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.
The title of this post isn't a rhetorical question. Objectively speaking, yes, a fast guy is more valuable than a slow guy on the basepaths. So if Xavier Slowplayer and Yadier Speedygas both OBP-ed .315 and slugged .390 and you could reasonably expect them to maintain those rates, I think you could say with a straight face, I'd rather have Speedygas because Slowplayer clogs the bases.
Maybe not the terminology I would use, but the point stands.
The problem is, 99.99463% of the time when writers use "clog the bases" or "clog the basepaths" or some variant thereof, the guy they're accusing of base-clogging is way better at getting on base, hitting home runs (the opposite of base-clogging -- it's base-Drano-ing!), or both. So it makes little to no sense to complain about their lack of speed. It's like grumbling that your awesome Bugatti Veyron has shitty trunk space. It would be nice if the Veyron could fit more than one of those baby-sized Coke cans in its cargo hold, but in the grand scheme of things, it's just not that important.
And now I realize that the whole analogy is completely mangled because the Veyron is fast, and base-cloggers are slow. Avert your eyes from this car crash of a mixed-metaphor clusterfuckfest.
Gwen Knapp has a theory that speed is undervalued in today's game, so the A's should abstain from signing Frank Thomas for the minimum. Too late, of course, but still. She pushed our clog the b-paths button, so here we go:
Sweeney is hitting .309, and he has already become an important clubhouse presence for the A's, much as Thomas was in 2006. Thomas or a hitter of his ilk would add a fear factor to the middle of the lineup, which is currently almost indistinguishable from the top. But Thomas would be an equal threat to clog the basepaths, where the A's move faster and more efficiently than they have in a long time.
Sweeney is off to a good start. OBP-ing .391, slugging .418. But we're talking 55 at bats. Thomas is off to a miserable start -- but in 60 at bats, he's already only four home runs shy of the total number of homers Sweeney hit all of last year, when, for the Royals, Sweeney went for a sweet .260/.315/.404.
Thomas got on base at a .377 clip and slugged .480 while appearing in 155 games. We could go back a year further and see that Sweeney put up a respectable .258/.349/.438 in 2006. But Thomas was a monster who (sort of undeservedly) got MVP votes in 2006, with his .926 OPS and 39 home runs -- for Oakland!
So Ms. Knapp: should we really be fretting about how clogged those bases are when it's pretty clear that Thomas is a way more valuable offensive player? Granted, he's 95 years old, but Sweeney's the one who appears to be in more drastic decline -- he hasn't even played a full season since 2001.
Verdict: I still haven't seen anyone use "clogging up the basepaths" in a way that makes any sort of compelling argument. Aren't you glad you know what I think about this?
Next post will be more shrill and have more jokes about barf and testicles and stuff, I promise.
Behind Paleface St. Shortstuff, Alex Rodriguez might be one of our favorite guys to write about. Somehow, this insane baseball monster is -- I'll say it -- underrated. He's a choker, he has no rings, he's not a leader, he has periwinkle-colored lips...we've heard it all.
Nothing truly condemnable here, but Tyler Kepner had some thoughts on A-Rod in the New York Times this week:
Alex Rodriguez’s choice of music in spring training was perfectly fitting for his personality. As he prepared for the season, he played the Pat Benatar song “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” over and over, at high volume, in his earphones.
This is amazing. Perfect encapsulation of how incredibly un-baseball-cool A-Rod is. Do you think he stays up late playing "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" on Karaoke Revolution trying to get a perfect score on Expert? With the Yankees starting their division series Thursday in Cleveland, Rodriguez is under immense pressure to prove he is more than a regular-season wonder.
Broken record alert: A-Rod has had some good playoffs before, but of course they do not count because they occurred in the uniform of a rainy Northwestern city's team. All non-Yankees playoff series are officially exhibitions and should not be entered into the historical record.
“What I’m looking for is more than a handful of at-bats,” Rodriguez said. “We need the team to play well, play deep into October. There’s been stretches this year where I’ve been 1 for 12, 1 for 10, 2 for 18; that’s just part of it. I’m hoping to get 50 or 60 at-bats and help the team win.”
Alex Rodriguez gets it. He gets it more than all of the people criticizing him, which must be frustrating for him. Even in this, another unbelievable MVP season, of course he had stretches where he made a bunch of outs in a row. That's how the game works. People are judging the man based on short strings of at bats scattered across years and years of baseball when in between those at bats, he's performing historic feats of greatness.
That said, I hope he goes 0-for-the-series and the media forces him out of New York. That would be sweet.
Rodriguez knows he is the last hitter opponents will let beat them. If the Yankees do not clog the bases in front of him, the Indians will probably force Rodriguez to chase pitches off the plate, the way the Angels did in 2005.
And we have a clog the bases sighting. I don't even understand what Kepner's going for, putting it in this context. Putting men on base in front of Alex Rodriguez is maybe the best thing you can do in baseball, and calling it clogging makes it sound so...Liquid-Plumr-y. Plus, the guys in front of A-Rod in the lineup are Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu, three generally fairly speedy men.
Maybe Kepner is a secret ally and he's trying to take back "clog the bases" by spinning it as a positive thing, sort of like the n word. Yeah, that's definitely it. Clogging the bases is the n word.
Severe Base Cloggage Continues To Plague Major League Baseball
Or so says Davey Lopes. Too many teams are sitting back waiting for the 3-run homer. You've got a bunch of guys that are slow afoot, go one base at a time, clog up the bases, and that's pretty much what this game has become. A nonathletic-type game. We've got too many DHs.
I can't decide whether I'm getting bored of hearing the phrase "clog up bases" (in its various forms), or delighting in its contagiousness.
I just decided. I'm delighting.
There's another line in this article, by the author Mike Berardino, that's really puzzling: Also, game instincts and a general understanding of situations and odds have steadily declined since Lopes ended his playing career in 1987.
Situations and odds...has this guy ever seen a run expectancy table? (Like this one.) I'm having trouble tracking down the dates of the first such tables, but I think it's safe to say that even if they were around before 1987, their popularity has mini-exploded. Anyone at all concerned with "understanding of situations and odds" has certainly come across them.
Except for Mike Berardino, who I am assigning a .19 heard-of-run-expectancy-tables-expectancy.
Once again, allow me to congratulate the New Jersey Somethings on their richly deserved victory yesterday. For the record, I am disappointed but not upset. When one's teams have been on a run like my teams have since '02, it's dumb to complain. And the Pats losing yesterday will ultimately be about maybe 20% more irritating than them winning, and thus forcing me to listen to people say that their season wasn't legitimate because of SpyGate.
(For the record, you can't just add "Gate" to something to indicate "scandal." The hotel, as we all know, was the Watergate. It wasn't like there was a like Nixonian/"Chinatown" water scandal, and someone said, "Hey -- 'gate' is the LME root for 'cover-up.' Let's call it Water-gate.")
In any case, nice work, Giants. Nice work, Eli, and David Tyree's helmet, and Tom Coughlin. Super Bowls should be about upsets. It's what makes them fun.
To cleanse my palate as we head into the dark time when Michigan State basketball gets top billing on any given weekend, here's a quick bases-clogging sighting, sent to us by many of our eagle-eyed readers:
"On-base percentage is the highest thing on the list," manager Tony La Russa said at the team's annual Winter Warm-Up. "If you've proven that you can get on base, that will give you the best chance to lead off.
Sanity at last.
It doesn't mean it's the only thing. Say [Molina] has an on-base percentage of .700 in Spring Training. I don't think I'm going to lead him off because he clogs those bases a little bit. But I'm going to wait, let guys play."
Oops. And he was doing so well.
My friend, if anyone on your team ever has an OBP of .700 -- even someone as slow as one of the Molina Bros. -- I'd say you should definitely lead him off. Or hit him second. Or third, depending on his other numbers.
Once again, let us remind all baseball-minded persons out there that the object of the game is to "clog" bases. That is how you score runs. (And yes, I do realize he is not totally pulling a Dusty here. I just don't think anyone should ever use the term "clogging [up] the bases.")
Pitchers and catchers report in a few days. Eli Manning is your reigning Super Bowl MVP (which I'm pretty sure is my fault.) Ladies and Gentlemen, the state of our nation is: meh.
John (New York, NY): Do you agree with other analysts that Derek Jeter's defense is overrated? With the number of errors he's made so far this year, it seems like everyone's jumping off the bandwagon.
