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Monthly archives: September 2003
Fearless Predictions…That Are Invariably Wrong
2003-09-30 01:53
Here are my predictions for the playoffs. Be forewarned that I picked the White Sox to trounce the Twins in the AL Central: Division Series:NL: Giants over the Marlins in 4 Why? I don't know. I looked at the pitching matchups in the first round and then went with gut feelings after that. Will it be right? No, but then again what is?
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Homeric Odyssey
2003-09-30 01:39
On Thursday Carlos Delgado hit four home runs in four consecutive at-bats to become just the 15th man to collect four homers in a game and just the sixth man to hit four consecutive in one game. Given the rarity of the event, it got me to thinking about the odds of such an accomplishment. Given that Delgado had 42 home runs and 704 plate appearances on the season, the odds in any plate appearance of hitting a home run are 5.97%. The odds of him jacking one out of the park four times in a row are equal to the odds above multiplied four times or 0.0013%, pretty remote. Given that Delago played 160 games, the odds of his hitting a home run in his first four plate appearances in any one of those games are .20% (160 x .0013%) or one in five hundred. Given that he averaged about 4.4 plate appearances a game, he often had the opportunity to hit four home runs in more than 4 plate appearances, increasing the four-homer odds fivefold and doubling the odds of hitting four consecutively. His odds of hitting four straight in one game improve to .28% and of hitting 4 in a game increase to .53% given this approach (96 games at 4 plate appearances and 64 at 5—Of course Delgado did not just have four- and five-PA games but this is as close an approximation as possible without delving into each box score and it will also jibe with the historic research that follows). So at best, Delgado had a one-in-200 chance of hitting four home runs in a game this year. The fact that he was facing the Tampa Devil Rays didn’t hurt his odds much though. Actually, using this methodology revealed that Delgado's odds of hitting 4 dingers in a game were second all-time to Barry Bonds great 2001 season (.5274 to .5270). Though the odds don't seem to have panned out for anyone besides Delgado and Willie Mays, whose 1955 season ranked 31st (he hit 4 homers in a 1961 game though and his odds were 280th all-time that year). By the way, using this method for setting the odds for 4-HR games predicts that there would only by about six all-time (6.222654872 actually). The year with the best odds was 2001 in the NL with a one-in-five shot and the worst was 1878 in the NL with a 0.00060% chance. Given that Delgado was the fifteenth man to hit 4 homers in a game, one can either declare that the probabilities based on estimated plate appearances per game don't accurately reflect reality or that players can affect their own performance when such a feat is theirs for the taking. Take your pick. Given that a 6-plate appearance game (such as Bobby Lowe's 4-HR game in 1894) improves your odds greatly (30-fold over four plate appearances), the estimates are surely just that. However, I like to think that great performances require great effort not just favorable odds and that 4-home-run games are no exception.
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End of Days
2003-09-30 01:37
The 2003 regular season is now in the books. I just wanted to review some of the stories in the final weekend before girding my loins (and we all know how painful that can be) for the playoffs: Detroit!?! No, Not Detroit!With no one compelling story in baseball Today ESPN's coverage was a panorama of games reflecting the short attention span of a truly great sporting event like, say, the Olympics. Alas, they could not fit synchronized swimming or curling into the schedule. They did however rest for some time on the Phillies last game at the Vet—of course, a loss. The also showed passing interest in Barry Bonds attempt to reach Willie Mays home run total, and therefore third place all-time, on the last day of the season. Did you know Mays is Bonds godfather? Why that's revelatory! They should mention it every time that Bonds comes to bat. ESPN also saw fit to bring America the last half inning in the 2003 Detroit Tigers' season. God bless them. You see, the mighty Tigers were beating a Twins team that featured Lew Ford leading off and had just one starter play the whole game. The replacement Twins went down meekly in the ninth and the Tigers ended the season one loss shy of the Mets' all-time loss total of 120. The win went to Mike Maroth, his ninth against 21 losses. Jeremy Bonderman, who was just one loss short of twenty for the year, did his best to reach that promised land, but even he could not overcome a 9-2 though he did his best giving up three hits and two unearned runs in his one inning of work. The Tigers celebrated as if they had taken a game from the Yankees in the postseason. Manager Alan Trammell was especially jubilant, jogging out to congratulate his puissant pussycats. In the broadcast booth, the commentators were so excited they jettisoned the 1962 Mets footage that they had on ice had the Tigers lost. So, the Tigers were able to lay their collective demons to rest: they certainly are not the worst team of all time. Right? The Tigers finished 43-119 for a .265 winning percentage. There are 47 teams in baseball history with worse records. True, a number of them are short-lived teams that didn't survive the season in professional baseball's nascent days. However, even if we just look at teams that played 100 or more games in a season, Detroit is still just 17 worst:
Besides their expected winning percentage was .305. That's still very bad (in the top 50 worst all-time), but it does say that the team did underachieve even with its modest talent pool. The 2003 Tigers were an awful team, but surely not the worst ever. Right? Well, I disagree. For one thing, the 1962 Mets, the team that the Tigers were chasing or rather were chased by, were a horrible team, but they were a first-year expansion team. The other teams on the list have plenty of good excuses for avoiding worst team ever status. The worst team ever, the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, were a victim of circumstance or rather owner Frank Robison. Robison had purchased the bankrupt St. Louis Browns, renamed them Perfectos (now the Cardinal), and stocked them with many of the Spiders stars including Hall-of-Famers Cy Young and Jesse Burkett. The Spiders went from a team in 1898 that had a .544 winning percentage and hadn't had a losing season in seven years to the team with the worst record in baseball. Robison also profited at the season's end as the NL lopped off four flagging teams to get down to its classic eight-team structure. Surely if this club had been run by an owner who had their best interests at heart, they would not have had such a poor record. The 1890 Pittsburg(h) Alleghenies lost a number of players to the Pittsburgh club from a one-year rival league started by the players union (then called brotherhood) called the Players' National League. When the PL was dissolved by a deal between the league owners and the established major league, the players returned to their original teams. The 1891 Pirates were still a poor team (in last place, 25 games under .500), but they were nowhere near the worst of all time. By the way, the Pittsburgh club was dubbed the Pirates that year for signing former Philadelphia A Lou Bierbauer as he returned from Players' League, and the name stuck. The 1916 and 1919 A's were the result of Connie Mack purposely dismantled a team that went to four straight World Series 1910-14 and is often mentioned among the best ever. The 1935 Boston Braves and 1897-98 St. Louis Browns were just about to go bankrupt. The 1886 Washington Nationals, 1962 New York Mets, 1884 Indianapolis Hooisers, and 1886 Kansas City Cowboys were first-year clubs. The 1890 Brooklyn Gladiators and Pittsburghs and the 1884 Detroit Wolverines and Indianapolis Hoosiers had the bad luck of playing in a year in which an independent major league competed with the organized leagues. And the 1904 Senators could at least say they had been a major-league team for only three years before the debacle of a season, in which the Senators started 0-13 but barely improved thereafter. The Detroit Tigers have been a going concern since 1901. Actually, the Detroit franchise dates back to 1894, when the American League was just a nascent minor league known as the Western League. That's over one hundred years of history no matter how you look at it. The Tigers were 8035-7750 for a .509 winning percentage all-time when the season started, and this was a team that hadn't had a winning season in the last nine. This is a team that is trying to win but has been so poorly mismanaged it ranks with the worst teams of all time. Consider that the majority of the teams competing with the Tigers for the worst team title played in the 19th century when shorter schedules and haphazard ownership resulted in wild swings in a leagues winning percentage. Take a look at the average winning percentage of first-place teams by decade:
It wasn't until the 1910s that leagues had stabilized enough to say that they were comparable to today's multi-billion-dollar entertainment giants. The dropoff in the Sixties is attributable to some degree to expansion, of the schedule and the leagues. As the first-place teams flourished, the tailenders floundered. Today that is much less the case. As a matter of fact if you look at the teams that are the furthest away from the norm based on the league average variance (i.e., winning percentage standard deviation), the 2003 Tigers are right near the top:
(I know that standard deviations are affected by the sample size. As more teams are added the standard deviation shrinks and the extremes look more extreme. However, if Rob Neyer can write his dynasties book based solely on this type of analysis, I can at least use it as a nail in the Tigers' coffin.) The Tigers may have avoided displacing the '62 Mets in the record books, but in my book they are the worst team of all time. Vet ExeuntIt was nice to see Hall-of-Fame broadcaster Harry Kalas remove the last number in the Phils' countdown to a new stadium. Of course, it was a nod to Harry's old boothmate, Hall-of-Fame player Richie Ashburn, whose number for the Phils was one. It was also great to watch ESPN's coverage of a guy trying to remove the seat number from his chair. They must have covered it for an inning and a half. The guy never got the plaque off nor was he arrested. I just feel bad for the poor sap that pays $280—that's the Phils' asking price—for that pair of seats. The last game as the Vet is now in the books—"Hard to believe, Harry." So what is the Vet's legacy? Veterans Stadium witnessed the Phillies' only golden period (1976-83), during which the Phils made the postseason six times, reached the World Series twice (two of the five times in their history), and won their sole World Series championship. It also witnessed the abuse of the last two decades in which the Phils made the postseason just once in the excitingly fluky year of 1993. Here are the Phils all-time records by home stadium:
The Phils ended up below .500 during the Vet years even with their great success in the late Seventies and early Eighties. As for me, I misspent my youth in the 700 level of the Vet. I didn't see a losing Phillies team until I was in college. But after living in Boston and New York and seeing what a ballgame is like at Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium, I can't say that I'll miss the old tin can much (though Shea Stadium made me appreciate the Vet). Perhaps when the Vet is imploded and filled in and they pave that paradise and put up a parking lot, I'll start to get nostalgic. I think my eulogy would be, to paraphrase Spinal Tap's David St. Hubbins, "Here lies Veteran's Stadium, and why not?" [By the way, after using an Arnold Schwarzenegger title in the headline, I have to publish 134 other articles with references to each of the other California gubernatorial candidates to give them equal time. Get ready for lots of "What you talkin' about, Willis?" during the Marlins playoff run.]
