The Hall of Fame ballot for 2014 has been released, in much the way hounds are released in a wild goose hunt, with 17 legitimate candidates on the list. With only 10 lines on the ballot, voters are going to be doing some triage.
Players on the ballot fall into five categories. The easy two are those who have earned shoo-in status to the Hall and those who merely played with guys who earned shoo-in status. (That's not to say that anyone actually is a shoo-ins; there's no accounting for taste and the ignorance of baseball writers.) We'll call them the "Lou Gehrig" division and the "Chico Ruiz" division. Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Mike Mussina, Kurt Schilling, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza, Frank Thomas, Tim Raines and Craig Biggio comprise the former group, about which no further discussion is really necessary. They're Famers.
Names such as Armando Benitez, J.T. Snow, Eric Gagne, Mike Timlin, Jacque Jones and Richie Sexson populate the list of merely good Major Leaguers. They will have to console themselves with fame, fortune and a boatload of frequent flyer miles.
Next we have the "Pete Rose" division: players whose membership in the Gehrig clan has been revoked because of drug use. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire could almost create their own wing in Cooperstown along with Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson. I would vote for all of these except Palmeiro, who failed a drug test. The rest were so unquestionably spectacular that our suspicions (not to mention a fair bit of evidence) might be overwhelmed the heft of their greatness. It's understandable that voters would exclude all or some of these, though it's not clear what the point of a Hall of Fame without Bonds and Clemens would be.
Then there's the "Sammy Sosa" division, whose members are: Sammy Sosa. Sosa probably took steroids, definitely corked his back and not withstanding all that might be a Hall of Famer. Mix up that witches' brew and there probably won't be much support for his candidacy.
The most taxing decisions concern those players whose numbers don't reflect how we felt about them. This is the "Bobby Grich" division. The advanced stats testify that Alan Trammel was a great-fielding shortstop with a highly respectable .285/.352/.415 slash line, 1200+ runs scored and an MVP season, worth 64 wins against replacement over a 20-year career. Certainly he was a good hitter for a shortstop but most of his career value grades out on the field, about which it's very hard not to be dubious.
Larry Walker hit .313/.400/.525 with 383 home runs and 1311 RBI. He also won Gold Gloves, though the number crunchers can't find any justification for them. On paper, that's a walk-through, but in Coors, there are a lot of questions. In Montreal, Walker was Clark Kent, climbing the corporate ladder slowly but surely with smart reporting and solid management skills. In the thin air of Denver, Walker became Superman, saving the world with his super-strength, flying cape and x-ray vision. In the six years between 1997 and 2002, he posted five amazing seasons, averaging .351/.439/.639. He's credited with 69 wins against replacement, which ordinarily is enough to buy real estate in Cooperstown. It's just that Coors turned Andres Galarraga and Dante Bichette into stars.
By any second-base standards, Jeff Kent was a great hitter. He also wasn't a second baseman. But by first base standards, he was just another guy, posting a .290/.356/.500 line and smacking 377 home runs, including a string of 11 years with 20+ home runs. He knew that his only ticket to the Hall was remaining at the keystone even if his defense was handcuffing his teams. So Kent finished with 57 wins against replacement and a strong argument for inclusion. He makes my ballot with reservations.
On the flip side, Don Mattingly was an awesome hitter until his back began biting into his power. He finished with numbers insufficient for a first baseman to win election, tallying just 41 wins against replacement. Fred McGriff's 493 homers, .377 on base percentage and cool nickname should be enough to vault him to baseball immortality. He smacked 30+ big flies 10 different times. He also DH'd, did nothing on the bases and changed teams six times. The seamheads peg him at 57 wins against replacement, and that might have felt like enough if he'd played most of his career for one or two teams.
So here's my ballot, ignoring the 10-candidate limit, in roughly the order of their greatness:
Barry Bonds
Greg Maddux
Roger Clemens
Mike Piazza
Tim Raines
Frank Thomas
Mike Mussina
Curt Schilling
Tom Glavine
Jeff Bagwell
Craig Biggio
Jeff Kent*
Alan Trammel**
Fred McGriff**
Larry Walker**
Jack Morris***
*probably
**not now but I could be persuaded
***shut up
30 November 2013
29 November 2013
Lifting the Veil of Luck
It's appropriate on the weekend of Black Friday to discuss shopping frenzies. To some extent, every team is in one now as they kick the tires on free agents who might help them win in 2014 and beyond.
One of the most important advances in the world of baseball analytics is the ability of franchise brass to evaluate personnel realistically. When baseball GMs determine which free agents might help their teams in 2014, they will view 37-year-old Bruce Chen with a jaundiced eye.
Teams will know that Chen's 9-4, 3.27 effort for Kansas City in 2013 was a chimera. Nothing in his pitching profile suggested that he had a special season except the ultimate results. In 121 innings he fanned just 78. He relinquished just 107 hits, primarily because opponents batted only .255 on balls in play (BABIP) against him, 25 points lower than his career rate and 40 notches lower than league average. The chasm opens wider when examining only Chen's 15 starts; he made 19 relief appearances to begin the season before the Royals summoned him back into the rotation.
In addition, Chen stranded 78% of runners who reached base against him, significantly above his lifetime and league average rates. Strand rates are rarely a matter of skill. Finally, an unusually low percentage of fly balls against him left the park, often a sign that a pitcher got lucky with wind, field configuration, and the like. Taken together, the snapshot of Chen's results provides strong evidence that regression troops are arraying on the border and preparing to attack next season. Caveat emptor.
Likewise, Cubs brass won't be relying on Travis Wood to deliver another stellar (literally: he made the All-Star team) 3.29 ERA season in 2014. Wood also enjoyed a low BABIP (.248), high strand rate (77%) and low fly ball/HR ratio. Advanced statistical models suggest his actual performance looked more like a 4.50 ERA.
Instead, Cubs management might hope for bounce-back from Edwin Jackson. Despite an 8-18, 4.98 campaign in '13, Jackson was actually a strong performer. A .322 BABIP against and a frighteningly low (63%) strand rate conspired to denigrate his work. Fangraphs estimates Jackson was worth two wins above replacement, something an ERA of nearly-five would not suggest.
And don't look now, but 2014's Tiger pitching phenom could be Rick Porcello. The 25-year-old righty managed a 13-8, 4.32 line when everything was going against him; it'll be interesting to see what happens when he basks in the sunshine of serendipity. Like Jackson, Porcello suffered a high BABIP and low strand rate in '13, but big flies are what really did him in. One of every seven balls in the air against him cleared the fences, a miserable rate for which he might not be completely responsible. Fangraphs thinks Porcello was more like a 3.50 ERA hurler who was worth 3.5 wins last year.
Over the last four years, Porcello's strikeout rate has risen while his walk rate has held steady. If he can keep the ball in the park just a little better he has a chance to to some damage in 2014.
Remember, regression is a trend, not a guarantee. Jackson could stink up the joint again and Wood could again leave the bases full of runners. It's just not the way to bet.
One of the most important advances in the world of baseball analytics is the ability of franchise brass to evaluate personnel realistically. When baseball GMs determine which free agents might help their teams in 2014, they will view 37-year-old Bruce Chen with a jaundiced eye.
Teams will know that Chen's 9-4, 3.27 effort for Kansas City in 2013 was a chimera. Nothing in his pitching profile suggested that he had a special season except the ultimate results. In 121 innings he fanned just 78. He relinquished just 107 hits, primarily because opponents batted only .255 on balls in play (BABIP) against him, 25 points lower than his career rate and 40 notches lower than league average. The chasm opens wider when examining only Chen's 15 starts; he made 19 relief appearances to begin the season before the Royals summoned him back into the rotation.
In addition, Chen stranded 78% of runners who reached base against him, significantly above his lifetime and league average rates. Strand rates are rarely a matter of skill. Finally, an unusually low percentage of fly balls against him left the park, often a sign that a pitcher got lucky with wind, field configuration, and the like. Taken together, the snapshot of Chen's results provides strong evidence that regression troops are arraying on the border and preparing to attack next season. Caveat emptor.
Likewise, Cubs brass won't be relying on Travis Wood to deliver another stellar (literally: he made the All-Star team) 3.29 ERA season in 2014. Wood also enjoyed a low BABIP (.248), high strand rate (77%) and low fly ball/HR ratio. Advanced statistical models suggest his actual performance looked more like a 4.50 ERA.
Instead, Cubs management might hope for bounce-back from Edwin Jackson. Despite an 8-18, 4.98 campaign in '13, Jackson was actually a strong performer. A .322 BABIP against and a frighteningly low (63%) strand rate conspired to denigrate his work. Fangraphs estimates Jackson was worth two wins above replacement, something an ERA of nearly-five would not suggest.
And don't look now, but 2014's Tiger pitching phenom could be Rick Porcello. The 25-year-old righty managed a 13-8, 4.32 line when everything was going against him; it'll be interesting to see what happens when he basks in the sunshine of serendipity. Like Jackson, Porcello suffered a high BABIP and low strand rate in '13, but big flies are what really did him in. One of every seven balls in the air against him cleared the fences, a miserable rate for which he might not be completely responsible. Fangraphs thinks Porcello was more like a 3.50 ERA hurler who was worth 3.5 wins last year.
Over the last four years, Porcello's strikeout rate has risen while his walk rate has held steady. If he can keep the ball in the park just a little better he has a chance to to some damage in 2014.
Remember, regression is a trend, not a guarantee. Jackson could stink up the joint again and Wood could again leave the bases full of runners. It's just not the way to bet.
28 November 2013
Translating Ryan Braun's News Conference
Admitted liar Ryan Braun made his first public appearance yesterday, serving himself up to reporters while collecting food for needy families in an attempt to whitewash his tattered image. In the wake of his inept non-apology following acceptance of a 65-game suspension for PED use that he had previously denied with self-righteous indignation, Braun's team of lawyers and PR people evidently have devised a new strategy: do nominally good acts and politely decline to discuss the matter in the hopes that reporters will give up asking about it and people will cease to care.
It's a master stroke, because more apologizing, even sincere apologies that acknowledge the breadth and depth of his duplicity and accept total responsibility for it, won't change anyone's mind. Brewer fans will forget Braun's sins as soon as he makes his first appearance in their team's uniform. Like fans everywhere, they care less about morality and ethics than they do about their own desires, and if a former MVP can help them win, that overrides all other considerations.
Don't make that face, Giants fans. You cheered Barry Bonds to the end. Quit chuckling, Florida State followers. You're more concerned that charges against Jameis Winston will affect the Seminoles' championship run than that an innocent young woman might have been raped.
Settle down Baltimorons. You worship Ray Lewis to this day, willfully ignorant that, at the very least, he got away with impeding a double-murder investigation, at worst, he was complicit in the stabbing deaths of two men, and most likely, something in between that warrants punishment and recrimination that he never endured.
For the majority of baseball fans who don't follow Milwaukee's team, the details of Braun's hypocrisy will evaporate to a hazy film and they will forgive him for cheating as they've done for many others. Of course, cheating is the least of Braun's sins.
The rest of us, those paying attention to the cover-up as well as the crime, are deaf to any apologies. Had he not been caught with unassailable proof against him, it is indisputable that Ryan Braun would still be cheating, issuing sanctimonious denials and exploiting his disproportionate power and wealth to crush anyone who might reveal his lies.
To what appears to be his credit, Braun stopped to face reporters at the food drive. "I'm happy to answer your questions," he said. He then spent 15 minutes evading their queries. As a public service, Braindrizzling offers this translated partial transcript of the news conference.
Reporter: Ryan, why did you lie about PEDs?
Braun: As you know, I've been through a lot and as I expressed in my statement...I got into a lot of details at that point and I'm not going to go into further details.
