I can’t recall exactly where I heard or read it–probably in multiple
places–but the catchphrase for the week is that X number of teams, where X is
in the low-20s, are within Y games, where Y is six or fewer, of a playoff
spot.
As of this morning, those figures are 20 and six. Twenty teams are within six
games of a playoff spot as of July 9.
Now, I shouldn’t complain too much about this. It’s positive press for
baseball, the kind of accurate reporting of the game’s competitive balance
that shows that baseball isn’t a wasteland in which four teams have a chance
to succeed and 26 act as a Greek chorus for them. Baseball provides great
races, the kind of thing that the NBA and NHL don’t have, and that the NFL has
largely because its season is 1/10th the length.
Still, I can’t help but have a problem with the sudden discovery that baseball
is competitive. After all, for years now I and others like me have been trying
to make the point, standing on soapboxes and street corners to argue against
the prevailing notion that MLB was hopelessly broken. Now, as if everyone
received the same talking points memo, lines that could easily have been
written by me or Derek Zumsteg are finding their way into beat writers’
columns and color mens’ commentary.
Coming and going, the White Sox are still ruled by the disabled list. Frank Thomas isn’t going to do his best Curt Schilling imitation; bone chips in his ankle are likely to put him on a surgeon’s table. The surgery, while minor, would keep him out for six-to-eight weeks. In essence, the Sox swap Thomas for Magglio Ordonez. While the Sox had hoped to keep Ordonez on the shelf through the ASB, the Thomas injury forced their hand. Slipping a bit lately, the Sox are still in the thick of the AL Central. A healthy lineup down the stretch is a must to keep up with the deep Twins.
For weeks, I’ve been watching a dip in the velocity of Brad Penny. Actually, it’s his pitches that are losing velocity, but there’s finally a clue as to why. While most have assumed that his frayed labrum was finally voicing it’s disapproval or that he was going through a dead arm period, the reason is simpler. Penny has had an infected cut on his knee. His leg drive has been cut and the repeatability of his motion–never a strength–has also been impacted. Cuts, like bones, heal on a predicatable schedule, so this is a good time to buy low on Penny.
There was some speculation that Eric Chavez could be back as early as Thursday, but it was unclear if he’d joined the team prior to the game. It’s widely expected that Chavez will be back in the lineup on Friday, picking up where he left off when his hand was broken. Chavez will be a boost to the A’s offense, but the pitching staff is where the problems have been most pronounced. Tim Hudson’s oblique problems could pose problems down the stretch, and the A’s can ill afford to further tax their weak bullpen.
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
The Giants page at ESPN.com currently features the headline, “Alou Still Believes in Tomko.” Alou also believes in the lone gunman theory, that the Beatles reunited to record “My Sharona,” and that “Joe Sheehan” is just another one of Joyce Carol Oates’ pen names. He may even be right about one or two of these things but not about Tomko, who has pitched in 212 career games and has seen more balls get whacked than the kid who got held back twice at the boys’ school. At this point, waiting for a turnaround is an act of blind faith equivalent to eating McSushi. Despite (or perhaps because of) the name on the label, you know that things can’t turn out well. Tomko is symbolic of the problems with the Alou/Giants approach this year: on both sides of the ball they’ve wasted precious resources on automatic non-contributors. Perhaps at times they didn’t have any other options, but that’s the whole point of team-building: what you don’t have, you try to find, as opposed to pretending that your Tomkos will somehow learn to be Marichals. GRADE: C+
COLORADO ROCKIES
The Rockies are going nowhere fast, but it’s hard to get very upset about it because my town is finally getting a Papa John’s. Consuming a Domino’s pizza is akin to chewing a very salty tire, so we’ve stuck with the local product for years, most of it of variable quality. “Variable quality” also describes the CRockies, who in the first half have gotten Matt Holiday and Aaron Milesoff to major league careers–for what that’s worth given the former’s lack of real production and the latter’s age and lack of plate discipline–as well as salvaged Joe Kennedy, probably the most impressive stroke of all. As for the second half, perhaps Ian Stewart will get a shot at Visalia, or–dare we hope!–double-A. For the mnemonically impaired: Ian Stewart is the Rockies’ third base prospect. Ian Anderson was the singer-flautist in Jethro Tull, while Dave Stewart was the male half of the Eurythmics. Golly, why didn’t those two guys ever record together? GRADE: D
There are going to be a lot of trades and trade rumors in the next month. More players will be approached, and more will be confused. I want to see this looked at evenly for once, that’s all. It’s not an issue of players being selfish; sometimes, when they’re choosing between their families and a chance at a ring, it’s an issue of them being unselfish. I’d like to see the story covered that way, just once.
