A few years ago, that master of anti-marketing his own product, Bud Selig, made the absurd statement that in any given year, fans of more than half of the teams in MLB don’t have any “hope and faith” due to the imbalanced market.

The statement was false on its face. In all of baseball history, no era has come close to matching the competitive balance that has existed in baseball since the free agent era began. Facile evidence supporting Selig’s claim at the time was available in the Yankees’ string of world championships from 1996-2000 (like that hadn’t happened before), missing a beat only in 1997. But since the Yankee run ended, only one team has more than one world championship and they hadn’t won since 1918. Plenty of teams on tight budgets have won and made the playoffs in the past 20 years.

That said, there is some serious bifurcation in MLB on 2008. The disparity between the vastly superior American League and the weaker Senior Circuit remains very pronounced. And while the NL, in part due to its overall mediocrity, is a pretty wide open affair, the AL has five teams who seem likely to contend for the four playoff spots, and really only two or three others who could possibly edge into the race with big years and some help from injuries or surprising collapses from the Big Five. Those five would be the Yankees, Red Sox, Indians, Tigers and Angels.

One can make some sort of case that the Mariners might challenge the Angels if the Halos falter and the M’s can show that their having won 88 games despite being outscored was a matter of their getting lucky despite performances which will improve in ’08 sufficiently so that a step up from Felix Hernandez and the addition of Erik Bedard can boost them over 90 wins. I’m not holding my breath.

The Blue Jays are always on the outer rim of contention, and they won 83 games last year despite terrible seasons from Lyle Overbay, Vernon Wells and Adam Lind. But even if those guys rebound (and that’s pretty likely) the Jays have already lost a key reliever in Casey Janssen, and cannot reasonably count on AJ Burnett to be healthy all season. They also can’t bank on Frank Thomas continuing to produce at 40, and he wasn’t great last year either; nor on Scott Rolen being able to play on the turf in Toronto and stay healthy. The Jays still have a mediocre lineup supporting a very good pitching staff. That’s enough to make them an Interesting Team this year, because if the Big Hurt does come through again, Lind, Wells and Overbay all play like they are capable, Rolen and Burnett do stay healthy and Dustin McGowan takes the next step up to being a solid front of the rotation starter, this team could win 90 or more games and put heat on the Yankees and Red Sox. That’s an awful lot of ifs, though. Again, no breath is being held here.

With all the bereavement over the loss of Johan Santana (merited though it is, particularly considering the relatively paltry package they got for him) it is entirely possible that the Twins’ pitching could be just as good as it was in 2007. The Twins were fourth in the AL in runs allowed in ’07. Losing Santana is no small thing, but would it really be all that shocking to see Francisco Liriano approximate Santana’s ’07 production. Granted, that’s a lot to ask, but it wouldn’t really floor you if Liriano had an ERA in the mid-3s, would it?

The Twins have a solid young staff behind Liriano, and while Livan Hernandez is probably a bad idea, he’s not as bad as last year’s waste of innings on the likes of Ramon Ortiz and Sidney Ponson. They also still have a very good looking bullpen, especially if they don’t unload Joe Nathan. Even if they do (and they should), there are several hurlers out there who can take over the closer role and they have the depth to continue to sport a solid pen even without Nathan.

Most interesting in Minnesota is that they have finally moved to address their woefully imbalanced lineup. Adam Everett will still provide them with a lot of harmful plate appearances, but at least he makes up for it by being arguably the best defensive shortstop since Ozzie Smith. But the Twins have plugged in Mike Lamb at third who, while not a great hitter should provide some kind of production that has been sorely lacking from the hot corner in Minny for years. Brendan Harris at second won’t make any Twins fan forget the glory days of Chuck Knoblauch’s youth, much less the heady days of Rod Carew, he is a capable stick at the keystone.

The outfield/DH area is still weak, but improving. Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel and Delmon Young are all at least decent hitters for their spots, and it’s only matter of time before Young starts racking up all-star appearances. That time might be 2008, and solid contributions from Cuddyer and Kubel are not pipe dreams. The Twins seem intent on giving Carlos Gomez the centerfield job, even though he looked very much like a player who needed more minor league time last year. But they like him and if they’re right that he’s ready to at least get on base at an acceptable clip, putting all this together with the Twins’ M&M Boys (Mauer and Morneau) could turn out a pretty decent lineup. Like the Jays, a lot has to fall into place, but if it does, the Twins could squeak into the margins of the wild card race. That makes them an Interesting Team.

Given the state of the White Sox minor league system and the age of its roster, I don’t blame them for trying to go for it this year. But sorry, Pale Hose fans, I’m not drinking the kool-aid on this one. Too many erratic pitchers, too many aging or infirm position players…bringing in Nick Swisher and Carlos Quentin doesn’t strike me as nearly enough to make this team Interesting in 2008.

The A’s upside is .500 or a little better, the Rangers’ not even that. The Royals seem to have turned a corner in building a credible organization, but they have a long way to go before they’re Interesting, much less contenders. Some say the same about the Orioles, but I’m not sold that Peter Angelos will be able to stand losing for a few more years while Andy MacPhail rebuilds the farm system. They’re your winners in the “No Hope and Faith” Derby.

So, five teams are the cream of the crop (New York, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and Los Angeles), five are clear also-rans (Oakland, Texas, Baltimore, Chicago and Kansas City) and I’ve named three (Minnesota, Seattle and Toronto) as Interesting.

There’s one more team I’d call Interesting in 2008, even though, unlike the other three, I see no chance for them to compete for a playoff spot this year. But they are building a most intriguing team going forward with some great drafting and smart trades, they look much improved for this year and they have a TON more talent coming up the pipeline. Amazingly, that team is the Tampa Bay Rays, sans Devil.

After they acquired Matt Garza from the Twins, the Rays suddenly had three starters who could easily go toe-to-toe with the top threes of New York, Boston, Cleveland and the Angels. True, there’s a steep drop after them and the bullpen, while significantly improved, is still a liability. But there will be a lot more days in 2008 when the Rays pitch well than in 2007. They won’t win with their pitching, but they’ll be a decent team when you look at their lineup.

