The Truth (not really) Behind the Tom Gamboa Attack!

In an apparent bout of uncontrollable frustration over custody battles with his ex-wife, Tommy Lee was arrested for charging onto the field during the ninth inning at Comiskey Park last night and attacking Royals first base coach Tom Gamboa. Lee was led off the field in handcuffs.



Lee was accompanied onto the field by a 15-year old son that no one knew he had, evidently by former wife Heather Locklear, to whom he was married during the late 80's and early 90's. His son participated in the beat-down of the 54-year old coach, who had his back turned to the fans (much like the owners and players during the recent labor battles). Kansas City's bench and bullpen emptied and thoroughly pummeled Lee and son until security personnel were able to get to the pair and escort them from the field. This represents the first time in several years that the Royals' bullpen had succeeded in defending something late in a game.

As I mentioned a few days ago, Jose Hernandez is about to break the single season-strikeout record, held by Bobby Bonds with 189 in 1970, as well as the two year record, also held by the Elder Bonds, with an additional 187 in 1969. He managed to hold off last night, much to the dismay of the Milwaukee crowd, as the AP recap tells us:

Brewers shortstop Jose Hernandez went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, moving within one of the single-season record of 189 set by Bobby Bonds in 1970. He had two strikes in his last at-bat and the crowd of 16,349 [Ed's note: Nice ballpark, Bud. Big draw.] at Miller Park began cheering in anticipation.

"I thought it was really disappointing to watch our fans do that to Jose Hernandez," Royster said. "To an All-Star, that was very disappointing. Our fans have been pretty darn good. I haven't had anything bad to say. But for them to stand up and cheer in hopes that he might strike out, I hate to see what would have happened had he struck out. They may have given him a standing ovation."

They probably would have, Jerry, and rightfully so! They probably were cheering for him to strike out, not because they think he's a jerk or they want him to fail, but because they want to see history! I mean, come on, what else is there worth going to Miller park to watch? The Brewers are awful, Houston's all but out of the race, nobody's ever heard of most of the people on Milwaukee's lineup card. Are people going to tell their grandkids that they sat in a Uecker seat or watched the sausage race? Nobody cares about that stuff. Hernandez is making history, even if it is a dubious distinction. If you don't give the fans a team worth watching, then don't blame them for being excited about the only significant event to happen to the Brewers all year.

Besides, it's not all that bad. Hernandez is still having a decent year, with 24 homers and the best OPS among qualified NL shortstops. And it's not like he's in bad company on that list: Bobby Bonds, Cecil Fielder, Jim Thome, Mo vaughn, Jay Buhner, Rob Deer, Mike Schmidt...pretty good company. But apparently Royster is more concerned about his player's fragile little ego than he is about beating the 'Stros, as he's not starting Hernandez in thie afternoon's game. It seems that Bill "Your Guess is as Good as Mine" Hall will be starting in his stead. That gives today's Milwaukee lineup exactly one player with more than 35 RBI. Maybe they should be emulating the Devil Rays?

I have just lost all respect for Tim Kurkjian as a baseball analyst. Well, maybe not all respect. I used to really like him, because he often seemed insightful and passionate, and also because he kinda looks like a geek, which means I can relate to him (whereas Rob Dibble and Mike McFarlane look like the kinda guys who would have picked on me in middle school). But Monday, on the Tony Kornheiser Show, he was asked a question by Tony about why the Red Sox have as poor a record as they do despite the presences of Pedro, Derek Lowe, Manny Ramirez, Nomar, etc. And I thought, “Run differential, bad luck, Pythagorean Expected Record, and that sort of thing..." but nope, Tim must have been reading from the Joe Morgan Guide to Completely Misunderstanding Baseball Statistics, as he promptly explained to Tony that the Red Sox have a “terrible bullpen” [editor’s note:13-21, 4.36 ERA, 46/59 Saves], and a terrible record in one-run games that indicates to him that “they don’t quite know how to win just yet.” He then said something to the effect of “If you look, all great teams have a winning record in one-run games and all bad teams have a losing record in one-run games, but the Red Sox are the opposite…” or some such crap [Ed's note: 12-20]. This is blatantly untrue and patently ridiculous, and it’s unfortunate that Tony Kornheiser or whomever is the host of the particular show does not know/care enough to take someone to task for saying something so irresponsible.

Actually, their bullpen would be better defined as “mediocre” than terrible, as their ERA is 8th in the AL and their record is better than those of several teams. The problem is that their bullpen is not better than any of the contenders in the AL, all of whose bullpens have a lower ERA than Boston and a winning record. So the other contenders are not giving away games, and the Red Sox are. The Sawx seem to have "remembered how to win" more often than half of the teams in the AL, with 86 and counting, though they apparently had…..had…..um…..AMNESIA!... about 66 times and therefore lost. They have done well in spite of their bullpen, because their starters have been pretty good to great (3.55 ERA, 1st in AL), and they have hit well (803 runs, 3rd in AL).

Despite this, Pedro has not been healthy all year, and after Pedro, Lowe and sometimes Wakefield, they haven't gotten much out of their starters. Nomar has been pretty darn good all year, but not as fantastic as he was a few years ago, and so their failings are being partly blamed on him, despite his having played almost every game, hitting over .310, and driving in over 110 runs. Manny hasn't been healthy all year, and those who have have either been mediocre (Daubach, Nixon, Varitek all hitting about .260), terrible (Tony Clark) or inconsistent (Johnny Damon: .308, 22 SB Pre All-Star, .253, 7 SB since, Hillenbrand 13 HR Pre-All-Star, 4 HR since).

Yes, their mediocre bullpen has contributed to their poor record in one-run games. Yes, their poor record in one-run games has contributed to their overall record being insufficient to make the postseason. But no, this isn't an issue of "knowing how to win" or an issue of doing better in one-run games. Bill James recently did some research on the nature and effects of one-run game records, which I hope to read in its entirety soon. But in the article he gives several examples of lousy teams with great one-run records and vice-versa, thereby automatically disqualifying Kurkjian's comments, if they weren't already discredited by the fact that the Yankees are only 18-19 in one-run games this year, despite what is considered a pretty good bullpen.

Boston's bullpen has not been the only reason they are not winning more, but it's sure not helping. The lesson here is not "you must play well in one-run games to get into the playoffs" the lesson is "if your bullpen isn't going to be very good, you need to clobber the opponents with offense". That way there won't be as many close games for the bullpen to blow, and when there are, you have a chance to come back.

To your left, The Babe's stoic visage represents my newest link, Bambino's Curse, a witty and well written (both HUGE understatements) blog about the 8-games-from-relevance Red Sox. Anyone creative enough to draw an analogy between the natives on Gilligan's Island and Boston sportswriters, or between bad luck and the Greek gods from Clash of the Titans, deserves a link, even if he doesn't link back to me.

I have added two more links to the page, one on the left and one on the right. This way your monitor won't begin to tip to one side every time you visit my page. (That would suck.) The one on the right, heavyhitter.com, has an entire mole of links to other baseball sites, hopefully including mine soon. You can go there and vote for my site, if you like, to get it ranked higher or something, once it's listed. No, you don't win anything if you can hit the moving ball, but it sure looks cool, huh?

The second site, America's Pastime, is deceptively titled, as it is not simply about having sex, but also about baseball and the St. Louis Cardinals in particular. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure there was much of anything sexual on the page. Lousy trick, y'know? Unfortunately, his server is slow or something, so the link image may not load or you may have trouble loading the page, but I imagine that Charlie will get that straightened out soon. If he does, and if you like the Cardinals, then you may want to check him out. Not bad.

Stark, Others Grasping at Straws

David Pinto has an article about the AL MVP race from a few days ago in which he comments on Jayson Stark's article on ESPN. Stark, just like Dan Patrick, Dave Campbell, Peter Gammons, Bob Klapisch, Phil Donohue and Dr. Joyce Brothers, thinks that Alex Rodriguez should not be named the MVP because he plays on a bad team, and that therefore Miguel Tejada should be MVP. Pinto uses Bill James' new metric, Win Shares, to debunk this argument, and it is convincing if you believe in those. As I have not yet had the chance to read the book, I'll hafta take his word for it. However, by virtually any other rational and reasonably encompassing statistical measure, Rodriguez has been the better player of the two, and probably the best player in the league. The best Stark can come up with in Tejada's defense is, "Through Thursday, Tejada had more hits, more doubles, fewer strikeouts and a higher batting average [editor's note: by .001 on 9/16] than A-Rod. Second only to A-Rod in RBI." To which we should all reply, "So what?" A-Rod leads Tejada in HR (by 24!), RBI (14), runs (15), walks (39!), Steals, OBP, SLG, OPS, total bases (62!), extra base hits, runs created, RC/27outs, Range Factor, goals scored, touchdowns, penalty minutes, 3-point shooting %, hot dogs eaten....well, you get the point.

