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.
It's been a busy and exhilarating couple of weeks promoting Baseball Prospectus 2010. After a wave of some two dozen radio hits, last weekend my colleagues and I made appearances at the Yogi Berra Museum at Montclair State University in New Jersey and a Barnes and Noble in Manhattan. Sandwiched between those two appearances, I did an hour-long spot on the Fox Strategy Room's "Clubhouse Report" streaming videocast, on a panel with New York Post deputy sports editor Tim Sullivan and Sports Illustrated writer Pablo Torre, hosted by Duke Castiglione.
While we spent a bit of time at the top of the hour talking about the just-completed Olympics and in particular about the USA-Canada gold medal hockey match, baseball was the bigger topic. Duke's curiosity about BP 2010 led him to feed me a generous number of questions about the book and the way we use statistics to measure defense and reliever value. He was so taken with the discussion that a couple of days later he invited me to appear on his television show, Sports Extra, which airs every Sunday night at 10:30 PM here in New York on the local Fox affiliate, WNYW.
The spot, which taped a couple of hours earlier (I got to meet former NBA superstar and basketball Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins while waiting my turn) and ran up against the Oscars, was just over three minutes long, and the topic of Derek Jeter's defense was the hook:
Overall, I wasn't terribly smooth — adrenaline, thanks — but I wasn't incoherent, and Duke certainly seemed enthusiastic enough that there's hope I'll get to do another spot down the road. I'm very grateful to him for having me on, and for giving BP 2010 such prime promotion.
Meanwhile, I'm back from a couple nights in Washington, DC, where yesterday Steven Goldman and I made an appearance on Sirius-XM's Home Plate "Power Alley" show with hosts Jim Duquette (he of the infamous Scott Kazmir trade and last year's self-deprecating introduction) and Seth Everett.
In the evening we joined colleagues Clay Davenport, Kevin Goldstein and Matt Swartz for our annual appearance at the fantastic Politics and Prose Bookstore. This marked, I believe, our seventh appearance there, and my fifth, four for the annual and one for It Ain't Over. Thanks to a bit of a push from the Washington Post's website, we set personal bests for attendance and sell-through, with something like 130 people present to hear us answer questions about Stephen Strasburg (who looked like something special — as advertised — in his spring debut, which we'd watched earlier), Derek Jeter, David Wright, Ryan Zimmerman, Bud Selig, competitive balance, Walter Johnson, Willie Mays and a whole lot more. I wish I had the energy to do justice to the discussion, but hopefully we'll have an MP3 clip or two to share. In the meantime, I'd just like to give a shout-out to the folks at XM and Politics and Prose for welcoming us and helping to give BP such a big push.
Update: Some pics of the Politics and Prose event from Matt's lovely wife Laura, and a fine writeup from another attendee. Thanks to both!
The Baseball Prospectus 2010 book promotional tour starts in earnest this weekend. On Sunday, February 28, I'll join Cliff Corcoran, Steven Goldman, Kevin Goldstein and Christina Kahrl for a panel discussion at the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center at Montclair State University in New Jersey (if you need directions just know that when you come to a fork in the road, take it). First pitch is at 3 PM. You really don't care whether the US wins the gold medal in hockey, anyway, right?
On Monday, March 1, the law firm of Goldman, Goldstein, Kahrl and Jaffe will be at the Barnes & Noble at 18th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan starting at 6 PM. We'll answer questions and sign anything except veal cutlets, because as Casey Stengel liked to say, his ballpoint pen slips on veal cutlets. Me, I'll be packing a Sharpie in an attempt to surmount such obstacles.
Also, on March 9 Steve, Kevin and I will be appearing at Washington, DC's legendary Politics and Prose bookstore. More details on that one as the date near; see BP's events page for further details.
• • •
Saturday's radio hits:
• Another Wisconsin hit, this one on WFAW 940 AM at 8:30 AM Central, streaming here.
• Out in Dodger country, I'll be appearing on KCAA 1050 AM at 8:40 AM Pacific, streaming here.
More to come on Monday. I'm also booked for another appearance on the Fox Strategy Room streaming webcast at 1 PM Eastern that day. I'll be working overtime to get my mustache in shape for all of this action.
• Already in the can is a taped interview with Manchester, New Hampshire's WGIR 610 AM, which will air tomorrow morning, time TBD.
• At 4:35 Eastern, I'll be doing my usual weekly spot with Toledo, Ohio's WLQR 106.5 FM, a local ESPN affiliate. It's always great to talk baseball with host Norm Wamer. Streaming here.
• At 5:15 Eastern, I'll be on Madison, Wisconsin's WTSO 1070 AM, the local ESPN affiliate, streaming here. Rescheduled to run at a similar timeslot on Friday.
• At 5:30 Eastern, I'll be on Green Bay/Appleton, Wisconsin's WSCO 1570 AM, streaming here.
• At 6:20 Eastern, I'll be on El Paso, Texas' KROD 600 AM, streaming here. I've been on the air with host Steve Kaplowitz several times in the past, and I'm pleased to announce that this is going to be a recurring spot for me during this baseball season.
I'll have Milwaukee and Seattle hits for tomorrow...
• First up is Salisbury, Maryland's WOCM-FM at 7:45 AM. Streaming here.
• Next is Philadelphia's WIP 610 AM at 8:05 AM streaming at here.
• At 8:45 AM, I'll taping an interview for "Inside Pitch" on the Cincinnati Reds Radio Network. It will air as part of a future pregame show next weeekend.
• At 9:15 AM, I'll be taping an interview for Albany, NY's "Don Weeks and the WGY Morning News" on WGY 810 AM. This one will air on Thursday or Friday via here.
• At 12:05 PM, I'll be on Sirius/XM's "The B-Team" show with Bruce Murray and Bill Pidto, which runs on, uh, the Mad Dog Radio Channel, 123.
• At 4:10 PM, I'll be on Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida's WQYK 1010 AM, streaming here.
Wednesday's lineup has me doing Manchester, New Hampshire, and Madison and Green Bay, Wisconsin. More info as it emerges.
• First up is Providence, Rhode Island's WBSM 1420 AM at 8:25 AM. Streaming here.
• Next is Tri-Cities, Tennessee's WJCW 910 AM at 8:45 AM. Streaming here.
• Baltimore, Maryland's WVIE 1370 AM at 12:35 PM. Streaming here.
• Cleveland, Ohio's WKNR 1540 AM at 1:00 PM to be rescheduled. Streaming here.
More to come for Tuesday and Wednesday, with Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Albany, Tampa, and the Sirius XM satellite network lined up for tomorrow. Colleagues Steven Goldman, Kevin Goldstein and Christina Kahrl are joining in the fun as well; hopefully we'll have a post up soon at BP Unfiltered to guide our listeners around the country.
In any event, thanks to Norm Wamer and his colleagues at "The Ticket" for continuing to have me on over the past three years. It's a pleasure to be a regular guest on a smart sports talk radio show.
• Part one examined the first and second basemen on the ballot, including the Crime Dog, the Big Cat, Big Mac and Roberto Alomar.
• Part two examined the shortstops and third basemen on the ballot, including Barry Larkin, Alan Trammell, Robin Ventura and Edgar Martinez, who played third before migrating to his natural home as a designated hitter.
• Part three examined the outfielders, including Tim Raines and Andre Dawson.
• Part four, published mere hours before the voting results were announced, covered the pitchers, including Bert Blyleven and Jack Morris.
The four-part series identified seven players as worthy of election to the Hall (Alomar, Blyleven, Larkin, Martinez, McGwire, Raines and Trammell) but as I conceded in the conclusion of the finale, I wasn't at all surprised when that slate was shut out and Dawson gained entry; in fact, it's exactly what I predicted. Today's addendum to the series breaks down the actual voting results:
The announcement of Dawson's election was overshadowed in some circles by two near-misses that were shocking for entirely opposite reasons. Stathead pet candidate Blyleven, in his 13th year on the ballot, moved up from receiving just over 60 percent in the last two years to 74.2 percent, a mere five votes short of enshrinement. Alomar, in his first year on the ballot, received 73.7 percent, falling just eight votes shy of the magic number.
