Baseball Told the Right Way

RIP

2010-08-08T23:59:00.002-05:00

You will be forever missed.

2009 Season almost here

2009-01-26T14:43:00.003-06:00

Well another year is upon us and there have been a ton of changes. What I have learned once again is:

Yanks are trying to buy a championship
Red Sox seem to always have the next big thing as far as rookies are concerned
AL champs are still pretty strong and flying under the radar
The AL Central is not talked about enough at all
The Cubs managed to get the ownership right
The Giants are trying to win a terrible NL West
Texas will be bad again

This season is going to be a head turner and new players will emerge as stars. Many big name guys are still out there to be had and they may be forced to retire.

I guess we will see what the next few weeks brings us.

John

The Little Things Count Too

2008-06-02T17:16:00.000-05:00

Great article by Eric Neel (one of the few bright spots of ESPN) about the art of the pickoff move. An excerpt:

It's one of the real under-appreciated dramas in baseball. Each guy is lying about himself and trying to read the other, and the conclusion, whether it's a pickoff or a steal, comes with a sweet, stinging "gotcha" punch right in the gut. Think about the successful pickoffs you've seen at the ballpark; they're not just outs, they're exercises in shame and humiliation. Guys head back to the dugout with their heads down and taunts from the crowd ringing in their ears. Hits are common, strikeouts are cheap, but a pickoff is something to see.

I couldn't agree more. There is probablly nothing more embarrassing in sport. Its right up there with letting a ground ball through your legs or airballing a free thow. Considering the frequency with which the other two occur, I'd say getting picked off is as embarrassing as doing any of the others without any pants on.

Its also a lost art in Major League Baseball. The article mentions only Brian Anderson, Terry Mulholland, Kenny Rogers, Mark Buehrle, and Andy Pettitte (all lefties). There isn't really anybody else that can pick people off, and mostly these guys get by on reputation alone. I'm sure if someone (not me thank you very much) could find the average number of steal attempts off a pitcher, the numbers for these guys would be a tiny fraction of that. Even if one found the average number of steal attempts only off of lefties, these guys wouldn't even be close. You'd have to separate out the catchers effect (a lefty with Mike Piazza catching has no chance), but there is real, tangible value in not allowing baserunners to even think about stealing.

And besides the measurable effect of nobody stealing bases with a certain pitcher on the mound, think about the unmeasurable effect of having guys start with a two foot lead. And think about how many times when a good lefty is on the mound, the runner at first takes a step back to first instead of getting a secondary lead as the pitch is thrown. Do you think that runner is going first to third on a single?

There are so many little things in baseball, so many underapreciated nuances that so many big name players ignore. Baserunning, defensive positioning, duking baserunners on balls in the gap, trash talk, the lost art of stealing signs. In these days, with the rise of statistical analysis, where more and more baseball is measurable, it sure seems that the small unmeasurable things are getting forgoteen more and more often.

Go ahead and Email Curt to tell him that Jose Canseco letting a ball bounce off his head for a home run was WAY more embarrassing.
Curt

So Its Been Awhile!

2008-01-07T15:15:00.001-06:00

Well a ton has happened in the baseball world since I last posted. The Cubs landed Fukudome...Clemans took roids...Rockies made the Series...So whats next...

Well tomorrow is the hall of fame voting and I want to take a second and plug Andre Dawson for playing the game the right way. He had more knee surgeries than I have ever seen and was always productive. Heres to you Hawk!

The Cubs are going to be sold and I hope that Mark Cuban gets a chance to but that team. He would be perfect for what the cubs are. I wanna hear the cubs up there with the Yankees and Red Sox when every free agent is available.

Lets see what happens

John

Check out this guy on the radio...

2006-12-15T21:58:00.000-06:00

http://www.pirateradio.com

goto sports...

Ed Bosco is the man with the plan!!!

John

Why not Pie?

2006-12-11T15:58:00.000-06:00

The Cubs are in search of a true centerfielder. Why not a home-grown talent? Felix Pie has been their most prized prospect since Mark Prior. He is a great five-tool talent who excelled at every level. If the Cubs fail to sign Kenny Lofton, a chicago favorite, Pie should be the answer.

Lofton is said to be close to signing with the Rangers to replace Gary Matthews Jr., another former Cub. Lofton sparked the 03' varsion of the Cubs to a second half surge and a well-storied trip to the playoffs.

John

The Bleachers

2006-02-09T12:31:00.000-06:00

So I am watching the news and a big topic is the Cubs expanding 1,800 seats in the bleachers. That really isn't a problem with me. The problem that I came across is the $60 dollar ticket price for premium bleacher seats. Part of the fun of getting bleacher seats is it is first come first serve. It sounds like the front few rows are now off limits. Either way, limiting your choices in the bleachers at Wrigley is a step in the wrong direction. Also, The Cubs are $30 million under their so-called "budget" and only one player is out there worth signing, Jeff Weaver. Problem is they went the cheap route in hopes that Wade Miller and Kerry Wood can equal 17 wins or so. I am sorry to say but Jim Hendery has totally taken a backseat to Kenny Williams. The latest rumor is Bobby Abreau for Jermaine Dye. If that happens, The White Sox are gonna be harder to beat than ever. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

John

Things I thought were interesting...

