Sean MacLeod questions whether win shares really show that the A's staff looks more formidable than the Red Sox. I've thought about this, and wrote a piece on the subject of how run distributions might be the cause of the Pythagorean estimate being off.

The short answer is, don't strike out. The DBacks faced five teams this year that struck out less than 7 times per nine innings against Arizona pitching. The results:

Team K/9            Record vs. Ariz.

Less than 7.0           26-25

Greater than 7.0        38-73

The five teams with K success were the Mets, Giants, Dodgers, Yankees and Indians. The Cardinals struck out 8.36 times per 9 innings against the DBacks this year, and had a winning record against them, a bit on the high side (DBacks average was 8.11). If the Cardinals can put the ball in play, they have a shot at winning this series.

Here's the final list for 2002:

Player                   WS

Barry Bonds             48.6

Alex Rodriguez          38.9

Brian Giles             37.7

Jim Thome               35.9

Lance Berkman           34.8

Todd Helton             34.8

Jason Giambi            33.9

Miguel Tejada           33.9

Chipper Jones           33.6

Vladimir Guerrero       32.4

Albert Pujols           32.2

Larry Walker            31.4

Luis Gonzalez           30.8

Bobby Abreu             30.5

Jose Vidro              30.4

Alfonso Soriano         30.2

Manny Ramirez           29.8

Bernie Williams         29.6

Randy Johnson           28.4

Sammy Sosa              28.4

Magglio Ordonez         28.2

Thanks to STATS, Inc. for letting me figure these all year. And let's put in a good word for Brian Giles. He finishes the season with a .298 BA, a .450 OBA and a .622 slugging percentage. Now the Pirates just have to take their revenue sharing money and put a decent team around him, and they'll be a contender. Here are just the pitchers:

Player                   WS

Randy Johnson           28.4

Eric Gagne              27.9

John Smoltz             25.2

Barry Zito              25.1

Tim Hudson              24.0

Billy Koch              23.2

Eddie Guardado          22.4

Robb Nen                22.4

Byung-Hyun Kim          22.3

Roy Halladay            22.3

Derek Lowe              21.8

Jose Mesa               21.7

Pedro Martinez          21.6

Bartolo Colon           21.0

Mike Williams           21.0

Curt Schilling          19.7

Greg Maddux             19.7

Troy Percival           19.5

Tom Glavine             19.2

Jamie Moyer             19.0

Odalis Perez            18.7

Billy Wagner            18.7

Based on this, by the way, the A's staff looks more formidable than the Red Sox. Notice, also, that there are no Yankees in the top list here.

Kim does the job, striking out the last two batters. Game 1 will be in Arizona, late night Tuesday.

Colorado refuses to lay down and die. They've cut the lead to 11-8 in the 9th, and with one out Brenly has had to go to Kim. And of course, Kim never gives up a game tying HR. :-)

Curt Schilling came in to pitch the 8th inning today. I don't quite understand this. What does he get from coming into the game that he doesn't get throwing on the sidelines? He didn't look sharp, giving up 2 singles and a three run homer. And on top of it all, Rick Sutcliffe explains to everyone how Schilling may be tipping his pitches! I'm sure the Cardinals appreciate that. :-)

But what if Schilling got hurt? Is it really worth getting him live game action when you are risking an injury. Sometimes I think Schilling is more in charge of that team than Brenly.

Home field is settled in the AL. Yankees finish first, Oakland 2nd. Still waiting for the outcomes of the Cardinals and Diamondbacks games.

Soriano struck out in the ninth, as did Jeter. Barring a big comeback by the Orioles, Soriano falls 1 HR short of 40-40.

I actually think this is a good thing. If Soriano had gotten the 40-40, it would have been difficult to have an objective discussion about his season. Someone would always throw the 40-40 in your face as if that's all that mattered. Soriano is a good player; he's not a leadoff man, however. Nick Johnson will finish with an OBA 15 points higher than Soriano. He's more valuable at the top of the lineup than Soriano. Alfonso would be a great #5 hitter, but unless he learns to get on base, his talents are wasted in the leadoff spot.

Jeter finishes with 730 PA without a triple, 2nd highest total of all time.

Rolen broke it up as I wrote the last post. :(

Wayne Franklin of the Brewers has a no-hitter through 5. Cardinals need to win this game to have a hope at home field in the first round.

Jeter now has 729 plate appearances this year without a triple, win the possibility of one more if Torre doesn't pull him. If he doesn't get a triple in that PA, it will be the 2nd most PA in a season without a triple. Biggo had 754 in 1999, and Bagwell, also in 1999, had 729. So the top of the ninth should be interesting for the Yankees. Soriano's last chance for 40-40, and Jeter's last chance for a triple.

Sammy Sosa has hit #49. They are through 4, so he should have two more PA for a crack at 50. It would be reminisent of Cecil Fielder in 1990 needing one HR for 50 on the last day of the season, and hitting two. There was no TV broadcast for that game, so ESPN sent a camera crew to record his AB. 50 HR was a very big deal a decade ago.

Detroit-Toronto took 2:12 today. It was a 1-0 game. Hinske drove in the winning run in the bottom of the 8th to keep the game short.

Mateo gets a hit. Maybe Vlad will hit his 40th.

Tim Drew has a no-hitter going through 5. Stay tuned.

From 1996 on, the Yankees have an unbelievable record in the post-season. This article examines why.

I was just looking at the Braves win shares, and noticed Vinny Castilla at 3.2 by the short form, and I thought, what's the lowest win shares by a player with 502 PA (qualifies for the batting title). Sure enough, it's Vinny. Here's the bottom of the list:

Player                    WS

Aramis Ramirez           7.5

Jeromy Burnitz           7.2

Deivi Cruz               7.0

Neifi Perez              4.4

Vinny Castilla           3.2

It's not the worst of all time. Just last year, Michael Barrett of the Expos put up a 2. Ted Simmons, in 1984, actually posted a 1, and he was mostly a DH! Still, given this, I don't know if the move of Chipper from third was such a good idea. It strikes me that it would have been easier to find a left fielder capable of putting up 5 or 6 win shares.

Earlier in the year I cited an article about keeping ball at the proper humidity at Coors Field. It seems to have paid off. The Rockies only have 150 HR this year, their lowest total since 1994 and third lowest total in franchise history. They've put up their third lowest home slugging percentage (.496) and their fourth lowest home slugging percentage allowed (.497). I'd say the experiment was a success.

Looks like the Arizona-Cardinals series will get the extra day off this year. That means that only Schilling would have to go on short rest if the series goes five. Randy Johnson would still get 4 days off between starts.

The A's and Twins have set their rotations for the Division Series. The A's are going with a 3-man rotation, where lefties Mulder and Zito will get three starts, and Tim Hudson will get two. Looking at the Twins vs. lefties and righties, the A's may want to start Hudson in one game instead of two. The Twins are 70-38 (.648) when the opposition starts a RHP, best in the majors, but only 22-29 (.431) whe the opposition starts a LHP.

A story here from SFGate.com on Jackie Autry, and how happy she thinks Gene would be with this team.

One of the reasons the Angels never won under Gene Autry was that he always wanted stars on his team to compete with the Dodgers. However, rather than grow his own, he went for other teams stars, and unfortunately, when he got them, they were usually on the downside of their careers. This is a very different team than one Gene Autry would have built, and probably has a better chance of winning than any team Gene ever built.

Congrats to these two teams. I'd like to see Barry Bonds do well in the post-season this year. It would be a shame if he ended a Hall of Fame career without one decent post-season.

This looks like a really evenly matched series. My thoughts are here.

Rey Ordonez wants out of New York, according to this story on ESPN.com.

"The fans here are too stupid," Ordonez told The Post. "You have to play perfect every game. You can't make an error. You can't go 0-for-4. Are we like (expletive) machines?"

Since 1996, Ordonez has gone 0 for at least 4 one hundred seven times out of 386 games in which he got at least 4 AB. That's 27.7% of games. Not the worst in the league, but in the top 30. His .245 BA is fifth lowest in the majors over that time. His .290 OBA is the 2nd lowest (2000 PA). And his .304 slugging average is the lowest by 26 points! To put it another way, there are 30 hitters in that time frame whose batting averages are higher than Rey's slugging average. But NYfans are stupid to boo a poor hitter.

"I want something more relaxed," Ordonez told The Post. "I'll probably play two or three more years (after next season), then I'm gone. After next year, I'm looking for something else. Maybe close to Florida."

Rey, Florida is a great place for retirees. You'll have plenty of time to catch the early bird dinner specials, because it's likely you won't be playing baseball.

Update: Ordonez doesn't think all fans are stupid.

Sorinao has now gone 9 games trying to hit his 40th HR. He has 5 two-hit games in this stretch, but with his 0 for 5 tonight, he's hitting .263 over these games. When I've seen him, he's really just swinging for the fences, rather than just letting it happen. I think Michael Kay of the Yankees is going to be very disappointed if Sorinao does not reach the milestone.

