The A’s usually don’t have to deal with injuries to their pitchers and as we all know, never have to deal with arm problems. In Tuesday’s game, Mark Mulder left the game with a strained right hip. It’s too early to tell yet how serious the injury will be and if he might miss a start or more. As I reported yesterday, I still think that Tim Hudson will be pushed back, despite signals from the A’s that he’ll be ready. I say this in the most respectful way, but we can’t trust the A’s completely when it comes to injuries. No one is better at keeping things close to the vest, but unlike most things the A’s try to do, this one gives them no advantage. In Tuesday’s game with the A’s, Derek Lowe was forced out just after Mulder. Lowe had a recurrence of blistering on his pitching thumb. Reports conflict on the location of the blister and whether it is the same area where Lowe had blisters in June. Again, I’ll point out that even a small injury such as this could be the difference between the Sox making the playoffs or not. I’ll be following this one closely.
I discounted it at the time when Bartolo Colon bent over late in a start just a few weeks back, but that could have been the sign of things to come. Colon has been rocked lately, leaving pitches up, lacking velocity and command, and ceding the team ace status to Mark Buehrle. As with Derek Lowe, even the slightest injury could be the tipping point for the tight AL Central, and Colon’s next start will be pivotal.
Continuing from Part I of the discussion with Paths To Glory authors Mark Armour and Levitt…
BP: Reading about certain teams–the ’97 Marlins immediately come to mind–there seems to be a strong preference among some people for teams that build from within instead of buying a pennant. Having covered both kinds of teams in the book, is there a way that strikes you as more effective? Is one way somehow more noble than the other? Levitt: My take is that the aim of the game is to win. As long as you don’t cheat, however you do it is fine. Building through the farm system is a good way to do it because it’s cheaper. But when (Charles) Comiskey bought Eddie Collins and Joe Jackson in 1914 and 1915, he was taking advantage of the economics of the time; other teams could have done the same, and didn’t. I don’t feel that one way is the noble way and one way is the evil way. Good organizations will use any and all methods to build a winner. Armour: One reason we chose to write about the Marlins was that history has mistreated them. Some of that is because they went on a spending spree, then won. Then the team was torn apart. They deserved to be criticized for being torn apart. But the way they were built was brilliant. They were an expansion team, and they had the right approach. They built a strong farm system. Then they identified what they needed. They decided they needed a cleanup hitter and third baseman, a left fielder and a starting pitcher. So they got the best player available for each job, Bobby Bonilla, Moises Alou, and Alex Fernandez. It’s not that it’s not noble to spend and win, just that it’s hard. A lot of teams have gone out and tried to spend a lot of money. But it’s hard to find three good players to fill three holes, or five to fill five. The Marlins did this really well. Levitt: The problem with modern free agency and buying players that way is that great players often only become available when they’re in their 30s. People don’t realize that Bonds and Maddux are the best of the free agent signings, and that it’s hard to get a real impact player that way, let alone someone like Bonds or Maddux. There’s also a lot of thought that buying a bunch of players is a new idea, but it’s not. Tom Yawkey in the 30s did it with the Red Sox, and the Yankees also did it in the 30s. Comiskey did it, and so did the Boston Braves in the 40s. The great teams have almost always acquired a bunch of their players through purchases. If you look at a team like the Pirates in the late 40s though, after Bing Crosby bought the team, they spent a lot of money on a bunch of old players, including Hank Greenberg, and that didn’t help them at all–they still finished last every year.
The Chicago talk radio circuit was pounding Kerry Wood after a sub-par performance on Saturday. News of Wood’s back injury came out and got slammed. Some were branding him a pouter or someone looking for an excuse, but people are looking at the wrong words in that quote. The injury is a minor one, more of an annoyance than anything that truly affects Wood’s normal pitching motion. Still, Wood is following the Nolan Ryan career path, minus the no-hitters and longevity…so far.
David Wells and the Yankees will make a decision about his scheduled start on Thursday after a bullpen session on Monday. Wells had been Eckersleyesque this season with his control until his back altered his motion and forced him to do what one scout called “arming the ball” more. Wells may be the pitcher most helped by the return of Jose Contreras in a couple weeks (and perhaps Jon Lieber) if he can get some extra rest in the first half of September, then two or three starts to shake things loose for October.
