Beer and Whiskey

Pale Hose

2005-05-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

Frank Deford's grammarian analysis of the White Sox is a bit much, but an entertaining listen if you're a word person.

The ChiSox took 2 of 3 from the Cubbies this weekend.

Quote of the BLEEPIN Century

2005-04-26T15:43:00.000-07:00

As you may well know, there has been a recent rift between Ozzie Guillen and Magglio Ordonez. Well, here's a rather erudite and insightful comment from Mr. Guillen when asked about Ordonez. From Friday's Chicago-Sun Times:

''He's a piece of [bleep],'' Guillen said. ''He's another Venezuelan [bleep]. [Bleep] him. He thinks he's got an enemy? No, he's got a big one. He knows I can [bleep] him over in a lot of different ways.

''He better shut the [bleep] up and just play for the Detroit Tigers. Why do I have to go over and even apologize to him? Who the [bleep] is Magglio Ordonez? What did he ever do for me? He didn't do [bleep] for me. But he said I'm his enemy -- he knows me. Tell him he knows me, and he can take it how he wants to take it.

''Did he play good for me? Yes, he did. Did he play hard for me? Yes, he did. He might like me. He might be sensitive of me. He might be jealous of me, I don't know why. But saying I'm his enemy, he hates me, I could care less what that [bleep] thinks. I don't give a [bleep] what he does with the rest of his life. He [bleep] with the wrong guy, and he knows that, too. He knows for a fact that he [bleep] with the wrong people.''

I'll let Steve add the commentary to this.

In other baseball news, The New York Times has two rather interesting tidbits. One is a long article by Michael Lewis. It's not exactly a follow-up to Moneyball (although Lewis has indicated in the past that he does want to write such a book) but he does follow the career paths of two players who were drafted in the now infamous "Moneyball" draft. What I found most interesting about this article was the suggestion that there existed a deeply-ingrained, institutionalized value on power that made steroid use almost inevitable.

One of the players Lewis spotlights is Steve Stanley ... basically a speedy, slap-hitting OBP machine (kind of in the same mold as little David Eckstein). Even though Billy Beane valued OBP, the organization's coaching and scouting staffs continued to emphasize power. While I don't necessarily disagree with this assessment, Lewis seems to overlook one simple fact: the "statistical community" is in many ways just as guilty. While stat-heads may value walks more than "traditional" scouts, the ultimate stat line is OPS. In other words, slugging ability is a highly valued skill even with stat-heads; hence, all the slack that Ichiro gets for hitting a "meaningless .365 average."

And speaking of Ichiro ... Bob Sherwin has a nifty little piece on Ichiro (also in the New York Times). I realize that at the beginning of every season, it's easy to get overly excited about a hot start but considering that Ichiro has historically been a slow starter it's pretty darn hard not to think .400! What a BLEEP year this might be!

Broken Promises

2005-04-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

Ok,

So I lied ... well, no, I didn't lie because I wasn't intending on writing about the Yankees but recent events made it just too damn hard to avoid another swipe at the Stoneboners.

After da Boss made his big-bad-wolf declaration that "Enough is enough. I am bitterly disappointed, as I'm sure all Yankee fans are, by the lack of performance by our team," the Yankees went on to answer this criticism by putting together an offensive juggernaut of an evening with a 19-8 pounding of ... THE DEVIL RAYS! Yeah, that's showing them.

Most news coverage saw this as a direct answer to Steinbrenner but, thankfully, there was one sane voice in Yankee Land: Larry Mahnken of Replacement Level Yankee Blog. In his analysis of the first game between the Drays and The Stonboners, Mahnken rightfully points out that any win is a good win and any offensive explosion is a positive but before people get too carried away let's not forget this one little tidbit: Jaret Wright had a horrendous outing. Granted, you spray enough perfume around a piece of crap and everything smells like roses but, at the core, there's still a piece of crap on the ground and, in this case, that piece of crap is Jaret Wright and his career 5.18 ERA.

Look at this guy's line for the night:

5.1 IP, 11 Hits, 8 Runs (all earned), 3 BB, 4 K, 1 HR

Now, I'm sure Wright will have a decent outing a couple times this season but unless Stonboner somehow manages to buy Leo Mazzone away from the Braves, Wright's going to quickly turn into the very mediocre pitcher he's always been.

Oh, and by the way ... did you all notice that the very next night the Stoneboners "answered" the boss by losing to the Drays 6-2. Hmmm ... isn't the definition of an ace supposed to be someone who can carry a team in a must-win situation? I guess the offensive juggernaut that is Eddie Perez (career .246 avg/.424 slg). I mean, boy, Johnson must have had one hell of a pitching performance to allow ONLY TWO homeruns to such a fierce hitter as Perez. As my friend, Paul (a lonely Twins fan living in Mariner country), said the other day, "Maybe if George had spent 206 Million instead of 205 ..."

In other baseball observations ...

Eric Neel, from ESPN's PAGE TWO, had a great little story a few days ago about how baseball out West is the best. Well, if parity means anything, there's some exciting new brewing in the AL WEST where every team is sitting at .500 (Oakland, Seattle, and Anaheim -- you heard that right, Moreno, I said ANAHEIM, mofo -- are all sitting at 7-7 and the Rangers are 7-8). It's early in the season, anything can happen, blah blah blah ... but from the perspective of a fan whose team, the Mariners, will most likely finish third or fourth, seeing such parity is indeed rather exciting. Ah, let hope spring eternal and the facts be damned.

Shut Your Trap

2005-04-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

Minnesota 1, Chicago 3

Hey, Torii, your (Venus fly) trap is open! So why don't you shut it, bitch? Last night, the normally defensively stellar Torii Hunter let a line drive struck by Joe Crede go over his head for a double, allowing his former teammate, A.J. Pierzynski, to score. Perhaps he was too busy trying to keep his gum from sticking to his little braces.

Speaking of Joe "Not Speedy" Crede, he advanced to third on the next play thanks to a funny-looking bunt by Juan Uribe. From third, Crede tagged and scored on a sac fly by Scott Podsednik (not "Podesnik," as he was announced at the Triple H Metrodome). As Crede came running toward home plate, Twinkie the Kid moved toward the line as if to block the plate. Mr. Crede then lowered his shoulder and brushed Mauer, who had thought better of it and stepped out of the way. As Dick Bremer would say, "if you're the runner, you've got--you're well within your rights to clean out the catcher."

Wouldn't it have been something if Joe Crede had, with the Franchise, Twinkie the Kid, the guy the Twins drafted instead of Mark Prior, standing there in front of the plate, waiting so patiently for a sad little throw from Shannon Stewart to finally arrive--wouldn't it have been giddy and high-five inducing if, with all the bad blood between these teams, and even though Mauer had backed off the plate, Crede had just gone ahead and flattened him anyway?

No, you're right. It would have been a cheap shot. But I wish he'd done it. He was, after all, "well within" his "rights."

Oh, and the Twins got 10 hits off El Duque without scoring a run, something no team had been pathetic enough to accomplish since 1983. Versus the Cubs.

Permission to Speak Frankly

2005-04-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

Last night, the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox were tied for first place in the American League Central. Joe Crede hit one and Carl Everett hit two home runs for Chicago.

In the top of the 5th inning, Torii "Fly Trap" Hunter, clearly revelling in the rivalry, stole second base, advanced to third on a throwing error by his former teammate, A.J. Pierzynski, and scored on a wild pitch by Jose Contreras, who had already balked home a run in the inning.

In the top of the 9th, Twins 21 year-old catcher Joe Mauer, whom I will refer to henceforth as "Twinkie the Kid," hit yet another home run off struggling Sox closer Shingo Takatsu (10.80 ERA), who managed to hang on and get the save anyway.

With the win, the White Sox regained sole possession of first place in the Central and notched the second best record in the major leagues (9-4) behind the Dodgers (10-2). The White Sox, like the Dodgers, have yet to lose a series and have a better record than the Yankees, Red Sox or Cubs.

But, this morning's only headlines that mention the White Sox (or Twins, for that matter):

ESPN.com: Frank Thomas unhappy Guillen called him out
MLB.com: Thomas, Guillen set record straight
CBS Sportsline: none
Fox Sports: White Sox manager rips Thomas' 'bad attitude'

Frank Thomas, though he has certainly been a sourpuss through the years, has not taken a single at-bat this season because he is recovering from surgery to repair a bone in his foot. I understand that gossip and infighting and heresay and all of that is fair game as news. However, even though we're still hearing about Sheffield this and season ticket revocation that, we're also hearing about the games that the NYY actually play on the field.

Is it so much to ask that a first place team, with the best record in its league, get some coverage of its actual baseball games, in addition to the coverage of comments made by their manager about players who are not currently on the roster?

Slow to the draw

2005-04-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like Steve beat me to the A-Rod bashing post. I keep telling myself that I'm going to stop writing about the Stoneboners, especially if it's at all related to the "most storied rivarly in sports," but every once in a while I run into a story (like the most recent one from Joel Sherman of the great ass-wiper the NY Post) that is just too good not to share.

In contemplating the Yankee's slow start, Sherman offers this sweet little gem:

Rodriguez is heckled and hectored at Fenway and Rivera is mockingly cheered, and both players have performed as if the Red Sox — if not the Red Sox Nation — are in their heads. That is no surprise with A-Rod, a shock with the normally steely Rivera.

What is Sherman saying on the surface? Both Rivera and A-Rod seem shook by the Red Sox and it's especially surprising because Rivera is normally so "steely" as we all know from those swell Nike ads:

But here's the really cool part about Sherman's little piece ... by indicating that it's a surprise to see Rivera shaken up, Sherman is implying that it should come as no surprise that A-Rod is a bit flustered since we all know that he's basically a mental midget.

Next posting: no Yankees, no Red Sox ... I promise.

Plain Trains and Automobiles

2005-04-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

According to the Associated Press, Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez saved an 8 year-old boy's life the other day:

[Alex Rodriguez] said Thursday he was standing in a crosswalk on Newbury Street near downtown Boston at about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when he saw the boy starting to run across the street into the path of an onrushing truck. Rodriguez reached out and grabbed the boy, pulling him back and preventing a serious accident.

Inexplicably, Rodriguez went on to say, "That was a train wreck waiting to happen." Apparently, A-Rod not only doesn't know which base to throw to, he can't tell a truck from a train, either.

Don't Be a Dick

2005-04-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

April 6, 2005. Wednesday night, top 8, Safeco Field. Nick Punto on 3rd, Luis Rivas on 2nd (running for Justin Morneau, who had been struck in the helmet by Ron Villone), Matt LeCroy on 1st. Jacques Jones at the plate. Jones hits a fly ball to right fielder Ichiro Suzuki. Punto tags from third. Dan Wilson bobbles the throw from Ichiro, and while doing so throws his leg into the baseline, forcing Punto to choose between getting tripped and leaping awkwardly toward home plate; Punto chooses the latter, missing home plate entirely. Punto does score, howver, because Wilson doesn't bother to look back to see him scrambling for the plate like a catfish on a driveway. So: trying to trip a guy who's running toward home plate is not a nice thing to do. I agree. But then Twins broadcaster Dick Bremer, refering to an incident between the Twins and White Sox last year, makes the following statement:

You know, when I saw that the first time, the first flashback I had was Jamie Burke, who was in a similar spot when Torii Hunter came home in Chicago and some people had the audacity to criticize Hunter for running into the catcher; you see a catcher pull a play like that, and if you're the runner, you've got--you're well within your rights to clean out the catcher.

Talk about a false analogy. Here we are in Seattle, with Dan Wilson whipping his leg into the baseline and Dick is using this as proof that Torii Hunter was beyond reproach for bowling over Jamie Burke. In Chicago. Last season. It's clear that Mr. Bremer will (still) go to nonsensical lengths to defend Hunter's actions, even if it means bringing the incident up out of nowhere and suggesting that Burke whipped his leg into the baseline last year, which he did not.

Despite Mr. Bremer's assertion that Jamie Burke was in a "similar spot" last season as Torii Hunter came down the third baseline, let us recall that Jamie Burke last year, unlike Dan Wilson this week, did not have the baseball; furthermore, let us recall that Jamie Burke last year, unlike Dan Wilson this week, was neither in the baseline nor blocking home plate; and finally, let us recall that Jamie Burke last year, unlike Dan Wilson this week, did not in any way extend any part of his body into the baseline in an attempt to trip or in any other manner waylay the progress of Mr. Hunter, who himself took a step toward first base in order to lay a full-body blow on Burke, who never saw it coming--again, because he did not have the ball and was not blocking the plate.

It seems that Mr. Bremer believes that when "you see a catcher pull a play like that" (referring to Dan Wilson, this week) it serves as proof that any runner, at any time, regardless of the circumstances, is within their rights to "clean out the catcher." Among the people who "had the audacity to criticize Hunter for running into the catcher" was Twins fan Aaron Gleeman. You can read his comments here.

Eesh

2005-04-06T17:11:00.000-07:00

Cleveland's starters, Jake Westbrook and Kevin Millwood, have combined for 14 innings without giving up an earned run. Their offense has scored 3 runs in 18 innings. Their closer, Bob Wickman, has an ERA of 108.00. The "Tribe" is 0-2.

Is it me or are the umpires not calling many breaking ball strikes?

Bert Blyleven keeps pronouncing Seattle RF Suzuki's first name as "Eesheero." Come on, Bert, the guy's Japanese, not French. Okay, so it's your birthday and you're drunk on tv and wearing a plastic lei. Fine. But stop saying "Eesheero." Dork.

Hey, Torii Hunter, there's a venus fly trap on your face, and you look like a stupid asshole. There must be a better way to hide your little man-braces. Don't try that scorpion lipstick-holder that Rivera's got, though. You should both fire your agents. At least Pujols looks scary in that mask.

Curmudgeonly is a word, by the way.

Show Them My Motto

2005-04-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

Around the Horn (Pt1: AL West)

2005-04-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

In our attempt to be less curmudgeonly (is that a word?), I wanted to do a quick go-round to see what's happening in the world of baseball during this oh-so wonderful time when hope springs eternal.

First off, here's a nice little tidbit from Aaron Gleeman which I think very neatly highlights a very small detail that also sums up what is so wonderful about baseball:

When a batter smacks a ball into right field against the Mariners and it appears as though they are going to try to stretch the hit into a double, the crowd at Safeco Field starts buzzing in preparation for Ichiro! throwing a laser into second base. Jacque Jones hustled a double out of a hit to right in the top of the sixth inning yesterday, and while Ichiro! had no shot at throwing him out, the Seattle crowd started getting audibly excited as soon as they saw Jones round first. Little stuff like that is why I miss baseball so much during the offseason.

Granted, my own bias as a Mariners fan makes this especially meaningful to me but I think almost any baseball fan can appreciate this kind of collective thrill (except, of course, if you're a Mets fan ... then I guess it's about a collective groan)

In the world of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (and that will be the only and last time you ever hear me refer to the Angels by that stupid monker), the folks at Purgatory Online have a funny observation I thought was worth sharing:

Today's Angels-Rangers preview at ESPN.com describes Bartolo Colon as a "burly righthander," "burly" being the selfsame epithet used to describe Kelvim Escobar a few days back by the Register. Time to start a burlywatch! Or maybe change the name: The Los Angeles Burlies of Anaheim.

And speaking of funny ... apparently some Oakland A's fans have a serious case of low self-esteem problems. The The Elepheants in Oakland for some reason feel their team is greatly underappreciated:

The A's are picked to finish dead last in the AL West by just about everybody but A's fans, Rob Neyer and Baseball Prospectus...The Yankees are the favored team by most 'experts'...In case you have missed the last century of baseball, apparently not a lot has changed.

I don't know what those elephants have been smoking but the A's had been favored to win the AL West several years in a row and even with their rebuilding project are still considered to be in the running.

And while we're on the topic of people who smoked a little too much crack ... Hank Blalock is apparently bullish on the Ranger's pitching:

"I think our starting pitching has been one of the best things about spring training," third baseman Hank Blalock said. "Everybody kept saying we needed to sign starting pitching in the off-season, but these guys have shown they can do the job."

Sure, the Rangers pitching has improved steadily but that's a lot like comparing two pieces of dog crap and saying one smells better than the other. Sure, that may be true but you're still sniffing two pieces of crap. Ah, yes, everyone's a contender in the Spring.

We're Back ...

2005-04-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, we're back in business ... hopefully this time around we'll be a lot less bitter and vitriolic in our posts but no guarantee and, truth be told, I'm sure about one-third into the season something is going to piss off one of us enough that we'll feel compelled to vent right here.

Hey, if anyone knows how to create a custom template on blogger please let me know. I've been trying to upload a template with a nice little graphic that Steve created but I can't seem to get it to look right and so I've given up. Keep in mind that both Steve and I are English Teachers so there are many facets of technology that are way beyond us (or at least me ... perhaps I shouldn't speak for Steve).

Welcome to 2005!

The Angriest Little Boys in the World

2004-09-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

I realize that the following post is only going to add to our horrible reputation as bitter baseball dilettantes ... heck, maybe we should change our need to the Drunk on Beer and Whiskey League ... but sometimes you just got to call people out for being fucking idiots. And so, today, my anger is going to be vented (yet, once again) at the spankees.

Like those boys at Soxaholix, I don't really hate the Yankees and I even have a little respect for the organization ... well, I don't hate them nearly as much as I hate the jack-ass media that seems to fawn over everything they do (the best or worst of it was when the Astros no-hit the bombers last season and rather than crediting the Stros for a fine performance, the talk was all about what the Yankees did wrong). Anyhoo, the recent request for a forfeit because of the Drays inability to get into the Bronx in a timely manenr was just plain fuckin' idiotic. There really is no other way to describe it. This is pure urban provincialism -- the city that is supposedly so "cosmopolitan" and worldly is plagued by its pathetic solipsism that it can't fathom that important events actually occur outside their immediate domain. Hey, numbnuts, there was a potential, life-threatening hurricane to worry about!

What makes this even worse is that it comes a little over a week after another recent yankee gaffe when King George compared the Indians 22-0 victory to the attacks of 09/11. As quoted in a recent NY Times article:

"I wanted to show the fans that we have the same courage and the same attitudes all New Yorkers have had in fighting back from that terrible episode on 9/11," Steinbrenner said in the statement. "New Yorkers never give up and the Yankees never give up."

Hmm ... being shut out and beaten badly in a baseball game versus the death of millions of people? Yeah ... that's a real good comparison.

Oh wait, but there's more (as Ron Popeil might say) ... the idiots at both the NY Daily News and the NY Post (both such great papers of quality, eh?) didn't think that enough fun had been made over this potentially life-threatening disaster.

Peter Botte's recent article at the NYDN featured this winning headlilne: Bombers Take Rays by Storm. Yeah, that's real funny. And the next time the Yankees are blown out maybe the headline should read, "Yankees terrorized and bombed by Boston." Gee, has such a nice ring, doesn't it?

Kevin Kernan from the Post offers something close to sanity by hinting that it was inappropriate of the Yankees to request a forfeit but then like the typical jack-ass that he is, Kernan blows his own load all over himself by joking that it was understandable the Devil Rays would rather take shelter at home than at Yankee stadium.

Ok, now, deep breath ...

By the way, is it just me or does anyone think it's rather weird/suspect that Kevin Brown had the wherewithal to punch the wall with his non-pitching hand? I mean, if you are truly carried away by your emotions, truly out of control, wouldn't the natural instinct be to punch the wall with your strong hand?

Tom Verducci is a flippin a-hole and other random baseball observations

2004-08-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

I know that we here at Beer and Whiskey have been known to be a bit on the surly side (what with our rampant use of words like annoying to describe just about everything under the sun that doesn’t fit neatly into our world view) but this just needs to be said (again): Tom Verducci is an a-hole or more precisely he’s a stupid a-hole idiot.

In a recent column for SportsIllustrated.Com (and why is it that the venerable magazine whose product is, in my opinion, far superior to ESPN: The Magazine can’t manage a web page nearly as entertaining and intelligent as the four-letter network), Verducci posited that Edgar Martinez should not be in the hall of fame because he was a DH. Specifically (or more precisely), a reader asked Verducci that if Piazza, a very mediocre defensive catcher, could make the Hall of Fame based on his offensive numbers then why not a DH. Verducci, in response, says:

I don't think Piazza is that awful defensively. Is his throwing terrible? Yes. But he blocks balls OK and calls a decent game. But ask yourself this: how much better would his numbers be if he never had to worry at all about playing defense? No wear and tear from catching. One hundred percent of his time devoted to hitting, including watching video or taking swings in an indoor cage in between at-bats during games. I will always consider DH a specialist's role, an easier job than playing the game the way it was designed to be played.

There are precisely three things about this statement that really pisses me off. Now, I shouldn’t totally vent out at Verducci because he’s only repeating the same incredibly inane and inaccurate observations that seem to run rampant in the world of “conventional” baseball thinking: that Edgar was a career DH, that it’s easier to play the game as a DH because of the wear and tear factor from playing defense, and that the DH somehow goes counter to the way the game was “designed to be played.”

The Right Way to Play the Game?

The latter point irks me the most so I’ll start there: WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS MEAN? Hey, Mr. Verducci, according to the first set of baseball rules written down by Alexander Cartwright in 1845 a ball hit out of the field of play was considered a foul. In other words, the homerun is not really a part of the game as “it was designed to be played” by the founding fathers of the game. So, should we just eliminate homeruns too so that we can remain faithful to the heart of the game? Oh yeah … and while we’re at it, why don’t we just get rid of this nine-inning bullshit since, again according to the original rules, you’re supposed to play the game until someone gets twenty-one runs.

Why stop there? Let’s also move the pitcher’s mound back to its original distance of 45 feet so that we don’t give these hitters an unfair advantage that would ruin the spirit of the game.

Look, I’m not some panglossian cheerleader that thinks all change is good. Part of the beauty of baseball is its rich history and that we can compare players from different eras with a greater degree of accuracy than other sports can. But to rely on some dumb-ass argument about the “way the game was supposed to be played” is just asinine. Baseball has always evolved and everytime it evolved there have been critics who have decried that baseball was losing its spirit: when the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first team of paid professionals, when homeruns became an integral part of baseball, when teams began moving out to the west coast, when free agency became a reality, and, of course, when the DH came into existence.

Is DH a cush-job?

As for wear and tear, while Verducci certainly has a point when it comes Piazza (after all, it’s hard to deny that catcher is the most physically grueling position) but what about 1st base and, to a lesser extent, 3rd base? Outside of a few stellar gold-glovers like Olerud, 1st base is usually the domain of slow guys with not a lot of dexterity (a la Frank Thomas and Jim Thome). Does being a DH really offer someone the “advantage” of sitting around, resting, watching video, taking swings in a batting cage between innings, etc. that Verducci claims it does?

If it were truly more difficult on your body to hit while playing first than as a DH then why has Thomas hit almost 60 points higher as a first baseman? Yes, you heard that right: in 3485 at-bats while playing first, Thomas has a career .337/.453/.625 (avg/obp/slg) while in 3341 at-bats as a DH Thomas’s line is: .280//404/.510. That’s not an insignificant drop-off – heck that would be like trading in a Randy Winn for an Edgar Martinez.

Thomas isn’t alone, of course. Jim Thome did quite a bit of DHing while with the Tribe and although his sample size is obviously smaller has hit nearly thirty points lower as a DH than as either a first or third baseman (career totals: .260 as DH in 423 at bats, .289 as 3B in 1624 at bats, and .287 in 3551 at bats). I also ran the numbers for several other notable DHs around the league and guess what? All except David Ortiz hit better as position players than as DHs.

	avg/obp/slg as DH (at bats)	avg/obp/slg as non-DH (at bats)
David Ortiz	.282/.358/.539 (1603)	.274/.358/.471 (731)
Jason Giambi	.265/.396/.504 (896)	.312/.429/.569 (3135)
Rafael Palmeiro	.280/.379/.549 (1438)	.291/.373/.517 (7714)
Reuben Sierra	..256/.312/.439 (1491)	.272/.320/.448 (5748)

One could certainly make an argument that these stats do not mean anything because Edgar plays everyday as a DH and the other players platoon between the DH and their respective positions (first base for all except Sierra who has played both corner outfield positions) but I bring these stats up to point out one very simple fact: there is no evidence that playing as a DH is in any way easier than playing as a position player. One could certainly argue that being a part of the game, defensively, helps the player maintain a certain rhythm which makes hitting “easier.” So, before people like Verducci go out spouting stupid shit maybe they should take heed to the words of another annoying white guy, Fred Durst, and check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Oh, and regarding Verducci’s third assertion that Edgar Martinez is a pure DH, here are some stats people continually forget:

Edgar has 100 at-bats as a 1B (yes, small number) in which he hit .380/.453/.810
Edgar has 1943 at-bats as a 3B in which he hit .302/.391/.459
His DH numbers are 5007 at-bats hitting .316/.430/.535

So, while Edgar did play a huge chunk of his career of his career as a DH, nearly 30% (ok, 28%) of his at-bats came as a position player.

Alrighty, I was going to add some more stuff about the recent talk of Beltre and the downgrading of Ordonez as a free agent (hmmm … maybe the ChiSox will be able to keep him after all) as well as a little nostalgia trip about the mariners pre-Piniella but this ranting and raving has gone on for far too long so I’ll close off with one last link that you must absolutely visit: the lego-vision re-enactment of a Twins/BitchSox brawl. Worth many guffaws.

The future's so bright, I got to wear shades

2004-08-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

A quick note on why people hate the Yankees and why Mariner fans should not fret:

There are two kinds of baseball fans: those who love the Yankees and those who hate them. I, of course, fall within the latter but, to be honest, it’s not so much that I hate the Yankees but, rather, that I hate what the dumb-ass media has to say about the “most storied franchise in baseball.”

A few days ago I was sitting around watching the Yankees/A’s game on ESPN’s Wednesday Night Baseball. At one point, Bobby Crosby made a throwing error to first and the commentator (who was, quite fortunately, not Joe “The Idiot’s Guide to Baseball” Morgan) proclaimed, “If you want to beat the Yankees, you can’t make mistakes.” Oh really? So does that mean you can make mistakes and still win against every other big-league team? I realize the Yankees won Saturday’s game but that had absolutely nothing to do with the throwing error.