2006-02-06T15:21:00.000-06:00

Rick Ankiel has a good shot at making the Cards opening day roster as a hitter. He belted 21 homers in the minors last season.

Kevin Appier is competing for a spot with the Mariners.

Andy Marte has been traded two times in seven weeks.

The Padres only have one player under 30 in their everyday lineup (Kahlil Greene).

Felix Diaz, formally a big White Sox prospect, is going to play in Japan.

Bobby Abreau may be traded to the south siders for Jermaine Dye.

David Kelton was not offered a contract by the Cubs and has caught on with another club.

The Devil Rays are still hoping that Josh Hamilton, former first overall draft-pick, will conquer his drug addiction.

More to come...

John

New Writers Wanted

2006-02-06T15:19:00.000-06:00

I am looking for new writers to contribue to the site. Let me know if you are intersted and shoot me an e-mail. hujman@aol.com
Thanks,
John

Juan Pierre....YESSSSSSSSSS!

2005-12-10T15:32:00.000-06:00

It'a about time that the loser Cubs decided to step into the mix and pick up a legitimate player. I have sat back quietly and witnessed the Cubs attepmt to land Rafel Furcal and be unsuccessful. Everyone in Chicago (except Sox fans) took a deep breath and fell back to reality. Just a few days later our beloved Jim Hendery fixed that situation and our best leadoff hitter ever fell in to our laps. Ill have more when I hear more.

John

What I've heard so far

2005-11-29T21:55:00.000-06:00

Ok here is a rundown on some hotsove talk:
Furcal is deciding between the Braves, Cubs, And Dodgers

Konerko is mulling offers from the O's, Angels, and White Sox

The Marlins are still looking to deal Juan Pierre...many suitors including the Cubs and Yankees

Nomar possibly to the A's as well as Frank Thomas

Damon to the Yankees...Bernie Williams to possibly retire

Giles offered big contract from the Jays

More to come

John

Im Baackkkkkkkk!!!

2005-11-29T21:41:00.000-06:00

OK let me start off with how I believe that the Whitesox made the correct decision in acquiring Peoria Jim Thome. First, I think Konerko is going to the Angels to be with his family out west. That's a huge power hole to fill which they already did. Second, Rowand reached his max potential. He has a slow bat. He is a great fielder who was robbed of a Gold-Glove to Torii Hunter, a guy that played half a season. Third, Thome has something to prove. He is older and is looking for a ring. He has dominated the Central before and will do so again. Just too bad he couldn't do it as a Cub. He offered to take a paycut three years ago but they said no. Now he will dominate the South side. Well, that's it for now. Ill be writing more often now.

And as for Curt...Where are you man?

John

BUY/SELL

2005-04-20T15:05:00.000-05:00

Fantasy Focus

With the season about two weeks old there have been many surprises. Here is some advice to go by…

Sell Now

Brian Roberts 2B Orioles – This guy is on pace for 70 homers. He only had four all of last season and has six as of today. There might be a guy who is desperate in your league for help at a weak second base position so try to get as much as you can.

Dontrelle Willis SP Marlins – He may yield great value and may get a superstar in return. I would look to trade him as soon as you can.

Pat Burrell Phillies OF – He is on a hot streak but that’s all it will be. I have had him the last two years and expect him to come back down to earth soon.

Buy Now

Kerry Wood Cubs SP – He has had a rough go of it lately with an ERA over six. People are pulling the trigger on him and aren’t asking for much in return. This could give you a huge boost as soon as Wood zones in.

Steve Finley Angels OF – He is notorious for slow starts. His career numbers in April are that of a .240 hitter. Last year he was released in our league and ended up a top 20 OF.

Lance Berkman Astros OF – Get him while he is cheap. This guy is a great fantasy player hitting in a fantasy hitters dream.

With that said there are quite a few guys out there on the waiver wire that should be considered.

Cesar Izturis Dodgers SS – He is hitting the ball all over the place and stealing bases, what more could you ask for.

Omar Visquel Giants SS – (See Izturis)

Ryan Franklin Mariners SP – Last outing had a complete game loss against the White Sox. I was at the game and if Paul Konerko didn’t hit two homeruns it would have been a shutout.

Dustin Hermanson White Sox RP – I predict a change in the closer role soon for the White Sox. Hermanson is the most consistant out of that bullpen so I look for him to take over soon.
This should be an interesting year!!!

John

I'll trade my trash for your trash.

2005-03-22T01:37:00.000-06:00

Dodgers trade Kaz Ishii and cash to the Mets for Jason Phillips.

The Mets needed a fifth starter (which they already had) and the Dodgers needed a catcher (which they didn't get). What's not to like about this trade.

Phillips had a great rookie year, hitting .298/.373/.442 in 403 ABs filling in at 1st in 2003. That was a great season, but anybody with a brain (and internet access) would have known that Phillips overacheived in David Newham-like proportions. In over 2000 minor league at bats, Phillips only hit .279/.347/.427. So it shouldn't have suprised the Mets when Phillips stunk up the place in 2004. The easy road would be to split the difference between 03 and 04 and say that Phillips is probablly about a .250/.320/.400 hitter in Shea Stadium. Not too bad for a catcher, and its much better than anything the Dodgers were expecting out of the Paul Bako/Cody Ross combo. Only Phillips isn't really a catcher. Or he is, in the same way Scott Hatteberg is a catcher.

