FIRE JOE MORGAN

Ahhhhh, baseball! The crack of the bat. The sweet smell of dewdrops in spring. The checking of home/away splits. The improper substitution of a LOOGY just because the hitter is lefty even though the hitter has a like total reverse split. The whirring and clicking of massive Cray Supercomputers spitting out PECOTA Predictions. Swarthmore professors using something called "Chernoff Faces" to convert managerial tendencies into graphical/pictorial form. Baseball.

It's back again. And here's what we definitively learned from day one of the 2008 MLB Season: Nothing, dummies. It's a small sample size.

So instead, let's gallimaufry it up.

Several readers sent us to this article, which contains many of my least favorite words:

The Blue Jays felt like they needed an infusion of gritty players, the type who can spell the difference between winning and losing in tight games, and they believe they've added those pieces in third baseman Scott Rolen and free agent shortstop David Eckstein.

Rolen is going to cost them $12m this year, and he's already out for a few weeks with a screw in his finger. He turns 33 in a few days, and has played in 310 games in the last three seasons. But: he's gritty. Boy oh boy, is he gritty.

Eckstein is: Eckstein.

"When they take the field, they're both always on the ground," Gibbons said.

That's how fucking professional these dudes are. They obey the laws of gravity no matter what.

"They give us a toughness that I think we need."

They -- the left side of your infield -- will give you 800 AB combined and 15 homers, if you are lucky. (Did I mention Rolen had 8 HR in 112 games last year?)

Wells, Toronto's star center fielder, likes the idea of having Eckstein drive opposing pitchers batty with his knack for fouling off pitches, making contact and getting on base out of the leadoff spot.

For the ever-growing record, Eck saw an average of 3.64 pitches per AB last year, tying him for 317th on the list of all NLers with, among others, notorious hacker Jacque Jones. N.B. that fucking Roy Oswalt had a 3.76. You want a lead-off guy to see a lot of pitches and drive 'em batty -- go with Roy.

Many hundreds of thousands of you also pointed us to this article about tools.

The proverbial five tools for position players -- hitting for average, hitting for power, defense, arm and speed -- are covered throughout the survey [of MLB scouts], in one way or another.

Only one player really scored high in all of the above: Ichiro.

Really. Hitting for power. Huh.

Ichiro career: 67 HR in 4782 AB.

The panel of scouts rated him tops in all of MLB in the categories of Best Hitter, Best Bat Control, Best Outfielder, Best Arm and Best Baserunner. He also rated second in the categories of Best Bunter, Fastest Runner and Best Basestealer.

He also won Best Personality, Best Dancer, Girls' Choice for Brother, and Cutest Stubble. He is tearing things up at Central High, people! Rumor has it, this saucy little import has grabbed the heart of none other than Clarissa Prettyface -- Cheer Captain and Improbable Virgin -- and he is not letting go! But what will happen when her boyfriend Jock Fisterson finds out?

"You could put Ichiro down for almost everything -- best arm, best outfielder (when he wants to be), best basestealer, best hitter, and he could hit 50 home runs if he wanted to, but he'd rather get his 220 hits and bat .330," said one scout.

You guys don't get it. He's awesome. If Ichiro wanted to, he could play basketball and probably be like the best ever. So I voted for him for 2-guard in the NBA All-Star Game this year. He could fucking fly if he wanted to. That's why I put him down for "Best Bird Imitator." If Ichiro felt like it, he could totally discover important things about gamma ray bursts, which is why I voted for him for the Cal Tech Fellowship in High-Energy Astrophysics.

[Extreme side note. While poking around the internet looking at gamma ray burst articles and black hole articles and things -- part of my mandatory mom's basement/nerd study program -- I came across this article, which discusses the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

HEAD-AAS.

Why would you acronym yourselves to make HEAD-AAS?" What bunch of ass-faces.]

Diversion over. Let's take some mail, shall we? Edward writes:

In case you missed it, here's how David "I'm scrappy and pesky, and I should have gotten a 3-year deal for it" Eckstein's evening went:

• 1st inning: 0-1 count, lead-off groundout, setting up his team nicely with the first out.
• 3rd inning: Lead-off strikeout on 4 pitches, see 1st inning.
• 5th inning: With runners on 1st and 3rd and no outs. 1-1 count, grounds out to 1st, runner from 3rd doesn't score, though the runner on 1st does advance to 2nd.
• 7th inning: Runner on 3rd, 2 out. First-pitch ground-out to 3rd.

It must be said that he fielded his position flawlessly. But he did not remotely do his job as the lead-off hitter. 0-for-4, averages 2.5 pitches per at-bat, doesn't get the ball out of the infield.

Fun with small sample sizes. A lot of fun.

Adam writes:

The other day Steve Phillips said (this is a rough quote, the number is what is important): "The Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox could both score 1,000 runs this season."

The sheer stupidity of the statement is incredible. Now obviously anybody could score 1,000 runs in a season. Since 1900, however, only 7 teams have scored 1,000 runs in a season, with the modern-day record being 1,067 by the 1931 Yankees. Teams that have scored 1,000 runs in a season:

New York Yankees - 1,062 (1930), 1,067 (1931), 1,002 (1932), 1,065 (1936)

St. Louis Cardinals - 1,004 (1930)

Boston Red Sox - 1,027 (1950)

Cleveland Indians - 1,009 (1999)

Labels: cray supercomputers, david eckstein, gallimaufry, HEAD-AAS, hideki matsui's porn collection, ichiro, mother's basement, steve phillips

I'm kind of in the zone right now, posting-wise, so let's keep it going with a little thing we like to call:


Tim writes in and sez:

Just read your comments on Woody Paige's column about the Hall of Fame and had to point 1 thing out. The "Primarily a DH" comment concerning Jim Rice irks me. Paige is making a claim without bothering to look up anything to support it.

