10 comments Woody Paige Has An Interesting Way of Evaluating Pitchers

Woody Paige received a question in his mailbag a few weeks ago concerning the NL Cy Young award and he had an interesting answer to who he thinks should get the award in the American League. I'll give you a hint...I hate his answer.

First, Woody wrote a column where he performs a little revisionist history concerning Kyle Orton. For the entire spring and summer Woody Paige was taking a dump on Orton to pump up Tim Tebow as the best quarterback on the Broncos roster, even going as far as to say that Tebow should be the Broncos starting quarterback in the first game of the season. Here is the article of revisionist history, along with quotes from the original article advocating Tebow as the starter from back in August:

When McDaniels traded for Brady Quinn, apparently to compete with Orton for the starting job, and maneuvered to draft Tim Tebow in the first round and praised him to, well, the high heavens, Orton obviously was offended.

Yes, obviously this was offensive to Orton. It's so obvious to Woody Paige that Orton was offended, he dedicated nearly his entire summer to praising Tim Tebow.

Accusations seeped out of Dove Valley that the quarterback was lacking in leadership qualities, wasn't working out before the minicamps with his receivers and failed to regularly attend offseason training activities.

I wonder where these accusations creeped out from...I have an idea, let's check the very article I just linked from August where Woody says Tim Tebow should start at quarterback in 2010 for the Broncos:

After Orton's mediocre season in 2009, the Broncos brought in Brady Quinn for the specific purpose of challenging Orton for the starting job in Orton's final season in Denver.

Orton responded initially by not working out with his receivers, absorbing the playbook and showing lackluster interest early in the offseason training activities.

So these accusations Woody is talking about came from Woody Paige himself. So in summary, Woody Paige has started the accusations about Orton's worth ethic, reported on these accusations and is now refuting them. It's Woody's very own news cycle.

Orton's close friends and past and present teammates have said he had proven himself as a locker-room and huddle leader with the Bears and the Broncos, had thrown daily on his own with receiver Brandon Stokley, received his offseason bonus for OTA participation and felt insulted by McDaniels.

Woody Paige apparently talked to none of these people before massaging his Tebow-ner back in August and suggesting he start for the Broncos in 2010.

Orton worked harder, to earn his starting job again, earn a contract extension and earn McDaniel's esteem.

Woody writes all of these positive things about Orton AFTER he has proven to be successful this year. Throughout training camp he was too busy writing articles about Tebow like this pile of horseshit.

You can feel Woody get an erection in that column.

Orton outperformed the disappointing Quinn and the raw Tebow in the team's full minicamp in June and in the early days of training camp. He was in control of the offense, threw crisper short passes and attempted and completed more downfield passes, a rarity last season.

Interesting, this is different from what he wrote in August. Woody Paige from his August "should Tebow start" column:

Tebow can throw the short routes as well as Orton, and certainly can throw more accurately on the run.

So did Tebow through the short passes as well as Orton or not as well as Orton in training camp? Woody gives us a conflicted view of the situation.

He obviously had improved command of McDaniels' complicated playbook and system.

Orton was clearly in control of the offense, so why on August 12, when training camp was over did Woody suggest Tebow threw the short routes as well as Orton and Orton had not studied the playbook enough? He reported something completely different in August when he talked about Orton's attitude and ability in training camp than what he is reporting now. Why would that happen?

It's not often I get to read one article by a writer contradicting another article by that same writer. Woody claims Orton was in control of the team in training camp, but he apparently declined to report this and acted as if it was up in the air whether Orton was the answer to the Broncos quarterback situation or not. He was one of those perpetuating the accusations he speaks of in the October article about Orton, so either he reported on these accusations without verifying whether they were correct or not, or he was the one who started the idea Orton wasn't dedicated to the team. If Orton's control of the playbook was so obvious, why didn't Woody report like it was?

Now I will move on to a question Woody was asked in his mailbag where he talks about the NL and AL Cy Young award.

