Johan Santana - have you heard of him? He's pretty good. The man is the ace of the Mets, was the ace of the Twins, and is one of the best left-handers in the game. He does it with a consistent, metronomic delivery that pumps out four difficult pitches.

Notes: PITCHf/x data from Gameday, classifications by the author ("cfx"); data covers 2007 (partial), 2008 and 2009; mph is the average speed at 55 ft. from the back of home plate; pfx_x and pfx_z are the lateral and vertical deviation from the path of a spin-less ball (inches); deg is the angle of the spin axis

Santana's slider is one of the best in baseball, which is a fine indication of the consistency of his delivery. But that's all old news. What brings me here is to explore Johan 2009. He's off to a great start, even better than years past, which begs a simple question. What's he doing differently? If anything, that is.

It's early, and I'm only looking at games through May 6, so this doesn't include Johan's most recent start. Some trends have emerged that merit watching. That's about all you can do with most early season returns. Keep that in mind.

The biggest change is in pitch selection. Johan is throwing far more four-seam fastballs (or simply "fastballs") and far fewer two-seam fastballs ("sinkers"). Santana also appears to be throwing fewer sliders, a pitch he mostly uses against lefties. His change-up is primarily a gift to right-handed hitters everywhere (the gift of zilch, that is) but got a little extra use against lefties in 2008.

That's a siginficant increase in heaters. Another look is from a four-start moving average of pitch mix.

I made sure to include this chart, because, when you squint, you can see a giraffe. But why is he doing this? Santana's four pitches are all above average. The change is one of the best, and both of his fastballs and the slider are solid pitches.

    rv100
CH  -3.7
F2  -1.7
F4  -2.0
SL  -1.5

If you're going to cut back on two pitches, they'd be the sinker and slider. I'm not sure why you would, neither pitch is hurting anyone but Santana's opponents. Breaking it down by season and, for good measure, batter hand, you do start to get the idea that the sinker and slider aren't what they used to be, while the change and fastball may be even better.

It's early, Santana is one of the greats and can beat you a few ways, so I'm not reading too much into this. I'm working with a short season and a partial data set (2007 didn't have full PITCHf/x coverage), too. But he's pitching well, he is throwing more heaters and fewer sinkers, and Santana's change-up is still a world beater.

Harry Pavlidis writes for Beyond the Box Score, The Hardball Times and Out of the Ivy. His own blog, Cubs f/x, feels neglected once in a while.

Permalink | Comments (4)

Baseball fans love to argue. Did Dustin Pedroia really deserve the MVP award last year? (After all, he was only 18th in the AL in OPS.) Sure, Manny can hit (can he ever!), but he gives it all back with the glove, right? On the flip side, is Adam Everett, with his fabulous defense, a valuable player? We older folks like to argue about the players of our youth: For example, who had the better career, George Brett or Wade Boggs? In the end, it usually comes down to putting a value on a player, a total value that includes hitting, defense, baserunning and everything else.

Well, Sean Smith -- you know, the guy who does the CHONE player projections -- is putting an end to some of these arguments. What Sean has done, bless his soul, is evaluate players on just about every aspect in which a player contributes to winning. And he's done this for all players going all the way back to the middle of the last century. Bravo, Sean!

So, what are these different aspects of baseball, the important contributions a player can make towards winning? Here's the list:

o batting
o baserunning
o avoidance of grounding into double plays
o defensive range
o catcher defense
o defensive arm for outfielders
o double-play proficiency for infielders

Sean has analyzed over 50 seasons of play-by-play data available at Retrosheet and determined each player's value in the above categories, expressed in runs above or below that of an average player. For the defensive categories, players are compared to the average for that position. I won't go into the methodology for all these categories, you can refer to Sean's explanations here. I do want to mention Sean's Total Zone system, which he uses to measure defensive range. After hitting, defensive range (and catcher defense) is the biggest contribution to a player's value. Total Zone uses Retrosheet play-by-play data to evaluate defensive range for all players of the last 55 years or so. It's a clever system that squeezes just about every bit of information from the play-by-play data, data that is not as complete as modern play-by-play data from professional statistics providers like Baseball Info Solutions or STATS, Inc. See here for more details on Total Zone.

Of, course there's a lot more here than just defense, as you can see in the list above. Now, we've known how to measure baserunning and outfield arm proficiency for a while and the other categories, given the Retrosheet data are treated in a similarl way. The important thing that Sean has done is to 1) put in the dirty work to make all these different evaluations and 2) put them altogether to allow us to get a total picture of player value. Oh, and 3) he's posted it all on the web for all to use (at no charge).

Do you realize how great this all is? I recently wrote an article for the Hardball Times that did an in-depth comparison of Carl Yastrzemski and Manny Ramirez. I got the hitting from baseball-reference.com, defensive range from Sean's own Total Zone system and the outfield arm ratings came from my own work at THT. I couldn't locate comprehensive baserunning information, so I had to work that out (a less complete analysis) on my own. Now, to write that article, I would could do all my "shopping" at Baseball Projection.

Sean then goes a couple of steps further with the data he has compiled. He translates "runs above average" to "runs above replacement", since a player's true value is best measured against a replacement level player. Along the way he gives each player a "position adjustment". Remember when I wrote that range is measured against the average defender at the same position? Well, the position adjustment accounts for the fact that the value of an average fielder is not the same for each position.

The last step is translating runs into wins and, since we are now relative to replacement, these are Wins Above Replacement, or WAR. I've been very brief in describing the system, if you want more info about determining overall player value, I heartily recommend a series of posts at FanGraphs, which goes through the process step-by-step, starting here.

Speaking of FanGraphs, those good folks have been doing similar work. They also produce WAR values for all players, using a different fielding system (known as UZR) and play-by-play data purchased from Baseball Info Solutions. Their data set goes back only a few years, though, so you need to use Sean's WAR database, if you want to look at, I dunno, who really should have won the MVP awards in 1974...

-------------------------------------------------------------

Jeff Burroughs is the guy who, when reciting the names of MVP winners, you always leave off the list. Well, him and Zoilo Versalles, I guess.* It's not that he was underserving of the award, although, he was, as we shall see shortly. It's just that looking back, he doesn't seem like much of a star. He actually was a very good hitter for a few seasons and I'm sure he's not the MVP-winner with the worst career.

*What? You mean, you don't find yourself reciting the names of AL MVP winners? That's strange, I do it all the time. Pennant winners and World Series champs, too. Just don't ask me who the 13th President of the United States was.

Jeff Burroughs in 1974 was probably the best hitter in the American League. The 23-year-old Texas Ranger hit .301/.397/.504, which is even better than it looks, since offensive levels were quite a bit lower 35 years ago. Burroughs finished third in on-base average and slugging percentage and finished among the top ten in just about every important offensive category. He only led the league in one category, but it was the right one for garnering MVP votes: RBI.

We can get an overall measure of Burroughs' hitting by considering the Batting Runs part of the WAR database. Here are the AL leaders for 1974:

 ------------------ ------ --------- 
| Name             | Team | BatRuns |
 ------------------ ------ --------- 
| Jackson_Reggie   | OAK  |      49 | 
| Burroughs_Jeff   | TEX  |      48 | 
| Carew_Rod        | MIN  |      35 | 
| Allen_Dick       | CHA  |      34 | 
| Rudi_Joe         | OAK  |      34 | 
| Yastrzemski_Carl | BOS  |      33 | 
| Bando_Sal        | OAK  |      27 | 
| Tenace_Gene      | OAK  |      27 | 
| Gamble_Oscar     | CLE  |      27 | 
| Grich_Bobby      | BAL  |      27 | 
 ------------------ ------ --------- 

Burroughs is right there with Reggie Jackson at the top of the list. Jackson finished fourth in the MVP balloting, which may be explained by Burroughs' advantage in RBI, 118 to 93. In any case, from a hitting standpoint, Burroughs was certainly not a bad choice for MVP.

But, baseball is more than hitting, of course — how did Burroughs do in the non-hitting categories? Burroughs was not a fast player, at all, so we don't expect him to excel at baserunning, defensive range and avoiding the GDP. But did he at least hold his own? Did the 1974 American League MVP at least approach the average players in the "extra" categories? I'm sorry to report that he did not.

Here's how Burroughs fared in the non-hitting categories:

o Defensive range - Burroughs was 17 runs worse than an average right-fielder. That's the worst range mark of any AL player in 1974.

o Outfield arm - sometimes slow guys have good arms. Not in this case. Burroughs cost his team an additional five runs with an ineffectual throwing arm.

o Baserunning - Two stolen bases and three caught stealings give you an idea of Burroughs' speed. He was also below average in advancing on the basepaths, giving him a net baserunning value of -3 runs.

o GDP - Burroughs grounded into 17 double plays in 1974, a few more than the average batter would have, given the same opportunities. Good for -2 runs.

o Position - it's not his fault, of course, but Burroughs played right field in his MVP year, which is an offense-first position. The adjustment for right fielders is -8 runs.

The 1974 AL MVP was below average in every single non-hitting category for a grand total of -35 runs. Yikes, that negates a good chunk of his batting runs (which was +48, you'll recall). In fact, without considering hitting, Burroughs was the very worst player in all of baseball in 1974 and he was one of only four players who was below average in each of the non-hitting categories. This dude was seriously one-dimensional.

So, who should have won that 1974 AL MVP? Well, if you don't require your MVP to play on a playoff team (Burroughs's Rangers did not make the playoffs), then you could rank MVP candidates according to their overall win value, or WAR:

 ----------------- ------ --------- ------- ----- ------ ------ ---------- ------ 
| Name            | Team | Batting | Range | Arm | BsRn | GIDP | Position | WAR  |
 ----------------- ------ --------- ------- ----- ------ ------ ---------- ------ 
| Grich_Bobby     | BAL  |      27 |     5 |   3 |    5 |   -2 |        4 |  6.9 | 
| Jackson_Reggie  | OAK  |      49 |     0 |  -2 |    0 |    2 |       -8 |  6.7 | 
| Carew_Rod       | MIN  |      35 |    -9 |   2 |    5 |    2 |        4 |  6.6 | 
| Rudi_Joe        | OAK  |      34 |     0 |   3 |    1 |    1 |       -8 |  5.6 | 
| Campaneris_Bert | OAK  |      13 |     6 |   1 |    4 |    1 |        8 |  5.4 | 
| Money_Don       | MIL  |      19 |     0 |   2 |    3 |    0 |        4 |  5.4 | 
| Maddox_Elliott  | NYA  |      19 |     4 |   6 |    4 |   -1 |       -2 |  5.1 | 
| Bando_Sal       | OAK  |      27 |    -4 |   0 |    1 |    0 |        3 |  5.0 | 
| Tenace_Gene     | OAK  |      27 |     4 |   0 |   -5 |   -1 |       -2 |  4.6 | 
| Robinson_Brooks | BAL  |       5 |    14 |   1 |    0 |   -1 |        4 |  4.4 | 
 ----------------- ------ --------- ------- ----- ------ ------ ---------- ------ 
BsRn - baserunning runs
Range - includes catcher defense 
Arm  - includes infield DP rating

For me, it comes down to Bobby Grich, Jackson and Rod Carew. Pay no attention to the 0.3 wins separating these three — no system is accurate enough to distinguish players this close. Grich played a prime defensive position and played it exceptionally well. He won a Gold Glove at second base in '74, and was excellent with the bat and on the basepaths. Reggie, we already saw, was one of the top two hitters in the league, and he hangs on to those batting runs by coming out average in the other categories (except for position adjustment). Carew was top notch in everything except defensive range (he was still playing second base at this point).

In the actual vote, Grich finished ninth and Carew seventh. You might notice the absence of somebody from the above list: Jeff Burroughs, who totaled 4.0 wins over replacement for the season.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Over in the National League, the voters did not fare much better: they elected Dodger first basement Steve Garvey over several more valuable players. The problem in this case was not neglecting the other categories (although I suspect many writers did so), but rather not doing a good job of evaluating offensive value.

Sean Smith's WAR database rates Garvey as the NL's ninth most productive hitter in 1974:

 --------------------- ------ --------- 
| Name                | Team | Batting |
 --------------------- ------ --------- 
| Schmidt_Mike        | PHI  |      49 | 
| Wynn_Jimmy          | LAN  |      47 | 
| Morgan_Joe          | CIN  |      46 | 
| Stargell_Willie     | PIT  |      46 | 
| Smith_Reggie        | SLN  |      40 | 
| Zisk_Richie         | PIT  |      33 | 
| Bench_Johnny        | CIN  |      32 | 
| Garr_Ralph          | ATL  |      31 | 
| Garvey_Steve        | LAN  |      29 | 
| McCovey_Willie      | SDN  |      28 | 
 --------------------- ------ --------- 

Why did the voters elect Garvey over these other superior hitters? Well, some of these guys were on non-contending teams, including Mike Schmidt, but that doesn't explain why Garvey's teammate Jimmy Wynn finished fifth in the voting (not to mention the Pirates, Reds and Cardinals in the above list).

Garvey batted .312/.342/.469 on the year, with 21 homers and 111 runs driven home. He did not lead the league in any category, though he was Top 10 in several. Here's my take on how he won the MVP: he batted over .300, knocked out 200 hits and had the highest RBI total of players on an NL playoff team (the other being the Pirates). That and the great hair, of course.

Did Garvey do anything in the non-hitting categories to boost his case and vault him over the better hitters in 1974? No, not really. Here are the numbers:

 --------------------- ------ --------- ------- ----- ------ ------ ---------- ------ 
| Name                | Team | Batting | Range | Arm | BsRn | GIDP | Position | WAR  |
 --------------------- ------ --------- ------- ----- ------ ------ ---------- ------ 
| Garvey_Steve        | LAN  |      29 |     0 |   0 |    3 |    2 |      -10 |  4.8 | 
 --------------------- ------ --------- ------- ----- ------ ------ ---------- ------ 

I don't think of Garvey as a speedster, but he was above average in the speed categories of baserunning and avoiding double plays. He was average in defensive range and arm (although he was famous for having a very weak arm), but he takes a -10 run hit for playing first base. An overall WAR value of 5 is nothing to be ashamed of, but Garvey was not among the ten most valuable National League players in 1974:

 --------------------- ------ --------- ------- ----- ------ ------ ---------- ------ 
| Name                | Team | Batting | Range | Arm | BsRn | GIDP | Position | WAR  |
 --------------------- ------ --------- ------- ----- ------ ------ ---------- ------ 
| Schmidt_Mike        | PHI  |      49 |    17 |   1 |    1 |    2 |        4 | 10.0 | 
| Morgan_Joe          | CIN  |      46 |     3 |   1 |    8 |    1 |        4 |  8.8 | 
| Wynn_Jimmy          | LAN  |      47 |    12 |   2 |   -1 |    2 |       -2 |  8.4 | 
| Bench_Johnny        | CIN  |      32 |    11 |  -1 |   -1 |    0 |        9 |  7.5 | 
| Evans_Darrell       | ATL  |      18 |    18 |   2 |    2 |    1 |        4 |  6.8 | 
| Stargell_Willie     | PIT  |      46 |     1 |   1 |   -2 |    0 |       -7 |  6.2 | 
| Rose_Pete           | CIN  |      18 |    15 |   5 |    4 |    1 |       -9 |  6.0 | 
| Smith_Reggie        | SLN  |      40 |     8 |   0 |   -2 |   -3 |       -7 |  5.7 | 
| Cedeno_Cesar        | HOU  |      20 |     4 |   4 |    7 |    1 |       -2 |  5.7 | 
| Oliver_Al           | PIT  |      28 |     6 |  -4 |    6 |   -3 |       -4 |  5.2 | 
 --------------------- ------ --------- ------- ----- ------ ------ ---------- ------ 

Wow, look at the fabulous season that Mike Schmidt had. Best hitter in the league, one of the best defensive players and above average in all the other categories. Achieving a WAR of 10 is no small feat: it has only been done 36 times since 1955.

The fantastic thing about having this WAR database (did I thank Sean for this yet?) is it makes clear just how some very good players end up getting underrated, because a lot of their value comes in the non-hitting categories. Jimmy Wynn, Darrell Evans and arguably Cesar Cedeno fall into this group. Wow, just noticed that Pete Rose had a great year with the glove in 1974.

In case you were wondering, Steve Garvey ranked 14th in WAR in the NL in 1974.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

So, I hope I have given you a flavor for just how useful Sean's WAR database really is. You could use it to answer many, many questions, of course. Which players are underrated because much of their value is in the non-hitting categories? Which players were the most well-rounded or one-dimensional? Who had value because of speed and who despite of a lack of it? Or let's talk about teams: The 1985 Cardinals stole 314 bases — how much impact did their baserunning have on their offense? Were they the best baserunning team of the last half-century? Who were the best defensive teams and the worst?

Oh, the mind reels at the possibilities. All the numbers are there, waiting to be looked at. Thank you, Sean.

John Walsh is a regular contributor to the Hardball Times. He welcomes comments via email.

Permalink | Comments (4)

Perhaps the widest and deepest pitfall lying in wait for any who deal in numerical analyses is forgetting the distinction between precision and accuracy. If I state that Team X's opening-day first pitch was delivered at 1:07:32 pm, I am being quite precise; but if in fact it was a night game, then the statement that the pitch was made sometime between 7:35 and 7:40 pm, though far less precise, is far more accurate.

It is all too easy to be hypnotized by the ability to calculate some metric to a large number of decimal places into believing that such precision equates to accuracy. As a case in point, let us look over the concept of "park factors". It is undoubtable that ballparks influence the results that players achieve playing in them, and in many cases--"many" both as to particular parks and as to particular statistics--those influences are substantial. Park factors are intended as correctives, numbers that ideally allow inflating or deflating actual player or team results in a way that neutralizes park effects and give us a more nearly unbiased look at those players' and teams' abilities and achievements. So much virtually everyone knows.

The idea behind the construction of park factors, stated broadly, is to compare performance in a given park with performance elsewhere. As an example, a widely used method for educing park factors for a simple but basic metric, run scoring, is the one used by (but not original to) ESPN. The elements that go into it are team runs scored (R) and opponents' runs scored (OR) at home and away, and total games played at home and away.

           (Rh + ORh) ÷ Gh 
  factor = ───────────────
           (Ra + ORa) ÷ Ga

That comes down to average combined (team plus opponents) runs scored per game at home divided by the corresponding figure for away games. Let us see what some of the things wrong with that basic approach are, and if we can improve on it.

A "park factor" is supposed to tell us how the park affects some datum--here, run scoring. Perhaps the most obvious failing of the ESPN method is made manifest by the simple question compared to what? In the calculation above, run scoring at Park X is being compared to run scoring at all parks except X. Thus, each park for which we calculate such a factor is being compared to some different basis: the pool of "away" parks for Park X is obviously different from the pool of "away" parks for Park Y (in that X's pool includes Y but excludes X itself, while Y's includes X but excludes Y itself). Now that rather basic folly can be fairly easily corrected for; let's call the average combined runs per game at home and away RPGh and RPGa, respectively. Then, if there are T teams in the league,

                        RPGh 
  factor = ───────────────────────────────
           {[RPGa x (T - 1)]   [RPGh]} ÷ T

But there remain considerable problems, the most obvious being that the pools are still not identical, in that schedules are not perfectly balanced: Teams X and Y can, and probably do, play significantly different numbers of games in each of the other parks. Even if we throw out inter-league data, which is especially corrupt owing to the variable use of the DH Rule, we still have differing pools for differing teams, at least by division (and possibly even within divisions, owing to rainouts never made up). Well, one thinks, we can see how to deal with that: we would normalize away data park by park, then combine the results, so the "away" pool would, finally, represent the imaginary "league-average park" against which we would ideally like to compare any particular park's effects.

Let us remain aware, however, before we move on, that there are yet other difficulties. We have been using the simple--or rather, simplistic--idea of "games" as the basis for comparing parks' effects on run scoring. But even at that level, there are inequalities needing adjustment, in that the numbers of innings are not going to be equally apportioned among home batters, away batters, home pitchers, and away pitchers, in that a winning team at home does not bat in the bottom of the last inning. There is also the further question of whether innings are the proper basis for comparison. For most stats, the wanted basis for comparison is batter-pitcher confrontations, whether styled PA or BFP. But there are complexities there, too. A batter's ability to get walked, or a pitcher's tendency to give up walks, might seem best based on PAs or BFPs; but higher numbers of walks mean a higher on-base percentage, which means that more batters will get a chance to come to the plate (it is that "compound-interest effect" of OBA that is often not properly factored into metrics of run-generation, individual or team: not only is the chance of a batter becoming a run raised, but the chance of getting that chance is also raised). That will increase run scoring in a manner that a metric measured against PAs will not fully capture. And there are yet other questions, such as whether strikeouts should be normalized to plate appearances or to at-bats.

But for our purposes here--getting a grand overview of the plausibility of "park factors"--such niceties, while of interest, can be set aside. Let's look at the larger picture. Let's say we want to get a Runs park factor for Park X. We have seen that we need to use normalized runs per game on a park-by-park basis if we are to avoid gross distortions from schedule imbalances and related factors. How might that look for a real-world example? Let's take, arbitrarily, San Francisco in 2008. Here are the raw data:

And here are the consequent paired raw factors:

But, because we have used a particular park for these figurings, all those numbers are relative to that park. What we want are numbers relative to that imaginary "league-average" park. For example, if we had chosen the stingiest park in the league, all the factors would be greater than 1; had we chosen the most generous, all the factors would be under 1. But all we have to do is average the various factors--in which process we assign the park itself, here San Francisco (I refuse to use the corporate-name-of-the-day for that or any park), a value of 1, since it is necessarily identical to itself--and then normalize the factors relative to that average. When we do that, we get what ought to be the runs "park factor" for each National-League park relative to an imaginary all-NL average park:

The average is not exactly 1.000 owing to rounding errors, but it's close enough for government work. If we sort that assemblage, it looks like this:

But before we jump to any conclusions whatever about those results, let's ponder this: they were derived from data for one park, one team. Yet, if the methodology is sound, we ought to get at least roughly the same results no matter which park we initially use. Imagine a Twilight-Zone universe in which the 2008 season was played out in some timeless place where each team played ten thousand games with each other team, yet still at their natural and normal performance levels as they were in 2008. Surely it is clear that we then could indeed use any one park as a basis for deriving "park factors" since, in the end, we normalize away that park to reach an all-league basis. In that Twilight Zone world, any variations from using this or that particular park can only be relatively minor random statistical noise. San Francisco is to Los Angeles thus, and San Francisco is to San Diego so, hence Los Angeles is to San Diego thus-and-so (in a manner of speaking). So what do we see if we try real calculations with real one-season data? Let's continue with the National League in 2008. Shown are the "park runs factors" for each park as calculated from each of the other parks as a basis. If the concept is sound, the numbers in each row across ought to be roughly the same. Ha.

Well, now we know something, don't we? This just doesn't work. But it's not the methodology. Nor is it the various minor factors we saw earlier: those don't produce 3:1 and greater spreads in estimation. No, what we are dealing here, plain and simple, is the traditional statistical bugaboo--an inadequate sample size. Here is a possibly instructive presentation: the averaged run-factor values from that table above compared to what the simplistic ESPN formula yields:

Instructive, indeed. The agreement is not perfect, as we would not expect it to be. The "average" column is a little better than the ESPN column because it allows better for the differing numbers of games on the schedule, but by using the average for each park of the values derived from all the other parks we are approximating the ESPN method.

The entire point of this lengthy demonstration has been to lift the lid off those nice, clean-looking, precise park-effect numbers to show the seething boil in the pot. The end results are not totally meaningless: we can say with fair credibility that San Diego's is a considerably more pitcher-friendly park than Colorado's, and that the Mets and the Marlins were playing in parks without gross distorting effects. But to try to numerically correct any team's results--much less any particular player's results--by means of "park factors" is very, very wrong.

But wait, there's more! (As they say on TV.) If the problem is a shortage of data, why not simply expand the sample size? Use multi-year data? That would be nice, and useful, were no park changed structurally over a period of some years. But consider: not even counting structural changes, in the last ten seasons (counting 2009), a full dozen totally new ballparks have come on line. When one considers that pace, plus the changes (some even to a few of those new parks), it becomes painfully obvious that trying multi-year data is as bad or worse. Even for a particular park that might itself not have been at all changed for many years, there remains the issue that the standard of comparison--that imaginary league-average park--will have changed, probably quite a lot, over that time, owing to changes in the other real parks. So we can't use multi-season values, and single-season values are comically insufficient for anything beyond broad-brush estimations, estimations more qualitative than quantitative.

I should point out that none of this is today's news. In 2007, Greg Rybarczyk at The Hardball Times noted that the home-run "factor" for the park in Arizona was 48 in one season and 116 in the next. Back in 2001, Rich Rifkin at Baseball Prospectus remarked that "Unfortunately, it is problematic to average out a park factor over more than a few years because the conditions of one or more of the ballparks in a league change. New stadiums are built, existing stadiums change their dimensions, and abnormal weather patterns have an impact." (Regrettably, the next sentence was "Nonetheless, a 10-year sample is likely to be more accurate than a one-year accounting.") Probably the defining essay on the subject is the 2007 paper titled "Improving Major League Baseball Park Factor Estimates", by Acharya, Ahmed, D'Amour, Lu, Morris, Oglevee, Peterson, and Swift, published in the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective. But, justifiably proud as they are of their improved methodology, even they concluded that "Unfortunately, the lack of longer-term data in Major League Baseball . . . makes it extraordinarily difficult to assess the true contribution of a ballpark to a team's offense or defensive strength."

Precisely accurate.

Eric Walker has been a professional baseball analyst for over a quarter-century. His paper "Winning Baseball", commissioned by the Oakland A's for the purpose, first instructed Billy Beane in the concepts later called "Moneyball"; Walker has also authored a book of essays, The Sinister First Baseman and Other Observations. Walker is now retired, but maintains the HBH Baseball-Analysis Web Site.

Permalink | Comments (13)

Back in 1988, in an attempt to make a little extra money during graduate school at UC Berkeley, I tried out to be an umpire for intramural softball. We were given a brief instruction on what to do and a mock game was set up as a tryout.


I was working first base and there was a grounder hit to the second baseman. I tried to remember where I was supposed to stand (about 15 feet behind the bag at a 45 degree angle to either side depending upon whether or not the throw was coming from the left or right side of the infield). The ball was hit... somewhere... and I ran to stand in position. Except I stood near the pitcher in the middle of the play. And then I tripped over my own feet and fell over. I found other part-time employment.



Bruce Weber, a New York Times reporter, had a bit more success when he visited the Jim Evans Umpire School back in 2005 and he ended up writing an interesting book about the lives of umpires, both minor and major leaguers, in his As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires (Simon and Schuster, $26).



Starting with the bizarre world of umpire school (one student's employer told him "they have a school for that?"), where prospective umpires are put through drill after drill to get them to see a game as an umpire does, instead of as a fan. Weber also has some interesting stories about how umpires are drilled in how to argue with managers and players, and even more importantly, how to take off their mask without having their cap fall off. The latter is extremely important it turns out, although if more umpires start using the hockey style masks, that arcane art may disappear.

Like players, umpires are taught where to position themselves and how to anticipate plays. The most common time you will see an umpire out of position is when a player does something completely unexpected, such as throwing to the wrong base. After all, if the player shouldn't throw to a certain place, why should they be in position to cover a situation caused by a player's mental error.



As Weber points out, umpires are part of baseball that has no constituency that likes it. Players and managers don't like umpires, and umpires like to call players "rats." Front offices don't like umpires. Even the Commissioner's Office, which employs umpires, really doesn't like them. Former Commissioner Fay Vincent says that teams view umpires like they were bases, just pieces of equipment that you have to have to play the game.



One of the hardest things Weber faced in writing his book was getting people to talk to him. Players and managers generally didn't want to speak to him because they feared payback from umpires. Even Earl Weaver, long out of the game, wouldn't speak to Weber about umpires. Umpires didn't want to speak too much out of turn because they feared for their job security.

Umpires who graduate at the top of their classes at one of the two umpire schools (Harry Wendlestedt operates the other one), are given jobs in Rookie or Short-season A leagues as parts of two-man crews who drive hundreds of miles between cities and stay in motels that often appear as if they have hourly rates. MLB views minor league umpiring as "seasonal work" so the pay is low, sometimes around $800 per month. It's a job you have to love somewhat because most people could make better wages at McDonald's.

For the privileged few who make it to the majors (there are 68 full-time MLB umpires), the job becomes even more tense. Every call is scrutinized and there is nothing positive that an umpire can do. They can only screw up.



Since an MLB umpire's job is so coveted, Weber could only get a few umpires to speak to him on the record and even some were not entirely forthcoming. The disastrous mass resignation plan of 1999 has left deep wounds among the corps of umpires. Interestingly, Weber points out that even though umpires were no longer separated by league at the time, the battle lines in that dispute split along AL-NL lines, with the AL umpires (who long felt that they were below the NL in the pecking order) taking the opportunity to assert leadership in a new union.

I found the best parts of the book when Weber goes into some detail about the mechanics of umpiring. It's one part of baseball that few people seem to care about, unless they think an umpire screwed up. Then people are experts on the matter.



For example, when there is a bunt play going on and the defense puts on "the wheel" play, watch the umpires. They don't move. They have to watch the bases. But if there is a ball hit down the left- or rightfield lines, the umpires will wheel around, while the infielders will generally stay by their bases to make a play on a runner or the batter-runner. (If you want to be an umpire, learn to say "batter-runner," "ball-strike indicator," and don't let anyone call you "Blue.") Umpires also have responsibilities to make sure that all the runners touch their bases and it's a subtle skill that they pick up over time.



Weber also gets umpires to explain how pitchers like Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine get seemingly wider strike zones than other pitchers. Briefly, it's because those pitchers have such good control that they can keep placing the ball further and further on the corner of the strike zone. And then they are able to work inside and outside the edge until the outside edge of the strike zone gets wider because of the umpire's perception of where the pitches go. Maddux and Glavine in a sense have earned bigger strike zones because of their skill, and not just because of their reputation.



One thing that did surprise me is how open umpires were to technological improvements in the game. Replay review of home runs was welcomed because the umpires know how difficult some parks were for making those calls. It's likely that in 2009, umpires will err on the side of calling a ball in play rather than a home run because it is simpler to remedy that call with replay rather than the other way around.



The final chapter of the book includes interviews with umpires who have made some of the most controversial calls in recent history: Larry Barnett (who didn't call interference on Ed Armbrister in the 1975 World Series, despite Carlton Fisk's protestations), Doug Eddings (of the 2005 ALCS call involving A.J. Pierzynski and Josh Paul and the dropped third strike), Richie Garcia (of Jeffrey Maier fame), Tim McClelland (who was the umpire for the George Brett Pine Tar Game and The Did Matt Holliday Touch The Plate Game), and Don Denkinger (1985 World Series Game 6, bottom of the 9th).

Each umpire gets a chance to explain what they did and didn't see or what they did or didn't do. Denkinger freely admits blowing the call on Jorge Orta, but explains how it came about. But that will likely not satisfy Cardinals fans. Some of them still want blood 24 years after the fact.



Weber wants fans to have a greater appreciation for the work that umpires do. The umpires are far from a perfect lot. They are profane. They are sexist (the few female umpires who have been in the minors were treated horribly). They aren't there to make the fans or players happy. They are at games to keep them under control. It's a job that not many people have the ability or temperament for. But those that do it, do care about doing their jobs well. Nevertheless, I predict plenty more complaining about umpires this year from just about everybody. It's one of baseball's constants.



From the benches, bleak with people, there went up a muffled roar,

Like the beating of the storm waves on a worn and distant shore.

"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone in the stands,

And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.


- From "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, 1888

Bob Timmermann, formerly of The Griddle, is a senior librarian for the Los Angeles Public Library and runs One Through Forty-Two or Forty-Three.

Permalink | Comments (4)

[Editor's note: John Brattain, a writer for The Hardball Times, Baseball Digest Daily, and his own blog Ground Rule Trouble, and a sincere friend of Baseball Analysts, passed away on Monday due to complications from heart surgery. John, who is survived by his wife Kelly and two daughters, was 43 years old. Known as "The Bones McCoy of THT" at the Baseball Think Factory, his signature line was "Best Regards, John." In sympathy and as a tribute to John and his family, we present his guest column — a terrific piece about Robert Lee "Indian Bob" Johnson — from December 22, 2005. Best Regards, John. - Your Pals at Baseball Analysts.]

One of the great oddities in baseball is how we perceive players. If a player does one or two things spectacularly well, he ultimately ends up being better regarded than players who do a lot of things well. Of recent vintage was 1998 and 1999 when home run behemoths Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa got all the ink over players like Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. Earlier in the decade in Canada RBI man Joe Carter had a higher profile than Larry Walker. Or, if you wish to go back to the 1970's and 1980's, you'll find more casual fans have heard of Dave Kingman over Dwight Evans.

For that matter, don't you find it odd that Tim Salmon never went to an All-Star Game? Not one.

Bill James said in his book Whatever Happened To The Hall of Fame--The Politics Of Glory that players who do one or two things well tend to be overrated while those who do a lot of things well tend to be underrated.

Today we're going to talk about an historically underrated player. He didn't have one ability that defined him but didn't have a single hole in his game: he could hit, hit with power, run, field and throw. Baseball-Reference has tests that involve Black Ink and Gray Ink. Black Ink describes how often a player led the league in some statistical category; Gray Ink describes how many times he finished top ten in the league. This player has two points of black ink but 161 points of gray ink.

In other words, he was never the best, but consistently among the best.

We're talking about Robert Lee "Indian Bob" Johnson.

Johnson was born in Oklahoma in 1906, and his family soon moved to Tacoma, Washington. He left home in 1922 at age 15 and began his baseball career with the Los Angeles Fire Department team. Because Johnson was part Cherokee, he was subjected to the nickname "Indian Bob," just as other players of Native American ancestry had similar epithets foisted upon them in this era.

Johnson was soon playing semi-professional ball. When his brother, Roy Johnson, became a professional, he felt buoyed. He said, "When Roy became a regular with San Francisco in 1927 I knew I could make the grade in fast company. I had played ball with Roy and felt I was as good as he was."

However, Johnson failed trials with San Francisco, Hollywood, and Los Angeles. He did not play professionally until Wichita of the Western League signed him in 1929. Johnson played in 145 games at two levels and batted .262 with 21 HR while slugging .503. After again hitting 21 HR (in just over 500 AB) the following season in Portland, he went to spring training with the Philadelphia A's but didn't make the roster due to his inability to hit the curveball. Over the next two seasons in the minors, Johnson batted a combined .334 with 51 HR while slugging .567 and showing both patience at the plate and a powerful throwing arm in the outfield.

Opportunity knocked in 1933 as Connie Mack sold off veteran Al Simmons to the White Sox leaving Johnson and Lou Finney to battle for the leftfield job in spring training. Johnson won the job and had an excellent freshman season at age 27...

 AVG/ OBP/ SLG  Runs 2B 3B HR RBI OPS  RCAA
.290/.387/.505  103  44  4 21  93  134   37

...and was generally considered the league's finest rookie.

Johnson would quickly prove that 1934 was no fluke. On June 16th, the A's and White Sox played a twin bill. After losing the opener 9-7, the A's come back to win game two 7-6. Johnson went 6-for-6 with two home runs (both off Whit Wyatt), a double, and three singles. Four days later, he hit his 20th round tripper of the season against the Browns giving him the league lead (he finish fourth). He also enjoyed a 26-game hitting streak. After two fine seasons, Johnson was beginning to get recognition as he was named the starting left fielder of the American League All Star team in 1935. Johnson also finished fourth in the loop in home runs for the third time in his first three seasons and enjoyed his first 100 run/100 RBI season (he had topped 100 runs in both 1933 and 1934).

Despite turning 30 in 1936, Johnson kept right on raking and showed a little extra speed on the base paths, hitting a career high 14 triples. In both 1936 and 1937, he ripped 25 HR driving in 100 runs despite not getting 500 AB in '37; of interest, on August 29 he again victimized the White Sox in a doubleheader as the A's set a new AL record in the opener of a twin bill by scoring 12 runs in the opening frame, six of which were driven in by Johnson. After four years in the majors, other aspects of Johnson were becoming known around the league. Johnson was a bit of a practical joker, and it was in 1937 when Yankees' HOF second baseman Tony Lazzeri pulled a prank on him, knowing he would probably appreciate the joke.