The question is not whether or not Alex Rodriguez is the best player. Everyone knows he is. Jayson Stark is wasting his time and insulting your intelligence if he tries to convince you otherwise. The question is whether he should be considered for MVP given that he's not on a "contender". Pinto and Rob Neyer have made the point that the team really isn't that bad, but that it would be horrible with a replacement-level SS (not to mention that nobody'd ever go to see a game). I think the question of value can be dealt with using a simple analogy:

You are the proprietor of a jewelry shop. You have a modest establishment, selling mostly stuff that working class people can afford. Nice, but not too froofy or expensive. However, you have one, very expensive diamond, worth $1 million . It's your drawing card, what gets people to come to your shop, so they can gawk at it and then buy less expensive jewelry. The rest of your inventory isn't worth ten grand. Your competition, across the street, has no such draw, but he does carry a lot of nice jewelry, and he has a necklace with a $50,000 sapphire in it, which is his most expensive piece. His total inventory is worth $10 million. Is the value of the most expensive piece in your competition's collection somehow higher because it's supporting cast is better? Well, maybe a little higher than it would be on it's own, but there's really no competition about which is the most valuable piece (MVP) of jewelry on the block. If you both get robbed, he'll collect insurance and get more inventory, but you're screwed, because that piece was irreplaceable.

A-Rod is one of a kind. And he's about to get robbed, too.

"Records are Made to be Broken..."

Taking a look at some of the scores and events from the last few days, I see that Anaheim has broken its franchise record for wins in a season, with 94 and counting. This is cool, I guess, though it's not exactly as though they have some great tradition to look back upon. The cooler part is that they may win their division for the first time since 1986, and only the third time in their history (the other was 1979, under Jim "I'll-just-sit-here-and-you-guys-go-hit-home-runs" Fregosi). Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling have become the only teammates to each strikeout 300 batters in the same season. Also, by Wednesday night, it is likely that Barry Bonds will have broken his age-old (age=1 year) record of 177 walks in a season, as he already has 176. Omar "cabbage-patch" Daal is pitching for the Dodgers tomorrow night, but he's only walked Bonds twice in 31 career appearances. Kevin Brown, on the other hand is pitching Wednesday, and has walked Bonds 12 times in 48 PA, and isn't what you'd call "sharp" right now to begin with. Also, in a somewhat more dubious category, Jose Hernandez is likely to break Bobby Bonds' record of 189 strikeouts in a season, as he's sitting on 186. At least it doesn't seem like Brewers' manager Jerry Royster is going to sit him as Preston Wilson was sat for the last few games in 2000, while he had 187.

I did a little math as I noticed that Barry Bonds' BA had climbed to .375 the other day, to see about the chances of him hitting .400 for the season. No dice. He'd hafta go something like 26 for 37 (~.705) to do it. Maybe next year.

As the more observant of you will have noticed, there are several more links to your left, and one to your right, all to other baseball blogs and/or sites. I have been unashamedly prostituting myself out, hoping not just to bring you, my faithful reader, some more material with which you may wile away the minutes of your short life, but also to bring myself....well, more faithful readers. I have provided these links for the reader's benefit, but also for my own, hoping that these benevolent folk will return the favor. This, I imagine, is somewhat like your 5-year old son offering to "help pay" for your dinner by giving you some of his allowance, but hey, whatever works, right?

Nevertheless, I have done the research and all of these sites are quality baseball sites, in some respect or another. And now, without further ado, my brief takes on each of the new additions:



If Ducksnorts were a lousy website, I might have put it up there anyway, just because of the title. But it's snot. Geoffrey Young writes about the Padres, baseball in general, and....beer! I like him already. A very thorough website, encompassing minor leage affiliates as well. Less cynical and complaining than many of the blogs out there, including mine.



Celia Tan is a professional writer, just giving her services away, to unworthy peasants like you and me. Her site is more of a journal than a blog, with links to some women-oriented sites. Quality, not so much quantity. She's away right now, so use the opportunity to catch up on her back articles.



TwinsGeek is a blog about Minnesota sports, not just baseball. This is one of those more cynical sites I mentioned earlier, but it's also well written and funny. Even has monthly "grades" and positional evaluations within the Twinkies' organization.



Baseball Junkie is evidently newly redesigned, though I never saw the old one. It includes articles about major, minor and even semi-pro league baseball, statistical analysis, and even has opportunities for discussion and such.



Despite the title, Four Aces is not about the Yankees' postseason starting rotation. It's about the Red Sox, Padres, and anything else he sees fit to discuss. I'm particularly impressed by the fact that he's got an article about umpiring tendencies, which would be a great thing to study, unless of course it turned out that there actually were some measurable biases. That might suck. Then the damn BBWAA would be able to blame yet another thing for why the best player in the AL should not be officially dubbed its MVP.

Elephants in

As a Blogspot hosted site, Elephants in Oakland does not have its own logo yet, so I had to screw around and make one, sorta. They don't really need one though, as the insightful and thorough writing about one of the best-run teams around, if not the best, is enough to draw my attention.

Digressions on Baseball is another good site without its own logo, but also worth reading. I think I forgot to write to Misha Berkowitz to ask for a reciprocal link, but I'll do it tomorrow. Does not write nearly as often as some, but when he does its usually worth reading.

I have also added Baseball News Blog above Rob Neyer's smiling visage, on the right. This is a website that finds the best of the news, quotes, and analysis out there on the web from the more mainline sites as well as blogs like mine and boils them all down to the few you really wanted to read in the first place.

OK, I think the Yankees might be on TV tonight on ESPN, so I'm gonna try to catch some of it before friends come over for a movie.

Incidentally, if anyone wants me to branch out to movie and/or book reviews, just let me know. Heck, I may start doing it even if you don't want me to.

Cub Reporter has a quote from Cubbies interim (hopefully) manager Bruce Kimm, regarding his hopes for the team's approach with men on base:

"I don't want Bill Mueller taking pitches to try to draw a walk so Sammy Sosa can drive him in."

What?! Granted, this was taken from the context of a conversation in which he was saying, essentially, that he wishes the other guys on the team would hit with men on base. Who wouldn't? But, not eveybody can be Sammy Sosa or Fred McGriff. Some guys have to be tablesetters.

Besides that, doesn't this just sound like a stupid thing to say? Do these guys even listen to themselves while they speak? It occurred to me that one way to point out how ridiculous this position is would be to turn the tables:

The Cubs are playing the Diamondbacks. Arizona has a runner on second base, and Craig Counsell up. Luis Gonzalez is up next. If you're the manager, would you rather:

A) Have Craig Counsell try to drive in the run himself, even if the pitcher is (evidently due to temporary insanity) trying to pitch around him? Or.....

2) Have Counsell try to work a walk from this idiot pitcher, and then allow your Best Hitter to try to drive in two runs?

Seems like a pretty easy choice to me. I'll take my best hitter with two men on base over a mediocre/bad hitter with one man on any day of the week, thankyouverymuch.

"I Am Not an Idiot"

Brian Sabean, the GM of the San Francisco Giants, has some work to do. Rob Neyer wrote about how the Jeff Kent for Matt Williams trade, which villified Sabean back in '96 when it was made, but has made him a hero in retrospect. But, as they say in France, "What have you done for me lately?"

