Kuzul

One of the top priorities of the commissioner’s office during MLB’s last collective bargaining agreement negotiations was to add new rules to the draft, which are designed to both contain costs and promote competitive balance. 

We have already seen one effect of these negotiations, as the new cap on bonuses helped to rein in the cost of talent, particularly in the first round.  It also may have played a role in Stanford’s Mark Appel, who was widely regarded as the top pitching prospect available, dropping all the way to Pittsburgh with the eighth pick (the Pirates, incidentally, were the only team that failed to sign their first-rounder this year).

But another part of the draft overhaul was the creation of a new Competitive Balance Lottery, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday.

In this lottery, every team that is one of the ten smallest-market and/or the ten lowest-revenue franchises (theoretically, the teams that need the most help) will be eligible to win an extra pick in the 2013 draft.

A total of 13 teams will participate in this year’s lottery: 

Arizona Diamondbacks

Baltimore Orioles

Cleveland Indians

Kansas City Royals

Oakland A’s

Pittsburgh Pirates

San Diego Padres

Tampa Bay Rays

Cincinnati Reds

Colorado Rockies

Miami Marlins

Milwaukee Brewers

St. Louis Cardinals

The odds of winning the lottery are determined by each team’s winning percentage from the previous year, with the Orioles having the best odds of the first pick and the Brewers having the worst.  A total of 12 picks will be awarded, with six coming at the end of the first round (after all the compensation picks) and six at the end of the second. 

Any team that received funds in revenue sharing will also be eligible for one of the six picks in the second round, though no team can be awarded multiple picks. 

Another wrinkle to these picks is that they can be traded, though there are some limits.

Only the team that is awarded the pick can trade it, meaning that no pick can be traded more than once.  These picks can also only be traded during the regular season, so they will not be a part of any deals at the 2012 winter meetings.

They will, however, be available for dealing before the July 31st trade deadline.  In fact, there is a very good chance that a trade involving one of these picks will have a direct impact on which team wins the NL Central this season.

Is anyone else hoping that, upon being awarded an extra pick, the Pirates or Orioles decide to include it as part of a deadline deal that nets them an established major leaguer from a high-revenue club?  

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The NBA All-Star Game is to be held on Sunday, and we have every reason to believe it will be a terrific event for fans and families alike.  

But how does it compare to the games in the other professional sports?  

Certainly, all of the games have their own strengths and weaknesses, but which one is the best overall? Here is a comparison of the games for the NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLB.

Begin Slideshow

By now, everybody knows that Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers tested positive for a PED just weeks after being named MVP of the National League. 

Braun is currently in the midst of appealing this positive test, but the odds of him getting it overturned do not look great.  (the rest of this article is written with the idea that his appeal will fail) 

Because of this, many fans and experts are calling for Braun to lose his MVP award, either by refusing to accept it or by a re-vote.  I, however, could not disagree more.

1.  The voters awarded it to him because he had a great regular season.

First and foremost, Ryan Braun won this award because the voters recognized that he had a fantastic regular season.  Braun led the NL with a .994 OPS, finished third with a 166 OPS+ and second with a 7.7 WAR while leading Milwaukee to the NL Central Division title.  That much has not changed.

The BBWAA has already announced that they have no plans to re-vote on the award even after Braun’s positive PED test, largely because they have no interest in re-writing history like that.  Another of the reasons for this is because…   

2.  His positive test came in the postseason.

This is very important to note, as the Most Valuable Player award is handed out to the player who had the best regular-season performance.  The BBWAA voted on the MVP award right before the postseason began based on the information they had at the time—which included at least two negative PED tests during the regular season for Braun. 

In fact, since Braun was only tested in October because Milwaukee made the postseason, it could be argued that we would not be having this debate had the Brewers stayed home for October.

A cynical person would probably state that Braun started using right after his last negative test…and to be fair, they could be right.  However, isn’t it also equally plausible that he didn’t start using PEDs until the postseason began?  After all, we have more evidence that he did not use during the regular season than that he did use.

