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May 2001 Archives By Rob Neyer ESPN.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| THURSDAY, MAY 31 Felipe Alou has a fine reputation among baseball fans, baseball analysts and baseball men. Nevertheless, he was fired Thursday, and with good reason.
1998 65- 97
1999 68- 94
2000 67- 95
2001 21- 32
221-318, .410
No, winning's not everything. And while some of you will fault me for applying statistics and logic to this situation, I do hope you'll tolerate yet another table ...
Expos OBP NL Rank
1998 .310 Last
1999 .323 Last
2000 .326 15th
2001 .316 12th
The Expos actually seem to be improving this season in the OBP Department, but it's quite possibly not a meaningful improvement. The Braves rank 15th in the National League in OBP, but they're only four points behind the Expos, who are 11 points behind the 10th-ranked Diamondbacks. Which is to say, Montreal's got a significantly better chance of moving down in the OBP rankings than moving up.
Defenders of Alou like to point to his earlier successes -- the Expos won 94 games in 1993, were in first place when the idiots destroyed the 1994 season, and won 88 games in 1996 -- and I'm happy to agree that Alou was a good manager.
Then. But people change. Most managers become less effective as time goes by. If there were no time limits on the ability to manage well, then Whitey Herzog and Sparky Anderson and Tommy Lasorda would still be wearing spikes and doubleknit uniforms.
There are three obvious, specific, and related rational reasons for Alou's dismissal.
One, as pictured above, they haven't won. Aside from the Expos, six other major-league clubs have failed to win at least 45 percent of their games since 1998.
The Devil Rays have been baseball's worst team since '98, winning just 40 percent of their games. And they've got a new manager. The Marlins have been nearly as bad as the Expos since '98, but they did show signs of life last year, when they went 79-82 (and they're at least respectable this year). They just fired their manager anyway. The Royals have won only 43 percent of their games since '98, but they did go 77-85 last year, plus their management and ownership is patently incompetent. The Pirates have also won 43 percent of their games since '98, but they did switch managers after last season. The Tigers have won only 44 percent of their games since '98, but switched managers after the '99 season and won 79 games last year. And the Twins have won 44 percent of their games since '98, but are off to an amazing 34-16 start this year.
The Expos had been the only major-league team that's been awful since 1998 and had not either (1) put together at least a halfway-decent season or (2) gotten a new manager.
Why haven't they won? As pictured above, Montreal's hitters haven't been getting on base. I believe plate discipline is something that can be influenced by the manager, and plate discipline is certainly something in which Felipe Alou has shown little interest over the years.
That's Reason Number Two. And Reason Number Three? The Expos have produced some good hitting talent in the minor leagues -- young talent is, of course, the lifeblood of cash-poor franchises -- but that talent has born little fruit at the major-league level. Peter Bergeron, Milton Bradley, Geoff Blum, Michael Barrett, Shane Andrews, Brad Fullmer ... these young players were all supposed to be good, and none of them really developed under Alou's tutelage. Sure, not every prospect pans out, and perhaps one or more of these fellows were over-hyped. But aside from Vladimir Guerrero and Jose Vidro, there just haven't been many success stories lately.
Look, I'm just a baseball writer who never played the game past Little League. But it seems to me that if a manager's team loses, year after year after year, and he can't teach his players the value of plate discipline, and his promising young hitters don't develop ... well, maybe there's a better man for the job. I'm not convinced that Jeff Torborg is that better man, but on the other hand he's now spent years in the broadcast booth, which these days seems to be one of the prime qualifications for the job.
And speaking of prime qualifications, since when did "playing in the majors" become one of them? Here's yet another table, which I'll explain after you look at it:
Walter Alston 1 Sparky Anderson 1 Joe McCarthy 0 Earl Weaver 0The first column consists of Hall of Fame baseball managers, and the second column lists the number of seasons each man spent playing in the major leagues. Actually, Alston just barely qualifies for his 1, as his major-league "season" consisted of precisely one at-bat. That is to say, Dan Miceli's an idiot. Or, rather, what he said about John Boles last weekend was idiotic. Boles is a victim of, more than anything, unrealistic expectations. Given their talent and their payroll, the Marlins have been playing about as well as they should, and the preseason talk of postseason contention was at least a little silly. Is John Boles the greatest manager who ever lived? Probably not. But if the Royals ever get around to firing Tony Muser, they could do a lot worse than make Boles one of the first stops on the Rolodex. MONDAY, MAY 28 At this moment, the San Diego Padres' starting outfield is:
OBP
LF R. Henderson .405
CF Mark Kotsay .354
RF Bubba Trammell .356
Compare those three to last year's most common Padres outfield alignment:
OBP
LF Al Martin .360
CF Ruben Rivera .296
RF Eric Owens .346
Martin and Owens were respectable last year, but (1) Martin's been horrible since he was traded to the Mariners late last summer, and (2) Owens didn't have any sort of power to go with his OBP, and his OBP was easily the best of his career. As Padres general manager Kevin Towers told me a few days ago, "Even though Owens was kind of a fan favorite and played hard, we needed more production there. If we were going to get better, we just couldn't afford to have a corner outfielder with five or six home runs and an on-base percentage in the low threes."
San Diego couldn't afford Ruben Rivera's flailings any more, either. So now he's Jim Bowden's problem.
The Padres have also gotten a lot better at catcher, where Ben Davis has an amazing .424 OBP this season, a huge improvement over last year's regulars, Wiki Gonzalez (.311 OBP in 95 games) and Carlos Hernandez (.316 OBP in 58 games). Davis entered this season with a .303 career OBP in 120 games, so we should expect him to drop back some. Still, he's made such a good start that he'll almost certainly finish better than Gonzalez and Hernandez did last year.
In addition to the aforementioned quartet, the Padres also have Mike Darr (.400 OBP) and 38-year-old Dave Magadan (.397), who will probably be able to reach base 40 percent of the time when he's 50.
When I talked to Towers, the surprising Padres were in first place. They begin Monday in third place, two games behind the first-place Dodgers and Diamondbacks. But the Padres still are second in the National League in runs scored, and first among non-Coloradans. And they're doing that despite playing half their games in what might be the pitcher-friendliest ballpark in the league.
The first thing I asked Towers was, "Before the season, did you have any idea that at this point you'd be in first place, and second in the National League in runs?"
He didn't answer that question directly, instead saying, "When we went into spring training, we met as a group -- me, Boch, [new hitting coach] Duane Espy -- and talked about what we'd need to do to improve ourselves offensively. And one of the things we stressed was plate discipline. We were definitely trying to improve where we've been in the past, and we stressed that taking walks isn't bad, that the more pitches we saw, better we'd be able to recognize the pitches, and get into hitter's counts."
And of course, Towers also went and found some new, cheap players. Those three OBP-happy outfielders listed at the top of the column? They make less than $3 million ... combined.
So what happens when Tony Gwynn is healthy enough to play?
"Between Kotsay and Trammell and Rickey, these guys have been getting the job done," Towers says. "Tony will play, but
I think even he realizes he can't go out there and play five games every week. And Boch has been really good at match-ups, so I think things will work out."
Various newspaper reports have attributed Towers' attitude toward on-base percentage to his friendship -- and frequent conversations with -- Billy Beane. If true, it says a lot for Towers, because many, many baseball men are simply too stubborn, too insecure to consider new ways of doing business. Guys like Billy Beane and Kevin Towers will enjoy long careers as baseball executives, while guys like Cam Bonifay and Allard Baird will -- or would, in a just universe -- enjoy early retirements.
A few more notes on the Padres ...
AB R RBI OBP Slug OPS
Boone Sea 185 30 48 .353 .524 877
Klesko SD 170 41 46 .422 .594 1016
Sanders Ari 146 30 38 .327 .616 944
Putting this a bit more starkly, here are the above three, compared to their current counterparts in Atlanta ...
AB R RBI OBP Slug OPS
Boone Sea 185 30 48 .353 .524 877
Veras Atl 139 17 13 .310 .374 684
Klesko SD 170 41 46 .422 .594 1016
Brogna Atl 119 8 13 .336 .353 689
Sanders Ari 146 30 38 .327 .616 944
Jordan Atl 172 17 20 .299 .448 747
The Braves rank 15th in the National League in run production -- only the Pirates are worse -- and when you look at the stats posted by Veras, Brogna and Jordan, it's easy to understand why (not to mention B.J. Surhoff, who's been about as bad as Brogna and was acquired last summer essentially to replace Sanders in left field).
