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.
Showing posts with label Pirates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pirates. Show all posts
05 October 2013
30 June 2009
A World Series Good Luck Charm?
If Eric Hinske isn't the luckiest man in the world, it's because Ringo is still alive.
Two years ago, Hinske picked up a championship ring while collecting splinters for the Red Sox. The corner infielder/outfielder contributed two home runs and a .317 OBP pinch hitting and spot starting for the rouge hose.
Last year, Hinske chipped in 20 dingers but a mediocre .798 OPS for the AL champion Rays, while anchoring right field.
This year, the 31-year-old former Rookie of the Year was relegated to purgatory, signing a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he's blended seamlessly into the general level of futility. His World Series streak was certain to end at two.
Until today, when the Bucs sent Hinske to the Yankees for a pair of minor league non-prospects. Hinske will provide a lefty bat and badly-needed defensive versatility to the Yankees, and ironically replace injured Xavier Nady, whom the Pirates dumped for prospects last year.
The Pirates have nothing to lose in jettisoning Hinske, who has never replicated his impressive debut. However, it's doubtful that they got much in return in a pair of 23-year-old Single-A players. Casey Ericson has looked sharp here in Charleston out of the pen, but he's facing adolescents at this level. The same can be said for Florida State League outfielder Eric Fryer, batting .250 so far this year. Each has a long way to go in a short time for this to pay off for the Steel City.
b
Two years ago, Hinske picked up a championship ring while collecting splinters for the Red Sox. The corner infielder/outfielder contributed two home runs and a .317 OBP pinch hitting and spot starting for the rouge hose.
Last year, Hinske chipped in 20 dingers but a mediocre .798 OPS for the AL champion Rays, while anchoring right field.
This year, the 31-year-old former Rookie of the Year was relegated to purgatory, signing a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he's blended seamlessly into the general level of futility. His World Series streak was certain to end at two.
Until today, when the Bucs sent Hinske to the Yankees for a pair of minor league non-prospects. Hinske will provide a lefty bat and badly-needed defensive versatility to the Yankees, and ironically replace injured Xavier Nady, whom the Pirates dumped for prospects last year.
The Pirates have nothing to lose in jettisoning Hinske, who has never replicated his impressive debut. However, it's doubtful that they got much in return in a pair of 23-year-old Single-A players. Casey Ericson has looked sharp here in Charleston out of the pen, but he's facing adolescents at this level. The same can be said for Florida State League outfielder Eric Fryer, batting .250 so far this year. Each has a long way to go in a short time for this to pay off for the Steel City.
b
05 June 2009
Getting A Clue in Pittsburgh
Trades lift the veil from a baseball front office regarding its philosophy and sophistication. The recent trade between Atlanta and Pittsburgh tells us that both franchises are moving in the right direction.
Deals involving players still in the larval stage are always hard to evaluate because what's changing hands is potential. In the Nate McLouth for three minor leaguers swap, we know what McLouth is, but few of us are in any position to make pass intelligent judgment on the others.
This much is clear, however: the days of Pirates brass grasping willy-nilly at bent straws is long gone. Ding dong the witch is dead. Not that happy days are here again -- the Bucs have another couple of losing campaigns in front of them -- but at least they have a clue. Trading players whose best days aren't ahead of them in order to stockpile prospects is a proven strategy. (See Marlins, Florida.) Whether these are the right prospects, we'll have to wait and see.
First, about McLouth and Atlanta. The Braves believe that Jordan Schafer is their future in center, but he's clearly not their present. He did a half-Mendoza with more strikeouts than at-bats (no, not really) in his 50 games with the big club before they did him the favor of returning him to the mother ship. The Mets and Phils have their issues, leading Atlanta GM Frank Wren to believe that his club can win the division this year with some wise personnel management. So he traded for a guy who is pretty clearly what he is: a .270 hitter with 30-home run power who can play a presentable center field. On the Braves, that qualifies as the superstar of the outfield when you consider the other flotsam and jetsam that washes up against Turner Field's walls.