Al Bethke makes a good point about the Twins attendance. Here it is by month:

Month        Att
------     -------       
4    20727       
5    19894       
6    23146       
7    26648       
8    29998       
9    20339

It's too bad. The Twins were saved from extinction, they are winning the central by a mile, and it was time for the fans to come out. Let's hope they show up for the playoffs.

Reader Brad Harris asked for a list of top win share leaders. Here is the top of the overall list:

Player               Win Shares

Barry Bonds             48.1

Alex Rodriguez          38.6

Lance Berkman           35.5

Brian Giles             35.2

Todd Helton             34.7

Jim Thome               33.4

Chipper Jones           32.5

Jason Giambi            32.4

Miguel Tejada           31.8

Albert Pujols           31.7

Larry Walker            31.3

Vladimir Guerrero       30.9

Luis Gonzalez           30.9

Alfonso Soriano         30.5

Bobby Abreu             29.7

Manny Ramirez           29.3

Bernie Williams         28.7

Jose Vidro              28.6

Randy Johnson           28.5

Magglio Ordonez         28.1

Sammy Sosa              27.9

And here is the list of just pitchers:

Player               Win Shares

Randy Johnson           28.5

Eric Gagne              27.9

Barry Zito              24.0

Billy Koch              23.9

Tim Hudson              23.8

John Smoltz             23.8

Derek Lowe              21.9

Jose Mesa               21.7

Pedro Martinez          21.7

Eddie Guardado          21.5

Robb Nen                21.3

Byung-Hyun Kim          21.2

Mike Williams           21.1

Curt Schilling          20.6

Bartolo Colon           20.6

Roy Halladay            20.5

Troy Percival           19.5

Greg Maddux             19.2

Jamie Moyer             19.1

Odalis Perez            19.0

Tom Glavine             18.9

Billy Wagner            18.7

Now remember, these are short form win shares, so the final totals will probably be a bit different. However, it's pretty clear that Johnson deserves the Cy Young award more than Schilling this year.

The Giants won the season series vs. the Diamondbacks, so they hold the advantage in case of a tie. The also have a game in hand, as their game with the Atlanta Braves on 8/15 ended in a tie. If the Giants finish 1/2 game behind Arizona after Sunday's games, they would fly to Atlanta to make up the game on Monday. If they lose the game, they stay in Atlanta and open up as the wild card against the Braves. If they win the game, they would play St. Louis, either in St. Louis or SF depending on how the season ends. Giants do not have the tiebreaker vs. St. Louis. If the Giants are 1/2 games up on the DBacks after Sunday, no make up is needed to decide the wild card, but if both the Giants and Cardinals have 95 wins, I would think the game would be necessary to decide first round home field. Inerestingly, Cardinals (3.01) and Giants (3.03) have the best ERA's in the NL in September. If a series between those two comes about, I wonder is Bonds will run the bases with "one flap down" if he hits a HR?

Prime California real estate, walk to Disneyland. Twenty-five strong men to patrol the lawn. Great for parties, can hold 50,000. 30 Bathrooms, kitchen and house cleaning staff included. Waterfall on property. Big screen TV in backyard included. Gene Autry lived here!

Sounds good to me, I'll start the bidding at $1 million dollars.

Think that will be the best offer they get? :-)

Congrats to the Angels for winning at least the wild card. The AL teams are now set, for the most part, and I don't know who to root for. They're all good teams. You can go for the Cinderella Twins; you can go for the scrappy and low paid A's; you can go for the surprise Angels; and there's always the cream of the crop Yankees. I'll try to write some previews over the weekend now that we have a better handle on the matchups.

Garrett Anderson hits a 3 run HR! Angels up 6-2, looking to clinch this afternoon.

I see the Angels are losing 1-0 so far today. It struck me that Texas pitching has been much better lately. They have a 4.46 ERA for the month of September, their best monthly ERA this year. Don't know what they are doing right, but Rangers fans have to hope it carries over to next year.

Mike Wechsler points out this article about Dr. Carl Morris, a Harvard statistics professor who has come up with a new run formula that is non-heuristic. He's going to post a calculator for figuring it out on his web site. I hope he publishes a more complete explanation of the formula.

I am listening to "Mike & the Mad Dog" on the radio, and I just heard the following (somewhat paraphrased) gem from Mike regarding Soriano's season:

"Joe Morgan never had a season like this one, with 40 homers. No second baseman has ever had a season like this one."

AAAGHHH!!!

Mike is supposed to be the knowledgeable one. It's true that Joe Morgan never hit more than 27 homers in a season. But Morgan had several seasons that were much better than Soriano's 2002 season. That's not a slur on Soriano - his season is great, but keep in mind that Morgan:

1) Played in an environment where runs were much scarcer (although Riverfront in the 1970s may have been slightly better for the hitters than Yankee Stadium is today), so each run created by Morgan was more valuable than one created by Soriano;
2) Walked about 5,000 times more often than Soriano;
3) Was a much better defensive second baseman; and
4) Was an even better base-stealer.

I don't have my reference materials at work with me to get more specific (and the specific item I'm looking for, the database of Bill James' "Win Shares," isn't available online), but Morgan probably had at least 5 seasons that were better than Soriano's 2002 season.

And even if the discussion is restricted to raw power numbers, without adjusting for context, hasn't Mike ever heard of Rogers Hornsby? I can't tell you how outraged I get when I hear blithering idiocy like that from people who should no better, and not just because the person said so - it's because they don't get corrected, and because the assumption is that people don't know better. I find that very condescending and depressing.

Jeremy Senderowicz

Through yesterday, Soriano had 30 win shares. From 1972 to 1976, Morgan had 39, 40, 37, 44 and 37.

David Eckstein won't have the chance to playBucky Dent.

I made a mistake with this post about the most pitches thrown in a 1-2-3 inning. I only did the AL. Here's the correct leaders for this year:

Pitcher                   Date    Pitches

Trachsel, Steve           6-25       25

Linebrink, Scott          6-23       25

Beverlin, Jason           9-21       24

Moss, Damian              5-28       24

It's taking too much time to go back very far, but I did find a 28 pitch 1-2-3 inning by Bartolo Colon in 1998.

Well, it will be true when the game is over. Ordonez just hit his 37th to put the pale hose up 7-2. Looks like the Red Sox are likely to be eliminated tonight, which means Pedro can start his vacation early.

Here's a plan to move the Expos to San Juan, Puerto Rico. If the Cubans could just get rid of Castro, they could move the team to Havana, and probably draw 4 million a year!

I think it's a great idea to expand to the Caribbean. The area has been a major source of players for years, and an MLB team would probably be immensely popular.

Melissa Trujillo of the AP has the story.

Attorney Ulice Payne, a former state securities commissioner, takes over for Selig-Prieb as team president. Doug Melvin, a former general manager with the Texas Rangers, will be the new general manager.

Selig-Prieb, daughter of commissioner Bud Selig, remains with the team in a newly created post as board chairman, but Payne will make day to day decisions.

The team said Selig-Prieb wished to resign from her day to day duties with the Brewers.

"I want to personally apologize to our fans for the failings of this season," Selig-Prieb said at the news conference.

I wonder who "the team" is? Maybe Wendy got tired of taking orders from her father. :-)

I'm also wondering how independent Payne will be. Here's his biography, rather impressive.

Melvin did a good job with the Rangers, although he could never get them over the Yankees hump. Then again, in that time period, few could.

Despite pitching a 6 hit, 1 BB, 12 K game, Curt Schilling got beat 6-1. He gave up two three run homers to Drew and Rolen. He had only given up two 3+ run HR all year! Cardinals have to feel pretty confident right now. They are in the drivers seat for home field, they have beaten Schilling, and the Diamondbacks are hurting. Of course, at this rate, the Giants may catch Arizona, and then SF would face the Cardinals.

I finally found one in the Boston Herald. (Via Bambino's Curse.)

Only Baseball Matters takes my post on the Twins and A's a step further, and looks at how the Giants, a team whose OBA is dependent on their hits, do against pitchers that don't walk a lot of batters. Thanks, John.

ESPN.com is reporting that Scott Rolen has signed an 8 year, $90 million deal with the Cardinals. This, after rejecting the same money over 7 years from the Phillies.

Do you think the Phillies really hate the Cardinals? They take Drew, now they take Rolen. Or is there a real problem in Philadelphia that makes athletes not want to play there? I thought Ed Wade was doing a job of building toward a winner last year. It's too bad they don't have others in the front office and on the bench who realize the importance of having a player of Rolen's ability. Keeping Rolen happy and signed would have made rebuilding the Phillies a lot easier.

I've been watching both the Angels and Mariners games tonight, and the Fox broadcasters seem to think if the Mariners lose tonight the Angels are in the playoffs. But the Red Sox can still tie, if I'm reading the standings correctly. Maybe they don't realize that tie-break games are considered regular season games.

Benito Santiago drives in two with a triple to give the Giants a 4-0 lead. It was the 5th triple of the season for Benito, and it gives him 38 for his career, which I would think is pretty good for a catcher. His season high was 6 in 1993.

