In this week’s Pinstriped Bible (one of the other columns in the Steve Goldman media empire, the entirety of which can be yours for a song), a reader takes your host to task for suggesting that an incident that took place last week involving Gabe White should be a hint to managers to pay attention to the rule book for bonus competitive advantages. Around here we take any excuse to delve further into a worthy thesis, in this case, that gamesmanship is, or should be, a major component of the manager’s job.
The White situation was very simple. The Yankees lefty entered the team’s May 26 game at Baltimore in the sixth inning with the Yankees leading 7-6. The game was momentarily delayed when the umpire asked White to remove a gold chain. With the chain removed, White gave up consecutive hits, allowing another run to score and setting up a blown save for future Hall of Famer Tanyon Sturtze. After the game, White claimed that he had pitched badly because he’d been unnerved by the umpire’s request.
The Diamondbacks need to take a long look at their aging core. The Tigers’ success isn’t the result of luck, while the Royals’ struggles are due, in part, to a lack of strikeouts and defense. All this and more news from Arizona, Detroit and Kansas City in your Wednesday Prospectus Triple Play.
One of the things I’ve always meant to learn but never quite cared enough about to actually do the research on is to find out what the other draft ratings were. I mean, everyone knows about 4F and 1A, but what was in between? Was there something like 2C–OK, but left-handed and prone to excessive flatulence? 3B–healthy but a little too fond of bad political discussions? I suppose I should ask someone from an earlier generation for some insight into that one of these days.
Anyway, this is the first of a series of three pieces I’ll be doing for Baseball Prospectus about college prospects who could draw varying levels of interest in the draft next week. Today, you get the 1A’s–the guys that every club knows about and would love to have if they’d play for free. This isn’t an encyclopedic listing, since the best pro player to come out of this draft will probably end up being someone neither you nor I have ever heard of, but it should give you a good feel for what’s out there this year. There’s no one in this year’s crop who makes scouts’ eyes light up the way Mark Prior or Rickie Weeks did when they were drafted, but there’s still some solid talent available.
Rain pushed Joe Mauer’s rehab back slightly. The Twins want him to catch back-to-back days to test his repaired knee before he returns to the majors. He’s scheduled to start again Tuesday and a decision will be made on Wednesday. It’s unlikely he’ll be in Minnesota before Friday, but it’s not impossible. Mauer has had a slow rehab, but that’s the result of the Twins exercising caution, not any setbacks on Mauer’s end. For Twins fans, it gets worse. Justin Morneau, someone who has nothing to prove at Triple-A, has been sent down to open up a roster slot. The Twins must know something about Morneau that no one else does, unless something bigger’s afoot.
While Mauer’s rehab is going well, if slowly, Shannon Stewart’s rehab from plantar fascitis has run into problems. His foot is not responding to therapy and he is still in significant pain. Any guess that he’d be back at the lower end of the six-to-eight-week estimates are now gone, and there are open questions about whether he can return by the All-Star break. Stewart may need to DH more, which would wreak havoc on the already jumbled Twins lineup.
First Base: Jason Giambi, Yankees. A few years ago, this was
the toughest call in baseball, with five or six guys with legitimate claims on
the vote. Now, it seems like all of those players have slipped a couple of
notches, with the top remaining one, Jim Thome having moved
to the National League. The top five first basemen in baseball, by VORP, are all
in the NL.
I went with Giambi over Carlos Delgado, Rafael
Palmeiro and Frank Thomas, although it’s a
half-hearted choice. The guys having the best 2004 seasons, like Ken
Harvey (not actually on the ballot) and Tino
Martinez, just don’t have the kind of track record that pulls my vote
from the established greats. Palmeiro or Thomas would make a perfectly good
choice as well.
This position is a good example of why basing All-Star status on first-half
stats is silly. By the end of the year–hell, maybe by the All-Star
Game–Palmeiro and Delgado will probably be outperforming Harvey and Martinez.
The shape of a season shouldn’t dictate honors.
Bud Selig believes that baseball is in the midst of a great renaissance. Lou Piniella thinks the Devil Rays need a kick in the pants to get them going. Josh Beckett wasn’t too pleased to hear that Junior Griffey had stared him down following a home run. Kenny Williams admits that he might do something stupid to win this year. Gary Sheffield can’t explain his season-long slump. And Bob Brenly doesn’t care that his team is finally making its way home. All this and many more quips from around the league in your Tuesday edition of The Week In Quotes.
I kicked off a mostly lazy Memorial Day weekend by catching the Dodgers and
Diamondbacks Friday night at Dodger Stadium.
