25 September 2009

The Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild Card

Woe is us. Peter Gammons has spoken, and when he speaketh, the Lords of Baseball doth listen.

Let's stipulate that Gammons is a great reporter, respected and beloved across the sport and the media. But he has proposed such a terrifically bad idea it has got to be killed, bludgeoned to death with logic. I volunteer with the club.

Gammons, like the rest of Baseball Nation, is underwhelmed by this year's playoff races and disheartened by the way football has shoved the national pastime into the shadows. The result is a jerking of the knee that will expedite the sport's path to irrelevance, not forestall it. He suggests that baseball add yet another playoff round just for the Wild Cards.

Oy. Caramba. Yeesh. Take your pick.

Here's the fundamental misconception people have about playoff races. They think that making more teams eligible for the playoffs increases the number of playoff races. It categorically does not. The race is only around the last qualifying spot, regardless of whether two teams qualify, or 20 teams do.

The real difference is that when only the two best teams qualify, the battle is fierce and the consequences momentous. When 20 teams qualify, the contestants are feeble and the prize is simply a short postponement of their ignominy.

Take this year as an example. There's one wild card race -- in the NL, among Colorado, SF, Atlanta and Florida. Adding another wild card would do nothing in the AL, where Texas is the clear next best team, and nothing in the NL, where Colorado would be a lock and the three teams chasing them would be vying for the next spot. It's a wash.

That doesn't account for the additional downside of the extra playoff round -- putting aside the scheduling headaches involved. A team like the Red Sox, the second or third best team in the league, would be severely disadvantaged, particularly with respect to the significantly inferior Tigers/Twins.

Suppose instead, we returned to the old way -- two divisions, one playoff round per league. The Yankees-Red Sox tilt this weekend would matter (a little). Better yet, the Phillies and Cardinals would be waging holy war for the Eastern Division title, with everything at stake. The victor would be four wins from the World Series; the loser is done. What we have instead is each team, a month before season's end, arranging its playoff roster and hotel room assignments.

There is a direct and inverse relationship between the importance of the regular season and the number of teams in the playoffs. Certainly more playoff slots allows more teams to feel that they can contend, particularly in a sport like baseball where any team can take three of five against another. But when the fifth best team is given a nearly equal chance to claim the title in a handful of games over the first and second best, what was the point of the 162 contests that preceded them?

Does baseball really want to be like the NBA and NHL, where they play 80-game seasons for no apparent reason? In the NBA, 16 teams -- many of them godawful -- make the playoffs, but only four of them have any realistic hope of raising the trophy. In hockey the regular season is so utterly irrelevant that the top regular season team HAS NEVER won the Stanley Cup since they went to the 16-team format.

The Wild Card has added a degree of hope to half the teams in baseball and has detracted a little from the playoffs and World Series. We can live with the tradeoff. Adding lesser teams to the mix adds no more hope, but further cheapens the championship. Bud, this time, don't listen to Gammons.
b

20 September 2009

I Don't Believe What I Just Saw!

I've covered the MVP races and the AL Cy Young, but the NL Cy Young is a whole other kettle of fish. That's because Tim Lincecum and Chris Carpenter are in a virtual dead heat, with Dan Haren, pitching in the thin desert air, hot on their heels. I'll take that one up after the season.

Most of the comments on these posts come off-blog, but this one is worth addressing. Mark from New York asks, "if on-base percentage is so superior to batting average, why do you often reference a player's batting average?"

The traditional measures -- triple crown stats for hitters, W-L and ERA for starting pitchers and saves for relievers -- run the gamut from virtually meaningless (RBI, pitcher wins) to pretty illuminating (ERA). Home runs and batting average are somewhere in between and suffer from the same weakness: they propose to measure things that are more fully measured in another way.

Home runs tell us something about a hitter's power, but they don't account for doubles and triples, which slugging average does. Batting average gives us a glimpse of a player's out-avoiding ability, but not as complete a view as on-base percentage, which includes walks and HBP.

So here's how batting average is important: there is no way to hit .375 and not be a good on-base guy. Even a free swinger who accepts only the occasional free pass grudgingly is going to sport a nifty OBP if he's batting .375, and it's virtually impossible to hit .375 without being a selective hitter.

Conversely, no .213 hitter would make a productive lead-off batter, even if he collects walks like they're pennies. OBP is largely dependent on batting average, so I often use the BA shorthand to denote a player's ability to reach base safely.

