I'm feeling more affection for the Nationals by the minute.
I understand Megan's aversion to spending public money on sports stadiums (especially as most studies find that municipalities don't get much economic bang for the public buck), but this is almost as short-sighted and impractical as....voting for Ron Paul or something. First, the Nationals are themselves one of the worst offenders in recent years when it comes to extorting public money for their stadium - a city council revolt led DC to cap their outlays at "only" $611 million for the Nationals' new stadium. And it's not as if DC is that much more flush, or has fewer social problems, than NYC.
For better or worse, most new stadiums built over the past 20 years or so have been built whollly or mostly with public money (though the trend has been decreasing in recent years). By (very, very low) relative standards, New York has gotten off relatively easily with the new stadiums for the Yankees and Mets - neither project would crack any top-10 list of municipal stadium boondoggles.
And while the Nationals are on the way up, I still expect that New York will earn a better return on its investment than DC - at least on the field.
Sorry, I fell asleep and my head hit the keyboard.
More seriously, Peter Abraham says it all, far better than I could:
The idea that this somehow represents the "new" Yankees under Joe Girardi is laughable. Let's review for a second:
A Class A catcher with a .261 career batting average and six home runs in 247 games got run over and broke his wrist. Most of the regular players were home when this happened. I would venture that most of them couldn't pick Francisco Cervelli out of a lineup.
A non-roster left-hander who practically none of the regular players have ever spoken to grazed one of Tampa Bay's players with a pitch.
Then Shelley Duncan, who has played in 34 big league games, decided to go all Rambo with his slide into second base.
...The Yankees are a class team with class guys like Jeter, Pettitte, Posada and Rivera leading the way. Girardi was part of that group as a player and will be that way as a manager. You don't motivate a $205 million roster by vowing revenge on the Tampa Bay Rays. This is baseball, not minor-league hockey. You think Girardi wants to sit in the dugout and make up silly excuses for what Shelley Duncan did? That's not why he wanted the Yankees job.
The Yankees don't care if people pose for home runs or nonsense like that. They care about beating you to death with their relentless lineup then watching you flail weakly at Mo's cutter in the ninth inning. They worry about winning, not sideshows.
The idea that they "sent a message to all of baseball" is ridiculous. Having All-Star caliber players at nearly every position and the best young pitching in the game is sending a message. Shelley Duncan sliding spikes high into second base is not what the Yankees are about.
That sums it up.
As far as whether this pugnacity augurs well for Tampa this year, I will try to elaborate on this in my baseball previews (which I hope to start posting in the next week or two), but I am indeed terrified of the Rays. But fights between them and the Yankees in spring training have nothing to do with it - rather, what worries me is the number of burgeoning stars they have all over the place, and the possibility that the pieces will fit together in very short order.
Red Sox fans likely remember some crazy brawls over the years between the Sox and the Rays (this game being the most famous example). You might have noticed that they didn't lead to much success on Tampa's part. Combativeness isn't new in Tampa - good players are.
(With the trade of Elijah Dukes over the winter, the Rays have even lost the excuse of having one of the very few players who could legitimately cause everyone else in the ballpark to fear for their safety, especially after the game. One more strike against this theory.)
Like Tyler Kepner, I would never have expected Mariano Rivera to name this guy as a mentor:
...I asked him if anyone had helped him out when he was a young Yankee. Rivera surprised me with the first name he mentioned: Steve Howe.
I always thought it was amazing how well Howe pitched when he initially joined the Yankees after being out of the game for so long. One trivia note: the GM who released Howe for the final time in 1996 was Bob Watson, who Howe induced to fly out for the final out of the 1981 World Series.
Quinn is a second-generation disinformation artist. He takes his cue from a much younger Armen Keteyian who was largely responsible for beginning the late-20th hysteria about steroids some 20 years ago in his article written as a sordid eulogy for ex-NFLer Lyle Alzado. And almost 20 years after his screed he sat in front of Dr. Fost and apologized for being an accidental progenitor of the same type of disinformation Quinn - and those who do the same as him - spreads today. Almost 20 years later Keteyian sat in front of virulent anti-steroids buff, Gary Wadler, formerly of the world Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and found that Wadler had no scientific evidence to back his claims that steroids were the evil he claimed they were; found that Wadler had no idea that Fost’s work existed. Sadly, Wadler was reduced to pathetic phrases like, you’re playing Russian roulette with your health, and why would you take a chance using them even if they aren’t harmful?
Here we are, with scientific evidence before us in the way of a peer-reviewed study that clearly shows that steroids taken under a physician’s care have no deleterious effects on healthy males over the age of 25 and that every male, because of a natural reduction in the amount of testosterone produced by the body, should take monthly injections of steroids to lead a healthier life - and the study is shunned like an “amulet” - that was actually nothing more than a pendant - might have been during the Salem witch trials.
Also, see this post from the same blogger. It is too long and good to excerpt, but anyone interested in the historical context of drug policy needs to read this.
I am currently reading Ian Ayres' Super Crunchers, and it's quite good. But in the introduction, he makes some mistakes regarding one of his examples of the analysis of large databases (the "Super Crunching" of the title). Specifically, he cites the now-famous example from Moneyball about how Billy Beane instituted a new draft philosophy for the 2002 draft, allegedly de-emphasizing the opinions of scouts in favor of a more statistically-driven approach. Ayres specifically cites the example of Jeremy Brown, the infamous "fat catcher" whom scouts hated but was drafted anyway on Beane's orders due to his great hitting stats in college. (This blog may have discussed Moneyball once or twice.
First, while Michael Lewis' account of the A's approach to the 2002 draft - especially regarding Brown - was an all-time classic of journalism, the philosophy of that draft has not held up well. Specifically, Ayres wrote that Brown "has progressed faster than anyone else the A's drafted that year," and then cites his brief 2006 callup. Those two sentences create a very misleading impression (especially the "has" tense). Brown did rise through the high minors quickly and was (according to Moneyball's epilogue) the first 2002 draftee invited to the A's major-league spring training, but Brown's career stalled soon thereafter. Fellow 2002 draftees Nick Swisher, Joe Blanton and Mark Teahen all reached the major leagues long before Brown's 2006 debut. Those three have gone on to major league careers of varying levels of success, but Brown only appeared in 5 games before being designated for assignment in 2007 (probably around the time Ayers' book was going to press). Brown in fact just announced his retirement.
More generally, the data-driven approach taken by the A's in the 2002 draft was not particularly successful. Another major part of their philosophy, as detailed by Lewis, was the near-categorical rejection of high school players in favor of college players, supported by old research conducted by Bill James among others. Well, we now know that those conclusions haven't been accurate for a while. ($$) The A's themselves have in recent years drafted many high school pitchers, generally regarded as the riskiest possible category of prospect. Moreover, as Derek Jacques notes ($$), most of the other prospects specifically identified in Moneyball as draft targets identified through the A's statistical analysis did not come close to making the majors. It is incorrect to say that scouts' importance to the identification of prospects has decreased in the years following Moneyball's publication - if anything, the opposite is true.
Finally, I'm not sure that Ayres picks the righ theoretical example to illustrate the data-mining that is at the heart of his book. While there are thousands of baseball prospects considered for drafting every year, the differences in their playing contexts (high school vs. college, different areas of the country and levels of competition, etc.) work against the idea that a large database of common baseline experiences can be constructed and analyzed. Baseball people look at their statistics, but the contexts are so different as to make it difficult to analyze usefully in the aggregate - which is what "Super Crunching" is about.
But sabermetrics does present a really good example of what Ayres is looking for: the efforts in recent years to build better defensive metrics. Whether it's David Pinto's "Probablistic Model of Range," Bill James and John Dewan's "Plus-Minus System" or an alternate model, the new measures of defensive performance rely on analyzing thousands of plays in the field. So let's pretend this was the example Ayres meant to cite.
March 02, 2008 WHAT DO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES, BASEBALL PLAYERS WHO TAKE STEROIDS, AND AMY WINEHOUSE HAVE IN COMMON?
Don't tell the children.