Whether the latter is due to the collective grudge still held by certain writers over the infamous 1996 incident in which Alomar spit in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck—an impulsive, unpremeditated act for which Hirschbeck has not only forgiven Alomar but gone on to befriend and defend him as the two have worked together to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote awareness of the genetic disorder which claimed the life of the ump's son—or due to the BBWAA's more generalized institutional politics, which create a hair-splitting artificial distinction between first-ballot Hall of Famers and the rest, is unclear. Likely the incident had direct bearing on some voters' willingness to invoke that first-ballot distinction.
In any event, it's highly likely that a year from now, Alomar will gain induction. He received the highest-ever vote percentage of any first-year player not elected; in fact, since the BBWAA switched back to an annual vote in 1966, no player has ever polled above 43 percent on his first ballot and not eventually won election from the BBWAA. Furthermore, no player has ever polled above 64 percent and not eventually gained induction by either the BBWAA or Veterans Committee routes, which means Blyleven is practically sitting in the catbird seat, too. The Hall of Fame might as well start casting both plaques now. Particularly since next year's class,, which is headed by Jeff Bagwell, Rafael Palmeiro, John Olerud, Kevin Brown, and Larry Walker, isn't terribly strong, and the following year's class is as thin as prison gruel. As I joked in Wednesday's chat, there may not be five players worthy of more than a paragraph in my annual JAWS rundown, and Bernie Williams is easily the top candidate on the ballot, but far from a slam dunk.
In any event, it's the first time in Hall history that two players on the same ballot missed by fewer than 10 votes. Blyleven's five-vote shortfall was the fifth-smallest in history, and the sting of the near-miss was amplified by the news that the 539-vote tally included five blank ballots, cast either as a protest or as evidence of an ongoingmidlife crisis. Each of those five blank ballots thus required three votes in favor of a given candidate to offset. Had that ignominious quintet gotten lost on the way to the mailbox, Blyleven would have still fallen a stitch short with 74.9 percent of the vote; in this game they don't round up. In fact, he needed the support of all of them, at least one of whom publicly declared during his supermarket-aisle meltdown that he had voted for the pitcher last year.
As agonizing as the near-misses were, I'm optimistic that both Blyleven and Alomar are on track for next year. Furthermore, I think there's hope for Raines and Martinez:
Among the holdovers, Tim Raines (30.4 percent in his third year) received nearly an eight percent bump, a showing that's at least somewhat encouraging. Sutter (29.1 percent), Duke Snider (21.2 percent), and Luis Aparicio (12.0 percent) all received less during their third years of eligibility and still eventually got the call, with the latter representing the biggest comeback of any candidate to gain BBWAA entry. Mark McGwire (23.7 percent in his fourth year), rose nearly two percent from last year and set a personal best by 0.1 percent, but with more than three-quarters of the electorate giving him the cold shoulder over steroid allegations or simply his continued unwillingness to talk about the past, he's going nowhere.
Besides Larkin and Alomar, only two other first-year candidates received above five percent, the showing needed to remain on the ballot for another year. Edgar Martinez got 36.2 percent, and Fred McGriff received 21.5 percent. While those showings may disappoint their supporters, rallying from this point is hardly unprecedented. Consider the less-than-stellar debuts of these 11, all of whom eventually earned the requisite 75 percent:
Player % Gary Carter 42.3% Hoyt Wilhelm 41.7% Rich Gossage 33.3% Eddie Mathews 32.3% Jim Rice 29.8% Early Wynn 27.9% Luis Aparicio 27.8% Bruce Sutter 23.9% Billy Williams 23.4% Don Drysdale 21.0% Duke Snider 17.0%
Onto a few choice questions from the chat:
dianagramr (NYC): Hi Jay ... thanks for the chat. Is Edgar Martinez's run creation in the ballpark with Jim Rice's, when you take into account Rice's subpar defense in LF? In other words, how much better must a DH be in order to make the Hall, assuming voters take defense into account?
JJ: If Edgar's overall production WERE the ballpark, Jim Rice's overall production would be stuck in the breakdown lane 50 miles away. It ain't even close. Edgar accumulated double Rice's WARP over the course of his career (68.9 to 34.2) and about 2.5 wins more per year at his peak. (46.4 to 28.5). I can't tell you if that will be enough for the voters because there really isn't much evidence to suggest voters DO take defense into account at all, or even that some of them think rationally about the process.
Christina Kahrl (BP Volcano Hideout): Five blank ballots were submitted, apparently. While I can understand that more readily than ballots that have Morris but not Blyleven or Dawson or Parker but not Raines, that seems interesting.
JJ: Blank ballots are voters' way of throwing themselves on the ground in the middle of the produce aisle and hoping mommy notices.
Especially given that Mariotti was one of the guys who voted for Blyleven in the past.
Nick Stone (New York, NY): Jay, since I'll be under a pile of work when the HoF announcement is made, I've tried to come up with a question that will cover every conceivable issue raised by the results: What does the (election/stagnant support/dropping off the ballot) of (Andre Dawson/Bert Blyleven/David Segui) say about the BBWAA's general attitude towards (impatient mustache aficionados/Dutch Old Masters/ill-considered bleach jobs)? Does the dramatic falling off of the ballot of (Karros/Raines/McGwire) mean baseball will change the composition of the Veterans Committee in order to better represent (the undead/people with a basic understanding of baseball/chicks who dig the long ball)?
JJ: Too funny! I definitely think that the disappearance of Segui from the ballot is a shot across the bow at those ill-considered bleach jobs, and that the road to the Hall just got considerably longer for Mike Piazza, Alex Rodriguez, and Bret Boone. The disappearance of Karros from the ballot means that the VC will be changed to better accommodate the undead.
Bern Wang (bernwang@hotmail.com): I doubt Bernie Williams will ever get in to the HOF since he was usually overlooked on those Yankee teams (never finished high in MVP voting) and so he won't "seem" like a HOF to many of these voters...but do you think he has a decent case? He had maybe 8 great years in a row and was quite possibly the most valuable player on those Yankee teams from 1994 through 2002. At the very least, I guess with Jim Rice being in, Bernie definitely has a legit case for being in as well since he was clearly better than Jim Rice.
JJ: Bernie's got four more World Series rings than Jim Rice, and the rest of his candidacy is hardly anything to be ashamed of. You'd be surprised what hitting .300 and playing center field for the World Champion Yankees can do for a guy's Cooperstown credentials. Not that it helped Mickey Rivers...
And if that ain't enough on the topic, I recorded a Baseball Prospectus Radio segment with Will Carroll today which you can hear here, via BP's home page, or via iTunes (subscribe to the Baseball Prospectus podcast).
I missed this bit of news while I was gone got wind of it this morning, just hours before getting a note from host Chris Villani. Sadly, the ESPN station which carried my Boston radio hits has gone off the air, with the staff laid off. Villani has already landed some other work at WWZN 1510 as well as WEEI, but "The Young Guns" are no more, taking the Baseball Prospectus slot that I'd held for the past year with it.
I'm sorry to see our weekly spot go. It was a ton of fun while it lasted both at WWZN and ESPN, and I'd like to extend a hearty thanks to Villani and the rest of his crew for putting together a smart show that consistently rose above the general inanity of sports talk radio, and wish them the best of luck in the future — hopefully one which finds us working together again.
Last week's Boston hit, talking about the BP Playoff Odds, the "Secret Sauce," Billy Wagner, the AL Wild Card race, and of course the Red Sox catching situation. Always with the catching...
One of my favorite musicians is the late, great pop genius Lee Hazlewood. As a singer he brought a wry sense of humor, world-weary view and distinctive baritone to both originals and covers. As a writer, he wrote "These Boots Are Made For Walking" and other hits which turned Nancy Sinatra into a superstar. As a producer, he was genuinely groundbreaking, the man who put the reverb Duane Eddy's guitar and impressed a young Phil Spector with his proto-Wall of Sound.
