The Pittsburgh Pirates have not had a winning season since 1992, when they took the last of three consecutive NL East titles, under the leadership of Jim Leyland. Since then, their "best" season was a 79-83, second place finish, five games behind the Houston Astros, who won a very weak NL Central Division in 1997. But as the great Mr. Zimmerman said (Bob, not Heinie), "the times, they are a-changin'..."
Read the rest at All-Baseball.com...
To your left, you'll see the newest link to this blog, the logo for Pending Pinstripes, a blog about the New York Yankees' minor league teams and players, authored by Yours Truly. 
The following is the first original essay for said blog, a simple breakdown of five players the Yanks added to their 40-man roster in November:
The New York Yankees added several players to their 40-man roster in November: RHP T.J. Beam, RHP Matt DeSalvo, RHP Jeffrey Karstens, LHP Matt Smith, and OF Kevin Thompson. Let's take a look at each of these individually, using their statistics as reported at thebaseballcube.com
Read the rest at Pending Pinstripes...
Baseball-Reference.com is a wonderful website. They've got stats for every major leaguer who's ever played, plus managers, and notable personalities from the Hall of Fame, like Negro Leaguers, Executives and even some umpires. They've got the pages for players, teams, franchises and leagues throughout history, even short-lived entities like the Players' League and the American Association. They've got an Oracle of Baseball, which will give you a Six-Degrees of Kevin Bacon type of connection between any two players in history, say, Kevin Barker and Count Sensenderfer, for example.
But one of the coolest things they have is the Birthday Page, wherein you can find every major league player in history who shares your birthday. This being my birthday, I thought I would share with you my All-Birthday Team. These are (in my estimation) the best seasons from players born on my birthday, December 20th, compiled into a team, so that I have sufficient innings and plate appearances to play a 162-game schedule.
Note: OPS+ and ERA+ are the league and park adjusted OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging) and ERA for that season, so you have an idea of what the numbers really mean in context. The .349 batting average Spud Davis put up in 1933, during the offense-crazed Depression Years, does not mean nearly as much as the .352 Cecil Cooper hit in 1980, a relatively down offensive time. Their adjusted OPS numbers (55% better than average compared to "only" 34% better) help to compensate for that. Anywho, this is what I came up with:
Starting Lineup PA Avg OBP SLG R HR RBI SB OPS+
C G. Hartnett (1930) 578 .339 .404 .630 84 37 122 0 144
1B C. Cooper (1980) 678 .352 .387 .539 96 25 122 17 155
2B J. Williams (1899) 689 .355 .417 .532 126 9 116 26 159
3B D. Wright (2005) 657 .306 .388 .523 99 27 102 17 138
SS YOUR NAME HERE
OF O. Gamble (1977) 470 .297 .386 .588 75 31 83 1 162
OF H. Stovey (1889) 634 .308 .393 .525 152 19 119 63 161
OF D. DeJesus (2005) 523 .293 .359 .445 69 9 56 5 114
DH A. Huff (2003) 706 .311 .367 .555 91 34 107 2 139
Bench PA Avg OBP SLG R HR RBI SB OPS+
C B. Rickey (1906) 226 .284 .345 .393 22 3 24 4 135
IF P. Baumann (1915) 260 .292 .380 .388 30 2 28 9 130
IF A. Ojeda (2001) 162 .201 .269 .271 16 1 12 1 43
OF J. Norris (1977) 517 .270 .360 .364 59 2 37 26 101
OF J. Manning (1876) 295 .264 .281 .330 52 2 25 0 101
Team Total 6395 .309 .376 .499 971 201 953 171 137
Trade bait PA Avg OBP SLG R HR RBI SB OPS+
C B. Henline (1922) 481 .316 .380 .479 57 14 64 2 112
C S. Davis (1933) 540 .349 .395 .473 51 9 65 2 134
IF F. Merkle (1911) 604 .283 .342 .431 80 12 84 49 113
Rotation W L Sv ERA IP BB SO ERA+
SP G. Pipgras (1928) 24 13 3 3.38 300.7 103 139 111
SP J. DeLeon (1989) 16 12 0 3.05 244.7 80 201 119
SP B. Laskey (1982) 13 12 0 3.14 189.3 43 88 115
SP J. Manning (1876) 18 5 5 2.14 197.3 32 24 105
Bullpen W L Sv ERA IP BB SO ERA+
SP P. Moskau (1980) 9 7 2 4.01 152.7 41 94 89
RP M. Valdes (1997) 4 4 2 3.13 95.0 39 54 135
RP V. Colbert (1971) 7 6 2 3.97 142.7 71 74 97
SP/RP D. Pfister (1962) 4 14 1 4.54 196.3 106 123 92
Team Total 95 73 15 3.39 1518.7 515 797 108
I saw a headline Friday that piqued my curiosity:
Elarton, Grudzielanek among Royals additions
This made me wonder if it were possible that there may have been some other players in the major leagues with the same last names as Scott Elarton and Mark Grudzielanek, even though I am aware of the statistical improbability of even one of the latter existing. I thought, what possible reason could a team like the Royals, who in 2005 managed to accomplish the nearly-unprecedented feat of losing more than the 104 games they had lost in 2004, have for wanting a mediocre player in his mid-30's and a starting pitcher who's hurt and/or bad more often than he's healthy and good?
Read the rest at All-Baseball.com...
The Arizona Republic and the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday that the Chicago White Sox have made a trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks for Javier Vazquez. The Pale Hose are sending RHP Orlando Hernandez, relief pitcher Luis Vizcaino, and outfield prospect Chris Young to the Snakes in exchange for Vazquez and cash, who has two years of remaining on the 4-year contract he signed with the Yankees in the winter of 2003, but who announced in November that he wanted to be traded to an East Coast team. No word on when Illinois is trading Chicago to a state on the East Coast.
There are quite a few perspectives on this move, most of which make the White Sox look like geniouses. One view says that they got a very good, front-line starter and gave up only a replaceable relief pitcher, a swing man with a cool nickname who might be 57 years old for all we know, and an outfielder with a lot of potential, which is another way of saying that he hasn't done anything important yet. Looks good for the ChiSox. 