Translation: I'm happy to take your questions but I'm not going to answer them! C'mon, do I look like an idiot? No, in fact I look like a movie star and it doesn't hurt that I'm articulate too. So the good people of Wisconsin will see me politely facing my accusers and won't dwell on the actual verbal content. Yea, me!
Reporter: What do you have to say to the Little Leaguers who really have worshiped the ground you walked on?
Braun: I made a mistake, a huge mistake that's obviously been very difficult to deal with...we all deal with adversity, we all deal with challenges in life and you can take the opportunity to view them as an obstacle or an opportunity to grow from, to learn from and to help others to learn from and that's what I intend to do.
Translation: Little Fucking Leaguers? How about me? I have to endure questions like these from low-life reporters merely for being a scumbag. I'm the victim here! Look at the adversity I have to deal with. Woe is me!
Reporter: In your opinion was the bigger sin using the PEDs or lying about it after the fact?
Braun: As I stated, the goal for me is just being able to move forward. I'm not really going to get into too many specific about what happened except to say I'm extremely remorseful...
Translation: I'm happy to take your questions.
Reporter: Ryan, what was the injury that you referred to in your statement that you took the products for?
Braun: Again, I'm not going to get into specifics and continue to go backward. I'm moving forward...
Translation: My pants are on fire.
Reporter: Don't you think you owe everybody who wants to talk about the specifics and tell us exactly what happened?
Braun: I completely understand and respect where you guys are coming from and that part of your job is to ask those questions but I hope you guys can understand and respect the fact that in an effort to move forward I'm not going to continue to discuss this stuff.
Translation: See, if I keep saying that I won't continue to discuss this stuff people will forget that I never discussed it in the first place and that "this stuff" is cheating my way to an MVP and lying relentlessly for two years to your faces. Do I have the best PR team or what!
Reporter: Ryan, what about the 2011 MVP award? Does this revelation invalidate that award?
Braun: As I said, I'm just going to move forward. I think that's all I can do. I'm not going to go back and discuss things that happened in the past...
Translation: Possession is nine-tenths of the law, suckers! So the trophy is mine as long as I maintain an unbroken chain of custody. In conclusion, I'd like to offer my sincere apology and remorse and also my middle finger to the good people of Milwaukee and all of Major League Baseball and with the help of my vast wealth, my lawyers and my truth spinners, I hope I can outlast everyone's indignation, which I assume will continue unabated for many minutes to come.
It's a master stroke, because more apologizing, even sincere apologies that acknowledge the breadth and depth of his duplicity and accept total responsibility for it, won't change anyone's mind. Brewer fans will forget Braun's sins as soon as he makes his first appearance in their team's uniform. Like fans everywhere, they care less about morality and ethics than they do about their own desires, and if a former MVP can help them win, that overrides all other considerations.
Don't make that face, Giants fans. You cheered Barry Bonds to the end. Quit chuckling, Florida State followers. You're more concerned that charges against Jameis Winston will affect the Seminoles' championship run than that an innocent young woman might have been raped.
Settle down Baltimorons. You worship Ray Lewis to this day, willfully ignorant that, at the very least, he got away with impeding a double-murder investigation, at worst, he was complicit in the stabbing deaths of two men, and most likely, something in between that warrants punishment and recrimination that he never endured.
For the majority of baseball fans who don't follow Milwaukee's team, the details of Braun's hypocrisy will evaporate to a hazy film and they will forgive him for cheating as they've done for many others. Of course, cheating is the least of Braun's sins.
The rest of us, those paying attention to the cover-up as well as the crime, are deaf to any apologies. Had he not been caught with unassailable proof against him, it is indisputable that Ryan Braun would still be cheating, issuing sanctimonious denials and exploiting his disproportionate power and wealth to crush anyone who might reveal his lies.
To what appears to be his credit, Braun stopped to face reporters at the food drive. "I'm happy to answer your questions," he said. He then spent 15 minutes evading their queries. As a public service, Braindrizzling offers this translated partial transcript of the news conference.
Reporter: Ryan, why did you lie about PEDs?
Braun: As you know, I've been through a lot and as I expressed in my statement...I got into a lot of details at that point and I'm not going to go into further details.
Translation: I'm happy to take your questions but I'm not going to answer them! C'mon, do I look like an idiot? No, in fact I look like a movie star and it doesn't hurt that I'm articulate too. So the good people of Wisconsin will see me politely facing my accusers and won't dwell on the actual verbal content. Yea, me!
Reporter: What do you have to say to the Little Leaguers who really have worshiped the ground you walked on?
Braun: I made a mistake, a huge mistake that's obviously been very difficult to deal with...we all deal with adversity, we all deal with challenges in life and you can take the opportunity to view them as an obstacle or an opportunity to grow from, to learn from and to help others to learn from and that's what I intend to do.
Translation: Little Fucking Leaguers? How about me? I have to endure questions like these from low-life reporters merely for being a scumbag. I'm the victim here! Look at the adversity I have to deal with. Woe is me!
Reporter: In your opinion was the bigger sin using the PEDs or lying about it after the fact?
Braun: As I stated, the goal for me is just being able to move forward. I'm not really going to get into too many specific about what happened except to say I'm extremely remorseful...
Translation: I'm happy to take your questions.
Reporter: Ryan, what was the injury that you referred to in your statement that you took the products for?
Braun: Again, I'm not going to get into specifics and continue to go backward. I'm moving forward...
Translation: My pants are on fire.
Reporter: Don't you think you owe everybody who wants to talk about the specifics and tell us exactly what happened?
Braun: I completely understand and respect where you guys are coming from and that part of your job is to ask those questions but I hope you guys can understand and respect the fact that in an effort to move forward I'm not going to continue to discuss this stuff.
Translation: See, if I keep saying that I won't continue to discuss this stuff people will forget that I never discussed it in the first place and that "this stuff" is cheating my way to an MVP and lying relentlessly for two years to your faces. Do I have the best PR team or what!
Reporter: Ryan, what about the 2011 MVP award? Does this revelation invalidate that award?
Braun: As I said, I'm just going to move forward. I think that's all I can do. I'm not going to go back and discuss things that happened in the past...
Translation: Possession is nine-tenths of the law, suckers! So the trophy is mine as long as I maintain an unbroken chain of custody. In conclusion, I'd like to offer my sincere apology and remorse and also my middle finger to the good people of Milwaukee and all of Major League Baseball and with the help of my vast wealth, my lawyers and my truth spinners, I hope I can outlast everyone's indignation, which I assume will continue unabated for many minutes to come.
27 November 2013
The NBA Exists As A Cautionary Tale for MLB
Commenting on the loss of star guard Derrick Rose, a leading NBA analyst asserted that the Chicago Bulls could no longer challenge for the Eastern Conference crown. He noted that despite a terrific coach and some very good players, Chicago could not compete with the two Eastern powers -- the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers.
So, 15 games into an 82-game marathon, 13 of 15 teams in the East are simply playing out the string with no hope of a championship. That notion is borne out by this: Miami and Indiana are the only two squads with more wins than losses in their conference, and they're 26-4 between them.
On the other side of the ledger, five teams have won two-thirds or more of their contests. The Western Conference appears to these inexpert eyes to be more wide open. Still, if the competition is merely among those five, as many suggest, 10 others are simply jockeying for draft position.
And yet, they will play 1000 more NBA regular-season games over four months and then begin an interminable playoff season, in which nine of the 16 contenders -- some two of whom must advance to the second round -- haven't a prayer.
That is why the NBA regular season, and the first round of their playoffs, are irrelevant, and can only be considered interesting by those willing to suspend disbelief about the futility facing most fan bases. It seems pretty clear that God put the NBA on this planet as a cautionary tale for Major League Baseball. I hope the next commissioner heeds it.
So, 15 games into an 82-game marathon, 13 of 15 teams in the East are simply playing out the string with no hope of a championship. That notion is borne out by this: Miami and Indiana are the only two squads with more wins than losses in their conference, and they're 26-4 between them.
On the other side of the ledger, five teams have won two-thirds or more of their contests. The Western Conference appears to these inexpert eyes to be more wide open. Still, if the competition is merely among those five, as many suggest, 10 others are simply jockeying for draft position.
And yet, they will play 1000 more NBA regular-season games over four months and then begin an interminable playoff season, in which nine of the 16 contenders -- some two of whom must advance to the second round -- haven't a prayer.
That is why the NBA regular season, and the first round of their playoffs, are irrelevant, and can only be considered interesting by those willing to suspend disbelief about the futility facing most fan bases. It seems pretty clear that God put the NBA on this planet as a cautionary tale for Major League Baseball. I hope the next commissioner heeds it.
24 November 2013
The 10 Best Ideas In Sports (Not!)
Conventional wisdom, like student-athletes, tends to be one and not the other. Below are the 10 greatest and most persistent ideas in sports that have somehow eluded punchline status.
1. How valuable can he be when his team wasn't any good? Let's flip this. How valuable could Ichiro Suzuki have been in 2001 when the Mariners swept the AL West by 14 games, and finished 31 games clear of the Wild Card? Seattle could undeniably have earned a playoff berth without him. Yet the writers who use this question to justify skipping over a league's best player voted Ichiro the MVP by a wide margin.
2. The team controls its own destiny. No one owns a dictionary anymore, I get that. But dictionary.com is one click away. Google is still on computers, last I checked. Is there some vast, worldwide conspiracy to not understand what destiny is? (Hint: see fate, kismet.) Next: the world's physicists discuss in which direction the sun revolves around the earth.
3. His team lost, so he's no longer the leading Heisman candidate. Because his six touchdowns demonstrated a lack of leadership.
4. Championships are all that matter. So being a fan of the Minnesota Twins was just as rewarding in the 1990s as being a fan of the Atlanta Braves, because each team celebrated one World Championship during the decade. The Twins averaged 67 victories, and notched two winning seasons, one division title and one pennant in that span. The Braves averaged 95 victories, and notched nine winning seasons, eight division titles and five pennants. But none of that matters; only championships do.
5. Hitting wins games but pitching wins championships. (Football corollary: offense wins games but defense wins championships.) Brilliant! Think about what this revolutionary concept says: If you hold your opponent to fewer runs (or points) than you score, you will win the title. But if you score more runs (points) than you allow, you won't win the title. This changes everything! It disproves the widely held belief that offense and defense are inversely linked: every run (point) the offense scores, the defense allows.
6. This is a big regular-season game because they're battling for the top seed . . . Sure, because the top seed gets the home field/court/ice advantage against a clearly inferior opponent in the first round while on the other hand, the second seed gets the home field/court/ice advantage against a clearly inferior opponent in the first round. Plus, if these same two teams make it through the post-season gauntlet to meet for the conference championship, the one-seed gets home field/court/ice advantage, which has been proven over the last 30 years to be utterly irrelevant. So they'll be slugging it out in this critically important regular season contest in which both combatants long ago clinched a playoff spot and would never think to rest their best players and protect them from injury. (Now on the radio: George Strait's "Ocean Front Property.")
7. I'm against instant replay because I believe in the human element. You got that right! And while we're at it, let's put the human element back in team travel. No more of these fancy aeroplanes. The teams should just walk from St. Louis to Cincinnati. And no more of this tel-o-visioning either. People should either come to the game or wait for the newspaper to report two days later the information they get from the teletype. And no more of them arthroscopes and other fancy medical doo-dads for injured athletes. Back to surgeons with saws and ether. Because, you know, the human element. We like a system that upholds game-deciding mistakes, which the entire world except the umpires can see replayed. If it's good enough for the Providence Grays, the Boston Beaneaters and the Cleveland Spiders, it's good enough for us.
8. If the team wins a third championship in three years, the quarterback has to get consideration for "greatest college football player of all time." (This one has been suggested specifically of A.J. McCarron, the QB of Alabama.) Wait, I thought defense wins championships. (McCarron's never even earned first team SEC, but 14 of his teammates over the three years have.)
