Dusty Baker keeps talking about pitch counts. So does Eric Wedge. The Cardinals aren’t afraid of new information. Ken Griffey Jr. thinks he’s been misrepresented by the media. And Ozzie Guillen doesn’t understand why everyone’s so concerned with Mark Prior. All this and many more quips in your Monday edition of The Week In Quotes.
Moving Scott Schoeneweis into the starting rotation has been a good move for the White Sox. With all due respect to Jermaine Dye, Marco Scutaro has been the A’s most encouraging find of the season thus far. And Jim Thome has been the only hitter carrying his weight for the Phillies this season. All this and much more news from Chicago, Oakland, and Philadelphia in your Monday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
I was on Boston’s WEEI radio just after Opening Day and was asked, in a very concerned manner, whether the Red Sox could stay with the Yankees in April given their depleted state. I’m thinking we have an answer.
The Angels may have swept Oakland, but they have some problems facing them as they head into next week. Garret Anderson continues to fight upper back problems and current treatments haven’t reduced his symptoms. A decision will be made early this week about the DL. Given the team’s outfield depth, one would think that the Angels could afford to play it safe, but that depth has been already leveraged elsewhere. Vladimir Guerrero is still dealing with pain and swelling in his right knee (his pushoff leg for batting and throwing.) Regular rest and some DH time hasn’t reduced the symptoms, worrying many in the Angels’ front office. With all the options and possibilities, Mike Scioscia has some interesting decisions in front of him. The Braves are very concerned about the hamstring of Chipper Jones. The tear is healing up, but not as quickly as Chipper is telling people. He’ll stay off the DL for now, but Bobby Cox has been told to use him as a “desperation pinch-hitter” just in case the Braves need to retro him onto the DL.
One tiresome and mundane quip columnists and pundits often trot out when this issue is foregrounded every couple of years is that Major League Baseball needs to be more like the NFL. I take this to mean crappier uniforms, roughly 12 minutes of action per game, a less meaningful regular season and inscrutable financial schema. But what the talking heads really mean is more competitive balance. Smarter people than I have cut this argument to ribbons, but I would like to point out that what passes for noble egalitarianism in the NFL is really just structural distinction. By that I mean, the NFL has a players union that’s weaker than sun-toasted Bud Light, and they play 16-game schedule, from which they award 12 playoff spots. MLB, of course, plays a 162-game slate, which much more ruthlessly divides wheat and chaff, and doles out only eight playoff spots. With those differences in mind, let’s see how the MLB would’ve fared over the last five seasons–the reputed dark age of competitive balance–had they been playing by the NFL’s rules.
The Angels overspent for Garret Anderson. The Cubs hope Matt Clement can shake his early-season struggles. The Brewers will use Junior Spivey as trade bait. These and other news and notes out of Anaheim, Chicago and Milwaukee in this edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
Today’s column was supposed to be a game report from yesterday’s Rangers/Angels tilt in Anaheim. Due to a series of events that, had they been filmed, would have been Oscar-worthy, my ticket went unused. I’m disappointed not only because I haven’t been to a game yet this year, but because I would have enjoyed the company. I was invited by Stephen Roney, who is the president of the Allan Roth chapter–the L.A. area chapter–of the Society for American Baseball Research. SABR might be one of the most misunderstood organizations in the country, associated as it is primarily with baseball’s statistics. Sabermetrics is much more than this; performance analysis is just a subset of the field, and any time spent with the historians and biographers and researchers of SABR shows you just how broad a knowledge base is represented in the group.
The Indians dodged a bullet Thursday when an MRI showed C.C. Sabathia had only some bicipital tendonitis. Sabathia is someone I’ve predicted would break down for years now, but he continues to defy me, proving once again that we still have a lot of work to do when it comes to injury prediction. The soreness in his arm doesn’t appear to be serious and that it happened while throwing a changeup is likely a red herring. While the irony of having Jeff D’Amico step in when someone is injured isn’t lost on me, Sabathia should be able to make his next start.
Kerry Wood may not have been praying for rain, but he’ll be the biggest beneficiary of Thursday’s rainout. The postponement will push his start back to Saturday, giving him two additional days of rest following his 130 pitch workload last time out. While recovery is still a poorly understood area of pitching, there are no negatives to this for Wood.
Joe Kerrigan has more work to do with Brett Myers. After missing a start to work on mechanics, Myers continued to struggle Thursday night. While I admittedly did not see the game beyond the highlights (dominated by the Gonzalez/Pratt face-off), Myers was clearly still off mechanically. His elbow was way ahead of his shoulder, much like Pedro Martinez in the middle of last season. If Myers cannot quickly correct the problem, the Phillies will have to consider some of their options in the minors.