Woody: I just read an article by Joe Sheehan supporting Felix Hernandez for the AL Cy Young Award even though he is 12-12, citing his lack of run support while CC Sabathia has benefited from 176 runs in his 33 starts. Tell me why Ubaldo Jimenez shouldn't get the same consideration, besides the fact he has to pitch at hitter-friendly Coors for half his starts. He should have at last four or five more wins with only a few more runs in half the games he lost or had a no-decision.

— Donna, Glenwood Springs

Even if Jimenez got the same consideration, I would think Halladay would still be the NL Cy Young award winner. Halladay had a much better complete year than Jimenez. I would love to hear an argument to the contrary though.

This question from the reader is pretty stupid on its face anyway. There are tons of pitchers who would have won games if they had a few more runs in half the games they lost or had a no-decision.

WP: I don't buy the argument of Sheehan and others.

Considering it is a perfectly logical argument, it doesn't strike me as odd that Woody wouldn't buy it. Through this entire answer he will provide no real evidence as to why he shouldn't buy Sheehan's argument other than his personal feelings. Woody must be from the old school sportswriting school that personal feelings trumps a valid argument every time.

Felix Hernandez had a good personal year, but you can't win the Cy Young with 12 victories.

Oh no, but you can. What's weird about the Cy Young, and this is contrary to whatever Joe Morgan or any other idiot wants to tell you, but it is not a team award but an individual award. So if a player has a good personal year and goes 3-15 with a 1.26 ERA and 1.01 WHIP there is a good chance he was the best pitcher in his league that year. Therefore that pitcher could possibly win the Cy Young award.

And, in the National League, you can't win the Cy Young with four victories after the All-Star Game.

But you really can. Let's not get too stuck on this whole "wins" thing when determining how good a pitcher is. Baseball is a team sport.

Voters (media swill like me) will factor in that Hernandez didn't give up many runs, but they also will factor in that he pitches in a pitcher-friendly park in Seattle

Voters (media swill like Woody) would also have to look at what Felix Hernandez did on the road compared to how he did at home.

Hernandez's numbers at home v. road:

At home: 118.0 IP, 8 wins, 4 losses, 2.06 ERA, 7 HR, .208/.255/.278, 119 SO, 0.996 WHIP.

On the road: 131.2 IP, 5 wins, 8 losses, 2.46 ERA ER, 10 HR, .216/.289/.342, 113 SO, 1.139 WHIP.

Hernandez was still a great pitcher on the road. The biggest trouble Hernandez seemed to have on the road was walking batters. He had a 4.76 SO/BB at home and a 2.51 SO/BB on the road. That explains why Hernandez's WHIP was higher on the road, but otherwise he didn't give up too many more home runs nor did he give up too many more earned runs on the road.

So Woody can factor in the ballpark all that he wants, but it will show that Hernandez didn't give many runs away from Safeco Field either. Of course why do research on this when you can just put your foot in the dirty and refuse to budge on the idea a player with 12 wins should not win the Cy Young award?

and that his team was awful, and that he was a .500 pitcher.

He was a .500 pitcher because his team was awful. His offense was last in every single important offensive category. To put it in perspective, Hernandez would have a better chance at winning more than 12 games if he had played for any other major league team this year...including the Pirates and the Astros. So it is actually a remarkable thing that he won 12 games this year since he was in the worst possible situation in regard to getting run support from his team that he could have been.

The Mariners had a .298 OBP as a team this year. To put this in perspective, the Mariners had 4 out of 10 players with an OBP over .300 among players with more than 200 at-bats. The Pirates had 7 out of 10 players with an OBP over .300 and the Astros had 7 out of 11 players with an OBP over .300. The Mariners were a horrible hitting team, so the fact he played for an awful team IS DIRECTLY TIED to the fact he was a .500 pitcher. I don't know how many times I can re-phrase that the Mariners were the worst offensive team in the majors in 2010.

