Spinning around the bowl
What's wrong with Derek Jeter? He's been in a season-long slump ever since his buddy A-Rod donned a Yankees uniform. Maybe the Boss went after the wrong Jeter. Babyface's average is sagging faster than Mariah's boobies, though he's come alive over the last three days with a series of multi-hit games that have dragged his average above the Mendoza line. Assuming a couple more nights like last, he'll probably end the month of May batting around .225 -- predictable numbers if your name (god forbid) is Neifi Perez, heresy for a career .313 hitter. Still, if Jeter hits at his career clip over the rest of the season, he'll pull that average back up to a more-than-respectable .285, mirroring Marvin Benard's 2001 huge May-September shift of +.066 average points. Aaron Gleeman crunches the numbers in his excellent analysis and explains why it's safe to assume that Jeter will take a defibrillator to his average in June. Mike Cameron's season is totally in the toilet, though.
Sunday, May 30, 2004
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Operation Shutdown 2: Electric Boogaloo
What a fucking jerk! How long did it take for him to retract his statement that he was going to sit out the entire season? Sorry, MLB needs to step in and bar this guy from playing this season. At least these rabid Dodger fans are having a change of heart about Mondesi's replacement. By the way, www.raulmondesisucks.com has not been registered as a domain...yet.
What a fucking jerk! How long did it take for him to retract his statement that he was going to sit out the entire season? Sorry, MLB needs to step in and bar this guy from playing this season. At least these rabid Dodger fans are having a change of heart about Mondesi's replacement. By the way, www.raulmondesisucks.com has not been registered as a domain...yet.
If the glove doesn't fit...
Fans of the River City Rascals (of the independent Frontier League) shed a collective tear when a "Sports Criminals Night" promotion scheduled to take place on June 2nd got shut down less than two days after it was announced. You say: shockingly poor taste. I say: genius marketing. Broadcast announcer Phil Giubileo, who came up with the idea as part of the team's "Wacky Wednesdays" decided to mark the 10th anniversary of OJ Simpson's arrest on double-homicide charges with a special $1 "jailhouse" meal consisting of bread and water. Mmmm, sounds tasty! Though a bit overpriced, since I recall reading a statistic that suggested it only cost around $0.40 each day to feed an inmate. But that's pretty close to the meal (add a glass of milk and a rotten lemon, and you're right there) that prompted a group of Arizona inmates to stage a jail-wide hunger strike in 2001. Apparently, prisoners in Indiana don't get to eat anything that isn't made with a cornmeal base, so gimme the bread and water any day. There was a trivia contest and a grand prize trip to Jamaica (with Al Cowlings at the wheel and 100 lbs of marijuana in the car trunk) planned, too, but the upstanding citizens of O'Fallon, Missouri will now have to go elsewhere to find their fun.
Fans of the River City Rascals (of the independent Frontier League) shed a collective tear when a "Sports Criminals Night" promotion scheduled to take place on June 2nd got shut down less than two days after it was announced. You say: shockingly poor taste. I say: genius marketing. Broadcast announcer Phil Giubileo, who came up with the idea as part of the team's "Wacky Wednesdays" decided to mark the 10th anniversary of OJ Simpson's arrest on double-homicide charges with a special $1 "jailhouse" meal consisting of bread and water. Mmmm, sounds tasty! Though a bit overpriced, since I recall reading a statistic that suggested it only cost around $0.40 each day to feed an inmate. But that's pretty close to the meal (add a glass of milk and a rotten lemon, and you're right there) that prompted a group of Arizona inmates to stage a jail-wide hunger strike in 2001. Apparently, prisoners in Indiana don't get to eat anything that isn't made with a cornmeal base, so gimme the bread and water any day. There was a trivia contest and a grand prize trip to Jamaica (with Al Cowlings at the wheel and 100 lbs of marijuana in the car trunk) planned, too, but the upstanding citizens of O'Fallon, Missouri will now have to go elsewhere to find their fun.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
An arm and a leg
I've been haunted by a huge cardboard cut-out of Sammy Sosa and his incredible shrinking neck for the last two weeks while stopping at the local convenience store for coffee to keep myself awake on the drive to work. Some company is running a promotion to meet the man, the myth, the legend in person and the timing's all wrong with his recent trip to the DL. Two sneezes, and suddenly Todd Hollandsworth is a starting outfielder. And the same scenario keeps running through my sleep-addled brain with a lucky contest winner fighting off the urge to woof cookies with the acrid stench of Ben Gay and liniments running through the clubhouse. Worst...prize...ever. Sosa's allergies are nothing to sneeze at, though: baseball has had a long, very colorful history of freak injuries. Some personal favorites include Marlins infielder Bret Barbarie burning his eyes with jalapeno juice while making nachos and arachnophobe Glenallen Hill's lacerations from falling through a glass table after a nightmare about being eaten by giant spiders. How the hell do you top that? You can't, but Rickey Henderson getting frostbite in the middle of the summer and Steve Sparks dislocating his shoulder while trying to emulate a motivational speaker by tearing a phone book in half come mighty close. There's even more schadenfreude-inducing goodies here and here.
I've been haunted by a huge cardboard cut-out of Sammy Sosa and his incredible shrinking neck for the last two weeks while stopping at the local convenience store for coffee to keep myself awake on the drive to work. Some company is running a promotion to meet the man, the myth, the legend in person and the timing's all wrong with his recent trip to the DL. Two sneezes, and suddenly Todd Hollandsworth is a starting outfielder. And the same scenario keeps running through my sleep-addled brain with a lucky contest winner fighting off the urge to woof cookies with the acrid stench of Ben Gay and liniments running through the clubhouse. Worst...prize...ever. Sosa's allergies are nothing to sneeze at, though: baseball has had a long, very colorful history of freak injuries. Some personal favorites include Marlins infielder Bret Barbarie burning his eyes with jalapeno juice while making nachos and arachnophobe Glenallen Hill's lacerations from falling through a glass table after a nightmare about being eaten by giant spiders. How the hell do you top that? You can't, but Rickey Henderson getting frostbite in the middle of the summer and Steve Sparks dislocating his shoulder while trying to emulate a motivational speaker by tearing a phone book in half come mighty close. There's even more schadenfreude-inducing goodies here and here.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
The dead horse has been flogged
More on pitch counts: John Kruk -- who Langstaff describes as Mark Madden without the intellect in one of his recent posts -- dropped the hammer on pitch counts in this Page 2 commentary. Kruk won my heart over as a sharp Letterman guest during his tenure as a player, though his everyman analysis seems better suited for commenting on monster truck racing and professional wrestling. Kruk seems to enjoy playing the role of the provacateur, spewing verbal diahrrea with the intent of creating controversy -- and while he's totally right in saying that pitch location and guile matters much more than speed (ever seen Jamie Moyer in action?), his thought on pitch counts don't quite hold.
Kruk: "The other day everyone was talking about Mike Stanton pitching in his 900th game -- same as Cy Young. One small difference: Mike has about 800 innings under his belt while Cy had 7,500."
Translation: "Mike Stanton is a pussy."
And maybe Stanton is a pussy, though you can't fault him for his specialized, albeit limited, role. I do (and anyone who thinks Grady Little made the right choice in keeping Pedro on the mound in that champion ship series will) appreciate Kruk's reactionary stance on pitch counts, though, especially when he says that "you can't respect a manager for taking out a guy just because some computer printout says after a certain pitch count he's a sitting duck."
More on the Phillies: I started this blog by calling for manager Larry Bowa's dismissal after a 3-6 start. The Phillies have since cruised to a 20-11 record on the hot bats of Chase Utley and Bobby Abreu and the return of David Bell. The record now stands at a not-so-shabby 23-17, though it's early enough in the season that the Dodgers losing 6 straight has been cause to sound the alarm. The Phils' middle relief has been really great (even in the absence of Billy Wagner), a welcome *ahem* relief from the make-it-to-the-sixth-and-pray-for-rain mode of last year. I should've also pointed out that the Phillies have been notorious slow-starters for the past few years, so a more thoughtful analysis should've waited until May. The 1-2 part of the order scares me, though: Marlon Byrd has yet to find his form and Jimmy Rollins has been dreadful. I'll stand by my pre-season analysis that this is a good team that needs one more big bat. Lou Pinella yielded Randy Winn in trade a couple of years ago; I wonder what might come of dangling Bowa on the waiver wire.
