SEAT LICENSE RENEWALS It's almost spring
when a young man's thoughts turn to... those expensive
seat licenses. An online cash advance can help relieve the anxiety.
Last year, we were about four rows from Newark up in section 413 just beyond the infield down the right field line:
This year, we're in the front row of section 422, much closer to the plate:
These are much more comparable to our seats in the old stadium, albeit an estimated 30 feet back and 30 feet higher:
Best of all, the seats are just $25 a pop on our plan, up a reasonable $5 from last year and still less than half of what we paid in 2008. That's a huge win, and while it doesn't completely replace the bitter taste in my mouth over the way we were treated last winter, it's only fair to acknowledge that things have improved, and that my friends and I are happier for it.
Gathering the week's work at Baseball Prospectus:
On Wednesday I wrote about the Red Sox on the heels of their five-game losing streak, which they shook off even as I was finishing the thing. The biggest deal about their situation isn't their pitching or their defense, it's David Ortiz:
Most of the handwringing regarding the Sox's slow start boils down to concern about Ortiz, who's in the final year of a four-year, $52 million deal. It took just two games and seven futile at-bats before the calls for his benching began, and at this writing he's now 6-for-41 with 17 strikeouts and zero homers; last night he was pulled in favor of Mike Lowell to face lefty Darren Oliver with two on and two out in the seventh inning, the Sox down by two. That the 34-year-old slugger is in decline isn't exactly up for debate:
As bad as that progression looks, the last line conceals the drastic split between the first couple months of his season (.185/.284/.287 with a lone homer in 208 PA through May 31), and the rest (.264/.356/.548 with 27 homers in 419 PA). Which isn't to say that it's only a matter of time before Ortiz's 2007 form comes around again; two years of wrist woes as well as the general aging process applied to a bulky sloth with a history of knee problems should see to that. PECOTA isn't entirely down on Ortiz, forecasting a .274/.368/.514 weighted mean projection, but even so, those aren't the numbers of a lineup centerpiece anymore.
Still, some of this has a whiff of confirmation bias. Ortiz is a notoriously slow starter who owns a .257./345/.502 line in 1030 March and April plate appearances for his career, and a .286/.382/.551 line in the other 5067 PA 86 points of OPS higher. He has had some good Aprils, but not since 2007; his last two came in at a combined .205/.292/.342, compared to .261/.362/.516 otherwise over a span where AL designated hitters combined to bat .255/.338/.439. His overall mark in that span (.250/.348/.482) is still better than the league-average DH, even after adjusting for park.
The real issue isn't his slow starts so much as it's his performance against lefties:
Always fun to see Boston down, but I don't think they're going to stay down for long there's too much talent and too many resources there, though the catching situation is also a concern given that Victor Martinez and Jason Varitek have only thrown out about 11 percent of base thieves over the past year-plus; the Rangers ran riot on V-Mart, stealing nine bases on Tuesday night.
The NL Hit List features Chickens for Checkups and endless dry-humping (the term for what the Mets' idiot savant manager Jerry Manuel did by warming up closer Francisco Rodriguez nine times during the team's 20-inning win on Saturday).
If you follow my Twitter stream, you've already heard my blue-streaked mea culpa regarding Phil Hughes' no-hit bid on Wednesday night. The sanitized version is as follows. I was out with my friend Nick at Beauty Bar in the East Village, preparing to call it a night after a few beers, when I checked the Yanks-A's score on my iPhone. I saw that through seven innings, Hughes had a no-hitter going, so we bolted out of the bar (which doesn't have a television) in search of one that did. We passed a sports bar with a big Yankee logo, but every TV we could see in there had basketball or nature shows on, so we peered into the next bar down Second Avenue. By the time we'd sat down with our beers, I realized it was a Red Sox-flavored bar, the notorious Professor Thom's, which everybody in the Twitscape seemed aware of but me. One pitch later, Hughes' no-no was no mo'. From the AL Hit List , which is topped by the Bronx Bombers:
[#1 Yankees] Philthy: Phil Hughes becomes the second Yankees pitcher this season to take a no-hitter into the eighth, but he's jinxed by a bum who stumbles into the wrong bar, fails to locate a comebacker, and settles for a 7 1 1 1 2 10 line. At least he emerges in one piece, unlike his last no-hit bid three (!) years ago. The Yanks' rotation is firing on nearly every cylinder, though Javy Vazquez's 8.27 ERA is nearly as high as the other four pitchers' marks added together (8.91). Meanwhile, the team's equivalent of Halley's Comet comes around, as they pull off their first triple play in 42 years.
In addition to being Philthy, the Hit List is Trembley, Slowey, Javy, Brantley and totally Lackey. Also Smoaky.
One final note: on May 1, Blogger will stop FTP publishing, the means by which this blog is published so as to reside on the same server as the rest of my site while emulating its look and feel. I am investigating a move to the WordPress platform, and at some point am going to need to provide some instructions (a new URL, likely) as to how to find FI. If for some reason this blog is offline for any length of time, know that it will be back soon enough and that I'll see you on the other side.
A native of suburban New Jersey who grew up a Yankees fan and came of age early in the Torre dynasty, Emma's currently a regular Bronx Banter contributor as well as the occasional keeper of her own well-named blog, Eephus Pitch (disclosure: I have been known to quaff the odd beer and/or attend the occasional ballgame with Ms. Span and am pleased to report she is delightful company for either endeavor. Also, I am partial to books which borrow their titles from Yogi Berra aphorisms).
As with most fans, male or female, working inside the game was hardly her first calling. As her story goes, after majoring in film studies at Yale, Emma faced the harsh reality of a liberal arts education that could take her only so far, in this case to a dead-end job writing blurbs for dubious direct-to-video titles like Titaboobs Paradise and Stanley the Stinkbug Goes to Camp. Her adventures inside the game began when she caught a break and had the opportunity to cover the 2006 Mets' playoff run for the Village Voice, a venerable alternative weekly rarely known for its sports coverage even as it's gone more mainstream (though Allen Barra heyday for Jockbeat was notably worthwhile). Her run at the Voice was brief she was laid off after returning from a two-week trip to Florida to cover spring training the following year but nonetheless long enough to confront the necessity of cultivating a sense of professional detachment from her rooting interests. Along the way she gathered some keen and often hilarious insights into working behind the scenes. Particularly notable is her jaundiced take on Shea Stadium and her introduction to the locker room etiquette of being a female sportswriter segments of which put a recent Varsity Letters audience in stitches:
I don't really want to pile on Shea, because there's a long line. I heard at least seven or eight different sportswriters experess their eagerness to be the one pushing the plunger when demolition day finally came. (They were all disappointed, as Shea was reduced to rubble slowly and in pieces). But also because, in this age of cookie-cuter nostalgia-fest stadiums, I grudgingly admired Shea's unique ugliness. The place had character sort of a disagreeable character, but character and that ought to be worth something. It was a reminder of changing times; Shea was completed less than fifty years ago, in 1964, yet it is now impossible to imagine a scenario in which anyone could look at those blueprints and think, Good idea.
... On my first day I'd been in the clubhouse less than an hour when Pedro Martinez walked in and started changing by his locker. I wanted to go over and talk to him ask him a question if I could get up the nerve, or at least listen in to a group session. But I figured I would wait until he got some pants on. It seemed lie the polite thing to do, probably the course of action Emily Post would suggest.
I shifted my weight from one leg to the other and fiddled with my pen; Pedro gave interviews cheerfully and joked with his teammates in Spanish. I glanced over super-briefly, so as not to get too good a look at anything, every few minutes. Pedro really not in a hurry to put on his pants, reads an exasperated scrawl in my notebook from a good twenty minutes later, really underlined three times. Eventually he wandered into the trainer's room, pants still nowhere in evidence.
After being laid off, Emma turned her energy towards a book project covering the Yankees' and Mets' 2007 seasons in the hope that they would culminate in a Subway Series. Her travels took her well beyond New York, most notably to Milwaukee in the hopes of witnessing Tom Glavine's 300th win as well as the famous sausage race (a topic on which I can claim expertise), and to Taiwan to investigate the state of its professional baseball league as well as the iconic status of Chien-Ming Wang, and the accompanying rabidity of the Yankees' following. Alas, while the Bronx Bombers made the playoffs for the umpteenth straight time (only to eventually be doused by a swarm of midges), the Mets' campaign ended when Glavine crashed and burned on the season's final day.
Emma's plans for that book evolved into 90%, and while the effort to repurpose her tales into a first-person case study on the nature of fandom could have just as easily gone down in flames as that fateful Glavine start, it doesn't. She's a sharp, quick-witted observer with a facility for extrapolating from her own experiences into a more general contemplation of the silly and serious investments we make as fans, often with engaging amounts of self-deprecating humor. She's clear-eyed about the Yankees' excesses, sympathetic to the Mets' inferiority complex, and willing to play both sides of the fence even at the risk of committing baseball polyandry.
