Ben Sheets has a big day against the Braves. Tony LaRussa has some pretty strong opinions on when to pull the plug on starters. Terry Francona is a big believer in using data. Jose Vidro decides to stick around Montreal for the next four seasons. Sandy Alderson doesn’t think MLB needs to change the IBB rule; he thinks the Giants just need better hitters. And Julian Tavarez thinks teams are prejudiced against his disgusting hat. All this and many more quips in your Monday edition of The Week In Quotes.
The closer role developed over a period of years, evolving out of the 1970s
role of ace reliever, a guy who would pitch 120 innings a year in chunks of up
to three at a time. Herman Franks ratcheted down Bruce
Sutter’s workload for the Cubs in the late 1970s, using him solely to
protect leads late in games, and Tony La Russa went even further by
eliminating multiple-inning outings for Dennis Eckersley in
1988. With Eckersley, a new meme took hold: a team’s best reliever had to be
used to get outs 25 through 27 if those outs coincided with a lead of less than four runs. It was the ultimate triumph of statistics–the convoluted save rule–over logic.
At its core, the closer myth holds that those last three outs are the most
important, and therefore the ones you want your best pitcher throwing. If the
closercentric bullpen is to go the way of pullover jerseys and flying-saucer
ballparks, convincing people within the game that there are other, more
important outs will be a good place to start.
Barry Bonds is carrying the Giants, but it seems the load might be wearing on him. Bonds missed Sunday’s game with minor back spasms. Brian Sabean’s “10 instead of one” strategy is unraveling, but losing Bonds for any significant amount of time would be a step beyond devastating. With Bonds in the lineup (using a normal eight-man formation), the team’s MLVr is 0.782. Without Bonds, using the ‘best available’ replacement, Jeffrey Hammonds, the Giants descend to a lineup that is worth less than replacement level, at -0.234.
The Giants may have the best medical staff in baseball, but even they seem to be at a loss with Robb Nen. Nen’s rehab continues to fail as he comes up with pain after any normal throwing session. Labrum tears are notoriously difficult to come back from. According to the best data I have available, only one of 36 players has been able to return to their previous level after labrum surgery. These data are a bit shaky, since there may be some shoulder surgeries that also repaired the labrum, but only listed the primary repair. Nen will continue to try to return, but things look increasingly bleak.
Having employed both Mark Huismann and Rick Huisman, you might suspect that the Royals have a thing for Huismenschen now that they have Justin in the organization. The hope here is that Justin survives what I call the Butthole Surfers Leap of Faith: Skip past the name, and enjoy what you get. Just because the previous pair of guys might make the Royals or their fans a bit squeamish, Justin Huisman can pitch in this man’s league. Believe me, I have the same feeling about the name ‘Codiroli,’ and I’m sure if there’s ever a non-Chris named Codiroli who winds up pitching for the A’s, I’ll have to make the same leap. In the meantime, I get to spout off.
After another day at the races and a night of teaching kids how to avoid Tommy John surgery, it’s nice to set my Nokia down and dig into the research for UTK. Really, it’s a 24-hour process, but when I can sit and type this out, my thoughts, boiling all day, tend to get a bit clearer. During the day, it’s turmoil in the best way, but with the iBook in my lap, everything comes together.
So, powered by Flexall 454 Quick Gel, let’s get on to the injuries…
Rather than look at the batter’s results in various sacrifice
situations, we’ll look at the resultant base/out situation. The reason
for this is because the sacrifice is a play that both gives the defense a
choice and places it under a great deal of stress. Trying to cut down the
lead runner on a sacrifice is a high-risk, high-reward strategy and
results in a variety of scoring decisions (errors, fielder’s choices, etc.)
that don’t map absolutely to the resultant base/out situation. Further,
the results of a sacrifice can be thought of as falling into three
categories: success, failure, and overachievement. Obviously, when
sacrificing, the batter is attempting to concede himself for the
advancement of the runner. In “success,” the batter is out, but the
runner advances. In “failure,” the runner is out and the batter is safe
at first. In “overachievement,” the runner advances and the batter is
safe. (There is also the possibility of “miserable failure”–a double
play–and a few other rare ending states after errors, etc.) Looking at
the data for 2003 in three baserunner situations, the data yield the
following results:
Situation Success Failure Overachievement
Runner on first 61.7 23.5 14.8
Runner on second 60.4 21.2 18.4
Runners on first and second 59.3 25.7 15.0
The Giants lost again yesterday, falling to 15-20 and eight games behind the
Dodgers in the NL West. That gap may be misleading–the blue boys are 10-0 in
one-run games, which has inflated their record–but it’s hard to see how the Giants
can make up even the true five- or six-game difference between the teams.
Over the past few years, I’ve come around the the idea that while Brian Sabean
may not assemble baseball teams in the same manner that, say, I would, his
track record of success warranted respect. The Giants have succeeded with
mid-level payrolls and seemingly mid-level rosters for a number of years, in
part because many of Sabean’s acquisitions outperformed expectations. If we’re
going to be about performance, then the record of the Giants from 1997-2003
demands respect.
The 2004 Giants reflect a complete failing of Sabean to do his job, however.
Knowing that he had a player of Bonds’ caliber on the roster, he neglected to
bring in a hitter with a reasonable chance of complementing him.
“Protection” has been studied, and it has largely been dismissed as
a myth. Hitters’ performances do not depend on having a comparable hitter
behind them in the lineup. However, there is a weak effect on walks and
intentional walks, an effect we’ve seen taken to the extreme as Bonds has had one
of the greatest peaks in baseball history while surrounded by mediocre
veterans playing replacement-level baseball.
