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Only wins should be the measure of a netminder By Damien Cox
In recent years, the wisest of the wise have decided that it isn't GAA that matters most. After all, if a goalie faces five shots per game and lets in two, a flashy GAA of 2.00 might not be telling you all you need to know.
Instead, save percentage, something those of us who watched the game before the Original 30 never even knew existed, has become the sexy measuring stick for goaltenders.
Like on-base percentage in baseball, save percentage has come to be seen as the true measure of what a goaltender is accomplishing every night.
The problem with this number, of course, is that it doesn't take into account the quality or difficulty of shots a goalie faces. Just how many he stops out of how many he faces.
Well, in the new NHL, it may be time to simplify again. As in, just wins, baby.
Victories are what matter the most, and perhaps should be the decisive issue when it comes to passing on the Vezina legacy.
It's too bad I have no idea what to say about this.
Dan Wetzel knows the secret to the Chicago White Sox World Series victory. Take the eighth inning Wednesday, where a botched routine foul pop, a hit batsman and a wild pitch gave Houston life and would have frozen lesser teams. Instead, everyone on the Sox just took a deep, relaxing breath and slammed the door on the Astros.
I'm not sure what evidence Dan Wetzel thinks he has that everyone took a deep, relaxing breath. And I'm sure it was the deep breathing that induced a lazy fly ball from Morgan Ensberg, and a ground out from Jose Vizcaino to end the inning. Lesser teams might have hyperventilated.
Come to think of it, that's probably what happened to the Yanks in the 2004 ALCS. Why didn't Jeter remind everybody to breathe deeply? How would Ortiz have been able to come through with two walk-off hits if he he had seen the Yankees taking deep relaxing breaths? On his home field, no less.
Luckily for Red Sox fans, the 2004 Yankees were a lesser team, and they became "frozen."
In the bottom of the ninth of Game 3, the Astros have Burke at third, Biggio on first with one one and Willy Tavaras hitting. For some reason, Konerko is holding Biggio on first while the rest of the infield is drawn in a few steps. Is Guillen really playing for a ball to double up Willy Tavaras in that situation??? That's the only reason to keep Biggio at first at the expense of opening up a HUGE hole in the right side of the infield. Biggio is a meaningless runner otherwise. As it turned out, the hole might've led to Tavaras's weak hacks early in the count as he tried to take it the other way (a point actually alluded to by McCarver after a late cut for strike one), but there is no way that Guillen was anticipating the wide hole at first leading to the strikeout. On the other hand, every other crazy Ozzieball technique has struck gold up until this point....
BUT THEN
With the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Ensberg is at the plate, and there's Brad Lidge, taking hacks in the warmup circle with his jacket on. Now explain to me, Brad Lidge, how are you possibly going to bat in that inning???
Sorry guys, wrong blog for this. Though neither Buck nor McCarver took issue with these things, a fact that should suprise very few.
I hate to say it, but the Chicago White Sox have destiny on their side.
I hate that you hate to say it but are leading your article with it anyway. Also, why do you hate to say it? Astros fan?
Anyone who has watched the White Sox in the playoffs has seen that glimmer in their eye – the confidence that they expect to win.
I've watched the White Sox in the playoffs. I watched them crush the Red Sox. I watched them destroy the Angels. Funny, what I drew from watching them is that they have great 1-4 starting pitching, very solid defense, a good bullpen and guys who can hit home runs. Wasn't watching their collective eye and the amount of glimmer within said ocular cavity.
I'm telling you: The White Sox have a twinkle in their eye, a lot like the Red Sox had last year.
And I'm telling you that's a meaningless statement you are basing entirely on the fact that the Red Sox won it all last year and the White Sox are up 2-0 in the World Series.
Just throwing it out there to sidetrack the Baseball Crank's day, but after Brad Lidge's second demoralizing walkoff homer, is there any way to figure out the ratio of "Closer eventually bouncing back and becoming effective again" to "Closer who was never the same"? For instance, Calvin Schiraldi was probably the best pitching prospect in the Boston farm system before the '86 playoffs -- look at his regular-season stats in 1986 compared to everything that followed in his career. And what about Byung Hyun-Kim, Donnie Moore, Mitch Williams, Mark Wohlers, Tom Niedenfuer ... really, the only guy I can remember who kept chugging along was Dennis Eckersley after the '88 World Series. Anyway, let's see what the Crank can dig up on this.
This has been discussed ad nauseum on this thread on the Sons of Sam Horn message board (check out pages 5 through 12). I believe all of those names save Niedenfuer came up (and Jose Mesa was thrown in).
I'm just going to pick out one name in particular: SoSH flashpoint Byung-Hyun Kim. We all know he had a disastrous 2001 World Series. Psyche-crushing, right? Irreparable mental damage?
2001: ERA 2.94, ERA+ 156, 19 saves 2002: ERA 2.04, ERA+ 216, 36 saves
It wasn't until 2004 that BK fell off a cliff. We might never know why, but he lost velocity on his fastball.
What's that? You want one "Moore" piece of evidence? (Previous sentence written by New York Post headline writers).
Donnie Moore 1986: ERA 2.97, ERA+ 138 1987: ERA 2.70, ERA+ 161
I think he got injured midway through the '87 season and his career was pretty much over after that.