A longer version of that sentence below the fold:
I was recently (at the end of December) talking politics with a DC-based acquaintance. In the course of the conversation, he asked me who I was supporting in the upcoming Presidential race. I told him that I was still undecided, because - as my own personal strike against the continuous election cycle - I wasn't going to pay close attention to the candidates and their policy proposals until the calendar year in which the election would be held.
Well, it really is an election year, and I am still having trouble paying enough attention.
Basically, I'm not sure I really want to know "what it takes" to win the White House. I know that any semi-close analysis will reveal any candidate, regardless of party, doing and saying all sorts of things that range from the offensive to the ridiculous. A one-word, thoroughly bipartisan example: ethanol.
And I know the candidates have no choice, regardless of whether they are smarter than the drivel they spout. From what I've recently read and heard, the one candidate in this election cycle with whom I might have been more impressed if I'd been paying closer attention, rather than less, was Fred Thompson. (Which is not to say that I would've voted for him.) And it was not coincidental that Thompson's candidacy never caught enough fire to flame out. As expertly detailed by Andrew Ferguson, the modern presidential campaign requires a level of both substantive pandering and personal exertion as to screen out virtually any normal human being. I think we should replace the "anyone can grow up to be President" mantra with "Mom, don't let your kids grow up to be a Presidential candidate." (This may be an underrated factor in the increase of political dynasties - they're the only ones who think of the lifestyle as normal.)
Similarly, not enough has been said about the extent to which steroid use in baseball is different in degree, but not in kind, from much of what else goes into a career as a top-flight career as a professional athlete. "What about the children?" is a mantra uttered by cretinous sportswriters and Congressmen alike bemoaning the health risks of steroid use. Well, how many sports fans level with their children about the ghoulish injury rates among young pitchers, or the need to schedule knee replacements in advance for catchers? (Megan had this right a while ago.) And baseball is spa-like compared to what football does to its participants. (I leave boxing out of this discussion, which is a world unto itself. And let's not get into women's gymnastics.) These health risks are, if anything, more demonstrable than those of professional athletes' use of PEDs (especially the HGH that has so captivated Washington and the sports media lately, which has virtually no effect on healthy athletes (unless it's "stacked" with steroids)). We sports fans who like to occasionally call ourselves "grownups" have to reconcile ourselves to the reality that the objects of our passion are harming themselves for our sakes. Denial, or refusal to tell the children, doesn't make it any less true.
And this is also true with respect to music: we might not be so quick to tell our children that virtually all of the good music of the last several decades has been created by people who were strung out on drugs and/or alcohol. As Mickey Kaus said in his pre-Slate days (scroll down to the 5/7 entry), whenever you hear a musician say that he or she is clean, sober and feeling better than ever, the next album is guaranteed to suck. The most prominent recent example is, of course, multiple Grammyist Amy Winehouse. After listening to her music for a total of ten minutes, I can confidently say that: (a) she is a transcendent talent, and (b) her music wouldn't be close to as good if she wasn't quite so self-destructive. (Proof of both counts is at the end of this post.) Unless we want to forswear any good music, this is another truth we have to recognize, even if we finess telling the children.
Maybe baseball doesn't naturally translate to the agenda of today's Republican Party, but there is little question that the way the game is played (as opposed to its business context or other aspects) is more akin to a classically liberal, lassiez-faire society than to any alternative.
Specifically, the game is primarily played as a series of individual contests: pitcher v. batter (even fielder v. ball), to which there is no alternative (a player can't pass his at-bat to a teammate). In these contexts, the participant virtually always benefits his team the most by achieving maximum individual success. A home run is always a better outcome than a single - full stop.
While there are certain situations in which a player is called to refrain from maximum individual success, such as a sacrifice bunt, those are marginal events (and the sabermetric scholarship has demonstrated the limited extent of their benefits). Truly, a baseball player promotes the good of (his team's) society by pursuing his own self-interest. When the baseball powers that be were inventing a false creation myth, they should have used Adam Smith rather than Abner Doubleday.
(I note that Fred Barnes argued the opposite in an old Weekly Standard article ($$). That in and of itself might becounted as evidence in favor of my argument. But also - to put it mildly - he didn't really engage the nature of the game. I think making fun of Fred Barnes is the definition of a worthy bipartisan initiative.)
Incidentally, much of what you need to know about baseball and politics, at least at the ownership level, is contained in the following statement: George W. Bush practically counted as a progressive as the Texas Rangers' owner. Showing foresight that he didn't bring to Washington, he consistently dissented from the owners' war on the players' union in the early 1990s that culminated in the strike that wiped out the 1994 World Series (he was only one of two owners to vote against requesting the resignation of commissioner Fay Vincent, the event which set the owners' course for war). And he was far from the most conservative owner when it came to politics, either. In fact, his predecessor as Rangers' owner, Eddie Chiles, was an oilman who doubled as a conservative radio commentator. His broadcasts always started with the words "I'm mad."
Check out this moving story about a high school star baseball player, a teammate of A-Rod and Doug Mientkiewicz, who never made it:
Butler was Westminster Christian's best player that year. A left-handed pitcher and first baseman, he went 13-0 in 1992, his junior year. He was named the Dade County player of the year, edging Mientkiewicz and easily beating Rodriguez. He was also named an all-American.
"If you would have said anybody on that team would have gone on to the pros besides Alex, I would have thought Steve Butler," said Steve Owens, a reserve player in 1992 who now works as a financial analyst. "He had a great arm and more talent than anyone. I don't know what happened to him."
Anyone who follows baseball seriously can think of other such examples (Gerry Priddy's failure to keep pace with Phil Rizzuto is the one I can think of most readily). For every successful career we watch on the major league baseball fields, there are many others who do not see, but might have. Whether due to injury, personality quirks or a simple inability to grasp an opportunity, the careers that never were haunt the games we see.
Steriod vapors have indirectly addled the brains of most of the mainstream media's baseball writers (not that flexibility was their strong suit beforehand), but this piece seems a happy exception. Whether he turns out right or wrong, Sherman is at least thinking flexibly.
Also, see Jayson Stark's about-face from the "All Steroids, All The Time" mindset that has possessed most of the ESPN types and their media bretheren (Buster Olney, this means you):
We've spent this spring surveying general managers, managers, assistant GMs, number crunchers, players and other assorted experts about what comes next in this sport. Their answers will come as a major shock to everyone who has concluded that steroids are to blame for anything and everything they've come to hate about modern baseball.
...
Here, for your consideration, are their conclusions:
Public hysteria about steroids is raging at least five years too late because steroid use, these men believe, is actually at an all-time low since their first use.
While steroids were obviously a factor in the offensive explosion of the last dozen seasons, they were only one of many factors. And while baseball can go to war on steroids, those other factors (bats, balls, bopper-friendly ballparks, crummy second-tier pitching) won't change.
At least as many pitchers have used steroids in recent years as hitters and maybe more, our panel believes. So offensive numbers might not look much different if both groups are cleaning up their acts together.
The percentage of players on steroids probably never was much more than 20 percent even at steroids' peak which means 80 percent were always clean.
Selected Mets officials were among the few people (including Sports Illustrated editors) even slightly aware of what the magazine was up to. They issued Berton a uniform and allowed him full access to their spring training complex, even letting him sit in the bullpen during exhibition games as Stewart clicked away. Fans would ask the weird-looking guy in the No. 21 jersey if he was trying out for the club, and he would reply: "Yeah. You'll hear about it later."
Did they ever. When Sports Illustrated hit the newsstands several days before the April 1 cover date, "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch" staggered baseball and beyond. Two major league general managers called the new commissioner, Peter Ueberroth, to ask how Finch's opponents could even stand at the plate safely against a fastball like that. The sports editor of one New York newspaper berated the Mets' public relations man, Jay Horwitz, for giving Sports Illustrated the scoop. The St. Petersburg Times sent a reporter to find Finch, and a radio talk-show host proclaimed he had actually spotted the phenom - who, truth be told, was back in Oak Park teaching art at Hawthorne Junior High.
I was writing a long post until after 2:00 AM last night. I had intended to finish it now.
I thought I had saved it.
Apparently not.
@#$%@!#)%!@$%!!!
There's no way I can reconstruct it now.
It was an extended review of all we have seen over the last couple of years regarding a certain rivalry to be renewed on Sunday night in the Bronx.