Only Baseball Matters continually harps, and rightfully so, on the fact that much of the Giants' lineup is pretty pathetic, especially their firstbasemen, and particularly JT Snow. He is not, however the worst hitting firstbaseman in the majors, as Perricone contends. That (dis)honor belongs to Tony "The Kitten" Clark, whose .214/.266/.306 line is easily the worst in the majors for firstbasemen with at least 250 AB, even worse than Snow. However, no 1B with a worse OPS has gotten more at-bats than Snow, which is Dusty Baker's fault, not Snow's. Look at how the Giants rank in OPS in the Majors by position:

P: 5th
C: 8th
1B: 28th
2B: 1st
3B: 20th
SS:12th
LF: 1st
CF: 29th
RF: 26th
DH: 1st (9 games, probably all Barry Bonds)
PH: 25th

Holy inneptitude, Batman. Four starting positions ranked 20th out of 30 teams or worse in OPS, plus their bench. The only other team with that many hitters who are that bad is...the Dodgers! But they have somewhat better pitching than SanFran.

Left field and second base are head and shoulders above anyone around, and catcher's been pretty good, even though Benito Santiago didn't belong on the All-Star Team. Shortstop is just above mediocre, though they've grown to expect much more from Rich Aurilia in recent years. Their pitchers are even better than they look here, because three of the teams ahead of them are in the AL (no more than 13 games each) and the other plays half its games in Denver, so really they have the best hitting pitchers in the majors, albeit with only a .430 OPS. But nobody wins anything because their pitchers hit relatively well. Just ask Mike Hampton.

Sabean has really got to clean house for next year, regardless of what happens this year. I don't know what the contract situations are for Snow, Kenny Lofton, Marvin Benard, David Bell, Bill Mueller, Shawon Dunston or Reggie Sanders, but I think they might all be free agents except Snow. They've got to let Damon Minor play regularly, hope Aurilia bounces back to his career levels, and get some outfielders who can hit. Santiago isn't likely to repeat this year's production at the age of 38, so picking up a Todd Greene or Bobby Estalella might help. (Perhaps their current backup catchers are of similar ilk, but I don't think so.) David Bell's hitting about 50 points above his career OPS, and still isn't even having a "good" season for a 3B, so he's gotta go. Edgardo Alfonzo, Scott Rolen and, more realistically, Robin Ventura will be free agents next year, and Sabean might want to look into their services. If he can get Ventura for around $5 or $6 million, he should do it, unless they're gonna let Pedro Feliz play. Ventura will probably only hit .250, but at least he'll hit for some power and take a few walks. And there have got to be more guys like Dave Roberts and Raul Ibanez in the minors somewhere, who have some talent, with perhaps a hitch or two in their games, who just need to be given a chance to play. I mean, what do they have to lose? They've already got one of the worst lineups in the majors, besides Bonds and Kent. Just getting guys who are average at each of the aforementioned positions (3B, 1B, CF, RF)should help them win four or five more games over the course of the year. Getting a field manager who knows how to evaluate talent and juggle a lineup wouldn't hurt either. Maybe Sabean's not an idiot. Maybe the Kent trade wasn't just luck. This off-season is time to prove it.

NYY/BAL Velocity Limbo Contest

Watching Orlando Hernandez and John Stephens pitching against each other tonight, and almost trying to outdo each other with the eephus pitches, was pretty funny. Each inning it got slower and slower, until one pitch, which floated up there out of El Duque's hand, and was so slow that the radar gun didn't pick it up until after the batter hit it, on the way out, measuring 92 mph. I'd be surprised if it was more than half of that on the way in.

Stephens is a big, Australian righty who doesn't throw nearly as hard as you'd expect for his size. In fact, he doesn't throw as hard as you'd expect for Danny DeVito's size. He has a slider/changeup thingy around 73 mph and his "fast"ball tops out at about 84. At one point he threw five or six consecutive really, really slow curveballs, all in the neighborhood of 57-60 mph. And what's more, he had a decent amount of success with that pitch, striking out 8 in 7 innings. He hung one to Robin Ventura that got hit out, though just barely, and Soriano hit a homer, though I don't know off what pitch. The only player I saw who actually did anything with a good pitch like that was Jason "mecca-mecca-hi, mecca-hi-nee-ho" Giambi, who waited on one and then hit it with just upper body strength into right field. Otherwise, most everybody in the Yankees' lineup was made to look pretty foolish, especially Raul Mondesi, who seems to be trying to chop down a Redwood with every swing.

A lot was made of the homer A-Rod hit off El Duque's eephus pitch in a game a couple of weeks ago, but he continues to throw it, because it's usually effective. There aren't many guys who can go up there and throw a pitch at 48 or 50 mph and then come right back with 92 mph cheese that runs away from you. I just don't know if I'd try that crap with Rodriguez (who hit his 54th homer tonight) again any time soon.

Incidentally, I have added Christian Ruzich's Cubs Reporter site to my list of nifty logos to your immediate left. His site is attractive and well written, with copious amounts of the angst and cynicism that can only come from being a Cubs fan. But as George Will and/or the Apostle Paul will tell you, suffering (especially as a Cubs' fan) builds character.

I read a piece in an issue of The Sporting News today about who might be the AL and NL MVPs. The writer indicated that three NL pitchers were having great seasons: Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling and John Smoltz, and that there is little precedence for a relief pitcher winning the MVP in the NL (only once) or the AL (3x), and that they usually happen only when no hitter is having a stand-out season. Then he said "Sound familiar?" Now, I hope that he meant that the "familiarity" for which we should listen is that the same argument was made in recent years for why Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez wouldn't/shouldn't win it, but initially I thought he meant that this year met those qualifications. Man, I hope I'm wrong on that though. I'd hate to think that an established magazine like TSN would hire a guy who doesn't recognize a season like Barry Bonds' as "stand-out". The Man is on a pace to break his own single season walks record, which had stood for 78 years before he set it last season. In fact, if you took away all of his hits, he still walks at a .316(!) clip. That means that there are only five guys in the NL who get a hit more often than Bonds gets a walk. Oh, and he hits a little, too. He's leading the league with .364/.569/.808 averages, AKA the Only Baseball Matters Triple Crown. That .569 would break Ted Williams' single season OBP record, standing since 1941, and his 1.377 OPS gives him a chance to beat Babe Ruth's record of 1.379, set in 1920. He's tied for 12th in the league with 95 RBI, and is third with 103 runs and only one behind the league lead in homers with 43, despite the fact that Jeff Kent is the only other player in Dusty Baker's lineup who knows whether you're supposed to hold onto the skinny end or the fat end of the heavy piece of wood when you walk up to the flat, white, house-shaped thing in the dirt. If that's not "stand-out" I don't know what is. But enough plugging John Perricone.

Besides, how do you say that John Smoltz is having a season worthy of MVP consideration without mentioning Eric Gagne? I mean, if you're gonna blow the relevance of a player's contribution to his team totally out of proportion, shouldn't it be the player who's actually better at that particular job?

I was on my way into work today, listening to ESPN Radio, when I heard that "Everyday" Eddie Guardado got his AL leading 40th save for the Twinkies last night. This brought to mind two predominant thoughts:

1) "Wow, I didn't know Eddie Guardado was leading the AL in saves, and with 40 of 'em, no less!" And...

2) "Who the hell is Eddie Guardado?"

Or, more accurately, who the hell was Eddie Guardado before he started saving two games a week for the AL Central leading Twins? Eddie was a failed starter, turned relief pitcher in Minnesota's bullpen since 1993. He supplied the team with, on average, 60-70 league average (read: replacable) innings each year during most of that span. He was never very bad, nor very good, just...average. There's nothing wrong with that, as it managed to get him salaries in the neighborhood of $1-2 million, which is more than I'll ever see. But there was nothing to indicate that he would someday become the AL's best relief pitcher either. In fact, there's really no indication that the Twins ever planned that for him, rather that he was thrust into the closer's role for lack of a better option (read: LaTroy Hawkins).

