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Monthly archives: November 2002
Rupe a Dupe? (A Note
2002-11-27 23:16
Rupe a Dupe? (A Note from Epstein's Mother of a Pickup) Reportedly prepubescent (So what? He's 28. Get over it.) and newly-appointed Red Sox GM Theo Epstein made his first personnel move today. Was it the signing of free-agent star Jim Thome to fill the void at first? No. Was it to claim Neifi Perez off the waiver wires and juggle him and other ex-pat shortstop Rey Sanchez at second base? No. Was it to place Nomar Garciaparra on the DL in order to get ready for the regular season? No. It was Ryan Rupe, a man unceremoniously waived by the lowly Devil Rays. Was it just to get Red Sox fan's ulcers ready for the regular season? No, I think this could be a nice pickup for young Theo. (Was he even alive when Buckner missed the Mookie Ball? I'm only kidding.) Rupe is a big kid (27), who was hurried through three minor league levels in 18 games in parts of two seasons. He jumped from Double-A to the majors in 1999. It looked like a good decision in his first year but has turned sour ever since. I think this guy could blossom in the right atmosphere. With what the Sox have done with errant arms in the past few years, I wouldn't be surprised if he turned into a reliable end-of-rotation starter, which is all the Red Sox need with Martinez, Lowe, and Wakefield at the top of the order. This quiet pickup could be big if Rupe fulfills his potential. If not, at least the price is right.
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Fixing a Whole, IV
2002-11-27 22:44
Fixing a Whole, IV I received an email from the guys over at Elephants in Oakland, and they don't agree with my resolution on ticket prices. Here's what they had to say: We think you caved too early in your argument about baseball ticket prices, et al. And here's my response: Hi,
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Fixing a Whole, III
2002-11-27 13:03
Fixing a Whole, III For a quick list I introduced as "Just for fun", my 25 baseball boo-boos are generating a bit of email. A number of people are questioning my statement that Francisco Rodriguez's inclusion on the Angels' playoff roster was legal. Here's my response: Actually, the rule reads as follows (from Baseball Roster Central): Secondly, my first two items (Bud Selig and the media) have been at issue with some people. Here's a clarification: First, the second point has nothing to do with point 1. Rather it deals with major-league clubs being owned by corporations that also own large players in the media markets. Refer to this post if you are interested. I hope that clears things up a bit. By the way, no one has brought up the alleged dire financial state of all but-what was it?-three teams, which was such a looming problem just a few months ago during the labor negotiations. Are we that jaded as a society that we have already acknowlegded and accepted that this was just a bargaining tactic? I thought it was just me. Also, no one has had a problem with issue number 15 (I feel like John McLaughlin), Thom Brenniman and Steve Lyons: never again.
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Dog With a Bone? This
2002-11-27 11:51
Dog With a Bone? This NY Daily News story contends that the Phils are fixated on the three free agents that they are pursuing. The article theorizes that the Mets will end up losing to the Phils in the Tom Glavine turkey rival. It also quotes one baseball exec, who seems to think the Phils have gone stark raving mad: "No one knows how to respond where the Phillies are involved...They seem ready to go to great lengths to sign the people they think they need." I think that all of the Phils' transactions have to be viewed with a few things in mind. A) The Phils move into a new stadium in 2004. B) The Rolen fiasco was a rather large black eye for the team and drove away fans when the team was in need of garnering local support to begun with. C) The Phils have been making money hand-over-fist in the revenue sharing deal mostly because of... And D) the Phils have had only modest forays into free agency since some poor signees blew up in their faces in the '90s. Their management has acted as a small-market team for years. So every action that they take is to dig them out of the hole that they have created over the last 20 years. They must win back the fans to benefit from the windfall they will have in the new stadium. Seeking out high-profile free agents is the cheapest and fastest way to rectify the situation. It's disingenuous and will kill the team in four years, but the team doesn't care if it gets fannies in the seats in the next two years. Bell was a bit prohibitive, but $4.25 M per year is not that expensive if he turns out to be another Mikeirillo. Rey Ordonez was given $6.25 for 2003 by the Mets for heaven's sake. It is a bit more glaring a sum in these austere times, but with the Phils' Jack Benny-like frugality their coffers are teeming. Of course, as they pursue these free agents to the exclusion of all others-Why not pursue Alfonzo as well as Bell? Moyer and Maddux as well as Glavine-they drive up their price and tick off the other owners. They also in the process make up some questionable deals. Time will tell, how bad they may be, but the results may be registered on the balance sheet and not the field.
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I'm Telling Mom Chuck Bausman
2002-11-27 11:17
I'm Telling Mom Chuck Bausman of the Philadelphia Daily News is upset that some Phils games at Shea in 2003 were downgraded to "value" (read cheap) seats. Having grown up in Philly and lived in NYC, I love witnessing the City of Brotherly Love's inferiority complex in action as well as the Big Apple's insouciance in dealing with its neighbor. Philly reads volumes into how New York deals with it, and it's a non-issue for New York. I'm sure that the ticket prices were set by some blind pricing algorithm, not as "a well-intended slap" at Philly. Like the Mets would take in less money just to rib Philadelphia? Great fun.
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Crazy Tommy? II Neyer has
2002-11-27 10:54
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Crazy Tommy? The stakes have
2002-11-27 10:02
Crazy Tommy? The stakes have gone up in the Tom Glavine sweepstakes. The going price is now $45 M over 4 years. Who upped their ante you ask? Why Glavine himself of course. Baseball's version of Bob Barker sent his counterproposal to the Phillies, Mets, and Braves yesterday. I am left wondering why one of them doesn't drop out and pursue Greg Maddux. They are both 36. Though both are strong Hall-of-Fame candidates, Maddux has been a far better pitcher over his career (Maddux' park-adjusted ERA is 45% better than average and twice as good as Glavine's, which is only 22% above average). I would also submit that Maddux was a better pitcher in 2002 (BP's Support-Neutral Wins Above Replacement (SNWAR) favors Maddux 5.8 to 5.3). One last thing: if I were choosing between the two as far as which will be productive until and at age 40, I would have to go with Maddux. Glavine has had some average years mixed in with the great (e.g., 1994 and 1999). Maddux has been a superior pitcher every year since 1988, inclusive. The only advantage Glavine has is having won 20 games five times as opposed to two for Maddux. Given that wins have a great deal to do with luck, I wouldn't invest $45 M in Glavine without exploring Maddux as an option. I don't know what he's asking but can it be more than the Glavine auction?
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Ode to Joe: The Joe
2002-11-26 00:42
Ode to Joe: The Joe Morgan Chat Day The Universe Changed I know, the season's over and Joe's chats are no more until next spring. But... O friends, not these sounds! Or words to that effect. I have unearthed a Joe Morgan Chat Day from April 26. Why, you ask? Well, I am reminded of a quote by Erasmus, I believe. No, wait. It was Cliff Clavin. When asked why you drink cold beer on a hot day, he responded that it balances out your inner and outer temperatures-that's not the quote, wait for it. When asked why you drink cold beer on a cold day, Cliff queried, "What else are you going to with it?" Besides, I found an historical antecedent to Joe Morgan and I'm kvelling about it. It's Tycho Brahe, but before you say gesundheit, let me explain. Well, first here's Basil Exposition to explain what Joe Morgan Chat Day is all about. We (I'm schizophrenic and so am I) here at Mike's Baseball Rants love the Joe Morgan Chat Day. We love the Joe Morgan-he was one of our favorite players, a charter member of my beloved Wheeze kids. He was the greatest second baseman I ever had the pleasure to see play and had one of my favorite batting stances. As a baseball analyst he is the apogee of analysis in a post-modern world. His comments can be dead on are they can be supercalifragilisticexpialiwacky. He reaches his epiphanic apotheosis when he achieves dead-on wackiness. And, oh brother, does he ever in this chat session. I think I've found the perfect quote, pure Joe perfection. Anyway, back to our show. In 1572 a nova appeared in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It was so bright that it burned for two years and was visible in daylight. Wild explanations abounded. God was angry. The crystalline spheres that underpinned the universe were being destroyed. And those were the scholars of the day. Aristotelian cosmology held that the perfect and unchanging cosmos was divided into eight crystalline spheres that wheeled around the earth. The church adopted this view as it could be fitted to creationism. God was the creator and prime mover. The heavens were divided from the earth because of their curved movements. Everything on earth moved in straight lines, up and down or side-to-side. There were some problems. Ptolemy qualified the system to explain why certain planets (e.g. Mars) changed direction occasionally. You see, they were on mini-spheres within their main crystalline sphere. Never mind that it took over 80 over these mini-spheres to define the known universe. When calendar reform became an issue-why did the sun and moon not agree?