Jim Ed played 1543 games in the OF and 530 as a DH. In fact, he had only 3 seasons in which he played DH in more games than he played the OF. 1989 when he only played 55 games, all as the DH. 1988 when he was 35 years old and past his prime, and 1977 when the other OF options were Lynn, Evans, and Yaz. Between 1980 and 1987, Rice played an astounding 41 games as a DH.

This took me 2 seconds to look up, but I guess what Woody Paige recalls about the last 2 years of Rice's career is more important than what really happened.

I would have been ok if he had just said... he never lived up to his potential, or his career was over by the time he was 34, or even ... he was a poor defensive OFer, but he went with... he was primarily a DH.

To put Rice's designated hitting in perspective, Paul Molitor played 1174 out of 2683 career games as a DH... but his hands were just so damn quick.

We'll keep things going with Trey. This one is very important, so pay attention:

Just to add to the Eckstein discussion, I was the sports editor at the University of Florida when Eckstein played and I think you might reevaluate his scrappiness once you realize how many times he was hit by pitch in his collegiate career -- a school record 41 times! As I recall, he led the NCAA as a Senior and had a shot at the all-time Div. I record, but didn't quite make it.

I can't seem to verify any of this since this was just on the verge of the Internet being a useful historical tool and even now I can't really find NCAA records ... but I am certain we ran a particularly adorable cartoon with a caricature of cute lil' Eck taking a pitch in his tiny bird-sized chest and tumbling down with the caption Hitting the Deck(stein) or something like that. Even now, I can't decide the best way to punctuate that particular play on words. (Just found some UF stats -- Eck was HBP 25 times in 64 games in 1997.)

First off, I love this email very much. I love that people were ironically onto how "scrappy" Eckstein is, as far back as 1996. Second of all, I very much desire a copy of this cartoon. If anyone out there has a copy -- as unlikely as that may be -- I beg of you to scan it and email it to me forthwith. In return, you will receive a personal email from me, commending you for your duty and service in the name of American Freedom, as well as the knowledge that a crappy print-out of it will hang over my desk at Fremulon Insurance, Inc. as long as I am alive and working there.

But enough about Fremulon Insurance, Inc. Let's keep things moving with more of the


Stan asks:

Is that you in that Joe-Morgan-buying-a-beer-and-a-dog video? You're old.

No, it is not me. That is my son, Ken Jr. I am much older.

Justin chimes in on the Bob Elliott/NAMBLA David Eckstein Fluff(er) Piece:

I also especially like that when talking about how MLB needs to be cleaned up and have its image improved, Elliott then compares Eckstein to.... Pete Rose, one of the few men ever completely banned from baseball. Well-done, Bob.

Yey verily, love of Eckstein is a corruptive force. Besides melting men's hearts, L'il Eck will sometimes melt their minds, in a Death in Venice kind of way.

The Allan Ryan post, wherein he typed "David Eckstein scrappy" into Google and then wrote that fact into his article, let to a flurry of similar experiments. First, Andrew:

In light of your recent post, I typed in "Alex Rodriguez Scrappy" to google, and it gave me the following results:

Results 1 - 10 of about 59,000 for alex rodriguez scrappy (0.27 seconds)

That's more than 10 times as many results, and for whatever ridiculous reason, it's faster, too.

Labels: david eckstein, food metaphors, fremulon insurance, gallimaufry, woody paige

On the one hand, I am pleased that Phil Mushnick has taken to slamming Joe Morgan every Monday in his New York Post column. On the other hand, I kind of feel like, hey, we got here first, man.

Joe Morgan remains relentless in providing expertly stated nonsense. Last night, during Mets-Cubs on ESPN, Luis Castillo stuck with a windblown popup, making a nice catch. But Morgan explained the play as the result of Castillo being unfamiliar with the winds in Wrigley Field because, “Castillo has played his entire career in the American League.”

But Castillo played 10 years in the NL, all with the Marlins. In fact, it was Castillo who hit the infamous fly that spectator Steve Bartman caught - before Moises Alou could - in the 2003 NLCS at Wrigley. Last season, with the Twins, was his first in the AL.

In the top of the fifth, Morgan’s partner, Jon Miller, noted that Castillo has played before in Wrigley. Morgan said nothing.

A number of people emailed about this yesterday, and if I hadn't been out house-hunting with Mrs. Tremendous I would have posted about it earlier.

Reader Noam writes in:

Just to add my own two cents to this: Morgan called the 1997 World Series for NBC, which Castillo played in, not to mention how many Sunday Night Baseball games the Marlins were in between 1996-2005 (when Castillo was a Marlin). Forget not watching other games to prepare. He doesn't watch the games he calls!!

That would be the natural conclusion, yes.

Since we're in mini-Gallimaufry mode, here's Bob on the Angels' game:

2 outs in the 8th and an Angel gets a hit. Steve Physioc (with fevered, boyscout enthusiasm): "That's the way to start the 8th!"

Simple, elegant, bone-brained: Physioc.

One more Joe-ism from Jason:

Joe talking about the Cubs defense and Ryan Theriot as SS...

"They also have Cesar Izturis here... but Theriot has won the job."

Well, I don't know if Izturis got the day off from the Pirates to go watch the Cubs-Mets game and that's what he meant (somehow I doubt it), but my guess is Morgan just doesn't know that Izturis ever got traded.

EDIT: Larry writes in to give Joe a much-needed shot in the arm:

As much as I love piling on Joe, I'm certain he said "had" and not "has" in relation to Izturis."

Either way, it's a wonder to behold, every Sunday night.

