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February 28, 2006
New Steroid Scandal
Permalink It looks like Barry Bonds switched from testosterone to estrogen. Win for Winn
Permalink Randy Winn is going to make about twice as much money over the next three seasons as he's made during his major league career: Winn, acquired before last season's trading deadline from Seattle, batted .359 with 14 home runs after joining the Giants last season. The 31-year-old is on the U.S. roster for the World Baseball Classic. Winn performed well above his career averages last year, especially when he was traded to San Francisco. He'll play as a 32-year-old this season. Sabean continues to throw money after older players likely to decline. Given the salary structure in baseball right now, it's not an outrageous amount of money. What bothers me is that the Giants plan is to keep buying veterans, and we saw what that did to the orange team on the east coast over the last few years. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Runs Created Against First Basemen
Permalink Here's how the first basemen do at preventing runs on balls in play:
Kevin Millar is not known for his glove, but he does fine in this analysis. From watching him last year, I remember a few times he ranged to his right for balls. Maybe all that time with Olerud rubbed off on him. And please notice that as bad as Jason Giambi plays the position, he only cost the Yankees eight runs with his glove. That's less than a game. Joe Btfsplk
Permalink When I was young, there was a comic strip call Lil' Abner. One of the characters was Joe Btfsplk who walked around followed by a cloud, and was considered a jinx. Rick Ankiel is the modern day embodiment of that character. Today, he injured his knee, setting back his attempt to make the majors as an outfielder. "Yesterday he felt a little twinge in his knee," assistant team physician Robert Shivley said. "It was pretty well localized to the bottom end of his kneecap, in the patellar tendon. We're going to reevaluate him in 10 days, two weeks, and hopefully he'll be ready to go by then." Nothing is ever easy for Rick. Good News, Bad News
Permalink Pedro Martinez threw from the mound today. That's the good news. The bad news is that he still has a long way to go: Martinez threw 34 pitches to catcher Bobby Estallella with pitching coach Rick Peterson and bullpen coach Guy Conti watching. None of his pitches appeared full-speed. How true. On the Radio
Permalink I was recently a guest on Without a Curse. You can listen to the show at the link. Burroughs Future
Permalink John Sickels wonders if there's any hope for Sean Burroughs. I tend to think of him as the next Ben Grieve, although Grieve at least had a couple of very good years. Learning Speed
Permalink Rockies coach Dave Collins challenged Brad Hawpe to get faster over the winter, and Brad did just that: Hawpe isn't about to make any Olympic bids, but after a winter of regular work with Texas Christian University track coach James Thomas, Hawpe says he reduced his time from home to first base by "three-tenths of a second to four- tenths" of a second. According to The Bill James Handbook 2006, Hawpe only went first to third one time in eleven opportunites last year. He was not thrown out on base, but his slowness kept his attempts down. We'll have to watch to see if this improves this year. Royals PItching Plans
Permalink With Zack Greinke gone, the Royals are redoing their Spring rotation. Those preparations include shuffling the piggyback rotation assignments for starting pitchers. The biggest beneficiary is lefty J.P. Howell, who replaced Greinke in the eight-man grouping. “I wanted to get him stretched out anyway,” pitching coach Bob McClure said. “I don’t know when Zack is going to return. I’m sure if he returns soon, everything would move again.” Tie Games
Permalink There can be tie games in the World Baseball Classic. Organizers said Tuesday that games in the first two rounds of the tournament will be ended after 14 innings, even if teams remain tied. Of course, ties happen in Major League Baseball as well. The difference is those games don't count in the standings and are replayed (the stats count). Here, a tie is counted as 1/2 a win and 1/2 a loss. It's like going back to the 1920s, when darkness or bad weather often caused games to end in a tie. Deadspin Previews
Permalink Deadspin started their team previews yesterday with the Devil Rays. Check the link everyday for updates. Mets Lineups
Permalink Willie Randolph discussed the Mets 2006 lineup yesterday. The concern of the press is will Beltran bat 2nd and will Willie split the lefties Delgado and Floyd? Reyes is penciled in as the leadoff hitter. Why doesn't anyone ask if he belongs there. I actually like the idea of Beltran leading off, with Wright, Delgado and Floyd following. You can always throw Diaz in between Delgado and Floyd if you want to break up the lefties. The Lineup Analysis tool likes the Mets with Beltran and Wright at the top, and Matsui between the table setters and the power (based on PECOTA projections). That would never fly, but if you move Matsui out and the power up a slot, it looks like a good lineup that's not that unconventional. Q and Defense
Permalink Keith Isley posts a very interesting discussion at The Hardball Times on using the Q methedology to measure defense. One of his conclusions is that Zone Rating better agrees with subjective defensive ratings than the Probabilistic Model of Range. We could then sanity check the defensive metric by testing for correlation with the Tools and Skills factor scores. Zone Rating, in fact, does correlate significantly (P<.01) with my Skills factor. This agrees with Tom Tippett’s assessment that ZR places more emphasis on soft hands (Skill) than range (Tool) because the system basically counts only balls that a player is expected to reach, as I understand it. Something new to explore. PMR should be an improvement on zone ratings, since the zones are created by the fielders ability, rather than some set piece of property. Time to engage the Q. Murders Row
Permalink Even without Manny Ramirez, the Domincan Republic presents a powerful lineup, although I might flip Soriano and Alou in the batting order. The Book on Runs
Permalink The first chapter of The Book discusses the statistical tools used by the authors. They calculated run values for each event, much like in The Hidden Game of Baseball. Just as you'd expect, in the higher run environment used for the latest calculation, the stolen base is even a riskier proposition. A stolen base awards you .175 runs, while a caught stealing now costs you .467 runs. So you need to steal at about a 73% clip to just break even. Only 9 of the 30 teams were that successful running last year. Percival Gone
Permalink Tiger Blog reflects on the likely end of Troy Percival's career. Team USA Rotation
Permalink Buck Martinez announced his pitchers yesterday for the first round of the World Baseball Classic: Team USA manager Buck Martinez announced his probable pitchers for the opening round of the 16-team tournament Monday and named future Hall of Famer Clemens to start Game 3 at Scottsdale Stadium on Friday, March 10 at 1 p.m. It's nice to have Clemens as your number three starter. However, maybe it's time to hang up the spikes when this happens: Martinez probably hopes Clemens has better stuff than he did Monday in Kissimmee, Fla. Clemens faced a team of Astros minor leaguers. Clemens' son, Koby, took Dad deep on the Rocket's first pitch of spring training, crushing a trademark fastball over the left field fence. Then again, Koby's probably seen so many pitches from his dad, he knows exactly what's coming. :-)
February 27, 2006
Lineup Analysis Tool Up
Permalink The Lineup Analysis tool should be working again. I optimized the loop that does the run calculations, reducing two multiplies to a single add. It still takes a bit of time to run, but it should be a little less of a resource hog. The Book Is In
Permalink My copy of The Book arrived in the mail today. Now I just need to find time to read it. They spend 50 pages on the sacrifice bunt, so it looks like the three authors really researched their subjects in depth. New York Heroes
Permalink Canyon of Heroes is a new Yankees blog with the writer based in Japan. Check out his homage to Bernie Williams. Using the Best
Permalink The Baseball Crank charts the use of top-line pitchers over time. Note his third table; the top six pitchers used to pitch over 90% of the innings. Now, they pitch about 59% of the innings. The Crank's point is that pitching appears to be so poor today because poor pitchers get a lot more work. Unless teams are willing to go back to allowing 120 pitches a game (which isn't unreasonable) I don't see that changing anytime soon. Guerrero Tragedy
Permalink Vald Guerrero lost three cousins in a car accident, and is temporarily away from the Angels camp. My condolences go out to Vlad and his family. Manely First Woman in Hall of Fame
Permalink Effa Manely took her place beside the greats of baseball today: Effa Manley became the first woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame when the former Newark Eagles executive was among 17 people from the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues chosen Monday by a special committee. Congratulations to the families of all the elected players and executives. These are honors long overdue. Lineup Analysis Tool
Permalink The heavy use of the Lineup Analysis tool is taking it's toll on the server that hosts this site. Traffic is heavy today, therefore, it may or may not work for you. Waiting to use it until this evening is probably the best bet. I've contacted by host to see if there's something we can do, either moving to a faster server or upgrading my account. More Lineups
Permalink I was reading this Athletics Nation thread on lineups, and noticed another feature of the Lineup Analysis tool. Even if you don't buy the lineups genterated by the program, it can demonstrate the balance of a team. Here's the lineup a person on that thread ran for the Athletics. Notice that the difference between the best and worst lineups is pretty small, about .25 runs per game. If you look at the Giants, however, the gap between best and worst is about .9 runs. That's what's so impressive about the Oakland offense this season; there are no bad players in the lineup. Life of Brian
Permalink In addition to his torn labrum, Brian Lawrence also has a torn rotator cuff: Washington Nationals right-hander Brian Lawrence had surgery Sunday to repair his torn right labrum, and during the surgery doctors also discovered that Lawrence had a torn rotator cuff, which also was repaired. The additional injury makes it more likely Lawrence will miss the entire season. At least the doctors found it and fixed it at the same time, so he doesn't need additional surgery. Batting Fourth
Permalink There's a headline without an article at the Contra Costa Times. I don't know if it's a mistake or a real story, since I can't find it anywhere else. But if it's true, Alou set his lineup with Winn in the leadoff spot and Bonds batting fourth. I guess Bonds won the battle to not bat second if this headline is accurate. Here's what the Lineup Analysis Tool says about the Giants lineup. Update: I should mention that I used The Bill James Handbook 2006 projections for the position players. The numbers for the pitchers are what the Giants pitchers did last year. Kip Wells News
Permalink There's much more information on Kip Wells' blood clot in the Tribune-Review: Littlefield described Wells' condition as "definitely serious." Let's hope for a complete recovery. Thomas vs. Williams
Permalink You've probably seen the news about Kenny Williams calling Frank Thomas an idiot. But those stories don't link to the interview that was the last straw for Kenny. Here it is. The feud between the two comes down to the diminished skills clause of Frank's old contract: Arvia: The weird thing about this is A's GM Billy Beane and Kenny are pretty tight (or were until Beane made some disparaging remarks about Williams in a book) ... Thomas does say one thing in the interview that do think is idiotic: Thomas: And you're talking to me right now like I'm 40 years old. I'm not 40 years old. I'm 37. I'm in my prime. Frank is still very good, but he's not in his prime. Let's Make a Deal
Permalink There's a rumor of a potential Red Sox/Nationals trade: The Washington Nationals are believed to be eyeing the Red Sox for a potential deal for a starting pitcher after losing right-hander Brian Lawrence until at least August with a torn labrum in his right shoulder. Matt Clement, who is owed $9.5 million each of the next two seasons, is probably out of Washington’s price range, but Bronson Arroyo, who inked a three-year deal worth $10.5 million in January, certainly would be appealing. To acquire Arroyo, the Nationals may have to part with a package including first baseman Nick Johnson or outfielder Ryan Church. Seems to me the obvious deal is Clement for Soriano, although I don't see much difference between Soriano and Loretta at this point. The Sox would need to decide if they need more on-base or power as a team. Mora Staying Home
Permalink Melvin Mora is the latest defection from the World Baseball Classic, although his reason will strike some as egotistical: Mora made his decision after being informed that Venezuelan team officials planned on playing him in center field, not at third base, for the March tournament. Mora makes a bit of sense here. Cabrera played the outfield more recently than Melvin. But if Mora is willing to embarass himself for Alfonzo, why not for Miguel?
February 26, 2006
Greinke Gone
Permalink Zack Greinke returned to his home in Florida this weekend. He has the team's permission to be away on a personal matter: Baird and Bell declined to elaborate on the nature of Greinke’s “personal matters” beyond saying it was not a disciplinary issue matter, a legal difficulty or a physical injury that would prevent him from pitching. Kip Clotted
Permalink Pirates pitcher Kip Wells is suffering from a blood clot under his clavicle near his right arm. It sounds very similar to what drove Oil Can Boyd out of the majors. Macolm Blogs!
Permalink Via Knowledge Problem, Malcolm Gladwell is now blogging. I hope he'll be writing about baseball. Lineup Constant
Permalink I've been in touch with Cy Morong, and it turns out I was using the wrong constant in the Lineup Analysis tool. The change won't effect which lineup is best or worst. It will just boost the calculation of runs per game by .40 runs. Cy generated another set of parameters based on a larger sample of data, and I'm working on including that as well. Update: You can now choose between Cy's 1998-2002 model and his 1959-2004 model. Tribe Terms
Permalink According to this report on MLB.com, the Cleveland Indians are working on a long term contract with Jhonny Peralta. Rego would not get into specifics as far as the number of years or the figures being discussed. I thought that was a great strategy back then, and it's a great one now. You avoid arbitration with your young players, saving both the monetary and emotional costs of that process. You also insulate yourself against salary inflation, making these players tradeable down the road. I'm still amazed that more clubs don't follow this model. Fielding Bible Reviews
Permalink Steve Lombardi likes The Fielding Bible. Schilling Improving
Permalink Curt Schilling threw off the mound yesterday for 16 minutes, tossing batting practice. All indications are he's in much better shape than in 2005: For now, Schilling notices a big difference between this spring and the conclusion of last season. “Just the freedom of movement and the kind of thought you put into that stuff,” Schilling said. “From a mental standpoint, I’m not thinking about any of the stuff I was thinking of last year.”
February 25, 2006
Analyzing the Analysis
Permalink Don Scotto at Beyond the Boxscore spent a lot of time with the Lineup Analysis tool and he's figured out how to build the lineup without the computer's help. To me, the most interesting and counter-intuitive aspect is the number three hitter: This was the biggest surprise: the 3 hitter should be the player that doesn't fit into any of the other spots. Every other spot has some significance, but if I were building a lineup, I would just put the leftover player in the 3 hole. This seemed very counterintuitive to me when I first heard it, but David Pinto noted, "Part of what it's telling us is that you need to spread out your easy outs." I still struggled to get this, but I'm starting to, now. Marc said something to the effect of "the worst players have to go somewhere." I guess this is really it; the other spots just have greater needs. If you can get a good hitter here, it means that your lineup is very deep. A few years ago when I was working at UMass, someone at our lab pointed out an article that analyzed lineups using Markov chains. It showed the pitcher should bat eighth. I had a very tough time believing that, until I sat down with pencil and paper and found you really didn't lose that much giving the pitcher those extra at bats, a few runs at most. It took a while, but I got my head around the idea of a second leadoff hitter in the nine hole. So it's easier for me to deal with a poor hitter in the three spot. Here's what I think is going on. There really are two lineups here. The 9-1-2 section of the order is the killer OBA guys. The 4-5-6-7 are the boppers. Three and eight are the easy outs, separated so the opposing pitcher doesn't get any easy stretches. One and two get on base a lot, so hitter four almost always bats in the first inning. If he doesn't, he's also a good OBA guy so he's good at leading off the second inning. When the lineup turns over, you have the extra good OBA in front of the first two hitters. Since these two also have decent power, number nine is a new table setter. It would be very interesting to see if #9 and #4 led off a lot of innings, since you would expect #3 and #8 to make the third out when they get the opportunity. If that were to be true, the two lineup idea would be absolutely brilliant. At the two places you're most likely to run into the third out, at leadoff man is coming up next. Update: Be sure to read the comments. There's an indirect link to a retrosheet research article in one. Here's the direct link to Evaluating Traditional Lineups. A Great Big Hand
Permalink Tom Krasovic reports on Mike Piazza's hand strength: When the Padres recently measured the hand strength of all their players, the team's ancient catcher showed the whippersnappers a thing or two. Piazza's always had great hand strength. Since Cameron did the same thing, I wonder if the Mets emphasized this in training? Update: I forgot the link. We Don't Need No Extra Players
Permalink The Kansas City Royals only need four pitchers for the first couple of weeks of the season, but Bell doesn't like having an extra position players around: “The tough thing in the American League,” he said, “is you don’t use a lot of guys on your bench. So guys get (ticked). You don’t want guys just sitting around.” The Royals starting nine is just so talented that Bell would never want to:
Nothing of use there. Lawrence of the DL
Permalink Brian Lawrence will wait until the middle of the season to make his Washington Nationals debut. He tore his labrum at some point and will miss half the season. Soriano and Vidro
Permalink The Washington Post chronicles the two players in camp together: The theoretically awkward issue of Alfonso Soriano's presence in the Washington Nationals' spring training camp alongside veteran Jose Vidro, the Nationals' incumbent second baseman, became a practical one Friday. In the first full-squad workout of the spring, Vidro took grounders and performed drills with the rest of the starting infielders, while Soriano worked out with an infield group made up of mostly minor leaguers. Later, in the clubhouse, they sat three lockers apart, eating their lunches without interacting. One solution that no one talks about is moving Soriano to shortstop. Yes, he'll likely be the worst defensive shortstop in the league. The Nationals can live with that. Neither Guzman nor Clayton is any great shakes at short, how much worse can Soriano do? He'll hit a lot better than either of those two players. The other advantage is, if he's moved to short, it will be seen as a defensive promotion, while the move to left is clearly a defensive demotion. Soriano created 93 runs last year. Clayton created 55, Guzman 26. At worst, Soriano is going to be 10 runs worse that those two at shortstop. It's not a great solution, but it's one that probably improves the team overall. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Runs Created Against Third Basemen
Permalink Here's the runs saved data for the third basemen:
Interestingly, Chipper Jones makes a big move up when you look at runs vs. just outs. Maybe there's a tendancy for balls down the line in Atlanta to go for doubles and triples, so anything you stop saves a lot of bases. On the other hand, Figgins drops a lot. I wonder if positioning of the left fielder has anything to do with it? Or maybe Chipper just plays closer to the line all the time? Filling a Request
Permalink There were a couple of requests in regards to last night's lineup analysis to change the program so it would calculate the runs per game for a given lineup. Having looked at the code, it wasn't tough to do. So now if you enter an actual lineup, it gives you the runs per game for that batting order before the best and worst tables. You can try it here. The Book on Fielding
Permalink The Fielding Bible by John Dewan arrived in the mail today. I just read the Jeter vs. Everett section by Bill James, and it's an excellent analysis of the differences between the two. Just skimming the book, there are tons of tables measuring varying aspects of fielding. There are great color charts showing where hits landed against each team. There are essays explaining the systems used and comments about the ranked players. In many ways, it has the look and feel of a 21st century Bill James Abstract. I'll have a complete review in a few days. Let's Give Them Something to Talk About
Permalink Joe Maddon unleashed a radical idea on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays; have the pitchers and catchers sit down and discuss pitching philosophy: Before each game the starting pitcher meets with the catcher. They go over the scouting report on that day's opponent and discuss how they will pitch to each hitter. But, incredibly, they never discuss how the pitcher really feels, his philosophies, his vision of how he wants to get through a game. I would think all pitchers and catcher ever talked about was pitching. Maybe that's one of the secrets of the Angels' success. DH Strategy
Permalink The Giants can use Barry Bonds as a DH in their spring training home games. There is one catch, however: There's a caveat: The visiting team can veto a home NL team's request to use a DH. It could elect to let its pitchers hit while allowing the home NL team to employ a DH. Or it can join in the fun and also use a DH. So if you're a team that going to be competing against the Giants this season, what do you do? Most probably will let it happen, simply because they may be in the same position in the future. But if helping the Giants in the spring hurts your chances of winning in the summer, why do it? On another Bonds note: Bonds again appeared to move well with and without the brace he wore on his right knee. He then calmly refused to answer questions after the workout. With his videographer, Tony Phills, filming away, Bonds explained that he wouldn't conduct interviews unless participating reporters signed a release allowing the production company of his proposed reality series on ESPN to use their images and voices. Maybe the beat writers should look at this as a chance to audition for ESPN. First the Barry Show, then Basebal Tonight! :-) Bagwell In Camp
Permalink Jeff Bagwell reported to camp, despite the Astros filing an insurance claim against his arthritic shoulder. The Houston Chronicle rounds up quotes from both Bagwell and owner Drayton McLane. Good News for the Cubs
Permalink Mark Prior and Kerry Wood each threw off the mound yesterday. Attention to Detail
Permalink Mark Teixeira felt he had a poor season from the right side in 2005: Teixeira hit 43 homers in 2005, the fourth highest season total by a switch-hitter. He drove in 144 runs, the highest-ever season total for a switch-hitter. Teixeira has very high standards. By his previous two seasons, he was down as a right-handed hitter. But most hitters would take a .359 OBA and a .491 slugging percentage over a full season. To Mark's credit, that's not good enough for him. Picking the Bench
Permalink The Indians starting lineup is pretty much set this year, so Let's Go Tribe looks at the battle for the backup slots.