Here are some random items from the now-vanished post:
For me the greatness of the rivalry, currently at its peak, exists between the white lines. ... What gives these clashes added allure is not all the peripheral hullabaloo but rather the extraordinarily high level of baseball that is played when these two historic franchises are at their best.
I'm not even a Yankees or a Red Sox fan, and I have to admit that they've played the best, most dramatic games of the 2004 season. There were times it seemed like anyone could put on the uniforms and have an epic game: Your office could split on hometowns, put on a whiffle ball tournament, and the Red Sox-Yankees match-up would go 11 innings, decided on a miraculous over-the-cubicle-into-the-water-cooler diving stab of a line drive for the last out.
- Derek Zumsteg
What can happen in a best-of-seven that hasn't already happened between these two this season? What kind of heroics can top what we have already witnessed? Is Pokey Reese going to throw three innings of brilliant relief in a 18-inning 1-0 win? Will Jason Giambi pinch-hit in a critical jam and hit a ball that's never found for a grand slam home run to win the deciding game seven? I don't know, but it's going to be interesting and it should be great baseball.
- Derek Zumsteg
You might say that expectations were met - especially if you're a Sox fan.
This has been a very depressing winter all around in NYC, but it may finally lift. Let's get it on.
OK, not just yet. One sour grape to get off my chest (seriously mixed metaphor alert). So help me God and Bill James (don't any Sox fans remember his "Tracers" or other demolitions of old stories?) - in no particular order - if I hear one more reference to how the veteran leadership showed by Varitek in picking a fight with A-Rod for no particular reason "sparked the Red Sox's turnaround" or some other nonsense, I'm sending that person 100 autographed pictures of Derek Jeter (if it's made by a Red Sox fan) or 100 copies of each of "Moneyball" and "Win Shares" (if it's made by a know-nothing in the media). Dean Barnett, consider yourself warned.
Such veteran leadership, which worked so well that the Red Sox lost several games in the standings immediately thereafter and didn't start gaining for another 2 1/2 weeks, inspired the Red Sox to grant Varitek a captaincy and a $40 million contract, which should make him a wealthy man long after his knees have expired.
Previews to follow over the next few days...assuming I remember to hit the "Save" button.
Most of it will be of interest to his disciples (and wannabes thereof), but here's an excerpt of greater applicability:
James T: I have to ask you this. On an internet baseball fan site, I recently saw you quoted to the effect that veteran leadership had enabled the Red Sox to come back from down 0-3 in the ALCS. But, in that forum, the immediate response was to doubt your sincerity. Bill couldn't mean that! And these were people who held you in high regard. Are you resigned to your reputation at this point in time?
Bill James: Well, believe it or not, I dont worry about my reputation in that sense. Ill let that take care of itself.
This is probably a long-winded answer, but Ill try to explain it this way. If I were in politics and presented myself as a Republican, I would be admired by Democrats by despised by my fellow Republicans. If I presented myself as a Democrat, I would popular with Republicans but jeered and hooted by the Democrats.
I believe in a universe that is too complex for any of us to really understand. Each of us has an organized way of thinking about the worlda paradigm, if you willand we need those, of course; you cant get through the day unless you have some organized way of thinking about the world. But the problem is that the real world is vastly more complicated than the image of it that we carry around in our heads. Many things are real and important that are not explained by our theoriesno matter who we are, no matter how intelligent we are.
As in politics we have left and rightneither of which explains the world or explains how to live successfully in the worldin baseball we have the analytical camp and the traditional camp, or the sabermetricians against the scouts, however you want to characterize it. I created a good part of the analytical paradigm that the statistical analysts advocate, and certainly I believe in that paradigm and I advocate it within the Red Sox front office. But at the same time, the real world is too complicated to be explained by that paradigm.
It is one thing to build an analytical paradigm that leaves out leadership, hustle, focus, intensity, courage and self-confidence; it is a very, very different thing to say that leadership, hustle, courage and self-confidence do not exist or do not play a role on real-world baseball teams. The people who think that way. . .not to be rude, but theyre children. They may be 40-year-old children, they may be 70-year-old children, but their thinking is immature.
Or, to put it in one sentence, if I worried about that @#%$ I would have folded my tent 25 years ago, when my ideas were anathema to the mainstream baseball establishment.
In honor of the Twins' series win over the Yankees (and their making tonight's game much too interesting), please check out the hottest baseball blogger around, Batgirl.
Continuing my post from last week about the other AL teams, here's my summation of the Yankees' 2004 season and several key points thereof:
A) I DON'T KNOW HOW THEY DO IT
I think the most frustrating thing about this season is the sharp contrast with the Yankees. Both teams [the Yankees and Red Sox] have had numerous problems, more than they could have pessimistically expected before the season. Yet the Yankees have ignored their problems and are running away with the best record in the AL while the Red Sox are simply praying for a spot in the playoffs.
If we knew at the start of the season that the Yankees would suffer the following:
1) Kevin Brown would be out for two months, with Mike Mussina being out for almost as long and ineffective when he did pitch;
2) Jason Giambi, wracked by parasites and tumors, would give the team very little for virtually the whole season;
3) The performances of new acquisitions Javier Vazquez and Alex Rodriguez would be slightly below expectations (it's true);
4) Jose Contreras would implode faster than ... a rickety raft sailing from Cuba to Florida;
5) Being forced to give 11 starts to the group of Donovan Osbourne, Alex Graman, Brad Halsey and Tanyon Sturtze;
6) A surprising offensive decline from Derek Jeter, along with Bernie Williams failing to wholly reverse his slide;
7) Second base being manned by Miguel Cairo for virtually the entire season; and
8) Not adding any star players via an in-season trade, despite rampant speculation;
then most baseball fans would have predicted that the Red Sox would at least be even with the Yankees, if not far ahead. Yet the reverse is true. How?
1) The offense, of course, is the biggest factor. Check out the AL leaderboard of Win Shares ; showing Sheffield and Matsui tied for the lead in the AL as of August 12. Even with A-Rod's slightly diminished production, having 3 of the top 6 players in the league is a pretty good foundation. Matsui has essentially replaced Giambi's production; he's finally fulfilling the hype that accompanied his 2003 debut and is a reasonable contender for the MVP award (which would do wonders for the US-Japan relationship). Imagine what'd be if Giambi had contributed this year!
Almost as important to the Yankees' offense is the lack of a truly weak link in their usual lineup. For example, the Red Sox offense has two hitters almost as valuable as the Yankees' trio in Manny and David Ortiz, but Pokey Reese does his best to counteract their contributions, and his negative impact is accentuated by the fact that (at least before the Nomah trade) he played most of the time he was healthy. Enrique Wilson and John Flaherty would be up to the task, but they don't play enough to really hurt the team. Even the Yankees' lesser players - Clark, Cairo, Sierra, et al - have done enough positive things to avoid dragging the offense down. Combine that with the contributions of the big three, and you have a pretty good offense.
2) The bullpen - specifically, the "Quan-Gor-Mo" combination - has received plenty of credit, and deserves it. As of August 5, the Yankees' bullpen was ranked eighth in baseball by Baseball Prospectus' "Adjusted Runs Prevented" (BP hasn't updated since then), a big improvement over last year. (As is often the case, the trio of Quantrill, Gordon and Rivera total is higher than the team total - the other dwarves in the bullpen drag down the total. This is a good omen for the postseason, as those dwarves won't be seen within 60'6" of the mound in a playoff game the Yankees have any chance to win.)
3) The Yanks' defense is much improved over last year; they are in the middle of the AL in Defensive Efficiency (I believe they were second-to-last last year). Lofton, despite not being at his best, has been an improvement over Bernie in CF. The most notable change has been in the infield, which will be discussed below.
4) Luck - as noted last week, the Yankees are overachieving compared to their expected record (as has been customary throughout the Torre era), while the Red Sox are catastrophically underachieving compared to their expected record for the second time in three years.
B) OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN
Switching 19th century writers, this has been a tale of two seasons for Derek Jeter. And I'm not talking about before versus after his catastrophic early-season slump - I'm talking about his offense versus his defense.
