We know so, so little about the Wander Franco situation. There is something going on, but it is really unclear what that is, and if the allegation that he groomed and/or abused a 14-year-old girl turned out to be untrue, in whole or in part, this would be one of the more infamous instances of the internet rumor mill getting ahead of itself and casting truth by the wayside. We hope that’s the case for other reasons, of course—you always hope 14-year-olds weren’t groomed or abused—but our point, today, is that we know so very little. Maybe Wander Franco did something terrible. We do not know.
The allegations against Franco are partially so bizarre because their source is so unclear. There are some Instagram posts about it from Saturday or Sunday on what appear to be blog pages based in the Dominican Republic, but it’s unclear whether they’re original reporting or referencing something else, and some are private accounts, not accessible to the general public. If the initial report surfaced on Twitter, it’s unclear which tweets started the storm. What we do know is that there are pictures of Franco with a girl or woman, and some have identified her as the alleged victim. It’s not 100% clear, though, to me at least, that she’s the alleged victim, and it’s also unclear how old she is now and when this incident or these incidents is/are alleged to have happened.
Overarchingly, the theme to this story is that there is no reputable outlet reporting any details about the allegations, which makes it very hard to separate speculation from rumor. That’s even more consequential because rumor doesn’t necessarily mean truth. Major League Baseball is well-established in the Dominican Republic, where all of this is alleged to have happened, so one would think that between MLB and the Dominican legal authorities, we’ll get some sort of truth out of this, but this is not something American baseball media is well-equipped to report on. We really don’t know what happened. We don’t even know what exactly is being alleged.
Why the SEC Doesn’t Want Florida State
Dennis Dodd had a helpful piece this afternoon at CBS about conference realignment, and first, a quick aside:
I am grateful for CBS’s college football coverage these days. They have been restrained and accurate and professional in my experience, especially compared to The Athletic and Yahoo. It’s not necessary to always be as buttoned up and head–up–one’s–own–ass as certain sports journalism institutionalists, but the pendulum has swung a bit too far in the opposite direction with college sports specifically in the last two years. There are topics on which it’s important to be professional. Conference realignment is one of those topics. Throughout this conference realignment saga we’ve seen far too many clickbait races, far too much speculation, far too much opinion interjected with reporting, and far too many anonymous sources relied upon for what’s supposed to be good, solid, professional journalism. The industry needs bloggers, but it needs journalists too, and I’ve been grateful for CBS on this, and especially Dodd. Pete Thamel has been good at ESPN, but it’s difficult to trust ESPN as an outlet because of the scale of their financial involvement in all of this (it’s a bigger scale than CBS’s). Ross Dellenger and Nicole Auerbach are great journalists (I remember really appreciating Auerbach’s work in 2020 as conferences determined whether and how to do a football season), but Yahoo and The Athletic are a little off the rails right now in terms of how they blur the divides between reporting, analysis, and opinion.
As for Dodd’s actual report: The meat of it is about the Pac-4. In addition to pointing out a few complications (who gets the ~$14M waiting to be paid out from NCAA Tournament appearances, the Pac-12 still owes Comcast $50M, etc.), Dodd relays that the Mountain West pays out about $4M a year to each member school from its media deal with CBS and FOX, while the American pays out about $7M a year to each member school from its media deal with ESPN. The Mountain West does, however, only have three years remaining on its contracts, while the AAC has ten years remaining on its own. Dodd doesn’t get into travel expenses (remember that Washington was thinking Big Ten membership might cost it up to $10M annually), but he does acknowledge that those MWC and AAC contracts don’t include any provisions for what happens if the national leader in national championships suddenly comes knocking at the door. This is not a $4M vs. $7M decision. It’s whatever CBS and Fox would pay for each Pac-4 school over three years vs. whatever ESPN would pay over ten.
Personally, I continue to find the MWC route the most viable for at least Washington State and Oregon State, and probably for Cal as well. Even for Stanford, too, though for them independence is an option if they have the bandwidth amidst this presidential change to embark upon something that complicated, even if it’s just in football. Overall? I mostly think the AAC is not the answer. Rice is a very Stanford-adjacent school, or as Stanford-adjacent as a school can be, but I do not think Rice is driving this train.
