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Wednesday, February 6
Updated: April 17, 5:53 PM ET

Contraction talk here to stay

By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com

It's time now to sharpen your No. 2 pencils and take our just-obtained standardized-testing exam -- the SAT's (Selig Aptitude Test).

Question 1: "Contraction" is to "inevitability" as: A) "Randy Johnson" is to "strikeout," B) "Barry Bonds" is to "trot," C) "Mets camp" is to "name tags" or D) "labor deal" is to "NLRB."

And the correct answer is ... uh, we'll get back to you in six months, as soon as we figure it out ourselves. For now, we just know that even after the U.S.S. Contraction had completed its winter Titanic cruise to the bottom of the ocean Tuesday, Commissioner Selig continued to describe contraction as an "absolute inevitability." Not a probability. Not a possibility. Not a "maybe it wasn't such a hot idea and we're sorry we ever brought it up." Nope. It was still an absolute inevitability.

So what are we to make of that? Is contraction, in fact, still inevitable?

Well, don't bet against it. Clearly, this commissioner is determined to make contraction happen, in some form, to some combination of franchises, in some year of his commissionership.

He says he has 30 teams that support contraction. And they do -- in general, because we don't dispute that the general principle of contraction has some merits. It's only when you get to the details that it starts getting tricky.

So in between the determined press release MLB issued Tuesday and the actual act of making two teams disappear, we can see a lot of moving parts that make Contraction II even more challenging than the original. Let's take a look:

The Twins
There were three reasons the Twins made the first contraction cut: 1) they were on a year-to-year stadium lease, 2) they were next-to-last in the sport in revenues last year and 3) their owner was willing to take the contraction jackpot and run.

But suppose any or all of these scenarios unfold this year: 1) they work out a deal to build a new ballpark, 2) they're sold to Donald Watkins or 3) they do something really crazy -- like get to the playoffs.

Then there's suddenly no logical reason to contract them. Is there? Of course, that wouldn't necessarily rule out the possibility of MLB trying to contract them anyway. But if contracting the Twins was a tough sell this winter, imagine how tough a sell it would be trying to contract a playoff team next winter.

So if the Twins were spared, that would require coming up with a second team to contract, just so somebody could walk down the plank with the Expos. And this is where Contraction II might get seriously messy. Try to find that second team. It's tougher than making contact against Pedro.

The Devil Rays
Oh, there are plenty of compelling reasons to knock off this franchise. But there also are 26 far more compelling reasons to have the Rays stick around -- i.e., those 26 years they have left on their lease at Tropicana Field.

"We just lost a case in Minnesota with a team on a one-year lease," one extremely anonymous baseball man observed this week. "How are we going to win one with a team with a 26-year lease?"

Good point. And even if they won any of these cases, it might be remotely affordable to pay off a one-year lease. How much spare change would the other 28 owners have to scrape up to pay off a 26-year lease? So Tampa Bay isn't as easy a choice as it appears.

The Marlins
This is another club with a hazy future. But MLB is about to approve the sale of this team to Expos owner Jeffrey Loria for $158.5 million. The reason that sale is taking place is that Loria wouldn't agree to being contracted in Montreal. So why would he agree to be contracted in a place that at least has palm trees?

Plus, in the case of both Florida teams, the state attorney general, Bob Butterworth, has already made it clear that if MLB even looks funny at the Marlins or Devil Rays, he has enough subpoenas and lawsuits planned to tie up contraction at least until A.J. Burnett's Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

The A's
One of the first criteria MLB looked for in a contraction candidate was short-term leases. And the A's do fit there, because they're working year-to-year at Al Davis' Coliseum. The trouble is, that's the only way they fit.

In most other ways, they're actually one of this sport's greatest success stories -- the little team with the microscopic payroll that's always finding a way to terrify the Yankees in the playoffs. Give them a new ballpark somewhere in the Bay Area, and they're suddenly a model franchise.

They're having trouble making that ballpark come to life, obviously. But they're not ready to give up. And that's the biggest reason they don't fit as a contraction candidate: They don't want to be contracted.

"They can't force a team to be contracted," said one club official. "They're looking for volunteers. So I don't think you can describe Oakland as a candidate."