February 24, 2006
Lineup Analysis
Permalink I love the way the internet works. Bob wrote my today to tell me about an article he posted at HireMeTheo on the optimum Red Sox lineup. He got the idea from two sources; Cyril Morong's recent article on the weights given to on-base average and slugging average depending on lineup slot, and Ken Arneson's application of this to the Oakland Athletics. Ken was kind enough to post a Perl script on how to do this. I think this is just a fascinating subject and this type of program would be very useful to simulation game players (and maybe baseball managers in general). So I coded the analysis program as a python script, and now you can find the optimum lineup for any set of nine players based on the work of these gentlemen. The program is called Lineup Analysis. Just fill in all the slots with data (you can make up names if you like), press submit and off you go. It supplies you with the 20 best and 20 worst lineups given that set of players. Here are a couple of examples (they take a minute to run). Using The Bill James Handbook 2006 player projections, here's what the best and worst 2006 Yankees lineups look like. Notice that the program puts very unusual people at the top of the order. It also seems to put the worst hitters 8th. It also likes to put three high OBAs in front of the best power hitter. Here's a look at my idea of the all-time best hitting team (Edgar Martinez is the DH). How would you like to start a game facing Bonds and Ruth? Don't tell Joe Morgan he's batting 9th. I hope you'll give this a try. It takes a minute to run since it has to go through all the probabilities. If nothing else, it can generate some interesting discussions. The general consensus is that lineups don't matter much. These program are showing that the difference between the best and worst lineups is half a run per game, or 80 runs a season. That's 8 wins. However, even the worst managers aren't going to use the worst lineup. If you keep your high OBA players at the top and the sluggers in the middle, you're not going to come out very near the top. Inside Baseball
Permalink In the mail today, The Last Nine Innings by Charles Euchner. The book purports use the 2001 World Series to explore the changes happening in Major League Baseball. It looks like it's full of interviews with insiders from that series. Men's Gold Medal Game
Permalink Nothing conservative in the first end of the gold medal curling match as Finland just misses three points and settles for two against the Canadians. Almost every shot in that end was perfect, with two double takeouts by the Canadian third a highlight. Update: Canada comes back and also comes close to three. It's tied at 2 after 2 ends. Watching these two teams shoot, it's clear why they're in this game. They play aggressively with very precise shots. The ones that missed so far have not missed by much. Update: Finland falters in the third end, and Canada steals a point for a 3-2. Only a nice final shot by the Finnish skip Markku Uusipaavalniemi saves them from disaster, as the Canadians were lying four. Update: Canada continues to dominate the match in the fourth end. Uusipaavalniemi is heavy with the hammer, and Canada steals another point. The hose heads are giving the Fins no openings, requiring perfect last shots to score. The Fins were less than perfect the last two ends. Update: The third for Finland makes two poor shots, but Uusipaavalniemi saves the end with a fantastic penultimate stone, threading the needle between two guards for shot rock. His last stone, however, is just a little heavy and Finland only gets one. They're at the half with the Canadians leading by 1. Canada also has the hammer in the even ends. Update: I stepped out for a minute. When I get back to the game, Canada is lying six, and the Finnish skip misses with his last shot. Canada throws the hammer heavy and goes through the house, but still picks up six points in the end. I can't wait to see that end again on Tivo. I'm surprised the Fins didn't concede after that end. Update: They're playing the seventh, and Canada is just taking out every stone the Fins throw out. Eventually, there won't be enough stones to score seven points. Update: The Fins blank the 7th, score 1 in the 8th, and concede the game. Canada wins the gold medal game 10-4, their first Olympic gold in curling. Congratulations to the team from the great white north on their impressive victory, and to the Finnish team on winning the silver! Back to baseball. :-) Great Encyclopedia Entry
Permalink Adam Greenberg hopes to make the majors again: Adam Greenberg is resigned to the fact he always will be known as the player who got hit in the head in his first major-league at-bat. Greenberg will probably be more famous if he never makes the majors again. His encyclopedia line will the the subject of trivia contests for years, plus he'll retire with a 1.000 OBA! Betrayed by a Hip
Permalink Dave Wallace's condition does not sound good: Wallace's condition, according to Red Sox ace Curt Schilling, had deteriorated last week to the point that ''he literally almost died." Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Mr. Wallace. Young Angels
Permalink DailyNews.com updates the condition of Dallas McPherson's hip: With pain and frustration behind him - for the most part - Dallas McPherson can now work on supplying the Angels' coaching staff with a little headache. McPherson is one of the early arrivals to spring camp, and if he can show he is completely healed from a hip injury, he could force the Angels to scramble their preliminary lineup plans. I really like what the Angels did this winter. Very quietly, they got younger. Finley and Molina are gone, Kotchman and Mathis are going to be everyday players, and McPherson is looking to get significant playing time. That's three players 25 or under moving into the lineup. And if McPherson can play third, I suppose it's possible to get Erstad's bat out of the lineup with Figgins moving to center (although that may not be the best defensive alignment). Bronze Medal Game
Permalink Pete Fenson and the US men just played a terrific third end, leaving three on the button for a 4-1 lead over Great Britain. Update: The US blanks the British in the fifth end. At halftime, the US leads the Redcoats 4-2. Update: They just announced the World Championships will be in Lowell, MA in April. Update: The US men use the blanked fifth to their advantage, taking two points in the sixth end for a 6-2 lead. They also have the hammer in the all important even ends. They're in good shape with four ends to go for the Bronze. Update: You can get tickets for the championships in Lowell here. It's April 1-9, so you can watch the first half and still catch opening day. Update: Pete Fenson makes a good but not great shot with his last stone of the seventh end. He prevents the British from scoring four, but the British Skip Murdoch makes a perfect double take out to score three for his team. It's 6-5 US going to the 8th. Update: The US and Great Britain trade points in the 8th and 9th ends. The US leads 7-6 and has the hammer in the 10th and final end. Update: The US is playing a very defensive end in the 10th, running off all the Great Britain guards. The British call a time-out to consider their last shot. Update: Pete Fenson makes a perfect draw to the button to ehd the match. The US men defeat Great Britain for the Bronze medal. Congratulations to the team for a great tournament! WBC Chances
Permalink Talking Baseball finishes up their series on Cuba with a look at the island nation's chances in the tournament. Meanwhile, a guest writer at Yard Work likes the chances of Venezuela.
February 23, 2006
The Time is Now
Permalink Firebrand of the American League wants to see Jon Papelbon make the Red Sox as a stater: My point: I’d like to see him in the rotation as soon as possible. I just believe we’re somewhat wasting his strong years in the majors when his arm is at full strength and he can be a consistent winner for the Sox. Somewhat wasting him, not entirely, for his bullpen help is much appreciated. Unfortunately (or fortunately), his 2.65 ERA last season is too much to ignore, along with his 25 year old age and remarkable minor league statistics. I love David Wells, Bronson Arroyo is a great guy around Boston and for the team, and I still firmly believe Matt Clement will compete for the Cy Young sooner than later, but Papelbon deserves a spot in the rotation. Now. If he's clearly in the top five pitchers coming out of spring training, I agree. Even if it means cutting David Wells lose and eating his contract. Going Well for Gagne
Permalink Eric Gagne continues to make progress toward his return to big league action: Dodgers closer Eric Gagne pitched Thursday to hitters for the first time since elbow surgery in June. Crosby Better
Permalink At the end of this long article on Frank Thomas' health is an important blurb about Bobby Crosby's shoulder: SS Bobby Crosby (sore right shoulder) played catch from 90 feet and said he felt no pain. "That's a good sign," he said. A-Rod, Bad-A
Permalink Larry Dobrow at CBSSportsLine.com picks up on the idea that Alex Rodriguez should get surly: When Ozzie Guillen rips you for taking 17 weeks to decide between playing for the U.S., the Dominican Republic or Istanbul in the World Baseball Classic, the correct response is not, "The apology has been accepted. We've moved on from there," as you said upon reporting to training camp this week. The proper response is "tell that little pissant I'll stomp him until his kidneys liquefy." Larry's conclusion: I want to like you. We all do. But I want to do so without shame, which is where your behavioral modification comes in. So get stupid, surly and bent, not necessarily in that order. Remember -- we don't need another superperforming robot in the Bronx. We've already got Rivera. One more with this opinion and they'll think it's an organization. :-) Tippy McCarthy
Permalink The White Sox are working on preventing Brandon McCarthy from tipping his pitches: Brandon McCarthy threw sharp curves to Jim Thome during batting practice Wednesday, but the White Sox's 22-year-old pitcher and the coaching staff were more encouraged by another development.
Leadoff In Washington
Permalink Dave Sheinin of the Washington post catches Frank Robinson making an outrageous statement about the possibilites the Nationals' leadoff hitter: Robinson said Watson will bat leadoff anytime he is in the team's lineup this spring, once exhibition games begin March 1. When asked about his alternate plan, should Watson, 24, fail to seize the job, Robinson mentioned shortstop Cristian Guzman and outfielders Ryan Church and Marlon Byrd as possibilities. Nice to see a sports writer aware of the stats. The beat writers of the Post did a nice on this last year, too. Dave also suggests Nick Johnson leading off: Byrd, by comparison, saw 4.19 pitches per plate appearance and Church saw 3.79. First baseman Nick Johnson, whom Robinson said he would not consider for the leadoff job, has averaged 4.18 pitches for his career. New Joints
Permalink Rocco Baldelli had a good first day back from knee and elbow surgeries: Wednesday couldn't come fast enough for Baldelli, the Devil Rays' 24-year-old center fielder who missed all of last season with reconstructive surgeries to his left knee and right elbow. The "Tommy John" surgery on his elbow still limits his throwing, but it didn't dampen his excitement for the Rays first full-squad workout of the spring. I suspect we'll see a lot of teams testing that elbow on the basepaths. I wonder if the Devil Rays wouldn't be better served moving Rocco to left and Crawford to center until Baldelli shows he can throw? Is Anyone Playing in the WBC?
Permalink Everyday brings a new defection from the World Baseball Classic. I was wrong about Manny Ramirez reporting late in order to avoid a lot of time at Red Sox camp. Because he's reporting late, he won't be participating the the WBC. That's a big blow to the Dominican team. While they're still formidable, Manny would be their best hitter. Pedro Martinez won't be pitching for them either (at least in the first round), but that was expected. Roberto Kelly, however, just pulled out as Panama's manager: He complained that local officials held some players back from the Classic so they would play in the Panamanian championships and alleged that he had been the target of racist comments. If Panama had been smart, they would have traded him for someone better. :-) Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Runs Created Against Rightfielders
Permalink We continue the run through the positions with the rightfielders:
There's a lot of good right field defense in the AL West as Swisher and Guerrero lead the regulars. And given Griffey's poor ratings, putting Willy Mo Pena next to him makes the Reds defense pretty poor. Maybe the Cincinnati pitching is a bit better than we think. Update: In helping out a friend, I was looking at Sheffield's probability of getting an out vs. runs saved. As you can see, Sheffield does well if you just look at getting outs vs. not, but is negative when you look at runs saved. My first thought on this is that Gary is poor at cutting off balls in the gap. Does anyone have thoughts on this?Gold Medal Game
Permalink The Swedish women's curling team blanks the first end against the Swiss, moving the hammer to the even rounds. If the first end is any indication, both teams will play very conservatively, and wait for the other side to make a mistake. Update: Nice placement by Sweden and a perfect hammer shot gives the artic team two points in the second end. The Swiss play with the hammer for the first time in end three, trailing 2-0. Update: The Swiss third Binia Beeli makes two nice shots to set up skip Mirjam Ott for two points and a tie game after three ends. Both teams appear to have the measure of the ice in this match. Update: The Swiss come back from an early mistake and force Sweden to take one point in the fourth end. Sweden leads 3-2, and the Swiss have the hammer going into the fifth end. Update: Up to the minute stats for the game are here. Update: A poor second shot by Swiss third Binia Beeli prevents the Swiss from scoring two. Instead, they blank the end to get the hammer in the even ends. Lots of great double take outs in that end, and Swedish skip Anette Norberg and Swiss skip Mirjam Ott continue to shoot to perfection. Sweden leads 3-2 as they resurface the ice. Correction: Fixed the score. Update: In a battle of thirds, Beeli makes two mistakes, and Eva Lund (who could be Ilsa Lund's sister) capitalizes on them to set Sweden up for the steal. Norberg continues her great shooting as skip to seal the deal as Ott fails to move the Swedish shot rock out. It's 4-2 Sweden after six, and they get the hammer back in the even rounds. Update: On the last stone of the seventh end, Ott's stone picks up a piece of debris on the ice and hits a guard. Sweden steals one on another brilliant shot by Annette Norberg. It's 5-2, and the Swiss need a big end to comeback. Update: The Swiss get two in the eighth end. The Swiss had shot rock in the button, with a Swedish stone frozen near it. Ott came down, kissed the Swedish stone and rolled by it by a hair to take two and make the score 5-4 Sweden going to the 9th end. I wonder is Sweden will try to blank the 9th to take hammer into the 10th? Update: Ott forces Norberg to take one in the 9th. Sweden leads 6-4 going into the final end, but the Swiss have the hammer. This is the best curling match I've seen so far. Update: Eva Lund trys to take out two Swiss guards, but puts one in the house. That allows Norberg and Ott to trade shots, and the Swiss tie the game with two in the tenth. Sweden goes to the extra end with the hammer for the gold medal. Update: A great tenth end. The Swedish lead misses her first two shots, leaving Switzerland with two front guards, but the Swedish second runs them off. The end winds up with the Swiss with two stones in the house, but Ott left her last shot two close to the other. Norberg goes for the gold with the double, knocks off both Swiss stone and leaves her's in the house for the gold. A superb match! Congratulations to the Swedes on the win and to the Swiss for the silver medal. Keystone Injury
Permalink Bobby Crosby is hurting again: Shortstop Bobby Crosby's right shoulder is hurting him, and the A's are concerned. Crosby's absence from the lineup in 2005 really hurt the Athletics: Crosby sat out nearly eight weeks last season with two broken ribs after getting hurt Opening Day. The A's dropped 15 games below .500, then went 55-24 from the day he came back, May 30, to Aug. 27, when he got hurt again, breaking his left ankle in a home-plate collision. On the plus side, the Athletics are deeper offensively this season, so it's possible they'll do better than last year if Crosby misses time. I Can Stop Anytime!
Permalink The Soxaholix is worried about my obsession. Be assured it's just a bit of fun. Metaphorically Speaking
Permalink Just wanted to point out this excellent mixed metaphor by Barry Bonds: Before arriving in spring training, Bonds caused a stir in the past week when he gave two conflicting interviews — telling USA Today he was ready to retire at the end of the season and MLB.com that he felt good enough to play 10 more years. He did little to clear that up Wednesday. Being a bus and a football player, Jerome Bettis is the only person I can think of who might be able to tackle a bridge. :-) Bronze Medal
Permalink The Canadian Women's Curling Team wins the Bronze Medal, defeating Norway 11-5. Canada took a 4-0 lead after the first end and never looked back. Norway retired after 8 ends. Congratulations to Canada on the Medal! Teaching Each Other
Permalink Seattle sports two new catchers and both men are learning from each other: Rivera knows what it's like to live and work in a foreign country without command of the language. He knows what it's like to try to adapt his game to a new country. Sounds like the start of a beautiful friendship. Healthy Cats
Permalink The Tigers are an unusual club this spring as they have no injury problems: Carlos Guillen looked loose taking grounders. Dmitri Young looked leaner. Magglio Ordonez looked powerful with the bat during the Tigers' first full-squad workout Tuesday. It seems every team has some player that's a question mark due to a previous injury. This gives the Tigers one less thing to worry about this spring. Cuba and the WBC
Permalink Talking Baseball posts the second article in their series on Cuba, this time on the issue of Cuban participation in the WBC. It might be in the island's best interest to not compete in the tournament.
