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John Poulter

NL Central Still Undecided

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The NL Central race is just that. A race. If we had projected the season’s final outcome when Spring Training ended, most of us would have said that the Cubs would win the Division in a breeze, that the Cardinals had an outside shot at a post season berth and the Brewers would just be another team on everyone’s schedule.

The Brewers surprised us right from the outset. They played well for the first half of the season, overcoming what most of us thought was weak starting pitching to lead the division for a good period of time until the Cubs got their act together. A brief slump by the Brewers was corrected by some very astute deadline deals by the front office when Mike Moustakas and Jonathan Schoop were acquired at/just before the non-waiver deadline and then when Curtis Granderson and Gio Gonzalez were acquired at the August 31 deadline. When those deals were made, I was suspicious that the Brewers may have messed with one of their strong points; chemistry, but their play since September 1 (11-6) has proved me wrong.

The Cardinals were seemingly going nowhere, playing very “un-Cardinal like baseball when they fired Manager Mike Matheny on July 14 with the team 47-46 and in third place in the division. Bench Coach Mike Schildt was appointed Interim Manager and that had all the signs of a “get us to the end of the season when we can hire a permanent replacement”.

Along with some minor deals, contributions from the farm system and some players returning from injury, Schildt was able to turn things around and the Cardinals have gone 37-23 since his taking over to put themselves right back in the NL Central race. The team played so well that on August 28 the “Interim” tag was removed from Shildt’s title.

The Cubs have been the target of both the Brewers and the Cardinals all season. Everyone expected the Cubs to win. The Cubs have made it a lot more difficult than it should have been. They started slowly; perhaps taking teams for granted, then got rolling, but still can’t shake the Brewers and the Cardinals. They may have to finish out the season without the services of shortstop Addison Russell, who was placed on leave by MLB on September 21 as a result of an accusation of domestic violence. MLB continues to investigate, but if the Roberto Osuna situation is anything to use as a barometer, the chances of Russell playing this week are slim.

Make no mistake; all three teams want to win the Division. The prize of staying out of that Wild Card game, a winner take all game is the big carrot. No team wants to find themselves in a “one and done” scenario and also have to use a key member of their starting rotation simply to get to the National League Division Series.

The Cubs are obviously in the driver’s seat. Before the games of September 21, they have a two and a half game lead in the Division, with 10 games remaining, all at Wrigley Field. In succession, the White Sox are in for three, followed by the Pirates for four with the Cardinals providing the opponent for the last three days of the regular season. The Cubs need any combination of Cub wins and/or Brewer losses totalling eight to clinch the Division or any combination of five Cub wins and/or Cardinal losses to clinch the Division. With the White Sox record of 60-92 and the Pirates record of 77-74 it would seem that the most difficult opponent on the home stand will be the final one; the Cardinals.

The Brewers challenge is simple: keep winning. They have no head to head games with the Cubs, but can help their own cause by winning the three game series in St. Louis next week against the Cardinals.

The Cardinals had dug themselves a big hole when Matheny was replaced by Schildt. They got back on track, then hit a bump in the road and now find themselves five and a half games behind the Cubs for the Division lead and three games behind the Brewers for the top Wild Card position. Both the Brewers and the Cardinals also have to keep the Dodgers, Rockies and to some extent the Diamondbacks in their rear view mirrors as it remains likely that the runner-up in the National League West will also still be in the Wild Card hunt at the end of the regular season next weekend.

If all three NL Central teams continue to play at their current pace, the Cubs will finish 95-67, the Brewers 92-70 and the Cardinals 89-73. All would make the post season, assuming that the three NL West teams also continue to play at their current pace.

But, as always, there are variables to consider. All three teams played well in Inter-League play (going 32-22 to date vs. the relatively weak AL Central), but perhaps where the deciding factor lays is in the records within the NL Central. The Cubs are currently 37-32 in the NL Central with seven division games to play. The Brewers are only 34-36 in the NL Central with six games to play within the division. The Cardinals have the best record within the NL Central so far at 40-30 and also have six games left against NL Central opponents. Winning the division is likely too tall an order for the Cardinals, but securing home field advantage for the Wild Card game is still a possibility.

What does all this mean? It means the National League Central is once again the most competitive division in baseball and that we have an exciting week of baseball still to come and we may not know the final outcome of either the Division race or the Wild Card race until next Sunday night, when game 162 is in the books.

Robinson Cano – How MLB could avoid similar situations

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The announcement last week that Mariners star second baseman Robinson Cano had been suspended for 80 games as a result of a positive test for a substance banned by MLB caught many by surprise.

Several years ago we got used to this type of headline and we thought nothing of it. We just understood it to be part of the “cleansing process” being undertaken by MLB as it sought to weed out those that had been using inappropriate “medications” to enhance their on-field performance and/or speed up the recovery process from an injury/illness.