So its a pretty low risk move for the Dodgers, as long as they aren't planning on having a decent glove behind the plate. They also lose Ishii's $3.2M salary in 2005, and they'll now avoid having to buy out his 2006 salary for $2.2M. They didn't need Ishii, and thats largely because Ishii isn't really any good.

It's true, the Mets have no need for Jason Phillips, so you can't blame them for dumping him when people still remember 2003. The problem is the Mets weren't dumping salary here, the Dodgers were. Phillips was practically free, and Ishii is not. Considering what the Mets will be paying Ishii over the next 1-2 years, they are getting negative value from this trade.

Not to mention Rick Peterson now has the task of fixing three pitchers this season. Glavine and Pedro will pretty much pitch themselves, but Peterson has already said he will fix Victor "The Wrong" Zambrano and Kris "Remember when I was the #1 Pick" Benson. Now he must take on the ominous task of fixing the only pitcher in Major League baseball who walks as many batters as he strikes out (98 BBs vs. 99 Ks in 2004). I mean at least Victor Zambrano strikes out some of the batters he doesn't walk.

The other problem I have, and the biggest one really, is the Mets have several replacements for Steve Traschel (out at least three months) that are probablly already better than Ishii. The Mets could run out Aaron Heilman, Matt Ginter, or Jae Seo (in that order) and most likely find 200 league average innings among them. With Ishii, they wont. They're guarranteed to find 200 nail biting innings. Nope, forget that, they wont get 200 innings from Ishii, because he'll be out of the rotation by the All-Star break.
Curt

But they are old.

2005-03-17T01:12:00.000-06:00

Good news. The Giants plan more action on the bases. As in stealing bases. Overly peeved at being dead last in MLB with only 44 team steals, manager Felipe Alou has vowed that the Giants will be running a lot more this year.

Only two problems:
1.) Nobody on the Giants can steal bases.
2.) Barry Bonds

Check out the Giants lineup and how many steals they each had last season. (Yes Felipe Alou has said Snow will bat third. I know, I know. He sucks.)

1. Ray Durham, 2B      10
2. Omar Vizquel, SS    19
3. J.T. Snow, 1B        4
4. Barry Bonds, LF      6
5. Moises Alou, RF      3
6. Edgardo Alfonzo, 3B  1
7. Marquis Grissom, CF  3
8. Mike Matheny, C      0

Durham and Grissom used to run, but are old and battle worn, and ought to do everything they can to avoid further injuries. Vizquel stole 19 bases, but he'll be lucky to replicate that at age 38. The Giants are just not a fast team. Why try to be something you're not? Shouldn't the Giants just come out and say they're going to try and play more bingo this year, or eat dinner really really early every night?

And the larger problem is, of course, Barry Bonds. If you run in front of Barry Bonds you are effectively taking the bat out of your best hitters hands. Even if one of the geriatric Giants makes it to second, the opposing pitcher will just walk Bonds. What a waste.

Let's look at this simply. Assume even in their late 30's Durham and Vizquel can still swipe a bag at a 75% success rate. Bonds moves them up to 2nd 60% of the time anyways, and 12% of the time he moves them past second with an extra-base hit. Even ignoring the times one of those 'speedy' top of the order types will be able to take third on a single, theres not much difference between the frequency Bonds will do the job at no risk to the oft injured hamstrings of Ray Durham. It's certainly not worth the invitation for the other team to walk Bonds.

Stealing second by a team like the Giants is idiotic. It makes no sense. Teams should play to their strengths. The Giants are an old, slow, mediocre offense with one superstar in the middle of the lineup. Running into outs at second and taking the bat out of Bonds' hands is like a really really smart, but ugly as sin girl (hair on her back and everything) deciding to quit school and marry into money. You have to undertand your limitations.

Why would people laugh if Luis Castillo (he of the career .354 slugging %) came out to say he was going hit more home runs this year? Or maybe its different, a home run is 400 feet away, while second base is only 90. It looks a lot more attainable, anyone can do it. Right?
Curt

Red Sox, Yankees...Red Sox, Yankees....

2005-03-16T01:30:00.000-06:00

I was reading the March 14th issue of Sports Illustrated on the plane ride home from Vegas yesterday (I practically own that town). In SI, theres some crazy bootleg article about a SI writer participating in a day of Blue Jays spring training. The article was pretty dumb, but it contained this lil nugget from Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi.
Red Sox, Yankees....Red Sox, Yankees....I don't care about the Red Sox and Yankees. We have to take care of ourselves. This is the most important year in the four years I've been here. This is your chance, from right now, to decide what kind of team you want to be.
I've always wondered what the leaders of teams tell their players when both players, management, and the fans know a team has absolutely no chance of playing baseball in October. Now I know, they try and cover their own asses.

I'll translate Ricciardi's statement for you:Yeah, the Red Sox and Yankees will finish 1-2, making our chance of picking up even the Wild Card a negative number, but I don't care. I'm not here to win the division, I'm just trying to make this team respectable so they don't fire my sorry ass.
But as fans, we all know, just like Ricciardi knows, just like the Blue Jays players know: they don't have a chance.

