FIRE JOE MORGAN

Consider this a response / stream of consciousness/research / comment on Junior's post about Zito below.

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Keith Law has now put his opinion on Barry Zito in writing, saying BZ "at best is a No. 3 starter on a contender." Just to add a little more useful data:

Zito's ERA+ the last 3 years:
105, 116, 116.

(And yes, as Junior said in correcting himself, we really shouldn't be using just ERA here. [Too convenient for a pitcher whose only experience has been for a team in a relatively weak division, in a pitcher's dream park.] Not that ERA+ is perfect, but it's (a) a fairer metric to use than just crude ERA and (b) designed to make it a little easier to measure against other players.)

Anyway. ERA+. One hundred is league average, and for starters, though I haven't looked too far into the numbers, I'd imagine the average is a little lower, as relievers generally have lower ERAs. Remember: for ERA+, higher = awesomer.

So...105, 116, 116...I'd guess, yeah, most "contenders" would take that out of their #2 starters.

Right?

All right, fine, my flight's delayed so I'm going to take this a step further.

Zito's 3-year ERA+ average is 112 1/3. Let's look at all teams who were "in contention" last year (by my own, kind of vague definition) and see where Zito would have ranked on those 2006 starting staffs, in ERA+.

Yes, that's right, I'm using his 3-year average against the single-year stats of 2006 pitching staffs. Seems right enough to me.

NYM: 3rd (Way better than team "ace" Pedro Martinez. Basically in a tie with Tom Glavine (113), and worse than John Maine on a kind of small sample size. I'd call it more of a 2 than a 3. But! This is science, motherfuckers. It's a 3.)
STL: 2nd
SDP: 4th (At least he was better than Jake Peavy.)
LAD: 4th (Maddux, Lowe, sure. Billinglsey is iffy again at 90.0 IP.)
PHI: 3rd
HOU: 3rd (Goddam, Clemens was good.)
NYY: 3rd
TOR: 3rd
BOS: 2nd
MIN: 3rd
DET: 4th
CHI: 1st
OAK: 1st (Well, he was 1st. Thanks, maybe, to an injured Rich Harden.)
LAA: 4th

Of these contenders, Zito would have been an average number 2.85 starter, thus obscuring all possible meaning the phrase "number n starter" might have.

Drop CHI and BOS from the calculus -- teams who both finished 3rd in their divisions -- and Zito becomes a number 3.08 starter. You know, the guy you usually pitch 3rd in the rotation, and then, once every 12 cycles through the rotation, you pitch him 4th.

I gotta gay say after going through these numbers, Keith Law doesn't look nearly as wrong as I thought he would. I mean, he's wrong that Zito's "at best" a number 3 starter. Zito basically should be a number 3 starter on a contending team. But I don't think he's far off. And as Law writes in his blolumn: Zito's only getting older. His fastball is, by most reports, slippin'.

In fact, Law may have more accurately said that Zito will at best be a number 3 starter; you have to wonder how BZ 2010-13 is going to perform. (2013?!)

Hopefully we can agree on this: Keith Law was off; Brian Sabean was way off.

Labels: barry zito, brian sabean, keith law

And instead I got, like, a shirt. And "The Wire: Season 2" on DVD. Which is awesome, but it's no Celizic Hat. And I'm angry.

For this reason, and also because Junior's last couple posts contained an unreasonably small amount of anger/swearing, I present some thoughts on Magic Mike's latest word-conglomeration, which is sub-titled, hilariously:

Bronx Bombers could have enough to being in Zito after dealing Big Unit

Like the Yankees couldn't pay for them both. Like they care if their payroll is $206 million or $222 million. Whatever. Let's see why ol' Mikey thinks the Yankees should deal Unit and pick up Zito.

The Yankees went into this offseason saying they wanted a leaner payroll and younger lineup in 2007. Word out of the team’s front office also was that Brian Cashman, the general manager who looks like Jeff Van Gundy, but without the sunny disposition, had wrested control of the team away from George Steinbrenner’s Tampa-based committee of crack baseball advisers.

I'd just like to say here that the patented Mike Celizic "...x is like y..." comparison used in this paragraph is actually not totally, completely terrible. Calling Cash a grumpy version of Jeff Van Gundy kind of makes me laugh. Maybe he's getting less hacky/boring with his jokes.

Experience has taught us to take such pronouncements with a grain of salt the size of the Matterhorn.

Nope. He's not. That's pretty hacky/boring.

Invariably, every Yankee long-range plan crumbles the moment an overpriced and superannuated superstar comes on the market. They couldn’t help themselves; it was the Steinbrenner way, and to expect them to behave any differently was like expecting a St. Bernard to swear off drooling.

And that one is just weird. In fact, it's fucking weird. (Take that, Junior.)

But this year, it’s been different...[excised discussion of Sheffield and Wright trades] And now, word is that the Yankees are shopping the Big Unit himself, Randy Johnson. Suddenly, the idea that the pinstripes have an actual plan that will not only keep them competitive but also build for a future that’s farther away than next March, isn’t so farfetched after all.

Read that last sentence. Savor its tangled syntax. St. Bernard-style drool over how hard it is to parse.

Can this mean the Yankees are about the join the Barry Zito sweepstakes? Yankee fans hope it does; Red Sox fans hope it doesn’t.

Huh. Red Sox fans hope the Yankees don't get Barry Zito, you say?

Barry Zito 3-Year Splits vs. Red Sox, 2004-2006

2-3, 6.45 ERA (7.20 at Fenway)
7 GS
38.2 IP
50 H
27 ER
30/22 K/BB
.309 BAA

Yeah. We wouldn't want that coming at us four or five times a year. Especially if it's instead of this guy:

Randy Johnson 3-year Splits vs. Red Sox, 2004-2006

7-1, 4.87 ERA
10 GS
61 IP
59 H
33 ER
64/32 K/BB
.252 BAA

Both relatively small sample sizes, obviously, but still.

Moving Johnson makes all the sense in the world for New York, which is another reason it is so surprising. This hasn’t been a team that’s made a lot of intelligent moves ever since its run of four titles in five years ended after the 2000 season.

Since then, they got: Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, Randy Johnson, and Bobby Abreu. They also kept: Chien-Ming Wang, Robby Cano, Melky Cabrera, and Phillip Hughes. There have been a bunch of high-profile disasters, absolutely. Lots of them. But don't tell me that these weren't intelligent moves.

Johnson is a first-ballot Hall of Famer and one of the most dominant power pitchers of all time. But he’s 43, he’s coming off his second back surgery, his 2006 ERA was 5.00, and he’s got $16 million coming in salary next year. By some measures — 17 victories being the primary one he’s still a premier pitcher. But for $16 million, a team can buy a lot of replacement.

I don't get this. Yes, he is clearly old and passed his prime. No question. He might be worse next year than he was in '06. But he might be better. And even though he was hurt, he still threw 205 innings. And, best of all, after next year, he's off the books -- he's a one-year committment right now, to a team that doesn't care about money anyway.

Trading him might be a good move, depending on what you get back. But not because of his salary. They don't care about his salary. I promise, they don't.

So let's see what Mikey's plan is.

[$16 million] just happens to be the annual salary Zito, the premier free agent on the market, wants for each of the next six years...Zito is still on the good side of 30 and has never had injury problems. He’s not the same pitcher who won the Cy Young four years ago, but he’s still the best starter available and one of the best lefties in the game. In other words, he’s exactly the kind of pitcher the Yankees need to continue to control the AL East; exactly the kind of guy they’ve always pursued with the single-minded determination of a border collie chasing a Frisbee.

First of all, sweet metaphor. Second: Barry Zito wasn't the ace on his own team. His OPS-against over the last three years is basically idenitical to that of Mike Mussina, to whom you are about to refer as: ...39 and losing effectiveness. (He also has like 2.5 times as many BBs as Mussina in that time frame.) Zito's pretty good, but a #1? Seriously?

[The Yankees] aren’t going to win the World Series without a couple of top young arms in the starting rotation. Wright wasn’t it. Carl Pavano shows no signs of being the man, either. Johnson is old and very hittable. Chien-Ming Wang is a terrific number two or three starter, but he’s not an ace. Mike Mussina is 39 and losing effectiveness...[R]ight now, the Yankees need a number one. Zito could be that man. And if Randy Johnson can be made to disappear, the Yankees could have the money to sign him.

Wang is a way better candidate for a #1 than Zito right now. I don't know how he does it, with his like 0.04 K/IP, but he does it. That power sinker is something to behold. Zito is a flyball pitcher who walks a ton of dudes, and he'd be making 30% of his starts against the Sox and Blue Jays. And they'd have to sign him for 6 or 7 years.

Also, again, the Yankees have enough money to sign him regardless. They have enough money to sign anyone. That is not the reason to move RJ. And where is the section of this article where you discuss the oft-cited rumors that RJ wants out of NY? I mean, the guy has a no-trade, so in order for these discussions even to be happening, he kind of has to want out, right? And where's the obvious counter-point that if they do not pay Boras/Zito $100 million over 7 years, they would have that money, plus the RJ-off-the-books money to pay for Carlos Zambrano, a far better pitcher than Zito, when he becomes a free agent in 2007? Are you going to talk about that, Mike?

Mike?

He's gone.

Okay. Back to "The Wire."

Labels: barry zito, HatGuy, mike celizic, randy johnson, yankees

n/t

Labels: rachel nichols, santa claus

Please remember that one of the men who gets to decide whose plaques will grace the Hall is none other than Hatguy.

Happy Chanukah!

Labels: hall of fame, HatGuy

Hey everyone. Ol' Kenny T. is heading back to the East Coast for some family time. My Department Head here at Fremulon Insurance (Rick Basket -- good guy, die-hard Cards fan) was kind enough to give me and Mrs. Tremendous a full 2 weeks off for the holidays. I will, as always, be on the lookout for terrible sports journalism, but in case I don't post again for a while, I wanted to wish you and yours a Happy Holiday Season!

Sincerely,

Ken T.
Senior Pension Plan Monitor
Fremulon Insurance,
Partridge, KS

Labels: fremulon insurance

I'd sneak into the MSNBC.com offices and toss Mike Celizic's freelance writing submission in the incinerator.

Here's what he'd do:

What if we all had do-overs in sports?

Everybody makes mistakes, but not everybody admits them. And, when you get high enough up in a hierarchy, getting someone both to admit to a mistake and then correct it can be like spending your days down at the docks waiting for the Titanic to come in.

That's the opening paragraph. Yikes. "When you get high enough up in a hierarchy?" "...getting someone both to admit to a mistake and then correct it can be like..." Is that English?

And what is that analogy? The Titanic? Seriously? The only thing hackier than making a reference to the Titanic as a classic disaster is making a reference to New Coke.

That’s why it was so refreshing to hear NBA commissioner David Stern not only admit that his beloved high-tech synthetic basketball was a bigger mistake than New Coke

Oh my holy Lord.

but also order the microfiber ball banished at the turn of the new year and replaced with the familiar cowhide sphere the players know and love.

For Stern, it was a do-over. And seeing it happen had to make a lot of people wish there were more mulligans in sports, because the landscape of the games we pay to see other people play is littered with the kind of mistakes that cry out for correction.

The first thing I thought of that could and should have been corrected in the first two months after it was introduced was the designated hitter. The American League came up with that abomination in 1973, and it should never had made it to 1974.

Pretty sure that should read: "...should never have made it..."

That’s just my opinion

It's not iron-clad mathematical fact? You have misled me, sir!

and I recognize that many baseball fans whose powers of reason are otherwise in tip-top order believe the DH is the greatest thing to happen to baseball since beer vendors.

Mike Celizic writes like a man who has seen witty, urbane, humorous men speak in old movies and television shows and is trying to imitate them, but who dropped out of school in 8th grade and drinks a lot of really cheap brandy every morning at 11:00. And wears a funny hat.

But there are a lot of other situations that everyone would agree would have benefited greatly if teams and individuals could do it all over again...

I’m pretty sure the day will come when Michelle Wie will wish she’d have put off turning pro until a couple of years after her Sweet 16 party and concentrated on winning in the women’s game before taking on the men.

Really? She's still like 17 or something and is super super rich, and famous, partly (largely) because she got a lot of press for playing with men.

If Brett Favre could do it all over again, he might want to revoke his decision to play one more year with the Packers instead of either retiring or asking for a trade to a team that could actually play football.

Maybe. The Packers are terrible. But that dude really likes playing football. And you really think he would ask to be traded? Really?

These are the best examples of "Mulligans People Would Like To Take In Sports?" Not like Jean Van de Velde at the 1999 British Open? Or Mike Martz running Marshall Faulk more in the 2002 Super Bowl? Or the Trail Blazers taking Sam Bowie over Jordan in the draft? No? You're going with "Michelle Wie shouldn't have turned pro?" and "Bret Favre should have asked for a trade?" Okay. Hennessy's in the cabinet, Mike -- help yourself.

If we could only hit control-Z for life’s well-intentioned blunders

You know he just learned how to do that on his computer.

how much easier would it be? Alex Rodriguez could have reversed his trade to the Yankees and found a home in a city with more adoring media and fans. And the Houston Texans could have decided a month into the season that they were going to take either Vince Young or Reggie Bush after all and let somebody else have Mario Williams.

ARod, maybe. Texans, definitely. Now you're cooking with gas, Celizic!

Pete Rose could go back to when he agreed to a life-time ban and started confessing his sins right then and there.

This is effing genius. Pete Rose would not go back to the first moment he bet on baseball and decide not to bet on baseball. He would go back to the moment he agreed to the lifetime ban for betting on baseball and apologize. Excellent plan.

If the NHL’s players association had the ability to go back and fix a bad decision, we would have had a hockey season in 2004-2005. Same thing for major league baseball had the players had the ability to say, “oopsie,” and ask for another shot at getting it right in 1994.

I know that 22 years later, Portland still wants to throw Sam Bowie back into the NBA draft pool and take that Michael Jordan fellow who went third to the Bulls.

There it is. Right after "the NHL shouldn't have struck in 2004." Well placed.

Back in 1979, the entire National Football League ignored a pretty good college quarterback because of what they thought was certain knowledge that the kid was a little too small and didn’t have a strong enough arm for the big time. Finally, in the third round, the 49ers wasted a pick on Joe Montana, who worked out all right in the end.

Here's my problem with this: Yes, obviously, all those other teams would have loved to have had Montana. But is it a "blunder" not to have taken him? No. He happened to be the perfect fit for the newly-designed Bill Walsh offensive juggernaut in San Francisco. But that doesn't mean he would have been just as awesome for the Browns or something.

To me, a "blunder," a thing you should want to take a mulligan for, is a thing that everyone in the world can see is a mistake, but you ignore them and do something else. Like not drafting Jordan. Or not drafting Reggie Bush. Or not pulling Pedro in Game 7 in 2003. Sometimes things happen that are very unexpected -- like, say, Tom Brady turning out to be a great QB. But the fact that Tom Brady turned out to be a great QB doesn't mean that all the other teams blew it by not drafting him before the 6th round. Because that would mean the Pats themselves actually blew it like 5 times. See?

Tom Brady, like Montana, was passed up repeatedly before going in the sixth round to the Patriots.

Oh. You don't see.

If life came with do-overs, Grady Little could go back and pull Pedro Martinez before the Yankees could come back and win the 2003 ALCS. Leon Lett could run across the goal line in the Super Bowl with his fumble recovery before holding the ball out for Don Beebe to knock loose.

Pedro thing: absolutely. Lett thing: embarrassing, but the Cowboys won that game like 78-4.

Ara Parseghian could have gone for the win against Michigan State in 1966.

Look, I hate ND. But this famous slam on Parseghian is a mystery to me. The Irish had lost like three guys (Nick Eddy, their QB Hanratty, and someone else who I am too tired to look up) and their back-up QB was (I believe) diabetic or something and was like vomiting from exhaustion. And the next week they beat USC 300-0 and won a share of the national title. Maybe the more manly thing would have been to try to score, but I kind of don't blame the guy for playing for the tie. Neither here nor there.

Ralph Branca could throw a different pitch to Bobby Thomson.

Sure.

