My friend Mike and I were chatting yesterday (IM-ing actually), and the topic of a sub-.500 team winning the NL West came up. Mike said that with all of the games against division rivals down the stretch there was no way the division champ could under up with a losing record. Well, I though it was worth a further look.

I took the standings as of this morning and the number of games remaining for each team. I then projected how each team would finish the season given the games remaining against each division and their record to date against each division.

Here are the results:

Wow, that is cutting it pretty close even with all the divisional games left (118 of their remaining 150 games are within the division). A couple of losses extra by the Padres and we have our sub-.500 champ. Even if they do clear the .500 mark as the projection suggests, it would be the worst record for a division/league champ in a non-strike year.

The NL West also has chance to register the worst overall winning percentage for a division in a non-strike year since baseball went to divisional play in 1969. Currently, the NL West's overall percentage is .448 and it projects to .454.The remaining interdivisional games, which have to raise the overall percentage closer to .500, may buoy them above the 2002 AL Central's record (.453). Here are the all-time worst overall division records since 1969:

And, oddly, the NL East this year has a .534 winning percentage, which is among the best ever though it'll probably approach .500 as the interdivisional games get played down the stretch:

As my friend Chris pointed out, most of the top divisions featured at least one runaway team. But the 1983 AL East was actually a collection of decent to very good teams. It was a division that stood as truly great. It's hard to believe that this collection of mediocrities in the NL East is at their level.

Actually, the East as a region (i.e., across both leagues) this year has he ninth best record overall per region since the advent of divisional play:

You might notice that the vast majority of the entries in this list are from the East. The 2005 West divisions are the sixth worst. And you'll notice the East in any year does not make the ten-worst list:

Mark Bellhorn was plucked up by the Yankees today after being waived by the Red Sox before the weekend. Of course, Bellhorn helped the Sox defeat the Yankees in last year's ALCS. Now he becomes the 195th man in baseball history to play for both of the two archrivals. He started tonight at third for the Yanks.

He is trying to complete a much rarer feat though. Should the Yankees reach the postseason and defeat the Sox, Bellhorn could become the second man in baseball history to switch teams going from the team (i.e., Red Sox) that had defeated his current team (the Yankees) in the previous season but that will lose to the current team in the subsequent season. That is, if the Yankees and Sox meet in the postseason and the Yankees prevail. Certainly, this is all predicated on a slew of if's, but that's why the accomplishment is so rare.

I'll hold off disclosing who previously accomplished this feat until the end (at the risk of being anticlimactic). I will mention that Chad Curtis came close to it. He went from the Indians to the Yankees in mid-1997. The Indians defeated the Yanks in the 1997 Division Series and then lost to them in the 1998 ALCS, but Curtis had already switched clubs by the time of the first series.

Keep in mind that if the Yankees lose to the Sox in the playoffs, Bellhorn will be the third man to switch teams and go to the team that had lost to his former team in the postseason, only to see the new team lose again to the former team.

The two men who did this previously were both former Yankees, Jeff Nelson and Jumbo Brown:

And to complete the cycle, the only men to go from a loser in year one to a winner in year two (given that both teams played each other in the playoffs both season) were both recent Yankees:

And the only players to go from a loser one year to a loser the next (with both team teams meeting in the playoffs both years) were on the '97 Yanks/'98 Indians:

Finally, how about the "Major League" scenario, where a player switches teams midseason and then faces that team in the postseason? You know, how David Keith or Pete Vuckovich or whoever it was hitting a home run "that wouldn't have been out of a lot of parks" to defeat the Indians. To which, the response was, "Name one." "Yosemite." Ha Ha. That was the punch line in the original movie's ad but it got cut from the actual film. Then it got reused in the second film. Odd. It's like that "Switch—Jimmy Smits!" ad a few years back, where they rushed to add the then-red hot actor's name to the end of the movie title that they barely allowed the announcer to get the actual title out.

Anyway, the list of men to switch teams midseason only to help his new team defeat his former team in the playoffs is exceptionally unremarkable:

Eddie Murray and a remarkable bunch of stiffs. The list of players who switched teams only to see his new team lose to his old one in the postseason is equally unexceptional:

OK, now that I've milked this topic as much as I can. The answer to the first scenario, who would be the only previous player to meet the Bellhorn scenario I described above, I'm sorry to say it's Mike Difelice.

Defelice played for the Diamondbacks who beat the Cardinals in the Division Series in 2001 (3-2). Then he played for the Cards who went on to sweep Arizona in the 2002 Division Series.