The next day I was stuck at the car dealer getting my car fixed. Fortunately, they had a TV in the waiting room and I got to watch a bit of the Yankees/A’s afternoon rubber match. When Olerud hit his two-RBI single early in the game, the commentator mentioned Olerud’s hitting woes this season in Seattle and then added, “but things are a little different when you put on the pinstripes.” No, jackass, things are a little different when you have Bernie Williams hitting behind you rather than some sorry-ass switch hitter like Spiezio.

And while we’re on the subject of Olerud …

Jim Caple had an article about a week ago on the sorry state of the Seattle Mariners with particular focus on Mr. Olerud himself. For those of you who may not be familiar with the story or just don’t want to suffer the ordeal of reading through an entire article written by Caple, Olerud’s one of those “fan favorites” because he’s a local boy who has done his hometown proud (as well as his alma mater, Washington State University).

The Mariners at this point are just sad beyond sad. In 2001 they had that magical 116-win season and then followed up with back-to-back 93-win seasons (although they missed the playoff both times). While most everyone, myself included, thought the Mariners would hit hard times I don’t think anyone could have predicted just how hard those times would be. For all the talk there is on the miraculous turnaround in Detroit, scant attention seems to be paid on the incredibly disastrous turnaround in Seattle.

The Mariners are on pace to LOSE 100 games this season. This following three seasons in which they averaged 100 wins! As Aaron Gleeman pointed out a month ago in the Hardball Times, Seattle’s winning percentage at the time was .252 less than last year’s while the Tigers winning percentage .211 better … and this was before the Mariner’s began their 2-21 road-losing streak.

Oddly enough, however, following the boys in teal has been just as exciting (if not more so). Sure, it’s never quite as fun when your team loses game after game after game but at a certain point a fan has to stop thinking about wins and losses and instead just think about individual performances especially when those individuals happen to be a bunch of rookies.

The most notable of these young rookies is, of course, Bucky Jacobsen. While he’s certainly not the second coming of Hank Aaron he certainly may be our generation’s Harmon Killebrew (and that ain’t bad). While he can certainly look more than a tad silly when he misses on a breaking ball, he’s also shown some amazing plate discipline. In 67 at-bats, he’s posted a .328/.418/.642 (avg/obp/slg). That ain’t no typo either … he’s really got a .418 OBP. I know that 67 at-bats is a paltry sample size but still … a .418 OBP would put him second amongst qualified leaders in the American League, right behind Melvin Mora (.430). At 28, Bucky should be hitting his peak and he will most likely show signs of some major decline in three or four years but considering that this is his rookie year and he won’t be eligible for arbitration for some time, he would certainly make a nice short-term replacement for Edgar. (note: I wrote this before Edgar's announcement that he was to retire at the end of the season ... more on that later).

The supposedly pitching rich Mariners farm system, however, has so far proven to be a bust in the majors. The two call-ups who have received the most playing time, Clint “Sweats a lot” Nageotte and Travis Blackley have shown signs of promise but they seem another year or two away. Both Nageotte and Blackley have serious control problems and seem to lose it after four or five innings. The latter problem I would chalk up to inexperience … major league hitters are making adjustments and the pitchers are not so that after two or three times through the lineup, the hitters have pretty much figured them out. More of concern, of course, is their walk to strike ratio. Nageotte has a disappointing 21 walks to 20 strikeout but Blackley has an unbelievably bad 22 walk to 16 strikeouts.

I like to think myself an optimist and so I’m hoping that these control problems are due mostly to their youth. A 1:2 ratio is considered pretty good. In 361 innings pitched over three years in the minor leagues (at all levels) Blackley had a great BB/K split of 135 BB to 386 K – that’s almost a 1:3 ratio. Blackley is only 22 years old and I think still has a lot of upside in him. So, despite his painfully bad major league numbers, I still think he can be a pretty good middle-of-the-rotation pitcher.

A year older than Blackley, “Sweats-a-lot” Nageotte also had a minor league K/BB ratio of 1:3 (in 617 innings pitched over four years). While I certainly do not expect either pitcher to repeat those numbers in the majors, I do think that once they get their heads on straight, we should be seeing much more consistency from these two.

Bottom line, I think at least one of them should turn out pretty well (my money is on the left-handed Blackley) but the Mariners need to bring him in slow. The front office has already indicated that they are planning to acquire a number one or two starting pitcher via free agency. Basically, if Moyer, Piniero, and Franklin stay in the rotation (and regardless of what others might say, I think Franklin is a fine number four pitcher) and the front office does manage to get a good starter then we can have Blackley or Nageotte as the number five.

Contreras to Popular Belief

2004-08-03T13:37:00.000-07:00

Before either of them makes his first start for his new team, I just want to put my two cents down on the Loaiza-for-Contreras deal, since most of the coverage I've read really only talks about what Loaiza will purportedly do for the Yankees and what Contreras has not done for them.

Sportsline gives a moderate edge to the Yanks, saying that "the Yankees acquire the runner-up in last year's AL Cy Young Award voting in exchange for the inconsistent Contreras." This is fairly typical of the coverage, which tends to read things off of Loaiza's resume (Cy Young runner up last year, All-Star); of course, it's even more obvious than usual that none of these writers have been paying any attention to the White Sox this season.

You want to talk about inconsistent? Okay, Contreras has certainly been that, but Loaiza this season has been consistent in only one area--his decline; he put up an ERA of 3.71 in March and April, 3.68 in May, 5.35 in June and 6.89 in July. Here are his hits allowed vs. innings pitched, last year versus this:

2003 196 H, 226.1 IP
2004 156 H, 140.2 IP

Last year, Loaiza gave up 17 home runs all season; this year, he's already given up 23--with two months to go. He has an ERA of almost 8.00 in his last 7 starts. And yet, Brian Cashman doesn't seeem to think that we've already seen the best we're ever going to see out of Loaiza, and neither do most of the sports writers. At the beginning of the year, nobody thought Loaiza was going to come close to last year's numbers; now, everyone thinks New York got the better end of the deal because of them. Meanwhile, everyone's mumbling about how Kenny Williams just traded away last year's Cy Young runner up--many of the same people who were mumbling that Loaiza would never put up those kinds of numbers again.

Loaiza's success last year came largely because he learned a new pitch--the cutter--which allowed him to mow down all kinds of hitters who thought they knew him. But when the final weeks of the season rolled around, and the White Sox needed big wins out of him against the Twins, who had already seen a lot of the new Loaiza, he lost both starts. As 2004 opened, his velocity was down, his arm slot was dropping, and he didn't look much at all like the Cy Young runner-up Chicago fans remembered. Not only did opposing batters know there was a new pitch to look for, but it wasn't coming at them as fast. That didn't stop Joe Torre from inexplicably selecting Loaiza as the White Sox's lone representative for the All-Star team, though his 4.37 ERA and .283 opponents' batting average hardly seemed worthy of the honor. Perhaps, in retrospect, we should see this as an audition? Why else select a guy who was nowhere near the top in any category (Loaiza) over guys who were near the top in several (Thomas, Konerko)?

It's not as if Kenny Williams hasn't made some bad pitcher-for-pitcher trades in the past (okay, let's say that Kip Wells + 2 for Todd Ritchie was worse than bad), but everyone seems to think that Cashman pulled the wool over his eyes on this one. Let's remember that no one doubts Contreras's stuff. It's incredible. Loaiza's stuff, on the other hand, seems to have left the premises (along with a lot of his pitches); he can hardly hit 90mph anymore, which wouldn't be such a problem if it weren't for the fact he doesn't exactly fit the Jamie Moyer mold. Contreras, enigmatic as he has been, still has a huge upside, whereas Loaiza appears to be in the midst of not only a regression to the mean, but a rather swift decline. For a moment, let's remove the names Loaiza, Contreras, Williams and Cashman and just say this: "Here's a former 21-game winner whose velocity has dropped 5 mph since last season and whose ERA has increased steadily each month this year; and then here's a guy who throws 95, struck out 17 in 11 postseason innings last year, but has been incredibly inconsistent--which one would you rather take a chance on for the stretch run?"

Perhaps the move to New York will be good for "Zesty," and I wish him well. Perhaps the goatee has been hindering him all this time. Perhaps a move out of New York and into a clubhouse with a Spanish-speaking manager will do a world of good for Contreras. I think it's a crapshoot for both teams, and not the unmitigated New York victory everyone seems to think it is.

If Only I Could Hunt the Hunter

2004-07-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

It's the bottom of the 7th inning and the White Sox trail the Twins by a run, 4-3. Here's what the first six batters do:

Jose Valentin walks (1).
Juan Uribe singles (2).
Joe Crede singles.
Aaron Rowand walks.
Joe Borchard walks.
Timo Perez singles.

Total runs scored: 1

Footnotes: 1) Valentin, thinking that catcher Henry Blanco was going to throw behind him (but not waiting for an actual throw) takes off for third and is out by about 10 feet); 2) Juan Uribe, practicing the "Who Cares? Be Aggressive" style of White Sox baseball, is easily thrown out trying to steal second.

Bottom of the ninth, tie game now, 4-4.

Juan Uribe strikes out. Joe Crede singles. Jamie Burke singles. Runners on the corners, one out. Joe Borchard (1) swings at the first pitch he sees and grounds into a 5-4-3 double play. Inning over.

Footnote: 1) Joe Borchard pinch-hit for Ben Davis in the seventh; Davis had hit a home run in his previous at-bat.

Top of the tenth, still tied, Shingo Takatsu on the mound. Two outs. Jacque Jones hits a pop-up in foul ground on the third base side. Jose Valentin calls everyone off, gets under the ball and, with plenty of room between himself and the stands, has it go off his glove. Soon thereafter, Jones soft-serves a single to left and drives in the go-ahead run.

It's bad enough that this White Sox team didn't have enough character to take care of things after Torii Hunter needlessly knocked over and concussed their catcher, who a) didn't have the ball and b) wasn't blocking the plate. That's bad enough. Something should have been done and wasn't. But to give away the final game of a series in which you've been outplayed on every front by trying to be aggressive--i.e., trying to make up for not taking care of business in the first place--is just plain pathetic.

The Sox have an easier schedule the rest of the way than do the Twins, but if they can't play better than my rec league team, it isn't going to matter.

Left Field Sucks

2004-07-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's game between the White Sox and Rangers was played in Arlington, Texas. In the first inning, Sox left fielder Carlos Lee hit a home run into the left field seats. A fan immediately picked up the home run ball and threw it back onto the field. As I witnessed this, I thought, "What is this idiot doing? Does he think this is Wrigley Field or something?" And, lo and behold, the camera returned to the fan in question to reveal that he was indeed wearing a Cubs jersey. At a White Sox-Rangers game. In Arlington, Texas.

Folks, if you really think that "Wrigleyville" (what the Chicago Tribune is quick to refer to as "Lakeview" when, say, there is a murder outside the ballpark) is a cool neighborhood, then by all means move there. But until you can save up the money to make the big move, please keep your silly Cubs traditions to yourselves.

(For those of you not familiar, another one of those "great Cubs traditions" is the bleachers shouting back and forth at each other, "left field sucks/right field sucks," hence the title of this post; take a sample of some of the great minds that help propel such traditions by clicking here. Incidentally, Albert Pujols, the subject of the heckling guide alluded to in the previous sentence, today went 5-for5 with 3 home runs and 5 RBI).

Court Less Panic

2004-07-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

Again, to the folks running the show in Boston: Curt Leskanic lost his job as closer for the Kansas City Royals. As in the we're-15-games-out-of-first-place-but-things-aren't-so-bad-that-we'd-have-Curt-Leskanic-as-our-closer Kansas City Royals.   Apparently that has not given you pause.   Maybe last night did. Incidentally, Keith Foulke blew his 5th save of the year. Keith, if you throw away, away, away, then the hitters will look away, away, away, and that is where the ball will fly, fly, fly.

Speaking of the balls that flew away (goodbye, baseball) in the 9th inning last night, one of them was struck by former White Sox Miguel Olivo, who was part of the trade for Freddy Garcia (Aaron Gleeman thinks the M's got the better part of that deal, by far). Olivo hit his first round tripper since joining the M's and having his kidney stones removed. The other was struck by elderly pinch-hitter Edgar Martinez, for whom one of the Tacoma Rainiers surrendered his spot in the batting order. Sr. Martinez is one half the subject of a recent rant on the North Side about whom might be called the best right-handed hitter of the 90s. No offense to Edgar, of course.

And since Bret Boone evoked M's broadcaster Dave Niehaus's famous grand slam call, I should take this moment to say that absolutely the best salami in Seattle can be found at a tiny little joint, not too far from the Safe, called Salumi.

How about Carl Everett going 2-for-5 with a home run and 2 runs scored in his first game back with the White Sox against the team that traded him to Chicago last year? How about the White Sox giving up five prospects in two years for Carl Everett? How about Buck Showalter saying that he'd take Carl Everett back any time?

A little cheese with that whine?

2004-07-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

Ok, no more long-winded, incoherent posts. I'm switching to shorter (and more regular) posts starting ... right ... now.

I realize that every year people whine and gripe about the all-star roster and who should and shouldn't be on it. There's never going to be a roster that satisfies everyone. And every year, there is always one or two players who get voted on by the fans despite whatever miserable numbers that player have put up in the first half (a la Jason Giambi's whopping .241 average this season).

Ok, so I'm not going to whine and gripe about whether player X deserved to be on the roster and player Y didn't deserve to be on the roster (except to say that Johan Santana -- the official pitcher of Aaron Gleeman's blog -- was robbed). No, instead, I just want to point out what seems to me to be an incredibly odd little anomaly on this year's American League roster.

Eight of the fourteen teams have only one representative. Detroit, Boston, and Anaheim have two each. Boston would have had a third had Curt Schilling not pulled himself out for injury-related reasons. Likewise, Oakland would have had two if Hudson had not injured himself. The Yankees of course lead the pack with nine (Vazquez being chosen as the replacement for Mulder). Ok, thus far, no big surprise. Now, the Rangers have five. A small surprise but not really considering what a hot start that team has had this season. No, here's the crazy anomaly, the Cleveland Indians (42-45) also have five. Yes, you heard that right ... the flippin' tribe have five members on their all-star roster. How the hell does this happen?

As the folks over at Tribe Tracker have recently reported, the five tribesmen themselves were being asked that very same question.

The five Indians All-Stars arrived in Houston on Monday for the All-Star Game to a reception as frosty as when the Geek, a young John Cusack and the other guy crashed cool guy Jake Ryan's party in "Sixteen Candles."

Everywhere they went, the five players from Cleveland had to defend being there. Esteban Loaiza of the White Sox and Joe Nathan from the Twins both questioned the selection of five Indians. But they weren't alone.

** By the way, "the Geek" in Sixteen Candles was played by Anthony Michael Hall -- the ubergeek in the John Hughes' universe -- who you may recall (assuming you were one of the few people able to actually sit through Billy Crystal's incredibly painful homage to the Yankees, *61) played Whitey Ford.

The folks over at Indians Ink have a picture of the five all-stars (although you'll have to subscribe to actually read the accompanying article).

Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the tribe and I'm certainly not suggesting that those players don't deserve to be there but what I don't get is how a team with five all-stars manages to put together such a mediocre season. Heck, Tampa Bay has a better record and only one all-star representative (oh, where art thou, Victor Zambrano?). They are sixth in team batting average, eighth in slugging, and twelfth in team ERA (that's out of fourteen teams!). In other words, I'm not going to question the propriety of those five tribesmen being on the roster only just asking why five all-stars can't seem to play together as a team very well. The last time a team with a losing record had so many all-star representatives was back in 1972 (The Royals also had five).

So, play ball!

The pre-All Star Edition Update

2004-07-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, here's the rather longish post I promised. Again, thanks to all of you who've written in with links, suggestions, questions, ideas, etc. Many I've written directly and others I will address indirectly below. To begin with, however, I would like to post a response to Mr. BK's questions regarding the term "southpaw" and the corresponding vectors of baseball fields.

1. Are all major league diamonds oriented to the east?
[related: Is it regulation or custom? Which vector is
parallel to the equator: the first-base line, or the
line between the mound and plate?]

Traditionally, home plate always faced east so that
the sun would be behind the batter; however, in the
era of large stadiums (that can block out direct sun
in the batter's eye) and night baseball this tradition
has been abandoned.

There are no rules as to the orientation of any
particular vector. There are, however, three main
configurations in use today:

Parks such as Jacobs Field, the Skydome, the Juice
Box, and the new Citizen's ballpark have run straight
south to north from the plate to the mound (some might
be slightly off the axis but it's pretty close).

The most popular, however, tends to be where the first
baseline runs along a West-East axist (west being
homeplate). Your beloved Wrigley field would be one
such example as would Orioles Park at Camden Fields,
Shea, and Pro Player.

The third option, one rarely used, and really kind of
odd, is when the first baseline runs at a north to
south axist (again, with homeplate being on the north
end). The only two I know of that follows this
configuration is the Ballpark in Arlington and the
Great American Ballpark.

2. Are all retrieved batted balls switched out for new ones?

Technically, this is up to the discretion of the
umpire (which is why you always see him looking at a
ball when it is retrieved). If the ball has any marks
or scuffs on it then yes it is not put back into play
(and saved for either the minor leagues or for batting
practice depending on the condition of the ball). An
average MLB game will go through about 90 balls which
is about two dozen more than the average number of
balls used between 1919 (the end of the deadball era)
and and 1994.

The reason for the jump after 1994 is that teams
began to give out foul balls to the fans. This was
part of a general directive on the part of MLB to be
more fan-friendly in light of the bitterness attached
to the cancellation of the 1994 season due to the
player's strike.

And back to our regularly scheduled programming ...

Not too long ago, I was in Portland for my occassional biblio-fix at the legendary Powell's City of Books. I had selected about forty books to take into a corner and peruse. Generally, I read the first chapter of a book to figure out whether or not to purchase it. By the way, The Rookie, is a far better movie than it is a book (the book's title officially being The Oldest Rookie. Jim Morris's narrative voice is incredibly annoying (yes, there's that ugly word again) in its hagiographic and self-aggrandizing tone.

One book I did end up purchasing was Art Thiel's Out of Left Field: How the Mariners Made Baseball Fly in Seattle. Unlike the Red Sox, Yankees, Cubs, Cardinals, and (even) the White Sox ... there aren't a whole lot of books about the Mariners. Heck, unless you count the infamous Ball Four there isn't much about Seattle baseball period. Art Thiel is a sportswriter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and I generally find him worth reading on a regular basis but not particularly exciting and truth be told I normally would not have bothered purchasing his book had it not been for the simple fact that instead of reading the first chapter I skipped directly to the chapter on Seattle's now-legendary 1995 season.

I was living in Minnesota at the time and while the internet was certainly up and thriving, it was still difficult to follow an out-of-town team. Heck, back then, each team had designed their own web page so there was no design uniformity as there is now. Anyhoo, I still remember that great ALDS (Mariners vs. Yankees). The Yankees took the first two games and Seattle fought back to take the next two. I then desperately called every obnoxious sports bar in the twin cities to find some place that would be broadcasting the game. This being 1995, the year after the strike, there was not a whole lot of interest in baseball. The general disinterest in baseball was amplified in Minnesota by the fact the hometown nine had managed a very paltry 56-88 record in a shortened 144-game season (translated into a 162 game season, that would be a 63-99 record).

My friend Scott (a fellow Seattlite living in the frozen tundra of Minnesota) and I were the only two people watching the game and, in fact, we had to pester our server to change at least one of the TVs (for chrissakes, this was the playoffs). And then, in that dramatic ninth inning, when Edgar Martinez hit "the double" to score Griffey (the go-ahead, game winning run) from first, Scott and I both jumped out of our seats and screamed only to be told by the manager that we had to keep it down (in a fuckin' sports bar!) or we would have to leave.

The reason I bring this all up is that when one's team sucks as bad as the Mariners are sucking right now (32-54 ... a half-game ahead of Kansas City for the worst record in the American League), a fan must find solace elsewhere. No, not necessarily in another team (although, as I've mentioned before, I am finding some excitement in the Devil Rays) but in the glory days and/or the oh-so-bright future. In other words, when the going gets tough, it's time to dream, baby. And the going has been brutally tough.

The other day on ESPN's Baseball Tonight, I heard Peter Gammons mention that one of the big shocks of the season was the fall of Kansas City, last year's feel-good story. I don't disagree with Gammons that there is something sad about how miserable the Royals have been playing; however, it seems a bit short-sighted to call the Royals terrible the season a major shock. No, that would most definitely have to be the Seattle Mariners.

True, not many (if any) sports pundits picked them to win the AL West but this is the first season since 1999 that the Mariners have not led the AL West at the all-star break. Even the crankiest/most critical Mariners bloggers (a.k.a. those folks over at U.S.S. Mariner) could not have imagined a season so dismal. It seems that just as everything went so right in 2001 (during their 116-win campaign) everything is going so wrong this year. Jayson Stark, I think, put it best in his mid-year report. The AL Least Valuable Player went to Juan Gonzalez but the runners up were, "pick a Mariner ... any Mariner."

So, granted, this season is a complete wash. I see no hope in the Mariners (sure, you had the great comebacks like the 1977 Yankees and the 1995 Mariners -- both of whom were double digits behind first-place as late as August -- but that's not going to happen to this year's Mariners)... for this season. I do see great hope in the next year or so, however.

After suffering through years of non-moves by "Stand" Pat Gillick, we're finally going to see some of those great minor-league prospects that the Mariners just could not part with. Add to that the end of some weighty contracts (like Olerud's) and the Mariners should be primed to spend some good money to get the likes of Adrian Beltre, Beltran, Ordonez, etc. (no, not all of them ... we're not the Yankees) to complement what may be a pretty good (though not necessarily great) roster of young pitchers.

Now, enough about me, how about you?

Money can't buy you love and, apparently, it can't buy you a winning record (well, unless you spend oodles and oodles of money ... then you can buy both love and a winning record, I suppose).

I wonder if the Orioles made a mistake building their new ballpark over the site of the tavern once owned by Babe Ruth's father. I mean, if the Red Sox are suffering the curse of the Bambino then why not the Orioles? In the 90's, they spent a lot of money on a lot of free agents that turned into busts and it looks like the same has happened this year. Well, it's not so much the free agents are busts but the team as a whole is 11 games below .500 (and four games behind the Devil Rays!) and currently last in the AL East.

Of course, it could all be a matter of spending the right money in the wrong places (or, again, just not spending ooodles and oodles). The Orioles have the fifth best team batting average (.280) while the Yankees are a surprisingly mediocre (.266). Of course, the Yankees do have the second-best OBP (right behind the Red Sox). But the Orioles are second-to-last in the AL in team ERA (5.06). Hmm, this reminds me, I should do another power-ranking pretty soon.

Ok, there was a lot more I wanted to say but I'm going to end it here and spread out my posts over the next week. My butt is getting numb.

Cub Your Enthusiasm

2004-07-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

I realize the Cubs are more popular (marketable) than the White Sox, even in Chicago, even though it's been 87 years since the Sox won a World Series, which doesn't exactly pale in comparison to the 96 years it's been for the Cubs. Fine. I realize that in the Chicago version of those Fox Sports Net "Where [insert regional market] Fans Come First" commercials, they digitally insert Cubs logos onto people's tattoos and t-shirts, rather than White Sox logos. Fine. I realize that even though the White Sox outdrew the Cubs for the entire decade of the 90s there is a wide perception (relentessly reinforced by certain corners of the Chicago media) that no one goes to White Sox games. Fine. That doesn't really bother me.

What bothers me, friends, are lies. Regardless of how fucking lovable the Cubs are, the first All-Star game, in 1933, in which Babe Ruth hit the first All-Star home run, and which the American League won, 4-2, was played at Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox, and not at Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. And yet, MLB.com is selling these "Chicago Cubs 1933 Inaugural All Star Game T-Shirts." I suppose the schmuck who wrote the item description didn't know there were two teams in Chicago (there's no team name on the shirt), or that the schmucks in marketing figured they'd sell more this way. Good for them.

By the way, Tommy and I have tacitly agreed to not write about White Sox - Mariners series.

Quick and Dirty

2004-07-08T15:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm back but this one's going to be brief. I promise to have one of my lengthy (overblown) posts up first thing Monday (or last thing Sunday). I also promise to get to reader mail (and thanks a ton to all of you have written during our short sabbatical).

I do want to point out a few things:

1. We have reached the midpoint of the season (or thereabouts) and the Devil Dogs are one game above .500 and only 4 games out of the wild card.

2. The Texas Rangers have not had the collapse everyone keeps predicting they will. Now, conventional wisdom (and we all know that conventional wisdom has been about as valuable as a Paul "released by the Devil Dogs" Abbot fastball) says the Rangers will perish in the horrid August heat of Texas. And it is true that the geniuses at MLB, scheduled 17 of the Rangers's 28 August games at home (including a 15-game stretch followed by one day off and then a 10-game stretch ... yep, that's 25 games in 26 days ... way to go MLB!). But opponents also have to play in the same heat (albeit for only three days). My point being that I think the Rangers may have a less than stellar August but I do not think the dog days of summer will be their undoing.

3. I recently heard Mariner's broadcaster Dave Niehaus mumbling that Bobby Crosby is a leading Rookie of the Year in the American League. Poor Dave. Lord knows, I love him and his sweet baritone voice but that man is seriously losing it. Throughout the season, he had been missing calls, spouting incorrect facts, etc. but the suggestion that Crosby is anywhere near a possible AL RoY is just plain dumb dumb dumb. A .271 AVG and .799 OPS is certainly nothing to sneeze at (heck, that just might make him the third best batter in the Mariners's staff this season) but it's not award winning anything. Now, his limited at-bats due to an early-season injury might make him ineligible but for my money, Joe Mauer is the undisputed RoY not only for the AL but for all of baseball. In 94 at-bats (yes, yes ... a relatively small sample size) Mauer is hitting .340/.402/.638 (avg/obp/slg) with an OPS of 1.020. Those are amazing numbers ... and the fact he's a pretty darn good catcher is a big big plus.