February 22, 2006
A Blast of Video
Permalink ClipBlast aggregates free video from all over the net. They now have a page dedicated to baseball video. Two Takes on Cuba
Permalink Talking Baseball offers an article on how popular the game is on the island. And not just the local teams: But for all of this knowledge, they do not know, according to Wendel, the physical descriptions of Major League Baseball players. Due to the embargo between Cuba and the United States, the MLB games are not broadcast over the air to Cuba. Meanwhile, The Bases are Loaded is out on DVD. It's the story of Monte Irvin's return to Cuba to reunite with former teammate and Cuban baseball icon Connie Marrero after a 50-year separation. Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio. The House That Derek Built
Permalink The Yankees received approval today from the city commission, the next step in building a new stadium. Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up in a little while at 8 PM EST. You can leave questions during the show in the TPSRadio Chat Room. Curling Semifinal, Men
Permalink Canada threatens in the first end, but the US skip makes a nice final shot, knocking a US guard stone onto the button for a single point and an early lead in the semifinal match. Update: Nice final shot by the Canadian skip knocks away an American stone and gives the hose heads 2 points in the second end. Canada leads 2-1. Update: Pete Fenson throws a perfect draw with Canada lying three to take a point in the third end. It's tied at 2 after three ends. I know this match is over, but I don't know the result. I'm making believe it's live. It's more fun that way. Update: The Canadian skip makes another great hammer shot to score two in the fourth end and take a 4-2 lead. The US is going to need a big end soon, or they'll be conceding early. Update: Once again, Pete Fenson needs to make a perfect shot to keep Canada from a big score, and does. He still gets just 1 point, and Canada keeps the hammer in the even ends as they pause to resurface the ice. The score is Canada 4, US 3. Update: I love bread, and I really want an official Olympic Curling loaf (it's shaped like a stone with a handle). I wonder if the bakery is selling them online? Update: Canada does it again. There's some argument whether Gushue's hammer shot did what he meant, but the result is once again Canada getting two points with the last shot. The lead 6-3 after six ends. The US is just not making their shot consistently in this match. Update: The US blanks the 7th end. They now have the hammer in the even ends, and trailing by three they'll need it. The US third is curling poorly tonight, and his poor second shot changed the end from a good chance of the team getting two points to having to go for the blank. Update: The US plays a good end in the eighth, scoring two. They trail by 1, 6-5. My guess is the Canadians might try to blank the 9th end to keep the hammer in the 10th. Update: Canada instead scores five in the ninth end, and the US concedes. The curlers from the great white north were just perfect today. They'll go on to the gold medal game, while the US needs a win for the bronze. Vernon Hurtin'
Permalink Vernon Wells injured his leg, and it's likely to keep him out of the first round of the World Baseball Classic. Otherwise, it doesn't seem to be all that serious. Young Gun
Permalink Via Lone Star Ball, an excellent article in the San Diego Union on Chris Young. Pole Position
Permalink Joe Girardi is really showing his players how it's done: With temperatures in the 80s on Tuesday, Marlins pitchers lined up for one of the most grueling drills of spring training: "running poles," a series of 14 sprints across the outfield grass from foul pole to foul pole. It's a great incentive for the players to be out run by the manager. Especially one who is a former catcher. I like this idea, also: Girardi, who lifts weights alongside his players in the training room, said he'll probably put on some catcher's gear in the coming days to get a closer look at some of his pitchers. That's upclose and personal. Scully Extension
Permalink At age 79, Vin Scully signed a contract extension that will keep him in the Dodgers broadcast booth through the 2008 season. What I find most amazing about Vin is that he can do a nine-inning game all by himself. Having access to all games since 2001, I've been able to watch Dodger games while listening to Vin, and the man never runs out of things to say. What a great career, spending your life doing something you love and making a fantastic living at the same time. Game 6
Permalink There's a new movie coming out that revolves around Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. I really like the cast, and you can see the trailer at their web site. He's a Mean One, Bobby Grich
Permalink Matt Welch reminds us of Bobby Grich's greatness in his column on the best seasons by Angels second basemen. I wonder how much Bobby's last name had to do with his non-election to the the Hall of Fame. Grich is one of those words that just sounds yucky; if you didn't know what the word meant, you might think it's something that clogs a drain pipe. Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EST. Check out their other sports programming as well. You can also call in at 888-985-0555 and leave a question for the show, or stop by the chat room at TPSRadio during the broadcast and leave a comment. Also, feel free to leave a question in the comments to this post and I'll be happy to answer it on the air. Going for the Gold
Permalink Congratulations to Sweden and Switzerland! Both countries saw their women's curling teams advance to the gold medal game on Thursday. Unproductive Offense
Permalink The Detroit Tigers were 4th in the AL in batting average during the 2005 season, but 11th in OBA. So what do the Tigers need to work on? The solution lies on baseball's subtle side: using outs to advance and score runners. How about the team getting on base more, Jim? At least Kaline has a bit more perspective on this: Al Kaline, the Tigers instructor and Hall of Famer, said the productive outs become most important from the seventh inning onward. And it's from the seventh inning on, with the tying or go-ahead run on second or third base, that the Tigers' struggles to advance runners have become most noticeable during the losing seasons. Yes, late in close games one runs becomes very important. But the more people you put on base, the more chances you have of not being in that situation in the 7th inning. Cup of Coffey
Permalink The role of Reds closer may go to Todd Coffey. Coffey's concerned with his walk rate: Todd Coffey is disturbed, a bit angry with himself. He walked 11 batters in 58 innings last season and that will never, never do. He should be more concerned with his strikeout rates. Most pitchers will do just fine walking just 1.7 per 9 innings. Coffey, however, only struck out four per nine in his big league debut. He can do a lot better than that, averaging 8.3 K per 9 in his minor league career. If he can get his strikeouts up to the level, he's likely to be an effective closer. Tejada Contrite
Permalink Miguel Tejada made up for his off-season problems yesterday: Later, in a 15-minute news conference with about a dozen reporters, Tejada said that he will no longer use vitamin B-12, reiterated that he didn't want to play anywhere else but Baltimore and that he was embarrassed by the attention his trade demand drew. Dan Connolly, however, notes the inconsistencies in the story. It's really tough to know what to believe on this one. Semi-Final Curling
Permalink The Swiss and Canadian women are playing their semi-final round right now. Canada starts off with the hammer, and blanks the first end. Update: Sweeping in the second end, Amy Nixon of Canada leaves the ice and doubles over. It's not clear what her status is at the moment, although she is sweeping on the next stone. Update: Canada takes a point in the second for a 1-0 lead. Amy Nixon is still sweeping. Update: Ott draws for 1 in the fifth end. The lead 4-2 as they break for ice resurfacing. I'm off to work, so that's it for live blogging this morning. Update: Swiss skip Mirjam Ott follows up a poor last stone by Canada by kissing a guard and moving both into the house to score three. A perfect finesse shot. Switzerland leads Canada 3-1 after three ends. Update: Nice draw on the last stone by Kleibrink of Canada to get a point back in the fourth end. The hose heads trail 3-2. Update: Switzerland drew for a point in the 5th, then come back to steal a point in the sixth for a 5-2 lead. It also gives the Swiss the hammer in the important even ends.
February 21, 2006
Strikeouts and Pitch Counts
Permalink I'd like to return to this article by Rich Lederer which I attempted to criticize last night. This is the line that caused me to criticize the article:
I got the feeling from this statement that Rick felt that strikeouts per 100 pitches was greatly influenced by the number of pitches per strikeout. That the pitchers at the top of the K per 100 pitches list would on average throw many fewer pitches on strikeouts than people at the bottom of the list. I didn't make that clear last night, and I'd like to make it clear with some research tonight. For the 2005 season, I looked at all pitchers with at least 50 strikeouts and calculated their Pitches per K. Here are the results, ranked fewest to most Pitches per K.
The mean for this set of data is 4.815 Pitches per K and the standard deviation is 0.206. That should make the 95% confidence interval about 4.4 to 5.2. There are 236 pitchers in the set. If Rich's conjecture is true, then we should expect his top pitchers to be near the top of the list. This is not true. The highest ranked pitcher in his top 6 is Carpenter at 21, 4.535 pitches per K. Santana ranks 102, Peavy 90, Pedro 99, Prior 113, and Randy Johnson 70. These five are all between 4.70 and 4.79. The bottom six do on average throw more pitches per strikeout. Four of them, Lima, Rogers, Lohse and Arroyo were between 4.9 and 4.98 pitches per strikeout. In other words per 100 strikeouts, the bad goup throws about 20 more pitches than the good group! On top of that, Horacio Ramirez, the lowest ranked pitcher in Rich's list, ranks 30th in Pitches per K, right near Chris Carpenter. Marquis ranks 80, better than most of the top six. This was the point I was trying to make last night. It takes a few pitches to set a batter up for the strikeout. Efficiency comes from other things; not walking batters, or getting players to chase bad pitches early. It's not just from striking out batters on fewer pitches. Strikeouts per 100 pitches does help separate good from bad pitchers, but it's not just because of fewer pitches per strikeout. Prior Knowledge
Permalink The Chicagoist is wary of Mark Prior's condition. Late Manny
Permalink Manny Ramirez will be late to spring training: Manny Ramirez was given permission by the Boston Red Sox to report to spring training on March 1, six days after the team's first full-squad workout and one day after Major League Baseball's mandatory reporting date. With Manny going off with the Dominican WBC team on March 3rd, it sounds like Ramirez is trying to minimize his time in camp. Reading between the lines, I bet he's not happy to still be in a Red Sox uniform. Durazo a Ranger
Permalink Erubiel Durzao signed a minor league contract with the Texas Rangers today. He probably can't play first after the Tommy John surgery, so the Rangers will see if he can be their DH: He is expected to compete for DH at-bats with David Dellucci and Phil Nevin. Durazo ranked fifth among AL hitters in average (.321) and was seventh in on-base percentage (.396) in 2004. I always worry a bit about a team when they have competition for the DH spot. You never want to be too heavy on the offensive end of the defensive spectrum. If he can hit, however, Erubiel gives the Rangers the best combination of on-base and power of the three candidates.
Renaming the Team
Permalink There may be a problem with continuing to call the Washington franchise the Nationals. According to a report in The New York Times on Tuesday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted a request for federal trademark registration on the name Washington Nationals to Bygone Sports last week. The Cincinnati-based company, which specializes in historic trademarks and sports apparel, applied for the trademark in September 2002. It all comes down to whether an oral agreement is binding. My suggestion for a name is here. Working on His Legs
Permalink Mike Cameron spent the winter conditioning himself for the big Padres ballpark: "(Going to right field) was definitely a big transition," he said. "I don't care what anybody says, it's not easy. But I learned something playing there." Maybe Cameron recognizes in this park his legs are a more valuable asset. Mike was also asked about other centerfielders: More than a great athlete, Cameron is an avid student of his position. Asked to name the best center fielder he has seen, he pondered the question before offering an unorthodox list that included Paul Blair, Devon White, Gary Pettis and Eric Davis. I don't quite see what's so unorthodox about that list. I'd probably include Andruw Jones, but all of those players could go get the ball. Could be Out in the Cold
Permalink I wish I had the same first name as this ballplayer, so when anybody called me I could say, "Gesundheit!" Home on the Road
Permalink The Brewers are trying to take back Miller Park: Hall and manager Ned Yost served as spokesmen Monday for the team's effort to "Take Back Miller Park," encouraging Brewers fans to buy tickets to games at Miller Park against the Cubs and Cardinals. Those games traditionally draw crowds heavy on opposing fans. If the Brewers win, this will take care of itself. No Show
Permalink Why is it news that a player doesn't report before the required date? Quiet Coaching
Permalink Eric Wedge's approach to managing is compared favorably to Walter Alston in this AP article. This, however, reminded me of another coach: "When you have to manage 25 guys you have to be on the same page," Indians reliever Rafael Betancourt said. That reminds me of oarsmen describing Harvard Crew coach Harry Parker. Harry seldom talks. When he does, however, it's such a rare event that everyone pays rapt attention. It's worked very well for Harvard crew over the years, and it looks like it's working for Cleveland.
February 20, 2006
Street Surfing
Permalink Was Watching notes the gnarly way Randy Johnson practices balance. Strikeouts per 100 Pitches
Permalink Now, just as K/BF is a better gauge than K/9, strikeouts per total pitches is even better yet. In fact, it is the best one of 'em all. Yes, strikeouts divided by total pitches is the single greatest Defense Independent Pitching Stat out there. It measures dominance and efficiency. I don't agree with this. Striking out a batter is a process. Setting up a batter for a strikeout may easily take five or six pitches. I've seen strikeouts occur because a pitcher got ahead 0-2, then worked the player outside and inside for balls, then threw a pitch that looked like one of the former, but was in fact different. If you want a pitcher to be efficient, you don't want him striking out a lot of batters. You want a lot of first pitches put in play weakly. But apart from Greg Maddux, there aren't too many hurlers who can do that. Maybe teams should work more on getting their strikeout pitchers up to 120 pitches a game. Update: From the comments, I believe people are misinterpreting what I wrote in the last paragraph. I'm not advocating a staff of "contact" pitchers over a staff of strikeout pitchers. I'm pointing out that really efficient pitchers get the ball in play early in the count. From 1990 to 1999, Greg Maddux pitched 166 2/3 innings more than any other pitcher in the majors, yet he ranked about 9th or 10th in pitches thrown. Maddux struck out a decent amount of batters, but didn't walk anyone. He also had a lot of balls in play early in the count. With all that, he led the majors in ERA by a good margin (1000 innings pitched). Now, it could very well be that Maddux's strikeouts per 100 pitches that decade is very good. I don't have access to pitch data for that decade anymore. My point is that there's a tradeoff between efficiency and strikeouts. That if you want a pitcher who is both very efficient and very good, you want Greg Maddux. And a big reason Maddux was both, is that he got batters to put bad pitches into play. Maddux, however, is an incredible outlier. I'd rather have a pitcher who strikes out a lot of batters. If he doesn't walk too many he'll be efficient enough. So again, while this is a fine way of looking at things, I don't believe it's really telling us something we don't already know. Ranking the East
Permalink Balls, Sticks and Stuff ranks the positions in the NL East and likes what he sees from the Phillies. He doesn't like the Marlins, however: The first thing that jumps out at you when looking at these charts is just how bad the Marlins are going to be in 2006. While some of the players they have at the top of their depth charts look to have some good potential and upside, most are still developing. It could be a long summer in Miam-uh. The problem with this analysis is that he simply ranks the players 1-4. However, there's a huge difference at first between Delgado and everyone else, while there's a much smaller difference amongh the shortstops, where Rollins is ranked #1 (I might have put Renteria there). Where the Phillies don't rank first in his analysis, they tend to rank far behind the leaders. What's a Hit Streak?
Permalink According to this article, Jimmy Rollins is ready to pursue the hit streak record: The Phillies finished one game behind NL wild-card winner Houston despite Rollins' outstanding effort in the final month. He hit .385 (62-for-161) during his season-ending 36-game hitting streak, and now has his sights on breaking Joe DiMaggio's major league record of 56. I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. You can't take four months off and then pick up a streak. Streaks end with the season. How many exhibitions will Rollins play between now and then? Break the record within the season, or forget about it. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Runs Created Against Centerfielders
Permalink One question that came up recently is what the RCA number represents. Basically, imagine that every batter put a ball in play that was catchable by the particular fielder. For a centerfielder, imagine players just keep hitting line drives and fly balls to centerfield. No homers, no walks, no strikeouts. That's how many runs you'd expect the team to score before the CF made 27 outs. Here are the numbers for centerfielders.
Notice Curtis Granderson and Nook Logan are very close. However, the balls in play vs. Granderson seem to have a higher run value than the balls in play vs. Logan. Logan played twice as much, so maybe it's just sample size. Looking at the opponents Granderson faced vs. the opponents Logan faced, I'd say a higher proportion of Granderson's opponents were stronger teams. Logan faced all the NL West teams, Granderson none. Maybe Granderson was in behind worse pitching? The Voice of Saturday Baseball
Permalink Curt Gowdy passed away today. When I first started watching baseball, I remember Curt calling the games for NBC. He and Tony Kubek were the announcers on Saturday afternoon and in the post season. The thing I remember most about their broadcasts from the early 1970s was the use of the split screen to show both the batter/pitcher matchup and the pitcher/runner on first battle. My thoughts go out to his family and friends. Bonds' Brain
Permalink I love this description of the inside of Barry's head: So you see, Bonds is playing mind games with himself. Imagine, if you will, two super villains sitting in giant leather chairs and stroking their pet cats, each plotting against the other to destroy the world. You just kind of throw up your arms and wait to see which freaked-out maniac prevails. Inside Milton Bradley
Permalink Joe Roderick in the Contra Costa Times pens a balanced piece on the complicated man that is Milton Bradley. Sniffing Under Stones
Permalink The Yankees are going aggressively after other teams waived pitchers in hope of finding the next Aaron Small. This strategy highlights the changes in the front office this year: Of course, as Cashman noted, when a pitcher who'd been as highly rated as Rasner suddenly shows up on the waiver wire, your first inclination is to wonder what's wrong with him. You also wonder why so many teams ahead of the Yankees in waiver wire pickings passed on him. It's a low risk, high reward strategy. It costs the Yankees very little money to look at these pitchers. If they find someone with a strength the team needs, they can try to develop that in the minors. Most of the time it won't work, but if you can find a gem like Small once in a while, it's probably worth it. Brewer Bunting
Permalink The Milwaukee Brewers pitching staff had a problem sacrificing last season. Ned Yost is addressing it right away: A large portion of the first official pitchers-and-catchers workout Sunday at Maryvale Baseball Park consisted of Brewers pitchers trying to bunt against their counterparts while nearly a dozen early arriving non-pitchers took their hacks against softer-tossing coaches on a different diamond. It's a little thing, probably only worth a few runs a season. But offensively, it's the only thing pitchers are required to do well. Good for Yost for trying to remove that weakness. Boodle and Doodle
Permalink Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times looks at the Cleveland minor league system to see who's the future Coco Crisp. The Magic is Back
Permalink It looks like Ervin Santana will play in the World Baseball Classic after all. It turns out there was a misunderstanding as to what the Angels wanted from the pitcher. Santana received clarification on the matter during Saturday's workout. He may end up being the team's top starter, given the injury status of Colon and Pedro. Called Bonds
Permalink Via 6-4-2, Barry Bonds is going to retire at the end of the season. "I'm not playing baseball anymore after this," Bonds told USA TODAY in a telephone interview from his home in Beverly Park, Calif. "The game (isn't) fun anymore. I'm tired of all of the crap going on. I want to play this year out, hopefully win, and once the season is over go home and be with my family. Maybe then everybody can just forget about me." Bonds says he is taking a ton of pills for pain and to make him sleep (looks like he picked a bad year to give up amphetamines). He also says he can't run anymore, but he can still hit. If this is for real (can you imagine him retiring one short of Aaron?) Hammerin' Hank is safe. I don't see how Barry can hit 48 homers in just 120 games, many in which he'll be taken out early. Of course, he always manages to surprise people. He will, however, likely possess most home runs by a lefty, and most in the National League. Not a bad way to end a career. Update: Wait. Bonds tells another reporter he can play another ten years: In a second article, written by MLB.com reporter Barry Bloom, Bonds said he thought his conversation with Nightengale was personal and merely reflected his state of mind that day. Whatever.
