FJM has gone dark for the foreseeable future. Sorry folks. We may post once in a while, but it's pretty much over.
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One More Thing About Mystique (The Abstract, Intangible Quality, Not The X-Men Character)
Okay, so Buster Olney wrote a piece called "Yankees lack mystique of dynasty years." Nothing shocking there; I wrote about it a little bit a couple of posts down.
Something struck me, though, as I walked away from my computer. Did Olney really write that you could tell the difference between the dynasty Yankees and the current Yankees based on two close games in late June/early July against the Texas Rangers?
I came back to the computer. And yes, yes he did do that:
The past two nights, the Yankees have played the kind of games that, during the 1996-to-2001 dynasty, they would have expected to win. They have been drifting in the standings, and the Rays and Red Sox have begun to pull away in the AL East. The Yankees opened a series against the Rangers in Yankee Stadium on Monday knowing they had to start making inroads in the playoff chase.
Really? This series, pretty much exactly halfway through the season, against a mediocre non-division foe, is one that the '96-'01 team would've keyed on? Now is when inroads must be made?
The crazy thing is that if the Yankees went on a winning streak right now and A-Rod and Abreu and Giambi and Cano went absolutely house, you would definitely get articles about how "these guys can do it in July but can they do it in October???" And yet when they lose two boring, completely unremarkable games to the Rangers, they're still getting pilloried for not having "confidence" or "edge" or "expectation."
The New York Yankees are 44-40. They are 12th in baseball in runs scored. That is bad. It is especially bad for a team with a $960 million payroll. What's wrong with the Yankees, and in particular, the Yankees' offense? If you're Buster Olney, the answer is simple: the Yankees have no "edge." They lack "mystique and aura." You know, Baseball's Occam's Razor: when you're bad, the explanation is always magical.
The past two nights, the Yankees have played the kind of games that, during the 1996-to-2001 dynasty, they would have expected to win.
This year, of course, instead of expecting to win, the whole Yankee team took a trip to Boot Barn, purchased boots, went back to the clubhouse, put those boots on, and immediately began shaking in said boots.
"Th-th-th-th-th-the Rangers!" said Joba Chamberlain, shakily.
The Yankees opened a series against the Rangers in Yankee Stadium on Monday knowing they had to start making inroads in the playoff chase. In the dynasty years, they would have taken the field with an enormous mental advantage: They would have been convinced they would win, and even if they had lost,
-- it would have counted as a win? they would have been convinced that the matter of success or failure was something firmly within their control.
Oh. Um, okay. They still would have lost, though, so that's not great.
But they don't have that confidence anymore, which is not surprising.
You see what Buster's doing here? Because a team loses, they don't have confidence. Because a team wins, they have confidence. It's unassailable, it's un-dis-provable, and it may very well be backwards. The 2008 Yankees have a bad game in late June against Scott Freaking Feldman -- aura problems. The 1999 Yankees have a bad game in late June -- all part of the plan. It's easy to ascribe invincibility to past champions: YOU KNOW THAT THERE'S NO CHANCE THEY'LL EVER GO BACK AND LOSE THE 1999 WORLD SERIES.
They don't have many players now who have won consistently at the big league level. Alex Rodriguez and Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi and Robinson Cano don't have that in their experience, and Joba Chamberlain is still learning about being a starting pitcher in the big leagues.
Yeah, these guys stink. A-Rod has a fucking shitty .990 OPS. Giambi's checking in at a crapuscular (made-up word) .945. Joba has a retardedly awful 2.22 ERA. In six starts, he's given up 1, 2, 1, 1, 0, and 1 runs. These guys don't know how to win. Sure, Abreu's been sort of average (.805 OPS), but he's 34 and seems to be in a decline phase (too much experience, I guess). Cano has been absolutely terrible this year. You know who else has hurt the team? The shortstop. .728 OPS. On-basing .340, slugging .388. Defense is no great shakes, either. Guy needs more winning experience, I suppose.
Beyond the stark reality of the standings, however, there is this: The Yankees of 2008 are really no different than the Rangers or the Athletics or the Brewers or many other teams in the majors; they're just another team of talent trying to find a way to win more games.
