|
|
Ryan says Jets should be favorites |
|
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- Rex Ryan is feeling Super these days.
The New York Jets' confident coach believes his team should not only be favored to beat the Cincinnati Bengals, but to win the Super Bowl.
During his daily news conference Wednesday, Ryan was asked what his reaction was to being the team with the longest odds -- currently at 50-1 -- to win the championship.
"I wasn't aware of that," he said, "but to me, we should be favorites, so that's fine."
Ryan then was asked to clarify if he meant the Jets should be favored to beat the Bengals on Saturday in Cincinnati.
"I mean in the whole tournament," he said. "You know the way that I feel."
That's right. The guy who mistakenly thought the Jets were eliminated from the playoff picture after losing to Atlanta three weeks ago believes his team can win it all.
"I think we have the best defense, I know we do," Ryan said. "I know we have the best rushing attack. Those are two huge factors in our favor. With a couple of exceptions on our staff, myself probably, I think we have a great coaching staff."
When told of Ryan's statement, defensive coordinator Mike Pettine smiled.
"Shocks me," said Pettine, whom Ryan brought with him from Baltimore. "Like I've said before, that's Rex being Rex."
The Jets opened as a one-point underdog against the Bengals, and are now a 2½-point underdog despite beating Cincinnati 37-0 last Sunday to make it into the playoffs.
"I want this football team," Ryan said. "I'm not going to trade our team. If I had a choice to coach any team in this tournament, I would choose this one."
The Jets, of course, have not won the Super Bowl since Joe Namath helped deliver the franchise's only title -- with Ryan's father, Buddy, the defensive line coach -- in 1969.
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press
|
|
|
|
So Far, Kansas City Chiefs Do Not Inspire Confidence |
|
The Kansas City Chiefs are 0 and 4 in the preseason. And that's only the start of the bad news. 
The Chiefs made several interesting moves in the off-season, mainly the acquisition of former Patriots QB Matt Cassel and new head coach Todd Haley. The Cassel pick up did not come without controversy, mainly on the behalf of the Denver Broncos, who wanted him as well, leading to the defection of Jay Cutler to Chicago and bruised feelings in the clubhouse. Since then, things have headed south for both the Broncos and Chiefs. In the case of Kansas City, Cassel became injured, leading the team to depend on back ups Tyler Thigpen and Brodie Croyle, who have a fairly unremarkable 1-18 record between them as starters. Quarterback troubles are nothing new to the Chiefs (paging Trent Green), but the revolving door appears to remain open.
Then there is the troubling situation of the offense itself. Coach Haley decided to fire offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, opting to run the offense himself. While with the Arizona Cardinals, Haley could rely on Russ Grimm (running game) and Mike Miller (passing) to formulate his ideas. Now he has...well whom, exactly? Head coaches that elect to wear multiple hats have often struggled in this league, just ask any of them that has held the titles of head coach and GM. To run a team and coordinate it's offensive thrust is surely a challenge for any coach, particularly a rookie in his first stab at it. The injury to Cassel, along with a losing record in the preseason certainly can not inspire much hope or optimism.
|
|
A friend of mine sent me this.
A couple of months back, I’d written about how the NL Central was playing the best baseball of any of the game’s divisions. As we come to the merciful end of interleague play this weekend, the NL Central has collectively slipped under .500, while the cream of the game has risen to the top. Rapidly. Here are the divisions’ interdivisional records through Thursday:
W L Win%
AL East 134 108 .554
NL West 103 95 .520
AL West 102 96 .515
NL Central 111 113 .496
AL Central 108 123 .468
NL East 96 119 .447
It looks more and more like the superiority of the AL, which we’ve come to take as a given, is actually a superiority of the AL East. Remember, the two leagues aren’t distinct entities any longer, but conferences within one league. They operate under the same rules, they acquire talent in the same draft and have the same setups in the minor leagues. There’s no structural reason why one league should be better. For a generation after World War II, the National League ran out ahead of the American League because it integrated more quickly, tapping into the reserves of African-American talent made available in the wake of Jackie Robinson’s debut. There’s been no change like that in MLB; I might argue that the AL has had more success in bringing over Japanese players—other than Hideo Nomo, the top NPB successes over here have played for AL squads—but that’s nothing like the NL’s better integration practices in the 1950s.
However, the competitive pressures of the divisions, and in particular the competitive pressures of two highly-successful, high-revenue, high-payroll monsters, sets a bar in the AL East that has to be met. That’s why the Rays, who might have wandered into contention in the early 2000s in a different locale, had to be sold and implement an entirely new and different-thinking management team to be successful. It’s why the Orioles, with no hope of contending through marginal improvements, brought in Andy MacPhail and gave him both the authority and the resources to change a decade of failed policies. The Blue Jays have put together so much pitching depth that they’ve been able to survive the complete loss of a rotation. That is a credit to a GM, J.P. Ricciardi, who I’ve frequently criticized. The Jays may, over a three-year period, be one of the top five teams in baseball, and nevertheless end up with absolutely nothing to show for it.