Though I already owned a handful of his reissues, a couple years ago I tracked down a bunch of his out-of-print albums via the Internet, and I now have about 24 hours worth of his music stuffed into my iTunes. For whatever reason, Hazlewood's whacked-out combination of pop, country, lounge and psychedelia has somehow become one of my soundtracks of choice when I'm under the gun, downright soothing yet delightfully weird. When I get on an airplane or a train, I calm my travel anxieties with his gentle, gorgeous 1970 album Cowboy in Sweden. When I'm stressing out while facing a deadline, I always seem to start my playlist with his 1966 album Friday's Child:
Recently the latter was given a lush re-release on the limited-edition Rhino Handmade label as part of three-albums-and-change set called Strung Out on Something New. Worth seeking out if you're hip to his sound, though probably not for novices. Anyway, that's where the title of this post came from, though it's got historical antecedents as well.
Onto the leftovers from my last post...
• On Wednesday I did a chat at Baseball Prospectus. Here's a taste:
dianagramr (Cubehenge): Good afternoon Jay ... thanks for the chat. Has the cloud of PEDs tarnished or thrown into the question the relevance of election to the HOF? (and yes, I know the exclusion of African-Americans prior to 1947 tarnished the HOF already) Jeter is a HOFer, yes? A-Rod, in the wake of his "confession"? Damon?
JJ: Hi Diana. I think the question of PEDs and the Hall of Fame is an open one that will take at least a decade to tell us anything even remotely conclusive. As hard as it may be to envision the players outed as steroid users via one means or another actually getting in, I have a much harder time envisioning the Hall's relevance without guys like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez.
As for Jeter, he's a lock; this year puts him over the line as far as JAWS is concerned, and he's got the kind of resume writers will love. Damon's going to have to get somewhere on his push for 3,000 hits to have much traction; he's got just two All-Star appearances and scores well below average on the Hall of Fame Monitor and HOF Standards metrics. A-Rod will get there eventually, I think, particularly if he keeps to this new STFU PR strategy.
jromero (seattle): Hi, Jay. I am not sure what you may have written in the past regarding Pete Rose's HOF eligibility, but can you briefly share your take on a.) his worthiness as a player; and b.) your opinion as to whether he should be allowed in (assuming his stats stack up). Thanks!
JJ: Absolutely worthy as a player even if he did overstay his welcome by a few years. His JAWS (106.7/56.2/81.5) is above average at any position in all three categories.
As to whether he should be allowed, he knowingly broke the cardinal rule that's posted in every clubhouse: DO NOT GAMBLE ON BASEBALL. He denied it for years, and when he finally fessed up, it was in the service of making a buck. I haven't seen anything out of him to suggest real remorse or reparations to the game, so really, I see absolutely no compelling reason to reinstate him.
Nick Stone (New York City): Jay, assuming you think that the AL East crown is probably settled, how do you see the wild card battle playing out? Will it be just between Boston and Texas? What are the keys to watch for, outside of Wakefield's return?
JJ: Hello, Nick! At this point in the season I'm having a hard time taking the Rays seriously as Wild Card contenders given their inconsistency on both sides of the ball, so I do think it will come down to the Rangers and Red Sox. Earlier this year I'd have said it would be difficult to imagine the Sox struggling this much for this long given their roster, and that it would be even tougher to envision the Rangers maintaining their hot start given their pitch-to-contact ways. The Sox have had a lot of injuries, not only among the players they knew were health risks to begin but also to the players representing the first line of defense against them, and while I like the deadline moves they've made, particularly Victor Martinez, right now they're a mess. The Rangers have had injury problems as well, and done a very nice job augmenting their team in-season by calling up Derek Holland and Neftali Feliz, and as minor as it is, I like their acquisition of Pudge for the stretch.
I can envision this race coming down to whose young pitching holds up best under pressure -- Buccholz or Holland/Feliz. It's bigger than that, of course, but that's what I'll be watching most closely.
GregLowder (DC): Jay, I think it's impossible to use a specific number to measure HOF worthiness...3000 hits, 500 homers, 300 wins. You can pull a "Curtis Martin" and be effective for several years just due to good health and luck. I think you have to be great for a short period of time, in baseball I put that at 6-8 years, or very good for a long period of time, 12+ years. Do you agree?
JJ: Among actual voters, by which I mean the BBWAA ones, not the VC ones, career length is a much bigger factor than you give it credit for being. With a few exceptions (Rice, Sutter, Brock, Tony Perez) guys who get elected by the writers generally have had good to great peaks AND very good long careers.
• My Toledo radio hit, which discussed the Tigers' acquisition of Aubrey Huff, the Magglio Ordoñez fiasco, waiver deals in general, and the state of various division and Wild Card races.
• My Boston radio hit, which discussed the Red Sox's relatively faded postseason hopes, Jon Papelbon's woes and the perpetual problem of their catching situation, among other things. Fun stuff.
• Tuesday's Todd Helton piece generated enough discussion and had enough leftovers that I took a second look at Helton's Hall case, this time in the context of his contemporaries at first base -- much as I did here.
• Along with colleagues Kevin Goldstein, Marc Normandin and John Perrotto, and ESPN Insider's Matt Meyers, I was part of a roundtable (BP/ESPN) on young pitchers who struggle to fulfill expectations, with Clay Buchholz, Homer Bailey and Mike Pelfrey being the prime examples. Here's a taste of the beginning of the piece:
Matt Meyers, ESPN Insider: The one guy I can't figure out is Clay Buchholz. The Red Sox righty burst on the scene with a no-hitter in 2007, but has not been able to sustain any sort of success in the majors. However, his 2.36 ERA and 8.1 K/9 at Triple-A this season show us he has little left to prove in the minors. I'll channel my inner Jerry Seinfeld and ask, "What's the deal with Clay Buchholz?"
John Perrotto: There are some around the Red Sox who believe Buchholz enjoyed the trappings of the immediate stardom that came with throwing a no-hitter in his second career start, and that was a major distraction. You can get by on pure stuff in Triple-A, but it's a different story in the majors.
Marc Normandin: Agreed. Buchholz has great stuff, and he throws a ton of first-pitch strikes. But for some reason, he walks too many hitters (4.9 BB/9 for his MLB career). He needs to sort out the "how" of pitching to go along with his natural talent.
Jay Jaffe: I think it's fair to say that few players in baseball have had as much pressure thrust upon them as Buchholz. Ever since the no-hitter, his name has been floated as the key to so many potential big trades (Johan Santana, Roy Halladay, Felix Hernandez), so every lousy start raises the question of, "What if they'd traded him for X ... "
• Today's Hit List finds the Yankees edging out the Dodgers for the top spot by a single Hit List Factor point, a gap closed by last night's 11-1 win for the Yanks as the Dodgers sat idle. The real fun is further down the list:
[#12 Blue Jays] Talentless: J.P. Ricciardi makes the biggest salary dump in baseball history when he lets Alex Rios go to the White Sox via waivers for nothing but salary relief from the $61 million remaining on his contract through (gulp) 2014. It's a move which obviously saves the Jays a pretty penny, but it's merely the latest embarrassing gaffe in a series which has seen the GM's name become synonymous with awful contracts, not to mention some awkward attempts to evade their full impact. On the field, Marco Scutaro continues to be the exception that proves the rule when it comes to Ricciardi's penchant for buying high; he's hitting .296/.387/.441 and ranking in the top five in both walks and runs while earning a base salary of $1.1 million.
[#13 White Sox] My Final Offer is This: Nothing: The White Sox score themselves a potential long-term solution in center field by claiming Alex Rios on waivers from the Blue Jays and refusing to submit to J.P. Ricciardi's demands of any talent in return to offset the $61 million remaining on his deal. It's a bold and obviously costly move, but his defensive numbers suggest he can cover the middle pasture which more easily justifies the investment in a 28-year-old hitting to a .275 EqA tune in a down year. Add in the fact that Jake Peavy is beginning a rehab assignment, and it's clear the AL Central race is about to get interesting.