-Copernicus developed a heliocentric (i.e., sun-centered) explanation. The earth was no longer the center of the universe nor was it stoically unchanging, but Copernican theory was not so earth-shattering (excuse the pun) as it seemed for it was just what the name implied, theory. It was not considered reality but a mathematical construct. At least that's what Copernicus meant it to be. He was a priest working at the pope's behest, for goodness sake. In 1573, a twenty-seven-year-old Dane named Tycho (i.e., Tygo latinized) Brahe published his theory regarding the pesky nova in a volume audaciously entitled The New Star. You see, there couldn't be a new star because the heavens were perfect and unchanging. Things could change and often did in the earth's realm, rainbows, aurora borealis, etc. Brahe claimed that the skies were not unchanging at all and he could prove it by observation, thereby disproving Aristotle in the real, and not theoretical, world for the first time. Brahe had studied the skies above nightly from about the age of sixteen using highly accurate tools of his own making (the telescope would not be available until Galileo made his fortune selling them to local merchants, who would use them to identify incoming ships and set the market prices accordingly in advance). The King of Denmark rewarded Brahe for his masterstroke with his own personal island fiefdom, a place called Hven. Brahe spent the next four years studying the skies nocturnally and refining and recalibrating his instruments. Since the telescope was not yet invented, Brahe would use the naked eye and tools like giant quadrants to record reams of figures and calculations. Some reports held that Brahe's right eye became larger because of this. Brahe was rewarded for his hard work with another cosmic phenomenon, a comet. He proved by the change in parallax that the comet was further away than the moon, on the closest crystalline sphere, and that it was moving in an elliptical trajectory (well, he recorded it in his data but it wasn't discovered until later). So what happened to all the crystalline spheres it should have been collided with? Wrote Brahe: There are not really any spheres in the Heavens...it seems futile to undertake this labour of trying to find a real sphere, to which a comet may be attached...[Comets] cannot by any means be proved to be drawn round by any sphere." Doesn't that sound just like Joe? Brahe adopted the view that the sun still revolved around the earth but that everything but everything else besides the moon revolved around the sun. He never resolved the issue of the elliptical paths nor the reason for the planets staying in the sky without crystalline spheres. He spent the rest of his life gazing at the sky and recording his data. He also acted a bit too draconian and ticked off too many people causing him to be ousted from Hven and forcibly re-located to Prague. Brahe, besides being the godfather of astronomy ("Say it loud. I'm Danish and I'm proud."), was perhaps the progenitor of the mad scientist stereotype. While at school, he got into a fierce argument with another student over, of all things, mathematics. They mistakenly dueled in the twilight to settle their differences, and Brahe ended up losing the tip of his nose. He wore a metal prosthetic nose for the rest of his life (as They Might Be Giants always said, "Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads."). While taking up residence on his feudal island, he built underground observatories, employed a dwarf as a jester, and domesticated a moose, who would later die after an intoxicated fall down a flight of stairs. Brahe would eventually die from, or so was for centuries claimed, holding his bladder at a dinner party. After his body was exhumed in 1996, it was found that the cause of his death was apparently mercury poisoning, possibly from overexposure to his astronomy instruments. The two questions he asked were very soon answered by two other men. A math professor in Padua spent the next 18 years trying to answer the second question, that of heavenly bodies being suspended in space without crystalline spheres. He timed balls in motion and found that they fell they accelerated at a constant rate, 32 feet per second squared. He also surmised that the reason that when a ball was dropped, it didn't fall to the west of the point they were dropped from was that the earth was like a ship at sea in that to the passengers the movement was not apparent. This explanation destroyed Aristotle's idea that secular and heavenly motion were different and introduced a mathematical explanation to the universe. The next thing he did drove this man from academic obscurity to a household name. He pointed a telescope at the sky and recorded in a little book called The Starry Messenger that Jupiter had moons while orbiting the sun. He proposed the logical theory that the earth itself could too be just a planet revolving around the sun. As if this weren't enough, he had the gall to insist in writing that not only was scientific investigation separate from the Bible, and therefore didn't gainsay what was contained therein, he then revealed his preference for sensory-based investigation. He traveled to Rome in 1624 to insist on total scientific freedom even as he was told that these new ideas had to introduced slowly so as not to cause Catholics to totally lose faith. Finally, he published The Dialogue of the Two Chief Systems of the World, in which he argued that opposition to the Copernican system was spurious. It became a sensation, and he became famously tried, placed under house arrest for life for heresy, and dead in 1642. He was, of course, Galileo Galilei, and he was the father of scientific thought. The other question, that of elliptical paths, was answered by a student and assistant of Brahe's, who inherited all of his voluminous data upon his death (as well as his post as Imperial Mathematician). In a few years of studying Brahe's figures, Johan Kepler found the universal laws that governed the "clockwork" cosmos. Kepler noted that Mars, as it traveled in its elliptical path, got slower the farther it was from the sun. At his wedding in 1612, he noted that the wine merchants measured the amount of wine remaining in a barrel with a dipstick held diagonally across the barrel. What he found curious was the fact that the same dipstick was used no matter the shape of the barrel. Surely that couldn't be a precise means to measure the contents. He spent four years on and off studying the measurement of win barrels (by the way, the dipstick did work), and the means that he employed he would then use for astronomical calculations. This led him to his first three laws (Planets move in ellipses with the Sun at one focus, the radius vector describes equal areas in equal times, and the squares of the periodic times are to each other as the cubes of the mean distances). These laws informed Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity as he was looking for the underlying causes leading to Brahe and Kepler's observations. So there you have it. Like Joe Morgan, Tycho Brahe made observations nightly for years on end. Like Joe, Brahe's avocation, or rather obsession, was related to his occupation-astronomy for the Imperial Mathematician Brahe and baseball for the baseball analyst Morgan. In both cases the points of view were based on the prevailing dogma of the day. In both, their theories were proven wrong eventually (or at least Joe's will be). Also, in both cases, they left large volume of data that was used to inform and advance the research of the day. To that end, let us delve into this Joe Morgan Chat Day or as Joe would say, "It's time to talk baseball.": The Good David (New Orleans): Hello Joe, wadda you know? Read your article on the all time greats yesterday. First, do you feel your own statistics would be better/worse/same if you were playing today. Second, I got as excited as anyone when Mark McGwire stepped to the plate, but an all time great? Nothing but home runs, Joe. Speaking of your recent great players, ever heard of Tony Gwynn?? Thanks Joe. Joe Morgan: Would you compare Gwynn to Mays? My numbers would be better, but that doesn't mean I'd be a better player. As for McGwire, a first baseman's job is to produce runs. If you look, he got on base a lot. Any time you hit close to 600 homers and drive in a lot of runs and are an intimidator at the player, that qualifies you. [Mike: Good insight on the 2002 version of little Joe. Right in the money re. The Gwynn vs. McGwire debate. By the way, McGwire had a .394 on-base percentage, a ,588 slugging average, and his resulting .963 OPS was 68% better than average over his career (with league and park adjustments), good for a tie for eleventh place all-time. Gwynn's OBP was close (.388), but his slugging was 125+ points lower (.459), and his OPS (.847) was only 32% better than average, very good to be sure but not in the top 100 all-time.] Bryon(Charlotte): What's your opinion on the Situation with Omar's book, revealing that Albert Belle's bat is corked? I know its wrong but isn't there a written rule about what happen in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse? Joe Morgan: I agree with you 100 percent. I'm sure there are things Omar did he wouldn't like the public to know. It should not have come out. [Mike: Right, Vizquel continually proves that he is one of the most conceited and narcissistic players in MLB. How he ever got a book deal in the first place is remarkable. By the way, how do we know that his revelations are true? A few spicy prevarications would -and did-help sell his uninteresting bio.] Kyle, Winneconne WI: Do you think that Greg Maddux can bounce back from his rocky outing last night and fully recover from his back injury to be the Greg Maddux we've seen in the past? Joe Morgan: He pitched well before last night's bad game. It could have just been a bad day. The back becomes an easy excuse. But he had won a few games already. No one said anything about his back before. I'm sure his back will bother him off and on. It's something he'll have to deal with. [Mike: Right. Even great pitchers have a bad outing once in a while. The outing they are discussing is a 10-run (6 earned), 4-2/3 inning, 5-walk outing that resulted in an 11-5 loss to Arizona. He had one other outing that was that bad all year, a 7-run (all earned), two-run effort on September 13 against Florida in a 13-3 loss.] cj_chitown: Do you know what a knuckle-curve is, such as the one thrown by Mike Mussina? I thought knuckle balls had no spin. If a knuckle ball has no spin, how could it also be a curve ball? Joe Morgan: For a knuckler, you get as many fingertips on it to take the spin off. For a knuckle-curve, you put two fingers on top, and the ball rotates forward. It doesn't rotate as fast, but it does a little. And the ball drops. [Mike: I thought Charles Johnson left Chitown after the 2000 season. I'm glad that Joe was able to help him with the definition of the pitches he has to catch.] Darius(Mpls): Joe, I was wondering why you think Mike Piazza doesn't want to leave the catcher position, Is it a comfort thing? You would think he could prolong his career playing another position Joe Morgan: He's a catcher. To be a good one, it takes a certain mentality. Just like being second baseman takes a certain mentality. He has geared his whole career around catching. It's great he's a catcher. It separates him from everybody else. He may be the greatest hitting catcher of all time. If he played outfield or first base, he wouldn't be the best. He has dedicated himself to catching, and I think that's great. [Mike: Is that Darius from the of the Minneapolis Mxyztplks? I heard he shortened his last name. Anyway, right you are, Joe. Well, it's hard to predict what his stats would look like without the constant wear and tear from the position of