The point is, Simmons is calling these guys closers "who were never the same" after pitching poorly in the postseason.
Kim got better after his 2001 debacle. Moore, in a small sample, also improved after 1986's disaster.
I understand why people make these mistakes. Our memories are faulty and it's easier to believe that a guy stops being able to do his job correctly after suffering a devastating failure at work. But just because it's easy to believe doesn't mean it's true.
Thankfully, people have written down what happens in baseball games and we don't have to trust our memories. We can look at results. And we should.
Really, Bill Simmons? Dennis Eckersley is the only guy you can think of who has rebounded from a crushing save in the postseason? That's your only counterpoint to what is already an unstable premise to begin with? Is there a reason you forgot Mariano Rivera who, for all his successes, has failed more spectacularly than any closer in history? His only saving grace (n.p.i.) has been that his failures were not the result of a dramatic home run, but then he went ahead and had some pretty good "rebound" years. There are dozens of reasons why relievers become ineffective, and I'd wager that the majority of these cases are physical in nature.
What's really amazing about Moore is that we basically know his head was fucked up that whole time. He was never able to get over the psychological trauma of giving up that Hendu tater -- or so the anecdotes tell us. And yet, despite an emotional spiral that would end in unspeakable tragedy, he was still able to put up pretty good numbers.
Reader Jim Bulger points out that Simmons is factually incorrect: Brad Lidge did not give up consecutive walk-off home runs. The Pujols shot came in the top of the 9th, and the Astros had a chance to come back in the bottom of that inning.
In fact, Lidge went on to strike out Reggie Sanders right after his psyche was indelibly scarred by Pujols.
That's right. Get ready for your meta-heads to meta-explode.
I can't believe what USA Today's Sports Television critic Michael Hiestand has to say about FOX's World Series coverage:
Fox's game coverage couldn't have been much better. After engaging analyst Tim McCarverearly on argued Houston starter Roger Clemens, 43, is "as good as he's ever been," he candidly joked about his "expert analysis" after Clemens gave up three runs and limped away after two innings. Joe Buck, in a sign of a good announcer, managed to make fun of his network's own hype, such as the wailing siren touting the show Prison Break. "If you ever try to break out of prison, Tim, that's what it's going to sound like," Buck said.
I bet the only way Hiestand thinks the coverage could have been better is if they would have added Joe Morgan to the booth midway through the third inning.
I mean, there's no arguing with a man's opinion that these are good "jokes," or that Tim McCarver is "engaging." I'm just absolutely shell-shocked that someone out there loves McCarver and Buck.
And furthermore, that that someone is one of the few people in the civilized world who is paid for his opinion on how good or bad sports television is.
Ozzie Guillen is the best thing to hit October since leaf blowers, hot chocolate and -- if you were at U.S. Cellular Field on Sunday evening -- Gore-Tex mittens. He is certainly the best thing for the White Sox, who won 7-6, in a game where you could see your breath and, if you looked hard, see the Houston Astros doing the World Series math in their heads.
Reporters love this guy. Makes sense. He says crazy things. Reporters can then report on those things. Makes their job easier.
The Ozzie Factor is visible everywhere. When Sox rookie closer Bobby Jenks blew a two-run ninth-inning lead Sunday evening, first baseman Paul Konerko met Guillen and the reliever near the mound.
"Don't worry about it," Konerko told Jenks. "We'll pick you up."
That's an Ozzie thing.
I thought it was a Bobby Cox thing. Or a Tito Francona thing. Or a thing about half the managers in baseball would do.
"One of my first rules," said Guillen. And the rule? "Nobody points fingers at anybody," he said.
April 16, 2005:
"It is good to have him [Frank Thomas] here because now he can see a winning attitude, because he was part of the bad attitude," Guillen told the Chicago Tribune. "Frank was a big part of the bad attitude."
Asked to define bad attitude, Guillen said, "Because he was here for 20 years and he was part of the bad attitude. He was a big part of the bad attitude. Why? Because he was their leader."
September 15, 2005:
Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen questions whether Damaso Marte is really hurt and criticized the reliever for showing up late for a game last weekend.
"If Marte's not ready to help this team, he can have a nice trip to the Dominican Republic by himself," Guillen said before the White Sox played Kansas City on Wednesday night.
"I don't want this kid just to make an excuse that he was hurt just because he was giving it up," Guillen said. "A lot of guys in this game give up home runs, base hits. I don't want him to use (it) as an excuse to fake an injury. I don't think he was. I just worry about the mental."
I'm also worried about the mental, Ozzie. Very worried.
Tim McCarver is trying to explain to America -- following the HPB-foul ball Jermaine Dye controversy -- that a ball that hits a bat will "go down," whereas a ball that hits a player's arm will go "parallel to the ground."
I had the same thought. I kept imagining this conversation, which we will be having all winter: "Yeah, he did have a good postseason. But that doesn't mean he had a good regular season...no, it doesn't...no, because if you look at his--...right, he did do that. But the fact is, he was crazily overra--...yeah...okay, fine, whatever. Scott Podsednik is the best player ever. Fine."