4. When Pudge was a Ranger I couldn't stand the guy ... but now that he's been bounced around like a piece of used tissue, I have to admire his drive and determination. It really does excite me to think that we might see a catcher win the batting title. Sure, it's not as dramatic as seeing a record-breaking homerun but I think it really will be one of those once in a lifetime events.

5. There's a lot of hoopla around the fact 21 of the 30 MLB teams are within five games of a playoff spot. The Mariners aren't one of them and, in fact, they are only three games ahead of the AL cellar (currently occupied by the Royals). This is incredible: a team that won 116 games only three years ago is now scratching at the ground floor. Unflipping believable.

6. ESPN has now made Rob Neyer's articles pay-to-view via subscription. Pisses me off. I would do it if there were a host of other writers I wanted to read. While I find the other baseball writers on ESPN entertaining/amusing, Neyer's is the only one I find really engaging and the thought of paying $35/yr just to read Neyer seems a tad ridiculous.

7. We have reached the midpoint of the season (or thereabouts) and the Devil Dogs are one game above .500 and only 4 games out of the wild card. I know I started with this tid-bit but I think it really needs to be said over and over again. I've been on the Devil Dogs bandwagon since the opening of the season and you bet I'm going to pay very close attention to what happens in the Yankees series this weekend.

Torre-ble

2004-07-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

I'm not entertaining any arguments about whether Joe Torre is a good manager or not (because no one else gets to manage AL All-Stars all year). I suppose when you work in an inherently corrupt city like New York, where things like garbage disposals in sinks get outlawed in order to keep the mob-run waste hauling business healthy, you find ways to, as they say, manufacture runs.

Predictably, yet another Yankee, Hideki Matsui, is on the All-Star squad. Let's see: Torre chose as the only representative of the then-first place White Sox a guy, Esteban Loaiza, who is not having an All-Star season (8-4, 4.37 ERA, 68 SO in 115.1 IP); Then, he put two guys, Konerko and Thomas, who are having All-Star seasons on the final vote ballot to compete with each other for votes.

Thomas is the obvious All-Star. He leads the AL in walks (64), is second in OPS (.997) and has 18 home runs. He's also going to the Hall of Fame, which warrants mention only because people seem to think that getting in on one's reputation (Sosa, Jeter) is okay if you have a proven track record. If you're of the camp that, because you don't particularly like Big Frank and think he whines too much, thinks that thefore he's not a HOF-er, consider that the top four 100-RBI, 100-walk seasons, all time, belong to Gehrig, Ruth, Bonds and Thomas.

Anyway, so you say the ASG is in an NL park this year, and since Frank doesn't really play 1st base anymore, he shouldn't be in. Fine. Konerko has 21 homers (good enough for 4th in the AL) and a .924 OPS (11th). Which leads us to H. Matsui, who shouldn't even have been on this ballot in the first place. No offense to Matsui, who is a fine player, but his .880 OPS puts him at 19th in the AL, and he has fewer homers than Jose Valentin. Jose Valentin, incidentally, who is always being criticized for his defense, has not allowed a single inside-the-park home run this season (Matsui allowed one in Los Angeles on a play that your grandma could have made). But, Matsui has name recognition (though Chicagoans are still confused about the whole "Matt Suhey" thing), the entire nation of Japan voting for him online (and Torre knows this) and has the benefit of not having a teammate on the same ballot.

The White Sox have a Japanese player, too, Shingo Takatsu, who rattled off a 26 and 2/3 scoreless innings streak this season. That would qualify as remarkable, whereas Matsui's mediocre season would not. Whatever. Joe, next time just name all the Yanks you want as reserves and make a joke that's actually funny out of the final vote.

Red Necks, White Sox and Blue Ribbon Beer

2004-07-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

Where have we been? Good question. Tommy's in the midst of re-acclimating himself to the Pacific Northwest after a long move. I'm just lazy.

With all due respect to the Boston brain trust (hey, even Max Kellerman is quoting Bill James these days), Curt Leskanic lost his job as the closer for the Kansas City Royals earlier this season before becoming a Red Sox. You didn't think it was possible to lose one's job closing for KC, did you? So, B&W was not so surprised to see him blow the game and give NYY the sweep. But enough about that because you've already been told how important that series was. But come on, the deposed Royals closer?

Those guys at Fox are real White Sox fans. The three games the Sox will be national so far this season: at Safeco, where they have a miserable record the past three years (Billy Koch blew that one); at Wrigley, which is really just ancillary to having the Cubs on; at Oakland, where the Sox have won exactly one game in three years.

The other day I asked if they carried Pabst at a bar that will go unnamed. The waitress frowned and said, "No, and we don't have High Life, either. How about a Bud Ice? It's terrible, if that's what you're going for." Some people have no taste.

Like No Business

2004-05-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

I must say I'm curious. When I made my "Jeter-sense" comment, I was referring to Darren Rovell's hypothetical situation in which Derek Jeter turned a double play, thus stepping on one of the hated Spider Man bases. My comment ("What the fuck does Jeter have to do with it?") was intended to express puzzlement with Jeter's celebrity cameo in this otherwise business-oriented article. Why, I wondered, of all the players, in all the stadiums, in all the possible scenarios, would you choose Jeter's suspect defense as your lead-in to an article on MLB's decision to sell ad space on the bases? A day after the article was posted, it was revised; now, if you follow the same link to that ESPN article, it's Barry Bonds rounding the bases after a home run, rather than Jeter turning a double play.

Anyway, in case you haven't picked up the New Yorker this week, the May 17th issue has, in addition to more by Seymour Hersh, a nice piece by Ben McGrath called "Project Knuckleball." It's a nice read, and touches not only on the physics of the "butterfly with hiccups," but also makes the heretofore unbeknownst-to-me link between Red Sox knuckleball prospect Charlie Zink and the legendary Luis Tiant. At art school.

Around the Midsummer Night’s Horn (The Shakespeare Edition)

2004-05-11T01:51:00.000-07:00

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. (Hamlet): Apologies for my insane rant on the whole Spiderman episode last week. I have to remember not to put up posts when I’m tired. Trust me, you sit at your desk with about ninety papers to grade and you’ll start to get irritable real quick (not that I’m making excuses). Anyhoo, so here’s a more standard look around the American League.

Is there not a double excellency in this (Merry Wives of Windsor): On Friday night, Edgar Martinez became the 29th player in MLB history to hit 500 doubles. Appropriate enough, it came against the Yankees. As any Mariner fan (and most New York fans) may remember, Edgar’s double in the 1995 ALDS is often called the hit that saved baseball in Seattle. The Edgar also hit his 299th homerun.

In the crazy world of baseball numbers, there are only six other baseball players who have ever had more than 2,000 hits, 500 doubles, 300 homeruns, and a .300 career average. As you might have guessed, all six of those players are not only hall of famers but downright legends: Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, Lou Gherig, Al Simmons, Ted Williams, and Stan Musial.

Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, And lift my soul to heaven (Henry VIII): Buster Olney, on EPSN.COM, recently had an article arguing for the sacrifice (also known as the productive out). Amongst the stats-oriented community, the sacrifice is often seen as being a wasted out and so, not surprisingly, folks at the Hardball Times and U.S.S. Mariner have both chimed in with their own articles breaking down Olney’s argument.

On a tangential note, the Pearly-Gates has a rather entertaining anecdote on Darin Erstad. A few more quotes like that and he just may take the Baseball Boob prize from Lew Ford.

Wherever sorrow is, relief would be (As You Like It): If you’ve been following the American League, you’ll know that the A’s bullpen managed to blow two hefty leads (once in NY and once in Oakland) against the Yankees. The folks over at Athletics Nation have a good piece on the A’s bullpen woes.

One might think that Oakland’s bullpen meltdown was just a case of the pitching staff coming up against a surging NY offense (and really, did anyone think they would suck all year long?). Yes, you could think that but you’d be wrong because they also managed to blow pretty sizeable leads against the Minnesota Twinkies.

Last Friday, Oakland won a thirteen-inning game against the Twinkies but the game would never have gone into extra innings had it not been for the fact Rincon and Hammond managed to give up two runs each in two thirds of an inning. The very next day, the A’s went into another extra-inning game (this time, only into the tenth) and lost because of yet another bullpen fiasco.

O love! be moderate; allay thy ecstasy; In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess (Merchant of Venice): The Twins seem to enjoy playing extra innings. I wonder if Carl “the cheapest man in baseball” Pohlad pays his players overtime for those innings? A few days before the two aforementioned extra inning games against the A’s, the Twinkies played a 16-inning marathon against the Mariners (which the Twins lost).

A month ago (April 5 and 6), the Twins played back to back extra-inning games. Although they won both games, Minnesota burnt out their bullpen playing a total of 26-innings over two days.

O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption! (Merchant of Venice): I don’t what kind of PR the Yankees are running right now but there seems to be a fuzzy-feel-good redemption of old King George Stoneboner. Tom Verducci of SI has online an excerpt from a longer article about old George. Ken Rosenthal has also recently done a piece on George. In both pieces, to differing degrees, Stoneboner comes off as a sweet old man who wants nothing but to give the people of New York happiness and joy.

The timing of these articles is particular interesting to me as I had just begun to read Roger Kahn’s October Men. The book is basically about the 1978 Yankees. I say “basically” because as anyone who has ever read any Roger Kahn book might have guessed, the book is about so much more. Anyhoo, there’s quite a bit about Stoneboner in Kahn’s text that seems to “explain” (if not outright excuse) many of his legal and ethical transgressions.

The magnifico is much belov’d, And hath in his effect a voice potential As double as the duke’s (Othello): Well, it seems that every week more and more people are jumping on the Texas Rangers bandwagon. Even the worst ex-athlete turned commentator, Joe Morgan, is cheering on the rangers as John Donovan of Sports Illustrated.

For we bid this be done, When evil deeds have their permissive pass And not the punishment (Measure for Measure): And speaking of the Rangers, they have followed in the footsteps of the Chicago White Sox … no, not by putting together an incredibly inept bullpen, but by selling off the naming rights of their stadium. Although the Ballpark in Arlington never had quite the ring of Comiskey (or the New Comiskey), their new name, Ameriquest Field is about as pleasant sounding as U.S. Cellular Field. Apparently, whenever someone hits a homrun, a big bell out near the centerfield scoreboard will ring (you know, to mark a “dinger”).

In my previous (crazy, ranting) post, I mentioned how I appreciate maverick owners who just want their team to win (even if this means signing really stupid contracts). And, indeed, when asked about this name change, Tom Hicks justified the selling of the naming rights as “a chance to be more competitive, and I think that's what it's all about – winning.” Can’t argue with that, of course, unless of course you take into consideration the horribly corrupt and evil ways the Rangers originally got their ballpark built (you listening, George W.?!?!).

Wherever sorrow is, relief would be (As You Like It): And speaking of Chicago’s weak bullpen, Tim Kurkjian recently remarked on ESPN Radio that the Chicago White Sox were definitely a team to watch because they were winning so many close one-run games. Apparently, Tim only looks at the final score and doesn’t bother to read the box scores or much less watch any Chicago White Sox games. As those crazy Canadians over at the Batters Box point out:

One might think that a team that excels in one-run games to the tune of winning eleven of twelve might have a dominant closer. Instead, Damaso Marte has been shaky, and Billy Koch has converted more than his share of comfortable leads into one-run nailbiteers.

Apparently, these nailbiters are starting to make members of White Sox nation twist and turn until their panties get all up in a bunch. Most recently, Cotts managed to give up two runs in the 8th inning for a 4-2 Chi Sox Loss.

Of course, the White Sox are the not only team with bullpen woes. Aside from the aforementioned Oakland A’s, Peter Gammons recently reported that:

The plight of the Cleveland Indians and, to a lesser degree the White Sox, Mariners and Blue Jays, is testament to the fact that with the exception of the elite few, relievers are the most unpredictable commodities in the game. Going into spring training, the Indians thought their bullpen was going to be OK, with Bob Wickman closing behind David Riske, Rafael Betancourt and Scott Stewart. Wickman got hurt. Riske has been a disaster, and this is a guy who in 68 games last year had a 2.29 ERA and held opposing hitters to a .196 average. This year, Riske is being hit at a .412 clip. But his year-by-year ERA defines the second tier of the bullpen profession: 8.36, 1.98, 5.26, 2.29, 12.27. That is enough to drive a GM to insanity.

Are my discourses dull? barren my wit? (The Comedy of Errors): For those who may not already be aware of this, there is an excellent baseball show on ESPN Radio every Saturday from 12:00-4:00 PM (Pacific Time). The show is hosted by Karl Ravech (who also hosts Baseball Tonight) and former Nasty Boy, Rob Dibble.

The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day … with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings Clip dead men’s graves (Henry VI): On a quick note, there seems to be a lot of talk about how the Stoneboner’s slow start might be a result of their trip to Japan. What no one seems to mention is that the Drays actually got off to a pretty fast start (relative for them, that is) after their trip. Silly silly excuses.

Third Out. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye (The Two Gentleman of Verona): The Tribe have a 4-0 lead in the 4th but the Birds come back to tie the game. In the 5th, the tribe score 3 runs to go up 7-4 but the roaring Birds come back again in the 7th with four runs of their own and take an 8-7 lead. In the bottom of the 8th, they tack on an additional two insurance runs and ultimately get a 10-7 victory.

Nothing special about the game until Baltimore’s closer, Jorge Julio, comes in to shut the proverbial door. The first batter in the top of the 9th, Omar Vizquel, strikes out on three straight pitches. Gerut comes up to bat, swings on the first pitch and pops up to centerfield. Victor Martinez then comes up to bat and also swings on the first pitch and grounds out to first. Five pitches, all of them strikes, three outs. Now that’s a performance.

I throw thy name against the bruising stones (Gentleman of Verona): Now, on the complete opposite side of the spectrum is the pathetic pitching performance in the now rather infamous 5th inning of the Detroit/Texas game also played on Saturday.

With the score tied 4-6 after four innings, the Tigers come up to bat in the top of the 5th: Having gotten into some trouble in the 4th inning, R.A. Dickey had been replaced by Brocail who proceeded to get the last out of the 4th and was put back in to pitch the 5th:

1.Pena walks.
2.Guillen walks.
3.Higginson walks … three consecutive walks to load bases.
4.Craig Monroe scores two runs with a soft blooper to center
5.Omar Infante walks to load bases again (still no outs) Mahay comes in to replace Brocail.
6.Alex Sanchez lines into center for a 2-RBI single
7.Vina gets hit by a pitch and bases are loaded again.
8.I-Rod gets a swinging bunt to score one run with bases loaded
9.Rondell White called out on strikes –9th batter, 5 runs scored, first out
10.Pena comes back to bat and hits a line drive to right field for a 2-RBI single. Men on the corners.
11.Guillen – fielder’s choice. Grounder to second but couldn’t pull of the double play. I-Rod scores from third. Guillen safe on first. 2 outs.
12.Higginson – 12th batter of the inning – 0-2 count, fouls off the third pitch and then gets a single to score one run and put men on the corners again. Counted as a hit but really a result of bad defense on Soriano. Jay Powell comes in to pitch.
13.Craig Monroe – 13th batter – first pitch swinging, fly out to center.

So, at this point you’d think, “hoo boy, those Rangers sure blew it” and even the fans in Arlington seemed to think so as many of them started leaving the stadium. But, remember, this is the Tigers. With last year’s 20-game loser, Mike Maroth, still pitching:

1.Michael Young singles
2.Blalock Homers – 2 runs scored.
3.Soriano Doubles
4.Herbert Perry Homers – 4 runs scored.
5.Teixeira – the cutest girl in all of baseball – walks – Danny Patterson comes in to pitch.
6.Brian Jordan – currently in a .091 slump – walks on four straight pitches
7.Eric Young – first three pitches are balls, third pitch is wild pitch that advances Teixeira and Jordan. Patterson throws a strike for a 3-1 count and then walks Young. Bases loaded, no outs. Al Levine comes in to replace Patterson.
8.With Kevin Mench due up, David Delluci (a lefthander) comes in to pinch hit (.315 for Mench vs. .324 for Delluci). First pitch swinging, hits single to score two runs and put men on the corners. Six runs scored thus far and still no outs.
9.Gerald Laird singles to score one run. Men on the corners again.
10.Michael Young strikes out – first out.
11.Hank Blalock walks. Bases loaded … again.
12.Soriano 2-RBI single. Men on first and second. 9 runs scored thus far in the inning.
13.Herbert Perry – singles. Scores Blalock. Soriano goes to third and Perry to second on the throw.
14.Craig Dingman comes in to replace Al Levine. (7th pitcher of the inning … 3 pitchers used for Texas, four pitchers used for Detroit). Teixeira swings on a 3-0. Should have been ball four (high cheese) but hits it foul. Walks to load bases.
15.Brian Jordan back up to bat. First pitch, swinging strike (after five balls!). Jordan swinging at borderline pitches. Hits the sixth pitch for a double play to end the inning but should have been a walk. Previous five pitches were all borderline pitches.

Rangers score ten runs in the inning and the game is now tied at 14-14 – after five innings!

To make this even funnier, the very next inning the Tigers decide to play small ball. The lead-off batter, Omar Infante, leads off with a walk and Alex Sanchez bunts to move the Infante over to second.

Squash that Bug

2004-05-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

Originally, I was planning to avoid writing about this whole Spiderman fiasco but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. There’s obviously been no shortage of press on this mess and so I won’t bother to link them here since if you’re reading this blog that probably means you read most of the major baseball cyberpress that’s out there. I will point out, however, that Rob Neyer’s recent take on this mess was particularly interesting. Rather than cry out for the sanctity of the game, Neyer very smartly points out MLB’s horrific duplicity in their supposed justification and reasoning behind this promotional tie-in.

According to an official MLB press release, the son of Satan (President and Chief Operating Officer, Bob DuPuy)

[W]e think this is a terrific promotion for Major League Baseball and Columbia Pictures and a great opportunity to reach out to children and families

In response to a similar statement made by Jacqueline Parks, senior vice president of advertising and marketing, Neyer “translates” the PR double-talk:

Kids don't care about baseball like they used to. We haven't figured out how to make kids like baseball without running baseball clinics, opening baseball academies in urban areas, and subsidizing youth baseball programs, all of which would cost us millions of dollars. Sure, that would be a great investment in the future, but you have to remember that most of the current owners will not be owners 10 years from now. Most of the current owners couldn't care less about the next generation of fans, because by the time the next generation can afford to buy its own tickets, most of the current owners will have worn out their tax breaks and will have moved to their next expensive toy.

There are essentially two key (and obviously related) points that Neyer makes here: Baseball is in the business of making money and does not want to sink its revenues into long-term projects no matter how good they may be for the game; the way tax shelters work, most owners are not in the game for the long-run and, therefore, only looking for short-term fixes (like revenue generation movie tie-ins).

As someone who studies historical novels and the culture of nostalgia in contemporary America, I’m always wary of people harking back to the good old days because more often than not, those old days really weren’t so good (especially if you happened to be anything other than a rich, white, heterosexual, protestant male). I also have very little patience with people who cry out for the “purity” of the game. As much as I abhor the Spiderman tie-in, one has to wonder if it’s any worse than going to see a baseball game at Minute Maid Park or U.S. Cellular Field where the first pitch is sponsored by Pepsi and the day’s defensive highlight might be sponsored by a local stereo store (as it is in Seattle).

No, waxing nostalgic is strictly for the birds. But, with all that said, I do miss the days of stable owners (as opposed to ownership groups). I grew up an Angels fan and you always knew that was Gene Autrey’s team and even though I feel no loyalty to the Angels anymore I certainly am glad that Disney got out of baseball and an individual with a real face and a real personality (or at least a public version of a personality), Arte Moreno, is now the chief owner. Hell, I can’t stand Tom Hicks and his soul-crushing music empire known as Clear Channel but I have to admit that, as a fan of Mariners, Inc., I’m a tad envious of any team that has an owner with a real conviction for winning (even if that does mean the occasionally stupid contracts).

Of course, we’ll have to see if Moreno and Hicks stay in the game for the long-term. Will they be like the legendary Walter O’Malley or the Yawkey family or will they be more like the testicle-grabbing Wayne “the video trashman” Huizenga? If I were a betting man, I’d place a couple of bucks on the latter. Jeffrey Loria has done a great job to keep the Marlins together (unlike the trashman) but I’m willing to bet that once stadium financing goes through and the value of the Marlins rises exponentially, Loria too will cash out.

So, what does all this rambling on about owners has to do with Spiderman? Well, nothing and everything. That is, nothing directly and everything indirectly. I thin it’s wrong or misleading to say that baseball has been infected by a culture of greed. Baseball has always been motivated by greed. The legendary owners of whom I just spoke fondly in the above paragraph were also notoriously cheap-bastards who kept their players indentured via the reserve clause. I have no delusion that previous owners of baseball were wonderful people. They, like all Americans, were driven by greed. It’s an ugly secret Americans all know but like to pretend isn’t true.

Just to break on another quick tangent, we have this romantic mythology of the Puritans as the first Americans – that is, we like to believe that this country was founded by people who were out seeking freedom. Well, as any amateur historian can tell you, that’s a load of hogwash. The Mayflower arrived in 1620 … thirteen years after the colony of Jamestown had been settled … fifty years after the first English settlement (in present day Roanoke) had been attempted. No, this country was founded by a bunch of opportunists who wanted to make a lot of money and even the majority of those people who were living in the “Puritan” communities of New England were not Puritans. Those folks simply put up with the Puritans because you could still make lots of money there. (Sorry about this transgression but every once in a while I have to prove to myself that my master’s degree in 17th-century American Literature was not a complete waste of time).

So, getting back to baseball, if greed has always been a part of baseball then how is the new greed different from the old greed? Well, while the old owners always kept one eye on the bottom line, they also kept one eye in the standings. These people may have been cheap bastards but they were cheap bastards who wanted to win and who cared about winning. In today’s market, being competitive is important only insofar as it keeps the turnstiles moving and the cash registers (or credit card machines) jumping. I think Neyer’s suggestion that the baseball teams are “toys” for these owners is wrong. I think the Dodgers, for example, was very much a toy for Walter O’Malley as was the White Sox for Comiskey but these were toys that had value (both monetary and personal as well as private and public). No, the problem with the current ownership is precisely that the teams are not toys but rather cold, stark investments.

When, in 1922, the Supreme Court decided to grant baseball its now famous antitrust-exemption, it did so under the theory that while baseball was most certainly a business, it was also a business that served the public good. I’m no legal expert and so I’m not going to fiddle with the intricacies of antitrust law but I will most certainly agree that baseball does and can serve a greater good but in an environment in which the gross revenue is increasingly more important than total wins, one has to wonder anyone (the owners, the players, Bud Selig and his cronies, and maybe even the fans) really cares about the greater good.

I would like to think the answer is yes … at least for the fans. Baseball, it seems to me, has always been held to a higher standard. The current frenzy and outrage over the use of steroids in baseball seem utterly overblown. Barry Bonds is 6’2” and weighs 228 pounds. Brett Favre is 6’2” and weighs 225 pounds. True, Bonds did not come into the league weighing 228 pounds but is it so difficult to believe that someone as driven and determined as Bonds might, in dedicating the better part of twenty years of his life to baseball, commit himself to a strict workout regimen that would over time turn him from a star athlete to a superstar athlete? Unlike those “good old days” when pro athletes had to supplement their income with off-season jobs, today’s athletes can train year round.

This flack over the Spiderman promotion at first seemed to me yet another example of people holding on too tightly to the great sanctity of the sport. I can understand why Nader would be upset about the baseball players wearing advertising patches on their uniforms but then why hasn’t he lambasted the NFL or the NHL for wearing advertising patches on their uniforms (those Nike swooshes and Reebok logos don’t appear out of nowhere for no reason)? Likewise, what about the hallowed grounds of college athletics? Why isn’t Nader busting the NCAA for forcing their players to wear college uniforms that have commercial insignias?

I’m not saying that I think the Spiderman promotion is a good idea because I don’t. I think it’s stupid and it does cheapen the game but, at the same time, I don’t understand why anyone would be surprised or remotely shocked that this could happen. In fact, I’m more surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

And finally (yes, I’m finally at the end of this rather lengthy post), something I haven’t heard anyone mention yet is the ridiculously small amount of money that is at stake here. The Yankees were supposed to receive $100,000 for participating in the promotion. Do you know what $100,000 would buy the Yankees? About six innings of Alex Rodriguez. The league as a whole was to receive $3.6 Million and while that may be a lot of money to you and me, $3.6 Million in today’s baseball economy will get you Randy Winn and some spare change. Sure, you could argue that putting ads on the bases is crass but putting ads on the bases so that baseball can collect $3.6 Million is just stupid business sense. Yes, baseball is a business but apparently it’s a business that’s currently being run by an idiot.

P.S. A more normal around theo horn report coming up this weekend. I promise.

My Jeter-Sense is tingling

2004-05-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

ESPN reports that the Wall Street Journal reports that MLB will be displaying ads for the new Spiderman movie on bases and on-deck circles during interleague play. After reading the article, I had two thoughts: 1) that's really fucking sad; 2) what the fuck does Jeter have to do with it?

Hat me, baby

2004-05-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine looked at my White Sox hat and said, "Did you start wearing that before or after Dr. Dre?" That reminded me that at one time Sox gear was actually a close second to Raiders gear amongst the gangsta rap contingent. It looks like the Pale Hose are starting to get national wardrobe recognition again. Sort of (not really). Apparently, Britney Spears is wearing a Birmingham Barons hat in her new video. The Barons are the White Sox AA affiliate. Funny how the writer states that "the reason for her sporting the Barons black and white, classic 'B' logo hat has yet to be determined," even though that's pretty fucking obvious. Britney's no genius, but she does know her initials. Of course, I would love to be wrong here, and find out that Ms. Spears is really a diehard minor league baseball fan. Maybe her favorite player is Tetsu Yofu and she loves manager Razor Shines.

What About Car Talk?