Here's my explanation of why the Yankees are 44-40. Jorge Posada has missed 45 games. A-Rod has missed 20. Matsui 15. Plus, these guys are old. Almost all of the good position players on the team are on the wrong side of 30, and PEDers aside, most baseball players don't improve at that age. Add on top of this the fact that Cano and Jeter have been giving you almost nothing at the plate, and you have an average to slightly above average hitting team.
With A-Rod and Posada back, though, those numbers are going to go up. If I had to guess, I would say that Jeter and Cano are going to bounce back some, too. The Yankees' hitting is going to be all right.
Buster, your take?
There is no edge, no more mystique and aura, to borrow a phrase. All of that is history.
Ugh. I guess "Mystique and Aura" is a better name for a book than "Some Guys Got Hurt and Plus Most of Them Are Old Oh and Also They'll Probably Be Fine in the Second Half."
Extra note about this craziness: here Buster talks about the Celtics. See if you can spot where he attributes dominance to something metaphysical when the physical explanation is staring him right in the face:
I grew up as a fan of the Dodgers and Lakers (and the Vikings, but there's no need to talk about that in this context), and remember Larry Bird somehow getting the ball in the last moment of Game 4 of the 1987 championship series, in the left corner, the Celtics down a point. And you knew, as a Lakers fan and as a fan of basketball, that the son of a gun was going to drill that shot, because you had seen him do it over and over and over, in big moments. He turned and fired, and it wasn't just fans who assumed he would make that shot; if you watch the videotape of that game, just consider the faces of James Worthy and Michael Cooper.
The ball bounced off the back of the rim, and somewhere in the years that followed, as Bird and Kevin McHale broke down, the Celtics lost that expectation -- that assumption -- that they would win. So, too, have the Yankees.
The Celtics lost their "expectation," so they couldn't win anymore. But wait: why did they lose their "expectation"?
Because Larry Bird and Kevin McHale got old and injured as fuck.
Maybe that's related to why they stopped winning, I don't know. I'm just a guy who watches guys play sports and can't see their auras for shit. Embarrassing admission: I have never, ever, ever been able to see a guy's aura. That's right. I...am an aura-blind American.
If you're looking for the iPhone icon post, don't panic -- it's right below this one! We don't usually do this, but Rich Lederer did a fantastic job rebutting Buster Olney's variously ridiculous pro-Jim Rice posts here and here. Some of my favorite parts include when Rich points out exactly how many goddamn times Rice came up with men on base and how crazy it was that Buster compared Rice's lack of walks with Pedro's lack of 20-win seasons. I kept meaning to make fun of those posts myself, but Rich has done much more thorough work already and I've been really busy the last few weeks designing and formatting the FJM iPhone icon.
Jim Rice, Hall of Fame, we're all sick of the argument. He's borderline-ish, probably on the side of not Hallworthy. Buster Olney has this, defending his pro-Rice article (which we'll hopefully get to also) from yesterday:
If you want to quibble with the fact that he won the award in 1978, or with his placement in some particular year, OK, I get that. But to ignore the MVP voting entirely, as if it isn't at least some kind of barometer of his play over the course of his career, is embarrassing. This is like saying, "Hey, forget the Oscar voting of the 1950s. Marlon Brando was clearly overrated."
I don't ignore MVP voting entirely. I take it with a Ganymede-size grain of salt. And I, as do most sentient human beings and well-trained domestic helper animals, do the exact same thing with Oscar voting. Your argument doesn't only rely on Marlon Brando. It relies on Forrest Gump. Crash. Marisa Tomei. You, Buster Olney, are saying that you will be happy when Juno wins the Oscars for Best Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Documentary, Best Animated Film and Best Supporting Actor (the film itself will win this award, not a person).
Sure, the MVP is "some kind of barometer." But the kind of barometers that pick Pudge Rodriguez over Pedro Martinez in 1999 or A Beautiful Mind over any movie ever aren't necessarily devices I want to hang in my home.
Gump beat Fiction. It beat Shawshank. Heck, I'd take Quiz Show over Gump 10 times out of 10. Not the Academy's finest hour.
Someone somewhere is assembling a comprehensive year by year comparison of Best Picture winners and MVPs and analyzing who did a worse job, the Academy or the BBWAA. I await the results with bated breath.
For those of you who are interested, there are several infielders available through free agency right now. Two of them are David Eckstein, an adorable 11 inch-tall translucent man who cannot play baseball very well, and Alex Rodriguez, who is better at hitting baseballs than every other person in the entire world.