Lazzeri doctored a ball over the course of two weeks by pounding it with a bat, soaking it in soapy water, and rubbing it extensively with dirt and finally coating it with white shoe polish to make it look like new. Bill James described it as a ball that was "as dead as Abe Lincoln." It was so heavy and lifeless that it would plop down harmlessly once struck with a bat.

Lazzeri sprang his joke on September 29 long after the Yanks had clinched the pennant. During an inning in which Johnson was due to bat, he ran out to second base with the gag ball in his pocket. When Johnson stepped into the batter's box, he trotted out to the mound and switched balls with Yankee southpaw Kemp Wicker. Wicker grooved Lazzeri's "mushball" down the pipe and Johnson took a mighty cut and hit it on the screws. However, rather than hitting a prodigious moonshot, the ball plopped harmlessly foul behind the plate while a perplexed Johnson stood there wondering just what the hell happened while the other players and the crowd burst into laughter.

Johnson continued to get better as he aged as he put together his best two seasons at 32 and 33, topping 110 runs/RBI both years while batting at least .300/.400/.500. On June 12, 1938, Johnson was a one-man wrecking crew against the St. Louis Browns, hitting three bombs (and a single) and driving in all eight runs.

1938 and 1939

 AVG/ OBP/ SLG  Runs  2B 3B HR RBI OPS  RCAA
.325/.422/.553  229   57 18 53 127  146   95

Johnson was also developing the reputation of being an athletic fielder. He lead the AL in assists twice (in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, the best outfield arm of the 1940's is said to be either Johnson or Dom DiMaggio and he was also 4th all-time in outfield assists per 1000 innings) and also filled in occasionally at second and third base (poorly it should be added). He was named to the AL All-Star team both years.

Johnson finally began to show the effects of age during his age 34 and 35 seasons and started to lose some bat speed. Connie Mack even felt the need to give his star slugger time off from covering the expansive left field pasture at Shibe Park, playing him 28 games at first base in 1941. He still had power and a sharp batting eye and remained a potent RBI man, topping 100 RBI in both 1940 and 1941--the latter his seventh straight season over the century mark.

Johnson's power started to wane in 1942 as he suffered through his worst season statistically to that point in time, failing to hit 20 HR or 90 RBI for the first time in his career. However, part of this was attributable to the fall of offense across the board due largely to players enlisting in the military for WWII. His OBP and SLG marks were still good for top 10 finishes in the Junior Circuit and good for fifth in MVP voting. After continually clashing with Mack over pay, the manager finally said goodbye, sending him to the Washington Senators for third sacker Bob Estalella and Jimmy Pofahl. Baseball Almanac notes that this was the only time in baseball history where a player who led his team in RBI for seven straight years was traded.

Johnson lasted one year with the Senators where age and huge Griffith Stadium all but neutered his power as he slugged a career low .400, and for the first and only time in his career he failed to hit at least 10 home runs (7). He was sold to the Boston Red Sox by Griffith who later regretted the move. The diluted war-time talent in the majors coupled with Fenway Park's hospitable climate for right-handed hitters allowed Johnson to finish out his major league career in style. In a season which either spoke highly of Johnson's ability at age 38 or spoke poorly of the level of war-time talent left in the majors by 1944--*cough* Browns win the pennant...Browns win the pennant *cough*--Johnson enjoyed his finest statistical season (including hitting for the cycle on July 6):

 AVG/ OBP/ SLG  Runs  2B 3B HR RBI OPS  RCAA
.324/.431/.528   106  40  8 17 106  174   61

Still, a lot of other fine players also played through the war years including HOFers Paul Waner, Chuck Klein, and Joe Medwick and didn't play as well as Johnson. Further, he was able to play 142 games in left field and enjoyed his first season on a team .500 or better since his rookie year as the Red Sox finished 77-77. For his efforts he was named to his seventh All Star team and finished 10th in MVP voting. As World War Two dragged on to 1945, Johnson was able to enjoy one last moment in the major league sun. He played 140 games in left field and provided the Red Sox with 82 runs created (AL left fielders averaged 67 RC in 1945), which earned him his eighth and final All Star nod. With the war over, Johnson pushing 40, and the return of Ted Williams, the Red Sox and Johnson parted company and he continued his career with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American Association.

Despite his advanced athletic age, Johnson managed to hit .270 with 13 HR and a .456 SLG in 94 games. He moved on to Seattle of the Pacific Coast League for the next two years, batting .292 with 35 doubles, 12 HR and a .441 SLG in 487 AB. Johnson, now 44, went home to play for and manage the Tacoma Tigers in the Western International League where he wielded a potent bat, hitting .326 with 13 doubles, five homers and a .463 SLG in 218 AB. He didn't play in 1950 but resurfaced briefly in Tijuana the following year at age 46. Johnson batted .217 in 21 games, then hung up his spikes for good.

So how do we measure Johnson's career? He probably missed being a Hall of Famer by a whisker. Johnson was hurt perceptually due to playing on second-division teams never reaching the World Series or even coming particularly close to one. He was also overshadowed by all-time great outfielders like Joe DiMaggio and Williams. Further, he finished his career during the second World War. Also working against him was his consistently high level of play; his OPS never going higher than 174 or dropping below 125 and always provided above-average offense for his position. He never had an eye-popping, jaw-dropping season that nets players MVP awards. He is also perceived by many to be the equivalent of the Phillies fine outfielder of the 1940's and 1950's, Del Ennis.

In short, he was invisible.

However, when we examine his record, he fits right in with four contemporary outfielders who are in the Hall of Fame and three of whom--like Johnson--finished their careers during WWII: Earl Averill, Klein, Medwick, and Paul Waner.

Player              AVG   OBP   SLG Runs   HR  RBI  OPS  RCAA* 
Bob Johnson        .296  .393  .506 1239  288 1283   138  413 
Earl Averill       .318  .395  .533 1224  238 1164   133  391 
Chuck Klein        .320  .379  .543 1168  300 1201   137  409 
Paul Waner         .333  .404  .473 1190  139  957   134  588**
Joe Medwick        .324  .362  .505 1198  205 1383   134  368 
Del Ennis          .284  .340  .472  985  288 1284   117  145

* Runs Created Above Average is a counting stat
**Waner's career length is the longest of the six players

As mentioned, a lot of folks dismiss Johnson's achievements because of a superficial statistical similarity to Del Ennis. I threw Ennis in here to show that he's not at all comparable to the above group. His HR/RBI totals are similar but he's last in AVG/OBP/SLG, runs, OPS and RCAA. The difference between Johnson and Ennis' respective levels are about the same as Rusty Greer (120 OPS /149 RCAA) and Chipper Jones (141 OPS /429 RCAA); nobody suggests that Greer and Jones are similar as hitters. In the chart above, we can see how close Johnson's level of play was to Hall of Fame quality. His eight All Star selections reflects the high regard contemporaries viewed Johnson. After Al Simmons was sold to the White Sox, Johnson all but became the Athletics offense. During his ten years with the A's, the team created 7612 runs. Johnson was responsible for 1162 (15.26%). The roster over that ten years were -420 RCAA while Johnson had 317 RCAA.

Although never topping statistical lists, Johnson was consistently among the leaders. From the period 1930-50, Johnson was tied for second in doubles (396), eighth in triples (95), third in home runs (288), third in runs (1239), second in RBI (1283), sixth in OBP (.393), sixth in SLG (.506), and fifth in OPS (.899). Here are the top ten finishers in RCAA (totals accumulated before 1930 and after 1950 are not counted):

1.    Ted Williams                908   
2.    Joe DiMaggio                695   
3.    Babe Ruth                   460   
4.    Bob Johnson                 413   
5.    Charlie Keller              394   
6.    Earl Averill                356   
7.    Tommy Henrich               274   
8.    Jeff Heath                  261   
9.    Al Simmons                  250   
10.   Roy Cullenbine              215

Johnson's RCAA is 73rd all time. When you consider that, along with being a fine fielder with a terrific throwing arm, you begin to appreciate the complete package that was Robert Lee "Indian Bob" Johnson. Truly an All Star in the fullest sense of the word and an unappreciated talent. When you look back at some of the superb players to grace the diamond in the 1930's and 1940's, don't forget about the man that patrolled left field at Shibe Park for a decade.

John Brattain writes for The Hardball Times and his work has been featured at About.com, MLBtalk, Yankees.com, Replacement Level Yankee Weblog, TOTK.com, Bootleg Sports, and Baseball Prospectus.

[Additional reader comments and retorts at Baseball Primer.]

Permalink | Comments (6)

One option would be to stay away from the games, to stop caring altogether. Another would be to wallow in the hangover of 99 losses and declare all decisions a disaster before they are even conceived, let alone executed. The more radical among you might prefer simply to enjoy a fine day at the ballpark and the respite it brings from more mundane concerns.

Losing sucks, but it beats going to work.

Enough with the pep talk. What's actually happening with the Padres?

There is a theory, backed by data, that Petco Park significantly benefits pitchers. There is another theory that every theory breaks at some point. Well, maybe; I just made that up. The important point is that the current staff is going to crank every faucet in the house at the same time and see if the pipes hold. But it won't be a one-time test; it'll be a way of life.

If you like offense, you go to Coors Field. If you like pitching, you go to Petco Park. If you can't figure out what the heck you like, try watching the Padres this year. Ask yourself exciting philosophical questions such as, "How bad can a pitcher be and still derive benefits from that ballpark?" Perhaps the environment -- when inhabited by the likes of Cha Seung Baek, Kevin Correia, and Josh Geer -- will collapse. It could be that both Petco Park and the rotation will be annihilated when they collide. I'm not saying it's likely, but you have been warned.

Silk Print Shirts and Bowlers

On the bright side, Jake Peavy and Chris Young are still here for now. Peavy is very outspoken and Young is very tall. If baseball doesn't work out for them, they would make a great comedy team. I have visions of Peavy cracking wise and Young playing the straight man. Maybe they could solve murder cases together and have a boss who can't abide by Peavy's behavior but who can't afford to part with him either. Peavy would wear silk print shirts and Young would don a bowler. Wackiness would ensue, probably over some minute misunderstanding.

Meanwhile, the bullpen is going to get a lot of work. That is thrilling if your name is Chris Britton or Mark Worrell, and you've always wanted to pitch in the big leagues. It is thrilling also if you are a fan. I am obligated here to mention that an old definition of "thrill" is "To perforate by a pointed instrument; to bore; to transfix; to drill."

I didn't say it would be fun. I said it would be thrilling.

Amusingly, and a point that is missed by many, the strength of this team will continue to be the offense. It will be disguised by Petco Park, of course, but Brian Giles will get on base, Adrian Gonzalez will mash, and Chase Headley will have worked through his awkward phase -- at the plate, at least; defense is a different story. Pray for everyone's health when the ball is hit his way. It may not help, but at least you'll feel proactive.

Like a Slow Corey Patterson

Kevin Kouzmanoff puts another theory to the test. Seven men have struck out 130 times or more in a season while drawing 25 walks or fewer (arbitrary points, but you get the idea):

Bo Jackson, 1988, age 25: .246/.287/.472, 25 BB, 146 SO
Cory Snyder, 1989, age 23: .215/.251/.360, 23 BB, 134 SO
Alfonso Soriano, 2002, age 23: .300/.332/.547, 23 BB, 157 SO
Corey Patterson, 2002, age 22: .253/.284/.392, 19 BB, 142 SO
Jeff Francouer, 2006, age 22: .260/.293/.449, 23 BB, 132 SO
Kevin Kouzmanoff, 2008, age 26: .260/.299/.433, 23 BB, 139 SO
Carlos Gomez, 2008, age 22: .258/.296/.360, 25 BB, 142 SO

We can learn two things from this: First, do not name your kid Cor(e)y. Second, it's easier to get away with these things if you have football in your hip pocket as a backup plan. Sorry, did I say hip? My bad.

Oh, you were looking for a useful lesson. Okay, here's one: If you are not Alfonso Soriano, don't attempt this strategy.

The stupid part is I actually think Kouzmanoff can hit. But that's just from watching him; the numbers make my head explode. It's like the tired old saw, "I need that like I need a slow Corey Patterson." And if that isn't a tired old saw, it should be.

Irresistably Immovable

The shenanigans aren't limited to on-field activities either. Matt Vasgersian hopped in his El Camino of the Imagination (with apologies to Carl Sagan and anyone who lives in Missouri) and schlepped off to Jersey to do the MLB Network thing.

Ownership is changing hands as we speak. John Moores, who once rescued San Diego from Roseanne Barr's former boss, is now being rescued by Manny Ramirez's former agent. As they say, the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had.

Payroll isn't expected to change. Neither is fan cynicism or disinterest. Weather will continue to be numbingly benign, and most of us will have our health. One hundred losses is a possibility, as is a World Championship. Other possibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Completing a triathlon
• Winning the lottery
• Flying to the moon
• Getting trapped in an oil painting

Be ready. Lack of preparation is not an excuse.

Still, I find the irresistible/immovable nature of this year's pitching staff at Petco Park... irresistible. Hey, we all have our perversions -- some are more interesting than others.

I want to see how far a Geer fastball will travel in that ballpark. I want to watch Headley ride around on his unicycle in left field. I want to bask in the glow of my own delusion.

I want to hang out and enjoy the games, no matter how hard anyone tries to kill my buzz with their so-called "reality." Is that so much to ask? Well, is it?

Geoff Young covers the San Diego Padres at Ducksnorts, and is a regular contributor to Baseball Daily Digest and Hardball Times. He has written three books about the Padres, the most recent being the Ducksnorts 2009 Baseball Annual, published in March 2009. Geoff lives in San Diego with his wife and two dogs.

Permalink | Comments (5)

Last week, we looked at how we can interpret groundball averages and what they tell us about the defensive overshift. Now, we'd like to examine some of the more interesting points in our dataset. Of all left-handed batters with at least 200 grounders since 2002, who had the most success with the worm-burner?

The chart is sorted by groundball average, which for lefties averages out around .225-.230. It is followed by expected groundball average based on pull-to-opposite-field-groundball ratio, speed score, percentage of groundballs to center field, homers per ball in air, and bunts per plate appearance.

Fred Lewis is quite the ballplayer. He has one of the top speed scores in our sample, and according to Pizza Cutter’s speed scores, he was one of the top 35 fastest players in the game last year. But he makes the most of his abilities. Not only can he leg out grounders, but by advanced metrics, he’s an above average left-fielder and baserunner. He stretches hits into triples and is willing to draw a walk to boot. Just wanted to make that observation before we get to...

Land of the Rising GBAVG

Ever notice that all four current Japanese Major League regular position players bat left handed? Though Ichiro Suzuki, Akinori Iwamura, Hideki Matsui, and Kosuke Fukudome all slugged at least 95 points higher in Japan than they have in America, there is one department in which they presumably haven’t suffered since coming overseas. All four players have a strong propensity to reach base via the groundball. Iwamura, Ichiro, and Fukudome all show up on the top 10 list, while Matsui checks in with a .246 groundball average, impressive considering his affliction going the other way. Calculating the difference between their groundball average, and their “expected” groundball average, all four come up in the 20 most “lucky” hitters. However, we wouldn’t attribute their success to luck at all. Ichiro is famous for his unique swing, in which he opens his bottom half and basically is halfway down the line by the time he makes contact. Could this be a method that is taught in Japan? If so, it would probably give someone a much better chance than other lefties of reaching base on grounders. Looking at cherry-picked at-bats, we can say that Iwamura, Matsui, and Fukudome all at times follow similar approaches.

We can estimate that without this skill, over the observed years, Iwamura would have a .260 batting average instead of .280, while Ichiro would be a .310 hitter instead of .330, Matsui .285 instead of .295 and Fukudome .245 instead of .255. This is a remarkable ability. It would be difficult to quantify, but perhaps teams can start timing how long it takes for a batter to get to first following contact. While Matsui has yet to bunt in his career, Ichiro, Iwamura, and Fukudome all get hits on over half their bunt attempts. Perhaps in Japan they emphasize getting down the line, and perhaps in America they should start looking into that. (Cough, Manny, Cough.)

The players we've looked at so far all make the most of their speed and groundball opportunities. But who doesn't? Without further ado...

The Willie Mays Hayes All-Stars

“You gotta stop swingin’ for the fences though, Hayes. All you’re gonna do is give yourself a hernia. With your speed you should be hittin’ the ball on the ground, leggin’ ‘em out. Every time I see you hit one in the air, you owe me twenty pushups.” --Lou Brown (Major League)

Disclaimer: It would be quite a rare instance to find a player who would actually benefit from hitting more grounders than flyballs. We suggest referencing The Hardball Times Baseball Annuals to find specific run values for players' different batted ball types. These are simply players who do a great job reaching base on grounders but fail to do so often.

Chone Figgins: From the right side, it’s acceptable that he doesn't hit many groundballs. Batting righty, he has hit only .230 on grounders over the last six years, while he is also more likely go earn a hit when he gets underneath the ball from that side of the plate than when he does so from the left side. Meanwhile, Figgins not only bats a robust .290 on grounders from his left side but is also very successful bunter. So when Figgins swings for the fences with his career .100 ISO from the left-handed box, know he might be better off legging out grounders.

Iwamura: Aki may have been a 30 homerun a year hitter in Japan, but not anymore, as he is twice as likely to have his groundballs go for hits than his fly balls. His homerun per flyball ratio has decreased to 3.7% this year, and the average true distance of his homeruns has gone down nearly ten feet as well, according to hit tracker. But he’s still a monster when he puts the ball into the turf, except he does so at only a league average rate.

Mark Bellhorn is the final player on this list, and oddly, another 2b/3b combo. Bellhorn may never get another cup of coffee, so it is likely too late for him to change his approach. But it warrants mentioning that he's always been underappreciated in his career due to his strong secondary skills, and he's been able to compile a nice groundball average despite a low groundball percentage.

Curtis Granderson and Brian Roberts could also be on this list, except that they're able to hit however they please and remain successful. Both players hit balls in the air almost twice as often as on the ground, though they hold solid career GB averages in the .265-.275 range. But Roberts consistently hits for decent power, and while Granderson has been excellent at reaching base on ground balls all four full years of his Major League career, he has done a good job of decreasing his groundball percentage as his power has increased--perhaps a conscious decision. Take a look at these graphs:

Follow the green lines. As his groundball percentage decreases, his production as measured by wOBA has increased. Though he hit .305 on grounders this year, putting the ball on the ground actually hurt his overall line it appears. He's a better hitter when hitting fewer groundballs, or he hits fewer groundballs to be a better hitter. Either way, he's done a great job improving at the plate

Taking a quick look at righties who weren’t in our dataset: Over the last three years, the only player to have popped up 20% of his fly balls was Eric Byrnes, with a 25.2 infield flyball percentage. As one of the faster players in the game, he could probably use to hit a few more grounders, and he has hit .296 on them since 2002. Carlos Gomez has a similar batted ball profile to that of Byrnes, except without the same type of pop, so he'll either want to develop some muscle or stop racking up 140 strikeouts with a .360 SLG when he might be better off at times pounding the ball into the ground and beating out the throw.

On the reverse end, grounders have been death to Mark Sweeney, Casey Kotchman, and Russ Adams, to the tune of a sub-.200 average, yet they still hit more balls on the ground than in the air.

That's it for our findings on batted ball data. Big thanks to FanGraphs and BillJamesOnline for making this type of data available. And we'd also like to express our deepest gratitude to Rich Lederer for hosting our research.

Leanne Brotsky, David Estabrook, Jeremy Greenhouse, Kimberly Miner, and Steven Smith assisted in writing this article. We would also like to thank Evan Chiachiaro and Dan Rathman, and Anthony Doina who participated in Baseball Analysis at Tufts’ research committee. Any questions can be directed to TuftsBAT@gmail.com.

Permalink | Comments (8)

A couple of weeks ago, Rich Lederer asked what variables account for extraordinarily low groundball out rates. So, using a similar method to that which Peter Bendix and Chris Dutton used to find expected BABIP, we dug deeper and ran a regression to find expected average on groundballs.

Intuitively, one would think that faster players with the ability to find holes in the infield have the best success rates on groundballs. As Lederer pointed out, defensive alignments and batter handedness are also variables that will affect groundball average. While infield shifts are difficult to quantify, we still attempted some statistical approaches to analyze their effects. And to account for handedness, we limited our sample to only left-handers or switch-hitters batting lefty. Our sample included 206 players with at least 200 total ground balls since 2002. We then ran a linear regression to find the factors that influence a batter's groundball average.

Five variables were significant at a one percent level in our regression—a ratio of pulled groundballs to opposite field groundballs, the percentage of grounders hit to center field, a speed score developed by Bill James, bunt hits per plate appearance, and homers per ball in air. The R-squared is .4648. Here is the regression output, if you're into that sort of stuff.

The location of groundballs along with the batter’s speed seem to have the most influence on groundball hit rate, confirming our suspicions. Hitting the ball the other way forces a longer throw, and busting it down the line on grounders is probably the most advantageous way a player can utilize his speed. Velocity of groundballs was difficult to account for. Line drive percentage and grounded into double play percentage, which are likely tied with the hardness of a groundball hit, proved insignificant. Many of you might know the split in batted ball hit average is about .715 on liners, .235 on grounders, and .140 on fly balls. Now, we can break that down further with this data. Lefties hit for a lower average on grounders than righties by about 10-15 points. Opposite field grounders and grounders up the middle from lefties go for hits on average about 30% of the time, while pulled grounders go for hits only 15-20% of the time. Interestingly, hitting homeruns has a negative impact on pulled and total groundball average, but is one of the most significant positively correlated variables that go into opposite field average. One guess is that power hitters tend to hit weaker groundballs to the right side when they roll over their wrists. Or perhaps they pull the ball into a shift, which seems to be supplied only to power hitters due to a likely managerial bias. But when these homerun hitters do hit opposite field groundballs, however rarely, they are apparently more likely to go for hits than opposite field grounders from slash hitters.

One of the main reasons we calculated our expected average value was to examine the exaggerated infield shift more closely. In our sample, we came up with nearly 20 players who we believed to have been “overshifted,” a defensive alignment in which the shortstop plays on the second-base side of the bag and the second-baseman goes to short right field. The shift was originally introduced as a way to get Ted Williams out, and it was brought back in vogue to foil Barry Bonds. By comparing a player’s expected average with his actual average, and using several more basic methods, we were able to draw conclusions about the use of the shift. An average significantly greater than the corresponding expected average indicates that our regression model does not account for something affecting the hitter – maybe a defensive shift.

The players whose expected groundball average most exceeded actual groundball average were Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark Teixeira, Adam Dunn, and Jack Cust. Their averages all fell at least 20 points below their expected averages, while Jack Cust’s came up almost 30 points short. With this information, we looked at their traditional BABIPs with men on base and nobody on base as a loose measure to determine when these batters are being shifted, and when they’re not. We should note that the average BABIP with men on is slightly higher than with nobody on, and for pull-hitting lefties, there will be an even greater difference as the first baseman will often have to hold on a runner, opening up the hole between first and second base. Bonds, Palmeiro, and Cust all gained at least 30 extra points of BABIP with men on, and Bonds had a .265 BABIP with nobody on and .338 with men on. Dunn showed little split, while we could not isolate Teixeira’s situational left-handed at-bats from his right-handed at-bats. All of these players pull their groundballs at least six times as much as they hit grounders to the opposite field, and they all have slow speed scores, making them prime candidates to be victims of the shift.

Other players who get shifted and who have averages below their expected averages include: Prince Fielder, Justin Morneau, Mike Jacobs, and Jason Giambi. Giambi’s BABIP has been an astounding 95 points higher with men on than with nobody on.

What was almost as interesting was the list of shifted players whose average exceeds their expected average – potentially meaning the shift is not effective against them. David Ortiz, Carlos Pena, and Travis Hafner all fit into this category. There was no noticeable difference between skill sets of these player and the first group, so some other factors must explain this difference. Perhaps this second group includes hitters who are better at locating their hits against the shift. Ortiz does have a split of 45 points between his BABIP with men on vs. nobody on, so we won’t discount the impact of the shift on him.

Within this group of shifted batters, there were some other noteworthy discoveries. Ryan Howard has an incredibly high pull-to-opposite-field-groundball ratio of 11.875—the largest in our sample—yet his average and expected average were about equal, as both values fell within the .200-.205 range. Given his dramatic pull/opp ratio, we have little doubt that the shift has affected him, so we dug deeper to find the answer. Looking at the MLB.com provided hitting charts, and checking the locations of his groundball outs, there is a cluster of outs in short right field over the last two years, but not prior, meaning the decision to shift him might have been recent. Indeed, in 2005-2006, Howard hit .237 on grounders, and then when the shift came into play regularly in 2007-2008, he hit only .175 on grounders. Also notable were Hafner's and Morneau’s extremely low pull/opp ratios, which were 3.98 and 2.99 respectively. According to this statistic, neither player would be an obvious candidate for the shift – yet both are shifted, and as said earlier, it would appear that the shift is detrimental to Morneau. However, the 3-4 defense applied to Hafner never made much sense, as he has rather moderate pull-to-opposite-field-groundball and groundball-to-flyball ratios.

Finally, we looked for any left-handed batters with high pull percentages, who would therefore be good candidates for the defensive shift. Nate McLouth had a pull/opp ratio of 10.208, but his speed statistic is quite high, explaining why teams probably choose not to shift him. If you’re fielding balls in short right field, you won’t get a fast player out. Nick Swisher’s pull/opp ratio 10.92 yet teams do not shift him. Russell Branyan and David Dellucci are also strong candidates for a shift, but none of these players follow the hulking power hitter profile, so managers don’t think twice about creative ways to get them out.

We ran a logistic regression using a value of one if we had evidence that the player had been shifted and zero if not. It turns out that homerun-per-flyball and groundball-to-flyball ratios have been the most significant factors in determining what players get shifted. Bonds’ expected shift score was one, meaning that he is truly the prototype of shifted players. Pull percentage and intentional walks per plate appearance were also significant at a five percent level, but we believe that opposite field groundball rate should be taken into account as well. Evacuating that side of the infield against a hitter who hits any significant amount of opposite field groundballs is simply giving away hits, no matter how many pulled grounders get taken away. There is a clear managerial bias to shift power hitters, while not taking enough into account batted ball location.

Our study is not perfect. We found no good way to quantify the shift, which would allow us to distinguish between players who receive a full shift and those who receive a partial one, or those who are shifted all the time and those for whom only some teams put on the defensive shift. Nevertheless, our study shows some interesting results. By comparing expected ground ball and actual averages, we believe that the shift had the most significant impact on Bonds, Palmeiro, and Cust, and that it had a surprisingly little impact on batters like Ortiz and Pena. In addition, we suggest that Swisher might be a good candidate to shift, and we suggest that managers make decisions based on evidence rather than player reputation. These are only basic observations, yet they shed some light on the hard-to-quantify defensive shift.

Leanne Brotsky, David Estabrook, Jeremy Greenhouse, Kimberly Miner, and Steven Smith assisted in writing this article. We would also like to thank Evan Chiachiaro and Dan Rathman, and Anthony Doina who participated in Baseball Analysis at Tufts’ research committee. Any questions can be directed to TuftsBAT@gmail.com.

Permalink | Comments (7)

Oh, no, not another projection system! Why would someone want to join the logjam of current systems? In no particular order, we have ZiPS, CHONE, Oliver, Marcel, Bill James, PECOTA and no doubt some others I haven’t stumbled across (sorry). All of these systems are designed to tell us how MLB players will perform next season, but none of them can convincingly claim to be more accurate than all the rest. When I look at any particular player’s projections in the various systems, I see a lot of similarity, which makes me suspect there must be some degree of groupthink going on. I believe there is some potential to improve performance forecasting by doing something different.

In the following paragraphs, I will outline a system for forecasting using Hit Tracker, an aerodynamic model for flying baseballs that is well-known for providing accurate home run measurements. I can guarantee that the Hit Tracker system will be different. Better? I won’t be able to say for sure until the 2009 season is over.

Background: How We Forecast Now

Why is it so difficult to forecast a player’s performance accurately? One huge reason is that every one of the current systems for performance projection starts from a set of data — the player’s prior year’s "box score stats" — that is positively riddled with statistical noise (chief among these uncontrolled noise factors are the dramatic differences in ballpark configurations and playing conditions across the 2,430 games played in 30 different parks over the course of six months).

Let’s consider another familiar form of forecasting: weather. In the 19th century, after the invention of the telegraph, weathermen began to form their predictions by first learning the weather "upwind," and then adjusting those measurements to come up with a forecast. "How hot will it be tomorrow? Well, it was 85 degrees today in the state where our weather seems to be coming from, so we’ll start with 85 and then adjust it up or down according to our experience. It’s usually a little hotter there than it gets here, so let’s say 82 degrees…" They didn’t call them "city factors" back then, but they could have.

After computers became available in the mid-20th century, weathermen became meteorologists, and the process of forecasting weather has continued to become more involved and mathematical as the years have gone by. Contemporary meteorologists now monitor a much larger array of parameters, and they feed these lower-order parameters into elaborate computer-based models to arrive at predictions for the higher-order outcomes like temperature, or winds, or precipitation. Thanks to more accurate measurements, and more detailed models, weather forecasts are dramatically more accurate today than those of even only 10 years ago.

In my opinion, baseball forecasting systems resemble the "19th century weatherman" system described above: to forecast something, measure something (well, in baseball we should say "count" something) that has happened already, then adjust this number to predict what hasn’t happened yet. So, to predict a player’s home runs, for example, the starting point is always his prior year’s total for home runs (or perhaps a weighted total from several seasons). From this starting point, various adjustments are applied to arrive at a final projection. Never mind where those home runs were hit, or how far they flew, or how much help or hindrance the weather may have provided them. Just count and adjust.

Starting from last year’s total assigns an equal value to what may in reality be very different events. For example, Jeremy Hermida hit two radically dissimilar fly balls last year, each of which cleared the home run fence: first, a windblown 321 foot homer in San Francisco on Aug. 20th, and second, a 443 foot rocket in Miami on July 19th. In a game context, they count the same, but when we are trying to measure the likelihood of future home runs, we should acknowledge that the outcome of one of those fly balls (the short one) was entirely dependent on its ballpark and weather context, while for the other fly ball, the ballpark and weather were irrelevant to the outcome. The short fly ball could only have become a home run in a park with a very shallow RF fence like AT&T Park, and only with the help of a tail wind. The long one would have been a homer in every park major league baseball has ever been played in, in any wind short of a hurricane blowing towards home plate.

Any system that cannot recognize the difference between two events such as these Hermida home runs cannot hope to consistently generate highly accurate predictions. I don’t mean this as a criticism of anyone who has created a projection system, don’t get me wrong. But I do believe that those systems have reached the limit of their capabilities, with average errors of around 60-70 points of OPS, and any further refinement of these models will probably just chase the statistical noise around in circles.

Something Different

How can we get away from the practice of predicting future outcomes by using prior outcomes? I believe that the key is to consider the lower-level processes that lead to the final result of any particular batted ball. Some of these are the landing point of the hit, how hard the ball was hit, and the physical environment that the ball was hit in. For those batted balls where the physical environment is crucial (i.e. long fly balls), we need to measure the trajectory of the ball, the fence dimensions of the park, and the weather. For the rest of the batted balls, where the physical environment isn’t very important to the final result, we don’t need to.

In Hit Tracker, I have developed a method for analyzing the trajectory of long fly balls and projecting them into each of the 30 MLB ballparks for the purpose of generating a performance forecast. It is my hope that this system will yield more accurate performance forecasts.

How It Works: Steps in the Hit Tracker Forecasting Method

• Observe all long fly balls hit by a player in the past 1-3 years.
  • A long fly ball is defined as any ball the player hit that might have approached or cleared the fence, if hit in any of the 30 MLB ballparks in any reasonable weather conditions.
  • This very liberal standard is applied to ensure that all the long fly balls are captured. Having a few not-so-deep flies in the data set won’t cause any problems, because if a particular ball turns out to be a flyout in every park, this is equivalent to not including that ball in the analysis.
• Analyze each long fly ball in its actual weather conditions, to determine its launch characteristics (Speed Off Bat, Horizontal and Vertical Launch Angles, Spin).
• Note each long fly ball’s original result (2B, 3B, HR, Flyout, etc.).
• Project each long fly ball into each of the 30 MLB ballparks, in the average weather conditions for that ballpark (calculated over a 5-year period).
• Note the hypothetical result of each projected fly ball in each ballpark.
  • Balls that fly far enough to clear the fence are judged to be home runs.
  • Balls that hit the fence more than 8 feet above field level are judged to be extra base hits.
  • All other balls are considered to be "catchable," and are analyzed further using a range model.
  • The range model uses standard assumed initial positions of outfielders, a distance vs. time model for an average outfielder, the actual landing point of the ball and the time of flight of the ball to determine if the ball would have been caught.
  • An empirical method was used on approximately 1,000 actual fly balls to determine the 50/50 likelihood boundary between outs and hits, in terms of time and distance from the closest outfielder. This boundary is then used as the evaluation criteria for catchable balls: balls inside the range circle of any outfielder for a given time of flight are flyouts, and balls outside it are extra base hits.
• For each ballpark, count the net hits and bases for the long fly ball data set:
  • For each ball that was originally a hit, but projected as an out, give a -1 for hits and –X for bases (e.g. for a ball that was originally a short home run to RF in Yankee Stadium, but which projects to be caught in Fenway Park, give -1 hit and -4 bases.)
  • For each ball that was originally an out, but projected as a hit, give +1 for hits and +X for bases (e.g. for a ball that was originally a flyout to LF at Yankee Stadium, but which projects to hit the Green Monster in Fenway Park more than 8 feet up, give +1 hit and (usually) +2 bases.)
  • For each ball that was originally a hit, but which projects to be another sort of hit, give ± X bases (e.g. for a home run to RCF in Shea Stadium that projects to be an extra base hit in Citi Field, give -2 or -1 bases, depending on the speed of the runner, the location of the hit and the time of flight.)
• Apply the net adjustments to hits and bases for all the long flies to the player’s actual stats for the season in question. Calculate OBP/SLG with the adjustments. This becomes the player’s projection for that ballpark.
• For projections based on multiple years of long fly balls, apply appropriate weighting factors (e.g. 3-2-1) to the projections for each ballpark.
• Using the MLB schedule for the season of the projection, create a projection for the player as a member of each team by multiplying their performance averages in each ballpark by a weighting factor proportional to the number of games each team plays in each park.

Case Study: Manny Ramirez

To further illustrate the method, I am going to highlight some of the findings from the Hit Tracker Analysis of Manny Ramirez over the years 2006-08, and his forecast for 2009.

First and foremost, I hope Manny Ramirez re-signs with the Los Angeles Dodgers for 2009, because Dodger Stadium is an absolutely perfect place for him to hit. I am not saying it is perfect for everyone; in fact, Dodger Stadium is a difficult place to hit for average or below average hitters, because its fences are deep in the corners where lesser hitters typically place their home runs. I am saying that Dodger Stadium is perfect for Manny. Manny’s swing, particularly his phenomenal power to center and right-center field, is ideally suited for the dimensions and environmental conditions of Dodger Stadium. I described the unique layout of Dodger Stadium (deep corners, shallow alleys and center field) in detail in my article, "Hit Tracker 2008," which was published in the 2009 Hardball Times Annual earlier this off-season.

At the opposite extreme, Manny’s home from 2000 to the 2008 trade deadline, Fenway Park, has robbed him of a great number of home runs over the years, perhaps as many as 50, as well as many other extra-base hits. Fenway’s very deep right-center and right fields have turned many of Manny’s towering opposite field drives into outs, and its 37-foot high Green Monster has turned many of his blistering drives to left and left-center field into doubles (or even singles).

A popular image exists of the Green Monster adding lots of extra-base hits to a hitter’s total by turning shallow fly balls into wall-scraping doubles, but this hasn’t been the case for Manny: in the three seasons 2006-08, Manny only hit 6 doubles at Fenway that would have been outs at Dodger Stadium. Over the same period, Manny hit 23 flyouts, 5 doubles and 1 triple at Fenway that would have been home runs at Dodger Stadium.