The Angels
The one ownership group that would be a willing volunteer to be bought out is Disney, which is baseballed out in Anaheim. The problem there, though, is that, as John Henry found out when he tried to buy the Angels, Disney is not willing to be bought out easily or cheaply.

To buy out the Angels would be a significantly more expensive deal than buying out the Twins. And after all the bucks that were just plowed into the renovation of Edison Field, you can safely predict the lawsuits would be flying in Orange County if baseball tried to bail out of Anaheim.

That's why there was talk a year ago of moving the A's to Anaheim -- substituting a team with a short lease for an ownership group that wanted out. But it was a complicated deal then, and it's still a complicated deal now.

Congress
If you've been following Congressional reaction to contraction so far, you would detect the following trend:

Words Congress likes: "Relocation to Washington."

Word Congress doesn't like: "Contraction."

As long as Congress can wave that antitrust exemption in front of the commissioner's eyes and summon the commish to its chambers for target practice, our nation's legislators can always serve as an obstacle to contraction.

The Union
You don't need to be related to Marvin Miller to know the union will have a say on contraction, no matter what comes of that still-percolating grievance before arbitrator Shyam Das.

In fact, now that contraction for 2002 is no longer an issue, it wouldn't be a shock to see the union drop that grievance, since it doesn't apply to current developments.

That would leave unanswered the pivotal question of this entire affair -- whether MLB can contract without consulting the union on anything but the effects of doing away with those teams. But as the off-the-field action turns now to a new labor deal, it would be just about impossible for any serious conversation between these two sides not to include mention of that magic word, "contraction."

That might be part of a big-picture labor negotiation. It might be part of a separate negotiation on contraction alone. But if these sides are really going to solve the problems of this sport, they need to work to solve them together.

So it makes no sense to turn an issue this big into a subplot. Then again, it made no sense when the commish unfurled it three months ago, either. Now open your test booklets again one last time.

Question 2: If 30 people are sitting in a bakery and they're served a really big pie, how should they eat it? A) with no plates and a really big fork, B) with 30 different-size plates but no knife, C) with 28 plates but we can't identify who doesn't get to eat at this time, or D) "What pie? We're going broke."

Miscellaneous Rumblings

Maybe MLB went 0 for Minnesota in lawsuits. And maybe those contraction plans never went quite the way they looked on the drawing board. But that doesn't mean this contraction strategy was a complete loss for management this winter.

By making a case that most teams were in massive debt, that the bankers were going to be much tougher about teams "overspending" and that the only solution was eliminating two franchises, it enabled clubs to tell one free agent after another: "Sorry, we've got no money."

"Instead of doing a signing freeze this winter, they just made demand disappear," complained one of many disgruntled agents. "And players' value plummeted like a rock in 80 percent of the markets."

Consider some of the salary hits taken by a number of prominent free agents:

Kenny Lofton: $8 million to $1.25 million.
James Baldwin: $5.95 million to $1.75 million.
Dante Bichette: $6.5 million to minor-league deal.
Troy O'Leary: $4.6 million to minor-league deal.
Devon White: $5 million to still-unemployed.
Todd Jones: $3.95 million to $1.3 million.
Mike Lansing: $6 million to minor-league deal.

And there were many more players just like those guys. Of course, every one of those players either had a rough season or is on the down side of his career. And you have to concede that owners are allowed to use the system to their advantage, too.

But once you get past Jason Giambi, John Smoltz and a handful of other players, free agency sure didn't feel like hitting the Powerball to most players this winter. And that was no accident.

We continue to hear owners heap praise on the NFL and use it as an example of why they need a new economic system. And what do they want out of that new economic system? They want more competitive balance, and they want franchises like Oakland and Kansas City to be able to keep their teams together for more than just a year or two. Well, those are fine and honorable goals. But, in case they hadn't noticed, the NFL salary cap promotes only the first goal. It doesn't allow maturing teams to stay together. In fact, its method for promoting competitive balance is to break those teams apart, except for "franchise players."

"Once you get a dominating team in the middle of the football season, you can't stop it, because the cap doesn't allow the other teams to make moves in-season," said a labor lawyer familiar with both sports.