Let's go to the journalistic/public opinion round-up. First, we have an ESPN.com poll, the final question of which is:
9. Which player would you rather have?
69.6% Alex Rodriguez 30.4% David Eckstein
Now, I suppose it is possible that some of the 150,000+ people who have voted in this poll were taking into consideration things like salary, or the current 3Bman on their favorite team, or something. But the question is, straight-up, who would you rather have?
And 30% say Eckstein. Thirty percent. Thir. Ty. Per. Ce. N. T.
That means that more than 45,000 people sat at their computers, and thought it over, and they said, you know, I don't want the guy who is 32 and had a .354 EqA+ last year with 54 HR. I want the 32 year-old who only played in 117 games last year (and 123 the year before) and hit 3 HR and had a .275 EqA+, and who needs a relay man to get the ball from short to first.
Who are you people? What is wrong with your brains?
Speaking of people whose brains are wrong, ESPN's Buster Olney has some things to say about Eckstein: 3. David Eckstein, SS
Injuries have limited the shortstop to 240 games over his last two seasons, and he doesn't have the body or playing style of someone who will last.
Sign him!
But nobody can argue this: When Eckstein plays, he produces.
I can argue that. I can easily argue that. You want me to argue that? I will argue that.
The man's career OPS+ is 89. That is below average for baseball players. His career high OPS+ is 101. That is one percent better than the average baseball player. He has never had more than 26 doubles in a season. He has never had a slugging percentage in the .400s. He is a terrible hitter.
His batting average in each of his last three seasons is .294, .292 and .309, and he made a couple of All-Star teams.
Oh my God. If Buster Olney were a GM, he would stock his teams with Ecksteins and Juan Pierres and Christian Guzmans and they would go 20-142.
He has been a shortstop and the Cardinals need a shortstop, and Eckstein may end up returning to St. Louis. But Eckstein could also be, for a big-market contending club, a very interesting buy as a super utility player, because he can play second base, and perhaps even third base, along with some shortstop.
David Eckstein playing third base would be amazing. I would love to see that. If Jacoby Ellsbury hit a ball down the line to David Eckstein and Eck had to backhand it and throw from foul territory, by the time the ball landed in the first baseman's glove Ellsbury would be sitting on the bench after his inside-the-park little-league HR and Kevin Youkilis would be at the plate with a count of 2-0.
You could move him around, give him days off when he had a nagging injury, and always inject energy into your team -- like a sixth man in basketball.
This is a reason to sign him?
GM: So, tell me why we should sign your client.
Eckstein's Agent: Tons of reasons. First of all, he's a winner. Second, he can inject energy into your team. Third, when we gets injured -- and he will definitely get injured -- you can give him days off!
GM: (has long since left room)
Pay him well on a two-year deal and promise him 400 plate appearances, and he could help you get to October.
Pay him well on a two-year deal, and he will certainly collect his paychecks while not helping your team at all. And if your team makes it to October despite his mediocre/bad play, he will totally help you win in October, with his career .278/.333/.335 line in the postseason.
Finally, here is the voice of reason, in the form of Keith Law:
Quite possibly the most overrated player in baseball because people say "gritty" and "scrappy" and "smart" when they really just mean "short." Eckstein has had a nice run in the National League as a slap-and-run guy who does all of the little things and not many of the big things: He's got a short swing and isn't strong, so he hits for very little power, and he's never drawn many walks or worked the count. He's still an above-average runner, but not a burner and not worth much on the base paths; the speed is most valuable in helping him bunt for hits or leg out some ground balls. He's a bad defensive shortstop, and given his age he's likely to get worse, so it makes much more sense for someone to sign him as a second baseman.
Ahhhhhh. Soothing. Although how he is at #15 I will never know.
I am not going to copy any of it, because it's just too silly, but in this blog entry, Buster Olney argues that there should be a place in the Hall of Fame for "lifers" -- people who spend their entire life in baseball.
In other words, in addition to honoring the very very very best, the HOF should also celebrate the most...consistently...employed?
Or, that doesn't sound that great. How about the most...continuously...present...at... baseball..things. Yes. Thats good. We'll call it The Baseball Hall of Fame and/or Attendance.
