Musical Mets Infielders...

A lot has happened in the last day or so. Two Mets infielders are now former Mets infielders, as Rey Ordonez was traded to Tampa Bay, and Edgardo Alfonzo has signed a four-year, $26 million contract with the SF Giants to play second or third base or maybe both, meaning that another former Mets infielder, Jeff Kent, probably won't be playing either position for the Giants again any time soon.

Among the many, sadly hilarious quotes coming from the front office of the woefully inept Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Devil Rays general manager Chuck LaMar said, "He is one of the finest defensive shortstops I've ever seen play." Apparently LaMar doesn't get out much, because despite popular belief, it turns out that Saint Rey isn't a particularly fine defensive shortstop at all, as is shown by his defensive stats available from Baseball Prospectus. Flashy? Absolutely. Good? No, not really. Or at least not great. According to Prospectus, Ordonez, in his best season (1997) saved about eleven runs more than an average major league shortstop would have saved, after adjustijng for league, park, pitching staff, the air-speed velocity of an un-laden swallow, and shoe size. Eleven. Not bad, but not great. For comparison's sake, widely acknowledged defensive shortstop extraordinaire Ozzie Smith only had two seasons in his career in which he saved fewer than eleven runs above the average (out of sixteen years in which he played at least 100 games). Not that he has to be Ozzie Smith, but heck, if you're gonna "hit" (and I use the term loosely) like that, you've gotta be contributing somnething pretty spectacular on the defensive side of things to justify making $6 million per year. The AP story also said,

Ordonez batted just .254 with one homer and 42 RBI last season and was one of the fans' biggest targets as the Mets finished in last place.

Listen, the Mets stank on ice last year, but blaming Rey Ordonez for not hitting enough is like suing McDonald's for making your kids fat. You knew better, you were just too lazy to do anything about it.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, Alfonzo's signing with the Giants means that Kent's days of protecting Barry Bonds are likely over, unless he's hired as Barry's personal bodyguard. Kent is rumoured to be going to several places, including Los Angeles and the Cubs. What's surprising is how little apparent interest ther is in a secondbaseman who has averaged .290/25/110 RBI with 90+ Runs and solid defense, plate discipline, over 550 plate appearances and just about everything else you'd want since 1997. Granted, he'll be 35 on opening day next year, but you'd think that there would be more teams vying for his services.

Alfonzo has had some trouble staying healthy the last few years, but when he's right, he's one of the better hititng thirdbasemen in the majors, and he'll be an even better hitting 2B, relatively speakng. He's just gotta stay helathy, which is like saying that we've just gotta find those weapons of mass destruction, and everything will be OK.

And yet another former Mets infielder, Todd "Good Housekeeping" Zeile, may be close to signing a on-year, $1.5 million deal with the Yankees. This is one of those moves that rings of the meddlesome King George. Zeile is old (37), not a good defensive player, has never scored 90 runs or hit .300 in a season, has only once hit more than 25 homers or driven in 100 runs, and will cost them $1.5 million. He hasn't even had what you'd call a decent year with the bat since 1999, when he hit .293/.354/.488 with Texas. Last year, whenever he wasn't in Coors Field, he hit a pathetic .233/.291/.353. Yuk. Those are bad numbers for Rey Ordonez, much less a designated hitter or firstbaseman. Besides, the Yankees already have the best hitting 1B in the AL, now that Jim Thome's a Phillie, in Jason Giambi, and one of the more patient, promising young hitters in baseball backing him up, in Nick Johnson. And Steinbrenner has the nerve to cancel people's dental plans while complaining about the new CBA.

A couple of non-Met firstbasemen changed teams on Sunday as well. Actually, they're DH's forced into 1B/LF roles on National League teams, now given the chance to fullfill their callings as designated hitters. Erubiel Durazo, the erstwhile Arizona Diamondback was traded to the Oakland Athletics despite (get this) hitting 36 homers, driving in 119, and scoring 115 runs in 593 at-bats last year! ...and the year before...and the year before that. Combined. Durazo can hit, no question about that, but can he stay in the lineup? Perhaps being on a team where he can play DH will allow him to stay healthier. This is just the kind of guy that Oakland GM Billy Beane loves: In his prime (28), cheap, gets on base, hits for power, worries about catching the ball after he watches his Soaps. It just surprises me that the Diamondbaks waited so long to trade him, especially after signing Mark Grace to play 1B before the 2001 season. It looks like Arizona got the worst of this deal, giving up a productive, cheap hitter, in his prime, and getting only some money (about $1 million, total) and a 30-year old pitcher with a 4.29 career ERA, a losing record, and enough seasons to justify a big pay raise soon. Toronto gives up Felipe Lopez, a SS prospect about whom some people are pretty excited, to Cincinatti, but they get two pretty good prospects from Oakland in return: OF John Ford Griffin and RHP Jason Arnold, both of whom came to Oakland in the Ted Lilly trade from the Yankees. Lopez is expected to eventually succeed Barry Larkin as the Reds' everyday shortstop, but then, so was Pokey Reese. And Gookie Dawkins. And Adam Everett. So I'll believe it when I see it.

The other masher to change teams on Sunday was Jeremy Giambi, who was traded to the BoSawx for minor-league RHP Josh Hancock. I won't sing Giambi's praises anymore, as I have already done so here (when I complained about the Jim Thome signing). I'm just glad he'll have an opportunity to play everyday with Boston. But if he hits like I think he will, Josh Hancock is going to be the second coming of Jim Bunning to make the Phillies look like anything short of complete fools for spending $87 million on, essentially, the same production they could have had for one-tenth of that.

New Additions...

I have added a whole boatload of new links. I try, whenever possible, to use a picture to link to these, though there are many great baseball blogs and other such sites that don't have pictures or graphics of their own. As one of these myself, the only way I can have graphics on my own site is either to cross-reference a picture from another site. In some cases, the pictures available to not fit into the spaces I am alloting for them, and so something is lost in the translation, so to speak. My hope is that soon a friend of mine with some ftp space can place a few of these pictures for me to use, without having to pay any actual money to the people at Blogger.

Such is the case with:



Will Carroll's Under the Knife is a newsletter to which you can subscribe that tells you about the occurrences and statuses of injuries to major league baseball players, but there are also archives available on the site itself. The staff of UTK write commentary and analysis of current events in baseball (though they haven't posted much lately) in the Daily Post Archive. I suspect that this site will be invaluable to those of us who play in fantasy/roto leagues during the season.



The Prospect Report is also a newsletter to which you can subscribe, which provides raw data on some of the better known prospects in the minor leagues, to let you know when/if someone had a significant game/series. This site also has an archive of its past newsletters available on the site, with Top Ten Prospect Reports for each organization. (Well, they're working their way through the clubs.) Want to know what the future looks like for the Pirates? It's there for you (and pretty bright, too, it turns out.) Want to know how the cupboard looks for the Yankees? (hint: bare) They'll tell you that too. Want to know how 32 year old William VanLandingham or your 29-year old cousin Bob is doing on the Angels' AA team? Look somewhere else.



Retrosheet is a website that has a lot of wonderful historic baseball data. They are in the midst of compiling boxscores for, essentially, every MLB game of the last century, which is a lot, so they've only gotten to about 1967, so far. They've also got data available by player names, play-by-play data you can download, hit charts, all sorts of stuff. And it's all free! Amazing.



Jamey Newburg runs an incredibly comprehensive website solely dedicated to the Texas Rangers, specifically their minor leagues. I first heard about this guy in last year's Baseball Prospectus, as they evidently used his info to save themselves a lot of legwork in research, and I can see why. He's got analysis, commentary, stats, even pictures of these kids. If you're really into the Texas Rangers, you can even buy a hardcopy of the book, but even if you're not that into the Rangers, you have to take a look at his site to see how really good, comprehensive minor league analysis is done.



Dr. Manhattan has a lot more than baseball on his website, Blissful Knowledge, but if that was all he had, it'd be worth the trip. If you're like me, and sometimes some thing other than baseball matters (sorry, John) then you might check him out.

More on the updates tomorrow...

A Few Obligations...

