Forever (Cy) Young, or The Follies Of A Matt Harvey Fanboy.

Last season, we saw an incredible race for the AL MVP between winner Miguel Cabrera and runner-up Mike Trout. If you don't remember it, there are 3 "Cage Match: Cabrera vs. Trout" posts hidden in the alcoves of this very blog to jog your memory (and raise my view count). While we're seeing a calmer version of the same race this year, the most intriguing award run this season is by far that for the NL Cy Young award. As it stands today, there are 3 serious candidates for the honor: Clayton Kershaw, Adam Wainwright, and Matt Harvey. In this post, I'll do something that's personally testing, which is putting aside my irrational obsession with Harvey, and try to break this race down without bias. I doubt I'll succeed, but here we go.

Clayton Kershaw: When the Dodgers signed Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu this offseason, both moves made some serious waves. A top of the line, former Cy Young winner, and a Korean import who was looking to electrify fans this side of the Pacific, are pretty huge improvements to any rotation. When they joined Los Angeles, though, it was clear neither would be starting on Opening Day. That's because Clayton Kershaw exists. Let's not even take into account Kershaw's amazing numbers from last year, when he was the runner-up for this award to R.A. Dickey's knuckleballing campaign. Let's not acknowledge the dominant numbers he put up in 2011 when he won the award for the first time. Simply focusing on 2013, here's what Kershaw has done through the middle of August: in 190.1 innings, he has a 12-7 record, which works very hard to mask the 1.80 ERA (leads all of baseball), 0.85 WHIP (leads the NL), and 182 strikeouts (good for second in the NL, 9 ahead of Wainwright and 8 behind Harvey). His FIP and xFIP, more specific measures for how well a pitcher is at preventing runs, are 2.39 and 2.92. Even if he pitched more in line with those numbers, he'd still be one of the top 3 pitchers in the NL (!). He's been compared to another Dodgers lefthander you may have heard of...Sandy Koufax, who himself has said Kershaw is one of the greatest pitchers he's ever seen (!!). And he's only 25 (!!!). Forget Cy Young, we may be looking at this year's NL MVP.

Adam Wainwright: Another hurler in contention for an award he's already won once, Wainwright's path back from a lost 2011 season has been fantastic. After undergoing Tommy John surgery right before the Cardinals stunned the baseball world. Adam put up a nice season in 2012, which now appears to be an appropriate precursor to 2013. Thus far, he's shut down opponents at a frightening rate, with 4 complete games (most in the NL) and 2 shutouts (only Kershaw has as many). His 189.2 innings are just behind Kershaw, and his 173 strikeouts are third behind Clayton and the young Harvey. His 14-7 record is more indicative of the defense behind him and the offense supporting him, but his presence on the mound is enough. When Chris Carpenter, the workhorse who picked up the slack left behind by Waino's rehab in 2011, went down this offseason with a debilitating injury of his own, Adam had a chance to pay Carpenter back in kind, and he has certainly done that and more. Because of his veteran experience, young phenoms like Shelby Miller and Trevor Rosenthal have been rock steady on the way to another potential playoff appearance, while going deep into games prevents the bullpen from taking on too much. It's hard to believe that Wainwright is just a few weeks shy of 32, as it seems like he's been a force for St. Louis for much longer than 8 seasons. While a second Cy Young might not be in the cards for this Card in 2013, there's no doubt that he's still in top form, and still one of the best hurlers in today's game.

Matt Harvey: Man, I love Matt Harvey. It's still so weird for me to say, because even though I'm a fan of all things baseball, I'm primarily a Yankees and Braves fan. Rooting for a Met is tantamount to blasphemy in my world. But against my better judgment, and knowing full well the flack I will catch from my brethren and sistren who root for the aforementioned franchises, I will say this: Matt Harvey is one of baseball's best pitchers. Consider this: in his age-24 season, his record is 9-5, which is MUCH more on the shoulders of the, pardon my language, Mets than it is on his. That aside, his 190 strikeouts currently lead the NL, his 0.92 WHIP just barely misses out on giving him the top spot in that category, and his 33 walks give him the second best K/BB ratio in the league as well. While Wainwright and Kershaw may be trading blows for the top spot in most stats, the fact that Harvey is entrenched at second behind them both may be all he needs to end up with the hardware in November. The biggest blow against him, though, will be when he's shut down at 200 innings (which he's rapidly approaching with 177.2 as of this writing), at which point Kershaw and Wainwright will be able to surge further past him while he's out of action. But it says quite a lot about Matt that, with this in mind, he's still being touted as a serious contender for this award in his first full season in the major leagues. While he may not take it home this year, he'll certainly be in the conversation for years to come. And I will continue unabashedly touting my new hurling hero until he wins.

