FJM has gone dark for the foreseeable future. Sorry folks. We may post once in a while, but it's pretty much over.
You can still e-mail dak,Ken Tremendous,Junior,Matthew Murbles, or Coach.
I was watching the YES broadcast of the Yanks / Tigers game on Saturday, with Wang pitching. I've heard that Wang is much better from the windup than the stretch, and this seems true based on what I've seen. However, discussing this, Kay and Al Leiter had this exchange (paraphasing):
Kay: "...And when Wang pitches from the windup, his ERA is .53! That's like a high school ERA!" (I don't really understand what this means, but whatever). "His ERA from the stretch, though, is almost 16.00! That difference is 'UGE! So Wang really has trouble pitching from the stretch."
Leiter: (not sure if he was just dodging Kay as much as he could or not) "Yeah, Greg Maddux told me once that you should always warm up from the stretch, since that's how you'll be throwing your most important pitches..."
Then Kay basically repeats how amazing the large difference between Wang's stretch and windup ERAs is.
When nobody is on base, his ERA is small. And when runners are on base, his ERA is high. Wow.
You heard it there first, people. The number of solo homers Chien Ming Wang gives up is smaller than the number of runs scored on him by all other methods combined.
Wanted to chime in to report that not only is the comment about Wang's ERA pitching from the stretch vs. windup completely idiotic, it's also wrong. According to CBS's stats page for Wang:
his ERA with runners on base is 8.32, so not anywhere close to 16.00. In fact, Wang might actually be a better pitcher from the stretch than from the windup: with runners on base, Wang has a 1.22 WHIP and has given up only 2 HR in 70 1/3 IP, while with the bases empty, he has a 1.36 WHIP with 5 HR allowed in 89 IP.
I also was curious about whether that statistical disparity (ERA with runners on base vs. not) was typical, and it turns out that it isn't. Johan Santana, for example, has a 5.35 ERA with runners on base vs. 1.57 w/ bases empty. Why the difference between Santana and Wang? Is Santana a better "stretch" pitcher and a worse "windup" pitcher? Of course not. The simple answer is that Wang doesn't give up the long ball -- only 7 (I believe he has the best HRA/IP ratio among AL starters). Santana does (27, most in the AL).
Also, a few people have written in to suggest that perhaps it was Leiter, and not Kay, who made the original comment about High School ERA and so forth. Either way, someone in that booth that night was a dummy.
The fine folks at NBCSports.com had me on today for some good old fashioned fantasy baseball talk. Got to chat with legendary Twins blogger/Rotoworld.com writer Aaron Gleeman, which was as close to an honor as a baseball blogger can get.
Also, Dan Patrick appears to have been replaced on ESPN Radio by TV Voice of the Yankees - slash - Comparer of Jinxing Perfect Games to War Crimes Michael Kay. If this is permanent, they bought our site ten more years of posts.
If you feel like you deserve something, you will get it.
The Secret.
If you want to want to win a baseball game, you just need the right feeling.
The Secret.
Yankees-White Sox, YES Network: Paul O'Neill: Michael, you've seen more games than Joe and I combined this year, and there's just a feeling this year that when they get behind, they don't have that feeling that they're going to come back and win the game. And as few games as I've seen this year, called live, you don't get that feeling when they're behind early in the game that they believe they're going to come back and win.
Feeling. Feeling. Feeling.
The Secret.
Michael Kay: They haven't had enough of a body of work doing that where they feel confident that's going to happen. They had a couple of those because of Alex Rodriguez in April, but it's been tough sledding. And I think that the big difference in this team, and you said it last time we worked together in Yankee Stadium, the Yankees of the late '90s and early '00s, you know, they thought they were going to win all the time. Now, I don't know if that same feeling is there. I don't know if they go out thinking "We are going to beat this team no matter what." Now I think there's a little more hoping than believing.
Confident. Feeling. Believing.
The Secret.
(The 2007 New York Yankees' team ERA+ is 90.
The ERA+s of the World Series-winning Yankee squads:
New York FJM Correspondent America's Sweetheart files this report in re: the Randy Johnson trade (the whole thing, I believe, is non-verbatim, which we normally do not do, but for America's Sweetheart, we at FJM make an exception).
America's Sweetheart writes...
I just love listening to people talk about ND losing in football. So much so that I clicked on a link to the Michael Kay show to hear Mike Golic talk about it. Then I heard Kay talk about the Randy Johnson deal and the callers who phoned in to disagree with him.
Opening comments....
Randy Johnson won 17 games last year in the toughest division in baseball....
People say he didn't win in the playoffs. Neither did Mike Mussina and we signed him to a two-year extension.
He's well worth they money he has on his contract....16 million.
He won 17 games...please don't forget that.
(now a caller)
CHRIS IN WEST NYACK
Chris - You keep saying that it's important that Randy Johnson won 17 games, but equally as important is, he had a five ERA.
Kay - Why does that matter? Only thing that matters is the W.