Here's a real gem by Mike Celizic, entitled "Thank the Yankees for this World Series."
The Yankees aren’t going to get their 27th world title this year, but whoever does win the World Series might want to consider sending a “Thank You” note to George Steinbrenner for making it all possible.
Okay, so, we're going to hear about how a lot of former Yankee pitchers are now with the two Series teams. Let's go.
They might even consider sending a dozen roses and a nice bottle of wine. If they really wanted to show their appreciation for everything Steinbrenner has done to make their championship possible, they might consider sending him half a pennant. He’s done that much.
We get it. Let's get to the article now.
He talks about how Pettitte and Clemens, and Contreras and El Duque, were all vital to the success of their teams. Then we get this:
What should be most galling is that the Yankees could have kept at least three of those pitchers — Contreras, Pettitte and El Duque. Good arguments were made at the time for letting Contreras and Hernandez leave, but there was never an excuse for Pettitte’s departure. Nor is there any excuse for the fact that for all four pitchers, the Yankees got nothing in return, not even a player to be named later.
The funny thing about this is, he immediately undermines his own argument. Right off the bat he says that there were good arguments for letting Contreras and Hernandez leave. Okay, well, then why are you criticizing the Yankees for letting them leave? And since you have excluded Clemens, why isn't this article just about how they blew it by letting Pettitte go?
Anyway, there's his thesis: that the Yankees, who were extremely pitching-poor this year, let go of four great pitchers and didn't get anything in return. Let's see how he backs it up.
Clemens was gone two years ago. He had officially retired, and all of us actually believed him. But Pettitte, who, like the Rocket, is from Texas, was a Yankee lifer who never thought he’d play anywhere else. But when he became a free agent, the Yankee front office took it for granted that he would come back to the fold. Instead of courting him and making him feel loved, the Yankees spent their time wooing Gary Sheffield. By the time Sheff was signed, Pettitte had decided life might be better back in Texas, where he ended up pitching with his old pal, the suddenly unretired Clemens.
Now, this is the one thing the Yankees maybe botched -- the Pettitte thing. They did maybe take him for granted, and he bolted. Fine. However, his last year in pinstripes he gave up 227 hits in 208 IP. Not great. His ERA+ was 109, down from 134 the year before. They likely would have had to pay him $10-12 million a year for five years. Instead, they went after Gary Sheffield. Who is among the five most feared hitters in the league. Who has done nothing but annihilate the A.L. I mean, it's not like they let Pettitte go and signed Christian Guzman.
Yes, it is all about pitching, and yes, Pettitte might have helped them this year. But he did have a history of arm problems. He only threw 134 IP in 2002. And don't give me any baloney about his postseason dominance. He's pitched well in October, but only about as well as he's pitched in the regular season (postseason numbers: 13-8, 4.05 ERA. 3-4 in the WS.)
And as far as Clemens goes, well, the Yankees didn't "blow" that, as Celizic freely admits. He retired. Then he unretired, but only because he could pitch close to home. What could the Yankees have done differently?
Pettitte missed most of 2004 with arm troubles and subsequent surgery. Most people suspected it was coming; he’d had episodic elbow problems for years, and those things never get better on their own. But, given the success rate of Tommy John surgery, there was every reason to expect him to come back in 2005 as good or better than ever.
A. That's crazy. A whole lot of players don't recover 100% from Tommy John surgery. B. If "people suspected it was coming," why should the Yankees have automatically committed a ton of money to him? C. Pettitte had a great year. A Cy Young-calibre year. But that doesn't necessarily mean the Yankees made a mistake in letting him go. Because, remember, they got Sheffield, and they had every reason to believe that their other pitchers were going to perform well.
El Duque is a different story. He claims to be 36 years old, but he’s really at least 39 and he had been breaking down. He missed all of the 2003 season with injuries, and had just 15 starts for the Yankees in 2004. He went 8-2, but the Yankees decided he wasn’t going to be able to shoulder a full load as a starter, so they let him go. That estimation was correct. After a hot start this year, Hernandez finished the year with just 22 starts and was ineffective until his huge relief stint against Boston.
Hey, Mike. You're supposed to be arguing that the Yankees made a mistake in letting this guy go. Remember? You have suddenly started arguing the wrong side of your own argument. Do you see that? Focus up, buddy.
But that’s been the defining characteristic of El Duque’s career — he comes up big in the playoffs. He didn’t pitch in the ALCS, but other than Neal Cotts’ two-thirds of an inning in Game 1, no one else in the bullpen did either. And if the White Sox get in a situation in which they need help early in a game, El Duque is the most likely pitcher to get the nod and the most likely to shut down the opposition.
So, the Yankees should have signed this guy to a long-term contract despite the fact that he lied about his age, was clearly like 38, and had a ton of mileage on his arm...because, although he didn't pitch in the ALCS, he might pitch in the World Series, and might be good, because he has been good in the past. Solid argument.
This year, Duque was 9-9 with a 5.12 ERA, and an 87 ERA+. He had a K/BB ratio of 91/50. He was far worse than an average pitcher. If the Yankees had had him starting all year, they probably would not have even made the playoffs, and Duque would not have had the opportunity to demonstrate his preternatural alien-influenced October skill that everybody and his brother can't effing shut up about.
