They Say That Statistics Never Lie . . .

. . . but they don’t say that statistics are always particularly smart:

What’s most interesting to us is that teen pregnancy after age twenty-five drops significantly, but apparently not all the way to zero. Apparently there’s at least one forty-year-old teenager out there who missed out on that filmstrip in junior-high health class.

Relief Has Come to the Football Fan

As a longtime Colorado resident and sports fan, I always get a bit excited when autumn comes, and it’s not hard to understand why: the NHL’s regular season begins in October, which gives grateful sports fans a reason to ignore the smoldering wreckage that used to be the Denver Broncos organization, and instead focus on a sport that’s superior in most ways anyhow: ice hockey.

Ice hockey lacks football’s long stretches of commercials, simplistic TV analysis, and brief blinks of actual game play; NASCAR’s hours of predictable high-speed tedium (go straight, left turn, GOTO 10); baseball’s lasseiz-faire approach to physical fitness; or basketball’s general unfamiliarity with teamwork, defense, and physical contact; so it’s not hard to see why the sport hasn’t fully captured the American imagination.

No, seriously, we’re athletes. Really! We mean it! We get uniforms and everything!

I prefer to believe, though, that this is mainly because casual fans of the game aren’t watching it quite right. Sure, casual hockey fans look forward to fights (often to the point of ignoring the actual game), and usually can identify when a goal has been scored, if only because they notice the flashing red light and the accompanying arena-shaking horn blast. Casual fans do appreciate goals (as they should) and admire and even idolize goal-scorers (which is cool), and that’s a good start.

What the casual fan is less likely to pick up on, though, is how often it’s a passer, rather than a shooter, that makes a goal happen, and by missing or disregarding this fundamental facet of the game, they’re missing out on much of the excitement the sport has to offer, and a great deal of the skill it puts on display.

Without the puck movement that sets up the goal—without players who can draw defensemen and goaltenders out of position —scoring would be virtually nonexistent, rendering the game of hockey slow, pointless, and boring . . . like some other sports I could mention.

And while it’s almost surely true that a good shooter will make his linemates look good, it’s as or more often the reverse, that a first-class passer will turn a middling player into a good one, and a gifted player into a star. To show the importance of the playmaker, let’s take a look at five shooters—one flash in the pan, two All-Stars, and two Hall of Famers—and see how they’ve done with and without the first-class passers with whom they’ve played.

Jonathan Cheechoo of the San Jose Sharks was officially crowned the Luckiest Guy in the World when Joe Thornton joined the team as Cheechoo’s center early in the 2005–2006 season. Cheechoo won the Maurice Richard Trophy—awarded to the league’s top goal scorer—that year, probably postponing his return to the AHL by at least a couple of years:

 

Jonathan Cheechoo Games Goals GPG With Thornton (2005-2006) 82 56 0.683 Every other year: 419 114 0.272

Milan Hejduk, a three-time All-Star for the Colorado Avalanche—and perhaps the team’s best-ever player to look just a tiny bit like a ferret—had his best year in 2002–2003 as a right wing for Peter Forsberg—not just one of the league’s best setup men of the last two decades, but one of its best overall players. While the two played together for several seasons, Forsberg’s struggle with injuries limited his playing time—at one point he played only 56 regular-season games in a three-year span—so the 2002–2003 season is the best example of Forsberg’s effect on Hejduk’s production.

Milan Hejduk		Games	Goals	GPG
With Forsberg (2002–2003)		82	50	0.610
Every other year:		765	289	0.378

Simon Gagne followed Milan Hejduk as the winner of the Forsberg Lottery when the Swede joined the Philadelphia Flyers for the 2005–2006 season. While Forsberg missed just over twenty games that year, he skated with Gagne most of the time he was healthy, and it shows in Gagne’s career-high total of 47 goals.