[#21 Mets] No Drama: It's a relatively uneventful week for the Mets, with no executive firings or pratfalls, just peace, quiet and losing as befits a team whose Playoff Odds have fallen below 0.2 percent. The team does reward those masochistic enough to still pa attention with another injury setback (Carlos Delgado) and some late-inning heartbreak, as Francisco Rodriguez yields five ninth-inning runs to the Padres in Petco, an occurrence whose extreme unlikelihood breaks the Baseball Prospectus Infinite Improbability Drive.
For some reason, the Jays are often one of the last team's I get to when I'm writing the weekly Hit List, but they move to the front of the line when Ricciardi gets on a roll with his idiotic antics. And for that, I'm very grateful.
Plus, anything that give me an excuse to quote a Godfather movie is all good.
• • •
My Toledo radio hit, which was rescheduled for Thursday due to a chaotic Wednesday for Norm Wamer and company.
• • •
My deepest sympathies go out to Can't Stop the Bleeding snarkmeister/Matador Records co-owner Gerard Cosloy, whose Austin, Texas home burned to the ground at 3 AM on Tuesday morning. The cause of the fire is still unknown, but officials estimate it did about half a million dollars worth of damage, and by the looks of it, Cosloy lost everything that was in the house. Fortunately, he himself is safe. He told the Austin American-Statesman "There are a lot of people who have a lot less than I do who deal with a lot worse, but this is pretty bad."
To say I've been a fan of Matador Records since the early Nineties would be an understatement. Along with labels like Sub Pop, Touch and Go and SST, they're one of the definitive indie rock labels. I've got at least a hundred Matador albums in my collection from artists like Guided by Voices, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the New Pornographers, Pavement, Pussy Galore, Railroad Jerk, Yo La Tengo and others, and that's without even touching upon how much some of those albums have meant to me over the past two decades.
So it was quite a joy to discover Cosloy was in the blogging game a few years ago, and that he was keeping at least an occasional watch on this site. After years of link-swapping, we finally met through mutual friend Nick Stone as the three of us attended a Yankees game back in June. But even if I'd never met him, I'd feel for him in the same way I felt for two other blogging brethren who found themselves in the same painful circumstance, Christian Ruzich and Larry Mahnken. I'm a bit of a pack rat, to say the least, with several lifetimes worth of stuff in our Brooklyn apartment — books, music, computers, artwork, memorabilia, photos, clothing — that I can't imagine living without, and more of the same in storage. Hell, I'm still smarting over the four CDs that got lost when our rooftop party was interrupted by rain four years ago, and just spent a month mourning the loss of my trusty 1 GB flash drive, only to rediscover it in a piece of luggage. Don't even ask about the stack of football cards left at Skippers Seafood and Chowder House, Salt Lake City, November 1978...
My point is that as with those previous fires, I can only begin to fathom Cosloy's loss, and my heart goes out to him at this time. In lieu of a donation and what's bound to be a hell of a benefit show or two given the bands he can probably summon, I ask that you pick one of his favorite targets -- the Mets, Isaiah Thomas, Phil Mushnick, Phillies fans, etc -- and bash away gleefully until he can get back on his feet.
What's gone wrong in Cleveland? PECOTA's division-winning projection called for a meager 86 wins (around three more than the above method suggests) and a 38 percent chance of making the postseason, casting them as weak favorites over the Tigers. The offense, despite injuries to Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore, has essentially lived up to expectations; projected to rank fourth in the league in scoring, they actually rank fifth. The pitching, however, ranks dead stinking last instead of the projected seventh.
The responsibility for that showing rests with both the rotation (13th in SNLVAR) and the bullpen (14th in WXRL). Blame Shapiro for assembling the rotation which has put up a 5.95 ERA beyond Lee. While his acquisition of Anthony Reyes was a worthwhile gambit that went sour due to elbow problems culminating in Tommy John surgery, his signing of Carl Pavano has brought plenty of bad (five disaster starts, with more runs than innings pitched) to go with the good (10 quality starts), with a 5.37 ERA and 1.4 homers per nine. Wedge and his staff own a share of the blame for failing to straighten out Fausto Carmona; hoping the sinkerballer would regain his stellar 2007 form after mechanical and injury woes ruined 2008, they suffered a 7.42 ERA over 12 gruesome starts before farming him out in June. The rest of the rotation fillers—Aaron Laffey, Jeremy Sowers, Zach Jackson, David Huff and Scott Lewis—apparently arrived from a big-box store where hittable lefties are sold by the gross; that quintet has given the Tribe 36 starts with a 5.73 ERA and just 4.7 strikeouts per nine.
The bullpen's been worse, a major reason the team is an AL-high 7.7 wins behind their projected third-order record, their Pythagorean record after adjusting for scoring environment, run elements, and quality of opposition. Poor early-season performances by Kerry Wood, Rafael Betancourt (since traded to Colorado), Rafael Perez (since demoted) and Jensen Lewis (recalled this past weekend after a five-week demotion) dug the team an early hole; they were already 4.7 games behind their third-order projection by mid-May. That was around the time the buzzards started circling Wedge, who presided over an uncannily similar debacle last year, when the relievers he rode hard late in 2007 spit the bit. Wedge has now presided over three slow-starting teams in the past four years, and while his overall record stands at 540-537, just two of his seven teams have finished above .500, and they've fallen a cumulative 29 games shy of their Pythagorean projections.
Shapiro will have to answer for his pledge to keep his skipper in place, and ultimately, for the drying up of the team's talent pipeline amid years of unimpressive drafts. From 1997 through 2008, the Indians' organization produced more major league talent than any other AL Central team, according to the Value Production Standings work which Steve Treder presented at the most recent SABR convention. Alas, an increasing proportion of that value, from Manny Ramirez and C.C. Sabathia down through Jeremy Guthrie, was delivered for other teams. As ESPN's Jerry Crasnick pointed out recently, Guthrie has been the most successful of the 19 first-round or supplemental pics on Shapiro's watch, but all of that success has been with the Orioles. Among those on their major league roster, top 2004 pick Sowers and top 2006 pick Huff, are among the glut of low-upside southpaws, while top 2005 pick Trevor Crowe looks like a card-carrying member of the Future Fourth Outfielders of America.
The article, and particularly the draft stuff, generated a lengthy discussion at the Lets Go Tribe! blog.
• Yesterday I previewed the Yankees-Red Sox series (BP/ESPN), exploring how the two teams' in-season upgrades have changed them, particularly since the Red Sox won the first five of their eight straight against the Yanks:
On Thursday evening, the Yankees and Red Sox—once again the AL East's top two teams—kick off a four-game series in the Bronx. Much has been and will continue to be made of the fact that the Yankees are 0-8 against their heated rivals this year. Beyond that lopsided tally, they've been the better of the two ballclubs to date, particularly since Alex Rodriguez returned from the hip surgery which sidelined him for the first month of the season, a period during which the Red Sox beat the Yankees five times in a two-week span. After all, it's the Yankees who lead the division by 2.5 games, the result of them currently having the upper hand in the division's never-ceasing arms race.
...The real turnaround has been in the bullpen, however. Since [Alex] Rodriguez's return — a point that more or less coincides with Alfredo Aceves' recall from Scranton — the relievers have put up a 3.78 Fair Run Average with 8.0 WXRL, the latter mark rating as the second best in the majors. That ugly first month aside, manager Joe Girardi has reasserted his ability to sift through a handful of off-brand relievers to build a bridge to Mariano Rivera, with Phil Hughes (1.8 WXRL) and Aceves (1.3 WXRL) emerging to supplant those aforementioned arsonists as well as injured and ineffective Brian Bruney, joining Phil Coke (1.4 WXRL) among the Yankees' late-game options. After struggling as a starter, Hughes has flat-out dominated in a relief role, with a 1.00 Fair Run Average and a 39/7 K/BB ratio in 30.1 innings. General manager Brian Cashman remains adamant that like Joba Chamberlain, his future lies in the rotation, but for the moment, he stands as one of the Yankee season's saviors. Thanks in large part to their remade relief corps, the Yanks are now 4.3 wins ahead of their first-order Pythagorean projection, second only to the Mariners among AL teams — a margin that's allowed them to leapfrog their division rivals.