3.  He is already set to be punished.

A lot of fans seem to be under the impression that Braun will be getting off scot-free if he’s allowed to keep his MVP award.  Nothing could be further from the truth, as Braun is set to be suspended for the first 50 games of the 2012 season—without pay, I might add.  This means that, not only will he likely be eliminated from award consideration next season, but he will also lose over 30 percent of his salary (about $1.85 million) in the process.

Nowhere in the collective bargaining agreement does it say that players are ineligible for awards because of a positive test, mainly because awards are handed out by an independent third party.  But this brings me to my next point…

4.  Cheating has never, ever made an MLB player retroactively ineligible for an award.

The easy argument here is from all the recent confirmed PED users—players like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez have all kept the trophies they won even after admitted PED usage.  Heck, considering the problem with PEDs in sports goes back as far as 1889, any number of awards could have been won by PED users over the decades.

Of course, it’s not really fair to punish players for rules that were not yet in place, so there’s no reason to take the awards from those players.  But how about those who cheated by breaking long-established rules? 

We never demanded that Gaylord Perry give back either of his Cy Young Awards, even though he made a living off the spitball (and was actually ejected for it).  Same goes for Whitey Ford, Don Drysdale and Mike Scott, each of whom were masters of doctoring the ball. 

We’ve even let entire teams get away with cheating. Heck, the 1951 Giants won the Pennant, thanks in part to an elaborate system of illegal sign-stealing.

Baseball has never retroactively punished players or removed awards/achievements; it has always punished by removing future opportunity.  To suddenly start doing this because of steroids would be pure hypocrisy, which brings me to my final point…

5.  Steroids (and other PEDs) do not have magic powers.

One of my biggest pet peeves about the entire PED issue is that countless fans are treating steroids as if they are the Super Soldier Serum that instantly turns scrawny, talentless weaklings into Captain America.  I’m sorry, but that’s not the way it works. 

Steroids (and other PEDs) are NOT what creates great athletes. Hard work, dedication and lots of practice are what do that. Can steroids help?  Absolutely…but they are but one factor in a very complex equation. 

Steroids can make you bigger, stronger and faster, but only if you work your tail off in a strength and conditioning program and adhere to a proper diet.  And even if one does all of this, they will still not be a great (or even a good) baseball player without hours upon hours of practice at their craft.

To assume that an athlete is only great at hitting a ball because of steroids is a slap in the face to every professional baseball player, because it completely devalues the hard work that all players—PED users or not—put in to make it to the show. 

This is why Ryan Braun should keep the MVP award:  The fans need to realize that it was hard work (and not some PED) that made him a great baseball player.

Conclusion

By no means am I saying that Ryan Braun should not be punished; after all, he did break the agreed-upon rules between management and players.  However, he’s set to be punished with a 50-game suspension, and the punishment will be worse should he do it again.  But this is the perfect opportunity for MLB fans to stop overreacting to the issue.  What’s done is done, and it’s time for baseball to move forward.

Besides, at least we know that MLB’s testing system is working and that nobody—even the freshly minted MVP—is bigger than the game.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Coming off a franchise-record 17-game losing streak that has essentially torpedoed the season, it was only a matter of time before the Seattle Mariners started trading from their position of strength:  starting pitching. 

We know they are not dealing Michael Pineda or Felix Hernandez (which I have been saying for awhile now), but the rest of their deep rotation is up for auction.

It appears that the Mariners have finally made a move, as SI’s Jon Heyman reported that the Mariners had traded Doug Fister and reliever David Pauley to the Detroit Tigers in exchange for outfielder Casper Wells and lefty Charlie Furbush.

I’ve felt bad for Fister this season, as the tall righty has pitched much better than his won-loss record would indicate. Fister has gone six or more innings in 18 of his 21 starts, ranking seventh in the AL in walk rate (1.97) and taking advantage of spacious Safeco Field to rank fourth in HR rate (0.43). He doesn’t strike out many hitters (just 89 Ks in 146 innings), so he needs a quality defense behind him in order to be an effective innings-eater.