In the first 4 months of 2008, Manny encountered a particularly bad run of luck with his deep fly balls; despite racking up 20 home runs during that time, Manny could have gotten a lot more. Here is a list of Manny’s deep fly balls for the Boston Red Sox in 2008 that were not actually home runs, but which would have been home runs on an average day in Dodger Stadium. Where the weather negatively impacted his fly ball to a significant degree, this is listed as well:

• April 2, 2008 at Oakland, 407 ft. flyout to deep CF, lost 11 ft. of distance from wind and temperature.
• April 5, 2008 at Toronto, 387 ft. double to LCF.
• April 8, 2008 at Boston, 395 ft. triple to RCF, lost 25 ft.
• April 11, 2008 at Boston, 361 ft. flyout to RF, lost 7 ft.
• April 17, 2008 at New York Yankees, 395 ft. flyout to CF, lost 3 ft.
• April 24, 2008 at Boston (7th inning), 383 ft. double to RCF
• April 24, 2008 at Boston (9th inning), 402 ft. flyout to CF
• May 5, 2008 at Detroit (2nd inning), 415 ft. double to RCF
• May 5, 2008 at Detroit (3rd inning), 416 ft. flyout to CF
• May 6, 2008 at Detroit, 404 ft. flyout to LCF
• May 7, 2008 at Detroit, 402 ft. flyout to CF
• May 18, 2008 at Boston, 368 ft. flyout to RF, lost 9 feet
• May 19, 2008 at Boston, 386 ft flyout to CF, lost 11 feet
• May 23, 2008 at Oakland, 356 ft. flyout to RF, lost 6 feet
• June 4, 2008 at Boston, 364 ft. flyout to RF, lost 18 feet
• July 9, 2008 at Boston, 429 ft double to LCF off top of Monster
• July 19, 2008 at LA Angels, 378 ft double off RF wall
• July 27, 2008 at Boston, 410 ft flyout to RCF triangle
• July 30, 2008 at Boston, 367 ft flyout to LCF, lost 11 ft

Now, to be fair we have to look at the good luck Manny encountered during that same time frame. Here’s the list of Manny’s deep fly balls for the Boston Red Sox in 2008 that were actually home runs, but which would have not have been home runs on an average day in Dodger Stadium (there are 4):

• May 12, 2008 at Minnesota, 354 ft home run to RF
• May 27, 2008 at Seattle, 361 ft home run to RF
• June 1, 2008 at Baltimore, 382 ft home run to RF, got +23 ft help
• July 8, 2008 at Boston, 384 ft home run to LF, got +32 ft help

That’s a net of 15 balls hit by Manny in the first 4 months of 2008 that had the power to fly out of Dodger Stadium, but which didn’t make it out where Manny actually hit them. Watching the video of these hits, the disbelief and disgust on Manny’s face was apparent after several of his blasts came up short due to deep fences, cold/windy weather or a combination of the two. Once he was traded to LA, those balls started making it out at a much higher rate: Manny connected for 9 home runs in only 80 at-bats in Dodger Stadium in 2008.

Forecast: Manny Ramirez 2009

Manny’s forecast for 2009 is based on analysis of all 248 long fly balls he hit during the 2006, 2007 and 2008 seasons. In 143 games in 2009, Manny should continue to perform extremely well in a Dodger uniform: the Hit Tracker forecast projects him to post the following numbers:

Los Angeles Dodgers: .430 OBP, .641 SLG, 1.071 OPS and 36 home runs (including 21 at Dodger Stadium).

As of the posting of this article, Manny is still a free agent, so here are forecasts for some other teams Manny might sign with:

San Francisco: .428 OBP, .618 SLG, 1.047 OPS, 32 home runs.

NY Mets: .417 OBP, .566 SLG, .983 OPS, 26 home runs.

More Forecasts

Here are the Hit Tracker forecasts for several other MLB players. Some of the projections are based on three years of data (2006-08), while some are based only on one year of data (2008). The three-year forecasts are expected to be more accurate.

Forecasts Based on 2006-08 Data

Jason Bay, Boston Red Sox
Boston: .368 OBP, .501 SLG, OPS .869, 27 HR’s

Adam Dunn, free agent
LA Dodgers: .394 OBP, .587 SLG, .981 OPS, 47 HR’s
Washington: .389 OBP, .555 SLG, .944 OPS, 43 HR’s
NY Mets: .382 OBP, .506 SLG, .888 OPS, 35 HR’s
Atlanta: .387 OBP, .543 SLG, .930 OPS, 41 HR’s
Boston: .392 OBP, .549 SLG, .941 OPS, 39 HR’s

Forecasts Based on 2008 Data Only

Mark Teixeira, New York Yankees
New York Yankees: .420 OBP, .588 SLG, 1.008 OPS, 32 HR’s

Matt Holliday, Oakland Athletics
Oakland: .418 OBP, .563 SLG, .981 OPS, 28 HR’s
San Francisco: .426 OBP, .593 SLG, 1.019 OPS, 32 HR’s
Boston: .420 OBP, .557 SLG, .977 OPS, 25 HR’s
New York Yankees: .422 OBP, .584 SLG, 1.006 OPS, 32 HR’s
New York Mets: .417 OBP, .546 SLG, .963 OPS, 24 HR’s

Nate McLouth, Pittsburgh Pirates
Pittsburgh: .348 OBP, .484 SLG, .833 OPS, 29 HR’s

Validation

In an attempt to validate the Hit Tracker forecasting method, I analyzed the 2007 long fly balls of three players who changed teams during the 2007-08 off-season: Torii Hunter, Aaron Rowand and Jim Edmonds. Using this data, I projected their 2008 results as a member of the teams they ended up with, and compared to their actual performances in 2008.

Torii Hunter

HT Projection as Los Angeles Angel: .325 OBP, .485 SLG, .810 OPS, 25 HR’s
Actual as Los Angeles Angel: .344 OBP, .466 SLG, .810 OPS, 21 HR’s

Slightly off on the home runs, but overall a very good projection.

Aaron Rowand

HT Projection as San Francisco Giant: .373 OBP, .507 SLG, .880 OPS, 25 HR’s
Actual as San Francisco Giant: .339 OBP, .410 SLG, .749 OPS, 13 HR’s

This is terrible, but there is an explanation: on June 6th, Rowand sustained a right quadriceps injury that hindered him the rest of the year. His actual production splits are as follows:

Through June 6th: .396 OBP, .526 SLG, .922 OPS, 23 HR’s (pro-rated for a full year)
After June 6th: .303 OBP, .338 SLG, .641 OPS, 9 HR’s (pro-rated for a full year)

The HT projection matched the pre-injury Rowand reasonably well, considering the small sample size of about 1/3 of a season. Since the forecast was based on a relatively injury-free 2007 season, this is a fair comparison to make, I think. By the way, if anyone ever comes up with a way to predict the performance of a player who plays hurt through the final 96 of his 152 games, do me a favor: a) tell me what the stock market is going to do in the next year, b) wait a couple days, c) tell the world. In a year, I’ll be rich, and you’ll be famous!

Jim Edmonds

HT Projection as SD/CHC: .346 OBP, .488 SLG, .834 OPS, 18 HR’s
Actual as SD/CHC: .343 OBP, .479 SLG, .822 OPS, 20 HR’s

This is another good projection. Edmonds hit a lot of deep fly balls to left-center field in 2007 that were caught in his home park, Busch Stadium. That tendency carried over to the following season, but it didn’t help him in San Diego, where he started the year. However, after a May trade to the Cubs, Edmonds found a place where that swing worked well. Left-center field is the most favorable spot in Wrigley Field for home runs, and Edmonds took advantage, hitting 6 of his 11 Wrigley home runs into the bleachers in front of Waveland Ave. On the road he picked his spots well also, hitting 7 of his 9 away homers to left and left-center field. A projection that either didn’t factor in Edmonds’ home park, or which couldn’t discern his tendency to hit the other way with power, would be at a disadvantage when trying to accurately forecast Jim Edmonds.

More Thoughts About Forecasting

Here are some possible adjustments I considered, but decided not to include in the Hit Tracker system:

BABIP Adjustment

Regressing a player’s numbers towards the league average BABIP is a common tactic in projection systems. Instead of leaving alone all the non-long fly balls, I considered trying to adjust these hits according to the hitter’s BABIP, e.g. taking away an appropriate number of hits from the projection if the player showed an unusually favorable BABIP during the prior season(s).

My objection to this method is that I don’t feel that I can be certain that a player’s unusually high (or low) BABIP was due to luck instead of due to some underlying real factor. I don’t want to assume that a player’s BABIP should be a certain value, and regress back towards that value, because I don’t feel confident enough that I can pinpoint what that value should be for each individual player. I definitely don’t want to regress all hitters towards a common BABIP. In any event, the use of three years of data to generate projections should minimize any possibility of a player’s wildly aberrant BABIP ruining his projection.

Age Adjustment

Adjusting a projection for a player’s age is another common tactic which has some merit when one’s objective is to be correct "on average," for a large group of players. However, I feel uncomfortable applying an aging correction factor "across the board," without any regard for a player’s particular situation. Perhaps on average hitters lose a small amount of their power each year, but I don’t feel like I can say for which hitters that is true, and for which hitters that is not true, so I have chosen to leave out an aging factor.

I freely admit that an ideal forecasting system of the future will include some method for predicting the effects of aging on future performance, and that I am leaving it out. In the future I hope to be able to incorporate predictive aging into the HT model in terms of lower-level parameters such as speed off bat, or the direction of hits, rather than a crude adjustment of the final results. Such changes in hitters’ spray patterns can readily be detected (a good example is Jim Edmonds, whose long fly balls have decreased in distance and shifted from RF towards LF for the past several seasons.)

Modeling aging in this more detailed manner should also allow for situations where a decline in raw hitting performance does not manifest in a decline in results, such as a power hitter who loses a bit of distance on his fly balls, but still clears the fence with room to spare. I don’t want to paint that hitter, or any hitter for that matter, with the broad brush of "aging means the numbers get smaller"…

Overall "Regression to the Mean"

Some systems regress all of a player’s box score stats towards a selected value, typically a mean value for a subset of the population such as the AL, NL or all of MLB. The purpose of doing so is to account for the possibility that, due to limited sample size, a player has fortuitously outperformed or underperformed their true talent level. The league mean values are used because it is believed that it is impossible to accurately pinpoint a player’s true talent level.

It is certainly true that in any large sample of players, there will be some players that significantly outperform their true talent, some who significantly underperform, and some who perform roughly at their true talent level. In a system where box score outcomes are the only form of data, it makes sense to regress the outcomes to the mean: even though such a system might make some strange predictions (a career high 3 homers in 2009 for Juan Pierre, who has hit one ball out of the park in his last 1,097 at bats?), overall it will perform better than it could without applying such regression.

However, the Hit Tracker system accounts for variation from true talent level in a different way: by including all long flies instead of just homers, the luck factor for ballparks and weather is removed. By including multiple years of data, the sample size becomes even bigger, further decreasing the need to compensate via some form of regression to the mean. With these methods in use, I don’t feel it is appropriate to also add 75 or 80 at-bats from Gabe Gross to the reigning NL MVP’s numbers from 2008 before trying to predict how Prince Albert will do next year.

Advantages of the Hit Tracker System

• The Hit Tracker system goes a long way towards removing statistical noise from the projection. Most good or bad luck a player may have had because they hit a particular ball in a large or small park, in favorable or unfavorable weather, will be removed.
• Analyzing all long fly balls increases the sample size for evaluating power potential, which is one of the most important variables in performance projection. This method makes it possible to detect unlucky trends (Adam Dunn hit 16 balls more than 400 feet that were not home runs in 2008), or lucky trends (9 of Mark DeRosa’s 21 homers in 2008 were blown over the fence by the wind.)
• Team-specific projections are created, but without the use of the extremely blunt instrument known as Park Factors. Because park-based projections are used, the fit of a player’s spray profile to a park’s dimensions and weather is included, and is crucial. The frequency of visits to other parks is also included, capturing the importance of the unbalanced schedule and the vagaries of the interleague schedule.
• Hit Tracker projections are based entirely on what a player does, rather than what an average player does. Since the HT method is focused on making an accurate projection for a single player (and not an entire league), it does not use across the board regression to the mean. Regression to the mean compensates for variables that are missing from a model: Hit Tracker measures those variables instead.

Disadvantages

• The HT method is time-consuming. The observation data required for this method is not for sale, and the analysis can only be done by me.
• The HT method requires video of all batted balls for the player in question. If any hits are not available, the accuracy of the forecast may be reduced proportionally to the percentage of missing balls.
• Because the method depends on analysis of long fly balls, there is a limited ability to evaluate rookies.

Between now and the beginning of the 2009 season, I hope to post some more forecasts for other players, or perhaps expand some of the one-year forecasts listed above to three years. After the 2009 season we’ll have a chance to see how well this method did. I’m hoping that Hit Tracker will be able to bring the process of making projections forward to where weather forecasting was in the 1970’s: occasionally way off, more often on the money, but still far short of perfection (which is forever out of reach). Then we’ll figure out what the next step is…

Greg Rybarczyk is the creator of Hit Tracker, an aerodynamic model and method for recreating the trajectory of batted baseballs. With Hit Tracker, Greg has analyzed more than 15,000 MLB home runs over the past 3 seasons; a multitude of data on hitters, pitchers, ballparks and more can be found at hittrackeronline.com. While not tracking hits, Greg works as a reliability engineer, and he lives in the Portland, OR area with his wife and two children. Feel free to contact Greg at grybar@hittrackeronline.com.

Permalink | Comments (19)

"I'd like to think I did well. I'd like to think that, if I had a must-win game, the guys I played with would want me to have the ball. But no, I don't think I deserve to be in the Hall of Fame." – Curt Schilling, January 29 on WEEI AM 850's "The Big Show"

Last week, the always present and oft self-promoting Curt Schilling showed some rare humility over the Boston radio waves and downplayed his chances at one day ending up in baseball's Hall of Fame. Now some will believe that Schilling only understated his case in order for talking heads (and typing hands) to do what I'm doing right now: make a pitch on Schilling's behalf. Even so, because of his polarizing personality among teammates, fans and the baseball writers, Schilling — unfairly or not — may need all the help he can get.

Given the fact that he's fallen short of all those "important" Hall of Fame benchmarks (300 wins, a trophy case full of Cy Young Awards, a Baseball-Reference page listing dozens upon dozens of All-Star appearances, a Wikipedia page featuring quotes on how feared Schilling was on the mound, etc.), the forty-two year old righty looks like a marginal candidate to earn a bronze bust in Cooperstown. All that said, I'm going to state a strong case for Schilling's enshrinement. I mean, "hey man, even though I'm part of the 'younger people on the Internet,' I saw Schilling play his entire career and I always thought he was a Hall of Famer."

The easiest place to start is to look at Schilling's career performance compared to his peers:

The names listed above are arguably the top ten pitchers during Schilling's career, spanning from 1988 to 2007. There's no question the top five pitchers are no-brainer Hall of Famers (say what you will about the ongoing Roger Clemens saga, but The Rocket is as much an "inner-circle" Hall of Famer as he is a jerk.) After the first five Schilling contemporaries, the numbers start getting blurred but one thing that is clear is that Schilling was one of the best among the next group anyway you slice it. However, before we are so quick to label him "sixth or seventh or eighth best" during his career, let's look a little closer at Schilling's numbers versus the top tier.

Schilling became a full-time starter in 1992 after arriving in Philadelphia – how'd Jason Grimsley work out for ya, Houston? – and was a mainstay in the big league rotations until injuries hit in 2005, forcing him to make 20 appearances out of Boston's bullpen. Even so, he still started 66 games his last three seasons (2005-2007). If we take the top-tier hurlers from the chart above and look strictly at their numbers from 1992 to 2007, Schilling's case for the Hall becomes that much stronger:

During that stretch, Schilling was second in complete games, first in K:BB and third in K/9. Schilling betters the group's average in complete games, strikeouts, walks allowed, K:BB, K/9 and WHIP. By the way, if you didn't know, Schilling's K:BB ratio (4.38) ranks first all-time since 1900. Sure, it's just one stat off the back of a baseball card, but c'mon people…Schilling was a great pitcher, one of the very best in all of baseball for sixteen years — a period which includes at least five Hall of Famers.

One could also look at some Bill Jamesian Hall of Fame metrics, like the Black Ink test, the Gray Ink test, Hall of Fame Standards and Hall of Fame Monitor and Schilling once again stacks up favorably.

The lack of shiny hardware will be an easy thing for many to knock Schilling on, but he did have three second-place finishes in Cy Young Award voting — 2001 and 2002 in the NL and 2004 in the AL. Below are Schilling's three runner-up seasons…seasons good enough to win almost any other year:

I mean, really, is it fair to hold it against Schilling that Randy Johnson (2002) and Johan Santana (2004) were unanimous winners those years? And if awards are your bag, then don't overlook his NLCS MVP from 1993, his World Series co-MVP from 2001 and his back-to-back Pitcher of the Year awards by The Sporting News in 2001 and 2002. If feel-good stories are also your kind of thing, throw in his 1995 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award (best exemplifies character and integrity both on and off the field), his 2001 Roberto Clemente Award (selected for character and charitable contributions to his community) and his 2001 Hutch Award (best exemplifies the fighting spirit and competitive desire to win.) Fluff? Yes, but all part of the package, baby.

Finally, it'd be foolish not to touch on Schilling's postseason record. Everyone remembers Game 6 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, fewer people can recall how dominant he was in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, and unfortunately not enough people recall how important Schilling's Game 5 start in the 1993 World Series was to the Phillies. But three amazing postseason starts does a Hall of Fame career not make. To truly appreciate Schilling's big game dominance, you have to look at his entire playoff career totals:

Need I say more?

Hmm…let's review. Lots of strikeouts to go along with very solid numbers across the board, unfairly not enough All-Star appearances or Cy Young Awards to please the over-the-hill (or is it under-the-bridge?) Baseball Writers Association of America, an outstanding postseason record, possibly abrasive personality…Geez, does that at all sound familiar? (Oh, give me a break…I'm a Lederer for cryin' out loud!)

The case is pretty clear and the statistics don't lie. So Curt, the next time you want to go on record about your unworthy-for-the-Hall career, put a sock in it, bloody or otherwise.

Joe Lederer is the Assistant General Manager of Riverwalk Golf Club in San Diego. Besides working on his PGA Class A membership, Joe spends way too much time cooking and reading Nietzsche and not enough time working on his short game. Joe gets his baseball writing chops from his mother.

Permalink | Comments (35)

It's been well documented that Jon Heyman has a prejudice against, in his words, "younger people on the Internet who never saw [Bert Blyleven] play." This bigotry in and of itself is sad, but it also is a prime example of one of the most effective logical fallacies: the Ad Hominem. Essentially, as a rebuttal to an argument, one attempts to discredit the person or group of people who present the argument, without discrediting the argument.

The power of this faulty reasoning lies in its ability to change the course of the discussion. Politicians love this fallacy because it allows them to place people who disagree with their policies into negative categories. For example, one might state that proponents of gun control are elitist or out-of-touch. "It's easy," one might argue, "to be for gun control when you live in an exclusive, gated-community and can afford a fancy alarm system." "But wait," the proponent of gun control responds, "I grew up on a farm and live in a ground level apartment in a rough area of town." At this point, they have lost the argument because the debate has changed from the possible benefits or consequences of gun control, to defending one's own character.

We have seen this happen in many of the responses to Heyman's comments: "I'm 70, I saw Blyleven and yes, I use the Internet" or "those stories [Heyman] broke are really not very interesting…" These types of responses which either defend one's own character or attack Heyman's only indulge a discussion that is completely irrelevant to the merits of Blyleven's Hall of Fame candidacy. Sadly, this fallacy is often quite successful to that end.

The Ad Hominem rears its ugly head in many forms. The Circumstantial Ad Hominem is when one argues that a person only supports something because it is in their best interest to do so. One might argue that Pitcher A thinks Blyleven belongs in the Hall only because they have similar stats to Blyleven, and thus it will help their own candidacy. Again, this does not address the underlying arguments that Pitcher A may be making. One's own personal interest is irrelevant (or circumstantial) to those arguments.

The Ad Hominem Tu Quoque discredits an argument by pointing out a person's hypocrisy. For example: "Your statement that Blyleven doesn't belong because of his winning percentage is not valid because you voted for Nolan Ryan who had a lower winning percentage." The fact that someone is a hypocrite does not make their argument invalid. In this case, attention is directed away from why winning percentage is a lousy litmus test for the Hall of Fame.

Another similar fallacy is False Dilemma, which is a distortion of the logical truth P or ~P: either P is true or it is false. With False Dilemma someone will argue P or Q, as if there is some causal link between the two. An example of this fallacy is subtly used by Heyman: people either do not think Blyleven is Hall worthy (P) or they never saw him pitch (Q). The purpose of this fallacious argument is really to stop the opposing voices: either you agree with statement A or you are [fill in any insulting, degrading characterization – in Heyman's case he uses ignorance]. Now the stage has been set so that before anyone disagreeing with Statement A speaks up, they are perceived in a negative way or thought of as sympathizers to a negative group. Often, the discussion will skip right to the insulting characterization as in the following exchange: "I disagree with gun control." "Oh, so you're a hick." Notice that the following fallacious statement is implied here, but never actually stated: either you support gun control or you are a hick. Now the argument can move to a discussion of a person's character without ever having to address the reasons why the person disagrees with gun control.

Another common fallacy used in Hall of Fame discussions is the Relativist Fallacy: stating that something is true in certain situations but not others. With Blyleven, we often hear that he isn't Hall worthy because of his low career winning percentage. When it is pointed out that he has a higher winning percentage than Nolan Ryan, the Relativist Fallacy follows: that doesn't apply to Ryan because Ryan got to 300 wins.

My point with all of this is not to further the Blyleven arguments, Rich and Sully have already done a tremendous job of that. My purpose is to point out that it is extremely difficult to engage in ANY Hall of Fame discussion without running headfirst into a logical fallacy. Take the common argument against Blyleven or for Rice: "he just didn’t feel like a Hall of Famer," or "he was one of the most feared hitters of his time." Both of these arguments are the logical fallacy Appeal to Emotion, whereby emotion is used as evidence of fact. Perhaps it really felt that way to some people at the time but feelings are not facts and often run counter to reality (as statistical analysis has shown with Jim Rice).

Consider the argument that, if Jim Rice goes into the Hall of Fame, then dozens of other similar players also have to be considered and presumably, these dozens of other players are not Hall worthy. This fallacy is known as Appeal to Consequences of a Belief. The consequences of Jim Rice going into the Hall of Fame are not evidence that he does not belong. Furthermore, let's assume that BBWAA got it wrong with Rice and he does not belong. That does not mean that the BBWAA now has to get it wrong with the dozens of similar players that do not belong.

I wondered at the fact that Appeal to Emotion, Appeal to Consequences and Relativist Fallacy are so often considered good evidence of Hall of Fame candidacy. I then went to the Hall of Fame website and looked up the BBWAA rules for election. Any player who played for at least 10 years is eligible to be voted on. However, this is the only guidance given with regards to voting: "voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played." It also goes on to state there are no automatic elections for outstanding achievements.

Essentially, there are no base standards for Hall of Fame induction. The election system itself is based on the logical fallacy Appeal to Belief: if a certain percentage of a group believe something to be true, then it must be true. Therefore, if 75% of the BBWAA believe someone is a Hall of Famer, they are a Hall of Famer. It is amazing to me that the previous sentence is both a fact and a logical fallacy.

In some ways, it's disheartening to look at the Hall of Fame in this light. It seems that, when talking about the Hall of Fame, all logical arguments reach a dead end. Lacking any concrete standards, all Hall of Fame discussions are eventually reduced to irrational arguments. Furthermore, because there is no logical basis for Hall of Fame entry, examining those who are already in the Hall offers no help. In fact, relying on the current members would also be a logical fallacy: Biased Sample, whereby conclusions are drawn from a sample that is unreliable.

So how can we change the course of the dialogue surrounding the Hall of Fame? I believe that first and foremost we need a logical basis from which to begin. It's time that we reevaluate what it actually means to be a Hall of Famer. A set of minimum, objective standards would help to mute much of the illogical cacophony out there today. While I would leave the actual standards up to someone more qualified than I; it should probably start somewhere with ERA+, OPS+ and win shares: stats that can be used across the many different eras of baseball. Certainly, the standards will be hard to agree upon in the first place and will probably be heavily criticized and even outright rejected by the BBWAA (if not completely ignored). However, without a logical foundation to the Hall, all emotional and irrational arguments will continue to be relied upon and Jon Heyman's gut feeling will have more influence than statistical analysis.

Heyman is not alone in his hostility toward a growing demand for more concrete and quantifiable measures of greatness. But his comments underscore that there has been a real shift in the way baseball is being viewed. No longer are fantastical, unquantifiable and largely indefensible beliefs (such as Derek Jeter being a Gold-Glove caliber shortstop) acceptable to a growing number of baseball fans. Whether or not this change originated with "younger people on the Internet" is irrelevant. The fact is that the current method of evaluation is based upon flawed logic and is being met with discontent. Any attempt to marginalize that discontent should consistently be met with the very thing it cannot handle: more sound, logical thinking.

Conor Gallagher is a paralegal in Chicago, IL. He is also an aspiring winemaker with dreams of moving to California this summer. His passion for baseball and baseball statistics in particular began at the age of eight or so when his father taught him how to keep box scores and they would play APBA together.

Permalink | Comments (45)

Of all the personal testimonials honoring Jim Rice, my favorite is that of the much-beloved late commissioner of baseball, Bart Giamatti, who once wrote that Rice was “the Hammer of God sent to scourge the Yankees.”[1] That alone, in the minds of many baseball fans (outside of New York), should be enough to let Rice through the gates of the game’s Valhalla, Cooperstown’s Hall of Fame.

But, alas, Jim has stuck out 14 times with the Baseball Writers Association of America, and a debate rages over whether this final time will be the charm. Of course, even if he fails – or, rather, if the writers who vote on such matters fail him – his case will be shuffled off to the Veteran’s Committee where he may yet attain immortality. However, opinion across the land seems to be that there is something slightly dodgy and even undignified about entering the Hall in this manner, as though one has come through an inadvertently unlatched back door.

A lot the debate over Rice’s fate has been carried on at the level of “I saw him hit a home run against the [fill in a team name here] when I was [fill in an age under 10 here] and it was the most awesome sight I ever witnessed. [Therefore he should go to the Hall.]” We also see fierce, dramatic but intensely subjective judgments of the stature Rice had when he played. Pitchers, it is said by some, feared him, perhaps more than any other batter in baseball at that time.

SABR members and their intellectual brethren have debated Rice’s qualifications at a somewhat more sophisticated level (mostly), examining Rice’s statistics and awards while comparing his record to those of others who have (and haven’t) had their images inscribed on Cooperstown plaques. Consider, for instance, the claim that Rice was feared by opposing pitchers. Perhaps so, but then what are we to make of the fact that he never received more than 10 intentional base on balls in any one season? By this measure of “feared hitter,” Rice falls behind not only contemporaries Dale Murphy, Garry Templeton, Dave Winfield, and Dave Parker, but also Ted Simmons and Warren Cromartie (each of whom had two or three seasons with 20 or more IBB. With 77 career IBB, Rice is tied for 179th all time, along with players such as Jerry Grote, Ken Henderson, Claudell Washington, and Rice’s one-time teammate Fred Lynn.

In 16 seasons, Rice had a batting average of .298 with 2452 hits and 382 HR – each just a little short of the lifetime statistics that (used to?) assure one a ticket to the Hall. Still, Rice was an All-Star eight times and an MVP once (and he finished 3rd in MVP voting two other times, once in his rookie year, in which he lost to fellow rookie teammate Lynn). If the basic statistics fail to provide a clear answer, one can bring in second-generation statistics to help elucidate matters. For instance, Rice’s OBP was.352 and his SLG was .502, for an OPS of .854. This is just ahead of Hall-of-Famers Eddie Collins and Billy Williams, but behind non-Hall-of-Famers such as Reggie Smith and Jack Clark. So there is nothing decisive here for Rice’s case either. He remains precariously balanced on the cusp of greatness, like a star that is visible in the night sky only if you look slightly to one side of it.

The real statheads among us indulge in even more exotic stuff, like Bill James’ quantitative estimates of similarity among players.[2] Perhaps not surprisingly, Rice scores most similar to another legendary “tough case” for the Hall: Orlando Cepeda. In 17 seasons, Cepeda had 2351 hits (101 fewer than Rice), 379 HR (3 fewer), a .297 career BA (.001 lower), and a .849 career OPS (.005 lower). He was an All-Star 7 times (one fewer), a Rookie of the Year (one more), and an MVP once (tied). Rice fans will note that their man was just slightly better in nearly every case, and that Cepeda ultimately made it into the Hall. But Cepeda hit in an era of tougher pitching (lgOPS of .724 vs. .744 in Rice’s era) and, as a result, Cepeda has a slightly higher park-adjusted league-normalized *OPS+ (133 vs. Rice 128). Again, nothing decisive here. Let us move on. James has also developed some estimates of the likelihood of players entering the Hall. Naturally, Rice is low on one (HoF Standard = 44, where the avg. HoFer scores about 50) and high on the other (HoF Monitor = 144.5, where 100 represents a likely HoFer).

And so, finally, we come to James’ most recent, most influential, and perhaps most complicated estimate of player value: win shares. I won’t go into the calculations here (you can find it on the internet if you are interested), but win shares is supposed to tell us how many additional wins a given player was responsible for with his bat, his fielding, and (if applicable) his pitching. It is well-tested and well-known. It has its quirks, to be sure, but it is generally accepted to do a good job at measuring player performance.

How many win shares did Jim Rice have over the course of his career? 282. How good is that? It is tied with Boog Powell, the one-time MVP, mostly-Oriole LF-1B of the 1960s and 1970s. Powell is not, it should be noted, in the Hall. Fred Lynn is two win shares below Rice. He is not in the Hall. Minnie Minoso and Sal Bando are one win share ahead of Rice. They are not in the Hall. Amos Otis and Toby Harrah are a little further ahead (+4 and +5, respectively). George Sisler is 10 ahead and Dale Murphy (another notoriously tough HoF case) is 12 ahead, tied with Shoeless Joe Jackson. Then Cesar Cedeno (+14), Frank Howard (+15), Home Run Baker (+19), Ken Singleton (+20), Bobby Bonds (+20), Harold Baines (+25), and finally Orlando Cepeda at 310 win shares, a full 28 ahead of Rice.[3] At last, we have some solid evidence that Rice’s career contribution was, in cold reality, just a little below that usually needed to make it into the Hall; that perhaps his presence in Boston made him more visible nationally than Cepeda, who labored mostly in San Francisco and Atlanta (where he worked in the shadows of Willie Mays and Hank Aaron), but not actually quite as good a player.

A number of people have made exactly this case in the debate currently swirling around the vote for the 2009 Hall of Fame induction class. Of course, the win shares numbers are just evidence. They do not constitute definitive “proof.” One can continue to debate, among other things, the relative weaknesses of the various measures used, the importance of “peak” years, and a variety of “intangibles” that are not captured by any of the numbers. Fair enough. But this is how this sort of debate productively proceeds – from impressions, to statistics, to comparative statistics, to better comparative statistics, and so on. For instance, on 14 December 2008, David Kaiser posted an analysis of this kind to the SABR-L list, using win shares (among various other measures) to answer a number of questions about whether Rice should be in the Hall of Fame. Kaiser concluded:

The answers to this quiz are interesting because they show Rice as an almost classic case of a player writers tend to overrate: coming up with the Red Sox in one of their glory eras, he put up some spectacular home run and RBI numbers in his first few years and had one truly fantastic season. As a result he did quite well in MVP voting and was picked for a lot of All-Star games but his actual value was only once (1978) as large as it seemed, his secondary numbers were very poor, and he faded out quickly.

But then comes along Gabriel Schechter, a Research Associate at the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum, who wrote in a posting to the SABR-L list on 15 December 2008:

I simply want to register a strong protest over David [Kaiser]'s use of win shares as the primary tool of his analysis…. Rice played in the 1970s and 1980s, so how is it fitting to apply a sabermetrical measure that wasn't even created until 2001? Aren't those questions supposed to reflect how the player was regarded AT THE TIME he was playing? To say that Fred Lynn or Carlton Fisk had more win shares than Rice in a given season and equate that with considering Lynn or Fisk as more highly regarded than Rice is ridiculous.

And so we come to the real point of this column, which was not, it may surprise you to learn, to contribute to the Jim Rice HoF debate but, rather, to discuss the justice of using modern statistical tools (like win shares) to decide historical questions (like whether Jim Rice was so great a ballplayer that he belongs in the Hall of Fame).

I do not know Mr. Schechter’s views of statistical analysis generally. There are some fans (and players and managers) who believe they see plainly with their eyes (and with their memories), and that statistics, with all their fussy formulas, only confuse the issue. Without further ado, I commend to them the cognitive psychological work of people such as Paul Meehl, Gerd Gigerenzer, and Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman to disabuse them of their misapprehension. I will assume that Mr. Schechter, instead, is only objecting to the casting back of modern statistics into historical eras. I suspect, however, that he has confused two superficially similar, though, in point of fact, quite distinct complaints. The one, to which many object, has to do with creating leader boards and records for statistics that did not exist when a particular season was played. So, for instance, claiming that Three-Finger Brown led the NL in saves four years running, from 1908-1911 (5, 7, 7, 13), seems a little silly not just because there was no such statistic for Brown to lead the league in then, but also because the conception of the relief pitcher as a kind of “specialist” with a particular “function” (such as “saving”) was not yet in place in Brown’s time. It is a little like claiming that Hannibal had more “tanks” than the Romans on account of his use of elephants. I have some sympathy with this objection.

However, that is not what is going on when Mr. Kaiser (and others) use win shares to analyze the performance of players past. First of all, there is nothing that goes into computing win shares that would have been foreign to Rice or his cohort: hits, at bats, bases on balls, total bases, outs, etc. Mr. James has just stirred a little differently a pot of wholly familiar ingredients. Second, the point of doing this kind of analysis is not (only) to create a retrospective leader board, but rather to use quantitative methods to analyze Rice’s performance relative to his peers (and to others throughout the history of major league baseball). With a modicum of judiciousness, there is nothing in the least ridiculous about this process. Indeed, we do it all the time.

To wit, which of these historical questions are ridiculous? How many people lived in the city of Rome in 44 bc? What proportion of them were slaves? What was the average life expectancy? What were the leading causes of death? Among the land owners? Among slaves? Across genders? All of them require quantitative answers. All of them were questions that went unasked (and unanswered) by the Romans themselves. That does not make them historically illegitimate. Consider more questions of the same type: What proportion of the US population spoke English as a mother tongue in 1776? What proportion of the American population approved of Abraham’s Lincoln’s actions in 1863? Would Woodrow Wilson have won the 1912 presidential election if either William Howard Taft or Theodore Roosevelt had dropped out of the race?

The people of these eras did not have either the data or the methods (or both) to answer such questions definitively, but certainly there is nothing to prevent us from using the methods we have since developed on the data that we still have from those times to develop answers that are in some ways better than the ones people of the time in question could have generated (for instance, computers make it possible for us to manipulate huge masses of data that would have been impracticable, if not strictly impossible, prior to their invention).

Far from being illegitimate, a statistic like win shares is precisely the kind of evidence to which members of the BBWAA should attend more fully when deciding questions like whether Jim Rice was as good a player as the others who are now in the Hall. It allows us to separate dispassionate consideration of the merits of the case from contentious but ultimately irrelevant stories of who thrilled us when we were young. Isn’t that exactly why the BBWAA waits five years after a player retires before considering his case for entering the Hall – to let passions cool and allow the facts to rise to the surface?

-----

Notes:

[1] Giamatti, A. Bartlett (1998). "The Green Fields of the Mind." In A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti. Algonquin. Available on-line at: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rmatz/giamatti.html.

[2] The source I used was baseball-reference.com.

[3] I have only picked a few familiar names between Rice and Cepeda. In fact there were 56 players separating the two on the all-time win shares list, as of 2002. (Players like Frank Thomas have since passed Cepeda. Others have, no doubt, crept between them from below Rice in the intervening years.)

Christopher D. Green teaches statistics in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto. His academic research is mostly concerned with the history of psychology.

Permalink | Comments (18)

Free agents are just waiting for that first shoe to drop. Once one mega-contract is signed, others will surely follow. Or at least, that's the optimistic tone agents are trying to set, amidst all sorts of negative indicators.

The New York Times ran a piece last week that noted how slowly the free agent market was moving, relative to the past five offseasons. The obvious assumption is that the economy is forcing teams to be more cautious, and that the players could be in for a rough winter.

I touched on this a bit on Squawking Baseball on Monday. The Times' data, in itself, isn't overly convincing; the sample sizes are too small to have any real meaning, and these types of dead periods happen at some point in every offseason. But with that said, this is the behavior we would expect in this type of economic atmosphere.