As for the Red Sox... After enduring a three-week stretch in which the Sox hit just .224/.314/.386 while averaging a meager 4.2 runs per game and going 9-9, general manager Theo Epstein chose to make a deal to augment his lineup rather than his rotation, so instead of gunning for Roy Halladay, he dealt two pitching prospects for the Indians' Victor Martinez, also acquiring Chris Duncan, Casey Kotchman and (briefly) Adam LaRoche in smaller deals, moves which particularly provide manager Terry Francona with considerable flexibility at catcher, first base and third base. Since Epstein began dealing on July 22, the revamped offense has averaged 6.3 runs per game, highlighted by an 18-run breakout in which Martinez went 5-for-6.
It was quite a joy to watch the Yanks take it to John Smoltz last night (is it just me or did Paul O'Neill keep calling him "Schmaltz"?), not surprisingly a topic of discussion on my weekly radio hit on what's now being dubbed "The Boston Sports Post Game Show" on ESPN 890...
[#2 Yankees] Trilogy: Johnny Damon homers in three straight games, including once off Roy Halladay, whom he owns (.356/.426/.533 in 101 PA lifetime), and once off John Smoltz, his first career hit off the 42-year-old. It's hardly the only hit the Yanks collect off of Smoltz; they paste him for nine hits and eight runs in 3.1 innings to gain their first victory over Boston in nine tries this year. As lopsided as their series has been, the Yanks have been the better team since their early meetings thanks to the return of Alex Rodriguez and the revamping of their bullpen. They now lead the AL East by 3.5 games, a swing of eight games in the standings since A-Rod's May 8 return, and they've won 28 out of their last 38.
[#4 Red Sox] In just his second game with the Red Sox, Victor Martinez makes himself at home with a huge day (6 1 5 4) in an 18-10 drubbing of the Orioles, a nearly four-hour epic in which the two teams combine to score in every inning, just the third time that's happened this year. The win keeps the Sox just a half-game behind the Yankees, but Clay Buchholz's ugly performance and the three losses that follow provide a sobering reminder of the pitching upgrades they bypassed at the deadline, as Buchholz, Brad Penny and John Smoltz are torched for 24 hits, seven homers and 20 runs in 13.1 innings. All three have Support-Neutral Winning Percentages well under .500.
Going up state this weekend, so any Yanks-Sox action I catch will be audio-only via my iPhone. Here's hoping the Yanks continue to kick serious ass.
• A Basseball Prospectus/ESPN Insider piece examining second-half strength of schedule, revisiting an earlier piece but using Hit List Factor instead of a team's projected winning percentage. Here's how the teams shake down:
Glad to see that two of my three teams have cupcake schedules, though for the Brewers it won't mean much if they can't improve their pitching.
• Last week's Hit List, which found the Dodgers and Yankees 1-2 for what I believe is the first time in the column's history.
• Speaking of the Hit List, I was lucky enough to get to take a time out during its creation to watch the final two innings of Mark Buehrle's perfect game. While I've seen a few no-hitters in their entirety (including Nolan Ryan's record-setting fifth) and caught the tail end of several more, this was the first perfecto I'd seen the end of; I missed those of David Wells (turned that one off early, d'oh) and David Cone. DeWayne Wise's spectacular catch to rob Gabe Kapler of a home run to lead off the ninth inning was worth the price of admission alone.
• Also from last Friday, in honor of Rickey Henderson's induction into the Hall of Fame, I took a at which contemporary players are most like Henderson:
Rickey Henderson will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday, an honor that feels long overdue for the player who holds the all-time records for both stolen bases and runs, is a member of the 3,000 Hit Club, and is widely acknowledged as the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers," wrote Bill James of Henderson nearly a decade ago. The bearded bard of sabermetrics was onto something, and not only with regards to Henderson's Cooperstown credentials. Scanning the horizon in search of a truly similar active player, one comes up with only fractional Rickeys, players who possess elements of Henderson's game — his speed-power combo, his keen batting eye, his basepath derring-do — but nowhere near to the exact same blend.
In honor of Rickey's impending induction, I set out to search for the most Rickey-like player among the current crop of actives, devising a series of similarity scores in categories that typify the unique shape of Henderson's performance. Rather than use raw statistics to compare a player whose major league career began 30 years ago, I called upon Clay Davenport's translated statistics, which normalize all players to the same run-scoring environment. Instead of relying upon a single year's performance, I used a 3/4/5 weighted average of 2007, 2008, and 2009 stats for all players with at least 900 actual plate appearances over that span, then boiled those down to a per-650 plate appearance format for comparison to a similar encapsulation of Henderson's career. This sells the superstar short by including his decline phase, but with nobody even remotely close to Rickey Henderson at his peak out there today, the bar needs a bit of lowering.
The players were then scored in ten categories, with Henderson's performance defined as 1000 points, the least Henderson-like as zero, and all performances in between scaled accordingly. Occasionally, small-sample outliers had to be removed for this to work; crediting a player who's 4-for-5 in stolen bases with similarity to Henderson's 80.4 percent success rate on the basepaths isn't appropriate. It's important to note that players who exceeded Henderson in these categories — with higher slugging percentages or stolen-base success rates, say — were penalized, too; this process isn't designed to tell us the best player, just the "Rickeyest."
While obviously I had the upper hand because I was the one creating the system, I was as surprised as anyone else when the Orioles' Brian Roberts came out on top, with B.J. Upton, Johnny Damon, Jose Reyes and Carl Crawford following. "All of these players combine speed, power, and the ability to get on base to some degree, but none of them profile quite like Henderson does; each punts at least one category in this particular decathalon," I wrote, noting particularly that none of the overall leaders walks with Henderson's frequency. For more, see BP and ESPN Insider, and look for a follow-up at BP on Tuesday.
• Following up this item, which gave me ample fodder for the Mets' hit List entry, Tony Bernazard gets what he richly deserved: a pink slip. What an asshole. Meanwhile, Diamondbacks scout Carlos Gomez clarifies his part in one of the incidents that led to the firing. Contrary to the New York Daily News' earlier report, Bernazard did not directly address Gomez with his profanity-laced tirade, but rather berated a Mets official who told him to wait until the end of the half-inning before taking the seat occupied by Gomez.
[Update]: Via Shysterball, Mets GM Omar Minaya's performance at the press conference is worth a look. He tangles with Daily News Mets beat reporter Adam Rubin, accusing his coverage of being slanted by his own desire to join the Mets' player development department under Bernazard. This is turning into a parade of trainwrecks. And I can't stop watching.
• Finally, I'll be at the Society for American Baseball Research convention in Washington, DC from Thursday until Sunday. Don't be shy if you see me there and want to say hi — I don't bite.
Enough with the first-half navel-gazing. Over the course of the past two days, Baseball Prospectus colleagues Steven Goldman, Christina Kahrl and I have offered second-half prescriptions for each of the thirty teams -- one or two suggestions that could improve their outlook in the short or long term, depending upon their chances of making the playoffs. In the AL version (BP or ESPN Insider flavor), Steve takes the AL East, Christina the AL West, and yours truly the AL Central. Here's what I had to say about the two teams in my Toledo jurisdiction (yesterday's radio hit is here, btw):
The Tigers have the right idea by benching Magglio Ordoñez who's 163 plate appearances from vesting an $18 million option for next year, and hitting an unacceptable .243/.319/.292 against righties. He can still hit lefties (.300/.356/.463), but in order to limit him to a platoon role and turn the position into an offensive plus—something the Tigers, with a .250 EqA, sorely need—manager Jim Leyland needs a better lefty-swinging corner outfielder than Clete Thomas. The Royals' Mark Teahen and the Orioles' Luke Scott are among the available, affordable corner outfielders who would fit the bill.