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A Joe Morgan Chat Day at the (Pennant) Races
2003-09-24 19:02
Either he's dead or my watch has stopped. I've finally figured Joe Morgan out-he's an absurdist of the highest degree in the vein of Groucho Marx. But first, for something completely different...We here at Mike's Baseball Rants-and by we I no longer mean the royal "we", nor Michelle Wie, bur rather I am acknowledging the fact that I had myself cloned now that I have two kids-, we love the Joe Morgan, but we love the Joe Morgan chat days even more. He was one of our favorite players and he, even though he tries to forget, was a member of the 1983 Wheeze Kid Phillies, the last remnants of the Phils "golden" age starting in the mid-Seventies, before they slunk back into the primordial slime from whence they came, like Godzilla at the end of each of his umpteen billion movies. The 1976-83 Phillies were a Neanderthalic, still-born end to an evolution that was to bear no further progeny. Maybe that's why I'm sick of all the bellyaching by Red Sox fans. "Boo hoo, my team hasn't won a World Series since 1918", and not only do the sports media eat up this pap and even serve it up themselves in the form of the self-appointed Boston sports conscience, Jiminy Shaughnessy, but now HBO has given them their own hour-long documentary, dare I say sob-umentary, to pour out their whining ways. It had to be hosted by Ben "My team wicked sucks and I wicked can't act, but I'm a bazillionaire who bagged J-Lo" Affleck. Poor guy. "Well, my team's name is the Philadelphia Phillies and they have lived in a van down by the river for decades" (god bless Matt Foley a.k.a Chris Farley). The fan base is now inured to losing and teams peopled by the likes of Steve Jeltz. The even think that the merciful euthanasia of the Vet is an historic occasion (and are willing to pay the Phils $280 a pop for a pair of Vets Stadium seats). The Red Sox fans biggest problem is trying to differentiate between the Boston-only homonyms "beer" and "bear" at the ballpark-When you hear "Bear here" in Fenway, it's just a Swamp Yankee beer man; don't run for the exits-and trying to survive the wait at the "T" platform after the game ("Danger! Third rail!"). Sorry, I'm back now. Morgan the analyst has had a career that belies the tenets that he played by. Morgan the player was a great on-base man. Morgan the analyst eschews on-base percentage preferring a little of the old HR-RBI-BA in-out in-out. Morgan the player won World Series with a great offensive team that had a relatively weak starting rotation that picked up cheap wins. Morgan the analyst evaluates pitchers based solely on wins. ...Or does he? Could it be that Morgan's entire analyst act has been completely tongue in cheek and it has just been beyond our ken all along? Are we afraid to laugh at the god-like Morgan when he says of Barry Bonds, " [I]f he doesn't expand his zone, he won't hit much at all in the playoffs"? Could it be that we just don't get it? Well, of course not, but wouldn't the world be a better place if it were the case? And I'm all for improving the world through confabulation. I also have to commend ESPN for adding time stamps to Joe's comments. It's like watching the hamster in his brain going around on the wheel. Wow, it's like the thrill of watching the seconds tick by as 24's Jack Bauer is tortured to death and back again while his daughter Kim is being ogled by a merely curious cougar as she stumbles into a trap from which even Helen Keller could have extricated herself. So they're coming around the final turn and it's Joe Morgan Chat Day by a length. And at the finish it's, it's...Beetlebum! Soup...(Duck Soup actually) Marty (Nashville): Pitching or Hitting? Which will dominate the playoffs?
It sounds a pretty inane answer: it'll be the high-scoring of times. It'll be the low-scoring of times. But then again, ask a stupid question...] Woman: Hold me closer...closer...closer. John - Philly: If Thome gets the Phils to the playoffs, how much serious consideration will he get for MVP?
I think Thome will get 10% serious consideration, 40% not-so-serious consideration, and 50% fillers and byproducts. Thome's had a great year, but we are living in Barry's "world, chico, and everything in it" is his (to quote Tony Montana).] Dr. Hackenbush: Oh, well, uh, to begin with I took four years at Vassar. Roberto Sanchez Okinawa Japan: What do you think about the Alex Rodriguez MVP controversy?
...To NutsChicolini (Chico pretending to be a peanut vendor in Duck Soup): Peanuts...to you! Jeff (Tulsa, OK): Barry Larkin and the Reds could not come to terms on a contract for one more season. Do you think Larkin's presence in the clubhouse with a bunch of young players is worth a good-sized one-year deal? Is there another team out there who will want a 40-year-old shortstop with a recent history of injuries?
Barry Larkin is still the Reds' best bet at short in 2004, but he will be 40 in April and he is often injured. The young players they have used to fill in for him have not done the job. Larkin is a potential Hall of Famer who has played for the Reds his entire career. I think they could have allowed him to Ozzie his way off into the sunset. What, is he a bad influence on Junior? Sorry he's no Dave Concepcion, Joe. He's not worth another $9 M, but given the P.R. nightmare season this has been in Cincinnati, one would think that the Reds brass would want to retain one of its most popular players. As far as another team being interested in Larkin, d'ya ever hear of the Newark Bears?] Dr. Hackenbush: She's so in love with me, she doesn't know anything. That's why she's in love with me. Bill Jeffries Torrance, Ca.: Joe, What do you have planned for the off season?
