Do you think Jack McKeon gives Larry Bowa his ass back after the Marlins play
the Phillies, or do you think he just keeps it all the time?
Vaughn should have been solid for 1911, but a number of things were working against him. Hal Chase, the gambler, was the player-manager and is presumed to have subverted many games. Vaughn missed a month with an “illness,” and didn’t pitch well when healthy. He opened 1912 the same way, and manager Harry Wolverton–the New York Americans were going through a manager a year in those days–decided to send him to Providence of the International League. Vaughn balked, saying he would refuse to report unless given a small cash bonus and part of the sale price.
This simply wasn’t done in those days. Players were expected to accept their place as chattel. The Yankees waived Vaughn and probably expected him to drift back to the minor league fringes, but Clark Griffith, now managing the Washington Senators, put in a claim and added Vaughn to his staff. Griffith still liked Vaughn’s stuff and thought that Hilltop Park, home of the Highlanders, might have worked against the pitcher. Whether that was the case or not we will never know, but Vaughn found himself in Washington and was never lost again, though it took the scouts a while to figure it out.
Now that we’ve gotten to the 100-game mark on the season, I decided to take a look at how the park factors were shaking out so far in ’04. Park factors are noisy pieces of data–that’s the reason why we use three-year averages in the first place–and I expect that some of these 100-game factors will change significantly between now and the end of the season.
That caveat aside, let’s take a look at how pro baseball’s parks–from the majors down to A-ball–are playing.
I’ve been avoiding columns on columns lately, because I feel like every time I try, I dig myself in ever-deeper. But I got a ton of email on Tuesday’s column, and it ran about:
33%: “That was hilarious, loved it.”
33%: “I don’t get it.” or “I’m tired of your ranting.”
33%: “How can you say that Derek Jeter’s the AL MVP when he’s only ninth in overall offensive value and your own metrics….”
So skip ahead a couple paragraphs to get to the baseball if you’d prefer not to hear the meta stuff.
To 66% who didn’t get it: the column was intended to make fun of the sports talk radio Jonah and I had to listen to while we were driving back and forth to the Baseball Prospectus business meetings in San Diego last week. I don’t even remember the names of the personalities, but between San Diego and Los Angeles, every time we hit the seek button to get away from one of these guys, we ran into another broadcaster spewing the same stuff. They all talked in circles as they tried to figure out what they were going to say, and when they finally got to the point, you’d think, “I waited two minutes for that?”
The Phillies lose their most effective reliever. The A’s set Eric Karros free. The Twins bring up another prospect to torment. And a Curtis Pride sighting! All this news and much more in your Thursday Transaction Analysis.
ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS
Winless on the week, including a three-game series against the Rockies in which they scored a grand total of six runs. The only two players who actually reported to work were the two most likely to be exiled, Randy Johnson (15 IP, 13 H, 2 R, 1 BB 20 K), and Steve Finley (.934 OPS). The rest of them played as if they were Charlie Bucket’s dad, screwing the caps onto toothpaste tubes for a living… One thing that many observers miss about the Yankees is that they are not the only team that can afford to take on salary at the deadline, but may be the only team willing. The difference is that the Yankees’ owner, answerable only to himself, may decide in a given year to take home less money by cutting into his own profit margin (and that of the junior partners, who may take home relatively little as a result). Other teams, particularly those that are components of larger corporations, may fix a profit goal for the year and stick to it at the expense of winning. Most execs of public companies are uncomfortable telling the shareholders that they lost money on the sports operation this year because they decided to gamble on winning a World Series. Thus, if the DBs chose to dump salary and other objects of refuse in New York’s general direction, there’s nothing unfair about it at all. GRADE: F
As the trading deadline approaches and the hype surrounding a potential Randy Johnson deal reaches a deafening crescendo, I decided to take a look at how well the Yankees have done in dealing young players. I’m not concerned with who they get in return except as a footnote, nor do I care whether they “won” a particular trade according to a value measure. Those scales can wait to be balanced for another day. The question is whether the Yanks have let another Buhner, another unproven product of the Yankee system, slip out the door. How well did the players they traded turn out?
With pitchers, there’s always a fine line tread between health and effectiveness. Use someone too much and his effectiveness drops; don’t use him enough and the team loses value. As with Jason Schmidt last year, the Astros face a hard decision with Andy Pettitte. The injuries are extremely comparable. Schmidt elected to pitch through his last year, leading his team to the playoffs. Pettitte is asking the same of the Astros, but there’s some major differences to consider. First, Schmidt was (and still is) about the only pitcher the Giants had, while Pettitte is the third-best pitcher on his own team. Second, the Astros may be playing for the last time with this team, but they owe Pettitte a lot of money in the future. His backloaded contract simply has to be taken into consideration now and in the off-season when the team tries to replace what it’s sure to lose. Finally, the Giants were favorites to win the NL West and were coming off a World Series appearance; the Astros are losing sight of the wild card. It’s a decision I’m glad I don’t have to make.
