30 September 2015

The Latest Unwritten Rule

Like the anonymously invented law that the Heisman Trophy winner has to come from a national championship contender...

Like the suddenly ascendant notion that the Rookie of the Year must perform for a playoff team...

Like the unwritten rule that you don't bunt to break up a no-hitter when your team is down 2-0...

Like the apparent acceptance that there won't be a traveling violation call if you're taking a layup...

...comes another orphan rule, devoid of known parentage, bereft of logic, indefensible beyond the circular reasoning that it exists because it has existed.

It's the latest kerfuffle around Cam Newton's claim that he was told he didn't get a roughing the passer call because he hasn't achieved sufficient status.

We heard for years that umpires afforded extra dispensation on the outside corner for Tom Glavine because he was a great pitcher.

We heard general acceptance of the claim that Michael Jordan got away with more malfeasance than others on the basketball court because he's the Greatest of All Time.

This is evidently accepted wisdom, except for one thing: there's nothing wise about it.

Why should the best players get the benefit of the doubt? Don't lesser players need it most? Who decides when this new status kicks in? Is there some pre-approved matrix of performance and tenure that arbiters consult?

It's all just more nonsense that sometimes serves as gravity in the bizarre sports universe. If your team wants to subscribe to these fabricated truths, it should knock itself out. But my team is bunting against a tough pitcher down 2-0.

20 September 2015

The Rookie of the Year Award Isn't About Jake Arrieta

The baseball world is making strides. Local broadcasts show players' OBP and OPS. Most Valuable Player discussions regularly invoke WAR. WHIP and fielding independent measures pepper Cy Young debates. These advanced metrics -- (if you can call them that: OBP and SLG are as old as Yogi Berra, though they didn't storm the shores of Normandy) -- aren't the final word, but they're superior to the old standard of BA-HR-RBI and W-L, ERA.)

It's been gratifying to see that most fans and reporters have begun to digest the argument that a player's value has little to do with his teammates' performance. Unless his world craters in the last 15 games, Bryce Harper will win the MVP award he deserves in a rout, despite the Nationals' 2015 face plant.

Some of the credit for this belongs to MLB itself, which has embraced the new analysis and all the fun tools like Statcast and PitchFX. Articles on MLB.com are replete with references to True Average, WAR, BABIP, FIP and myriad other helpful measuring tools.

Simultaneously though, we're backsliding on that notion in other bailiwicks. Much of the Heisman discussion over the past five years has centered on the best team's best player, rather than on simply college football's standout performer.

Along those lines, I commend to your attention this article from Sports On Earth, a generally excellent site with lots of good insight. In it, the writer suggests that candidacies for the Rookie of the Year award waxed and waned based on team fortunes. We've seen this illogic before.

There is utterly no justification to holding an individual baseball player responsible for the performance of his 24 teammates. Moreover, while some retrograde writers still cower behind the "valuable" nomenclature of the MVP award to denigrate the candidacies of great players on non-contenders, there is no such fig leaf in the Rookie of the Year award. It is simply a measure of the first-year player who has had the best season. Period.

Kris Bryant is almost surely the 2015 NL Rookie of the Year, not withstanding the final 15 games. He's posted a .317 True Average at the plate, defended third base reasonably well and contributed five wins to his team, the best of the freshman lot. That his team will make the playoffs is absolutely, completely and undoubtedly irrelevant.


17 September 2015

The Moment the Rangers' Season Turned Around

You may have noticed that the season, and the Texas Rangers, have finally caught up with the youthful Houston Astros. The Rangers have launched themselves into first place in the AL West with a 31-15 record since July 28, when  the Yankees blitzed them 21-5.

It's also two days before the Rangers plucked Cole Hamels out of Philadelphia.

Texas stood five games under .500, eight games out and in third place. 

So as you might imagine, all the talk this week has been about identifying the catalyst for the Rangers' rebirth.

Did the shellacking by New York incite new determination?

Did a players-only meeting light a spark?

Did Hamels bring new energy?

Of course, that's only how it works in Ex Post Facto Analysisland. In real life, teams make large improvements by compiling a series of small improvements until they reach a critical mass.

Certainly Hamels, and the return from injury of Derek Holland, helped. They bumped two replacement-level starters from the rotation. That meant Colby Lewis and Yovanni Gallardo no longer had to shoulder the load.

