30 September 2012

News & Notes As the White Sox Slip Away

Baseball players are finding out what it feels like to be George Harrison this year. In a year with the first Triple Crown contender in 40 years, the most astonishing rookie season of all time and maybe the most breathtaking relief pitching performance ever, being simply great in 2012 is something of an anti-climax.

Pity poor Jim Johnson. The Oriole closer shut the door for the 50th time today in 53 attempts. Yawn. In that amazing Baltimore pen, he doesn't even stand out. There are five Baltimorons with 53+ appearances and sub-2.60 ERAs.

But even if Johnson were the best Oriole hurler, he couldn't carry Aroldis Chapman's glove. In 69 innings, Chapman has fanned 119 batters and allowed just 59 baserunners, en route to a 1.55 ERA.

Too bad for Chapman, he's doing that in 2012. That's the same year that Craig Kimbrel flung fastballs into history. Kimbrel has whiffed more than half the batters he has faced, by far the highest percentage of all time for a pitcher with 50+ innings.

And of the top 15 strikeout artists ever, Kimbrel has the lowest walk rate and by far the highest strand rate.In just 61 innings, Kimbrel been worth more than three wins to the Braves. 

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Nice job on the swan song, Ichiro. With his career ebbing to a desultory .260/.288/353, the future Hall of Famer had become a liability for an offensively-challenged Seattle team going nowhere. I wasn't alone in wondering what they Yankees thought they were gaining by trading for the 38-year-old whose on-base ability had evaporated.

Well, this is what they got: .330/.352/.469 with 15 of 18 steals and superb right field defense in 60+ games. Ichiro's continued genius will be a key element if the Yankees make a run at Halloween baseball. In your face, pundithead!

Whether that postpones Ichiro's expected retirement is another story. At 39, he will likely merit little more than defensive replacement/pinch runner duty . . . unless he can keep this up.

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When the Giants took Marco Scutaro off the Rockies' hands in July, they were picking up positional flexibility and some on-base ability. It was not exactly baseball's marquee trade deadline acquisition. What the Giants got was Rogers Hornsby. Scutaro has filled in at second and third, and ripped .361/.382/.469 in 58 games. 

The 36-year-old infielder is a free agent in 2013 and someone if the team that signs him has reasonable expectations, he could be an asset to them too. A guy who can play middle infield without making women and children scream or flatlining at the plate has real value.


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Remember Alex Rodriguez? Won the batting title at 20. Hit 40+ home runs eight out of 10 seasons from the shortstop position. Signed the biggest contract ever, until ever ended.

Yeah, well, that guy is over. ARod has hit .272 with 34 HR and 113 RBI this year . . . and last. Combined. Sure, he's been hurt, but that's part of the problem. The other Alex Rodriguez played 154+ games seven consecutive seasons.

If you need evidence that he's not doping, that's it. ARod is aging like a normal person. That why with 647 homers, the conundrum over his breaking the home run record (762) is going to be a moot point.

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Right here is where you read insight into the elevator ride the Pirates have taken down towards the basement. For the 20th consecutive year, the fair people of Pittsburgh have suffered with a below-average MLB team.

This paragraph is where you read the explanation for how an outfit that dominated its opponents, claimed first place and climbed 16 games above .500 after the All Star break got hit by a bus en route to a 17-38 record.

Reading on, you would understand what went wrong. It's all very Suessian: The hitting stopped hitting. The pitching stopped pitching. The relieving stopped relieving. The high-fiving became head-hanging.

There is a silver lining. Faced with a contender in 2012, management was under heavy mid-year pressure to trade future assets for high-priced veterans. The events that followed demonstrated that they correctly assessed their team when they declined. Kudos to team president Frank Coonelly and GM Neal Huntington for sticking with the plan.

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The playoff system is in need of another tweak. The team with the best record in the AL will play the Wild Card survivor, which will have a nearly identical record. The second best team gets the other division winner -- the Tigers -- a bumbling, one-dimensional squad with the seventh-best record in the league. How is that fair?

No wonder the Rangers are stumbling down the stretch. Why do they want to play Baltimore, Oakland or NY in the ALDS, when a little late season slide brings Detroit to town?

Teams ought to be seeded by record in recognition of the fact that a division winner might reach the playoffs as the tallest midget, while a Wild Card could dominate just a little less than its main rival.


