Continuing the bill of indictment chronicling the Pirates’ trading habits over the last century. In this fourth and final installment, four more bad trades and 12 good ones.
Roberto Alomar’s done little to help the White Sox, despite Jerry Manuel’s praise for him. The Morgan Ensberg snafu remains the lone glaring blemish on Jimy Williams’ managerial record with the Astros this season. The A’s may not miss Mark Mulder as much as initially feared. Bo Hart has turned into a pumpkin as the Cardinals’ leadoff hitter. ARod’s performance would only win him a much-deserved MVP if he didn’t play for the Rangers. These and other news and notes in today’s expanded version of Prospectus Triple Play.
The A’s have ripped off nine straight wins, taking the lead in the American League West in the process. It’s not the most impressive streak ever–the nine wins have come in equal parts against the Blue Jays, Orioles and Devil Rays–but it has allowed them to regain their balance after losing Mark Mulder for the season to a hip injury. Beating up weaker teams going into September has become something of a rite of passage for the good teams in the AL West. Last year, the Angels took advantage of a similar stretch to leap over the Mariners and become the team to beat in the Wild Card race. They went 10-2 in a two-week run covering late August and early September in which they played only the D-Rays and Orioles. At about the same time, the A’s were winning 20 consecutive games, helped in part by a schedule that had them playing 21 in a row against the shaky AL Central. The practice of the teams in the game’s best division inflating their records against the AL’s weak sisters in August was actually set in 2001. The Mariners went 9-3 against the same bottom-feeders in the AL East in the same part of the season, setting up their September push to 116 wins. The A’s did even better that year, going 11-1 against the Devil Rays and Orioles in the middle of their 58-17 second half. The point is that when judging the performance of teams in the short term, it is essential to look at the schedule. With the unbalanced schedule in the unbalanced American League, teams can go through extended stretches of playing only good or only bad teams. It’s not enough to see that a team has won 15 of 18, or that they went 11-17 in a month. It’s imperative to look beyond that, because the AL schedule largely sets up in four-week stretches of home-and-homes against blocks of opponents, and in the AL, those blocks are often widely disparate, say, two weeks against the Yankees and Red Sox, followed by two weeks against the Tigers and Indians.
I’ve had a number of discussions over the past week or so that center around QuesTec, and all the issues associated with the company–their financial viability, the role of their technology in the administration of games, the aesthete and on-field consequences of usage, etc. I wrote a piece about the problem of asking umpires to handle ball/strike calls two years ago, and my views haven’t changed since then. Simply put, given the operational needs of the game on the field, (e.g., limitations on the options available for positioning of umpires), it’s just not possible for home plate umpires to do an adequate job of determining whether a pitch is a ball or a strike.
Whether in person, by e-mail, or on the phone, I’ve been listening to a number of arguments, recently, regarding QuesTec as part of a comprehensive system of umpire review. Eventually, most people come to agree that the job of accurately calling balls and strikes is simply too difficult for someone to do well. From there, however, nearly everyone who opposes QuesTec’s use falls back on the “It’s part of the human element of the game” argument.
The thing is, if you take that argument and drill down, you end up with the following call to action: “Hey! Let’s go out to the ballpark and watch umpires @#$% up calls!”
As I get ready to head to Cleveland and meet everyone at the first Cleveland Feed–and due to cancellations, we have ONE slot open (first come, first serve)–and I resist the urge to throw solid objects through my TV screen, I’m also excited about Baseball Prospectus Radio. If you haven’t heard the latest show in the archive, check it out: Scott did a phenomenal job with the Fay Vincent interview. The upcoming show is going to be exciting as well. Tonight, I had the chance to speak with one legend, and tomorrow I’ll speak with another. I hope you’ll like the results.
Powered by Oaken Barrel Gnaw Bone Pale Ale, onto the injuries…
I’m a baseball guy; some people even call me The Baseball Guy. But this chaotic week culminated in my fantasy football auction last night, and I’m pretty excited about a three-day weekend that includes the USC opener on Saturday, so I’m having trouble focusing on my first love.
Here’s a brain dump for you to take to the beach, the mountains, the ballpark, or wherever you’ll be waving goodbye to the summer over the next few days.