The Blue Jays lost 90 games last year. The Blue Jays also lost their best player, Carlos Delgado, to free agency. The Blue Jays will attempt to replace Delgado's production with Shea Hillenbrand and Corey Koskie. The Blue Jays don't have a chance.

Other than Hillenbrand and Koskie, the Blue Jays won't be much different this season. I don't blame Ricciardi for going out and spending millions on free agents when he has to look up every day at the insurmountable obstacle the Red Sox and Yankees have become in the AL East. Ricciardi would get a pass. Would. If. Only.

Ricciardi would get a pass if only this were his first year at the helm. But Ricciardi has done nothing to improve the big league club since he being hired after the 2001 season. The minors? Too early to pass judgement, but their best (and most major league ready) prospects were drafted before he arrived.

And what good do the minor leagues do for a team when the General Manager displays absolutely no talent for finding contributing talent (whether it be cheap or expensive) at the major league level.

And to think, the Red Sox had an opening for a GM right around the time the Worcester native Riccairdi took the "challenge" up in Toronto. Red Sox, Yankees.....Red Sox, Yankees......
Curt

Over-hype, under-appreciation, and the perils of not thinking for yourself.

2005-03-07T14:15:00.000-06:00

On the eve of my first pilgrammage to the holy land I thought I'd take a look at the upcoming season through the eyes of a bettor. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on point of reference, those eyes are my own.

The first thing to remember about sports betting is that its illegal and you should never do it. The second thing you should remember about sports betting is that the lines have nothing to do with who is going to win the games.

That's not entirely true, but its a good rule of thumb to go by. The lines set by Vegas, or anywhere else, are more a direct result of where people are betting. A bookie wants the same amount of money bet on the dog as has been bet on the favorite. That way they make their cut, and no one group of bettors outweighs the other. So the line is set (and adjusted) based on the popular opinion among the betting community.

Now some people may ask why its a good idea to go against the popular opinion. If everyone thinks the Yankees are the best team in the AL East, then isn't there a pretty good chance that they actually are?

Nope. If you ask me, popular opinion is almost never right. If you were to ask a more rational person, and one who makes good money betting on sports, they would tell you that it might be right a good portion of the time, but the discrepancy between public opinion and the truth is where the money is to be made.

To make a path in this world you have to be able to see truth, even when its clouded in a veil of ESPN hype and sports talk radio misinformation. And when I look at the Vegas line and see the New York Yankees futures odds to win the World Series set at 8/5, I have to shiver in my seat over all the millions of people who are so certain the Yankees will win the World Series that they don't even want to double their money with a bet.

I mean do people really think the Yankees have a better than 2 to 1 chance of winning the World Series? Do people realize how long 162 games is? Do they realize how easy it would be for 41 year old Randy Johnson to break down like he did in 2003, Carl Pavano to get hurt like he has been every year except 2004, and Jaret Wright to just plain old suck like he did in every year except 2004? I'm not saying it will happen, but if it did, or even if some of them happened, the Yankees will have a difficult road ahead of them to even make the playoffs. Is that a sure thing?

When a bet isn't even going to double my money if I make it, I better be sure that the odds of winning that bet are better than 50%. I wouldn't even give the Yankees a 30% chance of winning the World Series when I look at all the other very very good teams out there.

On that note, the Red Sox are at 6 to 1 odds. Fair enough, I'm not even sure I like them at that since they play in the same division as the Yankees and have a legitimate shot of missing the playoffs even while being the second best team in baseball. But think about the difference in odds between the Red Sox and Yankees. And then consider the Mets, with the addition of Pedro and Beltran, and the development of David Wright into a legitimate superstar, but still a team full of question marks: tagged at 7 to 1.

At least we know how many New York fans are betting.

I'd like to have a site like ESPN.com or something, with millions of readers, whereby mentioning the atrociousness of betting on the Yankees I could influence people to the point where the lines would sneak back up to 3 or 4 to 1 (which is still a wretched bet).

Think about it, there are probablly 7 or 8 teams that have a legitimate shot to win the World Series in any given year. Some of them we don't know about until after the season (c.f. 2003 Marlins), but the truth is, teams like that are very good, but that reality hasn't been officially "released" to the general public. Those are the teams to bet on, because we don't know about them for a reason: they haven't yet been hyped.

Popular opinion usually lags behind the truth, much like Omar Vizquel is still considered a good defensive shortstop, people have been slow to catch on to the fact that there are a couple of up-and-coming teams that are very good, right now.

Those teams I like:
Braves: 20 to 1.
Are the Braves really much different from the team that won 96 games and the division last year? Your 2005 Cy Young winner Tim Hudson should have something to say about that.

Phillies: 22 to 1.
Are people sick of seeing the Phillies underperform for the last two seasons? This is a really good team that only needs to get consistent pitching from their rotation to be in the playoffs after two relative train wrecks of a season.