Another view says that the White Sox added a LAIM pitcher making about $12 million per year to a rotation that already had four, maybe five guys who are better than him. And spending an extra $12 million in salary to
A) only marginally improve the team in a category in which you are already head-and-shoulders above the competition and
2) keep young and talented starter Brandon McCarthy in the bullpen for another two years...
...does not seem wise. Therefore, we can interpret the White Sox actions in one of three ways.
1) Maybe they don't think that their starting pitching really was all that good, or more accurately, would be that good in 2006, without Vazquez. Maybe they think that Jose Contreras' miracle season was a fluke, and he'll go back to serving up gopherballs at the rate of about one every seven innings. Or they think that Garland's miracle season, in which he somehow cut his walk rate nearly in half, will prove to be a fluke, and he'll go back to being LAIM or worse. Maybe they just can't imagine that they'll get 32 starts or more out of all four of those guys again.
B) Maybe they don't think Brandon McCarthy's really all that good. Sure, at the tender age of 22 he's already proven himself at every level of the minors. He struck out 536 batters in 470 innings while walking only 92 while rocketing through six minor league teams in three and a half years. Sure, he looks like the most talented pitcher to come through the White Sox system since, well, teammate Mark Buhrle, probably. But maybe they felt like they needed some insurance on that.
C) They're not done making moves. The White Sox traded away their centerfielder in the Jim Thome deal, and Brian N. Anderson (the "N." stands for "Not the pitcher") is the only true centerfielder on the roster. Somehow I doubt that his 13 major league games, during which he hit .176 last year, were enough to inspire Ozzie Gullen that Anderson's ready for a full-time job. Scott Podsednik has played CF, but isn't very good at it despite his speed, and anyway that leaves left field open for...Joe Borchard??? Talented? Perhaps. Experienced? Not really. He's hit .191 in just over 100 major league games spread out over four seasons, striking out almost once every three at-bats, so I'm not certain he's the answer either.
Anywho, my money's on option #C, which means that the White Sox will probably use their surplus of starting pitching to acquire an outfielder with some pop. So someone, most likely Garland, is probably on his way out the door, though the rumors have it that he'll be traded for pitching prospects, not a major-league outfielder. Chicago was relatively weak offensively last year, only 9th out of 14 AL teams in runs scored, and they'd be wise to do more than add an aging, oft-injured 1B/DH 
to the roster if they want to improve in that category and repeat as AL Central champs. Heck, they had one of those last year, and it didn't do them much good.
In any case, this doesn't seem to have been a move designed for success in October so much as it was for the regular season. Historically, teams with five really good starters (few though they may be) haven't necessarily fared better in the playoffs, when one or two of those starters is relegated to the bench and/or long-relief.
Just ask the Braves.
Here we are, in mid-December already, and the best free agent hitter available this winter is, well, still available. Admittedly, this is a pretty weak free agent class, but being the best of a mediocre lot is still better than being mediocre in a good lot, at least for the player. Johnny Damon, centerfielder, leadoff hitter, idiot, and spokesman for shaving products, can fill all those holes for any team who's willing to pony up a seven year deal in the neighborhood of $84 million, according to Damon's agent, Scott Boras.
Boras has been quoted making comparisons of Johnny Damon (at this point in his career) to Bernie Williams in the winter of 1998-99, when he signed a 7-year deal with the Yankees for $87.5 million, an average of $12.5 million per year, and that was before former Braves' leadoff hitter Rafael Furcal signed for $13 million per season with the Dodgers. Boras has argued that Damon '05 and Bernie '98 are very similar, and therefore worthy of similar deals, that the Yankees certainly could have been a successful team without him, but not as successful as they have been with him.
This assertion begs two questions, and no, one of them isn't "Is Scott Boras nuts??!?":
Read the rest at All-Baseball.com...
The New York Yankees traded IF/OF/OM Tony Womack to the Cincinnati Reds for two minor leaguers on Thursday. The Reds sent 24-year old 2B Kevin Howard, who had played at AA Chatanooga in 2005, and 24-year old OF Ben Himes, who spent the 2005 season in Class A Dayton of the Midwest League.
We know why the Yankees made this trade: They needed to get rid of Womack, who played poor defense at three or four positions in 2005 and didn't hit a lick. (Lee Sinins says that Womack had the 5th worst OPS vs. the league average in Yankees History for a player with at least 100 at-bats). Womack's numbers will probably look a little nicer next year because the Great American Bandbox is pretty kind to hitters and because there's really nowhere to go but up from a year in which you hit .249/.276/.280, but he probably won't help the Reds much more than he helped the Yankees, in reality. This move clears about $2 million from the Yankees' payroll (i.e. about 1%) and more importantly, frees up a roster spot so they can let someone like Kevin Reese or Mike Vento get a few at-bats in the Show, not that either of those guys was ever likely to become the heir to Bernie Williams' CF job.
But what kind of talent did the Yanks get for Womack?
Find out at Pending Pinstripes...
What the Heck Are They Thinking in San Diego???
The San Diego Padres have reportedly traded starting 2B Mark Loretta to the Boston Red Sox for backup catcher Doug Mirabelli, who had been the backup catcher for Boston and personal caddy for knuckleballer Tim Wakefield for four years. He’s got a little more pop than most backup catchers, but that’s like saying that Kate Moss is a little thinner than most supermodels. Relatively speaking, they’re all pretty close together on that bell curve. Mirabelli is not going to be able to replace Ramon Hernandez, who signed with the Orioles for four years and $27.25 million.
The real curiosity here is on the Padres' side. Loretta had hit .334 with 76 RBI in 2004 before a thumb injury slowed his production in 2005. It’s probably not reasonable to expect him to hit like Tony Gwynn again in 2006, but his batting average and OBP were right in the 50th percentile of Baseball Prospectus' projections for him in 2005. His power dropped way off, which makes sense in light of his thumb injury, but if he’s healthy (and if the Sox traded for him, I imagine he must be) then he should have been a pretty solid player at the Keystone next year. Why they'd want to trade a guy like that, when Josh Barfield hasn't even played a game in the majors, Eric Young has probably played one of his last, and Bobby Hill is never going to be an everyday second-sacker, is beyond me.