After his horrific early-season slump, Jeter's superficial offensive numbers don't look out of place with the rest of his career, except for his batting average being slightly below normal. But look closer, and his production is still way off his career norms for one very specific reason: he's stopped walking. From 1997-2002, Jeter walked between 57-91 times each year (and was at that pace in his injury-shortened 2003 as well), resulting in an OBP that never dropped below .370. This year, he's on pace to walk fewer than 40 times and his OBP is .332. Whether it's residual bad habits picked up during his slump, nostalgia for the departed Alfonso Soriano or something else, it amounts to a substantial decrease in his offensive production.
But that may be balanced out by perhaps the most shocking development of the 2004 baseball season: Jeter's improved defense. Prior to the season, the debate over the quality of Jeter's defense ranged from whether he was the worst in the league to whether he was below average, but not the worst in the league. That's not a debate Jeter supporters would like to get into. The consensus of informed opinion (and not-so-informed opinion) was that the Yankees would be losing out on the full benefits of the A-Rod acquisition by moving him to 3B and leaving Jeter at shortstop.
While it's impossible to prove a negative, it's difficult to imagine how that solution would have worked better than the much-maligned shift of A-Rod to 3B. A-Rod has been outstanding at his new position. And Jeter is actually second in the AL in fielding Win Shares among shortstops, and has accumulated more than four times the amount he amassed last year (in comparable playing time due to his injury). By this metric, Jeter has gone from one of the worst fielding shortstops in baseball to one of the best. That calls up memories of Vizzini's lisp: "Inconceivable!" I can't find any in-season calculations of the other advanced defensive metrics (such as UZR or Baseball Prospectus' Fielding Runs), but I assume that an improvement in Win Shares of this magnitude would show up in the other metrics as well, even if not to the same extent.
How did it happen? Perhaps A-Rod's shortstop-like range has enabled Jeter to cheat to his left, but this effect didn't show up when Jeter played with Brosius, a superior defender.
Maybe sabermetrics has had an impact after all. In an e-mail to me on the subject, David Pinto wrote:
In the 1990's, I wrote a piece in one of the STATS Baseball Scoreboards
about Griffey's defense in center. He always ranked low in our zone
ratings. So I did a really detailed study of Griffey's zone ratings, and
the main thing I learned from it was that (this from memory, I should really
dig out the article) was that Griffey was basically letting his left and
right fielders make a lot of plays that other centerfielders normally make.
Griffey was being lazy, and not calling for every ball he could get (which
is a CF's job, after all). Griffey's zone ratings started going up after
that.
I like to speculate that we in the sabermetric community have an effect on
the game. It takes a long time, but every once in a while I see something
that says to me, "they're listening to us." I wonder if someone talked to
Griffey and told him to start going after more balls? And certainly Cashman
is smart enough to know that Jeter was a bad shortstop. Did he or Torre
find a way to confront Jeter with the numbers? Did all the talk of A-Rod
being a better shortstop get to him? I don't know, but between you and me,
I like to think these numbers had an effect.
I hope so. One thing is for sure: I haven't been this wrong about anything since I spent two days telling my brother that Scott Brosius had no chance whatsoever to get a hit off Byun-Hyun Kim in the 2001 World Series..or when I drank the sabermetric Kool-Aid and thought the Yankees should have traded Soriano instead of Jiminez in 2001 (true story: I got into this with Joe Sheehan at a BP Pizza Feed a couple of years ago)...or when I was convinced that Drew Henson would become a star...or when I thought that Ed Yarnall would be as good as Andy Pettite...
C - FINISH (OFF) WHAT YOU START
Much ink has been spilled / pixels have been displayed bemoaning the sub-par performance of the Yankee starters. Let me suggest a very simple explanation, and it doesn't have anything to do with the heart, fortitude, big-game ability, etc. of the departed starters from last year (whom we all love...sometimes, in Wells' case):
Last year, these were the strikeout ratios of the Yankee top four starters:
Name 2003 K/9
Clemens 9.0
Pettite 8.6
Mussina 9.1
Wells 4.7
Wells' was shockingly low, but the other 3 were very high and enabled the team to avoid its then-shaky defense.
Here are the 2003 ratios for the top four starters in today's Yankee rotation (not counting El Duque):
Name 2003 K/9
Mussina 9.1
Brown 8.8
Vazquez 10.4
Lieber 6.2 (from 2002)
Finally, here's how the current Yankee foursome has done this year:
Name 2004 K/9
Mussina 6.3
Brown 5.6
Vazquez 6.7
Lieber 4.6
Guys, take your pick: approach the performance of your 2003 predecessors, or what you did yourselves last year. Either one will do. Notwithstanding the team's improved defense, it seems to me that the #1 culprit in the starters' problems has been too few strikeouts. A far more strikeout-oriented staff was annihilated by Anaheim in the 2002 playoffs; with the Angels again among the league leaders in fewest batting strikeouts, I shudder to think of the butchery that might result if those two met again. (We'll get a preview in their series next week.)
D) THE GHOST OF MARIANO DUNCAN
A key part of the Yankees' 1996 championship season was the freakish performance of one Mariano Duncan, who seized the 2B job, hit .340 and slugged .500, and was annointed the "team leader" by the media because he bought some T-shirts with an inane slogan. When his "leadership" failed him the next season, along with his bat and glove, the Yankees turned to the lovable Luis Sojo, who - for the one time in his U.S. playing life other than the 2000 World Series - hit enough to actually be useful (.307 batting average, .355 OBP). When his season was ended in August by an errant fastball to the wrist, the Yankees traded for the slick-fielding Rey Sanchez, who completed the unholy trinity of flukish performances by hitting .312 with a .758 OPS. That off-season, the Yankees decided not to tempt fate a fourth time and traded for a then-legitimate star in Chuck Knoblauch. And all was well, until the first time he tried throwing to first base...
Apparently, the Yankees' deal with Mephistopheles contained an option clause.
While Enrique Wilson, unable to face Pedro Martinez every time out, has done his best to drag the Yankees' offense down, Miguel Cairo has drawn deserved plaudits for his performance. Even with a recent slump, Cairo's OPS is .756 - not great, but by comparison, Jeter's is .770 (see above re: his decrease in walks) and the departed Soriano's is .812 after a recent hot streak; he was almost even with Cairo for much of the season. And the Cairo-Wilson combination has been more than adequate defensively (better than Soriano). While I expect the Yankees to acquire a better 2B in the offseason, Cairo has enabled the team to focus on other areas for now. (Not necessarily improve those other areas - thank you, Arizona and the Yankees drafting personnel - but focus on them nonetheless.)
E) "MOST PUTRIFIED CORE"
Near the end of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Hector brings onstage a soldier he has newly killed and remarks:
Most putrified core so fair without,
Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.
As Professor Edward Tayler notes, one of the themes accentuated by the scene is the unnaturally rapid decay of the body in question.
Yankee fans could be forgiven for feeling Shakespearean over the performance of Bernie Williams this year, and not in an eloquent way. Like the rapidly decaying soldier slain by Hector, the descent of Williams from consistent All-Star has been shockingly sudden. It appears that he will not reach the level of 1996-2002 again. He can still help the team in a complementary role, which will probably be his station next year (if he's not traded). But the star player the Yankees had for almost a decade is probably gone, and that is sad. I'd still vote for him for the Hall of Fame, but I don't expect people who actually have the power to will do the same.
I just wanted to touch on a couple of items from the classic 13-inning game between the Yankees and Red Sox last month.
1) Since the game was played, I've been trying to think of a better regular season game I've seen. I officially give up.
2) For a political columnist, Bob Herbert is a great sportswriter. His NYT op-ed on the game indicates that he's in the wrong department:
By then the players on both sides seemed to have entered a special zone that transcended the rivalry of the two teams. They were locked in an extended competition played out at such a high level of skill and intensity that it conferred a kind of grace on all who participated, no matter who would end up losing.
