Two of baseball’s best front offices have once again done their jobs well, and Oakland and Boston will face off in the five-game ALDS. It’s really a classic matchup, with a tremendously vicious offense against a team built primarily on pitching and defense. The thing that would surprise many in the mainstream media is that the team built on pitching and defense is wearing Green and Gold.
The Astros came up short to the Cubs. Barry Zito had another good year, despite what many people in the media think. And the Brewers are looking to keep building their farm system for the future. All this and much more offseason news from Houston, Oakland, and Milwaukee in your Wednesday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
Gardenhire handled an awful situation well and got good performance from pitchers he probably doesn’t want to be leaning too heavily on. Now, he has a one-game lead and the certainty that he can bring back Santana in Game Four. It helped that Bernie Williams’ Corpse was on display. While much of the post-mortem seems to be focusing on Alfonso Soriano’s throw to the Fulton Fish Market on the same play, it was Corpse’s brutal misplay of a Torii Hunter single that changed the game. We go through this every year with the Yankees. Maybe it’s time to issue a public challenge of some sort, because the naked-emperor thing is getting out of hand. To hear Joe Morgan and Jon Miller–a combination I enjoy–go all Claude Rains when the Yankees display the defensive ability of Kuwait is ridiculous. It’s as if they expect service time or postseason appearances to make plays, disregarding the fact that Williams hasn’t been even an adequate center fielder in two years. He can’t throw–as evidenced on the first run of the game, when he just missed gunning down Cristian Guzman at the pitcher’s mound–and his diminished lateral range no longer makes up for a first step measured in geologic time.
Marcus Giles left Game One after brushing Eric Karros and injuring his ankle. He landed awkwardly, stretching the achilles tendon while landing with nearly his full body weight on a dorsiflexed foot. Giles will undergo treatment, and at deadline, the Braves expect him to be a gametime decision. Mark DeRosa would be his replacement if necessary, though Jesse Garcia replaced him when he left the game.
Mike Lowell stayed on the bench for Game One. That fact tells us a lot about his health, as Lowell has had some measure of success against Jason Schmidt (708 OPS). With Lowell’s small sample size lack of success against Kirk Rueter and Sidney Ponson, it’s unlikely he will see the plate unless it’s almost an emergency situation. Perhaps I was wrong, and this is a situation like the Scott Rolen fiasco last year.
The Red Sox have no injury concerns, I’m told. More than one source told me that Trot Nixon is as close to full-go as he could be this late in the season. As well, the same sources told me independently that they thought Pedro Martinez would be allowed to go as deep into the game as he can go with no pitch or inning limits. The Red Sox go into the playoffs as the healthiest team, and as I’ve said roughly four thousand times, that could be just the difference they need.
Even as we enter October, it’s strange to think of the Braves as a club that’s led by their offense. Then again, I’m one of those people that was still writing “2002” on his checks until just a couple of weeks ago.
But there’s little doubt that Atlanta is a deep, superior offensive club. All eight Braves regulars have EqAs better than the league average (Fick and Castilla making it just under the wire). Nitpick away if you like: Lopez, as horribly as PECOTA mangled his projection, was almost certainly playing over his head a little bit. Fick had a an awful second half and has been flipped with Lopez in the batting order. Vinny Castilla is still Vinny Castilla. It doesn’t matter: the Braves simply mash the ball (235 home runs), a skill that holds up perfectly well in high- and low-scoring games, against soft-tossers and power arms. Hell, even their pitchers can hit a little bit.
What could matter more is that the Braves are overwhelmingly right-handed, and will be facing an overwhelmingly right-handed pitching staff. Too much can be made of the platoon advantage; Sheffield, for example, has never had a huge split; and Giles actually hit righties better this year. But as a team, the Braves were about 25 points worth of OPS better against lefties this year, and we’re at the stage where those little things can make a difference.
The Cubs’ offense, to borrow the old line, runs a lot like CTA buses: nothing at all for a long time, and then a bunch all at once. Well, that’s not quite right; the Cubs didn’t exhibit any particularly unusual patterns in their run scoring. But theirs is an offense that has its holes, especially in the bottom four slots in the order.
Barry Bonds, best player of his generation and maybe ever, vs. Jeff Conine, as average a player as you’ll find. Peter Magowan, hands-on owner, vs. Jeffrey Loria, carpetbagger extraordinaire. Pac Bell Park, jewel of the Bay Area, vs. Pro Player Stadium, football stadium of the turnpike. The Giants and Marlins look like a mismatch in all these areas. But delve a little deeper and you’ll find an intriguing first-round matchup that could yield its share of surprises.