Consequently, at least in part, the Rangers lopped a run off their ERA after August 1.

In addition, after splitting their first 42 one and two-run games before July 28, Texas captured 17 of 24 close games. Timely hitting and relief pitching can do that.

The offensive juggernaut of the first half hasn't slowed and the defensive metrics say the fielding is up a tick. Put that all together and wheels once stuck in the mud gain traction. It didn't hurt that the Rangers have played 26 of their last 42 against losing teams.

We have a tendency to look for that epiphany, that one moment where the worm turned. We attribute it all to something that correlates with the hot streak without any evidence of causation. You see it all the time with managerial changes, as if a new manager could transform a lousy nine into world beaters in his first day.

Ranger manager Jeff Bannister had it exactly right today when asked what sparked the turnaround. He said Spring Training, where the team adopted a never-quit culture.  That's a far better explanation than a team meeting, a clubhouse presence or a bad loss.

Though acquiring Cole Hamels doesn't hurt.


12 September 2015

Joey Votto and the Idiocy of Umpires

With limited instant replay reviews, baseball now has a formula for overturning all kinds of missed umpire calls on the field. Managers can challenge whether fouls balls were called fair, runners were safe, catches were made, and fly balls cleared the fence.

Every case contains within it the implicit recognition that umpires make mistakes, and that getting the call correct is paramount.

Calls cannot be challenged that involve judgment, or that if overturned would cause havoc. For example, if a ball was originally ruled foul, there is no going back and re-running the play if the videotape reveals that it was actually fair (except in the case of a home run.)

There is one glaring and utterly indefensible exception: balls and strikes. The most common and impactful missed call of all is the ball-strike because it alters the tenor of games. Research shows that the strike zone has been expanding over the past few years -- mostly at the lower end -- and with it scoring has contracted. Batters must now defend a larger zone than ever, and must adjust their calculations depending on the whim and idiosyncrasies of the given arbiter on the given day.

What's more, the ball-strike call is not simply a judgment; it appears to be a personal statement. Some umpires are known to have low strike zones, others like the outside pitch, etc., as if strike zones are just a matter of style and preference.

All of which led to this recent outrage by umpire Tim Welke, who chafed at Joey Votto's constant chirping about ball-strike calls, refused to grant him time, and then ran Votto when he complained to his dugout. In fact, replays showed that Votto had reason to gripe about several strike calls that were clearly out of the zone. What made matters worse in this case is that Welke escalated the dispute with his unjustifiable refusal to allow Votto to take time and blow off steam.

All this could be cured with existing technology that can accurately pinpoint the swing-worthiness of every pitch. It is available to television broadcasts, so that everyone watching the game at home knows how embarrassingly often home plate umpires gack up the call, or has imposed his personal preferences over the rule book.

Calling pitches correctly is unfathomably difficult. The ball is small and the strike zone dependent on the size of the batter. Pitches are spinning, moving at 90 mph or more and changing planes often in two directions at once. Research by Scott Lindholm of SB Nation shows that umpires miss the pitch call about 15% of the time, or about 40 times per game. How is that acceptable?

It's long past time to replace umpire decisions with existing technology that that can accurately, definitively and instantaneously determine balls and strikes. It would eliminate the griping that led Joey Votto to request time, Tim Welke to pout and both of them to engage in juvenile pyrotechnics. Not to mention a wholly unwarranted two-game suspension for the Cincinnati star.
 

11 September 2015

Matt Williams, Geniu...Um Ditz

Now that the Washington Nationals' 2015 playoff aspirations have been plausibly quashed*, and Matt Williams' boneheaded miscalculations have been picked apart like a Thanksgiving turkey, I have some questions for all the baseball writers who voted him Manager of the Year in 2014.

*I know, this is asking for trouble. But although leads this large have evaporated in shorter periods, the odds are squarely against the Nats, particularly because they have played so miserably all season.

Did the all the smart decisions just leak out of the head of last year's best NL manager?

Or was a he just the random monkey in front of a computer keyboard who produced MacBeth in 2014?

Was he a dope who received too much credit for the team's primacy in the NL last year?

Or is he a genius being unfairly tarred with the brush of his squad's 2015 failure?

Or is he perhaps neither a dope nor a genius, but just muddling along, and happened to be holding the reigns when his team spiked the finish in 2014 (45-23 after the All Star break) and spit the bit in 2015 (22-29 after the All Star break)?