I still believe the Braves are going to wind up winning another East title, but if they don't do something to bolster the lineup -- and Schuerholz's moves in recent years don't inspire confidence -- they're going to look like a pretty sorry postseason entry. Because while you can talk about pitching and defense all day long, if you can't score runs you're not going to win.
More mail from my overflowing box, while wondering why on earth anyone would pay Pokey Reese the money he seems to think he's going to eventually get ...
Omar Saleh
Orlando Gonzales
2000 2001
AB OBP OBP Diff
C Lee 153 .345 .352 +.007
H Perry 104 .350 .316 -.034
S Alomar 103 .324 .288 -.036
C Singleton 91 .301 .261 -.040
R Durham 155 .361 .320 -.041
M Ordonez 151 .371 .327 -.044
P Konerko 150 .363 .311 -.052
F Thomas 68 .436 .316 -.120
R Clayton 94 .301 .155 -.146
H Baines 61 .338 .182 -.156
So you've got 10 hitters, and nine of them have posted lower OBPs than they did a year ago. This probably won't continue, of course ... but it's probably worth noting that in 1999, the White Sox finished 11th in the American League with a .337 OBP, and they ranked 10th in run production. In a nutshell, the White Sox aren't really as bad as they've played this year, but they weren't really as good as they played last year, either.
Another problem? The new White Sox GM, Kenny Williams, added Sandy Alomar and Royce Clayton, both of them low-OBP guys, to the lineup last winter. You simply can't do that and not expect your run production to suffer.
Nearly all of the White Sox hitters will get their OBPs up, but it won't be enough to get them into contention. In Alomar, Clayton, and Singleton, the Sox have three huge holes in their lineup, and Baines will also kill them until management finally figures out that he can't play any more.
Israel
Zach Orlando, FL May 19, 2001. For most of us, it was just another Saturday, devoted to mowing the lawn, or going on a hike, or renting a couple of movies at Blockbuster, or maybe (if we were lucky) even watching a baseball game. But for 30-year-old Tom Wilson, a baseball catcher by trade, this particular May 19 will mean something more. Because last Saturday, Tom Wilson, after 10 years in the minor leagues, played in a major-league game. Oh, and for good measure he also slugged an eighth-inning home run off James Baldwin, giving the A's a 4-1 lead in a game they eventually won, 4-3. As it happens, just a couple of weeks ago, our friends over at Baseball Prospectus published an interview with Tom Wilson, which I suggest you read ... Back? Here are Wilson's Major League Equivalencies for the last five seasons. MLE's essentially take a player's Double- and Triple-A stats, and translate them into an approximate representation of what the player would have done, had he been in the majors instead of the minors.
Age OBP Slug OPS
1996 25 .354 .444 798
1997 26 .361 .440 801
1998 27 .330 .398 728
1999 28 .340 .449 789
2000 29 .361 .442 803
With the exception of Wilson's subpar '98 season, those numbers are stirring in their consistency. Let's assume that those MLE's are an accurate reflection of Wilson's ability to hit major-league pitching, and so he would post an 800 OPS if given a chance to play.
How good is an 800 OPS?
Last year, all major-league catchers combined for a 759 OPS (.338 OBP, .421 slugging). Look, I know Wilson isn't the greatest defensive catcher in history, but isn't there room in the major leagues for a guy with an 800 OPS, or at least the potential to post an 800 OPS?
Last year, 43 major leaguers started at least 50 games at catcher. This group included the following sultans of swat:
Starts OBP Slug OPS
John Flaherty 101 .296 .376 672
Chris Widger 80 .306 .438 744
Dan Wilson 77 .291 .336 627
Carlos Hernandez 69 .322 .355 677
Paul Bako 65 .312 .308 620
I'm not arrogant enough to suggest that Tom Wilson should have been playing ahead of John Flaherty, or Chris Widger, or Dan Wilson. There's too much about Tom Wilson that I, never having seen him play, just don't know. However, I'm arrogant enough to suggest that Tom Wilson certainly has belonged in the major leagues for, say, the last four or five years. I'm arrogant enough to suggest that as long as guys like Tom Wilson are stuck in the minors for half a decade, it's ridiculous to suggest that the talent is "watered down," or that baseball would be better off with 28 teams than 30. And I'm arrogant enough to suggest that there's talent enough to stock 32 teams, so rather than contraction, expansion should be on the "minds" of the men who run Major League Baseball.
I'm way behind on my e-mail -- reading it, responding to it, deleting it, and publishing it here in the column -- so today I'll try to catch up (if only a little) ...
Mickey Cochrane: 1925 - 1937 Bill Dickey: 1928 - 1946 Ernie Lombardi: 1931 - 1947 In an age where Billy Koch can have surgery on his pitching elbow and come out of it throwing harder than before, can we really use catchers who played in the '20s and '30s as measuring sticks? As you said, all players decline as they get older. Given the advances in medicine, I would bet that inevitable decline has been pushed back a few years on average. And of course, the DH pushes the decline back even more, as a good-hitting catcher whose bat is needed in the lineup can get his ABs without playing the field. Dan
LastYr LastGood PctChange
J Bench 1983 31 - 7.8
Y Berra 1963 34 - 8.5
R Campanella 1957 35 -15.0
G Carter 1992 32 -17.5
M Cochrane 1937 32 + 0.0
B Dickey 1946 34 -10.4
C Fisk 1993 43 - 8.8
G Hartnett 1941 36 - 2.4
E Lombardi 1947 33 - 4.8
T Simmons 1988 32 -13.3
There may be some sort of pattern here, but it certainly doesn't suggest that catching has become easier in the last half-century. Yes, Carlton Fisk -- the one real out-lier, at least in terms of quality career length -- is a modern player. But he's just one guy. His contemporaries here, Gary Carter and Ted Simmons, both had their last good years at 32, and both suffered significant declines soon afterward.
I'd like to focus on that "LastGood" column before we leave this subject. Remember, the ages listed aren't when the players had their last great year, but when they had their last good year. Now, imagine what we'd see if we ran a similar list for the great-hitting center fielders, or third basemen, or shortstops. Willie Mays had a big year when he was 40. Mike Schmidt hit 35 home runs when he was 37. Barry Bonds and Rafael Palmeiro are 36. Edgar Martinez is 38. Rickey Henderson is 42.
With Fisk the lone exception, you just don't see catchers doing these things, which leads me to believe that, yes, they really are different.
So getting back to Dan's original question, I do believe that the catchers of the '20s and '30s are germane to this particular discussion. Catching was hard on a guy back then, and it's hard on a guy now. And while it's true that the fields of sports medicine and physical conditioning are both incredibly more sophisticated than during Gabby Hartnett's day, it's also true that the seasons now are longer, and that today's catchers catch more. Want to guess how many times Gabby Hartnett caught more than 130 games in a season?
Once.
One more thing about this. Dan wrote, "Given the advances in medicine, I would bet that inevitable decline has been pushed back a few years on average." That's highly doubtful. Yes, advances have been made. But the typical peak year of a ballplayer's career has been 27 for a long, long time. And if that's changed -- to my knowledge, nobody's recently duplicated Bill James' 1982 study of the subject -- I wouldn't imagine that it's changed by more than a few months, or perhaps a year at most.
