Breaking Balls

Breaking Balls: Strength Up The Middle

You have to be strong offensively up the middle to win championships. I hear this all the time. The theory is that it's harder to find premium players at catcher, second base, shortstop, and center field, and that once you've done so, finding the fill-in guys around the edges is much easier. This seems to make sense at first glance: There are so many guys in the majors (and minors) that could play a decent left field while hitting well that teams have to stack them like cordwood outside their Triple-A parks. And 1B/DH types are so plentiful it's silly. But has that worked lately?

Breaking Balls: Quick and Dirty Numbers, Pitchers

by Derek Zumsteg 4/15

It's the bottom of the seventh, and the visiting team has just made its second pitching change of the inning. The Obey-o-Tron flashes a meager assortment of information on the new guy, none of it from Michael Wolverton or Keith Woolner. How can you figure out if the reliever is carrying a bucket of water or a gas pump? Derek explains.

Breaking Balls: Quick and Dirty Numbers, Hitters

by Derek Zumsteg 4/13

No one wants to print out a batch of Prospectus statistical reports and take them to the game. So like MacGyver, we take some mental stats and make some ugly improvised devices. My goal is to make every step something I can do while drinking a beer--a quick bit of easy mental division and a comparison, for instance. And as a friend of mine was once advised by a fortune cookie: "If you want to find an easier way to do something, ask a lazy man."

Breaking Balls: Expos Saga Rolls On

by Derek Zumsteg 3/23

Here's the bigger issue, which I've saved for the second half of the article: Every other major league team takes it on the chin because of the relocation committee's failures. The Expos make almost nothing revenue-wise. Since baseball bought them, they've run Opening Day payrolls of around $40 million for two straight seasons. Plus $35 million a year to keep the lights on in the offices...work out their share of MLB media deals, divide by pi, and...the Expos probably cost Major League Baseball $40 million more than if they were a team that could manage to break even. Consider revenue sharing, that's easily going to be another $50 million, and now we're talking about serious money. Unless you're an Expos fan, the team you root for paid about $2.75 million a year under the old labor agreement and will pay more than $3 million this year. If this drags on for the entire season, 29 teams will have paid out a little shy of $10 million each for another team to compete against them. If it wasn't so stupid and contrived, and if you didn't know the history of how things got to be this bad, it'd be enough to make you sympathetic to contraction.

Breaking Balls: Scowling with Ozzeroo

by Derek Zumsteg 3/18

Some people don't take spring training seriously enough. Fans head down to Arizona where they stay in cool hotels built around buttes, swap Tootsie Rolls for autographs, watch games in the sun, while poor saps like me toil away, pounding out columns under overcast skies as that day's member of the executive committee whips us with the content-producing cat o' nine tails. Teams play split-squad games. They're required to send a couple of anticipated regulars so what fans come out see some recognizable names, but I have to ask: If you're an average fan, it's a beautiful day, you're drinking your first beer in the sun, would you care if the Tigers sent out Fernando Vina or Cody Ross? Would you get up and demand a refund because Craig Monroe was out there in the outfield instead of Alex Sanchez? And some people take spring training far, far too seriously. I call these people "Ozzie Guillen."

Breaking Balls: Handicapping the Yankees

by Derek Zumsteg 3/11

I've been looking for a gap in the Yankees armor this year, hoping to see where they might stumble and miss the playoffs. And, uh, it's not looking really good for me. It's pretty easy for most teams. Despite the efforts of new GM Bill Bavasi, the Mariners can be taken apart pretty quickly: Edgar Martinez out for the season? Quinton McCracken subs at DH, and the offense dies. Bret Boone blows out his knee why playing weekend roller-hockey? Hello, Willie Bloomquist! An injury to Randy Winn or Ichiro Suzuki? Mmm, McCracken...we just can't get enough. The Yankees have problems, but there's not much that causes a collapse. Last year we could look at the middle infield and see the lack of depth as a spike-filled pit, and when Derek Jeter got a knee dropped on his shoulder, in they fell. This year, a Jeter injury means the best shortstop ever goes back to his natural position. Sure, someone has to play third, but it's not that hard to scrape together a stop-gap solution. Heck, they were about to do it before they decided to blow the doors off and bring in Alex. Aaron Boone the Honest could be back in time to bring adequacy to the position.