The Expos have come back from the dead to land in a tie for the NL Wild Card race. The Giants keep having trouble with right-handed pitching. The Blue Jays’ Roy Halladay’s in the mix for the AL Cy Young Award. These and other news and notes in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
Normally, I try to avoid being baited by a hapless demagogue like Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star, but this waste of trees/bandwidth was too much to abide.
You see, Griffin, in a column delightfully free of facts, is wringing hands over how “sabermetricians” are forcing traditional scouts to the margins of the industry or, in some instances, taking their jobs altogether. And Griffin’s bang-spoon-on-highchair tone suggests statheads are also stealing the wives of scouts and rounding up “good baseball men” everywhere in internment camps.
Unfortunately, this sentiment is somewhat common these days. Toronto GM J.P. Ricciardi cut back on his scouting staff after taking over for Gord Ash, and Oakland GM Billy Beane–at least according to Moneyball author Michael Lewis and his license to dramatize–likes junk food, working out, screaming at Grady Fuson and ignoring his scouting staff. Then comes Theo Epstein in Boston and his subsequent hiring of Bill James. Ever since, Griffin and his ilk have been vociferously defending scouts and G.B.M. (Good Baseball Men) everywhere from a cabal of imaginary enemies. That is to say, the animus that Griffin is so damned sure stathead types have for scouts and other purveyors of traditional methods isn’t really there. And it doesn’t need to be.
Esteban Loaiza’s a fine candidate for the Cy Young Award this year…he’s the right height, you see. He’s 6’4″, as all the cool kids are these days, as well as the last two winners of the AL Cy Young Award. On the other hand, he was born late in the year, and there hasn’t been a late-born winner since Pedro Martinez in 2000. That’s pretty dumb, huh? Who cares how tall Esteban Loaiza is, or what color his eyes are? You’ve already spotted where I’m heading with this, so I’ll give it up: speculation around the Cy Young beyond who should win it is counter-productive. Like the MVP, the Cy Young speculation centers around a bunch of indicators of pitcher ability that every year reinforce the importance of those statistics. If everyone runs an article saying Tim Hudson can’t win because he doesn’t have the win total, it makes it less likely Hudson’s going to get the award. Even if the effect seems small–voters making a choice between equally-qualified second-place candidates on their ballot, for instance–the knowledge that their vote might help a winner over the top can lead them to go with the bandwagon. And in turn, this leads to speculation on which candidates for each award have the needed momentum. They in turn get mentioned early and often on sports pages. It’s unfortunate that baseball coverage on the end-of-season awards has been reduced to the level of political coverage.
So there I was, sitting at Victory Field, ready for the last three-hour baseball talk-fest of the season, ready with facts, opinions, and data at my fingertips. I expected calls and debates and excitement for one of the best “pennant chases” of recent memory. And Larry Bird had to go and screw the whole thing up. You see, I live in a state where basketball is king and one legend pink-slipping another is big, big, big news. Baseball was pushed aside and for about 40 minutes, and I had to talk hoops. It was an ugly scene. Tonight, let’s stick to baseball.
Oh, and how cool is it that Julio Franco finally admitted his age?
Brendan Donnelly has managed to put together one of the most auspicious beginnings to a career in recent memory. Dusty Baker sure loves his veterans. And Brandon Inge is having the month of his life for the Tigers. All this and much more news from Anaheim, Chicago, and Detroit in your Thursday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
As you are all unfortunately aware, Bobby Bonds died this past Saturday after a long battle with cancer. Bobby came before my time, and I’m not fit to eulogize him. But perhaps I can honor his memory in some way by looking at players of the sort that Bobby exemplified: power-speed sluggers.
A lot of analysts are fond of disparaging the value of speed (this Web site has been no exception). Speed is perceived as a scouty thing, a tool that looks impressive, but has little practical value on a baseball diamond. The one definitive advantage that speed would seem to provide–the stolen base–is rightly considered an overrated tool. Even within mainstream circles, speed seems to be losing currency. As ballplayers bulk up, and deeper lineups grow ever more capable of scoring runs with the bat alone, stolen base attempts become less frequent. Entire teams are willing to put together their rosters without so much as giving speed the once-over.