Before moving on to that, a word about Tampa’s defense. In 2007, it was truly awful, very much compounding the pitching problems they were having. With Evan Longoria moving Akinori Iwamura over to second (where he’s still likely to stink, but perhaps just a little less), which was a defensive problem for Tampa last year anyway, and Jason Bartlett replacing Brendan Harris at short, the Tampa defense should leap forward. Carl Crawford is the best defensive left fielder in the game, and while BJ Upton is not likely to ever remind anyone of Richie Ashburn, centerfield is easily his best position and he’ll have a year of experience under his belt. If Rocco Baldelli can actually play a significant number of games in right (a big if, especially when the options are two statues out there, Jonny Gomes and Cliff Floyd) the Rays could have an above average outfield as well. If that happens, their pitching will get a big boost after playing in front of one of the game’s worst fielding teams last year. If Scott Kazmir and James Shields don’t feel they have to strike guys out to get out of an inning, it can only help their health, confidence and effectiveness.

Last year, Tampa was a decent eighth in the AL in runs. With the injection of Longoria into the lineup, Upton being comfortable in his position for the first time ever, Crawford continuing to improve, Carlos Pena having finally found himself, and a decent crop of complimentary hitters in Floyd, Gomes, Iwamura, Bartlett and Baldelli, the Rays should step up despite having traded Delmon Young. Catcher Dioner Navarro (who I’ve been rooting for for years) may have finally hit his stride in the second half last year, when he hit .285/.340/.475. While this isn’t (yet) a lineup that can compete with New York, Boston and Detroit, it may well be a lineup with no serious holes, one which can score consistently even if it is not quite spectacular.

Tampa has tons of young talent in both the high and low minors, so if some guys falter or get some boo-boos they have the resources to replenish the tank in-season without jeopardizing their future. They have a smart front office and, in Joe Maddon, one of the game’s better managers. There’s an awful lot to like here and, while the Rays won’t be showing up in rear-view mirrors in Boston and New York yet, there’s a lot to like here. I don’t think a .500 record is out of the question for 2008, and for the first time in Rays history. I definitely see them well out-pacing the woeful Orioles and possibly even putting some serious heat on Toronto. Third place is not out of the question for the Rays, and given this team’s abysmal history and the fact that they look like they’[re going to be a lot of fun to watch, they are the one non-contender that makes the Interesting Team list. And they do it with a bullet.

As the Hot Stove League season winds down and gives way to the annual rebirth that is spring training, writers start to assess who the winners and losers were in the off-season. I’m not going to do that, but if I were to, I think I’d be putting a team in the winner’s column with a bullet that most others would rank as losers. That team is the Oakland Athletics.

But wait, you say, the A’s traded their best pitcher and their best position player for a bunch of guys we’ve never heard of. How can that be a win for the A’s? It can be and it was, but to understand it, you have to step back and do a sober analysis of where the A’s were at the end of 2007.

Coming off their first ever playoff victory in 2006, the ’07 A’s rolled the dice with a lot of iffy and unhealthy players and it came up snake eyes, a 76-86 record, a third place finish and the first losing season for the franchise since 1998. In and of itself, that’s no reason to panic. Teams have down years where the injury bug and a few problems dog them down.

But this team had no future. Several players who were supposed to form the core of the A’s franchise for years had faltered. Eric Chavez’s back problems have led to spiraling production three years in a row and it doesn’t look like he is physically capable of being the player he once promised to be, or even once was. Rich Harden had the best stuff of any pitcher the A’s have developed in recent years, but after three years of constant injury, it is clear he cannot be relied on. Bobby Crosby has proven not only to be unhealthy, but also not to be anywhere near the player, offensively or defensively, that the A”s thought he would be when they let Miguel Tejada walk.

Couple those things with several poor drafts which left the A’s once-envied minor league system with only a few prospects who had any sort of major-league future, and you start to see what Billy Beane saw. Sure, with guys like Nick Swisher, Dan Haren, Joe Blanton, Huston Street, Travis Buck and Daric Barton they had the core of a decent team, and a few shrewd moves and lucky breaks could put them on the outside track for wild card contention for a few years.

But the simple fact was they had no chance to put together a team that was a legitimate contender within the next few years. Most GMs would flail about, finding a few players to plug in who could help boost the team above .500. And, if the A’s played in the National League, where the best teams are not nearly as good as the best of the AL, Beane might have done that. But if he had, that would have been because he would have had sufficient resources to field a team that could have challenged the best in the league.

The resources to do that in the AL, where you not only have the huge financial powerhouses in the Bronx and Boston, but also have teams in Los Angeles, Cleveland and Detroit that are loaded for bear for the next few years, the best Beane could have done was make Oakland a decent, scrappy team that might, might sneak into the playoffs once or twice if the big boys faltered. That’s not what Beane tries to do. Despite the fiscal limitations under which he works, Beane’s goal is to build a legitimate contender, one that, like the teams from 2001-3 and 2006, stacked up well against the bullies from the East.

The trades of Haren, Swisher and Mark Kotsay had nothing to do with the A’s being a low-budget team, as some think. Haren will make $4 million 2008 and $5.5 million in 2009, and has a club option for $6.75 million in 2010. Those are bargain-basement prices for a pitcher of Haren’s caliber. Swisher will make $3.5 million in ’08, $5.3 million in ’09, $6.75 million in ’10 and $9 million in ’11. Again, that is an eminently affordable contract, even for the A’s (who, incidentally, are now in baseball’s lower-middle-class in any case).

What Beane recognized was that he had a choice—be a decent team for the next few years and probably miss the playoffs in all or most of them or try to rebuild his system and work on building a legitimate contender for the 20-teens decade. Most GMs would choose the former, but then most GMs have neither the vision nor the job security that Beane has.

I admit I wasn’t wild about the package the A’s got for Swisher. The potential gem in the deal is Fautino De Los Santos, a 22-year old right-hander from the Dominican Republic who just completed his first year of professional ball in the US. The kid has absolutely filthy stuff, as evidenced by his 153 strikeouts in only 122 innings last year. But his control needs work, and while he was unhittable in low-A last year (he surrendered almost exactly 0.5 hits per inning), he was also pretty old for that level. He looked more human, though he was still quite good, at high-A, and has a good deal of work to do before he can compete in the bigs. Still, he’s on a fast track and if his development continues at this pace, he could well make this deal worthwhile all by himself. But young pitching is always a gamble.