I promised Aaron Gleeman almost a week ago that I would plug his breakdown of this year's Hall of Fame hopefuls, so there it is. I had hoped to do something like this myself, but frankly I don't have the time that Aaron seems to have to do this stuff, and I don't disagree with him on enough of his assertions to make it worth your time or mine (or his) debating them. However, if you are into debate, and/or have been living under a rock, check out the Don Mattingly arguments that John Perricone has posted on OBM. Start here and work your way up. Just like your tax return. I happen to come down squarely on the side of those who think that you cannot allow someone into the Hall of Fame based on would-coulda-shoulda-ifs. Don Mattingly was my hero, growing up in NJ, reading the Bergen Record, listening to Al Trautwig, Phil Rizzuto, Bobby Murcer and Bill White tell me how great Mattingly was. And he was, but not for long enough. It may not be his fault that he got hurt, but he got hurt. It's not the Hall of Talent, or the Hall of Potential, or the Hall of Four-Year Statistical Greatness. It's the Hall of Fame, a shrine to the best and brightest. Let's keep it that way.

And while you're there, check out all the stuff John has going on about the Pete Rose issue. I don't have time to read it all (the cross-links, not John's stuff) but it's pretty comprehensive in terms of providing the different viewpoints, even if John's view is the most dominantly represented. John and I have essentially agreed to disagree on this one, and it looks like I'll have to plead the same on Mattingly.

Also, newcomer Alex Belth of Bronx Banter has reproduced an email I sent him, along with some of his comments, about the fact that the Yankees have allowed Stanton and Mendoza to walk. In this case, it isn't just baseball, but also religion (my other favorite topic) and Alex, despite an initail bias, professes to have been open-minded enough to consider a different perspective, and to have had his mind changed a bit. As a writer, and as a person, that is the most I could ever ask.

Rose Trampled Under-Foot

John Dowd was interviewed yesterday by the New York Post, according to this article on ESPN.com. Dowd said not only that Rose bet on the Reds (as he has said many times) but also that there was a trail of evidence that would have led to the conclusion that Rose actually bet against his own team, and that if not for certain "time constraints," evidence of such would have been included in the Dowd Report. Dowd also said that he heard that part of the reinsttement process for Rose, should it actually take place, would entail his being hired as the manager of the Reds, replacing incumbent Bob Boone, which of course has been denied by Reds ownership. Whatever you think of Bob Boone as a manager (and believe me, there aren't many who think much good about him) you'd have to feel sorry for a guy who lost his job to a pariah like Rose. The story also says,

"Among his litany of problems with Rose, Dowd told the Post, is that he has seen no evidence over the past 13 years that Rose "reconfigured his life" as Giamatti asked the baseball great to do at the time of his banishment. Thus, Dowd sees no reason to make Rose the first player ever allowed back from the permanently ineligible list."

Now I know that a lot of my blogging and/or ranting colleagues don't exactly think the world of Mr. Dowd, or of his report, so I will not defend the report, as it is not necessary in this case. My opinion happens to be that Rose actually is guilty of betting on baseball games, probably ones in which he was involved. To me, whether or not he bet against his team is immaterial. There is no distinction made for this in Rule 21, and I don't see it as any worse than betting on your team. However, most of America would likely not agree with me on this issue, and would think that betting against your own team is a more egregious sin than betting on them, and therefore what Dowd says is almost certainly intended to influence public pinion against Pete Rose, and more specifically, against his potential reinstatement.

Last time I checked, we still had a Right to Free Speech in this country, so Dowd can pretty much say (and the Post can print) whatever he wants. I happen to be generally on Dowd's side in this matter, as I mentioned yesterday, but I think that his actions are totally inappropriate. Besides an unmasked effort to supplant Jayson Stark as the King of Unsubstantiated Rumor, this just isn't fair to anybody: Rose, MLB, or the Fans. In a world where many of us only have time to read the headlines, seeing "Dowd: Rose Bet Against Reds" in a newspaper or on a semi-respectable website like ESPN, it is completely unfair and irresponsible to go around saying and writing things like this.

It's one thing for him to go on record saying that his investigation revealed [blah, blah, blah] and that therefore he thinks that Peter Edward Rose, Sr. is guilty of [yadda, yadda]. It is an entirely different animal for Dowd to say "I don't have any proof of this, but if I was given the chance, I could have proven that Pete Rose was guilty of [yadda-yadda]". According to some, the 225-page report and seven volumes of exhibits that currently constitute the Dowd Report are far from conclusive on the issue, but now we have to consider Dowd's opinion, based on unsubmitted and/or non-existent evidence that he thinks might have been out there?!?! If he was just given more time? This is jibberish, at its most basic level. Manipulative, insulting jibberish. Dowd has every right to express an opinion, even to say that Rose is guilty of something that he thinks his research proves. Despite what some of my colleagues have said, Dowd is not prevented by the agreement that Pete Rose signed in August of 1989 from making any kind of statements. But he shouldn't be allowed to just slander Pete Rose with impunity, no matter what kind of crooked louse the guy may otherwise be.

Besides this, Dowd's comments don't even stand up under scrutiny. How much more time did he need? The investigation took about two years to complete, and I don't remember anyone previously saying that there was some kind of deadline on it. Why haven't we previously heard about this some time in the last thirteen years? Is there new evidence? Where is it? Why isn't Bud the Evil Fairy Godfather being presented with it instead of the NY Post? And how the hell does John Dowd know whether or not Rose has "reconfigured his life"? Has he been following him around to all of the gambling parlors and whorehouses Rose may have visited in the last decade? Doesn't ha have anything better to do?

And when is somebody going to inform Dowd that there have been several people removed from the permanently inelligible list? I said as much myself, with only a little research, at the end of this post. I really wish that the interviewers of people like John Dowd (or Pete Rose, or Bud Selig, or anyone else) would challenge these assertions and hold people accountable for what they say on public record. But, as is usually the case, newspapers just report what they hear, and worry about details like "accuracy", "responsibility" and "truth" later.

Pete Rose tips his cap to John Dowd for 

making Rose, an otherwise despicable man, into a 

sympathetic figure.  Pudgy, but sympathetic.

Who Doesn't Like Roses?

In the grand tradition of mainstream media, ESPN is about a month late and a tax evasion fine short on the Pete Rose issue. Tuesday must have been a slow news day, as an application for reinstatement made by Rose more than five years ago finally became a public issue. ESPN actually does a good job of covering the issue, but most of it amounts to "Wait and see."

There's plenty to read about this from sources other than the Boy of Summer, but my thoughts on Rose's reinstatement should be fairly self-evident from my writings here, where John Perricone at OBM has morphed a few different writings into one, reasonably coherent document. There is other stuff at OBM that deals with the issue as well. Especially, you must read Elephants in Oakland's David Levens' piece, if you haven't already. I have to agree with Rob Neyer, that if Rose does finally admit that he bet on his own games, it should only worsen his standing in MLB, not help it, as he will have publicly admitted to doing the one thing that merits lifetime exclusion. Frankly, I can't see them allowing him in if it means that greater players than Rose will everafter boycott the induction ceremonies. But then Bud Selig never was much for common sense.

Just like Kathy Lee Gifford (either you hate her or you can't stand her), people are galvanized by Pete Rose. There is very little middle ground. Fans love him. But then fans thought that Ripken's streak was a more memorable moment than Fisk's homer. Many sportswriters love him. But then these same sportswriters are the ones who think that A-Rod was not the MVP of the 2002 American League. Joe Morgan loves him. Of course, Joe Morgan is an idiot. Who doesn't love him? Well, only his ex-wife (wives?), probably most of the women with whom he cheated on his wife, his former bosses (Giamatti and Vincent), and some pretty smart and informed people like George Will, Jim Caple, David Pinto and John Dowd.

Jim Baker, via ESPN's Insider, looked for a dissenting opinion to all the Rose supporters, and he found a couple in the Newark Star Ledger and the Denver Post. Baker asks,

"Is there nobody in the Fifth Estate who has put forth the notion that in the context of baseball, betting on one's own games is a far worse offense than doing drugs, being a jerk or failing to hustle? Is there nobody who understands that the integrity of the play on the field is the single most important quality that baseball has to offer its fans and that actions that call into question the outcome of games override all individual accomplishments that came prior to those actions?"

The problem, it seems to me, is that we're all too young. I mean, I know, some of you are more than 28 like me, but unless Strom Thurmond reads my blog, nobody who's seeing this stuff has any first-hand recollection of what it was like when the integrity of the game of baseball was compromised by gambling. Nobody reading this was alive or lucid when the 1919 World Series was thrown, or earlier in baseball's history, when lots of issues with gambling became such a problem that the rules posted in every clubhouse about gambling had to be instituted. Those signs don't say "Thou shalt not fail to hustle." They require that anyone who gambles on games is suspended for a year, and that anyone who gambles on his own games be suspended permanently. Unfortunately, none of us can empathize with the gravity of such a situation, because the very rules that Pete Rose chose to ignore have otherwise done an excellent job of preventing this from becoming a problem, as it was in the toddler days of baseball. Our lack of appropriate historical perspective, or simply of a crisis in baseball due to gambling in our collectively recent memory, has skewed our view of how serious such an infraction truly is.