That was one of the most amazing things about the game - the way the players on both sides dropped all pretense in extra innings, and combined an all-out effort to win the game with undisguised awe at what they were a part of. Except, of course, for the Red Sox's soon-to-be-former shortstop. It wasn't just the sitting out of a key game, or the contrasts with the great plays and efforts of his ancient rivals Jeter and A-Rod. It was the contrast vivdly portrayed by the TV cameras - his Red Sox teammates standing at the top step of the dugout, mouths uniformly agape for innings on end, while Nomar sat by himself on the bench, motionless and emotionless. Sometimes, the TV camera does not lie.
3) My brother had tickets to the game. He gave them away less than an hour before game time. The recipient has promised to name his first-born child after my brother. (Let's hope it's a boy.)
I noted the other day that the Toronto Blue Jays' disappointing season, despite J.P. Ricciardi's efforts that have been applauded by the sabermetrics community, threatens to turn that team into the center of the "Moneyball" wars.
[W]hat I want to know is why Moneyball GM's do such a poor job of hiring managers?
...Why do they go for teachers like Tosca, or player's managers like Francona, or people with a presence like Art Howe? Why don't they go for someone like Earl Weaver or Whitey Herzog or Davey Johnson, who basically agree with their philosophy of running a baseball team without being obvious about it? Are these GMs afraid to share the limelight with a strong manager?
Pinto makes a very good point: the managers of the "Moneyball" teams generally range from the mediocre, to the uninspired, to Grady Little. The only such manager I can think of that inspires any respect around the game is Bruce Bochy of the Padres, and that's only if you (a) count the Padres as a "Moneyball" team and (b) assume that the respect granted to Bochy is justified; I'm somewhat skeptical as to both.
I think there are a few factors at work here:
1) There almost certainly is a control-freak aspect at work; insofar as the "Moneyball" GMs feel they need to create a revolution against the entrenched interests in the organization, they feel a manager with any experience at all carries an unacceptable risk of becoming an independent power source. Sandy Alderson was quoted in damning detail on this point in Moneyball with respect to Art Howe. Though the sentiments are never put in Beane's mouth in such explicit fashion, the attitude one gets from reading Moneyball is that Beane feels that the best he can expect from a manager is a Hippocratic goal of "do no harm."
I don't agree with that attitude, assuming it exists. If you are in fact trying to overturn an organization's culture, proclaiming the changes from the top down is only one step towards that goal: you need agents of your program at many different levels making sure that the changes get carried out on every level. Billy Beane understands that; the A's are a model of implementing unified organizational strategy throughout the minor leagues. Why not have an agent of Beane-ball as manager, instead of settling for a cipher like Art Howe? I tried making this point - albeit not very well - some time ago in suggesting that Bobby Valentine might be a good match to manage a Billy Beane team. Justly criticized by David Pinto, my point was that a manager as smart, confident and open-minded as Valentine (or someone like him, with better people skills) would be capable of buying into the analytic program and pushing it forward in a way that an empty uniform like Art Howe could never do.
Incidentally, the team that seems to have best integrated their manager into the organizational philosophy is the Cleveland Indians, with Eric Wedge. I can understand that it would work best with a young, rebuilding team like the Indians, but if any Red Sox fans can explain how Francona helps advance the front office's agenda, I'd like to hear about it.
2) Generally, there are no managers in the game today with the self-confident desire to put their own stamp on the game (or, if you prefer, "egotistical enough to consider themselves strategic geniuses"). There are no Gene Mauchs, Earl Weavers or Whitey Herzogs managing today. Perhaps that fact feeds the feeling of Beane and his ilk that the most they can hope for out of a manager is an innocuous apparatchnik.
The last manager I can think of who really changed the game was Tony LaRussa, who bequeathed us the hyper-specialized, overloaded bullpen. Why aren't there any more like him? I can think of a few reasons (all of which are pure speculation):
a) There were never that many managerial geniuses in the old days either; the "old boys'" network was even more prevalent then.
b) The continuous increase of the media and national exposure for every game and team has increased the costs of dissenting from the conventional wisdom (i.e., a unique managerial strategy might be the lead story on Sportscenter every night).
c) The sabermetric revolution might have had some indirect effect, in that baseball people are now aware of outside sources of knowledge that go by the term "expertise." While they may not actually know what such expertise consists of, they understand that they can't go by their whims and call it expertise any longer.
UPDATE: Thinking about it more this morning, I realzed that the above omits one of the biggest reasons for the lack of larger-than-life managers today: evolution. The late Stephen Jay Gould's articles on evolutionary processes and the extinction of the .400 hitter are much loved by baseball analysts everywhere: to oversimplify into one sentence, his point is that the competitive pressures of the sport have, over time, reduced the differences between the best and worst players, making it that much more difficult to perform extraordinarily disproportionate feats like hitting .400. (I'm sure someone will tell me if I'm wrong. And as a digression, I think there's a good argument to be made that the last decade has seen some reversal of the Gould-identified phenomenon - there seems to be an increase in the extremes between the best and worst players and performances. But that's for another time, preferably reinforced by some real math.)
Red Sox fans might have trouble accepting this after last year's Game 7 debacle, but I think there's a good argument that today's worst managers are better than the worst managers of the past. There will always be those who can't handle the pressure or get along with people, but today's managers are unlikely to let their prize pitching prospect go for 175 pitches to build his toughness, or even do so with their grizzled rotation ace in order to save the bullpen. Nor will they bat the guy with the .290 OBP leadoff just because he has good speed, or sacrifice 130 times a year. And they probably won't see their primary job as teaching the youngsters how to "pound that Bud" either (though if it's Selig, it might not be a bad idea). Even the smart managers of today did some stupid things back then: not until his team defeated the Yankees in the 2003 World Series did certain sabermetrically-oriented Kansas City Royals fans forgive Jack McKeon for blowing out Steve Busby's arm (by having him throw about 9,000 pitches in a game when Busby was supposedly telling McKeon that his arm didn't feel right).
A final unscientific illustration of the point: Up to a couple of decades ago, a prevailing attitude among many managers went along the lines of "real men don't look at stats." (The last such manager, I think, was Dallas Green. A mutated version of this mindset survives among some recent managers who seem to confuse bunting with machismo, such as Don Baylor and Bob Brenly.) Today, the more common problem is managers who look at stats but don't know what to do with them - as in "I played Player A instead of Player B because Player A has good numbers against this pitcher; he's 2 for 3." (Yankee fans with memories for the ridiculously trivial may remember that Joe Torre used precisely this argument in playing Darryl Strawberry over Cecil Fielder in Game 1 of the 1996 ALDS. He's wized up since then.) I think that's progress.
The piece has already attracted some notoriety for a quote from Mrs. Cashman about how her husband might consider going to the Red Sox for his next job. But there are some more informative nuggets in the piece as well. A unique testimonial:
... Brian comes off as very humble, but he is one street-savvy motherfucker, says an admiring baseball agent. Those people who underestimate him in any wayhe will cut their throats.
A preview into how the Yankees are attempting to smarten up their organization:
Cashman has allies in his effort to smarten up the organization. The head of baseball operations, Mark Newman, recently came across a Financial Times story about the cutting-edge University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt. We e-mailed about some issues of mutual interest. As Steven explains it to me, game theory is about the interaction of competitors, whether in the marketplace or politically or on the athletic field, Newman says. We want to take advantage of a 200 IQ that happens to enjoy sports. We dont need to reinvent the wheel, but we need to ask questions. And Cashs brain works that way, too. The notion is a long way from being implemented, but the Yankees want to see if Levitts thinking can help steel its young, developing players against the pressures of performing in New York.
And a behind-the-scenes look at his workday:
Meanwhile, there are plenty of other issues. Cashman huddles with doctors diagnosing Giambis mysterious illness. He also fields complaints from players wives upset with their seat location. Another afternoon, Kevin Brown is insisting that a groundskeeper travel from the Bronx to Staten Island to manicure the pitching mound for Browns rehab stint. (Man, Brown is a perfectionist, says the groundskeeper. No, hes a prick, is what he is, snaps a Yankees coach.)
Here are some thoughts about the 2004 baseball season as we pass the 2/3 mark. This post is about the AL only; I will hopefully do a shorter piece on the NL later this week (or I may just do a series of shorter posts on specific teams).
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 dont 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 theres 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 dont have the book with me.) Im 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 Lucchinos infamous quote).