The A's won on a pair of homers and scored five runs in the twelfth to complete a sweep of the O's that a) put them a full game up in the AL West and b) helped complete the debasement (or to quote Mushmouth, "De biggest bass in de basement") of Rafael Palmeiro from surefire Hall-of-Fame superstar to steroid-abusing, bench-occupying has-been.

And, oh yeah, it had one other consecutive. It forced me to set a precedent and admit I was wrong.

Before the season, I said that the A's would be closer to the Mariners (i.e., last place) this season than to first. I said Billy Beane had jumped the shark when he traded two of "The Big Three" and peopled his starting rotation with Barry Zito and a bunch of youngsters. I said that he got rooked with a few midseason trades.

As my wife would say, mark your calendars—I was wrong. I underestimated Beane's ability to break with tradition, to see more in players, especially young players, than anyone else could, and to add by subtraction like no one else in the business.

The A's have been able to build a division leader based on a bunch of role playing position players and a pitching staff with the fourth-best ERA in the game. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the way that the rotation has been able to rebound with the likes of Kirk Saarloos in the mix.

As a matter of fact the 2004-05 A's project to be one of 33 teams in baseball history to have five starting pitchers with at least ten wins in back-to-back seasons (including the 2004-05 Cards). How's that for a rotation not missing a beat?

Actually, they are one of three teams on the back-to-back list to retain just two pitchers in the process and yet produce five ten-win starters both years. Here's the complete list of those teams:

The one thing that tempers admitting I was wrong is that at least I can enjoy the A's success in the process. And I'll make another daring prediction: if the A's do end up winning the AL West, they'll win it all what with the rampant mediocrity and overachieving frontrunners from the central divisions this year. Given my success rate of late though, Beane may be better off if I stay off the bandwagon.

While on vacation, I got the following email:

Mike,
Love your blog, and figured you'd be the perfect guy to ask this question.
White Sox outfielder Scott Podsednik right now has 54 steals and ZERO triples. I heard on the radio that right now this would be the most steals by someone without a triple EVER. Is this true? and just how common is it to have a player be fast enough to steal many bases but never get a triple? Intuition would say the triples would come comparatively easily.
-Matt

Here's my response, but there's even more to it:

Matt,
Thanks. Yep, it's true. The guy can't even claim to have legged a triple into an inside-the-park homer. He's got no homers either. In fact, he has just 27 extra-base hits (all doubles) to his 54 stolen bases.

Here are the only players to steal 30 bases without a triple over an entire season:

As for the 2-to-1 stolen base-to-extra-base hit ratio, it's not as rare as I expected. Here are the highest ratios (min. 9 SB and 400 AB):

Here are the guys in the last 15 years to have 2-to-1 or greater ratio:

As for the most stolen bases without a triple or a home run. Here are the "leaders":

Baseball today launched a new pet project entitled "Chevrolet presents the Major League Baseball Latino Legends Team." At least they didn't go with Viagra or La Viagra. Remember "Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet"?

This is a baseball's reaction to the outrage from the Latin community over no Latin players making the "All-Century Team". It just was, what, five years in the making. (Besides, Latino Legends? Isn't that passé? ) Maybe Bud was watching a DVD of "The Original Latin Kings of Comedy" and loved the idea.

Anyway, the ballot is here. Like a Chicago mayoral election, baseball recommends you to vote early and often.

I though it might be edifying to look at the all-time Win Shares leaders for all players not born in the United States by the primary position the player manned during his career. I include all foreign-born players but make sure to list at least five Latinos. So here goes…(through the 2004 season):

Tuesday was Julio Franco's 47th birthday and he celebrated it, appropriately, by playing baseball. Unfortunately, at least for Franco, he struck out in his only at bat, pinch-hitting for Chris Reitsma, in a 10-1 loss to the Cubs.

Franco is having arguably his best season since returning to the majors after a brief sojourn in the Mexican League in the earlier part of this decade. His OPS is the highest since 1996 (.840). He has recorded his highest home run total since 1996. His slugging average (.490) is his highest since 1994.

Given that Braves manager Bobby Cox loves his pet role players—Rafael Belliard anyone?—and Franco's incredible physical condition, it seems highly likely that he'll fulfill his prediction to be playing at age 50.

That makes me wonder who are the best players from the age of 45 on. Could it be Franco already?

There are only 27 men to record a plate appearance after turning 45 (actually, in a year in which he was 45 for the majority of the season), and most were pitchers. Only five had at least 100 plate appearances after turning 45.

