29 October 2011

Cardinal Sins


A riveting World Series, no doubt. So why does it seem like such an anti-climax?

The postseason certainly didn't determine the best team in baseball: the Cards were outplayed over 162 games by three other teams in the National League alone, and by another five (you could argue six or seven in the superior AL) on the other side of the standings. What they won was the playoff lottery, where eight good teams start almost completely from scratch (the best teams do get a minuscule home field edge, until the championship) playing a tournament that rewards them for different strengths than the regular season through which they qualified.

The unintended consequence of this expanded playoff system is a serious dilution of the once-sacrosanct 162-game schedule. With two excellent months out of seven, St. Louis qualified for the tournament and then survived it. Conversely, six months of dominance in New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Dallas disappeared in puffs of playoff series smoke.

Given the current structure of baseball finances combined with the current playoff format, the World Series offers us three options, two of them unsatisfying:

1. Teams with considerable financial advantages buy the best players and march to the dogpile. Blecch.
2. Uninspiring outfits that stand atop the lowest division pile, or squeak in as Wild Card after-thoughts, put it together for three weeks and wear the crown. Blecch.
3. Franchises struggling with conflicting financial priorities like everyone else produce deserving squads that rise to the top and claim the championship. Yay.

For the second time in five years, Tony LaRussa's group planted its flag in option two and left an empty feeling in the rest of us. Only twice in those five years (Phils and Giants) has MLB finished its long half-year ride with a champion that could claim a)superiority and b)accomplishment unstained by a playing field tilting in its favor.

That's not to say we didn't learn some things in this series. We learned that Ron Washington, is a wonderful guy and excellent motivator who enjoys the respect of his players. We also learned that the in-game decision-making required in a World Series are beyond his capability, at least as currently constituted. Wash left a series of gaffes on the field that could have cost his team. He played his MVP at 50% effectiveness (.241/.258/.414 with limited mobility on the bases and in the field), which simply wasn't sufficient. He batted his best hitter seventh (Mike Napoli, .375/.500/.813), costing him at-bats during the series. He generally failed to take advantage of Lance Berkman's extreme platoon splits (1.010 OPS vs. righties; .744 vs. lefties), and he underutilized super-reliever Mike Adams, who'd treated MLB hitters of both leagues like his playthings over the past two years prior to the World Series. 

Washington's mismanagement rose to the fore in Games Six and Seven (or maybe that's when I noticed them.) As I've already documented, the pivotal moment in Game Six passed him by without notice because it arrived in the fifth inning. The rest of that evening's heroics could have thus been avoided. He left Nelson Cruz in the field in the ninth and was rewarded with Cruz's imitation of a wounded stork on the dramatic Freese "triple" that tied the score. In Game 7 he left Matt Harrison in well after his ineffectiveness had been duly demonstrated, though it's not as if his relievers acquitted themselves any better. 

In all, defense and relief pitching -- the most unheralded parts of the game -- carried the Cardinals to victory. Hail to them, but woe is our game, particularly if they add yet more less-deserving teams to the playoff stew.
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27 October 2011

Waiting for Godot to Bat


Game Six and Ron Washington succumbed to closer fever, albeit in another form.

In the top of the fifth, Wash sent starter Colby Lewis to the plate with a bat in his hand. Lewis's middling pitching performance (three runs due to ragged defense on two hits in four innings) had been enough to secure a 4-3 lead when his turn in the order came up.

At that point, with two days' rest and no more than one game remaining, Wash eschewed a pinch hitter, saving him for a key situation. The problem is, he was looking at the key situation.

It was only the fifth inning, but the bases were loaded with two outs in a one-run game. Lewis, who bunted into a double play his first time up, gave the Rangers virtually no chance of extending their lead. Possible pinch hitter, Yorvit Torrealba, hit .273/.306/.399 this year, vastly improving the odds of Texas busting the game open. The moment Ron Washington planned to wait for was staring him in the face and he missed it.