Come to Cooperstown, New York! See Dale Sveum's wristwatch! Thrill to the sight of the stick of Blistex Don Zimmer used in the 1998 ALDS! Show your children a half-eaten omelet once belonging to Bud Black!
Buster Olney seems like a nice guy. He's got a very pleasant on-screen persona. I would like to have a beer with him. But my goodness, does he love them Yankees too much.
For now, it appears that Bernie Williams' time with the Yankees is over, with the center fielder leaning against taking a minor league invitation to spring training, and this morning I was trying to think of some defining moments from his career. He hit a big home run off the Orioles' Randy Myers in 1996, and Bernie caught the final out of the 2000 World Series, gloving Mike Piazza's long fly ball and then dropping down to a knee in prayer.
From a Red Sox fan's point of view, allow me to say that I am thrilled that the guy is retiring. He was never the guy you most feared in the Yankee line-up, and yet he did seem to have a knack for getting key hits in key situations. (I am not saying he was "clutch," so erase the e-mails you ahve already started writing. I am merely saying that he was a solid hitter who hit solidly all the time, and he walked a ton, and I hated it when he came up in big moments. That's all.)
Let's see what Buster thinks of him.
But what I'll always remember about Bernie, as a player, is his reaction to his failure in his at-bats. There would be runners on base and Bernie would sometimes pop up, or hit a lazy fly ball to left field, and for an instant, his chin would tilt downward in disappointment: Oh, damn.
Yes, the trademark Bernie Williams "disappointment in popping up." Unlike most other players, who celebrated making outs with runners on base, Bernie would always show: frustration. That is what separated him from the pack.
Then the base integrity to how he played would kick in. He would drop the bat and begin running to first base, moving with the grace of a sprinter, only his toes and the front part of his feet nicking the ground.
"Base" integrity is a very funny phrase, if you speak the English language correctly and know how to use adjectives. (I assume Buster means "fundamental" or "basic; innate" or something.) Beyond that, however, why does everyone insist on talking about how "graceful" and "elegant" Bernie Williams is/was? To me he looked really awkward when he ran -- his pants were too high and his hands were weirdly in that completely flat planar pose, and his arms pumped up and down like he was a robot.
Also, what is the difference between one's toes and the "front part of" one's feet?
Every time. Not just when the weather was nice, not just when the game was nationally televised, not only when he felt like it. Every time.
And he would take a wide turn at first base, doing it exactly the way Babe Ruth League coaches tell you to do it, and then hit the bag, conducting himself as if he had every expectation that the ball would drop and he would be in position to take second base.
So, you're saying...when he made contact, and hit the ball into fair territory, he...ran to first base. Like baseball players often do.
I covered the team for four years and never saw Bernie or Derek Jeter fail to run out a ground ball, each racing through the bag on easy groundouts, and I'll always believe that their consistent effort and respect for the game -- along with the effort of players like Joe Girardi -- was the backbone of the Yankees' dynasty of 1996-2001.
Really. Well. I didn't cover them for four years, but I did watch a lot of their games when I lived in New York, and contrary to this revisionist history, I saw Bernie jog to first on pop-ups, I'd say, exactly as many times as I saw other guys jog to first on pop-ups. I know this because around 1996 people started talking all the time about how Bernie Williams never jogged to first on pop-ups, and I would always note when he did, just for my own satisfaction.
Also, I specifically remember one game where he hit a little nubber down the first base line that was spinning like crazy just over the line in foul territory, and he didn't run at all, and it spun back fair and the first baseman picked it up and tagged him out about four feet in front of the on-deck circle. The reaction shot of Joe Torre was fantastic.
I am not saying Bernie was lazy. He did play the game "the right way," I think, in that he put together great at-bats, and he compensated for below-average skills in some facets of the game by playing smart, heads-up, alert baseball. Admirable. But please spare me the "He never ever ever ever never once ever for one second jogged to first base" crap. It's simply not true.
A talented team with hot pitchers can win one World Series, but for a team to win four championships in five years, it must be comprised of players who compete relentlessly. A dynasty must be built around players who understand that no matter how many Gold Gloves or batting titles or championship rings they have won, they still have the responsibility to run out an easy fly ball, even when they're frustrated and having a bad day and they've stranded runners.
I guess you're not going to spare me that crap about never jogging to first base.
Also, for the record: Bernie won a batting title. He was a very good hitter. Lots of years of OBP above .400. Lots of long at-bats. But his fielding was always overrated. In the four years he was awarded the Most Meaningless Award Anyone Cares About, the Gold Glove, he was a combined -11 FRAA. For his career he's -50.
Because Bernie and Jeter run hard every time, everybody else on the team wouldn't think of doing anything other than running hard every time. That basic integrity with which Bernie played was reflected, mostly, in the way the Yankees have played during his tenure.
Let the hagiography begin. My word.
Bernie Williams lasted 16 seasons with the Yankees, slugged 287 homers, collected 2,336 hits, 1,366 runs and 1,257 RBIs. In short, he doesn't have the kind of credentials you need for induction into Baseball's Hall of Fame.
Correct.
But the man has played hard every single game, has never taken the game for granted, for those 16 seasons. The group of players who can say that is as elite and as distinguished, in its own way, as the greats who are enshrined in Cooperstown.
You realize, don't you all, that this is the same argument that will be used, five years after David Eckstein retires, to support his candidacy. Prepare yourselves.
The Phillies are built upon old-fashioned scout values, which figures, because general manager Pat Gillick is still an old-fashioned scout, prone to traveling thousands of miles on late notice to see a low-level minor league player or an amateur prospect with his own eyes.
It's hard to make fun of Pat Gillick. He's won in Toronto, Baltimore, and Seattle, and he's close to winning in Philly, maybe. He's made some stupid trades, and some stupid non-trades, and he let Brett Myers pitch the day after assaulting his [Myers's] wife on a Boston street. But hey, nobody's perfect. And in the grand scheme of things, he's got a pretty good track record. Still, all this talk of traveling thousands of miles to see minor leaguers reminds me of something...Spideysense tingling...
...[W]hile most teams are relying on on-base percentage, the Phillies have traded some of the crown princes of on-base percentage (Jim Thome and Bobby Abreu), while making a concerted effort to create a lineup of players who score high in intangibles among scouts, like Shane Victorino, Aaron Rowand, Chase Utley and, of course, NL MVP Ryan Howard.
Is the best thing to say about Ryan Howard -- or Utley or Victorino, for that matter -- that "he scores high in intangibles among scouts?" Seriously. The premise of this paragraph is that while other teams go after high OBP guys, the Phillies and Pat Gillick are doing it another way -- they're building teams around guys with "intangibles." It seems to me that these OBPs --
Victorino: .346 (first full year...not great, but okay for a 4th OF) Utley: .379 Howard: .425
-- are pretty freaking tangible. As is an MVP Award. As are chase Utley's 32 taters and .906 OPS as a second baseman.
Rowand is another story. Here are some of Aaron Rowand's 2006 tangibles:
OPS+ 87 OBP: .321 EqA: .256
So what is Buster saying here? The Phillies, instead of going after guys with high OBPs, have gone after guys with great intangibles -- like high OBPs. Or low OBPs, or MVP Awards. Or bad hitting skills, or excellent hitting abilities.
For the record, there is one Phillies-related intangible that I care about deeply; namely, Shane Victorino's nickname, "The Flyin' Hawaiian." That's a good nickname.
Wes Helms, who will share time at third base this year, is never going to be confused with Miguel Cabrera in his production, but he is a well-respected professional and of the players with at least 150 plate appearances, he led all major league hitters in average after the All-Star break last season, hitting .385.
Let me rephrase:
Wes Helms, who is a pretty good 31 year-old journeyman, had a very flukey 240 AB last year, posting an OPS 200 points above his career average. In 130 AB after the ASB, he did this:
.385/.444/.654
In 110 AB before the ASB, he did this:
.264/.322/.482
Wes Helms ain't bad, but he ain't great neither. (Not that Olney said he was, obviously.) The only important thing about his 2006 2nd half is that it ended in early October, and will most likely have no bearing on his play in 2007. And I refuse to believe that his well-respectedness as a professional will help the Phillies' offense, or outweigh his 101 career OPS+.
What will help the Phillies' offense: Ryan Howard's total dominance of the game of baseball, Chase Utley blowing past his PECOTA forecast, and the Flyin' Hawaiian getting better at taking walks.
I would like to say, for the record, that I am very pleased with myself for the title of this post, despite the fact that the pun does not entirely work.