29 September 2012

Insurmountable Lead . . . Surmounted

Official award ballots have to be finalized on the last day of the regular season. I only get a vote in the tangled web of my mind, and perhaps in your heart, so I'm assembling them now.

Earlier this season, Mike Trout and Andrew McCutchen had taken the trophies (if indeed there are trophies involved) and stashed them prematurely in their attics (if indeed they have attics.) Both had established nearly insurmountable leads on the field.

Then a funny thing happened. Miguel Cabrera made an historic run at the Triple Crown. Buster Posey squatted between his entire team's legs and carried the Giants to an easy division crown (if indeed there is a crown involved.) And McCutchen scuffled as the Pirates rediscovered gravity.

Trout's lock on the MVP has already been documented here. (That's not to say he will win it, especially if the Tigers make the playoffs and the Angels don't. Sportswriters still stuck in the Cretaceous Period continue to limit their options to the fortunate few who have the best teammates. It's just to say that he has earned it, with all due respect to Cabrera, the best hitter in the AL and maybe the game.)

Just to add one more log to the raging inferno of awe over Mike Trout's rookie season: with respect to wins above replacement per 100 games played -- remember that Trout wasn't called up until May -- the top 10 seasons of all time have been posted by Babe Ruth (four times), Barry Bonds (twice), Rogers Hornsby, Mickey Mantle, George Brett and now the Angels' center fielder. Trout's 2012 ranks ahead of all but Ruth's 1923 season. This was Ruth's listing in Baseball Reference for that year:

Year Age Tm Lg G PA  AB  R  H  2B  3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB
1923 28 NYY AL 152 697 522 151 205 45 13 41 131 17 21 170 93 .393 .545 .764 1.309 239 399

Dude had a 1.309 OPS, more than double the league average, with 399 total bases. He got on base nearly 55% of the time and scored 151 runs. Trout is second to that. And he can't legally drink yet. (This was never an issue for The Babe.)

But this is a post about the NL MVP, which many believe is back in play because McCutchen hasn't prevented the Bucs from tanking. They point out that he hit just .252/.347/.346 in August, when the team lost its bearings and lost17 of 28 games for the month. But Pittsburgh has collapsed to 6-20 in September despite McCutchen's .260/.372/.510 bounce back. (He just hit a walk-off home run for the win as I write this.) Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the peloton has reeled him in.

Let's compare him to his three primary competitors for MVP:

McCutchen    .330/.403/.557    55.6 runs offensive value   very good glove/premium position
Buster Posey  .334/.407/.544    65.9 runs value   good glove/78% of games at plus-plus position
Yadier Molina .320/.378/.512    53.4 runs value    great glove/plus-plus position
Ryan Braun    .319/.391/.602    53.9 runs value    weak glove/non-premium position

Clearly the field has narrowed. I see a discernible difference between the top two -- McCutchen & Posey -- and the bottom two -- Molina and Braun. Posey's bat is McCutchen's equal under more difficult conditions. Moreover, returning from a catastrophic 2011 injury, he may have needed time to round into form. He's hit .384/.456/.641 in the second half while playing mostly behind the plate. His added punch has offset the damaging loss of Melky Cabrera to the Giants just when the NL West division battle was heating up.

The MVP crystal ball, once crystal clear, has fogged. I'd cast my ballot for Posey unless something stunning happens in the last six games. Does that take Scott Cousins off the hook?

27 September 2012

If Cy Young Were a NLer, Who Would He Be?



Earlier this week, Cliff Lee struck out 11 Atlanta batters and walked none. He limited the Braves to a single run. And he lost, dropping his record to 6-8.

Though Lee pitches his home games in God's Gift to Offense, his 3.18 ERA is 25% better than league average. In 198 innings, he's walked just 28 batters and whiffed 195. His 1.3 BB/9 and  7 K/BB both pace the league, the latter by a country mile.  

Cliff Lee isn't a top five Cy Young candidate, so his absence from any ballots will be no crime. But if you're wondering what happened to Cliff Lee's unique mound magic, the answer is: nothing.