9. He's an RBI guy. Some guys are base stealers. Others are LOOGYs. None is so revered as the man who bats behind the best hitters on his team and exploits his opportunities to plate runs by grounding out, flying out, bouncing into a double-play, sacrificing or other cunning methods. He is the RBI Guy. We never hear about his counterpart, the RS Guy, who walks, steals second, advances to third on a ground out and makes it possible for RBI Guy to knock him in.
10. All that counts is: how many rings does he have? Back-up shortstop Luis Soto is thrilled to hear this. By this accounting, he is one of the great players of all time. He won five championships with the Yankees and Toronto. He accrued a .650 lifetime OPS and earned four wins against replacement over a 13-year career. Whereas Walter Johnson and Ty Cobb combined for one title -- they probably didn't even get rings back in 1924 -- and all they did was enter the Hall of Fame with the first class. Why? Because they had the misfortune to play on bad teams? Pfff! It was because they lacked the will to win! And that's why they can never be the greatest of all time. Johnson, who in every other sense was the most accomplished hurler in baseball history, earned four times as many wins against replacement as Soto -- with his bat.
Go back 50 years and you find an even more spectacular winner than Soto. Third-string Yankee catcher Ralph Houk slugged seven extra base hits, including zero home runs, in his eight year career. He garnered one-tenth of a win against replacement for his entire Major League life. But he had the will to win, as his six World Series rings attest.
In basketball, the same honor goes to Robert Horry. His seven trophies -- two with Houston, three with the Lakers and two with San Antonio -- attest to his transcendence. He may have received some slight assistance from Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Shaquille O'Neill, Kobe Bryant, David Robinson and Tim Duncan.
Those 10 assertions continue to delight, years after their debunking. Long live the myths! (Not!)
1. How valuable can he be when his team wasn't any good? Let's flip this. How valuable could Ichiro Suzuki have been in 2001 when the Mariners swept the AL West by 14 games, and finished 31 games clear of the Wild Card? Seattle could undeniably have earned a playoff berth without him. Yet the writers who use this question to justify skipping over a league's best player voted Ichiro the MVP by a wide margin.
2. The team controls its own destiny. No one owns a dictionary anymore, I get that. But dictionary.com is one click away. Google is still on computers, last I checked. Is there some vast, worldwide conspiracy to not understand what destiny is? (Hint: see fate, kismet.) Next: the world's physicists discuss in which direction the sun revolves around the earth.
3. His team lost, so he's no longer the leading Heisman candidate. Because his six touchdowns demonstrated a lack of leadership.
4. Championships are all that matter. So being a fan of the Minnesota Twins was just as rewarding in the 1990s as being a fan of the Atlanta Braves, because each team celebrated one World Championship during the decade. The Twins averaged 67 victories, and notched two winning seasons, one division title and one pennant in that span. The Braves averaged 95 victories, and notched nine winning seasons, eight division titles and five pennants. But none of that matters; only championships do.
5. Hitting wins games but pitching wins championships. (Football corollary: offense wins games but defense wins championships.) Brilliant! Think about what this revolutionary concept says: If you hold your opponent to fewer runs (or points) than you score, you will win the title. But if you score more runs (points) than you allow, you won't win the title. This changes everything! It disproves the widely held belief that offense and defense are inversely linked: every run (point) the offense scores, the defense allows.
6. This is a big regular-season game because they're battling for the top seed . . . Sure, because the top seed gets the home field/court/ice advantage against a clearly inferior opponent in the first round while on the other hand, the second seed gets the home field/court/ice advantage against a clearly inferior opponent in the first round. Plus, if these same two teams make it through the post-season gauntlet to meet for the conference championship, the one-seed gets home field/court/ice advantage, which has been proven over the last 30 years to be utterly irrelevant. So they'll be slugging it out in this critically important regular season contest in which both combatants long ago clinched a playoff spot and would never think to rest their best players and protect them from injury. (Now on the radio: George Strait's "Ocean Front Property.")
7. I'm against instant replay because I believe in the human element. You got that right! And while we're at it, let's put the human element back in team travel. No more of these fancy aeroplanes. The teams should just walk from St. Louis to Cincinnati. And no more of this tel-o-visioning either. People should either come to the game or wait for the newspaper to report two days later the information they get from the teletype. And no more of them arthroscopes and other fancy medical doo-dads for injured athletes. Back to surgeons with saws and ether. Because, you know, the human element. We like a system that upholds game-deciding mistakes, which the entire world except the umpires can see replayed. If it's good enough for the Providence Grays, the Boston Beaneaters and the Cleveland Spiders, it's good enough for us.
8. If the team wins a third championship in three years, the quarterback has to get consideration for "greatest college football player of all time." (This one has been suggested specifically of A.J. McCarron, the QB of Alabama.) Wait, I thought defense wins championships. (McCarron's never even earned first team SEC, but 14 of his teammates over the three years have.)
9. He's an RBI guy. Some guys are base stealers. Others are LOOGYs. None is so revered as the man who bats behind the best hitters on his team and exploits his opportunities to plate runs by grounding out, flying out, bouncing into a double-play, sacrificing or other cunning methods. He is the RBI Guy. We never hear about his counterpart, the RS Guy, who walks, steals second, advances to third on a ground out and makes it possible for RBI Guy to knock him in.
10. All that counts is: how many rings does he have? Back-up shortstop Luis Soto is thrilled to hear this. By this accounting, he is one of the great players of all time. He won five championships with the Yankees and Toronto. He accrued a .650 lifetime OPS and earned four wins against replacement over a 13-year career. Whereas Walter Johnson and Ty Cobb combined for one title -- they probably didn't even get rings back in 1924 -- and all they did was enter the Hall of Fame with the first class. Why? Because they had the misfortune to play on bad teams? Pfff! It was because they lacked the will to win! And that's why they can never be the greatest of all time. Johnson, who in every other sense was the most accomplished hurler in baseball history, earned four times as many wins against replacement as Soto -- with his bat.
Go back 50 years and you find an even more spectacular winner than Soto. Third-string Yankee catcher Ralph Houk slugged seven extra base hits, including zero home runs, in his eight year career. He garnered one-tenth of a win against replacement for his entire Major League life. But he had the will to win, as his six World Series rings attest.
In basketball, the same honor goes to Robert Horry. His seven trophies -- two with Houston, three with the Lakers and two with San Antonio -- attest to his transcendence. He may have received some slight assistance from Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Shaquille O'Neill, Kobe Bryant, David Robinson and Tim Duncan.
Those 10 assertions continue to delight, years after their debunking. Long live the myths! (Not!)
21 November 2013
A Good Old-Fashioned Trade
When Detroit sent their portly vegetarian first-baseman to Arlington yesterday for keystoner Ian Kinsler, each team got a fielder. The Rangers got Prince, a 30-year-old basher with on-base skills and seven years of lottery winnings left on his contract. The Tigers got a 32-year-old second baseman with mad leather skills, a nice bat and quick feet on the basepaths.
It's a straight-up deal, a star for a star. And the big winner is, Jurickson Profar. The Rangers' second base uber-prospect can now step out of Kinsler's shadow and demonstrate his skills. At 20, he spent half-a-season showing he belonged in The Show despite bouncing among positions like a yoga instructor.
For that reason, this deal makes sense for Texas. Their Kinsler money lands Fielder, who replaces the steroid-pumped bat of free agent Nelson Cruz, and Profar cushions the blow at second. Their big concern is the $138 million they'll owe their new slugger through his age-36 year. Fielder comes off a down season and four years of declining walks. But as Ranger GM Jon Daniels noted, Prince is untouchable without the down season. And the walks may be an artifact of batting behind the league's MVP: the other team can't walk both of them.
With this trade, the Tigers get all the colors straight on their Rubik's cube, even though Kinsler's peak ended in 2011. Absent 32-year-old free agent Omar Infante, they had a big black hole facing them at the keystone and a logjam of big-boned DH types playing the field. The swap allows them to limit Miguel Cabrera's damage with the glove by rolling his spherical self back to first, add hitting and base stealing at second and find a third baseman who can actually play the hot corner. That's prospect Nick Castellanos raising his hand out there in left field.
Kinsler has $62 million coming through his age 36 season, plus $30 million the team is sending to Texas to offset some of Fielder's pay. (That figure is already included in the amount the Rangers will owe Fielder.) He is also damaged goods following a season with the fewest walks, worst base-stealing and lowest OPS of his career. That said, he was credited with 4.9 wins against replacement, which is basically All-Star level. The Tigers took on much less risk and improved their feng shui by moving the parts to their correct places.
It would be great to see more of these kinds of trades and fewer salary dumps, veterans for prospects deals and headache swaps. It's one trade we'll be able to look back on and determine who got the better of it.
It's a straight-up deal, a star for a star. And the big winner is, Jurickson Profar. The Rangers' second base uber-prospect can now step out of Kinsler's shadow and demonstrate his skills. At 20, he spent half-a-season showing he belonged in The Show despite bouncing among positions like a yoga instructor.
For that reason, this deal makes sense for Texas. Their Kinsler money lands Fielder, who replaces the steroid-pumped bat of free agent Nelson Cruz, and Profar cushions the blow at second. Their big concern is the $138 million they'll owe their new slugger through his age-36 year. Fielder comes off a down season and four years of declining walks. But as Ranger GM Jon Daniels noted, Prince is untouchable without the down season. And the walks may be an artifact of batting behind the league's MVP: the other team can't walk both of them.
With this trade, the Tigers get all the colors straight on their Rubik's cube, even though Kinsler's peak ended in 2011. Absent 32-year-old free agent Omar Infante, they had a big black hole facing them at the keystone and a logjam of big-boned DH types playing the field. The swap allows them to limit Miguel Cabrera's damage with the glove by rolling his spherical self back to first, add hitting and base stealing at second and find a third baseman who can actually play the hot corner. That's prospect Nick Castellanos raising his hand out there in left field.
Kinsler has $62 million coming through his age 36 season, plus $30 million the team is sending to Texas to offset some of Fielder's pay. (That figure is already included in the amount the Rangers will owe Fielder.) He is also damaged goods following a season with the fewest walks, worst base-stealing and lowest OPS of his career. That said, he was credited with 4.9 wins against replacement, which is basically All-Star level. The Tigers took on much less risk and improved their feng shui by moving the parts to their correct places.
It would be great to see more of these kinds of trades and fewer salary dumps, veterans for prospects deals and headache swaps. It's one trade we'll be able to look back on and determine who got the better of it.
16 November 2013
Why the 2014 Pirates = the 2013 Nationals
Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Pirates, winners of 94 games and the Wild Card in 2013. The Bucs ended two decades of futility by exceeding expectations this past season. The good people of the Steel City should pop an Iron City Brew to toast their young team's accomplishment. And then prepare for 2014, when PNC's denizens return to earth.
We've seen this before. Think all the way back to 2012, when a young Washington Nationals team swept to the league's best record with 98 wins. Like the Pirates, the Nats were a year ahead of schedule, but breakouts by their promising franchise players (Harper and Strasburg) coincided with unexpected leaps from veterans (Adam LaRoche and Gio Gonzalez).
In 2013, Gonzalez regressed to form (from 21-8, 2.89 to 11-8, 3.36) and LaRoche fell predictably hard (from .271 BA and 33 home runs to .237 BA and 20 HR). In addition, a Washington bullpen that strangled NL hitters in 2012, allowing a 2.85 ERA, lost much of its effectiveness in 2013, allowing 3.57 earned runs per nine, and the runs allowed seemed to come at the most inopportune times.
The result was that the Nats wavered all spring and summer, and needed a late-season burst to claim 86 wins. A similar fate awaits Pittsburgh in 2014 assuming their roster doesn't change dramatically between now and Opening Day.