Doug Mientkiewicz had something that sounds unusual on the surface–two cortisone shots in one session–but it makes more sense once you know that he has two different problem areas in the same wrist. Mientkiewicz’s wrist is so problematic at this stage of the season that even after coming off the DL, a routine play forced him out. The Twins will look to Matt LeCroy in the short term and Justin Morneau in the long term, once he’s recalled from Triple-A.
Friday’s column never happened.
Had I written a Friday column, I definitely wouldn’t have talked about how MLB hadn’t rescheduled a Diamondbacks/Royals rainout yet, because they have (September 4), travel nightmares be damned. I certainly wouldn’t have alluded to a Marlins/Braves matchup in the Division Series, which can’t occur. There’s no way I would have insinuated that the Mets and Rockies wouldn’t play Friday night, because that would have been silly.
But I didn’t write a Friday column, so none of that happened.
Having played the first half of his career before the Second World War, Joe DiMaggio is not eligible to be on Albert Pujols’ PECOTA comparables list. However, there’s little doubt that the Yankee Clipper would place high atop the table if he had been born just 10 years later. The similarity scores at baseball-reference.com listed the pair as the best age-based likenesses for one another entering the season, and the events of this year are only likely to enhance the comparison.
DiMaggio won his first batting title and his first MVP award in 1939–at age 24, he was one year older than Pujols is currently listed. DiMaggio, unlike Pujols, had been heralded as a top prospect from the time he was a teenager playing in the PCL, and was coming off of a fine triplet of seasons in the big leagues. But 1939 was his coming out party, much like 2003 has been for Pujols.
Conveniently enough, DiMaggio, limited by a foot injury that he suffered in April, played in just 120 games that season, almost exactly the total that Pujols has accumulated up until now. Compare DiMaggio’s ’39 against Pujols’ current campaign, and the similarities are striking.
The White Sox need to drop their ticket prices. A closer look at the Cardinals bullpen. The Rangers have a slew of options for the outfield and first base. These and other news and notes out of Chicago, St. Louis, and Texas in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
The DiSar Awards haven’t been clinched just yet–I’ve learned better than to make an official announcement before the season is over–but they do appear to be in safe hands, at least in the American League. And no, it’s not Rocco Baldelli’s mitts holding the Golden Crutch.
I announced the contest to pick the 2003 award winners this spring a little bit late, not getting to it until a few days into the season. Because of that, the vast majority of the entrants selected Baldelli, the free-swinging Devil Rays rookie, as the eventual AL award winner. Baldelli made a nice run, reaching 60 at-bats before his first walk, but he only held the top AL mark for a few days, getting caught by Deivi Cruz soon afterwards.
Cruz didn’t hold on, either; his 70 at-bats were passed by Matt Walbeck in July, but The Walbeck couldn’t even garner this much glory. A week ago, he, too, saw his total of 75 walkless at-bats to start the season eclipsed. Walbeck was passed by a player who received no votes in the preseason balloting, although his brother was one of the most popular candidates after Baldelli.
J.P. Ricciardi doesn’t like giving away outs. Maury Wills thinks speed is underrated. Lloyd McClendon thinks he’s victim of an injustice, and that doesn’t even count having to manage the Pirates. Tom Martin just does his job, and Julian Tavarez likes ’em old, fat, rich, and dirty. All this and many more quips in this week’s edition of The Week In Quotes.
The Astros’ farm system has started to dry up. The Brewers’ future could take a while to unfold. The A’s made a puzzling move by designating Adam Piatt for assignment. These and other news and notes out of Houston, Milwaukee, and Oakland in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
Terrible performance and tons of playing time has made Endy Chavez a giant drag on the Expos’ offense. The off-season’s Ortiz-for-Moss deal wasn’t as bad as you think for the Giants. Kevin Cash is the latest catcher-of-the-future for the Blue Jays. These and other news and notes out of Montreal, San Francisco, and Toronto in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
Yesterday’s Giants/Mets game almost certainly will not be made up, given that the Giants have a big lead in the NL West and the Mets won’t need to play the game to determine their draft position. The cancellation does bring to mind that one game that appears very relevant has yet to be made up. The Diamondbacks and Royals have an interleague contest that hasn’t been rescheduled yet, and share just one highly inconvenient off day for the rest of the season.