Joe Morgan: I would not put myself in that group.
Ken Tremendous: Explain why.
First off, as a middle infielder, shortstop is the most difficult position to play on the field.
KT: I agree.
Any lapse of concentration or injury can throw you off.
KT: Same can be said of all positions, but I'm still with you.
I think with Jeter, he's been losing his concentration recently, but I expect him to get out of it. Middle infield demands that you have your highest confidence at all times, so a few errors can throw you off.
KT: It's a confidence problem? For Derek Jeter? Are you sure?
I won't say someone's overrated because I don't see him every day.
KT: All-time low for the Joe Morgan "I don't see him every day so I can't comment" thing. How many times have you seen Jeter in your life, Joe? A hundred? Two hundred? And you still can't comment on whether you think he's overrated? This is insane. If you are telling me you can't make a comment on Derek Jeter because you haven't seen him play enough, you are officially saying that you can never render your opinion on anything, ever.
Obviously, if he's won 3 consecutive Gold Gloves, he has to be pretty good.
KT: Opposite of true.
Rick in DC:Mr. Morgan: The Tigers are pitching well thus far, but all we hear about are the arms on the Red Sox. Do you think these teams will meet in the ALCS this year?
Joe Morgan: I actually feel like Detroit might win the American League again. Obviously it's early, so I can't make a real prediction.
KT: People make predictions all the time. Before seasons even start. Can you ever just offer an opinion without qualifying it? What is the point of constantly saying you can't give your opinion? Why do you have this job?
So far, with Boston, Schilling has bounced back, Beckett is capable but hasn't reach his full potential, and Dice-K looks like a stud. You can't say they have a great staff just yet; they've certainly made some good starts. The Tigers have more room for improvement than the Red Sox, as Schilling and Wakefield aren't getting any better. I still think the Tigers will prevail in the end.
KT: See? Was that so hard?
Tony (Weymouth MA):With all of the injuries to the Yankees starting rotation, will Roger Clemens lean to signing with the Red Sox as the best chance to win it all one last time? Does he stay in Houston or retire?
Joe Morgan: I know Roger pretty well, but I'm not going to predict what he will do.
KT: Oh my God.
Here's a play I just wrote:
(Scene: Joe is the blind Greek seer Tiresias. Oedipus approaches.)
Oedipus: Tiresias, priest of Zeus. I come to you to gain knowledge of the slaying of King Laius. Joe Tiresias: Well, I knew Laius pretty well, but I don't want to say I know who killed him. Oedipus: But your visions are never wrong, great seer. You see all. Joe Tiresias: I have seen a lot of things happen, yes. I have been a seer for a long time, so don't tell me I don't know what's gonna happen in Greece. Oedipus: (confused) ...I wasn't saying that. I am saying the opposite of that. I am asking you for your help in learning the identity of the slayer of King Laius. Joe Tiresias: I knew Laius. I watched him be King for a long time. He was a great veteran King. Oedipus: ...What? Joe Tiresias: If you're saying that he is not as good a King as you, I wouldn't say that. You just started as King, and he did it for a lot of years. He knew how to rule. Oedipus: ...Yikes. Okay. Listen. I want you to use your wisdom and sight and the power of the Gods to tell me who killed him. Joe Tiresias: Well, I didn't watch him rule every day, so I don't want to comment. I don't want to say one way or the other. Oedipus: (Blinds self out of frustration)
Personally, I believe the only place Roger Clemens can play is Houston, because Roger doesn't want to travel, and Houston is the only team of the three to allow him to do what he's doing. Neither the Yankees or Red Sox can allow him to do that. If he pitches again, as an analyst, I feel he will pitch with Houston.
KT: And again, he ends up answering the question after saying that he can't answer the question.
Shawn in Philly: Do you really believe the lack of African-American players in the game is a "crisis"? Does it matter how many there are in the league as long as the opportunity is there? To me, the real problem is the lack of African-Americans in front office positions.
Joe Morgan: Of all the people I've listened to about this percentage, you have the right understanding. I cannot find it in my heart to blame MLB for the percentages. The opportunity is there. Players are making a choice to go to the NBA or the NFL. If baseball wants to try to help persuade them to go that way, that's great, but it's not baseball's fault. Football is 70 percent African-American and basketball is 80 percent African-American. All those athletes are not playing baseball. I agree fully that the problem is in the front office and in the management, but if you do not have African-American players, where are the managers going to come from? They have brought people into the front office who have graduated from Harvard, but not African-Americans who have graduated from Harvard. You have guys who get two, three chances, but a guy like Cito Gaston, Dusty Baker, Don Baylor, Lloyd McClendon, Davey Lopes, Jerry Manuel who don't get as many chances. Yet a aguy like Phil Garner, who lost in Milwaukee and Detroit, found a good team in Houston. Not to pick on him, but the opportunity isn't there. Only Frank Robinson has managed more than three different teams; Cleveland, San Francisco, Baltimore, and Washington. You have a very good understanding of what I see as the problem.
KT: All right, look. Dabbling in racial discussions is always a dangerous thing. And I fully agree that all different types of people should have the opportunities to manage MLB teams, and I think it's probably true that MLB, like the NFL and the NBA, should have more minority managers and front-office types -- especially African-Americans.
But. Look at that list of guys who, Joe is insinuating, didn't get a fair shake. Cito Gaston won two WS, then went 56-88, 74-88, 72-85, and was fired. I'll quote from his Wikipedia page here...
He had failed to lead the team to a winning record since 1993 and seemed uninterested in keeping his position. Gaston forced [GM Gord] Ash's hand by telling his boss that he was taking a vacation at season's end and would not be around for the usual post season evaluation process, thus ending his Jays managing career in an undignified fashion. He was replaced by then-pitching coach Mel Queen on an interim basis for the last week of the 1997 season. Gaston rejoined the team as a hitting coach after the 1999 season but was not retained after a disappointing 2001 campaign and the sale of the franchise to Rogers Communications. In 2002, he was hired by the Jays for a third time, as special assistant to president and chief executive officer Paul Godfrey.
Given Gaston's impressive record and World Series titles, it is somewhat surprising that he never managed again in the Major Leagues. Nevertheless, Gaston was a final candidate for the Detroit Tigers manager's job in the 1999-2000 season and was the runner-up to in the Chicago White Sox manager position in the 2003-4 off season. Sox GM Kenny Williams, a former Blue Jays player, had Gaston as one of two finalists for the job but decided to hire Ozzie Guillen. Gaston had several offers to rejoin major league teams as a hitting instructor...but declined offers. His length of unemployment now makes it unlikely he will return to the major leagues as a manager.
So...it was African-American GM Kenny Williams who hired Ozzie Guillen -- a minority candidate -- over Gaston. Just sayin'.
And Lopes, well, he has a career record of 144-195. (Also, I don't believe he is African-American. Am I wrong?) Dusty Baker is the man who thinks that you shouldn't "clog up the bases." He probably ended the careers of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood by having them throw like 150 pitches a game even after DL trips. He stinks on ice. Don Baylor won more than 83 games once in nine years. Lloyd McClendon was 336-446 in five years. Jerry Manuel was better (500-471), and is currently coaching for the (African-American-coached) Mets, I think, and he's only 53. He'll get another chance.
A lot of these guys -- like McClendon, and Baylor to some extent -- had crappy teams. But they also didn't do that great, so it's not totally surprising that they haven't been handed other jobs. I don't know. MLB should do more to encourage front-office -- and, I guess, non-Harvard -- minority hires. But I don't think it's racism, necessarily, that has kept, say, Dusty Baker, from getting hired. I think it's good sense.
Doug (New Rochelle, NY): Joe - how do you assess Junior Griffey's legacy? The last few years have been marred by injuries, and yet he still has a great shot at 600 home runs and he is one of the few sluggers in this geneation without a steroid question hanging over his head.
Joe Morgan: What you havre with Griffey is a Hall of Fame career, but unfortunately people may remember him near the end, when he broke down. Willie Mays was the greatest I ever saw, but he was average toward the end of his career. Fortunately, he's already built his legacy. His place in history is already set. He's one of the greatest to ever play the game.
KT: That part is kind of boring. But I love this next part:
Joe Morgan: When you saw Griffey on the field, you knew he was having fun. You don't see that with all the other players.