As a woman writing about a game played and largely covered, and followed by men (or perhaps more accurately, overgrown boys), Emma inevitably confronts the gender divide at several turns, but her light touch ensures that the topic hardly wears out its welcome. Nowhere does she wind up needing to apologize for any deficit of understanding on account of her femininity; she doesn't cower in fear of scorecards or Baseball Prospectus' advanced metrics, nor does she turn into Ballgame Barbie, more concerned with fashion sense and celebrity gossip than batting orders. Yet she doesn't strain to be one of the boys, either. Instead she simply turns her unique perspective into an asset, emerging with a work that's tough to put down until you've sailed through its 166 pages. Male or female, if you've had the chance to read her work at Bronx Banter, the Voice, or her own site, you know this already. If not, you're in for a treat.
From the Streets of Baltimore to the Sofas of Brooklyn
A bit groggy here after a long week which began with a fun ballpark trip to a Baseball Prospectus event in Baltimore one which included Orioles president Andy MacPhail, six BP authors, and XM Radio hosts Mike Ferrin and Grant Paulsen and was capped by having stayed up past 2:00 AM on each of the past two nights watching the Dodgers and Diamondbacks battle into extra innings a combined eight hours and 39 minutes digested via TiVo, both times after taking in Yankees games and other baseball earlier in the day.
I've been fairly busy on the content front as well. Don't tell anyone I told you, but the forthcoming BP site facelift features a new author page where you can see my latest work at a glance and/or grab an RSS feed (consider this a beta version, with no warranty implied). Onto the highlight reel:
"Disastropiece Theater" examines the Astros' 0-7 start (which ran to 0-8) and the fates of teams that started similarly badly:
Houston, we have a problem. On Monday, the Astros lost 5-0 to the Cardinals, running their 2010 record to 0-7 and marking the third time in this young season that they've been shut out by an opponent. To date the Astros have been outscored 42-13 by an average of 4.1 runs per game which comes out to a Pythagenpat winning percentage of .114.
As bad as those numbers look, this doesn't seem terribly remarkable at first glance, particularly given that last year's Astros opened at 1-6 while being outscored 43-16 and shut out twice. Without digging through our archives, I'd guess that I deployed the time-honored (if slightly misremembered) Apollo 13 reference in response to that mess as well. Meanwhile, last year's Nationals got off to an 0-7 start, and the year before that, it was the Tigers plunging to an 0-7 start for the third time in seven years. Happens every spring, right?
Actually, no. Since 1901, just 25 teams have started 0-7, only five of whom have been outscored by wider margins than the current Astros; two more were outscored by the same margin... Interestingly, it's the 1988 Orioles with the worst run differential after seven games; they're the ones who went on to lose a mind-boggling 21 consecutive games to start the year, far outdistancing the 1997 Cubs (0-14), the 1904 Senators and the 1920 Tigers (both 0-13, though the Senators actually tied their second game).
So the Astros have their work cut out for themselves if they really want to make history. Nonetheless, this is not a good list to be on. None of the previous 24 teams which started 0-7 made the postseason, and only two, the 1980 Braves and the 1983 Astros, even cracked .500 for the year. As a group, these teams compiled a combined .380 winning percentage for their seasons, essentially the equivalent of a 62-100 season.
Beyond that, there's an analysis of the problems specific to the 'Stros, namely their offense, their general manager and their owner. There but for the grace of God...
As the Astros ran their record to 0-8, I wondered (via a Prospectus One-Hopper - those are free, by the way) how many managers had run into similar fates as new Houston skipper Brad Mills. One of the three I was able to find was mighty familiar:
Moose Stubing, 1988 Angels, 0-8 This one's close to my heart. Lawrence George "Moose" Stubing was a Bronx-born minor league masher in the 1950s and 1960s in the Pirates, Giants, Cardinals and Angels chains. In a minor league career of 1419 games, he hit .283 and slugged .474 with 192 homers, mostly at the Double-A level, with his best seasons coming in El Paso (.316/.454/.613 with 35 homers and 120 RBI in 1964 as a 25-year-old). He hit just .212/.321/.357 in 148 games at Triple-A, and went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts in his cup of coffee with the 1967 California Angels. After playing, Stubing joined the Angels' organization, serving as a scout and minor league manager from 1971 through 1985. During that tenure he spent two years (1980-1981) managing the Angels' Triple-A affiliate in my hometown, Salt Lake City. An amiable lug, he'd show up in the offseason refereeing NCAA basketball games in the Western Athletic Conference and later the PAC-10, generally drawing cheers from the crowd, a rarity for just about any ref. Stubing went on to spend six seasons (1985-1990) as the Angels' third base coach, taking time out to assume interim manager duties at the end of 1988, after Cookie Rojas had been fired with a 75-79 record. He went 0-8 and was replaced over the winter by Doug Rader, never to get another chance to manage in the majors, thus becoming the first player ever to carry 0-fers as both a player and a manager. Stubing was still in baseball as of last year, serving as a special assistant to the general manager for the Nationals, but was relieved of his duties at the end of the year.
Somewhere I have a copy of the Referee magazine with Stubing on the cover, holding a pint of beer:
National and American League flavors for the Hit List. Speaking of the two teams I've spent the wee hours with:
[#5 Diamondbacks] So Much For the New Guys: With Brandon Webb nowhere in sight, a big part of the Diamondbacks' bid for relevance hinges on Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy, both acquired in the Granderson blockbuster. So far, so-so; the two have been cuffed for a combined 6.75 ERA in four starts despite an 18/6 K/BB ratio in 21.2 frames. The Snakes are 2-2 in those games despite not getting a quality start, though Jackson's second turn is mitigated by his hitting a two-run homer amid a 13-run fourth-inning outburst.
[#7 Dodgers] Staff of the Undead: Given the choice for an opening day assignment between Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley, Joe Torre opts for wait for it Vicente Padilla, who pitches as though suffering from a gunshot wound (4.1 6 7 7 3 2). He's not the only retread on this pitching staff, either; Ramon Ortiz, Russ Ortiz and Jeff Weaver have allowed 10 runs in 12.1 innings over 15 appearances thus far, with an 8/9 K/BB ratio. At least Torre deserves props for anointing knuckleballer Charlie Haeger his fifth starter; he whiffs 12 in his first turn, albeit in a losing cause, and even adds an inning of scoreless relief.
As for the two usual suspects in the AL:
[#2 Yankees] The defending champions rack up road series wins in Boston and Tampa Bay before returning home to ring in a celebration which includes a classy tribute to the departed World Series MVP, Hideki Matsui (now the Los Angeles Godzilla of Anaheim). New arrivals Curtis Granderson and Nick Johnson fare well, but Javy Vazquez isn't feeling the love; he's booed in the Bronx, perhaps because his ERA in pinstripes dating back to the 2004 All-Star break now stands at 7.52 (101.2 innings including postseason).
[#9 Red Sox] Big Papi, Big Problems: Despite coming from behind to win on opening night, the Sox drop their season-opening series to the Yankees in Fenway, then play the patsies as the Twins open Target Field as well. Amid their slow start, concerns mount regarding David Ortiz, who starts 4-for-26 with no homers and 13 strikeouts, including two or more in five straight games. Colorful in expressing his frustration, Ortiz is at least somewhat vulnerable given the presence of Mike Lowell on the bench. PECOTA isn't terribly concerned, forecasting a .274/.368/.514 weighted mean (a .290 True Average) for the 34-year-old slugger, but Jay-Z has beef.
And finally, there's the One-Hoppers version of my Jackie Robinson Day missive, which includes an addendum regarding every player wearing number 42, as gleaned from the great Vin Scully, whose Jackie Day broadcasts are worth the price of the Extra Innings package alone:
Watching Thursday night's Dodger game, I heard Vin Scully re-tell a story told by Dodger pitcher Carl Erskine first in his bookWhat I Learned from Jackie Robinson and then to the New York Times' Dave Anderson here in which the Dodgers played a game in Cincinnati after Robinson had received a death threat. Police sharpshooters covered the ballpark, making for a tense situation. At a team meeting, outfielder Gene Hermanski offered a suggestion for the Dodgers manager (in the book, it's Burt Shotton, in 1947, in the Times it's Charlie Dressen in 1951; Hermanski was on the team until June 15 of the latter year, but the date of the former is more plausible given the initial tension). "Hey, Skip, Ive got an idea," said Hermanski. "If we all wore 42 out there, they wont know who to shoot." The question introduced a bit of levity which helped ratchet down the tension; everybody, including Robinson, laughed. Read in light of that story, the act of every player wearing the number becomes one not just of unity but defiance.