I like chaos, and the idea that the two teams might have to play on September 29 to determine who does or does not go to the playoffs–or better yet, who goes to a one-game playoff, or who’s in a three-way tie–is just a delicious notion. I’m picturing the Marlins watching the game in an airport bar, bags packed, with plans to fly to Arizona if the Snakes win, and Atlanta if they don’t.
In general, baseball won’t be affected by the power outage. The Tigers, Yankees and Blue Jays are on the road. The Indians are home facing the Devil Rays, a series that can be cancelled as a public service. The Mets face the Rockies at home. Now, the Rockies are a fringe wild-card candidate at best, and are scheduled to be in the city through Monday. It’s possible that the teams could make up cancellations tonight and tomorrow–I’d imagine powering up a ballpark is low on the priority list–with doubleheaders Sunday and Monday.
For those of you who haven’t noticed, we are debuting several new statistical reports this week that will be updated daily throughout the season. All of these reports are currently available as a free preview at our Statistics page. Some of these reports, however, will be offered as part of Baseball Prospectus Premium in the coming weeks and months.
Adam Riggs gets a well-deserved shot with the Angels. The Braves aim to avoid the mistake made by the ’93 Phillies. Neal Cotts could end up being the prize in the Koch-Foulke deal for the White Sox. The Royals and A’s designate Febles and Piatt for assignment, drawing mixed reviews. These and other transactions, Chris Kahrl-style, in this edition of Transaction Analysis.
Francisco Rodriguez has been lights out since June; the Cubs’ rotation has been one of the best in all of baseball; and Tigers have improved a bit since the All-Star break. All this and much more news from Anaheim, Chicago, and Detroit in your Thursday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
In the July 25 edition of Transaction Analysis, Chris Kahrl critiqued the trade of reliever Mike Williams from the Pirates to the Phillies: There are other cranky topics, particularly the re-failure to acquire talent for Mike Williams in this year’s Williams deal. Certainly, if it reflected any new appreciation for the interchangeability of closers beyond the top few personalities in the field, that would be nifty, but instead, it seems that people (appropriately) don’t take Williams particularly seriously as a commodity, so the Pirates got things bad both ways, in terms of plugging in a replacement-level talent in the job, enriching him, and then not enriching themselves when the time came to deal him. Kahrl’s analysis could be applied to the entire trading history of the Pirates franchise, a three-handed process in which the hometown GM extends a good player with one hand, accepts his return with the another, and pinches his nose shut with the third. The top 10 list of best trades in the history of the franchise remains virgin territory, while the worst-10 list provides for an overstuffed buffet of empty calorie choices. This article is a compendium of self-inflicted wounds suffered since the acquisition of the franchise by Kevin McClatchy. After the institution of the amateur draft in 1965 democratized (at least on paper) talent acquisition, a broken franchise, particularly an impoverished broken franchise, could right itself through a combination of smart trading, free-agent signings, and the rewards offered to losing teams by the draft. Over a long span lasting at least since the waning days of Barry Bonds as a Buc, the Pirates have consistently failed at all three.
Tom Gamboa was minding his own business as the first base coach of the Royals when he was jumped by a father-son team who attempted to beat him up, before the bonding pair themselves got a lesson in stomping by players. Ligue asserts Gamboa gave him the finger in response to some heckling. I don’t think that qualifies as ‘fighting words,’ or is really even relevant.
William Ligue Jr. did not get sent to jail last week. The judge instead sentenced him to 30 months of probation.
Judge Holt: “The violence that baseball players are exposed to comes from within. What fan has not seen a pitcher intentionally hurl a baseball at a player’s head at 90 miles per hour? Who has not seen a batter leave home plate headed for the pitcher’s mound bat in hand bent on mischief and mayhem?”
I understand what he means. And yet, the issue of on-field conflict is something baseball has struggled to control. Intent is difficult to determine when pitchers throw inside, and baseball’s tried to strike a balance between letting the game play itself out and deterring on-field confrontations. You see this balance every time an ump decides to warn both benches, attempting to stave off further beanings at the cost of dramatically changing where pitches and even game strategy can go.
This is a bad argument, though.