Simon Gagne		Games	Goals	GPG
With Forsberg (2005–2006)		72	47	0.653
Every other year:		598	212	0.355

Jari Kurri’s 601 career goals are good for eighteenth in league history, and he was the first Finn to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Wayne Gretzky assisted on 364 of Kurri’s goals, or right around 60% of the total. While Kurri may have made it into the Hall of Fame with somebody else as his center, it’s safe to say that Gretzky—not just the league’s all-time leading goal scorer but also its most gifted playmaker—helped nudge him in that direction. The two played together for the Los Angeles Kings for several years, but their chemistry and Gretzky’s playmaking effect were most evident in their years with the Oilers:

Jari Kurri		Games	Goals	GPG
W/ Gretzky (Oilers) (1980–1988)		600	397	0.662
Every other year:		651	204	0.313

Brett Hull ended his career known for more than just his big mouth, which is in itself a hell of an accomplishment. He retired with 741 goals in nineteen seasons (1,269 games), more than all but two players in league history. However, nearly a third of those goals (228, to be exact) came in just three seasons, from 1989 to 1992. In those seasons, Hull’s center was Adam Oates, one of the most gifted passers of his era, and Hull’s 86 goals in 1990–1991 set a league record (which still stands) for goals by a non-Gretzky.

Brett Hull		Games	Goals	GPG
With Oates (1989–1992)		232	228	0.983
Every other year:		1037	513	0.495

Without Oates, Hull still scored just under a goal every two games, a pace that likely would still have gotten him into the Hall of Fame. Had he played a couple more seasons with Oates, though, and maintained anything approaching that ludicrous .983-goals-per-game pace, he could have finished his career as the league’s all-time leader.

Based on this admittedly very small sample—in a half-assed study that is almost certainly rife with illogical assumptions, mathematical mistakes, and incomplete or misused data—these truly gifted playmakers appear to be able to add somewhere around one third to one half of a goal per game to a good shooter’s scoring average. In a sport where one out of every seven or eight games ends in a tie—and probably nearly as many end with a one-goal difference in score—an extra one-third to one-half goal per game is a huge.

So the mostly mundane and fairly obvious point I’m trying to make here is that the next time you’re going wild about the goal your favorite player just scored, take a good long look for the guy who got the puck to him, because he’s doing a lot of work to make that favorite player look good. Not to mention adding a couple of zeros to the end of the guy’s next contract.

. . . the other point I’d like to make is that Adam Oates looks a little bit like Ray Liotta. Like if you were to take Regular Ray Liotta and make him about 90% less intense and scary, you’d have Adam Oates:

Left: the Ray Liotta of the NHL. Right: The Ray Liotta of pretty much everything else.

The Great One: Even Better Than You Think

The 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs have begun, and life couldn’t be better for all of the United States of America’s sixteen hockey fans. Underdogs are winning games on the road; stupid, pointless fighting is pretty much nonexistent (and even the less stupid with-a-good-reason kind of fighting is down quite a bit); goaltenders have stepped up their games;¹ and matchups that may have been mundane a month ago are now fraught with tension and energy. So to celebrate the happiest time of the hockey fan’s year, and in keeping with the Bowling in the Dark spirit of talking about people and events long after they’ve happened and/or were relevant, today’s topic is a guy who hasn’t played hockey for a decade: Wayne Gretzky.

While it can conceivably be argued that somebody else is the best hockey player ever—a credible case could probably made for Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe, Maurice Richard, or Mario Lemieux—Wayne Gretzky is unquestionably the game’s greatest scorer, and long after his retirement remains one of the game’s most recognizable and revered stars. He retired with sixty-one regular-season, playoff, and All-Star Game records, and in the ten years since then, he’s lost only two of them, and even gained one.²

That said, though, what the casual hockey fan (or non-hockey fan) probably doesn’t fully appreciate is how absurdly far ahead of his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors Wayne Gretzky is.

Gretzky finished his career with 2,857 regular-season points, on 894 goals and 1,963 assists. In second place is Mark Messier with 1,887 points (694 goals / 1193 assists) and in third is Gordie Howe with 1,850 (801 goals / 1049 assists). Assuming my math holds up, this means that Gretzky has 51.4% more points than the second-highest scorer in the history of the league.

To help put that in perspective, I’ve frittered away part of my afternoon putting together a comparison of notable achievements from other sports with which the American public and our vast army of readers are probably more familiar, in the hopes of showing just how extraordinary this is.

Please keep in mind that I'm not trying to argue that scoring a goal (or getting an assist) is more or less difficult than hitting a home run, rushing for a yard (or 3.8, or five), or getting one of those basket thingies in basketball.³ And I'm definitely not saying that they’re exactly comparable to one another in their value to a specific game or importance to a career. This is just a simple food-for thought comparison based on the ideas that (1) one’s greatness is best judged in comparison to one’s peers and (2) Wayne Gretzky is a badass.

