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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Some of the following twirlers can really play the game of ball called base!

In 2011, a total of 272 different pitchers started a game in the MLB — that’s an average of 9 starters per team. In other words, five starters is not enough. Successful MLB organizations need pitching depth — and lots of it. Some teams may need a 7th or 8th starter for only 1 game, but ask the Boston Red Sox how important 1 game is.

For teams in the need, the 2012 starting pitcher free agent list has some value and some worthy risks out there, but as with every year, no team should expect the free agent market to have all the answers. The following list, though not exhaustive, runs down the most important names of the 2012 free agents:

Top Tier — Starters who promise big contracts and big seasons.
C.J. Wilson (LHP, Age 31 next season, free agent)
CC Sabathia (LHP, 31, may opt out)
Hiroki Kuroda (RHP, 37, FA)
Edwin Jackson (RHP, 28, FA)
Mark Buehrle (LHP, 33, FA)
Javier Vazquez (RHP, 35, FA)

The Obvious One, Mr. C.J. Wilson, finally promises to pull in that contract big enough to purchase his long-awaited solid-gold rocket car. Wilson, the heat-hurling lord of the lefties figures to have at least two very impressive suitors — the New York Yankees and his present team, the Texas Rangers. Since becoming a starter two years ago, he has posted a combined 10.5 WAR, sporting an ace-worth 3.24 FIP this year.

Not only does Wilson have a shot to break the bank, but there appears to be a chance that twirling titan CC Sabathia may opt out of the final four years of his contract with the Yankees. Sabathia has been yawningly awesome through his 10-year career, never posting a FIP- higher than 96 and assembling a career-best 2.88 FIP in 2011.

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The corner outfielder often gets lumped into the mix with the first basemen / designated hitter types. You might call that part of the market the ‘last piece saloon.’ But, Raul Ibanez aside, corner outfielders need to be able to run a little bit, too.

Oh, would you look at that, Ibanez is a free agent. But who needs a corner outfielder at all? Depending on how they put their team together, the Braves could maybe use another outfielder. The Red Sox have an opening, but after their last high-priced acquisition in the outfield, and their plethora of in-house options, it might not be a priority. Both Chicago teams are a maybe, with the NL version more probable. Do the Dodgers have any money? The Giants will sign one for sure. The A’s will wait for a bargain, as they always do. The Mariners have to be considered dark horses for any piece of offense. The Nationals could try again. That pretty much defines your market, and it’s a pretty decent one in terms of demand.

What does the supply look like?

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Justin Morneau’s frustrating season is officially over.

After a number of nagging injuries to its first baseman, the Minnesota Twins decided to shut down its former All-Star for the remainder of the year. Though Morneau struggled through a number of injuries this season, he admitted he never fully recovered from a concussion that he suffered July 7, 2010, when he got kneed in the head while trying to break up a double play. The injury cost him 78 games, destroyed his season and perhaps led up to the moment last month when he said he again began feeling concussion-like symptoms — this time after diving for a ball but not hitting his head. “That’s kind of what makes this whole thing scary,” Morneau told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “It’s a simple play — diving for a ball — that brought this stuff back again.”

Now the 30-year-old will be back to square one heading into 2012 — and perhaps so will the Twins and Major League Baseball.

Morneau started for Minnesota on Opening Day this year, but he struggled mightily in his return to the lineup. A homer-less April was a harbinger of things to come for Morneau — who stumbled to a .227/.285/.333 slash line in 288 plate appearances over 69 games. Add to the concussion symptoms a strained wrist and neck surgery and you have what Morneau has called a “year to forget.”

Morneau’s inability to recover from his concussion is troubling for the Twins, but it also presents a major problem for MLB. While league officials have been proactive with head injuries — instituting a seven-day disabled list this year that’s specifically designated for traumatic brain injuries — concussions are a significant problem for many baseball players. The Twins certainly are aware of these issues: Former Twin Corey Koskie went through a similar situation when he was with the team Milwaukee Brewers and was forced to retire. Mike Matheny also retired for similar reasons. Now with Morneau’s situation, the Twins — and MLB in general — might need to be even more proactive when it comes to concussions.