RBIs are different. A bad hitter can collect 80 RBI if he plays a lot and bats in the middle of a prodigious order. It happens all the time. David Ortiz (.233/.325/.447) has 84 RBI already. Brandon Inge, who I don't believe has hit safely the entire second half of the season, is now at .235/.322/.424, but with 76 RBI. It's been a miserable year for Jimmy Rollins (.247/.291/.414), but he's knocked in 71. There are better examples from previous years, but you get the point. RBIs are a stew of hitting and opportunity, and if you gets lots of opportunities, you don't need much hitting.

A great example on the other side of the coin is Kirk Gibson's magical 1988 for the Dodgers. The league MVP that year (one of the most astute selections ever by the writers, in my opinion), Gibson hit .290/.377/.483, stole 31 of 35 bases and played a spectacular left field in a ball park that didn't give up hits without a fight. He paced his team in homers, doubles, walks, HBP, runs and of course OBP and SA. He also led the league in intentional walks, which tells you something about how other teams feared him.

And he knocked in 76 runs. Was Gibson not clutch? Did you not watch the ninth inning of Game 1 of the World Series that year, or did you just not believe what you just saw? Gibson was the acknowledged leader of the team, the hardscrabble Mr. Hustle who was unfazed by the situation or the size of the human being, or the wall, that was bearing down on him.

No, Gibson knocked in 76 runs because no one was ever on base when he came to bat. The team won with pitching, defense, and Gibson, posting a putrid team batting line of .248/.305/.352 . Most of Gibby's 25 long balls were solo shots because leadoff speedster Steve Sax and centerfielder John Shelby were busy making outs 68% of the time. We know Gibson had a great year, no thanks to RBIs.
b

19 September 2009

What Was Mussolini's Lifetime ERA?

What do these questions have in common:

What is the municipal budget of Lake Wobegon?
Who killed Paul McCartney?
What did Pee Wee Herman know and when did he know it?
How much is the square root of your grandmother?
Does Zack Grienke have enough wins to deserve the American League Cy Y0ung award?

The answer: they're irrelevant.

Greinke has been the best pitcher in the AL this year by the length of Curt Schilling's ego. Pitching in front of the retread defense of the Kansas City Royals, Greinke has thrown 210 innings of a 2.52 RA, better by a half run than anyone else. He's second in the circuit with 224 strikeouts and second in K/BB ratio with a mere 44 free passes. His austerity with long balls -- just 11 -- is by far the standard in the AL, as is his WHIP of 1.06. (Home runs are relatively hard to come by in Kauffman Stadium, Greinke's home park, but it's densely populated with doubles and triples. The park effect explains a nominal percentage of his superiority.)

The statheads say that Felix Hernandez's superb performance this year has saved the Mariners 68 runs compared to an average fifth starter. Roy Halladay has saved the Jays 59 runs. CC Sabathia's been worth 56. Justin Verlander, 54. Impressive, all.

Greinke: 80 runs. Attention those of you mistrusted with the vote for this award: 80 is a lot more than 68. It's a lot more than 59 and a lot more than 56 or 54.

It's also a whole lotta more than 26. That's Mariano Rivera's savings. Now, Rivera is theoretically saving runs with the game hanging in the balance, though it's debatable how true that is with a three-run lead in the 9th. Nonetheless, that's such a mammoth difference as to repudiate any vote for him over Greinke.

In short, there's really no credible argument for anyone else. But some sportswriters will demur based on Greinke's low win total. Greinke's 14-8 record pales compared to Sabatha's (17-7), Hernandez's (16-5), Verlander's (16-8) and even Jered Weaver's (15-6, with an ERA over four). Here's the problem with this argument: it's got nothing to do with anything.

That Zack's team can't figure out a way to win after he shuts down the opposition on two runs over seven frames isn't his problem. He's not responsible for the ineptitude of the relievers who follow him or the emptiness of the batting order behind him. Conversely, CC Sabathia deserves no credit for a 6-5 lead provided by Murderers' Row and clamped shut by Rivera.

The Cy Young rewards a simple proposition: the best pitcher in the league that year. The only credible answer in the AL this year is Zack Grienke. Anyone who votes otherwise should have his voting privilege revoked.
b

18 September 2009

Dead Horse Beating Zone

As the Twins and Tigers begin a weekend duel with an incipient division race in the balance, it's a good time to address the AL MVP race.