The line you can’t stop reading in advance of this series is that the Yankees have dominated the Twins over the past couple of seasons, winning all 13 games between the two teams. Never mind that the Twins were winning back-to-back division titles, never mind that the Yankees didn’t get as deep into last October as the boys from the Twin Cities did: that 13-0 is the statistic on everyone’s mind right now.
Here’s the problem: it’s meaningless information. In fact, it’s actively deceptive, and using that data to form an opinion on the Division Series matchup is wrongheaded.
First of all, forget about 2002. While baseball teams have more year-to-year continuity than teams in other sports–and these two rosters have been particularly stable–the idea that games played nearly 18 months ago will somehow provide insight into ones played this week is silly.
Moreover, the last time the Yankees and Twins faced each other was on April 21, 2003. How long ago was that? Shannon Stewart was a Blue Jay. Johan Santana was imprisoned in middle relief. Matt LeCroy was a benchwarmer. Four of the seven games were started by Joe Mays and Rick Reed, neither of whom will be anywhere near the mound in this series.
The Twins who take the field tomorrow will bear little resemblance to the ones who went 0-7 against the Yankees nearly a season ago. They’re better at the plate and on the mound, and judging them as if they were that hapless bunch isn’t analysis, it’s laziness.
Green and Yellow. That probably works pretty well for most A’s fans, especially when, like the uniforms, they see more green than gold. It’s that red light on the players’ section that doesn’t fit in with the official color scheme, and probably has Billy Beane hurling a chair my way. The starters have some issues, starting with their outfield. Jermaine Dye is still not 100% and may never be the player he was before he shattered his leg. Jose Guillen is playing through pain, and while he’s been moderately effective in the short term, there’s also nothing stopping a small change that would increase his pain or decrease his effectiveness. Chris Singleton has some back issues, Billy McMillon has some leg issues, and Eric Byrnes is still trying to figure out what happened to his bat after the All-Star break.
The pitching staff is yellow on some whispers about Tim Hudson’s back and the missing presence of Mark Mulder. Peter Gammons broke the story about the use of Forteo, a recombinant form of parathyroid hormone manufactured by Eli Lilly, on Mark Mulder. The use of Forteo in men is poorly tested, and in fact, an “off-label” usage of the drug. Mulder remains a possibility, but neither myself nor anyone who I spoke to regarding this would even venture a guess on Mulder’s availability. The A’s haven’t officially given any comment on Hudson’s back, but this is nothing unusual. It could be nothing, but then again, I’d rather warn you of unconfirmed talk and let you make your own decision.
The rest of the team is relatively healthy, and the roster is both deep and flexible. Now, it’s time to watch two of the smartest teams in baseball take each other on in what can only be called the Moneyball Series.
Conceding that I get excited about catching a Dominican League game on Spanish-language television in January, I am really pumped about this postseason. The first-round matchups are tremendous, there are an amazing number of great players in the postseason and I think every one of these teams can win the World Series. I’m predicting the Giants over the Red Sox, but I can honestly say that no outcome, not even the Marlins over the Twins, would surprise me. All of the following comes with the standard caveat: anything can happen in a short series between two good teams.
Yes, the Team Health Reports are back for the postseason, morphed a little bit to fit the format. In each of the four Division Series, we’ll address the key questions and concerns each team has. We’ll break down how injuries or good health will affect who might win and who might lose. While some have said that their bleep doesn’t work in the playoffs, injuries are even more important. A talented team can be decimated by one flukish injury. Just last season, a well-positioned Cardinals team fell short of where their talent projected to take them when Scott Rolen injured his shoulder. Worse, the Cardinals made bad decisions based on Rolen’s injury (keeping him active and playing with a short bench) that also contributed to their downfall.
Just to remind everyone, we’ll use the stoplight metaphor to give warnings about health. Instead of breaking it down by player, this time we’ll do it by the four major positional breakdowns. Green means that there’s no discernible injury risk above average. Yellow means that there are significant concerns that could lead to a foreseeable injury. Red means you’d better know what you’re getting into by sending the guy out on the field. This isn’t to say that your “red” player can’t be effective or even injury-free, but in baseball–like most things in life–you’d better know the risks.