Dodgers: 30 to 1.
This one I just don't get. LA is a big market, and while they might not be the most dedicated baseball fans in the world, you would think at least some of them would have faith enough in this team to lay some money on the line. LA won the west last year. Drew, Kent, and Choi will make up for the loss of Beltre, LoDuca, and Green. Derek Lowe (as much as I hate him) and Brad Penny will be better pitchers than Hideo Nomo and Jose Lima. They may not be much better, but even if the Dodgers treaded water, they're still a division winner in a weak division.

Oakland: 30 to 1.
This ones a little bit of a stretch, a very good team with an improving offense that lost its two best pitchers. I don't like their chances, but remember that Mulder and Hudson only combined for 400 innings of about a 4.00 ERA in a pitchers park. Its entirely possible, if not entirely likely, that the trio of Blanton, Meyer, and Haren could combine to top that. This Oakland team missed the playoffs by one stinking game last year, and could be better this season.

Indians: 35 to 1.
I know I've harped on the Indians in this space before, but this is a team that Victor Martinez and Travis Hafner have brought a little bit of hype to Cleveland, and that has brought them down from the 50 to 1 level they occupied last preseason. I still think they are a year away, but that wont stop me from dropping a couple dimes on them once I get to Vegas.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are 30 to 1 odds to win the World Series, need I say more.

Note: Please do not use any advice from the mouth of a self-proclaimed blowhard for any decision on betting. I do not want the responsibility for anyone's mortgage on my conscious.
Curt

A graveyard is also a garden.

2005-03-01T08:12:00.000-06:00

And every spring........

What better way to start off March than a post about baseball. This space has been conspicuously vacant for the past month or so. No excuses needed, its the dead of winter, and college basketball is much too exciting. Thanks to the couple of people who wrote in to ask what was up. Basically to check to see if I was still alive. Which I am. Much to the chagrin of A-Rod, my elderly neighbors, and the U.S. Government

Back when John convinced me to start doing this, I didn't really expect this
site to be alive a full year later. But even during the offseason when there wasn't anything new here, the number of people stopping by tells me that its at least worth it for me to keep writing down my semi-sober rants. This confuses me somewhat, but I like it, thanks to everyone. The writing is sure to pick up in the next few weeks with spring training starting, and we might witness the re-birth of John, so keep checking in.

This will be our second season, and during the first, the Red Sox won the World Series.

Coincidence?

I don't care if it is, I'm not going to take the chance and stop now. And so, to get the second season started, here are a couple of fearless predictions I dare anyone to bet against,

The Milwaukee Brewers will not win the World Series.
Pedro Martinez will rip both the fans and media in Boston.
Neifi Perez will lose the batting title race.
Shawn Estes will not win a Cy Young.
Red Sox fans will be disappointed in 2005.
I will not pay face value for any tickets to Fenway this year.
For that matter, neither will you.
I will threaten to kill ESPN executives after the two weeks of over-hype leading up to the Cubs-Red Sox series in Wrigley.
The steroid scandal will not go away.
Neither will Barry Bonds
Neither will the Yankees.

I'd be willing to bet my life savings on any of those (and now that I've got a real job, that savings is almost in four-figures).

Here's a couple others that I wont bet it all on, but I feel pretty confident on my large stable limb,

The AL East will be a two team race by May.
Pedro Martinez will finish in the top 3 for NL Cy Young.
So will Tim Hudson.
Randy Johnson will have a lower ERA that Curt Schilling.
Curt Schilling will have more wins.
My east coast bias will only grow larger.
The Padres and Indians will be in the playoff race the entire year.
The Tigers will not.
Scott Kazmir will be more valuable than Victor "The Wrong" Zambrano.
Mets fans everywhere will be heard whining about their misfortune.
The Nationals will suck, change their name to the Grays, Jim Bowden will move the team to Cuba and lead a revolution from the mountains, bringing the tenets of OBP to the Cuban National team.

Okay, I lost you on that last one. Enjoy March Madness, remember its only good because baseball is in the back of your mind, and go Illini.
Curt

What to expect from the Cubs this season...

2005-02-23T13:54:00.000-06:00

So here comes another great season of Chicago Cubs baseball and following that are the expectations of a Word Series in Chicago. Is it realistic? Well, former Cub Broadcaster Steve Stone believes so. On the Score radio station in Chicago, Stone said he believes that the Cubs will walk away with the National League title this year. He says that the subtraction of Alou and Sosa are going to pay dividends when it comes to scoring more runs.

What do I think? Well Sosa has always been one of my favorite players but he has shown little or no interest to become a team player. Alou was also a fan favorite. I, personally, have never seen him smile before which cant be good in the clubhouse. Maybe it was all the chewing tobacco he had in his mouth. Another thing I like is that these two would play the worst defense out of any outfield combination that I have seen in recent memory. I am not sure but I think the total was like 12 errors from them combined. Alou was terrible on the base path, which is not characteristic for a 10-12 year veteran.

The bar has been set too high on Corey Patterson. He is a strike out machine that can’t realize he has to use his speed much more than hitting a homerun. If he decides to cut down on that hard swing his average and stolen bases should go up and the strikeouts and homeruns will decrease. That’s what they need with the lead off guy. Hairston may or may not play in left. If they try to put him in at 2nd I would not be happy if I was Todd Walker. He needs to have the security of knowing he will be in the lineup everyday.

