Bobby Bonds, that is. Adam Dunn broke Bobby Bonds single-season strikeout record with his 190th and his 191st strikeout today.

Here are the new leaders:

Note: Mark Bellhorn is currently at 174 with three games to go.

However, Dunn's 2004 season is just 31st in baseball history when it comes to strikeouts per plate appearance. Witness:

By the way, Dunn was not alone today. Mark Prior struck out 16 Reds today, but the Cubs still managed to lose, 2-1, to fall a full game behind the 'Stros in the wild card hunt.

Start spreading the news. The Yankees just won 6-4 on a walk-off two-run home run by Bernie Williams with one out in the ninth. They have now clinched the AL East and became just the fifth team in baseball history to win 100 games in three consecutive seasons.

If the Yankees win tonight—they are currently tied 4-4 in the 7th with the Twins— they will not only clinch their seventh straight division title. They will become only the fifth team in baseball history, and the first in Yankee history, to win 100 games in three consecutive seasons.

Here are the other four:

If we project the records of teams that played before a162-game schedule, here are the 39 teams that would have qualified based on winning percentage:

The Yankees, in theory, would have qualified seven times. The St Louis AA-NL club qualifies 7 times as well, and the Boston-Atlanta NA-NL club qualifies 8 times. If the Yankees win tonight, then they would match the Braves franchise "record".

As the Arizona Diamondbacks prepare to finish out their season, there are just a few questions remaining:

- Can Randy Johnson do anything in his final start (Oct. 2) to get him into serious contention for the Cy Young award?



- How bad can the run their record?



- Why are they signing 41-year-old relievers, who haven't had an ERA under 5.00 since 2001, (i.e., Jeff Fassero) with four days left in the season?



- Who invented liquid soap and why?

The D-Backs, losers so far of 110 games, go into their final series of the season facing a San Diego team whose playoff hopes may still be alive though hanging by the thinnest of threads—they are two and one-half games behind the Astros in the wild card race with four games left (including one with the Giants tonight). No matter what happens in this final series, Arizona is assured of being the second worst non-expansion team in forty years.

The best that they can hope for is a 52-110 record and the worst a 49-113. Both are pretty bad this final series will help determine how history remembers this team and the gradation of their suckiness. By putting forth their worst effort Arizona can be remembered as one of the worst teams in recent memory. So let's all pull for them, or rather against them, okie dokie?

But what if the fail us and actually sweep the Pod People. Let’s say San Diego loses to the Giants, virtually eliminating them (they would still be three back with three to play and three teams ahead of them). The Padres come to town demoralized and lose all three games.

The D-Backs would finish 52-110 (.321 winning percentage), which would still be the hundredth worst record in baseball history. Being in the top 100 of 2475 team seasons (and 2009 in the "modern" era) is pretty impressive. Also, their 21-52 second half record would be the fortieth worst since the advent of the All-Star break.

Here are the worst team records since World War II:

(Note 1969 was the inaugural year for both the Expos and the Padres.)

However, let's assume that the Padres are still battling for a playoff spot, that the D-Backs play their typically lackluster series, and they lose all three games. They would finish 49-113 (.303) with an 18-55 second-half record. That would be a bit more special.

They would have the 76th worst record in baseball history and the 23rd worst in the modern era.

Here are the teams that would be worse since the horrific 1899 Cleveland Spiders:

It makes a Phillies fan proud.

Anyway, their 18-55 second-half record would be the sixth worst team record in a half since 1933, the first year of the All-Star game. Here are the worst ever:

It kind of puts the 2003 Tigers in perspective, huh?

Now, the D-Backs missed an opportunity to be truly awful. After losing six straight and eight of nine, Arizona screwed up and won the first two games of the Brewers series. On Monday, Johnson beat Ben Sheets, 3-1, in the battle for best pitcher on a godawful team, and Tuesday the D-Backs handed Brooks Kieschnick his first loss of the season.

If the D-Backs had lost those two games and then their last four of the season (for a season-ending eleven-game losing streak), they would have ended up 47-115 (.290) and 16-57 (.219) for the second half. There are just 62 teams with a record was than that, and just 14 since 1901. Here they are:

That's elite company. Their second half would have been the fourth worst ever and the worst in 42 years (see list above). Oh well, better luck next time.

Also, Randy Johnson may win on Saturday pushing his win total to 16, an impressive feat among the ruins of his team. Johnson, however, cannot do something that has not been done in 32 years. He cannot win a third of his team's victories.

He had been on pace to do so in August, but it is now a mathematical impossibility. Let's say Johnson wins his last start and the D-Backs lose their two other games. That puts him at 16-14 and the team record at 50-112, close but no cigar. It's just too hard to do with five-man rotations.

Here are the only pitchers since World War II to have done it:

Alas, I fear that no matter happens to the D-Backs this weekend, their legacy is in jeopardy. With a terrible season coming just one year after the horrific Tigers (43-119) year last season, no one will remember how truly awful they were especially in the second half. And that's a shame.

Wait, I have more headlines that are equally bad:

Milton Upbraid-ley



Uncle! Milty!



Bradley's Bottled Up Aggresion



Milt-man, Keep Those Bottles Quiet!



Bradley Regrets Loss of Bottle's Deposit

OK, by now you've heard about Milton Bradley's meltdown, or as those neophyte pun-dits at ESPN termed it, "Miltdown". The gist is that Bradley threw a bottle into the stands after it was thrown on the field in his general vicinity. You may have also heard that Bradley was suspended for five games, the remainder of the Dodger's season, as a result of his actions.

I did not get to see the play until tonight because of the time difference. I had read plenty about it though and it ran the gamut though the majority came down hard on Bradley.

Here's what I saw:

First, Bradley dropped a fly ball apparently in the lights that allowed the Rockies to go ahead 3-0 in the top of the eighth. I say apparently given Bradley's body language on the play and Vin Scully's play-by-play, good man that Scully. Anyway, Giovanni "Ribisi: Carrera, the Dodger pitcher, practically threw a temper tantrum on the play.

As the next batter dropped a single to center to lengthen the lead to 4-0, the camera cut to Bradley, who had picked up a bottle in the stands. Scully didn't know whether it was glass or plastic, but he was vehemently castigating the unknown fan for throwing it.

Bradley, already upset over his misplay, walked to the right-field bleachers and after engaging one fan briefly, slammed the bottle apparently onto the concrete floor of the stands.

Bradley's teammates quickly had him backpedaling toward the dugout. En route he was ejected very quickly from the game. He removed his jersey and as he approached the dugout was greeted by the fans, who were booing the ejection. Bradley, however, in his fit of pique thought they were booing him and he swung his arms wildly up and down, which only served to excite the fans more, apparently in his favor. A Dodger quickly hustled Bradley into the dugout and up the runway to the clubhouse. The Dodgers came back to win 4-3 anyway.

Throughout Scully was sympathetic to Bradley, who was, so it would seem, the target of the offending item. I thought that Bradley slammed the bottle more in frustration than revenge, since it was not directed toward any fan (in sharp contrast to Frank Francisco's chair flinging a couple of weeks ago).

Actually, I think it's odd that so many are comparing the incident to the anticlimactic Jose Guillen flare-up the other day that got him suspended for the rest of the season and postseason. The issues are clearly more akin to the Francisco scrum. First, Guillen was insubordinate to his manager. No fan was involved at all. This is a chain-of-command issue, and for some reason sports take this more seriously, like the army courtmarshalling soldiers for disobeying orders.

The Francisco and Bradley incidents both involved fans. I consider this a much worse violation for many reasons. First, it opens the club up to a lawsuit for liability whether or not it can be proven. Second, it's about the worst PR move on the planet. It's like an ad against baseball being wholesome family entertainment. Heck, you can't even take your kid to the stadium without worrying that some player, let alone the inebriated jerk sitting next to you, will accost you. It also opens the player up to a civil suit, again as in the Francisco case.

In the Bradley case, he was provoked by a fan physically attacking him in his own stadium yet. Francisco was just attacked verbally. Also, Francisco directed his aggression at a group of fans with a pretty harmful object, a folding chair, as if it were a wrestling match. Bradley threw the bottle, it appeared to me, at the ground, and those plastic bottles are distributed to fans for the precise reason that they do less damage than conventional glass bottles.

Basically, I thought it was a bad incident all around and that Bradley deserved to be suspended. The whole incident seemed a bit overblown, however, probably due to the heat of the pennant race. I am surprised to what extent Bradley was demonized for his actions though.

I think the fine is fair. The Dodgers will not be hampered by it in the playoffs but it is for a substantial enough time to send Bradley and the rest of the players a message.

Bradley has seemed contrite since the incident and has said that he will seek help to deal with his anger. That's the right approach as far as MLB is concerned, and it actually would help the very talented but mercurial player.