There is no AL MVP race. It is not a subject for rational debate among those who know what they are looking at. Minnesota catcher Joe Mauer is not just the best player in the Junior Circuit this year, he's knocking on history's door. Should he maintain his .374 batting average, it will go down as the highest ever by a backstop. Should he maintain his .441 OBP and .610 SA, the real debate will be whether Mauer or Mike Piazza owns the greatest offensive season produced out of a squat. It's worth noting that while Piazza couldn't throw out a slug running uphill through molasses, Mauer is an above-average defensive player.

The pages, speakers and screens have certainly featured homages to the candidacies of Mark Teixeira, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and others. Each has his strengths, but stands in Joe Mauer's shadow this year. (Future readers, if there are such things, may very well note that that sentence includes the names of four Hall of Famers.)

Rivera is the greatest of all time, has whiffed more than a batter an inning, sports a nifty 1.66 ERA and has blown all of one save. But even a season of perfect games isn't MVP material when you only pitch 60 innings, or four percent of your team's games. Let Rivera record three-inning saves, then we'll talk.

Teixeira has the pedigree that people who know nothing about baseball (i.e., sportswriters and yakkers) worship above all else: he collects RBIs for the league's best team. Beyond that, his .289/.378/.543 pales next to Mauer's. And for all his advantage as a home run hitter, Tex has outslugged Mauer 35-27 in 120 extra plate appearances. Throw in the yawning chasm between Mauer's accomplishments at the most difficult defensive position and Teixeira's at the easiest and, well, you're not a sportswriter, so you don't need it explained.

Jeter's .330/.399/.466, solid play at the next toughest defensive position, and 26 successful steals in 31 attempts, make him a solid second choice. Not a close second, but nothing to hang his 35-year-old head about. Relative to a replacement level shortstop, Jeter has added about six wins to his team. That's impressive, and double Teixeira's value versus a replacement level first baseman.

Mauer, he's an eight-and-a-half win bump relative to a replacement level catcher. Indeed, during the first month of the season while Mauer rehabbed from back surgery, fill-in Mike Redmond "hit" a whopping .238/.303/.292 with six extra base hits, not one of which was home run.

Now the elephant in the room. (Caution, dead horse beating zone.) Mauer is the MVP whether the Twins extinguish the Tigers and burst into a division title or fade like an old soldier and finish below .500. The eight and a half wins he's contributed are the same whether they are wins 69-77 or wins 84-92. Mauer's candidacy is unaffected by Minny's feckless pitching or limpid lineup. Similarly, Mark Teixeira can't be the MVP just because he plays with Derek Jeter, CC Sabathia and Mariano Rivera.

Now, two words about the NL MVP race: Albert Pujols. Question, discussion, conclusion.
b

13 September 2009

Excellence in the Shadows

As the season winds down, the contenders start positioning their pitching staffs, the MVP leaders solidify their candidacies and PNC park makes its annual Octoberfest plans, it's time to look at some overlooked performances of the 2009 season.

Rookie flamethrower Neftali Feliz isn't exactly a state secret, especially in the Metroplex. He was a highly acclaimed minor leaguer and has provided an encore performance in the bigs. Cranking it up to 100 mph, Feliz has faced 82 batters in 24 innings and dismissed 29 of them on strikes. Just 11 batters have reached base, only eight by hits. Pity the one fool who reached base by getting in the way of one of Feliz's pitches.

Feliz has relinquished just two runs. That's an 0.76 ERA. He's got a 29/2 K/BB ratio. The AL is batting .101 against him. Oh yes, the guy is 21.

None of this surprises the cognoscenti, who clamored for Feliz's call-up. Even as a reliever, his workload has been subject to a version of "the Joba Rules" by the Rangers' brass. For every inning Feliz pitches, he gets a day off, so don't expect to see a lot more of him this year. If you do, don't blink.

Next up, not exactly a rookie. Oriole second-baseman Brian Roberts may be the most under-rated player in baseball. The 32-year-old veteran is stringing together another exemplary performance, posting a batting line of .286/.354/.463 that would play in the outfield. Add 29 steals and a reputation for excellence afield, it's hard to see why the Orioles wanted to unload him and also why they couldn't.

This is not a 2009 phenomenon. This is Roberts' fifth year in six with more than 40 doubles and third in a row with 100 runs scored. He's swiped 36, 50, 40 and 29 so far with an 84% sucess rate. His value to the O's, realtive to his position, between three and four wins, is about the same as Mark Teixeira's value to the Yankees relative to first basemen. No kidding.