"Oh, yah, that's sweet, Gwendoline. Check the TV paper, would you, dear?" "Ooh, we only have an hour until Regis and that nice, sweet new girl come on. Let's watch the weather channel." "Ooh, yah. Marjorie dear, can you turn it up?" GBTFB-"Get Back To F'ing Baseball!"] Mrs. Upjohn: [who has been instructed by Dr Hackenbush to wave her arms up and down, as part of a physical examination] How long do you want me to do this, Doctor? mark (Durant, OK): Joe, is it possible that the Cubs would go to a three man rotation the last 6 games of the year, putting Clement in the bullpen to spell tired starters? I would hate to see Cruz or Estes on the mound for any remaining games.
Look, anything is possible. Does it make sense to go with a three-man rotation for the last two series of the year against Pittsburgh and Cincinnati? I think not. However, they could skip the number five man today (Estes this go-round) and go with Zambrano, whose regular turn would be today anyway. Clement could go tomorrow. The only problem is that both had nagging injuries. So, especially this time of year, the extra day off will help them immensely. The Cubs fate is now their own and if they can't handle these two Punch and Judy teams with Larry Biitner starting, they don't deserve to go to the postseason.] Dr. Hackenbush: Emily, I have a confession to make. I really am a horse doctor. But marry me, and I'll never look at another horse. Mark - DC: Who do you think is playing the best ball down the stretch in the AL? Who will be the toughest team to knock out of the playoffs?
I'm not sure what they will do in the playoffs. But I wouldn't be shocked to see them fold in three to the Yankees.] [Tony offers Dr. Hackenbush a hint book.] John H.:(Crofton,MD):: I noticed that the Phillies and Marlins have very similar team pitching stats for this season. What differences do you see that will help decide this crucial series for the NL Wild Card.
But, you have to give a little edge to the Marlins because Willis should be able to control Thome who is the man right now.
Actually, overall their staffs are pretty close in ERA: Phils are sixth in the NL with a 3.97 mark and the Marlins' 4.04 is eighth. However, the Phils' staff has fallen apart in the second half. They have a 4.57 ERA (11th) and have only won one more game then they've lost in the second half. Florida's 3.78 second-half ERA is sixth in the NL (and they are 14 games over .500). The Phils starters have been bad in the second half: Duckworth 5.34 ERA, Wolf 5.42, and Myers 5.48. However, their bullpen stalwarts have been even worse: Silva 5.68, Williams 5.87, Wendell 6.00, and Joe Table 9.53. Meanwhile, the Marlins' only real pitching sore spots in the second half have been Dontrelle Willis (4-5 with a 4.91 ERA) and Braden Looper (6.59 ERA despite 11 saves), the two men who allowed Phillies rallies in the first game of the series.] Whitmore: Just a minute, Mrs Upjohn. That looks like a horse pill to me. Dave (Chicago): Joe, in a short series will the Atlanta Braves fall short without a true ace. (Schmidt Prior etc)
Joe's always praising the likes of Sidney Ponson for their experience, how about Maddux for goodness sake? Further proof that he is just joshing us.] ...Whitmore: May I examine this, please? Do you actually give those to your patients? Isn't it awfully large for a pill? Jeff: Kansas City: Do you see the Royals being the next A's if they stay healthy?
Have you seen their rotation this year? Big Three? They'd be happy with a big one. Darrell May has been their only consistent starter all year and he's 31. None of their young starters survived the year in the rotation. The Royals do happen to have a nice core of young players in Beltran, Berroa, Ibanez, and Sweeney. However, Beltran may be gone next season, and there's not much else on the team (Ken Harvey?). Besides, it's not like they had a plan like Bill Beane in Oakland. They just happened to get a decent group of good, young, cheap players. The rotation alone should tell you that the organization cannot evaluate young talent consistently.] [After taking his watch from under Steinberg's gaze and tossing it in a wash basin] Steve (Plattsburgh, New York): Joe, is there any reason to think the Red Sox bullpen is just good enough for the Red Sox to win a series with Oakland and beyond?
Tony: Have you got a woman in here? Jeff (Cleveland, Oh): What is missing from Houston that holds them back from getting both into the playoffs and through the first round.
Flo: Why, I've never been so insulted in my life! Blake, Minneapolis MN: Do the Twins have the starting rotation and enough offensive firepower to oust the Yankees in the Division Series?
The offense has been a pretty sound unit with a .777 OPS since the break. The starting position players have OPSs ranging from .877 (Mientkiewicz) to .708 (Rivas). No one player has been excessively hot but none are cold either, sounds like the 2002 Angels offense. The Twins are 0-7 against the Yankees this year, so one can just assume that their miseries will continue. However, the 1983 Phils were 1-11 against their LCS opponents, the Dodgers, but won in four games (best-of-five). That's why the play'em.] [Dr. Hackenbush is pointing to a portrait of one of Judy's parents] Colin: (Aberdeen, Scotland): Will the A's style of play (waiting for the 3 run homer) work against them in the post-season.
