Ugly Canadians

Remember when Canadians were lovable hosers in the Bob and Doung McKenzie mold? Well, Canadians are now out-phillying Philly fans in boorishness booing the American national anthem on a few occasions.

Now even the Candian teams are getting into the act. The Toronto Blue Jays have an ad campaign which might be preparing them Napoleanically to fight on two fronts, Japan and the USA.

Taped to the door of the Yankees' clubhouse was a team-sponsored newspaper ad that targeted Matsui. "Boo Matsui," it read, in English and Japanese, with a photo of a Yankee cap pelted by bird droppings.

My thoughts:

A) Matsui has yet to proof himself a boo-able commodity. There are doubts among many that he will as big a power hitter in the states as he was in Japan. No one posts adds to "Boo Todd Zeile."

B) Even if Matsui becomes the next power-hitting Ichiro, he had better take a number and get in line when it comes to Yankee personalities to boo. Now, an ad campaign to boo David Wells is something even a number of Yankee fans could get behind.

C) What ever happened to being a gracious host? I guess this is a back-handed compliment but in the simpler days of my youth teams would feature the stars of the opponents with a subtle nod to the division rivalry: "Come see our Phils play Willie Stargell and the Big Bad Bucs" (or words to that effect).

D) As a regular visitor to the Bronx shrine, I would advise the Blue Jays to let those sleeping giants lie. Trust me, there is nothing that the pathetic Canadian fans can say that would be new to anyone who has played in the Bronx. All this does is invite payback for their players, if any are known to Yankee fans, on their next trip to the Stadium. To quote Rick Blaine from Casablanca, "There are certain sections of New York [the Bronx being one of them], that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade."

E) Finally, are the Blue Jays advocating that the local Torontoan bird population empty their spleen, literally, on Mr. Matsui in some sort Mel Brooks-ian refraction of Hitchcock's The Birds? Domo arigato..not.

Matsui, to his credit, seems unfazed:

"I don't have anything special to say," he said through an interpreter. "I guess I'm happy that the fans are actually aware of my name."

Manager Joe Torre wasn't exactly pleased by the ad:

Torre saw the ad while riding the team bus this morning. He believed it was inappropriate and said it went "beyond having fun."
"I thought it was tasteless, especially in the climate of what's going on in the world," Torre said. "I can understand fun and games, but I thought it was a little bit too much."

I consider sports a form of escape from serious issues like war, but I guess I see his point.

Jason Giambi, after only one year in Yankee garb, was surprising circumspect and blase about it:

"I don't think everybody who comes out is going to boo Matsui," first baseman Jason Giambi said. "They're going to boo the Yankees, period."

It is surprising that such a young and exciting team like the Jays needs to resort to these tactics to sell tickets. I guess that's what happens when one's currency is so debased that it converts almost even up with lire.

Fearless Predictions Which Are Invariably Wrong, II

Great Diamond Minds think alike...and then there's me.

Flaherty Clarity

So the biggest issue in the Bronx is finally resolved...John Flaherty will be the backup catcher for the Yankees. Phew! It's nice to have such trivial problems like a superfluity of starting pitchers and a nip-and-tuck battle for backup positions by players who had been starters in previous incarnations.

This "race" was even a bigger fix than rotation, which may have been set by Joe Torre standing by his promise to slip Weaver into a spot. Torre made it abundantly clear in 2002 that he would rather use Don Zimmer as a receiver than Widger (21 games and 64 at-bats). Widger produced adequately when called upon, but Torre treated Widger's spring return like Roger Ebert viewing the latest Adam Sandler epic.

Torre said that it came down to defense, but looking at their defensive numbers, which I admit do not tell the full story especially for catchers, over at Baseball-Reference.com, both players look equally sub-par (Flaherty's 6.05 range factor compared to the league's 6.33 and Widger: 6.11 to the league's 6.58).

Neither catcher can be accused of channeling Josh Gibson, but both have hit as many as 14 home runs in a season as a starter. Widger is a bit handier with the bat with a slugging average 33 points higher than Flaherty. Neither gets on base more than 30% of the time though.

By the way, Flaherty is almost four years older as well.

Given the fact that Torre didn't let Widger catch some members of the staff I can't disagree with Widger's statements that he was predestined to be cut (But what about free will?):

"It just bothered me that they tried to play it off like it was wide open, and it wasn't."

This is again an example of Torre preferring role players due to apparently idiosyncratic reasons. His dislike for the little-used lefty reliever Randy Choate allowed heretofore-unknown Jason Anderson (who I keep on referring to as Jason Alexander) make the team. Torre likes backup catchers in the Joe Girardi mold. Widger didn't fit that mold. Neither did Todd Greene nor Bobby Estelella, both of whom have found new lives in other organizations.

So let's assume that Widger is superior to Flaherty--is this a bad thing for the Yankees. I think not. If Torre will use Flaherty and rest Jose Posada at least occasionally, Posada will have a little left in his tank for the inevitable Yankee postseason appearance. The same goes for Anderson. Maybe the Yankees will rely on more than three healthy arms this year. And if you're a Yankees fan, that's a good thing.

Fearless Predictions Which Are Invariably Wrong

Today is opening day, so I'm willing to go on the record with some fearless predictions that will look miserably wrong by June:

NL East
1. Phillies
2. Braves
3. Expos
4. Mets
5. Marlins

NL Central
1. Astros
2. Cardinals
3. Cubs
4. Reds
5. Pirates
6. Brewers

NL West
1. Diamondbacks
2. Giants
3. Dodgers
4. Rockies
5. Padres

AL East
1. Yankees
2. Red Sox
3. Blue Jays
4. Orioles
5. Devil Rays

AL Central
1. White Sox
2. Twins
3. Indians
4. Royals
5. Tigers

AL West
1. A's
2. Mariners
3. Angels
4. Rangers

Wildcards: Giants and Mariners
League Champions: Yankees and Diamondbacks
World Series Champs: Yankees

Jack Russell Terrier Down (They all can't be gems, folks)

The Phils played their final game at Clearwater's Jack Russell stadium today. Their first was in 1955 and Robin Roberts throw out the first pitch in both games--it was only a ceremonial one today.

The Stadium was named after a former pitcher who went 85-141 over 15 major-league seasons. He was an All-Star in 1934 after his career year of 12-6, 2.69 ERA (56% better than average) in '33.

In reminiscing, former Phillies cited a moment from my childhood (though I didn't know about the underwear):

Former outfielder Greg Luzinski and [manager Larry] Bowa recalled reliever Tug McGraw showing up one spring for a St. Patrick's Day game in a green uniform. Luzinski said the green motif extended all the way to McGraw's protective undergarment.

The stadium will be used this year by the Phils' Florida State League affiliate and then be torn down.

Missing Link

I have organized my links by category and have added just about any link I could think of. If I missed anyone, let me know.

I have also devoted a section to my idle, er, idol, Joe Morgan. Praise be to him.

Look for these links in a theater near you. They will be available whenever a Blogger bug is not preventing them from being shown, which is probably rare.

YES, We Have No Yankee Games...

The proposed deal between YES and Cablevision has unraveled. Why can't the two Expo co-owners ink a deal? If Bud had any cajones, he would get the Steinbrenner and Dolan in a room and solve this. It's in the best interests of baseball after all: ant additional money garnered through the wider TV audience will end up in other owners' pockets anyway.

Contract Al Martin, Please

Al Martin, the man who has typified the average left fielder for more than a decade, was given his walking papers today by the Florida Marlins. It seems that Martin didn't want to accept a condition that gave the Marlins power of attorney to demote him to the minors. Apparently, that was what was on the Marlins mind, since they then cut the former Pirate loose.

Don't cry for Martin though, Argentina. You see, he didn't have far to walk with those papers (where does that expression come from anyway?). Martin landed in Tampa Bay later on today. It appears that the Devil Rays strategy is improvement by waiver wire as they acquired the recently released (by the Braves) Mike Venafro as well.

It Aint Easley

The Tigers cut Damion Easley today. Easley is still owed $14.3 M by the Tigers, making him the most expensive dumping ever (and you thought Darva Conger held that record).

Easley signed the contract prior to the 1998 season and as his salary has been going up, his stats have been tanking:

Year Age HR RBI SB  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS Adj     Salary
1997 27  22  72 28 .264 .362 .471 .833 117   $675,000
1998 28  27 100 15 .271 .332 .478 .810 107 $2,050,000
1999 29  20  65 11 .266 .346 .434 .780  97 $3,350,000
2000 30  14  58 13 .259 .350 .416 .766  96 $3,950,000
2001 31  11  65 10 .250 .323 .376 .699  85 $5,075,000
2002 32   8  30  1 .224 .307 .355 .662  82 $6,250,000

I guess that's what you get when you lock in a player after a career year. To follow the mid-'90s Indians' model of locking up young talent for many years, a) the young talent has to be young, which 27 is not, and b) you have to make sure that they are not a flash in the pan. The Tigers saw Easley as a 30-30 middle infielder and salivated. That's why the Tigers are where they are now...in Detroit ("Detroit! No, not Detroit!" Thank you, Kentucky Fried Movie).

Neifi Say Neifi

Here's a great tidbit from Lee Sinins ATM Report earlier today:

According to Giants MGR Felipe Alou, the biggest question facing the team is "how to get Neifi Perez enough game time. He's a giant of a player. He's proven it before, he's proving it in this camp and, unfortunately, I don't have the room for a talent like that. I say this because I don't want anybody to get hurt or hit a bad slump so Neifi Perez could become a regular. It's really a tough situation. There are a lot of challenges. But I hate to have talent like that sitting on the bench."

Alou also says, "My concern is Neifi Perez. On Opening Day he will not be in the game. That's the way it is." According to Alou, he's going to "negotiate" with the starters to see if Perez can start a couple of times a week.

According to the Kansas City Star, Perez has asked his agent to ask the Giants to trade him. Unfortunately for Giants fans, not only does GM Brian Sabean say, "We have no plans of trading Neifi Perez," he compounds the damage by also stating, "No promises were made to him. He's a valuable asset, and Felipe has talked with him about the situation. He will get him more than 300 at-bats by resting guys and keeping them fresh, especially in day games after night games."

Lordy mama, sing the blues! Perez should be happy to collect his inflated paycheck. Give him 300 ABs? Where will they come from? Aurilia, Alfonso, and Durham, unless they plan to use him as DH. What a waste!

I'm beginning to think that Alou's presence is going to ensure that the NL West is a two-team race. Between the D-Backs and the Dodgers, that is. I liked this team last year, but Barry Bonds may have to hit a hundred dingers to make up for the myriad mistakes Alou will make. I'm speaking in hyperbole, of course, but with the liabilities on this team (Grissom coming off a late career year, Santiago's age, J.T. Snow's decline, Jose Cruz's head, and an asi asi staff), they don't need another at manager. And Alou proved in Montreal that he can drain the life out of a franchise. At least in San Francisco, he won't have Jeffrey Loria to help him.

Brewers Brook No Kieschnick

The Brooks Kieschnick experiment has ended at least temporarily for the Brewers. Kieschnick was trying to make the club as a power-hitting role player and a right-handed relief pitcher but was sent down by the Brewers yesterday.

It was a great story. What with teams looking for more and more versatility out of their role players, bringing back the old position player/pitcher seemed a natural progression. When teams now carry 12 pitchers, wouldn't it be greart if one of those twelve could be used to pinch-hit or be able to stay in a ballgame longer because he can hit for himself?

But the one flaw with the logic: it requires that the pitcher-position player's team have a pressing need to save a roster spot. With the dreck that the Brewers are using to fill out their roster, who cares if there is an extra Keith Ginter or two?

Cone-back Complete

Despite my warnings to the contrary, the Mets have decided to put 40-year-old, ex-shuffleboarder David Cone in their rotation. He's even their number 4 starter.

I think it's part of an errant plan by Steve Phillips to coerce the Mets into the playoffs and thereby save what is left of his career, a la Dan Duquette and the pre-John Henry Red Sox. Youngsters Mike Bacsik and Jae Seo will fill in as the number five starter until Pedro Astacio returns. Then the Mets' superannuated staff will be complete.