ignorance, but he's entitled to his opinion.] Syed Omar (Malaysia): Who have the most devestating pitch you ever faced and what pitch was it? Joe Morgan: I still think the fastball is the toughest pitch to hit, and there have been a lot of variations. Sometimes, a sinking one (like Kevin Brown) or a rising one (like Koufax threw) or a splitter (by Bruce Sutter) are extremely tough. Koufax, Ryan and Gibson had the best fastballs I faced. [Mike: OK, but I'm a little disappointed Lefty Carlton's slider isn't in there.] Bash Brother Marques (Mayaguez, PR): I think Jose Canseco can still be productive, inability to field aside. Why doesnt a team such as the Anaheim Angels - who are fielding lite-hitting Scott Spiezio - sign him and make him play first base, if not DH? Anyone can play first base. Joe Morgan: He was with the Angels last spring, and they released. He was with Montreal, and they released him. I'm a big fan of his, and he did a good job with the White Sox last year. But obviously those teams don't feel the same way we do. [Mike: Mayaguez? Probably a fan of Los Indios. As far as Canseco is concerned, I'm not sure if the guy can play first base, and not just anyone can, look at Frank Thomas. He's never played first in a major-league game. But Jose Canseco sure can hit. He had an OPS that was 18% percent above an average player (park- and league-adjusted) with Chicago in 2001. His .832 OPS as a DH was good for fourth for DHs with over 200 at-bats (behind Manny Ramirez, Edgar Martinez, Ellis Burks, and Ruben Sierra, not bad company). I never understood what the Expos were doing with him, but he could very easily have been a useful DH somewhere in 2002. I guess that his defensive liabilities, age, and rep had kind of marginalized his career. Now, whether or not he's a Hall-of-Famer...] miguel: cres que el picheo de atlanta pueda mejorar o se debilitara hasta final de temporada Joe Morgan: No se. [Miguel: Quien es mas macho? Joe Morgan es. Creo que el es fresco como un pepino (I think he's as cool as a cucumber). (By the way, Miguel asked if Joe thought that the pitching in Atlanta would improve or worsen for the remainder for the season. "I don't know (No Se)" is a perfectly valid response.)] The Bad Matt (Dallas): Hi Joe! Judging by the start they are off to, what do you think the Rangers are going to do with Pudge Rodriguez if they continue on a downward spiral? Joe Morgan: I would think if they keep going down and the team doesn't improve, they may try to trade him if he's willing. I still think he's a very valuable part of that club. [Mike: Pudge is valuable but A-Rod isn't? Pudge is valuable if he's healthy and he hasn't been for over 120 games since 1999. He was a bad bet to be healthy for the whole year this year and wasn't (108 games).] Peter(Cleveland): Liked your article on the great players playing today. I just thought Maddux was an even greater pitcher because he does so well without intimidating hitters. Isn't it easier to be "great" with great stuff? Joe Morgan: No. It's not easy to do anything. Then what is greatness? You have to be blessed with ability to be a great player. It's not just working hard. You have to have a certain amount of ability. You are missing the point. My point was all-time greatest pitchers. I would choose Koufax, Gibson and those guys first. The guy who reminds me of them is Johnson. That's the way I view it. Others may view things differently. [Mike: Joe, you had me until Koufax. Koufax and Gibson were great, but it's a difficult argument to say that they were the greatest of all time. Both were helped a good deal by their circumstances (Koufax by his stadium and Gibson by his era). Patricio (Santiago, Chile): Do you think the Mariners are better than last year?? Do you think they need another power hitter?? Joe Morgan: I already said they are a better team, but they may not win 116 games. And everybody can use another power hitter. They have enough to win the championship. That doesn't mean they will. [Mike: This is an unfortunate prediction. Hindsight being 20-20, we all know now that the Mariners had one of the worst dropoffs in history. But could they have looked like a better team a the beginning of the year? The added Ruben Sierra and replaced David Bell with Jeff Cirillo. Joel Piniero would enjoy his first full year in the majors. Sure, Aaron Sele had left but James Baldwin was tabbed to replace him. Who could have known that Ichiro, Garcia, and Olerud would have severe dropoffs in the second half? Who could know that Edgar would miss over a third of the season, that Mikeameron would implode, that Paul Abbott would go from serviceable to awful, or that Bret Boone would have a terrible first half after an MVP-claiber season last year? Well, I submit that it was a poor prediction, yet one that many made at the beginning of the year. First, the Mariners had key players (Olerud, Martinez, Sierra, McLemore, Cirillo, Boone, Wilson, and Moyer) in important roles. The likelihood of all of them surviving the season without injury or a declining performance was low. Second, Boone was due for a re-adjustment after an anomalous career year. This year was arguably the second best of his career and it was dwarfed by last year's effort. Ichiro was still an unknown commodity: the league adjusted and so far he has not. Howeverm pitching is what killed them. Baldwin and Abbott were choices for players to built a rotation around. When Garcia faded in the second half, there wasn't enough of a staff left to get them back on the A's-Angels level. Joe admits that last year's record would be hard to attain for the 2002 club, but still contends that they improved. I don't see any evidence that that was the case even when things looked rosy in April.] Joe (Pittsburgh): Hi Joe. I believe you and I were the only people in America to think so at the beginning of the year, but I felt and still feel the Pirates are for real. They will get healthy, Kendall will start hitting, Ramirez and Jack Wilson are poised for career years, the bullpen is very deep, and Kris Benson will boost the starters. Do you still believe in them? Thanks Joe. Joe Morgan: If I believed in them before they won a game, I guess I still do now that they are 13-7. It's early, but they have the potential to surprise a lot of people. They got off to a good start, and that's what they needed to do. [Mike: This is a rather unfortunate prediction given that the Pirates ended up 72-89 (59-82 from that point on). I don't know what he saw in this team after 2001. They had a staff ERA over 5. Their best starting pitcher in 2001, Todd Ritchie, had an ERA just shy of 4.50, and he was off to the White Sox. Kip Wells replaced him well, and rookie Josh Fogg was dependable (he was great in April 1.43 ERA), but that's all they had. Their bullpen was a revelation holding the staff ERA down at 4.23. On the offensive side, the still had the incredibly underrated Brian Giles and apparently a budding star in Aramis Ramirez. It was difficult to foresee Ramirez's unfortunate decline in 2002, but he did have three trials prior to 2001 with numbers more in line with this year's. John Vander Wal's bat was gone, but they would have Craig Wilson for an entire season in 2002. They also had great defense up the middle with Jack Wilson and 2002 addition Pokey Reese. But how much better could this team possibly be. They batted .247 with a .706 OPS in 2001. This year was about the same (.244 and .700).] jake(york): If the White Sox pitching can live up to its potential,and they keep racking up runs,are they a possible World Series contender? Joe Morgan: They will definitely hit. The question is pitching and how good it is. They are a contender, but you have to have the pitching. It's just too early to tell as far as their pitching is concerned. [Mike: Well, they had good young pitching but it still needs some time to develop. Each pitcher almost to a man took a slight step back this year. All except Kip Wells, unfortunately he was on the Pirates. The loss of veterans David Well and James Baldwin seemed to put maybe too much pressure on the kids. The ERA remained constant between the two years (4.58 and 4.53). 2003 should be a very interesting year for their staff. Their offensive numbers were almost identical between the two years (.269 batting average and .785-.787 OPS). They were third in runs and fourth in OPS in 2002-that part of the prediction was OK.] Chris (NYC): I'm a diehard Mets fan and have been dissapointed over their defense especialy with ordonez. Is this just a fluke or should i be getting worried? Joe Morgan: Defense is like hitting. You go into slumps in both. Defense is more mental than anything. But like hitting, you have to go back to the fundamentals and start over. I think he will straighten himself out. Before the season is over, he will be playing very good defense. [Mike: "Defense is more mental than anything."-What? Defense is positioning, knowing what the pitcher is throwing and where the batter tends to hit the ball, quickness, speed (using the typical analyst definition of both), good hands, good footwork, and a good arm). There is a mental aspect, but how can it be more mental than anything? "Slumps"? You go into "slumps" defensively when you get hurt or old? Ordonez made 19 errors this year. In 12 more games in 1999, he made only 4. That's quite a difference. His range still is pretty good, but a) he was never that great, b) he is 31 and will only get worse, c) can't hit worth a dime, and d) made $6 M this year and will make $6.25 M next year. That's quite a package. Oh, and as far as "playing very good defense", has he ever been very good? Maybe for the first couple years of his career. He's been pretty good since but see a) through d) above.] Ryan (Clovis, CA): Joe, in the heyday of your rivalry with the Dodgers in the '70's, who was the player on their team that garnered the most respect from the Reds? Thanks, and keep up the good work! Joe Morgan: We respected all the players. They had a lot of good ones; it wasn't just one. They had Garvey, Cey, Smith, Lopes, Baker. They had a lot of players who could beat you. There wasn't one player we feared more than another. [Mike: There's the decisive Joe I love. Just offer an opinion. By the way, I would say that Reggie Smith was the class of this field. An extremely underrated player.] JOE IS MY HERO!!!!! (Morganville): What team would you consider the nest of all time, besides the 75 reds of course. Joe Morgan: It's hard to do that. General consensus used to be the '27 Yankees. For some reason, when the Yankees won 114 games, they wanted to compare them to us. When Seattle won 116, nobody thought they were the best. I don't think you can pick the best anymore. Times have changed. [Mike: Yeah, that was me. Joe, times are always a-changing. Just offer an opinion. They're free. I prefer the Yankees of the late 1930s, but hey, that's me.] Timothy(San Antonio): Why doesn't Art Howe get credit as a great manager that others receive? Joe Morgan: Is he a great manager? And what is one? He was a teammate