The Pads also re-signed Trevor Hoffmann to a 2-year, $13.5 million deal, which isn't bad for the Padres in light of what B.J Ryan, Mariano Rivera and some other closers are making these days, but he's already 38 and I wonder how much gas he really has left in the tank. Too many teams over-value the role of a closer, wasting 10% of their payroll or more on a position that could be ably filled by a lot of guys making not much more than the major league minimum.
They also traded 3B Sean Burroughs to Tampa Bay for RHP Dewon Brazleton, who's got a great arm, a career ERA of 5.98, and not much else. Of course, Burroughs doesn't seem like he's got much of a future in the major leagues either, so this was a, "Hey, why not?" type of trade for both clubs.
What the Heck Are They Thinking in Texas/Washington???
The Nationals traded 1B/OF Brad Wilkerson, OF Termel Sledge and minor league pitcher Armando Galarraga to Texas for 2B Alfonso Soriano, the second time Soriano's been traded in three years. Nats' GM Jim Bowden purportedly has a fetish for "toolsy" players, and Soriano is nothing if not toolsy, but it seems to me that if you're going to acquire such guys, the time to do it is when they're 22 or younger and fresh out of the Dominican Republic, not when they've been playing organized baseball for a decade and still can't hit a curveball. Even with the horrendous strikeout and walk rates, Soriano's speed and power easily rank him in the top third of major league secondbasemen. Unfortunately, Washington has already got a secondbaseman, Jose Vidro, who's signed for 3 more years and is owed $23 million.
Evidently one of them is going to have to be traded, as neither seems willing to change positions.
For that matter, what are the Rangers thinking? They don't have a major-league ready 2B right now, but they were up to their armpits in corner IF/OF guys even before the trades for Wilkerson and Sledge, so there must be another trade in the works that we just don't yet see. Stay tuned...
I Know What the Heck They're Thinking in Pittsburgh...
The Pirates have made a flurry of moves in the last few days as well, trading LHP Dave Williams for erstwhile Reds' 1B Sean Casey, trading utility IF Rob Mackowiak to the Chicago White Sox for LHP Damaso Marte, and trading LHP Mark Redman to the Royals for pitcher Jonah Bayliss and minor league pitcher Chad Blackwell.
Williams has never been healthy enough to pitch 160 innings in any season of his career, and given the presence of Zach Duke, Pat Maholm and Oliver Perez (a health concern as well) on the roster, Williams was expendable. They didn't really need a firstbaseman making $8 million who doesn't hit for power, but he can't possibly be worse than the dreck they've run out at the position for the last few years, so you can at least understand the desperation aspect of the move.
Redman, too, was expendable, as he's really only reliable for 180-200 innings of league-average work, most of the time, the quintissential LAIM (League Average Innings Mincher). His one "good" season, 2003, was largely due to the friendliness of Pro Player Stadium to pitchers (2.88 ERA at home, 4.27 on the road). The Pirates, not expected to be contenders in 2006 (or 2007, or 2008...) shoudl be letting the younger, cheaper guys pitch in that rotation so they can see what kind of talent they've got, rather than reaffirming the "adequacy" of guys like Redman for 4 or 5 million dollars a season. This move makes a little more sense, especially because Bayliss has some potential and could help them in the bullpen in a year or two.
Mackowiak had come up through the Pittsburgh system in his five-year stint with the Pirates had played every position except pitcher, catcher and shortstop. His career .742 OPS at age 29 suggests that he'll never be a starter at any position, but that he can be a useful utility man, especially against right-handed pitching (only .681 career OPS against southpaws). With only one year left before free agency, the Pirates wisely got rid of him for a more useful (if no less expensive) player.
Damaso Marte has bounced back and forth between the roles of setup man, closer, and clubhouse scapegoat when the White Sox went into their September swoon this year, but is a very good reliever. He has a career ERA of 3.20 and 323 strikeouts in 304 innings pitched. Like most southpaws, he's more effective against lefties (.200 career batting average against), but is no slouch against righties either (.240) so there's no need to use him as a LOOGY. The Pirates just lost their closer, Joe Table, to the Rockies, other than whom nobody on the team had more than three saves last year, so they may be intending to give that job to Marte. UNder contract for next year at $2.25 million with $3 million club options ofr 2007 and 2008, this deal could turn out to be a steal.
Kudos to the Pirates for getting someone in the front office who seems to know what he's doing. The Cam Bonifay Era in the Iron City lasted way too long.
I have been given the opportunity to expose myself to more readers, and even though there are ladies present, I have decided to take that opportunity. My work has been syndicated on 360thePitch.com, which was recently bought out by Most Valuable Network, which also owns All-Baseball.com, home to such great blogs as Cub Reporter and Ducksnorts, to name a few. I will continue my blog here, but I will have a weekly column on All-Baseball.com now as well, a link to which will appear here on Boy of Summer. Just like Sunday Teddy Lyons, I'll be the go-to guy once a week for the All-Baseball.com team, except that Teddy was a switch hitter and I like girls. I will also have my own blog about the Yankees minor leagues on MVN.com, but this has not yet happened. Anywho, without further ado...
Free agent shortstop Rafael Furcal has reportedly signed (or is on the cusp of signing) a 3-year, $39 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. In doing so, the Dodgers immediately picked up one of the best free agent bargains in recent memory, and the best shortstop in the National League. Stick around and I’ll explain why.
Read the rest at All-Baseball.com...
This is the part where I'm supposed to panic, right?
Over the last week, and especially since the weekend, the major sports news outlets and radio talking heads would have you believe that the Yankees are just sitting idly by the Hot Stove, not doing much besides raising ticket prices, while everyone else leaves them in the dust. Their competitors, both in the tabloids and in the AL East, have been signing free agents and trading for star players on an almost daily basis while all the Yankees have done is, well, raise ticket prices. And overpay Hideki Matsui.
Of course, this is silly. Heck, it's November, for crying out loud. How worried are we supposed to be about the Mets stealing headlines in November? Sure, they got Carlos Delgado, and all it cost them was Mike Jacobs, a major league-ready catcher/firstbaseman, an excellent pitching prospect and an excellent shortstop prospect. And $41 million dollars over the next three years, during the last of which Delgado will be 36 years old.