Should the Dodgers collapse and let the Giants, who trail by three games with four left to play, win the division, the Dodger faithful should do to the miscreant fan, whom I heard was apprehended, what the Cubs did with the Steve Bartman ball this spring training. He'd blowed up real good.

[Mike's Baseball Rants does not advocate violence except in the punchlines of jokes. Warning Happy Fun Ball should not be thrown or touched in any way.]

The Angels just went up one-half game by beating the Rangers, 8-7 in 11 innings just minutes ago. The Angels came back from a 4-3 deficit in the third and 6-5 in the ninth.

The A's lead the M's 2-1 in the 7th.

Update: The A's just lost 4-2. The Angels are ahead by one game.

There's a spot opening at Mt. Rushmore for Reagan:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else. "



- Theodore Roosevelt, on criticizing President Wilson during WWI - May 7th, 1918, Kansas City Star

Where is the Bull Moose party when you need them anywho? All we get is the BS party.

I'm sorry, back to baseball now. I just had to do my part to embolden Kerry for tomorrow night.

The Yankees clinched at least a tie for first with a doubleheader sweep of the Twins, 5-3 and 5-4 (over Johan Santana) as the Red Sox and Pedro Martinez (loser of four straight) lost 9-4 to the ever-tough D-Rays. Vazquez faces Radke tomorrow night in the Yankees' regular season finale at Yankee Stadium. They will have chilled champagne on hand. It would be the Yankees sixth straight division championship.

The Phils clinched their second consecutive winning season with an 8-4 win over the Pirates. It is the first time in twenty years that the Phils have had two consecutive winning seasons.

Those two paragraphs speak volumes about these two franchises and explain why my five-year-old is a Yankee fan.

Frank Rizzo: "He's a real chaza! Tony, you know what a chaza is?"

Tony Montana: "No, Frank, why don't you tell me what a chaza is."

Frank Rizzo: "He's a pig, but he don't fly straight no more."



—The nonpareil "Scarface"

Oriole owner Peter Angelos will apparently make out like a bandit in the deal to move the Expos somewhat near his mediocre Baltimore team if this report by Jayson Stark is any indication.

Angelos, whose team paid a paltry fee to move into the then-Washington Senators territory—either $100 K or $250 K depending on who you believe—, will get previously unheard-of concessions from Major League Baseball.

Baseball is willing to guarantee that the Orioles will earn a still-to-be-negotiated minimum in annual revenues. If their revenues fall below that figure, MLB would make up the difference.



Baseball also is willing to guarantee a minimum franchise value for the Orioles. So if Angelos attempts to sell the team and can't find a buyer willing to pay that amount, MLB also would make up that difference.



Beyond those measures, baseball will help establish a new regional sports network in the Baltimore-Washington area that would enable the Orioles to continue to televise games in Washington and its Virginia suburbs.

It's like Henry Hill's description of how the mob bleeds a company dry in "Goodfellas", "You got no business? FU, pay me. You had a fire? FU, pay me. The place got hit by lightning? FU, pay me." The only difference is that the mob, MLB, is the one getting bleed. What incentive does Angelos have to make an honest effort with the O's? If the late great Doug Pappas were still with us, I'm sure he would be able to show that Angelos could make more money if his team loses.

Let's give it a try. The Orioles reduce their salary by a third a la the Brewers. The O's payroll was $51.6M at the start of the season, twentieth in baseball. Let's say they go down to $40M. The will lose Rafael Palmeiro's $4M contract at the end of the year. The lose David Segui's $7M-per-year, Omar Daal's $4.5 M-per-year, and Marty Cordova's $3.5 M-per-year contacts at the end of the year. That's $19 M right there and all you get rid of is dead weight and 40-year-old future Hall of Famer. Then there's Jerry Hairston ($1.55 M), who lost the second base job. They dumped Mike DeJean's $1.5 M contract on the Mets and can buyout Buddy Groom for $250 K, instead of picking up his $3 M option. That's a total savings of $25 without substantially affecting the team's on-field performance. Subtract, say, $5 to pay warm bodies to replace those players and to retain other players, and the Orioles can very easily get to the $30-$35 M payroll range.

If there's backlash from the fans and attendance is down, the Orioles will a) get money from revenue sharing and the luxury tax and b) if that's still not enough, their welfare deal kicks in. So Angelos can cut costs to the bone and still field a team that's not much worse than today, he's guaranteed money from various sources to keep his revenue at a certain level. If he cuts payroll even more, say, to the point that the Orioles are a perennial doormat, he saves the additional payroll costs and still makes the revenue. It's better for him to pay his players less, which will, at some point, translate into a worse product on the field, than it is to overpay in order to compete with the Yankees and Sox. He'll be able to pocket more that way. Even Angelos will be able to figure that out.

And the Washington Expos will now be saddled with Oriole games being broadcast to their new fan base. I hope that MLB includes them in the cable package and doesn't make them fend for themselves. Then again, with the O's disincentivized from putting a quality product on the field, the metro fans may come a-runnin' for the new Senators.

And get this, Angelos not only wants the deal for as long as he owns the team but wants to keep the support system in place in perpetuity:

[T]he biggest remaining sticking point in negotiations with the Orioles is the length of time for which baseball would be willing to make those guarantees. The Washington Post reported Tuesday night that MLB has offered to extend the guarantees for as long as Angelos owns the club, but Angelos is pushing to keep them in effect indefinitely.

So MLB may still be paying off this deal when your grandkids are paying off George Bush's deficit while finishing up the war in Iraq. Hard to believe, Harry.

The AP reports that the Mets are set to hire Expo GM Omar Minaya as the head of baseball operations. Met GM Jim Duquette will report to Minaya, meaning that he has gotten a promotion.

Omar Minaya? The man who went through talent more quickly than Donald Trump when the Expos were still good and in the process traded away their highly touted minor-league system. The man whose only trades this year were to acquire Jeriome Robertson, trade Peter Bergeron, and, oh yeah, trading away any players with any trade value (Orlando Cabrera, Carl Everett, and Alex S. Gonzalez, who was acquired in the Cabrera trade) except for Jose Vidro and Brad Wilkerson. Isn't this just a bone that MLB is throwing to Minaya for being a good company man in aiding in the Expo talent redistribution.

But, hey, these are the Mets, the team that leaked they were firing Art Howe at the end of the season to see how it would play in the court of public opinion and then were forced to make it public. Come to think of it, it's a match made in heaven. Now, the Mets will finish out the year with their lame duck manager and try to determine what positions three of their regulars (Mike Piazza, Jose Reyes, and Kaz Matsui) will be playing next year.

The farce that is the ownerless Montreal cum San Juan Expos will apparently end tomorrow. According to reports Major League Baseball will announce Wednesday that Expos will be moved to Washington for next season.

The writing was on the wall when earlier today Baltimore owner Peter "Chaza" Angelos intimated that a deal could be done if baseball could slake his ego or some such conditions:

"I still stand by my original position, that there should not be a team in Washington," Angelos said.



However, he said he would consider an arrangement between Major League Baseball and the Orioles that meets two standards: "Does the deal protect the value of the franchise? Does it protect the state and the taxpayers' investment in Camden Yards?..."



"If those two goals can be accomplished, and I feel the franchise would be secure and the revenue stream is protected and the asset value is secure, it might be possible to make a deal."



"As far as my personal interests are concerned, as far as paying me $100 million or $150 million, all that would do is take care of Peter Angelos. That's not what it is about."

After the conversation with the Sun, Angelos had to be rushed away for an emergency nose-ectomy. You have to admire a man who can out-scum Bud Selig. Everyone knew that this deal had to be made. It was two years ago for crissake that it was leaked that the Expos proposed home schedule was labeled "Washington". Baseball never really had any other viable option or at least never considered one. Angelos was able to stave off their overtures until now and, I'm sure, will exact his ounce of flesh before the deal is done.

Anyway, finally the Bleeding Expos will have a real home and a real owner, whomever that might be. It is the first time in 33 years that a major-league franchise has been relocated (i.e., the Senators moving to Arlington). Baseball gets to tap into the rich baseball history in Washington. It is the third oldest baseball area after all (behind New York and Philly--check your NABBP history). Pictures of Walter Johnson and Clark Griffith will abound and expect plenty of ye olde tyme uniform appearances (unless the Twins own the rights to those). President John Kerry will get to throw out the first ball next year (if there is a god--I'm not optimistic). Hopefully, the season openers will return to Cincy and DC. And baseball gets to extort a new stadium from another community. It's win-win all around.

Meanwhile, as my friend Murray points out, the man behind the curtain has sold the Brewers to a Los Angeles investor for $180 M. Coincidence? "Read the book!" Of course, Bud Selig no longer has anything to do with the sale. His daughter is running the Brewers. Bud's 28% stake in the club is held in trust so he is completely disinterested in the clubs fate. (Should we mention that his and the other owners' partial ownership of the Expos makes their sale a conflict of interest? I guess it's bad manners.)