The real question in the NL Cy Young race is where Johnny Cueto, Kyle Lohse and R.A. Dickey found their mound magic. Along with Clayton Kershaw and Gio Gonzalez, they have to be considered the Cy frontrunners. Cueto, a .500 pitcher with a 4.00+ ERA in his first three seasons, has reduced the walks and homers to go 28-14, 2.55 in his last two seasons. The veteran Lohse had posted one exceptional season before (15-8, 3.78 in '08), but he's experienced the full sprinkling of pixie dust this year. In his 12th campaign, he's recorded the most wins (16), best winning percentage (.842), lowest ERA (2.77) most innings (205) lowest WHIP, fewest H/9, fewest BB/9, fewest HR/9 and best K/BB of his career. Pumpkin alert!

And Dickey, well, whoever kidnapped him and replaced him with this guy (19-6, 2.66; 209 K in 22 Innings) is the Mets' MVP.

Closers Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman only pitch 60 innings each, but have been so dominant that they deserve consideration too. More on all of this after the regular season ends. One last start could decide the winner.

And for added drama, the unique stylings of Kris Medlin win Best Supporting Actor. He's barely allowed a run a game and the Braves are undefeated in his 11 starts.

26 September 2012

Can the Braves Win Without A Star?


Now that that Atlanta Braves have slain 2011's demons and clinched their Wild Card berth, it's fair to wonder who exactly is going to carry them through the playoffs.This team is a mile wide and a foot deep, which is a commendable formula for the regular season, but not for the fast twitch muscles of the playoffs. They boast a solid but unspectacular lineup lacking any serious threat and eight plausible starters but perhaps no ace.

On offense, they're the Atlanta Egalitarians. If you asked 100 Braves fans who was their MVP you'd get eight different answers. Jason Heyward is a five-tooler leading the team in home runs...with just 27. Martin Prado is a five-position Gumby leading the team in batting average. Michael Bourn's after burners and noteworthy CF chops combine with a .346 OBP for a stellar leadoff resume. Brian McCann (.297 OBP) has scuffled and Dan Uggla leads the league in walks to offset a .216 batting average. With rookie shortstop Andrelton Simmons, this is a shiny defensive corps. 

(Spell check is going out of its mind over five-tooler, Gumby, OBP, leadoff and Andrelton. Spell check must be a wussy golf fan.)

All well and good, but who's the guy you walk intentionally?

On the hill, they're a hot band without a frontman. Tim Hudson (16-6, 3.61) has cracked the 15-win mark for the eighth time in his outstanding career, but he's no Tim Lincecum Roy Halladay Clayton Kershaw. Craig Kimbrel (1.06 ERA, 107 K in 52 innings, 39 of 41 saves) makes Superman look like David Spade, but closers aren't aces. Kris Medlin, (9-1, 1.64) might be an ace, but he's only started 11 games, all Atlanta wins. He might be the only pitcher in baseball with a save, a hold, a complete game and a shutout.

Then there's Mr. Jones, already a big big star. In his curtain call season he continues to rake .300/.380/.470 despite knees entering their fifth decade. As long as he's upright he remains the  biggest threat to put this team on his back.

Maybe the manager, Fredi Gonzalez, is the MVP. Since Spring Training he has been banishing the ghosts of 2011, waving off questions about their collapse. He clearly learned some lessons, taking the foot off the pedal of Kimbrel and Jonny Venters, whom he wore to a nub by last season's final weeks. He also lightened Chipper's load to keep him healthy, and the result has been 105 games of All Star-level performance and more at bats and glove time for Martin Prado.

It's all moot if they lose their play-in game, but if they don't, it will be interesting to see whether the yin of good pitching, strong defense and a couple of hot bats overwhelms the yang of a no-star team.

23 September 2012

Baseball & Business Podcast


I had the honor of joining business guru Joel Goobich on his Don't Get Stuck in Your Business podcast, focused on the lessons that baseball offers to small businesses. 

We talk about maximizing revenue, short-term versus long-term strategies and the Nats' decision to shut down Stephen Strasburg.

For small business solutions, visit Big Picture Advisors.




19 September 2012

A Triple Crown of Nothingness


Now that Miguel Cabrera is making an assault on the Triple Crown, even savvy commentators are wondering if he could nonetheless whiff on the MVP. Good question: let's delve.

Ted Williams won the Triple Crown in '42 and '47, but finished second in the MVP balloting to Yankees Joe Gordon and Joe DiMaggio respectively in a pair of travesty votes. (Williams won the slash stats triple crown as well those years, with .356/.499/.648 and .342/.497/.667 marks. Guy could swing the wood. He would win the slash stat triple crown five times and lead the AL in OPS 10 times.)