Then there’s Contreras. The Yankees outbid everyone — Boston especially — for him three seasons ago when he defected from Cuba. But in one season and half of another in the Bronx, he had a talent for imploding in big games — the Armando Benitez of starting pitchers.
Hey, Mike? A word? Again, you're supposed to be arguing that the Yankees made a mistake by letting these guys go. You're doing that funny thing again where you're arguing the wrong side of your own article.
The bottom line was the Yanks ended up with nothing for four pitchers and the two teams that got them ended up in the World Series. A lot of people will see poetic justice in that.
They got nothing for them because they weren't very valuable. Clemens retired. Pettitte left as a free agent, but the Yankees took that money and signed one of the best hitters in the world to fill a huge hole in their line-up (remember, RF in the Bronx had previously been patroled by such luminaries as Raul Mondesi and Enrique Wilson [!]). Contreras sucked in New York. El Duque was a thousand years old and hasn't even been very good for the ChiSox this year.
Just because they were all Yankees at one time, and just because their teams are now in the World Series, doesn't necessarily mean the Yankees blew it. I think they should have signed Pettitte, but you obviously can't blame them for Clemens, and you shouldn't blame them for Contreras or Duque, either.
****POST-SCRIPT****
Special thanks to reader Mike G. for (nearly instantaneously) pointing out that this sentence...
Nor is there any excuse for the fact that for all four pitchers, the Yankees got nothing in return, not even a player to be named later.
...is just flat-out wrong, since Contreras was traded for Esteban Loaiza. Which, amazingly, Celizic discusses in his article. I guess he means that they didn't get anything good in return, or something. It's really unclear what he means, because, again, he is bad at arguing things.
Boston's favorite cursemonger, Dan Shaughnessy, has probably been in a foul mood for the last calendar year given that his silly Curse of the Bambino myth was finally shattered.
So naturally, he's going to try to shoehorn a curse into this year's World Series even though it's an idiotic thing to do and there's no such thing as curses and people should have stopped believing that nonsense some time around the Renaissance and everyone should learn more about the scientific method and less about ghost whispering.
The money quote (and thanks to reader dave2380 for the tip):
The White Sox face a much tougher opponent than the Red Sox did last October. No, I'm not talking about the redoubtable Houston Astros and their stable of aces. I'm talking about the larger forces, the gallery of the baseball gods where superstition rules over science. The White Sox are up against the granddaddy of all bad karma.
Gallery of baseball gods? I know this stuff isn't supposed to be serious. It's supposed to be entertaining.
It's not. It's drivel.
Curse of the Bambino? That was nothing. It amused some, offended others (the estimable Gammons said it was more moronic than the wave), and made life easy for headline writers, but it absolutely pales when compared with the plague that has infected the Pale Hose.
It offended rational people with brains. Thank you, Peter Gammons, for calling this guy on his bullshit. Also, thank you for putting up with John Kruk and Harold Reynolds on Baseball Tonight.
The 1919 White Sox did something to earn a lifetime of hardball purgatory. They threw the World Series. And they have not won another one since. It is the big, dirty secret that no one wants to talk about as Chicago prepares to play host to the World Series for the first time since the ChiSox were beaten by the Dodgers in '59. Counting the Black Sox scandal, the Second City has lost the last seven (five by the Cubs) World Series played here. The last time Chicago had a baseball champion was in 1917, which was the year before Boston beat the Cubs, which was a year before the White Sox took money to lose.
It's all there in John Sayles's excellent movie, ''Eight Men Out" (John Cusack does a great Buck Weaver), or the book (same title by Eliot Asinof). Angry at cheapskate owner Charles Comiskey, eight of the White Sox, including all-world Shoeless Joe Jackson, took cash to intentionally lose the World Series to the Reds. They were beaten, five games to three, in a best-of-nine event. Two years later, after they were acquitted in a bag-job trial, commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned them for life. And the White Sox never won again.
Blah blah blah blah scandal no one wants to talk about? What? People talk about it all the time. I saw "Eight Men Out" on TV this morning! I'm totally serious. It was on a few hours before Game 1 of the World Series. Not sure which channel.
** SPECIAL ADDENDUM **
"Big, dirty secret that no one wants to talk about"?
FOX just opened its coverage of the World Series with an elaborately produced (okay, it looked sort of cheap) short film entirely about the Black Sox scandal, complete with actors in period costumes. And yes, they used the word curse. Because someone somewhere at FOX thinks that people watched the World Series last year because the Red Sox were cursed, and they're hoping they can trick people into thinking the White Sox are cursed, too.
So Shaughnessy, you're not the standard-bearer of baseball history you think you are. FOX has the exact same angle you had. FOX.
** END SPECIAL ADDENDUM **
Understandably, ballplayers, coaches, and managers want no part of this. They don't care about history.
They don't care about historical stories you make up to sell newspapers and your own books.
In the days before the miracle of 2004, the Red Sox routinely spit on the ground any time the old stuff was mentioned. Curt Schilling and Mike Timlin had nothing to do with Denny Galehouse and Mike Torrez. They didn't want to be asked about it and there was nothing relevant they could say about it.
