Dan (windowless office): Should we ignore the Hit List while interleague play is going on? It's making a hash of the standings...will it make a hash of the List as well?
JJ: Good question. The past few years have seen a considerable advantage for the AL when it comes to interleague play, and those results have shown up in the AL's dominance of the Hit List. This year the NL looked much stronger early on, but the AL now holds a 48-40 record in interleague play, and they've actually got four of the top six spots on the most recent Hit List. Just as I've been skeptical about the early season scoring dip, I've retained a good deal of skepticism when it comes to those who say the balance of power has shifted to the NL. I see the interleague results as more of a correction than anything else.
johnpark99 (Boston): Jay, for a while now, your Hit Lists have had the A's ranked significantly higher than the Angels, even though the Angels have the division lead. What is the right interpretation of your rankings? Do you mean to say that you expect the A's will take the division by season's end, or do you simply mean to say that you think the A's are a better team than the Angels despite their records?
JJ: Ah, the eternal A's-Angels battle on the Hit List has provided me with plenty of material for columns. Right now what you're seeing on the Hit List and the adjusted standings is all based on the fact that the A's have outscored their opponents by 55 runs -- nearly one per game -- while the Angels have been outscored by two runs. The latter owns the largest discrepancy between their predicted record and their actual one at 7.7 games.
In other words, the Angels have been more lucky than good, and that's not necessarily the kind of thing you can bank on over time. That doesn't mean that I necessarily think the A's will take the division, because I don't expect the Angels' offense to keep underachieving to the extent that it has, but I do think the gap between the two teams is closer than the standings make it appear.
B. Bavasi (Seattle): Any jobs for me at BP?
JJ: Sure, Bill! Given your height you should be an ace at cleaning the leaves out of our office's rain gutter. We haven't been able to convince anyone else to go up there ever since Steven Goldman fell off the roof.
David (NJ): We know the way it was handled was wrong but were the Mets right in firing Willie Randolph?
JJ: Well, as botched a job as it was, I don't entirely disagree with the decision to dismiss Randolph. As Rob Neyer pointed out at ESPN, there's a good argument to make that he's not the right manager at the right time for this club, even given its flimsy construction.
Managers aren't solely tacticians. They're leaders of men (some very boyish men at times). Different managers have different styles, but some seem to be better at protecting their teams by placing themselves in the line of fire and drawing the attention away from the struggles of their clubs. Ozzie Guillen is a good example of this now, as batsh*t crazy as he may seem, there's a method to his madness. Joe Torre does the same thing while exuding an aura of pure calm. Bobby Valentine, Casey Stengel, Leo Durocher, Tommy Lasorda - the styles can vary but that function is an important one.
Randolph didn't handle that aspect of the job very well. The Mets have carried a very negative aura around them since last year's collapse, and not even the acquisition of Johan Santana could erase that. At some point Randolph should have just said strong words to the effect of "Don't connect this club to last year's mess, it's a new day and we've moved on so you should too." Instead he played the race card and in doing so started the countdown on his own sell-by date.
Lots of Dodgers and Yankees questions in there, and A's and Mariners as well. Check it out.
As for the Hit List, I took aim at the aforementioned notion of the shifting balance of power between the two leagues right in this week's title: "AL 75, NL 51." The Junior Circuit won 27 out of 38 games in the three days since that chat, and now occupies five of the top seven spots on the list, with the Red Sox taking over the top spot and the Yankees moving up to number seven. Excerpt a few of the more interesting entries:
Blue Jays (#11) Where's Shea Hillenbrand to Tell Us the Ship Is Sinking Now That We Really Need Him? With five losses in a row and 13 in their last 17, the Jays fall below .500 and into the AL East basement as the the cracks in their facade of sanity start to show. A.J. Burnett stirs up controversy by suggesting he'd welcome a trade to the Cubs -- who could possibly want out of this mess? -- and GM J.P. Ricciardi trashes Adam Dunn on a radio call-in show. Yeah, when you rank 13th in a 14-team league in SLG, with every position save for catcher and right field slugging under .400, you wouldn't want anything to do with a slugger like Dunn.
Brewers (#13) Stop and Smell the Box Score: Let us pause from any rational evaluation of the Brewers' ups and downs to simply appreciate the wonders of a single game containing a no-hit bid by David Bush (5.73 ERA entering the game) that ends after a hit by Lyle Overbay, the man he was traded for in 2005, and also includes an inside-the-park homer by Prince Fielder (the man who replaced Overbay), Russell Branyan's 10th homer in 20 games since being recalled, and a two-out, ninth-inning grand slam by Joe Inglett that caps a six-run rally and turns a rout into a squeaker. I mean, seriously, who writes this stuff?
Giants (#22) Following an 0-5, 7.61 ERA start and a brief exile to the bullpen, Barry Zito looked as though he was making progress towards thinking about possibly pondering the idea of maybe getting it together at a date to be named later. That was because he posted a 3.49 ERA in May, struck out more hitters than he walked, and even stuck around long enough in a ballgame to collect a win. But just when you thought Zito might settle into a comfortable mediocrity, he's back to his old ways: a 9.00 ERA in just 17 innings over four starts in June, not to mention an 8/17 K/BB ratio. Yes, Mr. Sabean, that $18 million club option in 2014 is starting to look like a real bargain.
Mariners (#29) Two Down, One to Go: the Mariners fire GM Bill Bavasi, architect of what may well be the first 100-loss team with a payroll above $100 million. Never the sharpest tool in the GM shed, Bavasi erred drastically by fundamentally misjudging last year's club; though they finished 88-74 they were outscored by 17 runs, and hardly just a blockbuster away from a run at the AL West flag. Not content to stop there, the team cans manager John McLaren, on whose watch they went 66-88, and they may be poised to ditch designated albatross Richie Sexson, who's hitting just .220/.294/.380 and hasn't homered since May 24.
Fun stuff, no? Though Gibbons' firing didn't happen in time to make this week's list, the appearance of arch-nemesis Hillenbrand suggests I was feeling the bad vibes coming from Toronto. And while I'm scratching my head wondering why Riccardi hasn't been fired as well, from a Hit List standpoint he is truly the gift that keeps on giving.
Up and down the Hit List I made reference to the 2008 Replacement Level Killers, the subject of this week's Prospectus Hit and Run. Picking up on an idea I first used for It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over and then applied to last year's most egregious offenders, I took a look at the players whose lousy play and whose teams' complacency or lack of a suitable alternative threatens their shot at the playoffs. The starting nine, using Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) and Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP), the former to get a more accurate sense of hitting contributions and the latter to better account for defense:
C: J.R. Towles (-7.6 VORP, 0.4 WARP) and Brad Ausmus (-5.8 VORP, 0.1 WARP), Astros 1B: Daric Barton (-2.7 VORP, 1.0 WARP), Athletics 2B: Adam Kennedy (-2.3 VORP, 0.4 WARP) and Aaron Miles (-0.4 VORP, 0.4 WARP), Cardinals SS: Chin-Lung Hu (-9.7 VORP, -1.0 WARP) and Angel Berroa (-1.4 VORP, -0.1 WARP), Dodgers 3B: Mike Lamb (-11.6 VORP, -0.3 WARP), Twins LF: Garret Anderson (-1.4 VORP, 0.3 VORP), Angels CF: Andruw Jones (-8.3 VORP, 0.1 WARP), Dodgers RF: Jeff Francoeur (-1.0 VORP, 0.5 WARP), Braves DH: Travis Hafner (0.2 VORP, 0.2 WARP), Indians
Given center field's particular relevance around these parts, I'll fill that one in:
CF: Andruw Jones (-8.3 VORP, 0.1 WARP), Dodgers In his free agent walk year, Jones played through a hyperextended elbow and wound up with a spot on the 2007 Killers. Nonetheless, the Dodgers figured the 31-year-old would rebound, and signed him to a two-year, $36 million deal, one that appeared to force Juan Pierre into richly-deserved (and richly compensated) fourth-outfielderdom. Then Jones showed up to camp looking rather plump, and he performed so miserably that when a torn meniscus forced him to undergo surgery, Pierre's return to the lineup--shifting to left field, with Matt Kemp in center--came as a relief. Not that Pierre has been producing (2.5 VORP, 1.1 WARP), but at least Dodger fans have been spared the daily drama of reading Joe Torre's lineup.
Dishonorable Mention: Melky Cabrera (2.5 VORP, 0.5 WARP), Yankees. Cabrera's ascension into a full-time role last year helped shore up an aging, porous Yankee outfield while pushing Johnny Damon over to left and Hideki Matsui into limbo. The 23-year-old Melkman looked as though his long-awaited power surge had finally arrived when he got off to a .299/.370/.494 start in April, but since then he's lost his way at the plate, hitting just .229/.278/.312. His defense (-4 FRAA) has been a step down as well, Tuesday night's stellar catch notwithstanding.
Anyway, the point of the whole exercise is that there's still time for teams to address these issues, but sometimes that simply means letting a veteran play through their struggles. Sooner or later, though, a reckoning has to come; for the Yankees that may mean moving Johnny Damon back to center field and Hideki Matsui back into left.
