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.
Hi. We're still alive. So is Richard Griffin, but unlike us, Richard is using his life force to promulgate horrible misinformation about baseball.
We come upon Richard as he is about to answer a very reasonable question from a gentleman named Neil Shyminsky. Neil?
Q: Hi Richard,
Maybe you can explain this one to me. In the past couple weeks, I've been hearing all of this talk about A.J. Burnett's "career year", which will possibly lead him to opt out of his contract at year's end. Remembering that his ERA was well over 5.00 just a month ago, I double-checked his stats.
Sure enough, this season's ERA is more than half a run higher than his career ERA and his WHIP is also much higher than normal. His strikeout numbers are good, but they're only slightly better than his career K/9 (innings) ratio, and are actually lower than last year's K/9 numbers. In fact, his win-loss record and games started numbers are the only numbers that are noticeably better than what he's put up over the last 5 years. In contrast, Halladay's ERA, WHIP, and K/9 are shaping up to be the best he's ever compiled in a year where he's thrown at least 150 innings. But where's the love for his "career year"?
My question is this: when was it decided that a context-specific stat like wins is the determining factor in declaring a "career year", especially when Burnett's ERA and WHIP seem to suggest it's actually his worst? Or is it maybe that the "career year" stat is the number that we don't see - namely, A.J.'s usual 5-10 games lost to injury?
Neil Shyminsky, Toronto
Neil makes a lot of good points. That's why you didn't see me jumping in like an asshole and calling him a lot of profane names, even though that's what I was put on this earth to do. Neil probably got a 5 on his AP Physics exam. Then he majored in electrical engineering at McGill, married a nice French-Canadian girl named Ghyslaine, and settled down in Toronto, where he became a fan of the Blue Jays.
Richard Griffin, meanwhile, got a 2 on his AP Physics test (claimed to be sick that day), dropped out of Lakehead, cheated on an Inuit girl named Arnakua'gsak, and is about to say something stupid about baseball.
A: The reason that this is a career year for Burnett is that baseball is a team sport and the team goal is victories.
This is, presumably, the same reason that between the pitching Hernandezes, Livan (10-8, 5.48 ERA) is having a better season than Felix (8-8, 3.28 ERA). Don't you understand baseball is a team sport, Felix, you selfish prima donna?
The Twins enjoyed Livan Hernandez' winning ways so much, they decided to cut him from their baseball team. Guess they hate victories, which are the goal of sports.
Major League Baseball is not Fantasy Baseball where every ERA, WHIP, VORP or DORK stands on its own.
Dork is a slang term that means "dick," which is a slang term that means "penis."
Major League Baseball: Where no penis stands alone.®
(Slogan courtesy of Richard Griffin.)
No matter which way you slice it, Burnett has been more valuable to the Jays this year than in either of his previous two seasons in Blue Jays black.
I will slice it using Win Shares. It has the word "win" in it, and like you said, baseball is about winning.
2006 9.8 2007 12.1 2008 9.4
Burnett's biggest contribution this year compared to years past is that barring injury, he'll pitch more innings than he ever has as a Blue Jay. But come on: a lot of those innings have been horrendous. Guy had a 6.07 ERA in April and a 5.06 ERA in June. Heck, even though he's sort of turned things around, his ERA in August is 4.96. In his best 22 starts this year, A.J. is 15-4 with a 2.97 ERA, while in his less than magnificent seven outings, he is 1-5, with a 10.30 ERA.
For a guy who thinks stats are penises, you just dropped a real shitty-smelling dick of a stat, sir. What is this arbitrary division of 22 "good" starts versus 7 "bad" supposed to convey? Burnett was awful in those seven bad outings, yes -- and yet he got a win in a game when he allowed seven (!) runs. He also gave up 8 runs twice, 6 runs twice, and 5 runs twice, and his team lost all six of those games. Because A.J. Burnett pitched really badly. These games count. They are bad. They hurt the team.
