AL MVP: Him or Him or Him

The American League MVP race is nearly as wide open as Dick Vitale’s mouth. Unlike the Cy Young races, where there really is only one right answer in each league, reasonable people can disagree on who was the best performer this year.

First, the preliminaries:

1. The Most Valuable Player is the player who added the most wins to his team by hitting, base running and defense. Period.
2. The MVP’s credentials are largely unconnected to his team’s place in the standings. A player whose performance adds eight wins to his team’s total has eight wins of value, irrespective of whether they are wins 63-70 or wins 87-94.
3. Context matters. A lot. Hitting home runs at The Ballpark in Arlington is roughly 13% easier than in Safeco Field. Competing in the AL East is harder than in the AL West. There are homeless men in the NYC subway who can hit .300 with power and play first base. Catchers who do so are even rarer than a n African democracy.
4. Stats that don’t matter, don’t matter. If we can agree that runs scored and batted in are team events, then they have no place in the discussion. When we use stats, let’s stick to those that illuminate the issue, not confuse it.

At first glance, the race for MVP is between the batting champ, Ranger left-fielder Josh Hamilton and RBI king, Tigers first-baseman Miguel Cabrera. Hamilton was magnificent all year, hitting .360/.412/.636 and leading the league in OPS in a hitter-friendly park. Cabrera was no less impressive, swatting .328/.420/.622 in the more neutral Comerica. Hamilton contributed nothing during the 30 games he missed. Cabrera contributed in all but the final 12.

Cabrera has a small hitting edge, but Hamilton has a significant fielding advantage. He dazzles sufficiently in left to do stand-in work in center and he runs the bases well, swiping eight of nine. Cabrera carries an over-packed suitcase in his uniform, slowing him on the base paths and at first. Not for nothing, Cabrera grounded into 17 double plays, to 10 for Hamilton.

Before you choose from between these luminaries, Robinson Cano would like to make his case. While he only hit .320/.382/.535 in Fly Ball Heaven Stadium, Cano turns the double-play. He didn’t light it up like either Cabrera or Hamilton, but relative to a replacement player, he was the best in the league. Baseball Prospectus estimates he was worth 9.5 wins above a replacement second-sacker, compared to Hamilton’s 8.5 versus left-fielders and Cabrera’s 7.6 over first basemen.

All three, in my view, have their charms. If given a vote, I’d cast it for Cabrera. I don’t think Cano has hit enough to overtake the other two. The defensive zone rating metrics, of which I’m admittedly wary, don’t like Hamilton, casting a light shadow of doubt on his “value.” Moreover, Hamilton’s accomplishments are dependent on more than a fair share of grounders sneaking through holes. Ten fewer of them and his slash stats can’t compete with Cabrera’s. But I won’t knock anyone who casts their ballot for Cano or Hamilton. I like chocolate; perhaps they like vanilla or strawberry.

A note about three other players. Meteorite Blue Jay outfielder Jose Bautista slammed 54 homers and laid down a .262/.380/.621 line. Zounds. For the MVP though, he’s basically Hamilton/Cabrera lite. Red Sox third baseman Adrian Beltre (.321/.365/.553) and Rays’ third basemen Evan Longoria (.294/.372/.507) have high replacement value as hot-cornermen, but not enough to cover 100 fewer points of OPS, in my view. Believing the defensive hype about Longoria puts him squarely in the discussion, but I’m dubious about both defensive reputation and defensive metrics.

So who’s the AL MVP? No definitive answer. If the writers pick one of Hamilton, Cabrera and Cano, no complaints will be warranted.

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Meandering Through the Bronx

So if the stars are lining up for the Phillies in the NL; what about the AL? It's not so cut-and-dried, but baseball fans disregard the Yankees at their own peril.

If you pay attention to the past, you realize three things:

1. How a team finishes the regular season is absolutely no guide to how they will perform in the playoffs.

2. Most theories about who has the edge (e.g., they have more playoff experience) are crap.

3. The past is only occasionally prologue to the present.

The Yankees cruised to a runner-up finish with starting pitchers like Somebody Nova and Somebody-else Moseley while they bottle-fed Andy Pettitte back into the rotation. This is a franchise that has in past years gotten bored of the regular season once the post-season became a fait accompli. They will be at maximum strike force for the Twins, even if, as Wild Card, they're made to suffer on the road, in frigid weather, against a superior foe (relative to Texas.)

The Rangers are in much-improved position to win with their MVP-candidate left-fielder back in the fold, but they suffer the curse of the egalitarian staff, which doesn't seem to correlate with playoff success. Though Texas will suit up an 11-man pitching contingent that includes just two hurlers whose ERAs top 4.00 (Dustin Nippert, 4.20 and Matt Harrison, 4.71), no one after Cliff Lee raises any eyebrows from opposing sluggers. A deep staff with no clear star gets a team to the post-season, but doesn't have a history of keeping them there long.

Not that their first opponent, the Rays, are riding any great wave. The starters, Tampa's iron fist most of the season, tailed off badly in the last month, in several cases reaching well past their Verducci levels. Wade Davis pitched 100 more innings than he ever had before; David Price 80 more. Jeff Niemann and James Shields showed repeatedly that they had nothing left in the second half. While Yankee hurlers have been coasting, their Ray counterparts may be sucking wind.

There are plenty of good arguments for the Rays, Twins and Rangers to win trips to the World Series. Short playoff series are notoriously fickle and the four contestants are relatively evenly matched. Still, New York is unique among them in not yet considering their season a success. The AL championship goes through the Bronx, even if no clinching game ever does.

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Payback Could Be A Bitch

If you're the Philadelphia Phillies, you have to be feeling that what went around has come around on the 2010 season. Buffeted by a rash of early- and mid-season injuries that turned them into newts, the horsies got better and now find themselves uniquely positioned to march through the playoffs.

Payback could be a bitch for the other contenders.

Most likely, Philly will square off with Cincinnati in the division series. The Reds have feasted on the dregs of the league for most of their 89 victories. That is not the formula for ousting Halladay, Oswalt and Hamels (H2O). Las Vegas will be falling all over itself to court wagers against the double defending NL champs.

The Giants and Braves must eliminate San Diego before tussling in the first round. Depending on how long it takes, both teams could use up their best starters. Matt Cain, on the hill tonight, is already out for Game One. The Braves' Jair Jurrjens is hobbled and questionable for the playoffs. Tim Hudson is scheduled to go Sunday if the Braves still need to win, which would push his first start to Game 3. 

Anything can happen in a five-game series, of course, but it's easy to imagine Rollins, Utley, Howard and Werth plowing through the Redleg pitching and giving the rotation time to reset against the Giants or Braves. With the home field advantage and a late-season pedigree, Philly would be prohibitive favorites against whichever side wins the other series. The Giants have the mound horses to match, but if they've chewed through them in the NLDS, they might not be quite the asset. Citizens Bank is a homer total's best friend, but San Fran doesn't have the punch to take advantage.