John McNamara could have put in a late-game defensive replacement for Bill Buckner.

Dave Stapleton was ready and willing. You're on a roll, Mikey!

Dennis Eckersley could have pitched around Kirk Gibson.

Oops.

Pitched around him? Gibson hadn't played in forever and had like 3 bad knees, and Eck's ERA was like 0.000003 and there were two outs and a guy on first and Steve Sax was on deck. Pitched around him? Are you serious?

Maybe you can argue he shouldn't have thrown a backdoor slider on 3-2. But you cannot argue, ever, that Eck should have "pitched around him."

Mike Tyson could decide to find a protein source that wasn’t attached to Evander Holyfield’s head.

Hilarious.

If only it were as easy for all of us as it was for David Stern.

If only you would retire and run a men's haberdashery, like you are destined to do.

Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic

For what promises to be the best book of all-time.

Labels: david eckstein

Eric from the great state of Indiana writes in to correct my ad hominem attack on Eckie:

I watched most of the show tonight, and the "Row Row Row Your Boat" question was the "play along at home" text message question (or whatever the hell they call it - I'm not a regular viewer). That question wasn't on the actual show on which Li'l David appeared. I know because when I saw he was on I decided to watch until he missed a question. I have no idea when or if he missed a question, but one minute he was there and the next he was gone. I suspect NBC edited his failure out so as to not crush the hopes and dreams of all the other tiny people out there.

It will be hard to know what really happened, because as soon as the 1 Vs. 100 episodes are finished taping, the master tapes are sent to a vault in the Smithsonian, not to be opened for 1000 years, and the text of the shows are etched onto titanium plates, which are then attached to satellites and blasted into space in an attempt to show aliens what our culture is really all about. But my guess is that Eck just flat-out hustled his way off the show, like he always does.

Did you guys know he's only like 5'7"?

Labels: 1 vs 100, david eckstein

FJM is a site dedicated to the debunking of poor sports journalism and analysis, using strict statistical analysis and common sense. Except when it comes to Derek Jeter, when we suddenly reverse course and get upset that he did not help ARod out in the media and thus should not have been MVP. (He should have been MVP. Relax. We're kind of kidding.) (Kind of.)

However, we are also not above non-baseball-related ad hominem attacks on David Eckstein. He's got the heart of a champion. He can handle it.

Loyal reader Ludicrous Pat files this report on a little guy we all know and love, and his recent appearance on the NBC Non-Event Game Show Non-Extravaganza "1 Vs. 100":

The question was, "What word is repeated the most in "Row your boat"

a) Row

b) Boat

c) Merrily

Merrily with 4 beats Row with 3 and Boat with 1, but even though almost everyone got it right, Mr. Eckstein, the -- as the show proclaimed -- "World Series MVP," got it wrong.

But he got it wrong with grit and hustle.

That last line will be on Eck's gravestone. When he dies hustling to the dinner buffet at his retirement home at the age of 180.

Does anyone still wonder why we are tough on Derek Jeter for not standing up for ARod this past year?

Here's a recent article where Derek Jeter talks about ARod:

Recently, the Yankees Captain has been hit with some misguided criticism that he should come out stronger in his defense of Alex Rodriguez...

"That's exactly what I said," Jeter calmly explained. "I said the only thing I wasn't going to do was tell the fans who they should boo and who they shouldn't boo."

And here's an article from 2005 where Derek Jeter talks about Jason Giambi:

Then Jeter took the opportunity to stand up for Giambi, who was booed so loudly after he struck out in the eighth inning it was hard to hear public address announced Bob Sheppard announce the next hitter. Jeter implored Yankees fans to stop booing Giambi.

"The fans have to start cheering for him," Jeter said. "If you're a Yankee fan, you want us to win and we need Jason ."

One more time: 2006, re: ARod:

"I said the only thing I wasn't going to do was tell the fans who they should boo and who they shouldn't boo."

And 2005, in re: Giambi:

Jeter implored Yankees fans to stop booing Giambi. "The fans have to start cheering for him," Jeter said. "If you're a Yankee fan, you want us to win and we need Jason ."

The end.

Labels: arod, derek jeter, intangibles