As my opinion is a matter of record, and there really are not yet any new developments on the story, only wild speculations, I'm not going to waste any more bandwidth on it. I'll let you know when there's real news.

Same Old Story

To the great relief of, well, me, the Phillies have not signed Jamie Moyer to any kind of ridiculous contract, as the Seattle Mariners have instead retained their aging workhorse, with a three-year, $15.5 million deal. With incentives, Moyer could garner up to $21.5 mil over the course of the contract. This, I suppose, is not a terrible deal by today's standards (heck, Darren Dreifort made $9 mil last year, and he pitched about as often as the retired Ron Popeil). Jayson Stark reports rumblings that Moyer's contract with Seattle takes the form of a $1.5 million base salary with incentives based on - get this - being a good pitcher! If he pitches a certain number of innings and makes a certain number of starts, he makes - are you ready? - more money! Based on performance! What a concept. You see, in the great tradition of Charles Manson and Gomez Addams, Moyer chose to represent himself in the negotiations. In doing so he accomplished two major things:

1) He saved some cash. No comission to some grubby-handed agent.

B) He was able to recognize, in ways that the agents for other players often are not (see: Alfonzo, Edgardo), his own limitations, and did not want to hamstring the organization with his contract if he should begin to suck three years from now, which is somewhat likely, given that he's already 40 and that he throws slowly enough that he can sometimes get three strikes on a batter out with only one pitch.

The Mariners also re-signed John Olerud (34 as of 1 June 2003) to a reasonable, two-year contract, kept Edgar Martinez (40), Dan Wilson (33), and Shigetoshi Hasegawa (34), offered arbitration to Norm Charlton (40), and signed Pat Borders (40) to a minor league contract. The team's other mainstays include: Mark McLemore (38), Jeff Nelson (36, no relation), Bret Boone (34), Arthur Rhodes (33), and Jeff Cirillo, who is 33-going-on-corpse. This is a team that miraculously won 93 games in the toughest division in MLB last year, but they're not doing anything to improve, so far theis off-season. GM Pat Gillick earned the sobriquet "Stand Pat" while he was in Baltimore and Toronto, for his propensity to resign guys on the roster and not make many late-season trades. The nickname seems pretty appropriate so far, but when thew Angels and A's got better, the Mariners are going to start falling off precipitously if they don't start bringing up some more young talent. (Yes, I know about Piniero and Franklin, and if Freddy Garcia's 26, I'm Elizabeth Taylor.

Stark Raving Mad

Well, he's made his decision. The most coveted free agent pitcher in the 2002 off-season, Tom Glavine, has chosen the Mets as the team with which he will most likely finish his career. Yuk. Like the best calligrapher in your print shop going to work for the new Kinko's down the street. And taking all your business with him. Thankfully for you, the calligrapher wanted $10 million to stay, and you knew that though he's still good, it's better to make some other poor fool pay him that for the next three or four years.

I initially suspected that Glavine may have a somewhat rougher time in the Mets rotation than he did as a Brave, thinking that he is a groundball pitcher, and that the Mets infield defense is only slightly less porous than, say, foam. However, it turns out that his Groundball/flyball ratio is usually right around 1.1, which means that he doesn't particularly rely on the infield defense any more than Mike Mussina or Russ Ortiz. But the Mets will need to do something about their offense, or Glavine's typical 16-10 season could be more like 10-16, without doing anything differently at all. Maybe he can help teach the other Mets pitchers how to hit.

For the Braves and Phils, this is a blessing in disguise, as neither team will be paying $10 million to a 39-year old pitcher who may be only decent by 2005. Jayson Stark reports that the Braves really wanted to keep Glavine, but that they didn't make much of an effort to keep him.

They had a lock Hall of Famer in their midst. A guy who wanted to stay. A guy who had been the face of the franchise through all the glory years. The only remaining Brave who had been on the active roster of every one of those 11 playoff teams. And they let him become a Met -- without even much of a fight.

It seems to me that the Braves put up plenty of fight. They made entirely reasonable offers to Glavine, with amounts of money vclose to what he got, and vesting options for third and/or fourth years of the contract based upon Innings pitched. Thems sounds like fightin' woids to me.

They put up plenty of fight. They just didn't allow themselves to get blackmailed into giving a player more than they think he's worth, because GM John Schuerholz knows that if you allow sentiment to get in the way of good business sense, you'll hamstring the whole operation. That's why Schuerholz has managed to bring eleven division championships, five National League Championships and a World Series championship to the Braves during his tenure, despite spiraling player salaries, a changeling roster, and the morphologically unstable economic climate in which he has found himself during that span. He knows better than to spend Big Bucks on a 36-year old free agent. Hasn't happened yet. Not gonna start now. Even if it is the only player who's been there for all eleven of those division titles. It's hard to argue much with a guy with his track record.

On the other hand, is it really such a blessing for the Phils? Stark also says that the Phils are now going after Jamie Moyer to fill the spot in the rotation that they envisioned Glavine filling. The only thing worse than spending $10 million on Glavine may be spending $9 mil on Moyer. OK, maybe not the only thing.

They plan to dive now into the arms of Glavine's 40-year-old clone, Jamie Moyer, if he'll have them. And while Moyer won't give the Phillies the same buzz Glavine would have, he's an acceptable Plan B. They'll get over it.

Moyer grew up in Sellersville, PA, just outside Philadelphia, and along my commute to work, as it turns out. I used to work with someone who went to high school with and played against him, back in the day. Anyway, the guy with whom I used to work is about 40, which means that so is Jamie, which means that he doesn't necessarily have much mileage left in his arm. A pitcher who is four years older than Glavine, has had a lot less success and relies on his defense as much as Moyer does shouldn't generate much buzz at all. What should generate some buzz (if not a few angry mobs) is that the Phillies are actually taking seriously his purported request for about $9 million a year! Moyer is certainly not worth 90% of Tom Glavine, thankyouverymuch. This is NOT an acceptable Plan B. Not at that price. Not if I'm a Phillies' Phan.

Winona Ryder reacts in shocked disbelief upon learning that the 

Phillies are considering paying $9,000,000/year to Jamie Moyer.

Ironically, Moyer has been much better as an older pitcher than he was as a young one. He came up with the Cubs, in 1986, and for nine seasons, on four different teams, over the course of ten years (didn't pitch in the majors in '92), Moyer was...How do you say? Ah yes: Bad. Not Michael Jackson Bad, but not good: 59-76 4.50 ERA. But then he went to Boston, for about half a season, and went to Seattle, and he's been pretty darn good ever since: 105-49 3.84. Not Sandy Koufax, but considerably better. I'd like to say that I can explain this, but I can't. Which leaves me only to wonder when his succes is gonna run out. Clearly, we can't really look for his "fastball" to lose a few mph as an indication of his diminishing skills, as his fastball now wouldn't even be stopped and ticketed on the Schuykill Expressway, but I suspect that we'll see Moyer walking afew more batters this year, giving up a few more hits, allowing a few more runs, and basically regressing toward the mean. The mean is not awful, it's just average, so as long as they're not planning on shelling out, say $9 million a year for two or three seasons to the guy, it might not be a bad idea to sign him. Any more that $5 or $6 mil is not wise. All things considered, I'd rather they let someone like Brandon Duckworth or Doug Nickle pitch often enough to become as good as they can be, and save the money for re-signing Pat Burrell, when his time comes.

Updates...

I'm going to do a little house cleaning today. As Todd Hundley has been, effectively, dumped on the Dodgers, I'm removing DumpToddHundley.com from my links. It was never really my thing anyway. Besides the banner for DumpEricKarrosandMarkGrudzielanekand
ProbablyMoises AlouWhileYou'reAtIt.com would be way too long.

I had a suggestion a few weeks ago for a link to TheDiamondAngle.com, and I'm going to put in a button for them on the right, in place of the aforementioned website being, ironically, dumped. It's an online baseball magazine to which you may subscribe, but also has a lot of good writing available to anyone in their archives. Apparent reader James Townsend, who doesn't seem to be affiliated with the magazine, recommended them to me. Thanks again, James.