For the Dodgers that may mean biting the big Juan for the rest of the year while remaining optimistic about the fact that their biggest problem, injuries, clearly points back to their GM. As I noted in the chat, the Dodgers lead the majors with the most dollars and highest percentage of payroll lost to the DL, and the guys who are filling it up -- Jones, Rafael Furcal, Nomar Garciaparra and Jason Schmidt -- are Stupid Flanders' marquee free agent signings. It's tough to think he's going to dodge the bullet if the Dodgers finish at .500 or below because of all that. Furthermore, if I'm Frank McCourt, the minute that the Mariners or some other team calls to ask permission to interview assistant GM/scouting guru Logan White, I put the caller on hold, fire Colletti and promote him to GM myself. No reason the Dodgers should lose their best and brightest homegrown front office talent anymore than they should their players.
Halfway through my mad, mad month here. Thus far the spring update coverage for Fantasy Baseball Index has gone well. Though I'm actually less of a fantasy junkie than my intended audience, it's one of my favorite projects of the entire year. Not only do I immerse myself in the familiar tropes of spring -- job battles, injury comebacks, hot shot rookies wowing the scouts ("Cueto is the ace of that staff. Right now...") and humbled veterans appeasing the gods with their sacrifices in an effort to eke out one more season (Hideo Nomo and Orlando Hernandez both junking their distinctive deliveries) -- but I come out of it with a great picture of the strengths, weaknesses and narratives of all 30 teams, ideal for the upcoming Hit Lists as well as all of the preseason chatter I get to do on my various radio gigs. It's my own spring training, whipping me into shape.
The BP promo-rama has gone well thus far. Last Thursday we packed 40-something people into the 18th Street Barnes and Noble here in NYC as Steve Goldman, Joe Sheehan, Derek Jacques and I took questions for well over 90 minutes, somehow managing not to trip over each other's sentences. Saturday's Long Island event was a smaller crowd, but one full of familiar faces, area friends who couldn't make our previous gig. Our sole misadventure involved getting from the train to the venue (memo to the surly, constantly muttering cabbie: Barnes and Noble and Borders aren't interchangeable if your name is on the marquee). On the docket next is a three-day trip to DC and then Philadelphia for appearances on the 17th and 18th. We'll have some media as well -- an XM Radio hit and even a TV spot, details forthcoming. Here's the plan:
Monday, March 17th, 7:00 pm, Politics & Prose, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008. With Clay Davenport and Steven Goldman
Tuesday, March 18th, 7:00 pm, Barnes & Noble, Rittenhouse Square, 1805 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103. With Steven Goldman and Joe Sheehan
Meanwhile, here's the transcript of last Friday's BP chat. More recently, on Thursday I followed up the work I've been doing on the way ballparks have evolved over the past 20+ years. Last time around I showed that contrary to popular belief, fence distances have not actually decreased over that time, they've increased, particularly on the left side. Even if we exclude Coors Field, they've increased:
2007' is the average fence distance sans Coors, 90-07' the change from 1990 to 2007 excluding Coors. Anyway, this increase to the left side appears to have an impact on the distribution of home runs. In 1990, according to data from the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index, 54.4 percent of homers were hit to left field and left-center field. Last year it was 50.8 percent. Sparing you my first-ever graph for a BP article, an ugly one that puts this graphic designer to shame:
As noted in the article, there's a bit of intermediate squirreliness with the data in a few years; not every year are the home run locations equally well-recorded, but the trend is apparent: fewer hoemrs are leaving the yard on the left side than before.
Beyond that, I took a look at the way the new ballparks may have had an impact on foul outs, and whether that impact results in more home runs. Short answer: foul territory is tough to get a handle on, and tremendously boring.
Foul territory area measurements aren't recorded in any official manner (since publication of this article, one data source has come to light, but I'll wait until my next installment to discuss that). Backstop distances don't make a great proxy; while such distances appear to have decreased, there's little correlation between them and foul out rates. Foul out rates actually appear to be a bit higher in the newer ballparks than the older ones -- contrary to the views of my readers, whose lines of questioning sent me trudging methodically down this rather bleak path -- but the problem with my finding is that the stadium changes I note are based on fence distances (which are well-documented) rather than foul territory adjustments (which aren't).
It's all just about as much fun as a field trip to the box factory, but I may have to take another swing at this if I get some better data. Still, if there's one take-home from of my recent articles, it's that it's time to retire the notion that parks have gotten smaller over the past two decades, thus driving up home run rates. Except when it comes to meat in the seats, parks aren't getting smaller.
You have my permission to swear at your TV the next time you're told otherwise.
In conjunction with a long-weekend ski trip to Salt Lake City that had my lungs searing due to an onslaught of fresh powder, said update kept me from checking in here to note my two most recent Baseball Prospectus pieces. The first took a look at some recent work done by Tom Tango over at the Hardball Times, work which provided some support for what I found in my contribution to Will Carroll's The Juice, namely that new ballparks and expansion can't explain the rise in home runs that's typified baseball's so-called Steroid Era:
Now the estimable Tom Tango has added some support for that viewpoint, at least with regards to parks and expansion. Comparing matched sets of head-to-head plate appearances between hitters and pitchers in the same park against all other pitcher/hitter/park combinations, Tango found virtually identical changes in home run frequency (HR per contact PA) from 1987 to 1988, and from 1992 to 1994. That is, both the matching combo and the unmatched combo saw their homer frequencies change at comparable rates during the same periods, first from 1987 to 1988, when a one-year home run spike came and went, and then from 1992 to 1994, a span in which homer and scoring rates escalated to levels that would be common over the next decade.
Like me, Tango then turned his attention to the baseball itself as an engine for the rise in home runs, and to evidence found via the University of Massachusetts-Lowell's series of tests back in 2000. But it appears he was a little off base when he tried to connect the ball's compositional changes with some data pertaining to fly ball distances:
In Tango's piece, he turns his attention to the ball as well, and to the UMass-Lowell testing in particular, focusing on testing director Dr. James Sherwood's report of an 8.7-foot difference in flight distance between tested major league balls and minor league ones, which differ in the compositions of their cores. Extrapolating from data provided by Greg Rybarcyzk of HitTracker Online, Tango finds that, lo and behold, an 8.7-foot decrease would reduce home run rates to almost exactly where they were in the decade prior to the surge. A tidy little explanation for where those extra long balls might have come from, right?
Not quite. Tango implies that what took place may have been as simple as MLB and Rawlings, the ball's current manufacturer, replacing balls made with a pure cork center (as specified for the minor league balls) with ones made with a compressed-cork center (a composite of cork and ground rubber, known as cushion cork or cushioned cork, which is part of MLB's official specifications for the ball). In actuality, the cushioned cork center ball is decades old: according to information provided by the Spalding company (which manufactured the balls up through 1976), it was officially adopted in the major leagues way back in 1926. Oddly enough, the words "cushioned cork center" imprinted on MLB balls were removed in 1999, the year before the UMass report was published, although the report notes that rubber continues to be added to the pill, the innermost element of the ball...
Though rubber and cork are still in the pill, its exact composition appears to have changed over the past couple of decades. A team from Universal Medical Systems confirmed this last summer, when they compared computerized tomography (CT) scans of baseballs from different eras. Whether simply due to technological advances incorporated into the manufacturing process or a calculated desire to produce more home runs, the pill has increased in size and density over the years. And that's without considering the aforementioned synthetic ring, or the increasingly synthetic composition of the yarn used to wind the ball, something a University of Rhode Island study identified back in 2000. While Sherwood and company continue to test balls on an annual basis for MLB and have even shown some teeth by criticizing the outdated specifications of the testing, they've remained conspicuously quiet as to the impact of the composition changes, to say nothing of MLB bulldozing its own published specifications.
Take a picture, kids -- it's not often a hack like me can legitimately find fault with the work of one of the field's top researchers. Then again, Enrique Wilson did get a few hits off Pedro Martinez, and D.J Houlton has struck out Albert Pujols in their only two encounters. It happens.
On the subject of The Juice, elsewhere in the piece, I re-visited some data from my chapter regarding the evolution of ballpark fence distances during the 1990-2004 period. Updating through 2007 and combining the two leagues:
With the exception of the teensiest of fractions for straightaway center field, fence distances have actually increased during the wave of building that's put 21 clubs (including four expansion teams) into new ballparks. What has decreased during the time period in question -- indeed, what may be confusing the issue -- is smaller park capacities. In 1990, the average ballpark held 53,057 patrons; last year it was 48,219, a drop of about 10 percent. So yes, parks are smaller, but not in a way that carries any ramifications for home run levels.
Since this article's publication, several readers have pointed out that while the fair territory of playing fields aren't getting smaller, a decreasing amount of foul territory may be contributing to the rise in homers and scoring in general. That's something I'll be examining in my next take on this subject.