By all accounts of the cogniscenti, McLouth's Gold Glove last year was a figment of the highlight reels and the imagination of baseball writers without imagination. They say he's a corner outfielder pressed into service, which is complimenting with faint criticism. McLouth is 27 and signed for three years at a reasonable price, making him an appealing catch for whom the Pirates hoped they could capture a windfall.
Whether they did is the open question. Gorkys Hernandez is an almost-ready outfielder with Brett Butler power. Charlie Morton is a promising pitcher, but so are lots of guys you never heard of. Jeff Locke, is a heat thrower who has yet to find the plate in Single-A. It could be, in the words of the Roches, a Big Nuthin'. It could pay dividends for years, just when the Pirates are ready to shine. What they gave up is a guy who will probably begin declining just when that time arrives.
So give the Pirates credit for their patience and recognition that you build a team from the bottom up. Give the Braves credit for striking while the iron is hot. Credit them further for demonstrating that sentimentality and winning are mutually exclusive, and dumping Tom Glavine in favor of better pitchers. Glavine is a HOFer and a good guy, but he's Atlanta's sixth, or maybe seventh, best pitcher. And that is not a guy who's going to help them win.
There's a decent chance that both these teams will lose more games than they win this year. But they both seem to have front offices who have the big picture in mind.
b
Deals involving players still in the larval stage are always hard to evaluate because what's changing hands is potential. In the Nate McLouth for three minor leaguers swap, we know what McLouth is, but few of us are in any position to make pass intelligent judgment on the others.
This much is clear, however: the days of Pirates brass grasping willy-nilly at bent straws is long gone. Ding dong the witch is dead. Not that happy days are here again -- the Bucs have another couple of losing campaigns in front of them -- but at least they have a clue. Trading players whose best days aren't ahead of them in order to stockpile prospects is a proven strategy. (See Marlins, Florida.) Whether these are the right prospects, we'll have to wait and see.
First, about McLouth and Atlanta. The Braves believe that Jordan Schafer is their future in center, but he's clearly not their present. He did a half-Mendoza with more strikeouts than at-bats (no, not really) in his 50 games with the big club before they did him the favor of returning him to the mother ship. The Mets and Phils have their issues, leading Atlanta GM Frank Wren to believe that his club can win the division this year with some wise personnel management. So he traded for a guy who is pretty clearly what he is: a .270 hitter with 30-home run power who can play a presentable center field. On the Braves, that qualifies as the superstar of the outfield when you consider the other flotsam and jetsam that washes up against Turner Field's walls.
By all accounts of the cogniscenti, McLouth's Gold Glove last year was a figment of the highlight reels and the imagination of baseball writers without imagination. They say he's a corner outfielder pressed into service, which is complimenting with faint criticism. McLouth is 27 and signed for three years at a reasonable price, making him an appealing catch for whom the Pirates hoped they could capture a windfall.
Whether they did is the open question. Gorkys Hernandez is an almost-ready outfielder with Brett Butler power. Charlie Morton is a promising pitcher, but so are lots of guys you never heard of. Jeff Locke, is a heat thrower who has yet to find the plate in Single-A. It could be, in the words of the Roches, a Big Nuthin'. It could pay dividends for years, just when the Pirates are ready to shine. What they gave up is a guy who will probably begin declining just when that time arrives.
So give the Pirates credit for their patience and recognition that you build a team from the bottom up. Give the Braves credit for striking while the iron is hot. Credit them further for demonstrating that sentimentality and winning are mutually exclusive, and dumping Tom Glavine in favor of better pitchers. Glavine is a HOFer and a good guy, but he's Atlanta's sixth, or maybe seventh, best pitcher. And that is not a guy who's going to help them win.
There's a decent chance that both these teams will lose more games than they win this year. But they both seem to have front offices who have the big picture in mind.
b
22 April 2009
Coupla Quick Hits
How good is Roy Halladay? The box score in my newspaper says the accomplished Texas offense "roughed him up" last night by scoring five times. Okay, but Halladay pitched eight innings, surrendered eight hits, walked nobody and struck out nine. If that's roughing him up, your team is doomed if he has a mediocre start against you.
