One Loss Yields Five Winners

What would Armando Gallaraga be to baseball history without Jim Joyce?  Like a pebble dropped in a lake whose ripples never reach much beyond the moment.

The missed call on Gallaraga's Imperfect Game paints a new portrait of the artist. (Oh, c'mon. How do you work Ulysses or Dubliners into a baseball post?) He's the next Harvey Haddix, or even Don Larsen, whose fame outstrips his accomplishment. Gallaraga and Joyce have entered Baseball Immortality in a way that neither would have had the young Tiger simply earned the early season's third perfect game.

What's more notable to me is the incredible grace of the four people involved. Upon seeing the replay, Joyce admitted his mistake, sought out Gallaraga, apologized, and then relayed his regret to the media. That, my friends, is a man.

The aggrieved himself could be forgiven for being just a little bitter, but he was the opposite, sweet. He didn't just accept the apology, but found no room in his heart for resentment or lamentation. He acknowledged Joyce's remorse and admired his apology.

Up stepped to the plate Detroit's manager, Jim Leyland, who charged out of the dugout and vehemently argued the call on the field. But after the game, Leyland could not have been more gracious, defending Joyce's professionalism and character, and casting a vote of confidence for Major League umps in general.

Finally, despite intense pressure to overturn the result, Bud Selig demonstrated perspective and good judgment by leaving the situation alone. The commish, and probably the others as well, recognized that the sport's annals would treat Gallaraga's feat more sympathetically without intrusion by the Suits. (This is the same balanced approach he applied to Barry Bonds' assault on Hank Aaron's home run record. History will decide for itself who is the all-time home run king.)

Perhaps, all those involved understand (or read!) what I noted in a previous post: that perfect games are stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey with luck. Suppose instead of E-ump, the story had been E-3 on that final ground ball. Good-bye perfect game, and there would be no argument. Suppose Austin Jackson hadn't channeled Willie Mays two batters earlier. One-hitter; zero debate. As the cliche goes, a no-hitter is just a lucky four-hitter.

For some, this episode has incited discussions on reviving replay, or replacing umps with technology, or demanding uniformity among umpires. These debates are all efforts to eliminate luck from the arbitration of in-game results, and they have their merits -- I support more use of replay and higher quality refereeing -- but they afford the illusion that the game is fair. Like life, baseball is a stew of talent, determination and goodly helpings of serendipity. Each game, each season, each career is steeped in this solution to the point where no winner, champion or Hall of Famer should ever forget that but for the Kismet Fairy they would not be where they are.

So to recap: The winners in this whole sad scenario are:

1. Jim Joyce

2. Armando Gallaraga

3. Jim Leyland

4. Bud Selig

5. Armando Gallaraga's legacy.

Oh, and all of baseball fandom. So that's six. Maybe that headline needs to be updated.

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Where Are All The Geese?

Holy whifferoni, Batman, what is going on here? Is the Steroid Era officially dead and buried or have we stepped into the Wayback Machine? Consider this:

110 years of Major League Baseball -- 18 perfect games.

One-quarter of the 2010 season -- three perfect games, including one that went 28 outs.

More than that, the pitchers seem to be winning this year. Just last night, Johan Santana hurled seven shutout innings. And the Mets lost. 

Derek Lowe and Kyle Kendrick went 15 frames between them in the Braves-Phils tilt and relinquished just two runs.

And the Dodgers and Dbacks dragged their bats through 24 innings of futility over two days, pushing a total of two runners across the plate. In the second contest, Arizona starter Edwin Jackson pitched a complete-game three-hit shutout and three relievers blanked the Dodgers for four further innings...before losing on a single with two outs in the 14th. Six L.A. hurlers -- only one of whom I've ever heard of -- de-fanged the Snakes for 14 frames on eight hits and one walk.

It would be offensive, except there hasn't been any offense. ARod's stepped on the mound more often than some teams have stepped on the plate. Ubaldo Jimenez is a nice pitcher, but an 0.78 ERA after 11 starts tells you something is up. The guy pitches in Denver. There's been an awful lot of goose eggs laid this year. Where are all the geese?

The numbers vindicate this impression. The AL has posted a .331/.408 OPS this year. Check out the previous five:

09 -- .336/.428

08 -- .336/.420

07 -- .338/.423

06 -- .339/.437

05 -- .330/.424

(OPS is down, but not as dramatically in the NL. Being consistently bad, pitchers' batting provides ballast.)

The last time AL bats were so impotent? 1993 -- .337/.408. Evan Longoria was in third grade that year. Starlin Castro was in diapers.

I don't offer any ex-post facto explanations. The explosions have died down at the same time the game seems to have rid itself of steroids, if not other enhancers. Correlation isn't causation, but you can't have the latter without the former. Maybe teams are getting a better handle on pitcher health, or understanding better how to manage workloads. Maybe it's just one of those momentary fluctuations, or a seasonal thing that will heat up with the weather. 

Whatever it is, there's been an awful lot of not hitting this year. I can hear the distant echo, "Bring back the 60's, man!"

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Once Upon A Time: The Ken Grifffey Story

Two months late, the Ancient Mariner has retired, one of the six greatest center fielders of all-time, the fifth most prolific homer run hitter of all time and a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Baseball fans were remembering Griffey today for his power, speed, arm, smile and for popularizing the southbound cap on a northbound head.

The narrative also includes this odd touch: Griffey is the first slugger of his era to retire without a hint of steroid scandal clinging to his hung-up uniform. It's apt then that he puts away the cleats after the kind of long, steady decline that used to characterize all the greats, including the two most recent giants ahead of him on the center fielder list -- Willie and Mickey.