Chris - The win is the function of the team. But the ERA is more indicative of how he pitched.
Kay - How come Mike Mussina didn't win 17 Games?
(he won 15 games)
Chris - This isn't about Mike Mussina.
(thank you, Chris)
Chris - How many pitchers in the AL would win 17 games if they pitched behind the Yankees. With that run support?
(At this point there is a very long beat. Kay must be taking into account that of qualified ERA leaders, Johnson was 34th out of 39. Perhaps he will go with 20 or 25 as an answer?)
Kay - But...but...It doesn't matt...I again I tell you I understand what you're saying that it's a function of a team but I also say it's a function to a...You're a Yankee fan right? They scored eight runs he gave up six...they won, so what....he's a veteran pitcher that knows how to pitch to the score so his ERA is going to be higher. It doesn't matter. All that matter is if he wins and loses.
Chris - Any pitcher who gives up six runs a game under your scenario would win 17 games.
Kay - Pitchers pitch to the runs they are given. Good pitchers do that.
Chris - That's not true. Pitchers are going out there to give up the fewest runs possible.
Kay - No. If the Yankees score 8 runs in five innings he's not going for the shutout!
(A luxury pitchers on bad teams don't really have, but that's their fault)
Chris - What about the year Jason Marquis won 15 games and had a 6.21 ERA. Are you impressed with that?
Kay - No, not in the national league.
(but why not?)
Chris - What if he did it in the American League?
(nice one, Chris)
Kay - Yeah. I would [be impressed].
(Chris, please don't let him off the hook!)
Chris - So you would take someone like that over Kevin Millwood in '04 who went 9-13 in and won the ERA title with Cleveland.
(I love you Chris from West Nyack)
Kay - I'm gonna tell you why, and you are bringing up good points so I am not going to say that you are 100% wrong here. I believe by watching baseball my whole life and being involved with it for 25 years is that there is nothing harder to do in sports than to win a game by a pitcher.
(Nothing harder, save for the fact that in every major league game that has ever been played it has happened exactly one time)
Kay - That's why the era of the 300 win pitcher is going.
(hmmmm)
Kay - It's not easy to win games. And there is an art to it. So if the art is to win 17 games and have a 5.00 ERA I don't care.
(don't forget the league leading 7.51 run support. That's like forgetting the paint brush)
Kay - All these Sabermatricians get locked up with all of these stats and I don't. You know what stat I care about?
(wins?)
Kay - Did he win the game?
(that's the question you care about. the stat you care about is wins.)
Kay - Would you rather have a guy really lose a good game. "Wow, he pitched well -- we only lost 2-1!" I always said this about those pitchers, "Oh, the Yankees only scored one, then you have to give up zero." In twenty years you're going to look back on Mike Mussina in game 2 against the Tigers...had a 3-1 lead and we lost 4-3....That's not that bad...yeah it is bad! He gave up runs he shouldn't have given up!
(note: don't start a sentence "would you rather..." if you are only going to bring up one choice. it ruins the game)
(also, am I allowed to remember the next game when Randy Johnson gave up five runs? Note: The Yankees had not scored eight runs in the first inning. They hadn't scored at all. Perhaps Johnson was confused because he was used to 7.51 runs a game)
Kay - I don't care that his ERA was 5. It was good enough to win 17 games. Mike Mussina didn't win 17 games.
(he won 15. and his ERA was 1.5 lower.)
(Kay at this point rambles on to Chris about how the AL is hard. Not so hard that 33 players can't have higher ERAs than 5.00 hard, but hard nonetheless. I think he's hung up on Chris because Chris stops talking. Kay does end with this....)
...and Richard pretty much finishes him off with this:
Michael Kay must not have been paying close attention when Johnson was pitching. This is how he pitched in 2006, split by plus/minus score at the start of the inning.
+5 or more (Yankees leading by 5+) -- 21 IP, 7 R, 6 ER, 2.57 ERA +4 -- 12.1 IP, 10 R, 10 ER, 7.30 ERA +3 -- 11.0 IP, 11 R, 11 ER, 9.00 ERA +2 -- 25.1 IP, 15 R, 9 ER, 3.20 ERA but 6 unearned runs +1 -- 28.0 IP, 21 R, 21 ER, 6.75 ERA tie -- 59.2 IP, 36 R, 35 ER, 5.28 ERA -1 -- 19.1 IP, 15 R, 12 ER, 5.59 ERA -2 -- 20.1 IP, 7 R, 7 ER, 3.10 ERA -3 or more -- 8.0 IP, 3 R, 3 ER, 3.38 ERA
Johnson actually pitched worse when the game was close. By my count, he gave up a lead 18 times during the season. I don't know what's typical, but 18 seems like a lot if you're making Kay's argument. He started 60 innings with the score tied and gave up at least a run 20 times -- about average, if I remember correctly -- but a total of 36 runs, 1 unearned. He started 28 innings with a one-run lead and gave up the lead 11 times.