One reason the Indians are last in the league in runs prevented is that their pitchers don't miss many bats; they're 12th in strikeout rate and 13th in Defensive Efficiency. As they play out the string, they should move Kerry Wood back to the rotation. He's been lousy enough as a closer (5.28 ERA, -0.2 WXRL, 12 saves in 16 opportunities) not to be missed, and while his fragility might necessitate a short leash, he'd provide the rotation with at least one pitcher with a strikeout rate above league average. For $20.5 million over two years, is that too much to ask?
The Wood one was greeted with plenty of skepticism over at BP, which isn't terribly surprising. It's an outside-the-box modest proposal, something that's not likely to happen. My point is that the Indians, who have only one starter with an ERA below 5.00 (Cliff Lee) have absolutely nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Wood's contract is short enough that it's likely covered by insurance. It's also got a vesting option for 2011 if he finishes 55 games in either year (he's at 29 now), an extra $11 million commitment that makes absolutely no sense. The Tribe is more likely to be able to offload him elsewhere if he can demonstrate that he can start, at least for a short stretch. And not to sound callous, but if he breaks, so what? He's not helping at all at his current level of performance, and he's never going to live up to that contract.
For the NL piece (BP and ESPN Insider), Steve again takes the East, Christina takes the Central, and I've got the West. Here's what I had to say about the Dodgers and Padres:
Snubbed via the All-Star selection process, Matt Kemp can't even get respect from his own manager despite a .320/.384/.495 first-half performance. Joe Torre has batted him seventh or eighth in 45 of 87 games, and in the top five in just 11 games, this despite the fact that his OBP is third on the team behind Manny Ramirez and — wait for it — Juan Pierre. Oh, and he's also stolen 19 bases (second to Pierre) in 23 attempts. Even with Rafael Furcal heating up after a frigid three-month slump, moving Kemp to the leadoff spot would give one of the team's most effective hitters at least another 50 PA over the course of the second half, adding runs to the Dodgers' ledger ["...particularly with Ramirez batting behind him," I should have added.]
Adrian Gonzalez is the poor man's Mark Teixeira, minus the switch-hitting part — an excellent all-around player with power, plate discipline, and a good glove. And the Padres, with a depleted team that's nowhere near contention, should strive to get a Teixeira-like return for their star slugger, the kind of multi-prospect raid on another team's system that can provide several cogs for a future contender. Gonzalez is ridiculously affordable ($3 million this year, just $4.75 million for 2010 and a $5.5 million club option for 2011 that apparently has no buyout), and losing him will make for an extremely bland major league product in San Diego in the near term, though the sight of 275-pound behemoth Kyle Blanks playing first base on a daily basis might offer some amusement. The point is that since the Padres have the leverage here, they don't actually need to deal him yet, and they shouldn't unless they're offered a package that changes their future.
Until the past few days, I've actually been against the idea that the Padres needed to trade Gonzalez, a move that's bound to be a tough sell to Padres fans. But seeing the way opposing pitchers walked the slugger more than 20 percent of the time last month, I don't think there's a lot of excitement to be had by keeping him around amid such a barren lineup. The suspense of whether Kevin Kouzmanoff (.244/.280/.405), Chase Headley (.232/.308/.366) or the undead Brian Giles (.191/.277/.271) — three players who've batted behind Gonzalez frequently this year — doesn't exactly make for scintillating baseball. But that's just me. Padres' fans mileage may vary.
A couple weeks back, on one of my Boston "Young Guns" radio spots, I joked with host Chris Villani about Red Sox outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury being the new Juan Pierre. Yesterday, Rob Neyer's got a blog entry ruminating on that prospect, and concluding that while he's been a disappointment, time is on the 25-year-old Ellsbury's side.
I tend to agree, but at the same time, I'm rather alarmed — and as a Sox-hater, amused — that he hasn't come anywhere close to approaching his sizzling 2007 debut. Ellsbury's hardly developed into the Johnny Damon clone that some expected him to be, and his power appears to be more a function of park than of anything else. Check these career numbers out:
Split PA AVG OBP SLG Ellsbury, Fenway 499 .304 .361 .441 Pierre, Home 2942 .311 .361 .375
On neutral turf, they're virtually the same slappy hitter, but at Fenway, Ellbury packs considerably more punch, enough so that his career Equivalent Average dusts Pierre's, .279 to .258; recall that the latter has spent more than a third of his career in hitter-friendly venues like Coors and Wrigley Fields, depressing the value of his offensive "accomplishments." As I've said to Villani and company, I don't think that makes him a particularly strong choice as the Sox's leadoff hitter, but his game is a stronger one than Pierre's
As to the first of those two statements, in fact every player who's been suspended for 50 games under baseball's drug policy has had the same right to such rehab stint, including Ramirez's Dodger teammate Guillermo Mota, who did so with the Mets' Triple-A affiliate back in 200, and the Phillies' J.C. Romero, who did so in the Phillies' chain last month.
As to the second statement, people seem to forget that the policy is the product of collective bargaining. MLB and the owners can't just unilaterally impose their will to punish the players — that's why there's a union, for crying out loud, and that's what the 1994 strike was all about, the prevention of the owners from unilaterally imposing working conditions.
There's nothing magical about the number 50 in a 50-game suspension other than the fact that it's a round number. It seems apparent that the Players Association would only accept such a length of time for a first-violation suspension if a minor league rehab stint were exempted from that count. Had they not agreed to such a stint, it's quite possible the players wouldn't have accepted a suspension longer than, say, 40 games, and Ramirez would be coming back cold, or forced to spend a week at the team's extended spring training complex or something. The overall timeline for his return to the majors might not have changed at all.
Last week's episode, which was done with Wamer and led off with a bit about the draft and first pick Stephen Strasburg (two weeks in a row leading with the Nationals?), is here (skip to 2:30 in), and the one from two weeks ago -- which by my count was the 100th time I've appeared on the show -- is here (skip to 1:45 in). Enjoy!
Last week's WWZN Young Guns radio hit, discussing Russ Ortiz's short-lived lead over namesake David in the 2009 home run rankings, the possibility of the Blue Jays remaining factors in the AL East, the sudden power outbursts of Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, and other fun stuff. The segment was recorded via iPhone while I was out in front of the Jeollado sushi restaurant in the East Village, so apologies if the sound is less than studio quality.
The Saints, an independent team in the independent American Association, won behind a couple of long home runs, but I didn't actually pay too close attention to the game, even failing to notice former big-leaguer Kerry Ligtenberg closed the door with the save. In addition to my own beverage and pork consumption, I was busy shelling peanuts and otherwise playing with five-year-old Kate and two-year-old Jackie, the daughters of our hosts, who also had a one-month-old infant son in tow. This was the kids' first baseball game, and while they weren't overly interested in the proceedings, they were thoroughly sugared up and entertained by the between-innings shenanigans, particularly the mascot Mudonna, a bright pink pig who alternately scared and fascinated my new buddy, Jackie, who understandably had trouble figuring out exactly what she was looking at: "Where pink bear go now? Where pink bear go now?"
I'd read about the Saints years ago in Neal Karlen's excellent Slouching Towards Fargo, a book that chronicled life in the independent Northern League during the mid-90s. The Saints, owned even to this day by a group that includes actor Bill Murray as well as baseball's Barnumesque scion, Mike Veeck, featured Darryl Strawberry on his way back to the majors as well as Jack Morris on his way out of baseball, along with a whole bunch of other characters just happy to be playing ball anywhere for a living. Anyway, more than a decade after reading Fargo, I was glad to finally get a chance to attend one of their games, a particularly welcome antidote to Epic Fail Stadium in the Bronx. Tomorrow, I'll pay a visit to the Metrodome (another first) for a Twins-Brewers game, but I'll be hard-pressed to top the fun I had here.