Ryan Sweeney is a 23-year old outfielder who was once considered a pretty good prospect, but whose bat just hasn’t developed. He can play all three outfield positions, but that’s his best selling point unless his hitting takes a big step forward. He has demonstrated decent patience and makes consistent contact, but he is neither a .300-type hitter nor has he shown significant power. He doesn’t have much speed either, and his track record screams Triple-A lifer. We’ll see if the A’s can coax more than that out of him, but it’s not promising.

Gio Gonzalez has now been traded three times and is only 22. He’s a power lefty with control issues. He did a good deal better in his second year at AA in ’07 than he did in his first. His upside is a solid #3 starter in the majors. He’ll certainly get his fair shot, as hard-throwing lefties are a valued commodity and, if it all works out, he could be a solid starter for years for the A’s, but he has little star potential.

It seems like the A’s could have gotten more for Swisher, a young outfielder who, while not a great glove man anywhere in the outfield, can still handle all three outfield slots acceptably (he’s not really an everyday centerfielder, but he can certainly play there in a pinch without embarrassing himself). But the test of such trades, ultimately, comes a few years down the road, and there’s every possibility that this will look like a pretty good one for the A’s at that point.

The Haren deal, on the other hand, was a coup. Chris Carter, 21, is a hulking slugger who can’t field very well, but whose bat could well carry him to significant major league career. Aaron Cunningham, 22, can play all three outfield positions fairly well, doesn’t have much power, but is a good contact hitter and projects as a solid fourth outfielder. Dana Eveland, 24, and Greg Smith, 24, are both major-league-ready lefties who project as back of the rotation starters. But the two prizes in the deal were Brett Anderson and Carlos Gonzalez.

Anderson, only 20, is yet another left-hander (which itself really adds some spice to this trade for Oakland) but he projects more as a #2 starter. He doesn’t have a great fastball, but his curve is said to be devastating. Scouts say he has great command a great feel for pitching. Sounds a lot like a lefty A’s fans knew well before he crossed the Bay.

Gonzalez, 22, still has some refinement work to do, but has a very high ceiling to his potential. He plays centerfield right now, but it’s not clear he can play there in the majors. He’s shown very good power, but he is not a disciplined hitter and is easily fooled with breaking balls. He creams fastballs, though, and could be a decent hitter for average, but he needs to walk more and learn to lay off the breaking stuff. If he does, he’s an all-star.

That’s a heckuva swag, a good measure more than the Twins got for Johan Santana, more than the marlins got for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis (at least when you take into account that the Fish had to trade two marketable commodities for their package) and arguably a bit more even than the Orioles got for Erik Bedard.

And they got that for Haren, a pitcher who is not of the same caliber as Bedard, much less Santana. Haren may be one of the most overrated players in the game today. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a fine pitcher, a solid #2 starter, but he’s not a #1 and his 2007 season, which got everyone all agog, was not quite as good as it appeared.

Haren is a very durable innings-muncher. Last year, his strikeouts were up only very slightly, his walks down very slightly. His homeruns allowed were down more significantly, but, at 24 given up, nothing superstarish. I believe that 2007 was as good as Haren will get, and, when that was combined with a very good defense behind him and a very forgiving ballpark both at home and in two of the three other parks in his division, he became a Cy Young candidate.

Still, even at that, he was the 6th best pitcher in the AL, behind CC Sabathia, Fausto Carmona, Josh Beckett, Santana and Bedard. The 15 unearned runs he surrendered (a very high number) mostly happened early and helped him to the ERA lead in the first half. His “fade” in the second half was as much the result of more of the runs he gave up being earned as anything else.

Beane sold high on both of these players, correctly seeing that the market was placing a premium value on young players signed through their arbitration years to affordable contracts. And in so doing, he rebuilt a largely barren minor league system.

Beane would not settle for putting together a decent but unspectacular team. He is interested in building a winner. He looked at what he had and made the right call. Of course, it may not work out; at the time, signing Eric Chavez long term and letting Miguel Tejada walk away was the right move. Baseball is harsh—making the right move doesn’t always work.

But Beane did what he had to do, what few other GMs would have the nerve to do. And, once again, he leveraged the market as best he could to maximize the return for his team. What more a GM can do, I can’t imagine, and that’s why the A’s are winners this winter. They actually have enough still with the club to top .500, though I strongly suspect that Joe Blanton and Huston Street will be elsewhere by August, meaning the A’s will probably fall short of the standard of mediocrity. But they weren’t going to have much of a present anyway, and now they have a much brighter future. That sounds like a good winter to me.

Eli Manning may not have been the only New York sports figure to have found himself in the post-season of 2007. In a less dramatic and certainly less impactful way, it’s just possible that Yankee pitcher Philip Hughes did so as well.

I’ve found it interesting to see the change in the view of Hughes since Joba Chamberlain hit the scene. Hughes was once regarded by some as the top pitching prospect in all of baseball. He didn’t make the immediate impact Chamberlain did, and now it’s Chamberlain who is the next big thing.

That may not be such a bad thing. In Spring Training last year, Hughes seemed to be feeling the pressure and pitched poorly. This resulted in his starting the year back in the minors. When he was called up in late April, he pitched two games before getting hurt and staying out until August. In his second May start, he pitched 6 1/3 innings of no-hit ball, striking out six and walking three before leaving with a hamstring injury.

When Hughes returned it took a while for him to find his legs again. But in September, he appeared to right the ship and made it on to the Yankees’ post-season roster. It was here that we finally saw again what we had seen in that second start, as he looked every bit as advertised against Cleveland. In two relief appearances in the ALDS, Hughes tossed 5 2/3 innings, surrendering one run on a solo homer, striking out six and not walking a batter. If this was his arrival, we’ll know it soon enough of course.

I think I’m higher on Hughes than most. But what strikes me is how many of those writing in sports media and the blogosphere have revised their view of Hughes.