Hollandsworth may have a great start but he probably will get hurt. I say they should make an offer for Aubrey Huff. He only struck out 74 times last season which means he should be a great RBI guy as shown by his 104 RBI last season. He also played in 157 games at multiple positions, which could prove great value. They need a prominent lefty on top of Walker and Burnitz. He fits the bill.

In addition to the offense, Pitching should be a plus. The Cubs only got 43 combined starts from Wood and Prior. That should increase to about 64, which would give the Cubs about 32 wins at least between the two. Wood has always been a .500 pitcher but Prior has the ability to win over 20. Maddux had another 16 win season along with Zambrano, but Maddux also had his worst ERA since his rookie season.

The bullpen is another question mark. Joe Borowski has said that he regained his velocity of a couple years ago. I'll believe it when he is getting people out. I am actually looking forward to Ryan Dempster as the closer. He reminds me of a Joe Nathan type that will not get rattled like LaTroy Hawkins visibly did last year. Then Hawkins will return to the Set-Up role which he is great at. They still might make a move for Urbina or someone else. Urbina is the more likely choice given the amount of arms in that Detroit bullpen. So will they win? Probably not. Something will happen to continue the worst case of losing in professional sports. Boston did end their drought last year...ahh, nevermind with the cliche's. John

Jealousy, owners, and a styrofoam cup.

2005-02-12T13:46:00.000-06:00

Boy is it painful being a baseball fan this time of the year. Thank god for College Basketball. Spring training just wont come quick enough.

Very little baseball news these days, unless you count all the "Outside the Lines" B.S., and I don't. But here's a pretty good (if relatively tame) interview with Anaheim's owner Arte Moreno.

Q&A with Angels owner Moreno.

If you could buy shares of baseball teams on the stock market--and maybe you should be able to--I would own as much of the Angels as I could afford. Some owners just get it. Some owners sit back and whine about not being able to compete, but don't actually do anything to improve their lot.
How are we going to be able to take the franchise to the next step? By trying to bust out of the small- to mid-market team mold and move into a large market.
Arte Moreno knows exactly what it takes to increase the value of his franchise. To make money, all you really have to do is put a somewhat competitive team on the field. To make a lot of money, you have to go further. There is a reason the Yankees can spend so much money. They have the largest, and most loyal fanbase, that provide them with an obscene amount of revenue.

The Angels are in a similar situation. They play in a large market, but have always taken the back seat to the Dodgers. Moreno is trying to change that, and with everything he has acccomplished so far, I believe he will succeed.

After all, his first move as an owner was to lower the price of beer. What else does anyone need to know? He's also marketing his team incredibly well. I didn't know Moreno's business history, but it didn't suprise me to learn it was in marketing. As the only minority owner in baseball, Moreno has made a strong effort to market the Angels to the large Hispanic population in LA. He's spent money on players, he's invested in the stadium, he's got a great team on the field and one of the best farm systems in baseball.

All Moreno needs to do is secure a lucrative TV deal like the one Steinbrenner got with the YES Network, and the Angels will officially be Yankees-West. Then he just needs 100 years of loyalty building excellence on the field and he'll be on a par with the New York Yankees.
Curt

Now I know how Yankee fans feel.

2005-02-07T16:12:00.000-06:00

Okay, baseball season can start now.
Curt

How far (and how quickly) can one man fall?

2005-02-04T16:22:00.000-06:00

It's amazing to think that just a few years ago Sammy Sosa was the most popular person in Chicago not named Michael Jordan. Look at where he is now. An entire city's feelings towards that man can be summed up by the word 'bitter'.

Not that Sammy has anyone else to blame, though he can try to shift the blame elsewhere. Sammy brought it on himself. A gigantic ego is tolerable only when you deliver on your promises. Just like people put up with Tom Brady's cockiness so long as he keeps winning football games, people put up with Sosa's ego only so long as he was belting 60 homers year after year.

But even with all Sammy has done to piss off the once loyal fans, his prescence remains. The best evidence of the pockets of Sammy-resistance in Chicago is the simple fact that all the Baltimore series at U.S. Cellular Field Sox have already been sold out. It's not White Sox fans buying up those seats.

But how good will Sammy be in Baltimore? What will the tail end of a Hall of Fame career look like? Sammy Sosa will never regain his glory days, I think that ought to be clear to just about everybody. I don't think he even has a chance at being the best hitter on the Orioles next year. In fact, I would bet he might not even be an above average hitter next year.

League averages for a right fielder in the AL: .276/.344/.440. Sammy Sosa hit .253/.332/.517. I think he's probablly a lock to hit 30 home runs if he plays a full season, and he might hit 40, but I doubt Sammy will ever hit higher than .270, and he'll never even come close to that 100 walk plateau he was sitting at when pitchers were actually afraid of him.

Much has been made of Sammy's development. Some call it steroids, some call it developing some plate discipline. I don't care which, but Sammy's plate discipline was a direct result of him crushing the ball with any kind of regularity. Now that he's not, his usefulness as a player has plummeted.

Think of how many walks Sammy earned just by standing there and being Sammy. Pitchers were afraid of Sammy and worked with extra caution. Last season (and in 2003) nobody was scared of Sammy anymore, and everybody came after him. As a result, his walks and average plummeted, and his strikeout rate rose (21% in 2001 & 2002, 24% in 2003, 25% in 2004).