For one thing, the Pirates this past season outperformed their profile by six wins. That's a good bit of luck filling their sails that is unlikely to blow next season. Here is a list of other 2013 artifacts they can't expect next year:
1. First baseman Gaby Sanchez will reprise his career high .361 OBP.
2. The bullpen will finish third in baseball in fewest runs allowed.
3. Only one starting player will suffer a serious injury.
4. Andrew McCutchen will win the MVP
5. Marlon Byrd will hit .318/.357/.486 in the final 30 games. (He's signed elsewhere.)
6. Starter Jeff Locke and his 1.49 K/BB ratio will hold opponents to a 3.52 ERA.
7. Jason Grilli's magic carpet ride will continue at age 37.
Some unexpected positives will offset what's above, but even if it all evens out and the entire net loss is due to luck, Jolly Roger wins 88 instead of 94 and misses the playoffs.
Now here's the good news: like the Nationals, the Pirates are built for the long run. Washington will bounce back in 2014 as youth continues to be served and become the World Series favorites many picked them for this year. Assuming the normal progression of its young players and intelligent player acquisition, Pittsburgh will be a contender in 2015. Management in Western Pennsylvania and (to a lesser degree) the District of Columbia have the long view in mind. Fans of the two teams would be wise to adopt the same policy.
We've seen this before. Think all the way back to 2012, when a young Washington Nationals team swept to the league's best record with 98 wins. Like the Pirates, the Nats were a year ahead of schedule, but breakouts by their promising franchise players (Harper and Strasburg) coincided with unexpected leaps from veterans (Adam LaRoche and Gio Gonzalez).
In 2013, Gonzalez regressed to form (from 21-8, 2.89 to 11-8, 3.36) and LaRoche fell predictably hard (from .271 BA and 33 home runs to .237 BA and 20 HR). In addition, a Washington bullpen that strangled NL hitters in 2012, allowing a 2.85 ERA, lost much of its effectiveness in 2013, allowing 3.57 earned runs per nine, and the runs allowed seemed to come at the most inopportune times.
The result was that the Nats wavered all spring and summer, and needed a late-season burst to claim 86 wins. A similar fate awaits Pittsburgh in 2014 assuming their roster doesn't change dramatically between now and Opening Day.
For one thing, the Pirates this past season outperformed their profile by six wins. That's a good bit of luck filling their sails that is unlikely to blow next season. Here is a list of other 2013 artifacts they can't expect next year:
1. First baseman Gaby Sanchez will reprise his career high .361 OBP.
2. The bullpen will finish third in baseball in fewest runs allowed.
3. Only one starting player will suffer a serious injury.
4. Andrew McCutchen will win the MVP
5. Marlon Byrd will hit .318/.357/.486 in the final 30 games. (He's signed elsewhere.)
6. Starter Jeff Locke and his 1.49 K/BB ratio will hold opponents to a 3.52 ERA.
7. Jason Grilli's magic carpet ride will continue at age 37.
Some unexpected positives will offset what's above, but even if it all evens out and the entire net loss is due to luck, Jolly Roger wins 88 instead of 94 and misses the playoffs.
Now here's the good news: like the Nationals, the Pirates are built for the long run. Washington will bounce back in 2014 as youth continues to be served and become the World Series favorites many picked them for this year. Assuming the normal progression of its young players and intelligent player acquisition, Pittsburgh will be a contender in 2015. Management in Western Pennsylvania and (to a lesser degree) the District of Columbia have the long view in mind. Fans of the two teams would be wise to adopt the same policy.
15 November 2013
Catching Up . . . Awards, Goodbye Brian McCann, So Long Turner Field
Baseball events have continued apace despite a Braindrizzling hiatus. How can that be? Perhaps Joe Posnanski kept things afloat in the interim.
The Cy Young Awards were announced this week. There's not a whole lot of room for debate on Clayton Kershaw or Max Scherzer. Kershaw led the planet in ERA, and that includes Little League. Scherzer's 21-3 record and nearly six runs of support per start don't accrue to his credit, but he shouldn't be penalized for them either. Scherzer gets the prize because he dominated AL batters to the tune of a nifty 2.90 ERA, 240 strikeouts in 214 innings, and a best-in-class .97 WHIP.
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The same for Rookie of the Year awards. The trophy would have gone to Yasiel Puig in almost any other year. He punched balls all over the yard, 60% better than league average, and added dynamite to a moribund Dodger offense when he arrived. In years when such luminaries as Geovany Soto, Jason Jennings, Angel Berroa and Bobby Crosby earned top honors, Puig would have run away. Sadly for him, his freshman season coincided with Jose Fernandez's, which awoke ghosts of Fernandomania en route to a 12-6, 2.19 with more whiffs than frames pitched.
In the AL, Wil Myers and his .293/.354/.478 in slightly more than half a season was the pretty clear choice over shortstop Jose Iglesias and a couple of nice pitchers. In all, not much to complain about.
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The MVP Awards went as expected to Andrew McCutchen and Miguel Cabrera. Both were excellent choices. That Cabrera wasn't the best choice doesn't change the fact that he had another MVP-caliber season. It's difficult to be disappointed when a great candidate, the second-best of the league's 600 players, secures the honor. It's easy to be disappointed that Major League baseball writers don't know the difference between a great hitter and a great player, and can't fathom how one player's value isn't dependent on the performances of his teammates, but if being disappointed in baseball writers were a virus, we'd all have a permanent case of Ebola.
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You probably heard that teams made $14.1 million qualifying offers to 13 players, every one of which was declined. This is a ritual dance carried out by GMs and players under the new collective bargaining agreement. The players are now free agents who may seek multi-year deals. The teams may or may not want the players back but they will receive compensation draft picks if their former player is signed elsewhere.
Let's take the case of Braves backstop Brian McCann. The Georgia native is leaving by mutual decision, a net benefit for both him and the team even if he inks a five-year, $12 million/year deal with a catcher-starved franchise. (Hello Yankees! By the way, $12 mil is going to be cat pee compared to what McCann commands.) That serves McCann, who at 29 is headed into his decline years, but would guarantee the McCann family $60 million, rather than $14.1 million. It serves the good people of Atlanta -- or Marietta -- because the Braves have cheaper options and serious budget constraints. Leading the parade to replace the seven-time All-Star is Evan Gattis, whose above-average hitting comes with a half-million-dollar price tag and whose value is much greater behind the plate than in left field, where he attempted to hide in 2013. In addition, Atlanta would receive a first round supplemental pick from the signing team.
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Speaking of the Braves, they've flipped Turner Field into the trashcan after just 17 years, like it's a disposable lighter. Shame on the the various entities (which included NBC and the Atlanta Olympic Authority) for paying the massive retrofit costs to turn Centennial Olympic Stadium into Turner Field without requiring the Braves to sign a long-term lease.
The franchise and its new hosts, suburban Cobb County, claim the new home will be a "public-private partnership." This is code for an arrangement in which the public pays the bill and the team reaps the benefits.
In most "public-private" arrangements around sports stadiums, municipalities foot the bill and then lend their borrowing authority to the team for a portion of the costs. The team repays its loan at a discounted rate because the bonds are low-interest and tax-free. The municipality restricts its future borrowing ability for things like schools, hospitals, sewer systems and infrastructure that teams regularly complain about.
Many econometric studies have demonstrated that even after accounting for all the possible spending resulting from relocated sports teams, municipalities rarely earn back the value of their investments in stadiums unless those edifices are key cogs in new downtown development. Baseball teams are relatively smal businesses whose payrolls generally leave the state from November through March. The stadiums lay empty roughly 250 days-a-year and their use often generates as many costs for the city as tax income, all while the bonds demand repayment.
So the Braves will begin play in their third home in 21 years when they move to Marietta while the Red Sox have competed in the Fens for more than a century.
The Cy Young Awards were announced this week. There's not a whole lot of room for debate on Clayton Kershaw or Max Scherzer. Kershaw led the planet in ERA, and that includes Little League. Scherzer's 21-3 record and nearly six runs of support per start don't accrue to his credit, but he shouldn't be penalized for them either. Scherzer gets the prize because he dominated AL batters to the tune of a nifty 2.90 ERA, 240 strikeouts in 214 innings, and a best-in-class .97 WHIP.
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The same for Rookie of the Year awards. The trophy would have gone to Yasiel Puig in almost any other year. He punched balls all over the yard, 60% better than league average, and added dynamite to a moribund Dodger offense when he arrived. In years when such luminaries as Geovany Soto, Jason Jennings, Angel Berroa and Bobby Crosby earned top honors, Puig would have run away. Sadly for him, his freshman season coincided with Jose Fernandez's, which awoke ghosts of Fernandomania en route to a 12-6, 2.19 with more whiffs than frames pitched.
In the AL, Wil Myers and his .293/.354/.478 in slightly more than half a season was the pretty clear choice over shortstop Jose Iglesias and a couple of nice pitchers. In all, not much to complain about.
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The MVP Awards went as expected to Andrew McCutchen and Miguel Cabrera. Both were excellent choices. That Cabrera wasn't the best choice doesn't change the fact that he had another MVP-caliber season. It's difficult to be disappointed when a great candidate, the second-best of the league's 600 players, secures the honor. It's easy to be disappointed that Major League baseball writers don't know the difference between a great hitter and a great player, and can't fathom how one player's value isn't dependent on the performances of his teammates, but if being disappointed in baseball writers were a virus, we'd all have a permanent case of Ebola.
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You probably heard that teams made $14.1 million qualifying offers to 13 players, every one of which was declined. This is a ritual dance carried out by GMs and players under the new collective bargaining agreement. The players are now free agents who may seek multi-year deals. The teams may or may not want the players back but they will receive compensation draft picks if their former player is signed elsewhere.
Let's take the case of Braves backstop Brian McCann. The Georgia native is leaving by mutual decision, a net benefit for both him and the team even if he inks a five-year, $12 million/year deal with a catcher-starved franchise. (Hello Yankees! By the way, $12 mil is going to be cat pee compared to what McCann commands.) That serves McCann, who at 29 is headed into his decline years, but would guarantee the McCann family $60 million, rather than $14.1 million. It serves the good people of Atlanta -- or Marietta -- because the Braves have cheaper options and serious budget constraints. Leading the parade to replace the seven-time All-Star is Evan Gattis, whose above-average hitting comes with a half-million-dollar price tag and whose value is much greater behind the plate than in left field, where he attempted to hide in 2013. In addition, Atlanta would receive a first round supplemental pick from the signing team.
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Speaking of the Braves, they've flipped Turner Field into the trashcan after just 17 years, like it's a disposable lighter. Shame on the the various entities (which included NBC and the Atlanta Olympic Authority) for paying the massive retrofit costs to turn Centennial Olympic Stadium into Turner Field without requiring the Braves to sign a long-term lease.
The franchise and its new hosts, suburban Cobb County, claim the new home will be a "public-private partnership." This is code for an arrangement in which the public pays the bill and the team reaps the benefits.
In most "public-private" arrangements around sports stadiums, municipalities foot the bill and then lend their borrowing authority to the team for a portion of the costs. The team repays its loan at a discounted rate because the bonds are low-interest and tax-free. The municipality restricts its future borrowing ability for things like schools, hospitals, sewer systems and infrastructure that teams regularly complain about.
Many econometric studies have demonstrated that even after accounting for all the possible spending resulting from relocated sports teams, municipalities rarely earn back the value of their investments in stadiums unless those edifices are key cogs in new downtown development. Baseball teams are relatively smal businesses whose payrolls generally leave the state from November through March. The stadiums lay empty roughly 250 days-a-year and their use often generates as many costs for the city as tax income, all while the bonds demand repayment.
So the Braves will begin play in their third home in 21 years when they move to Marietta while the Red Sox have competed in the Fens for more than a century.
03 November 2013
Is David Ortiz a Hall of Famer?