Whew. My second recent piece at BP is a pinch-hit job on the Texas Rangers' Team Health Report, since Will Carroll's commitments prevented him from taking a swing. I wasn't able to bring quite the amount of background to the Rangers that I did to the Brewers' THR, since I didn't cover the former in the now-shipping Baseball Prospectus 2008, but I did discover that the Rangers led the majors in number of trips to the DL last year (23) and number of same which were pitchers (14). Those injuries didn't cause the team's 19-35 start in April and May; four missed Kevin Millwood starts didn't hurt nearly as much as a 6.44 ERA from the rotation, but it sure didn't help. Anyway, the Rangers' THR is free if you're inclined to check it out.
The other element of my personal March Madness is promotional appearances for BP08. My ski vacation cost me a trip to the Yogi Berra Museum, but I've still got a handful lined up for this month:
Thursday, March 6th, 6:00 pm, Barnes & Noble, 105 Fifth Avenue (at 18th Street), New York, NY 10003. With Steven Goldman, Derek Jacques, and Joe Sheehan
Saturday, March 8th, 2:00 pm, Borders Books, 1260 Old Country Road, Westbury, NY 11590. With Derek Jacques and Joe Sheehan
Monday, March 17th, 7:00 pm, Politics & Prose, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008. With Clay Davenport and Steven Goldman
Tuesday, March 18th, 7:00 pm, Barnes & Noble, Rittenhouse Square, 1805 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103. With Steven Goldman and Joe Sheehan
If you're nearby any of these, we hope you can make it out. Also, I'll be hosting a chat at BP on Thursay the 6th at 1:00 PM for those of you burning to talk some baseball but unable to make it out.
The day after my JAWS-flavored take on the starting pitchers on the 2008 Hall of Fame ballot ran at Baseball Prospectus, my take on the relievers is up as well, thus -- to my great relief -- completing this year's series (the reliever portion is free, the starter one is sub-only). For those who have been following the series from year to year, the results among the pitchers shouldn't come as a surprise; my system identified Bert Blyleven, Rich Gossage and Lee Smith as Hall-worthy and the rest... not so much. That trio joins Tim Raines, Alan Trammell and Mark McGwire from among the hitters to make up the JAWS Class of 2008 photo.
As I wrote in the starters piece, Blyleven ranks among the top 20 pitchers of all time according to JAWS. He's the highest-ranked pitcher who's eligible for the Hall but not in:
Pitcher PRAA PRAR WARP3 Peak JAWS SUP Walter Johnson 818 1994 209.6 109.5 159.6 HOF Cy Young 943 2024 213.8 99.5 156.7 HOF Roger Clemens 666 2016 199.6 83.9 141.8 Greg Maddux 481 1689 180.3 86.0 133.2 Pete Alexander 593 1520 160.1 91.0 125.6 HOF Christy Mathewson 480 1285 149.1 92.9 121.0 HOF Tom Seaver 439 1576 152.2 75.8 114.0 96 HOF Warren Spahn 324 1598 153.3 72.9 113.1 HOF Randy Johnson 428 1570 147.0 77.3 112.2 Lefty Grove 520 1456 138.5 81.9 110.2 HOF Kid Nichols 494 1248 131.2 84.1 107.7 HOF Steve Carlton 264 1509 137.0 71.6 104.3 104 HOF Phil Niekro 262 1485 137.7 67.5 102.6 97 HOF Robin Roberts 304 1448 129.8 74.8 102.3 HOF Gaylord Perry 266 1512 132.9 68.8 100.9 96 HOF Tom Glavine 296 1341 137.4 63.7 100.6 Bert Blyleven 323 1546 135.1 65.3 100.2 97 Bob Gibson 329 1260 120.7 76.3 98.5 HOF Hal Newhouser 311 1109 111.0 83.0 97.0 HOF Fergie Jenkins 290 1384 125.1 68.4 96.8 101 HOF ... Nolan Ryan 210 1661 128.1 59.4 93.8 95 HOF Jim Palmer 203 1116 100.8 63.9 82.4 109 HOF Don Sutton 141 1371 112.2 48.2 80.2 105 HOF Catfish Hunter 1 820 70.0 51.9 61.0 112 HOF
It's true Blyleven has one of the lowest WARP peaks shown above, but he more than holds his own with his enshrined contemporaries. His secondary peak measure, PRAA, puts him 30-60 runs past Carlton, Niekro, Perry, and Jenkins, and more than 100 beyond his other enshrined contemporaries -- Ryan, Palmer, Sutton and Hunter; only Seaver outdistances him. Spoiled by the half-dozen of those aforementioned peers who won 300 games from the mid-'60s to the mid-'80s, when the days of the four-man rotation dominated, the BBWAA hasn't elected a starter with fewer than 300 wins since Jenkins in 1991. Note the last column, which compares the run support of those contemporaries in a park- and league-adjusted index similar to ERA+, where 100 is average; Blyleven got three percent less support than the average starter during his time, comparable to many of those contemporaries but nonetheless something which kept him from attaining 300 wins.
For the relievers, I use some extra information -- BP's Reliever Expected Wins Added (WXRL) stat:
WXRL accounts for the discovery that a reliever at the end of a ballgame has a quantitatively greater impact on winning and losing (a ratio called leverage) than a starter does. It measures that impact by comparing a team's chances of winning based on the game state (bases, outs, score differential) before he enters and after he leaves. For the purposes of measuring a pitcher's Hall-worthiness, it functions as something of a career/peak hybrid; one can accumulate a high total via performing well under high-pressure situations for shorter periods or in more moderate pressure situations for longer. Two years ago, I put aside an earlier kludge and began incorporating WXRL totals into a Reliever's Adjusted JAWS score via the formula RAJAWS: ((0.5 x WXRL) + JAWS).
...Given the small sample size of Hall of Fame relievers, it's worthwhile to check out the RAJAWS leaderboard for some perspective. The list is somewhat incomplete, as our play-by-play database currently only goes back to 1959, so it's missing the first seven years of [Hoyt] Wilhelm's career, four years of Lindy McDaniel, and seven of Stu Miller (all denoted with asterisks below), to say nothing of their forebears. Nonetheless, we can get a pretty solid idea of where this year's candidates rank with regards to the enshrined and the two active pitchers who are likely bets to reach the Hall soon after retirement, Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman. Here's the provisional version of the RAJAWS Top 20:
Pitcher WARP Peak JAWS WXRL RAJAWS Mariano Rivera 93.9 62.6 78.3 62.5 109.5 Dennis Eckersley 120.8 53.7 87.3 35.1 104.8 HoF Rich Gossage 88.4 56.0 72.2 53.8 99.1 Trevor Hoffman 82.2 49.2 65.7 62.3 96.9 Hoyt Wilhelm 96.5 47.6 72.1 39.0 91.5* HoF Lee Smith 83.7 47.3 65.5 47.0 89.0 Rollie Fingers 80.1 49.4 64.8 45.8 87.6 HOF John Franco 80.9 41.2 61.1 44.8 83.5 Tom Gordon 85.5 46.7 66.1 33.8 83.0 Billy Wagner 66.7 49.2 58.0 44.9 80.4 Doug Jones 66.5 48.2 57.4 33.0 73.8 Lindy McDaniel 72.0 44.1 58.1 31.3 73.7* Bruce Sutter 59.0 47.6 53.3 37.4 72.0 HOF Roberto Hernandez 66.8 46.5 56.7 28.2 70.7 Stu Miller 63.5 43.6 53.6 34.1 70.6* John Wetteland 58.5 46.5 52.5 35.0 70.0 Tom Henke 59.9 42.7 51.3 36.8 69.7 Tug McGraw 60.1 38.5 49.3 39.6 69.1 Dan Quisenberry 55.2 48.2 51.7 34.0 68.7 Kent Tekulve 64.7 40.3 52.5 30.3 67.7
Rivera surpassed Eckersley atop this list last year. With Gossage apparently poised for enshrinement after receiving 71.2 percent of the vote last year, the day where six of the top seven relievers via my system are enshrined isn't far off. In that regard, the election of Sutter two years ago may have been the best thing to happen to the Goose. As I said on my XM spot with Chuck Wilson yesterday, Sutter as the save specialist and Eckersley as the ninth-inning specialist represented easily definable data points for the evolution of the modern closer. The recognition of Gossage's transcendence of that ever-narrowing niche has created a groundswell of support such that his vote totals have increased dramatically over the last four votes:
Year Votes Pct 2004 206 40.7% Eckersley elected 2005 285 55.2% 2006 336 64.6% Sutter elected 2007 388 71.2%
It's probably just a coincidence that those numbers parallel the widening exposure of my JAWS project, which began in '04 as well, but I can't help feeling a tiny measure of satisfaction at this trend nonetheless.
In any event, I've got a fair bit of Hall of Fame-related media lining up for next week:
a radio appearance on KTRH 740 AM in Houston, Monday at 7 a.m. ET / 6 a.m. CT, discussing Roger Clemens' appearance on 60 Minutes. You can listen via their website. I may be doing more Fox affiliate "phoners" that morning as well.
a BP chat on Tuesday, 2 PM Eastern, just as the voting results are announced.
a radio appearance on Sports Xtra 1360 AM in San Diego, Tuesday at 3:40 p.m. ET / 12:40 p.m. PT. You can listen via their website.
my regularly scheduled appearance on Sports Radio 1470 in Toledo, Wednesday at 4:10 p.m. ET.