Normally, I’d throw together a game report, but it was more a social event
than a working night for me. Sophia and I were there with our friends Shelly
and E.J., and unfortunately, the vagaries of L.A. traffic kept everyone from
getting in before the bottom of the second. Without a scorecard, and with a
lot of conversation about an adorable one-year-old (not ours), an impending
move to Arizona (also not ours), and a retirement (no, again), I don’t have
nearly the remembrance of detail to provide a good report. Randy
Johnson was dominant for five innings, Cesar Izturis
made a great grab to start a double play, and Bob Brenly pulled some
head-scratching moves with his relievers.
While at the game I did pick up, and fill out, an All-Star ballot. Like reading box
scores, the practice of punching out chads while sitting in Row J has
fallen victim to the Internet Age. Now, you can log on at MLB.com and ballot-stuff to
your heart’s content. For some reason, Internet ballots are capped at 25 per
person, while any season-ticket holder with an awl and some free time can pop
out a couple thousand during the balloting period. I’m not advocating either,
but I don’t think some guy with a man crush on Raul Ibanez
does any more damage to the process than the entire nation of Japan getting
second-tier outfielders into the AL’s starting lineup.
Hi. My name is Jim Baker and what follows is what I
will be doing at Baseball Prospectus. Twice a week,
I’ll select four games based on some very rigid
criteria and write about them or the teams involved.
Every Tuesday and Friday, you’ll see a Best Matchup, a
Worst Matchup, a Biggest Mismatchup and a Closest
Matchup. How do I know these games actually fit their
billing? Simple, I use the won-loss records of the teams
involved.
Is that scientific? Hell no!
But it gives me a platform to state a case about any
number of things both germane and tangential (not to
be confused with the Vaudeville act of the same name)
to the match-up at hand. I could make it more
scientific by only using the Pythagorean records of
the teams involved, but the key to enjoying this column
is not to get too caught up in the billing–or the
methodology of how the billings were conceived.
What are my credentials? For one thing, I am related
by blood to every single current member of Baseball
Prospectus, so my arrival here owes something to
nepotism. Apart from that, I was once Bill James’
assistant and contributed to the first edition of the
Historical Baseball Abstract. I’ve spent the past two
years writing for ESPN.com, primarily on the MLB
Insider page.
Enjoy.
The Greek God of Walks has been a boon for the Red Sox. Scott Stewart gets a well-deserved demotion by the Indians. The Mets could be in decent shape if they can get all hands on deck. John Mabry makes it back to the bigs with Cardinals. Alexis Rios gets a taste of the majors with the Blue Jays. These and other happenings in today’s Transaction Analysis.
Excellent columns on sacrificing. One question though. In the situation where the team is looking for just one run, and there is a runner on 2nd with no outs. If I were the opposing manager, and the other team succesfully sacrificed the runner to third, depending on the next batters, I might give batter two an intentional walk and hope for a double play to get out of the inning. Does this response by the opposing manager change the effectiveness of the strategy?
–J.P.
You make an excellent point. Running the numbers assuming that a GIDP is possible after a sacrifice of the man to third, the breakeven levels now read:
AVG: .306
OBP: .384
SLG: .516
(Instead of the .351/.436/.619 line from the article.) Obviously this reduces the number of players who should be sacrificing from “everyone except Bonds” to simply the vast majority. I will definitely include this correction in future adjustments to the equations. Thanks for pointing out the shortfall.
One of the values of knowing history is that you can recognize repeat situations when they arise. We humans are pretty creative, but somehow every generation has to work itself into some scrape that a previous class already tried out. Sometimes it’s a historical blunder on the scale of invading Russia from the west with winter coming on; other times, it’s just hiring Raul Mondesi.
The benefit to recognizing a repeat situation as it manifests is that you can call it off before, say, you trade this year’s Jay Buhner for this year’s Ken Phelps, or your Iraq becomes your Vietnam, and consequently someone else’s problem. In some cases, it’s just fun to know that even if you missed something the first time around, chances are it will come up again so you can see it for yourself. For example, it’s safe to say that none of our readers were in attendance at Game Six of the 1917 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and the New York Giants, and so they didn’t see the controversial play that iced the championship for the American League. Fortunately, Monday’s Angels-Blue Jays game was just as good as a time machine–and not just any time machine, but the deluxe model with the cruise control, the heated mirrors, and the side mirrors that fold down when passing through a dangerously narrow aperture, handy for automotive proctological exams and navigating the capillaries of longtime smokers.