With another set of post-season heroics in the rear view mirror, Hall of Fame buzz is beginning to swirl around David Ortiz. At 38, Big Papi delivered his best season since '07, with a .959 OPS in 137 games. Since joining the Red Sox in '03, Big Papi has authored a .292/.390/.572 resume with 373 home runs and an offensive record 48% above league average. That includes 2008-09 when a wrist injury hampered his swing and sapped his power; absent those two seasons he's raking at 55% above average. That Coopestownish.
The major Hall of Fame problem for Ortiz is that his career did not start with Boston in '03. In his first six years with the Twins, he hit just .266 with 58 homers. There was no Big and no Papi until he landed in the Bay state and began mashing behind Manny Ramirez. Ortiz has performed at a Hall of Fame level with the bat over an 11-year period, but that's not long enough and it's not the entirety of his playing career.
There's another barrier to a bronze bust for Ortiz: he's a DH. You will hear and read irrelevant analysis about how a DH doesn't belong in the Hall or about how no DH has ever been elected. Neither is the point. Cooperstown has a long history of enshrinement of one-dimensional players, in case you mistook Harmon Killebrew for a speed merchant (19 of 37 steals in 22 years) and defensive wizard (19 career wins below replacement with the glove).
The problem with rostering a player who can only DH is that it has an inherent negative effect on team construction. The various sabermetric measuring systems assess this against a player's defense, but the restrictions such a player imposes on lineup flexibility may accrue to offense instead or as well. Between his lack of range when he donned his mitt and the lack of managerial range created by carrying a non-fielder on the roster, Ortiz has cost his teams 18 wins over his career. That offsets a goodly chunk of his overall value.
There are four widely-used systems designed to predict a player's Hall of Fame case. Three of them say Ortiz has a fair amount of work to do. For example, the average Hall of Fame first baseman leads the league in 27 seasonal categories over the course of his career. Papi has led the AL in home runs once, RBIs twice, walks twice, OBP once and total bases once, well short of that standard. The JAWS Hall of Fame valuation model, which compares a player's value to the average Haller at his position (Ortiz is considered a first baseman since there are no DHs to whom we can compare him) suggests Ortiz is well short in both his peak and his overall career numbers, by distances he cannot bridge even if he performs well into his 40s.
None of this captures the special character that sparked the speculation to begin with. "Clutch" hitting is a vastly exaggerated notion, but Big Papi delivers in key situations so relentlessly there can be no denying that he loves the spotlight and thrives on pressure. Recounting all his game-changing home runs in season-altering games would amount to gilding the lily. His .455/.576/.795 line in three triumphant World Series speaks for itself. In addition, his unquestioned leadership was captured exquisitely when he gathered his bearded brethren around him in the dugout in Game 4 of the just concluded championship. It is tempting to assign cause and effect to that confab and the three consecutive victories that turned a 2-1 deficit into a parade.
How do you measure leadership and clutch hitting? What are their value? Are they enough to overcome a career gap of 24 wins against replacement. The answer, for me, is pretty clear: not even close. Big Papi is a great player and a character who will live forever in baseball history, but he hasn't done enough to earn a bust.
On to the elephant in the room: steroids. The New York Times reported that Ortiz was among 100 players who tested positively for steroids in 2003. Ortiz denied he took steroids and the Players Association claims those relatively unsophisticated tests returned false positives for supplement use. For some cynical followers of the game, that's enough to convict a player even though it amounts to nothing.
Others point to the spike in Ortiz big flies from 2004-2006 (40-47-54) at ages 28-30, followed by a dramatic decline to 35 after 2006, never to return. This argument is specious: that's normal career peaking. Indeed, in the four years preceding his home run spike he hit 10-18-20-31. In the four years following his peak, his home run totals declined to 35-23-28-32. He also played more games during the peak than in any other years.
In other words, there are several good reasons not to elect David Ortiz to the Hall of Fame -- a short peak and bad defense chief among them. There are a couple of good reasons to consider him further -- palpable leadership and clutch hitting that helped propel his team to three more championships in 10 years than they had won in the previous 86. But denying him a bust because of steroids is pure electoral malpractice, on par with electing Ted Cruz or Jesse Jackson Jr. to Congress.
The major Hall of Fame problem for Ortiz is that his career did not start with Boston in '03. In his first six years with the Twins, he hit just .266 with 58 homers. There was no Big and no Papi until he landed in the Bay state and began mashing behind Manny Ramirez. Ortiz has performed at a Hall of Fame level with the bat over an 11-year period, but that's not long enough and it's not the entirety of his playing career.
There's another barrier to a bronze bust for Ortiz: he's a DH. You will hear and read irrelevant analysis about how a DH doesn't belong in the Hall or about how no DH has ever been elected. Neither is the point. Cooperstown has a long history of enshrinement of one-dimensional players, in case you mistook Harmon Killebrew for a speed merchant (19 of 37 steals in 22 years) and defensive wizard (19 career wins below replacement with the glove).
The problem with rostering a player who can only DH is that it has an inherent negative effect on team construction. The various sabermetric measuring systems assess this against a player's defense, but the restrictions such a player imposes on lineup flexibility may accrue to offense instead or as well. Between his lack of range when he donned his mitt and the lack of managerial range created by carrying a non-fielder on the roster, Ortiz has cost his teams 18 wins over his career. That offsets a goodly chunk of his overall value.
There are four widely-used systems designed to predict a player's Hall of Fame case. Three of them say Ortiz has a fair amount of work to do. For example, the average Hall of Fame first baseman leads the league in 27 seasonal categories over the course of his career. Papi has led the AL in home runs once, RBIs twice, walks twice, OBP once and total bases once, well short of that standard. The JAWS Hall of Fame valuation model, which compares a player's value to the average Haller at his position (Ortiz is considered a first baseman since there are no DHs to whom we can compare him) suggests Ortiz is well short in both his peak and his overall career numbers, by distances he cannot bridge even if he performs well into his 40s.
None of this captures the special character that sparked the speculation to begin with. "Clutch" hitting is a vastly exaggerated notion, but Big Papi delivers in key situations so relentlessly there can be no denying that he loves the spotlight and thrives on pressure. Recounting all his game-changing home runs in season-altering games would amount to gilding the lily. His .455/.576/.795 line in three triumphant World Series speaks for itself. In addition, his unquestioned leadership was captured exquisitely when he gathered his bearded brethren around him in the dugout in Game 4 of the just concluded championship. It is tempting to assign cause and effect to that confab and the three consecutive victories that turned a 2-1 deficit into a parade.
How do you measure leadership and clutch hitting? What are their value? Are they enough to overcome a career gap of 24 wins against replacement. The answer, for me, is pretty clear: not even close. Big Papi is a great player and a character who will live forever in baseball history, but he hasn't done enough to earn a bust.
On to the elephant in the room: steroids. The New York Times reported that Ortiz was among 100 players who tested positively for steroids in 2003. Ortiz denied he took steroids and the Players Association claims those relatively unsophisticated tests returned false positives for supplement use. For some cynical followers of the game, that's enough to convict a player even though it amounts to nothing.
Others point to the spike in Ortiz big flies from 2004-2006 (40-47-54) at ages 28-30, followed by a dramatic decline to 35 after 2006, never to return. This argument is specious: that's normal career peaking. Indeed, in the four years preceding his home run spike he hit 10-18-20-31. In the four years following his peak, his home run totals declined to 35-23-28-32. He also played more games during the peak than in any other years.
In other words, there are several good reasons not to elect David Ortiz to the Hall of Fame -- a short peak and bad defense chief among them. There are a couple of good reasons to consider him further -- palpable leadership and clutch hitting that helped propel his team to three more championships in 10 years than they had won in the previous 86. But denying him a bust because of steroids is pure electoral malpractice, on par with electing Ted Cruz or Jesse Jackson Jr. to Congress.
31 October 2013
How On Earth...?
Last we saw the Boston Red Sox, they had issued an historic collapse at the end of the 2011 season, fired their popular manager, replaced him with the worst hiring decision this side of Hitler's election, sowed discord in the clubhouse, endured a string of injuries, traded away several of their best players and brought up the rear in the AL East with a dismal 69-93 record.
That's the team, that team, won the 2013 World Series.
And they didn't slink into the postseason like the '06 Cardinals and then get hot for two weeks to win the championship. The 2013 Red Sox dominated baseball's toughest division, won the most games in the Majors and pounded their playoff foes.
Huh? How on Earth...?
To answer this question, only ex post facto explanations need apply. No one saw this coming. How could they?
First we have to recognize, as Boston's front office did, that this was not a 93-loss team. Injuries and throwing in the towel led to last year's results. A contending core remained.
Second, the Injury Fairy moved on. In 2013, the Sox remained unexpectedly healthy. David Ortiz swaggered to the plate 600 times. Dustin Pedroia played a full season despite flinging his body around the field. Jacoby Ellsbury continued his odd-year good health pattern. Among the 14 everyday and pitching starters, only pitcher Clay Bucholz failed to dress for a significant chunk of the season. (Of course, both closers brought in by Boston got stung. Andrew Bailey missed most of May and the entire second half; Joel Hanrahan threw seven innings before Tommy John came calling.)
Third, everyone hit. Big Papi led the way with 30 homers and a .959 OPS, but the rest of the lineup, including ostensible backups Daniel Nava, utility man Mike Carp, and even rookie shortstop Jose Iglesias, posted OPS at least 10% above league average. (GM Ben Cherrington, realizing that Iglesias was a mirage who would soon be replaced by Xander Boegarts, flipped him mid-season for prospects.) Only Will Middlebrooks and his .271 OBP faltered, and even he raised that to .329 upon returning from the Minors in August.
Fourth, a couple of key signings worked out reasonably well. Shane Victorino hit .294, stole 21 of 24 and carried a Gold Glove to rightfield. Between strikeouts, Mike Napoli pounded 23 homers and 40 doubles/triples.
Manager John Farrell brought calm to the storming clubhouse and oversaw the team's norming and performing.
And they scooped up a big heaping wad of luck in the bullpen. After Hanrahan and Bailey flamed, Farrell was forced to hand the ball to sophomore righty Junichi Tazawa, veteran southpaw Craig Breslow and 38-year-old castoff Koji Uehara. The trio put the final three innings off limits for opposing teams, with Uehara twirling 74 frames of exquisite futility. Only 43 baserunners managed to get aboard while 101 fanned against him.
Was this all a grand design by Boston brass? Not mostly. They kept their heads after handing Bobby Valentine his and brought to camp a solid nucleus, some complementary parts and a full sentence of question marks. It didn't hurt that all of Yankee Stadium, including the ball boys and Lou Gerhig's monument, got hurt in 2013, and that the Blue Jay experiment crashed like a sack of potatoes. But the real story of the 2013 World Champs is 1-9 hitting, 1-5 pitching, a shutdown bullpen and good health.
As the Red Sox showed, you can do anything if you have your health.
That's the team, that team, won the 2013 World Series.
And they didn't slink into the postseason like the '06 Cardinals and then get hot for two weeks to win the championship. The 2013 Red Sox dominated baseball's toughest division, won the most games in the Majors and pounded their playoff foes.
Huh? How on Earth...?
To answer this question, only ex post facto explanations need apply. No one saw this coming. How could they?
First we have to recognize, as Boston's front office did, that this was not a 93-loss team. Injuries and throwing in the towel led to last year's results. A contending core remained.
Second, the Injury Fairy moved on. In 2013, the Sox remained unexpectedly healthy. David Ortiz swaggered to the plate 600 times. Dustin Pedroia played a full season despite flinging his body around the field. Jacoby Ellsbury continued his odd-year good health pattern. Among the 14 everyday and pitching starters, only pitcher Clay Bucholz failed to dress for a significant chunk of the season. (Of course, both closers brought in by Boston got stung. Andrew Bailey missed most of May and the entire second half; Joel Hanrahan threw seven innings before Tommy John came calling.)