[referring to Ms. Marlowe] Ben (Syracuse NY): Do you think halladay should be the cy young?
Look, I guess I'm picking on Joe a little here (who me?). Halladay is a fine choice and he will probably win especially if he picks up one more win. But in my opinion, an ERA that is a half a run per game better in about the same number of innings gets my nod. Joe could have at least mentioned Hudson instead of the extremely fortunate Andy Pettitte (17th among AL pitchers in Win Shares).] Dr. Hackenbush: [to Dr. Steinberg] Don't point that beard at me! It might go off! Brian Beliso San Francisco, California: Do you think that the Giants have the best fielding team in baseball, and is that a major contributing factor to their success in Pacific Bell Park?
Tony: She's in with Whitmore. She's trying to frame you. Ben (Norwich, CT): Is Dontrelle Willis tired, or have major league hitters just learned how to hit him?
Mrs. Upjohn: Dr. Hackenbush tells me I'm the only case in history. I have high blood pressure on my right side and low blood pressure on my left side. Scott (New Lenox, IL): Joe: I'm a diehard Cardinal fan. What am I missing with everyone's infatuation with Tony LaRussa? He's come up short every year he's been in St. Louis and recently Cardinal owner-Bill Dewiit Jr. just gave him a vote of confidence to return next year.
[Stuffy has grabbed some poison to drink] Los Angeles, CA: Mr. Morgan, the Dodgers over the past few years have focused on a pitching/defense philosophy which has resulted (especially this year) in a mediocre and inconsistent offense at best, with no current leadership in the batting order. What is the best way the Dodgers can get back to the playoffs consistently?
The Dodgers have always had a poor offense. It's exaggerated by their stadium. Joe is right in that Jordan and Green's productivity dropoff have hurt the team. Plus they lost Marquis Grissom in the offseason. The basic problem with the Dodgers is that they have so few weapons that when one is lost (Grissom), or hurt (Jordan), or unproductive (Green), there isn't enough depth to cover for that one. Half the team was slightly better than average to very good offensively and the rest were stiffs. They stiffs are just outnumbering the decent players. I disagree that relying on pitching and defense won't win ballgames. Look at the A's this year. But a team needs enough offense. They can't forego offense altogether. The Dodgers have four starting position players with OPSs worse than .650. Ouch!] Dr. Hackenbush [In a mud throwing fight at the race track]: I haven't seen so much mudslinging since the last election! Zach (Morehead, KY): Do you think the Bengals can rebound from their 0-3 start and get back to the glory days of Boomer and Anthony Munoz?
Second, way to defend your sport, Joe! Football has more parity than baseball? The Bengals have not had a winning record since the last Bush administration. Scores of teams from Detroit to Arizona spend better parts of a decade mired in ruts where their record is worse than the worst team in baseball. The Tigers could become the worst team in baseball history, and yet there were four NFL teams with worse record last year.] More Groucho quotes: Alexandria, VA: Mr. Morgan, During last year's NL playoffs Tony LaRussa suggested that Barry Bonds should expand his strike zone. I've noticed that other big hitters like Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, and Sammy Sosa, get a lot more piitches to hit because pitchers know that they are willing to swing at pitches outside the strike zone. Do you think Barry Bonds should expand his strike zone in order to cut down on walks and possibly get more pitches to hit?
You know that Joe is mocking us here. LaRussa dared Bonds to get in his head last year. Besides, Bonds did not take the bait and had a fabulous postseason: 1.559 OPS, 8 home runs, .356 batting average, .581 on-base percentage, .978 slugging, 44 total bases to lead the team, and 16 RBI. I thought this misreporting was over after Bonds' postseason in 2002. I guess will have to endure it a bit more. And with that I bid adieu...] Go! And never darken my towels again! (Duck Soup) [Thanks to Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) for the quotes.]
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Seventh Inning Stench
2003-09-24 00:22
"I don't know what the artist got for painting this, but he should have gotten life." The Phlegmatic Phillies lost to the Marlins tonight, 5-3, in a game that epitomized the Phils' season. It was all there in broad relief, the good and the bad. And just like this season, the Phils lost control of the game just as it seemed as if it was there's for the taking. As for the good, Kevin Millwood gave the Phils six strong innings of shutout ball. He allowed four hits and no walks through six. The Phils got to Dontrelle Willis, scoring two runs in the second and another in the third. Willis did not look good an he missed his spots often. Appropriately, Jim Thome was involved in two of those runs, scoring the second and driving in the third. And then along comes the seventh... (with nods to the Association) Here's a recap of what happened next from my notes on the inning (Bottom of the seventh, Philadelphia leads 3-0): Derrek Lee -Strike one called down the middle of the plate The Phils waste a great performance by Millwood. They pull him one batter too late instead of thanking their lucky stars after Encarnacion flied out. They again go to execrable Williams, who has a 5.09 ERA with the Phils and has walked as many as he has struck out. Way to throw fuel on the fire. And then it's their typical trip down bullpen memory lane to ensure that each reliever puts his own personal touches on the debacle. The Phils did storm back in the eighth but it was a typically stillborn rally. The got one run in but Chad Fox whiffed Marlon Byrd with the tying run on third to end it. Then they went meekly in the ninth. Well, there it was, a masterpiece of mediocrity, a Tintoretto in trepidation. Just like the Phils' 2003 campaign, a season on the stink.