As for the Braves, they are largely a Turner Field phenomenon, and that doesn't play well in Philly, particularly on autumn nights. The Phils made up eight games on Atlanta in September for a reason. Rolling out H2O for six of seven games exaggerates the advantage and ameliorates Philly's bullpen weakness.

None of that accounts for injuries, anomalies, rain delays/postponements and simple luck. The race isn't always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. But that's the way to bet.

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Anomalies of Another Great Season

Some amazing notes from another amazing baseball season as it drips into its annual anti-climax.

1. Phlegmatic Arizona slugger Mark Reynolds is the Greg House of baseball. The Diamondback slugger is either a genius or colossal failure, depending on what aspect of the job you esteem. Reynolds is batting .198 and has 208 strikeouts. He is three games away from becoming the first player in history with more strikeouts than his batting average. And yet, Reynolds has 13 runs of value over a replacement cornerman. How is that? Thirty-two homers, 83 walks and decent fielding at a tough defensive position mean he's worth abiding the futility while enjoying the patience and power.

2. How good is Jason Heyward? Adonis hit .278/.394/.457 in his rookie year, with great plate savvy, speed and defense. Most notably: he's 21. It's hard to overstate how significant that is. He should be a junior in college, ready to be drafted and begin next season in Double-A. Instead, he's among the 100 best ballplayers on the planet.

In Sammy Sosa's first year, a few months younger than Heyward is now, his Major League education scored out at .257/.303/.366. I remember reading a reflection by Bill James that I can't find, in which he noted that Sosa's rookie performance projected to a magnificent career, and gave him a one-third chance of achieving Hall of Fame status. Sammy was a replacement-level player that year. Heyward is worth 32 runs more than a replacement player. If he continues to grow (in baseball terms, that is. At 6'4" 220, growing his frame would be scary) he's an A-Rodian cinch for Cooperstown. (ARod's age 21 rookie season: .358/.414/.631.)

3. Albert Pujols had a disappointing year, don't you think? He faded when the Cardinals swooned and fell out of the race. He binged and purged on NL pitching. He only hit .315, 18 points below his career mean. Consider in his place, this guy: he had a .416 OBP and led the league in slugging with a .602 mark. He pounded 42 homers, most in the circuit and 39 doubles, drove in a league-leading 118 runs and scored a league-pacing 115. His 83 runs of VORP (value over replacement player) was tops and that doesn't include his sensational defense.

That is the margin by which Prince Albert is the king of baseball. His off-year is MVP quality, even if he's not the guy you'd actually select. (More on that in a subsequent post.) Earning the best player mantle in your career year is difficult enough; Pujols is worthy of the crown when he struggles.

4. How about that John Axford, huh? "Who?" you said. Fair enough. The Brewers' new closer posted an 8-2 2.53 line with 23 saves in 26 chances while yielding but a lonely home run. Why is Axford a mystery to you? Because last year he toiled for the Single-A Brevard County Manatees. He thrived as a cumbersome sea-faring mammal in '09 and thrived as a hops mixer in '10. Go figure.

5. In his first four full seasons, Jose Bautista hit 59 homers combined. This year he's at 54 and counting. He posted slugging averages of .420, .404, .411 and .408. This year, .625. He stole 13 bases but was nailed eight times. This year, 8 of 10. In his first four seasons, he was worth two wins over replacement -- total. This year 6.6.

I'll leave the steroid speculation to others. The question that most interests me is, what should we expect next year? We know that, on average, anomalies like him regress to the mean. That is, on average, a player with a career of .415 slugging averages who slugs .625 will fall halfway back, slugging .520. On average, he'll club 35 out and steal six of nine. But Jose Bautista isn't the average player; he's Jose Bautista, just as you're not the average family, with 2.3 children. While that's the midpoint of his range, he could also quite conceivably repeat 2010. That would be fun.

6. The Toronto Blue Jays have the fourth worst team batting average in baseball, the second fewest singles and the eighth-fewest walks. So naturally, they're second in total bases and ninth in runs scored. Led by a Bautista-infused 253 long balls, (Boston's second at 207) the Jays have posted the largest difference between slugging average and batting average...in history. At .207, it's double the level of the Mariners (.104), who stand at the precipice of historical run-scoring futility. It's a great game.

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Now Pitching, Wild Thing

While you're eyeballing Aroldis Chapman's supersonic pitches next season, my gaze will fall on Braves rookie Craig Kimbrel. A third-round pick in '08, the 22-year-old Alabaman has bedazzled major league hitters since his September call-up this year.

Kimbrel is Nook Laloosh without the girlfriend. He faced 80 batters in his first 19 relief appearances and walked 14 of them. Eight of them touched him up for hits. And 37 of them struck out. 

He had an 0.47 ERA. That's good, you know.

In Triple-A Gwinnett this year, he walked 35 in 55 innings. And struck out 83. Those minor leaguers managed a hit every other inning off him. What do they know that major leaguers don't?

The Braves are talking about making him a starter, so there's a lot more to the story to be written. In the meantime, enjoy the fireworks.

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My God, How Did We Get Here?

And so here we are, two series remain in the season and there is just one race. The Padres, Giants and Braves competing for two spots.

What a long, strange trip it's been. (Later note: I wrote this sentence and yesterday's post just before Baseball Prospectus unveiled its new Pecota system designed specifically to eliminate projections like the Matt Wieters over-reach to which I referred. The first sentence of this paragraph is the title of theirs. The Grateful Dead lives.) The Phillies, clearly the cream of the NL, suffered through a broken lineup until September when they caught fire and torched the Braves. Atlanta in turn played like Ted Williams at home (52-23) and Esther Williams (35-46) on the road (credit: Schnitz) to earn their invitation to the Wild Card gala.

In the Central, St. Louis spanked this year's playoff contenders but went all masochist when taking on the league's basement dwellers. (12-6 vs. the Reds; 21-26 against the detritus that comprises the rest of the division.) Surprising Cincinnati rode Joey Votto, a resurgent Scott Rolen and positive contributions from 16 pitchers to capture the Central. Out west, midnight seemed to strike for the improbable Hitless Wonders from San Diego, but now it's morning in SoCal and the Padres are back on the pulpit. The pitching Giants and their teammates, the hitting Midgets, are in the driver's seat after relinquishing three or fewer runs in 21 of 24 September games, yet managing to win just 15 of them.

The final six-pack of contests finds the Braves mercifully finishing at the Ted to school the Fightin' Fish and the second string from Philadelphia. The Pads and Giants tussle with each other to wrap the season, so Atlanta has an edge on the Wild Card.

The beauty of this race is that it approaches reductionist perfection. Win, you're in. Lose, go home. Of course, they could all muddle to the finish line, which would mean settling it in overtime. With these three they should just play until someone scores. That'll keep it at nine innings.

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Statheads on Crack

Sabermetrics have transformed baseball analysis and helped regular fans like us understand the game differently and better. Computer-fueled statistical analysis has punched holes in old shibboleths and established new, research-supported truths. Often, they tell us that our eyes deceive us.