Of course, hitting for the pitcher would  end Colby Lewis's night prematurely and force Washington to seek bullpen help. So? The pen would never be in better shape. After two days off, only tomorrow's starter, Matt Harrison, would be unavailable.

As I write this, it's still 4-3 in the middle innings. But if the Cardinals go ahead, Washington's decision is going to loom very large. He passed up a chance to put the game out of reach in favor of another inning or two from a starter whose performance was easily fungible.

Why "the closer effect?" Because managers are so hidebound about using their closers only in the ninth, they blow opportunities to shut down the opposition when the game is actually on the line. Though not the same, this mistake was analogous and could conceivably cost the Rangers the championship.
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Thank You Joe Torre


Even if it had never rained yesterday, and St. Louis had suddenly baked to 70 degrees, the commissioner made the right move to postpone Game Six of the World Series.

Adding a day to the season is not the worst case scenario; it's a minor inconvenience. The worst case scenario is playing a potential deciding game of the championship in weather more befitting penguins than Cardinals. (Or maybe that's "Penguins," since it's one Pittsburgh team that does occasionally play for titles.)

Once a game starts, postponing it is a major disruption. First, some of the game gets played in miserable conditions. Second, it has to be delayed for an hour or two before it gets called, leaving fans in attendance stuck waiting and fans watching on TV scratching their heads. Resuming the game means it doesn't end until the gloaming, if at all. Temperatures have not generally been known to pick such an occasion to spring back to the comfort zone.

Calling the game hours in advance gave everyone a chance to move on with their lives for one day. On Thursday, we'll return to putting the world on hold so we can attend to our holy ritual. Thank you Joe Torre and Bud Selig.
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23 October 2011

Winning Game Eight Won't Help


Here we go again. With the Cardinals' win in Game One and then Game Three of the World Series, reporters universally rolled out their time-honored and utterly fatuous analysis of how game wins affect Series victory.

Yes we know, the Game One winner ends the season in a dogpile most of the time. Ditto for the Game Three victor. As you already know if you visit this space, the winner of any game in the Series more often takes home the title.

The simple truth is that teams that win the World Series win most of the games. Duh. If the eventual champs sweep, they win every game. (Duh 2.) If they need six games to secure the title, they still win two-thirds of the contests. (Still duh.)

So yeah, the winner of Game Anything wins most of the time. Consider this: the Game Seven victor takes the Commissioner's Trophy 100% of the time. The statement is so patently obvious that analysts refrain from mentioning it for fear of looking like morons. But they appear unable to exercise similar self-control (actually, it's similar insight they lack) with the other games.

Why didn't we hear this about Game Two? Because the Rangers tied the Series, so there didn't seem to be an advantage.

Here's the point: this is a wholly retrospective analysis, not predictive in the least. That the Cardinals won Game Three doesn't suggest they'll win the Series; teams that won the Series in previous years generally won Game Three. And Four and Five and Six.
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22 October 2011

World Series Scouts and Stats


I hope the fundamentalist seamheads have been watching the playoffs and World Series. The results have been the perfect elixir for SABR  arrogance. At the same time, every game watched by ordinary fans further burnishes sabermetric credentials.

For one thing, several of the series have been almost entirely determined by defense. One could make a good case -- to which I would subscribe -- that the key difference in the NLCS was defensive. The Brewers were sloppy and sluggish in the field; the Cardinals were crisp. Although little of that was captured in the ordinary defensive statistics, not much more could be with the newest wave of defensive measurements, which really require large samples to mean anything.

In the World Series, the winner of each one-run game was the superior defensive squad. In Game One, Albert Pujols and Chris Carpenter took hits away from Ranger batters while Nelson Cruz slid in exactly the worst way and allowed the winning hit to drop. By dropping to the ground legs first he put his glove the longest distance from the ball and failed to catch it. Had he dived, or perhaps even just reached down, he would have at least reached the ball.