of mine and does a tremendous job. But he hasn't won a championship. I don't know what you consider a great manager. But I think he's done a nice job with the A's. I can't say he's a great manager, though. If you want to, you can. [Mike: Thanks, Joe. So winning a championship is the be-all and end-all. Gene Mauch never won a championship, and he was a tremendous manager. Actually, I do agree with his assessment of Howe though.] MIKE(Knoxville, TN): The Expos are in first place. The fans are averaging less than 6,000! IF they make the playoffs, will the fans comes in doves? It would look down-right stupid to see them in the playoffs with a half-empty stadium. What's your thoughts about the Expos's chances this year? Joe Morgan: The Expos won't draw people. It's a hockey town. They have some good players and are off to a good start. Their confidence is rising. Will they win anything? I'd say it's too early where they would finish. [Mike: Boston's a hockey town. New York is a hockey town. Detroit's a hockey town. So what? Montreal is a town with fans smart enough not to support a franchise that does not care about them.] Chris (Sugar Land): Does Paul Konerko's hot start mean he is ready to join the ranks of Jeff Bagwell, Todd Helton, and Jason Giambi amongst baseball's top first baggers? Joe Morgan: I've been a fan of Konerko's, even when he was a catcher. And he had potential with his bat. But compared to the other three, he has to wait. They have put up great numbers every year. Konerko, though, has a chance to be a very good first baseman. [Mike: Again Joe wants his young players brimming with years of experience. A great player can and very often will establish his greatness right out of the box. That said, I don't consider Konerko a great player, but I do disagree with Joe's assessment of his chances for being very good. He already is very good. He's been very good since his first year as a starter in 1999. He has hit for power and a decent average, and he gets on base. His OPS has consistently been in the .850 range since 1999. He's not as good as the three Chris mentioned an while you're at it throw in Thome, Sweeney, Palmeiro, and Delgado. Konerko is in the second tier with Olerud, Klesko, Sexson, McGriff, Derrek Lee, and Huff (when he plays first), very fine players all.] Jeff (Lexington,KY): Joe, I'm a huge Bonds/Giants fan, so I want to know what you think about Barry playing through this hamstring injury. If you were Dusty Baker, would you put him on the 15 day DL? Joe Morgan: I don't think they want to put him on the DL. He was in a groove, although he's not swinging as well now. If Barry feels he can play, Dusty should let him play. It's Barry's decision. He feels he can work his way through it. [Mike: Well, you have to weigh Bonds' desire to play with the long-term goals of the team. Barry Bonds is not the only person making this decision, there are trainers, coachers, the manager, etc. Apparently, they did the right thing with the season that Bonds and the Giants had, but I'm sure it wasn't Bonds' decision in a vacuum.] John Ondrey (Minneapolis, MN): How can Selig say even if the Twins keep winning that it wouldn't change the contraction issue? What is your take on this issue? Joe Morgan: They don't even have to win; they just have to compete and not be contracted. I don't think any team is in danger except the Expos. If the fans show support, I don't think they will be eliminated. Montreal won't show it wants the team. Right now they don't even care about baseball. [Mike: Well, the point is now moot, at least until the current CBA expires, but I disagree. Selig said repeatedly that a team's on-field performance had nothing to do with contraction. It was their long-term fiscal state that concerned the powers that be. If the fans supported a team with a stadium lease that prevented them from being viable, they would go on the chopping block. That is, if you believe that contraction was seriously being considered by the owners and not just another chip in the negotiation process. Either way, fan support only entered it into the equation indirectly.] The Ugly-Like a man with a prosthetic nose Scottyk77 (kc): Mr. Morgan, I recently read your article, 5 tools of a leadoff man. Why wasn't On Base Percentage at the top of the list. I also noticed that speed was. You can steal first base you know. Joe Morgan: Just read the article again. I explained it in there why speed is important. On-base percentage only gets you on base. Speed does much more. Mark McGwire on first doesn't disrupt the defense. Sluggers have the highest on-base percentage, but all they can do is stand on first. Speed puts pressure on the defense. [Mike: I don't know what to say. Let's just first list his 5 tools: 1. Speed "On-base percentages are overrated for a leadoff hitter"?!? By whom? On-base percentage has been shown to be the best stat to correlate with runs scored. And what do you want from your leadoff hitter but to score runs. And why are speed and stealing bases both listed? Speed is very important. If you have a leadoff hitter who can steal, go from first to third, and break up the double play, that's great. But if he can't get to first, what good is it. Like Tycho Brahe seeing the evidence in front of his eyes for years that the Aristotelian universe was wrong, Morgan has watched the game for years and still cannot see the forest for the trees.] Nirvana-the best Joe quote ever Adam(NYC): Joe, I respect your opinion, but you can't compare Barry Bonds to the likes of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, as I heard you a couple of weeks ago, for starters those three gentlemen are winners, and althought I agree with you about the Ted Williams comparison, Barry Bonds can't be put on that level at least until he carries his team out of the division series, which he's had a chance to do plenty times and came back empty Joe Morgan: First of all, you have to understand baseball. It's tougher in baseball for one player to lead a team to a championship. Bonds hasn't won a championship; I'm talking about individual ability. Teams won't let Barry hit in a lot of situations. One of the weaknesses of baseball is you can stop the best players if you want to, just by walking them and putting them on first base. You couldn't take the ball out of the hands of Jordan, Bird and Magic in basketball, and that's why they won titles. [Mike: That's not it yet. It's the setup. I just want to say that baseball differs from the others in that the defense holds the ball and can neutralize someone on the offense in certain ways. In the other sports offenses hold the ball and may decide to neutralize a defensive player by ignoring him, i.e., trying to score against a weaker defender. And before we approach perfection, I just want to say that I do not see it as a weakness but rather part of what separates baseball from the other sports. Sorry to interrupt.] Vern: Joe, I disagree that baseball's weakness is that you can stop the best players by walking them. That proves that baseball is the ultimate team sport in that a single player, no matter how dominant, cannot win a championship himself. That's a good thing, no? Besides, walking Bonds is not the same thing as stopping him. Walks are bad for pitchers, good for hitters. The Giants would be better if Barry walked every at-bat - think of the RBI opportunities for Kent and Sanders. Joe Morgan: If he walks in every at-bat, who will drive in the other guys? Kent left more guys on base than anyone last year. He should have driven in 150. Part of my reason for doing the column and to broadcast is to help educate the fans. Maybe I'm not doing a good job. You have to understand you can take the best player out of the game. If they walked him every time, he wouldn't have hit 73 homers. Kent would have to drive in 250. That is a weakness, that the stars can be taken out. If they could keep the ball away from Jordan for 48 minutes, how good would he be? The education continues. If they can't do their thing, how good would they be? [Mike: Lordy Mama, sing the Blues. Educate us, Joe. "The education continues"-that's rich. Pearls of wisdom before us swine. First, I have to agree that if the opposition walked Bonds every time up, it would be nearly impossible for him to hit 73 home runs. Kent drove in 106 runs in 2001 batting mostly in the four hole. Bonds batted 3rd. Aurilia 2nd. Calvin Murray and Marvin Bernard led off to the tune of a .315 (!) on-base percentage in the leadoff spot. (But they do have speed.) A motley crew batted fifth (including Snow, Rios, Santiago, Galarraga, Rios, Vander Wal, and Eric Davis) and managed only a .714 OPS. The rest of their offense was about average (except for the #8 spot which had a .756 OPS, the best outside or Aurilia, Bonds, and Kent). The Giants had a three-man offense basically. Could Kent have driven in 250? Of the 607 at-bats Kent had in 2001, 307 were with the bases empty (remember Bonds' 73 HRs). He did hit 13 home runs with the bases empty. He did have 132 opportunities with a man on 1st only (Bonds after a walk?) and he hit .38 with 3 HRs, 11 RBI, and a .950 Ops. The only glitch in his armor were his 65 at-bats with men on first and second (Aurlia and Bonds?). He batted .185 with 1 HR, 11 RBI, and a .561 OPS. One could offer an explanation that the opposition knew that they had to get Kent in this situation and then it was smooth sailing. Let's just say for the sake of argument that he batted .370 with a 1.122 OPS, double the actual, in this situation. Even if we double his RBI, it would only put him at 117. 250 seems a bit farfetched. Now as to the argument that the opposition took Bonds out of the game by walking him, Bonds scored his usual 120+ runs in 2001. Since 1993 Bonds has scored in the 120 range in each of his full seasons. (Bonds dropped to 117 this year, but did miss 19 games.) So it didn't hamper his scoring. As far as his driving in runs, his career high was 137 in 2001. San Fransisco ended up 10th in the majors in runs scored with no one leading off, great hitters batting 2 through 4, and mediocrity from there on. That seems pretty good to me.] Joe, beautiful divine spark, etc. [Note: the basis for the Brahe research was James Burke's wonderful The Day the Universe Changed television series and book.]
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Fixing a Whole, II Regarding
2002-11-26 00:03
Fixing a Whole, II Regarding #13 on my list of baseball woes, Ticket prices. I received the following email from Scott A. McConnell: I really enjoy your blog, however I think you are completely wrong when you Towit I responded: Thanks for the email and for keeping me honest. You are correct. Ticket prices themselves have not risen significantly for the past 50 years, and I was being imprecise in saying so. I am familiar with the Zimbalist research and it is very compelling. What I meant (and this is based on the three stadia in my vicinity Vets, Shea, and Yankee) was that the entire baseball experience soup, or rather parking, to nuts was too expensive.