We promised Florida State talk, and Florida State talk we shall have. There are two sentences about this in Dodd’s piece, but they seem important:
Industry sources repeat that there is not much desire by either conference (the Big Ten or the SEC) to add the likes (of) Clemson, Florida State, etc. Not that the ACC’s seemingly “ironclad” grant of rights agreement would allow such movement.
That says loads about the reality of the market compared to how those schools view themselves.
It’s understandable why the Big Ten doesn’t want to add Florida State and Clemson. Florida State isn’t a bad school, but it keeps managing to not accomplish its goal of joining the Association of American Universities (AAU), offering a second opinion to the U.S. News & World Report rankings which have FSU 55th among national universities, right in the middle of the impending Big Ten. My impression is that this comes down to the AAU weighting research heavily. Regardless, FSU’s also in Tallahassee. If the Bay Area isn’t getting it done for Big Ten Network as a market right now, Florida State isn’t going to have that piece on its side. Clemson isn’t part of the AAU either, and it’s ranked lower than FSU in those U.S. News rankings, and it is also not in prime television territory, even if it has a theoretical presence in Atlanta and Charlotte (FSU can say the same, but hell, so can Indiana).
Adding Washington and Oregon was a strange Big Ten move, but the Big Ten was able to name its price there in a way that a league normally can’t. Normally, it’s asking members to join as full-revenue members. Also, Washington and Oregon were jumping from a sinking ship and had been presumed to be eventual Big Ten targets, thanks to the cultural and academic pieces of this all. There were probably some emotions at play.
With that as the backdrop, it tracks that the Big Ten isn’t keen on FSU and Clemson right now. What’s more interesting is that the SEC doesn’t want them.
I have my doubts about Clemson’s staying power, as a football program and then as a brand. Ten years ago, Clemson was not the dominant brand within its own mediumly sized state. Winning those national championships has undoubtedly helped that situation, but if the championships dry up, it’s easy to see how the Tigers could drop back into Virginia Tech’s territory: a good brand, but not a great one. Clemson is feasting off of what’s currently a weak ACC, but its last win over a team with believable national championship chances came in 2019. Tom Brady was still with the Patriots the last time Clemson was national title competitive.
Florida State, though? Florida State is a premier brand. They won under Bowden. They won under Fisher. Their athletic department made more money than Clemson’s did last year, and more than Tennessee’s, even. Florida State is also a cultural fit for the SEC to a degree even beyond that of Clemson. There is a Seminole Caucus at the Florida state capitol, and it is not representing the indigenous tribes. How SEC is that? Clemson helped found the ACC. Florida State did not. Grading the intangibles, Florida State makes more sense than any other school in America as the next SEC member.
The report, then, that the SEC doesn’t want Florida State? That’s a big deal, and what it tells us is that the SEC isn’t sure Florida State would make them enough more money to be worth the trouble. It’s possible this is a long-term play, like how the Big Ten didn’t want Washington and Oregon until the Pac-12 had begun falling apart. It’s possible the SEC wants FSU, just not now. But the “not now” is important, and what it really points to is this other narrative that floats around which says that broadcasters are out over their skis on college sports. The deals are a little too rich for the broadcasters, say these reports. This means that if you’re going to add value to a power conference, you must either…
1. Be a top-12 revenue athletic department (Texas, Oklahoma, quite possibly USC)
2. Live in an untapped media market which is the second-largest in the country (UCLA, USC)
3. Come at a discount (Washington, Oregon)
4. Come at a bonus because of a contract detail (Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah)
Florida State fits none of those four categories. It’s very close on the first, but the line seems to be drawn after Oklahoma. Or, the line is in front of Oklahoma but the SEC wanted Texas to have a dance partner. Which, then, could mean part of FSU’s issue is that Clemson or UNC would be the one accompanying them. If it was Notre Dame, maybe this would be different.
Regardless of how close or not close Florida State is to SEC membership, the point stands that Florida State is not currently wanted by the SEC despite objectively being a better property than more than half the SEC. College sports may have had a little media bubble.
Cubs vs. Sox, Round 2
What a difference these weeks have made.