KT: To me Griffey is kind of a famously sourpuss kind of guy. He always looked unhappy, to me. Am I crazy? And also: who cares?
Bob(Chicago): In your opinion, why didn't more teams interview Dusty Baker during the offseason? Has he been scarred by the Wood/Prior injuries since 2003 or is it just the residue of being a Cubs manager?
KT: Here's a quotation you might have read, that Dusty Baker once said, when his team was last in the league with a .318 OBP and was asked if his team should walk more: "On-base percentage is great if you can score runs and do something with that on-base percentage," Baker said. "Clogging up the bases isn't that great to me."
That is why more teams did not interview him. It betrays a lack of understanding about baseball bordering on the criminally insane. But let's see what Joe thinks.
Joe Morgan: I think all those things are in play. I don't think the Wood/Prior situation is as important as being in a losing situation in a big market. I'll go back to my answer before. Do you think if he was not African-American and had his same resume, would ha get interviewed?
KT: I think that no matter what ethnicity a man is, if he believes that walks "clog up the bases," he should not be a major league manager, because he is ill-suited for that job.
The same goes with Cito Gaston. We can say we shouldn't look at it that way, but you tell me another way to look at that, and I will.
KT: I just did. But here it is again, same guy (Dusty), same subject, different quote:
“No. 1, I’ve let most guys hit 3-0 (in the count). That’s one reason. . . . I think walks are overrated unless you can run. If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps, but the guy who walks and can’t run, most of the time he’s clogging up the bases for somebody who can run.”
And this one:
“Who have been the champions the last seven, eight years? Have you ever heard the Yankees talk about on-base percentage and walks? . . . Walks help. They do help. But you aren’t going to walk across the plate, you’re going to hit across the plate. That’s the school I come from.”
For the record, the Yankees' championship teams were very much about OBP and walks.
Want more?
“Everybody can’t hit with two strikes, everybody can’t walk,” Baker said. “You’re taking away some of the aggressiveness of a kid if you’re telling him to go up there and try to work for a walk. . . . It’s like when I see kids in Little League and they make the small kids go up there and try to get a walk. That’s not any fun. . . . Do you ever see the top 10 walking (rankings)? You see top 10 batting average. A lot of those top 10 do walk, but the name of the game is to hit.”
How in the world is any sane GM going to let that guy manage his team?
There's no way that you can win like Dusty and Cito and not get another job. If you're an honest man, you realize there's something wrong with that picture.
KT: I actually take offense at this. Joe Morgan is calling me a racist. Or at least, not an honest man. That's wrong. If he's not careful, my friends and I might create a blog that ridicules him and people like him who don't know what they are talking about.
Bob (Tinley Park, IL): Joe, what do you think of Henry Aaron and Bud Selig's stance on Bonds breaking his record? Should they be there in your opinion or is Bonds a cheater and therefore not worthy of their presence?
Joe Morgan: I don't ever call anyone a cheater unless I know for sure.
KT: Okay. Fair enough. Barry Bonds told a federal grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream supplied by the Burlingame laboratory now enmeshed in a sports doping scandal, but he said he never thought they were steroids, The Chronicle has learned.
Federal prosecutors charge that the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, known as BALCO, distributed undetectable steroids to elite athletes in the form of a clear substance that was taken orally and a cream that was rubbed onto the body.
Bonds testified that he had received and used clear and cream substances from his personal strength trainer, Greg Anderson, during the 2003 baseball season but was told they were the nutritional supplement flaxseed oil and a rubbing balm for arthritis, according to a transcript of his testimony reviewed by The Chronicle.
Federal prosecutors confronted Bonds during his testimony on Dec. 4, 2003, with documents indicating he had used steroids and human growth hormone during a three-year assault on baseball's home run record, but the Giants star denied the allegations.
During the three-hour proceeding, two prosecutors presented Bonds with documents that allegedly detailed his use of a long list of drugs: human growth hormone, Depo-Testosterone, undetectable steroids known as "the cream" and "the clear," insulin and Clomid, a drug for female infertility sometimes used to enhance the effect of testosterone.
The documents, many with Bonds' name on them, are dated from 2001 through 2003. They include a laboratory test result that could reflect steroid use and what appeared to be schedules of drug use with billing information, prosecutors told the grand jury.
In a September 2003 raid on Anderson's Burlingame home, federal investigators seized documents they said showed Bonds was using banned drugs, according to court records. Anderson was indicted in February on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to distribute steroids in the BALCO case.
Now can you say he cheated?
(Did you not hear about that, Joe? it was a really big story.)
Joe Morgan: Hopefully this will be a better week for all of us, and baseball will help us move forward in the aftermath of what happened at Virginia Tech. It has not been a good start to the week. I'm concerned because my two daughters will be going to school two years from now. It's almost like the Imus situatiion; kids and people going to get educated and being hit from the outside with negative comments and threates on their lives. I guess if you're not safe in college, where are you safe?
KT: I'd just like to say here that the Imus situation was horrifying and despicable, and I'm glad he was fired. But how on God's green earth do you even begin to compare that with the Virgina Tech massacre? That's not even apples and oranges -- it's like apples and hurricanes of murderous insanity that destroy entire communities.
Sorry this chat was so downerish and sad. Hopefully next week he'll just go back to saying he can't comment on anything.
i wouldn't expect joe to know this, or do any research, but mike hill (assisstant general manager for the florida marlins) is an african american harvard graduate. he played football and baseball for the crimson and was recruited by a coach i work with, which is the reason i know he's a harvard grad. additionally, his race should be fairly obvious from his picture.
Don't know if you heard the Dan Patrick show today but Joe Morgan was on and had the audacity to compare the VaTech massacre to the Don Imus comment. He said, "Here are kids going to school, not bothering anybody; trying to make something of themselves, trying to be better--and this is what they're subjected to."
I'll let that sink in for a moment...
Anyway, here's the link: http://insider.espn.go.com/insider/sportindex?sport=radio You need to be an ESPN insider to access it.
Karl Ravech is killing it out there. Take this exchange with Steve Phillips:
SP: Jeff Kent in the walk year of his contract, motivated to put up big numbers. They lacked power last year. They lacked Jason Kent's production -- er, Jeff Kent's production. I think they are a very well balanced team with great pitching.
KR: (skeptical) Is there tangible evidence that in a walk year, players produce better numbers?
SP: I don't think there's any question about it. Motivation -- particularly Jeff Kent. He's always put up huge numbers in that last year.
KR: (Tired, so very tired of all of this even though the year has only just begun. Seriously, he asked this question in a hilariously weary-sounding voice. This question was basically an eight-word-long verbal sigh.) What motivates you, Peter, in the NL West?
In FJM Heaven, every writer complains that high-OBP sluggers clog up the basepaths. In FJM Heaven, every article trumpets David Eckstein as an MVP candidate based on his grit, his heart, and the fact that he sleeps in a child's race car bed. In FJM Heaven, A-Rod is a worthless choker, wins matter more than WHIP, "it's not called the Hall of Very Good," and all bloggers live in their mothers' basements.
And in FJM Heaven, HatGuy writes about food for an entire column, every column.
No more candy cane lane? Say it ain't so, Joe! Yankees manager goes too far by banning goodies in the clubhouse
This is just a delight. I mean, I'm not even going to be an asshole for this one. Okay, maybe a little. If Braveheart
-- topical -- were playing for the Yankees in 2008 instead of the underdog Scottish Nationalists in 1305, he’d have climbed on a table in the Yankees clubhouse and delivered a line that would resonate through time: “You can take my life, but you can’t take my Reese's peanut butter cups!”
All of you readers who e-mail me to add the "food metaphors" label on every single post I write, this post is for you. You are legion, you are persistent, and I appreciate every e-mail.
HatGuy, Jesus...he's not even veiling his gustatory fascination with the aforementioned food metaphors anymore. This baseball column is just straight up about food. Think about that. Also, countdown until he mentions ice cream. 5...4...3... Alas, there is no William Wallace on the Yankees and no plans for Mel Gibson to play the brave rebel who leads the team against manager Joe Girardi, who has imposed a reign of health food on his team.
No Mel Gibson joke? You disappoint me, HatGuy. Hell, "sugar tits" even has a food in it. You definitely could have awkwardly shoehorned a dated, unfunny Gibson reference in there. Next time.