CLEVELAND INDIANS
Not far over .500, if at all by the time you read this, but suddenly looking like contenders in a division that’s aimlessly drifting down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico–any day now the Detroit Tigers will be the New Orleans Beignets. Travis Hafner (.423/.467/1.077) and Victor Martinez (.379/.419/.517) make a heck of a one-two punch, and they are now joined by young Grady Sizemore, who will be the best Grady since Grady Little (not hard) and Whitman Mayo, the Grady from “Sanford & Son” (tall order). If he takes some plate appearances away from Coco Crisp and Jody Gerut, neither of whom have been the life of the party, so much the better… The bullpen is still the stuff of nightmares, with an ERA that can flirt with 6.00 if you put a couple of drinks in it. You hate to say that a team is one reliever away, because Lord knows we watched Steve Phillips and the Mets chase that chimera for enough years, but the Indians might legitimately claim that to be the case. GRADE: A
The last thing I am is a deadline drum-beater for the somehow coveted mediocrity that is Kris Benson (or, Jeff Suppan v2.0, if you prefer). However, if there’s one team that can use him in the back of the rotation, it’s the Twins.
Brad Radke and Johan Santana have been Cy Young contenders in the front two spots, and Carlos Silva and Kyle Lohse have been serviceable. Still, Terry Mulholland’s 4.55 R/G doesn’t seem likely to hold up. The rumored deal, one that would send Doug Mientkiewicz and Mike Restovich to Pittsburgh, is reasonable. Justin Morneau is fully ready to take over at first and thrive for years to come, Restovich comes from a position of notable depth within the organization (and he’s not a future star), and Mientkiewicz, while somewhat underrated by most of us in past seasons, has been an unmitigated cipher in 2004. It’s a deal that makes sense for Minnesota, but only because the price for them is nominal and they’re not viewing Benson as something he’s squarely not, an ace.
Andy Pettitte ’04 = Jason Schmidt ’03. Pettitte has a small but significant tear in his flexor tendon. While it will need surgical repair, it could wait until the end of the season. Pettitte may end up on the DL, but it’s more likely that he’ll simply pitch to pain tolerance. If Pettitte can go five innings or so, he’ll have some value. However, with Pettitte’s contract, the Astros will have to make a decision on when their season is over, minimizing the stress on the lefty’s arm. The Astros are also worried that Wade Miller might miss the rest of the season. An August return is unrealistic, but by September, there may be no reason to come back. The Astros are taking a look at Paul Wilson, sending scouts to watch his last start. They need the rotation filler.
So much for the bullpen. After Tim Hudson came out of his simulated game, Oakland’s plan for him got serious. While he will still have a start at Triple-A, Hudson is expected to come back at near full-strength at the middle of next week. The A’s will limit his pitch count a bit, but Hudson will be expected to do what every starting pitcher is expected to do–win.
The Diamondbacks need to get good value for Randy Johnson and Steve Finley. The Tigers could market Jason Johnson as a cheaper Kris Benson. The Royals could test the waters with Joe Randa, Scott Sullivan and others. These and other trade deadline-oriented news and notes out of Arizona, Detroit and Kansas City in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
The Orioles resurrect B.J. Surhoff. The Tigers let go of Greg Norton. Milwaukee adds Three True Outcome God Russ Branyan to the active roster. Ramon Hernandez comes off the DL in San Diego. The Crime Dog gets his walking papers in Tampa Bay. And the Rangers prepare for their first interesting stretch-run of the new century. All this and much more news from around the league in your Wednesday edition of Transaction Analysis.
From now until shortly after the non-waiver trading deadline, “You Could Look It Up” will examine the key mid-season trades for each franchise (with “mid-season” being generously defined as “June 15 to the end of the regular season”) and evaluate each trade to see what a mid-season addition is really worth, and if possible to discern patterns and discover which deals really help and which are of little or even negative value. After we break down each trade, we’ll come to a “snap judgment,” a hasty conclusion. At the end of the series, we’ll see if those judgments add up to any helpful conclusions…
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m starting to get the same sense about this year’s
trade deadline that I used to get at parties in college around 12:30 or so.
The night would start with such great anticipation, thinking there’d be some
good hooking up, what with all the talent in the room. As the night wore on,
though, it would became clear that nothing was going to happen, and
anticipation would slowly become frustration and then desperation. Eventually,
I’d just go home, feeling like I’d wasted an awful lot of energy for nothing.
(I’d extend the analogy by comparing, say, Brian Cashman and some girl I
wanted to know better back in 1993, but you just know her husband would be
reading this and I’d get sued.)
So why is this July turning into a bad re-creation of my college days? Blame
it on everyone and everything…
Maybe it’s never going to end.
Maybe, in the winter of 1990, in the back room of a bar just outside of the
city limits, Bobby Cox and John Schuerholz sat down and made a deal, never
quite noticing that their co-conspirator had a tail and lit their cigars by
snapping his fingers. (“Ultra-small lighter from Japan,” he
claimed.)
Maybe the Atlanta Braves are going to make every postseason from now until the
Rapture.
I wrote the Braves off this season, figuring that the cumulative talent drain
since the end of 2002, coupled with the improvement by the Phillies, was
finally going to be too much. It was an amazing run, winning a division title
in 12 straight completed seasons, but all good things had to come to an end.
They’d turned over an entire rotation in two years, never really solved the
corner infield problems that had plagued them since moving Chipper
Jones to the outfield, and watched two of the five best players in
the NL last year move to the AL East. Their corporate ownership continued to
Wal-Mart the payroll, and the farm system wasn’t nearly as productive as it
had been in the 1990s.
I was working with incomplete information. I didn’t know about the 1990
meeting, and a contract signed with an all-too-warm pen, and the eventual
destination of two souls.