The Brewers end up being sold for just two million less than the large-market Angels went for last year even though they have had 12 straight losing seasons and were reportedly $133.2 M in arears at the end of last season. Of course, the Brewers have been at the fore at reducing team payroll. Last offseason they lost then-team president Ulice Payne over the decision to cut payroll from $40 to $30 M. Luckily for the Brewers, the Doamondbacks agreed to take one of the few players who had been paid a decent salary by the Brewers, Richie Sexson, for a slew of cheap, young, talented-enough players.

Anyway, in one day, Bud Selig may go from the owner of parts of two teams to an owner of none probably making more than a Halliburton government contract in the process. It's a good thing that Selig can no longer directly decimate a club. However, he is now free to step up his indirect havoc-wreaking of baseball as a whole, not a good thing. Expect wraparound ads on player uniforms, an extra round of playoffs, and homefield advantage in the league championship series determined by spring training games coming to a theater near you soon.

A little discussion unfolded over at Will Carroll Presents regarding who is the most salient Hall of Fame ommision, the most deserving person who is eligible but not in the Hall. It sounds interesting, but be warned: it's not the Baseball Hall of Fame that's being discussed but rather the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame.

And guest columnist Scott Long says that the "Ron Santo" of the R'n'R Hall is, or are, The Cars. The have a good argument but I support Gram Parsons, the godfather of country-rock.

Here's my complete list (included suggestions from others that I agree with):

The Stooges
XTC
Todd Rundgren
Joe Jackson
Graham Parker
Television
Black Sabbath
The (Small) Faces
Warren Zevon
New York Dolls
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers
Love
The Jam
Buck Owens (Influence Division)
T. Rex
The Soft Boys
Cheap Trick
The Feelies
Brian Wilson
The Sex Pistols
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Big Star/Alex Chilton
Flamin' Groovies
Raspberries
The MC5
Blondie
Devo

I admit that they are idiosyncratic choices, but that's kind of the problem with the R'n'R Hall of Fame. By the way, I stand by the assessment that Lovin' Spoonful is the Tommy McCarthy of the R'n'R Hall.

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.



—Felix Unger, "The Odd Couple" (Actually from "The Hollow Men" by T. S. Eliot)

The Phils were officially eliminated from postseason with a 6-1 loss to the Pirates at Citizens Bank Park yesterday. The game was emblematic of this phrustrating season.

Phils starter Eric Milton retired the first eight Pirates that he faced and did not give up a hit until Ty Wigginton's eventual game-winning two-run homer in the fourth. First baseman Jim Thome was out of the lineup still recuperating from a collision from a week ago.

The Phils managed only five hits and one run in 6-2/3 off of Oliver Perez, who also allowed four walks. They didn't get a man past first base until the fifth inning. They started off the sixth with two straight walks and then an RBI single by David Bell, and with me at first and second, down by three runs, proceeded to go down in order with two infield popouts and a strikeout. The last seven Phils batters were retired in order even though the Phils were still trailing by three runs.

And of course, there were appearances by 2004 acquisitions Roberto Horrendous, Felix Rodriguez, and Todd Jones (who of course gave up two runs). With all the need to replace ineffective or injured players throughout the year, all the Phils could get were relief pitchers and the since-released Paul Abbott. The relief pitchers have ranged from good (Rodriguez) to horrifically bad (Jones and Hernandez), but as a whole were bandaids on a staff infection.

And typically manager Larry Bowa was out of touch with the reality staring him right in the face: "Anytime you get X'ed out, it's disappointing," he said. "Now you try to win as many games as you can and finish as high in the standings as possible."

The Phils are in theory battling the Marlins for second place in the NL East. They have a one-game lead.

They also need one more win to cement a winning season. 2003-04 would be the first two consecutive winning seasons in a row in twenty years(!). 1983-84 was the last and it also marked the end of the Phils ten-year golden era in which they won their only World Series championship (1980), made two of their five all-time World Series appearances, won the division five of the six total times since divisional play started in 1969, and reached the playoffs six of the total nine times in their history.

They would also need to win their final six games to improve on last year's 86-76 record.

But wherever they end up from here is irrelevant. I added a rundown of the past thirty years—their success in the Seventies and early Eighties and lack of success (before and) after that—which is much more pertinent to the Phils future. This club has been remade over the past two seasons to be a playoff contender this season, their first in the new stadium. But they are finishing with just about the same record as last year, which was the same record they had in Larry Bowa's Manager-of-the-Year winning first season (2001).

There are only three starting position players left from 2001: Abreu, Rollins, and Burrell. (Lieberthal, who was injured, Perez, Glanville, Pratt, and Michaels were also on that team). Wolf, Cormier, Telemaco, and Padilla are the only men left from the 2001 staff. But the more things change, the more they stay the same.

So where do the Phils go from here? To quote Charles Zipp in "Airplane", "I don't know where" the Phils we be, "but it won't smell too good, that's for sure." The Phils have a ton of money invested in four players (Abreu, Thome, Burrell, and Bell), and of the four only Bobby Abreu can be viewed as an unalloyed success. Jim Thome and David Bell have had their share of success on the field this year but are both on the wrong side of thirty and are becoming more and more fragile.

Pat Burrell has had two straight disappointing seasons and this year started strong (.313 batting average and .974 OPS through May) but finished weak (no batting average over .250 or OPS over .758 for an entire month in the four months of season) and missed a month due to injury. He did improve over his devastating 2003 season, but one has to wonder if he is closer to his .828 OPS this season than his .920 two years ago (His career OPS is .822).

Of the rest, one would assume that marginal-at-best shortstop Jimmy Rollins will return if for no other reason but inertia of the Newton's First Law variety. The same goes with the aging Mike Lieberthal behind the plate.

Then there's second base, where Chase Utley is the heir apparent but in typical Bowanian fashion has just 31 at-bats in September sapping his offensive output (.226/.314/.323/.637) for the month after an encouraging callup (.341/.348/.614/.961 and 3 homers in 44 at-bats in July. Is he the starter next year or is it Placido Polanco? Your guess is as good as the Phils brass.

The same goes for center fielder Marlon Byrd, who has been a sinkhole in the lineup (.226/.286/.320/.605). Actually Byrd's season appears to be a psychological experiment as much as year as a ballplayer. He started the season as the leadoff hitter and starting center fielder though Bowa and Wade hung onto former starter Doug Glanville as an unnecessary no-hit sixth outfielder. Then when Byrd struggled, Bowa moved him up and down the lineup like a yo-yo with no rhyme or reason and started to spot start Glanville after an extra-inning, walk-off home run against the Expos on April 18 (one of his two homers for the season) after he replaced, of course, Byrd in the field.

As his struggles continued, Byrd was sent down to Triple-A and forgotten—it was sort of like the fetus frightening machine in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life". As he struggled in the minors, the Phils tried and failed to pry Steve Finley from Arizona. At the trade deadline, after six weeks in the minors, his major-league career was resuscitated and he was again named their starting center fielder. Even though his numbers were pitiful in Triple-A, we were told that his spate of home runs (two)over the previous week demonstrated his ability to hit major-league pitchers again. It was a miracle!

In 37 games and 152 at-bats at Triple-A, he batted .263 with a .309 OBP, .388 slugging percentage, and .697 OPS. He had 2 homers, 13 runs scored, 17 RBI, 2 stolen bases and three caught stealing. This didn't bode well. And since returning to the lineup, Byrd has been just as bad if not worse than in the first half. First trial: .224/.297/.304/.601. Second trial: .225/.260/.342/.602. At least he's consistent.

And don't even discuss the pitching staff. It's been a wasted year for Randy Wolf and Vicente Padilla, with injuries and mediocre performance, but they will probably anchor the staff next year. Rookies Ryan Madson and Gavin Floyd deserve to be given spots in the rotation. Madson has pitched so well all year and shows such potential that it's amazing the Phils braintrust has not been able to get him even a spot start down the meaningless stretch—unbelievable!

That gives the Phils two mediocre but once promising pitchers and two extremely promising but untried pitchers going into next year. Kevin Millwood, Cory Lidle, and Eric Milton are potential free agents and appear to be gone. Milton, the loser yesterday, may have sealed his fate with a 3-3 second half performance after an 11-2 start. It's not that he has pitched any worse in the second half (his ERA is actually slightly lower), but it gives the Phils an excuse not to open the coffers to re-sign him.

Then there's the enigma that is Brett Myers. He is just 24 but appears to have played himself out of a job. He'll probably follow in the grand tradition of all once promising Phils pitchers (Duckworth, Combs, Wright, Carman) and fade into oblivion probably after three or four years of destroying the Phils' or someone else's middle relief corps.

The relievers are in flux. Closer Billy Wagner has been inconsistent and injured most of the year and has an option for $9 M next year or buyout for $3 M. He has hinted that he would prefer to be bought out.