As a Phillies fan I love it. The Mets will waste innings on a dead-end player while their young arms languish. Don't get me wrong: I like Cone. I think that he is as underrated a player as anyone who has spent the bulk of his career in New York can be. He is also a very intelligent and thoughtful man. But I don't expect much from him in this comeback.

Then again given that the Phils can be no-hit by the Devil Rays of all teams, it may not matter who's opposing them.

Shane! Don't Come Back, Shane!

The Astros released veteran starting pitcher Shane Reynolds in a turn events that ESPN calls a "Spring Shock". Leonard Malton calls it a "rollercoaster ride-great fun for the whole family." While Ebert and Roeper give it "two thumbs way up!"

But what's so shocking? Reynolds had been slotted as the 'Stros number three starter and Tim Redding and Jeriome "Cheerioios" Robertson had been competing for the final spot in the rotation. Now Reynolds is out and Redding and Robertson are both in the rotation.

Maybe the oddest thing is that the two men that benefit most by Reynolds' departure seem the most broken up by it:

"It was kind of a somber moment," Redding said. "I know Jeriome's thrilled and I'm happy too. But at no time do you think you could see a guy like Shane Reynolds released.

"I kind of have mixed emotions, though. I'm thrilled to have a spot on the team and a spot in the rotation."

"That's a tough loss for us,'' Robertson said. ``That guy has a lot of knowledge about the game, and a young staff like ours needs that. I feel he's a good pitcher, too."

Even Gerry Hunsicker, the man who gave Reynolds his walking papers, seemed

"You had the trade off -- two talented young kids who are unproven at this level versus a veteran that has performed well at this level, but has recently struggled and has now had back surgery in the background," Hunsicker said.

So the Astros will start the season with four starters who are either 25 or 26 years old. The old man of the rotation will be Brian Moehler at 31. Redding does not really impress me even with his mid-90s fastball. He seems too inconsistent. Robertson had a very good year last year in the PCL with very good ratios but worked out of the bullpen in 2001 and had some poor seasons prior to that.

Even with the question marks that surround these two, they ought to be better than Reynolds. Besides Peter Munro, Jimmy Barrett, Rodrigo Rosario, and Kirk Saarloos aaree all available for recall at any point from the minors. I guess the only issue is the lack of experience in the rotation, but that doesn't seem to be holding the A's back. Besides given Reynolds fragility, the club would probably have to turn to unproven commodities at some point this season.

Rob Neyer characterized the Livan Hernandez trade as "addition by subtraction". I disagreed with him regarding Hernandez, but I think that the phrase applies here. Honor Reynolds with his one "Shane Reynolds Day", fete him, make him V.P., but there really is no room for sentimentality for a club that should be in a dog fight for the Central crown this year.

Morgan by Numbers

It will soon be April and the regular season is just days away but Joe Morgan has apparently forgotten to get a new calendar. Morgan has a World Series preview that basically predicts that 2003 will be, well, 2002.

From the estimable Joe's scant article it is clear that there are no more than four or five teams per league that even have a shot of playing in October and one of them is the Rangers who lost their All-Star catcher and staff ace this offseason. Oh, and they finished last albeit in a strong division in 2002. But Joe's logic is "They have baseball's best player, Alex Rodriguez, and one of these years their pitching and defense could come around. Will this be the season they put it together?" No, it isn't and why would one think it were when they just lost their only starter with a sub-4.00 ERA? So Joe picks the lowly Rangers but ignores the Mariners (who won 116 games just two years ago), Red Sox, White Sox, Blue Jays, Phillies, Mets, Expos, Astros, and Dodgers, among other, all of which had better records in 2002 than did Texas.

Here are some other gems:

The Angels won the World Series not because of superior talent or dominant pitching or tremendous sluggers. They won because they understood what the word team means.

So they had the sense to look the word team up in the dictionary. The other teams thought there was an I in team, but the Angels knew better? Uh, no. They slugged .512 in the postseason. Thet's why they won the Series. The got to the postseason because of good pitching (second in the league in ERA, only 1 point behind Oakland), and an effective offense. They did have an unusual offense with very few walks, strikeouts, homers, and grounded-into-DP but a high batting average with lots of doubles, sacrifice bunts and flies, and hits batsmen. The 2001 Angels had largely the same stats, but in 2002 they reduced the strikeouts and upped the batting average. Oh and they learned the definition of team.

The fact that the Angels won in this manner will be reflected in the way other teams try to play this year. It's common for teams to attempt to imitate the success of other clubs and build their teams accordingly. This season, I believe we'll see teams being more aggressive than before -- taking the extra base, going from first to third, putting pressure on the defense to make plays.

Well, home runs are down slightly from their historic level a couple of years ago. Those sorts of strategies should be dusted off and given new life. However, keep in mind that the Yankees were an "NL"-style team during the late '90s, and their success didn't seem to produce too many converts.

The A's approach emphasizes on-base percentage, which works well during the season when you play inferior teams. But when you get to the postseason and face better pitching, you draw fewer walks and are forced to rely on the home run. This has contributed to Oakland's first-round exit the past three years.

Well, the A's did drew fewer walks and they did rely on their power, slugging .500 in the 2002 playoffs. I don't know if that is the reason that they lost. Their offense looked OK until the last two games of the series. They were done in by a poor defense and pitching in game four and lost a squeaker in game 5. I don't know if anything conclusive can be said other than Art Howe having to learn to set up his postseason rotation a little better.

Superior pitching has been the Braves' staple during their amazing run the past decade-plus. But after Gary Sheffield and Chipper Jones, their offense is suspect. And while their overhauled rotation appears to be weaker, Greg Maddux has said that this could be the best staff the Braves have had. When he says that, you take notice.

I don't know why Maddux said that, but it is not really a defensible position. Maybe it's hopeful thinking. Behind the aging Maddux are monumental washout Mike Hampton, the mercurial and often injured Paul Byrd, the underachieving and largely average Russ Ortiz, and the still untested Jason Marquis. Add in a rebuilt bullpen and there is a large potential for failure. I'm not saying that Cox and Mazzone won't do their usual miraculous job with the staff. I'm just saying that it is a longer shot than they've had in Atlanta since Charlie Leibrandt's day.

This year the Giants have added speed guys -- second baseman Ray Durham and outfielders Marquis Grissom and Jose Cruz Jr. -- while slugging second baseman Jeff Kent departed for the Astros.

Not really, Grissom hasn't been a speed guy since 2000. Cruz and Durham were acquired as the best players available to fill holes.Cruz only stole 7 bases last year and was acquired more for his bat. Durham does have good speed but he isn't exactly Rey Ordonez with the bat either. In fact, aside from losing Kent's pop at second, one could make a decent argument that the Giants have better sluggers at the four positions that changed hands (center, right, third, and second) than in 2002.

Mr. non-sequitor sums it all up in a stream of consiousness that flows nowhere:

So these are the favorites. But remember, the Angels went from 41 games out in 2001 to the world championship in 2002. And that can happen again -- other teams have similar potential this season. But they must commit to a total team effort for it to happen. So keep this in mind on Opening Day: More than just the big-market teams have a chance to win.

So anyone can win? Great Joe, I hadn't figured that out yet. I thought the Yankees already had a playoff spot assigned to them.

Joe, you have to do better than this. If you are going to make predictions, you have to pick somebody. You did the first stage, picking playoff teams. Well, that was easy because you just listed the 2002 playoff teams, but you did offer an opinion, I guess. So, now pick the league champs and World Series winner. Will the Angels continue to dazzle or will the new blood in the Bronx bring a championship to the Yankees? Can Johnson and Schilling bring another championship to the desert? Heck, pick the Rangers--it's nutty but it's at least a position.

Joe, on second thought just pick the Giants and Angels. They won last year, and that appears to be your main criterion anyway.

I do have to admit that the man is in mid-season form and the season hasn't even started. I can't take that away from him.

Spreading the Belth-Miller Time in the Bronx

Alex Belth over at Bronx Banter conducted a quite an interesting interview with the estimable Marvin Miller a few days ago. Miller should have gone in the Hall in the last Vets' Committee vote, but appears his ever-affable self when discussing the sport.

The man has a great mind for the business of baseball. He succinctly summed up Curt Flood's involvement in the advent of free agency:

Q: Flood's legacy is often misconstrued. A lot the time I hear him referred to the first free agent, or the guy who started free agency, which isn't the case at all.

MM: You are right; it wasn't the case at all. The case lost, beyond appeals. Nothing concrete came of it other than the educational aspect that we talked about before. The union itself, which through the unity of it's members, through the understanding of the members of what needed to be done, through the skills of people like Richard Moss, who was the general council, who argued the case, to the union's successful effort to have both a grievance procedure and eventually impartial arbitration, all these factors and more, were responsible for the progress that was made.

Without taking anything away from the bravery that Flood evinced, Miller explains the real turning point in the war was the negotiation of the impartial arbitrator:

Q: So the provision in the 1970 basic agreement that arranged for an impartial arbitrator was far more important to how free agency came about than Flood's case.

MM: Oh, without any question. Because as you know, what eventually over-turned the Reserve Clause was a grievance heard by an impartial arbitrator in 1975, and without that having been gained in the contract, it would have been heard by the owner's commissioner, who could tell you up till today, how he would have ruled.

Miller's baseball autobiography A Whole Different Ballgame is a must read for any baseball fan, whether pro-player or pro-owner. I don't think that it's an overstatement to say that Miller is the most influential person off the field since Branch Rickey. The interview is a great leaping-off point in delving into Miller's well-oiled mind.

Also, I wanted to express my thanks to Alex for some very flattering, and I'm sure undeserved, comments that he posted regarding my series on the history of relief pitching.

Central Issues

The NL Central is perhaps the best argument against small-market and large-market distinctions presaging a team's destiny that there is in baseball. The two large-market teams, Chicago and Houston, look pretty good, but small-market St. Louis is still the favorite among most analysts.

Besides the size of the market is not determining where these teams end up: it's the poor decisions that they make. Witness these three moves that have happened in the last few days:

- Pittsburgh cut recently acquired and reportedly "shocked" Matt Herges. Herges had a good spring, cost the Pirates a top prospect, and makes under a million dollars. The Pirates get to save the extra $500K they would spend on him and they hold onto Salomon Torres in the bullpen as a safety starter should #5 man, Jeff D'Amico prove ineffective. A) No one really uses their fifth starter for a month anyway, so Torres is a backup to a backup and B) Torres was out of the game for 5 full years--why the interest in retaining his services if he can't make the rotation?

- Cincinnati sent down Chris Reitsma. Reitsma is far from an All-Star but there should be a spot on the weak Cincinnati staff for a 25-year-old who had a 3.64 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, and a 1.87 strikeout-to-walk ratio last year. Why is Reitsma gone? Because he had a poor spring and because he was 6-12 last year. And he was the only guy with options left.

Consider that journeyman-cum-staff leader Jimmy Haynes had a 4.12 ERA, a 1.55 strikeout -to-walk ratio, and strike out only 5.77 men per nine innings last year. Oh, and he won 15 games. That's what impresses the inimitable Reds manager, Bob Boone. When you look at the dreck in the Reds' rotation and bullpen, it's amazing that Boone couldn't find a job for a decent young starter.

- Tonight the Cubs sent second baseman Bobby Hill down to Triple-A and gave his job to veteran Mark Grudzielanek. Hill had a poor spring batting .154 and committing 5 errors, but the Cubs' bringing in Grudzielanek as his understudy probably didn't help build his confidence.

The Cubs are left with a poor choice at second base, both offensively and defensively. There are rumors that Grudzielanek (.301 OBP in 2002) may even lead off. Meanwhile, one of the clubs' biggest prospects languishes in the minors.

Expect the same treatment for Hee Seop Choi at first with Eric Karros waiting in the wings. Consider that Grudzielanek was batting only .133 in limited action this spring himself. Choi is having a good spring (.304 BA), but rumors are already circulating that he has too slow a swing to be a power hitter. And Dusty does love those veterans. Karros is already set to start against left-handers.

Livan on a Jet Plane

When I first heard about the Livan Hernandez trade, my reaction was, I would assume, about the same as those of many Giants' fans: I thought that it was a great move by the Giants. They rid themselves of an underperforming, overpaid troublemaker. Hernandez gets to serve out his contract in baseball's version of Elban exile--at least until his troubles pass and the great Omar Minaya decides to recycle the Hernandez brothers to whomever Bud owes a favor to that week for that team's doghouse residents du jour. They'll make sure that it comes after the trip to San Juan to exploit the ex-Cuban giants.

