Scuffy Moehler’s career hangs in the balance; the Royals are being deterred by aches and pains; Mo Vaughn might finally hang it up; and Scott Williamson is pitching pain free. All that and much more Thursday’s titillating edition of UTK.
One of my favorite sayings–I think I first saw it in an r.s.b post back when I was in college–is “Life is not a meritocracy.” As much as we in America embrace the notion of a Horatio Alger ideal–that anyone can do anything they want to if they work hard enough–the fact is that intractable, and sometimes unfair, barriers to success do exist.
In baseball, we generally call these barriers “service time” and “financial commitments.” Players with the MLB Seal of Approval and guaranteed contracts keep their jobs long past the point of reason, while more deserving younger players toil one level below, doing everything in their power to reach The Show, but get left behind by the conservative nature of dyed-in-the-wool baseball people who would rather watch a veteran be old than take a chance on a younger player.
This column will highlight a number of the bad baseball players who are blocking the progress of better ones.
In last week’s Lies, Damned Lies, I reviewed Adam Dunn’s major league career one plate appearance at a time, in order to determine how his performance changed when facing the same pitcher multiple times. For those of you who, like me, did some damage to your short-term memory over the long weekend, the idea was to discover whether, per Michael Lewis’ discussion in Moneyball, Dunn is a hitter with a hole in his swing that gets continually more exploited in repeated trials.
In Dunn’s case, the answer was a tentative “no”, but a lot of people mailed me to ask that I broaden the scope of the analysis. As D.H. writes:
“I like your research, but my problem is that you’ve presented no baseline. It
reminded me of a STATS Baseball Scoreboard article on whether Greg Maddux did
better the more times he faced a particular batter because he’s so “smart.” The
data showed that the hitters improved as time went on. But, like in your study,
there was no baseline to compare against. Adam Dunn may show a drop-off the
more he faces a particular pitcher, but maybe all players exhibit identical
drops. Or, maybe all players exhibit more precipitous drops, and only the good
ones (like Dunn) stick around because they only lose 20% of their value.”
In other words, is there any systematic advantage to the pitcher or the hitter given repeated trials? Doesn’t seem likely, I wrote back, not if the league is going to remain at some kind of equilibrium for very long. But D.H. is correct that it’s a question that deserves further study, much like why on Earth I didn’t wear sunscreen to the ballgame on Sunday.
As I mentioned in the Dunn piece, there is publicly available play-by-play data for each season from 2000-2002. In order to make sure that the players we’re working with formed a closed system, I limited the analysis to players who made their major league debuts in 2000 or later. It was then possible to look at all possible ‘pairings’ of the batters and pitchers within this group–what happens when Billy Batter faces Pete Pitcher for the first time? For the fifth time? For the 20th time, after Bill Batter has dropped the -y from his name and grown a mustache, and Pete Pitcher is discovered to be three years older than listed and actually named Pedro Pichardo?
Psst, wanna see a freak?
You see, Major League Baseball this year has given us something so twisted, so extraordinary, so enigmatic that it belongs in Ripley’s Believe It or Not. So put on your best gawk and prepare to be amazed.
Right next to General Tom Thumb, Robert Wadlow and the great Frank Lentini you’ll find a burly creature with a half dozen arms that don’t work known as the 2003 Cincinnati Reds–the worst contending baseball team in history.
As of today, the Reds sport a 25-27 record while allowing the opposition to outscore them by a whopping 58 runs. They’re on pace to be outscored by 181 runs over the course of the season. A simple Pythagorean equation would predict a team like the Reds would finish with a record of 66-96 playing that kind of baseball. Technically they should be 21-31 at the moment.
Yet there they are, hovering within striking distance of a division lead at 3.5 games out, record-wise playing respectable baseball. It’s thoroughly abnormal. They should be an afterthought by this point of the season.
As I reported yesterday, Eric Hinske is out for four to six weeks after electing to have surgery. The doctors will remove his fractured right hamate bone and he should return pain-free. While this is a blow to the Jays, Hinske (-.112 MLVr) has been hitting well below both last year’s performance (.146) and his PECOTA projection (.147). Mike Bordick (-.077) is actually a slight upgrade based on current performance, but without the pesky upside.
