Clay--mation

The no-hitter thrown by Clay Buchholz is, in many ways, the best way to begin my blogging. There is something particularly special about a no-hitter that isn't matched by any other event in baseball. Walkoffs are tremendous but they are solely at the end of the game. From about the fourth inning on, a no-hitter works its way through the crowd. By the sixth inning, everyone knows what NOT to talk about. By the seventh, the crowd applauds too long and too loud for even the most routine out. When a pitcher throws a no-hitter, it is perfectly acceptable to hope that the pitcher's offense doesn't do anything so that the pitcher doesn't have to sit too long. As a fan, you refuse to change anything so that you don't jinx the no-no. (I refused to move from the middle cushion on my couch as, if I did, there's no way Dustin Pedroia makes THAT play.) And, when Clay stuck out Nick Markakis--a very good young hitter--to end the game, I jumped around my living room like a little kid as Sox fan across the Nation did the same.

While it is easy for Sox fans to boast all about the present and future of Buchholz, there is something even more interesting about what Clay symbolizes about MLB and its future. Not that long ago, teams with means spent too little time developing talent within their organization. Instead, they relied on the market to score much of their talent. However, smart GMs have realized that good pitching simply costs too much. MONEYBALL tell us that smart general managers will exploit market inefficiencies to their advantage. (If you haven't read Moneyball and you are a baseball fan, do yourself a favor and read it. There is so much more to the book than the characture presented by baseball's talking heads.) As more and more GMs recognized the value of certain stats (e.g. OBP, OPS, TB, etc.), the drive to find cheap talent turned away from free agents and toward internal development. Of course, this is one of the oldest strategies in baseball but it is also the wave of the future. Teams are now holding on to their pitching prospects like they are made of gold. And, these prospects are having a major impact. Sox fans saw this in 2005 and 2006 with the rise of Jonathan Papelbon. The Yankees are having their own success with reliever (for now) Joba Chamberlain and, if less so this year, starters Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy. Joel Zumaya was absolutely dominant for the Tigers last year. The Twins' Scott Baker came close to throwing a perfect game on Friday night. The list is quite long and it goes to show that teams are both developing young pitching talent and willing to throw them out in the middle of a pennant race.

In short, what Buchholz did was truly special but it may be emblematic of a new paradigm in baseball. Free agents may matter less (although they will still matter) as teams move more aggressively in the amateur draft and international free-agent markets. I think this could be a very good thing for baseball. There is something special about having one of "your guys" take to the mound and throw a no hitter or make a game saving defensive play. Yankee fans have embraced Chamberlain in a way that most free agent signees never experience. After years of being forced to "rooting for the laundry" perhaps the youth movement in MLB echoes back to a day when a given player wore the same laundry for the most important years of their career. I hope this is true but, for today, I don't really care. Clay Buchholz threw a no-hitter and I got to dance around my living room like I was a kid again.