So what happens next? Logically, a scape goat will be found. There were rumors earlier this month that Larry Bowa would be anointed as the sacrificial lamb, er, goat and that he would be fired at the end of the season, sort of like the Art Howe situation in New York but the issue never came to a head once the Philly media made the Eagles the cynosure of their attention and affection.

If it were me running the club, I would get rid of GM Ed Wade, Bowa, and the coaching staff. They have all been equally abysmal. But it's not me or you or anyone else with two brain cells to rub together. Team president Dave Montgomery runs the club, which brings us back to the history of the club over the last thirty years. Montgomery has run the club since June 1997 when former owner Bill Giles euthanized himself while still retaining a position the Phils as the chairman of the board.

Yes, the Phils are no longer the doormats they were in 1997, but in his seven and a half years, they have yet to win a division or finish better than 86-76. They have had .500 or better seasons in only three of his part of eight seasons.

And yes, he did invest money in the team in the past two offseasons. However, the Phils were left to fend for themselves throughout the season, the feral children of the NL East. Besides, in his first five and one-half seasons, he wasn't exactly a spendthrift.

The strategy for next season will be interesting. Will they continue to spend and hope that the fan's honeymoon with the new park isn't over? Or will they return to their miserly ways after realizing their last two years' spending has been for naught?

I'm guessing the latter myself. I never thought the team's change of heart was anything more than a short-term strategy predicated on the new stadium revenue. The fans have always supported the team passably well, and probably will continue to do so even if the spending spree is done, at least that's what the brass will think. It will be interesting to see what is done with the potential free agents.

What is a fan to do? There's not much effect that they can have other than not re-ordering season tickets for next year. But that may cause the Phils' front office to cut back more.

It will be interesting, but one thing's for sure. We'll be going through it all again—the recriminations, the blame game, the unfulfilled promise—around this time next year. Same bat time. Same bat channel.

The Angels may end the night tied for first place in the AL West after a 5-3 over the Rangers. However, the main show, the pennant race, is getting upstaged by an ongoing melodrama over the fate of left fielder Jose Guillen. Guillen, if you hadn't heard, has been suspended for the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs by the Angels after an incident on Saturday.

Guillen was lifted for a pinch-hitter and threw a temper tantrum. Here's how ESPN described it:

Guillen walked off the field as the A's changed pitchers, tossed his helmet toward the side of the dugout [manager Mike] Scioscia was standing in and walked to the opposite side of the dugout before entering. He tossed his glove against the wall.



Scioscia downplayed the incident, as did Guillen after the game.

My initial reaction was that the incident didn't sound like that big a deal. Guillen is a wel-known malcontent so maybe that was the last straw, but Frank Francisco it was not. It seemed an especially odd move, for a team fighting for its playoff life to eliminate one of its better players.

And it unfolded oddly. First, Guillen was merely benched for Sunday's game (the same game that saw Vlad Guerrero win the team MVP with a week left in the season(?)). Scioscia spoke to Guillen after the Sunday game said that he expressed an understanding of "the magnitude of his actions" though he did not "initiate an apology".

Then suddenly the benching became permanent, at least for 2004. As of this morning the suspension (without pay) was just for the regular season leaving Guillen possibly and oddly still available for any perspective playoff games. Then the Angels extended the suspension this afternoon to include the playoffs.

Now, the players union is getting involved filing a grievance in Guillen's behalf tonight. An arbitrator will hear the case Friday. Keep in mind that Guillen still has a year left on his contract.

After hearing all of that, I had to see the play—I hadn't sent the game. I brought up the replay on MLB.tv and went to the play. Here's what I saw: Guillen led off the bottom of the eighth inning of a 3-3 tie with the A's. He was hit on the calf by an 0-1 pitch and trotted done to first. He appeared to be anything but angry. Next, he was lifted for pinch-runner Alfredo Amezaga. The announcers mentioned this as if it were a matter of course, perhaps due to being hit on the leg. The A's chose that moment to make a pitching change and as the broadcast went to commercial, they had a closeup of Guillen's perplexed face. When they returned from commercial, all seemed normal. The announcers made no mention of anything untoward occurring during the break. Now, whether this was done so as not to give Guillen attention, sort of like not airing a fan that runs on the field, or because the incident was so minor that the announcers chose not to mention it or happened not to see it at all, I couldn't tell. Whatever the case, it's an odd and possibly anticlimactic way to end a player's season.

I still don't get it. The guy's a nit and he should be fined/suspended, but for the entire season and playoffs? H has slumped in the second half but his numbers are not terrible. First half ratios: .301/.368/.509/.877. Second half: .284/.330/.481/.811 (though .241/.277/.329/.606 in Sept.). He's got the third best OPS on the team in the second half. Besides this is a team that has devoted 545 at-bats to David Eckstein (.339 slug and .683 OPS). True, he's not a corner outfielder, but Guillen's replacement, Jeff DaVannon has been far from spectacular (.278/.363/.411/.774) especially in the second half (245/.310/.382/.692).
I'm not Guillen's biggest fan, but I have to think that they're better off with him on the field. Gammons compared it to the Nomah exile to Elba, er, Wrigley. He thinks it can galvanize the team. I guess, if you believe that getting rid of one of their best players helped the Red Sox.

Could Guillen have been that big of a nudnick? The Angels claim that their "decision came after Guillen's third public incident of misconduct this season".

Ah, he was on double-secret probation. The only problem is that I don't recall the other two. I Googled it and couldn't find them. I guess that's the double-secret part. Actually, I lied, I found one. There was a public incident on May 25 in which Guillen felt that his teammates (read pitchers) should have came to his aide (read thrown at opposing batters) after he was hit by a pitch. Guillen apologized to the team the next day. I still can't find the other one though. And to again cite "Animal House" this whole affair seems to be exactly what the collective Delta house coughed into their hands at their trial, B.S.

My hope is that the arbitrator forces the Angels to rescind the suspension and force them to play him (so that he has a chance to hit some milestone like 30 homers; otherwise they'd be stunting his career). The Angels lose the division in the last weekend in Oakland even though Guillen has a great series. There's public outcry over the incident and Guillen is retained for next season. They deserve each other after all.

Oriole Manager Lee Mazzilli has an interesting solution to the Expos situation. He says that in order to placate Baltimore owner Peter Angelos due to the proposed move of the Montreal franchise to nearby Washington, D.C., the O's should be swap leagues with the would-be Senators.

"Switch leagues," he said Sunday. "Milwaukee did it. It's something to think about. There would be rivalries with the Phillies, Pirates, Giants. It's very intriguing."

Mazzilli appears to be channeling the great John Candy's character, Dewey Oxberger, in "Stripes", who explained his enlistment thusly: "I thought to myself, 'Join the army.' It’s free. So I figured while I’m here I’ll lose a few pounds. You got, what, a six- to eight-week training program around here, a really tough one, which is perfect for me. I’m going to walk out of here a lean, mean fightin’ machine!" It sounds like just as well thought-out an argument.

First, Mazzilli should learn who's in the NL East before making proposals. I know that the Pirates were in the East back in Maz's playing days, but they moved to the Central a decade ago. As for the Giants reference, maybe Mazzilli thinks they are still in New York.

As for the Phils, they have been designated "natural" rivals—I think that's the term—for interleague play. They are guaranteed to play each other every year anyway, at least until the farce that is interleague play is put out of our misery.

By switching leagues, the Orioles would miss hosting the team that is number one in road attendance (the Yankees) and the team that's third (the Red Sox). (Baltimore is 18th, Tampa 23rd and Toronto 25th). They would gain new rivals who draw slightly worse: the Mets are 12th, the Braves 16th, the Marlins 19th, the Expos 20th, and the Phils 27th (that's depressing). Which group would you rather have?

The good news is that the O's could move from a perennial second-division AL East team to NL East division favorites by next year if they pick up a pitcher or two. Then again, Cox and Mazzone will probably resurrect Cy Young, Lefty Grove, Walter Johnson, and Christy Mathewson for their staff next year, a feat slightly more impressive than what they have done over the last year or two.

As for the Brewers, yes, the did switch leagues in 1998, but a) they were the first team in over 100 years to switch major leagues and their best record since switching has been 74-87. Here are all the teams that have switched leagues in baseball history. The last teams before the Brewers were part of the National League-American Association merger in 1892:

Also, my friend Mike suggests, they should send the O's instead back to the International League. In the nineteenth century, this did happen commonly to clubs who lost their charter in a then-major league. The last team to leave the majors for the minors was the old Baltimore Orioles, who left the major-league American Association in favor of the Atlantic Association in 1891. They destroyed the opposition and were back in the AA fold by August and then were merged into the NL for 1892.