The stat geeks, spreadsheet-munchers and number nerds responsible for this revolution deserve our appreciation not just for devising new ways to measure things, but to continue to devise better ways. Ten years ago, when seamheads were gestating the concept of dissociating pitching from defense, the results were often best left ignored. They have improved steadily, thanks to MLB's ability to catalog every single pitch, to the point where we could, in broad strokes, predict the decline of Ubaldo Jimenez in the second half of the season.

Sometimes, however, seamheads forget that their work is a journey and not a destination.They are beguiled by half-conceived statistical formulae whose rough edges have yet been smoothed by years of inquiry, testing and polishing. They treat the results as gospel, rather than as suggestions tempered by the adolescent state of the art.

Two years ago, Oriole farmhand Matt Wieters was touted by Baseball Prospectus as the greatest catching prospect since Zeus. (Lightning bolt for an arm, immense two-strike power.) Using their proprietary projection system to examine Wieters' minor league and college careers, it projected him to hit .311/.395/.544 with 31 home runs in 2009 and be worth 60 runs more than a replacement-level catcher. Their system, called PECOTA, compares player performance to similar players of the past and sets upper and lower boundaries on expected future results. What I've listed is the weighted mean -- or most likely -- projected rookie numbers for Wieters.

What seemed obvious to me at the time, and what you've no doubt realized, is that such expectations for any rookie are patently absurd. They fail the smell test. While we should all be open to revealed truths, we must trust our eyes until the contradictory facts congeal into a proof.

In fact, Wieters showed great promise as a 23-year-old in 2009 with a .288/.340/.412 line and nine home runs in half a season. That's still above average for a receiver, but a far cry from the projection that BP writers defended as if it were the 11th commandment. (Honor they PECOTA projection and have no other conjurings before me.) Wieters has sagged even further from that unwarranted esteem this year to .253/.326/.385 and 11 home runs in full-time duty.

I love Baseball Prospectus enough to pay good money for it and read it everyday. But they treat PECOTA as destiny and use it to project team performance -- via a Monte Carlo simulation of a million permutations -- at the start of each season. Then they update their projections as the season unfolds.

The opening season projections amount to on-screen enlightenment. Often, BP sees things I don't. They correctly projected declines for the Dodgers, White Sox, Tigers and Angels. They're a good guide to the upcoming season.

It's when Dr. Jekyll starts reading his own press releases that he becomes Mr. Hyde. Entering the 2010 campaign, BP projected that the Cardinals had something like an 80% chance of making the playoffs. My reaction then was, how could that possibly be? I understand that the Redbirds were favorites, but no non-Yankee contingent can ever be an 80% lock before a pitch is thrown. Imagine a season in which Albert Pujols and Chris Carpenter are cut down by injuries and you can see that such a projection is patent nonsense. But the BP brain trust wrote as if October in St. Louis was a fait accompli.

Two weeks ago, BP had the Braves as an 89.6% lock to play in mid-October, despite a three-game deficit to the surging Phils and just a two game cushion over San Francisco for the Wild Card. Once again my olfactory nerves shuddered. Atlanta took three pops to the chin from their division rival and fell into a flat-footed tie for the Wild Card with nine or 10 games left. BP was still offering nearly 3-1 that the Braves would take the fourth playoff spot. (Their remaining schedule is weaker than San Diego's and San Francisco's.)

I understand why BP thinks the Braves should be favored, but I doubt Atlanta residents are booking their playoff tickets quite yet. As I write this, Chief Nakahoma's nine is a game back of San Diego in the loss column with six to play, having just lost two of three to execrable Washington. How is it possible for a team to be a 90% lock for the playoffs if a 4-6 stretch puts them on the outside looking in?

Perhaps some day the statxperts at Baseball Prospectus will improve their tools and better project playoff odds. Or (more likely, in my view) predicting the future will continue to fall outside the purview of mere humans, regardless of their statistical acumen. In any case, I'll continue to treat sabermetrics as a toolbox necessary to understanding the game I love, not as perfection itself.

So I'll be watching the games this last week and ignoring the predictions.
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Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Four out of five people -- nearly half! -- are innumerate. It's online, so it must be true.

When I was a reporter, the local county executive of one political stripe was battling over budgetary matters with the rival-dominated legislature. The legislative leader claimed that the rate of increase in the budget had spiked 200%. The number-addled media duly reported it.

The next day, the county executive responded that he had hog-tied spending 25% below inflation. The media, without any effort or ability to analyze the apparent paradox, simply passed that along too.

Of course, the few reporters like me who could count to 11 without removing their footwear knew that they were both spinning absurdly the same information. The county had increased spending in year one by 1% and in year two by 3%. That's a tripling in the rate of increase, which is 200%. Since the cost of living was rising at four percent, the rate of county spending had risen three-quarters of that, or 25% less. As Mark Twain noted, there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.

In baseball, statistics are like fire: a wonderful servant and terrible master. People facile with statistics can use them to illuminate and enrich. Most people have a weak grip on stats and instead use them, often unknowingly, to obfuscate and confuse.

Two example jumped to mind this week. I'll address the second one in an upcoming post.

First, Ichiro Suzuki reached 200 hits for a record 10th straight year. This is noteworthy, and even somewhat significant, but not terribly so. If it were, it's hard to imagine that the DH-aided Mariners would be on pace to score the fewest runs in a season in 39 years. (Aside: "DH-aided" might be hyperbole. Seattle DHs are swimming underwater as a group in the Mendoza pool. Then again, so are their catchers. Their backstops, second-basemen and shortstops are slugging less than .300. Felix Hernandez deserves the Purple Heart for going 12-12.)

Collecting bunches of hits is always a good thing. To accrue 200, a batter must hit for average (.331 lifetime) and demonstrate durability over a six month regular season (he's averaging 158 games). Achieving that 10 straight years is a testament to consistency, reliability and hitting prowess. It doesn't hurt, of course, that Ichiro has led-off in nearly every game he's played.

Accumulating lots of hits is also a mark of one giant inability: getting on base by free pass. Albert Pujols has tallied 200 hits just once in his all-world career, yet he's batted safely more often than Ichiro in many fewer plate appearances. (They're both completing their 10th MLB season.) The Babe reached that level just three times.

Ichiro is a two-trick pony offensively. He gets hits and steals bases (an average of 38 SB/9 CS per campaign) but is almost a total power outage. For all his hits, he's reached 30 doubles just twice in his career and double-digits in homers twice.

Ichiro is a very extreme example of the hollowness of batting average. At .315 with just 37 extra base hits, Ichiro is 62nd in the majors in value over a replacement level player (VORP), just behind Carlos Ruiz and ahead of Austin Jackson. Failing to walk leaves him just 63rd in MLB in on-base percentage (among players with 300 PA) just behind Kelly Johnson and ahead of Jeff Keppinger. In short, Ichiro needs to bat about .330 to be a great hitter and at least .300 to be a good one.

Ichiro has been a great player mostly because his glove work, his dependability and his basepath prowess complement a sturdy OBP (.376 lifetime) fueled mostly by batting average. There's a certain level of novelty act to his career.  After all, Travis Hafner has a higher lifetime OBP than Ichiro with a bucket-load more power, but no one's bronzing his likeness. It's all the other things that make Ichiro a sublime player.