It's highly likely we'll see Kershaw win his second Cy, so we'll go with him to take the award, with Harvey a close second and Wainwright an even closer third. Of course, now that it's been said on this blog, it'll automatically be wrong, so we'll just have to wait until November.

The New Bronx Zoo, or Bronx Boo Hoo!

A couple of days ago, New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman told reporters that he "no longer feels comfortable talking to A-Rod", which of course refers to New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman is not alone. The New York Yankees, as a team, no longer feel comfortable talking to New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. In an ongoing public feud between grown men, we've come to an incredibly childish climax. This is the state of the 2013 New York Yankees.

Boy. Where is Billy Martin when you really need him?

How I pine for those simpler times...

We've seen plenty of examples where players are vilified not only by the media or fans, but by the team themselves. Barry Bonds was hated in the Giants clubhouse during his challenge of the home run record. Rickey Henderson often referred to himself in the third person and alienated teammates. Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale, and Nolan Ryan were as intimidating in the clubhouse as they were on the mound. But we've never seen anything like this. Not even during the original Bronx Zoo, the period of time in the late 1970s when George Steinbrenner, Martin and Reggie Jackson lit a fire under the collective asses of the Yankees by, well, flaming each other mercilessly, was there anything like this. No "Straw That Stirs The Drink". No Bucky Dent. No eventual justification with a World Series win. This is just sad. We're not watching big personalities engage in big clashes that make for big stories. We're watching millionaires, professional athletes and high-ranking executives, making comments to the media that paint a much different picture. It feels like we're seeing two 8th grade girls spread nasty rumors about each other because one of them took performance-enhancing drugs and the other wants to get out of their contractual agreement. All right, maybe that analogy got away from me, but the point still stands: this is not a power struggle so much as it is a two-way smear campaign between one of the most respected and simultaneously hated franchises and one of the most respected and simultaneously hated players.

So who do you root for in this situation? Do you root for anyone? I've been a Yankees fan since I was 6, so for what it's worth, here's my two cents (coincidentally, my two cents is worth much less than that): if you must absolutely pick a side here, don't. Alex Rodriguez is a cheater with an ego for the ages, and the Yankees are trying to find an easy and immoral way out of their stupid financial blunder. There is no hero here, no good guy to be found. A-Rod could have been honest and played the game the right way, and George's genius progeny could have not signed a 32 year old to a 10-year contract. Alex could have been more forthcoming with his connection to Biogenesis or accepted his suspension, and Cashman could have fought harder in 2007 when he was against resigning the man. Rodriguez could stop shooting his mouth off and paying lipservice to God knows whoever is still rooting for him, and the Yankees could have saved $275 million and a decade's worth of headaches by letting him walk before the 2008 season. Instead, both sides are getting exactly what they deserve.

This...doesn't look the way I expected it to.

Understandably, neither side bargained for this in December 2003 when the Yanks stepped in at the eleventh hour and acquired Rodriguez from the Rangers, preventing the Red Sox from doing the same (a failed trade that looks brilliant in retrospect). The Yankees thought they were trading for a player that would wind up breaking the home run record while in pinstripes, and A-Rod thought he was going to spend the rest of his illustrious career playing for the team he loved. While the deal didn't really pay dividends for either side until culminating in a championship win in 2009, it was marred the prior offseason by Rodriguez's admission that he had, in fact, taken steroids while in Texas. He asked everyone for forgiveness, and also pleaded with us to only judge him based on what he did after that. "What did he do after that?" you may be asking. Well...

2009: 124 games, 30 HR, 100 RBI, .286 AVG, .934 OPS

Those are pretty good numbers, but indicative of a slump for A-Rod. No matter, he's still one of the greatest players of all time, and he was only 34 at the time. A player naturally starts to see his abilities decrease, so that's not necessarily the product of no longer taking steroids, meaning he was being honest when he said he only took steroids up to 2003. Right?

Here's what A-Rod did the next 3 seasons:

2010: 137 games, 30 HR, 125 RBI, .270 AVG, .847 OPS
2011: 99 games, 16 HR, 62 RBI, .276 AVG, .823 OPS
2012: 122 games, 18 HR, 57 RBI, .272 AVG, .783 OPS

That's a big dropoff. And he missed more time with injuries than he ever had before (specifically, injuries to his hip and knee that fall in line with those suffered by steroid users). But even with his stats serving as tangible proof, as well as this whole Biogenesis thing, Alex continues to deny he used steroids after 2003, even though it would appear that he not only kept using them after that, but that he kept using them until his 2009 admission. And after that, apparently.