As for other teams that went from the minors to the majors, the Indianapolis Blues nee Capital Citys moved from the League Alliance in 1877 to the NL in 1878 and the Buffalo Bisons joined the NL in 1879 from the International Association. When the one-year Union Association started hemorrhaging teams during the 1884 season, they propped themselves up by co-opting the minor Northwestern League’s entire roster. Oh, and technically, the original eight American League teams were the descendents of minor-league clubs from the Western League (1893-1899) and minor-league AL (1900). (Detroit was the only original WL club to survive with its city affiliation intact.)

But I digress, It should be pointed out that the Orioles themselves were interlopers in the Senators' territory when the moved to Baltimore in 1954. They were required to pay just one hundred thousand dollars for the honor, and went from perennial doormats as the Browns to, for a time, one of the best organizations in baseball. And then Angelos bought the team. When the Senators were shifted to Minnesota for the 1961 season and a new team was placed in D.C., all to placate the owners of proposed Continental Baseball League, the new Senators were not required to pay any territorial fees. Reports have the Orioles making about one hundred million off of their rights this time around.

When a thing is said to be not worth refuting you may be sure that either it is flagrantly stupid—in which case all comment is superfluous—or it is something formidable, the very crux of the problem.

Miguel de Unamuno

Right, Miggy, and then there's the third category that's both—flagrantly stupid and formidable. Or in other words, the John Kruk Awards or the First-Annual Krukkies. Each one is worse than the next.

Here they are:

Most Valuable Player: Chone Figgins

All right, get back up off the floor and sit back in your chair. OK, stop the laughter before it gets maniacal. Calmate. Take a deep breath.

Not only does Kruk pick a utility player as the MVP of a team or a league, Kruk proclaims that he's "just talking about the most valuable player in the game today."

Close your eyes and think about that.

John Kruk, a man who is a professional baseball analyst on probably the most popular baseball show (Baseball Tonight) on the most popular sports channel (ESPN) in the country, has picked Chone Figgins as the Most Valuable Player in the game today. Maybe Figgins would be in the running for funniest name, but MVP?!?

Let's take at Figgins numbers to see if there's something to this. He has 5 home runs, 57 RBI, and 75 runs in 538 at-bats. Hmm. Maybe the ratios are more impressive: a .288 batting average, a .345 on-base percentage, a .411 slugging percentage, and a .756 OPS.

Let's put that in context. Since his Krukkie Award-winning major-league MVP, let's see where his stats ranks among his peers, all major-league batters. He's 66th in batting average, 99th in OPS, 122nd in slugging percentage, and 119th in OPS. He's tied for 146th in RBI and 88th in runs. He's also 115th in Value Over Replacement Player. He is 10th in stolen bases and second in triples, however. Oh, and Kruk mentions that he is a switch-hitter: His OPS is 19th among 28 qualifying switch-hitters.

But for Kruk, it's not about the numbers:

Think of what the Angels have gone through this year with injuries. At one time or another, they lost Troy Glaus, Garret Anderson and Darin Erstad, had to give Vlad Guerrero some time at DH because of his problems, and now Adam Kennedy is done for the year. Every time an injury happened, Chone stepped in and kept them on track.

Wow, that does sound impressive. If Figgins were the best player on his team and played multiple position, plugging gaps, that would be extremely valuable. But he is fifth on the team in VORP among position players and is fourth in VORP among the sixth Angels with at least 500 at-bats.

And then there's this:

I know about Bonds and Pujols and all those guys. But they show up to the ballpark every day knowing they're going to play and where they're going to hit in the order. Not Chone. He has to take a few grounders all over the field, and then find some time to hit. If you think that doesn't sound like a big deal, imagine going to work every day and not knowing what your boss will have you do that day -- but you have to be prepared for all of it.

Oh, so that's what makes Figgins so special.

There's only one problem with Kruk's argument. The type of player he describes isn't a premier type of player likely to win an MVP. That type of player is called a gofer, a man Friday, a spare part. Do you put your best employee through an uncertain existence or rather use a supernumerary to plug the most pressing hole on a given day?

Yes, it's a very nice story that Figgens has been able to plug the many holes on the club, but if he were truly more valuable than the men he's replacing, they wouldn't have a job when they came back. If I were an Angels fan, I would love Figgens, but then again, I was a big George Vukovich and Joe Lefebrve fan, too.

To think that there is a baseball analyst on the planet who is witnessing what may be the greatest offensive season in baseball history and then picks Figgens for an MVP and not funniest name, is criminal. At least he does mention Barry Bonds "and all those guys" in passing. Disgraceful.

Most Valuable Pitcher: Brad Lidge

He also picked Brad Lidge, he of the 87.1 IP, for Most Valuable Pitcher. Yes, he's been great, but there's no way his 87.1 innings have been as valuable as Clemens' 201 or Oswalt's 223. Their respective VORPs: 34.6, 57.2, 46.4. He may be the third most valuable pitcher on his own team. These two should have been called the Idiosyncratic Awards.

Lidge is 41st in VORP in the majors and is behind Mariano Rivera among closers.

Makes The Most Out Of Nothing Award: David Eckstein

This is too good not to re-print verbatim:

I don't know if you've ever watched Eckstein play, but let me put it this way -- if you lined up every major leaguer from Yogi Berra's era to today and said pick out the guy who doesn't belong -- everyone would pick Eckstein. Come on! The guy looks like he should be in Little League!



His throws look like it takes every ounce of energy to get them to first. His swing is less than impressive. But then you look at the numbers ... .280 with a .342 OBP and only five errors.



Man, I wish I had made the most out of my ability as much as Eckstein has. How the hell does he do it?

People have been saying exactly the same thing about Eckstein since 2002, and it wasn't even fresh by the time the playoffs rolled around that year. I swear if I thought Kruk could read, I would accuse him of plagiary.

Kruk doesn't know if we've ever seen Eckstein play? He's been a starter in the majors for four seasons and has played in the World Series. As far as getting the most out of Eckstein, he has a .674 OPS this year. Last year's .651 OPS was 21% worse than the park-adjusted league average. Eckstein may not be long for the majors with the way he's batting, but he's award-worthy to Kruk.

Kruk should be fired for this insane drivel. This is the kind of pap that your local paper wouldn't dare to print. And yet he's one of a few ESPN.com "personalities" who are available without joining their premium service. I would say that this was a nadir for ESPN.com if I didn't think that they would just continue to get worse.

With seven days to go in September, Mike's Baseball Rants has already broken its all-time record for number of visits in a month. This is the third straight month of doing so.

Thanks for stopping by and y'all come back now, ya hear?

The Yankees clinched a playoff spot tonight with a 7-3 win over the Devil Rays. They also lead the Red Sox now by four and one-half games. With nine games remaining, New York has a magic number of 6.

New York becomes the first team to either reach the playoffs or win their division/league for eleven straight years, 1994 to 2004. There were no playoffs in strike-shortened 1994 season, but the Yankees did lead their division at the end of the season. They have either won their division (1996 and 1998-2003) or the AL wild card (1995 and 1997) each year since.

The Braves have not missed the playoffs since 1991, but they were trailing the Expos for the NL East lead in 1994 when the season came to an abrupt end. They are, however, the only other team to have eight consecutive years of either qualifying for the postseason or winning their division league outright (1995-2003). They are one win or one Phillies loss away from making that nine.

Aside from them, no team has ever claimed more than five consecutive playoff spots and/or division/league titles. Here are the ones that won at least five in a row:

Note that the A's will make the list if they win their division this year.

There are only twelve teams that won at least four straight and five of them are Yankee teams:

There are 37 teams that have done it at least three times in a row:

After that it gets a bit silly.

If you eliminate the wild card backdoor to the postseason and include just division/league winners, the 1995-2003 Braves have the longest streak, nine years. The Yankees are currently on a six-year streak. Both teams will likely extend their streaks this year.

Next on the list are the 1995-99 Indians and 1971-75 A's (five years).

In an effort to drain every possible drop from the well, I have one final chapter in history of baseball rookies:

Effects on Winning:

First, I found that the percentage of rookies on a team correlated poorly to team success (.335 correlation coefficient). Then I took a look at teams' weighted ages and weighted experience level (i.e., weighted by percentage of games played) to see if they correlated to winning. They didn't either (0.3490 for team experience and 0.2157 for age).

Someone at Baseball Think Factory(which I still call Baseball Primer) suggested that perhaps it was a curvilinear relationship. That is, that teams with a large percentage of rookies and teams with a large percentage of vets would both perform poorly, while teams with a more balanced composition would perform best.

So I took my raw data and plotted Rookie Percent, Average Weighted Team Age, Average Weighted Team Experience, and Average Weight Team Debut Age (i.e., Age minus Experience). Unfortunately, they did not reveal a facile relationship to winning. I am unable to reproduce them here, but I'll hit the more salient points.

In all of the graphs (except debut age), teams that performed very poorly (with a winning percentage below around .375) had a large percentage of rookies and young, inexperienced players. As the winning percentage got lower the relationship got much stronger.