Make no mistake: this Yankee rotation and its deployment may be the team's downfall in this series. As good as Wang is, he's shown a decisive enough home-road split (2.75 home/4.91 away this year; 3.04/4.62 career) to prefer that he not start in Cleveland once, let alone twice if the series goes five games. Pettitte has enough postseason experience (34 starts, 212 innings, 4.08 ERA, 14-9) to add a line to his resume virtually identical to his 2007 stats. With his days of tipping pitches hopefully behind him, Yankee fans can hope he's the stone-faced killer of their 2003 run, because they'll need him to be.
The problem is Clemens, who has just one start (six innings) since September 3 due to elbow and hamstring injuries. The 45-year-old hurler has an unenviable recent track record in recent postseasons, one marked by early departures due to injury, departures that often left his club up the proverbial creek. Forget the glowing report out of Tampa after his simulated game on Tuesday; the decision to start Clemens feels more motivated by salary than common sense.
If the Yankees shadow Clemens with rookie Philip Hughes who pitched well against the Indians on August 10 (6 4 1 1 1 6) and really hit his stride in September (2.73 ERA in five starts) that leaves Mussina exposed. The 38-year-old Moose served a two-week exile in the bullpen in late August after three consecutive disaster starts. He posted three solid starts but was bombed during the season's final weekend. Unless he gets enough separation between his mid-80s fastball and his offspeed offerings, his outing could be every bit as nasty, short, and brutish as that of Clemens. A better alternative would be to start Hughes in Game Three, come back with Wang in New York in Game Four (short rest might actually help his sinker), and send Pettitte to the hill in Game Five.
The Yankee bullpen lacks a lefty to face the top of Cleveland's order [lefty Grady Sizemore, switch-hitter Asdrubal Cabrera (more effective versus lefties), lefty Travis Hafner, and switch-hitter Victor Martinez (more effective versus righties), and their righty options don't match up well:
Elsewhere, Torre and company have opted to forego carrying even a token lefty, bypassing Ron Villone, who handled lefty hitters at a .239/.311/.343 clip. This leaves the Yanks at a significant tactical disadvantage. Beyond Rivera and Chamberlain, neither veterans Vizcaino (.265/.362/.427 versus lefties) and Farnsworth (.273/.379/.445) nor live-armed rookies Ohlendorf (.293/.371/.504 in Triple-A) and Veras (.273/.368/.394) handled lefty hitters very well. The Yanks' only means of mitigating this is to deploy Chamberlain (.132/.195/.211) against the top of the Indians' order, and at best they get to do this one time through instead of twice.
The Indians' bullpen, on the other hand, matches up well versus the Yanks:
For the Indians, the story is happier. Their bullpen ranked second in the league in WXRL, just a few whiskers behind Boston. Borowski led the league in saves, but with a sky-high ERA thanks to early-season bombings, including a six-run one by the Yanks on April 19. Since mid-May, he's pitched much more respectably (3.91 ERA, 40/10 K/BB and 6 HR in 50 2/3 IP), right in line with his QERA. The real key to the Tribe bullpen is setup man Betancourt, who trailed only J.J. Putz in individual WXRL; he pitches in situations nearly as high in leverage as closer Borowski (1.87 to 2.09) and sometimes for multiple innings, justifying his usage in the set-up role rather than endowment with the less flexible Scarlet C. His splits are eye-popping: 80/6 K/UIBB overall, 41/1 at home.
Beyond that pair, rookie southpaw Rafael Perez ate lefties alive this year (.145/.209/.241), and was no slouch against righties (.213/.257/.324); he looms as a key figure in this series given the Yankee lineup's lefty tilt. Any stint of three batters or longer is likely to bring him in contact with two tough lefty hitters, and he's capable of tossing multiple innings as well. Fultz gives Wedge a LOOGY to deploy in the middle innings, if necessary. Though unconfirmed at press time, the presence of Laffey makes sense for long-relief purposes. Closer aside, there's a decided edge to Cleveland here based on matchups.
One reader already took issue: "Don't you think your undervaluing offense a little here? The Indians clearly have the better top 2 starting pitchers but the Yankees seem the perfect team to combat them with an incredibly patient offense that can push them out of the game early." Clearly this fellow has fond recollections of the way the vaunted Yankee offense patiently waited out the Tigers' pitching in 2006 and the Angels' in 2005.
If the Yankees do roll, I'll gladly eat crow, but the prediction is pain:
The Yankees have a threatening offense, but they appear to have committed to a much less than ideal rotation alignment, and they're at a clear disadvantage when it comes to late-inning matchups. The one-two punch of Sabathia and Carmona could easily push their team to the brink of victory before they even hit the Bronx, where the Yankees will need some good fortune simply to get quality starts. Indians in five.
Catch the rest of it at BP, where it's today's freebie.
I focused most of Tuesday's chat on the end of the regular season and what to expect in the postseason. A few of the better exchanges:
ntf8888 (Austin): [Matt] Holliday for MVP?
JJ: The NL MVP race is a very, very tough call. I'm a believer that the award has to go to to a player on a contender, which leaves us with numerous candidates.
Going into the weekend I'd have said David Wright gets the call, but I'm haunted by his screw-up of the forceout on Friday night. Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard are imperfect candidates, Rollins for his .340-ish OBP, Utley for missing a month, Howard for missing time and playing bad defense that holds his WARP1 down at 6.4. Holliday has very good numbers (fourth in WARP1 at 10.1, behind Pujols at 11.3, Wright at 11.2, and Peavy at 10.9), and while he had several key hits this weekend, he also had a near-fatal defensive lapse that leads one to wonder about the validity of his +13 FRAA.
In the end, I probably stick with Wright, who was still hitting the stuffing out of the ball even as the team faded. But I can understand Holliday before Rollins, who's probably the popular favorite.
James (MD): Jay, do you think a case can be made that in the playoffs, the strength of your bench and the very back of your bullpen is the most important? Teams are going to clearly lean on their 4 best relievers pretty much every night, and they will have to use their bench, especially in the NL. Philly has a great bench with Victorino or Werth, a versatile defender/pinch runner in Bourn, and then a defensive specialist in Nunez and a guy who can hit into the gap in Helms. Couple that with Myers, Romero, and Gordon, how could anyone pick against the Phillies at this point?
JJ: Intuitively that makes some sense, but systematically speaking, it's not the case. Nate Silver and Dayn Perry looked at this for Baseball Between the Numbers and found that the quality of the closer was one of only three statistically significant factors in forecasting the outcome of a short series. The other two are staff strikeout rate and the quality of team defense. Nate calls this the Secret Sauce, and he ran the numbers for this year's teams.
In a short series where off days make up about 1/3 of the schedule if not more, bullpen depth tends to play less of a factor except in cases where a starter makes an early exit (Roger Clemens, I'm looking at you). Benches are far more important in the NL, where pinch-hitting for pitchers is a factor, but the Creeping La Russaism move to 12-man pitching staffs has shortened too many benches and left managers without a proper counter to that third lefty.
As for picking against the Phillies, I like their bench, but as great as their run has been, their staff and bullpen still make me very nervous. I've been heartbroken by Tom Gordon one too many times to have much faith in him.
Jim Clancy (Exhibition Stadium): Why is the Mets' collapse from this year so much "worse" than clunkers before it--like the awful and touched-by-Satan collapse of the Blue Jays in '87 (despite their having at least one stellar right hander)? I mean, to hear people talk now, no one else ever collapsed so brutally as the Mets did this year. Even this year's Padres might qualify as similar.
JJ: From the Postseason Odds perspective that Clay Davenport invented and Nate Silver applied in his fine "Blowing It" article last week, the Mets' potential collapse ranked second behind only the 1995 Angels. Home field advantage for those final seven games, and quality of competition (all of them against sub-.500 teams) come together in an almost perfect storm.
In the Jays' case, four of those seven losses came against the Tigers, who won the division at 98-64, and the other three were against the Brewers, who wound up 91-71. Three losses were on the road. As bad as it is, from a degree of difficulty standpoint, it's much more understandable than the Mets.
But from a more subjective standpoint that paints Willie Randolph as History's Greatest Monster, it comes down to a rather bloodthirsty New York media ready to seize upon any sign of weakness because it sells papers in a hypercompetitive market. See Alex Rodriguez, September-October 2006.
I did pick the Yankees over the Indians during the chat, but as noted, it was in writing the piece that I reversed myself.
As for MVP and other award arguments, you can cast a virtual ballot in the Internet Baseball Awards voting between now and October 12. I'll post my ballot here once I've voted.
Clearing the Bases -- Down from the Mountain Edition
First things first: I'm chatting today at 1 PM Eastern over at Baseball Prospectus, and I'll have a Division Series preview of the Yankees-Indians matchup there tomorrow. The regular season finale of the Hit List will follow later this week.
Yes, I'm back from my European sojourn, though you'd barely know it around these parts. Since returning, I've done a promotional appearance for It Ain't Over, written a Prospectus Hit and Run covering a second-half Hit List and the hottest and coldest hitters and pitchers in September, and watched one of the most thrilling final weekends in baseball history. Thanks in part to my Extra Innings package, I watched more than 24 hours of baseball from Thursday through last night, and while relatively little came up Milhouse from my point of view, the ride has been pretty fun.
