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What I Think I Know About "One Thing I Know I Think I Think I Know is Stupid"
Following up on Peter King thinking Kaz Matsui is right up there with Carlos Pena in terms of improved-ness:
Carlos Pena 2006 WARP3: 0.3 2007 WARP3: 11.8
Zero point three to eleven point freaking eight.
Kaz Matsui 2006 WARP3: 2.1 2007 WARP3: 5.3
Carlos Pena 2006 EqA: .271 2007 EqA: .353
Kaz Matsui 2006 EqA: .302 2007 EqA: .265
That's right. Kaz Matsui's EqA went down from 2006 to 2007 (although he played many more games this year, obviously). Now, King did say "the last couple of years," and Matsui was terrible/not playing much in 2005, but come on. Read it again:
There can't be a more improved player in baseball over the last couple of years -- other than maybe Carlos Pena -- than Kaz Matsui.
Maybe Carlos Pena? Maybe? Going from AAA fodder to MVP candidate in one year like Pena did is pretty unique stuff. A KazMat grand slam in the playoffs doesn't erase Pena's 46 regular season home runs.
2. Bench Brian Westbrook, obviously. Even if he plays, I don't like an Andy Reid guy who was not in the first two full practices of the week. He won't be himself Sunday against the Leos.
Tuesday Night "Monday Morning Quarterback" Quarterback
I am way, way behind on my e-mail reading, and to those of you who have sent in tips and gotten a wall of angry silence in return, I apologize. I've been out for three days straight celebrating James Spader's Emmy win. But I'm back now, and sobering up, and will post more soon.
I tend to subscribe to the "three dogs barking" theory of internet interest, and even though I feel like picking on Peter King's "10 Things of Things I Think I Think Are Things" column is like shooting fish in a barrel with a barrel-sized fish annihilation laser, enough people sent this quote to me I feel almost a civic duty to link it:
Never a good idea to pitch to Derek Jeter if you could pitch to Bobby Abreu instead. I don't care what the stats say. Ask Curt Schilling if, with first base open, he'll ever want to pitch to the best player of my lifetime again.
Forget OPS match-ups and career stats (most/all of which favor Abreu). Let's just focus on the fact that Peter King, born in 1958, thinks that Derek Jeter is the best player of his lifetime.
With reader Matthew's help, that's a big old handful of f-you to:
Barry Bonds Albert Pujols Mickey Mantle Vlad A-Rod Willie Mays Hank Aaron Gary Sheffield Pete Rose Joe Morgan (just for fun) Rod Carew Tony Gwynn Mike Schmidt Reggie Jackson
Achieved by -- naturally -- Peter King. King's new column contains the ranking of 32 NFL QBs. What formula does he use to measure these QBs, you might ask?
As for how I arrived at my picks, other than with a divining rod, I used a few measuring sticks. I value wins from my quarterback, which helped Manning and Brady, the leaders in victories over the last two years.
Fair.
I value postseason success; their seven combined wins over the past two years is significant.
Sure. I mean, it's more significant than wins by a pitcher.
Completion percentage and yards-per-attempt are the two passing stats I value the most because they tell you how often a quarterback succeeds in efficiently moving the chains through the air.
This seems good. I might toss in that weird QB Rating thing even though it is impenetrably dense and weird, but COMP% and YPA seems decent. What else?
Finally, intangibles.
Intangibles. You made a statistic...out of intangibles. You turned "intangibles" into a tangible.
Brady led all passers with a 10 on a 10-point scale, because he's a coach, an offseason facilitator, a free-agent recruiter -- and he does it while retaining respect from the guys he often has to lean on hard.
And that is worth: 10 intangi-points.
I've been crunching the numbers on some other people and how they rate on King's tangible intangible scale:
Dan Marino: 6.8. Surprisingly low total for an all-time great, but remember: he couldn't win the big one (-1.4); and he had weird curly hair that failed to inspire greatness in teammates (-.8).
Don Mattingly: 8.1. Mattingly gets a boost from winning an MVP at a time when the Yankees weren't very good (+1.2), and wearing the pinstripes with pride (+2.5). He is docked, however, 0.1 for being lefthanded, which is a weird quirk of the King Intangibles Scale.
