The Diamondbacks go with youth in their rotation. The Red Sox pointlessly resurrect Ricky Gutierrez. Grady Sizemore and David Wright make their debuts for the Indians and Mets. Tip o’ the cap to the solid career of Pat Hentgen. These and other happenings in today’s Transaction Analysis.
”You Could Look It Up” is a weekly look at the game’s present through the funhouse mirror of the past. Today we begin an experiment in unguided writing, an experiment in blue sky time travel without a thesis. From now until shortly after the non-waiver trading deadline, YCLIU will examine the key mid-season trades for each franchise (mid-season being generously described as June 15 to the end of the regular season) and evaluate each deal 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. In each installment we’ll highlight a team or two, alternating American and National League clubs. The first two installments will highlight the opponents of the 1992 World Series, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves.
Lots of e-mailers asked about reports that Jason Giambi was tested for cancer last week. Giambi’s been poked, prodded, and had every test known to man conducted over the last few weeks, including ones for cancer. As yet, there is still no solid diagnosis, post-parasitic. Since giardia is easily cleared up, and the body recovers quickly, the symptoms intransigence is puzzling. At some point, we may have to ask whether Giambi is dealing with a condition or merely has lost the skills necessary to play baseball at this level.
Bone marrow edema isn’t a diagnosis heard every day. In baseball, it’s now a singular event, afflicting Magglio Ordonez, who just returned from knee surgery. Also called “transient osteoporosis,” the edema is not just a short-term problem for the Sox’ outfielder, it’s also bad in the long-term; BME is a predictor of serious arthritis, gait imbalances, and increased risk for fractures near the affected bones. It’s not good for the White Sox, for Ordonez, or Ordonez’s agent, but it’s not life-threatening, as some have feared. It could be managed in a way that could allow Ordonez back on the field, but as there is nothing with which to compare this, I have no way of putting a timeline on it.
From a performance-analysis standpoint, the Snakes have been an easy target
because of their affection for older players. It’s not at all surprising that
a team with a roster as old as the Diamondbacks has collapsed; old age has
been a big factor in the 2004 disappointment of their AL counterparts, the Mariners.
The problem is that the team’s older players are its best players. Johnson,
40, might win his sixth Cy Young Award this year. Steve
Finley, 39, leads the team in games, home runs and slugging and is
the most-sought-after position player in the trade market. Luis
Gonzalez, whose left elbow is mostly theoretical at this point, is
hitting .261/.377/.501, although he’s about a week away from shutting himself
down for the season so he can undergo Tommy John surgery.
Alex Rodriguez gets a taste of the Boston/New York rivalry first hand. Sparky Lyle feels under-appreciated by Hall of Fame voters. Goose Gossage doesn’t think he’s getting any respect. Two Rangers teammates disagree on the subject of QuesTec. Lloyd McClendon doesn’t understand why Jack Wilson is so tired. And Shane Spencer talks about going on the DL for something stupid. All this and many more quips in your Monday edition of The Week In Quotes.
Like any number of other folks with a long-running obsession with all things sports, I’ve spent a fair amount of time engrossed in simulation games. For much of my youth, I played hours upon hours of Lance Haffner 3-in-1 Football on my trusty and abiding Apple IIe. I once famously led the 1986 Michigan State Spartans and QB Dave Yarema to a majestic Rose Bowl win and a national title by instituting what I believe to be a heady forerunner to the once de rigueur run-and-shoot offense (in real life they were a paltry 6-5….Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, George Perles). Years later, guided by my steady, knowing hand, Max Knake of TCU would pass for more than 800 yards as my Horned Frogs crushed Texas 86-21.
Nineteen eighty-six was also a fine year for my incursions into Lance Haffner Full-Count Baseball. In a stroke of organizational genius, I, as potentate of the Cardinals, engineered trades for Dave Magadan of the Mets (whose card had him hitting a robust .444/.524/.444 in 21 plate appearances) and Mark Ryal of the Angels (.375/.412/.562 in 34 plate appearances). By having the faith and foresight to plug them into the lineup full-time and lavishing the team with “sample size be damned” statistical goofiness that followed, the disappointing ’86 Redbirds became pennant winners when fashioned in my image.
The 2004 Mets are on pace to do something that only eight other major league clubs (that we know of) have ever done: steal bases at an 80 percent clip. I say “that we know of,” of course, because for many years, nobody was writing down when men were getting caught.
Why not? Because America was a happier, more optimistic place back then. We weren’t all about negativity and failure in those days–no sir! Well, that’s one theory anyway.
The party line on steals in these parts is that they are overrated as an offensive weapon–you all know that. When a team gets up over an 80 percent success rate, though, even the most heart-hardened theft-cynic begins to contemplate granting absolution to the thieves. Hall of Famer Joe Morgan is often cited for his base-stealing acumen. Morgan stole right at about that rate for his career. These clubs are, then, his equivalent on the team level–or something like that.
With the trade deadline a bit more than a week away, speculation about who’s
going where and for whom is at its annual peak. It’s a great time to be a
baseball fan, what with more than half the teams in the game harboring at
least some hope of reaching the postseason, and a mix of perennial contenders
and low-profile upstarts chasing playoff spots.
Many of those teams have glaring holes that have to be repaired, and part of
the fun of July is guessing how those holes will be filled. Here are four
trades—not trade rumors, but actual trades, coming from between my ears—that
make sense for contenders and rebuilders alike, and which could change the
course of baseball’s races.
