31 August 2012

The As and Os? How?

With the early hints of autumn, we've reached the time of year when sports fans, not content to wallow in their silent cluelessness, broadcast it to the world in the form of NFL predictions. Predicting teams' records is an effort in such futility that almost none of the NFL savants who breathe pigskin air 25-hours-a-day could have predicted last year's Super Bowl champ even at the end of the 16-game schedule.

This brings to mind the current state of affairs in Major League Baseball's standings, in which a serially-inept Baltimore franchise and the skeletal remains of an Oakland squad lead the AL Wild Card race, five games ahead of the Angels, who added the MVP, their main rival's best pitcher and Albert Pujols prior to the start of play, and the 2010 Cy Young after the All-Star break. This situation was inconceivable in April.

In fact, it's inconceivable now. The Orioles are 14 games over .500 despite having been outscored by 44 runs. The ace of their staff is a gentleman named Jason Hammel, a 6'6" righty with a 42-51, 4.80 record in seven years of work. Their #2 starter is some other guy and some pitcher of no note is #3. Don't even ask about #s 4 and 5.

Led by two-thirds of a good outfield (Adam Jones and Nick Markakis), the O's struggle to get aboard (third worst OBP in the AL) in front of all the big bopping (161 HRs, fourth best), leaving them ninth of 14 AL teams in scoring. Typical is shortstop JJ Hardy, whose 17 homers are more than offset by a .277 OBP. That the Orioles are a wind machine is much of the problem; seven of the nine regulars have fanned more than 80 times already.

About the only real asset in Baltimore, besides the cathedral in which they play, is the bullpen. Their five primary relievers all sport ERAs below 3.00, notably closer Jim Johnson, who's clamped down 41 of 43 saves. Still, it doesn't add up. A shutdown pen that backs a mediocre rotation and an out-challenged batting order does not ordinarily a playoff team make.

Ditto for the A's, who get a D in hitting, a B in starting pitching and an A in bullpen. It's a mystery where in that vast dump they call The Coliseum is kept the smoke and mirrors. At the plate, they're worst in the league in strikeouts, second worst in OBP and third worst in runs scored, yet they lead the Wild Card race at 16 games over .500.  Their best hitter (outfielder Josh Reddick) is a Red Sox castoff with a .327 OBP. Their best starter, Brandon McCarthy, is a seven-year veteran with a lifetime achievement of 36-38, 4.01. Similar to Baltimore, they close the door with five relievers whose ERAs all hover below 2.80, but it doesn't add up.

Stack those two rosters against the Angels, who are bursting with stars, and it's a head-scratcher. Mike Trout, Mark Trumbo, Albert Pujols, Torii Hunter and Kendrys Morales provide more firepower than the As and Os combined. L.A. stands taller on the hill too, with an enviable rotation of CJ Wilson, Cy Young-candidate Jared Weaver, Dan Haren, Ervin Santana and now Zack Greinke. The relief corps is a drag, but not enough to prevent the team from barely sticking its head above .500.

Maybe you had the Oakland-Baltimore parlay. You're one in a million. Did you also have Washington and Cincinnati at one-two in the senior circuit? Me either. But I'm smart enough -- even with a blog -- to keep my pre-season guesses to myself.

28 August 2012

Can Hurdle Turn the Pirate Ship Around?

All hail Clint Hurdle, skipper of the Pirate ship Unexpected, which has sailed to within site of Playoff Land with an under-powered engine. Whether this voyage is the result of adept captaining, a vigorous crew or a lusty wind at their back, no one actually knows, but Capt. Hurdle will get the credit because that's easy and convenient.

Ironically, only now that the ship has temporarily run aground will the skipper really demonstrate his leadership skills. With the expected catching up with the Unexpected, the crew might react in several ways: they might lose faith, they might jump ship, they might rally or they might keep on doing their best until a wave washes them back into deeper water.

Since pushing to the lead for the second NL Wild Card, the Bucs have lost their way, dropping six of seven and 13 of 19, and falling into a mash-up of teams chasing the Cardinals. The pitching, about middle of the pack all year thanks mostly to a valiant bullpen, has sputtered a bit the last month. The offense, also known as Andrew McCutcheon, is chugging fitfully along, more or less as it has all season. Though the performance isn't much different, the team is beginning to veer off course, outscored by 30 runs in 19 games.