One who didn’t do that was Keith Law of ESPN and Scouts, Inc. Law always liked Hughes, but was also more tempered than most, seeing Hughes’ ceiling as more a #2 starter than a #1. I have the utmost respect for Law, who has the rare ability to combine smart and modern analysis with the true scouting acumen that so many pretend they have. But, as I’m sure he’d the first to admit, that doesn’t mean he’s right about every player. No one is.

As an aside, I’ll say here that I don’t pretend to have any kind of scouting ability. I’ve watched thousands of hours of baseball, live and on TV and I’ve coached kids. I’ve seen every level of the game, from Little League, to adult amateurs to MLB. And I’ve studied as carefully as I could. But I am not a scout. Those people are absolutely amazing in their ability see what a player has in potential, diagnose the mechanics of a pitching motion or a swing on the spot, and recognize when a bad performance is just a bad day and when it is indicative of a bigger problem. I’m amazed by scouts, and the fact that every baseball fan and baseball writer thinks they can be one is insulting, frankly, to these incredibly skilled professionals. It is in that context that I offer this opinion.

Law has always said when asked that Hughes has very good stuff, just not #1 starter stuff. That’s hardly a knock—that means he sees Hughes as an excellent prospect, just not quite as good as Joba or Clay Buchholz. That’s a fair assessment, and Law was saying it when Hughes was the next big thing, unlike the many writers who have wavered in their view of Hughes. I have no problem with changing an assessment as more data becomes available. But it seems like it’s only Chamberlain’s emergence that has really changed the view of Hughes for so many. That’s why I respect Law’s opinion on this.

Nonetheless, I differ with it. True, Hughes’ stuff is very good, not quite great. He has two fastballs: a four seamer that is routinely in the mid-90s and can hit 97 or even 98 on occasion, and a two seamer that has nice downward motion and sits comfortably in the 92-94 range. His curveball can be devastating when he’s ahead in the count, breaking sharply down and away from right-handed batters.

Hughes had trouble last year against lefties, who hit him at a .264/.358/.488 clip. He needs to either improve his changeup or develop his slider (a pitch he’s largely abandoned) to bring those numbers down.

So what is it I like so much about Hughes? What I’m particularly fond of is the excellent command he shows for one so young. It might surprise some people that Hughes is actually a few months younger than Chamberlain. He’s both the veteran and the baby of the young Yankee hurlers. While he doesn’t have Chamberlain’s explosiveness on his fastball, he locates it a lot better. I think I’m more of a sucker for good command than most scouts are.

Command and control are not the same thing, so Hughes’ walk rate last year of 3.59 per 9 innings doesn’t reflect the command I’m talking about. But it’s perhaps too easy to forget what this young man did in the minor leagues.

Hughes pitched 275 innings in the minors. In those innings, he was nigh untouchable, surrendering only 171 hits, only 6 (!) of which were homeruns. He walked 66 (2.16 per 9) and struck out 311 (10.18 per 9) in those innings and posted an ERA of 2.09. He did that while being relatively young for his league at every level.
Chamberlain, by comparison, tossed 88 1/3 minor league innings, having been drafted at 21, compared to Hughes having been 18. Joba ruled, to be sure, but he had nothing on Hughes. In those 88.1 innings, he gave up 62 hits, including four homers, walked 27 (2.75 per 9) and whiffed 135 (13.75 per 9). The strikeout numbers are what really pop the eyes, but Hughes did better with the walks and homers and gave up fewer hits.

None of this is meant to knock Joba, of course. But he had some real advantages when it comes to capturing the imagination.

One, Chamberlain is clearly a starting pitcher who was put in the bullpen. Particularly given the way that he was used, Joba was able to put everything he had into every pitch. He throws harder than Hughes to begin with, and being unleashed in this way only magnified, all the more so since Hughes had no such luxury. Even in the ALDS, Hughes was brought in for long relief and still had to conserve his strength to some extent.

Two, Chamberlain is a character. He’s very animated on the mound, pumping his fists and shouting. Hughes is more a quiet worker. Joba fires up the crowd and gives the writers a little more ink. Hughes just goes about his business.

Those two add up to three, that Chamberlain had a lot more early success than Hughes. Thus, much greater excitement.

I don’t know who is going to be the better of these two. It’s a nice question to be able to ask. I do, though, have some personal preferences.

I’m not terribly keen on guys who hop around the mound like Joba. Pitching, and hitting for that matter, do not require the flow of adrenaline that a linebacker needs, but rather the focus and concentration that a surgeon requires. When things don’t go right, these excitable types have a tendency to implode. That is, of course, what Joba did against Cleveland, although those circumstances were such that many a seasoned veteran might have a hard time maintaining his focus (Joe Torre really should have insisted the game be stopped until the gnats could be dispersed).

More to the point, Chamberlain’s rear back and throw style won’t work as a starter. He’ll have to go back to pitching in a more sustainable manner, as he did in the minors. And here is where I think Hughes has the advantage. Chamberlain throws harder, but he doesn’t have Hughes’ command (not that his is bad either, and it may yet improve, but it’s not at Hughes’ level yet). And should Chamberlain remain in the pen, it’s well to note that flame-throwers like him do not tend to have very long careers in relief. They tend instead to burn out after a few years at most.

Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA forecasts project a 3.39 ERA for Chamberlain and a 4.42 for Hughes. Some of that discrepancy is based on the projection that Joba will spend significant time in the bullpen, which lowers the ERA (a pitcher will generally have an ERA considerably lower as a reliever than as a starter). I’m not going to say that I’d bet that Hughes will be better than Joba, even only as a starter.

But since this is the season for bold statements and predictions, I’ll go on record now saying that I do think Hughes, if healthy, will beat that PECOTA projection handily, and will come in with an ERA under 4. Unfortunately for Hughes, the off-season rumors that had him going to Minnesota in a trade for Johan Santana will raise some expectations of him. Obviously, anyone who holds any pitcher to the standard of Santana is a numbskull. But the media works in mysterious ways.

So, I’m officially on the bandwagon, the one so many jumped off of when Joba saved the Yankee bullpen from the bleak desert that is Kyle Farnsworth. I remain firmly in the Phil Hughes fan club. It’s a good club, and I think it will get more fun as Hughes gets more experience. I’ll trade a few mph off a fastball for greater command and superior pitchability. And I think Hughes has those qualities. It’s a bright future.