The biggest news around these parts, of course, is the Mets' collapse, one in which Nate Silver and Clay Davenport estimated to be the second-worst in baseball history based on the Prospectus Postseason Odds Report methodology, which measures the likelihood of a team making the postseason via a Monte Carlo simulation which plays out the season one million times, accounting for run-scoring and -allowing proclivities, home field advantage, and opposition strength. The Mets, according to the report, had a 99.8 percent chance at reaching the postseason as of September 13, the day I left for Switzerland. They proceeded to blow a seven-game lead with 17 to play, finishing with a 1-6 homestand against the sub-.500 Nationals, Cardinals, and Marlins that culminated with 300-game winner Tom Glavine making a shocking first-inning exit in which he was charged with seven runs.
One of the problems of being away so long at such a crucial time of year is that there's really no adequate way to catch up with all the nuances of what's been missed. Here's how I started my column, which got lost in the editorial shuffle and didn't run until Saturday morning instead of Friday:
I'm back from a nearly two-week European vacation that fell smack in the middle of the playoff hunt. News of distant pennant races trickled through on either end of my journey, but I was totally off the grid for a six-day period while hiking in the majestic Dolomites--no Internet, no newspapers, no TV, and the last thing my wife wanted to discuss when I called her from Rifugio Fanes at a $1 per minute clip was the status of the NL Wild Card hunt.
As such, I was mercifully spared the demise of my Dodgers. Discovering their seven-game losing streak upon returning was no more traumatic than being told that my goldfish died while I was at camp--no tears, just the accompanying solemnity of an imagined, unceremonious flush several thousand miles away. On the other hand, plugging in to discover the misdirected acrimony in the wake of their fade has my blood boiling. Along those lines, getting back into the swing of things isn't easy; one can read the standings and the game reports for the handful of relevant teams, but two weeks is too long an absence to grasp the nuances of everything that's gone down. Late rallies and bullpen meltdowns are most viscerally understood in real time or at most within one news cycle. To pick the most obvious example, the Mets had a seven-game lead in the NL East when I left, and even with their postseason odds falling below 90 percent after a huge loss on Wednesday, it was difficult for me to accept their shellshock until tuning in to Thursday night's game, where if I closed my eyes, I could hear Roky Erickson strumming "I Walked with a Zombie" and know that he wasn't singing about my jet lag.
Friday night's game, which I took in with Alex Belth, was even more revealing. Oliver Perez, the only crazy man who might have been sane enough to salvage the Mets' futile run, showed up in his Mr. Hyde guise and was wild all over the place, walking Jeremy Hermida before yielding a homer to Dan Uggla in the first, and hitting three batters in the third. Perez is one matter, but the telling moment for the Mets, the one that said they were cooked, occurred in that inning, when Hermida's bases-loaded grounder was fielded by David Wright, who threw home for the force out. Catcher Paul Lo Duca threw back to third, but Wright, forgetting the force was still in effect, tried to tag Hanley Ramirez instead of stepping on the bag, and all hands were safe. After a huge strikeout of Miguel Cabrera, Perez was so adrenaline-charged that he hit the next two batters, bringing home two more runs to widen the lead to 4-1. The Mets would cut the lead in the bottom of the frame, but that moment, when MVP candidate--perhaps favorite--Wright made such a crucial mental lapse, was the skid in a nutshell.
I'm not really a Mets fan, but I have enough of them -- not to mention enough experience with collapses going back to the Jaffe family institutional memory of 1951 -- to understand their pain, and while I empathize, I'm glad I can shut the emotion off at some point. The sting for me is that via BP I was credentialed for the Mets' playoff games at Shea Stadium, a plum opportunity that it hurts to miss. In the immortal words of Joe Schultz, aw, shitfuck.
Not much to say about the Phillies, who snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, except "Wow!" Whatever the flaws of laid-back manager Charlie Manuel, he earned his keep patching the team's decimated pitching staff together all year long; five of the six starters they held at the outset of the season, all except Jamie Moyer, were injured at one point, with one, Punchy Myers, later shifted to closer to compensate for the loss of the injured Tom Gordon. Ace Cole Hamels, who threw just eight innings over a six-week span due to elbow woes, made the kid gloves treatment pay off with eight scoreless innings of 13-strikeout ball on Friday to move the Phils into first place. After Adam "Completely Useless" Eaton and company came up short on Saturday, Moyer, who had put up a 6.16 second-half ERA up to that point, was at his soft-tossing best, flummoxing the Nationals as fellow grizzled vet Glavine faltered in New York, giving the Phils the NL East title.
As for the rest of the slate, I won't pick over the Dodgers in too much detail except to say that when I heard a rumor Ned Colletti was contemplating a Matt Kemp/Clayton Kershaw for Johan Santana deal, I sent a faux telegram to BP's internal list: "AM ON WAY TO AIRPORT STOP. WILL KILL COLLETTI, PLASCHKE STOP. TELL MY WIFE I LOVE HER." The idea that youngsters like Kemp (who hit .342.373/.521 but couldn't get 300 at-bats from Grady Little) are responsible for the team's collapse for lack of veteran herbs and spices isn't just laughable, it's downright criminal. At a time when Dodger assistant GMs Logan White and Kim Ng have drawn consideration for other teams' GM openings, it's clear that the Dodgers' best play would be to fire Stupid Flanders and promote one of them rather than lose either, but it appears Ned gets at least one more year. God save the Dodger prospects.
Beyond the Dodgers, the Brewers' demise disappointed me. It had been a slow leak from that 24-10 start, characterized by the fact that the team lost 22 straight games (18 starts) in which Chris "Angel of Death" Capuano appeared. Plus they had to endure yet another incomplete season from Ben Sheets, who threw just 22 innings after July 14 and only one in the season's final two weeks, so dogged with injuries was he. Still, the team mounted a respectable 16-12 September after going 20-34 in July and August, and remained alive until losing to the Padres on Friday night. They exacted no small amount of revenge against the Pads, beating them in extra innings on Saturday; the game-tying hit off Trevor Hoffman came via Tony Gwynn, Jr., of all people, and the winning hit was by Vinny Rotino, fellow passenger on a puddle-jumping flight I took a year ago upon his initial recall. The Brewers found plenty of sweetness in that victory; their 82nd win of the year meant they recorded their first winning season since 1992; my wife (in Milwaukee on business) and in-laws called to celebrate that bit of good news. The Brewers weren't done, kicking Padre ass on a crazy Sunday to force a Game 163 playoff for the NL Wild Card on Monday night.
That loss tied them with the Rockies, who went on an incredible 13-1 run (including seven straight over the Dodgers) to vault from fourth place in the NL West into the thick of the Wild Card race. I'm no Rox fan, but I do like their storyline. The fact that the team's vaunted youngsters -- BP's Kevin Goldstein rated their organization second at the outset of the season -- like Franklin Morales, Ubaldo Jimenez (both filling in within a decimated rotation) and especially Troy Tulowitzki came up so big down the stretch should serve any Dodger exec with a reminder that the NL West is a pirhana tank full of young talent in Denver and Arizona, making the perils of Ned all the more clear.
So I was mildly pulling for the Rox last night although I actually picked the Padres to win the World Series back in March. My reasoning on the latter is that they no longer stood a chance with the losses of Mike Cameron and Milton Bradley, the the latter of whom while I was gone stepped on the former's hand, tearing ligaments in Cameron's thumb then tore an ACL amid an umpire-baited tirade later in the same game, thus wiping out 2/3 of the team's starting outfield in one night. That, plus the late-season struggles of Chris Young (6.33 ERA since missing time in July with oblique and back trouble) and the presence of Brett Tomko in their rotation, prompted me to compare the Padres to Randall Patrick McMurphy at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Pass the pillow.
Anyway, even with the Padres' maladies, they helped leave us with a 13-inning epic that culminated such an incredible weekend. Jake Peavy, who appears on his way to winning the Cy Young award I predicted for him, must have gotten stuck in the humidor while a cleverly disguised impostor surrendered three early runs to the Rox. They came back to take a 5-3 lead thanks in part to a grand slam by Adrian Gonzalez. The look on Rockies' starter Josh Fogg's face when he watched that ball go out was priceless. Something along the lines of: "Shit, I left the car in neutral, and now it's down in the river. My wife is gonna be PISSED. We got any more of those PBRs?"
In the end, the game came down to a pair of questionable umpiring calls. Up 6-5, Garret Atkins appeared to have a home run over the leftfield wall, but out-of-position ump Tim Tschida ruled the ball hit the yellow cushion atop the fence -- which would have absorbed the blow -- instead of the chair just behind it, which caused a sizable deflection. He, or rather pinch-runner Jamey Carroll, was left stranded. The Pads tied the game up in the eighth, and things remained knotted until the top of the 13th despite the Rockies hauling out an unenviable parade of shamed closers -- Latroy Hawkins, Brian Feuntes, Matt Herges, and finally Jorge Julio, who surrendered a two-run homer to Bradley's replacement, Scott Hairston. On came Hoffman, and at this point I was fully pulling for the Rox, if only because Hoffman has symbolized the Padres' superiority in the NL West for so long. But he didn't have it, as Kaz Matsui, Troy Tulowitzki, and Matt Holliday laced consecutive loud hits off him to tie the game.