Looking back on Junior's career, it's easy to forget that 630 home runs and a .284 BA are pale shadows of what we expected of him in the late '90s. Back then, visions of unprecedented greatness danced in our heads.

Remember the furor over the packaging of Junior to his hometown Reds for what seemed like a pile of seaweed -- Brett Tomko, Mike Cameron, Antonio Perez and Jake Meyer?  Since the trade, Cameron alone has been more than three times as valuable as Junior...and he's still accumulating value.

In fact, when we consider the spectacular career of Ken Griffey, Jr., we're really talking about his first stint with the Mariners -- which comprises the first half of his career -- and nothing else. I divided his career into its first 12 years, 1989-2000, which includes his first campaign with the Reds, and the second 11 seasons, 2001-2010. Behold the following:

In the first half of his career, Junior smoked 438 home runs. He was the fastest player ever to 200, 250, 300, 350 and 400 dingers. In the second act, he coaxed 192 out of the park.

In the first half of his career, he slugged .500+ nine times and .600+ five times. In the second half, he slugged .500 four times and never came close to .600.

First half -- .380 on base percentage seven times. 

Second half -- none.

First half -- .300 batting average seven times.

Second half -- once.

First half -- 100 RBI seasons eight times.

Second half -- none

First half -- 100 run seasons six times.

Second half -- none

First half -- 173 SB.

Second half -- 11 SB

First half -- 10 Gold Gloves.

Second half -- none

During his first 12 seasons, the Kid was 66.4 wins better than a replacement player. By the age of 30 he had already made his Hall of Fame case and won a conviction. That's fortunate, because he earned just 8.1 more wins against a replacement player in the second half of his career.

None of this diminishes Griffey's accomplishments; in fact, it's partly the result of his prowess astonishingly early in his life. In the four years when his contemporaries were taking Sociology 101 and challenging Cal-Irvine for the Big West title, Junior was winning hearts and minds in the Pacific Northwest, hitting .300 three times and creaming 87 taters in the Bigs. 

So here's to Ken Griffey, Jr., an all-time great. Just not in this millenium.
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Still the Ones

This would be a good time to revisit who are the best teams in each league. The Phillies have lost six of eight, or something like that, and have been shut out 23 consecutive times. I looked that up. And one victory was a 1-0 contest that required a perfect game by Roy Halladay. 

I know for sure that the Phillies have scored 10 runs in their last nine games, falling out of first place with a Memorial Day defeat to the Braves.

So this would be a good time to note that the Phils are the best team in the NL, and it's not close.

Does anyone really doubt that their Murderers' Row is on a permanent oh-fer? The Phillies have been playing away from home, without their table-setters, Jimmy Rollins and Placido Polanco. The big bangers have all gone limp at the same time and Jayson Werth is in one of those funks that every player experiences where the ball looks like a bee-bee. So?

If baseball were one continuous climb or descent, they'd play 50 games and have a summer World Series. Reggie Jackson would be Mr.July.

A Major League season takes all spring and summer to unfold. Every team has its ebb and flow. Philadelphia is ebbing. Atlanta, New York, Florida and Washington are playing for a Wild Card, or Stephen Strasburg's debut.

The Phillies have the best second baseman in baseball, one of the five best shortstops, the best slugger in the league at first, one of the best center fielders in the game, good hitters in right, left and at third and a catcher who last year had a .355 OBP. What have you got, Martin Prado?

With J.A. Happ hurt, the best pitcher in baseball could use some help on the mound. After Cole Hamels the Phils have some question marks. Joe Blanton is a longball connoisseur. Jamie Moyer's kids are collecting Social Security. The bullpen has question marks, not the least of which is Brad Lidge. It could be a weakness.

But their recent troubles aren't about defense. The Phillies will be fine, and if they don't win the East by two furlongs, it will be a major surprise.

Speaking of Murderers' Row, there are the World Champs. The Yankees' infield alone is enough to win a pennant. Their outfield, which is merely above average, is the team's major weakness, despite Brett Gardner's rapid development. Their catcher, for most teams an offensive black hole, had a 1.024 OPS when he got hurt; his replacement is batting .320. In fact, it's worth mentioning that the Bombers have placed the GDP of Southeast Asia on the Disabled List, but nonetheless won 60% of their games.

The pitching is more of the same, despite Javier Vazquez's Ed Whitson imitation. The Rays are a popular and sentimental favorite, but Tampa will not trade two prospects and $47 million a week before the trading deadline for some also-ran's best player. The Yankees will, because they can, and Javier Vazquez will fade to a Gaussian blur.

Nothing so far this season has changed the basic fact that last year's World Series combatants are still the cream of their respective crops. A few weeks of slippage in NY and PA, or of aptitude in San Diego, Cincinnati or Tampa, is going to change that. Alas.

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Predicting Alex Gonzalez and Mark Teixeira Switch Stat Lines

I never make predictions about who will win this, that or the other in baseball because the beauty of baseball is its unpredictability. (The corollary: I hate the financial structure that makes the Yankees a lock each year.)

To wit: look at all the players who have already eclipsed their 2009 accomplishments just a quarter of the way into the season. The best examples:

(Note: WARP is "wins against replacement player." This measures how much better a player performed compared to someone who could be picked up off the waiver wire. It includes baserunning, defense, etc. and takes into account position, ballpark, strength of opponents, etc. It's designed to be a catch-all measure of a player's value, stripping out the effect on him of his teammates and other external conditions. It's not a panacea, but a fine guide to a player's value. It's cumulative, so a player should have accumulated roughly one-quarter of last year's WARP.)

