Daily Archives: May 19, 2003

GEARING UP

With the Yanks and Sox slated to play the first of 19 games against each other tonight in Boston, there has been plenty of ink spilled on the two teams. Here are a couple of articles of note…

1. Jay Jaffe , the futility infielder, has a terrific analysis of the Yankee offense thus far (pitching and—yikes—defense will come later this week).

2. Joel Sherman wrote a thorough and convincing case for Rocket Clemens not only being the best pitcher of his generation, but the best pitcher of all-time in Sunday’s Post. Sherman is one of the few tabliod writers who is open to Sabermetrics and he builds his case on the writings of Bill James and others. Surprisingly in-depth stuff from the Post (not Sherman, who is excellent on TV and on the radio):

Look, I know – as sterile as you make it – this is a subjective choice and folks who loved Koufax or Gibson or Grove are never going to take Clemens to their bosom. I have never particularly warmed to Clemens the person, but the more and more I have examined the record and considered the conditions that record was forged in, the more I have come to recognize the conversation about the greatest ever now must include Clemens.

It has taken me a while to warm up to Clemens too, but I promised myself during the winter that I would try and enjoy watching him get his 300th victory, no matter how obnoxious the YES coverage becomes. It hasn’t been a struggle either. Clemens isn’t the nasty, head-hunter he has been in the past—sometimes I miss that—but he has been fun to watch this year. Even in the games he’s lost, he hasn’t been awful. What I get out of watching Clemens, is just how much work pitching is for him. Forget about his legendary workouts, just watching him on the mound is a testament to the hard work it takes to be a great pitcher, let alone a great 40-year old pitcher. He can seem artless, pounding the ball in, time and time again, but he is impressive.
3. Gordon Edes details the emergence of Lil’ Sori. Looks like we aren’t alone in labeling him as a freak:

Teammate Jason Giambi has called Soriano a ”freak, a cartoon character.”

…Todd Zeile, new to the Yankees this season, is playing for his ninth big-league team.

”He can be as good as he wants to be,” Zeile said. ”He’s phenomenal. He can do all the things you can do in this game — hit, hit with power, run, field.

”The thing I enjoy about him as much as anything is that he seems to have fun doing it. He plays with a smile on his face, like he’s on a sandlot field. People think it’s easy for him, but he works hard.

”He’s quick and strong and swings a heavy bat, a long bat [35-inch, 33-ounce model]. He’s not a guy who looks like the Hulk-type player we see in the big leagues, but he’s quick — he gets his power from the elbows down.

”Watch his swing — he seems to start from nothing, but you slow it down and watch him, he lifts his foot but it doesn’t go forward, he just puts his foot back down and gives you that short swing. He eliminates all that movement.”

Who will be the heroes and who will be the goats of the series? Of course, it’s too early to tell, but my random picks for unsung heroes go to Bill James’ boy, Todd Walker for the Sox, and the seldom-seen Bubba Trammell for the Bombers. It could be a long couple of days for both bullpens.

I will be linking to Ed Cossette’s wonderful blog, Bambino’s Curse each time the Yanks and Sox match-up this year, but you should go there even when the two rivals aren’t playing each other.

C.R.E.A.M. GET THE “MONEY” (DOLLA, DOLLA BILL Y’ALL)

I received the following e-mail from Bronx Banter correspondent Christopher DeRosa over the weekend. Dig his considered and astute take on “MoneyBall:”

It is probably going to be by far the baseball book of the year. Puts the A’s sabermetric experiment in the context of the information age economy. There’s lots here that’s intriguing and fun: “Put a Milo on him.” Ron Washington proves as quotable as Oscar Gamble in “Balls”. And Lewis gets Bill James better than anyone. Some thoughts on the book:
You get the sense that Alderson and Beane imposed sabermetrics on the A’s not just though force of personality, but through physical intimidation.

The A’s have some studies they’re obviously not sharing. But some of the results appear to be that they value reaching base far more highly than slugging, and that they don’t believe, as the outside sabermetricians do, that hitters’ strikeouts are no big deal.

We learn that Beane toyed with going over entirely to virtual scouting. I’ve thought you could do that successfully, but you still need someone to go talk to the kid before you know to put a Milo on him.

A large part of the book concerns the A’s taking seven sabermetric specials in the first round of the 2002 draft. Is it really that great to use first round draft picks on guys nobody else wants? The Oakland scouts rate Beane’s guys as like 30th round picks or no prospects. Lewis implies that the rest of the teams would draft in agreement with the scouts. If that’s the case, why not take some chances in the first round and pick up your secret weapons later? Then you wouldn’t have to strike clandestine deals with guys to persuade them not cash in on their surprising status as first round picks. You could just pay them whatever you pay the 7th round picks. What I think is that the revolution is further along than Lewis suggests, and that if Beane tried to let these guys slide, one of the other sabr-GMs would snap them up. ‘Cause otherwise it is stupid to draft these guys in the first round.

