WAR on Fox! WAR on Fox!

Mark down this date: April 6, 2013.

That's the date that Fox's baseball coverage included discussions of OPS and WAR. Hallelujah!

Joe Buck introduced both notions without snark or derision. He explained the acronyms (On-base Plus Slugging and Wins Against Replacement) and discussed how they are calculated.

In the first discussion, Buck demurred a bit, noting that OPS is hard to calculate. But Fox inserted Ken Rosenthal into the discussion to explain that sabermetricans and front offices prefer OPS to batting average and home runs. Fox may have been setting the stage for using OBP stats in the future by having Rosenthal aver that on base percentage is more meaningful than batting average.

This is a true advance. But Fox wasn't done.

With Miguel Cabrera at the plate, Buck introduced the viewer to WAR. He explained how -- and why! -- Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera earned just the fourth highest WAR in MLB last year. 

Supported by a Fox graphic listing the top four WARriors in 2012, Buck explained how Cabrera would fare less well because he's only an offensive force. He noted that Mike Trout, first by far on that list with nearly 11 wins against replacement, runs the bases and plays defense.

It's truly a watershed when a major TV network intransigent in its opposition to advanced metrics finally acknowledges that there is a better alternative to batting average and home runs. Kudos to Fox for accepting what has been proven and helping educate average fans.

The next giant leap will occur when Rosenthal explains on air to Buck the other key element of WAR. The three players ahead of Cabrera on the WAR list are center fielder Trout, second baseman Robinson Cano and catcher Buster Posey. Each plays a more difficult position and is being compared to weaker hitters than a third baseman, if that's what you want to call Cabrera.

And the battle will finally be won when they both explain it to the satisfaction of Tim McCarver.

World Series Musings

Strike Three

We've become accustomed to the strike-zone illustrations demonstrating where each pitch is, but there's one small group of people that will never see this useful tool -- the umpires! The baseball world has gone mad.

Baseball literally has the technology to replace the home plate umpire with perfection. Instead, it chooses the reverse. Umpires not only are imperfect in their calculation of the strike zone, they seem to be free to interpret it any way they like. Any of the variations on the not-uncommon theme that an umpire "has a high strike zone" or is "giving the pitcher the outside corner" is absurd and now illustrated vividly pitch by pitch on your large-screen, high definition TV.

The strike zone is baseball's manifestation of our political culture, where truth is subordinate to volume. I think baseball ought to be focused on ball-and-strike truth, not an arbiter's opinion, particularly when the arbiter seems to be free to devise his own rules as they game progresses.

Juan For the Road

He's bounced through three organizations in 10 years staffing three infield positions and producing a lackluster.256/.300/.431 lifetime line. He's built like a refrigerator and doesn't look like he could steal a base off an Eephus pitch. But the more you watch Juan Uribe, the more impressed you have to be.

Despite his girth, Uribe is a twinkled-toed third baseman who moves to his left as well as anyone. A one-man ERA-deflator, he's saved the Giants several runs on defense this post-season. When he's filling in at short or second, as he did when Mark DeRosa was healthy and Edgar Renteria wasn't, his 24-home-run power is an asset, despite his on-base deficiencies.

I won't deface this post by alluding to Uribe's post-season performance, as if that small sample of games is somehow indicative of some character trait. Besides, Uribe has two walks and 12 strikeouts in his 12 post-season games so far, accompanying a game-breaking three-run blast in Game One of the World Series. The larger point is this -- playoffs magnify performance, in part because players are on national display for multiple games at a time. 

Call it the Derek Jeter effect, although there are probably several of those. Much of Jeter's renown is a product of our familiarity with his talent from the playoffs. We're more personally and viscerally connected to the exploits of guys whose world class abilities are in our living room nightly. Watching Juan Uribe play a couple of games a year, spread over five months, doesn't make much impact on us, but a concentrated sample of his work gives us greater appreciation. Perhaps if the Giants made the playoffs with Uribe in the lineup for the next five years, he'd be a much more heralded player.

The Buck's Gotta Stop

Joe Buck's the most-watched and highest-paid baseball announcer in the world, wouldn't you think? The ability to entertain and inform people extemporaneously via broadcast media is a rare gift that I acknowledge and admire. It's easy to take shots at people who must speak for three hours without a script five nights-a-week.

But it is reasonable to ask those talents to be informed about their subjects. Joe Buck 2010 ought to know something about the game that Jack Buck 1975 didn't. On that point, alas.