Carlos Silva
Last year:   33.7 IP    44H    11BB    9K    1-3 W-L    8.29 ERA    -1 WARP
This year:   65 IP      56 H   10BB   42K     7-0 W-L   3.31 ERA    1.3 WARP

Ty Wigginton

Last year:  11 HR   41 RBI   .277/.314/.400   -1.7 WARP
This year:  13 HR   32 RBI   .288/.369/.577   3.2 WARP

Kelly Johnson
Last year:   8 HR    29 RBI   .224/.303/.389   1.1 WARP
This year:  12HR    25 RBI   .253/.359/.554   2.4 WARP

Austin Kearns
Last year:   3 HR   17 RBI   21 R   6 2B   .195/.336/.305   0.2 WARP
This year:   3 HR   20 RBI   20 R   12 2B   .298/.372/.458   2.9 WARP

Jose Bautista
Last year:   13 HR   40 RBI   .235/.349/.408   2.3 WARP
This year:   15 HR   40 RBI   .247/.364/.586   2.7 WARP

Livan Hernandez
Last year:   184 IP    220 H    67 BB   102 K    9-12 W-L    5.43 ERA    0.2 WARP
This year:   61 IP      47 H     19 BB    27 K     4-3 W-L     2.08 ERA    2.8 WARP

Mike Pelfrey
Last year:   184 IP    213 H    66 BB    107 K    10-12 W-L    5.03 ERA    -0.6 WARP
This year:   64 IP      57 H     24 BB     41K       7-1 W-L       2.54 ERA    2.4 WARP

These players seem to fall into three distinct categories:

1. Guys who have figured something out or overcome an injury. Mike Pelfrey, for example is throwing a new pitch. Carlos Silva emerged from his two-year chrysalis. Austin Kearns has become more aggressive at the plate.

2. They're the same player, but they added a dimension. Kelly Johnson and Jose Bautista are hitting the same way, but more of their flies are clearing the fences.

3. Guys who have been visited by the good luck fairy and haven't a prayer of keeping it up. I'm looking at you, Livan Hernandez. You still don't get out the fan enough and you still play for the Nationals. The hits will keep on coming.

Raise your hand if, before the season started, you had Ubaldo Jimenez, Jaime Garcia and Jeff Nieman on your Cy Young Watch List. Stand up if you foresaw Vlad Guerrero bouncing back into MVP-style status. Dance the jig if you thought Jose Bautista and Ty Wigginton would out-homer ARod and Albert Pujols.

Predictions...hunh!...what are they good for?....Absolutely nothing! (Good God, y'all!) Say it again...

It's a great game...and they play it again tonight.

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A Giant At First, At Last

This probably deserves a more in-depth discussion, but I've only got some stray moments to make the following point. Sometimes, your team's biggest pickup isn't the gold-plated free agent acquisition; it's the journeyman whose signing escapes your attention.

Case in point: the offfensively offensive San Francisco Giants signed Aubrey Huff in the off-season, following a desultory 2009 campaign in which he hit .241/.310/.384 for Baltimore and Detroit. (Plus, he attempted six steals in 2009 and got thrown out each time. Ouch.) But Huff had a stick befitting a first baseman prior to that, so the Big Men took a flyer on him.

Huff has rebounded to a more representative .281/.361/.450 so far in 2010, which is nothing for a first baseman particularly to write home about unless your sister has been staffing the position the last five years. Which appears to be the case in the West Bay. Here is the Giants' recent production from that position:

2009: .271/.328/.405
2008: .248/.313/.371
2007: .262/.324/.410
2006: .257/.307/.410
2005: .257/.316/.399

A .734 OPS from a first baseman, which is the best of this bunch, is the profile of a weak-hitting second baseman, and costs a team a win or two relative to the back-up first-bagger on any decent roster. The word for this is dreadful, or perhaps abysmal, or possibly awful. This is the level of expectation that awaited Aubrey Huff when he arrived.

Huff, at the sustainable pace he's on, adds four wins beyond replacement level. So San Fran has boosted its offense by five or six wins thanks to this one player whose addition was little noted. That's the difference between being a .500 team and competing for the wild card in the NL.

The Giants are nonetheless mired in an offensive swamp, scoring just 4.07 runs/game, worse than everyone but Pittsburgh and Houston, which is to say, the worst in the majors. It's not Aubrey Huff's fault that he's the second best hitter on the team, but even a side with the Giants' lights-out pitching can't win consistently with a lineup for which a hard foul ball is a moral victory.

So San Francisco may squander the six-game edge that Aubrey Huff gives them. That doesn't diminish the value they added when they made -- what seemed at the time -- a pretty nondescript offseason pickup.

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The Order of Things

Tom, a Met fan from Charleston, asks how much the Mets are hurting themselves by batting Jose Reyes first and Luis Castillo and Alex Cora second?

In one sense, the Mets are killing themselves by playing a middle infield that can't hit. Reyes (.222/.266/.284), Castillo (.250/.338/.292) and Cora (.239/.325/.313) are all offensive weak knees so far this year, their other skills not withstanding. Reyes has shown some life the last week, but living to 100 may not be enough to lift his performance to respectability. (Cora mostly spots Castillo at second -- both on the field and in the batting order -- so I treat them as one entry.)