The Red Sox win. The Angels lose. It's not over. Come on, Pedro, come back and pitch!

Spiezio just got thrown out on a busted hit and run with Palmeiro at the plate. That's seems to be a very risky strategy, especially with Pudge's arm.

St. Louis uses the 1-run strategy of a stolen base to set up Edgar Renteria with a man in scoring position. Renteria was hitting .359 in that situation coming into the game, and delivered a single to beat the DBacks. Cardinals now trail AZ by 1-game for home field, and a win tomorrow gives them the tie-breaker. It also keeps the Giant's hopes alive of actually winning the west. This is turning out to be a much more interesting end of the season than I thought it would be. You never know.

The Red Sox are winning, and the Angels are losing. If the Red Sox are still in the race on Thursday, doesn't Pedro have to pitch?

Given the history of these two teams, it would be appropriate for the Angels to blow the lead, end up in a tie with the Red Sox, then have the Red Sox lose the playoff game on a David Eckstein HR. :(

That Diamondbacks magic may still be at work. Down two runs in the 9th, Isringhausen gives up two. Two outs and two on for the DBacks.

The A's dominated the season series 6-3, outscoring the Twins 34-26 over the 9 games. I do see hope for the Twins, however.

The Twins have the higher batting average, .273 to .261. The A's have the higher OBA, .338 to .333. Basically the A's are more dependent on walks for their offense than the Twins. The interesting thing is that the Twins pitchers don't walk batters:

Fewest Walks Allowed, AL


Team          BB Allowed

Yankees           395

Red Sox           416

Twins             419

Mariners          422

Now, if you don't walk, what's your OBA? It's your batting average. And that's the problem with an Earl Weaver team. It was the problem with the Orioles in the 1970's, and it was the problem with the A's in the late 1980's. If you have a team whose OBA is too dependent on walks, a team that doesn't give up walks can shut you down. It's what the Mets did to Baltimore in 1969. It's what LA and Cincinnati did to the A's in 1988 and 1990. They were teams that were hard to hit and didn't give up many walks. And as good as those offenses were, they weren't great average hitters. They got guys on and hit HR. When the opposition didn't let the runners on, the HR didn't do much damage.

The Twins, being less patient, are less likely to wait around to get behind in the counts. A couple of good guessses on first pitches from an A's staff that's around the plate could be enough to give them the series. Radke and Reed have been very good down the stretch for Minnesota, and neither walks many. I think this will be a very interesting series.

Things just keep getting worse for the Mets. :-)

Luis Gonzalez has a separated shoulder. The DBacks don't know how serious it is yet, but he'll probably be out at least a week. He's the DBacks biggest win share contributor this year. If the Cardinals can sweep the DBacks, they will be tied with Arizona for the 2nd home field spot in the NL playoffs, and the Cards will have the tie-breaker with the season series in their favor. Neither finishes against a strong opponent, although I'd rather be the Cardinals going against the Brewers than the DBacks going against the Rockies.

Given that the chances of St. Louis gaining homefield were not remote, I don't understand this article from the 22nd where La Russa says:

"Four games, that's a lot of games,'' La Russa said. "I think you want to take what you've got, which is a division championship, and know you're going to play Tuesday against Arizona.

"I don't want to jeopardize our pitching, with the problems we've got, and do something crazy.''

But isn't the point of home field advantage to make this series interesting? The Cards are a better home team. La Russa should go for it.

Update: Here's the Arizona Republic's take on the Gonzalez injury, by Mark Gonzales.

Mariano came in, threw 10 pitches, gave up a hit, got a DP and broke three bats.

Tino Martinez just dropped a pop-up down the left field line for a double. Womack, Gonzalez and Cintron all went for the ball, and Womack and Gonzalez collided. Gonzalez got hit in his shoulder, and has left the game. If Gonzalez has a serious shoulder injury, it would help the Cardinals in the playoffs greatly. Tino and Luis are old friends (I heard they grew up together), so Tino has to be feeling bad about this.

My old friend Don Zminda points out the lack of outrage about Jerry Royster sitting down Jose Hernandez against the Giants. Last I looked, the Giants were still in a pennant race. What ever happened to the idea that a team out of it still tried to play their best against the contending teams? And with Hernandez having the 2nd highest win share total on the team, I'd say the Brewers have a much better chance of winning with him than without him.

Manager Jerry Royster saw to it last week that Hernandez wouldn't touch the record in Miller Park, sitting him all four games of a series against the San Francisco Giants in Milwaukee

Royster said his decision had everything to do with the way the home fans reacted last week as Hernandez approached the record against Houston. Fans cheered Hernandez's two strikeouts and booed the plate appearances when he walked or put the ball in play. Friday night, fans in the right-field stands in Miller Park assembled what looked like 188 "K" placards, which were removed at an usher's request.

"I don't want to subject him to what our fans did to him," Royster told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel last week. "I don't think he deserves any treatment like that. What he deserves, if he gets it, is the strikeout record. But people who try to humiliate him -- I don't get that."

Oh, please. If Hernandez is embarassed by his strikeouts, maybe he should choke up on the bat! And this is a team that is owned by the commissioner. Another disgrace next to his name.

If I were on the Dodgers, I'd be pretty upset by this.

Wearing Out Pitchers, Part II: It was Jason Beverlin of the Tigers in the first inning of Saturday's game. He threw 24 pitches, which is the most thrown in a 1-2-3 inning this year:

Pitcher                   Date   Pitches

Beverlin, Jason           9-21     24

Lowe, Derek               5-4      23

Rhodes, Arthur            8-21     23

7 with 22

I'll see how far back I can go with this.

Bill Grewe of the US Army writes:

David,
Enjoy your musings. In the first inning of the NY/Det game on Saturday the Yankees were retired in order, but it took 26 pitches (ten pitches to the first two batters and a 16 pitch battle with Jeter before he grounded out to first). After Jeter's 5th foul ball the fans got a smile from Derek when they started yelling for him to "hit the ball." While the Detroit pitcher still had his perfect game it was clear he wasn't going to finish it (he got a quick hook after giving up on run in the 4th). The announcer's commented on how the Yankee's make pitchers throw a lot of pitches. So I was wondering if records are kept/available on how many pitches are thrown to each team and if retiring the side (three up and three down) on 26 pitches was some kind of record.

This reminds me of a game at Fenway in the 1980's. Wade Boggs was having a long at bat where he kept fouling off pitches. The amazing thing was, he kept fouling them off to the same spot down the left-field line. After about 5 in a row, the fans in that section all stood up, and put up their hands as if to say, "Hit one to me!"

The Yankees do make pitchers throw a lot of pitches. Here's the list of team batters seeing the most pitches per inning:

Team                     PPI

Athletics              17.29

Yankees                17.04

Diamondbacks           16.74

White Sox              16.71

Phillies               16.68

Phillies, A's, Yankees and DBacks are all in the top 6 in walks. As for the 26 pitches in a 1-2-3 inning being a record, that's going to take some time to figure out. STATS has pitch counts complete going back a number of years. I'll see what I can find.

I found this story on ESPN.com disturbing. Pedro Martinez says he's done for the year:

"This is it," Martinez told reporters after Sunday's game. "I'm done. To ask for a little more would be greedy. I'm going to let (prospect Josh) Hancock show what he has, to see if he can be of any help to us next year. I don't have anything else to prove."

Red Sox manager Grady Little tentatively has scheduled Hancock to pitch Thursday in Chicago. Whether Martinez makes one final start would not prevent Hancock from making an appearance before the season's out.

"We'll sleep on it and let (Martinez) sleep on it," Little told the Hartford Courant. "If I had to guess, I would think he would want to make that start. But we'll make that decision."

Now, the last I looked, the Red Sox have not been eliminated from playoff contention. A loss tonight, or any Anaheim win will do it, but they are not there yet. Shouldn't Pedro be saying that until they have been eliminated, he'll do everything he can to help the team win?

In this post about Nomar being run out of town, a similar thought is discussed. Do the Red Sox have the desire to win? And if not, why not? As Rob Neyer points out in this column, the Red Sox have underperformed by 8 wins based on their runs scored and runs allowed. That tells me they win big, but lose close. Sure enough, they are 33-18 in games decided by 5 runs or more, but 12-22 in games decided by 1 run. Now, do those 1-run losses bother the Red Sox players? Do they slam gloves and yell at each other? Do individuals get mad at themselves if they feel responsible for such a loss. My guess is Pedro and Nomar don't and they set the example for everyone else.

The Red Sox need a Paul O'Neill type. Someone who beats himself up over a swing and a miss. In fact, maybe they should hire Paul as their manager. I think you'd see a quick attitude change. Until that happens, until the Red Sox want to win as much as the Yankees or A's or DBacks (you think Schilling doesn't want another start?) they will continue to suffer from a supposed curse.