One out later, Carroll came up and lined to Brian Giles, whose throw home appeared to beat Holliday, who tagged up. The runner went in head first, narrowly missing catcher Michael Barrett's cleat but apparently -- replays were inconclusive at best -- not touching home plate even as he got a faceful of dirty. Home plate ump Tim McClelland made no signal until the ball dribbled away from the catcher. The only explanation for this sequence, as I understand from BP rules expert Bil Burke, is the rarely-invoked application of rule 7.06(b): "The catcher, without the ball in his possession, has no right to block the pathway of the runner attempting to score. The base line belongs to the runner and the catcher should be there only when he is fielding a ball or when he already has the ball in his hand." Lacking possession, the catcher has committed obstruction and the runner is therefore safe -- except that rule goes against the de facto precedent of the last quarter century which has seen catchers block the plate with impunity whether or not they had the ball.
It was a controversial end to a thrilling ballgame and a fantastic regular season, and while I'd love to pick it over further, I've got plenty to do over the next 24 hours, so check in at BP, where we've got your October covered.
In a pennant race, every edge matters. The late-season heroics of one individual may turn a close race into a tale of success writ large, but it's the failures writ small, the weak links on a team, that commonly create that close race in the first place. All too often, for reasons rooted in issues beyond a player's statistics, managers and GMs fail to make the moves that could help their teams, allowing subpar production to fester until it kills a club's postseason hopes. Nowhere is the value of the replacement level laid more bare than when the difference between playing into October and going home is simply a willingness to try something else.
Sometimes a manager sticks with a veteran who's passed his sell-by date because the guy has helped the skipper win in the past, and the club is convinced it lacks better alternatives. Sometimes a regular simply isn't performing up to his established level due to injury, but misguidedly tries "toughing it out." And sometimes a rookie hasn't yet adjusted to the big leagues, yet the club doesn't want to risk destroy the youngster's confidence with a benching. In the just-released It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over: the Baseball Prospectus Pennant Race Book, I examined numerous instances of teams' pennant hopes dragged down by such "Replacement Level Killers."
For the book, I compiled an all-star team of ignominy that went back further than a half-century, but even in a single season, it's not too difficult to assemble such a squad, and at the suggestion of one reader from my most recent chat, I've done just that. The difference is that with some six weeks of baseball still to go, teams may still take steps to avert disaster even if they've placed a player on this 2007 edition of the Replacement Level Killers; indeed, some already have.
The Yankees were an easy choice at one position:
1B: Doug Mientkiewicz, NYY (-2.2 VORP, 0.1 WARP), Miguel Cairo, NYY (-1.8, 0.3 WARP), Josh Phelps, NYY (0.1 VORP, 0.0 WARP), Andy Phillips, NYY (1.5 VORP, 0.2 WARP), and Wilson Betemit, NYY (1.2 VORP, 0.2 WARP)
For all of the craft that Brian Cashman and company put into their $200 million juggernaut, the Yanks turned a blind eye to first base, sacrificing any shot at offensive production in favor of some notion of defensive competence via which they could justify limiting the increasingly immobile (and for a two-month period, injured) Jason Giambi to the DH role. They left the gate with a plan to platoon Minky with Rule 5 pick Phelps, but the former broke his wrist, and the latter couldn't buy the time of day from Joe Torre, getting discarded only to bob back to the surface in Pittsburgh.
Torre then installed futilityman Cairo--one of "his guys"--at the first base slot for a few weeks until the fateful day when the supposed defensive whiz made three errors, including a pair on a play where the Angels scored the winning run. That loss turned out to be a win, as it forced Torre to turn to organizational soldier Phillips, who hit a thin but nonetheless useful .320/.355/.420 in July as the Yanks began turning their season around. He's cooled off considerably since (.327 SLG in August), but continues to share time with deadline acquisition Betemit, who's provided some pop off the bench along with the ability to play all four infield positions. The Yanks may muddle through, but the standing reservation they've held for the postseason since 1995 has been jeopardized by poor planning here.
I was at Yankee Stadium on a gorgeous Saturday to reap the benefits of a team replacing its Replacement Level Killer. In a surprise move, on Friday the Tigers DFA'ed leftfielder Craig Monroe and promoted blue-chipper Cameron Maybin, who had just a couple weeks of Double-A experience. Though he appeared to struggle with the transition to leftfield -- he's a natural centerfielder -- Maybin collected a single and an impressive 417-foot homer off Roger Clemens in just his second big-league game. BP prospect maven Kevin Goldsten ranked him seventh on our Top 100 Prospect lists over the winter and compared Maybin's upside to "a healthy Eric Davis." Now that's buzz.
Fellow 2007 RLKillers Stephen Drew and Andruw Jones came up as topics in last Friday's chat, where JAWS talk predominated -- A-Rod, Ichiro, Chipper (and Andruw), Gary Sheffield, Kenny Lofton and Omar Vizquel all got cursory evaluations, which should make up for the lack of JAWS in this week's Hit and Run. Here's a thread of Ichiro questions:
Alex (SF, CA): How many more years of top-notch CF play does Ichiro need to be a shoe-in or is he already?
JJ: At least three, since it takes 10 seasons in the majors to be eligible.
He won't have the career numbers to make him a slam dunk, but assuming he keeps up his level of play long enough to get at least 2000 hits , I think he's a good bet to get in.
For what it's worth, if he finishes the season with the WARP3 he's on pace for, his JAWS peak score will be three wins above the average HOF centerfielder (66.6-63.7).
birkem3 (Dayton): For HOF purposes, should Ichiro even be considered a CF? This year is his first full-time exposure to CF.
JJ: Good point, though rightfield is actually a steeper hill to climb (119.8 WARP3/65.5 peak/92.7 JAWS) than centerfield (109.1/63.7/86.4).
Hal Incandenza (in here): On the other hand, if we are admitting _any_ "extra- (i.e. non-) statistical" criteria for the Hall, Ichiro -- assuming continued production -- is a slam dunk, no?
JJ: Indeed. I doubt he'll have a World Series ring (sorry, Mariner fans) let alone two, but I do see Ichiro as having a Kirby Puckett-esque case for the Hall - short career, high peak.
Hopefully without the belated allegations of violence towards women and the early grave bit, of course.
Finally, there's last Friday's Hit List. In keeping with the It Ain't Over plugs and the chat-related synergy, we'll chose the Angels' entry:
In Steven Goldman's most recent chat, one reader of the just-released It Ain't Over's chapter on Carl Yastrzemski (written by yours truly) asked if the Angels fit the bill as a team whose pennant chances might be hurt by the lack of a second superstar behind Vladimir Guerrero. To the contrary, the Halos appear to be in great shape on that front, since the correlation between winning percentage and WARP3 increases markedly the deeper one drills into the roster. Vlad (8.2 WARP3) is joined by Orlando Cabrera (9.4), Kelvim Escobar (8.5), and John Lackey (8.1) in terms of front-line talent, with Gary Matthews Jr. (6.9), Reggie Willits (6.6), and Francisco Rodriguez (6.4) in strong supporting roles... For results of last week's Rat-tastic contest see here.
More on the Angels -- once again proving themselves to be the thorn in the Yankees' side -- when I get a chance.
Another week, another Hit List, this one completed at breakneck speed since I more or less put myself out of commission on Wednesday with a combination of radio, my BP chat, and a trip to Yankee Stadium to see the hottest team in baseball. And no, I don't mean the Diamondbacks, who left New York looking like the "Join Or Die" snake after being trounced by a combined score of 18-4 during the three-game sweep.
Wednesday night's game was the only one where the Diamondbacks even got a lead; they scored off Mike Mussina with two outs in the second, but Jorge Posada led off the bottom half by drilling Livan Hernandez's first pitch just over the rightfield wall. Number of outs over which Arizona held a lead = 1. The Yanks loaded the bases with two walks and a single, but neither Miguel Cairo and Wil Nieves -- two absolute zeroes with the stick -- could take advantage.
That was the last bit of luck for ol' Livan, whose velocity seldom reaches higher than the mid-80s at this point. A leadoff walk to Derek Jeter in the third -- one of five walks Hernandez surrendered during his brief stint -- was soon followed by Alex Rodriguez's 25th homer of the year, a no-doubter into the leftfield stands. That was nothing compared to the fourth inning, when a two-out single by Bobby Abreu sparked a rally. Abreu stole second and scored when A-Rod singled to leftfield. A Posada walk was followed by a monster shot to right-centerfield by Hideki Matsui, and as fast as you could say "Go Go Godzilla!" the Yanks had expanded their lead to 7-1. That would be the last inning for Hernandez.