• • •
This week at Baseball Prospectus, I wrote a "Pair Up in Threes" piece about a trio of teams whose overall showings were in marked contrast to the performance of their rotations. Both the Red Sox and Phillies continue to contend despite abysmal 6.00+ ERA showings from their starters, while the Diamondbacks are deep into the second division despite strong showings from their starters even with Brandon Webb sidelined. Here's part of what I wrote about the D-Bags:
What's Happened: After lasting just four innings on Opening Day, Webb was pushed to the Disabled List due to bursitis in his shoulder. He was expected only to miss a few weeks, but since suffering a setback in late April, he's been limited to playing catch and won't be back until sometime in June. While Yusmeiro Petit has pitched poorly in his place (8.03 ERA, -0.2 SNLVAR, .367 SNWP), Haren leads the league in SNLVAR, [Doug] Davis is 11th, and [Max] Scherzer is 26th.
Alas, Webb's absence has been the least of the club's problems; right now this may be the unhappiest team in the majors. Manager Bob Melvin was fired on May 8 with the team a disappointing 12-17, 8½ games out of first. They've gone just 2-6 under replacement A.J. Hinch, whose lack of managerial experience has drawn fire from the media as well as departed pitching coach Bryan Price. Last Friday, upon pulling Davis for a pinch-hitter, the pitcher — who had thrown just 80 pitches but trailed by a run in the seventh — confronted his new skipper in full view of the TV cameras, never a good sign.
The real problem isn't a lack of respect for the manager's authoritah, it's a snake-bitten offense that's scraping together just 3.9 runs per game, which ranks 15th in the league; their .236 EqA is the NL's worst. Three lineup regulars (Chad Tracy, Conor Jackson, and Chris B. Young) are below the Mendoza Line, and Stephen Drew and Eric Byrnes aren't much above it. As well as Haren and Davis have pitched, both rank in the league's bottom 10 in run support, well under three runs per game; Haren is second-to-last at 2.3. Meanwhile, the bullpen's been pretty lousy (12th in the league in WXRL and 13th in Fair Run Average), but most of the damage has been done in lower-leverage situations. Closer Chad Qualls and set-up men Tony Pena and Juan Gutierrez, the only relievers with Leverage scores above 1.00, are all in the black, WXRL-wise, while the mop-and-bucket patrol has sloshed kerosene around during their aisle nine cleanups.
What Will Fix It: Even if Webb returns at full strength, the Diamondbacks have dug themselves a huge hole. The PECOTA-based version of our Playoff Odds Report puts their chances at reaching the postseason at just 9.3 percent, down from 45.0 percent to start the year. The suspension of Manny Ramirez won't do very much to bring the Dodgers back to the pack; in fact, the Diamondbacks have lost three games in the standings since then. If they don't start scoring runs soon, it's going to be a long summer in the Arizona heat.
As for the Hit List, the Dodgers continue to hold onto the top spot, the Brewers are third despite some bad news, and Yankees are 10th. Here's a taste:
[#1 Dodgers] Life Without Manny: Clayton Kershaw no-hits the Marlins for seven innings; he's allowed just six runs and 13 hits and zero homers over his last four starts, and batters are hitting just .205/.313/.333 against him overall. The Dodger rotation has picked up the slack since Manny's suspension via a 2.81 ERA and just three homers in 80 innings despite the presence of both Jeff Weaver and Official Hit List Whipping Boy Eric Milton, two pitchers who survived the fly-ball pitcher's hell of Albuquerque to return to the majors.
[#3 Brewers] Weeks, Months, Year: Amid a seven-game winning streak, the Brewers incur a loss of a different sort, as Rickie Weeks suffers a torn tendon sheath in his left wrist, ending his season at a point when he was hitting .272/.340/.517 while tied for the team high with nine homers. Given that the injury is in the opposite wrist as his 2006 season-ender, this only perpetuates the concern that he'll never be durable enough for full-time duty; he's topped 100 games only twice in five years. For the moment, the Brewers will patch from within via Craig Counsell, Casey McGehee, Hernan Irribaren, and perhaps Alcides Escobar.
[#21 Astros] Ortiz Finally Homers! Russ Ortiz beats Big Papi to the punch by a day with a two-run shot, his first homer since 2003. With a 5.81 ERA and a 21/22 K/BB rate, he ought to consider a career move, as he hit .252/.301/.403 with four homers in 2002-2003, numbers that outdo more than one current Astros lineup regular. On the other side of the coin, Wandy Rodriguez allows his first home run since last August 10, a span of 88 1/3 innings. He's second in the league in ERA and fourth in SNLVAR; the Astros are 7-2 in his starts.
[#23 Marlins] Crouching Tiger, Rotting Fish: Andrew Miller returns from the disabled list and notches his first win in 11 months, but it's the Marlins' only victory in an eight-game span. The Miguel Cabrera/Dontrelle Willis deal hasn't turned out well for the Fish thus far, as Miller's put up a 5.88 ERA in 124 innings, Cameron Maybin's been sent back to Triple-A after a .202/.280/.310 start, and Mike Rabelo, Burke Badenhop, and Eulogio de la Cruz have all been below replacement level as well.
That last entry came out of an on-air conversation with WLQR-Toledo radio host Norm Wamer during my weekly spot, while the Ortiz one was something I made light of during my WWZN-Boston spot on the Young Guns (audio link hopefully forthcoming).
Meanwhile, I've got one more article in the pipeline, an ESPN Insider/BP piece related to Randy Johnson's pursuit of his 300th win that will be held until he finally reaches the milestone. I hope it happens soon — he took a no-decision on Friday night, keeping him at 298 — because I gots to get paid.
Just as looked as though the Dodgers might run away with the National League West, they were hit with a bombshell on Thursday, namely Manny Ramirez's 50-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball's drug policy. Leaving the specifics of his violation to the reporters except to note that he won't be eligible to return until July 3, the question is whether his absence will put the division in play. The answer — sorry, Diamondbacks fans and Manny haters — is probably not.
Despite haggling with the Dodgers over his contract into early March and suffering a hamstring strain during his second week of spring training, Ramirez had picked up where he left off last year, hitting .348/.492/.641 and leading the NL in OBP and walks. His performance has helped power the Dodgers to the majors' best record (21-8), run differential (+55) and Equivalent Average (.286), not to mention a modern major league record 13-0 start at home. The team currently leads the Giants by 6.5 game and the Diamondbacks by 8.5 games.
At the outset of the season, our PECOTA projections pegged the Dodgers as a 93-win team with a 47.8 percent chance of winning the division and a 9.4 percent chance of taking the Wild Card, with the Diamondbacks at 88 wins, 34.7 percent, and 10.3 percent, respectively. Updating today's "Reality Check" piece to include Wednesday night's results and their ramifications in the PECOTA-based version of our Playoff Odds report, the Dodgers are projected to win 100 games (a .619 winning percentage), with an 84.1 percent chance of winning the division and a 4.7 percent chance of taking the Wild Card, while Arizona is projected to win 84 games (a .521 winning percentage), with 10.7 and 12.1 percent shots at the division and Wild Card. In other words, the Dodgers have widened the gap considerably on their closest rivals. The Giants, meanwhile, are still projected for just a 78-wn season, with a 3.4 percent shot at the division and 4.6 percent chance at the Wild Card.