My new, celebratory t-shirt. This is one happy, if rather bloated, Giants fan.

I am an analyst by profession, and I bring that into my sports fandom. Analysis of baseball and football is a major part of how I follow, study and think about the games. In the baseball realm, I’m inclined toward what people called statistical analysis, Bill James, Baseball Prospectus and the like. Football, despite the efforts of people like the good folks at Football Outsiders, is not given to such quantification (a limitation the guys at FO are still struggling to get some perspective on), but even there, serious thought, challenging conventional wisdom and, yes, even some limited number crunching, is part of what I do as a fan.

That stuff is fun. It helps my understanding and appreciation of the games. But in the end, it’s the heart that is the center of sports fandom. There are moments in sports that explain why I get so emotionally attached to the games, why I growl in frustration when Kyle Farnsworth is brought into a tight situation and blows a lead, why I pound the table when Amani Toomer drops a key third down pass that hits him square in the chest. There are magical moments that make it all worthwhile.

Sometimes, those moments can come even when it’s not my team. Kirk Gibson’s game-winning homerun off of Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series was one of those. The gimpy slugger, forced to generate the power in his swing just from his arms, wins the game against the best reliever of his era. That’s a moment for poetry, not analysis. And it’s the beauty of baseball. Analysis can capture the value of a player’s season or career. But in a given moment, in one at-bat, or one play from scrimmage, anything can happen.

Of course, it’s better when it’s your team overcoming obstacles and long odds. But those moments can also be created by mediocre players. The 1978 season saw a near-miraculous comeback by the Yankees, overcoming a 14-game deficit to a very good Boston Red Sox team. But when all of that seemed like it might be for naught, it was weak-hitting Bucky Dent who creamed a three-run homer off Mike Torrez to bring the proper flourish to the Yankees’ season.

But moments are at their sweetest when your team is the underdog. The ’78 Yankees were a great team and the defending world champions. For the most part, even the greatest moments are somewhat dampened for Yankee fans. The Bronx Bombers are the greatest dynasty in sports. When they win, it is merely a promise fulfilled. It is when your team is clearly the inferior one, but wins anyway that sports find their potential for their greatest moments.

The ’88 Dodgers were such a story. No one seriously believes that team was better than the A’s, but Gibson’s homer kicked off a Series where they dominated a better team. For me, there have been two such moments in my life. I’m thankful for that, because most fans are lucky to get one.

One moment was in baseball, the other in football. And though baseball will always be my first love, the greatest moment was the football.

Obviously, this is coming up in the wake of the incredible run by the Giants through the playoffs and then their amazing takedown of the 18-0 Patriots. The run started with a loss to the Pats in week 17, and while that clearly did propel a change in fortunes for the Giants, it was still a loss.

The great dramatic victories over Dallas and Green Bay set the stage, but Super Bowl XLII has already gone down as the best ever. For many, the defining moment was the great play by Eli Manning, getting away from a collapsing pocket where a sack seemed assured and launching a pass to David Tyree, who made an amazing catch. Tyree is the latest in a long line of eminently forgettable players who are immortalized by one great moment.

For me, that moment was thrilling, but the transcendent moment was a few plays later, the touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress. That moment was the one that drew out, as the camera panned away from the line of scrimmage and, as Burress appeared in the corner of my screen, he had gotten huge separation and needed only wait for the ball to come down into his hands. It wasn’t anything like the brilliant play, but it was the moment when an impossible run reached its culmination.

My moment of greatest elation in baseball came in October 1996. It was Game 4 of the World Series. The Yankees, with their new manager, Joe Torre, were a plucky, upstart team with solid pitching and a decent lineup, albeit one without a whole lot of power. The Atlanta Braves were the defending world champs, with a powerful lineup and a Hall of Fame threesome in their primes atop their rotation. The first two games, in New York, were slaughters, with the Braves scoring 16 runs in the pair, while the Yankees managed only one. Even after the Yankees won Game 3 behind David Cone, the outlook was grim.

In Game 4, the struggling Kenny Rogers was slated to go up against Denny Neagle. Rogers had been hammered in both his starts by both Texas and Baltimore. Neagle, who had been the Pirates ace before faltering after a mid-season trade to Atlanta that year, had pitched quite effectively in his one start against the Cardinals. It seemed to be a mismatch, and through five innings, it played out just that way, as the Braves led 6-0.

In the top of the sixth, the Yankees, who had been making Neagle throw lots of pitches all night, finally wore him down, driving him from the game with three singles and a walk. Aided by an error by right fielder Jermaine Dye, the Yankees had scored three runs and had runners on first and second with no outs, the tying run at the plate. In one of the most remarkable, clutch World Series relief performances, Mike Bielecki absolutely dominated Mariano Duncan and pinch-hitters Paul O’Neill and Tino Martinez to end the inning. Bielecki’s performance is largely forgotten now, drowned out in subsequent events, but it was a truly heroic one, some of the best “fireman” work you’ll ever see.

Things looked grim at this point for the Yankees. Already down 2-1 in the Series, their comeback seemed to have been stifled by Bielecki. Their bullpen had already been taxed as a rainout meant there was no travel day between games 2 and 3, and Andy Pettitte’s failure to get out of the third inning in Game 1 had already meant the bullpen had been busy. Rogers, likewise, had not escaped the third on this night. The Braves’ relievers had also been used, but for shorter stints, and were much fresher.

As the top of the eighth rolled around, it was still 6-3 Atlanta. And here Bobby Cox really left himself open to some second guessing. While Bielecki had pitched the night before, he had thrown only one inning and 18 pitches. That was his only appearance to that point in the Series. Bielecki had been a starter for most of his career, and had started five games for the Braves that year as well. He had thrown 34 pitches in the 6^th and 7^th innings, but seemed to have plenty of gas in the tank at the end of the 7^th. Still it’s only hindsight that could fault Cox for his decision, but I remember thinking that I was more than happy to see Bielecki depart, even though it meant bringing the Braves’ closer, Mark Wohlers, into the game.