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AngelsArc
2003-09-23 00:18
I'm no angel, but I've spread my wings a bit. Yesterday we looked at how the Angels have fallen from baseball grace, but what does the future hold for the team? Was 2002 just an anomaly or is 2003 just a bump in the road for a team full of young players? Anaheim will have between 20 and 26 fewer wins this season than last. How do teams, who have lost 20 to 26 wins from season one to season two, perform in season 3 historically anyway? Is it too much to overcome? Here are all the teams whose win totals full by 20 to 26 games from season one to season with their performance in season three:
On average the improved in the third year by about 8 wins. However, you will note that there are a number of teams whose falloff occurred during a strike year or who just weren't all that good to start with (1990 Indians). What if we filtered out any team with fewer than 85 wins to find just those clubs who were somewhat comparable to the 2002 Angels? Let's find out (thanks, Mr. Owl):
Well those clubs were back to .500 by the third year. That fate would probably land the Angels in the second division in the AL West again (if there such a thing). Well, maybe we are still shortchanging the Angels. Are the 1976 Mets and A's truly comparable to a championship team? What if we just included those teams that won a World Series in season one?:
Those teams came back to being very competitive in year three. Let's pose the question another way: has any team ever come back from a 20-26 game dropoff to win a World Series the next season. Actually, a few have:
Has any gone from World Series champ in year one to 20-26 game worse in year two to World Series champ in year three? Actually, two teams have done it:
So what is ahead for the Angels? Washburn, Lackey, and Ortiz should bounce back to form the core of a decent, fairly young group of starters. Callup Kevin Gregg should get a shot to contribute as well (2-0 with a 3.28 ERA in three starts). They will probably eat the last year of Aaron Sele's contract ($8.5 M, yum!) and the starter Scott Shield experience should come to an end. David Eckstein should bounce back somewhat after a 100-point OPS dropoff this year-Did you notice how many choice Eckstein as their favorite player in 2002? Where are they now? They're probably hanging out with all those people who were huge Journey fans in the early Eighties? (What happened to all those people anyway?) Unfortunately for the Angels, Darrin Erstad is still into them for another three years and $24 M. His .642 OPS in 258 at-bats is lower than his career average (.770) but is not far from his performance in the last three years (.682 in 1999, .691 in 2001, and .702 in 2002). His career year in 2000 (.950 OPS) is fading in the rear-view mirror. Even worse for the Angels this season is the one major offseason acquisition, Eric Owens, has filled in miserably for Erstad (.601 OPS!). The Angels will be a team defined more by their strengths going into next season. Can their Achilles heel of a rotation turn around next year? Can the weaknesses at short and center by mitigated? Can aging stars Garret Anderson (.668 OPS in September) and Tim Salmon be relied on next season? There are a number of question marks, but there should be no reason why the Angels cannot be competitive in 2004. Depending on what happens this offseason, the AL West may be a four-team race next year (but don't worry-Jayson Stark will still find a way to deny Alex Rodriguez an MVP).
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Rally Flunkies
2003-09-22 01:31
Unrespited, unpitied, unrepriev'd. The reigning World Champion Angels fended off the Texas Rangers, 11-6, tonight thanks to a seven-run seventh. At the start of the seventh, the Angels trailed 5-2 and were within three innings of being swept by the Rangers by a cumulative score of 21-8. Not only that, if the Angels had fallen tonight, their lead on third place in the AL West over the Rangers would have been cut to one game. They could have gone from World Champs to one game above the AL West cellar. There has been only one team in baseball history that has gone from World Series champion to last place. That was, of course, the infamous 1998 Florida Marlins, whose place in history is secure as the team that "bought" the 1997 World Series and then sold off all its players the next year. The Angels are now three games ahead of Texas with six games to play. The Rangers will play a series against the surging A's, who are looking to clinch the AL West crown, at Oakland. The Angels host the equally floundering Mariners for three games. Seattle is still fighting for a playoff spot though their effort of late doesn't really reflect that. The two teams will meet in Anaheim for the last three games of the season, but by that point their fates may already be determined. Anaheim, even if they win all of their remaining games, is assured of joining an unhappy crew: They will be the seventeenth team to go from World Champions to sub-.500 team. That is including the Temple Cup champions of the 19th century. Here are those few, those unhappy few, sorted by winning percentage:
Anaheim's current .468 winning percentage puts them right up (or is it down?) with the top five worst teams on that list. If the Angels do fall to worst to join the '98 Marlins, they will have gone about it in an entirely different way. Whereas the Marlins divested themselves of their championship players due to payroll issues, the Angels tried to retain the same team this year that they fielded in their World Series run. So the on-field product has not changed, then what happened? I've seem a few broadcasts in the last month or so that have blamed the Angels condition on injuries. They have had their fair share of injuries, it's true-Darrin Erstad, Brad Fullmer, Troy Glaus, and Bengie Molina are all currently out-, but they can't explain away all of the Angels problems. Even before all the injuries the Angels were never contenders this year. The problem was that a number of those players had career years and the Angels collectively are returning to their previous talent level. Their pitching is sixth in ERA in the AL, but their starters have had an ERA a hair under 5.00, about a run higher than last year. The Angels offense is tenth in the AL in runs scored and in team OPS. This is a far cry from last season when they were fourth in runs and fifth in OPS. Their one saving grace is the bullpen, which ranks first in the AL in ERA just a hair over last year's league-leading performance (3.02 vs. 2.98). One must remember that the Angels were 75-87 in 2001 and had been playing out a string of mediocre seasons for about the prior 15 seasons. The Angels will go into this offseason with basically the same weaknesses as last (i.e., starting pitching and a few weak position players). The only difference will be that they won't have the glare of their World Series rings to blind them to those weaknesses.