More on pitch counts: John Kruk -- who Langstaff describes as Mark Madden without the intellect in one of his recent posts -- dropped the hammer on pitch counts in this Page 2 commentary. Kruk won my heart over as a sharp Letterman guest during his tenure as a player, though his everyman analysis seems better suited for commenting on monster truck racing and professional wrestling. Kruk seems to enjoy playing the role of the provacateur, spewing verbal diahrrea with the intent of creating controversy -- and while he's totally right in saying that pitch location and guile matters much more than speed (ever seen Jamie Moyer in action?), his thought on pitch counts don't quite hold.
Kruk: "The other day everyone was talking about Mike Stanton pitching in his 900th game -- same as Cy Young. One small difference: Mike has about 800 innings under his belt while Cy had 7,500."
Translation: "Mike Stanton is a pussy."
And maybe Stanton is a pussy, though you can't fault him for his specialized, albeit limited, role. I do (and anyone who thinks Grady Little made the right choice in keeping Pedro on the mound in that champion ship series will) appreciate Kruk's reactionary stance on pitch counts, though, especially when he says that "you can't respect a manager for taking out a guy just because some computer printout says after a certain pitch count he's a sitting duck."
More on the Phillies: I started this blog by calling for manager Larry Bowa's dismissal after a 3-6 start. The Phillies have since cruised to a 20-11 record on the hot bats of Chase Utley and Bobby Abreu and the return of David Bell. The record now stands at a not-so-shabby 23-17, though it's early enough in the season that the Dodgers losing 6 straight has been cause to sound the alarm. The Phils' middle relief has been really great (even in the absence of Billy Wagner), a welcome *ahem* relief from the make-it-to-the-sixth-and-pray-for-rain mode of last year. I should've also pointed out that the Phillies have been notorious slow-starters for the past few years, so a more thoughtful analysis should've waited until May. The 1-2 part of the order scares me, though: Marlon Byrd has yet to find his form and Jimmy Rollins has been dreadful. I'll stand by my pre-season analysis that this is a good team that needs one more big bat. Lou Pinella yielded Randy Winn in trade a couple of years ago; I wonder what might come of dangling Bowa on the waiver wire.
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Pitching a fit
Gobo's fun thinkpiece on falling in love with Randy Johnson and his related fears of what high pitch counts will do to Jason Schmidt's arm got me to thinking about the relationship between pitch counts and injuries. Higher pitch counts would seem to suggest a higher rate of arm fatigue, and therefore a higher potential for serious arm (elbow, rotator cuff, etc) injuries. I still think there's some sense in this; the problem becomes how to divine the magic number of pitch counts and get a sense of where pitchers traditionally run into trouble if you assume equal access to conditioning methods, etc.
Bobby Cox usually gets pegged as a guy who protects his pitchers. Here's where the Braves rotation falls in P/GS (pitches per game started) with their ERAs following in parentheses.
Mike Hampton: 95.4 (6.36 era)
John Thompson: 96.0 (5.01 era)
Russ Ortiz: 95.4 (5.18 era)
Jaret Wright: 94.4 (3.55 era)
Horacio Ramirez: 103.3 (2.25 era)
Dusty Baker usually gets pegged as a guy who abuses his pitchers. Here's where the Cubs rotation falls in P/GS with their ERAs following in parentheses:
Greg Maddux: 84.0 (4.44 era)
Matt Clement: 103.9 (2.53 era)
Carlos Zambrano: 105.1 (2.08 era)
Kerry Wood: 100.9 (2.82 era)
Sergio Mitre: 86.1 (4.93 era)
Let's leave Greg Maddux out of this for now, because he's an anomaly. And Jaret Wright isn't so interesting from a statistical perspective. Looking at everyone else, the guys with the highest pitch counts (Ramirez, Clement, Zambrano, Wood) are also averaging the highest number of innings per start. Ramirez, for example, has tossed more innings than Hampton in less starts. The other half (Hampton, Thompson, Ortiz, Mitre) have lower P/GS averages because they aren't going as deep into games because they simply haven't been as effective. Verdict: inconclusive evidence. One might suggest that both Cox and Baker are within the bounds of fair use on their rotation's arms.
Historical data on pitch counts is notoriously hard to come by, though we know that the 100-pitch benchmark is an invention of the candy-ass modern era because it held no place in the era of the 4-man rotation. So the difference between John Thompson's 96.0 P/GS and Carlos Zambrano's 105.1 isn't of much concern -- it's reflective right now of how successfully they've pitched. And that only amounts to a +/- differential of 5%. It's more about extremes. What excites and scares us is what happens when Kerry Wood throws, say, 120 pitches in a game. And then what happens when he throws, say, another 120 pitches in the following start. And what effect a certain amount of stress might have on his arm when he's averaging only about 100 pitches per start.
Rany Jazayerli of Baseball Prospectus used the 100-pitch benchmark as the basis for his Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP) study in the late 1990s. Rob Neyer (a frequent collaborator) hyped PAP considerably upon arrival and maintains his virulent distaste for high pitch counts; Jazayerli issued a retraction in 2001 and Baseball Prospectus has since removed the initial study from their website. No knocks against the brilliant Jazayerli, but he definitely bit off more than he could chew. You may recall this point-by-point evisceration of PAP done by Don Malcolm; if not, it's definitely worth following the link and reading up on the historical problems associated with developing a formula for weighing pitch counts.
One of the more interesting ideas that came out of Malcolm's response was the notion that multi-start windows were a better way of divining the injury risk that comes with high pitch counts. Malcolm and company settle upon 350 pitches / 3 starts (or an average of 115 pitches per start) as the cut-off, citing Jim Leyland's use of Alex Fernandez (397 pitches / 3 starts = career-ending injury) as an example of the effects of high pitch counts. Watch the magic number creep from "100" to "115" just like that!
Those guys at Baseball Prospectus sure are tenacious, though. Keith Woolner picked up where Jazayerli left off with using pitch counts to predict stress and issued his own revision called PAP^3. Woolner assumes that "all pitchers have the same physical reaction to a given number of pitches" and comes up with a lovely polynomial curve to illustrate his findings. It does not, however, draw a distinction between the types of pitches thrown or make any provisions for delivery/mechanics. Which is problematic.
What's interesting about the study is his consideration of "high endurance" pitchers -- a class which might currently include folks like Kerry Wood, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling and Jason Schmidt. Here's the shocker: the difference between a 90 pitch start and a 129 pitch start with a well-traveled arm is imperceptible. As the fine folks at Baseball Reference point out in their analysis of Woolner's work, this class of pitcher actually sees a slight improvement from pitch 120-129, pushing the "danger zone" to 130 pitches and above. So under that logic, Jason Schmidt's 144 pitch outing of a couple nights back could be dangerous in a broader context.
PAP^3 earns higher marks than PAP, but even Woolner is quick to point out that his theories are begging for refinement. There's enough to like from all of the work done so far on pitch counts:
* Nothing has disproved the long-held supposition that high pitch counts ruin young arms. What would be intriguing is a specific study on exactly how high pitch counts affect young pitchers, perhaps by pulling a nice sample of rookies and comparing their progress/degradation by comparing what transpires, say, before the first 150 career innings pitched and after. Step two might be to get a sense of when to keep young pitchers to a strict pitch count and when to relax the restrictions.
* "100" is a nice, clean number -- but a misleading choice for a benchmark. Research done thusfar supports a higher total, perhaps with a +/- differential to account for some/all other mitigating factors.
* And the move from considering a pitcher's workload on a start-by-start basis to weighing workload in larger clusters or over a 30 start period is sensible.
It's telling that the saaviest sabermetric theories from the Baseball Prospectus camp over the course of the past decade have centered on offensive production/ defensive range/ how individual contributions relate to team contributions. Pitching is not so easy to consider. Then again, pitch counts have only been recorded on the books for about 15 years, less than the lifespan of some of this generation's finest arms. More accrued data can only help, though I also get the sense that this is one problem that even the great Bill James couldn't crack.
Gobo's fun thinkpiece on falling in love with Randy Johnson and his related fears of what high pitch counts will do to Jason Schmidt's arm got me to thinking about the relationship between pitch counts and injuries. Higher pitch counts would seem to suggest a higher rate of arm fatigue, and therefore a higher potential for serious arm (elbow, rotator cuff, etc) injuries. I still think there's some sense in this; the problem becomes how to divine the magic number of pitch counts and get a sense of where pitchers traditionally run into trouble if you assume equal access to conditioning methods, etc.
Bobby Cox usually gets pegged as a guy who protects his pitchers. Here's where the Braves rotation falls in P/GS (pitches per game started) with their ERAs following in parentheses.