That was where the real second-guessing could take place. Wohlers had gone more than one inning only 13 times in 1996, and never more than 1 2/3 in any appearance that year. In fact, only four of the 13 was 1 2/3 innings. While it might be understandable to ask him to go two innings if there were no other ready and able arms, Cox could have easily called on Greg McMichael for the eighth.

In any case, he didn’t, and Wohlers had to contend both with not having his best stuff and some bad luck. Charlie Hayes rolled the first pitch he saw up the third base line where it refused to go foul. Darryl Strawberry ripped a 1-1 pitch through the shortstop hole, a very nice piece of hitting, going the other way not usually being one of Darryl’s great strengths.

Next, Mariano Duncan hit a tailor-made double play ball. But the normally slick-fielding and sure-handed Rafael Belliard booted the ball and could only get the one out at second. That left first and third with one out for what had been Joe Girardi’s spot in the order. But in the sixth, Girardi was pinch-hit for so that Paul O’Neill could be one of Bielecki’s strikeout victims. Now it was Girardi’s backup, the far superior-hitting Jim Leyritz, who came to the plate.

Wohlers’ first pitch to Leyritz was a laser fastball, low and in, that Leyritz fouled off sharply. His second was a high slider well out of the strike zone. That pitch might have served as a warning to Wohlers that his slider wasn’t sharp at that point.

The 1-1 pitch to Leyritz was another slider, very high on the inner part of the plate that catcher Eddie Perez had to stand up to bring in. As Perez tossed the ball back to Wohlers, he gave him the “calm down” sign. Wohlers didn’t look at all comfortable on the mound.

Now Wohlers comes back with a fastball much like the first pitch, if anything harder. The TV radar gun says 99 mph and while those guns are often unreliable (especially when they come from FOX), in this case, that may well have been an accurate reading. It’s now 2-2.

Now Wohlers throws another slider, but a much better one. It breaks down and just off the outside corner and Leyritz had all he could handle just to pull it foul.

It’s still 2-2 and Wohlers had to consider his next pitch. Leyritz was drawing this battle out too long, and Wohlers needed to have enough left in the tank for the 9^th. Leyritz was right on his fastballs, fouling them straight back. Both the fastballs had been just off the plate, and Wohlers had to think that Leyritz would be ready to drive a fastball that was over the plate. The last slider he’d thrown was much better than the first two. And so, Wohlers made his decision.

It was the wrong one. Wohlers elected to go back to the slider, but the one he threw was the worst of the bunch. It hung over the plate, dropping right into Leyritz’ wheelhouse. He crushed it and the ball sailed easily over the left field fence for a three-run, game-tying homerun.

Leyritz’ homer did not win the game, or the Series. But up until that point, all the trends were going away from a Yankee victory. It was, for me, a moment where time slowed to a crawl. As soon as Leyritz hit the ball, it was obvious he had hit a homer. It was just a matter of waiting for it to land, and it seemed to me that second stretched into minutes. Having had the sense that the marvelous run of the 1996 Yankees was coming to an end in that Series, that moment turned everything around. From there, I believed the Yankees could pull off a great upset in the Series, and they did.

Jim Leyritz, David Tyree, Bucky Dent, Phil McConkey (anyone remember his play in Super Bowl XXI?)…these are not all-stars, not even particularly memorable players. But they gave us moments, and isn’t that why we watch the games in the first place?

You know, probably the best thing about teams wising up and locking away their desirable players before they hit the open market in free agency is that it’s truly brought the Hot Stove League back.

In recent years, the blockbuster trade seemed to be facing extinction, and the off-season was filled with tales not of bargaining to find the swap that would make the headlines, but of budgets and contract negotiations. The off-season of 2007-08 turned that around.

In this off-season, big names were moved via trade. Those names included Miguel Cabrera, Erik Bedard, Johan Santana, Dan Haren, Nick Swisher, Miguel Tejada, Scott Rolen, Troy Glaus and Jim Edmonds. Top prospects like Delmon Young, Adam Jones, and Cameron Maybin also found new homes. That’s a lot of movement of big time players.

Perhaps the most interesting saga of all of these was the Johan Santana deal. The talks about Santana dragged on for months, and for a long time it seemed that the Yankees and Red Sox were the only two serious suitors.

Yet in the end, it was the Mets that came out with him, and for a package that was clearly inferior to that which their respective teams got for Haren and Bedard, the other two top-tier starters who were traded.

The Twins package has some upside, but no prospect on the level of an Adam Jones (traded for Bedard), Maybin (traded for Cabrera) or even Carlos Gonzales (traded for Haren, and a slightly lesser prospect than the other two). The key figure in the twins deal was Carlos Gomez. Gomez is fast as lightning and projects to be an excellent defensive center-fielder. But he has very little power, and thus far has not shown much ability to hit for high enough averages to offset a relatively low walk rate. He’s not completely undisciplined and he makes good contact, so it’s possible his averages and his walks may rise, but he doesn’t look like a star, more like a decent centerfielder who is a bit more valuable than that because of his glove and speed.

Deolis Guerra has a crackling arm, and a lot of upside, but he’s 18 and very raw. Arms like his implode half the time, for a variety of reasons. Of course, the other half of the time they become good pitchers and some of the time great ones. But the other two pitchers, Kevin Mulvey and Phil Humber are both just about major-league ready but don’t project as much more than good fourth starters. That has value, to be sure, but that’s precisely the commodity that the Twins have an embarrassment of riches in.

I remain dubious that the reported offers from the Yankees (Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera and various combinations of one or two other players) and the Red Sox (various permutations involving one or two of Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, Jed Lowrie and Justin Masterson) were ever genuine. If they were, Twins GM Billy Smith did very badly here.

But in the end, we actually have a market where Dan Haren fetches more than Johan Santana because of cost. Not only the expense of Santana severely limit the number of teams that will even try to acquire him, but the cost-certainty and relative bargain price of Haren ($9.5 million total for the next two years and a $6.75 million for 2010, as compared to nearly $23 million per year for Santana) makes him worth more in trade.

I strongly suspect the Yankees and Red sox never made a serious offer. I think names were just tossed around and the media fed on what scraps they could find or, lacking that, what they could make up. Smith probably did do as well as he could do. But it sure is an odd world where, with all due respect to Dan Haren and Erik Bedard, those two fetch so much more in trade than Santana did.