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Down with OBP
2003-09-21 00:56
Check out the Baseball Crank who looks at teams with high on-base percentages.
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Kingman Shmingman
2003-09-19 00:42
Detroit's Mike Maroth became the first man since 1974 to lose over twenty games tonight, succumbing 10-6 to Toronto at home. Maroth helped his cause greatly by allowing eight hits and seven runs in five and two-thirds innings. Maroth's 21 losses is the first time that plateau has been reached since four men including future Cy Young winner Randy Jones scaled it 29 years ago. Maroth could pitch two more times, and therefore could reach 23 losses for the year. The last time anyone exceeded 22 losses was Fat Jack Fisher of the Mets in 1965. The last person before that was Roger Craig of the-you guessed it-1962 inaugural Mets, the team that the Tigers are competing with for the worst record in "modern" baseball. Here are all the players to exceed 20 losses since 1940:
The '62 Mets were 40-120 with a .250 winning percentage, 60.5 games out of first in a ten-team, no-divisions NL. The Tigers are now, thanks to tonight's loss, 38-114 with a .250 winning percentage and 45.5 games out of first in the AL Central. Detroit is pouring it on with six straight losses and only one win in the last 13 games. Tomorrow night the Tigers will start Jeremy Bonderman, who had been mercifully removed from the starting rotation after falling to 6-18. Bonderman too could get two starts and finish with 20 losses. The last two teammates to lose twenty were-sorry!-not from the Mets. They were rubber-armed Wilbur Wood (24-20) and Stan Bahnsen (18-21), no longer burning, for the 1973 Chicago White Sox, a team that finished 77-85 though fifth in the AL West. The two teams prior to this were the 1962 and 65 Mets though. 1962 featured Roger Craig (10-24) and Al Jackson (8-20) while 1965's version was led-as in "lead" balloon-to a 50-112 record by Jackson again (again 8-20) and Fat Jack Fisher. Those are the only such 20-loss teammates in baseball since the Thirties. The Tigers are losing at such a quick pace that each day brings a new wrinkle to their putrescence. This is a team that will inspire odes to awfulness for decades to come. I'm glad that we got a chance during the pennant races to stop and smell the reek.
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Ker-plunk
2003-09-18 02:11
Tonight at Wrigley Kerry Wood pitched a four-hit, eleven-K gem of a shutout (2-0) that not only finished a three-game sweep of the Mets, but drew them to within one game of division-leading Houston (who are still playing and losing in Colorado). The oddest thing about the game was not the fact that Wood was close to being scratched for a bad back but pulled off a Michael Jordan-esque recovery. Nor was it Jack Black's explosivo rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch (he must have used his invention, inward singing, to belt it out). The strangest thing, in my humble opinion, was Wood hitting Roger Cedeno with a pitch in the first? "Plunking Cedeno-How is that so odd?" you ask? Is it because Cedeno had not been hit by a pitch all year? No, he had been pasted by a pitch eleven times in his career coming into the game, the same number of times that he has been intentionally walked. Is it because giving Roger Cedeno a free pass to first is like letting Jeremy Schaap host "Outside the Lines"?-it just should not be allowed. No, balls get away from pitchers, even against batters with .326 on-base percentages. Was it because his heart was two sizes too small? No, now you have him confused with the Grinch. The reason it was so odd was that Cedeno became the 21st man this season to be soaked at the plate by Wood. No pitcher has exceeded 21 hit batsmen since Howard Ehmke hit 23 in 1922. Of course, it's nowhere near the all-time high of 41 by Iron Joe McGinnity in 1900. Here are the all-time leaders (thanks to Lee Sinins' sabermetric database):
It got me to thinking-is a high hit-batsmen total indicative of a wild pitcher or of a pitcher who is willing to throw inside and sometimes pays the consequences? Well, this may be less than scientific, but my thought was to take the ratio of hit batsmen to the ratio of walks and wild pitches (above). Is the ratio of those ratios consistent for our list of ne'er-do-wells? If so, then one could say that high hit batsmen totals are a result of wild hurlers. Well, the ratios run from almost 50% (Gus Shallix in 1884) to a little over 10% (Mike Morrison in 1887). Wood is somewhere in the middle with 19.81%. The average is 23% or about 1 hit batsmen for every four walks or wild pitches. And the standard deviation is rather large at 7.19 or a swing of about one in every seven for those pitchers less than one standard deviation away from the norm. So, what the heck am I saying? It appears that high hit batsmen totals result as much from a pitcher's approach as from any wildness inherent in the pitcher's arm. "Well, of course", you're saying. I know that the estimable Coach from "Cheers" did extensive work on this topic. I just wanted to see it for myself.