Exactly. Because it wasn't relevant. You made it up.
Red Sox first baseman/outfielder Todd Benzinger once said, ''I don't know why people keep bringing up 1978. We're different players. It's not like we're related to those guys, like we have the same genes or something."
Thank you, Todd Benzinger. I'm extending to you a coveted invitation to post comments on FJM.
...from Tim McCarver, the most-experienced and by-far-worst-ever color man in postseason-baseball-announcing history.
Question: Where's the line between analysis and overanalysis?
Answer: You don't have to say something every time there's a replay. I was guilty, in the early part of my career, of overanalyzing. I know that's not true anymore.
Is this still considered the "early part of your career?" Because you never, ever, ever, ever stop talking.
Question: How does playing on two Series champs (1964, 1967) compare to working a Series on TV?
Answer: Broadcasting a Series is so much tougher than playing. When you're playing, you can do something about things physically. On TV, there's nothing you can do, except prepare.
This is nonsense. You can "do something about things physically" when you're playing, as opposed to just "preparing" when you're broadcasting. So it's tougher to broadcast. This is disingenuous to the point of absurdity.
Question: Get any coaching for TV?
Answer: I have never taken a lesson on how to talk on TV in my life.
Never rely on evidence or results of past baseball games. That's Michael Ventre's stand.
Picking the winner of a playoff series is a crapshoot. But since sportswriters have to do it, they might as well supply semi-legitimate reasons for their choices, right? Right?
The Chicago White Sox will win the World Series over the Houston Astros. And no, I can’t say I ever thought it was possible. Like NBA players wearing collared shirts, I just didn’t believe it would occur in my lifetime. But I’m happy to admit I was wrong.
Great joke. Topical.
Also, before the dress code was implemented this year, many NBA players wore impeccably tailored suits to press conferences of their own volition.
The primary reason the White Sox will prevail is pitching, which is another declaration previously reserved for the domain of Ripley’s. Chicago’s pitching is superior to Houston’s? Can this be?
This is a good start. Pitching has to do with baseball.
But the White Sox have that “team of destiny” feel, especially when it comes to their pitching staff.
Oh boy.
In the American League Championship Series against the Angels, they got an unheard-of four straight complete games from Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garcia and Jose Contreras. When four starting pitchers all achieve such a high standard together in consecutive starts, it means something is going on. It means the dispensing of filthy stuff and winning are contagious.
Really? That's what it means? Conclusively? How about: all of these guys have been good solid pitchers all year, and they happened to all pitch well against a mediocre offensive team in consecutive games? They combined for nine complete games during the regular season, so while it's impressive that they strung together four in a row (in fact, it's pretty crazy that that happened), it's by no means proof of some awesome contagious winning disease sweeping the team.
These White Sox pitchers have something to prove. They’re hungrier than Clemens and Pettitte, for sure, both of whom have experienced World Series victory as teammates with the Yankees.
You're right, Clemens and Pettitte will probably just relax and take it easy this series. Why should they care?
The White Sox have a lineup of scrappers adept at figuring out a way to win.
Translation: not a great hitting team. See post concerning Jim Rome.
A.J. Pierzynski’s swipe of first on the controversial Doug Eddings call against the Angels in Game 2 of the ALCS was just one example of the tenacious way the Pale Hose approach the game under manager Ozzie Guillen. They’re not sitting back waiting for runs to happen, they’re out cobbling them.
This evokes images of Joe Crede and Aaron Rowand working for a 19th-century shoe cobbler. And for the last time, what the hell does it mean for someone to sit back and wait for runs to happen? No one does that.
As a result, they haven’t gotten as much air time on “SportsCenter” as teams that have more famous pop in their lineups, like the Red Sox and Yankees and Cardinals.
The Red Sox, Yankees and Cardinals have more fans than the White Sox. They are more popular teams. That is why SportsCenter, a show designed and produced by human beings to draw human viewers, features them more often than the White Sox, a team that is the second-most popular baseball franchise in its own city.
That’s part of the problem. The Astros feel like a team that has endured so much disappointment just to get here. There was a finality to their clincher against the Cardinals. They made the World Series. The goal had finally been accomplished. Guys like Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell could put a capper on their careers. Said Bagwell: “My career is coming to an end. I don’t know if we’re ever going to get back. And it’s been a long time coming.” For Clemens and Pettitte, this is gravy.
I don’t want to say the Astros are just happy to be here. But on some level, they’re content. They’re satisfied.
You don't want to say they're happy to be here. You want to say they're content, a synonym for happy to be here.
The White Sox don’t have that same karma. They’re delightfully clueless. They’re just playing ball and winning games. They seem to understand the magnitude of being in the World Series, they just seem more focused on winning ballgames.
They seem more focused than the Astros? What are you basing that on? Pre-series press conferences? The number of quips per minutes A.J. Pierzynski is unleashing? Roy Oswalt's charmingly wooden performance reading the Top Ten List on the Late Show with David Letterman?
So batten down the hatches, Chicago. There’s a shaker coming.
That's the end of the article.
Michael, could you write a little more about baseball next time? And less about karma, focus, scrapping, hunger, destiny and how contagious winning is?