Mike Hampton: 95.4 (6.36 era)
John Thompson: 96.0 (5.01 era)
Russ Ortiz: 95.4 (5.18 era)
Jaret Wright: 94.4 (3.55 era)
Horacio Ramirez: 103.3 (2.25 era)
Dusty Baker usually gets pegged as a guy who abuses his pitchers. Here's where the Cubs rotation falls in P/GS with their ERAs following in parentheses:
Greg Maddux: 84.0 (4.44 era)
Matt Clement: 103.9 (2.53 era)
Carlos Zambrano: 105.1 (2.08 era)
Kerry Wood: 100.9 (2.82 era)
Sergio Mitre: 86.1 (4.93 era)
Let's leave Greg Maddux out of this for now, because he's an anomaly. And Jaret Wright isn't so interesting from a statistical perspective. Looking at everyone else, the guys with the highest pitch counts (Ramirez, Clement, Zambrano, Wood) are also averaging the highest number of innings per start. Ramirez, for example, has tossed more innings than Hampton in less starts. The other half (Hampton, Thompson, Ortiz, Mitre) have lower P/GS averages because they aren't going as deep into games because they simply haven't been as effective. Verdict: inconclusive evidence. One might suggest that both Cox and Baker are within the bounds of fair use on their rotation's arms.
Historical data on pitch counts is notoriously hard to come by, though we know that the 100-pitch benchmark is an invention of the candy-ass modern era because it held no place in the era of the 4-man rotation. So the difference between John Thompson's 96.0 P/GS and Carlos Zambrano's 105.1 isn't of much concern -- it's reflective right now of how successfully they've pitched. And that only amounts to a +/- differential of 5%. It's more about extremes. What excites and scares us is what happens when Kerry Wood throws, say, 120 pitches in a game. And then what happens when he throws, say, another 120 pitches in the following start. And what effect a certain amount of stress might have on his arm when he's averaging only about 100 pitches per start.
Rany Jazayerli of Baseball Prospectus used the 100-pitch benchmark as the basis for his Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP) study in the late 1990s. Rob Neyer (a frequent collaborator) hyped PAP considerably upon arrival and maintains his virulent distaste for high pitch counts; Jazayerli issued a retraction in 2001 and Baseball Prospectus has since removed the initial study from their website. No knocks against the brilliant Jazayerli, but he definitely bit off more than he could chew. You may recall this point-by-point evisceration of PAP done by Don Malcolm; if not, it's definitely worth following the link and reading up on the historical problems associated with developing a formula for weighing pitch counts.
One of the more interesting ideas that came out of Malcolm's response was the notion that multi-start windows were a better way of divining the injury risk that comes with high pitch counts. Malcolm and company settle upon 350 pitches / 3 starts (or an average of 115 pitches per start) as the cut-off, citing Jim Leyland's use of Alex Fernandez (397 pitches / 3 starts = career-ending injury) as an example of the effects of high pitch counts. Watch the magic number creep from "100" to "115" just like that!
Those guys at Baseball Prospectus sure are tenacious, though. Keith Woolner picked up where Jazayerli left off with using pitch counts to predict stress and issued his own revision called PAP^3. Woolner assumes that "all pitchers have the same physical reaction to a given number of pitches" and comes up with a lovely polynomial curve to illustrate his findings. It does not, however, draw a distinction between the types of pitches thrown or make any provisions for delivery/mechanics. Which is problematic.
What's interesting about the study is his consideration of "high endurance" pitchers -- a class which might currently include folks like Kerry Wood, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling and Jason Schmidt. Here's the shocker: the difference between a 90 pitch start and a 129 pitch start with a well-traveled arm is imperceptible. As the fine folks at Baseball Reference point out in their analysis of Woolner's work, this class of pitcher actually sees a slight improvement from pitch 120-129, pushing the "danger zone" to 130 pitches and above. So under that logic, Jason Schmidt's 144 pitch outing of a couple nights back could be dangerous in a broader context.
PAP^3 earns higher marks than PAP, but even Woolner is quick to point out that his theories are begging for refinement. There's enough to like from all of the work done so far on pitch counts:
* Nothing has disproved the long-held supposition that high pitch counts ruin young arms. What would be intriguing is a specific study on exactly how high pitch counts affect young pitchers, perhaps by pulling a nice sample of rookies and comparing their progress/degradation by comparing what transpires, say, before the first 150 career innings pitched and after. Step two might be to get a sense of when to keep young pitchers to a strict pitch count and when to relax the restrictions.
* "100" is a nice, clean number -- but a misleading choice for a benchmark. Research done thusfar supports a higher total, perhaps with a +/- differential to account for some/all other mitigating factors.
* And the move from considering a pitcher's workload on a start-by-start basis to weighing workload in larger clusters or over a 30 start period is sensible.
It's telling that the saaviest sabermetric theories from the Baseball Prospectus camp over the course of the past decade have centered on offensive production/ defensive range/ how individual contributions relate to team contributions. Pitching is not so easy to consider. Then again, pitch counts have only been recorded on the books for about 15 years, less than the lifespan of some of this generation's finest arms. More accrued data can only help, though I also get the sense that this is one problem that even the great Bill James couldn't crack.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
A Confederacy of Dunces
Bill Bavasi has to be the least popular guy in Seattle right now; the way things are going in his first year as GM, fans wouldn't even accept a demotion to hot dog vendor. And this is no mean feat: despite an impressive string of 90+ win seasons under his belt, outgoing GM Pat Gillick was routinely savaged for his inability to pull the trigger on deadline deals. And after two consecutive 93-69 seasons where the team failed to make the playoffs because of strong AL West competition, fans got it right by running Gillick out of town.
ESPN posted this discouraging bit a few days ago under the header "New GM Watch":
Paul DePodesta, Dodgers, 22-11, .667 [last year .525]
Dan O’Brien, Reds, 17-17, .500 [last year .426]
Bill Bavasi, Mariners, 12-22, .353 [last year .574]
To be fair, O'Brien is inheriting a team on the upswing of a rebuilding phase; the record hints that he's done a decent job of keeping the team treading water...or maybe even a little bit better considering the fire sale that occured during the last half of '03 and Austin Kearns's freak injury. I can't say enough good things about what DePodesta has done in his short tenure with the Dodgers; the turnaround owes a little to luck and everything else to his offseason moves. Bavasi, though, came in with an awful lot to work with (the Mariners are #12 in league payroll this year) and had a disastrousoffseason. He made moves to shed payroll and compete for a middle of the pack finish. You understand the temptation here: the Mariners lost Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey and Alex Rodriguez and bounced back nicely. But Bavasi's in denial...it's time, right NOW, for the Mariners to enter dealing and rebuilding mode.
I don't even know where to begin when it comes to pinpointing the locus of frustrations, though Sunday's box score is illustrative of exactly what kind of team the Mariners are: Pineiro tosses his best game of the season, scattering 5 hits over 8 innings but the team loses 2-1 with the only run coming off of a Scott Spiezio solo shot. Pineiro and Gil Meche have struggled mightly this season and the middle relief corps (outside of Eddie Guardado) is shaky, but the pitching's good enough to keep them in games. This team can not score runs, though. Take a look at the BA/ OBP/ SLG splits for the regular line-up:
Ichiro Suzuki .317/ .363/ .371
Raul Ibanez .254/ .320/ .464
E. Martinez .248/ .350/ .387
Bret Boone .248/ .287/ .426
Randy Winn .244/ .314/ .315
Rich Aurilia .240/ .290/ .298
John Olerud .246/ .364/ .331
Scott Spiezio .268/ .317/ .446
Dan Wilson .319/ .343/ .447
Dan Wilson, the catcher, has the highest OPS (on-base percentage + slugging average, perhaps the best indicator of total offensive productivity) and rbi totals of the lot. Ibanez, Aurilia, and Spiezio aren't validating their off-season contracts and everyone else seems to be having an off-year. Even Ichiro Suzuki, who Alan Schwartz describes as a player in rapid decline in his excellent and thoughtful analysis on ESPN.com today.
The starting line-up is a giant black hole right now, akin to fielding an entire team of Brad Fullmers. Worse, there's no way Bavasi could right the innumerable wrongs by mid-season. There's nothing to trade in AAA Tacoma, currently populated by a handful of career minor-leaguers and major-league rejects. And one of the oldest teams in MLB just broke a tie with the Mets to slide cleanly into 2nd place (mean age of 31 years, just behind the Yankees) with the addition of 41 year old catcher Pat Borders. The team ranks in the bottom third of all MLB teams in team ERA and almost dead last in team batting. No team not named the Mets can be this bad, but a sub-.500 finish is almost guaranteed. Poor Bob Melvin...it's going to be a long, cruel summer.