So how does Roberts fly under the radar? Players who hit doubles but not home runs, score runs but don't knock them in, lay down leather without flashing it and play on a lousy team, are prime candidates for overlookage.

The last guy is Josh Johnson, a right-handed Redwood for the Marlins who's been on a whirly-gig ride up and down the Florida system, back and forth between starts and relief, and on and off the DL for four years. Throughout it all, the 6'7" righty has been a slam dunk. His three semi-full seasons of MLB experience book-ending Tommy John surgery look like this: 12-7, 3.10 and a 2-1 K/BB ratio; 7-1, 3.61 and a 3-1 ratio; and this year 14-4, 3.06 and a 3-1 ratio, all in front of a defense featuring Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla. It don't get much ugglar than that.

As a 25-year-old in 2009, Johnson has already tallied 31 more innings than his previous high, so the Fish will want to watch him like a Fishawk. Should he avoid injuries, Johnson has an oportunity to become next year's "overnight sensation," especially if Florida can field a contender and convince more than an occasional South Beacher to stumble into their stadium.

There are some other stars toiling in relative obscurity in the majors. They everyday players populating this demographic are often jacks of all hitting categories, masters of none. They often play in cavernous parks for non-contending teams or surrounded by fey lineups. Their mound counterparts throw middling 90-heat, in front of bumbling defenses in ballparks built into the trade winds and burdened by bullpens filled with arsonists.

But they can be found...if we look beyond the usual numbers.

10 September 2009

I'll Take Post-Season Drama for 1,000, Alex

The pennant races have disappeared like Mark Sanford's dignity. This may be good news for football fans, but not for the 21 teams that were out of the race by Labor Day. (I included the Giants among the living, because they could accidentally catch Colorado or LA for the wild card if 1. everyone in Denver catches Swine Flu or 2. the Cardinals trade them Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday for a player to be named later.)

For a rabid baseball fan, particularly one like me who roots monolithically against the Yankees, the last month of the season has been somewhat disheartening. But I'm holding out hope that it will make for a thrilling post-season, which has acted like it's seen a ghost the last few years. The last great World Series was Arizona's dramatic seven-game triumph over NYY in '01, and though we've had a handful of wild LCS and LDS since then (think Red Sox '04), the baseball gods have largely frowned on October.

Besides, baseball needs some autumnal drama to counteract football's WalMarting of the American sports scene. It's as if a football eclipse blocks out the World Series every year. It'd be nice if baseball could leverage some nail-biting to sneak beyond the pigskin shadow for a few minutes.

At this point, the two most successful franchises in history -- New York and St. Louis -- appear to be the favorites to meet in the Fall Classic. But it seems like every playoff entrant save Detroit is capable of having something to say about that.

Between my state's esteemed "Luvenor" and our Congressman, Screamin' Joe, and our worst-in-the-nation schools and our still-flying Confederate flag and our legislature's inability to outlaw texting while driving, we need a diversion. We need a seven game Series that goes walk-off three times with extra innings in the finale.

Hey, I'm not asking for much.
b

07 September 2009

Lots of Hits From These Three Records

Three notable accomplishments are in the news these days -- Ichiro's 2000th hit, Derek Jeter's Yankee-record safety and Mariano Rivera's 38 saves in 39 opportunities. Certainly these are three spectacular players, two sure-fire Hall of Famers and one probable one.

On the other hand, these records are something of a sideshow. After all, accumulating tons of hits often requires an inability to take a free pass. That's certainly a black mark against Ichiro. He would be a much more productive leadoff hitter if he walked 75 times a year rather than collect another 25 singles while producing 50 outs.

It's a bit more complicated with Derek Jeter, who does work the count and earn his share of bases on balls. His almost inevitable drive to 3,000 hits is based mostly on the intersection of consistent excellence with durability. This year, Jeter has reached a new level of performance just as age should be eating away at his skills.

Nonetheless, how important can it be to accumulate a large number of hits when you've passed Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth and are hot on the heels of Lou Gehrig? Clearly, Jeter's abundance of hits is less impressive than the Babe's, the Clipper's or the Mick's. That's not to say that there are any bad players where Jeter is going -- to 3,000 Land -- but hits themselves only tell part of the story.