This made me think about all of the other closers who have seemingly come out of nowhere and/or failed careers as a starter to become one of the better bullpen anchormen this year, as well as in recent years. Think of the names: Eric Gagne, John Smoltz, Jason Isringhausen, Bob Wickman, Jeff Zimmerman, Joe Table, Mariano Rivera, Todd Jones, Derek Lowe, Antonio Alfonseca, and going back a little more...John Wetteland, Dave Righetti, Dennis Eckersly, and many more. The list of pitchers who have come from obscurity (Zimmerman), mediocrity (Alfonseca), or failure (Gagne) to be among the league leaders in saves, at least once, is nearly endless. So what does this mean? Well, I don't know exactly, but I'm going to posit this: It must not be that hard.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that I could get up off my fat ass and save 45 games for a team in the Show (or a team in Little League, for that matter). I'm just saying that relative to other jobs at the major league level, I don't think that being a closer is that hard, at least not anymore, and not for one year. When guys like Goose Gossage and Rollie Fingers had to pitch 2 or 3 innings a game to get a save, almost always facing the opposing teams' best hitters at least once to do so, it must have been more difficult, because otherwise you would have seen lots of guys doing it, and you didn't. It used to be tough to dominate batters in that role for an extended period of time, as well, as you can see by the extended decline at the end of Goose's career. I'm not saying that Mariano Hasn't been a great closer for the Yankees, or even that he hasn't been a key to their success (witness: both times the Yankees have lost a playoff series since 1996, Mo was on the mound), just that it is ridiculous to say, as some have, that Rivera has been the MVP of the yankees during this run of success. As I said in a previous article, the saves that Rollie and Goose accrued were qualitatively different from those racked up by the likes of Doug Jones and Jeff Montgomery, or even this guy:.

Now the closer has become a stats-driven position, specializing to the point that many managers will not put their best available option in in extra innings, even at home, if the game is tied because it's not a save situation. Or they won't put him in before the ninth for fear of using him for more than one inning, or for lack of the insight to do so. The pitchers themselves often will not pitch as well in a non-save situation, presumably because they know that they have nothing immediately to gain from doing so, as contracts are too often based upon gaudy, obvious statistics and not enough on the history of and potential for real effectiveness. And Rolaids has exacerbated the issue by creating a manufactured award that encourages these pitchers to be used only in save situations. I expect we'd see much the same effect, over time, if Ex-Lax created a "Go-Go-Go Man of the Year Award" for the player with the most late inning stolen bases each year. What sense does it make to establish an award for the Herb Washingtons of the world? (Moonlight Graham's got nothing on Herb: 105 games, zero career at-bats.)

Obviously, the analogy only goes so far, and I don't mean to disparage the accomplishments of (insert your favorite overrated relief pitcher here). I just mean to make the argument that if so many different people can do this, especially those who were on their last legs as a starter or were pitching for Abe Fromann's Sausage Factory Road Team B, then maybe we shouldn't be in such awe when an Eric Gagne comes along. After all, he was supposed to have been a really good starter, remember? Shouldn't we be a little disappointed? John Smoltz won a Cy Young Award (albeit one that should have gone to Kevin Brown), Dave Righetti had a no-hitter once, Dennis Eckersly once won 20 games. I was disappointed when they put Rags in the bullpen, because he was my favorite pitcher and it meant that he would be in a less prominent, less important role. Also because I was eight. But that's beside the point.

So, next time somebody points out that Eddie Guardado "came out of nowhere" to lead the AL with 40something saves or that Eric Gagne may break Bobby Thigpen's record of 57 saves in a season, just say "Big deal." And remind them that "nowhere" is likely to be exactly where Eddie is, everyday, in about five years, while the likes of Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens will live on, at least figuratively, forever in Cooperstown.

There is a lot of debate going on right now about who will or who should win the AL MVP Award this year, and I won't go into my opinions much because most anyone who's reading this probably thinks, like I do, that Alex Rodriguez should get it, and because others have already written as much or more than I would. In particular, Rob Neyer, makes a great case for why A-Rod is the best player and therefore (not but) should win the MVP. Most of us "enlightened" budding or experienced sabremetricians probably all agree on that, but the real question is, "Who will win the MVP?"

The answer is fairly simple: Whomever Peter Gammons says should win it will win it. Last year, though he eventually settled on Jason Giambi as the MVP, I seem to recall him indicating that Ichiro was a deserving candidate, at least for a while. Two years ago, despite the fact that Carlos Delgado had more runs, more doubles, and slightly higher averages than Giambi's (.344/.470/.664 compared to .333/.476/.647), Gammons went around telling anyone who would listen that Giambi was the MVP, and sure enough, they voted him in. This year Gammons is talking about how Miguel Tejada is the MVP, essentially because Aaron Myette, Chan Ho Park, John Rocker and Hideki Irabu all stink very much bad. So I wonder who's gonna win it this year....

Gary Sheffield has been a mainstay of my fantasy teams for the last few years, which has been great for me, especially since I stuck with him while he was stinking up the joint back in April/May. Now he's hurt yet again, for about the 76th time this season and the 479th time of his career. This just goes to support my theory: Michael Jackson is gay! No, wait, that's Norm McDonald's theory. My theory is that if Gary Sheffield had been even reasonably healthy over the course of his career, there would be very little debate about whether or not he'd be headed for the Hall of Fame. Sheffield's lifetime numbers are .295/.399/.521, with 339 homers, 1051 Runs and 1093 RBI, in only 1708 games, which works out to approximately 114 games per year over 15 seasons. Can you imagine what he might have done if he'd been able to play even 150 games per year? Well, you don't have to, because I've projected out his career averages, over 15 seasons at 152 games each, and...

_____ AB ___ R ___ H ___ 2B __ HR __ RBI __ BB __ K __ SB
Avg _ 542 __ 93 __ 160 __ 28 __ 30 __ 97 __ 90 __ 66 __16
Car _8123 _ 1401 _ 2397_ 421 _ 452 _1457_ 1353_ 985 _240

Wow. 452 homers. As many as Carl Yastrzemski. More RBI than Eddie Matthews, more runs scored than Joe DiMaggio, and still not even 34 years old! As things stand now though, his career numbers still resemble those of Ellis Burks just a little too much. if he were to keep producing at his career rates for about 5 more years, those projected numbers are likely very close to what his career numbers will be. However, if he can find a way to stay healthy, play like he has been for the time he's spent in LA and Atlanta for about 5 more years, he could still end up with 500 homers, 1500 runs, 1500 RBI, 2500 hits and a very good shot at the Hall. Of course, those are all really big "if"s for a guy who misses a game due to injury more often than Barry Bonds strikes out.

Homers and Strikeouts...

John Perricone, over at Only Baseball Matters, had a digression regarding players who have had more homeruns than strikeouts in a season, specifically in response to a question from a reader about Barry Bonds' Second Annual Historic Season. (Perricone's blog is linked to this one, as you can see, and I thought mine was to his, but I could be wrong.) John, in his great benevolence (and evidently even greater free time) found all of the players dating back to 1620 who have hit at least 10 homers and struck out as many times or fewer. He found 267,492 of them, but I have gone a step more. I have pared it down to all of the players who led the league in homers while striking out less often than they homered, and gues what! There's only 13 of them, and none since 1954! Much better.

Name_______________Year __HR ___ K __
TED KLUSZEWSKI ____ 1954 __ 49 ___ 35
JOE DIMAGGIO ______ 1948 __ 39 ___ 30
JOHNNY MIZE _______ 1948 __ 40 ___ 37
JOHNNY MIZE _______ 1947 __ 51 ___ 42
TOMMY HOLMES _____ 1945 __ 28 ___ 9
TED WILLIAMS _______1941 __ 37 ___ 27
JOE DIMAGGIO ______ 1937 __ 46 ___ 37
LOU GEHRIG ________ 1936 __ 49 ___ 46
LOU GEHRIG ________ 1934 __ 49 ___ 31
ROGERS HORNSBY ___ 1925 __ 39 ___ 39
KEN WILLIAMS _______1922 __ 39 ___ 31
SAM THOMPSON _____1895 __ 18 ___ 11
HUGH DUFFY ________ 1894 __ 18 ___ 15

Look at that, some pretty great names, eh? And can you believe that Tommy Holmes? Not only did he lead the league in, like, everything that year, but he only whiffed nine times in 636(!) AB, perhaps even more impressive than Bonds. Of course, Bonds is currently 4 bombs behind Sammy Sosa in the race for the NL home run title, so unless Sammy cools off in Septober, it's not gonna happen this year either. (Sammy could slow down a little, as his SLG% in Septembers is the lowest of any month over the last three years, as well as over the course of his career, but I wouldn't bet on it.) The other interesting thing about Bonds' season is that he's on a pace to win a batting title, with a .367 average, and ESPN projects him to end up with 145 hits, which means that you'd hafta go back to 1958 to find a batting title winner in a non-strike season with fewer hits, when the Splinter amassed 136 hits on the way to an AL leading .328 average. To find a Major League leading hitter with fewer than 145 hits, you hafta go all the way back to 1940, when Debs Garms (Debs Garms?) led the majors with a .355 clip, but only 126 hits. Of course, those 381 plate appearances shouldn't qualify him for the batting title, so I'm not sure why he's even listed on the leader boards. Anyone who has some insight on this issue, feel free to email me here, or at the link to your left, which I have recently restored. And to find someone who actually qualifies for the batting title and has fewer hits than Bonds' projected 145? Well, I guess you'd hafta go back even more, and frankly I'm tired of looking.

