Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Consequences minimal for NCAA, Rutgers basketball

Much ado nothing.  Rutgers may have a Division I basketball program, but it was never consistently competitive, with talented players going elsewhere to play ball. So the fallout and blowback to Rutgers and the NCAA is minimal. That's how it is in college sports, where no one in the high levels of the university, like the President is accountable. The folks who claim to have “integrity” in higher education are always the first ones to run and hide when things fall apart. As long as there's an athletic director and a lawyer to take the fall, the college presidents can avoid responsibility like they do for everything else. There's no leadership from the NCAA and college presidents, and all anyone cares about is keeping the money making aspect of college sports intact. Money that the athletes will never see, of course. Yes, many receive scholarships, but their entire college career is really about the sport that they play in, so that free ride to a degree does have a cost.  The college presidents and whoever runs the NCAA? They certainly can't be bothered with minor issues such as the welfare and well-being of the student athletes.

The attention is all focused on Eddie Jordan now, and what he can do turn the basketball program around and recruit talented high school players. Too bad Rutgers didn't hire Jordan instead of Mike Rice the last time around.

NCAA offers zero leadership

How does one get a job with the NCAA?  How did they start and what is their purpose? I need to do some research. It seems like whenever there's some sort of problem in college athletics, like the Rutgers basketball situation, the NCAA doesn't offer any leadership. Their leadership is in their back pocket. It's in their wallet. I'd like to know what the salaries are for some of the upper level employees at that place.

In college football and college basketball, the coaches are the stars. How come coaches can get out of their contracts to take a job in professional sports, but college athletes have to sit out a year if they want out of their scholarship in order to go play at another university? How come coaches get paid whatever is remaining on their contract if they get fired, but an athlete's scholarship is renewed year by year?

I hope college athletes really enjoy the sport that they're playing. Wouldn't seem worth it otherwise.

Above the law: How come baseball players who fight on the field are not arrested?

Most baseball brawls start when a batter is hit by a ball thrown by a pitcher. The batter might charge the mound and assault the pitcher, and then all players and coaches from both teams dive into the fray. There's usually lots of pushing, shoving, and grabbing, and punches are thrown, but they don't always land on their intended targets. Once in a while a player is badly injured, as what happened recently with Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Zack Grienke.

A question I have is, how come players who fight on the field are not arrested and charged, as they would be if a fight occurred off the field? Do baseball players, and other professional athletes, have some sort of immunity on the field?  A lawyer out there has to answer this question for me.  If two employees of a company have a fistfight in the office, the police are called, and someone might get arrested. How come baseball players can't be arrested? The field is their "office." It's still a public place. There's lots of witnesses.

Personally, I think guys who charge the mound after getting hit by a pitch are babies. Maybe if Carlos Quentin didn't stand so close to the plate he would not have led the National League in 2012 and the American League in 2011 in the "Hit By Pitch" category with 17 and 23, respectively. Batters who crowd the plate thinking that gives them and edge should be prepared to be moved away by a pitcher who is going to throw inside.

In any case perhaps the legal types out there can advise as to why pro athletes who fight on the field are never arrested.

Yanks' Gardner not making a difference in centerfield so far

Baseball's sabermatricians often talk about range factor, zone fielding, and runs saved when calculating defensive statistics. I'm not sure if any of it actually translates into wins on the field for a team, but if it does matter, it doesn't seem like the Yankees made the right decision about moving Brett Gardner to centerfield and shifting Curtis Granderson to left field this season.

While it's somewhat of moot point being that Granderson has missed the first month of the season due to a broken arm and Gardner has had to play centerfield, since the Yanks have no one else who could really do it everyday, taking a look at Gardner's defensive stats seem to show that he hasn't made much of a difference.

In 19 games and 172 innings to date Gardner has been minus 6 in runs above or below average that a fielder is worth based on the number of plays made. Over the course of a 162 game season that means he would cost the Yankees 40 runs.  Hardly the type of stat that you would want from your regular centerfielder. His current range factor is 2.30, only slightly above the league average of 2.26.

While it's obvious Gardner's speed allows him to cover a lot of ground and get to balls that other fielders would not, at the moment the statistics don't support the idea that he is an outstanding defensive centerfielder.  On the other hand, it could mean that sabermetrics don't mean all that much. As long as the fielder doesn't make any obvious errors on fly balls or throws, perhaps the .04 percentage difference in range factor isn't going to translate into a championship for a baseball team.