Veteran clubs understand that the winds of a long baseball season blow variably over time, and know the difference between patience and complacency, urgency and panic. Young teams, like Pittsburgh's, rely more on the man steering the ship. Right now, the Pirates need one with a steady hand on the till, an unwavering gaze on the destination and a heavy foot on the accelerator. Let's see if that's what Clint Hurdle has and if he can wrest from the crew equal measures of patience and urgency. If he does, then we have evidence of great managing.

26 August 2012

What We Know About Strasburg Is That You're An Idiot

Opinions, the saying goes, are like assholes: everyone has one. Consider the debate over whether global warming is yet another artifact of human arrogance. Throw a pebble in any direction and you will bruise someone spouting random facts supporting or opposing the theory.

It's an analog for a baseball discussion now raging. We'll ride that bull in a minute.

The pertinent question is not whether the voting masses are believers or deniers. The question is whether the people who study this for a living, people with actual knowledge of the data and, more importantly, its context, believe it. There seems (to me) to be a consensus among climate scientists worldwide that global warming exists, it's our fault and we ought to do something about it.

I have a friend who, having armed himself with a handful of readings and a pile of facts committed to memory, believes he knows otherwise. He argues that the data demonstrates that atmospheric carbon levels blabbidy blah blah blah. I tune him out because he's not a scientist and so really, what the hell does he know? He's found some interpretations that support his point of view and may or may not have any idea what they mean. Moreover, I have no way of judging their validity or evaluating their context.

He also claims that there is no consensus among scientists about global warming, that alarmists are organized and can collectively claim a consensus, while skeptics are legion but unconnected and therefore unable to put the lie to that claim. To this, I'm inclined to listen. The experts' opinions matter.

Which brings us to the novel pitcher handling system installed by the Washington Nationals. Concerned about the health of second-year phenom Stephen Strasburg in his return season from Tommy John surgery, GM Mike Rizzo has steadfastly intoned all year long that he would limit his hurler to 180 innings come what may. What's come is a World Series run at which, by Rizzo's determination, Strasburg will serve as spectator.

There is clearly a consensus with respect to this decision: derision. There appears to be near unanimity that Rizzo is a blithering moron who will cost Washington its first World Series since 1924. Radio hosts, former pitchers and ticket buyers are all loudly proclaiming the pending shutdown unmitigated folly.

The criticisms come in many hues. Let's take a summary view of the most prominent.
1. In 120 years of baseball, no one has ever done this before.
2. The Nats will shut down their best starter during the stretch and playoffs -- just when they need him most. They have the best record in baseball and might never have this chance again.
3. There's no evidence that a kid-gloves approach will avoid future injuries. (See: Joba.)
4. Innings limits are stupid. Walter Johnson didn't need an innings limit. Neither did Lefty Grove or Whitey Ford or Tom Seaver or Roger Clemens or Justin Verlander.
5. If they knew he'd have an innings maximum, the Nats should have employed some other strategy, like skipping every other start, limiting his innings in each start, resting him mid-season, or something else to allow him to pitch in the playoffs.

Although the 180-inning plateau seems arbitrary, there is method to Rizzo's madness. More to the point, there's expertise in the Washington front office that radio host, former pitcher and Joe Sixpack don't have. For example, Rizzo and his team know that:
1. Just because it's never been done before doesn't make it a bad idea. The iPhone had never been done before. Duh. (Besides, the Nats did exactly the same thing with Jordan ZImmermann in 2011 and he's been healthy and effective since.)
2. Washington has a long-term investment in their star and has built a team to win for the foreseeable future.
3. There is quite a stockpile of evidence that young pitchers, particularly those who've endured significant injuries like torn elbow ligaments, can be easily over-worked. It's likely that Nationals brass has done a lot more homework on the subject than radio host, former pitcher or you. (The research that is public knowledge suggests that pitch counts are more important than innings counts, and that their relationship to fatigue and injury is complex and not fully understood.)
4. Mark Fidrych could have used an innings limit. Having never tossed more than 171 innings in the minors, The Bird threw 24 complete games and 250 innings his rookie year until his arm fell off and his career crashed.  Blue Moon Odom, a star of the '68-'69 Oakland A's, could have used an innings limit. In his first full big league season at age 23 Odom added 130 frames to his workload, pitched two more good seasons and was washed up by age 28. The list of examples would make Billy Martin blush, except Martin wore out pitchers with impunity.
5. Many of these suggestions miss the point. What research exists suggests that the kind of rest described by critics would not have the desired effect. The Nats believe they need to allow Strasburg to throw a reasonable number of pitches each game -- say, no more than 100 per game and no more than 190 in two consecutive games -- until he meets his innings limit and then enter his off-season program. 