Voters (I'm not one in this category) will factor in that Ubaldo pitches in a hitter-friendly park and that he lost a lot of close decisions,

Which describes Hernandez as well. He had 0-2 runs scored for him in 15 of his 34 starts. There were many a close loss in there as well.

Taking out that Felix Hernandez performed well on the road, it doesn't matter if a ballpark is hitter or pitcher friendly when it comes to whether a pitcher gets a win or a loss. Both teams have to hit in that park. So Hernandez didn't benefit from being in a pitcher's park because it also meant his hitters had to hit in a pitcher's park.

Doc Halladay's perfect game trumps Ubaldo's no-hitter.

So incredibly irrelevant it should not even be mentioned in any way.

Halladay had more victories, more complete games, a better WHIP, a better ERA, about third as many walks and the same number of quality starts, and his team is in the postseason.

I think we have established that Halladay was a better pitcher than Jimenez and I am going to ignore the fact Woody threw a dumbass comment about Halladay's team making the postseason. We've already established Woody votes for individual awards based on team achievements, so I expect this kind of idiocy from him.

The problem I have with wins is that it is a statistic which has lost a lot of its value in the modern game of baseball. A starting pitcher used to complete a good portion of the games they started, but now there are many other variables from when a pitcher is in the game, including run support and the effectiveness of his team's relievers which affects if a pitcher gets the win. I don't hate wins, but is a statistic that is overused to determine how good a pitcher truly is.

(Nobody factors in that the American League is tougher to pitch in than the National League.)

When comparing pitchers in the National League for the Cy Young award with other pitchers in the National League, it is pointless to try and compare these pitchers to the American League pitchers. So when comparing Halladay and Jimenez, the fact the American League is tougher to pitch in is irrelevant.

If the Rockies wanted him to win the Cy Young so bad, they should have scored more runs, played harder in his final start and not dropped a ball at second base when he had another victory secured.

This. This is exactly why wins are an overrated statistic to measure a pitcher's worth by. Woody Paige mindlessly writes this sentence and still can't see the relevance of this very sentence he wrote to why Felix Hernandez should win the AL Cy Young award. None of these three things Woody listed could have been controlled by Jimenez. The fact his offense and defense weren't good around him, does that make him a less worthy pitcher for the Cy Young award? It should not. The same thing goes for Felix Hernandez.

This group of sentences makes me want to spit in the face of a mime. "If the Rockies wanted him to win the Cy Young so bad..." Why use a team performance to judge an individual's performance like this? I worry for the future of our sports world that Woody Paige can't tie in a pitcher's individual performance with his team's performance and see that they should not be judged together to determine whether that individual deserves an award.

Jimenez (and by default Felix Hernandez) had no control over how many runs his team scored, how hard his offense played and how many errors his team committed. Zero. Zilch. There's no valid reason his performance should be judged based on the faults of his teammates. What Woody Paige just wrote is the perfect example for why a pitcher who wins 12 games can win the Cy Young award.

He should have won 23-25 games, but he didn't, and that's the reality.

That is the reality. The reality is also that wins are not the sole indicator of how good a pitcher has pitched. This very example Woody uses shows this to be true. The reality is there are other ways to evaluate a pitcher without using wins that can show how good a pitcher truly was during the year. Why should Sabathia win the Cy Young because he won nearly 40% more games than Hernandez? Sabathia's ERA was nearly 30% higher, his WHIP was 10% higher, his BAA was 10% higher, and his run support average was nearly 50% higher than Hernandez's. The ONLY statistic that supports his candidacy is one of the most flawed pitching statistics that is used, and that is wins.

I may be preaching to the choir, but I still can't get over Woody Paige blaming Jimenez's lower win total to how bad his team performed and then not being able to understand how Felix Hernandez having fewer wins than other AL Cy Young candidates is irrelevant.

Jimenez honestly went through a stretch when he pitched poorly, on top of everything else. Carlos Gonzalez deserves to be MVP, but the seamheads will say, "Oh, he plays in Colorado."