Labels: gallimaufry, joe morgan, phil mushnick, steve physioc

It makes me queasy to align (philosophically) this blog with the New York Post -- a newspaper that was named "Worst Thing" in a recent survey of all things. However, Phil Mushnick, who wrote the article linked a few days ago about Joe Morgan's inexplicable insistence that his MLB debut occurred in a way that history and recording devices indicate it did not, has continued the battle today, and we must applaud the effort.

After you go read that article, come on back for:

A mini-Gallimaufry!

From Dallas:

Jack Wilson had a web gem on Baseball Tonight, and as it was being shown, Kurkjian said, "He's a good player. I don't know why the Pirates would want to get rid of him."

Well, Tim, aside from the fact that he's hitting .259/.308/.359, has an EQA of .240, and is going to earn $20.2 million over the next three years, I can't think of a single, solitary reason.

Tim Kurkjian frustrates me. I like his uber-nerd persona, and I like his "The last time a guy threw a six-hitter left-handed and had four sac bunts in one game was Lord Umberto Chammingsworth in 1859 in the Scottish Rounders Association" factoids. But sometimes...well, sometimes he says stuff about Jack Wilson.

Many of you enjoyed Jay Mohr's "What I Like About Sports" - slash - fascinating look back on American culture in the 1980's piece. You also pointed out about eleven stupid things I missed. Eric is so dedicated he brought visual aids:

I know trying to pick apart something Jay Mohr proposes is not exactly the highest calling in life, but I take exception to his theory that having pitchers bat in both leagues would lead to an increase in hitters being hit by pitches. Attached is a simple chart displaying quite an increase in HBP in both leagues following the introduction of the DH, and initially more in the AL following that change. While it is highly speculative to suggest causation in this case, I simply found it humorous how off-the-charts wrong Jay is.

Thanks, Eric. Pretty colors.

This might be my favorite gallimaufry item of the year. From Benjamin:

Joe Morgan thanked Frank Robinson for showing up in the announcers' booth to chat during tonight's Giants-Dodgers broadcast on ESPN. He then went on to say this, for everyone to see and hear:

"And I hope that when I retire I can get a job like yours where I'm paid to watch games!"

...A short pause. Berman then says, "You do that now, Joe!" Joe then cackles -- a madman's cackle. He knows he's not paid to watch games or analyze baseball. That would be insanity.

Seriously. What is going on in the man's brain?

Labels: gallimaufry, joe morgan, phil mushnick

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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Okay, Bruce! Good to know.

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!

Labels: adam kennedy, barry bonds, david eckstein, espn, fuck the heck, gallimaufry, joe morgan

Folks, let me tell you something about the insurance business. It's crazy. Incredibly unpredictable. Exhausting. Every day when you wake up, you don't know whether you'll be filling out a Wyoming Investigator's Traffic Accident Report, Code Sheet PR-802-A:


or reading that out of freaking nowhere, E-Claim.com and The Council on Ethical Billing are forming a strategic alliance! Man. Insurance creates strange bedfellows, am I right?

Anyway, what this insanity means, is that I don't get to spend as much time blogging as I would like. Fortunately, we have very dedicated readers, who send us links, quips, and comments. And from time to time, we cite them here, in a little segment we like to call: Gallimaufry Time!

The HR Derby led to some real gems. From btroup1:

Berman, Morgan, and Baker at the same table? Are you okay? Do I need to call a doctor?

Dusty: "My son wanted to go out there [to shag balls] but I told him he was too young." Where can I find a JT Snow .gif?

Here you go, buddy. I guess he wasn't too young then.

Daniel chimes in with a keen observation:

Is it me or does EVERYONE remind Joe Morgan of Ken Griffey Jr.? Rios, Holliday, the man selling hot dogs, everyone.

I, too, have noticed this phenomenon. "He reminds me of Ken Griffey, Jr." is to the JM arsenal what the Sherman Tank was to the Allies. It is rivaled only by "Willie Mays was the best player I ever saw" for sheer frequency of repetition.

David gets credit for citing my favorite moment:

Berman: Does it help [Holliday] that he plays three series here a year?

Joe: No, I don't think so. This is a home-run-hitting contest, not a...

[long pause]

...place where you get accustomed to the view, and so forth.

Excellent.

Many people have sent us the link to a brilliant FoxSports blog entry by Ed Hardiman, entitled: "Slobbermetrics, How [sic] Bill James and Math Nearly Destroyed Baseball." I began a lengthy post on this Pulitzer- and Mark Twain Prize-Winning article, and then decided it simply wasn't worth it. I will link it, in case you have not seen it and wish to waste two minutes of your life. For a fun home game, count how many commas are used inappropriately. And how many absolutely fucking terrible jokes he includes. This is the humor equivalent of anaesthesia-less knee surgery.

I sometimes feel bad for John Kruk. He is obviously uncomfortable on BBTN, and the producers make him argue things in which he does not believe. Tex5011 has no such sympathy:

The question was, "Who is the toughest out in the AL All-Star lineup?" Now, remember that this lineup features A-Rod, Jeter, and Ortiz. But Kruk's answer was Placido Polanco. There's a reason Polanco's batting eighth. Kruk, you are an idiot.

A quick glance at OBP lists will actually tell you who is the toughest out (Magglio-Ortiz-Vladdy-ARod, in that order). But Placido is only 6 OBP points behind Kenny Lofton.

Drew points us to a potential new target:

John Kincade, on his Sunday morning ESPN show, said:

"We don't need obscure, newfangled stats like OPS and WHIP to tell us who the best players are. We watch the games, we know who the best players are."

You make your list, I will make mine. Then we will have our teams play each other one million times. Mine will win.

I got a lot of feedback on the last Bruce Jenkins attack, mostly in re: the pitch count section. Some interesting points. Brett sez:

In a complementary sense, nobody can tally the list of "normal" young pitchers who lost effectiveness because of injuries (diagnosed or not) caused by managers ignorantly disregarding pitch counts. Because they became mediocre or worse and disappeared from the game. It's the classic statistical problem of survivorship bias. (People think the average hedge fund returns are X%, because they start today and work backwards and miss the funds that blew out a few years ago).