Alderson circulated a pamphlet internally in which a researcher claimed “defense is at best 5% of baseball.” Today, researchers would say it is more, like 18%. But even if it was 5%, that wouldn’t be that useful a piece of information. It would be about 5% under prevailing conditions, within the parameters of everybody trying to field a real defense. A team that just says, “Deploy Ken Phelpses!” can ensure that fielding is a lot more than 5%, because there is no limit on how many runs you can give up, and therefore no limit on how badly you can field. Each walk-drawing hitter might be individually more valuable than the conventional fielder he replaces, but as a group, you can lose your ability to cover the field. That pamphlet may have helped screw up the A’s of the mid-90s.

“Moneyball” fails to take up the question of starting Hudson over Zito in the 2002 ALDS. Howe took the blame, but is it realistic that Beane tells him when to steal and who to play out of position, but let’s him decide the playoff rotation? I actually sympathize with the decision to go with Hudson. My point in raising the issue is that it really doesn’t work for the activist GM to say, I wash my hands of the whole postseason thing, it’s a crapshoot. Too bad, but baseball has championships. If they’re crapshoots, then you’d better learn to play craps as well as you can.

Overall, “Moneyball” whetted my appetite but I could have scarfed another 300 pages easily. He told a lean story well, but there is no end of my fascination with this subject and I’d have liked a whole lot more.

DeRosa makes a great point about the starting rotation in the playoffs. I also agree that Lewis’ portrait of Bill James is the best I’ve read to date. And of course, I wish the book was longer too. I don’t know that it would be good for the book, but it would be good for us geeks.

There are several great bits with Washington. My favorite is how Oakland’s infield coach reacts to the defensively-challenged players he is given to work with:

There were times that Wash thought the players Billy sent him shouldn’t even bother to bring their gloves; they should jut take their bats with them into the field, and hit the ball back into the pitcher.

REALITY CHECK

I wasn’t steamed about the Yankees yesterday, honest. More than anything, I just felt resigned. Sometimes your team is going to suck, and you have to suck it up. I called my girlfriend Emily late in the day and we commiserated briefly about the game. Emily is a relatively new baseball fan, and she is still getting acclimated to how dramatically the game can influence her boyfriend’s mental state. But she had a great observation yesterday that I thought I would share with y’all:

Even though the Yankees lost, it was great to see how many people were at the game. It was a beautiful day, and there were all those people out there watching it, not to mention thousands more watching it on TV, or listening to it on the radio. People made phone calls and caught up with each other. I guess what I mean to say is that sports are really great because they really bring people together. That’s important. Espcially these days when everyone seems so estranged from each other.

True.

Oh yeah, I did get an e-mail from my old pal Shawn Nuzzo, regarding the Nick Johnson injury. I hate to say I told you so, but he told me so:

You’re right. I told you so. This bum Johnson isn’t fit to be mentioned in the same paragraph as Oscar Azocar. Before his 4-6 week injury, Nick Johnson had the potential (if he trained 20 hours a day and ate well) of becoming the Next Kevin Maas. But now, I’d just as well trade him for a bag of used baseballs and 3 batting helmets.

Consider me tweeked. Ah, what can you expect from the lead singer of a band called “The Clap?”

BUMMING

John Thomson 3-hit the Yanks yesterday at the Stadium, as the Rangers swept a series for the first time ever in the Bronx. Thomson was nasty, but the Yankees were lifeless as well. Bernie Williams hit into a first inning double play in all three games, Jason Giambi continues to hear the boo’s, and Jorge Posada went 2-17 on the homestand (the Yanks were 1-5 over that span). Plain and simple, the Yankees are mired in a slump. I guess this won’t be1998-redux after all. Think Mt. Saint George is about to blow in Tampa?

After the game, GM Brian Cashman didn’t mince words:

“In a nutshell, we stink right now.”

…”[We stink] really in all aspects,” Cashman continued. “Both mentally and performance-wise on the offense, defense and pitching sides.

“We look flat. That’s how you look when you’re not playing well, when you’re making errors, when you’re not hitting. I think people describe it as flat. You can describe it any way you want, but it’s not good.”

…”Maybe going into the jungle will shock us back into playing good baseball,” GM Brian Cashman said. “Maybe that’s what we need because we look real flat right now.

…Cashman has also heard from George Steinbrenner, who, according to the GM, “feels the way you’d think he would feel” about the way his $180 million team is playing.

The Red Sox beat the Angels yesterday at the Fens, and now share first place with the Yankees. Let the rivalry begin (again). Pass the Pepto.

Here is my question: which Giambi will have a game-winning or game-altering hit first?