I'm back from my charity bike ride. Three days on Cape Cod, 160 miles of cycling, all to raise money for the American Lung Association. No TV or radio, I was able to look at scores with my cell phone. (Isn't technology wonderful?) As things are starting to settle out, I hope to be doing some playoff previews this week. Looks like it will be Yankees vs. Angels, A's vs. Twins, Cardinals vs. DBacks and Atlanta vs. LA or SF. Not set in stone, of course, but the probabilities look good for those series.

I'm away for the weekend and will be blogging again Sunday night.

The Angels-A's game tonight will go a long way toward determining the AL West victor. If the A's win tonight, their magic number will go down by three, since they will win the season series against the Angels, which will give them the tie breaker in case they finish in a dead heat with Anaheim. A victory by the Angels leaves the season series in a tie, and gives the Angels a 2 game lead in the 2nd tie breaker, record in the division. All remaining games are against the west, and the A's should have an eaiser schedule, as they play 6 against Texas and 3 against Seattle (Anaheim has the same opponents, opposite numbers). The six Oakland-Texas games could also help decide the MVP. If A-Rod has two big series and helps spoil the A's bid to win the west, and outshines Tejada head-to-head, that will work in his favor. Likewise, if Tejada shines in head-to-head play against A-Rod, his supporters will have another argument for him. You can read my thoughts on the AL MVP here and here.

Update: I guess tonight is a relative term. The game is starting 3:35 EDT. I'm sure it's night in most of Europe. :-)

Jeff Weaver allowed 1 ER in 7.2 IP tonight, and now has a 2.20 ERA since Aug. 1, most of that in relief. But he now has 3 good starts since rejoining the rotation. And Mussina is having one of the strange seasons of all time. Through 8/23, he was 15-7 with a 4.48 ERA, but in his last 4 starts, he's only allowed 1 HR, K'd 31 in 30.2 IP and has a 2.05 ERA,but is 1-3. Luck does even out. Still, if I were the Yankees, I'd much rather have Mussina pitching like this going into the playoffs.

I found this blog through Travis Nelson's Boy of Summer blog. Edward Cossette has a good article on the Boston Sports Media trying to run Nomar out of town, and how players wanting to leave Boston isn't a new phenomena. And he's not necessarily criticizing the media here:

I'm trying to not get caught up in the headhunting rhythm, but I must admit I've had a sour feeling about Nomar all season. The whole who cares about losing one game out of 162 it's early yet record Nomar kept playing in July and August really is coming back to haunt us all now (as we feared it would).

Maybe that's the difference between Nomar and Jeter. Desire.

Travis Nelson of Boy of Summer writes:

Hi David,

I saw the play Rivera made too, pretty cool. (Did you mean to write "stretching a double into a double"? -it was funny either way, although I had just chalked it up to Toby Hall not running well) Do you realize that the Yankees could run out an all-homegrown lineup next year, except DH? And they'd probably be top five in the league in runs scored:

1 Jeter, SS

2 Williams, LF

3 Soriano, 2B

4 Giambi, DH

5 Posada, C

6 Johnson, 1B

7 Spencer, RF

8 Rivera, CF

9 Henson, 3B

Of course they're unlikely to do this, as Henson's not ready and they still have Mondesi and Rondell under contract, but they could...

Also, not to insult your intelligence by pointing out the obvious, but if a team could find four pitchers like Jarrod Washburn and Mark Mulder, it wouldn't matter if you did use a five man rotation, would it? (I know, your comment had more to do with efficiency and throwing strikes than talent, but I couldn't help it.)

Keep up the good work.

Travis Nelson
BoyofSummer.blogspot.com

Yes, I did mean to say "double into a double," but it's not original. I think I first read it in a Bill James abstract. Thanks for pointing that out about the Yankees, Travis. It would be very nice to see that lineup next year, and see it win. And with the salary cap, they may have to get rid of White and Modesi.

Watching the Yankees game, and Juan Rivera has made two good plays. He threw a runner out by a mile trying to stretch a double into a double, and just executed a great hook slide to score a run.

His minor league numbers are very good; if you can come up with someone like this every couple of years (Williams, Pettitte, Rivera, Jeter, Posda, Soriano) you'll stay competitive. And without free agents.

I came home from work, found this week's copy of the New Yorker on table, and saw on "The Financial Page" a story about the GM of the Oakland A's, Billy Beane. James Surowiecki gets it absolutely right. I especially like his comments about the future:

But can it last? In baseball, conventional wisdom may still rule, but Oakland, like any successful business, has begun to attract imitators, which will presumably make it harder for Beane to find his diamonds in the rough. Even so, Oakland has one great competitive advantage: the entire organization has been built, from the bottom up, around Beane's ideas. In this respect, Oakland resembles companies like Dell Computer and Southwest Airlines, which have structured their business around a coherent strategy. Dell's rivals have tried for years to emulate its made-to-order, just-in-time model. But the copycats, because their businesses were initially built around different models, couldn't compete. The major airlines haven't had any better luck trying to copy Southwest.

Now, teams are always recreating themselves in baseball, so I think teams will successfully emulate Beane's model. It's too bad it didn't happen sooner, or we all could have avoided the labor hassels of the past few years.

Of course, there is a downside to A's baseball. :-)

ESPN.com has an article on Fay Vincent's new book, "The Last Commissioner." In it, he tries to give us a closer look at the mind of Bud Selig. George W. Bush wanted to be commissioner:

"Fay, what do you think about me becoming commissioner?" Bush asked Vincent several months after Vincent was forced out as commissioner in September 1992. Bush owned the Texas Rangers at the time.

"I think it's a great idea," Vincent said.

"Do you think I'd make a good commissioner?" Bush asked Vincent.

"Absolutely," Vincent answered. "You're smart. You love baseball. Is it something you want?"

Replied Bush: "Well, I've been thinking about it. (Bud) Selig tells me that he would love to have me be commissioner and he tells me that he can deliver it."

This is the first time I've seen Bush refered to as smart by somebody who had no reason to say otherwise. To get back to the point, however:

According to the Journal Sentinal story, Vincent once talked with Major League Baseball labor lawyer Chuck O'Connor about Vincent's relationship with Selig. O'Connor, he wrote, "had warned me to look out for Selig, that Selig wanted to be commissioner and that he would try to knock me off. I didn't believe him. Selig was my friend, I thought."

Vincent quoted O'Connor: "Selig thinks being called commissioner is one of the important titles in American life. He thinks it would make him a great American, a historic figure. He wants your job. Watch out for him."

Vincent said he told Bush that Selig wanted to be the commissioner. Bush said that Selig had told him he wasn't interested.

"George, I'm worried. I think Selig wants the job for himself," Vincent wrote.

Bush: "He told me that I'm still his man but that it will take some time to work out."

Vincent: "George, he can't tell you the truth because the truth is painful and telling painful truths is not his strength. He has never been able to tell people what they don't want to hear."

So Selig is a megalomanica who doesn't want to hurt people's feelings? That has to be a rare combination.

Jarrod Washburn may have made a great case last night for going back to a four-man rotation. What strikes me about both Washburn and Mulder last night was efficeincy. Washburn average 13 pitches per inning (against a selective team), Mulder a little under 13. And Mulder's rate is even more impressive given that he struck out 12. Both were throwing strikes (31 B, 76 S for Washburn, 32 B , 83 S for Mulder). Pitching is simple, just throw strikes! :-)

If you could find four pitchers like that, a four man rotation would work well.

Jarrod Washburn will start on three days rest according to ESPN.com. I don't like this strategy of suddenly starting a guy on short rest, especially when he hasn't done it in a long time. I'd love to see teams go back to four man rotations, but not as much as I used to. I'm not sure that four man rotations don't contribute to injuries.

Scioscia seems to be trying to set the rotation to give the Angels the best chance of winning the division and having Washburn start the first game of the playoffs. He gets points for going outside the box.

Good picture here of Grissom's catch to rob Rich Aurilia of a HR and give LA a 7-6 victory. According to Jim Tracy:

''I would beg to differ if you could find me a better catch in a more critical situation than was made by Marquis Grissom to start the ninth inning,'' Dodgers manager Jim Tracy said. ''That was as good a major league game as you would ever want to witness.''

Gagne then struck out Kent, intentionall walked Bonds with the bases empty, then K'd Santiago. Bonds continues to be the most feared hitter in baseball. He broke his own single season walk record last night, and now has 60 IBB.

Miguel Tejada had a game winning single in the ninth, and the A's picked up their 30th one-run victory. Remember the old game winning RBI stat? Tejada is among the leaders:

Sheffield, Gary        21

Glaus, Troy            19

Tejada, Miguel         17

Kent, Jeff             17

Walker, Larry          16

Jones, Andruw          16

Giambi, Jason          16

And despite an overall poor season, Glaus seems to be putting his team ahead to stay.

LA up 4-3, Angels up 3-1. I'll see how the games turned out tomorrow morning.

I hit the post button, and Jordan hit the next pitch into the left-center field stands for a grand slam. Vin called it a grand slam home run, which would upset ESPN researcher Jeff Bennett greatly.

Schmidt walks Green with men on 1st and 2nd to load the bases. Vin Scully is suggesting Schmidt would rather pitch to Jordan. I'd rather not have the bases loaded with a 3 run lead.