2004-05-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

Errata non grata: In a recent post I mistakenly characterized Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me as the most annoying show on National Public Radio. That prompted the following response from the show's host, Peter Sagal, who writes: "What the hell do you mean, the most irritating show on NPR? What about Car Talk?"

Well, as an unrepentant Car Talk fan, I can only answer by saying that I misspoke. The most irritating show on NPR is really The Splendid Table. You know those skits on Saturday Night Live, where they make fun of public radio? Yeah. Anyway, apologies to Mr. Sagal and fans of the show. This also brings to mind that we should probably stop calling everything and everyone "annoying," or "irritating" as we have already done 9 times on this blog: Braves games; the aforementioned "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me"; Tim McCarver; Alex Rodriguez; the Angels; a sports bar in Minnesota; Jack McDowell; the actions of Curt Schilling; Angels broadcaster Rex Hudler.

Who, exactly? We at Beer and Whiskey are not surprised that Manny Ramirez is fifth in the AL in batting average (.365). We are, however, surprised that #4 is Ken Harvey (.366), #3 is Juan Uribe (.384), #2 is Lew Ford (.391) and Ronnie Belliard is batting .400 to lead the Junior Circuit. Perhaps Tommy's Affordability Index could help determine whether Kansas City can afford to keep Carlos Beltran (though in most corners it's a foregone conclusion that they can't). In the meantime, we are not terribly surprised that Mr. Beltran tops the AL in runs (25), homers (8) and slugging (.721). He also has 7 stolen bases, good enough for a third place tie.

Gerut/stick: Cleveland outfielder Jody Gerut had an impressive rookie campaign (.279, 22, 75) but is off to a relatively slow start thus far, hitting just .258. His plate discipline, however, seems to be improving. He already has 15 free passes in 89 at-bats, compared to just 35 walks in 480 at-bats last year. And, to this point, his K/BB ratio is much improved--11/15 this year vs. 70/35 last season. Add to that the fact that the Stanford grad writes a better blog than we do. Check out his thoughtful reflections on former teammate Milton Bradley.

Making sacrifices: The White Sox are now 9-1 in one-run games and 10 of their 15 wins are of the come-from-behind variety. Toronto starter Miguel Batista allowed only 6 hits in 8 innings against the ChiSox on Sunday, but the Pale Hose executed two sac bunts and two sac flies to make the difference in a 3-2 win. There is ball of the small variety being played on the South Side, and people are calling it Ozzieball. The folks over at White Sox Interactive are now featuring both an "Ozzieball Update" and a "Maggli-o-Meter" in their "totally biased" game recaps.

I'm going down: Yankee's don Joe Torre put a damper on Tommy's ongoing Crosby Show by sending Bubba down in order to make room for Kenny Lofton. White Sox "pitcher" Dan Wright was optioned to AAA Charlotte this week, after failing yet again to give his team a chance to win (3.0 IP, 9 H, 3 BB, 6 ER on Saturday). According to The Southsider, Wright has a career 3.31 ERA the first time through the batting order, which rises to 5.75 the second time and up to 8.90 the third time around. Chicago will go old-school and use a 4-man rotation in the meantime.

Burning bright: Pasco, WA native Jeremy Bonderman pitched pretty darn well against the M's this weekend (7.2 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 2 K), and Ugueth Urbina got his second save with style, doing that swinging-leg half-pirouette thing for emphasis and/or style points. Pudge was on the bench, so no kissing. Talking Baseball discusses Bonderman in some detail here.

Around the Horn (Finals Week Edition)

2004-05-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

	G	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	BB	SO	SB
Bubba	11	18	.222	.222	.556	0	3	1
Bobby	17	64	.203	.264	.375	5	26	0

Home Stretch: Whew, I never thought I’d get time again to put up a post. It’s finals week where I teach and whatever amount of stress students might be experiencing at having to take finals is matched by the amount of labor professors have to go through grading those finals. Times like this I wish I gave multiple choice exams instead of essays. Anyhoo, so enough of that. Let's get on with the baseball.

All in the Family: Well, the Crosby boys got together earlier this week when the slumping Stoneboners hosted Billy’s Bean-counters and suddenly the Yankees’ bats were alive with the sound of money. Even The Jeter managed to get a hit, breaking his 0-32 slump. Most exciting for the Crosby watch was the fact poor little Bubba got to start one of the three games.
G AB AVG OBP SLG BB SO SB Bubba 11 18 .222 .222 .556 0 3 1 Bobby 17 64 .203 .264 .375 5 26 0
As you’ll notice, one of the Crosby boys finally managed to get a stolen base and with each update, the two seem to be getting closer and closer in terms of their batting averages. Maybe we should rename the Mendoza Line the Crosby Line. Also, Bobby still hasn’t managed to score a single walk.

No, they really hate Detroit: A couple of postings ago, I mentioned that the broadcasters for the Mariners, Niehaus and Rizz, snickered at the phrase "beautiful Detroit." I later amended this statement when a reader informed me of the ugly history between Rizz and the Tigers. Well, on Friday, Niehaus mentioned that during a lull in the game the Tigers fans were trying to get the wave started. He then muttered under his breath, "Are we suddenly in the 1970s now?" Man, they really really hate Detroit.

I Told You So: Last week I posted the Beer and Whiskey power rankings (and, yes, I will get back to that soon and have an updated posting). If you recall (and if you don’t, the rankings are just a click away), I had the Rangers ranked number one. I know that seems weird and I had to do the math at least three times to make sure that was right and it was and apparently the folks over at ESPN have also seen the light and are beginning to recognize the Rangers are in fact for real … and of course their sweeping the Bridesmaids over the weekend can only make them stand out that much more. Anyhoo, both John Kruk and Tim Kurkjian have articles explaining why the Rangers are so damn hot right now.

I know most stats-oriented folks think this whole team chemistry factor is rather silly (and, sure, you can look at the 1978 Yankees via Roger Kahn’s October Men as proof that you can win games without chemistry) but in a game that requires a good head just as much as it does a good body you can’t help but think that team chemistry must count for something especially when you read something like this:

If you want to know what it means to be a teammate, you need to look at how guys interact when the game is over. When R.A. Dickie came to Texas last year, he brought his pregnant wife with him. What does Blalock do to make him feel welcome? He tells Dickie to move into his place so he can take care of his family. Blalock says he and his wife will find another place to live for a while. He's 23 years old, and he has that kind of leadership? That's a team I root for.

Maybe I’m just a sucker but stories like that make me feel good about being a baseball fan. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll never root for the Rangers. Remember, I’m a Mariners fan first (even though they are really starting to piss me off) and I’ll never root for a division rival. But, still, it’s a nice story. I especially like the fact Kruk takes a nice little stab at A-Hole whose departure helped make this new-look Rangers possible. By the way, R.A. Dickey is the guy who came one out short of pitching a complete-game shutout against the Bridesmaids on Sunday (more details on this exciting game below).

And speaking of A-Hole jabs, here’s the penultimate paragraph from Kurkjian’s piece on the Rangers (specifically on Hank Blalock):

Blalock is not in this for fame or publicity, just to win and to hit, much like one of Showalter's favorite players, Don Mattingly. Former teammate Alex Rodriguez offered Blalock the chance to fly to last year's All-Star Game on A-Rod's private jet after the Rangers' game that Sunday. Blalock respectfully declined, opting to take a 7 a.m. commercial flight the next day with his wife. Blalock said he might never get back to the All-Star Game, and he wanted he, and his wife, to savor every minute of it.

Let Them Eat Cake: For those of you who may not be familiar with the origins of this phrase, this was supposedly a remark made by Marie Antoinette when told that the French peasants were starving and had no bread … and of course Her Royal Majesty was soon beheaded during the French Revolution. So, what does this have to do with baseball? Well, it’s never too early to speculate about which GM or manager is going to get fired first. Since I follow the Mariners more closely than any other team, I’ve become accustomed to hearing the daily rants and ravings of those who want Bavasi’s head (from the first signing no less) and of course with the painfully slow start the Mariners are off to, there’s been grumbling about BoMel. Well, it was certainly nice to take a quick look around the blogosphere and see that even those in Bean land are calling for the head of their manager, Ken “low-fat” Mocha. On the other hand, I’d love to trade GM’s with those Elephants down South. Imagine what Billy boy could do with a real budget.

Rock You Like a Hurricane: Did anyone notice that on Sunday’s ESPN game featuring the Bridesmaids and the Rangers, the P.A. system at one point started blaring a song from Interpol. On the one hand, I think it’s pretty cool that a relatively little-known band on a medium sized independent label like Matador could get played in a sports arena. But, I found this particularly ironic because it was being done in Arlington. You know, where the Rangers play. You know, the Rangers … owned by Tom Hicks … the guy who owns fucking clear channel … you know, the big music radio conglomerate that is destroying the airwaves? Yeah, that guy. Prick.

The irrepressible force meets the unmovable object: Well, it looks like the Texas Rangers just might be for real (maybe). The Boston Bridesmaids went into Arlington in a showdown that brought the AL’s best pitching staff (.295 Team ERA) against the AL’s top hitting team (.316/.362/.501). They say that good pitching usually beats out good hitting and that may be true but pretty good pitching will always beat out mediocre hitting. The Rangers, amazingly enough, have the third best team ERA (.431, right behind Boston and Oakland) while last year’s record-setting offense sits smack in the middle of the AL this year (.260/.349/.417).

While the Bridesmaids got off to a hot start this week with a sweep of the Drays, they apparently forgot to bring their arms and their bats with them when they went to Texas. Apparently the old cliché rings true: “don’t mess with Texas.” Not only did the Rangers manage, in the back half of the doubleheader, to send little Pedro into the clubhouse early (four innings, nine hits, six earned runs) but they also managed to end the 32.1 scoreless innings streak by getting two runs in each of Saturday’s games.

Talk about the passion: Both of Saturday’s games were pretty darn exciting to follow. With the Bridesmaids down 4-2 in the ninth inning, The Passion (a.k.a. Damon) managed to get a double with McCarty on base to make it a 4-3 game. Unfortunately, Mueller struck out immediately afterward and Francisco Corduroy got his eighth save of the season.

But wait, there’s more (as Ron Popeill might say), in the second game, with the Bridesmaid down 8-2, Varitek scored on a Belhorn single to make the game 8-3. A few batters later, along came The Passion with the bases loaded and again he unloaded with a double to make the game8-5 (apparently, Daubach, on first at the time, was apparently a tad too slow to make it home). Mueller once again managed to choke by striking out but this time there was still an out to spare and then along comes none other than The Drama King (Ortiz) representing the tiring run. Wouldn’t it be just grand if he could hit a home run and tie the game? Yes, it would be grand but it also didn’t happen. The Drama King apparently doesn’t have the super-powered “clutch” gene that makes Tim McCarver get so hot and wild.

And just when you think that’s all you could take, well, along comes Sunday’s ESPN featured game of the night. R.A. Dickey held the Bridesmaids to three hits and no runs over the first eight innings. In the top of the ninth with the Rangers up 4-0, Dickey got Ortiz out on a swinging strike and then allowed a single to Money “Just Happy to Be Here” Ramirez. Daubauch then makes the second out with a line drive to right field. Millar then walks and there are men on first and second. Showalter finally pulls Dickey out of the game and puts in Cordero who then proceeds to walk Bellhorn to load the bases and then walk Varitek to score a run. He finally gets Crespo to fly out to shallow center and the sweep was complete.

Curtain Call: Rob Neyer, in his continual pursuit to prove that now is the best time to be a baseball fan, recently had an article on how despite the seeming dominance of the Stoneboners, we are truly in an era of parity. Well, while I certainly would not argue with Neyer on this point, I’d like to zoom in on his argument and say that this last week was probably one of the best weeks to be a baseball fan. There were so many exciting, close games that I felt compelled to go through them. Certainly, none of these games could match Boston’s World Series Game Six -- no, not that game six but the other game six; the one with Carlton Fisk’s arm-flailing, contorted body-english home run in the eleventh inning of the 1975 world series – but for late April baseball, it sure was a fine week to be a fan.

Tuesday: (Cleveland at Chicago) Chicago’s bullpen implodes once again by giving up four runs in the top of the tenth inning to the almighty Cleveland Tribesmen.

(Oakland at New York) In what looked like a sure loss for the struggling Stoneboners, the Bean Counters’s bullpen does a great impression of Chicago’s bullpen and manages to give up six runs in the bottom of the eighth and relinquish a four-run lead.

(Toronto at Minnesota) Trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth, Tori (not Spelling or Amos) Hunter hits an RBI single to tie up the game. Then with men on first and third, Jacque Jones smashes a three-run homer to win the game. Fortunately, there was no pathetic little homeplate dance a la the Cincinnati Reds.

Wednesday: (Cleveland at Chicago … again) Down 8-4 in the bottom of the ninth, the ChiSox return the favor from the previous day by drilling the Cleveland bullpen for five runs. The first runs of the inning came from Magglio’s two run homerun to make the score 8-6. A few batters later, Joe Crede scores an RBI single. Score: 8-7 with men on first and second. The very next batter, Perez, gets a single to tie the game and, most importantly, put a man on third with less than two outs. Then Sandy Alomar, Jr. (who currently has the second most at-bats of any current major leaguer) hits a sacrifice fly to win the game.

Thursday: (Texas at Kansas City) Down by one run, Michael Young hits a solo shot to tie the game at seven. Then, a few batters later, with Hammerin Hank Blalock on base, Brad Fullmer hits a two-run homer to take the lead and ultimately win the game.

Friday: (Seattle at Detroit) Although Freddy pitched one hell of a game (see below) he made the mistake of allowing one run over eight innings since it would be silly to assume that Seattle’s singles-happy offense could actually score more than a run themselves. Leaving the game with the score tied at one, Raw-wool Ibanez hit a two-run homer in the top of the tenth. There was much celebration all throughout the Emerald City since this would mean that, at the very least, the Mariners could count on not being swept. (Much like when I was a student at Berkeley, our football team was so bad that our usual football cheer was, “Beat the spread! Beat the spread!”)

Saturday: (Baltimore at Cleveland) Finding yet another way to blow a wonderful outing by C.C. (again, see below), the Orange Birds scored a run off the Tribes’s bullpen in the eighth to tie the game and eventually go into extra innings. Five innings later (the 13th inning, if you’re counting) Coco Crisp (is it possible to make any sort of pun on this name?) hit an RBI single to score Matt Lawton and win the game.

(Toronto and Chicago … what is it with Cleveland and Chicago and these extra inning games?) A ten-inning affair, the score was tied by the Blays in the eighth inning off of Carlos Delgado’s solo home run. Then in the bottom of the tenth, the ChiSox took back the lead and the game off of Joe Crede’s sacrifice fly.

(Anaheim at Minnesota) Well, this is either a pitcher’s duel or an example of offensive ineptitude. Perhaps both. Aaron Sele kept the Twins to two hits and no runs. The bullpen also allowed two hits and no runs. The Angels, on the other hand, managed to get seven hits and three base on balls over the first eight innings but came away with no runs. Then, in the top of the ninth they had back to back singles to put men on the corners. This was then followed by Chone “my parents can’t spell” Figgins who hit the go-ahead, game-winning RBI single.

(Oakland at Tampa Bay) Down 6-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Drays started an impressive rally that ultimately fell one run short. The first runs of the inning came when Carl Crawford hit a two-run triple making the score 6-3. Juan Cruz, Jr. then hit a home run to bring the Drays within one run. The next batter, Aubrey Huff, grounded out. Then, with two outs and the Drays behind one run, up came to bat Mr. Rocco Baldelli, the future franchise player for the Drays. Really, if you’re a TB fan, this is the man you want especially considering that he was 3-4 up to that point. But, alas, Mr. Rocco flailed and the Bean Counters won the game 6-5.

Sunday: (Anaheim at Minnesota) With the score tied 1-1 in the eighth, Figgins led off with a single and then stole a crucial base that would eventually lead to Guerrero being intentionally walked. With one out and men on first and second, Troy Glass grounded out but moved both baserunners up ninety feet. Jose Guillen then singled to score both Figgins and Guerrero and eventually give the Angels another win.

Now, wasn’t that pretty exciting? I know a lot of people love watching their teams but I have to say that with the quality of baseball what it is today, it’s exciting watching just about any game (except those annoying Braves games on TNT).

Hard Luck Freddy: Last season, Ryan Franklin had some of the worst luck a pitcher could possibly have. Yes, I’m talking about that terrible role of the dice that we call Run Support. Although Franklin’s RS shows up only as the tenth worst last season, his actual run support was much worse (since RS is calculated as an average over nine innings like ERA). In his eleven losses, the Mariners managed to score more than two runs only once. Well, this year’s potential winner for the hard luck award just might be Franklin’s teammate, Freddy “the Chief” Garcia. After all the fuss over his ruptured ear drum as the cause of his down year last season, Garcia’s come back to be the dominant pitcher who in 2002 had the league’s lowest ERA (losing the Cy Young award to a sentimental old fart: the artist formerly known as Retired Roger). Unfortunately, while his devastating change-up may be making opposing batters look silly, his own teammates are doing a fine job of looking silly themselves.

His 35.1 innings pitched over five games puts him fifth in terms of innings pitched while his 2.27 ERA places him second best (right behind C.C. “not from Poison” Sabathia who has a sick 1.61 ERA). So, in those five outings in which he’s given up a total of nine total runs, how many wins does the Chief have? You guessed it, ZERO. In fact, his record is 0-1. I know baseball is a team game and sometimes when a pitcher is not doing well his teammates can pick him up but this is ridiculous. The offense can’t hit and the Mariner bullpen – yeah, you know, the one that used to be good – is just looking sad as sad can be. Perhaps the ghost of Bobby Ayala has returned to Seattle. For those of you not familiar with this particular aspect of Seattle Mariner’s sorry-ass history, let’s just say that last year Ayala was voted the most despised former Mariner by the listeners of a Seattle-area sports radio station.

Of course, one could also make an argument for C.C. to win the hard-luck award since his 1.61 ERA (god, that feels weird just writing it down … I keep having to check and make sure that’s right) has netted him a fantabulous 1-0 record over five starts. Yep, like Freddy, C.C. has pitched 35 innings (giving up a total of 6 runs over those 5 starts) and has exactly one win to show for it. On Saturday, C.C. pitched seven innings and allowed one earned run. When he left the game the score was tied 1-1. By the eighth, the Tribe were down 2-1 (although they did manage to get a win after 13 innings).

Lew Who? Who’s on first? I mean, who’s first in the AL in OPS? Not surprisingly, Carlos “soon to be sold to New York” Beltran. Number two is Jorge Posada. Again, no surprise and it’s also no surprise that Frank Thomas is number four. Oops … I missed one, didn’t I? And it’s an easy one to miss because Lew Ford, of the Minnesota Twins, is currently third in the AL in OPS. This relatively young kid from Texas playing in his first full season (he played 34 games last season), is on a tear. But, aside from his being a relatively unknown, what makes Lew’s presence on the leaderboard so interesting is the simple fact this guy is an utter bonehead … and I mean that in the best way possible. Check out this article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune … just heelarious. Oh, and if you don’t want to fill out the stupid subscription form, you can find excerpts over at Bat-Girl.Com.

A Few Loose Threads: Just a couple of interesting articles I saw in the blogosphere that I thought I would pass along to you folks.

Hardball Times has a good article on K-Rod that argues the young 22-year old lad just may be the best reliever in the American League and possibly the best reliever in all of baseball second only to Eric “the second G is silent” Gagne.

Those crazy Minnesotans over at Bat-Girl.Com have a nice little stab at Oakland. Apparently, in the collective imagination of the Twins Nation, Billy Koch is to Oakland what Fred Merkle is to the New York Baseball Giants.

And finally: Thanks again to those e-mailed us especially those with suggestions regarding the Affordability Index. I was going to post the numbers for ramoN and Magglio but I’ve decided the formula still needs more tweaking. I’ll be taking many of your suggestion into consideration and hopefully will be able to present a more polished version of the formula in the near future.

Oh, Me So Around the Horn-y (Full Metal Jacket Edition)

2004-04-26T18:45:00.000-07:00

	G	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	BB	SO	SB
Bubba	8	13	.231	.231	.692	0	2	0
Bobby	14	51	.196	.263	.333	5	20	0

Offense	Pitching	Overall
Minnesota (5)	Boston (8)	Texas (24)
Texas (8)	Oakland (14)	Baltimore (28)
Kansas City (12)	Baltimore (15)	Minnesota (32)
Detroit (12)	Texas (16)	Boston (35)
Baltimore (13)	Chicago (18)	Chicago (39)
Cleveland (19)	Anaheim (21)	Oakland (41)
Chicago (21)	Tampa Bay (22)	Detroit (42)
Anaheim (23)	Seattle (24)	Anaheim (44)
Oakland (27)	Toronto (25)	Cleveland (50)
Boston (27)	New York (25)	Kansas City (51)
Seattle (33)	Minnesota (27)	Seattle (57)
New York (36)	Detroit (30)	Tampa Bay (61)
Tampa Bay (39)	Cleveland (31)	New York (61)
Toronto (40)	Kansas (39)	Toronto (65)

“There is no racial bigotry here … Here, you are all equally worthless. ”
Well, let’s begin at the top with our weekly Crosby Watch:

G AB AVG OBP SLG BB SO SB Bubba 8 13 .231 .231 .692 0 2 0 Bobby 14 51 .196 .263 .333 5 20 0
Bubba finally got some more playing time this weekend but, unfortunately, did squat. He got to start Wednesday in Chicago and Friday in New York (against the Bridesmaids) and in eight at-bats, he produced a whopping one run. Bobby hasn’t fared much better and is not on the south side of the Mendoza Line. Of course, if Bubba boy keeps up his pace, Bobby should have company soon.

“Were you born worthless or did you have to work at it?”
We’re happy to offer for the first (and hopefully not last)time ever, the official Beer and Whiskey power rankings. Basically, what I’ve done is taken three team hitting stats (AVG, OBP, SLG) and three team pitching stats (ERA, total K, WHIP) and ranked the teams accordingly with one point going to the top ranked team and fourteen points going to the bottom-ranked team in each category.

For example, Minnesota had the highest team OBP and the second highest team AVG and SLG: that’s one point for their number one ranking and two points for each of their number two rankings giving them a total of five points in complete offense. Likewise, Boston’s pitchers had the number one rated team ERA, were second in total strikeouts, and had the fifth best WHIP giving them a total pitching score of eight. Remember, the lower the number the better the team. I put the collective team score in parentheses.

Offense Pitching Overall Minnesota (5) Boston (8) Texas (24) Texas (8) Oakland (14) Baltimore (28) Kansas City (12) Baltimore (15) Minnesota (32) Detroit (12) Texas (16) Boston (35) Baltimore (13) Chicago (18) Chicago (39) Cleveland (19) Anaheim (21) Oakland (41) Chicago (21) Tampa Bay (22) Detroit (42) Anaheim (23) Seattle (24) Anaheim (44) Oakland (27) Toronto (25) Cleveland (50) Boston (27) New York (25) Kansas City (51) Seattle (33) Minnesota (27) Seattle (57) New York (36) Detroit (30) Tampa Bay (61) Tampa Bay (39) Cleveland (31) New York (61) Toronto (40) Kansas (39) Toronto (65)
Now, you might be thinking, “This is the dumbest ranking system I’ve ever seen. How can the Rangers be ranked number one and the Yankees ranked second-to-last?” Well, as ye olde sage, Ken Rosenthal of The Sporting News/Fox Porn Sports reports, even Mr. Moneyball himself, Billy Beane, has observed that the Rangers have suddenly become “a team on the rise.” I know it’s early and I know the Rangers will eventually sputter at some point in the summer (or at least that’s what I hope so that the Mariners will have the consolation of at least not finishing last) but their youth movement really seems to be working.

Over the winter, many disgruntled Bridesmaid’s fans (also known as Red Sox Nation) had pointed out that losing A-Hole to the Yanks would not be that detrimental because “losing follows that guy wherever he goes.” What at that time just seemed like sour grapes just may become far more prophetic than anyone had possibly imagined. A-Hole leaves Texas, the Rangers look impressive. A-Hole arrives in New York and suddenly there is a funny smell in the air.

Anyhoo, what I like most about these numbers at this early point in the season is that it represents each team’s performance during the heavy intra-division phase of the schedule. In other words, these numbers are likely to change radically not only because more games will be played and statistics will stop looking so out-of-this world (unless you’re Barry Bonds in which case a .400 batting average will begin to look like a slump) but because each team will be playing a greater variety of opponents.

Is the AL Central truly the “weakest” division in baseball? Well, judging from the fact the bottom-three ranked teams are the Drays, the Stoneboners, and the Blays, I’d have to say that that particular distinction would have to go to the AL East.

“I wanted to meet stimulating and interesting people of an ancient culture, and kill them.”
Last week, I mentioned that Niehaus and Rizz chuckled at the phrase “lovely Detroit.” Personally, I thought they were just making fun of Detroit as being anything but lovely – and really, if you’ve ever been to Detroit, you’d understand how the phrase “lovely Detroit” could in fact be rather funny. Well, special thanks to Ann-Marie for writing in and offering the following clarification as to what was really going:

Detroit can be lovely -- or lovely enough. But Rick Rizz has a bad history there. When the idiots (Monaghan) running the Tigers fired Ernie Harwell in the early 90s, they brought in Rick Rizz for the broadcast. It was such an unpopular move that Rick was never going to have a good call in that town. With everyone longing for the sweet accents of Ernie Harwell, "Good-bye baseball" became synonymous with management idiocy. He may not like Detroit, but in this case Detroit started it.

Again, big thanks to Ann-Marie. I know I’ve said this before but I think it bears repeating: our readers are not only smarter than we are but obviously far better informed which begs the question, why the hell do you bother reading this stuff I post?

“Today you are no longer maggots. Today you are marines.”
Well, apparently, managers all over the American League must be reading Beer and Whiskey. Perhaps they stumbled upon this blog while shopping for cheap booze on the net. If you recall, dearest reader, I did a quick post Friday Night/Saturday Morning praising Jim Tracy for using Eric “the second G is silent” Gagne in Friday’s game against the Giants. With the score tied 4-4, Tracy sent in Gagne to pitch the top of the 9th and 10th innings. Well, Joe Torre and Ken Macha finally got with the program and used their respective closers in non-save situations.