Pauley has been Seattle’s most consistent reliever this season, but the converted starter is hardly a power arm coming out of the bullpen (5.63 K rate). Still, he has stranded runners at a very solid 81.5 percent rate thus far, which instantly puts him ahead of anybody in the Tigers’ bullpen.

Wells looks like the key to this trade for the Mariners. A righty hitter who has spent most of the year in rightfield, Wells has put up a .323/.451 line as a part-time player but has struggled to stay in the lineup on the veteran-laden Tigers. 

He immediately becomes a middle-of-the-order bat for the Mariners, though it is likely that his numbers will take a slight dip while playing at Safeco.  That said, he still has better hitting numbers this season than anybody in the Mariners’ lineup and should step in immediately in left.

Furbush is a hard-throwing lefty with control problems who should fit nicely into the Mariner bullpen.

This is a trade that can only help the Mariners in the future. Fister was a reliable but expendable back-end starter (which are not hard to develop at Safeco), and Wells is a serious upgrade to the Mariner lineup. Then again, the Mariners probably could have pulled somebody out of little league and had an upgrade to their lineup. But with that said, this looks like a win for Seattle.

UPDATE:  Larry Stone is reporting that third base prospect Francisco Martinez could also be a part of this deal. I don’t know much about Martinez, but he is a five-tool third baseman who rated fairly highly on Detroit’s prospect list.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

To the surprise of no one, the recent Barry Bonds perjury trial ended with a result that satisfied neither party and only really succeeded in stirring up another round of PED-related articles. 

One of the most common type article to enter the fray is how the Hall of Fame will view such candidates; after all, Bonds (and others guilty/suspected of usage) put up some impressive numbers during his career. 

Some writers are calling for the Hall of Fame to establish new guidelines on voting procedures for the next election; others are calling for an outright ban of all PED users.

Both of these ideas strike me as rather unnecessary.  I mean, isn’t it the job of the HOF voters to decide who is worthy of induction?  Besides, a lot of the arguments that are being used against PED users don’t really hold water—and could set a serious double-standard when it comes to past inductees.

PEDs vs. Gambling

One of the most popular arguments used against PED users is that they should be banned from the Hall because Pete Rose—another great player who suffered a major scandal within the game—is banned from the Hall. 

People who make this argument do not seem to understand why exactly Rose (and fellow gambler Shoeless Joe Jackson) are ineligible for the Hall of Fame in the first place. 

In truth, the Hall of Fame has no actual policy on gambling itself—both Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker are both enshrined despite their involvement in a famous gambling scandal, and chances are they are not the only HOFers who gambled on baseball in the early part of the 20th century. 

The reason Rose (and Jackson) are not in the Hall of Fame, however, is because their gambling resulted in lifetime bans by MLB, and it is the policy of the Hall of Fame to prohibit such players from the ballot.

(Whether or not this should be the case is another argument for another day.  But for the record, I believe Rose should be in the Hall of Fame but never allowed to work in MLB in any capacity above youth camp coordinator.  And Jackson’s ban really should be up by now, considering he has been dead for nearly 60 years)

Believe it or not, PED users also fall under this provision.  According to MLB’s steroid policy, any player who fails a steroid test on three separate occasions is given a lifetime ban from the game.  Such players will also be ineligible for the Hall as a result.

Other Forms of Cheating 

Another important thing to remember about the Hall of Fame is that it has never had a policy against forbidding cheaters of any type.  Numerous players now in the Hall are guilty of illegal bats, illegal pitches, illegal modifications of equipment, stealing signs and numerous other illegal activities within the game. 

Names like Cobb, Ford, Drysdale and Perry are among the HOFers who engaged in these activities during their careers.

Now to be fair, PEDs are a different form of cheating altogether (though not necessarily better or worse).  However, the Hall has also never had a policy against drugs of any type.