The point is, maybe the people who have millions of dollars and multiple World Series rings invested in Stephen Strasburg, the people whose careers depend on his success, the people who have been scouring the globe for the best information in his case, maybe they know something the rest of us don't know. Have a little humility and consider that before you join your drinking buddies in excoriating the Nationals.

24 August 2012

Sinking Ship in Boston Dumps Its Treasure

Have you heard about the man who bangs his head against the wall because it feels so good when he stops? He's today's Boston Red Sox. 

The Sox and Dodgers are reportedly on the verge of a deal whose main asset to L.A. is the immediate acquisition of four expensive, talented veterans, and whose main asset to Boston is the immediate departure of them. 

(For the record, Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto are reportedly headed to L.A. for some minor leaguers, a talented young pitcher with 61 innings of MLB experience and a first-base placeholder in James Loney.)

With the ship sinking, or perhaps sunk, weighed down in part by bloated contracts to under-performing veterans, the Sox appear to be scuttling the ballast and racing to shore, from which they can rebuild the team in the off-season. Beckett, whose salad days in Boston are over, is owed $31.5 million over the next two years. Crawford, who has yet to mix his greens in New England, has five years and $102 million left on his deal. Gonzalez brought his hitting shoes to the Saux and seems worth the $127 million over six years remaining. (None of these include what's left of this year's contract.) Punto doesn't belong on this list; he's a utility player who works for food.

In short, the Sox shed more than $50 million in salaries each of the next two seasons and the production of only one reliable asset. They will pay through the nose to replace A-Gon's production, but perhaps GM Ben Cherrington, having taken stock of his starting rotation, is punting 2013 as well.

The Dodgers, now the proud owners of pending free agent Shane Victorino and the flickering candle of Hanley Ramirez's attention span, have pushed all their chips to the center of the table in 2012. They appear willing to eat those insane contracts as the cost of transforming their lineup with Gonzalez. 

Somewhere in this sour goulash is the ongoing Fenway saga in which Gonzalez and Beckett are reported to be major ingredients. There's no way to determine how much this deal is seasoned with that consideration, but it appears at least to be relevant.

Crawford's ability to heal from TJ surgery and rebound, Beckett's rejuvenation in Chavez Ravine and the development of Rubby de la Rosa and the prospects could go a long way towards determining the value of this trade to each side. That is, unless the Dodgers end October in a dogpile, in which case all other considerations are moot.

19 August 2012

Piercing Insights To Shock and Amaze


Momentary lasers of brilliance that couldn't wait to be disseminated to the world...

Big Donkey Still Kickin'
Adam Dunn wasn't nicknamed The Big Donkey to denote grace and beauty afield. Mostly the White Sox hide his glove and pencil in his name as DH. He's hitting .209 and following a record-setting strikeout trajectory with 172.

And he's worth nearly two wins compared to a replacement DH.

That's because Dunn leads the AL in home runs and walks too, giving him a respectable .342 OBP and an exemplary .494 SLG. By way of comparison, Reds sparkplug Brandon Phillips is batting 80 points higher but has posted an OBP 12 points lower.

Dunn is a quintessential Three True Outcomes (TTO) hitter: of his 512 plate appearances he's actually tested the opponent's defense just 214 times. The other 298 trips have comprised walks, strikeouts, HBP or balls hit out of the park. His infield teammate (when Sox manager Robin Ventura saddles his defense with Dunn at first), Gordon Beckham has made the defense work 333 times in just 445 plate appearances. Dunn's TTO score is 58.2%; Beckham's a more average 25.2%.

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Run-Run-Run-Runaway
If high drama is your cup of tea, the MVP race in each league is a steaming mug of strychnine. 