Finally, whichever theory you now subscribe to, how stupid do you feel for electing him Manager of the Year in 2014?

The wildly varying demonstration of skills that should correlate heavily from one year to the next is yet more proof, as if there was any doubt in the first place, that no one has any idea who the best manager is, particularly in a given season, because most of the good work managers do is in the clubhouse, away from public view. Anyone who wants to claim that they know the best managers is going to have to explain why those with reputations as savants -- Joe Maddon, Bruce Bochy, Terry Francona, Mike Scioscia, etc. -- are rarely so honored.

I have the explanation. It's because the honor is meaningless. Abolish the Manager of the Year award.

10 September 2015

Chris Davis Regressing To His True Mean

An axiom of prognosticating the future performance of veterans who break out is to regress them back to the mean. Last year, Chris Davis regressed to the mean, the meaner and the meanest, putting his starting job with Baltimore in jeopardy.

This year, the bulky first baseman has found his own true average by mashing like he did in 2013 but without the gaudy average. The point with him is that as long as he goes yard and collects his walks he can be awfully valuable.

Let's take a look at the numbers:

In his first four seasons with Texas and Baltimore, Davis contributed below-average production at the plate while flashing 20-home-run power.

Then in 2013 he raked .286/.370/.634 with a league-leading 53 homers, 42 doubles and 138 RBIs, earning third place in the MVP voting.

Last season, the bottom fell out. His average sank to .196 with 26 home runs. Lumbering and defensively-challenged, Davis was a liability for the Orioles.

If you averaged those two seasons you'd get a .250 batting average with 40 home runs. With 60-70 walks, that's a middle-of-the-lineup Gulliver. Davis was headed that way, but at a lower batting average until he got hot, roughly coinciding with the O's collapse.

Today Chris Davis has the slash line up to .260/.351/.556 with 41 home runs. He's above four wins over replacement at the plate, which puts him at All-Star level with two dozen games yet to play.

When three true outcomes players like Davis -- i.e., he walks, strikes out or homers on most at bats -- get their average up to .260 they radically enhance their value, even beyond their own stat line. Opposing pitchers have to account for him every time the top of the order rolls around because of the damage he can do. That means pitching more carefully to everyone else, which leads to more opportunities up and down the lineup.

Davis is unlikely to ever again crush the record books the way he did two years ago. But .260 with 70 walks and 40 home runs will do just fine.

09 September 2015

The Controversy Around Harvey, the Rabbit

In the 1950 movie "Harvey" Jimmy Stewart's character keeps the world at bay with his invisible six-foot tall rabbit, Harvey.

In 2015, the Mets kept pennant talk at bay with an invisible six-foot controversy about Harvey, the pitcher. It seems that his doctor and agent want him to return home after hurling a definitive number of innings. The Mets, on the other hand, want Harvey available for either the playoffs, or for the race that will punch their ticket.

Harvey for his part, appears to  be listening to whoever spoke to him last.

It's obvious that both sides have reason for concern. In his first year following elbow surgery, Harvey might be medically fragile and need to avoid throwing while fatigued. This has got to be a consideration for the team as well, which receives no benefit from his massive talent if he's laid up again.

The Strasburg experiment, followed by the Nationals' ineptitude this campaign, has sucked the justification out of speculative benching during a post-season run. The Mets are going to need their 6'4" righty to succeed in the playoffs.

And so, the obvious and predictable conclusion. Terry Collins has the starters in a six-man rotation, with Harvey skipping some starts. But if they make the playoffs -- which now seems likely -- all of Gotham will be relying on its Dark Knight. 

After all, Harvey the movie had a happy ending.

P.S. With their come-from-ahead collapse last night, Washington is now six out with 24 to play. But keep in mind, the Mets held a seven game cushion in '07 with 17 to play before crashing out of October. Those screams last night at Nationals Park were the Fat Lady's sister singing.

06 September 2015

Long Games and Low Scoring? Think Football, Not Baseball

People who don't understand baseball complain that a game takes too long and produces insufficient scoring. While the pace of the game is often unnecessarily sluggish -- weighted down by ceaseless pitching changes and bizarre batting rituals -- this criticism is more reasonably leveled at America's most popular sport.

Exhibit A this weekend was BYU's unfathomable 33-28 thriller over Nebraska. In case you missed it, the Cornhuskers led all the way until a last-second Hail Mary heave that they somehow failed to defend.

