The Eve of Expansion

Playing .667 ball isn't a bad thing, but when it's in a must win three game set with the Royals' slush, it's far less inspiring. The series probably has a few implications, the first of which being an end to the Twins' playoff appearance run. On the eve of roster expansion, nothing could do more to persuade Terry Ryan to start preparing for next year than being shut out by Mike Wood. Not that playing Liriano, Baker, et al is a bad idea, but it will probably mean a diminished role for several important players. First, look for shorter outings at least for Radke and Silva. Santana may continue to pitch deep into games if Ryan and Gardy have any interest in bringing home the Cy Young, but he may be better off putting less stress on his golden arm for when it matters. I know that flags fly forever, but what of trophies? Do they shine forever? As for the bullpen, expect high leverage relief innings being doled out to lesser men than Joe Nathan and Juan Rincon, which will probably cost a few runs, even if the replacements are as good as advertised. Most importantly, there will probably be more frequent rest and recovery for a tired and banged up lineup. Any discussion of Torii Hunter's return will stay on the backburner of the Twins remain 5+ games out of the playoffs, and Shannon Stewart won't be rushed back either. Joe Mauer will probably see his C/DH split shift toward the latter, and having Mike Redmond in the lineup isn't particularly desirable regardless of the alternative.

But I'm really not all that upset. As a baseball fan, I have yet another Yankees-Red Sox pennant race to choke down, a historically resilient A's squad battling in the AL West, two great Wild Card stretches and a wide-open postseason on the horizon. Even the individual awards are worth watching. I can cheer for voters to pick value over exposure and choose Nick Swisher or Dan Johnson of the A's over Robinson Cano in the AL ROY race. And the NL is remarkably thrilling, with Jones, Lee and Pujols making us forget about Barry Bonds, and another great Cy Young chase where wins once again take on the combination of ERA and K's in a BBWAA blue steel cage match.

Not to say that I don't want the Twins to win, but I can still enjoy baseball without it. There is a lot to be excited about in the future, and I would rather not jeopardize it for a long shot at a playoff berth. I can have fun watching the rookie pitchers for the next month as long as they don't throw Livan innings, and be somewhat relieved that they team can come out fresh next year and hopefully avoid the injury instability that has marred 2005.

Plus, there are so many other storylines worth watching. Here are my four favorites, in ascending order or favoritism:

4. Jason Bartlett making Juan Castro look like Wally Pipp. Although it may seem like an insult to Pipp, Bartlett has finally starting hitting some XBHs, up to 9 doubles after contributing a double and a single in the Twins anemic 1-0 KC game. He's up to .306/.358/.371 since his recall, far and away better than Castro. Even though Castro has been absolutely exceptional with the glove (a 124 rate2), Bartlett has been fantastic enough himself (114) to make the offensive difference a pummelling.

3. Kyle Lohse setting his own market value. After surviving the trade block, Lohse probably sealed his fate after complaining about the offense vociferously after a loss to Texas. While he was justified in his complaints, it seems that Lohse has more or less come to a point of mutual dissatisfaction with Minnesota, and neither side would be angry to see the union end. So what happens? He finally starts succeeding, exemplified by the seven shutout innings he threw in the depressing loss to KC. If he's complaining about run support after giving up three homeruns, he probably isn't too keen on losing games 1-0. I expect him to be traded for 75 cents on the dollar this offseason (which will likely turn out better, as Ryan's trades often do), but see marked improvement in a new atmosphere.

2. Scott Baker carrying both the Twins remaining hopes and my fantasy team. After Zack Duke and Ben Sheets went down on back to back nights, I turned to the Twins rookie to patch together my rotation for the fantasy playoffs. I have my doubts, but so far so good.

1. Juan Rincon's ballooning wasteline. Has anyone else noticed how much weight this guy has gained since returning from his steroid suspension? Anabolic Androgenic Steroids help metabolize fat, which makes me think that his excuse about dietary supplements was a lie. To paraphrase a terrible song: The steroids helped keep Juan slim/ but red beans and rice didn't miss him.

High Five Friday

It’s nearly September and football’s on my mind! As the final preseason game draws near, I will use today’s column to discuss the five most interesting storylines of the coming season for the Minnesota Vikings! No, I’m just kidding. Living my formative years in the Vikings’ media market appropriately jaded me to professional football. Plus, the intersecting performance of so many different players on each play makes statistical analysis very gooey and arbitrary. If you don’t believe me, check out yesterday’s Football Scientist column from ESPN insider, where he tells us that he has developed very advanced statistical metrics to measure QBs, such as watching game tape to decide whether each decision was “good” or “bad.” Sounds to me like it’s good enough for government work. Not statistical analysis though.

To baseball:

Zack Duke turned his ankle in an awkward retreat to second base after a line-drive this week. The injury should only cost him one start, but it simultaneously slows down the buzz factory and cripples my fantasy team in the middle of a showdown for a first round playoff bye. Nonetheless, Duke will avoid the DL with what the team is calling a “medium strain” of his push ankle, which may be a blessing in disguise for a young pitcher who is approaching 200 IP for the first time. The Bucs were said to be looking for ways to rest their young stud, and his mild injury gives them an easy way to explain that to their fans. If Duke can pass through the injury matrix without as much noise in his arm as Oliver Perez and Sean Burnett, Pittsburgh could soon field one of the scariest southpaw trios in memory. Will Carroll recently compared Zack Duke to a young Tom Glavine (who doesn’t look so good now, but was remarkably dominant for about 10 years), which would give the Pirates two legitimate lefty aces who strike out hoards, and one who is already decidedly crafty at a young age.

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Curt Schilling wasn’t very good in his return to the rotation, but he wasn’t that bad either. Through five innings, he had a strong 5:1 K/BB ratio and didn’t surrender a HR. Indeed, he gave up nine hits to the worst team in the Major Leagues, of those nine, only two were XBH, and those went to David Dejesus and Mike Sweeney (both deserving ML’ers). The BoSox went with their defense-first lineup in their ace’s rotation return, benching Ortiz in favor of Manny at the DH and giving Alex Cora the spot at 2B. Still, the defense is not very strong, starting Kevin Millar in the OF and vastly overrated Edgar Renteria next to Bill Mueller on the left side. The defense isn’t atrocious, but Schilling allowed an acceptable number of balls in play and gave up six ER in five IP, so some of the blame has to fall on the men behind him. I don’t mean to say that Schilling’s return was a success, but it wasn’t much of a failure either.

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Tony LaRussa recently passed Sparky Anderson on the all-time managerial victory list, which is cause for recognition at the very least. While it is very difficult to measure a manager’s contribution to a team’s success, a manager with great longevity, such as LaRussa or Bobby Cox, can only survive through winning. While Connie Mack built up a probably insurmountable record of over 3,700 career wins (LaRussa is closing in on 2,200), he did so while also owning the Philadelphia A’s. He never faced the threat of losing his job, and even sold off the team’s best players, like HOF’ers Johnny Mize and Lefty Grove in the mid-1930s to save money. While the structure of modern baseball will probably prevent anyone from approaching Mack, LaRussa’s accomplishments are no less impressive. His days with the White Sox are not particularly memorable, but he won a couple pennants and a World Series with the A’s in the late 80s with thrilling personalities such as Rickey Henderson, Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersley. For better or worse, he pioneered the one-inning relief ace concept that made stars out of Mariano Rivera and Eric Gagne in addition to his own closers. He also smoothly transitioned into the National League, where his tinkering style was more appreciated. He even has a law degree from FSU. After another flag in St. Louis, LaRussa belongs in the pantheon of all-time greats, and he’s one of my personal favorites.

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I think it’s finally time to admit failure in picking the Dodgers to win the NL West. If a staggering amount of injuries weren’t going to hold them out of the divisional race to the bottom, then the falling out between their two best remaining players probably will. After Milton Bradley failed to score from second on a single, Jeff Kent accused him of not knowing how to play the game, which Bradley interpreted as a racially charged statement. Bradley lashed out at Kent, and soon thereafter decided to have season ending surgery on a knee that could have been braced and operated on after the season. Bradley was probably in an intense amount of pain, but the feud between him and Kent certainly made his decision easier. For all of their troubles, both men have performed through the season. Bradley has the second best OPS of his career, with the best coming in Jacobs Field, a less staggering pitchers park. Jeff Kent went from the Houston launching pad to Chavez Ravine and actually increased his OPS slightly in a down year for offense. People keep saying he’s a borderline HOFer, but if he never declines he could cement his spot in Cooperstown before he’s done. It’s a shame that this team had to be torn apart by injuries and turmoil; they certainly don’t lack talent.