Batters age 45 or older have recorded 20 home runs and 15 were hit by Franco. He has recorded the most plate appearances post-45, and is the only player on the list (with more than a handful of plate appearances) to hit over .300, slug over .400, or record an OPS over .800. Here are the 45+ leaders ordered by plate appearances:

For the age 40-to-44 group, Franco's just 38th in plate appearances. And he's just 16th in OPS for the age group (min. 500 plate appearances).

OPS Leaders, 40-44:

Plate Appearance Leaders, Age 40-44:

By the way, that's the second-best argument to keep Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame. Only manager Pete Rose could have penciled 40-plus-year-old first baseman Pete Rose in the lineup on a regular basis.

By the way, the fifty-plus group looks like this:

Franco might rewrite that list in a few years…and the damn Braves will still be winning the division.

This one tops the "Spider-Man II" bases.

When MLB decided to go for corporate sponsorship of its comeback player of the year award, of course they took the high road and sold the naming rights to AARP ("It's never to late to comeback"), to the NYSE (with a financial comeback tie-in), or even to J-Lo, right?

No, baseball sold the rights to, you guessed it, Viagra! The official erection enhancer of Major League Baseball.

So a nice little award turns into the punchline to a joke. Tres classy!

After perusing the list of eligibles, ofF the top of my head, I would give it to Jason Giambi and Todd Jones.

I wonder what'll happen if Rafael Palmeiro, now that his relationship with the company appears to be caput, ever appears on the comeback roles. Maybe an anabolic steroid company will be sponsoring the award by then anyway.

Joe Torre's all but fired. The Boss will just not accept his team not making the playoffs, no matter how many Torre has led them to nor what dreck—Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano in one year? And let's not go into Kevin Brown—team management handed him in the guise of a starting rotation.

Jim Tracy's gone too, given the Dodgers' swoon. And Dusty Baker given the Cubs' underachieving ways. Lou Piniella will somehow shuffle off his D-Ray coil before next season. Oh, and Jack McKeon has worn out his welcome in Miami.

Did I forget anybody?

Lloyd McClendon (perennial losers in Pittsburgh)?

Buddy Bell (Can't fire the team)?

Frank Robinson? (New management in DC?)

Then there are established managers whose team's inability to advance in the postseason may not bode well (Bobby Cox? Terry Francona? Mike Scioscia? Bruce Bochy? Guillen? Showalter?)

Anybody left? (Actually, the one thing I am sure of is that Charlie Manuel will have a job in Philly next year so long as his codependent, GM Ed Wade, remains in power, and wild card slot would all but assure that.)

Speculation is wont to swirl especially when it's a slow news day. However, can we do more than speculate on the number of late or offseason firings that we can expect?

Well, can the past shed any light on this. Let's see…

I took a look at the year-to-year retention rates throughout baseball history, and of course generated a table from it. I summarized per decade taking the total number of managers who were the same for that franchise in the next season, the ones who were different, and the percent retained (year indicates the first year in the equation. For example, 2004 pertains to the managers from 2004 retained to start this year):

The average retention rate is about two-thirds (66.21%). However, baseball's held pretty close to retaining three-quarters of its managers over the last decade and a half. Here's a breakdown for that period:

So far this season, three of the original managers (Tony Pena, Dave Miley, and Lee Mazzilli) have already lost their jobs. That means that even if all of the managers remaining somehow keep their jobs, the 2005-06 retention rate could be no higher than 90%.

The all-time high retention rate was 93.75%, which occurred numerous times during the pre-expansion era (i.e., 15 of 16 managers retained).The all-time low, 25%, happened once (in 1878). However, the lowest percent of managers retained since baseball settled on the "original" 16 teams was 50% (which last happened in 1991).

So if we use the 75% thumb rule, one would expect 4.5 more managers to get canned before 2006 season starts. We'll need Solomon to take care of that final .5 manager, but can hope that Lloyd McClendon is one of the other four.

If we use the historical range (50% to 93.75%) as a guide, it's conceivable that no other manager will lose his (or her, in the case of an offseason sex change) job. But it's also conceivable that another 12 men will get the axe, if not the venerable Sir Charlie.

So there you have it. It is all as speculative as the headlines make it seem. But at least I hope it was a bit more fun than a blanket ESPN poll on the next guy to walk the gangplank.

I took a look at the Dodgers at the start of the season when they broke from the pack with a 12-2 record. I found that the average final year winning percentage for all teams that start at 12-2 or better was .585 or 95-67 for a 162-game record.

Well, since then the Dodgers have gone 44-66 and now own a 56-68/.452 record, which is good for third place in the NL West, 5 games back in the retrograde division. They are in tenth in the wild card hunt, 10.5 games behind the Astros. Their only bet for a postseason berth is the division title, but they can't expect the division leader to remain under .500 as they switch to intra-divisional games down the stretch.