Pete Rose, Major League baseball’s all-time hits leader, had 4,256 base hits (roughly 4,255 of them singles); second place belongs to Ty Cobb (4,189) and third to Hank Aaron (3,771).⁴ Rose leads Cobb by 1.59%. To become the Wayne Gretzky of baseball (the base-hit version)—that is, to lead Rose by that same 51.4% margin Gretzky owns in hockey scoring—a guy would have to end his career with 6,444 hits. If he averaged 262 hits per year—tying the current major-league record, every single year—he’d have to do so for right around 24.5 years. That’s staggering.

Same sport, different statistic: Barry Bonds hit 762* home runs in his career; Hank Aaron comes in second at a wholly legitimate 755, with Babe Ruth in third at 714 home runs. The difference between the top two is about 0.92%. The Wayne Gretzky of baseball (home run version) would have to hit 1,153 home runs to have 51.4% more than Bonds (or 1,143 to be ahead of Aaron, if that’s the way you choose to look at it). If he hit 73 home runs per season—tying Bonds’ single-season record* every year—this would take him just under 16 years.

Moving along to football: Emmitt Smith ended his career with 18,355 rushing yards; Walter Payton is second with 16,726 yards,⁵ and in third place is Barry Sanders with 15,269. So the difference between the top two is about 9.7%. A 51.4% statistical lead here means a guy would have to rush for 27,790 yards in his career; given how old Emmitt looked at the end of his career, it's hard to imagine that this is remotely possible without some sort of robotic implants. Tying the NFL-record of 2,105 yards in a season every year would get you to 27,790 yards in just over thirteen years—not an impossibly long career for an NFL running back, but far beyond the league average. And also one has to take into account the “tying the record every single year” thing, which, by all estimates, is pretty difficult.

Switching to a sport about which I know very little: Michael Jordan leads the NBA in career points per game, at 30.12; Wilt Chamberlain is second at 30.07, for a measly difference of 0.16%. (LeBron James is third, at 27.83 ppg.) The Wayne Gretzky of basketball—assuming he wasn’t actually a 5'11" Canadian with little upper-body strength and undetermined off-ice coordination—would have to average right around 45.6 points for his career.

To look at it in a perhaps more applicable way (because scoring 46 points in one’s first game and then retiring would result in that average, but wouldn’t really count), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar leads the NBA’s all-time scoring list with 38,387 points. Karl Malone, with 36,928 points, is just under 4% behind him; Michael Jordan is in third with 32,292 points over fifteen seasons. To create a 51.4% difference between himself and a second-place Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Wayne Gretzky of basketball would need to score 58,118 points. Over a fifteen-year career, that’s an absurd 47.3 points per game; if he settles for matching Jordan’s record of 30.12 points per game, it’d take him until halfway through his twenty-fourth season to reach that total, assuming he never missed a game.

There’s no way I’m going to just come out and say that Wayne Gretzky is the greatest athlete ever, although I think it goes without saying that he deserves to be included in the conversation.⁶ ESPN, in its ranking of the greatest North American athletes of the twentieth century, put Gretzky fifth, behind Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, and Jim Brown. I won’t necessarily argue against any of those guys in particular, although I will suggest that ESPN’s judgment is a bit suspect; first, they’re barely willing to acknowledge that the NHL exists; and second, for some reason saw fit to rank a freaking horse at #35.⁷

I will, say, though, that Wayne Gretzky stands head and shoulders above his fellow hockey players to an astounding degree that, to my knowledge, no other athlete ever has—and, in my opinion, no athlete ever will. Which is why he’s the greatest athlete ever, ahead of Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and several athletes of other random species.⁹

NOTES

1. San Jose/Colorado and Detroit/Phoenix games excepted, apparently.

2. At retirement, Gretkzy’s average of 1.92 points per game was second only to Mario Lemieux’s; after Lemieux’s second return to the NHL, his average dropped to a still-mind-boggling1.88 points per game.

3. Although getting a basket thingy is obviously pretty easy (for a basketball player, that is); goaltending, the backbone of any good hockey team, is illegal in basketball. How odd.