After running through the Marginal Lineup Value Rate-based cost in runs of the Dodgers' three in-house candidates to replace him — Juan Pierre, rookie Xavier Paul, and third baseman Blake DeWitt, who would force Casey Blake to the outfield — I suggested another means of calculation:
As an alternative way to gauge the impact of Ramirez's absence, suppose we segment the Dodgers' season into three unequal parts, namely the 29 games they've already played, the 50 games they'll be without Ramirez, and the 83 games they'll have left once he returns. For the first segment we pencil in the team's actual scoring rates to date, and for the latter two segments, we use the team's PECOTA-projected scoring rates, applying the worst-case "Manny Hit" (-0.568 runs per game) for the course of his suspension:
Segment RS RA First 29 5.55 3.66 Actual Next 50 4.49 4.39 PECOTA minus 0.568 r/g offense Final 83 5.06 4.39 PECOTA Overall 4.98 4.26
Using Pythagenpat, that's a .573 winning percentage and a 93-win pace, or right where we pegged the Dodgers at the outset of the year. While this math is effectively saying that the cost of losing Ramirez may be enough to undo the extra advantage they've gained with their quick bolt from the gate, that still leaves the Diamondbacks having to find about 10 wins to overtake the Dodgers.
The bottom line is that Ramirez's absence likely won't cost the boys in blue the NL West flag. It could tighten the race, but the only real certainty is that it will be less colorful.
Before the day ended, I wound up doing radio hits for ESPN's Austin affiliate as well as my regular WWZN Boston spot, and this morning, like clockwork, I'm making the rounds on the Fox News Radio network. Catch me yakking with your local drive time host:
While I'm hardly an authority on the topic, I've always had a soft spot for minor league baseball, probably because my formative years were spent in minor league towns. I grew up attending ballgames in Salt Lake City, Utah, a city with a rich history as a minor league outpost dating back to the old Pacific Coast League and its 200-game seasons. During my childhood and adolescence it played host to the Triple-A affiliates for the Angels and Mariners in the modern-day PCL, and I got my fill of stars like Dickie Thon and Phil Bradley, high-altitude boppers like Ike Hampton, and future flops like Al Chambers. Additionally, every summer I would visit my grandparents in in Walla Walla, Washington, the site of the Padres' Low-A Northwest League affiliate, where I watched Tony Gwynn and John Kruk take their first steps toward major league stardom.
As such, I'm hooked on the recent addition of the SABR Minor League Database to the already amazing collection of data at Baseball-Reference.com. This awe-inspiring mother lode provides access to the minor league records of over 175,000 players from over 4,000 leagues (majors, minors, and foreign). While a great deal of the data currently on B-R is incomplete, and some of it is redundant with the minor league data on The Baseball Cube, like Retrosheet this statistical horn of plenty holds the promise of delivering ever more down the road. As it is, it's still a treasure trove, particularly when its information is integrated with other sources, be they Retrosheet, the wiki-based Baseball Reference Bullpen, or trusty old books, magazines, and newspapers.
My meandering journey through the new/old stats takes us past not only Hall of Famers but celebrities from other walks of life:
With the anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking of the major league color barrier having recently passed, it's worth examining the pioneers of pro baseball's integration as they played on some of the most important minor league teams in baseball history. The 1946 Montreal Royals featured Robinson the year before his promotion to Brooklyn; he hit .349 and slugged .462 in 124 games while leading the Royals to the International League championship. Also on that team at various points in the season—in part to provide Robinson with a black roommate—were a pair of pioneering Negro League pitchers whom Dodger GM Branch Rickey signed but who never made the majors, John Wright and Roy Partlow. Wright, a star with the Homestead Grays, lasted only six weeks with the club and pitched just twice before being demoted to nearby Trois Rivieres of the Class C Canadian-American League. He was immediately replaced by Partlow, a 35-year-old Negro Leaguer from the Philadelphia Stars. Partlow spent two months with the team, pitching in 10 games but compiling a gaudy 5.59 ERA before joining Wright at Trois Rivieres, where he went 10-1 with a 3.22 ERA in 14 games. He resurfaced a few years later in the Quebec-based Provincial League, which at times was an independent league and others an affiliated one.
Concurrent with Robinson, Wright and Partlow's Canadian adventures, Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe were playing for the Nashua Dodgers of the New Hampshire League. Managed by future Dodger skipper Walter Alston, Campanella hit .290 with 13 homers and a .477 slugging percentage, while Newcombe went 14-4 with a 2.21 ERA and helped his cause by batting .311. Campy spent 1947 with the Montreal Royals and the early part of 1948 with the St. Paul Saints before joining the Dodgers. Newcombe took a slower path to the majors, much to his chagrin; he returned to Nashua in 1947 and spent 1948 and part of 1949 in Montreal before getting the call. As for Alston, whose major league playing career consisted of a lone at-bat with the 1936 Cardinals, the details of his 13-season minor league career are here too; he hit .295 and collected 1,344 hits while beating the bushes in such long-forgotten circuits as the East Dixie League, Middle-Atlantic League, Western League and Interstate League.
...No list of bush-league authors would be complete without including screenwriter/director Ron Shelton of Bull Durham fame. He's got not one but two pages on the site, apparently due to a database quirk that hasn't been corrected. Drafted by the Orioles in the 39th round in 1966, he spent parts of two seasons as a pitcher, going 4-6 with a 4.23 ERA in 25 appearances before shifting to the infield. Switching his throwing arm from left to right, he spent four more years in the Orioles' chain, primarily as a second baseman. He climbed as high as Triple-A Rochester, where he played with Bobby Grich, Don Baylor, Terry Crowley, Johnny Oates and future Orioles' pitching coach and manager (but never major league pitcher) Ray Miller, among others. Shelton only hit .251 and slugged .315 during his minor league career, though he did steal 32 bases once.
Meanwhile, Shelton's muse, the real Crash Davis has his own page, too. Lawrence Columbus Davis was a North Carolina native who starred at Duke University and went on to spend parts of three years with some dreadful Philadelphia A's squads, hitting .230/.289/.279 in 148 games as an infielder. Drafted into the Navy during World War II, he spent his first year stationed at Norfolk, Virginia, where he played on a team with Dom DiMaggio and Pee Wee Reese. After being discharged, he played for seven seasons (1946-1952) in the minors, five of them in the Class B Carolina League and one (1948) with the real Durham Bulls, who were affiliated with the Tigers. Davis, a second baseman, hit .317 and slugged .476 while clubbing 10 homers and a league record 50 doubles for the Bulls. Shelton came across his name when thumbing through an old Carolina League record book for inspiration, and the rest is history. Davis even turned a brief cameo as Sam Crawford in Shelton's movie Cobb.
Fun stuff, and like I said, free. The roll call of other players featured in the piece: Lou Gehrig, Lefty Grove, Art Rooney, George Halas, John Elway Sammy Baugh, Zane Grey, Pat Jordan, Eliot Asinof, Rocky Perone and friends, Bert Convy, Kurt Russell, Scott Patterson, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Scott Boras, and Mario Cuomo. One of these days I'll write a sequel with those long-threatened memories of Ike Hampton, but until then, this will have to do.
As an aside, writing the piece led me to watch Bull Durham again - I've had a shrinkwrapped DVD sitting in my collection for at least two years and it was high time to bust it out. The movie never fails to make me smile, and I've been particularly cracking up over this scene because it seemed to answer the rhetorical question posed in a recent BP headline:
Lollygaggers!
Anyhoo... elsewhere on BP, here's this week's Hit List, still topped by the Dodgers, and here's my contribution to a staff piece I participated in for BP and ESPN about "What We've Learned" in the first three weeks of the season, even given the normal small-sample caveats:
While I don't want to get too worked up as to the degree to which it will be true because of the impact of warm weather on a couple weeks of games, it certainly looks like this will be a year in which home runs increase. By itself, that's not terribly interesting given the fluctuations we've seen over the past decade and a half, but it finally seems likely that whatever spike occurs won't be blamed as steroid related.
I've been carping for years — since contributing a chapter to Will Carroll's The Juice: the Real Story of Baseball's Drug Problems that it's the ball that's juiced. Such a mechanism more easily explains the various peaks and valleys we've seen over recent years, and the continuous introduction of new ballparks has been a contributing factor as well. It appears as though both of those components are on display thus far, and by the end of the year we might actually have learned something about fluctuating offense levels that has nothing to do with speculation about who's sticking needles into their butts.
I'll be examining that topic more closely in an upcoming Hit and Run.
