Last time, we cooked up a way to remove park effects when looking at Bill James’ Defensive Efficiency, a stat that measures the percentage of balls in play fielded by a team’s defense. The new metric, tentatively called PADE, ranked teams on a zero-centered scale, showing how well a team performed against the league average with their given schedule. The intent was to more fairly judge defenses against each other rather than punish teams like Colorado and Boston for having to play in more difficult venues.
As stated before, defense can be broken down into many facets, but the three most prevalent parts are park factors, pitching, and actual defensive performance. Since we’ve already figured out how to remove the first one–park factors–the next logical step is attempting to correct for pitching, leaving us closer to a metric that measures only defensive performance.
To do this, we’ll take a similar approach to the first version of PADE, but instead of defensive park factors, we’ll use defensive pitcher factors. The first step is to determine an expected defensive efficiency for every pitcher, based on their career history.
With no baseball games last night, I watched, or tried to watch, Monday Night Football. I cannot for the life of me fathom how people can directly compare baseball and football and conclude that baseball is boring. The pace of a pro football game is completely unbelievable, with television timeouts after nearly every possession in some stretches, regardless of length. Play, play, play, punt, break. Play, play, turnover, break. Or my favorite: towards the end of a drive, one team calls a timeout. Commercials. On the next play they score, kick the extra point, commercials. Kickoff, touchback, more commercials. You end up with one actual play run in a 12-minute stretch.
If it’s interminable watching at home, what’s it like at the game? I haven’t been to a pro football game in nearly a decade, and the idea of sitting through that kind of stretch–10 minutes without any actual football in some spots–isn’t likely to push me into breaking that streak anytime soon.
I pride myself on doing what I say, but when I sat down to write the World Series Health Report, I found myself staring at a blank sheet and a bunch of worthless information. Like last year, we have teams that have no current injuries of significance. There are fatigue issues on both sides, and each team is dealing with long-term injuries that they’ve been able to adjust around. The lesser injuries, like Mike Lowell’s hand or Josh Beckett’s blisters, are in the past due to solid work from the respective medical staffs. Both teams headed to the field at Yankee Stadium as ready as they could possibly be. That fact is in some part responsible for their being on the field and not back home golfing.
The Red Sox look to repeat 2003’s historic hitting campaign next year. Running down the list of GM candidates for the Reds. Gary Bennett is the only person surprised that the Padres released Gary Bennett. All this and more from San Diego, Cincinnati, and Boston in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
I’ve never been to a World Series game. I’ve had chances, but it’s been people calling me days before and asking if I can fly down for one game, always at times when I can’t afford the last-minute air fare. No longer. I’ve found a sure way to get primo tickets to the World Series: I’m going to be a cast member in a provocative new drama from Fox. Or I’ll create a new drama that everyone’s talking about. Oh yes. Critics will be talking, though we’ll be selective about which critics and which things they’re saying we quote them on. Fox is such a generous employer. I got a free T-shirt this year from Prospectus, and it was one of the early batches that might have been tainted with the deadly mutaba virus. And yet here are these well-paid beautiful people (and Ron Silver, who also was the villain in “Heat Vision and Jack”) who are presumably treated to a game by Fox. People say Fox is a soul-sucking multinational ghast, but I have to disagree. Going that far to show these employees how much they’re appreciated: that’s something you don’t see often enough in today’s go-go corporate culture. Largely because the expense of flying your Indian outsourcing firm over to the states for the World Series doesn’t make much sense when they’re not baseball fans.
Dusty Baker doesn’t believe in curses. Aaron Boone had help from some ghosts. Grady Little tries to defend leaving Pedro Martinez in the game. And Don Zimmer has some strong words for The Boss. All this and much more in your Monday edition of The Week In Quotes.
It’s been so long since we’ve seen a nondescript baseball game that when we finally got one, it felt strange, and I’m left not knowing how to write about it. Think about it. For the first time in weeks, we had a day of baseball that provided no real tension, no elimination hanging over a team’s head, and no question as to who would win. Other than Friday, when no games were played, we’d been riding a red-stitched roller coaster for two weeks, spoiled by games that left us on the edge of our seats, holding our breath and repairing the damage to the walls of our homes and offices. (OK, so that last one is just me.) In fact, the only think we learned yesterday was how Hideki Matsui, with just 16 home runs and a .435 slugging percentage, Matsui turned on a 3-0 fastball from Mark Redman and launched a three-run home run over the 408-foot marker in center field that put this game away early for the Yankees.