It is, as they say in France, a good time to be a Bay-Area baseball fan. I'm not, having been raised on the opposite coast, but it's hard not to like what Billy Beane has done with the A's. I don't profess to be an Athletics fan in the way that I'm a Yankee fan, but if the Bronx Bombers don't win it all this year, I hope the A's beat the snot out of whomever the Senior Circuit offers up in October.

Nintendo Baseball

The Oakland A's are playing Nintendo Baseball right now. As you undoubtedly already know, they have won 19 straight games, going into tonight's, and it may be 20 by the time you read this on Thursday, as the A's currently have a 11-0 lead in the 3rd inning against the hapless Royals. Either way, it's an incredible run, unlike any seen in my lifetime (or even my mom's, who will be exactly double my age on our birthday this December). The only thing I can think to compare it to is the different video games I've played, and especially Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball for Super Nintendo. (Hey, remember when Ken Griffey was good/important enough to merit his own video game? Remember Nintendo?) Anyway, the way this game was set up, there were no givens, and you couldn't really cheat (unless you got guys on 1st and 3rd, and a catcher with a weak arm, then you could fake a double steal and pretty much steal/score at will. Also worked with bunting if a guy was on 3rd.) Anyway, the point is, if you were down by 5 runs in the ninth and things didn't go your way, you lost. However, you could just shut the game off before it had a chance to register, so you'd never record a game you didn't want to. Consequently, after having played out entire 162-game seasons with the Expos, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Braves, White Sox, Cubs, Giants, Mariners and Yankees ( I had a lot of free time during summers in college), I rarely finished a season with more than 4 or 5 losses. This allowed you to rack up really ridiculous statistical totals, such as Dennis Martinez winning 45 games for the Expos, Kevin Maas (remember Kevin Maas?) hitting 65 homers for the Yankees (back when that was uncommon), or having five starters with at least 20 wins, or eight starters with at least a .300 average. Anywho, this is what the A's are doing now. I ran a few numbers, and if you project out what the A's have done in this streak over 162 games, you get Zito and Mulder with 34-0 records, Eric Chavez with 200 RBI and slugging .660, Ray Durham with 168 runs, Billy Koch with 73 saves, etc. The point of all of this is twofold:

1) Holy cow, these guys can really play, y'know? and
2) They can't possibly keep it up. But it'll be fun to watch 'em try!

Another reason it's a pretty good time to be a Bay Area baseball fan is that the Giants are right in the thick of things in the NL West, and only 2 games out of the Wild Card standings also. They have the Best Player on the Planet, the best second baseman in the NL, a decent, if unspectacular rotation, and some serviceable, sometimes great relief pitchers. Unfortunately, they also have the likes of JT Snow, Tom Goodwin and Tsuyoshi Shinjo in their starting lineup entirely too often. So for the stretch run they picked up a little offensive help from the Cubs, on the cheap, in the form of Bill Mueller. Mueller plays third, but he's only got a .757 OPS, which is only sorta middle-of-the-pack for a National League thirdbaseman. So, the guy he would replace must be really horrendous, right? Well, the current 3B is David Bell, who has not usually hit well enough to justify keeping him as a regular 3B. You wanna guess what his OPS is right now? Yep: .757. Spooky, huh? As I understand it, they intend to use Mueller off the bench, though I'll be darned if I can figure out for whom, unless it's to spell Rich Aurilia, who's having an off year, once in a while. I guess I shouldn't expect much more from GM Brian Sabean, who once said,

"Don't talk to me about on-base percentage...that sabermetric crap gives me a headache.''

Sorry for the long layoff. I was away for the weekend, and have not had a chance to write anything since Thursday, I think.

I'm glad that a strike was averted, for the same reasons that most anybody would be: I like watching live, professional baseball, and it would be ridiculous for a bunch of guys making an average of $2.5 million to go on strike. INcidentally, I love it when they try to defend themselves, saying that $2.5 million is just the "mean" and that the median is around $1.9 million, and that "there are lots of huys in the majors making only around $600,000/year" Do they know how ridiculous that sounds? Do they really expect people to feel any sympathy for people making 15 times what we do? Asinine.

However, I do not for one minute think that this new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is The Answer. As I understand it, they came up with both a revenue sharing plan, about which you have probably already read, and a "competetive balance tax". These two things are supposed to help the smaller market clubs compete, and are supposed to help keep the players' salaries from getting out of hand. Also asinine. If they actually had a useful and decent revenue sharing plan, the tax would not be necessary. But I'll come back to that later.

The thresholds on the tax are pretty high, encompassing only a few teams, and they're going to rise over the next few years, possibly to include even fewer. Plus, the amount of the taxes are pretty low, so that there is still little to restrain George Steinbrenner from signing that Big Name Free Agent if he wants to. If King George has a payroll of $160 million next year, he'd have to pay a little over $7.5 million in Luxury/Competetitive Balance/Bud's Yacht Tax. Does anyone think that's really going to stop him? He's already agreed to pay Roger Clemens $10 million next year not to pitch for him, is an extra $10 or $20 million really going to make much difference? Similarly, the revenue sharing plan requires clubs to give up 34% of their revenue, which essentially gets divided between the teams equally, minus a commisioner's discretionary fund of $10 mil, and even this namby-pamby scheme will not be fully implemented for three years. This means that the teams will still be able to keep 66% of their local revenue, and that the Yankees will still have a $100 million advantage in revenue over the Montreal Expos, if you use Forbes revenue numbers, which are undoubtedly closer to the truth than the owners' reported numbers. Doesn't sound very competetive to me.

There are some much more creative, interesting, and useful ways of doing this "competetive balance" thing, if you subscribe to the notion that all the teams have to be on some kind of comparative financial footing in order to have any chance of winning the World Series. I for one, do not, and I think that Oakland GM Billy Beane and any fan of the Minnesota Twins would tend to disagree with that notion as well. However, for now, if we want to at least try to help out teams who are at a financial disadvantage, we can do so in much better ways than those the players' union and owners actually explored and upon which they eventually agreed. For instance, Derek Zumsteg, over at Baseball Prospectus, has written about a plan for revenue sharing that rewards teams who have found ways to make money in smaller markets (like Oakland, and penalizes those who should actually be making more (like my Yankees) given the size of their markets and the relative dearth of teams in them. It is based on census information on market size and Forbes reporting on revenue dollars for each team, both of which are available to anyone who wants to read them, directly from his article. He assumes that there is some threshold at which a team in a city of a particualr size (~4,000,000 people) should make a particular amount of money (~$92,000,000). Teams like the Phillies and Cubs, who are in huge cities but don't draw any fans because they usually suck hairy monkey ass, would be penalized. Similarly, teams in large markets that actually do well, like the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers, but are in such a huge market that they enjoy a big advantage on several teams in smaller markets, also get penalized. Teams like Minnesota, Oakland, and (unfortunately) the Brewers, would be rewarded for doing so well with so little. It's a pricey plan for teams like the Yankees, but it's just as pricey for the Mets, who don't do nearly as well. I'll show you:

Team__Forbes Revenue___ Shared Revenue
SEA __ $166,000,000 ____ $170,237,520.00
CLE __ $150,000,000 ____ $167,005,832.00
ATL ___$160,000,000 ____ $160,000,000.00
COL __ $129,000,000 ____ $157,338,116.00
MIL ___$108,000,000 _____$154,041,423.00
STL ___$123,000,000 ____ $147,862,333.00
SFG __ $142,000,000 ____ $146,903,082.50
NYY __ $215,000,000 ____ $144,869,268.25
ARZ __ $127,000,000 ____ $141,634,992.00
PIT ___ $108,000,000 ____ $138,329,272.00
BOS __ $152,000,000 ____ $132,826,912.50
KAN __ $85,000,000 _____ $128,564,323.00
CHC __ $131,000,000 ____ $125,905,965.75
CIN ___ $87,000,000 _____ $125,847,115.00
TAM ___$92,000,000 _____$123,552,113.00
TEX ___ $134,000,000 ____$123,540,485.50
HOU __ $125,000,000 ____ $119,321,978.50
SDP __ $92,000,000 _____ $111,070,588.00
NYM __$169,000,000 ____ $98,869,268.25
DET __ $114,000,000 ____ $97,102,912.00
LAD __ $143,000,000 ____ $96,789,624.75
CHW _ $101,000,000 ____ $95,905,965.75
OAK__ $90,000,000______ $94,903,082.50
BAL __ $133,000,000 ____ $94,370,994.00
MIN __ $75,000,000 _____ $92,891,493.00
FLA __ $81,000,000 _____ $81,000,000.00
TOR __ $91,000,000 _____$80,863,900.00
PHI ___ $94,000,000 ____ $71,011,109.00
MON __ $63,000,000 ____ $70,440,270.00
ANA __ $103,000,000 ____$56,789,624.75

It has a nice, smooth curve, with a disparity based not just on market size, but upon how well the teams use their market to their advantage. There is no incentive here to hide profits, as it is based on revenues. There is no incentive to field a AAAA team to keep payroll low, because the sharing is not based on payroll. There is only incentive to maximize revenue, so that you'll have as much left as possible after sharing. And there's no need for a salary tax, other than to artificially keep players from making whatever the market would bear, as teams will mostly be on much more level ground. Kansas City will be able to resign Carlos Beltran, Cleveland will be able to resign Jim Thome, and Milwaukee will be able to resign...umm...well, if they ever get anybody worth holding on to, they'll be able to resign him. Montreal will need to move, as we know, and Florida and Toronto will need to seriously consider the possibility too. Philadelphia and especially Anaheim will need to start fielding competetive teams by making smart decisions. I live near Philadelphia, and believe me, the people there would like nothing more than to have a good team to watch at the Vet, that isn't wearing green helmets. With some decent business decisions, there's no reason the Phils can't be up there where the Braves are, in the revenue plan AND in the standings.

The problems with this plan are that it is a little too extreme, and a little too creative for the narrow minded Lords of Baseball, and that it is based upon numbers to which the owners will not admit. This is the biggest stumbling block.

There are, of course, other plans. Ones not nearly as complicated, but again, ones that would require a little more creativity, open-mindedness, and foresight than the owners and players have ever exhibited.

Mike's Baseball Rants was recently added to my sidebar. Mike had a piece a few days ago responding to Rob Neyer's column on the potential demise of the 300-win pitcher. This, Neyer argues, citing Rany Jazayerli of Baseball Prospectus, is largely due to the onset of the 5-man rotation and, of course, the increasing specialization of today's relief pitchers. (Last year was the first time a pitcher ever won the Cy Young Award without notching a complete game.) So I will now respond to Mike, who responded to Rob, who responded to Rany. Any responses to me?

Regarding the oddity of six 300-game winners starting their careers in the '60s, but none in either the '70s or '50s, Mike wondered:

Well, why? I can see that the use of 5-man rotations may have started to effect pitchers who started in the ''70s and 80s. But why none in the Fifties? And why are there six who started in the Sixties? Does the dearth of hitting have anything to do with it.

[Neyer] points to the Hall-of-Famers debuting in the '60s getting a decision in a slightly higher percentage of their games. To this he adds, "Over the course of a long career, the difference might cost a pitcher ... approximately 10 wins ... but that's not usually going to make the difference between winning 300 games and not winning 300 games." So what does? Neyer points to five-man rotations for the current and future classes and never again addresses the earlier non-300-winner eras.

I am intrigued. I have a feeling that pitcher-friendly eras breed young pitchers who have the ability to win a good number of games over their careers. That would mean that there would be fewer 300-game winners in the heavy hitting Thirties, for example. I do not know if this is true. I envision studying the effect of hitting (batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage) for each era and its effects on the ability for a young pitcher to amass a large number of wins over the span of his career. This may be a fun activity to perform during the strike, like when your mom reserved some activities for rainy days when you were a kid. I'll keep you posted.

Well, sorry to steal your thunder, Mike, but I think the explanation is just as Rob Neyer said it was: a statistical fluke. I looked at all the 300- and 250- game winners to start their careers in the 20th century (I ignored the 19th century, because, well, it's weird), and charted them by the decades in which their careers started. I got the following:

_______Number of Wins
Decade__300__250-299

1900-09___3_____0
1910-19___0_____3
1920-29___1_____3
1930-39___1_____1
1940-49___1_____1
1950-59___0_____3
1960-69___6_____3
1970-79___0_____2
1980-89___0_____2

Remember Sesame Street? "One of these things is not like the other..." With the exception of the first decade of the century, there was no other decade with more than one 300 game winner, and there were none with even more than three 250+ game winners. (Actually, Early Wynn is the lone 300 game winner from the 30's though he only pitched 20.3 innings in 3 games in September of 1939. He went 0-2.) Roger Clemens and perhaps Greg Maddux are likely to bump themselves up into the 300 win category in the next few years, while Tom Glavine and maybe Randy Johnson could join the fold of 250 game winners very soon.

All of this mostly suffices to tell us what we already know: It's really hard to win 300 games in the major leagues! That's why only 20 people have ever done it, and only 12 whose careers started in this century. But the point that Neyer made stands, in that we do have, if not a bounty of great pitchers, at least more than our fair share of greatness to watch. Enjoy it.

George Will says that there are only two seasons in the year for a true baseball fan:

Baseball Season and The Void.

The Void may be approaching sooner than planned, if these buttheads in the labor negotiations don't get their act together. I understand that they're not too far apart at this point, but we'll see. Murray Chass of the NY Times ("All the News that Fits, We Print") had an article essentially kissing Bud Selig's ass, in which El Bud is quoted as saying, regarding the current labor problems, "I blame myself".

Finally, we agree on something.

Incidentally, I didn't bother to write this before because, well, no one was reading this before a few days ago, but now at least a few people are. If you have access to last weeks issue of Sports Illustrated, the one with Alfonso Soriano on the cover, the letter to the editor in the center column of page 16, under the headline Thorny Problem, is from me! It's just a one sentence response to a fluffy Pete Rose piece that Frank DeFord wrote, but it's an official publication. On paper. Pretty cool, eh?

A few notes on tonight's Yankees-BoSox game:

1) I got to watch it! This is harder than you would think, but ESPN was kind enough to show it. On television! In some places, if you want to see your favorite team you hafta pay lots of money to a satellite service or buy a whole package of games you don't want to see just to watch the few you do...oh, wait a minute, that's here. Must've been a fluke thing.

2) The boxscore will tell you that Mussina pitched a gem, and he did, but I don't think that from watching him he is out of the Mediocrity Woods yet. His location was not that good, as his curve was rarely over the plate, and he seemed afraid to come inside to righties, probably because his fastball rarely cleared 90 mph. He only gave up 3 hits, but there were a lot of hard liners right at people that could easily have been hits on a lesser defensive team, Soriano's and Jeter's shortcomings in this area notwithstanding.

Moose did throw something, some kind of slider/sinker thing that was about 80 mph and broke like a cheap camera. It reminded me a little of the late Darryl Kile's slider/sinker, which he threw sidearm, as opposed to the rest of his pitches, which were from an over the top delivery. It sorta went against the conventional wisdom of throwing everything from the same arm angle, but it broke so sharply that by the time you realized what he was throwing, there wasn't much you could do with it anyway. Mussina's was great tonight, at least as far as movement, but I don't think he had any idea where it was going. No matter, the Bosox were swinging at everything, perhaps pressing a little after being shut out last night, trying to avoid the first consecutive home shutouts since 1943. Didn't work.