Here's what Rob Neyer had to say about the move:

What a brilliant move by Giants GM Brian Sabean.

You've heard of addition by subtraction? You'll rarely see a better example than this one. Livan Hernandez figured to be the fourth-best, or perhaps even the fifth-best, starter in the Giants' rotation. Now that he's off to join his half-brother in Montreal (and San Juan), the Giants are practically forced to give rookie Kurt Ainsworth a shot. And if somebody can convince Sabean to dump Ryan Jensen in favor of Jesse Foppert (another rookie), the Giants will really have something interesting.

However, after looking over the trade, I can't say that it actually reflects well upon the Giants. The trade the pitcher that they (foolishly) chose to pitch the seventh game of the World Series a scant four months ago. Now the throw him out with the garbage, er the Edwards Guzman, whoever they are. The Giants are still paying all but the league minimum of Hernandez's contract. They got Jim Brower, who'll out-Witasick any other pitcher in the pen. Meanwhile Ainsworth and possibly the foppish Foppert move into the rotation. They are both highly touted, but when you fill out your rotation with three number-three pitchers and two rookies, it does not bode well for the season. (I see the headlines now, "Foppert Flop".)

Hernandez was far from a staff leader, but the Giants are still paying him to pitch, just in Montreal. He is still just 28 (at least until his visa is reviewed). I still have the impression, inaccruate though it may be, that his abuse in Florida is the root of his sub-par pitching. But maybe he's the root. Or maybe it's his golf game. Or maybe it's too late for him to bounce back even if the abuse was the cause. I would have to think Hernandez in the bullpen is preferable to Brower (though an embittered Hernandez may not be). Besides Hernandez has been a very good pitcher on occassion (1997 and 2000) even without Eric Gregg behind the plate.

There is something to be said for ridding a team of problematic players, but to do it at the expense of getting decent return on said players is foolhardy. Besides isn't this a team that came alive in 2002 when controversy swirled?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe by mid-summer Livan will be practicing his putts in a minimum secuirty prison while Ainsworth and Foppert become staff leaders. I like the Giants and hope that it plays out that way. But I still think it's far from the excellent move that Neyer and others make it out to be.

A Rose Isn't a Rose

In a move that somehow makes Pete Rose look classy in comparison, the organizers of the Reds' opening day parade have replaced the demurring Rose with a look-alike.

In an obvious tribute to the brilliance of Mark Twain, the parade sponsors will host a Pete Rose look-alike contest before the game. The spurious Hit King will "gets a place of honor in Monday's parade and two tickets to the game against Pittsburgh." The real Chuckie Hustle will not be in attendance.

Contestants will be not be required "to do headfirst slides to win, but they are encouraged to appear in costume" according to contest officials. No headfirst slides, but running out walks, rocking one's batting helmet, bouncing a ball hard on the ground, and general hotdoggery are a plus. No mention was made as to the amount of Grecian Formula a contestant would be allowed to slather on his be-bowl-hewn coiff. Ah, to quote Joel Robinson, "It's fun when it's fun!"

Early leaders include:

Herve "De Cinnamon" Villechaize

Dr. Moe Howard (Niagara Falls! Slowly he turned....)

Robbie "Cousin Oliver" Rist a.k.a the Jinx

But you too could be Peter Edward Rose Sr. So break out your old Beatles wig and head on down. Do it today!

Brand New Pinto

David Pinto has an explosive new website and URL (Get it? Pinto...Explosive. You see, if it bends, it works. If it breaks, it doesn't work. That's comedy.)

Go check out David's previews for each of baseball's divisions for the upcoming season.

[By the way, I attempted to update my link on the left to David's new site but Blogger, as usual, has some sort of bug with updating templates right now. I will keep trying and will get it fixed at Blogger's earliest convenience.]

Johnson Extended

By now you've heard that Randy Johnson has signed a $33 M, 2-year extension with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The contract not only makes him the highest paid pitcher in baseball history; it assures Johnson will be a D-Back until the age of 42.

It's hard to argue with the Johnson signing. He sure has been more than worthy the last couple of years. However, there's always that age bugaboo. How can a team sign a man to such a large, multi-year deal when he will be 40 before the deal even kicks in, you ask?

Well, I asked the same thing. I wondered what one's expectations should be for a 40-year-old. Maybe the salary is justified. So, I made a list of all pitchers with the records after turning 40 (i.e., in the seasons after turning 40 before July). There were 132 such pitchers (including Wade Boggs and Dave Concepcion). From that list I selected just those pitchers who started at least 35 games, about one season. I just wanted to compare Johnson to his peer group-let's assume he garners at least a season's worth of starts in his two years. There were 33 such pitchers.

Here they are:

Name          #Yrs   W   L  PCT   G  GS  CG SHO   IP    ERA WHIP K/9IP K:BB
Phil Niekro      9 121 103 .540 300 294  62  11 1977.0 3.84 1.39  5.23 1.46
Charlie Hough    7  67  88 .432 209 207  29   3 1346.3 4.06 1.36  5.05 1.21
Nolan Ryan       7  71  66 .518 196 196  19   7 1271.7 3.33 1.15 10.17 2.73
Tommy John       7  51  60 .459 180 165  17   2 1000.7 4.43 1.48  2.94 1.24
Warren Spahn     5  75  63 .543 179 156  77  12 1163.0 3.44 1.22  3.89 1.82
Jack Quinn      10  96  80 .545 342 154  69  12 1427.7 3.49 1.35  2.37 1.19
Gaylord Perry    5  47  59 .443 151 149  28   3  992.0 3.91 1.36  4.84 2.07
Cy Young         5  75  60 .556 153 142 119  15 1227.0 2.13 1.04  3.81 2.57
Don Sutton       4  44  38 .537 119 118   5   2  712.0 4.06 1.24  4.63 2.04
Joe Niekro       4  28  37 .431  92  88   5   1  509.7 4.66 1.50  4.79 1.12
Red Faber        5  36  55 .396 182  83  30   2  779.3 3.87 1.39  2.58 0.96
Pete Alexander   4  46  30 .605 102  83  48   3  665.3 3.31 1.23  1.97 1.40
Early Wynn       4  29  31 .483 100  82  30   7  570.7 3.66 1.33  5.39 1.49
Jerry Koosman    3  31  26 .544  92  76   8   3  493.0 4.05 1.34  5.24 1.95
Connie Marrero   4  33  30 .524  91  75  43   6  583.3 3.46 1.32  3.61 1.21
Danny Darwin     3  23  32 .418  98  74   1   0  470.7 4.51 1.36  5.14 2.22
Dazzy Vance      5  33  31 .516 130  70  24   3  621.3 3.87 1.32  5.65 2.18
Steve Carlton    4  16  37 .302  84  70   3   0  430.0 5.21 1.62  5.53 1.15
Sam Jones        3  26  31 .456  75  70  29   3  500.0 4.19 1.47  2.84 0.90
Johnny Niggeling 3  22  27 .449  66  63  28   4  478.7 2.88 1.30  4.61 1.21
Dennis Martinez  4  26  22 .542 110  62   5   4  439.0 4.24 1.37  4.63 1.73
Tom Seaver       2  23  24 .489  63  61   8   1  415.0 3.53 1.27  5.14 1.90
Babe Adams       5  32  27 .542 114  54  28   4  507.7 4.20 1.31  1.90 1.57
Ted Lyons        3  27  20 .574  47  47  44   3  410.3 2.85 1.16  2.70 1.71
Rick Reuschel    3  20  16 .556  51  46   2   0  306.0 3.26 1.33  4.82 1.78
Tom Candiotti    2  15  22 .405  51  46   3   0  272.3 5.49 1.47  4.59 1.49
Lefty Grove      2  14  13 .519  43  42  19   1  287.3 4.17 1.41  3.63 1.26
Curt Davis       3  20  21 .488  56  41  22   1  345.7 3.36 1.28  2.29 1.42
Eppa Rixey       3  15  15 .500  63  40  15   3  332.7 3.27 1.28  1.24 0.79
Eddie Plank      2  21  21 .500  57  40  25   4  366.7 2.14 1.13  2.80 1.09
Charlie Root     3  18  19 .486  90  39  15   0  386.0 4.36 1.41  3.75 1.55
Orel Hershiser   2  14  17 .452  42  38   0   0  203.7 5.61 1.51  4.51 1.12
Rip Sewell       3  25   8 .758  73  35  13   2  318.7 3.62 1.36  2.77 0.93
Total          4.2    1229 .502    3006 873 122        3.73 1.32  4.34 1.57
                  1240         3801           21,810.3
Total, all 40+ 2.6    1878 .503    3588     148        3.74 1.33  4.37 1.52
                  1900         9721    1056   33,173.3

It seems to me from this that those pitchers going strong at 40 continue to go strong for some time. Only a few (Carlton, Candiotti, and Hershiser) could be called poor pitchers after turning 40, and some were still very good. A few were tremendous.

It's not as if this is conclusive, but if Johnson continues to be a dominant pitcher into his forties, it won't be unprecedented.

Keep in mind that Johnson is 76 wins away from 300. He has averaged 20.25 wins a year since joining Arizona 4 years ago. When his new contract runs out, if his win average holds, he could be just 15 wins from 300. I know that this is a supposition built on a what-if, but given Johnson late start and seeming slow development, who ever imagined he would get that close?

Consider that Johnson's record stood at 88-75 after 1994, the year in which he turned 30. Johnson is 143-44 since then, good enough for 30th on the all-time list for wins after the age of 30. His projected win total over the next 3 years would put him at 205 post-30 wins, good for 5th all-time behind Cy Young (295), Phil Niekro (264), Warren Spahn (255), and Gaylord Perry (219) (and one post-30 win ahead of Sam Jones).

Competitive Balancing Act I

[Mike: For the opening salvo in a series on competitive balance, I asked Chris DeRosa if I could post a piece of his that I had read in his annual baseball review. Chris writes the review and distributes it among his friends on a yearly basis. I was lucky enough to hear about it through my friend Murray. The review is a scholarly, scathing, and oftentimes hilarious appraisal of the game, all things that I enjoy tremendously. Please enjoy Chris's piece. Future posts in the series will be coming soon.]

Reinsdorf Award 2002

I'm the kind of Yankee fan who tries to understand the perspective of the person who doesn't get to go to a lot of ticker-tape parades. Last year though, they pushed me too far. Every year, for the amusement of my friends, I single out my least favorite person in baseball for a special distinction I call the "Reinsdorf Award" (previous winners include Bud Selig, JD Drew, etc.). I ended up giving the Reinsdorf Award for 2002 to my fellow fans - the fans whose bad behavior and whining undermine their cries of victimhood:

· Fans who run on the field.

· Fans who throw things when the Red Sox lose.

· Fans who punch, gouge, and sue each other to get Bonds' 600th home run ball.

· Fans who cheer fights in the stands, fans who attack first base coaches, fans who beat drums continuously throughout entire Indians games, fans who can't keep a beer upright, fans who beg for autographs, fans who force kids to throw back home run balls, and fans who stand up when everyone is sitting.

· Fans who cast All-Star ballots for Cal Ripken Jr. as a .204 hitter, and then throw a fit when Derek Jeter makes the roster as a .315 hitter.

· Fans who spend hours making and carrying around obsequious signs so they can be on TV for three seconds.

· Fans who say Vladimir Guerrero is underrated, when half the sportswriters in the country willfully look right past Barry Bonds to say Guerrero is the best player in baseball.

· Fans who sit next to me in the RF upper deck in Yankee Stadium and screech "F' you!" at the top of their lungs for three innings, as if this were not solely for the benefit of the people around them and actually could be heard by the Boston Red Sox down on the field.

· Fans who threaten "fan strikes." [If that's how you feel, fine. Do it and shut up, already!]

But most of all, I'm giving the Reinsdorf Award to the fans who swallow and spit back baseball's Big Fat Lie: the ones who say that my team, the Yankees, has unfairly "bought" its recent championships, that New York has destroyed fair competition, and the sport is therefore hopeless.