In one way, the Roger Clemens PED controversy has outstripped even Barry Bonds. That is in the amount of ugly bulls**t being strewn around it.

Once the Mitchell Report (man I hate that name) hit, there was no doubt Clemens would be in the center of a maelstrom. He was the only really big name in it, other than those who were already deeply implicated in the steroid scandal, like Bonds.

Since then, both Clemens’ and his accuser, Brian McNamee’s legal teams have turned the whole thing into a traveling circus, featuring the clowns in the House Oversight Committee, who apparently think that with the country’s economy collapsing,

American troops getting killed for no good reason in Iraq and a presidential campaign underway they have nothing better to do than determine whether Clemens or McNamee is telling the truth.

After a 60 Minutes appearance and a completely surreal press conference by Clemens did nothing to dissuade an almost universal consensus in the media that he was guilty, Clemens’ team issued a 45-page report purporting to show, via statistics, that Clemens was not guilty.

It didn’t work, and it never had a shot to.

Clemens did, in fact, have an amazing renaissance at an advanced age, one that is nearly unprecedented in baseball history. Showing that other pitchers have performed exceptionally well into their forties doesn’t really address that. But it’s a public relations war, and phony statistics are the theme of the day. There is no shortage of such on the anti-Clemens side, not by a long shot, as we’ll examine shortly.

So I can forgive Clemens this brazen attempt at manipulation. What really amazes me is the certainty with which most of the media is framing Clemens’ “guilt.” All the articles are about why Clemens is lying, how he can’t be believed, how he should just come clean.

I was listening to one sports talk crew who just said they didn’t buy Clemens’ story for no other reason than they didn’t buy it. Apparently the only way for Clemens to clear his name is to admit his guilt, even if he’s innocent.

Look, I realize that the court of public opinion does not have the same standards as a court of law. But what does it say about us if the standards of public opinion are so low that we are willing to convict a man based on nothing more than the word of an obviously unreliable source?

Just how unreliable is McNamee? The man has a long history of lying to both the police and the press. In 2001, McNamee was investigated for an alleged rape. What is known is that he was in a swimming pool at a St. Petersburg, FL hotel, naked and holding a naked woman, the victim, who had been given so much of a date-rape drug that she nearly died. Though McNamee was a suspect, he was never charged. However, according to this ESPN report, the police report does show that McNamee lied to the police numerous times.

Trying to curry favor after he was accused of being named in Jason Grimsley’s affidavit by the LA Times (a story which was later proven to be unsubstantiated, though whether or not McNamee was actually named in that affidavit remains unknown), McNamee whined to the press that he had lost jobs, including a professorship at St. John’s University. But the university says his appointment was for one year and had expired long before the LA Times story, or any other new allegations against McNamee, had appeared.

Folks, this is not a man who tells the truth as a matter of habit.

Now, let’s look at McNamee’s allegations. He claims to have injected Clemens with PEDs in the second half of 1998, and then again, regularly, in 2000 and 2001. Because sportswriters are neither critical thinkers nor the brightest bulbs in the chandelier in general, they simply generalize that Clemens’ resurgence in Toronto and then his later high points in his senior years must be due to steroids.

The problem is that Clemens was rejuvenated in Toronto long before McNamee allegedly injected him. This is important because according to McNamee’s (likely fictional) version of events, Clemens only got into the whole PED craze after attending a party at Jose Canseco’s home in June of 1998. According to McNamee, Clemens was clean before that, and the conversation with Canseco is what brought him into the PED world.

From 1993-1996, Clemens seemed to be declining. Nagging injuries were part of the issue, and so was some bad luck. Foolish writers, and a few not too clued in front office folks, saw his 40-39 record over those years as proof that Clemens’ career was heading toward a premature end at the age of 33. In fact, Clemens had a poor year for him in ’93, one where he was basically a league-average pitcher. He bounced back considerably in 1994, with a park-adjusted ERA that was 77% better than league average, leading the league at the time of the strike, and a 10-5 record in the shortened season. In ’95, that adjusted ERA was only 16% better than average, and he battled some injuries. In 1996, he went 10-13 for a Red Sox team that was fair at the plate but awful afield, and not one of their better offerings of the period. That record masked an adjusted ERA that was 39% better than league average, which is a pretty normal year for Clemens (his lifetime adjusted ERA is 43% better than league average). In fact that was good for fifth in the AL that year, but Boston GM Dan Duquette was convinced that Clemens was heading for the last roundup.

The Blue Jays signed him as a free agent and Clemens responded by going 21-7 with a 2.05 ERA which, after adjustment was 121% better than league average. Keep in mind that this was BEFORE anyone claims that Clemens was using PEDs. That adjusted ERA stood as Clemens’ best until 2004.

In 1998, Clemens did start off relatively slowly, and exploded in the second half, right after McNamee alleges Clemens started getting steroid injections. But was it really all that suspicious?

On the most basic level, such splits between half-seasons are very common. Just to throw an example out there, in 1957, Ted Williams batted .343 with a .476 OBP and .645 SLG for the first half of the season, a massive output for any hitter. The second half, he went completely nuts and hit .453/.594/.855. Was Williams juicing in 1957? I picked Williams ’57 season completely at random, just wanting to look at a later year but any baseball fan knows examples like this are legion.

Perhaps more to the point, Clemens first half ERA of 3.55, if he had stayed there for the rest of the year, would have ranked in a tie with David Cone for eighth in the AL. This is hardly the sort of thing that would send a sure Hall of Famer scurrying to the gutter that McNamee lives in.

Clemens spent the next five years with the Yankees, fluctuating between league average performances and nicely above average seasons, but despite winning the Cy Young award in 2001 (an award he didn’t deserve—he went 20-3 largely thanks to tremendous run support. He was a mere 9^th in raw ERA in the AL and 6^th in adjusted ERA, well behind teammate Mike Mussina in both categories, who should have won the award but didn’t get remotely the same run support Clemens did), nothing about his performance on the Yankees indicates much of anything. None of his best seasons came in the Bronx, and a couple of those years he was downright ordinary. But that’s when McNamee says he was doping. Hmmmm….