Bill Bavasi has to be the least popular guy in Seattle right now; the way things are going in his first year as GM, fans wouldn't even accept a demotion to hot dog vendor. And this is no mean feat: despite an impressive string of 90+ win seasons under his belt, outgoing GM Pat Gillick was routinely savaged for his inability to pull the trigger on deadline deals. And after two consecutive 93-69 seasons where the team failed to make the playoffs because of strong AL West competition, fans got it right by running Gillick out of town.
ESPN posted this discouraging bit a few days ago under the header "New GM Watch":
Paul DePodesta, Dodgers, 22-11, .667 [last year .525]
Dan O’Brien, Reds, 17-17, .500 [last year .426]
Bill Bavasi, Mariners, 12-22, .353 [last year .574]
To be fair, O'Brien is inheriting a team on the upswing of a rebuilding phase; the record hints that he's done a decent job of keeping the team treading water...or maybe even a little bit better considering the fire sale that occured during the last half of '03 and Austin Kearns's freak injury. I can't say enough good things about what DePodesta has done in his short tenure with the Dodgers; the turnaround owes a little to luck and everything else to his offseason moves. Bavasi, though, came in with an awful lot to work with (the Mariners are #12 in league payroll this year) and had a disastrousoffseason. He made moves to shed payroll and compete for a middle of the pack finish. You understand the temptation here: the Mariners lost Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey and Alex Rodriguez and bounced back nicely. But Bavasi's in denial...it's time, right NOW, for the Mariners to enter dealing and rebuilding mode.
I don't even know where to begin when it comes to pinpointing the locus of frustrations, though Sunday's box score is illustrative of exactly what kind of team the Mariners are: Pineiro tosses his best game of the season, scattering 5 hits over 8 innings but the team loses 2-1 with the only run coming off of a Scott Spiezio solo shot. Pineiro and Gil Meche have struggled mightly this season and the middle relief corps (outside of Eddie Guardado) is shaky, but the pitching's good enough to keep them in games. This team can not score runs, though. Take a look at the BA/ OBP/ SLG splits for the regular line-up:
Ichiro Suzuki .317/ .363/ .371
Raul Ibanez .254/ .320/ .464
E. Martinez .248/ .350/ .387
Bret Boone .248/ .287/ .426
Randy Winn .244/ .314/ .315
Rich Aurilia .240/ .290/ .298
John Olerud .246/ .364/ .331
Scott Spiezio .268/ .317/ .446
Dan Wilson .319/ .343/ .447
Dan Wilson, the catcher, has the highest OPS (on-base percentage + slugging average, perhaps the best indicator of total offensive productivity) and rbi totals of the lot. Ibanez, Aurilia, and Spiezio aren't validating their off-season contracts and everyone else seems to be having an off-year. Even Ichiro Suzuki, who Alan Schwartz describes as a player in rapid decline in his excellent and thoughtful analysis on ESPN.com today.
The starting line-up is a giant black hole right now, akin to fielding an entire team of Brad Fullmers. Worse, there's no way Bavasi could right the innumerable wrongs by mid-season. There's nothing to trade in AAA Tacoma, currently populated by a handful of career minor-leaguers and major-league rejects. And one of the oldest teams in MLB just broke a tie with the Mets to slide cleanly into 2nd place (mean age of 31 years, just behind the Yankees) with the addition of 41 year old catcher Pat Borders. The team ranks in the bottom third of all MLB teams in team ERA and almost dead last in team batting. No team not named the Mets can be this bad, but a sub-.500 finish is almost guaranteed. Poor Bob Melvin...it's going to be a long, cruel summer.
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Double trouble
Uh oh. My doppelgänger just got a call up from AAA Richmond to fill in at 2B. According to the dominant motif in 19th century German Romantic literature, very bad things will happen to both of us if I ever go to a Braves game. Those of you with a less moribund personality may prefer C.G. Jung's interpretation, wherein he discusses the opposition between the "shadow" and the "self," and suggests that the doppelgänger is merely a mirror image who embodies contradictory characteristics. My double went 1-4 with a run batted in in his Major League debut, which is not too shabby. Whereas I spent most of my day watching paint peeling. Turns out I've been the shadow all along; anyone care to lend me $5601.01 to reclaim myself/ my self?
Uh oh. My doppelgänger just got a call up from AAA Richmond to fill in at 2B. According to the dominant motif in 19th century German Romantic literature, very bad things will happen to both of us if I ever go to a Braves game. Those of you with a less moribund personality may prefer C.G. Jung's interpretation, wherein he discusses the opposition between the "shadow" and the "self," and suggests that the doppelgänger is merely a mirror image who embodies contradictory characteristics. My double went 1-4 with a run batted in in his Major League debut, which is not too shabby. Whereas I spent most of my day watching paint peeling. Turns out I've been the shadow all along; anyone care to lend me $5601.01 to reclaim myself/ my self?
Friday, May 14, 2004
Totally Looped
The Mets and the Marlins pulled off an odd switch this past off-season, with each team signing the other team's deposed closer. Armando Benitez enlisted with the Fish after losing his job with the Mets and getting traded twice at the end of '03. He has been amazingly unhittable this year: 14 saves, 1 blown save, 0.43 era and 1.00 WHIP. His fastball's back to premium velocity and he's made the most of every save opportunity. He's hella good.
Meanwhile, the Mets -- who have a recent history of spending money in the stupidest possible fashion -- inked the Marlins' never-quite-closer-of-the-future Braden Looper to a 2-year/ $6.75 million deal, looking for a stop-gap measure until Orber Moreno or Royce Ring or another talented AAA arm would be ready to step up and choke. At this writing, the Mets' record is 17-19, which is what you get when you trot out an outfield that contains Karim Garcia (no offense) and/or Shane Spencer (sorry, dude) every night. Looper has a perfect 0.00 era in 16 appeareances and 18 2/3 innings pitched, though. That looks hella good, and Looper's performing way above expectations, but he hasn't been anywhere near as valuable to his team despite the similarities in these two guys' numbers.
The chink in Benitez's ERA comes from two shaky innings, including his Marlins debut and (later) his one blown save of the season. Looper has a blown save, too -- from his first save opportunity of the season on April 9th -- but his ERA stands pat at a perfect 0.00 because he walked the tying run in and that run got charged to the guy he relieved. Hey, that's the rules. Anyway, Looper has been lights-out in every appearance since, and I'm certainly rooting for him to maintain that 0.00 era for as long as possible, but he hasn't been given nearly as many opportunities to justify his paycheck.
Looper has 6 saves in 7 opportunities, and the Mets have only created 7 save opportunities in 17 wins over 36 games. Boo. I know it's folly to suggest that the value of a closer is tied to his save total, I know it's not, but I'd like to see what happens to Looper's numbers when he's placed in more situations where he has to work to preserve the lead. Three of Looper's saves have come against les Expos; all six have come against teams with inferior records. I should note that Looper has been a more efficient pitcher than Benitez so far (tossing 15% less pitches, or an average of 3 per inning), but pitch economy doesn't matter when your team sucks. This is the best money that the Mets spent in the off-season by a longshot, but that contract couldn't go up in flames faster if Vince Coleman held a lit firecracker to it.
The Mets and the Marlins pulled off an odd switch this past off-season, with each team signing the other team's deposed closer. Armando Benitez enlisted with the Fish after losing his job with the Mets and getting traded twice at the end of '03. He has been amazingly unhittable this year: 14 saves, 1 blown save, 0.43 era and 1.00 WHIP. His fastball's back to premium velocity and he's made the most of every save opportunity. He's hella good.
Meanwhile, the Mets -- who have a recent history of spending money in the stupidest possible fashion -- inked the Marlins' never-quite-closer-of-the-future Braden Looper to a 2-year/ $6.75 million deal, looking for a stop-gap measure until Orber Moreno or Royce Ring or another talented AAA arm would be ready to step up and choke. At this writing, the Mets' record is 17-19, which is what you get when you trot out an outfield that contains Karim Garcia (no offense) and/or Shane Spencer (sorry, dude) every night. Looper has a perfect 0.00 era in 16 appeareances and 18 2/3 innings pitched, though. That looks hella good, and Looper's performing way above expectations, but he hasn't been anywhere near as valuable to his team despite the similarities in these two guys' numbers.