With a quarter of the season left, Miguel Cabrera, has a .990 OPS, 31 HR and 104 RBI, and has posted an offensive value in the five-win range. And he's a distant second in the MVP race. 

Angels phenom Mike Trout, with a 1.011 OPS and 39 steals in 42 attempts (zounds!) is worth nearly seven wins to his team -- and that's before you subtract Cabrera's third base butchery and add Trout's brilliance at the premium midfield position. 

Unless Trout tanks, Cabrera, Josh Hamilton, Robinson Cano, Edwin Encarnacion, AJ Pierzynski and others will have to settle for an attaboy from their manager (and perhaps a World Series ring).

Likewise in the NL, where Melky Cabrera has turned into a pumpkin and Joey Votto's injury has removed him from contention. Pirate center fielder Andrew McCuthcen's 1.020 OPS and fielding genius has also lapped the field. Barring a McCutchen face plant down the stretch, Buster Posey, Ryan Braun and David Wright will battle for silver (and probably no World Series appearances). 

Same for the Rookie of the Year award. Try a cuppa Joe.

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The Cat Says, Do It Now
Bobby Valentine could do something immediately to boost the Red Sox fortunes: Whisper the following to his disappointing left fielder, "Carl, have the surgery now."

Carl Crawford has played just 30 games this year due to a torn elbow ligament. He needs Tommy John surgery but a chivalrous streak has kept him from abandoning his troubled teammates and their late-season Wild Card run.

"What late season Wild Card run," you may have asked yourself, or your cat, who was minding her own important business, consisting largely of staring blankly into space or licking her private parts and swallowing the loose hair, for re-purposing later on the carpet. 

Exactly. 

Recovery from the TJ surgery will take six-to-nine months. (Recovery from the hairball will take several minutes and also involve labored breathing.) If Crawford hangs on for Boston's inevitable demise on Oct. 3, his healthy return for the 2013 campaign might be delayed into summer. Going under the knife next week virtually guarantees his availability at the start of the 2013 season, when the Red Sox won't be seven games in the hole.

With improved pitching that will result from the natural evolution of I haven't the foggiest idea, Boston plans to contend in 2013, and for that they need the contributions from Crawford that they paid for in the 2011 off-season. 

It's certainly possible that Fenway's brutal mound corps could catch fire pigs fly just as David Ortiz returns to a newly-rejuvenated lineup hell freezes over, leading New England's favorites out from the sub-.500 abyss chicken have teeth and past the five teams ahead of them for the Wild Card on a week with two Thursdays. That kind of miracle could occur, as this Boston contingent knows all too well, but if Crawford wants to play the odds, sticking around the rest of this season is like betting that fish will climb trees.

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He Can't Go Home Again
If Hanley Ramirez has a home in Miami, he might want to reconsider returning there following the season. After blasting the Marlins with his suck ray in 2011 and 2012, he's delivered .330/.392/.549 and good defense to the Dodgers, including four homers in a three game set against his old compadres. In just 23 games in L.A., Ramirez has been worth more to his team than in the previous 185 games in Florida.

Think they want to string him up in the Sunshine State?

Now if the Dodgers are smart, they'll flip Hanley's re-motivated self to another club while his value remains spiked and let his next sulk come at someone else's expense. That might ease the pain endured by the franchise from the re-signing of another Ramirez in 2009 to a disastrous two-year, $45 million deal after he temporarily re-discovered his inspiration with them in the 2008 season.

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The Devil's Good Side
While maintaining that expanded playoffs are the devil's workshop, I have to admit that the massive disadvantage bestowed in the new format upon Wild Card teams is shooting bolts of interest into the division races.

This year, it matters whether Chicago or Detroit wins the AL Central, or whether L.A. or San Francisco takes the NL West, even if the loser earns a post-season consolation prize. The loser's playoff fortunes will ride on a one-game, anything goes play-in game, followed by a division series in which they may have already burned their top starter.

The result: the consolation prize won't be worth anything to 50% of the teams that grab it, and even advancement into the playoffs will still entail a climb over the odds.

Expect two positive developments from the new post-season scenario:
1. Despite a doubling of Wild Card qualifiers, there will be a small decline in Wild Card teams making the World Series. 
2. The Wild Card game will be considered by baseball fandom to be a play-in, not a playoff, and teams that succumb in that  match will not be generally understood as having made the post-season.