Generally, batting order doesn't much matter.  Our baseball noggins have been wired to conceive of lead-off hitters as skeeters, #2 batters as bat control gurus and the middle of the order comprising the best hitter, the cleanup hitter and the secondary slugger, respectively. Research shows there's nothing sacrosanct about this, or any other, configuration.

There are, however, three concepts that do matter in a lineup:

1. Your best hitters should bat most, so write small numbers next to their names.

2. Alternate handedness to mitigate the value of pitching changes.

3. Lead-off batters matter because they're up with no one on base at least once every game.

It's here that Jerry Manuel has handcuffed his offense. Reyes may be a hummingbird on the basepaths, but he puts the Mets in a one-out hole nearly three-quarters of the time. Castillo/Cora comes to the plate more often than David Wright, Jason Bay and other players who can actually hit major league pitching. Over a season, batting second will add something like 50 plate appearances versus batting eighth. Castillo this year and Cora this lifetime have "batting eighth" written all over them.

Except, then where would Jeff Francoeur bat? For a guy with his athletic ability, Francoeur is cheap beer, and his expiration date has passed. Despite his speed, power and cannon arm, Francoeur's complete lack of plate discipline will soon end his major league career. He has now followed last year's .280/.310/.425 with .211/.273/.362 so far this year. If you are what your record says you are, Frenchy is rated Triple-A.

In short, the Mets have myriad woes. The order of their lineup isn't one of the big ones, but installing poor hitters at the top of the order is bad medicine, even if they're slap-hitting speed burners.

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A Road Map To More Success

Take a little trip down Hypothetical Lane with me, would you?

On Hypothetical Lane, the Tampa Bay Rays have a sublimely good team. Their entire young pitching corps is divine, their defense rock solid and their run scoring among the league's elite. Not only did they send away for the best record in baseball and a six-game lead in the game's toughest division, but they got the bonus secret decoder ring, also known as an historic run differential of nearly two-and-a-half per game. This stat can be squirrelly after just one-quarter of the season, but it tends to auger further success.

The weak spot in their starting quintet, second-year fireballer Wade Davis, has a 3.35 ERA and nearly eight strikeouts per nine. But the weak link in their lineup, their DH, which has no natural resident now that Pat Burrell's been evicted. Hank Blalock has been staffing the position since Burrell cleaned out his locker, but he's more of a stopgap measure.

Here's the worry we have on Hypothetical Lane. Our team is mighty young. Can this dream season last? Can they withstand the withering power of the mean gang from New York across the street? More to the point, can a team whose top two power hitters are Evan Longoria and no one, continue to manufacture runs like a stocking factory?

Now take a peek around the corner to Serendipity Street. Isn't that Lance Berkman, lallygagging with those ne'er-do-well Astro boys? Someone ought to grab that Lance and...hey, maybe the short-sighted manager of the store Lance works at, Mr. Wade, might be willing let him go for a song. He's costing Mr. Wade's boss $14 million a year and not exactly producing. Maybe Tampa could send over a nice inlet or cove, a third-rate pitching prospect from the Montgomery Biscuits or the Charlotte Stone Crabs and a couple of clues how to run a franchise in exchange for the big first baseman.

Over here on Rationale Avenue, I'll tell you why. First, we have to acknowledge that Houston has less intention of trading Roy Oswalt than of relocating to Waco. If owner Drayton McLane wanted to unload Oswalt he wouldn't have announced that Oswalt was asking out, sapping the team of any leverage it might have had. 

But Berkman hasn't made a peep, at least publicly, which means other teams don't know that Ed Wade has absolutely no options. Unfortunately for Wade, the only GM dumb enough not to figure that out anyway is Ed Wade, so he's going to have to flip Berkman -- about two years too late -- for about 20 cents on the dollar. The worst farm system in baseball could use a couple of prospects, which Tampa has in spades.

Here's the great thing about Berkman for Tampa. While he carries a hefty price tag, his contract expires in two years, when he'll be 36 and before most of the Rays hit free agency. They can make the investment now without bankrupting the franchise as the lineup ripens. If Berkman runs out of steam, he's only on the books through next season .

Moreover, Berkman is a hitting and walking machine who plays a mean first base. The Rays could shuttle Carlos Pena to DH and Blalock back to Durham, strengthening their lineup and adding depth simultaneously.

A team with two catchers who can hit, three reliable middle infielders, a shutdown bullpen and a manager who gets it, is living on Easy Street. A deal for Berkman -- eminently doable if Houston has any brains -- could shore up their one small weakness and place another barrier between them and the Evil Empire. Some other fire-sale All Star is coming to the Bronx before the trade deadline; why not offset that advantage in advance? The Rays should make the move now. The Astros, well, they should become Rays fans.

Which would push that number to about 14,000.

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Pirates Run Yanks Off Plank

If you love inter-league play, as I do, you have to acknowledge that it's totally unfair. Consider a wild card race between the Mets and Cardinals. New York draws two sets against the Yankees while St. Louis enjoys a home-and-home vacation against Kansas City. Those six games could easily decide a playoff spot.

On the other hand, one argument commonly heard against inter-league play is idiotic: that it delivers desultory match-ups like Washington-Oakland and San Diego-Cleveland. As if the intra-league contests pitting Washington against Diego and Oakland against Cleveland are barn burners.

The positive about inter-league play is that fans get to see great players from the other league first-hand and that all those great inter-league rivalry games (Cubs-White Sox, Yanks-Mets, Reds-Indians, Astros-Rangers, Angels-Dodgers, etc.) get played. That doesn't mean that every inter-league affair has to include some inherent geographic competition, but how else can we get headlines like "Braves School Indians," "Giants Doff Red Sox," "Tigers Devour Phillies" and "Angels Deny Padres"?