On Saturday afternoon’s marathon between the Bridesmaids and the Stoneboners, Torre sent in Mariano “cruising the French” Riviera (and no, that’s not a typo, I meant to spell his name that way) to pitch the top of the 9th and 10th innings with the score tied 2-2. Granted, the Stoneboners lost but still, at least this time Torre gave his team a chance to win.

Even more miraculous is that Torre once against sent in Mariano to pitch the top of the 9th inning on Sunday when they were down 0-2 (hmmm, is this déjà vu all over again?). Meanwhile, back on the left coast, Ken Macha brought in Arthur Lee Rhodes of Waco, TX to pitch the top of the ninth inning while down 3-4 against the Halos.

“You’re so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece.”
By the way, if you’ve read Jim Bouton’s Ball Four then you may already be aware of this rather hilarious bit of trivia. In his chronicle of the 1969 season with the newly established Seattle Pilots baseball team (doomed to move the next year to Milwaukee and become the Brewers), Bouton mentions at one point a young ball player who had unfortunately become the butt of a league-wide joke. Apparently, this ball player was so ugly that he became the standard (or the ugly stick) by which all other ugliness was measured. And who was this unfortunately ugly fella? Well, none other than the 1971 National League MVP, Mr. Joe Torre.

“What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?”
When Joe “The Natural” Mauer went down, there was a collective gasp and groan throughout Twinkieland. Suddenly, the sky – or at least that big off-white baggie – didn’t seem so bright and shiny. The air in the metrodome suddenly felt less fresh(ly recycled). Gasp … coming in to replace the wunderkind was the broken-down, grizzly veteran: Henry “that means white in English” Blanco, a career .219/.295/.353 hitter. But then, on April 10, just two days after “the disaster” old Mr. White stepped up to plate against the “hot” Detroit Kitties and behold, the lord sent down a wondrous ray of light.

In five plate appearances, Mr. White managed two walks and two homeruns. Then, the very next day, he got a single, a double, and a walk in five plate appearances. And suddenly there was once again much rejoicing in twinkieville. So, what’s the moral of the story? Well, while Mr. White will certainly not continue to hit at a .313/.411/.602 pace (15 games, 48 at-bats), he won’t have to. Mauer is expected to return to the lineup sometime in May. As long as Mr. White can remain “white hot” for another two or three weeks, the twinkies should be ok.

“This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life.”
Ok, so here it is: my formula to calculate an Affordability Index. Now, before I get into the specifics of the formula, I want to make one thing clear. The Affordability Index is not intended to figure out the value of a player on the open market. I’m not really concerned with what Magglio Ordoñez can get on the open market. If you play in a rotisserie league and every team has the same payroll then flat across-the-board evaluations work just great. For instance, Richard C., had sent in an e-mail informing me of an excellent financial analysis done by the folks at “Leone for Third.” According to L43, a player’s financial value should be tied into his VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). If you multiply a player’s VORP with a constant then that should give you a fairly good ballpark (no pun intended) on that player’s projected salary. The particularly interesting aspect of this strategy is that each position has a different constant.

Again, in a rotisserie league (or if you happen to be Stoneboner and you think of Major League Baseball as a real-life variation of rotisserie baseball) such a formulation would be great but in the reality of baseball’s current economic system, a medium market team like the White Sox cannot afford to pay a player the same kind of salary that a large-market team like the Red Sox or “California” Angels can. It does not matter how much that player might be “worth” in terms of pure dollars, a small market team just cannot afford to match that salary.

So, how much should the White Sox pay Magglio? Or, more specifically, how much can they pay Mags and still have enough money to field a competitive team? Well, that’s what the Affordability Index is supposed to figure out. To some extent, the White Sox need Magglio to give them a “hometown discount” but, as I show below, unless the White Sox are willing to increase their overall payroll by a substantial margin or Mags is willing to seriously take less than what the open market will pay him, the White Sox’s ability to actually “afford” Ordoñez is practically nil.

Now, I realize I’m just going on and on and not getting to the actual formula itself. That’s because I’m a bit worried about whether the formula is any good. I teach English for a living. I suck at math and I’m generally a disaster when it comes to numbers. I would like you to think of my formula as not only a work-in-progress but as the Sabermetric equivalent of open-source software. Go ahead and take my formula apart (I promise not to cry) and rework it, develop it, refine it, etc. So, finally, without any further delay, I present to you the Affordability Index:

(TP-FC) ^ 3 / PV ^3

Huh? What the hell do these stupid letters mean? Well, let me explain (hold on to your seats … this should be a doozy of a ride).

TP= team’s Total Payroll in millions
FC= Franchise Constant
PV= Player Value

Ok, a team’s total payroll is fairly self-explanatory. If you’re curious you can go to ESPN.COM and get the 2004 opening day payrolls of every team. The “^” symbol means “raised to” as in (TP-FC) raised to the third power.

The Franchise Constant, on the other hand, is a little more complicated. Basically, here’s the formula for FC:

(TP-30)^3/TP^2

	Total Payroll	Franchise Constant
Mariners	$82 Million	20.91
Angels	$101 Million	52
Red Sox	$125 Million	54.87
White Sox	$65 Million	10.14

Ok, so let’s stick with the numerator for a bit before I start explaining the denominator (PV). In any fraction, the larger the numerator the greater the whole number (assuming the denominator is a constant). This means the greater the team’s Total Payroll, the greater the Affordability Index will be. Makes sense, right? The more your team is willing to spend, the more they can pay a certain player.

Just for grins and giggles, I’ve calculated the Franchise Constant for four teams: The Mariners, Angels, Red Sox, and White Sox. I’ve chosen these teams because one (the Angels) just extended a contract (Anderson) while two other teams (Red Sox and White Sox) need to deal with some potential free agent issues (Nomar and Magglio, respectively). The addition of the Mariners is just because I’m a Mariners fan.

So, here’s the opening day payroll for the four teams (and to make my math easier, I’m rounding to the nearest million. If you want to do the math taking into consideration, for example, that Boston’s payroll is not $125 million but, rather, $125,208,542, then go right ahead). After each payroll figure, I have their Franchise Constant:

Total Payroll Franchise Constant Mariners $82 Million 20.91 Angels $101 Million 52 Red Sox $125 Million 54.87 White Sox $65 Million 10.14

You will notice that the relationship between TP and FC is not linear. The overall payroll of the Red Sox is approximately twice as much as that of the White Sox but their Franchise Constant is over five times larger. This is because a larger payroll allows for greater flexibility not with just one player but with an entire roster of players.

Ok … so, let’s take a look at Player Value which I calculate as:

62- (.5WS) - (20OPS)

	WS/OPS	Player Value
Bret Boone	30/.901	29
Garret Anderson	25/.886	32
Nomar Garciaparra	25/.869	32
Magglio Ordoñez	23/.926	32

WS of course means win shares and you all know what OPS is. Thanks to those nice guys at the Baseball Graphs, you can find 2003 American League Win Shares on line. So, here is a chart of four players (one from each of the above teams) with their 2003 WS, OPS, and the calculated PV. I should point out that the reason I’m looking only at the 2003 numbers is basically because I’m lazy and I cannot find Win Shares for the other years. Arguably, as other have pointed out, averaging the last three complete season would be more accurate but, again, this is just an exercise to show you how the formula works.

WS/OPS Player Value Bret Boone 30/.901 29 Garret Anderson 25/.886 32 Nomar Garciaparra 25/.869 32 Magglio Ordoñez 23/.926 32

The better the player, the lower the PV. Hence, amongst these four players, Boone actually calculates as the best player with Nomar and Anderson being about the same. Of course, we can make alterations to take into account defense and the value of a particular position but, like I said before, this is just the first draft of what I hope will be a long and fruitful work in progress. To some extent, the problem with using Win Shares is that it’s a statistic that is somewhat dependent on the team’s performance. No matter how well you play, if the team does not get a win then you do not get a win share.

Now we have the denominators and numerators. Brett Boone is currently making $8 Million this year. Is he worth that much? Well, let’s plug in the numbers for the Mariners:

(82-20.91)^3 / 29^3 = 9.34

I would contend then that Boone is worth 9.34% of the Mariner’s total payroll or approximately $7.7 Million. In other words, he’s getting paid exactly what the Mariners can afford to give him. If Boone were a free agent being courted by the Red Sox (who have a significantly higher payroll) then you could plug in Boone’s PV into the Red Sox formula which would look like:

(125-54.87)^3 / 29^3 = 14.10

The Red Sox can afford to give Boone 14.10% of their total payroll which would translate to approximately $17.5 Million. Now, should the Red Sox give Boone $17.5 Million? No, of course not but that’s because the only other team that could really afford to give him anywhere near that amount would be the Yankees. The $17.5 Million figure is simply the ceiling on how much the Red Sox can afford to give Boone and still have enough left over to field a competitive team. There are also other considerations such as potentially declining performance (due to age).

Ok, I think my brain is about to explode so I’m going to stop, go take a walk, and rest. Sometime in the next few days I will run the calculations for Nomar, Magglio, and Garret (and you’d be surprised at how overpaid Anderson is according to my Affordability Index). Whew.

Power Puff Boys

2004-04-24T01:48:00.000-07:00

	Total Runs	Total Hits
Boston @ New York	13	19
Cleveland @ Detroit	20	21
Toronto @ Baltimore	14	23
Seattle @ Texas	18	27
Minnesota @ Kansas City	12	22
"California" @ Oakland	13	19
Tampa Bay @ Chicago	5	14

Bejeezus, anyone care to explain what the hell happened in the American League Friday? Was there some kind of strange epidemic going around causing AL pitchers to throw gopher balls? Or perhaps there is a strange alignment in the stars that has reduced the gravitational pull of the earth ... hmmm, I do feel a bit lighter today. Here are the run and hit totals for the fourteen AL games played on Friday:Total Runs Total Hits Boston @ New York 13 19 Cleveland @ Detroit 20 21 Toronto @ Baltimore 14 23 Seattle @ Texas 18 27 Minnesota @ Kansas City 12 22 "California" @ Oakland 13 19 Tampa Bay @ Chicago 5 14

With the exception of the Drays/PaleHose game (more on that later), the bats were popping. Now, of course, the numbers are slightly misleading in that with the exception of the Coffee/Cowboy and Twinkies/Roys games, the other four big bat games were embarassing blowouts. The Motor City Kitties, for instance, clobbered the Tribe 17-3. The Damned, er ... I mean the Red Sox, also destroyed the Evil Empire 11-2. In five of the seven games, the winning team scored in the double digits whereas in the NL on Friday only one team, the Stros, managed that feat.

By the way, considering that Mr. Softy (a.k.a. Jose Contreras) has pitched a whopping 11 innings in his last three starts (yes, in three starts not in three relief appearances) and possesses a whopping 10.54 ERA, I think Lucchino not only owes Stoneboner a big apology for calling the Yankees the Evil Empire but should send a nice big bouquet of roses to 161st Street and River Avenue thanking the Yankees for outbidding the perennial Bridesmaids of Baseball for Contreras's services. What a wonderful way to spend $32 Million. Of course, it's still early in the season and you don't worry too much about a few bad starts but as Larry over at Replacement Level Yankee pointed out not too long ago, Yankee Fans currently seem to have a lot not to worry about.

Last October, during the World Series, Torre was roundly criticized (particularly by the more statistically-oriented folks) for refusing to send in his best pitcher, Mariano, in non-save situations. Rob Neyer, in particular, felt compelled to write not just one but two articles on this very topic. Well, I bring this up tonight because I happened to catch the end of the Dodgers/Giants game. I know we normally discuss only the American League but I think Jim Tracy's use of current-Cy-Young winner Eric "the second G is silent" Gagne deserves a special mention. With the score tied 4-4, Gagne came in to pitch in the top of the ninth and tenth innings in order to preserve the tie and give the Dodgers a chance to win (which they eventually did in the bottom of the twelfth inning). It seems to me only common sense that a tie-game in the ninth inning would be just as (if not more) important than going into the ninth with a three-run lead. Oh, if only Bob Melvin had the wisdom of Jim Tracy.

And finally, returning briefly to the Drays/PaleHose game: in my not very humble opinion, this should have been the marquee game of the day. Of course, according to national media outlets, the big news was on the Angels/A's and the RedSox/Yankees. But, in the little-recognized game today in Chicago, there was an excellent pitching match-up between Zambrano (3-1) and Loaiza (3-0). Potentially, one of these two pitchers would have come out as the first four-game winner of the season (athough, as luck would have it, both ended up with a no-decision) While winning four games 's not necessarily a significant milestone, I think the fact the first four-game winner is not wearing pinstripes or has an elephant embroidered on his uniform should be an interesting story. But, of course it's not .

Ok, it's late and I've written for far longer than I had intended so I'm going to end it here. I just want to add a quick note thanking you folks for your great e-mails. I will get to them in my next post and (drum roll please), I will finally have a formula to indicate the infamous Affordability Index.

The Baddest Part of Town

2004-04-23T12:32:00.000-07:00

Odd alliances will form (just ask the Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq): Peter Sagal, host of the most annoying show on all of National Public Radio, won me over with his piece on Chicago baseball--from the perspective of a Red Sox fan living in the Windy City. (On the calendar, click on April 19, then choose "Peter Sagal Talks Baseball"; you'll need RealPlayer). Sagal makes note of the White Sox being as popular in Illinois as the St. Louis Cardinals (as printed in the Sports Illustrated baseball preview), but fails to mention that in the same survey White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf ranks as one of the most hated sports figures in the Land of Lincoln. In any case, it's a good piece and you owe it to yourself to give it a listen, if for no reason other than you won't have to hear Thom Brennaman talk about Kerry Wood's nail-biting trixie of a wife.

Natural Around the Horn Killers (Cinema Edition)

2004-04-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

AVG	OBP	SLG
Boston (.260)	New York (.396)	Boston (.400)
Seattle (.257)	Tampa Bay (.324)	New York (.396)
Tampa Bay (.248)	Seattle (.320)	Seattle (.384)
New York (.229)	Anaheim (.319)	Tampa Bay (.371)
Toronto (.210)	Toronto (.210)	Toronto (.353)

Broadcast News: For those of you who may never have heard a Mariner’s broadcast – and if you haven’t do yourself a favor and take a listen to the sweet baritone voice of Dave “Grand Salami” Niehaus on MLB Radio – the Mariners have a rather strange format. Dave Niehaus and a former athlete (most often, Ron Fairly) normally does the television broadcast for the first half of the game and then switches to radio for the second half. Conversely, Rick Rizz (along with either Dave Henderson or Dave Valle) does the radio for the first half and television for the second half. I’m not sure why they do this because their best broadcasts are those blackout dates when there is no television broadcast and the entire game is done by Dave Niehaus and Rick Rizz.

Anyhoo, so in today’s afternoon broadcast, Niehaus mentioned very briefly that after today’s game the Mariners would be going on a ten-day roadtrip starting in Texas and then moving on to Baltimore and finally “lovely Detroit.” Yes, that’s an exact quote from Niehaus: “lovely Detroit.” So, why am I telling you this? Because right after saying this, Rick Rizz let out a big guffaw followed by Niehaus’s own stifled laughter. I’ve been to Detroit several times and it is anything but lovely but still, damn, to dis the entire city on a radio broadcast. That’s cold.

Singles: For the past several years, the Mariners have been both one of the best hitting teams and one of the worst slugging teams. Now, apparently (yeah yeah, I know it’s early), the Mariners are well on their way to being worst in both categories. But, perhaps there is hope. Here are the bottom five in three offensive categories:

AVG OBP SLG Boston (.260) New York (.396) Boston (.400) Seattle (.257) Tampa Bay (.324) New York (.396) Tampa Bay (.248) Seattle (.320) Seattle (.384) New York (.229) Anaheim (.319) Tampa Bay (.371) Toronto (.210) Toronto (.210) Toronto (.353)
The Mariners aside, what you have in each of these three categories are two very good teams (or what are supposed to be good teams) and two very bad teams (again, at least on paper). The fact Toronto is at the bottom of every category should come as no surprise to anyone because they are playing some really awful baseball right now. The fact the Yankees appear in all three categories should also come as no surprise since their early struggles have been well documented. So, why is there hope for the Mariners? Well, if you’re optimistic, you can see Seattle’s early offensive struggles in the same light as Boston and New York – that is, they’ll eventually get out of it (because, really, does anyone think A-Hole is going to stay below the Mendoza Line all season, no matter how much Mariner Nation, Red Sox Nation, and Ranger Nation may wish it so?). Of course, if you’re a pessimist, you can see Seattle as being just like Toronto and Tampa Bay: sure, the offense might get a bit better but, overall, we’re doomed to the basement for quite a while.

And by the way, is it just me or does it seem really weird that in both AVG and SLG, four of the five worst teams are all in the AL East? Does this mean that the pitching in the AL East is really that much better? Makes one wonder and if I weren't so lazy I might look that up but perhaps I won't have to because you will and then you'll let me know. Remember, kids, this is the internet ... it's all about being interactive.

The Color of Money: Phil Rogers, of ESPN, recently had an article discussing Magglio’s current contract negotiations. If you recall, dear reader, this is an issue I’ve been discussing for quite some time now. Rather than comparing his salary to other player’s salaries, Rogers takes a look at several players’ salaries in relationship to overall payroll (Magglio’s current $14 Million makes up 21% of Chicago’s total payroll). As I had indicated before, when taking into consideration any player’s particular salary, the most important number to look at is not the absolute dollars but rather the affordability index (a metric that I’m still working on). The value of a player’s abilities should be measured, in other words, to the team’s overall payroll.

On a related note, I recently received an e-mail from one of our readers, who I’ll call Mr. X since there was no name attached to the e-mail, with an analysis of Magglio’s numbers that were far more sophisticated than what I had given (when comparing Maggs to Garret Anderson). Since I’m too lazy to post all of his carefully worked out spreadsheets (and I’m assuming the reader is a he … apologies if I am wrong), I’ll simply summarize his main points:

** Mr. X points out that my use of career averages is misleading and, in fact, if you look at the last three full seasons, the difference between Magglio and Garret is even more remarkable. Looking at these three-year stats, Magglio should be valued anywhere between 7%-14% more than Anderson (depending on how much you value OBP over or under SA).

** Mr. X also uses three different statistical models to figure out relative values: OPS, 1.8*OBP=SA, and OPS/(1-OBP). According to OPS, Maggs is 9-11% better than Anderson whereas according to the second metric, Maggs is 10-12% better. The most interesting metric, however, is the third one in which Magglio is shown to be a whopping 17%-19% better. As Mr. X himself explains it, “The reason he [Magglio] shows up much better using this [third] stat than he did using either OBP or SLG alone is that, unlike the first two combination stats, this one is a non-linear function. Instead of relating his offensive contributions to Plate Appearances, it relates them to Outs Created (PA-H-BB-HBP). That puts a real premium on getting on base.” I like this stat a lot and I would agree that linear functions tend to make relative comparisons inaccurate; however, I would quibble with the weight that Mr. X places on OBP. Magglio is not a lead-off hitter but rather a #3 or #4 hitter. His primary function, in other words, is to get runners in. To this extent, Magglio’s SLG should in fact be given greater (although not necessarily more) weight in relationship to OBP.

** And finally, Mr. X brings in a third factor – the way-off-the-scale Barry Bonds. In order to determine Magglio’s fiscal value, Mr. X compares Anderson to Bonds using the same three metrics mentioned above. Averaging the various differences between the two, Mr. X surmises that Bonds is worth 57% more than Anderson; hence, if Anderson is making $12 Million than Bonds should be making $18.8 Million. Considering that Bonds is actually making $18 Million, this would appear to be fairly accurate. So, assuming that Bonds is worth $18 Million (or thereabouts) and Garret is worth $12 Million (or thereabouts), then Magglio is worth approximately $13 Million (well, technically $12.84 Million but let’s just round off). But, again, this assumes that Bonds is only worth $18 Million and one could certainly make an argument that he’s very underpaid (try comparing him to A-Hole or Money Ramirez, for example). Additionally, I would argue that the one problem with Mr. X’s salary numbers is that while the performance value is not linear, the salary value is. I think one needs to understand that the scale between the league minimum and the maximum (well, there’s no league maximum but let’s just use A-Hole’s $25 Million as the theoretical maximum figure) bends on a curve or perhaps on several curves. Also, the shape of the curve is not absolute for every team but is a variable of, again, the team’s entire payroll.

** All in all, I will certainly concede that Mr. X is a lot better with numbers than I am (and possibly has better baseball smarts than I do) and I hope that my summary here has done justice to his rather impressive e-mail. But I think his analysis as well as Phil Rogers’s above-mentioned article only emphasizes how badly we need an Affordability Index.

The Pillow Book: Rob Neyer has an article about why it’s so great to be a baseball fan today. It’s a rather cute article but what I like most about it is that he spends a great deal talking about great baseball books and includes a link to one of his older articles about the essential books that belong in most any baseball library. Go read!

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: The cinetrix (to whom this cinema edition is dedicated) just informed me of a Twins blog (Bat-Girl). Her recent post on Lew Ford is certainly worth more than a few guffaws. Also, on a recent post from Bambino's Curse, there was a link to another woman-authored baseball blog, Cursed and First (technically, it's a Patriots and Red Sox blog ... hence, "the first"). Hopefully there will be more and more women blogging about baseball so that the baseball blogosphere will start looking more like the audience at a Poison concert and less like that of a Motorhead concert ... not that there's anything wrong with Motorhead (or anything right with Poison) mind you.

The Miracle Worker: Paul Abbott is now 2-1. He's pitched 19 innings in three starts and has a 2.37 ERA. Hitters are currently hitting .147 against him. In his one loss, Abbott pitched five hitless innings against the Yankees and ultimately gave up two runs in the sixth inning. The Drays then went on to lose the game 3-2. Look, if the Marlins could win the world series then I don't see why Abbott couldn't be a potential Cy Young candidate ... oops, excuse me, I have to go ... I think the Easter Bunny is knocking on my door.

Free Access to Internet Around the Horn

2004-04-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

	G	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	BB	SO	SB
Bubba	4	5	.400	.400	1.600	0	3	0
Bobby	12	43	.209	.286	.635	5	16	0

Here’s my irregularly regular roundup of what’s going on in baseball and the blogosphere:

First thing’s first, we bring you the Crosby Watch:

G AB AVG OBP SLG BB SO SB Bubba 4 5 .400 .400 1.600 0 3 0 Bobby 12 43 .209 .286 .635 5 16 0
Poor Bubba didn’t get a single at-bat during the much over-hyped Red Sox/Yankees series. Considering how anemic that offense has been, I can't see why they don't give ol’ Bubba a few more at-bats just to make the Crosby Watch a little more interesting.

We’re the Alternablog: Since there has been no shortage of press on the ridiculously overhyped Yanks/BoSox series, I’m going to limit myself to four comments.

1. I’m glad to see that I was not the only one annoyed by the fat white guy with the ugly striped shirt sitting (or standing) behind homeplate. Who the hell is this moron and does he realize he’s a moron? It seems that he made quite an impression on the blogosphere.

2. Truppiano, the voice of the Red Sox (at least on radio), did a post-game interview with The Passion after Saturday’s game. The BoSox won the game 5-2 but did so with the help of four walks and a buttload of singles. In pointing out that the game lacked any big hits (outside of Money Ramirez’s solo homerun), Truppiano felt compelled to break into Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly with His Song” and then proclaim that the Boston beat the Yankees by “Killing them softly with singles and walks.” There’s got to be a rule about drinking and doing broadcasts … even in Boston.

3. At one point on Friday’s game, the world’s most annoying baseball announcer, Tim McCarver, mentioned that Jeter, Sheffield, Giambi, and Posada were very selective hitters while Enrique Wilson, Tony Clark and A-Hole are willing to chase pitches. Hmmm, has the.156 hitting MVP taken such a large tumble that he’s now compared to Wilson and Clark? Oh, how the mighty (annoying) have fallen.

4. Did anyone else stick around for the post-game interview after Friday’s game? Did anyone else think it was weird for Bill Mueller to open his interview on national TV by saying, “Well, first, let me thank God, my lord and savior, since it is through Him that everything is made possible”? I don’t have anything against religion but it always annoys me when athletes thank God. Hey, if everything goes through God then is Mueller suggesting that God is responsible for the Curse of the Bambino?

Let’s keep making fun of post-game interviews: Terry Mulholland, who was traded from the Mariners to the Twins for $1 (I kid you not), made his Minnesota debut this last Saturday against Kansas City. While the interviewer was quick to point out that Mully did technically pitch 1.1 innings, he apparently forgot to mention that in those 1.1. innings, Mully allowed four hits and had to be pulled when he loaded the bases. If it wasn’t for J.C. Romero’s ability to come in and get two outs, Mully’s ERA would be out of the stratosphere.

We Suck Less: Well, the Mariners finally won a series but as those eternal pessimists at the U.S.S. Mariner point out, there’s still a lot to be worried about. The Mariners may have hit three homeruns on Sunday’s rubber match but that puts them on pace for a whopping 94 homeruns for the season. In the last three years, no team, according to John Levesque of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, who has hit less than 150 homeruns has made the playoffs.

And maybe the Angels really suck too: There’s been a lot of talk about how good the Angels are and all the great moves they made over the off-season. And, certainly, as a Mariners fan who has seen the M’s drop five of six to the Halos I would have to agree that they look good but then I took a quick glance at their record. The Angels are currently 7-6. If you take out the six games against the Mariners, the Angels are a rather woeful 2-5 against the Elephants and the team formerly owned by George Dubya. Kind of makes you wonder or at least it does me.