3) A page right out of Bobby Valentine's book: In the third inning, 1-0 Yanks, and Carlos "One if by Land, Two if by Sea, Three if" Baerga on first, no one out and Trot Nixon up, Rey Sanchez up next, and Nixon sac bunts! First of all, what the hell is Nixon doing batting eighth anyway? He's at least as good a hitter as Daubach, Baerga and/or Varitek, and probably better than any of them. He's on a pace for 25 homers and 35 doubles, and hitting in a place where the Pesky Pole is generously described as 302 feet from home plate, and whomever's managing the Red Sox this week has him just give up his at bat? In the third inning, down by only one run, with El Pedro on the mound? Doesn't make any sense. There may be times when it's wise to bunt a guy over, but this sure didn't strike me as one of them. And it's not exactly like he was setting the table for Rey Sanchez to clear, either.

4) I saw something similar on Saturday, at my One Game I Can Actually Still Afford to Attend. In the 8th inning, with a man on first and down by a run, Kevin Mench sacrificed him over, despite the facts that:
A: This was a road game for Texas, so playing for the tie, especially when matching their bullpen for that of the Yankees, is not a good idea, since the Yanks will always get the last at-bats. and
B: Have they actually watched this guy hit? He's slugging over .500 and on a pace for 30 homers and 100 RBI over the course of a full season. What a waste.

Yankee manager Joe McCarthy was once asked if Joe DiMaggio was a good bunter, to which he responded,

"I'll never know."

Quote of the Day:

"I have a hard time believing athletes are overpriced. If an owner is losing money, give it up. It's a business. I have trouble figuring out why owners would stay in if they're losing money."

This one was said by Reggie Jackson, Mr. October, and though the page where I saw it doesn't have it dated, I'm guessing that it happened back in the prime of Reggie's career, maybe somewhere around the strike in '81. Which means that The Straw That Stirs the Drink was ahead of his time, preemptively echoing a sentiment expressed by Jesse "The Governing Body" Ventura during congressional hearings last autumn, when he said,

"These owners are not losing the money they claim to be losing. If they were, they wouldn't be paying the salaries they're paying. It's asinine. These people did not get the wealth they have by being stupid."

Down to the wire: The labor talks are getting uncomfortably close to the strike date, August 30. There are all sorts of people out there with all sorts of opinions as to whose fault it is and what should be done about it. I'll go into some of the options for change in another piece. Right now, let's talk blame:

Some think it's primarily the Owners' fault, or primarily the Players' fault. David Schoenfield thinks it's all the Yankees fault, to which I would respond (if he had asked me, which he didn't) that Steinbrenner and the Yankees did not create the system, they're simply taking advantage of their natural...well, advantage. Supposedly, the Yankees should just let free agents go by, so that other teams can sign them, or at least bid lower for their services, so as not to raise the salary bar so much. While it's true that signing guys to huge, multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts raises the bar for everyone else, what is the alternative? Free agents and the Scott Borases of the world know what the Yankees can afford to pay, and if they bid under that, they don't get the player. Sure, they could just not sign free agents and King George could just pocket the profits that come from owning the Yankees, even if they lose, but isn't that exactly what everyone complains about when conversation turns to people like Carl Pohlad, the Twins' owner, and Jeffrey Loria, formerly owner of the Expos? Not signing those guys, or not retaining their own, home-grown talent when they become free agents, does not make the Steinbrenner and the Yankees "fair" players, or benevolent or even-handed. It makes them fools. And they would also be fools to want to change a system that has made them both successful and profitable, for a long time. On the other hand, they'd be even bigger fools to stand in the corner holding their breath, waiting for a deal they like while the whole system collapses around them. But I don't think anyone of consequence really thinks that the whole system is going to collapse. Well, maybe Jim Bunning.

Sure, it makes the Yankees greedy and selfish to operate this way, but who isn't? The Yankees are just better equipped to be selfish and have more to be selfish about than most of the other owners.

David Pinto has graciously added me to his list of co-bloggers, even though mine is more of a notebook (hence the description change). I'm also adding Aaron Gleeman's blog to my listing, because it's a good one, and because I'm hoping he'll return the favor. What I'd really like is to figure out a way to find my blog if you're looking for something like it on a search engine. Anyone who has any pointers on this, feel free to clue me in. I'm pretty new at this.

BTW, on an unrelated note, does anyone else find ESPN's Baseball Tonight demonstrations amusing? It's funny/weird enough to watch two middle-aged men in $750 suits, wearing makeup, standing over a batting tee, in a studio, with a shiny new bat, trying to explain hitting techniques to all the people out there in TV-land. But then, the irony of the pairing: Tony Gwynn (.338 career BA) and Harold Reynolds (.327 career OBP, .341 SLG%!). Seems a little like pairing up Steven Spielberg with Tom Green for a seminar on movie directing, y'know?

Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm died yesterday, at the age of 79 or so. He was the first (primarily) relief pitcher elected to the Hall, and first knuckleballer (I think). Rollie Fingers and Phil Niekro have both followed Wilhelm into the Hall since, respectively, in those categories. This brings up the following comparison:

______W - L__ SV__IP____H __SO_ERA
Rollie 114-118 341 1701.3 1474 1299 2.90
Goose 124-107 310 1809.3 1497 1502 3.01

Why isn't Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame? Frankly Pony, that one's kind of obvious, isn't it? The real question is why isn't Goose Gossage in the Hall of Fame? He had fewer saves than Rollie, but more than 20 games difference in their won/lost records (+10 wins, -11 losses). He pitched more innings, allowed fewer hits, struck out batters more often, allowed homers less often, and had a slightly lower adjusted ERA (relative to the league) for his career. Goose was on nine All-Star teams to Fingers' seven. Both led their league in saves 3 times, finished among the top 10 in the MVP voting twice (Fingers won it, with the Cy Young, in 1981). Fingers was among the top ten in Cy Young voting four times to Goose's 5 times. Rollie did win four Rolaids Relief awards to Goose's one, but this is a kind of contrived award anyway, based simply on statistics rather than value, and statistics that can be manipulated, no less.

I think that there are probably two main reasons that Goose is not yet in the Hall. Rob Neyer has argued that in the time it took Rollie Fingers to retire and then to be elected to the HoF, the status of the Save, as a statistic, changed. People like Tony LaRussa started using pitchers like Dennis Eckersly and Lee Smith specifically for the purpose of getting saves, and pretty soon, Goose's 310 didn't look so impressive anymore. Lee Smith (478), John Franco (422), Dennis Eckersley (390), Jeff Reardon (367) Randy Myers (347), Trevor Hoffman (346), John Wetteland (330), Roberto Hernandez (318), Rick Aguilera (318), Tom Henke (311), Jeff Montgomery (304), Doug Jones (303), Bruce Sutter (300), and Robb Nen (302) all have 300 or more saves now, and I guess it just looks bad to elect a guy who has only eight more saves than Doug Jones.

Rollie and Goose were approximately contemporaries, with mostly overlapping careers, though Fingers ('68-'85) started sooner and retired sooner than Gossage ('72-94), but if Goose had retired two years earlier, he would have had a 2.93 ERA instead of 3.01, and the memory of him as one of the premier stoppers would have been fresher in the voters' minds when voting time arrived. Instead, he stayed a little longer than some of the BBWAA might have liked, pitching into his 22nd season, and still effectively I might add, with an ERA below the league average when the strike hit in 1994. I guess these guys want their favorites to ride off into the sunset as soon as their skills begin to diminish a little, that if you can't be The Stopper you should just Stop. It's ironic that the same men who don't elect people like Ron Guidry for not pitching long enough also punish people like Gossage and Bert Blyleven for pitching so long.

Dave Sheinin, who covers baseball for The Sporting News and the Washington Post, wrote an article in TSN magazine last week indicating that the reason the Atlanta Braves have not won in the postseason, despite having gotten there at every available opportunity since 1991, is that they have lacked depth. They have not had the "lock down closer" like Mariano Rivera, that the Yankees have had, and therefore, it makes sense that they have not been able to get past the Yankees. He makes a pretty good argument for not investing totally in starting pitching, as having two extra really good starters doesn't really help you much in the post season as having two good bats on the bench might. This is mostly true, though Rob Neyer made this point in one of his columns about two years ago, if I recall correctly. Neyer's point was more focused on what percentage of the Braves' payroll is allotted to starting pitching, and indicated that the number (something like 40%) was way too high.