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Fixing a Whole Peter Gammons
2002-11-25 14:25
Fixing a Whole Peter Gammons writes that there are 25 things wrong with baseball. My first reaction was, "That's all?" After reading it, I am left wondering if Peter Gammons actually watches the game of baseball or just sits in back rooms schmoozing GMs. Those are the "people who care about baseball", to whom he refers. I do agree with his intro: One thing the National Football League does much better than Major League Baseball is address conventional thinking and tradition and make annual changes to better the sport, and the business. Baseball has had trouble differentiating between tradition and traditional thinking. But from there it's all down hill (J.D. Souther?). Here are his 25 venal baseball sins-for each of which Bud Selig will have to spent 25 years in Montreal as punishment-and my reactions to each: 1. Teams that allow public relations to dictate personnel and organizational decisions. That's his number one? It goes without saying. No baseball exec will admit that he allowed PR to rule a decision, but it is an entertainment business, and it needs to attract the public via its relationships with them. It's a balancing act. Some teams do it better than others. Some do it more wisely than others. And some have a little more luck than others. It's not an exact science however. The Phillies for example have ignored (quality) free agents for years, and the results are an inferior product and poor fan support. They are attempting to lure back that fan base with free agent signings in anticipation of moving into a new stadium in 2004. The deals are a bit overly generous, but with their frugality over the years and their market size, they can afford it. The long-term deals may be unwise in and of themselves especially in this off-season's baseball economy, but if they help lure fans back to the stadium, the Phils may be able to swallow them with ease. One could argue that if the Phils had made wise investments in the past (Danny Tartabull?) and fielded a quality product all along, they wouldn't be in a position where they had to create a buzz to entice the fans back. But as David St. Hubbins once said, "That's nit-picking, isn't it?" 2. The notion that a team absolutely has to have a closer... This is a matter of strategy. At times having a Dennis Eckersley on your staff makes sense. At other times, employing a bullpen by committee is the way to go. A team that designates a player to be the closer when it is inappropriate to do so, will pay for the poor decision. It boils down to how well a team evaluates its talent and uses that talent to its fullest. However, I wouldn't call it a problem. By the way, Beane traded for the ever-average Billy Koch. The A's reliance on him hasn't helped of late. 3. No-trade clauses. No-trade clauses have been a bit of a sticky wicket of late with a couple of high-profile trades being held up and even dropped because of them. He quotes a GM who calls them "extortion licenses." Basically, this is on the list because of Gammons frequent hobnobbing with the GMs. A no-trade clause is just a concession-some would say a sop-given to a player to retain his services. No one holds a gun to the GMs head to force him to offer a no-trade clause. Likewise, the owners have negotiated the so-called "five-and-ten" rule, which states that no player with five years with his current team and ten years in total cannot be traded without his consent. The rule applied to both Williams and Walker in the failed Colorado-Arizona trade, but they also may have no-trade clauses stipulated in their contracts. The idea was to reward players for their long service and loyalty or to assure free agents that the deal they are signing will not change without their consent. The GMs can stop offering no-trade clauses but will have to make it up to the players with higher salaries (well, maybe not in this economy). How would you feel if you were told that your company has traded you to a sister company in Cleveland and you have to pick up stakes and move, now! Oh, and you have no say in the matter. There are tons of these incentives built into contracts: loans, bonuses, gifts to charities, deferred payments, etc. Why not stop offering achievement-based incentives (All-Star game appearances, coming in 7th in MVP voting, etc.)? When you sign A-Rod to a $25 M-per-year contract, it's understood that the expectation is that he will perform at the highest level. All of these incentives are used by creative GMs to acquire and retain talent. None are just given out as the quoted GM states. They are part of the negotiation process. Good GMs use them well; bad ones complain to Gammons about them. 4. American League teams that bunt before the seventh inning. In the 1132 games played during the 2002 season, there were 262 bunts in the AL before the seventh inning. Do they really constitute such a large problem for the sport? He goes on to quote a GM who supports the idea of an automatic bunt given that the extra out you lose lessens your chance of scoring. Well, that's a GM with a firm grasp for the obvious. Bunts lessen the chance for the big inning. When used properly and executed well in the right situation, they help increase the odds of scoring one run. Overuse of any strategy is bad, but it's especially bad with the bunt because even when successful it costs you an out. Good managers know when to use this strategy, and bad ones don't. Beside, for the last four seasons bunts per plate appearance are at a historic low. They are almost 50% lower than they were in 1978 and about half of what they were in 1946. This is a non-issue. 5. That baseball allows pennants to be decided by minor leaguers. I agree that it is a bit unfair to allow September call-ups to affect the result of a pennant race, but what's the alternative? No September call-ups? If you allow just the non-contenders to recall players from the minors in the last month of the season, then they get an unfair advantage. If you have no call-ups, then teams will be unable to transition jobs to young players in anticipation of the next season without cutting the veteran he is replacing. Getting to see young players in actual major-league games is invaluable for teams evaluating their prospects for the upcoming season. This situation is not ideal, but I think that it's the best solution possible right now. 6. "While we're at it," adds one AL executive, "how about enforcing the rules on transactions? First, let me say that no rules were broken when Francisco Rodriguez joined the Angels in the playoffs. He replaced a player on the 60-day DL, which the rules state is OK. The problem is not in enforcing the rules but in the wording of the rules themselves. The rules should stipulate that the player that is being replaced must play during the season, or even better after the All-Star game, prior to getting injured. As the rule currently stands, a team cam promote a player on the minor-league DL to get the extra spot for the playoffs. No one wants to see a player being played out of position to fill in for a player injured after August 31. But by the same token, no one wants another ringer brought up just prior to the playoffs. Just close that loophole. 7. Players who slide into first base. Yeah, it's dumb, but isn't this just a pet peeve. 8. "The entire Montreal situation continues to embarrass baseball," offers one executive. This is the first item that belongs on the list. What MLB is doing with this franchise, its players, its staff, and its fans is deplorable. Of course, the GM-minded Gammons is just concerned with potential trades that may be a conflict of interest. 9. Meaningless steals of third base. "Meaningless steals", isn't that redundant? Who cares? 10. Empty dugouts during close games. Yeah, another pet peeve. Who cares? 11. One NL GM asks why have a tie game when rain is an issue? Why not just keep the rule, and just play the game in its entirety as soon as possible, even if it forces a (gasp!) doubleheader? 12. The best-of-five Division Series. Right. Go to seven games and add a few doubleheaders during the year. They say they cannot add the extra two games without shortening the schedule. So why did we have to wait four days between the league championship series and the World Series this year? 13. The stigma against right-handed pitchers under 6-foot-1. This is a problem? Kind of like MLB's Stupendous Scenarios calling a season a moment. Besides, who cares? It gets back to evaluating talent and doing it well or not. 14. Traditionalist baseball thinking that continues to draft and sign far more high school than college players. See 13. The smart GMs have already figured this out. 15. Speaking of scouting: Why do so many teams hire friends or enthusiasts based on how little they can pay them, to determine whom they draft and sign and build their organizations? Again bad organizations make bad decisions. It's not really an endemic problem with the sport. 16. The fact that the Gold Gloves Awards are handed to three outfielders... True, but the awards are a joke anyway. Who cares? Why not define the MVP award to get rid of the annual egg baseball has to remove from its face. What about the Gold Glove Rafael Palmeiro won in 1999 for playing 28 games at first base? 17. Teams not taking infield practice, at least four times a week. Heaven forefend!?! Who cares? 18. Lack of change in the arbitration process. What change? Arbitration was an owner-proposed compromise that they negotiated with the players years ago. Would you rather have every player become a free agent after his first year? 19. Armor on hitters. The whole hits batsmen situation stinks and should by addressed. First, why are players allowed to erase the back line of the box and why are they not required to stay within the box? Eckstein is one to talk. He doesn't even avoid being hit. He just turns into the ball to get a free pass. As far as body armor: first, they should be more strict in allowing players to wear the stuff. If a player does need it for medical reasons, let him wear it but don't compensate him for being hit on it. Just don't count it as part of his equipment. If he gets hit on his prosthetic, then the ball is dead and the ump makes a ball-strike call. He is allowed to protect against injury but is not unfairly compensated for the protection. 20. The notion that a leadoff hitter has to be fast. Brian Downing figured this out a while ago. Again, how it is a problem is beyond me. If a team cannot properly evaluate its talent, it's their own problem not the sport's. 21. National League managers who intentionally walk the eighth hitter. Again this is a strategy that should not be overused. Oh, and who cares? 22. Radar-gun readings determining a pitcher's worth. So now all of baseball's problems boil down to managers not knowing when to employ a given stratagem or GMs not being able to evaluate talent. See 15. 23. "Uniforms," says one AL executive, "that aren't uniform. Who cares? Teams have always tried to spruce things up to draw fans and now to sell merchandising. (see 1916 Giants and satin uniforms for night games). 