MONDAY, MAY 21Will the Rangers trade Pudge? Last week, Peter Gammons answered that question with an honest, "It apparently is too early to tell ..." Yesterday, Rangers owner Tom Hicks met with Ivan Rodriguez, and later answered that question with, "I told him we have absolutely no interest in trading him before June 2 ... He's the heart and soul of our team." Frankly, I don't have any idea if the Rangers will trade Pudge, so let's address a related, but different, question ... Should the Rangers trade Pudge? First, a few particulars: 1. Rodriguez's current contract runs through the 2002 season. 2. If he's still with the Rangers on June 2 -- that's only 12 days from today -- he'll become a so-called "10-and-5" guy, which means that he'll have been a major leaguer for 10 years, the last five of them with the same team. And once Pudge becomes a 10-and-5 guy, he'll have to approve any trade. Which leads us to ... 3. Even though his contract runs through the 2002 season, we're already talking about his next contract. And it's likely that if Rodriguez does agree to a trade, he would only do so after working out a new deal with his new team (along with, perhaps, a bonus from the Rangers). 4. And here's the kicker. That next deal will probably run in the neighborhood of $20 million per season, and run through (approximately) the 2008 season ... when Pudge will be 37 years old. So what should the Rangers do? I'll answer that question in a few minutes. But in addition to the four points listed above, we need to know just what the Rangers -- or another team -- will be getting for their money. Let's start with Pudge's defensive contributions. Now, there are those who would argue that the catcher actually has very little, if anything, to do with the pitcher's performance. Mind you, I've never met any of these people, but I can assure you that they exist; I've got the names and e-mail addresses to prove it. And to tell you the truth, I'm not so sure that they're wrong. But for the sake of argument, let's assume that they are wrong, that the catcher plays a significant role, or even an insignificant role, in his pitcher's fate. If Pudge were a great defensive catcher rather than "merely" a great throwing catcher -- which, of course, he is -- then what would we expect to find? Well, off the top of my head I can think of two things: a good pitching staff or, at the very least, a pitching staff that's better with Pudge behind the plate than without. To test the first of those, let's go back to 1992, Rodriguez's first full season (and, not coincidentally, the first season's work for which he won a Gold Glove). I entered the innings pitched and earned runs for every American League club from '92 through 2000, which gave me nine-season composite ERAs for the 14 current AL franchises. Over that span, the Rangers rank 12th with a 4.80 team ERA. "But," you protest, "it's not Pudge's fault! Look at what he's had to work with!" Fair enough. We'll call it The Tony Muser Defense. But if pathetic pitchers are masking Pudge's brilliant pitcher-handling abilities, then we would expect those pitchers to do even worse when Pudge wasn't catching, right? Thanks to the STATS Major League Handbook, we can check.
Pudge Others
Innings ERA Innings ERA
1992 983 3.81 478 4.69
1993 1117 4.16 321 4.71
1994 838 5.22 185 6.51
1995 1065 4.76 220 4.17
1996 1223 4.73 227 4.25
1997 1201 4.77 229 4.25
1998 1197 4.92 234 5.34
1999 1208 4.94 228 5.76
2000 736 5.35 693 5.69
One can see interesting cuts in the data here. Each season from 1992 through 1994, the Rangers' ERA was significantly lower when Pudge was catching than when he wasn't (in '92 and '93, Rodriguez's primary backup was Geno Petralli, generally considered subpar defensively). Each season from 1995 through 1997, the Rangers' ERA was significantly higher when Pudge was catching than when he wasn't. And each season from 1998 through 2000, the Rangers' ERA was lower when Pudge was catching than when he wasn't.
Over the entire nine seasons, Texas pitchers posted a 4.72 ERA with Rodriguez behind the plate (9,568 innings), and a 5.11 ERA (in 1,830 innings) without him.
Of course, those numbers contain the benefits of Pudge's amazing ability to limit the opposition's running game. What's more, simply by virtue of catching the great majority of the innings (last season notwithstanding), Rodriguez should know his pitchers better, right?
I believe Pudge is a very good, or perhaps great, defensive catcher. But of course, his greatest asset is obviously his throwing, which seems to become less and less important with each passing year. And let's be honest, folks, he's not exactly working miracles with the pitching staff this year.
And Pudge's hitting? Frankly, he's always been overrated, because most people ignore his low walk rate and his high double-play rate. That said, he is the second-best hitting catcher in the game (well, him or Jorge Posada) ... but for how long?
In Gammons' latest column, he enumerated the late-career woes of history's best catchers, and I'd like to expand on that theme a bit. When Pudge's current contract runs out, he'll be just short of 32 years old. I identified 10 great-hitting catchers -- Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Mickey Cochrane, Bill Dickey, Gary Carter, Carlton Fisk, Gabby Hartnett, Ernie Lombardi and Ted Simmons -- and compared their hitting stats before they were 32 to their hitting stats after they turned 32.
Remember, these are (with the exception of Carter and Simmons) Hall of Fame catchers, the guys who stayed productive long enough to be rewarded with plaques in Cooperstown. Remember, too, that some of them shifted to other positions, at least part-time. Bench played third base, and some first base, too. After turning 33, Yogi Berra never caught more than 116 games in a season, instead spending some time in the outfield. After turning 34, Ted Simmons became a DH/first baseman. And even Fisk, who seemingly caught forever, DH'd occasionally (and spent a forgettable few weeks in the outfield).
Pre-32 32+
G/Season 121 104
R/150 G 80 62
RBI/150 G 94 80
On-Base .367 .345
Slugging .484 .435
OPS 851 780
All players decline as they get older, and this group's isn't as steep as I would have guessed. However, what's telling here is perhaps the first row. While the great-hitting catchers have generally played into their late 30s or (in the case of Fisk) early 40s, even those guys played less and less. (And for you students of baseball history, I didn't include Yogi Berra's 1965 season with the Mets, in which he played four games, or Ted Simmons' first two, in the study.)
Look, every time you sign a player to a contract, you're making a bet. Sometimes you make a lousy bet, and it pays off. Sometimes you make a great bet, and it doesn't. But most of the lousy best won't pay off, and most of the great bets do. And signing a 32-year-old catcher to a long-term contract, while perhaps not a lousy bet, almost certainly isn't a great bet. Or even a good one.
So if the Rangers shouldn't give Pudge $120 million for five or six years, does that mean they should trade him?
It depends. It depends on their chances of competing between now and the end of his current contract.
At this moment, the Rangers are 17 games out of first place in the AL West, and 14 games behind Cleveland in the wild-card standings. It's safe to say that the Rangers won't compete for anything this season, except for third place. If they're lucky.
So that leaves 2002. Will the Rangers be competitive next year? Barring a major investment in the offseason, it looks pretty unlikely. Four everyday players are in their late 30s, and while the Rangers do have some fine prospects waiting in the wings, it's unrealistic to expect them to play championship-quality baseball as rookies. What's more, neither the Mariners nor Athletics look like they're ready to collapse. That's not to say the Rangers can't contend -- stranger things have happened, at least on daytime TV -- but I wouldn't bet on it.
So yes, the Rangers should trade Ivan Rodriguez. He's been a wonderful player, and it's been a great run. But it's time to move on, time to build the franchise around Alex Rodriguez. This franchise is at a crossroads, and Tom Hicks and Doug Melvin have 12 days to decide which road to take.
THURSDAY, MAY 17News and Notes while wondering why somebody as smart as Gerry Hunsicker would sign somebody as ineffective as Vinny Castilla ... AB Runs Hits HR BB RBI OBP Slug 3 2 3 1 0 3 1.000 2.000Awesome. And his 13 games since? AB Runs Hits HR BB RBI OBP Slug 31 1 4 0 1 1 .182 .161Baseball men love speed. Just love it. Unfortunately -- and we've seen this time and time again -- speed's not much use on the bench. As some baseball sage once noted, "You can't steal first base." Here are three Cincinnati Reds, their on-base percentanges, and the number of at-bats they've wasted Pokey Reese .298 122 Donnie Sadler .259 53 Deion Sanders .250 34So that's nearly 210 at-bats (so far) taken by players who can run, but can't walk or hit (and I haven't even mentioned Juan Castro, who can't run, either). The other day I looked up Deion Sanders in Total Baseball, and frankly he's been a better baseball player than I'd have thought. No, he's never been great. But he's posted great defensive statistics, and he's been a high-percentage basestealer. Not a bad guy to have on the club, at least in his better years. Four years ago, Sanders was a decent major-league ballplayer. That was then. Now he's 33, and quite likely past the point at which he can really help a ballclub. Yet just a couple of weeks ago, Jim Bowden said of Sanders, "He's not going to play football as long as he doesn't fall on his face in baseball, and that's not going to happen. His football career is over." Are you accepting bets on that, Jim?
Hialeah, FL Heading to the mailbag ...
Seattle
Team Scored Rank Allowed Rank
1997 NL East Braves 791 3 581 1
NL Central Astros 777 5 660 3
NL West Giants 784 4 793 11
NL WC Marlins 740 8 669 4
Yes, the Giants won the West despite ranking 11th in the National League in runs allowed (and being outscored!). Otherwise, it was a good year for pitching and defense, as three of the National League's postseason teams ranked among the top four in runs allowed. How do we compare the pitching and defense to the hitting? Well, we can simply add up the rankings; the lower the score, the better. In the 1997 N.L., the runs-scored rankings add up to 20 (3+5+4+8), and the runs-allowed rankings add up to 19 (1+3+11+4). So a slight edge to the defense, 19 to 20.
I did this for not only the National League in 1997, but for every league since 1995. And like I said, that's 48 teams. And the results?
Again, a (very) slight edge to the defense, 205 to 214. The average playoff team ranked 4.46 in runs scored, and 4.27 in runs allowed.