Meanwhile, Mike Mussina baffled the D-back hitters in what may have been his best outing of the season. He threw first pitch strikes to 13 out of the first 17 hitters he faced and 20 out of 28 overall, and struck out seven -- four of them looking -- while walking none. Brian Bruney and Mike Myers came on to make things interesting, but in the end, the Yanks took their eighth straight. With Thursday afternoon's win, they ran that to nine straight and 12 out of 14; they're #8 on this week's Hit List and have shaved seven games off the once-ridiculous 14.5-game lead the Red Sox held on May 29.
Next up for the Yanks is the crosstown Mets, who are amid a slump in which they've lost nine out of 10. Spent a good deal of time watching them play the Dodgers, who had problems of their own coming into the series, in front of a star-studded Dodger Stadium audience that included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (having it both ways with a Brooklyn Dodgers cap), Hilary Swank, Jerry Seinfeld, and -- for the first time I can recall in the 25 years since he left he organization -- Steve Garvey. Anyway, here's what I wrote in the Hit List:
Code Blue: amid a 1-5 skid that sends them tumbling into third place in the NL West, the Dodgers recall James Loney and Matt Kemp to fortify a flagging offense that's second-to-last in the league in homers; they've gotten just one from Nomar Garciaparra and none from Rafael Furcal, a duo that combined for 35 last year. The moves pay off as the Dodgers sweep the swooning Mets, with Wilson Betemit, Kemp, and Hong-Chih Kuo--the lineup's 7-8-9 hitters--homering on three straight pitches. In addition to adding a Bonds-like flourish to his longballs, Kuo's pitching in on the mound, yielding just two runs in his last 13 innings while striking out 12.
Mets color analyst Ron Darling spent an endless amount of time discussing Kuo's bat toss amid an interminable multi-night lecture series on proper conduct amid a losing streak. Darling felt Kuo should have gotten some chin music for his admittedly egregious display, and had he left it at that, things would have been fine. But he'd been pressing the same kind of "Don't hit 'em so hard, Reggie" whine line for two nights in a row, and I was ready to puncture my eardrum with an icepick after listening to him. I don't usually watch the Mets, given that I have two teams to follow already. But while I like the clean graphics of their TV network better than those on YES, and while I dig a good number of the Mets players -- Jose Reyes, David Wright, the slugging (or struggling) Socialist Carlos Delgado, El Duque, Carlos Beltran, etc -- so much about that organization -- from the announcers to Shea Stadium to the life and times of Brooklyn's own Paul Lo Duca (who looked amusingly pained amid the Mets' ridiculously poor play) -- is irreducibly Met-like, and every bit as enthralling as a make-out session with Gary Carter. Yeah, eeeuw.
Anyway, the Dodgers swept the Mets, and combined with the D-bags' sagging fortunes, narrowed the NL West fight down to two teams for the moment. The aforementioned recalls illustrate a club that's clearly undergoing a midseason transition; my man Jon Weisman covers the changes over at Dodger Thoughts. Interestingly enough, as the team has cycled through prospects Andy La Roche and Tony Abreu in an attempt to get some production from the hot corner after Wilson Betemit's woeful .125/.297/.161 start (thought May 4), it's Betemit himself who's re-emerged as the best option. Since losing his job, he's hit .340/.446/.851, including a 7-for-15, 1.200 SLG turn as a pinch-hitter. Nice.
As for the chat, it was a breezy one that likely didn't piss off as many people as I have recently with remarks about Murray Chass or Tony La Russa (I guess I lacked the rojo, as Ron Darling would say). I'll cherrypick a few of the better exchanges:
Malcolm Little (Lansing, MI): We're a little more than 1/3 of the way through MLB v.2007.... ....Can you think of a couple of teams who are very unlikely to get back on track this "late" in the season (beyond the obvious)? Is there a wayward team out there still likely to get it together in time for at least a perfunctory run?
JJ: The last two World Champs, the White Sox and Cardinals, look to be in horrid shape right now. I know the latter has made some advances in the past week or so, but their run differential says that even at 27-34, they're overachieving. As for the White Sox, man, that offense is just kaput, and the low BABIPs of the rotation have been regressing to the mean pretty quickly over the last few weeks.
On the other side of the coin, I really don't think the Cubs are as awful as they look or as the media is making them out to be. For all of their problems they've still got a +25 run differential and they're only 5.5 out. Maybe the Aramis Ramirez injury changes things, but I still think this team can wait out their troubles and give the Brewers a scare.
bloodwedding (BK): Let's face it: Sheffield's last month makes him a lock for the Hall.
JJ: Sheffield's a fantastic hitter, no doubt about it, and he's put up an OPS around 1100 for the past seven weeks. Suffice it to say that no matter what kind of trouble his mouth gets him into, his bat usually manages to hit his way out.
Shef's JAWS coming into the year is already ahead of the HOF rightfielder standards (120.2/68.0/94.1 for him, 119.8/65.5/92.7 for the average), so he's plenty qualifield. The question will be whether the various controversies that surrounded him throughout his career, from the infamous "intentional error" quote to the endless bitching about his contracts to his involvement in BALCO to his latest comments about race are held against him. I'm inclined to think that the writers like him because he give them good copy, and that may help. But I do think there's a lot that can be held against him, with the steroid allegations the biggest threat to him being elected
akachazz (DC): Hey Jay, The situation with the Mariners really REALLY needs to be addressed. Nothing about their roster seems impressive, their hitters are impatient, their staff is mediocre, and they are run by the dunce of the GM world. But their record is outstanding. ???
JJ: The Mariners would rank 10th on the Hit List if it ran today. They're nine games over .500 but only 16 runs above even, which tells me they're not nearly this good (as if their roster didn't tell me that). At the same time, ESPN's Strength of Schedule numbers say that they've played the seventh-toughest schedule, so there is something going on there that's positive.
What's working? They've got a good bullpen, third in the league in WXRL. They may well continue to maintain that, but I think they'll have a hard time preserving the 21-12 record they have in games decided by three runs or less without some serious help from the rotation, which is fourth-to-last in the majors in SNLVAR.
In other words, locate your parachutes.
Regarding the Mariners, I had some serious vertical integration going on Wednesday, as I was able to use the same set of factoids for chat, radio, Hit List, and even idle ballpark chatter -- not that my friend Julie was particularly concerned about the doings in Seattle beyond Jeff Weaver's weird season. Gotta love the cross-platform synergy. Also, there was lots of Hall of Fame/JAWS talk in the chat, with Curt Schilling, John Smoltz, several Mets, and Jorge Posada all up for discussion. I'll have more on Posada in an upcoming Unfiltered entry at BP. Until then...
Once again -- the tenth time, by my count -- I'll be hosting a chat at Baseball Prospectus on Wednesday at 1 PM Eastern. Dodgers, Yankees, Hit List, JAWS, The Sopranos finale, the eternal genius of Tony La Russa, anything but the draft -- you're barking up the wrong tree there. Drop by with a question or submit one beforehand.
Despite the arrival of Hunter Pence, the Astros are decidedly earthbound after nine losses in 10 games, and at this rate, the only Rocket ride they can look forward to is on Kiss Alive II. Owner Drayton McLane, GM Tim Purpura, president of baseball operations Tal Smith, and manager Phil Garner confer, deciding that Garner's mustache is trimmed to the optimal length to inspire Craig Biggio in his deathless march to 3,000.
And that's without even considering the state of the Yankee rotation, which we'll get to momentarily. Late in my Friday afternoon chat at BP, I made reference to a bit of sarcasm passing me by like a Clemens fastball, and then shortly afterwards, fielded a question about the Rocket:
The Animal (Boston): Speaking of Clemens... got a prediction?
Jay Jaffe: Yes. With the Red Sox lacking a defined need and the Astros going nowhere fast, I think this is the Yanks' play if Clemens comes back, and my guess is that he heists them for something like a prorated salary of $30 million.
Sunday afternoon, during the seventh-inning stretch of the Yanks' 5-0 win over the Mariners, the cameras cut to Clemens as he made a surprise announcement from owner George Steinbrenner's private box: "Well, they came and got me out of Texas and I can tell you it's a privilege to be back. I'll be talking to y'all soon." Terms were not immediately announced, but ESPN's Buster Olney reports that Clemens' salary will be a pro-rated $28 million -- not a bad guess on my part, I must say -- or about $4.5 million per month. Not a bad living for possibly the greatest pitcher of all time.
Clemens, amid his rather tiresome annual retirement ritual, had insisted over the past several months that he wouldn't be making a decision between the aforementioned three teams until the end of May. But the combination of the Yankees' decimated rotation, the other two teams' delayed timeframe, Clemens' accelerated workout schedule, and cold, hard cash made for an inevitable resolution. As Olney reports:
Clemens and [agent Randy] Hendricks made it clear to everyone, even into late April, that he wouldn't make his decision until late May. But as Mike Mussina got hurt and then Carl Pavano, the Yankees felt they could and should become more aggressive. After landing in Texas, Cashman wanted to set up a meeting with Hendricks -- only to learn, to his horror, that the agent was meeting with the Red Sox, which the agent confirmed to Cashman with a text message on May 1. Hours later, Phil Hughes hurt his hamstring. The Yankees' need for pitching was acute.
