey Votto makes the most, then Bronson Arroyo, then Brandon Phillips, etc., their mid-range salaries just above the million dollar mark hurt their bargain-hunting status. If they’d only dropped Jack Hannahan and Manny Parra below that ‘line of demarcation,’ instead of leaving them at exactly $1 M, things might have been different. Only the emergence of bottom of the salary barrel J.J. Hoover on the mound could shore up the bargain-status here, so I see the Reds stumbling down the stretch, with the Cardinals sniffing blood and taking the division on the final day.
The NL East has some surprisingly low team payrolls (the Mets have truly cleaned house, at a slim $73 M, and the Marlins barely register a pulse at $42 M). The Phillies are way ahead of the pack, at $158 M, and they match the Giants with three starting pitchers above $20 M (Lee, Hamels, Halladay); toss in slugger Ryan Howard to boot, right at $20 M. But the real strength for this team is in the lower ranks, where quality outfielders John Mayberry and Ben Revere are both around the $500,000, and Phillipe Aumont gives, you guessed it, the French medieval naming flair which has emerged as an X-factor in all these machinations. The Phillies will compete for the divisional crown right into early October. The Marlins tantalize the bargain-minded soul for a moment, with their young slugger Giancarlo Stanton making only a bit more than $500,000, and a couple of over-the-hill but possibly effective bats in Austin Kearns and Casey Kotchman making $700,000 each. This team has bargain-creds! But the problems on the top of the pay list create a black hole swallowing up the validity of my theory, because if pitcher Ricky Nolasco makes more than the next 7 players on the payroll combined, economic confusion appears to have descended. The Marlins finish a distant fifth. I got a look at the Mets payroll, and I thought maybe a healthy paradigm was at work—young star David Wright at around $10 M and worth it, and then a modest set of paychecks, including a full two-thirds of the team, with several strong contributors, below the million dollar mark. But wait! I shake out the fold in the paper and realize that the injured (again) Johan Santana’s almost $25,000,000 salary is looming. That messes up everything—the Mets flirt with .500 ball throughout the season, barring the dynamic emergence of Jeurys Familia as medieval name factor and bullpen presence. What of the Washington Nationals? They have salary scale intrigue in play, but is it bargain-valid? Well, Stephen Strasburg is the sixth highest paid pitcher—I don’t mean in the league, I mean on his own team! And at $3,900,000, he makes almost twice as much as Bryce Harper! They get some bargain-power with the scrappy Steve Lombardozzi at around $500,000, but it might not be enough. The heart can feel the tug of the Nationals, but the calculator doesn’t lie—and it tells us that Jayson Werth is making more than Albert Pujols and Robinson Cano this year, which gives a bad vibe. Then there’s the Braves, to drive the stake home. The Upton brothers bring home over $20 M combined, but they seem worth it so far this year, both performance-wise and as a “feel good” fraternal story. It’s unclear why former Tigers catcher Gerald Laird, who epitomizes the .230 hitting back-up catcher persona, makes $1.5 M a year, but the Braves have some starting infielders and lots of the bullpen well under the million-dollar mark, and that bodes well on the bargain-scale, so I pick them to take the division with the Nationals and Phillies pushing in as wildcards.
The American League East is not usually a place to look for bargain-minded commerce, with the Yankees, Red Sox, and the new spendthrift Blue Jays combining for almost $500 M in payroll. The Yankees alone are a study in outlandishness and ill fortune—the team started the season with over $90 M worth of players on the disabled list, which amount eclipses the entire payroll of more than half the teams in the league! They have 11 players who make over $10 M, while their divisional rival Tampa Bay has none. To add insult to injury, the Yankees spring training facility in Tampa often draws more fans for their exhibition games than the Rays draw, in their own home city, for their regular season games. But the real reason the Yankees will be competitive down the stretch is the bargain-surprises among the six-digit earners on the rosters: infielder Jayson Nix at $900,000, with serviceable infielder Eduardo Nunez and starting catcher Francisco Cervelli just above $500,000. Don’t be surprised if the Yankees hang around, even if all their $15 M and up superstars are never on the field at the same time. The Red Sox have always had odd spending habits—David Ortiz makes $14.5 M at what appears to be 50 years of age? Ryan Dempster makes over $13 M?! Why? But the Sox have a lot of strong mid-range salary players , and the bargain-factor is at work in the rising young star Jackie Bradley, Jr. making the roster at the league minimum. Now, will Mike Carp’s $508,500 be the tipping factor to keep Boston in the race past the All-Star Break? And what of new big spender on the block Toronto, who has been building around bona-fide stars Jose Bautista ($14 M) and Edwin Encarnacion ($8 M) with high-profile and high-priced replacement parts (as much as we love R.A. Dickey’s story, $5 M for a forty-ish knuckleballer?). But the lower-priced pieces are more intriguing—Henry Blanco at $750,000, likely backing up the pop-in-the-bat young catcher J.P. Arencibia ($505,600), with a lot of the bullpen in the same range. Toronto is one medieval-sounding name from a competitive push—can Esmil Rogers be that X-factor, with the $500,000 price-tag and noble Christian name? Baltimore surprised everyone with their playoff run last year, though the fact that Nick Markakis makes $5 M more than anyone else on the team seems counter-intuitive and a strike against. Yet, the presence of bargains below the million-dollar line, such as powerful catcher Taylor Teagarden at $650,000 and hot-shot young third baseman Manny Machado below $500,000, suggests that the Orioles deserve to linger in the hunt right to the end. Then there’s Tampa Bay, the pauper of the division, yet always competitive, with strong pitching and timely hitting, the bread and butter of baseball. The payroll looks pretty balanced, with the Cy Young-winning ace David Price at a team-leading $10 M, then a quickly descending scale. On the bargain end, the Rays are well-arrayed, with pinch-hit power from Shelley Duncan ($550,000), solid starting pitching from Jeremy Hellickson ($503,000), and speed in the outfield with Desmond Jennings ($501,000). I say the Rays hang around and torment either the Yankees or the Red Sox with a late-season series sweep that proves pivotal. They almost get there, at least finding satisfaction as the spoiler.
The AL Central is where I lodge my day-to-day baseball attention, as a transplanted Yankee fan now situated for many years in Michigan, listening almost daily to the Tigers radio broadcast. The Tigers’ payroll has steadily increased over the past few years as the team has remained competitive but not yet pushed all the way to the promised land of a championship. It’s hard to argue with the payout to the Tigers three $20 M and up players, perennial MVP candidates Prince Fielder, Miguel Cabrera, and Justin Verlander. At the other end of the spectrum, most of the Tigers current bullpen is around the $500,000 mark, inexperienced and inexpensive—so sometimes the bargain can also be the torment. But I like starting left fielder Andy Dirks at a slender $505,000, and the Tigers should make a strong push for the divisional crown baseball, but it won’t be easy. The White Sox have all their big money in starting pitching (possibly problematic, with Jake Peavy and John Danks combining for over $30 M) and power hitting (Dunn, Konerko, and Rios combine for $40 M, which is steep, but they’re a strong middle of the order). Down below the line, I like the bargain-minded presence of Tyler Flowers, a young catcher strong of arm and bat ($510,000) and rising star pitcher Chris Sale, sneaking in at $850,000. This is a team to chase the Tigers and give them fits right through the dog days of summer. Speaking of tormenting the Tigers, the Minnesota Twins have fulfilled that role for several years now, and even with spending cuts and a depleted pitching staff (this is a team with well over 50 percent of the payroll invested in the number three, four, and five hitters—Mauer, Morneau, Willingham), the Twins understand the bargain game well. They have four or five regulars below $500,000, but the upside on a slick shortstop like Pedro Florimon, or a rookie outfield hawk like Aaron Hicks, is pretty high. The Twins bargain-quotient is enough to say they compete and heckle the divisional leaders through August. The Indians could do the same, though the two highest-paid position players, Nick Swisher ($11 M) and Michael Bourn ($7 M) are brand new to the team and maybe odd, anxious acquisitions. It’s below the line that this team looks good, possibly competitive, with low-budget strength in the bullpen (Vinnie Pestano) and solid young infielders (Jason Kipnis, Lonnie Chisenhall) all around $500,000. I just don’t like the dependence on the strong bullpen and the new power hitters to make things go. But I do like Kansas City’s new guys, these two live arms at the top of their rotation and their payroll, and though Ervin Santana and James Shields combine for almost $25 M, nearly one-third of the team’s payroll, still their ‘meat of the order’ hitters average about $8 M each, and the lower end has some $500,000 steals, solid starters like Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, and speedy outfielder Jarrod Dyson. I like the Royals to push the Tigers and White Sox, to ride these new aces and their cohesive young lineup, right into the tangles of September, something that hasn’t happened in Kansas City since the George Brett days. But the Tigers take the division.