I’ve pointed out before that the PED issue in baseball dates back as far as Pud Galvin in 1889, and the list of HOFers who have partaken in PED usage is extensive.  Mantle, Aaron, Mays, Gibson, Perry, McCovey and Ford are but a few of the current HOFers who have admitted to engaging in PEDs during their careers (and so has Rose, by the way).

I know what you are thinking:  “Yeah, but these players didn’t use steroids.”  Maybe… or maybe not.  After all, the Mitchell Report itself states explicitly that the Federal Government first determined that steroid usage was widespread in MLB clubhouses in 1973. 

This corresponds quite well with statements by former MLB pitcher (and MLB pitching coach) Tom House, who is most famous for catching Hank Aaron’s 715th home run but has also admitted to steroid usage throughout the 1970s, claiming that every team he played for had at least six or seven pitchers experimenting with the drug.

In other words, it’s extremely naïve to think that there are not already steroid users in the MLB Hall of Fame.

(House, incidentally, believes that steroid usage has gone down since the 1970s as more people have become aware of—and made to fear—the potential side effects of usage).

Legality

The final argument often used (by all sides) to justify past PED usage is that the PEDs were not illegal or as potent at the time (Amphetamines were made illegal in 1970; steroids in 1989). 

Well, so what?  From a baseball prospective, there is no fundamental difference between using PEDs when they were legal and using them when they were not legal.  Motivations for their usage remain identical:  become a better player; play longer; improve chances of succeeding; and make more money. 

If there’s one difference between the users of today and the users of yesterday, it’s that today’s athletes have a better understanding of how the PEDs work.  Specifically, improved conditioning and weight training—a practice that was actually discouraged in MLB circles until the late-1980s—not only makes somebody a better athlete, but also makes the PEDs work more effectively.

In essence, people want to ban today’s PED users because they work harder in the offseason than ever before.

Conclusion

If the MLB Hall of Fame chooses to ban PED users, they will run counter to every established induction procedure/guideline they have ever had.  They will also create a huge double standard between generations by allowing PED users from one generation in the Hall while banning those from another. 

Worse, it could open up a Pandora’s Box when the drug use of older players is given greater scrutiny, resulting in past greats getting booted.

So the Hall should continue to keep the same criteria they have had for the past half-decade and let the voters decide on the issue for themselves.  If they want to consider PED usage, fine; if not, simply continue voting in the best players on the ballot.

Just like they have always done.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Unbreakable records and feats are as intertwined with MLB history as metal cleats and pine tar.

Numbers like 56, 16, 1.12 and 41 are widely recognized as some of MLB’s greatest and most famous stats and achievements, but every once in awhile a player or team will accomplish something that—due to styles of play or circumstances beyond their control—is so absurd it defies all logic.  

Such feats shouldn’t be possible at any level of competition, but they actually happened in Major League Baseball. Here’s a list of five such instances.

1. Babe Ruth Hits More Homers than Any Other Team…Twice

When people think of eye-popping statistics, Babe Ruth is usually the first athlete who comes to mind. Heck, to this day big numbers in all sports are often referred to as “Ruthian.”

Everybody knows about his jaw-dropping career and single-season numbers, with 60, 714, 177, 170, 2213, 457 and .690 ranking among the most famous numbers in all of sports even after some of them were eclipsed.

Ruth’s most impressive feat, however, occurred in 1920 when he smacked a jaw-dropping 54 homers, nearly twice as many as he had hit (29) to break the record the previous season (for perspective, Albert Pujols would have to hit 136 homers to match this feat in modern times). 

This number was ridiculous; it was more home runs than any other team in the American League hit during that season—and only the Philadelphia Phillies (with 64) managed to clear Ruth in the National League!

Then, as an added bonus, he did it again when he hit 60 homers in 1927. This one wasn’t quite as impressive, as the rest of the Yankees would have out-homered him on the season, but it was still amazing nonetheless. 

We’d be hard-pressed to find another example in sports where one player so out-distanced his competition like Ruth did with home runs in 1920 and 1927.