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As for the most important story of the week, I feel bad for the batboy who got suspended after losing the “drink a gallon of milk in an hour without throwing up” bet to Brad Penny. First of all, where did Penny find an hour to hang out with a bat boy? But more importantly, this should serve as a lesson not to stock the team’s management with curmudgeons like Jack McKeon. I’ve had my share of gallon-of-milk challenges, and it really doesn’t hurt anyone more than the one who tries it. Everyone else gets a good laugh, and there is obviously no reason to suspend him. At least the Ft. Myers Miracle offered him an honorary batboy position during his suspension, and the Got Milk? people offered him the lost $500 and his missing wages from the suspension.

Limping towards the Cy Young
Santana and the field


The National League has had a pretty spectacular year. Derek Lee chased the Triple Crown realistically for about four months. Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and Andruw Jones put up Hall of Fame type seasons in the midst of what may become Hall of Fame careers. The Cy Young race is a brilliant three way slugfest between wildly disparate yet provocative players. The 43 year old legend among those three is even headlining a crazy Wild Card Race that includes an entire division and a team that was one game from last year's World Series.

As a lifelong AL devotee, I feel somewhat embarrassed that my league has fallen so short of all of these marks. Indeed, they have had a solid Wild Card race so far, but all three of the leaders were well under .500 in May, and they all still have noteworthy flaws. The shortcoming on which I'd like to focus today may end up being the biggest bright spot for a Twins fan in a year that could see four huge markets in the playoffs. The AL Cy Young race is a muddy slopfest to the NL's majestic Kentucky Derby, but we'll easily forget that if Johan Santana takes home his second consecutive trophy.

Joe Sheehan took on this same issue at Baseball Prospectus today and came up with the same resolution that I did in a conversation last night: the weak field makes the award Santana's to lose. Now, I'll readily admit that I used this space a couple of months ago to say that Santana was extremely unlikely to repeat the other-wordly dominance of 2004's second half. I even looked prophetic after four consecutive August starts in which he tallied between three and five strikeouts in each game. But in August, Johan has recaptured past brilliance to close in on Roy Halladay for the title of most valuable pitcher in the league. In his last three starts, he has surrendered only one run, that in the ninth inning of a no-hit bid against the White Sox. (That makes me wonder, has anyone other than Johnny Van Der Meer ever started two consecutive games with no hitters into the 8th inning? I guess it doesn't really matter, because Johan doesn't deserve credit for Freddy Garcia's strong outing).

Just looking at the competition, Santana looks like he is in pretty good shape. The other front runners include Roy Halladay, Rich Harden, Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland and Bartolo Colon. Halladay and Harden have been better on a per-inning basis, but the voters will never pick anyone who made around 25 starts for the whole season and missed a couple of months. I suspect that the White Sox aces will split votes with one another, but even if they don't, neither has the peripherals to measure up to Santana. Garland has 16 wins, but far worse K and ERA numbers than Santana, and Buehrle also trails in those areas, but doesn't even have the win advantage. Like Santana, Colon is having his second consecutive strong second half, and will probably end up being the closest competition for Santana. If the Twins fade, Colon's win total (16 so far) could look pretty good coming from a division champion. I expect Santana to keep the Twins within a stone's throw of the Wild Card the rest of the season, but either way, I'd bet these two in a Cy Young quinella.

Speaking strictly statistically, Santana still trails Roy Halladay in Value Over Replacement Pitcher by about three runs (53-50), a small gap that Santana can probably close in his next start if he stays hot. The Sox have VORP nos. 3, 4 and 6 (Garcia, Buehrle and Garland) with Anaheim's other hot commodity, Jared Washburn checking in at no. 5. Where's Colon? All the way down at no. 8, right behind look-alike Carlos Silva at 7. The rankings here are not that important, though, as the difference between Halladay and Garcia (one and three) is larger the difference between three and sixteen (Radke). The shocking thing about these stats is that Halladay has been that much better than the field in only 19 starts. If they can stay healthy, he and Santana could be competing for Cy Young trophies for the next 5-10 years. In terms of Support Neutral Lineup Adjusted Value Added Against Replacement Level (the number of wins a pitcher has been worth with a fixed lineup/run support against a readily available replacement), Halladay's lead over Santana is 6.1 to 5.3 with Colon climbing to no. 3 and Oakland's pair of Harden and Zito catapulting over Chicago's troika, leaving no Stocking in the top 6.

Dominant as Halladay has been, he needs to make seven or eight more starts before the BBWAA will consider him a legitimate candidate, and time just doesn't permit as he continues recovering from a broken leg. Santana's the next best thing, and may end up as the best if Halladay is stuck on the shelf much longer, so don't be surprised if a second consecutive the second Venezuelan Cy Young winner happens much more quickly than the first.

Playing Off of Postseason Odds


The Twin Cities are abuzz with Twins playoff chatter, the sort of September confidence that can only come from three straight division championships. Truly, the Twins have been able to coast for long stretches, especially in 2004, while still finding a way to sneak into the playoffs. The last couple of years, they got hot at the right time, just as other teams (particularly Chicago) collapsed. Through a gaggle of lackluster performances, though, Minnesota finds itself in a more difficult situation in 2005, needing to catch and pass three teams in a little over a month to seize the Wild Card for the first time.

Using a complicated simulation metric, Baseball Prospectus estimates that it will take between 91 and 92 wins to claim the AL WC, giving the Indians the best shot to do so. To win 92 games, the Twins would have to finish a red hot 26-12 over their last 38 games, a stretch even if they continue their hot play from the last couple of weeks. Although the Indians, Yankees and A's are deadlocked atop the standings (with Cleveland percentage points behind the other two), the Twins need to overcome a 2.5 game deficit, but hope that all three teams play below them the rest of the way. It's probably safe to say that a 26-12 finish would be enough to ward off all three other teams, but that's also most likely a pipe dream.

Specifically, the playoff odds for the AL WC contenders look like this:

Indians- 40.6% probability of winning the WC
Yankees- 21.6%
A's- 7.6%
Twins- 6.0%

The Division leaders also have a large chunk of WC probability as well, because each of them holds a large enough cushion of wins that they would have a good shot at the playoffs even if they lost the division. No other teams have more than a 1% chance.

The odds are calculated based on a simulation of the team's actual remaining schedule by using the team's third order winning percentage and running one million Monte Carlo Simulations of the rest of the season. In other words, they take the team's component stats, extract from that a model of performance, and match it up against the teams they have left to play. Oakland's percentage is lower because they have won more games than their level of performance would project. Similarly, Cleveland is still sleeping off the hangover from their nightmarish start where they played way under their Pythaganport projections. Thus, the records for both teams should continue to look more and more like the actual performance.

Since the Twins have been pretty much luck neutral this year (as opposed to the last three years in which they were consistently win lucky), they should naturally come close to catching the A's according to this metric. Not surprisingly, the Twins component strengths are their strong pitching buoyed by a low BB rate while they suffer from too little taking and raking (OBP and SLG) at the plate. Of course, these standings don't really tell us anything we don't already know: if the Twins keep hitting like they have all season, they will probably not make the playoffs. What keeps us tuning in to FSN North is the possibility that Lew has really found his swing, Morneau will continue slowly coming around, and Stewart keeps it up with the multi-hit games. If there really is some intangible quality that has helped them over the hump by turning it up to 11 in September the last three years, now is the time to start using it, because the tangible skills aren't getting it done.

As for the National League, the Astros have a decisive lead with a 39% probability, due in large part to the unbalanced schedule giving them the Pirates and Reds while the NL East (all between 6% and 15% probability) tear each other apart.

One interesting sidenote from the adjusted standings: The White Sox are still 3rd in the AL Central in 3rd order wins, meaning they have played to the level of the third best team in the division. They also project to finish 20-19 the rest of the way.

High Five Friday

Though the Cardinals remain prohibitive favorites to come out of the National League, their injury situation makes that perch seem a bit more tenuous. Although they have played well without four of their starters for the last month or so, the potential loss of Scott Rolen should still frighten fans. Rolen has a rotator cuff tear, similar to the one that kept Mark Ellis out of Oakland’s lineup last year, and stands to miss about six months after having surgery. He also needs knee surgery that he has put off since early in the season, so shutting it down now to get ready for the spring is not only possible, but probable.

I recently watched a game where the Cards’ announcers were extremely optimistic about Walker and Molina, almost suspiciously so. They seemed to think that Molina would have no lasting effects and that he would come back at or above his previously established level of performance immediately. More surprisingly, they said that Walker’s back trouble is a thing of the past, and that he was only sitting out as a precaution and to give other players a chance to see some PAs.

