The NFL camp season is in full swing. Naturally, I’m here to talk about baseball. I promise to make it quick, but have to comment on something. Sports and business consume large parts of my life and attention. The topics and disciplines mix often. My best attempts go toward living in moments, and thus, consuming sports for fun and doing business for work. Sometimes, like today, it’s simply impossible. Major superlative alert: I’ve never seen worse sports business than the Mets. Please correct me in the comments if I am missing something of greater historical malfeasance than this list of bullets:

$364M payroll for 2023 (Full MLB list, Yanks #2 w/ $276M, Dodgers #5 w/ $222M, Astros #10 w/ $192M)
Signed Max Scherzer and traded him to Rangers paying $35.5M of salary owed
Signed Justin Verlander and traded him to Astros (where he was last season) paying $35M of salary owed
Payees of the annual tradition called Bobby Bonilla Day ($1.19M / year for 25 years to avoid a $5.9M lump sum)
Invested with Bernie Madoff (for real)

I mean, wow, just wow. Nothing more to add. This is pure insanity and I felt obliged to write it down for some reason.

Ode to Our Elite Champions

The US Women’s National Team is out of group and into knockout in their World Cup run. They kicked the tournament with an aggressive American Exceptionalism commercial campaign essentially calling themselves unbeatable.

.I was totally cool with the swagger from the team who won the last two tournaments. This came with the caveat of them backing it up. That part isn’t going to plan. Our ladies handled Vietnam, but drew with both Netherlands and Portugal. It was good enough to do two things: get out of the group and draw massive criticism. The main critical conduit is Carli Lloyd, who played midfield for the previous Cup winners.

Lloyd’s tenacity and goals (134 total for USWNT) drove her teams to greatness. She has every right and authority to criticize the current team and call out their arrogance. I clipped this graphic/screen shot. <insert> My first reaction: that’s harsh and ridiculous. Reality: it’s totally true. The USWNT is in its 9th consecutive World Cup (1991 – current, the whole history of the tournament). They have four wins, a runner up a three third place finishes. Anything short of a semi-final, which requires two knockout wins, is objectively the worst campaign result. They are still in it and may win this tournament, their unprecedented third consecutive cup, but effort must elevate. Portugal’s post strike in the 91′ is either the wake up call or accent on this tournament historically.

If this is the end of the run we all owe our ladies a historical tip of the cap. I hope it isn’t the end. A victory here puts USWNT on the level of Russell’s Celtics AKA an obnoxious, math defying amount of winning. I’m rooting for it!

A Throwback Problem?

Travis Kelce is the greatest TE in the league right now. He may be the best ever already, but it’s almost a lock he gets there if he isn’t. Before he was elite he was awesome. Prior to awesome he was a good player with liability concern. We CHIEFS fans all remember the days of thrown towels, game ejections and hot headed outbursts. Out of college he profiled a character concern and slid in the draft. Andy Reid seems to have him under control and on the right path. This makes the early camp fights potentially troubling. In consecutive days Kelce shoved cornerback Dicaprio Bootle and threw a punch at linebacker Jack Cochrane. Of course, we have video of both, which paints Kelce in the same light the South Park guys once painted Russell Crowe . One of my favorite videos ever, BTW (0:29):

Kelce took responsibility for the actions saying he’s “gotta be a better teammate, gotta be a better leader… plain and simple.” Andy Reid publicly backed Kelce, but warned against punches. The question at head: what does this mean?

I hope Kelce means what he said and the punches stop, but I’m cool with all of it. Football is a contact sport that starts in the heat of summer with a player pool almost 2X a final roster, which is the recipe for aggression and tension. The extreme temps are hot sauce on the burrito. Bootle and Cochrane want to make a Super Bowl winning roster. I can think of worse strategies than getting under the TE goat’s (I’m calling it) skin. Kelce’s a human, and stuff like this happens in the moment at football practice all the way down to high school.

Stay Aligned

We all saw the fight on camera, but no one mentioned the hugs and beers that most likely happened, or will happen. This is news for two main reasons:

On camera. Anything on camera is real, uncontextualized, “news.”
Everyone but CHIEFS fans LOVE IT.

Every fan of all other 31 teams and the majority of analysts are impatiently waiting for any possible reason to spell the end of the CHIEFS. This is nothing new or special for this team. LeBron James has the same litany calling his demise, which is a carbon copy of the last 10 seasons of Tom Brady. A million fingers sit on a million triggers ready at a moment’s notice to launch the cracks in the CHIEFS foundation. Unfortunately for them all this is not one of said cracks. Bootle and Cochrane, keep it up. Kelce, practice your composure.