Red Sox Nation shouldn’t panic just yet. The Reds’ Adam Dunn is a historial oddity. The Padres park has played to extremes. All of this and more news from Boston, Cincinnati and San Diego in your Thursday Prospectus Triple Play.
At the halfway point of the season, it’s hard to find a player who isn’t sore and fatigued, a pitcher who doesn’t have some problem, or a team that isn’t affected by its health. One of the more interesting questions I’ve been asked was by a national baseball writer who asked if teams have “health inertia”–do teams that have been healthy tend to stay healthy or is there a regression to the mean? With only limited data to work with, there doesn’t appear to be much of a pattern. Over three-year periods, “luck” tends to even out, but over the course of a season, it follows a pattern that looks more like roulette than anything else. There are patterns, but they’re not usually meaningful. Instead, it appears that a focus on prevention and risk management is the way to minimize the loss of playing time.
The Yankees always are a bit different. There’s now some discussion that George Steinbrenner would rather not see his players taking part in the All-Star Game unless they’re fully healthy, but with Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi, that definitely isn’t the case. Sheffield has been playing with a damaged shoulder, while Giambi has been dealing with a plethora of problems, including parasites. I’m still confused why Giambi was selected for the Home Run Derby, but don’t be surprised to see pressure on them to play. That said, the Yankees don’t normally succumb to pressure, even from the Office of the Commissioner. It’s hard to argue that any player, especially one dealing with injuries, wouldn’t be better served with extra rest.
Bob Brenly’s time with Arizona comes to an end. J.D’s brother arrives in Atlanta. Boston’s got too many bats for their bench. And Tampa Bay brings up a player worthy of a Hallmark special. All this and much more news from around baseball in your Thursday editon of Transaction Analysis.
I’d mentioned that when I returned from my week in Massachusetts, some things
took me by surprise. At the top of that list was the emergence of the St.
Louis Cardinals in the NL Central. In the eight days I was gone, the Cardinals
went 5-2 and took a 4 1/2-game lead in the division. Since then, they’ve gone
6-3, sweeping their last two series. As of this morning, the Redbirds have a
six-game lead that is the largest of any division leader.
The first thing you notice when digging into the Cards’ performance: their
52-32 record is real. They’re not getting lucky in run
elements, in their schedule, or by outplaying their runs scored and allowed.
They are benefiting from the Cubs and Astros underplaying their run elements
and their actual runs, but the Cardinals are just as good a team as their .619
winning percentage indicates.
As some of you may have noticed, there have been some changes in the Minor League EqA page.
Let’s start with the simple. When you go there now, you’ll get a short, simple, fast download, with what is essentially a page of links. The long list of every player in the minors? Not gone, but moved under its own link–so that only the people who really want it have to wait for it to download.
The main feature on the page is a list of all the leagues, along with their stats, sorted by offensive level. I’m always trying to remind people of the context of minor league statistics, and this is one more heavy-handed way to remind people that some leagues (near the top) favor the hitters, while others (near the bottom) favor the pitchers. Click on the league, and you’ll get the information that was on the old minor league page: a top-10 list for each league, a breakdown of league statistics by position (approximated by games played at each position), and a list of all players in that league, sorted by team.
I’ve written before about the outrageous potential of Mariners right-hander Felix Hernandez. Well, he didn’t turn 18 until April, and he’s already in Double-A. He made his high-minors debut last week against Frisco and in six innings fanned eight, walked two and surrendered only a single run.
How Hernandez fares the rest of the season in the Texas League will be more one of the more engaging subplots to be found in 2004. With a high-90s fastball, a hammer curve that’s easily the best breaking pitch in the system and a staggering record of performance, Hernandez is a deeply special talent. Here’s hoping he doesn’t succumb to the panoply of hazards that await young pitchers.
It’s hard for me to deal with pitchers like Josh Beckett. They are the most frustrating type of talent. It’s not the pitch counts, the mechanics, or anything in the normal realm of sports medicine that could keep his gift on the mound. I only hope he ends up closer to fellow Texans Nolan Ryan and Kerry Wood than to someone like David Clyde. Beckett has what is being called a skin tear. Rather than the normal pocket of skin that fills with fluid, the skin just came right off. Beckett reported that this is the worst problem he’s had and the first time he’s bled from blister-related problems. Expect this DL stint to be long, along the lines of Jeremy Affeldt last season.