For every 1968 Bob Gibson you show me who pitched the beginning, middle and end of every triple header, I wish I could show you the legions of 60's pitchers who would have pitched longer and more effectively if they had been taken care of, but I can't because they're almost impossible to identify.

Well played, sir. Also well-played by Eric:

[Gibson] was indeed a once-in-a-generation freak. But by my reckoning, Bob Gibson
was kinda sorta finished at age 36. His age 37-39 seasons were quite ordinary.

Catfish Hunter is another oft-cited example [of innings-eating monsters]. He was done
at 30.

So it would seem that the non-freak pitchers, i.e., the "majority of pitchers" would be
cooked far earlier than 36. Now, I find nothing wrong with--altho I don't agree--the
argument that its management's prerogative to choose to win a World Series or two
with a couple of pitchers throwing 325 innings, shortening their careers in the process.
But Jenkins doesn't make that argument.

I would say that Gibby's 37 year-old season was still pretty damn good. But he was no Clemens, or RJ, at 38-39-40... He wasn't even Curt Schilling at 39. Now, obviously he threw many more innings at crazy ERA+ before that age. But as for whether it's a good idea? As Brett says above, you can't look at the most successful example in history -- the extremest outlier -- in order to get a good look at the results of an experiment. This is equal to the burn-out child's claim that good grades do not matter, because "Einstein dropped out of school in like eighth grade!"

The most in-depth comments came from Richard, who challenged the claim that pitcher abuse can be measured most by the number of pitches over 100 in an individual outing. I based this link-less statement on a Baseball Prospectus article in "Baseball Between the Numbers." Richard got all up in it -- in a way I truly admired and respected, BTW -- and after much research sent me this link to an excellent article at The Hardball Times. Essentially, it the scientific evidence for the BP PAP (Pitcher Abuse Point) data, which can be found here.

Now, I am just a mild-mannered insurance claims adjuster. I am not a scientist. The BP evidence looks compelling to me, but I trust THT and BP equally, and the two of them disagreeing (even if it was several years ago) makes me feel like mommy and daddy are fighting, and I don't like it. As soon as I take care of this Wyoming traffic accident claim, I am going to poke around some more and see what the real deal is. Fascinating stuff.

Enough math. Back to dumb. Ben writes in with this gem:

In introducing the Braves' starting lineup for tonights game, Jon Miller dubbed Willie Harris "The Pride of Cairo, Georgia."

Also hailing from Cairo: this dude.

Excellent.

Jason chips in, with a report on the hands-down best announcing duo in professional sports:

Listening to Hawk Harrelson and Darin Jackson is always a chore.

It was even more so, when, during yesterday’s Twins games, they repeatedly referred to the Twins’ old middle-infield combo of Luis Rivas and Cristian Guzman as “tough outs.”

Luis Rivas career OBP: .307
Cristian Guzman career OBP: .302 (which includes his season+ in Washington)

So maybe they always had good games against the White Sox and the announcers are just remembering that? I’d buy that.

Luis Rivas career OBP vs. CHW: .300
Cristian Guzman career OBP vs. CHW: .287.

It's always nice when the announcers label players as the exact opposite of what they really are. It's the Platonic ideal of "wrong."

Finally, many of you linked Peter Gammons's InSider blog entry about players with "energy." It's iffy, but it's not outrageous. He is just saying that certain guys have a lot of energy...I don't know. Call me a hypocrite, but I just cannot bring myself to lay into Gammo. Lifetime pass.

Labels: fremulon insurance, gallimaufry, hawk harrelson, home run derby, joe morgan, peter gammons, pitch counts

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.

Bary Bonds: Clogging Up the Bases. Delightful.

Labels: barry bonds, clogging up the basepaths, gallimaufry, oh my god, steve phillips

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."
So, just those two things, then?

Labels: barry bonds, bruce bochy, gallimaufry, mike krukow, smallball, steroids

It's time for a small number of people's favorite FJM post-type: The Gallimaufry!

Tony says:

Labels: gallimaufry

My meeting was canceled. Here are a few (mostly) unsubstantiated quotes sent in by our loyal readers from opening day.

From Brian:


It was, Brian. Thank you. Here's Luis:

Whoever is commentating on the Orioles@Twins game (Sounds like Steve Phillips, but I know it's not him.) just claimed that Morneau would not have been MVP if Jeter would have won the batting title. Apparently it was Morneau's ability to will Joe Mauer to go 2-4 on the last day that made [the BBWAA] vote for him.

The sad thing is, as stupid as that is to say, that announcer might be right. Because people care about the difference between .347 (Mauer) and .343 (Jeter) more than they care about 12.1 (Jeter's WARP3) and 8.6 (Justin Morneau's WARP3).

Here's one from Sam:

Mets-Cards, 2nd inning: “He’s like a little kid, trying to throw it all the way over [to first base]. And he almost always does it!”

Aww! You go get 'em, champ!

I'm going to assume that was Jon Miller. And finally, here's Greg, with a link to Crasnick column we never got around to attacking:

If nobody's actually sent this to you already, I'll be surprised, but it seems too perfect to pass up.

To preview, the first two paragraphs include:

David Eckstein had barely found a spot in his home for his World Series Most Valuable Player trophy when he laid claim to another title: America's "little buddy."

The diminutive St. Louis shortstop, who is to major league baseball what Pembroke Welsh Corgis are to the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, parlayed his boundless energy, lovable demeanor and .364 World Series batting average into a joyous winter romp.

I'm imagining that might be the kind of thing you're looking for.

You are correct in that imagining.