What are you doing Lou?: On Saturday, the Drays were trailing the PaleHose 4-1 in the bottom of the ninth. With two outs, the Drays were able to get a man on first and second with the number nine hitter, Fick (.143 at the time) due up. Not surprisingly, Louie put in a pinch hitter. Marte, a lefty was pitching, and I know Louie loves the lefty-righty matchups (which I personally think is incredibly over-rated). On his bench were Toby Hall (hitting .333) and Tino Martinez (.320). So, Louie decides not to put in Tino since he’s a left-handed bat. Ok, makes sense. You would think then he would be put in Hall especially since Hall and Fick are both catchers. Yeah, you would think that but instead he puts in Jason Romano. Jason who? Exactly. Jason Romano, he of the might .125 season average and the even mightier .200 career average. Someone please explain this to me. I think Louie might be spending too many late nights at the tracks with his new best buddy, Zimmer-man.

Let’s stay with the Drays a little longer: Whoo-hee, Paul Abbott has two quality starts in a row. Perhaps he will be this year’s Esteban Loiza? Or maybe not. Anyhoo, despite his 1-1 record, Abbott has pitched 13 innings over two games and has chalked up a 1.38 ERA. I’m definitely going to have to keep an eye on old Mr. Abbott. I wonder, though, if he’s ever going to get enough strikeouts in a single game to reward those Drays fans with free hot wings from Hooters. Man, I love that promo.

And for something new entirely: I realized that there were some teams that I have hardly mentioned in any of my posts so I decided to look around for an interesting story and, to be honest, there’s really nothing about the Blays, the O’s, or the Roys that I find particularly interesting. It’s fun to write about good teams and really bad teams but not so fun to write about mediocre teams; however, I did manage to find something rather interesting about the Indians. Most notably: these guys are actually pretty good despite having a 4-8 record (hey, that makes them a game ahead of the Mariners). They have the third-best team batting average (.298 … right behind Texas’s .312 and Minnesota’s .304). They also have the second-highest number of team home runs (17), the third highest OBP (.364), the third highest RBI (65) and they lead the league in total hits (145). In fact, if you take into consideration park factors, the Indians probably have the most potent office thus far this season (since the only two other teams close to them, Minnesota and Texas, both have extreme hitting friendly parks).

So, why the hell are they 4-8? The obvious answer would be because their pitching sucks but, in fact, that’s not true at all. While not stellar, they currently have the fifth-best team ERA (.429) right in front of the Yankees (.431) but way behind the number four Red Sox (.389). Perhaps this is just a matter of some bad luck? I don’t know the answer but I do know it’s a rather interesting set of stats that might indicate some good things to come for those Tribes fans. Perhaps the Indians will be this year’s version of the White Sox (the team in 2003 who led the league in run differential – that is, the difference between the number of runs scored and number of runs allowed – but still managed to end the season with a rather subpar record).

And finally: How badly do the Red Sox miss ramoN and Trot “skip, and run” Nixon? Their replacements Crespo (who is playing second while Pokey "friend of Gumby” Reese moves over to short) and Ellis Burks are respectively hitting .176 and .091. No, that’s not a typo. Burks is hitting .091 – that would even be considered a slump for Cirillo.

Around the Horn-Again Christians

2004-04-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

** The 1-7 Mariners have now officially gone off to the worst start in franchise history. That is actually quite an accomplishment considering just how many god-awful seasons the Mariners have had in their twenty-seven year history. But, to add insult to injury, Mike Scioscia – you know, the manager of the team that is responsible for handing the Mariners five of those seven losses – had the gall to tell the Mariner’s faithful to “have faith.”

"Those guys are so professional that they could be 7-1 instead of flip-flopped," he said. "You see guys playing hard, digging for the extra base, staying in the game defensively. I have the utmost respect for those guys."

"There's no quit in that team," Scioscia said. "They can do a lot of things well and beat you in a lot of different areas. Let me tell you something: They're going to be there at the end."

	Magglio Ordonez	Garret Anderson
Profile	Bats Right, Throws Right Six full seasons Left Field	Bats Left, Throws Left Nine full seasons Left Field
Teams	Chicago White Sox	”Anaheim” Angels
DOB	January 28, 1974	June 30, 1972

	G	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	BB	SO	SB
Magglio	957	3685	.308	.365	.528	319	412	82
Anderson	1374	5495	.300	.328	.480	252	738	66

As a Mariner fan, this kind of talk really pisses me off. This is like having someone who just broke up with you tell you, “I’m sure you’ll find someone wonderful very soon.” Yeah, of course I’ll find someone else and of course my life will go on but I don’t fuckin’ need to hear you tell me this shit and especially not right now so just get the hell out of my life. (Note to self: take a deep breath, remain calm, it's only baseball).

** The Mariner’s decision to hire Bill Bavasi was not very welcome in the Mariner nation especially in that one corner of the country known as the blogosphere. Most vocally or most obviously (depending on how you look at it) was the Bavasi Stinks web page. Now, those anti-Bavasi sentiments seem to have grown and spread. Even the Mariner’s Optimist has started to mumble and grumble. Hey, M.O. remember what Scioscia said, “Have faith!”

** The other day I briefly mentioned that Garret Anderson had signed a four-year, $48 million extension. I had planned on writing a piece on why this contract was so well deserved but, fortunately for me (and probably for you), Aaron Gleeman over at the Hardball Times has already written an excellent article discussing Anderson's value and why he is in the unique position of being overrated by some and underrated by others.

** And while we’re on the subject of contracts: Magglio hit a walk-off homerun in the tenth inning today against the Royals. He’s currently making $14 million for the year and the word is that he wants a five-year, $70 million contract. For those of you running the math in your head, you will notice that this comes to $14 million per year. Reinsdorf has reportedly countered with a four-year contract also at an average of $14 million but it’s backloaded (something that Mags does not want). So, is Magglio worth the money? Well, fortunately for us, since Anderson just signed a contract extension we have a point of comparison.
Magglio Ordonez Garret Anderson Profile Bats Right, Throws Right Six full seasons Left Field Bats Left, Throws Left Nine full seasons Left Field Teams Chicago White Sox ”Anaheim” Angels DOB January 28, 1974 June 30, 1972

G AB AVG OBP SLG BB SO SB Magglio 957 3685 .308 .365 .528 319 412 82 Anderson 1374 5495 .300 .328 .480 252 738 66
Mags is one and a half years younger than Anderson but Anderson has spent three more seasons in the majors. Even though Anderson is playing center field this year, I've listed him as a left fielder since that where he has played for most of his career. Their overall batting averages are about the same; defensively, Anderson is probably a notch better (especially with that arm of his); they’ve both been relatively injury free playing around 150 games per season; and I realize this last point may be completely irrational and irrelevant but I really love the fact both players have been lifers. I don’t buy the argument that free-agency has ruined baseball and that somehow in the Golden Era of baseball players were more likely to stick with their team. Statistically, that’s not true. It’s just that we remember the best players and no franchise is going to let their best players go. And by the way, remember that Babe Ruth played for three teams (Red Sox, Yankees, and the Boston Braves).

Anyhoo, getting back on track, the big difference between the two comes in power and patience. Mags has 181 career homeruns while Anderson has 195 (but, remember, Anderson has three more seasons which translates to 1857 more at bats). Mags’s SLG and OBP are both forty points higher. Most notably, however, Mags’s OPS (which I never include because if you’re too lazy to quickly add up SLG and OBP then you should be doing something else with your time) is nearly 90 points higher than Anderson’s.

Bottom line, if you’re going to pay Anderson $12 million per year to play until he’s 36 then I don’t think it would be outrageous to pay Magglio $14 million per year to play until he’s 35. Of course, you could just as easily make the argument that Anderson was way overpaid and that Mags is not worth $14 million over five years. And I guess, ultimately, the only opinion that counts is Reinsdorf's (which we'll know soon enough I suppose).

** On a quick tangential note (and possible peek into a future post): The fact of the matter is, I don't think a player's worth should be figured in raw numbers but, instead, it should be figured in relationship to payroll. In other words, the question should not be "Is Garret Anderson worth $12 million per year?" but rather, "Is Garret Anderson worth X% of the Angel's overall payroll?" The big mistake that Tom Hicks made when he signed A-Hole to that ridiculous contract was not in giving A-Hole so much money in terms of raw dollars but in giving him such a large percentage of the overall budget.

The Yankees can afford to overpay because a $15 million contract is a smaller piece of their overall budget than a $10 million contract would be for a team like the Minnesota Twins. While it would be incredibly foolish for a small-market team like the Twins or the Royals to pay Anderson $12 million, it might not be so foolish for the Angels since the two teams work with dramatically different payrolls. So, the answer to the question as to whether or not Magglio is worth $14 million per year needs to be filtered through what the White Sox are planning to do with their overall budget. Are they going to compete as a large-market team or are they going to compete as a small-market team? If it's the latter, then the answer is no. The Mariners, on the other hand, could most certainly afford to absorb a $14 million contract but, of course, despite having the second-highest overall revenue, the Mariners refuse to be in the top ten in payroll.

It's not unlike life: You don't have a car and you need to buy one. There's a dealer right across the street from you and he can sell you a car with air conditioning for $30 K. Now, way across town, there might be another dealer who will sell you the same car without air conditioning for $25 K. And let's say the "raw" value of air-conditioning is only $500 so if you buy the car at $30 K you are overpaying for the air conditioning by a whole lot of money. Now, if you're "working-class" and you worry about your budget then it is most certainly worth the effort to take the bus and search out this other dealer (even though you may have to take your time and visit at least four or five places before finding the right one) but if you happen to have lots of money and the difference of $5 K is not worth that much to you then you would most likely save your time and energy and just walk across the street.

In other words, the "real" value of the car -- and the value of the air conditioner -- should be measured not in the raw numbers but in those numbers as they relate to your overall budget. Perhaps to put this in "metric-friendly" terms we can call this the "affordability index." But, of course, you could argue that this is still "inefficient" -- that even if you could afford to spend an extra $5K it would be inefficient to do so when you don't have to. Yes, you could make this argument and I wouldn't disagree but this is baseball and baseball has never been known for its efficiency.

So, Magglio is asking for $14 million. For $4 million you could probably get a very decent player ... someone about the same age who can produce, let's say, 90% of the numbers Mags is capable of producing for 75% less money someone like ... oh, perhaps Randy Winn. (AVG/OBP/SLG: .283/.343.406). In 500 at bats, Winn's numbers translate to 142 hits (via AVG) and 203 bases (via SLG). Magglio, in those same 500 at bats would have 156 hits (with his career .308 AVG) and 264 bases (with his career .528 slugging). Simply put, Mags will produce approximately fourteen extra hits and sixty-one extra bases over the course of a typical season. Are those fourteen extra hits worth the $10 million difference between Winn and Ordonez? Well, again, the answer depends on whether or not the White Sox can afford the extra $10 million for those hits just as in my hypothetical example, the question of whether or not the air conditioner and convenience are worth the extra $5 K is dependent on your budget.

I'm not particularly good at math but, nonetheless, over the next few weeks, I'm going to try to figure out some formula that can measure the affordability index (heck, maybe this will get me in a job in the Mariners front office ... oh, I can dream, can't I?). Wish I had majored in Econ instead of English.

** And so let’s stick with the AL Central for a moment, shall we? This afternoon, the Motor City Kitties got destroyed by the Toronto Blays 11-0 and Roy Halladay got his first win of the season (he’s now 1-2). Perhaps the stars are finally starting to realign in their proper places (and perhaps this means the Mariners will win a few games … hey, Texas is coming up this weekend). But what I found most amusing was that at one point the Tiger fans actually started booing their own team. Come on! Talk about being spoiled. Just remember how awful your team was last year? Sure, they had a bad day … every team has a bad day (or bad first two weeks of the season) but you guys still have a 6-3 record and are tied for first with the ChiSox. You’re well into the second week of the season and this is the first series you’ve lost. Boy, I hate to see the riot that will ensue when, heaven forbid, the Tigers fall below .500. Geez.

** More on the Tigers for a bit – and let’s subtitle this paragraph “A Tale of Two Kitties” – I was listening to their game on Tuesday (which the Blays won 7-5). After two full innings, the Tigers had a 5-1 lead which the Blays slowly chipped away at with two runs in the third, one run in the seventh, one run in the eighth, and two (go-ahead) runs in the ninth. It was a decent game with a few good breaks going to the Blays but something happened in the eighth inning that I think very neatly summarizes the difference between the Tigers version .03 and .04.

In the top of the eighth, the Tigers managed to load the bases without a single out. In 2003, this would probably have resulted in some crooked numbers for the Blays. Instead, the Tigers got out of the inning having given up only one run (granted, it was the tying run but oh well). In the bottom of the inning, the lead-off man got on and they ultimately ended up loading the bases with only one out. But, just as soon as we thought Tigers version .03 was long gone buried, it reared its ugly head again and the Tigers were knocked out of the inning with a big goose egg … and, of course, they proceeded to give up two runs in the top of the ninth for the loss.

** Those crazy cats over at ESPN’s Page Two, have put together a bunch of articles on baseball’s most agonizing moments. Schoenfield has compiled the most miserable moment in every franchise’s history while the usually grating and not very funny Jim Caple has compiled a misery index to determine which franchise has given their fans the greatest amount of torment. The article I like best, however, is Eric Neel’s twenty-five most miserable moments in baseball history (well, except for his poke at Ken Burns’s baseball documentary – #25 – which I liked quite a it). Top of the list (or is that bottom?) is, of course, the 1994 strike that canceled the world series. As Bud Selig said at the time:

We have reached the point where it is no longer practical to complete the remainder of the season or to preserve the integrity of postseason play.

I know more than a few people who completely gave up on baseball after that and have not returned to the game since. In fact, one of them did not realize until a few months ago that baseball now had three divisions.

At numbers three and two, respectively, Neel has the 1986 ALCS and the 1986 World Series. This is basically a battle of the lowest moments fronted by Donnie Moore’s Angels and Bill Buckner’s Red Sox. I’ve mentioned this before, but I think one of our readers, Eyespy, put it best:

After the gaff Bill Buckner retired from baseball, after the homerun Donnie Moore retired from life. It's not the same thing.

Damn straight. But hey, Mr. Neel, how’s this for misery? As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up an Angels fan, my family moved to Seattle and I became a Mariners fan. And every single day of the season I have to be reminded of that 1986 Donnie Moore pitch because guess who does the color commentary for the Mariners? Yep, you guessed, Mr. Dave “Hendu” Henderson, the very man who hit that go-ahead homer off of Donnie Moore. Damn, gap-toothed Hendu! Now THAT’S misery.

O Brother Where Art Thou?

2004-04-13T16:44:00.000-07:00

	G	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	BB	SO	SB
Bubba	551	2051	.285	.360	.428	189	351	94
Bobby	270	1011	.305	.370	.485	118	202	38

	Bobby (Richard)	Bubba (Robert)
Profile	Bats Right, Throws Right Three Years in Minors Shortstop	Bats Left, Throws Left Six years in Minors Outfield
Drafted	1st Round (25th Overall) 2000 by Oakland A’s	1st Round (23rd Overall) 1998 by LA Dodgers
DOB	January 12, 1980	August 11, 1976
College	Long Beach State University	Rice University

	G	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	BB	SO	SB
Bubba	4	5	.400	.400	1.600	0	3	0
Bobby	6	19	.158	.304	.158	4	8	0

Recently on ESPN Radio, the brother of Phil "tits” Mickelson (a.k.a. Emilio Estevez), Tim, was invited on air to discuss the Mickelson family’s reaction to Tit’s Master’s victory. Not too surprisingly, it turns out that Tim is the Golf coach at the University of San Diego (just across town from San Diego State University where Tony Gwynn currently coaches baseball). I would imagine that to be the brother of a superstar athlete can be rather difficult especially when you, the unknown brother, also happen to play the same sport. It’s one thing to be Brett and Aaron Boone but it’s another thing to be, oh, let's say for example, Jose Canseco’s brother. As pathetic a creature as Jose has become over the years, at least he had his time in the limelight whereas his twin brother, Ozzie, had a career total 65 at-bats with an average right on the Mendoza Line (.200). A brother is a brother and I’m sure that in your heart of hearts you are happy for your brother’s successes but, at the same time, you’ve got to be feeling those pangs of sibling rivalry (by the way, when Aaron Boone hit that walk-off homer in the ALCS, the camera spent quite a bit of time on Brett as he watched his kid brother circling the bases and I couldn’t figure out if Brett was happy for his brother or if he was singing along to the Cure’s “Why Can’t I Be You?”).

Of course, such sibling rivalries and tensions are not exclusive to sports (anyone know Donnie Wahlberg’s whereabouts by chance?). Everyone knows who Bing Crosby is but not many people realize that his kid brother, Bob Crosby, was also a rather accomplished musician. The Bob Crosby Bob Cats (a swing-era orchestra name not nearly as cool as Mel Torme and the Mel Tones, by the way) was a regular staple on the radio during the 1930’s and 1940’s and ol’ Bob himself had a television variety show in the 1950s. But, despite these accomplishments, he could never overcome the moniker of “the other Crosby.” In fact, he was once asked what he did for a living and he replied his job was to be Bing’s brother.

And getting back to the MLB, this season we have a couple of rookie Crosby’s. No they are not brothers but they might as well be considering one is named Bubba and the other Bobby. Nomenclature aside, what I find compelling about this little coinky dink is the fact Bubba and Bobby are playing for two teams that are the complete antithesis of one another: the big-spending Yankees (Bubba) and the strapped-for-cash-but-surviving-nonetheless Oakland A’s (Bobby). While Bobby was sped through the minor leagues and has been touted as a promising replacement for Tejada, Bubba has spent six years in the minors and is currently a bench player for the most overhyped version of the Yankees in about forty years. In other words, one has to fill the shoes of a superstar while the other has to figure out how to live within the shadows of superstars.

Here’s a quick look at their minor-league stats:

G AB AVG OBP SLG BB SO SB Bubba 551 2051 .285 .360 .428 189 351 94 Bobby 270 1011 .305 .370 .485 118 202 38
The OBP’s are estimates as the records I found are incomplete. Although Bobby’s sample size is obviously smaller (since he spent only half the time in the minors), their overall averages are remarkably similar. Bubba has a better strikeout to walks ratio but Bobby has better power and batting averages. Overall, I think that it's safe to say that Bobby was a better batter in the minor leagues but not by a whole lot. The biggest difference, I think, is in their bios:
Bobby (Richard) Bubba (Robert) Profile Bats Right, Throws Right Three Years in Minors Shortstop Bats Left, Throws Left Six years in Minors Outfield Drafted 1st Round (25th Overall) 2000 by Oakland A’s 1st Round (23rd Overall) 1998 by LA Dodgers DOB January 12, 1980 August 11, 1976 College Long Beach State University Rice University
Bobby is 24 and, according to most projections, should steadily improve over the next four or five years whereas Bubba is 28 and so, statistically speaking, should be coming into his prime years. Bobby is right-handed whereas Bubba is left-handed. They both went to college in their home states. They both had the proverbial cups of coffee before this season.

Throughout the season, then, we’ll be following the progress of the Crosby boys. Since Bobby is an everyday player, he will obviously have the bigger sample size and, ultimately, the comparison might be meaningless but hell so is this blog and, as Emma Goldman once said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.” So, here are their 2004 numbers as of Sunday, April 12. Oh, and you may wonder, "how the hell did Bubba get a SLG of 1.600?" Easy, he may have had only two hits but both of them were for homeruns. Bobby, on the other hand, has three singles.

G AB AVG OBP SLG BB SO SB Bubba 4 5 .400 .400 1.600 0 3 0 Bobby 6 19 .158 .304 .158 4 8 0
P.S. What the hell happened today at The Cell? Seventeen total runs, 22 total hits, 6 total homeruns. Steve is in Chicago right now (and I believe he's going to the Yankees/Chi Sox game this weekend) so I'll let him go into this when he gets back.

P.P.S. Garret Anderson just signed a four-year extension with the Angels for $48 million. Hmm, I wonder what this might mean for Beltran's contract next season. Perhaps a five-year, $65 million contract or something in that range and you can bet that the Mr. Burns fan club (also known as the Seattle Mariner's front office) will not be getting into that deal.

P.P.P.S. (promise this is the last one) While listening to the Chi Sox/Royals game on MLB Radio today, the issue of Magglio's contract was brought up and it seems that the Chi Sox and Mags are not that far apart in numbers. The difference seems to be between the Chi Sox offering a four-year contract whereas Mags wanting a five-year deal. I wonder what the over/under is on Reinsdorf blowing this one.

Opening Day (version 5.0)

2004-04-11T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well, not exactly opening day but rather the first full weekend of baseball. And boy does it feel good to be home again, so to speak. To continue briefly on the bashing-the-voices-of-baseball thread that’s been running through here the past few days: I think there should be a rule that you can use the phrase “a catcher’s best friend” once per game. I don’t care how many double plays occur in a single game: you can only say it once! You hear that, Ron Fairly, only once and definitely not twice in the same damn inning.

Anyhoo, so here are some observations from the first full weekend of the baseball season:

* Do you remember that Seinfeld episode when George Costanza decides to completely turn his life around by doing the exact opposite of what his instincts tell him to do? This is the episode in which not only his personal life gets better but his professional life as well: he ends up working for the Yankees. Conversely, Elaine’s life begins to go downhill really fast in every way possible. After seeing George’s sudden success she realizes that she has become the “new” George. Very funny episode. Oh, and by the way, the Mariners are 1-5 and the Tigers are 5-1. Very funny episode, indeed.

* And speaking of the Mariners: when Randy Winn overran the line drive by Eric Chavez on Friday night how many thousands of people in Seattle do you think were crying Mike Cameron’s name into their microbrews and organic lattes? (If you follow the Cameron link, scroll down a bit and you will see a great article about Mike Cameron as the most underrated player in baseball). Defense is probably the most difficult aspect of baseball to gauge in any objective manner. Sure, we can have errors but they really only tell a very small part of the whole story. Having been spoiled the last few years with the amazing defensive play of the Mariners, seeing this year’s Cameronless version feels like watching a AAA team. Even those plays that are not counted as errors just look sloppy.

* And speaking of Mike Cameron: I recently rented Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything. It had been quite a while since I last saw that film (and, by the way, it’s as good as now as it was then). Anyhoo, the movie is set in Seattle and there are two very minor characters: one is named Mike Cameron and the other is DON Wilson. It appears the future was written in 1989. Whatever became of Ione “Daughter of Mellow Yellow” Sky?

* And speaking of questions, big thanks to Rob M. for solving the riddle regarding why the Angels have Angels and not Anaheim on their gray, away uniforms:

The Angels have dropped the "Anaheim" formerly on their away uniforms because new owner Arte Moreno wants to market the team to all of Southern California.

Back when I was a kid growing up in Southern California, I was actually quite an Angels fan. I got to see the arrival of Rod Carew (after he had given his best years to Minnesota, of course) and the implosion of the 1986 ALCS. And by the way, for any Red Sox fans out there whining and bitching about Bill Buckner and Game Six, I’ve got two words for you: Donnie Moore. Enough said.

* And speaking of the Red Sox: After the world series, and more specifically after the pathetic lovey-dovey kisses Tim McCarver threw at his favorite Mr. Clutch (Dirk Jeter), Aaron Gleeman did a wonderful breakdown of Jeter’s at-bats during late and close situations (defined as an at-bat in the 7th, 8th or 9th innings with your team being no more than two runs behind or ahead). During these situations, Mr. Clutch’s numbers dropped dramatically. I won’t go into them here but you can check them out for yourself on Gleeman’s page. So, what does this have to do with the Red Sox? Well, in their Easter Sunday, extra-inning win against the Toronto Blays, David Ortiz hit a walk-off homerun in the bottom of the twelfth to win the game. This compelled the radio announcer, Jerry Trupiano, to declare that Ortiz had a “flair for the dramatic.” This, of course, made me think of McCarver’s loving odes to Mr. Clutch so I decided to do a little check on Ortiz’s late and close numbers and yes, indeed, Mr. Trupiano was correct. In fact, so much so that from now on, David Ortiz will be hereby known as the Drama King. In the 2003 regular season, the Drama King had an AVG/OBP/SLG of .288/.369/.592 (over 448 at-bats) but during the close and late situations, Drama King stepped it up to .306/.390/.681 (over 72 at-bats). Most impressive indeed.

* And speaking of Drama: Those Tampa Bay Drays are playing a pretty exciting brand of baseball. I started paying attention to them last year (like most people not living in the greater St. Petersburg metroplex). I remember their having played lots of very close games and now it seems a little bit of that luck is turning their way. They split four games against the hapless Yankees and won two of three against Baltimore. Do the Drays have a chance at the playoffs? Will Victor Zambrano (currently 3-0) win twenty games? No, of course not. I’m not that stupid. Zambrano is a good pitcher but one who is benefiting from providence (his 15K/10BB ratio is not very encouraging). But I do think they might have a shot at fulfilling Lou’s promise that the Drays will play .500 ball over the season. Then again, Lou did promise that the Mariners, after dropping the first two games of the 2002 ALCS against the Yankees, would bring the series back to Seattle and we all know what happened then. The big test for the Drays will be this upcoming week when the Drays go up to the Bronx to play the team formerly known as the Manhattan Highlanders.

* And speaking of the Yankees: I know it’s early and you can’t tell too much from just the first week of the season but while their questionable pitching has been fairly decent (Mike Mussina aside), their supposedly potent offense seems MIA. As a team, their AVG/OBP/SLG numbers are: .205/.323/.371. By any standard, that is not good. One might chalk this up, of course, to Chicago’s stellar pitching except that they were playing the Chicago White Sox and not the Chicago Cubs. Garland and Shoen-knife both have career ERA’s in the 4.5 range and Dan Wright owns an impressive 5.52 Career ERA.

* And speaking of the White Sox: while the AL Central may be the "weakest division in baseball," I certainly do think it is the most exciting. (Go to Steve's post, "AL Central: Central to What?" to explain the scare quotes). For all intents and purposes, the AL West and the AL East are two-team races. Between the East and West you have four teams vying for three spots. The AL Central, on the other hand, is a three-team race with all three teams hoping for one playoff spot. Heck, with the way the Tigers are playing, the AL Central could be a four-team race well into the dog days. By the by, if there are any Tigers fans out there, I’d be curious to know how many of the everyday starters were actually starters last year. From my count, only half of the starting eight were Tigers last year (Sanchez – CF; Higginson – RF; Pena – 1B; and Munson/Young – 3B). The other four (Guillen – SS; Vina – 2B; Rodriguez; and White – LF) were all off-season transactions. With such a large turnover the Tigers could be looking at the biggest single-season turnaround. To some extent, the Tigers and the Drays seem to be using the same formula: hold on to their core group of talented youngsters and match them with some veterans who have come from winning teams.