However, the rest of the graph ever so slightly did express this curvilinear relationship. But it was more like a dish than a bowl. Also, the percentage of rookies held between steady 15% and 20% for the rest of the graph. It was the most flat of all the graphs.

The Experience expressed the most arc, and the curve on the winning side of the graph (above .500) was slightly higher. With a winning percentage of around .400, the average experience level was between four and four and one-half years. It then increased to under six years at around a .475 winning percentage. The average seems to exceed six years slightly at a .550 to .575. Then it slopes down to about five and one-half years as the winning percentage approaches .700.

The Age graph, though flatter, expresses the slightly curvilinear arc that Experience did. At a .400 winning percentage, the average age approaches 28. It then holds steady between 28 and 29 until a .625 winning percentage. Again the above-.500 teams are slightly older (maybe by a half year). Above .625, the age drops quickly to between 27 and 28 (this may be due to the smaller sample size being heavily influenced by younger, nineteenth-century teams).

Finally, the debut age is the flattest of the lot, holding steady around 23 throughout. There is a slight age bump (to just under 24) with winning percentages under .375. Above .625, the graph dips close to 22. However, in both cases as the percentage gets more extremely, the graph returns to the norm (23).

So if there is any relationship, it's not very strong. If you're building a team for this year, just get the best players available regardless of age and experience.

Rookie Performance:

Finally, here's a rundown of how well rookies perform by decade, split up into batting and pitching. In each case, the typical statistics for all rookies are derived and then they are normalized by the major-league average (a la Baseball Reference's OPS+, though with no compensation for ballpark).

First let's look at some general numbers for all players:

You'll not that players are getting older and more experienced, and that their "debut age" is getting higher even as analysts claim that players are getting rushed to the majors. Also, the Forties stand out as the only decade with a debut age over 24, clearly being greatly affected by the dearth of talent during World War II. The Sixties, the first decade of expansion and of the amateur draft, saw debut ages drop dramatically. As the leagues stabilized in the Eighties, the experience went up, but it took more hits in the last two decades probably due to two more rounds of expansion (and potentially more foreign-born players in the majors).

Now let's look at the batters. First, here are some basic demographic numbers (Age+ is the average rookie age normalized for all players):

You'll notice that rookies have been getting older for the past five decades even though the disparity between rookie and veteran players holds steady (Age+ of 85-86). Also, teams have consisted of fewer rookies and they have gotten a smaller percentage of the at-bats since the Sixties.

Now here are the average and normalized rookie batting statistics:

And:

Well, gee, rookies really stink. Aside from stolen base percentage, they just are not very good at all. Let's see if the pitchers fare better…

Here are the demographic data for rookie pitchers:

The trends that we saw with the batters are evident here, but teams do seem slightly more willing to devote innings to rookie pitchers, at least more so than they commit at-bats to rookie batters.

Here are the rookie pitching stats (Note sub-100 normalized data represent worse than average values throughout):

That's not much more encouraging than the rookie batting stats. Again aside from one stat (Strikeouts per nine innings), the rookie pitchers are considerably worse than average.

It's no wonder teams have been eschewing rookies for veterans over the past five decades, right? That's why GMs are more willing to employ Wil Cordero and Jose Offerman rather than promote from within.

Well, that's the simplistic conclusion. Yes, rookies are on average worse than veterans. However, that doesn't mean every rookie will destroy your staff or become a sinkhole in your lineup. It also doesn't mean that every retread will salvage your team. It just means that GMs have to be a bit more discerning when it comes to the rookies they promote. Many will excel, but the GM will have to do his homework. It just seems that GMs historically (at least over the past five decades) have been more willing to take the easier route and just rely on a retread with a lengthy resume so that he'll have something to point to when they eventually fail.

After my look at rookie and veteran players, I was asked a few questions about the makeup of rookies over the years. So here goes.

I took a look at the average age for rookie throughout baseball history. Long story short, the numbers have held pretty steady at around 23-24 years. (I have the yearly average in a table but don't want to overwhelm you with it here.) With the birth of the NL (1876) it dipped to under 21, then quickly returned to the 23-24 range. When the rival leagues sprang up in the early to mid-1880s, again the age dipped down to under 22, but was back to the norm with the birth of the AL (1901). With the third major league (1914-15) and World War I, the average rookie age again dipped down to almost 22. World War II caused the only upward spike (to 26!). The first round of expansion followed by the amateur draft, caused the last dip down to 22 and the first since 1885-87. The average age stayed below or around 23 under 1980. Since then it’s been slowly increasing and has been above 24 since 1991. The average age in 2003 was about 24.5.

The biggest influence outside of sudden expansions and/or wars has been the amateur draft especially when it first started. Also, expansion, either by adding new leagues or expanding existing ones, caused the age to lower until the last couple of rounds. Perhaps the depth of talent is such that in recent years the best approach is to look to veteran minor leaguers.

Finally, here are the debut ages by decade represented as a percentage of all rookies:

As the majors became more organized the over-35 rookie died a quick death. The amateur draft brought a large number of rookies under 22 even as the under-18 set disappeared. Finally, over the last few decades, the younger (under 22) rookies have been disappearing and while the 22-to-25-year-olds have slipped slightly, they remain the most populous with 26-30 gaining strength.

ESPN has a fun rundown of the greatest baseball movie characters by position. It's a shame that they didn't include TV so that Dancin' Homer Simpson, "Coach" Ernie Pantuzzi, Chico Escuela, and Charlie Brown could make the list. And what, no Bugs Bunny? He did play every position for goodness sake.

Anyway, here's my list:

SP- Ebby Calvin 'Nuke' LaLoosh, "Bull Durham" (I sometimes get wooly)
SP-Bingo Long, "The Bingo Long Traveling All Stars & Motor Kings" (I'll tell you, I can't hit his invite pitch)
SP- Henry "Arthur" Wiggen, "Bang the Drum Slowly (Gets the literature award)
SP- Amanda Whurlitzer, "The Bad News Bears" (beats out Henry Rowengartner in the junior division since she did it without major surgery)
SP- Joey Turner, "The Bad News Bears" (Hey, the Courtship of Eddie's Father kid took a punch from his dad on the field and his defiance was the turning point of the film.)
RP- Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn, "Major League"
C- Crash Davis, "Bull Durham (Best battery in the movies)
1B-"The Whammer", "The Natural" (I know that I'm going outside their choices, and I'm not sure if he was a first baseman, but I'll take him over the rest.)
2B- Dennis Ryan, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" (C'mon it's the Chairman of the Board.)
SS- Tanner Boyle, "Bad News Bears" (one bad mother-f'er)
3B- Doris Murphy, "A League of Their Own" (Rosie was clearly more of a player than Corbin Bernsen.)
OF-Roy Hobbs, "The Natural" (Are you kidding me?)
OF- Kelly Leak, "The Bad News Bears" (Almost as cool as Robert Redford
OF-Platoon: Timmy Lupus, "The Bad News Bears" (That was an amazing catch!); Archie 'Moonlight' Graham (Who didn’t cry when he stepped across the foul line and turned into Burt Lancaster, ending his career but saving a little girl's life? I cried my eyes out)
Manager- Morris Buttermaker (He taught us all what the game is truly about while passing out drunk in front of a bunch of kids)
Coach (Comedy)- Larry Hockett, "Bull Durham" ("Okay, let's get two!")
Coach (Drama)- Red Blow, "The Natural" (great scene whistling tunes with Wilfred Brimley in the dugout)
Owner-"The Judge", "The Natural" (Pure evil. "That's a pure canard.")
Umpire/National Anthem Performer- Enrico Palazzo, "The Naked Gun" (Funniest baseball scene ever.)
Commentator-Harry Doyle, "Major League" (He must be in the front row.)
Journalist-Ring "I'm Forever Blowing Ballgames" Lardner, "Eight Men Out" (I don't care if he wasn't fictional.)
Scout- Ernie Capadino, "A League of Their Own" ("Well then, this would be more, wouldn't it?")
Bat Boy-Bobby Savoy, "The Natural" (His bat replaced "Wonderboy".)
Fan- Joe Hardy, "Damn Yankees" ("You're blind, ump! You're blind, ump! You must be outta your mind, ump!")

Earlier today, I took a look at the number of rookies per team throughout baseball history to see if it had anything to do with that team's record. I found that the percentage of rookies on a team correlated poorly to team success (.335 correlation coefficient). However, I said that a more thorough investigation based on team experience was in order. So here goes…

The first hurdle was to determine what team experience meant. I mean, a team may have a wily old veteran on the bench mentoring a rookie at the same position in the starting lineup. If you average the two, you would end up somewhere in between, even though the veteran may only play a third as much as the rook.