Breaking Balls: Optimal Bullpen Usage, Continued

by Derek Zumsteg 3/03

I wrote a piece in the Baseball Prospectus Basics last week ("How to run a bullpen.") I got a lot of feedback that ran like this: Hey, that table you ran shows that it's good to generally use the best reliever in tighter situations, rather than to protect three-run leads in the ninth...Facing a tie game in the eighth, wouldn't it make sense that a manager would save his best pitcher for the ninth, which would be even more important? This is a fine question, and one I think deserves to be answered in some depth.

Breaking Balls: The 28 Other Teams

by Derek Zumsteg 2/25

I was reminded of the game Go when the Red Sox and Yankees got into again over who's the worst evil. John Henry, who made his fortune trading stocks and commodities on the free market, argued in favor of market restrictions to restrain his rival, while Steinbrenner fired back standard Boss comments. I was thinking of a shicho, where one side, trapped, continues to spend resources as they race towards the edge of the board, where they're caught and lose everything they expended, and everyone else watches them chase. Curt Schilling to Alex Rodriguez...Jose Vidro next? Then what, Alfonso Soriano to Boston? Can these two teams run up on $600 million in combined payroll before spring training's out? How would Bud Selig pocket all that revenue-sharing money? Will he have to buy a new coat?

Breaking Balls: The Price of Diplomacy

by Derek Zumsteg 2/17

Alex Rodriguez is a Yankee, and his timing is awful. It wasn't two weeks ago the Rangers had a little song-and-dance routine that named him their captain after the botched attempt to get a trade done that would have sent him to Boston. Alex said the right things: "This is kind of like a double crowning for myself and my family. I feel very, very excited and very honored; one, at being recognized as the MVP of the American League and representing the Texas Rangers team, and almost equally important, if not more important, to be named the captain of the Texas Rangers and Mr. Hicks' team and Buck Showalter's team and John Hart's team." And he started to break out the lines the lines we'd heard in Seattle: "I definitely hope I'll be here for at least seven years and hopefully I'll be knocking on Mr. Hicks' door and asking to do a little renegotiation to play here into my 40s." In accepting a trade to the Yankees, Rodriguez makes a liar out of himself. Back when he was a free agent, he said this: "I would like to sign with another team and help dethrone the Yankees--they've won too much already."

Breaking Balls: Mailbag Fun

by Derek Zumsteg 2/12

Last week's column got some fine feedback. Let's get right to it: "I'm a little confused by the venom directed at the Cubs over their (admittedly farcical) attempt to pretend they're not simply scalping their own tickets. If they were honest about what they were doing, would it really be that bad? Airlines do similar things with their tickets - they charge more for some tickets (last minute purchases) and less for others (Saturday night stayovers) because they know that business travelers will pay more than family vacationers. Why shouldn't baseball clubs also price discriminate?" -- SC The problem everyone has with the Cubs isn't that they're selling their own tickets for more, it's something else entirely: 1) They're breaking the law for profit; 2) They're doing it for the express purpose of avoiding revenue sharing with other teams. The second one seems petty compared to the first. That the Tribune Company would construct a giant scheme to scalp their own tickets illegally--with a law on the books that says "Don't do what you're about to do"--because it would make them money is appalling. On the spectrum of crime, it's not as if they're serving poisoned milk to school-children who don't subscribe to the Tribune, but it's still pretty heinous.

Breaking Balls: Mariners 1 million, Scalpers 1

by Derek Zumsteg 2/03

Not long ago, a Chicago judge tossed out a lawsuit against the Cubs, who had set up their own company to scalp their tickets. They'd done so on the grounds that (essentially) by being two parts of the same company, it wasn't like it was the same company doing it, as prohibited by the law. Explanations readers suggested for that finding ran from stark judicial incompetence all the way to the Tribune Company getting one of those Wrath of Khan creatures into the judge's ear somehow. Meanwhile in the gray, gray, gray state of Washington (contrary to our reputation, it's only rained a couple of times this winter: October-December, then it snowed, December-January, then it snowed again, then January through today), where local government isn't quite as corrupt as Chicago but is racing to catch up, judicial insight flared.

