AL EAST

Yankees

To be discussed in a separate post, as befitting their oh-so-regal status.

Red Sox

“How the East Was Lost” – the Sox have lost the division to the Yankees at three points:

1) When they, as Baseball Prospectus pointed out, treaded water after their April sweep in Yankee Stadium and allowed the Yankees to wipe out the accumulated deficit against the toughest part of their schedule. Once the Yankees went into June with a lead, it was that much tougher for the Sox to catch up.

2) After the sweep which culminated in the classic 13-inning game on July 1, the Yankees were wiped out. Promptly swept by the Mets (an event that, in almost any other year, would have caused apocalyptic overreactions from the Boss, and I don’t mean Bruce), the team treaded water for much of July, going 10-8. A Red Sox hot streak, long expected by most fans, would have made the race interesting again. Instead, the Sox also went 10-8 and thus frittered away another month.

3) Donating the shortstop formerly known as No-mah to the Cubs for 40 cents on the dollar, if that much. This trade has been picked over in cyberspace, and there’s no need to rehash it here. While I understand the necessity to get him out of town for non-performance reasons, the fact remains as stated by Jedi Master Beane in Moneyball: “The day you say you have to do something, you're screwed. Because you are going to make a bad deal.” (Quote may be somewhat inexact, as I don’t have the book with me.) I’m sure the Sox management knew this, but did the deal anyway. Theo Epstein may need more training before he can become a Sith Lord and challenge the Yankees (to invert Larry Lucchino’s infamous quote).

One other thing: Many people have noted that the Sox’s “Pythagorean” record (i.e., the record that they would expect to have based on their totals of runs scored and runs allowed) is just about identical to the Yankees, and drawn the conclusions that: (a) there is little if any difference between the quality of those teams, and (b) the Yankees’ superior record is mostly attributable to luck (though research has indicated that a superior bullpen such as “Quan-Gor-Mo” gives teams a small structural advantage on Pythagoras).
I buy both points, to a degree. But history is an interesting thing. Let’s look at the following comparisons:

Year Yankees’ “Pythagorean” Record Red Sox’s “Pythagorean” Record
2004
(through August 5) 59-48 61-45
2003 96-66 94-68
2002 99-62 100-62

(Note: 2002 and 2003 figures are from Baseball-reference com; 2004 figures are from Rob Neyer’s ESPN.com page. There is a minor difference in how they calculate the expected records: Baseball-reference uses the somewhat more accurate exponent of 1.83, while Rob’s page uses the traditional 2, for those who care.)

Pretty close, with the Red Sox having a small advantage in 2002 and 2004 (so far). Now let’s look at the real-world records:

Year Yankees’ Record Red Sox’s Record
2004
(through August 5) 68-39 59-48
2003 101-61 95-67
2002 103-58 93-69

The difference between the two teams may have largely been luck, but that luck seems to have been around for a while.

And no sooner do I write this than I see the following on Rob Neyer’s ESPN chat:

Tom (Upstate NY): The Yanks are leading the league because they're vastly outperforming their Pythagorean projection, but they've done this consistently since 1996. Eight of nine years they've beat Pythagorus since the dawn of the Torre-Rivera era, by a total of 37 wins. What's the cause of this amazing feat?: Torre's managerial skills?, Rivera and the rest of the bullpen?, or just plain luck? My money's on Rivera, et al, but what's you're call?

Rob Neyer: (11:57 AM ET ) Good question, Tom. The Twins have been doing the same thing, though not for as many years. The standard answer is that it's mostly luck, that the bullpen effect has been studied and found wanting. But I'd love to see a new study of the subject, because the Yankees do make you wonder.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays

How cool is it to not have the AL East teams in the same exact order for the seventh year in a row? Finally, Tampa Bay shows signs of joining the big leagues. Not only are they flirting with .500 and amassing a core of exciting, high-ceiling young talent (it’d be nice if, thanks to being rushed to the big leagues, Crawford and Baldelli wouldn’t be eligible for free agency just as they’re hitting their primes – but hey, you can’t expect the organization to be perfect after seven years of nothing but mistakes), but last week, they even made a good trade. After only seven years of trying! (I don’t have to tell Met fans which trade I’m referring to…)

Baltimore Orioles

Some short takes:

Miguel Tejada and Javy Lopez: Justifying their contracts, for now.