The Mets also grabbed free agent closer Billy Wagner, who didn't cost them any prospects (only draft picks), but will cost them another $43 million over the next four years, at the end of which he'll be 38. This contract gives him the highest average salary of any reliever in MLB, better compensated than even Mariano Rivera, despite Wagner's history of arm trouble and his lack of postseason success. He's a great relief pitcher, but that's a heckuvalotta money, and the Yankees weren't in the market for a closer anyway. Hard to be too upset about that signing.
More important than headlines, of course, are wins and losses, especially of teams in the Yankees' own division, such as Boston. The Red Sox recently acquired RHP Josh Beckett from the Marlins during Florida's Bi-Annual Fire Sale, sending Anibal Sanchez, Jesus Delgado, Harvey Garcia and SS Hanley Ramirez to the Fish for Beckett, 3B Mike Lowell and relief pitcher Guillermo Mota.
Those four prospects, a shortstop and three pitchers, all 22 years old or younger, are all very good, though Ramirez is the prize in the Cracker Jacks. He put up impressive numbers at three minor league levels in 2004 before cooling off a little in AA Portland in 2005, but he's still expected to be very good. He had hit for high batting averages at every stop until 2005, will take a walk once in a while, and has some speed. Only 21, he should develop some power as he matures, but is probably still a year or two away from the majors right now. The other three prospects, all pitchers, all have good strikeout rates and peripheral numbers in the minors, but only Sanchez has pitched above Class A, with 57.1 innings in Portland this past summer, so none of them is a sure thing by any stretch.
What is a sure thing? Well, Guillermo Mota being a decent-but-unimpressive relief pitcher for another year is pretty close to a guarantee. Josh Beckett having blister problems limiting him to something like 150 or 175 innings is fairly certain as well, though they could be great innings. Rob Neyer points out that Beckett's career road ERA for the last three seasons is over 4.00, and that Fenway Park has a way of being cruel to pitchers, so it's possible that Beckett will not put up such gaudy numbers in Boston when he does pitch.
And Mike Lowell? Well, your guess is as good as mine. He could prove that 2005 was a fluke, take advantage of The Green Monster, and return to the .280/25Hr/100RBI form that got him a $25.5 million, 3-year contract after the 2004 season. Or he could be done, and the Red Sox will waste another 1000 at-bats and $18 million on a washed-up thirdbaseman while a perfectly capable, young and cheap 3B prospect wallows in AAA and/or the Red Sox bench. I guess it could be worse for Kevin Youkilis. I mean, the Sawx did the same thing to Wade Boggs, and he eventually wound up in the Hall of Fame! Plus he got his hair back!
In any case, this is not a move over which any Yankee fan should get her panties in a bunch. If you're going to get upset about something, get upset about the possibility that the Yanks might give Tom Gordon a contract like the ones that Scott Eyre and Bob Howry recently received from the Cubs ($11 or $12 million for three years). Flash is 38 years old now, with a considerably less flashy strikeout rate in 2005 than he had posted the previous two seasons. Furthermore, before the 2003-05 stretch, he had not been completely healthy for even one full season since 1998, the first year Boston used him exclusively as a reliever. He's certainly been very good for the Yankees for the last two seasons, but shelling out something like $15 million for another three years? Wagering that kind of scratch on an unprecedented and completely unlikely stretch of six straight healthy seasons for Gordon seems like a sucker bet to me. Better to take their chances with the much younger Kyle Farnsworth, though the competition will be stiff for him.
B.J. Ryan was signed to a $47 million, 5-year deal with the Toronto Blue Jays, who may not blue so hard in the near future. As a Yankee fan, this news was a little disappointng to read, but all the talk about Ryan coming to the Yankees as a setup man was never more than wishful thinking on the part of bored New York sports writers looking for fodder in a slow baseball news month.
Ryan, the erstwhile closer and setup man for the 0rioles (who blue pretty hard in their own right for much of the last decade), saved 36 games for the 4th place Baltimore club in 2005, striking out 100 batters in 70 innings. Jays' G.M. J.P. Riccardi cited the team's 2005 record of 16-31 in one-run games and indicated that he hoped Ryan would help win some of those games.
Ironically, relief pitching was not one of Toronto's major problems last year. Their bullpen was only 20-25, but had a respectable 3.81 ERA, and 35 saves. Their 21 blown saves were among the most in the majors, but many of those came in earlier innings, before a closer would normally have been used. Miguel Batista, Toronto's closer for most of the year, blew 8 saves in 39 chances, seven of which contributed to that 16-31 record, including one which Batista actually held on to win. Ryan blew 5 saves in 39 chances, so even if he cuts the closer's blown save rate in half, all other things remaining equal (which they never do) the Jays only improve from 80-82 to 84-80, hardly playoff contenders, unless Toronto suddenly and mysteriously gets placed in the NL West.
The Jays' real problem was their poor late-inning offense and the lack of a bench. Their .699 OPS in "Close & Late" situations ranked the team 11th in the 14-team AL, and their .710 OPS from the 7th inning on was 10th. Their pinch hitters were the best in the AL, but were also the most-often used, as their starting lineup left a lot to be desired. No regular player hit higher than .291, and nobody had 30 homers, 100 runs or 100 RBI on the entire team. The team as a whole hit only 136 homers, good for 11th in the AL, and they were closer to last than to 10th.
Toronto's not done spending this off-season, supposedly still trying to woo starting pitcher A.J. Burnett north of the border as well. In an effort to turn the Jays into as many J's as possible, Toronto is also thought to be pursuing trades for D.J. Carrasco, A.J. Hinch, D.J. Houlton, J.J. Davis, and J.J. Hardy, and are expected to pick up P.J. Forbes when the Phillies put him on waivers. T.J Mathews and C.J Nitkowski will be signed to minor league deals. P.J. Carlesimo is being brought in as a special assistant to the GM, B.J. Thomas will sing the National Anthem on Opening Day, and O.J. Simpson will throw out the first pitch, after which he will go look for the Real Killers in his SkyBox.
