The weekend produced one of the most surprising and most controversial stories of the past decade in baseball. Ryan Braun tested positive for increased testosterone levels in a random drug test during the 2011 Postseason, which violates the new steroid policy implemented by Major League Baseball.

Sources have suggested that Braun did not test positive for performance-enhancing drugs or steroids, but for a “prohibited substance” that caused his testosterone levels to jump significantly. Sources have also stated that the MLB has never seen results such as this and that there were “highly unusual circumstances” surrounding the test and the results — not limited to reported chain-of-custody issues within the testing and results that produced twice as much testosterone than has ever been seen in a previous test.

The saga began with the entire baseball world lamenting what can only be called a loss of innocence. One of the poster boys for the new, clean MLB tested positive for PEDs. This wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. Immediately, many folks even started to call for Braun’s MVP to be revoked.

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Doug Melvin and the Milwaukee Brewers took a calculated gamble by offering Francisco Rodriguez arbitration earlier this offseason. They expected the right-hander to decline arbitration in pursuit of a closer’s role and a multi-year deal elsewhere, and Milwaukee would garner two draft picks in the process.

Teams started snapping up available closers, however, and Rodriguez sat on the sidelines without many available options. The Padres were rumored to be interested at one point, but instead opted to trade for Huston Street. The Mets internally discussed a reunion with their former closer, but settled on Frank Francisco to likely handle the ninth inning.

In the end, too few viable landing spots were available to entice K-Rod to forgo arbitration and gamble on the open market. He accepted the Brewers’ offer of arbitration and will receive a salary somewhere just south of $13.5M — the amount he made in 2011 with the Mets and Brewers — and serve as the set-up man for John Axford.

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With Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols hitting the free-agent market this offseason, there have been many discussions on how the two of them will age. Lots of work has been done on how an average player ages, but Pujols and Fielder aren’t your average players. Which begs the question: How do stars age, compared to the rest of the league?

One of the hardest aspects when looking at elite players’ aging curves is knowing when to consider them elite. Several hitters who are playing right now appear to be sure-fire hall-of-famers — just as long as their careers don’t do an Andruw Jones nose-dive toward uselessness. To generate a list of players who seem headed toward stardom, I selected players since 1980 who had a total of 20-plus WAR during a three-year span. Also, I took the players who generated WAR of 9.5 or more in a single season.

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Some idle Holiday Internetting has compelled the author of this piece to point his web browser in the direction of National League MVP Ryan Braun’s player profile, which in turn has compelled the author to discover something about Braun’s plate-discipline numbers — namely, that they have improved in a decidedly regular fashion since his rookie season of 2007.

Here we can see that improvement in graph form:

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The race between Ryan Braun and Matt Kemp for National League MVP is so very close. Most analysts lean toward Kemp: he played 11 more games, hit six more home runs, stole seven more bases and ended the season with a higher WAR (8.7 vs. 7.8 for Braun).

Let me tell you why Ryan Braun should be the MVP.

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On Tuesday, we took a quick look at the competitive balance in the MLB, and I made the claim that baseball may have more parity than most leagues, but it also has want of greater balance. During the course of the piece, I made this statement:

The NFL has decided it wants payroll to have essentially no impact on winning, so teams basically trot out the same amount of money every Sunday and hope their money was better-spent. Is that what the MLB wants?

Aft’wards, Paul Swydan pointed out to me that indeed NFL salaries are not flat. Despite their hard cap, their hefty revenue sharing, and their tight spandex pants, the NFL still exhibits nearly a $77M gap between the biggest and lowest payroll — impressive, but still nothing compared to the MLB:

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A premier name in an uninspiring free agent class, Prince Fielder will make his money through his powerful bat. But matching his ability at the plate is his tremendous rotundity. This is a legitimate concern, as based on the careers of similarly bodied players Fielder does not project to age well.

While teams would be correct to worry about his weight, they would be downright foolish to doubt his bat. Already elite at the plate, Fielder is fresh off his best offensive season, as measured by wRC+. Key to his success this past season was his improved plate discipline. While already talented in his plate approach, Fielder took last year to another level. As Dave Cameron observed earlier in the year, Fielder dramatically reduced his strikeout rate.

But before we look at what Fielder is or isn’t doing differently, we need to recognize that there are two parts to the batter-pitcher match up. Perhaps obvious, but sometimes we credit all changes in walk and strikeout rates to the batter, without considering pitchers’ approaches.

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Yesterday afternoon, Jayson Stark considered the question, “Is the MLB’s competitive balance a joke?” His answer was a rather blunt no:

MLB’s competitive balance is NOT a joke.

It beats the NFL.

It beats the league formerly known as the NBA.

And … I can prove it.

Stark’s method of proving it — plucking facts from the recent playoff series and comparing them generally to the NFL and other major leagues — was less than rigorous. In general, I agreed with his assertion: Parity in the MLB exists naturally far more than any other sports league.

HOWEVER, if my foot has less gangrene than your foot, does that mean I don’t need a doctor? No. I probably still need a doctor, and I probably need to stop playing barefoot tag on Rusty Nails Pier.

Relative success does not necessitate absolute success. And frankly, I feel the “parity” in the MLB indeed has a gangrene of sorts, a disease that is causing only specific segments of the league to rot while the rest hum along uncaring.

Of course, it is one thing to suspect something and demand more research, but it is another to pull the sabermetrician stocking over your head and answer that suspicion with a Falcon Punch of data.

Let’s do just that.
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By now most baseball fans realize that the majority of bunts decrease the bunting team’s run-scoring. However, we also know that bunting also makes sense in some situations, even for non-pitchers who can hit a little bit. It makes sense from the standpoint of game theory (keeping the fielders honest), can increase run expectancy in some situations, and in some situations in close games, it is better to play for just one run. As I did after last season, I would like to look at the three most successful bunts of the 2011 regular season as measured by Win Probability Added (WPA).

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Yesterday, Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein announced the Chicago Cubs and manager Mike Quade have parted ways. Kudos to Theo Epstein for not doing what we all expected him to: Fire Quade immediately.

It appears Epstein — like he has approached most everything in his young Cubs reign — decided to withhold judgement until he had fully investigated the matter himself. Like Joe Maddon is wont to say, “Tell me what you think, not what you heard.”

Quade’s managerial time with the Cubs was both short and possibly undeserved. Taking the helm when Lou Piniella suddenly retired in 2010, Quade inherited a team that was predisposed towards failure. But, despite that, the team went 24-13 to close out the season. That was enough proof for Jim Hendry to vault Quade not only into the manager discussion, but the manager’s chair:

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