As the third best lead-off hitter of all time, Ichiro's a lock for the Hall of Fame. (Rickey & Rock both had higher OBP, higher SLG and more net steals; neither was Ichiro's equal in the field.) But he'll be on the low end in the Hall when considering actual value to his team.

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Mercy Rule in Cy Young Votes

We're coming down to the wire on a couple of races. Doubt has left the building in the American League and is making a token appearance in the NL. The Phils and Reds are in and a more balanced Atlanta squad has a much easier row to hoe than one-dimensional San Diego and San Fransisco. Odds are that the loser in the West gets the autumn off.

As for the seasonal hardware, there's still plenty to be settled. Prince Albert, who has lain mostly dormant lately, pounded two homers last night to re-state his NL MVP case, while CC Sabathia last night wrote his AL Cy Young concession speech.

In my view, Cy has already, with nine games left, gone around the circle calling "duck" and landed on his goose in each league.

First, a definition. The Cy Young Award recognizes each league's best pitcher. Period. There is no award for the pitcher who had the best offense behind him or relief pitching to support him. There is no award for the pitcher whose team won most when he was on the mound. There's no award for the best lifetime narrative. If you want to invent an award for those, go ahead. Bestow the Ron Davis Award, named for the reliever who, in his 1979 rookie campaign, posted a 14-2 record in the Bronx that vastly overstated his performance. His 1.5 K/BB ratio and 10 blown saves lurked in the shadows of an amazing W-L mark that mostly demonstrated his uncanny ability to walk off the mound just before the Yankees took their final lead of the game.

I'm looking for a pitcher who takes the ball every five days and goes deep into the game without giving up a lot of runs. I'm taking into effect context, most notably the ballpark he pitches in and the defense behind him. You can garnish with other considerations, like his own fielding ability and the strength of his competition, but these tend to have minimal impact. 

In the NL, the Cy Young Award clearly needs a Halladay. The Phillies' right-hander leads the circuit in innings pitched, strikeouts, fewest walks per game, K/BB ratio, complete games, shutouts and quality starts. His home office is Armageddon for pitchers, yet he's yielded just 2.76 runs (not just earned runs) per game, fourth in the league and just a quarter run per nine behind league leader Josh Johnson.The only knock against Halladay is that he can be taken deep -- 24 homers off him this year -- but that's picking at nits, particularly off a guy who does everything else well. 

In short, Roy Halladay is the best pitcher in the NL this year by the length of KRod's rap sheet. Johnson, Adam Wainwright, Tim Hudson, Chris Carpenter, Cole Hamels, Brett Meyers, Johan Santana and Ubaldo Jimenez (remember him?) all deserve recognition for fine 2010 campaigns. But they're all racing for the lower box on the podium. 

In the Junior Circuit, the choice is stark. CC Sabathia has compiled a lot of wins pitching for the best team in baseball. Felix Hernandez has a .500 record for a team that scores less often than my high school friends (me included). Hernandez has pitched more innings than Sabathia and relinquished fewer hits, fewer home runs and fewer walks. He has more strikeouts and a better K/BB ratio. His ERA is a run lower.

In fact, the 24-year-old Venezuelan has so out-performed Carsten Charles this year, you might be wondering whether it's the wrong comparison. You might be thinking that Jon Lester, David Price and Jered Weaver are the more apt competitors for the award. Ah, you are wise grasshopper, but you are not a baseball writer. Sabathia's gaudy 20-7 record is like a shiny bauble to the baseball writers and they will compare it favorably to the 12-12 mark that the Ms have dangled around the neck of King Felix.

Before dismissing Sabathia, let's acknowledge that Yankee Stadium is a breeding ground for home runs and run scoring. The effect, however, is smaller than it appears because the Bombers are so loaded offensively. And while Safeco is a run suppressant, the difference is not nearly enough to balance the scales between Felix and CC.

Lester and Price both deserve notice for their accomplishments this season, but neither is the equal of the Seattle righty and both are being considered, again, mostly because of tasty W-L records. Weaver is an under-heralded annual aspirant to Cy's mantle, but Hernandez is a big hill to climb. In fact, King Felix is their superior in basically every category that matters (K/BB excepted).

Clay Bucholz, Cliff Lee and Brian Duensing have all authored masterful 2010 half-seasons. Had any of these pitched a full season (Bucholz because of injuries, Lee because of trade and Duensing because he pitched from the pen until July) they might now be a contender.

Many things can happen in the last nine games of the 2010 season. Carlos Gonzalez could homer twice a day and propel the Rockies into the playoffs on his MVP wings. The Red Sox could sweep the Yankees and plow into the playoffs ahead of NY. The Mets could decide not to fire Jerry Manuel and not to rue their Jason Bay signing. But many things can't happen. The Pirates cannot win out and end their sub-.500 streak. Prince Fielder cannot earn a Gold Glove. And Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandez are out of opportunities to relinquish their unassailable claims on the Cy Young Awards.

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My Day At Spitball Stadium

I went to a Major League game at the Ballpark last week. The home nine was taking on the team in dark uniforms for first place in the North. It was quite a tilt.

The opposition's lead-off hitter, facing a 3-1 count, tried to cop a walk by ducking away from a slider on the inside edge. The wily veteran had nothing on the experienced arbiter that day, who called strike two.

He squared on the next delivery and laid a roller along the third base line, which the hot cornerman could only watch roll to a stop. He really exploited the defense. Man on first.

The next batsman smacked a one-hopper to the shortstop who flipped to second. The base runner came barreling in six feet from the bag, cleats exposed. He reached back his hand in a token effort to suggest that second base was his intended destination while he upended the sprawling keystoner, disrupting the relay to first. A hustling team player, he saved the hated opposition an out.

Next up, the dangerous #3 hitter. An inside curve ball bounced beside the plate and skidded into the dugout while the batter insisted to the umpire that he'd been struck. His manager, a cagey baseball man, surreptitiously scuffed the ball against his shoe and raced onto the field with the marked ball aloft. The ump, over-ruled by the evidence, awarded the hitter first base.

First and second, one out. Our hurler was born on a day, but it wasn't yesterday. He worked over the newly-supplied ball meticulously while the next batter took his warm-up swings. Hidden between his ring and middle fingers was a tiny emery board, which he applied to the ball in order to destabilize its path to the plate.

Sure enough, his next three pitches fluttered home in thoroughly frustrating patters, sending the burly cleanup hitter to an early seat back in the dugout. He always has something up his sleeve to keep hitters off-balance! A crucial second out to douse the rally.

The inning ended without incident and our side got its licks.

The first offering from the visiting club's ace made a beeline for our speedy table-setter as he began his swing. He spun out of the way as the ball caromed off him, shaking his aching hand something fierce. He jogged to first while the replays showed the ball had, in fact, ricocheted off his bat. What a great actor! Those are the kinds of intangibles that make him an All Star.