From this, we might conclude that pitching and defense is, or has been recently, slightly more important than run production.
But to this point, our instrument of analysis has been just about as blunt as it could be. After all, every No. 1 ranking isn't the same. A team that scores 1,000 runs and leads the No. 2 run-scoring team by 100 runs is different from the team that scores 925 runs and leads the No. 2 club by 50 runs. Can we be a little more precise?
Well, we instead at ratios, a more precise method. Rather than walk you through the process again, I'll just get to the point ... The 48 playoff teams have, on average, scored 7.0 percent more runs than the league average, and allowed 9.8 percent fewer.
But those numbers (it occurred to me) might be skewed by the ballparks. If a majority of postseason teams have played in pitcher's parks, for example, then the pitching for postseason teams would look better than it actually was. To account for the ballparks, I adjusted each postseason team's runs scored and allowed by applying the "Ballpark Factors" found in Total Baseball.
Conclusions? While it's true that slightly more postseason teams have played in pitcher's parks, the difference doesn't alter the results much. Even with the adjustments, the 48 playoff teams have scored 7.3 percent more runs than league average, and allowed 9.4 percent fewer.
How significant is that difference? I'm not really sure how to answer that question. But if each team in the study had scored approximately one more run per month, and allowed approximately one more run per month, then the difference shrinks to nothing. Yes, that's cheating, but it's also at least a little illustrative. While it's certainly possible that winning baseball is somewhat more than 50 percent pitching and defense, it's also quite likely that the figure can't be much higher than 50 percent.
And those pitching-and-defense Seattle Mariners? They're still third in the AL in run production.
TUESDAY, MAY 15Last night I tuned in the Reds and Astros, mostly because I hadn't seen Wade Miller pitch yet this year. Miller did not pitch particularly well, and so I wound up flipping between Reds/Astros and Twins/Royals. But I did hear Reds broadcaster George Grande say something that piqued my interest. I'm paraphrasing here, because I didn't have the VCR running. But I promise you that I'm not exaggerating even a smidgeon. Roughly, Grande said this: "Ausmus is hitting .178, and a few years ago he'd have been beating himself up over a batting average like that. But now he's a little older, and he realizes that his job is to run the pitching staff ... And now the Astros are getting the pitching, and they're winning." Really? They're getting the pitching? Here are the Astros' team ERA's last year and this year:
2000 2001
ERA 5.41 4.89
NL Rank 16 13
Yes, the pitching has improved. But to suggest the Astros are winning because of their pitching is pretty ridiculous. The Astros have moved up exactly three spots in the National League ERA rankings. What's more, that improvement can be largely attributed to one pitcher, the aforementioned Wade Miller.
Five Astros have started at least four games this year, and here's how they compare, last year to this year:
2000 2001 Diff
S. Elarton 4.81 6.22 +1.41
W. Miller 5.14 3.02 -2.12
J. Lima 6.65 7.04 +0.39
K. Bottenfield 4.50 4.88 +0.38
O. Dotel 5.40 4.72 -0.68
Many pardons, but I don't detect, in these numbers, some sort of magical, staff-improving ability possessed by Brad Ausmus.
Last year, Houston starters compiled a 5.52 ERA. Horrible, yes ... but not really much worse than this year's 5.36 mark. So we might surmise that the pitching staff's improvement is due, at least in part, to a better bullpen. And we'd be exactly right. Last year, the Astros' top four relievers combined for 246 innings and a 4.89 ERA. This year, the Astros' top four relievers have combined for 73 innings and a 4.09 ERA.
And how much of the credit for the bullpen's improvement does Brad Ausmus deserve? Well, consider this ... Those top four Astros relievers of last season? None of them are Astros this season. Joe Slusarski, Jose Cabrera, Marc Valdes, Doug Henry ... they're all gone. And in their place? Nelson Cruz, Billy Wagner, Jay Powell and Mike Jackson. Does Brad Ausmus deserve the credit? Or should most of the credit go to Gerry Hunsicker for acquiring Cruz and Jackson, and to Billy Wagner's surgeon?
So what improvement there's been is due to one starter, and to a few relief pitchers who were either injured or with other teams last year. But of course, this entire discussion is a red herring. Because as I noted early in the column, Houston's pitching really hasn't been much better than it was last year. On balance, it could certainly be argued that the Astros would be better off without Ausmus, who even after going 3-for-4 last night has sub-.300 on-base and slugging percentages.
The real "problem" here is that most everyone associated with the game, from the players to the broadcasters, are obsessed with the defensive half of baseball's elegant equation. The Astros had lousy pitching last year and a lousy record. This year they have a good record, so by definition they must have good pitching, right? Except they don't.
A week ago, a Seattle Mariners broadcaster told me, "This game's about pitching and defense, and that's what we're getting right now." And just this morning on NPR, John Feinstein told us, "The Mariners are winning with pitching. If you have pitching, you can compete."
Uh-huh. And it's immaterial that the Mariners happen to rank second in the American League with 210 runs. The Mariners are third in ERA, and third in runs allowed. That's right, folks ... despite playing half their games in a great pitcher's park, Seattle's hitting has actually been better than their all-important pitching and defense.
If you watch a lot of baseball games, broadcast by 30 different teams of announcers, you'll hear the old "You win with pitching (and defense), because pitching (and defense) is 75 percent (or more) of the game" gibberish again and again. And that's all it is. Gibberish. Pitching and defense constitutes 50 percent of the game (or perhaps 51 or 52 percent, because past a certain point, run production starts to lose its value).
This idea that "pitching and defense" is somehow more important than "hitting and walking" is one of baseball's great myths, right up there with "The Legend of the Clutch Hitter" and "The Tale of the Proven Veteran."
Oh, and Wade Miller? Some of the magic seems to have left him. After striking out 40 hitters in his first four starts, Miller has now struck out 15 in his last four. Some might attribute Miller's apparent decline to a heavy workload, as he threw 127 pitches in his fourth start and hasn't been the same since. (Please, no angry e-mail! I'm not suggesting a cause-and-effect relationship here, just pointing out two things that might, or might not, be related. But give credit to George Grande, who mentioned Miller's workload and its possible deleterious effects.)
Larry Dierker's an interesting manager when it comes to developing young pitchers. He's often initially cautious with his phenoms -- Billy Wagner, Scott Elarton, and now Roy Oswalt all began their major-league careers in the bullpen. But once a pitcher earns a rotation spot, Dierker pays little attention to pitch counts. It is, in a sense, the strategy employed by Earl Weaver in the 1970s. Whether it will work in the early 21st century remains to be seen.
Oswalt, by the way, is an impressive guy. He's small, probably under six feet like a lot of Houston's pitchers, but he throws a low-90s fastball with good movement, a solid 12-to-6 curveball, and a serviceable change (though he's mostly going with his fastball in relief). Oswalt was generally regarded as the Astros' top prospect entering the season, and with good reason. Opening the season with Triple-A New Orleans, Oswalt posted a just-fair 4.36 ERA ... but he also struck out 34 hitters in 31 innings, and walked only six. Last night he struck out four Reds in 3 2/3 innings, and picked up his first major-league victory. And if the kid doesn't get hurt, there'll be a lot more of those.
MONDAY, MAY 14Notes and natterings while wondering if ...
Manager P-Coach ERA StERA RelERA
1998 T Muser B Kison 5.16 5.24 4.98
1999 T Muser M Wiley 5.35 5.14 5.75
2000 T Muser B Strom 5.48 5.43 5.57
2001 T Muser B Strom 5.24 5.16 5.37
In 1998, the Royals ranked 13th among 14 American League teams in ERA. In 1999, they ranked 14th. In 2000, they ranked 13th. And in 2001, they rank 13th. The pitchers have changed, the pitching coaches have changed. The only two constants here are the manager and the performance.
Funnily enough, yesterday Muser commented on Strom's firing, "It was a lack of results," which leads one to wonder if Muser thinks that he himself should be judged on the "results."