My solution was to weight each player's experience by the number of games played and then normalize by the total number of team games. The idea is to represent the experience for the team on the field on a given day. I know that this treats a pinch-hitter like a starter who plays a full game and that it under-represents modern starting pitchers, but I'm OK with that. I know Baseball Reference weights by games and at-bats, but then you separate pitchers and position players. Also, it under-represents Barry Bonds (because of the walks). I like the idea of the "team on the field" as the basis

Anyway, I ran the numbers for experience as well as player age (weighted in a similar fashion). Here are the most experienced teams in baseball history:

Hmm, I thought that we were told that players today are rushed to the majors. It seems like there are a bunch of old dolts in the majors today. Let's check age next:

The problem is that neither correlates well to winning (0.3490 for team experience and 0.2157 for age). The next thing that occurred to me is to look at age minus experience, that is the debut age (in theory) of the players. One would expect that the younger a player debuts the better he is:

Well, that's an odd mix. There are a lot of teams from World War II. Anyway, the correlation coefficient is not much better than for age (-0.2179) though teams with players who debut younger do do slightly better.

Finally the completist in me wants to show you the other end of the spectrum for each category. Here are the least experienced teams (ignoring the 1871 NA teams, the first major-league teams):

The youngest teams:

Now the youngest debut teams:

It seems appropriate that on the day in which George Bush was trying to sell the U.N. on the stability in Iraq—sorry, I know, too political—Major League Baseball decided to announce the creation of a new statistic. It's called the O Zone Factor and like the volatile gas for which it's named and which breaks down into simple oxygen when exposed, the basis for this stat crumbles as one exposes it to the air—how's that for stretching an analogy to the breaking point?

[O Zone] measures a team's success at scoring runners from second or third base, as well as its ability at preventing opponents from doing so.



The O Zone calculates the percentage of runners in scoring position (second or third base) that ultimately cross home plate. Take a team's offensive O Zone percentage, subtract its defensive O Zone rate, and the result is the O Zone Factor - a measure of a team's success with runners in scoring position on offense compared to when they are pitching.

Well, that sounds nifty, doesn't it? But does it mean anything? Here's MLB's justification:

While there are many team statistics which help explain a team's winning percentage and its playoff chances, recent history has shown that a positive O Zone Factor is important : from 1999-03, 34 of the 40 playoff teams finished the season with positive O Zone Factors (meaning they had more success batting than in the field with runners on second and third). Last year's World Champion Florida Marlins had the ninth best positive O Zone Factor and in 2002 the World Champion Angels had the best O Zone Factor of all 30 teams.

You just can't beat anecdotal rationalizations. So why try? Let's look at the basis for the O Zone Factor—Sounds like a new reality show, right?

The basic idea is that we take the offensive and defensive ratios of runs scored by a team's players in scoring position to the number of men to get into scoring position. Ratios are great, whiz-bang things, but subtracting ratios is just plain dumb since the denominator or divisor is different in each ratio. Here's an example: A team gets 1000 runners in scoring position and scores just 500. Its opponents get only 750 runners in scoring position but plates 400 of them. Its O Zone would be 500 divided by 1000 minus the result of 400 divided by 750 or -0.0333 (negative .03-bar). They would have outscored their opponents by 100 runs in these situations but still would have a negative rating.
Besides, who's to say scoring runs when runners are in scoring position is more important (i.e., correlates to winning) better than scoring runners when the bases are empty or there's a runner at first? A run is a run after all. Is a solo home run less valuable to a team winning than a run scored by a pair of doubles? Well, if you say that there were two hits in the second case, what about a run scoring on a single followed by a double? How about a single followed by a home run? Think about a run scoring on consecutive doubles representing a 100% offensive O Zone when a two-out, bases-empty single, followed by a triple, followed by an out results in a 0% offensive O Zone.

Okay, but maybe somehow the stars align and O Zone Factor really does capture the essence of winning. It would be easy to test. Unfortunately, given that the stat is "available exclusively" at MLB.com and its team sites and they only have stats for 2004 posted, our analysis would be based on a small, era-centric sample size.

However, let's forge ahead and see what we get. I'd like to run RF-RA or Pythagorean winning percentage (which is based on runs for and against after all) versus O-Zone to see which correlates best to winning percentage.

Here goes for the 2004 stats available. MLB for some reason refers to O Zone here by its non-marketing friendly name of NET-RS-RISP-%, Net Runs Scored Per Runners in Scoring Position Percent. I added Runs Scored Minus Runs Against and Pythagorean Expected Winning Percentage:

There's our raw data, and now for the correlations…O Zone's correlation coefficient (to winning percentage) is .7368. Both RS-RA and Pythagorean PCT correlate significantly: .9516 and .9512. Even MLB's own made-up intermediate stat NET RS-RISP (net runs scored minus runners in scoring position) correlates better: .8967. Maybe they should have stopped there.
So my conclusion is that O Zone Factor 2004 equals Game Winning RBI circa 1987. It's a stillborn idea that's D.O.A. but MLB just doesn't know it yet. GWRBI took nine seasons to die (it was recorded from 1980 to 1988). How long will it take the oh so ludicrous O Zone to expire?

The 2004 Cincinnati Reds had an opening-day roster with not one first-year player on it. That's not that unusual. However, the Reds proceeded to play over 130 games, brought players up, traded for players, expanded their roster for September, and yet did not add one player to the roster who had never played in the majors before.

Then on September 4, the picked up rookie pitcher Juan Padilla on waivers from the Yankees. Padilla is a rookie (I'm using the term "rookie" to mean first-year player throughout, though baseball has a more technical definition to determine eligibility for the Rookie of the Year awards). However, Padilla did pitch six games earlier in the year for the Yankees.

That means that the Reds will likely spend the entire season without a player appearing in his first major-league game. That seems pretty unusual but is it? Let's check.

Here are all of the teams throughout baseball history who qualify in descending chronological order:

It's happened just thirty-three times, and just twice in the last twenty seasons. That's pretty rare.

You'll also notice that for the most part these teams have been pretty successful veteran clubs. Only four had sub-.500 seasons, and their average winning percentage is .597. The 2004 Reds don't fit that mold. Usually when a team has a losing season for the second year in a row, like the Reds, they try some new blood. Unfortunately, the Reds were fooled by their first-season success momentarily and apparently don't have much fresh meat in the minors.

Now, the Reds are also not the first team on the list to have one first-year player who first played with another major-league team earlier in the year. The 1889 American Association Brooklyn Bridegrooms (grandsire of today's Los Angeles Dodgers) had one first-year player, Charlie Reynolds, a catcher who played one game on May 8 with the AA Kansas City Cowboys before appearing in 12 Brooklyn contests.

The 1881 NL Cleveland Blues had a player, Bollicky Bill Taylor, a pitcher-outfielder-third baseman who appeared in games for the Worcester Ruby Legs (forerunners of the Phillies, 6 games) and Detroit Wolverines (1) earlier in the season. Taylor went on to win 43 games in 1884 as the majors expanded briefly to three major-leagues but would only win a total of fifty for his career. He also managed to squeeze in 61 games behind the plate though he apparently was not a catcher when he came up.

All of this rookie talk got me to thinking of the reverse. Were there any teams comprised solely of rookies, and how did they fare? We'll it's kind of a trick question. Here's the answer:

Well, when you're the first major league, everybody who plays for you will be a rookie. How about the next highest percentage of rookies? Here are the ones over 75%:

Still, these are old teams, many from new leagues. How about in the "modern" era? Here are the ones since 1900 comprised 50% or more of rookies:

The highest since 1950 were the second-year 1963 Houston Colt .45s nee Astros at 44.44% (20 of 45 players). Here are the highest since 1950. Note that the post-World Series Marlins had the highest percentage of rookies in the last ten years:

You may also notice that teams with a high percentage of rookie players are just not that good. Very few have winning records. I ran the numbers to see if a high percentage of rookies correlates to a poor winning percentage. Basically, do (mostly) veteran teams perform better? Well, it does correlate but not very strongly (.335 correlation coefficient). I guess it's best to get the better players no matter what experience level they are. Eventually, I'll expand this study to look at veteran teams based on years of experience and see if that corresponds better to winning, but that will have to be another day.

Remember that thou art mortal.

—Words that a slave would whisper into a hero's ear upon his triumphal (i.e., in a triumph) return to Rome (and words that Mel Brooks did not take too kindly to in "History of the World, Pt. I").

As Barry Bonds blurs past 700 home runs en route to—dare I say it?—800 and potentially Sadaharu Oh’s all-time professional home run record (868), we should keep in mind that we are witnessing greatness that cannot be evaluated solely on home runs.

I've already enumerated the reasons why this may be Bonds' best season ever and, therefore, the best season in major-league baseball history. But Bonds' past four years, the ones after he turned 35, mind you, may be the best four-year span in baseball history as well. These four years follow and improve vastly upon an already first-ballot Hall-of-Fame career. Take a look at his ratios and some salient stats broken down by era:

Bonds 2001-04 dwarves the previous Bonds even though his most similar batter at the time was Mickey Mantle and he had an OPS that would have been thirteenth all-time.