In Game Two, the double play combo of Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus slickly quenched a couple of Cardinal rallies before the Rangers finally put their own shrimp on the barbie, with help from Prince Albert's mild mishandling of an outfield throw. Pujols was charged with an error hours after the game's conclusion, but only because it could be understood retrospectively to have aided in the winning run scoring one batter later. It's doubtful that an error would have been charged in a regular season game. Likewise, there is no sabermetric measurement of how the play unfolded, with Elvis Andrus scooting to second on a single that put Ian Kinsler on third with none out and set the stage for a couple of flies to right winning the game.

Much has been made of Tony LaRussa's endless machinations in these games, simultaneously crediting him with genius and blaming him for losses. In fact, LaRussa deserves neither, though he's a lot closer to the former. Specifically, many are wondering why he replaced closer Jason Motte in the ninth inning of Game 2 with antediluvian reliever Arthur Rhodes. The LOOGY Rhodes came in to face lefty Josh Hamilton who swatted the game-tying sac fly. Rhodes came out in favor of Lance Lynn, who "allowed" Michael Young's game winning flyout.

Without going into the details of the move, which seemed perfectly justified to me, judging a managerial decision by its outcome is folly. If we knew the outcomes of our decisions in advance, we'd always make the right one, except perhaps if we're Lindsay Lohan. Instead, it's the skipper's job to improve the odds of his team winning, not to certainty, and often, not even to 50%. It's easy to forget that with second and third and no one out, the average run expectancy is . . . two runs.  (That is, sometimes the pitcher will lock down, sometimes he'll limit the opposition to one run, sometimes both runners will score and sometimes more runners will get on base and add to the total that inning. On average, the offense plated 1.8926 runners in 2011.) So LaRussa was facing long odds no matter what he did in that situation. Whatever the stats say about how Jason Motte, Arthur Rhodes and Lance Lynn have performed in the past, LaRussa is paid to know more than we do about how they might perform in that moment.

Ron Washington faced the same Game One critique for ordering a free pass to Nick Punto with a runner in scoring position and two outs, in order to bring the pitcher to the plate. Punto is a .249/.325/.327 lifetime hitter unlikely to plate Lance Berkman from second, so the walk could be seen as "wasting" Chris Carpenter's at bat. (Carp fanned fecklessly for the third out.) Again, Wash is paid to know his players, and the opposition's too. Perhaps Punto's .292/.388/.421 this year gave Washington sufficient pause to sacrifice the free out that Carpenter would have represented in the next inning.

One thing a seamhead could tell you is why Nelson Cruz crushed Tiger pitching and can't buy a hit in the Series. Cruz is a fastball hitter; turning around Justin Verlander's 100 mph offering is like kicking puppies for him. But St. Louis starters mix it up more, which is less to Cruz's liking. The Cardinals also seem to have a feel for Josh Hamilton's groin (groan!); he's clearly been unable to chase pitches away, particularly in hockey weather, so that has been where Cardinal hurlers been going with him.

We'll see if things change after a day of rest and and a trip south to Texas. The bottom line so far has been a clear indication of why teams need scouts and stats and why managers and general managers have to know the strengths and weaknesses of both.
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19 October 2011

World Series Prediction


Hey sportswriters: you can write about the morose TV ratings for the World Series the same day you tout your dwindling circulation. I don't care who won't be watching the World Series; I'll be watching and that's all that matters to me.

Here's another tip for sportscasters, sportswriters and assorted analysts: stop "handicapping" the World Series. it doesn't matter what characteristics each team has; there's no guaranteeing they will come to the fore in a short series against an unfamiliar opponent in bad weather at the end of 180 games of play. 

The Rangers can bash, but that doesn't mean that they won't bat .142 with two homers in a six game stretch. Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia can pitch, but they've each scuffled through two bad outings before and might do it again. Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton are former MVPs, but David Freese and Nelson Cruz could steal their thunder. You just never know.

In the end, no one can possibly make an informed prediction about the outcome. St. Louis got to the series with rejuvenated starting pitching in the NLDS. In the championship round, their rotation came uncorked and had to get bailed out by a suddenly transcendent relief corps. Who had that parlay? Texas pounded Justin Verlander and couldn't solve Doug Fister. Go figure.