More to the point, because batting average, home runs and RBIs don't measure the most important things, they lead us off the scent. Even with the benighted slash stats we have a fuzzy picture. Let's take a look:

Miguel Cabrera   .333 BA   40 HR   111 RBI   .396 OBA   .612 SLG
Mike Trout          .327 BA   27 HR   77 RBI    .396 OBA    .558 SLG

Even using slash stats, Cabrera looks like the same offensive force, but with more boom in his bat.

Now consider this:
Miguel Cabrera has hit into 28 double plays. Mike Trout, seven. 
Mike Trout has stolen 46 of 50 bases. Miguel Cabrera, four of five.

In other words, add to Cabrera's total four more total bases and 29 more outs. Credit Trout 46 more bases and 11 outs. Their new slash stats:

Cabrera   .378 OBP   .615 SLG
Trout       .389 OBP   .649 SLG

Now we see that Trout is a greater offensive force than Cabrera. Compare him to the lower hitting standard of a center fielder, and Trout's 7.8 offensive wins against replacement beats Cabrera's 7.0.

Of course, that's not the end of the story. Trout owns the critical middle pasture. Cabrera makes dogs growl and babies cry with his third base gyrations. I don't trust the defensive metrics, but I think we can conservatively call the difference "a chasm."

Miguel Cabrera could win the Triple Crown and not be the best hitter in the AL this year. He could be the best hitter in the AL this year and not be the best offensive performer. And he could be the best offensive performer this year without being the most valuable player. 

How about that, sports fans!

Tu Eres Un Idiota

"I feel bad, I’m leaving my team for something I didn’t intend to do. I have nothing against the gay community and honestly I’m sorry...It was just a joke and it wasn’t directed to anyone in particular."

"It's just something that's been said around amongst Latinos. It's not something that's meant to be offensive. For us, it didn't have the significance to the way it's being interpreted right now. It's a word used often within teams. ... I agree with the suspension and don't have any problem with it."

With that, Toronto shortstop Yunel Escobar apologized for writing "Tu Ere Maricon" in his eye black. This translates, ungrammatically, to "You Are A Faggot."

I believe Escobar, I really do. Athletes employ homophobic slurs as part of the standard locker room hazing ritual.

And that's exactly the problem.

Imagine if, instead, Escobar's eye black had said "You Are A Nigger." The insult would be apparent and undeniable. Think how sickening his explanation would sound.

Guys have to get out of the habit of joking around about being gay. It perpetuates the myth that there is something wrong with gay men and that gay men can't be athletes. It's certainly possible that one of Escobar's teammates is gay. He can't be feeling very good about all this.

(Possible delicious irony: Escobar is that very guy and, closeted as he is, was in no position to refuse the challenge to put the slur in his eye black. And now he's suspended.)

Bravo to MLB for its swift action and temperate response. A significantly longer punishment -- three game suspension -- would have engendered outcry and discussion. This way, the case is closed and the point is made, period.

12 September 2012

A Ruckus Is Brewing Down the Stretch


As of the moment of this writing, the season has oozed within 20 games of its conclusion and a ruckus is brewing for all but two of the 10 playoff spots.

With 7/8ths of the season completed, teams continue to bounce around the standings like Mexican jumping beans. Six American League teams are crossing swords for four spots, with five of them standing within four games of each other. Two more contingents pursue their death struggle for the Central Division crown, separated by two games and 281 highway miles.

The division leads are less fluid in the National League, but three weeks from the end, five teams vie for the last Wild Card, with four games spanning from top to bottom. Two of those five had not just been left for dead, but have been decomposing all second half.

Among those that have already succumbed are two teams that were printing playoff tickets at season's commencement -- Miami and Boston. Among those still in the mix are perennial laughingstocks Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Annual also-rans Oakland have the second best record in the American League, ahead of the sovereign debt-sized payrolls of the Yankees, Angels and Red Sox.