But if you ask me (and if you're still reading, then I guess you did), this is the wrong approach for them. (Not the "J" thing, that was a "J"oke.) They've already got Roy Halladay, 2005 Rookie of the Year candidate Gustavo Chacin, plus Josh Towers, who seems to be coming into his own. The Ryan signing allows Batista to go back to the rotation if they want him to, which gies the team a solid #4 starter, and the fifth spot in the rotation can be comprised of some cobmo of Ted Lilly, Dave Bush, or someone else. What they really need to do is get some hitters, preferably a few who are likely to jog around the bases every once in a while, ifyougetmydrift. No, not B.J. Surhoff, though that would be funny. Taking a chance on a Frank Thomas, Rafael Palmiero or Erubiel Durazo might not be the worst bet in the world. Russ Adams is still young, but bringing in Nomar Garciaparra to play short has a lot of upside. Even outfielders like Preston Wilson and Jeromy Burnitz, though flawed, at least threaten to hit one out occasionally. The risks aren't much greater than that of throwing almost fifty million dollars at a pitcher with two good years on his resume, especially when it's done to address an imagined need rather than a real one.
It's a little early in the off-season to start complaining about the way the "market" is going, but there have been a few deals already, and already I'm confused. Lee Sinins sends out daily "Around The Majors" emails on the happenings of MLB, including signings, trades, notable game feats (when there are games), and even birthdays. Friday's list contained some curious entries...
1) The Cubs signed free agent P Scott Eyre to a 3 year, $11 million contract. There are incentives in the deal that could be worth an extra $2.4 million and the 3rd year is a player option.
2) The Pirates re-signed CF Jason Bay to a 4 year, $18.25 million contract.
BAY AGE RCAA AVG OBA SLG OPS HR RBI SB
2004 25 18 .282 .358 .550 .907 26 82 4
2005 26 59 .306 .402 .559 .961 32 101 21
MATSUI AGE RCAA AVG OBA SLG OPS HR RBI SB
2003 29 5 .287 .353 .435 .788 16 106 2
2004 30 44 .298 .390 .522 .912 31 108 3
2005 31 26 .305 .367 .496 .863 23 116 2
3) The Blue Jays have reportedly offered free agent P A.J. Burnett a 5 year, about $50 million contract, with another team also offering a 5 year contract and 2 others expected to do so within the week.
4) According to the Newark Star Ledger, Yankees P Carl Pavano wants to be traded.
6) According to the Newark Star Ledger, if the Yankees are able to trade Pavano or find a team that likes losing so much that they will take Jaret Wright, then they could be interested in free agent P Jarrod Washburn.
7) According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Braves 3B Chipper Jones has agreed to a contract restructuring, contingent on him passing a physical.
Frommer's latest work, The Sports Junkies Book of Trivia, Terms, and Lingo, provides a resource to solve a problem I didn't know I faced. That problem is to find the origin and/or meaning of various sports terms, many of which have become so commonplace that most of us no longer have any idea of their sources. Frommer's book endeavors to fill that informational void, though I think with only moderate success.
Certainly, there can be no question that the book contains a lot of information. Frommer evidently combined two of his previous works to make this book, and it shows: An inch-thick paperback with dozens of terms on most pages. Like any dictionary, encyclopedia or other reference book, this one simply cannot be read straight-through, and I'm sure that Frommer did not intend anyone to do so. Just the "important" part of the book, i.e. the Baseball section, contains hundreds of terms, and even if you could read them all, you'd never be able to commit them all to memory. It is, however, a useful book if you want to know to whom a certain player's nickname belongs (like, "The Octopus", for example), or what a term means (i.e. that a lazy, fly ball is called a "can of corn"), or when a team's name changed (Like the Yankees, who used to be the Highlanders, who used to be the Baltimore Orioles) and so on.
Frommer covers all the "major" sports, like football, basketball, golf and hockey as well, but there is also a lot of space taken up on less traditional games. Archery, badminton, figure skating, volleyball, bocce, fencing, tiddlywinks...you name it, he's probably got some terms for you. He goes into more depth with certain terms and nicknames that he deems worthy of said attention, for certainly we should talk about "The Great Bambino" more than say, "Nails", or some arcane fly-fishing term, and that's fine.
Personally, I'm not all that interested in any of the terminology pertaining to cricket or curling, or anything other than baseball, for that matter, but then I'm something of a freak in that regard. I can understand that some people do like sports other than America's Pastime, so the ever-diplomatic Frommer makes sure he's got something for everybody.
I do have two minor problems with the book, but neither is really a reason not to buy it. Problem #1 is that the book isn't really complete. Frommer is from New York, even though he lives in New Hampshire now and teaches at Dartmouth, and his heavy New York bias shows. He has lots of terms and nicknames for players and teams from New York, but doesn't give the same in-depth treatment to say, Detroit, Houston, or Anaheim, for example. Hard to blame him for that, since it would be impossible to really cover every possible term and nickname, and Frommer never says that his list is exhaustive, but it's still something to consider. A book of nicknames that includes the ever-popular "Tanglefoot Lou" as one of Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig's nicknames and leaves out much more interesting fare like "Bear Tracks" and "Death to Flying Things", cannot be considered complete.
A related, but somewhat different issue (call it problem "1a"), is that the book does not really explain the origins of certain terms and names. Frommer tells you everybody who ever had the nickname "Moose" in professional baseball, for example, and sometimes the reasons for the nicknames, but does not often explain the origin of a term, such as why a high, lazy, fly ball is called a "can of corn" or where the term "rhubarb" (a heated on-field argument) comes from. This book could have been to baseball what "Red Herrings and White Elephants" is to the English language, but it's not. That would have been my personal preference, but it would have been an enormous amount of research work, and not everybody has the thirst for esoterica from which I suffer, so I can understand why Frommer did not follow this path.
Problem #B, one that may be less of an issue for my readers than it was for me, is that most of this book is re-hashed from other stuff Frommer has written. Indeed, the publisher's website indicates that it is a combination of two other books Frommer wrote, both over a quarter of a century ago, Sports Lingo and Sports Roots. Certainly, there is some newer information in it, but if you've read any of Frommer's 37+ other books, or his website, then you've read a lot of this before. Or at least I have.
On the other hand, with all that info in one place, it's still a handy reference tool, and can be recommended on that basis alone.