Well, I think speed has gotten a raw deal. Certainly, speed isn’t as important for a position player as the Big Three skills–hitting for contact, hitting for power, and controlling the strike zone–and to list it alongside those three, implying that it is of equal significance, is confusing. But speed is still plenty important for a number of reasons…
In part one of this series on the roster-building woes of the Pirates–most of them self-inflicted as the organization careens from crisis to crisis like an inebriated pachyderm with a stuttering problem pirouetting through a mine field while trying to recite key scenes from Finnegan’s Wake–it was alleged that the Pirates have a long history of making disastrous trades, and that in fact the list of good trades barely existed. Herewith, the evidence.
David Eckstein’s miserable season for the Angels runs into injury. The White Sox add Scott Sullivan to a good-looking bullpen. The Expos grab Todd Zeile in their desperate attempt to fill the third base void. Cliff Floyd’s injury allows the Mets to look at Jeff Duncan. The Giants could get crushed if they start Dustin Hermanson in the playoffs. These and other transaction news and Kahrlisms in this edition of Transaction Analysis.
Boy, that was kinda cool. The Expos, down 8-0 in the bottom of the fifth inning, scored 14 runs in their next four ups to overtake the Phillies 14-10 and move to within two games of the wild-card slot. The win was the second-largest comeback in Expos history, the biggest comeback in the majors this season, and the biggest blown lead in Phillies history. It was just another night in the National League, where all but four teams are within nine games of a playoff spot, and just 2.5 games separate eight teams battling for the Wild Card and the NL Central title.
Phillies 70-61 —
Marlins 70-61 —
Astros* 69-62 —
Diamondbacks 69-63 1.5
Cubs 68-62 1.5
Cardinals 68-63 2
Expos 69-64 2
Dodgers 67-63 2.5
Those eight teams are 98-89 in August, by the way. Remember, it’s not necessarily a great race, just an interesting and fun one. I’ve been saying for weeks now that I’m going to get to an analysis of this zoo, but every time I sit down and try to do so, the situation changes. The Phillies had control. Then the Diamondbacks made a run. The Marlins tried to become America’s darlings. The NL Central’s lead changes hourly on some days. The Expos lost a bunch of heartbreakers on the West Coast and seemed ready to join the Rockies in the bleachers, but have battled back to start a season-defining 17-game stretch 2-0. These next two-and-a-half weeks are the whole ball of wax for the Expos, who play no one but the Phillies and Marlins through Sept. 7, then host the Cubs in their last four Puerto Rico games. It will be the Expos’ last crack at teams ahead of them in the Wild Card chase, and it’s essential that they come out of this stretch no worse than second or third in the group and a couple of games back. Any further behind, and it may be too hard to climb over multiple teams who will be playing many, many head-to-head games in September. If they can somehow climb to the top of the pack, however, their lack of games against other contenders will make them hard to catch in the season’s last two weeks.
Maybe I’ll get a scoop on Milton Bradley this weekend as I make my first trip to the Jake, but in all likelihood, I won’t get to see him play. Bradley continues to have problems with his lower back, and if things don’t improve quickly, the Indians have made noise about shutting him down. Bradley is an interesting case–a player who had something of a breakout, but someone who could be forced out by a crowded outfield next season, and the economics of a suddenly fiscally conscious franchise. I still see Bradley as Albert Belle Lite, in both the positive and negative senses. On the other hand, I will probably get to see Omar Vizquel play. After months recovering from knee problems, Vizquel will be back in the lineup for the last month, filling in where many thought Brandon Phillips would be entrenched now.
The recently re-signed Scott Hatteberg is dealing with chronic lower back pain. Now there’s a sentence you really don’t want to see as an A’s fan. Hatteburg has back spasms from time to time, usually treatable and not serious in the long-term, but this situation hasn’t gone away or even gotten significantly better for any extended period of time. I know many people are at a loss to explain the A’s re-upping the star of Moneyball, but from a medhead standpoint, I can’t help them with that.
Like always, some good stuff from the reader e-mail, as Richard Dansky checks in with his report on Billy Koch and his first outing at Triple-A: “I saw Billy Koch throw an inning last night against the Durham Bulls. He topped out around 94 mph, but really didn’t have a lot of movement on anything he threw and got cuffed around. When Jorge Cantu can get around on a Billy Koch fastball and pull it, it’s not because Cantu’s suddenly been possessed by the spirit of Vern Stephens.” Hey readers–quit being funnier than me. Isn’t being smarter enough?