Men's Curling
Permalink The US Men take on the hose heads from Canada this morning. The US already qualified for the medal round, but a win gives them second seed in the finals. The Canadian make the semi-finals with the win, but a loss may cause them to play a tie-breaker. Update: The US men steal one in the first end to take an early 1-0 lead on the Canadians. Pete Fenson made a perfect last shot to put the stone on the button. The Canadian skip threw his stone with too much weight, it failed to curl and didn't dislodge the American shot stone enough. Maybe he had too much back bacon for lunch, eh? :-) Update: An uneventful second end leads to a blank, with the Canadians retaining the hammer. Update: The same in the third. Canada doesn't want to score unless they can get two points. Update: The Great White North gets two in the fourth end. A poor shot by the US in the middle of the end gave the Canadians a chance for four, but a great final shot by Pete Fenson took out two Canadian stones. Canada also has the advantage of the hammer in the even ends. Update: The US gets one in the fifth, but had a chance at more. Fenson's penultimate shot was swept too much, and set up a double takeout by the Canadian skip. But with the hammer, Fenson did manage to tie the Canadians at 2. They'll resurface the ice now. Update: A blank end in the sixth. Canada keeps the hammer into the 7th end, tied at 2. Update: The Canadian skip goes for a tough ricochet on his penultimate shot, but ends up taking out his own shot rock. The US has a chance to steal a point here. Update: A great draw by Fenson leaves the Candians with a tough shot to score. They miss it, and the US steals 1 for a 3-2 lead. However, the Canadians keep the hammer for the even ends as they go to the eighth. Update: Canada gets two in the 8th to take a 4-3 lead over the US. I wonder if the US will try to blank this end to take the hammer into the 10th? Update: Canada steals one in the 9th to take a two point lead. This, however gives the US the hammer in the 10th. Given the way the US is playing today, that might not matter. Update: The US concedes the 10th end when they run out of stones. It's the US, Great Britain, Canada and Finland in the finals. Bill James Biography
Permalink Reading The Mind of Bill James was a trip down memory lane. Scott Gray, in building his portrait of this unusual person picks some of my favorite passages from Bill's work. I laughed out loud as I reread some of my favorites, especially the Spark Anderson/Enos Cabell rift on good attitudes. But the book is more than just a VH-1 show called "I Love Bill James." It's a book that explores how Bill thinks and why he thinks that way. Because of that, it's not just a book for baseball fans, but a book for writers, scientists, politicians; anyone who thinks about the world around them. Bill is never afraid to ask why. He's never afraid to question conventional wisdom and assumptions, including his own. In addition, he possesses the added gift of language, which allows us to understand his argument and be entertained at the same time. I'm going to have my daughter read this book; not because she likes baseball all that much, but the lessons in thought will help her through her life. If you've never read James, this book will send you to the library to check out his works. If you've been reading Bill since the beginning, you'll gain new insights into how Bill operates. It's definitely worth the read for baseball and non-baseball fans alike.
February 19, 2006
Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Runs Created Against Second Basemen
Permalink I'll be going through all the positions as I did with straight probability model. You probably want to read this post first. Here's runs created against (RCA) for second basemen :
The Phillies have a very nice player in Chase Utley at second. He gave them good offense and great defense in 2005. At the other end of the scale, the Red Sox acquistion of Mark Loretta doesn't look like it's part of their better defense model. Platoon in Detroit?
Permalink Bilfer likes the way the Nook Logan/Curtis Granderson battle is shaping up. Maybe I’ve got my happy glasses on, but here’s what I take from that quote: Baker's Flaws
Permalink Ivy Chat details the things Dusty Baker can't do. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Runs Created Against Fielders
Permalink A few days ago I made my first attempt to calculate runs saved by teams based on the Probabilistic Model of Range (PMR). I'm using a modified version of the runs created formula that appeared in The Bill James Handbook 2005. That formula is designed for batters. I've modified it in the following ways:
So that makes the formula (Times On Base - GDP)* (Weighted Total Base)/(Balls in Play). I'd like to hear what you think about the formula, but I believe it's a good first approximation. It was easy to apply to teams; you're just looking at all balls in play, and the likelihood that a particular ball will end in a particular result. But I wasn't quite sure how to then apply it to individual fielders. When I was looking just at the probability of catching the ball, I wanted to look at all balls in play. I was looking at the piece of team DER that belonged to a particular fielder. But here, I'm trying to predict runs, so I made the decision to only look at balls in play in which the fielder had a non-zero chance of making the play. If you will, I used the probabilities of various balls in play to define the zone for the fielder, and the results of those balls to define runs created against (RCA). The results made me wish I had worked on this last year. They're conveying information much more clearly than simply looking at the probability of catching the ball. Let's look at the shortstops first:
Many years ago, Bill James posed a question about shortstops; how many runs does one save with his glove? At the time, someone claimed Ozzie Smith saved 100 runs with his defense. Bill estimated at that time, the difference between the best and worst shortstop in the league was about 25 runs. As you can see here, among regular shortstops, Adam Evertt saved the most runs in 2005, about 24 below expectations. Angel Berroa, the worst regular in the majors, cost the Royals about 31 runs. That puts the difference at 55. Looking at the data, Berroa was an out lier. He was the rare shortstop who contributed nothing offensively while killing the team with his defense. He never should have played a full season at shortstop. Compared to Cristian Guzman, Everett saved about 35 runs, which fits in nicely with Bill's estimate. The magnitude of the numbers looks right to me. The second feature to look at concerns Derek Jeter and Jose Reyes. There's been discussion as the model developed of how to handle ball in play could be handled by a particular fielder, but are caught by someone else. Runs created against appears to handle this situation quite well. Both Jeter and Reyes allowed fewer runs than the model predicts, despite turning many fewer outs than expected. Why? Others are turning the shortstop misses into outs. What happens, then, is that when calculating RCA, Derek and Jose don't get hurt in the numerator of the equation; they just get bumped up in the denominator. However, when you look at them in terms of runs per game (27 outs), things change. The outs they don't get matter. They're so many outs behind where they should be, they're actually allowing more runs per game than expected. In other words, the cost of an out by one of these shortstops is high in terms of runs allowed. That I find to be a very cool result, that we can see both team and individual contributions to defense in one line. The other thing we can see is who plays in tough ballparks. Let's demonstrate this with leftfielders:
You can pick out the stadiums where fielding is difficult. Look at Manny Ramirez, Matt Holliday, Luis Gonzalez and Terrance Long. They're all in left fields that generate a lot of runs. And look at Coco Crisp in left, saving 30 runs. Some of that has to translate to center at Fenway. As always, I'm anxious to hear your criticisms of the model. Update: I was just reading and responding to an e-mail from Studes at The Hardball Times (see comment below) and I need to clarify something. When I'm talking about runs saved by a fielder (Predicted RCA - RCA), I shouldn't be so liberal in attributing those runs to the fielder. As the Jeter/Reyes comment above shows, those numbers are influenced by teammates. You should think of the runs saved as being attributed to "the fielder and his surrounding teammates." Update: In order to make things a bit clearer, I've noted in the headings to the tables that the Out columns are outs that are attributed to the fielder, whether actual or predicted. Hall of Fan Fame
Permalink The Tampa Bay Devil Rays annouced their latest addition to their Fan Wall of Fame. She's called "The Sampler": Because of Dennis, who has held two season tickets to all eight seasons, 223 different people have attended - or sampled - Devil Rays home games. Very true. Room With a View
Permalink Maybe I should move the offices of Baseball Musings here. :-) Duke of Journalism
Permalink Zach Duke is keeping a journal for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review this spring. Measuring Catchers
Permalink Alan Schwarz looks at the state of research in catcher's defense. According to his article, it seems that catchers don't make that much of a difference, at least in terms of ERA. Keith Woolner, the director of research for Baseball Prospectus, developed a more sophisticated Catcher E.R.A. several years ago to assuage those and other concerns. But he still found something remarkable: A catcher could indeed appear to have a major effect on his pitchers' E.R.A., but that effect often reversed itself the next year. Catcher E.R.A.'s bounced around as if at random. Although that doesn't prove the absence of true catching talent, it suggests that whatever exists does not manifest itself to a detectable degree. I'll need to look up Woolner's work on the subject. It strikes me that sample sizes in one season (especially for the backup) are responsible for the randomness. What's clear is that figuring out the catcher's contribution to ERA is a complicated, chaotic system. It has to do with the pitchers caught, the opponents, the overall defense that day. I'd be very wary of making this conclusion: Perhaps some teams are sensing this. Bengie Molina, considered a fine defensive catcher for the Angels, received little attention in the free-agent marketplace and signed for only a year with the Blue Jays. And Mike Piazza, who was thought to be retiring a glove many considered as useful as Michael Jackson's, was signed by the Padres — to be their starting catcher.
Buehrle the Opener
Permalink Ozzie Guillen named Mark Buehrle the opening day starter yesterday. Although this move makes perfect sense, it seems to fly in the face of this statement: "It's 2006 now. We're 0-0 and we're not champions anymore," Guillen said Why not a little competition before naming the opening day starter? That should keep the pitcher's hungry. Schilling Claims Health
Permalink Curt Schilling says he's healthy, and he's ready to pitch like he did in 2004. ''Taking the ball on Opening Day and throwing 120 pitches," he said, ''is not something I'm concerned about." Obviously, if Schilling is 80% of what he was in 2004, the Red Sox are in very good shape. Inexpensive Closer
Permalink On the cover of the The Mind of Bill James is this quote: The belief that talent is in short supply, and the understanding that it isn't, are what separate good clubs from bad ones. The Orioles appear to be working on this notion in the bullpen. B.J. Ryan is gone via free agency to a big contract, but Chris Ray is taking over with only half a year of major league experience. As in the minor, Ray proved tough to hit while he struck out a good many batters. This is exactly the kind of moves teams need to make to stay competitive without spending lots of money. We'll see if the Orioles continue to do this with all parts of the team. Women's Curling
Permalink The US women are battling Switzerland this morning. Jessica Schultz, the US second, steps aside today to let alternate Courtney George get Olympic experience. George threw two good stones, the second knocking out the Swiss stone and sticking just on the edge of the 12 foot ring. That allowed the US to pick up two in the first end. A win by the Swiss end the American women's chance at a medal. Update: The Swiss score two in the second end to tie the game. Maureen Brunt threw an air stone, and Cassie Johnson just missed a double takeout on her last shot. All week long, fractions of an inch on shots hurt the US women.
This game so far is a microcosm of why the US women are doing so poorly this week. The little misses they make appear to be a result of inexperience. My guess is they are easily the youngest team in the tournament. I suspect in four years they'll be very good. They have a lot of room to improve. Update: The US gets a point in the fourth, but again, a near miss costs them a point. It's 4-3 in favor of the Swiss. The Swiss, by the way, aren't playing great either. They've just been a bit luckier so far. Update: The Swiss make their own mistake in the fifth. The US was lying three, but the shot rock was exposed. The Swiss skip knocked off the shot, but rolled too far and the US steals two in the end to take a one shot lead. However, they do lose the hammer in the even ends. It's 5-4 US halfway through the match. Update: The Swiss try to blank the sixth end, but their stone stays in the 12 foot ring for a point. I'm not quite sure why that's bad, but I'm still a novice at this. This way, the Swiss keep the hammer in the even ends, and the score is now tied at five. Update: The US scores two in the seventh end to take a 7-5 lead over the Swiss. The Americans are improving as the game goes on, while the Swiss continue to make poor shots. Update: Switzerland scores 1 in the 8th. It's 7-6 US going into the ninth. The US is not trying to blank the 9th end to get the hammer in the 10th, so this is going to be a very interesting finish. Update: The US almost blows a point in the 9th end in an attempt to go for two. Trying to avoid a Swiss stone, Cassie Johnson kisses it, but it doesn't roll far enough to be shot. The US leads 8-6, but the Swiss have the hammer in the 10th. Update: It's not clear what happened, but the US can't reach the medal round. Some tie breaker became unwinnable for the US in the last five minutes. Update: Mirjam Ott made a fantastic last shot to score three to beat the US. More mistakes, this time by Jamie Johnson, sealed the defeat for the Americans.
February 18, 2006
Cancer Scare
Permalink The batting coach of the Texas Rangers has prostate cancer. Here's to Rudy Jaramillo having successful surgery and getting well soon.
No Magic for the Dominicans
Permalink Ervin Santana opted out of the World Baseball Classic. This leaves the Dominican team in a bit of a bind: Santana's withdrawal could create issues for the Dominicans, who have a scary lineup but little starting pitching. Bartolo Colon and Pedro Martinez are waffling because of physical issues, meaning Daniel Cabrera or Jose Lima could become the team's No.1 starter. If you like high scoring games, the Dominicans are going to be the team to watch in this tournament. If they move the games to Coors Field, we might see 40 runs a game. :-) Throwing Off Timing
Permalink Craig Hansen refined his changeup over the winter. “I’ve been throwing it in a couple of bullpens down here and it feels great,” Hansen said. “It’s got a lot of movement. I’m pretty happy with it right now.” For now, he estimates that the changeup’s velocity is in the low- to mid-80s, which would provide an impressive differential of 10-12 mph from his fastball. A change of speed with no change of motion is devastating to batters. It's something to watch this spring. The Catcher-Pitcher Relationship
Permalink Jorge Posada and Randy Johnson are working on improving their roles as battery mates. I'm not sure I understand what Randy means here, however: "I think it's important that you and the catcher communicate in between innings and know what is going well for you out there and what's not," Johnson said. "I think it's important that the catcher realizes that even if you think something is going well, and it really isn't, but you are convinced it is, that he still try to get you through the game. A lot of times in the first half (of last season) things weren't going well for me. I tried getting through it and it was a struggle at times." It sounds to me that Randy is looking for positive feed back, and maybe Jorge was offering negative comments last year. Saying negative things in a positive way is often tough to do, but it's a good skill to develop. Praise for McCann
Permalink Bobby Cox is very positive about Brian McCann: Cox said once he saw McCann's presence behind the plate and his ability to work with veteran John Smoltz, he knew he had a keeper. Does Smoltz have a history of conflict with catchers? I knew Maddux didn't like to throw to Javy Lopez, but I never remember complaints from the rest of the staff. As for McCann being a hitter, he showed good power for a catch in the minors and an acceptable OBA. If he catches as well as Cox indicates, his bat will be a bonus. Card Blogger
Permalink The Baseball Card Blog is a nice new blog examining some great old baseball cards. I love this description of a Gaylord Perry card: Sometimes, just by looking at the picture, you can tell that either the photographer forgot a player until the last minute or, as is the case here, it was written into the standard baseball card company photographer’s handbook that one should never ever approach Gaylord Perry when he’s relaxing in the bullpen with a baseball bat across his lap. You never know what might happen, especially if someone calls him Herman Munster to his face. It’s sad, really. Here’s one of the best long-term, long-haul pitchers of his generation who was consistently robbed of great baseball cards because photographers had a way of making his head look elongated like Fred Gwynne. It’s the same reason why Kevin McHale never really had any close-ups taken: they’re just not good-looking individuals. Especially in this case: after a career full of bad card photos, it was probably best to get a shot of him waiting to knock the crap out an unsuspecting passer-by. Men's Curling
Permalink The US Men's Curling team is facing Germany this morning. It's a must win game for the Americans as they face Great Britain and Canada in their final two matches of the round robin. The US took advantage of a German miss in the first end to score two. Update: A poor hammer shot by the Germans in the second end leads to a steal of a point by the United States. Pete Fenson's last shot curled too much, hitting a guard and leaving the Germans a chance for two. But the hammer rolled to the back of the house, and the US was able to sweep the stone beyond where their shot rock for the point. The steal gives the United States the hammer in the even ends, meaning if the ends go back and forth, the Americans will have the hammer in the final end. Update: A poor shot at the end of the fourth end by the American skip blanks the end, giving Germany the hammer in the even ends. The US leads 3-1. Update: Although they're not showing the match, Italy leads Canada 4-1 through five ends. That would be a huge upset. Italy is making the most of home ice advantage in this tournament. Update: The German skip just executed a takeout of three US rocks in the fifth end. Fenson, the US skip, follows up with a take out shot that leaves the German stone on the edge of the 12-foot ring for a steal for Germany. An impressive turnaround on the last two stones, and Germany is back in the game 3-2. Update: The US takes 2 in the 6th for a 5-2 lead. Update: Germany picks up two in the 7th end. The US leads 5-4, and has the hammer in the even ends. They're in good shape, barring mistakes. Update: The Canadians are losing 6-3 to Italy after 8 ends. That would be very good for the US. If Canada loses and the US holds on against Germany, the Yanks will be leading the Great White North by a game going into their match. Update: Germany just tried to take out three US stones and threw an air stone. The US has a chance to bury Germany. They have three stones in the middle of the house, two left, and the hammer. Update: I'm still learning this game, but according to the announcers, the US skip just made a bad shot. It looks to me like he's guarding stones in the middle, but I guess a good hard shot takes them all out. Kapp, the German skip takes out only one, however, and now Fenson can put his last rock in the house (a draw) and score three. Update: It's a good draw, and the US scores three. They're up 8-4 with two ends to go, and they'll likely have the hammer in the tenth. All they need to do now is knock German stones out of the house. Update: The Canadians get two in the ninth, but trail by one in the last end and Italy has the hammer. Update: The Germans get only 1 in the ninth. The US leads by three with the hammer in the tenth. Update: Germany concedes. The US is now 5-2 in the round robin. Canada and Great Britain are losing, Finland is winning, so the US could be tied for first when these matches are over. As I've watched this week, the men keep improving. The next two days against Canada and Great Britain should be fun. Update: Canada lost, Great Britain won. That puts the US in second place, tied with Finland. I assume Finland holds the tie-breaker since the defeated the Americans. Italy and Canada are tied for fourth, and again I assume Italy holds the tie breaker with the defeat of the Canadians. The British team plays their last two matches tomorrow, while the US plays tomorrow morning and Monday afternoon. The Canadians do have one easy match as they face the winless team from New Zealand tomorrow.