When the 1996 Yankees won the club's first championship in 18 years, I heard the low level sniping: how could the Braves compete with a team that could keep an overpaid vet like Cecil Fielder on their bench? Up 2-0, sleek, model-organization Atlanta drew comparisons to the 1927 Yankees. Four games later, they were doomed have-nots for the lack of a fat pinch-hitter.

In 1999, a group of Royals fans in "share the wealth" t-shirts ostentatiously turned their backs to the field (where KC was in the process of beating NY), and marched out in protest of the fact that the Yankees were better than the Royals. In 2000, putative Yankee fan Bob Costas came out with a book, Fair Ball, saying that most baseball teams could no longer compete with the Yankees.

In 2001, even though the Mariners were taking down our precious AL win record, I enjoyed talking this big M's fan I know about how astutely Seattle had built its team, and what a great player Edgar the Hammer is. He was having a ball. As soon as we beat them, he told me he really hadn't been into baseball since junior high (please note passive-aggressive putdown), and baseball was pointless because nobody could compete with the Yankees' unfair advantages. Can't compete?! They broke our goddamn record! They won 116 games!

George W. Bush, the official First Fan, was polite enough not to number the Yankees among the axis of evil, but when he threw out the first ball after September 11th, he announced that he was rooting for "anybody but the Yankees." In the World Series two months after the attack, the nation rallied not around New York City, but behind an Arizona team that possessed but two home-grown players on its roster (I don't want your pity, I'm just pointing out the double standard). So MLB's September 11th video, shown in all parks including Yankee Stadium, has Luis Gonzalez blooping that pathetic hit off of Rivera while the voice-over prattles happily about baseball overcoming terror and comforting America (Yankee fans booed, rightly).

But all this pales in comparison to 2002. You know when the RNC gives out those talking points memos, and whole Republican Party goes on TV and says the exact same annoying thing, like incessant infield chatter? That's what the fans of 2002 sounded like. They got the memo: the Yankees have ruined baseball. First day of the winter meetings, the Diamondbacks and Rangers, among the biggest spenders around, were taking shots at the Yanks. Fans made lists of which teams can't compete in a season that hadn't even started. Whereas they used to say "big market teams" now they dropped the pretense and just said "Yankees." The part Red Sox-owning New York Times routinely called the team the "economic juggernaut," and "big market Goliaths." In game stories! As in, "the Yankees payroll was too much for the Devil Rays this afternoon at Yankee Stadium." It was totally nauseating.

The Big Fat Lie is the fantasy of choice for the hordes of Yankee-haters who can't bear the greatness of the late 1990s team and seek to devalue and delegitimize their championships. As Allen Barra pointed out, they are belittling an amazing run of clutch playoff performances in which the Yankees have defeated seven teams with superior records. Some Angel fan holds up a sign, "Half the payroll, twice the heart." Twice the heart! How can anyone question the Yankees' heart? Twice the heart of Mariano Rivera, the guy with the World Series record for scoreless innings? Twice the heart of Derek Jeter? They've overcome inning-inning or ninth inning deficits in postseason games eighteen times! Twice the heart of Orlando Hernandez? We led the majors in comeback wins last year too, with 63. Mr. Twice-the-Heart is just diminishing his own championship when he runs down the Yankees.

So that just burns me. It's not like we have the best record in baseball every year. Last year there were at least five teams essentially just as good as the Yankees, including obviously the Angels. But to hear fans tell it, the Yankees are on a completely different plane, winning 120 games every year.

Not that that would bother them if it weren't the Yankees. When the Bulls won six championships in eight years, winning 72 games one year, nobody said, "basketball is broken - we have to change everything!" No, basketball freaked out when there was a one-season power vacuum. Who will replace Michael?!? Oh, Shaq and Kobe, whew. All's well in the best of all possible leagues, despite inert franchises struggling to play .250 ball. Meanwhile in baseball, the Braves' utter domination of the NL East draws zero ire from the caterwauling fans who swear, every time the Yankees make a roster move, that they will never attend a baseball game again.
Fans' double standards are completely resistant to evidence. My favorite is the Jason Giambi signing, because that one ratcheted up the whining to its current deafening level. No matter that Giambi was willing to re-sign, but Oakland wouldn't give him a no-trade clause. No matter that he signed with New York for less money than Manny Ramirez got from Boston the year before.
How about Mike Mussina? That was another one that allegedly ruined baseball, making large numbers of fans take up stamp collecting or the WNBA. We got him from the Orioles, one of the richest, free-agent-signingest teams around. They'd recently finished messing up their team by signing Albert Belle when Mussina decided to bail.

OK, well how about... whoops! That's it! Those are the only stars the Yankees signed in their big run, and neither played for any of the four world champion teams. Point this out, and your smarter Reinsdorf-winning fans will start in about players on poorer teams for whom the Yankees traded. Aside from Hideki Irabu, there weren't many cases in which the team wasn't actually anxious to get rid of the guy. One was Roger Clemens.

The Jays didn't want to lose Clemens, but he could just have easily wound up with Houston. All the Yankees had to give up was an 18 game winner, a lefty reliever with a 1.67 ERA, and a fast back-up second baseman. In a world where Mark McGwire gets traded for TJ Matthews, you'll excuse me for not feeling guilty. And let's not forget how Toronto got Clemens in the first place: they signed him as a free agent, making him the highest paid pitcher in baseball history at that time. They got him when the Blue Jays were perceived as a quality organization. When the Yankees didn't have that going for them, they couldn't get the best guys either. In 1992, they tried to sign Greg Maddux, Doug Drabek, and Barry Bonds, and struck out. The stars turned down NY's money to sign with better-regarded organizations.

Unless you want to count scatter-armed head case Chuck Knoblauch, you have to go back to 1995 to find a real example of the Yankees trading for a true star off an actually poor team, John Wetteland. And Wetteland left us as a free agent two years later. Look, the Yankees have 25 roster spots like everyone else, and some of those have been occupied by people like Shane Spencer. We can't have destroyed all your teams. If every team in baseball had to give back their Expos products, half a dozen teams would have been worse off than the Yankees, starting with Boston and their ace, who Red Sox fans now believe they drafted out of the Cape Cod League or something.

Yes of course the finest whine comes not from Minnesota or Oakland, but from Boston, whose fans like to cast themselves in the ill-fitting role of underdog. After kicking our asses in 7 of our first 11 meetings, the Boston Herald previewed the late July NY-Bos series by saying that it was impossible to compete against the Yankees' 130 million dollar payroll, and the Yankees had no excuse for losing.

Then there's the Red Sox. They've always got an excuse. The Yankees just go out and get whoever they want, whined Johnny Damon, as if he hadn't come to the Red Sox as a free agent only months before. Interviewing a "stern and determined" Jason Varitek, the Herald writer was impressed to find the Red Sox willing to slog on even under these hopeless conditions. Quick, Jason Varitek is:

(a) a Dustbowl migrant worker, or
(b) a catcher on a professional baseball team with a 110 million dollar payroll?

The answer is "b." The Red Sox have a payroll almost as big as the Yankees', despite the fact that the Yankees' repeated champions naturally accumulated the league-leading figure. Sox fans set themselves up to win either way, while the Yankees are one of the only teams in baseball that tries to win a title without first preparing a soft cushion of excuses.

The players to whom Hubtown Johnny was referring were the Yankees mid-season acquisitions, Jeff Weaver and Raul Mondesi. The Yankees have "added another superstar," baseball fans howled. Superstar! First of all, it's Weaver, not Seaver. And to describe Mondesi as a superstar is ludicrous. Sammy Sosa is a superstar. Mike Sweeney is a star. Kevin Millar is a quality regular. Mondesi once was a quality regular who was hitting .230 and was available not because he was good, but because he was bad. Despite Damon's professed willingness to stand pat and face down Yankee Tyranny with his courageous little band of brothers, the We Happy Few went and got Cliff Floyd, a player palpably better than superstar Mondesi.

I can't stand it, but really, I'm loving it. Having everyone railing against us gives the season a thrilling edge. Every Yankee loss carries the extra bitterness of having gratified the baseball ignorami, and every win is sweetened because it sticks it to same. Even in Colorado in mid-June, the place is packed (they're like Europeans at McDonalds: they hate us but they come out all the same), and on TV you can hear the noise rolling out of the stands: "Yankees suck." Awesome - we've never even played them before! There are teams we've been beating up on for a century. Take a number and get in line!

But the Big Fat Lie threatened to do more than merrily cheese off a Yankee celebrant. For a while there, it looked like the owners were going to take their ball and go home. The high volume of anti-Yankee fan sentiment was, among other things, part of Bud Selig's brilliantly orchestrated campaign to destroy baseball. Shrewdly, Selig and friends avoided the usual owner tactic, to bash the players, and instead stuck to bashing the Yankees and George Steinbrenner. The fans were totally on board for that view of things.

For a year, Selig laid the groundwork. By repeating the Big Fat Lie over and over, he sold it to almost every corner of the baseball world: the Yankees had killed "competitive balance," and the teams were losing vast sums of money. After firing Paul Beeston and rejecting the players' offer of a no-strike/no-impasse pledge, it appeared that the owners wanted a bloodletting rather than a settlement. Selig threatened to wipe out two teams, and in a series of tactical coups, he maneuvered big market clubs like Boston, Atlanta, and the Mets into his camp.

The media did quite a credible job in getting the facts out about the owners' machinations. Journalists (Forbes most famously) reported that the owners have lied about how much money they make. Reporters spotlit Selig's lying to Congress. They noted his blatant conflicts of interest, his breaking of baseball's financial rules.

But the fans' anti-union-anti-player-anti-Yankee paradigm was impervious to all of this. An ESPN.com poll showed that 51% of fans were "pro-owner," 37% blamed both sides, and only 12% blamed the owners. Even though they knew the owners were lying! The position of the fans was that the owners might be lying, but that the players should cave in and agree to a de facto salary cap anyway.

The owner's victory in the public relations battle shouldn't have mattered. Strikers are always unpopular. If strikes depended on public favor to succeed, no American unions would ever try to strike. It wouldn't have mattered, if Marvin Miller were still in charge. But immediately after the players surrendered, player rep Steve Kline said it was either cave in or face "having our reputation and life ripped by the fans."

The same fans for whom the capitulation of the player's union was not enough! They're calling this sweetheart deal for owners an inadequate compromise! The revenues of all teams must be totally equalized! The same fans to whom a smidgen of economic leveling is totally anathema when it comes to a living wage and rudimentary health care, but confiscatory redistribution is just fine so long the beneficiaries are crybaby baseball teams like the Kansas City Royals and Milwaukee Brewers!

I mean, forget "revenue sharing." Let's just go the more direct route of "run sharing." Every third run, no let's be certain of this, every other run the Yankees score will be donated to the opposing team. Fair ball for everyone.

I know most of you disagree with me, and you're in good company. Two of my favorite writers argue it the other way. Malcolm Gladwell, in an interview with Rob Neyer, said he loathed baseball because unlike the NFL, not every team has a chance to win the title every year. Bill James, in his masterfully revamped Historical Baseball Abstract, writes that the 1990s may be remembered when baseball separated decisively into big market and small market camps.

But the evidence that baseball is in a competitive imbalance crisis is scant. James himself devised an Index of Competitive Balance that shows that the 1990s were more balanced competitively than any decade in baseball history, including the 1980s. He notes that balance did take a dip in 1998. But 1998 was baseball's second expansion year of the decade, and as he has pointed out in other contexts, expansion effects can wash out over a few years. Isn't it a little premature to conclude that a crisis is upon us?
Hey, truth is, I'm in favor of priming the competition pump a bit. But New York having a good, lucky team for a few years is not serious evidence that baseball is going to hell in a hand basket. The Royals having a bad decade doesn't convince me either. If you've got thirty teams, doesn't it stand to reason that a couple of them are going to have bad decades? Most teams enjoyed some success in the 1990s. The fact that the Pirates were good in the early 1990s and bad now, while the Yankees were bad in the early 1990s and good now, is not compelling evidence that the state of the game was good in the early 1990s and bad now.

That there is no crisis hardly matters, because the owners don't really want competitive balance anyway. They want non-competitive balance. Like the NFL, they want a system where teams just hold their hats under the league money spigot, and have no responsibility to their fans to try to improve at the expense of one another.

