“Derek,” people sometimes ask me, “you drink a lot of beer. And I by that I mean a frightening amount of beer. What should I, the casual beer drinker, enjoy while I sit at home and watch my Rangers get their ass handed to them game after game?”
So at great personal expense which, my accountant tells me, I will unlikely be able to deduct as a cost of business, I took the time to drink a lot during baseball games so that I could offer this report to you in the hopes that it enhances your enjoyment of this season.
Rich Harden’s hot start fills not one but two teams’ farm news. Daryl Clark may have just earned the only mention of his career alongside Barry Bonds. And Craig Biggio’s showing little with the bat and hurting his team in the field, surprising no one but his employer.
I’ll start today with thank you. It’s been a year since I started publishing UTK, first as a stand-alone and now as a part of BP. I’m nothing without my readers and–love me or hate me–people are reading.
In one year, I’ve covered an average of 12 injured players per day, written an average of 1900 words per day, had my first radio appearance, started my own show, gone from three subscribers–who really didn’t ask for it in the first place–to over 3000, gone from an email I hoped I could get 100 people to read to a spot on the Baseball Prospectus’ staff. I’ve gone into clubhouses, met players, GMs, doctors, trainers, and even some of the hangers-on that populate the world of baseball. I’ve made mistakes, said things that were stupid and things that bordered on prophetic, and everything in between; but the one thing I’m proudest of is that I’m starting to hear people talk about injuries. They discuss them as something similar to on-base percentage–that if we teach the players the right things, the game can be improved.
Kevin Millwood celebrates his no-no, Todd Helton lobbies for Mark Prior Boulevard, A.J. Burnett becomes Brad Arnberg’s latest injury victim, and Juan Pierre laments pro wrestler Buff Bagwell…er…Fernando Vina’s 20th inning single.
Sometimes, the game loves you back.
I spent last week on the road, first on a trip with my wife, Sophia, then off to see an old friend from the East Coast who was out on this one. I didn’t see much baseball from the 19th through the 26th, even missing the highlight shows most of the time. It was a good break; I remarked to Sophia on Tuesday, as a game aired on a television in the back of a restaurant, that I was really starting to miss the game. While I was enjoying our trip, I was also looking forward to getting back to “normal” life a little, immersing myself in the game and writing again.
With my travel complete, yesterday was the first time in a while I’d had a chance to follow a day of baseball the way I usually do, watching games on television and following the untelevised ones online. I picked a pretty good day to return, because almost as if the game missed me and wanted to show me just how much, baseball provided a ridiculously entertaining day of highs and lows.
Welcome to Part 2 of our look at the importance of hot starts. If you haven’t already, read Part 1 first. We’ll wait for you to get back.
Last time, I looked at how teams fared at season’s end after starting the season with a particular record, varying the data by looking at starts of varying lengths. While I pointed out general trends in the data (as well as the exceptions that proved the rule), I did not sum up the data concisely into a single, coherent formula to predict a team’s final record. That’s what today’s article is about. In Part 3–yes, there will be a Part 3–I want to examine how the interaction between a team’s record at the start of the season, and its record the previous season, affects its final winning percentage.
Yesterday, Commissioner Bud Selig announced his intention to retire when his current five-year term expires on December 31, 2006. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Selig claims never to have wanted the Commissionership. Less than a month after becoming Acting Commissioner on September 9, 1992–after leading the insurgency which forced his predecessor Fay Vincent to resign in midterm–Selig told Hal Bodley of USA Today that he planned to remain in office “two to four months.” In December 1992, he assured Claire Smith of the New York Times that he had “zero interest in the job.”
Jose Vidro is The Man in Montreal–or wherever the Expos are calling home these days. The best hitter on the planet might also be the fastest man on the Giants roster, and that fits right in with manager Felipe Alou’s baserunning philosophies. Frankencatcher is a valuable Jays contributor, while Kelvim Escobar might be a double-agent. Quick updates on minor-leaguers of note for each team.
If Dr. Tim Kremchek sends me a bill for the two hours he spent out of surgery today–discussing everything from his love for the game to the ins-and-outs of building a world-class medical facility with everything from an MRI on site to an indoor field where Bill Doran and Tom Browning offer instruction–I’ll be more than happy to fork over the cash. (Well, not really, but you know what I mean.)
That said, my talk with Dr. Kremchek was really enlightening. There will be a feature coming next week, but I’ll say in this forum what I said to Dr. Kremchek today: much of what I’ve written about him may have been an incorrect interpretation of information. Given the proper context, Kremchek’s work can be taken a completely different way without changing the basic facts.
Major-league third catchers face adversity. Appier, Fogg, and the Big Unit hit the DL. The brand-spanking-new bereavement list begins to see some action around the league.
Joe Sheehan looks back at Morris to see if he really could pitch to the score.
Garret Anderson takes aim at the Earl of Doubles while playoff heroes John Lackey and K-Rod struggle in the early going for the Angels. Mark Prior Cy Young, Hee Seop Choi Rookie of the Year, Mark Bellhorn benchwarmer? Could happen. And the Tigers try to avoid making history while Alan Trammell works Ramon Santiago, Omar Infante and other kids into the league’s worst lineup.