February 17, 2006
Guillen Apologizes
Permalink Ozzie Guillen apologized to Alex Rodriguez today over Guillen's remarks in Sports Illustrated: "I learned a lesson. I never took a first shot at anybody in my life and now I feel like I took the first shot. I feel embarrassed, I feel guilty. I wish I had not said it the way it sounds or the way I said it," Guillen said at a news conference at the White Sox's spring training complex on reporting day for pitchers and catchers. Curling Update
Permalink I just watched the US Men's match against the Swiss on TIVO. The Americans are playing much better than they did in their early rounds and won today 7-3. That puts their record at 4-2, tied for third in the round-robin tournament. Two more wins will give them a great chance of making the medal round. Unfortunately, their last two opponents are Great Britian and Canada, the two best teams in the tournament. Of course, if the US is going to win a medal, they'll need to beat one of them at some point. The women lost to Russia and are now 1-5, in last place. Having watched this team quite a bit, I get the feeling they're very inexperienced. One suspects that if they stayed together another four years, they'd be very good in the next Olympics. The Tale of the Toe
Permalink Bob Sikes offers his trainer's insight into the problems with Pedro Martinez's great toe. Darren Off the Deep End
Permalink I was thrown out of N.Y.U. my freshman year for cheating on my metaphysics final, you know. I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me. Darren Daulton is babbling nonsense. A popular Phillies player during his baseball career, and the leader of the 1993 World Series team, has become a metaphysics advocate, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. Daulton sees the future as well: But there's more ... Daulton is convinced that the day of reckoning is coming. Specifically, on Dec. 21, 2012, at 11:11 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, he told the Daily News that the chosen will simply vanish from this plane of existence. This Annie Hall quote applies, too: Duane: Can I confess something? I tell you this as an artist,I think you'll understand. Sometimes when I'm driving... on the road at night... I see two headlights coming toward me. Fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. The... flames rising out of the flowing gasoline. Still, it's better than threatening to kill someone. Synchronized Reporting
Permalink Kenji Johjima is attracting quite a crowd, and handling it well, by all reports. I would have loved to see this: Mariners manager Mike Hargrove said he likes Johjima's take-charge approach. He also appreciates the way Johjima handles the media horde, which on Thursday numbered about 40, most of them Japanese reporters and photographers. A New Way to Run
Permalink Chris Duffy spent the winter re-learning how to run so he doesn't injure his hamstring again: Tracy holds lofty expectations for Duffy, who has spent the better part of his off-season learning a new running style. The gist of it is that he's now firing his gluteus muscles, which he's done well to strengthen through various daily exercises and technique drills. The Pirates hope Chris can repeat his .385 OBA over a full season. Given that his minor league OBA was .370, that may be a bit of a stretch, but even .360 would help the Pittsburgh offense. For Whom the Belle Tolls
Permalink Following up on this morning's post, it looks like Albert Belle is in a heap of trouble: The police probable cause statement said that Belle's former girlfriend discovered a Global Positioning System tracking device that had fallen off her car on Jan. 26. Believing that Belle was responsible, she called police, who began an investigation. What is it with baseball players leaving incriminating evidence on answering machines? For all Albert's faults, I always heard he was intelligent. I guess it doesn't extend to threatening people on tape. A Week on the Job
Permalink LargeBill reflects on Wayne Krivsky's first week on the job. He's not as unhappy with the Timo Perez signing as Aaron Gleeman. Ankiel Available?
Permalink Rick Ankiel is attempting to make the Cardinals as an outfielder. The intriguing thing is, St. Louis has to put him on waviers if he doesn't make the team: With Jim Edmonds and former Marlin Juan Encarnacion set in center and right field and a trio of candidates for the left-field job, Ankiel's chances of making the big-league team are remote. Landing in Class AAA Memphis would be progress. I suspect a number of teams will be watching Rick this spring. There someone out there who could use an outfielder with a great arm in his prime. Admitting You Have a Problem is the First Step...
Permalink It's good to see Jose Reyes realizes the weakness in his game: Jose Reyes had an NL-best 60 steals last season, even with a modest .300 on-base percentage. And while the speedster didn't offer a prediction for '06, he did note: "When I get on base more, I'm going to be a danger." He's looking forward to working with Rickey Henderson and Julio Franco. Henry on Taxes
Permalink John Henry comes out against high luxury taxes: “Baseball has to address the disincentives created by large scale transfers of revenue from successful clubs to less successful clubs,” Henry said. “At high enough tax levels the incentive is to invest somewhere other than in baseball. The disincentives are just as powerful for the lower revenue clubs as for the higher revenue clubs. The Red Sox have taken an aggressive stance in investing in all aspects of the franchise. But one has to wonder how many teams will do so when the financial risks often outweigh the potential financial benefits. “The commissioner and the union have radically altered the game of baseball for the better over the last few years by transferring enormous amounts of dollars. But as with all taxes, there is a point at which taxation discourages effort and investment to the point that baseball clubs one by one come to the same, unfortunate conclusion. Looking ahead the Red Sox have to take it on faith that investment in baseball on behalf of our constituency -- the fans -- will make sense. But we cannot ignore the fact that it is their hard-earned dollars we are sending to other cities.” I'm impressed on two levels. First, he sounds like Arthur Laffer. Second, Henry is the owner of the Red Sox because he's Bud's man. Revenue sharing is Bud's big baby. Even though Henry goes out of his way to praise Selig in the article, he clearly doesn't like throwing money at the Blue Jays. He clearly wants a change in the next agreement. It's great to finally see some difference of opinion between the owners and the commissioner, especially from the inner circle. Selig should listen to the Red Sox owner. Henry doesn't strike me as a person who wants to do away with the concept of revenue sharing. He knows it helps the game. Henry might develop a more competitive system that rewards success rather than failure. Phil's Feelings
Permalink Phil Nevin sees the errors of his ways: Nevin didn't help himself by dragging a poor attitude along after the trade. He occasionally cracked wise about being regularly left out of the lineup over the final six weeks of the season. According to the story, he traded some fat for muscle this off-season. He's playing in a ballpark where that will make it easier for his power to come back. At age 35, however, it's an up-hill battle. Thome's Elbow
Permalink Jim Thome's elbow is doing well: "[My elbow] has been coming along good," said Thome, the only position player for whom the Sox sought permission to report with the pitchers and catchers because of injury. "Herm has done a terrific job. I've spent a lot of the winter in Chicago. I've gone back and forth to Cleveland (his off-season residence) and Peoria (his hometown). It has been the circuit for me. I have tried to work very hard from Day One since I've had the surgery, so it's great." Counting the Tiles
Permalink YankeesFan vs. SoxFan shows why the Yankees trading Javier Vazquez was a mistake. (Hat tip, DeadSpin) Belle Arrested
Permalink Scottsdale police arrested former baseball star Albert Belle on Thursday on suspicion of stalking an ex-girlfriend. I assume this is his mug shot. According to the report, Albert is accused of threatening to kill the woman. First of all, if this proves to be true, I hope the woman takes measures to protect herself. Second, it's always sad to see a great ballplayer end up in jail. When they're playing, I take a lot of the stories of bad behavior with a grain of salt. It's real easy to dislike someone as hyper-competitive as a major league ballplayer. But when the game is over, that competitiveness should moderate. Given this accusation, it looks like it didn't for Albert.
February 16, 2006
Everybody's Blogging!
Permalink It looks like ESPN is going full bore with with blogs. Both Peter Gammons and Jayson Stark now are writing in the genre. Here's Stark's introduction: Well, this is it. A lifelong dream realized. Welcome to the club. It's too bad you can't read them unless you pay. Women's Curling
Permalink I'm watching the US women vs. Sweden on CNBC, and the US team is playing much better than in their earlier matches. Skip Cassie Johnson just made two great shots to steal a point in the fifth end and give the US a 2-1 lead. (I'm sure the match is over by now, but I'm watching it as if it were live.) Update: The US played a good match, but the last stone picked up something on the ice, and the team lost in an extra-end. It's going to be tough for them at 1-4 to make the medal round at this point. National Problems
Permalink The AP talks with Washington team president Tony Tavares about his to do list: "We've got to get the accounting department here," team president Tony Tavares said Thursday. "We've had too many problems with getting bills paid, bills getting paid late, and what got lost in the mail between Montreal and here." He also speaks about the problems the stadium negotiations are causing: "We pretty much go with the flow," Tavares said. "Even if everything moves right, my guess is that we don't have a firm deal with the city in place until the end of March, beginning of April. It'll take 60 to 90 days to bring the sale to closure. My guess is the All-Star break [for a new owner], and that's a best-case scenario. And a new owner's not going to come in here at the All-Star break and say, 'OK, I want that GM out of here." Sell the team and let the new owner resolve the stadium issue. A partnership between the owner and city is going to result in the best built facility. Good Communications
Permalink There's been speculation about Kenji Johjima's ability to handle the Seattle pitching staff due to a language barrier. That's looking like it won't be the case: To make sure Johjima understood what Moyer was saying, Ken Barron, one of the club's two Japanese-speaking translators, joined the conversation. He doesn't need to speak the language perfectly, just convey the correct baseball ideas. It sounds like he'll do just fine. Shooting Fish in a Barrel
Permalink Ozzie Guillen says nasty things about Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra over their World Baseball Classic decisions. Criticizing A-Rod, at this point, takes all the guts of a tape worm. No matter what he does, on the field or off, someone is going to complain. Since people appear to be able to get under Alex's skin, Ozzie's jumping on the band wagon. Maybe Alex should adopt the Barry Bonds attitude. People hated Barry well before any one thought he might be cheating. And Bonds likes it that way. He thrives on the hate. Hate makes his opponents make mistakes against him. If the fans are not going to love A-Rod, I say go all out for being despised. Embrace the dark side Alex.
No Bed or Breakfast
Permalink The plan to turn Honus Wagner's house into a bed and breakfast was rejected. Plans to turn the former home of Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner into a bed-and-breakfast and museum were rejected by a zoning hearing board amid parking concerns, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. That's too bad. Will he restore the house anyway? Maybe some baseball collector would like to own the place. Strength or Weakness
Permalink The Rangers' new pitching coach Mark Connor wants to change the philosophy of the pitching staff: Another aspect that may help is tweaking of pitching philosophy. Under Connor, the Rangers are more likely to attack from their areas of strength rather than try to rely on hitters' weaknesses. As a result, Barajas may not have to know opposing hitters quite as well, as long as he knows his own pitchers' inside and out. A new philosophy shouldn't be difficult to implement since almost the entire staff is new. Which philosophy, however, is better? I guess it comes down to who should dictate the game, the batter or the pitcher? Pedro, Maddux, Johnson, Schilling all pitch their game, not the batters. Of course, all of them can execute their game. Given the lack of success from the mound in Texas, it's certainly worth a try. Where's the Buzz?
Permalink Mike Downey notices that there is no buzz surrounding the Cubs this season: Even the once-confident Cubs who broke spring camp in 2005 have been forced to undergo an extreme makeover. Everything beyond the infield dirt at Wrigley Field is being built from scratch, including the entire Cubs outfield and 1,800 new bleacher seats. It's going to come down to the health of the rotation. If the Cubs can get full seasons from Prior and Wood, they have a shot. There's not a lot of room for comfort, however. Posted by StatsGuru at 09:00 AM
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Red Sox on HD
Permalink John Henry talks about NESN going fully high definition: “In 2002, I began insisting NESN move to high definition broadcasting,” Henry said. “At the time, very few homes in New England had HD television, but I felt we had the ability to push the medium forward. I felt that the fans’ experience of Fenway at home would take a quantum leap with HD. “I can tell your readers who have not yet watched a game in high definition that they will be shocked at the difference. We broadcast our games in true 1080i HD. So much of the HD you see on television is not true, native HD. Bruins and Red Sox broadcasts have sold a lot of HD televisions in New England. We have just moved NESN into new, fully HD studios.” Baseball in HD is great. You can count the blades of grass on the field. I hope that the Red Sox allow DirecTV to pick up the broadcasts, just like YES does. Another Retirement
Permalink Brew Crew Ball points out that Brooks Kieschnick retired yesterday. Brooks was the rare two way player, who could be used equally well as a pitcher or hitter. He joins Sammy Sosa in the fellowship of ex-players on the same day. Of course, they didn't really retire. Very few players actually stop playing intentionally. Mostly, they reach a point in their careers when teams no longer desire their services, and they're out of baseball retirement or not. Kieschnick and Sosa realize they're at that point. Correction: It's Brooks, not Bruce. I shouldn't watch curling while I'm blogging. Front Office Blog
Permalink Via 6-4-2, memebers of the Dodgers front office are blogging the 2006 season. Inside the Dodgers even allows comments! I wonder how they'll handle things if the fans start getting nasty? New Shoes
Permalink Pedro Martinez received his new shoes yesterday, but they still need adjustments. Japanese Baseball
Permalink Gary Garland writes, calling attention to his site, Japan Baseball Daily. It's a great place to find English language news and stats on the Japanese leagues. Check it out.
February 15, 2006
Sosa to Retire
Permalink Sammy Sosa is hanging up his spikes. His agent spoke for the former slugger: "Sammy spent a lot of time ruminating on this," Katz said. "And it basically came down to this: He has such high expectations for himself, and last year was absolute misery for him, the way he under-performed. Sammy just didn't want to put himself through the possibility of going through something like that again. He still thinks he can do it. But there's some doubt there." That's pretty good spin by the agent, but I'm sure if someone offered Sammy $5 million, a reason could be found to put on the uniform. So another player not only fails to challenge Aaron, but falls just short of 600 home runs. Remember this as you watch Barry Bonds this season. The fall can happen very quickly. It's not a given that Barry will even pass Babe, let alone catch Hammerin' Hank. Balls In Play
Permalink Studes at Major League Baseball Graphs presents fascinating data on balls in play for teams and individual players. Check out the explanation, then start exploring. His total net runs shows why it's good to be a groundball pitcher. Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio. Inside the Outsider
Permalink In the mail today, The Mind of Bill James, How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball. I've been lucky enough to meet and work with Bill over the years, so I'm looking forward to digesting Scott Gray's look at the Guru. As a bonus, I also received this very cool bobblehead:
I'll keep this one in the box. When Bill is inducted into the Hall of Fame, it might be worth some money. :-) Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up in a little while at 8 PM EST. You can leave questions during the show in the TPSRadio Chat Room. Sammy Says it Ain't Sosa
Permalink Sammy Sosa turned down the contract offer from the Washington Nationals. Since I've heard of no other offers, Sammy's career might be over. Sosa's career is fascinating. Through age 28, (the 1997 season), Sammy did not get on base. Then at age 28, his OBA jumped up to .377 and stayed there. His selectivity helped lead to a power explosion as well, as he hit over 60 home runs in 3 of the next four seasons. When Sosa should have been on the downside of his career, he put together five consecutive superlative seasons. It fell apart just as quickly. In 2003, age 34, his power and on-base slipped, but were still good. Of course, that was the year they found cork in his bat. Then in 2004, injuries took their toll, and Sammy's attitude, which all had loved, went sour. The fans turned on Sosa, and he was gone. He did nothing with Baltimore last year, and now clubs are only willing to pay him a baseball pittance. Will anyone up the ante, or is this the end of Sammy Sosa? Weaver Stays in Los Angeles!
Permalink At least if you believe Arte Moreno's name for the Angels. LAnaheim signed the Jeff Weaver to a one year contract for $8.4 million. The Angels are trying to corner the market on Weavers: His younger brother, Jered, a former pitching star for Long Beach State, is a prospect in the Angels' organization. I'm not impressed. Weaver can give a team innings, but that's about it. He's never posted more than 14 win shares in a season. He consumes innings, which is fine on a deep staff, but he's a 3rd or 4th starter at best. I guess even that level of pitching commands a lot of money today. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Team Runs Saved
Permalink So far with the range calculations I've been interested in the probability of getting to a batted ball. I'm going to change gears a bit and try to look at runs saved instead. The methodolgy is the same in principle; predict how many runs should be expected given the balls in play, and compare that to how many were actually allowed. Of course, both these numbers are difficult to calculate. What I'm going to do is use a version of the Bill James runs created formula that appears in The Bill James Handbook 2005. The formula I'm usings is (Times On - GDP)*(Weighted Total Bases)/Balls in Play. I'm not making an adjustment for sac hits or sac flys. I am however, counting all non-out balls in play as a time on base. I'm also counting all non-out balls in play in the total base calculation. In this case, if a player reaches on a 1-base error or a failed fielder's choice, that's the same as a single. If they reach on a three-base error, that's the same as a triple. Since we're measuring range, errors should hurt the teams that commit them. So I add up all the actual results on balls in play against a team, and calculate actual runs created against (RCA). I also add up all the predictions for the ball (the chance of a single, double, triple, home run, GDP or out) and use that to predict the number of expected runs. Here's the table showing which defenses saved the most runs by this calculation (the traditional calculation is here):
Again, with the line drives fluctuating so much year to year, I'd be more concerned about the order than the magnitude of the runs saved. But Houston and Oakland are impressive teams. The next trick is to make this work for players. I'm trying to figure out how to split the run elements between fielders who have a chance at catching a given ball. Any suggestions would be welcome. Correction: Fixed the year of The Bill James Handbook. Two B or Not Two B
Permalink The issue of Barry Bond batting second is not yet settled: Alou said he will have a sit-down with Bonds to discuss not only the idea of hitting second, which all along the skipper said he would not do unless Bonds was on board, but also how best the left fielder should prepare in Arizona for what the Giants pray is his first full season back after his 2005 arthroscopy tour. Bonds should be receptive to this idea. It appears to me that Barry is after two goals; winning the World Series and setting a home run record. Batting second allows the Giants to take advantage of Bonds two strengths; he gets on base to set up the power hitters behind him (if any) and can use his power with a good setup man in front. (Maybe Alou should bat the pitcher 8th to give Barry more RBI opportunities.) With Bonds playing time probably limited, Alou will be able to take Barry out earlier in games. This strategy should help the Giants win more. And if the second spot give Barry an extra 10 plate appearances, that another home run. My only real question regarding this strategy is if Bonds is better off playing half a game every day, or taking a couple of days off a week? Which is going to be better for his knee? Texas Tickets
Permalink Individual ticket prices are on the rise in for the Rangers games. Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EDT. Check out their other sports programming as well. You can also call in at 888-985-0555 and leave a question for the show, or stop by the chat room at TPSRadio during the broadcast and leave a comment. Also, feel free to leave a question in the comments to this post and I'll be happy to answer it on the air. Blogspot Ban Lifted
Permalink I've removed the ban on comments from blogspot.com. I was getting too many trackbacks from this domain, all junk and spam. But people were not able to comment here, so I'm going to try it again. If the trackbacks become too numerous, I'll need to shut it down again. Bloggers who use blogspot.com might want to complain to Blogger about this. I understand spammers are exploiting a weakness in their system to send out these trackbacks. Throwing at Teammates
Permalink Both Dontrelle Willis and Billy Wagner are on the record saying they're not afraid to throw inside against a teammate in the World Baseball Classic. Like Willis, Wagner said he wouldn't think twice about throwing inside to his new Mets teammate, Carlos Delgado. The first baseman, who spent last season with the Marlins, will play for Puerto Rico. I can just see the general managers wincing every time a matchup like that occurs. The Honus House
Permalink Plans are in the works to turn Honus Wagner's Pittsburgh house into a bed and breakfast: Wagner moved into his three-story, yellow brick colonial at 605 Beechwood Ave. in 1918, a year after playing his last game for the Pirates. Though the home since has been split into two apartments, many of the original features remain, including stained-glass windows, chandeliers, mantels and hardwood floors. That's sounds like a nice baseball trip, a stay at Wagner's house and a couple of games at PNC Park. New Tee?