Of his 16 victories, 4 came when Burnett gave up 4 or more runs. They weren't laughers, either, where Burnett was "pitching to the score" or some such nonsense -- they were all decided by two or fewer runs. So in a world where Vernon Wells or Lyle Overbay or Alex Rios hits a little worse in those four games, Burnett could have very easily gone 12-9, or 12-11, or 12-13 -- making him a huge loser in Richard Griffin's book.
A better, more nuanced argument here would be that although Burnett's 4.58 ERA is unsightly, he has made 14 very strong starts where he allowed 2 or fewer runs. Whether through skill or through luck, he managed to cluster a lot of the runs he's allowed this year into three or four absolutely horrendous outings. And I guess that's more valuable than allowing 4 runs every time out.
(As an absurd example, consider a guy who pitches nine scoreless innings 34 times and then allows 1,000 runs in his last game. Bad ERA, but pretty solid year. Although also consider that wins alone still might not capture the season this Mr. Awesome Except For One Disaster delivers -- it's possible that his teammates let him down and don't ever score for him, leaving him with a season record of 0-1. Poor Mr. Awesome Except For One Disaster!) In all of those seven starts, Burnett has allowed between 5-8 earned runs, while averaging 5-2/3 innings. To dismiss wins as a “context specific” stat is silly in a team sport that by definition is a “context specific” sport.
Anyway, you've heard it in this space so many times before, I'd have to express the number in scientific notation. Wins are a bad metric.
My new, fairly self-evident theory is that Diplodocus-intellected sportswriters elevate the importance of the statistic that is called a "win" for a pitcher simply because it's called a win. But it's still a statistic, guys, and a bad one at that -- one that depends on your offense and your bullpen.
My proposal: we give the win a new name. We call it the DORK. We call a loss a BLORK. Thus, pitchers now have DORK-BLORK records instead of win-loss records. Won't Richard Griffin feel manly when he extols Andy Sonnanstine's heroic 13-6 DORK-BLORK record? Sonnanstine knows how to DORK, yes he does! Derek Lowe is 10-11? Needs to put his team on his back and lead them to the DORK. I don't care how close some of his BLORKs are, because hey, the bottom line is: you play to DORK the game.
Reader Bruce sent us this beauty from Richard Griffin's latest mailbag.
Let's start with the letter to Richard, sent by Casey in Vancouver: I found the outpouring of support for Reed Johnson in last week's mailbag to be somewhat laughable. Fans seem to think that Johnson is the superior player simply because he has a superior throwing arm...I am more interested in another stat, runs. According to baseball-reference.com the 162 game average for Reed Johnson is 85 runs scored. For Shannon Stewart the number is 102...if history tells us anything Stewart would almost certainly get 10-20 more runs in a season than Johnson would. Do you seriously think that Johnson's arm would save the Jays more than 10-20 runs in year?
We're all thinking roughly the same thing, right? Casey kind of cherry-picked his stats, and using runs alone as an offensive stat really doesn't do much for his case. The whole math of the situation doesn't really work; there's like 400 other variables that he's ignoring in this equation. And, of course, why does someone in Vancouver care about the Blue Jays?
Oh, Canada. You motherfuckers.
I'm hoping we can all at least agree at this point that Casey's use of stats leaves something to be desired. Maybe we should all pitch in and get him a subscription to BP? No? How about an Icelandic Buckless Belt?
Anyway, let's see how Richard Griffin responds to Casey's question. I find the general attitude of seamheads and stat geeks like yourself towards real, human, flesh and blood players that don’t measure up to your computer-generated ideals to be sad.
Holy dick!
Seamheads and stat geeks like Casey? The guy who...wait -- say that again? I find the general attitude of seamheads and stat geeks like yourself towards real, human, flesh and blood players that don’t measure up to your computer-generated ideals to be sad.
That's what I thought you said! Yay! Richard Griffin's crazy!