Breaking Balls: Bye, Bye Boonie

by Derek Zumsteg 1/27

Aaron Boone hurt his ACL playing basketball on Monday, which could mean that he's out for the season. His contract isn't guaranteed if he plays basketball, which he did, so the Yankees aren't going to pay him his full salary, which they shouldn't. It may be a different situation if it's a minor tear and he'll be healthy for spring training in less than 30 days, though, so we'll have to wait and see. (I can't express the jolt of joy I just felt typing "spring training in less than 30 days," by the way--only a month of this seemingly interminable purgatory remains, where I'm forced to watch whatever my wife has found on one of the 80 different home improvement channels DirecTV was kind enough to cram into my package.) If it's minor and he'll miss a little time, the Yankees might decide that 90% of Boone is worth 100% of the deal he signed (though that seems difficult to justify). But more likely they're going to set fire to his contract and then mail him the ashes. Boone at $5.75 million for a year was high when he signed it, and considering comparable signings this offseason (Adrian Beltre was the only close signing, and he's way younger, though BP's PECOTA forecasts have Boone hitting better in 2004, while others like Scott Spiezio came much cheaper). The Yankees might just even call do-over and see what Boone will take, now that almost everyone else has signed their third basemen and are probably not going to offer Boone anything close to what he was scheduled to receive.

Breaking Balls: The Skinny

by Derek Zumsteg 1/22

Bulk in baseball is a source of constant amusement. Just think about late-career Cecil Fielder, or the guy who ate Mo Vaughn. How amusing was it to watch those bulky fellows try to move around the basepaths. And yet, for too long this has been a neglected area of research. Until now. Today, Baseball Prospectus proudly presents VORPSkin, a new innovation in performance analysis that attempts to answer the questions “Who is the biggest waste of skin in baseball?” and “What happens when Keith Woolner gets really bored during the offseason?”

Breaking Balls: Rickey Redux

by Derek Zumsteg 1/15

It's possible to be selfish and arrogant and help your team. If a player hits a home run in an arrogant matter, that's still worth at least one run. If Rickey selfishly stole second, that puts his team in a better position to score. Certainly, if he got himself thrown out all the time, he'd have been a detriment, but he was successful more than 75% of the time in his record-setting, 130-steal year. Baseball's one of the most individual team sports. The game's crux is a one-one-one battle, batter against pitcher, and even the most complex plays are serial actions--pitcher to batter to shortstop to first for the out. If everyone on a team was as good as Rickey and acted selfishly, they'd score 2,000 runs a year. In a strike-shortened season, where every game was rained out after the fifth inning. Playing in the Astrodome.

Breaking Balls: The Man of Steal

by Derek Zumsteg 1/08

I'm a little ashamed to admit this now, but I used to hate Rickey Henderson. I grew up following the Giants and the Mariners, and Rickey beat the hell out of the Mariners on his way to making the Giants look stupid. And growing up in a rival city, you hear all the bad and not much of the good: Rickey's arrogant, but not that he's got a sense of humor. Rickey changed baseball, too. Not for the better, unless you enjoy the motions of throwing back to first 20 times to make sure Edgar Martinez doesn't steal second late to ignite a come-from-behind rally in an 8-1 game the M's are losing. We haven't seen much base-stealing lately, for reasons that manage to hurt the understanding of how great both players were. Ruth's marks don't seem so impressive when even the bat boy hits 10 out a year. And power has eclipsed speed. While some (Luis Castillo,Juan Pierre) have gotten into the 60s, it's largely forgotten that there were players like Henderson and Vince Coleman who reeled off a series of years where they swiped over 100 bases a year.

Breaking Balls: Revenue Sharing’s Consequences

by Derek Zumsteg 12/24

Is the current collective bargaining agreement solely responsible for the crash in free agent values? We mentioned this in passing during a recent Roundtable, but it's worth a more in-depth look. As Doug Pappas has noted, revenue sharing reduces the marginal value of players. What that means is that if you're the Red Sox, and you worked out that a win was worth $1 million to you in additional raw revenue from merchandise, next year's radio deal, and so forth, if you share your revenue with the other 29 teams, that amount is reduced.