Lewis R. McLain, who happened upon the Boy of Summer while looking up Brian Kingman on Google, scolded me for not immediatley knowing the name of the last pitcher to lose 20 games in the majors in one year, and perhaps rightly so. In the process of learning about this, he recommended that I check out 20gamelosers.com, and so I pass the recommendation on to you, the live studio audience. Did you know that there are 19 Hall of Fame pitchers who have lost 20 or more games in a season at least once? Neither did I.

And last, but not finally, the illustrious John J. Perricone, whose priorities are clearly in order, has gotten over 20,000 visitors to the aptly names Only Baseball Matters, complete with new Civil War color scheme. John's done a lot of cool stuff with his little slice of the Internet, including links to books you can buy from Amazon.com, from which he'll get a little dough, which will help when he loses his job because of spending so much time making his website awesome. Keep up the great work, John.

Would You Like To Play A Game?

OK kids, let's play a game. It's called "General Manager." Your job, as GM, is to pick a player for your team from the two presented to you. The following two players both play first base and are both considered approximately average defensively at this position. Neither has any apparent propensity for stealing bases. The following stats are for 2002:

        AB   R   H   2B   HR  RBI  BB   SO    BA    OBP    SLG   

Player A  480  89 124  26  31  69  121  144  0.259  0.414  0.505

Player B  480 101 146  19  52  118 122  139  0.304  0.445  0.677

Clearly Player B is a better hitter than Player A. He got more hits, scored and drove in more runs, though they both walk (and therefore get on base) a LOT, and strike out about the same. Seems a pretty easy choice, right? But let me cloud the issue a bit. Player B hit a lot more homers, but hey, 31 dingers in a season is certainly no slouch. Player A played on a team that provided him with fewer opportunities to score and drive in runs, hence some of the RBI and Runs scored differential. However, most of the disparity between the Runs and RBI comes from the fact that Player A hit about 150 points lower with runners in scoring position than Player B, though the differences in their career numbers in these situations is not as great, only about 30 points in BA, 60 in OBP. This is a significant difference, but I should also tell you that Player A has not had nearly as many opportunities to hone this skill, as he has never been allowed to hold a full-time job. Getting murky, isn't it?

Well, then you should know that Player A is only 28, while Player B is 32. Also, Player A is already signed to your team, and will not become a free agent until the end of 2003 or 2004, whereas Player B is a free agent asking for a 6-year, $80-something million contract. So it's not a question of whether to go out and sign Player A or B so much as it is an issue of whether to spend an extra $13 million every year for the better part of the next decade on a player who is already past his statistical prime or to keep and use the current player in that role and ink him to a much less burdensome contract. So sure, Player B is the better player, but is he really $13 million better? Given the chance to play every day, Player B is probably only worth a win or two over the course of a season more than Player A. That was an expensive win.

Most of you have already figured out that Player B is everybody's favorite throwbackin', from the heels swingin', big Illinois farm-boyin', Howdy Doody ears havin', slugging firstbaseman free-agent: Jim Thome. The more astute of you (don't break your arms patting yourselves on the back) might also realized the identity of Player A, except that I've tricked you. Another confession: Player A is not real. Well, kind of. Player A is a projection of Jeremy Giambi's combined 2002 stats over the same number of plate appearances that Thome had. Not so different, huh? And this doesn't even consider that Giambi was actually more productive as a Phillie than he had been as an Athletic. If you project those numbers out over the same playing time Thome saw, you get:

         AB   R   H   2B  HR  RBI  BB   SO   BA     OBP    SLG

Jeremy  450  92   110 29  35  81  150  156  0.244  0.435  0.538

Jim     480  101  146 19  52  118 122  139  0.304  0.445  0.677

The RBI come up, as do the Runs, homers and walks. The difference in OBP is only ten points now, and despite only hitting .244, he slugs .538, making him the approximate statistical kinsman of Carlos Delgado.

Now the issue is becoming substantially less opaque. Should you...

A) Play the guy you've already got, who hits like Carlos Delgado, and costs relatively little. Or...

2) Sign the guy who hits like, well, Jim Thome, will cost about 10-15 times more, can't be traded, and is likely to be a shadow of his former self by the twilight of the six or seven year contract, during which he will be making $15-20 million.

If you picked door #2, you'll usually win at the game of "General Manager." It all comes down to opportunity cost: If you can get 90% of the production you want for 10% of the cost of another option, you take it, and spend the other 90% of your allocated funds on something else. Like a starting pitcher. Or a better thirdbaseman. Oh, too late.

The real tragedy here is that Giambi still won't get to play. First he was behind Mike Sweeney in KC, then he was behind his older brother in Oakland. When Jason bolted for the Bright Lights of NYC, Jeremy probably figured that he had a straglehold on the 1B job, but alas, Scott Hatterberg (!?) usurped the starting job from him, and he was traded to the Phils, where he couldn't even convince Larry Bowa to let him start in Travis Lee's stead, and Lee has sucked like a Shop-Vac since 1999. You think Bowa's gonna let him play and make Thome sit? Or Bobby Abreu? Or Pat Burrell? Or even Marlon Byrd? Nope. And so another promising young hitter's career will be wiled away on the pine, sacrificed at the altar of the God of Public Relations, without even a visit to the oracle of the God of Winning Ballclubs.

Now who looks like Howdy Doody?

The Less-Than-Perfect Trade

Welcome to another edition of the Perfect Trade Show. Every baseball fan has heard it at least once. It usually happens during the Rain-Delay-Gotta-Pass-Time-Somehow-So-We'll-Open-Up-the-Phone-Lines-and-Any-Idiot-Can-Call-In-Show. The [Whoozits] are having problems with [position] and everybody knows it. Some player on [Doo-Wahs], who are going nowhere, is really good at that position, is young and relatively cheap. Some knucklehead calls in and says, "Hey, Why don't the [Whoozits] just trade for [really awesome, young, cheap player] from the [Doo-Wahs]? He's good, and what do they need him for? They suck! We can give them [1/2 dozen or more minor league scrubs and/or aging, under productive free agents]! That would solve the problem right there!" Caller hangs up, beaming because he has just solved his favorite team's problem perfectly. Show hosts proceed to mock caller for his naivete, and probably his accent, saying that trading seven or eight lousy players for one great one will never happen. You idiot.

Last year, I heard this on a Yankee rain delay. Someone called in and asked, "Why don't the Yankees just solve their left field problem by trading for Vladimir Guerrero? What do the Expos need with him? They suck anyway. We could give them Orlando Hernandez and Christian Parker and Chuck Knoblauch and David Justice and Randy Kiesler or something like that!" Add a case of Stadium Dogs, and you'd have probably had a deal. John Sterling and Michael Kay then laughed about this, pointed out the obviously ludicrous nature of the suggestion that a Superstar player like Vlad the Impaler could come at the cost of all the Yankees' flotsam and jetsam, and went on to the next caller.

Well, now Bob Klapisch is reporting that the Yanks are actually considering a trade with the Expos, not for Vlad, but for Bartolo Colon. Of course, Omar Minaya denies it, and anyway is smarter than to consider such a ridiculous trade as that mentioned above, but Bartolo for Nick Johnson, Juan Rivera and maybe El Duque is at least a viable option. I'm certainly not privy to any of the trade talks, but it seems to me that this rumour must not be true, because Minaya would be a fool not to accept it. His bosses, ironically his competition, won't be give him the chance to sign Colon, whose market value is currently as high as it's ever going to be, not for the kind of scratch a 20-game winner is going to demand, but Nick Johnson and Juan Rivera can be renewed for several more years before hitting arbitration. Hernandez is a decent starter, and would fit in nicely as a #2 or #3 in Montreal, and if he asks too much next year, they can let him go as a free agent. They won't have Colon after next year anyway. And Johnson should turn into a very special hitter in the next few years.

According to Klapisch, the trade makes sense for the Yankees, who may have to pay Roger Clemens $10 million per year for two years just to make sure that he wins his seventh game next year (the 300th of his career) in Pinstripes. Clemens will already receive about $10 mil in deferred compensation from his previous contract with the Yankees, and they'd hate to have to be paying him to pitch for someone else, but he will be 41 at the end of 2003, and has only pitched more than 205 innings once since joining the Bombers in 1999. He may be one of the hardest-working 41-year olds around, but he's probably not worth what Manny Ramirez is getting paid.