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Pitch Counting in a Pinch
2003-09-16 01:26
IN most Big League ball games, there comes an inning on which hangs victory or defeat. Certain intellectual fans call it the crisis; college professors, interested in the sport, have named it the psychological moment; Big League managers mention it as the "break," and pitchers speak of the "pinch."... Boy, things were a bit different in Matty's day. Walking two men to load the bases with no outs is de rigueur today: it's the prevailing strategy and one that quite often backfires. The strategy has become so ossified that now analysts look at ways to debunk its supposed advantages. A few weeks ago at Baseball Primer's Primate Studies, Tangotiger came up with a set of formulas that estimate pitch counts for all pitchers since 1889. I don't want to discuss the reliability of the estimates. If we are not sure how many walks Ted Williams drew in 1941, one of baseball's biggest hitting stars in one of its most memorable seasons, estimating the number of pitches thrown by a pitcher a hundred years ago of course involves a good deal of guesswork. Tangotiger should be commended for dividing the darkness from the light on the matter. I doubt even Retrosheet can be able to revivify enough game accounts to determine the number of pitches Old Hoss Radbourne threw in 1884. (it would be nice, however, if we could decide on the number of wins he registered-is it 59 or 60?) I thought it would be interesting to use those estimates to look at pitch use/overuse historically especially as it relates to the long-term expectations of young pitchers. Have approaches evolved as strategies evolved and become inculcated? I also thought that it would be interesting to see if different teams used pitchers differently in different eras. Do winning teams approach pitch counts differently than losing ones? Are losing teams catching on more and more over time thereby affecting competitive balance? Before we delve into these sorts of studies, I have to comment on a limitation in the data that has nothing to do with Tangotiger's research. The problem is one inherent to pitching statistics or rather the way that they are recorded. Pitchers, historically, have been used in different ways at different times. At the turn of the last century some very good starters were used as "closers" in the bullpen. Mathewson himself was posthumously credited with 28 saves for his career and a career high of 5 in 1908 when he went 37-11 with a 1.43 ERA in almost 400 innings. 84 of Matty's 635 games pitched were in relief. So the problem is that we have no way of knowing how many innings were pitched as a starter and how many as a reliever-not to mention all the other pitching stats. So what does that mean? If we want to do analysis for pitch counts by starting pitchers, we are limited to those pitchers who were used purely to start games. The same goes for relievers. Pitchers who both started and relieved I call "swingmen", and they forma third category with which we can't do much, on its own. To be continued...
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Huggy Hideki
2003-09-16 00:55
It was either rookie hazing day or the senior prom at Yankee Stadium today. Here Matsui shows off the bling-bling, dog:
(Thanks to Murray for the link.)
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Thankee Kindly
2003-09-16 00:35
I just wanted to express my appreciation for all the congratulatory emails I received when I mentioned that my wife and I (mostly her) had a baby. I have gotten a bit behind in my email, but I wanted to say thanks and let everyone know that I will respond to each one.
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Cy Young-ian Archetypes
2003-09-12 01:43
Roy Halladay beat the Devil Rays tonight, 3-1, to record his 20th win of the season against sis losses. Meanwhile Esteban Loaiza lost in his bid to record twenty wins as the White Sox lost, 5-2, to |
(10:30 AM ET ) It's going to be a little of both. Some teams will have some pitchers who can dominate but overall, other teams won't have that. You will see some high scoring games and some very low scoring games. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses that are pretty glaring. 
[Mike: Pitching? Did they make the playoffs this year? What's their magic number anyway?
[Mike: "John - Philly"? I don't get these French names.
[Mike: Oh, I thought Joe was talking about Matt-Ben and J-Lo. What is Morgan, Arnie Becker or something? Why is he emulating a guy who in Major League couldn't throw out Mike Lavalliere?
[Mike: "Oh, isn't that special, Marjorie?"
[Mike: Oh, great and powerful Joe, please grant my wish. Is it possible for the Cubs to pitch Wood and Prior every day if they learn how to pitch with both arms a la Greg Harris?
[Mike: With all due respect to the Twins, who certainly are very hot right now (10 in a row now), they are the third seed in the AL. And the AL Central is the weakest division in the AL. The Yankees have 10 games on Minnesota. Even with the Twins being so hot in September, they are only two games better than New York and the Red Sox over that period. 
[Mike: Joe said the magic word and won $100. The magic word was, of course, "expand the zone". I know that's a phrase and not a word, but there you have it just the same.