Our number two hitter worked the count to 3-1. A slider fizzed wide of the strike zone, but the catcher had set up wider yet and framed the pitch a few inches lean. "Strike two!" bellowed the flummoxed umpire. It's sublime receiving skills like that that make our backstop one of the best in the game.

With the count full and the runner alight, the lefty-swinger pulled a two hopper to second. The second-baseman scooped the ball and backhanded it towards the bag in one motion, allowing the shortstop to slide his foot across second base, catch the ball six feet into the baseline and rifle a twin-killer to first in the nick of time. It's tough to avoid the double play when Timkers and Evers are out there in middle infield.

Our best man with the stick stepped to the plate and worked the count full before taking a fastball knee high. As the man in blue contemplated whether the pitch had cleared his kneecap, he began trotting to first. That evident confidence convinced the ump to let him go.

That brought up our slugging clean-up hitter. He dug in in the right hand batter's box while the hurler straddled the rubber and looked in for a sign. The runner took his lead as the first baseman awaited a pick-off throw. The outfielders played deep and around to left. The stadium lights twinkled and the...hey, what's that? The first baseman pulled the oldest trick in the book, tagging our runner with the ball hidden in his glove. We were all so deflated as he led his team trotting off the field. End of inning.

It continued in that manner for eight innings. Our crafty closer, who has beguiled the media with winked half-admissions about a Vaseline-aided knuckler -- the wascally wabbit! -- fired BBs past the first two batters and then faced that barrel-chested all-or-nothing pinch hitter who's been dogged by allegations of chemical use. Our fireman bewildered him with a diving slider and an infuriating change-up before leaving a 96-mph two-seamer up in the zone. The masher plastered it into the upper deck in right for the lead.

Cheater! User! The run shouldn't even count! He's bulking up illegally. He should be banned from the Hall of Fame, no matter how many games he's won for this team. It's a blight on the game. It's ruining tradition.

The home uniforms succumbed in the ninth and we dropped to second place. Our manager should protest the game. We can't have cheating in baseball.

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Hair, The Comedy

News item: White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf wants Manny Ramirez to trim his flowing dreads.  Chicago has a hair length policy. The team believes that trimmed locks look more "professional."

Isn't that rich? They traded for Manny Ramirez, a guy who tanked on two different teams and they're concerned that his hair looks unprofessional. They employ a manager whose mouth is directly connected to his thoughts without any intervention from his brain, and they're worried about the length of their second baseman's sideburns.

Perhaps Reindsdork was gazing upon the profound complexities of his navel when his general manager voluntarily executed a trade for Manny Ramirez and his trademark hairstyle. Perhaps he was so awed by Ramirez's ability to singe a 95-mph fastball that he failed to notice the player's flowing braids. In any event, the team welcomed Ramirez to the roster. Reinsdorf's next outreach to Ramirez ought to be something in the area of shut the hell up.

The White Sox trail the first place Twins by six games. You want to talk about cutting something, Jerry Reinsdorf? Trim that!

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Scoring Without A Hit

If you ever wonder why this blog bangs on mainstream sports media, here's an example.

ESPN is a multi-billion-dollar entity that ostensibly hires the most expert sports analysts. They have access to the best information. I'm guessing that somewhere at the Worldwide Leader lay Bill James' Baseball Abstracts dating back to 1979.

And yet, they manage to produce logic like this from Steve Berthiume, who I'm told hosts a baseball show. He is dubious about Tampa Bay's post-season chances.

As the postseason draws near...there are also pressing reasons not to believe in the Rays. They don't hit very much. Yes, they've scored 57 runs in their past 10 games, but Tampa Bay is 23rd in the majors in batting average and 25th in hits.

These are facts. The Rays are 23rd in BA and 25th in hits. This is also a fact: Pluto's equatorial diameter is 2,274 km. But that doesn't make it a planet.

Being 23rd in the majors in batting average and 25th in hits doesn't make Tampa a bad hitting team. Bill James demonstrated that batting average and hits are only weakly associated with run scoring 31 years ago. How can an ostensible expert not be aware of new information in his field that dates back to the Carter Administration?

In fact, the Rays are third in the majors in runs scored, which is the only relevant measure of offense. The Rays score by some combination of walking, getting hit by pitches, hitting for power, stealing bases effectively and avoiding double plays. (Teams can also score by stringing their hits together and hitting well with runners on, but those two are mostly a matter of chance and don't tend to be repeatable.) 

It could hardly be less relevant how many hits the Rays have accumulated. Kansas City is third in the majors in hits and fourth worst in runs scored. Does Steve Berthiume believe the Royals are a good hitting team?

I don't mean to pick on this particular reporter or network. Not understanding these distinctions makes them incompetent in my view, but they are representative of the vast majority. And that's why this blog bangs on mainstream sports media.

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Like Kissing Someone Else's Sister

How many times have you heard this season that the Yankees and Rays are battling for first place in the AL East. They are doing no such thing.

It doesn't make a nose hair's worth of difference whether the Yanks win the division and the Rays take the wild card or vice versa. As the team in the Bronx demonstrated a decade ago, they shake the Etch-A-Sketch after the season and start all over.

For practical purposes, one team will draw Texas and the other Minnesota. We still today don't know which team the AL East champ will play. Does it really matter? A World Series appearance requires victory in two playoff series, regardless of the opponent.

The division winner gets an extra home game, while the Wild Card squad has an added road challenge in the unlikely event that the series goes the distance. (Most series end before game seven.) It changes the odds of winning the series by about two percentage points.

That's more than a bucket of warm spit, but a whole lot less than getting your team healthy and your rotation set. In fact, if the teams are tied on the last day of the season, both managers would be well-advised (and don't worry, they both are) to sacrifice the division and send a scrub to the mound so the rotation is correctly rotated for the playoffs.

Ask the '06 Tigers, the '05 Astros, the '04 Red Sox, '03 Marlins, '02 Giants, '00 Mets and the '97 Marlins about conquering their division. Each of them leapfrogged the team that outpaced them in the regular season to reach the World Series. They know that coming in second is like kissing someone else's sister...if the Wild Card's involved.

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On Second Thought

A common form of rationalization is to reach a conclusion that feels good and then find the facts that support it. This is part of cognitive dissonance, which I've described before as the most insistent psychological artifact affecting humans. Without cognitive dissonance, the reconciliations necessary to support our religious and political beliefs would explode our brains (or at least leave us in a state of constant disquiet.)

However, loyal dedication to the truth, rather than to particular points of view, forces us to acknowledge the weaknesses in our arguments and the power of contradictory viewpoints. Which brings us to Ryan Ludwick.

The St. Louis Cardinals trade deadline dispatch of Ludwick, roundabout, to the San Diego Padres for middling starter Jake Westbrook has reasonably earned the opprobrium of this blog. In yesterday's post, I noted the Cards' offensive sputtering since Ludwick's departure. It seemed like a sound argument.

Deeper examination blurs the picture a bit. Ludwick has stunk up the joint (.194/.237/.250 in the last 10 games) since his departure, and so have the Padres, now on a 10-game skid. His replacement in St. Louis, rookie Jon Jay, has similarly struggled in that period, but was considered a worthy and less expensive replacement at.327/.379/.480 for the year. It can't credibly be said that dealing Ludwick has harmed the Cards and aided the Pads; indeed, the Giants seem to have been the primary beneficiaries of the trade.