Cashman and Hendricks e-mailed back and forth on Tuesday and Wednesday, kicking around the idea of meeting during the day Thursday in Houston, but there was a terrible storm in Arlington that forced the postponement of the game. The Yankees and Rangers were scheduled for a doubleheader Thursday, and Cashman felt that if he was away from the team during the game, then the media might get an inkling of how he was trying to make an aggressive move on Clemens. He had used the same approach in signing Johnny Damon: Make a very aggressive offer quickly and force a decision.
So Hendricks and Cashman spoke on Thursday night, and the financial parameters were laid out: Clemens would cost a prorated salary of $28 million. Hendricks got off the phone and called Clemens, and told him that the time was nearing for the pitcher to make a decision, and that if he was going to go to the Yankees, now was the time. "Let's do it," Clemens responded.
The past week-and-change has intensified the need for stability in the Yanks' rotation. Last Saturday, Jeff Karstens was drilled by a line drive that fractured his fibula. On Tuesday, Philip Hughes broke hearts just as he was winning them over, popping his hamstring while chasing a no-hitter. On Friday, Kei Igawa, who had come out of the bullpen to fire six innings of shutout ball in relief of Karstens, pitched like the guy who got sent to the pen in the first place. And as the week wore on, doubts about Crippled Pitcher's Carl Pavano's return this season reached a deafening crescendo. Despite good work from Andy Pettitte and Darrell Rasner, a sizzling start from just-activated Mike Mussina and Chien-Ming Wang chasing perfection, the Yanks' rotation doesn't appear to have the necessary depth to hold up its end of this $200 million deal, which is why a team with the highest-scoring offense in the majors is still clawing its way back to .500 while losing ground to their rivals. Here's a thumbnail comparison of the Yankee and Red Sox rotations thus far:
The Yanks aren't even averaging five innings per start, they're getting a Quality Start less than half as often, allowing about 1.50 runs per game more; the three wins above replacement level difference (according to BP's numbers) seems to be an underestimation given the superiority of the Yankee offense thus far, but the difference in bullpen performances has been even steeper, and there's no question the latter fact is a product of the former. As the Yanks have spent the past decade reminding us, the soft underbelly of long relief can make for quite a feast.
There's no question Clemens can still pitch. Granted, the NL has played as an inferior league during Clemens' three years years in Houston, and that's before considering the DH/non-DH factor, but a pitcher who put up these numbers from ages 41-43 can still get it done:
Year W-L IP K/9 ERA ERA+ 2004 18-4 214.1 9.1 2.98 145 Cy Young #7 2005 13-8 211.1 7.9 1.87 221 Led NL in ERA 2006 7-6 113.1 8.1 2.30 197
Despite the drama of the announcement and the Yankees' obvious need, as a fan I've got mixed emotions about Clemens' return. I was no fan of Clemens when he came to New York -- I screamed myself hoarse at some of his early starts -- but I came around. I was in the House That Ruth Built watching him nail down the 1999 World Series clincher, an indelible moment in my time as a fan. I was also at his stellar Game Three performance in the 2001 Seres, where he held off the Diamondbacks in a tense game played under tense circumstances. For all of his checkered history in big games -- a history I've explored several times -- his best big-game performances have come as a Yankee: "In 17 pinstriped [postseason] starts, he had a 3.24 ERA and won two World Series rings; with the other two teams, his ERA is 4.19 with no championships," I wrote in 2005. And I've held that when he retired for the first time, he owed the Yanks and their fans nothing except perhaps the return of that Humvee, which is just more Steinbrenner money anyway.
Having said that, I've watched Clemens reveal himself as even more of a mercenary since then; like Krusty the Klown, selling out is in his blood. Clemens is perhaps the ultimate mercenary in baseball history, one who's not only able to call the shots on where he plays, but exactly when he gets to show up to work. Taking him at his word on any matter involving his retirement or his return is a foolish act, and his burly-redneck-football-adrenaline-junky-drama-queen persona is a bit tough to digest. And that's before his pitching even comes into play. He's still a going-on-45, six-inning pitcher coming to a tough division -- not to mention the loftiest, championship-or-bust expectations to be found in team sports -- and counting on him to dominate as he did even for stretches during this millennium is probably a pipe dream given the contrast to his cushy Houston environs.
Still, when the alternative is watching a parade of Your Name Heres limp from mound to DL to bullpen or Scranton and back again trying to fill out the Yankee rotation, Clemens is the preferable alternative. In for a penny, in for a pound, as my Anglophilic friends would say. His pricey presence allows the Yanks to continue with their attempt to have cake and eat it too, winning while rebuilding, buying time for a young arm like Hughes to develop. If nothing else, this Rocket ride is certain to be an interesting one.
A reminder to those of you who are XM subscribers: I'll be doing my usual 2 PM Eastern slot with Chris Liss today on XM 144's "Baseball Beat," and I'm sure you-know-who will be at least one topic of conversation between two Yankee fans.
Also on the radio, on Wednesday at 4:10 PM Eastern I'll be appearing on Toledo, Ohio's 1470 AM (WLQR), doing a show called "Front Row" with host Norm Wamer. Wamer had me on last week, and I'm delighted to return. Catch it if you're in the area.
On Monday, my JAWS article about the Veterans Committee was published at Baseball Prospectus publication. Tuesday saw the voting results -- another shutout -- announced, and when I blogged it at BP Unfiltered, I added a veiled dig at the New York Times' Murray Chass, who had... well, I'll give him the rope:
I receive a daily e-mail message from Baseball Prospectus, an electronic publication filled with articles and information about statistics, mostly statistics that only stats mongers can love.
To me, VORP epitomized the new-age nonsense. For the longest time, I had no idea what VORP meant and didnt care enough to go to any great lengths to find out. I asked some colleagues whose work I respect, and they didnt know what it meant either.
Finally, not long ago, I came across VORP spelled out. It stands for value over replacement player. How thrilling. How absurd. Value over replacement player. Dont ask what it means. I dont know.
I suppose that if stats mongers want to sit at their computers and play with these things all day long, thats their prerogative. But their attempt to introduce these new-age statistics into the game threatens to undermine most fans enjoyment of baseball and the human factor therein.
People play baseball. Numbers dont.
Shortly after the blog entry was published, I began receiving a steady stream of emails, almost unanimously positive. The supportive comments -- thank you, readers -- kept pouring in during my chat a couple of hours later, where I said some things that a few people took as upping the rhetorical ante. If I regret anything now that the story has cooled, it's that nobody got the vintage Ice-T reference, and that said opening line was taken as BP's party line. It was not; it was an off-the-cuff response that was far more heated and less measured than Executive Vice President Nate Silver's open letter, which stands as BP's official response.
In my view and the view of many others around the blogosphere, Chass looked completely foolish. Even in hindsight, I'm puzzled why his screed was published; it's an embarrassment to the New York Times and the profession. Did anyone who read that article decide they would suddenly take Chass more seriously than they had before, now that he had drawn the line in the sand and declared, I will not learn what this means under any circumstances, even when the answer is one click away?
Did any of Chass' colleagues at the Times -- whether old-guardsmen like Dave Anderson and George Vescey or younger writers such as Alan Schwarz and David Leonhardt (who have mentioned many BP statistics and writers in their "Keeping Score" column" but who obviously weren't asked in Chass' informal poll) -- thank him for standing up to those punks with their new-age stats?
Did the wheezing Grey Lady gain more traction in any quarter thanks to one of its writers proudly standing up for knownothingism?
Boil down Chass' words, and they amount to, "I don't understand this. It somehow finds my computer every day and it scares me and reminds me I'm obsolete. They're replacing me with a calculator!" To me, that looks like a writer who's gone waaaay past his pitch count.
It's a sad day when someone who's received the top honor that baseball can grant his profession decides he knows too much about the sport to have to learn another statistic. Scratch that. It's a sad day when any writer decides he knows so much about his field that he'll trumpet his exemption from learning more.
It's even sadder that said writer, who was honored in part for being on the vanguard of reporting the business of baseball and its labor issues, has decided that he no longer can keep up with the changing times. Worse, he decided to make an unsupportable and offensive generality that something he doesn't understand -- a statistic, for heaven's sake -- somehow ruins the game for most fans.
The beauty of baseball is that its fans can find such a multitude of ways to appreciate the game. If Chass hasn't grasped that single fact in 40-something years of covering baseball, he hasn't learned a thing.
Aside from l'affair Chass, my chat also featured technical problems that sent a few of my responses floating into the ether rather than showing up on the page. I earmarked a couple of JAWS-related ones to take a later swing at:
bloodwedding (BK): Jay, I am not totally up on HOF opinion and JAWS, but I assume a) that Biggio is a lock and b) that he is now a below average player in 2007. Using Biggio (not sure he is the best example), but say a player's last few seasons are decidedly below average for their position, yet they push up the guy's WARP3 or what-have-you...my question is, should Peak be given more weight than Longevity, and how much more? A guy like Albert Belle could peter out for a few more years and enhance his raw totals, but it wouldn't help a team in real life. Thoughts?
Biggio, who is now just 70 hits shy of 3,000 and 19 homers shy of 300, is in good shape regarding the Hall of Fame based on hi