24. One National League GM insists "we need stricter consequences for an intentional walk. Should an intentional walk advance all baserunners? Fans should be allowed to enjoy Barry Bonds more, even if it beats us." A) The only alternatives that remotely make sense are to outlaw the intentional walk or (as Neyer proposed) to reward the recipient with two bases to make the defense think twice before so freely issuing them. I think no change is the best answer because... B) Aside from Barry Bonds, intentional walks are down. Here are the totals since they started recording intentional walks in 1955: Year BB IBB % IBB TPA IBB/TPA R R/TPA 1955 9044 722 7.98% 95025 0.76% 11068 0.1165 1956 8997 783 8.70% 95231 0.82% 11031 0.1158 1957 8167 740 9.06% 95386 0.78% 10636 0.1115 1958 8127 679 8.35% 94143 0.72% 10578 0.1124 1959 8184 707 8.64% 94714 0.75% 10853 0.1146 1960 8384 729 8.70% 94771 0.77% 10664 0.1125 1961 9897 732 7.40% 109568 0.67% 12940 0.1181 1962 10936 818 7.48% 124540 0.66% 14461 0.1161 1963 9591 933 9.73% 122336 0.76% 12780 0.1045 1964 9621 1015 10.55% 122980 0.83% 13123 0.1067 1965 10036 1130 11.26% 122749 0.92% 12945 0.1055 1966 9331 1088 11.66% 121677 0.89% 12900 0.1060 1967 9665 1295 13.40% 121839 1.06% 12210 0.1002 1968 9156 1223 13.36% 120816 1.01% 11109 0.0919 1969 13429 1436 10.69% 148181 0.97% 15849 0.1070 1970 13727 1464 10.67% 149312 0.98% 16880 0.1131 1971 12535 1396 11.14% 146685 0.95% 15073 0.1028 1972 11727 1378 11.75% 139947 0.98% 13706 0.0979 1973 13100 1357 10.36% 148777 0.91% 16372 0.1100 1974 12963 1353 10.44% 148831 0.91% 16041 0.1078 1975 13402 1338 9.98% 148596 0.90% 16291 0.1096 1976 12391 1156 9.33% 147576 0.78% 15486 0.1049 1977 13757 1297 9.43% 161517 0.80% 18798 0.1164 1978 13566 1338 9.86% 159165 0.84% 17247 0.1084 1979 13601 1366 10.04% 160357 0.85% 18712 0.1167 1980 13190 1435 10.88% 161186 0.89% 18053 0.1120 1981 8868 895 10.09% 105880 0.85% 11146 0.1053 1982 13301 1319 9.92% 161017 0.82% 18105 0.1124 1983 13518 1379 10.20% 160590 0.86% 18166 0.1131 1984 13320 1270 9.53% 160538 0.79% 17915 0.1116 1985 13838 1337 9.66% 160305 0.83% 18215 0.1136 1986 14227 1289 9.06% 160835 0.80% 18543 0.1153 1987 14389 1287 8.94% 161891 0.79% 19883 0.1228 1988 12984 1367 10.53% 159365 0.86% 17378 0.1090 1989 13528 1446 10.69% 160016 0.90% 17402 0.1088 1990 13852 1384 9.99% 160301 0.86% 17918 0.1118 1991 13984 1228 8.78% 160730 0.76% 18127 0.1128 1992 13682 1315 9.61% 160516 0.82% 17340 0.1080 1993 15110 1477 9.77% 174546 0.85% 20862 0.1195 1994 11131 1008 9.06% 124472 0.81% 15751 0.1265 1995 14240 1105 7.76% 156691 0.71% 19554 0.1248 1996 16088 1341 8.34% 177219 0.76% 22827 0.1288 1997 15666 1168 7.46% 175512 0.67% 21602 0.1231 1998 16447 1067 6.49% 188257 0.57% 23297 0.1238 1999 17891 1105 6.18% 189677 0.58% 24690 0.1302 2000 18238 1210 6.63% 190242 0.64% 24971 0.1313 2001 15806 1383 8.75% 186961 0.74% 23199 0.1241 2002 16250 1452 8.94% 186647 0.78% 22411 0.1201 Total 602882 56740 9.41% 6978113 0.81% 795108 0.1139 Avg 12560 1182 9.53% 145377 0.82% 16565 0.1132 Note that the totals for 2002 are well below average. They are about a third higher than three or four years ago, but much lower than they were 10 years ago. Note also that as runs go up, intentional walks drop. They become a less desirable strategy. However, scoring has remained high for so long in the last 10 years that the IBBs have started to go back up in the last two years. Evidently, the strategy of walking the opposition's power hitter holds sway. Once that approach has been tried for a long enough time, if it is found lacking, the smart teams will disregard it. Again it is not a problem per se, but I wouldn't argue if they changed the compensation to two bases. As long as they realize that there will be a number of consequences resulting from that change. 25. The notion that shortstops must be plus runners with guns for arms. The notion that professional writers should be able to write coherent, complete sentences. Again, GM's are angry because they can't evaluate talent properly. Just for fun here's my list: 1) Bud Selig: too much baggage and questionable activity.
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Baseball Matters to 20K John
2002-11-24 20:54
Baseball Matters to 20K John J Perricone over at Only Baseball Matters reports that his site has just crossed the 20K-visitor threshold. You'll recall that John recently ran a Pete Rose summit acting as a sort of piazza (not that there's anything wrong with it) for the internet intelligentsia -and even me- to present their ideas. John has always been a creative blogger and a supportive comrade on the net. Go check out his site and help him get to 50K soon.
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The Tolling of the Iron
2002-11-24 20:39
The Tolling of the Iron Bell Calls the Faithful to Their Knees The Phils signed free-agent third baseman David Bell today to a 4-year, $17 million contract. Hopes are that this will be the first of three signings-Jim Thome an Tom Glavine being the others. And it is encouraging to hear that Bell turned down a similar proposal from his old team, the Giants, especially since I was just beginning to feel that the Phils would be used by all the free agents to elicit better deals elsewhere: "So many factors went into this decision," Bell said. "But I had to go with what I felt in my heart, and I felt that going to the Phillies was where I wanted to be." Bell's career with the Phils will inevitably be compared to the man whom he replaces, Scott Rolen. Rolen was traded to the Cardinals during the 2002 season because his relationship with the team had soured after they had failed to work out a new deal in the off-season. It is an unfair comparison for Bell. Bell is not as good a player as Rolen either at the plate or in the field. Also, Rolen is three years Bell's junior, though Bell will be thre years younger when his deal runs out than Rolen would be at the end of the proposed Phils' deal. Bell showed me during the playoffs that he is a better all-around than I had been led to believe though he will have the occasional lapse in the field. One thing to keep in mind is that the Phils' last offer to Rolen was 10 years at $140 M. Bell is considerably cheaper and relatively cheap when you see salaries like $4.25 M to Neifi Perez and $6.25 to Rey Ordonez bandied about. If the Phils can sign Jim Thome to $75 M contract, they would have signed two productive players for about $50 M less than they were willing to pay Rolen (though over a longer period of time). That would be a pretty good turnaround.
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New York Three-Way The New
2002-11-24 01:14
New York Three-Way The New York Daily News reports that the Yankees, Mets, and Rockies are putting together a three-way trade. In the trade the Rockies would rid themselves of Denny Neagle and some of his remaining three remaining seasons at $37 M ($9 M in 2003 and 2004, $10 M in 2005, plus a $9M buyout of $12.5 M in 2006). The money would be distributed among the three teams ($10 M from each of the New York teams spread over three years and $8M plus the $9 M buyout from the Rockies). Colorado would get either Jeromy Burnitz or Rey Ordonez from the Mets and Rondell White and Raul Mondesi from the Yankees, all of whom are in their last year of their present contract. The Rockies would assume the $5 M for White's contract, the $7 M Yankee portion for Mondesi's (he receives $13 M in total with the remainder having been assumed by Toronto as part of its trade with the Yankees), $6.25 M for Ordonez, and/or $11.5 for Burnitz. The Mets would get Neagle (who will again be paid by the Yankees without actually playing for them), and the Yankees would get a whole lot of nothing. One baseball source is quoted as saying: "It's a pretty creative idea." So was charging interest. It doesn't mean we have to like it. The reason each team is doing it is a testament to the virulent nature of the concessions the players made in the last labor agreement. The teams are all trading their own mistakes to gain certain advantages under the vitiated CBA. The Yankees, in trading two former starters and taking on $10 M in payments to a player who will never wear a Yankee uniform while he is paid, free up almost $9 M in payroll for 2003. They acquired too many overpriced outfielders in 2003 and needed to reduce their payroll to take less of a hit from revenue sharing and the luxury tax. The Rockies are retooling their staff with young, low-priced starters (why not?). Taking on large salaries for 2003 is preferable to paying Neagle larger sums over three years while actually having to pitch him. The will have rid themselves of both Mike Hampton's and Neagle's contracts, a major coup. They will, however, have added three starting outfielders. They already have the nearly-traded Larry Walker, mid-season pickup Jay Payton, and Preston Wilson, who they acquired in the Hampton deal. That's pretty crowded, but then again their off-season moves may not yet be done. The Mets would rid themselves of some high-priced dead weight and add a potentially useful arm. If this goes through after the Hampton trade, I wouldn't be surprised to see teams start trading parts of contracts while actually retaining the players. It's gotten to the point where the contracts involved are more important than the players. It'sgoing to take us a few years to evaluate the new CBA, but I get the feeling that after the current contracts run out, things will be very different. And I'm not talking about the high-end contracts, the death knell of which the media are currently ringing. I mean the mid-tier $5-$10 M-per-year contracts. It's exactly what Andrew Zimbalist predicted at the beginning of last year in the article entitled Competitive Balance in Majo League Baseball: The real impact would come indirectly, through the incentive effect of this local revenue tax. Assuming the tax was set at 50 percent, each increment to a team's net local revenue would be reduced by 48.3 percent. This is because half would be taken away by the tax and 1.67 percent would be returned by the equal distribution from the pool to each club. .Now, suppose Steinbrenner were contemplating signing Johnny Damon and estimated that, with Damon in the Yankee outfield, the team would generate an additional $16 million in annual local revenue. Without the local revenue tax, Steinbrenner should be willing to offer Damon any salary up to $16 million. With the tax, he should be willing to offer only $8.27 million [$16 million X (1 0.483)]. Actually, the new CBA sets revenue sharing at 34%, but there is also a 17% luxury tax for payrolls over $117 M, which the Yankees most probably will exceed. The Yankees own one 29th of the Expos so one would anticipate them receiving one 29th not one 30th of the revenue sharing distributions. However, the first phase of the Central Revenue Fund begins in 2003. It is set initially to around $43.5 M (but gradually increases to $72.2 by 2005) and is paid by the net payers (including the Yankees). Therefore, the amount that the Yankees' can spend on new payroll would be reduced by potentially more than the 48.3% that Zimbalist suggests. Looking at it this way, I think that the plan that went through is potentially worse for the sport than a salary cap. A cap would at least be far to all parties. This is a rather blunted tool to deal with competitive balance. It clearly is an extremely precise one when it comes to dealing with players' salaries however.