It was still a Cardinal error in the long run, particularly considering how very meager was their return. But it's not fair to say that the absence of Ludwick is what sunk St. Louis's playoff hopes.

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An example of how W-L records skew our understanding of the game:

On a Braves broadcast today, the in-studio hosts mentioned that Roy Oswalt would lead the rival Phillies against Florida the next day. An unnamed host mentioned that Oswalt has been lights-out since coming east, after "struggling" in Houston.

No doubt, the Phils struck gold when they traded for the venerable righty. He's averaged nearly seven innings in his seven starts as a Phillie, limiting opponents to an exemplary 2.08 ERA with eight punchouts per nine.

Before the trade, though, Oswalt was no slouch. His 6 1/2 innings per start were likely diminished by the need for pinch hitters. A 3.63 RA in front of worse defense obscured a superior K/BB ratio and pure strikeout rate. The patina of failure that coated Oswalt during his Astro tenure was all about a 6-12 record that was largely the fault of his feckless mates.

In fact, Oswalt's performance since joining the pennant fray was almost entirely predictable given his long track record and the line he'd authored in the first half of the season. Six and twelve sounds like failure, and it is, but not Roy Oswalt's.

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Voices In My Head

I watched Aroldis Chapman pitch for the first time today, he of the already-renowned 104 mph heater. 

Dude can bring it, but he was all over the place with his arm angle and with his pitches. His landing position varied pitch-to-pitch. His repertoire is limited to two pitches, which while devastating, aren't sufficient for a starter.

In short, let's all calm down about him just yet. His upside is way up, but for now, he's raw. 

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The Cardinals are a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. How can a team with Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter and Jaime Garcia, all with ERAs under 3.00, lose seven of nine to the three worst teams in the NL? Since sweeping the Reds in mid-August St. Louis is 6-14 and free-falling out of the playoff race.

Of course, their offense has been the main culprit. They have just two reliable hitters, Pujols and Holliday, and Prince Albert went 18 hitless at-bats before today's harmless single in a loss to the Reds. 

This is the price the usually sagacious Redbirds are paying for shipping off Ryan Ludwick in a July 31 trade that netted fungible veteran starter Jake Westbrook. I don't think it's a coincidence that their travails began right about the time that Ludwick packed up his .832 OPS for San Diego.

The Cards have scored 22 runs in 10 of their last 11 games, not including an 11-10 loss to Washington a week ago. They haven't helped themselves afield. Twelve of the 59 runs they've relinquished in their last 11 games have not accrued to their pitchers' ERAs. In today's game, four of the five runs against Adam Wainwright were "unearned" and that doesn't account for the sixth Red tally, set up when a fly ball bounced off Matt Holliday's leg and into the stands for a double. (The great Dick Stockton noted that pinch-hitting first-baseman Yonder Alonso had "legged out" a double.)

The Reds' eight game lead with fewer than 30 left is nearly insurmountable, and the Cards have a team stack to climb over for the wild card. More than ever, I think they'll rue their trade deadline move.

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Much was made of the leaked report showing that several bad teams have been pocketing their luxury tax money rather than spending it on players. Much of the controversy is based on the common confusion between cause and effect.

Poor performance and low payroll are highly correlated because both ends are cause and effect. Obviously, refusing to spend on players can drain a team of talent. Equally true, lousy play keeps salaries down. More true, the more young players, the more payroll stays real low.

The discussion is most absurd when it comes to the franchise in Pittsburgh. The Pirates are young and not very accomplished, so naturally their payroll is low. Signing a couple of high-priced free agents (as if they even could) to help the team win 78 games and block the advancement of prospects is not only useless, it's counter-productive. Most free agents, who must already have six years in the majors, are on the downsides of their careers by the end of their free agent contracts, which would coincide with the Pirates' prospects, if all goes according to plan, reaching baseball maturity. 

Pittsburgh management has a plan -- procure lots of young talent, draft well and often, build an international development system and be patient. None of that requires as much cash as one Mark Teixeira contract. Regardless of whether they execute it well, it's the right plan. The size of their payroll is irrelevant. 

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554 Homers; No Integrity

It appears clear that even if Roger Clemens is acquitted of lying to Congress about steroid use, he will face a Sisyphean struggle to make the Hall of Fame. Perhaps one of the 10 greatest pitchers of all time, Clemens' conduct is considered so detrimental to baseball that he should be barred from immortality.

I think Clemens is a jerk -- I've always thought that -- a liar, a philanderer and a cheater. But he was still one of the best pitchers ever.

Now contrast him, and the others whose entry to the Hall appear blocked -- Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro -- and compare them to a man whose Hall pass is already stamped: Manny Ramirez.

Ramirez makes Roger Clemens look like Prince Charles. He is a juvenile, narcisistic twit. Is there a sin in baseball worse than literally quitting on your team? On two different teams? Can a player be called "great" when, in the prime of his career, two different teams were willing to give him away? For all his considerable boorishness, Barry Bonds was never more trouble to the Giants than he was worth. 

Let's review the record.  In 2003, Ramirez was benched for a game after he was found faking illness that had put him on the shelf for a week. After the 2005 season, he demanded a trade and threatened to boycott spring training if his demand wasn't met. The Red Sox, only too happy to oblige, couldn't find a taker for his massive contract. 

In 2008, Ramirez came to blows with Red Sox personnel twice -- once with teammate Kevin Youklis and another with traveling secretary Jack McCormick, whom Ramirez shoved to the ground. Later, he sat out a crucial series with the Yankees, claiming a sore knee, though MRI exams he was forced to get showed no damage. In the subsequent series, he failed to run out grounders or hustle after flies in the field. At one point, he went to the plate and refused to swing the bat, striking out on three pitches. In my line of work, and yours too, that's grounds for instant dismissal. 

But wait, there's more. Last year, immediately after signing a $45 million, two-year contract, Ramirez turned the key on a brand new 50-game suspension for using a steroid companion drug. Following that, the NY Times reported that he was one of the 104 players who tested positive for steroid use. Many writers vow they will not elect Alex Rodriguez to the Hall for that reason, but Ramirez, who continues to lie about his involvement, suffers no such stain.

This year, apparently bored with the Dodgers' struggles, Ramirez has found a home on the disabled list. Upon his return, with rumors swirling of a trade, he got himself ejected after taking one pitch, the baseball equivalent of suicide by cop.

Manny Ramirez, at .313/.411/.589, with 554 home runs and 12 seasons of .950+ OPS is unquestionably a giant among hitters. But his brain, his heart, his integrity and his pride could fit in a sesame seed with enough room left over for two gnats to polka. The idea of Ramirez making a victory speech in Cooperstown, while Mark McGwire is banned, disgusts me.

Didn't we long ago agree that idiots, drunks, creeps and thieves could still earn enshrinement with their play, as long as they didn't throw games? It seems to me that Manny Ramirez's loafing, sandbagging and mid-game quitting is a lot closer to throwing a game than anything Barry Bonds ever did.