THE SPORTS JUNKIES BOOK OF TRIVIA, TERMS, AND LINGO
What They Are, Where They Came From, and How They Are Used
by Harvey Frommer
$16.95, c. Taylor Trade Publishing (October, 2005)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Move over SportsCenter, now there is a a new source for sports catch phrases, nicknames and jargon. The Sports Junkies Book of Trivia, Terms, and Lingo (October 2005, Taylor Trade Publishing) is the definitive book on the language of sports by celebrated sports author and journalist Harvey Frommer.
The prolific Frommer successfully fuses the common with the exotic, the arcane with the ordinary, the old with the new, and the poignant with the matter of fact. Admittedly, sports language comes and goes with the times, growing each year, changing in its attempts to describe the ever expanding world of athletics. In that vein, many of the words and terms defined here have become all but extinct in today's vernacular, while others have become incorporated into the mainstream like "Say it ain't so, Joe?"
Broken down by sport, Sports Junkies expounds a mind boggling number of entries in the sports vocabulary originating from clubhouses, media, rulebooks, and the bleachers. For any sports fan who ever wondered, where did that come from as they listened intently to play by play, tried to learn a new game, or to coach a kid in sports - -the descriptions here will not only define the words and terms, but give accurate historical relevance and acumen to each.
This book is a must have for any ESPN addicted, season ticket-holding, sports trivia buff that thought they knew it all. (Or a great tool for the sports journalist craving slang for a story or broadcast.)
This is probably a lot more in-depth analysis than a trade like like this deserves, but if there's one thing I'm not, it's concise. Hairy and concise. OK, two things. If there's two things I'm not, they're hairy and concise. And short...three things I'm not: Concise, hairy, and short...and perceptive. Four things!
OK, enough with the Spanish Inquisition (didn't expect that, did you?)
On to the analysis:
The recent trade of Padres pitcher Brian Lawrence and cash to the Washington Nationals for the corpse of 3B Vinny Castilla seems an odd way to try to upgrade an offense that ranked 27th out of 30 MLB teams in run scoring in 2005. Initially I thought that Lawrence might turn out to be a steal for the Nationals, since RFK Stadium played like such a severe pitchers' park in 2005 (Baseball-Reference.com reports a pitching park factor of 94, meaning that RFK decreased run scoring by 6%, compared to the league average). However, upon further research I discovered that Petco Park in San Diego actually played even more to pitchers' favor than RFK did, with a park factor of 91! Even Dodger Stadium, generally considered the best pitchers' park in history, has never gotten a rating lower than that for a given year.
So what does this mean? Well, it's not terribly encouraging for the Nationals, at least in terms of Brian Lawrence suddenly returning to the form of 2001/2002. At that time he had a better-than average ERA and about 6.5 strikeouts per nine innings in his first 325 or so innings in the majors, at the age of 26. Now three years later, his strikeout rate dropped to a career low of 5/9IP in 2005, his ERA rose to 4.83, 20% worse than the park and league-adjusted average, and he went 7-15 for a team that won its division, though it just narrowly escaped finishing the season with a losing record. Some of that was due to the fifth-worst run support in the National League, but his "expected" win-loss record was just 10-15, according to Baseball Prospectus, still not very good.
Now maybe 2005 was just a fluke. Maybe Lawrence goes home for the winter, takes a long, hard look at his numbers in 2005 and decides that he's going to do something to improve in 2006. Maybe he finds out that he's been traded, and in an effort to show the Pads' front office what fools they were for doing so, he teaches himself another pitch or gets in better shape or something to bounce back next year. Historically speaking lots have players have done exactly that. Heck, he is only 29 years old, and a lot of pitchers don't really find their niche until their early 30's. Lawrence's biggest problem continues to be lefties, who have punished him to the tune of an .821 OPS for the last three seasons, while righties have combined for a .692 OPS. A changeup or screwball would probably take care of that, but saying that and doing it are two very different enterprises.
More likely, Lawrence follows a more traditional career path for a RHP with good control and an underwhelming fastball: He racks up LAIM (League-Average Innings Muncher) numbers for a few years, becoming a solid contributor in the back of someone's rotation, and then has trouble finding a major league job by the time he's 35. Maybe he has some good luck with a low opponent batting average balls in play and/or good run support from his teammates one season and he wins 18 games. (In this scenario, the Yankees promptly trade three really solid prospects for him and/or sign him to a 4-year, $45 million contract, and Lawrence pitches badly and then gets injured in his first season in pinstripes, but that's just a guess.) But realistically, the chances of Brian Lawrence become a perrenial 200-inning, 15-win, 3.75 ERA type of guy are pretty slim.
Nevertheless, the chances of Brian Lawrence doing something like that in Washington next season are infinitely higher than the chances of Vinny Castilla coming back to life and hitting like a major-league third baseman again. Castilla had perhaps the worst fortune of any hitter in history last year in terms of team-movement. He left the hitter's paradise of Colorado, where he had managed to lead the Senior Circuit in RBI in 2004 despite hitting just .271 (.218 in road games), for Washington's RFK Stadium. At the time of his signing with the Nats, nobody knew how RFK would play, but there wasn't anywhere to go but down from the Mile High City.
And down he went. He hit .253 with 12 homers and 66 RBI while batting 4th, 5th or 6th most of the season. His walk rate, amazingly, stayed almost exactly the same as 2004, but everything else went into the toilet. Castilla apparently had some kind of knee tendinitis problem this year, which didn't help, but even if he had gotten some kind of knee braces online, getting only 11 at-bats at Coors Field instead of 250 of them was his biggest problem. Vinny didn't really hit on the road either in 2005, with a .683 OPS that was notably lower than his already-poor .765 at home. Vinny is going to an even worse park for hitters than RFK, will be 39 before the All-Star Break next year, and will probably lose his job before he gets to celebrate that birthday. You can certainly see why the Nationals would want to get rid of him, especially with a phenom like Ryan Zimmerman waiting in the wings, but how they managed to get some money thrown into the deal is beyond me.