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Yankees Brassed Off, Maybe They
2002-11-24 00:54
Yankees Brassed Off, Maybe They Were Expecting Gamera? The Yankees brass apparently left Japan without meeting with free agent Hideki "Godzilla" Matsui, which was the apparent goal of their visit. This article implies that his disappointing All-Star Series performance had something to do with it, but Brain Cashman and his coterie left as the series was ending. Perhaps the Yankees changed their minds in acquiring another potential high-salary outfielder until the jettison one or two of their current ones.
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Musical Bleachers Seats I am
2002-11-23 12:37
Musical Bleachers Seats I am getting the feeling that the Phillies are being used by the three free agents that they are avidly pursuing (Jime Thome, Tom Glavine, and David Bell) to drive up the offers from their other pursuers. Both Bell and Thome have gone back to their teams from 2002 and asked for them to up the ante while Glavine will play his three wooers against each other to get the four-year contract he desires. It may just that they are bargaining in good faith, but I get the feeling-and maybe this is just a good old normal inferiority complex that attends all Phillies' fans-that none of these players intends to play for the lowly Phils, especially after their rather public feud with their former star, Scott Rolen. Perhaps the Phillies will find that you can't run your team like a White Castle franchise for 10 years and then expect people to believe you when you act like Tavern On The Green. Even if the money is what they crave, the players know better.
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Glavine-izing Tom Glavine is the
2002-11-23 01:20
Glavine-izing Tom Glavine is the belle of the ball. He has three suitors and now must decide with whom he will dance next. The Mets seem the most dashing, offering $28.5 over the next three years. But diamonds alone are not a lefty's best friend. It seems that the young caller must also provide an additional year to win over the heart of our blushing Brave: "I want to have the opportunity to win 300 games, and I think in order to do that, I have to pitch four (more) years. So I don't want to make a decision and in three years have to find a team to pitch for in the fourth year. That fourth year is an important part of it." Tom Glavine will be 37 at the start of next season. In four years if Euclid serves, he will be 40. Glavine is coming off a fine season in which he went 18-11 with a 2.96. He has won two Cy Young awards and by all accounts already has a plaque reserved with his likeness in Cooperstown. But our young Tom wants to make sure that the he is settled long enough to win the 58 games necessary to reach the 300-win plateau. One could answer that if he were that close to 300 wins after three seasons, the team that he signs with will dole over whatever he wants to lock him up for a now once-in-a-lifetime event, a pitcher's 300th win, which will generate a good deal of press and fan interest. Tom is just trying to wheedle the extra year with his high market value today. I would rather take him at his word and assume that the four years that he yearns for are to lock up the milestone, but it made me wonder how often a Hall-of-Fame pitcher indeed wn that many games in the four seasons after his 37th birthday. Well here they are, let's see: FirstName LastName Threw W L ERA WHIP K:BB WARREN SPAHN L 85 49 3.13 1.18 1.98 CY YOUNG R 78 71 2.20 0.96 5.16 PHIL NIEKRO R 73 69 3.40 1.29 1.86 EDDIE PLANK L 70 43 2.43 1.10 2.25 DAZZY VANCE R 64 51 2.93 1.17 2.86 GAYLORD PERRY R 63 43 3.09 1.20 2.55 EARLY WYNN R 63 55 3.78 1.35 1.59 PETE ALEXANDER R 60 36 2.98 1.18 1.55 DON SUTTON R 54 44 3.67 1.22 2.45 LEFTY GROVE L 53 23 3.11 1.32 1.63 STEVE CARLTON L 52 42 3.25 1.25 2.56 TED LYONS R 47 35 3.36 1.27 1.67 TOM SEAVER R 45 49 3.82 1.27 1.78 RED FABER R 45 38 3.87 1.40 0.95 NOLAN RYAN R 42 47 3.25 1.18 2.61 EPPA RIXEY L 42 51 4.05 1.41 0.75 WALTER JOHNSON R 40 29 3.68 1.28 1.59 JESSE HAINES R 37 22 3.65 1.41 1.18 CARL HUBBELL L 37 33 3.84 1.34 1.49 MORDECAI BROWN R 33 22 2.91 1.18 1.71 HOYT WILHELM R 32 33 2.63 1.09 2.74 BURLEIGH GRIMES R 30 32 4.26 1.50 0.78 RED RUFFING R 29 13 3.37 1.20 1.47 HERB PENNOCK L 29 15 4.39 1.53 1.50 ROBIN ROBERTS R 28 24 3.29 1.22 2.52 JIM BUNNING R 28 37 4.22 1.34 2.38 BOB GIBSON R 26 33 3.69 1.36 1.48 FERGIE JENKINS R 25 32 3.83 1.37 1.90 STAN COVELESKI R 21 13 3.60 1.47 0.53 JOE MCGINNITY R 11 7 2.27 1.23 1.49 WAITE HOYT R 8 12 3.54 1.31 1.66 JIM PALMER R 5 7 5.15 1.53 1.06 WHITEY FORD L 4 9 2.15 1.30 1.94 RUBE MARQUARD L 3 10 4.83 1.65 0.73 ROLLIE FINGERS R 2 8 3.64 1.27 2.00 BOB FELLER R 0 4 4.97 1.48 0.78 DIZZY DEAN R 0 0 0.00 1.00 0.00 JUAN MARICHAL R 0 1 13.50 2.67 0.20 CLARK GRIFFITH R 0 1 7.55 2.38 1.00 BOB LEMON R 0 1 5.34 2.25 0.50
I think that Glavine will find a way to wrangle an extra year out of one of the teams, most likely the pitching-poor Mets. I think that the odds that Glavine will be a productive pitcher for all four of those years is low. He has had a few unimpressive years in with his great ones (e.g., 1988-'90, '94, and '99). I think the odds are good that at least one of those four years will again be unimpressive for Glavine. The odds would apparently increase as he gets older. I also think that he will get close enough to 300 that he will be able to hang on long enough to achieve that goal. The cautionary tale of Bert Blyleven should be incentive enough.
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No Deal! The four-for-one Diamondbacks-Rockies
2002-11-22 16:08
No Deal! The four-for-one Diamondbacks-Rockies deal is no more. Whether Matt Wiliams or Larry Walker invoked his no-trade clause was not revealed, but neither player was happy with the terms. Walker was asked to defer $25 M of his contract by the D-Backs, and Williams would have a child custody issue with his three kids now living in Arizona.
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Bush Leaguer In this week's
2002-11-22 10:19
Bush Leaguer In this week's episode of "Love that Ari": Fleischer. Ari Fleischer.
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Oh, Canada? With all the
2002-11-22 00:59
Oh, Canada? With all the bad press Montreal has been receiving over the years as a poor baseball city, the perception that Canadians would rather watch checking Czechs than an expert Expo or a bashing Blue Jay has become a common one. ESPN reports that a new independent league, the Canadian Baseball League, is willing to put that assertion to the test. They are scheduled to begin play next May with eight teams across Canada, including one team in Montreal. The Royales-the name that the Montreal team will bear, a nod to Jackie Robinson's first team in white organized ball-may even play in Le Stade Olympique though the rental fees may be too high. But wouldn't it be the first time Canadians formed their own league. They have even had independent leagues in their past. Canadian organized baseball dates back to 1864 when the Young Canadian club of Woodstock, Ontario, fell victim, 75-11, to the seminal Atlantics of Brooklyn, who were en route to a undefeated (20-0-1) season. That year the Atlantics tallied the best record in the National Association of Base Ball Players, baseball's first organization. Woodstock would not play another NABBP team until 1868 when they again were bested by the Atlantics, 30-17 (this year the Atlantics ended at 47-7, good for the second best record behind the 47-3 Athletic club of Philadelphia). The Young Canadians would never formally join the NABBP, but they would play five games in total over five years against the organization's teams, losing them all. In 1869, the first Canadian team joined organized ball, the Maple Leaf club of Guelph, Ontario. Guelph proved to be something of a powerhouse, going 8-2 in its two years in the NABBP. The organization pulled apart in 1871 as the professional teams re-organization as the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players and the NABBP added the qualifier "Amateur" to its moniker before fading into oblivion. (By the way, here is a re-print of an 1868 Guelph-Woodstock game report). The Guelph Maple Leafs later joined the "minor" league International Association when it was created in 1877. That season proved to be their last as they finished 4-12. The champion of the league was also Canadian-the 13-4 London Tecumsehs. The Tecumsehs lasted one more year, and then the league bereft of international teams reorganized as the one-year National Association. The London Tecumsehs were again a charter member of the International Association when it re-organized in 1888. London had professional baseball until 1941. Tecumsehs was the nickname of choice until the team renamed itself Indians in 1925. London also had an Eastern League team called the Tigers from 1989 to 1993. The earliest Canadian league was the independent Ontario League in 1884, which became the Candiam League in 1885 and promptly folded. The first Canadian league in organized ball was formed in 1899. The six-team league featured clubs in London, Woodstock (via Stratford), Guelph, Hamilton, Chatham and St. Thomas. The last two teams folded on July 4 and the league continued as a four-team circuit. London won the title with a 62-28 record, 15 games ahead of second-place Hamilton. The league reformed as the International league in 1900 after adding U.S. teams in the Great Lakes area. Other Candian leagues fielded teams in 1905, 1911-1915, and 1936-1951 (the late great Class-C Canadian-American League). Montreal itself has a proud baseball tradition, first fielding a team in 1890 in the old Eastern League (forebear of today's International League) after the Hamilton, Ontario, club folded and was shifted to the infant baseball town. Montreal played in the IL in 1890, 1897-1917, and 1928-1960. The Royals were the last minor-club to represent the city before the Expos were created in 1969. Toronto's entry into organized ball pre-dates Montreal's. The first Toronto club was in the independent Ontario League in 1884. The team, the Canucks, shifted to the International League in 1886 and remained there until the league folded in 1890. A new Canucks club was organized as a charter member of the old Eastern League in 1895 and remained in that circuit (again today's International League) until 1967, eventually changing its name to the Maple Leafs. This was the last pro team in Toronto until the Blue Jays formed in 1977. Well, there you have it. The next time you hear some sports radio host opining that Canadians just don't have the capacity to understand a sport that doesn't use a flat ball and a stick or that isn't played on a 110-yard field, just remember that you know better.