And like Gladwell, today's short-attention span fans like it that way. They'd rather play the NFL lottery, where any team might jump up and win, than see their team struggle to build a winner the honest way, the Yankee way. You've got a whole generation of baseball fans now who grew up in towns that gave every kid in the little league a trophy at the end of the year. Of course their sense of entitlement is ever-expanding. But thirty teams can't all be good at once, and they only give out one trophy in the major leagues.

You know what I did when the Yankees lost to the Angels last year? I felt disappointed, and then I enjoyed the rest of the playoffs. I also enjoyed baseball in the years when my team was bad (The Era of Despair, 1989-1992). I didn't just complain about how my team had, sniff, no chance, and how it was so unfair that another team was good. Nor did I just wallow in Yankee crapitude. I watched local amateur ball, I got into cool teams like the A's and Blue Jays, I enjoyed close playoff games, I read about the history of the game, I pulled for the Phillies when I moved to Philadelphia, I gave out Reinsdorf Awards and stuff. There are plenty of ways for fans of bad teams to take pleasure in baseball, if only they would stop being such unbearable crybabies.

Chris DeRosa is a historian living in Long Branch, NJ, who writes season-in-review newsletters for all his baseball friends. You can reach him at christopherderosa@yahoo.com.

"Welcome to the Hall's of Relief", VIII

Previous entries:
The 1870s, '80s, and '90s
The 1900s and '10s
The 1920s, '30s, and '40s
The 1950s
The 1960s
The 1970s
The 1980s

To Come: Final analysis-best reliever of all time and greatest bullpen of all time.

The 1990s and 2000s

The Chase.--Third Day...

"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight.

"In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's all... Here's food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels;...How the wild winds blow...as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it!--it's tainted...And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha!...Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless...These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their mark, however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where to go at last. And by the eternal Poles! these same Trades that so directly blow my good ship on; these Trades, or something like them--something so unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along! To it! Aloft there! What d'ye see?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Nothing! and noon at hand!...I've oversailed him...Aye, he's chasing ME now; not I, HIM--that's bad; I might have known it, too...About! about!

Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod's quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own white wake.

-Moby Dick-Or the Whale, Chapter 135, By "Don't Call Me Babe"Herman Melville

After killing many e-trees with my last two installments on relief pitching (covering the 1970s and '80s) and anticipating the final analysis phase of this little project, I will keep my comments on the last thirteen years to a minimum. For the sake of brevity-and since I do not know how to refer to the current decade, which is only three years old anyway-I will refer to this period as the Nineties.

So what happened in the Nineties? Basically, baseball continued on its megalomaniacal course. Bullpens got bigger and more specialized. The closer role became synonymous with the save statistic as closers earned their arbitration and free agent living based on the stat. Save totals went up. Swingmen became an endangered species. "And Leon is getting laaaarrrrrger."

It is my assertion that the entire system has, like Ahab in the excerpt above, passed its goal by without realizing it. I am intently interested in what the Red Sox will be doing this year to "rechurn the cream" of the relief pitching wake. But more on that in the analytical section. For now, I'll try to keep an open mind.

In the Nineties:

The 50-save reliever was born and born again. In 1990, Bobby Thigpen set the one-year record of 57 saves that still stands today. Two years later Dennis Eckersley became the second to reach 50. Reaching 50 saves in a season has now been done eight times and five times since the last round of expansion in 1998.

In 1993, Lee Smith became the first pitcher to surpass 400 saves in his career. Smith ended his career with 478 saves in total. John Franco joined Smith in the 400-save club in 1999.

The number of men in the 300-save and 200-save clubs exploded as well. Here is a progression of those men at the end of each decade (I used 100 as the minimum in previous analyses, but given that there are now 99 men with at least 100 saves for their career, this figure becomes cumbersome):

After 1969         | After 1979         | After 1989           | Today               
Name            Sv | Name            Sv | Name              Sv | Name               Sv 
Hoyt Wilhelm   210+| Hoyt Wilhelm   227+| Rollie Fingers   341+| Lee Smith         478
                   | Sparky Lyle    223 | Rich Gossage     307 | John Franco       422*
                   | Rollie Fingers 221+| Bruce Sutter     300 | Dennis Eckersley  390
                                        | Jeff Reardon     266 | Jeff Reardon      367
                                        | Dan Quisenberry  244 | Trevor Hoffman    352*
                                        | Sparky Lyle      238 | Randy Myers       347
                                        | Lee Smith        234 | Rollie Fingers    341+
                                        | Hoyt Wilhelm     227+| John Wetteland    330
                                        | Gene Garber      218 | Roberto Hernandez 320*
                                                               | Rick Aguilera     318
                                                               | Robb Nen          314*
                                                               | Tom Henke         311
                                                               | Rich Gossage      310
                                                               | Jeff Montgomery   304
                                                               | Doug Jones        303
                                                               | Bruce Sutter      300
                                                               | Rod Beck          266*
                                                               | Todd Worrell      256 
                                                               | Dave Righetti     252
                                                               | Troy Percival     250*
                                                               | Dan Quisenberry   244
                                                               | Mariano Rivera    243*
                                                               | Sparky Lyle       238
                                                               | Hoyt Wilhelm      227+
                                                               | Jose Mesa         225*
                                                               | Gene Garber       218
                                                               | Gregg Olson       217*
                                                               | Dave Smith        216
                                                               | Jeff Shaw         203
                                                               | Bobby Thigpen     201
* indicates active
+ indicate Hall of Famer

The Eighties save totals were explosive when compared with the Sixties and Seventies, but they were nothing compared to the Nineties. The totals for 200-save men per decade are one as of 1969, 3 after 1979, 9 after 1989, and 30 today (six of which are still active). That's basically 3⁰, 3¹,3², and 3³ (well, plus 3)-a nice exponential progression.

Meanwhile, the men who had led in saves in the past-i.e., Wilhelm and Fingers-were getting elected to the all of Fame. Now, Fingers is 7th in saves, Wilhelm is 24th-right ahead of the redoubtable Jose "Make A" Mesa-, and no one else has been elected to the Hall.

The saves numbers have changed so rapidly that the change has obscured the value of pitchers like Goose Gossage (13th), Bruce Sutter (16th), and Dan Quisenberry (21st), all of whom were arguably more valuable to their teams in the day than three of the top four in career saves (Lee Smith, John Franco, and Jeff Reardon) were to theirs.

This argument I feel is a stronger explanation for the current dearth of Hall of Fame relievers than the ubiquitous "The Hall voters don't value saves" argument. They value saves, just not the relievers who have high totals in that statistic. I believe that there are voters who do not select the worthy candidates that I mentioned because they are over one hundred saves behind John Franco, a player who will not be regarded as a strong Hall candidate when he retires. No one would vote for Ned Williamson because his 27 home runs in 1884 were astronomical when put in context (if with the home field help). 27 home runs just isn't that impressive a number. More investigation is needed into the context of the earlier save totals but the Hall voters are not interested in investing time in such a project.

OK, I'm back down from my soapbox. In the Nineties closers became poster children for the save stat. Here as a table of the cumulative stats for closers per decade. I posted this in the Eighties entry but for the Nineties, I would like to base the numbers on team save leaders not on an arbitrary save cutoff (20 saves) as I used in the Eighties study (RA= Relief Appearance; percentages are of games pitched):

Decade	%RA	%W	%L	%Sv	IP/G
1970s	98.63%	11.71%	10.79%	28.16%	1.67
1980s	99.43%	9.89%	10.13%	36.08%	1.49
1990s	99.65%	6.05%	7.57%	46.81%	1.12
2000s	99.57%	5.70%	6.58%	47.77%	1.07
30-yr diff	0.94%	-6.02%	-4.21%	19.61%	-0.60

A closer in the 2000s pitches a hair over one inning, records a save in almost every other appearance, and has little to do with wins and losses, especially wins. Look at the change since the 1970s especially in saves and innings per appearance.

Here is a table of the percent of team save leaders who amassed a certain percentage of the team's total saves. For example, the 100% column tells you the percentage of all "closers" who registered all of their team's saves. Note how each bracket is increasing especially into the late Nineties and early 2000s:

Year	100%	90%	75%	50%	25%	10%
1980	0%	0%	12%	58%	100%	100%
1981	0%	0%	19%	54%	100%	100%
1982	0%	0%	12%	58%	100%	100%
1983	0%	4%	15%	50%	100%	100%
1984	0%	0%	19%	62%	96%	100%
1985	0%	4%	27%	62%	100%	100%
1986	0%	0%	12%	58%	100%	100%
1987	0%	0%	15%	42%	100%	100%
1988	0%	4%	27%	85%	100%	100%
1989	0%	0%	31%	88%	100%	100%
1990	0%	4%	23%	69%	100%	100%
1991	0%	8%	35%	65%	100%	100%
1992	0%	4%	35%	69%	100%	100%
1993	0%	21%	43%	86%	100%	100%
1994	0%	4%	32%	79%	96%	100%
1995	0%	11%	54%	82%	100%	100%
1996	4%	7%	54%	86%	100%	100%
1997	0%	11%	46%	75%	100%	100%
1998	0%	17%	53%	87%	100%	100%
1999	0%	30%	57%	83%	100%	100%
2000	0%	17%	53%	83%	100%	100%
2001	0%	20%	57%	90%	100%	100%
2002	3%	40%	77%	90%	100%	100%

The closers became save machines pitching one inning at a time. So how did this affect the rest of the staff?

First starters almost never complete a game today. The number of pitchers per game is approaching an average of four. The concept of swingmen has disappeared almost completely. A reliever was a reliever by trade even if he didn't close. They began to start games less often. Here's the closer table from above for middle relievers:

Decade	%RA         %W	%L   	%Sv    	IP/G
1970s	94.30%	9.50%	9.37%	8.95%	1.85
1980s	95.81%	8.86%	8.62%	7.92%	1.72
1990s	97.23%	7.07%	6.81%	4.63%	1.33
2000s	98.04%	6.29%	6.19%	3.07%	1.18
30-yr diff	3.74%	-3.21%	-3.18%	-5.88%	-0.67

The percentage of relief appearances goes up while the wins, losses, saves and inning pitched go down. Well, why is that if the middle relievers are taking up the slack from the starters and closers? Because there are more of them (6.37 per team in 2002).

Study One: 1990, the Year of the Reliever?

When one looks at the history of relief pitching, one year stands out as a high water mark: 1990.

It is the year in which the current saves record was established by Bobby Thigpen, who, though he only had a handful of serviceable years as a closer, cracked the once-elite 200-save club (see above). Thigpen had a truly impressive season adding a 1.83 ERA, 110% better than the park-adjusted league average, and 70 strikeouts (though 32 walks) in 88.2 innings to his record 57 saves. Thigpen not only broke the record; he obliterated, by 11 saves.

Dennis Eckerlsey's 1990 season may have been even better: 48 saves (2 better than the pre-1990 save record), a 0.61 ERA (506% better than the league average), 73 strikeouts (about one per inning), and only 4 walks and 41 hits allowed in 73.1 innings. Though Thigpen beats him out in Win Shares (which I feel are somewhat more than problematic in measuring reliever effectiveness), Eck's season may be the most singular achievement for a reliever. Here's a quick comparison (SV% is the ratio of saves to appearances):

1990	WHIP	K/9IP	K:BB	HR/9	IPSV %
Eckersley	0.61	8.96	18.25	0.027	76.19%
Thigpen	1.04	7.11	2.19	0.056	74.03%

Eckersley's ratios are, to quote Wally Shawn, "inconceivable". His 18.25 strikeout-to-walk ratio is the best I have run across for a closer all-time. And he recorded a save a larger percentage of the time than Thigpen did. I realize that there is a great deal of worth in Thigpen's extra appearances (14 more), but c'mon, that's pretty good.

Here's what Bill James had to say in The Baseball Book 1991 about Thigpen's record-breaking accomplishment and what it meant for the future of the save statistic:

Thigpen broke the old record by eleven, saving 57. That's impressive, but it has very little to do with whether the record will or will not be broken. That's looking backward, comparing Thigpen's performance to the past. The record, if it is to be broken, will be broken in the future, so the question is how this will compare to future performance norms.