Basically, they had better win some games, which has been hard for them to do for quite some time. They have not had a winning record since they finished getting swept by the lowly Royals and fell to 33-32 on June 16. Up to that point, they had spent one day (opening day) under .500 all year. Since then they have had one day—the next day when they fell to the ChiSox, 6-0, to start another sweep—at .500 or better. Since the start of that Royal series, Dem Bums haz gone 23-39 (.371).

But how bad is that? Is that the worst that a once 12-2 team finished. Well, no, but it's close. The 1914 Pirates started 12-2 and finished with a slightly lower winning percentage (by 4 points), but the Dodgers can still topple (bottom-le) them.

The 1914 Bucs were actually 21-8 at one May 25. At that point the eventual league champs, the "Miracle" Braves, were 8-19, 12 games back. The Pirates then lost ten games and 15 of 17, at which point they fell to a .500 (23-23) record. From that point forward, they had three days with a winning record. It didn't help that they went 5-17 against the "Miracles"'s and 6-16 against the fifth-place Robins (soon to be Dodgers).

The Pirates are the only one of the 12-2 or better teams to finish more than one standard deviation away from the mean winning percentage (STDDEV is .062). The Dodgers are currently over two standard deviations away from the average.

It can be said that the degree to which the Dodgers reeked after their fast start is quite rare. Here are the final results for all 12-2 or better teams arranged by winning percentage in ascending order:

Also in Sunday's Braves game, John Smoltz hit his first triple since 1989 and just the second of his career. As far as I can tell, that's the longest break between triples in major-league history.

Here are the gaps of at least ten years between triples:

Jeff Francoeur has people talking Rookie of the Year honors after just thirty-odd games. He's slugging over .700, batting over .360, and has an OPS over 1.000. But there's one area in which he has not excelled.

Through Sunday's Braves game, Francoeur had gone 127 at-bats without ever drawing a major-league walk. Then in eighth inning of the Sunday game, Akinori Otsuka gave him a free pass to load the bases in a tie game, right before the Braves broke the game wide open.

There's never been a player with an OPS over 1.000 in at least 100 at-bats whose never drawn a walk other than an intentional one. Here are the players with the least walks who meet the criteria:

The Red Sox are taking a gamble on Curt Schilling's health and are re-inserting him in the rotation after nearly four months on the DL and in the pen. His last start was April 23 at Tampa Bay.

He relinquished six runs in seven innings against the mighty D-Ray offense that list and promptly succumbed to two-plus months on the Disabled List. Schilling has looked nowhere near his former blood-stained-sock self all season, with a 1.50 WHIP and 6.43 ERA. But even after being reassigned the "cushy" closer role, he owns a 5.18 ERA, has saved 9 but blown two save opportunities, gave up five gopher balls in a scant 24.1 innings, but does have a more respectable though atypical 1.27 WHIP. Of course, he continues to strikeout more than a man per innings throughout.

He is the "World Series Hero" and I'm sure that the Red ox know what they are doing. Besides it seems the almighty—by which I mean FOX Sports—has deemed it necessary that every ounce of excitement be drained from the Sox and Yankees' pennant race down the stretch. Eh? Why not throw the Yankees a bone?

Perhaps the oddest part of the plan is that Mike Timlin is now the putative closer. Timlin hasn't closer stuff since his Blue Jay days (not to be confused with "Blue Jay Way", a Beatles oddity) and hasn't had a closer's role since the Clinton administration (and I mean George, not Bill, when he presided over the P-Funk All-Stars). Timlin, he of the 1.74 ERA but 1.28 WHIP and 5 blown saves, is the simply the best available option.

Given the reclamation projects that have been tried in the closer role over the last couple of years, should we be surprised by Timlin?

Well, Timlin is a rather special case. He has the second fewest saves among all pitchers with 800 relief appearances. Even less than seemingly lifetime role players Mike Jackson and Jesse Orosco garnered in their long careers:

Also, among pitchers who spent some extended amount of time as a closer (min. 100 saves), Timlin trails only Sir Jesse for the lowest percentage of games saved per relief appearance:

Now, there's a great list of mostly middling middle relievers. And I think three-quarters of them pitched for the Phils at some point in time. Now that's an organization to emulate.