CF – Steve Finley, Age: 39 (.265/.333/.561/.291 EqA)
A .330-ish OBP will pass muster at an up-the-middle position, but throw in excellent power and a good glove, and you’re in All-Star territory. Part of his power is certainly BOB-fueled illusion, but Finley is still a highly useful player, even at 39.
Runner-up: Marquis Grissom and Craig Biggio are both having remarkable seasons at the plate, but major regression is likely. And Biggio’s defense in center drops his stock quite a bit. If Grissom hits .357 for the whole season, I’ll deep fry my elbows.
Miguel Tejada’s about 2,000 games from breaking Cal Ripken’s record. The Rockies will need to use their bullpen judiciously to backstop their four-man rotation. The Mets are getting a revival season from Tom Glavine. These and other news and notes out of Baltimore, Colorado and New York in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
If you’ve scored games for any length of time–no matter if you were in the press box or the cheap seats–you’ve probably had this happen to you: 1) Someone mocks you for keeping score; 2) Later, the same person asks you for information off your card.
Scoring leaves a personal record of the game. Done well, it’s like a familiar photograph that recalls the memories of a vacation. If I ever need to know what happened in some game, I can look up the results, or even the box score. But if I want to know how it felt to watch it, that’s when I dig up my score cards. The long innings stretch out on the card, my chess-style notes next to great plays and weird manager decisions to revisit later. The guy who mocks the scorer goes home after the best game he’s ever seen, but a week later remembers only what he saw on SportsCenter the next morning. The scorer has a hand-drawn portrait of the game he actually watched; what he experienced.
Back from Toronto and one of the best book signings we had all year. Thanks to Indigo and everyone who attended, with a special thanks to the guys who run battersbox.ca. The constitutional through Toronto’s sunny streets with Craig Burley was among the highlights of my trip. The best part of this job is the people I get to know.
Of course, the minute I leave town, a big injury happens. So, powered by the gourmet pizza served Tuesday night in Toronto, on to the injuries…
There’s an interesting game show developing in MLB these days. With the Kansas City Royals playing down to their talent level, it’s becoming clear that they’ll have little reason to keep Carlos Beltran through the end of the year, after which they’ll lose him as a free agent. (No one, anywhere, thinks he’ll re-sign with the Royals.) Beltran has become one of the top 10 players in the game, a complete package of offense, defense and speed. He’s going to break the bank as a free agent, and is one of the few players in the trade market with the potential to change a race.
So the game of “Center Fielder!” consists of finding potential
suitors for Beltran and creating trade possibilities, blockbusters, with the
Royals and those teams.
The Red Sox could be in a dogfight with the Yankees all year long. Dunn and Casey are carrying the Reds’ offense. Akinori Otsuka has been a steal for the Padres. These and other news and notes out of Boston, Cincinnati and San Diego in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
Jimy Williams’ deployment of Astro relievers has been
a source of consternation for many of us here at BP.
Not long ago, he declared that he would begin using
his closer and best reliever, Octavio
Dotel, to protect four-run, ninth-inning
leads from time to time. Suffice it to day, that’s
about as efficient as your garden-variety
doobage-addled record store clerk. Calling on your
closer to protect three-run leads in the ninth is a
bad idea, so clearly what’s being referred to as a
“Jimy Save” runs even further afoul of common sense.
As Joe Sheehan observed in a recent group e-mail, this
practice reached its nadir last week when Williams,
unwilling to go to Dotel, who’d worked the three
previous days (twice logging eminently undemanding and
wasteful Jimy Saves), saw inferior relievers fritter
away a ninth-inning lead to the Braves and eventually
lose it in the 10th. Thanks to the Jimy Save, the
Astros’ best reliever was a feckless observer to the
conflagration unfolding on the field.
All of this leads me to wonder just how poorly
Williams has managed the Houston bullpen.
BALTIMORE ORIOLES
This year’s Yankees are an exception to the unrecognized truth that bullpens aren’t bought or made, but found. In any given season there are about 12 actual closers, relievers who are consistent enough to earn their pay, and a bunch of other guys who earn their share of saves by virtue of the way their managers use them. Add in the 20 or so really reliable middle relievers and you have the total population of relievers worth building around. At present, the Orioles don’t have any of those guys–even the indefatigable Buddy Groom generally gets smacked around, not that that’s anything new. The O’s have an aggregation of no-names who happen to be pitching well at the moment. This may or may not continue, but it had better, as the starting rotation looks like something that was dreamed up by Wile E. Coyote. Meanwhile, all bets on offense have panned out with the exception of Luis Matos. That’s about to change as Lee Mazzilli makes Jerry Hairston Jr. the DH, a huge misapplication of baseball’s version of Free Parking. “Sometimes you look for the prototypical DH who’s a power-type guy, but with our lineup and the way I like to run the guys, Jerry fits in fine for me,” said Mazzilli, who doesn’t quite recognize he’s giving up the initiative to teams with DHs who can hit for power–that is, the teams in front of and behind him. In a productivity contest in which the winner gets to eat the loser’s DH, it’s going to be a barbecued Hairston every time. Then again, it could be a showcase. If this fustian writing leads to Custian time/ you’ll forgive the bad writing, and even this rhyme. There’s a better chance of hell freezing over, on both counts. GRADE: B
The wheels are in motion for the Marlins to build a new, retractable-roof stadium in south Florida. The Yankees have had success despite one of the worst up-the-middle combinations in baseball. And the Pirates lost Raul Mondesi for the entire season on Tuesday, though it’s not quite clear why. All this and much more news from Florida, New York, and Pittsburgh in your Wednesday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.