Good Ole Fashioned Heel Turn

I’ve written a few columns referencing pro wrestling and referenced the term “heel.” A heel in wrestling is the bad guy/antagonist. “Heel turn” is the term for a wrestler going from hero to villain. Heroes NEED villains, so wrestling creates them for conflict. Pro sports are the same.

We as fans love rivalries so we have players and teams to sports hate. The CHIEFS have a new heel. Arrowhead Addict wrote a spot last week asking why Tyreek Hill chose this path with CHIEFS Kingdom. The answer is most likely short and simple: attention. Hill’s version is podcast plays, social clicks, Miami love and overall relevance. He’s living in the “all press is good press” vein. Probably some amount of sour grapes at some level too.

The most interesting move is Hill’s plan to enter Canton as a Dolphin, not CHIEFS player. That comment certainly started an attention fire. Hill got his way earning the ire of many. I see three things most:

Football players don’t go to Canton with a hat or jersey to a specific team, that’s a baseball thing.
Why is Hill picking Miami after one season?
Hill isn’t a Hall of Famer.

Point one is correct, no further comment needed beyond attention grabbing. Two is a bit more complicated, but still easy. It’s attention, potential sour grapes, and projected tenure equal or above past. Point three is simply false. However, my comment regarding point three is thoughts and feelings without data. I believe in data.

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Tyreek Hill, Hall of Famer

My belief in Hill as a HOFer started as thoughts and feelings, and sent me down a research rabbit hole. We CHIEFS fans need to embrace the horror: our CHIEFS traded a Hall of Fame player. Pro Football Reference has a Hall of Fame monitor. Here are the two sites I base from:

Hall of Fame Monitor explanations and definitions (the how)
Hall of Fame Monitor players (the who)

The short explanation for the methodology is a point system for accolades, seasonal performance, and milestones. Accolades set the base points: all decade team appearances, MVP seasons, Super Bowl/championships, First Team All Pro and Pro Bowls. The next step, weighted approximate value for seasonal performance. Final factor, milestone bonus.

The explanation link provides the following milestones:

150 points: first ballot, not doubter
120 points: in HOF quickly
100 points: average total for modern era inductee
80 points: expected to eventually make HOF
40 points: minimum to make Hall

Tyreek Hill’s current point total is 70.03. Let’s explore the numbers.

Hill’s Current Score

Tyreek has seven seasons under his belt, which means an average annual point grab of 10. Here is a breakdown of his current points by base category for accolades:

All Decade Team: Hill earned the nod for 2010s as PR. ST all decade = 12.5 points
All Pro First Team: Hill has four, and they each net 2.5 = 10 points
- Important note: inactive player receive a 25 point bonus if 33% of seasons end in First Team All Pro.
- Hill must play 13 total without another nod to miss this bonus.
Pro Bowl: seven. Hill made the Pro Bowl all seven seasons at 1.5 each = 10.5 points
Championship: Jet Chip Wasp, baby! = 2 points

Hill’s short(ish) career accumulates 35 points toward Hall status. His remaining 35.03 come in the form of weighted average value scores. This is a bear of a math exercise. Feel free to dive on in through the links, but the numbers come to 5 points per season. I’m running with that for my calculations.

Mind the Gap

The milestones describe a 10 point gap for expected eventual entry, and 30 to lock it in. Hill’s path is quite simple to achieve it in short order. He essentially gets there in three years on diminished stats alone. Current stat averages and totals:

Yards: 1,191/season, 8,340 total (.0075 bonus per yard over 10,000)
TD: 9/season, 63 total (.075 bonus per TD over 65)

Hill hits the TD milestone by the end of September and the yards by the middle of next year. I diminished his stats and AV over the next three seasons to come up with these lines:

2023: 1,050 yards, 7 TD, 5 AV
2024: 1,000 yards, 6 TD, 4.5 AV
2025: 950 yards, 5 TD, 4 AV

I feel confident Hill hits these figures at bare minimum. Those numbers alone, which assumes no more accolades get him here:

1,340 yards over 10K = 10.05 points
16 TD over 65 = 1.2 points
AV over three seasons = 13.5 points

This puts Hill’s 10 year career at 94.8 points if he never receives another Pro Bowl or All Pro. The above numbers most likely grab him at least one more Pro Bowl minimum. I have a hard time seeing him miss the 100 point mark.

That all said I’m not digging this heel turn. I really wish him the being silent best.

RIP to a Childhood Hero

I was born in 1981, which makes me an 80s kid. The 80s and early 90s define the end of the Saturday morning cartoon and TV era. I grew up with Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Paul Reubens AKA Pee-wee Herman was a childhood hero to me and many like me. News of his death hit me harder than I ever expected. RIP, Paul and thanks for all the joy you brought me and others like me.

Josh Kingsley — ArrowheadOne and Arrowhead Kingdom