The Braves should be looking to the Big Apple for their toughest competition. The Devil Rays’ plan to sign B.J. Upton is another bad idea. And the Blue Jays have another top pitching prospect. All that, plus much more news from Atlanta, Tampa Bay, and Toronto in your Thursday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
Even I, proudly possessed of Southern roots and a Midwestern address, can’t resist writing about the Yankees.
With the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline making threatening phone calls from the attic, the Yankees, as they do every year, are hogging the bandwidth. With the Bombers poised to do something of import over the next 10 days, many have been led to ruminate on the farm system that’s about to be gutted–in as much as you can gut something that is already devoid of innards.
The Yankee farm system, at this writing, is devoid of noteworthy prospects in the higher rungs of the system. Dioner Navarro placed 30th on our 2004 Top 50 Prospect List, but a paltry showing this season has dimmed his star. Robinson Cano is the other name bandied about, but he smacks long and hard of pinstriped fool’s gold. If they wind up parting with those two, it’ll be a little like kicking a cadaver in the groin: perhaps unseemly and not the greatest of ideas, but ultimately the cadaver has more systemic issues to fret over.
The Braves get Marcus Giles back, and not a moment too soon. The O’s, meanwhile, get Melvin Mora back, in their grasp for third place. The White Sox re-aquire Carl Everett. The Reds get one step closer to giving Brandon Claussen a shot in the rotation. Justin Morneau gets another chance to take Doug Mientkiewicz’s job. Mike Mussina hits the DL for the Yanks, causing them to rely on the stylings of Alex Graman. And the Mariners continue to execute Operation Clean Sweep. All this and much more news from around the league in your Wednesday edition of Transaction Analysis.
Any time a player changes positions, there is an adjustment period where the new position increases the risk of injury slightly. Most of the time, the risk has a negligible increase. Some shifts down the defensive scale actually inherently reduce risk, such as a move from the middle infield to a corner. It seems that Mike Piazza hit one of those inflection points where a decreased positional risk met the awkward adjustment phase with a side order of bad luck. Piazza was struck on the glove by a running player. While it was a routine play, Piazza sprained his wrist and could end up on the DL. Early X-rays were negative but there was pain and swelling. Mets medical staff will know more tomorrow once the swelling begins to subside and they can accurately assess tendon and ligament damage. In the meantime, phenom David Wright will come up to the big club, with Ty Wigginton moving to first base.
It was mostly good news across town as the Yankees dodged a bullet. Derek Jeter was hit on the hand by a 93-mph pitch, but escaped with only a numb hand. X-rays were negative, but the Yanks will likely give their captain at least a game off to be safe. In Triple-A Columbus, Kevin Brown pitched adequately, giving up five hits and two runs (including a homer by Henri Stanley) in four innings. He’s unlikely to be ready for his slot on Sunday, so expect another start, probably again with Columbus. In the meantime, the Yankees will rack up frequent flyer miles between the Bronx and Columbus while looking for help on the trade market.
I’m fascinated by beginnings and endings, so the chapters in this book that
detail the earliest days of the game, and how the record-keeping developed,
are page-turners for me. The way in which the decisions to track particular
events in a game reflected the personal beliefs of those doing the collecting
was a new concept for me, as was the descriptions of how people 120 years ago
gobbled up statistics the same way rabid seamheads and fantasy players do
today. There are quotes in the first 30 pages of the book that could easily
have shown up on our pages today. For example:
‘The best player in a nine is he who makes the most good plays in a
match’ [Chadwick] wrote, ‘not the one who commits the fewest errors.’ In other
words Chadwick preferred range–the ability to field more balls overall–to
avoiding the occasional error.
Somewhere, Jose Valentin is smiling.
CHICAGO WHITE SOX
We got some middling pitching and a pretty good offense, albeit one that’s going to last as long as you’re impression that Jose Uribe is really a good hitter after all. We’ve also got Minnesota’s underwear, not that they’ve noticed, because if you’ve got Doug Mientkiewicz, who needs a G-string? Friends, no matter what Mr. Ryan says, second place chafes, as Mr. Kenny Williams can attest after two straight years of raw inner thighs. Gird your loins with Frank Thomas and his .334 EQA and you need never say, “Not tonight, Josephine, I left my epidermis at the office because I was afraid to let a DH be a DH, a first baseman be a first baseman, I keep trying to get blood from a stone, and no matter how many elephants I interview, none of them can do calculus.” Even Sharon and Arafat agree that Garcia wasn’t quite worth the freight, but credit the Sox with having a pulse. Late note: Thomas is gone, Carl Everett is here, which is kind of like replacing a dinosaur with a guy who doesn’t believe in dinosaurs. Ironically, it’s neither of them that faces extinction, but Joe Borchard. GRADE: A-
Today’s UTK is about burning questions. Emphasis: burning questions, not burning sensations. UTK stands for “Under the Knife,” not “Urinary Tract Konnection.” Lately everyone who writes me has the same questions. Below, I try my best to answer them.
Powered by Discovery HD Theater, on to your questions about the injuries…
I got mad once when Ken Griffey Jr. admitted that he didn’t try for every ball. If his team was far ahead or behind in a game, he wouldn’t try to scale a wall to bring back a home run. It’s almost offensive to a fan to see players not try. I can know that the cost of a ticket’s not that high, historically speaking, and that it might not have any effect on the outcome of a game. It doesn’t matter. I want to see those ground balls run out. Unless the hitter’s injured.
The more I watch games, though, the more I’m convinced Griffey was right. Derek Jeter’s dive into the stands was dramatic and everything else people said about it, but it was also immensely dangerous. How big of a gap is it, really? When the Mariners told Edgar Martinez not to run out ground balls unless it was really important, was that worth it?