18 August 2012

When Models Look Extra Ugly


Democrats are predictably excoriating Paul Ryan these days for his "attack" on Medicare. His voucher plan for the government-sponsored health care insurance for the elderly (and the not-nearly elderly; you can join at 65) diminishes benefits going forward.

Democrats are comparing Ryan's plan to perfection, or to the current system. Neither, of course, is an apt comparison. Medicare is rushing headlong off the financial cliff without reform, and threatening to take the entire American economy with it. Relative to insolvency, which is the ultimate fate of the program under everyone else's plan (i.e., no plan at all), Ryan's proposal is a revelation.

A similar debate is shaking the Sabermetric community these days in the wake of a pair of disturbing arithmetic developments. But the conclusion is the same: the measure of a new idea isn't in comparison to perfection, but to the old paradigm.

First, some context. Ever since Voros McCracken unveiled the idea in 1999 that pitchers have limited control over what happens once their pitch is put into the field of play -- a conclusion now much more nuanced and qualified -- seamheads have been whipping up concoctions to strip luck and defense out of pitching results to determine how well pitchers are actually pitching.

One of the many formulae brewed by the stat wizards is FIP -- fielding independent pitching. Without excavating spreadsheets filled with higher math, it can be described this way: given the number of batters a pitcher has fanned, walked, hit with pitches and allowed to homer, how many runs should we expect to score against him given average defense and ballpark?

In July, Reds closer Aroldis Chapman broke FIP (in the words of CBS Sports). He faced 52 batters in 14 1/3 innings and whiffed 31 of them. He allowed just six hits, two walks, a HBP and nary a run, nailing down 13 saves. Batters posted a desultory .122/.173/.143 line against him.  In other words, Chapman was Superman for a 30-day period. (He's been no slouch under other moons.)

Putting those numbers through the meat grinder yielded a FIP for Chapman of -0.99. That is, Chapman could be expected, given his performance, to yield minus-one run per nine innings. Certifiably nuts.

Others have noted odd sightings in Baseball-Reference.com's WAR (Wins Against Replacement) calculations. WAR attempts to review all of a player's performance and all of the context and measure him against a Triple-A replacement at his position. In mid-August, Cubs keystoner Darwin Barney had a higher WAR than Brewers slugger Ryan Braun. Just for context, Barney is hitting .268/.309/.386, or about 12% below the MLB average. Braun, at .301/.380/.526, is 53% above average. Braun is also superior in the baserunning department and has grounded into fewer double plays. Moreover, Wrigley Field and Miller Park are about equally kind to hitters, and both batters suffer equally in their inability to bat against their own team's woeful pitching staff.

What WAR sees that we don't is defense. It credits Barney for defense double in value of any other second-sacker's, while Braun's left-field stylings more resemble the staccato flight of a pigeon. Subjectively, there appears to be a grain of truth here, but clearly not enough that anyone in Wisconsin would trade Braun for every Barney ever known, including the purple dinosaur. WAR is suffering convulsions and has been put on bed rest, at the very least.

These two developments have led some to observe FIP and WAR's death throes. The projection models have failed and it's time to put them out of their misery. But in the words of that great philosopher Quick Draw McGraw, "Now hold on there just a doggone minute, Baba Looie."

No model is perfection, not even Adriana Lima. Clearly outlier performances like Chapman's make mincemeat of statistical models. As I've mentioned before, quantitative analysis of defense is just in the bloom of its youth, beholden to bursts of impaired judgment. I rarely rely on WAR or WARP and pay much more attention to offensive valuations, leavened by a general sense of a player's glovework.

Nonetheless, FIP is an extremely useful tool, and though the value it applies to Chapman's performance is nonsense, it's not really wrong. FIP says Chapman was virtually unhittable, and by golly, he was. Only 18 batters out of 52 could even put the ball in play.

The real question then is, are these models less imperfect than the old tools? WAR certainly measures something bigger and more relevant than Triple Crown stats do, but whether it measures relative positional value better than Triple Crown stats measure hitting performance would require some sort of study. There's no doubt that FIP tells us much more about a pitcher than W-L and ERA; it's been shown to be vastly better at projecting performance.

All of which presents the same moral that every other development in quantitative analysis has: the state of the art is improving, but will never be perfect. After all, they measure the performances of people.