I hate it when "seamheads" try to point out the bad reasoning in an argument by using the truth. Gonzalez is a great player, but I don't know if a guy who hits .289/.322/.453 with 8 home runs and 41 RBI away from his home field, as compared to .380/.425/.737 with 26 home runs and 76 RBI at home deserves to be the MVP. Gonzalez only had 13 less at-bats on the road this year than at home, so he was significantly better in his home park. Woody claims Felix Hernandez had an advantage in pitching at Safeco Field, but he ignores the affect Coors Field seemed to have on Carlos Gonzalez. So yes, he plays in Colorado and the statistics bear out that it has an effect on his numbers...at least it did this year.

Compare those numbers to Joey Votto's numbers on the road and at home. I don't see how a person could not come to the conclusion Coors Field had some effect on Gonzalez's numbers unless he was just much, much more comfortable hitting at home as opposed to on the road.

Statistics are such a pain in the ass for people when it shows their line of thinking is wrong. I believe what statistics say when I am proven wrong, so I think "old-school" sportswriters are just too lazy to use statistics and therefore don't want to believe in using them so they can't ever acknowledge they are wrong.

14 comments Jay Mariotti Fails To Understand Baseball Economics

Jay Mariotti is the type of sportswriter who really has no experience interviewing athletes in the locker room, writing in-depth articles about inside information or breaking stories in a sport, or even writing intelligently about a topic using statistics or any type of evidential backing. He gets paid to give his opinion and back it up with all the bluster he can manage. So when I see an article from Mariotti that says, "Phils Should Have Kept Halladay and Lee" I know it is an article I have to write about here.

The basic breakdown of the trade can be seen here. In a nutshell it is a good trade for Seattle, a risky trade for the Phillies, decent for the Blue Jays, and I have no idea why the Athletics got involved other than they must have really wanted Michael Taylor. So yes, it was a risk for the Phillies. They knew they probably could not sign Cliff Lee after this season and they really wanted Roy Halladay at the trade deadline last year, so they decided to go ahead and make the move to get him for this year.

Fortune favors the bold right? Well, the Phillies were bold and Jay Mariotti did not like it. He wants the Phillies to keep adding on payroll and take the chance of losing Cliff Lee in free agency and only being left with draft choices (which means they can't control exactly who is available when they pick, rather than choosing the prospects they get in a trade). I'm not a big Ken Rosenthal fan but he wrote an article about why the Phillies couldn't keep both Lee and Halladay. Reading each of the articles shows exactly why Rosenthal should be employed to talk about sports while Jay Mariotti should stick to condemning Tiger Woods and taking his vendettas out on others in his daily column. Writing this type column is over Mariotti's head.

It's good to know that the Phillies, Yankees, Red Sox and Mariners are doing big business this winter.

The Mariners essentially took on Lee so they could either trade him at the trade deadline for more prospects or get draft picks for him after he signs with a team after the season is over. The Mariners weren't even close to doing big business with an eye towards keeping Lee long term in my mind. The odds of Cliff Lee signing with the Mariners long-term is 15% in my book.

Jay Mariotti fails to understand simple baseball economics. Teams aren't losing money necessarily but teams are also having a hard time adding payroll for the upcoming year. The Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies are also big market teams who can afford to do "big business" at this point in the offseason.

Major League Baseball is a 30-team enterprise, and, once again, we're left with the sort of competitive imbalance that basically eliminates two dozen teams from World Series title consideration weeks before pitchers and catchers report.

I don't know how one simple trade leads to the revelation that 24 teams are now eliminated from World Series contention. I would love to know Jay's list of teams that are still in the hunt for a World Series next year, but we won't get that because Mariotti is being a drama queen about the competitive balance problem in baseball and doesn't want to nail himself down by listing the 6 teams still in contention. The competitive balance in baseball is not great, but it's not so bad that 24 teams are automatically out of contention for the World Series in mid-December. Jay acts like the MLB season starts next week and not in 3 1/2 months.