Two weeks in, the sample sizes are still small but nearly 1/10th of the season is in the bag and some undeniable trends have emerged. The race now belongs to the quick, to those teams that spot their problems early and attacks them aggressively. As the iconic GM Branch Rickey said, “A man who isn’t alert is usually in the second division, and that’s where he belongs.” Have at it, boys.
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?
Andy Pettitte isn’t getting the attention of Mark Prior (more on him in the DMPU), but there are some inconsistencies in the story that the Astros are telling. Most of the concern has been focused on the UCL, but Pettitte’s described pain in his flexor tendon as well. Continued tenderness proves that the cortisone shot wasn’t enough to eliminate symptoms. The Astros will be watching his Friday spring training game closely.
The rehab on Joe Mauer is going well. Coming off minor knee surgery, Mauer is already hitting off a tee–or more likely his own swing trainer–and has had no setbacks. Expect him to come back toward the four-week mark due to caution and the hot streak that Henry Blanco is on. The Twins realize there’s no need to rush their prized catcher back.
The news is worse for Torii Hunter. His hamstring is not responding as expected, keeping from being able to run normally. Instead of being activated on Thursday, the Twins will wait a day and retest the leg. This delay would also allow Hunter to come back to grass rather than the new turf in the Dome. Several players I’ve spoken with, from various teams, are not fond of that new turf. Luckily, Lew Ford is giving the Twins room to be careful with Hunter.
Barry Bonds didn’t hit a home run last night, and that makes me happy.
Don’t get me wrong; I haven’t climbed aboard the Hate Barry! bandwagon. I think Bonds is a remarkable baseball player, someone who I enjoy watching whenever I can. He’s reached that level where no matter what I happen to be doing, I stop to watch his at-bats.
No, it’s just that the record is held in part by a player whose at-bats also used to dictate my movements: Don Mattingly. Mattingly made history by roping homers in eight straight games in July of 1987. If you’ve read this column for a while, you know that Mattingly is my all-time favorite player. I’m glad to see him hold his distinction, his place in history, for a bit longer. Records are made to be broken; I just don’t need to see this particular piece of my adolescence shattered.
It’s been a couple of weeks since the 30th anniversary of Hank Aaron’s historic 715th home run and the accompanying tributes, but Barry Bonds’ exploits tend to keep the top of the all-time chart in the news. With homers in seven straight games and counting at this writing, Bonds has blown past Willie Mays at number three like the Say Hey Kid was standing still, which–
Each year just before Opening Day, Team Marketing Report (TMR) releases the “Fan Cost Index” (FCI). According to TMR, the FCI “tracks the cost of attendance for a family of four.” This year, TMR says this hypothetical family’s day at the ballpark would cost an average of $155.52. The price would range from $108.83 in Montreal to $263.09 in Boston.
If this sounds high, you’re right. TMR defines the FCI to include two average-priced adult tickets and two average-priced children’s tickets–but also two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four regular hot dogs, two programs, two of the least expensive adult-sized adjustable caps, and parking for one car. In short, while it might reflect how much a family that decides on the spur of the moment to go to their one game of the season might spend, it far overstates the cost for most fans, who can easily eat before the game, sit in the cheap seats and skip the souvenir caps.
Washington, D.C. officials have unveiled a plan to provide the Expos with a $340-million, baseball-only stadium entirely at the expense of taxpayers. That D.C. so gleefully welcomed MLB to the public trough and that the Expos will eventually land within the Beltway is about as surprising as when Detective O’McBrubakerohannally, who just mentioned to his partner and to regular viewers of “Badge of Dignity” that he’s two weeks from his pension, takes a fatal bullet on that routine summons-service detail.
I got a lot of e-mail on Wednesday about Rob Neyer’s excellent article on the history of the slider. Rob did a fine job describing the history and even the mechanics, but at the end, he discusses the “general thinking” that the slider is significantly harder on the arm than other pitches. According to Dr. Glenn Fleisig and the research team at ASMI, this isn’t so. Their research on the kinetics of various pitches shows that the slider does not significantly alter the kinetic forces on the arm as compared to a fastball. It is “harder” on the arm than a curveball, but the real danger comes when, as Rob says, the slider (or the close variants cut fastball and slurve) is thrown with a wrist snap. Science shows that it’s not the pitches that are hurting our pitchers, it’s how they throw them.