Scully also re-told his Ice Skating with Jackie story, which was preserved for posterity last year in the must-bookmark Sons of Steve Garvey Vin Scully Repository. This one on racism, Bill Veeck, and the flight of major league spring training facilities to Arizona is rather appropriate given the Jackie Robinson theme as well.
Wins shouldn't constitute the be-all and end-all of a pitcher's Hall of Fame case, anyway. As rising strikeout and walk rates (not to mention offensive levels) have elevated pitch counts over the past 40 years, teams have grown more protective of hurlers, with managers moving to five-man rotations and building increasingly specialized bullpens which make complete games a thing of the past, and starter Ws increasingly rare. Between those trends and the sabermetrically-driven awareness of what outcomes pitchers actually control, it's clear that the win is less the product of individual brilliance or intestinal fortitude on a given day than the confluence of ample support from offense, defense, and bullpen.
As i wrote last summer in a piece on potential 300 game winners, "In 1972, the year before the designated hitter's introduction, starters completed games 27.1 percent of the time, collected decisions 78.5 percent of the time, and lasted an average of 6.7 innings in their starts. In contrast, last year [2009] they went the distance 2.8 percent the time, collected decisions 69 percent of the time, and averaged 5.8 innings."
For the piece, I wound up dividing 13 pitchers into three categories, Best Best, Mid-Range Candidates and Long-Range Candidates (the ESPN TMI blog entry for which the piece was originally intended covers only eight pitchers). Among the first category, I took issue with Kurkjian's arbitrary decision to exclude Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz, neither of whom are on rosters currently (the latter is doing broadcasts for TBS) but both of whom may well attempt midseason returns, as Martinez did last year with the Phillies. Those two have very strong cases, as do the top two relievers on the all-time saves list, Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera.
As it turns out, there was one Yankee in each category, so that's where we'll excerpt:
Best Bets Mariano Rivera (71-52, 527 saves, 2.25 ERA, 82.6 career WARP/52.0 Peak WARP/67.3 JAWS) Arguably the greatest closer ever, superior to the five enshrined relievers (Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley, Bruce Sutter, and Goose Gossage), Rivera ranks second all-time in saves, and first with 74.5 WXRL, our reliever win expectancy stat. He's also got a case as the greatest post-season performer, having compiled an astounding 0.74 ERA in 133 1/3 innings for five world championship teams, winding up the last man standing on the mound in a record four World Series. He's also got the highest Career, Peak and JAWS scores of any active pitcher, 9.5 JAWS points above the average Hall pitcher, starter or reliever.
Mid-Range Candidates CC Sabathia (136-81, 3.63 ERA, 37.6/32.6/35.1) Sure, the big man is a freak of nature for whom doom and gloom is predicted given his workload (210 innings per year over his first nine seasons) and physique. His JAWS numbers aren't yet much to write home about because he wasn't an elite run preventer earlier in his career, but he's improved markedly over the past few years, his win total through his age-28 season tops several post-war Hall of Famers, and he'll be backed by an offensive dynamo for the foreseeable future.
Long-Range Candidates Andy Pettitte (229-135, 3.90 ERA, 44.7/30.0/37.4) Pettitte's win total ranks behind only that of Moyer among active pitchers, and he's got five World Series rings and an outstanding post-season resume (18-9, 3.90 ERA in 249 innings) to his credit; recall that he won the clincher in each round of the postseason last year. He'll need an extremely generous amount of credit for his October work to reach Cooperstown, because as impressive as his win total may be, the 38-year-old is running out of time to reach 300. Furthermore, his run prevention woes really suppress his value; he's been worth just 9.1 WARP over the past four years via a 57-44, 4.24 ERA showing across 828 1/3 innings.
Pettitte's more correctly termed a longshot than a long-range candidate, since other pitchers covered in that class included Tim Lincecum and Felix Hernandez. I'm surprised how often his name comes up in Hall of Fame conversations, at least within the NewYorkmedia . It ain't happenin', folks, nor should it. Which isn't to say he hasn't been a fine pitcher and a personal favorite; accompanied by his trademark glare from beneath that cap brim pulled so low, last fall's work certainly reinforced that notion.
It was only one inning and change in an exhibition game, but on Tuesday the Yankees finally got a good look at Pat Venditte, the ambidextrous reliever who has pitched for three of their lower minor league affiliates over the last two years. Drafted out of Creighton in the 20th round in 2008, Venditte has been regarded by the media simply as a curiosity, and even his own organization has treated him more as a suspect than a prospect. Nonetheless, he's done nothing but deliver the goods when asked, compiling dominating numbers 1.53 ERA, 11.6 strikeouts per nine and 6.1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, against just 6.7 hits per nine in an even 100 innings. Intrigued, manager Joe Girardi requested that the Yankees bring him along to the Braves camp for a command performance in a split-squad game. "I've wanted to see it all spring," said the Yankee skipper.
Venditte entered the game in the fifth inning in relief of CC Sabathia, and after warming up with four pitches as a lefty, threw four more as a righty, switching his six-fingered mitt to the opposite hand as he did (alas, MLB.com&'s video edit fails to capture it). The book on him is that he throws harder from the right, with a four-pitch arsenal which includes an 87-89 mph fastball, and scraps his curveball when throwing sidearm from the left, topping out in the low 80s.
He started auspiciously, retiring righty Yunel Escobar on two pitches, the second a grounder. Returning for the sixth, he faced six more hitters, three from the left side and three from the right side, with limited success. Venditte yielded two hits, a walk and a run, but escaped further damage when he induced switch-hitter Brooks Conrad to ground out. Prior to the at-bat, home plate umpire Mark Reilly informed Conrad of the so-called "Pat Venditte Rules" which mandate that a pitcher declare his handedness for the duration of the plate appearance, lest the opponents dance around both sides of the plate until the cows come home, as they did the first time such an occurrence happened in the New York-Penn League.
Along with a couple more grafs about the reactions of Venditte's Yankees teammates, I appended an updated version of an April 2002 Futility Infielder post devoted to the topic of switch-pitching, complete with fresh links and an appearance by Icebox Chamberlain. It's free, so check it out!
Back in the mid-1990s, a trio of young shortstops burst onto the American League scene. Soon dubbed the "Holy Trinity," Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Nomar Garciaparra were part of an elite three-way positional rivalry not seen since the days that Willie, Mickey and the Duke ruled the center field scene. The trio were heirs of a sort to Cal Ripken, Jr., who a generation earlier had opened up the shortstop position to bigger, more athletic and more offensively adept types a development which played no small part in moving the game towards a higher-scoring era. Arguments raged over which of the three was superior, though they often came down to a choice between Rodriguez's video game offensive totals and Jeter's championship rings, with Garciaparra's own merits somewhat lost in the fray. But no matter which dog one had in the hunt, for a few years it certainly seemed as though all three were racing towards Cooperstown.
On Wednesday, the first one of that trio officially bowed out of the race. Garciaparra, who was traded away from the Red Sox mere months before they broke their 86-year World Championship drought in 2004, signed a one-day contract with Boston and announced his retirement. Though just 36 years old, his brittle body had aged far beyond its years, the result of a genetic condition which causes the development of excess scar tissue at the injury site. Already been interrupted by a wrist injury which cost him most of the 2001 season, his career had been on the downslope ever since Achilles tendonitis cost him the first two months of the 2004 season. From that season onward, he averaged just 323 plate appearances per year and qualified for just one batting title while serving a total of 384 days (over two full seasons!) on the disabled list. He did no less than 10 stints due to a groin tear, a fractured wrist, and an endless litany of oblique, knee and calf woes. As his body crumbled, he played just 57 games at his natural position following his exit from Boston.
...While Garciaparra couldn't match Rodriguez's home run numbers or Jeter's championships, during the period that the three players overlapped up to that point a carefully manicured stretch, admittedly he had actually been the most valuable of the Trinity:
--Jeter-- Year Age Tm TAv FRAA WARP 1997 23 NYA .273 -14 3.6 1998 24 NYA .300 1 6.8 1999 25 NYA .324 -7 8.0 2000 26 NYA .300 -21 3.9 Tot .299 -41 22.3
Helped by a knee injury which cost Rodriguez a month during the 1999 season and by Jeter's already-dismal defensive numbers, Garciaparra squeaks by both players in terms of WARP, and he edges past them in True Average as well. Of course, by that point A-Rod had already put up a 9.5-WARP season in 1996, and Jeter had enjoyed a pretty fair year himself.