No candy in the clubhouse, Girardi has decreed. And no ice cream.
There it is. For the uninitiated, I refer you to what reader Zac once wrote us:
June 28, 2006, Mike Celizic writes "Sox Fans must boo Pedro heartily," and makes a choppy, hot fudge sundae/whipped cream joke:
"If anything else happens — the fans cheering wildly or the commentators congratulating them for booing boisterously or no one taking notice of the occasion at all...[I'd] be as disappointed as I’d be if I set out to construct a hot fudge sundae and discovered I was out of whipped cream."
July 7, 2006, Mike Celizic writes "Not Time for Yankees to Panic" and makes eerily similar whipped cream reference:
"It’s hard to make panic seem banal, but that’s what the Yankees have accomplished over the years... [blahblah] ...Panic should be saved for special occasions. For the Yankees, a day without panic is like a hot fudge sundae without whipped cream."
Yes, HatGuy -- we keep track of food metaphors and similes you made nearly two years ago. That is the kind of people we are. Food metaphor enthusiasts.
It’s not just at Yankee Stadium, either. By Girardi’s orders, stadiums the Yankees will visit this year have been asked not to provide M&Ms, Dove bars, or any other sweet succulence to his Yankees.
Forget FJM Heaven. This is HatGuy Heaven! The Yankees, food, sweet food, creamy food, chocolate, dessert, Yankee stadium, candy, ice cream, Dove bars (ice cream inside candy)! Instead, Girardi wants granola, nuts and dried fruits for his players to snack on. My guess is there won’t even be salt on the nuts.
d:(
(That's a HatGuy frowny-face.)
It makes you wonder why he doesn’t go all the way and ban apple pie and motherhood.
Because he wants his players not to eat junk food? Multi-million-dollar athletes whose bodies are finely-tuned machines designed to perform extraordinary physical tasks on an everyday basis? Yes, this man is Stalin because he doesn't want his players looking like this:
I understand his motivation — promoting healthy choices in all things. But no chocolate? No nougat and caramel? No Heath bars? Not even a roll of LifeSavers?
How many times do you think HatGuy stopped to eat something while writing this column? Fifteen? Twenty? I'm guessing he ate at least one of each and every food he mentions.
Girardi came to the Yankees with a reputation as something of an extremist, but this is ridiculous. We’re talking about grown men here. We’re talking about a freaking Reese's peanut butter cup.
Well, to be fair, you were the one who brought up the peanut butter cup.
It wasn’t that long ago — within the past 20 years — that baseball clubhouses were among the last refuges from a world that was becoming obsessed with inflicting “healthy” living on everyone — by law if necessary.
Yes, 'twas a fine time. The baseball men would laze about, drunk on molasses moonshine, cheeks puffed with tobacco crabgrass. No coloreds were allowed, and the only women were the Lace Tutu Girls, whose sole purpose was to light your cigar and freshen your martini -- toplessly, of course. Ah, 1988.
Once upon a time, players arriving for work could load up on free chewing and spit tobacco to get the nicotine that kept their engines running.
People say a lot of things about baseball. But one thing I think just doesn't get enough play is that it doesn't have enough mouth cancer.
Next to the tobacco was a rack of gum and candy. Coffee urns dispensed a brew so strong you felt you could slice it and eat it in a sandwich.
Food...metaphor? No. Yes. No, wait. No. Brain twisting...screw it, I'm adding the "food metaphors" label and the "liberal use of 'food metaphors' label" label. You happy, "food metaphors" label crazies? You're welcome.
Out of sight from the public but no less readily available were amphetamines — “greenies” — for those who needed to kick-start their games.
So you're pro-greenies? What? I'm lost.
When their work was done, the tired heroes foraged through a postgame buffet that included at least three items from the all-important grease food group. Coolers harbored all manner of soda pop and enough beer in the players’ favorite brands — Free and Free Lite — to get a fraternity house through rush week.
Yeah. That's partly why I bet a team of modern players would kick these lard-assy gentlemanly layabouts' asses. Just a guess.
Except Wade Boggs. Dude would drink 70 beers on a cross-country flight and still go 3 for 5.
It wasn’t something that the American Heart Association (or your mom) was going to endorse, but when you threw in the magazine collection — heavy on hunting, cars and women who had forgotten to bring their clothing to their photo shoots – it wasn’t surprising that ballplayers liked to get to the park early and stay later than absolutely necessary. Clubhouse life was as good as it got.
HatGuy's new rallying cry: Bring back Car & Driver & Porn & Guns magazine!
And then the health police started getting involved.
I think HatGuy is confused. You can still eat all of these things. Relax. Breathe deeply. Look in your pantry. They're still there. All of them: the Three Musketeers, the Butterfingers, the Snickers, the Milky Way Darks. Now look in your freezer. See the ice cream? Yep, it's still there. Hey, here's an idea: what if you crumbled up some of those candy bars on top of the ice cream? That's good, isn't it?
Now isn't that more fun than writing a column about there being no chocolate in the Yankees' clubhouse? Aw, he fell asleep. The little HatGuy's all tuckered out. Isn't that cute?
The first thing to go was free tobacco for reasons that should be obvious. Then teams started to get more healthy choices in the buffets. In some clubhouses the beer also disappeared.
There were good reasons for all of the decisions. Tobacco can kill you, and so can excesses of grease.
Or chocolate. Or -- gasp -- hot fudge sundaes with whipped cream. It's all fun and games when you're just making metaphors about sundaes, but when those metaphors become reality, it's your arteries that pay.
And if a player were to get drunk in the clubhouse and then get in an accident, the team could face heavy liability.
It’s not as if modern ballplayers are Babe Ruth wannabes who train on hot dogs, beer, cigars and babes. (Well, maybe the babes, but not the other things.) These guys work out year-round and many have nutritionists and trainers at their beck and call.
So they probably don't care that much about not scarfing down Turtles for three hours straight before the game.
Sure, you’ve got your C.C. Sabathias carrying on the weighty tradition of David Wells and other noted gourmands, but for the most part, these guys are as healthy and fit as anyone could ever want to be.
So is it that modern players are all so in shape that it doesn't matter if they eat junk in the clubhouse or that it was more fun back in the old days when all guys did was eat junk in the clubhouse?
Also, not really sure how fit Joba Chamberlain is. Maybe he's like the Kingpin and it's all solid muscle.
A Dove bar or a bag of M&Ms is not going to hurt them, and it just might make them feel better — and therefore perform better.
Oh, I get it. It's neither. It's that Chocolate Makes People Better At Things! You think the chocolate lobby has gotten to HatGuy? Look, we've all been tempted by the money Big Chocolate throws at us, but I've always thought of HatGuy has an incorruptible lone kook-type.
Chocolate can, in fact, be very good for you. Dark chocolate is full of anti-oxidants and contains a chemical that elevates your mood.
Yarrrgggh!!! Corporate synergy -- they wrote chocolate into the storyline!
Right here is probably where HatGuy sticks in some hard scientific evidence proving that chocolate improves your WARP3 -- This is well-known at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Harry Potter and his posse frequently were ordered to eat lots of chocolate to help them heal after a busy day battling Dementors.
Best part of an already unbelievable gold mine (of gold chocolate coins) of an article.
Chocolate isn’t junk food.
WE GET IT.
Some would argue it’s the best food nature ever contributed to our diet, a food loaded with anti-oxidants and imbued with a mood-elevating substance called theobromine, from which comes cacao’s scientific name — theobroma, the “food of the gods.” Was ever any product of nature more aptly named?
Holy f-ing s. He's really lost it, hasn't he? I'm worried. I'm honestly, no-kidding, 100% worried about Michael Celizic's mental state. Call me, Mike. Well, no. Don't do that. Just write an article about A-Rod faking his injury so he can avoid those high-pressure May at bats so I know everything's all right.