The Cano incident surprised many simply because the majority of fans thought that the issue was behind us.

For the most part, it is. Cano’s explanation was that he had been treated in the off-season by a licensed doctor in his homeland, the Dominican Republic.

He explained that the doctor had inadvertently prescribed a drug that was on MLB’s banned substances list.

To Cano’s credit, he accepted the punishment and took full responsibility for “what went into his body”.

In some respects, while we all recognize that Cano should have known better and/or sought advice from MLB before taking the medication, it does raise some interesting questions as to how similar situations can be avoided in the future.

During the playing season, an injured/ill athlete usually seeks out the opinion of his team’s doctor. As he/she is employed by the player’s team, the doctor has a conflict of interest. Does he/she treat the athlete as an independent doctor would in terms of diagnosis/treatment/prescribing medication or does the doctor subconsciously take into account who signs his/her paycheque? Is the athlete the doctor’s patient or another employee of the team?

So why put the players and the doctors (and even the teams) in these uncomfortable situations?

MLB needs a solution to this problem and it needs it quickly. If MLB was serious about closing this type of loophole and avoiding any more instances like the Cano situation, I believe there is a fairly straightforward solution.

If each of the 30 MLB teams each contributed $600,000 per year (essentially the cost of the 25th player on the roster and slightly above the current MLB minimum salary) into a pool, MLB would have $18 Million from which to hire 26 independent doctors to oversee all player injuries/illnesses during the season.

MLB should hire a newly qualified doctor in each major league city (with the Mets-Yankees, Cubs-White Sox, Angels-Dodgers and Giants-Athletics doubling up). Doctors in the four metropolitan areas where there are two teams would be paid $750,000 per year. Doctors in one team markets would be paid $500,000 per year. That would account for $14 Million of the $18 Million in funding from the teams. MLB would be responsible for funding the MLB doctor’s equipment and for securing premises for the doctor’s consultations.

During the season:

Any player requiring a prescription of any type in order to treat an illness or an injury would be required to visit the MLB doctor in whatever city the player’s team happened to be at that time. As an example, if a Reds player required prescription medication during the season when the Reds were playing in Milwaukee, the Reds player would be required to visit the MLB doctor based in Milwaukee for the initial consultation. If the MLB doctor felt that medication was required, he/she would prescribe accordingly, taking into account MLB’s current guidelines for approved/banned substances. If the MLB doctor felt that the injury/illness was beyond his/her comfort zone and a specialist’s opinion was required, the MLB doctor would refer the player to a local specialist with whom he/she had a professional relationship. The specialist’s fee would be drawn from the $4 Million still left in MLB’s medical pool.

If a player tested positive for a banned substance and it was determined that the MLB doctor had issued the prescription, then the player would be absolved and MLB would deal with the doctor as it saw fit, perhaps terminating his/her contract.

After the Season:

Once the season is over, if a player chooses to visit a doctor other than one of the MLB doctors (either for personal preference or for geographic reasons), then the prescription would have to be approved by MLB in New York, (by fax or by e-mail) before the athlete consumed the prescribed drug.

Who Wins Here:

Everyone. The player because he can be assured that the doctor prescribing the medication is independent from both the player and his team. MLB because it would know that medications were being prescribed correctly, as such prescriptions would be issued by MLB employees. Team doctors win as they would no longer be put in a position of deciding whether they were treating a patient or just another employee of the team that employees the doctor. The MLB doctor wins because as a new graduate it is an opportunity for him/her to essentially start a practice and establish themselves in a community; he/she has the off-season (and when those doctors in one city teams have no MLB games in their cities) to lay the foundation for his/her own full time practice and enhance their studies if they were considering specialization.

Initial contracts with the MLB doctors would be of varying lengths, but once the programme is established, the MLB doctors would be on three year contracts, requiring MLB to hire 10 doctors a year.

So simple, it’s puzzling why it hasn’t been proposed before and put in place.

Recap – Benfica vs PSG at Toronto

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PSG manager Laurent Blanc post match
PSG manager Laurent Blanc post match

A hot, humid summer evening at Toronto’s newly expanded BMO Field was the site of the only game on Canadian soil in this year’s International Champions Cup, presented by Guiness.

This year’s event, the third such annual event is a little more world-wide than the 2014 event, as it includes games in the USA, Australia, China and England as well as the game in Toronto. In 2015 there are 15 teams participating, including teams from England (Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United), France (Paris Saint-Germain), Italy (AC Milan, Fiorentina and Internazionale), Mexico (America), Portugal (SL e Benfica) and Spain (AS Roma, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid) as well as three teams from MLS (LA Galaxy, New York Red Bulls and San Jose Earthquakes).