After the 2003 regular season ended, the time before the divisional series was filled by “experts” forecasting the outcome of the four divisional series. This phenomenon will be repeated before the League Championship Series, and again before the World Series. These same pundits will look back after each series to pat themselves on the back, make excuses or explain how they went wrong. They believe, or at least pretend, that postseason results can be accurately predicted. Others believe that the postseason is essentially a crapshoot, that any club can win a succession of short series among eight clubs which all finished within 10-15 games of one another during the regular season. This group includes Billy Beane, quoted in Moneyball as saying: “My s*** doesn’t work in the playoffs. My job is to get us to the playoffs. What happens after that is f****** luck.” Those in the first group have criticized Beane’s Oakland A’s and Bobby Cox’s Atlanta Braves as teams that “can’t win the big ones”; those in the second think “clutch postseason performance” is as real as “clutch hitting,” or the Easter Bunny. Who’s right? Let’s look at the past century of postseason play. Since 1903, there have been exactly 200 postseason championship series of best-of-five or longer. This includes 94 best-of-seven World Series, four best-of-nine World Series (1903, 1919-21), 34 best-of-seven League Championship Series (LCS), 32 best-of-five LCS, 32 best-of-five divisional series, and four best-of-five divisional playoff series following the 1981 strike-induced split season. That’s a sizable data set.
Joe Sheehan offers up his picks for NL and AL MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the Year and sounds the call to vote in the Internet Baseball Awards (coming soon). Delve into the Monday edition of Prospectus Today for more.
I’m not a big fan of evaluating the character of individuals through their work, particularly when it comes to sports. I think we, as a culture, extrapolate far too much about people from the outcome of a bounce of a ball. That said, the Astros can’t feel too good about themselves this morning; when you’re tied with three games to play at home against one of the worst teams in the league, you’d like to think you could at least avoid getting eliminated in the quickest fashion possible. The Astros were blown out Friday night—down 9-1 after an inning and a half—and scored just two runs in yesterday’s defeat. It was a disappointing performance by a team that had led the division for most of the second half, and which was set up to control its own destiny when the weekend began. However, if you want to judge the Astros, what’s clear is that their collapse, and the Cubs’ taking advantage of it, changes the Division Series. With Friday’s rainout leading to Saturday’s doubleheader, and the possibility of playing meaningful games Sunday and even Monday, the Cubs were looking at having to open the Division Series with Shawn Estes and not having their top two starters available until Game 3 at the earliest. Against the best-hitting team in the league, one loaded with right-handed power, that was a recipe for disaster. Having clinched, the Cubs can set Kerry Wood aside for Game One on Tuesday. With no playoff to play Monday, Carlos Zambrano is available to start Game Two, and Mark Prior can start Game Three Friday on four days’ rest.
Hello Gary! In your chat session, you stated that you thought Keith Woolner’s research into replacement level was the most important work in sabermetrics. Why is it so important? I think that your work on PAP is much more important. It can change the way teams handle their pitchers. The pitchers will be healthier, and the teams will be better because of it. Why is replacement level more important than that? –R. J., Baton Rouge, LA
First off, let me clarify something. Pitcher Abuse Points was a system developed by Keith Woolner and Rany Jazayerli, not me. And if you review it, you’ll find a curve fit that you’ll be lucky to find again in your whole life.
The answer’s pretty straightforward: replacement level is essential to know because it’s the only way you can accurately assess marginal value. Let’s say you can sign Joe Slugger, who’s likely to play a pretty good corner outfield spot and post .280/.360/.550 each year, for $6,000,000 annually. Is that a good deal? There is absolutely no way to tell unless you know what your options are–you need to know the marginal value of that player’s production, and for that, you have to know what your replacement options are. Or, put another way, you have to know replacement level.
Q: When are 93- and 90-win seasons not success?
A: When you’re the Seattle Mariners.
By the standards of most teams in the baseball, and by the standards of their own history, the Mariners’ last two years have been excellent ones. They’ve won 183 games, been in two pennant races, drawn three million people in both years, and made a good amount of money. The problem is that in neither season did the team make the playoffs, despite spending four months of each year in first place and having a pretty good lead over their rivals as late as August.
Let’s focus just on this year. Where did things go wrong? On August 6, the Mariners were 69-43, and had a three-game lead on the A’s in the AL West and over the Red Sox for the AL wild-card slot. From that day until today, the Mariners went 21-26, losing 10 games in the standings to the A’s and seven to the Sox, being eliminated from any potential playoff spot last night. The Mariners had actually been treading water since June, when they peaked at 48-22 on June 18 with a win over the Angels.
Livan takes home the WTF?! for the Expos. Jeffrey Hammonds has been a great deal for the Giants. Carlos Delgado can hit a little. Year-end reviews and looks ahead for Toronto, San Francisco, and Montreal in Friday’s Triple Play.