Phil Spector: 9.5. This one surprised me. Spector gets mad intangipoints for creating a famous production style, the so-called "Wall of Sound" (+3.3). He also gets a boost from having a distinctive aura (+1.1) and being super skinny (+1.7). Also, I naturally assumed he would be docked something for being on trial for murder, but interestingly, that is not the case.
Prince Fielder: 2.0. I thought I'd run the numbers on a young guy just for kicks, and the results were pretty much as I expected. Fielder's youth hurt him. He did get +1.0 for being the son of a relatively famous MLBer, and a +.5 for being fat in a "lovable" way. But he plays for a small-market team (-2.0 in baseball, -0.3 in football, +4.0, weirdly, in hockey) and is left-handed...there's a lot of negatives there.
Mike, a loyal reader and Yankee fan, gives me a dose of my own medicine:
"Mattingly gets a boost from winning an MVP at a time when the Yankees weren't very good"
The Yankees record in 1985, the year Mattingly won the MVP- 97-64. But I guess I'm the idiot for expecting Sawx fans having [sic] any baseball recollection before 2004.
h. There is no one -- not Letterman, not Leno, not Caliendo -- funnier than Bill Bryson. That's saying something. He is funnier than...one funny person, one other late-night host, and the guy who does John Madden on Fox's pre-game shows. Congratulations, Bill Bryson.
Forget for a moment that he thinks Bill Bryson is the funniest person in the world. Are those really the next three on the list? Here's what I imagine is Peter King's 10 Funniest People List:
1. Bill Bryson 2. Frank Caliendo 3. Jay Leno 4. David Letterman 5. Scott Bakula 6. Donald Sutherland 7. Ang Lee 8. DJ Qualls 9. The Dog from Frasier 10. Wim Wenders
This is why everyone hates Peyton Manning. You are why, Peter King.
Did anyone watch the Colts-Ravens game on Saturday? I'll tell you what you were thinking -- boy, this is pretty boring ... hey, Vinatieri is still pretty good ... should I go see Pan's Labyrinth after this? ...
I'll tell you what you weren't thinking: what a damn fine game Peyton Manning is having. Peter King, somehow, was thinking that:
In one of the biggest games of his pressurized nine-year NFL career, Peyton Manning played with the cool detachment of the greatest Colt of them all, Johnny Unitas, on Saturday.
Oh f. Come on. Ol' 6' 5"-Rocket-Laser-Arm has played enough truly amazing games where we don't have to fondle his junk for this one. Baltimore has a tough defense, and he put up a stinker. Not that much more to it than that. But if there is, Peter King, enlighten me. In beating the Ravens, the AFC's second seed, Manning showed how ridiculous a stat quarterback rating is, compiling a woeful 39.6 rating.
No. He didn't. Quarterback rating is fatally flawed, inscrutable and weird. But Manning didn't play a great game. Is that so hard to see?
King?
But he completed 15 of 30 passes,
That's bad. Why are you bringing that up? That hurts your argument. 15/30 is 50% -- good for an NBA field goal percentage, bad for an NFL quarterback. Manning's completion percentage for the season was 65%, and it was his lowest in five years. 50% is fifteen percent lower than his season average. If he'd posted an 80% rate, we'd be raving about how efficient he was. He's gotta be docked a few points for going 15/30.
Andrew Walter's completion percentage this season was 53.3%.
was sacked only once
This is a point in his favor.
and threw two interceptions (one a Hail-Mary sort of punt)
And the other was a terrible throw that could only have steeled the beliefs of the legion of people who keep calling Manning a playoff choker (I am not one of those people).
while controlling the line of scrimmage throughout and taking away the Baltimore defense's aggressiveness.
Here's where it gets totally subjective and perhaps Peter King has some high level of football knowledge that enables him to make this sort of head-scratching blanket statement. I don't see it, and he certainly doesn't explain himself any further. To quote reader Matty, who tipped me off about this piece, "I don't even know what that means. Wouldn't an offensive or defensive line control the line of scrimmage more than some guy standing behind it? To the extent that he decides when the ball gets snapped, I guess he controlled it."
Again, did anyone watch this game? Seemed to me like Peyton played a pretty mediocre sixty minutes. Now he's controlling the line and taking away Ray Lewis' aggressiveness? He outplayed his co-2003 MVP, Baltimore quarterback Steve McNair, who threw two terribly inopportune interceptions in Indianapolis territory.