And now, just for the fun of it, I will now list each and every food (including repeats) or other consumptible (I made that word up to mean something you put in your body in a food-like manner) found in the column:
candy cane Reese's peanut butter cups candy ice cream M&Ms Dove bars granola nuts dried fruits salt nuts apple pie chocolate nougat caramel Heath bars LifeSavers candy bar Reese's peanut butter cup chewing and spit tobacco gum candy coffee sandwich greenies buffet grease soda pop beer tobacco beer grease hot dogs beer amino acids vitamins ginseng Dove bar bag of M&Ms chocolate dark chocolate chocolate chocolate best food nature ever contributed to our diet cacao "food of the gods"
Punter. Sweet, so would I: Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
A player on your favorite baseball team is leaving today. What would you say about him if you knew the following: in 2003, your team signed this player to a four-year, $32 million deal, and he rewarded you with seasons of the following EqAs:
.241 .276 .259 .219
I sense your ire rising. But wait -- what would you say if I told you his games played totals looked like this for those four years:
67 125 153 32
Easy, there. Don't go kicking a homeless person just yet. One more thing: this guy punted footballs in college. Now whaddya say?
"He's almost the last real gamer we have," Angels bench coach Ron Roenicke said.
Ah, Ersty, you old dog. People love you, don't they? No matter what you do on the field, the love affair never truly ends. You had one remarkable year -- one! -- and that's the one they still talk about. The Angels lost another link to their 2002 World Series team and a big chunk of their heart and soul Tuesday when Darin Erstad agreed to terms on a one-year contract with the Chicago White Sox that includes an option for 2008.
Big, big chunk. It's sad, really. Look for the Angels to completely tank 2007. I'm thinking four, five wins tops. All because they didn't want to resign their heart and soul. The deal, which is pending a physical this week, ends an 11-year Angels career marked by highlight-reel defensive plays, a spectacular 2000 season, several years of injury and frustration, and an endless reservoir of grit and determination.
Endless Reservoir, the new David Lynch film, will tackle the issues of identity, reality, and the human memory in his inimitable visual style. I'm becoming convinced that at the L.A. Times they must post a giant sign over everyone's computer that says "WAX MORE POETIC." This guy makes Bill Plaschke's articles read like economics textbooks.
Also: try to visualize an endless reservoir of grit. Does that phrase really work, Times Staff Writer Mike DiGiovanna?
Over the last four years, Darin Erstad has played 86 fewer games than heartless, soulless, gritless, undetermined J.D. Drew, who has never watched or heard of American football. During that span of time, he earned $3.3 million more than Drew. No one likes J.D. Drew.
"I don't mean the other guys aren't gamers, but Darin is the old-school type, like David Eckstein and Adam Kennedy.
You don't say. He's like Eckstein. And Kennedy. Gamers. Not like fucking lazy-ass Chone Figgins, always jogging to first like some sixty-year-old Jewish woman.
Hmmm, "old-school," you say. I wonder what kinds of players played baseball in the olden times? I mean, seriously. What did they look like? I want to know.
He's probably the biggest gamer I've been around as a coach. He really doesn't play for personal success. He plays to win the game."
I think it's pretty clear he hasn't played for personal success in a long time. Last season he managed to clog up at bats in 40 games with a sweet .605 OPS. But that's a personal number. He doesn't play for that. "Even when he wasn't healthy, he was still valuable because of his presence," Roenicke said of Erstad. "He doesn't say much, but everyone watches him and sees how he plays and acts. I guess you could find someone to replace that part of the team … but I doubt it."
This is the power of personality and perception in sports. With virtually any other guy, you get hurt as much as Erstad did and play as poorly as Erstad did with that fat contract and you get absolutely crucified. You're stealing money from the club! You've got no heart! You're a bum!
But with the Punter, guys'll bend over backwards to say good things. Hey, he wasn't playing well, but he wasn't healthy -- and he's a leader in the clubhouse. Well, no, no he didn't really say much, but he didn't need to. He just lived the part. He was just there. Living. Breathing. Looking tough. Having stubble. Dirty hat-ting it. Smelling like sweat, like only a football player could.
I guess we could find someone to replace his smell ... but I doubt it.
Anyone seen that HBO documentary "The Curse of The Bambino"? It's fine, whatever.
After the Scottish Dribbler (you know what I'm talking about), one Bostonian recalls heading out of his house in Newton MA, thinking he'd be going out for a long, solitary walk, only to find hundreds of other Sox-fans-turned-zombies walking the streets. A brokenhearted old man crosses paths and says: "Son, this is the dahkest day in New England since Jack Kennedy was shawt."
That's how I feel about today, after reading this quote. "We haven't been able to cash it in very much," catcher Jason Varitek said, "but it puts an extra amount of pressure on the other team, which we haven't been able to do. We've got a lot of big donkeys who clog up the bases."
Ugh. Boots.
I guess it's not so bad -- he's kind of making fun of his slow, chunky brethren, and not saying something crazytaint like "Frank Thomas sucks because he doesn't steal bases." But it still hurts.
First Papi on the DL, then Hazel Mae, now this. Rough times.
Because a Red Sox used this term, I will now defend it to the death. I think it's great, and accurate, and meaningful. It is my favorite baseball phrase. I will find SABR stats to back it up. I am flip-flopping. Suck it, stat geeks!
Does the statistic "RBIs per 100 at-bats" really measure how valuable a hitter is? You have cited that stat in at least two stories comparing Brian Schneider to Paul Lo Duca.
Schneider is a strong defensive catcher, and a below-average hitter. The RBI as a stat is not nearly as telling about a player's ability to be a productive hitter as are on-base percentage, slugging percentage, home runs, extra-base hits and even the vastly overrated batting average stat. I just feel that citing that statistic adds little, and is somewhat insulting to students of the game. -- James K., no hometown given
Good question, James. And more restrained than we stat-minded basement dwellers usually are. Very well done. Who can argue with such logic?
Oh. Marty Noble can.
I beg to differ, and I guess I'm obligated to explain my use of RBIs per 100 at-bats because yours is one nine [sic] e-mails I've received that have questioned it. To me, it is a fundamental and quite legitimate means of measuring run production.
Obvious thing:
Player A and Player B both have 500 AB. Both have 65 RBI. Player A and Player B are the same, in terms of run production, right? Wrong! You fell into my trap. I am a diabolical genius who totally just outsmarted you so bad.
Because what you don't know is that Player A hits clean-up for the Awesome City Crushers, and the three guys in front of him all have .950 OBPs, so in his 500 AB he had like 1450 guys on base and only drove in 65. He struck out like 400 times, never walked, and generally acted like a sullen dick. He is terrible. The only reason he is hitting clean-up is that his dad owns the team. It's totally unfair.
Player B hit lead-off for the North Suckington Suck-Bears. He was an excellent baseball player who walked all the time and hit like .450 with a .700 OBP, but in his 500 AB, his stupid sucky teammates had only gotten on base 20 times, total, in front of him, and he was so good he drove all of them, and also hit 45 solo bombs. (Why was he batting leadoff, am I right? Maybe it's because his manager saw that the Cubs were hitting Soriano leadoff and followed suit.)
Anyway, here's the undeniably true thing: Player B is better than Player A. Player B will create more runs than Player A 10 seasons out of 10, assuming their seasons were not total flukes.
Now here's something that will blow your mind. Player A is Mickey Mantle. Player B is Dustin Pedroia!!!!!!
(Just kidding. I made them up.)
Computers have contributed to a current glut of statistics that, to a degree, distort the picture. We have so many now that we lose focus on what is most important. The objective of the game is to win, and to win a team must outscore its opponent. Nothing, therefore, is more important than runs -- both producing and preventing them.
Wow. I am being taught a very valuable lesson here. Color me: chagrined. No -- ashamed. In all of my stat-mongering, I forgot that the idea of baseball is to win. I further forgot that in order to win, a team must outscore its opponent. Mary Noble's condescending spoonful of proudly provincial bullshit has jolted my RobotBrain™ back to earthly reality. Thank you, sir. Or, as my people say,
Runs and RBI totals provide insufficient information because neither tells us how many opportunities a player has had to produce. And in the case of catchers, who are unlikely to play every day, the number of opportunities helps us understand how they produce.
What's amazing is that he acknowledges a problem with RBI here. He even goes so far as to say that the problem is that RBI as a raw stat doesn't work because it ignores RBI as a percentage of RBI opportunities. Then explains his method of using RBI, which does little or nothing to fix the problem. It's like saying, "Throwing money into your toilet is bad, because if you throw money in your toilet, you won't be able to use it to buy food, or furniture. Instead, you should set it on fire, and toss the ashes into the toilet. That way, the toilet won't clog."
Knowing the potential rates of production affords us a better sense of what a player does, particularly if the rates are compared, as they were in the two instances you cited.