And its not just the intentional walks that bear this out. The intentional unintentional walks are what really boosted Sammy's numbers. Nobody is scared of Sosa anymore, and without the fear that made him one of the best hitters in the history of the game, Sosa will be a slightly above average right fielder.

It's too bad, the slow decline of a ballplayer can be a painful thing to watch. The sudden plummet of Sammy Sosa is even more painful.

Curt

The little things count too.

2005-01-31T01:49:00.000-06:00

Great article by Eric Neel (one of the few bright spots of ESPN) about the art of the pickoff move. An excerpt:It's one of the real under-appreciated dramas in baseball. Each guy is lying about himself and trying to read the other, and the conclusion, whether it's a pickoff or a steal, comes with a sweet, stinging "gotcha" punch right in the gut. Think about the successful pickoffs you've seen at the ballpark; they're not just outs, they're exercises in shame and humiliation. Guys head back to the dugout with their heads down and taunts from the crowd ringing in their ears. Hits are common, strikeouts are cheap, but a pickoff is something to see.
I couldn't agree more. There is probablly nothing more embarrassing in sport. Its right up there with letting a ground ball through your legs or airballing a free thow. Considering the frequency with which the other two occur, I'd say getting picked off is as embarrassing as doing any of the others without any pants on.

Its also a lost art in Major League Baseball. The article mentions only Brian Anderson, Terry Mulholland, Kenny Rogers, Mark Buehrle, and Andy Pettitte (all lefties). There isn't really anybody else that can pick people off, and mostly these guys get by on reputation alone. I'm sure if someone (not me thank you very much) could find the average number of steal attempts off a pitcher, the numbers for these guys would be a tiny fraction of that. Even if one found the average number of steal attempts only off of lefties, these guys wouldn't even be close. You'd have to separate out the catchers effect (a lefty with Mike Piazza catching has no chance), but there is real, tangible value in not allowing baserunners to even think about stealing.

And besides the measurable effect of nobody stealing bases with a certain pitcher on the mound, think about the unmeasurable effect of having guys start with a two foot lead. And think about how many times when a good lefty is on the mound, the runner at first takes a step back to first instead of getting a secondary lead as the pitch is thrown. Do you think that runner is going first to third on a single?

There are so many little things in baseball, so many underapreciated nuances that so many big name players ignore. Baserunning, defensive positioning, duking baserunners on balls in the gap, trash talk, the lost art of stealing signs. In these days, with the rise of statistical analysis, where more and more baseball is measurable, it sure seems that the small unmeasurable things are getting forgoteen more and more often.

Go ahead and Email Curt to tell him that Jose Canseco letting a ball bounce off his head for a home run was WAY more embarrassing.

The best pitcher in baseball?

2005-01-26T01:02:00.000-06:00

I already claimed Clemens is the best pitcher of his generation. I stick by that. But one year contracts are not rewards. Despite being a legitimate freak of nature, Clemens is still 43 years old.

This 43 year old legend just received $18M to pitch one season. Eighteen million is a lot for any pitcher, and it makes Clemens the highest paid pitcher in the history of baseball.

Did I mention he is 43?

Lets forget about his age for a moment. Lets just pretend Clemens is ageless, because he sure seems to be one of the rare breed of pitchers who can ignore the inevitable. With that said, before last season, Clemens looked like a pitcher who was a pretty good lock to give you 30 starts with an ERA a little under four.

Then Clemens went out and won his seventh (SEVENTH!) Cy Young award, posting a 2.88 ERA and 18 wins. Pretty good season, but it wasn't even the best in baseball. There were probablly at least five or six (maybe as many as eight) pitchers who had better seasons in 2004.

I don't want to spend any time arguing about the relative values of every pitchers' season, but lets not ignore the fact that despite all the press, the awards, and the hype, Clemens wasn't even the best pitcher in baseball. Yet, now he is being paid as such.

Why would Houston throw all this money at Clemens? Why did Houston, as many people claim, give Clemens the exact opposite of a hometown discount?

Courtesy of ESPN, in Clemens' home starts, the Astros averaged 39,524 fans. In home games when Clemens did not start, the Astros averaged 37,014. For a moment lets ignore that most of those seats were cheaper upper deck seats and assume that they were all sold at the average price at the Juicebox for $28.88. In that case, Roger Clemens himself could claim to have increased the Houston Astros revenue by $24M.

Twenty-four million. Sounds an awful lot like the $22M that Clemens agent originally asked for. When you look at it that way, Clemens is probablly worth a few of those pennies.

Maybe Clemens didn't personally account for $24M in extra ticket sales. Maybe it was only fifteen, or ten, or maybe it was only five. But, how many Roger Clemens jerseys do you think they sold?

All I know is that Astros owner Drayton McLane has always been very stingy with his money. He has never spent beyond his means, always kept a payroll hovering at a competitive but fiscally responsible level. He refused to give Carlos Beltran an inordinate amount of money to keep him, and now he drops a seemingly ridiculous contract on a 43 year old pitcher.