The latest Sports Illustrated arrived in my mailbox last Thursday afternoon. And since then, it's been sitting on my desk, next to my computer, open to page 27. The headlines: Was Babe Ruth black? More important, should we care? During Babe's baseball career the supposition was surprisingly common, despite Ruth's credentials. The notoriously racist Ty Cobb once refused to share a cabin with Ruth at a Georgia hunting lodge. "I've never bedded down with a n-----," said Cobb, according to a contemporary, the sportswriter Fred Lieb, "and I'm not going to start now." The same repellent epithet was spit at Ruth by opposing bench jockeys, who saw in the Babe's full lips, broad nose and swarthy complexion a visual basis for their vile insults.I'm not so sure that the Cobb story really tells us anything. Fred Lieb lived for about 92 years, and he spent approximately half of them telling baseball stories that might, or might not, have actually been true. That's to say, he wasn't always one to let facts get in the way of a good yarn. While it's true that Cobb and Ruth basically despised each other early on -- and yes, Cobb reveled in throwing racial epithets Ruth's way -- they eventually became quite friendly. As Charles C. Alexander writes in his seminal biography, Ty Cobb, "Before a [1924 World Series] game at the Polo Grounds, [Cobb] posed shaking one of Ruth's hands while George Sisler, now player-manager of the Browns, shook the other. Cobb and Ruth made their peace on that occasion as they sat together and reviewed their years of combat. From then on they no longer flared at each other on the field; off the field they even began to build something of a friendship." According to Alexander, in the 1930s Cobb visited Ruth in New York a few times, and by 1939 "Cobb had developed a real fondness for this man who was so different from him in so many ways." Now, if Cobb were really the virulent racist we're told he was, and if he really had serious doubts about Ruth's parentage, then would he have become so friendly with Ruth in their later years? Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps telling, though, Alexander's book doesn't even mention the story told by Lieb. It's true, on the other hand, that Cobb wasn't the only opposing bench jockey who spit repellent epithets at the Babe. As Robert Creamer writes in Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, ... He was called n-----, n----- this, n----- that, all the vituperative changes on the theme that Jackie Robinson was to endure thirty years later. Ruth was called n----- so often that many people assumed he was indeed partly black and that at some point in time he, or an immediate ancestor, had managed to cross the color line. Even players in the Negro baseball leagues that flourished then believed this and generally wished the Babe, whom they considered a secret brother, well in his conquest of white baseball. Ruth, from southern-oriented Baltimore, found the allusion an insufferable calumny, the worst insult of all, although his personal relationship with blacks over the years was amiable ...But Ruth wasn't the only one to hear it from the bench jockeys. As Jules Tygiel writes in Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy, "According to historian David Voigt, harassment drove dark-skinned George Treadway of the Brooklyn Dodgers out of baseball at the turn of the century ... Bing Miller, an outfield contemporary of Ruth, also aroused suspicions. When he played for the St. Louis Browns his manager always referred to him as 'Booker T.' Miller, due to his dark skin." If Babe Ruth were black, it's quite unlikely that he was alone. Was Babe Ruth black? More important, should we care? Of course we should care. Babe Ruth is an important historical figure, one of the dozen or so most famous Americans of the 20th century. We naturally care about the heritage of important historical figures, just as most of us care about our own heritages. It's perfectly natural for historians to sift through the records with the intent of identifying not only Ruth's grandparents, but also their parents, and their parents before them. But there's a big difference between discovering the identity of Ruth's grandparents, or even his great grandparents, and labeling him "black." After all, what, exactly, does that word mean? Does it describe physical characteristics? Of course it can. But if physical characteristics were the issue with Ruth, there wouldn't be any discussion of his murky heritage, because that heritage would be irrelevant in the face of his physical characteristics. I tried to find a definition for "black" on the Internet, but didn't have much luck. I do know the University of Michigan claims their "minority enrollment is approximately 25%" ... but there's no definition of "minority" at the University's Web site. I looked at a lot of Web sites, in fact, but I couldn't find a single definition of "minority," or "black." From what I can tell, these days we're allowed to choose our own "race." You get the form, and you check whichever box you like. And if you don't check a box, someone else will be only too happy to do it for you. Not long ago, I reported to a large room, where I was required to fill out various paperwork related to my employment. On one of the forms, there was a place for selecting my race. On a personal level, I don't believe in such things. The lack of precision offends my sensibilities. There was a friendly young woman sitting across the table from me, there to assist. When I told her that I couldn't, in good conscience, check one of boxes, she said, "OK, but I'll just have to do it for you." And so she did. In a similar fashion, the media is only too happy to label Tiger Woods an "African-American," even though his mother is a native of Thailand. Tiger doesn't want to check one of the boxes? Fine, we'll do it for him. According to a recent article in The Atlantic Monthly, there is now overwhelming genetic evidence that we humans -- all of us -- are descended from a relatively small group of homo sapiens that lived in eastern Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. What's more, "Fewer than 10,000 generations separate everyone alive today from the small group of ancestors who are our common ancestors ... the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms." In a sense, we're all African-Americans. There are, of course, other definitions. I just can't figure out what they are. Race categorization has nothing to do with precision, and everything to do with politics. If Babe Ruth were "black" by the standards of his time and knew it, he certainly wouldn't have admitted it. So now it's up to us. If and when we discover that, somewhere in the Babe's past, there was an ancestor who lived in Africa -- and not 100,000 years ago, but, say, 200 years ago -- are we going to check a box? Or will we approach the subject with a bit more sophistication, a tad more logic? Will we acknowledge the fact that a person's heritage can't be squeezed into a little box next to "black" or "white"? I hope so. But our history in this area is not exactly encouraging. We do like our little boxes. WEDNESDAY, MAY 9 Well, at least Randy Johnson didn't get an "L" last night. A couple of years ago, I was inside Bank One Ballpark when Johnson struck out 14 Cardinals, allowed just one run ... and lost, because Jose Jimenez picked that evening to throw one of the more unlikely no-hitters in major-league history. Of course, Johnson didn't get a "W" last night, and he didn't get a record, either. But Johnson probably doesn't care much about the "W" because his team eventually won. And he -- and we -- shouldn't worry too much about the record. Records serve a couple of purposes. One, they recognize outstanding performances. And two, they eventually allow us to remember those performances. Some records -- most putouts by a shortstop in a nine-inning game, most extra-base hits in a National League double-header, etc. -- wouldn't even be recognized unless someone was keeping track. And they certainly wouldn't be remembered. But we didn't need any help recognizing what Johnson did last night, and we certainly won't have any problems remembering it. The fact is that Randy Johnson did strike out 20 batters in nine innings, and that's true whether we call it a record or not. It's funny, I was just thinking about these issues earlier this week, while watching "61*". That entire controversy over Ruth's record struck me as somewhat pointless, because no matter how you list the numbers in the record book, Ruth hit 60 home runs in a 154-game season and Maris hit 61 in a 162-game season. An accomplishment is what it is, and fooling around with the labels doesn't change that. It was, in all honesty, a pretty lousy lineup that Johnson faced last night. Reds manager Bob Boone, as most managers do against Johnson, stacked his batting order with right-handed hitters. Unfortunately, that got Donnie Sadler, Juan Castro and Ruben Rivera into the lineup, and none of those guys are legitimate big-league hitters. And yes, this was a fairly strikeout-prone lineup. One through eight (excluding the pitcher's spot), here's their career strikeouts-per-600 plate appearances:
K/600 PA
Donnie Sadler 119
Juan Castro 103
Barry Larkin 53
Alex Ochoa 74
Aaron Boone 98
Ruben Rivera 173
Pokey Reese 95
Kelly Stinnett 147
Not exactly a lineup full of contact hitters, as everyone but Larkin and Ochoa would likely strike out 100-plus times if they were allowed to play every day. Let me stress that this does not take anything away from Johnson's feat. The great majority of records are accomplished with the help of favorable circumstances.
In addition to striking out 20 Reds last night, Johnson also walked ... nobody. Kerry Wood did the same thing a few years ago, of course, but there are some pitchers out there with truly amazing strikeout-to-walk ratios this year.
K BB K/BB
Rick Reed 28 1 28.0
Curt Schilling 61 5 12.2
Mike Mussina 44 4 11.0
Greg Maddux 43 4 10.8
Brad Radke 30 4 7.5
Last year, Pedro Martinez led the majors with an 8.88 K/BB ratio (at this moment, he's at 6.0).
So why the big numbers in 2001?
Two answers. One, it's early. Reed is unlikely to finish the season with a 28.0 K/BB ratio (though if he does, we'll have a real story on our hands). And two, the "new" strike zone really does seem to make a difference. Strikeouts are up, and walks are down.
MLB 2000 MLB 2001
K/9 6.53 6.83
BB/9 3.80 3.43
K/BB 1.72 1.99
The 2000 numbers are for the entire season, while the 2001 numbers are just through last night's action. And given that hitters usually do improve as spring turns to summer, we can probably expect the K/BB ratio to drop some. But not to last year's 1.72. And when you consider that strikeout rates were already elevated -- all those guys swinging for the fences, don't you know -- it's quite possible that we haven't seen the last of strikeout feats in 2001.