I honestly don't know a ton about Juan Rivera, but I've seen him play a pretty good defensive CF, and if he can hit .275/.330/.450 next year, his defense will help improve on Bernie Williams' enough that they won't need to trade for/sign another OF. John Sickels, who knows more about such things than most of us do, pretty much agrees. Obviously they've gotta do something with the Rondell White/Raul Mondesi/Shane Spencer/Juan Rivera/Nick Johnson/Hideki Matsui OF/DH logjam, and Klapisch suggests that this trade would be just the thing. I suggest that they bite the bullet and make the unpopular but sensible trade with the Mets and Rockies instead, getting rid of White and Mondesi, freeing up salary to get someone like Matsui, and that they keep Juan Rivera, who would make the MLB minimum, freeing up enough salary to pay Clemens or someone else the money Roger's requesting. They will have plenty of offense to go around, with Jeter, Posada, Giambi and Bernie Williams providing their consistent levels of production, Nick Johnson maturing another year, Alfonso Soriano likely splitting the difference between his 2001 and 2002 seasons, and whomever they insert at 3B (Ventura) and the remaining OF spot (Matsui), that they can afford to suffer Rivera's offensive contributions for a season.

This could be a terrible trade for the Yankees, regardless of what the Rocket does next year. Not because Juan Rivera is the second coming of Mickey Mantle, but because Bartolo Colon may be the second coming of Kenny Rogers. Rogers was a decent pitcher with Texas, but was signed to a 4-year, $20 million contract (which was a lot of money, way back in 1996) on the merits of an uncharacteristically good 1995 season, during which he won a career-high 17 decisions and had an ERA two thirds of a run lower than his previous career average. When he went back to his established levels of play, he was villified by Yankee fans, scapegoated by Yankee brass, and caricatured by the Yankee beatwriters.

Colon, though clearly not the type of pitcher that Rogers was when he came to the Big Apple, is in a similar situation: His career ERA before the start of the 2002 season was 4.09, so his 2.93 of last year was, if not a "fluke" at least not typical. Winning 20 games also marked a career-best, two more wins than his previous high-water mark, in 1998. Colon is only 29 right now, but players in his shape (read: pear) don't tend to wear well. Roger Clemens may be of a similar body type now, but he was quite a bit leaner at the age of 29 than Colon is. And the contract he'd demand, something like Mike Mussina's 6 years/$88.5 million, would be an albatross around the Yankees' collective necks about half way into it, at best.

Stark Reality*

*Aaron, IOU $1,000,000. Put it on my tab.

In his most recent ESPN column, Jayson Stark discussed the possible merits of sending Mike Hampton from the Rockies to the Braves, and boldly predicted, "He can't be any worse in Atlanta than he was this year," which is like predicting that James Coburn will make fewer movies in 2003 than he did last year.

Stark mentions several factors that may help Hampton, including the effect of his home park: The Ted, instead of The Rock.

Just this past year alone, 54 percent more runs were scored at Coors (991) than at Turner (642). So if Hampton's ERA merely makes that mathematical drop, according to scale, he'd go from 6.15 to 3.98.

Stark's problem is not that he fails to recognize the significance of things like park factors, it's that he fails to appropriately comprehend and use them. What he says is true, but misleading. Yes, there were 54% fewer runs scored at Turner Field than at Coors Field, but this does not account for the facts that the Braves offense, outside of the Brothers Jones, was abysmal, and the Rockies was actually somewhat decent. Or that the Braves pitching staff was excellent and that the Rockies pitchers sucked rocks. And the assumption that Hampton's ERA will drop by the same amount doesn't account for the fact that he'll still have to make something like 15-17 starts in parks other than Atlanta's.

To compensate for these sorts of issues, people like Baseball Prospectus develop things called Park Factors that account for all of the variations and attempt to isolate the average effect that a particular park has on offense in a particular year, or in a 3- or 5-year span. As best as I can tell, The Ted had a park factor of 986 last year, and Coors Field had a factor of 1125 (1000 = no effect). So then, if you assume that Hampton's Home ERA (5.68) will exactly follow this trajectory, you only get a difference of

5.68*(986/1125)=4.98

Well Jayson, that's not too bad. You were only off by A WHOLE RUN!

And this doesn't even address what he did on the road last year (6.44 ERA). Even if his road ERA comes back to around league average after he works out some bad mechanical habits, that still leaves him with a net ERA ~4.75. Doesn't sound like $6,000,000 worth of pitcher to me, but I guess it's better than $12,000,000.

A few weeks ago, after the NL Cy Young Award was announced, Stark wrote this column about Curt Schilling, and his supposed slights in the CYA voting in recent years. The original headline (for which, I realize, Stark is not responsible) said something about Schilling's chances for the Hall of Fame being hurt by his lack of Cy Young support in the last few years. My immediate reaction was, "No, Schilling's HoF chances are being hurt by his lack of being consistently great over the course of his career." To Stark's credit, I discovered when I read the article that he had no intention of implying that Schilling should be considered for Cooperstown, not without at least three more years like the ones he's had for the Diamondbacks in 2001 and 2002, which is unlikely. What he did say was,

"Before Schilling came along, how many pitchers do you think had ever had seasons in which they won 20 games, finished at least 16 games over .500 and piled up more than 290 strikeouts -- without getting a Cy Young out of the deal? Uh, how about zero -- at least not since 1956, when the Cy Young came into existence."

This simply isn't true. A search for pitchers who won more than 19 games, with a winning% over .800 (I had to pick a number, as Aaron Haspel doesn't have a "Games over .500" criterion yet.) and more than 290 strikeouts reveals that in fact Randy Johnson did exactly that, going 20-4, with 292 K's in 1997, and lost the Cy to Roger Clemens, who led the league in everything that year.

Schilling is only the fourth National League right-hander in the last 60 years to win 22 games or more in two straight seasons. You've heard of the others -- Ferguson Jenkins, Juan Marichal and Robin Roberts.

Well, yes, this statement is true, but it has some inherent flaws. First of all, wins have a lot more to do with run support, bullpen help and opportunity than they do with great pitching. A quick search for 22+ game winners since 1942 at Godofthemachine.com reveals that such immortals as Clyde Wright and Bob Porterfield have won 22 games in a season at one time. Not such a stringent criterion, is it? Secondly, Stark's decision to narrow it down to only the Senior Circuit makes the feat seem something more than it is. If he had included the AL in his survey, you could add Mike Cuellar, Catfish Hunter, Bob Lemon, Mickey Lolich, Denny McClain, Jim Palmer, Wilbur Wood('71-'73) and Hal Newhouser ('44-'46). Still sounds like a pretty exclusive list, just not as snooty as it once may have been, given that the club membership has just tripled.

Despite his reputation as a workhorse, Schilling has had trouble staying helathy over the course of his career, and of course he has had some tough luck, like his 1998 season in which he led the NL with 300 strikeouts, 268.7 innings, and didn't even rank in the top 7 in Cy Young voting, due to his 15-14 record on an abysmal Phillies team. But mostly Schilling's career has been hurt (if you can call making $10 million/year "hurt") by his lack of health. Despite pitching in the majors since 1988, Schilling only has about 2400 IP, and 155 wins, about 10 or 11 full years' worth. And that lack of pitching time has hurt his Cooperstown chances mors than any bad luck has. On the other hand though, if he hadn't had some of those injuries, he might not have learned some of the physical and mental disciplines that have made him the great pitcher he has been for these last few years. And we'll never know anyway.

Finally, one last nit-pick on poor Jayson: In his article about the Giants hiring of Felipe Alou, he makes this statement:

Not with Barry Bonds on the premises. Not when you're talking about a team so loaded with veteran players that all the Giants' rookie position players combined got fewer at-bats this season than Tsuyoshi Shinjo. Not when your talking about a team whose key players come from hometowns as diverse as Villa Clara, Cuba and Los Altos Hills, Calif. [bold added]

Now, I know that this is "just" grammar, but to make the mistake of writing "your" when he should be writing "you're", especially when he just got it right in the previous sentence, is really annoying, at least for me. Nobody who's being well-paid to write for an organization as huge as ESPN should be making such a mistake, and if he does, his editor ought to catch it.

OK, that's enough Stark Reality for now. Happy Thanksgiving!

Simon Says Swing at Everything

I once heard someone, I believe a politician from Ohio, saying that he loved watching Jim Thome hit (a sentiment that the Boy of Summer echoes), and that one measurement of his greatness is the fact that he puts the ball in play less often than anyone else in the majors. It made sense to me, given Thome's swing-from-the-heels, grip-and-rip style, but I decided to check on this. Surely enough, Thome only put 253 balls in play in 613 plate appearances, for a 41.2% In-Play%, which led the AL, (I think that Adam Dunn and/or Mark Bellhorn might have him in the NL). But here's the interesting part: Near the opposite end of the scale is Randall Simon, putting the horsehide in play at a 65.8% clip. Two 1B/DH types, totally different approaches at the plate.