...[Garciaparra] won't wind up in Cooperstown due to the sad denouement of his career. He leaves behind a bittersweet legacy in Boston, where he reached stardom but like so many other Red Sox stars departed under unhappy circumstances. Nonetheless, he enjoyed a fantastic stretch at the outset of his career. Not only was he a part of one of history's great concentrations of talent at a given position, but for a brief period he could make the claim at being the best of the bunch. No matter what came after it, that's pretty special.
TAv is True Average, formerly known as Equivalent Average, a measure of offensive value per out which adjusts for offensive level, home park, and team pitching. A .260 TAv is defined as league average, a .300 is great, a .230 is replacement level. FRAA is Fielding Runs Above Average, WARP is Wins Above Replacement Player.
In any event, beyond that professional take on Garciaparra and his minimal Hall of Fame chances, I've also got a One-Hopper which expands upon this brief tribute regarding the Dodgers' 4+1 game.
Having covered the Red Sox and Dodger flavors and a bit of the Yankees' flavor, with Jeter involved in my Nomar coverage, I've also got something expressly more pinstriped. Over at Pinstriped Bible, I join Steven Goldman and fellow guest traveler Cliff Corcoran for a roundtable concerning the Yankees' fifth-starter battle between Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes. Here's a taste:
STEVE: Given that Joba was averaging 91 MPH during Wednesday's start and his velocity was down last year as well, is it possible that we're no longer looking at a potential elite starter or am I jumping to conclusions?
JAY: It's probably a bit early to start worrying about any pitcher approaching maximum velocity at this stage of the spring, but the results (11 runs in 3.2 innings via two appearances) are certainly unsettling. That said, I think we're at the point that every minor variation in what Joba does relative to expectations is under such a microscope that we - by which I mean everyone following the Yankees, not specifically you two - are in danger of losing perspective. It's the Yankees brass that's brought this situation about, and one has to wonder if the uncertainty of Chamberlain's role at this point in time is weighing upon him.
STEVE: You bring up a good point about the Joba-scope, Jay. Still, though we always talk about how it's crazy to make decisions based on small sample-performances in Spring Training, but on the other hand, isn't there a point at which you have to say, "Track record be damned, we need to see this player execute already?" Cliff?
CLIFF: ...Track record should absolutely play a part in it, however. In a perfect world, the players competing for jobs in camp aren't all starting from zero. Rather, they're demonstrating the skills that allowed them to compile the track record that got them to this spot in the first place. To use an extreme example, based on track record alone, Ron Guidry should be the fifth starter. He's in camp as a special instructor, so he's available and in uniform, but ask him to win the job and you'll realize that he's 59 years old and no longer has those skills. Based on track record alone, Chamberlain should be the fifth starter, because in his 32 major league starts before the team started skipping his turn and limiting his innings late last year, he posted a 3.27 ERA and 8.74 K/9, while Hughes has a 5.22 ERA and 7.1 K/9 in his 28 major league starts.
Joba also has the advantage of being prepared to throw up to 200 innings this season, but he has to prove that his velocity is not an issue, that he can still break off those nasty sliders we saw in 2007 and 2008, that his curve and change are effective major league pitches, that he can mix those four pitches effectively, and that the debates and rules that hounded him over the past two years haven't undermined his confidence on the mound. Jay is right about Joba being under a microscope and there being a loss of perspective about his performance as a starter (I imagine the stat I quoted above will surprise a lot of readers), but Chamberlain also has to prove that he can withstand that concentrated heat without bursting into flames.
Nick Stone (New York, NY): How do you see the Marcus Thames/Randy Winn/Jamie Hoffman situation shaking out? Do Thames and Winn have anything left in the tank, given last season's fades? I would have though Thames would pinch hit and Winn would then take over to avoid exposing Thames' glove (or lack thereof). Does this mean Hoffman will be returned to the Dodgers shortly?
JJ: First, I think this probably means Hoffman is going back to the Dodgers' organization. I like the natural fit between Thames (a lefty-masher) and Winn (a switch hitter whose bat died vs. lefties last year) or Granderson (who's struggled vs. southpaws lately as well), but it's worth remembering you're talking about fourth and fifth outfielders here, since Brett Gardner is projected to start somewhere, too.
The other good thing about Thames is that he can spot for Nick Johnson at DH against tough lefties, though the Stick has had at least some success against southpaws as well.
Jquinton82 (NY): A pair of Yankees questions for you Jay: 1) Who do you think is a better bet for the 5th spot in the rotation Hughes or Chamberlain? 2) When do you see Jesus Montero breaking in and will it be behind the plate or somewhere else?
JJ: Right now I think Hughes is the better bet, and I'd love to see how well his arsenal plays out multiple times through the order given the addition of that cut fastball. I think [moving back to the bullpen is] a waste of Chamberlain's talents, though, and I'd rather both were taking their turn every fifth day.
With Posada signed through next year, the Yanks have plenty of time to figure out whether Montero can actually catch at a big league level. At best perhaps he gets a September callup. If he can't cut it this year behind the plate, I think you start working on the idea that he's a corner outfielder/DH. But as somebody who's not a prospect guy...
Scott (DC): If the Reds find a huge pile of money under the mattress and add Johnny Damon, do they instantly become favorites for the Wild Card?
JJ: Man, if the Reds understood anything about the marginal win curve, they'd already have signed Damon. He'd be a nice fit in that park, and they really could use his bat atop that lineup.
Then again, that they haven't signed him suggests that maybe they know too much about the conditions of some of those young arms. Say a prayer for Johnny Cueto and Edinson Volquez tonight.
tommybones (brooklyn): Do you think Carl Crawford gets dealt before the deadline this year, paving the way for Jennings? Or do you see an outfield of Crawford, Jennings and Upton heading into August?
JJ: I think it all depends upon where the Rays are in the standings. Crawford is obviously more likely to get dealt if they're out of it.
That said, it's going to be *very* interesting to see what happens, because there's a line of thinking that says they keep Crawford and trade Upton at the point when his value is on the rise again. Remember, they've also got to figure out where Ben Zobrist fits, and Matt Joyce... suffice it to say that they've got an enviable amount of depth and flexibility.
garethbluejays1 (Newcastle, UK): Are there any free agents left unsigned who could be useful to contending teams?
JJ: I realize it's a well-kept secret that Johnny Damon is still looking for work. Beyond him, Russell Branyan, Rocco Baldelli, Joe Beimel, Carlos Delgado, Jermaine Dye, Pedro Martinez, Chan Ho Park, John Smoltz, Gary Sheffield and Jarrod Washburn all strike me as players who could help somebody win. Not necessarily by getting 500 PA worth of playing time, mind you, and maybe not getting enough playing time to satisfy their own estimations of their talent. Park can pitch out of my bullpen, but if he wants to start, fuggedaboutit.
mattymatty2000 (Philly, PA): Jay - I know you don't write the headlines, so I'm purely asking for your opinion here. Two years ago one of the pictures on the cover of BP '08 was of Clay Buchholz, with the caption reading "Better Than Joba". My question: was it true then, and is it true now? Thanks for the chat.
JJ: It's pretty subjective any way you slice it. Both pitchers have had flashes of brilliance in the majors, and both have taken their lumps to the point where a lot of people wondered if they'd be better off traded.
Joba's got a clear edge in terms of the big league numbers he's put up overall (3.61 in ~280 innings vs. 4.91 ERA in ~180 innings), but Buchholz is riding the stronger trend in terms of making the necessary adjustments to survive in the majors. FWIW, PECOTA sees both at coming in with ERAs around 3.80 this year.
I identified the positions where teams got the worst production in the majors last year (offense and defense taken together), the so-called "Vortices of Suck. Much like my previous piece on the Replacement Level Killers (the dead spots in the lineup which helped prevent teams from reaching the postseason), I also identified what teams had done over the winter to shore up these problems. Here's what I had to say about the Royals' shortstop situation:
Royals general manager Dayton Moore has produced his share of headscratchers and howlers, turning the team into a laughingstock even in the eyes of its most ardent supporters. But no move generatedor deservedquite as much ridicule as the team's mid-July acquisition of Betancourt, who at the time was already vying for this list in Seattle via a .220 EqA, -8 FRAA and -0.9 WARP in just 62 games. To be fair, the Royals did actually enter the year with a better plan at short; Aviles had hit .325/.354/.480 in two-thirds of a season as a rookie in 2008, good enough to place fourth in the Rookie of the Year balloting. Alas, he struggled at the start of the year due to forearm soreness, and was found to need Tommy John surgery, which he underwent around the All-Star break, just before Betancourt hit town. In the interim, the team had tried Bloomquist, Luis Hernandez (11-for-51) and Tony Peρa Jr. (5-for-50 before giving up the hitting business in favor of pitching). At the very least, Betancourt's daily availability allowed manager Trey Hillman to devote time to not solving a variety of other problems.