4. It should be noted that of these three, Hank Aaron is far and away the statistical leader in “not being a dick.”

5. And one fewer Super Bowl touchdowns than William “The Refrigerator” Perry. It’s been twenty-five years, but I still think that’s bullshit.

6. Or at least it would have gone without saying, if I hadn’t just gone and said it.

7. If you’re going to include horses in the rankings, I’m pretty sure your top 100 athletes would all be horses. And if we’re going to be ridiculous, why stop at horses? Flipper was a hell of a swimmer, put his ass on the list.⁸

8. Assuming dolphins actually have asses.
9. I don’t know if I actually believe this; I'm mostly just bored and trying to start an argument.

Larry Walker vs. Albert Belle

For your baseball pleasure, my take on two terrific sluggers whose careers were both cut short by injuries. I give my readers, as the title subtly suggests, Larry Walker vs. Albert Belle.

First, some basic stats. I went in knowing that Walker would have a big edge in the traditional counting stats because his career was longer. As it turns out, I was correct about that. My thanks to Fangraphs for some of the stats I list, and to the REALLY cool comparison tool on Baseball Reference

Walker does indeed have the edge in the counting stats, as I had guessed, like the standard HR, doubles, runs, RBIs, etc., including a big edge in total bases, 3904 to 3300. This seems almost entirely due to having a longer career, 17 seasons (or parts thereof) to 12 for Belle - but that's still a big difference. Walker also has the edge in career OBP, with a fantastic career OBP of .400 (including a terrific EIGHT years in a row over .400), while Belle sits at merely .369 (including only four years over .400, with another year at .399). Right off the bat, Walker has a significant lead.

But Belle has a counter-punch or two to make. Here is a list of Bells's adjusted OPS (adjusted for park effects but not for position or league differences – 100 is average) by year, starting in 1989:

85
42
134
122
145
193
177
158
116
171
142
109

Career average OPS+ for Belle is 143.

For Walker, coincidentally also starting in 1989:

26
112
127
142
120
151
130
116
178
158
163
110
160
150
121
153
166
143
130

Career average OPS+ for Walker of 140.

Belle has the edge in career OPS+, AND played in the tougher league, making his higher OPS+ number slightly more impressive. Belle benefits by not having significant decline years, however - that props up his average stats while harming his counting stats. Furthermore, in a somewhat silly comparison but I think a useful one on some levels, there is the Black Ink Test on Baseball Reference (number of times they lead the league in a category, as follows: Four Points for home runs, runs batted in or batting average; Three Points for runs scored, hits or slugging percentage; Two Points for doubles, walks or stolen bases; One Point for games, at bats or triples) and the Gray Ink Test (number of times in the top-10 of a category). Belle has Walker beat in both. UPDATE - As pointed out by frequent commenter Dr. Brainsmart, it is worth noting that Walker had to contend with Barry Bonds (one of the top 5 hitters ever, no matter your opinion on how he got there) in his league so the league leader stat may be even less significant than the small weight I previously gave it.

Walker's WPA (win probably added) was 48.88 over his career, while Belle's was only 26.04, again likely due to playing time. Score a jab for Walker. And with a nice uppercut for Walker, according to this site: his career WAR (wins above replacement) is 67.1, ranking him 67th in baseball history (among position players). Belle is way down the list with 37.1 career WAR, ranking him 318th among hitters.

I also don’t have access to advanced defensive metrics like UZR, as that also only goes back to 2002, or +/- because that's a proprietary stat and I'm not a member of that site! I think it’s fair to say that Walker was a better defender, as for much of his career he considered a very good right fielder, while Belle was considered an average (at best) left fielder – obviously an easier position to play.

Walker gets a better "speed score" from Fangraphs as well, although I'm not sure what that encompasses. Let's just say that I'm willing to bet Walker was more valuable on the bases than was Belle.

Overall, it's pretty clear that Walker had the better career. But I also think it's fair to say that Belle had the higher peak and just didn't sustain his excellence as long. Belle's career wasn't as long but he was seemingly more durable during the years he played – his Games Played is consistently higher than Walker's. So while Walker has the better case for the HOF (but will almost certainly not make it due to the Coors Field stigma and his injuries keeping down his counting stats), it's a closer call as to which player you'd rather have for their 5-year peak – I might say Belle on that question.