It also stands to reason that NL teams have a greater advantage when forcing the AL pitchers to bat than AL teams enjoy when NL clubs insert a DH into the lineup. In today's game against the Mets, Phil Hughes batted for the first time in his entire professional career. That's seven years without swinging a bat since high school. However, results have not particularly borne out the NL advantage. Junior Circuit teams have dominated inter-league play and their pitchers have hit about as poorly as their NL counterparts.

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There are a lot of big reasons why the Mets are defending their manager and the Yankees are World Series favorites, but a few small reasons showed up in one inning of their game today.

In the top of the inning, David Wright got a key two-out RBI. On a subsequent RBI single Wright snubbed the rally by running into an out at third. Did that cost them more runs? Only the shadow knows.

In the Yankees' next ups, pitcher Mike Pelfrey induced two pop-ups and then walked the #8 hitter with the pitcher on deck. Not only did that give the Yanks the opportunity to lead-off the next inning with Derek Jeter, but Phil Hughes pushed Pelfrey to an extra six pitches before grounding out.

It may or may not have affected the outcome, but in general, teams that give themselves those little advantages win more, and vice versa.
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You Can't Spell Stupid Without "AP"

AP story on Mets-Nationals game...

"Pinch hitter Adam Kennedy's sacrifice fly broke a 2-all tie in the seventh, Drew Storen  (1-0) got two outs for his first major league victory and Matt Capps closed for his major league-leading 15th save.

So to summarize, someone got to third base with the winning run, but the AP chose to credit Adam Kennedy for bringing him home by making an out. Both starters went six effective innings but the AP chose to credit a guy who recorded two outs for the win. And the game's second most ineffective pitcher, closer Matt Capps, who entered with a three-run lead and surrendered a run before coaxing three outs, is the man AP selected for special mention over everyone else.

This is what's wrong with baseball reporting in a nutshell. We count wins, saves and RBIs so sports media award merit badges for achieving them, even when it's transparent how poorly they correlate with performance. The three actors named in the story combined to contribute virtually nothing to the Nats' win.

Livan Hernandez, who hurled six-and-a-third  frames of two-run ball? No mention, because Washington's third run didn't arrive until he had already left the game, so he wasn't credited with a win. Fernando Tatis's game-tying sixth-inning jack for the Mets? Hey, they lost. Carlos Guzman's single, triple and two runs scored in four at-bats? We don't really tally triples. Besides, he didn't drive home a run, which is an indication of being a clutch hitter, even though actual research demonstrates that it's no such thing.

The Associated Press could instantly transform the way baseball is covered in newspapers across America -- or at least the segment of America that still has newspapers -- by updating their reporting standards by 30 years. But that would require thinking. I'm not holding my breath.

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A Great Leadoff Hitter Who Never Was

There's an old joke in which a guy comes upon his friend searching for a lost contact lens under a streetlight. He kneels down and helps his friend search, in vain.

"Where'd you lose the contact?" he asks.

"Around the corner," his friend answers.

"Then why are we looking here?"

"The light here is better."

As in the joke, if you look for something in the wrong place, you're going to have trouble finding it. Which leads us to a great leadoff hitter who never was.

When most baseball fans, players and managers consider table setters, visions of roadrunners dance in their heads. This characteristic is largely irrelevant, like seeking physical attractiveness when scouting for great statesmen. The best leadoff hitters share just two salient characteristics: they lay the groundwork for run scoring by getting on base and they don't waste a lot of power batting with empty bases.

The player in question, whose career ended in 2001, would have been a stellar table setter, and yet seven teams squandered his talent over a 16-year career in which he saw 500 plate appearances just twice. An average gloveman at third and first, he was never (at least seriously) considered for the leadoff spot. 

Here's why: he's 6'3" and ran like an oil spill. He swiped 11 bases in 1582 games and got thrown out just as many times. He staffed the same position as Harmon Killebrew and Mo Vaughn and Prince Fielder. This is not the profile his managers were imagining for a batter in the #1 slot.

Here's why he should have been leading off: He hit .288/.390/.377 over his long career. I don't have the data on all his teams, but I'll bet real, Chinese-propped, American legal tender that his teams rarely bit into the sweet fruit of a .390 OBP leading off. Because a significant percentage of his safeties were free passes, which move runners least of all, leading him off would have maximized his value to the team. Nor would there have been much opportunity cost in a move to the top of the order; his 42 career home runs were spread so thinly that he never popped more than six in any one season.

He's Dave Magadan, and it's a shame how little value his teams got from his considerable batting acumen. In the one year in which he played 144 games for the Mets, he set career highs in hits, runs, RBIs, doubles, triples, homers, total bases, batting average, slugging and OPS. There's a chicken and egg component here, or course -- hit .328 and you'll play more -- but it's worth wondering what kind of career he'd have had if even one of his managers had seen beyond the conventions of the day, batted him first, and watched him score 100 times a season.

Magadan's career is long over, but it can stand for posterity as testament to the value of thinking strategically, ignoring conventions and acting rationally in order to maximize team performance. The Magadan Factor would be a nice legacy for a good, but misused, player.

Missing the Bat With Pat

You can crunch the numbers all you like, but personnel decisions involve persons.  Statheads need to keep that in mind when asserting their certitudes about the future performance of players in the league. It's something Pat Burrell reminded me of this weekend when he collected his walking papers from the Tampa Bay Rays.