Remedy (?): The Royals will actually pay Betancourt to return to work in 2010in fact they're obligated to pay him $8 million over the next three years (including his 2012 buyout). The rehabbing Aviles is hoping to be ready for spring training, but how he'll fit back into the lineup once he proves his health is unclear; as unglovely as he is, incumbent second baseman Alberto Callaspo did hit a tidy .300/.356/.457 last year. One thing is for certain: whatever typically cockeyed solution the Royals come up with, it won't cost them the pennant.
I wrote about the potential landing spots for Johnny Damon in the wake of the Randy Winn signing, which finally closed the door on just about every last shred of hope that he might return to the Yankees. Here are two of the six options I identified:
Mariners: Between the free agent signing of Chone Figgins and the trades for Bradley and Cliff Lee, the Mariners have probably done more to improve their 2010 chances than any team. Last year's left field situation was a veritable Vortex of Suck, with Wladimir Balentien, Endy Chavez, Michael Saunders et al hitting a combined .219/.276/.333, the worst showing at any outfield position in the majors in terms of REqA (Raw Equivalent Average). Bradley figures to see the bulk of his time at DH, since as Joe Sheehan famously remarked, "Bradley can only do any two of these three things at once: hit, play the field, stay healthy." PECOTA is quite optimistic about a rebound: .277/.393/.463/.295 EqA. It's less so about the idea of handing left field over to the 23-year-old Saunders, the team's second-best prospect, projecting a .249/.320/395/.247 EqA line. Damon would obviously represent a significant upgrade, and while there's been relatively little noise about this possibility, GM Jack Zduriencik is one of the sharper tools in the shed.
Giants: Elsewhere in that shed, Brian Sabean continues to pound screws into bricks with a garden rake. Given an offense that finished last in the majors with a .244 EqA, Sabean has thrown about $35 million in 2010-2011 commitments at DeRosa, Aubrey Huff, Freddy Sanchez, Bengie Molina, and Juan Uribe, none of whom are strong steps in the direction of boosting that. Huff and Molina were below .260 last year, Uribe's at .242 for his career, and both DeRosa and Sanchez are coming off injuries that led to unproductive post-trade stints; the latter isn't even likely to be available for opening day given recent shoulder surgery. Projected for a .267/.346/.428/.269 EqA performance, DeRosa's production appears to be light for a corner outfielder. He'd make far more sense at second or third base, with a concomitant shift of Pablo Sandoval to first base to do away with Huff's similarly subpar production (.274/.340/.436/.268 EqA) and dodgy defense Sabean ruled out Damon last month, and while it happened at the same media session in which he dismissed a return engagement from Molina, it's clear that Damon is just too fancy for the GM's taste.
I examined the competitive ecology of the game's six divisions using a few tools developed by my Baseball Prospectus colleagues:
Having gotten the lay of the land in terms of wins and losses, we turn our attention to money. Factoring payrolls into the equation, specifically end-of-year payrolls, which include salaries, signing bonuses, earned incentive bonuses, buyouts of unexercised options, deferred cash, and more (BP alumnus Maury Brown's got the details here), here's how the divisions ranked in 2009 according to Marginal Payroll dollars per Marginal Win, which is computed according to the formula (club payroll - (28 x major league minimum)) / ((winning percentage - .300) x 162):
Division Avg Payroll WPCT MP/MW NL West $85,634,258 .519 $2,102,663 AL West $90,797,019 .531 $2,128,263 NL Central $93,843,462 .482 $2,795,709 NL East $97,489,694 .488 $2,838,477 AL East $119,028,142 .520 $3,028,880 AL Central $95,379,003 .470 $3,048,658
The two Wests, which had the lowest average payrolls of any division, were very close in terms of MP/MW, and got considerably more bang for their buck than the rest of the divisions. What may be the most surprising is the AL Central's relative inefficiency. While the Orioles ($4.4 million) spent more per marginal win than any AL club, the Royals ($4.3 million) and Indians ($4.0 million) both spent more than the Yankees ($3.8 million, not even high enough to crack the top five), while the Tigers ($3.4 million) and White Sox ($3.1 million) both spent more than the Red Sox ($2.8 million).
Turning to the three-year picture, we see that aside from the AL East, there isn't much that's separating the teams by this measure:
Division Avg Payroll WPCT MP/MW NL West $85,968,141 .500 $2,311,548 AL West $94,038,461 .511 $2,436,833 NL East $87,713,776 .493 $2,461,417 AL Central $89,639,497 .490 $2,555,610 NL Central $90,966,392 .490 $2,600,034 AL East $119,257,244 .520 $3,034,541
The two West divisions remain the most efficient ones, and while the AL East is by far the most expensive on a per-win basis, the two Centrals are getting very little for their money.
Spinning that off because of positive reception, I began a series on each division, discussing the nuances of each team's competitive ecology. First up is the NL East; here's what I had to say about the Mets:
Following final-day eliminations from contention in 2007 and 2008 with a nightmarish campaign in which they seemed to invent new ways to lose games, players and credibility on a weekly basis, the Mets have become the game's biggest punchline. As doubts about their finances, medicalstaff and decision-making processes have sprung up, the team with the NL's highest average payroll over the past three years hasn't been able to reap the benefits of a single playoff appearance. Indeed, their 0.54 PER' [Payroll Efficiency Rating, the ratio between their Estimated Marginal Revenue (derived from win totals and market size) to Expected Marginal Revenue (derived from payroll)] in 2009 is the league's lowest single-year mark of the timespan, and their three-year mark is the league's second lowest.
Of course, that's hardly a surprising outcome given the fact that the Mets lost 1,451 days and $52.2 million worth of salary to the disabled list in 2009 (both MLB highs), as a variety of disasters befell seven of the team's 10 highest-paid players. All salaries in millions of dollars:
Rk Player '09 Sal Fut. Sal DL Days 1 Carlos Beltran $20.1 $40.1 78 2 Johan Santana $20.0 $93.0 42* 3 Carlos Delgado $12.0 - 144* 4 Oliver Perez $12.0 $24.0 104 5 Billy Wagner $10.5 - 137 9 Jose Reyes $6.1 $9.9 134* 10 J.J. Putz $6.0 - 119* *Ended season on disabled list
Those top five players qualify as Auction Market salaries, which helps explain why the Mets declined so sharply from their 2007-2008 WARP levels in that category, falling from fourth to sixth to ninth in the majors from 2007 to 2009. They've got the equivalent of more than a year's worth of payroll tied up in four of those players (for nine player-seasons) going forward, and their 2011 payroll commitments are already over $108 million, so they'll have to pray for strong rebounds. They'll also have to hope that marquee free agent signing Jason Bay, whose four-year, $66 million deal ranks as the winter's third-largest, holds up as well given the concerns about his knee which apparently cooled the Red Sox's interest in retaining him.
Even more unsettling is the fact that the Mets fell from 14th to 18th to 28th in terms of WARP from Non-Market salaries over the three-year period. Again, injuries were part of the story, as players like Angel Pagan (3.7 WARP), John Maine (0.4 WARP) and Fernando Martinez (-0.7 WARP) all spent at least 80 days on the DL, too. On the other hand, the regular lineup presence of soph Daniel Murphy (0.6 WARP while splitting his time between the two positions where the offensive bar is the highest, first base and left field) didn't help matters either.
Of course, last year marked the Mets' debut in Citi Field, an attractive, intimate replacement for their Shea Stadium dive, but one with 27 percent less seating capacity, which will likely produce a drag on revenues even given higher ticket prices. If there's any good news to be found, it's that the farm system is on the rise thanks to the team's international scouting efforts, and that the 2010 season couldn't possibly bring more bad news for the franchise than the past year did. At least until Omar Minaya's impending firing opens up a whole new can of tabloid whoop-ass.
So now you're more or less caught up. Back later with some excerpts from today's BP chat.
The Yankees get center fielder Curtis Granderson at the cost of Austin Jackson, Ian Kennedy and Phil Coke. It's a win-now move for a team that just won it all, which makes it rather curious. Granderson's performance collapsed against lefties (.183/.245/.239 in 2009) and during the final week his routes to the ball looked awful, but he's basically a plus defensively according to the major systems, and a relatively affordable player ($5.5/$8.25/$10 million in 2010-2012 with a $13 million club option and $2 million buyout for 2013). The Yankees' big-picture desire to decrease payroll from their 2009 level wound up costing them a decent prospect whose upside may be Grandersoneque in Jackson (#7 on Baseball America's list of top International League prospects). Kennedy has some upside as well, but he's managed to throw more than 120 innings in just one of three professional seasons, and is more likely to wind up a fourth starter or setup man at this stage. Coke is a lefty who can get guys out but has gopher problems as well -- a completely replaceable commodity.
