A month ago, we had a spirited argument over the idea of “floating realignment” — a basically impossible-to-implement notion by which teams would be able to choose which division they wished to play in. It signaled that Major League Baseball recognized the current alignment of teams is flawed, particularly because of the Yankee/Red Sox domination in the AL East.

Now, courtesy of Yahoo’s Jeff Passan and NBC’s Craig Calcaterra, we have a new idea: “unalignment.” Delete all divisions. Eliminate unbalanced schedules. The top four teams in each league advance to the postseason. As it was before the advent of the division era in 1969, playoff placement would depend entirely on won-loss record, not on who shares your division.

The plan has a few obvious things to recommend it, simplicity and fairness chief among them. Unbalanced schedules have been controversial since they were introduced, an attempt by Bud Selig to nurture baseball rivalries and boost revenues — and of course nothing boosts revenues more than a few more Yankees-Red Sox games every year. They also are patently unfair: the Blue Jays play 50-60 games a year against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays, while the Tigers play 50-60 games a year against the Royals, Indians, and White Sox, and the Cubs play 50-60 games a year against the Astros, Pirates, Reds, and Brewers. It’s a lot easier to win games when you can beat up on the weak, whether you’re the Yankees or the Twins.

And it’s a lot harder to win games when you’re trapped in the same division as baseball’s two wealthiest teams, as recently measured by Forbes. As Joe Posnanski writes, “The Yankees’ revenue stream is so enormous, it will give them a gigantic competitive advantage that should make them the favorites to win every… single… year.” So it seems doubly unfair to punish the Blue Jays, Orioles, and Rays for the Yankees’ structural advantages by forcing them to try to leapfrog the richest team in baseball, every… single… year.

The plan’s main drawbacks? The thing is, the divisions and unbalanced schedule aren’t all bad, as many of Calcaterra’s readers point out. Because the divisions are generally geographically aligned, the unbalanced schedule means that teams play a greater number of away games in the same time zone as their home city. It does make for a more exciting stretch run for each team to have to play its division rivals more than others. Getting rid of divisions might increase fairness, but it’s not clear that it would make the stretch run more exciting: “No one wants to watch a tenth place team,” writes David Pinto. Because of their infinitely deep pockets, the Yankees and Red Sox will still be at the top of the heap, and it likely won’t be any easier for small-market and mid-market teams to make it to the playoffs. The ones left at the bottom, meanwhile, will be depressingly further down.

The thing is, any realignment solution is bound to be unsatisfying, because ultimately they’re all workarounds for the real problem, which is baseball’s underlying asymmetry of revenue. The Yankees will always be richer than everyone else, no matter what. Passan defends his own plan by saying that it’s the best solution “short of a salary cap, to which the players’ union will never agree.” This is a workaround solution that doesn’t address the true structural problems of baseball’s revenue, all in order to benefit the Orioles and Blue Jays while possibly adversely affecting teams in the other five divisions in baseball. It just doesn’t seem worth it.

That’s what Mike Lowell said. Actually, we can put it in. This is what the win expectancy matrix was set up for.

Let’s look at this chart. It’s the bottom of the 12th (look at the bottom of the 9th), the batter just flied out to make the 2nd out, and Scutaro would 99% of the time remain on 1B. That sets the win expectancy at .562. But Scutaro actually went to 2B, for a win expectancy of .610. So, we credit Scutaro with +.048 wins.

There you go, Mr. Lowell, it is now officially in the boxscore. If it’s tangible, we can measure it. And Scutaro going to 2B is tangible and measurable.

All we need to do is get the scorers to make a better notation in the boxscore so we can separate these plays better. If it was a deep fly ball that any runner would have made it, we give 100% of the credit to the batter. If it was a flyball that essentially makes the Scutaro play like a SB attempt, we give 100% of the credit to the runner. The tough ones are the in-between plays where the split is not so easily done.

By the way, had Scutaro been thrown out, the odds go down to .500, or a drop of .062 wins. So, it’s a very heads up play by Scutaro, as he only needed to be safe 56% of the time to breakeven. So, the issue is not that Scutaro went for it, but rather, why don’t more runners go for it on those plays? As Scutaro said: do or die.