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The Case of the Fragile Pitcher

Welcome to this week's edition of Mystery Theatre where we delve into the most vexing whodunits of our time.

This week, we examine The Case of the Fragile Pitcher and analyze the theories that abound, ex-post facto, to explain why hurlers in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s took the ball every fourth day, remained on the hill for 300+ innings and wore down no more than their modern counterparts despite advances in conditioning and medical care. 

Our sleuths will uncover why today's moundsmen are bigger, stronger, better conditioned, yet throw no harder and dis-assemble faster than their progenitors despite massive attention paid to their workload.

Actually, our sleuths will do no such thing. The point of this installment of Mystery Theatre is that this week's mystery has earned its stripes and avoided explanation like Jimmy Hoffa's killers.

The timing of this discussion coincides with the implosion of Stephen Strasburg's elbow, which would have ended his career had not Tommy John presented the same ulnar collateral ligament injury to Dr. Frank Jobe in 1974.

How, we're all asking, could Strasburg have contracted this quintessential pitching woe when management of the Washington Nationals treated him like a sickly Southern belle in a heat wave? Despite gestating his talent beyond necessity in the minors, truncating his starts, plying him with extra rest and reacting to his every boo-boo with ever more caution, the franchise is nonetheless rewarded with the very injury they most feared.

Listen to sports talk radio and television and you will hear ex-jocks propose theories big and small for this vexing phenomenon. Their explanations range from the unprovably plausible to the patently ridiculous. Mostly they are stand-ins for the far more accurate and credible answer: I don't know. My favorite is the former players who rail against pitch counts. Although limits on pitch counts got a little out of hand for awhile, they are still based on solid research supporting certain limits on some pitchers.

We know that today's pitchers are bigger, stronger, better-conditioned and better-trained than their predecessors. We also know that the highest heat today is no hotter than the highest heat of yesteryear. Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller, Sam McDowell; hell, Walter Johnson would all be considered fireballers today. And we know that there seems to be some risk in increasing the workload of young pitchers dramatically from one year to the next, though the Verducci Effect is no longer the universally accepted metaphysical truth it once was. None of that explains why Cy Young's great-grandchildren can't hold a candle to Cy Young's grandchildren.

I would like to take a stab at explaining part of the problem by noting three simultaneous truths. Before I do, a caveat: this is not a universal theory of pitching durability. I don't really know why throwers of Bowie Kuhn's day outlasted today's crop.

I wonder whether the average pitcher today doesn't throw harder than the average pitcher of 1970, even if the pinnacle of the profession hasn't changed. Someone probably knows the answer to this, but I don't. A major league fastball is at least 88 mph in 2010. Rare is the violator of this rule. Was that the case in 1975, or could you get away with a speedball that peaked at 82 with sufficient craft and a 12-6 curveball?

I also wonder what impact new pitches like sliders, cut fastballs, etc. have  on athletes' shoulders and elbows. Are they even new pitches at all, or just new names for strategies being employed all the time?

Onto the facts: one reason pitchers pitch fewer innings today is that they pitch fewer innings. No, really. Isn't it conceivable that if pitchers took the ball every fourth day while working their way through the minor leagues and then continued in that vein in The Show, they would get acclimated to that workload? Under those conditions, some major league pitchers would compile 250+ innings, just like Tom Seaver and Juan Marichal did.

Fact Two: Bullpens are used differently today than in the past. Before the one-inning closer and the LOOGY (left-handed, one-out guy), managers let their starters pitch until they ran out of steam or had to be replaced by a pinch hitter. Teams had 10-man staffs -- four starters, a closer and a bunch of inning-eaters. Today, perfectly fresh starters get yanked in order to maximize match-ups. We have closers and set-up men and long relievers and situational lefties and righties who together comprise 13-man rotations. No wonder a starter can't get an inning in edgewise.

Fact Three: Pitching today is a full-time job. Pitchers face hitters up and down the lineup who are bigger, stronger and more powerful than in the past. Throw in the DH and today's hurler must make every pitch count and use every pitch to set up every other. Ken Griffey, Sr., Tony Gwynn, Sr. Cecil Fielder, Bob Boone, and others whose loins produced today's breed, competed with middle infielders who were Michael J. Fox-sized and couldn't go yard off a tee. Juan Marichal could cruise through the bottom of the order; a hanging curve might be a hit, but rarely extra bases. He didn't have to futz around with setting up Roy McMillan and his 292 SLG.

In short,  the full story behind the discrepancy between pitchers of bygone eras and today remains a mystery. There seems to be evidence that pitching today is more difficult and that usage patterns have changed. Beyond that: I don't know.

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Does Base-Slinging Make A Great Manager?

I don't know whether Lou Pinella is the most over-rated manager in baseball or whether managers are just over-rated period. I suspect it's some of both.

In any case, Pinella quit today, saying his ailing mother needed him. I have no doubt that's true, nor do I doubt that mom Pinella would have scuffed along without her boy had the Cubs been contending. They aren't contending; in fact, they have vastly under-performed expectations, as have several other Pinella teams, including the '88 Yankees, '91 Reds and '98 Mariners. 

With one championship on his resume and a .517 lifetime winning percentage, Pinella is being canonized as he bails on his team and touted as a Hall of Fame field captain. Perhaps I'm missing something.

Did Pinella transform lousy rosters into winners? Hardly. The Devil Rays stunk before trading Randy Winn for Sweet Lou and they stunk under his leadership. Frankly, the notion that any manager could have altered that sorry squad's destiny was a serious case of wishful thinking. Swapping a productive player for a manager, much less the impatient Pinella, is certifiable lunacy.

Pinella led the Cubs to one good season out of four at Wrigley, though they crashed and burned in a first round playoff sweep. Beyond that, his is just another entry in a century of managerial futility in Chicago.

Perhaps he conjured up miracles during the regular season. Several teams he skippered won buckets of regular season games before fanning in the playoffs, the 116-win Mariners of 2001 the most notable. But others squandered boatloads of talent. Seattle from '97-'99 featured Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey, Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Edgar Martinez and yet combined to average 83 wins/year under Lou. 

Pinella is generally respected and loved, despite his sometimes juvenile behavior. He bullied and cajoled players into busting tail for him and often mollified difficult personalities. That's commendable, but not particularly rare. In fact, it's the manager's job.

Did Pinella polish diamonds in the rough, or coax theretofore undiscovered talents, or resuscitate careers on death watch? Did he brilliantly innovate in his pitching moves or hitting strategies? Well then, exactly what makes Lou Pinella's managerial career Fame-worthy?

I have a theory. Lou Pinella is beloved for being Lou Pinella, not for managing the 1990 World Champions. Pinella was a popular player in New York, which never hurts a career. As a manager, he was sometimes profane and hot-headed, but in a fun and impersonal way. His YouTube specials involve excavations of dirt onto umpire shoes, storied base-winging performances and a multitude of entertaining tantrums. He was generally accommodating to the media and when he wasn't, it was usually amusing.