Granderson's arrival strengthens the team's hand in negotiations with Johnny Damon. They're now dealing from strength, and don't have to dance to the tune Damon and his agent call. That may preclude him coming back, but it also precludes the team making an overly generous deal just to retain somebody whose value is a bit distorted by the euphoria of winning the World Series this year.
The Tigers have $72 million of junk on their 2010 payroll in the form of contracts to Dontrelle Willis, Nate Robertson, Jeremy Bonderman, Magglio Ordonez, Brandon Inge and Carlos Guillen, a group that was worth all of 3.6 WARP3 last year. They trimmed none of that deadwood while trading the two players, Granderson and Edwin Jackson, who might have enticed another team to eat salary in return for taking on a good player. In the past, Granderson would have been handcuffed to a Robertson or a Willis. The Tigers do get a decent haul in the form of Austin Jackson, Coke and the Diamondbacks' young hurler Max Scherzer, but this is the move of a team rebuilding, not a team contending.
As for the Diamondbacks, all I've got on my scorecard are underpants gnomes, ? and profit. I like Scherzer (4.12 ERA, 9.2 K/9 in 170.1 innings as a 24-year-old) more than Jackson (3.62 ERA, 6.8 K/9 in 214 innings) because he's got better command of a more electrifying arsenal, though I suppose there's a bet to be made on Kennedy's upside as well.
Update: Apparently Daniel Schlereth, the Diamondbacks' #2 pitching prospect coming into the year, is also headed to Detroit. Schlereth grazed the majors last year, going 1-4 with a 5.89 ERA and 22/15 K/BB ratio in 18.1 innings. He's a pure reliever who offers mid-90s velocity from the left side, a rarity. The deal now makes even less sense for the Diamondbacks, and more for the Tigers.
Tuesday marked baseball's arbitration deadline about which I had much to say in the Twitscape regarding both the Yankees and Dodgers. Neither team offered any of their free agents arbitration, decreasing the likelihood that they'll return, but the landscapes surrounding those decisions are quite different.
The Yankees' only Type A free agent is Johnny Damon, who's coming off an excellent season capped by a key role in the team's World Series win. He made $13 million a year over the life of his deal, but just turned 36. A one-year deal for him to return via arbitration might have cost the Yankees $15 million, a figure that apparently was too rich for Brian Cashman's blood. Damon's got a strong enough hand that he can likely do better in length if not average annual salary, even from the Yankees (two years, $25 million with an option, perhaps).
What's annoying is that because he's a Type A, foregoing the arbitration offer costs the Yankees two high draft picks, one in the 16-30 range of the draft (the top 15 picks are protected), the other in the supplemental phase (31-50, roughly speaking). That's a substantial amount of value; four years ago, colleague Nate Silver estimated those two picks as worth $9 million for the 16-30 and $3 million for the supplemental. Since then, the market has leveled off, inflation has occurred, and WARP has changed, but if anything, the value of those picks is probably higher. Apparently, the fear of being stuck with a pricey one-year deal though really, it's difficult to get too badly burned on such a pact outweighed the return for the Yanks, offering further evidence that even Cashman is on a budget.
The Yankees also decided not to offer arbitration to Andy Pettitte and Hideki Matsui, but both of them are Type B free agents, meaning all the Yankees turned down was the right to supplemental picks worth about $3 million apiece. Weighed against the higher likelihood that both would accept and win their cases at prices out of Cashman's control, again, the risk was apparently too great. It's still a likelihood that at least Pettitte returns; the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement struck down a provision that teams who didn't offer arbitration to their free agents were prevented from signing them until the following spring. Now, the two sides can hopefully negotiate a more sensible deal.
If the Yankees' moves generated a few headscratches, the Dodgers' moves left observers and particularly fans of the club slackjawed. They had two Type As, Orlando Hudson and Randy Wolf, both of whom were extremely unlikely to return. Hudson, who was benched in September and never regained his job, poured gasoline all over whatever bridge back to Chavez Ravine existed, while Wolf, as the second-best pitcher available on the market after John Lackey, will almost certainly draw multi-year offers that would exceed what he could get in arbitration. Neither of the two was offered arbitration, a pair of decisions that offer resounding evidence that GM Ned Colletti's hands have been tied by the unseemly divorce proceedings of the McCourts.
The Dodger blogosphere understandably went into a lather over the news, and I threw some fuel on the fire via Twitter: "Picturing Colletti wearing nothing but sandwich board reading 'What part of "We have no money" don't you get?'" I wrote, followed shortly by a back-of-envelope calculation based upon Nate's research: "So, for avoiding 4 bonuses ($1-2 mil per, max), Dodgers lose out on $24 mil of picks by not offering Hudson & Wolf arb." The conclusion, to me, was obvious: "Frank McCourt hates America more than he does his wife."
As heads cooled, the reality of just how screwed the Dodgers are began to set in. In the aftermath, Colletti framed the non-moves as "made strictly from a baseball perspective," adding in a separate note (link unavailable), "While I am blindfolded and bound to this chair, it really is a comfortable chair. I ask my family and friends to remain calm and don't try to be heroes, as I am unharmed and will be released if you comply with the demands."
Despite having lowered payroll by $18 million dollars between Opening Days 2008 and 2009, clearing $30 million more via the current crop of free agents, and saving about another $13 million via Manny Ramirez ($8 million in lost salary due to the suspension, and $5 million less in 2010 than in 2009), the Dodgers are expected not to make any major additions this offseason because eight key young players Chad Billingsley, Jonathan Broxton, Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, Hong-Chih Kuo, James Loney, Russell Martin, and George Sherrill are arbitration-eligible, and thus in line for sizable raises. Furthermore, not only are they pennywise and pound-foolish when it comes to a substantial return on a relatively small investment in 2010 first-round picks, but they've been that way for longer than most of us realize. In an around-the-horn play, True Blue LA pointed me to a Memories of Kevin Malone entry which in turn pointed to a Los Angeles Times piece containing research from Baseball America, including the following double whammy:
The Dodgers have paid $8.5 million in signing bonuses for draft picks over the last two years the lowest figure among all major league teams, according to Baseball America.
The Dodgers, so proud of their heritage in Asia and Latin America, today are a non-factor in bidding for top amateur players abroad. In 2008, according to Baseball America, major league clubs combined to sign 115 such players for bonuses of more than $100,000. The Dodgers did not sign one.
Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. Still on a roll, True Blue details a laundry list of cost-cutting maneuvers over the past two years; basically, because of a mandate that they be more or less payroll-neutral, their big trade acquisitions have cost them better prospects, such as Andy LaRoche, 2007 second-round pick Michael Watt, and Indians' top prospect Carlos Santana, a 22-year-old catcher whose loss resounds given Martin's 2009 decline. Quoth colleague Kevin Goldstein: "Santana's bat is so special that if he was a first-base prospect, he'd still be elite." I asked Kevin if he would rank among the game's top 10 or 25 prospects in his 2010 Top 100 list, and he suggested that he'd likely be somewhere in between those two numbers. Ouchie.
The big concern for 2010 comes down to how the Dodgers are going to fill their rotation behind Clayton Kershaw, Billingsley and Hiroki Kuroda. They have some in-house prospects (Scott Elbert, James McDonald and Josh Lindblom) and suspects (Eric Stults, Charlie Haeger), but none of them is so obviously ready that they are a guarantee to fill even one spot. Which means that they not only need to find the next Randy Wolf, but they'll need substantial reinforcements as well. And I don't mean Jeff Freakin' Weaver or Braden Freakin' Looper. Their road back to the playoffs, let alone the NLCS, just got a bit harder.
Even so, Dodger Thoughts' Jon Weisman outlines a best-case scenario expectation for 2010, while Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness offers a modest proposal that the team trade Andre Ethier for pitching. I don't really think the choices help the 2010 club enough to tempt Colletti, who's been forced to think about nothing but This Year by ownership's shortsightedness, into attempting the pursuit of any of them, but it's an interesting piece if only because it serves to remind that the team may need to breach its current core in order to improve in other areas.
It's a dark day for Dodger baseball, as both Weisman and MSTI conclude. I concur, to the point that I'm going to have to substantially rewrite my Baseball Prospectus 2010 team essay in light of this news. Which is about the last thing I need given all the other fires I've got going.
In better news, ironically released the same day (perhaps to soften the blow of the arbitration shitstorm), the Dodgers made it official that Vin Scully would return for his 61st season in 2010, and that he'd continue to do NL West road games as well as the home games. Big League Stew calls attention to the good news with a three-minute clip of Scully highlights dating back to the days of Jackie Robinson, and including some non-baseball ones. True Blue LA ups the ante with a link to Scully's nine-minute call of the Kirk Gibson home run in the 1988 World Series. Also on YouTube is Scully's incomparable call of the four consecutive homer game set to a video-game re-enactment. Bask in some of the work of the game's greatest announcer, and remember, Dodger fans, that we at least have that to look forward to in the coming year.