To see how this dynamic plays out, it's important to consider how teams value players to begin with. If you remember back to Econ 101, companies will hire employees up until the point when marginal revenue equals marginal cost. So if the A's project that Rafael Furcal will bring them $15 million in additional revenue next season, they should be willing to pay him up to $15 million. This number is his marginal revenue product (MRP).

Sounds simple enough, but a player's MRP is tied to many different factors. The most obvious, of course, is the player's production. In our hypothetical, the A's could project that Furcal is worth five additional wins, and each of those wins is worth $3 million, making his MRP $15 million.

But what if the A's, worried about the economic climate, decided to do a whole new set of revenue forecasts for 2009, and found that ticket sales were likely to take a huge hit? Or that demand for playoff tickets (should the team get that far) would be much lighter than normal, resulting in lower prices? All of a sudden, the rewards of winning 5 more games and possibly reaching the playoffs are much smaller. This, in turn, means that Furcal's marginal value to the team is much less, so his MRP (or the salary the team would have been willing to pay him) goes down as well.

It's unlikely that MLB, as a whole, will see a decline in revenue next year (I've actually been very bullish on this front). But there is obviously a tremendous amount of uncertainty, which generally (and rightfully) should lead individual teams to set very conservative revenue projections, and therefore very conservative budgets.

Bud Selig has gone out of his way to make sure the owners and general managers realize all of this. During the last recession, which began in 2001, baseball revenues stagnated. The teams, used to double-digit growth, kept adding on expenses accordingly. The result was almost disastrous, with the Devil Rays and Tigers reportedly almost missing payroll.

Scott Boras has a different take, of course, citing teams' record profits and large cash positions. "I always look at baseball revenues, and in the last seven years they have gone from $3 billion to $6.5 billion," he said. "If baseball revenues drop off, that's something we'll look at, but if there is a drop-off, it is not going to be dramatic."

He continues, ""You can't say just because one sector is bad, all others are as well. Baseball is doing very, very well."

In a lot of ways, he's right. But it's also his job to be optimistic, and he's not taking into account the most fundamental aspect of the market: budgets are set based on next year's projections, not last year's performance. And there will be a tremendous amount of uncertainty, if not overt negativity, priced into teams' budgets.

That uncertainty lies in several areas of each team's operations. Taking a closer look, we can break it down by the major sources of revenue. Depending on the team's market, competitiveness, and brand loyalty, certain factors will be more pressing than others (i.e. the Pirates should be very concerned about almost all of them, while the Yankees just need to sell their last luxury suite):

1) Season ticket sales. This should be a pretty tough market for season tickets, relative to years past. The financial crisis hit in mid-September, and the economic news isn't likely to get better before Opening Day. That means teams will be facing constant headwinds, as consumers will be less likely to spend on expensive, discretionary goods such as season ticket packages. Teams will probably have to rely more on corporations, which will be much harder in certain places than others (think Detroit).

2) Individual game tickets / gameday-related sales (concessions, parking, etc.). These are linked, obviously, since the more tickets a team sells, the more concessions they will sell, as well. Teams often have a tipping point during the season, where fans either come in droves because the team is competitive, or stay away because the team is out of the race. In a good economy, a bad team may still be able to draw fans in August and September, since consumers have cash to spend. But in this current atmosphere, bad teams could set multi-year lows in attendance.

3) Luxury suite sales. Most of these should be sold by now. For those still left, it will no doubt be a tough atmosphere. But the supply is so small, teams should still be able to sell out, even if they have to lower prices a bit. This won't be a tremendous hit for a team's overall revenue intake.

4) Corporate sponsorships. Corporate sales vary tremendously, team to team. Some may have most of their inventory locked up in long term deals. Others may have several partners up for renewal, which isn't the best situation to be in right now (especially if one of those partners is General Motors). For those that have inventory available, most new deals are closed between January and Opening Day. There may have to be discounts in order, but, much like with luxury suites, most teams shouldn't see a huge year-over-year decline.

5) National media contracts. These are fixed for next season.

6) Local media contracts. Like the national media contracts, most (if not all) teams are already set with their local media contracts. Teams that own their RSN, or sell their own radio advertising, may see some declines. But cable, especially, is a pretty good place to be right now, since the networks are paid subscriber fees by the operators.

7) Merchandise. This is squarely in the consumer realm, so that's not good. If there's any way to efficiently boost merchandise sales in 2009, it's to do it virally through MLB.com. I've often advocated taking down MLB.com's pay-walls, opening up the video vault that sits in downtown Manhattan, and building an incredible online content collection. This would make MLB.com an even better destination site than it is today, and in the process create tons of new advertising inventory that MLB could either sell, or use to push its own products.

8) Revenue sharing. Imagine trying to set a budget for next year, when much of your income relies on the performance of others. For a big market team, this means possibly writing a larger check, even in the face of declining revenues. For a small market team, it means having no control over a huge chunk of earnings. Of all the unknowns going into 2009, this may be the biggest one.

Given all that, it's no wonder general managers are being cautious. In the past, when they could count on year-over-year growth, long-term contracts weren't quite as risky. Derek Lowe's four-year, $36 million deal seemed terribly expensive in January of '05. But after four years of massive industry-wide expansion, it looks downright cheap. (Don't think Paul DePodesta thought about that back then?)

On the flipside, long-term contracts that were signed in the late '90s and early '00s were considered albatrosses by 2003. When Alex Rodriguez was traded to the Yankees, few could have imagined that he would even consider opting out (let alone get an even bigger deal) just four years later.

In good times, multi-year deals are calculated risks. In bad times, they're fireable offenses. No GM wants to be stuck with bad contracts and a shrinking budget.

So what are the likely results? The teams with some breathing room, like the Yankees and Red Sox, will keep taking calculated risks. The top tier of players (CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira) should get very nice deals. But the great majority of the small- and mid-market teams will be extremely conservative, and that will bring down overall demand (and salaries) for the rest of the players on the market.

In particular, look for long-term deals to be shorter than most people are expecting. No GM wants to be collared with bad contracts in this environment, and the smart ones (of which there are more now than ever before) will be extremely careful.

In all, not such a rosy outlook. But it's really more of a call for conservatism by Selig (and Paul Volcker, apparently), reminding teams of the legitimate pain many of them went through during the previous downturn. Given the magnitude of this recession compared to the last one, expect the teams to heed the advice.

Shawn Hoffman writes about business and baseball at Squawking Baseball. In real life, he is a principal in web startup Veritocracy.

Permalink | Comments (3)

Manuel Aristides Ramirez was all of 15 months old on Aug. 23, 1973, when Jan Erik Olsson walked into Kreditbanken, a Stockholm bank on Normalmstorg square, shot a member of the Swedish police and took four people hostage.

The hostage crisis continued for five days as Olsson and his alleged accomplice, Clark Olofsson, negotiated with police and even the Swedish prime minister. During the ordeal, the four hostages were said to express more fear of the police than their captors. A criminologist working with police noted the attitude and coined a phrase that provided Olsson and Olofsson some measure of infamy long after the robbery was forgotten: “Stockholm syndrome.”

The aforementioned Ramirez left the Boston Red Sox – all but forced his departure, if reports are to be believed – at the end of July, nearly four months ago. Yet stories continue to leak about the tumultuous final month between Ramirez and the team that paid him handsomely for nearly eight years, and none of them portrays the clearly mercurial slugger as the nice guy.

On the field, the situation seems to have turned out as well for everyone as could be expected: the Red Sox received a left fielder that essentially replaced Ramirez’s pre-trade production, the Los Angeles Dodgers got an otherworldly performance from Ramirez that pushed them into the playoffs, and Ramirez and his agent, Scott Boras, will make a killing in free agency.

Everyone wins but me.

I don’t need your pity – at least not anymore. As a Red Sox fan, I’ve seen two world championships and witnessed more playoff appearances since 2002 than in the previous 13 years combined. Dealing with the drama of Manny Ramirez was easily worth those rings.

But it’s becoming clearer that for much of the seven-plus years Ramirez was in Boston, we as fans were Manny’s hostages. He pouted, lied to the press (and consequently to us), showed up late – or not at all – to All-Star Games and managerial meetings alike, refused to pinch hit when asked or even refused to play.

He did this before the current ownership bought the team in 2001. He did it during the 2002 transition year before Theo Epstein was named general manager. And he did it nearly every season since Epstein took the reins in 2003. The incidents all became part of “Manny being Manny.”

And while the Red Sox made some efforts to rid themselves of his shtick – placing him on waivers and nearly engineering his trade to the baseball wilderness of Texas being the most notorious – we as fans never seemed to fully believe the import of these stories.

Moreso than even David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez was the face of the Red Sox, and we were happy with this scenario. At least I certainly was. Heck, there’s an orange-and-white feline with an attitude that stalks my house and answers – when he feels like it – to “Manny.”

How did we let this man fool us so?

The evidence was there, even before 2008, that Ramirez cared little for the Red Sox and their fans, none at all for Boston and its culture. When John Henry met Ramirez in 2002, the first thing he heard was a trade request. When Grady Little, a man whose surname speaks to his accomplishments in a Red Sox uniform, benched Ramirez for refusing to pinch hit during a ninth-inning rally in 2003, Henry and Larry Lucchino were approached a second time about a trade.

It all happened again in 2005, and it seemed the fans had enough. Ramirez was booed at the plate that July, as his trade demands and lollygagging to first reached team-distraction proportions. But when the trade deadline expired – a three-team deal having fallen through – Ramirez seemed to renew himself to Boston, receiving a standing ovation in his first at-bat back and telling anyone who would listen that he wanted to win another World Series with the Red Sox.

Frustration turned to rejoicing, and we took Ramirez at his word. When he sat the final month of the lost 2006 season and stories began to crop up alleging he had quit on the team, I rejected these rumors. No proof, I said. No evidence.

Things seemed rosier than ever after the second championship in 2007. Ramirez began talking to the press again after his tremendous ALDS walk-off home run off Francisco Rodriguez, he began reading “The Secret,” he told the sportswriters he wanted to stay in Boston, and he expressed ambivalence about when or whether the Sox picked up his two options after the season.

With Ramirez still productive, his $20 million options no longer seemed excessive. It seemed impossible to imagine a future without the suddenly happy, suddenly affordable Manny Ramirez. He still had his moments, but there were those other moments, too – the mid-double-play high-five with a fan, the trips into the Green Monster. They were goofy. They weren’t always appreciated, but they were the kind of antics that make the game fun, that make you believe some guys aren’t out there thinking only about the money.

Perhaps that was why it was so easy for some of us to accept the mythos of Manny being Manny. The talented hitter who wanted to do nothing more than hit. Not an idiot – I always rejected that slur – but simply happy and secure in his own world. One could understand why he didn’t like the microscope of Boston, and his brilliance with the bat couldn’t help but smooth over the rough patches over the years.

Then he hired Scott Boras.

I don’t know whether Boras put Ramirez up to the things he did once the 2008 season began. For that matter, I don’t even know what exactly Ramirez did and what he’s merely suspected of doing. All I know is what’s been said, but that it fits closely with what we know has actually occurred.

We know Ramirez shoved traveling secretary Jack McCormick. We know he got into an in-game dugout scuffle with fan- and organization-favorite Kevin Youkilis. We know he suddenly demanded the Red Sox pick up his first option, and that he considered any sign of caution or prudence on Boston’s part to be disrespectful.

I watched these goings-on with dismay. What happened? Ramirez was having the as-expected rebound season from his subpar 2007. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he changed his mind, but it did nonetheless. For some reason, I kept hoping that this time he meant it. This time would be different. This time Ramirez cared. Turns out it wasn’t. Turns out he didn’t.

July was the worst yet. He sat in back-to-back games against the Yankees, complaining of a sore knee. When the Red Sox sent him to get an MRI, he couldn’t remember which one was sore. When he pinch-hit against Mariano Rivera on what was supposed to be a day off, he never swung the bat in taking three straight strikes.

It might have been the most controversial single plate appearance of 2008 in Red Sox Nation. Was Ramirez fooled by three devastating cutters from a Hall-of-Fame pitcher – two of which were borderline strikes? Or was he making a statement about his intentions if the Red Sox failed to trade him by the July 31 deadline? The maddening thing is we’ll never know. Again, I found myself defending Ramirez.

But the end was coming. Apparently, the Red Sox threatened a suspension – a threat made more believable by Boras’ inability to deny it. He made comments too ridiculous to laugh off, alleging the Red Sox lied to their players, telling the press he was “tired” of the team. He wanted out. He was clearly doing everything possible to ensure that would happen.

At the time, I wrote:

I may be tired of him. I may not love him anymore. I don't think I even particularly like him after the events of this weekend. But he's still our Manny. For better or worse, he's wearing the laundry, and that means we root for him. Just like we'd root for Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez if they wound up in red and white.

No matter how tired Ramirez is of the Red Sox, or the Sox of him, they need each other if they want to play baseball this October. And that means we need him, too.

That was three days before Ramirez was sent to LA in a three-way trade with the Pirates for Jason Bay. The Red Sox turned around their flatlining season and played baseball in October after all. Ramirez got what he wanted. The Red Sox, after their seemingly annual attempts to be rid of him, finally got what they wanted.

So why do I feel so unhappy?

Much ink has been spilled, many megabytes filled about the Manny Ramirez saga – his time in Boston, the trade that sent him west, his resurgence at Chavez Ravine. I have no interest in further repeating the many words said on the matter, many by his own teammates. I can only offer one fan’s perspective – one that renders me incapable of seeing things in the stark rhetoric many have employed to vilify Ramirez or, alternately, the Red Sox organization.

It seems clear that Ramirez through his actions was the aggressor here, for reasons perhaps only he knows. Yet it’s difficult to harbor resentment for what certainly appears to be a clear case of a player attempting to hold a team hostage – and receiving all that he demanded.

He gave us so much, after all. Ask any group of Red Sox fans for their favorite Manny moments, and you’re not likely to leave any time soon. There’s the simple magnitude of the numbers he posted – statistics that likely will ensure his induction into the Hall of Fame with a “B” on his cap. There’s the two rings, the World Series MVP, his place as half the greatest 3/4 combination of our generation.

Others may be able to push all that aside and demonize the slugger, dismiss his time in Boston and turn away without glancing back as he heads toward mega dollars this offseason. I cannot. He was our Manny. We were his hostages.

Paul Anthony is a native Connecticutian transplanted to Texas, where he covers politics for a daily newspaper. His (unpaid) night job is as a co-blogger at YFSF, which has provided a peaceful coexistence for Red Sox and Yankee fans since 2003. While there, he has compiled a list of the Top 50 individual Red Sox seasons of all time.

Permalink | Comments (12)

I'm Rob McMillin, author of the Dodgers and Angels blog 6-4-2, and a long-time reader of Rich's The Baseball Analysts through several homes. Patrick Sullivan asked me to do a review of the Dodgers and Cubs in preparation for their upcoming National League Division Series, and so here I am.

The long-term regular-season matchup for the Dodgers versus the Cubs is remarkably even — as of the end of 2007, it was 1,009 wins and 1,007 losses for the Dodgers. But change that to the Los Angeles era, and it becomes much more lopsided, as the Dodgers won the all-time series 343-281. The 84-win 2008 Dodgers are 2-5 against the Cubs this year, but that record may prove fairly useless for predictive purposes when it comes down to the postseason.

While the main reason for this is the Dodgers' acquisition of Manny Ramirez, there are other mitigating factors in play. Along with David Mick of Another Cubs Blog, we'll take a look at both teams head-to-head and review the teams position-by-position. As always, rate stats are indicated as AVG/OBP/SLG (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging average).

SCHEDULE

Game 1: Wed., Oct. 1, 6:30 PM ET on TBS - LAD (Derek Lowe) @ CHC (Ryan Dempster)
Game 2: Thu., Oct. 2, 9:30 PM ET on TBS - LAD (Chad Billingsley) @ CHC (Carlos Zambrano)
Game 3: Sat., Oct. 4, 10 PM ET on TBS - CHC (Rich Harden) @ LAD (Hiroki Kuroda)
Game 4*: Sun., Oct. 5, TBD on TBS - CHC (Ted Lilly) @ LAD (TBD)
Game 5*: Tue., Oct 7, TBD on TBS - LAD (TBD) @ CHC (Ryan Dempster)

* if necessary

RECORDS

         HOME      ROAD     TOTAL
LAD     48-33     36-45     84-78     
CHC     55-26     42-38     97-64
Head-to-head results: CHC, 5-2

OFFENSE

        RUNS   AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS   OPS+  
LAD     700   .264  .333  .399  .732    95     
CHC     855   .278  .354  .443  .797   109 

PITCHING AND DEFENSE

        RUNS   AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS   ERA+  
LAD     648   .251  .315  .376  .691   120 
CHC     671   .242  .316  .395  .711   117

Position-By-Position Breakdown

Catcher
Russell Martin's (.280/.385/.396, 650 PA, 13 HR) numbers have descended considerably from his astonishing 2007 campaign (.293/.374/.469); perhaps not coincidentally, some of this is due to his league-leading 149 games caught, a figure he shares with Jason Kendall of the Brewers. Breaking it down by innings caught, Kendall takes the lead outright with 1,328.1, while Martin is almost a hundred outs behind him at 1,238. Defensively, Martin has slipped some, as his throwing mechanics seem to have gone haywire, recording 11 errors. It's not at Gary Bennett levels, but it's something to pay attention to. Having watched both fairly extensively, they're both capable of calling good games, and in neither case should their inability to throw out base-stealers (both are hovering around the 25% mark) be held against them.

Geovany Soto (.285/.364/.504, 563 PA, 23 HR) won the 2008 job behind the plate with his stellar performance in September of 2007. He's among the best catchers offensively and he's above average defensively. He missed the last few games the Cubs played because of a hand injury, which is something that has been recurring to Soto in 2008. The Cubs say he's ready to go for Game 1. Soto is most likely going to win Rookie of the Year in the NL, but what's more impressive is that among Cubs position players, nobody has been more productive.

Rob says: Soto has the edge mainly because of his offensive game.

David says: Edge goes to the Cubs.

First Base
A lot of James Loney's (.280/.385/.396, 651 PA, 13 HR) value is tied up in his high batting average, and as he was unable to keep up his insane batting average on balls in play from 2007 (when he hit .350), and sure enough as it fell to .284, so did his average, and more ominously, his slugging percentage. Loney's weakness is his inability to hit lefties consistently, with a .249/.303/.361 line that has led to a late-season experiment using Nomar Garciaparra in a platoon role at first. This will only arise as an issue with the only lefty Cubs starter, Ted Lilly, but the difference — a small-sample-sized .339/.424/.643 — makes him a potent force.

Derrek Lee (.291/.361/.462, 698 PA, 20 HR) got off to a great start in April. He had a horrid May and the rest of the months were disappointing for Lee, the Cubs and their fans. He's essentially been a .750ish OPS hitter since April. Overall his numbers were still solid, but his defense is overrated (+1.1 runs) and his offensive skills are in decline. Lee's still capable of getting hot and if he could get hot like he was in April for these playoffs, an already outstanding offense becomes that much better.

Rob says: Cubs have the edge thanks to Lee's sizeable offensive prowess. It should be noted, however, that Lee hit eight home runs in April and hasn't hit more than two in a single month since May.

Dave says: Dodgers. Lee is a better offensive player than Loney, but Loney is about 13 runs better on defense. (ed note, nice call, Dave!)

Second Base
"What," Cubs fans might be asking, "is Blake DeWitt (.264/.344/.383, 421 PA, 9 HR) doing at second?" Well, they could be pardoned for their confusion; earlier in the year, he was the Dodgers' starting third baseman, but as the season progressed and his hitting didn't, he eventually earned a return trip to AAA Las Vegas. Nevertheless, he still finished 2008 atop the Dodgers' leaderboard for innings at third, but once the Dodgers traded for Casey Blake and realized that Jeff Kent is too fragile to stay on the field anymore, they moved DeWitt to second and recalled him to play there in the Show.

Mike Fontenot (305/.395/.514, 284 PA, 9 HR) was probably the best role player in all of baseball this season. He's limited in that he can only play 2nd base, but he's had a very good defensive year and his offense has helped the Cubs when they need extra production the most. Fontenot won't play much against lefties (only 21 ABs in 2008), but the Dodgers have four righties starting in the series. His .398 wOBA was the highest on a team that led the league in runs scored.

Rob says: This is a clear win for the Cubs with the caveat that this matchup really shows the limitation of position-by-position analysis.

Dave says: Edge to the Cubs here.

Third Base
There is no doubt that Casey Blake (.251/.313/.460, 233 PA, 10 HR w/ Dodgers) marks an offensive improvement over DeWitt (at least at this point in their respective careers), but whether it was worth giving up catching prospect Carlos Santana for a two-month rental remains to be seen. The further away from July he's gotten, the worse his offense has become (.220/.297/.415 in September).

Aramis Ramirez (.289/.380/.518, 645 PA, 27 HR) has more big hits since he joined the Cubs in 2003 than I can remember. On top of that, over the last 5 years he's been one of the best 3rd basemen year in and year out. In 2008 he improved his plate discipline and set a career high OBP of .380. The defense is above average as well. If the game is on the line, the Cubs want Aramis Ramirez at the plate.

Rob says: Another win for the Cubs, one which ends up quite large once you consider the gap between recent performance (Ramirez is hitting .342/.386/.566 in September).

Dave says: Cubs

Shortstop
This is probably the most perplexing move the Dodgers have made to date; Rafael Furcal (.357/.439/.573, 164 PA, 5 HR) returned to service very late from a lower back injury that knocked him out most of the season (his last regular season game was May 5). With only days to go in the regular season, no rehab stint in the minors available to tune him up, there's no reason to believe he'll be effective against live pitching. He was insanely hot to start the season, as his 2008 numbers suggest, but he's the Dodgers' biggest question mark. It will be interesting to see what Joe Torre does with him if he can't hit, especially considering the Dodgers' options most of the year have been the not-ready-for-prime-time Chin-Lung Hu and Royals castoff Angel Berroa.

Ryan Theriot (.307/.387/.359, 661 PA, 1 HR) is playing out of position. He's one of the worst defensive shortstops in the game (-9.7 runs). Lou still isn't asking for my advice so he's stuck at the position. Theriot did hit .300 this season and much more importantly, he posted an OBP of .387. Much like last year, Theriot faded down the stretch (.686 OPS in August, .660 OPS in September). Despite that, Theriot enters the NLDS 11 for his last 19 with 6 walks in that span.

Rob says: If Furcal is healthy, a huge if, he provides the Dodgers a win, but we won't know what Furcal we're getting until the postseason opens.

Ryan says: Dodgers. If Furcal doesn't play much then the edge goes to the Cubs.

Left Field
The Cubs have a very good offensive left fielder in Soriano who nevertheless is still far behind Manny Ramirez (.396/.489/.743, 229 PA, 17 HR); Manny has been simply otherworldly with the Dodgers. While nobody thinks Manny will continue this hot (almost half his home runs have been hit in the two months since coming to LA), it's more than enough to make up for his defensive lapses in left, something both players are prone to.

Alfonso Soriano (.280/.344/.532, 503 PA, 29 HR) had had a disappointing year defensively. He had been so very good since he moved to LF in 2006, but the combination of age and leg injuries seems to have caught up with him. Soriano led the team in home runs despite missing about 50 games. I think he's the one offensive player the Cubs have who is capable of carrying the rest of the team. If Soriano doesn't hit in the postseason (and let's be honest, he hasn't done much of that in his career), the starters will have to be at the top of their game.

Rob says: The Dodgers win handily here.

Dave says: Dodgers. It's not even close. As good as Soriano is, he isn't Manny.

Center Field
Matt Kemp's (.290/.340/.459, 657 PA, 18 HR) conversion to center was belated but necessary thanks to the acquisition of noodle-armed Juan Pierre and the collapsing Andruw Jones. Kemp logged much of his time in right prior to his conversion, but his bat (so far) plays better in center field. Kemp isn't a dancing bear defensively, but neither is he among the league's elite.

Jim Edmonds (.235/.343/.479, 298 PA, 19 HR) was picked up in May after an awful start with the Padres. As a longtime Cardinal, no Cubs fan wanted to root for Edmonds, but he made it remarkably easy to. It's as if he reverted back to the prime of his career. His .394 wOBA is 2nd on the team and his .568 slugging was the highest. My biggest concern at the time of the signing was his defense. Nobody could have predicted the offense and it turns out nobody could have predicted how well he'd play CF either. His .931 RZR was the highest since before 2004. His 45 OOZ were equal to 2005 in nearly 530 fewer innings.

Rob says: This is a slight edge to the Dodgers who don't have to give up average to get power, especially since the Dodgers won't be sending a lefty to the mound in the series.

Dave says: Cubs

Right Field
Andre Ethier (.305/.375/.510, 596 PA, 20 HR) has become a solid presence in the Dodger outfield this year, hitting for decent power and average, especially so in August (.292/.346/.615) and September (.462/.557/.692). Opinions differ wildly over whether Ethier has taken a step forward on a permanent basis, but he's been hitting out of his mind lately. Even before that, Ethier emerged as one of the team's top two hitters all year.

Mark DeRosa (.285/.376/.481, 593 PA, 21 HR) had a career year in 2008. He took over RF for the struggling Fukudome in early September with Fontenot moving to 2nd against righties. DeRosa isn't your typical RF. He's an infielder by trade, but in his big league career he's proven he can play just about anywhere. He adds above average defense in RF as well. He posted a .382 wOBA in 2008 and like so many of the other Cubs, his OBP was very good (.376).

Rob says: This represents a substantial win for the Dodgers, whether Piniella starts DeRosa or Fukudome.

Dave says: Cubs. Like 1st base, defense is the deciding factor here. Ethier and DeRosa have had similar years offensively (.382 wOBA for DeRosa, .385 wOBA for Ehtier), but DeRosa is 15.8 runs better defensively. Just after I finished writing this, I noticed that DeRosa's left calf may still be too sore for him to play RF, which means Fukudome would play RF with either DeRosa or Fontenot at 2nd. If that's the case, edge to the Dodgers.

Bench

After a futile dalliance with Gary Bennett earlier in the season, the Dodgers settled on Danny Ardoin as their reserve catcher.

Angel Berroa may get a start at short if Rafael Furcal doesn't feel up to it or is showing he's obviously not ready to play. Nomar Garciaparra and Jeff Kent will provide right-handed power off the bench unless Ted Lilly is starting. Pablo Ozuna will almost certainly be relegated to the role of late-innings defensive replacement for Casey Blake, and the od pinch-running job.

Both teams are carrying only one reserve outfielder. In the Dodgers' case, Juan Pierre is likely to be a designated pinch-runner; his starting days were all but over in the regular season, and it's hard to imagine Joe Torre using him for anything else. Felix Pie doesn't seem likely to get much playing time after he played himself out of the outfield. This is a wash, not that it much matters.

Reed Johnson has been the other half of the CF platoon and since the Dodgers are throwing righties at the Cubs, he won't get much playing time. Like Edmonds, he was picked up after his former team released him and the 2 of them have combined to put together a very good season for the Cubs in CF. Johnson can hit lefties rather well, doesn't field as well as some may think, but has had a real good season for the Cubs.

Kosuke Fukudome lost his starting job sometime in late August or early September after months of struggling to hit the ball. He won't be asked to do that much in the playoffs and he'll get a chance to be a defensive replacement. His defense is matched by only a few in all of baseball. He is spectacular on with the glove. Just can't hit.

Others: Ronny Cedeno (INF), Henry Blanco (C). Felix Pie (CF), Daryle Ward (1B/RF)

Rob says: Too close to call.

Dave says: I'll call it even because in that few plate appearances, literally anything is possible.

Starting Rotation

Derek Lowe 14-11, 3.24 ERA, 211 IP, 136 ERA+
Chad Billingsley 16-10, 3.14 ERA, 200.2 IP, 141 ERA+
Hiroki Kuroda 9-10, 3.73 ERA, 183.1 IP, 119 ERA+

Derek Lowe had early trouble but has come on strong in the second half with a 2.38 ERA. His key is getting outs on the ground with his heavy sinker; if he's giving up line drives, something's wrong with his game. Chad Billingsley is the staff's real ace, and many expect this NLDS will be his coming-out party; he hasn't attracted a lot of national attention because of a fairly slow start. He's whiffing about a batter an inning, while walking less than half that (201/80 K/BB). Like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, you never know what you'll get from Hiroki Kuroda, seven scoreless innings or seven runs in the first. That overstates things, though, as Kuroda has been about what the Dodgers had expected despite some injury problems in midseason.

Ryan Dempster 17-6, 2.96 ERA, 206.2 IP, 152 ERA+
Carlos Zambrano 14-6, 3.91 ERA, 206.2 IP, 115 ERA+
Rich Harden 5-1, 1.77 ERA, 71 IP, 254 ERA+
Ted Lilly 17-9, 4.09 ERA, 204.2 IP, 110 ERA+

Ryan Dempster was closing games for the Cubs the last 3 years and now he's starting Game 1 in the playoffs. He's earned it. In only one start this year did Dempster allow more than 4 earned runs. He allowed 4 in only 5 starts. 22 times he's allowed 2 or fewer runs. He posted a 2.96 ERA this year, which stunned just about everybody. He's been the best starter the Cubs have had from start to finish.

Carlos Zambrano has had a couple of injuries in the 2nd half. They say neither is serious, but you never know. His first half was tremendous and he appeared to be more consistent than I had ever seen him. Then the 2nd half started and he was also consistent. Consistently not very good. Despite the no-hitter, Zambrano could just never get settled back down after coming back from injury.

Rich Harden has been unbelievable as a Cub. In 71 innings, he's allowed only 4.94 hits per 9 and has struck out 11.28 per 9. His ERA is 1.77. I'm still getting familiarized by Rich Harden, but from what I can gather, if he can take the mound, odds are your team is going to win the ballgame. In 9 of his 12 starts with the Cubs he allowed 1 or 0 runs. He allowed 2 runs twice and in the other start he allowed 4 runs.

Ted Lilly is coming off 4 consecutive wins giving him a career high 17. Lilly got off to a terrible start posting a 6.46 ERA in April. He posted a 3.33 ERA after the break and held hitters to a .223 batting average. Ted has had severe reverse splits in 2008. From 2005-2007 righties posted a .756 OPS and lefties a .712 OPS against Lilly. That's typical. But in 2008, lefties have hit him for a .928 OPS and righties only a .673 OPS. He's developed a cutter this year that he uses on right handed hitters and it has worked very well. He's not throwing the big over the top hook as often so that may be why the lefties are hitting him better. Maybe it's just sample size.

Rob says: Despite a formidable rotation on both sides, the Cubs have a slight advantage because Dempster and Harden are perhaps a bit better than Lowe and Kuroda, and also because they won't be asking their starters to work a three-man rotation.

Dave says: Dodgers. They have the advantage in Games 1, 2 and 5 if necessary. I don't think it's a huge edge by any means. I think Lowe and Dempster are quite similar and their numbers are comparable. Billingsley has a big advantage over Zambrano, Harden has a big advantage over Kuroda, Lilly has a good advantage over Maddux and then we're back to the Game 1 starters for Game 5. Fairly close, but overall edge to the Dodgers.

Bullpen

Joe Beimel 5-1, 2.02 ERA, 49 IP, 219 ERA+
Jonathan Broxton 3-5, 3.13 ERA, 69 IP, 141 ERA+
Clayton Kershaw 5-5, 4.26 ERA, 107.2 IP, 104 ERA+
Greg Maddux 2-4 5.09 ERA, 40.2 IP, 87 ERA+
James McDonald 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 6 IP
Chan-Ho Park 4-4, 3.40 ERA, 95.1 IP, 130 ERA+
Scott Proctor 2-0, 6.05 ERA, 38.7 IP, 73 ERA+ Takashi Saito 4-4, 2.49 ERA, 47 IP, 178 ERA+
Cory Wade 2-1, 2.27 ERA, 71.1 IP, 195 ERA+

The Dodgers have a far superior bullpen to the Cubs in general, but there are holes on both sides that are likely somewhat illusory. The Dodgers won't see Jason Marquis or Bobby Howry except in a blowout, and similarly, the Cubs won't see Greg Maddux or Scott Proctor, and possibly Chan-Ho Park. The two teams are actually closer than you might think, because Takashi Saito, the Dodgers' former closer, hasn't been quite the same since returning from a midseason injury that forced the Dodgers to give an extended look to Jonathan Broxton in the ninth. Neither team's closer is a sure thing, as their ERAs attest, but they have been good all year.

The Dodgers use Park in middle relief, though he has been decreasingly effective as the season has worn on. Despite underwhelming stuff, Cory Wade has quietly assembled an excellent season, and will likely see substantial work. The Dodgers' late decision to add James McDonald to the postseason roster could mean they intend to use him anywhere, but I include him here; like Wade, he doesn't have the best stuff, but the late callup from AA has managed to suppress offense in small samples. The Dodgers will likely call on Joe Beimel to face lefties, where he has generally been very useful.

Neal Cotts 0-2, 4.29 ERA, 35.2 IP, 105 ERA+
Bobby Howry 7-5, 5.35 ERA, 70.2 IP, 84 ERA+
Carlos Marmol 2-4, 2.68 ERA, 87.1 IP, 168 ERA+
Jason Marquis 11-9, 4.53 ERA, 167 IP, 100 ERA+
Sean Marshall 3-5, 3.86 ERA, 65.1 IP, 117 ERA+
Jeff Samardzija 1-0, 2.28 ERA, 27.2 IP, 198 ERA+
Kerry Wood 5-4, 3.26 ERA, 66.1 IP, 139 ERA+

Kerry Wood took over for Ryan Dempster as the team's closer this year. He's done a pretty good job. He's been spotty at times. 3.31 ERA, 6 blown saves, but he's allowed a measly .638 OPS. He's converted 10 of his last 11 saves.

Carlos Marmol is good at sports. That's something we'll occasionally say around my parts after Marmol has just made a few hitters look silly. He's allowed a .135 batting average against. A .507 OPS. He's allowed 4.12 hits per 9. He walks his fair share of batters and is prone to giving up the long ball. He went through a really tough stretch in June that saw his ERA balloon from 1.75 up to 3.61 prior to the All-Star break. Since then it's been only 1.29.

Bob Howry has had a pretty bad season after several stellar years as a closer and a set-up man. To give you an idea how bad it's been for Howry this year, the month of September was his most promising month. He only made 9 appearances as Lou was kind of afraid to keep giving him the ball, but 7 of those were scoreless ones in a row. Unfortunately, they were bookended by an outing on September 2nd in which he didn't record an out and allowed 4 earned runs. On the final day the season he gave up a couple runs. So in Bob's most consistent month he still managed to have an ERA of 8.10.

Neal Cotts is the Cubs LOOGY. Lefties have hit .269/.329/.522 against him this year in 67 at-bats. This has been an issue lately for the Cubs and it likely will be one at some point in the NLDS.

OTHERS: Jeff Samardzija (7th inning, groundballs, wide receiver), Sean Marshall (long/middle relief, LOOGY), Jason Marquis (long/middle relief)

Rob says: The Dodgers have a far superior bullpen to the Cubs in general, but there are holes on both sides that are likely somewhat illusory. The Dodgers won't see Jason Marquis or Bobby Howry except in a blowout, and similarly, the Cubs won't see Greg Maddux or Scott Proctor, and possibly Chan-Ho Park. The two teams are actually closer than you might think, because Takashi Saito, the Dodgers' former closer, hasn't been quite the same since returning from a midseason injury that forced the Dodgers to give an extended look to Jonathan Broxton in the ninth. Neither team's closer is a sure thing.

Dave says: Dodgers. They beat the Cubs at pretty much every spot in the bullpen.

Prediction

Rob says: (ed note: He abstained.)

Dave says: I feel that based on what I've written above I should say I think this will go down to the 5th game. But I don't think it will. I think the Cubs win this series in no more than 4 games. I'll go with Cubs in 4 because Bill James' log5 method gives the Cubs the highest odds of winning it in 4 at 22.5%. I think the Dodgers offense is improved with Manny, but it's still not equal to the Cubs lineup. The Cubs have a rather large edge offensively, as well as defensively, that I think the Cubs advance to the NLCS.

Permalink | Comments (5)

As Angels fans across Southern California settle in for a long and exciting playoff run, they’re justifiably hopeful that this year will match their success of 2002 when they won a World Championship. The Halos won 100 games this season, have the best record in baseball, and enjoy home field advantage throughout the playoffs. They acquired Torii Hunter and Mark Teixeira to augment an already potent lineup featuring Vlad Guerrero. Their starting rotation is arguably the best among the playoff participants, while their bullpen sports the all-time single season saves leader in Frankie Rodriguez. The Angels should be the favorites to at least make it to the World Series. Unfortunately, the odds are not in their favor. My opinion is not based on injuries, pitching matchups, rally monkeys, curses, or anything of that nature. It’s based on cold, hard historical data. Reviewing the playoff and World Series results since the current wildcard format began in 1995 reveals some surprising results that would make Gene Autry roll over in his grave.