The Central Division-pacing Chicago White Sox, seemingly destined for mid-pack irrelevance in the Spring, are a paradigm of baseball's inscrutable wiles. Four players have catapulted the team from below .500 last year to Tiger-tamers today. Behold:

Player                                         2011 OPS           2012 OPS         2011 HR       2012 HR
A.J. Pierzynski                           .728                     .850                  8                 26
Alex Rios                                    .613                     .834                 13                23
Adam Dunn                                .569                     .825                 11                38

Pitcher                                   2011 Innings      2012 Innings      2011 ERA      2012 ERA
Jake Peavey                               111                       192                 4.92             3.27

The race is on and it's going to be a blast. It's proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

03 September 2012

Earth-Shattering Labor Day Insights

Braves shortstop Paul Janish flashes big league leather. We know this because he takes the field daily alongside Major League players even though he is not a Major League hitter. Janish is batting .197/.276/.248 with seven extra-base hits (no homers) in 174 plate appearances for Atlanta. That's a rough approximation of the rest of his five-year career.

By way of comparison, Tim Hudson is batting .222/.260/.276. Hudson is a pitcher. With Janish in the lineup -- which is every day -- 22% of Braves at bats are nearly automatic outs. That's crushing to an offense.

The Braves don't care. Janish anchors an infield that plays a 40-year-old at third base. Janish's glovework is so impressive that he's been worth two wins over a replacement player in his career despite an OPS barely half of the league average. But Janish shouldn't get too comfortable. Rookie Andrelton Simmons flashed leather and batted .296/.336/.452 in 33 games in June before fracturing his hand and he is scheduled for a September return.

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Yankee manager Joe Girardi has invoked the Patron Saint of September, Alex Rodriguez, to secure the East for the Bombers. ARod returns to the lineup today after missing all of August due to a broken left hand, during which time the Yankees scuffled and the Orioles and Rays made up ground.

Girardi is in for a disappointment. ARod batted .276/.357/.449 before the injury. His replacement, Eric Chavez, has hit .365/.403/.587 in his absence, and the gap widens when considering defense.

Girardi should ratchet down the pressure and ask ARod not to screw things up too badly during the stretch run.

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Imagine Penn State firing football coach Bill O'Brien for failing to win the Big Ten this year. Such scapegoating would be pretty transparent.

(Aside: is there a stupider name in sports than the Big Ten? Since they're not 10 and they'll never be 10 again, why don't they change the name to something less inappropriate and confusing? Ditto for the Big 12.)

Analogously, the Houston Astros dumped manager Brad Mills August 18. The team had lost two-thirds of its games and had just completed a 4-34 collapse. 

If the Astros wanted justice, they should have rehired former owner Drayton McLane and former GM Ed Wade just so they could kick their sorry butts out the door again. That pair is responsible for the baseball debacle that you see in Houston today. Their multi-year effort to sacrifice the long-term for short-term mediocrity has forced current management to jettison all their assets and completely rebuild.


The result is a Minor League team getting bullied by the big boys, exactly on cue. Expecting Brad Mills win with this club was like expecting Eddie Gaedel to double off the right field wall.

Current Astro management has otherwise been adept and patient as they reconstitute their franchise. It's hard to believe they fired Mills just because the team was losing, but the signs point that way. Owner Jim Crane said of the firing, "we knew we might slide back a little bit, but we didn't think it would be this bad." If Crane believes that, he is orbiting a planet hitherto unknown.

Mills was a remnant of the previous administration and may not have been bought into the plan. By all accounts he was knowledgeable and supportive of the players despite the demoralizing regularity of failure. Mills appeared to nurture the young guys (actually, they're all young guys on that team) and was focused on teaching them how to play like professionals.

There are myriad reasons unrelated to wins and losses to cut loose the manager. We'll probably never know exactly why Brad Mills wasn't the right man for the job, according to GM Jeff Luhnow. We have to give them the benefit of the doubt . . . but the doubt remains.

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The David Ortiz sweepstakes have officially begun. The Cookie Monster is munching on AL pitching again this year (.318/.415/.611), but he's a geriatric DH with a twangy hamstring who runs like a backhoe and weighs nearly as much. He makes $14.5 million and will be a free agent at season's end, which has already come in Boston. With the Red Sox's big contract purge, it's hard to see Ortiz returning.

So who needs a gloveless big bopper?  Get on line! Most American League teams with playoff designs in 2013 are in the mix. Only Detroit -- a team of DHs, the White Sox -- who can't move Adam Dunn anywhere, and the Angels -- owners of three slugging first basemen, can pass on Big Papi. The Yankees, Rays, Orioles, Rangers, A's, Blue Jays and any of the other franchises, if they're delusional, are imagining Ortiz in the middle of their lineups. Papi's agent will work to maximize contract length, but any team offering more than two years will pay dearly on the back end.

May the worst team win!