I’m not very comfortable with any of these events, as Rolen’s loss leaves a vastly overachieving Abraham Nunez to man the hot corner in the playoffs, they have no credible backup at catcher, and Walker has a chronic back condition that isn’t going to go away with any amount of rest. The Cards should cheer for Houston so they get to play the Padres in the first round of the playoffs, because they could struggle with Philly or Florida if the Wild Card comes from the East (and isn’t the Nats).
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The Royals found a way to make people start talking about them again, but unfortunately, it required approaching the all-time loss streak to do it. I don’t have much to add that hasn’t already been written: indeed, the tightwad Wal-Mart owner has cost his team a chance to compete. Also, they have a troubling collections of has-beens, never-wases, and won’t-bes to fill out the lineup card behind Matt Stairs. My biggest question is how Stairs is not yet in Boston, as he’s precisely the kind of known-commodity-in-slag-heap player that Theo has gobbled up so far (Jeremy Giambi, Wade Miller, Matt Mantei, even David Ortiz). There will be more to talk about here if the A’s, Red Sox and Yankees blow through them in the next 10. Here’s hoping that we get to experience infamy.

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I spoke too soon about Shingo Takatsu’s unemployment, as the quietly signed with the New York Mets earlier this week, immediately making him the team’s second most accomplished reliever behind Roberto Hernandez. The folks at BP have been campaigning for an NL team with bullpen woes to sign him up, as his goofy delivery and freak show changeup make him something of a one trick pony that the AL collectively solved after a little over a year. I am a little less enthusiastic, as a bad pitcher is a bad pitcher is a bad pitcher, and playing slow pitch softball isn’t going to work anywhere. He benefited from an absurdly low BABIP last year, so even that success can be attributed somewhat to luck. Even if his change his supposed to suppress BABIP, it doesn’t help that his velocity and location can’t get anyone out. Finally, it has always confused me that a Japanese pitcher throws such an extreme changeup, as I’ve always heard that the pitch doesn’t even exist in Japan. Instead, most Japanese pitchers (see Hideo Nomo and Hideki Irabu as evidence) throw a variation of a forkball as their “change of pace.” Akinori Otsuka of the Padres also throws a traditional changeup, but there may be a selection bias, as American scouts could be prone to prioritizing these pitchers who have already adapted to the American style of pitching.

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ESPN Insider reported yesterday that J.C. Romero wouldn’t mind leaving the Twins, as players like David Ortiz and Casey Blake have had so much success after leaving the Cities. I can understand J.C.’s ambivalence toward the franchise that left him out to dry for the month of July, but his reasoning seems a bit ridiculous. Certainly, Ortiz has blossomed in Boston, but his rate stats aren’t that much better than the times he was healthy in Minnesota, and that doesn’t account for the times that he was playing hurt. Maybe he never would have put it all together for the Twins, but leaving probably wasn’t the source of his emergence. More importantly, he has no argument at all beyond that one example. Casey Blake hit lots of HRs last year, but it was pretty fluky, as he’s been one of the worst hitters in the MLB this year. And what about player’s who came to Minnesota to see their greatest success? Joe Nathan, Carlos Silva, Shannon Stewart and Rick Reed (briefly) probably don’t think anywhere-but-Minnesota is the best place to play. And there are plenty of examples of players who left and never again reached their Minnesota peak. Latroy Hawkins and Doug Mientkiewicz are obvious examples, but even Guardado, Milton and Guzman also demonstrate the same effect. I won’t fault Romero for his logical fallacy, but if more people start pointing to the leaving Minnesota effect, I’ll be a little steamed.

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While Randy Moss isn’t a baseball player, I think his news is interesting nonetheless. His agent, a shifty-eyed lawyer named Dante, appeared on Cold Pizza this morning (don’t ask why I watched it) and ran out some boring drivel about an ellipsis in the quotation and the past vs. future tense. Eventually, he became a little frustrated and finally said what was on everyone’s mind since the story broke, something like, :”Look, we’ve all known this for the last ten years. Why is it such a big deal that he admitted it?” And I couldn’t agree more. First of all, I think the NFL should turn over positive tests for non-performance enhancing drugs to the authorities and they can do what they want with them. I don’t see any reason for them to come down hard on an athlete for doing something that has little impact on the game. More importantly, did anyone really think that Randy Moss didn’t smoke pot, either in the distant past, the recent past, or as you are reading this? Just hours before the news broke, I was discussing NFL players with the most street cred, and we agreed that Moss came in second behind Ray Lewis, who probably killed someone.

Other highlights of the story so far include John Kruk and Jay Crawford jumping on the Skip Bayless “holier than thou” train to condemn all pot smokers and vow that they had never touched it. Kruk even said that Moss should have lied to Bryant Gumbel in the interview, which seems like the wrong advice for someone who has a spotty reputation to begin. Randy’s agent also made himself sound like a parent trying to punish a nine year old by saying that Moss was trying to cooperate with the media until they go and do something like this. From now on, he’ll just have to keep to himself. I also learned that there is no random drug testing in the NFL for non-PEDs, only a scheduled test in training camp. So if pot can get through your system in about a month, the players can still smoke for 10-11 months a year with impunity. Pretty toothless, but it makes sense if Lomas Brown was correct in his assertion that more than 50% of the league smokes pot. Brown doesn’t have Jose Canseco’s vendetta, so I think that his numbers are a little closer to reality than Canseco’s steroid approximation, but he’s probably a little high- or should I say above the true figure.

Check Swings

With playoff hopes rekindled after a four game winning streak and a ridiculously gratifying sweep of Chicago, playoff fever is contagious once again in and around the Twin Cities. My dream scenario is that the Twins rattle off 10 more wins against the Sox the rest of the way and complete the most shocking comeback since the Shot Heard Round the World. But who would be our Bobby Thompson? I have to assume it would be Justin Morneau, but that’s still a ways off. The next best case scenario sees the Twins squeaking into the playoffs ahead of the A’s, Yankees and Tribe with a strong stretch run. Rob Neyer recently wrote that their ability to do so hinges on Johan Santana going bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S) and Justin Morneau mashing from here on out. Both have looked good recently, with Morneau providing a key homer against the Sox and Johan flirting with his first career no-hitter the next night. The Twins have 32 games to make up four on the field, so this weekend’s four gamer against the hapless M’s is vital; they cannot afford to sleepwalk through another disappointing series with a team 15 games under .500. Still, let’s temper our optimism and default to the null hypothesis until we have evidence to indicate otherwise: the A’s and Yankees are favorites and the Twins have a big mountain to climb.

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The recent resurgence has coincided with Juan Castro mercifully spending some time on the disabled list, which is almost certainly not a coincidence. Perhaps he should have been deactivated months ago with a sprained batter’s eye or herniated bat, but he has lasted long enough to make everyone complain about the weak offense. The injury has given us another opportunity to see what the future hopefully holds at SS, and Jason Bartlett has been much more encouraging, although still somewhat lacking in the power he flashed at AAA. Since the recall, Bartlett has quietly put up a .333 OBP in limited opportunities (32 ABs) without an XBH to date. But the knowledge that Bartlett has some pop from his exceedingly extensive minor league record makes him much more valuable to the lineup that Castro’s glove could ever be.

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With Seattle coming into town, the buzz rightly focuses on Felix Hernandez, the 19 year old phenom who will start at the Dome on Saturday night (incidentally, my first visit to the Dome, or even Minneapolis, of 2005). In 21 IP, Hernandez has struck out 21 batters, walked 3 and given up zero HRs. If he proves able to project those numbers over a full season, he’ll probably be the greatest pitcher of all time by any measure. I don’t expect anything quite that drastic, but he should have a nice career ahead of him as long as the M’s treacherous med staff doesn’t get a hold of him (see examples like Rafael Soriano, Ryan Anderson and Gil Meche, just to skim the top of the barrel).

Other than the possible heir to Pedro Martinez’s thrown, Seattle offers ICHIRO! and his paltry .308 BA and less than 150 hits. He won’t be challenging his personal hit record this year, but he’s still wildly entertaining. Richie Sexson is a three true outcomes guy with 130+ K’s and 30 HRs on the season, making him another player who at least contributes to the price of admission. And if you want to stretch it, seeing Eddie come back to the Dome could be worth a few nostalgia points, but the Mariners are pretty thin on attractions past that point. Adrian Beltre has been enormously disappointing after signing for $68 million for one season of good work. Raul Ibanez and Willie Bloomquist don’t make me want to switch allegiances, not even a little bit. The trio of Joel Pineiro, Gil Meche and Ryan Franklin have managed a best-ball total of 5.16 K/9 (Meche, with the others clocking in below 5.0). And Jamie Moyer ranks as their second best starter in terms of SP VORP, good for 70th in the league. Moyer got out to a quick start, but the when craftiness and wiles are your two primary skills, well, a 5.11 ERA isn’t so surprising. Maybe he should call up the unemployed Shingo Takatsu to help him throw a little harder. His fastball is slow enough that you could put headlights on it and it would scare a deer. Enough. After all, this is the team that almost swept the Twins last week, and I really don’t need to be the 270 millionth American to make fun of Jamie Moyer’s fastball. Anyway, we’ll miss him this weekend, as the M’s will miss Johan in the last gasp for a team who was once a clear favorite.