The chink in Benitez's ERA comes from two shaky innings, including his Marlins debut and (later) his one blown save of the season. Looper has a blown save, too -- from his first save opportunity of the season on April 9th -- but his ERA stands pat at a perfect 0.00 because he walked the tying run in and that run got charged to the guy he relieved. Hey, that's the rules. Anyway, Looper has been lights-out in every appearance since, and I'm certainly rooting for him to maintain that 0.00 era for as long as possible, but he hasn't been given nearly as many opportunities to justify his paycheck.
Looper has 6 saves in 7 opportunities, and the Mets have only created 7 save opportunities in 17 wins over 36 games. Boo. I know it's folly to suggest that the value of a closer is tied to his save total, I know it's not, but I'd like to see what happens to Looper's numbers when he's placed in more situations where he has to work to preserve the lead. Three of Looper's saves have come against les Expos; all six have come against teams with inferior records. I should note that Looper has been a more efficient pitcher than Benitez so far (tossing 15% less pitches, or an average of 3 per inning), but pitch economy doesn't matter when your team sucks. This is the best money that the Mets spent in the off-season by a longshot, but that contract couldn't go up in flames faster if Vince Coleman held a lit firecracker to it.
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Derek Bell + Sam Horn = Mark Bellhorn?
When's the last time you could, if ever, make a credible argument that a guy with a .229 average is his team's most valuable player? I'm still stifling a laugh as I write this, because that guy is journeyman second-baseman Mark Bellhorn -- but right now he's making Theo Epstein look like a genius. Or so it would seem. Here's Bellhorn's numbers since being thrust into the lead-off role:
21ab 1r 4h 1hr 1bi 7bb 9so .414 OBP .381 SLG .190 AVG
Not bad, not bad. I know it's only a week's worth of games, but look at that on-base percentage. And marvel at those walks! That has been the key for Bellhorn so far this season, who doesn't make consistent contact (hence the abysmal batting average) but is showing that he knows how to judge a pitch. Right now, he's on pace to break Ted Williams' team record for walks, which is simply astonishing. But before we all go patting Epstein on the back for the master stroke, let's take a look at what former Billy Beane acolyte Paul DePodesta and manager Jim Tracy recently engineered in Dodgertown, shifting Milton Bradley into the lead-off role while Dave Roberts (who has been very effective) rubs Ben Gay on his joints. Here's Bradley's numbers at the top of the batting order:
18ab 1r 5h 1hr 1bi 2bb 4so .350 OBP .500 SLG .278 AVG
Hey, wait a second here -- that looks pretty similar to me. Bradley has reached 1st base on balls a lot less, but he has also struck out a lot less than Bellhorn. Bradley's OBP was actually excellent last year with Cleveland; he's chasing more pitches in a different (until recently) line-up slot with L.A. Has Bellhorn been sniffing incense and consulting with Tibetan monks on the art of plate discipline? Or has Milton Bradley been equally effective in sinking battleships and creating monopolies in exactly the same role?
What Epstein and DePodesta are doing is playing the percentages and (generally speaking) penciling the guy with the absolute best possible chance of reaching 1st base into that particular spot in the line-up. It's smart, because it's pragmatic. And it's certainly anathema to the conventional wisdom of batting the fastest guy on your team in the lead-off spot, with the hope that he can get on base and then motor over to 3rd with a clean hit or a sacrifice. Because Pokey Reese is that guy on the Red Sox, and it's very clear his .283 OBP is ill-suited to the lead-off role.
They're making the move that they should be making, but the obvious seems exceptional because of how entrenched baseball managerial dogma is and how eager we are in assigning a totemic importance to the idea of the lead-off hitter. The difference between the lead-off hitter and any other guy on the team is maybe 30-50 at bats over the course of the season. So the guy batting first in the order is likely to have about 10% more trips to the plate than whomever is slotted, say, 8th.
Interestingly enough, Tony LaRussa considered a more holistic approach to dealing with this same problem a few years back by rearranging the line-up card to bat his pitcher (in the AL, substitute your team's lightest-hitting middle infielder) 8th and shifting his catcher to the bottom of the line-up, with the idea that the #9 hitter might get on base and set the table for the lead-off hitter. That experiment didn't pull the Cardinals out of their collective funk, but the basis of LaRussa's thought there was to move the automatic out (any pitcher not named Darryl Kile) to the place where it could do the least damage and use someone with a better probability of reaching base in front of the lead-off hitter should he have the opportunity to lead off the inning instead.
I think the reason the media -- outside of Boston, the city that hypes -- isn't making a bigger deal out of this is the principle of parity. What's great about what Bellhorn is doing now is that he's getting on base and tiring pitchers out by taking more pitches. Mark Bellhorn won't break Williams' team record because he's, well, Mark Bellhorn. And over the course of a full-season, Bellhorn is the best possible choice for the Sox, but he won't/wouldn't be any more effective in that role than someone like Bradley. Probably less, when you consider career numbers. Is that self-congratulatory jerk Joe Morgan correct in reminding us how "streaky" all hitters can be "when finding an individual groove"? In this case, yeah -- it's something that the stats just don't take in account. But don't let that stop you from riding the hot hand, Theo.
When's the last time you could, if ever, make a credible argument that a guy with a .229 average is his team's most valuable player? I'm still stifling a laugh as I write this, because that guy is journeyman second-baseman Mark Bellhorn -- but right now he's making Theo Epstein look like a genius. Or so it would seem. Here's Bellhorn's numbers since being thrust into the lead-off role:
21ab 1r 4h 1hr 1bi 7bb 9so .414 OBP .381 SLG .190 AVG
Not bad, not bad. I know it's only a week's worth of games, but look at that on-base percentage. And marvel at those walks! That has been the key for Bellhorn so far this season, who doesn't make consistent contact (hence the abysmal batting average) but is showing that he knows how to judge a pitch. Right now, he's on pace to break Ted Williams' team record for walks, which is simply astonishing. But before we all go patting Epstein on the back for the master stroke, let's take a look at what former Billy Beane acolyte Paul DePodesta and manager Jim Tracy recently engineered in Dodgertown, shifting Milton Bradley into the lead-off role while Dave Roberts (who has been very effective) rubs Ben Gay on his joints. Here's Bradley's numbers at the top of the batting order:
18ab 1r 5h 1hr 1bi 2bb 4so .350 OBP .500 SLG .278 AVG
Hey, wait a second here -- that looks pretty similar to me. Bradley has reached 1st base on balls a lot less, but he has also struck out a lot less than Bellhorn. Bradley's OBP was actually excellent last year with Cleveland; he's chasing more pitches in a different (until recently) line-up slot with L.A. Has Bellhorn been sniffing incense and consulting with Tibetan monks on the art of plate discipline? Or has Milton Bradley been equally effective in sinking battleships and creating monopolies in exactly the same role?
What Epstein and DePodesta are doing is playing the percentages and (generally speaking) penciling the guy with the absolute best possible chance of reaching 1st base into that particular spot in the line-up. It's smart, because it's pragmatic. And it's certainly anathema to the conventional wisdom of batting the fastest guy on your team in the lead-off spot, with the hope that he can get on base and then motor over to 3rd with a clean hit or a sacrifice. Because Pokey Reese is that guy on the Red Sox, and it's very clear his .283 OBP is ill-suited to the lead-off role.
They're making the move that they should be making, but the obvious seems exceptional because of how entrenched baseball managerial dogma is and how eager we are in assigning a totemic importance to the idea of the lead-off hitter. The difference between the lead-off hitter and any other guy on the team is maybe 30-50 at bats over the course of the season. So the guy batting first in the order is likely to have about 10% more trips to the plate than whomever is slotted, say, 8th.
Interestingly enough, Tony LaRussa considered a more holistic approach to dealing with this same problem a few years back by rearranging the line-up card to bat his pitcher (in the AL, substitute your team's lightest-hitting middle infielder) 8th and shifting his catcher to the bottom of the line-up, with the idea that the #9 hitter might get on base and set the table for the lead-off hitter. That experiment didn't pull the Cardinals out of their collective funk, but the basis of LaRussa's thought there was to move the automatic out (any pitcher not named Darryl Kile) to the place where it could do the least damage and use someone with a better probability of reaching base in front of the lead-off hitter should he have the opportunity to lead off the inning instead.