Third, everyone hit. Big Papi led the way with 30 homers and a .959 OPS, but the rest of the lineup, including ostensible backups Daniel Nava, utility man Mike Carp, and even rookie shortstop Jose Iglesias, posted OPS at least 10% above league average. (GM Ben Cherrington, realizing that Iglesias was a mirage who would soon be replaced by Xander Boegarts, flipped him mid-season for prospects.) Only Will Middlebrooks and his .271 OBP faltered, and even he raised that to .329 upon returning from the Minors in August.
Fourth, a couple of key signings worked out reasonably well. Shane Victorino hit .294, stole 21 of 24 and carried a Gold Glove to rightfield. Between strikeouts, Mike Napoli pounded 23 homers and 40 doubles/triples.
Manager John Farrell brought calm to the storming clubhouse and oversaw the team's norming and performing.
And they scooped up a big heaping wad of luck in the bullpen. After Hanrahan and Bailey flamed, Farrell was forced to hand the ball to sophomore righty Junichi Tazawa, veteran southpaw Craig Breslow and 38-year-old castoff Koji Uehara. The trio put the final three innings off limits for opposing teams, with Uehara twirling 74 frames of exquisite futility. Only 43 baserunners managed to get aboard while 101 fanned against him.
Was this all a grand design by Boston brass? Not mostly. They kept their heads after handing Bobby Valentine his and brought to camp a solid nucleus, some complementary parts and a full sentence of question marks. It didn't hurt that all of Yankee Stadium, including the ball boys and Lou Gerhig's monument, got hurt in 2013, and that the Blue Jay experiment crashed like a sack of potatoes. But the real story of the 2013 World Champs is 1-9 hitting, 1-5 pitching, a shutdown bullpen and good health.
As the Red Sox showed, you can do anything if you have your health.
29 October 2013
If You Think It's Over You Haven't Been Paying Attention
With the Sox of Red now ahead 3-2 in the World Series, I'm sure you've heard the following:
"Boston's one win away."
"They're going home with the lead."
"It's over."
"Cardinals would have to win two in Boston."
...and the like.
Anyone expressing these sentiments should have their junior high school diploma burned. Let's review:
The home team has lost three of five games.
The best pitcher in the series has been beaten twice.
The winning run in Game 3 scored on an esoteric rule infraction.
The hero of Game 4 was a fourth outfielder who hadn't hit safely in the Series.
Game 4 ended when a pinch runner type got himself picked off.
The hero of Game 5 was a backup catcher who was batting .111 in the Series.
The Red Sox manager blundered horribly in Game 5 by allowing his pitcher to bat with second and third, one out in the seventh inning of a 2-1 game. His team won anyway.
The World Champions, whoever that will be, must win at least one of the last two games. To do so, they will have to defeat the best team in the other league, a team stacked on the mound, in the bullpen and at the plate. You'd rather be the Sox than the Cards right now, but that could change after the first inning of Wednesday's game.
Let's instead appreciate the beauty of this World Series:
The best two teams are playing.
They are a pair of high-character teams.
They represent two great baseball cities -- maybe the best two in America (and Southeastern Canada.)
Every game but the first has been a nail-biter.
Each team has a charismatic leader -- David Ortiz and Yadier Molina.
The pitchers on both sides, nearly without exception, have mastered their craft. Nearly every pitch has creased the lower edge of the strike zone.
The fickle late-October weather has cooperated.
Two players -- Big Papi and Carlos Beltran -- are using this showcase to burnish their Hall of Fame cases.
The Fat Lady isn't even in costume. Enjoy the last day or two of the 2013 baseball year.
"Boston's one win away."
"They're going home with the lead."
"It's over."
"Cardinals would have to win two in Boston."
...and the like.
Anyone expressing these sentiments should have their junior high school diploma burned. Let's review:
The home team has lost three of five games.
The best pitcher in the series has been beaten twice.
The winning run in Game 3 scored on an esoteric rule infraction.
The hero of Game 4 was a fourth outfielder who hadn't hit safely in the Series.
Game 4 ended when a pinch runner type got himself picked off.
The hero of Game 5 was a backup catcher who was batting .111 in the Series.
The Red Sox manager blundered horribly in Game 5 by allowing his pitcher to bat with second and third, one out in the seventh inning of a 2-1 game. His team won anyway.
The World Champions, whoever that will be, must win at least one of the last two games. To do so, they will have to defeat the best team in the other league, a team stacked on the mound, in the bullpen and at the plate. You'd rather be the Sox than the Cards right now, but that could change after the first inning of Wednesday's game.
Let's instead appreciate the beauty of this World Series:
The best two teams are playing.
They are a pair of high-character teams.
They represent two great baseball cities -- maybe the best two in America (and Southeastern Canada.)
Every game but the first has been a nail-biter.
Each team has a charismatic leader -- David Ortiz and Yadier Molina.
The pitchers on both sides, nearly without exception, have mastered their craft. Nearly every pitch has creased the lower edge of the strike zone.
The fickle late-October weather has cooperated.
Two players -- Big Papi and Carlos Beltran -- are using this showcase to burnish their Hall of Fame cases.
The Fat Lady isn't even in costume. Enjoy the last day or two of the 2013 baseball year.
27 October 2013
Kill the Umpire!
Umpiring has been a central element of the 2013 World Series, but in a turnabout of the usual, it's because the umps have worked scrupulously to get it right.
In Game 1, the second base arbiter gakked up a call and was immediately over-ruled, with his consent, by his five brethren. A wrong was quickly righted and we could all move on with our lives.
With two outs in the ninth of a tied Game 3, the third base umpire immediately, forcefully and correctly called fielder interference and was supported by the plate ump. They made the call even thought the interference might have been unintentional and resulted in an awful conclusion to a scintillating game.
This is (yet) another example of how critical luck is to the outcome of any single game. Little accumulations of luck -- the hardly-noticed variety -- can literally turn a 5-3 loss into a 7-2 win. If luck can alter the outcome of one game so significantly, it's going to play an outsize role in a four-win series.
The 800-pound gorilla of luck favored the Cardinals in Game 3. Where the smaller serendipities fell, it's hard to know. (I thought a generous strike zone forced the Red Sox to swing at unhittable low and outside pitches they otherwise would have ignored. The implications of that, if correct, ripple across the entire game and swamp one game-ending play.) But the bottom line is that they're part of baseball and teams just have to try to deal with them.
Fans and analysts should read the same memo.
In Game 1, the second base arbiter gakked up a call and was immediately over-ruled, with his consent, by his five brethren. A wrong was quickly righted and we could all move on with our lives.
With two outs in the ninth of a tied Game 3, the third base umpire immediately, forcefully and correctly called fielder interference and was supported by the plate ump. They made the call even thought the interference might have been unintentional and resulted in an awful conclusion to a scintillating game.
This is (yet) another example of how critical luck is to the outcome of any single game. Little accumulations of luck -- the hardly-noticed variety -- can literally turn a 5-3 loss into a 7-2 win. If luck can alter the outcome of one game so significantly, it's going to play an outsize role in a four-win series.
The 800-pound gorilla of luck favored the Cardinals in Game 3. Where the smaller serendipities fell, it's hard to know. (I thought a generous strike zone forced the Red Sox to swing at unhittable low and outside pitches they otherwise would have ignored. The implications of that, if correct, ripple across the entire game and swamp one game-ending play.) But the bottom line is that they're part of baseball and teams just have to try to deal with them.
Fans and analysts should read the same memo.
25 October 2013
World Series Observations: Milking The Teet Dry
Conventional Wisdom
The prevailing analysis now is that St. Louis is going to win the World Series because they have three of the five games at home and Wainwright and Wacha pitch at least two of them. The prevailing analysis has apparently never watched a playoff series before.
The team that wins the World Series is the team that gets to four wins first, not the team whose pitchers had a better year or were hotter or had home field advantage. Each game is its own drama. If actual talent dictated how World Series proceed, every series would go seven games.
We Have A Winner!
When St. Louis starter Michael Wacha left Game 2 after pitching the sixth inning, his team trailed 2-1. When Boston starter John Lackey left Game 2 in the seventh, his team led 2-1. The Cards scored three runs of Red Sox relievers in the seventh, making Wacha the winner and Lackey the loser. The game summary sounded like this: Wacha beats Lackey 4-2. Goodnight everybody!
One Wrong Makes A Right
Thank you to the umpires for getting the call right in Game 1. That's all that matters: get the call right. The entire planet can see when a call is wrong on replay . . . except the umpires. A guy in Nepal watching streaming video live at 11 a.m. the next day can watch the replay, but the umpires responsible for getting the calls correct can't. Jenius!
Johnny Gomes Fairy Dust
Johnny Gomes has mysteriously become the new Derek Jeter. Evidently we have to have one. It's worse with Gomes, though, because Jeter at least has talent.
The Fox crew actually made the point that while Gomes can't hit, field, run the bases or contribute much on the diamond, he is pure magic to the Red Sox because of his bonhomie. Cincinnati, Oakland and Boston all made the playoffs because Gomes spread his good cheer around the clubhouse like so much peanut butter. That he performed below replacement level for the Reds and also played for dismal teams in Tampa and Washington, are inconvenient facts that cloudy the picture of a happy-go-lucky leprechaun spreading post-season rainbows from his pot of gold on otherwise moribund teammates.
For the record, Johnny Gomes has played parts of 11 seasons, mostly in a part-time role. He has contributed roughly five wins compared to a replacement player to his employers, or less than half a win per season. His .788 lifetime OPS is about average for an outfielder, but his glove should be euthanized for its own good. He's complemented that with a putrid .350 OPS in five playoff series (though in fairness, he barely gets playing time in those crucial games.)
Gomes isn't a bad player -- he's smacked 149 lifetime home runs -- he's just . . . a guy. No team has ever made the playoffs because Johnny Gomes wears a cape with their emblem. Quite the reverse. He's been fortunate to have some really talented colleagues the last four seasons. Let's try to keep cause and effect straight.
Oh Beautiful Say Can You See
When the series returns to Boston -- if it does -- let's hope that Red Sox brass finally hangs up the Boston Marathon pathos already. They have so milked that teet dry that they had to recycle James Taylor in Game 2, much to his confusion. The bombing was a terrible tragedy and an attack on the city, but it's half a year old. Something like 20,000 people have died in car crashes nationwide since then, roughly 3,000 of them because of morons who couldn't put down their phones.
The prevailing analysis now is that St. Louis is going to win the World Series because they have three of the five games at home and Wainwright and Wacha pitch at least two of them. The prevailing analysis has apparently never watched a playoff series before.
The team that wins the World Series is the team that gets to four wins first, not the team whose pitchers had a better year or were hotter or had home field advantage. Each game is its own drama. If actual talent dictated how World Series proceed, every series would go seven games.
We Have A Winner!
When St. Louis starter Michael Wacha left Game 2 after pitching the sixth inning, his team trailed 2-1. When Boston starter John Lackey left Game 2 in the seventh, his team led 2-1. The Cards scored three runs of Red Sox relievers in the seventh, making Wacha the winner and Lackey the loser. The game summary sounded like this: Wacha beats Lackey 4-2. Goodnight everybody!
One Wrong Makes A Right
Thank you to the umpires for getting the call right in Game 1. That's all that matters: get the call right. The entire planet can see when a call is wrong on replay . . . except the umpires. A guy in Nepal watching streaming video live at 11 a.m. the next day can watch the replay, but the umpires responsible for getting the calls correct can't. Jenius!
Johnny Gomes Fairy Dust
Johnny Gomes has mysteriously become the new Derek Jeter. Evidently we have to have one. It's worse with Gomes, though, because Jeter at least has talent.