Consider these facts:

• The team with the better record has won only 49% of all playoff series since 1995 (43 of 88).
• In 2001, Lou Piniella’s Seattle Mariners won 116 games and failed to reach the World Series.
• 12 other teams have won 100 games since 1995 and failed to play in the Fall Classic, including the Braves four times.
• 5 more 100-win teams played in the World Series and 4 of them lost.
• From 1995-2007, only the 1998 Yankees became World Series champs with the best record in baseball (Boston tied for the best record last year).
• A wildcard team has made it to the World Series 9 times in the last 13 years, claiming 4 world championships including 3 of the last 6.
• In 2006, the Cardinals won the World Series with only 83 regular season wins.

Basically, it appears that anything can happen in the postseason…and usually does. So, let’s break down the Angels’ chances one series at a time. Admittedly, some of the sample sizes used below are not very large, but the data reinforces just how unpredictable baseball has been in the wildcard era.

Division Series – Angels vs. Red Sox

"X - reached first on catcher's interference"

The line above has often been used in baseball box scores to denote one of baseball's orphaned statistics: catcher's interference. It is an event that happens just infrequently enough for people not to care about it, but important enough that the official scorer has to report all instances of it in the totals of a game. The play doesn't count as an at bat for the batter, but the batter doesn't get credited in his on-base percentage for reaching base safely. But a batter who came up just once in a game and reached base on catcher's interference would keep a hitting streak going. A batter reaching base on catcher's interference who comes around to score is an unearned run, but batters who reach after him are usually earned runs.

For reasons I've never figured out, I felt that it was one of my missions in life to keep track of this play on my blog, The Griddle. I note the last instance of it on the sidebar and ask people to let me know when the play occurs, which invariably happens when I'm away from a computer, out of town, or busy with some other mundane task, like eating.

The baseball rule that spells out catcher's interference is Rule 6.08(c):

The batter becomes a runner and is entitled to first base without liability to be put out (provided he advances to and touches first base) when:

The catcher or any fielder interferes with him. If a play follows the interference, the manager of the offense may advise the plate umpire that he elects to decline the interference penalty and accept the play. Such election shall be made immediately at the end of the play. However, if the batter reaches first base on a hit, an error, a base on balls, a hit batsman, or otherwise, and all other runners advance at least one base, the play proceeds without reference to the interference.

All that boils down to is that if the catcher's mitt touches the batter's bat before he completes his swing, catcher's interference is called. And when it happens, nobody, except for the batter, catcher, and umpire really knew what is happening. The umpire calls time and the batter is told to go down to first and everyone sort of scratches their head for a while trying to figure out what happened. Eventually "Error 2" will flash on the scoreboard and then everyone will be puzzled and look around. On TV, the announcers will look at replays and try to figure out what happened. And, after a few minutes, the befuddlement ends and the game goes on. (In theory, any fielder could interfere with the batter's swing and get called for interference, but such an instance hasn't turned up.)

Why does the play happen? I've never gotten a good answer from watching it happen, but I think (and this is highly speculative) that most catcher's interference plays happen on breaking balls. And they often happen when the batter makes a very late swing or the pitch comes in to a location that the catcher isn't expecting. So you end up with the combination of a weird swing and the catcher trying to grab a pitch in an unexpected location. This puts the bat and glove on a collision course of sorts.

Pitchers, who tend to have very poor swings at the plate, seem to get a disproportionate number of catcher's interference calls. Baseball-reference.com lists 64 instances of a pitcher getting on base via catcher's interference since 1956. Chris Short accounted for 11 of them and he was also the last AL pitcher to reach base on catcher's interference, back when he was playing for the Brewers in 1973.

According to David Nemec's book "The Rules of Baseball," catcher's interference wasn't put in the rulebook until 1899. Prior to that time, catchers would occasionally try to disrupt a batter's swing by tipping the bat with his glove. Connie Mack claimed that he pioneered this strategy, but that's likely because he lived a long time and nobody was going to argue with him. However, it didn't happen too often because catchers tended to stand well behind (anywhere from 10 to 25 feet) behind the batter because they didn't have much protective equipment and valued keeping their hands, heads, and ... um ... manhood ... intact. Catchers would only move in closer if there were runners on (to prevent stolen bases) or there were two strikes on the batter (catching the third strike cleanly is one of baseball's oldest rules.)

I asked Phil Birnbaum to go through Retrosheet's data to find out how often catcher's interference had been called in the years that data is available (1956-2007). And Phil even made a graph. And after studying the graph, I believe that you really can't tell much about it.

The number of instances of catcher's interference has gone up in recent years, which I think can be attributed to the increase in the number of games and better protective equipment for catchers that let them set up closer to the batter, even if it's by a couple of inches. However, the number of occurrences isn't exactly staggering, although it does happen more frequently than a complete game shutout now.

Baseball's all-time catcher's interference king is Pete Rose, who reached on catcher's interference 29 times in his career. His first one came on August 8, 1963 when Clay Dalrymple of the Phillies was nailed for it. Rose's final catcher's interference came over 22 years later on September 19, 1985 when Larry Owen of the Braves was called for it during a 9-run ninth inning by the Reds.

The single season record is held by Roberto Kelly, who got eight catcher's interference calls while playing for the Yankees in 1992. Kelly's knack for reaching first on catcher's interference earned him a trip to Cincinnati the next season in a trade that netted the Yankees Paul O'Neill.

Dale Berra of the Pirates holds the National League record for catcher’s interferences in 1983 with seven. Berra never had another CI call the rest of his career. Although Retrosheet doesn't have complete data on Dale's dad, Yogi, it appears likely that the gene for reaching on catcher's interference wasn't passed down from father to son, as Yogi has none in his stats.

Five times a player has reached on catcher's interference twice in one game. Pat Corrales did it twice for the Reds in 1965 (August 15 and September 29). The others were Ben Geraghty of the Phillies back on April 26, 1936 and also two Mariners: Dan Meyer on May 3, 1977 and Bob Stinson on July 24, 1979.

Catcher's interference has turned up in the postseason seven times, five times in the World Series. Roger Peckinpaugh of Washington was the first player to get one and it happened in the first inning of Game 7 and Peckinpaugh picked up an RBI as the bases were loaded. Rose had one in Game 1 of the 1970 World Series. George Hendrick had the last one in the World Series in Game 3 of the 1982 World Series. Richie Hebner of the Pirates (Game 3 in 1974) and Mike Scioscia of the Dodgers (Game 5 in 1985) have the only LCS catcher's interferences.

The leader among active players in catcher's interference calls is Darin Erstad of the Astros with 13. Craig Counsell of the Brewers is engaged in a neck and neck battle with Erstad with 12 CI calls. Erstad is the only player I've ever seen reach on CI in person, back on July 19, 1998 when Chris Hoiles of the Orioles knicked Erstad's bat. Or at least that's what I believe happened as I recall also that I had to stare into the sun most of the game, so pretty much anything that happened at home plate was just a rumor to me.

Edwin Encarnacion of the Reds could be the next big thing in the world of catcher's interference, picking up eight early in his career. However, Encarnacion hasn't had a single call this year and he could be losing momentum in his quest to go after Rose's record.

In Boston, since the Curse of the Bambino has been lifted, it's now time to talk about the Curse of Darren Lewis. Lewis reached first on catcher's interference back on September 13, 1998 courtesy of Tigers catcher Paul Bako. And no Red Sox player has reached on catcher's interference since then, the longest current drought for any franchise in the majors. How much longer will the people of Boston have to suffer? (My book proposal about this has gone nowhere which shows that there is a limit in the publishing world to the number of Red Sox-themed books there can be.)

There have been just nine catcher's interference calls so far in 2008. Three of them have come from Lyle Overbay who had never had one prior to this year. Carl Crawford has had two. Other players who have had one haven't fared well. Claudio Vargas of the Mets found himself taken off the Mets 40-man roster and is now playing in AAA New Orleans. Travis Hafner has been hurt most of the year. Guillermo Quiroz of the Orioles has hit .202 as a backup catcher. Milton Bradley has had a solid year, although he seemed to be getting more and more mysterious injuries after his catcher's interference on June 28.

For many players, they can have long careers and never once have a catcher's interference. Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Cal Ripken, and Brooks Robinson are four notable players with long careers who never had an entry in the catcher's interference column on their ledger.

Frank Robinson received one catcher's interference in his long career and that came back on April 27, 1963 in Houston. John Bateman of the Colts interfered with Robinson in the seventh inning. Robinson must have been a little upset as he went and stole second and scored on an RBI single from John Edwards for the only run of the game.

There is only one documented case I know of when a game ended on catcher's interference. That was back on August 1, 1971 when the Dodgers were hosting the Reds. In the 11th inning of a 4-4 tie the Dodgers had the bases loaded with two outs and Willie Crawford up against Cincinnati reliever Joe Gibbon.

Manny Mota was on third for the Dodgers and either thinking that Gibbon wasn't paying attention to him or Crawford had no chance to get a hit against Gibbon, Mota tried a steal of home. Reds catcher Johnny Bench jumped out from behind the plate and stood in the base path to tag Mota.

This brought into play the seldom used Rule 7.07, to wit:

If, with a runner on third base and trying to score by means of a squeeze play or a steal, the catcher or any other fielder steps on, or in front of home base without possession of the ball, or touches the batter or his bat, the pitcher shall be charged with a balk, the batter shall be awarded first base on the interference and the ball is dead.

Home plate umpire Harry Wendelstedt called catcher's interference on Bench and a balk on Gibbon and Mota came home with the winning run. Rule 7.07 is peculiar because it imposes two different penalties for one act: catcher's interference, which allows the batter to reach first and the runners move up if forced, and a balk, which allows all the runners to move up one base. So how did Mota score? Did he score on catcher's interference or on a balk?

I discussed the play with Dave Smith of Retrosheet two years ago at the SABR Convention in St. Louis. And we agreed that the play had to be catcher's interference first because Crawford was awarded an RBI on the play, which he wouldn't have received for a balk.

So what have all these words taught people about catcher's interference? Likely very little. Catcher's interference is just a small freak play in the larger scheme of baseball. But it happens and you have to count it to make your box score balance. It's a loose end that you have to watch out for. You can take solace that I'm paying attention so you don't have to.

Bob Timmermann is a librarian who lives in South Pasadena, CA. He is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research. He writes about variety of baseball-themed topics at The Griddle. Some of them are even important.

Permalink | Comments (10)

Tom Petty has a song that proclaims “The waiting is the hardest part.” I think it is beyond safe to say the Tampa Bay Rays know the saying and perhaps the song quite well.

The long wait on Major League Baseball to grant the area a team, then the first season, then for the aging slugger obsession to fade out. Then for a rebuilding process that never really happened, and then finally waiting for a change in ownership. The latter happened in November 2005, but, until this year, it was more waiting, although this was different; this was reshuffling assets, this had direction and purpose.

Mainstays like Aubrey Huff, Julio Lugo, Danys Baez and Toby Hall were shipped out within a season without big-named replacements, leaving some fans wondering how much this new regime actually cared about winning. Sure, the days of Brian Meadows closing and Tomas Perez playing shortstop are terrifying in their realness, but all along the prophecy of B.J. Upton and Delmon Young soon taking over helped to soothe our qualms.

They took chances on players who others were tired of waiting on. Greg Norton, Ty Wigginton, Carlos Pena, Hee Seop Choi, Al Reyes, and the list goes on of former top prospects or useful parts that were casted aside from bigger organizations. Not too many players were willing to play in Tampa at any costs, and especially not at the price the Rays offered.

Although winning is finally here, the residuals from the waiting game are stamped all over this team with 18 of the 25 players currently on the active roster (no Carl Crawford or Evan Longoria) being acquired by Andrew Friedman. Many of the success stories from this year arise from foresight and the willingness to withhold temperamental judgments. Despite the public’s rage at not acquiring big names or making “statement moves” Friedman and company decided they wouldn’t back down.

There’s Grant Balfour, the fiery Australian with one pitch that he uses 89% of the time. Acquired in a trade, which is a common theme for this roster, Balfour worked through control issues in triple-A Durham following his designation for assignment in March. Upon his return, he looks less the guy who walked 7.30 per nine last year and more like a 13 strikeout per nine relief monster that has a 3.57 K/BB ratio.

On most nights Balfour is blazing his fastball to Dioner Navarro, the emotionally tested catcher who the Rays chose not to replace this past off-season despite a .641 OPS. Navarro was more than a tad bit unlucky last season with 17% of his batted balls being line drives that resulted in only a .253 BABIP. Navarro was named to the American League all-star team this season, his second full season since Friedman acquired Navarro, Jae Weong Seo, and Justin Ruggiano for Toby Hall and Mark Hendrickson in mid-2006.

Joey Gathright and Fernando Cortez were dealt for J.P. Howell who had such a contrast in AAA and MLB statistics that most were labeling him a quadruple-A player. Thankfully Howell’s absurdly high BABIP regressed while Howell has been getting more grounders and solidifying himself as one of the go-to relievers for Joe Maddon.

Of course Maddon himself is a symbol of the patience exhibited by this franchise. A team looking to make a statement to the fan base that losing isn’t acceptable could’ve easily declined Maddon’s dual options for this season and next. After all Maddon guided teams had finished with the worst record in the league both of the past two seasons, but the Rays persisted that Maddon was indeed the man to lead this team through its transition.

The Rays are now looking at perhaps the most rewarding of waiting projects with Rocco Baldelli. He will probably never reach Josh Hamilton status, but Baldelli was one of the original Rays golden children. As a 21 year old rookie he amazingly broke into a Lou Piniella starting lineup and didn’t perform too bad. Yet as we all know Baldelli’s body has nearly derailed his once great potential down to just shy of 130 games since 2005.

Before this year waiting is all the Rays and their fans ever really had. When Troy Percival signed with the Rays for less money part of his reasoning was feeling as if this team had a legitimate playoff shot; most took this as sugar coating his desire to be a closer. Cliff Floyd would follow not too long after using some of the same key words. Ace Scott Kazmir made the boldest of statements in spring training by stating this team would definitely compete for a playoff position. Most rolled their eyes and said “We’ll see.”

Seeing is believing, patience is a virtue, and the Rays are in first place in late August.

R.J. Anderson is Senior Editor of DRaysBay and Beyond the Boxscore.

Permalink | Comments (4)

Before we get started, don’t let the title fool you; this isn’t about that abysmal Cubs team that went 59-103 with El Tappe, Lou Klein, and Charlie Metro at the helm. And no, the world is not on the precipice like those days in 1962 when Kennedy and Khrushchev took the world to the brink of nuclear war. But, there is an arms race going on with this story, although not of the pitching variety.

The sale of the Chicago Cubs from Sam Zell, the new owner of the Tribune Company, is nearing its final stages, and with it, history will be made. The sale of the Lovable Losers, Wrigley Field, and a 25 percent stake in ComcastSports Chicago will be bringing in well over $1 billion, thus surpassing the Red Sox sale in 2002 and setting the bar for other storied franchises that might come up for grabs, as well as push the needle up on all other clubs – big or small – if and when they hit the market. Somewhere, Harry Caray is saying, “Holy Cow!”

Five approved bidders that have reached the second round in the process each have submitted bids around that jaw-dropping $1 billion. Those bidders include Thomas Ricketts, whose father Joe founded the TD Ameritrade brokerage, Michael Tokarz, chairman of MVC Capital Inc., Sports Properties Acquisitions Corp., who has Henry Aaron and Jack Kemp as public representatives, but is headed by Andrew Murstein, a New York taxi company magnate, and fueled by a $200 million shares sale this past January, a group headed up by Hersch Klaff, a real estate investor, and Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and Chairman of HDNet, an HDTV cable network.

In a striking turn of events, the bidder deemed to be a near lock for the package, Madison Dearborn Partners CEO, John Canning, Jr. is sitting on the outside looking in after offering up an initial bid of approximately $800 million, a figure that while large, came in a cool $200 million below where those that made the cut landed. Canning, a minority owner of the Brewers, and a close friend of Bud Selig, fits MLB’s personal profile better than the best Armani suit, but at the end of the day, the Cubs sale is in such rarified air, at least in terms of the sale price, that Canning’s pull with the MLB brass simply couldn’t keep up dollar signs.

And, while Canning may seem to be out of the running, there is certainly the possibility that he could pull together more capital and get right back in the mix. The question on MLB’s mind is, will he? This is, after all, the Cubs, a club that has been successful while being the Kings of Futility. There are brands in baseball, but short of the Yankees, Red Sox, and possibly the Dodgers, is there a name that resonates across America as well? MLB needs -- nearly demands – an owner like Canning. Because, sitting on the doorstep and knocking hard is the antithesis of what an MLB owner is like today.

Mark Cuban, a man whose exceptional worth (reportedly $2.8 billion) was gained through new technology, selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo! and in the process became a billionaire. And while those Armani suits describe Canning, Cuban is one who seems to see the black turtleneck and jeans ala Steve Jobs as being “dressed up.” He’s a jeans and tees guy, something that most anyone with a pulse would have a hard time seeing the vast majority of the ownership brethren ever wearing.

Cuban, the NBA Mavericks owner, has been the one driving the arms race forward in the Cubs sale. A man that seems so driven to gain access to the Cubs that he reportedly has offered an initial bid of $1.3 billion, thus making it clear: you want to play hardball, bring your wallet.

With Canning out (for the moment; maybe longer), Cuban becomes the wild card, and in some ways, the prohibitive favorite. Here’s why.

Sam Zell, while wishing to retain a minority share of the Cubs, really has no interest in the baseball holdings tied to Tribune. Zell’s main motivation to keep that minority share is for tax dodge purposes. Earlier this year, when there was talk of the typical glacial process associated with an MLB sale, Zell said on CNBC’s Squawk Box, “Excuse me for being sarcastic, but the idea of a debate occurring over what I should do with my asset leaves me somewhat questioning the integrity of the debate. There’s a lot of people who would like to buy the Cubs and would like to buy the Cubs under their terms and conditions and, unfortunately, they have to deal with me.”

In other words, a rigged deal where a lower bid is accepted by the MLB owners could have consequences; possibly of the legal variety. With Zell having a $650 million debt payment obligation due in December and approximately $250 million in medium-term notes due in 2008, he’s in need of the highest offer, and can you blame him? Going back to that 2002 sale of the Boston Red Sox, many will recall that Charles Dolan offered up $40 million more than the winning bid submitted by John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino. $40 million might be one thing. If Cuban throws, say, $100 million more at the Cubs than the other bidders, MLB will be hard pressed not to accept.

But, here’s the real thing that could possibly scare the owners: It isn’t that Cuban is a wild card. It isn’t that he doesn’t dress the part. Cuban could wind up being brilliant.

The Cubs are an underutilized brand. Wrigley hasn’t been fully tapped. Cuban took the Mavericks, in a city where the Dallas Cowboys are somewhere short of religion, and made them a player in the NBA. After purchasing the Mavericks in 2000 for $200 million, Forbes valued them at $461 million, the sixth highest rated valued franchise in the NBA. What if Cuban decides to do the same with the Cubs? How do you think Jerry Reinsdorf would feel about that?

The fact that the club that would be impacted the most by a Cuban winning bid is also owned by a man that knows Cuban through the NBA smacks of the ironic. Reinsdorf, who owns the White Sox, also owns the Chicago Bulls. How did Jerry vote on Cuban coming to the NBA? He said no. Where does Jerry sit in order of the ownership brethren? He’s as close to Bud Selig as one can get. Cuban getting through the door will not be easy, but not impossible. He’s been on record as saying he’s opposed to guaranteed contracts in the NBA. Imagine if he put his weight behind that concept in MLB?

As I wrote in late May (Thwart A Cash Heavy Deal By Cuban? Try A Marriage) the one real shot that MLB has to thwart this cash heavy Cuban missile crisis is to pull together bidders in an attempt to get the profile, and the money together. Then, Zell wins, and MLB wins. This was done with the sale of the Washington Nationals where real estate developer Ted Lerner was married up with Stan Kasten, who to date is still the only executive to hold the position of president across three major league sports franchises at the same time (Braves, Thrashers, Hawks). Sports Properties Acquisitions Corp could be that player. Henry Aaron and Jack Kemp certainly would be more stately than a man that has sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame, and racked up over $1 million in league fines through the NBA.

The difficulty, of course, isn’t the “stateliness”, it’s the money. With the credit markets taking a massive hit, pulling together capital is not exactly easy these days. Bud will be working the phones overtime to try and get the players together.

The one thing known in this deal is expect the unknown. Over, and over, and over I wrote how the deal was wired for John Canning, and Cuban was simply the Bombay Sapphire in the mix – a pawn being used to gin up the price. With Canning looking like he’s out of the mix, anything seems possible. But, let’s dream a bit. Let’s say that a year from now, it is Mark Cuban that wins the bidding, and is the owner of the Cubs and Wrigley Field. Isn’t it safe to say that the league will be more colorful for it? That Cuban would bring a competitive element? That in bringing his wallet to the table, he increased the value of all MLB clubs? Look for the next set of bids to occur in September, and the finalized deal announced shortly after the World Series. It seems then, and only then, will we know who will own the Cubs, and whether Mark Cuban is sitting at the table.

Maury Brown is the Founder and President of the Business of Sports Network, which includes The Biz of Baseball, The Biz of Football, The Biz of Basketball and The Biz of Hockey. He is contributor to Baseball Prospectus, and is available as a freelance writer.

Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network.

Permalink | Comments (15)

Last year, Justin Inaz popularized a new fielding stat, based on the freely available data from the Hardball Times. This year I decided to set up a spreadsheet (one that can automatically update!) and keep track of fielding performance, using Justin’s process. While there are plenty of advanced fielding metrics out there, such as MGL’s Ultimate Zone Rating, David Pinto’s Probabilistic Model of Range, and John Dewan’s Plus/Minus, I figured, if anything, it wouldn’t hurt to have one more. It may not get as detailed as those listed above, but it’s pretty good and it’s available all the time (and for free).

The Methodology

The Hardball Times provides us with some great information to evaluate fielding performance. On their fielding stats page, they report, for each and every player, the number of balls hit into the player’s zone, the number of plays made on balls in their zone, and the number of plays made on balls hit outside of their zone. With these three numbers in hand, we can get a pretty solid grasp of a player’s fielding performance. But, before we get to that, we’ve got a few definitions to get out of the way:

STL     45.1
ATL     39.4
CHN     35.7
OAK     35.1
SD      31.0
HOU     28.3
PHI     28.0
LAN     27.5
MIL     22.4
TOR     18.5
LAA     15.4
NYN     10.3
TB       9.0
SF       4.7
CHA     -2.8
SEA     -5.5
COL     -6.1
BOS     -7.3
DET     -7.6
ARI     -8.6
WAS    -10.8
CLE    -12.9
BAL    -17.0
CIN    -19.2
PIT    -24.3
TEX    -26.4
FLA    -38.1
NYA    -48.9
MIN    -49.2
KC     -58.4

Utley, Phi      25.0
Rolen, Tor      23.8
Beltre, Sea     21.8
Ellis, Oak      18.3
Hardy, Mil      17.5
Escobar, Atl    17.4
Giles, SD       16.9
Jones, Atl      16.5
Fukudome, Chi   15.5
Hannahan, Oak   14.9
Kennedy, Stl    14.9
Berkman, Hou    13.9
Winn, SF        13.2
Anderson, CHA   13.1
Votto, Cin      12.9
Rios, Tor       12.7
Gutierrez, Cle  11.5
Pujols, Stl     11.5
Helton, Col     11.3
Figgins, LAA    11.1

Abreu, NYA      -27.5
Wells, Tor      -21.9
Jacobs, Fla     -17.9
Encarnacion,Cin -15.9
Hawpe, Col      -15.5
McLouth, Pit    -15.3
Griffey Jr, Cin -15.1
Mora, Bal       -14.8
Blake, Cle      -14.6
Crosby, Oak     -14.6
Ramirez, Bos    -14.1
Betancourt, Sea -13.3
Ordonez, Det    -13.3
Lamb, Min       -12.6
Easley, NYN     -12.5
Hermida, Fla    -12.5
Quentin, CHA    -12.1
Cantu, Tor      -12.1
Castillo, NYM   -12.0
Kinsler, Tex    -11.8

With baseball's annual All-Star Game just around the corner, many fans are thinking about great names of the past and present. Each midseason contest includes a heavy dose of talented young players, perennial stars and future Hall of Famers.

Does that mean every All-Star is a big name with a glittering stat sheet? Not exactly.

The rules of All-Star selection - at least one representative from each team, no matter how inept (insert the 1939 Browns, '42 Phillies, '52 Pirates, '62 Mets and 2003 Tigers here) - plus last-minute replacements for injured players means a few journeymen sneak into All-Star status. In some cases, a first-half hot streak turns a mediocre player into the baseball equivalent of Cinderella, and the humble roster filler gets an invitation to the All-Star ball.

So who are some of the least deserving honorees? Here are the accidential All-Stars.

Bobo Newsom's 20-16 record for the hapless 1938 Browns (59-95) looks good enough for All-Star consideration, but it came with a 5.08 ERA that was 29 points above the American League average of 4.79. Newsom's 226 strikeouts and 192 walks were second in the AL.

Max West's 1940 numbers - a .261 average with 7 home runs and 72 RBI in 524 at-bats - are hardly the stuff of legend. Despite that, the Boston Bees (the name of the Braves from 1936 to 1941) outfielder made a big impact on that year's 4-0 victory for the National League. West hit a three-run homer in his only All-Star plate appearance. He left the game in the second inning after bruising his hip while crashing into the wall during an unsuccessful attempt to catch a Luke Appling double.

Phillies pitcher Cy Blanton was selected in 1941. He finished the season at 6-13 with a 4.51 ERA for the perennial cellar dwellers. The Philadelphia A's also offered little to choose from during that time. Catcher Hal Wagner hit .236 in 288 ABs with 1 HR and 30 RBI in 1942 but still made the All-Star roster.

Eddie Miller was a slick fielder, so it wasn't his .209 average that turned the Reds shortstop into a 1944 All-Star. Miller's 357 putouts, 544 assists and .971 fielding percentage led the league. Miller sat the game out due to injury, and he was replaced by Pirates infielder Frank Zak. How did the slap-hitting backup (just four extra-base hits in 160 ABs) become an All-Star? The game was played at Forbes Filed, and having a hometown player meant the National League needed to find one less train ticket in a time of scarcity and rationing.

Browns pitcher Jack Kramer made the squad in 1947. He finished the season 11-16 with a 4.97 ERA. While that might be decent by the lowly standard of the Brownies, it definitely wasn't All-Star quality. Tigers hurler Ted Gray was 10-7 in 1950, but a 4.40 ERA was nothing to brag about.

White Sox righty Randy Gumpert had his 15 minutes of All-Star fame in 1951 despite a 9-8, 4.32 record. Reds second baseman Grady Hatton was a slick fielder, but he hit just .212 in 430 ABs.

Browns shortstop Billy Hunter pinch-ran in the 1953 game. The rookie hit .219 (also his career average) with 1 HR and 37 RBI in 567 ABs during the franchise's final season in St. Louis. Teammate Satchel Paige joined Hunter and pitched in relief just days after his 47th birthday. On the NL side, lefty Murry Dickson finished 10-19 with a 4.53 ERA for the 50-104 Pirates.

Dick Stigman sat on the bench in both 1961 All-Star Games, as two July exhibitions were played each year from 1958 to 1962. The Indians lefty finished the season 5-11 with nine saves and a 4.51 ERA. Red Sox reliever Mike Fornieles (9-8, 4.68, 15 saves) gave up a run in a third of an inning in Game 1.

Senators catcher Don Leppert didn't appear in the 1963 contest. His stats for the season include 211 ABs, 6 HR, 24 RBI and a .237 average. Defensive and pitch-calling skills can put a poor-hitting catcher on the All-Star roster, and Andy Etchebarren pulled off that feat two years in a row. The Orioles reciever hit .221 with career highs in HR (11) and RBI (50) in 1966. Etchebarren followed with a .215, 7, 35 stat line in 1967. He did nothing more than warm up pitchers as an All-Star.

Slim pickings from expansion teams led to the inclusion a pair of journeyman catchers on the 1969 rosters. Chris Cannizzaro of the Padres (4 HR, 33 RBI, .220) and Royals backstop Ellie Rodriguez (2 HR, 20 RBI, .236 in 267 ABs) made the trip to RFK Stadium in Washington, but neither player appeared in the game.

Rangers first baseman Jim Spencer was known as a slick fielder (.999 fielding percentage and just one error in 1973), but his 4 HR, 43 RBI and .267 average are hardly the norm for a heavy-hitting position. Spencer went 0 for 1 as pinch-hitter in the '73 summer classic.

Angels infielder Dave Chalk hit .252 with 5 HR and 31 RBI in 465 AB in 1975, but that didn't keep him off the All-Star roster. Just nine doubles and three triples further illustrates Chalk's lack of punch. It wasn't defense that turned Chalk into an All-Star. He led AL shortstops in errors (29, .938 fielding percentage) despite playing just 99 games at the position. Chalk was more dependable at third base, and he repeated as an All-Star in 1976 at that position.

Steve Swisher lived up to his name with a .216 lifetime average. A solid defensive catcher, he represented the Cubs in 1976, but didn't appear in the game. Swisher's .236 average with 5 HR and 43 RBI in 377 AB was the high point of his career. Swisher's son Nick has made a reputation for himself as a slugging OF/1B for the A's and White Sox.

Dick Ruthven made two NL All-Star squads with less than impressive numbers. The right-hander was 14-17 with a 4.20 ERA for the Braves in 1976. Ruthven led the NL in losses that year.

A 12-7 record in strike-shortened 1981 looks good, but it was accompanied by a 5.14 ERA. Ironically, Ruthven wasn't an All-Star during his best season - a 17-10, 3.55 performance for the Phillies in 1980.

Biff Pocoroba is known by those who like unusual baseball names. The Braves catcher hit .242 with 6 HR and 34 RBI in 289 AB when he made his only All-Star team in 1978.

Ongoing expansion led to more eligible players and fewer desperation picks. The usual problem in recent years had been a lack of roster spots for every deserving candidate, something that usually wasn't an issue when the major leagues had just 16 teams.

Rangers pitcher Roger Pavlik was a 1994 All-Star. The 15-8 record looks fine, but the 5.19 ERA is another story. Paul Byrd's 4.60 ERA was paired with a 15-11 record for the Phillies in 1999. The control specialist gave up an unusually high (for him) 70 walks in 199.2 IP.

Rays closer Lance Carter had a strong first half in 2003 before fading after the All-Star Game. He finished the season with a 7-5 record, 26 saves and a 4.33 ERA.

Former Brewers closer Derrick Turnbow was cruising along with an ERA in the 3.00 range when he was named to the NL squad in 2006. That number rose to the 4.50 level by the time the All-Star Game was played. Bad turned to horrendous in the second half. When he wasn't giving up walks, Turnbow was getting hit hard. One of baseball's best closers in 2005, Turnbow ended 2006 with a 4-9 record, 24 saves and a 6.87 ERA, and he has never recaptured the magic of a few years ago.

The lesson? Being an All-Star is a great honor, but it says nothing about a player's long-term prospects.

Permalink | Comments (8)

Yesterday we looked at March's monkeyshines and April's assininity. Today we wrap up with May, June, and July. What? July's not over yet? No worries. I'm sure no one will do anything stupid or noteworthy for the rest of the month.

May

Multiple news outlets profile the Royals' dynamic duo of Zach Greinke and Brian Bannister. They make for a great story. One guy is a much better story, however. I mean, when you consider all of the adversity he has overcome and the affliction with which he has struggled, man, you just get misty. I'm talking, of course, about Brian Bannister and his ability to hold a job without possessing a Major League fastball.

Sticking with the Royals, on May 2nd, reliever John Bale, frustrated at yet another poor performance, breaks his hand after punching a door. At the time he has a 7.63 ERA, which means that he was probably doing his team a favor by putting himself on the DL. Inspired, the Giants put pictures of one of the guys Barry Zito's ex-girlfriends hooked up with on every door in the clubhouse, hoping for a similar miracle.

Paul DePodesta, the Padres Special Assistant for Baseball Operations, starts his own blog. Team President Sandy Alderson is generally supportive, but hopes that DePodesta is strongly considered for the Mariners' vacant GM position so that he can get the use of his basement back.

Hall of Famer-elect Rich Gossage rants about how it takes three pitchers today to do the job that he and his bullpen brethren did back in the dark ages of the 1970s and 80s. Juan Marichal, Bob Gibson, and Sandy Koufax roll their eyes. Cy Young, Pud Galvin, and Tim Keefe inquire from beyond about what, exactly, a "bullpen" is.

Giants' GM Brian Sabean announces that he thinks his team can yet contend in 2008, lauding his players for overcoming all of the "challenges" and "question marks" they faced coming out of spring training. Sabean fails to mention, however, that all of the challenges and question marks were the result of his own failure to draft and develop a position player during virtually his entire tenure as General Manager.

Jon Lester throws a no-hitter against the Royals. Unfortunately, this is the only Red Sox game in weeks not featured on ESPN, so no one outside of Kansas City or New England gets to see it.

It is revealed that Roger Clemens routinely dispenses pitching advice to Joba Chamberlain via text message. While some express concern, cooler heads prevail when it's pointed out that Chamberlain is 22 years-old, and as such is much too old to hold Clemens' interest for long.

Officials from the State of Maryland hold a ceremony renaming a portion of I-395 outside of Camden Yards "Cal Ripken Way." Best thing about it: it's a very durable road, and thus resurfacing will not be necessary until 2024.

June

There's a lot of talk about Chase Utley for MVP. It rages throughout most of the month, but eventually subsides when someone points out that he's not even the best-hitting second baseman in the NL East whose last name starts with the letter "U".

Joba Chamberlain makes his much anticipated debut as a starting pitcher. He only lasts three innings. The short outing has nothing to do with his lack of effectiveness, however. Rather, there are so many reporters assembled for the game that the Yankees' media relations people thought it would be a good idea to make Chamberlain available for interviews beginning in the bottom of the fourth.

To hype the All-Star Game, Major League Baseball creates the "Statues on Parade" promotion, in which replicas of Lady Liberty are painted with the logos of all 30 Major League teams and placed in strategic locations around New York City. Many clever wags make jokes at what might happen to a statue painted with a Red Sox logo sitting on a street corner in the Bronx. No one seems to worry, however, about plastering the racist image of Chief Wahoo over one of our nation's greatest symbols of liberty.

Ozzie Guillen goes on an expletive-laced tirade following a bad White Sox loss, going so far as to call out Sox GM Kenny Williams, who fires back at Ozzie the following day. A few days later, Mariners manager John McLaren goes on a tirade of his own, and he is immediately defended and supported by Mariners' management as "having a right to be upset." Weeks later, McLaren is fired and Ozzie has the White Sox in first place. The lesson here: chemistry is overrated.

The Rangers and Indians play a midweek, four-game series in which 78 runs were scored, all of the games exceeded three hours in length – in fact three of the four pushed four hours – and sloppy play prevailed. Box scores documenting these crimes against baseball humanity are sent to the International Court of Justice in the Hague for further investigation, and a Truth and Reconciliation Committee is formed. Experts believe that the mental wounds inflicted by this atrocity of a series can one day heal, but it will take time.

Geddy Lee, the lead singer and bassist for Canadian progressive rock band Rush, makes one of the largest ever single donations of memorabilia to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. After he leaves, the entire staff of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum runs to the nearest computer to try and figure out just who the hell Geddy Lee is.

In a USA Today story, experts are quoted as saying that, in order to limit arm and shoulder injuries, an 11- or 12-year-old pitcher should be limited to 85 pitches in one outing, players 10 or younger should be limited to 75 pitches, and 22 year-old New York Yankees' pitchers from Nebraska should be limited to 65.

In the latest of what seems to be a never-ending string of embarrassing stories about Roger Clemens, the New York tabloids report that, in addition to steroids, Clemens used Viagra as a performance enhancer. While many have alleged that "roid rage" was the cause of the tension between Clemens and Mike Piazza during the 2000 World Series, these new revelations shed a whole new light on things.