Post-Deadline Deals

Last year, St. Louis was running away with the NL Central, putting up monster numbers behind an All-World lineup featuring perhaps the game’s best at 1B, 3B and CF. The team had a solid pitching staff without a real star, but plenty of depth, so Walt Jocketty decided to make up more run differential by trading for another slugger in the person of Larry Walker. The big canuck’s bat exploded for 11 HRs in 150 ABs for the Cards, and he helped carry them to the NL pennant while somehow staying healthy. He has had more back problems this year, but with the organizational depth, the trade has to be considered a big success. But can any team pull off a similar coup this season?

Peter Gammons recently ran an article on players who have cleared waivers featuring names as big as Griffey, Piazza and Sweeney. Of the three, I can only imagine Sweeney getting traded as the Angels find it harder and harder to stay in strong playoff footing. If they put a few games between themselves and the A’s, I would expect Bill Stoneman to behave as he’s used to behaving and keep his current roster. But if they have a rough series or full week, don’t be surprised if they start scapegoating the offense and looking for patches. Despite all of the young talent in the system, young players like Casey Kotchman and especially Dallas McPherson have not lived up to their billing, and the team wants to win now with several aging players like Garrett Anderson, Darin Erstad and Adam Kennedy. Still, Stoneman can play conservatively and compete with Oakland for several seasons with Vlad, Kotchman, McPherson, Ervin Santana and Bartolo Colon. His job now is to figure out just how much greater their run differential needs to be, if at all, and decide if the gains Sweeney can contribute this year outweigh the marginal loss from their prospects in the years to come. Personally, I think it would be a good trade if they gave up two B-B+ prospects for what Sweeney has left, as he would slot in nicely behind Vlad as the team’s second best hitter both in terms of VORP and MLVr. He would probably take most of the PAs away from Jeff Davanon, who has put up a .661 OPS as a primary DH, bad enough to make him blend in with the replacement level.

For all the talk of Griffey going to Chicago and Kenny Williams’ hyperactivity regarding big names, I still can’t accept that he is very likely to be traded. The Sox play in a major market, but have remained cost conscious for several years, and the price tag on Griffey is pretty high for a player with his recent track record. To compare this trade to St. Louis picking up Walker last year makes sense on a couple of levels: team’s with big leads fortifying the offense. The difference is that Griffey fills a real need for the Sox, while the Cards already had a great offense. Ozzie certainly can’t expect much out of Junior’s legs at this point, which would put a serious crimp in his plot to waste as many outs as possible, and he would have to make time around Aaron Rowand, Jermaine Dye, Carl Everett and Scott Podsednik when he returns from the DL. They could easily enough bench Rowand and keep DH’ing crazy Carl, but Ozzie has already started blowing the clubhouse chemistry horn, which makes me believe that they will live and die with what they already have.

A more interesting storyline comes from the players with a higher probability of being dealt. Looking at the teams needing a boost- the NL West besides the Braves, the Astros, the Yankees and the Indians-, almost everyone needs relief pitching. Latroy Hawkins, Steve Kline, Braden Looper and Justin Speier cleared waivers, among others.

The Mets, who put their own closer on waivers, may have the most dire need, fielding only one pitcher with a cumulative WXRL (Expected Wins Added) above 1.0. The rejuvenated Roberto Hernandez comes in at no. 1, but even he has seen his numbers slip as he’s tired in the second half, his ERA going from 1.69 before the break to 5.06 in 16 IP since. The Mets could really use a flame-thrower who can get some easy K’s, but with the recent injuries to Beltran and Cameron, I doubt they will mortgage their future on a reliever for a Wild Card race where they have to pass four other teams.

Across town, the Yankees are another interesting choice, as the Bombers continue mining the wavier wire for anything resembling a major league pitcher. So far, they’ve struck something between aluminum and gold with Aaron Small, and Shawn Chacon has been a valuable short-term pickup as well. But for all the attention paid to the rotation, the bullpen has struggled as well, with Rivera, Gordon, Sturtze and nuthin’. Even Rivera, having a resurgence this year after 2004’s painful memories, has blown 2 saves in the last week, perhaps a sign that age is finally catching up with one of the greatest closers of all time. Their fourth best reliever by WXRL is Buddy Groom, who was released, through a temper tantrum, and has been playing well for the D-Backs ever since. If any team can afford to swallow a few million to take a chance on a former stud like Latroy, I would say it’s the Yankees. Then again, as a Twins fan, I know his history of playing in high leverage situations, and it doesn’t get much higher leverage than Yankee Stadium in autumn.

The Nationals need the least bullpen help, as the addition of Mike Stanton has worked out pretty well for them. Nonetheless, after Chad Cordero’s phenomenal season leading all relievers in WXRL by a wide margin, Ayala, Majewski and Carrasco have all been worked pretty hard. More importantly, there is an abundance of relievers on the market, and Bowden won’t likely let them pass by without making a creative offer or two.

Finally, I think the team with the most to gain by picking up one of these relievers is the Philadelphia Phillies, the team I thought was going to win the Wild Card from the start of the season. Now only a game and a half back of the back-to-Earth Astros, the Phillies have a strong offensive attack highlighted by Abreu, Rollins, Utley, Burrell and Howard. The rotation has been surprisingly solid, with Tejada and Padilla finding their strides at the right time to join LAIMs (league average inning muncher) Jon Lieber and Corey Lidle behind burgeoning ace Brett Myers. Even though the bullpen added Ugeth Urbina earlier in the season, the could do with one more arm in front of Billy Wagner, as only Ryan Madson has been reliable in high leverage situations besides those two. Steve Kline makes sense here, giving the team a strong situational lefty to go in front of a dominant lefty closer. Kline is also unhappy in Baltimore and any change of scenery could help him.

Any of these pickups are unlikely, but they could make the difference between playing in October and going home, so it’s fun and somewhat worthwhile to speculate.

1987 revisited

Even though I was only two years old at the time, I look back on the 1987 World Series blissfully. It isn't often that your team gets to be the lucky bastards who somehow win when they aren't supposed to do so. I'm sure you've heard before that this team was the only team to ever win the World Series after scoring less runs than they allowed during the regular season, which becomes more amazing the more you think about it. Today I'm going to look back on that 1987 team and do a brief recap of what MLB looked like in the year of the Twins' first World Championship.

ultimately, the Twins went 85-77, a pedestrian record for a division winner, despite being outscored 806-786 for the year, a run differential that predicts a 79-83 record. Only Kansas City joined them above .500, led to an 83-79 record by Bret Saberhagen, Danny Tartabull, Kevin Seitzer and an aging George Brett at first base. Current Twins' pitching coach Rick Anderson pitched in 6 games for those Royals and put up a 13.85 ERA using skills that he would later pass on to Bob Wells and Joe Mays.

Judging by award voting, many people saw the Twins for the fluke that they were even at the time, with Kirby finishing 3rd in MVP voting, but nobody else finishing higher than 6th on any ballot (Viola, Cy Young). Kirby had one of his best years, leading the team in VORP with a 62.1 figure and putting up a .332/.367/.534 line with 28 homeruns, but adding a career worst 95 Rate2 in CF. The poor defense didn't stop Kirby from winning a Gold Glove, an honor also bestowed on Gary Gaetti, joined Kirby on enough MVP ballots to finish tenth in the voting. Gaetti's strong showing came in spite of just edging out Greg Gagne with a 23.6 VORP and a miserable .303 OBP. Gaetti redeemed himself in the playoffs, though, by going 6-20 with 3 XBHs and 6 RBI in the 5 game romp over heavily favored Detroit.

Kent Hrbek had an excellent season, going .285/.389/.545 with 34 HRs to lead the team, and Tom Brunansky was solid in RF, checking in with 32 HRs and a team 3rd best 30.1 VORP. But the rest of the lineup featured only one player with an OBP above .315 (DH Roy Smalley at .352), and nobody with enough power to make up for the BB totals in the 20s and 30s. Al Newman managed 349 PAs as a utilityman, but didn't deserve them considering his sub-replacement level .221/.292/.303 line. The catching situation was particularly horrible. I remember watching the Sports Illustrated commemorative video of the World Series and wondering how they won with a starting catcher who hit .191. I still don't understand, but when the other options hit .200 and .171 (Tom Nieto and Sal Butera, respectively) I guess I'd also go with the one who was closest to replacement level. Amazingly, Tim Laudner stuck with the team for 9 years despite hitting with a feather bat, and his defense was never even above average.