The implementation of the seven-day DL is not not enough. While the DL move — which requires neurological testing — is a step in the right direction, it seems like too little time to accurately judge whether a player is fit to return to action. Players easily can be transferred to the 15-day DL if they fail to recover in time, but might the seven-day DL put more pressure on teams and their players to rush back from head injuries?

Brain injuries affect each person differently, meaning there’s no single solution on how to effectively treat concussions. Case in point is Morneau, who clearly hadn’t fully recovered from his 2010 concussion (his second recorded TBI in the majors prior to his August injury) and perhaps now is even more susceptible to head injuries. But for every Morneau, there’s a Jason Bay, who remained symptom-free after suffering a concussion around the same time last year as the Twins’ slugger. Despite the difference in recoveries, one thing is certain: As we learn more about the effects that concussions have on the human body, it’s clear that these injuries need to be handled carefully.

And it’s important that MLB adapt a strategy to ensure that its players receive proper treatment before returning to the field. Major League Baseball has shown a willingness to combat concussions; let’s hope the league will continue to show a willingness to further evolve as more information about these injuries comes to light.

The Minnesota Twins have had a brutal 2011 season, to say the least. After winning the American League Central in both 2009 and 2010, they have plummeted into a tie for last with the Royals at the moment. There have been number of factors in the Twins’ collapse this season, from Joe Nathan‘s injury to Tsuyoshi Nishioka‘s injury followed by awful performance to Francisco Liriano’s control problems and more, but none loom larger than the injuries to Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Many observers have understandably concluded that it might be time for the Twins to “blow it up.” However, in his Friday column for ESPN Insider (summarized for non-subscribers here), Buster Olney reports that the Twins aren’t necessarily going to hit the reset button. While that does not necessarily back up the “All In” in the title of Olney’s column, that the Twins are even considering doing such a thing is intriguing.

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The American League Central is pretty weak. Of all the teams in the division, only Cleveland has a positive run differential as of today, and that’s by only one run. A number of factors probably contribute to the divisional weakness: lower average budgets than some of the coastal divisions, poor decision making, and perhaps some bad luck. The division, however, is surprisingly strong this season in one area: shortstops. Can any other division compare?

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It’s about time Jim Thome finally got the recognition he deserved. Though his chase toward history wasn’t as publicized as Derek Jeter’s, Thome’s relatively quiet run to 600 career home runs seems fitting, in retrospect. Thome — regarded as one of the nicest guys in the game — never seemed to care whether the baseball world was paying attention; he just continued to destroy baseballs. Now that Thome has reached the elite 600 club, thousands of words will be spilled about whether he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. While this milestone generally guaranteed ticket to Cooperstown, the specter of performance enhancing drugs has altered the way a generation of power hitters have been perceived. Based on the stats, Thome deserves to get the call. Unfortunately for him, it might not be on the first ballot.

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We often roll our eyes when announcers cite a player’s stats over the past 15 days. We’ll groan when they tout how many home runs he’s hit since the All-Star break. We’ll throw the remote when a pitcher’s last five starts are mentioned. And yet, when we attempt to analyze a player here, there’s nary a blink if ‘last season’ is mentioned.

Well, guess what. Seasons are also arbitrary endpoints. Yes, they are arbitrary endpoints that allow for easy analysis, and ones that we have all agreed to use. And, if we didn’t use them, statistical analysis would be rendered fantastically difficult. Our record books would look very strange. We’d have to phrase things very carefully.

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Without looking at the leader boards: who’s the best catcher in baseball? Criteria will vary from person to person, but generally it will involve a heavy weight on recent performance with some level of emphasis on long-term production. At this point, I’m willing to bet that the most common answer is Brian McCann. He stands far ahead of the pack this season with 19.1 wRAA, which bests No. 2 ranked Alex Avila by 7.3 runs. Still, there has to be some weight give to performances in the recent past. If we expand this leader board to include the past two calendar years, McCann does not stand atop. That honor belongs to another household name, Joe Mauer.

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Whence we last examined yonder batting orders, we came away with several expected observations (Jose Bautista plays baseball like a video game, the Oakland Athletics do not care much for scoring runs, Rick Ankiel and Ian Desmond are not feared hitters, and so forth) as well as a number of curious findings (the Cubs lead-off combo was tops in the majors, the 7th hitters on AL teams were worse than the 9th hitters, NL managers effectively managed the bottoms of their lineups, and such).

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