The AL is once again slamming the NL in interleague play, with a 113-96 mark (.541) with 43 games left to play. Barring at least a 29-13 weekend by the NL (there’s a dangling Cubs/White Sox game to be played), the AL is going to win interleague play for the sixth straight season, and there’s a good chance that for the fifth in a row, it won’t be close. In this case, each division is carrying its own weight: every AL group is above .500 in interleague play, as are nine of the 14 teams in total. Over in the NL, the West is .500, the other two divisions below. Just five teams are above .500 against the AL.
The Adjusted Standings, which take into account not just wins and losses, but the underlying quality of play and the overall strength of schedule, are perhaps the best indicator of the quality gap. By third-order record, four of the top seven teams in baseball are AL East teams, with the Rays—fourth in their own division—arguably the best team in baseball, same as a year ago. Bullpen problems and some bad luck have done a good job of hiding how well they’re building on last year’s foundation. The Toronto Blue Jays are the seventh-best team in baseball. The bottom five teams in the National League, the Giants, Reds, Nationals, Astros and Padres, are all worse than the A’s, bringing up the rear in the AL. It actually could have been worse for the NL; the Dodgers are clearly their best team, and had they not signed Manny Ramirez and Orlando Hudson as winter turned to spring—had, say, the Angels picked up one or both players, or the Angels Ramirez while the Twins ink Hudson—the AL could conceivably have the four best teams and maybe seven of the top eight.
Fundamentally, the AL is a .520 league, the NL a .480 league. The AL is six games better over a full season (84-78 vs. 78-84). However, that difference is entirely about the AL East. The average American League East team is a 91-71 team. No other MLB division is even at .500, although the AL Central pretty much rounds to 81-81:
AL East .564
AL Central .498
AL West .494
NL East .488
NL West .485
NL Central .474
That’s complete and utter dominance of the sport, akin to what a great college basketball or football conference might be in any given year. Or perhaps to what the best division in the NBA’s Western Conference might have done at that group’s peak. It’s an imbalance the likes of which we’ve rarely seen, and which we’re certainly not accounting for in evaluating both the AL East teams and the teams around the league. The four best teams in the AL are all in the East, and two will have to stay home so that two of the Tigers, Twins, Rangers, and Angels can populate October. I wouldn’t necessarily call that unfair, which is a loaded word, but I do think it’s a shame that we’ve gotten to a point where the best teams in baseball are so unevenly distributed as to leave so many good ones home. Some fundamentally 90-win team like the Jays is going to miss the playoffs so that we can watch at least one, maybe more, fundamentally .500 teams play on. The Orioles, no one’s idea of a contender, would be in the mix for the National League Wild Card.
So watch the Yankees and Mets this weekend, and the Jays and Phillies, and the Rays and Marlins, and think less about the gap between their actual records and more about the gap between what they really are. The AL East is simply playing a different game than everyone else is. |
|
|
|
ARod's chase of Barry Bonds |
|
Here's a great article on Alex Rodriguez's pursuit of Barry Bonds.
Chasing Bonds
by Nate Silver
We're less than two full years removed from Barry Bonds' somber, strange, and soulless quest to break Henry Aaron's lifetime home-run record. It was a spectacle that most sports fans—even the few like me who were relatively sympathetic towards Bonds' plight—would go to great lengths to avoid having to experience again.
Unfortunately, it appears that history may be preparing to repeat itself. Alex Rodriguez has already hit 553 home runs, by far the most ever for a player having just completed his age-32 season. He needs only 203 more to surpass Aaron, and 210 to best Bonds. Rodriguez has hit an average of 42 home runs per season since joining the New York Yankees in 2003, and if he maintains that pace, he'll overtake Bonds' mark on the last day of the 2013 season. Being under contract with the Yankees through 2017, he seems to have plenty of time to spare.
But player-haters can rejoice: Rodriguez breaking the career home-run record is nowhere near a foregone conclusion. It boils down to that fine print that you ignored when you invested your daughter's college fund in Citibank stock a few years ago: past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Rodriguez has certainly been among the best players in baseball over the past couple of years. And chemically enhanced or not, there are a number of indicators that would ordinarily be favorable toward his continuing to perform well. Among them:
*
All-around Athleticism: Rodriguez is far from a one-dimensional player. At an age when most guys refrain from challenging themselves on the basepaths, he still averages about 20 stolen bases per year. He plays a fairly difficult defensive position, and he plays it well. He's a complete hitter, able to draw walks and hit for average as well as aim for the fences. Generally speaking, multi-dimensional players age better than uni-dimensional players.