So spare us the empty predictions. No matter what you guess you're wrong, even if the outcome is correct. Because any suggestion that the result can be fore-ordained is inherently wacky.

That said, I'm pretty sure my Nationals will not be hoisting any trophies this year.
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17 October 2011

Cards Make Aces of the Oddsmakers


And so, the most improbable of all teams heads to the World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals are the most successful team in National League history with 10 World Championships and 18 World Series appearances, including the title four years ago. Nonetheless, as the last team to qualify for the playoffs, the odds against them were considerable. Behold:

  • The Cards were down 10.5 games with just 30 games left.
  • They faced the best team in baseball in the NLDS, the team with an historically great pitching staff. 
  • They had to win the deciding game on the road against the best pitcher in the game.
  • The Phillies outscored St. Louis in the NLDS.
  • In the NLCS, the Cards had to face the team that outdistanced them for the division title. 
  • The Brewers enjoyed the home field advantage after winning the most games at home during the season, but the Cardinals won two of four games in Milwaukee.
  • Cardinal starters got drubbed, lasting just 24 frames over six games in the NLCS. They pitched to a 7.03 ERA despite superb defensive support.
  • The MVP of the series was -- Albert Pujols? Matt Holiday? Lance Berkman? Yadier Molina? No -- number seven hitter David Freese, who slugged three home runs and tallied a 545/.600/1.091 batting line. Freese is no Al Weiss, but he got into the lineup just 97 times this year, producing an impressive .761 OPS at third base.
As incumbent AL Champs, the Rangers will be favored in the World Series, but not by much. St. Louis gets home field advantage thanks to -- of all people -- Prince Fielder, the All-Star MVP. The Rangers have more balance at the plate and on the mound, though Tony LaRussa made clear how irrelevant that can be in a short series.
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15 October 2011

What Does Jim Leyland Know and When Does He Know It?


Jose Valverde locked down 49 wins in 49 save opportunities this year, limiting opponents to a .470 OPS and 0.55 runs per nine. That's "Adele's singing voice" spectacular.

In non-save situations, he lost four times, allowed a .777 OPS and 6.95 runs per nine. That's "my dad's singing voice" painful.

It would seem that Valverde is one of those rare guys who needs the pressure cooker in order to thrive. He can't handle uncertainty. If he knows three outs ends the game, he's the best reliever in the league. Without that certainty, he can't make the 25-man roster.

Knowing this, Jim Leyland's move to order up his closer in the 10th inning of Game 4 with the score knotted at three was a head-scratcher.  Predictably, the result was something more dramatic. A walk, two hits and a grand slam later, the Rangers defeated Valverde's Tigers 7-3 to take a three games-to-one lead in the ALCS.

This is exactly the value add that a good manager should be bringing to the ballpark. He knows who's been practicing his bunting, who's secretly injured, who doesn't like to bat in cold weather, who gets amped playing in his hometown and who gets anxious. And whose head gets turned around in extra frames.

I wonder about Leyland's decision to play Alex Avila too. Something's wrong with his star catcher. I assume he's hurt, but whatever it is, he's batting .081 with a .290 OPS and 15 strikeouts in 40 plate appearances this postseason, even including Thursday night's dinger. He's swinging at pitches that land in Ontario. He's late on change-ups. Give the poor guy a break, Jim.

Leyland's lineup construction has also come under some fire. In Game 3, he batted light-hitting Don Kelly fifth and deep threat Jhonny Peralta sixth and against righty Colby Lewis. Kelly swings lefty, but Peralta's splits against right-handers are actually better than against lefties and far better than Kelly's. The result was that cleanup hitter Victor Martinez had no protection in the lineup, particularly when a lefty reliever entered the game.

I can see why players love Jim Leyland. He's honest and up-front with the guys. He has their back. He hugs them or tongue-lashes them, depending on what they need. But in-game decisions are part of the game too, and I haven't seen a lot of mastery there.

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The team with the best home record in baseball returns to their Milwaukee lair needing one win to force a deciding game. Sounds like anyone's series to me. This is what my newspaper calls "Cardinals on verge of clinching." 