***

Also, someone else pointed out to me that they IBB the next batter, raising the win expectancy from .610 to .613. Why did it go up, if the lead runner wins the game in either case? And, having a runner on base now makes the outs at three bases possible. I didn’t look into it, other than guess that it’s because two walks wins the game.

Just some quick notes on the 2010 pitchf/x data:

– There appears to be some new pitch type categorizations that were breaking some pitchf/x pages. There is EP (Eephus Pitch), SC (Screwball), KC (Knuckle Curve) and FO (Forkball).

– SC and FO I have temporarily lumped into FT (Two-Seam Fastball). I’ve been explained that screwballs (and possibly forkballs) are not really two seam fastballs, but there have been a total of 19 screwballs thrown this year, 18 of them by Daniel Ray Herrera and then the other one was thrown by Dallas Braden. There have been 12 Forkballs thrown, 8 by Livan Hernandez and 4 by Kenshin Kawakami. Overall, these two pitches didn’t seem to warrant their own category, but I can be convinced otherwise.

– Eephus pitches (EP) I have lumped into the UN (Unknown) category. Vicente Padilla has thrown all 16 of them.

This past off-season, we took at look at each organization’s Top 10 prospects. It’s still very early on in the 2010 season, but let’s do our first update of the year and see how each of the No. 1 prospects are doing. Today, we’ll highlight the American League players.

Texas Rangers | Top Prospect: Neftali Feliz, Relief Pitcher (MLB)
Mr. Feliz is just 21 (soon to be 22) but he’s already serving as the Rangers’ closer. He has a 2.61 xFIP in six games, as well as a strikeout rate of 13.50. Feliz has converted two save opportunities.

Seattle Mariners | Top Prospect: Michael Saunders, Outfielder (AAA)
The left-field geriatric ward in Seattle is pretty ugly but Saunders is not exactly forcing the club to consider him. He’s hitting just .174/.240/.174 in 46 at-bats. Saunders is hitting .139 against right-handed pitching but, as a left-handed hitter, that should pick up significantly.

Oakland Athletics | Top Prospect: Chris Carter, First Baseman (AAA)
Shhh, don’t make too much noise; you might spook him. But take a peek at Daric Barton. He may finally be making good on his potential. That, though, could be bad news for Carter, as it temporarily blocks his route to the first-base job. The good news is that there may still be room at DH, as Eric Chavez is not exactly lighting the world on fire. Carter is currently hitting .292/.333.479 with two homers in 12 games at triple-A.

Los Angeles Angels | Top Prospect: Hank Conger, Catcher (AAA)
Conger, 22, is enjoying his time at triple-A. The offensive-minded catcher is hitting .282/.333/.487 in 39 at-bats. Interestingly, he’s also struck out four times… but he’s also taken a total of two free passes. With Mike Scoscia’s man-crush on Jeff Mathis at the MLB level, it might be a while before Conger has a clear road to a starting gig in L.A. The prospect or Mike Napoli could end up as trade bait. Somewhere, Bobby Wilson is quietly sobbing in a corner.

Kansas City Royals | Top Prospect: Mike Montgomery, Starting Pitcher (A+)
Just 20, Montgomery has dominated high-A ball through three starts. He’s pitched at least five innings in each contest and has yet to allow more than two hits in a game. Overall, he’s pitched 18.0 innings and has allowed just six hits and four walks. The young lefty has a strikeout rate of 13 K/9 and a ground-ball rate of 57%.

Detroit Tigers | Top Prospect: Casey Crosby, Starting Pitcher (A-)
Crosby is currently on the disabled list with a “tender elbow.”

Chicago White Sox | Top Prospect: Tyler Flowers, Catcher (AAA)
If A.J. Pierzynski was not entrenched in Chicago, Flowers would already be the favorite of MLB headline writers everywhere. Triple-A has not kept Flowers from doing what he always does: get on base and hit for power. His current triple-slash line is .316/.447/.553. He also has 11 RBI in as many games.

Cleveland Indians | Top Prospect: Carlos Santana, Catcher (AAA)
Speaking of offensive-minded catchers, Santana was off to a sizzling start to the year in triple-A before he fouled a ball off of his knee. That will keep him sidelined for a few days but it’s not considered serious. He’s currently hitting .364/.451/.727 in 44 a-bats. Of his 16 hits, four are doubles and four are homers. He also has 14 RBI and has scored nine runs.