As you might expect from managers Joe Torre and Jack McKeon, there were plenty of decisions made in advance of Game One that provided cause for discussion.
The most significant of these was McKeon’s decision to make Dontrelle Willis a reliever. This move addressed one of the Marlins’ key disadvantages in facing the Yankees: the lack of a good left-handed reliever to counter the team’s left-handed power late in the game. Michael Tejera is neither a specialist nor a safe bet in high-leverage situations. Willis’ motion makes him tough on lefties (.216/.293/.307) and he is good enough against right-handers that he can be used for multiple innings.
The move paid immediate dividends, as Willis threw 2 1/3 shutout innings last night with the Marlins protecting a one-run lead.
The Florida Marlins are back in the World Series for the second time in seven seasons. The Yankees are back in the World Series for the first time in two seasons. And the Pirates… well, they’re just hoping to be .500 next year. All this and much more news from Florida, New York and Pittsburgh in your Friday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
Does it really get any better than this? I live the East Bay in the Northern California, about 20 miles from Oakland. It’s not as if there’s any love for the Red Sox or Yankees based on favors done for the A’s over the last few years. Nonetheless, the renaissance has hit. People are dashing into stores, grabbing coronary artery-busting snacks, and rushing back into cars to get home to watch the game. As I was coming home from Roseville, I was stuck in traffic next to two cars driven by goateed young men, one with a Red Sox hat, one with a Yankee hat. Both shared my concern about the crowded nature of the throughway, and both shared their opinions rather vocally. How cool is it that 3,000 miles away from tonight’s baseball epicenter, people are rushing home to sit in front of the TV?
A lot of the people who cover baseball exclusively are concerned and/or bitter about baseball’s loss of mindshare to lesser sports, like, well…all of them. The stages of college basketball, football, hockey, and even preseason basketball have expanded, often at the expense of attention on what could once be called “America’s Pastime” without challenge. How bad has it gotten? It’s gotten pretty bad. Two nights ago, KHTK 1140 in Sacramento–one of the premiere (and highest rated) sports radio stations in the country–ran an 88-72 preseason loss of the Sacramento Kings instead of Game Seven of the ALCS. In March, cactus and grapefruit league coverage has diminished, and far more attention nationwide is spent on tracking NCAA College Basketball brackets than rookies and veterans competing for jobs or getting in shape in places like Scottsdale and Vero Beach.
It’s 2:32 a.m. PDT. Let me check again. Wow. It really happened.
It still doesn’t seem real. Game Seven of the American League Championship Series, even now, feels more like a weird morphing of Game Six of the NLCS and Game Four of the 2001 World Series.
Three runs down… five outs left… best pitcher in the league… tiring suddenly… manager riding him… extra innings… solo home run… Yankee Stadium bedlam.
It’s like a playoff edition of Mad Libs.
I gave up. I carried hope through the seventh inning, but when Alfonso Soriano was allowed to face Pedro Martinez as the tying run–I was begging for Ruben Sierra, to give you an idea of the desperation–with as much chance of hitting Martinez as he did of spontaneously combusting, I packed it in. The Sox had outplayed the Yankees, they had the best pitcher in the game pitching well, and for the umpteenth straight game, the Yanks hadn’t looked good at the plate. Jason Giambi’s two home runs only served to taunt Yankee fans with the thought of how either of those blasts, in one of his many high-leverage at-bats, could have made all this unnecessary.
I predict that the Marlins will be a great value bet. They can’t be that big an underdog to win four out of seven games from this Yankee team. They’ve been outplaying the Yankees for four months, and other than the bullpen situation, they match up well with the Bombers. Whatever the odds end up being, they’ll be way out of line.
I also predict that whichever teams gets to three wins, with a three-run lead and one out in the eighth inning, is just asking for trouble.
This is a much closer series than the reputations of the two teams would have you believe. It’s tempting to pick the Marlins just on the basis of the edge they have hitting the ball into the Yankee defense’s holes. That’s worth a lot of runs, and more to a team that goes first-to-third and second-to-home a lot.