The same paper celebrates the "surging" Pirates following its win over Florida...its second in a row. If that's a surge, I can leave my computer plugged in during a lightning storm. In case you're wondering, Pittsburgh is 6-4 in its last 10. Look out respectability!
There's a larger point here: there are no trends in the first 15 games of the season, so you can stop looking for them. They haven't even played one-tenth of the season. Today's team looks very different than the one that ends the campaign, whether because of injuries, performance, trades, call-ups or some combination of all of them.
More importantly, it's way too early for conclusions. If a team wins 22 of 30, okay, that's a trend. A couple in a row -- against the same team? C'mon.
b
The same paper celebrates the "surging" Pirates following its win over Florida...its second in a row. If that's a surge, I can leave my computer plugged in during a lightning storm. In case you're wondering, Pittsburgh is 6-4 in its last 10. Look out respectability!
There's a larger point here: there are no trends in the first 15 games of the season, so you can stop looking for them. They haven't even played one-tenth of the season. Today's team looks very different than the one that ends the campaign, whether because of injuries, performance, trades, call-ups or some combination of all of them.
More importantly, it's way too early for conclusions. If a team wins 22 of 30, okay, that's a trend. A couple in a row -- against the same team? C'mon.
b
24 December 2008
Stirrings in the Cellar
The Pittsburgh Pirates failed to sign any significant free agents this off-season, nearly guaranteeing themselves yet a record 17th consecutive losing season.
Good for them. They're finally on the right track towards success. If anyone doubts this, may I present the Tampa Bay Rays.
Remember 2000, when the Devil Rays cashed in their draft chips for sluggers Jose Canseco, Fred McGriff and Vinny Castillo three years beyond their expiration dates? Calling that the "Hit Show" was a typo: they left out an "S." Remember 2003, when the same desperate outfit relinquished a useful cog in their youth movement -- Randy Winn -- for a manager? A manager! Billy Beane must have peed his pants over that one.
The erstwhile Devil, now Rays, learned their lessons the hard way and turned a six-pack of first picks into the talented core that skipped to the World Series last season. And that is what you call a blueprint.
It's a blueprint that president Frank Coonelly and GM Neil Huntington have demonstrated they will follow carefully in the Steel City. The trades during the 2008 campaign of Xavier Nady's career year, Damaso Marte and Jason Bay for a boatload of youngsters is the right idea not withstanding questions about the quality of the haul. During the offseason they dangled aging shortstop Jack Wilson to the rest of MLB, recognizing that his halcyon days, such as they were, will not coincide with the franchise's. When no one appeared desperate enough to offer attractive prospects for him, the Pirates put him back in their pocket for in-season discussions with a contender that loses its shortstop and is willing to pony up what Pittsburgh needs.
The team now has an intriguing roster of young (and inexpensive) pitchers -- Snell, Duke, Gorzellany, Maholm -- and players -- Ryan Doumit, the LaRoches, Freddy Sanchez and Jose Tabata that is at least two years and two sluggers away from contention, a country mile closer than they've been all century.
Peter Angelos, of all people, is learning this lesson as well. After dabbling in the decrepit sluggers market (Miguel Tejada, Javy Lopez, Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa) with disastrous results three years ago, the Orioles reversed field last year and dropped the Human Insurance Premium Inflator, Erik Bedard, on Seattle for mega-prospect Adam (not Pac Man) Jones and a package of minor league hurlers.
The Orioles' pitch for Mark Teixeira last week was based on the presumption that he'll be productive long after Jones, Ryan Freel and some minor league call-ups ripen. Baltimore is at once farther along and farther from contention than Pittsburgh because they play in the AL Beast. They will need to cultivate the farm and enter the Big Boy auction each year, making sure to get the right parts -- as Teixeira would have been -- in tandem with the development of their prospects. More than anything, the O's need pitching, pitching and more pitching.