A friend wrote to me today to alert me to Simon's trade yesterday, sadly, to his favorite team, the Pirates. My friend, whom we'll call "Tim", wrote:

I'm not sure if you've heard, but the Pirates traded for Randall Simon yesterday, giving up a bunch of minor leaguers. Littlefield hasn't done a bad job, but he's starting to concern me, especially when he makes a comment like the following:

"It's hard to give up good young players when we have a lack of AAA and AA prospects, but as head of baseball operations, I have to make sure we address our needs at the major-league level," Littlefield said.

Excuse me, but isn't the Oakland A's [franchise] successful because they have a great minor league system that can replace guys who leave for FA when they get too expensive?

Yes, of course, Tim, you should be concerned. The Pirates do have a dearth of quality players, at both the major league and minor league levels, but what else is new? Given the fact that they're not really in danger of winning anything anytime soon, they ought to be focusing on developing prospects instead of trading them away for so-so players who are soon eligible for arbitration. Randall Simon only managed to muster 8 (eight!) unintentional walks in 506 plate appearances last year, which means that he purposely walked only 1.5% of the time! Or, to put this in perspective, you were more likely to see Joe Randa go yard than you were to see Simon go to first without hitting the ball or being put there intentionally.

OK, so what have we established?

1) Jim Thome doesn't appear to like running to first base.
2) Stephen Hawking walks more often than Randall Simon.

But is this really a problem? Well, of course it is, but how much of a problem? Simon swings at everything, but incredibly, he hardly ever misses! His 30 K's last year made him the toughest guy to KO in the AL last year. He's only 27, which means he's not likely to get much better, but he shouldn't start any kind of serious decline until 31 or 32, you'd hope, so you can pencil him in for a ~.295/20HR/85RBI season for each of the next few years. In other words, he'll be one of the worst hitting firstbasemen in the NL, now that Rico Brogna's retired. That is, unless David Littlefield suddenly becomes David Copperfield and magically teaches Simon to walk ~50-70 times/year. The Pirates already have Kevin Young under contract to play 1B, who's admittedly an even worse hitter than Randall Simon, but Simon is not enough of an improvement to justify a $7-8 mil/yr platoon. The combination of these two may hit .300/.350/.500, given their respective strengths, but that will still only bring their status up to "mediocre" and they'll have burned a roster spot. They ought to just bide their time with Young for another year, and spend the extra funds scouting minor league free agents who might put up similar numbers.

The Pirates traded Adrian Burnside, 25, who was 6-9 with a 4.55 ERA at Double-A Altoona last season, which means that he is not a prospect in any real sense of the word. As long as the two PTBNLs they send are of similar ilk, it's not a terrible trade, unless the Pirates go and sign Simon to a multi-year contract for more than, say, a million per. But now that Simon's got the ".300 hitter" label, that will never happen.

Things To Do In Philly If You're Stupid

On 23 October 1999, Norm McDonald hosted Saturday Night Live, which is not such a tremendous accomplishment when taken out of context, as hundreds of people have done the same over the years. What made it of particular interest is perhaps best explained by Norm himself, with his monologue:

"When the people here asked me to do the show, I've got to say, I felt kind of weird. I don't know if you remember this, but I used to actually be on this show. I used to do the "Weekend Update" news routine, you remember that? That's where I did the make-believe news jokes. That was me, you know? So then, a year and a half ago, I had sort of a disagreement with the management at NBC. I wanted to keep my job. Right? And they felt the exact opposite. They fired me because they said that I wasn't funny. Now, with most jobs, I could have had a hell of a lawsuit on my hands for that, but see, this is a comedy show. So, they got me. But, now, this is the weird part, it's only a year and a half later, and now, they ask me to host the show. So I wondered, how did I go from being not funny enough to be even allowed in the building, to being so funny that I'm now hosting the show? How did I suddenly get so goddamn funny?! It was inexplicable to me, because, let's face it, a year and a half is not enough time for a dude to learn how to be funny! Then it occurred to me, I haven't gotten funnier, the show has gotten really bad! So, yeah, I'm funny compared to, you know, what you'll see later.

Okay, so let's recap.
The bad news is: I'm still not funny.
The good news is: The show blows!"

Now, obviously, this is all tongue-in-cheek.

The real reason for his firing is not that Norm was ever not-funny, and the show didn't particularly blow any more than it ever did, especially when you have the Joe Piscopo Era for comparison. The real reason is that they wanted him off the show because of his constantly swearing on live TV and the fact that they thought he couldn't do anything well other than read the fake news. But, when given a chance to blossom on another show, suddenly Norm's phone is ringing off the hook.

Similarly (you were wondering where this was going, weren't you?) there are people like Tuffy Rhodes, Alex Cabrera and Roberto Petagine, who go from being so "not-funny" (in baseball terms, "not-hitty") that they're not even offered a job in MLB, to being so funny (read: kicking ass in Japanese, Mexican, Korean, Timbuktu League) that they're suddenly wanted back on the show, or, more accurately, back in The Show. Peter Gammons reports that Petagine suddenly has a whole boatload of suitors for a major league firstbaseman's job, after coming close to leading Japan's Central League in a bunch of offensive categories. Obviously, these guys weren't ever all that bad, and the quality of the Japanese Leagues is not so far below that of MLB, and nobody "learns" to hit in two years. These guys just needed a shot.

Which means that there are probably dozens of guys out there somewhere who can and would hit just like David Bell, for less than a tenth of what Bell will reap over the next four years. If there's anything to be learned in this era of free agency and high-priced mediocrity, it's "Don't sign a 30-something mediocrity coming off a career year to a long-term contract." But the Phillies can't be bothered with things like "research" and "fiscal responsibility". They want to be able to point to David Bell, or Heathcliff Slocumb, or Gregg Jeffries, or Danny Tartabull, or Mike Jackson, and say to the City of Brotherly Boo, "See? We tried! We signed a free-agent, and look where it got us! Why should we bother? It's the Market's fault!" Without acknowledging that they help to skew the market by paying for mediocrities like David Bell.

I want to like the Phillies. I do. Really. But then they go and sign David Bell for four years at ~$17 million, and I am instantly reminded of why I have such a hard time rooting for them, at least consistently. John Perricone, over at OBM, has compared Bell to Edgardo Alfonzo, another free-agent 3B looking for a job, and has shown how remarkably similar their counting stats and such were. I would submit (and I think John would agree) that Fonzie was actually the better player last year, when he was healthy.

John is upset that Bell spurned SanFran for Philly, and particularly that Larry Bowa is attributed as the main reason that Bell split, which is like your wife telling you that she's leaving you for Jake LaMotta. However, this potentially opens up the Giants to go get Alfonzo, or any of the other half-dozen third basemen on the market right now who are better than Bell. David Pinto correctly points out that Bell had the third most WinShares on the Giants last year, and accurately predicts that Felipe Alou will have his hands full trying tor eplace the production of Bell and Jeff Kent, but fails to mention that there was a STEEP drop-off after SuperMan and BatMan. According to Baseball Prospectus, Bell was only about the 15th or 20th best 3B in the majors last year, by EQa, depending on how many plate appearances you want to use as a qualifier. The Phils are not "breaking the bank" by today's standards, but $4.25 mil/year is a lot for essentially a league-average 3B. It's also a lot because it might not have cost much more to get Alfonzo, given his injuries last year, and they already have Placido Polanco, who should never play daily on a good team, but who is a serviceable backup and could play a few weeks if The Fonz goes down again. Too late now.

The so-called experts and insiders who are comparing Bell to Scott Rolen and lamentig the dropoff in expected production are totally right. And completely missing the point. Rolen is moot. He wasn't an option, so the comparison is worthless. The real comparison should be between Bell and Alfonzo, or Robin Ventura, or Phil Nevin, or Mark Loretta, or Todd Zeile. None of these guys is perfect, or they'd already be signed, but a lot of them will hit better than Bell over the next four years. Or at least until Chase Utley is ready.

Rainy Joe Morgan Chat Day Woman #12 & 35(sorry Mike)

Every once in a while, an idea comes along that is so brilliant in its simplicity, a creation so ingenious in its blatancy, that you kick yourself for not having thought of it first yourself.
The Bag-Clip.

Air Bags.

Edible Underwear.

OK, so the jury's still out on airbags.