Permalink The New York Daily News posts an article about Jorge Posada wishing to catch Randy Johnson, but the picture next to the article caught my attention. Posada is hitting off a batting tee that suspends the ball with jets of air. Way cool. Update: The New York Times has a picture from a different angle. Negative Publicity
Permalink Pedro Martinez is waiting impatiently for his new shoes: "I'm waiting on Nike to actually do the shoes. They're getting a lot of publicity, but they don't deserve it, because they've done a (poor) job," Martinez said after spending four hours at the team's complex yesterday. Nike might want to think about providing status reports to Pedro on the progress of the work. And maybe in the future, ballplayers might consult an old fashioned shoe maker. I'm sure there must be some in in the big cities, and it would be easier to make adjustments as the season progresses. (My grandfather did this kind of work in Bridgeport, CT, in the early part of the 20th century.) Update: I had forgotten the link. Short Sheets
Permalink Bob Watson wanted Ben Sheets on team USA, but Sheets was honest and told the GM he would not be ready: "He said he would love to be there but did not think he'd be ready to give what he wanted in that competition," Watson said. "I respect him for that because he understands what the experience is all about.
The Extra Pitcher
Permalink Michael Young's ability to play both short and second allowed Buck Martinez to take an extra reliever. I suppose at some point we might the old Texas infield of A-Rod at short, Young at second and Teixeira at first. The Young Mazzone
Permalink The Balitmore Sun offers a biography of Leo Mazzone's youth in Maryland. I love the story about wrestling a nun: "All of us were crazy about sports, but baseball consumed everything Leo did," Ord said. "Others had more natural talent, but Leo worked harder. He was feisty too; he always stood up for himself." From the article it's clear where Leo's philosophy of always throwing comes from: "Leo liked to walk around the neighborhood throwing rocks," his mother said. "He'd get right out here on Rock Street -- the name matched him very well -- and just start pitching rocks. He was 8 or so. He didn't care where the rocks went." Less Work?
Permalink USA Today profiles Roger McDowell and how he's going to handle the Braves pitching staff. This quote from Tim Hudson, however, bothers me: "When he played, he had that clown reputation," Hudson says. "There were a lot of guys like that, but he stood out. As a pitching coach, he's going to be awesome. He's personable, easygoing, and he seems excited to be here. It will be good. We don't need to work all the time." The consensus view is that Mazzone working the Braves all the time helped keep the staff healthy. I have no idea how the staff will fare under Roger. There are many different ways to be a successful coach. But if the Braves staff falters, quotes like the one above will come back to haunt McDowell.
February 14, 2006
Team USA
Permalink Buck Martinez announced the team USA roster today. He'll go with a rotation of Clemens, Willis, Peavy and Sabathia. How many managers would like to go into a season with that staff! The outfield isn't all that impressive, with Griffey and Damon being the big stars. I wonder if both will start, or if Griffey will DH? The infield is really stacked. A-Rod and Chipper at third, Jeter and Young at short, Chase Utley at second and Teixeira and Derrek Lee at first. I would suspect that team USA would have the best offensive team by playing Jeter and Chipper Jones in the outfield. This is going to be a fun squad to watch. Nuggets of Wisdom
Permalink Baseball Nuggets is a new blog covering the world of Major League Baseball. Stop by and say hi. Dominant League?
Permalink Alan Schwarz wonders why the AL is dominating the NL lately. As Major League Baseball has blurred the lines between the American and National Leagues, opening interleague play and closing league offices, the once-fervid rivalry between the two circuits has become as cold as Warren Giles' gravestone. A few generations ago, suggesting one league was better than the other could get you beat up on the playground; today you'd get a disdainful "L" sign flashed at you and be altogether ignored. Basing dominance on winning a bunch of games that don't count seems counter-intuitive to me. And sweeping the World Series says more about the quality of the team in the series than the quality of the league. As Schwarz points out, interleague play is a draw: In the 2,200 matchups since interleague play began in 1997, the National League has won 1,104 times, the American League 1,096. (Think about how even that is -- these guys have played almost 14 seasons' worth of games with records of 81.3 wins versus 80.7.) The AL did go 136-116 last year, but in the last three seasons combined it's almost a dead heat: NL 378 wins, AL 377. There's no difference in talent between the NL and AL. The AL is just going through a lucky period in the All-Star game, just as the NL went through their lucky period in the 1960s and 1970s. Keeping the Bat
Permalink Steve Dorsey takes a look at pitchers who like to hit: Former Palm Beach Gardens pitcher Chris Volstad was elated to be chosen by the Florida Marlins last June in the first round of the Major League Baseball amateur draft. The article goes on to look at high school players who are top pitchers and hitters, something very common at that level. When they get into professional baseball, however, they're forced to concentrate on one thing; pitching. As the Marlins show with Dontrelle Willis, a pitcher who can hit adds excitement to the game. Maybe NL teams should spend a little more time keeping the good hitting pitchers batting well. Relief Strategy
Permalink Buck Martinez announces the United States roster for the World Baseball Classic this afternoon. The squad will be heavy on relief pitching: Other strict regulations apply on pitchers, including how many days of rest they must have based on how many pitches thrown. With a great setup man and closer, major league teams like to talk about a seven-inning game. I guess in this tourament, US opponents might be facing a four inning game. Contract Dunn
Permalink The Cincinnat Reds locked up Adam Dunn through his peak years, signing him to a two year contract with an option for a third. It's a great move by the Reds. They ignored the strikeouts, and concentrated on what Dunn can do, which is produce runs. Dunn posted win shares of 29 and 25 the last two seasons, and over the next three he's likely to continue in that range. He's a premier player making less than premier money. And when it's time for free agency, Adam's best years will belong to Cincinnati. Posted by StatsGuru at 08:02 AM
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Name War Continues
Permalink The City of Anaheim continues the effort to remove Los Angeles from the name of the Angels: Attorney Michael Rubin said Monday the city's lawyers would make the request at a March 2 hearing before Superior Court Judge Peter Poulos. I guess I don't understand the law. Didn't the city just lose a trial? Didn't a jury of their peers say everything's okay? Isn't that supposed to be the end of things? As far as I can tell, this isn't an appeal. Would someone with some legal knowledge please fill us in on why Anaheim can make this plea? Women's Curling
Permalink USA vs. Canada is on TIVO this morning. The Canadian team is awesome. In the first end they made seven perfect shots to score 5. The US has their work cut out for them. Update: Canada steals a point in the second end with another perfect last shot by their skip. Even with the hammer, the US failed to take the end. The Canadian women look impressive so far. Update: The US gets a point in the third end. It's 6-1. Canada continues to look very strong. Update: Canada picks up another point in the fourth end, although they had a chance at six. The officials had to pull out the scientific measuring device, a compass, which is much cooler than the scientific measuring devices they use in the NFL. Update: Another reason curling is like baseball; the announcer complain about the official scoring. In both sports, the official scoring doesn't matter to the outcome of the game, it just makes players look better or worse. Update: US Skip Cassie Johnson finally makes a perfect hammer shot to score 2 for the US. It's 7-3 Canada after five ends. Update: Cassie Johnson can't repeat her performance in the sixth end, and Canada scores three. The women from the Great White North are simply the superior team today. Update: Johnson makes two nice shots in the 7th end and scores two, but the Canadian skip (Kleibrink) makes a perfect shot to keep them from scoring three. It's 10-5 Canada with two ends to go. Update: I was an end off above and corrected it. The Canadians score one in the 8th, take an 11-5 lead, and the US concedes the match. The Canadians were very strong 1-4 today. The US got better as the match progressed, but too many mistakes and near misses cost them against a near perfect opponent.
February 13, 2006
White Sox, White House
Permalink The president honored the Chicago White Sox today. Paul Konerko summed up the trip to the White House: First baseman Paul Konerko, who has re-signed with the Sox in a $60 million, five-year contract, said it was worth the trip from Phoenix, Ariz., just for a day to be at the White House.
The Sweet Side of the Boss
Permalink George Steinbrenner rewarded a young Yankees fan for his charitable spirit: A young New York Yankees fan who saved $1,000 so he could take himself out to a ballgame in the Bronx gave up the money to help keep his local school open. Yankees' owner George Steinbrenner found out about the boy's charity and invited him to New York. George also replace the child's $1000. I saw The Boss give a speech at Harvard Business School after the 1978 World Series (it included the highlight film). One of the things Steinbrenner stressed to the B-School students in that address was giving back to the community. It looks like George is still living up to that himself. Bums Blog
Permalink Dem Bums is a new blog covering the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles. Stop by and say hi. Arms Race in the Central
Permalink ChicagoSports.com previews the AL Central, noting the plethora of good pitching in that division. While teams on both coasts get the most attention, the best pitching in the AL is definitely in the middle. Teams from the Central ranked first (Cleveland), second (the White Sox) and fifth (Minnesota) in earned-run average last season. Even Detroit improved to eighth around promising young starters. Rays on the Right Track
Permalink Management by Baseball likes what he's seeing from the Devil Rays new ownership: Most turnaround efforts might have gotten that right. But it's the universally powerful and rarely-used supercharge technique, one of my own favorites, that I suspect will make the most difference in their effort to gain respectability. The new owners are listening to long time employees who never before had a voice. They're generating ideas, ways to improve the organization. With luck, some of them will be good ones. Pennies from Heaven
Permalink The Angels and Fox are working on a TV deal that will keep the red team in green for the next ten years: The Angels are close to a 10-year deal with Fox Sports Network that could be worth as much as $500 million, would increase the number of FSN West telecasts to roughly 150 games a season and would shelve for at least a decade any talk of the Angels starting a cable television network. That should cover a very significant piece of the Angels payroll. Olympic Curling
Permalink I'm watching the US vs. Norway on Tivo. Norway is the defending champions. The Norwegian team is unimpressive so far through five ends. The Americans are showing flashes of billiance, but just as many serious mistakes. The US leads 6-3 after five ends. Update: In the 7th end, the third makes two brilliant shots, but the skip blows his penultimate stone, and fails to put the final one in the house. It's a blank end instead of two points for the US. The Americans still lead by one. Update: The US scores 5 in the 8th end, and Norway concedes the match. USA wins 11-5. It seems to me it was more poor play by Norway than great play by the US that led to the victory. Update: The final shot not in the house was intentional. It lets the Americans keep the hammer (final shot) in the even ends. In baseball terms, they get last ups. Changing Sports
Permalink White Sox bonus baby Joe Borchard doesn't see any opportunities with the White Sox. He's thinking of returning to football. Borchard said he has talked to both general manager Ken Williams and assistant GM Rick Hahn several times this offseason about being traded. With those requests not being met as spring training camps open this week, Borchard now is entertaining the idea of pursuing a football career he walked away from when the Sox drafted the two-sport athlete from Stanford in 2000. Looking at his minor league numbers, I see why there's so little interest in Joe. There's nothing outstanding there. When a team gives a college player a $5.3 million bonus, he should be in the majors pretty quickly. The deal didn't work for the White Sox. At least Borchard has other options. Assessing the Red Sox
Permalink With Boston packing for spring training, Tony Massarotti of the Boston Herald gives his evaluation of the upcoming season: Entering spring training of this year, the variables are greater than any other in recent memory. The competition throughout the AL seems to have stiffened. And while GM Epstein can make additions and changes throughout the year, the Sox could finish with anywhere from 85-95 wins, which is an awfully big window for a team with a $135 million payroll. I agree. It's a good team with lots of question marks. The improved defense should make the pitching better. My big question is will Crisp, Lowell and Gonzalez generate enough offense?
February 12, 2006
Sosa Humiliated
Permalink Sammy Sosa considers retirement: "Sammy wants to get to 600 home runs, but he's not willing to humiliate himself to keep playing. He feels that the lack of interest in his services this winter constitutes a humiliation," added the source. It's always impressive how fast a player can go from sure thing to set a record to an also ran. At the end of 2003, not only did Sosa seem like a lock for 600 home runs, he looked like he would make a serious run at Aaron. Now, not only is Aaron out of the question, Sammy, like his co-competitor Mark McGwire, may be out of baseball with 600 less than a season away. What's Enough Attendance?
Permalink In this article about marketing the Marlins, we learn about the Marlins attendance from last season: Last season, owner Jeffrey Loria forked out $65 million to field a lineup that included Carlos Delgado, Paul Lo Duca, Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell. But the Marlins drew just 1,823,388 fans, up slightly from the team's total in 2004 (1,723,105) but still 27th among baseball's 30 teams, ahead of Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Tampa Bay. Since when is drawing nearly two million fans a bad thing? It used to be that two million was the magic number. Draw that many fans in and you're doing okay. Is it the rank of 27th? Well, somebody has to be down near the bottom. And if teams near the bottom are still drawing close to two million, baseball's in pretty good shape. I suppose baseball would like to see the Red Sox last in attendance because everyone is selling out every game. Of course, at that point we'll probably hear the Red Sox threaten to move unless they get a bigger stadium. :-) The lack of attendance at Marlins games seems a bit overblown to me. On the Radio
Permalink I'll be on Yankee Fan Club Radio this evening at 7:30 EST. I hope you'll tune in. Duel Damons
Permalink Sam Borden of the New York Daily News looks at the complex personality that is Johnny Damon. Johnny's brother asks a good question: "I'm his biggest fan and his biggest critic at the same time," James says. "You know, sometimes me and my buddies are like, 'Can you imagine if he really took care of himself?' Maybe it wouldn't matter. Maybe it's what he is. . . .(But) I know (Alex Rodriguez), he's got a routine down to a science from what I hear. And Johnny, he just goes out and plays and doesn't care about any routine at all. I've wondered sometimes, would he be even better if he took better care of his body?" Johnny says no. "No way, man," he says, "I think my mind would be so focused on baseball I'd just be burnt out. I enjoy myself. I like taking the boat out, I like fishing - I have to have that balance. I love baseball. I love this game. But if you think about baseball all the time, for me, I'd be in trouble."
Voting on Range
Permalink Lee Panas at Tiger Tales is combining various range models using a voting system. Here's his first post on the subject, but if you go to his main page you can scroll through the other positions. When I was working at the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval at the University of Massachusetts, we were using methods like this to retrieve results from multiple search engines and combine them into a single ordered list. Thanks to Lee for trying this out. Spaced Out
Permalink Evan Grant compares the Rangers to the solar system, pointing out question marks and places for improvement for the team. It's good to see the new GM thinking about pitch counts: Rangers GM Jon Daniels believes the offense is a lot like the sun. Even to the naked eye, its power is awesome, but what lies beneath is even more profound. Now, like solar engineers, the Rangers hope to tap into those deep reserves. I suspect losing Soriano will help a great deal here. Tribe Flexibility
Permalink Sheldon Ocker notes an extra card up Indians GM Mark Shapiro's sleeve: Keep in mind that Shapiro still has cash to spend, possibly as much as $10 million. That means he can make adjustments to the roster during spring training or any time before the July 31 trading deadline. With Cleveland in contention the last two seasons, I expected a deadline deal from the Tribe. It didn't happen. Now, however, if a club wants to dump a big contract, or get rid of a potential free agent, Cleveland can take on the salary for half a season. That certainly should make a deal easier to complete. Bling It On
Permalink Ken Macha likes the Athletics off-season moves: "This is probably been the least amount of player movement we've had," manager Ken Macha said. "The players we've gotten have added a little more bling to it." I believe the word "bling" officially jumped the shark.
February 11, 2006
Cubs Avoid Arbitration
Permalink The Cubs and Carlos Zambrano came close to splitting the difference, settling on a $6.5 million dollar contract. I'm surprised the Cubs didn't try to lock up Carlos through next season, or maybe even a year after that. Over the last couple of seasons, Zambrano's been the ace of the staff. Trying to lock him up at $22 million for three years would not only give the Cubs a longer term bargain, but it would make Zambrano easier to trade if the Cubs went that route. Instead, Chicago will likely shell out a lot more money next year if Carlos continues to pitch well. Rickey and the Mets
Permalink Bob Sikes comments on what Rickey Henderson does for the Mets. He also see Rickey possibly putting on the Mets uniform at some point: But getting back to Henderson, what may materialize is a silent commitment from Minaya to him that if he's unable to find the employment he's looking for, a player-coach role might be in the cards in Tidewater. And then the potential is there for Randolph and Minaya to summon this legend should need arise.