The Kansas City Royals, losers of 18 straight, start a series tonight with the once-red hot A's in Oakland, a team that swept them by a collective score of 32-5 in three games in midst of their current streak. Should the Royals again be swept by the A's, they would tie the AL record for consecutive losses (21 games) by the 1988 Orioles. The O's did it at the start of the season, jettisoning one manager (Cal Ripken Sr.) six games into the streak.

After the A's, the Royals play hosts to the Red Sox for three games, at the end of which, should all things go right (or rather wrong), KC could tie the all-time consecutive game losing streak, 24 games by the legendarily bad Cleveland Spiders. Now, that would be a hard record to break, but I think the Royals have it in them.

The Royals did seem to turn their season around right before the All-Star game. After their first manager, Tony Pena, quit with an 8-25 record, and their second, interim Bob Schaefer (5-12), had no more luck than Pena, the team sat at the horrific record of 13-37 on May 29. Buddy Bell was named manager, and then the Royals won four straight and eleven of fifteen, sweeping both the Dodgers and Yankees, a truly singular feat, in that span.

However, their success was fleeting. Since then, the Royals are 14-40 (a .259 winning percentage). Even without their current streak that's 14-22 (.389). Bell is 25-44 as their manager after starting 11-4.

The Royals over the last two years are 96-185 (.342), the 60th worst two-year record in baseball history and the seventh worst since World War II:

Add in a 62-100 (.383) record in 2002, and it gets even worse. The oddest thing about the Royals in the 2000s is their brief success in 2003. They finished 83-79 that year and were in the pennant race for a substantial part of the season. Here's a look at their record over the last four years (with a projection for 2005):

The Royals are potentially one of four teams in baseball history to have one winning year sandwiched among three years with am abysmal winning percentage under .400, and they would be the first to do it without a little help. It's sort of the Brady Anderson's 50-homer year for baseball teams. They come out of nowhere and quickly disappear:

The 1884 O's went 63-43 (.594) in a rare year with three major leagues (NL, AA, and Union Association. That year came after two under .300—19-54 (.260) in the first year, 1882, and 26-68 (.292) in 1883—but before two sub-.400 years—41-68 (.376) and 48-83 (.366). they qualify for the list twice.

The Louisville Colonels were 88-44 (.667) and in first place in the American Association in another year in which there were three major leagues (1890). Their previous years were 48-87 (.356) and 27-111 (.196—meaning that they had almost a 500-point one-year turnaround) and then they followed up with 55-84 (.667)

The Cardinals went 82-70 (.539) in the midst of World War I after going 60-93 (.392). Then they followed the one winning season up with a 51-78 (.395) and a 54-83 (.394) year.

The Royals would be the first team to complete these dubious feat without dilusion induced by a third major league or a war in their one winning season. That's wacky.

And for final bit of wackiness, the Royals are now one of eleven teams in the last 106 years to have two managers with substantial stints (at least ten games) with a winning percentage under .350. Here are the Royals managerial records this season:

Now, here are teams with two sub-.350 managers in one season since 1899:

You might notice that Bell projects to an under .350 record given the current Royal projections. That would mean that the Royals would be only the eighth team all-time with three sub-.350 managers. Here they are:

If you consider that the Cubs employed a rotating head coach system in 1961, that would mean that the Royals would be the first team in 107 seasons to reach such a mark of managerial futility. The Cubs had nine different managerial stints that year, so none of those guys had a record under .350 if you combine their disparate stints. Witness:

OK, so did I mention that the Royals kind of suck?

Bob Timmermann mentioned the other day that "Sunday's Dodgers-Mets game was a dual complete game for Brad Penny and Ramon Martinez" when I took a look at the D-Rays' inability to complete a single game the entire season. That started me thinking about pitchers duels in general and double complete games (or as I prefer to call them, Bi-Complete Games or Bi-CG, for short) specifically.

Given that the number of complete games per season have been dropping steadily for decades, has the Bi-CG disappeared?

Well, investigating that question is complicated. Baseball does not record when both pitchers have thrown a complete game. All right, it does, but as a complete game for each pitcher. There's no way to tell that both accomplished the feat, not unless one looks up every box score and verifies it.

I thought it might be possible to predict the number of Bi-CGs from the statistics we have. I took the total number of complete game divided it by total games and squared the whole lot in an attempt to capture the probability that any given season for the given league would end in both pitches tossing a complete game. Then I took the probability and multiplied it by the number of actual games in the league.

Here are the figures for the last ten years (2005 data through last night):

That's quite a change, from about nine or ten in 1996 to about two last year. Also, this year in the NL, one would expect just one bi-CG but from Bob we already know that there was at least one.

Here are the averages per decade.