*
The Benjamin Button Principle: This is the concept that the beginning of a player's life sometimes resembles the end: guys who begin their careers with a bang tend to end it that way. Rodriguez, who by the age of 20 was already arguably the best player in baseball, started his career as did few others in history, and he has a better-than-usual chance of finishing it that way.
*
Perverse Incentives, Part I: Rodriguez stands to earn a $30 million bonus if he can break the home-run record. As he gets closer, those are 30 million reasons for him to extend his career until he does, rather than considering early retirement.
On the other hand, another set of indicators imply uncertainty in Rodriguez' future:
*
The Aging Curve: The steepest part of the aging curve—when a hitter experiences the most manifest decline in his abilities—tends to come between ages 32 and 34. Rodriguez, who turned 33 last July, is now about half-way through that period, and he hasn't come away completely unscathed: A-Rod hit 30 home runs in the first half of the 2007 season and 24 in the second half, and then 19 home runs in the first half of '08 and only 16 after the break. That could just be a fluke—or it could mean that he's already begun a fairly steep downward trajectory.
*
Injury Risk: Although Rodriguez has generally been the picture of health, that trend somewhat reversed itself in 2008 when he missed 24 games, the most in any season since 1999. Injury problems can sometimes be compounding, especially when a player reaches his mid-30s. There is also some anecdotal evidence that players who have experimented with steroids are more inclined to have chronic injury problems.
*
Perverse Incentives, Part II: Unless he was investing with Bernie Madoff, Rodriguez already has all the money that he'll need for life, and it's highly unlikely that he'll ever be on the market again. Most of us, given a guaranteed salary for the next nine years that requires us to do nothing other than show up and put on a uniform, might become somewhat lackadaisical in our work habits. Many professional athletes are different—but others aren't.
The favorable and unfavorable indicators are each reflected to some degree in Rodriguez' series of PECOTA comparables. His list includes many Hall of Famers, such as Dave Winfield, George Brett, Frank Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Tony Perez, and Hank Aaron himself, who were all elite athletes late into their 30s or early 40s.
However, it also includes some other players whose careers did not end all that gracefully. First are the guys who succumbed to injury, like Jeff Bagwell and Albert Belle. Next are a few players who, like Rodriguez, were known or suspected to have used performance-enhancing drugs: Sammy Sosa is A-Rod's top comparable, for instance, and Ken Caminiti is his fourth. Finally, there are players like Ryne Sandberg, whose skills simply atrophied sooner or more suddenly than expected.
I took Rodriguez' top 20 PECOTA comparable players and averaged their performances over each remaining season of their careers. Actually, the process is a little more complicated than that (each comparable's performance was adjusted for his park and league context, as well as his previous track record, and we had to make an accommodation for guys like Manny Ramirez, who made A-Rod's comparables list but have yet to conclude their own careers). The basic idea though, is simple: comparables like Frank Robinson, who aged well, have a favorable impact on Rodriguez' forecast, and players like Caminiti have the opposite effect.
Alex Rodriguez' PECOTA-Projected Home Run Totals:
Year HR
2009 33
2010 30
2011 27
2012 25
2013 18
2014 16
2015 12
2016 8
2017 4
2018 3
2019 1
Total 177
Career 730
PECOTA's best guess is that Rodriguez will run out of steam after the next three or four seasons and finish with 730 lifetime home runs, leaving him just shy of the marks established by Aaron and Bonds. Of course, there is a great deal of uncertainty in this estimate: if Rodriguez follows the path charted by Aaron or Frank Robinson, he could finish with well in excess of 800 home runs (and possibly as many as 900). On the other hand, if he draws Albert Belle's ping-pong ball, he might not even top 600. Overall, the system puts Rodriguez' chances of surpassing Aaron at only about 40 percent, and of passing Bonds closer to 30 percent.
One needs to remember that the way that Aaron and Bonds finished out their careers was far from typical. At least as common are folks like Jimmie Foxx (before Rodriguez, the fastest player to 500 home runs), who hit just 34 home runs after turning 33. Only about a dozen players have hit 200 or more home runs from their age-33 seasons onward; Bonds and Aaron are the only two to have hit at least 300.
In other words, Rodriguez still has his work cut out for him if he intends to catch them. Say what you will about his past performance, but for him to make it across this finish line would still represent a remarkable accomplishment.
|
|
|
|
ESPN.com's Tim Graham writes about all things AFC East in his division 