Speaking of young thirdbasemen, the Pads were justifiably disappointed with Sean Burroughs, whose one-time, power-hitting, MVP-winning dad (Jeff) seemingly did not teach his son to hit for any power. Now 24 years old, with three years in the majors, Sean's already awful slugging percentage plummeted to .302 in 2005, at which point the Pads traded for Joe Randa and gave young Sean a Time-Out in the Pacific Coast League to think about what he'd done. Burroughs got about half of the total plate appearances by Padres' 3Bs in 2005, with most of the rest going to Joe Randa and Geoff Blum. Blum had hit poorly in spot-duty for the Pads until he was traded to the White Sox, for whom he hit even worse, with the noted exception of a go-ahead home run in the longest postseason game ever played. Randa had been with the Cincinnati Reds, where he was hitting .289/.356/.491 with 13 homers in 92 games, owing largely to the fact that my grandmother could hit home runs in the Great American Bandbox. But when traded to San Diego, he once again began hitting like, well, Joe Randa. In a sink hole.
So, here's the tale of the tape:
AGE BA OBP SLG OPS
Pads 3Bs 30 .254 .318 .366 .684
Castilla 38 .253 .319 .403 .722
"In the 10 years I've been a general manager, I was tired of Vinny hitting home runs against us, either in Colorado or Washington. He's always been a Padres nemesis, not only from the offensive standpoint, but from a defensive standpoint. This guy, I think, is one of the best defensive third basemen in the game."
As we found out the last couple of years, right-handed power plays in Petco...
Bobby Valentine's in over his head this time.
New Jersey's Bergen Record columninst and ESPN.com-tributor Bob Klapisch worte a piece discussing Valentine's challenge to have a "real" World Series, after his own Chiba Lotte Marines swept the Hanshin Tigers, 4-0, in the Japanese Series. Valentine became the first foreign-born manager in Japanese baseball history to even get to the final round of their playoffs, much less win them, so this accomplishment apparently went to his head pretty quickly.
Valentine had managed the NY Mets (1996-2002) and Texas Rangers (1985-1992) and never won a division title, though he did pick up an NL pennant with the Wild-Card winning Mets in 2000. He was also a very controversial manager, sticking with favorite players in spite of their repeated demonstration that they had no business in the regular lineup. His continued use of Brian McRae and Rey Ordonez in 1999 probably cost the Mets a Division Title, and if it didn't, then his use of Ordonez and Bernard "Innocent Until Proven" Gilkey certainly cost them the 1998 Wild Card. In a hilarious but extremely controversial move, Valentine returned to the Mets dugout after having been ejected from a game in 1999, in a not-particularly effective disguise.
I hope that was worth the suspension the commissioner levied upon you, Bobby.
Anyway, for all his faults, Valentine was reasonably successful as a manager, at least with the Mets, and in only his second year as a manager in Japan, he's as successful as anyone has ever been in that role. This success, as I mentioned, seems to have swelled Bobby's already sizeable ego:
"I can tell you the level of play is equal. [The Marines] are as good as any team I've ever managed.
"I'd put them up against the winner of the World Series and I know we'd win at least a couple of games."
"These people did not get the wealth they have by being stupid.”
This is going to be good.
HOUSTON ASTROS:
For the first time in history, the Houston Astros are in the World Series. Heck, last year was the first time in history the Houston franchise had ever won any postseason series, and they came damn close to getting into that World Series, missing the opportunity narrowly because injuries forced them to start Brandon Backe and Pete Munro twice each. Backe had barely 100 major league innings to his credit before the 2004 playoffs, with a considerably worse than league average ERA, and Munro was so good that the Astros released him after the season. This year he went 10-7, with a 4.56 ERA...in AAA Columbus.
But this season, it's different. Sorta. The Astros have not one or two, but three, top-flight, #1-type starting pitchers, in Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and 2005 NLCS MVP Roy Oswalt. Backe is still with the team, and is still mediocre, but if he gets more than one start it will be because Oswalt has assassinated Clemens and Pettitte, which isn't likely.
The trouble for Houston, as you likely know, is that they can't hit. As a team, the 2004 Astros were 5th in the NL in runs scored, 6th in OBP and 6th in slugging. Not awesome numbers, by any stretch, but they got guys on base enough and hit for sufficient power to score more runs than all but five of the 16 National League clubs.
This season, however, is a different story. The 2005 Astros were 13th in batting average, 12th in OBP and 11th in slugging, which allowed them to rank 11th out of 16 NL teams in scoring runs. (For reference, only one team in the American League scored fewer runs than Houston did: The Minnesota Twins. The Twins only scored five fewer runs than the Astros, and if you ask me, they have a better excuse, since there are only two of them, compared with nine Astros.)
There are two factors here that play into how good or bad the Astros' offense really is: Injuries and the Ballpark.
Or should I say, the "Juice Box"? Minute Maid Park played like a slight pitcher's park this year, but in actuality is generally thought to favor hitters, and for the Astros, it certainly did. The Killer Bees had a .776 OPS at home this year, averaging 4.44 runs per contest, but those numbers dropped to .687 and 4.06 on the road, second to last in the NL in road scoring, which helps to explain why they went onlu 36-45 in Away games.
In terms of injuries, the absence of Jeff Bagwell for most of the season and of Lance Berkman for the first month or so hurt them tremendously. Jeff Kent's departure hurt the team at two positions, sending Craig Biggio back to second base, where he hit approximately as well as he had in 2004, but not as well as Kent did, and forcing the Astros to play Chris Burke in left field, where he hit .248 with 5 homers in over 100 games.
The departure of Carlos Beltran, something of a blessing in disguise as it would turn out, made S-DOM ("Speed Demon/Out-Machine", pronounced "saddam") Wily Taveras the regular centerfielder. Bagwell's injury forced Mike Lamb into service at least until Berkman returned from the DL. Lamb was a shadow of his 2004 Self, hitting only .236 in half a season's worth of at-bats, compared to .288 last year. Even when Berkman returned, his injury limited him to mostly 1B/DH duties, and he could not hit with the authority he had shown in the past, and could not run at all. His OPS dropped from 1016 to 935, still very good, but not transcendent, as he had been in 2004.
With a chance to play every day in right field, Jason Lane did not disappoint, hitting 26 homers, but with a .316 on-base percentage due to an atrocious batting eye. Adam Everett lost about 50 points of OPS from his career-best 2004 numbers, but returned essentially to his normal production levels. Brad Ausmus did what Brad Ausmus always does, namely: catch the ball and make outs, 290 of them in 387 at-bats, to be precise. But only one error.