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Neifi-tism John J Perricone reports
2002-11-21 14:53
Neifi-tism John J Perricone reports that Neifi Perez must be paid a minimum of $3.28 M for 2003 by the Giants, who claimed him on waivers yesterday. He made $4.1 M in 2002 and cannot have his pay cut more than 20%. Also, if the Giants had waited until after he cleared waivers, then they could have signed him as a free-agent at any price above league minimum. Since the only team that could have claimed him after the Giants was the Angels (teams access the waiver wire in reverse order according to their finish this past season), they could have easily obtained him after he cleared waivers. Maybe they were afraid of the extravagant offers that were awaiting Perez once he became a free agent. This cannot be viewed as anything but a tactical error by GM Brian Sabean.
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Liberty Bell? Free-agent third baseman
2002-11-21 13:33
Liberty Bell? Free-agent third baseman David Bell has extended his stay in Philadelphia and may be close to a deal with the Phillies. The Daily News further substantiates my assessment that the Phils would move Polanco to second should they sign Bell. Free-agent Tom Glavine will visit Hoagie-town tonight. By the way, the Phillies left two open spots on their forty-man roster.
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Lyle Lyle Diamondback The Arizona
2002-11-21 12:09
Lyle Lyle Diamondback The Arizona Diamondbacks currently await a decision by Matt Williams to waive his no-trade clause and accept being a part of a 4-for-1 deal to the Rockies. Meanwhile, aside from a gentleman's agreement between Arizona owner Jerry Colangelo and veteran free agent Mark Grace, the D-Backs will have no players with major-league experience at first base should the deal clear. Grace should re-sign soon and rather than debate whether or not that is a good thing, I wanted to suggest that another option is available. Why not hand the first base job to 25-year-old rookie Lyle Overbay. Overbay surely will get significant playing time and will take over the job in 2004, but why not give him the job now and re-sign Grace in a supporting role. At 38, Grace finally started to show his age. His vaunted defense is now below the park-adjusted league average. His .737 OPS in 124 games was below average. His batting average (.252) was below .280 for the first time in his career. His doubles and home runs were way down. I cannot foresee the Diamondbacks returning to the playoffs with Grace playing more than a supporting role. Overbay was their 2001 minor-league player of the year in Double-A. In 2002, he batted .343 with 19 home runs, 40 doubles, 83 runs, 109 runs batted in, .525 slugging percentage, a .392 on-base percentage, and a .917 OPS in 525 at-bats at Triple-A Tucson in 2002. Overbay has been unimpressive in two short September stints with the D-Backs over the last two years. This year he drew only 10 pinch-hit assignments with one hit (a single), one RBI, and five strikeouts. In two years he has two hits in twelve at-bats with 6 strikeouts and no walks. That alone tells me that the D-Backs are not looking to him having a starting role for 2003, but I think it's a mistake. Let's look at the trade as a whole and determine what its ramifications are for both teams. The D-Backs who are supposed to be strapped for cash will be trading four players who combined will make less about $1 million less in 2003 than Larry Walker ($12.5 M). Matt Williams will get $10 M in 2003, which is the last year of his contract. Erubiel Durazo and David Dellucci made $375 K and $775 K respectively in 2002 (I couldn't find Bret Prinz's figures but it's likely around $300 K). Not only that but Walker has at least three years and $38.5 M owed him. Walker will fit in nicely with Steve Finley and Luis Gonzalez giving the D-Backs a very good outfield in 2003. Walker is one of the few Rockie players whose road numbers are respectable: 1.124 OPS at home .917 away in 2002. He has also hit well at Bank One Ballpark. Over the last four years, he has a .364 batting average, 13 runs, 2 home runs, 12 runs batted in, and a .949 OPS in 85 at-bats at the BOB. It does suggest that his home run total, which projects out to 11 in a season (based on his 477 2002 ABs), may drop off, but of course this is based on a small sample of data. With Williams gone, Craig Counsell will apparently take over permanently at third. I cannot say that having corner infielders with a .699 (Counsell) and .737 (Grace) OPS is a good thing. But they do seem to like the Craig Counsell in Arizona. Durazo's and Delucci's departure thins the bench, especially as far as left-handed bats are concerned. Only switch-hitting Quinton McCracken and Overbay/Grace currently will be available for left-handed pinch-hitting duties. Prinz was not on the playoff roster and is expendable. Arizona increases their payroll and weakens themselves at the corner infield positions and in depth off the bench. Walker seems like a good match but is getting older and will be 39 in 2005 and will make $12.5 M. Colorado is revamping their team based on a philosophy that fully embraces their offensively minded ballpark: General manager Dan O'Dowd has finally admitted his initial philosophy about how you win in Denver -- with speed and pitching -- was a good try, but incorrect..."That approach just doesn't work," said O'Dowd. "I understand that now. In Denver, pitching is neutralized and speed is no factor, except on defense. And defensively, it only helps you in the middle of the diamond. The rest of your lineup needs to be offense-based. You just can't build a team here the same way you build it anywhere else." (ESPN) Williams will take over for the departing Todd Zeile at third. The outfield will be an amalgam of the Dellucci, just-acquired Preston Wilson, Gabe Kapler, Jay Payton, Ben Patrick, and Jack Cust. Durazo, if he accepts a move from first, may join that mix. More likely the Rockies will look to trade Durazo to one of the many clubs that need a first baseman right now (the Red Sox, Braves, and whoever loses the Thome sweepstakes-the Indians or Phils-come to mind). Prinz will become one of many arms sacrificed to the homer gods of Coors. I would call it a win for the Rockies. Though no team would make the trade, Durazo for Walker straight up may be a decent one. Walker plays a harder defensive position and plays it better and has a ton more of experience and all those nice intangibles, but he will be 36 next season, seven years older than Durazo. He also makes $12 million more. Williams will be a placeholder for at least a year, Dellucci may get a chance to start, and Prinz is a role player. There are two problems from the Colorado point of view: 1) their outfield is now unstable with, apparently, two iffy mid-season pickups and Wilson as their starters. 2) The best player for them in the deal, Durazo, is a first baseman and they have Todd Helton already. This could all just be a step in the Rockies' off-season rebuilding process. Perhaps Durazo and Neagle will be packaged for a solid corner outfielder. At worst, this trade frees up a big chunk of change for the next three years for a franchise that is rebuilding.
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Another League of Their Own
2002-11-21 09:49
Another League of Their Own MLB will announce today an agreement with National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), a women's professional softball league. Bud Selig apparently feels that he can channel David Stern with his own version of the WNBA. Again women will play a modified version of the men's major-league game. I may scoff but I should remember that the highly successful women's pro league of the 1940s and '50s started as a softball league and then graduated to hard ball (though the Madonna movie said otherwise).
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Rey Sanchez, Jr? The Giants
2002-11-21 08:57
Rey Sanchez, Jr? The Giants have claimed Neifi Perez off of waivers and may be considering moving him to second base, where he has played sparingly, as a replacement for Jeff Kent. There are only two things wrong with this strategy (besides the fact that he's only played second in 54 major-league games): 1) Perez is weak-hitting for a shortstop. He'll be a liability at second. 2) Perez will be awarded a hefty salary (some estimate around $4 M) for the bloated statistics from his Rockies days. This was the reason that the Royals wisely cut their losses by releasing him the other day. That $4 million could be used to lure a valuable player like Kent or David Bell back to San Francisco instead of being invested in a fungible commodity like Neifi Perez, especially if he ends up being a utility infielder.
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Wicked Shout Out to Brickah
2002-11-20 13:50
Wicked Shout Out to Brickah ESPN reports that Billerica native Tom Glavine is no longer on the Red Saux Christmas list. They have dropped out of the running. His possible suitors are now only the Braves, Phillies, and Mets. Sorry Tom, no sausage at the ballpark for you next year.
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No Trip to the Hampton
2002-11-20 13:43
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