A few weeks back I looked at 2009 home run rates, overall, by league, and by ballpark. Overall, home runs per game increased by 3.3 percent this past season, a figure that masks a 4.9 percent drop in the NL and a 12.7 percent climb in the AL, producing the widest AL-NL split since 1996. The changes aren't entirely explained by the two new New York parks, though Nu-Yankee Stadium was the easiest place to homer (1.463 per team per game) and CitiField the sixth-hardest (0.802 per team per game).
Next up was an analysis of the top two free agent hitters available, Matt Holliday and Jason Bay. The pair share the same position (left field) and thus have relevance to the beasts of the AL East given that they've both got vacancies the latter, of course, having served as the Sox's left fielder since Manny Ramirez's trade to the Dodgers. The two are very close as hitters, with virtually identical translated OBP and SLG lines (career-wise) but differing walk rates and batting averages: "The major point of contrast is that Bay walks considerably more often, drawing an unintentional pass in 11.8 percent of his career plate appearances, compared to 8.2 percent for Holliday. It all comes out in the wash: Holliday owns a Clay Davenport-translated career line of .312/.384/.541, while Bay is at .285/.384/.540."
Where the two differ is defense. Using a three-year average of the big three defensive systems (BP's Fielding Runs Above Average, Fangraphs' Ultiamte Zone Rating, and John Dewan's Plus/Minus), Holliday has a staggering 18-run annual advantage, making him worth something like $3.6 to $5.4 million per year more depending upon where you set the value of a marginal win.
In an Unfiltered post, I revisited Jaffe's Ugly MVP Predictor in advance of the AL MVP announcement. At the time of the original article, Joe Mauer's Twins were a game under .500, making him an extremely unlikely winner based upon Wild Card era voting trends, but the Twins' late rush to the postseason vaulted him into the system's crosshairs. JUMP doesn't peg him as the winner, but it places him in the AL top three between Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter. That classifies him as a "secondary hit" for the system, which as designed can put every MVP since 1995 except 1999's Pudge Rodriguez in that class. Which isn't to say either of those Yanks should have won, just that historical precedent favors big sluggers and middle infielders on 100-win teams over catchers on Wild Card winners. In the NL, JUMP nails Albert Pujols as the winner, which wasn't too surprising given his monster year.
In part of what will be a six-part series on the winter free agent market, I examined the available relievers. It's a group that upon examining three-year track records for performance and health, can basically be divided in two by a sizable gulch, with the top six clearly separated from the rest of the pack. Number one on the list is Billy Wagner, who agreed to a deal with the Braves last night. Numbers three and six, Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez, who both spent time as Atlanta's closer last year, are that much more available; both have drawn interest from the Yankees and Red Sox. Number seven, the first one on the other side of the divide, is Brandon Lyon, who apparently is also drawing interest from the Yankees, but it sounds as though their rotation plans need to fall into place first.
Which brings us to Tuesday's arbitration news, which, come to think of it, deserves a post of its own. Stay tuned.
Angell is 89 now, at some complain that he's got an air of things-were-better-in-my-day about him. Alex Belth cherrypicks a few of the piece's great quotes regarding Alex Rodriguez, Reggie Jackson, and Hideki Matsui, and they all contain a hint of disdain for the present as opposed to the past. Nonetheless, even if he weren't still such a master of prose, Angell's perspective would be a valuable one simply because the breadth of baseball history he witnessed firsthand back to the days of Ruth and Gehrig, or the Gashouse Gang, or Willie Mays in his prime in the Polo Grounds grants him an authority on the subject that's virtually unmatched. If he sounds a bit crotchety at times, well, where the hell else are you gonna get a comparison like this:
He throws with an elegant flail, hiding the ball behind his hip or knee and producing it from behind his left shoulder, already in full delivery. His finish brings his left leg up astern like a semaphore, while his arm swings back across his waist. This columnar closing posture he's not twisted off to one side, like other pitchers, but driving forward, with the back leg still aloft, as his eyes follow the pitch is classic and reminded me strongly of some fabled pitcher from my boyhood. He looked a little dusty and work-worn out there, which may have contributed to this impression. I thought about Dizzy Dean or Lon (the Arkansas Hummingbird) Warneke, but they were righties. Then I remembered Hal Newhouser, the Tigers' lefty ace in the nineteen-forties, who ate up batters much in the way that Lee does. Later, I put my question in a phone call to Seymour Siwoff, the dean of the Elias Sports Bureau. "Hmmm," he said when i mentioned the flying back leg, "let me think about this for a minute." There was a pause, and then he said, "Why do I think it was somebody on the Tigers?"
A few other favorites... On the American League Championship Series:
Nothing much about the Championship Series with the Los Angeles Angels feels like fun in retrospect, even from this distance. Mostly, it was terrifying. I remember calling home once in mid-game from the Yankee Stadium press box, and hearing "I can't stand any more of this!" when my wife picked up the phone. Did anyone actually enjoy Game 5, out there in Anaheim, when the home-team Angels went ahead by four runs in the first ininig, watched that lead disintegrate in a six-run Yankee seventh, and came back with a winning three of their own in the bottom half? Top and botom, that inning required forty-four minutes, and it felt like a colonoscopy."
On the Yankees' outsized ace:
Too bad, but I'm not going to get around to C.C. Sabathia's sunny looks and pavillion-sized pant and weird, white-toed spikes, or ask batters how they feel about his fastball-cutter-changeup assortment that arrives (he's six-seven and two hundred and ninety pounds) like a loaded tea tray coming down an airshaft.
On Derek Jeter: "Just when you think you appreciate Derek enough, you don't."
One could say the same thing about Angell. My only beef with the piece was that it felt too short, lacking a grander perspective on the regular season and rushing to a close with the suddenness and finality of Game 6 itself, leaving us to face alone what Ken Burns termed "the hard facts of autumn." I wanted to read Angell's unwritten digression about the new Yankee Stadium and his deeper thoughts about Sabathia; when exactly are we going to get those from the nearly nonagenarian bard, whose output is down to these annual summaries? I realize that print is his medium and that the contraction of magazine advertising and the high cost of paper restricts his space. Why not produce a double-length piece for the web that we can, as Alex did, print out and read at our leisure? It seems like an opportunity missed for a guy who's got all too few innings left.
That said, it's still a damn good excuse to plunk down $5 and enjoy one of the old masters. Get thee to a newsstand while you still can, my friends.
Wishing a happy thanksgiving to family, friends and readers. Here's hoping you're enjoying your turkey and stuffing among those whom you love.
Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter may be the Yankees for whom the spotlight shines the brightest, but it was Hideki Matsui who did the dirty work on Wednesday night. Setting a single-game World Series record with six RBI, Matsui collected big hits in his first three at-bats to help the Yankees pounce on Pedro Martinez and the Phillies early, building up a 7-1 lead by the end of the fifth inning. As the Yankees did two nights earlier when they found themselves in an early hole, the Phillies made a game of it by summoning a brief hint of their offensive firepower, but it was too little, too late. For the first time since 2000, the Yankees are the World Champions.
Matsui, who punched a decisive solo homer off Martinez in Game Two, homered again in his first turn at-bat, this time following a Rodriguez walk which led off the inning (oh, those bases on balls) to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. An inning later, with two outs, the bases loaded and Martinez's night going down in flames, he stroked a two-run single to widen the lead to 4-1. In the fifth inning, with one out, two on, and another Yankee run having crossed the plate, he greeted J.A. Happ with a two-run double to right-center to expand the lead to 7-1. I believe he also demonstrated his heretofore unknown prowess as a tenor by singing "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch, but I could be wrong, as by that point I was busy counting the remaining outs on my fingers.
For his performance, Matsui was named the World Series MVP, becoming the first designated hitter ever to win the award. Though he made just three starts and 14 plate appearances in the series, his .615/.643/1.385 showing (8-for-13 with a double and three home runs) ranked as the Yankees' most potent offensive force. Their lineup had its share of complementary performances, including Derek Jeter (.407/.429/.519), Johnny Damon (.364/.440/.455 and the series' most memorable play, his mad dash to third base in Game Four) and of course the ghost-chasing Rodriguez (.250/.423/.550 and six RBI, including the Game Four winner), but it was Matsui who not only led the team with eight RBI but was the only Bronx Bomber to hit more than one bomb, or to collect more than one game-winning hit. His showing was somewhat bittersweet, as it came in what well may have been his final appearance in pinstripes given his pending free agency and the Yankees' need to clear the DH spot for the aging stars above his pay grade. It left absolutely no doubt that the man can be a viable component on a championship team, so wherever he winds up next, Godspeed, Godzilla.