Palmeiro: Start the Cooperstown clock soon – it’s almost time. Could last a little longer if his at-bats are restricted to RHPs.

Melvin Mora: If not for Barry Bonds (and some injuries), the most incomprehensible player in all of baseball. Seriously - from an extra guy, at best a super-utility guy, to a 1.000 OPS over two seasons? And you can’t even criticize the Mets for trading him in 2000 – not even the Orioles thought he’d be anywhere close to this good.

Sidney Ponson: Fat. Bad. Lesson not to (with one exception, now pitching for the Giants) give a big-money contract to a pitcher based on potential when he hasn’t translated that into performance at any sustained point over the first six years of his career: priceless. (See, e.g.: Dreifort, Darren; Escobar, Kelvim (though he’s actually doing OK this year).)

Pitching in general (to opposing hitters): Yum.

Toronto Blue Jays

This is ground zero in the Moneyball wars, and it should be. Great things were expected out of the Blue Jays this season, as J.P. Ricciardi has had over two years to raze the team to its foundations and rebuild as he (sabermetrically) saw fit. Coming into the season, it looked like he’d done so: he made several well-regarded moves to strengthen the pitching staff of a team that had won 86 games in 2003, and had a farm system supposedly turning out star prospects by the dozen. It hasn’t worked out that way, in every respect.

The Ricciardi regime has already taken abuse on a number of counts from the media allies of the scouts he’s fired. If the Blue Jays do not rebound quickly next year, Ricciardi could be in trouble and the anti-analytic media suspects will be quick to draw broad conclusions.

AL CENTRAL

Minnesota Twins

Thanks to their multi-year hex over the White Sox (as well as the injuries to Frank Thomas and Magglio Ordonez), they’ll be going to the playoffs again. And while they finally cleared space for Justin Morneau (thanks to the Red Sox-Nomar divorce), they (wisely) passed on Benson. Accordingly, they’re poised to be a speed bump for the Yankees in the playoffs, again. (All caveats about small sample sizes, “$%%^$& not working in the playoffs,” etc. apply.)
The thing to watch over the next couple of years is whether they are able to continue focusing and stay ahead of the hard-charging Indians, or whether a combination of bad contracts (Hunter, Radke, Stewart, etc.) and indecisiveness regarding talent allocation (Morneau, the two-year delay in getting Santana into the rotation, etc.) closes their window of opportunity.

Chicago White Sox

As a Yankee fan…THANK YOU, KENNY WILLIAMS!

Seriously, things don’t look good: Williams culminated a multi-year trend of dissipating prospects by overpaying for Freddy Garcia, and exchanged a somewhat reliable Loaiza for … well, “reliable” is not the first adjective that comes to mind in describing a pitcher who needs a battalion of psychologists every time he falls behind 2-0 on a batter or sees a Red Sox uniform. And he took on a lot of money in the process. And the farm system is depleted. And Thomas and Ordonez are each hurt and probably soon to be gone. And the stadium is still the worst of the new generation of parks. And Chicago fans still barely notice…

Cleveland Indians

They’re following the sabermetrically-approved path of bashing other teams’ brains in first and figuring out the other side of the ball later: (See: 1999-2000 Athletics, 2003 Red Sox and Blue Jays). Because they’re in Cleveland and their GM is neither a former employee of Billy Beane nor a current employer of Bill James, the organization hasn’t attracted the attention it deserves as an analytically-run place. But it’s possible that no organization, except possibly the A’s, has integrated research and analysis as thoroughly as the Indians have. Check out this great Cleveland Plain-Dealer series from last year for a description.