Now the AL West, where last year everything seemed upside down, as the low-budget A’s eclipsed the big budget Rangers and bigger budget Angels for a stunning divisional crown. Perennial struggler Seattle is in the midst of all this, convoluting the scene, and now the Houston Astros have been dropped into the midst of the brouhaha, where they are expected to lose 100 games or more and to inflate the win totals of their divisional rivals (possibly skewing the wildcard hunt). A glance at Houston’s roster and payroll shows a dire state of affairs—the whole team makes less than A-Rod by himself, and three-fourths of the lineup is near the league minimum. Wait, won’t that allow a lot of space for the bargain-minded approach to find success? Well, let’s just say that Carlos Pena is a decent DH, Ronny Cedeno a serviceable shortstop, and Rick Ankiel among the best outfielders that used to be a scintillating starting pitcher—but I don’t recognize another name on the roster. Lots of room for growth, but this is a team that, in the first 6 games of the year, had something like 5 walks and 60 strikeouts as a lineup. There will be a learning curve that even the bargain-method can’t soften. Seattle, of course, has a top-level ace in Felix Hernandez, but he’s kind of on an island, making more than twice as much as the next highest paid player, and when the next few names are Franklin Guitierrez, Mike Morse, and Hisashi Iwakuma, there might be some gaps. At the lower end of the scale, the Mariners have youthful pop in infielders Kyle Seager and Justin Smoak (both around that $500,000 mark), and so I say they sweep one division rival at a crucial moment in late August and do their part to tip the scale. Oh yeah, and King Felix wins 18 and strikes out 220. Think Steve Carlton on the early 1970s Phillies. Oakland, of course, ruled baseball in the early 1970s as the powerhouse franchise, but now they play an underdog role that invites a bargain-hunting scrutiny, to figure out how they do it. They have moderate money spread out at the top of pay-scale—no one over $10 M, but lots of players in the low millions. Then, below the line, they get tremendous production from players like Josh Reddick (the bane of all Tiger fans after last year’s playoff series) and Josh Donaldson. Several young pitchers also dwell at this $500,000 mark, both starters and relievers, and there is a low-risk, high-return model at work here. I don’t like this A’s team personally, but I like this model from the standpoint of productive frugality. One could bristle at Billy Beane’s Moneyball approach, but I think I’ve begun to see the light (or is it the darkness?!). Anyway, I say the A’s run last year was no fluke, and they disrupt the best-paid plans of the Angels and the Rangers. Let’s take the final two teams in that order. The Angels have just stolen the Rangers crown jewel in Josh Hamilton, and they now pay him $17.4 M, to go with Jared Weaver and Albert Pujols’ $16 M pricetags—that’s $50 M for two gifted but aging sluggers and a temperamental ace. A risk, but with some proven results. But why is Alberto Callaspo making over $4 M, and Joe Blanton over $6 M? The glutted middle of the payroll seems dodgy, though no one can gainsay the bargain-bonanza of having Mark Trumbo and Mike Trout, All-Star, and in the case of Trout superstar, talent in the heart of your order for around $500,000 each. Will the very disparity of Trout playing beside Hamilton, who makes 35 times more than him this year, cause discord or at least disorientation? When we look to Hamilton’s old team the Rangers, we see some top-heavy numbers—Adrian Beltre is an elite hitter, so $16 M is believable, but do Nelson Cruz and Lance Berkman warrant their $10 M pricetags? Is Joe Nathan still an elite closer, as the $8 M salary would suggest? Some questions float there, but a glance at the bargain rack shows that this team has some leverage, with the strong arm of Alexi Ogando and the solid stick of Mitch Moreland both at the $500,000 level—and if Tanner Scheppers can qualify as a medieval moniker, the Rangers might have the staying power all the way to October. My heart tells me the Rangers hold a steady course and take the division, with the A’s as wildcard (flipping last year back around).
So, to the post-season, when trade deadline moves, late season acquisitions, and expanded rosters will thwart the bargain-bin schema that we’ve thus far espoused—but no matter, the die will be cast by then! In the NL, the beasts of the East will dominate, with the Braves the divisional winner and overall best record, and the Phillies and Nationals locking up in a wildcard one-gamer that pits the $700,000 Zach Duke, in a spot start because of rotation depletion, against the almost $21 M Cole Hamels—but Duke wins the duel, and the Nationals prevail with a suicide squeeze laid down by Lombardozzi in the 9th, scoring the hirsute and reckless Bryce Harper. The Braves host the Cardinals in the Divisional Round, and the Braves no-name, moderately well-paid starting rotation humbles the Cardinals much better-paid and slightly better known, but not quite recovered from career-threatening injuries rotation, and in the year that the greatest Cardinal, Stan Musial, passed away, the Redbirds go down to valiant defeat.
