30 August 2010

554 Homers; No Integrity


It appears clear that even if Roger Clemens is acquitted of lying to Congress about steroid use, he will face a Sisyphean struggle to make the Hall of Fame. Perhaps one of the 10 greatest pitchers of all time, Clemens' conduct is considered so detrimental to baseball that he should be barred from immortality.

I think Clemens is a jerk -- I've always thought that -- a liar, a philanderer and a cheater. But he was still one of the best pitchers ever.

Now contrast him, and the others whose entry to the Hall appear blocked -- Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro -- and compare them to a man whose Hall pass is already stamped: Manny Ramirez.

Ramirez makes Roger Clemens look like Prince Charles. He is a juvenile, narcisistic twit. Is there a sin in baseball worse than literally quitting on your team? On two different teams? Can a player be called "great" when, in the prime of his career, two different teams were willing to give him away? For all his considerable boorishness, Barry Bonds was never more trouble to the Giants than he was worth. 

Let's review the record.  In 2003, Ramirez was benched for a game after he was found faking illness that had put him on the shelf for a week. After the 2005 season, he demanded a trade and threatened to boycott spring training if his demand wasn't met. The Red Sox, only too happy to oblige, couldn't find a taker for his massive contract. 

In 2008, Ramirez came to blows with Red Sox personnel twice -- once with teammate Kevin Youklis and another with traveling secretary Jack McCormick, whom Ramirez shoved to the ground. Later, he sat out a crucial series with the Yankees, claiming a sore knee, though MRI exams he was forced to get showed no damage. In the subsequent series, he failed to run out grounders or hustle after flies in the field. At one point, he went to the plate and refused to swing the bat, striking out on three pitches. In my line of work, and yours too, that's grounds for instant dismissal. 

But wait, there's more. Last year, immediately after signing a $45 million, two-year contract, Ramirez turned the key on a brand new 50-game suspension for using a steroid companion drug. Following that, the NY Times reported that he was one of the 104 players who tested positive for steroid use. Many writers vow they will not elect Alex Rodriguez to the Hall for that reason, but Ramirez, who continues to lie about his involvement, suffers no such stain.

This year, apparently bored with the Dodgers' struggles, Ramirez has found a home on the disabled list. Upon his return, with rumors swirling of a trade, he got himself ejected after taking one pitch, the baseball equivalent of suicide by cop.

Manny Ramirez, at .313/.411/.589, with 554 home runs and 12 seasons of .950+ OPS is unquestionably a giant among hitters. But his brain, his heart, his integrity and his pride could fit in a sesame seed with enough room left over for two gnats to polka. The idea of Ramirez making a victory speech in Cooperstown, while Mark McGwire is banned, disgusts me.

Didn't we long ago agree that idiots, drunks, creeps and thieves could still earn enshrinement with their play, as long as they didn't throw games? It seems to me that Manny Ramirez's loafing, sandbagging and mid-game quitting is a lot closer to throwing a game than anything Barry Bonds ever did.
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29 August 2010

The Case of the Fragile Pitcher


Welcome to this week's edition of Mystery Theatre where we delve into the most vexing whodunits of our time.

This week, we examine The Case of the Fragile Pitcher and analyze the theories that abound, ex-post facto, to explain why hurlers in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s took the ball every fourth day, remained on the hill for 300+ innings and wore down no more than their modern counterparts despite advances in conditioning and medical care. 

Our sleuths will uncover why today's moundsmen are bigger, stronger, better conditioned, yet throw no harder and dis-assemble faster than their progenitors despite massive attention paid to their workload.

Actually, our sleuths will do no such thing. The point of this installment of Mystery Theatre is that this week's mystery has earned its stripes and avoided explanation like Jimmy Hoffa's killers.

The timing of this discussion coincides with the implosion of Stephen Strasburg's elbow, which would have ended his career had not Tommy John presented the same ulnar collateral ligament injury to Dr. Frank Jobe in 1974.

How, we're all asking, could Strasburg have contracted this quintessential pitching woe when management of the Washington Nationals treated him like a sickly Southern belle in a heat wave? Despite gestating his talent beyond necessity in the minors, truncating his starts, plying him with extra rest and reacting to his every boo-boo with ever more caution, the franchise is nonetheless rewarded with the very injury they most feared.

Listen to sports talk radio and television and you will hear ex-jocks propose theories big and small for this vexing phenomenon. Their explanations range from the unprovably plausible to the patently ridiculous. Mostly they are stand-ins for the far more accurate and credible answer: I don't know. My favorite is the former players who rail against pitch counts. Although limits on pitch counts got a little out of hand for awhile, they are still based on solid research supporting certain limits on some pitchers.