12 August 2012

Dissecting a Common Fallacy


In the practice of rhetoric, deductive logic makes two demands:
  1. Deductive validity. 
  2. Truthful premises. 
That is, an if/then arrangement requires that the "if" statements be true and that the "then" statement flow naturally and inevitably from the combination of "if" statements.

For example: 
Mike Trout is the best player in the American League this year.
Mike Trout is a rookie.
Therefore Mike Trout is the Rookie of the Year.

It's valid and true. Although true, this isn't deductively valid:
Mike Trout is a rookie.
Mike Trout has the highest batting average in the league.
Therefore Mike Trout is the Rookie of the Year.

Many sports radio talk show hosts are inadequately schooled in logic.  Consider this segment paraphrased from a recent ESPN radio broadcast:

"Who are the managers of the year in the AL and NL? How about Davey Johnson? The Washington Nationals have the best record in baseball, three great starters and a different hitting star everyday. Even if they shut down Strasburg, they're looking good."

"The Reds have won five in a row even without their star Joey Votto. Dusty Baker is a veteran manager with a World Series on his resume. How about Clint Hurdle? He has the Pirates primed for their first winning season in 20 years."

"Bruce Bochy has kept the Giants atop the West. Maybe he's the guy."

"In the American League, the Yankees will win the East despite a rash of injuries, but before you crown Joe Girardi, Ron Washington has the Rangers ahead in the West."

This segment was based on several unstated fallacies:
1. The manager of the year is the skipper of the most surprisingly good team.
2. The manager is responsible for his players' performances.
3. You can measure how good a manager is by how often his team wins.
4. That the manager has guided a team to a pennant in the past has some bearing on his performance this year.
5. No actual data, anecdotes, research, knowledge or information is necessary to determine a manager's value.

Baseball writers have singularly relied on the first fallacy to elect their Manager of the Year each season, but there isn't a shred of evidence that there's any connection. Indeed, in every other sport we measure managers/head coaches by the sustained success of their teams, not by their episodic improvement from poor performances. Bill Belichick, Bobby Bowden, Mike Krzyzewski, Phil Jackson, Scotty Bowman and their ilk are admired not because their teams have outperformed expectations but because they set the expectations high each year and met them.

Beyond that, notice that the radio host, by failing to recite a single observation to support her arguments, unintentionally acknowledged that she toils in total ignorance of the actual work these men do. For all the host knows, one or more of them is reviled or disrespected by his players. 
The unfortunate fact for those attempting to parse managing performance is that the vast majority of a manager's role eludes the public lens: managing personalities, inspiring greatness, promoting teamwork, keeping a steady hand on the till from the first buds of spring through the changing of the leaves. Team performance on the field is a woeful proxy for that.

A small function of a manager's job is the In-game tactics. What little we can see suggests neither Baker nor Washington is even adequate. (After 50 years in the business, Dusty still thinks the quintessential leadoff hitter swipes 30 bases and makes outs 70% of the time.)

It got worse. Behold this matrix of convolution:

"But how about thinking outside the box? Sure, the Angels have Albert Pujols, but they're getting production from guys you don't expect, like Mike Trout and Mark Trumbo. Mike Scioscia deserves some attention."

The cupboard is so bare of rational thought here as to boggle the mind. Primarily, the talk show host decided to abandon the core fallacy -- absolving the manager for taking  a team of loaded dice and rolling craps -- and instead credit him for coaxing performance out of unexpected places (but failing to do so out of the big stars.) That particular pretzel logic is the perfect coda on an argument that captures, in one four-minute segment, why sports talk radio is a barren desert, and why Manager of the Year votes are completely, utterly, hopelessly irrelevant.

11 August 2012

Who's The Man Now?


So now the question is no longer whether Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian ever, but whether Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian of the 2012 games.

With his three golds in London, Usain Bolt has cemented his place as the greatest sprinter of all time: Bolt is the third man to win 100 and 200 in the same Olympics. 
  • He's the second man to repeat in the 100. (Carl Lewis required a disqualification to achieve the feat.)
  • He's the first man to repeat in the 200. 
  • He's the first man to repeat in both the 100 and 200. (Not fair: WWII prevented Jesse Owens from defending his crowns.)
  • He's been toying with his opponents.
  • He owns the three fastest 100 times in history.
  • He's run the two fastest 200 times in history.