This sentence is probably true, but McNair was embarrassingly bad. Their lines:
Manning: 15-30, 170 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT McNair: 18-29, 173 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT
I'll give King the benefit of the doubt because McNair's interceptions were on the balance more costly than Manning's. But to me that looks like two lousy quarterback performances on a day when defense and field goal kicking dominated. And that's what I saw when I watched the game, too.
Just a reminder of what Pete saw:
Peyton Manning played with the cool detachment of the greatest Colt of them all, Johnny Unitas, on Saturday.
That is infuriating.
I guess we should amend the lines:
Manning: 15-30, 170 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT, LEVEL OF COOL DETACHMENT: JOHNNY UNITAS (GREATEST COLT OF THEM ALL) McNair: 18-29, 173 yards, 0 TD, 2 INT, LEVEL OF COOL DETACHMENT: STEVE BEUERLEIN (GENERALLY HOT, ATTACHED)
P.S. One last piece of evidence King marshals:
"Stats mean nothing in a game like this,'' Indianapolis quarterback coach Jim Caldwell said. "Peyton controlled this game.''
Yes, that does sound like a thing his own personal coach would say.
I Hope Mike Vrabel Reads This And Decides to Take His Vengeance By Consuming David Eckstein Whole
Peter King, to whom I think I'm indifferent, so I must be, decided to chip in with some baseball talk in today's Monday Morning Quarterback:
9. I think I hate to do this. I really do. We're in Week 6 of the football season, but I have to give some advice to Joe Torre and Brian Cashman right now, because they are decent men, even if they do work for the Evil Empire. Get in a car sometime this month, and drive 3½ hours up I-95 to Foxboro. Visit the Patriots. Or if you're inclined to go a place where you might be more invisible, fly to Chicago, rent a car and drive north to Lake Forest, where the Bears are headquartered. Learn how to build a winning team and how to navigate through the noise that disrupts every big-market team today.
Visit the Patriots. Watch them practice football. Notice how many of their players are football players. Look at the balls they use. Footballs. Notice their bats. They don't have any. Instead of hats, they wear hard metal round bowls that protect their heads. Watch them, and perhaps you will learn how to wear a dirty cutoff sweatshirt in the dugout instead of a uniform.
Because frankly, the fact that you've won 95 games nine out of the last ten years (and the year you didn't, you won the World Series) is embarrassing.
Football isn't baseball, you'll argue. Football is the ultimate team game, and baseball is more of a stars' game.
Football is more like football. Baseball is more like baseball.
But the one thing all good baseball teams have is the one thing all good football teams have --
Good players.
role players.
Oh. Fuck. I thought you were going to say good players.
Guys who don't need the credit and who don't earn the big money.
People don't realize this, but usually when a team loses, the number one culprit is credit hogs. Credit hogs are polluting our sports teams and they must be stopped. Credit hogs are the poison, and there's only one antidote. His name?
In baseball, David Eckstein is a winning player, much the same as Mike Vrabel is.
I've heard this so many times it must be true. I must be wrong. I give up.
I've seen what Peter King wrote in his Monday Morning Quarterback column. And since you have shared it with us, I will share it with the world:
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. The American League East race is looking pretty darn over.
b. Coffeenerdness: You've got to examine what it is that you do, The Coffee Beanery. Because making lattes is just not your forte, if the semi-coffee-flavored espresso I had at Houston Intercontinental Airport is any indication. Thin and weak is no way to go through life, Mr. Blutarsky.
c. I honestly think Jason Varitek is a bigger loss to the Red Sox than Manny Ramirez would be.
Empirical studies have shown that The Coffee Beanery's lattes are in fact 1.25 to 1.5 times as strong as lattes from national chains like Starbucks, Peet's, and Seattle's Best, no matter how many Animal House references you throw in to insult them.