The game in Toronto featured the oldest, most famous, storied club in Portugal SL e Benfica (“Benfica”) and French Champions Paris Saint-Germain (“PSG”). Benfica was formed in 1904 and has won 72 domestic and international club trophies in its long history. PSG was formed in 1970 by the merger of Paris FC and Stade Saint-Germain (also formed in 1904) and has competed in that country’s Ligue 1 since 1974. It is owned by Qatar Sports Investments and as such is the richest club in France and one of the richest in the world.

Rui Vitoria, manager of Benfica, speaks to the press
Rui Vitoria, manager of Benfica, speaks to the press

With Pan Am Games events taking place nearby, the atmosphere at BMO Field was noisy, with most of the announced crowd of 17,843 supporting Benfica as Toronto has a large Portuguese population. The majority of the crowd were wearing the famous cherry red shirts of Benfica and loudly cheered their heroes from the player introductions and for every move their favourites made.

For a preseason/exhibition fixture the game was lively and well played. Benfica controlled the play for most of the first half but the opening goal came from PSG’s Jean-Kevin Augustin in the 29th minute, totally against the play. Benfica answered fairly quickly with Talisca evening the score in the 34th minute. After re-grouping, Benfica seemed to get their confidence back after the equalizer and Jonas put the Portuguese side ahead in the 42nd minute. As we usually see in these games, half-time brought substitutions as both teams had extra players on hand. Benfica, with 30 players in uniform for the game made three changes but PSG stayed the course with their starters until the 66th minute. PSG brought a much smaller squad of 19 players.

Lucas Moura tied the game for PSG with a 64th minute penalty, which became a turning point in the game as PSG continued to gain confidence and that confidence was rewarded with Lucas Digne scoring the winning goal in the 79th minute when Benfica goalkeeper Paulo Lopes could not hold on to the ball. Digne was voted as the man of the Match. By the end of the game, Benfica had substituted all of its starters and PSG had used six of its eight available substitutes.

Both managers’ post-game press conference comments centered around the fact that their teams took the game seriously even though it was very early in their respective preseasons. Having seen many of these exhibition type games by top European teams in Toronto over the years, I would have to agree with both managers’ comments. PSG Manager Laurent Blanc was especially proud of his relatively inexperienced side, which included many young players who are considered key to the team’s future and who were brought along on the tour to gain experience.

The game was one of the better exhibition fixtures we have seen in Toronto over the years and a good advert for European soccer in Canada’s largest city.

tag: Benfica vs PSG – Toronto

AC Milan vs Olympiacos in Toronto

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July 24 saw the start of the 2014 Guinness International Champions Cup, a soccer tournament played in Canada and the United States between eight top class European club teams. The eight teams are divided into two groups of four teams, with the teams playing a round robin within their groups and the two group winners playing off in a championship game at Sun Life Stadium in Miami on August 4. The “A” group comprises Manchester United, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Roma, while the B group comprises Olympicos, AC Milan, Manchester City and Liverpool.  Thirteen North American cities will host a game in the tournament. The first game of the tournament, the only one to be played in Canada was played at Toronto BMO Field on July 24. Italian team AC Milan met Olympiacos (based in Athens, Greece).

The setting was impressive (even though the announced crowd of 10,603 wasn’t) on a beautiful summer evening on the shores of Lake Ontario. The view of the city skyline provided a great background for the game, which followed the usual script of touring teams during their off-season as they prepared for their upcoming league seasons. Toronto is a very cosmopolitan city, with large Italian and Greek communities. The two cultures were very evident as the respective fans came out to support their teams and their respective nations, with pride.

Both teams sat some of their stars (most noticeably AC Milan sat their star striker and World Cup participant Mario Bolatelli and both teams substituted freely (both used 20 players) and while the game had its moments of excitement, for the most part it was played at a slower pace than one would expect from world class teams. Although both teams had their chances, only Olympiakos took advantage of their chances, resulting in goals from Alexandro Chori Dominguez, Dimitris Diamantakos and the best goal of the night from Andreas Bouchalakis which sealed the game in the 78th minute with a 20 yard strike that would have beaten almost all world class goalkeepers.

Summer tours never result in the top class soccer we would like to expect and there are many reasons. Some of the stars don’t play, some only play a small portion of the game and some players don’t take the tours as seriously as they should. At the press conference after the game, both managers spoke with the assistance of translators. AC Milan Manager Filippo Inzaghi mentioned that while Olympiacos was definitely the better team and deserved the win, he felt that the fact that his team had only arrived in Canada on Monday and had had little opportunity to train before the game was a major factor in the below par performance. His counterpart, Michel was very gracious in victory, indicating that while he was pleased with his team’s effort and the result, he didn’t think that the difference between the two teams was not as wide as the final score indicated.

The first game of any off-season tournament is hardly ever a good barometer for what is to come. Let’s look forward to an exciting final in Miami next month.