Do yourselves a favor: go back and re-read Griffin's opening remark, but in your mind, pretend that it's being read by Col. Nathan Jessup from "A Few Good Men." I think you'll be happy with the results.
The so-called outpouring of love towards Reed Johnson from fans and from this mailbag last week has nothing to do with Reed’s throwing arm or the fact that some statistical proof can be generated from a website that shows Shannon Stewart capable of producing 17 more runs than Johnson in a 162-game season. It has to do with the fact of dealing with a decent human being that has not been treated with the same respect he has shown the game he has chosen as his profession.
A truly staggering amount of crazy, packed into one sentence. I like "generated from a website," as if baseball-reference.com is just making stuff up.
And, again: "It has to do with the fact of dealing with a decent human being..."
Interesting piece of trivia: Richard Griffin composes his mailbag responses by painstakingly writing tiny words on the sides of strands of fettuccine, using the the tip of a guitar string dipped in ink. He then boils the fettuccine, throws it against the wall, and lets the pieces fall to the floor. The order of the words in his responses is determined by the order in which the strings of pasta fall. "fact...of...dealing...with...a...decent...mmm!"
Griffin follows this up with some weird anecdotal shit that's supposed to make us think that Reed Johnson somehow got dicked over by the Blue Jays, which is totally possible but sort of boring. And then, more pasta!
I don’t blame you for your immaturity. It’s easy for someone on the outside looking in to disregard the humanity of players. But it’s difficult for someone that has been in the major-league game for 35 years to do the same.
Casey gets attacked for being immature? Man alive. Disregarding the humanity of players?
Just to sum up, this is apparently where we're at in the year 2008. It doesn't really matter where you fall on the Joe Morgan / Bill James spectrum. If you so much as use any numbers to defend your argument, then it's safe to say that you have a total disregard for the humanity of players.
Just making sure we all understand the ground rules. There will never be any apologies from my part for caring about players as human beings, no matter how flawed their skills may seem when run through a computer.
Senator Mitchell? You can end your investigation, sir. I'm sure you've been doing a lot of hard work, pounding the pavement, rooting around in dark alleys, wearing trenchcoats, smoking pipes. I'm telling you now you can stop and relax. Our long national roidmare is over thanks to a gutsy young muckraker from north of the border, one Mr. Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star. At the cost of only his own blood, sweat, tears and pancreatic secretions, Mr. Griffin has fingered the culprit behind this whole steroid mess. Yes, there is only one. A lone gunman. A puppeteer behind the scenes. A criminal mastermind. A shadowlord lurking in the spaces our society dares not tread.
Who is it? It's a book. It's called Moneyball. Maybe you've heard of it?
People are always accusing me of misrepresenting what Moneyball was all about,
And it's impossible that you're actually wrong about it, so -- but there are so many facets and interpretations that it's tough to say anyone is really wrong.
I don't believe that's actually true, and certainly in this case, sir, it most undoubtedly is not. What you are about to say about Moneyball is unequivocally, unquestionably, indubitably wrong.
But think about this. One of the Billy Beane precepts was to look for college and, occasionally, high school hitters that were not really the greatest athletes on their team but had the discipline to wait for the right pitch and then smack the hell out of it when they found it. On-base percentage, dude. That's the wave of the future. Forget about how boring those four-hour games get. These were the bargains.
This is wrong, but not the wrongest part. That part we're about to get to. (As a an aside, does Griffin really blame Billy Beane for caring about winning at the expense of game length? We're trying to win games here, people, are we not?)
Take a deep breath, now, and pre-emptively duct tape your jaw so that it does not succumb to gravity, friends:
Now think of a college kid back then in the post-Mark McGwire era who knew he was always going to be on the fringe because he wasn't your most graceful natural athlete, but knew that if only he was a lot stronger, he could learn to play within himself and crush an occasional mistake pitch. As long as he didn't chase bad ones he could make an impact in this century's home run crazy major-league baseball. As for a position in the field, they could teach him to be adequate somewhere. Major league minimum of $319,000 (U.S.) is all that these kids wanted. That's the carrot. He had the stick. The rest was gravy. Before there was steroid testing, who, if they were on the fringe with a clear market for awkward sluggers, wouldn't take that plunge? Moneyball is over.