I would argue that the more stunning an individual performance is, the greater the likelihood that the record will be broken. Consider, for example, the home run record. When Babe Ruth hit 59 home runs in 1920 this was a shattering event-more than twice the previous record, which Ruth himself had set the previous year. But did that mean that the record could never be broken, or did that merely mean that the game of baseball had changed in some way so that more home runs would be hit? When Ruth himself hit 60 home runs in 1927 no one paid much attention, because by that time seasons of 40 or more homers were no longer shocking, and so no one really thought that the record of 60 would stand-but it did, lasting for 34 years.

Think about it. If you edge past an existing record, then it may be that the previous standards still apply, and the record was broken simply by a superb individual performance. If the record is smashed, however, it must be because the performance norms in this category have changed. Bobby Thigpen is a fine reliever, but there have been fine relievers before, right? If the performance standards for saves remained the same, would it be possible for him to be 25% better than anybody else ever has been, in his best season?

Of course it would not. Obviously, Thigpen's record was brought about in part because of a change in the way that relief pitchers are used-a generalized change, operating thoughout [sic] baseball.

He does have a good point about records. Look at the home run record in 1998. Mark McGwire destroyed the old record by 9 homers. Sammy Sosa also broke the home run record in finishing second overall. Ken Griffey's total was only five homers behind the old record. And just three seasons later Barry Bonds passed McGwire.

In 1990, Thigpen and Eckersley both passed the old save record, and Doug Jones was only three off the mark. Surely, the saves record would fall soon especially when the save-producing trend to which James points reached maturity. Well, the trend did continue as we have seen. Closers became more specialized and were brought in more and more in save situations.

So why has the record lasted so long? Well, there are a few things that James did not anticipate. First, it is extremely difficult for a player to get over 60 save opportunities in a season especially when he is pitching one inning at a time. James could not have known about the offensive explosion of the Nineties in which leads seemed never to be safe. Closers were rarely used for more than an inning because teams became fearful of giving up a lead in the ninth. Second, the ratio of saves to innings pitched did increase quickly (more on that later), but the number of innings a typical closer threw shrank even more quickly. Therefore, the saves did not continue to explode.

OK, so 1990 had two historically impressive seasons by a closer, but it may be best remembered for what has been called by many the greatest bullpen of all time, the Cincinnati Reds' "Nasty Boys" (I reserve judgment for my analysis epilogue).

Here are the numbers for the five main relievers and the totals for the entire Cincinnati bullpen:

Name            G  W  L SV  IP     ERA WHIP K/9IP K:BB HR/9IP
Rob Dibble     68  8  3 11  98.00 1.74 0.98 12.49 4.00 0.28
Randy Myers    66  4  6 31  86.67 2.08 1.12 10.18 2.58 0.62
Tim Layana     55  5  3  2  80.00 3.49 1.44  5.96 1.20 0.79
Norm Charlton* 40  6  4  2  50.67 3.02 1.38 10.12 2.59 0.36
Tim Birtsas    29  1  3  0  51.33 3.86 1.81  7.19 1.71 1.23
1990 Reds     316 27 22 50 472.67 2.91 1.27  8.57 2.28 0.69
* = as a reliever

However, I prefer the A's bullpen to the Reds that year:

Team            G  W  L SV  IP     ERA WHIP K/9IP K:BB HR/9IP
1990 Reds     316 27 22 50 472.67 2.91 1.27  8.57 2.28 0.69
1990 A's      303 14 10 64 417.33 2.35 1.05  6.02 2.23 0.52

Both pretty impressive, but the A's have an edge in every stat but innings pitched and strikeouts per nine innings. Also, remember than the five main A's relievers that year had ERAs under 3.00 (Eckersley, Rick Honeycutt, Gene Nelson, Todd Burns, and Joe Kink). The A's bullpen points was 1.15 points better than its starters; The Reds bullpen was 71 points better than its starters.

Whichever bullpen one prefers doesn't really matter. What I'm interested in is what made 1990 such a big year for relievers. There's nothing at first blush that reveals the solution. In 1990, complete games were down, but that's been going down ever since John McGraw turned to Iron Joe McGinnity to save ballgames. Relief appearances increased by about 7% but that was hardly unusual for the era. For the first time, teams averaged three pitchers per game, but they're approaching four per game now.

I think the answer to the 1990 hegemony lies in the 1985-'87 offensive outburst and the then impending offensive outburst from 1993 until pretty much today. In the Eighties section I wrote that 1985-'87 offense helped develop what I call the "post-modern" closer, i.e., the closer in the Dennis Eckersley mold brought in to save games almost exclusively.

I contend that the bullpen infrastructure and depth effected by the mini offensive boom created inflated bullpen stats during the offensive "lag" of 1988-'92 with an apex right at the center at 1990. The bullpens were built to withstand an offensive-minded game and they were more than enough for a somewhat less offensively minded era. Let's test that theory.

Check out the runs, home runs, and saves per game (both teams) for the "modern" closer years:

Year R/G HR/G SV/G % Inc
1977 4.47 0.87 0.201
1978 4.10 0.70 0.191 -4.81%
1979 4.46 0.82 0.200 4.63%
1980 4.29 0.73 0.214 7.07%
1981 4.00 0.64 0.217 1.28%
1982 4.30 0.80 0.221 1.92%
1983 4.31 0.78 0.232 4.73%
1984 4.26 0.77 0.236 1.83%
1985 4.33 0.86 0.232 -1.52%
1986 4.41 0.91 0.239 2.76%
1987 4.72 1.06 0.231 -3.38%
1988 4.14 0.76 0.250 8.29%
1989 4.13 0.73 0.254 1.62%
1990 4.26 0.79 0.264 4.17%
1991 4.31 0.80 0.269 1.76%
1992 4.12 0.72 0.263 -2.12%
1993 4.60 0.89 0.263 -0.24%
1994 4.92 1.03 0.243 -7.56%
1995 4.85 1.01 0.249 2.70%
1996 5.04 1.09 0.246 -1.30%
1997 4.77 1.02 0.251 2.11%
1998 4.79 1.04 0.260 3.48%
1999 5.08 1.14 0.251 -3.64%
2000 5.14 1.17 0.242 -3.24%
2001 4.78 1.12 0.249 2.72%
2002 4.62 1.04 0.252 1.28%

Saves shot up in 1988 and 1990 after the offensive onslaught of 1985-'87. Saves per game shot up in 1990 and '91 to their highest figures. Apparently what was being brewed during the 1985-'87 seasons came to fruition after Dennis Eckersley's role re-defining 1988 season.

As offenses started to creep back up (i.e., runs and home runs per game) in 1990 and '91, teams followed the Eckersley "post modern" example. It seems to be viewed as successful as offensive went back down in 1992. However, ever since the expansion of 1993 and the attendant historic offensive outburst in the intervening ten years, the number of successful save attempts per game has declined.

Given the circumstances, I'm not sure if 1990 was such an historically tremendous season for relievers or if a strategy reached maturity just as it was made available to counter an slight upsurge in offense. The circumstances were very favorable for fine relief stats: the upsurge was enough to spur managers to go full bore with the new "post modern" relief strategy but they were not so much to change the perception of the newly defined role.

The last tens years on the other hand have left managers scratching their noggins. They rely just as heavily on their closers as managers did in 1990, but because of the offensive surge the closer does not record a save as successfully. Instead of chucking the strategy altogether managers have instead relied on it more heavily. The average closer in 2002 recorded 32.93 saves a year (81 of his team's saves) while the closer in 1990 recorded just 26.81 saves (only 62.62% of his team's total).

So the feats of the average bullpen today are more impressive than they were in 1990, so the "Year of the Reliever" appellation may no longer fit. It's especially so with perceptions of and expectations for closers and relievers in general starting to change. Will managers continue to save his best reliever for the ninth inning of a ballgame and use him only in save opportunities? Let' check that out as well.

Study Two: The Future?

Managers have been accelerating their reliance on closers to save ballgames and middle relievers to bridge the game from starters to closers. Complete game percentages and average number of pitchers per ballgame state this pretty firmly.

However, if the past is any prologue to the future for bullpens, things should change and change very soon. In the history of baseball there have been few periods in which reliever use was not reinvented every 10-12 years. The exception in the post-19th century era came in the 1920s, '30s, and 40s. Ever since then the reliever role has been revamped sometimes due to the success of one or two individuals, for example Joe Page in the late Forties, Sutter in the late Seventies, and Eckersley in the late Eighties.

Ever since Eckersley redefined the closer role in 1988, managers have been steering the same course ever since. The only change overall has been to more heavily rely on the strategy at all costs. As a result, managers are criticized more and more for not bringing in their best reliever when the game was on the line before the ninth inning. Many teams have tried closer- or bullpen-by committee over that period, but that has usually been due to a lack of a quality closer.

That's fourteen years with the same strategy for relievers, which is a long time. The Red Sox with the help of Bill James this spring have developed a new approach in which a quality, veteran staff of middle relievers will be used in a true closer-by-committee system. It is too early to determine if it is a success since it has yet to be used in regular-season game situation. Suffice it to say though, that if the Sox wrest the pennant away from the Yankees while employing the strategy, it may became the new standard. It should be interesting to watch.

Whatever happens with Sox pen in 2003, expect some change over the next few years as the baseball mood is rife with discontent on the issue. Again don't expect this strategy, be it closer-by-committee or a return to 100-inning closers, to last for much more that a decade itself, if history is any indication.

So is James onto something? Certainly having a number of quality pitchers who can pitch more than an inning, i.e., potentially the most ballyhooed but least important one, the ninth, is more valuable than a closer who gets fewer than one save opportunity every three games and is rarely used otherwise. Even if the closer is supported by quality setup men, the best reliever in theory, the closer, is completely underutilized.

But is there something in the statistical trends in the last few years to indicate that the ground has been properly prepared for such a drastic change? Let's see. First, I want to review what has happened since the birth of the "post modern" closer. Let's start with some more of James' 1991 comments on Bobby Thigpen breaking the save record:

The record for saves in a season will settle somewhere above 80, possibly as high as 90.

Why? Because there is nothing to stop the trends which are in motion from continuing in motion before that point is reached. In 1985 Dan Quisenberry saved 45 games-but he pitched 139 innings to do it. Quisenberry pitched primarily in save situations, but he was normally called into the game in the seventh or eighth inning. Only on occasion would he pick up a save by getting one or two outs, and his ratio of innings pitched to saves was about 3 to I.

When Dave Righetti saved 46 games in 1986 he pitched 107 innings, so his ratio was more like 2 to 1. He was being called into the game later than Quisenberry was. When Jeff Russell saved 38 games in 1989 he pitched only 73 innings, a ratio of less than 2 to 1. Last year Thigpen picked up 57 saves while pitching 89 innings, a ratio about one and a half to one.

In theory, a relief pitcher could save 60 games while pitching only 20 innings. That's not going to happen, of course, but the ratio between saves and innings pitched has been flattening out for fifty years. It is nowhere near its theoretical limit. Is there any reason why it would stop flattening out right now?

None at all-none that I can see anyway. Next there's going to be a pitcher who pitches 80 games, 80 innings and saves 60 games, or some combination like that. Then there's going to be a pitcher who pitches 85 games, 75 innings and saves 62 games, and so on.

What is the limit? Where does it have to stop?

Well, think about it. Pitching less than an inning a game, as some relief aces already are, how much can a pitcher pitch? Maybe 110 games, 90 innings a season? That would certainly seem to be possible, wouldn't it? Mike Marshall in 1974 pitched 106 games, 208 innings, and major league pitchers have told me that while they wouldn't want to try that, they could certainly pitch 110 games if it was just a couple of hitters a game.

How many games could a pitcher save if he was used in that way?

All records tend to be set in a combination of near-optimal circumstances. Home run records are set in home run parks, etc. Let's assume near-optimal conditions for some un-named relief pitcher, at some un-named point maybe twenty years from now. That means:

a. pitching for a great team, a team winning more than a hundred games,
b. in a season when they have a lot of close games-say, 80% close games,
c, and having a great season himself.

This is more likely to occur in a pitcher's park than in a park like Wrigley, where scores are higher and one-run margins therefore less common, but really, no team wins all that many games by more than three runs. Most games are won by less than three runs.

Anyway, how many saves would this create? I don't know exactly, but the answer is clearly over seventy, and could be as high as the low nineties. In the year 2025, if the save rule isn't changed, the record for saves in a season will be about 83.