One would think that the Twins would need a remarkable pitching staff to make up for half of a lineup full of minor league talent, but the pitching staff was just as top heavy as the lineup. Frank Viola and Bert Blyleven led the way with VORPs of 80.1 and 49.7, and Les Straker clocked in as a solid no. 3 starter with a 26.0 VORP, but it got pretty thin from there. Mike Smithson got 20 starts, but had a 5.97 ERA and walked nearly as many as he struck out (38 and 53). The 42 year old scattered remains of Joe Niekro also showed up to 18 starts, accumulating a 6.26 ERA in 96 1/3 IP. They even tried the pitcher formerly known as Steve Carlton for 7 starts, but he was even worse than Niekro. Juan Berenguer, one of those overweight pitchers who always look scary because he's sweating from his warmup, chalked up 110 Ks in 112 IP as the functional relief ace. Keith Atherton and George Frazier also saw a handful of high leverage innings, but did little to distinguish themselves. Jeff Reardon tallied 31 saves and an 8-8 record in the early days of the one inning closer, and somehow finished 11th in the MVP balloting and 8th in the Cy Young despite a 4.46 ERA. Both Reardon and Berenguer were late offseason acquisitions who helped stabilize a shaky starting rotation by anchoring the bullpen.

Other offseason moves included trading for minor leaguers Al Newman and Ron Gardenhire in separate deals, and sending two minor leaguers who would never break through to the Giants for Dan Gladden. Sadly, all three of these men have probably contributed more to the team after retiring than they did as players. In season they traded for an aging Don Baylor from Boston who was punchless in the regular season, but provided much needed on-base skills, and a dramatic WS homer.

The ALCS was perhaps the most surprising part of the whole season, as they dominated Sparky Anderson's heavily favored Tigers 4-1 after mustering only 4 wins in 12 regular season meetings. The Twins came into game one having lost 7 of their last 9 and slated to face Doyle Alexander who had posted a 9-0 record with a 1.59 ERA in 11 starts since coming to Detroit in a midseason trade. Alan Trammell had just finished an MVP runner-up season, and the Tigers' lineup also featured big years by Matt Nokes, Lou Whittaker, Darrell Evans and Kirk Gibson. Walt Terrell, Jack Morris and Frank Tanana all won 15 or more games for the Tigers en route to a 98 win season.

But that's why they play 'em, as the Twins rattled Alexander and gave him his first Detroit loss, 8-5 behind two HRs by Gary Gaetti. The Twins won game two with Bert Blyleven on the mound before losing Les Straker's start in Detroit. But with Viola and Blyleven back for games 4 and 5, the Twins wrapped up the AL pennant before going back home, beating Alexander again in game 5. As I mentioned earlier, Gaetti won series MVP, but Tom Brunansky made an even stronger case with 6 of his 7 hits going for extra bases, 9 RBI and 4 BBs for a .412/.524/1.000 line.

In the Metrodome's first World Series, the announcers spared no effort in talking about the effects of the stadium, which shouldn't have been that large, but actually resulted in the home team winning every game, just like in 1991. Cards' manager Whitey Herzog had built a team that he liked: lots of good defense and speed, but players who played smart. Herzog had to contend with injuries in the postseason, but got his team past the Giants into a World Series against a team he didn't think belonged there. But Minnesota came out with an offensive barrage, plating 18 through the first two games before going silent with only 5 total runs in losses from games 3-5. A return to the dome saw a return of the offense, with an 11-5 victory in which they scored 9 runs in the final 4 innings. Viola got behind 2-0 in the 2nd in game 7, but they came back for a 4-2 victory closed out by Jeff Reardon for their first World Championship.

So that's how it happened. I thought today would be a good day for a story about a light hitting team with top-heavy pitching came out of nowhere to win the World Series, but, unfortunately, 85 wins probably won't get this team a shot at the playoffs.

Check Swings

*Jim Thome is set to have season ending surgery to repair his elbow. ESPN is running a poll asking how many more good seasons the 34 year old slugger has left in him. Judging from his list of most comparable players, it sounds like a trick question, because the answer is probably negative 3/4. Three of Thome's four most comparable hitters are Albert Belle (1), Juan Gonzalez (3) and Dick Allen (4), all of whom fell off the planet in their early-mid thirties never to put up productive numbers again. Maybe it was something in Cleveland's water (or scouting department) in the late 90s that made all of these sluggers deteriorate so quickly, as Manny Ramirez is Thome's no. 2 comp, a shiver-inducing thought as Manny transitions into his mid-30s. But results aside, we can easily look at these players and guess that they wouldn't age well. None of them were in particularly good shape, none kept much of a workout routine- unless you count Albert Belle's "sparring" with Fernando Vina-, and they were all lumbering players who relied on hitting homeruns for most of their value, great as it was. But once they started getting a little dinged up and a handful of those homeruns turned into warning track flies, pitchers could start going at them more often, strikeout rates would rise, batting averages would fall with homerun totals, and the value would largely evaporate. Thome's case appears to fit this mold, as his OBP remains a solid .360 through the year, indicating that his plate discipline hasn't faded, just his power. Maybe his elbow is the extent of his problems and he will come back next year with a mean streak, but my guess is that Thome will hang on for a couple of more years a la late Mark McGwire- more a contractual burden than a pinch hitter. But that's what Ed Wade gets for offering a 6 year deal to a plodding 32 year old.

*Scott Boras recently stopped by Baseball Prospectus for a chat, and had this to say about contract holdouts:

"'Renegotiate' is not in my vocabulary. I advise players to consider all the variables, such as injury vs improvement, before they sign a contract. I have had players call me about bad contracts they had signed and I always advise that the sanctity of the contract is important for the survival of any system based on performance. To change it when there is improvement is a double-edged sword that will inevitably lead to degrading the contract when the player malperforms. Unless there is a provision allowing for changes based on performance, anyone who advocates change puts all his clients in jeopardy. It becomes subjective, degrading contracts just as often as improving them, and anarchy results. Terrell Owens argues that the owners have the ability to void his contract at any time. While this seems unjust, this is in the NFL CBA. This is a huge issue that should be raised at the next collective bargaining session, but not in the context of an individual player. Owens knew this provision existed when he signed his contract."

I relay this quotation to you because I completely agree with it, and it sheds some light on the seemingly maniacal approach Boras sometimes takes to negotiation. Even if he keeps minor leaguers from starting their careers, he knows that they're looking at their only guaranteed contract, as draftees still have a low rate of reaching the majors and a lower rate of making it 3 years into arbitration. While a 25 million/year deal is probably ultimately bad for the game, Boras does a lot of good through a) knowing baseball better than any other agent, and b) making his clients fulfill their contractual obligations and show up for spring training and games.

*They Royals called up Denny Hocking this week. Maybe that will be the answer. Two funny Royals jokes from this week. Chris Kahrl, writing on the Hocking call-up, says, "Primal scream therapy's all well and good, but what happens when everyone's gone hoarse?" It's almost funny to think that this team was competitive and had a promising future two years ago with a very similar core of players. They were also outscored by about 70 runs that year, proving that there is value in looking at Pythgoras' evaluations.

The other funny line: Will Carroll commenting on the news that Matt Stairs had strained his calf muscle, "I didn't know Matt Stairs had muscles."

*The Twins are sweepless in Seattle (I'm sorry) after a 14 inning marathon last night that saw Mauer obliterate his mini-slump, Eddie blow his second save of the year to his old mates, and the Twins finally win the game with runs off of once-invincible Jeff Nelson and Bert's personal favorite, Shigetoshi Hasegawa. As long as the playoffs look unreachable, let's remain focused on small victories, like not getting swept and staying over .500. I'm starting to know what it feels like to be a White Sox fan from last year all the way back to, say, 1910.

Speed, Smarts and Defense

I have been at a conference (not SABR) for the last few days, and spent some time doing a small research project, so I apologize for the lack of posts. To make up for it, I'll dive into the new research right away.

Announcers are fond of saying that a fast player is a good defender and vice versa, especially in the outfield. If someone covers a lot of ground, they say he's fast and assume that it also makes him a good baserunner. If someone steals lots of bases, they'll point to that as proof that he covers a lot of ground in the outfield. Defense is notoriously difficult to measure, and even SB statistics can mislead as high totals often come at the expense of high CS totals. Due to the dense fog shrouding both stats, the Joe Morgans of the world can get away with inserting their personal anecdotes in the place of evidence. How would he explain someone like Andruw Jones, lauded for his glove and range, but without gaudy SB totals? I wanted a better answer.

I figured that it would be relatively simple to run a regression analysis for the best defensive statistics available against various measures of speed or discipline on offense to see if they move together. Somewhat surprisingly, offensive skills do little to predict defensive ability in the outfield, according to my research. I took a sampling of every CF to play 100 games in a season since the 2001 season and recorded his rate2. I then plotted it against various offensive stats: AVG, OPS+, triples, SBs, SB% and BB rate in order to test a few different stereotypes. I chose CF because it is the most difficult OF defense position, meaning the sample wouldn't be watered down by players with one skill who are stuck on an OF corner in spite of it.

Note: Rate2 is always the dependent variable, always on the Y-axis.