Wow. Wow. Wow. (The last "wow" was a backwards "wow," I'm so wowed.) It's so clear to me now. Moneyball is the root of all steroids! Bruce Willis is a ghost! Verbal Kint is Keyser Soze! How could we all have been so blind?
This book that Billy Beane wrote -- this devil's tome, those cursed words -- of course it's responsible for the great baseball evil of our time. Everyonewhoevertooksteroidswas anunathleticOBP machine. It's so obvious. "Awkward sluggers," all. "Fringe."
I feel that we're cleansed, now, America. Thank you, Mr. Griffin, or as they say in your native Canada, grazie. Now that you've revealed to us the truth, we can truly say that Moneyball, and therefore all steroid use, is finally dead.
That's my attempt at a clever title for a bad article written about Frank Thomas. What do you guys think? Honestly. You can tell me honestly. I want to learn.
Anyway, here's the article. It was sent to us by our loyal reader James, and it features the musings of rapidly-becoming-my-new-favorite-sportswriter Richard Griffin, about the Blue Jays rumored signing of Frank Thomas. Let's take a look-see.
Not wishing anything bad on an aging ballplayer who penned the best comeback story of the year, but the best thing that could happen for Jay fans in the next week would be if Frank Thomas failed his physical.
Huh. Tell me why, there, Dick.
The anticipation of poor health is only wished upon the two-time former AL MVP if the reports emanating from the general managers meetings in Florida are true, that Toronto is on the verge of signing the 38-year-old slugger for a mega-contract of three years. Bad move.
Yeah, I figured you would only want the guy to fail his physical if he were about to sign with the Jays. Otherwise, if you're just randomly hoping that guys fail their physicals, you're just a weird asshole.
For an organization that prides itself on thinking outside the box, in looking for key players in the discount bin of discarded, or lightly regarded talent, the Jays, by pursuing Thomas, are showing very little in the way of middle-market imagination.
So...they can only sign guys who are lightly regarded or something? If a guy who fills a need for the Jays (DH) and can be signed for short years becomes available through free agency, they shouldn't look at him unless he fulfills the requirement of being "discarded talent?" Why?
Dropping a plodding slugger into the heart of the order only serves to make this team more one-dimensional than ever. The Jays should have seen the folly of that way of thinking in the second half, when their prized acquisition, third baseman Troy Glaus, slumped due to nagging injuries and, as much as he should be admired for playing through pain, dragged down an offence that went through the first half of the year as the AL leader in batting average and near the top in run production.
Well, they still finished second in the AL in team OPS and fourth in OBP. And Glaus still struggled to the tune of (in 153 games) 38 HR, a .293 EqA and a 7.4 WARP3. Which was the exact same WARP3 as Alex Rodriguez. Who, despite what you might have heard, is actualy very very good at baseball.
All of the greatest Jays teams have combined extra-base power and batting average with the ability to steal a base and go aggressively from first to third and from second to home on a hit.
Richard Griffin's Recipe for Success:
Look to the past for how to build towards the future. Disregard how much the game has changed in 15 years. Sign Kelly Gruber. Sign Manny Lee at SS. Ignore cold hard facts, like that the "Great" Blue Jays teams of the past also had phenomenal starting pitching and bullpens. Ignore certain other cold hard facts about the hitting on those teams, like that the DH on the 1992 World Champion Blue Jays was 40 year-old Dave Winfield, who hit 28 HR for that team. Sign Pat Tabler. Practice writing every day! Love your parents. Be Prepared
The World Series years in the early `90s and the playoff seasons through the mid- to late-80s always included smart, aggressive base running. For every John Olerud there was a Devon White.