Keep 'em coming, people. It's a long season.

Labels: david eckstein, gallimaufry, jerry crasnick, opening day

Ever since Fire Joe Morgan was founded back in 1881, FJM readers have been clamoring for a glossary of the statistical terms, acronyms and abbreviations we toss around here. Such a thing already exists, but we're going to write a new one anyway.

FJM is far from a comprehensive or even occasionally accurate source of sabermetric information, but we will mention OPS+ from time to time, and if you don't know what that is, our site won’t be as informative or amusing. If you do know, the site is nearly always balls-to-the-wall genius, so it’s really in our best interests to help you all learn our terminology. A lot of sites, like ESPN.com’s MLB stats page, and baseballreference.com’s stats page, keep up-to-date records of many of the stats we use here, if you want to go and look up stuff for yourself.

So, here's a glossary of terms, statistical and otherwise, that you might encounter from time to time while reading the site. Like the Constitution, the FJM Glossary is a living document that will be updated as necessary, but unlike the Constitution, its contents can be used to befuddle the greatest second baseman of all time if you happen to run into him.

Let's get started.


BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play)
Exactly what it sounds like -- a player's batting average on the balls he puts into play. BABIP doesn't include strikeouts or home runs because those balls aren't in play. Make sense? This stat is helpful to show the effect of luck on a player's batting average. For instance, if two weeks into the season, Yuniesky Betancourt is hitting .573 and John Kruk is proclaiming him the next Honus Wagner, you can calmly point to the fact that his BABIP is an astronomical .494 (along with the two facts that it's two weeks into the season and John Kruk has never been right about anything). One way to calculate BABIP is (H - HR) / (AB - HR - SO + SF).

This stat can also be applied to pitchers. There's a guy named Voros McCracken who was, a few years ago, literally like living in his mom’s basement, and he was noodling around with a computer and he discovered something that made people freak out in re: pitchers, which is: pitchers can’t really control much of what happens when a ball is put into play. In other words, pitchers can basically control their Ks, BBs, and HR, but even the best pitchers in the world cannot really control how many hits they give up year-to-year. One year Greg Maddux will give up a ton of hits, the next year very few, the year after a ton again. It’s counterintuitive, but true. (If you want to read his article, here’s the link.) This is why the pitchers who are really good over a long period of time are guys who are good at the few things they can control: they strike a lot of guys out, don’t walk very many people, and give up few HR.

What does this all mean? Well, if your favorite pitcher gets off to a terrible start, but he is striking out roughly the same number of guys per 9 innings that he has in the past, and he’s walking about the same number of guys he usually has, and he’s giving up HR at the same rate he usually has, but he’s allowing a BABIP of like .390, do not despair – he has gotten a little bit unlucky, probably, since the league is not going to have a .390 BA overall for the whole year. His BABIP will probably regress a little over time, and his ERA will “magically” go down. And then Kevin Kennedy will attribute the decrease in ERA to “getting his confidence back” or something, and you will smile knowingly.

For some reason, by the way, ESPN uses “BIPA” instead of “BABIP.”

In 2005, the MLB leader for BABIP was Barry Zito, at .236. The average BABIP is about .290, which is what Matt Clement and Victor Zambrano put up last year. The worst in the league was Zach Greinke, who had a BABIP of .326.

BA (Batting Average)
Hits divided by at-bats; also, perhaps the stat that makes Ken Tremendous' blood curdle the quickest. Okay, maybe that's wins. Batting average is the backbone of traditional hitting metrics, and amazingly, is still looked upon as a good way to determine whether someone is good at hitting baseballs. It is not a good way to determine this. Why? Well, you already know why. You know it intuitively, and you always have. Because a guy who hits .250 but clubs 40 HR and 40 doubles and walks 100 times a year is way way way more valuable to his team than a guy who hits .310 with 2 HR and 19 doubles and 15 walks. That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? I agree. So why should we keep talking about batting average, ever? We shouldn’t? Okay, we won’t. But Tim McCarver will, and that’s why he should be selling cookware door-to-door instead of talking to the country about baseball every Saturday.

In 2005, the MLB leader for BA was Derrek Lee, at .335 (Placido Polanco was 2nd). The median BA for players eligible for the batting title was about .280 last year, or what Raul Ibanez and Mark Kotsay were able to produce. (Incidentally, this sort of helps confirm my belief that Mark Kotsay is the perfect “average” player. Maybe it’s his name.) Nick Swisher and Mike Lowell tied for last among eligible batters at .236. Because their batting averages were so low, both of these players were unable to recover, and never had a productive season in the Major Leagues again.

BA / OBP / SLG
Nothing more than a popular way of presenting a player’s 3 most oft-cited hitting averages. If you see three averages split up by forward slashes, chances are you’re looking at their Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, and Slugging Percentage, in that order.

DERA (Defense-adjusted Earned Run Average)
A pitching metric that attempts to be a defense-independent – in other words, it uses things a pitcher can actually control, like his BB-rate and HR-rate and stuff that doesn’t involve defense, and tries to calculate what his ERA is absent the influence of defense. 4.50 is average.

EqA (Equivalent Average)
I'll just quote Baseball Prospectus here: "A measure of total offensive value per out, with corrections for league offensive level, home park, and team pitching." EqA incorporates baserunning but not defense. EqA is derived from something called Raw EqA, which is calculated by (turn away, Rob Dibbles of the world) the following formula:

(H + TB + 1.5*(BB + HBP + SB) + SH + SF) divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SH + SF + CS + SB)

And you thought things weren't going to get that nerdy around here. EqA is basically like what you used to think BA was – a true measure of how good a hitter is. EqA is purposely formulated to be on a similar scale to BA so it won't scare off the normal people. .260 is average – which, as a point of comparison, is what Craig Counsell was able to sport in 2005. Guys like Albert Pujols and Travis Hafner can top .350. That's why Travis Hafner should be talked about ten times more than he is. Somehow, Alex Rodriguez was able to block out the back pages of the NY Post well enough to post a MLB-leading EqA of .350 in 2005.