TUESDAY, MAY 8If the primary goal of Billy Crystal's 61* is to give us a window into the lives of Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle in 1961, then the movie must be considered a smashing success. A slugging success. Now, everyone is quick to point out just how much Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane look like Maris and Mantle. And it's true, the actors do bear strong physical resemblances to the baseball players. But more to the point, the actors seem to have captured something of their subjects. As Jane says, "Trying to embody another human being, it's a hell of an undertaking. If you can catch little flashes of him, then you're happy ..." And he and Pepper seem to have caught some of those little flashes. I was not alive in 1961; in fact, I was born five years to the day after Roger Maris hit Home Run No. 27, off rookie Norm Bass in Kansas City. But I have, in the course of my work, probably read a few hundred thousand words about Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle and 1961. And Pepper and Jane -- with a little help from the script, and presumably Crystal, too -- give us at least a hint of what the two men were really like, what they experienced 40 years ago. Particularly Pepper. As Eric Enders recently wrote, Pepper's performance "... is the best portrayal of a non-fictional baseball player ever put on film, and that includes Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson, who were playing themselves." And the movie looks good. Tiger Stadium plays itself wonderfully, and -- with the help of computers -- plays old Yankee Stadium quite well, too. More important, 61* was photographed by Haskell Wexler, winner of two Academy Awards and one of our greatest living cinematographers. The baseball is great; in fact the baseball is probably the best that's ever been filmed. With the exception of one awkward throw made by Jane/Mantle, you never feel like you're watching actors trying to play ball. The film's treatment of the media is pretty simplistic, but also accurate enough for the purpose at hand. Phil Pepe, who covered the Yankees for the New York World Telegram & Sun, recently complained, "A lot of what they say happened really did happen. But the writers openly rooting against Maris? That's not true. Why would we root against him? It was a great story to write." Well, Fred Lieb wrote, "Perhaps it may sound corny, but my biggest sports thrill of 1961 was seeing Roger Maris hit a weak squib to Hoyt Wilhelm ... It wasn't that this writer had anything against Maris, but as one of the Old Guard who had been close to Ruth and who had sent word of the 60th homer over the AP wires, one can't be blamed for having nostalgic memories and rooting for the good old Babe." The Milwaukee Journal's Oliver Kuechle wrote, "Maris's failure to break Babe Ruth's record of 60 homers in 154 games evokes no deep regret here ... If the record is to be broken, it should be done by someone of greater baseball stature and greater color and public appeal ... Maris, aside from his threat on the record, is not more than a good big league ballplayer. He is colorless. He has never hit .300 in the majors ... He has been just average in the field and he is often surly. There just isn't anything deeply heroic about the man." (Both of these quotes are taken from the book Sixty-One: The Team, The Record, The Men, by Tony Kubek and Terry Pluto. And versions of both are put into the columns of fictional New York sportswriters in the movie, which makes me think that Kubek's and Pluto's book served as one of the primary sources for the script.) Watching the movie, one gets the sense that most of the writers were rooting against Maris. I don't believe they were. But it's certainly true that some of the writers were rooting against Maris. And of course, it's usually the negative stuff that is remembered (just ask Hank Aaron). Plus, every heroic tale needs a villain, and without the press this story would have no villain. (Actually, that's not quite true. Commissioner Ford Frick is portrayed as an evil, scheming fellow. But more about him later.) That's not to say the movie is perfect. The most obvious factual error comes near the beginning of the movie. It's pregame warm-ups on Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, and Yankee outfielder Bob Cerv -- who had played with Maris in Kansas City -- says to Maris, "Hey, Rog, take it easy. You wanna break your leg?" And after the game, Maris and Cerv are shown in the Queens apartment that they (and later, Mantle) shared that season. Fact: Cerv opened the season with the expansion Los Angeles Angels, and didn't become a Yankee (for the third time) until May 8. That is, of course, a niggling criticism, and so I'll spare you another half-dozen of them. Factual inaccuracies have never been held against movies before, so why start now? In a larger sense, though, it seems that Crystal missed a lot of great chances to set the record straight. Opening Day again, and the fictional reporter Artie says to Maris (after a BP homer into the right-field stands), "Look at that. You got the perfect swing for this ballpark ... You don't think you got a shot? With that short porch out there?" This actually works against Maris' reputation, because the viewer is left with the perception that he was aided by his home ballpark. However, there's little or no evidence that he actually was. In 1961, Maris hit 30 homers at Yankee Stadium ... and 31 on the road. And this was not an anomalous season. Maris played with the Yankees for seven years. In the six seasons aside from '61, Maris hit 61 home runs at home ... and 78 on the road. To take advantage of that famous short porch down the right-field line, you had to be an extreme pull hitter and apparently Maris wasn't an extreme pull hitter. Another misconception that Crystal chose to perpetuate involves the famous asterisk -- which, as it happens, never existed in any literal sense. In the film, Ford Frick calls together a group of baseball writers, where they -- in a smoke-filled room, of course -- conclude that Maris will only "break Ruth's record" if he does it in 154 games, as Ruth did. This has become Frick's legacy, of course. His 1973 autobiography was titled Games, Asterisks, and People. But strangely enough, Frick devoted the grand total of one page of his book to Maris and the supposed asterisk. And as Frick notes, "As a matter of fact no asterisk has ever appeared in the official record in connection with the Maris feat." And none did. Rather, for many years the official record book -- the Red Book -- listed two records, one (Ruth's) for a 154-game season, the other (Maris') for a 162-game season. This strikes me as eminently sensible, or at least not worth arguing about. Yet in a sense, it's the linchpin of the movie, as the story climaxes not with Maris' 61st home run, but rather with his attempt to catch Ruth in Game No. 154. And as it turns out, Game No. 154 gets the Hollywood treatment. We're in Baltimore, and before the game we're informed that the wind is blowing (as, in reality, it was). Maris has 58 home runs, and thus needs two more to match Ruth. First at-bat in the movie, he hits a long, high fly ball that gets knocked down by the wind, and caught by right fielder Earl Robinson. At least one account has that ball as more of a line drive than a high fly, but no matter. Second at-bat, he smashes one into the right-field stands for home run No. 59. Third at-bat, Maris strikes out. That one's mentioned in the movie. Fourth at-bat? Another long, high fly ... driven back into the field of play by the gusting wind (to drive home the point, the director shows us, behind Robinson catching the ball, the flag standing stiff in the breeze). Maris gets one more at-bat in the ninth, with two outs, and knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm (played by Tom Candiotti!) is summoned for the express purpose of retiring Maris. Which he does, on a weak tapper back to the mound. Actually, though, Wilhelm started the inning, and was almost certainly not -- as the movie suggests -- threatened with a $5,000 fine if he threw Maris a fastball. Orioles manager Lum Harris wanted to keep the score close -- it was 4-2, Yankees -- and Wilhelm was his best reliever. There was almost certainly not -- as the movie suggests -- some sort of Frick/Orioles conspiracy to keep Maris from catching Ruth in the latter's birth city. The script occasionally comes off as a bit amateurish, with Yankees saying things to each other that they wouldn't have said to each other, and the musical score is manipulative in the grand tradition of baseball melodrama. Also, Crystal loved the Yankees (and still does), which means that everybody in pinstripes is a good guy. Maris might be a little thick, and occasionally surly, but deep down he's a good guy. The Mick drank too much and was crude and he cheated on his wife, but deep down he's a good guy, too. They're all good guys. (Hey, it's a baseball movie! In the movies, even the Black Sox are good guys!) I know that I've spent the majority of this "review" being negative about the movie, but I really did enjoy it. No, it's not exactly the movie that I would have made, but it's also among the very best baseball movies that actually have been made, goes right into the top five with Bull Durham, The Natural, Eight Men Out and Bang the Drum Slowly. I just figured that you don't need me to tell you what's good about 61*, because most everybody has already done that. Before we leave this subject (for now), a pair of recommendations: With the world full of books about the Yankees and movies about the Yankees and articles in Sports Illustrated about the Yankees, I'm afraid I'm being swept along with the current. So you can expect at least a column or two about the Yankees this week and next. In the meantime, here's a column about a team as far from the Yankees as you can get ...