So just about everybody in the lineup was worse than thier 2004 counterpart, except Lane, who was essentially a wash with the Biggio of 2004, and Morgan Ensberg, who brought his own OPS up over 200 points to establish career highs in virtually every offensive category. But even Ensberg struggled early in the season, and as a result of his and his teammates' inneptitude, the Astros scored the fewest runs in the major leagues for the first two months, one-third of the season. Even with the returns of Berkmann and perhaps with Bagwell as a DH a couple of times, the Astros still have to struggle to score.
Interestingly enough, their pitchers were also less effective on the road, going from a MLB-best 3.07 ERA at Minute Maid to 3.98 on the road, good for 8th in MLB and 3rd in the NL. Still very good, but not nearly as dominant as they were in Houston. Their overall ERA of 3.51 was 0.02 away from tying St. Louis for best in the majors. Pretty darn good, as they say in France.
CHICAGO WHITE SOX:
The White Sox are a remarkably similar team to the Astros. Take a look at their rankings within their respective leagues for Runs Scored and ERA, and their home and road splits in those areas:
Home ERA Runs
Houston 1st 8th
Chicago 5th 7th
Away ERA Runs
Houston 3rd 15th
Chicago 1st 8th
Total ERA Runs
Houston 2nd 11th
Chicago 1st(T) 9th
Starter ERA
Houston 1st
Chicago 1st(T)
Bullpen ERA
Houston 3rd
Chicago 3rd
If I had told you two weeks ago that the Yankees would have held the Angels' leadoff hitter to a .143 batting average, that these "Runnin'Angels" would steal only one base in the series and that the Angels cleanup hitter would not drive in a run, you'd have thought the Yankees would win, wouldn't you? Well, you'd be wrong.
How about if I told you that the Angels' ace pitcher would not win a game in the series, or for that matter, neither would any of their other starters? You'd have thought the Yankees would win that series, wouldn't you? Wrong again.
What if I told you that Derek Jeter would hit two homers in the series and that the Yankees' #3 hitter, Jason Giambi would hit .421(!)? What if I told you that Chien Ming Wang and Shawn Shacon would combine to allow only 3 earned runs in 13 innings of work, and that Randy Johnson would finish the 7th inning of the deciding game without having allowed a run in it? That in the five-game series the Yankees would draw 24 walks allow only five? Sounds like a sure Yankee victory, doesn't it?
Strike three. You're not very good at this, are you?
Well, it turns out that certain Yankees aren't very good at playing baseball in the postseason, either. While Jeter did his best to carry the rest of the team on his back, with two homers, 5 RBI and a .333 average, his successor in the lineup, Alex Rodriguez, hit only .133 with ZERO RBIs. Furthermore, he got caught stealing once and grounded into two double plays, so he made 19 outs in 22 plate appearances, which is, of course, a statistical anomaly, but it's also atrocious and a huge part of why the Yankees eventually lost the series. (For the record, he also made an error in Game Two, which eventually allowed the tying run to score.) Rodriguez was being called the "unclutchest" player in postseason baseball history by some of the AM sports talk radio personalities on Tuesday morning. You know, if they have to add a word to the language to describe how bad you are, things are not going well. 
But before you crucify A-Rod, know that there is plenty of blame to go around. Randy Johnson may have pitched into the seventh inning of Game Five without allowing a run, but because starter Mike Mussina allowed five runs before getting out of the third inning, Johnson's relief efforts offered little relief as the Yankees struggled to score runs all day. The Big Unit also came up very small in Game Three, surrendering five runs in three innings and pressing the bullpen into service much sooner than expected, even though he didn't take the Loss. That dishonor was given to Aaron Small, who went 10-0 in the regular season, based on a little luck and a lot of guile, both of which ran out at the end of September, apparently. 
Also running out at the end of September was the Yankees' lineup's abilities to hit for average and/or power, with the noted exceptions of Jeter and Giambi. During the regular season, the Yankees had five regular players hit .290 or better and a team batting average of .276. In the postseason? Two guys, and .253 collective BA. During the regular season, seven regulars plus Tino Martinez had a slugging percentage of .430 or better, but in the LDS, only three (though Cano was close at .421). The team got on base often enough, a .351 team OBP that was very close to their regular season mark of .355, which missed leading the major leagues by 0.001, but because they didn't hit for any power, they could not bring baserunners home, and therefore could not win.
If I may say so, the Angels got some help from the umpiring crew as well, at least in Game Five. Home Plate Ump Joe West called one of the least consistent strike zones I have ever seen, which generally seemed to be about eight inches wide and four feet tall, though it sometimes got considerably wider (and no shorter) if the Yankees had runners on base.
More importantly, West was also responsible for calling Robinson Cano out for running outside the baseline to end the fifth inning. Cano had struck out but ran to first on a passed ball and was safe when Angels' 1B Darin Erstad missed the throw from catcher Bengie Molina. Erstad set up across the 1B bag, effective blocking Cano's path, which is also against the rules if you don't already have the ball, though West didn't seem to mind that. Cano was running along the foul line, right on it the entire way, as shown by the replay, and Erstad could have set up with his left foot on first base and fielded the throw easily if Molina had thrown it that way, but neither of those things happened. At best, this was a too-close-to-call kind of situation, and you hate to see an umpire step in and swing the game around like that if it's not obvious. It's always better to see the players decide things on the field than to win or lose on a technicality. To wit, the next "batter" was Bernie Williams, who hit only .211 for the series and got only one hit with runners on base in the entire series, so perhaps even with the bases loaded and two out, the Yankees' hopes would have been dashed, but it sure would have been nice to play it out, you know?
Still, though, even this is the Yankees' fault. Branch Rickey may have been dead for almost 40 years, but luck is still the residue of design, and if the Yankees had taken care of business and gotten better hitting and/or pitching when they needed it, then a call like this would not have affected them so adversely. Isn't that right, Chuck?
Kudos to the Angels, who overcame injuries and illness to their starting pitchers, atrocious hitting by Steve Finley, Chone Figgins and Orlando Cabrera, and a complete lack of patience by the entire lineup, to win the series. They got just enough baserunners on, got key hits when they needed them, and their bullpen made fools of the Yankee lineup. The road to the World Series goes through the Bronx, as the last four teams to win it had to eliminate the Yankees to do so.
Here's hoping that particular streak ends now.
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