LOOGY (Lefty One-Out GuY)
A left-handed reliever usually called upon to retire just one batter, usually in a critical situation. See Mike Myers (actually, don't, there's no entry for him here), who led all pitchers in 2005 with a LOOGY raw index of 137/133. (Yes, sorry, this is a fake stat).

OBP (On-Base Percentage)
1. Read Moneyball.
2. OBP is the difference between Kevin Youkilis and Jeff Francoeur.
3. It's also the reason Adam Dunn is vastly underrated.
4. Very simply, OBP is a way to tell how good someone is at not making outs. It’s the total number of times a guy gets on base without being responsible for making an out (except for reaching on errors), divided by his plate appearances -- which are simply times a guy comes up to the plate and tries not to make an out. See why it’s valuable? (Plate appearances in this case are defined as At Bats + Walks + Sacrifice Flies.)

In 2005, Todd Helton led all players with a .445 OBP (Giambi was 2nd). Adam Everett and Pudge Rodriguez tied for MLB-worsts of .290. That’s really bad. The league median among eligible batters in ’05 was .348 (Melvin Mora; Grady Sizemore; Rafael Furcal). And for historically ridiculous reference, in 2004, Barry Bonds’ OBP was .604; in 2002, it was .581.

OPS (On-base percentage Plus Slugging percentage)
It's not perfect. But on the plus side, it's not batting average. OPS gives you at least some idea of how patient and how powerful a hitter is. Unless, of course, you're a hidebound 263-year-old who enjoys ridiculing any advancement in human knowledge. In that case, OPS is your three-letter way to sneer at anyone who dares question the value of batting average, which was good enough for George Sisler and will be good enough for you, dammit.

Hard-core nerds will snivellingly tell you that OPS is stupid because OBP is way more important than SLG – Bill James himself, the king of all things stat-related in baseball, thinks that it is four times as important. Nonetheless, OPS has achieved some small toe-hold in popular parlance, so it’s important to know what it is and when to use it. If you really want to know how good a hitter is, however, EqA is way better. OPS is often cited with a “.” and sometimes without. Don’t be confused – if you see a number between like 700 and 1000, with or without a “.”, chances are it’s a player’s OPS.

Derrek Lee was MLB’s 2005 OPS champ at 1.080; Adam Everett posted the lowest OPS at .654. Eric Chavez wore the OPS Median crown at .794. The OPS Median Crown, by the way, is one of those Burger King crowns for young children.

OPS+
Anytime you see a “+” sign in front of a stat, it means that the stat has been adjusted for the specific season(s) to which that stat applies. OPS+, for example, is simply OPS measured against the league average OPS for that year/years, and adjusted for park factors (see below). 100 is defined as average. So, an OPS+ of 115 means that the player in question was 15% better than the average player who played in his league during the time he played. It’s a quick and dirty way of comparing hitters on a level playing field, because it accounts, obviously, for the general offensive trends that mark baseball history. In 1968, Carl Yastrzemski hit 23 HR and had a .922 OPS, which is very good. But his OPS+ was 171, which is excellent, because offense league-wide in 1968 was hard to come by. For contrast, Mark McGwire hit 65 HR in 1999, but his OPS+ was “only” 178, because the whole world was juicing balls into the stratosphere that year, so compared to his peers McGwire was roughly the same amount as awesome as Yaz was when he hit only 23 in ’68.

Derrek Lee was also the 2005 OPS+ champ at 177. Pronk was your AL champ at 170. To give a little more cross generational perspective, your career OPS+ leaders are: (1) Babe Ruth (207); (2) Theodore Ballgame (190); (3) Barrold Bonds (184). Those guys were all really good at baseball.

ERA+
See OPS+. Same deal, but for ERAs.

Clemens led eligible pitchers in MLB last year with an insane 221 ERA+. Johan was first in the AL at a “mere” 153. The all-time ERA+ champ, is, would you believe, Pedro Martinez at 166. (Think of all the ridiculously low ERA’s he posted in a hitter’s ballpark at a time when balls were flying out of the park.)

Park-Adjusted or Park Factors
Baseball is a funny sport where human men play on fields that aren't all exactly the same. That's why it may not always be useful to compare raw statistics accrued in vastly different spaces. Say you have 16 HR and I have 1000 HR. I am a better hitter, right? Well, maybe not. Because you play for the Mariners in spacious SafeCo Field, and I play for the InterGlobal Moon Pirates, and we play in the MoonCo Moonadium, where there is no gravity, and so every ball hit into the air is a home run. You are probably a better hitter than me. Park-adjusted stats will help us figure that out.

It is important to look at things like Park Factors if you are a GM, because if you don’t you will trade for the entire Colorado Rockies offense and then they will come to your stadium and stink it up because their numbers were artificially inflated at Coors Field, and you’ll be like, “What the hell?!” and they’ll be like, “I don’t know, dude – we were awesome at Coors!” and you’ll be like “Ugh! I forgot to include Park Factors in my analysis!!!!!!!” And who wants that?

There are different ways to calculate Park Factors. According to ESPN, Coors Field was furthest on the Hitters’ Park end of the spectrum, while PETCO Park anchored the Pitchers’ Park side. Sounds about right to us. (Park Factors also vary from year to year more than you might think.)