Lidle gets him on a low strike to end the HR streak.

Glaus has homered in 4 straight AB. He's up and going for a record 5.

Nomo has thrown 70 pitches through 3 innings. He's gone 122 and 132 in his last two outings. I don't expect him to last too long in this game. He's already down 3-0.

Giants are up 2-0 after one inning. Jeff Kent hit a solo HR in the first.

Today's Red Sox game 2 starting lineup really defines second string.

Bill Murray (no, I don't think it's that Bill Murray) has a web site that breaks players into generations. Check it out, his groupings are pretty neat. The whole site seems to be concerned with timelines, which are always fun.

Brian Hudgins writes:

I read your take on the empty seats at Pac Bell and have some comments you might find pertinent. I'm a season ticket holder at Pac Bell, and while there is a bit of truth to the cellphone-toting-designer-beer-swilling-yuppie Pac Bell crowd image, in truth the stereotype's very overdone, not in the least by resentful East Bay types. I'm not sure about the beginning of games; what with public transportation, the usual downtown traffic crawl (esp on weekends), and the sheer amount of things to do around the ballpark, people tend to filter in as the game starts. In no way is it as bad as at Dodger Stadium. Most of the empty seats you see late in the game are due to late inning migrations to the arcade (the right field wall), where by game's end the crowd is something like 5 or 6 people deep, all the way across, more if Barry is due to bat in the 8th or 9th. Not to mention the lure of the fan lot, where people take their cotton candy frenzied children to blow off some steam before the long ride home. Also, the way the park is situated, during day games the sun generally stops shining on the seats along the first base line around the 5th or 6th inning, so sun lovers tend to hoof it to sunnier parts of the park (most likely the aforementioned RF wall). But I think the real reason for the empty seats on that particular Saturday (as well as the following day) was that the games were rescheduled from a series a few months earlier, with highly irregular (by Giants practice) starting times, so I'll bet a lot of people had planned other things to do that day.

Anyway, enjoy your site. Keep up the good work.

Brian Hudgins

Troy Glaus just hit an opposite field 3-run HR, his fourth in 2 games. I speculated that a hot Glaus could make the difference for the Angels.

Sorry, it's Schmidt, not Rueter tonight. I think that makes the game a toss-up.

I was looking for a preview of the Giants-Dodgers in the SF Examiner when I found this article by Mike Krukow. It's by a 43 year-old woman who has discoverd the joys of baseball by buying at glove at the Giants broadcasters suggestion.

Often I hear how baseball doesn't appeal to young children. They like the action of basketball or soccer. Fair enough. Baseball is a conservative sport, and the older you get, the more conservative you tend to become. And the more you come to appreciate the nuancesof baseball. And once you're hooked, you're hooked for the rest of your life.

The other day I commented on empty seats at Pac Bell. Zachary Manprin follows up for me:

Hey David;

I was reading through your Blog and you mentioned something about the attendance at the Giants game being low.

Part of the reason was the A's were in town. Another is that Cal was playing. Former Stanford coach, now Notre Dame coach Ty Willingham had the Irish against Michigan.

So, there might have been a lot of people in the bar and crowding around the TV's at the ballpark. Plus, San Francisco is home to the wine and cheese crowd. It was rather hot on Saturday so I'm sure many of those who weren't in their seats were petitioning the city council to move the sun.

Seriously, you are required by law to have a cell phone to your head 12 hours a day in the BayArea.

A few people at the A's game Saturday were trying to make both, the A's in the afternoon and the Giants in the early evening.

The attendance for the Giants and A's combined on Saturday was 81,000+ and 80,000+ on Sunday. Evening with the 49ers and Raiders playing on Sunday, albeit the Raiders on ESPN's night game. Still, getting 40,000 at a Giants game with a 49ers game the same day is a real eye opener.

Still, that's a lot of fan activity for a 'small market'.

Zachary D Manprin

Thanks, Zachary.

All the action is on the West Coast tonight, as Anaheim visits Oakland and the Giants travel south to Dodger Stadium. Reuter has been pitching well since the start of July, putting up a 2.90 ERA in that period. His start vs. LA last week was the worst in this time frame, giving up 5 ER in 4 IP. Nomo isn't the pitcher he was in 1995, but he's still close. He's been able to keep the ball in the park with men on base; 18 of the 22 HR he has allowed have been solo shots, so the extra walks haven't hurt him as much as they might. The Dodgers hit lefties really well. Their .297 BA vs. lefties leads the NL and is 20 points higher than the 2nd place Giants (.275). And this has translated into the best record against lefties in the NL, 24-13. Advantage, Dodgers.

It's the battle of the L's in Oakland, Lackey vs. Lidle. While Cory was untouchable in August, 5-0, 0.20 ERA, he's gotten pounded by playoff contenters Anaheim and Minnesota in September. Lackey has had a nice rookie season, and no team is hotter than the Angels. Lackey is interesting, in that he's a righty who has pitched better against lefties (.210 BA, .265 OBA, .246 Slug) than righties. (.310, .360, .482). Anaheim has the advantage here, I believe. Enjoy!

Congrats to the Minnesota Twins on clinching a playoff berth and making Bud look like a fool. If the Twins make it to the World Series, they'll have the home field advantage, which has given them the championship in their last two World Series. With their pitching getting healthy, they shouldn't be big underdogs.

I'm watching the Indians for the first time in a while, and discovered they have brought up a centerfielder named Coco Crisp to replace Milton Bradley. If that's not funny enough, every time I hear the announcer say his name, I want to go upstairs and get a bowl of cereal. Looking at his minor league numbers, he may have some potential as a leadoff man. Given that he's 22, he still has a lot of upside.

This is the Cocoa Krispies box I remember from my youth. They were using Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters on some of the Kellog's boxes at the time. I remember Quick Draw McGraw on Sugar Smacks, but I thought I remembered Baba Looie on Sugar Pops, but it was look-a-like Sugar Pops Pete.

An interesting event could happen this year. The Angels and A's have split 16 games in 2002, and have four left head-to-head. Which means they could tie for the division lead and tie in the season series. The head-to-head record is used as the tie-breaker if teams are tied for the division lead and either would be the wild card. What's the 2nd tie-breaker? Looks like it's division record. (I'm having trouble finding official information on this. This page is supposed to be a copy of the rules, and they look right to me.) Right now, that would be the Angels, with a 24-20 record, compared to the A's 22-22.

Soriano has fallen off his record double pace, but the Angels have tied their single season franchise record of 314. A big reason for this is Garret Anderson, who is leading the majors with 55 doubles. He's the fifth person since 1999 to reach 55 doubles in a season. Helton fell one short of 60 in 2000, and with luck, Anderson has a chance to reach that goal. (There had only been one 55 double season between 1938 and 1998.)

Anderson has the most doubles since 1997, 247, two ahead of Jeff Kent. Anderson had a block-buster start to his career, putting up a .321 BA, .352 OBA and .505 slugging percentage in 1995 at the age of 23. But until this year, he hasn't come close to equalling it. He's been a consistent hitter, getting over 180 hits almost every year, but with so few walks, his OBA is mediorce, and is the main reason he's never scored 100 runs in a season. Given the way he started off, I'd have to say his career has been somewhat of a disappointment. Good, but it could have been great.

I'm watching the Giants game, and there appear to be a number of empty seats there. I would think, with the Giants leading the Dodgers by one game, there would be a lot of interest. Maybe they just show up late in San Francisco.

Jamie Moyer must be a little upset. He pitches a brilliant game and loses on an unearned run, on errors by Olerud and Guillen. Seattle has been outscored 32-15 over the six game losing streak.

There should be a rule that would prevent someone as good as Johnson from pitching against the Brewers. It's just not fair. Randy put up a game score of 96 today, his third 90+ performace of the year. Cory Lidle and Odalis Perez each have two. With Schilling putting up the best of the year with his seventeen K one hitter (game score, 100), the DBacks have the top three game scores this year (Johnson had a 97 on 4/21). A couple of weeks ago I thought they might be tiring. I guess not.

Just to let you know, the little box you see at the right with a blue ball is my new tracker. The old counter is fine, it just doesn't give very much information. I'll leave it there to give me an idea of it's particular measurement. But the eXTReMe tracker gives a lot more interesting information, like time of day usage, unique visitors and where people come from. Check it out for fun.

LA is up 15-2 in the 6th inning at Coors. I guess the air is only thin for the visitors today. Jim Tracy has already pulled his 1-5 hitters for scrubs. I guess he doesn't think the Rockies can score 13 runs in four innings at Coors. It would be a real embarassment if they did, not to mention putting the playoffs in jeopardy.

I was listening to the end of the Astros game on the internet. Astros had the bases loaded with two outs, down one run, and Greg Zaun popped out.

The Astros announcers thought that this was a must win game for Houston, and I have to agree. Cardinals magic number is 7, which means if they play .500 ball the rest of the way they win the division. It looks like the one sure matchup right now is a rematch of last year's NL Division Series, Cardinals and DBacks. It was a very tight series last year, with Schilling pitching complete games in the first and fifth game, winning 1-0 and 2-1.