Now along comes the broken-down Thomas to take whatever managerial skills John Gibbons ever showed out of his hands. The Jays skipper is an NL guy at heart. He has always annoyed his GM, J.P. Ricciardi, by insisting on bunting runners into scoring position in late innings. After watching Thomas in the playoffs against the Tigers, there is nobody in baseball who runs the bases with less aggressiveness and speed. It's not his fault, due to an assortment of injuries, but the fact is Thomas makes Bengie Molina seem like Donovan Bailey.
"Hey, Ken?" "Yeah?" "Hey -- it's Minka Kelly, from 'Friday Night Lights.'" "Hey, Minka. What's up?" "I want to have sex with you." "...Huh." "Something wrong, Ken?" "No, I mean...you're super hot, and I love your show, but...you can't run that fast." "I'm sorry?" "I don't know. You definitely have a lot of other skills. Like being hot, and having a perfect human form, and a great smile and flawless skin...and just to reiterate, you are crazy hot. But I really don't like to commit myself to a woman unless she can also run very quickly." "...Okay. Well. That's fine." "I'm sorry -- I just...I learned from the Toronto Star's Richard Griffin that even if you have certain skills in abundance, unless you can run the bases aggressively..." "No, I get it. I guess." "Cool. Thanks, for understanding, Minka." "Hey...do you have Junior's number?"
As for the rumoured cost of acquiring Thomas, it would be in the area of $10 million (U.S.) for three years, or two plus an option, taking the Jays though 2009. If Ricciardi thought that Carlos Delgado's contract was an untradeable albatross, he ain't seen nuthin' yet.
We're talking about a 2-year deal. Maybe 3. They will not have to trade Thomas. (Also, after Delgado signed his current deal, he was traded to the Mets. Neither here nor there, I guess.)
[Thomas] has a longer history of clubhouse divisiveness than he has of leadership — the one year in Oakland. Is he the kind of core, character player that the Jays claim to want to place under contract? No.
He is the kind of core, character player who put up a .316 EqA and 39 HR in a large baseball park last year. He also seemed to get along with his teammates just fine.
The Jays would have been better off going after a healthier right-handed hitter with extra-base power who could also play the corner infield spots and has a sense of baserunning that makes up for a lack of pure speed.
Someone like, hmm, Shea Hillenbrand.
This is one of the craziest things I have ever read. Honestly. I say that a lot, but I really believe this sets a new standard.
Frank Thomas has a history of clubhouse divisiveness. He is not the kind of core, character plaer the Jays should go after. They should go after a healthier right-handed hitter with extra base power who can play corner infield spots and a "sense of baserunning" that can make up for lack of speed. They should get Shea Hillenbrand.
Shea Hillenbrand was dumped off the Blue Jays last year, if you all remember, for being one of the all-time assholes. He bitched and whined that no one congratulated him on adopting a child. He got into a fistfight with his manager. He is a famous -- FAMOUS -- malcontent.
A malcontent FIRED BY THE BLUE JAYS LAST YEAR.
A malcontent who, in 80 games for the Blue Jays, before being let go because he is such a colossal twerp, had a -1 FRAR. (He only played 36 games in the field.) He had a 1.2 WARP and a .262 EqA. In 139 games last year, with the Jays and Giants, he walked 21 times.
At least he has an excellent baserunning acumen, to the tune of 16 SB and 9 CS in 868 career games. (Thomas has 32 and 23, if you're interested.)
He also made $5.8 million last year, Shea did, while being (I can't emphasize this enough) such a horrendous, unrelenting pain in the ass that the Blue Jays gave him his unconditional release.
Congratulations, Richard Griffin. You have written what I believe is the dumbest article of the year.
A couple of people have already written in to correct me: Hillenbrand was technically designated for assignement, not released. They also have pointed out that the Clubhouse Panacea Griffin wants for the Jays is the same guy who called Red Sox GM Theo Epstein a "fag." But he has a lot of smarts on the basepaths!...?...!