2. Neither NL Division Winner Makes Playoffs (1981)

Thanks to related events 13 years later, the 1981 strike tends to be one of the underrated dark times in MLB history. Nonetheless, 50 days were wiped from the middle of the season, and rather than just let the season play out as-is the owners came up with a unique plan to end the season and get people talking again.

Since many thought it would be unfair to the first-half division leaders to have a great season suddenly interrupted, the owners decided to split the season and have the division leaders from the first half play the leaders from the second half in MLB’s first-ever two-round playoff setup.  

The NL playoffs featured the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Astros in the West final, while the East featured the defending World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies against the upstart Montreal Expos—the first and only playoff appearance in that franchise’s history.

Everything was all hunky-dory, except for one slight problem: the two teams with the best overall records in each division were shut out of the playoffs.

Neither the Cincinnati Reds nor the St. Louis Cardinals managed to lead the division at the end of either half, resulting in both watching the playoffs from home. 

People tend to have less sympathy for St. Louis, as the Cardinals wound up playing six fewer games than the Expos and five fewer than the Phillies on the season. The Reds, however, really got screwed, as they finished the year with the best overall record in baseball.

Here’s betting the split-season format never gets tried again.

3.  Eddie Murray Leads Majors in Batting Average without Winning Batting Title

Unquestionably, the race for the 1990 batting title was the most bizarre in MLB history.

Willie McGee, who had the Majors’ highest average while playing for the last-place St. Louis Cardinals, was shipped to the Oakland A’s at the trade deadline.

McGee had already accumulated enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting crown, and no other NL player was able to clear his .335 batting average—giving McGee the batting crown even though he was playing in the AL at the time.

Few people, however, remember that .335 was not McGee’s final average. 

When a player changes leagues, their seasonal totals are kept separate for league leadership purposes, so McGee’s mediocre performance in Oakland (.274 BA) had no impact on his NL totals. McGee wound up winning the batting crown even though his .324 average over the entire season ranked just sixth in the Majors.

The big loser in this one, however, is Eddie Murray, whose .330 average finished right behind McGee in the NL race but was actually one point higher than AL champ George Brett. 

Nobody remembers that Murray actually had the highest batting average in baseball in 1990, though fortunately it had no impact on the first-ballot electee’s Hall of Fame case.

4.  Barry Bonds Draws More Intentional Walks than AL Leader Draws Walks

Quick: name the most unbreakable single-season hitting record in MLB history. 

Most people immediately think .426, 36 or 130 when asked this question, but in truth a few numbers from some point in MLB history are remarkably close to each of those totals.

Barry Bonds, however, has a single-season record that will never be touched—and it isn’t the one you think.

Bonds’ 2004 season rates as the most incredible in MLB history, with the slugger leading the Majors in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS+ and bases on balls. 

Pitchers so feared facing Bonds that he was intentionally walked 120 times—a total so absurd that it nearly doubled the previous record (68), which was set by Bonds in 2002, and nearly tripled the nearest non-Bonds total of 45, set by Willie McCovey in 1969. 

Or, to put it in another light, Bonds was intentionally walked more times than any other team in baseball. In fact, he had more intentional walks than any AL hitter had walks.

It had been a long time since any baseball stat could rightfully be described as Ruthian, but Barry Bonds’ intentional walks total from 2004 certainly qualifies.

5.  CC Sabathia Leads Both Leagues in Shutouts in Same Year

Contrary to popular belief, the number of games that end in shutouts has not dropped off all that much over the past 30 years.

What is true, however, is that starting pitchers are receiving less and less credit for them, as only complete-game shutouts count toward their statistics.

Every few years, however, a starting pitcher will come along and roll off an impressive number of shutouts during a season. CC Sabathia’s 2008 total, however, takes the cake for the absurd.