The Fox crew actually made the point that while Gomes can't hit, field, run the bases or contribute much on the diamond, he is pure magic to the Red Sox because of his bonhomie. Cincinnati, Oakland and Boston all made the playoffs because Gomes spread his good cheer around the clubhouse like so much peanut butter. That he performed below replacement level for the Reds and also played for dismal teams in Tampa and Washington, are inconvenient facts that cloudy the picture of a happy-go-lucky leprechaun spreading post-season rainbows from his pot of gold on otherwise moribund teammates.
For the record, Johnny Gomes has played parts of 11 seasons, mostly in a part-time role. He has contributed roughly five wins compared to a replacement player to his employers, or less than half a win per season. His .788 lifetime OPS is about average for an outfielder, but his glove should be euthanized for its own good. He's complemented that with a putrid .350 OPS in five playoff series (though in fairness, he barely gets playing time in those crucial games.)
Gomes isn't a bad player -- he's smacked 149 lifetime home runs -- he's just . . . a guy. No team has ever made the playoffs because Johnny Gomes wears a cape with their emblem. Quite the reverse. He's been fortunate to have some really talented colleagues the last four seasons. Let's try to keep cause and effect straight.
Oh Beautiful Say Can You See
When the series returns to Boston -- if it does -- let's hope that Red Sox brass finally hangs up the Boston Marathon pathos already. They have so milked that teet dry that they had to recycle James Taylor in Game 2, much to his confusion. The bombing was a terrible tragedy and an attack on the city, but it's half a year old. Something like 20,000 people have died in car crashes nationwide since then, roughly 3,000 of them because of morons who couldn't put down their phones.
23 October 2013
Who Will Win the World Series
On the day after the San Francisco Giants agreed to pour about $10 million too much into Tim Lincecum's bank account...
(I mean, really, the guy has been a below-average pitcher for the past two years. If the G-men have some reason to believe in a Freaky return, fine, but they don't have to pay him like it. $14.1 million for one year would qualify them for compensation if he bolts, and that's more than he deserves. A two-year, $24.1 million offer would have been more than fair and barely justifiable.)
If you want to have a good laugh, read the "analysis" being done of the World Series. You'll particularly love the ubiquitous position-by-position comparisons, as if Dustin Pedroia lines up across the line of scrimmage from Matt Carpenter.
Any analysis at all of the teams' strengths is largely irrelevant in a seven-game series. The better team is going to lose the series 40% of the time even when it's clear which one is better. A quick perusal of the Cards and Sox reveals that this one really is a toss-up. Here's why:
Both these teams are among the top five hitting teams in their league. Cardinal shortstop Pete Kozma is the only soft spot in either starting lineup. You can expect plenty of offense throughout both lineups -- unless you can't. Predicting how teams will hit in a seven-game series is a fool's errand; witness the playoff series that got the two squads here in which neither showed much life at the plate, absent a pair of grand slams.
Both teams have top five pitching. The Cards have the edge at the top: they own the single best starter in the series in Adam Wainwright. They might own the second-best too if Michael Wacha, who'd thrown all of 60 innings in his Major League career prior to the playoffs, continues his run of terror. Expecting Wacha to strangle Boston the way he did the Dodgers is like expecting a solar eclipse the day after seeing one. The Red Sox are nothing like free-swinging L.A. -- they saw more pitches per game than any team in baseball. In fact, the Sox are nothing like any team Wacha has ever seen. With the DH, at least in his first start, Boston will throw one above-average hitter after another at him. So let's go light on the Michael Wacha predictions.
If the Cards own an edge in the rotation, the Sox take it back in the pen. Trevor Rosenthal is the presumptive closer for St. Louis, but he's no Koji Uehara. Boston also has more lefties in the relief corps and a pair of starters -- Ryan Dempster and Felxi Doubront -- who can eat innings and save the bullpen from wear in a blowout or extra-inning affair.
Defense is more of a wash, primarily because, though neither team commits many errors, neither is stellar with the leather. B-Strong will be further weakened when David Ortiz shuffles to first with his mitt in Busch Stadium. Youngsters in both dugouts will give announcers plenty of opportunities to blame errors on inexperience and butterflies.
One extra game at Fenway conveys a tiny edge to the hometown team, but only if there's a Game 7. We should be so lucky. If there's an emotional lift to be had, they have the marathon bombings, but it's more likely that the statute of limitations is up on that tragedy, which they've been riding all season. The same for any revenge factor St. Louis might feel about the 2004 Series sweep. Only Yadier Molina and manager Mike Matheny (as a player) remain from that Cardinal team. (Only Big Papi from Boston.)
If you think managers make much difference, you're right. A weak tactician can diminish his side's chances. Neither of these relatively inexperienced managers has demonstrated much inclination towards bonehead moves. Frankly, each of them has a bevy of good options on the mound and at the plate.
Bottom line, a pair of teams that beat expectations and tough divisions to post 97 wins, come into the Fall Classic on a roll. Even-Steven, Bob.
Let's just slay one dragon you've already begin seeing around the ballpark. The chatter about how individuals have played in the postseason -- all of nine games for Boston and 11 for St. Louis -- is pure drivel with the predictive value of astrology. Some players may indeed be hot, or cold, or hurt. Most of them though, performed well or poorly for a few games that are now over. Shake the etch-a-sketch and play ball.
Go Saux. Go seven games.
(I mean, really, the guy has been a below-average pitcher for the past two years. If the G-men have some reason to believe in a Freaky return, fine, but they don't have to pay him like it. $14.1 million for one year would qualify them for compensation if he bolts, and that's more than he deserves. A two-year, $24.1 million offer would have been more than fair and barely justifiable.)
If you want to have a good laugh, read the "analysis" being done of the World Series. You'll particularly love the ubiquitous position-by-position comparisons, as if Dustin Pedroia lines up across the line of scrimmage from Matt Carpenter.
Any analysis at all of the teams' strengths is largely irrelevant in a seven-game series. The better team is going to lose the series 40% of the time even when it's clear which one is better. A quick perusal of the Cards and Sox reveals that this one really is a toss-up. Here's why:
Both these teams are among the top five hitting teams in their league. Cardinal shortstop Pete Kozma is the only soft spot in either starting lineup. You can expect plenty of offense throughout both lineups -- unless you can't. Predicting how teams will hit in a seven-game series is a fool's errand; witness the playoff series that got the two squads here in which neither showed much life at the plate, absent a pair of grand slams.
Both teams have top five pitching. The Cards have the edge at the top: they own the single best starter in the series in Adam Wainwright. They might own the second-best too if Michael Wacha, who'd thrown all of 60 innings in his Major League career prior to the playoffs, continues his run of terror. Expecting Wacha to strangle Boston the way he did the Dodgers is like expecting a solar eclipse the day after seeing one. The Red Sox are nothing like free-swinging L.A. -- they saw more pitches per game than any team in baseball. In fact, the Sox are nothing like any team Wacha has ever seen. With the DH, at least in his first start, Boston will throw one above-average hitter after another at him. So let's go light on the Michael Wacha predictions.
If the Cards own an edge in the rotation, the Sox take it back in the pen. Trevor Rosenthal is the presumptive closer for St. Louis, but he's no Koji Uehara. Boston also has more lefties in the relief corps and a pair of starters -- Ryan Dempster and Felxi Doubront -- who can eat innings and save the bullpen from wear in a blowout or extra-inning affair.
Defense is more of a wash, primarily because, though neither team commits many errors, neither is stellar with the leather. B-Strong will be further weakened when David Ortiz shuffles to first with his mitt in Busch Stadium. Youngsters in both dugouts will give announcers plenty of opportunities to blame errors on inexperience and butterflies.
One extra game at Fenway conveys a tiny edge to the hometown team, but only if there's a Game 7. We should be so lucky. If there's an emotional lift to be had, they have the marathon bombings, but it's more likely that the statute of limitations is up on that tragedy, which they've been riding all season. The same for any revenge factor St. Louis might feel about the 2004 Series sweep. Only Yadier Molina and manager Mike Matheny (as a player) remain from that Cardinal team. (Only Big Papi from Boston.)
If you think managers make much difference, you're right. A weak tactician can diminish his side's chances. Neither of these relatively inexperienced managers has demonstrated much inclination towards bonehead moves. Frankly, each of them has a bevy of good options on the mound and at the plate.
Bottom line, a pair of teams that beat expectations and tough divisions to post 97 wins, come into the Fall Classic on a roll. Even-Steven, Bob.
Let's just slay one dragon you've already begin seeing around the ballpark. The chatter about how individuals have played in the postseason -- all of nine games for Boston and 11 for St. Louis -- is pure drivel with the predictive value of astrology. Some players may indeed be hot, or cold, or hurt. Most of them though, performed well or poorly for a few games that are now over. Shake the etch-a-sketch and play ball.
Go Saux. Go seven games.
17 October 2013
Random Playoff Noodlings
It's been heartening to hear the sports media's temperance with respect to the Cardinals' 3-1 series lead (now 3-2 as this is being written). In previous years they would have been presiding over the Dodgers' funeral. But the analysis I've heard has all noted how St. Lou blew a 3-1 NLCS lead against the eventual champs just last season. Just because the Fat Lady is warming up doesn't mean she's got a gig tonight.
On the flip side, how about all those pitching certainties. The first four starters to lose decisions in the league championship series this year: Lester, Kershaw, Verlander, Wainwright. Pitching matchups, like home field, convey advantages, not guarantees.
Evidence we still have a long way to go: Fox still talks incessantly about player performance in the postseason, as if Shane Victorino never went 9 for 35 in eight regular season games. Until a player has accumulated 100 postseason at bats or 45 postseason innings, can we stop talking about their "clutchness" or "postseason performance?" Are Miguel Cabrera's hitting woes the result of low moral fiber or just injury? How about Prince Fielder? Do Cardinal batters suffer from a lack of clutchness in the playoffs or from Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu? Is Michael Wacha a great postseason pitcher or an amazing rookie who is still improving? The only certain truth is that I don't know and neither do you.
Some people don't like 1-0 playoff games. Some people are Communists. My advice to them is to watch roller derby.
America passed on an opportunity to vote Koji Uehara onto the All-Star team this year in the final selection ballot. The Sox closer allowed a 1.09 ERA with 42 baserunners and 101 whiffs in 74 innings. Would America like its vote back?
Mike Napoli was batting .250 with a home run in the postseason this year going into Game 5 of Boston's series with Detroit. Not very clutch. Then he went 3 for 4 in Game 5 and now he's batting .375 with two big flies and an .875 SLG. Clutch!
One thing missing from the riveting playoffs this year is a Godsend. October weather in Boston, Detroit and St. Louis has provided evidence that the big man in the sky loves America's pastime. Let's hope the World Series isn't on past His bedtime.
On the flip side, how about all those pitching certainties. The first four starters to lose decisions in the league championship series this year: Lester, Kershaw, Verlander, Wainwright. Pitching matchups, like home field, convey advantages, not guarantees.
Evidence we still have a long way to go: Fox still talks incessantly about player performance in the postseason, as if Shane Victorino never went 9 for 35 in eight regular season games. Until a player has accumulated 100 postseason at bats or 45 postseason innings, can we stop talking about their "clutchness" or "postseason performance?" Are Miguel Cabrera's hitting woes the result of low moral fiber or just injury? How about Prince Fielder? Do Cardinal batters suffer from a lack of clutchness in the playoffs or from Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu? Is Michael Wacha a great postseason pitcher or an amazing rookie who is still improving? The only certain truth is that I don't know and neither do you.
Some people don't like 1-0 playoff games. Some people are Communists. My advice to them is to watch roller derby.
America passed on an opportunity to vote Koji Uehara onto the All-Star team this year in the final selection ballot. The Sox closer allowed a 1.09 ERA with 42 baserunners and 101 whiffs in 74 innings. Would America like its vote back?
Mike Napoli was batting .250 with a home run in the postseason this year going into Game 5 of Boston's series with Detroit. Not very clutch. Then he went 3 for 4 in Game 5 and now he's batting .375 with two big flies and an .875 SLG. Clutch!