It's unclear exactly what the point of the article is, but it's generally about the diversity of the White Sox clubhouse.
``When you play baseball, you learn to communicate with the other guys,'' the pitcher [Freddy Garcia] said. ``It's not really a big deal."
Right, no big deal. So...why are we writing about this again? Andrew? Nine players on the White Sox's 40-man roster are from the Dominican Republic. Pitchers Jose Contreras and Orlando Hernandez are Cuban, and second baseman Tadahito Iguchi is Japanese. Puerto Rico is also represented, as is Venezuela, which produced Garcia and manager Ozzie Guillen.
Okay, that doesn't sound unusually diverse for a Major League Baseball team...did you know that the Phillies have 5 dudes from Venezuela on their team? Isn't that boring?
They won with pitching, with speed. And they won with a diverse group -- not that an ethnically mixed clubhouse is unusual. According to a study released this week by the University of Central Florida, 27.3 percent of the players in 2004 were not American.
Right. So, why is this unusual? Here's the story of the 2005 White Sox -- they're a diverse group. Like all teams. The whole article goes on like this...diversity, different backgrounds, language lessons...and yet none of this is really interesting to anyone, including the players and the author. At least he met his deadline, I guess.
Also, to say they won with pitching and speed is only accurate if you're talking about the speed with which the baseballs were flying off White Sox batters' bats on 3-run taters.
Regardless, I've gotta know: what does reliever Neil Cotts think?
``I think in our case it's come together pretty well,'' reliever Neal Cotts said. ``I think Ozzie instilled that from the beginning in spring training, that we're going to be together six months and make the best out of it.''
"I'm smarter than a lot of guys who go to Harvard. When you come to this country and you can't speak any English at 16 years old, and you have to survive, you have to have something smart in your body. If you take one of those Harvard guys and drop them in the middle of Caracas, they won't survive. But if you drop me in the middle of Harvard, I'll survive."
Bad news, Ozzie. I checked with the registrar. They do offer a class on speaking Spanish at Harvard.
Also, I'd venture to guess that "survival" is tougher in Caracas than in Cambridge for anyone. I mean, yeah, a guy from Harvard -- or any college or town in America -- would have a tougher time "surviving" in Caracas than a dude from Caracas would in well-heeled sections of Massachusetts. This does not seem to me to be an issue of "intelligence," but rather things like kidnapping and murder rates.
Did you guys read in the Crimson about how Ozzie Guillen was studying for his Chem-10 final in the Leverett JCR and he was attacked by a tiger and he wrestled it to the ground and pinned it using only his smarts and enthusiasm and intangibles? That guy is so smart and enthusiastic and intangible.
Ozzie, with help from Orlando Hernandez, kept telling Contreras how good he is until he finally believed them. No pitcher in baseball has been hotter the past couple of months.
That's all he needed: two dudes telling him he's good. It's interesting that Joe Torre never tried that.
Ozzie took an Angels castoff named Bobby Jenks -- a July minor-league call-up -- and turned him into the closer he lacked.
This was a good move. But the real story is how fortunate the White Sox have been to get career years out of journeymen Dustin Hermanson (2.04 ERA this year, 4.21 career ERA) and Cliff Politte (2.00 / 4.06) as well as an amazing year from young Neal Cotts (1.94 ERA after a 5.65 ERA last year).
How much of that was Ozzie? I'm speaking for Bayless when I say 100%.
Ozzie pushed El Duque's button to get the White Sox out of a bases-loaded, no-outs jam against the Red Sox in the sixth inning of Game 3.
He pushed his button. It's that simple.
And of course, Ozzie let his starters finish all nine innings of all four victories over the Angels. No manager in baseball would have been crazy -- or shrewd -- enough to sit on his hands and ignore The Book and his bullpen.
It's possible he should have allowed some members of his bullpen to get some work in so they wouldn't be entering the World Series with a minimum of 11 days off (and that's just Cotts -- no other relief pitcher has thrown in a game since October 7th!). Of course, the ChiSox won those four games, and that's the most important thing, but they likely could have won them and not had their bullpen be that rusty.
That was last year the White Sox played in the World Series. That team had three big stars -- Luis Aparicio, Nellie Fox and Early Wynn.
This team has Ozzie.
You heard it here first: Ozzie will become the first man to pitch five complete games and hit seventeen inside the park home runs in a single game.
Series prediction: Ozzie in 3 (Astros will give up and return to their homes in fear midway through the third game).
If the ChiSox crap the bed in the Series, will anyone say that Ozzie did a bad job? My guess is no. My guess is, he is so completely the flavor-of-the-month right now, he could literally start Joe Crede on the mound in Game 2 and play six infielders and have Paul Konerko try a suicide squeeze with the bases loaded and nobody out in the first inning and people would praise him for his boldness.
But there's a lot of "I" in Joe Morgan articles. The title is "Astros End World Series Drought." It should be, "Joe Morgan on Joe Morgan."
This is the entire article. Pay close attention to the boldfaced parts:
After coming close so many times before (1980, 1986 and 2004), the Houston Astros have reached the World Series for the first time in franchise history. This has to mean a lot to the fans of Houston who have supported the team from the time they were known as the Colt .45's. Now that Houston has reached the World Series for the first time in 44 seasons, a lot of people, myself included, must be thinking about judge Roy Hofheinz. He bought the team and brought it to Houston, and also had the vision to build the "Eighth Wonder of the World," the Astrodome, in 1965 (it was completed in 1966).