Pythagorean Record (or “Expected Win-Loss”)
Remember the old Pythagorean Theorem? X squared plus Y squared = Z squared? Same idea, but instead of sides of a triangle, it uses runs scored and runs allowed. It turns out that this is a pretty good way to predict what a team’s record will be. The formula is RS^2/(RS^2+RA^2). If a team is 50-35 but has allowed the same number of runs that it has scored, you can bet that its wins have been a little flukey, and that it will cool off pretty soon. The Pythagorean did a bang-up job last year at predicting the precipitous decline of the 2005 Washington Nationals.

In 2005, the St. Louis Cardinals had the highest Expected Win-Loss of .617; the Kansas City Royals were last at .360.

VORP (Value Over Replacement Player)
An offensive stat only, VORP attempts to calculate the number of runs a player is contributing above what a replacement-level player at the same position would if given the same percentage of team plate appearances. VORP is a counting stat, not a percentage stat – so, for example, as of July 22, Andruw Jones has a VORP of 31.0. That means that he has created 31 more runs for his team than the average AAA call-up guy would have by this point in the season. It also turns out that every ten runs a player creates is worth roughly one win, so Andruw’s offense alone has earned the Braves three wins. (There are other stats, like Fielding Runs Above Average [FRAA] that do the same thing as VORP, for defense.) See WARP below for more.

Old Baseball Men, this is another good one to bandy about if you're interested in tearing down a nerd's argument. Because it sounds funny. VORP. Please. What's that doing in baseball? Forget VORP, let's come up with a stat for the size of a guy's heart, am I right, people? We'll call it the Eckstein Quotient. No, wait, that sounds too nerdy. Eckstein Number. Nope. Still too smart. Eckstein Thing. How about just Thing? The highest Thing in the majors? You guessed it: David Eckstein. That's why they almost named it after him.

Once again, Derrek Lee was your VORP leader in 2005 at 95.6. A-Rod, Pujols, Ortiz and Jason Bay rounded out the top 5 (Bay at 72.6). Corey Patterson was dead last at –17.0. Mike Hampton, by the way, had a VORP of 5.2 (as a hitter), which was better than, like, Willy Tavares at 4.6.

WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player)
Sort of like VORP, but with a defensive component, as well. And it's calculated in terms of wins. It uses VORP and FRAA and all of those things to figure out how many wins a player is worth to his team, by himself, from all phases of his game. There are also WARP-2 and WARP-3, which adjust for various historical factors and stuff like that.

WHIP (Walks plus Hits allowed per Inning Pitched)
Pretty self-explanatory. Way way way way way better measure of a pitcher’s effectiveness – especially a relief pitcher’s effectiveness – than ERA or wins or anything that you’ve ever heard Steve Lyons talk about during FOX Saturday Baseball broadcasts.

Pedro was best in 2005 (among eligibles, which basically means starters) with a WHIP of .95. Jose Lima was last at 1.66. The median was 1.30, represented by Esteban Loiaza, Bronson Arroyo, Doug Davis, Jake Westbrook and Scott Elarton. Sometimes you’ll see WHIP go into the thousandths, which in this case would have been helpful to avoid writing out five names of average-ish pitchers.

Wins
1. The only stat that matters. The only way to pick a Cy Young winner. The thing Billy Beane can't get in the playoffs, no matter how many fancy computers he hires to play baseball for him.
2. A simply awful pitching statistic that should be swallowed up by the earth itself, personified, given ears, and forced to listen to a tape loop of Bermanisms for all of eternity. The reason being – and again, you know this, intuitively, even if you have never quite expressed it to yourself – if Carl Pavano gives up nineteen runs in five innings but the Yankees score 20 runs, and they hold on to win, and Pavano gets the win, is Pavano a good pitcher? No he is not. (This scenario is assuming he ever comes back and actually pitches, btw.) If Francisco Liriano throws 9 innings of no-hit ball, but gives up a run on four consecutive errors by Terry Tiffey and gets a loss, is Francisco Liriano a bad pitcher? No he is not. Wins stink to high heaven as a way to value pitchers because they are in very large part dependent on the actions of the other guys on the team.

Of course, according to Joe Morgan, "Wins and losses are how you measure pitchers" (Baseball For Dummies, p. 289).

Dontrelle Willis led all pitchers with 22 Wins last year. Good for him. And, obviously, there were about 140 pitchers who tied for last with zero wins.

>>>>Some other terms you might find helpful:

True Yankee
A leader. A guy who’s full of intangible qualities that help him triumph – with class. Derek Jeter. A guy who has a certain look in his eye, like he knows what it means to don the pinstripes with some motherfletching pride. Bernie. Mantle. Joe D. Jeter. A guy who you want in the trenches with you. Mattingly. Joe Girardi. Derek. Jim Leyritz. Posada. Derek Jeter. A guy who stares adversity in the face and says, “I play for the Yankees, and that means something, and I am going to hit a HR off BK Kim in this World Series Game because I am a New York Yankee." Scott Brosius. Tino. Dave Justice. Derek Jeter. A winner. Derek Jeter.

Here are some people who are not True Yankees: Alex Rodriguez, Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi, Alfonso Soriano, Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, and every other New York Yankee who has never been on a Yankees’ World Series winning team.

If you ever – ever – hear someone use the phrase “True Yankee,” for any reason, I want you to find the nearest exit, form an orderly line, and leave the premises quickly and calmly. Seek shelter. Cover head. Report the incident to your nearest FJM representative immediately. You are in great danger, because the person you are talking to is an idiot.

HatGuy
HatGuy is Mike Celizic, who writes a column for MSNBC.com. He is a very bad man who wears an old-timey fedora in his official MSNBC.com staff picture and does not know anything about anything, least of all baseball.

JoeChat
Joe Morgan does live chats with his admirers every Tuesday on ESPN.com. You have to be an ESPN Insider to view/participate in these chats. If you do not wish to be an ESPN Insider, you can check in with FJM weekly for a breakdown of all of the indecipherably weird things Joe writes when responding to perfectly innocuous questions about the game he claims to have loved for many years, but in reality has clearly never actually seen played.

