Imagine spending a week at your cubicle at work, slaving away at that TPS report, and then as you hand it to your boss, she tells you, “Thanks, but the company just decided that they didn’t need the report after all. I was just about to e-mail you the memo.”
That’s about how I feel right now. Having painstakingly put together an article on Danny Kolb, which centered around Kolb’s incredible stretch of surrendering no extra-base hits all season, I was all set to have the article published during the All-Star Break–and then Kolb ran into the unstoppable force that is the PECOTA-powered Wily Mo Pena on Sunday.
(Yes, I’m aware that Jason LaRue homered off Kolb before Pena did. But I’ve been working as a journalist long enough to know it’s considered poor form to let the facts get in the way of a good story.)
So the article is ruined.
But you’re going to have to read it anyway, unless you really want to hurt my feelings. I’ve taken the liberty of making some small changes to the piece, in light of Kolb’s Sunday meltdown. Most of the points made in the article still stand, even if the punchline has been spoiled.
Today we dip into the mailbag to cover a number of topics related to recent columns. First, a question stemming from the article on starters’ support of relievers:
I noticed Phil Niekro and Steve Sparks are both on the list of most-helped starters. I would hypothesize that knuckleballing starters are ‘easier’ to help out than their straight-throwing brethren because of the extreme difference in speed/movement between a knuckler and a typical reliever’s mid-90 mph heat. What do you think?
–S.S. (no, not Steve Sparks)
Good theory. Many other readers were wondering the same thing, and sure enough…
All of this touches on why I’m rapidly losing my already withering affection for ERA as even a rough thumbnail estimate of pitcher quality. Michael Wolverton has written cogently on the pitfalls of ERA in the past. I’d go further by saying if you don’t take a pitcher’s BABIP into account, ERA shouldn’t be anywhere on your radar when making player evaluations. I’d liken ERA to the RBI–useful only at the margins, awfully prone to contextual distortions.
When we judge a pitcher’s performance, we need to grant primacy to the things over which he has the most control: strikeouts, unintentional walks, home runs and groundball-flyball tendencies. To credit or penalize a pitcher for how his defense is performing, how luck fancies him or how he wields a dubious skill of marginal influence is to do a disservice to the spirit of analysis.
The Angels’ offense has been marred by a lack of production at first base. The Cubs and Corey Patterson have been at the center of a number of rumors involving Braves CF Andruw Jones. And although the Brew Crew has done an admirable job this season of staying afloat, it would behoove GM Doug Melvin to sell off the remaining usable parts and build for the future. All this and much more news from Anaheim, Chicago, and Milwaukee in your Wednesday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
Orioles’ prospect John Maine has struggled since being promoted to Triple-A, worrying some of his stathead supporters. Reliving his days as a member of the Blake Street Bombers, Vinny Castilla is once again taking full advantage of the Coors Field Effect. And the Mets could look to current Pirate Kris Benson as a back-of-the-rotation option if they try to make a run in the NL East. All this and much more news from Baltimore, Colorado, and New York in your Monday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
Tuesday night, 32 men from each league (selected by 64 separate and distinct methods), will battle it out for supremacy and the right to host the weekend World Series games and, in the process, get more traffic in bars with big screen televisions in the host city because people don’t have go get up early the next morning to work the night after Games 1 and 6. What I think would be much more interesting would be a tournament featuring All-Star teams from the six different divisions.
Knowing that this is a crazy idea (and having to belay the idea of them wearing uniforms identifying their divisional allegiance a la the Little League World Series), I have instead taken the liberty of selecting these six best-of teams. I’ve done it primarily using VORP, but with a touch of subjectivity thrown in here and there (but not too much, since analytical types such as we are, we’re conditioned to breaking out in rashes whenever we get too subjective).
I wrote a whole column last Thursday about how players don’t owe it to their teams to waive their no-trade clauses. One weekend later, Randy Johnson comes out and says that if, maybe, he were to think about leaving Arizona, well… “The only way I’d probably want to leave is if a trade would benefit the Diamondbacks by my leaving. And maybe the way to do that is if they wouldn’t have to pay my salary and it could go to some other players that would help them–and if I got to a situation that was going to work for me.”
Randy’s now saying he’d require that:
The Diamondbacks wouldn’t have to pick up his salary
They would have to get players back who’d help them
His new team would have to be contending
Sure, there are players who have emotional ties to an organization and a city such that they’d like to see their soon-to-be-old team do well. Some players have tried to make sure that their new team doesn’t give up too much. The most obvious example of this was Ken Griffey, Jr, who when demanding a trade from the Mariners to the Reds seemed to be actively involved in who’d be traded for, which is kind of weird since he instigated the whole thing. It’d be cool if us average people could do that for our jobs. (“I’ve decided you’re going to offer me $125 grand to watch baseball and drink beer in the comfort of my house, and you’re going to pay for the recliner.” “Remember not to put your breakable mugs on the bottom of the box when you clean out your desk, because you’re fired.”)
The Red Sox wade through the darkness of bullpen troubles before the eventual dawn (i.e., the return of Scott Williamson and perhaps BH Kim). The White Sox lose Frank Thomas on the heels of watching Magglio Ordonez go down. Kerry Wood comes off the DL for the Cubs. Ken Griffey Jr. makes his annual trip to the DL with a bum hamstring. Eric Chavez returns to Oakland, and not a moment too soon. And the dismantling in Seattle continues with the release of Rich Aurilia. All this and much more news from around the league in your Tuesday edition of Transaction Analysis.