The Cards and DBacks have only played 3 times this year, with the Cardinals losing 2 of 3. The DBacks hit .308 against the Cardinals and scored 23 runs. They had 32 hits, 12 walks and only 13 K. Arizona will likely have home field advantage, and the DBacks offense is suited for their ballpark, while their pitchers are not bothered by it as much. The pitchers have a 3.92 ERA at home, 3.55 on the road, while the offense scores nearly a run less on the road (5.4 runs per game at home, 4.5 on the road).

Offensively, the teams are pretty evenly matched. Looking at strength up the middle, I get 66.5 win shares for Matheny-Vina-Renteria-Edmonds vs. 68.0 for Miller-Spivey-Womack-Finley. The difference, of course, is the pitching. Johnson and Schilling have combined for 47 win shares this year, while Morris and Williams only have 26. Kim is a bit better than Isringhausen this year, although Isringhausen still hasn't allowed a HR this year. (Something that has bothered Kim from time to time.) One positive here, however, is that the Cardinals batters have the fewest strikeouts in the NL. I still feel the way to have a chance against Johnson and Schilling is to put the ball in play. The Cardinals are good at doing that.

I give the advantage to the DBacks at this point. Maybe La Russa can use a good, "Win one for the Gipper!" speech to inspire his team to victory.

The first inning isn't over in Colorado, and the Dodgers are already 5 for 7 with runners in scoring position.

Clemens gave up 7 earned runs today for the 4th time this season. Back in 1987 and 1988, he gave up that many three times. His strikeout and walks are still really good, but these bad outings are becoming more frequent. It makes me wonder how much longer he'll last.

I recently discovered this site through Andrew Sullivan. It's baseball and politics, and I think Dan McLaughlin is very good at both. He also points out and criticizes this article by Bill James on the AL MVP race. I'm going to give him a link to the right.

Here's a link to the first use of the smiley emoticon ( :-) ). Thanks to Instapundit for pointing this out.

I wonder, however, if this is really true. In all the years we had typewriters, had someone used this before?

Okay, now I've read the column. Good for Jayson, he doesn't really use any of the pat arguments himself. But, one GM chimes in:

Indians GM Mark Shapiro called A-Rod's season "inspiring -- and among the elite historic performances in the game." But when you look for an MVP, Shapiro said, you start with one question: "Whose team could not have attained a championship caliber of play without his performance? Tejada has to get the edge, using this criteria, for me."

As the analysis below points out, the A's would still be playoff contenders, even replacing Tejada with a bad shortstop.

To me, the best player is always the MVP, unless there stats are really close. Tejada's not close.

Also, as a side bar to the Stark column, there's the instructions writers get on how to vote. It's the first time I've seen that.

Jayson Stark has a commentary on ESPN.com about the MVP race with the title Tejada for MVP. I'm really loathe to read it. I think every year some editor must assign the following piece: make a case for someone who's really good but nowhere near the best player for MVP. The arguments are always the same, "this guy plays for a winner," or "he's done more with no one around him," and my favorite, "he has more RBI!" And there's the variation on the first one of these, "Where would his team be without him." I don't know what Jayson has written in this column, but I know it's wrong. A-Rod deserves the MVP.

Let's look at the, "Where would his team be without him?" argument. Alex Rodriguez has 37.1 winshares this year, tops in the AL, and 2nd only to Barry Bonds at 44.1. Tejada is at 30.4 win shares, 4th in the AL, which certainly makes him an MVP candidate. Now, one argument is to say that if you switch A-Rod and Tejada, the A's would only have about 2 more wins. Well, at the moment, that's pretty significant, given that the A's are tied for the AL West lead, and one game behind the Yankees for best record in the AL. But that's not the right way to look at it.

Bill James always talks about comparing a player to replacement level. I'm not sure what the replacement level in the AL really is this year, but I can make a good guess by looking at the worst everyday shortstop in the AL. That's right, Neifi Perez. Perez has 4.4 win shares this year despite having over 500 AB. So now, let's look at the differences. If the A's had Perez at short, they would have have 26 fewer win shares. since 3 win shares = 1 team win, they would have about 9 fewer wins. They would be 83 and 64, nine game behind Anaheim, but only 1 game out of the wild card! (Seattle would be leading.) In fact, instead of having a meaningless AL West race, you'd have a pretty exciting AL Wild card race between the Red Sox, Mariners and A's.

Texas, despite being last in the wild west, is still the 8th best team in the league. Without A-Rod, they would be 11 games worse, 58-89, and down with the dregs of KC, Detroit and Tampa Bay. With A-Rod they have a draw, and they have a reason to thing they are on the edge of good. Look at the average attendace of these teams:

Team         Avg. Attendace

Texas              29422

Detroit            18811

KC                 17633

TB                 12956

Do you think anyone would be showing up in Texas if they were as bad as these three other teams?

So to sum up, you have two very good players. The playoff contender would still be a playoff contender without theirs. The mediocre team would be among the worst in the league without theirs. And the playoff contender would be in much better shape if they switched players. A-Rod gets it in my book.

AL is pretty much set at this point. The only question is who will play the Yankees in the first round. I was impressed with the Angels taking 3 of 4 from the A's. Should be fun down the stretch.

Rodrigo Lopez won his fourth game against Boston this year. He's 4-0 and has put up a 2.48 ERA in 29 innings, with no HR allowed. Not bad against a good offensive team.

Rob Neyer touts Jason Jennings for rookie of the year over Moss. Looking at winshares, Moss has Jennings beat, 11.9 to 7.7. However, I sort of agree with Rob's premise, that pitching in Colorado has to be taken into account. I've felt since 1993 that any Rockies pitcher who can post a 4.00 ERA or lower should automatically get the Cy Young award.

Of course, Austin Kearns has them both beat by a lot, putting up 18.4 win shares. Reds fans have to be real happy with Kearns and Dunn so young and so good. A great pair to build a contender around.

Texas has just finished a sweep of the Seattle Mariners. Since the start of the month, they are 9-3, scoring 6.7 runs per game with a 3.91 ERA. Using the Pythaorgean formula, I figure Texas has to lower it's opponent's runs by .9 runs per game to become a .575 team, which most years mean you're in contention. They currently have a 5.12 ERA; getting it down around 4.00 puts them in contention. This little stretch, although it contains 7 games against TB and Baltimore, has to make Texas fans a little hopeful. They are not among the dregs of the AL; I believe they have the 8th best record in the AL. They need to come up with two good starters. If they can find a couple of people to get on base in front of A-Rod, they'll score a lot of runs. I've never been overly impressed with Hart's ability to judge pitching talent, but they're not that far away from being a good team.

He has another HR tonight to bring his season total to 54 and his career total to 295. I happen to like using season age to measure records, rather than birthdate. If you look at it that way, the most HR through age 27 is 302 by Foxx. Eddie Mathews had 299, then A-Rod at 295 and Griffey at 294. A-Rod has to be happy to pass Griffey. I understand they didn't get along too well in Seattle.

Seattle may end producing more 700 HR hitters than any other club! Too bad they won't be hit for them.

Mariners are losing again. They had a chance to catch up in the west if they were able to sweep Texas, but it hasn't happened. They may get swept. Part of it seems to be Ichiro slumping. Since 8/6, he's hitting .246 in 31 games. The Mariners are 15-17 over that time. He was hitting .350 before that, and the Mariners had a 69-43 record.

Through 3 innings tonight, Orlando Hernandez has not walked a man. As you probably know, no Yankee pitcher has walked a man in the last 6 games. None. They have 3 HBP coming into tonight, and El Duque plunked the leadoff batter. But no opponent has seen ball four. Now it is Detroit and Baltimore they've been playing, but not all the players are Randall Simon.

Mike Williams picked up his 41st save today. He pitched a perfect 9th, striking out the side. He has shattered the Pirates save record of 34 set by Jim Gott in 1988. He's saved nearly two-thirds of the team's wins. He's had a decent but not outstanding career; his best year was 1998 when he had a 1.98 ERA in a reliever role, but not as a closer. I don't know what he's doing differently; there's nothing really that different in his stats. He hasn't given up a HR with a man on base this year, but HR in general haven't been his problem. Still, along with Giles, he gives the long suffering Pittsburgh fans something to cheer about.

I was just looking at the Twins boxscore, and I couldn't help notice that Christian Guzman has the following stats: .276 BA, .293 OBA, .390 slugging percentage. And this is the everyday #2 hitter. So I thought, maybe he has speed. He's 11 for 24 in SB attempts, a pitiful 45.8 percentage. The Twins #2 hitters overall have a .291 OBA, the lowest in the AL. Why not bat Koskie there? Guzman should be batting 9th. I see not excuse for a team like the Twins giving first inning plate appearances to an unproductive hitter.

Here's where we were when the world stopped:

Standings through games of 9/10/2001.