The Sporting News, the one-time Baseball Bible that has since fallen into near-obscurity, relaunches. Middle-aged men all over America are overjoyed that they will soon again be receiving week-old box scores in the mail every Tuesday afternoon.

David Ortiz becomes a U.S. citizen. Due to a series of complex treaties, however, it is still the case that any children he and his wife have during the baseball season will be subjects of Red Sox Nation.

The Mets fire Willie Randolph one day into a west coast road trip. Many commentators take issue with the late-night timing of the termination. Underreported is the fact that the Mets refuse to give their former manager a plane ticket back home. Randolph is last seen near the ride board at the UCLA student union.

The Yankees announce plans to put a Hard Rock Café in New Yankee Stadium. In explaining the reasons behind the move, Hank Steinbrenner says "we wanted the quality of the food we serve to the fans at New Yankee Stadium to reflect the quality of play they can expect to see on the field. It made perfect sense, therefore, to go with the overpriced and overrated fare of the Hard Rock Café!"

Good News: Cito Gaston is rehired as manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. Bad news: Paul Molitor, Roberto Alomar, and John Olerud are nowhere to be seen.

Bad news: Major shoulder surgery likely puts an end to Curt Schilling's baseball career. Worse news: major shoulder surgery likely marks the beginning of Curt Schilling's television career.

A story out of San Diego reveals that the Padres are looking to dump Greg Maddux. This story appears mere days after the Padres sign Brett Tomko. While Padres management continues to try and identify the reasons for the team's considerable struggles, experts note that doing things like keeping guys like Brett Tomko and dumping guys like Greg Maddux may be part of the problem.

July

It is announced that a Bon Jovi concert will be held in Central Park in connection with the All-Star Game. In related news, it is announced that the first 10,000 fans in Yankee Stadium on the night of the game will receive Swatch Watches, Cabbage Patch Kids, and jelly shoes.

C.C. Sabathia is traded to the Brewers. Extra beer, bratwurst, and large pants are immediately dispatched via convoy to Milwaukee.

In a reaction to the Sabathia trade, the Cubs pick up Rich Harden, and the Cardinals rush Mark Mulder back into the rotation. The Astros, Pirates, and Reds stand by slackjawed, unaware that teams can actually be buyers at the trade deadline.

Alex Rodriguez's marriage falls apart amid allegations of infidelity with Madonna and drunken dalliances with strippers. A-Rod is understandably confused by the fallout in the tabloids. For years he has been criticized for not being Mickey Mantle, and the moment he finally does something the Mick would do, he's attacked for it.

The wrecking balls come to Tiger Stadium. I wish I had a joke for this one, but I just don't.

Enjoy the All-Star Break. I think we all need it.

Craig Calcaterra is an attorney from Columbus, Ohio. When he's not defending the innocent and preserving democracy, he writes the baseball blog ShysterBall.

Permalink | Comments (8)

On Monday, Rich took a look back at the important business of the 2008 season to date: who's winning, who's losing, and why. Unimportant business is important too, however, so over the next two days I’ll be providing a rundown of the ephemeral, the trivial, and the pathetic events of the season's first half. Today: March and April.

March

Following a poorly-played spring training game, Royals' manager Trey Hillman delivers a verbal reprimand of his entire team on the field in front of over 5,000 fans at Surprise Stadium. Sources in the crowd report that Hillman was particularly displeased with the way that the Royals lollygagged the ball around the infield, lollygagged their way down to first, and lollygagged in and out of the dugout. This, according to pitching coach Bob McClure, made the Royals "lollygaggers."

Billy Crystal signed with the Yankees and faced Pirates' pitcher Paul Maholm in his only at bat. He struck out, but looked pretty good doing it, especially for a sixty year-old man. Since it was a one-day contract, the Yankees released him that afternoon. Brian Cashman regrets the decision, however, after watching Robinson Cano post a .151/.211/.236 line in April.

Tensions flare between the Yankees and Rays after a hard slide which broke the wrist of New York's backup catcher Francisco Cervelli leads to a spiking/beanball war. This marks the last point of the season in which the Yankees would compete with Tampa Bay in any meaningful way.

In the greatest display of labor solidarity since the 1994-95 strike, the Boston Red Sox announce that they're boycotting their season-opening series against the A's in Tokyo unless coaches and staff are given a promised $40,000 bonus. Reporters, bloggers, and the professionally outraged are deeply disappointed when the strike ends approximately seventeen minutes after it begins.

Miguel Cabrera and the Tigers agree to an eight-year, $153M extension. When asked to comment, Tigers' GM Dave Dombrowski notes that such a large and long deal may be foolish when talking about a slow first basemen or DH, but it's an absolute steal for a third baseman.

An advance copy of Vindicated, Jose Canseco's new book is released, and once again Canseco is trashed as a liar and sleazeball. Among the crazy, outlandish things claimed by Canseco this time is the allegation that Alex Rodriguez was known to make advances towards women who were not his wife. How dare he besmirch the integrity and fidelity of a class act like Alex Rodriguez in such a fashion!

Spring training ends with a series in the Los Angeles Coliseum, and the regular season begins with a series in the Tokyo Dome. Ah, tradition!

April

Moises Alou admits to Associated Press columnist Jim Litke that he wouldn't have caught that foul ball in Game 5 of the 2003 NLCS even if Steve Bartman hadn't reached for it. He later recants and returns to claiming that Bartman interfered. Somewhere Steve Bartman is living under an assumed name and not finding any of this funny in the least.

Bill Buckner makes an emotional return to Fenway Park, where he is greeted warmly twenty-two years after his famous misplay in the 1986 World Series. This is not to be mistaken with the emotional return he made to Fenway Park as a player in 1990, where he was greeted warmly four years after his famous misplay in the 1986 World Series. It should likewise not later be mistaken with the emotional return he will make to Fenway Park in 2016, thirty years after his famous misplay in the 1986 World Series.

Miguel Cabrera is moved from third base to first base. When asked for comment, Tigers' GM Dave Dombrowski notes that such a move makes perfect sense given the contract extension to which the Tigers signed Cabrera a month before. Such a large and long deal would be foolish when talking about a player at an injury-susceptible position like third, Dombrowski says, but it's an absolute steal for a guy at a safe position like first base.

A book reveals that Mickey Mantle had an affair with Doris Day during the filming of "That Touch of Mink" back in 1962. Day denied the reports at the time, but Mantle's wife fled to Paris to be with pop singer Frankie Avalon and then immediately filed divorce papers. The whole thing was splashed all over the New York tabloids.

Former Blue Jays' third baseman Ed Sprague admits that, over the course of his Major League Career, he took amphetamines and Androstenedione and once hit a home run with a corked bat. As a result, Game 2 of the 1992 World Series is retroactively awarded to the Atlanta Braves. The teams are currently scheduled to meet at the end of the 2008 season to play a deciding Game 7. Jack Morris is set to start for the Jays, assuming someone can wake him up from his afternoon nap.

A Red Sox fan/construction worker at New Yankee Stadium secretly buries a David Ortiz jersey in concrete in an effort to jinx the Yankees. Someone talks, however, and his plan is disrupted. The jersey is removed, but not before an excavation subcontract is put out for bid and awarded, raising the price of the stadium an additional 296 million dollars.

The University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports releases its annual report on diversity in baseball. Its findings: that the percentage of Blacks in baseball is lower than it has ever been. This is similar to the study's findings for the previous two decades, and will continue to be the case until generations of interbreeding renders the entire human race a sort of tannish color. When that happens, The University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports will issue a report noting that the percentage of non-tan players in baseball is lower than it ever has been.

CC Sabathia goes 0-3 with a 13.50 ERA in his first four starts, rendering him an untradable pariah.

The Tampa Bay Rays sign Evan Longoria to a multi-year, multi-million dollar extension after six days of Major League service time. Realizing that they missed the window to obtain that kind of contract security, old timers Cole Hamels and Prince Fielder take factory jobs to make ends meet.

Elijah Dukes completes his community service for misdemeanor drug charges by cleaning out cages at a zoo. His lawyer is immediately disbarred for failing to argue at Dukes' sentencing hearing that playing for the Washington Nationals was already more than enough punishment.

In what is just one of many skeletons released from Roger Clemens's closet as a result of his defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee, it is revealed that the Rocket had a longstanding affair with country singer Mindy McCready that began when she was still a teenager. Meanwhile, the eighty some-odd guys named in the Mitchell Report who didn't make a federal case out of it go on with their mostly rich, mostly happy, and mostly uneventful lives.

On April 29th, the Rays meet the Orioles in a battle for first place in the AL East. I don’t have a joke for that one as over two months later, I’m still trying to process it.

Craig Calcaterra is an attorney from Columbus, Ohio. When he's not defending the innocent and preserving democracy, he writes the baseball blog ShysterBall.

Permalink | Comments (6)

Twenty observations, anecdotes, half-truths, non-sequiturs, and sweet, sweet memories of a childhood spent with cardboard.

(Or, one item for every penny a pack cost 30 years ago.)

1. Your favorite set is most likely the one from your first year of collecting or following baseball. For me, it’s the simple, elegant 1978 Topps set, though I was later fond of the overproduced and now utterly worthless ’87 Topps set - you know, the ones with the fake wood paneling that were apparently designed with your dad’s old station wagon in mind. I have a good buddy who insists the blindingly gaudy ’76 Topps set was the best ever produced. Then again, it was his first year of collecting, and he happens to be color blind. Looking at those cards too long is probably what did it.

2. A rare card in your collection allows you to dare to dream of untold riches . . . at least temporarily. I could not have been the only 11-year-old in 1981 who discovered he owned the allegedly scarce ‘‘Craig’’ Nettles Fleer card, immediately got dollar signs in his eyes, and began plotting to buy a new 10-speed, cards by the case, a Cheryl Ladd poster, perhaps a red Lamborghini, and whatever else it is that 11-year-olds desire. (FYI: The Nettles wasn’t so rare after all; it now goes for $2 on eBay. I still haven’t got a Lamborghini, or for that matter, a decent bike.)

3. Other than perhaps a photographic archive at Cooperstown, cards serve as the premier visual history of the sport. And we’re not just talking about classics such as Mays in ’52, The Mick in ’56, or Koufax in ’66. Baseball cards also remind you, for instance, that Barry Bonds once had Kenny Lofton’s physique, a
muttonchopped Ozzie Smith actually made the Padres’ McDonald’s-inspired uniform look somewhat cool, and Oscar Gamble’s ’fro set a hair-raising standard never to be duplicated except possibly on the dance floor of Studio 54 in the summer of '77.

4. In the ’70s, Topps’s graphic artists and air-brushers were hired only after they failed the Tippy the Turtle test for the Art Instruction Institute: Did Greg Minton really look this? Was Mike Paxton actually one-dimensional? And did Andy Etchebarren seriously have a monobrow covering his entire forehead?(Wait . . . he did? That’s not airbrushed? The poor man.)

5. Other than having their own page on baseballreference.com, nothing validates an obscure player’s career more than appearing on his own card. Tom Newell, a personal favorite whose entire big-league life consisted of two relief appearances with the ’87 Phillies, appeared on two major-league cards. Not a bad ratio.

6. Rated Rookies often proved second-rate, and Future Stars more than occasionally turned out to be future insurance salesmen. One example of this phenoms-and-flops phenomenon is the ’87 Donruss set, which rated the top rookies to be Greg Maddux, Mark McGwire, Bo Jackson, Rafael Palmeiro . . . followed in the Donruss lineup by Pat Dodson, Bruce Fields, Ken Gerhart, and Jim Lindeman. But when you’re batting close to .500 in anything, I suppose you’re doing okay.

7. And who am I to judge anyway, for in my occasional attempts at investing in rookies, I proved comically inept at forecasting a player’s future. In a related note, if you know someone who wants a block of 100 1989 Topps Sil Campusano cards, I’m easy to reach. Heck, I’ll even throw in 50 1986 Topps Andres Thomases. But I’m keeping the 25 1986 Otis Nixons.

8. A childhood addiction does not lead to a life of crime: When I was in fourth grade, I got busted sneaking off school grounds at lunch to go to the neighborhood store and buy a hot dog and a few packs of . . . baseball cards. (What, you thought I’d say Virginia Slims?) Instead of confessing, I went with the tried-and-true ‘‘it must have been another kid that looks like me’’ defense, and when that Rusty Hardin-caliber argument crashed and burned, I lied and said I had the okay from my parents to do it. My masterstroke: A forged permission slip scribbled in broken cursive saying something like, ‘‘My sun Chad has permishin to by hot dogs at lunch so you can leave him alone now so he can go by hotdogs at lunch. And baseball cards also. Now leave him a lone. Thanks, Chad’s mom.’’ Needless to say, my scam soon ended with a tearful confession in the principal’s office. My parents’ punishment was both cruel and ironic: They took away my baseball cards for something like a month.

9. The Cal Ripken Jr. rookie card was never my most cherished from the 1982 Topps Traded set. Why? Because on his lone big-league card, an obscure (47 career at-bats) Mariners outfielder named Steve Stroughter appears to be proudly showing off a lovely lime-green booger in his nostril. That’s why. And no, some of us never do outgrow adolescent humor.

10. Growing up on the mean streets of Bath, Maine, I never saw anyone riding their bicycles with baseball cards in the spokes. And if I did, I’d have shoved the ungrateful little punks off their banana-seated Huffys and rescued all the Garry Templetons, Oscar Zamoras, and Felix Millans as if they were my own cardboard children. Because that’s how I rolled, yo.

11. Ken Griffey Jr.’s 1989 Upper Deck rookie card is a legitimately iconic card, as Darren Rovell explained so well in a Slate.com article last month, but not necessarily for the right reasons. The advent of Upper Deck, with its attractive, high-end cards, signaled the official transition from a hobby to a business, driving away countless collectors such as, well, me. I hate to sound like one of those ‘‘Back in my day . . . ’’ grumpy geezers, but it simply became too much for the mind (and wallet) to keep up with all the complicated and expensive Topps Chrome, SPx, Fleer Flair, and SP Authentics sets the companies relentlessly cranked out. And for the life of me I will never understand why a splinter or a swatch from a game-used bat or jersey is so appealing. I guess I’m just old.

12. It’s always a kick to see current managers the way they were as players, 30 or so years and 30 or so pounds ago: You know, back when Terry Francona had a mane, Lou Piniella didn’t yet have rabies, and Joe Torre looked . . . pretty much the same, actually, albeit with fewer nose hairs.

13. Those two cards you needed to complete your set would forever elude you, no matter how many packs you bought. Someday I will get you, Kiko Garcia and Gene Pentz! (Raises fist, shakes it furiously at the sky.) Someday, I will get you! (All right, probably not.)

14. The snot-nosed neighborhood kid who refused to trade you his doubles of Garcia and Pentz when he knew your desperation is now the same jerk-store refugee who just offered you Chien-Ming Wang and Phil Hughes for Brandon Webb and Edinson Volquez in your Rotisserie baseball league. Dude, you really need better friends.

15. The infamous 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken error card was all different kinds of awesome. Me, I always wondered what it said on the rest of his bats.

16. If you close your eyes right now, you can still smell the pink rectangle of gum/cement that came in Topps packs through the ’70s. Sure, the thing tasted about as good as a Jorge Orta card, and with less nutritional value, but to my 8-year-old self, it was a slice of creative genius. It was gum! With baseball cards! Why, of course I chewed it, every single stick from every single pack. In a related note, I’m pretty sure I’ve single-handedly paid for my dentist’s ski getaway in Aspen.

17. Dental reconstruction wasn’t the only downside to the so-called gum. Inevitably, that coveted Rickey Henderson rookie card would end up damaged by the gum’s sticky, chalky residue, while your 328th Mario Mendoza would escape unscathed. Sometimes there is no justice.

18. Like the game itself, they enhanced your bond with your dad. There were few things that brought me more joy as an 8-year-old then when my father would return from a trip to the store with two packs of ’78 Topps, and I still remember him sitting on the floor with me in my bedroom and helping me sort my cards so that traded players were with their new teams. Maybe I’m overly sentimental — okay, I am overly sentimental — but the memory is my version of Ray Kinsella’s catch with his dad.

19. . . . and someday, they will enhance my bond with my own children. Though my collecting nowadays consists of an occasional convenience store impulse purchase — the usual adult responsibilities, the advent of the $4.99 pack, and the realization that it was maybe a little odd for a grown man to hoard pictures of other grown men halted that habit — my tens of thousands of cards are tidily tucked away in the attic and my home office, waiting to be rediscovered by my young children a few years from now. Hopefully, they’ll never notice that Gene Pentz and Kiko Garcia are nowhere to be found.

20. ‘‘The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading, and Bubble Gum Book’’ is a literary classic and should be taught in all high schools throughout the United States and certain parts of Canada. If you enjoyed reading this anywhere close to as much as I enjoyed writing it — and bless your cardboard-lovin’ soul if you did — then I guarantee you will treasure this nostalgic look at cards of the ’50s and ’60s, written with delightful wit by Brendan C. Boyd and Fred C. Harris. I’d love to read a sequel featuring cards of the ’70s and ’80s but it’s hard to imagine it would do the original justice.

Chad Finn is a sports copy editor at The Boston Globe and the founder and sole writer of Boston.com’s Touching All The Bases, a blog that takes a passionate but irreverent look at Boston sports. He lives in Wells, Maine, with his wife Jennifer, their children Leah and Alex, and a cat named after Otis Nixon.

Permalink | Comments (16)

As I write this, the Seattle Mariners have the worst record in baseball at 24-42. They stand 16 1/2 games behind the first place Angels and, worse, they stand a staggering nine games behind the third place Texas Rangers. The team will have to play inspired baseball for the rest of the season to just avoid finishing in last place, and suffice it to say, this isn't how the front office saw the 2008 season going.

"It's a completely demoralizing position we're in right now, based on the completely legitimate (preseason) expectations" was the line recently offered up by General Manager Bill Bavasi after last week's sweep at the hand of an Angels roster missing Vladimir Guerrero and Chone Figgins in a series where John Lackey didn't take the mound. Even with the reality of lousiness staring them in the face, the executives in charge of compiling this roster are unwilling to admit that this team was assembled poorly. It wasn't just a bad move here or an underperforming player there, but a long series of poor decisions that have led to this abysmal season. In fact, the foundations for this failure were laid years ago. Let's look at where this disaster started.

October 27, 2003

Coming off a 93 win season that saw the team fade down the stretch and fail to make the playoffs, Pat Gillick resigned as GM and was replaced by Bill Bavasi, but the basic plan for that offseason was laid before Gillick ever stepped aside. Central to that plan was the decision to decline an offer of arbitration to Mike Cameron, who badly wanted to stay in Seattle. Cameron was vastly underappreciated by the organization due to his contact problems and their failure to understand just how valuable his glove was in center field. Two weeks later, they announced the signing of Raul Ibanez to play left field, shifting Randy Winn to cover center in Cameron's absence. At the time, they noted the defensive downgrade but explained that it would be more than offset by the offensive improvement. Ibanez has hit well since returning to Seattle, but his defense in left field can only be described as atrocious and is one of the most glaring issues that has sunk the 2008 team to the bottom of the A.L. West. The seeds of the Ibanez-as-LF disaster were planted on the day that the team decided to jettison Cameron and make a conscious decision to sacrifice defense while chasing minor offensive improvements.

January 8, 2004

The Mariners organization has long been infatuated with player personalities and their effects on team chemistry, often making headscratching decisions based not on on-field ability but instead on thier preconceived notions of leadership and how the game is supposed to be played. That move is typified in the decision to literally give Carlos Guillen to the Tigers, as the organization had grown weary of his late-night drinking and his perceived negative influence on Freddy Garcia. They decided that they would rather go with Rich Aurilia as their shortstop - a guy who more fit their mold of how players should approach the game than Guillen. Aurilia was a gigantic bust and was released four months later, while Guillen has gone on to become one of the American League's best infielders ever since. It was impossible to see Guillen's breakout coming at the time, but the logic used - choosing to field a worse baseball team in order to have better people on it - has haunted the organization repeatedly over the years.

December 15, 2004

After a disastrous 2003 season, the organization was determined to make a big splash and find some new offensive stars to build around, using their financial advantage over the rest of the division to rebuild through free agency. They coveted Carlos Delgado's left-handed power, but after a long dance with him over contract terms, they got tired of waiting and threw $52 million at Plan B - Richie Sexson. Heading into his age 30 season and coming off a major injury while possessing classic old player skills, making a long term commitment to a player with Sexson's profile looked remarkably foolish at the time, and the concerns we raised about guaranteeing an aging Sexson big money have proven true with time. He's simply aged very poorly and is not a major league quality starting first baseman anymore, but the Mariners owe him $15.5 million for the 2008 season. Instead of looking at an aging veteran heading for decline and finding a younger, cheaper alternative, the organization focused on intangibles such as Sexson's intimidating power and ability to be an RBI man. Unwilling to admit that they had missed the boat on how he was going to age, Mariners fans instead got to watch his career end mercilessly during both the '07 and '08 seasons, while Sexson became the embodiment of everything wrong with this team.

December 22, 2005

If there's one glaring flaw the front office of the Mariners has, it's a total inability to evaluate pitching talent. They come from a bent that is entirely seduced by results and cares nothing about the process or the context that those results were produced in. Nowhere is this more obvious than when the Mariners gave Jarrod Washburn a 4-year, $37.5 million deal to leave the Angels and join their starting rotation. Washburn was coming off a 2005 season where he posted an obviously flukey 3.20 ERA, built entirely on a house of runner-stranding cards. His league high left-on-base percentage predictably regressed to the mean, and he went right back to being the #5 starter that he's been for years. Instead of being a solidifying force in the rotation, Washburn has given the M's 445 innings with a 4.72 ERA in a terrific pitcher's park since signing. Despite having to watch him implode in 2008, the M's are on the hook for another $10 million in salary in 2009, and they'd be lucky to give Washburn away at this point. Thanks to a pitching analysis based on results, the organization continues to just wildly misunderstand how to predict future run prevention, and this is most obvious with the Washburn contract. By the way, the next best offer Washburn had on the table was 2 years at a total of $14 million.

January 4, 2006

Faced with a strong desire for some "left handed sock," the M's focused on a list of low-cost, one-year options to fill the hole at Designated Hitter. Completely ignoring the entire concept of replacement level, the M's disregarded every player on the planet that wasn't a proven veteran with a long track record of success, essentially ensuring they were going to get a washed-up old timer on his last legs. That guy turned out to be Carl Everett, and his could-see-it-coming-a-mile-away failure both doomed the offense and led to an even more heinous transaction, when the Mariners shipped Asdrubal Cabrera and Shin-Soo Choo to Cleveland in separate deals to acquire the DH platoon of Ben Broussard and Eduardo Perez. Neither of the new acquisitions did much to help an offense that was in disrepair, and the careless giving away of talented youngsters in search of proven veterans depleted the farm system of guys who could have helped the team down the line. When asked directly why the team chose Everett over free talent guys such as Carlos Pena, Bavasi replied that "we know Everett can hit 5th or 6th in the line-up, and Pena just hasn't proven that he can do that yet". Good call, Bill.

December 7, 2006

In another transaction that was bad enough on its own and unbelievably horrible based on the future events it led to, we have the inexplicable Rafael Soriano for Horacio Ramirez trade. The M's were tired of Soriano's lack of durability and believed that his elbow was a ticking time bomb, so they set out to trade him at the winter meetings that year. They settled on a left-handed National Leaguer with a NL fastball because "he'd won some games before" and the Braves were willing to make him available. Ramirez was a complete disaster, giving the Mariners 100 innings of below replacement level performance before getting released. To replace Soriano, the Mariners then converted 2006 #1 draft pick Brandon Morrow into a relief pitcher, believing that they needed a new power arm to replace the one they just lost. Two years later and Morrow is still stuck in the bullpen, losing precious development time and not being able to be viewed as a potential option for the rotation. Because Morrow wasn't considered starter material, the Mariners blew $48 million on tub-of-goo Carlos Silva and then spent a first round pick on Josh Fields in the 2008 draft in order to have a new power reliever in the organization to allow them to move Morrow back to the rotation eventually. By trading Soriano, the M's not only got back a horrible pitcher, but they also opened several holes on the roster that they then spent precious valuable resources trying to fill.

December 18, 2006

Finally, the cherry on top of this amazing series of bad roster moves. Determined to not let Everett go down as the worst designated hitter in organizational history, the M's made the decision to fill their DH role for 2007 with a broken down middle infielder who had the power of an eight-year-old girl. The Nationals simply wanted to move Jose Vidro, who didn't fit in a league where defense was required, and somehow convinced the Mariners to pick up $12 million of the remaining $18 million left on Vidro's contract. The rationale given was that a move to DH would somehow restore the 32-year-old's power and, besides, they really needed a #2 hitter who didn't strike out, despite the fact that they had a team full of guys whose best skill was contact and lacked power. Not surprisingly, Vidro's power never returned, and he's posted a .289/.350/.376 line since coming over in the trade from Washington. Only in Seattle would that be acceptable as a performance from a designated hitter completely incapable of playing the field or running the bases, but somehow, that's what the organization decided they wanted. Vidro's presence on the roster not only kept the remains of Ibanez comically chasing fly balls in the outfield, but it also has forced them to keep top prospect Jeff Clement languishing in Tacoma while he destroys Pacific Coast League pitching. Hilariously, Vidro's 2008 performance has been so terrible (.215/.260/.323) that most fans are amazed he hasn't been released yet, but John McLaren's lineup construction veers so far from reality that he's spent the last two weeks alternating between the 3rd and 4th spots in the batting order. Seriously, Vidro, he of the .583 OPS, spent several games hitting cleanup for the Mariners recently. I wish I was kidding.

Through it all, the Mariners front office has demonstrated a staggering lack of ability to evaluate and project major league talent. They have repeatedly misunderstood what makes a winning team and made brutally bad choices that are compounded by even worse decisions trying to fix the problems created by the first act of ignorance. Through it all, they've doggedly maintained that their ways are effective and will work despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Team President Chuck Armstrong, talking about the season and the job status of the front office on May 25th, uttered the following quotes:

"In my 23 years, I have never ever seen anything like this," Armstrong said "We saw it the other way in 2001. I mean, you have to ask yourself, 'How did the Mariners win 116 games that season with that roster, compared to this roster?' This is just as inexplicable the other way."

"Their positions are secure," Armstrong said "They are not to be blamed for what's going on."

"We have given no thought to making any changes in managerial personnel," Armstrong said. "Same for the GM. Listen, he's part of the solution, not the problem."

What's worse than abject failure? How about rooting for an organization that can't even recognize the problem from the solution? The Mariners executives are so rooted in their ways, so dogmatic in their wrongheadedness, that there is seemingly no light at the end of this long tunnel that we call being a Mariner fan. $117 million dollars in payroll has bought them a roster on pace to lose 104 games, and through it all, they won't admit responsibility. It's inexplicable, after all. What else is there to be said?

David Cameron, along with Derek Zumsteg, authors the ussmariner.com blog that covers the Seattle organization in more depth than they care to admit. He also writes daily for fangraphs.com as he looks to remember what it's like to enjoy watching baseball again.

Permalink | Comments (38)

Whose career has been more productive – Ken Griffey or Chipper Jones?

Ken Griffey Jr. is about to hit his 600th home run. He has had a tremendous career and is a walk-in Hall of Famer. Griffey’s career has been lauded as one of the best ever. Rightfully so – Griffey is a terrific player, and has been most of his career. It will be great for him to reach 600 home runs and join a very small group.

Griffey is in the last year or so of his career. After the various PED scandals, Griffey is often anointed as the clean one from the era, and so he’ll get to be the face of “the best player” for the 1990s and 2000s. Mostly because he is much more popular than Alex Rodriguez.

Griffey has also been a centerfielder with the hitting career of a first baseman. The hitting he’s provided at his position only serves to maximize his value. He has always had a big defensive reputation, although many analyses have shown him to be just okay in his early career and downright awful in center late in his career. He’s been moved to right field, which helps his defense, but also increases the “requirement” on his batting performance at a time when his production is waning. Griffey’s bat has still been good coming into 2008, around average and above replacement level.

What does this have to do with Chipper Jones? Chipper is hitting a ton to open 2008, and even though it is just mid-May, articles have cropped up about the possibility of him hitting .400 for the season. Now, that is silly enough in its own right. The good news is it puts the spotlight on Chipper and gotten people to consider the quality of his career.

Chipper Jones is a great third baseman. He’s always been a top tier hitter and a solid fielder. While Chipper’s prowess with the bat is never questioned, his rank among great third basemen has. The problem is traditional metrics have shown Chipper to be a poor fielder. His Range Factor (Assists plus putouts per game) has routinely been below league norms. In the face of a significant groundball pitching staff with Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, and lots of left-handed pitcher innings, Chipper “should” have seen many more chances than league average. To be converting fewer outs than league average could only mean he is a poor defensive third baseman. Chipper being moved off third base in 2002 to a weak fielder position in left field demonstrated that even the Braves recognized Chipper’s shortcomings.

Traditional metrics are wrong. Chipper’s defensive play is one of the most misunderstood performances in baseball. Chipper’s defense has been below average exactly twice in his thirteen-year career. He’s averaged about +4 defensive runs per season. For his career, he’s about 50 runs above average defensively.

What does this have to do with Ken Griffey? Griffey is going to be considered one of the greatest centerfielders ever to play. He’s going to be mentioned alongside Mantle, Mays, Cobb, Speaker. Chipper may or may not end up being mentioned alongside Schmidt, Mathews and Brett. He could end up being mentioned with Brooks Robinson and Pie Traynor, or worse, Ron Santo.

Ken Griffey is playing his 20th season, and he’s had a great career. He has accumulated over 1000 VORP (Value Over Replacement Player from Baseball Prospectus) in runs. Griffey hasn’t been great overall with the glove, and he averages just -4 runs, plenty of that coming from his last few years in center. For Griffey’s career, which has seen its decline phase, he has 1017 VORP runs and -79 defensive runs saved. He will head to the HoF with approximately 938 runs to his credit, as he’s unlikely to improve either of those marks significantly.

Chipper Jones is headed toward summer hitting over .400. Well over .400. He has 888 VORP runs and 52 defensive runs saved. He’s got quite a few more runs to pile up this season, and will play several more seasons. Chipper already has 940 runs. In Chipper’s decline phase, his defense may regress, but he’s going to pile up many more offensive runs.

So what is a good VORP over twenty years? Griffey is number four in total VORP over the last 20 years, behind Bonds and Frank Thomas and ARod. Everyone over 800 VORP is a future hall of famer, with the exception of Rafael Palmiero. The top players:

Barry Bonds
Frank Thomas
Ken Griffey Jr.
Jeff Bagwell
Alex Rodriguez
Edgar Martinez
Gary Sheffield
Rafael Palmeiro
Roberto Alomar
Craig Biggio
Manny Ramirez
Mike Piazza

Ken Griffey Jr., rightfully, will be recognized as one of the greatest players of this, or any generation, and will forever be lauded as one of the finest players ever – possibly inner circle. Chipper Jones has been every bit as good and so many people are unaware of what they are watching. Chipper isn’t just good, and he isn’t just great. Chipper is an all-time great RIGHT NOW. Hopefully he can chase .400 long enough so everyone remembers him that way.

============

Chris is a pharmaceutical research manager, which is good, because as a Mets fan, he knows where to find the anti-depressants. Turn-ons: Mets, defensive analysis, vodka. Turn-offs: The F'N Cardinals, feel-good stories, any form of adjusted Range Factor. His writings can be found at Baseball Think Factory. Consider yourselves warned.

(Ed. Note: For another exemplary Chris Dial work, have a look at this piece over at BTF on advanced defensive metrics.)

Permalink | Comments (28)

I'm Rich's mother and agreed to "do" this story for Mother's Day. He and his son Joe are flying home today after spending a week on the east coast, attending games at Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, and Shea Stadium, as well as visiting Cooperstown for a couple of days.

My credentials – I probably should say credential – are having been married to a sportswriter for thirty years. There were definitely some perks.

Receiving four season tickets to the Dodgers games during the eleven years (1958-68) George covered them for the Long Beach Press-Telegram. These tickets probably had a lot to do with our immense popularity at that time.

Rubbing elbows with the players. Unlike today's multi-millionaire players, the athletes in the sixties were very approachable. We carpooled back and forth to and from the airport with the likes of Gino Cimoli and Stan Williams; played bridge with the Roebucks and Ginger Drysdale. Drove to spring training games in Phoenix with Jeri Roseboro, bought flatware from one of the Sherry brothers during the off-season (can't remember which one), received an etched-glass invitation to Frank Tanana’s wedding (didn’t go, can’t imagine now why not), were guests of the Drysdales at their Hidden Hills home and traded recipes with Pat Reiser (as in Mrs. Pete).

Receiving a color television set for Christmas from the Dodgers after they won the World Series in 1959! We were the only ones in our large circle of friends (remember the season tickets?) to own one and we certainly were popular the following week during the Rose parade! Think that would be a conflict of interest today? The Dodgers even handed out meal money to the writers before every trip. In cash!

Accompanying George on a road trip. That was an event! I flew on the "Kay O" Dodger plane with the team. As an interesting aside, the plane landed to refuel on a distant tarmac in Grand Island, Nebraska. I loudly shared (shouted?) that I was born in Grand Island, Nebraska. Some wag loudly proclaimed, "Nobody was born in Grand Island, Nebraska!" The trip included stops in St Louis, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. The World's Fair was taking place near Shea Stadium, and I was able to view Michelangelo's Pieta from a moving sidewalk before going to a game. Highlight! One day, after a game in New York, Maury Wills took George and me on a tour of Greenwich Village. We stopped in several bars where he was well known and in the last one he was invited to play Banjo with the small jazz band. Incredible!

Richard has written about the two pair of shoes, complete with pitching toes that Sandy Koufax gave to our left-handed pitching teenager, Tom, when he retired. Only one shoe has survived. And the priceless souvenir that is the official scorer's (George) score card, framed along with Walter Alston's lineup card that hung in the dugout of Sandy Koufax's perfect game. Cooperstown wants that, but we are hanging on to it!

It seemed like George was on the road so much during those years – six weeks each spring in Vero Beach and every road trip during the season – that we jokingly referred to him as "Uncle Daddy." But those were wonderful times, the memories of which we will treasure forever. Happy Mother's Day to me and all the other baseball wives and widows!

Permalink | Comments (6)

While there's usually much chatter about clutch batting and whether it exists or doesn't exist, it seems as though clutch pitching doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should. If you believe batters step it up a notch when the game is on the line, it'd be only natural that pitchers also know when the game is on the line and would try a little harder in those situations, too.

There are lots of stats to measure how "lucky" a pitcher is, such as batting average on balls in play and left on base percentage. There's also ERA estimators such as FIP, which take into account walks, strikeouts, and home runs and then estimate what a pitcher's ERA should have been. But the problem is, none of these stats take into account how important a situation is in a game and that's where Leverage Index comes in to play.

Leverage Index measures the importance of a particular situation based on the game state (inning, score, runners, outs) of a game. It ranges from 0 to 10.9, with 1 being an average situation and 10.9 being the most important situation possible.

So let's look at which players have had the most and least success in high-leverage situations (LI of 2 or more) the past six years by looking at the difference in FIP between high-leverage situations and all other situations. I chose FIP because ERA doesn't really work for starting pitchers when looking at high-leverage situations and FIP is a better measure of a pitcher's overall skill. To qualify for this study, pitchers must have pitched a minimum of 50 high-leverage innings.

The "Clutch" Starters:

Name	        (other LI)(high LI)     Dif
Brad Penny          4.02      2.78      1.24
Jake Peavy          3.67      2.44      1.23
Chris Carpenter     3.72      2.75      0.97
Jeff Suppan         4.81      3.92      0.88
Jason Marquis       5.21      4.47      0.74
Dontrelle Willis    4.13      3.41      0.73
Jason Johnson       4.69      4.03      0.66
Victor Zambrano     5.30      4.64      0.66
Mike Maroth         5.13      4.48      0.65
Matt Morris         4.36      3.72      0.64

Topping the list is Brad Penny, followed by 2007 Cy Young winner Jake Peavy and then 2005 Cy Young winner Chris Carpenter. These three pitchers over the past five years have done exceptionally well in high-leverage situations. The real difference maker for Peavy is that he's allowed just a single home run in over 69 high-leverage innings.