One of my favorite columns is my All-Star
Diary, where I watch the game and take notes as it happens, letting events
lead me where they may. Let’s see what unfolds this year…
The Mariners say goodbye to Rich Aurilia, as the dismantling continues in Seattle. Josias Manzanillo recalls what it was like to be ‘destroyed’ by a line drive. The Red Sox deny stealing signs. Derek Jeter thinks that highlight reels have affected major-league hitters’ willingness to bunt. Drayton McLane denies that Roger Clemens will be traded, and points to ‘The Tonight Show’ as evidence. Mike Lowell thinks it’s all those rotoheads who kept Juan Pierre out of the All-Star Game. And Ken Griffey Jr.’s hurt again. All this and many more quips from around the league in your Monday edition of The Week In Quotes.
Why the heck is the Futures Game scheduled for Sunday afternoon, when MLB
games are still being played? I caught bits and pieces of yesterday’s contest,
held at 3 p.m. Central at Houston’s Minute Maid Field, but was too distracted
by the great finishes in Philadelphia and Boston to pay it too much mind.
Having missed three innings, I was never able to get fully into the game.
It’s as if MLB wants to bury the Futures Game by putting it up against
regular-season games. Speaking mostly for myself, I would much rather the game
be, say, this afternoon, than have it be up against the last few games of the
first half. Having the Futures Game on Monday creates a practical issue–how to
have the Game, the All-Stars’ batting practice, and the Home Run Derby in the
same place on the same day while selling tickets to either one or two
sessions–but that can be dealt with by either moving the Futures Game to a
different location or truncating the day’s BP sessions.
The Home Run Derby is a turgid two hours that exists largely because no one
seems to know how to stop getting corporate sponsorship for it. Making the
Futures Game the centerpiece of All-Star Monday would make the day shine,
while giving the players in it a proper stage for their skills.
It’s really not even funny anymore. Sure, I’ve made my share of jokes at Ken Griffey’s expense, but just at the stage where he was finally getting some recognition for how good his career has been and revitalizing his present, his hamstring gave way. It wasn’t a particularly taxing play, but it doesn’t take much to split his chronically weakened hamstrings. I’d feel worse for Griffey if I hadn’t seen him stretching before a recent game. Like too many other players, he seemed to coast through the warm-ups. I’m not sure if there are other stretches he does, perhaps in the training room, but just the example he set didn’t help. Forget the kids in the stands, the kids on his team were watching and emulating him. Griffey is likely out a month, and with his condition, it could stretch longer. In his absence, the Reds will find out what Wily Mo Pena can do (two homers yesterday brought his season total up to 10, his season line to .270/.314/.491…PECOTA’s had him pretty well pegged so far). They’ll also see if John Vander Wal can come back from ACL surgery in just six months.
I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but what the Yankees buy with all that money is depth. Sure, you look at second base or the front of their bullpen and it may not look like it, but when injuries happen, that’s when the depth shows up. With Mike Mussina trying to pitch on three days rest and stressing his elbow, the Yanks could reach down and pull up a rejuvenated Orlando Hernandez. He played the part of “Good Contreras” today, going five strong innings. He only needs to make a cameo start before heading to the pen since Kevin Brown should make his rehab start on Thursday, then come back to the rotation next week. The Yankees have been extremely conservative bringing Brown back, so he should be ready once he does re-appear. Mussina, on the other hand, is a bit more concerning. Elbow soreness is never a good thing, but team sources sound worried that this is Mussina finally admitting something that’s been going on all season. Expect a DL stint in hopes that rest and treatment will dig up the Mussina that they need come playoff time.
With a stadium that struggles to generate revenue (largely because of its co-football tenants), cash-conscious ownership and ever-stiff competition from other teams, this major league general manager makes tough decisions every year, keeping his team in contention the last few seasons and earning multiple playoff berths along the way. The similarities between Billy Beane and the latest in Baseball Prospectus’ series of GM Q&As mostly end there.
Terry Ryan’s scouting background and the success of his scouting and player development staff have helped the Minnesota Twins build one of the best farm
systems in the game. A staunch proponent of defense, athleticism and aggressive play over power and patience, he strives to tailor the Twins to the quirky
Metrodome and its unique characteristics. Ryan recently chatted with BP about the challenges of running the small-revenue Twins, the importance of makeup in ballplayers, the trade-offs of offense for defense, and more.
The White Sox believe in the power of positive thinking (you’d have to in order to give Freddy Garcia $27 million for the next three years). The Marlins deal with yet another blister for Josh Beckett. The Astros demote Brandon Duckworth as a way of dealing with their slide. The Expos reach into the Magic 8 ball for rotation help. The Giants look to heal their bullpen problems from within. And the Blue Jays continue to hope for Carlos Delgado to right himself and consequently waive his no-trade clause. All this and much more news from around the league in your Saturday edition of Transaction Analysis.
Editor’s Note: Every so often, we lay our hands on a document that was probably not intended for public consumption. We are not at liberty to say how it is we come by these things because we do not wish to compromise our conduit thereto. Suffice it to say, we will continue to make these available to you as long as we can continue to “come by” them.
The last thing Boston GM Theo Epstein needs, other than for Richard Griffin to get a job at the Globe, is my advice. But the best game in recent memory got me wondering about what ails this most engaging of teams. I’m not a Sox fan, but neither do I have any particular animus for them, Ben Affleck notwithstanding. So consider what follows a mission of conscience more than anything else. Like it or not, here’s my three-step plan to get the Red Sox to playoffs…