As I said earlier James did not anticipate some other forces keeping save totals from breaking Thigpen's mark let alone 80 or 90 saves. Those 80 or 90 save opportunities for a 100-game-winning team never presented themselves as offensives ran up bigger scores and greater margins of victory. Closers were used less frequently as teams grew fearful of losing games, even ones they led by a healthy margin, in the ninth inning. They were held back in case the opposition got back into games. Sometimes it wasn't necessary and sometimes the lead change hands so quickly while managers were running their fourth best relievers out to the mound that the closer was never used. The "closer equals save opportunity" mentality limited the closer's use and number fo save opportunities available as the closer became more and more pigeonholed.

James' saves per innings concept is very interesting though. Here is a list using James' stat of saves per innings pitched for all closers (i.e., team leaders in saves) over 60%:

Name              Year SV/IP SV
George Wood       1888 100.00% 2
Lee Smith         1994 86.09% 33
Lee Smith         1993 86.00% 43
Matt Mantei       1999 75.86% 22
Randy Myers       1997 75.42% 45
Mike Williams     2002 75.00% 46
Lee Smith         1995 75.00% 37
Mike Henneman     1996 73.81% 31
Trevor Hoffman    1998 72.60% 53
Jose Mesa         1995 71.88% 46
Trevor Hoffman    2001 71.27% 43
Troy Percival     2002 71.01% 40
Jeff Shaw         1998 70.75% 25
Jeff Russell      1993 70.71% 33
Randy Myers       1993 70.35% 53
Mitch Williams    1993 69.35% 43
John Smoltz       2002 68.46% 55
Randy Myers       1995 68.26% 38
Dennis Eckersley  1997 67.92% 36
Dave Righetti     1990 67.92% 36
John Wetteland    1998 67.74% 42
Troy Percival     2001 67.63% 39
John Wetteland    1996 67.54% 43
Kazuhiro Sasaki   2001 67.50% 45
Jeff Reardon      1991 67.42% 40
Todd Worrell      1996 67.35% 44
Ugueth Urbina     2002 66.67% 40
Bill Bishop       1889 66.67% 2
Eddie Guardado    2002 66.50% 45
Tom Henke         1995 66.26% 36
Randy Myers       1998 66.14% 28
Rick Aguilera     1995 65.93% 20
Todd Jones        2000 65.63% 42
Dennis Eckersley  1990 65.45% 48
Mariano Rivera    1999 65.22% 45
Bryan Harvey      1993 65.22% 45
John Wetteland    1999 65.15% 43
Gregg Olson       1993 64.44% 29
Lee Smith         1991 64.38% 47
Jeff Montgomery   1998 64.29% 36
Antonio Alfonseca 2000 64.29% 45
Bobby Thigpen     1990 64.29% 57
Trevor Hoffman    2002 64.04% 38
Troy Percival     2000 64.00% 32
Jeff Reardon      1992 63.78% 27
Dennis Eckersley  1992 63.75% 51
Tom Henke         1991 63.58% 32
Rod Beck          1998 63.49% 51
Mike Fetters      1995 63.46% 22
Eric Gagne        2002 63.16% 52
Troy Percival     1998 63.00% 42
Duane Ward        1993 62.79% 45
Mike Jackson      1998 62.50% 40
Billy Wagner      2001 62.23% 39
Robb Nen          2000 62.12% 41
Mariano Rivera    2001 61.98% 50
Jeff Brantley     1996 61.97% 44
Dennis Eckersley  1988 61.93% 45
Rick Aguilera     1992 61.50% 41
Mike Henneman     1995 61.36% 18
Jeff Russell      1995 61.22% 20
Tom Henke         1992 61.08% 34
Kazuhiro Sasaki   2002 60.99% 37
Rick Aguilera     1991 60.87% 42
Mariano Rivera    2002 60.87% 28
Rick Aguilera     2000 60.84% 29
Jose Mesa         2001 60.58% 42
Rod Beck          1993 60.50% 48
Billy Taylor      1999 60.47% 26
Jeff Montgomery   1994 60.45% 27
Mariano Rivera    1997 60.00% 43
John Franco       1994 60.00% 30
John Franco       1997 60.00% 36

You'll notice that aside from a couple of 19th-century anomalies and Dennis Eckersley's groundbreaking 1988 season, the pitchers are all from 1990 on.

But is this becoming more the norm or holding steady? Here is a table of the saves-per-innings pitched for the average closer over the last 25 years:

Year	Sv/IP
1977	16.55%
1978	19.37%
1979	18.56%
1980	19.51%
1981	19.46%
1982	19.46%
1983	21.29%
1984	24.62%
1985	24.36%
1986	25.59%
1987	23.60%
1988	34.88%
1989	37.10%
1990	36.74%
1991	38.35%
1992	38.32%
1993	49.12%
1994	39.71%
1995	46.58%
1996	43.42%
1997	42.53%
1998	44.89%
1999	42.07%
2000	41.35%
2001	45.87%
2002	47.33%

1993 is the highest but 2002 is next. It appears that the numbers are climbing over the last couple of years as offenses are coming back down to earth, analogous to the 1990 season. I don't see anything here that indicates that managers are willing to junk the one-inning closer any time soon. But then again someone reviewing the state of pitching circa 1979, would think by Kent Tekulve's and Mike Marshall's performances that closers would continue to pitch 90 games and 130 innings a year for some time.

Something tells me though that something like what the Red Sox are doing, something so much different, will be tried and will be successful over the next few years. That new germ of an idea will reinvigorate the bullpen and the closer role specifically. It may be James' closer-by-committee. It may be the second coming of Kent Tekulve. Who knows?

However, I doubt that it will be closers pitching fewer innings and recording more saves, like James envisioned twelve years ago. I think that some asymptote (read limit) has just about been reached. Given that closers are now pitching fewer innings, there is a greater volatility year-to-year in the ERAs and general overall effectiveness. A guy may look great in a small sample like 60 innings in year one but terrible in the same number of innings in year two. Case in point, here are the team leaders in saves since 1977, whose ERA was over 5.50. Note that most of them had their fair share of successes as well in the careers:

Year	ERA	Closer
1994	8.71	Mike Perez
1994	8.49	Paul Shuey
1997	7.27	Norm Charlton
1999	6.84	Jeff Montgomery
1994	6.65	Joe Grahe
1993	6.48	Rob Dibble
1991	6.00	Dave Smith
2001	5.96	La Troy Hawkins
1987	5.89	Jay Howell
2000	5.86	Jeff Brantley
1996	5.79	Mike Henneman
1997	5.79	Heathcliff Slocumb
1989	5.74	Willie Hernandez
2002	5.74	Hideki Irabu
1983	5.61	Dave Beard
1993	5.56	Doug Henry

So all I can say is that I believe that the current strategy will not last long though I don't know what will replace it. I guess that is in the nature of a discontinuous break from history: it's a new road that can head anywhere, in theory. Let's all watch what the Sox are doing this year, and as other closers with 4.00+ ERAs struggle on various teams, let's see how those teams react. It should be interesting.

Here are the leaders in relief appearances and saves for the last thirteen years. Note that there is a good mix of closers and middle relievers:

Name                RA  SV   G
Mike Stanton       814  64 815
Dan Plesac         782  56 796
Mike Jackson       769 130 769
Roberto Hernandez  693 320 696
Jesse Orosco       691  23 691
Steve Reed         671  18 671
Doug Jones         668 225 672
Mike Timlin        660 114 664
Mark Guthrie       652  14 687
Jeff Nelson        644  23 644
Paul Assenmacher   643  42 644
Rod Beck           642 266 642
Robb Nen           639 314 643
Chuck McElroy      636  17 643
Trevor Hoffman     632 352 632
Jeff Shaw          614 203 633
Todd Jones         607 184 607
John Franco        605 274 605
Jose Mesa          605 225 695
Buddy Groom        604  25 619
Rich Rodriguez     604   8 606
Bob Wickman        599 156 627
Dennis Cook        589   9 638
Rick Aguilera      588 311 607
Mike Fetters       585  99 591
John Wetteland     582 329 587
Doug Henry         582  82 582
Jeff Montgomery    578 285 578
Stan Belinda       577  79 577
Dave Veres         574  94 574
Scott Radinsky     557  52 557
Paul Quantrill     552  19 616
Eric Plunk         549  27 557
Eddie Guardado     548  75 573
Gregg Olson        548 190 548
Heathcliff Slocumb 548  98 548
Mike Myers         545  14 545
Mark Wohlers       533 119 533
Randy Myers        531 291 543
Jeff Brantley      531 171 547
Dennis Eckersley   530 293 530
Mel Rojas          525 126 525
Graeme Lloyd       516  17 516
Bob Patterson      512  27 518
Tony Fossas        511   6 511
Darren Holmes      503  59 509
 
Name                RA  SV   G
Trevor Hoffman     632 352 632
John Wetteland     582 329 587
Roberto Hernandez  693 320 696
Robb Nen           639 314 643
Rick Aguilera      588 311 607
Dennis Eckersley   530 293 530
Randy Myers        531 291 543
Jeff Montgomery    578 285 578
John Franco        605 274 605
Rod Beck           642 266 642
Troy Percival      475 250 475
Lee Smith          436 244 436
Mariano Rivera     438 243 448
Doug Jones         668 225 672
Jose Mesa          605 225 695
Jeff Shaw          614 203 633
Gregg Olson        548 190 548
Tom Henke          322 189 322
Todd Jones         607 184 607
Billy Wagner       386 181 386
Armando Benitez    495 176 495
Ugueth Urbina      355 174 376
Jeff Brantley      531 171 547
Mike Henneman      381 156 381
Bob Wickman        599 156 627
Billy Koch         277 144 277
Jeff Russell       339 143 339
Bryan Harvey       218 135 218
Todd Worrell       336 130 336
Mike Jackson       769 130 769
Danny Graves       363 129 367
Mel Rojas          525 126 525
Mitch Williams     309 124 311
Antonio Alfonseca  340 121 340
Mark Wohlers       533 119 533
Kazuhiro Sasaki    193 119 193
Mike Williams      345 116 400
Ricky Bottalico    460 114 460
Mike Timlin        660 114 664
Bobby Thigpen      248 110 248
Jason Isringhausen 219 108 271
Jeff Reardon       233 101 233
Keith Foulke       349 100 357
Billy Taylor       317 100 317

Here are the totals per role for the decade:

Year    GP   GS   SV  CG    CG%    RA   P/G #P   SP    SP%  RP    RP% SP/RP Swing%
1990 12694 4210 1113 429 10.19%  8484 3.015 483 100 20.70% 209 43.27% 174  36.02%
1991 13171 4208 1132 366  8.70%  8963 3.130 475 102 21.47% 212 44.63% 161  33.89%
1992 13251 4212 1109 419  9.95%  9039 3.146 441 101 22.90% 177 40.14% 163  36.96%
1993 14839 4538 1192 371  8.18% 10301 3.270 507 101 19.92% 238 46.94% 168  33.14%
1994 10642 3200  777 255  7.97%  7442 3.326 469 129 27.51% 223 47.55% 117  24.95%
1995 13865 4034 1000 275  6.82%  9831 3.437 551 108 19.60% 279 50.64% 164  29.76%
1996 15596 4534 1116 290  6.40% 11062 3.440 539 104 19.29% 260 48.24% 175  32.47%
1997 15859 4532 1139 266  5.87% 11327 3.499 534 114 21.35% 253 47.38% 167  31.27%
1998 16827 4864 1265 302  6.21% 11963 3.459 557 126 22.62% 274 49.19% 157  28.19%
1999 17277 4856 1217 236  4.86% 12421 3.558 586 111 18.94% 301 51.37% 174  29.69%
2000 17220 4858 1178 234  4.82% 12362 3.545 606 124 20.46% 307 50.66% 175  28.88%
2001 17624 4858 1210 199  4.10% 12766 3.628 591 138 23.35% 299 50.59% 154  26.06%
2002 17611 4852 1224 214  4.41% 12759 3.630 609 129 21.18% 301 49.43% 179  29.39%

Year

The Kindest Cut Of All?

Today the Devil Rays took a deep breath and released team albatross Greg Vaughn. Vaughn is guaranteed $9.2 M this season, but the Rays are looking in a new, younger direction with new manager Lou Piniella. Vaughn is coming off a 2002 season (or half season) in which he batted .163, hit 8 home runs, and drove in but 29 runs.