Meanwhile, the Nationals’ visit to San Francisco gets a bit testy, with beanballs and warnings and little brother wanting to stand up to big brother, with the number 13 playing a role, as $13 M man Dan Haren of the Nats brushbacks $13 M man Hunter Pence of the Giants one last time in Game 7, then proceeds to strike him out for the complete game victory and the series. And, oh yeah, Stephen Strasburg finally got to pitch in the post-season, and struck out 25 in his two starts. So, the Nationals head to Atlanta, fired up at having defeated the defending champs, and ready to upend the rival Braves. Ian Desmond, Washington’s shortstop, slaps the ball around the whole series, proving his worth to the final cent of his $3.8 M. But alas, the Braves behemoth Jason Heyward leverages his $3.65 M worth of muscle into five home runs, including the deciding one in Game 5—and the Braves are World Series bound.
In the AL, Kansas City stuns the world by grabbing the last wildcard spot, and faces Oakland in a one-game playoff of budget-brilliant franchises—and K.C. pulls off the stunner, behind James Shields $11 M arm and Jarrod Dyson’s $506,000 legs, as he hits an inside-the-park home run off of the A’s Ryan Cook, whose $505,000 slider proves not quite enough. In the Divisional Round, the Royals head to Texas, while Detroit hosts Baltimore. The Orioles are fired up to win for the memory of Earl Weaver, the hot-headed but beloved skipper of the powerhouse Oriole teams of the ’60s and ’70s, who passed away early this year, soon after Stan the Man. But Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera will bring their $44 M worth of power hitting to all fields off any pitching, and the Baltimore staff, though cost effective (no pitcher makes more than $7 M), is nevertheless overmatched and battered. The Tigers sweep and earn a rest before the ALCS. And wonder of wonders, who will they be playing but their divisional foe, the divisional doormat for so many years, the upstart Royals, who ride their new aces and their consistent bats to an upset of the Rangers in five games, with the new $13 M in K.C., Ervin Santana, mowing down Texas’ own $13 M star Ian Kinsler four times in the final game.
Now, Detroit always has trouble with the Royals, even in years of inequity, and despite having almost double the payroll, Detroit has to dig deep, as Justin Verlander again struggles in the post-season and the Royals $8 M slugger Billy Butler roughs up the Tigers $8 M third starter Anibal Sanchez for 2 home runs to steal a game in Detroit. But the Tigers rise up to vanquish the Royals in 6 games, with Verlander pitching a complete game victory in the finale, and Fielder and Cabrera homering back to back—what can I say, money talks!
So, it’s Braves vs. Tigers, the Uptons and Uggla and the Unknowns vs. the team of MVP’s and poster-boys for the league. The match-up is full of intrigue, baseball history, Hank Aaron and Al Kaline chatting on the field before the first pitch, both teams fully integrated, with blacks and whites and Hispanics, having played against Asians and Europeans and Australians throughout the year, ready to dig in for one final go-around, just as Pete Browning, the “Louisville Slugger,” and Fleet Walker did more than a century ago, getting ready to take the mound and take no prisoners, like Satchel Paige and Old Hoss Radbourn would do. Then, and maybe even now, the money was only secondary, the game and the winning and losing of it “the thing itself.” With this ethos at work, we could see Justin Verlander working 12 or 15 innings in a game, or B.J. Upton running in a mad dash around the bases and sliding with aggression, or Dan Uggla laying his hand on Jason Heyward’s shoulder, in Atlanta, a city with past demons of racism to exorcise, in a gesture echoing PeeWee Reese reaching out to Jackie Robinson amidst the hateful fan shouts, echoing the photograph on the cover of Tom Dunkel’s book, where Satchel Paige stands in the back of the team photo, and Nordic Moose Johnson stands with his hand draped on Paige’s shoulder. This could be about the reconciliation that baseball has helped to effect in our nation, our hemisphere, to people across the world in Japan and Korea, living right now in the specter of fear, but playing on, with integrity. Prince Fielder could high-five and hug Justin Verlander on the dugout steps in Detroit, a city that literally burned with racial violence in the summer of 1967, the supposed “summer of love,” a city in economic collapse, for which baseball is more than an anodyne, more like a tool of revival.
Oh yeah, the World Series games! I was just about to predict them, but I want to have that framework in place of what such games could and should be, beyond spectacle and big business and inaccessible fame. So—Detroit in 6, Verlander pitching complete games in 2 and 6, digging deep like Satchel did, throwing the “no see ‘um” ball when the time was right. Miguel Cabrera will dazzle with that opposite field power and radiant smile. Justin and B.J. Upton will drive each other on and drive each other in, but everyone in these games, upon reflection, will feel like brothers in a family unkempt and troubled and bearing a scarred past, but also rejoicing, triumphant, healing—the family of baseball. And by the way, don’t be surprised if Evan Gattis, Braves backup catcher (league minimum $490,000) pinch hits against Tigers lefty reliever Darin Downs (slightly above minimum $494,000), and the outcome changes a game completely—the bargains will have their day!
Michael R. Stevens is professor of English at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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