AVG vs. Rate2

I started with AVG versus rate2 as a control for the experiment, because there is not much reason to think that hitting for a high average would make a player successful in the field. There are plenty of examples of high average players with less than stellar defensive reputations/skill sets, such as Tony Gwynn. But he was tremendously fat, you say. Yes, exactly, he was able to hit for a high average despite carrying the equivalent of a fishtank hanging over his belt, so it shouldn't have anything to do with fielding ability. If there is a high correlation here, it would indicate that offensive skills predict defensive skills, Joe Morgan could make even stronger statements about fielding, and this whole exercise would be a waste of time.

We're off to a good start, as the nearly straight red line indicates that a good batting average does not predict a good fielder. AVG can fluctuate wildly as demonstrated by players like Scott Podsednik and Johnny Damon, both of whom showed up multiple times in the data. Potentially, if someone had a high enough AVG, he would play in the field often, which could theoretically make him a better fielder over time. This graph provides evidence against that theory, so the confounding variables are unlikely true and we can move along.

OPS+ vs. Rate2

OPS+ is a measure of a player's OPS relative to league average (Player OPS/ League OPS) to give an idea of how he has performed offensively compared to average. I used it because it's easily accessible and seldom varies past the 50-150 range, making it fit more cleanly in a linear graph.

Once again, there is no statistically significant evidence to suggest a correlation. I only included OPS+ because it is a more complete measure of total offensive ability than AVG, but didn't really expect there to be any strong correlation. Now that we have established that offensive and defensive ability are not inherently linked, we can move on to the section comparing speed indicators on offense to OF defense.

SB vs. Rate2

If Morgan, et al. are correct, then it stands to reason that the ability to steal a base should predict the ability to field the ball well in CF, since both rely on the same fundamental skill: footspeed. My expectation was that there would be a weakly positive relationship between the two skills, at it makes some intuitive sense that great base-stealers and CFs need to be fleet of foot, but this was where I was most surprised.

The strongest negative relationship of any of the data I examined came from the SB set. Notice the high outliers for SBs on the right end of the graph. The owners of the four highest SB totals were all substantially below average defenders. In other words, if good base stealers have to be fast, then speed actually predicts a worse defensive CF, contrary to every bit of conventional wisdom and intuition. Perhaps I'm playing fast and loose here with the definition of a good base stealer, but we'll look more carefully at that later.

Specifically, the correlation between the two sets of data is -17.3%, not particularly negative, but surprising nonetheless. Another way to explain it is to say that the portion of the variation in defensive ability that can be accounted for by SB totals (the r-squared value) is .03.

Triples vs. Rate2

Assume for a moment that base stealing has nothing to do with speed, and it just depends on a runner's ability to read the pitcher's motion. Far-fetched as that may sound, there is probably some kernel of truth in it. If that is the case, perhaps triples are a better measure of speed and would do more to predict a player's ability in the outfield. After all, there are examples of less speedy players with respectable SB totals, but very few leadfooted triplers. In Twins terms, think of Torii Hunter stealing bases by taking off extremely early to make him much faster than he really is. For the triples argument, imagine Fatthew Lecroy chugging around second to try to waddle out a three-bagger (or just remember when it actually happened and smile).

Just like Steve Buschemi in Fargo, this graph only strikes me as kinda funny lookin'. Because there is little variation in triples (it's extremely rare for anyone to go above 20) and the values can only be integers (thank you, Donny), it ends up looking like a poorly completed standardized test. Once you get past the initial chortle over the graph's shape, you'll notice that there is another slightly negative correlation between a speed stat and defense. Again, not statistically significant, but surprising anyway.

SB% vs. Rate2

Another possible explanation for the data in the previous two graphs is that the SB and the triple are dangerous stats that require potentially reckless behavior to accomplish. Runners will often stay at second instead of trying to stretch the double in the name of caution, which is often a smart play, as the extra base will add some run probability, but the high chance of getting out many times will outweigh it. In that respect, perhaps a smart player is a better defensive player. If that hypothesis were true, then stats that indicate intelligence in a player would predict defense, which makes some sense considering the importance of taking good paths to the ball, knowing when and where to make throws, etc. SB success rate is one of those stats that supposedly indicates intelligence, so let's see how that varies with defense.

Surprisingly to me, this graph shows another slightly negative correlation, this time to the tune of -4.5%. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's a non-statistically significant relationship that is surprisingly since a strongly positive relationship would seem natural to anyone who watches baseball. Someone who steals and does it well should be able to make a good CF since he's fast and smart. But there must be some other skill at play, since the relationship just isn't there.

BB rate vs. Rate2

Walk rate is a similar "smart stat" to SB%, but it takes a couple of additional factors into consideration. First, someone who draws lots of walks should have good vision at the plate to see the pitches and not swing at them. Vision would be valuable as a CF in terms of seeing the ball off of the bat and picking it up. Also, BB rate could speak to a player's ability to react quickly, choosing not to swing in a fraction of a second. Such a skill would help a fielder in every stage of fielding the ball, from picking it up off of the bat, to making a good path to the ball and finally actually making the catch. But is there a relationship here?

Well, we're making some progress here, as the thin red line goes in the right direction, but it's still a random smattering of points with no real relationship. To put that in more concrete terms, there's only 9.8% correlation, and the BB rate only explains slightly less than 1% of the variance in Rate2.

Conclusion

Maybe the lack of a relationship between offense and defense is because I used a park/league adjusted defensive stat but not for offense. Maybe it's because the sample size was 100 players and that was too small. Maybe I somehow picked the only speed/smart stats that don't correlate with base stealing. But the more likely story is that people who use offensive ability to predict defensive ability fundamentally misunderstand what it takes to play in the OF. Since the relationship between pure offensive ability (OPS+) and rate2 is actually stronger than that of speed or smart stats, there is no statistical reason to believe that anything a player does in the top half of the inning will predict what he does in the bottom half.

And Down the Stretch They Come
NL edition


After covering my AL predictions for the rest of the year, I left the NL today, so I'll move it along and get to the playoffs.

NL East: The Atlanta Braves are always a safe pick, a mantra which I maintained in the offseason despite the loss of last season's patches. I figured Hudson would thirve under Mazzone and Smotlz would contribute enough to give them a solid starting rotation, a good patchwork bullpen and a lineup that Bobby Cox would squeeze every possible run out of. With the reemergence of Smotlz aside, the Braves have had problems everywhere. Larry Jones has been beat up all year, Estrada and Furcal have regressed, and the Jordan/Mondesi corner job failed massively. But I don't think there is a better manager in the game than Bobby Cox. Reading Whitey Herzog's book, I got the impression that a good manager could be worth several wins a year over an average one, but, more importantly, that most managers are actually below average. Nobody teaches proper fielding technique, such as throwing to the forward shoulder of the cutoff man. Dozens of little immeasurable factors pile up over the course of a season, so a team like the Braves should consistently overperform their component parts. I like the idea of picking them to win until they actually lose, and I'm not about to jump ship after two surprising surges and a new crop of studs integrating themselves.

NL Central: Tony LaRussa is another really smart manager, but his job this season has had more to do with managing injuries than strategy or teaching. For all the talk of Chicago's sabotaged season, the Cards have lost time from Rolen, Walker, Lankford, Molina and others, but maintain a huge lead in the division. Their biggest offseason move was to get a lights out ace pitcher in Mulder to help them in the postseason. Mulder has been good, but Chris Carpenter is the one with the inside track to the Cy Young due to his reduced BB rate. Nonetheless, he would not be among my top five choices to start one big game. Probably not my top 10 or 15 either.

NL West: Preseason, I picked the Twins to win the AL Central and the Dodgers to win the NL West, possibly because I'm more optimistic about teams I like. The rest of my divisional picks have stayed the same, but I'm hesitantly going with San Diego in the NL West, even though I believe the Dodgers are the only decent team in the division. The spirit of Hippocrates has struck the Dodgers even harder than the aforementioned NL Central teams, putting virtually every important player on the shelf. Still, it's rare to see an elite team with nobodies surprising everyone to fill holes, like LA has at C, 3B and LF. I think they may have it in them to win the division, but I cannot pick a team winning well under 50% of their games and still far from healthy to overcome a 5 game deficit with less than 50 games to play. San Diego's biggest problem seems to be that they have invested tons of money in players with huge platoon splits. Ramon Hernandez only hits lefties and Brian Giles only hits righties. Klesko loses much of his power against southpaws, and Dave Roberts is one year removed from being the Red Sox Herb Washington.

NL Wild Card: BP's playoff odds report gives the Astros a 49% chance of winning the Wild Card, which confirms my intuitive belief that it's a toss-up between them and the field. They have built their team for the playoffs, with three dominant pitchers (arguably the three most dominant of all time in terms of VORP or Runs Saved) and a so-so offense that can hit for power. Also, the differences between the regular season and the postseason mask some of their holes. They have a relatively weak bench, but teams can't gain a platoon advantage against their best hitter, Lance Berkman, as he's a switch hitter. Also, the bullpen and rotation are top heavy, but they would only have to win 4 of 6 started by Clemens, Pettite and Oswalt while sacrificing the one other game. They almost got there last year without Pettite, one of the best playoff pitchers in baseball through his years in the Bronx. Plus, I don't see them worrying too much about a pitch count for 43 year old Clemens if it comes down to a crucial situation. They probably wouldn't have to use more than Lidge and Wheeler in starts by their big three, putting them in a strong position.