* And speaking of the Tigers: Do you remember that Seinfeld episode when George Costanza decides to completely turn his life around by doing the exact opposite of what his instincts tell him to do?

Forever Hold Your Piece

2004-04-11T09:12:00.000-07:00

* I picked on Angees broadcaster Rex Hudler the other day (though a certain Angels fan didn't exactly disagree with my assessment), so to continue in this vein of ridiculing people whose job is a lot harder than it looks, let me share with you some treasures from the White Sox season: while in Kansas City, Darrin Jackson commented that the team, under new manager Ozzie Guillen, had a stronger sense of togetherness and, as he put it, "comaraderieship"; yesterday, while describing the infield shift put on for Jason Giambi, DJ described shortstop Jose Valentin as being positioned on "the second base side of second base." DJ--stay off dem treez, man.

* Speaking of the White Sox - Yankees game yesterday, how about zero earned runs for the limousine boys? If Jose Valentin hadn't airmailed an easy double play relay, and if Billy Koch hadn't one-upped him by throwing one into the stands, the score would have been Chicago 7, New York 0. Tom Gordon gave up 2 earned runs on 3 hits against his old 'mates (after saying he wanted to close, turning down an offer from Chicago and then accepting a job as a set-up guy in New York).

* Has anyone been watching Bonds bat lately? Last night he took a 2-1 fastball right down Broadway. I mean, Market Street--he plays for San Francisco, right? Whatever, it was a fastball right down the main throroughfare. A lambchop was thrown right past the wolf, and the wolf missed it; that was weird to see.

* Anyway, Michael Kay on the YES Network has the most irritating voice on earth, as I was reminded today; apologies to Wonder Dog fans. You know, last week at the Trop, when Drays fans got up to cheer with two outs and two strikes, Kay said, "and just like they do at Yankee Stadium, the fans are on their feet." Never mind the atrocious grammar; I guess I had forgotten that Yankee fans invented standing up and cheering. Today they may have invented booing their own reigning MVP (A-Hole struck out against Dan Wright after getting ahead in the count 3-0, and is "hitting" a lot like Jeff Cirillo, at .160).

Children of Around the Horn

2004-04-09T14:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick look at what's happening in the world wide baseball web:

* The stat-heads (and I do not mean that disparagingly) over at The Hardball Times have posted their staff predictions. While most every baseball page has their predictions, what I find fascinating about this particular set is the near unanimity of the ten writers. Statistics are supposed to provide objective analysis. It appears that objective analysis can lead to uniform analysis as well.

* ... and speaking of the annoying Angels (to continue Steve's rant on Rex) ... David over at the U.S.S. Mariner posted this hilarious observation the other day:

Fun quotes from the Anaheim feed.
"Freddy is rolling. He's retired seven in a row with a walk in between."
So, he hasn't retired seven in a row, then...

* Although I haven't put up the AL East links quite yet, I reccomend that you go check out Soxaholix. This is, by far, one of the most entertaining baseball blogs I've seen. Thanks to the Cinetrix for passing along the groovy link.

* The folks over at The Tigers Weblog (and you bet they must be wetting their pants in joy) are not only following this season but are putting together a retrosheet of the 1984 season. That sounds like a great idea. Perhaps some enterprising blogger from Mariner Nation might put together a retrosheet next year to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the 1995 Mariners ... ah, I can still remember sitting in an annoying sports bar in Minnesota watching game five of the ALDS and seeing Edgar hit "the double." I started screaming so loud that I was actually told to quiet down. I guess the frat boys couldn't hear themselves grunt over my cries of joy. Ah ... good times, indeed.

* According to the reliable sources, Johnny Damon -- the half-Thai sports wunderkind ... well, other than Tiger, the other half-Thai sports wunderkind -- is now officially known as The Passion:

The hair gives him power. He actually just threw out the winning run at the plate in the 10th at Baltimore. Old, cleancut Damon was notorious for his Charmin arm. The hair must provide some kind centripetal momentum as his arm comes around.

Hmmm ... note to self: marry a Thai woman, have plenty of half-thai kids, train them into Atheletes, retire early. Make sure at least one of them throws left-handed.

* I know I've mentioned this before but I think it needs to be said again: Jack McDowell is one of the most annoying baseball writers out there. Great pitcher, terrible writer ... he's quickly becoming the Joe Morgan of Internet Publishing.

* I just recently noticed that The Sporting News web page has been coopted by Fox Sports which is, of course, just as bad as Fox News. Let's just hope that a fine writer like Ken Rosenthal can get out of their before the Fox culture infects him too.

* I'm listening to the Chi Sox give the Yankees a nice little spanking. It's 9-1 in the bottom of the seventh. Anyhoo, one of the Chi Sox announcers just mentioned that the Yankees might not have recovered from their trip to the Orient. That just struck me as weird. Do people not talking about the 19th-century spice trades or the travels of Marco Polo still say the orient? Besides, the Yankees and Drays just went to Japan. That would be like going to England and then telling people you went to visit Europe. Stupid island nations.

Grumblings and Mumblings

2004-04-09T08:37:00.000-07:00

* First off, in case you missed it, the Tigers are undefeated. They've scored over 20 runs in their first four games; last year, they were 1-10 before they had scored 20 runs. That leads us to the first question of the day: How much do the Twins miss LaTroy Hawkins? The Twinkies rallied to tie yesterday's game 4-4 and then had their bullpen do its best White Sox impersonation: suddenly it was 9-4 and the Tigers were looking like this year's Royals.

* Apologies to any Angels fans, but Rex "Wonder Dog" Hudler has the most irritating voice in television broadcasting. Except for maybe Thom Brennaman. In any case, during yesterday's unlikely come-from-behind win over Tommy's Mariners, Wonder Dork dropped one of those lines that only the truly stupid let slip. Commenting on the fact that M's closer Eddie Guardado was injured, Rex posited that Seattle would utilize a "bullpen by committee" for the time being. Hey, asshole, name one bullpen that is not a fucking committee.

* Anyone who watched the Yankees beat the White Sox, 3-1, should have duly noted a few things. First, Scott Schoeneweis, who owns a career ERA of 5.08 as a starter and hasn't started a game in almost two years, got the ball for Chicago; second, the Yankees have a pretty good lineup; third, if Schoeneweis hadn't walked the first two batters he faced, the score would have been 1-1 heading into the bottom of the ninth, since Sheffield's 15-foot swinging bunt and Posada's sac fly scored those walks. The Yankees had the bases loaded in each of the first two innings and only scored two runs. Posada hit a solo homer later in the game. Javier Vazquez (8 IP, 3 H, 1 ER) was scary good. Not as scary looking as Kevin Brown, but very, very good. On the plus side for the Pale Hose, Joe Crede flashed some serious leather at 3rd base, Schoeneweis was sharp after he settled down, Neal Cotts exorcised his Bronx demons and Jon "Lo-Carb" Adkins actually looked like a major league pitcher out there.

* Re: Paul Abbott. During his 16-win season with the Mariners, he averaged right around 7 runs of support per start. But, he looked damn good against the Yanks the other night. It's not as if his 5.1 no-hit innings were a total gift of great defense, lucky bounces and the like. He was dealing. It'll be interesting to see if he can keep it up.

* For his walk-up music yesterday, Hideki Matsui chose "Day Tripper" by the Beatles. I took this to mean that Japanese baseball players have far better taste in music than American baseball players, since most of the Yankees lineup walked up to your typical Clear Channel bullshit. Karl Ravech? Comments? (If you're scratching your head in confusion, see the "Brown-Eyed Girl" post).

Updated Links and news briefs.

2004-04-07T14:53:00.000-07:00

	Hits	Runs	K	BB	LOB
Texas	11	4	4	4	21
Oakland	9	5	4	4	13

	Hits	Runs	K	BB	LOB
Texas	5	1	7	1	4
Oakland	7	3	8	1	6

	Hits	Runs	K	BB	LOB
Texas	7	2	5	4	16
Oakland	5	1	8	4	14

Just put up the links for the AL Central. Will get around to the AL East in the next week or so. Winners for the most creative blog names: Exile in Wrigleyville (White Sox) and Eye of the Tigers.

In baseball news:
* Joe Mauer is out indefinitely as he awaits knee surgery. Bummer!

* Paul Abbot took the Yankees for 5.1 no-hit innings before getting touched for two runs. All in all, a very good performance. Warning to Rays fans: don't expect too many. Abbot is not a bad guy and is a serviceable end-of-the-rotation pitcher. Just don't expect a 16-win season. By the way, The Drays may have one of the best performance pitches I've heard in a long time. In Seattle, if a Mariner gets four hits in a game, someone wins a year's supply of free groceries. In Tampa Bay, if a Drays pitcher strikes out ten or more batters, everyone with a ticket stub gets 10 free hot wings from HOOTERS. That is soooo awesome.

* The White Sox's bullpen managed not to blow a lead. Particularly amazing is the fact Koch actually got the save. I have to give Guillen credit for not giving up on Koch (as I surely would have based not just on the other day's performance but on his entire year last season) and sending him back out there for the save.

* Check out the following numbers from the three Texas/Oakland games:

Game 1
Hits Runs K BB LOB Texas 11 4 4 4 21 Oakland 9 5 4 4 13
Game 2
Hits Runs K BB LOB Texas 5 1 7 1 4 Oakland 7 3 8 1 6
Game 3
Hits Runs K BB LOB Texas 7 2 5 4 16 Oakland 5 1 8 4 14

Ok, so why should you care about these numbers? Well, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure other than I'm amazed that Chan Ho "out of the" Park pitched a far better game than I had thought. 8K and 1BB is a pretty nice ratio. What makes me particularly interested in these numbers, however, is that they are all fairly low-scoring games. Has Texas pitching really improved or has Oakland's offense been seriously downgraded? It's too early to say for sure but it does intrigue me. By the way, this is Texas's first win against Zito.

Opening Day (Version 4.0)

2004-04-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

I don’t understand MLB’s decision to spread “opening day” over such a long period. The first opening day, of course, was in Japan. Then we had the first U.S. version of opening day on Sunday (April 4) in Baltimore. Yesterday was “opening day” for about half the league and then today, of course, is opening day 4.0. Granted, I’m not a marketing person and maybe I’m completely talking out of my ass but I would like to see MLB turn opening day into a huge television event on par with the first day of the NCAA basketball tournament. Now that would be cool.

Anyhoo, so here’s a quick trip around the AL for today:

Boston at Baltimore

The first game of the series saw Pedro getting touched up in a very un-Pedro like fashion. This time around, we saw Kurdt Schilling being Kurdt Schilling. A couple of seasons ago I saw an amazing highlight of Kurdt telling the batter what he was going to pitch. He actually told the batter, “fastball, outside” and he threw a fastball outside for a strike. This is the pitching equivalent of a batter pointing to centerfield to indicate where he is going to hit a homerun. Is it obnoxious and annoying? Sure. But if you can actually pull it off, it’s also really cool.

Oh yeah, so Boston won the game 4-1 but they should have won by a larger margin. The BoSox left nine on-base. Damon also struck out with the bases load and, in fact, Damon has not had a hit yet. The other highlight: Mr. Viagra (Palmeiro) actually stole a base. He went a perfect 2-2 in stolen bases last season so he’s already halfway there to matching last year’s total. Go-go Raphie.

Anaheim at Seattle

The first game of the season is precisely just that: the first game. You never get too excited or too frustrated with early season numbers and performances. Moyer was very mediocre and Colon was very good and while I have no doubt that Colon will continue to be very good I also believe that Moyer will not continue to be very mediocre. And I’m not going to get excited because Willie “Boom Boom” Bloomquist got an RBI Double. If Boom Boom were not a hometown boy, I do not think he would be on the major league roster. All teams, not just the Mariners, seem to be suckers for hometown boys.

Anyhoo, so what worries me about this game is that, offensively, the game went according to script. Anaheim hit long balls and the Mariners singled the opposition to boredom. The Mariners have been in the top three team batting averages for the last three seasons but they have also consistently been in the bottom in terms of homeruns. This year’s Mariners were supposed to sacrifice defense for more pop … well, unless they were talking about installing a new Coke machine in the clubhouse or installing a bigger stereo system, I see nothing of this “more pop” and I have no reason to believe I will be seeing it anytime soon. I love the Mariners, I root for the Mariners, but I’m also not deluded and I will be very pleasantly surprised if the Mariners manage to make the playoffs (much less avoid placing third in the AL West).

Two random observations: I always thought that away uniforms were gray and had the name of the city on the front. Apparently, the Angels have gray away uniforms that say Angels across the chest. Anyone know anything about this? Secondly, Ichiro appears to have a new glove. He traditionally uses a black glove that is handmade by some old Japanese leatherworker. For sponsorship purposes, Ichiro slaps a Mizuno label on the glove but it’s not a Mizuno glove. Anyhoo, this season he appears to have a brown glove. I’m wondering if that old Japanese leatherworker died or something.

Detroit at Toronto

TIGERS WIN! TIGERS WIN! Yes, two in a row … the Tigers are on a hot streak! Conventional wisdom says that early in the season pitchers are generally ahead of the batters but the Tigers were able to light up Toronto’s pitchers for fourteen runs and twenty-three hits in two games. Yeah … believe it or not, the Tigers have scored seven runs in each of their first two games. Heck, maybe they didn’t really need to sign Urbina as a closer … yeah, and maybe Ty Cobb will rise from the dead and lead the Motor City Kitties to the World Series.

I think the Tigers are going to have an amazing turnaround and finish above or very near .400. Now, .400 might not be too impressive but that translates to a 65-97 record. That’s a twenty-two-game turnaround from their last year’s 43-119 record.

New York at Tampa Bay

Most critics of the Yankees have pointed out that despite the stellar lineup, their rotation remained questionable. The other day, in fact, my brother and I sat around trying to figure out the Yankee’s rotation and couldn’t remember who their #5 pitcher was until we realized they don’t have a #5 pitcher. Their rotation is basically Mussina, Brown, Vazquez, Contreras, and whoever else they might be able to find and as of today that “someone” is Donovan Osborne, a veteran left-hander. Although his lifetime ERA of 3.96 is respectable, take a look at his ERA over his last four seasons:

1997 4.93 3-7 (14 starts) 80.1 IP
1998 4.09 5-4 (14 starts) 83.2 IP
1999 5.52 1-3 (6 starts) 29.1 IP
2000 Injured
2001 Injured
2002 6.19 0-1 (0 starts) 16 IP

I think it’s safe to say that Osborne, who is 35, would most definitely fit into the category of “sucking.” But, of course, perhaps Osborne will have a bounce-back season, he’ll gets lots of run support, and besides he’s the fifth starter so he doesn’t have to have lots of starts. Plus, with the front-end rotation of Mussina, Brown, Vazquez, and Contreras, the Yankees are still looking good, right? Well, no. In the preseason, Mussina was the only “sure thing” in that lineup. Brown, if he is healthy, may be the best active pitcher on the planet but that’s a mighty big if. Vazquez and Contreras haven’t proven anything yet.

So, there’s Mussina except Mussina hasn’t looked so hot in his first two outings (both against the Drays). In fact, Mussina is the first pitcher to ever lose back-to-back starts against the Drays in their seven-year history. In Tokyo, he was touched up for ten hits and five runs in five innings. Today in Tampa Bay, the Drays got nine hits and six runs in four innings. Like I said before, it’s early you can’t draw too many conclusions but I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing Mussina obliterated on a regular basis.

Since last season, I’ve rather enjoyed following the Drays. Aside from my own fondness for sweet Lou, the Drays had a great rookie combo in Crawford and Baldelli. This year, however, watching the Drays is like stepping into Mr. Peabody’s wayback machine in that the entire right side of the defense is made up of former Mariners: Rey Sanchez, Tino Martinez, and Jose Cruz, Jr. Two years ago I was at the St. Louis/Seattle game with my brother and father. When Tino first came up to bat most of the fans stood up and gave Tino a rousing ovation. Seattle fans may know squat about baseball but they sure love that 1995 team. Jose Cruz, Jr. went 4-5 today and came up a homerun short of hitting for the cycle (quick: name the three Mariners who hit for the cycle).

Rey Sanchez, who was basically a rent-a-player for the Mariners last season has always intrigued me and I think the Mariners made a big mistake in letting him go and opting for Aurillia instead. Sanchez’s .273/.310/.334 (average/slugging/obp) numbers might not be very impressive but for whatever bizarre reason, whenever he’s been in the American League Sanchez has been close to a .300 hitter whereas in the NL he’s more like a .260 hitter. Go figure.

Oh yeah, and the funniest stat from this game: the Yanks got 9 free passes (8 base on balls and a hit batter) but aside from their four-run first inning (walk-homerun; walk-homerun) they couldn’t do squat.

Cleveland at Minnesota

Man alive, how good is this Mauer kid? Yesterday he stepped up to the plate 5 times netting two hits and two base on balls. Yep, that’s a .667 BA and .800 OBP. Not bad for a 20-year-old’s first major league game. What I find most impressive about Mauer is not the two hits but the fact he got two walks from C.C. “not the guy from Poison” Sabathia. I’ve seen the scouting reports and while his swing has been noteworthy, most scouts have gone ga-ga over his plate discipline. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a rookie-year OBP of over .500.

The Twins and Indians played the equivalent of three games within two days – that is, they played two actual games with the first game going twelve innings and the second going fifteen innings. That’s a total of twenty-seven innings or, again, three complete nine-inning games. The game should have been much shorter. In the eleventh inning the Twins had a man on third with one out but couldn’t bring him in. In the fourteenth inning they had men on second and third with no outs but still could not manage to score a run. Finally, in the bottom of the fifteenth, the Twins had the bases loaded with two outs when, of all people, Jose “barely worth the league minimum” Offerman smacked a single to win the game 6-7. Twenty-seven innings over two games: can’t wait to see what the bullpen is going to look like tomorrow.

If you ever get a chance to listen to the Twins on the radio (WCCO), I highly recommend it. Herb Carneal and John Gordon are incredibly entertaining partially because they are so unabashedly partisan. While I certainly have a soft spot for the sweet baritone of Dave Niehaus (Mariners) and the slow cadence of Vin Scully (Dodgers), listening to Carneal and Gordon is a lot like sitting in the bleachers. When there was a close call in the bottom of the 15th, for instance, Gordon started screaming, “no, no way. He was safe.” In the 12th when a ball nearly went out of the park, Carneal yelled out, “Come on, baby, come on … get up, get up!”

Injury report: Mauer hurt himself today and left the game in the third inning with 1 hit in 1 at bat. Santana also left in the 4th inning with a strained right calf. Torii Hunter left in the 11th inning with some sort of leg injury that has not been announced yet.

Texas at Oakland

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a rather negative post about Chan Ho “Out of the” Park. While I still think he’s an incredibly mediocre pitcher with a bloated contract, he did manage to pitch one hell of a gem. Unfortunately, Texas did not bring along it’s typical big bang and Park ended up losing the game. He pitched 7.2 innings and with the exception of a 3-run hiccup in the 6th, he pitched extremely well. You know, Texas is not going to get very many good outings from their pitchers and they really cannot afford to waste them like they did today.

Of course, Hudson had a lot to do with Texas’s offensive ineptitude. In 7 innings, Hudson allowed 5 hits, 1 run and 1 BB (with 4 K). Arthur Rhodes also got his first save for the A’s. I think by the end of this month, the Mariners are going to feel really stupid for letting Rhodes go.

By the way, Mark Teixeira might be the cutest girl in baseball.

"Brown-Eyed Girl"

2004-04-05T20:40:00.000-07:00

During the season opener between Tampa Bay and New York, Karl Ravech, part of a trio of bleary-eyed ESPN announcers, noted that Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl" had been playing over the P.A. between innings at the Tokyo Dome, and that somehow this was an indication of the "difference in cultures." At the time, I didn't really understand what he meant by that. He'd said it with sort of a smirk in his voice, so I could only assume it was an obvious difference, like the difference between sushi and Philly cheese steak. But it wasn't. Did he mean that because the Japanese were willing to embrace the foreign game of baseball, they were therefore also willing to embrace the foreign music of Van Morrison (a foreign concept)? Did he mean that the Japanese, willing to play a love song at a baseball game, are somehow fundamentally different from us Americans because of it? What on earth does the song "Brown-Eyed Girl" mean in relation to the cultural differences between Japan and the U.S.? I still can't think of a single one.

Now, this very evening, when Ron Gardenhire went to the mound to talk to J.C. Romero in the top of the 9th inning at the Metrodome, the familiar strains of "Brown-Eyed Girl" came over the P.A. Again, I tried to analyze the situation. If this were happening at Safeco Field, I'd say that because the Mariners have so many fans come from Japan to watch Ichiro, this was merely a nod to their fans who had traversed afar. But this was at the Metrodome, not exactly a hotbed of Japanese fandom. So what did it mean? Was there some couple making love in the green grass, behind the stadium? Was an old man being gunned down with a transistor radio? Was it because peoples' hearts were a-thumpin'? Are the Twins turning Japanese? Is it a dome thing? Is that what the "difference in cultures" is? Dome cultures versus open-air cultures?

By the way, Joe Mauer got his first hit. In America.

Washed up, part one

2004-04-05T19:52:00.000-07:00

Mark McLemore, refusing to be put on the minor league disabled list, has asked for his release by the Orioles and apparently is headed to the big-league disabled list in Oakland. This should please Mariners fans, who spent several years watching the embodiment of "futility infielder." And he "played outfield," too. Now he'll do it for the A's. Is it just me or is Oakland snatching up all of Seattle's black players who are also former Orioles?

DET 7, TOR 0

Whoa. The last time the Tigers won on opening day against the reigning AL Cy Young winner their starting shortstop was Alan Trammell and Roger Clemens, the reigning AL Cy Young winner, was a Boston Red Sox. If you're not surprised that the Tigers pitching staff shut out the Blue Jays, then you haven't been following baseball for a while. Jason Johnson, insulin regulator and all, threw the ball very well, including pitching around a lead-off triple. The Tigers offense, apparently not a contradiction of terms this season, put up 7 runs against 2003 Cy Young stud Roy Halladay.

CWS 7, KC 9

Even though KC starter Brian Anderson owned the Pale Hose in '03 (5-1, 2.77), the Southsiders touched him for 5 runs, and tacked on two more. Guys were hitting to the opposite field. Valentin and Ordonez got two-out RBI. Willie Harris executed a bunt. Paul Konerko stole second base (!). The offense was clicking behind Mark Buehrle, who was very effective (6.2 IP, 2 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO). It was everything the "new" White Sox were supposed to be.

Then they started looking a lot like the 2003 White Sox, and how. Cliff Politte started on the mound in the bottom of the 9th with a 4-run lead. He had been sharp in the previous inning and a third. It was not a save situation. He walked the first two batters he faced. So Ozzie Guillen brought in his "closer," Billy Koch. Koch gave up a run-scoring double to Benito Santiago, then struck out Aaron Guiel. To show his confidence in his "closer," Ozzie then pulled him in favor of Damaso Marte, against whom opposing batters hit .185 last season.

Marte, after commentator Darrin Jackson noted that his velocity seemed down, then gave up a three-run, game-tying homer to Endy Lopez. And then a single to Angel Berroa, and then a home run to Carlos Beltran. Game over.

I know it's only one game. That said, it looks like it's going to be a long season at the helm for Ozzie Guillen. Let's not even use the word "era," unless you mean Billy Koch's 27.00 ERA. Damaso Marte, having not recorded an out, has an incalculable number that is represented in the box score by two dashes which, more or less, represent infinity.

In his book Moneyball, Michael Lewis refers to Billy Koch as a "crude fireballer." Now that Koch's fastball has dropped in velocity, all that really remains is "crude." Considering that plenty of guys would love to have Koch's reduced velocity of 92-95 mph, it just stands to reason that he was never a very good pitcher in the first place. Koch's arrival on the South Side last season cost the White Sox a number of games. It may have also cost them Damaso Marte.

With Koch ineffective, Jerry Manuel soon found out that his only viable options at the end of the game were Marte and Tom Gordon. (Gordon, now a Yankee, had held the consecutive saves record until Eric Gagne broke it last season). With the vacuum at the back end of the bullpen, Marte found himself busier than he had ever been. In 2003, Marte threw 79.2 innings, 19 more than he threw in 2002 and 43 more than he had thrown in 2001. He often pitched three or four days in a row, as he was suddenly both a set-up man and an erstwhile closer. Now, Marte's velocity is down. Both home runs he gave up today were on fastballs 2-4 mph slower than last season's.

Answer to last post's trivia question: Frank Thomas.

AL Central: Central to what?

2004-03-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

	IP	BB	SO	BB/9	K/9
#1	204	79	158	3.48	6.97
#2	175	63	114	3.24	5.86
#3	162	58	108	3.22	6.00

First off, let's talk about THE WEAKEST DIVISION IN BASEBALL.

In a not-so-recent roundtable discussion, the people at all-baseball.com discussed the AL Central like they were discussing their great-aunts' bunyons. And I don't blame them. It's not a very glossy division and it isn't necessarily that easy to get excited about if you're not a fan of one of the teams. People tend to think of the AL Central--if they think of the AL Central at all--as being, more or less, the cellar, with not so much a divsion winner as a loser with the fewest losses. But let's put this in perspective. Granted, the ALC is a weak division. However, the Pirates--I mean, the Cubs--won the NL Central last season with a record of 88-74, the worst record of any division winner. Shocking, isn't it? The Twins won the AL Central by going 90-72.

But let's face it: the AL Central just is not very splashy. There's no Ichiro to hit .360 in May and .180 in August. There's no $40 million left side of the infield, or whatever the figure is. Albert Pujols isn't there swinging a mean stick for a team that won fewer games last year than the underachieving White Sox. There's no "gem dandy of a ballpark," no mystique, no aura, no green monster, no curse, no ivy, no big unit, no big three, no moneyball, no Alyssa Milano Pavano, no retractable roof, no cove, no hot-tub, no flag pole, no nothing. What a worthless division. Do they even play baseball in the AL Central?