Like McGee in 1990, Sabathia found himself leading a league in a major statistical category when he was traded, in Sabathia’s case from the Cleveland Indians to the Milwaukee Brewers for the stretch run. At the deadline, Sabathia had completed three games, two of which were shutouts (which tied him for the AL lead). 

The Brewers, realizing they had little chance of re-signing Sabathia at the end of the season, decided to scrap pitch counts and ride his arm as far as it would take them.

Thus, in two months’ time Sabathia wound up leading the Senior Circuit with seven complete games and three shutouts—while, at the same time, nobody in the AL managed to record a third shutout.

This meant that CC Sabathia led both leagues in the same category during the same season.

These are the five most impossible statistics I could find. If anybody knows of more, I’d love to hear them.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Pitchers and Catchers Report.

For many, those four special words signal the beginning of the end of the long winter months and the unofficial start of the new sports calendar. 

In the recent weeks, I have been compelled to think about the current commissioner, Bud Selig, and his impact on the game of baseball.

Few public figures are more polarizing than Bud Selig, as discussions about him are often in a tone usually reserved for politicians and prostitutes. However, very rarely does the average fan ever show support for Selig’s legacy; on the contrary, most people tend to attribute all of the bad things that have happened specifically to him while giving him little to no credit for the positive developments. 

This is a shame, because when one takes a look at the entirety of Selig’s legacy, it looks a lot better than anybody realizes.

Hear me out on this.

Payroll and Parity

Perhaps the greatest complaint toward the Bud Selig era has been the dramatic inequality of payrolls between the big-market and small-market teams, which has led to a belief that the game lacks parity. 

In terms of raw numbers, payrolls are uneven in MLB; the game does not have a hard salary cap (or salary floor), and an explosion in local revenue has given the Yankees a tremendous financial advantage over just about everybody. Last year, the Yankees’ payroll was six times as large as the Pirates, who had the lowest payroll among MLB teams. 

At the same time, people see the NFL’s hard salary cap and massive revenue sharing and assume that there is so much more parity in football than in baseball.

However, this issue is hardly new, as the Yankees have held a financial advantage over the rest of MLB for virtually all of MLB history; if recent trends are any indication, that advantage may be narrowing (see chart), particularly as greater attention is given to what is done with shared revenue.

And contrary to popular belief, MLB actually shares a lot of revenue—more revenue than ever, in fact. Their national television contracts—valued at approximately $670 million per year—is divided up evenly among all 30 teams, as is approximately $500 million generated by MLB.com and other online revenue streams (an idea pioneered by Selig). 

This accounts for about 16.7% of all MLB revenue and works out to about $39 million per team. Add in the $404 million handed out from luxury tax and shared local revenue (which is handed out according to need), and it’s easy to see where some teams could be receiving as much as $70 million in total shared revenue in a given season. 

Perhaps the question we should be asking isn’t why the Yankees spend so much, but why the Pirates spend so little.

Of course, all of this is largely irrelevant when talking about MLB’s parity. Truth be told, MLB has the greatest amount of parity of any team sport. 

Thanks to the sheer number of games in an MLB season, the maximum and minimum winning percentages are naturally going to be closer than in any other sport. As for the playoffs, MLB has had more organizations win the championship (nine) than any other sport; the same number of teams make the championship game as the NFL (14) and more final four teams than the NFL (22 to 21), even though MLB has four fewer teams make the playoffs.

As far as parity is concerned, the thing we should be telling Bud Selig is “Keep up the good work.”

Labor Issues

I’ll say this straight-out: The cancellation of the 1994 World Series is the third-worst stain in the MLB history books (behind the death of Ray Chapmen and the Color Barrier, respectively), and it is the one issue of the Bud Selig era that I find to be unforgiveable. 

At the same time, the damage of the 1994 strike was so great that it convinced both sides that they have a serious interest in working together to solve the game’s problems. As a result, MLB has gone longer without a strike (16 years and counting) than it ever has since Marvin Miller was hired to lead the MLBPA in 1966. 