To put that in an historic context, here are the men to have amassed at least 250 at-bats in a season and have failed to hit better than .175:

Name            Year AB HR RBI BA OBP SLUG OPS
Will White      1879 294 0 17 .136 .153 .156 .310
Bill Bergen     1909 346 1 15 .139 .163 .156 .319
Fritz Buelow    1904 255 0 10 .141 .201 .176 .377
Jack Burdock    1888 325 1 12 .142 .167 .166 .333
Charley Bassett 1885 285 0 16 .144 .197 .186 .383
Henry Easterday 1890 289 2 21 .149 .241 .197 .438
Harry Sage      1890 275 2 25 .149 .230 .229 .459
Sam Crane       1886 301 1 19 .153 .208 .199 .407
Bill Traffley   1885 254 1 20 .154 .207 .220 .427
Joe Gerhardt    1885 399 0 33 .155 .203 .195 .399
John Humphries  1884 257 0  2 .156 .211 .163 .374
Les Moss        1947 274 6 27 .157 .252 .255 .508
Doc Bushong     1882 253 1 15 .158 .174 .194 .368
Bill Bergen     1906 353 0 19 .159 .175 .184 .359
Silver Flint    1880 284 0 17 .162 .176 .225 .402
Billy Sullivan  1909 265 0 16 .162 .213 .174 .386
Stump Wiedman   1884 300 0 26 .163 .198 .183 .381
Greg Vaughn     2002 251 8 29 .163 .286 .315 .601
George Baker    1884 317 0    .164 .177 .183 .360
Frank Meinke    1884 341 6 24 .164 .179 .273 .451
Joe Battin      1884 286 0  0 .164 .173 .192 .365
Ray Oyler       1969 255 7 22 .165 .260 .267 .526
Herman Pitz     1890 284 0  9 .165 .307 .165 .473
Bill McClellan  1881 259 0 16 .166 .212 .185 .397
Jim Canavan     1892 439 0 32 .166 .248 .239 .488
Dave Roberts    1974 318 5 18 .167 .246 .252 .497
Charlie Bastian 1885 389 4 29 .167 .236 .252 .488
Bill Kuehne     1892 339 1 40 .168 .203 .224 .428
Red Kleinow     1908 279 1 13 .168 .229 .204 .434
Jimmy Peoples   1884 267 1 16 .169 .187 .202 .389
John Henry      1914 261 0 20 .169 .272 .226 .498
Kid Butler      1884 255 0    .169 .206 .227 .433
Juice Latham    1884 308 0 23 .169 .190 .198 .388
Davy Force      1880 290 0 17 .169 .197 .203 .400
George McBride  1906 313 0 13 .169 .212 .208 .420
Adonis Terry    1885 264 1 20 .170 .201 .208 .409
Ben Conroy      1890 404 0 21 .171 .254 .208 .462
Deron Johnson   1974 351 13 43 .171 .237 .305 .542
Jimmy Cooney    1892 263 0 24 .171 .248 .183 .431
Ed Crane        1886 292 0 20 .171 .207 .229 .436
George Scott    1968 350 3 25 .171 .236 .237 .473
Al Weis         1968 274 1 14 .172 .234 .204 .438
Clay Dalrymple  1967 268 3 21 .172 .271 .239 .510
George Pinkney  1892 290 0 25 .172 .264 .197 .460
Taylor Shaffer  1890 261 0 21 .172 .253 .215 .467
Henry Easterday 1889 324 4 34 .173 .266 .275 .540
Joe Sugden      1905 266 0 23 .173 .239 .188 .427
George Strief   1879 264 0 15 .174 .204 .208 .413
Dal Maxvill     1969 372 2 32 .175 .263 .228 .492

Vaughn can take some solace in having the best OPS of the group but it is not an enviable group to be a part of, especially when the last member was added 28 years earlier.

But what does it mean for Vaughn's future. Well, only 31 of the previous 48 even had a next year to their career. Of those only 14 recorded 250 or more at-bats the next season. Their overall average for the next season was just .215. It appears that when a player's career hits such a nadir, it's hard for that player to comeback. Whether this will hold true for Vaughn will have to be seen, but I wouln't be surprised to see a team giving him a try as a role player for the league minimum. Who knows--given that the type of season that he had in 2002 is such a rarity today, who's to say he can't turn it around? Though 37-year-old power hitters rarely do turn their careers around after being dropped by arguably the worst team in baseball.

Expo Extortion

The Expos owners, that is the major league owners who also own the Montreal Expos team, heard proposals from the cities of Portland and Washington, D.C. yesterday. They still have a group from Northern Virginia set to perform their dog-and-pony show Friday before the estimable owners convene to make their decision. But don't expect to see any white puffs of smoke emanating from the commissioner's office anytime soon, even though Bob DuPuy expressed an interest "to get it done as rapidly as we can."

Why, do you ask? There's this little gem at the end of the article:

Owners want the highest possible percentage of government funding for a ballpark, and want the funding in place before deciding on a move.

Well, what's the "highest possible"? You'll never know until you pit each group against each other. Here's how they stand right now:

Washington offered to pay between 50 and 80 percent of the cost of a new ballpark for the Montreal Expos, and Portland said government financing would cover $300 million for a stadium if the team moves to Oregon.

Portland even sweetened the deal:

David Logsdon, Portland's spectator facilities manager, presented a draft financing plan for a $350 million ballpark that would be built with $150 million from the state and $150 million from the city, which would raise its money through a hotel and ticket tax and a charter seat program.

"No public votes would be required," Logsdon said.

No public vote? Those words are magic to the owners' ears. So the new Expos owner gets a guaranteed new ballpark for $50 M? Not bad. Wait until they negotiate. The other two areas had better knock the owners' socks off to best Portland. And don't forget that San Juan is getting their tryout this summer as well. They have to be a player though they were not represented in this round.

I think the owners will set up a sweetheart deal in which the new Expos owner can step into a new, free stadium with a good concessions deal in one of these areas.

Then all they will need to find is a potential owner whom they can gauge for a 50-100% markup on the Expos buying price. Why not? The owners took over a moribund franchise in a dying market and turned it into a competitive team in an excited, wanting-to-please market. And they get rid of the poor Canadian exchange rate.

I think that those incentives will be enough to placate even the rather territorial Peter Angelos if needs be.

Expect the areas that lose plus Montreal to be the key names in the next round of expansion. Oh, add the two cities they contract out of existence once they are free to do so after the 2006 season to that mix as well.

What You Talking 'Bout, Willis?

I get the impression that Eric Wedge will be the impetuous managerial type. On the day on which he replaced pitching coach Mike Brown with his Triple-A coach from last year, Carl Willis, he also set his rotation (in order: C.C. Sabathia, Ricardo Rodriguez, Brian Anderson, Jason Davis and Jason Bere, though the seeding is to spread out the vets--Bere won't miss starts like a typical 5th starter).

Note that this is 11 days before the season opener. From the looks of things (Brian Anderson #3?), Willis has work cut out for him. Hopefully he will meet his staff before they head north.

Means Devious Saints in English

Here's a great tidbit from Lee Sinnins' daily report:

The Giants sent INF "Deivis" Santos and Ps Mike Johnson and Brian Powell to the minors.

Santos is still in the Dominican Republic. He's having visa problems, has already confessed to being 29, instead of 23, and he may also be using a false name.

There is a world of difference between a 23- and 29-year-old prospect.Why not release the guy? Maybe because they don't know to whom to give the walking papers.

Finch Pitch

The M's welcomed University of Arizona softball pitcher Jennie Finch to camp as she filmed a segment for This Week in Baseball according to an article in Baseball "I don't acknowledge that other name" Weekly (no link possible, well, how about that!).

Finch also won the ESPN poll for "hottest" female athlete, impossibly beating the vaunted Anna Kournikova. She's not just another pretty face though (although the pretty face is the reason that I read the story on her Mariners visit in Baseball Weekly). She won 60 straight games and had a 0.15 ERA in college.

But in case you're interested, here's the face:

Anyway, if you're still reading, she pitched in the M's camp to manager Bob Melvin (not much of a hitter as a player) and Mikeameron. At first no one would face her, but these brave souls volunteered. She set up only 45 feet from home (evidently where the mound resides in softball) and allowed only one dribbler to short and a couple of fly balls. It wasn't clear from the article if she used a baseball or a softball.

I couldn't help but think of Jennifer/Loni Anderson on WKRP in Cincinnati, who in a company softball game posed near the mound as the awestruck batters struck out one by one (probably because I'm a sexist pig). However, let's just say that she has Henry Rowengartner-type stuff:

While warming up, Finch threw two pitches so hard that bullpen catcher Allen Wirtala couldn't catch them.

Wow, why didn't they try her off the rubber? (Kiss your mother with that mouth?)

Bob Melvin had this to say about his BP:

It's not like I haven't struck out before. It wasn't just the velocity but the way the ball starts out so low. I think we've found that fifth starter we've been looking for."

Yuck! Yuck! Clarence Thomas thought he was funny, too.

Seriously though, how could a major-league team see an arm that impressive and not even try her out on the mound with a baseball? I know almost nothing about organized softball, but have always heard that the pitchers, male and female, pitch tremendously faster than baseball pitchers. Why not try to convert the best of them to baseball?

I have never heard of any such experiment (though that does not mean it was never tried). There are cricket players throughout the world who pitch much faster than in the majors as well. Laugh if you must, but in the early days of base ball (when it was still two words), many cricket players were converted to the game, including the Hall-of-Famer Harry Wright. I know that they use different equipment and have different rules (heck, cricketers curve their wicked googleys on the bounce), but why hasn't someone tried to harness some of that pitching power? And in this case, they didn't even have to seek her out-she was standing right on their field.

Besides who would you rather see in you dugout, Finch or Jeff Nelson?

I rest my case.

Everybody's Cryin' Poverty When They Don't Know The Meaning of the Word

Reuters reports that Ted Turner is no longer interested in buying back the Braves. His excuse:

"No. I can't afford them. They've gone up in value anyway."

Turner made $7.5 billion on the sale of his broadcasting empire, including the Braves (and Jane Fonda's sequins Braves cap), seven years ago. And he can't afford a measly $424 million? I guess when one loses 7 to 8 billion dollars on the AOL/Time Warner's debacle, one must give up such perks, mustn't one?

Anyway, here is further-albeit anecdotal-proof that baseball clubs are not only solvent but are going way, way up in value. A year ago with labor struggles in the air, the owners cried poverty and the fans and the media bought it. It didn't hurt that the media were largely owned or affiliated by the power-that-be in MLB, of course.

War in Iraq

By the way, we're at war. This is a baseball site with no idiom to converse about such heady matters.

I have my own opinions on the topic but shall keep them to myself. Again, this is a baseball site, not CNN.

I just wanted to let you know that I do keep up with what's going on in the world.

And that is all that I want to say on the topic here.

Meth-Julio, II

The Sports Frog has an interesting take on the Julio Franco assertion that he will play until 50. They suggest that he has lied about his age all along and is actual much closer to 50 than his baseball age (44) would indicate.

I would tend to doubt that he is the 48 years of age that the Frog suggests. He came up at the age of 23 with the Phils and started for the Indians at the age of 24 (Damn you, Von "5-for-1" Hayes!). If we add 4 years to that, he was not an established major-leaguer until the age of 28.

It is possible and even probable that he shaved a year or two from his actual age when he was signed and the "mistake" has yet to be corrected. He was signed by the Phils on June 23, 1978, just a couple of months shy of his 17th birthday. Sixteen is a very popular age for a young shortstop to claim to be upon signing, especially in San Pedro de Macoris. So anything is possible.

Also, I should have mentioned that Franco missed a good two and one-half years of major-league ball from 1998 to 2001. So his post-40 stats are not as impressive as they might be.

Arizona Dreaming

Bryan Stroh has a preview of his spring training trip to Arizona. Check him out. He will posting about the trip through the weekend.

Rappelling Everett, II

The repellant Carl Everett may be all but set to be jettisoned by another club. The Texas center field job has reportedly been awarded to ex-Phil (and Penn graduate) Doug "At least he's not an a-hole" Glanville. Glanville and his