One other thing: Many people have noted that the Soxs 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. Lets look at the following comparisons:
YearYankees Pythagorean RecordRed Soxs Pythagorean Record
2004
(through August 5) 59-48 61-45
2003 96-66 94-68
2002 99-62 100-62
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 (itd be nice if, thanks to being rushed to the big leagues, Crawford and Baldelli wouldnt be eligible for free agency just as theyre hitting their primes but hey, you cant 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 dont have to tell Met fans which trade Im referring to)
Baltimore Orioles
Some short takes:
Miguel Tejada and Javy Lopez: Justifying their contracts, for now.
Palmeiro: Start the Cooperstown clock soon its 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 cant even criticize the Mets for trading him in 2000 not even the Orioles thought hed 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 hasnt 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 hes 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 hed 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 hasnt 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 hes 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), theyll 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, theyre 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.
Seriously, things dont 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
Theyre 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 theyre in Cleveland and their GM is neither a former employee of Billy Beane nor a current employer of Bill James, the organization hasnt attracted the attention it deserves as an analytically-run place. But its possible that no organization, except possibly the As, 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, lets 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. Theyve 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 Gods punishment of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:19: You are dust, and to dust you shall return. Ive lost track of the number of pitchers whove 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 dont think last years acquisition of Jose Guillen and this Junes acquisition of Octavio Dotel (with a 5.32 ERA for the As as of Friday) are the primary causes of the As annual second-half sprint. More research is needed.
Aside from the struggles of Barry Zito (Joe Sheehans prediction looks very good now, even if Ted Lilly hasnt set the world on fire either), the biggest story for the As in the national media will be: how will they self-destruct in the playoffs this time? Presumably, theyll 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 As 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 didnt anticipate) feeds the common confusion of correlation and causation i.e., their success will be attributed to the A-Rod trade, facts be damned (Sorianos 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 thats 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 thats 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 theres still hope.
That's certainly true now. I can't go too in-depth at this hour, but the deals from this year's trading deadline added another several reasons to the infinite list of why I'm glad to not be a Mets fan. Check out Sabermets for a classic (and spot-on) initial reaction to the trades and for a round-up of reactions from other Mets blogs. My condolences to Mets fans on the coup-d'etat of Steve Phillips - there's no more logical explanation.
I was always most impressed by Tillman's aversion to publicity about his decision. But would anyone capable of doing what he did be doing so for the publicity?
Honestly, I had always assumed he was no longer alive. It's too bad he apparently dislikes giving interviews; wouldn't it be great to hear him reminisce more often about catching Walter Johnson ? Kudos to Bill Madden for the catch.
Alex Belth has been on a roll lately, with a massive selection of Yankee preview special posts. But over the weekend, he outdid himself with a four-part roundtable discussion featuring 14 star bloggers and sportswriters. Here's the first part. But do read every part of it.
My latest hiatus was, of course, the only reason Alex didn't ask me to participate. But I can provide my own answers to Alex's questions to you, my loyal readers. As a fellow Riverdalian, I'm sure Alex won't mind.
Alex's questions to his panel are in bold, and my answers/predictions are not.
Will Joe Torre be fired during the 2004 season? If so, when? If he is canned, who will replace him? Will Torre ever manage the Red Sox?
Torre won't be fired. It is difficult to imagine a scenario where the team would be eliminated from postseason consideration before the end of the season, and even if they're on the bubble as the season winds down, even George will be mindful of the risks in replacing Torre with a new manager while the team is fighting for a playoff spot. (If they don't make it, he will certainly not return next year.)
I don't see Torre managing the RedSox. I don't see him signing onto a system where the front office has such definite ideas about how to use the roster (not that Torre couldn't use the help sometimes, but never mind).
The arrival of Alex Rodriguez brings with it plenty of potential for controversy. The biggest issue of course is who should play shortstop? Though the Yankees don't have any intentions of moving Jeter right now, who do you think should play shortstop for the Yankees?
Across town, Mike Piazza has been the victim of a year-long roast by the NY media for showing insufficient enthusiasm for moving out from behind the plate, notwithstanding the fact that neither Pudge nor Posada were waiting in the Shea wings. Assuming Jeter is in fact so bitterly opposed to changing positions, why should he receive less criticism?
Nobody short of Suzyn Waldman denies the fact that A-Rod is the better shortstop. And this isn't first base; the difference between a good SS and a bad one is substantial. What kind of message is sent when one player's preference takes precedence over what's much, much better for the team?
Some baseball observers are more offended that A Rod--the better defensive player, and perhaps the best shortstop since Honus Wagner--will be asked to move positions than they are that he's joined the Yankees. Jeter is famous as a team-first player. Do you think he would ever consider moving positions, ala Chipper Jones, if it helps the team? If he doesn't, how could that change his image? In addition, what position do you think would best suit Jeter's talents?
I will assume that Jeter would move if asked, until proven otherwise. I still believe that Jeter will come up with a mysterious "injury" that has little impact on his offensive game but necessitates his move to 3B during the year. Torre & the gang are good with such face-saving injuries.
I see the argument that Jeter would not do well at 3B due to his slow reaction time. Nevertheless, I'd hide him there this year, because there's no OF spot for him now and a bad 3B will hurt the Yankees less than an bad SS. (This is especially true now that the Yankees have no lefthanded starter - especially a groundball one like Andy Pettite. And I'm on the record as suggesting the 3B move over a year ago.) After this year, I'd move him to CF, as suggested by several members of the Belth panel.
There has been a wide gap in the perception of Jeter's defense. Now that the Yankees have a superior defensive option on their roster, will the perception of Jeter's defensive reputation change?
I think the perception of Jeter's defense - always poor in the sabermetric community - had already begun to change in the larger community since the 2002 debacle against the Angels, when Jeter's glove clearly helped cost the Yankees the series. The fact that most journalists are admitting that A-Rod is better will only speed the change in perception. He can't stay at SS for long once the general perception of his defense catches up to the reality and there's a better option 50 feet away.
How much better is the Yankees bullpen this season than it was in 2003?
Better, but not by as much as people think. Assuming Gordon is healthy, Torre will not be afraid to use him. That will be the biggest change & benefit. However, Karsay is unlikely to do anything in the first half or so. I predict a massive return to earth for Felix Heredia, and Gabe White will probably have taterrific streaks which Torre may or may not allow him to work through. (Bet on "not.") More importantly, unless the Yankees get Jeter off SS and import a 2B who can catch the ball, I think Quantrill (one of the most extreme groundball pitchers in the majors) will be in the same boat as Chris Hammond was last year - pitching fairly decently but not living up to exaggerated expectations, and losing Torre's confidence as a result. And we all know what happens to relievers who lose Torre's confidence.
Will the Yankees sign Mariano to a contract extension before the end of the 2004 season? And should they?
Probably and probably - the latter because while he wouldn't be a good bet to maintain effectiveness to the end of his extension, the Yankees can afford virtually anything and his October magic is a marginal benefit that is worth the risk to this team. (I think the numbers on the extension will likely be around those proposed by Joe Sheehan, with the down market for players generally and closers particularly.)
Who will have the better season: Pettitte or Vasquez? Clemens or Brown?
Caterwauling by certain bloggers aside, Vasquez is almost certain (barring injury) to have a better season than Pettite. The Brown - Clemens question is wholly dependent on the pitchers' relative health. If equally healthy, Brown will be much better than Clemens. But my guess is that Brown will be hurt more than Clemens and contribute less as a result.
[D]ifferences of context league and park and supporting personnel make the answer dependent on more than the merits of each pitcher. What I think youre really trying to ask is, Did the Yankees make the right choices here? Vazquez is already a better pitcher than Pettitte and should remain so, but thats only germane if the choice was Vazquez or Pettitte, which it wasnt. Whether letting Pettitte go will depend on whether the teams estimate of his short-term injury future is accurate, and we wont know that for awhile. Clemens or Brown wasnt a choice either, and what he does vs. Brown is not at all relevant to the sitch in the Bronx.
Goldman is right: there's a good argument that the best combination the Yankees could have had of these three pitchers would've been Vasquez and Pettite. And if they could've done the Weaver-for-Brown swap in addition to those choices, then the Red Sox would have little chance. But it wasn't to be...