I took a special pleasure in Matsui's showing, as on Wednesday's Toledo radio hit, I told host Norm Wamer that the Matsui-Martinez matchup was the key to the game given the pitcher's struggles with lefties. It didn't take long for that call to make me look smart, as Matsui and the rest of the Yankee lineup made Pedro's night a short one. The 38-year-old pitcher simply couldn't muster the magic he'd summoned in Game Two, getting significantly fewer strikes on both his fastball and his changeup.
Meanwhile, Andy Pettitte gave the Yankees a dogged effort on three days' rest, yielding just one run through the first five innings even as his strike zone was squeezed by home plate umpire Joe West. He gave up a two-run homer to Ryan Howard in the sixth before departing, but that marked the big slugger's only blast of the series, and it was the only one of the eight yielded by the Yankees' lefties which came with a man on base. His showing marked the third time this October that he gotten the win in a series-clinching game (matching Derek Lowe's 2004 run), the sixth time in his career that he'd done so, and the second time he'd done so in a World Series (1998 being the other occasion). Though he's benefited from a career spent amid the three-round playoff format, he leads all pitchers in postseason starts (40), innings (249), and wins (18), and his 3.90 ERA is a ringer for his career mark. I don't believe he's done enough to reach the Hall of Fame once those credentials are placed alongside the rest of what he's accomplished in his 15-year career he's a Clydesdale, not a thoroughbred, lacking a Cy Young and a whole host of statistical achievements which identify the game's top starters but the man's earned his five rings.
The real difference between the two teams, ultimately, came down to the man who closed the door on the Phillies, Mariano Rivera:
Consider how closely matched the overall performances of the two rotations were, regardless of the number of days' rest or the handedness, and the bullpens, minus the Sandman:
Split IP H ER BB SO ERA
PHI SP 36.1 32 21 11 36 5.20
NYY SP 34.1 28 19 20 33 4.98
PHI RP 15.2 17 10 7 20 5.74
NYY RP* 13.1 13 8 4 14 5.40
Rivera 5.1 3 0 2 3 0.00
* Except Rivera
Mariano Rivera now has a 0.74 ERA across 133.1 postseason innings with a 107/21 strikeout to walk ratio and just two home runs allowed. He is the greatest closer of all time, and arguably the greatest postseason performer as well. The closers of each of the other seven teams which reached the 2009 postseason faltered at least once when the money was on the table, and those mistakes ultimately proved fatal. Rivera, as in three other World Series, was the last man standing. Along with Pettitte, Jeter and Posada the "Core Four," they're called he's now one of four Yankees to have earned seven pennants and five World Series rings dating back to 1996.
Old guard, new guard, it was all a gas watching the Yankees win. In doing so they vanquished a very strong and very special Phillies team, one which had been the first one since the 2000-2001 Yankees to repeat as pennant winers, and the first NL team since the 1995-1996 Braves to do so (an error I made in the article, acknowledged in the comments thread, identified the 1975-1976 Reds as such). One which, over the course of the past two Octobers, has given me a considerable amount of frustration as they steamrolled the Dodgers and stretched the Yankees nearly to the limit. As I wrote in the BP piece, it's easier to run across I-95 four times a night than get through the middle of that batting order.
So congrats to the Yankees, their organization and their fans, particularly to those of you who've followed their exploits via my work in this space and at BP. After writing to deadline for each of the Series' six games, I'm going to take a few days to catch my breath and dig into my annual winter workload, but you can rest assured there's plenty more baseball content to come from me during this offseason.
The Yankees begain the game in a hole because Burnett laid an egg, surrendering six runs in two-plus innings. Pitching on three days' rest, he was unable to match the brilliance of his seven-inning, one-run Game Two start, not because of fatigue his average fastball and curveball velocities were higher according to Brooks Baseball but because he was unable to fool the Phillies with his curveball, in part because home plate ump Dana DeMuth's strike zone wasn't as wide as that of Jeff Nelson. Breaking down the breaking balls thrown in the two starts:
Game Tot Ball SS SL F I
Two 45 20 8 7 7 3
Five 16 10 3 0 2 1
For the unfamiliar, SS is strikes swinging, SL is strikes looking, F is foul balls, I is in play. Whereas Burnett generated not-in-play strikes on 22 out of 45 curves in Game Two (49 percent), he did so on just five out of 16 (31 percent) in Game Five, none of them called strikes. Five of his nine strikeouts in Game Two ended on a curveball, three swinging and two looking, as compared to one of his two walks. He got just one strikeout via curveball (swinging) last night, and two of his four walks.
The result was a nasty, brutish and short start that left the Yankees in a 5-1 hole by the time he departed. [Chase] Utley's homer, which followed a Jimmy Rollins single and a Shane Victorino hit by pitch on a bunt attempt, came on just his eighth pitch of the night. After escaping the second inning unscathed, he walked Utley and Ryan Howard never, ever a good idea to start the third, then yielded RBI singles to Jayson Werth and Raul Ibaρez. That was enough for Yankees manager Joe Girardi, who called upon David Robertson. He retired both Pedro Feliz and Carlos Ruiz, but the latter's grounder scored Werth to give the Phillies a formidable five-run lead.
Utley has been unreal in this series, tying Reggie Jackson's 1977 World Series record of five home runs. Until his first-inning blast, however, all of them indeed, all seven of the Phillies' homers in the series had been solo shots. Colleague John Perrotto had a nice piece on Utley at BP today.
The Yankees had their chances against Cliff Lee, chipping away at the 6-1 lead until it became 8-5. They even brought the tying run to the plate twice in the ninth inning, only to have Derek Jeter ground into a double play and Mark Teixeira strike out. The series now comes back to New York, with Pedro Martinez slated to take on Andy Pettitte, the latter on three days' rest. Of course, the Yanks' decision to use a three-man rotation is under scrutiny:
Burnett's short-rest implosion raises the inevitable question regarding the Yankees' three-man rotation plan for the series. [CC] Sabathia wasn't terribly sharp on three days' rest in Game Four, throwing fewer pitches than in any of his other postseason outings, and yielding more than two runs for the first time. He'll go on three days' rest again in Game Seven if the series goes that far. While the Yankees haven't officially announced that Andy Pettitte will do the same in Game Six, they have little alternative. Potential fourth starter Chad Gaudin, whom some suggested should start Game Five to keep Burnett on regular rest, simply isn't cut out to face the Phillies' lefty-heavy lineup:
That's a ticket to a beatdown right there, given that Gaudin can't even strike out as many lefties as he walks. In last night's roundtable, other readers suggested the Yankees do a so-called bullpen game for Game Five; again, a bad idea given that it's inadvisable to punt a World Series game by expecting the lion's share of the innings to come from the bottom half of the team's pitching staff. Prior to last night, none of the Yankees' non-closers Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Alfredo Aceves, Robertson et al had given the Yankees more than three outs without allowing a run since Game Three of the ALCS; thus far this postseason only Hughes and Robertson had done so even once. That the Yankees got three such efforts last night from Robertson, Aceves and Hughes doesn't mean they could have done so out of the gate, as those were low-leverage innings with at least a three-run deficit each time.
No, the Yankees are without realistic alternatives to the three-man plan because of earlier failures on the part of Girardi, pitching coach Dave Eiland, and general manager Brian Cashman. They handled Chamberlain so poorly that they got a 7.69 ERA from him over his final 11 starts. They dickered with Sergio Mitre, who gave them nine starts with a 7.16 ERA. Cashman could have dealt for Jon Garland during the post-deadline waiver period just as he did Gaudin (Jose Contreras, Scott Kazmir and Carl Pavano, the other starters of note to change teams during August, weren't fits for a variety of reasons, most of them obvious). He could have dealt for a more reliable fourth starter at the July 31 deadline. He didn't, and because of that, the Yankees reached this stage with just three reliable starters. The record of such starters isn't exactly promising, as I pointed out in my preview: coming into the year, short-rested starters in the wild card era had made 86 postseason starts, averaging just 5.4 innings per start, with a 4.59 ERA, a 21-34 record for the starters, and a 31-55 record (.360 winning percentage) for their teams. Still, given the experience of the Yankees' big three on pitching on short rest (30 starts, an average of over six innings per, and a collective ERA under 4.00), it was hardly the worst plan in the world. Putting as many innings as possible in the hands of your top pitchers is what wins championships, and the Yankees are still win away from doing so.
According to Clay Davenport's Monte Carlo simulations at the BP Postseason Odds report, the Yankees still have an 83 percent chance of winning the series based upon the home field advantage and the actual starting pitchers involved. That may be overstating things, since the program can't see who's on three days' rest, but the odds are still in New York's favor.