Minnesota Twins | Top Prospect: Aaron Hicks, Outfielder (A-)
Clearly wanting to take it slow with Hicks, the Twins organization sent the former No. 1 draft pick back to low-A after a modest (but promising) ’09 season. Perhaps that messed with his head… Hicks is currently hitting .156/.269/.244 in 45 at-bats. He has struck out 16 times in 12 games.

Toronto Blue Jays | Top Prospect: Brett Wallace, 1B (AAA)
Wallace tends to get knocked for his lack of power, which is somewhat odd considering the fact that he hit 20 homers last season. Sure, he doesn’t project to be a 30-40 home run slugger, but who legitimately does these days? Wallace is currently raking in the Pacific Coast League with a line of .283/.377/.630 in 46 at-bats. He also has five homers, which is tied for first in the league with two minor league veterans. He might be pressing a bit to drive in runs, as he’s hitting .440 with the bases empty and .077 with runners in scoring position.

Boston Red Sox | Top Prospect: Casey Kelly, RHP (AA)
It was a bit of a surprise to the see the Red Sox organization challenge the 20-year-old prospect with a promotion to double-A to begin the year. After all, he had just 46.2 innings of experience in high-A ball. Kept to a tight pitch count, Kelly has worked just five innings in two starts, but he has yet to allow an earned run. He’s allowed five hits, one walk and has four Ks.

Tampa Bay Rays | Top Prospect: Desmond Jennings, OF (AAA)
Jennings missed the beginning of the season with a wrist injury so he’s gotten into just three games so far. He already has four hits, three walks and three steals.

Baltimore Orioles | Top Prospect: Brian Matusz, LHP (MLB)
Matusz is certainly making an early case for the best rookie in the American League. The young lefty has a 3.75 xFIP in three starts. With 18.2 innings under his belt, he has a strikeout rate of 11.09 K/9 and his walk rate has been acceptable at 3.38 BB/9. His extreme fly-ball tendencies are a little worrisome (57.8%).

New York Yankees | Top Prospect: Jesus Montero, C (AAA)
At first glance, you might say a line of .295/.367/.500 through 11 games is nice. But consider the fact that Montero is just 20 years old and he hasn’t been fazed one bit by the move to triple-A. His triple-slash line is actually pretty awesome. Rumor has it he occasionally plays with one arm tied behind his back just to make things interesting. If the Yankees offense sputters at any point this season, expect to see him penciled in to the DH spot.

Please refrain from quoting “small sample size” in your comments. It’s a given.

In general, it’s not a great idea to react to early season slumps and make rash decisions about who should play and who should not. The numbers are all still small samples, and we should generally expect players to perform about the same as we did when spring training ended, regardless of how they’ve played so far.

However, there are teams that should make some changes, and one in particular stands out. Down in Texas, it’s time for them to make a change at first base.

Chris Davis is, once again, struggling at the plate. This isn’t new, as he posted a .311 wOBA last year. He’s tried to increase his contact rate to cut down on the strikeouts, but it’s coming at the cost of his power, as he has yet to hit a home run. Davis doesn’t do enough other things well to be a valuable player without the longballs, and he’s still got a decent amount of work to do if he’s going to become a good big league hitter.

The Rangers can’t afford to let him work out his problems in Arlington, however, not when they have a viable alternative hanging out in Triple-A. Justin Smoak, one of the game’s premier prospects, is just terrorizing PCL pitching, hitting .326/.500/.587. As a stark contrast to Davis, Smoak has drawn 16 walks and struck out just 6 times in his 62 plate appearances so far.

Smoak has a really good approach at the plate, and while he doesn’t have Davis’ raw power, he puts the bat on the ball enough to drive the ball into the gap with regularity. With the Rangers offense scuffling, they could use Smoak’s ability to get on base. Davis may yet turn into a quality big league first baseman, but the Rangers are in a pennant race, and they can’t dig too big of a hole early in the season.

Texas’ best line-up includes Smoak at first base. Already three games back in the AL West and losers of six in a row, it’s time for them to make the move.

Our look back at the second seven days of the minor league season continues. Here is what I learned.

Jonathan Lucroy was promoted fast.