Speaking of Kerry Wood, his rehab start in Triple-A Iowa went extremely well. He combined with Sergio Mitre, who got an odd four-inning save, for an Iowa win. Wood went five innings, striking out four, and giving up two singles. Wood now heads back to Wrigley and seems ready to start on Sunday. Ryan Dempster will make his second rehab start in Iowa tomorrow.
On Thursday night, the Yankees and Red Sox played an epochal extra-inning game, possibly the most compelling contest of the season to date. This was the game in which Derek Jeter flew like a deranged Superman into the third row of seats in short left field. A consequence of If Jeter Had Wings was that Jeter had to leave the game and the Yankees were out of infielders. Alex Rodriguez slid over to shortstop and Gary Sheffield, who had last played third base in 1993, was called upon to take A-Rod’s place at the hot corner.
Sheffield’s first chance came on a Kevin Millar grounder. The outfielder looped the throw over first base for an error; it was clear that he had forgotten both the range and the mechanics of playing the position. The Red Sox, already up by a run, had Dave McCarty and Cesar Crespo due to bat. An obvious strategic question presented itself: could the Red Sox run up the score by bunting the ball at Sheffield?
When they brought him on as an instructor, Cashman said that Sojo wouldn’t play for the team–he played anyway. When rosters expanded and Derek Jeter injured his ribs, they signed Sojo to a minor league deal and suited him up for real against the Blue Jays on Sept. 1.
After the season, Sojo signed on to become the Yankees’ third-base coach where, I have no doubt, he’s looking at Enrique Wilson and thinking he could outplay that kid if given the chance.
Though it rarely occurs, this could theoretically happen again, and not just on the Yankees (“Distributing championship rings to the undeserving since 1996!”). Many once-excellent players are hanging around currently-bad teams in coaching capacities, and it’s easy to imagine that in a moment of weakness, a GM might consider a conversion.
I got an e-mail from Yankees.com today imploring me to vote for Hideki Matsui for the final slot on the American League team. First of all, I’m a little shocked that I’m even on the Yankees.com mailing list. Second, I’m even more shocked that the Yankees are actively campaigning to get one of their own onto the squad. How utterly undignified. It’s like those ads movie companies run in the trade publications promoting their pathetic offerings for Academy Awards. “Members of the Academy, for your consideration: Ben Affleck in Gigli…” Campaigning is for dog catchers and county aldermen, not the most successful, storied and–allegedly–classy franchise in American sport.
Perhaps I doth protest too much. After all, the All-Star Game voting and selection is so completely bescrewed that it’s much too late to bring any sanity to the proceedings now. If you would like to take a stab at doing so, however, you wouldn’t be voting for Matsui.
Indians’ GM Mark Shapiro likes picking up Colorado retreads, for whatever reason. The Expos have a number of hitters–including Orlando Cabrera–who could fetch some value on the trade market. And the Mariners, following their excellent pick-up of Jeremy Reed and Miguel Olivo for Freddy Garcia, seem unwilling to part with other usable parts like Jamie Moyer. All this and much more news from Cleveland, Montreal, and Seattle in your Tuesday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
I’ve been trying and I can’t find anyone that has a career path like Phil Nevin’s. He’s gone from first-round pick to first-round bust to journeyman to star to injury-prone in the space of a decade. He’s been traded three times for a collection of warm bodies. Even PECOTA’s comps list can’t find anything quite like Nevin.
He’s down, once again, and headed for surgery. This time, it’s a torn meniscus, the second such surgery he’s had. Nevin should be out until mid-August, but it’s a straightforward procedure. The injury shouldn’t affect his hitting, and Nevin wasn’t exactly tearing up the basepaths anyway, so this shouldn’t change his game upon return. This does give me a chance to point at the attrition and drop rates that PECOTA has for Nevin. If you’re in a keeper league or are Kevin
Towers, take note.
Eric Chavez is not only a fast healer, he appears to be rust-resistant. In his start at Triple-A, Chavez came back with two singles and a
walk. He started at DH, but his fielding isn’t expected to be a problem. The rehab assignment is not expected to be a long one, so Chavez could be back later this week.