I'm happy for veterans such as Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell, both of whom have spent their entire major-league careers with the same franchise, something you rarely see anymore. It's quite an accomplishment because both Biggio and Bagwell have been there so long (Biggio since 1988 and Bagwell since '91). Until now, they have never experienced what it is like to play in the World Series -- and you are talking about two of the best players of their era.
The feeling also has to be satisfying for veteran pitchers Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. They probably feel like I felt going back to Houston in 1980. (When I was traded from Houston to Cincinnati in 1971, I hoped one day to come back to Houston and help the Astros win a championship, because that was where everything started for me. I'm originally from Texas and came up through the Houston organization. Everything in baseball started for me there. That's the reason I went back there after I left Cincinnati.) Clemens and Pettitte went back to Houston last season to try to do the same thing. They both grew up in Texas and both won championships like I had, then decided to try to help the team from their hometown win a World Series.
Over the years the Astros have had a lot of heartaches -- getting close and not getting over the hump. I saw Nolan Ryan sitting up in the luxury box during Game 5 and I'm sure he was thinking back to 1980 (when we lost to the Phillies in the NLCS). Houston has had opportunities, but just hasn't been able to take that final step, until now.
is almost as vexing to me as the cult of Joe Morgan. Here's Mark Kreidler's take:
Tony La Russa, a man with the gravitas to actually make the comparison, said this about Albert Pujols' home run: "It would be tied for first with the most dramatic home runs that have ever been hit."
Obviously unquantifiable, but...really? It was incredibly dramatic, but it won Game Five of an NLCS. Kirk Gibson? Bobby Thompson? Maz in the 1960 WS? Joe Carter? How about Hendu in 1986 -- that was a Game 5. Carlton Fisk? Jesus -- Bucky Dent?
Kreidler goes on to praise LaRussa for being stoic. Then he says this:
But in a roundabout way, maybe Pujols hits that home run because La Russa is who he is as a manager. Maybe the Cards don't panic, down 4-2 with two out in the ninth inning on the road against arguably the best closer in the game, precisely because Tony La Russa's emotional range as manager doesn't allow for free-form nervous expression.
I'm going to go ahead and say that in no way, shape, or form, does Tony La Russa's demeanor have anything to do with Pujols's HR. I think Pujols's HR is due to Pujols being the best hitter in baseball, and also due to Brad Lidge hanging a slider right over the middle of the plate.
If you want to see something almost as impressive as Pujols' home run, go back to the video and observe Pujols' expression during that at-bat. He stands in against Brad Lidge, and Pujols is just the embodiment of professional calm and concentration. His body barely moves at all. The swing on the home run is pure, of course, but it is also almost routine in its execution. Maybe Albert Pujols, as great as he is, also has a little La Russa in him. David Eckstein, too, for that matter.
There is no Tony La Russa in Albert Pujols. And to say that there is any "David Eckstein" in Albert Pujols (can we get through one article about the Cardinals without mentioning David Eckstein?), is to ignore the fact that Albert Pujols himself embodies all of the things that people praise David Eckstein for: hustle, determination, smarts, etc. Why does that mean there is "David Eckstein" in Albert Pujols? Did David Eckstein invent these things?
Plus, he fanatically studies video, researches the pitchers he is facing, and prepares for games better than anyone in the league. Which is why he hit that home run.
Also, Tony La Russa was being stoic, which totally helped him, I guess.
Is it possible that Kreidler meant there's also a little La Russa in "David Eckstein, too, for that matter"?
It's just as nonsensical. In fact, maybe even more so, given that Eckstein is supposed to be a lively sparkplug or whatever and La Russa looks like a corpse.
Let's Get Back To Trying To Get Joe Morgan Fired For One Sweet Minute
I know Joe Morgan just signed a 30 year extension with ESPN. But I got to thinking...why not Al Leiter as a permanent fixture in the broadcasting booth? Why not him instead of JM?
The New York Post says his retirement is all but a done deal: "'There would have to be a lot of talking to convince me to come back,' Leiter told the newspaper." And if you can't trust the New York Post, who can you trust?
I'm not saying Al Leiter is the best color man ever, but in the limited stints I've seen him, I'd say he's one of the most tolerable, if not insightful players-turned-broadcasters out there. He sticks to stuff that former players can actually comment well on: how to throw a changeup; where the defense might choose to play in certain circumstances; etc. I might be way off here, but I don't remember him talking a lot about emotions or momentum or voodoo.
So come on ESPN. It's a modest proposal. Dump Joe, hire Al, put him next to Miller.
I'm trying to be reasonable here. It's not like I'm asking for you to put some crazy nerd with glasses in the booth. I'm trying to be the guy who really wanted to vote for Nader but ended up voting for Kerry, or something like that. Or, depending on your politics, the guy who really wanted to vote for Badnarik but voted for Bush...or something. I'm not great with analogies.