Not exactly the most publicized promotion of the week, but it took the Brewers as many games to move Jon Lucroy up a level as it did the Mets to call up Ike Davis. At the break of Spring Training, the Brewers opted to return Lucroy to Double-A, presumably so they could continue to let Angel Salome play at Triple-A everyday. But with Salome off the team for a few days with a personal matter, the Brewers used it as an excuse to send Lucroy to the level he belonged.

After starting the season 2-for-8 in two games, Lucroy hit .500 for the next eight games, including three separate three-hit games. In that time he doubled three times and walked four times, and with his .452/.500/.524 batting line, the Brewers didn’t see it fit to keep him in the same place he hit .267/.380/.418 a year ago. So, Lucroy was sent to Triple-A Nashville, and made his debut on Wednesday. The former third round pick started his Sounds career with a double, a walk and a strikeout in four plate appearances, and he airmailed his only throw to second base to center field. After throwing out 41% of runners a year ago, Lucroy is now 3-for-10 this season.

In my future talent report on the Brewers before the season, I wrote, “With his plate recognition, I have some good confidence he can be a .340-.350 guy, play two-thirds of the season behind the dish, and put up 2.5-3 WAR.” Now, I’m just wondering why the Brewers would want to only play him for two-thirds of the season. With Gregg Zaun hitting just .125/.163/.150 in Milwaukee, I have a feeling we’ll see him with the big league team this season.

Mike Trout is a pretty decent prospect.

This article is a couple years old now, but it serves an important lesson in context: teenage players in the Midwest League are often overwhelmed. In the linked article, I found nearly 45,000 plate appearances from 2000-2006 by teenage position players in the MWL, and collectively, they hit just .260/.330/.381. I say this as a long way of putting Mike Trout’s early season dominance in perspective.

Because of a late birthday, Trout will play most of the entire minor league season at just 18 years old. Some of the pitchers he’s been facing early this season have been 4 or 5 years older, and it hasn’t mattered one bit. The New Jersey outfielder has hit safely in his last 11 games, a streak that includes eight multi-hit games. He has a 8/9 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 65 plate appearances, and has stolen 7 bases in 8 attempts. And the make-up that has glittered his scouting reports since the beginning is still getting high praise.

If the 2009 draft was re-done today, Mike Trout would be a top 10 pick. He is also the Angels top prospect, and the leader of one of the most prospect-heavy teams in the minor leagues.

The Bradenton Marauders are good at hitting.

One of two minor league teams to hit .300, and the only one of 120 getting on base at a .400 clip, the Pittsburgh Pirates High-A affiliate has been a revelation. The team has three regulars with an OPS above 1.000, and that’s to say nothing of top team prospect Starling Marte, whose .364/.472/.523 batting line is only the fourth-best on this team. Overall, in the notoriously pitcher-friendly Florida State League, the Marauders are averaging a robust 7.3 runs per game.

If it’s not Marte that has emerged as the best prospect on the team — and I think he has — then the title belongs to Pirates top draft pick Tony Sanchez. The catcher has struggled mightily behind the plate (he’s yet to throw out a baserunner in 13 attempts), but it more than making up for it with his offense. The BC product is now hitting .316/.469/.605, drawing six walks in his last four games alone. And the team must be encouraged by the breakout of 2007 fourth round pick Quincy Latimore, who seems to now be hitting for the power that was once projected to him. Latimore has four home runs and a .395/.449/.721 batting line in 11 games.

These are all encouraging sign for a Pirates team that needed a big season the farm. With remnants of the previous regime like Latimore and Dan Moskos finally showing some life to go along with the bevy of prospects acquired in the last two seasons, things are looking up in Pittsburgh for the first time in awhile.

Update on a few injuries

Felix Pie – He has been found to have a torn left latissimus dorsi muscle which will not require surgery. He will though be out 3 months recovering from it.

Mike Wuertz – Should be able to come off the DL any day now. The team is reporting that he should be pitching his 3rd and final rehab outing Wednesday.

Ted Lilly – He is ready to come off the DL and plans on starting on Saturday vs Milwaukee. He went 7 innings in his last rehab start on Tuesday.

Brian Sanches  — He is planning on joining the Marlins on Monday after his required time on the DL is up.

How Sleeping Patterns Affect Players

Sleep is often an overlooked aspect of a player’s health and ability to play. Russell Carleton at BaseballProspectus looks at some general effects of bad sleep habits. The Portland Trail Blazers have decided to address the issue with some positive results.

Differences between X-ray, CT (cat) Scan and a MRI (link to a more in depth article).

X-rays – Useful for only looking at solid body parts (bones). – Machine cost = $6K to $7K

CT (cat or Computerised Tomography) scan – Highly sensitive x-ray that is more detailed than a normal X-ray. It can also pick up soft tissues in the final image that x-rays can’t. Machine cost = $200K

MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging ) – Uses 2 oscillation magnetic fields to magnetize hydrogen atoms for detection. Picks up non-bone tissues extremely well, including any non-normal tissues (tumors). Machine cost = $1 to $3 million

Sometimes a player will have an initial x-ray or CT scan and wait until they can get an MRI. The reason is pretty simple in that at around two million dollars a pop, a MRI machine is not always available everywhere.

Pitcher aging curves

MGL at the The Book Blog put out a $100 charity bounty recently for someone to find any kind of aging curve for pitchers. This could be any subset of the overall pitching pool that goes from a lower value and then peaks and finally drops off. All he was been able to find is that pitchers start at their peak at age (study started looking at 21 year olds) and remain at that pitching level until age 28 to 29. At that age, they then begin to show the signs of aging.

As has been well documented in this space, John Lannan has defied DIPS theory for much of his career, posting a 3.98 career ERA in 438.2 career innings despite a 4.83 FIP and a 4.65 xFIP. Lannan doesn’t strike out many batters (4.58 career K/9) and walks too many (3.41 BB/9) to be considered an elite control pitcher. His only redeemable quality as a pitcher is his extreme ground ball rate – 52.7% for his career to only a 29.0% fly ball rate.

Through three starts, Lannan’s peripherals had dipped to a career low level – in particular, his K/BB was a staggeringly low 0.78. Thanks to his inability to control the strike zone or get batters out through any way but a ground ball, Lannan’s FIP sat at 5.69 entering Wednesday night’s start against Colorado.

Things didn’t improve for Lannan, despite a Nationals victory. On the plus side, Lannan only allowed one walk, but he also couldn’t find the strikeout, either. Finally, allowing so many balls in play is catching up to Lannan. On Wednesday, he allowed 11 hits in total, including one homer, and was pretty much knocked around by the Rockies for the whole game.

Lannan just doesn’t have the type of stuff to make batters miss. His career swinging strike rate of 5.8% is well below the league average, and that has dropped to 3.7% so far this year. On Wednesday, he only drew 2 swinging strikes in 106 pitches – only 1.8% swinging strikes. A pitcher cannot rely on called strikes to induce strikeouts, and at the rate that Lannan is drawing whiffs both for this season and for his career as a whole, he likely won’t be able to draw enough strikeouts to be effective.

The ridiculous amount of balls in play that Lannan allows is finally catching up to him, it would appear. It is a long season, and there is time for Lannan to revert to the form that added up to that 3.98 ERA the first few years of his career. As Joe mentioned earlier this month, Lannan has been a bit of a study in DIPS theory for his whole career. What we’re seeing now is much closer to what DIPS theory would tell us to expect from a pitcher like Lannan.

Burt Bacharach was wrong: what the world needs now isn’t “love, sweet love,” but a highly subjective recap of some games from like five days ago.

Friday, April 16
I watched this evening’s (rain-shortened) contest between Texas and New York primarily to “scout” Official Starting Pitcher C.J. Wilson. While Wilson actually performed just fine (6.0 IP, 5 K, 3 BB, 10 GB, 5 FB, 4 LD), my lasting impression of the game will be how CC Sabathia is kinda really good at pitching.

Because I demand it of my writing students, I think it’s probably best to do some showing here — as opposed to just telling, I mean. In the interest of doing just that, allow me to whisk you away to the top of the third inning of tonight’s rainswept game.

Here’s the situation: one gone, Elvis Andrus has just struck out, the lefty-batting Julio Borbon is striding to the plate. CC Sabathia looks in, takes the sign from Francisco Cervelli, and then he does this (taken from catcher’s perspective):

No, he didn’t throw all three pitches at once (although it might’ve seemed like that to the unwitting Borbon). Still, I mean, will you please look at this sequence: two-seamer away, slider in, slider low. If Picasso and Matisse had a baby, and then that baby learned how to make a Pitchf/x graph, this is the sort of graph that baby would produce.