The last time the Cubs played the White Sox, the season was on the line. The Cubs almost certainly needed to win both games to avoid a trade deadline selloff, and especially in the second game of the pair, that looked bleak. Now, the Cubs enter the two-game series at Wrigley four games above .500, tied in the loss column for the National League’s final playoff spot and graded by FanGraphs as more than 50% likely to eventually make the field.
The pitching situation is a little unclear. Caleb Kilian was optioned back to Iowa, Michael Rucker was called back up, and Marcus Stroman reportedly experienced some rib discomfort and is no longer expected to start tomorrow. At the moment, the Cubs have Kyle Hendricks listed as the probable pitcher tonight, and no one beyond that. Thanks to the day off yesterday and the day off on Thursday, the Cubs don’t need a fifth starter until next Tuesday if they’re comfortable throwing everybody on normal rest. But we might be seeing Drew Smyly or Hayden Wesneski start again soon, especially with Ben Brown—who’s been at AAA since May—on the IL right now and out of the conversation. It would be very nice to have Marcus Stroman healthy, even if he’s not his best self on the mound.
If the Cubs do go with a bullpen game, it might make more sense to do it tomorrow and to get Javier Assad the extra day of rest than it would to do it next week, but I lean on the side of keeping the bullpen game in the back pocket. With 27 games coming up in 27 days, a stretch that begins on Friday and includes one day off but one doubleheader, a bullpen game tomorrow could mean one more bullpen game in total over the long run. Why chance that?
Even with a slog ahead, these two weeks which began yesterday include a stretch of games we’ve been anticipating eagerly. After the two against the White Sox, the Cubs get the Royals for three, all at home, then travel to Detroit and Pittsburgh for a combined seven games. That’s twelve upcoming games against four of the nine teams decidedly out of the playoff picture, and four of the worst seven of those on paper (the Cardinals and Mets are still scary in a three-game set). After that, it does get tougher again—the Brewers, Reds, Giants, and Diamondbacks are next in line—but this is the beginning of a great opportunity for the Cubs, especially with the Brewers playing only playoff chasers during these two weeks (three against the Dodgers, three against the Rangers, two against the Twins, three against the Padres). Can the Cubs play 3.5 games better than Milwaukee over these 13 days? It seems possible. Maybe a little 8–4 mark against 4–7 for the Crew, setting up a tie at 69–61 to open that crucial series back at Wrigley. A blogger can dream.
It’s a good time to appreciate how freaking good Jeimer Candelario has been so far in Chicago. The man is hitting .425 since the trade with six extra-base hits in eleven games. Some of this is a .516 BABIP over the stretch, but the results have been so good.
Touki Toussaint gets the ball tonight for the South Side. He’s been striking a lot of batters out since returning to the rotation after the Lance Lynn trade, but he’s been walking a high number as well.
Sean Clifford Is a Weird Backup QB
Ideally, Jordan Love will start all seventeen regular season Packer games this fall, and Sean Clifford will only be necessary in the fourth quarter of seventeen blowout victories. More realistically, we’re going to see Sean Clifford this year. We’ll probably see him start. Only eleven quarterbacks appeared in the full 17 regular season games in 2021. Only eight did it last season.
Where Clifford gets interesting is his upside. He’s a gunslinger without a bazooka for an arm, which is a strange archetype, but it manifests itself into a QB who can get rather alluring when he’s on. He’s got moxie. He definitely has moxie.
Clifford wouldn’t be the first backup to throw a bunch of picks—Nathan Peterman of course comes to mind—but it’s still strange to think of the backup quarterback position as one in which to accept the uncertainties of upside and downside. I’m used to the backup being more of a baseline QB, a Brock Purdy type in an ideal world. Someone who will hopefully be able to move the sticks when surrounded with what we hope will be a brilliantly designed offense. Having a wildcard back there is strange, and maybe it points towards the real reason the Packers want Clifford to have the job: It’s not about backing up Jordan Love. It’s about developing another quarterback, just in case. It’s about taking a flyer on a guy who does have some pretty good upside and might thrive in a Matt LaFleur offense. This is a lot of guesswork, but it’s intriguing.