Selig has never gotten credit for this: The 2002 and 2006 Collective Bargaining Agreements are the only ones in MLB history that were ratified without a strike or lockout, and the relationship between the owners and the MLBPA is as strong as it has ever been. 

As a result, baseball is booming. Last year, MLB pulled in approximately $7 billion in total revenue in 2010. Keep in mind that when Selig started, MLB was at $1.2 million.

Remember these facts during the next year, as the NFL and NBA are expected to have intense and damaging negotiation sessions that could lead to a strike, while the most contentious issues in the MLB negotiations involve the allocation of shared revenue and new bat regulations.

Bud the Innovator

Another faulty perception is that Bud Selig has been fiddling his harp as MLB was burning; in fact, the opposite is true. 

Think about all of the ways that MLB has changed during the Selig era: Both leagues went to a three-division format; the Wild Card was created; Interleague play was started; Jackie Robinson’s number was retired by all of MLB (and the anniversary of his debut was subsequently made an MLB holiday); the MLB network and MLB.com were launched; the All-Star game was given actual meaning in the form of deciding home-field advantage for the World Series; and the World Baseball Classic was created to help spread the game’s popularity internationally. 

Selig is also spearheading the discussion about how to improve MLB’s current playoff system with the goal of giving extra incentive to winning divisional titles, though it remains to be seen if any changes will be made in the near future.

Now, you may disagree about whether or not these changes are improvements (I, for one, don’t care for the All-Star game impacting the World Series), and certainly not all of these ideas are solely Selig’s—but you cannot say that Bud Selig is not coming up with ways to try to move the game forward. 

And if you are going to hold him accountable for the things you in the game, it’s only fair to give him credit for the things you like.

PEDs and Drug Testing

Of course, for many people, the one thing they can never forgive Selig for is the fact that MLB experienced a PED scandal under his watch, which has resulted in the game’s most cherished records being set by a PED user and deep mistrust for the previous generation of statistics. 

The general perception is that Selig drug his feet on the issue of steroid testing and had to be strong-armed in order to get it done, making him the one most responsible for the scandal.

However, blaming Bud Selig for the PED scandal is like blaming Germany for World War I or Gorbechev for the collapse of the Soviet Union: The seeds of the problem were planted long before he ever came along.

I’ve pointed out before that the issue of PEDs in baseball dates back as far as 1889, but it’s also important to keep in mind that steroids—the PED that people really care about—was first determined by the federal government to be widespread in the MLB ranks in 1973. The Mitchell Report makes no secret of this fact.

So why is Bud Selig any more responsible for the PED scandal than Bowie Kuhn, Peter Uberroth, Bart Giamatti or Fey Vincent, all of whom have held the title of MLB commissioner since 1973?

This brings me to another fact about Selig that nobody wants to acknowledge: He got a PED testing program put in place when no other commissioner before him was able to do so. 

It seems rudimentary by today’s standards: One year of “anonymous” random testing, then punishments (a ten-game suspension for a first offense) were implemented in 2005 after it was determined that over 5 percent of players were using. However, it was a testing program, and more importantly, it worked. 

More people were caught in the first year of testing than in any subsequent year, despite an increase in testing and punishments.

Conclusion

I am sure there is nothing I can write to convince people that Bud Selig has been good for Major League Baseball; there’s just too much polarization attached to his name. 

This is unfortunate, because Bud Selig’s total impact on Major League Baseball is right up there with Kennesaw Mountain Landis and Happy Chandler.  

MLB is in a great place right now, and Selig is a big reason why.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Last Monday, Major League Baseball revealed the names of the 33 players on the 2011 Hall of Fame ballot. The list contains 19 first-year candidates along with 14 holdovers from previous seasons.

In order to be eligible for the Hall of Fame, a player must have spent at least 10 years in the Majors, with his final game coming in the 2005 season.

Holdover candidates must be named on at least five percent of the ballots from the previous season and can remain eligible for 15 years. Any player who is named on 75 percent of the ballots in a given year is inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Here is my 10-player ballot.

Begin Slideshow