Mantle vs. Mays. It's one of the enduring debates of the last half-century, and a considered study is likely to come down on both sides. At Mantle's best, he was the better player, but Mays was the more durable player and lasted longer. Which was greater? It depends on how you frame the question. But what did people think when Mantle and Mays were playing? In The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, James asked, The opinion of contemporaries? Between 1955 and 1964 Mantle finished first or second in the MVP voting six times; Mays in his career [italics mine] was first or second four times over a less concentrated period of time. It was only after the fact, when the final statistics were in the book, that people began to say that Mays was the greater player. The aura about Mays was best reflected by his impact on society. Recently I went through some old New York Times Sunday Magazine sections and came across the following: In the issue of July 11, 1954, there was an article by Gilbert Millstein about Willie Mays. Millstein compared Mays to the Natural Man of Jean Jacques Rousseau. The following month, in the issue of August 15, 1954, the Sunday Times magazine had further references to Mays. There, on page 25, was an article about Ethel Barrymore in which Miss Barrymore irreverently says: "Isn't Willie Mays wonderful?" On page 34, same date, same magazine, in an article satirizing the how-to-do craze, there is a sentence which lumps current topics for conversation as: "the weather, Faulkner, Willie Mays and children's summer camps." On page 61, same date, same sedate old magazine, there is a brief piece on baseball superstitions; we see a picture of Willie Mays touching second base on his way to the outfield. And two weeks later, the same magazine did an article about the Copyright Office in Washington; the second paragraph of the piece has to do with two songs just written about Willie Mays. Rousseau, Ethel Barrymore, how-to-do fads, superstitions, copyrighted songs and the New York Times. So you see, I hope, what Willie Mays has been: a great ballplayer, not only according to all the rules of the game and within the confines of the sport and the field, but one who overflows normal boundaries and escapes into the life and world about us, any shape, any form.Of course, Hano might not have been completely objective about Willie Mays in 1961, and might not be in 2001. But then, that's the point. Mays was the favorite of baseball's cognoscenti. Arnold Hano, one of the great baseball writers, chose to write about Mays, and not Mantle. Charles Einstein, another great baseball writer, wrote two books about Willie Mays. One of them, the brilliant Willie's Time, nearly won a Pulitzer Prize. To this day, nobody's written a good book, let alone a great book, about Mickey Mantle. And why? Because Mantle simply did not inspire great writers. Mays did. Not long after Hano's article appeared, Sport published, in 1962, a special issue devoted to Mays and Mantle. An anonymous editor wrote, by way of introduction, "Who's better? Since 1951, the question has been argued long and loud in dugouts, in clubhouses, newspapers and magazines. Since 1951 the winner most often has been Willie Mays ... Mays remains the choice today. For the same reasons he has been picked so often through the years: he can do more things better ..." Mays may, or may not have been, the greatest ballplayer of his time. But there's little doubt in my mind that most contemporary observers thought that Mays was the greatest ballplayer of his time. THURSDAY, MAY 3 I have seen the future of batting practice. And if I were a pitcher I would be afraid. I would be very afraid. We've reached the 21st century, yet major-league batting practice remains, in large part, overweight old men lobbing 60-mph fastballs toward hitters with eyes as big as tea saucers. Batting practice is Home Run Derby. Batting practice is Tom Kelly chewing on a cheap stogie. And batting practice is, we might surmise, a fairly pointless exercise. Why? Because major-league pitchers throw 90-plus heat, and nuclear sliders, and fall-off-the-table curveballs, and disappearing changeups. Meanwhile, batting-practice pitchers throw meatballs. Does taking pregame cuts against the bullpen coach really prepare one to face Pedro Martinez? That's all going to change with Abner. Who is Abner? Abner is the most sophisticated, and not coincidentally the most expensive, mechanical pitching machine ever invented. A contraption of this sort used to be called "Iron Mike," but if Abner didn't already have a name, a suitable moniker might be "Silicon Jack." Because underneath the motor and the flywheels that launch the baseball is some pretty sophisticated hardware and software that should eventually consign Abner's predecessors to the scrap heap. Michael Kirby, Richard Richings and Doug Crews are Seattle engineers and baseball fans who, a few years ago, decided to build the best "pitching simulator" in the world. And so they did. Kirby read my column and, knowing that I lived in Seattle, he invited me over to see their machine. I've been back five or six times since that first visit two years ago, and I've faced Abner twice. The first time, there was no video screen, just the flywheels open to the world. There also was no batting cage, no protective netting or anything, so I didn't step to the plate with a bat in my hands. Rather, I simply stood in the batter's box, and waited. First, a 90-plus fastball. I trusted the technology, and so I didn't even flinch as the ball went thwock into the rubber backstop, just an inch or two from dead center. Then, Richings shouted at me from 60 feet away, "Hey, you wanna see Randy Johnson's slider?" Hey, who wouldn't? There were two problems, though. One, if you're not used to seeing pitches travel at speeds exceeding 90 miles per hour from up close, then you won't really see much of them. Just a blur. And two, it turned out that Richings hadn't quite de-bugged Abner yet. So "Randy Johnson's slider," rather than starting out on the outside corner before sweeping across the heart of the plate, started out on the inside corner and swept to within an inch or two of my delicate shins. Fortunately, I was too shocked to bail out. So to anyone watching, I looked as cool as Arthur Fonzarelli. That was a year-and-a-half ago, and Abner's come a long way since then. The last time I saw him, he was in a long, narrow, industrial building that looked like a good garage for a semi truck. These days, Abner resides in a long, narrow industrial building, nestled between a trailer park and a car lot, that looks like a good garage for two semi trucks. Abner has a face now, too. When you're batting against Abner, you don't see the machine itself. Instead, you face a huge video screen, onto which is projected the image of former big-league pitcher Mike Campbell, wearing a generic uniform, white with blue trim. Campbell winds up and, just as he's about to "release" the baseball, a strip of the screen winds down to place a ball-sized opening in front of Campbell's virtual right hand. And of course, the image can be reversed if you'd rather face Campbell's evil, left-handed twin. Abner/Campbell can throw fastballs, sliders, curveballs, changeups, even knuckleballs, and at virtually any speeds. Interestingly, though, major leaguers don't really care about much of that. According to Kirby, "They just want to get their timing down, so they're usually just looking for the fastball/curve combination, 75 and 65 [miles per hour]. They don't really understand yet what this technology can do." So that's the one I tried. I'm not particularly coordinated, nor am I particularly adept at hitting a baseball. But one of the fun things about baseball is that nearly anyone can hit a 75-mph fastball if he knows it's coming. The problem was that, even with the help of Ken Caminiti's batting gloves -- which he'd left behind after testing Abner the day before -- my George Brett bat stung my hands with nearly every swing. So, discretion being the better part of valor, I switched to one of those aluminum/titanium/adamantium composite bats that the kids use these days. After a couple of decent pokes, Mike asked me if I wanted to see the curve. And so I saw approximately 30 curves. I actually hit one of them, too ... the last one, at which point I quit while I was ahead. Mind you, these curves were traveling at only 65 miles per hour, or roughly 15 mph. slower than those thrown by professional pitchers. And most of the time, my bat wasn't within a foot of the ball. Someday, I'll go back and ask Mike to dial the curves up to 80, just to get a sense of how far I am from being able to try out for the Royals. This March, some real hitters tested Abner, as Fastball, Inc. trucked Abner all the way to Florida for spring training. And Abner's star pupil? Marty Cordova, who was fighting to win a bench spot with the Indians. Cordova struggled terribly with the Blue Jays last season, batting .245 with four homers in 200 at-bats. This spring, according to Kirby, "Marty worked out on the machine a great deal, taking about 500 pitches during the three weeks we were there. This is the equivalent of about 135 at-bats. He was an extremely hard worker and hit on the machine in the morning, after practice and during home games as well as after home games. And he was the last guy to hit off the machine at the Indians camp just before we left town." Cordova batted .442 in spring training to earn a roster spot. And after hitting three-run homers each of the last two nights, he's now batting .442 (again) with six homers and 19 RBI in the regular season. Was it Cordova's natural talent, his work ethic, or the amazing Abner that got him going this spring? Kirby and Richings would probably be the first to tell you that the first two factors were, and are, more important than the third. At the same time, Cordova got more quality work in with Abner than he could possibly have gotten any other way. So why doesn't even a single major-league team own one of these machines? Because baseball teams are, to put it bluntly, penny-wise and pound-foolish. This version of Abner carries a pretty hefty price tag -- $175,000. And next year's version, which will feature a moving release point -- that is, a mechanism that will allow for pitches released from nearly any arm angle -- is projected to cost $275,000. As Kirby notes, "We've convinced the baseball people, now the trick is getting the money guys to sign off." Apparently it's easy to convince an accountant that Derek Bell is worth however many millions of dollars he gets, but it's not easy to convince one that the greatest pitching machine in the world is worth a couple hundred grand. Think about it. How much of an edge do you need, to justify spending a quarter of a million dollars? Two points of batting average? Five points of slugging percentage? I don't know. But if I were running a major-league club, I'd sure want to find out. WEDNESDAY, MAY 2 Even after last night's loss to Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez, the Seattle Mariners boast a 20-6 record. The last team that started 20-6? The Milwaukee Brewers, circa 1987. Now, if you don't remember the '87 Brewers cruising through October to win their first World Series championship, there's a very good reason ... The Brewers didn't win the World Series; in fact, they didn't even win a division title. Instead, they finished in third place, behind the Tigers and Blue Jays in the American League East. But should that serve as a cautionary tale for Mariners fans who are already thinking about delaying their vacation plans until November? Probably not, because those '87 Brewers were a strange team indeed. First, they started the season with 13 straight wins, tying the major-league record. Then they won seven of their next 10 games, giving them a 20-3 start. Then they lost a game. And another, and another, and another ... until they'd lost a dozen straight. After a stirring two-game winning streak, the Brew Crew reeled off another six-game losing streak. At that point, the Brewers were 22-21, barely above .500. Far from fading, however, Milwaukee played brilliantly down the stretch, going 39-20 from August 4 through the end of the season. Over that stretch, they played 13 games against Detroit and Toronto, and won nine of them. It just wasn't enough, as the Brewers finished seven games behind the Tigers. Here's the good news for Mariners fans. Even with that big slump after the big start, the Brewers wound up with 91 victories ... and this year, 91 victories will quite likely be enough to take the American League West. Because there's more good news for Mariners fans. The M's are eight games ahead of their nearest competition, and 12 games ahead of the club widely considered, just three weeks ago, the best team in the division. A couple more notes on the Mariners: Here are two players. Figure out which is more responsible for the Mariners' success:
Games Runs SB RBI OBP Slug
Alpha 26 22 6 12 .376 .429
Bravo 26 17 5 11 .355 .425
Wait! Before you answer, let me tell you that Alpha plays Gold Glove-quality defense in center field, and that Bravo is a solid right fielder, if unlikely to win any awards.