Clemens’ real explosion came when he went to the NL. The disparity between the two leagues in recent years is very well documented, and this could explain a good deal of it. This is particularly plausible because Clemens’ strikeout numbers, the place you would be most likely to see a jump from steroids, did not make any gains of note. They were up a tick in ’04 and down a tick from his Yankee days in ’05, the two best seasons.

Most important, though, is that all of that happened well after McNamee alleges Clemens was using PEDs and after MLB had instituted the most stringent testing program in team sports.

McNamee’s allegations don’t stand up to a serious examination. Moreover, the whole issue of steroids is blown way out of proportion. PEDs simply can’t do what people imagine they can. Look here for a lot more information.

But still people hold on to McNamee as if he has even an iota of credibility. His revelation last week that he has been keeping evidence on Clemens for the past seven years seems not to bother anyone. But this is the last nail in the coffin of McNamee’s believability, if only folks were not so blinded by this steroid hysteria to see it.

The initial argument in favor of McNamee was that, since he was already being indicted for drug trafficking and would only escape imprisonment by fully cooperating, and most importantly NOT LYING to law enforcement, people believed he had no incentive to lie. Further, he had obviously told the truth about Andy Pettitte, since Pettitte had confessed and confirmed McNamee’s story about him.

But in fact, we now know beyond the shadow of a doubt that McNAMEE DID LIE!!! By definition, he lied by withholding the evidence that he suddenly decided to present to federal investigators last week. Assuming that the “evidence” was not manufactured recently (no sure thing by any stretch, that), then McNamee withheld it from the investigators and the Mitchell commission. If the evidence is real, he lied to the Feds and Mitchell. If it’s fake, well, then he’s lying now.

McNamee is swimming in slime. Just to make the whole matter even tawdrier, he now claims to have also injected Clemens’ wife with HGH.

WAKE UP, PEOPLE! This man is desperately trying to save his own skin, and if all he had was Andy Pettitte, no one would have given him the kind of deal he seems to have gotten. That is a perfectly plausible explanation as to why McNamee would lie in implicating Clemens.

Look, I have no idea what Roger Clemens did or didn’t do. For all I know, Clemens was taking steroids since he came up with the Red Sox in 1984. What I do know is that Brian McNamee is as trustworthy as a politician on the take. We know he’s dishonest, we know he’s a felon. People may have suspicions of Roger Clemens, but they know of not one incident where he lied or broke the rules. They may suspect it, but, unlike with McNamee, they don’t have any proof.

Yet people continue to believe Clemens did something wrong based on nothing more than McNamee’s say-so. Never has there been better proof of PT Barnum’s old axiom, “there’s a sucker born every minute.” If anything, Barnum was understating the case when it comes to the court of public opinion and the media regarding Roger Clemens. And Brian McNamee is trying to take full advantage of the widespread stupidity.

It’s a good day to be a Giants fan. There’s really nothing quite like it when your team is appropriately an underdog and they win anyway.

The Giants have come together at the best possible time, and whatever happens in Green Bay this Sunday, it’s been a very successful season and a very nice post-season run.

There was a number of Giants who did not get to partake in the fun in Dallas this past Sunday. One who was not missed in the slightest was tight end Jeremy Shockey.

The Giants have not missed a beat since Shockey went down with a broken leg in week 15. In fact, they’ve gotten better since his departure. That improvement is probably coincidence, but it is not coincidence that the team hasn’t missed its alleged star end.

Ever since Shockey was drafted in the first round of the 2002 draft, he has basked in enormous attention, form the media, but more importantly from opposing defenses and Giants offensive coordinators. And much of that attention has been misplaced.

Shockey has had some good years, and some good games in other years. In 2002 and 2005, Shockey was an impact player, albeit one who was considerably less than the star he seems to think he is. But Shockey has also hurt the team with his stupid penalties, dropped passes, blown plays and indifferent blocking.

Shockey is a big tight end who also has well above average speed for the position. He is very difficult for any but the very best linebackers to cover, causing matchup problems for the opposing defense. But his execution often leaves a lot to be desired.

Shockey drops a lot of passes, and when he does catch the ball, he has a hard time staying on his feet, usually due to his own clumsiness, not because he is hit by a defender. He shows flashes at times, where he catches a ball and carries a couple of defenders for extra yardage, but these plays are few and far between.

Shockey is an ongoing distraction with his antics both on and off the field. While so many Giants have rallied to support oft-beleaguered quarterback Eli Manning, Shockey routinely showed his frustration with Manning’s inaccuracy for the entire world to see on the field. One can live with prickly personalities from top-flight players, but Shockey is far from that.

Shockey’s size and strength have gotten him a reputation as a solid blocker, but close observation shows frequently poor blocking technique, laziness about getting downfield for his teammates and releasing his blocks too early when he does make them. He drops a lot of passes, but he whines openly when Manning shows reluctance to throw to him or the coordinator doesn’t call what he deems enough plays to his number.

Kevin Boss has already demonstrated better hands than Shockey and a better ability to run routes. Boss doesn’t have the ability to block as well as Shockey, but that’s not as important as one would think since Shockey’s physical ability to block far exceeds his actual performance as a blocker. Boss, of course, does not have Shockey’s speed, so he doesn’t present the matchup problems Shockey does. The Giants seem perfectly capable, however, of devising an effective attack without that aspect.

There are, to be sure, things that Shockey brings that are helpful. But when Shockey is credited as a leader because of his histrionics and screaming, I don’t buy it. Shockey is often hurt, even when he does play; he displays a lot of selfishness and often defies the team’s wishes when it comes to his rehab and training regimen. Considering how often he is either out or playing at a severely diminished capacity, that doesn’t show leadership. It shows stupidity, as do many of the yellow flags thrown at him.

The Giants have been a more cohesive unit since Shockey went down. As I said, that’s probably coincidence. But what is clear is that the Giants don’t miss Jeremy Shockey. Chances are the Giants won’t win the Super Bowl this year, and when they re-tool for 2008, they’ll have a few decisions to make. Those could include replacing Michael Strahan, improving their defensive backfield and possibly replacing Amani Toomer as well. They should seriously consider allowing Kevin Boss to remove the headache that is Jeremy Shockey among all those choices.