While it's true that the Braves have generally wanted for bench depth, the statement that their relief pitching has somehow left something to be desired is patently ridiculous. Though the Braves' World Series hopes have ended, often dramatically, at the hands of their relief pitchers, it is much more difficult to really blame the Braves' bullpen for not being "good enough". Atlanta's relief pitchers have perenially been among the league's best, if not the best in the NL in ERA and saves, and for what innings they have been allowed by their great starters, have been very effective, at least during the regular seasons. It has become fashionable, in recent years, to say that Mark Wohlers or Juan Bereunger or Greg McMichael or Kerry Lightenberg or John Rocker weren't really that good, because they're not that good now, or not well remembered now, or because someone once hit a dramatic October home run against them. Or, if you prefer, their middle relievers (Mike Bielecki, Mike Stanton, Pedro Borbon, Steve Bedrosian, Kent Mercker, Mike Remlinger etc.) weren't that good, because they were sort of patched together, relative unknowns and/or did not continue their success for long. But the fact of the matter is that when these guys pitched for the Braves, they pitched very, very well. Leo Mazzone and Bobby Cox saw to that. And when they stopped pitching well, or when they got too expensive, they were out. No, the Braves may not have ever had much in the way of "name players" in their bullpen, but whoever they had did their jobs well, often better than anyone else's bullpen in the major leagues. The fact that people like Jim Leyritz got to them on occasion is as much a matter of luck on the part of the Twins/ Blue Jays/ Phillies/ Yankees/ Marlins/ Padres/ Yankees/ Mets/ Diamondbacks as it was skill (or the lack thereof) on the part of the Braves' relievers. Besides this, as usual, if the Braves' hitters had scored more runs, the relief pitchers might never have come into question.

AJ Burnett may be, unfortunately for us, done for the season, with a deep bone bruise on his pitching elbow. Actually, this may be a fortunate thing for him. If this injury keeps him on the shelf for the rest of the year as though it were, it might just save his career. I know, you're saying "Save his career? He seems to be off to a great start! What's to save?" But if something isn't done to help preserve Burnett's arm soon, he could burn out, much like too many talented, young pitchers have in the last 20 years. Steve Avery is a prime example of a guy who was great for a few years when he was very young, but because of overwork, could not sustain the same levels, or even useful levels, of skill into his late 20's. And now Burnett is being abused at almost Livan Hernandezian rates, as the guys at Baseball Prospectus will tell you. Only Randy Johnson has suffered more abuse at the hands of his manager than Burnett, and at least the Big Unit has proven that he can take it. Burnett is only 25, and has averaged over 111 pitches per start. Yes it's great that he's leading the majors in complete games and shutouts, but let's face it folks, the Fish are going nowhere, slowly, and leaving Burnett in for 110, 120, 130 pitches is really not helping anybody. This is the future of the franchise, and racking up pitch counts like you're trying to win a prize at a carnival is a good way to run the "franchise" into the ground.

The funny (funny-strange, not funny ha-ha) thing is, Marlins' manager Jeff Torborg was quoted all over the article saying things like "We would never do anything to hurt him" and "It's an absolute shock." which I'm sure it is, for him. But if he were worth his salt as a manager, he might have done a little research on how to handle young pitchers, since he's been given the charge of developing the likes of Burnett, Josh Beckett, Ryan Dempster (since traded), Brad Penny, and even Carl Pavano and Braden Looper. In doing said research, he might have come across the work that Rany Jazayerli and others at Baseball Prospectus have done in examining pitcher abuse and realized that a pitcher with pitcher abuse levels (based on high pitch counts in individual outings) above a certain threshold are three times more likely to experience a serious arm injury than those whose arms are better cared for. Seems to me like a pretty good reason to take a guy like Burnett out when he's already logged 110 pitches. He's already a pretty damn good pitcher at 25, if perhaps a little wild. I'd like to see him still pitching well when he's 30, y'know?

Dave Pinto (whose own website is now linked here) made a point on his blog about how Bobby Valentine should have pinch hit for Rey Ordonez in the late innings of a close game, but didn't. I must agree with the point, which I noticed a few weeks ago, and would have written about at the time, but didn't have this blog yet. In a game against Arizona on Monday, 5 August, it was bad enough that Valentine started the likes of Ty Wiggington, Timo Perez, Joe McEwing and John Valentin against Randy Johnson, but then, in the 8th, only down by 2 runs and with Rey ".244" Ordonez due up, Valentine lets him hit, (though I use the term loosely). And then he pinch hits for the pitcher, not Alfonzo (.467 OBP vs. RJ), not Alomar (.341 OBP vs. RJ), but Vance Wilson (0/0 vs RJ), who promptly struck out.

The next day people made a big deal about the shutout Johnson had pitched, but in reality I don't think Valentine could have done any more to give the game away. If he ever was a good manager, he seems to have lost it. There are very few times when I think that the manager can really be blamed for poor production by his team, and I think he can almost never be blamed for poor production by particular players. But not getting the most out of the team you have is no one's fault but the manager's. Here's to a change at the helm of the SS NY Mets, before Valentine runs them aground or into an iceberg again, like he has this year.

Maybe Davey Johnson's available?

ESPN Radio occasionally plays a clip of a Pete Rose interview on the Dan patrick Show in which he states"I was suspended from baseball for betting on football. I have a signed document from the commisioner that says that there are no findings that I bet on baseball. To me that puts the question to rest. It says that ther's no finding or admission that I bet on baseball. I've lived up to my part of the agreement but they (MLB) haven't lived up to theirs...I know it says a lifetime ban, but I didn't look at it that way, because I could apply for reinstatement in one year..."

Well, I don't know why ESPN keeps playing this clip, whether it's because they believe him or because they don't, but you'd certainly think that their continued use of their own airtime to play this clip somehow indicates support for Rose's Hall of Fame candidacy. The thing is, Rose is lying, but then, what else is new? At the very least he's bending the truth. The agreement he signed, which can be seen in its entirety here, actually says:

Nothing in this agreement shall be deemed either an admission or a denial by Peter Edward Rose of the allegation that he bet on any Major League Baseball game.

But what Charlie Hustle(r) doesn't tell you is that this statement occurs in the following context:

a. Peter Edward Rose is hereby declared permanently ineligible in accordance with Major League Rule 21 and placed on the Ineligible List.

b. Nothing in this Agreement shall deprive Peter Edward Rose of the rights under Major League Rule 15(c) to apply for reinstatement. Peter Edward Rose agrees not to challenge, appeal or otherwise contest the decision of, or the procedure employed by, the Commissioner or any future Commissioner in the evaluation of any application for reinstatement.

c. Nothing in this agreement shall be deemed either an admission or a denial by Peter Edward Rose of the allegation that he bet on any Major League Baseball game.

Neither the Commissioner nor Peter Edward Rose shall be prevented by this agreement from making any public statement relating to this matter so long as no such public statement contradicts the terms of this agreement and resolution.

And of course, he really doesn't want you to know that it says:

4. Peter Edward Rose acknowledges that the Commissioner has a factual basis to impose the penalty provided herein, and hereby accepts the penalty imposed on him by the Commissioner and agrees not to challenge that penalty in court or otherwise. He also agrees he will not institute any legal proceedings of any nature against the Commissioner of any of his representatives, either Major League or any Major League Club. (bold added)

Well the rule doesn't say that someone can be suspended from baseball for betting at all, or betting on football, it says:

Rule 21(d):

Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has no duty to perform, shall be declared ineligible for one year.

Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible.

So if he admits that there's a "factual basis to impose the penalty" then why didn't he contend at the time that the punishment he was receiving was inappropriate and not warranted by the rules of MLB?

The answer is simple: he couldn't, because he understood that he was being suspended permanently because there was overwhelming evidence of his betting on baseball games, including Reds games he managed, and he knew it. He didn't want to admit it, so he signed, anticipating that he could apply for reinstatement in one year, but with no guarantee that his application would be granted, and acknowledging that he would not challenge either the penalty itself, the agreement, or the commisioner's response to his applications for reinstatement. And, of course, he has done just that, any chance he gets. So it's actually Rose who has not held up his end of the bargain, rather than the Commisioner's office, as Pete would have you believe.