I realize that this sport has been hit by the recession, too, but I also suspect some franchise owners are using the economic crisis as a convenient reason to cut costs and corners when, in truth, they have the money to make improvements. There is a dirty word for this collective financial inertia.

Fiscal responsibility? Not overspending on free agents early in the offseason?

Collusion.

Of course. The owners of MLB are colluding by not signing expensive free agents and making franchise altering trades before the new year. I would love to know what the point of the collusion between owners in this case is? Jay has already said the good teams in baseball have gotten better this offseason (or at least spent more money), are the owners colluding to ensure the Red Sox, Yankees, Mariners, or Phillies win the World Series this year? If not, then collusion makes no sense in this situation because if some of the teams are spending money and making trades to improve their and other teams are not because they don't want to spend money, that isn't collusion. That's just being cheap.

If NO teams were spending money and making moves I could understand how collusion is a possibility but the same teams that have always made moves are making moves this offseason. If anything, other MLB teams can be guilty of apathy, but not collusion. Not to mention THE SEASON DOESN'T EVEN START FOR ANOTHER 3 1/2 MONTHS. THERE IS STILL TIME FOR TEAMS TO MAKE MOVES LIKE SIGN FREE AGENTS AND MAKE TRADES.

So you'd better appreciate life in Philadelphia, the Bronx, Boston and Seattle, where recent days have brought significant maneuvers that all but ensure a successful 2010 in those places.

Have the Yankees gotten significantly better with the addition of Curtis Granderson? It looks that way, but we don't know yet. The Yankees need some more pitching too. Isn't Roy Halladay over Cliff Lee an upgrade, but not a huge upgrade? John Lackey was the feature pitcher in the free agent market this offseason but that doesn't mean he is going to be anymore than the #3 in the Red Sox rotation (behind Lester and Beckett). This doesn't mean he stinks but it's not exactly like Sabathia or Santana switching teams. Who the hell is going to hit the ball for Seattle with Lee pitching?

It's not like these teams don't have tough questions to answer about their upgrades. It's not necessarily smooth sailing for these teams right into the playoffs.

But here's the rub: Rather than pair up Halladay and Lee for even one season, which would have been one of the all-time dominant collaborations (think Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale)

Gosh, I love Cliff Lee but we are talking about a 31 year old pitcher with 97 career wins and a 3.97 ERA. That's not exactly Sandy Koufax-ian career numbers for a 31 year old. Hell, Koufax was out of baseball by the age of 31. It shows Mariotti's lack of baseball knowledge to compare Halladay-Lee to Koufax-Drysdale as if there haven't been a better combination than Halladay-Lee in a pitching staff over the past 20 years.

How about (I am just thinking about left hand starter/right hand starter combinations, if we included pitchers who were as good as Halladay/Lee and played on the same team it would be a much longer list):

Maddux/Glavine
Pettitte/Clemens
Mulder/Hudson (Oakland A's days...if Lee can get credit for 2 straight great years, I can stretch a little and include these two pitchers)

There are probably 5 other LH/RH combinations that would be nearly as good as Lee and Halladay over the past 20 years. Not to take anything away from them, but do we really have to go back to Drysdale/Koufax for a good comparison?

and dramatically closed the competitive gap between the Phillies and champion Yankees, the Phillies used the deal to ship Lee -- sigh! -- to the Mariners.

The Phillies should not be incredibly concerned with closing the gap between them and the Yankees since the Yankees have won exactly 1 consecutive World Series and play in the American League while the Phillies play in the National League. It's not like the Yankees are a dynasty. I am sure the Phillies want to beat the New York Yankees if they meet again in the World Series, but I am pretty sure the Phillies aren't terribly concerned with making sure the gap between them and the Yankees is closed. The Phillies are more concerned with winning the NL East before anything else.