With young pitchers, erring on the side of caution is seldom a bad move. For
the Royals, keeping Runelvys Hernandez healthy for the long term is
much more important than his missing one or even two starts in May. Hernandez
had a fine bullpen session, but after a discussion with Tony Pena and John
Cumberland, the Royals placed the right-hander on the DL with elbow tendinitis. He is eligible to return on June 5, meaning he should miss only one start.
This time, it happened on the field. David Wells will miss a start
after exhibiting a “giant [bleep]ing bruise” on his right calf, the
result of a Josh Phelps screamer Sunday afternoon. Wells will be fine
long-term, and his absence means we’ll get a good look at Jose
Contreras in his first start. Oddly, this
will be the first missed start by a Yankees pitcher this season, a fact that
surprised me when I saw it at Rotowire.
The Braves offense is annihilating everything in sight. The Twins bullpen has been lights-out for the second straight season. The Devil Rays will have plenty of options at the draft table. Plus more news and notes out of Atlanta, Minnesota, and Tampa.
Some days, you can’t swing a dead cat without running into stupid human tricks.
In Atlanta, Bob Boone demonstrated the death grip he has on baseball strategy of the late 19th century by benching the major-league leader in home runs, Adam Dunn, for the second straight day, this time against right-hander Shane Reynolds. The benching came one day after Dunn popped a pinch-hit grand slam in the 11th inning to propel the Reds to a 7-6 victory.
I don’t really care what kind of rationale Boone pulls out of his nether regions. The fact is, he’s limiting Dunn’s playing time for two reasons: batting average and strikeouts. We’re more than 20 years into a more modern way of looking at baseball, and Bob Boone can’t see far enough past batting average and strikeouts to notice that he’s sitting his second- or third-best hitter.
The Diamondbacks staff is getting healthy, leaving them with too many arms on deck. Pedro Martinez continues to show the Red Sox they goofed by signing his 2004 contract so early. Ben Broussard gets his shot at Cleveland’s first base job. Neifi Perez’s hot streak has him poised to join the MVP race. News, notes, and Kahrlisms on 19 major league teams.
Fresh from a Memorial Day breather, Prospectus Triple Play returns with a double edition. BP looks at the happenings and trends for six big-league teams: the White Sox, Astros, Brewers, A’s, Cardinals, and Rangers.
It’s a little funny that on one of the distinctly American summer holidays, two of the best stories in baseball come from a place where Monday was just another day. The Montreal Expos took five of six on a brief homestand to come into Memorial Day at 32-18, just two games behind the Braves in the NL East. The Toronto Blue Jays? All they did was sweep a four-game series at Yankee Stadium for the first time ever, moving to 27-24 and closing within four games of first place in the suddenly very competitive AL East.
I admit going into this piece that it’s a “write it while you can” job. While the Expos and Jays are currently among the hottest teams in baseball, and right there in their divisional races, I don’t think either will be in such a lofty place in two months. For now, though, each is making noise, and doing so in completely different ways.
This has been one heck of a month of May. Between injury news and the Indy
500, I’ve been a busy man. Thanks to ESPN 950 for allowing me access to the
one of the coolest events of my life.
With the race behind me, I am ready to return my full focus to baseball, and
have a couple of features coming up, including one on Dr. Tim Kremchek of the
Cincinnati Reds that will run this week.
I looked at the standings page of my local sports section for the first time this weekend, having watched games with only a general sense of team success. I was looking to see the Cubs under Baker, the reloaded Phillies, and a couple of other easy stories. My how things have changed.
One of the stathead tenets is that there’s a ton of freely available talent floating arouns out there: guys you can pick up for minimal cost who will do a servicable job. Granted, these aren’t All-Stars or anything–they’re replacement level, or just good enough to be on a major-league roster. This fact is expressed in all the good player valuation stats, and it’s generally applied as “If you can field the Tigers for $5 million, any money spent over that should make you better than the Tigers.”
That said, the Pirates this season are providing an interesting study in stathead application. Faced with a bad team and declining attendance at PNC Park, the Pirates front office decided to make playing .500 ball an organizational priority to try and attract fans. They brought in free agents on one-year deals fix their worst problems–like Kenny Lofton to play center field–but in the process they’ve pushing back their best young hitter, Craig Wilson, to the point where he’s now fighting for playing time.