AL Central                   W    L   PCT    GB

===============================================

Cleveland Indians           82   62  .569    --

Minnesota Twins             76   68  .528   6.0

Chicago White Sox           74   70  .514   8.0

Detroit Tigers              57   86  .399  24.5

Kansas City Royals          57   86  .399  24.5



AL East                      W    L   PCT    GB

===============================================

New York Yankees            86   57  .601    --

Boston Red Sox              72   69  .511  13.0

Toronto Blue Jays           70   73  .490  16.0

Baltimore Orioles           55   87  .387  30.5

Tampa Bay Devil Rays        50   93  .350  36.0



AL West                      W    L   PCT    GB

===============================================

Seattle Mariners           104   40  .722    --

Oakland Athletics           87   57  .604  17.0

Anaheim Angels              73   71  .507  31.0

Texas Rangers               66   78  .458  38.0



NL Central                   W    L   PCT    GB

===============================================

Houston Astros              84   59  .587    --

St. Louis Cardinals         79   64  .552   5.0

Chicago Cubs                78   65  .545   6.0

Milwaukee Brewers           63   81  .438  21.5

Cincinnati Reds             58   86  .403  26.5

Pittsburgh Pirates          55   88  .385  29.0



NL East                      W    L   PCT    GB

===============================================

Atlanta Braves              78   64  .549    --

Philadelphia Phillies       75   68  .524   3.5

New York Mets               71   73  .493   8.0

Florida Marlins             66   77  .462  12.5

Montreal Expos              61   82  .427  17.5

NL West                      W    L   PCT    GB

===============================================

Arizona Diamondbacks        81   62  .566    --

San Francisco Giants        80   64  .556   1.5

Los Angeles Dodgers         78   65  .545   3.0

San Diego Padres            70   73  .490  11.0

Colorado Rockies            62   80  .437  18.5

(Standings courtesy of STATS, Inc.)

The A's got another 1-run win last night. That makes them 28-9 on the year, a .757 winning percentage. That's the highest of any team in a single season in the AL-NL era (1901 on). The 1981 Orioles (in a strike shortened season) had put up a .750 winning percentage.

This brings up an important point; the A's have been somewhat lucky this year. There's no reason they can't continue to be lucky, but these things do have a tendancy to even out. The Angels have better overall stats, and at this point may actually be the favorites going into the AL playoffs.

Alex Rodriguez broke his own SS HR record last night. He's now played 33 games against the Mariners since he left, and has 12 HR and 33 RBI in those games. That would project out to 59 HR and 162 RBI over a full season. On stats, he's clearly the MVP of the AL, but that's been true a few times and he hasn't won it.

Looks like a great start of the week. We'll have the A's at the Angels for 4, the two hottest teams in baseball, battling for the AL West title. We have the Dodgers traveling to SF for 3, including a Wednesday matinee. Of course, the real battle in the AL West is for home field advantage (although Seattle is lurking in the background), and to see who gets to play the Yankees in the first round. I'm hoping for four great games here. It's a chance for the Angels to shed their image as the Red Sox of the West.

Kevin Millwood has lowered his ERA in every month this year (includes tonight's game):

                ERA  W  L

April          4.50  2  3  

May            4.29  1  2  

June           2.75  2  0  

July           2.43  5  1  

August         2.18  4  0  

September      1.22  2  0  

If Atlanta ends up facing Arizona at some point in the playoffs, we may see nothing up 1-0 games.

AL Leaders in Leadoff OBA show Soriano third to last. You can follow this link, and the link in that story to see how I have felt about Soriano as a leadoff man throughout the year.

Soriano ranks 8th in slugging percentage. He shouldn't be leading off. He should be batting 4th or 5th.

Brad Radke shuts out the A's and wins his 100th game of his career. Twins magic number down to 8.

I'm now #1 when you type David Pinto for a google search! Also, check out David Pinto of the Killer Dana Surf Team. I like to tell people that's me hanging ten. :-)

The Angels have the best run differential in the league, despite an off year from Troy Glaus. It looks like he's going to put up his lowest slugging percentage since his rookie year of 1998, and it doesn't look like he'll put up a third consecutive year of 40 HR. But his OBA remains good, and with the improvement from his teammates, he'll probably score and drive in 100 runs. He can play better, and a hot Glaus down the stretch could put the Angels over the top.

Tim Wakefield has done an excellent job this year for the Red Sox as a starter. With his game tonight, he is 7-3 with a 2.51 ERA as a starter. He's only walked 14 in 68 innings as a starter, less than 2 per 9. Not bad for a knuckleballer.

Just in case you were wondering (as of 10:17 EDT):

Team             Magic #

Yankees             13

Twins               10

A's                 21

Angels (WC)         20

Braves               4

Cardinals           19

DBacks              18

Dodgers (WC)        21

The West is where the races are, and in many ways the best teams. Hope all the people on the East coast are willing to stay up late down the stretch!

Mike's Baseball Rant has a well researched article on where the Expos should move. I thought when the Red Sox deal fell through for cable TV guy (can't remember his name), that he should have bought the Expos and moved them to Brooklyn, and broadcast their games on MSG. Would have saved him about$500 million in purchase price, and with all that extra money he could have bought a team to equal the Yankees. Of course, the Yankees and Mets probably wouldn't let that happen, but it would be fun to see a team in Brooklyn again.

Update: Dan Branda points out that it was Charles Dolan who wanted to buy the Red Sox. Thanks, Dan!

Michael Henson sends me this link to an article that shows how bad the Marlins ownership is. You need to be a member of baseballamerica.com, however to be able to read the article.

Below, in the post on run differential I point out that the Red Sox do not have the largest difference. The team that does, somewhat surprisingly, is the Angels. And the Angels are extending that lead tonight, leading 10-1 at the moment. The top teams are (entering today):

Team          Run Diff.

Angels            167

Yankees           164

Red Sox           163

DBacks            144

Braves            134

I think the Angels are the real sleeper in the upcoming playoffs. Since the 1998, there is only one team that has a winning record vs. the Yankees, and that's the Angels. They are 24-21 over that time period vs. the New Yorkers. The next closest team in terms of winning percentage (regular season only) is the Atlanta Braves, who are 6-7, .461. And the way the playoffs are stacking up, the Angels could play the Yankees in the first round.

If theTwins play the A's in the first round, a low payroll team with win a series, breaking the streak of low payroll teams not winning a post-season series.

I've always felt the best way to bring fans into the park is to win games. Here's some results for this year (average attendance by month):

For the Twins:

   Month     Att

       4    20727

       5    19894

       6    23146

       7    26648

       8    29998

For the A's:

   Month     Att

       4    23881

       5    20444

       6    28227

       7    27074

       8    26687

       9    39843

For the Angels:

   Month     Att

       4    22692

       5    22458

       6    26804

       7    30109

       8    32244

       9    24592

That's only 1 game in Sept. for the Angels. Just win, baby!

AP reports on A-Rod's 2 HR game, which gives him 50 on the year. Of course, they fail to mention that he is now tied with Jimmy Wynn at 291 for 100th on the all-time list.

Two of my readers who are Red Sox fans wrote today with a question. (Actually, neither of them knew the other was going to ask me; they each thought they had their own stat person! :-)) The basic question is, how often does a team that leads the league in run differential (runs-opponents runs) not make the playoffs? I looked from 1901 to 2001 at the two leagues (202 seasons), and found that it happened in 44 of those league seasons. Here's the list of who didn't make it:

Team                 Year  Place

Indians              1904    4

White Sox            1905    2

Indians              1906    3

Indians              1908    2

Giants               1908    2

Athletics            1909    2

White Sox            1915    3

White Sox            1916    2

Giants               1920    2

Browns              1922    2

Athletics            1928    2

Senators                1930    2

Yankees              1931    2

Giants               1934    2

Cubs                 1936    2

Yankees              1945    4

Cardinals            1947    2

Red Sox              1949    2

Red Sox              1950    3

Dodgers              1950    2

Dodgers              1951    2

Yankees              1954    2

Braves               1956    2

Indians              1959    2

Braves               1959    2

White Sox            1960    3

Giants               1961    3

Cardinals            1963    2

Reds                 1964    2

Reds                 1965    4

Pirates              1966    3

Cubs                 1969    2

Cubs                 1970    2

Brewers              1978    3

Orioles              1980    2

Yankees              1981    3

Dodgers              1981    2

Expos                1982    3

Braves               1983    2

Yankees              1985    2

Blue Jays            1987    2

Mets                 1987    2

Mets                 1990    2

Brewers              1992    2

So it hasn't happened since the move to three divisions, which makes sense. The Red Sox are not leading in run differential this year, but they are real close. They are also 2nd in if ranked by the Pythagorean method (a different way of measuring the same thing).

Dan Bickley thinks the Arizona slide will toughen them up for the playoffs. He points out that after this weekend against the Giants, they have a pretty easy schedule. Apart from 3 against St. Louis, they don't play a team with a winning record. Still, there are some older players on this team, and I've been wondering for two years if they were going to break down.