Bolt's end-race antics prevent a complete account of his domination. We know that even loping the last few meters, he is the fastest man on earth by a healthy margin. His obliteration of the Olympic 100 came against a Dream Team field -- the fastest ever recorded.

Usain Bolt has promised a return in Rio, 2016, perhaps to gild his lily, perhaps to race to gold in the 400. Regardless, I'd vote for him as the greatest Olympian in the 2012 games.


04 August 2012

This Punchline Is No Joke


Since the Cubs unwisely signed him into his dotage as if he'd win them an election, Alfonso Soriano has been a punchline. The 8-year/$136 million debacle shone a spotlight on Soriano's poor plate discipline, lackadaisical approach and underwhelming defense, all of which undermined the high batting average and big home run totals.

Soriano has slipped in general estimation from 40/40 superstar keystoner to utterly worthless outfielder in just a few years.The pendulum, has swung farther than is warranted, in large part due to weak performances at the plate in 2009 and 2011. Because he's never walked and no longer runs, Soriano must hit at least .260 with his usual power to have any value.

This year, at age 36 and with two more seasons on his lottery ticket, Soriano has contributed. He's hitting .271/.321/.494 with 19 homers and 22 doubles in less than two-thirds of a season. His contribution, however, has been wasted on the last place Cubs, who are not positioned to exploit his skills even if they have the bankroll to cut his checks.

It has been an annual August exercise for Chicago to place Soriano's name on the waiver wire and for general managers everywhere to yawn. Or giggle. This year, though, several contenders light on the lumber might want to consider placing a claim. This was not originally my idea; I stole it from Jack Moore at Fangraphs.

Imagine you're the Tampa Rays. You're desperate for a decent outfield or DH bat, like one that posts an OPS 18% above league average. You're wallowing in the Wild Card rumble with the league's second-best pitching but a punchless offense weighed down by the offensive floundering of Desmond Jennings, BJ Upton and Luke Scott.

There's no way you're paying the king's ransom, or even a princely portion, for Soriano this year and the two following. Good news: Cubs GM Theo Epstein will be glad to oblige. Chicago will pay most of the tab for someone to take Soriano so they can free up a few drachma while grooming their next pennant-winning team. It will take a couple of prospects to consummate the deal, but Tampa has that in abundance.

If another team is willing to pay nearly full freight on Soriano, they can probably land him without skimming any cream off the minor league system. But more likely, a team with an outfield hole can get the the righthanded Dominican for a 50 centavos on the dollar.

We're probably a year ahead of ourselves. There might still be too much time and money left on Soriano's contract for anyone to deal. When the tipping point arrives, teams should be careful not to dismiss out of hand a guy with 350 homers and 420 doubles on his ledger even if the defense and other skills don't quite add up.

Picking The Greatest an Olympic Feat

Another quick Olympic note to counteract the predictably insipid, jingoistic and advertising-stuffed coverage on NBC...

After Michael Phelps broke Larisa Latynina's record for Olympic medals won, talk arose about whether Phelps is the greatest Olympian ever.

The obvious answer is: possibly, but not necessarily. Absent Phelps, is Latynina the best ever? She won nine gold, five silver and four bronze medals as part of the Soviet gymnastics team in the 1956, 1960 and 1964 games. Likely, you'd never heard of her before, in part because she's not American, and in part because simply collecting medals -- even golds -- doesn't necessarily convey greatness beyond single-event champions.

Swimmers and gymnasts have the advantage of competing in disciplines that allow for multiple medal hauls, something not really available to hockey players, pole vaulters, biathletes, boxers, or most other competitors. (This is why, incidentally, China has concentrated its efforts on the pool and the gym. It's the fast lane to the leader board.) Phelps' achievements over multiple Olympics are spectacular; nevertheless, it's important to put them into perspective.

1. He won 18 golds, eight more than anyone else in Olympic history.
2. But nine of his medals are team accomplishments (i.e. relays).
3. He's won two different races -- 200 I.M. and 100 butterfly -- in three consecutive Olympics.
4. But the 100 and 200 in the same stroke are really the same event. So Phelps has several duplicate golds.
5. He's set 30 world records in his career.