Best of all, Sweet Lou just four years ago served a stint at ESPN, where he charmed the very gentlemen and women who determine the sports agenda. A gifted raconteur, Pinella mesmerized the worldwide leader and thus, all of sportsdom.

Well, I don't have cable, so I'm immune. And I just don't see it. As far as I can tell, any knowledgeable baseball person, any managerial re-tread, any Triple-A skipper-in-waiting could have achieved roughly the same results with Pinella's teams, given the chance. His real genius lay in getting the opportunity to manage 3,500 games with rosters comprising Don Mattingly, Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield; Eric Davis and Barry Larkin; and ARod, Unit and Junior. Anyone with a modicum of baseball intelligence could have won 1,800 games under those conditions.

And they probably wouldn't have quit in mid-season on two different under-performing teams.

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Are You Smarter Than A Baseball Writer?

Congratulations! You've just been awarded a 1987 Baseball Writers Association of America card, which entitles you to vote for post-season awards.

You cover a National League team, so you'll cast your ballot for NL players.

Being  the conscientious reporter you are, you've done your homework and considered seriously the options. That's another way of saying that not only have you not selected Andre Dawson and his 49 home runs MVP, he and his .328 OBP don't make your ballot. The rest of this august club doesn't share your view.

Five hurlers are on your Cy Young list, oh devoted one, and there is little to recommend one more heartily than the others. Here are their seasonal resumes:

Orel Herhiser -- The Dodger righty posted a 3.58 RA -- compared to a league average of 4.05 -- in 264 innings. His 10 complete games was second in the league and his 190 K/74/BB ratio and 1.25 WHIP both represent aptitude. He earned 24 quality starts in 35 tries.

Dwight Gooden -- The Mets' 22-year-old missed part of the season, holding opponents to 3.41 runs/game over 180 innings. Seventeen of his 25 starts pinned the needle on the quality meter. His 148 K/53 BB ratio and 1.21 WHIP were akin to Hershiser's, if slightly more impressive; his seven complete games, a whisker less.

Rick Reuschel -- The veteran northpaw split his 227 innings of 3.61 RA between the Pirates and Giants, though his 25 Pirate starts were runaway Cy Young material and his 8 Giant appearances during the pennant race were far more forgettable. His 20 quality starts in 33 tries lag his competitors, but his 1.14 WHIP and his 107 K/42 BB ratio are anyone's equal, though he gets there a different way. He also led the league with 12 complete games.

Nolan Ryan -- The 40-year-old flamethrower had his best year since 1981, leading the league with a 3.19 RA in 212 frames for the Astros.  His 27 quality starts pace the circuit, as do his 270 whiffs. His 270 K/87 BB ratio is the best of the bunch; his 1.16 WHIP is right there.
Mike Scott & Bob Welch -- This pair is grouped because their performances were eerily similar, though Scott toiled for Houston and Welch for L.A. They relinquished the same number of runs, with Welch pitching four more innings, for RAs of 3.42 and 3.36 respectively. Scott's 233/79 split overpowers Welch's 196/86 and he finished eight games to Welch's six, but his 23 of 36 quality starts is a hair off Welch's 25 of 35. Their WHIPs of 1.12 and 1.15 respectively were Cy material.

It's important to recognize that Reuschel is the only moundsman here not benefiting from a stingy home park. Chavez Ravine, Shea and the Astrodome were the three hardest places to make a living with the stick. Three Rivers bore no such burden and Candlestick had its own unique story, of which holding down scoring was but a small part. (Anyway, Reuschel made all of four starts as a Giant in SF.)

So whom would you vote for? Perhaps you favor Hershiser for the durability of his excellence or Reuschel for overcoming more obstacles.  I'd go with Ryan for keeping runs off the board and getting the most outs without the help of his defense. He'd have borne more of the innings burden had his mates supplied his starts with more support.

In any case, none of these fine specimens won the Cy Young in 1987. None finished second.

Here's what I didn't mention: Nolan Ryan went 8-16 for the punchless 76-86 Astros, whose best hitter, Glenn Davis, pounded 27 home runs but posted a miserable .310 OBP. Hershiser compiled a 16-16 record for a 73-89 Dodger squad so offensively inept that Pedro Guerrero's OPS 54% higher than league average still only produced 89 R and 89 RBI. Baseball writers could never bring themselves to anoint Rick Resuschel's 13-9 mark or Mike Scott's 16-13 worthy of Cy Young awards. In a year when seven American League hurlers were credited with 17 wins or more (and Doyle Alexander got credit for nine wins without a loss after a late season trade to Detroit), the 15-9 records of Dwight Gooden and Bob Welch paled.

Instead, baseball writers split their votes between Rick Sutcliffe, whose 18 wins masked a league average RA, a below-average strikeout-walk ratio and a 1.40 WHIP, and reliever Steve Bedrosian, whose 40 saves gave voters the best opportunity to demonstrate that what they knew about baseball could fit on the head of a pin without getting knocked off by the 21 dancing angels. Bedrosian won the award having faced 366 batters, a mere third of Hershiser's total.

Really, had the writers ignored an 8-16 record and bestowed the honor on Ryan, the earth would have opened up and swallowed Cooperstown whole. The heavens would have rumbled and smoting would have commenced. It was not possible in 1987 and it remain impossible today, even though there are 30 years of research demonstrating conclusively that won-loss records are poor barometers of pitching performance. The nation elected a black president, a Muslim at that; you might think baseball writers could elect the best pitcher regardless of his record.

All this may be significant again as Felix Hernandez of Seattle makes his AL Cy Young case in 2010. King Felix has pitched the most stanzas at a 3.11 RA (the league's third best) with the league's third best strikeout-walk ratio and all the other peripherals you'd expect. Irrelevant to reality but a lead weight to perception is his 9-10 record, which is entirely the result of an historically bad Mariners offense that could play home run derby in a snow globe without making it snow. The M's have scored fewer than 3.5 runs per game and have a team OPS 22% below league average. On top of that, their relief pitching is a grease fire, anchored by a closer at 0-6, 4.14.

In the same way that BBWAA members never seriously considered Nolan Ryan in 1987, they are not yet sufficiently informed to recognize that -- so far in 2010, at least -- Hernandez is somewhere in the vicinity of the AL's best pitcher. Whether he gets credited for wins, his teammates will have to answer for.

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Slowey and Steady Wins Pennant Race

I've always had the sense that Ron Gardenhire has a secret cache of baseball knowledge, because his Twins always outperform their payroll and roster. His public comments often fly in the face of the latest sabermetric findings, but it might all be a cunning effort to lull us into under-estimation.

This paean follows the skipper's decision to yank Kevin Slowey after seven no-hit innings. Gardenhire admitted that his action was lamentable. Unsaid were the following considerations:

1. Minnesota's in a pennant race.

2. Slowey missed his last start with arm trouble.

3. He'd thrown 106 pitches already, so was unlikely to finish the game anyway.

Pennants fly forever. Quick, who threw last year's two no-hitter. See? 

Bravo, Ron Gardenhire.

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