February 10, 2006
American Baseball Idol
Permalink Congratulations to Ty Hillenbrandt, host of the Lehigh Valley Yankees Fan Club radio show. He's won the Next Great Sportswriter competition at FoxSports.com! Stop by and check out his excellent work. Shawn Settles
Permalink Shawn Chacon and the Yankees avoided an arbitration battle, agreeing to a 1-year, $3.6 million dollar contract. I like Chacon in New York, and he may turn out to be the best deal on the pitching staff. Rickey Returns
Permalink Rickey Henderson will be with the Mets in Spring Training as an instructor. It looks like his prize pupil will be Jose Reyes: Omar Minaya, the Mets general manager, sat next to Henderson during a game of the 2002 World Series and brought up the topic of instructing young players. Dave Stewart, Henderson's former Oakland teammate, let Minaya know during the offseason that Henderson was ready. I agree with that last statement, but Willie Randolph was also an excellent leadoff man. I'm not sure what Rickey can teach Reyes that Willie can't. Maybe Jose will start referring to himself in the third person. Still, it's great to see Rickey back at the major league level. From what I've heard of Henderson's time in the independent leagues, his teammates loved him. My guess is he's been doing a lot of coaching just there in an unofficial capacity. You might as well learn from the best. Hacky Stats
Permalink In the mail, Baseball Hacks: Tips & Tools for Analyzing and Winning with Statistics by Joseph Adler. I did a quick skim, and the book is geared for someone who wants to use the internet to collect and analyze baseball statistics. It's chock full of ways to download data from public internet sites, parse the data and store it in a database. It even provides tips for analyzing and displaying the data. It's aimed at the fantasy player, but it would be useful to any sabermetrician. Soriano Gets Smaller Raise
Permalink The arbitrators ruled in favor of the Washington Nationals, agreeing that Alfonso Soriano should get a $10 million salary for 2006. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Centerfielders, No Out Penalties
Permalink To follow up on the shortstop post from the other day, here's what the centerfielders look like if you don't penalize them for balls other players catch. You may want to compare them to the original here:
There's been some speculation in the comments on this site that Andruw Jones lost a step and his left and right fielders were taking balls from him. The Ball Hog Index show that's not true.
I'm not at all surprised that Griffey scores this low. When I looked at why Griffey was getting low zone ratings in the 1990s, I found that Seattle leftfielders and rightfielders made many more plays than would normally be expected. And that was when Griffey had good legs. Time to Think
Permalink The deadline for Major League Baseball to accept the Washington D.C. lease agreement is March 7. If Major League Baseball and the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission don't agree to the terms by March 7, the stadium lease agreement between the city and team would be canceled, according to the legislation. What I didn't realize is that Washington still needs to acquire the land. The business men who own the property lost in court yesterday. They challenged the assessment of the property, which came in just under the amount that would have killed the deal. The court ruled only the mayor or D.C. Council could challenge the assessment. Chief Judge Eric T. Washington wrote "it is improbable that the Council intended to grant landowners the power to interfere with the economic development plans of the city." Of course. Who would expect that owning property would give you property rights? Or that residents would be allowed to challenge the government? It sounds like another Kelo decision. Baseball In Ireland
Permalink Baseball is growing in Ireland. In about 15 years it's gone from a few people playing softball to a team competitive on the European level. A documentary about the team debuts at the end of this month: "We decided we should try and form an international team," Kindle said. "We said, 'Let's get some uniforms and funding and go play.' We were sitting in the boozer over a couple of pints. Over a couple of pints, it sounded good." Sosa for Soriano?
Permalink Dave Van Dyck at ChicagoSports.com postulates that the Nationals signing Sammy Sosa sends Soriano somewhere, maybe Chicago. Strange as it may sound, the Cubs could benefit from Sosa accepting the tryout and then playing well enough to make the team. Here's the shortened scenario that would involve the Cubs: Sosa proves in the spring he still has something left in his 37-year-old body, making the Nationals' Opening Day roster for about $1 million guaranteed. That would fill the outfield spot presumably taken already by Alfonso Soriano, who then might be expendable. No Fear for Fehr
Permalink Donald Fehr is rightly optimistic about the upcoming labor negotiation. Don Fehr admits that the history of baseball's labor negotiations has not been very good: Eight strikes or lockouts since 1972 and talks that went down to the final hours four years ago. Actually, there was nothing wrong with the last negotiation. Any good negotiator will use all the time on the clock to try to get the best deal for his side. Toward the end of that bargaining period, the two sides were basically trying to see how much money either side would give up. There were no great issues that needed to be resolved. If there were going to be trouble this time around, you'd already hear owner or players complaining. The players seem happy with their situation, the owners (for the most part) seem happy with their situation, and the two sides showed they can work cooperatively by opening the CBA to change drug testing. No one is trying to destroy free agency or arbitration. No one wants to destroy revenue sharing, although the union will try to modify how it works. Fehr said he is concerned that some teams that are receiving payments from baseball's central fund might be making more money than teams that are putting money into it. He also wants to make sure teams are using the money on player salaries. There's plenty of room for improvement on this issue, so the two sides have a chance to be constructive in changing it. There's also no rush. Despite the agreement expiring in December, the two sides have the option of just renewing for another year. Things are definitely looking good for 2007.
February 09, 2006
I Can Still Use LAnanheim!
Permalink The jury decided in favor of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, letting the team keep the lengthy name as it's official moniker. They'll be the LAnaheim Angels forever more on this site. There's a discussion starting at the OCRegister if you'd like to voice your opinion of the verdict. Frankly, I'm surprised. I thought the Angels had a good case. It looks like the jury respected the letter of the agreement, rather than the intent. Singing the Praises of Posada
Permalink Phil Allard reminds us of Jorge Posada's greatness. In fact, Peter Ridges of SABR computed a variety of updates to Bill James' ranking system from the NHBA. According to Ridges work, Posada currently stands as the 14th greatest catcher of all time. Still No Olympic Baseball
Permalink Baseball and softball failed to gain reinstatement to the Olympics. If nothing changes, 2008 will be the last summer games with these ball and bat sports. At least the winter games still have curling! Stadium Voices
Permalink CBSSportsLine.com rounds up reactions to the new deal proposed by the D.C. Council for building the Nationals a new home. Bitter Bengie
Permalink Bengie Molina expressed his disappointment with the LAnaheim Angels as he was introduced by the Toronto Blue Jays: "I think I built a good relationship with them," he said. "They never let me know. They just threw me like a piece of trash." They were probably too busy worrying about what name to use this season. :-) Burroughs Rebound?
Permalink Sean Burroughs shows a very positive attitude after a poor 2005 season in this article: "I'm not one for making excuses, but I definitely wasn't physically strong when I went to spring training last year," he says. "If you recall, I tore up my knee during the final month of the 2004 season at Dodger Stadium, and had to undergo surgery. I was on crutches for six weeks. I don't know how much of a difference the park will make for Sean. In his two seasons at PETCO his slugging percentages home and away were an identical (and low) .342. McCoy's Mistake
Permalink Hal McCoy owns up to his mistake of yesterday: I was misled by a couple of outside sources, who believed Beattie was the choice. They were wrong and I was submarined. I have never been so happy to be so wrong. This is why you shouldn't trust anonymous sources. I wonder if the sources had an agenda where they wanted Beattie hired? Will never know, although when a source is this wrong I wonder if they're really worth protecting. After all, is McCoy going to trust them again? Krivsky responded well to the payroll question: Krivsky, a man with a smile nearly always in place, almost sneered when payroll was mentioned. It's Up to the Jury
Permalink The Angels city name is now in the hands of a jury. I'm still pulling for LAnaheim. Renovations
Permalink Via the Arizona Republic, Paul Doyle writes on the rebuilding of Fenway Park: In the twilight of his stewardship, former Red Sox owner John Harrington insisted Fenway Park was beyond repair. You can see a picture of the gutted .406 club here. The Cubs are renovating the bleachers at Wrigley. They Yankees extended the life of their stadium in the 1970's with a major overhaul. Why don't more teams remodel rather than rebuild? Just before I matriculated at Harvard, the University was facing a crisis in the athletic department. Their infrastructure was aging. The original plan was to build new arenas, but the cost was too great. Someone hit on the idea of remodeling rather than rebuilding. In my four years there, the football, hockey and basketball venues were replaced by redoing existing buildings. The money saved allowed the construction of a new pool and indoor track. So why don't more teams do this? The Red Sox should be a model for all franchises and the cities who get extorted for new parks. It takes some imagination, but I have no doubt that RFK could be turned into a better stadium with some tinkering. That would certainly solve the cost problem facing Washington right now. Kudos to the Red Sox management for seeing what could be done with the park. More teams should try that route.
February 08, 2006
No Yankees, Please
Permalink Braves Caravan
Permalink Home of the Braves took pictures at the Braves caravan stop. Maybe Someone Should Count the Seats
Permalink Bleed Cubbie Blue is having a tough time figuring out the new seating capacity of Wrigley Field. Ball Hogs
Permalink One criticism that the Probabilistic Model of Range receives is that one player can be penalized by another fielder recording an out. Let me give you a hypothetical example. Let's take a shallow fly ball behind second base. You can imagine that this ball might be caught by the centerfielder, second baseman or shortstop. The probability of catching the ball would be pretty high, let's say .9. So if we're looking at team numbers, it doesn't matter who catches it. A catch is a .1 reward (1 - 0.9) and a drop is a 0.9 penalty (0 - 0.9). That 0.9 probability is made up of the probabilities of the CF, 2B and SS catching the ball. For simplicity, let's say they all have an even chance of making the catch; 0.3 each. So, the way the system works, when the shortstop catches the ball, he gets a 0.7 reward (1-0.3) and the other two fielders get 0.3 penalties (0.0 - 0.3). The team is still +0.1 (0.7-.06). Now, if 100 of these balls are hit and all three fielders catch 30 each, everything evens out. Each fielder is expected to get 30 outs, each fielder gets 30 outs, so all are right where they should be. But what if the centerfielder is a ball hog? On those same 100 balls in play, say the CF catches 50, and the SS and 2B split the remaining 40. The centerfielder would be 20 outs above expectation, but the SS and 2B would each be 10 outs below expectation. The SS and 2B look bad on balls that are caught anyway. Now, there may be nothing wrong with this. The CF may get to more balls because he has to, not because he's a ball hog. Nevertheless, we can adjust for these outs. Instead of charging a fielder with a penalty on an out he didn't make, we'll just not charge him at all. In that system, the CF still looks above average, but the SS and 2B are even, since we don't count those extra 10 outs each against them. So let's see how the shortstops stack up when we remove the ball hogs:
You might want to compare the above table to the one in this post. As you see, Jose Reyes is not longer at the bottom. He wasn't making all the plays you would expect from a shortstop, but others were. The other thing we can do is try to come up with a hog index. By comparing the total predicted outs from the original table with the predicted outs from the No Hog table, we can see which shortstops are having plays taken away the most:
Omar Infante doesn't have many outs taken from him, helping to account for his high ranking in the original table. Other fielders get to many balls that Jose Reyes might be able to field, hence his low ranking in the original table. I'd love to hear your comments on this. It's Krivsky
Permalink The Dayton Daily News now reports that Wayne Krivsky is the new Reds general manager. I guess the sources for this morning's story weren't very reliable. Krivsky has served as Minnesota general manager Terry Ryan's right-hand man in a similar market with a similar payroll. He has been assistant GM since Nov. 30, 1998, and assisted Ryan in negotiating contracts for major-league players, including salary-arbitration cases. Congratulations to Mr. Krivsky! Manny Being Manny
Permalink A reader requested a breakdown of Manny Ramirez's range home and away. Here's the result:
He's a normal fielder away from Fenway, but did poorly in his home park. You can also see from the predicted DER that left field in Fenway doesn't yield as many outs as the places the Red Sox visit. Which Model
Permalink Now that all positions are published, I wonder which model people like better? Let me know in the comments if you prefer the original model or the smoothed visiting player model. Do Tell, Dotel
Permalink Octavio Dotel's recovery from Tommy John surgery is going well. "It's more than I expected, way more," Dotel said. "I didn't expect this so soon. When I had the surgery, there were a lot of comments about how long it would take, if I could come back. You don't want to hear it, but you start thinking about it. "I'm really surprised at what I have already." Dotel is talking about being ready to pitch in April. Dissected
Permalink Jeff Passan details the arbitration hearing process: “There are seldom any players who go in there and it doesn’t affect them in some way,” Baird said. “Some positive. Some negative. Some where they question their abilities. The one thing I remember about Carlos Beltran was as soon as he came to spring training, he said to me, ‘These are the things I’m going to be better at this season.’ They were all the things we discussed in arbitration. Tigers 2006
Permalink The Detroit Tigers Weblog is using PECOTA to analyze the team. Seth Billfer starts off with the pitchers. We've Got the Beattie
Permalink The Dayton Daily News connects the dots from various sources and predicts Jim Beattie as the new Red general manager. Nine candidates were interviewed and several have been told they wouldn't get the job, including interim GM Brad Kullman, Reds special advisor Leland Maddox and Philadelphia assistant general manager Mike Arbuckle. Beattie did a good job with very scarce resources in Montreal. He didn't do a good job with greater resources in Baltimore, however. How much of that was Jim and how much was Angelos I'll leave to the commenters. Braves New World
Permalink FoxSports.com posts an excerpt from Dayn Perry's new book, Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (And It's Not the Way You Think). Dayn focuses on the rise of the Braves in this chapter. Viva Venezuela!
Permalink Alex Gonzalez came through once again, getting a late hit against the Dominican Republic to tie then game in the ninth, then scoring the winning run. Their second comeback win against the D.R. left the Lions with an undefeated record and the Caribbean Series championship. Congratulations to Venezuela! D.C. Council Reworks Lease
Permalink An hour after they rejected the lease negotiated by the mayor and MLB, the D.C. Council reconvened and passed their own version of the lease. After initially voting down the lease 8-5 Tuesday night, council members returned to session an hour later at the urging of Mayor Anthony A. Williams. They attached legislation capping the city's total cost at just less than $611 million and voted 9-4 to approve. Major League Baseball will comment later today on the deal. "We'll see what it looks like and how it impacts our contract with them, and we'll comment on it tomorrow," said DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer. "I cannot comment until I see it and see what impact, if any, it has on the contract they approved a year ago December. They have amended it repeatedly tonight, so I am not really sure what it says." It's quite possible that MLB will take the city to arbitration over the new terms. I don't see why, however. The city is going to absorb quite a bit of the cost overruns. Whoever buys the team is getting a sweetheart of a deal. My guess is that there are potential buyers among the candidates who are willing to help out with the stadium. Sell the team to one of those, and let a flourishing franchise take care of the rest.
February 07, 2006
Washington Votes Down Lease
Permalink Andrew Clem is all over this story as the D.C. Council votes down the stadium lease. It seems Virginia is now trying to lure the team there. Update: The Council reworked and approved the lease. PECOTA Inspired Posts
Permalink Baseball Prospectus released it's PECOTA cards for 2006 (subscription required), and a couple of bloggers are already posting about the ratings. U.S.S. Mariner celebrates the uniqueness of Felix Hernandez. Was Watching doesn't like what Bernie Williams projection means for the Yankees. An OPS of .720. That is at least 50 to 100 points below acceptable for a DH these days. I would offer one caveat on Bernie. He's not going to be playing centerfield, so he should be a bit healthier than he was the last two seasons. Not that I think he's going to be great, devoting himself to hitting might bring a bit of the old Williams back. Unearned Extensions?
Permalink Mike Carminati wonders why the Rockies management team received contract extensions: This is a team that has witnessed one winning season in the last eight and that hasn't made the playoffs in the last ten. They have seen their attendance slip from first in the NL in their first 7 seasons (and as high as 4.5 M in their inaugural season) to fourteenth in the 16-team NL last year with their first attendance mark under two million for a season. Review and Interview
Permalink Bleed Cubbie Blue reviews the soon to be released In the Best Interests of Baseball? and chats with the Author, Andrew Zimbalist. Early Season Simulations
Permalink SB at Replacement Level Yankees Weblog runs simulations for the 2006 season. The most likely team to make the playoffs is the Oakland Athletics. The only team that rates a 0% chance of even a wild card is the Kansas City Royals. As always, take these with a grain of salt. Hat tip, Athletics Nation. Weak Backstop
Permalink 6-4-2 Notes a hole in the Angels lineup. New Cheer
Permalink The Soxaholix tries to start a new fad (warning, coarse language): I mean think about it. Bottom of the 9th, pressure situation, need just one more out with the other team's sluggah confidently striding to the plate … And all of a sudden 35 thousand fans begin to ululate in unison! He suggests A-Rod won't like it. The Phill Curtain
Permalink Balls, Sticks and Stuff likes the way the Phillies defense is shaping up for 2006. Chronicling Runs
Permalink I've been remiss in not paying more attention to Chronicle of the Lads, who's been busy translating the PMR numbers into expected runs. Going for the Groups
Permalink The Tampa Bay Devil Rays re-organized their group sales effort: Group ticket sales historically have accounted for about 10 percent of ticket sales, but the Rays are looking to build on that number, said Matt Silverman, the team's president. The Rays define groups as 20 fans or more. Most groups that attend games are in the 20-50 range, he said. Basically, they're giving groups more choices, and trying to expand their coverage of the area. Winning will help sales more, but it's good to see the new ownership continue to find new ways to promote the ballclub. Reds Candidates
Permalink The Reds search for GM candidates is over. Hal McCoy lists the nine candidates. Rocket Revenue
Permalink Gary Jacobson of the Dallas Morning News examines how much revenue Roger Clemens might bring to the Rangers: In 2004, Clemens' first season with the Astros, the club increased attendance by 630,000. It seems to me the News is making a pretty conservative estimate of how much money the Rangers get from each fan: Depken, who has studied the economics of Major League Baseball for about eight years, estimates that the Rangers receive an average of about $18 for each ticket sold and another $11.50 for parking, concessions and merchandise. An independent minor league owner once told me that a fan in a seat is worth $20 to his club. I would believe a major league fan is worth much more than that. It could be the News story is talking net revenue rather than gross revenue.
February 06, 2006
Down to the Wire in Venezuela
Permalink It's going to be an exciting last day for the Caribbean World Series as Venezuela and the Dominican Repulic both won today. They'll face each other tomorrow in the final scheduled game of the tournament. A win by Venezuela gives the host country the title. A Dominican win forces a one-game playoff on Wednesday. By the way, has anyone seen the tie-breaker rules for the first rounds of the World Baseball Classic? What happens if at the end of a round, three teams are tied 2-1? Extending the Rockies
Permalink The Colorado Rockies signed their two managers to one-year extensions, giving manager Clint Hurdle and GM Dan O'Dowd at least another year to turn their youth movement into winners. Winning Sales
Permalink The Brewers report tickets sales are up 40% over last year's first weekend of sales. Fans want to see a winner. New Wings for Molina
Permalink Bengie Molina signed with the Blue Jays this afternoon. Free-agent catcher Bengie Molina is the club’s latest acquisition in perhaps its most memorable winter, signing a one-year deal worth $4.5 million (all figures U.S.) with a mutual option for 2007 worth $7.5 million with a $500,000 buyout. I'm not sure if this is really an upgrade. Zaun produced 14 wins shares to Bengie's 15 in 2005. I suppose that with Molina being younger, he's more likely to repeat that kind of season. It's not a great contract coming off a career year. I'm sure that Bengie wishes he jumped at this Mets offer: Molina was courted heavily by several teams, reportedly turning down an $18-million-US, three-year deal with the New York Mets. He played things out down to the wire before finally settling with the Jays. Leaving Dome
Permalink The Twins won their court battle over their stadium lease today: The Minnesota Twins don't have to play in the Metrodome beyond the 2006 season, a judge ruled Monday in a decision that could increase pressure on lawmakers to approve financing for a new ballpark. So the Twins are free to sign a series of one-year leases, and if they should ever build a new ballpark, they can leave the Metrodome as soon as the new park is ready. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Pitchers
Permalink To complete the nine position tour of range, here are the tables for pitchers. The minimum here is 500 balls in play. That allows us to capture most of the regular starters.