The one person I can't figure out is Steve Finley. He's old (38), and he wasn't that good before he came to Arizona. If you look at his four years with San Diego, and compare them with his four years in Arizona, something interesting comes through:

Home          SD        AZ

BA          .260      .292

OBA         .325      .369

Slug%       .418      .521


Road

BA          .291      .256

OBA         .342      .328

Slug%       .494      .475

He's been helped tremendously by the BOB, while his road number show an overall decline (he's somewhat made up for this with more walks and more power). I have to wonder, when will he reach the point where he fades enough that the ballpark no longer helps him? Coming into tonight, over his last 10 games, he was hitting .229 with 0 HR and 1 RBI. Of course, the whole team is hitting only .202 over that time period (11 games) so he's actually doing well relative to his teammates.

Things went much better tonight. Johnson pitched a gem, took 107 pitches for a complete game 7-1 victory, the only run being Green's 40th HR. Finley went 2 for 4 with a HR and an RBI. The lead is back to 5.

Only Baseball Matters suggests we should define a new triple crown to better recognize outstanding seasons: batting average, OBA and slugging percentage. I don't think we should replace the TC, just add this to the triple crown universe. I actually used this TC back in 1990 when Mariano Duncan was leading the league in all 3 after a great start for the Reds. And make sure you take a look at Hornsby's number in the 20's. It strikes me that he was the only NL players in the 1920's to adjust to the new power game.

Correction: If you read this piece last night, you saw Mariano Rivera instead of Mariano Duncan. Brain freeze on my part. Thanks to Chad Huberty for pointing this out.

Down 5-0, after a poor perfromance by Barry Zito, the A's came back to take a 6-5 lead. The Royals tied it a 6, and in the bottom of the 9th, Long tripled to start the inning. I think a triple was generous, since the left fielder had a real hard time picking up the ball. Pena then walks the next two batters intentionally. Hatteberg grounded out into a fielder's choice at the plate, but Tejada singled in the winning run (to listen to the A's announcers, you'd think Tejada was the only AL player deserving of the MVP).

The double IBB was used against me in strat-o-matic once. I was playing my roommate David Aceto at his ballpark, 1979 card set. We were in extra innings, and I had used all my pitchers, so Dave Frost was in to stay and had to bat (we did not use the DH). With two outs, Bill Madlock, my #6 hitter doubled. Aceto then brilliantly walked Munson and Burleson to face Frost. Joaquin Andujar was on the mound. Frost was a 1 hitter in strat-o, meaning the only positive offense on his card was a 2-10 walk. I rolled the dice. A 4-9, which was a walk on Andujar's card. I started jumping up and down yelling, "He walked, he walked!" at which point the card table came flying across the room at me, and Aceto uttered that timeless phrase, "I hate happy people."

MSNBC has a report on MLB cracking down on baseball web sites. Of course, this story has been out there for a month.

Copyright and trademark law is trying to be subverted to prevent people on the web from easily sharing information. If you are interested in this subject, and how big entertainment is trying write the laws to their advantage, check out Instapundit and Amiee Deep.

Bill James has pointed out numerous times that great teams don't necessarily win close games, but they do win big. The dominate their opponents by big scores. You can see this in the two most recent 18 game winning streak, by this year's A's and by the 1953 Yankees. The A's have outscored their opponents 122-48; that's an average score of 6.7-2.7. The 1953 Yankees were similar, outscoring their opponents 129-44 during their streak (average: 7.2-2.4).

The A's are now in first place in the race for home field advantage. And I thought they were giving up when they traded away Jeremy Giambi. This is an amazing team, and should be the model for all the small market clubs.

I went upstairs to have dinner with my family, with the A's leading 4-2 in the middle of the 8th. I missed a fantastic finish to the game, where the A's blew the lead up rallied with three runs of their own in the bottom of the ninth.

I'm watching the Giants at DBacks right now, and the first 5 men in the Giants order have reached, and it's 4-0 Giants. NL West is getting interesting.

Al Bethke doesn't like my take on electing a new commissioner. He also criticizes my idea of a super minor league. Here's a quote:

It's funny, those most critical of Bud can't even put forth anything more than a random, "no chance in hell" alternative.

What does this mean? I don't know. I'm just trying to be constructive, and spread competitive baseball to more cities. And what is Al's creative alternative to me?

How about we have Mr. Selig keep the job through the end of his term, 2006, and then see who'll take it?

Good, let's keep the guy who cares about his pocket book more than he cares about the fans.

There was so much strike talk, and probably so much uncertainty, that there were no major waiver deals made before the Aug. 31th deadline for adding players eligible for the post-season. Either that, or all the moves were blocked.

It's been a good couple of weeks for people living in the SF Bay area. Since 8/19, the Giants are 11-2, and the A's are 12-0 (A's, of course, are 17-0 over the course of their winning streak). Pretty soon, this is going to be like Pleasantville, with everyone debating the veracity of the statement, "You can't win them all." :-)

Peter Gammons has an excellent article on how the fans have to be brought back into the game. Some salient paragraphs:

What was striking about the press conference is that not once did Selig mention the word "fans." To many fans, this could be taken as Selig essentially saying, "We've been telling you the players are greedy, mercenary and overrated for two years, and now we're putting millions more into the pockets of certain billionaires without asking them to invest in the game, but owners and players alike expect you to come back, bring your family of four to our games and spend the expected $150. I am the owners' commissioner and you're lucky."

There has been a lot that the Selig administration has accomplished, from the wild card to the forms of revenue sharing. But Cal Ripken, Joe Torre, Mark McGwire and Sosa had a lot to do with making all that successful, and as the sport has eroded in the last four years, the fundamental failure of post-Fay Vincent leadership has been that it was always about beating Donald Fehr. They couldn't do it with collusion, they couldn't do it in 1994, and that is what became the principle goal of the people who run baseball, egged on by a chorus of Jesse Helms wannabes who hate baseball and were willing to strip mine it just to be able to sell for a higher price.

And:

To those of us who love the game and hold deep respect for the skill and character of those who play it, the restoration is the single most important urgent task facing the people who claim the sport's power and authority, and it is far more complex and deep-rooted than a couple of quickie promos. Selig won his campaign against the players, at a cost, and what he needs to remember is that leaders who worry about their own perception rather than their actions are not leaders at all, just followers.

On Wednesday night, Pedro Martinez was facing the Yankees at Fenway, a pleasant, 70ish night. As the game began, out on Yawkey Way tickets were being given away, because the scalpers got no action and were giving them away to the best-looking women they could find.

Pedro vs. Mussina, Red Sox vs. Yankees, Fenway, 300,000 college students back in town ... and they were giving away tickets. That is a cloud that signifies a storm that a cash agreement between billionaires and millionaires won't divert.

It will only be diverted when Selig and the owners realize that what is important is (1) the public -- the fans -- and their relationship with the players and 2) the owners' and players' responsibility to their fans and their communities. If our lives were on videotape, Selig could go back and re-open that press conference. In the absence of videotape, he can begin tomorrow refocusing baseball away from the lunatic fringe owners and to its audience.

Selig has now done what he's wanted to do for 30 years. It's time for him to resign and go back to running the Brewers. Let's get a commissioner that is elected by the owners, players and fans, and is paid by the owners and players. Here's how I'd like to see the commissioner elected:

• The owners submit 2 names as candidates.


• The players sumbit 2 names as candidates.


• Each owner ranks the candidates 1-4.


• Each team has a vote, where each player ranks the candidates 1-4. The results are tallied similar to an MVP ballot. First place gets 4 points, 2nd place gets 3 points, 3rd place 2 points, fourth place 1 point. Based on these results, the players submit 1 ballot for the team, with the candidates ranked 1-4.


• The fans, as a whole, get to vote like the players. Fans rank candidates 1-4, the fan vote is tallied like the players, and one ballot is cast for the fans.


• That gives you 61 ballots, with 4 candidates ranked 1-4. Add the scores up as above, and the person with the most points is commissioner.

I suppose you could give the fans more say, buy making a fan identify him or herself with a team, and have 30 different fan ballots, one for each team. One of the nice things about this type of voting is that you tend to get a consensus 2nd choice, especially when two distinct groups have different preferences. That's why I like the idea of one final fan ballot. It acts as the tie breaker.

Update, 12/18/2003: I just noticed I had All-Star ballot. I meant MVP ballot. I'm made the correction above.

I was just looking at NL team stolen base numbers, and I noticed the Padres were really bad. They have a 58.7 stolen base percentage. The rule of thumb is that you need to steal at a 66.7% clip to just break even in run scoring. I'd thought I'd look at the number of times the Padres were caught on pitch outs (maybe someone has stolen the steal sign), but they've only been caught twice. The eams that have been caught the most on pitchouts are the Royals (6) and the Devil Rays(5). No other team has been caught more than 3 times.

It looks like the Padres problems with steals are caused by running guys who shouldn't be running anymore; Ron Gant, Ray Lankford, Mark Kotsay, Bubba Trammell, Trent Hubbard. These guys are 25 for 49, a miserable 51.0 They should have 9 opportunities, not 49.