We know that today's pitchers are bigger, stronger, better-conditioned and better-trained than their predecessors. We also know that the highest heat today is no hotter than the highest heat of yesteryear. Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller, Sam McDowell; hell, Walter Johnson would all be considered fireballers today. And we know that there seems to be some risk in increasing the workload of young pitchers dramatically from one year to the next, though the Verducci Effect is no longer the universally accepted metaphysical truth it once was. None of that explains why Cy Young's great-grandchildren can't hold a candle to Cy Young's grandchildren.

I would like to take a stab at explaining part of the problem by noting three simultaneous truths. Before I do, a caveat: this is not a universal theory of pitching durability. I don't really know why throwers of Bowie Kuhn's day outlasted today's crop.
I wonder whether the average pitcher today doesn't throw harder than the average pitcher of 1970, even if the pinnacle of the profession hasn't changed. Someone probably knows the answer to this, but I don't. A major league fastball is at least 88 mph in 2010. Rare is the violator of this rule. Was that the case in 1975, or could you get away with a speedball that peaked at 82 with sufficient craft and a 12-6 curveball?

I also wonder what impact new pitches like sliders, cut fastballs, etc. have  on athletes' shoulders and elbows. Are they even new pitches at all, or just new names for strategies being employed all the time?

Onto the facts: one reason pitchers pitch fewer innings today is that they pitch fewer innings. No, really. Isn't it conceivable that if pitchers took the ball every fourth day while working their way through the minor leagues and then continued in that vein in The Show, they would get acclimated to that workload? Under those conditions, some major league pitchers would compile 250+ innings, just like Tom Seaver and Juan Marichal did.

Fact Two: Bullpens are used differently today than in the past. Before the one-inning closer and the LOOGY (left-handed, one-out guy), managers let their starters pitch until they ran out of steam or had to be replaced by a pinch hitter. Teams had 10-man staffs -- four starters, a closer and a bunch of inning-eaters. Today, perfectly fresh starters get yanked in order to maximize match-ups. We have closers and set-up men and long relievers and situational lefties and righties who together comprise 13-man rotations. No wonder a starter can't get an inning in edgewise.

Fact Three: Pitching today is a full-time job. Pitchers face hitters up and down the lineup who are bigger, stronger and more powerful than in the past. Throw in the DH and today's hurler must make every pitch count and use every pitch to set up every other. Ken Griffey, Sr., Tony Gwynn, Sr. Cecil Fielder, Bob Boone, and others whose loins produced today's breed, competed with middle infielders who were Michael J. Fox-sized and couldn't go yard off a tee. Juan Marichal could cruise through the bottom of the order; a hanging curve might be a hit, but rarely extra bases. He didn't have to futz around with setting up Roy McMillan and his 292 SLG.

In short,  the full story behind the discrepancy between pitchers of bygone eras and today remains a mystery. There seems to be evidence that pitching today is more difficult and that usage patterns have changed. Beyond that: I don't know.
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22 August 2010

Does Base-Slinging Make A Great Manager?


I don't know whether Lou Pinella is the most over-rated manager in baseball or whether managers are just over-rated period. I suspect it's some of both.

In any case, Pinella quit today, saying his ailing mother needed him. I have no doubt that's true, nor do I doubt that mom Pinella would have scuffed along without her boy had the Cubs been contending. They aren't contending; in fact, they have vastly under-performed expectations, as have several other Pinella teams, including the '88 Yankees, '91 Reds and '98 Mariners. 

With one championship on his resume and a .517 lifetime winning percentage, Pinella is being canonized as he bails on his team and touted as a Hall of Fame field captain. Perhaps I'm missing something.

Did Pinella transform lousy rosters into winners? Hardly. The Devil Rays stunk before trading Randy Winn for Sweet Lou and they stunk under his leadership. Frankly, the notion that any manager could have altered that sorry squad's destiny was a serious case of wishful thinking. Swapping a productive player for a manager, much less the impatient Pinella, is certifiable lunacy.

Pinella led the Cubs to one good season out of four at Wrigley, though they crashed and burned in a first round playoff sweep. Beyond that, his is just another entry in a century of managerial futility in Chicago.

Perhaps he conjured up miracles during the regular season. Several teams he skippered won buckets of regular season games before fanning in the playoffs, the 116-win Mariners of 2001 the most notable. But others squandered boatloads of talent. Seattle from '97-'99 featured Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey, Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Edgar Martinez and yet combined to average 83 wins/year under Lou. 