You can see why Greg Maddux won all those gold gloves. I was expecting to see a differentiation between young and old, stocky and thin, lefty/righty, but I can't discern any of that just by looking at the data. Williams No Ponson
Permalink Todd Williams was cleared of DUI charges today: Tests showed he had legal prescription drugs in his system, and his lawyer showed he likely failed the field sobriety test because he had injured an ankle in the crash, said Pam Bondi, spokeswoman for the State Attorney's Office in Tampa.
WBC Drug Testing
Permalink Here's the word on checking for banned substances at the World Baseball Classic: Two players from each team will be tested for banned drugs after each game of the World Baseball Classic. There was speculation earlier that everyone would be tested, so if a player was in the tournament, he was clean. It looks like that won't be the case. Times Mention
Permalink Baseball Musings was mentioned in the New York Times today. Run for the Slugger
Permalink Balls, Sticks and Stuff looks at the affect Abreu stealing had on Jim Thome: For example, from 2003 to 2005, Jim Thome had an OPS of .929, but in the 93 instances when Abreu was on second with first base open, Thome had an OPS of .954. Burrell benefited even more, his OPS increasing from .810 to 1.008 and his batting average from .249 to .291 in 104 instances. Walking a slugger with first base open isn't a bad thing. It increases the run potential for the inning, and extends the offense for future innings (the top of the lineup is more likely to bat again). In the Phillies case, with two sluggers coming up next, it's tough to pitch around both. The Future GMs
Permalink Bob Sikes remembers the summer of 1980 and two ballplayers who became fast friends. I Hope You Have Children Just Like You!
Permalink A few years ago, then Cubs catcher Joe Girardi was complaining about a Marlins celebration after a walk-off home run. John Boles then put the classic curse on Girardi: To which Boles replied: ``Anybody who criticizes that, well forgive me for feeling good about ourselves for six seconds after a walk-off victory. Joe Girardi has been playing for the world champion Yankees and, without having been in our shoes, he might want to hold off on criticism.'' Of course, Girardi gets to manage a team that's been stripped to the bone. The new manager is looking to win, however. ''It's amazing,'' Girardi said. 'A lot of people are like, `Good luck, but I can't believe what they did to your club.' And I'm thinking, what a great opportunity. I have an opportunity to build a club, watch them grow and win. Maybe Joe can prove Ozzie Guillen wrong. :-) Ozzie Speaks His Mind
Permalink Teddy Greenstein previews Ozzie Guillen's upcoming interview on "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel." I like this passage the best: On what makes a good manager: "Nobody's a good manager. Nobody. With all due respect, people forgot Joe Torre, he was a losing manager all his life until he got to New York. What's he got? Great players. Phil Jackson, it's a funny thing, we go, 'He's great.' You got Michael Jordan and you got Scottie Pippen … You're not good. You got good players." Venezuela Continues to Roll
Permalink Another late inning victory for Venezuela as Alex Cabrera drives in the game winner in the 10th for a 4-3 score over Mexico. Venezuela remains undefeated with two games left in the tournament. The Dominican Republic, which also won yesterday, is the only team that can catch the South American country now. The two countries will face off again with all-star teams in the first round of the World Baseball Classic. That part of the tournament will take place in Orlando.
February 05, 2006
Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Catchers, Groundballs
Permalink As promised, here's the number of catchers with the popups removed.
When I saw the result for Javy Lopez, I needed to go back and check the data. Sure enough, Lopez did not make an out on a bunt or ground ball in front of the plate in 2005. With the model estimating 5 to 6 outs, he didn't have many opportunities. Maybe opponents didn't bunt much against the Orioles? Dodger youngster Dioner Navarro continues to look good, but Mike Matheny takes a big hit. Are popups tougher to catch in San Francisco? I'd imagine that would be true if they were still playing at Candlestick Point. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Catchers
Permalink Range is not a big part of being a catcher, but they still field balls in play, and it's always nice to know who can handle the nubber in front of home plate.
You get a feeling why the Orioles want to move Javy Lopez to first base. It's also clear that Mike Matheny is properly lauded for his defense. It's also possible Paul DePodseta picked up a cat behind the plate in Dioner Navarro. I'll run these number shortly on just ground balls and bunts. Gammons Thanks Bloggers
Permalink I can't read it because I don't have ESPN Insider, but Peter Gammons gives a big boost to the baseball blogosphere today. Dan Fox quotes from the article at Dan Agonistes. Thanks, Peter! Will He Be Voted Off the Island?
Permalink For the 2006 season, Bonds may well supplement his $20 million salary from the Giants with earnings from appearing on a reality show that ESPN expects to begin airing during spring training, which starts in two weeks. The conflicts of interest come as ESPN will also have a news crew following Bonds (as they did last year). What interests me more is this question: Is ESPN going the way of MTV? There was a time when MTV played music videos. It was the World Wide Leader in music videos. Then, at some point, the introduced The Real World, and morphed into TV. At some point, does ESPN decide it's cheaper to produce entertainment than sports? Why pay MLB hundreds of million of dollars when you can produce the following show for much less:
Update: Fixed a typo. Catcher Race
Permalink Joe Capozzi of the Palm Beach Post looks at Josh Willingham's chances of catching on with the Marlins: Willingham hadn't even unpacked the catcher's gear from his truck when the caller, Marlins manager Joe Girardi, unloaded a heavy question. Willingham's minor league offensive numbers are excellent; .400 OBA, .500 slugging. That kind of offense is easier to find in left field, so if Willingham can work behind the plate, the Marlins can make their offense deeper. Tigers on the Prowl
Permalink Dayn Perry pens an optimistic column on the Detroit Tigers, noting that the offense looks above average. Just to note, there is a typo in the table presented. The first difference (for Ivan Rodriguez) should be +28, not +88. Venezuela Takes Control
Permalink Alex Gonzalez, newly acquired by the Boston Red Sox, hit a three run homer to give Venezuela the edge over the Dominican Republic on the third day of the Caribbean Series. Both teams were undefeated, and the D.R. connected for five home runs in the game, but went down 11-9 after the Gonzalez blast. With the series at the halfway mark, it's Venezuela 3-0, D.R. 2-1, Puerto Rico 1-2 and Mexcio 0-3.
February 04, 2006
Writing The Book
Permalink Mitchel Litchman, Tangotiger and Andy Dolphin co-authored a new tome on baseball, The Book. Their web site includes excerpts and one of the easiest ordering systems I've used. I've already pre-ordered my copy. Slow News Day
Permalink There's so little news about the Minnesota Twins that this is one of the articles I found searching for something about the team. I hope things work out for them. Smart Fund Raiser
Permalink The Devil Rays caravan ran into a clever youngster on Thursday: Most of the kids walked through the line in an orderly fashion, accepting autographed pictures from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays while picking up a few goodies along the way - a knapsack, Devil Rays pencil, team sticker. It's good to see these ballplayers are still kids at heart. Merger Park
Permalink The "Park Where the Giants Play" acquired it's third name yesterday. The SBC merger with AT&T will result in the San Francisco franchise playing in AT&T Park. The good news: AT&T Park is scheduled to host the All-Star game in 2007. The Giants said the park will offer wireless AT&T Internet service and that signage likely would be changed by midsummer. Now one can blog from the park!
February 03, 2006
Back From Dinner
Permalink I'm back from the UConn Baseball Banquet and had a wonderful time with Randy Sabia and his crew. We had great seats, as you can see from this picture of Ben Cherington (my phone does not have a great camera).
Walt Dropo and Charles Nagy were both honored with distinguished alumni awards. Dropo's family accepted on his behalf, and Nagy flew in from California with his family. You could tell Nagy was very moved by the recognition. Brian Cashman and Ben Cherington each made a short speech, Brian on the state of the Yankees, Ben more on playing college ball. Cherington refered to Theo as "The Gorilla" during his comments. He also said that the Red Sox front office has a lot of respect for the Yankees front office and that the competition between the two "makes us better." The two then sat together on stage and took questions from the audience. I was impressed by the intelligence of both men. Cashman was very forthcoming in answering all questions, whether it was about working with Steinbrenner or how the lack of a farm system limited their moves this off season. The two were asked about big versus small markets. Cashman pointed out that have resources allows a team to have many more choices in putting a team together, but it also gives you more chances to make a mistake. Cherington added that it's nice working for a team with resources, but sometimes he thinks working in the cocoon of a small market would have benefits also. Cashman was asked about how he manages to work with Steinbrenner, and he gave what I thought was a very interesting answer. The people who came before him all had resumes. Each one came into the job with the idea that things would be different for them. Cashman never worked for another organization. He has not point of comparison with Steinbrenner, so he didn't have expectations that things would be different. He told a story about Woody Woodward. Steinbrenner forced Woody to trade Joe Niekro to the Twins, and the next week Niekro shut out the Yankees for seven innings. Cashman was sitting with Woodward, listening to Steinbrenner say that Woody had to take responsibility for the deal. Cashman said he thought to himself, "I never want to be GM of the Yankees." Cashman praised the Red Sox management team for the job they did rebuilding the farm system. Cashman couldn't go the trade route to fix the Yankees because he doesn't have the depth of talent in the minors the Red Sox do. He went with free agency because that was the one avenue open to him. He wants to get the Yankees to the point where they are continually producing young talent. Cherington was asked why the Red Sox didn't re-sign Pedro Martinez last season. I loved his answer. The organization never wants to fall in love with a group of players. He pointed out that the Red Sox made Pedro a good offer, but due to circumstances the Met valued Pedro more than Boston. Management is looking four or five years down the road when they decide how much to offer a free agent. All in all, an enjoyable evening. Good food, good friends, good conversation and good information. Front row
Permalink Randy Sabia did a great job getting tickets. We're sitting right next to the dias. Posted by StatsGuru at 07:01 PM
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Baseball Dinner
Permalink Thanks to Randy Sabia (who is too sick to make it tonight), I'm off to the UConn Baseball Dinner. Brian Cashman of the Yankees and Ben Cherrington of the Red Sox are scheduled to speak. I'll do my best to get in a question. Defensive Comparisons
Permalink David Gassko pits the various Range ratings against UZR in two articles. One, published at The Hardball Times is an overview, while the one on Statistically Speaking does the math. Thanks to David for bringing all this information together! Posted by StatsGuru at 04:53 PM
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Defense • |
Probabilistic Model of Range
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Home Run Picnic
Permalink The Brewers are moving part of the right field fence in 8 feet to create an in-game picnic area. The area is tucked into the right-field corner at Miller Park, between the foul pole and the power alley. It can accommodate up to 75 fans for each game and a private bar is included with food and drink provided at an all-inclusive price, from $39 to $65 per person, depending on the date. The Brewers expect the new arrangement to add 1 or 2 home runs a season. Defensive Review
Permalink Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts pens a piece for Sports Illustrated on the latest in defensive statistics. A big thank-you to Jon for mentioning the Probabilistic Model of Range. Posted by StatsGuru at 01:19 PM
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Probabilistic Model of Range
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Scooter Swag
Permalink Phil Rizzuto is set to auction much of his baseball memorabilia. Patricia Rizzuto, who works for Conair, a company founded by another clan of Rizzutos, said her family wanted to sell the items "while he's alive, so he can thank his fans for the loyalty they've shown him." I'd like the Meat Loaf: He is keeping his 1950 American League most valuable player trophy (Cora was wearing her glittering 2000 World Series pendant), but he is parting with the platinum record he received for his play-by-play of a makeout session on Meat Loaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." And I'll stop right there. Update: Here's a picture of the squeeze bunt Rizzuto speaks of in the story. I'm impressed that the majority of men in the stands are wearing jackets and ties. Hershiser Takes a Hike
Permalink Orel Hershier didn't last long at his new job in the Rangers front office. He resigned yesterday, with no comment from him or the team. Hershiser had some success in the second year of coaching, as the pitching staff posted an ERA below 5.00 for the first time since 1997 and contended for the AL West title. Last year, however, the team's ERA rose again, and the Rangers chances for an AL West title sunk. Venezuela Cycles Over Mexico
Permalink The second game of the Caribbean Series was not as close as the first, but provided its own excitement. Venezuela ran away from Mexico 17-1, but Ramon Hernandez, the new Orioles catcher hit for the cycle. Update: Here's the Spanish version from ESPN Deportes. Roll Over Beethoven
Permalink Javy Lopez withdrew his trade demand yesterday, according to Chuck Berry. "We've had several additional discussions this week with the Orioles, and we have withdrawn our trade demand," Berry said. "We have decided that Javy will go to spring training with the Orioles." That's three players, Ramirez, Tejada and Lopez who demanded trades this winter who will be playing for the same team. I guess they'd rather report to spring training than not get paid.
February 02, 2006
D.R. Beats P.R
Permalink The Caribbean Series got underway this afternoon with an eleven inning, 5-4 victory by the Dominican Republic over Puerto Rico. Update: I'm watching the Venezuela-Mexico game, and the players have corporate names on their backs where player names would normally appear in the majors. At first, I thought all the Mexican players were named Corona! Pringle Punched
Permalink The mayor of Anaheim testified today to wrap up the city's case against the Angels: The mayor of the city of Anaheim said when he returned from a long New Year's Day weekend last year he was shocked to learn that Angels owner Arte Moreno had changed the team's name. I don't know which side is going to win this case, but Arte Morneo lost stature with the people of Anaheim during this trial. 2006 Caribbean Series
Permalink The 2006 Caribbean Series gets underway today, pitting the winter champions of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Venezuela against each other in a double round-robin tournament. If you want to watch, the games are available at MLB.com for a fee. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, First Basemen and Grounders
Permalink Here's the data for first basemen, looking only at ground balls (including bunts on the ground). (Data on all balls in play is here.)
That's a big jump for Doug Mientkiewicz. Speier Spiked
Permalink Ryan Speier is out for the season after shoulder surgery. Speier pitched a short but very effective season for the Rockies in 2005: Speier, a side-arming right-hander, went 2-1 with a 3.65 earned-run average in three stints with the Rockies last year and pitched 24 2/3 innings without allowing a home run. Speier jumped from Class AA Tulsa to make the Rockies' Opening Day roster and, that day, won his first game in his major-league debut. Speier was optioned to Class AAA Colorado Springs on April 28 after going 1-1 with a 9.82 ERA in 10 games. He could have been another test case for unusual deliveries working in Colorado. Cardinals Going to Court
Permalink The Cardinals are being accused of not making a full disclosure to their insurance company: Greenwich said the Cardinals claimed in its policy application that no prior environmental audits or studies had been conducted for Busch Stadium or its bus lot site. The insurance company is looking to recoup $20 million in environmental cleanup. Questioning Melvin
Permalink Joel Badzinski sits down with Doug Melvin for a Q & A on the Brewers. Here's Melvin on the young infield: The team has cleared the way for young infielders J.J. Hardy, Rickie Weeks and Fielder to take everyday starting jobs. What are the pluses and negatives of that situation? Coco Carter
Permalink Terry Pluto compares the Coco Crisp trade to another one that was strong for the Indians; the Joe Carter deal: But if I'm sitting in Mark Shapiro's office, I make the trade because this can be another Joe Carter deal. Update: Dayn Perry agrees that the Indians will make out the best long term in this deal. Novel Idea
Permalink The Zoner blasts Dusty Baker and presents an igenious solution to the second base competition: I got a sawbuck says Neifi Perez comes out on top of this. And that would be the worst possible scenario. Here's a novel idea: Play Walker for 7 innings and then bring in a defensive replacement. There...was that so hard? Leo Backlash?
Permalink As Roger McDowell takes over the Braves pitching staff, do I detect a little anti-Mazzone sentiment? Hudson said McDowell made a strong impression. That's two days in a row that Hudson said something slightly negative about Leo. I wonder if the two got along?
February 01, 2006
Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio. Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up in a little while at 8 PM EST. You can leave questions during the show in the TPSRadio Chat Room. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, First Basemen
Permalink It's time for the statistics for the first basemen:
When Olerud's name is near the top and Giambi's name is near the bottom, I become very comfortable with the data. It will be interesting to see what the ground ball data show us. Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EDT. Check out their other sports programming as well. My guest tonight will be Al Bethke of Al's Ramblings. We'll be discussing the Brewers and the competition in the NL Central. You can also call in at 888-985-0555 and leave a question for the show, or stop by the chat room at TPSRadio during the broadcast and leave a comment. Also, feel free to leave a question in the comments to this post and I'll be happy to answer it on the air. Shelton From the Cold
Permalink The Detroit Free Press details Chris Shelton's winter workout. Shelton, a Salt Lake City native, began weight training in November. In December, when many college teams began their preseasons, Shelton joined in with the Utes. Nice to see Chris giving back to his college. Endorsing the Stathead
Permalink Paul Schaffer of the Dayton Daily News endorses Paul DePodesta for the position of Reds GM. With his approach, Beane consistently keeps his team in playoff contention with a small payroll. Changing Sox
Permalink Gordon Edes pens a moving article about Tommy Harper finally feeling at home in Red Sox Nation. He gives all the credit to the new owners: But on this morning, as Pat Williams, the former Orlando Magic executive who cut his teeth in baseball, told the kids about the lessons he drew from Robinson's life -- lessons of courage and self-discipline, character, competition, and leadership -- Harper declared that at long last, the Sox are emerging from the shadows of their past. Harper possesses a tremendous amount of credibility when it comes to the Red Sox and race relations. It's good to see this owner did not continue that particular legacy. Camp Roger
Permalink Roger McDowell opens the Braves early pitching program today, his first official act since taking over for Leo Mazzone. Tim Hudson is glad Roger is there: "I think it's going to be great having his personality around the team," said Hudson, who agreed with pitcher John Smoltz that replacing Mazzone wouldn't be as difficult as outside observers believe. It's a tough act to follow for someone in his first job as a major league pitching coach. |
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