For months, the Blue Jays had been trying to pry away Philadelphia's best pitching prospect, Kyle Drabek, only to be rejected. Now, suddenly, the Phillies have relinquished Drabek in the Halladay deal, only to dump Lee when he still has a year remaining on his contract.

The Phillies relinquished Drabek for Halladay while giving up Lee, BUT they did get three prospects in return. Essentially the Phillies are betting the three prospects they gave up to get Cliff Lee from the Indians are not going to be as good as the three prospects they get back from the Mariners for Cliff Lee. If the prospects they get are better than the prospects they gave up, the Phillies have come out on top even absent Halladay's performance vs. Cliff Lee's performance for the upcoming year.

Keeping both Halladay and Lee was a non-go from the start, which Mariotti can't seem to understand...Ken Rosenthal explains why this wouldn't have worked for the Phillies:

The Phillies will receive $6 million from the Jays in the pending three-team trade, then subtract $9 million by sending Lee to the Mariners. Their net of $15 million will nearly cover Halladay’s $15.75 million salary for 2010 -- a near-wash.

So basically the Phillies spent $750,000 and added Roy Halladay (plus they signed Halladay to extension and he has been a better pitcher over his career than Lee) and three prospects to the roster (I realize all the prospects won't be on the roster this year) for this year in exchange for Cliff Lee and three prospects. It's a risk, but not a huge risk.

But the Phillies’ owners stretched the payroll for ‘09 by extending the contracts of several of their own stars, signing free-agent left fielder Raul Ibanez and adding Lee at the July 31 non-waiver deadline.

There is a limit, particularly when the team still needs bullpen help.

This is another part of baseball economics, or baseball in general, Mariotti fails to understand. The Phillies still have to spend money to improve their team so increasing payroll by nearly $16 million and giving up 7 prospects for a one year run doesn't make sense when the team will need to spend more money to shore up the bullpen. The Phillies are smart, they can't just look at the short term, they have to also look long term.

As far as Mariotti's criticism that the Phillies were giving up the same thing they offered last summer for Halladay, it's plain wrong.

Remember, the Jays are sending the Phillies $6 million. The idea of including such a sum, from the Jays’ perspective, is to buy better players. The Phillies were not receiving any money last July when they refused to part with either Drabek or Brown for Halladay.

That $6 million dollars can buy at least a reliever and a half on the free agent market. I personally can't believe the Blue Jays threw in $6 million into the deal, they were already giving up their ace pitcher without getting back the Phillies #1 prospect, Dominic Brown.

Enough with the sane arguments, let's get back to Mariotti's criticism of the trade and lack of understanding for baseball economics.

Uh, why not just keep Lee for his final season while giving Halladay the contract extension he reportedly has accepted: a guaranteed $60 million for three years and a 2014 vesting option of $20 million?

Because the Phillies would not have had the money to sign bullpen help for this year and then run the risk of losing Lee in free agency for two prospects (not three like they got back) in a draft. The Phillies were able to choose their prospects by trading with the Mariners. No one said it wasn't a risk, but economically it makes sense.

So even if the Phillies knew they could afford only one or the other for the long term, they could have kept Lee -- who reportedly was making waves about wanting a contract similar to the $161-million pact signed by his friend and former Cleveland partner in Cy Young crime, C.C. Sabathia -- and undoubtedly been the favorites to win the World Series.

The Phillies could have done that and they chose not to because they could not expand more payroll for this one year. I don't know why Jay Mariotti thinks the free agent signing period is over, there is still plenty of time for the Phillies to sign other players to shore up weak spots on the roster. The Phillies have taken a long term view in this trade. Time will tell if it works out or not.

Instead, the Phillies are no better than they were when they lost the Series to the Yankees in six games: a special pitcher at the top of the rotation and a lot of question marks after him, including Cole Hamels, who was last heard verbally blowing off the season before the Series actually was over.