The "Un-Clutch" Starters:

Name	        (other LI)(high LI)     Dif
Odalis Perez        4.17      5.76     -1.59
Jeff Weaver         4.43      5.93     -1.50
Kyle Lohse          4.66      5.86     -1.19
John Lackey         3.79      4.87     -1.08
Jason Schmidt       3.41      4.42     -1.01
Roy Oswalt          3.34      4.27     -0.93
Jose Contreras      4.46      5.37     -0.90
Jamie Moyer         4.73      5.56     -0.83
Tim Wakefield       4.61      5.39     -0.78
Johan Santana       3.17      3.94     -0.77

I can't say I'm incredibly surprised to see Jeff Weaver near the top of this list, but it's definitely interesting to see the likes of John Lackey, Roy Oswalt, and Johan Santana as "un-clutch." In high-leverage situations Santana has a slightly increased BB/9 and HR/9, Oswalt's K/9 drops nearly 2 points with a slight increase in BB/9, and Lackey's K/9, BB/9, and HR/9 all head about half a point in the wrong direction.

Time to check in on the relievers:

The "Clutch" Relievers:

Name	           (low LI) (high LI)    Dif
Joaquin Benoit        4.60      3.62     0.97
Jason Frasor          4.15      3.22     0.93
Francisco Rodriguez   3.21      2.29     0.93
Jonathan Papelbon     3.06      2.20     0.86
Ryan Madson           4.49      3.78     0.71
J.C. Romero           4.51      3.96     0.55
Chad Bradford         3.67      3.13     0.54
Kyle Farnsworth       4.11      3.60     0.51
Eric Gagne            2.22      1.73     0.49
Todd Jones            4.08      3.60     0.49

I must admit Eric Gagne's FIP in high-leverage situations is rather ridiculous; however, I should note this does not include his 2008 stats. In high-leverage situations, Jon Papelbon strikes out over 1 more batter per 9 innings and walks 1 less per 9 while K-Rod lowers his HR/9 by a considerable amount.

The "Un-Clutch" Relievers:

Name	           (low LI) (high LI)    Dif
Jason Isringhausen    2.97      4.78    -1.80
Justin Speier         3.97      5.56    -1.59
Keith Foulke          3.49      5.03    -1.54
Guillermo Mota        3.70      4.98    -1.28
Jesus Colome          4.65      5.76    -1.11
Jorge Julio           4.40      5.39    -0.99
Fernando Rodney       3.83      4.80    -0.98
Alan Embree           3.50      4.44    -0.95
Billy Wagner          2.60      3.52    -0.93
Cliff Politte         4.36      5.21    -0.85

It's a little surprising to see that Jason Isringhausen who has 212 saves since 2002 is not that great when it counts. In high-leverage situations he walks 3 more batters per 9 innings. Wow. And Keith Foulke appears to have a home run problem in those tight spots along with Billy Wagner.

It's always fun to look back and see who has been clutch, but are the same pitchers clutch every year? Unfortunately not. There's pretty much no correlation from year-to-year when it comes to how pitchers do in high-leverage situations compared to how they do in non-high-leverage situations.

So it looks like the same rule that applies to batters also applies to pitchers: you can tell who has been clutch, but you can't predict who will be clutch.

David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.com.

Permalink | Comments (19)

What do the following have in common? Sandy Koufax, Lefty Grove and Dazzy Vance. Right, they were all truly awful hitters. What about these three? Harmon Killebrew, Ralph Kiner and Hank Greenberg? Right again. They were all mediocre to poor fielders.

Somehow all six managed to get elected to the Hall of Fame.

Let's try another quiz. What connects Wes Ferrell, Don Newcombe and Bucky Walters? Well done, they are among the best-hitting pitchers in history. On the other hand, the similarity among Paul Blair, Roy McMillan and Jerry Grote is that they are among the best fielders at critical defensive positions. Except, in this case, none of the six is in the Hall of Fame with the only one receiving any support being Ferrell.

We can consider the issue another way. Suppose two shortstops are competing for a roster spot. Shortstop A is a brilliant fielder but barely adequate with the bat. Shortstop B is a decent enough fielder and a star with the bat. Is it conceivable a team might choose B over A? On the other hand, Pitcher A is a decent hurler with a great bat while B is a brilliant pitcher with no bat at all. Is there any chance that the team would select A over B for the rotation?

In other words (assuming we answer the questions the same way), while we ascribe practically no value to a pitcher's hitting and never evaluate their effectiveness based on their bats, we insist that they should come to the plate to do that which we do not value. We rhapsodize over a game where the pitcher is a "complete" player, but only care about it when arguing theoretically. In practice, it plays no part in our choices.

There are three categories of reasons why I consider the Designated Hitter the superior form of baseball and the non-DH game as fundamentally dishonest. One concerns baseball strategy. A second has to do with the nature of the game and the third rests on the evolution of the game.

Contrary to commonly accepted belief, the DH increases strategic choices and eliminates one of the more egregious sins of baseball managers. For all the sentiment about how important it is for managers to decide when to use a pinch hitter or make the double switch, that is a vastly overrated strategic decision. In almost every case, the choice is made for the manager; every fan pretty much knows when the manager has to pinch hit in a game. The exceptions are rare. And while not quite so dramatic, the decision to pinch hit for a weak hitting defensive shortstop or center fielder remains in the DH game. As for the double switch, I am genuinely amused by the stress put on the complexity of this move, as if an AL manager moving to the NL needs hours of special courses to understand and utilize the concept.

The same holds for the sacrifice bunt. In most cases, its use is pre-determined by the situation, and we all know exactly when it will happen. The few variations from this standard practice hardly alter the predictability of it in the vast majority of cases. And, of course, there is also the abomination of the one-out sacrifice bunt. Can you imagine it ever being used except in the case of the pitcher at bat? It is the baseball equivalent of the quarterback taking a knee at the end of the game. Its purpose is not to score but to avoid losing. In fact, watching pitchers run to first base or come to bat with no intention of swinging or simply to swing wildly 3 times so as to avoid getting hurt or tired violates the competitive nature of baseball. I know there are exceptions, which is the point. They are exceptions. In most cases, the pitcher's spot is where the pitcher can relax a bit, where there really is no competition. The focus on the eighth-place batter getting on base so as to clear the pitcher's spot from the next inning when you really are trying to score demonstrates the fundamental dishonesty of pitchers coming to the plate.

The above discussion leads us to the real strategies. With the pitcher due up, the #8 hitter will rarely try to steal. The possibilities of hit and run or run and hit are virtually eliminated. The effort of the baserunner to distract the pitcher is pretty much discarded and is even less likely if the pitcher gets on base. With a DH, every spot in the lineup becomes part of the offense and all the strategies remain at the manager's disposal. There is far more suspense and far more interest generated in every at bat. Every at bat is competitive and none can be thrown away. It is honest baseball.

The very nature of baseball demands that pitchers not come to bat. It is incompatible with their function on the field, which is fundamentally different from every other position. Our very language, describing people as players OR pitchers, reflects the basic understanding of this fact. Is there any other position where it is conceivable to call someone with a line of .173/.193/.208 or .194/.234/.287 a good hitter for his position? But that is what we say of Greg Maddux and Warren Spahn, the perpetrators of those rate stats. True, there are outliers, some pitchers even serving occasionally as pinch hitters. Red Ruffing (.269/.306/.389) was one of the truly great hitting pitchers. He slugged 36 home runs or one for every 54 ABs. That is about as good as it gets outside of Wes Ferrell. Don Drysdale sometimes pinch hit, although his career line was only .186/.228/.295. He did, however, hit 29 home runs or one every 40 ABs. Great hitting pitchers are still lousy hitters.

But there is an elephant in the room. George Herman Ruth, the ultimate outlier. He hit and pitched brilliantly and simultaneously. And he demonstrates my point. Even the Babe could not keep it up. In fact, as his hitting prowess developed, he increasingly cut back on his appearances as a pitcher. In his last year in Boston, he pitched just 133.3 innings and had his least impressive results. Once in New York, he gave up pitching altogether, appearing in just 5 more games during his career in rather undistinguished fashion. Had he been able to combine strong pitching with great hitting, it would have made sense to have him do both, appearing as the #3 hitter as a pitcher while playing outfield the other days, but that was never tried once in NY. There may be other reasons for not maximizing his effectiveness as both hitter and pitcher, I suppose, but I think it most likely that it could not be done. In recent years, there have been some efforts to combine the two functions as with Brooks Kieschnick with middling results.

The fact remains that the pitcher's function is so specialized and unique, requires such concentration on particular skills, that it is not reasonable to expect them to divide their attention by focusing on batting to the extent they can become adept at it. I know many pride themselves on working on their hitting and on particular skills like bunting but, no matter the pride, it has to remain a minor component of their efforts. And even more than ever before, such minimal attention to hitting cannot lead to a really usable skill in the majors, the rare (apparent) exception like Micah Owings aside.

Which leads us to the evolution of the game. At its inception, pitching was a different creature from what it has become. The pitcher was in many ways the least important team member at the start, limited to pitching underhand and having to place the ball where the batter wanted. In the early history of the game, specialization was less developed, players moving from position to position regularly, including pitchers. It made sense for the pitcher to hit as he was no different from the other players. In fact, even the greatest stars like Ed Delahanty and Honus Wagner were expected to play infield and outfield. The tradition of specialization evolved, and I wouldn't be surprised if some early 20th century commentators can be found who decried the modern ballplayer who lacked the completeness of earlier stars by playing just one position.

This specialization was particularly spectacular in the case of pitchers. The skills they increasingly needed to succeed precluded them from developing their offensive capabilities. Even the greatest pitchers – Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Mordecai Brown – were terrible hitters. Partly this was because they did it so much less than before, although the great 19th century pitchers were awful hitters, too. Over the years, pitchers got fewer and fewer ABs, fewer opportunities to practice the skill on the field of play. Old Hoss Radbourne got to bat over 300 times in three separate seasons. Mathewson's high was 133 ABs, Tom Seaver's 95, and Maddux never topped 91. Relief pitchers, of course, nearly never come to bat.

We need to recognize that asking pitchers to hit eliminates the essence of the game which is fair competition. We remember the occasions when pitchers get a bit hit or contribute with the bat because it is so rare, and that is not a legitimate argument because what we should want is for every AB to provide the reasonable possibility of real competition. We do not justify a situation because of accidents. We get sentimental about the tradition of baseball in which pitchers hit, but we have to recognize that the game has changed and the urgency of correcting a mistake from the start, including placing pitchers in the lineup, should be corrected to reflect its increasing absurdity.

Were we starting fresh to create the game in 2008, it would make sense to separate the pitcher from all other players. There is no reason to keep it because the people who developed the game in the 1800s made the mistake to include them.

Bob Rittner is a retired history teacher. He plays softball to maintain the illusion of youth and shuffleboard as a hedge against that illusion being smashed.

Permalink | Comments (53)

A lot has changed since I started writing my first book, “Facing Clemens.” What was meant to be a fairly cut and dry baseball book about what it’s like for a hitter to try and ply their craft against the Rocket over the course of his career has obviously turned into much, much more. That being said, I still maintain the book has relevance. Regardless of where you stand on the current news surrounding Roger Clemens, the challenge of trying to hit him hasn’t changed. Perhaps his career has been forever tainted, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t one of the toughest pitchers of all-time for a hitter to try to make a living off of.

The numbers, of course, more than back it up. He finished the 2007 season – now certainly his last – eighth on the all-time list in wins. Only one pitcher whose career was after 1940 is ahead of him: Warren Spahn. You’ve seen the other victory numbers. He’s first all-time on the active list and he reached 350 wins with the second fewest losses in the game’s history, behind only the guy who’s name is on the pitching award.

Now, before all the sabermetricians click elsewhere or write me off as an old fogey who knows nothing, I’ll go further. Wins, of course, can be misleading because they are so often not within a pitcher’s control. Clemens is second all-time in strikeouts and his name can be found on career leaderboards in a host of categories from things that show off his longevity, like games started or innings pitched, to his dominance, like shutouts, or to “new-fangled” stats like adjusted ERA+, which measures a pitcher’s ERA against the league average with ballpark effects taken into account (he’s ninth all-time, in case you were curious). Something like that helps bridge the generational divide for a “greatest pitcher of all time debate.” When stacked against his contemporaries, it almost isn’t fair. He leads just about every active career statistical list.

Then, of course, there’s the hardware and honors. With the seven Cy Youngs, the MVP Award, the 11 All-Star appearances, the World Series rings and total appearances, he’s off the charts on the Black Ink and Gray Ink Tests. The scores, 100 (fifth all-time) and 314 (eighth), speak for themselves. So does his Hall of Fame Monitor mark (336, second only behind Walter Johnson) and the Hall of Fame Standards Test score (73, eighth all-time behind Grover Cleveland Alexander). Now these numbers may be a bit meaningless now in terms of Hall of Fame chances, but it does give a more complete picture of just how dominant this guy was for 24 years.

In trying to determine who would be the best subjects for the book, I dug deeply into the numbers behind Clemens’ career (a quick thanks to the folks at retrosheet.org is essential at this point). I was quick to find who had faced Clemens the most (Cal Ripken Jr.), who had had some level of prolonged success against the Rocket (Ken Griffey Jr., especially in their AL days) and who really hadn’t had any luck at all (Torii Hunter and his 0-for-28).

Of course, numbers in baseball are like layers of an onion. Once you start peeling, you find more. How many realized that in Roger Clemens’ two 20-strikeout games, 10 years apart, he walked a grand total of zero? That’s right, no walks and 40 strikeouts over 18 innings (As an aside, I also learned Clemens wasn’t supposed to pitch against the Mariners that fateful night in 1986. He was slated to go the game prior, but it had been rained out.).

In researching for the Ripken chapter, I discovered that the Hall of Fame Oriole never once struck out more than 100 times in a season. In fact, the only two times he was over 90 were the first two seasons of his career when he was redefining what a shortstop could and should be. He struck out a grand total of 1305 times in 11,551 at-bats, or once every 8.85 AB. He whiffed 17 times in 109 at-bats against Clemens for a 6.41 per AB average.

A lot of fuss was made about the controversial time, in 1998, about how Clemens was scuffling in the first half, then “miraculously” turned it around in the second. Clemens had a 3.55 ERA in that first half and 120 strikeouts in 119 IP. I’m not saying this exonerates the man, but that first-half figure alone would have put him right near the top 10 for the year in ERA. The league ERA, by the way, was 4.61. Even in 1996, his last with the Red Sox when he was supposedly finished, he was sixth in the league with a 3.63 ERA while topping the league in K/9 and overall strikeouts.

Where does that leave us now in trying to figure out his legacy? It’s an extremely difficult question to answer. I’m not one who usually does everything by numbers – one of the things I appreciated about doing this book is how the stats were backed up by experiences, recollections from actual human beings. But sometimes, numbers can be the most impartial.

So let's say we completely believe the Mitchell Report and the ensuing testimony and Clemens started taking performance enhancers in 1998. Let's take a look at his career at that point. He had won four Cy Young Awards and gone to seven All-Star Games (I’m counting the 1998 Midsummer Classic because he earned that one pre-injections, according to the report). He’d earned five ERA titles, an MVP Award, gone to a World Series and led the league in those dreaded wins three times. He also took home four strikeout crowns and a pitching Triple Crown in 1997.

He had 213 wins at the end of the 1997 season. He had a 2.97 ERA. There wasn’t a league average ERA during that span under 4.00. Is that enough for a Hall of Fame career? Maybe not quite – though the Sandy Koufax argument could be made – but it’s not far off.

Even the biggest detractors of Clemens wouldn’t argue that he would’ve had to hang ‘em up in 1998 if it weren’t for Brian McNamee. The odds of him pitching another nine years are slim, but an argument could be made that he would’ve been done by, say, 2003, the year he “retired” for the first time in the World Series against the Marlins. Go ahead and take away the Cy Youngs in 1998 and 2001, if you must. Truth be told, his Yankee numbers aren’t all that overwhelming and his ERA, at best, hovered around where that 1998 first-half figure was. You have to figure he falls into about 13 wins per year as a Yankee, rough estimate. That’s another 65 victories to bring him to 278, all the previous hardware and a career ERA probably not too far off from his current mark of 3.12 (Again, league average in his career: 4.46).

What’s my point in all of this? To be honest, I’m still not sure. Like many fans, albeit one with a vested interest, I’m trying to figure all of this out. I’ve been covering the game long enough for nothing to shock me one way or the other. One thing is certain: Clemens’ image is forever tarnished, regardless of what happens in the future. I can’t foresee the Baseball Writers Association of America voting him into the Hall of Fame any time soon, assuming he actually is retired.

What I would ask is for those voters, as well as fans trying to make up their minds as well, to take a closer look at the numbers, even deeper than I’ve delved here. I think you might find, beneath the scandal, the congressional hearings, the “he said, he said” of the past few months, there’s still a pretty damn good pitcher under all of it, warts and all, who made it extremely difficult for hitters for a really long time.

Jonathan Mayo is a senior writer for MLB.com. He joined Major League Baseball’s official website in April 1999 and has covered three World Series, seven All-Star Games, the Opening Series in Japan and Puerto Rico, the Caribbean World Series in Mexico, and the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. More recently, Jonathan has focused his efforts on covering minor league baseball, the baseball draft, the Arizona Fall League, and baseball’s winter meetings. You can learn more about him and his first book on his website.

Permalink | Comments (16)

The list actually started back when I arranged for Derek Jeter to take my then-4-year-old daughter to her senior prom.

List? What list?

Okay, I guess a bit of backtracking is probably in order here, yes?

I first met Jeter when he was a Yankees minor league prospect. Over the course of his breakthrough 1994 season, when he fast-tracked from Class A Tampa to Double-A Albany to Triple-A Columbus, and his 1995 campaign at Columbus before he made it to the big leagues, I got to know not only Jeter but his family as well, his parents and sister and grandmother and aunt.

There was no doubt in my mind he was going to be a mega-superstar. He had all the tools but beyond that he had poise, he was smart, he was sweet and to top it all off he looked like one of those statues of a Greek or Roman god you see in the first chapters of the Art History 101 books.

I was the minor league editor at USA Today's Baseball Weekly at the time and at the end of 1994, we (okay I) named him our Minor League Player of the Year.

We'd never had a minor league player on the cover of the paper, and though I left prior to the 2006 season I don't believe that with the exception of Michael Jordan there has ever been a minor leaguer on the cover of the publication to this day, in its 17 years of its existence. But it looked for awhile like that might change.

We had a portrait of him in Yankee pinstripes (though he had yet to make his major league debut), with those sea-green eyes and that half smile which, as I wrote to open the feature, "makes the Mona Lisa look like she’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown." And as luck would have it, we didn't have any other major player features running that week so until the last minute, it appeared that Derek Jeter would become the first minor leaguer to grace the cover of Baseball Weekly.

Until, that is, about a day before we went to press, when a power-that-be decided that we couldn't possibly put a no-name minor leaguer on the cover because no one would know who "that Jeter guy" was. So instead it was hastily replaced by a stock action picture of Frank Thomas which had absolutely no connection whatsoever to anything in the paper. (Oh and just for the record, in case you're wondering, no, that power that be was NOT Paul White, who has always been as big a proponent of getting minor leaguers their due as I was).

Imagine what a collector's item that paper would be now had it been the first national cover of Derek Jeter, two years before he took New York by storm and won the American League Rookie of the Year award.

So anyway, before I digress too much (oops, too late!) … fast-forward to the end of 1995. Jeter has been called up to the big leagues but is obviously nowhere near the superstar status that he will reach in a year or so.

I get a phone call from a former colleague who now worked for a luxury car dealership in the New York area, a company that apparently worked with the Yankees when it came to leasing cars for their players. They were looking for a personal reference for the new kid and remembered that I knew him. Could I tell them a little bit about him?

I am not kidding. They were asking ME for a personal reference for Derek Jeter. And this is what I told them:

"The best way I can describe Derek Jeter is that this is the guy you want to show up at your front door the night of your daughter's senior prom."

And that became the genesis for my "Players You'd Want to Take Your Daughter To The Prom" list. Which eventually morphed into the "Players You'd Want Your Daughter To Marry" list, which was more elite.

It's something I've bandied about with co-workers, with front office executives, even with other players (about half of whom say "I'd NEVER let my daughter marry a baseball player").

Maybe it's a girl thing, but my husband totally doesn't get it. He is convinced that my "Players I'd Want My Daughter To Marry" list is really just a euphemism for a "Players I'd Want to Date If I Were 25 Years Younger And Single And Didn't Work in Baseball Where It Would Be Totally Unprofessional Not To Mention A Conflict Of Interest" list.

Totally not true. This list is totally about character. In short, it's all about heart (cue the chorus of "Damn Yankees" or the 1969 New York Mets on the Ed Sullivan Show).

And yes, you skeptics, there are players who fit the bill. And for the sake of brevity (obviously not my strong point) I am going to narrow this down to my top three on my "Current Major Leaguers I'd Want My Daughter To Marry If She Were Older And They Weren't Already Happily Married" list.

Disclaimer: I have been covering baseball for almost 20 years now. And despite the sometimes prevailing thought by the general public that most professional baseball players are complete asses, the truth is my list of Complete Asses That I Would Rather Chew On Tinfoil Than Ever Let Breathe The Same Air As My Daughter list is much shorter than the other one (maybe I'll do that for next year's DH).

With that in mind, I worry about hurting the feelings of some great guys I've gotten to know over the years. But I don't think any of them would argue the three I'm writing about: Dave Roberts, Sean Casey and Kevin Millar.

The trio may corner the Major League market on niceness, kindness and heart. All three go above and beyond when it comes to being active in their communities and charitable foundations, and not just for show and not just when the cameras are clicking.

Dave Roberts, outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, is not only one of the nicest guys in baseball, he is quite simply one of the nicest people I've ever met, period.

Originally drafted out of UCLA by the Tigers back in 1994, he's been the proverbial journeyman, with the Giants being his seventh organization. But it was in his very brief tenure with the Boston Red Sox that "Doc" reached that nirvana of baseball immortality.

It's the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees, the Sox trailing 4-3 and an inning away from elimination. Roberts, who was in to pinch run, ironically, for Millar, steals second against Mariano Rivera. The Sox rally, Roberts scores the tying run and, well, you know the rest. And as I watched the game from a hotel room in Arizona, on the road for Arizona Fall League, I knew that Roberts had just ensured himself fame forever and a head full of cheap champagne.

And all I could think was "this couldn't happen to a nicer guy."

Born in Okinawa, Japan, Roberts enjoys dual citizenship as the son of an American-born Marine dad and a Japanese mom, and has always been a proud ambassador for all of his cultural roots. As a member of the 1999 Team USA squad that earned the United States the berth in the 2000 Summer Olympics where they won their last gold medal, he was both a team leader and its leadoff-hitting sparkplug.

It's funny that there is this "connect" among the three guys on my list. On the one hand, Roberts and Millar were teammates on that historic world champion 2004 Boston Red Sox team.

But one of my favorite Roberts stories is one that Sean Casey himself told me. When Roberts was traded by Detroit to the Cleveland Indians in June 1998 for outfielder Geronimo Berroa, he joined the Double-A Akron Aeros. The guy who lost the most playing time with the acquisition of Roberts was outfielder Mark Budzinski, a teammate of Casey's at the University of Richmond and one of his best friends.

Casey, himself originally an Indians prospect, had been traded the previous off-season to Cincinnati but stayed in close touch with Budzinski. When he commiserated with his friend on his decreased playing time, he told me later, Budzinski's response was something along the lines of: "The thing is, Dave Roberts is such a great guy I can't even get upset about losing time to him."

It is the newly inked Boston Red Sox first baseman Casey himself, though, who is most widely acknowledged to be, officially, the Friendliest Guy In Baseball. A recent poll in Sports Illustrated, conducted among Major Leaguers themselves, saw a whopping 46 percent of the respondents name Casey (let the record show that Roberts ranked fourth and Millar sixth so I am not alone in my opinion here).

I had the great good fortune of first getting to know him well before he made it to the big leagues, back when I covered the Indians' first winter development program in Cleveland in January 1996, just a few months after he was drafted. From the "small world" department, one of his best friends from college happened to live in my town, just down the block from my own daughter's best friend.

It says something about how friendly he was that this fact would even come up, no less the tidbit I learned about his having worked making bagels at the local Stop N Shop when he was playing Cape Cod League baseball.

It was easy to see how Casey had earned the nickname "The Mayor" for his incredible natural chatty ease with everyone he meets, not just the players who pass through his first base watch over the course of a game. And it certainly didn't surprise me to learn that then-farm director Mark Shapiro literally cried two years later when his team dealt Casey to Cincinnati for pitcher Dave Burba.

Now, I realize that Millar may seem to be the "one of these things is not like the others" name on this list to the uninitiated. I mean, this is Rally Karaoke Guy whose 18-year-old self got down and dirty to "Born In The U.S.A." on a nightly basis on the Fenway Park scoreboard. The guy who made taking ceremonial shots of Jack Daniels before a big game a team tradition. A guy known for his bizarre facial hair, his passion for Harley Davidson motorcycles and tattoos.

Is this really the kind of guy I'd want my daughter to marry?

Bet your ass it is.

If Dave Roberts is the nicest guy in baseball and Sean Casey is the friendliest, then it is Kevin Millar who has the game's biggest heart.

A non-drafted free agent who made his way to the big leagues through the independent Northern League and by all accounts Against All Odds (which he has tattooed on his arm), he brings his unbridled passion and enthusiasm and love for the game to every aspect of his life. And to other people's lives as well.

Back in 1997, when he was earning Eastern League MVP honors with the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs, Millar got to know a young fan named Morgan Grant and her family who hailed from nearby Pownal, Maine.

Morgan was terminally ill with brain cancer, but she and her family rarely missed a Sea Dogs game and not surprisingly it wasn't long before the scrappy Millar was her favorite player. The two forged a friendship over that summer that resulted in his helping to grant one of her last wishes – to come with her family to visit him that winter in southern California.

When Morgan was too weak to change out of her pajamas, Millar simply got into his own jammies and the families had a pajama party. It was there in California that Morgan took a turn for the worse and passed away, having spent her final days with the people she loved the most.

How can you not love a guy like this?

By the way, you may have noticed that Derek Jeter isn't on the list. I honestly think that there comes a level of superstardom where a guy is automatically eliminated from the list. Because truthfully I wouldn't want my daughter to be married to someone with whom she couldn't even go out to Outback without causing a small public riot.

So Derek, you're off the hook. But in case you were wondering, Dana's senior prom is May 2. Time flies, doesn't it? I realize you probably can't make it, but if you feel like sending a corsage, you know where to find her.

Lisa Winston writes for MiLB.com, where you can read about any Minor League player she would ever consider getting for her roto team.

Permalink | Comments (8)

[Editor's note: Russ McQueen and my brother Tom were All-CIF pitchers on the Lakewood High School team that won the California Interscholastic Federation championship at Anaheim Stadium in 1970. Russ played on four consecutive NCAA championship teams at USC. He was named the College World Series MVP in 1972 when he pitched 14 shutout innings in relief while chalking up three of USC's five wins and saving a fourth. A 1970s CWS All-Decade selection, McQueen tossed a no-hitter vs. Cal to mark the opening of Dedeaux Field on 3/30/74. Russ was drafted by the California Angels in June 1974 and pitched three years in the club's minor league system.]

As I recently read some of Rich's articles, I was taken back to the Lakewood High baseball field one dreary, overcast, fall Saturday morning.

Seated in the third base dugout, I tried to stay as close to manager, scout and former Dodger pitcher Ed Roebuck as possible, to catch whatever he might say to help me comprehend the game of baseball. He might even ask me to get loose and pitch an inning or two; that is, if he ran out of pitchers or happened to remember I had thrown batting practice the last several Saturdays.

There was nothing unusual about seeing new faces, arms and bats at "The Lake" on a Saturday morning. After all, it was a scout league where minor leaguers and some college guys would show up for some work. A few of us high school guys came out in case... well, just in case.

A new fellow came by that morning with a big equipment bag and exchanged quick hellos and howaryas up and down the line. He meant nothing to me, and I figured him for another lower minor leaguer looking for some work. Mr. Roebuck caught his eye and offered, "Get loose and work a couple innings if you want to."

"If you want to?"

I thought no more about it, other than to spend an inning or so quietly lamenting the fact that I'd now have to wait at least two more innings to have any hope of hearing those words myself.

Then something happened.

The new guy took the mound and things changed. An air of expectancy took hold, and the place got quiet. Sounds were reduced only to those necessary. It felt like a premonition of something terrible, or terribly great, like right before a big fish takes your lure and you know in your gut he's about to hit.

The first batter took his stance. Fast ball, strike one called. Not bad, right down at the knees and on the inside corner. With considerable zip. Not the one he wanted to hit, I thought. But then the new guy threw something I had never seen before. It was gorgeous, and it was terrible, and I wasn't sure I had seen it correctly. Fast like a heater, but in front of the plate it made a wicked dive, down and a little bit away from the batter, who buckled at the knees. Strike two called. Hearts beat faster – I know mine did.

"Throw it again," I prayed.

He did, only this time the batter mustered up a feeble excuse for a swing and made his retreat back to the bench, where he joined other mortals to watch the continuing carnage.

Five more up, five more down. One guy grounded out, but everyone else fell to that monstrous, terrifying curve ball.

I've seen the Grand Canyon and the Grand Tetons. I've walked into Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park and Wrigley Field on a Sunday afternoon. I've been to dozens of countries all over the world and seen it all. But I have never seen anything more riveting than that curve ball on that one cool, gray Saturday morning.

I have always remembered that awesome pitch as a big hammer the new guy swung and pounded batters with. It certainly went way beyond any fair deal I ever witnessed. To say "he threw a curve" was to understate the terror of the act. However ordinary the new guy looked to begin with, to me he had become substantially taller, heavier, and more dangerous.

For a moment there was no one sitting between me and Mr. Roebuck. "That's some kind of a curve ball," I managed, trying to make it sound as casual as I could so Mr. Roebuck wouldn't think I was overly impressed.

"Son, that's a pure yellow hammer," replied Roebuck. "And that is Bert Blyleven."

Russ McQueen, a CPA with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, is married to his wife Betty (thirty-two years) and has three sons, including Matt, first baseman for the Biola University Eagles.

Permalink | Comments (29)

I think the most productive discussion is the one where, after spirited debate, each person argues in favor of his opponent's case. And the least productive is when each person comes away convinced he is right and has demolished his opponent's arguments.

I would like to spin off from the Mark Armour In Defense of the Hall of Fame thread to consider the differences between traditional baseball writers and the contemporary analytical community. The distinction is not always stark; I always considered Leonard Koppett an analyst, and I enjoyed reading Arthur Daley, Roger Angell and others who brought the game to life for me and often provided a sense of intimacy with the players. Often, they brought to the issues facing the game an intellectual perspective that stimulated thinking on subjects like expansion or the DH rule or the Curt Flood case.

And often they were fine writers whose humor and ability to delineate the character of particular people expressed the mood of the game and enhanced the joy of watching and thinking about it. I still alternately laugh and tear up reading Larry Ritter's "The Glory of Their Times" even while cringing at some of the cliches from Lefty O'Doul and others. Periodically I listen to excerpts on tape from some of Ritter's interviews, and hearing Sam Crawford describe Rube Waddell or barnstorming in the mid-west, or Hans Lobert discussing Honus Wagner's kindness to the rookie or Fred Snodgrass defending himself and Fred Merkle from the criticism both have endured makes the game real and vibrant. I really think it is required reading (or listening) for any baseball fan.

But in my mind, with rare exceptions, these were not really analysts. They were writing about the game as literary figures, creating plots and climaxes and denouements and using all the approved techniques of novelists. What mattered was the story. Baseball was the arena in which to exhibit character and moral principles. And stories were built around those issues. Players rose to the occasion or choked, were heroes or goats, overcame all sorts of obstacles and odds or failed to deliver for their teammates and fans.

The stories were exciting and sometimes even had whispers of truth in them, but they had nothing to do with what was really happening because most of what really happens is mundane and not terribly exciting. The job of these writers was to extract the drama from the details and to make the story as interesting as possible.

After a time, certain themes (often reflecting virtues like sacrificing for the team or out-thinking the opposition) became fixed orthodoxy, elevating strategies like sacrifice bunts and moving runners over and the psychology of winning to the status of gospel or leitmotifs in most story lines. I have sometimes speculated that in the first decades of the 20th century when the sport was considered disreputable by many and the province of hooligans, in an effort to make baseball more respectable, books and articles by Christy Mathewson (or his ghostwriter) and others focused on the "inside game," the intellectual components of baseball, and praised the cleverness and psychological maneuverings of manager John McGraw. The effect was not simply to make baseball a more intellectually and morally respectable game, but it simultaneously established the basic principles that hardened into "the Book."

I was satisfied with this sort of baseball writing and raised my son with my recollections of baseball in the 1950s and discussions of columns in the mainstream newspapers and books of the 1970s. When he was a teenager, he returned the favor by introducing me to Bill James. And in my mid-40s, I became dissatisfied. Of course, James was interested in the stories and anecdotes. (In fact, I was sometimes irritated when I expected a hard analysis of some player's ranking in his Abstract only to be treated instead to some tangent about Dick Williams socializing with Sal Bando.) But alongside were questions and a serious attempt to find some way to answer them. I did not always follow the math, but I did understand the logic, and it was exciting. I still read the columns but they were not enough. The columns were about human interest and could have been on any subject. James and company were about baseball specifically.

In a way, the sabermetricians have created a problem for the traditional columnists. The early journalists always used stats, but they were rarely the key to any argument, and they generally were rather simple and commonly understood. They were the details that lent depth to a story, like descriptions of scenery and characters' physical traits in a novel. The journalists' audience, training and medium are not conducive to detailed statistical analysis. When Murray Chass mocks VORP and the like, I think he is actually making a valid point (I am really biting my tongue now) in the context of what would be acceptable in a mass circulation newspaper.

Of course elements of sabermetrics can and should be incorporated into the columns, and the movement has earned the right to be respected by columnists. Some have and do, and even those who ignore or resist progressive statistical analysis are clearly influenced by it, at least on the margins. OBP has almost gained the status of BA, albeit not quite, even among traditionalists. But to ask them to accept its approach as authoritative or to defer to its judgments is futile. They can include OBP, even ERA+ or OPS+ in their assessments, but their style precludes the charts and graphs and more detailed statistics. You don't ask Tolstoy to include a chart of the nationalities of prisoners in "War and Peace."

And the reason is not that they are wrong. It is that the two groups are engaged in different purposes. And while it is easy for sabermetricians to apply the approach of traditionalists to liven up their writings, it is not so easy for traditionalists to incorporate statistical models and arguments in theirs. So there is frustration on both sides.

When a traditional columnist writes an article defending a position, sabermetricians attack using all the tools at their disposal, and sometimes with sarcasm and nastiness. If the columnist dismisses their arguments, they pile on. But it is even worse if he tries to meet them on their own grounds. Without the expertise, his statistical arguments appear juvenile and then the attacks often turn vicious and personal. A successful career journalist, out of his depth in this kind of debate, finds himself the object of mockery, and with the internet, there is now a public forum for the ridicule. The problem is there is no common ground. The traditional journalist is not wrong; he simply has a different purpose, and to critique him is like arguing with Shakespeare that Hamlet should have compromised with Claudius or brought him before a board of inquiry.

When an issue like the Hall of Fame elections arises, the problem is magnified because for statistically minded analysts there are objective criteria from which to begin the discussion. But to many traditionalists, the key word in the discussion is "Fame" as in who do people know, who had an impact on the story.

Jack Morris exemplified qualities that suggest he is a Hall of Fame character; Bert Blyleven did not. Jim Rice dominated because that is the story line, and for anyone who lived in his era, it makes perfect sense. It does not matter to those who are now voting if the statistics belie the claim.* When I watched a Yankee game and Rice came to the plate, I was scared. I was not as worried when Dwight Evans was at bat. I may have been wrong, but Rice felt like a star and Evans a supporting player. To say the journalists are wrong does nothing to advance the discussion because these players are first and foremost literary figures to them. You and I may know that Watson and Crick were far greater men than Alexander the Great and Napoleon, but in the pantheon of human heroes, you can bet Alexander will get in first, and nobody is going to identify Crick as Crick the Great.

I do think there can and ought to be dialogue between the "schools of thought," but I think it requires mutual respect for and recognition of the divergent approaches. The dichotomy is probably not as dramatic as I have suggested, but I do think it would help if in debating points each side tries first to ascertain where there is common ground so they can talk to each other rather than at each other.

*I am reminded of reading that the Medieval books about the Lives of the Saints were almost entirely fictitious as narratives of events. Their truth was in the morals of the stories, the standards of behavior and faith the saints represented. So a particular saint may not even have existed, but the virtue of courage or charity he exemplified did exist and was true.