His four-year on-base percentage (2001-04) is .558. That's almost fifty points better than the next man, Babe Ruth 1920-23. Here are the top ten previous four-year OBPs (min. 1000 plate appearances):

By the way, that is John McGraw, the manager. He was once a tough-nosed third baseman, who drew a ridiculous number of walks and times hit by a pitch for Brooklyn (among others) at the end of the nineteenth century.

And before you say that (Bonds' high OPS) is attributable mainly to his ungodly walk totals, consider that his four-year slugging percentage (.812) would be the first over .800 ever. Here are all the men who have slugged over .700 for four years:

Bonds' four-year OPS is 1.370, which is over 70 points higher than the previous high. Here are the previous highs. Again it's basically the best four-year spans for Bonds, Ruth, and Williams:

And what's incredible about all this is that Bonds has done this over a period in which the opposition has done its best to take the bat out of his hands as much as possible. He has been walked, either intentionally or semi-intentionally, and hit by a pitch at a ludicrous pace. Here are the breakdowns by era:

Even though his overall walk rate has "just" doubled (almost), his intentional walks are up over 200% and his hit by a pitch ratio is up about 150%. That means that Bonds gets to bat only about two-thirds of the time that he steps to the plate as opposed to four-fifths of the time prior to 2001. Remember that Bonds had two seasons with 147+ walks prior to 2001, too. His at-bats per game have dropped by .6 over this period even though his plate appearances per game have remained unchanged (4.2655 prior to 2001; 4.2638 since).

Given what Bonds has done when he has been allowed to bat, it's not surprising that teams are trying to avoid pitching to him, but the strategy appears to be failing. He has hit home runs 60% more often over the last four years than previously based on total plate appearances. Even in his limited at-bats Bonds has delivered more often, almost doubling his home run-to-at-bat ratio and increasing his home runs per game from .23 to .37 (a 60% increase).

Given that Bonds is just 54 home runs away from the all-time record, you have to wonder where he would be if his opponents had actually pitched to him over the last four years, and of course, his production remained at the same level over the extra at-bats. He has 207 homers over the last four years, but if he had been given the same number of at-bats, instead of being walked or hit by a pitch, over this period as previously, he would project to 250. That would leave him at 744, just eleven shy of the record. It would also be the most ever by a player over a four-year period. His 207 are still tied for eleventh, and with a couple of weeks left in the season, expect him to crack the top ten. Here are the men who hit over 200 dingers over a span of four seasons:

However, the lost walks would reduce his walk totals by 45% over the period (from 731 to 405), leaving him with "just" 1952 for his career. That would leave him 238 short of Rickey Henderson's total and would place him just fourth all time (behind Henderson, Ruth, and Ted Williams). So I guess it's robbing Peter to pay Paul, I guess, if Paul makes one-quarter of what Peter does.

It will be interesting to see where Bonds career goes from here. Can he maintain the high level of play as he begins his first full season after the age of forty? If so, will teams continue to walk him at a ridiculous rate or develop a new approach? How will the inevitable decline occur, all at once or in stages? And when will it happen?

I leave you with one curious thought about Bonds' future. If he declines slightly and is just one of the best players in the game as opposed to possible the greatest hitter ever to play, opponents may more quickly abandon their walk-him-at-all-costs strategy, giving him more at-bats with which to obliterate the home run record. Perhaps, he'll have better numbers, at least the counting kind, if he is slightly more mortal over the last stage of his career. That alone makes him one of the most unique players, if not the best, to ever play the game.

Barry Bonds hit his 700th homer tonight off of Jake Peavey in the third inning. He becomes the first active major-leaguer with 700 homers in almost 28 years. Hank Aaron hit his 700th oh July 21, 1973, almost 38 years after Babe Ruth retired. At this pace the next man will hit 700 home runs in 2022. Of course, Bonds, who will still be playing, will be approaching 1500 home runs by then.

Apparently, negotiations between the players and the owners in Japan have fallen through and the players will strike this weekend. Tom O'Malley was unavailable for comment.

A certain man had two sons:

And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living…

And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son…

[B]ring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

—Parable of the Prodigal Son

Todd Zeile, who plans to retire at the end of the season, is set tonight to make his first appearance behind the plate in fourteen years. Zeile came up as a catcher with the Cardinals in 1989, started to play other positions in 1990, and in 1991 moved from behind the plate in favor of third base apparently for good.

Zeile's last game as a catcher was on September 1, 1990 against the Braves. It was his 105th of the season, but the next game he was at first base, where he had played in nine of his last 13 games. He had been splitting time with Tom Pagnozzi behind the plate, but newly installed manager Joe Torre (who replaced Red Schoendienst, who replaced Whitey Herzog mid-season) installed Pagnozzi behind the plate for good on September 3. On September 5, Zeile played his first major-league game at third base and played well enough that his last 24 appearances of the season were at third. The transition took, and he didn't play different position again until the Cardinals moved him exclusively to first base at the start of the 1995 season to make room for the then-newly acquired third baseman Scott Cooper, who incredibly was coming off two straight All-Star years. He ended up just 34 times there before he was traded to the Cubs and returned to third. (Thank you Retrosheet.com.)

Anyway, Zeile's fourteen-year absence from the "tools of ignorance" is not the longest on record. On September 20, 1931 Cardinals manager Gabby Street, who had retired 19 years earlier, played the last three innings of a 6-1 win over Brooklyn behind the plate en route to a World Series championship year. The 48-year-old recorded one putout and one assist—throwing out the only attempted base stealer, Babe Herman—in the game.

Zeile's 14-year absence from behind the plate, however, is the longest break for a player who was playing continually during the span. The previous high was eleven years by Red Murray, who also came up with the Cardinals playing all three outfield positions and catching seven games in 1906. Murray played nine more seasons with the Cardinals, Giants, and Cubs and played the outfield, mostly right field, almost exclusively (one game at second base for the Cubs). Though it sounds like a scene from "The Natural", he made a catch in 1912 that saved a win for Christy Mathewson just as lightning jarringly struck the earth and lighted up the sky. In 1917 after a one-year break from the majors, Murray returned to the Giants as a part-time outfielder but he also played one game behind the plate.

Also, of note is Ed Sprague another catcher-cum-third baseman, who had a nine-year gap from behind the plate (1992-2001). He, too, moved from behind the plate in his sophomore year and didn't return to it until his final season for one appearance. Sprague sticks out amid the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century players, who dominate the list of prodigal catchers.

Here are the catchers who had breaks from behind the plate of nine or more seasons:

To demonstrate how rare such a long break is today, here are the catchers with breaks of five or more years over the last thirty years:

Other entries in the series:

Competitive Balancing Act I—The King James Version: An Overview of the Literature, Scenes I, II, III, and IV
Competitive Balancing Act II—This Is Pop: Redefining Large- and Small-Market by Population, Scenes I, II, III, and IV
Competitive Balancing Act III—Games Back to Where You Once Belonged, Scene I
Competitive Balancing Act IV—C'mon Freddy, Everyone into the Poo-el: Reviewing the Available Player Pool
Competitive Balancing Act V—Natural Resources: Attendance and Competitive Balance

In the last installment we showed that the last three decades have been, by far, the best for competitive balance based on teams in the playoff hunt at the All-Star break. Next, let's break down historically (by decade) how teams in each strata at the break have finished the season:

So there have been more teams close to the division leaders at the break and those teams have won the division with more regularity. Of course, adding more divisions will do that.

To be continued…

Other entries in the series:

Competitive Balancing Act I—The King James Version: An Overview of the Literature, Scenes I, II, III, and IV
Competitive Balancing Act II—This Is Pop: Redefining Large- and Small-Market by Population, Scenes I, II, III, and IV
Competitive Balancing Act III—Games Back to Where You Once Belonged
Competitive Balancing Act IV—C'mon Freddy, Everyone into the Poo-el: Reviewing the Available Player Pool
Competitive Balancing Act V—Natural Resources: Attendance and Competitive Balance

A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight.

—Bible: Hebrew Proverbs 11:1

The study I did on team records split into first and second halves got me to thinking about exploring competitive balance in the game based on the number of teams that are in the playoff hunt throughout the season.

However, how does one quantify that? At what point during the season do you measure this? Well, the All-Star break was the obvious one given the previous study. That is the traditional start to the playoff hunt, but what other dates would make sense? And what about the sixty-odd seasons before the All-Star game was instituted?

Well, I will belay those issues for the time being and take a look at the halves data we have right now. Perhaps, it will help us approach the second issue of quantifying competitive balance.

Here's a table of the number of games back a team was at the end of the first half and its final position at the end of the season, summed across all of the All-Star seasons (1933-2003). Given that the size of leagues/divisions varied across eras, I have summed all positions from fifth to tenth: