FJM is a closed forum, but we welcome reader feedback. We're especially interested in corrections of our work, and research (usually number-crunching) that we may not be able to do ourselves. Please check the comments section as well, where we often post readers' opinions, and, less frequently, announce that we were wrong about something.
You can e-mail dak,Ken Tremendous,Junior,Matthew Murbles, or Coach individually.
We all know Barry Bonds is a bad dude. Does illegal whaling in Japan in the off-season, helps cars hit old ladies crossing the street, has a huge collection of pirated LaserDiscs. Crusty sportswriters -- I'm giving you this one. Not defending Barry's character.
But recently we've had a plethora of "good thing Team X didn't sign Barry!" pieces, culminating in that crazy Tim Kawakami thing that argued that Fred Lewis was better than Bonds. Essentially, these articles all hinge on the same premise: Barry's negative clubhouse presence outweighs what actually does on the field. Sure, they pay lip service to his age, his balky knees, his fielding -- but let's be honest, what they're really saying is that Barry Bonds' confirmed boogeymanness is totally more important than his ability to hit baseballs to Ganymede, Jupiter's sweetest moon.
I present to you Jeff Gordon. Not that one. Is unemployed outfielder Barry Bonds the victim of collusion among Major League Baseball owners?
Well, probably not organized, premeditated, let's-all-get-in-a-dark-smoky-boardroom-and-place-blackballs-into-a-mahogany-box collusion, no. But I'm starting to wonder what the fuck some of these teams are thinking.
Of course not. Only a blithering idiot would believe such nonsense.
For a guy about to spout nonsense, he's pretty harsh on idiots who believe nonsense.
The major leagues are awash with players mentioned in the Mitchell Report. The Cardinals, like many teams, didn’t hesitate to acquire players implicated in steroid and/or HGH investigations.
Okay, but like Larry Bigbie and Glenallen Hill and Nook Logan didn't break the all-time home run record, sullying one of the most hallowed numbers in sports in the process. Bonds has a little bit more stigma attached, no?
Still, the players' association is gathering information on Bonds’ unemployment. It is reviewing how the free-agent marketplace operated after the 2007 season.
We hope their investigators check this corner of cyberspace to get our take. Bonds isn’t in the big leagues because GMs believe his minuses outweigh his pluses in 2008.
Ways To Tell If Someone Is Both Old In Real Life And New To Cyberspace, #435: Uses the term "cyberspace."
Let's keep track of Mr. Gordon's pluses and minuses, and which are baseball-y and which are boogeyman-y.
Can he still hit? Probably. Last year he hit 28 homers in 340 at-bats. He still has a good eye, and lord knows he hasn’t gotten any smaller. He could still bring presence to a batting order.
Plus plus plus! Big plus. You know how many Cardinals hit 28 home runs last year? One. His name was David Eckstein. ("David Eckstein" is what I call Albert Pujols.)
But let’s walk through all the negatives:
* Bonds will turn 44 years old in July. How many other 44-year-old outfielders are flourishing in the big leagues this season?
How many 43-year-old outfielders OPS-ed 1.045 last year? Or .999 the year before, at age 42? * The former Gold Glove outfielder is now a defensive liability, due to his bad wheels.
Yes. He is better suited to be a DH. But weighed against his still-crazy offensive prowess, his bad fielding still might be worth it, Manny-style. Baseball Prospectus has Bonds at -12 and -4 Fielding Runs Above Average the last two years. Man-Ram's been clocking figures like -6, -21, -18, -12, and -13 for years. Big huge boulder of salt with these numbers, as fielding science is far from a reliable game, of course.
* Durability is also a major concern, since Barry played just 126 games last season.
True dat. * His salary expectations are out of whack with his diminished baseball value. At this point in his career, Bonds would put up Chris Duncan power numbers -– maybe a little better, perhaps a little worse. (Duncan had slugging percentages of .589 and .480 the last two seasons. Bonds came in at .545 and .565.)
This is just terrible cherry-picking. Sure, those slugging percentages look similar. But check out their respective OBPs, which is way more important than slugging in the first place:
Plus, if you're so concerned with how many games Bonds is going to play, how about Duncan, who basically needs to be platooned since he has a career .598 OPS against lefties? * Bonds is, by all accounts, a truly horrendous teammate. He has been a disruptive clubhouse presence dating back to his Pirates days.
Boogeyman.
* His unresolved legal issues would create distractions anywhere he went. With Bonds comes a media circus, an army of reporters poking and prodding at his combative and defiant persona.
Boogeyman. * He relishes the villain role, a posture that kills his marketing value. He wouldn’t generate box office buzz for his new team.
Now suddenly we're worried about marketing? Should we mark down Julian Tavarez for looking like a seventh-level cacodaemon? We probably should. Also, don't you think more people would still like to see aging dickhead Barry Bonds hit than, I don't know, Skip Schumaker?
Given all those factors, big league GMs opted to look elsewhere for offensive help: younger free agents, prime-age trade targets or home-grown players.
Especially for teams with horrible DHs, I find this to be inexplicable GMing.
Instead, the Cards relied on home-grown talent (Rick Ankiel, Chris Duncan. Skip Schumaker), bargain signing Ryan Ludwick and Rule 5 addition Brian Barton to man the outfield.
...
Ludwick has built a .675 slugging percentage as a part-time outfielder. Duncan hasn’t found his power stroke yet, but his .385 on-base percentage tells you he has enough patience enough to relocate his swing.
Something tells me Ryan Ludwick isn't going to keep up a 1.185 OPS all year. He has a career .333 OBP, so let's not all start saying he's better than Fred Lewis just yet. These are hungry players who bring energy to the group. They help make the Cards a more dynamic offensive and defensive team.
Skip Schumaker has 5 home runs in 178 major league games. Dynamic!
What would Bonds have done? Hit some homers, probably, but otherwise he would have dragged down the group with his egocentric behavior.
Here's where we get to the core of the matter: people life Jeff Gordon truly believe that the scowls outweigh the homers. Bonds' aura saps slugging points away from Ludwick and Duncan. It makes Aaron Miles flub ground balls. Barry's like a baseball dementor. (See, HatGuy? I can do Harry Potter references too!) Imagine how Bonds would have poisoned the clubhouse, honing in on Pujols and offering advice on how to handle his superstar status. One shudders at the thought of that relationship.
You think...Barry Bonds...would hurt Albert Pujols'...ability to hit baseballs. Me, I don't know, I think it would pretty fucking awesome to see these two guys swap hitting tips. God, that would be amazing.
Jesus, what if Pujols protected Bonds in the lineup or vice-versa? (Note to readers: "protection" is, as far as I understand, a myth.)
The team dealt Scott Rolen to shed his negative clubhouse presence.
And just to prove how nebulous, inconsistent, and scattershot sportswriters are when it comes to gauging "presence," the people in Toronto believed Rolen would have a positive impact on the team's "atmosphere":
"Also, replacing Thomas in the clubhouse with Scott Rolen, who's on track to return mid-May from a spring training finger injury will change the Jays' internal dynamics for the better. Rolen understands how to establish a productive atmosphere."
By moving Rolen and shunning Bonds, the Cards allowed Pujols to become an even stronger leader of his team.
Look at how the less-experienced players feed off him. Look at how Albert feeds off the hustle of all the guys fighting to establish their careers.
Yeah, he really needs Ryan Ludwick to push him. Without him, he was all "Blah, blah blah! 1.102, 1.039, 1.072, 1.106, and shit!" What a layabout!
The Cards’ early success this season underscores the value in assembling the right mix of personalities in addition to the right talent mix. This team isn’t hitting homers yet, but it keeps winning games.
In no small part because their ERA is third in the NL, which they couldn't possibly have done with Barry Bonds in the clubhouse frowning up a storm and repeatedly punching Yadier Molina in the gut, unprovoked.
Would Bonds have furthered their cause this season? Of course not. And that is why he sits home today, playing the role he plays best -- the unloved villain/victim.
The Cards are better off without him. And so is every other team.
Yes, the Mariners are much better off with Jose Vidro and his .546 OPS. OPS? More like OOPS!!!!111!!!ONE11!!!!///
It seems like the Cardinals might be okay in the outfield, so maybe Bonds isn't the best fit for them. But as writers of these pieces always seem to do, Gordon can't help but veer off into "AND NOBODY -- NOBODY -- SHOULD SIGN HIM BECAUSE HE IS TERRIBLE AND EVIL AND VILLAINOUS PURITY OF THE GAME CLUBHOUSE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE MEDIA RABBLE RABBLE CIRCUS!"
Cool. He's a jerk. We get it. Someone should probably sign him, though, because when he plays baseball he's damn good at it.
You know what? I'm going to agree with him here. The argument is all over the map, but if I were a GM, even with a struggling NL team, I'm not sure I sign Bonds. He is old, and even though he OPSed like 3.000 last year, I think he's so poisonous and distraction-y I wouldn't want him on my team. I mean, the Reds aren't going to make the playoffs even with the guy, so why sign him? And if you're a contender, and things are going pretty well...
I don't know. Maybe this is a time when it just isn't worth it.
We've come so far, baseball writers. You're citing OPS occasionally, you're learning that wins and losses for pitchers aren't all they're cracked up to be, you're even acknowledging the dubious worth of small sample sizes. It makes me proud, like a mama city raccoon watching her baby eat its first piece of leftover Taco Bell. So please, when you're doing the last of these three things, don't merely pay lip service to sample size and then leap to ridiculous conclusions, like Mr. Timothy Kawakami did today: 1. Barry Bonds is not missed, in part because Fred Lewis is a better player than Bonds was at the end of last year. (italics and insanity his)
In the top of the third inning last night, Macedonian superstar Kevin Kouzmanoff hit a home run off of Jamie Moyer. On Friday, May 20, 1927, Babe Ruth struck out against George Ernest "The Bull" Uhle. Kevin Kouzmanoff is a better player than Babe Ruth was during that at bat. (italics and hamhanded hyperbole mine)
EMPHASIS ON: BONDS AT THE END OF LAST YEAR. I’m of course not saying Lewis is better than Bonds at the height of his power/the injections or when Bonds was 27, as Lewis is now.
EMPHASIS ON: BONDS DURING AN ARBITRARY, TINY SMATTERING OF AT BATS THAT I CHERRY-PICKED COMPARED TO FRED LEWIS' HIGH BABIP-FUELED START THAT HE ALMOST CERTAINLY WILL BE UNABLE TO SUSTAIN.
I’m saying that Lewis is a better producer in LF for the Giants at this moment than Bonds would’ve been if he was currently playing LF for the Giants, or any other team, or DH-ing, or whatever.
Fred Lewis is hot as hell right now. He's got a .952 OPS. I'm sure even Kawakami would admit that he's performing a little over his head.
You know what Bonds' OPS was after the month of April last year?
1.349
That is not a typo. You know what Bonds' OPS for the year was?
1.045
It's early, motherfuckers. Nate McLouth has a 1.083 OPS. Let's keep our heads when comparing 27-year-old virtual rookies with the first- or second-greatest hitter of all time, even the hypothetical 349-year-old version of that hitter who would be playing this year.
(And Bonds would’ve only been worse this year, while Lewis is getting better.)
Probably. Though Barreee did increase his OPS from .999 to the aforementioned 1.045 from 2006 to 2007, at the age of 9,528.
Flash back to early August, when Bonds was a good player.
Something happened between early August and late August that made Bonds not a good player anymore? Did he lose an arm in a lathe accident? I feel like Barry Bonds with one arm in a lathe would still OBP in the high .300s. He hit HR No. 756 on Aug. 7, to break the all-time record.
Then he hit a few more, then went into a predictable post-record, pre-indictment lull. But there was still more baseball to played and Bonds knew his career was on the line. After the record-gazing, he still needed a big September to prove he could play at age 43. September should be a good barometer for what Bonds has/had left.
YES LET'S JUDGE THE ENTIRETY OF BARRY BONDS' REMAINING BASEBALL ABILITY ON THE BASIS OF ONE MONTH'S WORTH OF AT BATS, NOT THE REAMS AND REAMS AND REAMS OF DATA, INCLUDING THE SEVERAL MILLION RECORDS HE BROKE AND THE KIA SEPHIA HE CLEAN-AND-JERKED OVER HIS HEAD IN LATE OCTOBER 2007.
Here’s what Bonds did last September: 1 HR in 30 at-bats, 7 hits, (.233 batting average), 6 walks (.361 on-base), 1 double (.367 slug). That’s a .738 OPS, way, way under his alleged-steroid totals and career totals.
Did I say one month's worth of at bats? I'm sorry, I meant two weeks' worth. Tim Kawakami is judging Barry Bonds' current baseball-hitting prowess on 12 games' worth of data.
Through 9 games this year, Fred Lewis had a .388 OPS. That's worse than Alicia Silverstone would hit in the majors! Throw him into a viper pit of pit vipers! Through 10 games, it was .654. That's worse than Jennie Garth would hit in the majors! Drop him off of Mount Everest into the Marianas Trench! Through 11 games, it was .761. Eh, okay. That's about average, I guess. Through 12 games, it was .946. HE IS OUR NEW BASEBALL GOD.
The point is, after each one of these games, Fred Lewis seemed to be an entirely different player. The larger point is, you can't judge players after 9 or 10 or 11 or 12 games. What's frustrating is that Kawakami seems to know this (as we'll see from what he writes later), or seems to think he knows this, and yet he still wrote all of this nonsense about Lewis definitely being better than Bonds.
Here’s what Lewis is doing right now, comfortably settled into the lead-off spot at the end of April:
92 at-bats is better than 30, and Lewis appears to be developing into a productive offensive player. Then again, check out this hotshot:
35/104 15 4 26 1 .337 .926
Yeah. That's Xavier Nady. I just made you get a baseball-rection from Xavier Nady, 29 years old, .777 OPS in 551 career games.
-Lewis has the fifth-best OPS (.952) among regular LFs, ahead of Matt Holliday, Johnny Damon, Jason Bay and Carlos Lee, among others.
-That’s much more than Bonds could’ve logically been expected to produce this season, with or without steroid injections, with or without a federal indictment, with or without clogging up the clubhouse with his karma.
Well, there was that whole 1.349 OPS in April of last year. But more importantly, I think we have a new rival to "clogging up the basepaths." "Clogging up the clubhouse with his karma" -- it's delicious, pungent, and utterly nonsensical. Brian Bocock's karma wants to run free with the antelopes. But oh no, here comes Barry's karma (I picture these karmas looking a little like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are)! It's fat and it's slow, and it's clogging up the clubhouse! Who cares about his karma's karmic OBP (kOBP) when he can't run the karmic basepaths (in the clubhouse)!
-Lewis obviously might and probably will cool down.
Thank you.
His defense isn’t very good (great play here, bad play there) and I’m not volunteering Lewis for Gold Glove consideration at any point. But Bonds was a sieve out there for the last three years. So Lewis is better in the field, too.
Sure. Not helping your point much that Lewis is a butcher in left field, but I'll give you this.
-I realize these are relatively small sampling sizes–September for Bonds, April for Lewis.
Relatively? Relatively?! This is like a dude telling a girl he just slept with, "I realize that I may be relatively chlamydia-y, but..."
You can't just say "Yes-these-are-small-sample-sizes-moving-on-I'm-using-them-anyway." That's, as Buzz Bissinger would say, fucking glib as shitfuck. You didn't even use an entire month for Bonds. You used 30 at bats. That's a fraction of an eye-blink in Barry Bonds' career. I just looked it up. He has 9847 at bats. Some of those could have been incorporated into your evaluation. More than 30 should have been.
But they’re the most legitimate comparable sample sizes.
Infinite monkeys on infinite MacBooks could not construct a more false sentence. Both players were extremely motivated to do well: Bonds to get another contract, Lewis to stay in the line-up. We’ve seen the results. I’m going with them.
-Therefore: Lewis is better than Bonds, and Lewis is a big reason why the Giants are, so far, out-performing the low expectations.
I'm willing to listen to arguments that a healthy, young, solid-hitting outfielder who plays every day and is far more valuable than Barry in the field might, just might have more value to a team than a gimpy, non-DH-ing Bonds. But what I'm not willing to do is accept 12 games' worth of semi-crappy at bats as ironclad evidence that Markus Winston Barrold Bonds IV is done as a hitter, and that MWBB IV's "karma" is going to "clog" its way to that many losses for whatever team it and he join.
Hey, I looked up Fred Lewis' batting average on balls in play. It's .414. This guy is going to fall off big time. Going out on a limb here, but I'm going to say that I don't think he's actually a better player than Barry Bonds.
Some of you have emailed me to defend Eric Walker, cited and gently mocked in the post sub as a guy who thinks that steroids didn't increase HR (which he does). I introduced him as "a guy you may have heard of" for precisely this reason -- he is one of the good guys, I think, who recently established this site as a scientific investigation on the true benefits (or lack thereof) of PEDs. It's excellent, and I recommend it, especially this page, which is dedicated to the actual effects (or lack thereof) of steroid use. (He can also be found right here on Blogger, with his excellently-titled "Is It a Blog Yet?", a more general-interest kind of deal, but fun reading.)
I love Eric Walker. Eric Walker is awesome. The problem with that article in my opinion, whether it is due to a lack of context or Walker's own words (or both), are:
(1) The author (not Walker) attributes a "late-30's surge" to Aaron, when his numbers were pretty similar in that period to those from his early 30s (which itself is impressive, I suppose). This is not the same thing as suddenly out of nowhere hitting 73 HR in a season when you've never before hit more than 49 (and that was the year before), and also you are 36/37. It's not the same. Not. Same.
(2) Walker, who is smarter than I am and much more thorough, challenges us to find a counterargument rooted in mathematics, and there is one, and I linked it. [EDIT: Please see comments for a good counter-argument to the study, and a call-to-arms.] Now, obviously, the standard deviation break-down of Bonds's season does not in any way link the HR to steroids -- nor does it attempt to. What it does, is: it shows the extreme improbability of a 37 year-old man hitting 73 HR in a season. Is it possible that Bonds is, actually, just the 1 in 53 million who could do it? I suppose. But he's also, apparently, the #1 abuser of PEDs -- not just steroids, but crazy, never-before-seen-or-analyzed shit -- in baseball history. That is worth looking at, I think.
A large part of Walker's site's argument has to do with the fact that steroids add more muscle mass to the upper body than the lower body, and that power is generated in the lower body. Problem is, I don't think the Cream or the Clear were used in those studies. And I don't know what counts as "steroids." (This could be due to my own careless reading of the site or its many sister sites. There's a lot of stuff there.)
He also seems, when he does his calculations, to use only "lower body" muscle gain, and I am not sure if that includes the torso or not. Because Bonds's torso is massive, and so was Giambi's when he was using, and so was McGwire's. It is unclear to me whether torso muscle mass is being included in Walker's calculations, and I am reasonably certain that Prof. Adair mentions in his writings that power is generated primarily from legs, ass, and torso.
Walker also seeks to disprove the notion that the rejuvenation effects of steroids help guys, really, in terms of HR-hitting, but the way he does it (as far as I can tell) is by arguing that they can't recover that quickly from injuries that would make them miss games, and even if they did, since the best HR hitters only really hit like 2 a week or so, it wouldn't make that much difference. But he doesn't, I don't think, try to quantify the effects of steroids on just minor nagging injuries that might make a guy play who's playing at 80% effectiveness feel good-as-new. Cortisone is a steroid, and guys get cortisone shots all the time to relieve pain, and it helps them play better. [EDIT: please see comments.] Perhaps the true benefit of steroids is in this marginal universe, where a guy who might just be banged-up gets to feel tip-top. (I truthfully don't remember offhand whether Walker deals with that specifically -- I'll have to check again.)
Anyway, I was just responding to the specific things in that article that seemed slapdash. As for the first comment I made, about him ignoring the spike in 50-HR seasons, well, that was probably knee-jerk. He mostly uses the Power Factor thing in his analysis, which, since he is smarter than I am, I am going to assume is worthwhile. I still would like to know why it is that the three guys who have hit 60+ HR since Maris are all hard-core PED users. Small Sample Size? Coincidence? I guess?
Anyway, I digress, a lot. I promise I love Eric Walker. I aspire to be as intellectually rigorous as he is. But I also reserve the right to be lazily critical of New York Times sportswriters for the sake of comedy.
The problem I have with the study showing Bonds' gazillion standard deviations away from the mean stems from the arbitrariness of the data selected: steroids aside, it is ridiculous to assume that a 37-year-old playing in the 1930s has the same relative age as a 37-year-old playing today, or even 10-20 years ago. Babe Ruth once knocked himself unconscious in Spring Training by running into a palm tree; he nor any other player in his time preserved his body like a PED-free player today can and does. Not to mention that the article uses raw numbers from these vastly different eras, a glaring error that you've criticized multiple times in HOF articles. If you would post this it might motivate one your more analytically inclined readers (i.e. anyone that reads FJM) to run the same study with age and/or normalization factored into the equation.
in the 2003 edition of his baseball abstract, bill james points out that hank aaron had the "illusion of consistency" late in his career because he moved from a pitchers park to one suited for hitters, right at the time (non-steroidal) home run hitters usually decline in power.
bonds moved parks as well at about that age, except it was from one pitchers park to another one that was arguably even worse for (non-steroidal) home run hitters. so that probably makes his 73 home runs even more unlikely.
Ken, I'm concerned that your most recent post, while generally thorough and well-reasoned, suffers at one point from the kind of insufficient specificity that tends to plague discussions of PED use nowadays. More specifically, you talk about "steroids" generally and then refer to cortisone -- "a steroid" -- as archetypal evidence that "steroids" can aid day-to-day recovery. As you probably know in the back of your mind, but failed to elucidate here, catabolic steroids and anabolic steroids are, in biological terms, opposites with respect to building muscle. Cortisone is an effective anti-inflammatory but also a corticosteroid; stanazolol (e.g.), is an effective anabolic but you wouldn't want to inject it into a tendon to reduce swelling. This is not to say that there isn't a plausible argument that anabolics and/or HGH and/or insulin and/or equipoise (all of which have probably entered Mr. Bonds' ham-hock gluteals at one point or another) contribute to day-to-day recovery; this is merely to point out that relying on cortisone's classification as a "steroid" does not prove, even a little bit, the day-to-day recovery attributes of anabolic steroids.
Here was my response to him:
I was aware of the difference and did not mean to imply that anyone would inject, like, Winstrol as an anti-inflammatory. (It does read that way, and the mistake is mine.) What I meant to say was that steroids generally -- in different ways -- can be used to accelerate health, whether as "calm down!" or "speed up!" The only point I was trying to make was that Walker accounts for, and seems to disprove, a lot of arguments people have about PED use, and the smaller, day-to-day health benefits of steroids of all kinds seemed not to be accounted for.
I'm going to Buster Olney it up and just link a few stories that I don't have the energy to lay into. Setting a bad precedent? Absolutely. But: easier.
Here's a little ditty entitled "Attitude Can't Just Be a Platitude for Sox," by legendary comic actor Dave van Dyck (The Dave van Dyck Show, Diagnosis: Murder.) The thesis is that what the 2007 Chicago White Sox lacked was not "hitting" or "pitching" or any of those other pesky "tangibles," but rather: a certain je ne sais quoi.
It has been called "swagger" and "a chip on your shoulder," a sort of no-respect, us-against-the-world motivational mentality.
Of course, [Paul] Konerko was around when the White Sox had that intangible benefit of swagger. And he was there when it vanished, perhaps through complacency caused by lack of competition, which led to losing and a lack of confidence.
For those of you keeping your own Intangible Scorecard at home, that was:
Lack of competition ----> Complacency ----> Vanishing of Intangible Benefit of Swagger ----> Losing ----> Lack of Confidence.
Here's another flow chart: Team ERA of 3.61 in 2005 ----> Team ERA of 4.61 in 2006 ----> Team ERA of 4.77 in 2007 ----> Worse Team in 2007 Than in 2005
"The younger guys are hungry, and that adds energy," [Buehrle] said. "And it takes some of the older guys who have been around here to refocus and get that little edge back, knowing that it's more than going out and putting up numbers, that you have to have a purpose on how you're doing it. We have to try to get back to that."
It might be more than going out and putting up numbers. But I would highly recommend: going out and putting up numbers, as like a starting point.
The question is whether swagger comes naturally or takes some team meetings for everyone to believe they should have it.
That's the question? Not: "How do we improve our AL-low .318 team OBP?"
Next up, we have this useless article about how Tom Brady really isn't that good at football, and how Johnny Unitas was better. Take it away, Plaschke.
The first thing you notice about Tom Brady is, well, nothing.
Really? I notice that he is the world's most handsome man. I might also notice his league MVP award, his 3 Super Bowl rings, his 2 Super Bowl MVPs, or the fact that his smoldering eyes and dimpled chin have forced me to take a long hard look at my own sexuality and conclude in like 5 seconds that although I love Mrs. Tremendous with all my heart, I would trade her and our unborn child and everything I own to kiss Tom Brady on the mouth for fifteen seconds, because then I would know what it feels like to melt into perfection.
He doesn't have a nick on his face because today's referees won't allow it.
Also, his offensive line is quite good.
He doesn't have a growl to his voice because today's huddles don't require it.
I just looked at the HTML coding for this sentence, and it reads like this:
{PlaschkeStyle ="nonsense-level: total; meaning: none; point? no; faux-poetry: yes; garbage garbage garbage"}He doesn't have a growl to his voice because today's huddles don't require it.{/Plaschke}
He doesn't have fire in his eyes because today's teams don't need it.
What claptrap. Ugh. You've killed the mood. I don't even want to kiss Brady on the mouth anymore. You ruined it.
Tom Brady is fantastic, but he's formula. He's a champion, but he's a creation. And to anoint him as the best quarterback ever would be to forget that his position was invented, inspired and made famous by those who were neither.
He's a creation who had 50 TD passes this year. He completed 26 of 28 passes in a playoff game. He has led game-winning scoring drives late in the 4th quarter of like 9 Super Bowls. He is 14-2 in the postseason. So, yes, he is a creation...of Football Jesus.
If Brady leads the New England Patriots to a Super Bowl win over the New York Giants next Sunday, everyone will celebrate his four world championships.
They will forget that Otto Graham won seven league championships.
Graham was an incredible athlete and a great winner. But when he played, there were like 12 teams and the average LB was 4'8", 120 and played his college ball at Yale. It's a different game. There are now 32 teams, and the average placekicker can curl 900 lbs. Players sprinkle steroids into their protein shakes, which they pour over bowls of steroids. Free agency, scouting, PhD.-level offensive and defensive coordination schemes, illegal videotaping of other teams' signals...it's a very different game. A harder-to-succeed-in game.
Everyone will marvel at Brady's 15-2 postseason record.
They will forget that Bart Starr was 9-1 in the postseason with a record 104.8 passer rating.
I like that he italicizes 9-1, as if (a) Brady didn't start his postseason career 10-0, and (b) 9-1 is so much more impressive than a theoretical 15-2.
Everyone will wax about how, in two Super Bowls, Brady led his team on late fourth-quarter game-winning field-goal drives.
They will forget that, in one of his four Super Bowl championships, Joe Montana drove his San Francisco team 92 yards for a last-second, game-winning touchdown.
No one will forget that. It's like the most famous thing that has ever happened in football history. Also, Montana needed a TD. Brady did not. Apples and oranges. Or, apples and different-but-equally-delicious apples.
Everyone will applaud Brady for his tough defender's mentality.
They will forget that Slingin' Sammy Baugh actually played defense, picking off 31 passes in his career, which is more than he threw in his last three seasons combined.
Different game, man. You really can't penalize Brady for not playing both ways, a thing that has not happened in decades. And speaking of Brady playing both ways, I would like to kiss him on the mouth.
Yeah, everyone will forget Johnny Unitas.
No, we won't. Swear.
[Unitas] was football's Babe Ruth, and Bart Starr was its Lou Gehrig, and Sammy Baugh was its Ty Cobb, and Joe Montana was its Joe DiMaggio.
Dan Fouts was its George Sisler. Rich Gannon was its Paul Molitor. Rob Johnson was its George Kendrick. Jim Zorn was its Mark Loretta. Al Toon was its Wil Cordero. Marc Edwards was its La Marr Hoyt. Joe DeLamielleure was its Rick Rhoden. And, most obviously of all, Billy Joe DuPree was its Kevin Tapani. That's just a no-brainer.
Tom Brady is football's, well, um, Alex Rodriguez.
...right. He's the best player in the game. Except that Alex Rodriguez, as boneheads like you are fond of pointing out, has never won a championship. So defend this statement, please.
"I hear all these people talking about Tom Brady and I just sort of smirk," said John Unitas Jr., the late quarterback's son. "It's an entirely different game. I'm biased, but what my father did, you can't compare it to anything today."
Tell that to Plaschke. He's devoting an entire column to doing just that.
While Brady is famous for his "decision making," many of those decisions have actually been made for him by his offensive coordinators.
The Patriots' game plan is more homework than instinct, more science than scrabble.
Late in the season finale against the Giants, Brady threw deep to Moss on second down, underthrew him, and Moss dropped the ball. On the next play, 3rd and long, with the Pats losing, their perfect regular season in jeopardy, they ran a play designed to check down to Welker to try to get the first. But Brady, in the 0.8 seconds a QB has to make a decision, saw that the Giants had not rotated safety help over to Moss (perhaps expecting the check-down?), meaning Moss would be single-covered by a CB. So Brady said, calmly, handsomely, to himself: "Fuck this noise," and uncorked a 60-yard pass that dropped into Moss's hands like a day-old helium balloon. Two records fell, the Pats went ahead for good, and all was right with the world.
Please don't say that Tom Brady -- or any modern QB -- doesn't employ "instinct." That's all they have out there, really. Watch how the man preternaturally senses and avoids blind-side pass rushes, and then write Whitman-style poetry about his instinct. Because that's the only logical response to how good his instincts are.
Here's my favorite part:
Brady is playing in an era when the following scenario would never happen:
Playing in overtime for the league championship, having driven his team to his opponent's eight-yard line, a quarterback decides to pass.
That was Unitas, 50 years ago. His Colts were in position to kick a field goal to beat the Giants for the title. Yet he saw a hole in the defense and threw a seven-yard pass to Jim Mutscheller to set up Alan Ameche's one-yard touchdown run.
This is incredibly dumb. Kick the field goal. It's overtime. (Unless NFL rules were different back then and it wasn't sudden-death. Anyone weigh in on this?)
I said I was just going to sample some articles to save time and energy, and now here we are, like two hours later. Oh well. Here's one more, about a man you might have heard of, Eric Walker, who thinks steroids don't really help people that much.
“If power were up, we’d see it in the statistics,” Walker said. “But the boost just isn’t there.” [...]
Apparently, he hasn't noted the extreme end-of-the-bell-curve-probability rise in 50- and 60-HR seasons since the "Steroid Era" began. Smaller parks, maybe. Expansion, maybe. Steroids probably helped, too, though, considering McGwire, Sosa, and a bunch of other Congressionally-invited dudes are on that 50+ list.
Regarding Bonds, for example, they note that, yes, his peak home run rates came at 36 through 39 years old, when most players are in decline. Then again, another slugger three decades before enjoyed almost the same late-30s surge: a fellow named Hank Aaron.
That doesn't seem like a huge "surge." (Though he did play in fewer games at 37-40 than in the previous years, so his HR/AB rate was higher.)
“I’m tired of people saying, ‘This is what happened because I see more home runs,’ ” Walker said. “If you disagree with me, deconstruct the argument; tell me where it’s wrong. If you can, more power to you.”
The argument has already been "deconstructed" [sic], at least w/r/t Bonds. It's here, and it's telling. Basically, it sets the odds of a 37 year-old hitting 73 HR at one in 53 million. That season was so many standard deviations from the mean, the author had to like go searching for a chart that would even calculate it.
And before any of you make fun of me for wanting to make out with Tom Brady...I got nothing. Go ahead. I want to make out with Tom Brady. Do your worst.
I'm pretty sure it was the first game in NFL history that required sudden-death (regular season games just ended in a tie with no OT, I believe).
As far as throwing the ball from the 8 in sudden death, that does seem like pretty horrible strategy, especially when you consider that was before the goal posts were moved to the back of the end zone. I suppose one could argue that place kicking was so brutal back then (pre-soccer style of course) that a field goal from any distance was a risk. (Come to think of it, maybe the 8 was even too close to kick because of the goal post thing.) Also, their kicker Steve Myhra was just 4 of 10 in FGs that year according to Pro Football Reference.
Thanks, Vinnie. Although, I'm pretty sure I could hit a 15-yard FG more than 40% of the time.
before Pete Gogolak popularized soccer-style field goal kicking in the 1960s (that is to say, well after Unitas' and the Colts' victory over the Giants in the 1958 NFL Championship Game, known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played"), field goal kicking was much more of a crapshoot than it is today, to the extent that successfully executing a field goal try from the 8 yard line (or even from the 1 yard line) wasn't really the given that it would be today. (As an illustration, per Wikipedia, Lou Groza, NFL Hall of Famer and namesake of the NCAA's annual award for the best DI-A kicker, made just 58% of his kicks, well below what even an average kicker accomplishes today.)
Additionally, while I can't find any specific information on point, we're talking about a game that was played on natural grass in New York in the winter. Heck, even today field goals at Giants Stadium on FieldTurf can be an adventure. One article I've read says the game featured numerous turnovers and missed field goals. I'm guessing weather probably would've added to the difficulty of a game-winning field goal attempt.
Those things being the case, I'd imagine that continuing to drive for a touchdown was netiher as "incredibly dumb" as you might have thought, nor as heroic as Plaschke portrays it as being.
I will officially back off from the position that going for it was dumb because they should've kicked, though I still think a 15-yarder was makable. However, as Joshua notes, Unitas maybe shouldn't be given a ton of credit for passing, since they kind of had to try to score a TD, and who knows what defensive alignment he was facing (10 in the box?).
Either way, I am definitely sure that I could have been the league's best FG kicker in the 1950s. Maybe even a good RB.
The year he turned 35, Roger Clemens struck out 292 batters in the AL East, more than he had ever struck out in any other season of his illustrious career.
The year he turned 43, he posted an ERA of 1.87 (ERA+ of 226).
Those are numbers almost as comic book-y as Bonds' 73, his 762, his seasons of 293474854.340 OPSes.
The greatest hitter and the greatest pitcher of this era of baseball were both having superpower-juice regularly injected into their bodies.
And we may never know the names of all of the hundreds of other users.
Barry Bonds is a bad man who did a lot of illegal drugs. He's also, by many accounts, a jerk. But even at the age of like 72, he was objectively pretty good at hitting baseballs. You have to admit that. Or, if you're Bruce Jenkins, I guess you don't.
If Beane wants to destroy team chemistry, the clubhouse mood and any semblance of sanity by signing Barry Bonds, hey, maybe he doesn't have that much to lose. Remember this, though: Over the past two seasons, Bonds hurt the Giants more from a baseball standpoint than any steroid-related issues. Without Bonds - even if they don't make a single deal - the Giants will improve at least five games in the standings, simply because they can call themselves a team.
How Barry Bonds "Hurt" the Giants from a Baseball Standpoint in 2006: .270/.454/.545 in 130 games. 26 HR.
How Barry Bonds "Hurt" the Giants from a Baseball Standpoint in 2007: .276/.480/.565 in 126 games. 28 HR.
Yes, watching him play LF was painful. And yes, there will probably be a palpable sense of relief among the Giants' players that he's gone. But it's not easy to find a hitter who can put up those numbers. Even if he can't run, he was on base almost half the time.
I would say (uncontroversially) that he hurt the team far more from a non-baseball standpoint, in that he was a terrible sideshow who distracted everyone around him with his steroidiness. (That's a word, I think.) And if the Giants are 5 games better in the standings next year, it will be because their excellent young pitchers are a year older and better, not because they lost a guy with a 156/170 OPS+ the last two years.
I think this is the funniest and most entertaining post I've ever made. The end.
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.
Quick. Go here and look at the headline, before they change either the spelling error or the inanity: Bonds will be remembered for record, controversey [sic]
I mean, that is some hard-hitting journalism. That is what we in the mainstream media call: a bold lede. Barry Bonds, the all-time home run king, and the linchpin of the biggest performance-enhancing drug investigation in the history of sports, will be remembered for (a) the all-time home run record and (b) the controversey [sic] surrounding the steroid scandal.
To help you write newspaper headlines in 2007, here is a handy list of some people, and the things they will be remembered for:
John F. Kennedy: President; being assassinated Neil Armstrong: traveling to moon; walking on moon Eddie Van Halen: guitar-playing; being in "Van Halen" John Glenn: Orbiting earth; orbiting earth again Jerry Seinfeld: TV show Seinfeld Moon Monster: kidnapping Neil Armstrong; replacing with fake Neil Armstrong; programming fake Neil Armstrong's computer brain to laser-destroy world's salt supply
Also, there is the article, by Ian O'Connor, about Barry Bonds. Snippets:
Barry Bonds is...defined by the how, not the how many. He cheated on his way past Hank Aaron's 755, and he can't swat that 99-mph truth into McCovey Cove. I'd still put him in the Hall of Fame.
Right here, right now, I'd still include his name on my ballot.
I have said this before, but I have no problem with this. It's essentially a personal choice. If you believe that a message should be sent, and that using PEDs violates the nebulous "character" clause in the HOF voting, then vote "no" -- to Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Raffy, all of them. If you believe that it does not matter, vote "yes." If you believe that "innocent until proven guilty" applies not only to our country's judicial system, but to HOF voting as well, vote "yes."
For the record, however -- "innocent until proven guilty" was invented for court cases. It was not invented for baseball HOF voting. The people who use "innocent until proven guilty" to refer to things like baseball HOF voting are the same people who think they can talk dirty around their co-workers and are somehow protected by that "freedom of speech" thing they've heard so much about, not realizing that while the Federal Government cannot punish them for saying that Janice in accounting has a nice ass, that Janice in accounting can, and probably will, aided by the company's HR director.
Not that anything like this has ever happened at Fremulon Ins., Inc. mind you.
The larger point here, though, is that if you choose to employ "innocent until proven guilty!" to refer to people who totally definitely cheated, like Barry Bonds: please realize that I completely agree with you that Barry Bonds should not be thrown in jail unless he is actually convicted of a crime in a court of law. But there is no Bill of Rights of Baseball. In fact, the rules governing almost all MLB awards and honors are incredibly vague, and are voted on by either dummy journalists or even dummier fans, and so if I want to use my brain, and mathematical probability -- I wholeheartedly recommend this article at Kermit the Blog, which calculates the odds of Barry hitting 73 at age 37 at one in 53 million -- and the actual sworn testimony of the actual man, and just motherfletching common sense, and I decide that Barry Bonds used PEDs and that because of that he shouldn't be in the HOF, and I have a HOF vote, then sorry, people, but that's fine, and you can't use "innocent until proven guilty" to shame me because it has nothing to do with HOF voting.
But Ian's position is fine, too, in my opinion. (You know us -- we're not strident guys.) So let's keep going.
But despite what we know about Bonds at this very moment – he surely used performance-enhancing drugs to break Aaron's record, and he surely stands among the biggest jerks in baseball history – I would put him in Cooperstown, a place that has immortalized jerks, racists and cheaters among its many gentlemen, progressive thinkers and good sports.
Again, I think this is fine. Ty Cobb once jumped into the stands and beat up a heckler who had no arms or legs. He was also a terrible racist. Gaylord Perry threw a spitball. Blah blah blah. It is 100% legit to say that Barry -- and McGwire, and whoever -- should be in, PEDs be damned.
I did not vote for Mark McGwire, and I don't plan on ever voting for Mark McGwire. It has less to do with Little Mac's pathetic performance on Capitol Hill than it does the fact he didn't have half of Bonds' talent, even if his homers seemed to travel twice as far as Barry's.
Here's where I start to get lost.
Bonds may have been more "talented" than McGwire. But Mac's career OPS+ is 163. His career EqA is .336, including .381 in 1998. (Bonds EqA in 2004: .456. It kills me that he cheated so much, because if he hadn't, that would be my favorite statistic of all time.) If you don't have a problem with Mac's steroid use, there's really no argument to keep him out.
The evidence suggests performance-enhancing drugs made McGwire a Hall of Fame player. Without them, McGwire might've gone down as a rich man's Dave Kingman.
Dave Kingman, career:
.236/.302/.478 HR: 442 EqA: .276
McGwire, career:
.263/.394/.588 HR: 583 EqA: .336
McGwire is the "rich man's Dave Kingman?" That's like saying Harrison Ford is the rich man's Joe Rogan.
The evidence suggests performance-enhancing drugs made Bonds a better Hall of Fame player. Without them, Bonds might've gone down as a poor man's Willie Mays.
There's a difference. A big difference.
For the record, Mac hit 49 HR as a relatively skinny 23 year-old rookie. Bonds didn't hit over 33 until he was 28. Bonds was obviously a better all-around player, but come on.
Truth is, more stars than we know have used steroids and/or human growth hormone. A chemically enhanced Bonds often competed against dirty pitchers backed up by dirty fielders. It's hard to keep him out of Cooperstown when other big-name, big-game cheaters have surely escaped detection.
So a complicated process – the Hall of Fame voting process – gets more complicated, more subjective, more hazardous to a voter's mental health. When, exactly, did a slugger begin cheating? Just how good was the slugger before he started cheating? How many opposing pitchers were cheating – and therefore creating a level, if corrupt, playing field – when the cheating slugger took his home-run cuts?
I agree. These are fine points. Why did you not vote for McGwire, again?
I suppose if you're going to be a snide dick about people committing spelling errors, you are dooming yourself to committing some yourself. Thus, it is with heavy heart that I admit, too, that I spelled "linchpin" with a "y," until reader Mike pointed out my error.
I'll Watch "Dead Poets Society" on TCM; You'll Do Our Work For Us
Hooray! Gallimaufry time! What better way to start the week?
Plenty of action for the Sunday night game on ESPN. Reader Colleen starts us off:
According to Joe Morgan, Adam Kennedy has "always been a great offensive player."
He has a career OPS+ of 89.
So true. So simple. Reader Evan L. noticed the same thing, but pointed instead to AK's .261 career EQA.
Maybe Joe meant: relative to all other human beings, Adam Kennedy has always been a great offensive player? As you may know, I like to give Joe the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.
Okay! Over on TCM, Charlie Dalton just changed his name to Nuwanda. And back at the FJM inbox, a number of readers noticed Joe Morgan's total misread of an ump's call on a stolen base attempt. We'll go with David S.'s version of events because he seemslike a good dude:
rolen steals 2nd, called safe, morgan says "easily safe" when crowd boos. they go to the replay that shows rolen CLEARLY out, morgan again says "easily safe." then they freeze it with rolen being tagged while nowhere near the bag, and both announcers are dead silent until the next pitch.
A quick pause to remind our dear readers that Gallimaufry is brought to you each and every week by Bacon Salt. Bacon Salt: Tastes like bacon...and salt!
Reader Mike mustered enough strength to listen to the voice of Suzyn Waldman, and for that, we congratulate him with a post of his observation:
During last night's Yankees broadcast, Waldman and John Sterling were talking about the possibility of Luis Vizcaino notching the win in both ends of the doubleheader. Sterling quipped that he could be the modern-day Wilbur Wood. This was Waldman's reply: "For those who don't know, Wilbur Wood used to start, and win, both ends of a doubleheader. A lot."
Only twice did Wood start both ends of a doubleheader. Never did he win both ends. In fact, in his most famous double-dip appearance, he took the collar two losses on the same day against the Yankees.
I just found out that Suzyn Waldman is from Newton, Massachusetts. Weird, right?
Also, say what you will about Mr. Keating's teaching methods. This guy really inspires his students. Sometimes you just gotta say "fuck the heck," right?
On with the 'maufry! Bruce Torres writes FJM to say:
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Reader Matthew K. writes for no reason other than to add to the ever-growing list of Eckstein nicknames:
David Husslehoff
Sure. Why not. Add it to the list. I'd go with "Hustlehoff," maybe, but...oh fuck -- I think Robert Sean Leonard's character is about to kill himself.
Reader Rick N. has an interesting thought on the ongoing "Who's Now?" situation:
dude, who's now would be brilliant if it were advertised as satire.
dude, maybe.
Actually, nothing blew my mind more about the whole "Who's Now" thing than the fact that Barry Bonds lost in the first round. I know it was up to the voters, and not ESPN itself, but seriously: every Bonds at bat is televised by ESPN. He dominates the front page of ESPN.com. Pedro Gomez pops up every fifteen minutes to tell me whether or not Bonds made a doody. He's about to break the all-time HR record -- and he's less "now" than Jeff Gordon? I don't get it.
And lastly, Lt. J.J. K. points us to this take on Joe Morgan's relation to the Sheffield/Torre/RealSports nonsense.
I'm not sure exactly what to make of it, but the author certainly doesn't like Joe Morgan. And I like that!
"O Captain My Captain!" You tell 'em, Ethan Hawke's character!
The Great American Ballpark is a bandbox, a home-run haven, an almost impossible place to build a pitching staff.
True 'dat. According to ESPN's Park Factors Page, the GAP is the #1 easiest place to hit HR, and is #2 in runs. So far you have argued using reason and knowledge.
Look elsewhere: Philadelphia, Texas, Colorado or Boston, where the Curse of the Bambino lasted a million years.
And now you have ceased to do so.
Philly: #2 in HR, but only #10 in runs, and #18 in hits. Arlington: #10 in HR, #15 in runs, #13 in hits
Coors is 4th in hits, 2nd in runs, and 8th in HR even with the humidor. Fenway is 1st in runs and 1st in hits -- but 24th in HR. Fenway is a relatively hard park to hit HR in, and has been for a few years.
Oh, and one more thing: there is no such thing as curses. And hyperbole or no -- a million years?
Hitters can't wait to step to the plate in those places. They're crowding the on-deck circle, digging hard into the batter's box, rudely leaning into every pitch. And after three innings, the home team trails, 8-5.
Well, except for Arlington, yes, you are pretty much right. These parks do all favor hitters.
Houston (reached the 2005 World Series) and Minnesota are conspicuous exceptions, but you get the point: It's not a good thing when opponents mark the calendar for a really good time in your ballpark.
Houston is an exception? To what? Enron/Minute Maid Park strongly favors pitchers in every single statistical category -- H, R, HR, 2B, 3B, BB. It is a solid pitchers' park. In 2005 it skewed towards hitters for HR, but was a pitchers' park in every other category. How is this an exception?
Admit it. You just look at it and think it's small and don't do any research, don't you? Don't you, you saucy little minx?
The Metrodome, too -- except for walks, which is 1.001 (essentially dead average in the category) -- favors pitchers in every category. So if you really want to look for an exception to your imaginary rule, how about citing...
...
...
... the 2004 Boston Red Sox? Who won the World Series? And play in Fenway? Which? You? Cited? Earlier?
This may sound crazy,
Can't wait.
but I'm saying the Giants would have a better record right now if they hadn't re-signed Bonds. Not first-place better, but a better winning percentage, and I'll guarantee you some of the players in the clubhouse feel the same way. Why? Because it would be about a team, not a home-run record. About the hint of change, not the same one-act play. Bonds' at-bats remain magical, no doubt about that, and it might be decades before we see another hitter so compelling -- but the burden of his presence makes the rest of the players wonder if they even matter.
There might -- might, I say -- be something to this. But mostly because the guy costs a lot of money, and they might have been able to sign other, better players with that money. Bonds is going to be worth 9.6 wins to his team this year, so you'd have to get 10 wins of improvement over what you have now in order to have a better winning percentage than you have with him. That's a lot of wins. Granted, the Giants have some terrible players. Roberts-Winn-Durham is a pretty sad 123. But you can't just say that they'd be better on psychological grounds only, without offering possibilities for whom they might have signed with the extra $$$.
Then later, in the random notes section, we get...
Out-of-nowhere prediction: Jose Valverde, Arizona's flighty reliever, gives up a costly late-inning homer and turns into Atlee Hammaker, never quite the same ...
You think that's novel? Please. I've been predicting Valverde-becomes-Hammaker for months.
Here's a handy summer reminder for all the managers and pitching coaches so lamely obsessed with pitch counts ("I know he's pitching a two-hitter, but hold on just a minute here -- 103 pitches!"): In the 1968 season, the Cardinals' Bob Gibson was never removed from the mound. Made 34 starts, completed 28. The other six times, he was removed for a pinch-hitter (twice in the seventh inning, three times in the eighth and once in the 11th, notes Bill Arnold of Sports Features Group). Not once did he make that walk to the dugout, usually a humbling and discouraging experience.
I wholeheartedly encourage you to visit this page, and poke around the web and read the scientific/medical basis for pitch counts. If you don't want to, I will coarsely summarize: it is not the amount of rest between outings that matters most to a player's arm's health. It is the number of pitches per individual outing above a certain benchmark -- roughly 100. Granted, science and reason cannot hold a candle to good ol' fashioned horse sense, the like of which you are demonstrating here.
Try to imagine this as you recall Tony La Russa crafting relief for the seventh, eighth and ninth innings before the game even starts, or Felipe Alou making six changes in five minutes. It's a different game today (the pitching-dominated '68 season forced a lowering of the mound), but Gibson's feat could be repeated. Same ball, same human arm. All it takes is a little integrity and common sense.
Integrity. And common sense. That's what it takes to make a guy throw 28 complete games.
Seriously. "Integrity." And "common sense."
Integrity, to me, and to the dictionary, means something along the lines of: adherence to an ethic, or a set of moral principles. It can also mean honesty. It escapes me how any of this has anything to do with MLB pitch counts.
I suppose he could be using "integrity" in the sense of "maintenance of a whole." Like in Star Trek when a Klingon laser destroys the Enterprise's hull's integrity. That would make sense -- all it would take for someone to replicate Gibson's 300+ IP and 28 CG in 1968 would be, by definition, the maintenance of his physical integrity. But I don't think he meant that.
Let me also add here that he is actually arguing, seemingly, for a CG qua a CG -- like, it doesn't matter what the game situation is. People should just throw more complete games. Bud Black should send Peavy out there and have him toss 145 pitches no matter if he's up by 9 or down by 6. Because that would be better...for...someone?
And as for the "it could happen today" argument. Well, maybe it could. But why would you want to try? Gibson was a freak -- a once-in-a-generation pitcher with a killer arm. Saying you could have someone replicate his longevity feat today is like the child's argument that he shouldn't study because "Einstein dropped out of school in 8th grade," or "Bill Gates dropped out of college!" The antecedent in question is not the norm, thus the results of the experiment in question should not be counted on to be repeated.
But what do I know? Have Barry Zito throw 307 innings this year. Maybe that will help your Giants turn things around.
Next time you get upset when a sportswriter paints a picture of bloggers as big fat nerdy nerds who sit in front of their computers all day in their mom's basement, remember that you just referenced the Starship Enterprise's hull integrity.
If people didn't know better, they'd think we were frakkin' losers!
Reader Taka, among others, wrote in about a "Clogging Up the Bases" sighting, on BBTN last night:
On the discussion of Bonds going to an AL team and DHing, Steve Phillips just showed his dismay by describing Bonds as "just like Giambi in that he walks a lot and hits some home runs, but when he's not hitting the home runs he's a baseclogger."
I did not see it. I assume he meant this in the pejorative sense.
If true, congratulations Steve Phillips, you have said the dumbest thing that anyone can say about baseball. Barry Bonds is (in the negative sense) a "baseclogger."
I was listening to ESPN Radio the other day -- SportsBash, I think -- and the first "who should be in the All-Star Game" moron call-in session was happening. Some guy called in to vote against Bonds, because he hasn't hit a HR in a while, and he "just hasn't been that good this year."
Barry Bonds is a bad dude, who used drugs and lied about it and cheated on his taxes and stuff. But he is the 6th-best baseball player all-time, and best active, in terms of not making outs. Which is, and apparently we still have to point this out -- the only real goal of baseball players.
His OBP this year is .487. At the age of like 70. His OBP, career, is .444. He is the all-time leader in walks.
Bonds, Henderson, and Ruth are your top three all-time in walks. Henderson, Bonds, Ruth are 1-2-4 all-time in runs. This is not a coincidence.
This was just too good to pass up. It comes courtesy of a reader named Mike:
Of Bonds HR No. 747, manager Bruce Bochy said: "We needed a shot in the arm and he gave it to us."
He really ought to have thought that one through.
I imagine Bochy immediately turned beet red and started stammering like Woody Allen in "Sleeper."
EDIT: And now, an hour or so later, I add this from Kevin:
During the post game show of the Giants’ 4-3 win over Toronto on Monday, Mike Krukow and Dave Fleming went on and on about how a squeeze play won it for the Giants.
“That’s what these guys need to do,” said Krukow. “Small ball won it for them tonight. That, and of course the two-run homer from Barry Bonds that tied the game."
I just don't know who yet. Let's find out, as we look at this article from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Dejan Kovacevic.
It was a week ago today, fewer than 24 hours after the Pirates had put down a sizzling St. Louis rally in the ninth inning, that catcher Ronny Paulino reflected upon it and offered this surprising tidbit.
"You know what the key was to that whole inning?" he said. "When David Eckstein got hit by that pitch."
Say what?
Hitting Eckstein -- not intentionally -- loaded the bases and, ultimately, forced closer Salomon Torres to pitch to Albert Pujols with a one-run lead.
"Doesn't matter," Paulino said. "Eckstein's the guy you don't want to face there."
There's a lot of stupid stuff in this article. I am happy to say -- since I get bored of disparaging journalists only -- that most of it is said by actual baseball players. That's new and fun!
David Eckstein's career EqA is .260, which is exactly league average. Albert Pujols's career EqA is .341, which is easy, don't-even-think-twice Hall of Fame shoo-in. Anyone who ever wants to pitch to Albert Pujols over David Eckstein in any situation, including pick-up whiffle ball games at family barbecues when Pujols has dengue fever and Eckstein gets to use one of those over-sized red bats while Pujols has to hit with a live cobra, is a goddamn moron of the highest order. So I'm sure Paulino is the only one who thought this.
Others agreed without hesitation, players and coaches alike.
"Can't let Eckstein beat you there," shortstop Jack Wilson said.
Huh.
Albert Pujols Career OPS: 1.042
David Eckstein Career OPS: .708
I feel stupid even comparing these two people. They almost don't play the same sport.
OK, so, just to be clear here: The Pirates are happy to duck a 5-foot-7 career .282 hitter to take on the sport's most imposing hitter?
And why, exactly, is this?
"Because," Wilson said. "Eckstein's clutch."
I don't like that stupid "close and late" stat, but...
Eckstein "Close-and-Late" 2004-2006: .722 OPS
Pujols "Close-and-Late" 2004-2006: 1.088 OPS. He has 24 HR in 231 AB.
On page 191 of the famed book, "Moneyball," Billy Beane, the innovative Oakland general manager and prime subject matter, barks at a television as he hears a broadcaster describe his Athletics as failing in the clutch.
"It's [expletive] luck," Beane says.
Those words resonate with some as gospel, mostly because they are so easy to support.
Easy to support? My whole effing life all I do is yell at people that there's no such thing as "clutch." Everyone tells me I am wrong. My friends and I had to start a blog so we could stop shouting into the wind and start typing into the wind (easier on the vocal cords). Easy? Easy?!?!
The numbers will show, the game's statistical-minded followers will say, that a hitter with a .280 career average will hit ... well, right around .280 in whatever anyone might define as a clutch situation.
Some use batting average with runners in scoring position. Some use a fairly new statistic called close-and-late, which measures average in the seventh inning or later with the score no more than a run apart. Some just count up RBIs.
Whatever the bar, it is true that the disparity of numbers is little different between clutch and non-clutch.
At least this Dejan Kovacevic fellow seems to have read Moneyball. Unlike some ESPN Moneyball-disparagers I could name, named Joe Morgan.
"It's obvious that some players perform better in clutch situations," said Dan Fox, author for the statistics-based journal Baseball Prospectus. "The question is whether that difference, as measured in a week, a month or a season, actually reflects an underlying ability to come through more often."
A BP reference in a mainstream newspaper. I bet this is how Galileo felt (posthumously, obviously) when the Church finally admitted that the earth revolved around the sun.
"What they've found is that while there may be a small clutch ability -- for example, hitters who can adjust their approach in different situations seem to have a small advantage -- that ability is dwarfed by the normal differences in overall performance. In other words, in the bigger scheme of things, it's the best players who do best in the clutch."
Take the cases of David Ortiz and Derek Jeter, the widely recognized kings of clutch.
Over the past three years, Ortiz has batted .296 in all situations, .331 with runners in scoring position. Jeter has batted .315 in all situations, .310 with runners in scoring position.
Some difference, but not much.
Still, every time Ortiz launches one of those extra-inning bombs for the Boston Red Sox, it leads "SportsCenter" and resonates far more in the psyche than anytime he might fail. And when Jeter wi