Now, two quick trivia questions for you.

The first one's easy: Which team had the best winning percentage for the 1990s? Correct: the Braves. No surprise there. Now, who had the second-best winning percentage over the same decade? Incorrect: the Yankees. Correct: the White Sox.

Shucks, let's make it three. If you've heard this one before, don't ruin it for the others. Who is the only player in major league history to bat .300, hit 20 home runs, walk 100 times, score 100 runs and drive in 100 runs for 7 consecutive seasons? Answer in my next post. Hint: it's not Sammy Sosa.

HIDDEN DRAGON

Just for fun, let's do that thing where we look at stats for three pitchers without listing their names. Here are the stats for three guys in their first full big league seasons.

IP BB SO BB/9 K/9 #1 204 79 158 3.48 6.97 #2 175 63 114 3.24 5.86 #3 162 58 108 3.22 6.00
Granted, the first fellow has a significantly higher strikeout ratio, but other than that, these guys all stack up rather evenly. That first fellow is Mr. Coconuts himself, Bartolo Colon (1998); the second is Andy Pettitte (1995); and the third is--you guessed it--Jeremy Bonderman (2003). Last season, my friend Tom (who, by the way, says he'll take Scott "F." Spiezio over Jeff Cirillo every day of the week and twice on Sundays) and I were talking and I said that in spite of everything (including being neither a Tigers fan nor a pitching scout) I liked Bonderman and thought he was going to be good some day. Tom disagreed, or at least was doubtful. I've been wrong many times before, but looking at his rookie numbers--at least the numbers that a pitcher can control, walks and strikeouts--you see pretty good stuff. Promising stuff, at least.

In case you missed it last year, which I certainly did, Rob Neyer has an article on the young man from Pasco, Washington that makes me look like I just read him and tried to claim the idea for my own. I had already written most of this by the time I stumbled across Neyer's observations, so I decided to just post anyway. Bonderman has never played above single A, and started for the Tigers, the most woeful offensive team outside of the post-All Star break Mariners, at the wise old age of 20. If you read Neyer's article, you'll also see that Glavine and Maddux lost 17 and 14 games, respectively, in their first full seasons.

It may be of some interest that Mr. Bonderman was drafted by none other than evil genius/number-cruncher Billy Beane's Oakland A's and twirled 160 strikeouts in 144.2 innings at Modesto before being traded to Detroit and making the big jump to the Show before he could buy beer. Granted, as Moneyball readers know, Beane prefers pitchers who've had college careers, which may be why the A's let Bonderman go--but he was drafted in the first round (26th pick overall) by a team who has been known to choose wisely now and again where pitchers are concerned.

If Bonderman's innings seem low, that's because manager Alan Trammel pulled him from the starting rotation on September 3rd to spare him the ignominy of joining Brian Kingman in the record books as a rookie. He was also on a 170-inning limit. From August 1st to September 3rd, Bonderman was 2-4 with a 7.53 ERA, but one figures he was beginning to tire. Oddly enough, 17 of Bonderman's 19 losses came at night, which may mean nothing, may mean something, but seems weird either way. In any case, it's not completely crazy to think that J.B. might be a pretty good pitcher some day, even if he isn't the next Tom Glavine, who put up very Bonderman-esque numbers himself last year (9-14, 4.52).

YOU SAID, "NO CRYING."

Speaking of the Tigers, it's funny/awesome that they signed Ugueth Urbina. The reason I say it's funny (it's more uncanny than funny) is because just the other day I was thinking it would be great if he signed there. Why? The kissing, of course. If you watched last season's playoffs (and I have reason to question your sanity if you didn't and you're reading this) then you witnessed a veritable lovefest between Urbina and his fellow Fish, Ivan Rodriguez. Does the Elias Sports Bureau keep stats for kissing? When was the last time that a pitcher and catcher who kissed on a World Series champion team both signed to the same (different) team the next season? This has got to be a first! Especially with two kissers going from the Series champs to the team with the worst record in all of baseball.

Apparently, Pudge has been calling Urbina every day to tell him to come play with him in Detroit. And why not? Sure, I bet a lot of guys out there don't like seeing grown men kiss. They think it's the behavior of homosexuals, or Europeans, or homosexual Europeans. Or that it's sissy. Or an abomination. But to me, it's about the same as seeing guys pat each other on the ass, which they do with great frequency in just about every professional sport that I've ever watched. That whole butt-touching thing has always struck me as a bit strange. But kissing--now that takes balls.

THEY GOT SOME PRETTY LITTLE WOMEN THERE

The Kansas City Star reports that about 15,000 tickets for the Royals' home opener were "inadvertently" printed with the Cubs, rather than the White Sox, listed as the visiting team. I'm sure they were just trying to boost attendance, being in the worthless AL Central and playing in that scummy old ballpark.

The Real Reason the Red Sox Suck

2004-03-18T03:12:00.000-08:00

As any casual baseball fan knows, the Red Sox are supposedly cursed for having sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees (although I think they were still technically known as the Highlanders at the time but I could be wrong). While this makes for a cute little story to help fuel that really annoying rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox, I've always contested that the true curse of the Red Sox has nothing to do with the Babe and everything to do with Jackie Robinson.

In The Hardball Times, an excellent new baseball page, Alex Belth does an interview with Howard Bryant, a sports columnist for the Boston Herald, who has recently published a book entitled Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the whole Jackie Robinson story, the Red Sox were actually the first team to give Robinson a try out but they decided to pass on him. Considering Boston's history as a site of freedom for slaves in the 19th-century and the generally progressive racial attitudes once held by Bostonians, the idea of the Red Sox being the first team to heroically break through the color line would have made a wonderful story. Instead, they let Jackie Robinson slide through their fingers.

Just think, in 1947, Robinson breaks into the Major Leagues with a .297 batting average and in 1949 he takes the NL MVP with a gaudy .347 batting average. Imagine if he were hitting in front of Ted Williams ... just think how much better his numbers would have been (and maybe even Williams' numbers would have jumped). "Dem Bums" of course went to the world series both those years (only to lose to the dreaded Yankees both times) but in the ten seasons that Robinson played for Brooklyn, they won the NL Pennant six times! During those same ten years, do you know how many times the Red Sox won the AL Pennant? That's right, ZERO.

Oh, by the way, did I also mention that the Red Sox later passed on this young fella by the name of Willie Mays? Yep ... the Red Sox were the last team in the major leagues to integrate.

Now most of this is rather common knowledge. What makes Bryant's book so fascinating is the depth to which he examines what one might call the legacy of the Jackie Robinson fiasco. Basically, he suggests that Boston's not signing Robinson is not significant in and of itself since no one was ready to integrate baseball in 1945 (except for Branch Rickey, of course). No, what truly undid Boston was its continued refusal to sign black players; in fact, Boston did not sign a black free agent until ... drum roll please ... 1993! Yes, that's 19-friggin-93 and the player they signed was a hometown boy by the name of Mo Vaughn.

Anyhoo, so this got me thinking about some very good books about baseball and race. Also, as someone who studies race for a living and follows baseball as a hobby, it has always been my dream to one day teach a course on the history of baseball as seen through the prism of race. In The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (which, by the way, is a novel by Earnest Gaines and not an actual autobiography), the title character comments that in her old age (she had been born a slave a few years before the Civil War), she enjoys sitting by the radio listening to Dodger's games because "the colored folks" all rooted for the Dodgers. The white folks had the Yankees but the colored folks had Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers.

Anyhoo, so if I ever get the chance to teach such a class, two other books I would definitely put on my reading list and that you should read (for no other reason than they are such excellent baseball books):

Halberstam, David. October 1964. Although it's much more of a narrative about the 1964 World Series, Halberstam also does an excellent job pointing out that the demise of the Yankees was brought about, in part, because of their refusal to embrace integration. The Cardinals, on the other hand, were one of the most integrated teams in baseball and with the help of players like Curt Flood, Lou Brock, and Bob Gibson the Cardinals went on a very impressive streak during the late 60s and early 70s.

Khan, Roger. Boys of Summer. Khan follows the 1952 Dodgers. The book is more autobiography/memoir than baseball chronicle but there is plenty about race.

And finally, for good measure, since I mentioned the Kevin Costner baseball trilogy in an earlier post, I offer here Richard Pryor's two classic baseball movies:

Brewster's Millions -- Hey, Richard Pryor and John Candy together! That's two great tastes that taste great together.

The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings -- Richard Pryor, Billy Dee Williams, and James Earl Jones all together.

Quick Scan of AL News

2004-03-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

Soriano, Rangers, Park Affect

Baseball Primer has an excellent review of the Texas Rangers. Most interesting is Giaclone's suggestion that even when we do take park affects into consideration we often underestimate just how significant those affects are.

AL West Roundtable discussion

Bloggers from around the baseball blogosphere have gathered at all-baseball.com for a roundtable discussion of the AL West. Particularly interesting is Peter White's (of Mariner Musings) very unchracteristic defense of the Mariners. As he himself notes: "This is a bit like when somebody gangs up on your little brother. Only you get to pick on lil' bro." You tell 'em Peter.

And don't forget to check back for those spring training stats. I promise they will make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

2004-03-17T14:34:00.000-08:00

Black Jack McDowell has posted his AL previews at Yahoo Sports's MLB Page. Here are his predictions regarding end-of-season standings:

AL WEST
Anaheim Angels
Seattle Mariners
Oakland A's
Texas Rangers

AL CENTRAL
Chicago White Sox
Kansas City Royals
Minnesota Twins
Cleveland Indians
Detroit Tigers

AL EAST
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Toronto Blue Jays
Baltimore Orioles
Tampa Bay Devil Rays

In all three cases, what I find surprising is McDowell's choice of third-place: Oakland, Minnesota, and Toronto. Even though I'm a Mariner's fan I could have seen the logic of placing Seattle third and I definitely can see the logic of placing Anaheim third but to have Okland trailing both seems utterly ridiculous. Likewise, I can't see the Twins fall that far behind. I agree that the White Sox are the most likely division winners but I see the Twins as being far impressive than the Royals. I have less of a gripe when it comes to Toronto especially since in the AL East the Red Sox or the Yankees are vieing for first and second while everyone is challenging for third.

Oh, and check back later this week as I will put some fun spring training stats.

2004-03-12T15:39:00.000-08:00

In A League of Their Own Tom Hanks berates his players by telling them, "There's no crying in baseball" Well, I'd like to add an addendum to that: there should also be no facial hair in baseball unless, of course, it make you look like a porn star (or, as Steve points out in an earlier blog, like Freddy Mercury ... but I guess there's really not a real big difference between looking like a porn star and looking like Freddy).

If you want a great example of baseball facial hair check out Edgar during his rookie year. Ladies and gentleman, here we see the sweetest stache meeting the sweetest swing in all of baseball.

But, if you want really bad examples of facial hair just take a look at Mr. Scott Fucking Spiezio or Chan Ho "Out of the" Park.This is just wrong and while I certainly have no love for the Yankees, I think Steinbrenner may be on to something by outlawing facial hair on his team.

I only bring this up because as I was doing my rounds of the goings-on in the AL West, I came across an article about Park's supposed rebound. This got me thinking, "rebound from what? From sucking a lot to sucking less?" When Boras got Hicks to sign that gargantuan contract for A-Rod I thought it was stupid to pay one player so much money but I could also see some logic. After all, at that point and still today, A-Rod was being touted as potentially the best player ever to play the game. If I squinted and looked slightly to my left at the right time of day I could see the logic in that signing. But giving Park a five-year, sixty-five million dollar deal completely baffled me then and baffles me now. You don't need to be a sabermetrician to understand that this is just way way way over value. No, Virginia, A-Rod's contract didn't sink the Rangers, Park's did. The fact there are absolutely no takers for Park -- that no team in their right mind would want any part of Park or his contract -- is a clear indicator that Boras pulled the proverbial wool over Hicks's eyes.

Contracts like Park's are usually reserved for Cy Young caliber pitchers Â perhaps the likes of Pedro or Mussina not for middling guys like Park. Only once in his career did Park have an ERA under 3.50 and that was in 2000 when he went 18-10 with an ERA of 3.27. So, yes, he had a very good year but that was also the year Park was 27-years old. Not too surprisingly his two best years (2000 and 2001) correspond with the normal peak years of players (27 and 28 years old). Anyone could have predicted Park would steadily decline and when you add on top of that he would be moving from the expansive Chavez Ravine to the little bread box known as The Ballpark at Arlington, then the fact the steady decline turned into a rather fast freefall should surprise no one.

But, not to be such a naysayer, I would like to point out that Alfonso Soriano is going to have one hell of a year and that if he stays in Texas (rather than move over the Mets), Soriano will most certainly be a 40-40 player. To some extent, I think the Yankees got worse, at least for the short term, by giving away Soriano. If you look at Soriano's and Arod's raw numbers, they are actually pretty close.

Yes, A-Rod has better numbers but when you consider that A-Rod played in Arlington while Soriano played half his games in Yankee Stadium then the differences between miniscule. Also consider that A-Rod has been having a fairly steady decline in terms of both average and power. These numbers will drop even more in New York. Mark my words, sonny boy, for the next two years, Soriano will have better numbers than A-Rods. The one exception might be, of course, OBP. Despite a declining batting average, A-Rod has had a very consistent OBP which certainly speaks volumes about his patience at the plate (or Soriano's lack thereof).


	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS

S-2001	.268	.304	.432	.736

R-2001	.318	.399	.622	1.021

				

S-2002	.300	.332	.547	.879

R-2002	.300	.392	.623	1.015

				

S-2003	.290	.338	.525	.863

R-2003	.298	.396	.600	.996

Pale Hose Outlooks

2004-03-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

Bad news, good news and shouldn't-be news for the White Sox: 1) Willie Harris and Ozzie Guillen (bad); 2) Joe Crede (good); 3) Mark Buehrle (good); 4) Jose Valentine (duh); 543) the Sox (bad).

1. Two things come to mind when the name Ozzie Guillen comes up: he played hard and was a slick fielder; he talked a lot. Okay, maybe that's three things. At any rate, Ozzie's "National League style" of play seems to consist of more bunting and running; or, if you prefer, being "aggressive." That is, if Willie Harris is on base. That is, if Willie Harris manages to keep his starting spot at 2nd base, which he apparently earned by way of hitting .204 with 5 RBI last season in 137 at-bats. Okay, so your lead-off guy's not an RBI guy, so that's not fair, and 137 ABs is not a lot. But how about his .259 OBP?

It seems that Ozzie sees something in Willie Harris. Could it be his physical resemblance (in stature and speed) to Juan Pierre? That's all I can figure. With the proper guidance, perhaps Harris's incredible raw speed and mediocre defense could help the Sox out. According to Mr. Harris, Guillen "told me if I get thrown out, who cares? Be aggressive." Now that's a managerial style we can all get behind: "Who cares? Be aggressive." Somebody print the window decals and let's get this show on the road! It'll be like the Mariners' "Two Outs--So What?" campaign of a couple years ago, but with more aggression! What's that? Of course Scott Schoeneweis can bring his 5.08 career ERA with him! Hopefully, when Scott falls behind a batter, he'll be aggressive like Ozzie says and try to throw a fastball by the guy. If he hits a home run, who cares? Schoey will be out there all nine innings anyway, so he'll have plenty of time to make up for it.

2. In 2003, baby-faced Joe Crede hit .225 before the break, whiffing almost every other at-bat, almost always by swinging weakly at a breaking ball down and away. Think he was nervous about his first full season in The Show? Maybe, but he may have just been surprised that other teams had taken the time to scout him--or he may have also just fallen ill with the general funk that had infected the entire team through the first two months. After the break, during which he apparently watched those tapes his soon-to-be-fired hitting coach had given him, he hit .308 and cut his strikeouts down to roughly one every third at-bat. His OBP went from .277 to .349, his slugging went from .348 to .543 and he hit .352 for the month of August. Does this coincide with the emergence of "Crede's Crew," that bunch of shirtless waif boys in the bleachers? Does it matter? Look for Joe to hit in the .280 - .300 range this season and show another little bump in power. He's got a cannon for an arm and that strength should start to show up a bit more in his batting numbers now that he's more confident about when to take a bigger swing.

3. Yes, it was sad to see Bartolo Colon go. He's a quality pitcher. He built up his arm strength knocking coconuts out of trees with rocks (no, seriously, I think that's fucking rad). Last year for the White Sox he pitched right around his career ERA of 3.86 and ate up 242 innings (that wasn't all he ate). But could the White Sox really have afforded to keep him? They offered him roughly the same amount Anaheim did, per year ($12 million), but for fewer years. So Bart's off to SoCal and everybody's weeping their eyes out because the Bears suck and the writers at chisox.com won't have any more colon (rhymes with "swollen") jokes to make in their headlines.

Luckily for the Southsiders, Kenny Williams did manage to sign Mark Buehrle--remember him?--to 3 yrs and $18 million. If Bartolo's worth $12 mil + per season, then Buehrle is a steal at this price. In 2003, he had an off year, in which he still managed to throw 230 innings, which is 18 and two-thirds more than the fellow with the calves everyone's talking about, Mark Prior (211.1). Buehrle's career ERA is better than Colon's, at 3.71, and while his strikeout ratio isn't that impressive (5.6 per 9 IP career), it's only about one strikeout less per 9 than Colon's over the past two seasons (6.7). Buehrle has also given up fewer home runs (71) than Colon (76) over the past three seasons. The fact that Colon throws 95-99 mph seems justification enough for people to think he's much better than he really is. I'm not arguing against his being talented and dominating at times, but over the long haul I don't think it would have behooved the White Sox to pay Versace money for a very durable pair of Levi's. By the way, that really was a paragraph about Mark Buehrle. It only seemed to be about Bartolo Colon.

4. Jose Valentin has announced that, in addition to looking more like Freddy Mercury than any other big-leaguer (well, he didn't announce that but it's true, and not because no one else resembles Freddy Mercury--Jeff Kent, anyone?), he's considering batting exclusively from the left side this season. Let's see, now: Valentin finished the 2003 season hitting .265 in 396 at-bats from the left side and .131 in 107 at-bats from the right. I just don't see it. I mean, why give up the statistical advantage of having that right-handed bat to go against lefty pitching? That would fly in the face of baseball logic.

543. As alluded to by Tommy in his posting of 9 March, it has indeed come to the point where the mainstream press refers to "the Sox" and everyone assumes they mean Boston. Fine. More on this business in my next, "supernatural" post. So, get out your talismans. Or is it talismen? Anyway.

2004-03-10T13:42:00.005-08:00

In today's page-two column on ESPN.COM, Eric Neel points out how all the hype over the Yankees and Red Sox are overshadowing some very exciting baseball being played out on the West Coast. In his blurb about the Mariners, Neel points out:

In Seattle, where folks are still reeling from the news that Norm Charlton's decided to retire, they've got Jamie Moyer, the 117-year-old marvel who started 33 games, went 21-7, struck out 129, and had an ERA of 3.27 last year. Can he possibly do that again? Haven't we been asking that same question about him for years now? They've also got Edgar Martinez, who's putting the finishing touches on the first-ever Hall-worthy career for a DH. At age 40, Edgar posted an OPS of .895. He walked nearly 100 times, drove in nearly 100 runs, hit 24 homers and 25 doubles. At age 40.

Neel's comments about Moyer sparked a thought I've been harboring the last year and that I'm now sharing with you my dear faithful readers. For all the talk/debate about Edgar's being a true hall-of-fame candidate (based of course on the tired old debate about the DH rule), I'd like to propose the rather novel idea that Jamie Moyer should also be considered a viable HOF candidate.

Moyer?!?!? Are you fucking kidding me? -- yes, that's what you must be thinking but let's consider the specific parameters for HOF Candidacy. As Daniel Greenia points out in Baseball Primer, there are no hard and fast rules for HOF eligibility but there are some very rough guidelines:

Are there any requirements, any written standards for voters to follow? Here is Rule #5 used by the Hall itself: "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." This is clarified only slightly by Rule #6: "No automatic elections based on performances such as a batting average of .400 or more for one (1) year, pitching a perfect game or similar outstanding achievement shall be permitted." There is one statistical standard mentioned in Rule #3(B): "Player must have played in each of ten (10) Major League championship seasons."

If you take Rule #3B in conjunction with everything else, the bottom line is that during a ten-year span a player must have been one of the most dominant at his position. In other words, it's not necessarily about one's entire career (although that's certainly important) but how dominant one can be for an entire decade ... and as Prince says, "and that's a mighty long time" (well, he's talking about forever but let's not quibble).

Look at the following sets of numbers for two pitchers from 1996-2003:

1996-2003	Wins	Loss	Win %	ERA

Pitcher #1	136	62	.687	3.95

Pitcher #2	143	58	.712	3.78

Both records and ERA's are quite good but Pitcher #2 is obviously the better pitcher and, of course, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize that Pitcher #2 is Jamie Moyer. Since coming to the Mariners in 1996 (in trade for Darren Bragg, he of the great .258 career batting average -- possibly the second-best trade in Mariner history ... yeah, and you know the first, don't you, George Costanza?), Jamie Moyer has the best winning percentage of any major league pitcher with more than 150 starts. No other pitcher since 1996 has dominated in terms of wins and losses. What makes this feat even more impressive is that most of those last eight seasons were spent in the not-so-very-friendly confines of The Kingdome.

Who is Pitcher #1? That my friends is none other than Roger Clemens. Look, I'm not stupid ... there is no way I'm going to claim that Moyer is a better pitcher than Clemens but, again, if one of the major parameters of the HOF is decade-long dominance then I think that if Moyer can continue to do what he has done for the next two years (the remainder of his Mariner contract, by the way) he then needs to be looked at as a serious HOF Contender.

So, the next time you hear someone mention Jamie Moyer you should stop them and say, "you mean, Hall of Famer, Jamie Moyer."

2004-03-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick scan of AL-related baseball news:

Vote for Lou offers a detailed analysis on Angels hitters have been able to do against the Mariner's pitchers. Most of the numbers are rather meaningless, in my humble opinion, as they reflect spring training stats as well as regular season stats and the sample size for some players is rather small. However, if you keep scrolling down, there are some great numbers for Angels starters from last year -- larger sample size in regular season games. I only wish Vote for Lou had included league-wide averages so that, for example, we could see how Tim Salmon's performance against the Mariners compared to his performance against the league as a whole. But, maybe that's just my being lazy since finding out a general stat like that is only a few clicks away.

In related news, the Seattle-PI has a story on how Ben Davis -- also known as Henry Rollins's kid brother -- is going to get chewed out for calling back-to-back changeups that resulted in back to back homeruns against the Angels (Guerrero and Guillen). While Davis's pitch calls may be questionable it seems awfully silly to bring this up as being some terrible fault. Davis had to deal with a young pitching prospect going against two very good hitters (well, one very good hitter and another who had a very good year last year thanks in no small part to the wonders of the hitter friendly confines of Cincinnati's Great America Ballpark.

Mr. Gammons over on ESPN.COM has a story on the rookie phenom, Joe Mauer, who by mostprojections may turn out to be the best all-around catcher (defensively and offensively) since Pudge. Gammons's story is interesting but if you want some real information on "The Phenom" I suggest you check out Aaron Gleeman's web page. As a Twins fan (although his page is not a Twins blog) he's obviously been following Mauer's career a lot more closely than most folks. Also, you should read him in general because he's a pretty good writer when he isn't going on about his various fantasy women.

The always entertaining Rob Neyer, also from ESPN.COM, has an article about the Twins and the Red Sox. While the article is certainly interesting in its own right, the link to the article from ESPN.COM's main baseball page is the primary reason I bring this up. If you look under the Rob Neyer menu on the right side of the page you will see the headline: Twins, Sox have questions. It struck me then that outside of the greater Chicagoland area, if you ever mention "The Sox" people are almost always going to assume you mean the Boston Red Sox and not the Chicago White Sox. As someone who is from Washington (the state, goddammit), I'm all too aware of how annoying that can be. That's got to be reason number 543 on why life as a White Sox fan is so incredibly painful.

2004-03-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, so here's my first "real" post and at this point no one is probably reading this at all so I'm probably just writing a note to myself but the what the hell:

A professor once said to me that journalism was the lowest form of writing (apologies to my journalist friends). Well, if that were true then baseball beat writing has to be the all-time lowest form of journalism. Day in and day out you have to write about hometown nine, always coming up with stupid gimmicks, human interest stories, etc. to justify the print space. I read the two Seattle papers and the Tacoma paper on a daily basis to see what new hair-brained theory one of the local scribes may have cooked up regarding my beloved Mariners.

Well, the Seattle-PI in keeping up with the Mariner's front office dictum to keep all baseball-related business as warm and fuzzy as possible, has cooked up a series of "take-five" interviews with new and upcoming Mariners and the most recent take-five is with one Mr. Scott Fucking Spiezo (and yes, for as long as Scott Fucking Spiezo puts on a Mariner's uniform he will always be referred to as Scott Fucking Spiezo). The first of five questions tossed to him is:

In 2004 you can win the AL MVP or your band, Sandfrog, can have a No. 1 single. Which would you choose?

Now, it's bad enough that Scott Fucking Spiezo's band gets any press at all but to even make the most remote hypothetical suggestion that his band might one day have a number one single polluting the already polluted airwaves strikes me as possibly the most inane question ever put forth in the annals of baseball journalism... possibly bested only by the remotest possibility of Scott Fucking Spiezo actually being good enough to ever win an AL MVP. I mean it would be like someone asking me, "If you could be the all-powerful dictator of the entire Western hemisphere or the Eastern hemisphere, which would you choose?" Couldn't they have asked him a question that was rooted in the slightest bit of reality, perhaps, "What do you think looks more ridiculous: your facial hair or your batting stance?"

2004-03-08T22:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, I got the team links up for the AL West. Once I get the AL Central and AL East reps on-board we'll have blog links up for them as well.

2004-03-03T14:54:00.000-08:00

We'll be up and running soon ... just hold your horses.