Two years ago, I blasted the Phils for committing a $30 million dowry to 36-year-old Raul Ibanez for three years of declining offensive value and already-addled defense. Philadelphia, I noted, already had an immobile slugger in left field in 31-year-old Burrell, who could have been inked to the two-year, $16 million deal he got from Tampa Bay.

I had my reasons. Ibanez was five years older, had begun slowing down in the field and seemed to stand out in Seattle mostly because he was the only non-Ichiro hitter on the roster. He even lacked Burrell's stick in their contract year; Burrell, .875 OPS to Ibanez, .837. Finally, paying a guy eight figures for his age-39 year was almost certainly folly.

How'd that turn out? Burrell was spectacular in the field for Tampa -- from the DH position. Other than that, the Rays got less support from Burrell than from their jock straps. After setting the bar at ground level last year -- .682 OPS while missing 40 games due to injury -- Burrell began 2010 by crawling beneath it. The notoriously frugal Rays found it useful to cut him even though it meant eating $9 million.

Ibanez? He slugged 34 HR last season, made the All-Star team, posted an .899 OPS, shored up his glove work and helped the Phils repeat as NL champs.

How could I be so wrong? 

First, it's worth pointing out that it wasn't quite so cut and dried even by the numbers. Burrell had been up and down for the Phils. The weaker league and hitters' park served as stat inflator during those years. So he was probably worse than he appeared. Ibanez moved in the opposite direction: from a pitcher's park in the tougher league to Citizens Bank Launching Pad. He could reasonably be expected to improve a bit, or given his age, keep his production steady.

Nonetheless, could anyone have predicted Ibanez's breakout and Burrell's breakdown? Well, apparently Philly management knew something about Burrell that led them to jettison him. His attitude, his work ethic, his injury history, his swing, something -- something the stats can't tell you. The Phillies looked at Pat Burrell and said to themselves, "we'd better get someone else in here, even if it costs us." And they were right.

In retrospect, Burrell wasn't the answer, but I'll stick by my assertion that three years of Ibanez isn't either. The Phils could have signed Adam Dunn and his .928 OPS for $16 million without the specter of a graybeard patrolling the outfield. (On the other hand, Dunn has all the defensive prowess of Lucy Van Pelt.) Last year's magic dust has worn off Ibanez; so far this season he's showing none of last year's pop. He's been a below-average hitter and fielder, and isn't likely to improve as he ages.

So let's say the Phils got one superb year, one palatable year and one forgettable year for their $30 million investment. Meanwhile, Pat Burrell delivered less than nothing for Tampa Bay's $16 million. Like choosing between John and Kate. Still, it shows that the numbers don't tell the whole story.

Lesson noted.

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Of Counsell

Not every player on even a championship team can be an All-Star. Winning teams need average players and role players who rarely attract attention but seem to accumulate rings.

One of those players is Craig Counsell, an unimposing, weak-hitting infielder who has changed uniforms six times in his career. You probably haven't thought about Counsell for years and weren't even sure he was still collecting a Major League paycheck.

He's not just collecting it -- for the Milwaukee Brewers these days -- he's earning it, despite a lifetime slugging percentage of .351. That's nearly Harrisonian, as in Bud. (Okay, no it's not. Buddy posted a lifetime SLG of .288., which is roughly what Chase Utley slugs with one arm. The point is that Counsell's 40 lifetime home runs in 15 seasons means he'd better have something else in his repertoire to impress the chicks.)

In 1440 lifetime games at second, short and third  -- he didn't really begin getting regular playing time until his seventh season in the bigs -- Counsell has hit a pedestrian .258/.345/.351 without flashing the blazing speed those kinds of numbers tend to require for usefulness. On the other hand, Counsell is an asset around the defensive horn, works the count and takes his walks, brings professionalism to the job everyday, rarely makes bonehead plays, accepts his role and offers his skipper multiple options every game. As a left-handed bat, Counsell even adds the platoon dimension to the manager's hand.

Moreover, while a .696 OPS won't get a left-fielder a major league job, it's actually about average for a middle-infielder. On top of that, Counsell is a few ticks above the middle with the glove, according to the various defensive metrics out there. Baseball Prospectus estimates that given the extra two wins he contributes to his team compared to a replacement-level player, Craig Counsell is worth a cool $8.5 million this year.

The thing to understand about average players who fill roles is that they are a huge improvement over the alternative. A team with an average hitter batting seventh, or backing up a star, is an awesome offensive force. Last year, in just 459 late appearances, Counsell added roughly 46 runs to the Brewers' performance compared to whoever would have been available to replace him.

Guys like Craig Counsell can't carry teams. You can live with him as your starting second baseman or shortstop for a full season if you must, but he's really an asset as part of a rotation, a back-up, a spot starter, an injury fill-in. He's not the reason the Marlins won the championship in '97 or the Diamonbacks in '01, but those teams couldn't have won if, instead of the Craig Counsells of the world, they'd have signed someone off the scrap heap. Keep that in mind next time your favorite team signs some middling player to share duty or provide relief. Those players can be mighty valuable.

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Asleep In the Batter's Box

I don't know whether Ken Griffey snoozed in the clubhouse late in a game against the Angels, as reported by the Tacoma News Tribune. Frankly, I think Griffey ought to be snoozing on his couch at home rather than limping desolately through the post-useful portion of his career. And I can't blame anyone sleeping while the Mariners bat; it appears that's what their lineup does at the plate.