RBIs per 100 at-bats measures run production as ERA -- earned runs per nine innings -- measures pitching. It's a quite legitimate means of determining who does what.
Last year, Lo Duca had 487 plate appearances, and Schneider had 477. Pretty damn close. Given this fact, RBI/100 AB is essentially exactly the same thing as just asking "who had more RBI?" (Plus, you should use PA instead of AB, probably, since AB don't count walks.) If the difference were huge -- like 100 or more PA -- it might shed a little more light on the subject. But 10 PA? Two games?
What matters more is -- obviously -- how many guys were on base when they got their PA, and how successful they were driving them in. Schneider had 331 guys on base in his 477 PA. Lo Duca had 307. So Lo Duca drove in the same number of guys, in almost exactly the same number of PA, but there were 24 fewer guys on base for him. Now, 24 isn't a ton, but it's something, and the only thing a rational, non-condescending person could possibly conclude is that Lo Duca was more efficient in terms of driving in runs last year than Schneider was.
Now, this isn't the be-all, end-all of a batter's worth. Clearly, OBP, SLG, and myriad other things should be checked out. But Noble concerns himself solely with RBI, so that's what we're doing, here, on our Saturday, is looking through BP's sortable stats to determine that Lo Duca drove in runs at a higher rate last year than Schneider. (He also had a higher VORP -- 9.2 to 2.4.)
I'm too lazy to do this for the last three years, but it actually doesn't matter. It's the methodology I object to. Sorry -- mis-typed. It's the methodology logic objects to.
That Lo Duca might have had a higher on-base percentage or slugging percentage means less to me than the number of runs he produced. The next time a team wins a game because it produced a higher on-base mark and scored fewer runs than its opponent, please alert me.
This is hard-core boneheaded. The more guys are on base, the more chances they have to score. That can't be hard to grasp. Why fight it?
OBP, OPS, et al, are the ingredients in the recipe for offense. Runs are the meal.
"Food metaphors" label? Today is your lucky day.
Next question for Marty?
C'mon, Marty. Jerry Koosman must be considered for the Hall of Fame, given what we are witnessing today. He must be considered.
-- Ray, Matawan, N.J.
Must he, Ray? Must he really? A .500 pitcher with a 110 ERA+? With a 1.26 WHIP and barely a 2/1 K/BB ratio? Must he be?
I'm not quite sure if you're referring to something specific that I've written about Koosman or just making a general comment. I wish there were a place for Koosman in the Hall. He's a personal favorite. When he was healthy, he was as effective as almost any Hall of Fame pitcher and nastier than most of them. [...]
This bold claim might -- might -- be defensible in 1968, 1969, and 1976. I guess he wasn't healthy in any of the 16 other seasons.
Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax and Morris are popular answers to the question, "Which pitcher would you choose to start a must-win game?" Koosman wouldn't be a bad choice, either.
Homework assignment: name 100 pitchers since 1960 you would rather have start a big game then Jerry Koosman. (Don't really. Or if you do, don't send them to me. Print them out and post them on your wall, and look at them every day and say to yourself, "I am so happy Jerry Koosman is not in the Hall of Fame." And then say to yourself, "No one should ever use 'Who would I want to start a big game?' as a criterion for Hall of Fame induction." And then say to yourself, "I can't believe I spent an hour making this list. I should read more."
At least Noble doesn't actually say Koosman belongs in the HOF. That's something, I guess.
How can Aaron Heilman not be given a real shot as starter? He pitched a one-hitter. At least it'll stop him from wondering. And if it works? Remember, what good is relief if you're down by six or seven runs all the time? -- Charles F., Brooklyn, N.Y.
That one-hitter didn't make Heilman a lock to produce a 15-victory season as a starter. And making him a starter would affect one game in five. Losing him as a reliever might affect three or four games in 10. Chances are Heilman working as a starter wouldn't prevent being "down by six or seven runs all the time."
Noble's solution: make every pitcher a reliever. That way, they all get to affect the most games.
Not sure if you know this or not but you're binary code translates to THANkyou. "Thank you" would be: 0101010011010001100001110111011010110010000011110010110111101110101.
We've come so far, baseball writers. You're citing OPS occasionally, you're learning that wins and losses for pitchers aren't all they're cracked up to be, you're even acknowledging the dubious worth of small sample sizes. It makes me proud, like a mama city raccoon watching her baby eat its first piece of leftover Taco Bell. So please, when you're doing the last of these three things, don't merely pay lip service to sample size and then leap to ridiculous conclusions, like Mr. Timothy Kawakami did today: 1. Barry Bonds is not missed, in part because Fred Lewis is a better player than Bonds was at the end of last year. (italics and insanity his)
In the top of the third inning last night, Macedonian superstar Kevin Kouzmanoff hit a home run off of Jamie Moyer. On Friday, May 20, 1927, Babe Ruth struck out against George Ernest "The Bull" Uhle. Kevin Kouzmanoff is a better player than Babe Ruth was during that at bat. (italics and hamhanded hyperbole mine)
EMPHASIS ON: BONDS AT THE END OF LAST YEAR. I’m of course not saying Lewis is better than Bonds at the height of his power/the injections or when Bonds was 27, as Lewis is now.
EMPHASIS ON: BONDS DURING AN ARBITRARY, TINY SMATTERING OF AT BATS THAT I CHERRY-PICKED COMPARED TO FRED LEWIS' HIGH BABIP-FUELED START THAT HE ALMOST CERTAINLY WILL BE UNABLE TO SUSTAIN.
I’m saying that Lewis is a better producer in LF for the Giants at this moment than Bonds would’ve been if he was currently playing LF for the Giants, or any other team, or DH-ing, or whatever.
Fred Lewis is hot as hell right now. He's got a .952 OPS. I'm sure even Kawakami would admit that he's performing a little over his head.
You know what Bonds' OPS was after the month of April last year?
1.349
That is not a typo. You know what Bonds' OPS for the year was?
1.045
It's early, motherfuckers. Nate McLouth has a 1.083 OPS. Let's keep our heads when comparing 27-year-old virtual rookies with the first- or second-greatest hitter of all time, even the hypothetical 349-year-old version of that hitter who would be playing this year.
(And Bonds would’ve only been worse this year, while Lewis is getting better.)
Probably. Though Barreee did increase his OPS from .999 to the aforementioned 1.045 from 2006 to 2007, at the age of 9,528.
Flash back to early August, when Bonds was a good player.
Something happened between early August and late August that made Bonds not a good player anymore? Did he lose an arm in a lathe accident? I feel like Barry Bonds with one arm in a lathe would still OBP in the high .300s. He hit HR No. 756 on Aug. 7, to break the all-time record.
Then he hit a few more, then went into a predictable post-record, pre-indictment lull. But there was still more baseball to played and Bonds knew his career was on the line. After the record-gazing, he still needed a big September to prove he could play at age 43. September should be a good barometer for what Bonds has/had left.
YES LET'S JUDGE THE ENTIRETY OF BARRY BONDS' REMAINING BASEBALL ABILITY ON THE BASIS OF ONE MONTH'S WORTH OF AT BATS, NOT THE REAMS AND REAMS AND REAMS OF DATA, INCLUDING THE SEVERAL MILLION RECORDS HE BROKE AND THE KIA SEPHIA HE CLEAN-AND-JERKED OVER HIS HEAD IN LATE OCTOBER 2007.
Here’s what Bonds did last September: 1 HR in 30 at-bats, 7 hits, (.233 batting average), 6 walks (.361 on-base), 1 double (.367 slug). That’s a .738 OPS, way, way under his alleged-steroid totals and career totals.
Did I say one month's worth of at bats? I'm sorry, I meant two weeks' worth. Tim Kawakami is judging Barry Bonds' current baseball-hitting prowess on 12 games' worth of data.
Through 9 games this year, Fred Lewis had a .388 OPS. That's worse than Alicia Silverstone would hit in the majors! Throw him into a viper pit of pit vipers! Through 10 games, it was .654. That's worse than Jennie Garth would hit in the majors! Drop him off of Mount Everest into the Marianas Trench! Through 11 games, it was .761. Eh, okay. That's about average, I guess. Through 12 games, it was .946. HE IS OUR NEW BASEBALL GOD.