One thing missing from the riveting playoffs this year is a Godsend. October weather in Boston, Detroit and St. Louis has provided evidence that the big man in the sky loves America's pastime. Let's hope the World Series isn't on past His bedtime.
13 October 2013
Jim Leyland Doesn't Give a Rat's Ass About a No Hitter
Speculation last night in Game 1 of the ALCS about whether Tiger manager Jim Leyland would pull Anibal Sanchez following the sixth inning after 115 pitches.
After all, they noted, he had a no-hitter going.
They forgot to mention that a group of jellyfish is called a smack. And that the average February temperature in the Nunavut territories is minus-28 degrees. And that bookkeeper is the only word in English with three consecutive double letters.
All of these are facts. All of them are irrelevant to Jim Leyland's decision to pull a pitcher whose arm was coming off in Game 1 of the playoff series whose winner plays for the World Championship.
The Fox announcers decided Sanchez could go because he had only completed six innings, not eight. He wasn't close to completing the no-hitter.
Memo to them: Jim Leyland would have pulled Sanchez with two outs in the ninth and two strikes on the batter if he thought it would improve his chances of winning the game. Jim Leyland's sole concern right now is to win a World Series in Detroit. An Anibal Sanchez no-hitter is as much his concern as sales of the next Killers' album.
And that is why Jim Leyland is managing a team in the ALCS and Tim McCarver is an announcer on Fox.
After all, they noted, he had a no-hitter going.
They forgot to mention that a group of jellyfish is called a smack. And that the average February temperature in the Nunavut territories is minus-28 degrees. And that bookkeeper is the only word in English with three consecutive double letters.
All of these are facts. All of them are irrelevant to Jim Leyland's decision to pull a pitcher whose arm was coming off in Game 1 of the playoff series whose winner plays for the World Championship.
The Fox announcers decided Sanchez could go because he had only completed six innings, not eight. He wasn't close to completing the no-hitter.
Memo to them: Jim Leyland would have pulled Sanchez with two outs in the ninth and two strikes on the batter if he thought it would improve his chances of winning the game. Jim Leyland's sole concern right now is to win a World Series in Detroit. An Anibal Sanchez no-hitter is as much his concern as sales of the next Killers' album.
And that is why Jim Leyland is managing a team in the ALCS and Tim McCarver is an announcer on Fox.
12 October 2013
The Magic Sauce in St. Louis
At the end of 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals won a dramatic World Series anchored by Albert Pujols, the best player on the planet; Lance Berkman and his .959 OPS (league average, .720); Matt Holliday (.912 OPS); backstop exraordinaire Yadier Molina; starters Chris Carpenter, Kyle Lohse, and Jaime Garcia, a combined 38-24, 3.46; and closer Jason Motte. Hall of Famer Tony LaRussa skippered the over-achievers in his Major League swan song.
Then Pujols skipped town for a pot of gold, LaRussa retired, Berkman moved on, Motte fell apart, Carpenter ordered a new ulnar collateral ligament and Lohse cashed in on a career year. They're all gone. Jaime Garcia has pitched 177 innings in the intervening two years. Only Holliday and Molina stayed put and kept producing.
The Cardinals did not dip heavily into free agent waters to replace all that talent. They brought in Carlos Beltran and some spare parts. So as you can imagine, the franchise has declined...to pause in its pursuit of another title. They won the toughest division in baseball, achieved the best record in the National League and now pose a World Series return threat.
If you're tired of the Redbirds, join the club. But don't fail to appreciate this unbelievable franchise, the best in the game at producing winning teams without spending significant fractions of a billion dollars. In two years, they have developed an MVP-candidate second baseman (Matt Carpenter), a post-season hero third baseman (David Freese), an RBI-machine first baseman (Allen Craig), a solid center fielder (Jon Jay), and possibly the best of them all, a slugging first baseman with 17 home runs in half a rookie season (Matt Adams).
And that's less than half the story. After welcoming back Adam Wainwright following TJ surgery, St. Louis turned into a pitcher nursery this season, with six hurlers under 26 throwing 50 innings or more impressively. That doesn't count 23-year-old lefty Kevin Siegrist, who only accumulated 40 frames, during which he allowed two runs on 17 hits and fanned 50. Just 22, rookie Shelby Miller bollixed NL batters to the tune of 15-9, 3.06 in the role of #2 starter.
It's impossible from this perch to determine whether GM John Mozeliak is a brilliant drafter or whether the franchise, in the shadow of Branch Rickey, excels at developing talent. Likely a combination. Either way, the Cards were the NL's second-best hitting and fifth-best pitching squad in the NL this year, en route to 97 wins.
It's funny to think about the money-greased Dodgers as upstarts against the child care center representing St. Louis, but with three World Series and two League Championship appearances in the last decade, the Cardinals present an aura of steady accomplishment. Just remember they're doing it not with Benjamins but with brains.
Then Pujols skipped town for a pot of gold, LaRussa retired, Berkman moved on, Motte fell apart, Carpenter ordered a new ulnar collateral ligament and Lohse cashed in on a career year. They're all gone. Jaime Garcia has pitched 177 innings in the intervening two years. Only Holliday and Molina stayed put and kept producing.
The Cardinals did not dip heavily into free agent waters to replace all that talent. They brought in Carlos Beltran and some spare parts. So as you can imagine, the franchise has declined...to pause in its pursuit of another title. They won the toughest division in baseball, achieved the best record in the National League and now pose a World Series return threat.
If you're tired of the Redbirds, join the club. But don't fail to appreciate this unbelievable franchise, the best in the game at producing winning teams without spending significant fractions of a billion dollars. In two years, they have developed an MVP-candidate second baseman (Matt Carpenter), a post-season hero third baseman (David Freese), an RBI-machine first baseman (Allen Craig), a solid center fielder (Jon Jay), and possibly the best of them all, a slugging first baseman with 17 home runs in half a rookie season (Matt Adams).
And that's less than half the story. After welcoming back Adam Wainwright following TJ surgery, St. Louis turned into a pitcher nursery this season, with six hurlers under 26 throwing 50 innings or more impressively. That doesn't count 23-year-old lefty Kevin Siegrist, who only accumulated 40 frames, during which he allowed two runs on 17 hits and fanned 50. Just 22, rookie Shelby Miller bollixed NL batters to the tune of 15-9, 3.06 in the role of #2 starter.
It's impossible from this perch to determine whether GM John Mozeliak is a brilliant drafter or whether the franchise, in the shadow of Branch Rickey, excels at developing talent. Likely a combination. Either way, the Cards were the NL's second-best hitting and fifth-best pitching squad in the NL this year, en route to 97 wins.
It's funny to think about the money-greased Dodgers as upstarts against the child care center representing St. Louis, but with three World Series and two League Championship appearances in the last decade, the Cardinals present an aura of steady accomplishment. Just remember they're doing it not with Benjamins but with brains.
05 October 2013
Hey, Who Took My Momentum?!
After all these years of inquiries about the nature of this effable quality so many call "momentum," Major League Baseball has finally provided clarity. Here is today's headline about the St. Louis-Pittsburgh NLDS series, knotted at a game apiece following the Bucs' 7-1 victory.
Strategy Shifts Momentum in Pirates' Favor
So there you go. Momentum is . . . a win. A single nine-inning triumph, according to the official mouthpiece of MLB, constitutes momentum. A team secures one of these on-field victories, much as it had done 94 times during the season, including 10 times against the opponent in question, and it suddenly has this . . . thing, momentum.
Before that one victory, evidently, the Pirates did not have momentum. In fact, it appears that Major League Baseball asserts that the Cardinals, with their 9-1 win the previous day, took custody of momentum until it was transferred the following evening to Pittsburgh, much like Baby Veronica recently got shuffled from her adoptive parents in South Carolina to her biological father in Oklahmoa and back to the adoptive couple. Apparently, the Capobiancos now have momentum, as well as Veronica. The difference there is that their fight for momentum required court rulings, bench warrants, extradition requests, arrest threats and the intervention of an entire Indian tribe, whereas the Pirates merely had to build a lead and get three outs in the ninth.
The two teams will play again, twice, in PNC Park, where, we are to infer, momentum will be up for grabs, like the Little Brown Jug in the Michigan-Minnesota football rivalry. The magic power of Pittsburgh's momentous Game 2 victory will shrivel to irrelevance as momentum is bestowed upon Game 3's winner, and then presumably transferred back again after Game 4 and so on. If the series goes back and forth to a deciding Game 5, momentum will have been tossed about like a hot potato until it suddenly evaporates in the wake of actual elimination.
God help poor momentum in a back-and-forth seven-game series. It must get vertigo spinning around from one club to the other until finally falling exhausted into the prevailing dugout.
Before PETA and the ACLU get hot and bothered about the inhumane treatment of momentum, there is good news. This wanton abuse of momentum is a figment of everyone's imagination because . . . momentum is a figment of everyone's imagination. In a five-game series, the survivor must win three games, not two and not one. Winning the first game does not convey any special advantage except banking one of those three wins. Being up two games-to-none, or two-to-one, or whatever, has proved pretty thin gruel (see: 2012 San Francisco Giants) for teams unable to close the deal. Each game is a separate entity beholden to that day's starting pitchers, game conditions, lineups, tweaks of strategy, luck, more luck and a host of other factors.
Someone has to win Game 3. What they will have then is two wins and nothing more. They will still need to outscore the other team in one of the two remaining contests, and momentum is not going to help them one iota.
Strategy Shifts Momentum in Pirates' Favor
So there you go. Momentum is . . . a win. A single nine-inning triumph, according to the official mouthpiece of MLB, constitutes momentum. A team secures one of these on-field victories, much as it had done 94 times during the season, including 10 times against the opponent in question, and it suddenly has this . . . thing, momentum.
Before that one victory, evidently, the Pirates did not have momentum. In fact, it appears that Major League Baseball asserts that the Cardinals, with their 9-1 win the previous day, took custody of momentum until it was transferred the following evening to Pittsburgh, much like Baby Veronica recently got shuffled from her adoptive parents in South Carolina to her biological father in Oklahmoa and back to the adoptive couple. Apparently, the Capobiancos now have momentum, as well as Veronica. The difference there is that their fight for momentum required court rulings, bench warrants, extradition requests, arrest threats and the intervention of an entire Indian tribe, whereas the Pirates merely had to build a lead and get three outs in the ninth.
The two teams will play again, twice, in PNC Park, where, we are to infer, momentum will be up for grabs, like the Little Brown Jug in the Michigan-Minnesota football rivalry. The magic power of Pittsburgh's momentous Game 2 victory will shrivel to irrelevance as momentum is bestowed upon Game 3's winner, and then presumably transferred back again after Game 4 and so on. If the series goes back and forth to a deciding Game 5, momentum will have been tossed about like a hot potato until it suddenly evaporates in the wake of actual elimination.
God help poor momentum in a back-and-forth seven-game series. It must get vertigo spinning around from one club to the other until finally falling exhausted into the prevailing dugout.
Before PETA and the ACLU get hot and bothered about the inhumane treatment of momentum, there is good news. This wanton abuse of momentum is a figment of everyone's imagination because . . . momentum is a figment of everyone's imagination. In a five-game series, the survivor must win three games, not two and not one. Winning the first game does not convey any special advantage except banking one of those three wins. Being up two games-to-none, or two-to-one, or whatever, has proved pretty thin gruel (see: 2012 San Francisco Giants) for teams unable to close the deal. Each game is a separate entity beholden to that day's starting pitchers, game conditions, lineups, tweaks of strategy, luck, more luck and a host of other factors.
Someone has to win Game 3. What they will have then is two wins and nothing more. They will still need to outscore the other team in one of the two remaining contests, and momentum is not going to help them one iota.
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