Why are teams suddenly figuring it out? One part of the answer is obvious: there are no longer any Major League franchises operating on the outmoded principles of the 1970s. Every club has a stable of analysts crunching the numbers like Bill James in Boston, Keith Woolner in Cleveland and Oakland's Billy Beane. While baseball reporters still hang their hats on misleading stats like RBIs and pitching wins, every team in baseball understands the superiority of VORP (value over replacement player) EQA (a hitter's value expressed in a single number that looks like a batting average, but taking into account his on-base ability, base runing and power) and other more subtle and revealing measurements. The inefficiencies in the baseball marketplace that Oakland cherry-picked for a decade are now smaller and more difficult to exploit, because everyone is doing the same thing, at least to some degree.
GMs don't have the luxury that columnists and broadcasters have to be 30 years behind the state of the art, because the results of their stupidity are published in the sports section daily. The columnist versions of Dave Littlefield -- he of no clue -- are voting members of the BBWAA enjoying job security and devoted followings.
Good for them. They're finally on the right track towards success. If anyone doubts this, may I present the Tampa Bay Rays.
Remember 2000, when the Devil Rays cashed in their draft chips for sluggers Jose Canseco, Fred McGriff and Vinny Castillo three years beyond their expiration dates? Calling that the "Hit Show" was a typo: they left out an "S." Remember 2003, when the same desperate outfit relinquished a useful cog in their youth movement -- Randy Winn -- for a manager? A manager! Billy Beane must have peed his pants over that one.
The erstwhile Devil, now Rays, learned their lessons the hard way and turned a six-pack of first picks into the talented core that skipped to the World Series last season. And that is what you call a blueprint.
It's a blueprint that president Frank Coonelly and GM Neil Huntington have demonstrated they will follow carefully in the Steel City. The trades during the 2008 campaign of Xavier Nady's career year, Damaso Marte and Jason Bay for a boatload of youngsters is the right idea not withstanding questions about the quality of the haul. During the offseason they dangled aging shortstop Jack Wilson to the rest of MLB, recognizing that his halcyon days, such as they were, will not coincide with the franchise's. When no one appeared desperate enough to offer attractive prospects for him, the Pirates put him back in their pocket for in-season discussions with a contender that loses its shortstop and is willing to pony up what Pittsburgh needs.
The team now has an intriguing roster of young (and inexpensive) pitchers -- Snell, Duke, Gorzellany, Maholm -- and players -- Ryan Doumit, the LaRoches, Freddy Sanchez and Jose Tabata that is at least two years and two sluggers away from contention, a country mile closer than they've been all century.
Peter Angelos, of all people, is learning this lesson as well. After dabbling in the decrepit sluggers market (Miguel Tejada, Javy Lopez, Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa) with disastrous results three years ago, the Orioles reversed field last year and dropped the Human Insurance Premium Inflator, Erik Bedard, on Seattle for mega-prospect Adam (not Pac Man) Jones and a package of minor league hurlers.
The Orioles' pitch for Mark Teixeira last week was based on the presumption that he'll be productive long after Jones, Ryan Freel and some minor league call-ups ripen. Baltimore is at once farther along and farther from contention than Pittsburgh because they play in the AL Beast. They will need to cultivate the farm and enter the Big Boy auction each year, making sure to get the right parts -- as Teixeira would have been -- in tandem with the development of their prospects. More than anything, the O's need pitching, pitching and more pitching.
Why are teams suddenly figuring it out? One part of the answer is obvious: there are no longer any Major League franchises operating on the outmoded principles of the 1970s. Every club has a stable of analysts crunching the numbers like Bill James in Boston, Keith Woolner in Cleveland and Oakland's Billy Beane. While baseball reporters still hang their hats on misleading stats like RBIs and pitching wins, every team in baseball understands the superiority of VORP (value over replacement player) EQA (a hitter's value expressed in a single number that looks like a batting average, but taking into account his on-base ability, base runing and power) and other more subtle and revealing measurements. The inefficiencies in the baseball marketplace that Oakland cherry-picked for a decade are now smaller and more difficult to exploit, because everyone is doing the same thing, at least to some degree.
GMs don't have the luxury that columnists and broadcasters have to be 30 years behind the state of the art, because the results of their stupidity are published in the sports section daily. The columnist versions of Dave Littlefield -- he of no clue -- are voting members of the BBWAA enjoying job security and devoted followings.
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