That's quite a constant evolution over decades. So, the next time you hear Joe Morgan complaining about how you never see a pitchers duel today, keep in mind that the same could have been said by old timers in the days of the Big Red Machine.

In one of the oddest moves to garner some cheap press since the Phils employed "Rocket Man", the Fort Worth Cats of the independent Central League allowed former major-league manager Bobby Bragan guest manage—what was Joan Rivers busy?—in order to wrest the title of oldest professional manager away from the still-dead hands of Hall of Famer Connie Mack. He bested Mack by eight days. And you thought Minnie Minoso and Aerosmith had a unlikely comebacks.

The 87-year-old Bragan didn't even last the whole game. He got himself kicked out of the game for arguing balls and strikes in the third and wound up in the stands signing autographs.

I like how the article stomps all over Mack's legacy:

He had no trouble holding his job even though the A's were a poor team in his later years in the dugout. Mack also owned the team.

It's like that NY Lottery commercial that's been running this season in which a manager is forced to answer questions about his bumbling third baseman who it turns out bought the team after, of course, winning the lottery. Mack, as some sort of antediluvian Pete Rose, inserted himself in the dugout as the manager long after he had passed his usefulness as one, right?

Well, Mack spent his last 19 years without winning a World Series or so much as a pennant, but he did have winners in three of the last four seasons. I don't think anyone could have better managed some of those post-1931 A's teams. Then again, Mack had no one but himself to blame for continually dismantling the team.

The comment about Mack did make me wonder if managers lose their effectiveness as they age, and I thought a quickie but extremely large table was in order. I looked up the total record by age for all managers. Here's what I found:

Now, here are the top ten ages by winning percentage (the 85 is Connie Mack's third to last season):

It seems that sexagenarian managers are the best. Would that we all could peak at that age.

The Phillies won tonight, 4-3, over the Nationals even though they didn't score after the third inning. They are now tied for the wild card lead with the Astros, and the city of Philadelphia couldn't give a damn.

I opened the rag Philly commuter paper, The Metro, today and their only Phillies story in what one might call the sports section—or more appropriately would be described as the last three and one-half pages of this tabloid version of the USA Today and a Modell's ad—was about the team's reaction to Terrell Owens return to Eagles camp.

"Hello, you may not know us but were in a pennant race" or words to that affect were the mock-u-mercial in the film Major League, but they quite aptly describe the state of the Phils.

The Eagles, and especially the TO dramedy, have dominated local sports headlines and fans' imaginations since the beginning of baseball season. Cheers of "E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles!" have broken out during dull and exciting moments alike at games at Citizens Bank Park all year. It's as if the fans are completely indifferent to the plight of the ballclub as they enjoy their schmitter and Schmitz.

Truthfully, there really isn't all that much compelling about the team with the exception of perhaps their backing into a wild card race that they seemingly have no business to be a part of.

This is a team whose most popular star, Jim Thome, has either been completely ineffective or injured all season.

Their best player, Bobby Abreu, made headlines by winning the home run derby, but at the same time had started a month-long home run drought that he just got out of the other day.

Their leadoff hitter, Jimmy Rollins, who had a mini-renaissance lasts season, has fallen back into his bad ways and now owns a .313 on-base percentage and .704 OPS.

Their third baseman, David Bell, has been one of the worst regulars in the majors (.661 OPS), is 32, and is signed through next year.

They have a catching tandem (Mike Lieberthal and Todd Pratt) that can only be considered somewhat acceptable given that the 38-year-old, career backup (Pratt) is on pace to set career highs in homers and RBI. For his part, the putative starter, Lieberthal, has been a sinkhole offensively.

They have two closers since Ed Wade couldn't pull the trigger on any semblance of a deal at the trade deadline. They have a rotation that scares no one. The one starter who had been doing well, Brett Myers, seems to have lost it since the All-Star break.

Meanwhile, there are positives. Pat Burrell has but been written off by the locals for not being the next coming of Ted Williams but has been solid all year. Chase Utley may already be the best second baseman in the league even though his manager had no confidence in him coming out of training camp and this is just the first season in which the Phils graciously and begrudgingly allowed him to start. Ryan Howard may not be a revelation as Thome's understudy but has been at least a step up from Thome's performance. Kenny Lofton has been his usual self in center though he is 38, after all, and plays about three-quarters of the time. Robinson Tejeda has filled in nicely for Randy Wolf. Vicente Padilla has actually resembled a major-league pitcher lately.

Those are all plusses that can go—and are going—unnoticed while the locals obsess over the utterances of Owens.

This team could actually back into the playoffs, sort of by default in the mediocrity cum parity that prevails in throughout the majors, and the locals may not even notice.