In the interests of fairness, I cut/copy/paste this theory from reader Richard:
I'm not a regular reader of Richard Griffin...I'm betting you aren't either. Is it possible that he's making a joke? For all we know...he lambasted Hillenbrand all season for being a douche in the clubhouse, and was making a joke to his regular readers like, "Yeah, we'll bring him back because he worked so well, WINK!" If he had given a bunch of reasons after mentioning him, I could see your angle, but because he just sort of drops the name off at the end of the article and doesn't say anything, well, I'm just saying it's possible he was attempting a funny.
I hope not. And I don' think so. But again, in the interest of farness, there's a possible explanation.
I finally got around to reading the Richard Griffin article that Junior assailed yesterday (see below, 18 Oct.). Here are a few more pieces of evidence Griffin gives that Billy Beane, and not Ken Macha, is at fault for the A's woes:
How could anyone blame Macha for losing to the Tigers? After second baseman Mark Ellis was injured, Beane gave Macha the combo of D'Angelo Jimenez and Mark Kiger. Jimenez may have been the worst starting second baseman in a playoff game this decade, while Kiger was making his MLB debut.
I could be wrong, but wasn't Ellis injured during the playoffs? Apparently, Beane was supposed to fly Robby Cano to Oakland, give him a fake moustache, and have him pretend to be Cobinson Rano: Oakland A's Second Baseman Who Is Totally On the Playoff Roster!
Ellis was also on the DL in early June, but I really believe that Griffin is blaming Beane for the A's not having an awesome backup 2nd baseman instantaneously in October. Now, that's not Macha's fault either. In fact, it's nobody's fault, really -- it's just bad luck. But as Junior's post below shows, there seem to be other things that are, in fact, Macha's fault. Like the fact that everyone on his team hated his guts.
During the regular season, when the A's were in Toronto, catcher Jason Kendall was suspended, so Beane elevated one of his Moneyball legends, overhyped draft choice, roly-poly catcher Jeremy Brown. Macha laughed in the face of a question about how much playing time Brown would get. "None."
Listen to me carefully, Richard Griffin. I have several points to make.
1. The fact that a catcher got suspended means that the GM, in this case Billy Beane, would be doing a huge disservice to his team by not putting another catcher on the team ASAP. So. They had a catcher in the minors, who is on the 40-man roster, who has decent AAA stats (.764 OPS, 13HR in 77 games -- not great, but workable), so he promoted him. What is the problem here?
2. Ken Macha laughing and being snarky about how much playing time a new guy is going to get is a dickish thing to do, and is exactly the kind of thing that got him fired.
3. Jason Kendall was out for four games. Four. So the worst thing that could have happened was that Jeremy Brown would be there for four games. In May.
4. In the last two full seasons, Jason Kendall, who makes $11 million a year, has OPSes of .709 and .666. In the minute sample size of MLB-level experience this year, Jeremy Brown was 3-10 with 2 2Bs. Career, 4-12. That shit ain't bad. Maybe Macha should have played him more. Or maybe he shouldn't've. But he definitely shouldn't have laughed at the question of how much the guy was going to play. What good does that do?
Macha's fault? During the ALCS against the Tigers, Nick Swisher lived up to his name, with five strikeouts in 10 at-bats, while ...another of Beane's prized drafts, Joe Blanton, was relegated to long relief.
In 2005 Joe Blanton made about $327,000 and won 12 games with an ERA of 3.53, giving up 178 hits in 201.1 IP. His OPS-against was .693. In 2006 he regressed terribly, his WHIP soaring to 1.54 (possibly due to some bad luck -- his K/BB stayed roughly the same and he actually gave up fewer HR). But tell me how Billy Beane is at fault for this. Is he the pitching coach too?
And as for Nick Swisher...I guess his .254/.372/.493/.865, 35 HR and 97 BB go right the fuck out the window in the face of three not so good games against the league's best pitching staff. Curse you, Billy Beane!!!!!!