Still, I have a feeling that they aren't as good as they've been for the last couple of months, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Cubs got hot with today's additions of Nomar, Wood and Williamson. They currently stand at 5% odds to make the WC, while I could just as easily imagine Florida or Philly getting red hot and sneaking in (currently 8.4% chance each).

Playoffs: Although I'm ambivalent about Houston the rest of the way, I think they make a dominant playoff team, steamrolling through the Braves thinner pitching staff in the first round and creating an NLCS rematch with the Cards, who should kick San Diego to the curb with their big bats and pitching depth. While the Stros came close to offing the Cards last year before losing Beltran and Kent, I think the addition of Pettite to this year's postseason roster will help make the difference in a short series to carry them to the pennant. Yup, I'm picking a team who has a 50/50 chance of making the playoffs to win the NLCS.

In the AL, Boston has a stronger all-around team than Oakland, and it would be a shame to pick against the best team in the league, even if they don't particularly stand out in this short series. I also expect Anaheim to beat Chicago in the first round, mercifully ending one of the most maddening seasons in my memory with a dominant bullpen and better overall lineup. I get the impression that Boston would feel invincible in the playoffs and dominate the ALCS, winning in 5 games.

That sets the stage for a brilliant send off to one of the greatest pitchers of all time: Roger Clemens pitches game seven in Fenway to retire a champion, playing out the storyline I was convinced would happen last year.

And Down the Stretch They Come

Yesterday someone asked me who I thought would make the World Series, which made me realize just how little I've thought about the postseason only a month and a half from its outset. Just a couple of weeks ago, the buzz was that there were so many playoff contenders that it would surpress the trade activity since everyone thought they were still in it. What a difference a few games makes, as many of those teams holing out as contenders have no given up. Take the Orioles, for example. It seems like last week (because it was) that they were waiting on Phil Nevin to accept a trade for Sidney Ponson so they could fortify their lineup for a stretch run. They were in and out of the A.J. Burnett sweepstakes, and there was talk of a run after getting Javy Lopez back from the DL. A few more losses, a little more distance between them and the Red Sox, and they have fired manager Lee Mazzilli and replaced him with bench coach Sam Perlozzo in a move that sets a record for most Z's in the names of consecutive managers.

Watching the Twins struggle through an electric A's squad and hearing the ESPN broadcasters allude to Old Man Mulholland's "venerability" a half dozen times made me realize that even the Wild Card is almost certainly a two-horse race. All things considered, here's how I see it, division by division:

AL East: Boston seems to have hit their stride. After back to back three-run homer games for a rejuvenated Manny Ramirez, they came back from a 5-0 deficit to post 9 runs on only 3 hits, including a Varitek granny, through 4 innings against Kansas City. More generally, the pitching has been bad, but should not get any worse, as Papelbon and Delcarmen promise to outdo the sub-replacement level performance of John Halama and Matt Mantei. I'll talk more about New York in the Wild Card section, but the Red Sox are the least flawed of the several flawed AL East contenders.

AL Central: 2001 Seattle Mariners. Excuse me, Chicago. Two thoughts here: first, the White Sox have benefitted from lots of players hitting their peak at the same time. They probably won't win 90 games next season, as Joe Crede has been the only regular who has really struggled, but he has not shown a proclivity for success in any season, so there's no surprise there. Hometown media types tend to see best-case projections at the start of the season, saying things like "If Podsednik hits for a high average, if the pitching staff collectively realizes all of its potential, if everyone stays relatively healthy (expcept The Big Lost Cause Frank Thomas), if Dustin Hermanson goes from average to dominant at the end, and if Iguchi becomes one of our best offensive players, we could really be onto something here." It isn't that these scenarios can't play out, they do. It happened in 2001 with Seattle and it's happening again here.

Second, I have an intution that their unique style of play contributes to their low run-scoring variance, but not in the way one would think. Instead of small-ball allowing them to score 5 runs in most games while infrenquently dropping below, I think it may actually do more to prevent them from scoring more. Yes, they score consistently, but as the Weaver adage goes, if you play for one run, you'll score one run. This team is unique in that they give away a lot of outs through sacrifices, but continue to be near the top of the league in HRs. The unusually high OBPs bolstered by upswining BA fluctuations at the top of the order, especially for Podsednik, ahead of boppers in the middle like Konerko, lay the groundwork for a very good offense. Instead, their sacrifices have made them an average offense with lots of extreme dynamics: near the league lead in HR and sacrifices, which seemingly don't go together. It's as if they have combined good offensive play with bad offensive strategy, the result putting them somewhere in the middle of the league.

AL West: Sometimes totally arbitrary statistics can still be remarkably telling, such as the one from Wednesday's Sportscenter where they listed all of the teams, including this year's A's, that had something like 37 wins in 43 games. Obviously, any team with that sort of hot streak will have a good record overall, because bad teams don't win 86% of their games for two months. But the A's are an outlier, as they had been extremely weak for a while before hitting stride. It would be interesting to see if Bill James' new mini-study on hot and cold streaks can generalize to whole lineups, because it certianly seems that the A's collectively started believing in themselves, or benefitted from some other foggy factor. Certainly, getting Crosby back from the DL helped, but everyone else stepped up too, so someone else should probably get some credit. It's hard to imagine that they could keep up such a remarkable run, but they have already almost caught the Angels. Neither team faces a particularly difficult schedule the rest of the way, and neither team is missing too many players due to injury. A forthcoming injury or hot streak will probably determine the division, and the front office and management does more to determine how these factors play out, so I'll go with Oakland to win the division.

Wild Card: If Boston, Chicago and Oakland win their divisions, that leaves NY and LAA as the likely WC contenders with Tex, Min, Cle and Tor in the running. For most of the season I reserved dismissal of the Yankees assuming they would make some big deadline moves to alleviate the drain on their lineup at CF and shore up a little bit of the pitching staff. Instead, they added Shawn Chacon, continue getting nothing out of Tino Martinez and Bubba Crosby, and have an eating-disorder thin bullpen. As long as they continue starting Aaron Small, Shawn Chacon and Al Leiter, they have a lot of problems in 60% of their games. Arod, Sheffield and Jeter make up a daunting offensive core, but Vlad, Garrett Anderson and Orlando Cabrera aren't that much worse, and the Angels have much better depth and pitching. If Kelvim Escobar can return from his biannual elbow surgery to give them any productive innings, I'll take the Angels in a tight race. Unfortunately, these teams will not play in the last couple of weeks of the season. My darkhorse candidate here is Toronto, as they have started to play very well, and stand to gain some run prevention with the retun of the AL's best first-half pitcher in Roy Halladay. One hot stretch could get them back in the race.

In all likelihood, this postseason lineup would yield Chicago-Anaheim and Oakland-Boston in the first round. I'll have more tomorrow on the National League and the Postseason.

Check Swings
Raffy and the Bright Sides


Raffy Palmeiro's suspension is the news of the day. It's one of those stories where you read the headline, and as soon as the initial shock wears off you realize you should have seen it coming. Everyone else Jose Canseco fingered in his book is at least suspicious, and Palmeiro's career has outlasted almost all of them. If illegal performance enhancing drugs can help stave off natural decline, it indicates that Palmeiro's long lasting low-peak career may be the unnatural permutation of a low-peak career of regular duration (strictly speculation).

It seems that Palmeiro's defense is an Eddie Murphy-cum-Shaggy style "It Wasn't Me," continuing to deny that he used IPEDs after his positive test and an unprecedented hearing. The likelihood that his legal enhancer was mistaken is pretty remote given the list of illegal substances. If he wasn't on Anabolic-Androgenic Steroids, then it means he was probably on cocaine, which we cannot totally rule out given his late-70s moustache. The most recent reports indicate that Palmeiro tested positive for stanozolol, the same substance the cost Ben Johnson his 100 meter Gold Medal in the 1988 Olympics. I visit GNC now and then, and I don't remember seeing stanozolol tablets between the protein powder and mutlivitamins. But I could be mistaken.

Personally, I do not care if players use steroids, but I think they have to be suspended if they are caught doing something illegal. Sports is the exhibition of athletes persuing physical perfection, and to allow for any kind of enhancement short of certain pills seems somewhat hypocritical. Pitchers have an extremely high rate of gruesome arm injuries, and football players have a demonstrably shorter life expectancy, so steroids are not the only way athletes jeopardize their health. If steroids were legal in professional sports, people would certainly use them and it would make sports more entertaining. As it stands, many athletes don't use steroids because illegality deters them, so users must be suspended.

