FJM has gone dark for the foreseeable future. Sorry folks. We may post once in a while, but it's pretty much over.
You can still e-mail dak,Ken Tremendous,Junior,Matthew Murbles, or Coach.
Go here. Scroll down, and look at what the Baseball Prospectus PECOTA system predicted would be the final standings for this season in MLB. (Look also what Nate Silver's personal system predicted -- it's just to the right of the final PECOTA predictions.)
Then send the PECOTA computer a nice email and tell it how smart it is, and that you celebrate it, because it has a very fragile ego, the computer does, and it needs a lot of praise.
It's not perfect. But then again, nothing is, and this is pretty damn good. For a computer.
(Note: BP is a subscription site, so the link will not work if you're not a member. We have no affiliation at all with BP, but I do recommend joining. It's really fun to look at what PECOTA predicts for various players.)
Several of you sent in this bizarro-world pearl of wisdom from my close friend Tim McCarver during today's Fox broadcast:
"We had our friends at Stats, Inc. check and see whether more multi-run innings came with a lead off homer or a lead off walk. You would think that a lead off walk would lead to more big innings than a lead off home run. Not true. A lead off home run, this year, has lead to more multi-run innings than lead off walks. It's against conventional thinking."
It's against conventional thinking. Really.
In my mind, conventional thinking on this subject goes like this: if the first hitter in the inning scores one run all by himself, it's more likely that his team will score two+ runs that inning than if he does not. Because in that situation, in order to achieve a multiple-run inning, the team has only to score one additional run. Instead of two runs. See how that works?
McCarver has been obsessed with this subject before. Do a search for him on this very blog, and you will find some real gems.
I like to imagine the guy at Stats, Inc. who had to field that call.
McCarver: So, basically, we want to know which situation leads to more multiple-run innings. A lead-off home run, or a lead-off walk.
Chet, Over at Scouts Inc.: ...Who is this?
McCarver: Timothy Chadwick McCarver, sir, at your service.
Chet: And you want to know whether a team is more likely to score two runs in an inning --
McCarver: Correct.
Chet: -- if the lead-off guy homers, as opposed to walking?
McCarver: Correct.
Chet: It's if he homers.
McCarver: How did you research that so fast? I didn't even hear typing.
Chet: Okay. Hang on. (Sound of obviously fast and nonsensical typing for two seconds) Yup, there it is. It's if he homers.
McCarver: I'll be the son of a monkey's uncle! That goes against conventional thinking!
Chet: I don't think you know what those words mean.
It's almost October, people. Soon, we'll get all McCarver, all the time. Buckle up.
Our dear friend Ronny Dubs points us to this disturbing recap from the Boston Globe.
"So much for wearing these clothes home," Francona cracked, the beer-and-champagne mix dripping down his bald head, into his eyes, past his chin, and onto the red underclothes that he still wore.
But that was nothing compared to the double dose of champagne Theo Epstein took from Schilling and Papelbon, an explosion of the sticky liquid sending him shooting across the clubhouse floor, with Schilling whispering a warning to reporters standing close to watch out.
Dave Krieger of the Rocky Mountain News just wrote an article riddled with ludicrous assumptions and just plain shoddy research. It's called:
Inexperience has its cost for Rockies
I forgive Dave, though, because without doing any fact-checking or investigative action I'm going to assume he's a rookie writer fresh off the turnip truck from journalism school. I will also willfully ignore his headshot.
The kid Rocks that stayed for the postmortem insisted it didn't affect them. The packed house, the playoff atmosphere, the biggest game any of them had played in a Colorado uniform.
The Rockies just got beaten by likely Cy Young runner-up Brandon Webb, 4-2. After winning 11 straight. Those choking kids!
It's possible, I guess. Psychoanalysis from the press box is worth less than it costs, which in this case is 75 cents.
At least Krieger, who is 11 years old, admits this much. This article was originally submitted to the Victoria Elementary Wildcat News. (These are guesses based on the text.) Still, there were Rocks at-bats Friday night that did not resemble the confident plate appearances of their magic September carpet ride:
• Troy Tulowitzki striking out on a pitch in his eyes, looking for all the world like he was trying to hit the ball to Montana.
"Chased a pitch I probably shouldn't have swung at, but he was tough," Tulowitzki said of Diamondbacks ace Brandon Webb.
Webb has never struck out anyone with big-game experience. It's a tragic flaw in his game.
• Todd Helton coming up with Matt Holliday in scoring position in the eighth, one out, and rolling the ball to the pitcher on a first-pitch check swing.
Todd Helton! What a naif! This diaper dandy just learned to put on his own baseball pants! Inexperience has its cost, Helton. Wait a decade or two -- your time will come, kid.
• Yorvit Torrealba sacrificing a runner to third with one out in the seventh, down two runs, and Cory Sullivan striking out when all he needed to do was put the ball in play.
I mean, these guys are just bad. Okay, Cory Sullivan isn't terrible, I guess. Mediocre.
The fact is the Rocks have not been here before and experience matters in baseball's big games. As an organization, the Diamondbacks have played many more big games than the Rocks.
Yes, these D-backs sure are experienced. What with dueling aces Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson leading them to the promised land, Luis Gonzalez galvanizing the clubhouse, manager Bob Brenly at the helm, to say nothing of grizzled vets Mark Grace, Matt Williams, Steve Finley and Jay Bell grounding the team with years of wisdom ...
Wait. Oh, shit. Wait. I'm looking at the box score from last night. It's 2007. Fuck. Oh my god. These guys are like babies. They're like zygotes and shit.
The 2007 Diamondbacks are notorious for how young and inexperienced they are. Chris Young, Stephen Drew, Mark Reynolds, Conor Jackson ... these guys are rookies or damn near it. Justin Upton is 20 years old -- he couldn't drink the champagne at the division-clinching celebration!
This is the best part. Hey Dave Krieger, Mr. "As an organization, the Diamondbacks have played many more big games than the Rockies," you know how many postseason games the individual Diamondbacks who played Friday night have experienced?
Six. They were played by Tony Clark, who had one pinch hit at bat last night. He made an out despite his big game experience.
** EDIT ** Nope. The answer is 15. Six by Tony Clark, nine, in fact, by Eric Byrnes. Fire me! ** END EDIT **
Exactly zero of the other players besides Clark and Byrnes -- Webby, Jeff Cirillo, Augie Ojeda, crazy Jose Valverde -- have played in the playoffs.
But "as an organization" -- shut up! You think putting on the magical snake uniform (which is different from the ones in 2001, by the way) transfers big game experience through your skin by osmosis or something?
Justin Upton was born in 1987!!!
Meanwhile, Todd Helton has played in 1575 games. 5653 major league at bats. This guy knows how to fucking play baseball, no matter what the situation. He's amazing. Even though he's lost a lot of power, he OBPed .431 this year. You're saying because he hasn't been swept in a divisional series before he suddenly forgets know how to hit the baseball on September 28th?
Well, chalk it up to a green writer writing his first article about anything, ever. Give Krieger a few more years. He's only five years old. He just learned what letters are. Frankly, it's astounding that he put together this little piece full of ridiculous speculation. I look forward to your future output, little Davey. Maybe by 2029, you'll be able to generate a coherent sports column.
I know it's like deliberately goofy and stuff, but I just love the title of this gem by Bryan Burwell, published 2 days ago over at MSNBC.
A little more than a year ago, the [Cardinals] were on an unconscious roll toward an unlikely World Series title and this ballpark was alive with championship noises.
No. A little over a year ago, the Cards were finishing up a shitty 12-16 September and limping into the playoffs.
Down in Miami, the first-place (NL Central) Cubs are battling all sorts of ghosts, curses and have been swept by the suddenly feisty Marlins, and because they are the Cubs, we are almost positive that some cruel and unusual punishment will befall Cubdom once again. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but over the next three days, the sky will fall and there will be a darned little blue bear smashed on the pavement.
Cubs won tonight, 6-0. 2.5 game lead with two to play as I type this.
This is why sports are fun. This is why the wild card is one thing Bud Selig got right. I love the wild card. I love the idea that seven teams cannot fit into four NL slots. I love that it’s a mad scramble and it’s impossible to tell how it will all end.
Except that you "know" that the Cubs will collapse, because they are the victims of a curse.
Twice a day — maybe more — Lou Pinella, the Cubs manager, keeps telling anyone who will listen that his team will not fall victim once again to a century’s worth of bad fortune. He swears the Cubs will hold on to their division lead. He swears that the long-suffering Cubs fans will not add another horrid chapter to a 99-year-old legacy of torment and heartache.
“There is no curse,” Piniella said before Tuesday’s game.
The Cubs then went out and lost a two-hitter to the worst team in the National League, 4-2.
Only explanation for a 4-2 loss: supernatural forces.
Time is running out, and if I was a betting man,
"Were." Hypothetical subjunctive, man. Come on.
here’s what I’d put my money on:
The Mets will hold to their division lead.
Mets lost today. Phillies won. Mets are a game out.
The Cubs will not. There is a curse. There is a curse.
Again, Cubs won. I am watching the Brewers lose to San Diego right now. That will mean a three game lead for the Cubs with two to play. That will mean a division win for the Cubs. Unless...........the curse should strike! And add more games!!!!
Philadelphia will find its way into the playoffs, and Charlie Manuel will save his job and win manager of the year.
Yes. They will probably win their division, beating those selfsame Mets you said would not collapse.
The Brewers win the NL Central because they finish the season at home, where they are 20 games above .500.
The Brewers have lost the NL Central.
The Colorado Rockies will win the NL West, knocking off first-place Arizona with the season-closing series in Denver this weekend.
Colorado has lost the NL West. You didn't make these bets, did you?
A year ago, the last team you could have imagined won the World Series. The Cardinals finished the regular season with a paltry 83 victories. They lost 10 of their last 14 games, and had a seven-game losing streak that stretched into the game’s final week.
You know, Bryan Burwell, a writer I very much admire once said this about the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals: "A little more than a year ago, the [Cardinals] were on an unconscious roll toward an unlikely World Series title and this ballpark was alive with championship noises." You know who that writer was? It was you, like five seconds ago. Please jibe the sentence you just wrote with the one you wrote five seconds ago.
Twelve months later, the mad rush toward October baseball is back in full affect. It doesn’t matter what we think. It doesn’t matter what insurmountable odds are piled up against these players. Miracles can happen and usually do.
Except for the Cubs.
There is a curse. There really is.
No, there is not. There is no such things as curses. Just as there is no such thing as hobgoblins, wood sprites, Poseidons, Giant Aardwolves, Godzillas, orcs, teeth fairies, psychics, daemons, or true Yankees.
The Cubs just won the Central. The curse is reversed!!!!!!!
Just kidding. They know more about playing their sport than I'll ever know about anything, probably. But here's a funny player poll on SI.com.
Which individual hitting statistic is the most meaningful?
Runs Batted In....41% On-base percentage.....19% Batting average.....13% On-base plus slugging.....11% Runs.....6% Home Runs.....4% RISP Average.....2% Slugging.....1% Two-out RBIs.....1% Strikeouts (Batter).....1%
I want to know the joker who voted for two-out RBIs. Bill Hall? Akinori Iwamura? Joba? Smells like Joba to me.
The correct answer, of course, is none of the above. (Believe it or not, Manny Ramirez answered "I typically use a combination of EqA, VORP, WPA and WARP, with the last including a fielding component that I'm not entirely sure about." He then donned a corduroy suit and drove off in a steam-powered hovercar.)
Was listening to the "home run calls of the day" or some such nonsense on sports radio today. One of the calls was from Texas. Sammy Sosa hits one out, and over the PA at the stadium they play the theme from The Natural.
Now, the Rangers are 17 games out of first. Their magic number is like negative 14. Sammy Sosa has just hit a home run to put the Rangers up 3-0 in the first inning. Is this really the time to cue up the song that might be the most dramatic melody in baseball?
And, more importantly...The Natural? For Sammy Sosa? Come one, dude who chooses the music at Ameriquest Field in Arlington. There have to be better options.
It's not particularly egregious. But savor it, people. Only a few left in 2007.
Andrei (NY, NY): HI Joe, Always love watching you on Sunday Night Baseball. I was wondering what your thoughts were on momentum heading into the postseason? Is it that important?
Joe Morgan: I've always thought it meant a lot, heading into the postseason, but last year, the Cardinals got in on the last day. Detroit played poorly down the stretch as well, and yet both of them made it to the World Series. Maybe the game has changed enough so that momentum doesn't mean as much as it did before.
Ken Tremendous: Someone with more time and a better work ethic than I might do some research into losing/winning streaks for playoff teams in September. I bet there's no correlation between winning streaks in September and WS wins in October. Remember when the Yankees lost like 19 out of 22 (I am wildly guessing) down the stretch in like 2000 and ended up with like 87 wins... and won the World Series? In a small sample size of one example that I kind of remember and won't bother to look up, I have just proved my theory.
Dan (Bronx, NY): Hey Joe, what do you think of Mike Mussina's turnaround? It looks to me like hes been able to concetrate better on the mound lately.
KT: Excellent use of "concetrate" Dan. Well done.
Joe Morgan: I don't know what to make of his turnaround. He is a veteran who has had ups and downs before, so he should know how to go back to fundamentals and get his game together. I'm surprised it took him so long to do that. We'll have to see how he pitches in the playoffs. As a veteran, he was able to figure it out for these last few starts.
KT: I like how there's no mention of the fact that Mussina took like a month off. Maybe that helped?
Doug (Mechanicsburg, Pa): With a week left, two teams tied and one team a game back for the NL Wild Card, Who do you think will win it Joe?
Joe Morgan: I would hedge towards philadelphia, but we know things change on a daily basis. I think Philly can win it with their offense. The Padres need to win it with their pitching, and Chris Young and Greg Maddux have not been pitching well. The Rockies have done a great job of getting back in the race, but I don't see them getting back in it.
KT: The Rockies have done a great job of getting back in the race. But: I don't see them getting back in [the race]. Solve that one, fuckers!
Liz ( Big Apple): I think it's unfair for Willie Randolph to take the fall of the Mets issues, and if they don't get in the playoffs why should he get fired and not omar?
Joe Morgan: Neither one will get fired, but I agree with you 100 percent. It's amazing to me; they have this same pitching staff all year, and he's in first place. Now that they don't know who will start day-to-day, it's his fault? I still think they will win their division, but I'm amazed at the heat he has taken when he's had so many injuries on his team. He should get more credit for leading that team to first place. He should be Manager of the Year, not the guy taking the heat. He and Bob Melvin of the Diamondbacks have done the best job managing in the league. KT: The Manager of the Year Award is a dumb species in an already dumb genus (awards), but if you're going to give it out, you pretty much have to give it to Melvin, right? Give it to the guy whose team inexplicably outperformed its pyth by like 84 games. Because: that fact is probably crazy luck, and if they played another 162 game season with the same crew they'd probably go 78-84, but on the off chance his managing somehow had anything to do with it, he wins. I just don't know how you can give it to a guy with a huge payroll whose team has fallen apart at the seams down the stretch. Justify that.
D. Malphabet (Bronx, NYC): Should the Yanks play Giambi at first base, or stick with a better defender for the playoffs?
Joe Morgan: It depends on who you're playing. If they end up playing Cleveland, where Carmona and Sabathia will start, runs will be at a premium, so you wouldn't put Giambi there. If you'll play a team like the Angels, then I think you have to try to score runs, because the Angels pitching staff won't shut you down.
KT: Just to reiterate: if you play the Indians, runs will be at a premium. But -- and here's where the difference lies -- if you play the Angels, then you will have to try to score runs.
Edge slightly to Cleveland, I guess, but it's thin. Game three starters are who, Westbrook or Byrd, and Weaver, maybe? Seems like a push. Bullpens? Both pretty good. I'd take KRod over Joe Borowski and his like 10.87 WHIP.
Mike(NY): Do you think the Mets should bring back Moises Alou or go with the kids in the outfield?
Joe Morgan: Moises Alou can hit.
KT: Moises Alou is 41, makes $7.5m, and has missed half the season with injuries. Yes, he is hitting .345/.396/.529. Which is amazing, really. But he is 41, and has missed half the season with injuries. Not too many 42 year-olds with awesome seasons.
He's always been a great hitter. It'll depend on what they end up with pitching-wise. If they can get good pitching, you need to go with defense out there. If not, you need offense. He's the most consistent
KT: Emphasis mine.
hitter on that ballclub. It all depends on the team makeup.
A lot also depends on whether he will turn 42 next year, which he will.
Paddy (St. Louis, MO): Hi Joe, I've heard 2008 will be Vin Scully's last season in the booth. Do you have any Scully stories, and will you have him as a guest next year?
Joe Morgan: I have stories, but I can't tell them!
KT: One hundred dollars to anyone with an awesome story involving Joe and Vin Scully. Two hundred if it involves cocaine.
Now pay attention, because this next one is fantastic.
Matt H. Denver, CO: Who do you think should win the NL MVP?
Joe Morgan: It hasn't been decided yet. If I had to pick one guy right now, it would be Jimmy Rollins. The MVP award doesn't say "most valuable on a winning team", it says "most valuable". I will contradict myself here by saying that if the Phillies make the playoffs, I would pick Rollins, and if the Brewers do so, I would pick Prince Fielder.
This is just loony. He typed the first part, and then spent the time to type out the contradiction part, then looked at it, decided against editing the first part, and hit "publish." A weird, diseased mind.
Phillip (Baton Rouge, LA): If you could have one player on your team past or present, excluding yourself, who would you want to go into the payoffs with?
KT: First of all, Phil, how could Joe not be on his own team? Second: don't look. Guess who he says.
Joe Morgan: I guess I would say Willie Mays, because he's the greatest player I've ever seen.
Were you right? I guessed Concepcion. He jujitsued me.
Joe Morgan: By next Tuesday, when we have the chat, we'll know who's in the playoffs, who's the NL MVP, and have a lot of other answers.
KT: No, as many of our readers have already pointed out, we will not. The awards are handed out post-postseason.
For years, the debate raged. There were clutch fundamentalists, clutchocaust deniers, the skeptical but clutch-curious...
Put down your halberds, boys. The war is over. You can thank Dave Sessions of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Clutch exists, and it can be defined by one statistic: RBI per home run. That's right. It was staring at us right in the face. What dummies we were! Dave?
The Academy Awards have the Razzies. So why doesn't baseball have a Least Valuable Player award?
To be fair, Dave, this doesn't really line up. You guys remember standardized test analogies, right? Wouldn't the correct analogy be:
Movies : Razzies :: Baseball : Least Valuable Player
Or Dave could've gone with:
Academy Awards : Razzies :: Most Valuable Player : Least Valuable Player
Who's bored already? Here's a random analogy, for fun:
Cardamom : Churlishness :: Igneous Rock : ???
Answer to come never. Here are our candidates, who can all take solace in the fact that they'll start 2008 with a chance at winning the Comeback Player of the Year award:
Everybody take a deep breath. Dave Sessions is about to name who he thinks are the least valuable players of 2007. Least. Lessest. If you had a graduated cylinder that measured baseball value in terms of volume of perchloric acid, these players would make the cylinder nearly empty of scalding fluid. Mr. Sessions, your first name is...
Barry Bonds, Giants
Oof. Maybe that's a typo. Maybe he meant to write "Ray Durham, Giants," or "Entire Team, Pirates." Let me take a second look. Nope. Still Bonds. The same Bonds who would lead the NL in OPS and all of MLB in OBP if he had enough at bats. This motherfucker has an OBP of damn near .500!
LVP.
Sure, he sold a lot of tickets in San Francisco when he hit homer No. 756* and his statistics are much too good to merit LVP selection.
Really. And yet he is the first goddamn name on your stupid list.
P.S. Very clever use of asterisk, will have to make mental note to use that in the future.
But even though he has hit 28 homers this season, he has only 66 RBI because 15 of his prodigious blasts were solo shots. A player's number of RBI per homer strikes us as a worthy measure of his ability to get the job done in clutch situations, and Bonds' average of 2.36 RBI/HR is the second-lowest among the majors' top 25 home run hitters this season.
Oh my Jesus fucking shitdick. So much to hate here. Let's start with "A player's number of RBI per homer strikes us" -- who the fuck is us? Dave Sessions and a lobster pinned to his forehead that speaks Portuguese into his ear?
Wait a minute. Could the reason that Barry Bonds doesn't have many RBI per home run be because no one fucking wants to pitch to him with runners on because he's arguably the best hitter of all time? Dave, you just nominated the best hitter of all time to be the Least Valuable Player. Because he's not clutch. In a season where he OPSed 1.401 with RISP and 2 outs.
Hey, you know what? With RISP, Barry Bonds had 76 at bats and 59 walks. No one pitched to him. Of course they didn't. At one point I believe Barry batted fourth in the Giants' lineup and a great auk batted fifth. It was amazing. The auk gave it his all but grounded out weakly to short.
Does anyone else think Dave Sessions has never seen Barry Bonds or any other human being play a baseball game? Has he not heard that the man is known to take a walk every so often because every pitcher on Earth fears him?
He's too fragile to play every day, he makes $15.5 million a year, and his team could wind up with the worst record in the National League.
There is an argument to be made that $15.5 million is too much to pay someone who doesn't play every day, especially if the franchise has a reasonable payroll. That argument has nothing to do with the ludicrous assumption that RBI/HR has anything to do with clutchitude or heart or balls or HIV-positivity.
P.S. Again: Seriously, Dave Sessions, what do you want Barry Bonds to do when guys throw the ball fifteen feet outside the strike zone? Throw his bat at the ball and hope for the best? Do what Miguel Cabrera did that one time and lean over and smack a double? (Actually, that would be pretty awesome.) You're a weird guy, Dave.
2. Bench Brian Westbrook, obviously. Even if he plays, I don't like an Andy Reid guy who was not in the first two full practices of the week. He won't be himself Sunday against the Leos.
Quick Revisiting of " I Guess I'm Hoping He Was Just Drunk?"
Because his delivery and timing has to be heard to be believed, here's Mike Patrick musing about Britney Spears at the climax of a huge football game. Pay special attention to Todd Blackledge's astonishment/disgust:
Also enjoyable: how serious Patrick gets when he has to interrupt his Britney talk with actual game-calling. "Georgia from the 25 ... " (Holy shit, holy shit, did anyone hear what I just said? Better make my voice extra-serious now. I hope no one heard. I'm going to get fired, aren't I? Serious voice, serious voice!)
"We needed this win. It would have been a huge blow to lose this game, especially after last night," Alex Rodriguez said. "It was like a heavyweight battle. You had the feeling that whoever batted last would get the win."
So...since the game was in New York...you were pretty sure you had it all the way, then?
Crowded FJM house chez Anthony Baseball. We got Junior, Coach, Jimmy Ballgame, Anthony Baseball, Anthony Baseball Sr., Murbles and dak all watching Alabama - Georgia on ESPN. Just waiting for the grill to get warm.
So. Alabama kicks a field goal to go up 23-20 in Overtime. Mike Patrick, apropos of absolutely zero, has something to say. Todd Blackledge plays the part of the baffled color man.
MP: "I have an important question. What is Britney doing with her life?" TB: "Who?" MP: "Britney!" TB: "...Britney who?" MP: "Spears! What is she doing with her career?" TB: "Why do we care at this point?...Is she here?" MP: "I don't think so." TB: "Is she a football fan?" MP: "Oh I'm sure she is." [two seconds pass] "Georgia from the 25."
Pags has a new little ditty over at The BaseLine Report. In this one, he lists every transaction Theo Epstein has made since he became the Sox' GM, and rates them on a scale of 1 to 10. I think he's just baiting us, frankly, but consider me baited.
1/14/03 Claimed 1B/OF Kevin Millar off unconditional release waivers from the Florida Marlins. The Sox pleaded with [Kevin Millar] for months not to go to Japan as if he were the second coming of Babe Ruth. Millar was brought in for his bat but after a solid first half of the 2003 season, struggled tremendously for the next two and a half seasons as a member of the Red Sox. Because of his personality and cozy relationship with both the media and the fans some of his shortcomings are overlooked. Millar was a well below average major league first baseman. He peeked in 2003 with 25 home runs but declined rapidly over his three years culminating in a 2005 season when he hit only nine home runs. Grade: 3.5
In 2004 Kevin Millar hit .297/.383/.474. An .857 OPS (117 OPS+). That's pretty effing good for $2.65m. In 2003 he made $2m and hit 25 HR. And in order to get him they pissed off some Japanese dudes but actually gave up: nothing.
My Grade for the Millar Deal: 7.0 My Grade for Pags' Evaluation: 38.8 (on the 115-point FJM Writing Scale)
7/29/03 Acquired RHP Scott Williamson from the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for minor league LHP Phil Dumatrait, a minor league player to be named and cash considerations.
This was theoretically the solution to the bullpen problem that had killed Boston all year long. This was easy to predict even before the season started when Epstein decided to Bill James’ “bullpen ace” model for the 2003 season...Maybe [Epstein] was too busy using up the sixth highest payroll in baseball to sign sabermetric studs like Jeremy Giambi and Kevin Millar to address the bull pen properly...Williamson takes the fall because this move symbolizes the lack of a shut down closer in the pen and the feeling that the Sox did not need to acquire one during the season. Grade: 1
It's hard to judge whether this is a good evaluation of the Williamson deal, because the smoke coming out of Pags' ears due to his fury at non-traditional thinking is clouding my keyboard. More on this insane misreading of Bill James' "Bullpen Ace" model in a minute. For now, allow me only to say that Phil Dumatrait is 26 and made his MLB debut this year, giving up a tidy 39 hits in his first 18 innings. So, I think we can say that this deal is not a "1," because Epstein didn't give anything up except cash. I will also add that in 2004, SWilly gave up 11 hits in 28.2 IP, posting a 388 ERA+. A very small sample size, to be sure, and the guy was always hurt and kind of unreliable. But he gave the '03 and '04 teams some crazy hi-leverage innings, and the image of people flailing at his ceiling-to-floor curve is one of my most lasting memories. (Save your emails, people. Not every single sentence I write has to be fact-based.)
If you're into stats instead of anecdotal musings: in the 2003 postseason, Williamson pitched in eight games, and went 2-0 with 3 saves. He threw 8 innings, giving up 3 hits, 1 run, 3 walks, and 14 (!) Ks. You're telling me that and the 28 innings he threw in 2004 wasn't worth Phil Dumatrait? Oh -- no, you're not. You're actually telling me that on the 10-point PagsScale that trade gets the worst possible score.
My Grade for Williamson: 7 My Grade for Pags' Write-Up of Williamson: -40 Trumpets (on the -500 to 600 Trumpet evaluation system; remember -- 355 is highest)
7/31/03 Acquired RHP Jeff Suppan, RHP Brandon Lyon and RHP Anastacio Martinez from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for INF Freddy Sanchez, LHP Mike Gonzalez and cash considerations.
This was a deadline day deal in which Epstein looked to bolster the starting rotation. The hope was to gain something in the short term while giving something up in the long term. Turned out they were half right: they gave up something in the long term. Suppan started ten games for the Sox and posted a 3-4 record with a 5.57 ERA. Sanchez on the other hand is a two time all star and also the 2006 NL batting champ with a .344 average. He was one of the most valuable prospects in the entire organization and was given up for a pitcher who ultimately hurt the Red Sox. While Suppan would later find some success in the national league, he was a huge bust in Boston and Theo totally misused one of his most valuable trading pieces. Grade: 2
A lot = bad about this. Yes, Suppan sucked after the trade. But he was the best available starter, and the Sox badly needed one. Second, Sanchez was a decent prospect, but he was blocked in the Red Sox system by Hanley Ramirez, so he was expendable. Third, this was actually a great deal, because originally the Sox were getting Mike Gonzalez, a lefty reliever who could have greatly helped them. I quote from Baseball America:
The Red Sox and Pirates accomplished two things with the trade on Thursday that sent Jeff Suppan, Brandon Lyon and Double-A righthander Anastacio Martinez to Boston and two Triple-A players, infielder Freddy Sanchez and lefthander Mike Gonzalez, plus $500,000 to Pittsburgh. The Red Sox got a much-needed starter in Suppan, while the Pirates got rid of his salary. Secondly, the teams straightened out their July 22 trade.
In that deal, Boston got Scott Sauerbeck and Gonzalez for Lyon and Martinez. The Pirates said Lyon had fraying in his elbow and placed him on the disabled list on July 25. The Red Sox maintained he was healthy and had pitched for them two days before the trade. The net effect of the two transactions is that Boston gets Sauerbeck and Suppan for Sanchez.
When the Bucs started hissing that Lyon had arm problems, the Sox essentially gave them Gonzalez back to soothe their huffy nerves. But the way Pags writes it up here, it seems like the Sox traded Gonzalez and Sanchez for Suppan, which = no. Also, getting to two All-Star Games when you play for the Pirates doesn't mean very much at all, methinks.
My Grade for the Suppan Trade: 4 My Grade for "3:10 to Yuma," Which I Saw Last Night, on the 1-18 Pagliarulos Scale: 14 Pagliarulos
11/14/03 RHP Mike Timlin to a one-year contract.
Epstein game Timlin a two and a half million dollar deal to help improve the bull pen. Timlin was a veteran pitcher who helped with a lot of the younger arms in the pen. On the field he was a reliable, but not shut down, middle relief pitcher. His playoff experience would prove to be valuable down the stretch. Grade: 5
In 2003 Mike Timlin threw 83 innings with a 133 ERA+ and a 65/9 K/BB ratio and a 1.02 WHIP. How is that not a "shut down" middle reliever? That's a better WHIP than Frankie Rodriguez has had in 3 of the last 4 years. And 83 innings is a lot of innings. In 2004 he threw 76 innings with a 1.23 WHIP. Not overwhelming, but pretty good. And by the way, that deal in 2003 was for $850,000 plus incentives. $2.5m was for 2004. So for $850,000, Theo got a guy with a WHIP of 1.02 over 83 innings. That's a really really really good deal. And every year since, he's been on a 1-year deal, so there's no long-term commitment. Also, as if I need to keep going, the guy's got a 1.12 WHIP in 57 innings this year at age 41. What don't you like about the Timlin deal, dummy?
My Grade for the Timlin Deal: 8 My Grade on my Junior Year AP History Report on the Role of "Neo-Yellow Journalism" in U.S. Involvement in Central American Military Conflicts: A-minus
12/13/03 Signed free-agent RHP Keith Foulke to a three-year deal that includes a vested option for a fourth year.
Real quick: the answer is 9. Maybe 8, but almost definitely 9. Keith Foulke should have been the ALCS MVP. He might have been the Sox' team MVP for 2004. His 2005 and '06 were disappointing and injury-riddled, but the guy was lights-out in the regular season, and sold out his body and soul in some of the most hi-lev innings in team history in the playoffs and came through every single time. So, 8-9, and I'd even kick it up to 10 if I were feeling saucy.
Foulke was brought to Boston to be the permanent shut down closer that the Sox decided they didn’t need in 2003. This was blatantly admitting that Bill James’s “bullpen ace” model just didn’t work.
No. No, sorry. That's not true. Foulke was a "bullpen ace," and the actual theory is that the bullpen ace shouldn't always just pitch the ninth inning no matter what the situation is, but rather should be used in the most hi-lev situations, be they in the 6th, 7th, 8th, what have you. So, no, acquiring a bullpen ace was not "blatantly admitting" that the "bullpen ace" model didn't work; it was an attempt to get a better bullpen ace in order to more effectively use the "bullpen ace" model. And maybe if you had thought about what you were writing for ten nanoseconds, or had bothered to read about the theory, you wouldn't have embarrassed yourself by writing that.
Foulke was being paid like a premium closer making over eighteen million dollars in his three years. Unfortunately he only pitched like a premium closer for one year. Foulke was everything he was supposed to be in 2004 and exceeded all expectations when he dominated the post season opposition. He had a miserable season in 2005 and by the first week of the 2006 season he had lost his job to Jonathan Papelbon. While Foulke has to be given credit for the 2004 championship, he was being paid for three years and only performed in one of them. The Sox did not get good value for Foulke at all. Grade: 4
How can you say they did not get value for Foulke? They gave up nothing but cash, and in 2004 they got a .94 WHIP in 83 innings. Then, in a postseason that featured back-to-back extra inning games with the Yankees, when the margin for error was exactly zero, he threw 14 innings, giving up 7 hits, and getting 19 Ks. He gave up one run in those 14 innings.
Keith Foulke won the World Series for the Red Sox. I'm not kidding. Go here and read about what he did in the ALCS, if you don't believe me. They never get out of that series -- not even close -- if not for Keith Foulke. The rest of his tenure fell flat, but that one year was easily worth $18m. Easily.
My Grade for the Foulke Deal: 9 My Grade for the Folk Implosion Album "Dare to be Surprised": 6.8
12/16/03 Acquired IF Mark Bellhorn from Rockies for a player to be named.
Bellhorn was almost the same player as Todd Walker. He was below average defensively and had no range at all. Offensively he was a downgrade. While he did come up with some big hits in the 2004 playoffs, he often went through painful droughts where he wouldn’t be able to hit the ball for weeks at a time. The one positive of the Bellhorn deal was that he came cheap and the Sox were able to get away with him at second for one year. Grade: 4.5
Theo Epstein paid Mark Bellhorn $490,000 in 2004 and he gave them 6.4 WARP3. Plus, the dude was so the Anti-ARod, banging a key 3-run homer in Game Six of the ALCS against the Yankees in New York. And then another go-ahead late-inning dong in WS Game One. ARod would never do that because he is a choker! He chokes and Bellhorn did not. Bellhorn is better than ARod. Jeter Rules!
($490,000 for six and a half wins = well done, Mr. GM.)
12/17/04 Signed SS Edgar Renteria to a four-year contract with a club option for 2009.
This was a classic case of Theo looking only at the talent of a player and not taking into account the player’s make-up and how he would fit into the team. Edgar Renteria is an above average major league shortstop, but he could not play in Boston.
And what, exactly, about Edgar Renteria's past would have indicated this to be the case?
The entire season was a mess all around. At the plate he hit .276 and racked up 100 strikeouts while putting up weak power numbers. He wasn’t any better in the field committing a career worst thirty errors. However, it was letting go of Cabrera that was more of a problem than signing Renteria. Cabrera’s career has taken off since his time in Boston and every Sox fan still dreams of him playing shortstop for the Sox.
I do not dream of that thing.
OCab 2005 EqA: .255 Renteria 2005 EqA: .263
I loved OCab in the stretch run of 2004, because he was fun and energetic and played good defense and did funny handshakes with every member of the team, and also because they traded Nomar to get him, and if I didn't distract myself constantly by saying "Cabrera is good!" I would've ended up crying a lot. Cabrera put up some great AB in the postseason. But if he had been signed to a big 4-year deal, and had put up OPS+ of 82, 95, and 101 in the next three years (like he's done in LA), the love affair would've ended right quick.
Renteria got paid like one of the best shortstops in the game but his play was far from that assessment. Like his former manager Tony La Russa predicted, Renteria struggled mightily under the pressure of Boston. Grade: 1
Yes. We should all listen to Tony La Russa more. That's the problem.
My Grade for the Renteria Deal: 2 My Grade for Tony La Russa -- Just, Like, An Overall Grade for His Whole "Deal": 0
12/23/04 Signed RHP Wade Miller to a one-year contract.
This was a puzzling move. Epstein decided to take a risk on the often injured Miller. Miller lived up to his reputation making only sixteen starts on the year due to injury. He had a 4-4 record with a 4.95 ERA, average numbers at best. Grade: 2.5
It was a 1 year, $1.5m contract laden with incentives. For a guy who at one point was dominant. And for whom they had zero expectations. It didn't work out. They non-tendered him. These are exactly the kind of deals that teams with money to throw around should be making.
My Grade for the Wade Miller Deal: Eh My Wade for the Grade Diller Meal: N/A (nonsense)
There's more of this crap, but I'm going to dinner now. (I do like how he labels the Lugo and Drew deals as "1"s, after one year of 4- and 5-year deals, respectively.)
I'm not even going to write introductions to these things anymore. What's the point? They're all the same.
A-ROD'S CLUTCH SHOWING WEAR
By BRIAN COSTELLO
MR. AUGUST: As the season has cooled off, so has Alex Rodriguez' bat.
Sigh.
Just to short-circuit this whole argument:
Alex Rodriguez, last three years: 1778+ AB, .945 OPS. In September: 291 AB, .995 OPS.
And: drum-roll, please...
This September: .333/.419/.730/1.149.
I am not making this up, people. This idiot is claiming that Alex Rodriguez's bat has gone cold, in a month where he has a fucking .730 SLG and an OPS of 1.149, with 8 HR in 63 AB.
His bat has gone cold. He has an OPS of 1.149.
Justify this, New York Post. I will give you a billion dollars if you can justify this claim.
Signs of Fall are everywhere. The temperature has dipped, leaves are beginning to change colors and Alex Rodriguez looks tighter than Britney Spears' pants.
If Johnny Carson were alive, and still hosting TheTonight Show, and you submitted this joke to him, you would be fired. Come to think of it, if Jay Mohr were doing stand-up at the Ice House in Pasadena and you offered him this joke for free, he would throw a drink in your face.
Also, Alex Rodriguez is "tight" to the tune of a 1.149 OPS this month you terrible hacks.
The Yankee third baseman went 0-for-4 last night, making him 3-for-29 in his last eight games.
Can I just say something about Alex Rodriguez? And thank you, Brian Costello, for bringing this up, because I have been wanting to say this for a while: Alex Rodriguez is a total dick. I'm serious. What other player in baseball would have the gall to go 3 for 29 over an eight game stretch? That is selfish. Do you guys know how much money he makes? I just looked this up. He makes eleventy corbillion dollars a year. For that kind of money, you best not go 3 for 29 over an 8 game stretch. That is selfish and chokey. That is choke-ball. For eleventy corbillion dollars, you better go more like 15 for 29 over an eight game stretch while you also pitch and play three positions including catcher.
Alls I'm saying is, there's a little guy on the Yankees you might have heard of. His name is Derek Motherfucking Jeter. Yeah. You ever heard of him? He's the best athlete in earth's history except for maybe Jim Thorpe. And there is no way -- none -- that Derek Jeter would ever go 3 for 29 (!!!!!!) over an eight game stretch. Not while he's be-pinstripèd. Not while Monument Park is still standing. Not while Scott Brosius and Tino Martinez are--
Derek Jeter, September, thus far: .266/.347/.406. (Sep. 3-Sep. 14: 5-32, one double, no HR.)
-- stop interrupting me! Not while Scott Brosius and Tino Martinez are still breathing God's beautiful Lou Gehrig-flavored air. Until Alex Rodriguez realizes that, all the money in the world can't save his soul from burning in eternal hellfire, that cowardly prick. Also, Paulie O'Neill was the balls!
No one can knock the MVP-caliber season Rodriguez is having, but as he's learned in his first three years in The Bronx, his season ultimately will be measured by what he does during the Yankees' pennant chase and playoff run.
That stupid fact wouldn't have anything to do with...the media, would it?
Fortunately for Rodriguez, the Yankees have not needed his offense. Last night's 2-1 victory over the Orioles was their 12th win in 14 games. They have been winning in spite of the hole in the middle of their lineup wearing No. 13.
The hole in their line-up. The hole in their line-up. Give me a second. I just want to remember everything about this moment -- where I am sitting, what I am wearing, the temperature outside -- because this is the moment that Alex Rod was referred to as a hole in the Yankee line-up, because he had a bad eight games, in a year in which he leads his league in all meaningful (and most unmeaningful) categories.
Live this moment, people. This is real. This is happening to all of us. We are humans, here on earth, with feelings, and consciousness, and this is happening, right now, to us.
Rodriguez left the clubhouse without speaking to reporters.
Jerk.
He struck out in second inning against Brian Burres and again in the eighth against Chad Bradford. That ran his strikeout total to 15 since his last home run on Sept. 9 in Kansas City.
It also sent his EqA tumbling all the way down to .337. The best in the league.
On one of the strangest plays of the night, Rodriguez appeared to have a mental slip. In the fifth inning, he was at the plate with Doug Mientkiewicz at third and Bobby Abreu at first and two out.
Burres unleashed a wild pitch that sailed past catcher Ramon Hernandez and reached the backstop. Inexplicably, Rodriguez stayed in the right-handed batter's box as Mientkiewicz broke for home. Foreseeing a collision, plate umpire Mike Reilly grabbed Rodriguez by the arm and pulled him out of the way.
Graig Nettles never would have done that. Drew Henson would never have done that. Enrique Wilson never would have done that. And do I even have to mention that one Dr. Scotthew von Brosius never would have done that? Yes, I do. Scott Brosius never would have done that.
"There was a chance to be a play at the plate so I wanted him to move," Reilly said. "He was standing there. I grabbed his arm and said, 'Alex, I've got to see it.' "
Mientkiewicz said he didn't see Rodriguez standing there because he was running so hard.
"It would have been a double-negative," Mientkiewicz said. "I would have cleaned him out and gotten released tomorrow."
Sorry, are we still talking about this? This makes the news? ARod didn't immediately jump out of the way of Doug Malphabet as Malphabet charged home from 3rd on a wild pitch? This is worth ten column inches? This is proof of something?
Later in the at-bat, Rodriguez had his hardest-hit ball of the night, a long fly to left.
Asshole.
The Yankee Stadium crowd still has not turned on A-Rod, but you get the feeling that if he looks this bad in the playoffs the "MVP" chants will transform back into the boos he heard last season.
I have been Groundhog Day-ing this exact article all effing year, and allow me to say, here, in late September: I hope -- I pray -- that ARod fails miserably in the playoffs, because I dislike his team. And I hope that Yankee Stadium boos him mercilessly, because I want him to leave that team, because he is the best hitter in baseball. I am also interested in what happens if he has a repeat of the 2004 ALCS, where he goes like 8-31 or something...not great, not terrible. Because I think what would happen is: people would savage him anyway. In fact, if he goes 15-20 in the ALDS and the Yankees lose, I think the media would still write that he "still hasn't led his team to victory," and I would find that immensely pleasurable.
The next month may be the most important month in Rodriguez's career. His stay in pinstripes has been shadowed by what he's done in October. This year there is the added factor of him possibly opting out of his contract and leaving New York.
Weirdly, this is the end of the article. Oh well. At least the points he made were well-thought-out and insightful.
A .313 average, 52 home runs, 141 RBIs and 134 runs with two weeks to play? He is the best "hitter" in the game this year, without dispute.
Why is "hitter" in quotes? Is "hitting" an unimportant part of the equation? Sure, he's the best "hitter" in the game. But can he cook? And what's his high score on "Snood?" This is the "Best Player in Baseball" contest, man! Factor this shizz in!
However, defensively he lags behind pretty much any third baseman not named Troy and he's despised by opponents and teammates alike.
Is ARod the best player in MLB this season? No. Because he is despised by people. In order to be good at baseball you have to be well-liked. Take Ty Cobb, for example. Or Ted Williams -- a true mensch. Bob Gibson handed out turkeys to homeless dudes every Thanksgiving. Reggie Jackson was basically a father figure/therapist for his teammates. And Roger Clemens was voted "Sweetest" and "Girls' Choice for Brother" in the 2004 MLB Yearbook.
Also, for what it's worth, ARod is fine defensively. Not the best ever, but fine.
MLB's best player? Magglio Ordonez, Ichiro Suzuki, Vladimir Guerrero, Derek Jeter and a handful of others in the AL alone will split that vote. Apparently exotic dancers really like him though.
Terrible, terrible antecedent problem here, with the last sentence. Also..fuck the heck?
WARP3/EqA
Magglio: 10.6/.351 Ichiro: 11.4/.311 (with a like .435 SLG). Vlad: 8.5/.329 Jetes: 8.7/.294 ARod: 13.7/.361
Where, oh where, is the debate?
(EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that this Mooney fellow may just be a reader of the paper, not a writer. Not that it matters, in the long run.)
Matt (Brooklyn, NY): Mike Mussina. Wow, what a comeback! How on earth did he get his fastball up to 90 again? Will he or Hughes, or Kennedy (who has also been impressive), be in the postseason rotation?
Joe Morgan: I talked to Joe Torre before the game on Sunday and he has no idea what the rotation will be. And I have no ideas how he got his fastball back up there between starts, but he did and won the game.
Ken Tremendous: I like it when he's brash. I have no idea! Beats me! And as for the issue of the Yankees' postseason rotation -- I'm not even going to guess! Name as many people as you want -- Mussina, Hughes, Kennedy...I'm not going to guess on even one person. Because I don't have to. Because there are no repercussions for my actions. Next, please.
Derrick Cleveland Ohio: Did Cleveland basically clinch it last night? First Cavs, here comes the Tribe, and let's go Browns!
Joe Morgan: Well no one has clinched, but they are in better position and if you are a betting man you are feeling good about Cleveland. But Cleveland could lose a couple here, so don't get ahead of yourself. Obviously Cleveland looks good, but the Mets looked good a week ago.
KT: Yes, let's not get ahead of ourselves. For example, this site says that there is only a 99.96% chance of the Indians making the playoffs. So be cool, everyone. No celebrating yet.
Mr. Met (Queens, NY): Can you come teach my Mets how to play defense Mr. Morgan?
Joe Morgan: Too late to teach them! Defense is like hitting, it is contagious.
KT: Finish this old-school SAT question.
Defense is like _________. It is contagious.
A. pink eye B. seeing someone yawning and then yawning yourself C. a contagion D. Something that is not "contagious," like "hitting."
When you make mistakes pressure builds up. But it comes down to the individual and his ability to concetrate.
Okay, I'm not altering these at all. And I think -- as I asked in last week's chat -- that Joe believes the word is "concetrate."
Right now the Mets are not concetrating
See?
well on the task at hand. But if you look at the Mets, their offense is giving them the lead, even with the Phillies, and they just can't hold it. That is where the problem lies.
I think their problem lies in the fact that they're trying to concetrate, which is not a thing, and it's frustrating them because it isn't a thing you can do.
Adam, NY: Should Eric Gagne make the Red Sox post-season roster?
Joe Morgan: They put him in that position, and if they are not going to have him on the roster they better make the change today. You cannot let him pitch till the end of the season and then insert someone else in there, who is not used to that position.So if that is what you have to do, do it now, because the new pitcher needs to feel comfortable there.
KT: Good thing they have Okajima, who was the 8th inning guy all year. And Mike Timlin, who was the 8th inning guy for years before that. And Delcarmen, who has pitched in the 8th inning before. So, good analysis -- you only failed to mention three other options they have.
Josh W NY, NY: Who is going to win the NL West - Arizona or San Diego?
Joe Morgan: Well I do not have a crystal ball.
KT: What?! Then what is the point of these chats? I thought the whole point was that you were the one human in the world who could literally divine the future. That's what it says on the ESPN InSider page -- here, look:
Wednesday, September 19
The Morning Buzz, 10 a.m. Fantasy sports w/ Eric Karabell, 11 a.m. NFL with Christ Mortensen, 11 a.m. MLB Hall of Famer and Crystal Ball Owner and Augurer and Knower of That Which Is To Come; He Who Sees Forward, He Who Knows Forward, He Whose Pliant Mind Stretches Hither and Yon Across the Yawning Chasms of Time, He Who Is Everywhere and Nowhere and Somewhere... Joe Morgan, 11:15 a.m. Page 2's DJ Gallo, Noon.
Diego San Juan, Puerto Rico: Who do you like for the AL Cy Young Award?
Joe Morgan: I would say Beckett, Sabbathia, and Lackey are my top three. And as with the MVP, whoever steps up down the stretch will probably get it. And the great thing is that all three of them are playing in meaningful games. All these guys have to win games in order to ensure their team's success.
KT: Up-to-the-second chances the following teams make the playoffs:
Time for Beckett, Sabbathia, and Lackey to step up!
Ryan (NJ): When is Manny Ramirez expected back? He could certainly jump-start the Red Sox just in time for the playoffs...
Joe Morgan: Manny's absence is the reason they are struggling. In clutch, tough sitautions, Manny is the guy you want there along with Ortiz. The young kids looked good for a while but Manny need to be in the lineup for them to be a championship team. I am not sure when he will be back; I heard Thursday, but I am not sure.
KT: Who's your source on that? Because the Sox are off Thursday. But thanks for the update.
dave (milwaukee): No Prince Fielder for NL MVP? Taking nothing away from the other 3 who are all great. But the man is not only putting up huge numbers but he is that teams leader.
Joe Morgan: You are 100% correct. Today's my birthday and I am older and I went blank. I agree with you 100%.
KT: How am I going to work in that it's my birthday? How am I going to work in that it's my birthday? How am I going to work in that it's my birthday? How am I going to work in that it's my birthday? There it is! The opportunity! Go!
Joe Morgan: Thanks for chatting with me today. I am looking forward to some great finishes as the season draws a close. Chat with you next week!
Tuesday Night "Monday Morning Quarterback" Quarterback
I am way, way behind on my e-mail reading, and to those of you who have sent in tips and gotten a wall of angry silence in return, I apologize. I've been out for three days straight celebrating James Spader's Emmy win. But I'm back now, and sobering up, and will post more soon.
I tend to subscribe to the "three dogs barking" theory of internet interest, and even though I feel like picking on Peter King's "10 Things of Things I Think I Think Are Things" column is like shooting fish in a barrel with a barrel-sized fish annihilation laser, enough people sent this quote to me I feel almost a civic duty to link it:
Never a good idea to pitch to Derek Jeter if you could pitch to Bobby Abreu instead. I don't care what the stats say. Ask Curt Schilling if, with first base open, he'll ever want to pitch to the best player of my lifetime again.
Forget OPS match-ups and career stats (most/all of which favor Abreu). Let's just focus on the fact that Peter King, born in 1958, thinks that Derek Jeter is the best player of his lifetime.
With reader Matthew's help, that's a big old handful of f-you to:
Barry Bonds Albert Pujols Mickey Mantle Vlad A-Rod Willie Mays Hank Aaron Gary Sheffield Pete Rose Joe Morgan (just for fun) Rod Carew Tony Gwynn Mike Schmidt Reggie Jackson
You're Joe Morgan. You don't know anything about newfangled baseball statistics, you don't care to learn, and frankly, you mostly stay away from talking about them when you're commenting on a game. Fine.
But at least be knowledgeable about the strengths and weaknesses of the players you're watching. Don't say stuff like this:
Damon doesn't have the strong arm anymore.
Johnny Damon never, never, never had anything close to resembling even an average arm. He's a fairly famous player who in recent years has manned center field for the two marquee teams in baseball. He had dumb hair, even dumber facial hair, he wrote a book, he went on Letterman, he had an attention-whoring wife. This is not an obscure September call-up. It's Johnny Fitzgerald Nitro Damon we're talking about here.
If you're Joe Morgan, isn't it your responsibility to know something, anything about him?
dak and Junior flew in last night, and came over to my place in Partridge today to watch the Red Sox-Yankees game. That's fun, right? No it is not. Because we get the Dodgers-Snakes. Because who wants to watch Yankees-Red Sox on a Saturday in September? At Fenway? Beckett-Wang? Boring.
And then, we're treated to this gem from some dummy on Fox, in re: Juan Pierre:
Some folks talk about his on-base percentage -- it's a little bit lower than some fans would like. I'll take him on my team. Especially with regard to his leadership ability and his work ethic -- as well as those stats!
You can have him, friend. On our team, we will take anyone else.
Try to decipher this one, over at Pags's site. I'm pretty sure it's nonsense.
I like that the X-Axis is labeled: "Period." And what is the Y-Axis? How much he is "worth?" How much the team should pay him? Why is Ian Kennedy worth exactly three million dollars for each of his first three periods in the league? Why is Miranda worth two million in Period One, then up to three million in Period Two, then back down to two million in Period Three?
Senator Mitchell? You can end your investigation, sir. I'm sure you've been doing a lot of hard work, pounding the pavement, rooting around in dark alleys, wearing trenchcoats, smoking pipes. I'm telling you now you can stop and relax. Our long national roidmare is over thanks to a gutsy young muckraker from north of the border, one Mr. Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star. At the cost of only his own blood, sweat, tears and pancreatic secretions, Mr. Griffin has fingered the culprit behind this whole steroid mess. Yes, there is only one. A lone gunman. A puppeteer behind the scenes. A criminal mastermind. A shadowlord lurking in the spaces our society dares not tread.
Who is it? It's a book. It's called Moneyball. Maybe you've heard of it?
People are always accusing me of misrepresenting what Moneyball was all about,
And it's impossible that you're actually wrong about it, so -- but there are so many facets and interpretations that it's tough to say anyone is really wrong.
I don't believe that's actually true, and certainly in this case, sir, it most undoubtedly is not. What you are about to say about Moneyball is unequivocally, unquestionably, indubitably wrong.
But think about this. One of the Billy Beane precepts was to look for college and, occasionally, high school hitters that were not really the greatest athletes on their team but had the discipline to wait for the right pitch and then smack the hell out of it when they found it. On-base percentage, dude. That's the wave of the future. Forget about how boring those four-hour games get. These were the bargains.
This is wrong, but not the wrongest part. That part we're about to get to. (As a an aside, does Griffin really blame Billy Beane for caring about winning at the expense of game length? We're trying to win games here, people, are we not?)
Take a deep breath, now, and pre-emptively duct tape your jaw so that it does not succumb to gravity, friends:
Now think of a college kid back then in the post-Mark McGwire era who knew he was always going to be on the fringe because he wasn't your most graceful natural athlete, but knew that if only he was a lot stronger, he could learn to play within himself and crush an occasional mistake pitch. As long as he didn't chase bad ones he could make an impact in this century's home run crazy major-league baseball. As for a position in the field, they could teach him to be adequate somewhere. Major league minimum of $319,000 (U.S.) is all that these kids wanted. That's the carrot. He had the stick. The rest was gravy. Before there was steroid testing, who, if they were on the fringe with a clear market for awkward sluggers, wouldn't take that plunge? Moneyball is over.
Wow. Wow. Wow. (The last "wow" was a backwards "wow," I'm so wowed.) It's so clear to me now. Moneyball is the root of all steroids! Bruce Willis is a ghost! Verbal Kint is Keyser Soze! How could we all have been so blind?
This book that Billy Beane wrote -- this devil's tome, those cursed words -- of course it's responsible for the great baseball evil of our time. Everyonewhoevertooksteroidswas anunathleticOBP machine. It's so obvious. "Awkward sluggers," all. "Fringe."
I feel that we're cleansed, now, America. Thank you, Mr. Griffin, or as they say in your native Canada, grazie. Now that you've revealed to us the truth, we can truly say that Moneyball, and therefore all steroid use, is finally dead.
This Is What Happens When Rick Sutcliffe Tries To Come Up With Unconventional Wisdom
Red Sox-Yankees, 4:49 PST. Dusty Baker's in the booth and yet somehow Rick Sutcliffe manages to outcrazy him:
Rick Sutcliffe: We were talking last week, OB, about the Cy Young winner, and it's probably going to be Sabathia or whoever wins tomorrow, Chien-Ming Wang or Beckett, but you know who's had the best year? It's been Roy Halladay.
(No one responds.)
Dave O'Brien: The 0-2 ...
Roy Halladay. Cy Young. Hmm. That's thinking outside the bun. What if instead of picking the guy with the best ERA in the league, we pick the guy who has the 19th-best ERA? How about instead of choosing a guy who leads his team in WHIP, we vote for a guy who's third on his own staff (behind Dustin McGowan and Shawn Marcum (yes, I realize Marcum has some relief appearances thrown in there, but Jesus, it's Shawn Marcum we're talking about here))?
In previous years, yes, Roy Halladay has sometimes been a phenomenal starter. But let's let these very traditional, very digestible statistics speak for themselves:
3.91 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 129 K, 45 BB
Cy ... Young? Has Sutcliffe even watched baseball this year? Maybe someone is pulling an elaborate experiment on him wherein Sut is constantly wearing contact lenses that show him baseball games from 2003 in place of the current year's games. Yes, that must be it.
--
Later, Robinson Cano strikes out and Sutcliffe tries to remove himself from the giant, crazy person-shaped hole he's just dug.
Rick Sutcliffe: Getting back to Roy Halladay -- the reason I say that is he doesn't have the Yankees or Red Sox lineup behind him, and yet he's gotta face them. I mean, it's so much tougher to pick up a win when you've got to pitch against these two lineups and you don't have that lineup behind you.
There's some grain of truth behind what Sut's saying, but it's obscured by the K2-size mountain of ludicrosity that is picking Roy Halladay for the Cy Young. Yes, Halladay has faced Boston 5(!) times and the Yankees twice. But I'm fairly confident that saying that the quality of lineups he's faced has not, in fact, accounted for the three-quarters of a run in ERA that separates him from some of the best Cy candidates.
By the way, has anyone else noticed that C.C. Sabathia has pitched 40 more innings than Josh Beckett and Chien-Ming Wang to this point in the season? That's pretty fucking incredible. If you're leading the league in innings and you're still third in ERA, you're doing a pretty awesome job at pitching.
Ignoring a nationwide call for a goofiness cease-fire, Joe Morgan has decided to hold another chat. Alfonso (Boston): Hello Joe. How much does Manny Ramirez's defense hurt the team? Would they be better off trading him in the offseason so Jacoby Ellsbury could play everyday.
Joe Morgan: It seems like when we bring young people up at the end of the year and they get off to a good start, people tend to believe they will play that way for an entire season. You know what you get with Ramirez, a great hitter. And Manny's defense does not hurt them as much as his offense helps them. It is hard to replace players that drive in runs the way Manny does.
Ken Tremendous: Joe's not entirely wrong here. I have resisted drinking the Ellsbury Kool-Aid -- although it looks effing delicious -- due to his less-sugary minor league numbers and the fact that historically there is zero correlation between a player's first 40 MLB at bats and his career statistics. (See Pedroia, Dustin.) However. It should be noted that Manny is currently having his worst offensive year since 1994; that he is on the wrong side of 35; that he costs 20m a year; and that while his defense does not quite completely wipe out his offensive contributions, it sure takes the sheen off 'em.
I don't know what the point of all of this is, except that just saying "Manny's a great hitter" isn't quite good enough to pass muster anymore. On a side note, isn't it crazy how little anyone has talked about Barry Bonds since he hit 756? Does he even play baseball anymore?
Frederick (Jackson, Mississippi): Who is more clutch? Gary Sheffield or David Ortiz?
Joe Morgan: That is a difficult question because --
KT: -- I'll finish your thought here, Joe. It is difficult because "clutch hitting" is not an ability, per se, but a random correlation of very few data points whose importance is enhanced by the human inclination to remember the extraordinary and not the mundane. That's what you were about to say, right?
-- both have done a great job in tight situations, but Ortiz has proven to be the best big-game hitter in baseball. I think he has risen to the occasion more than anyone else. I would have to choose Ortiz at this point over anyone else in the game.
KT: Oh. Okay. Well, that's another way to go.
I say this a day after Ortiz hit a walk-off 2-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to beat the DRays (an .840 WPA, for those of you who love WPA): most evidence seems to suggest that there is no such thing as "clutch hitting ability." There is "clutch hitting". There is the abstract concept of "ability." But there is no "clutch hitting" skill you can learn, in the way that you learn how to hit for power, or control the strike zone, or throw a slider two inches off the black to induce a groundout. Sorry. Take it up with people who are smarter than I am.
Quick example: I was just now poking around the FoxSports site, and I found this in an old Ken Rosenthal column:
While center fielder Carlos Beltran is probably the Mets' best offensive player, the most important might be left fielder Moises Alou. "He's one of the very best clutch hitters in our game," one rival executive says. "He doesn't care about the situation or who is on the mound. If he gets his pitch, he'll beat you." Alou's career numbers with runners in scoring position: .307 BA, .391 OBP, .513 SLG.
One of the best "clutch hitters" in the game -- .307/.391/.513 with RISP! That's clutch. Except that career, overall, he is: .302/.369/.517. That's basically the same. In fact, it might be the case that he is simply a better walker with men on base. And his SLG is actually lower with RISP.
Enough of that. Let's get to some classic Joe comedy, courtesy of his last sentence:
But Sheffield is one of the best offensive players in the history of the game.
Again, he's not wrong, I guess. Gary is tied for 49th all-time in OPS+. I just like it when Joe gets all hot and bothered about Gary Sheffield.
George (Boston, MA): The White Sox are bringing back essentially the same team next year, and now they'll have the same manager too. Meanwhile they've pretty much mailed it in on this season over the past several months. If nothing changes, what's the chances that they'll play any different next year? Thanks.
Joe Morgan: That is a decision that Ken Williams hgad to make. It was amazing to me that their offesne went dormant to start the year, and then a lack of pitching followed. They are counting on Contreras to rebound, and for Dye, Thome, Konerko to turn it around. What I see them doing is bringing this team back because they have so much money invested in these players. I think they are going to see how the first half of next year's season plays out and then react accordingly to how the team plays.
KT: They're going to see how the team plays, and then react accordingly to how the team has played. This innovative strategy of baseball management is called: "Baseball Management." The White Sox invented it.
John (Chicago, IL): Joe, who do you think, in your opinion, is going to represent the AL in the World Series this year and why? I like Boston because they have the best run differential in baseball and their pitching top to bottom has been statistically the best all year. What do you think?
KT: Hey kids! New to our site and want to know why we think Joe Morgan should be fired? Check out this fun answer!
Joe Morgan: Well the run differential means nothing. It is like OPS, it mean nothing in the grander scheme of things. (...)
Run differential "means nothing." The number of runs a team scores, as compared to the number of runs it gives up, means nothing. Nothing at all. It has no bearing on how good a team is. How could it? After all, it is simply a measure of how many runs a team has scored and how many runs the team has given up. What could that possibly tell anyone about anything? I mean, let's look at the teams with the best run differentials in the AL.
Boston New York LA Angels Cleveland
The four worst teams in the league!
Look, run differential isn't perfect. Every year, teams have terrible run differentials and make the playoffs. The Padres and Twinkies had no business winning their divisions last year. The Snakes have no business winning this year, based on RD. But in general -- let's just all use common sense, here -- the number of runs a team scores and the number it allows should roughly correlate to how successful that team is. Just as, say, a statistic that combines a player's on-base percentage and his slugging percentage should correlate to how good a fucking hitter he is. Why is that controversial?
BTW: if you guys are super into math and want to read about Poisson distributions and revised exponents in the Pythagorean theorem application to ExWL, go here. (Warning: NSFW!!!!)
Francisco (Jalisco, Mexico): The A's have had a little success in the past, but wouldn't you say that this year proves that Billy Beane's approach simply doesn't work?
KT: Hmmm. Legit question or Joe-Baiter?
Joe Morgan: I do not think you can just take one year and prove it. But I have never thought anyone could reinvent the wheel as far as how the game is played. Once you get on the field, everything that has gone on for 100 years does not change; and that means outscoring your opponent and pitching well.
And since you are more likely to outscore your opponent if you don't do stupid stuff like bunt and hit-and-run and stuff... it seems like you and Billy Beane are on the same page, Joe!
I do not think this one year proves anything, but the As playoff failures over the years demonstrate that you cannot win it all under that approach.
A. What approach? B. Four division titles in seven years. C. The A's playoff failures do not demonstrate anything except that once you get to the playoffs, anything can happen. Anything. The Reds swept the A's in 1990 despite the A's being hugely favored. Billy Beane had nothing to do with that. Kirk Gibson hit a home run off Eck. Dan Gladden hit a grand slam. Ozzie Smith and Scott Podsednik won games with HR. The A's have a payroll of just under eleven thousand dollars every year, and given that, are far more competitive than they should be. Because of the way they put their team together. How can anyone dispute this?
This year just proves that they lost a lot of good players over the past few years and it has finally caught up to them. But I think they have been reevaluating their approach. At one point they only wanted to draft college players, but this past draft they have drafted some high school players, and I think that is a good approach.
KT: They didn't only want to draft college players. They looked at some motherhumping data and concluded that college pitchers tended to be better bets to succeed than high school pitchers, so they erred on the side of drafting college pitchers.
You didn't read the book. You hate the book. You think Billy Beane wrote the book. Shut up about the book unless you man-up and read it, you dummy.
Andrew (Hoboken, NJ): Hi Joe - Always a pleasure reading these chats. I was wondering what you thought about Robinson Cano's future development? He has shown he can put up some great power/rbi numbers for a second baseman.
Joe Morgan: He is one of the guys that since the first time I saw him play I knew he was a great player. I do not see him everyday, but for him to be a superstar he needs to keep a high level of concetration, and some people seem to think he does not always concetrate as much as he should.
KT: dak yelled at me for being too priggish in my assault on Mike Pagliarulo's grammar and syntax. But I have a for-reals question: does Joe think the word is "concetrate?"
Eric (NYC): It seems like there aren't any more "great" teams out there this year, just a lot of mediocrity. In your opinion, what was the last truly great team?
KT: Definitely a Joe-Baiter, I think. "There are no more great teams" is one of Joe's go-to nonsenses. Along with "Gary Sheffield is great," "They need to be consistent." "I am on the Hall of Fame Committee so I don't like to talk about who should and should not get into the Hall of Fame," and "Dave Concepcion should definitely be in the Hall of Fame."
Joe Morgan: It did not just start this year, it has been this way for a bit. A lot of good teams out there, but not many great teams. An great team has no weaknesses. All teams these days have weakensses, most of the time it is starting pitching. The last great teams I think were the Yankee teams that won all those titles. I think Boston, when they won the title were clsoe to beaing great. But I do not see any teams out there right now who I would call complete. The Yankees look great at times, but then they hit these big loosing streaks and that is not what great teams do. So I agree with you that there are not any great teams out there.
KT: Wonderful. A Gettysburg Address for a new generation. Bumbling, ramble-y, riddled with typos (sorry, dak), fact-less, nonsensical, exclusionary (didn't the 2002 Oakland A's win 103 games with some pretty good starting pitching?), halting, and bafflingly choppy. Well done, all-around.
Jerry (Red Bud, IL): Are the Cards officially out of it? Will this weekend's series with the Cubs only give them the ability to play spoiler?
Joe Morgan: I do not think anyone is out of it.
KT: Hear that, Astros?
And they are in a position where they have to sweep the Cubs, and Milwaukee has not been consistent, so if they can sweep the Cubs who knows what can happen.
The first "consistent" in the whole chat. He's improving.
The Cards have hot a rough spot but it is still not impossible. But going back to Yogi, you just never know.
All of Joe's answers could be pictorially represented by a picture of himself shrugging with the caption, "Who can tell?" Joe Morgan: Yesterday I was asked if A-Rod hits 62 home runs would he be considered, in my mind, the legitimate HR season record holder, because he would have done it without any suspicion of steroid use. My answer would be no. It is what it is, and those number that were put up by Bonds and McGwire are there. There has not been any proof about what these guys did, only speculation. So until there is proof I cannot take those numbers away from those guys.
KT: Grand jury testimony, delivered under oath, does not count as proof. Our judicial system has been upended.
Great chat today. I really enjoyed your questions. I am looking forward to next week, when maybe we can discuss this A-Rod question then.
KT: Why not discuss it now? You're already chatting now, why not--
I can't believe I didn't think of this, but Eric did:
A big part of Alou's higher OBP with RISP is intentional walks. Once you factor out those plate appearances, that .391 drops to .370 (against an adjusted career number of .361). However, Alou does have a much higher RBI rate with runners on base...
Also, Ron points out that I really meant "human" where I wrote "humanistic," so mea culpa, and thanks to Ron for holding me to the same standards to which I hold everyone else in the universe.
Alou's stats this year (sample size issues of course, since the man can no longer physically play a full season):
.328/.383/.533
His stats this year with RISP? .221/.300/.397
RISP 2 out? .100/.229/.100
And the ever popular "Close and Late" .243/.300/.351
Despite a .313 EqA, his WPA for 2007 is an astounding -0.92 thanks to a recurring theme of double play balls served up in pretty much any situation with multiple runners on base. So what has happened to his clutchness in the 260 at bats he's had this year?
I highly recommend everyone go here and purchase one of these things. We need to keep people like this in business, so they can continue to produce idiotic websites, so we have something to write about.
And go to the original site, here. It's a joy to read.
If you've been living under a rock or something and are like totally not hip to important things that are happening in the world, allow me to inform you that former mediocre New York Yankee Mike Pagliarulo has some kind of scouting website.
It appears to be co-run by someone named Adam, but for the purposes of this blog entry, I am going to assume it is designed, written, and executed by Pags and Pags only. Because that is funnier.
Call us crazy, but where else in the world can you find an industry where a small market GM leads the large market companies?
1. You're crazy. 2. I would imagine there are a lot of them. Lots of large companies are influenced by, and steal ideas from, small companies. Apple's design team blows Microsoft's out of the water. JetBlue and Southwest were, for a while, running rings around much larger airlines. Most people refer to the product that allows you to record TV shows as "TiVo" and not "TimeWarner HD Cable DVR" or something. Sometimes Miramax and FineLine and Paramount Vantage and stuff win Oscars while Universal and Warner Bros. make clunkers. Should I keep going? Or do you want to talk about baseball?
Where else does a business with half the budget dictate protocol for the “super powers” except in the business of baseball?
We're in troubs, here, Pags. This sentence is all over the linguistic map. I think what you mean to say is: in what other industry does a "company" (team) with half the budget of other companies (teams) with which is it competing, control the way business is conducted within that industry. Instead, you just wrote the word "business," and then wrote a bunch of phrases with no antecedents or referents ("half the budget," "super powers") and then wrote "business" again. Not make word-goods you wasn't.
(BTW: For the answer to the question, see the answer to the previous question, because this is just a rephrasing of the previous question.)
In the case of the Oakland A’s and GM Billy Beane, quite a phenomenon exists throughout a majority of the monopoly consisting of major league baseball teams.
This is painful. Pags, sweetheart -- have you ever read...anything? If you haven't, you should. If will help you communicate better with your audience. This sentence appears to have been first "written" in sign language by a Russian chimp, and then translated into English by a Chinese businessman who learned English from old soap operas.
It seems that what Pags wants to say -- but tragically cannot, because he writes like a fifth grader trying to fake his way through an oral report on salamanders -- is: "What makes Billy Beane so great, anyway?!" Which is an excellent question. That has been answered many, many, many, many times.
Billy Beane is a great GM because he found a way to keep the A's competitive in MLB, despite a payroll far behind those of several other teams. He did this by using cutting-edge statistical analysis to find players with undervalued skills who had been overlooked by other teams. He drafted these players (or traded for them), paid them rock-bottom prices, and watched as his army of nerd robots won many division- and wild card titles. If this sounds familiar, it's because everyone in the world has been talking about it for like six years (or more), and because it was chronicled in the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis, which is very good, and really has nothing to do with anything that anybody now thinks it has to do with.
I sincerely doubt that anyone reading this blog has not read Moneyball, but if you haven't, you should, because it's quite good. I am also going to go ahead and bet that Pags has never read Moneyball. I might even...yes, yes I believe I am going to go ahead and guess that Pags has not completed an entire book since he polished off Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, when he was seventeen.
There are a few teams (Toronto, Boston, NY, and Texas) who rely on statistical formulas and hire knowledgeable front office personnel at a cost of $50K to $500K, who create and analyze – something!
They analyze baseball players. Did you really not know this?
We aren’t sure what that “something” is and they certainly aren’t talking about it, especially to the media.
That's because it's a crock! They're full of it! They aren't really doing anything, these nerds. They have like mob-style no-show jobs. Hang on...come to think of it...I never heard any generals give interviews explaining how we were going to attack Baghdad. They're crocks too! They should be explaining that to us in the media! Also, where is the explanation of the formula for Coke? That should be available to me, from the media, via some people who work for Coke. If it isn't, I will assume that the people who make Coke are frauds who are just taking money and not making any actual product. And to answer your next question, no, I will not be dissuaded by the purchasing and consuming of Coke.
Sincerely, Pags
Quite possibly, the statistical masterminds are creating retirement accounts and special offshore businesses for these highly paid decision makers.
I have said this before, but it's worth reiterating. Jokes definitely work best when they are formed as long, drawn-out sentences with lots and lots of extra words.
Example:
Bad Joke: Take my wife -- please! Good Joke: For one example, why don't you take my wife -- although, my wife is so annoying and vexing and irritating that when I say "take my wife" what I actually should be saying is, "Sir -- if you are going somewhere far away, take my wife...please!"
Let’s take a closer look at the genius whose numerical formula positions his team 14 games behind in the American League West and without the ability to muster a .500 record.
Yes, let us. And to do so, I will quote from one of the comments found below this post on Pags's site. (And I will add, in bold, the payroll of the team.)
You know what the Yankees' payroll was in 2006? $194,663,079. You know how many more games they won than the A's? Four. You know what the Yankees' payroll was in 2001? $112,287,143. You know how many more games they won than the A's that year? Negative seven more. That's how many more.
Now, a sentient human with a central nervous system and the ability to process information and engage with his fellow man might look at this data and say, "Billy Beane appears to be a talented GM." Here is what Pags gets from it:
The A’s are bad!
Just to clarify, he's talking about this year. Which: yes, they are, pretty bad. They have also sustained injuries to 41 of the 40 men on their roster. It's kind of a wash, really, 2007. But Pags seems to want to forget all of the years referenced above in order to "prove" his "point," which he evidences with the following fun PowerPoint-style bullets:
They cannot “contend” in a four- team division, resulting in a sorry state of affairs.
They fired a manager from 2006 who carried them to the playoffs because their genius (Beane) felt a new manager would help enhance team communication. This piece of information was reported in spring training.
They use assistant GM David Forst to critique and interrogate manager Bob Geren to second guess the lineups both before and after games.
Forst uses OPS, OBP, LLBean, FYI, and SOB as a system of analysis. Astoundingly, no one else uses this championship formula.
Other general manager disciples such as Epstein, Cashman, Daniels, and Richardi have larger money blankets than Billy Beane, but they don’t use their blankets to warm Billy when he flounders and produces a product void of luster.
I know I say this a lot, but I think this is the shittiest writing I have come across in my 54 years of deconstructing sports journalism. I just described it to Mrs. Tremendous as "a treasure trove," and she rolled her eyes and kept on doing exactly what she was doing. But I could tell she was more into it than usual.
Let's go PagsPoint™ by PagsPoint™.
They cannot “contend” in a four- team division, resulting in a sorry state of affairs.
They are not contending this year. Correct. Is this the only year you have heard of? Do you not know that there have been other years? In four of the last seven, they won the division. What a sorry state of affairs. And who are you to use the phrase "sorry state of affairs" anyway? Fucking T.E. Lawrence?
They fired a manager from 2006 who carried them to the playoffs because their genius (Beane) felt a new manager would help enhance team communication. This piece of information was reported in spring training.
I'll say right now that dealing with managers has never really seemed like Billy's strong point. That weird "Macha out, Macha talking to Pittsburgh, Macha back in" thing from 2005 was painful to watch, and I don't know how anybody thought that was going to work out. So, I guess: Beane: not great with managers. Point Pags.
They use assistant GM David Forst to critique and interrogate manager Bob Geren to second guess the lineups both before and after games.
Man. I just...this isn't English sentence construction, man. Get an editor. Or, just, maybe hire a high school kid to rewrite your stuff or something. You've got back-to-back infinitives, for god's sake.
Look. This is the way Billy Beane runs his team. He wants certain guys playing in certain situations. If you take the A's managing job, you play by his rules. You know what allows him to wield that kind of power? Four division titles in seven years.
Forst uses OPS, OBP, LLBean, FYI, and SOB as a system of analysis. Astoundingly, no one else uses this championship formula.
In the pantheon of smugly ignorant acronym use, this takes the cake. LLBean is a terrible "nerdy acronym" joke for many reasons: like, that it's not an acronym. And that it appears in an article attacking Billy Beane, which gives one the impression the author is too dumb to think of two different things at the same time. FYI is boring. SOB is a term not heard much by people under fifty. And the whole thing -- the collection of five acronyms; two real, three unfunny and fake -- is referred to as a "system of analysis." Pags, seriously bro, if you had any idea how sophisticated their actual systems of analysis were...dude. Bro. Your effing head would explode.
Other general manager disciples such as Epstein, Cashman, Daniels, and Richardi have larger money blankets than Billy Beane, but they don’t use their blankets to warm Billy when he flounders and produces a product void of luster.
This may be the most wonderful sentence I have ever read. This sentence holds the English language by the throat, pushes it against a wall, and slashes it across the face with a broken beer bottle.
"Other general manager disciples"
Disciples of what? Or whom? Epstein came from San Diego. Cash has always been a Yankee. Jon Daniels worked in Colorado and then for Jon Hart in Texas. Ricciardi -- that's how you spell his name, BTW -- is the only one you could actually call a Beane "disciple." But you didn't call them Billy Beane disciples, I guess -- you just called them "disciples." Sort of covering all your bases there. Nice work.
"have larger money blankets than Billy Beane"
It's time to play: "Has Anyone Ever Heard This Phrase?" I have not. Please write in if you have, and let me know where. This is what I imagine. But I'm willing to listen to other explanations.
"but they don’t use their blankets to warm Billy"
Excellent. Just excellent. You make up a term, and then one second later you use the term in a different metaphorical context -- an extremely tortured metaphorical context, mind you, because: how could these "money blankets" be used to 'warm" Billy Beane by other GMs? Are you saying that they don't like loan him money? Or something? Or are you saying that they don't metaphorically "warm" him with praise? This is fucking gibberish.
"when he flounders and produces a product void of luster."
My favorite part. What a finish. When he flounders and produces a product void of luster. Void of luster. Billy Beane has produced a product void of luster! Is this product...a watch fob? A set of plus-fours or spats? Perhaps an improperly polished saddle for tomorrow's hunt? No -- it's a baseball team! Surprise!
The fact is that the A’s will never win a World Series relying upon their current statistical formulas. The Oakland franchise is not structured to win a World Series.
Pags! Guns blazing! Prove it.
Sadly, Billy Beane doesn’t know this nor do his disciples.
That is sad. Those guys are just toiling away on their sophisticated mathematical modeling projects, working as hard or harder than anyone else in baseball, trying to level the playing field by outsmarting the other teams (many of whom have adopted and co-opted their methods) to compensate for (in some cases) their severely limited resources. And all that time, they don't know that they're doomed to go championshipless...forever. And they're being told this by Pags, who wrote this article from the stern of his 22-foot fishing boat ("The Yank Pags"), off the Gulf Coast, while pounding his eleventh Miller Lite.
Fundamental baseball wins championships and fundamentals aren’t found in the statistical formulas used when signing players for the Oakland franchise. They don’t get it, yet the “disciples” will revel in the notion that Billy B. says, “Joba Chamberlain is going to be a star”…………Now there’s a big time prediction!
I had to read this four or five times to understand it. I believe what PagsBone is saying: Oakland's mathematical modeling doesn't take "fundamentals" into account. Then there is a missing chunk where he would say that Beane is stupid for using these formulas, currently represented by the near non-sequitur "They don't get it." Then he adds that Beane's disciples think he's so great and point to predictions that Beane makes -- like that Joba is going to be good -- as evidence of his genius, when in fact, argues Pags, anyone in the world could have seen that!
Everything about this paragraph is wrong. The ideas behind it: wrong. The execution: virtuosically bad. A new bar has been set.
So, we ask, who will get fired this year? Will it be Bob Geren, Bob Schaefer, or David Forst? We know it won’t be Beane.
Toronto has a formula for drafting college pitchers who are unable to throw above 90 mph. Boston has Bill James-500K, the best fantasy baseball statistician in the game. He consulted in the JD Drew deal, totaling $70 million, but won’t admit it.
This makes it sound like Toronto has a specific desire to draft pitchers who cannot throw hard. I don't think that's true. I think they probably use a different set of criteria for guys who throw below 90 -- a formula involving K/BB rates, and BABIP, and the kinds of things you would want to know about a soft-tosser.
"Bill James-500K" sounds like a robot. Learn the difference between dashes and hyphens, dummy. Also, he is the opposite of a "fantasy" statistician. A "fantasy" statistician cares about things like RBI, runs, wins (for a pitcher) and stuff. Bill James does not. And yes, I am sure he did consult on the JD Drew deal, and I'm sure if you asked him he would admit it. On what basis are you saying he will not admit it? Did you ask him? Has anyone asked him? Is he publicly throwing other people under the bus for that deal? No, Pags, my man, he is not, I don't think. I could be wrong, but I don't think he is. I think that everyone in the Red Sox organization would say the same thing about that deal: disappointing so far, but it's a five-year deal, and you can't judge the success or failure of anything based on 15% of its eventual total.
The Yankees have two confidential statistical guys who are well dressed and very quiet. They both share an office near the PA announcer and are capable of telling the GM how many changeups Edwar Ramirez has thrown at AAA.
What does any of this have to do with anything, positively or negatively?
Daniels isn’t sure which part of the hierarchy is on his side.
What hierarchy? And why is this relevant? And what does it mean? And what point are you making?
Put quite simply, this is MONEY HAUL, the worst-spent dollars in major league baseball. This economic virus tows the leaders of the industry, the envious fans and executives in love with our national pastime.
This is the end of the blog entry. Fantastic. Economic virus? Envious fans? (Of what, one might ask.) And how is anyone's love of our national pasttime affected by this? And why is this money ill-spent? The Yankees, Red Sox, and A's have phenomenal records of success in the past decade. If the Pirates, Royals, and Orioles were using these methods, attack away, friend.
Sometimes -- and I know this is crazy -- I feel like Mike Pagliarulo isn't the smartest guy in the world.
Jimbo directs us to an MLB.com article about potential ROY. Here's what they say about Reggie Willits:
OF Reggie Willits, Angels: The Halos were floundering, unable to get over the loss of Juan Rivera to a Winter League mishap, until Willits became a regular and a regular thorn in the sides of opponents. With bat control to wear out pitchers, speed to unnerve defenses and a daredevil attitude on defense, he has become, at its most basic, the _________ of this Angels team.
Now, keeping in mind that Willits is small, white, "pesky," "full of grit" and "hustle" and plays for the Angels, guess to whom the comparison is made. Is it...
A. Alex Rodriguez B. Three-Finger Brown C. David Eckstein D. Darin Erstad
If you answered C...
...you're wrong.
They compared him to Erstad.
The comparison to Eckstein is not very apt, in that Willits is much faster and gets on base more. But Erstad?
Actually, I suppose the .338 SLG Willits has laid down this year actually makes him more like Erstad than a lot of other people.
Yes, I'm Going To Be The Dickhead Who Points This Out
SportsCenter, earlier today. John Anderson's got Sean Salisbury by his side to answer some questions about football, in a framework having something to do with a 6-pack of beer. The topic: QB predictions for the upcoming NFL season. At the end, John Anderson thanks Sean Salisbury as anybody would...with a weird Johnny Carson homage:
"We asked you [Sean] to talk in the future; I'm going to show you I'm a bit of a Carnac myself."
[Anderson holds piece of paper up to his forehead]
"Skinned knee; Veruca from Willa Wonka; former USC playmaker."
[Anderson tears paper and then blows on it, which is weird because it's just a piece of paper and not an envelope.]
"Strawberry; blueberry; Salisbury."
Ka-blurm.
But guess what?
VERUCA WASN'T THE ONE WHO TURNED INTO A BLUEBERRY IT WAS VIOLET BEAUREGARDE EVERYONE KNOWS THAT THERE'S EVEN A FAMOUS LINE WHERE VIOLET'S DAD GOES "VIOLET, YOU'RE TURNING VIOLET VIOLET" VERUCA WAS THE SNOBBY ONE WHO WENT DOWN THE "BAD EGG" HATCH COME ON ANDERSON THIS IS DAY ONE WONKA SHIT DON'T PULL CARNAC OUT OF YOUR ASS IF YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR FUCKING WONKSTONE ALSO IF YOU'RE GOING TO USE A "BERRY" REF FROM WILLY WONKA WHY WOULDN'T YOU USE "SNOZZBERRY" UGGGH ANDERSON YOU'RE FUCKING KILLING ME
a) Veruca was a "bad nut" and not a "bad egg" and b) Violet's Mother, not father, said "Violet you're turning violet, Violet."
I'm talking about the original Willy Wonka. Come on, people.
Also, in the remake, if we're really going to be dicks about this, Violet's mother doesn't say "Violet, you're turning violet, Violet." She simply says "Violet, you're turning violet!"
Don't mean to be this guy, but T. Burton got the Veruca stuff more or less right in terms of R. Dahl's original conception of the bad nut/bad egg scene. The "original" movie, while having the advantage of not sucking, effed that shit up.
That said, John Anderson's boneheaded Veruca/Violet switcheroo, and pursuant lapse in "snozzberry" usage, is, of course, inexcusable.
Apparently there are a lot of literalists out there. Allow me to amend what I thought was an obvious sentiment.
1. I know HGH is not a steroid. So I will change the label below. 2. I know HGH was "not technically outlawed" in baseball at the time he allegedly bought a fucking year's supply of it. 3. I know he was "still a pitcher" and was probably only trying to "come back from injury." 4. I know it's just a rumor. 5. I even know that HGH has not shown to do all that much for baseball players. (Reader Pat sent me this informative essay, which shed more light on that apparent fact.)
The thing is, friends:
Ankiel -- if this is true -- illegally obtained a drug he had no business obtaining or using, from a shady doctor who had never met him. That doesn't clue us in that there is something wrong here? A drug known to be a drug of choice for athletes trying to get a competitive advantage. A drug used by a lot of people who use other illegal drugs. Please do not try to defend this behavior. Please.
Up until yesterday, Rick Ankiel was the story of the year in baseball, if not in all of sports. This fucks that up, if true.
Another column, another litany of blunders for Jon Heyman. Today's the day to sing for the unsung, to herald the unheralded, to praise the overlooked.
So this piece is of the Under-the-Radar, Bet You Haven't About These Guys variety. Fine. Standard. The whole thing is a little paint-by-numbers, and I was tempted to run through the entire article. There's a sweet Eckstein ref (very original, comparing Reggie Willits to Eckstein -- if there were a Nobel Prize for Originality, Jon, they would immediately rename it the Heyman Prize, only you would insist that they rename it again with a more original name); a couple of obvious BABIP, small sample size wonders (Matt Diaz*, congratulations on your .392 BABIP); and a few just plain head scratchers (Rudy Seanez? Really, who cares?)
But there were two selections that went above and beyond the run-of-the-mill idiocy of the rest of the list, primarily because of the reasoning behind them. The first: There's also Jose Vidro in Seattle. It's hard to be unsung when you're so highly paid ($7 million). But Vidro, who once combined with Vlad Guerrero to make Montreal a threat, has been forgotten. He shouldn't be, not with his .306 average.
First of all, his average is .310. It hasn't been .306 since August 1st. I have no idea how you got that figure. Secondly, who cares? Batting average is a number best appreciated by elderlies and pre-multiplication-table-age children, and 2007 Jose Vidro is a perfect representation why.
Let me explain: sure, Jose Vidro has gotten a hit 31 out of every 100 at bats, but virtually none of those hits have been for extra bases. He's slugging .389 on the year. Three. Eighty. Nine. Did I mention he's also a DH? That's right. He has no defensive value.
So Jon Heyman wants us to heap more recognition on a player who does not play defense, gets paid $7 million a year (as he himself mentions), and has six home runs all year? How much, exactly, should we be singing about and heralding this guy? I have a limited heralding budget. You would not believe how much professional heralds go for these days.
What's that? You want me to be even more long-winded and belabor this point further? Don't mind if I do. There are seven DHs who qualify for the 432 minimum plate appearances. Of these seven, Jose Vidro is dead last in OPS. Now yes, five of these guys are pretty damn good, but Vidro is trailing even sometime first baseman, full-time idiot Kevin Millar, who makes way less money, gets nary a herald now that he's on a bad team in a small market, and has 14 home runs in 90 fewer at bats than our good friend Jose. The other five full-time DHs all have 21 or more home runs. Vidro, if you have a short-term memory deficit a la Guy Pearce in Memento, still has 6.
Why am I harping on this so much? 1. I am not a good or useful person and 2. it was only seconds ago, it feels like, anyway, that Heyman was pontificating on how he would never ever use something crazy like VORP and how VORP is un-American and that VORP probably didn't help Pavarotti live any longer. Well, let me say now that VORP would likely have helped you, Jon Heyman, recognize that Jose Vidro isn't having that great a season after all, that he's been completely ordinary, and that an empty shell of a .310 (or as you believe, .306) batting average does not necessarily make you anything more than the 7th or 8th best DH in the league. Jack Cust, a .261 hitter, has been 50% more valuable.
But of course, VORP is a made-up statistic, and real men do not stoop to such lows. Never mind that batting average itself is, of course, made up in its own way -- no one could simply watch twenty games and immediately know what a specific player's batting average was without doing some (nerd alert) math. You want to talk made up? How about ERA? Totally mathy. How about saves? Heck, how about the weird, arbitrary rules that determine what the hell counts as a pitching "win"? They are all made up, my friend. Some of them are simply more useful than others.
Let us continue, now, to the second blunder, this one far more straightforward and perhaps slightly more humorous: There's Kaz Matsui (.292, 29 steals) with the Rockies, who got him for next to nothing after he flopped with the Mets. Who'd have thought that the star from Tokyo would take to Colorado more than he does New York?
Yes, indeed, who'd have thought that a baseball player would hit better in a stadium three hundred miles in the air than in a stadium three hundred miles long in every dimension? Who'd have thought that a hitter might benefit moving from Shea to Coors? Which Nostradamic mind could divine such wondrous futures? Truly, an unanswerable mystery.
Enough cheap sarcasm. Here are the facts. His first year in New York, Kaz Matsui batted .272 (who cares?) and posted an OPS of .727. He was lambasted as a disaster of Irabuian proportions.
His first full season in Colorado, away from Coors Field, Kaz Matsui has batted .262 and OPSed .672. That's right. Worse than his debut with the Mets (for whom he managed a .723 OPS on the road). In the thin air of Denver, Kaz has smoked the ball to the tune of .325/.374/.462 (OPS of .835). But that's not altogether unpredictable, is it? It's Coors fucking Field. If Heyman had taken two seconds and traipsed on over to Kaz's B-Ref page, he would've discovered that Kaz's 2004 OPS+ (park- and league-adjusted) was 88, and his 2007 OPS+ so far is ... 89.
I just find it so amusing that Heyman completely forgets or ignores the extremely obvious park factors at play here (again, I.C.F.F. (it's Coors fucking Field)!) and then posits that Kaz enjoys the city of Denver more than the city of New York and thus magically became a better player (seriously, reread what he wrote -- "Who'd have thought that the star from Tokyo would take to Colorado more than he does New York?")
Maybe he's onto something. Maybe all these years of offense haven't been due to the fact that Coors Field's atmosphere is less dense than any of Mars' moons'. Maybe Denver is just a nice place to live. Yeah. That's it. Denver: Any citizen, professional baseball player or not, will gain 100 points of OPS simply because they live here. Clearly, the second-level move now is for players to just make their homes in Denver while they play for other cities. The hitting benefits will be obvious.
Have I digressed enough? You're welcome.
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ADDENDUM:
Reader demand has convinced me to at least mention this phenomenal last graf:
Anyone who thinks A-Rod isn't a "true'' Yankee is nuts. You want the truth? Without him the Yankees are 11 back in the wild-card race instead of three in front.
Heyman is guesstimating that A-Rod has been worth 14 wins thus far in the season, presumably using the completely fictional "wins created" metric he wrote about last time out. How is wins created calculated? It's a three-part process.
1. Heyman hears a player's name. 2. Heyman thinks, for one second, about what that player's name means to him. Is the player famous? Is he sort of a prick? How did he play last night? 3. After one second, Heyman writes down a number. This number is the number of wins the player has created.
This formula has the advantage of being extremely fast, easy, and verifiable only by Jon Heyman.
For those of you interested in non-Heyman-invented statistics, A-Rod is sitting at a pretty sweet 5.9 Batting Wins (Pete Palmer's tool measuring hitting wins over an average player) and 9.7 WARP-1 (which measures wins over a replacement player). There's also the possibility that Heyman had a moment of weakness and checked A-Rod's Baseball Prospectus DT card, because Mr. Rodriguez' WARP-3 (adjusted for all-time rather than just this season) sits at 13.6, which rounds to 14, which is Heyman's WC for him! But Heyman would never resort to that. Would he have?
The numbers in the preceding paragraph are all approximations subject to untold degrees of error, except of course the Heyman Number, which as he so humbly reminds us his column, is simply "the truth."
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*It's been pointed out to me by reader Eric that Matt Diaz, amazingly, has posted the following BABIPs over the past four years:
Eric also says "You mentioned in your post blasting Jon Heyman that Matt Diaz is an 'obvious BABIP, small sample size wonder.' I couldn't disagree more" and "I fail to see how this year is flukey or a product of small sample size."
Thank you, Eric, for your input. I did a little digging to see if there's any precedent for this type of consistently outrageously high BABIP. Hitters, I think, have been known to control BABIP a bit better than pitchers. This is extremely unscientific, but I quickly checked some good hitters' career BABIPs. Here's what I found:
Alex Rodriguez .326 David Ortiz .310 Albert Pujols .318 Gary Sheffield .292
Again, completely random. Not serious analysis. But Diaz is at .392 this year, and of course that's not sustainable. It's just not. Is Diaz a good hitter? He is, although as Eric pointed out to me he hasn't gotten enough of a chance to prove this at a major league level.
But his numbers are a little inflated this year by that .392.
**One more edit. Once again, I've been rescued by a reader who knows much more than I do about everything. Michael?
Junior,
Rather than comparing Diaz to Arod or Sheffield, you might want to note that the standard formula for BABIP is line drive rate plus .120. Since Diaz’s line drive rate this season is 21.2%, his expected BABIP is .332, 60 points below where he is now. Furthermore, the two stats that might inflate a player’s BABIP (groundball rate and infield hit rate) do not predict a bump in BABIP for Diaz. Unless there is something unique to Diaz that has not affected any other major league baseball player in history, you are correct about Diaz’s BABIP due to regress to the mean and reader Eric is wrong.
Michael
Thank you sir. I would add that reader Eric is right that Diaz could definitely be an actual decent major league hitter. His BABIP could regress and his numbers would still be respectable, since right now they're sensational.
When I was a kid, I never thought I would grow up to receive so many e-mails with the subject line "Matt Diaz" to a pseudonymous Yahoo-based account.
But it happened. This is the latest, from Arjun:
I'm a fan of your collective blog and I read it regularly. I wanted to note one other thing about reader Eric's Matt Diaz numbers: Most of the AB listed are from the minor leagues. BABIP is inflated in the minor leagues because A. pitching is worse and B. fielding is MUCH worse. A high BABIP in the minor leagues doesn't mean that the player can sustain a high BABIP in the major leagues.
The Atlanta numbers are "legitimate," but still small enough number of AB, career-wise, to surely be a small sample size effect.
We're going to be seeing a lot of shit like this in the next month:
I know, I wrote that the Yankees would be better off letting Rodriguez walk and using the savings to shore up the pitching staff, but, like Cashman soon will, I reserve the right to change my mind.
The funny thing is, it took him until HR #47 and 48 to admit he was wrong about ARod.
And by the way, I don't think Brian Cashman is dumb enough ever to have thought -- like you did -- that the Yankees should just let him walk. (You can find that journalistic face-plant here, if you're interested.)
I have to say, it's nice to be back at ol' Fremulon Ins., Inc. The fluorescent lighting. The thin, ratty, light-gray industrial carpet. The sweet sound of my phone beeping with news of another downturn in our company's pension portfolio. And, since it's Tuesday, the chance to ignore all of it and focus on another JoeChat.
Joe Morgan: The NL Central, it seems like it is going to go to the last day and maybe further! Let's get started!
Ken Tremendous: Picture that being read by a 13 year-old Russian boy who just learned English. It's funnier now, isn't it?
James (Charlotte): Hey Joe, this is probably the 100th time you see this question today but what do you think of Pedro's performance yesterday? Do you think he'll be good enough to be part of the playoff rotation and get the Mets to the World Series?
KT: Now, let's get off to a good start here, Joe. The question is: for the 100th time (probably), what did you think of Pedro's performance yesterday?
Joe Morgan: The difficult question is whether he will stay in the rotation.
KT: Yes, but the actual question -- the one you are being paid to answer -- is: what did you think of Pedro's performance yesterday?
I really believe that guys like Pedro, or Clemens, have an impact on a team even when they are not at their best.
Was he at his best? You can answer that question by answering the original question: what did you think of Pedro's performance yesterday?
Their toughness and confidence is something a team feeds off. I think Clemens has really helped the Yankees as far as mental toughness even though he is only 6-6.
Yes. Okay. That's an interesting comment about a man who is not Pedro Martinez. Quick refresher: the question on the table: what did you think of Pedro's performance yesterday?
So guys like Pedro and Roger bring more than just pitching. But no one can tell what Pedro will do the rest of the way at this point.
Hey -- I have a question, a propos of nothing. What did you think of Pedro's performance yesterday?
We need to see him pitch a few more games,
Other than the one he pitched yesterday? What did you think of Pedro's performance yesterday?
but I am sure the Mets are very glad to have him back even at less than 100%.
Me too, based on how he pitched yesterday, which was: pretty well.
Andy (Fountain Valley, CA): Joe, the Red Sox, Angels, and Indians seem like virtual locks for the playoffs. Out of those 3, which one would you not want to face in the playoffs?
KT: As you read this answer, imagine an ant walking across a patch of ground, meandering this way and that, possibly in search of crumbs of food, but with no discernible goal, or target, or direction, or coherent sequence of cognitive stimuli.
Joe Morgan: I think Boston is the best team overall, if you are looking at 162 games. I think the Angles would be the toughest team to face in the playoffs. In the playoffs you do not often see a fourth or fifth starter, so when you look at it that way I think the Angels are the toughest team. So I would hate the face the Angels even though Boston is the better team over 162 games. I say this, because if you play the Red Sox in Boston it is really tough to beat them, and you have a better shot on the road. So it will comedown to who has the best record. So if the Angels and Red Sox meet it will comedown to who has homefield.
When you think of the ant, it makes it easier to read, doesn't it? Because there's no pressure for it to follow one continuous line of thought.
Josh W NY, NY: Do you think any National League team has any chance to beat an American League team in the World Series?
Joe Morgan: Any team that gets into the playoffs can win the World Series. The AL will be favored, but look at what happened last year. In a short series anyone can get hot and win; so yes an NL team can win. I think the Mets would have the best chance. I think the Padres would also have a good chance because of their pitching. Remember it is not always the best team that wins, but the team that is playing best at the time.
KT: And then just like that he turns on his brain and lets loose with a straightforward, cogent answer. Why can't they all be like this? Sean (Boston): Hi Joe, being the greatest second basemen of all time, what did you think of Pedroia's play to save the no-hitter for Buchholz on Saturday?
Joe Morgan: Thanks for the compliment, but let me add "arguably."
This made me laugh out loud. What modesty. It's like in that famous "Five-Timer's Club" SNL cold open, where Tom Hanks addresses Steve Martin as "Mr. Martin," and he replies, "Please -- call me Mr. Steve Martin."
Tim (Pottstown, PA): Will the Phillies make the playoffs?
Joe Morgan: The way the teams are playing now in the NL, you just cannot predict anything.
KT: Unless you are an Emmy-winning analyst who is paid to predict things. Take a shot. There are two choices. Yes? No?
I mean the Phillies sweep the Mets and now lose three out of four with the Mets earning a bunch of games back. You cannot do that and catch the Mets so now they need to focus on the Wild Card. They have a chance, but these teams need to get more consistent and right now none of the Wild Card teams are consistent.
Our old friend "consistent" makes a double-appearance. And "they have a chance" is not a good answer to a yes or no question. Acceptable answers are: yes, no.
Rob (Portland, OR): AS a former player, can you tell people just how tough ti is to get 200 hits in 7 straight seasons? Is Ichiro a hall of famer even if he doesn't get 3,000 hits?
Joe Morgan: I cannot tell you how tough it is because I never got there. But I did play with Pete Rose who reached 200 hits in a season a couple times. The keys are you have to be a good hitter, avoid injuries, and be a guy who does not walk much.
Unless you are the last person who had 7 straight seasons of 200+ hits, Wade Boggs, who averaged 102 walks per year for those seven years. #1 in the league in times on base, 1983-1990. 23rd all-time in walks.
Pete Rose averaged 71 BB for every 162 games, FWIW. Ichiro is at 47.
Jason (DC): Joe -- Will the Tigers be able to find the necessary consistency to sneak into the playoffs again?
Tigers question. "Consistency." I smell a Joe-baiter. If Joe hits us with some Sheffield action, we have a live one.
Joe Morgan: A week ago I thought they would, but now I am not sure, especially with Sheffield out.
Bam.
He was a big part of their offense, and their personality. Gary is a tough guy and when you lose a guy like that it has an effect. I am not sure about them, losing that 7 run lead to the As was a big loss. But again, everyone else is incosistent as well, so it is hard to tell.
Everyone is inconsistent. Gary Sheffield is awesome. I don't know, I'm not sure, I'm not sure. A perfect JoeChat answer. Kudos, Jason from D.C.
Liz ( Big Apple): Do you think Mike Mussina will Retire? Al Leiter said he knew it was time for him to retire- same with David Justice. Wouldn't Moose want to go out on a high note and not like this? Thanks Joe
Joe Morgan: Well the answer to this is only Moose knows.
Yes, but the question was: do youthink he will?
He has to look into the mirror and decide that. But he may not be able to go out on a good note if he is finished. The worst thing is if you lose your ability but try to hang in there. I have only seen him pitch on tv so it is hard for me to tell if he can still win or not.
You see, people, TV distorts the results of play significantly. If Moose gives up 19 runs in three starts on TV, well, thats fine and good. But if you were there, in the park, you would have seen something different. You would have seen him gutting out three straight 7IP, 5H, 1-run performances, wriggling out of jams with GIDPs and setting up hitters beautifully with a dastardly melange of off-speed breaking stuff, making his 84-mph FBs look like Verlander's best. TV is a lie. Do not trust it. Always check the box scores. Often times, what appeared to be a 9-2 loss on TV is really a gritty 6-4 win.
He does not have to be as dominant as he was before, he just needs to get people out, and only he knows if he can do that.
Oh -- no, sorry, I know too. Because I watched him on TV. He's got nothing. KL - NC: Is Jake Peavy the best pitcher in the NL, MLB>
Joe Morgan: At the first half of the season it was Webb, and then Young, and now Peavy. Peavy has been the most consistent, so you can make that argument for the NL.
June 4, 1944. Bonham, TX.
Joe Morgan's Dad: Are you hungry, Baby Joe? Want some food? Okay. There we go. Here comes the airplane! Brrrrrrrrrr--
Baby Joe: Comsistent.
Joe Morgan's Dad: Wha-- honey! Honey come here!
Baby Joe: Comsisterg. Gheeeeee!
Joe Morgan's Mom: What is it? Is everything okay?
Joe Morgan's Dad: Baby Joe said his first word!
Joe Morgan's Mom: What? Oh my God! What was it? Mama? Dada?
Joe Morgan's Dad: No. It was...something else. I couldn't quite--
Baby Joe: Cormsistent.
(beat)
Baby Joe: Consistent.
Joe Morgan's Mom: "Consistent?" What the hell kind of first word is "consistent?"
Joe Morgan's Dad: Was that it? I couldn't quite--
Joe Morgan: Sheffield.
Joe Morgan's Mom: What are you saying, Baby Joe? Mommy can't understand--
Baby Joe: Cormsistent. Sheffield. Big Red Morchines. Concepcion should be in Hall of Farm! Gooooorrrrrrm. Bee bee bee! Slidepiece. Billy Beane wrote "Moneyball."
Joe Morgan's Mom: What is he saying? Who's Billy Beane?
Joe Morgan's Dad: I don't know. But we have a genius on our hands! JC: What are David Wright's chances for MVP? He's been on an absolute tear the last couple of months...
Joe Morgan: This is a year when the NL MVP is very open. Usually you have a sure guy like Pujols, or Howard last year.
Last year's NL MVP voting:
Howard 388 Pujols 347
Drew, Wisconsin: With the increasing struggle of the Brewers bullpen/starting pitching, do you see any way for them to actually regain the central lead?
Joe Morgan: The difficult part is they have lost their confidence in both areas. Ben Sheets being back may help the starters as far as relieving pressure, but the bullpen is still a problem. It will be difficult. But the Cubs should have a bigger lead than they have, but that is a result of the way Zambrano has struggled. So the Brewers still have a chance, just because the division is so inconsitent.
September 10, 1953. Bonham, TX.
Joe's Teacher: Okay, class, we are going to read our essays on what we did over our summer vacations. Joey? Why don't you go first?
10 Year-Old Joe: This summer I went swimming every day in the pool. I was very consistent in my swimming. I swam consistently from one side to the other. The key to my swimming was consistency. After that I would consistently have lunch with Bobby, my friend. I always had ham and cheese but Bobby was all over the place. Some days he had peanut butter, some days he had a banana, some days he would eat ham like me. Bobby was not very consistent with lunch and that is why I am not friends with him anymore because he was not consistent. Then I would go home and my mom would consistently be there waiting for me and consistently every night would make me dinner and she would read to me consistently from the same book which was called "Are You There God? It's Me, Consistency" and I would sleep for the same amount of time every night in the same PJs. My summer was consistent.
Joe's Teacher: A-plus!
Joe Morgan: I am sure when we talk next week we will still be talking about all the same teams and their chances. And that can be good for the game, but I think we have a lot of average teams competing for poastseason spots, rather than a lot of great teams.
Aaron writes in with an excellent point about Joe's inconsistency:
Joe Morgan this week: “Any team that gets into the playoffs can win the World Series.”
Joe Morgan last week: “That is why (the Oakland A’s) have struggled in the post season. They may win the division with that philosophy, form time to time, but they will never win a World Series like that.”
As a diehard A’s fan, I’d like to know which Joe is right.
KL - NC: Is Jake Peavy the best pitcher in the NL, MLB>
Joe Morgan: At the first half of the season it was Webb, and then Young, and now Peavy. Peavy has been the most consistent, so you can make that argument for the NL.
This is just wrong. Brandon Webb's been fine, but he had an ERA over 3 all year until that insane scoreless inning streak he just ripped off.
"At the first half of the season it was Webb"?
Webb Pre-ASB ERA: 3.37 Peavy Pre-ASB ERA: 2.19
In the second half, they've both been incredible, with Peavy still just a little bit better.
Webb Post-ASB ERA: 2.10 Peavy Post-ASB ERA: 1.92
Looking at these numbers, you might say that Peavy has been more consisteblarg, a word meaning "constant," "invariable," or "unchanging."
If anyone is curious, reader Devin also compiled some more hot Morgan-on-Sheffield action:
"You're not going to get much better with Matsui, you will with Sheffield. I say that because Sheffield can dominate a game and carry you for days at a time." -August 30, 2006
"Sheffield generates a lot of power with a quick bat." -May 27, 2006
Joe defending Sheffield for throwing a tantrum: "Well, I was in NY on Sunday and Sheffield threw his helmet down and was ejected immediately. My understanding is, if you throw equipment, you get fined for each piece of equipment you throw. It's not an automatic ejection like some people think. I didn't think Sheff should have gotten ejected for that, because, you know, it's in the heat of the battle, the Yankees were on a four game losing streak and Gary was upset. The umpires have to understand that their is emotion in baseball." -July 1, 2005
Same chat, defending Sheffield again "First of all, I don't think that he would be a cancer, but it's his way of telling teams that he doesn't want to go any place because he doesn't have a no-trade contract... BUT, I guarentee that IF he gets traded to another team, he will play and he will perform." -July 1, 2005
Apparently Sheffield's problem in the HR derby is that he's too good... "It's true. Anytime you have a great stroke, if you're swinging a hot bat, it can be harder to hit the ball out of the ballpark in a contest like this." -from the 2003 HR Derby
Stuck in the airport on the way back from Branson. Bored bored bored. Mrs. Tremendous is re-reading The Secret, so I break out the ol' laptop and see that we just hit 1000 posts! Nice work, us. Then I lope around the internets and do some reading, and I think to myself: For FJM Post #1001, instead of attacking another old hack who still thinks it's inexplicable that the White Sox are playing .440 ball, how about breaking down a jokey, Page 2 Scoop Jackson article on why Tennis is better than College Football?
Nice little change of pace. No facts to analyze, no stats -- just Scoop's good old fashioned weird opinions, and the bloggers who love them.
Let me first say that I like both college football and tennis. I have never thought to compare the two, mainly because why would you ever compare the two? Clearly Scoop has a bee in his bonnet, though, so let's take a look-see at some of his reasons.
Despite what everyone else may tell you, here are 25 reasons why tennis is better than college football:
I'm glad he's doing this. Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- has been talking my ear off recently about how college football is better than tennis. I can't get people to fucking shut up about how college football is better than tennis. Even in Branson, I couldn't swing a cat at a Kirby Vanburch show without hitting some dude who was prattling on about "Oh, college football is so great" and "college football is soooo much better than tennis," and whatnot. I can't wait to send this article to everyone I know, so they will all stop talking about how college football is better than tennis.
1. Because even though she lost this weekend, Maria Sharapova didn't go out like Notre Dame.
We are already in trouble in terms of variable comparison here. I think for a Page 2 article, it would have actually been a good opening gambit to just write: 1. Maria Sharapova. That would have been...something. A cheap, appeal-to-idiot-dudes something, but something. Comparing Sharapova's U.S. open loss to Notre Dame's loss...as a reason tennis is better than college football...?...?...?
2. Because, right now, Ohio State versus Michigan cannot come close to Federer versus Nadal.
Perhaps not. But you should have used like Florida-Florida State, since bringing up Michigan reminds one that one might counter this point by saying that nothing in tennis comes close to Appalachian State beating Michigan in the Big House on a blocked field goal after a 46-yard hail mary to get Michigan into field goal range with 6 seconds left.
4. Ana Ivanovic.
And see now you go ahead and do the thing where you just type the name of a hot lady. Sigh.
5. No player in college football has fathers like Venus and Serena Williams or Marion Bartoli.
I don't know what Marion Bartoli's father is like, but do you really want to celebrate Richard Williams? He did a lot of amazing things for his daughters, but he's also a little loopy, I think. Remember when Venus was booed at Indian Wells for bailing on a match with Serena, and Richard Williams said: "It's the worst act of prejudice I've seen since they killed Martin Luther King"? I'm positive that the Williams family has encountered their share of racism, but that seems insulting to a lot of people who have suffered actual brutal acts of racism.
Although, what do I know -- maybe a mild smattering of boos at a tennis tournament is the second-worst act of racism in the last 40 or so years, next to that horrifying murder. Whatever. The point is, tennis is better than college football.
6. Because no coach is bigger than the player or the program.
Why is this good or bad for either sport?
7. Because as cute as Ian Johnson and Chrissy Popadics' story is, they'll never match Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf's.
Here I'm just going to have to straight-up call bullshit. Johnson and Popadics, you'll remember, are the Boise State football player and cheerleader, respectively, who got engaged on national TV when Johnson, basking in the glow of his winning score in the Broncos' insane overtime fumblerooski-laden Statue-of-Liberty-Play riddled 43-42 victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, dropped to one knee and popped the question. It was the most hilariously wonderful and American and college-y thing I have ever seen. (They later received death threats due to the fact that Johnson is black and Popadics is white, and persevered, ["You take it for what it is — the less educated, the less willing to change," said Johnson, level-headedly] which makes me love them even more.)
Anyway, that's their story.
Graf and Agassi were two famous multi-millionaire tennis players who met after they both won a tournament and got married, and they have cute kids, and it's very nice. That's their story. How is that better than proposing on TV right after you score a touchdown to upset a massive powerhouse and win the Fiesta Bowl and finish a 13-0 season?
8. Because they don't name college football stadiums after jazz icons (Louis Armstrong), AIDS and human rights activists (Arthur Ashe) or world-class, world-changing feminists (Billie Jean King).
It maybe should be noted that Ashe and King were also...tennis players. Which maybe is also a reason they named tennis stadiums after them. And Armstrong lived near the site of the stadium. It's not like when they build a new Centre Court at Wimbledon they'll name it "John Lennon Stadium" just because he was a cool dude who was pro-peace. And I'm not the guy to ask -- and too lazy to research -- but I'd bet some of the people that college football stadiums were named after were decent people.
9. Because the NCAA would never invite eight "wild card" teams to play in their "tournament" the way the USTA did with players like John Isner and Donald Young at the Open.
Again, I hate to rewrite your article for you, but the fact that you put "tournament" in quotes indicates that you know that there is no championship "tournament" in college football, and that this is a sore spot for a lot of people, and maybe you could have just said: "Tennis has tournaments to decide its champions," and maybe that would be a stronger argument, since: who the hell are John Isner and Donald Young?
10. Because even though more people will watch Virginia Tech at LSU on Saturday, nothing in that game will match what will happen in the three matches on Super Saturday.
So, the #10 reason that tennis is better than college football, is that the theoretical like "goodness" of three future tennis matches will outweigh the theoretical "goodness" of a future college football game.
Strong. Strong argument.
12. Roger Federer plays tennis and no one in college football is close to being that good.
How might one person playing a team sport display the same talents as one person playing an individual sport? How might one do that, Mr. Scoop, sir, if you please? You know why eggs are better than lucite? Because eggs can be made into omelets and there's nothing involving lucite that is as good as omelets.
13. The on-the-court postmatch interview between Andy Roddick and Justin Gimelstob.
Didn't see it. It sounds amazing, though. Thanks for the excellent description.
15. Because Dick Enberg, John McEnroe and Mary Carillo are better than anyone except the GameDay crew.
So: tennis is better than college football because tennis's announcing A-team is better than any college football booth team except for college football's studio A-team. Take that, college football!
18. Of the next superstars in both sports (Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina and Brian Brohm of Louisville), even if or when Brohm gets picked No. 1 in the 2008 NFL draft, del Potro will have a better career.
Let's count the number of weird assumptions made here in #18.
1. Brian Brohm is the "next superstar" in football. 2. Juan Martin del Potro is the "next superstar" in tennis. 3. There is a logical method one can use to compare the as-yet unplayed careers of football QBs and male tennis players. 4. When that method is applied to Brohm and Juan Martin del Potro, at some point in the future, no matter what happens, it will show that del Potro's career will have been "better" than Brohm's career.
21. No boosters.
Yes. Thank you. Tennis is notoriously calm and nurturing and "move at your own pace"-ish and "whatever's best for you, dear"-ish when it comes to the young people who show world-class promise. No one ever puts undue pressure on young tennis stars. No kids are ever rushed, nor is money ever dangled in front of 12 year-olds, nor are there any like companies or anything who attack barely-pubescent kids with $$$. Huge ad-in, for tennis, here.
22. Because you won't get four football games this season as drama-filled and intense as Ferrer/Nalbandian, Peer/Vaidisova, Santoro/Blake or Wawrinka/Korolev have already played in the first week of this year's Open.
I will take that bet.
23. Because women receive equal pay. (Oops, there are no women in college football.)
Oops! Equal pay was just instituted, like this year, I think, in the slams. Until last year, 2006, the top prize for men at Wimbledon was higher than the top prize for women. Isn't that kind of lazy sexism in 2006 -- in a sport that has been played by both men and women forever -- a worse mark against that sport than the fact that football is a sport played only by men?
That is one tortured, long-ass sentence, but you get what I mean.
24. Because challenging calls and instant replay is less corrupt. (I mean, it's more accurate, more cost-efficient, requires fewer cameras, is less time-consuming and leaves less room for human, alum, corporate, Vegas, referee error.)
There is one thing a replay has to show, in tennis: was the ball in or out? One thing. That's why they can have like lasers that announce it instantly. There are many many other things that refs have to look for in football. Feet in? Possession? Ball over goal line? Guy out of bounds and then came back in? Knee down? Mascot interference? Cheerleaders hot? Mascot hot? Did coach come off sidelines and punch player in face?
25. There may be B.S. in tennis, but not BCS.
Weird. Weird ending.
Post 1002, coming tomorrow: Junior breaks down: Michael Ventre on why Steely Dan's career path is a good metaphor for the rules changes in international basketball.
First, to Cristian, who cheered me up with this excellent Yakov Smirnov joke:
In Soviet Russia, Joe Morgan fires you!
He does indeed, my friend. He does indeed.
And second to Josh, who answers Scoop's weird dumb claim that tennis is better because women get equal pay. Ignoring the fact that no one gets paid in college...
Scoop is apparently unaware of Title IX which, for all its problems, did enshrine UNDER THE LAW the idea of equality in education waaay back in 1972. The effects of Title IX have mainly been felt in athletics, so for the sake of this discussion let's say that Scoop Jackson is apparently unaware of the fact that, sans pay, college athletes all receive an equal amount of funding regardless of gender.
While that's hardly as sexy as "tennis gives the same prize purse to women...as of 2006," an immeasurably greater number of women have benefited from Title IX than from pay equity in an elite professional sport.
The Essence of What Is Wrong with the Way That Awards are Given Out In Major League Baseball; and Also, the Essence of What is Wrong-Headed About Joe
When asked by Karl R. if he thought that John Lackey should be considered the frontrunner for the Cy Young this year, Joe said yes, because, "his team is playing well, and he's 'the man.'"
Emphasis mine. Irrelevancy his.
Can someone explain why the team's performance on the 80% of days Lackey does not pitch should affect whether he gets the award for best pitcher?
Also, please read Junior's attack on Eric Wilbur below. It's way better than this piddling little post. I'm just in a bad mood because it turns out Yakov had no Labor Day Weekend shows scheduled. I was all set to see the 9:30 and the 3:00, and instead I get nothing. What a country.
Close up shop. Blow the team sky-high. Take that 81-55 record and shove it up your pee holes, because it's meaningless.
As we all know, the World Series trophy is awarded every year to the team with the fieriest passions. Who will scream and yell and curse the most? Who will fill the dugout with tears of insanity? Who will give the most hugs? These are the questions that will be answered in October, when we once again crown The Most Emotional, And Therefore Best, Team In Baseball.
What a bunch of losers! They have the best pitching in the majors, but with a lineup of increasingly frustrating incompetence.
And we all know the old saying: hitting wins in the playoffs.
They are going to win the American League East for the first time since 1995. They may even have home-field advantage throughout October.
But there is no way these Red Sox are winning the World Series.
There you have it. Eric Wilbur is offically putting the odds of the Red Sox, the team with the best record and best run differential in baseball, at 0%. 0 out of 30. 0 out of a million. Zero.
I'm going to go ahead and say that if the Red Sox make the playoffs, their odds of winning the Series are about 1 in 8. But let's read on. I'm sure Eric has some sound baseball reasons behind eliminating them altogether on August 30.
As far and as much as a fire for playing the game is concerned, the Yankees, Angels, and Indians all have to be considered superior American League squads.
Yep. Did it. Changed my mind. Forgot about fire. My bad. Can't win shit without fire. Gotta be fiery. Fire it up, Yankees, Angels, and Indians! You're all contenders for the World Series this year! Of course, as is the case every year, the World Series will be awarded to Ozzie Guillen and Ozzie Guillen alone.
First-place Los Angeles put on the clamps, and shut down the Mariners to take control of the West with a 5 1/2-game lead over Seattle. The Indians put any lingering thoughts the Twins might have had about getting back into the race by sweeping and putting Minnesota in a nine-game hole.
Very good use of the little-known MLB loophole (Rule 35.17 in the rulebook): "Performance in the last series of August shall be used to determine World Series championship eligibility, pursuant to Fieriness Clause in Rule 42.9." Red Sox got swept by the Yankees, as you recall, so they are ineligible for the World Series this year. Too bad, fans.
Additional note: the Yankees (run differential of +144) are a much, much better team than both the Mariners (+4) and the Twins (+23).
Your Boston Red Sox? They go to the Bronx and show all the passion of a weasel on Xanax in getting swept by the Yankees, who made them look foolish offensively and even suspect on the mound, where Boston has honed its greatest strength this season.
Is a weasel a particularly passionless creature? It seems like this joke would've worked better with an especially docile animal. My pitches:
sloth (a little obvious, but point gets made) basset hound (droopy face, droopy eyes, droopy ears; slow-moving) armadillo (these things don't seem that passionate -- prove me wrong) Asian person (get a pulse, am I right, guys?)
Auxiliary pitch:
instead of Xanax, how about "(passionless animal or Asian person) on downers"?
It's a different brand of baseball come autumn, and it's now completely evident that the Red Sox don't have that (bleep) 'em attitude that defined their 2004 predecessors. The Yankees have it. The Angels have it. The Indians seem like they have it. The Red Sox? I give you J.D. Drew.
2007 Red Sox: Good pitching, not enough fuck 'em 2007 Yankees: Rag-taggest, underdoggest, scrappiest, fuck 'em-iest team ever!
Doesn't it seem like J.D. Drew is the quintessential fuck 'em player? The guy clearly doesn't give a shit, ever. The always helpful Urban Dictionary defines "fuck 'em" as "In a state in which a person could careless [sic] about a person, place, thing or a group." J.D. Drew cares so little about baseball it looks like he's on the verge of taking a nap in between pitches. If you look closely at his face, he actually mouths the words "fuck 'em" on every feeble missed swing he takes.
For all the warranted criticism hammered upon the underperforming outfielder, his emotionless approach to the game has seemingly become this team's calling card.
J.D. Drew = Emotion Cancer For all the passion emitted from guys like Josh Beckett, Kevin Youkilis, Jonathan Papelbon, and David Ortiz, on the whole the Red Sox are a squad that comes to the office, does their business with zombie-like efficiency, says all the right things afterward, and then has fans scratching their heads wondering if there is anything special here at all. That's J.D. Drew, and that is the Red Sox.
There you go. It's not enough to have the best record in baseball. It's not enough to have the best pitching staff. They're not special enough. Not special like the turd of a team the St. Louis Cardinals were last year. Not fire-breathing passionate personality monsters like the dynastic San Antonio Spurs are in basketball. Not emotional, constantly weeping, frighteningly volatile like Bill Belichick and the Patriots.
I also love that he names four very passionate essential Red Sox players in an article decrying the lack of passion on the team. I mean, seriously, let's do an inventory real quick:
Passionate (Special, World Series-worthy, Fiery, Prone To Being On Fire, Combustible, Flammable, Inflammable) Beckett Youkilis Papelbon Ortiz Schilling Varitek Pedroia Lowell (borderline, but he's a Cagey Veteran who sublimates his fire into Lunchpailism) Wakefield Gagne (facial hair! curses in French!) Crisp (diving catches! leaps into walls!) Buchholz (hugged a lot of people last night!) Tavarez (once murdered a drifter with a mini-screwdriver!)
Dispassionate (Not Special, Emotionally Cancerous, Membership On Team Automatically Disqualifies Team For World Series)
Drew Manny Lugo Matsuzaka (Japanese robot)
Honestly: Red Sox, passionate or not? You make the call.
Curt Schilling came out of New York with the best outing of any starter, but was victimized greatly by a Manny Ramirez-less lineup that had the following 6-9 hitters: Drew, Jason Varitek, Eric Hinske, Alex Cora. Beckett pitched well when he needed to wriggle out of jams, but 13 hits?
Disregard this paragraph; we're talking about who's going to win the World Series, not about baseball stuff.
Daisuke Matsuzaka at this point is an enigma, and has not had a memorable, step-up, "wow" performance in his rookie season other than a recent 1-0 outing at Cleveland.
Would've rewritten to say "Daisuke Matsuzaka is at this point an inscrutable, crafty, math-genius enigma ... "
Also, re: "wow" games -- how about that complete game, one run affair against the vaunted Tiger offense? How about a span of four consecutive games where he allowed a total of two runs (and in the process struck out 8, 9, 8, and 9)? How about the month of June, when he had a 1.59 ERA? (I guess that doesn't count because there were some National League teams mixed in, and everyone knows you do not play National League teams in the process of winning the World Series.) Is anyone wowed by the fact that he's struck out 174 Major League batters in 176.1 innings? The days of late-inning heroics are long gone; the celebrations of leaping men in uniform at home plate a thing of the past.
That was the identity of the Red Sox these past few years, more than often bailed out by Ortiz. What is this team's identity?
Best record in baseball. Good team. Good pitching. Solid starters, excellent bullpen.
We've sought so long and hard for one that by now it has become evident that it doesn't really have one. Theo Epstein wanted to rid himself of the "Idiot" culture, but he has replaced it with a collection so vanilla in attitude that one has to wonder what the consensus is when adversity is placed in front of the OPS objective.
Not to get all Michiko Kakutani here or anything, but how can an "objective" encounter "adversity"? Can an "objective" really reach a "consensus"? Can an "attitude" be "vanilla"? That's just weird. A lot of abstract nouns doing a lot of active things in there, Wilbur.
Where's the fire? Where's the passion?
Mark my words: Tim Duncan will never win a championship. Pete Sampras will never win a tournament. John Stockton sucked balls. Ivan Lendl was so bad at tennis whenever he touched a tennis ball it would explode and kill fourteen innocent bystanders. Unless you scream and curse and cry and pump your fist and chop your groin all at the same time, you will never be good at sports.
The Yankees welcomed the Red Sox into their home and were ready to pounce, even after falling one night earlier to Detroit, 16-0. Their zeal was evident from pitch one on Tuesday.
Their zeal was evident in that they won. They won the games. That's why this article was written. If the Sox had taken one or two of the games, regardless of how passionate they looked while doing it, this article doesn't exist. Winning. Winning is important. Winning makes guys leap into each others' arms. Winning makes David Ortiz crush people with bear hugs. Winning at sports.
Now, before we get out of hand, let's be fair and rewind the clock. It was Sept. 17-19 of '04 when the Red Sox invaded Yankee Stadium for three, starting with a thrilling 3-2 win on Friday night, and ending with embarrassing 12-5 and 11-4 losses the next two days. The next weekend, the Yanks made Pedro Martinez their adopted son.
One month later, none of it mattered.
Way to disprove your own article.
Maybe we're being a bit too revisionist, erroneously remembering the 2004 squad as a group that could change water into wine, slay the dragons that unwelcomingly inhabit the Charles, and accurately able to translates the mayor's jabberings. But still, that team had a certain undeniable ardor that this edition is severely lacking.
New sports word: ardor! Ardor: does your team have it? A short radio play: Joe Buck: Well, Tim, you have to like the Red Sox' starting pitching and bullpen, but how do you feel about their ardor?
Tim McCarver: Ardor is a funny thing, Joe. It's like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said about pornography: "I know it when I see it." And with these Red Sox, I just don't see it.
JB: How do you know it when you see it, Tim?
TM: For me, it's when you see the dick going in.
(ten minutes of silence)
TM: Oh. I see. You were talking about ardor.
"You know what happens when you wake a sleeping giant," Papelbon said yesterday after the Chamberlain incident.
Yes. But whether the Red Sox are indeed a snoozing leviathan or indolent group of nondescript ballplayers remains the question.
Hey Eric Wilbur, indolent means "slothful, lazy, idle." You really think a large percentage of Red Sox players are slothful, lazy, and idle? Okay, dude. Have fun telling them that.
Plus, nondescript? Tell me: which team, other than the Yankees, has more descript players than the fucking Boston fucking Red Sox? We're talking descript as hell here. Ortiz, Schilling, Manny, Dice-K, Papelbon, Beckett. These guys are unique, superfamous uberstars. Even the role players are descript: Youkilis is Moneyball-famous, Pedroia is three feet tall, Coco Crisp has a funny name, Wakefield throws a knuckler, Varitek is supposedly a god of intangibles. I'll tell you who's nondescript: the Pittsburgh Pirates.
They're one of the best teams in the game, no doubt, and have an outside shot at a 100-win season. But be honest, can you really imagine this group as World Series champions?
Yes. Broken record: very good pitching, decent hitting, dependable bullpen. No one's a lock, of course, but they have a shot, sure. On the flip side, nobody expected Detroit and St. Louis to be in the World Series last year after the way they played much of August.
Way to disprove your own article, part II. But the fact that there is something so maddeningly lacking on the Red Sox in terms of fire and inspiration still has much of the baseball world looking elsewhere when trying to pinpoint a winner. They can do it.
No, you can't backtrack and say they can do it now. You can't. I'm not allowing it. The whole thesis of this article is that they can't do it because they're not emotional. They're not special. You're not buying it back here.
They just have shown us no reason why anyone should think they could.
81-55. AL-best 3.75 ERA. Fourth in MLB in runs scored. No reason.
Guys scream and pump their fists and point to the sky and give each other funny handshakes when they win. For the last time, it's not the other way around.
In the airport waiting for our flight to MO. Thinking about the Chicago White Sox' woes this season. Impatient hitters, injuries, bad starting pitching, aging veterans. You know what they need? Some grit.
St. Louis Cardinals free agent-to-be David Eckstein is becoming target No. 1 on the Sox' offseason wish list. He would give them a leadoff hitter with a career .349 on-base percentage and a sure-handed shortstop.
The White Sox are single-handedly trying to prove as true everything that I, and people like me, believe. If they sign Eckstein next year, all things being equal, they will be the worst-GMed team in history.
By the way, reader Mike directed me to this article via an AOL FanHouse blog discussion, located here. For a good time, read the comments below the post. Two rings in five years!!!!!!