The point is, after each one of these games, Fred Lewis seemed to be an entirely different player. The larger point is, you can't judge players after 9 or 10 or 11 or 12 games. What's frustrating is that Kawakami seems to know this (as we'll see from what he writes later), or seems to think he knows this, and yet he still wrote all of this nonsense about Lewis definitely being better than Bonds.
Here’s what Lewis is doing right now, comfortably settled into the lead-off spot at the end of April:
92 at-bats is better than 30, and Lewis appears to be developing into a productive offensive player. Then again, check out this hotshot:
35/104 15 4 26 1 .337 .926
Yeah. That's Xavier Nady. I just made you get a baseball-rection from Xavier Nady, 29 years old, .777 OPS in 551 career games.
-Lewis has the fifth-best OPS (.952) among regular LFs, ahead of Matt Holliday, Johnny Damon, Jason Bay and Carlos Lee, among others.
-That’s much more than Bonds could’ve logically been expected to produce this season, with or without steroid injections, with or without a federal indictment, with or without clogging up the clubhouse with his karma.
Well, there was that whole 1.349 OPS in April of last year. But more importantly, I think we have a new rival to "clogging up the basepaths." "Clogging up the clubhouse with his karma" -- it's delicious, pungent, and utterly nonsensical. Brian Bocock's karma wants to run free with the antelopes. But oh no, here comes Barry's karma (I picture these karmas looking a little like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are)! It's fat and it's slow, and it's clogging up the clubhouse! Who cares about his karma's karmic OBP (kOBP) when he can't run the karmic basepaths (in the clubhouse)!
-Lewis obviously might and probably will cool down.
Thank you.
His defense isn’t very good (great play here, bad play there) and I’m not volunteering Lewis for Gold Glove consideration at any point. But Bonds was a sieve out there for the last three years. So Lewis is better in the field, too.
Sure. Not helping your point much that Lewis is a butcher in left field, but I'll give you this.
-I realize these are relatively small sampling sizes–September for Bonds, April for Lewis.
Relatively? Relatively?! This is like a dude telling a girl he just slept with, "I realize that I may be relatively chlamydia-y, but..."
You can't just say "Yes-these-are-small-sample-sizes-moving-on-I'm-using-them-anyway." That's, as Buzz Bissinger would say, fucking glib as shitfuck. You didn't even use an entire month for Bonds. You used 30 at bats. That's a fraction of an eye-blink in Barry Bonds' career. I just looked it up. He has 9847 at bats. Some of those could have been incorporated into your evaluation. More than 30 should have been.
But they’re the most legitimate comparable sample sizes.
Infinite monkeys on infinite MacBooks could not construct a more false sentence. Both players were extremely motivated to do well: Bonds to get another contract, Lewis to stay in the line-up. We’ve seen the results. I’m going with them.
-Therefore: Lewis is better than Bonds, and Lewis is a big reason why the Giants are, so far, out-performing the low expectations.
I'm willing to listen to arguments that a healthy, young, solid-hitting outfielder who plays every day and is far more valuable than Barry in the field might, just might have more value to a team than a gimpy, non-DH-ing Bonds. But what I'm not willing to do is accept 12 games' worth of semi-crappy at bats as ironclad evidence that Markus Winston Barrold Bonds IV is done as a hitter, and that MWBB IV's "karma" is going to "clog" its way to that many losses for whatever team it and he join.
Hey, I looked up Fred Lewis' batting average on balls in play. It's .414. This guy is going to fall off big time. Going out on a limb here, but I'm going to say that I don't think he's actually a better player than Barry Bonds.
SprungOnSports (Long Island): Do you think Willie Randolph should be fired for the Mets' recent failures, or are his players or the GM more at fault?
Once again, SprungOnSports (Long Island) gets there first. That dude is eager.
Joe Morgan: If you're going to fire Willie, you'd have to fire Jim Leyland, John McLaren, Bud Black, and Ned Yost. The list could go on and on. Why is he the one being picked on when so many other teams are playing below their potential. Maybe Willie's point of playing under more scrutiny is a valid one.
John McLaren doesn't seem that great, but Bill Bavasi is the one who put that team together. Jim Leyland won the pennant two years ago and has probably earned at least an ASB-type chance. Maybe Bud Black should go, though he did win 89 games last year. Ned Yost...maybe. That team should be playing better. I don't know. It seems to me that instead of anyone playing the race card, we should look at the obvious facts: the team has a $138m payroll, acquired Johan Santana in the off-season, was PECOTAed to win 93 games this year, and most importantly, had an all-time record collapse last year down the stretch. Any manager of that team -- in NY -- is, as Mike from Paradise Hotel 2 would say, going to be on the boilerplate if his team gets off to a bad start.
Alan (Philly): Joe, have you ever seen a second baseman or any player at that as versatile as Chase Utley?
Mention Cano. Mention Cano. Mention Cano.
Joe Morgan: There have been a lot of really exceptional second basemen around. Robinson Cano has that ability of being versatile. [...]
Robby Cano, or "RoCa" as Jim Kaat has surely tried out calling him at home before he announces games and then decided, "Nah -- AlSo was better," is an excellent baseball player. But Chase Utley has 16 HR this season, and Cano's season high to this point in his career is 19. Just sayin'. He's also 51-60 in steals for his career, and Cano is an abysmal 11-24. I'm not sure what "versatile" means here, but Cano's not in his league for two out of the classic "5 tools."
I think Chase Utley right now is the best of the group, but there are a lot of really good second basemen around.
The only one whose name I know, however, is Robinson Cano.
George,E.L.,Ma.: Hi Joe.Do you think that the Red Sox will make a move with Lugo(trade or release),or stick it out?
Joe Morgan: He seems like he's been playing better.
He has a .684 OPS (not horrendous for a SS, but that's after a pretty good May) and 12 errors in 44 games (horrendous for a SS). He's being paid eleventy million dollars a year through 2010 and is routinely lifted for a defensive replacement in the late innings. You can't release him, you probably can't trade him unless you Renteria it up and pay like $8m/year to some team that needs a 2Bman.
I don't know if you can go find a shortstop at this juncture of the season.
Unless you have a decent prospect, Jed Lowrie, at AAA. (To be fair, I don't know that Lowrie is necessarily a better option at this point. His defense seems iffy. Though he did have an .862 OPS in 40 games at AAA last year. I think you're stuck with Lugo through the year at least.)
There may be someone available at the all-star break.
Lugo for Kouzmanoff straight up?
Being honest with you, Lugo is not hindering the Red Sox right now. It wasn't his fault the Sox got swept by Oakland.
First of all, thank you for your honesty. Second: what a silly thing to say. It's never one person's fault when a team gets swept. Amount of light shed on the Lugo situation by this answer = .0016 candle power.
john (philly): Will Jay Bruce have an immediate impact for the Reds?
Joe Morgan: I think he will. He brings energy to the team, and besides that, he is a pretty good hitter.
I like that the #1 reason he will help his team is: "energy," and the distant #2 reason is: "ability to hit baseballs."
Ross, Chicago: Is Jim Thome done? Any trade value?
Joe Morgan: I never like to think of players as being done. Only the player will know. They said Frank Thomas was done in Toronto and he is doing well in Oakland. We've poured dirt on guys who have come back to play well before, and only Jim Thome knows whether he's finished or not.
Jim Thome is on pace to hit 32 HR and walk 94 times. Something tells me his BA will come up when his BABIP normalizes a little. See how easy it is to answer questions with facts?
SprungOnSports (Long Island): You just saw the White Sox this past weekend, are they for real?
Hey buddy! Welcome back.
Joe Morgan: I don't think there are any great teams are there.
(a) Not the question. (b) Typo makes it sound like drunk Yoda.
the White Sox had been shut down before we got there for two days.Carlos Quentin saved them when I saw them.They can win the division because they have pitching. You will see pitching dominate the league more this year. More teams will struggle to score runs. Teams that have pitching definitely have the advantage.
Honestly, man -- when was that not the case? Teams with pitching have an advantage? When...did that...not...make...blorp...grrrrnllll
Willy (Cincy):Hi Joe. Any thoughts on why junior is struggling as much as he is this year. Can you lose your bat speed that quick?
(raises hand) I know this! Call on me!
Joe Morgan: Part of it is trying to chase 600 home runs.
No! That's not it! Call on me!
I'm just shocked that he has struggled as much as he has, as he still possesses that sweet swing.