"And at the same time, after the season, because of cap restrictions, the good teams are unloading players all the time. They might be less famous than the 'franchise players.' But they're a big part of that team. The Patriots, for example, are going to lose five or six starting players this winter, and that's almost solely because of the cap."

So anyone taking a realistic look at the difference between baseball and football would know that a hard salary cap, per se, is not the solution to baseball's problems. Whatever system eventually is agreed to has to allow clubs maneuverability during the season, because the season is so much longer than the NFL's and requires more roster flexibility.

And if keeping teams together is the aim, the only salary cap that has ever promoted that concept was the NBA's old "soft" cap which allowed teams to retain their own players. And the NBA negotiated that cap out of existence.

So baseball is going to need a more creative system than any of those other sports if it's going to fit everyone's needs and still be true to the uniqueness of a game far different than the other major professional sports.

When the A's and Rangers made that fascinating deal centering around Carlos Pena last month, the initial inclination of most people was to analyze who got what. But we might have missed the big story -- that this an actual, old-fashion baseball trade.

"That was one of the unique trades of the last decade," said one NL club official, "because it was a trade that was all about potential. There were no money moves in any of the players involved. When's the last time you saw that?"

One talent evaluator's view of the two key players -- Pena (who will move in as Jason Giambi's successor in Oakland) and Mario Ramos (who enters the Rangers' pitching jumble):

On Ramos: "He might have been hyped a little, but I'll say this: He's always been a winner with what he's got. And the best way to describe what he's got is 'Moyer-esque.' "

On Pena: "He's kind of like a poor man's Keith Hernandez. He'll hit more home runs than Hernandez. He won't have quite the average. But he's got great makeup, great poise. I like his swing. I like his approach. I think he could struggle for a couple of months. But in time, he'll be a very productive hitter."

Now that we have an official schedule, it's time to examine the usual bizarre quirks:

-- The White Sox will play more games in Philadelphia (three) than the Cubs (two).

-- The Diamondbacks visit Yankee Stadium seven weeks before they make their first visit to Shea Stadium.

-- The Marlins play 23 straight games in the state of Florida before the All-Star break (20 at home, 3 at Tampa Bay).

-- The Brewers have a conveniently located Pittsburgh-Oakland trip in June, with no off days.

-- The Orioles have three west-coast trips in six weeks between May 21 and July 4 (to Oakland-Seattle, to Arizona-San Francisco, to Anaheim).

-- The Tigers open in Tampa Bay and never go back. The White Sox open at Seattle and never go back. And not only do the Rockies open at St. Louis but never go back, they don't even play each other again in Denver until Sept. 17.

-- The Tigers make their first trip of the year to Toronto (231 miles up the road) for the final three games of the season.

-- The Blue Jays make a zig-zaggy Montreal-Los Angeles-Arizona-Tampa Bay trip.

-- And mark your calendar for the final three games in history at Montreal -- Reds at Expos, Sept. 27-29.

Is it great to be left-handed, or what? The Braves are bringing Chris Hammond into camp as a left-handed bullpen candidate. His last appearance in the big leagues: May 17, 1998. His last win in the big leagues: May 30, 1997. So Greg Maddux has 86 wins since Hammond's last win. But who's counting?

Offseason injury of the week: Rehabbing Arizona reliever Matt Mantei needed four stitches in his right thumb after cutting it while opening a can of dog food. No truth to the rumor he's had a lot more bite on his breaking ball ever since.

If business gets slow in the big leagues this summer, maybe they ought to follow the lead of the Daytona Cubs of the Florida State League. Our buddy, Blair Lovern, of Baseball America, reports that the club has one of the great promotions ever going this winter:

Show your lifelong allegiance by getting an official Daytona Cubs logo tatooed somewhere on your body -- and they show lifelong allegiance to you, by giving you lifetime season tickets. According to assistant GM Buck Rodgers, they've had three takers so far:

Pat Drosten: age 41

"Front Row" Joe Rowe: age 50, has attended 455 consecutive games

J.C. Smith: age 75 (seriously). After getting the tatoo, Rodgers said, Smith went bungee-jumping with his grandson. Smith actually lives 80 miles away, but he attends enough games that they let him sly.

Boy, if only the Expos had a few thousand more 75-year-old bungee-jumping devoted fans like J.C. Smith, maybe we would never have heard of that word, "contraction."