My ranting colleague, Mike Carminati, had one such idea: Joe Morgan Chat Day. Throughout the baseball season, every week, ESPN hosts an Internet chat session with the Best Secondbaseman In History (apologies to Rogers Hornsby, Jackie Robinson, and Roberto Alomar), which is a great honor for anyone whose question gets answered by Joe. However, he also happens also to be, arguably, the Worst Baseball Analyst In History, which means that....

A) Rarely do you even get the question you asked answered appropriately, if at all. This is a sign of both politicians and idiots. I'll let you make the call. Example:

Clint (Danbury, CT): You were one of baseballs best alltime hitters. What young pitcher today do you think that you would have the most problems hitting against?

: Probably, being left-handed, Randy Johnson. Other than him I can't think of anyone who could be that difficult…

What other baseball commentator can be asked to name a "young pitcher," respond with [39-year old] "Randy Johnson," and be allowed to keep his job? Of course, Joe's pushing 60 himself, so maybe The Old Unit seems young to him.

And...

2) When he does answer your question, more often than not, he's wrong. Especially about statistics. Example:

Denis (Dover, NH): How valuable is a great base stealer to a ballclub? Statistically, a player needs to be around 70% successful not to hurt his club, but what about the effects on the opposing pitcher? …

: Stats can't be used to measure the effect of a base stealer because he changes the defense and the pitching patterns. A great base stealer should steal 80 percent or more, I think. Seventy percent is a good number, but that's not how you measure his effect. You measure the intangibles of what he brings to an offense.

Ahh, the old "measurement of the intangibles". My favorite. Right up there with the old "definition of 'God', including two examples".

Mike's happening upon the idea of a weekly proof that Joe Morgan is something less than Albert Einstein, or at least Eddie Epstein, is, as they say in France, a great blessing. Because Joe really proves this himself every week in these chat sessions, and Mike's job is simply to point the instances out. It's a sportswriter's (or a blogger's) dream! If Mike were, say, Rush Limbaugh, it would be like Al Gore going on the radio or TV every week, addressing the Nation, and making an ass out of himself by recounting conversations with people he's never met and memories of places he's never been! What? Oh, he did that? Well, there you go!

And I must kick myself because now the man who provides fodder for baseball bloggers' troughs as though he somewhere has a storage silo labeled "Stupid Things To Say On Internet Today", the man who sometimes says things so asinine that you have to ask yourself whether Morgan and Carminati have some sorta scam going to keep Mike's Baseball Rants in business, the man who, in spite of decades worth of research and evidence to the contrary, still thinks that wins/losses, and Runs/RBI are THE definitive statistics for measuring baseball players, this man of such staunch, ridiculous and unsupportable convictions, is taken. He is off the market. Sure, I can make fun of him sometimes. I can call him funny names and draw attentiontion to dumb things he says and writes (Stupid Morgan Tricks, anyone?), but by and large, I cannot make a regular practice out of this without being labeled a copycat, a fake or a RedSox Fan.

So I must find other material, an original source for my musings, preferably one who makes sufficiently egregious errors that I will have a somewhat steady flow of quotes to pick apart. Thankfully, there are enough bad sportswriters out there that you could probably wrap all of your Christmas (Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Whatever) gifts in a week's worth of their columns and have enough left over to line the hampster cage. I, however, have chosen someone whom I actually think a rather decent writer: Jayson Stark. Mr. Stark writes a column for ESPN and acts as an anchor on Baseball Tonight sometimes. If you've read my blog for any length of time, you know that I've taken issue with things Stark has written in the past. And if you haven't been reading, well, a pox on you! But now I will try to make a more or less regular occurrence of such writings, if only to establish some semblance of consistency in your feeble, aimless, woebegone life. And also so I won't have to peruse every stinkin' baseball writer's columns to find something to gripe about every week.



As I mentioned, I actually think that Stark is a decent baseball writer, so my posts likely will not be as harsh as Mike's often are, but Jayson does have some shortcomings. One of these is his use of statistics, not that he doesn't take seriously the work done by Bill James, Rob Neyer, Baseball Prospectus and the like. His use of stats ranges from inaccuracy to blowing certain, nitpicky coincidences completely out of proportion. In addition, Stark, just like everyone else from Philadelphia, shows a Philadelphia bias, which sometimes gets him into journalistic trouble. Or at least it will by the time I'm through with him, since I don't really like Philly, especially its fans, players and writers, with a few exceptions. His Philly bias is not a terrible vice, though, as everyone has some bias, and hey, at least he's not Bill Conlin.

I doubt that I will ever have the kind of material from Jayson that Mike gets from Joe Morgan, but like dentists with any kind of integrity, Mike and I will both labor on in the hopes that someday, somehow, our efforts will eventually lead the people who keep us in business to stop doing the things that keep us in business,and that we will be forced to find someone else on whom to pick. (Get it? "Pick"? Dentists? Oh, never mind.) So, I will begin (next week) by reviewing some of Stark's recent work, and commenting on its shortcomings as well as lauding its accomplishments. And then I will make attempts to do the same at least once a week with his columns. And we'll just see how it goes.

Now I hafta be able to come up with clever names for the posts...Any ideas?

I HAVE ARRIVED!

I have had, on occasions throughout my life, Brushes With Greatness (both real and imagined), or at least acknowledgement, a few times.

- When I was about eight or ten, I went to Yankee Stadium for the first time with the Lodi Boys&Girls Club. We sat in the bleachers, got sunburn, and watched the Toronto Blue Jays beat my favorite team. When I got back, I told my mom how I had seen Ron Guidry, my favorite pitcher, warming up in the bullpen, how he had acknowledged me and even shook my hand! My mom was so proud! I must now admit, for the first time in public, that this story was a total fabrication. Well, not the part about going to the Stadium, or the Yankees losing to the Blow Jays. But all that stuff about Louisiana Lightning was total bull, made up just for the attention. (Mom, if you're reading, I'm sorry.) Actually, I did that sorta fishing-for-attention thing a lot when I was younger, but it's been a lot better lately. Ever since that pep-talk Marlon Brando gave me, after I provided him with some acting tips during the filming of On the Waterfront, I haven't felt that I had to do that as much. Neat guy, that Marlon.

- When I was about 15, I met Lou Piniella in Nordstrom, at the Garden State Plaza. Honest. My mom was even there this time. I got his autograph. Really!

- When I was about 12, I saw Mark Collins, then a cornerback for the NY Giants, in a McDonald's in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. Had no idea who he was, just knew he was someone famous and it wouldn't hurt to get his autograph. (Does McDonald's really need a restaurant locator on its website?)

- As a senior in high school, I was featured twice in 1993 in articles in the Bergen Record, a paper I delivered for three years as a child, and the paper for whom Bob Klapisch writes, when he's not writing for ESPN. (Alas, Bob and I have never met.) I was Scholar of the Week on 23 February 1993 and I was the most prominently featured of several students in an article on college financial aid (read:smart, poor kids) that appeared on 30 June 1993.

- In college, I got a letter to the editor of the Brown & White, Lehigh's student newspaper, published in reposnse to a column written about school prayer. The writer of the column called me about it and we have since become friends. We even played poker at my house last night. Then, a few weeks later, my picture appeared in the Brown & White. Actually, a member of the Harlem Globetrotters dunking a basketball at Stabler Arena appeared, but I was in the audience right behind him, with two friends.

- On 11 September 1999, I was featured on ESPN's SportsCenter. OK, not really. But I was in the left field stands at Yankee Stadium, right where Nomaaah's second homer landed, during a BoSawx blowout . The ball ricocheted off my right hand (the one day I forget my glove...), spraining my index finger, and hit some lady five rows back in the neck before some fat guy with no shirt finally came out of the scrum with it. But if you slow the tape of the highlight down, you can just make me out.
Not catching the ball.

- In this past year alone, I have received emails from such sages as ESPN's Rob Neyer and The Sporting News' Ken Rosenthal, who was thisclose to publishing one of my questions in his mailbag section in TSN. I think he changed his mind when he realized that my name wasn't really Cleveland Millhous Fitzgerald, the nickname I was using on my Hotmail account for a while.

- In September, I got a Letter To the Editor of Sports Illustrated published, as I discussed a while back, but cannot crosslink you to it because Blogger's got PMS or something right now, and she ate all my archives. Sorry. But it's in this issue:



- But now I have really arrived. I received a reply email from Clay Davenport. That's right, the Clay Davenport, of Baseball Prospectus and the Davenport Translations, which do a better job of evaluating players' performances, abilities, and potential than any other I know. Just ask the other nine guys in my Yahoo! Fantasy League, who got their butts kicked over the course of the last year.