The score was tied 5-5 with two out in the bottom of the 10th at Toronto and two runners on. Chris Gomez was standing on second. He had reached on a fielder’s choice, then was pushed into scoring position by Eric Hinske’s walk. Simon Pond came to the plate. Pond grounded to first baseman Casey Kotchman, who dove for the ball and knocked it down. Pitcher Ben Weber stood at first, waiting to receive the ball for the 3-1 put out. Gomez rounded third, trying to score. Second baseman Adam Kennedy picked up the ball and fired it to catcher Ben Molina. Gomez was now in a rundown. Molina chased him up the line, then threw the ball to third baseman Alfredo Amezaga. Gomez reversed field and headed back towards home. Amezaga threw the ball to…he didn’t throw it to anyone, because there was no one to throw it to. Gomez scored. Game over.
Even after losing their last two games to the Florida Marlins, the Cincinnati
Reds still have the best record in the National League, now tied with those
same Marlins. They hold a half-game lead over the Astros in an NL Central that
is separated by just 4.5 games from top to bottom.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before. The six teams in
the Central have been playing this game almost since realignment. For example,
a year ago today, the top four teams were just 3.5 games apart, with the whole
division showing just a nine-game spread. It took until the second week of
June, when the Reds and Brewers started collapsing, for the division to
separate. On May 27, 2001, the top four teams in the division were within four
games of each other.
The NL Central just hasn’t had exceptional teams, so the early part of the
season has often been spent beating up each other, and getting beat up by
whichever of the East or West is up in a particular year.
There’s a lot of fog in every report on Andy Pettitte, but while some would like you to believe that you can’t get good info, I just say they don’t know where to look. Most of the key to analyzing Pettitte’s injury lies in the description of the injury. We noted that Pettitte was holding his elbow, not his forearm, and that was a good clue. Most reports, including this good one in the Houston Chronicle, indicate that the team is waiting 48 hours to evaluate the injury. The reason is likely that there’s swelling in the area, which could make some imaging more difficult. While the team is putting a happy face on it by saying Pettitte might not miss his next start–which is possible–the injury appears to be as serious as the elbow injury that landed him on the DL in April.
Forearm problems appear to be in vogue in the league, at least among good Southern pitchers. Jake Peavy was near his Mobile home testing his arm (after his wife gave birth–congrats) and the flexor tendinitis was enough to push him to the DL. It’s not considered a severe injury, but just enough to keep the Pads ace off the mound as a precaution. Expect him to be out the minimum and to come back without much problem. With the staff also missing DL’d David Wells, suffering through sub-par seasons by Adam Eaton and Brian Lawrence as well as the flailings of Ismael Valdez, it’s shocking to see the Pads atop the NL West. Thanks, Dodger losing streak!
Many teams have built new stadiums only to see their teams fail and their attendance drop. But look at the Seattle Mariners: Could it be that they’ve struck upon the nightmare of the true fan? Are they turning into a team with a large fan base that thinks of games as good, clean entertainment, who will show up at a state-of-the-art stadium when the team is good or when they’re bad, just as long as it features nice, wholesome young men with winning smiles?
Atlanta’s deal for J.D. Drew looks good, and but John Thomson hasn’t lived up to hopes. Speaking of Drews, will the Devil Rays have a shot to draft J.D.’s little brother? And Toronto’s large crop of top prospects are off to a mixed start in 2004. All this and much more news from Atlanta, Tampa Bay, and Toronto in your Thursday Prospectus Triple Play.
Two months ago, the Oakland Athletics signed Eric Chavez to a six-year, $66 million contract extension that will keep him with the club through 2010. Despite some head-scratching from the public, there are good reasons behind why Billy Beane campaigned to do for Chavez what he hadn’t done for former MVP shortstop Miguel Tejada. Unlike Tejada, Chavez is a player whose skills, like his fine defense and his ever-improving plate discipline, are likely to be undervalued by the market. On top of which, Chavez has continued to demonstrate growth season after season, and PECOTA thinks that he’s a very safe bet going forward.
It is no secret, however, that Chavez has a tragic flaw: he can’t hit left-handed pitching. From 2001-2003, Chavez managed a stellar line of .306/.375/.579 against right-handers, but a Mathenian .229/.278/.395 against southpaws. The A’s, recognizing his defensive value and perhaps hoping that repetition would breed improvement, continued to start him anyway, in spite of a rotating array of viable platoon alternatives.
This year, indeed, has brought about a turnaround–Chavez is crushing lefties so far on the season (.288/.373/.561), while performing well below his career averages against righties (.214/.358/.398). Whether there’s any rationale for the change other than sample size, I’m not certain (I don’t get to see the West Coast teams play as often as I’d like to). What is clear, however, is that if such a change becomes permanent–if Chavez learns how to hit left-handed pitching at the age of 26–it would be a relatively unprecedented development. In most cases, a platoon split for a left-handed hitter is something like a finger print or a dental record: it remains a readily identifiable and more or less unchanging part of his profile throughout the different stages of his playing life. A left-handed hitter with a big platoon split early in his career is, in all likelihood, going to have a big platoon split later in his career.