You never know who might turn up in that independent-league transaction column. Loyal reader David Hallstrom caught these two familiar names in the Northern League transactions one day last week:

Schaumburg Flyers: Released OF Wes Chamberlain.
Lincoln Saltdogs: Signed OF Jerome Walton.

The All-Still-Unemployed Team:

1B: Andres Galarraga
2B: Jeff Frye
SS: Rey Sanchez
3B: Ed Sprague
LF: Rickey Henderson
CF: Devon White
RF: Bobby Bonilla
C: Jeff Reed
DH: Jose Canseco
Starting rotation: David Cone, Pete Harnisch, Gil Heredia, Pat Rapp, Cal Eldred
Bullpen: Ron Villone, Josias Manzanillo, Lance Painter, Russ Springer, Alan Mills
Mr. October: Jim Leyritz
Perez brother: Carlos

Triviality
Which non-Brave has the most career wins in the NL East? And which non-Yankee has the most career wins in the AL East? (Answer at bottom.)

Useless Information Dept.

Speaking of trivia, the Hall of Fame's Bill Francis ran this trivia question by us recently: Which Hall of Famer is named on the plaques of 12 other Hall of Famers? Answer: Cy Young (named on the plaques of Rollie Fingers, Steve Carlton, Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, Catfish Hunter, Fergie Jenkins, Early Wynn, Sandy Koufax, Phil Niekro, Jim Palmer, Gaylord Perry and Tom Seaver). Why? They apparently won some kind of award named after our man, Cy.

You know it's been an amazing sports year when the World Series and Super Bowl are both decided on the last play of the season. So being the inquisitive types we are, we couldn't help but ask: Has that ever happened before?

So the Elias Sports Bureau's own multisport sensation, Randy Robles, looked at football's three previous league or conference championship games to be decided on the last play of the game and compared them with the World Series that preceded it.

1958
NFL Championship: Colts 23, Giants 17, OT
World Series: Yankees score four runs off Lew Burdette in the top of the eighth in Game 7 to beat the Braves, 6-2.

1962
AFL Championship: Dallas Texans 20, Houston Oilers 17, 2OT
World Series: Yankees score the winning (and only) run in the top of the fifth in Game 7 to beat the Giants, 1-0. But this one's the only other close call -- because Willie McCovey smoked a line-drive rocket into Bobby Richardson's glove for the final out, with the tying and winning runs in scoring position.

1990
NFC Championship: Giants 15, 49ers 12
World Series: Reds swept A's in four games

Only five players in baseball hit at least 10 homers and made it into the More Homers than Walks Club last season. And it's quite the esteemed group:

Player Walks Home runs

Garret Anderson 27 28

Ivan Rodriguez 23 25

Ruben Sierra 19 23

Marquis Grissom 16 21

Mark Quinn 12 17

Quinn also makes another prestigious list from last year. Among players who made 400 or more trips to the plate, he was the toughest player in baseball to walk. We divided the winners into three categories:

500 or more plate appearances
Rey Sanchez: 579 plate appearances, 15 walks, one every 38.6 PA.

400 or more plate appearances
Mark Quinn: 473 plate appearances, 12 walks, one every 39.4 PA.

200 or more plate appearances
Shawn Wooten: 232 plate appearances, 5 walks, one every 46.4 PA.

On the other hand, only three players last year got more than 500 plate appearances, hit 15 homers or more and struck out fewer than 50 times:

Player SO PA HR

Paul Lo Duca 30 519 25

Mark Grace 36 553 15

Jose Vidro 49 531 15

In a year in which four players -- Barry Bonds, Todd Helton, Sammy Sosa and Luis Gonzalez -- got 100 extra-base hits (most in history), you may be asking yourself: "Hmmm. I wonder who had the fewest extra-base hits." Well, let us help you answer that question.