Especially if Donovan and TO kiss and makeup or the Eagles start playing games that matter.

The NL West has become a vast wasteland. With the best player in the game, Barry Bonds, ostensibly sitting out the year due to injury, a number of other stars (Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, Steve Finley, etc.) recently departing, and still others underachieving (where have you gone Todd Helton?), the division is the polar opposite of the NL East.

While the East has all five highly mediocre teams all over .500—some ever so slightly above—, the NL West features a pennant race in which a team, the Giants, may still be in the hunt—they are 7 games out—while being a staggering 15 games under .500. The Padres have led for much of the season, but they were just swept by the Phils at home over the weekend, their second sweep at the hands of the Phightins' in less than a month, and they have been over .500 for just five days in the last three weeks.

That said, it seems nearly impossible that any of the other sub-par teams in the division will topple the Pod People. Arizona, who is rebuilding and would be nowhere near a pennant race in other year, are just three games back. The Dodgers, or as they should be known for the enigmatic ways, the Cubs West, haven't been over .500 in two months, but linger 5 games back.

It appears that whichever execrable franchise survives the regular season, they will quite possibly have the worst record for any playoff team or division winner in a non-strike-shortened season. They could be the first non-strike team to make the playoffs with a losing record. (Oh, and let's not even think about the wild card: the D-Backs are in eighth, 8.5 games back in the wild card hunt, and the Dodgers are behind the lowly Reds.)

The only other teams to "win" anything with a losing record were the 1994 Texas Rangers and the 1981 Kansas City Royals. The 1994 Rangers "won" the AL West despite losing ten more games than they won when the season abruptly ended on August 12 with a strike.

The '81 Royals were the second-half champs in the AL West after baseball went to a split-season following another work stoppage. They were in fifth place in the first half with a 20-30 record. They won the second half by one game with a 30-23 record. Given that the first-half champs, the A's, were in second place in the second half and given the arcane rules that were imposed that year, the Royals could have finished second and still made the playoffs. Thankfully, that codicil of the rules was never invoked since no first-half champs won their division in the second half. Looking at the season overall, the Royals were 50-53, in fourth place, eleven games behind the A's.

Here are the worst teams to ever make the postseason:

The Yankees lost a heartbreaker tonight to the lowly Rays in the ultimate anticlimactic fashion, a walkoff, er, walk in the bottom of the eleventh. With men at the corners and two outs, the Yankees tried the all-time "high percentage" bad call of intentionally walking the bases full to get a) the possibility of an out at every base and b) a more favorable matchup at the plate (Jonny Gomes, who had struck out thrice in his previous at-bats in the game, instead of Aubrey Huff). Of course, Scott Proctor came nowhere near the plate with his next four pitches, thereby losing the game.

Proctor was brought into the game after Alan Embree gave up a one-out double to Carl Crawford. He promptly balked Crawford to third in about the most obvious fashion that I have ever seen. The only way he could have made it more obvious would have been if he held up a copy of the rule book and pointed to rule 8.01 (a)(3) [i.e., "From [the windup position] position [the pitcher] may: (3) disengage the rubber (if he does he must drop his hand to his sides). In disengaging the rubber the pitcher must step off with his pivot foot and not his free foot first. He may not go into a set or stretch position if he does it is a balk.]

Actually, the game seemed lost after Mariano Rivera came in to save a 3-2 lead in the ninth and gave up a one-out bullet to left to Eduardo Perez that tied the game. Actually, the YES crew were trying to homer a Jeffrey Maier call out of the play. The replay seemed inconclusive to me.

That Perez homer cost the D-Rays their first complete game of the year as Doug Waechter went nine strong innings for the apparent loss. Though they are a dying breed, there has never been a major-league team that went an entire season without at least one CG. The only teams with 1 CG for an entire year are:

2004 New York Yankees
2003 Houston Astros
2002 Colorado Rockies
2001 Tampa Bay Devil Rays
1995 Colorado Rockies

Also, the Reds and Rockies this year have just one so far. (Mussina had the one CG last year for the Yankees.)

Kirk Rueter was designated for reassignment today by the Giants effectively ending a ten-year career with the team. Rueter is one of just 240 who have pitched for one team for at least ten years. Jamie Moyer and Rueter joined the list this year. John Smoltz, Brad Radke, Tim Wakefield, Kenny Rogers, Mariano Rivera, and Trevor Hoffman are the other current pitchers who have pitched at least ten seasons for their current teams.