Will Mike Mussina win 20 games? If not, will he at least win 15 games again? How close is Mussina to being a Hall of Famer?
All caveats about the foolishness of the pitcher's "win" stat apply here. That said, given Mussina's health record and the likely strength of the Yankee offense, he is as reliable a bet to win 15 as there is in the game. You'd think he should win 20 one of these years, so why not now?
As for the Hall, I would absolutely vote for Mussina, and he'll have a good historical case if he has a few good years. However, the voting standards for starting pitchers seem to have toughened up noticeably in recent years (it seems to practically be a requirement to win 300 games), so I don't think he'll have much of a case unless both fo the following occur: (a) he uses the Yankees' bats to have a 24-4 season or the like, and (b) the Yankees win at least one Series with him pitching well. If either of those do not occur, I think he'll face an unjustified tough time from the BBWAA.
Do you see Jose Contreras as the x-factor in the Yankees starting rotation?
Brown is the much bigger X-factor, because of his exceptional quality and equally exceptional health issues (as Tom Verducci points out). I personally am not especially worried about Lieber; according to Will Carroll, he was ready to pitch last year and has had an extra winter to rest. I expect he'll hold up the back end of the rotation just fine. If Brown and Contreras can make 60 starts between them, the Yankees should win the division easily. I don't expect that they will.
How do you think Bernie Williams will adapt to being a designated hitter? Will Kenny Lofton's presence distract him or inspire him? How close is Williams to being a Hall of Famer? What does he need to do to qualify?
I think being a DH will be great for Williams, as it will take pressure off his knees and likely increase his hitting production. The biggest problem with him being a DH is the according necessity to have Jason Giambi in the field, with his own physical problems. Lofton's presence already seems to have inspired Williams; I doubt it will be a problem as the season goes on.
I think Williams is already a Hall of Famer, but he is unlikely to be elected by the BBWAA because of his diffuse skills and accomplishments. It is unlikely he will reach the fashionable counting milestones, but he's been better than many other players who did or will. If he has a hitting renaissance and the Yankees win another couple of championships, that might help his cause.
Theo Epstein and Billy Beane are the two most celebrated general managers in the game right now. Is there any doubt that Brian Cashman belongs in their company?
I think it's way too premature to rank Epstein in that category, though he's certainly moving up there. But whatever qualifications are due to Cashman's record due to the diffused responsibilities in the Yankee front office and their cash reserves are more than balanced out by the overall consistency and record of good moves. There's some doubt, but not much. (For what it's worth, I get the sense that the Baseball Prospectus guys talk to Cashman regularly and that he understands sabermetrics more than he lets on - meaning he's already savvier than Epstein, in that he knows enough not to let the media know what he knows.)
The Yankees have a gruff edge this season with the additions of Kevin Brown, Sheffield and Kenny Lofton. Some observers look at this team as a far cry from the Paul O'Neill Yankees. Will the new attitude help or hurt the team?
I won't bother discussing how (with the exception of the 1979 Pirates) the 1970s seemed to prove that "chemistry" was a handicap in trying to win a championship, or how Paul O'Neill was Kevin Brown with better PR. I'll instead refer to a not-quite-masterpiece of NY sports literature, The Worst Team Money Can Buy, an account of the ill-fated 1992 Mets. Aside from being an almost immediate anachronism (as the 1993 version of the team would surpass its predecessor in every category of ignominy, including losses, reporters squirted with bleach and firecrackers thrown at fans), the authors (Bob Klapisch and John Harper, then as now major NY sportswriters) made an argument that looks fairly foolosh now. I can't quote as my copy of the book is in storage, but the authors argue that a fair helping of nastiness, unpleasantness and "*^&$-you" attitude is essential to winning a World Series in NY, using the Bronx Zoo and brawling, boozing & (free-)basing 1986 Mets as proof. Maybe that particular foolish argument is due for a renaissance, replacing the equally foolish argument about how the Yankees' supposed recent harmony was the basis for their championships.
From a writer's viewpoint, is this the most interesting Yankee team since the Bronx Zoo days of the late seventies?
From a non-(professional) writer's standpoint, I think this team is far more interesting. Not just because I was a small child during the late 1970s. As previously discussed, this team is engaged in a fascinating economic experiment - attempting to use its monetary advantages and the inefficiencies of the current market to fight against the encroaching rot from within (the barren farm system & aging of core players). They're trying to fight Bill James' famous "treadmill." And if they fail, it is a bloodier repeat of 1964 or 1981. The dynasty - and a way of doing business - hangs in the balance. Personally, I find that more interesting than whether the players hate the manager. But what do I know? I'm not a sportswriter.
What are you looking forward to about the 2004 Yankees? And what are you dreading about them?
Looking forward...to Vasquez emerging as the star he already is, to (hopefully) Giambi and Williams arresting their declines, to A-Rod and Sheffield performing their magic in pinstripes, to every comeback win, every Boston game and every Mariano appearance...for starters.
Dreading...the possibility of Brown, Contreras, Giambi, Williams, Gordon and Mariano all being on the DL at the same time, and the realization that due to their barren farm system, the Yankees can do nothing to fill those holes.
Do you think the Yankees will get into a bench-clearing brawl during the regular season?
If Brown and Pedro match up, the over/under should be the 3rd inning.
****
And here are a couple of questions I though of, so I'll ask myself:
Who will be playing second base for the Yankees by midseason?
Whichever of Edgardo Alfonzo or Ray Durham the Giants are more willing to dump. I am personally hoping for Alfonzo. Yes, he's probably "29" in El Duque years and has no power left, but he still has a good OBP and is an excellent defensive 2B, and that's all they need. Plus, the ex-Met factor is too tempting for the deal not to happen; every hour of caterwauling on the "Mike & the Mad Dog" show is worth another few thousand tickets. Which leads into...
Who will be the starting pitcher acquired by the Yankees in midseason?
Al Leiter, assuming he doesn't suddenly collapse. He's a lefty and still throws reasonably hard with good breaking pitches, which will be an asset against David Ortiz and Trot Nixon (the only real problem with the Yankees not having a lefty starter). As an old pitcher on a bad contract (and a no-trade, I believe), he can probably be had cheaply (and he will almost certainly waive his no-trade for a chance at the World Series without leaving home). And Jim Duquette has (properly) not been afraid to trade with the Yankees. And this trade will drive the Mad Dog through the roof - it'll be great listening. I know Met fans would prefer to send Glavine (who has "the advantage of sucking," as well-put by a Met fan correspondent) to the Yankees, but no such luck.
We are dealing with something perhaps mentioned in economic textbooks but rarely encountered in real life: an entity with infinite financial resources. Not literally, of course, but when the Yankees are willing and able to spend twice as much as any other team, the practical differences between the hypothetical and the reality are slight. And where the Yanks formerly had advantages over other teams in brainpower and a deep farm system, those have, respectively, eroded (due to the spread of Beane-ball-think) and withered away to nothingness (thanks to trades and bad drafting). So the Yankees have had to rely on their financial advantages more than ever. Fortunately for them, the current marketplace is presenting unique benefits to such financial advantages.
The A-Rod deal exposes certain ramifications of the Yankees' exclusive financial status:
1) A year ago, Will Carroll wrote that as other teams learned not to throw millions of dollars at relievers, non-star regulars and other unworthies, the Yankees' financial dominance would cease to be a competitive advantage and might even begin to work against them. (He wrote this in the Yankees' 2003 "Team Health Report" for Baseball Prospectus; I'd link to the piece, which you wouldn't be able to read anyway without a subscription, if BP's website archives had been updated since the beginning of 2003. Guys?)
It sounded plausible, and may yet prove accurate in the long term. But in the short term, the effect of the Yankees' financial exclusivity has been exactly the opposite of what Carroll predicted. As his BP colleague Joe Sheehan pointed out even before the A-Rod deal:
The willingness the Yankees have to assume contracts is such a huge advantage over just about every other team in baseball that any hole that develops, they can probably fill. It actually doesn't matter. If George Steinbrenner decides he wants to go out and assume a contract, he can fill a hole, even if Jeter goes down, Soriano, Posada, the Lofton/Williams platoon in centerfield. I honestly think that we may be seeing a perpetual success machine... I now realize money simply isn't going to be an object. With so many teams willing to give up contracts regardless of the talent they get back, the Yankees are in a great position.