On Jeff Francoeur, the over-talented major league bust whom the Rangers over-hopefully picked up in August after the Mets finally cut bait, Buck demonstrated that he has no idea what makes a successful ballplayer.

Buck recounted what a promising rookie campaign Francoeur had, batting .300 with 14 home runs in half a season, how Francoeur had pounded 29 homers in his sophomore season and how he'd knocked in 100+ runs twice for the Braves.

But if there is a consistent theme in Jeff Francoeur's career it's that he has no idea where the strike zone is. For his career -- now more than 3,400 plate appearances -- Francoeur has walked just 168 times, or about 29 times per 600 trips to the plate. He whiffs four times as often, largely because pitchers know he swings at bad pitches. Other great talents have burned up on the same funeral pyre.

The result is a lifetime .310 OBP, which is more important than his batting average, home run total, RBI count or anything else Joe Buck can name. It is the window on Francoeur's under-whelming career, which the highest-paid baseball announcer in the world still doesn't know how to -- or even why to -- open. It's not the only example of Buck's willful ignorance, but it's the most poignant.

Francoeur's at bat was instructive. The now-bearded outfielder flailed at two outside pitches and then took a called strike three. The lesson escaped the most-watched announcer in baseball.

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Sanity In An Insane World

As usual, Fox subjected me again this Saturday to the Yankees, without whom apparently baseball would not exist. I live 750 miles from NY, but get the Yankees telecast probably half the time. Add in the Mets and Braves (ostensibly my home team) and you have nearly 100% of the games we digital box users get to see.

In any case, the Yankees once again held their opponent to under four touchdowns, limiting the Red Sox to 16 runs. Of course, being the home team, Boston didn't bat in the 9th and since they failed to get out of the gate against AJ Burnett in the first four innings, they tallied all 16 scores from the 5th through 8th frames. The game exposed the Yankees' two major weaknesses: utterly no bench and worse relief than Srebrenica. Because he's forced to carry 13 pitchers, Joe Girardi is out of options after he pinch hits twice.

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It was fun to note how fickle this game is. Reigning MVP Dustin Pedroia committed a costly baserunning gaffe with a man on third to extinguish an inning and then Bucknered an inning-ending grounder into a two-run, game tying error. Meanwhile reputed gamer Derek Jeter fanned in a critical situation. (I believe there was second and third with one out in a one-run game.) Even Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, who by their own on-air admission stifle orgasms everytime they mention Jeter's name, were forced to admit that it was the biggest at-bat in the contest up to that point.

Meanwhile, AJ Burnett cruised through the first four innings and then coughed up a hairball in the fifth, serving up a bases-juiced tater to former Major Leaguer Jason Varitek. ( You may be too young to remember when he could hit.) For Mike Lowell, on the other hand, it was a moral victory if he could just make contact against Burnett in the first five innings; he ended up with a homer, a double and six RBIs.

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Though he was ineffective for the first five innings, Josh Beckett found himself staked to an 8-6 lead heading into the top of the 6th. At that point, McCarver opined that Terry Francona is a moron. Well, he didn't say it quite that way; what he said was that Francona was sending Beckett back into the fray so he could get the win. If Terry Francona is managing so that his players can compile personal statistics -- meaningless ones at that -- he is mentally retarded. I say this with all due respect to people with mental retardation, and I think we can all agree that no such person should be the field manager of a $100 million enterprise. Based on that comment, I guess we can include Mr. McCarver. (Also worth noting: Beckett was already positioned to chalk up the W.)

Fortunately for Saux Nation, Francona did no such thing. He sent out Beckett either because he thought the right-hander had found his way in the scoreless 5th or because his bullpen was worn out from the previous night's 11-inning affair. As it turned out, Beckett surrendered two more runs without recording an out and was long gone by the time Hideki Okajima was "credited" with the win.

Okajima "earned" the win by getting an out to end the seventh inning, watching his team score three runs in the bottom of the frame to provide a two-run cushion, and then sitting on the bench and admiring the work of Ramon Ramirez, who shut down the Yankees in the 8th. This was highly necessary after Okajima allowed half the lead to disappear when he grooved one to Robby Cano, who redirected it some 400 feet in the other direction. Of course, on an afternoon when Beckett and Burnett each pitched five innings, gave up eight runs and avoided being charged with a loss, Okajima's performance appeared win-worthy.

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