500 or more plate appearances
Brady Anderson, 23 extra-base hits, 501 plate appearances
Rey Sanchez, 24 extra-base hits, 579 plate appearances
Tony Womack, 27 extra-base hits, 518 plate appearances
Luis Castillo, 28 extra-base hits, 612 plate appearances
Craig Counsell, 29 extra-base hits, 533 plate appearances

400 or more plate appearances
Jason Tyner, 13 extra-base hits, 420 plate appearances
Peter Bergeron, 18 extra-base hits, 416 plate appearances
Mark Loretta, 18 extra-base hits, 429 plate appearances
Mike Matheny, 19 extra-base hits, 424plate appearances
Jack Wilson, 21 extra-base hits, 425plate appearances

300 or more plate appearances
Brent Mayne, 14 extra-base hits, 359 plate appearances
Mike Darr, 16 extra-base hits, 331 plate appearances
Abraham Nunez, 16 extra-base hits, 335 plate appearances
Tom Goodwin, 17 extra-base hits, 312 plate appearances
Bengie Molina, 17 extra-base hits, 355 plate appearances

200 or more plate appearances
Donnie Sadler, 7 extra-base hits, 211 plate appearances
Kerry Robinson, 8 extra-base hits, 207 plate appearances
Brandon Inge, 11 extra-base hits, 202 plate appearances
Enrique Wilson, 11 extra-base hits, 241 plate appearances
Tom Prince, 12 extra-base hits, 215 plate appearances
Mark Johnson, 12 extra-base hits, 211 plate appearances
Todd Pratt, 12 extra-base hits, 212 plate appearances
Rico Brogna, 12 extra-base hits, 223 plate appearances
Jose Vizcaino, 12 extra-base hits, 282 plate appearances

100 or more plate appearances
Donaldo Mendez, 4 extra-base hits, 127 plate appearances
Ryan Minor, 4 extra-base hits, 107 plate appearances
Randy Knorr, 5 extra-base hits, 103 plate appearances
Chris Donnels, 5 extra-base hits, 101 plate appearances
Alberto Castillo, 5 extra-base hits, 146 plate appearances
Todd Greene, 5 extra-base hits, 100 plate appearances

You don't need us to tell you complete games are becoming a vanishing species. But we'll tell you anyway. Here are the eight pitchers who made 30 or more starts last year but threw no complete games:

Pitcher CG GS

Kirk Rueter 0 34

Tony Armas Jr. 0 34

Dustin Hermanson 0 33

C.C. Sabathia 0 33

Roger Clemens 0 33

Omar Daal 0 32

Matt Clement 0 31

Denny Neagle 0 30

But there were also 25 pitchers who made 25 starts or more and threw no complete games -- and 37 who made 20 starts or more and completed none of them. Here's how that compares with prior years.

10 years ago -- 1991
4 with 30 starts plus
7 with 25+
17 with 20+

15 years ago -- 1986
2 with 30+
7 with 25+
9 with 20+

One of our more enterprising readers, Trent McCotter, informed us he'd broken down every home run hit last season by just about every conceivable factor. So we asked him to look at the 79 home runs hit last year that were estimated to have traveled 450 feet or more -- and check out the counts they were hit on.

So here goes:

First pitch: 12 (15 percent)
0-1: 8 (10 percent)
0-2: 3 (3 percent)

1-0: 10 (13 percent)
1-1: 12 (15 percent)
1-2: 5 (6 percent)

2-0: 0 (0 percent)
2-1: 10 (13 percent)
2-2: 8 (10 percent)

3-0: 0 (0 percent)
3-1: 4 (5 percent)
3-2: 8 (10 percent)

Being the enterprising guy he is, McCotter also broke them down by more precise distance. Here's that chart:

Dist. 0-0 0-1 0-2 1-0 1-1 1-2 2-0 2-1 2-2 3-0 3-1 3-2

480-500 2 2 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

470-479 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 2

460-469 2 2 0 3 3 1 0 2 3 0 1 2

450-459 8 4 1 4 6 4 0 7 5 0 2 4

Totals 12 8 2 10 12 5 0 10 8 0 4 8

Busy guy, that Trent McCotter.

Finally, here's your Caribbean Series boxscore line of the week, from perennial boxscore-line champ Jamie Navarro (Puerto Rico), from his Tuesday start vs. Venezuela:

4 IP, 10 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 1 HR (to Alex Cabrera).

Trivia Answer
Al Leiter in the NL East (117 wins -- fourth overall, behind the Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz crew). John Burkett in the AL East (141 wins -- fourth overall, behind Roger Clemens, David Wells and Mike Mussina).

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.

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