However, the Yankees, unlike the Giants and Cubs, are almost certain to not lose a game they lead in the seventh inning. Nelson and Rivera are going to shorten these games to six-inning affairs. The Marlins’ great postseason has been built on overcoming bad starts and beating opposition bullpens. That’s not going to work this time.
Jack McKeon knew that he had to play Game Seven like there was no tomorrow, throwing Brad Penny and Josh Beckett on short rest, while Dontrelle Willis was in the bullpen warming up, at one stage, after pitching in Game Six. It’s one thing to play like there’s no tomorrow, but it does make things a bit awkward when tomorrow comes. The Marlins enter the World Series with two off days, giving the likely start to Dontrelle Willis, both on match up and on account of the fact he’s about the only one that will be ready to go. I’ll have more on this in tomorrow’s Series Health Report.
Johan Santana had his expected scope of his elbow, and the results are about as good as could be expected. While you never want your young ace pitcher getting cut, it was a scope-job, and only one chip was found. Santana could be back throwing inside of a month and will certainly have no ill effects by spring training.
Despite the suggestion of his manager, Larry Walker isn’t going to retire. Instead, he’s having his annual tune up–this time, it was a cleanup in his shoulder and minor knee surgery to clean up the cartilage. As usual, Walker will be ready for spring training, but it’s just a matter of time before he’s injured again–the only question is how effective he’ll be in between those inevitable injuries.
Is Yankee Stadium haunted?
Experts differ. Or, they might, if they had anything to say about it at all. Realistically, ghosts don’t exist any more than the alignment of the stars affects the outcome of our lives. But respectable newspapers still run horoscopes, so what do I know? Maybe Yankee Stadium is haunted.
Today, construction of any monument of significance requires an archeological survey to make sure you’re not building it on top of an ancient settlement of death-worshipping cultists. But Yankee Stadium was originally opened in 1923, when such practices were not attempted; and when it was remodeled in the mid-’70s, the stadium was torn down entirely. So it’s possible that because the site was unchanged, no new survey was undertaken.
However, a brief search of the literature produces no accounts of supernatural activity of any kind at Yankee Stadium. Even the paranormal camp, who can usually be relied upon to come up with something harebrained about anything, didn’t have any quotes for me. I’d have called them up and asked, but I didn’t want to give anyone ideas.
A lot has happened since last we met. I’ve completed my residency, started a new job, passed my boards, and moved to Chicago. Which, given my proven attraction to lost causes, meant that it was only a matter of time before I became a Cubs fan.
My allegiance to this team may only be three months old, spanning less than 0.5% of the time since their last World Series appearance. But thanks to Dusty Baker, my patience is already wearing thin.
After a Game Seven performance that would make Jim Frey look like a tactical genius, the hope here is that a couple chinks may be starting to form on Baker’s Teflon coating. His failings are well-covered, here and elsewhere, but indulge me in this quick synopsis nonetheless.
If the last three weeks have taught us anything, it’s that the baseball postseason is the greatest sports theatre in the world. We’ve seen almost every form of drama the game can provide, from game-winning home runs to stunning pitching duels to comebacks from one foot, two hands and most of a head in the grave.
Yesterday, we saw the Red Sox jump out to a 4-1 lead against a pitcher they shouldn’t hit, then watched that edge disappear a half-hour later. On the road, deep into the recesses of their pitching staff, fighting wind and cold and history, the Sox could have called it a season and no one would have been surprised. They didn’t, and thanks to some help from the twin weaknesses of the Yankees–defense and every non-cyborg reliever–they’ll get the Game Seven they came to New York to play.
The Cubs, who could have curled up and died when Miguel Cabrera put them down 3-0 in the first inning, battled back to tie the game and then take the lead. I don’t care that they lost: a team that lacks some blessed intangible doesn’t even get that far, not after the events of Tuesday night.
The Marlins weren’t supposed to contend, weren’t supposed to win the Wild Card, weren’t supposed to beat the Giants, weren’t supposed to even come back to Chicago after being down 3-1 Saturday night… and their biggest problem this morning is that they’ll have to wait until tonight to make their flight plans for the World Series. Well, that and finding a good hangover cure.