I don't know whether manager Don Wakamatsu is telling the truth when he denies that Junior was unavailable for pinch-hit duties because he was sawing wood. I'm not sure Junior's .489 OPS is much of a pinch-hitting upgrade on even the pitching coach.

Even if the story is completely true, as Griffey's shadow-boxing with the question suggests, it doesn't have anything to do with Seattle's 13-19 record. The fact that the sarcophagus of a former player fills a roster spot on a team desperate for a big league bat is a much bigger issue to me.

No, it was the actions of Cliff Lee in the wake of the story that I think merit a dressing down, and frankly, a suspension. Lee not only refused to answer questions asked by the story's reporter, Larry LaRue, he refused to answer any questions from any reporters unless LaRue left the room. This is a classic case of blaming the messenger. It also nearly convinces me that LaRue was right.

LaRue was doing his job, reporting what people in Seattle want to know about. He got the information from multiple teammates of Griffey, according to the story. Based on Griffey's dissembling when asked whether he was awake for the whole the game, LaRue hit upon some truth, if not all of it.

The Mariners have a right to be angry at the players who ratted out a city icon, but I doubt that's the issue here. The team has been an embarrassment, in part because Griffey has been an embarrassment and this episode just brought the cauldron to a boil. 

That's not Larry LaRue's fault. If a few more members of the M's lineup had been doing their jobs as well as LaRue did his, they wouldn't be in this predicament.

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Bottom of the Second

If the MLB season were a single game, we'd be in the bottom of the second inning. That's our barometer when determining whether a team can bounce back or print playoff tickets. 

Certainly if your team is behind 7-0 in the second inning, you'd be well-advised to bring in your 12th pitcher and let him eat innings, results be damned. No point in burning up your set-up guy for this disaster, right? 

At the same time, being down 2-1 in the second really doesn't tell us much. We could win this contest just as easily as lose it. Don't panic; stay the course.

In the case of the Boston Red Sox, they're down 4-2 in the second. It's certainly not an insurmountable lead -- under ordinary circumstances. The problem is, they're facing the other team's best pitcher, their own starter has used 58 pitches and his left-fielder is playing left-out with a tweaked hammy. Suddenly the two-run deficit looms larger, and the manager is going to have to make some decisions soon.

Disembarking from this tortured metaphor, the Sox teeter at .500, trailing New York by six and Tampa Bay by 6.5. The Yankees are as deep as the ocean. The Rays are young and nubile. Neither appears ripe for the picking, and they have walked over Boston (8-2) so far this season.

Moreover it's a worst case scenario for David Ortiz and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Neither is likely to be an asset this year, or ever again. The team that won two World Series with Manny  and Big Poppy striking the fear of Beelzebub into opposition hurlers now sports Youklis and Pedroia as their top performers. They're fine players both, but pitchers' pants stay dry when facing them.

The Saux can't compete with the behemoths ahead of them with their rotation as currently constituted. If Josh Beckett (7.46 ERA) can't get it together, they are a team with three starters. The Rays' fifth starter -- Wade Davis -- has outperformed the entire Bosox staff, and there's more where he came from.

This was supposed to be Theo Epstein's foray into pitching and fielding, but the team is allowing 5 1/2 runs per game. The two outfield  defensive whizzes -- Jacoby Ellsbury and Mike Cameron -- are mangled. Gold Glove hot cornerman Adrian Beltre has channeled Dr. Strangeglove  and the best catching days of Victor Martinez and Jason Varitek are behind them.

It doesn't get any better soon. The schedule serves up Toronto, Detroit, Minnesota, Philadelphia and Tampa Bay this month.

So are the Red Sox doomed in 2010? Certainly not. The Yankees have coasted through a panoply of injuries and show no signs of deceleration. But the Rays might come back to earth and give Boston a chance to reel them in, and they lack the resources to acquire a key cog should they need it. For the Red Sox to exploit this possibility, they need to play much better going forward.

Boston's very astute front offiice is not going to panic, nor are they going to sacrifice the future for a futile swing at the present. I suspect they will give this team the rope to hang itself or swing across to the other side, as they will. They have enough talent to win and enough problems to show in a two-team race. Look for Theo to stay the course with one eye on 2011.

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Loser

An American League pitcher with a Cy Young pedigree is at it again. In 47 innings so far this year, he's largely baffled the opposition, yielding just 41 hits and eight walks, while fanning 36. He sports a gleaming 2.51 ERA despite a Triple-A bullpen and an energetic but flailing defense. He's thrown a complete game and six quality starts in seven tries.

An early Cy Young contender, wouldn't you say?

Contrast him with this guy: 30 games and seven starting assignments into the season he still hasn't managed to win a game. What good is this guy to his team?

I think you already know the punchline: it's the same pitcher. Zack Greinke has the dubious distinction of toiling for the Kansas City Royals, a Pittsburgh Pirates AL doppelganger. He's been brilliant, but his team remains -- after two decades of futility -- a collection of retreads and misfits. The offense has tallied 17 times in his seven starts, most of the runs coming long after he'd left the game and the relief corps had provided relief -- for opposing pitchers.

The game against the Blue Jays on April 21 is a good case in point. Grienke left the contest with a 3-2 lead after seven strong innings, fanning 8 and allowing just a walk and two hits to the league's fourth best (as of today) offense. It took two relievers to subdue Toronto in the eighth, relinquishing the lead in the process. KC won that game in the 10th -- the only Grienke start in which they prevailed. Certainly you can't argue that Greinke "failed to pitch to the score" or "wasn't clutch" or some other cliche nonsense.