Now, let’s hope they get the rest of their pitching staff together before C.C. Sabathia blows his arm out.

Detroit Tigers

“The Detroit Tigers are not part of major league baseball until further notice.” – Mike Francesa, on the radio in the spring of 2003.

Notice has been given, as the Tigers have already surpassed their 2003 win total. They’ve done it mostly thanks to the bats of Carlos Guillen and Pudge Rodriguez, the latter further expanding his list of accomplishments for the Cooperstown plaque. As of last Sunday, the Tigers actually led the AL in Lee Sinins’ “Runs Created Above Average.”

One of the most fascinating articles yet published by the Baseball Prospectus was their preview of the Tigers before the 2003 season, in which they discussed the perverse PR problems faced by teams with good offense (especially power) but mediocre pitching. Good organizations know how to spout cliches about how “pitching and defense is the key” to everything, and then go back to the office and put things into proper perspective. Bad organizations actually believe it. The Tigers’ belief in such cliches led them to build “Comerica National Park” - an extreme pitchers’ park designed to strangle the very kind of player that had been most successful for the Tigers for the previous century – and build the wrong kind of team for the park. Thanks to Pudge and Guillen, the Tigers have returned to their roots to an extent. Has the Detroit media picked up on the reasons for the Tigers’ success, or have they been fooled by the park effects and attributed the Tigers’ resurgence to “pitching and defense?” Any Tigers fans out there who can comment?

Kansas City Royals

Team motto for 2004 comes from God’s punishment of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:19: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” I’ve lost track of the number of pitchers who’ve broken down, and Brian Anderson has been worse than that. But at least Allard Baird is getting better at the “trading-the-star” thing – he brought back some viable talent this time.

AL WEST

Oakland Athletics

Notwithstanding their recent series loss to the Yankees, the team has commenced its annual second-half run. This is getting ridiculous already; while “$#$%^ing A” deals for players such as Jermaine Dye might have been big contributors in years past, I don’t think last year’s acquisition of Jose Guillen and this June’s acquisition of Octavio Dotel (with a 5.32 ERA for the A’s as of Friday) are the primary causes of the A’s annual second-half sprint. More research is needed.

Aside from the struggles of Barry Zito (Joe Sheehan’s prediction looks very good now, even if Ted Lilly hasn’t set the world on fire either), the biggest story for the A’s in the national media will be: how will they self-destruct in the playoffs this time? Presumably, they’ll win a series eventually if they keep getting in. But many commenters have noted how much extra pressure the Yankees face in October, knowing that anything short of a World Series championship will be deemed a miserable failure. The A’s will be facing similar pressure from the media this year; if they win a series, will the media transform them into clutch heroes? I doubt it.

Texas Rangers

There is no team I am rooting against more this year (except for the Red Sox, of course). I should be grateful for their generous donation of A-Rod to the Yankees along with $67 million or so. And all Yankee fans will always root for Buck Showalter, and I hope Soriano does well. But the Rangers’ success this year (which even they clearly didn’t anticipate) feeds the common confusion of correlation and causation – i.e., their success will be attributed to the A-Rod trade, facts be damned (Soriano’s production is down from the last two years, despite moving to a better hitters’ ballpark, and how has the A-Rod trade contributed to the shocking and sudden competence of the pitching staff?). That must be stopped, for the good of all that’s logical.

Anaheim Angels

I still have trouble looking at this team rationally (the traumas of the 2002 ALDS run deep), and would have even more trouble if they had acquired Randy Johnson. With their (albeit injury-plagued) bullpen and Vlad the Unstoppable, they would be great trouble if they ever got to the playoffs. And that’s really all I have to say about them.

Seattle Mariners

As the great U.S.S. Mariner blog has described in hating detail, the Mariners’ front office has been a conscientious objector in the great “Moneyball” war between sabermetricians and traditionalists. But they did take Kenny Williams to the cleaners for Freddy Garcia, so there’s still hope.