(straining; tipping chair-desk combo unit forward toward teacher) Yes...but...just call on me, and I'll--
The player knows whether his bat speed is gone, and if you're worried about your bat speed,
No, he's not worried about his bat speed, there's something else...call on me! Call on me!
you'll start starting your swing too soon and getting out of position.
Guh.
He's 38, is the answer. He's 38 years old. You should have called on me.
Blake (Aberdeen, MD): After 50 games thus far, what do you think of the Orioles 25-25 ? What could the Orioles get for Sherill at the All-Star break?
Time for the KT Odds Report
Odds that Joe says "there are no perfect teams" -- 1 in 4 Odds that Joe says he hasn't seen the Orioles enough to know about how good they are -- 2 in 5 Odds that Joe knows who George Sherrill is: 1 in 12,500 Odds that Joe actually suggests a trade the Orioles might make using George Sherrill at the ASB and names the specific player or players they get back from a specific team, which would fill a need that the Orioles have that Joe has identified: Sorry, a system error occurred. Abort (A), Retry (R), Fail (F)?
Joe Morgan: You have to give them credit for bouncing back. It's too early to start talking about trading or getting rid of people, as you are still trying to build a foundation. I would say, let's wait before we do anything. The Orioles have to be happy at where they are, as everyone thought they would be a disaster.
Just hit F and we'll try again.
Ryan (Bristol, CT): If you were to choose the final AL East standings, what would they look like?
Joe Morgan: Boston would be the only obvious one at the top. The rest of the teams could be interchangeable. But I could go out on a limb and say Boston-Tampa Bay for the top two.
A prediction! Good for you, man. Well done.
MJ (Edmonton): Joe who was the toughest pitcher you ever faced in your career?
Joe Morgan: I faced so many good pitchers, and at any given day, that pitcher could be the best at that moment. Koufax, Gibson, Seaver, Carlton, Ryan--any of them at their best was the toughest.
I really have no beef with this answer. I am 100% sure that facing those five guys -- obviously -- was miserable for even a hitter as great as Joe. But I'd like to add that I love it when a guy gets asked this, and the answer is someone insane. Like, hey, Tony Gwynn (for example), who's the toughest pitcher you ever faced? "Danny Darwin, bar none. Danny Darwin owned me." I love that. I wish that happened more.
That's all. Back to the chat.
Jeff (Norwich, CT): What is up with the Red Sox problems on the road? They have great pitching and hitting. But no one is stepping up on the road! Any explanations?
Joe Morgan: The team is built so well for Fenway. They all know it so well, and Fenway is a great-hitting park to begin with. It's always been that way for the Red Sox--dynamite in Boston, and not so good on the road.
Last year they were 45-36 on the road, which ain't bad. And in 2002, they were far better on the road than at home. Other than that, you're exactly right.
I expect this team to make adjustments. As I've said before, they are the best team in the game.
The Cubs have a better team ERA and a better team OPS. For the record.
Jeff (Cleveland, OH): Joe, how does a team like the Indians break out of an offensive slump? This is a time when team chemstry plays a role? If you were Eric Wedge, other than continuing to say we need to grind it out, what might you do to help a team like Cleveland start hitting?
Joe Morgan: You have to see them on a daily basis to have an answer--are they overly aggressive, are they not aggressive enough, etc.--but when it starts to happen, players take it on themselves to perform better, which puts a lot of pressure on them. There are a lot of different things a manager can do--manufacture runs, put the hit and run on, or many other things.
Put the hit and run on. Bunt. Be stupider. That's the only way to be better.
I would have to see if somebody is pressing, or if it's just one of those cycles the team is going through. The Yankees had one of the worst batting averages with RISP at the beginning of the year and now they're doing better.
Odds that Joe uses the term "regress to the mean": 1 in [my computer blew up. I am now typing on a new computer. I'm still going to hold out hope that he uses the term "regress to the mean" here. Wouldn't that be something? I mean, it's so crazy, it just...might...]
The best team keeps these low points to a minimum. They do indeed have to grind it out, even if it seems like a cliche.
(Sigh.)
MJ (Edmonton): Joe are you for or against instant replay in baseball?
Buckle up, people.
Joe Morgan: I'm against it for the reasons they're talking about it.
...Who? Are there voices in your head, Joe? You need to call a doctor if there are voices in your head telling you to do things.
It's only because of the bad HR calls recently.
The only reason we want to introduce a solution is because of all the problems we've been having.
There are so many other plays that have an impact on whether the game is won or lost.
Probably, though, home runs are at the top of that list, no? As far as single plays that affect games? I mean, you're talking about plays that by definition score at least one run.
It's the same thing with steroids--people only focused on the home run hitters.
I am a relatively smart person. I majored in Knowledge Acquisition at the University of Science. I cannot for the life of me figure out how wanting to institute replay for HR calls is the same thing as people focusing on HR hitters in the steroids scandal. Yes, in both instances people are "only focusing on" something involving home runs. But: "it's the same thing?" Da-wha?
Everyone influences the game, so why are you looking at one area.
I'm sorry...I thought your objection, as noted in last week's chat, was that soon people would insidiously start expanding replay to other areas. Now you are complaining that it only focuses on one area?
I wouldn't want the K-Zone calling balls and strikes. The reason the umpires called these incorrectly was because they were still running when they made the call.
Yeah, dude, we know why they were called incorrectly. They're not introducing replay so the cameras can follow the umps to get video evidence of why they called HR incorrectly. Willie Randolph didn't go running onto the field to argue that the reason Bob Davidson called Delgado's home run foul was not because he has bad eyesight (as Davidson was asserting in this hypothetical and absurd alternate universe) but rather that he got distracted by a low-flying plane. He ran out to argue that the call was incorrect. Get it?
Your eyes are bouncing when you run,
Someone with artistic skills: please draw a picture of an umpire running towards the outfield fence and show his eyes "bouncing" in a comic way. I will put the winning drawing up on this site in a separate post.
so you can't see with the same precision, and you won't always get a correct view.
You know what doesn't bounce when an umpire runs? An instant replay camera, trained on the path of the flying ball, with the ability to zoom.
There has just been an unusual amount of incorrect calls this season.
If only there were a way to prevent such things in the future.
Once you open that replay box, where do you stop?
At home run calls. Or at some other point, if you want more plays to be reviewable. Like the NFL did.
The game would slow down even more than it does now,
I don't think that's true.
and baseball came out with a new set of rules to speed up the game. I'm concerned with dead time.
Then stop doing analysis on live TV. Oooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh snappp! (high-fives no one; is alone in mom's basement)
Igor(Yonkers,NY): Joe, When will the best player of all time, Barry Bonds, be back in uniform and with whom?
Joe Morgan: If I had a team, Barry could play for me.It's pretty obvious to me that there has been some kind of effort to keep him from playing.
No hint, even, of Barry having made his own bed, steroidically speaking. And another wild accusation of collusion from Joe. Frequent readers of this blog will remember similarly unfounded claims being made against the Red Sox for tampering with J.D. Drew in his option year. No evidence is given, because apparently, when you're Joe Morgan, you need not have any.
He hit 28 home runs last year, and there are a lot of less-productive players playing this year. They could use his legal problems as an excuse, but they would not keep him from playing.
dak/Junior and I disagree on this. I can't imagine having that dude on my team. Sorry, everyone. I know he'd OPS like .900, but he'd clog up the metaphorical organizational basepaths with his slowfootedly awful personality and his knee injury of misanthropic distraction. Call me crazy. Call me a hypocrite. That dude doesn't play for my team.
MJ (Edmonton): Joe, which of today's players is the most fun to interview?
Joe Morgan: I enjoy talking to most of the guys.
Gary Sheffield, Robby Cano, Sheffield, Derek Jeter, Sheff, Gary S., Sheffieldio, Top Sheff, Sheffenpopper Incorporated, The Right Honourable Garibaldy von SheffenPfeffer...all of them.
I really enjoy talking to Jim Thome, Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz. But I don't get a chance to interview them like I used to.
Here's a question... Suppose you're the Atlanta Braves, and your left fielders are Matt Diaz (who is out for 4-6 with torn cartridge in his knee), Gregor Blanco, and Greg Norton. If you sign Barry Bonds for the $0 that it would cost... Would you win more games than if you didn't sign him? My answer would be yes.