I think the reason the media -- outside of Boston, the city that hypes -- isn't making a bigger deal out of this is the principle of parity. What's great about what Bellhorn is doing now is that he's getting on base and tiring pitchers out by taking more pitches. Mark Bellhorn won't break Williams' team record because he's, well, Mark Bellhorn. And over the course of a full-season, Bellhorn is the best possible choice for the Sox, but he won't/wouldn't be any more effective in that role than someone like Bradley. Probably less, when you consider career numbers. Is that self-congratulatory jerk Joe Morgan correct in reminding us how "streaky" all hitters can be "when finding an individual groove"? In this case, yeah -- it's something that the stats just don't take in account. But don't let that stop you from riding the hot hand, Theo.
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Golden (glove) showers
If a kid who fucks apple pies can graduate high school, achieve normalcy in college, settle down with a loving woman who just happens to enjoy sticking strange things in her vagina and still capture America's hearts, than no one should be outraged over the fact that Cubs OF Moises Alou has been pulling out his dinkus and urinating on his own hands as a strengthening regimen. As an alternative to wearing batting gloves. Sure, sure, folk medicine is full of strange uses of everyday products like, um, butter and toothpaste. And the susperstituous baseball mind is a well-documented phenomenon. Still, I don't care if the guy's batting near .300 over his career; to quote this kid in my high school who described what happened when a rat accidentally fell into a deep fryer at the fast-food restaurant he worked at, it's just nasty. I wouldn't do this in a box, wearing socks or with a fox -- I wouldn't even do it in a post-apocalyptic future where my very survival depended on it. Pity the poor president who might have to shake this guy's hand if the Cubs win the World Series this year.
If a kid who fucks apple pies can graduate high school, achieve normalcy in college, settle down with a loving woman who just happens to enjoy sticking strange things in her vagina and still capture America's hearts, than no one should be outraged over the fact that Cubs OF Moises Alou has been pulling out his dinkus and urinating on his own hands as a strengthening regimen. As an alternative to wearing batting gloves. Sure, sure, folk medicine is full of strange uses of everyday products like, um, butter and toothpaste. And the susperstituous baseball mind is a well-documented phenomenon. Still, I don't care if the guy's batting near .300 over his career; to quote this kid in my high school who described what happened when a rat accidentally fell into a deep fryer at the fast-food restaurant he worked at, it's just nasty. I wouldn't do this in a box, wearing socks or with a fox -- I wouldn't even do it in a post-apocalyptic future where my very survival depended on it. Pity the poor president who might have to shake this guy's hand if the Cubs win the World Series this year.
Box score of the new millennium
Yankees cast-off/ back-end rotation filler Adrian Hernandez carried a no-hitter through 4 1/3 innings in yesterday's Brewers-Mets game. Matt Kinney and Luis Vizcaino followed up by scattering 2 hits over a combined 3 2/3 innings, before closer Danny Kolb slammed the door shut with a flawless, seven-pitch 9th. End result: the Brewers' four pitchers combine forces on a 2-hitter (topping the Mets 6-4) in one of the strangest games I've seen since Andy Hawkins tossed a no-hitter in a 4-0 loss.
Hernandez's line for the night ensured an extended holiday in middle relief:
4 1/3 IP 0h 3r 2er 7bb 4k 0 hr 80-34 pc-st
Kinney (who got the win) and Vizcaino were a bit more effective in preserving the lead, because the opposing starter -- rookie Tyler Yates -- also got lit up in five innings of work. It's worth noting, however, that each of the five pitchers the Mets trotted out (even Yates) threw a greater percentage of strikes. And when the dust settled, the Hernandez-Kinney-Vizcaino trinity had more walks (9) than Ks (8). The non-earned run in Hernandez's line came when third-baseman Wes Helms bobbled a grounder in the 4th inning, but still -- the Gods of Baseball must've been attending to other business to let the Brewers get away with a win that ugly.
Yankees cast-off/ back-end rotation filler Adrian Hernandez carried a no-hitter through 4 1/3 innings in yesterday's Brewers-Mets game. Matt Kinney and Luis Vizcaino followed up by scattering 2 hits over a combined 3 2/3 innings, before closer Danny Kolb slammed the door shut with a flawless, seven-pitch 9th. End result: the Brewers' four pitchers combine forces on a 2-hitter (topping the Mets 6-4) in one of the strangest games I've seen since Andy Hawkins tossed a no-hitter in a 4-0 loss.
Hernandez's line for the night ensured an extended holiday in middle relief:
4 1/3 IP 0h 3r 2er 7bb 4k 0 hr 80-34 pc-st
Kinney (who got the win) and Vizcaino were a bit more effective in preserving the lead, because the opposing starter -- rookie Tyler Yates -- also got lit up in five innings of work. It's worth noting, however, that each of the five pitchers the Mets trotted out (even Yates) threw a greater percentage of strikes. And when the dust settled, the Hernandez-Kinney-Vizcaino trinity had more walks (9) than Ks (8). The non-earned run in Hernandez's line came when third-baseman Wes Helms bobbled a grounder in the 4th inning, but still -- the Gods of Baseball must've been attending to other business to let the Brewers get away with a win that ugly.
Friday, May 07, 2004
Sound and Fury
So the proposed marketing deal between MLB and Sony to put small red-and-yellow webbing logos on the bases during the weekend of June 11-13 has fallen through. That was fast -- fast enough that Commissioner Bud Selig had already put the kibbosh on the deal before all of the pundits even had time to formulate proper responses. Eric Neel gave it a half-hearted go on ESPN, and while I generally love his writing, you could tell that his heart wasn't really in it: he advocates forming a big posse and taking it to the streets as a demonstration of displeasure with MLB's avarice. Well, shit, they were practically flipping cars over and burning down businesses in Detroit when the news was announced -- no one needs an excuse for a riot.
The response that Rob Neyer formulated on the subject disappointed me a little, too. Neyer's brutal as ever in dismantling MLB President Bob DuPuy's preposterous claim that outfield signage/ advertising enhances the experience of watching a ballgame, but his basic message is that the message MLB is sending with a money grab is damaging to the kids. But Rob, your son doesn't care about the intersection of commerce and ethics as it relates to MLB -- he just wants to see Spider-Man in five weeks. The children of America would be thrilled to see their favorite players dress up like Spider-Man for a weekend and horse around. Don't bring the kids into this; that old Roger Angell "I pine for the days when the pure-hearted game of baseball was played on the sandlots" saw is just boring.
My main man Gobo thinks Ralph Nader and the rest are making too big of a deal about nothing, though: "I just don't care if there are ads on the bases, or on the field, or on the players' jerseys, or whatever. It's all gonna happen eventually. I'd much rather have the team owners (in any sport) trying to squeeze out extra money that way than by adding playoff rounds or moving teams. Those things actually compromise the game, the ads just look silly until we get used to them. These things are much more common in Europe and especially Japan, where teams are named after sponsoring companies rather than cities."
And he's sort of right -- Europeans are more inured to the idea of corporate sponsorship, because advertising is everywhere. I watched shampoo commercials in the middle of a tram in Amsterdam and looked around to see if anyone else was irritated by this Orwellian bombardment -- they weren't. There is a growing consciousness to this sort of thing, though, if you consider the movement to scale back on advertising in the European stock car circuit. The most analogous example here in the States is, well, NASCAR and Richard Petty's STP logo is a distant blur from the nosebleed seats. The root of Gobo's argument is that it's ok as long as MLB isn't sticking it to the fans.
But MLB is already all about sticking it to the fans, so it's a reductive argument. I will (somewhat begrudgingly) acknowledge that licensing and marketing deals are a necessity to keep the sport afloat. I'm even ok with the idea of corporate branding and stadium naming rights, because it's stealth marketing. But there's a huge, huge disconnect between what happens off and on the field within the microcosm of the professional sports area -- you could (with some effort) tune out the advertising that's all around you and simply concentrate on what's happening on the field, though that's an impossibility if your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has left his sticky fingers all over 1st, 2nd and 3rd base. It's all about where you choose to draw your line in the sand. This is the same reason why I don't necessarily object to crass product placements in movies, but why I will steadfastly refuse to go to a movie theater that shows commercials before the previews. I don't like the idea of paying 20 bucks to see a game and having to be subjected to MLB teams padding their coffers in such an overt and repellent way. It's a personal choice, but that's my line.