Sounds like riveting viewing, right? Except it suffered from all the maladies attributed to "boring" baseball:
1. The contest was completed in regulation and took three hours and 45 minutes.
2. Every single play was followed by, as George Will has pointed out, a committee meeting.
3. The final score was, in baseball terms, 5-4.

It's counter-intuitive but true: football involves less scoring than baseball. It just obscures its offensive anemia in two ways. First, when a team fails to do the equivalent of plate a run, it has a back-up option: kick a field goal. This is akin to baseball teams getting credit for half a run every time a runner reaches third.

Second, it awards crooked numbers for its scores. So Nebraska, which tallied four touchdowns (and four of those formalities called extra points, which are the equivalent of a butt slap from the third base coach), boasts a 28-point outburst. When a baseball team manufactures four scores per game, we decry their middling offense.

For its part, BYU crossed home four times (skipping the formality of the tushy touching at game's end) and reached third twice, for the margin of victory. Yawn.

That the game ended with a blown save by the defensive secondary in the most dramatic fashion shouldn't obscure the fact that the game suffered from the very characteristics that dog baseball in the public's eye.

Was that game an anomaly? At the very same time, , Alabama spent more than three hours defeating Wisconsin 4 1/2 - 2 1/2, Auburn held on for a three-hour-plus 4 1/2 -3 1/2 victory over Louisville, and Notre Dame needed more than three hours to smother Texas 5 1/2 - 1/2. And because there's a clock limiting late game possibilities, utter futility attended an entire quarter of that game. 

And all those yards they chew up? Cubbie third baseman Kris Bryant's latest bomb accounted for 185 yards on one play alone. Baseball is exciting. Football needs to speed up play.

01 September 2015

Sports Predictions Are Like Confedrate Money: Worthless

This is the time of year that pundits make their predictions for the college and professional football season. It's a fascinating study in recurrent, global amnesia. And its lessons apply to punditry in all sports.

Take the college prognosticators who are busy predicting who will compete in this season's four-team championship tournament. Let's examine their myths and the truths:

Myth:  Determine the four best teams and you have your playoff.
Truth: Have you never witnessed a college football season? One or two plays can transform a team's season and launch them into or out of a championship. Consider the bizarre occurrences that put Auburn in the title game two years ago.

Myth: The team with the most talent going into the season is the best team.
Truth: Have you already forgotten Cam Newton? Honey Badger? Robert Griffin? Maurice Clarett? Jameis Winston? Johnny Manziel?  These relatively unheralded freshmen catapulted their teams to greater heights than anyone thought possible at season's start.

Myth: If you can name all the biggest stars and quote their gaudy statistics you have insight about which team will sweep through its schedule.
Truth: Even the "analysts" spewing this nonsense know it's not true. They know that an offensive or defensive line, whose accomplishments are hard to measure, can have an immense impact.

Myth: To determine the playoff teams, first determine which of the five BCS leagues will fail to earn a bid.
Truth: Were you not alive during the two-team playoff era? Because way back then (20 months ago), two teams from the same league played for the title several times. In addition, even last year the weak ACC produced an undefeated team, which made the playoffs. So two or even three leagues could fail to produce a single title contender if a team from a smaller league routs its opponents and garners a bid.

Myth: Determine a team's record by examining its schedule and figuring how many times they will be the underdog.
Truth: Sure, that's how it works. There are never any upsets in college football. Boise State never beat Oklahoma in the '05 Fiesta Bowl. Oregon State didn't take down undefeated USC in 2008. Navy didn't best Notre Dame in '07. App State never defeated Michigan. Jacksonville State's win against Ole Miss five years ago never happened. Neither did Utah over Alabama in the '08 Sugar Bowl. Or Division 1-AA  James Madison over Virginia Tech that same year.  Ohio State didn't take the championship from Miami in '03. Need I go on?

Myth: A team will win its league because it plays its tough opponents at home.
Truth: Which means it plays its weak opponents on the road. So a crippling loss to an inspired squad exhorted by a gleeful crowd is far more possible.

Myth: The experts know anything.
Truth: Thank goodness they don't or the season would be predictable. Did you know that Ohio State has earned the top pre-season perch seven times in the past and won the NCCA championship exactly none of them?

The best prediction you're going to read about the college football season:
Some unexpected things are going to happen. Yay.