Pinella is generally respected and loved, despite his sometimes juvenile behavior. He bullied and cajoled players into busting tail for him and often mollified difficult personalities. That's commendable, but not particularly rare. In fact, it's the manager's job.

Did Pinella polish diamonds in the rough, or coax theretofore undiscovered talents, or resuscitate careers on death watch? Did he brilliantly innovate in his pitching moves or hitting strategies? Well then, exactly what makes Lou Pinella's managerial career Fame-worthy?

I have a theory. Lou Pinella is beloved for being Lou Pinella, not for managing the 1990 World Champions. Pinella was a popular player in New York, which never hurts a career. As a manager, he was sometimes profane and hot-headed, but in a fun and impersonal way. His YouTube specials involve excavations of dirt onto umpire shoes, storied base-winging performances and a multitude of entertaining tantrums. He was generally accommodating to the media and when he wasn't, it was usually amusing.

Best of all, Sweet Lou just four years ago served a stint at ESPN, where he charmed the very gentlemen and women who determine the sports agenda. A gifted raconteur, Pinella mesmerized the worldwide leader and thus, all of sportsdom.

Well, I don't have cable, so I'm immune. And I just don't see it. As far as I can tell, any knowledgeable baseball person, any managerial re-tread, any Triple-A skipper-in-waiting could have achieved roughly the same results with Pinella's teams, given the chance. His real genius lay in getting the opportunity to manage 3,500 games with rosters comprising Don Mattingly, Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield; Eric Davis and Barry Larkin; and ARod, Unit and Junior. Anyone with a modicum of baseball intelligence could have won 1,800 games under those conditions.

And they probably wouldn't have quit in mid-season on two different under-performing teams.
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21 August 2010

Are You Smarter Than A Baseball Writer?


Congratulations! You've just been awarded a 1987 Baseball Writers Association of America card, which entitles you to vote for post-season awards.

You cover a National League team, so you'll cast your ballot for NL players.

Being  the conscientious reporter you are, you've done your homework and considered seriously the options. That's another way of saying that not only have you not selected Andre Dawson and his 49 home runs MVP, he and his .328 OBP don't make your ballot. The rest of this august club doesn't share your view.

Five hurlers are on your Cy Young list, oh devoted one, and there is little to recommend one more heartily than the others. Here are their seasonal resumes:

Orel Herhiser -- The Dodger righty posted a 3.58 RA -- compared to a league average of 4.05 -- in 264 innings. His 10 complete games was second in the league and his 190 K/74/BB ratio and 1.25 WHIP both represent aptitude. He earned 24 quality starts in 35 tries.
Dwight Gooden -- The Mets' 22-year-old missed part of the season, holding opponents to 3.41 runs/game over 180 innings. Seventeen of his 25 starts pinned the needle on the quality meter. His 148 K/53 BB ratio and 1.21 WHIP were akin to Hershiser's, if slightly more impressive; his seven complete games, a whisker less.
Rick Reuschel -- The veteran northpaw split his 227 innings of 3.61 RA between the Pirates and Giants, though his 25 Pirate starts were runaway Cy Young material and his 8 Giant appearances during the pennant race were far more forgettable. His 20 quality starts in 33 tries lag his competitors, but his 1.14 WHIP and his 107 K/42 BB ratio are anyone's equal, though he gets there a different way. He also led the league with 12 complete games.
Nolan Ryan -- The 40-year-old flamethrower had his best year since 1981, leading the league with a 3.19 RA in 212 frames for the Astros.  His 27 quality starts pace the circuit, as do his 270 whiffs. His 270 K/87 BB ratio is the best of the bunch; his 1.16 WHIP is right there.
Mike Scott & Bob Welch -- This pair is grouped because their performances were eerily similar, though Scott toiled for Houston and Welch for L.A. They relinquished the same number of runs, with Welch pitching four more innings, for RAs of 3.42 and 3.36 respectively. Scott's 233/79 split overpowers Welch's 196/86 and he finished eight games to Welch's six, but his 23 of 36 quality starts is a hair off Welch's 25 of 35. Their WHIPs of 1.12 and 1.15 respectively were Cy material.

It's important to recognize that Reuschel is the only moundsman here not benefiting from a stingy home park. Chavez Ravine, Shea and the Astrodome were the three hardest places to make a living with the stick. Three Rivers bore no such burden and Candlestick had its own unique story, of which holding down scoring was but a small part. (Anyway, Reuschel made all of four starts as a Giant in SF.)

So whom would you vote for? Perhaps you favor Hershiser for the durability of his excellence or Reuschel for overcoming more obstacles.  I'd go with Ryan for keeping runs off the board and getting the most outs without the help of his defense. He'd have borne more of the innings burden had his mates supplied his starts with more support.

In any case, none of these fine specimens won the Cy Young in 1987. None finished second.

Here's what I didn't mention: Nolan Ryan went 8-16 for the punchless 76-86 Astros, whose best hitter, Glenn Davis, pounded 27 home runs but posted a miserable .310 OBP. Hershiser compiled a 16-16 record for a 73-89 Dodger squad so offensively inept that Pedro Guerrero's OPS 54% higher than league average still only produced 89 R and 89 RBI. Baseball writers could never bring themselves to anoint Rick Resuschel's 13-9 mark or Mike Scott's 16-13 worthy of Cy Young awards. In a year when seven American League hurlers were credited with 17 wins or more (and Doyle Alexander got credit for nine wins without a loss after a late season trade to Detroit), the 15-9 records of Dwight Gooden and Bob Welch paled.

Instead, baseball writers split their votes between Rick Sutcliffe, whose 18 wins masked a league average RA, a below-average strikeout-walk ratio and a 1.40 WHIP, and reliever Steve Bedrosian, whose 40 saves gave voters the best opportunity to demonstrate that what they knew about baseball could fit on the head of a pin without getting knocked off by the 21 dancing angels. Bedrosian won the award having faced 366 batters, a mere third of Hershiser's total.

Really, had the writers ignored an 8-16 record and bestowed the honor on Ryan, the earth would have opened up and swallowed Cooperstown whole. The heavens would have rumbled and smoting would have commenced. It was not possible in 1987 and it remain impossible today, even though there are 30 years of research demonstrating conclusively that won-loss records are poor barometers of pitching performance. The nation elected a black president, a Muslim at that; you might think baseball writers could elect the best pitcher regardless of his record.

All this may be significant again as Felix Hernandez of Seattle makes his AL Cy Young case in 2010. King Felix has pitched the most stanzas at a 3.11 RA (the league's third best) with the league's third best strikeout-walk ratio and all the other peripherals you'd expect. Irrelevant to reality but a lead weight to perception is his 9-10 record, which is entirely the result of an historically bad Mariners offense that could play home run derby in a snow globe without making it snow. The M's have scored fewer than 3.5 runs per game and have a team OPS 22% below league average. On top of that, their relief pitching is a grease fire, anchored by a closer at 0-6, 4.14.

In the same way that BBWAA members never seriously considered Nolan Ryan in 1987, they are not yet sufficiently informed to recognize that -- so far in 2010, at least -- Hernandez is somewhere in the vicinity of the AL's best pitcher. Whether he gets credited for wins, his teammates will have to answer for.
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15 August 2010

Slowey and Steady Wins Pennant Race


I've always had the sense that Ron Gardenhire has a secret cache of baseball knowledge, because his Twins always outperform their payroll and roster. His public comments often fly in the face of the latest sabermetric findings, but it might all be a cunning effort to lull us into under-estimation.

This paean follows the skipper's decision to yank Kevin Slowey after seven no-hit innings. Gardenhire admitted that his action was lamentable. Unsaid were the following considerations:

1. Minnesota's in a pennant race.
2. Slowey missed his last start with arm trouble.
3. He'd thrown 106 pitches already, so was unlikely to finish the game anyway.

Pennants fly forever. Quick, who threw last year's two no-hitter. See? 

Bravo, Ron Gardenhire.
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Sacrificing...the Game


If the Cardinals miss out on the playoffs by one game, they can look back on August 14th and smack themselves in the head. On that date, they dropped a 3-2 decision to the scuffling Cubs for which they have one bad decision to blame.

Up by that score in the ninth, the overpaid Second City contingent worked its special roar-from-ahead magic. On a leadoff grounder to third, Aramis Ramirez fired the ball into Illinois, allowing pinch hitter Aaron Miles to occupy second base.

At this point, with a runner on second and none out, an average team with average offensive contributors can be expected to score 1.165 runs, with the baserunner scoring 63% of the time. But the next batter, Brendan Ryan, is no average hitter. He brings a lifetime .318 OBP to the plate, tilted heavily towards a .277 OBP this year. So the Cardinals' managerial staff -- Tony LaRussa is serving a suspension -- orders up a bunt.
If Ryan successfully executes the bunt, he trades one of the team's three remaining outs for an opportunity to move Miles within 90 feet of the plate and a tie game. That would increase the odds of scoring to by two percentage points, but reduce the likelihood that any more runs score by a similar margin. Since the Cards can't win until they tie, and they are more likely to win than lose in extra innings, they're willing to trade the possibility of a second run scoring for more certainty about recording the first run.

Still with me?

There's one more factor to consider. Anyone with Internet access can easily discern that Brendan Ryan is a below-average Major League hitter. But unless you're a die-hard Redbird fan, you probably can't parse out his bunting abilities. His hitting coach, on the other hand, should have known exactly how skilled Ryan is with the sacrifice, and never allowed him to square away.

Ryan never laid down a bunt. He laid two of them up. The first one popped foul along the first base line, in and out of Koyie Hill's glove. Hill caught the second one in front of the plate. Watching Ryan, it was easy to see why his attempts went awry. On both plays, he tipped the bat up, leading inevitably to an airborne result. In other words, Brendan Ryan is as adept at the sacrifice as a Hummer driver.

The game ended with Miles still anchored to second and Albert Pujols waiting for his turn on deck. Had the squandered out been put to more productive use, Prince Albert might have been taking his licks with the run already in, or awaiting deliverance from the best player on Earth.

Bunting is a strategy, and like any strategy, we can assess exactly when the odds favor it. Using both scouting and stats in this case should have alerted the coaches against bunting and into some other tactic, like attempting to hit to the right side, or pinch hitting for the shortstop. The wrong decision cost St. Louis the game.
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14 August 2010

I'm Not Sayin'. I'm Just Sayin'.


This is not another rant against Justin Morneau, a fine player who is nonetheless over-rated because he collects RBIs like they're stamps, thanks largely to Joe Mauer's freakish on-base regularity.

Morneau is a hitting machine, cranking out a .286/.358/.511 career line in five full and two half seasons. He's won an MVP (the one rightfully belonging to Mauer or Derek Jeter), come in second in the voting another time (about eight spots too high), and joined four All-Star parades. He was having his best year yet in 2010 (.345/.437/.618 with 18 dingers in 81 games) before suffering a serious concussion.

How valuable was the Canadian's presence to the Twins this season? Minnesota won and lost in roughly equal measure with Morneau at first base, 4.5 games out of first place at the moment of his departure. Since then, their newly cobbled together lineup has won 21 of 31 and roared into the division lead.

It's been an all-hands-on-deck adventure. Michael Cuddyer, the replacement at first, has picked up the slack, batting .308 and swatting four homers and nine doubles for the month. Joe Mauer, back from injury himself, has finally gotten acquainted with Joe Mauer. So has Delmon Young. Jim Thome's increased playing time adds a .973 OPS to the mix. In total, the Twins are scoring six runs a game in their slugger's absence, up from fewer than four at the time he got kicked in the head.

I'm not sure how much, if any, of this reflects on Justin Morneau. It seems likely that the team will further prosper upon his return. Still, it's the second year in a row that this has happened.

Last year, Morneau went down on September 12 with the team two games below .500. A 17-4 surge followed, making up 5.5 games in the standings, plus a playoff win. Hmmm....

Okay, to be fair, it was pitching that launched their rocket without Morneau last year and a patch of easy schedule helped this year. The point is, if Justin Morneau were really the critical cog that many think he is, you'd expect his team to falter without him. I mean, consider where the Giants would have been five years ago without Barry Bonds. Instead, for two straight years, the Minneapolis nine has kicked the season into gear exactly after losing the guy whom baseball writers seem to think is their MVP.
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Under the Radar, On Top of the League

I was just noticing, with the help of beyondtheboxscore.com, what a special year Rafael Furcal is compiling completely under the radar. At first glance -- .316 BA, 8 HR, 36 RBI -- the 5'8" Dominican is hitting for average and not much else. In fact, that considerably under-values him.

At .316/.381/.492 with 18 of 22 steals and plus defense, Furcal is authoring a deceptively historic season. Add to that the offense-dampening effect of Chavez Ravine and Furcal climbs a few rungs on the impressive ladder. Despite missing 35 games with injuries, the former Rookie of the Year is nonetheless the most valuable Dodger position player in 2010 and the most valuable shortstop in the NL, with a WARP (wins against replacement player) of 3.3 in what amounts to only half a season of work. (In both cases, this is damning with faint praise -- like being the warmest city in Siberia. Dodger position players and NL shortstops have reached a level of underwhelment unusual for both.)

Here's the most shocking news: according to baseball-reference.com, this is the best offensive season ever by a Dodger shortstop with at least 250 plate appearances, in percentage terms, as measured relative to league averages. He has performed 37% better offensively than the average National Leaguer, which is pretty amazing for a shortstop. Pee Wee Reese made the Hall of Fame without reaching these heights once, though by playing in a more congenial park and answering the bell for every game, he certainly posted more impressive numbers, such as 132 runs scored in 1949.

Of course, players contribute nothing to their teams when they're on the shelf, so missing a fifth of the season has to count against Furcal at least a little. But if he maintains this pace, his 2010 will rank among the most sublime, and least recognized, of all time.
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12 August 2010

Not Feeling Chipper


And so, most likely and mercifully, ends the Hall of Fame career of Chipper Jones. After nearly 10,000 plate appearances, every one of them for the Atlanta Braves, Jones finishes among the all-time leaders in homers among switch hitters (3rd -- Mantle and Murray), third basemen (4th, if you count ARod) and Braves (2nd -- Hank Aaron). His .306/.405/.536 lifetime slash stats with more walks than strikeouts and 147 steals at a 77% rate, an MVP award and a World Series ring should grease his skids into Cooperstown.

In his late 30s, Chipper continued to hit like George Foreman, posting a .364 average at age 36 with 24 home runs in just 439 at bats. His bane was more injuries than a loss of skills, but when the two conspired together this year (.265/.381/.426 -- he could still walk to first), it appeared he would limp off the stage with his beloved manager.

An ACL tear has put the kibosh on that plan and seems to have started the clock on his mandatory five-year wait for enshrinement. It is just the latest in a string of injuries that have put him on the shelf for 241 games since 2004.

Jones was an average corner man over his 16-years of service, according to both scouts and stats. Largely because of his raking, he ranks 30th all time in Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) among position players, just ahead of Ken Griffey, Jr. That's pretty rarefied air, and a giant legacy for the franchise. But one thing Braves fans won't be Jonesing for is Chipper's return this year. The ravages of age had already relegated him to a part-time player and forced the team to have adept backups at the ready. Omar Infante made the All-Star team filling in when Larry wasn't chipper and former third baseman Troy Glaus is on the roster, though it's doubtful he is sufficiently mobile at this point to cover third in a beer league.

So Atlanta, the closest thing to a hometown team for the Jacksonville native, will have to fend off the two-time defending league champs this season without one of their all-time best players and the only remaining on-field remnant of their glory days. It makes a pretty small difference -- if any. Still, it would have been nice to see him go out on his own terms.
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07 August 2010

You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic Batter


Would you like this defensively solid left-fielder batting in a key game for your team:
.320/.349/.563, 24 HR 74 RBI in 100 games? 

Not just yes, but hell yes, right? That's Rockie Carlos Gonzalez.

So you write Gonzalez's name in the lineup, and you get this -- .262/.279/.385, 10 HR 54 RBI, 10BB, 130K. What happened?

First, let's recognize how utterly abysmal that is. A .279 OBP is cactus enema bad, and the result in this case of a player who walks less than Stephen Hawking. It's 48 points worse than Bud Harrelson's embarrassing lifetime mark. It's 15 points lower than Mike Hampton's lifetime OBP.

Yes, that's the pitcher Mike Hampton.

How did an All-Star caliber outfielder morph into an over-matched Double-A wind machine? Simple: The Rockies are playing a road game.

Carlos Gonzalez is a terror at Coors -- .375/.414/.730, 38 HR 94 RBI, 28BB 68 K. (I've doubled his home and away counting stats so you can compare them to his overall performance.) That's Mark McGwire on andro. But for some reason, Cargo can't hit anywhere else. This is good information if you're his manager. You'd probably want to make sure he's in the lineup in Denver, but you might want to give him a breather now and then elsewhere.

It also casts a shadow on his overall performance for the year, as documented at the top of this post. It raises the question of whether he's just a thin-air artifact who's not really the .320-with-power hitter his overall numbers suggest.

In an effort to spare a deceased horse further injury, I won't detail how Charlie Manuel gets the same raw deal when he expects to send his .281/.373/.578 first baseman to the plate and this shows up -- .231/313/.453 because the pitcher is right-brained and Ryan Howard turns into Eddie Gaedel when facing lefties. Suffice to say that it's very hard to make convincing MVP arguments for a guy who can be so easily neutralized.
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05 August 2010

Lies, Damned Lies and Sports Journalism


From the Associated Press:

Headline: Favre Now Says He Will Play If Healthy
Mankato, Minnn -- Brett Favre's flip-flopping is at full throttle, the surest sign yet that training camp is under way in Minnesota...

I am not a Pakcers fan or hater, a Favre fan or hater, or a Viking fan or hater. However, I despise bad journalism. This isn't bad journalism. It's flat-out lying. The bad journalism happened the previous day when nearly every sports news organization in America reported that Brett Favre said he was retiring.

The actual story was this: someone reported that players and front office types had received text messages from Favre saying he would retire. Favre offered no comment and in the ESPN reports I saw, which accounted for half of SportsCenter (I was on the road and so had cable TV access) they could find not a single person to confirm this report.

Where I come from, that's not a story. Summarized in a sentence, it sounds like this: "There appears to be no evidence supporting rumors that make someone look bad." That's not journalism, that's the  Dreyfus Affair.

The next day, Favre denied the report. The Vikings front office denied the report. In other words, by all accounts, it was untrue. This was Scott Van Pelt's apt explanation for ESPN's endless coverage of the non-story: "Forget Tuesday happened."

Did Favre flip-flop? Not at all; he never made the original claim. It was the sports media that flip-flopped in a craven attempt to cover up their collective lack of journalistic integrity. The sports media ran with a story that was false and quite frankly defamatory. And then the next day, reporter Jon Krawczynski and his fellow apologists at the AP attempted to blame Favre for their incompetence by trading on his known penchant for ambivalence. 

Any good journalist knows that the best-believed lies are big and bald-faced. In the same story, Krawczynski repeated the false claim that "a day earlier, Favre texted some teammates and Vikings officials...that he planned to retire" without citing a single first-person source, though several players and officials denied it. Then he blamed Favre for creating the mess. The end result is that this completely fabricated event will become part of Favre's permanent life history, to be repeated in every story and every remembrance of the great quarterback.

There are a lot of sports journalists who owe Brett Favre a public apology today. But I'll bet that not one of the hundreds across the country who libeled the Viking QB has even the self-awareness to realize what an incompetent he is. 

It's the same thinking (and many of the same people) that allows baseball journalism to remain mired 30 years behind the times in its coverage of that sport.
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Wherefore Art Thou, Alex?


What to make of Alex Rodriguez's 600th home run? Is he ARod, the greatest shortstop of all time? (Actually, the second greatest. It's freaky how much Honus Wagner towered over his peers.) Is he A-Fraud, the steroid user? Is he the rookie who hit .358 and the shortstop who hit 40+ homers six straight years? Or is he the choker who always seems to come up short when it counts? Is he coasting into the Hall of Fame or will he be shunned as a cheater?

And what about swinging into the already-tainted 600 Society? 

By ARod's own admission, he took steroids during his three seasons in Texas, during which time he smacked 144 home runs. I don't want to be Pollyanna about this: he was cheating, putting other players at a competitive disadvantage. He also seemed to benefit from this: his best three-year homer output besides that was 137 from 2005 to 2007 with the Yankees. I think we can acknowledge that steroids helped hitters -- or at least some hitters -- hit for more power. 

But let's be even-handed in our honesty. By any Baseball Writer's admission, ARod didn't spring full grown from Zeus's syringe in 2001; he was already the best shortstop in the game and had already blasted 40+ home runs in each of the three previous seasons. More than 100 other players also tested positive in 2003, so even if that's the full extent of steroid use, which few people believe is true, 13% of players were using. (In fact, Jose Canseco said 75% of players were enhanced, and just because he's crazy doesn't mean he's wrong. He was right about everything else on this matter.) It's hard to fault a guy for feeling the pressure to join the herd, especially if he believes that lesser talents are wresting best-player laurels from him artificially.

Alex Rodriguez increased his longball productivity by 15% during his admitted steroid years, so even if we don't factor in his chronological maturity -- younger players tend to steal more bases but hit for less power -- that's only 19 chemically-enhanced dingers in his career. Let's dock him those 19 when we compare him to the six other greats in the Six Bills Yard Club.

Now, you can certainly argue that ARod might have been juicing in Seattle, but if he was, there's little evidence of it on the stat sheet. Let's compare the three seasons prior to his bulked period, the years on the juice and the three years after testing went into effect.

Years      OPS      HR       
98-00      .903     125
01-03      1.010    144
05-07      1.004    137

There may be some evidence here of a bump from steroids during the years he admits, but I'm not seeing any other, are you? If he was purchasing anabolics in the first part of his career, he deserves a refund.

I don't believe that Rodriguez is in the same category as Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Manny Ramirez or Rafael Palmeiro. The last two failed drug tests after steroids were banned. Sosa and McGwire seemed to be using at least by 1998; Sosa may have whacked 350-400 of his 609 while on the stuff. Bonds is a certified Hall of Famer, but his admitted creaming and clearing produced seasons the likes of which we had never seen before -- particularly from a baseball geezer -- and all the attendant reverie that now seems unfairly gained. 

I've left out Roger Clemens (and Andy Pettitte and others) because the combination of pitchers and steroids confound us so thoroughly that denial is the only rational approach. To compound the headache, the majority of players suspended for steroid use since 2005 have been pitchers. Stick that in your ditty bag.

If I seem of two minds about steroid use, it's because I am, and I would argue it's the only reasonable response for a host of reasons I've elucidated numerous times in previous posts. Ultimately, it's easy to see that ARod is one of the 25 or so greatest baseball players of all time. When we stack up his accomplishments against others', we can season to taste with respect to steroids -- I'll subtract 19 home runs -- but to dismiss either his entire body of work or his law-breaking altogether strikes me as the kind of simplistic nonsense that is more at home in the political arena these days.
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02 August 2010

Mowing 'Em Down In Futility


This box score piqued my interest:

Gio Gonzalez threw eight effective innings against the White Sox yesterday, limiting them to six hits, including just one extra base hit, no home runs, no walks and 11 strikeouts. He hit one batter but had no errors behind him. 

Man did he have it going on. Yet somehow, he gave up four runs.

He did that by allowing three of the five singles, the hit batsman and the triple within six batters of the fifth inning.  He suffered the complete game loss for Oakland, 4-1.

I promise that the next time you see a pitcher relinquish four scores in a complete game with seven baserunners, no dingers and one extra bse hit, while fanning double digits, you will be an old man, woman or Sunog. 

If you are already an old man, woman or Sunog, you probably saw this happen last when you were a young one.

Just for comparison, the same day, Dodger ace Clayton Kershaw went seven fine innings (one fewer) and allowed 10 baserunners (three more) --four walks, three singles, two doubles and a triple, plus two stolen bases. He whiffed only six (five fewer). The Giants scored just two runs off him, though that was also enough to hang an L on his record.

You see something new in baseball everyday. And tomorrow, they do it all over again.
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01 August 2010

Trade Deadline Musings


Good News for Reds
The usually sagacious Cardinals flipped quality outfielder Ryan Ludwick for middling starter Jake Westbrook. This sounds like the kind of misstep that can cost a team the division in a tight race. Conversely, the Padres, who receive Ludwick in this three-way with the Indians, doubled their dangerous hitter quotient in the deal.

Ludwick, a .272/.341/.492 hitter with 84 long balls the last four years instantly becomes San Diego's second-best hitter and pushes one of their outfield albatrosses -- like Will Venable (.226/.313/.389) -- onto the bench. 

The Padres' gain appears to be the Redbirds' loss. St. Louis can afford to subtract offense only somewhat more than San Diego, and Ludwick is the best the team has after their dynamic duo of Pujols and Holliday, not withstanding Colby Rasmus's surprising sophomore season. Admittedly, Westbrook could be their best starter option after the spectacular trio of Carpenter/Wainwright/Garcia, but given his weak performance in Cleveland (4.65 ERA and 74K/43BB in 127 innings and just 11 of 21 quality starts), he could simply be another failed Jeff Suppan/Kyle Lohse experiment.

Acquiring a sub-middling 33-year-old starter from a desperate outfit like the Indians at mid-season ought not cost a power-hitting outfielder with a year of arbitration eligibility remaining. The Cardinals might have passed on this deal and scoured the junkyard for a Westbrook-like property that could be had for some Double-A trifling.


Rich Get Richer
Picking up Lance Berkman and back-ups Austin Kearns and Kerry Wood for some loose nuts and bolts from the minor league toolbox was more good Yankee trading. Joe Girardi had been reduced to writing a name in the DH spot that would never be seen in Cooperstown. Oh, the travesty!

Well, it is a travesty, actually, because it's another example of the unique advantages enjoyed in the Bronx. Other teams were equally interested in Berkman, whose value is enhanced for teams not already employing Mark Teixeira by his solid defense at first base. But two things destined the Rice grad for NY: 1. his price tag of $20 million and 2. Berkman's no-trade clause.

In fact, Berkman nixed a deal to the White Sox, which means they offered more than the Yankees did. Presumably they recognized that this is a bigger pickup than many in the media believe. Berkman still knows the difference between a ball and a strike, and was on base at a .372 clip with 13 home runs. Pay no attention to that .245 batting average behind the curtain.

So the Yankees will win the World Series with an all-star at every starting position and average players coming off the bench and we'll credit them with stockpiling the best players. But really, how hard is that when no other team has a chance to compete for them?
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