So the proposed marketing deal between MLB and Sony to put small red-and-yellow webbing logos on the bases during the weekend of June 11-13 has fallen through. That was fast -- fast enough that Commissioner Bud Selig had already put the kibbosh on the deal before all of the pundits even had time to formulate proper responses. Eric Neel gave it a half-hearted go on ESPN, and while I generally love his writing, you could tell that his heart wasn't really in it: he advocates forming a big posse and taking it to the streets as a demonstration of displeasure with MLB's avarice. Well, shit, they were practically flipping cars over and burning down businesses in Detroit when the news was announced -- no one needs an excuse for a riot.
The response that Rob Neyer formulated on the subject disappointed me a little, too. Neyer's brutal as ever in dismantling MLB President Bob DuPuy's preposterous claim that outfield signage/ advertising enhances the experience of watching a ballgame, but his basic message is that the message MLB is sending with a money grab is damaging to the kids. But Rob, your son doesn't care about the intersection of commerce and ethics as it relates to MLB -- he just wants to see Spider-Man in five weeks. The children of America would be thrilled to see their favorite players dress up like Spider-Man for a weekend and horse around. Don't bring the kids into this; that old Roger Angell "I pine for the days when the pure-hearted game of baseball was played on the sandlots" saw is just boring.
My main man Gobo thinks Ralph Nader and the rest are making too big of a deal about nothing, though: "I just don't care if there are ads on the bases, or on the field, or on the players' jerseys, or whatever. It's all gonna happen eventually. I'd much rather have the team owners (in any sport) trying to squeeze out extra money that way than by adding playoff rounds or moving teams. Those things actually compromise the game, the ads just look silly until we get used to them. These things are much more common in Europe and especially Japan, where teams are named after sponsoring companies rather than cities."
And he's sort of right -- Europeans are more inured to the idea of corporate sponsorship, because advertising is everywhere. I watched shampoo commercials in the middle of a tram in Amsterdam and looked around to see if anyone else was irritated by this Orwellian bombardment -- they weren't. There is a growing consciousness to this sort of thing, though, if you consider the movement to scale back on advertising in the European stock car circuit. The most analogous example here in the States is, well, NASCAR and Richard Petty's STP logo is a distant blur from the nosebleed seats. The root of Gobo's argument is that it's ok as long as MLB isn't sticking it to the fans.
But MLB is already all about sticking it to the fans, so it's a reductive argument. I will (somewhat begrudgingly) acknowledge that licensing and marketing deals are a necessity to keep the sport afloat. I'm even ok with the idea of corporate branding and stadium naming rights, because it's stealth marketing. But there's a huge, huge disconnect between what happens off and on the field within the microcosm of the professional sports area -- you could (with some effort) tune out the advertising that's all around you and simply concentrate on what's happening on the field, though that's an impossibility if your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has left his sticky fingers all over 1st, 2nd and 3rd base. It's all about where you choose to draw your line in the sand. This is the same reason why I don't necessarily object to crass product placements in movies, but why I will steadfastly refuse to go to a movie theater that shows commercials before the previews. I don't like the idea of paying 20 bucks to see a game and having to be subjected to MLB teams padding their coffers in such an overt and repellent way. It's a personal choice, but that's my line.
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Rickey Henderson on Rickey Henderson being Rickey Henderson
Rickey's back. As reported on ESPN/ CNNSi on Sunday, 45 year old OF Rickey Henderson signed a contract with the Newark Bears of the Atlantic League, the same team that donated a roster spot last season before a mid-season call-up with the offense-starved Dodgers. This is great news for comedian David Cross, who now gets a renewed lease on one of the funnier bits from his double-CD concert album Shut Up, You Fucking Baby!, an indictment of Rickey Henderson's solipsistic need to refer to himself in the third person at all times:
"Well, you know, Rickey Henderson needs to do what’s best for Rickey Henderson. If Rickey Henderson needs to tape his bat up higher to be the best Rickey Henderson that Rickey Henderson can be, then Rickey Henderson is going to tape his bat up higher in a way that Rickey Henderson can perceive as Rickey Henderson can to be the best Rickey Henderson that Rickey Henderson can or will or wants to be..."
This is great news, as well, for the Newark Bears, an indipendent minor league team that has tendered contracts to Jose Canseco and his profoundly untalented brother Ozzie and Jose "Lima Time" Lima. Indipendent leagues with unaffiliated teams like the Atlantic and the Northern (more on this in a second) don't receive funding of any sort from MLB or its affiliated teams; these leagues have served as audition stages for the majors in the past (Kerry Lightenberg being one such example), but traditionally exist as a home for past-prime former MLBers and/or prospects in loathesome contract disputes (J.D. Drew being the best example here). Without having the cache of next-generation MLB stars drawing fans, how better to cram butts in seats than sign a first-ballot Hall of Famer like Henderson or someone with some sort of magnetizing name recognition?
This is bad news for Rickey Henderson, because Rickey Henderson clearly wants to be the best Rickey Henderson that Rickey Henderson can be on a Major League team. And going by his stats since his last productive season with the Mets in 1999 (at the ripe age of 40), the number of takers in the pool is dwindling. The Mariners, the Red Sox, the Padres and the Dodgers won't get fooled again, and Henderson would be wasting a bench spot on every other team.
Rickey's speed has dwindled and his ability to make consistent contact is down. In 1050 abs since reaching age 40, his average is barely above the Mendoza line and his OBP dipped to .321 last season. I don't doubt that Rickey Henderson would look splendid in some MLB team's uniform in 2004 and might manage some spectacular plays, and it's not like Fred McGriff, Andres Galarraga or Julio Franco are getting any younger, but those guys still have the ability to hit around .300. It doesn't even look like Rickey could do a good job coming off the bench at this point. Those certainly aren't the kind of numbers you'd want from a pinch-hit specialist, and most NL teams would rather not carry someone to act exclusively as a pinch-runner.
One interesting thing to note about Rickey Henderson that Rickey Henderson would like you to know about Rickey Henderson, is that he's the first baseball player to legitimately play in four different decades, since his career began in 1979 and has continued well into the 2000s. Minnie Minoso is the only other guy who can lay claim to such a glorious thing, as he played games in five different decades, even if his career really only spanned three and fruitcake White Sox owner Bill Veeck had to pull him out of mothballs in 1976 (at age 53!) and 1980 (at age 57!) to do so. But if someone like Mike Veeck -- who shares his daddy's talent for shameless promotion -- gets his hands on a Major League team in, say, 2010 -- Rickey might get a chance to do the same.
But it's mainly bad news for Rickey Henderson because the quest for one more summer catch is delaying his sure-fire induction into the Hall of Fame. Which is the only place we want to see him right now. Sign up for the AARP card and hang up the spikes, old man -- I know I'm bracing myself for what could be the greatest induction speech ever.
Rickey's back. As reported on ESPN/ CNNSi on Sunday, 45 year old OF Rickey Henderson signed a contract with the Newark Bears of the Atlantic League, the same team that donated a roster spot last season before a mid-season call-up with the offense-starved Dodgers. This is great news for comedian David Cross, who now gets a renewed lease on one of the funnier bits from his double-CD concert album Shut Up, You Fucking Baby!, an indictment of Rickey Henderson's solipsistic need to refer to himself in the third person at all times:
"Well, you know, Rickey Henderson needs to do what’s best for Rickey Henderson. If Rickey Henderson needs to tape his bat up higher to be the best Rickey Henderson that Rickey Henderson can be, then Rickey Henderson is going to tape his bat up higher in a way that Rickey Henderson can perceive as Rickey Henderson can to be the best Rickey Henderson that Rickey Henderson can or will or wants to be..."
This is great news, as well, for the Newark Bears, an indipendent minor league team that has tendered contracts to Jose Canseco and his profoundly untalented brother Ozzie and Jose "Lima Time" Lima. Indipendent leagues with unaffiliated teams like the Atlantic and the Northern (more on this in a second) don't receive funding of any sort from MLB or its affiliated teams; these leagues have served as audition stages for the majors in the past (Kerry Lightenberg being one such example), but traditionally exist as a home for past-prime former MLBers and/or prospects in loathesome contract disputes (J.D. Drew being the best example here). Without having the cache of next-generation MLB stars drawing fans, how better to cram butts in seats than sign a first-ballot Hall of Famer like Henderson or someone with some sort of magnetizing name recognition?
This is bad news for Rickey Henderson, because Rickey Henderson clearly wants to be the best Rickey Henderson that Rickey Henderson can be on a Major League team. And going by his stats since his last productive season with the Mets in 1999 (at the ripe age of 40), the number of takers in the pool is dwindling. The Mariners, the Red Sox, the Padres and the Dodgers won't get fooled again, and Henderson would be wasting a bench spot on every other team.