Robert Rittner is a retired high school history teacher from Westchester county, NY, now living in Clearwater, Florida. He has been a baseball fan since 1951, moving to Florida in part because of the opportunity to watch baseball regularly. He is also starting to hit a little better in his softball league.

[Additional reader comments and retorts at Baseball Primer Newsblog.]

Permalink | Comments (26)

[Editor's Note: As always, the views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Baseball Analysts and/or its writers.]

Over the holidays, I spent a lot of time poring over issues of The Sporting News from the 1960s. Typically distracted by stories that have nothing to do with my task, I came across many discussions about who should be in the Hall of Fame. This was 45 years ago, so the articles were about guys like Sam Rice, George Kelly, Elmer Flick, or Jim Bottomley, written by Shirley Povich, Fred Lieb, Lee Allen, or Taylor Spink, with testimony from Branch Rickey, Joe McCarthy, or Casey Stengel, old men who knew a thing or two about talent. There were stories like this every off-season, largely anecdotal, well-written, and fascinating. My reading has been like a refresher course in early 20th century baseball.

What was missing from these newspapers were all of the “No” votes. Back in the day, a writer would pull out his typewriter to support some old ballplayer, but there were no stories about why someone was overrated or unqualified. Had baseball blogs existed in 1962, some modern expert could have lectured Povich about Sam Rice’s WARP score, or blasted Rickey for his silly misevaluation of George Kelly. But we missed out on all of that good fun, and eventually all these guys, and others like them, got in.

The argument for George Kelly, as I recall it, went something like this: starred on offense and defense for the only National League team ever to win four consecutive pennants (still true), won multiple HR and RBI titles, credited by John McGraw with getting more important hits than any man who ever played for him, and had a cool nickname (“Highpockets”). Using the standards of the time, that’s a decent argument. Not perfect, insufficient even, but not a bad resume. Kelly was a fine player.

There are very few people around anymore who think George Kelly should be in the Hall of Fame (Bill James has suggested he is the worst player in the Hall), though there are also few people around who know anything about him—what teams he played for, his impact on those teams, what his great manager thought of him, how he played the game. All we know about him, or think we know about him, is how good his statistics were. Not good enough, apparently.

I am not suggesting that George Kelly “deserves” his plaque—whatever that means. Rather, I am saying that the man and his accomplishments and his stories have been buried by the avalanche of his Hall of Fame case. The memories and opinions of Fred Lieb and Branch Rickey have been replaced with … what exactly? Is there anyone out there that has anything to say about any of these players besides their statistics? Forget George Kelly, does anyone have any colorful stories about Bert Blyleven or Andre Dawson to help me get through the winter? Even Joe Posnanski, one of our best bloggers, has felt a need to serve up endless “How Good Was He?” columns this winter. Say it ain’t so, Joe.

Having read dozens of Hall of Fame arguments on the web in the past few weeks, by good people, some of them my friends, I find several problems with them in the main. Walking timidly into the lion’s den, let me summarize.

Recently there has been some debate on various internet sites, including this one, about who deserves to vote in Hall of Fame elections. Let me tell you what I think. If I were in charge of the process, I would require that all voters understand what the Hall of Fame actually is before gaining the privilege. I would make every voter take a history test. There are 200 members of the Hall of Fame who were chosen based on their play in the major leagues, and I would expect each of the voters to understand (at the very least) the careers and qualifications of all of those men—the highlights, great moments, opinions of contemporaries.

Does this mean that the correct 200 players are in the Hall of Fame? No, of course not. Does this mean that 200 is the right size? No. However, I suggest that whatever standards you come up should be “reasonably” consistent with the current membership list. If you want to say that the voters overvalue the players of the 1930s, or that 3B is underrepresented, or there are not enough Yankees, you must do so while not dynamiting a 70-year-old institution. You want to ignore the bottom 10% of the Hall, we can live with that.

Jay Jaffe, a fine writer and analyst over at Baseball Prospectus, invented a measure called JAWS (which uses WARP as its basis) and compares new candidates to the JAWS score of the average HOF player at his position. Actually, if I have this right, he first removes the worst inductee at each position (and four pitchers) and then uses the average of the rest. This process might suggest that Jay believes that half of the Hall of Fame is unqualified, or at least suspect. My bright friend Rob Neyer uses Win Shares, but has a similarly strict standard, recently writing, "I believe that if a player is among the best dozen or so at his position, he belongs in the Hall of Fame; or, alternatively, that if he's better than half the players at his position already in the Hall, he belongs in the Hall of Fame." When considering that there are about 18 HOFers per position now, and that there are several non-inductees that Rob supports, he is implying that about 40% of the current members are unqualified.

I mention Jay and Rob because they are two of the more talented and visible writers on this subject, and I suspect most people reading this agree with them on this issue. With all due respect, and writing as a product of the same general community of thought, I have a different view.

Look, I am down with the idea that the Hall of Fame contains several questionable players. (Not bad players—there are no players even remotely “bad” in the Hall of Fame.) But, I am sorry, if you want to impose standards that 40% or 50% of the current Hall does not reach, then, in my opinion, you should not get to vote. You are ignoring what the Hall of Fame actually is. You can’t wave away 40% of the Hall and claim to be interested in helping. And there are no “tiers” in the Hall of Fame either—every member is honored equally.

Parenthetically, if every voter was like Rob and Jay, and only voted on, for example, the best 12 players at each position, the actual HOF bar would be even higher than that. All voters are not going to agree on who these 12 guys are, and you need 75% of the vote. The effective standard becomes that 75% of the voters have to put you in the top 12. Which I suspect would leave you with something like 8 guys per position. We will reach the point where we only elect superstars and relief pitchers. Oh look, here we are.

Another problem with the analytical arguments is that they are so … strident. The current message from the stat community to the Hall of Fame and its voters goes something like this: “Your institution is riddled with poor selections, and most of the current voting writers are morons. P.S. Please find enclosed my application to join your fine group.” It’s a bit like saying, “I don’t like your wife, but if you have me over for dinner I can give her a few tips on her attitude.”

Every time some poor writer released their Hall of Fame ballot last month, unless it had the “right” guys on it, the voter was deemed not smart enough, unthinking. I don’t really want to quote examples because I am in enough trouble already, but, trust me, if you voted for Jack Morris you were mocked. (Sure, Morris had more Win Shares and the same WARP as Rich Gossage, and no GM in their right mind would prefer Gossage to Morris, even before considering Morris’s epic post-season performances. Apparently “relief pitcher” is a separate position now. Coming soon: the top 12 “seventh-place hitters”. But I digress…)

Jim Rice received 72% of the vote on Tuesday, an overwhelming consensus of support, 12% more than Franklin Roosevelt’s 1936 landslide over Alf Landon. Are these 72% all just not smart enough? Four hundred journalists, many of whom saw Rice play hundreds of time, just need to think this through properly? How did we all get so confident? I submit, sheepishly, that perhaps it is we who need to open our minds.

Me? Sure, I have argued for all the “smart” guys—Ron Santo and Bert Blyleven and Tim Raines—at cocktail parties. Even Tony Oliva, which is a big hit, believe me. But I suggest we all could use a little humility. The idea that we can confidently separate Dale Murphy and Andre Dawson statistically is nuts—who you prefer is basically a matter of taste. Defense, adjusting for eras, quality of competition, integration, position, post-season play, intangibles? If you are approached by someone who claims to have unraveled these issues statistically—I strongly urge you to run.

My final problem with all of the analytical Hall of Fame arguments: there are too many of them, and they all say the same thing. Once you have decided to use Win Shares, or WARP, or JAWS, there is really no need for a lengthy explanation. If you want to explain the internals of Win Shares and make the case for why you are using it as opposed to something else, go right ahead. But once you have defined the parameters of the debate on your terms, there is nowhere to go unless you typed some of the numbers incorrectly. The reason people come up with a different answer is that you confidently co-opted the question.

The only way one can add to the conversation is to supply some sort of color or nuance—a description of performances in big games, quotes from opponents or managers, a great World Series catch, your own personal memories. Does this matter? I suggest it matters in one sense at least: without it, you don’t really have an article that hasn’t been written before. Are you all really going to write the same Jim Rice stories again next year?

When I was about 12 years old, I received a little book for Christmas about the Hall of Fame, written by Ken Smith (who was the librarian at the Hall for many years), containing biographies of all of the current members. It was not great literature by any means, but I must have read that paperback three or four times, and it played its small part in my baseball education. Reading about Hugh Duffy and Tommy McCarthy got me curious about the great Boston Beaneater teams of the 1890s, just as Frankie Frisch and Dizzy Dean brought me to the Gas House Gang, and Eddie Collins and Frank Baker to the powerhouse Athletics teams of the early 1910s. Although the book focused on the players, it was the great teams that made the stories interesting. The teams, it seemed to me, were what baseball history was really all about.

I think we all agree that if George Kelly had played for the Phillies in the 1920s instead of the Giants, he would not be in the Hall of Fame. (He would actually be more respected than he is, since instead of being a “joke Hall of Famer” he would be an “unappreciated star”.) However, he *did* play for the Giants, and this seems wholly relevant to the conversation. John McGraw somehow won ten pennants with Christy Mathewson (who was only around for five of them) and a bunch of players like George Kelly—great defenders who could hit a little. The only NL team ever to win four straight flags, the 1921-24 Giants, had four Hall of Famers: Frankie Frisch, George Kelly, Ross Youngs, and the shortstop (Dave Bancroft, giving way to Travis Jackson), all but Frisch considered “mistakes” by today’s experts. How many Hall of Famers should be on this great team? It is consistent with the purpose of the Hall of Fame, in my view, to honor baseball’s champions.

If you begin with the premise that the 200 guys in the Hall of Fame should be the 200 statistically-best careers in history, a premise all analysts have rallied around, then George Kelly does not have a case. If you modify this premise, if you believe that being on this great Giants team gets him extra points, that the word of John McGraw carries additional weight, that first base defense was more important at that time and place than it is today, that career length is less important to you, we start inching along and suddenly his case seems less ridiculous. This is not a case I would make, but this is the case that the people who lived and watched those teams made about George Kelly. If the guy who John McGraw thought was the best player on a four-time champion—if this is the worst guy in the place, how bad can it really be?

Don’t worry, I am not asking for your support for George Kelly, although I do suggest you pause at his plaque the next time you are in that great museum in Cooperstown. He’s got a nice story. Jack Morris and Jim Rice have nice stories too, and the smart people advocating their candidacies are worth a listen.

Mark Armour writes baseball from his home in Corvallis, Oregon. He was the co-author, with Dan Levitt, of the award-winning book Paths to Glory, the editor of Rain Check: Baseball in the Pacific Northwest, and the director of SABR's Baseball Biography Project. His next large project is the life of Joe Cronin. He can be reached at markarmour@comcast.net.

Permalink | Comments (84)

It's nice to have friends, especially friends one makes during the course of business. It's even nicer if those new friends are celebrities. Take Mike Wallace, for example. At 89, Mr. Wallace has made a lot of celebrity friends during the 40 years he has been a reporter for CBS's "60 Minutes." Not friends like Yassir Arafat, maybe, but friends like George Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees, of whom Mr. Wallace says, "I like Steinbrenner, he likes me, we became good friends." It was through his friendship with Steinbrenner that Mr. Wallace made friends with one of Steinbrenner's celebrity hirelings, Roger Clemens, of whom Mr. Wallace says, "He became my friend. He trusts me." Which is no doubt why, when Mr. Clemens' name appeared prominently in the Mitchell Report, he turned to Mr. Wallace to help clear his name from accusations by his former trainer, Brian McNamee, that Clemens took steroids and Human Growth Hormone in his late 30s and 40s to enhance his pitching career.

Tonight on "60 Minutes," Mr. Clemens will sit for an interview with Mr. Wallace, because, Mr. Wallace says, "He trusts me." Hopefully, Mr. Wallace can be, as he says, "objective." Tomorrow, according to Rusty Hardin, Mr. Clemens' lawyer, Clemens will submit to questions from a host of reporters, the first time he will speak off-the-cuff so to speak, to a roomful of reporters, some of whom may not be his friends. Previously, Mr. Clemens has denied Mr. McNamee's allegations that he injected Mr. Clemens with steroids and HGH through press releases emitted by his lawyer and his agent, and through a staged video in which Mr. Clemens denies McNamee's allegations directly to a camera.

I had a chance to become friends with Mr. Clemens in 2001, when I interviewed him for a profile in the New York Times Sunday magazine. But, alas, our friendship did not take. Despite the fact that I, like Mr. Wallace, felt I too had been objective in my profile, Mr. Clemens did not concur. In fact, he called me up after the story appeared and berated me over the telephone. When I asked him what he didn't like about the story, he said, "I didn't read it." I responded, "Then how do you know you don't like it?" He said he was told by his "friend," and the co-author of one of Mr. Clemens' books, Peter Gammons, the ESPN-TV analyst, that he should hate it. In fact, Mr. Clemens hated my profile so fervently that he had me banned from the Yankees' clubhouse during the years he remained with the team.

I would later learn that one of the many things Mr. Clemens hated about my profile of him was my description of his fawning relationship at the time with his friend Mr. McNamee, who lived in the pool house of Mr. Clemens' Houston estate. On the first day I interviewed Mr. Clemens in Houston I had dinner with him and Mr. McNamee at the most exclusive steak house in Houston. The bill was for over $400, which I paid. Mr. Clemens said, "I’ll get you tomorrow." The next day he bought me a taco at a Mexican Restaurant. But the point of my profile of Mr. Clemens was less about his parsimoniousness than it was his strange relationship with Mr. McNamee. During the dinner at the steakhouse Mr. Clemens asked Mr. McNamee for his permission to have a steak (McNamee nodded) and a baked potato (McNamee nodded again, but added a caveat, "Only dry."). The same scenario played itself out at the Mexican Restaurant. Clemens pointed to an item on the menu and Mr. McNamee either nodded, or shook his head, no.

During the three days I followed Mr. Clemens around Houston, he seemed like a child beholden to the whims of the sour, suspicious, and taciturn McNamee. It seemed as if Mr. Clemens would not do anything to his body, or ingest anything into it that Mr. McNamee hadn't approved. I found it strange that, at 38, Mr. Clemens still had to have someone dictate his diet and workout regimen down to the minutest detail at this late stage of his illustrious career. In fact, Mr. Clemens' devotion to Mr. McNamee's diet and workout routine seemed almost like a spiritual quest that must not be impeded. When Mr. Clemens and Mr. McNamee went on a long run one day and they came across another runner, lying on the ground, in the throes of a heart attack, they called for help. When Mr. Clemens related that story to me, he ended it by saying, "We were having a good run, too."

I also found it strange that, at 38, Clemens had the energy of a teenager. Clemens' workouts lasted 10 hours a day with only breaks for lunch and dinner. They began at 9 a.m. under McNamee's watchful eyes, with light weight-lifting for an hour, then an hour run, then a trip into Clemens' own personal gym, where he did a few hours of calisthenics, wind sprints, and throwing before going to lunch. After lunch, Clemens and McNamee went to an exclusive Houston men's gym (Clemens told me that President Bush worked out there), where Clemens pedaled a stationary bike for an hour and then performed a heavy weight-lifting routine for another hour. Then after dinner at home, Clemens worked out again until 9 or 10 in the evening.

Just watching Clemens work out over a day exhausted me. I wondered where he found the energy to sustain such a maniacal pace when I, at a similar age 20 years before, had been unable to work out for more than a few hours a day without being drained. At the time I interviewed Clemens, I was training for an amateur body building contest and, like Clemens, I adhered to a strict diet and a strenuous weight-lifting and calisthenics routine. But nothing I did at 41 compared to the 10 hours-a-day routine McNamee put Clemens through.

This brings me by a circuitous route to Tom Seaver, the Hall of Fame pitcher from the 1960s to the 1980s. Now Seaver and I were friends. Not the best of friends. Not intimate friends. Just friends. In the early 70s we lived only a few miles from each other in Connecticut. On the weekends we played one-on-one basketball games against each other at the Greenwich YMCA. They were rough, no-holds-barred games marked by a lot of uncalled fouls, bruises, and bloody noses. I always let Seaver win those games; after all, he was Tom Seaver, but he denies this.

Whenever Seaver pitched badly I'd call him every so often to give him advice.

"Tom, you're throwing too many breaking balls."

"You really think so?"

"Absolutely."

"What the hell do you know?"

Seaver and I had a lot in common. We were both big men in our playing days. Six-one, 200 pounds. We were both pitchers. Bonus babies. Tom signed with the Mets for a $50,000 bonus and I signed with the then Milwaukee Braves in 1959 for a $50,000 bonus. We both threw hard. I threw harder than Seaver, of course, but he will never admit that. He had better control than I did (at least I will admit that). And a longer career. His lasted 20 years. In the major leagues. Mine lasted three years, in the minor leagues. And then out. Back home, at 21, lugging bricks and mortar up a rickety scaffold for a Lithuanian mason.

Over the 40 years of our friendship, I still call Seaver every now and then, mostly to remind him that I threw harder than him. His response is always the same, "In your dreams." My response is always the same. "But I did, Tom, I did!" Then he will say, "Yeah, and between us we won 311 major league games." I say, "Precisely!"

Like Clemens today, Seaver in his day was considered the most dominating pitcher of modern times. He did win 311 games over a 20-year career, and would have won another 50 or so if he had pitched into his mid-40s like Clemens has. But he didn't. He lost his fastball at 38, pitched without it for several more seasons with varying results, and retired. During his career, Seaver, too, was famous for his strict diet and strenuous workout routine. In fact, he was one of the first baseball players to begin lifting weights to enhance his performance. It had been considered taboo, particularly for pitchers, likely to make them feel too muscle-bound and inflexible.

I visited Seaver once at his home in Greenwich, Conn., in the dead of a cold winter. Seaver lives in Calistoga, Calif., today. Seaver took me down into his basement where he had set up a net to catch baseballs. There, with a bucket of balls beside him, and his breath billowing in front of him, Seaver grunted and sweated for 30 minutes as he pitched baseballs into that net.

I was so impressed with his diligence that I asked him why he bothered to throw on such a cold, January day. He gave me a little sideways look as if I'd asked the stupidest question, and said, "Because it's my day to throw."

After the Mitchell Report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs was published, I checked the records of Seaver and Clemens. In his first 12 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, Clemens posted a 192-111 record. In his first 12 years with the Mets, and the Cincinnati Reds, Seaver posted a 219-117 record. Over Seaver's last eight years with the Reds, Red Sox, and Chicago White Sox, he posted a 92-78 record. Over Clemens' last 11 years with the Toronto Blue Jays, Yankees and Houston Astros and then the Yankees again, he posted a 162-73 record, a winning percentage appreciably better than in his younger years.

While Seaver struggled with that declining fastball in the latter stage of his career, Clemens kept throwing hard. Seaver's decline in those final seasons was the normal drop-off for a pitcher who had relied on an exceptional fastball for a good part of his success. Clemens' improved record in his later years was an anomaly for a fastball pitcher. (Knuckleball pitchers like Phil Niekro, and junk ball pitchers like Jamie Moyer have pitched successfully into their 40s because they rely on finesse, not strength.)

A fastball pitcher still throwing in the mid-90s after the age of 40, as Clemens did, is a true rarity, except if his name is Nolan Ryan, who was blessed by God. It goes against the laws of nature, although I suspect that a case can be made that Clemens' incredible late career success could be attributed to the strict diet and fabled workout routine of his former trainer and friend, now his adversary, Brian McNamee. Which I also suspect is the case Clemens will make to his friend, Mr. Wallace, when Mr. Wallace interviews him tonight on "60 Minutes."

Pat Jordan, author of "A False Spring," and "A Nice Tuesday," is a freelance writer. His latest book, "The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan" (Persea Books), which features profiles of both Roger Clemens ("Roger Clemens Refuses to Grow Up") and Tom Seaver ("The Best of Friends"), will be released next month.

Permalink | Comments (52)

In modern baseball the general manager is ultimately responsible for the talent level in an organization, most importantly at the major league level. Given the relationship between winning teams and better players, general managers have historically been evaluated based on team success. While a pragmatic measure, it has two notable drawbacks. First, it ignores all the extenuating circumstances that go into a team's gain and loss of players: general managers operate under different financial constraints; they initially join clubs with far different levels of talent, and have different levels of autonomy to shape the scouting personnel, minor league operations, and the major league on-field staff. Second, simply using team success as a yardstick is a very coarse measure that limits our ability to understand the strengths and weaknesses of a general manager. What were his specific successes and failures that led to his club's record?

With the recent resignation of Terry Ryan as the Minnesota Twins general manager, I thought it might be interesting to take an objective look at some aspects of the position that can be measured. Using the Retrosheet transactions database maintained by Tom Ruane, I evaluated all the moves made by the Twins after Ryan's hiring in September, 1994 through the end of 2005. Obviously this type of analysis assigns the ultimate responsibility for all transactions--rightly or wrongly--to the general manager. For a number of reasons I did not include an analysis of the draft. For most types of transactions one can compare value received to value surrendered. To evaluate the productivity of the amateur draft and the farm system, however, one needs to calculate the productivity of other franchises to use as a baseline--this is a study for another time.

To evaluate the general manager this analysis reviews the value of players lost via free agency (Fg), release (R), the expansion draft (X), waivers (W) and trades (T), and players acquired via amateur free agency (Fa), free agency (F), waivers (W) and trades (T). Unfortunately this is not quite as straight forward as it might be: for example players who become free agents and are subsequently re-signed; in the database these players are shown as both lost via free agency and gained through free agency. The net effect is zero, but it increases the total volume of talent coming and going: for instance, Brad Radke's re-signing after the 2004 season. Another example is players who come and go before they become established major leaguers. As an illustration of this issue, Casey Blake was claimed on waivers, lost on waivers, reclaimed on waivers, and subsequently released before he achieved any significant major league playing time. While it makes sense to account for them this way--each transaction needs to be evaluated on its own merits--these multiple moves can make the talent velocity appear greater than it might otherwise be.

Of course one also needs some way to value the players involved in the transactions in order to assess them. Win Shares is a metric created by Bill James that works well for this purpose. Using a complex set of formulas, it allocates team wins to individual players. The method allocates three win shares for each win; for example, 300 win shares will be allocated to the players on a 100 win team. As a benchmark, a 30 win share season is typically MVP caliber, and 20 win shares is an all-star season. For each player involved in a transaction, I calculated the win shares he would earn over the balance of his career. For players still active, win shares are calculated through the 2006 season (obviously, some of these players will significantly increase their career totals).

So, what does Ryan's scorecard look like? The table below summarizes the cumulative win shares surrendered and gained in all the Twins transactions from the fall of 1994 through the end of 2005.

Win Shares from Twins Transactions, Fall 1994 - 2005

Type    Type Description            From Min   To Min
-----------------------------------------------------
Fg      Free Agency Granted              430        -
R       Released                         251        -
X       Expansion Draft                   93        -
Fa      Amateur Free Agent Signing         -      111
F       Free Agent Signing                 -      656
W       Waiver Pick                       60      154
T       Trade                            807      922
-----------------------------------------------------
        Total                           1641	   1842

Despite working under relatively tight financial constraints for most of his tenure, Ryan lost surprisingly little talent to free agency. No player with more than 50 win shares remaining left the major league roster as a free agent. Only Travis Lee, one of four amateur draftees declared free agents because they were not tendered a contract within the mandatory 15-day period, produced more than 50 win shares over the remainder of his career.

Surprisingly, Ryan's two most significant personnel blunders resulted from releasing two players with significant major league ability, and both came after the 2002 season. In October he released Casey Blake, who would go on to become a valuable contributor with the Indians. More significantly, in December Ryan compounded his error by releasing David Ortiz, who became a perennial MVP contender. Both could have played important roles on the Twins competitive teams from 2003 through 2006.

The Twins did not really lose any significant players through waivers (although technically they lost and then regained Blake over a three-week period). The loss of Damian Miller to the Diamondbacks in the expansion draft proved surprisingly costly. Miller went on to a number of seasons as a quality major league catcher.

Given his financial constraints, is not surprising that Ryan never really exploited the free agent market. Over his tenure he signed only one major league free agent, Kenny Rogers, with over 50 win shares remaining. Some of his most worthwhile signings included re-signing his own declining veterans on a short-term basis, such as Radke and Shannon Stewart, and finding useful role players at a reasonable price, such as Mike Redmond.

Minnesota has not kept up a sufficient Latin American presence. In the mid-1990s the Twins landed two players who would develop into useful major leaguers--Luis Rivas and Juan Rincon--but have signed none of consequence since. Ryan's staff did smartly pluck Bobby Kielty from the U.S. amateur ranks. The Twins have neither lost nor claimed any significant players on waivers except for Blake, as noted previously.

Ryan distinguished himself most clearly in his ability to make quality trades. His worst trade, in terms of value differential, was the swap of Todd Walker to Colorado for two players with less than two win shares remaining in their careers. In Ryan's defense, with this transaction the Twins also received cash. On the other hand, his regime can be credited with several outstanding deals. The swap of A.J. Pierzynski and cash for Francisco Liriano, Boof Bonser, and Joe Nathan has been widely hailed, but a number of others were also highly productive. He acquired Johan Santana for Jared Camp in a trade of Rule 5 draft picks. Ryan landed Eric Milton and Cristian Guzman for Chuck Knoblauch--although Knoblauch's unexpectedly quick falloff makes this trade appear more prescient than it probably was. Trading Dave Hollins for David Ortiz was also a great move, unfortunately later vitiated by the latter's release.

A general manager's job entails more than talent acquisition, and sometimes a team is in a position where the key decisions involve sorting out the talent (including possibly surrendering more talent than one receives) to alleviate an abundance at one position and a dearth at another. But the luxury of rearranging one's talent first requires building a solid talent base. Ryan consistently surrendered less talent than he received as he built the team that captured four division championships between 2002 and 2006.

Appendix

The table below summarizes all Minnesota Twin transactions of at least 10 win shares between the fall of 1994 when Terry Ryan became the GM and the end of 2005. The table should be moderately self-explanatory, but a couple of comments may be in order for trades. The "TransID" column ties the players to a particular transaction, so that all players identified with the same TransID were part of the same trade. A few transactions identified as a trade show only one player; in these instances the other players involved did not make the major leagues.

Min Twins Transactions (>10 WS), Fall 1994 - 2005

DateID        TransID      Type      Player              Team        From Min        To Min
19960619      22943        Fg        Lee, Travis                         72.8              
19961004      33661        Fg        Reboulet, Jeff                      26.6            
19981029      39348        Fg        Steinbach, Terry                    11.9        
19981221      26718        Fg        Meares, Pat                         13.2        
19991007       8367        Fg        Cordova, Marty                      23.1        
19991015      12658        Fg        Fiore, Tony                         10.1        
20011008      26077        Fg        McCracken, Quinton                  19.6        
20011019       6461        Fg        Carrasco, Hector                    19.5        
20011105      20603        Fg        Jones, Todd                         35.6        
20031026      15777        Fg        Guardado, Eddie                     17.5        
20031026      39476        Fg        Stewart, Shannon                    30.1        
20031027      17104        Fg        Hawkins, LaTroy                     20.6        
20031028      14799        Fg        Gomez, Chris                        16.2        
20031029      35073        Fg        Rogers, Kenny                       46.9        
20041028       3435        Fg        Blanco, Henry                       11.3        
20041028      33228        Fg        Radke, Brad                         21.5        
20041101      21947        Fg        Koskie, Corey                       16.5        
20051028      20511        Fg        Jones, Jacque                       16.9        
19950713      39482         R        Stewart, Scott                      15.3        
19960401      13631         R        Fultz, Aaron                        18.9        
19970516      30220         R        Olson, Gregg                        21.5        
19981003      34439         R        Ritchie, Todd                       32.8        
20001220      23436         R        Lincoln, Mike                       13.5        
20021014       3412         R        Blake, Casey                        48.1        
20021216      30458         R        Ortiz, David                       101.4        
19971118      27370         X        Miller, Damian      ARI             92.5        
19951009      34458        Fa        Rivas, Luis                                       24.7
19961104      34373        Fa        Rincon, Juan                                      35.6
19990216      21343        Fa        Kielty, Bobby                                     50.3
19950613      39481         F        Stewart, Scott                                    15.3
19951205      27848         F        Molitor, Paul                                     40.7
19951208      28907         F        Myers, Greg                                       24.0
19951211        302         F        Aguilera, Rick                                    31.2
19960102      18388         F        Hollins, Dave                                     23.8
19960129      21020         F        Kelly, Roberto                                    24.6
19961205      39347         F        Steinbach, Terry                                  28.6
19961212      40617         F        Tewksbury, Bob                                    16.8
19961218      40139         F        Swindell, Greg                                    29.0
19961220      30219         F        Olson, Gregg                                      21.5
19970124       7751         F        Colbrunn, Greg                                    27.8
19971216      28221         F        Morgan, Mike                                      13.6
19971223      14199         F        Gates, Brent                                      12.0
19980114      27003         F        Merced, Orlando                                   18.3
19990104      39349         F        Steinbach, Terry                                  11.9
19990127      43376         F        Wells, Bob                                        24.3
19990603      12657         F        Fiore, Tony                                       10.1
20000401      27793         F        Mohr, Dustan                                      31.2
20001219      32882         F        Prince, Tom                                       12.1
20010330       6460         F        Carrasco, Hector                                  23.9
20010413      26076         F        McCracken, Quinton                                19.7
20010530      12661         F        Fiore, Tony                                       10.1
20030109      14798         F        Gomez, Chris                                      18.5
20030317      35072         F        Rogers, Kenny                                     57.6
20031207      39477         F        Stewart, Shannon                                  30.1
20031218       3434         F        Blanco, Henry                                     16.7
20040108      13638         F        Fultz, Aaron                                      14.9
20041123       6724         F        Castro, Juan                                      13.1
20041124      33691         F        Redmond, Mike                                     12.9
20041207      33229         F        Radke, Brad                                       21.5
19941104      34714         W        Robertson, Rich     PIT                           15.0
19980403       6456         W        Carrasco, Hector    ARI                           31.7
20000523       3409         W        Blake, Casey        TOR                           48.4
20010921       3410         W        Blake, Casey        BAL             48.2        
20011012       3411         W        Blake, Casey        BAL                           48.2
20031120      15803         W        Guerrier, Matt      PIT                           10.7
20041014      13639         W        Fultz, Aaron        PHI             12.0        
19950608      49355         T        Courtright, John    CIN                            0.0
19950608      49355         T        McCarty, David      CIN             18.0        
19950706      49364         T        Rodriguez, Frank    BOS                           21.2
19950706      49364         T        Aguilera, Rick      BOS             31.2        
19950707      49365         T        Klingenbeck, Scott  BAL                            0.0
19950707      49365         T        Erickson, Scott     BAL             54.0        
19950731      49386         T        Coomer, Ron         LAN                           53.1
19950731      49386         T        Hansell, Greg       LAN                            6.3
19950731      49386         T        Parra, Jose         LAN                            5.3
19950731      49386         T        Guthrie, Mark       LAN             25.9        
19950731      49386         T        Tapani, Kevin       LAN             49.4        
19950919      49365         T        Bartee, Kimera      BAL                            2.9
19951030      49386         T        Latham, Chris       LAN                            3.8
19960826      49492         T        Mahomes, Pat        BOS             14.3        
19960829      49496         T        Hollins, Dave       SEA             23.8        
19960913      49496         T        Ortiz, David        SEA                           137.7
19961211      49520         T        Walbeck, Matt       DET             18.9        
19961217      49492         T        Looney, Brian       BOS                            0.0
19970814      49587         T        Colbrunn, Greg      ATL             27.8        
19970820      49591         T        Kelly, Roberto      SEA             15.4        
19970905      49597         T        Myers, Greg         ATL             17.6        
19971009      49591         T        Mays, Joe           SEA                           44.7
19971212      49630         T        Becker, Rich        NYN              0.0        
19971212      49630         T        Ochoa, Alex         NYN                           30.3
19980206      49642         T        Knoblauch, Chuck    NYA             69.7        
19980206      49642         T        Buchanan, Brian     NYA                            9.8
19980206      49642         T        Guzman, Cristian    NYA                           79.7
19980206      49642         T        Milton, Eric        NYA                           68.4
19980206      49642         T        Mota, Danny         NYA                            0.0
19980731      49693         T         Barnes, John       BOS                            0.0
19980731      49693         T        Kinney, Matt        BOS                            7.3
19980731      49693         T        Merced, Orlando     BOS             18.3        
19980731      49693         T        Swindell, Greg      BOS             19.3        
19980825      49709         T        Morgan, Mike        CHN             13.6        
19981103      49709         T        Downs, Scott        CHN                           11.6
19981214      49735         T        Ochoa, Alex         MIL             27.5        
19990521      49771         T        Lohse, Kyle         CHN                           41.5
19990521      49771         T        Ryan, Jason         CHN                            1.9
19990521      49771         T        Aguilera, Rick      CHN              4.3        
19990521      49771         T        Downs, Scott        CHN             11.6        
19991213      49836         T        Santana, Johan      FLO                           101.1
20000715      49891         T        Sears, Todd         COL                            1.9
20000715      49891         T        Huskey, Butch       COL              0.0        
20000715      49891         T        Walker, Todd        COL             74.5        
20000909      49936         T        Ford, Lew           BOS                           41.6
20000909      49936         T        Carrasco, Hector    BOS             23.9        
20010328      49973         T        Frias, Hanley       ARI                            0.0
20010328      49973         T         Moeller, Chad      ARI             16.4        
20010728      50015         T        Jones, Todd         DET                           35.6
20010728      50015         T        Redman, Mark        DET             40.6        
20010730      50017         T        Lawton, Matt        NYN             48.9        
20010730      50017         T        Reed, Rick          NYN                           18.7
20020712      50111         T        Buchanan, Brian     SDN              8.8        
20020712      50111         T        Bartlett, Jason     SDN                           18.5
20021115      50142         T        Kinney, Matt        MIL              5.1        
20021115      50142         T        Valentin, Javier    MIL             21.4        
20030716      50199         T        Kielty, Bobby       TOR             27.3        
20030716      50199         T        Stewart, Shannon    TOR                           39.0
20031114      50237         T        Pierzynski, A.J.    SFN             38.6        
20031114      50237         T        Nathan, Joe         SFN                           47.1
20031114      50237         T        Liriano, Francisco  SFN                           16.3
20031114      50237         T        Bonser, Boof        SFN                            6.5
20031203      50245         T        Milton, Eric        PHI             13.5        
20031203      50245         T        Punto, Nick         PHI                           21.6
20031203      50245         T        Silva, Carlos       PHI                           31.0
20031215      50254         T        Mohr, Dustan        SFN             14.2        
20031215      50199         T        Gassner, Dave       TOR                            0.1
20040731      50322         T        Mientkiewicz, Doug  BOS             13.3        
20051202      50425         T        Castillo, Luis      FLO                           17.2
20051202      50425         T        Bowyer, Travis      FLO              0.0        

Dan Levitt's forthcoming biography of New York Yankee general manager Ed Barrow is scheduled for release in the spring of 2008 from the University of Nebraska Press. He co-authored (with Mark Armour) the award-winning book Paths to Glory: How Great Baseball Teams Got That Way. Dan has also published numerous baseball related articles and short biographies.

Permalink | Comments (3)

As we enter the off-season with few marquee free agents on the market, the talk around baseball will start to revolve around potential trades. Fans, sportswriters and even real life GM's will start thinking about what they would be willing to offer other teams to get them to part with their stars. As George Costanza once mused, "I think I got it. How 'bout this? How 'bout this? We trade Jim Leyritz and Bernie Williams, for Barry Bonds, huh? Whadda ya think? That way you have Griffey and Bonds, in the same outfield! Now you got a team!" Unfortunately, a significant number of fans, sportswriters (and even the occasional GM) don't understand the basic rules that govern (or at least, should govern) trade value in baseball. So before the Mets go trading Jose Reyes and Mike Pelfrey for Johan Santana and Jason Bartlett, it is time to learn about the concept of lease equity.

Lease equity is, in a word (OK two), the easiest way to understand the trade market and assure that your team isn't selling its future for a short-term rental (yes, I am thinking of you, Houston Astros, for trading Jason Hirsh, Taylor Buchholz and Willy Taveras for Jason Jennings). The concept is simple, every player under contract has a certain value, in dollars, which is a function of the length they are under control and the amount of money they are owed. To figure out lease equity, you simply determine the difference between the relevant term of a player's contract