Then there is the circus act that is the save. It happens that 38/39 accurately reflects the pitching performance of the greatest closer of all time, but in a year in which 2008's 38/39 guy is leaking like a dented sieve, we can't be faulted for being dubious about that stat. It's too bad, because Rivera is having another amazing season and even drawing some Cy Young consideration. (It's a nice sentiment, but at this point, Zack Greinke is so Cy the next candidate is third.)

Many baseball records are interesting from an academic standpoint but have limited meaning. These three (really two) fall into that category. Plus, they'll fill out the plaques in Cooperstown.
b

03 September 2009

Safermetrics

We take this brief interlude in the baseball season to address some prevailing myths in that other sport involving baseball caps -- football. With the NFL season imminent, I'd like to address how football analysts and reporters whiff on their sport.

The geeks have taken their baseball computers and put them to work on the more complicated game of football, where player performance is vastly more interdependent. You might call this "Safermetrics," if you'd like to imagine that its practitioners are members of the Society of American Football Research (SAFR).

Have you ever heard pigskin analysts intone on the importance of a running game, because teams that run more, win more? They are wrong. They are stupid. They are ignorant. They might as well cover baseball.

The statheads have examined football games and found that teams that run the ball frequently in the first half actually lose more than they win. But once ahead, usually by airing it out, winning teams use the running game to wind down the clock and shorten the contest. Running doesn't cause winning; winning leads to running.

Do great running backs make their blockers look good or vice versa? The answer, according to the historical record, is that lines make running backs much more than the other way around. However, QB sacks are much more a function of the field general than of the line. Quarterbacks who assess situations adeptly and release the ball quickly avoid sacks. Those who don't, fall. Scrambling actually leads to more sacks, not fewer. Of course, it leads to more big gains too.

Speaking of big gains, the research says, eschew running backs who are feast-or-famine kinds of runners. Teams with those kinds of backs get big gains and then run out of downs. Research says slow and steady wins the race, because it moves the sticks steadily down the field and into the end zone. (No, this does not mean that Barry Sanders was a drain on Lion prospects. His gains were so spectacular and numerous, and his losses far enough between, that he was still among the best ever. He was the exception that proves the rule.)

Want to convert on third and short? Research says boring is better than exciting. Running it into the line is more often successful than throwing it. Who knew? This is even true if Peyton Manning is pitching and Marvin Harrison is catching.

The geeks say, don't skimp on your punter. Field position is much more important than people think. If you value the 27 outs you get in a baseball game above all else (as you should), then you can think of first downs as their equivalent. The shorter the field, the fewer first downs your team has to purchase at the first down store. So don't skimp on your kick returner either.

Fumbles shmumbles. Not really, but examining a player's fumbles lost misses half the point. That's because fumble recovery is nearly entirely a matter of which way the odd spheroid bounces. So a running back who coughs up the cookie 10 times and only loses two is likely to cause his team a lot more heartache going forward than a back who turns the ball over on three of his four oopsies.

You fantasy guys will like the next two. Backs who carry the ball 370 times or more in a season often crash the following year. Their yardage gained drops 35%, on average. There is a lesser penalty for guys with 310-369 rushes.

The prospects of high QB draft picks can be discerned almost entirely by two simple stats: games played and completion percentage. The more games they've played, the more likely the scouts are right about their ability. The more they complete passes, the better they are. Where they played, whom they played, how they played, and how many yards they accumulated are all largely irrelevent. Ryan Leaf college completion percentage? Fifty-four percent. Thhhhpppp. Look for at least 60%.

Finally, total yardage is the most overrated measure in football (besides rings, as if one player is responsible for that). A back who runs 350 times for 1,190 yards is not nearly as valuable as one who scampers 1,000 yards in 200 carries. The first guy (3.4 yards per carry) leaves your team in a third and long three situation. The other fella (5.0 yards per carry) made the pole holders walk 30 feet.

The same goes for QBs and, in fact, whole teams. Yards per play or per pass are much more important than total yards. Here's the baseball analogy: Who's more of a slugger, a guy who hits 30 HRs in 600 at bats or one who slugs 25 in 400 at bats?

The nerds responsible for this information call themselves Football Outsiders.

Memorize these research-supported facts and sprinkle the discussion with them next time you meet friend at the local sports bar. The chicks will dig your geekdom and the gentlemen will really enjoy being corrected constantly. I know it's always worked for me!
b