Rickey's speed has dwindled and his ability to make consistent contact is down. In 1050 abs since reaching age 40, his average is barely above the Mendoza line and his OBP dipped to .321 last season. I don't doubt that Rickey Henderson would look splendid in some MLB team's uniform in 2004 and might manage some spectacular plays, and it's not like Fred McGriff, Andres Galarraga or Julio Franco are getting any younger, but those guys still have the ability to hit around .300. It doesn't even look like Rickey could do a good job coming off the bench at this point. Those certainly aren't the kind of numbers you'd want from a pinch-hit specialist, and most NL teams would rather not carry someone to act exclusively as a pinch-runner.
One interesting thing to note about Rickey Henderson that Rickey Henderson would like you to know about Rickey Henderson, is that he's the first baseball player to legitimately play in four different decades, since his career began in 1979 and has continued well into the 2000s. Minnie Minoso is the only other guy who can lay claim to such a glorious thing, as he played games in five different decades, even if his career really only spanned three and fruitcake White Sox owner Bill Veeck had to pull him out of mothballs in 1976 (at age 53!) and 1980 (at age 57!) to do so. But if someone like Mike Veeck -- who shares his daddy's talent for shameless promotion -- gets his hands on a Major League team in, say, 2010 -- Rickey might get a chance to do the same.
But it's mainly bad news for Rickey Henderson because the quest for one more summer catch is delaying his sure-fire induction into the Hall of Fame. Which is the only place we want to see him right now. Sign up for the AARP card and hang up the spikes, old man -- I know I'm bracing myself for what could be the greatest induction speech ever.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
An out is an out except when it's not an out
I'm down with OBP and OPS and Win Shares. Sometimes I'm even down with OPP. But I'm having the damnest time trying to wrap my head around POP (or Productive Out Percentage), a psuedo-sabermetric formula that Buster Olney discusses in a recent issue of ESPN the Magazine. ESPN and Elias Sports Bureau -- who collaborated on the metric -- define a "productive out" as such:
1) A baserunner advances with the first out of an inning.
2) A pitcher sacrifices with one out.
3) A baserunner is driven home with the second out of an inning.
And "POP" is a ratio of "productive" outs to total possible "productive" outs, i.e. if 3 of a player's 10 outs are deemed "productive" by the above standard, his POP is .300.
Ok, but what the fuck does this mean? Olney goes on to rank the top six and bottom six teams in POP to illustrate his thesis -- the Tigers, Diamonbacks, and Pirates are at the top of the list above .400, while the Yankees, Red Sox and Oakland As are at the bottom of the list. Oakland's cumulative POP appears to be pretty galling at .137, until you remember that Oakland:
a) doesn't favor bunts, stolen bases or the hit-and-run
b) compensates by stressing plate discipline and walks and OBP, and
c) has averaged 100 wins per season over the last three seasons with this "bias"
Last I checked, the Yankees and Red Sox have won a few games with their POP-allergic methods, because, oh yeah -- they actually get people on base. Ha ha ha, this makes absolutely no sense as a standard for efficiency/ productivity -- even with as little as I know about statistics -- because it's based around such a small, quirky sample size. Olney writes that "Through Monday, the Tigers led the majors in POP, at .430, with 37 productive outs among 86 made in those situations." So what happens when you base this against a team with, say, 70 or 100 such situations? Is there a quantitative way of defining which team is doing a better job? Maybe in these particular situations, but it's not a metric that considers what a player/team is doing in every at-bat or inning pitched. Ergo, I hate it.
I'm down with OBP and OPS and Win Shares. Sometimes I'm even down with OPP. But I'm having the damnest time trying to wrap my head around POP (or Productive Out Percentage), a psuedo-sabermetric formula that Buster Olney discusses in a recent issue of ESPN the Magazine. ESPN and Elias Sports Bureau -- who collaborated on the metric -- define a "productive out" as such:
1) A baserunner advances with the first out of an inning.
2) A pitcher sacrifices with one out.
3) A baserunner is driven home with the second out of an inning.
And "POP" is a ratio of "productive" outs to total possible "productive" outs, i.e. if 3 of a player's 10 outs are deemed "productive" by the above standard, his POP is .300.
Ok, but what the fuck does this mean? Olney goes on to rank the top six and bottom six teams in POP to illustrate his thesis -- the Tigers, Diamonbacks, and Pirates are at the top of the list above .400, while the Yankees, Red Sox and Oakland As are at the bottom of the list. Oakland's cumulative POP appears to be pretty galling at .137, until you remember that Oakland:
a) doesn't favor bunts, stolen bases or the hit-and-run
b) compensates by stressing plate discipline and walks and OBP, and
c) has averaged 100 wins per season over the last three seasons with this "bias"
Last I checked, the Yankees and Red Sox have won a few games with their POP-allergic methods, because, oh yeah -- they actually get people on base. Ha ha ha, this makes absolutely no sense as a standard for efficiency/ productivity -- even with as little as I know about statistics -- because it's based around such a small, quirky sample size. Olney writes that "Through Monday, the Tigers led the majors in POP, at .430, with 37 productive outs among 86 made in those situations." So what happens when you base this against a team with, say, 70 or 100 such situations? Is there a quantitative way of defining which team is doing a better job? Maybe in these particular situations, but it's not a metric that considers what a player/team is doing in every at-bat or inning pitched. Ergo, I hate it.
Saturday, May 01, 2004
You can do it!
"I'd bet on Rick Ankiel," remarked Tony LaRussa in an ESPN interview during spring training, and I'm inclined to trust him. I'm not racing to pull out my wallet, mind you, but LaRussa's one of those GMs (Dusty Baker and Art Howe, I'm also looking at you) who gets by further on intuition than anyone should. Not sure what's making LaRussa's spider-sense all tingly about Ankiel: as of this writing, he's been out of the major leagues for three years and he won't throw a pitch until at least August after reconstructive elbow surgery. That's sorta been the drill with Ankiel : surgery, followed by racing to come back too quickly, followed by injury relapse, ad infinitum. This time will be the real test. No really, this time it's for real; I think it all hinges on what happens in 2005. After a meltdown in his first six starts of the 2001 season, Ankiel has been all kinds of awful. He finished 2001 out by getting demoted from AAA, missed all of 2002, sucked it up in AA at the beginning of the 2003 and then missed the rest due to surgery. I can't even think of a good precedent for Ankiel's struggles, aside from the obvious Steve Blass-Mark Wohlers points of comparison. But there's at least two things that won't make LaRussa look like a fool: Ankiel's fastball is nasty, and with a lot of strengthening, he'll probably recover that velocity and might make it as a 7th or 8th inning specialist. Oh, and the fact that Todd Van Poppel, another mega-hyped prospect who has seen his share of ups and downs boasts a career ERA a full point over league average and has already qualified for his major-league pension. With no amazing pitching prospects in the wings, it's about all the Cardinals have to pin their hopes on.
"I'd bet on Rick Ankiel," remarked Tony LaRussa in an ESPN interview during spring training, and I'm inclined to trust him. I'm not racing to pull out my wallet, mind you, but LaRussa's one of those GMs (Dusty Baker and Art Howe, I'm also looking at you) who gets by further on intuition than anyone should. Not sure what's making LaRussa's spider-sense all tingly about Ankiel: as of this writing, he's been out of the major leagues for three years and he won't throw a pitch until at least August after reconstructive elbow surgery. That's sorta been the drill with Ankiel : surgery, followed by racing to come back too quickly, followed by injury relapse, ad infinitum. This time will be the real test. No really, this time it's for real; I think it all hinges on what happens in 2005. After a meltdown in his first six starts of the 2001 season, Ankiel has been all kinds of awful. He finished 2001 out by getting demoted from AAA, missed all of 2002, sucked it up in AA at the beginning of the 2003 and then missed the rest due to surgery. I can't even think of a good precedent for Ankiel's struggles, aside from the obvious Steve Blass-Mark Wohlers points of comparison. But there's at least two things that won't make LaRussa look like a fool: Ankiel's fastball is nasty, and with a lot of strengthening, he'll probably recover that velocity and might make it as a 7th or 8th inning specialist. Oh, and the fact that Todd Van Poppel, another mega-hyped prospect who has seen his share of ups and downs boasts a career ERA a full point over league average and has already qualified for his major-league pension. With no amazing pitching prospects in the wings, it's about all the Cardinals have to pin their hopes on.
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