The Orioles have too many lefties making too much money. The Expos give BP’s favorite first baseman of Italian descent since Roberto Petagine a shot at a steady job. The Mets inexplicably sign James Baldwin. The Devil Rays inexplicably sign Fred McGriff. These and other news, notes, and Kahrlisms as Transaction Analysis resumes its regular schedule.
The health of the “Big Three” starters is still the key to the success of the team. Hudson, Zito, and Mulder have put up big innings as relatively young pitchers, and should be moving into their best seasons. But only healthy pitchers win championships. For Hudson and Zito, they are as healthy and strong as ever. Their teammate, Mark Mulder, is the question mark, but please note that none of the questions are about his arm. Mulder returns from a fractured hip (femur, near the ball of the hip to be technical) suffered due to a faulty mound. Call it random or call it the fault of the Phillies’ grounds crew, but there has never been a pitcher that has returned from this type of injury. While the A’s and Mulder have insisted that he could have returned for last season’s ALCS, there is no evidence to back this up. I don’t want to say that Billy Beane, Larry Davis, or Mark Mulder were lying, because I simply have no reason to believe that, but I also know the A’s often seek any competitive advantage they can. In the absence of objective knowledge that Mulder can pitch–either last October or this February–I’ll continue to be cautious. It’s only when Mulder takes the mound in spring training that we will know for sure. His yellow light is based on the lack of any comparable returns only. His arm should be well-rested if possibly slightly rusty for the 2004 season.
Most of the excitement in Philadelphia has to do with an improved bullpen, recent versions of which have been the perceived bane of the city’s existence. So out with Jose Mesa, in with Billy Wagner. Given how much of the blame for the Phillies’ disappointing performances the last two seasons has been placed at the foot of the relief staff, it’s easy to understand why fans, media, and the team itself is so eager to have the hard-throwing lefty closing games. I actually agreed that the move would help the Phillies, although not exactly for the reasons generally given. Closers are overrated as a class, and as great as Wagner is, using him solely to protect ninth-inning leads and the occasional ninth-inning tie is a suboptimal application of his talent. However, I also know that Larry Bowa is one of the most temperamental managers in the game, and I strongly believe that his emotional style has been a detriment to this team over the past two seasons.
Last week’s column got some fine feedback. Let’s get right to it:
“I’m a little confused by the venom directed at the Cubs over their (admittedly farcical) attempt to pretend they’re not simply scalping their own tickets. If they were honest about what they were doing, would it really be that bad? Airlines do similar things with their tickets – they charge more for some tickets (last minute purchases) and less for others (Saturday night stayovers) because they know that business travelers will pay more than family vacationers. Why shouldn’t baseball clubs also price discriminate?”
— SC
The problem everyone has with the Cubs isn’t that they’re selling their own tickets for more, it’s something else entirely: 1) They’re breaking the law for profit; 2) They’re doing it for the express purpose of avoiding revenue sharing with other teams. The second one seems petty compared to the first. That the Tribune Company would construct a giant scheme to scalp their own tickets illegally–with a law on the books that says “Don’t do what you’re about to do”–because it would make them money is appalling. On the spectrum of crime, it’s not as if they’re serving poisoned milk to school-children who don’t subscribe to the Tribune, but it’s still pretty heinous.
One of the more interesting sub-plots this off-season is the Yankees-Red Sox cold war that’s been played out in the transactions wires. In terms of coffers and willingness to spend, the Yankees are still in a class by themselves, but the Red Sox now occupy–also by themselves, it seems–the next highest economic sub-strata. And in this particular Cold War, don’t expect anyone to bust out the glasnost. Metaphor, over.
With the Yankees, we’ve seen what happens when spending prowess intersects with reasonable front-office intelligence. Now, with Theo Epstein as GM and a sporting-gentleman owner loosely holding the purse-strings, the Red Sox have joined the Yanks in this rarified air. The talent both clubs have amassed this winter and in winters past is striking. The Yankees may have frittered away Andy Pettitte and lost Roger Clemens to hometown longing, but they may have actually upgraded the rotation by importing the wholly underrated Javier Vazquez and the still effective Kevin Brown. Additionally, Gary Sheffield has been added to an already potent lineup.
The defining moment of my Red Sox fandom must have been the first major league game I ever attended–naturally it was at Fenway. It was 1979, we were going to a game to celebrate my birthday, and the Sox were playing the Angels.
Someone had mentioned to me that it was really rare for your team to win the first time you go to see them in person, and therefore it would be really unusual if the Sox were to pull it out that night. For some reason, I believed him–I was young, and much more easily swayed by faulty reasoning then.