I think it is true the Phillies are not much better for this season than last season at this point, but they are in better shape for the 2010 season because they have Halladay locked up to a long term deal. Somehow Jay Mariotti forgets the Phillies won a World Series in 2008 with Cole Hamels as the anchor of the pitching staff and this year he is the 2nd best pitcher on the staff (just like last year when the Phillies made the World Series and Hamels had a "bad" year). I don't think one bad year is going to cause me to write him off and it shouldn't cause anyone else to write him off either.

But at the major league level, they are no better next season while the Yankees and Red Sox clearly have improved themselves.

Have the Yankees improved? They still have Sabathia, an injury prone starter and a 37 year old as the top three starters in their rotation. They have a better centerfielder in Curtis Granderson but now have a hole in LF since they haven't re-signed Johnny Damon. Not to mention the fact the Yankees weakened their starting pitching and bullpen depth with the Granderson trade by getting rid of Phil Coke and Ian Kennedy. I honestly can't say they have drastically improved themselves yet.

Sorry, but I've never understood why a franchise prioritizes the future over its precious present.

Says the exact same guy who has absolutely beaten up the Yankees in the past for trading for expensive players and signing expensive players in lieu of building a good team through the farm system. When it comes to the Phillies, Jay Mariotti is all about buying players and not worrying about tomorrow, yet earlier in this exact same column he bitched about the competitive imbalance of the league, which is partially caused by teams trading for big name and big money players.

GO FOR THE JUGULAR when you have the chance, when you're clearly the best team in a National League that finds the Dodgers in a divorce-driven fire sale, the Mets lamely remaining idle while the Yankees dominate the back pages, the Cubs not doing much in the infancy of their new ownership and the Cardinals playing their usual payroll games in middle America.

DAMN YOU ST. LOUIS CARDINALS WITH YOUR MIDDLE AMERICAN VALUES THAT REFUSE TO ALLOW YOU TO PAY $16 MILLION (or more) FOR AN OUTFIELDER THAT DIDN'T HELP YOUR TEAM GET INTO THE NLCS LAST YEAR! How dare you not overpay for players in an attempt to keep up with the Phillies who are trying to keep up with the Yankees! How will Major League Baseball ever attain competitive balance if teams don't overspend every winter on free agents that will cause potential payroll problems for the team in the future??? DON'T YOU KNOW OUTSPENDING EVERY OTHER TEAM IS THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP THE COMPETITIVE BALANCE IN BASEBALL????

Plus, the Phillies don't know if their prospects will pan out. They don't know if their prospects will remain healthy.

Plus the Blue Jays don't know if the prospects they got in the trade will pan out either, so just by doing a little math, if the three prospects the Phillies don't know if the prospects they received will pan out and the Blue Jays don't know if the prospects they received will pan out we have essentially a Cliff Lee for Roy Halladay trade...which is a wash except for the fact Halladay signed an extension already and Lee hasn't...and Jay Mariotti has no point.

In fact, if push came to shove, I might have picked Lee over Halladay --

I would never pick Cliff Lee over Roy Halladay. You can call me crazy or stupid, I don't care. I like Roy Halladay over Cliff Lee. Especially if the Phillies are really worried about keeping up with the Yankees because Roy Halladay is 18-6 with a 2.84 ERA and 1.112 WHIP in his career against the Yankees.

See?

particularly if Lee's agent, Darek Braunecker, is being honest when he says he made no demands for Sabathia-type money and that Lee dearly wanted to remain in Philadelphia for the rest of his career.

Because agents are well-known for their complete honesty and willingness to set the market for their free agents before that player has gotten an offer or ever actually been on the market. Brilliant reasoning by Mariotti.

Instead, the winner of the Yankees-Red Sox scrum will prevail in the Series next October/November, with the once-straggling Mariners in position to make the playoffs by teaming Lee with Felix Hernandez atop the rotation and reaping the versatile benefits of new signee Chone Figgins.

Anyone who thinks the Mariners solution to their hitting woes is Chone Figgins is sorely mistaken and also underestimating the fact there is still 3 1/2 months until the baseball season starts and the current AL West division winner, the Angels, haven't started making any moves.