It's up to each one of us, individually, to decide whether we side with the Yankees, A-Rod, or neither. But one thing seems certain: if this is to be the next chapter in the decades-long saga of the Bronx Zoo, let's hope 2045 holds some more interesting drama than this.

Don't Kid Yourself, We're All To Blame Here.

So, if you have a pulse (or an Internet connection), you've probably become aware of the supposed conclusion to the Biogenesis debacle: Ryan Braun was suspended for 65 games, Nelson Cruz, Jhonny Peralta, Everth Cabrera and 9 others were suspended for 50, and Alex Rodriguez was suspended for 211. Everyone except A-Rod, predictably, accepted their punishments without appealing. Understandably, the public outrage is overwhelming, as fans, writers and even players are voicing their opinions (Twitter is collapsing in on itself as I type), and it's clear that everyone involved in the game, as well as those who follow it, are extremely disappointed and angry. And to everyone, I have just one thing to say:

Shut the f**k up.

Already shaping up to be my best post yet.

I've written at least two posts on the matter of steroids and the years-long scandal, or at least on the players involved in them, so my opinion should be well-known by now. But considering this blog only gets around 300 views per post, most of which I assume are from people who don't work for Major League Baseball (shocking, I know), I'll reiterate for those who still don't know: when it comes to steroids in baseball, there's no one who's right. Nobody. All of us who love this game, play this game, analyze this game, write about this game, argue with our friends about this game, is at fault. If you've even read a box score since 1989, you're a part of the problem. I'm part of the problem. My dad's part of the problem. Derek Jeter's part of the problem. Rick Ankiel's part of the problem. Theo Epstein's part of the problem. Bruce Bochy's part of the problem. The guy who scrubs the toilets at Petco Park is part of the problem. The guy who makes the Boomsticks at Rangers Ballpark is part of the problem. The Phillie Phanatic is part of the problem. My buddy who just joined our fantasy league and never really paid attention to baseball before last season is part of the problem. We all know what was happening. Since the home run chase of 1998, when Sports Illustrated, ESPN and every other media outlet explained to us that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were saving baseball after the hugely negative impact of the 1994 strike left baseball in shambles, there has been no excuse for us to pretend like we didn't know what steroids were doing to the game, or that we were strongly against them. For the writers, team executives and former players, it's even more despicable to publicly spew their vitriol towards the one thing that gives us a reason to ever pay attention to them. They were around it longer (it's commonly accepted that steroids entered the game via Jose Canseco in the late 1980s, but 1991 was when commissioner Fay Vincent sent out a piddly little memo that basically said, "Uh, hey, guys? Could you not do drugs of any sort that might enhance your performance? Pretty please?"). They were in the clubhouses. They saw these guys injecting something into their asses. Even if you don't know what it is, when you see someone jabbing a needle into their butt and pushing the plunger, I feel like it should raise a few red flags.

And, as I love to point out as often as I can, no one wrote a single article. No one. Nothing. Not a word.

Had Twitter been around back then, I guarantee that not a single player would have broken baseball's unwritten code in 140 characters or less. We'd see millions of retweeted GIFs of Barry Bonds home runs, most likely posted by pitchers who gave them up.

Bud? He just smiled, waved his hand, and presented trophies. For years. For decades, now.

The first time I looked at this picture, I thought it was the reanimated, somewhat displeased corpse of Branch Rickey.

Look, I'm not saying that steroids aren't bad for the game. They are. They have the potential to turn regular players into superstars, and superstars into monsters. They give players a competitive edge by helping them heal from injuries faster, increase their stamina, and add muscle mass where needed. Steroids are drugs, they do enhance your performance, and they do give some players a completely unfair advantage. But amid all the talk of revoking MVPs and appealing suspensions and negative Internet comments (good luck avoiding those, Jesus Montero), let's not forget the most important thing here...we're all hilariously stupid hypocrites. Every last one of us. If we weren't, Roger Maris would still be the "legitimate" home run king (and don't you dare try to tell me that the Steroid Era is the ONLY time when drugs have been a problem in baseball, because I'll shove a bowl of greenies in your face and tell you a few stories about Keith Hernandez and cocaine). If we weren't, Ken Caminiti wouldn't have entered 1997 as the reigning NL MVP. If we weren't, Roger Clemens would have retired 6 years earlier than he did. If we weren't, Selig wouldn't still be commissioner. If we weren't, this public outrage would have occurred in 2003, not 2013.

But we are. We're hilariously stupid hypocrites. Fans, writers, executives and players alike. Every last one of us.

And if no one else is going to point this out, I'm glad I'm the only one doing so. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it (sit at their desk at home and type words onto a screen).