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Barry Lamar Bonds has hung up his cleats, at least for 2005. The popular opinion is that Bonds' ego is so large that he couldn't stand to retire without setting the new HR mark, but I tend to think that his ego is even bigger than that. He doesn't think of himself in baseball terms, but misjudges his own broader societal relevance. It would not surprise me if Bonds never played again, content to think of himself as a martyr for misunderstood black baseball players. Martrydom can be admirable, but the problem in his case is that nobody else would see him as a martyr, but as a talented but surly man reisgning himself to self-imposed exile.

It's a shame that so many of the great potential ambassadors for the game fail for one reason or another. Obviously, Bonds is not personable enough to represent baseball the way that Shaq represents the NBA. McGwire and Sosa seemed like good candidates until we noticed the andro-sized worm peeking out of their shiny apple. Injuries have tarnished Junior's star, Roger Clemens is a terrible human being, Pedro's a little too eccentric for mass consumption and the I can't imagine the country at large embracing any Yankees at this point.

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MRIs showed that Torii Hunter has a broken ankle but no ligament damage from his losing battle with the Fenway Triangle. It's funny that the best Twins news of the week is that one of our few competent offensive players will be out for a month or more rather than the rest of the sesason. The better news is that a simple broken bone shouldn't sap him of speed long-term as badly as ligament damage, hopefully allowing him to remain effective in CF through the end of his contract. That said, I still think it's likely that he will sit out the rest of the year if the team continues slipping and he experiences even mild setbacks in his rehab.

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Justin Morneau is hitting .313/.389/.813 since July 23rd with 8 of his 10 hits coming as the extra base variety. He's reduced the frequency of the 0-X games and started hitting HRs again. It's a small sample, but he hasn't had such a strong ten-game stretch since April, so let's not throw him to the wolves with the rest of the team.

Five Shoulda-Been Deadline Deals
Deadline to be remembered for horseshoes, hand grenades


For weeks before the trade deadline, some particularly insightful analysts suggested that this year's market might end up disappointing to those who want to see blockbusters. Last year's thrilling 31st did even more to make this year's flurry of inactivity particularly unsatisfying. I can't help but thinking that the excessive media coverage has contributed to what I'll call the Rob Babcock phenomenon: the Toronto Raptos had lots of opportunities to trade down to fill in their team's many holes, but the GM was so paralyzed by fear (perhaps of a public backlash) that he did nothing but draft Charlie Villaneuva, ironically causing a public backlash. Or even worse, GMs could face the Paul DePodesta phenomenon, where the GM makes trades that help the team and get them into the playoffs, resulting in an angry media and fan base. No matter what the cause, lots of pretty good deals were left on the table Sunday, and playoff contenders were left with large holes. I have assembled a list of five trades that would have helped playoff contenders.

Minnesota Twins get: Kevin Youkilis, Jose Cruz Jr.
Boston Red Sox get: J.C. Romero
It sounds like this deal came right down to the wire, and may have been completed if time had permitted. The Twins were in the Soriano running until the last hour before the deadline, but when the Rangers declined a trade that looked something like Soriano/Mench/Gonzalez for Liriano/Romero/Boone, Terry Ryan looked back to Theo Epstein to revisit the Romero trade. At this point, Ryan wanted Youkilis instead of Mueller, an indication to me that he has already shifted his focus to next season, as Youkilis is young and will stick around, while Mueller will be gone after the season.

The Red Sox clearly wanted Romero, or some other power lefty out of the pen, and I have explained here before that I think trading the erratic lefty at the peak of his value is a good idea. The Twins' offensive problems won't get better just by virtue of the season ending, so the sooner they address their run scoring issues the better. Youkilis helps fill their massive OBP gap pervasive among Twins not named "Mauer," and he's a young third baseman, which is a position of need. Cruz takes and rakes, plays a decent CF, would help fill the Hunter void reasonably well, and could stick around as a decent fourth or fifth OF option next year. I had forgotten what it was like to be optimistic about next season starting in August, but the feeling isn't all bad.

Florida Marlins get: Damaso Marte, Brandon McCarthy
Chicago White Sox get: A.J. Burnett
I remember Sox GM Kenny Williams once saying something like, "When you're in Chicago, you don't play for next year. Every season is do or die," alluding to their near century-long championship draught. In that respect, I'm surprised the White Sox didn't capitalize on their collective career year and try to make a run. Having played the Seattle Mariners in the 2001 playoffs, they know first hand how easy it is for a fluky regular season to slip down the drain in a short season, and a dominant starter can be particularly valuable in that context.

Florida ultimately help us this deal when they decided that they have a chance to compete for the NL wild card, which is true since Houston is the only contender playing well right now, but the Cubs have been the biggest winners at the deadline, making the prudent Lawton pickup and regaining Wood and Nomar for a little while. With young studs like Cabrera, Beckett and Willis around whom they can build, the Fish should be trying to win 100 games in 2 years, which Marte and McCarthy would workd towards, not 90 games this year.

New York Yankees get: Randy Winn
Seattle Mariners get: What's left of the Yankees' farm system
Jayson Stark reported the day before the deadline that the Yankees still wanted Winn, but intended to put him in LF and move Matsui to CF. I don't understand that decision, as Matsui has struggled in CF and sustained minor injuries every time he has spent several games at a time there. Winn is a little underrated, with a career Rate2 of 101 and enough OBP to make him much better than Crosby or Melky Cabrera.

Obviously the Yankees wanted Winn and Seattle held up the deal, symptomatic of the plague of paralysis perpetrated by many GMs. Bill Bavasi had a high asking price for Eddie Guardado, actually got 2 prospects for Ron Villone, and probably had a pretty high tag on Winn. As Sen. Robert Byrd would say, fie on them. Fie! Winn will be 32 next season, and the Mariners are two or three years from rebuilding their pitching staff enough to be serious contenders. Beltre, Sexson and Ichiro should stay around long enough to see them win again, but Winn is too marginal of a player to bulid around

St. Louis Cardinals get: Austin Kearns
Cincinnati Reds get: ripped off by Walt Jocketty
While John Schuerholz pulled Kyle Farnsworth out of his hat, wheeler-dealer Walt Jocketty was left with a rock, barring a post-deadline move for the second straight year. Reggie Sanders broke his leg, which is supposed to heal quickly but will also require some time off after returning. Larry Walker just had his third Cortisone shot for his back, which is the single-season limit if a player doesn't respond to the first two, as is the case with Walker. With Scott Rolen ailing, the Cards might be left with (gasp!) only two All-Star sluggers for their stretch run. Kearns would have a chance to play everyday spelling the corner OFs, and would provide some pop and speed that would fit nicely in such a productive lineup.

The Reds are probably another seller holding up a trade, as most discussions stopped when Dave O'Brien seemingly asked for each team's top 4 prospects in any deal. Kearns is unhappy in Cincy and just doesn't fit. Depth is good. Logjams can even be good. But hearing Ray Miller on Baseball Prospectus Radio talking about trying to find a way to play four OFs in Cincy three and four years ago made me realize how directionless and random the franchise has been. In that time, Eric Milton has been their biggest pitching acquisition, and they have also put much hope in Paul Wilson and Ramon Ortiz. Trading Kearns for even a couple of middling pitching prospects shows some dedication to moving in the right direction, which they have not done for a long time.

New York Yankees get: Mark Redman
Pittsburgh Pirates get: NOTHING! AND THEY'LL LIKE IT! um... Eric Duncan?
Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina: studs. Chien-Ming Wang and Al Leiter: surprisingly acceptable. Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright and Kevin Brown: sound good enough, but injury prone and below replacement level. Tanyon Sturtze, Shawn Chacon, Aaron Small, Tim Redding, Darrell May, Sean Henn and even whispers of Hideo Nomo: completely unaccpetable. I hate the Yankees, but that doesn't blind me to their weaknesses and opportunities to fix them. If they acquired Winn and Redman, neither of whom will ever be mistaken for a star, I think they would be in good shape to make a run for the World Series. Instead, they are a flawed team with too little defense, a lineup of mashers and out machines, and very little pitching.

The irony would be that Pittsburgh would fulfill last year's goal of pawning off their overvalued SP commodity for a major league ready 3B from NY. Last year they gave away Kris Benson to the Mets for Ty Wigginton, which didn't exactly work out for them, but Duncan is a better prospect than they got back before.

All of those trades are realisitic possibilities that wouldn't have suprised anyone. Instead, we focused on huge blockbusters for Ramirez and Soriano that were too complicated to work. At one point, there was a rumor that Boston would give up Ramirez, Papelbon, Sanchez and another minor leaguer and get back Cameron, Baez and Dunn. That lineup would be a tremendous credit to Epstein's creativity, but I think all of the jabber was intentionally idle, created by the Boston front office to make it look to Ramirez that they had tried to fulfill his wish without ever intending to do so. Boston still looks like the strongest team with the most depth, but they are one of many contenders who could have strengthened their hand by making a deal.