It’s funny the things you remember. At the ballpark, I had a slice of what was to me at the time, the greatest slice of pizza I’d ever had–which upon reflection probably meant it was a greasy mess. But the fact that I was eating it at Fenway Park made it great.
As the Expos continue to be baseball’s answer to homelessness, Omar Minaya and Frank Robinson make do with a team that, all things considered, could be a lot worse. Not many teams survive the loss of a superstar; just ask the Pirates. The Expos seek to avoid the Pirates’ cursed decade post-Bonds, but will they be healthy enough to make it? If the Expos leave the Big O in the near future, few will miss it. Never a great baseball stadium, anecdotally, it is one that players feel strongly about. “That’s the worst stadium in baseball,” said one current NL outfielder. “It’s like being a kid and playing on the street. There’s no give, big [expletive] seams, and the dirt is like a rock.” The installation of a new FieldTurf surface this season–the same field used by the Devil Rays–could help significantly.
The Braves strike NRI gold with Russell Branyan. The Astros do what they need to do to compete in the NL Central. Everything you ever wanted to read about Eric Karros. The Padres address their chasm in center. These and other news, notes, and Kahrlisms in today’s Transaction Analysis.
Baseball Prospectus: One risk that you took last year was an unorthodox relief strategy. In retrospect, do you think it would’ve been more prudent to just go ahead and try it, rather than announcing it beforehand? Theo Epstein: In retrospect, if I could do last year’s bullpen over again, for starters I hope I’d do a better job putting together quality relievers. I didn’t do a very good job. No matter what we said about it, I didn’t have the right guys in here to get the job done. I think both sides of the debate missed a big issue. The general public and traditional media thought we were trying to do a “bullpen by committee,” a revolutionary idea. They decided to just blame the whole thing on Bill James, and got it all wrong. On the other side, the new school guys like yourself thought, great, they’re not going to overpay for saves, and they’re going to try to apply what Bill wrote about the ace reliever and unconventional usage to create the “optimal bullpen.” The truth was really somewhere in the middle.
“Who of us would not be glad to lift the veil behind which the future lies hidden, to cast a glance at the next advances of our science and at the secrets of its development during future years? What particular goals will there be toward which the leading sabermetric spirits of coming generations will strive? What new methods and new facts in the wide and rich field of sabermetric thought will the new years disclose?” Here at Baseball Prospectus, we’re not completely immune to the general fascination with the recent turn of the world’s odometer. So, with this edition marking the final year of the second millennium, let’s take a look forward at what the third holds for us seamheads. Our inspiration comes from a similar effort nearly 100 years ago. In 1900, a mathematician named David Hilbert addressed the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris and delivered what was to become history’s most influential speech about mathematics. Hilbert outlined 23 major problems to be studied in the coming century. In doing so he expressed optimism about the field, sharing his feeling that unsolved problems were a sign of vitality, encouraging more people to do more research. The above quote is, in fact, a bastardization of the opening statements of Hilbert’s speech. Hilbert referred to mathematics instead of sabermetrics and spoke in terms of “centuries” instead of “years.” Given the relative youth of sabermetrics and baseball analysis compared to math, it’s appropriate to use a period of smaller scope than Hilbert. The quotes that appear periodically throughout this essay are similarly taken from Hilbert’s speech and altered to refer to baseball analysis.
It remains one of my clearest memories of the winter meetings: A breathless Will Carroll coming up to a group of writers with the news that an MLB employee had just told him that Miguel Tejada, Ivan Rodriguez and Vladimir Guerrero were all ready to sign contracts with the Baltimore Orioles.
While Tejada did join the Os fold that night, the other two deals fell through. The Birds eventually had to settle for Javy Lopez instead of Pudge, and Rafael Palmeiro instead of Guerrero. Not quite as sexy, but still enough to help the Orioles, who got ridiculously little production from shortstop and catcher last season…
Theo Epstein became the youngest general manager in major league history when he was hired, at age 28, as GM of the Boston Red Sox. Epstein, who turned 30 one month ago, now has 14 months under his belt as GM and 11 years in professional baseball. He also has three decades of experience with the Red Sox; Epstein grew up in Brookline, Mass., within walking distance of Fenway Park. As GM, he still walks to the ballpark every day. (Hours after this interview, the Red Sox re-acquired veteran designated hitter Ellis Burks. Burks, when he came up as a rookie with the Red Sox in 1987, was patrolling center field in front of his 13-year-old future GM.) Baseball Prospectus spoke with Epstein at his office inside a snow-covered Fenway Park.