Oh, and I guess he wrote a thing about Jason Varitek and Manny Ramirez. He might have had some kind of case over the past three seasons, when Varitek posted EqAs and WARP3s of:
2003: .289, 6.8 2004: .297, 7.5 2005: .297, 7.3
But I get the feeling Mr. King hasn't watched too many Red Sox games this year. Or opened his Yahoo! Sports profile page any time in the last few months, a thing that would take roughly two seconds. Varitek, for the unfamiliar, has suffered a steep decline this season:
2006: .256, 3.9
While he's not quite Yorvit Torrealba (.249) or Brad Ausmus (.210 (?!)) yet, he's not Joe Mauer (.336), either. Meanwhile, Manny Ramirez has been the same Manny Ramirez he's always been. Check these numbers:
That is remarkable, consistent excellence on the field of play. Regardless of how many times he peed in the Monster.
Given that the Red Sox acquired (a probably washed-up) Javy Lopez, it's hard to even make the argument that the drop-off between Varitek and his replacement is larger than the drop-off between Manny and his potential backup (Wily Mo Pena, I would guess).
Here is where Peter King, if allowed a chance to respond in this forum, would counter with homilies about pitch-calling and leadership and chemistry and rah-rah spirit. And honestly, in 2004 or 2005, I don't think I would've been that upset about that argument. But in 2006, it's pretty indefensible.
I think I said something to my bride the other night that I never thought I'd say about a New York Yankee. As many of you may have divined from this column over the years, that's not my favorite franchise on earth. Anyway, I said to her: I'm not sure about this, but I think when Derek Jeter retires, I will say he's the best baseball player I ever saw.
I know this is subjective, but: Peter King graduated from college in 1979, so I estimate he is 49ish. If we can assume he has been watching baseball since the age of, say, eight, in 1965 or so, that means he has been able personally to see these people play baseball: Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Albert Pujols, Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Alex Rodriguez, Willie McCovey, Mike Schmidt, Willie Stargell, Ken Griffey, Jr., Harmon Killebrew, and Reggie Jackson. He has also seen: Tim Salmon, John Olerud, Ryan Klesko, J.D. Drew, Chipper Jones, Bobby Abreu, Larry Walker, Jim Edmonds, and Scott Rolen, all of whom have a higher OPS+ than Derek Jeter.
Living in Jersey, I see the man come to bat maybe 300 times a season, and I watch him in the field maybe 40 percent of his innings. But Jeter personifies effort every time he puts on the uniform; there is never anything but 100 percent effort.
A lot of baseball players exhibit this quality.
Every at-bat is quality.
Fair enough. He does put together nice at bats.
Every ball hit to him, and some only close to him, are gobbled up with certainty.
Although defensive metrics are problematic and often rudimentary, every single one of them lists Jeter as one of the worst defensive SS in the last ten years. The Baseball Prospectus book "Baseball Between the Numbers" calculates that he moved up to the middle of the pack in his first gold glove year, but overall, he is quite weak.
And the way he carries himself ... He is baseball's Tiger Woods. He is this Yankee generation's DiMaggio. And I think he'll go down as better than Mantle, because though Mantle was truly great, he also squandered much of his ability through wild living.
Oh boy.
He is not baseball's Tiger Woods. Given that baseball is a team sport and golf one of individuals, I'm not even really sure what that means, but assuming it means he is a great champion and clutch player and something like "he's at his best in big moments," or something, I'll dispel this wild assertion simply by saying that in the exact same number of AB in the postseason, Jeter's own teammate Bernie Williams has more HR, way more RBI, a higher SLG, and, obviously, the same number of rings.
"This Yankee generation's DiMaggio" is actually an apt description of Jeter, since DiMaggio, for most of his life, got far more praise than he actually deserved. Not that he didn't deserve praise -- he is obviously a HOFer and a wonderful hitter, but tell me exactly how it is that people agreed to call him "The Greatest Living Ballplayer" when Mays, Williams, Aaron, Bonds, Robinson, and about fifteen other guys were still walking the earth? DiMaggio and Jeter are both very very good baseball players -- DiMaggio was far better -- who get too much praise relative to their peers because they play in New York.
And as for the idea that Jeter will go down in history as a better baseball player than Mickey Mantle...there are maybe a thousand statistics I could lay down to prove him wrong, but I'll just give you one.
Derek Jeter Career RC/27: 6.45 Mickey Mantle Career RC/27: 8.78
A team of 9 Mickey Mantles would beat a team of 9 Derek Jeters by more than two runs per game. The end.