Do not go to joechat.com unless you are a gay man looking for other gay men.

David Eckstein
David Eckstein is 4'10" and appears to suffer from borderline albinism. Despite this, he is a mediocre MLB shortstop. After he throws the ball to first base, it looks like he needs to lie down from exhaustion. He also runs hard to first base, as most baseball players do.

Baseball analysts have interpreted this data to be somehow indicative of something more powerful than mere "tangible" baseball skills, perhaps residing somewhere deep in the (non-human?) DNA of David Eckstein.

In fact, a new wave of baseball genetic experts believes that there may be a mutant patch of genetic code on chromosome 11 in some major league ballplayers. In most cases, this causes True Yankeeism. Eckstein, they claim, was born with a mutation of a mutation; the resulting phenotype features not only acute and heightened True Yankeeism, but stunted growth and fair skin and hair.

Sabermetrics
The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is like the sort of father organization for all of the stat-based stuff we use, and thousands of other forward-thinking people use, when we talk about the statistical side of baseball. Sabermetrics is a neologism that refers broadly to their/our brand of statistical analysis.

Moneyball
Moneyball is a very good book by Michael Lewis, which chronicles the ways in which Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane tries to keep his team competitive with a small payroll. The clunky and incorrect understanding of the Moneyball philosophy is that it simply involves getting players to walk a lot and hit home runs. In reality, what Moneyball deals with is the search for inefficiencies in the complex world of evaluating baseball players. At the time the book was written, Billy Beane and his crew had determined that there were players who weren’t fast runners, maybe, or were fat, or short, or otherwise had some kind of superficial thing “wrong” with them that made other GMs dismiss them as not good baseball players. But these players were actually good at baseball, and because other people had undervalued their skills (skills like walking a lot, for example) Beane was able to draft them or trade for them and not pay them a lot of money, because no one else wanted them.

These days, enough people have caught on to the idea that on-base percentage is important that such players are not undervalued anymore, and so GMs like Beane, who have to put a team together with a $50 million payroll instead of, say, the Yankees’ $200 million payroll, are looking elsewhere for value.

The book rubbed a lot of traditionalists the wrong way, because it takes the obvious and yet somehow controversial position that the massive amount of observable data we can collect from a baseball player’s performance is more important than that player’s like physical strength or speed in the 40 yard dash. Beane, and others like him, believe that it doesn’t matter if a guy looks like he should be awesome at baseball – it matters if he is actually good at baseball. It doesn’t matter if some crusty old scouts who have been in baseball for seventy years look at a guy and say, “He’s fast, he’s got a cannon for an arm, he’s got a strong jaw line – dadgummit, that thar boy’s gonna be a star!” It does matter if the guy walks a lot and can hit well or is an awesome fielder or something. Seem obvious? Try telling fans of Darin Erstad. They will tell you that he is awesome because he is intense and used to play football at Nebraska. You will blink, confused, and say, “But he can’t hit well,” and they will say, “HE WAS A PUNTER AT NEBRASKA! HE IS INTENSE AND A LEADER!” and you will slink away because they are spitting on you.

Moneyball is also famous because Joe Morgan rails against it constantly, even today, and on numerous occasions has pronounced it hogwash, despite freely admitting that he has never read it, and also for a long time believing that the book was actually written by Beane himself. When his error was pointed out to him, Morgan apologized profusely, admitted his mistake, rethought his stance, read the book and has now completely changed the way he thinks about statistical analysis. Oh, no – wait. I’m sorry. He didn’t do anything of the kind. He just dug in his heels and continued to claim that the book was hogwash.

Darin Erstad
A former punter at the University of Nebraska who had one good year for the Angels, signed a huge contract, and stinks at baseball, despite the strident arguments of hundreds of sportswriters who continue to talk about how important he is to the Angels and how he’s intense and a leader and the Angels would be nowhere without him. Trust us: he stinks at baseball.

Gallimaufry
A hodgepodge of brief reader e-mails cobbled together when the blogger is feeling too lazy, tired, or preoccupied with Turner Classic Movies to write a proper post. It's a true fact: "gallimaufry" was a word received by one of Junior's competitors in his sixth grade county spelling bee. The dude totally missed it.

“Not Hot-Dogging”
Something that ESPN Baseball Tonight commentator and 11-time Philadelphia Metro-Area Pie Eating Champion John Kruk once said should be a criterion for Baseball Hall of Fame Induction. I swear to God.

Fremulon Insurance
Fremulon Insurance is the employer of one Ken Tremendous. They currently hold offices in Partridge, KS; Los Angeles, CA; and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Tim McCarver
The Fox Network’s #1 color commentator. And, without question, the worst color commentator in the history of the world, in any sport. By my estimation, Tim McCarver has said 94 of the 100 dumbest things anyone has ever said about baseball, and worse, he tries constantly to be poetic and witty in his speech, a skill I assure you he does not possess, so what you end up getting is a lot of weird puns and aphorisms spewing forth in a lackadaisical Southern drawl. His broadcasts remind me of a bad wedding toast given by a drunk family friend who’s a high school English teacher.

"Clogging up the basepaths."
In a now infamous episode of Baseball Tonight, Harold Reynolds and John Kruk accused players like Frank Thomas of taking too many walks when they should be driving in runs. In their words, "clogging up the basepaths.” We shit you not.

Many Cubs fans have written us to point out that the phrase might more accurately have been coined by Dusty Baker, and there seems to be ample evidence to support their claim. Regardless, it belongs in the Pantheon of Dumb.

Labels: clogging up the basepaths, darin erstad, david eckstein, eqa, fjm, fremulon insurance, gallimaufry, HatGuy, joechat, mother's basement, ops, statistics, tim mccarver, vorp, wins