Rueter has been awful this year and has not had an ERA below average (i.e., the park-adjusted league average) since 2002, his career year (14-8, 3.23 ERA) during which Tim McCarver barraged the baseball world with evocations of Rueter's colorful nickname, "Woody". It occurred to me that with exception of two or three years, his career in San Fran has been rather lackluster.

Could Rueter be the worst pitcher to ply his trade for one team for at least ten seasons? His record in ten Giant seasons is 105-80 with a 4.32 ERA.

As RBJ pointed out, the Yankees have used 14 starting pitchers this year. Should they make the playoffs, they would be one of a handful of teams to reach the postseason or claim a title outright who had that many starters in season. The most was 15 for the 1989 Giants (though that pales to the all-time high of 24 by the 1915 A's). Unfortunately for the Yanks, they might be a better bet to reach 15 starters than the playoffs this year.

The Giants that year actually had what appears to be a decent rotation—four men with ERAs under 3.50 and at least 10 wins—but tried out plenty of men in the last two rotation spots. Here are all their starters that year:

Here are the playoff/title teams with the most starting pitchers:

Of course, at the opposite end of the spectrum there are a number of nineteenth century teams and the 1966 Dodgers, who used just 5 starters, three of which are in the Hall of Fame (Koufax, Drysdale, Sutton, Claude Osteen, and Joe Moeller):

I just noticed that Baseball Toaster has added a link in the right-hand column to search the sites, either individually or collectively, for specific stuff. For example, a search for "Lil Joe" yields this. I didn't try "Cotton-eyed Lil Joe".

The Yankees won in dramatic fashion tonight. After blowing a two-run lead in the ninth behind Mariano Rivera, they beat the Rangers 7-5 in the eleventh on a two-run homer by Bernie Williams.

But let's assume that Williams had struck out. Who would the Yankees have depended on with one out and Tino Martinez at first? The dubious pair of John Flaherty and Tony Womack, the seventh and eighth hitters. In eight at-bats the duo hadn't gotten the ball out of the infield going 1-for-8 collectively with four strikeouts. I went to the game last Wednesday that the Yanks lost 2-1 to the White Sox and again they had the backup Flaherty starting behind the plate and Womack, the itinerant second baseman, starting in right field yet.

I can't imagine why the Yankees are wasting valuable ABs on a pair of useless players both past 35. Flaherty's a 37-year-old backup to the rapidly aging 33-year-old starter, Jorge Posada. Meanwhile Womack went from a barely passable second baseman to an offensively atrocious corner outfielder this season. At least he was dropped from number two to number nine in the order when Robinson Cano took both his defensive spot in the field and then his spot in the batting order.

Flaherty projects to over 100 at-bats with a .165 batting average and mind-numbing .434 OPS. Meanwhile Womack's sub-par .241 batting average hides an abysmal .271 OBP and .542 OPS.

If Flaherty continues at his current pace, he will become just the tenth man in the last ten seasons to own a sub-.275 batting average and sub-.450 OPS in at least 100 at-bats:

As for Womack, if he sticks at his current 15 RBI, he'd be just the eleventh man to register 400 at-bats and 15 or fewer RBI since the started counting the stat and the first since 1968. If he amasses the 21 he projects to, he still would be one of 78 to drive in so few in so many at-bats. Here are the previous men to collect 15 or fewer RBI in 400 or more at-bats:

OK, so on their own they are pathetic enough, but how many offenses have dared to pair such ineptitude in one lineup? I looked it up. There have been just 26 in baseball history (with duplicates) and 9 since the end of World War I:

Parts I, II, III, & IV

In 1986 Major League Baseball pushed the non-waiver trade deadline back a month and a half to July 31. The result was that the deals had far less impact—the players were on their new teams for a month and a half less after all—, but my belief is that they were much more well-directed. With the extra month and a half teams know a bit better what their final fate will likely be. They also know a bit more about what their needs are.

My theory is that deadline trades evolved at this point, and we will no longer see so many lopsided deals favoring the non-contending team. Let's test the theory by looking at the most lopsided deals since the trade deadline was moved. Remember this is based on what the players did during the season in which the trade took place:

#1) July 29, 1999: The A's get Omar Olivares and Randy Velarde from the Angels for Jeff Davanon, Elvin Nina, and Nathan Haynes

Career Win Shares prior to trade: 151
Above Baseline: 39
Career Win Shares following trade: 24
Above Baseline: 15
Win Shares prior to trade for that season: 17
Above Baseline: 10
Win Shares following trade for that season: 22
Above Baseline: 13
Total Win Shares ahead for the season: 39

Yeah, I wouldn't have thought of it either. The