Of course, if there was a statistic for which player I'd rather my hypothetical daughter date then Walker would win in a landslide. Belle was, by all reports, a pretty big jerk, while Walker was seemingly affable and goofy in a friendly sort of way.

A Salary Cap Would've Stopped Hitler!

Alan Greenspan comes to me for discussions on economic theory and Bud Selig gets my input of baseball issues of the day, so I occasionally feel the need to spew my knowledge to the masses. It’s just the right thing to do, yo. Hence, we’re here to celebrate the Yankees of 2009 and World Series Champions (I hate that “world champions crap – did they beat everyone in the world? No!) as they prove the point about money being meaningless in baseball. Huh? you might ask? Didn’t the Yankees spend way more than everyone else and buy the title? In the words of the great White Goodman, let me hit you with some knowledge.

Rob Neyer of ESPN has a terrific blog, called Sweetspot. Check it out. It’s not quite as terrific as Bowling in the Dark…but not much is. Some Guy and I have a media behemoth on our hands, and the Rob Neyers of the world can get in line! Anyway, Neyer wrote a good blog entry about this topic. The basic point is that the Yankees can buy a playoff spot every year, but the last eight years (many of which the Yanks outspent everyone by even more than they did this year) taught us that the championship cannot be bought (only some timely talent and Lady Luck can grant that).

Isn’t revenue sharing a good thing? How about the luxury tax? The Yanks pay way more than anyone else – is that a bad thing? It’s a problem that the clubs are not required to re-invest monies earned through the luxury tax or in revenue sharing in the team. This has NOTHING to do with a salary cap. Simply implementing a rule that says “All clubs must invest the money they receive through the luxury tax or revenue sharing back into the team payroll” would probably alleviate a lot of what the lazy mainstream media types are complaining about.

I find it irritating when people talk about teams forcing cities to build them new stadia (plural of stadium?). It’s not true that a team does not have to pay for a new stadium. It’s simply market forces. The team says “you, Mr. City, build me a stadium or we’re leaving”. And most of the time Mr. City does just that, not calling the bluff of the team. The City of Tampa has called the bluff – no new stadium for a long time. It’s ludicrous when the team doesn’t build its own stadium. For the Yankees to get this grand new stadium (with some tickets costing $5K a game!) for free is a bunch of garbage. But no one made Mr. New York City do that for the Yankees. Screw you, Mr. New York City!

Next – we all talk about “small market” and “large market” teams. Do you know which teams are which? Below is a chart of the baseball markets arranged by population, using numbers from the 2000 census:

Markets of more than 10 million people
--------------------------------------------------------

21,199,865 New York Mets, New York Yankees
16,373,645 Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers

Markets of 5-10 million people
--------------------------------------------------------

9,157,540 Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox
7,608,070 Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals
7,039,362 Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants
6,188,463 Philadelphia Phillies
5,819,100 Boston Red Sox
5,456,428 Detroit Tigers
5,221,801 Texas Rangers

Markets of 3-5 million people
--------------------------------------------------------

4,682,897 Toronto Blue Jays
4,669,571 Houston Astros
4,112,198 Atlanta Braves
3,878,380 Florida Marlins
3,554,760 Seattle Mariners
3,251,876 Arizona Diamondbacks

Markets of 2-3 million people
--------------------------------------------------------

2,968,806 Minnesota Twins
2,945,831 Cleveland Indians
2,813,833 San Diego Padres
2,603,607 St Louis Cardinals
2,581,506 Colorado Rockies
2,395,997 Tampa Bay Devil Rays
2,358,695 Pittsburgh Pirates

Markets of 1-2 million people
--------------------------------------------------------

1,979,202 Cincinnati Reds
1,776,062 Kansas City Royals
1,689,572 Milwaukee Brewers