I thought it was cool when I met a physics prof at Lehigh who had written a textbook, but this is much cooler. I had written to Prospectus to ask about their fielding stats, as these are excellently done and easy to use, if not to understand exactly how they come up with them, but you cannot find players ranked by such information anywhere on their website. You can do player searches, by name, for lots of players, including those who aren't even active, and their fielding stats are available there, but again, no rankings. I didn't really expect a reply at all, much less one from The-Man-His-Self.

Clay's (we're on a first-name basis now...) reply said, essentially, that these are coming, but that the guys are all working hard to get next year's Prospectus done ASAP, and so I hafta wait. But it was worth it. Hey, I'd never met a man who had a Translation named after him before.

Now if I can just get King James to return my calls...

Keeping Up With the Perricones, Carminatis, Gleemans, Pintos...

It looks like my priorities have been all out of whack for the last several days: Spending time with my wife and good friends, going to church, buying groceries...instead of doing what's really important: Writing yet another slant on the current baseball news. Frankly, I haven't had much to say about a lot of the stuff that's happened. But some of it's worth discussing.

The Headaches for Headaches Trade I discussed last week turned out to be a Headaches for Headache and money for Tim Spooneybarger (a headache to write, in itself!) and a PTBNL . Nothing's really changed from what I wrote, except that Atlanta may be a more attractive option for Hampton than Florida, what with their eleven consecutive division titles and all, and the Bravos won't hafta pay but about $35 million of the $80+ mil owed to His Gopherball-ness. Not a bad deal. If he doesn't keep sucking. Mike Carminati does a good job of hashing out all the creative accounting involved in the deal.

El Dusto was named as the Cubbies' new field manager, to nobody's surprise except maybe Osama Bin Laden, who has evidently been under a pile of rocks until very recently. Serves him right. Many are not sure Dusty has what it takes to take a young, talented team that needs a chance to develop and make it a contender, but then he's never really tried, so we can't knock him just yet. But soon. Don't you worry, soon. Christian over at the Cub Reporter has some good analysis of Dusty's future.

Bob Melvin was named the new manager of the Seattle Mariners, who seem to do a better job of not leaking these types of decisions too soon than the Cubs do. All I know about Bob Melvin is that

A) He has three first names. This is not such a terrible thing as you might think. Heck, so do I!

2) He spent the last few years as the bench coach for possibly the worst tactical manager to win a World Series in recent memory

iii) He was once a fourth-string catcher for the Yankees, and was needlessly placed on the DL with something called a "strained neck" in order to make room for someone important coming back from a rehab assignment.

This tells me two things, and only two things, about his prospects as a manager of the Mariners:

He probably knows less about in-game strategery than Bob Brenly, which is bad. And he may know some good roster-shuffling tricks. Hopefully this is not his greatest asset.

Felipe Alou was named manager of the SF Giants, also not much of a surprise. This is an interesting choice, too, because like Dusty Baker, Felipe Alou is being asked to do something he's never had to do before: He must take a predominantly veteran team that is already a contender, and make it a champion. He's already 67, which isn't as bad as some would have you think, but since he's from the Dominican Republic, that probably means that he's really about 207, which is not so good. John Perricone has a seriously thorough breakdown of what Alou might do based on (what else?) what he's done in the past. Good stuff.

Cory Lidle was traded to the Blue jays for two prospects no one but their parents have ever heard of. This is a good trade for both teams, potentially. Billy Beane makes his living dumping replaceable, thirtysomething pitchers making $5 million on other teams. The fact that he got two prospects in return is just gravy. Beane must have a stash of league-average innings-munching starters (Gil Heredia, Tom Candiotti, Mike Oquist) in his linen closet. Right between the sage hand towels and the utility infielders with plate discipline. With the three great, young pitchers the A's already have, and the possibility of another one developing in Aaron Harang, the A's didn't need Lidle, not at that price. What surprises me about it is that JP Riccardi, a former pupil of Beane's and now the GM of the Blue Jays, was on the other end of the deal. He should know better.

New Links...

I have added a few new links, one new blog, on the left, and two non-blogs on the right.

The one on the left is Bronx banter, a brandy-spankin' new blog by Alex Belth, a New York native who will keep you up on some of the things going on there. Alex seems to be just learning about how to set up his blog, but the writing is quite good. I suggest (if he ever reads my stuff) that he find a different template before he makes too many modifications to the existing one. Mike Carminati and Misha Berkowitz (whom Alex replaces on my page) both use that one already. Just a suggestion.


It's pretty mean and vindictive, but then, I don't watch Todd Hundley play every day, and I'm not exacxtly Mr. Nice Writer myself all the time, so who am I to preach? Hundley has hit near or below the Mendoza Line four of the last five years, so maybe it's past-time for the Cubs to cut their losses. The fake interview part is pretty funny.

The other is for a book I have not read, but hey, if Rob neyer says it's good, then it's good. besides, the site itself has lots of stuff worth reading. Go check out

ESPN.com is reporting the following headline:

On the table: Hampton, Johnson in six-player deal

Unfortunately, the headline doesn't tell you who the teams are; you have to read the article for that. Since there has been talk of the Yankees trading for Mike Hampton, my first thought was "Nick Johnson?" and then I nearly soiled myself, as the thought of my favorite team trading away a young, cheap firstbaseman (whom last year's BaseballProspectus said could turn out to be a cross between John Olerud and Barry Bonds) for a 30+ year old pitcher who sucks AND is owed more money than we have in Fort Knox did not sit well with me, to say the least. Thankfully, the story indicated that Charles, not Nick, was the Johnson involved in the deal, and that the Marlins, not the Yankees, were the other team. What a relief. Now I don't have to change my shorts for a few more days!

That being said, the deal would probably be good for almost all parties involved, though it sounds like Hampton won't let it go through anyway.

The Rockies would get:

Charles Johnson - a once-great defensive and pretty good offensive catcher who still has some power, when healthy. Coors Field should only boost his overall stats.
Preston Wilson- Average defensive OF with speed and power, whose main weaknesses (walks & strikeouts) should both be helped by Coors.
Vic Darensbourg and Pablo Ozuna - Replaceable relief pitcher and utility IF, respectively.

The Marlins would get:
Mike Hampton - Once-pretty good pitcher whose change-up and ground ball tendencies and the denser atmosphere of Miami should bring his pitching back to resembling Kenny Rogers in no time (instead of pitching like Fred Rogers, as he has done the last two years) . No wait, the other Kenny Rogers. Which is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Juan Pierre - The only player who stands to really be hurt by the trade. Pierre's fast, VERY fast..but that's about it. He's only average defensively, and doesn't hit well enough to justify a full-time job. Without the Coors effect, it will show a lot more. Anyone looking for evidence that stolen bases don't lead to runs need look no further than Juan Pierre's Career Home/Road splits:

         AB  R   H   RBI  BB  HBP   SB  CS   AVG  OBP  SLG 

Home    703 129 234  54   44   11   50  18  .333 .381 .391

Road    706  95 200  56   41   9    50  17  .283 .330 .351 

He has nearly identical plate appearances, steals and caught-stealings (~748, 50 and 18, respectively), but got on base 39 more times at home than on the road in that span and somehow, mysteriously, managed to score 34 more runs. Who'da thunkit? And this year's split was even worse. At home, he was Luis Castillo, without the "patience." On the road he was Rey Ordonez. In bad year. With a broken arm. Swinging a lead bat. OK, tungsten. The only difference is that Pierre could occasionally steal second before the next guy in the lineup killed a rally, and Ordonez pretty much has to stay put unless Trachsel bunts him over. This trade would essentially kill Pierre's career, or at least his career as a starter and a chance at another multimillion dollar contract.

Essentially, the trade would boil down to the two 1993 expansion teams exchanging headaches (unproductive players tied to cumbersome contracts), which could work out for one or both teams. If it doesn't, though, neither team is really much worse off than they were before, so why not do it? Oh, yeah, because Mike Hampton wants to go to a winning team.

"They're pretty much in the same situation we're in," Hampton said. "They've been in a cycle where they've been trading good players and going young. If I am going to be traded, I wanted to go to a team that could win right away."

Yeah, Mike, have you ever heard the old adage,

"Pitchers who have the worst ERA in the National League two years running can't be choosers"?

What right should Mike Hampton have to make a request to go to a contender? This is like a convict refusing to be released on probation unless he's guaranteed a free room at the Hilton. Get a grip, Mike. Not just on your curveball.