Last year, there was some talk in the sports blather community that Greinke lacked the requisite number of wins to earn the Cy Young award. Fortunately, the Royals managed to claim a couple of W's behind him at season's end and the writers overwhelmingly voted for him. Still, it's inconceivable that they could anoint a below-.500 pitcher the best in the league even if he is by any relevant measure. That would require a rise to greatness -- on the writers' part -- that is six or seven steps beyond where they stand as a group right now.

Nonetheless, Greinke's early performance and record show how a great pitcher performing at the highest level can own a bad record. And there's just nothing about it that's his fault.

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Glaus-ing Over Clutch Hitting

Troy Glaus had a hit and an RBI in five attempts during a 4-1 Atlanta win over Philly today. So he's clutch, right? After all, he got a hit with runners on base in a close game. This is why we revere RBIs; they denote an ability to drive in runs.

Except, as copious research has demonstrated, there's virtually no relationship between RBIs and "hitting in the clutch," almost regardless of how you define it.

RBIs correlate quite highly with RBI opportunities, i.e., players with lots of RBIs tend to bat with lots of guys on base -- in fact, in scoring position. Anytime you see two players with similar production but disparate RBI totals, check your knee-jerk assumption of clutchness at the door and assume instead that one player had many more chances to drive in runs than the other.

Which is how Glaus hooked and reeled in an RBI today. In his five trips to the plate, the bases were stuffed with 11 baserunners -- bases juiced once and two on each of the other four occasions. Glaus whiffed twice and left nine men on base until the ninth, when his shallow outfield poof dropped in and scored a runner from third.

Was Glaus "clutch?" Ha! He almost single-handedly ran the Braves' aground, overcoming the consistent achievements of his fellow batsmen, like Chipper Jones. Jones reached base four out of five trips to the plate, but collected no RBIs. Perhaps he wasn't "clutch,", or perhaps he did exactly what he was supposed to do, and just had fewer opportunities. He stranded a single runner all game.

Ryan Howard, whose gargantuan contract rests in part on his enviable annual RBI totals, left four runners on base in the same game. Batting in that lineup, in the number four position, in that ballpark, with that power, is a perfect RBI storm. Howard can strand four runners here and there, because there will be four more to knock in on other nights.

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Something for Nothing Can Kill You

When it comes to the Yankees-Braves trade of Javier Vazquez for Melky Cabrera, the big winner was...the Boston Red Sox.

We knew going in that Cabrera was a pine-rider for the Yankees with fourth outfielder upside. We thought Vazquez was Atlanta's best trade bait given the team's rotation depth and his non-repeatable '09 performance. That is, until he was swapped for a spare part, which could presumably have been had for a lesser light from the mound corps.

In any case, the Sox can thank Brian Cashman and Frank Wren for keeping them within five games of NY in the standings. Whereas Cabrera and his bleak.191/.287/.225 (three XBH) would simply be clogging up the dugout in the Bronx, the Braves would be pitching Vazquez and his 9.78 ERA, at least for a while. So while Cabrera is killing Atlanta's already-inept offense, he's replacing a dumpster fire on the defensive side. For the Yankees, it's subtraction by addition, since they gave up nothing to make their pitching staff worse.

Put another way, New York got something negative for nothing. They bartered a player who wasn't going to contribute, for a star, and managed to be worse off in the process.

Neither of these guys is this bad, but their prospects are pretty poor. Vazquez seems to be allergic to the Big Apple -- his previous stint in pinstripes didn't agree with his ERA either -- and Cabrera's career .378 SLG just doesn't scream "hot second half!" 

So while everything else goes wrong in Beantown, they're still within striking distance of their arch-rivals, and they can thank the gods of irony for that. After all, flipping Melky for Vazquez was about as slam-dunk a trade as you could make.
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Barajas Going...Gone

Let's take a drag on the small sample size pipe.

Anyone who follows baseball knows that the term "backup catcher" means "has all the hitting power of Richard Simmons." Rod Barajas is the epitome, posting a .238/.283/.410 in 831 games over 12 seasons with five teams. In his single year in Philadelphia, Barajas drilled all of four home runs.

Since leaving the Phils, Barajas has hit safely 14 times in 23 at-bats against them, with seven home runs. That's not exactly Ruthian...because the Babe in his career needed 104 plate appearances to smack seven out. Barajas doesn't just own Phillies pitching, he's got an option on the film rights.

The Mets will be sure to ride that tiger by starting the 245-pound Californian every time they take on their division rivals. If Barajas is hitting .609 with a 1.512 slugging average at year's end, we'll put something else in that pipe.

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Houston, You Have A Problem

Got to see a team dressed as the Astros play for the first time today. It was obviously the JV, because they couldn't catch or hit. When does the varsity play?

That squad is Lake Wobegon in a contra-universe where protons have a negative charge and strikeouts benefit the team at bat. If Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt were alive today, they'd be turning over in their lockers. 

After Berkman, I'm not sure this roster has a single above-average offensive player. Maybe Hunter Pence, who looks, runs and bats like a stork. I wouldn't be surprised if a nut came loose and he fell apart. And Carlos Lee can smack the ball, but he couldn't catch a cold at a pre-school. He looked like a windshield wiper trying to run after a ball hit over his head.

This hasn't happened by accident. Since the waning days of the Killer-B's, Houston management has made 82 wins its goal. Trading the future for respectability while your stars age leaves you with a roster of has-beens, and then aren't-anymores.

It will become apparent by mid-season that the Astros should auction off Berkman and Oswalt for young talent and build a new structure from scratch. Because there isn't even anything here to rehab.

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