The greatest swimmer in the world for a decade, Phelps deserves the bouquet of accolades and the endorsement bonanza. But the greatest Olympian ever? Try these on for size (in no particular order):

Paavo Nurmi (Finland) -- won 12 long-distance and middle-distance medals in three Olympics (1920, 1924, 1928). Nine golds and three silvers make him the greatest distance runner in history.

Eric Heiden (USA) -- captured all five golds in speed skating in the 1980 winter games. Then he became a professional bicyclist. Then he went to medical school.

Teofilo Stevenson (Cuba) -- dominated the heavyweight boxing world in three straight Olympics (1972, 1976, 1980). Benefited from rules on amateurism as a representative of a Communist country.

Daley Thompson (Great Britain) and Bob Mathias (USA) -- Each won the decathlon in two consecutive Olympics. Each set the record (at the time) for decathlon points. Each was considered the world's greatest athlete for eight years. (Between Olympic competitions, Mathias played football for Stanford, carrying the ball in the Rose Bowl.)

Jackie Joyner-Kersee (USA) -- Won a silver in the 1984 heptathlon (the women's equivalent of the decathlon) and then ran away with gold in 1988 and 1992, setting a points record that's yet to be equaled. She also competed in three Olympic long jump competitions, placing first once and third twice. She continues to hold the world's top six heptathlon scores and is generally considered the greatest female athlete ever.

Aleksandr Karelin (USSR/Unified Team/Russia) -- Not just the greatest Greco-Roman wrestler of all time, winner of three consecutive golds and then a silver in 2000 at age 33, Karelin struck terror in the breasts of his opponents. His devastating "Karelin Lift," in which he pulled prone opponents from the mat and whipped their bodies over his head violently to the ground, scared some fighters into submission. Karelin's 13-year undefeated streak ended in the 2000 Olympic finals when Rulon Gardner scored an unfathomable upset. Karelin had not surrendered a single point in competition for six years before that.

Al Oerter (USA) -- The Olympic discus champion from age 20 to age 32, winning in Melbourne, Rome, Tokyo and Mexico City, setting a record each time. In 1980, at age 44, he competed in the US Olympic trials and finished fourth.

Bjorn Daehlie (Norway) -- The most successful winter Olympian of all time, Daehlie posted cross country skiing victories in the '88, '92 and '94 Games. (The winter schedule was separated from the summer schedule between the 1992 and 1996 Olympics.) He won the combined, the 10K and the 50K, finishing second in the 30K. Overall, Daehlie's stash is eight golds and four silvers.

Jim Thorpe (USA) -- Competed in just one Olympics, winning the pentathlon and the decathlon in a pair of shoes fished from a rubbish bin after his were stolen. Thorpe finished first in eight of the 15 events comprising the two competitions. In the decathlon, he finished in the top four in every event and set a record for points that stood for two decades. Besides those grueling competitions, Thorpe competed in the long jump and high jump, finishing fourth and seventh respectively.

Naim Süleymanoğlu (Turkey) -- The Pocket Hercules, at 4'10" and 123 pounds, clean-and-jerked 375 pounds in the 1988 Games, becoming one of only two men in history to lift three times his weight. The Bulgarian-born defector moved up in weight class to 132 pounds and proceeded to lift 418 pounds in the 1992 competition, again tripling his weight. He won gold again in 1996 and is considered the greatest pound-for-pound lifter ever.

Jesse Owens (USA) -- In Hitler's face, Owens bested the world in track and field -- the 100 and 200 sprints, the 4x100 relay and the long jump.

Carl Lewis (USA) -- Won 10 medals, nine gold, from 1984 to 1996, in two different disciplines -- sprinting and long jump. Lewis was undefeated in the long jump for 10 years and took the gold in '84, '88, '92 and '96. In 1984, he matched Jesse Owens by sweeping the 100 and 200 dashes, the long jump and the 4x100 relay.

Sonja Henie (Norway) -- Three time Olympic figure skating champion (and 10-time World champion), Henie transformed and popularized the sport, adding balletic form and costuming.

Comparing Oerter, Kersee-Joyner, Suleymanoglu, Thorpe and Phelps is a fool's errand. Suffice to say, Phelps is the most decorated, and among the greatest ever. Just don't forget all those amazing athletes who hail from places other than the 50 states.