A few things jump out on this list, at least to me. Look at the 5-10 group. Why are the Cubs, White Sox, Orioles, Nationals (get a pass for recent move), Phillies, Tigers and Rangers so bad more often than not? Okay, perhaps one could argue that more recently the salaries have grown more disproportionate, and the Cubs and Phillies (at least) have been competitive. But then why are the others so bad? One may also argue that the 5-10 is too large a spread to look at. Perhaps, but note that the first three cities share two teams each. The same person is highly unlikely to attend games of both teams or buy stuff from both teams. Next, look at the 2-5 million ranges (smushing two groups together – and yes, I just used the word “smushing”). Atlanta, Minnesota, Toronto, Cleveland, Arizona and St. Louis have been fairly regularly competitive. What advantage do they have over Houston (also pretty competitive, but less consistently so than the first group), Seattle, San Diego, Colorado, Tampa and Pittsburgh? Florida is a special case, as they have no attendance and build up for a run then tear down (no other team has this particular model). I also think Minnesota is a special case, as its owner is one of the richest in the league, and they don’t spend up to their revenue level. So how does one analyze that?

In fact, the most compelling argument FOR a cap may just be the final four teams on the list. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Milwaukee have certainly been the most inept teams over the last 20-30 years. But does correlation equal causation? Certainly, a significant part of the reason for their ineptitude is revenue-driven. But it’s important to recognize that a significant part is also inept-management-driven. Is the fortune of those four teams enough to drive the creation of a salary cap? And if you believe that it is, how do you explain the similar results seen by fans in Baltimore, Dallas, Detroit and Chicago (until recently)? Thus, I think that population is not what you’re looking for as an explanation.

Population is only a part of the equation. What you really should look at is team revenue. This is somewhat population-driven, but not always. Seattle is a large-revenue club. Oakland is a small-revenue club. Why? Too many reasons to list here. But the point is that if you talk population and not revenue, you’re not seeing the entire ball of wax. Is there a correlation between revenue and post-season potential? Of course. Let’s explore that next.

There is a good book that I have only read parts of thus far, called “Baseball Between The Numbers”. Since only 12 of 30 teams can make the playoffs in a given year, most teams won’t come close to making the playoffs (2008 being an outlier there, as deep into the season there was a disproportionately large number of teams still “in the running” for a playoff spot – I think this is also evidence against the need for a salary cap, but I digress). So let’s look at playoff appearances over time, since one of Some Guy’s main arguments has been that the higher-spending teams will be more consistently competitive than the lower-spending teams. Doing some statistical analysis that I am way too dumb to understand, the authors found that the correlation between team revenue and post-season appearances (the R-squared) is .51. Meaning that half of getting to the post-season is determined by revenue. Is that enough for a cap? I don’t know. But the authors make a good point – teams make a lot of money by getting to the post-season, so could the correlation really be telling us that those who make the post-season have higher revenues? Maybe, but this isn’t what we want to know. So they did a comparison of appearances in the playoffs to TV market size – go back to the above chart. It is here that my analysis above really shines (the chart was from a different source, and the analysis was all mine. Eat it Greenspan!). The correlation between post-season appearances and TV market size is only .11, meaning that only 11% of the reason for a team making the playoffs is due to TV market size. This, it should be obvious, is not enough to support creating a salary cap.

I really believe that when people say “a salary cap would be good for baseball” they really mean “I hate the Yankees for being able to buy all the best players.” “Baseball Between The Numbers” goes on to discuss how the authors believe a cap would (or would not) affect the competitive balance, and I won’t go into that here. But to quickly look at football’s cap – the Cowboys and the Raiders spent the most money on salary in 2008 (there are many complicated ways to fit lots of salary into a hard salary cap under the NFL rules). Where did that get both of those teams? The lesson, from this admittedly tiny sample size? Even with a cap, there are teams that have more money to spend than others – and even then, you’re still not guaranteed to be any better than any other team.

Rob Neyer thinks that the Yankees can buy their way to the playoffs every year. He’s a smart guy and maybe they can, but most large-revenue teams cannot. It’s pretty hard to argue, however, that revenue has no bearing on the fates of baseball teams. Spending has escalated in the past twenty years, but in 1990 the Baltimore Orioles were the highest spending team. The Dodgers have spent money like scary monkeys for a long time, with only the recent playoff fruit to show for it (and that is in SPITE of some terrible spending, on the likes of Juan Pierre, Andruw Jones and Jason Schmidt).

Okay, maybe money is not irrelevent, as the first paragraph of my post suggested with tongue firmly in cheek. But spend wisely, my billionaire team owning friends. Go ahead and try to buy your way to the playoffs. Good luck once you’re there.