The Cardinals probably will re-sign Matt Holliday, who isn't receiving the offers he expected after his postseason fielding blunder and may sign for less money than he rejected last year in Colorado.

I am sure it is that one error in the NLDS that is holding Holliday back and not the fact he wasn't that great of a hitter in Oakland and teams really aren't keen on spending many millions on a player that may end up being just an almost-great hitting outfielder. He's a great outfielder but is he great enough to get $150 million?

But the Red Sox aren't done, either, as they eye third baseman Adrian Beltre and have a $15.5 million offer on the table to Aroldis Chapman, the lefty pitcher from Cuba. And that means the Yankees aren't done, as well, making these teams the two biggest winners.

What the Red Sox and the Yankees are doing is almost completely negligible in regards to the Phillies. There are 100 different things that need to happen before the Phillies would play either of these teams in the World Series. Does Jay Mariotti know the Yankees/Red Sox and Phillies play in different leagues? I am not sure he is aware of this. The Phillies won't be fighting Boston or the New York Yankees for a playoff spot this year.

For all the grousing about too much East Coast-axis emphasis on this rivalry, it's still the best theater in the sport, by far trumping whatever the Yankees and Phillies gave us.

Philadelphia is still on the East Coast. They are an East Coast team and the World Series between the Phillies and Yankees was an East Coast World Series. Maybe Philadelphia is not exactly on the East Coast, but neither are the New York Yankees. Someone needs an old fashioned geography lesson.

They've re-signed Andy Pettitte, which aligns an imposing postseason rotation that also included Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.

Imposing? Those three pitchers pitched well this year but during the season the Yankees are still going to need two other pitchers to step up in the starting rotation and I am not sure they knew who exactly that will be at this point. For some reason Jay Mariotti forgets the Yankees have to MAKE the playoffs before they can play in the ALCS against the Red Sox.

But next winter, they simply can sign Lee to replace Pettitte.

As can the Phillies sign Lee to replace a pitcher they don't want anymore.

General manager Brian Cashman pretended as if he was torn. "We're excited about what we're getting, and we're distraught about what we gave up at the same time," he said. "It's a tough decision. You're trading the future for here and now."

Anyone remember the Kevin Brown trade or the Randy Johnson trade? That was also the Yankees trading the future for here and now. How did those trades work out for them?

Here and now is where we are. Remember that if the Yankees win their 28th championship and the Phillies are also-rans again.

Jay Mariotti just stated earlier in this column the Phillies were the favorite to win the National League. Based on this, I wouldn't call a third straight appearance in the World Series to be something "also-rans" have accomplished. Making another World Series and losing that World Series is not a sign the Phillies are "also-rans."

And Cliff Lee is 3,000 miles away.

The Phillies made a risk by trading Lee for Halladay like they did, but it's a risk they felt they had to take. I know it sounds sexy to say the Phillies should have kept Lee and Halladay just for one year, but the Phillies know they couldn't do that because they had other needs on the roster that needed to be fixed. Not to mention if the Phillies had kept Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay, stupid sportswriters like Jay Mariotti would have called them cheap for not re-signing Lee after the season was over. If anything has happened the Phillies have basically made a trade that is a wash, which means they could be due to get back in the World Series where pretty much anything can happen in a 7 game series.

Mariotti doesn't have a clear grasp on baseball economics and strategy because he thinks the Yankees have a wonderful rotation built around an injury prone pitcher and a 37 year old that can't be stopped in the World Series. In truth, the Yankees need to worry about who the other two starters are going to be for them before we all go ahead and put them back in the World Series. The Phillies simply couldn't afford to keep Lee AND fix their bullpen and some of the other roster issues they had. I know Jay doesn't like this but if he took a second to think about the reasoning behind this trade (which will never happen) instead of just spouting his opinion off, he could possibly see why it was made. It's a risk, but I don't think it is a bigger risk than is necessary.