In a market that is a) deflationary and b) characterized by teams that are unwilling/unable to spend money on players, there is no shortage of contracts that seemed reasonable when signed, and where the players are actually delivering value, but the teams nevertheless are looking to dump (or, in the case of free agents, feel unable to pay in the first place). In that market, the team free of such financial constraints is king.
And if the Yankees really have no financial constraints, then financial efficiency becomes irrelevant - value added on the field is the only concern.
2) The problem with building a team solely through free agents has nothing to do with "chemistry" or some other virtuous benefit imparted via the farm system. The problem is that historically, most players who hit the free-agent market are on the downside of their careers, and thus are unlikely to be valuable parts of a championship team several years after their signing. And historically, star players in or approaching their prime are rarely available via trade.
But things change. What if, due to financial straits (self-imposed or otherwise), stars in or approaching their prime are widely available via trade or free agency to anyone willing to pay the freight? From the a) perspective of a team that has the wherewithal to acquire such players and b) needs to win now due to existing age concerns, which is a riskier strategy - trying to develop new stars through the farm system, with the according uncertainty risks, or acquire those players who are already stars yet are likely to retain their value? The Yankees have turned their only good young players into...players who are just about as young (exactly so, in the A-Rod / Soriano case), but much better. And Vlad the 28-Year-Old-Impaler was also available.
A commenter on Baseball Crank opined that "it's as if Steinbrenner uses the majors as his own farm teams." That's exactly right. Another way of putting it is that the Yankees are outsourcing player development to the other teams - they're letting those teams take the risks of developing stars in the belief that they can obtain such stars, once developed, at less risk.
No, I don't like it either. But I can't say it's irrational, given the system and the Yankees' current needs. (And one could also blame the unwillingness of other clubs to spend past the luxury tax threshhold. But I digress.) And more importantly, it might even work (as Sheehan pointed out). Bill James famously compared the Yankees of the late 80s to a team on a treadmill, constantly buying short-term solutions due to their inability to produce younger replacements from the farm system (or to trust the potential replacements that were produced). Most people assume the problem was in the buying itself, but the real issue was with the products bought. If the Yankees can buy stars aged 26-28 rather than 33-35, the war with the treadmill may be won. I'm still skeptical for the long term, but hope to be proven wrong.
Since the Boston deal fell through, I've been predicting the Yanks would get A-Rod. I never put it on the blog, but I have e-mail proof.
It was just too perfect to not happen:
1) A few years ago, I was in Hong Kong for a Shabbat. The synagogue there is affiliated with a communit center massively well-endowed by certain philanthropists from about a century ago. That kind of financial freedom enables it to do strange things, such as what was recounted in the following story I heard that weekend: Apparently some VIP from the synagogue was away for the summer, and someone from Israel had been retained to serve in his stead. The Israeli imports were supposed to stay at the VIP's home, which was vacant except for the VIP's housekeeper. Said housekeeper was apparently unhappy about the prospect of other people staying in the home, and made her unhappiness well-known. Rather than trying to negotiate a solution with the housekeeper, the synagogue decided it was more efficient to rent hotel accomodations for the Israelis. For the entire summer. In a not-especially-cheap hotel.
Questions of "value" and "efficiency" are answered differently by the massively-wealthy than by you and me. If you want to move Captain Derek "Mr. Clutch" Jeter off his beloved shortstop position - a move which virtually all objective observers believe should happen sooner rather than later - you might try raising the matter frontally (and simultaneously raise a ring-counting storm) and then worrying about whom to replace him with. Or, you might go for the only politically correct way to do so: introduce him to his more expensive former friend. If you have the resources for the latter...
2) More on this later, but the Yankees have positioned themselves as the Option of Last Resort for teams looking to dump large contracts. That position enables the Yanks to drive a better bargain than might otherwise be apparent. As has been noted, the Yankees are adding less than $2 million in salary for this year with A-Rod, and they sold almost $5 million in tickets in the few days after acquiring Rodriguez. They can not only afford A-Rod, but can turn him into further profits.
3) Finally, who can underestimate the "sticking it to the Red Sox" factor? While it is true that A-Rod probably only improves the Yankees by a couple of games over Soriano (especially if A-Rod doesn't remain at SS), those couple of games might be the difference between the two teams. And that's to say nothing of the satisfaction gained by evoking reactions like the following:
My favorite phone call came from my buddy Hench, who was attending a wedding back East. When someone casually told him the news, poor Hench was done for the rest of the reception. His legs buckling under him, he stepped outside for fresh air, pacing in 30-degree weather like a maniac, finally leaving a 90-second message on my machine that featured 20 swears, three tirades and a climactic 10-letter expletive about Gene Orza. Happy Valentine's Day.
The last time so many factors lined up this conveniently, Roger Clemens became a Yankee. It was easy to predict a similar result this time.
It's now time to rationally assess the Yankees' winter, as opposed to previous emotional squeals. It's a lot easier to do so after the A-Rod acquisition, but that's far from the whole story.
With the exception of the Kenny Lofton signing, every move the Yankees made this winter was at least defensible from a baseball standpoint. Assuming health (more on that later), Vazquez and Brown will probably surpass Pettite and Clemens' performance. Even the choice of Sheffield over Vlad the Impaler can be defended on purely baseball grounds (most notably by Lee Sinins in his e-mail newsletter), even aside from the relative injury risks of the two. And I hated to lose Nick Johnson, but: a) barring a discovery of the Paul Molitor Fountain of Health, it's reasonable to assume that he'll never be healthy enough to play a full season, and b) the team could hardly obtain a better yield than Vazquez. And emotionally, good riddance to David Wells. (Logically is another story, as discussed below.)
As Billy Beane might say, the problem is in the aggregate. The net result of the Yankees' moves - even including the A-Rod heist - is to accentuate certain vulnerabilities in a fairly predictable way. The age factor is the most obvious, but the injury and defensive factors are more important.
1) The loss of Johnson means that Giambi will be asked to play first base regularly on his disintegrating knee (and it's unlikely that Travis Lee will be enough of an inducement to Torre to give Giambi the rest he needs) - which is not likely to help matters.
2) It's clear that the Yankees believed Pettite's elbow is unlikely to hold up over the length of his contract. They have a fairly good record with such predictions (see: Jack McDowell, Jimmie Key - but Jeff Nelson defied such doomsaying), but Kevin Brown is not exactly a better bet, health-wise. And the loss of Wells means that for now, the Yankees do not have a reliable extra starter for the inevitable injuries to Brown or other starters. (They are already getting scared over a groin injury to Jon Lieber and a back injury to Jose Contreras.)
3) And not to beat a long-dead horse, but with the addition of Brown, Quantirll and Lieber, the Yankees need infielders who can field the grounders those pitchers will yield. Yet as Steven Goldman wrote before the A-Rod deal, the Yankee infielders "don't view fielding grounders as part of their job." And putting a Gold Glove shortstop at 3B while leaving one of the worst-fielding shortstops in baseball at SS won't help matters. Do the Yanks have a defense attorney on staff for when Kevin Brown tries to assault the captain after a few grounders "past a diving Jeter for a base hit?"
Yet these problems could be solved. I expect both El Duque and Al Leiter to be on the Yankees before too long (more on the latter later). And the inevitable switch of Jeter and A-Rod (which I still think will come before year's end), couple with the team's likely acquisition of a good-fielding second baseman, will help the infield defense enough. And have we mentioned that the Yankees have A-Rod?
Excellent Sporting News hockey columnist Kara Yorio begins a midseason report, "Attention football fans and baseball hot stove enthusiasts: You've missed half an NHL season."
Thanks for the update, Kara. And we're about to miss another half. Wake us when the playoffs start and the games mean something.
This one doesn't upset me nearly as much as the earlier edition. I never truly believed Clemens was retired in the first place; those who go out on a level as high as Clemens did rarely resist the temptation to come back. Had Pettite resigned with the Yankees, I'd have expected a Cleme