Sadly, the rest of the Astros-Cards series seems predictably depressing (unless you're a St. Louis fan). Not only are the Cardinals back at home, not only have they been handed a second life, but out of every sport, baseball hinges on emotion and momentum more than anything else.
What about biathlon or ski jumping? Or emotionball? How about momentum-hockey? In the NBA, teams can lose the most devastating game possible and bounce back two days later as a completely different team (like the Nets after Game 3 of the 2002 Boston series). That doesn't work in baseball. Once you have the momentum, the other team has to take it back. And they can't do that when they're reeling on the road and wondering what the hell just happened. That's why I believe the Astros are finished, just like that '86 Angels team was.
Game 5 was a devastating loss, and the Cards are indeed going back home, but doesn't starting Oswalt (2.94 ERA) and Clemens (1.87) as opposed to Mulder (3.64) and Morris (4.11) at least even out the supposed momentum?
Because they are human beings who are actually playing in the games as opposed to vague theories about psychology and sports performance.
Also, I'm not sure I really want to do this, but I'm sure our readers can point out instances where a baseball team has lost the most devastating game possible and bounced back "as a completely different team" immediately afterwards, like Simmons says the 2002 Nets did.
I believe if you go all the way back to 2001, the Diamondbacks lost successive heartbreakers to the Yankees before coming back to beat them 15-2 in Game 6 and 3-2 in Game 7. Wait, Simmons mentions this in the column but dismisses it for some strange reason.
There was also the ALCS last year, when the Red Sox came back from a pretty seriously devastating Game 3.
Anyway, if you read on in the article (which I just did), Simmons hedges his bets a little with this paragraph:
You could even call me an expert. And according to my research, your team is cooked unless they can create a new Level of Losing for the Cardinals -- the "Reverse Dead Man Walking" Game on either Wednesday or Thursday.
Okay, so the Astros are toast unless they're not.
I know Simmons' articles are mean to be light and fluffy and fun, but I bet there's a small part of him (and a large segment of his readership) that genuinely believes what he's saying is absolutely true. People want to believe this stuff.
Yeah...guess what? Turns out the Astros won easily, in St. Louis. Turns out baseball is more about pitching and hitting than "Dead Man Walking" games or "momentum" or "The Godfather, Part II" or "Caddyshack" or any other of Simmons's go-to references that have nothing to do with actual sports,
Very soon after Albert Pujols' 3-run bomb to win Game 5 of the NLCS, Bob Brenly could not wait to start praising David Eckstein for "not giving up" and hitting a dribbler to the left side.
Then, on Sportcenter, John Kruk made sure to give Eckstein credit, as well.
We get it. He's small.
** CORRECTION **
Thanks to many readers for pointing out that something stupid was said NOT by Tim McCarver, who was mercifully nowhere near a broadcast booth last night. It was, in fact, the Brennaman-Lyons-Brenly team. I will happily acknowledge that the instant I heard something that made me angry, I assumed it was McCarver.
He's not just small, Junior. He's also scrappy and white. And he has the guts and hustle to dribble a ball through the hole to keep an inning going. You know what that takes? Incredible luck. That's another thing David Eckstein, along with every other major leaguer, occasionally has.
Vladimir Guerrero is really struggling at the plate this postseason, particularly against the White Sox. He's 1-16 in the ALCS; in the playoffs overall, he's 7-34 with zero extra-base hits and 1 RBI. His OPS so far this October: .476.
Stories are starting to trickle in about Vlad's woes at the plate, which makes sense because he's basically all the Angels have on offense. But there's a decided difference in the way sportswriters are handling Vladdy as opposed to the dressing down A-Rod got just a few days ago.
In short, no one's calling Vlad a choker. No one's questioning his heart, his desire, his mental makeup. No one's crying out for him to earn his enormous contract. No one's screaming that Arte Moreno acquired him FOR THESE GAMES AND THESE GAMES ONLY.
Instead, writers are -- quite fairly, I think -- saying that without Vlad, the Angels don't stand a chance, and it's too bad he happens to be slumping at the wrong time. Which would also be a very plausible explanation for what A-Rod did in the ALDS. But no one was offering that excuse for him.
Is he hurt? Even in the best of times Guerrero looks as if he woke up after a rough night on a bad mattress. The guy walks and jogs as if his spikes are too tight. But then he'll burst from first to third on a bloop --- the way he did against the Yankees in the ALDS -- in a show of sprinter's speed. So who knows?
"He's not getting treatment that I know of," one Angels staff member said. "If he was hurt he wouldn't say anything, but there's nothing wrong as far as we know."
So when Guerrero performs poorly in the playoffs, he's just a little off, or he's banged up and is valiantly playing through the pain. When A-Rod stinks it up, he's an overpaid superstar who will never come through in big moments.
Possible reasons people do this:
1. A-Rod is not a likeable guy. He seems fake, and he's too polished to offer interesting quotes to the media.
2. There are higher expectations of A-Rod because of his contract.
3. There is increased scrutiny of A-Rod because he's a Yankee.
None of these are good reasons. As of right now, Vladimir Guerrero has never had a good postseason series, and I'm glad to report that no one is labeling him a choker just yet. They shouldn't. Given enough time, I think he'll come through, just as Barry Bonds did and A-Rod likely will.