Three-oh, you're on the verge of clinching. Three-two, no. You've got an edge.

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At the risk of tooting the Braindrizzling horn, Doug Fister and Mike Napoli are a pair of playoff stars touted during the season for their unheralded value. Napoli in particular was excoriated for his defensive deficiencies, but he has made some nice plays from the backstop position and embarrassed Miguel Cabrera on a play at the plate. 

Cabrera, out by two bases on a sacrifice fly, attempted to bowl Napoli over. The catcher responded by squatting and rolling back over the plate, leaving Cabrera to punch at air and flop on his face while being tagged out.

Napoli's 1.046 OPS (71% better than league average) at catcher, first base and DH speaks for itself. It's literally true that taking Napoli off the Angles and adding him to the Rangers gave Texas the division and left Anaheim out of the playoffs.

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11 October 2011

Maybe He Likes Sellout Crowds


Much is being made today of Colby Lewis's shiny playoff doodads: 4-0, 1.67 with a .155 BA against. The obvious conclusion is that Lewis thrives in the high-stakes environment of the postseason.

Had Lewis gone 4-0 1.67 in July, no one would have taken any notice, or assigned any personal characteristics to his streak. But let's suppose that Lewis's performance in four games means something.

It's exciting to think that the spotlight thaws some psyches and melts others. It adds intrigue and allows us to assign ordinary strengths and weaknesses to players whose abilities are beyond our comprehension. Undoubtedly, there are a few players who are actually so affected. My guess is: precious few.


Believing that every particularly strong or weak playoff performance is a function of psychology requires ignoring these not unimportant facts:

  1. Playoff games are all played after a full 162-game schedule. Some players might be tired. Or hurt. Others, recovered.
  2. Playoff games are often played in cold weather. Different players respond differently to cold.
  3. Playoff games are disproportionally played in inclement weather that would postpone games in June. Some guys hate playing in rain.
  4. Playoff games are all played against good teams. Players who feast on weak teams won't fare well.
  5. Playoff games are important. Some guys are 100% focused all the time and gain no advantage during the postseason. Others might bear down more.
No one has ever suggested that Colby Lewis likes rain or focuses better against good teams or builds strength at the end of the season. (Cold weather wouldn't have much impact on Lewis. Three of his four starts prior to tonight were in Tampa and Dallas.) These are all as plausibly true and as unprovable as the "clutch" assumption, but they are dismissed without being considered.

As long as baseball "analysts" are allowed to spout cock-eyed theories without being required to support them with evidence or defend them against contradictory data, we'll continue to hear this dreck. Next time you hear it, at least yell at your TV, "Bull! Prove it!"
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09 October 2011

Just Ask the '69 Orioles


Every time we get a winter cold snap, or a summer heat advisory, climate change ignoramuses spout commentary on the veracity of global warming. That one day's weather (or one week's or one month's) is a conglomerate of variables almost totally devoid of larger meaning is utterly lost on most observers.

The same concept applies to the baseball playoffs. You've probably heard that the Tigers need Justin Verlander to pitch three times to have any chance in their series against the Rangers. This pronouncement belongs in the same junk heap as the following:

1. There's no way the Cardinals can beat the Phillies' historically great pitching staff three times.
2. The Tigers have no chance against the Yankees unless Verlander dominates twice.

And that's just the first round of one year's post-season. Baseball's annals are rife with similar platitudes gone awry.

Every year we hear these sorry old shibboleths crammed with certitude like stuffing in a Thanksgiving turkey. But the beauty of baseball is that nothing is ever certain. The Rays earned the Wild Card on a two-strike, two-out ninth inning home run from a player batting .119 on the season with one home run batting against a bullpen that hadn't lost a late eight run lead in 60 years.

You may have noticed that Verlander got rained out in Game One of the divisional series and surrendered four runs in Game Three, yet Detroit emerged victorious, and not because the league's batting champ and its best DH mashed them to victory. Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez swatted a combined .212/.350/.393 with a homer apiece. Instead, Brandon Inge, who spent part of the season renting new hitting shoes in Toledo; and Magglio Ordonez, who is over like Huey Lewis and the News; hit.444 in fill-in roles and 25th man Don Kelly pounded the winning home run and hit .364/.364/.636 in his four games of service.

With a loss in his first start in the ALCS, the Tigers must now rely on a rotation of Fister, Scherzer and Porcello before getting Verlander back on the hill. Woe is them, although last I looked, all three were on Major League rosters.

If the Rangers send the good Derek Holland to the mound tonight (1.99 ERA in wins) the Cats could be down 2-0. But if the evil Derek Holland (9.49 ERA in losses) takes the ball, we're back to even.

Regardless, a seven-game series is like a nor'easter. The odds may favor one result or another, but they don't guarantee anything. And thank goodness for that. It's a lot more fun to watch the games when we don't already know the outcome.
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08 October 2011

Good Lottery Numbers


Fascinating and gratifying as they were, the first round of the playoffs demonstrate why more playoff teams would further drain the life out of baseball's post-season.

The results, in which the leagues' two best teams were eliminated right out of the gate, yet again speak to how baseball playoff series are a lottery. In all four division series, the losing team outscored the winning team. The result is that baseball's three best teams, three top payrolls, and best division are all completely shut out. In their place are a trio of intriguing and deserving teams  -- and one mediocre outfit. That team, the Cardinals, snuck into the proceedings thanks to a Georgia Peach of a collapse.

They also remind us of the torpid 2006 World Series featuring a desultory Tigers-Cards match-up. Both teams had stumbled through losing second halves with Detroit squandering their division title and St. Louis posting the second worst division-winning record (83-78) ever. An accurate accounting of the result is that the Tigers fumbled away the Series in five games. It was like reading a long Tom Wolfe novel with a letdown of an ending.

Adding another lesser team further degrades the value of the regular season and increases the odds that the best teams watch the championship on TV.

As for the 2011 championship, either a Tigers-Brewers or a Rangers-Brewers World Series would be a revelation. All three teams demonstrated consistent domination during the season. All three won their divisions by wide margins. A Texas-Milwaukee pairing would result in a first-time World Series winner. (Milwaukee won once in the '50s when the Braves of Aaron and Matthews played there, but only the Brewers side even to make an appearance was 1982's "Harvey's Wallbangers.") A Detroit-Milwaukee match-up would offer a classic Rust Belt showdown of cars against brauts. The Tigers last won the Series 27 years ago. (Also, Max Scherzer facing Ryan Braun would represent the first Old Testament World Series duel in my memory.)

The first round was exciting and there's no reason the second round and World Series can't be as well. Let's hope teams that deserve to be there -- i.e., not the Cardinals -- join the long and illustrious list of World Series contenders.
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04 October 2011

Tonight's Starter: A Dumpster Fire


Tampa Bay outscored Texas by six runs in their four game series and lost three of four. Two one-run losses will do that.

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The Rays got their first sellout crowd since Opening Day in Game Three of their playoff series. Serves the fans right that the Rangers swept in St. Pete to win the series.

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Everyone was stoked for CC Sabathia versus Justin Verlander, but tonight's AJ Burnett versus Rick Procello is much more intriguing. Burnett is the quintessential million-dollar arm and ten cent head. Porcello is a sophomore big leaguer with a darting sinker and inconsistent results.

If Porcello's sinker lacks its bite, he's toast against the patient Yankee lineup. They could fill up the scoreboard before he's gone. If he turns out the lights on NY's season, there will be a lovely glow around the Big Cats' two young arms -- Scherzer and Procello.

Burnett is either a fireballer or a dumpster fire. His inclusion on the post-season roster is an upset in itself. It would be delicious irony if he were to shut down the mighty Detroit lineup with the series on the line. It would be just plain delicious if he blows up and Detroit wins.

It wouldn't be surprising to see the bullpens decide this one.

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Adrian Beltre's three-homer night for the Rangers in their wrap-up 4-3 win caps a fine season in which he hit 30% better than average and shined at third. It's Beltre's first non-walk year bust-out.

Despite just 25 walks, Beltre posted a .296/.331/.561 line with 32 dingers and 33 doubles. The Ballpark in Arlington gets an assist, but that's an All-Star season in any park.

Texas paid Beltre for his career year in Boston last season and was derided for the five-year $80 million contract. It may yet bite Texas in the butt, but the Rangers are in the ALCS because of Beltre. If they win it all with him for the first time ever, no one in Big D will bemoan the contract.

03 October 2011

Playoff Observations


In the first inning of their first playoff game, the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees demonstrated why NY is a heavy favorite to win their series despite the apparent equality in their talent.

The Tigers scored a run on a home run and then surrendered the tying score on a strikeout, a walk and two fielding miscues (errors, not Errors). From the other perspective, the Yankees tallied because Derek Jeter's head is always in the game. He scampered to first on a strike three wild pitch and later burst on contact towards the plate on a grounder to the third baseman.

None of what produced the run will show up in the box score. Justin Verlander recorded the strikeout. In the agate, a WP will be recorded, but it won't say that it allowed an out to turn into a safety. After the free pass, Miguel Cabrera fielded a sharply hit grounder and mystifyingly rejected a throw to second, settling instead on a flip to the pitcher covering first. The result: instead of a double play leaving a man on third with two outs, Verlander faced second and third with one down. The box score simply records an out.

The next batter bounced sharply to Brandon Inge. Jeter broke for home immediately, but should have been thrown out. Inge swallowed his Adam's Apple and fired to first. The box score credits Inge with an assist, rather than a lapse in gonads.

In a five game series between evenly-matched teams, those kinds of small distinctions can make a big difference.

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Are the diehard clutchmeisters continuing to keep score, or are they so locked into confirmation bias that they've stopped paying attention when the facts contradict their thesis?

I refer, of course, to Derek Jeter's indomitable clutchness, whose atomic number is so huge, whose magnetic field so powerful, that repeated failures in key situations simply get sucked into the black vortex never again to be detected.

In Game Two against the Tigers, which the Yankees lost by two, Jeter flailed with futility all five times, leaving five men on base without plating one of them. That includes two strikeouts, one of them in the ninth with a runner aboard and the game on the line.

In Game Three, a one-run Yankee defeat, Mr. Clutch whiffed with runners on to end the seventh and the game. In his final at bat, Jeter left the tying and winning runs stranded.

When clutchophiles regale us with the enduring clutchiosity of their selected hero, they rarely acknowledge all the incidents of anti-clutch, or in their parlance, choking. Those data points are inconvenient, and so are forgotten in a tsunami of cognitive dissonance.

To those of us who understand that "clutch" hitting and "choking" are really more often about happenstance (not always, of course, since psychology is part of baseball, just as it's part of life) the facts rarely support these kinds of black and white characterizations.

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Is Tony La Russa an innovator or an egotist? Or both?

Last night in their game against the Phillies, Cardinals' ace Chris Carpenter got slapped around for five hits, three walks and four runs in the first two frames while pitching on short rest. Carpenter mowed down Philly batters in the third and appeared to have recovered his mojo.

In the top of the fourth, with second and third and one out and the Cards down 4-2, La Russa inserted himself, as he often does. this time by pinch hitting for his star pitcher. Thinking non-traditionally is always a good idea; acting on it, not always so much. In this case, bully for the skipper.

In many ways, the outcome of the game hung in the balance, despite the early time frame. A single ties the game; an unproductive out, like a whiff, reduces the chance of scoring dramatically. The Redbirds might not get many more opportunities against a clampdown hurler like Cliff Lee.

There is a cost to this decision, of course, and that's the loss of Chris Carpenter. But because he started Carpenter on three days rest, and with a day off following, La Russa was already priming his bullpen for significant involvement. 

I do wonder about the specific choice LaRussa made once he weighed the utility of pinch hitting. The replacement batter, switch-hitter Nick Punto, posts a lifetime .652 OPS against lefties. That's twice as good as Carpenter, which means double the chance of scoring, but didn't the Cards have a better right-handed option on the bench? Having recognized that he stood at a game crossroad, La Russa should have been selecting his best option.

Maybe he was. Generally, I defer to managers on these kinds of questions. Punto's .809 OPS this year for the Cardinals was his best ever. La Russa might know something about him that you and I don't. Maybe he feasts on Arkansans or is seeing the ball particularly well lately right-eyed.
In fact, Punto struck out on four pitches, but a Rafael Furcal single brought home another score before John Jay was gunned down at home for the inning's final out. The Cards' bullpen zipped Philly's lineup and St. Louis won 5-4 to even the series. One incident neither supports nor undermines the decision. Regardless of whether Punto was the right choice, I like the way La Russa was thinking.

It's ironic that the manager who elevated the ninth inning to iconic status via the one-inning closer simultaneously recognizes that a game can be won or lost in the fourth.

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If the Diamondbacks and Brewers were to effect a trade that sent Prince Fielder or Ryan Braun to Phoenix, who would the Snakes have to surrender? This is a trick question, because contract status aside, Milwaukee wouldn't swap Braun or Fielder for the entire Diamondback roster.

It's amazing to think that these two teams finished the season one game apart. As the first two contests of their playoff series seemed to demonstrate, the Brewers are the vastly superior team. Naming the 10 best players on both teams combined would involve running your finger down the Milwaukee roster, leaving room for Justin Upton.

Next year, don't expect either in the playoffs. Knowing they would lose their non-meat slugger,  Brewers brass made a series of short-term moves to bolster their lineup. It's now or never for Milwaukee.

The Diamondbacks have a different problem: everyone played over his head. When the entire lineup and pitching staff returns to earth next year, some of them are going to land on cacti. It's not going to be pretty.

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Biblical Irony: A leading candidate for the MVP, Ryan Braun stated unequivocally that he was more focused on the batting title because he could control that. The Hammering Hebrew set his sights on becoming the first Jewish batting champ.

In order to be the first Jewish batting champ, Braun had to go three-for-four on the final day of the season, which is to say, he had to violate Jewish law. Game 162 was on Rosh Hashana, the second holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

God, evidently, is a Catholic. Braun went oh-for-four and Jose Reyes won the batting crown. L'chaim!
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Baseball Was Not Made For Downpours


Cal Ripken said it first, but it bears repeating: It's not fair to force one team to bat in a downpour, then pull the tarp over the field and wait for weather to clear before the other side gets its licks. (If you -- incredibly -- ascribe to David Wells' conviction that the disadvantage belongs to the fielders, the inequity is the same, just in reverse.)

In Game One of their series, the Tigers were forced to attempt to solve CC Sabathia -- difficult enough under ordinary circumstances -- in conditions no one would attempt to land a plane in. The last two batters in the inning were clearly unable to pick up the ball and went down meekly on strikes. The umps -- obviously under league orders to ignore the elements as long as they could -- finally shut it down during the mid-frame break, never to resume.

The Yankees batted the next day in playable weather, with Justin Verlander already removed. That NY won in a laugher doesn't alter the point: Games should be stopped when the weather sucks. 

The problem, of course, is the calendar, not the heavens. There isn't enough room in the first place for a 162-game season without double-headers, a free day for play-in games, two rounds of playoffs and the World Series between April Fools' Day and Halloween. Adding a few days of postponement for the inevitable freezing rain events during the October post-season mucks up the schedule (and the rotations) worse than the pitching mound. 

So which of these luxuries does MLB elminate: 
  • The April start to the season?
  • The October end?
  • The lack of doubleheaders?
  • The 162-game season?
  • The endless rounds of playoffs?
  • Playoffs at home parks (rather than neutral sites)?
  • Waiting out bad weather during the most important games?
Answer: The worst possible solution. Rather than add some doubleheaders and/or trim the playoffs back, Czar Bud and his minions have chosen to make a mockery of the championship march. So Alex Avila paid the price, attempting to hit a sinking 95 mph fastball between raindrops.
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