By now, you've probably figured out that Alpha is Mike Cameron, and Bravo is Ichiro Suzuki. But did you know that Cameron's actually been more productive than Ichiro? He's scored more runs, he's driven in more runs, he's stolen more bases, he's reached base more often, he's hit for more power. What else is there?
Frankly, Ichiro should not be considered a sure thing as Rookie of the Year. Yes, he's exciting. But no, his performance has not been emblematic of a Grade A right fielder. Of course, it's still far too early to evaluate Suzuki's long-term prospects. But when you consider that the M's are getting nothing from either their left fielders or their third baseman, and are unlikely to, it becomes fairly apparent that they will, at some point, need more from their right fielder than they're getting.
Speaking of keys to the Mariners' success, I am continually amused and amazed when I hear that they're winning because they're doing "the little things" well: bunting, hitting-and-running, stealing ... you know, all the stuff the manager's responsible for. It's funny, though. Nobody mentions the walks.
Well, not exactly nobody. Last week, in his article on walks, Tim Kurkjian pointed out that last season, the Mariners led the American League with 775 walks, the fifth-highest total in history and the most for any major-league team since 1949. And you know what? Despite losing Alex Rodriguez -- who led the M's last year with 100 walks -- and missing Jay Buhner -- who drew 59 walks in 112 games -- they're doing it again. Seattle's hitters lead the AL with 113 walks, and are on pace for 704. The Mariners have the third-best on-base percentage in the league, and that's got very little to do with Uncle Lou's "small ball."
Yes, Safeco Field is a tough place for home-run hitters (and for that matter, just about every kind of hitter). But that doesn't mean the M's don't have power. A year ago, they out-homered their opponents by a healthy margin, 198 to 167. Yes, a lot of that was Alex Rodriguez. But even this year, with Alex gone and Buhner on the DL, the M's have nearly matched their opponents' home runs (23 to 25). And that's the key to winning baseball games. It's hitting home runs and drawing walks, and preventing your opponents from hitting home runs and drawing walks.
Small ball is fun to watch, and it's fun for managers and broadcasters to talk about. But in the 21st century, it just don't win that many ballgames.
Josh Peterson
Last week, when doing some research on Willie Mays, I discovered something that, in all my years of doing this sort of thing, had completely evaded my consciousness. Willie Mays was a choker. Or rather, there were people who thought he was a choker. Why? Because in four World Series, Mays batted .239 with zero home runs. That's right, the great Willie Mays, in four World Series and 71 at-bats, didn't manage even a single home run. But nobody remembers that. And why not? Because, frankly, it would be silly to let 71 at-bats seriously color our opinion of a player who performed so brilliantly over a career that included 10,881 regular-season at-bats and 660 home runs. Which brings us to Barry Bonds. As you might remember, I recently labeled Bonds a contender for the title of Greatest Left Fielder Ever. The response to this was generally positive, but a few naysayers argued, "How could Bonds be the greatest? Just look at what he's done in October, when it mattered." No doubt about it, Barry Bonds has been ... somewhat less than effective in postseason play. In this case, the numbers tell the story: 20 games, 97 at-bats, a .196 batting average, just six RBI and one home run. Bonds still hasn't played in a World Series, and he's partly to blame for that. But will anybody remember? If Bonds doesn't eventually play for a World Series winner, maybe somebody will. Certainly, a fair number of Pirates and Giants fan will remember, and you can't blame them. But history won't remember, any more than history remembers that Ty Cobb -- a career .366 hitter in the regular season -- batted just .262 in 65 World Series at-bats. Last summer, Orlando Cepeda went into the Hall of Fame. He gained entry into Cooperstown's hallowed halls despite posting a .207 batting average in 87 postseason at-bats, along with a .368 slugging percentage and a .233 on-base percentage. But did you hear anyone -- and I mean anyone -- bringing up Orlando Cepeda's postseason failures? This summer, Dave Winfield will go into the Hall of Fame. In 81 postseason at-bats, Winfield batted .173. But in January, when Winfield was elected to the Hall in his first season of eligibility, did you hear anyone mention that postseason batting average? Roger Maris isn't a Hall of Famer, but a fair number of people think that he should be. One of the arguments made for Maris is that he was a good clutch hitter. Perhaps. But not in the postseason. Maris played in seven World Series, and batted just .217 with a .300 OBP and a .368 slugging percentage, all three figures considerably below his career regular-season marks. In 107 postseason at-bats, Robin Ventura has posted a .168 batting average. Have you ever heard anyone describe Ventura as a "choker"? And what about Bernie Williams? In 71 World Series at-bats, he's got 10 hits, for a brilliant .141 batting average. Anybody heard talk of Bernie killing the Yankees in the clutch? Of course not, because the Yankees always win the World Series. And finally, we have the immortal Chick Hafey. Hafey's Hall of Fame plaque mentions his batting title in 1931, his .317 lifetime batting average and his 10 straight hits in 1929. His plaque does not, however, mention his .205 batting average in 88 World Series at-bats. Here are Barry Bonds and Chick Hafey in the postseason:
Games AB Runs RBI OBP Slug
Hafey 23 88 5 2 .222 .284
Bonds 27 97 12 6 .297 .299
Hafey was a pretty good ballplayer. He might even have a Hall of Fame case, if he'd played brilliantly in the World Series. Instead, he played horribly ... and nobody held it against him, not even the Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee.
Looking at this from another angle: in 205 postseason at-bats, Marquis Grissom has batted .328, with a solid 825 OPS. Do analysts hail Grissom as a great clutch hitter? No, they don't. And they shouldn't, because while 208 at-bats might seem like a lot, the difference between hitting .328 and .228 in 208 at-bats is about 20 hits. That is to say, statistically there is no real difference.
My point isn't that Bonds' postseason performance doesn't count. Everything counts. But if it counts for Barry Bonds, then shouldn't it count for Ty Cobb and Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda and Dave Winfield, too? And since very few of us -- writers, fans, broadcasters, etc. -- are willing to hold Cobb's or Mays' or Cepeda's or Winfield's postseason failures against them, it seems to me that Bonds deserves exactly the same break.
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