There's an art to coming off the mound and saying, "Uh, guys, I need some more runs."
That is the name I am now giving to Michael Kay's groundbreaking work in the area of Announcer Influence over In-Game Events. You might remember a few days ago when Kay, the Yankees' broadcaster, absolutely tore some caller a new asshole on his [Kay's] radio show, when the guy criticized him for "jinxing" a Chien-Ming Wang perfect game by announcing that Chien-Ming Wang was throwing a perfect game.
A WAV file containing a snippet of Kay's tirade can be downloaded by clicking on this here link, also contained in the post below entitled "Idea that Announcer Can Jinx Perfect Game = Holocaust." I highly recommend listening to it. Because it's not often you can hear a respected broadcaster comparing silly baseball traditions to both the United States's sorry history of slave-owning and the Axis's horrifying history of genocide, all in a shrill New York accent.
Now, from faithful reader Anthony, comes this story:
From tonight's Yankees-White Sox broadcast on YES...
Kay was telling a story of how in 1998, during a (very rare) tough stretch for the Yankees, Paul O'Neill said to him something like, "Interview me. Maybe that'll change our luck." After that, O'Neill did every pregame interview the rest of the way, culminating in the Yankees sweeping the Padres in the World Series.
Kay then uttered the following: "You know what the crazy thing is? Paul still didn't want to do the interview, even though he knew it was good luck."
I swear to you, those were his exact words.
So to recap: according to Michael Kay, announcers can't be bad luck, but they can be good luck.
Apparently, interviewing Paul O'Neill to help the Yankees break a losing streak is not as bad as slavery or the holocaust. This is a key postulate in the larger theorem string that comprises the Kay Paradox. We will publish the rest of the findings as soon as they are completed at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
By the way, some of our readers somehow interpreted the previous post as FJM arguing that Kay should not have broken the old rule that announcers shouldn't say the words "perfect game" or "no-hitter" while said events are on-going. Our official position is simply: of freaking course announcers have no influence over the events on the field. I mean, does that even need to be stated? However, baseball is a game of superstitions, which is a part of what makes baseball fun. Who among us has not gotten up to get a soda from the kitchen and had one foot out the door when our favorite player has gotten a hit, and has watched the rest of the inning from the kitchen with our hand on the open refrigerator door, more than willing to let all of the food thaw out and rot if it means continued luck for our hometown nine? Surely not just me, right?
The point being: no, you will not "jinx" a guy who's throwing a perfect game by saying he's throwing a perfect game. But it's fun to play along, isn't it? I mean, why be so strident about this? Why scream and yell that this "intangible" thing is meaningless and stupid?
Idea that Announcer Can Jinx Perfect Game = Holocaust
That is the position of Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay, who, on his radio show today, went totally bananaballs crazy.
Apparently, Kay began his show by saying, "On this day, August 4th, 2006, I declare the Red Sox officially dead." He then began getting angry calls and e-mails from Yankee fans who thought he was jinxing the team -- especially since he "jinxed" Chien-Ming Wang's perfect game in the 6th inning earlier this year by announcing that it was happening.
During one of these calls, captured in the clip below, Michael Kay goes batshit crazy and starts talking about slaves and Nazis "putting people into ovens."
Now, we at FJM happen to agree with Michael Kay that it is stupid to think that an announcer has any effect on what happens on the field of play. These are not the Middle Ages. The sun does not get eclipsed by the moon because the Gods are angry about our harvest. However. We at FJM also understand that there are certain silly superstitions in baseball -- like not saying "perfect game" during a perfect game -- that are fun and enjoyable and time-honored traditions that add a humanistic element to the game. And we certainly do not believe that comparing the caller's feelings on this matter to the Nuremburg defense used by mass-murderers is, um, appropriate.
To listen to a seriously unhinged dude, click here.
(P.S. Later in the broadcast, Kay says: "Jim Kaat is the best color commentator in baseball. And that includes Tim McCarver." Which is less offensive than the first part of his diatribe, but still incredibly offensive.)
Friend of FJM and 11-time Roto-Ball champ Mike S. solves the Michael Kay absentee mystery:
Kay was originally supposed to work the Orioles series and not the upcoming Tigers series. Seeing how the Tigers series is so important and all, he was switched. Singleton did (or started) the game alone because Paul O'Neill's private plane was late taking off from Cincinnati. At least that's the deal according to the good times banter on the Michael Kay show.
So, I guess his absence was not due to the hotheaded rant about slaves and Nazis he unleashed on his radio show (see post above). That question has been answered.
But this question has emerged: how many office water coolers did Paulie smash with his briefcase when he found out his plane had been delayed?
Apparently Kay was not in the booth today to call the Yanks-O's game. I am officially wildly speculating -- and I emphasize that I have absolutely not one shred of evidence to support this -- that this is due to his insanely offensive on-air rant about slaves and Nazis during his radio show today.
See post above for details. And stay tuned for more wild speculation.