Having watched it on live television, I can tell you that Borbon had barely any idea that the at-bat had even started until Sabathia was winding up to deliver the third and final pitch. Unfortunately, said pitch was a mostly unhittable slider dipping below the zone.

But let’s not pick on Julio Borbon, how about. How about we also pick on Taylor Teagarden. To do so, we must fast-forward to the fifth inning. In this case, there are two outs, and both Chris Davis and Joaquin Arias have struck out to begin the inning. At which point, Sabathia was all:

Blam!

Where Borbon didn’t swing until the last pitch, that was the only one Teagarden didn’t swing at. Considering that Teagarden’s a righty (as opposed to the lefty Borbon), we see that really only the second pitch is one we might consider “hittable,” as it got a little more of the plate with a little less movement. After he fouled of that pitch, Teagarden was basically helpless, down 0-2 to an incredibly effective Sabathia. It’s at this point — after delivering consecutive pitches with considerable arm-side run — that Sabathia threw the slider, a pitch with considerable glove-side run. Teagarden merely let it go. Oops.

Another thing that happened tonight is that I used my Twitter Machine. Below are three choice comments from the evening.

From LloydtheBarber (on the occasion of Fernando Rodney entering a game between the Angels and Blue Jays): Black Lidge! There is still hope for the Jays.

From daynperry (on the occasion of Dick Enberg employing a 19th century vernacular): Dick Enberg just said “base-ballers.” Awesome.

From jazayerli (on the occasion of having been born a Kansas City fan): Two franchises in a nutshell tonight: the Twins threw 27 balls the entire game. The Royals threw 21 balls in the 8th inning alone.

Saturday, April 17
Voice of the Brewers, Mister Bob Uecker, was on the scene for Milwaukee’s afternoon game at the Washington Nationals. While generally in good spirits, Uecker was a little cheesed off with home plate umpire Tim McClelland and his (i.e. McClelland’s) strike-calling.

It seems that, due to the fact that McClelland makes his strike-calling gesture very much in front of his body — that, and the fact that the press box at National Park is directly behind home plate — it seems that it’s hard for a broadcaster like Uecker to see the call until seconds after it’s been made.

Such were the circumstances that led a duly miffed Uecker to announce publicly:

He gives a call… to the catcher. And everybody else has to wait a sec or more for his “pull-back shot.”

And I’ll tell you, from our vantage point, we might as well be at the hotel as far as looking at the sign from Tim McClelland. Terrible.

Sunday, April 18
Second verse, same as the first: another quote from Uecker.

In this case, Uecker was discussing — at some length, it must be said — the dinner he’d had the previous night at Washington-area restaurant Phillips Seafood.

Relating the story to broadcast partner Cory Provus, Uecker mentioned that, as he was eating, he got curious as to whether the restaurant ever served anything besides fish. Which brings us to the following, courtesy of Uecker:

I asked the waitress, “Do you carry Usinger’s Sausage?”

“Wait a second,” she said. “Let me check my purse.”

Sweet graphs courtesy of our own Dave Allen.

When you get waist deep into park factors you can discover some really odd quirks that you never expected. Lately I have been looking at the frequency of events at certain parks compared to when that park’s home team played on the road and one of the ratios – triples in Texas — stuck out to me.

Intrigued, I investigated the home and away splits for the Texas Rangers since 2007 and found that indeed there seems to be something going on with the Ballpark in Arlington that promotes triples. Starting from 2007 and going through 2010 to date, the Texas Rangers hitters have hit 25, 24, 18 and 2 triples while at home. Contrast that to 11, 11, 9 and just one triple while on the road. All told, that is 69 triples while at home and 32 while on the road.

That’s not a small or insignificant split, that’s gigantic. I’m also not sure what’s causing it. Generally, you expect parks that are favorable to triples to have gigantic outfields and weather patterns that inhibit home runs to keep more balls in the park, but deep toward far away walls. Arlington certainly does not fit that model given it’s notoriety for allowing home runs and it’s roughly average depth to the walls.

I’m curious to hear people’s theories. Is it because the ground gets dried out in the summer heat, making balls run faster like if they were on Astroturf? Maybe there is something with the outfield dimensions in Texas that invites triples? Or maybe there is something with the road parks the Rangers play in that suppresses them?