All I really want to say is that based on his track record, I have to believe McLane knows exactly what he is doing. I'm going to go on a limb and say Roger Clemens will increase McLane's revenue by AT LEAST eighteen million, and I'll even go so far as to say that Drayton McLane just made a profit by giving a 43 year old pitcher eighteen million to play a kids game.

You have to spend money to make money.
Curt

If only he knew how little I'm sorry.

2005-01-21T01:31:00.000-06:00

It looks like Dean Palmer is attempting a comeback. Wow. I know the Tigers need a third baseman after giving up on Eric Munson, but wow.

Dean Palmer was an all-or-nothing hitter, striking out a lot, not getting on very often, and hitting the occasional home run. Why does it seem like guys like this always spend half their careers in Texas and Detroit?

For Palmer, interestingly, it was both. He benefitted from having a great hitters park his entire career, in Texas, Kansas City, and Detroit (back when it was Tiger Stadium they called home). I'm not saying that inflated his stats or anything.

The problem is, even when Palmer was in his prime, he wasn't all that great. He was a pretty good ballplayer, but even in his last semi-healthy season, Palmer was only slightly above the league average for a third baseman. And his defense was at times embarrassing.

What would convince him that he could still make it at age 36, a full five years and several surgeries later?

Its actually really sad. Sad as in it makes me feel sorry for the guy. It reminds me of The Shawshank Redemption when that old buck finally gets out of prison and ends up hanging himself after realizing he's been "institutionalized". Sports are an institution too.

Think about it. Just like the lifetime prisoner, a baseball player has never known anything else. And how could we expect him to? For most ballplayers, life has centered around a sport since they could walk, and they've likely been paid to play since they were 18. When you are a superstar athelete, there is no time for anything else. No job. No school. Nothing but baseball.

And in reality, Dean Palmer's third attempt is not even a blip on the radar screen of ill-fated comebacks and drawn out retirements. The sports world is filled with them. Does anybody remember Robert Parish still playing basketball even after his knees would hardly get him past half court? Has Bill Parcels been able to stay away after retiring three times? Will Phil Jackson really stay retired? Is it really worth it for Mo Vaughn to try again? Does anybody remember how painful it was to watch Bruce Smith pursue the sack record?

In reality, every situation is unique, and I have no idea the rationale behind staying in a game well past your welcome. I do know that sometimes you need to step outside yourself and view yourself in the eyes of others.

I wish him luck, but I hope there is something else waiting for him come April. Because Dean Palmer sure as hell won't be playing baseball.
Curt

I thought I put this to rest......

2005-01-19T02:31:00.000-06:00

Apparently not. Apparently, the North Dakota state legislators don't read this site. I think they ought to, especially since they ~~spent~~ wasted time passing a resolution to put Roger Maris in the Hall of Fame.

I thought I made a pretty good case for Roger Maris as a very good baseball player, but in no way deserving of the Hall of Fame. I got two positive responses from readers and nobody blasted me, so I figured everyone agreed.

It seems though, that there are at least a few lawmakers with too much time on their hands and not enough knowledge of baseball. Isn't there something better that lawmakers should be spending tax dollars on? What business do they have even talking about it in the first place?"probably achieved more in baseball with less appreciation from sportswriters and fans than any other player," the resolution says.
That statement is wrong on so many levels that I wont even bother to mention the name of Jackie Robinson.

Anybody in South Dakota who wants to pass a resolution to sell North Dakota to Canada can Email Curt for his signature.

Dodgers fans, meet the Gidget.

2005-01-18T01:41:00.000-06:00

Dodgers sign Derek Lowe.

More affectionately known as the mental gidget, or simply Gidget for short, Derek Lowe somehow finagled a four year deal from the Dodgers. He also managed to extract $36M for his services.

In case anybody forgot, Derek Lowe had a 5.42 ERA last season. He's now making more money (and for more years) than other free agent signings like pitchers Kris Benson, Matt Clement, Kevin Millwood, Odalis Perez, John Lieber, Brad Radke, and Matt Morris. All of those pitchers I'd rather have than Lowe, and I like the guy more than most, just not more than Paul DePodesta it seems.

Now that I think about it, Matt Morris has had better years than Lowe the last two seasons, has better career numbers, and is two years younger. And Morris got a one-year $2.5M contract with incentives. Somebody get to Morris, tell him to fire his agent. If I were Lowe's agent (the incomparable Scott Boras) I would place a friendly call to Morris and ask him what he thought of Lowe's new deal.

Derek Lowe is a good pitcher, with tons of talent. Lets not so quickly forget his very strong career as a reliever, and the Cy Young-caliber season his first as starter. His second year, in 2003, was not so successful. He was really hit-lucky in 2002, and was decent at times in 2003, but struggled with his control for most of the year. In 2004, most people figured he'd be somewhere in the middle, maybe with an ERA around 3.50, and 15+ wins. That didn't happen. Not even close.

Having followed the Red Sox a little too closely, and having been utterly frustrated by the inconsistently disappointing pitching of DLowe, I think I'm in a great postion to question what in god's name the Dodgers are thinking?

People always ask why DLowe has pitched like crap for the better part of the last two seasons. A lot of easy answers are out there. Most people just say he's a headcase and leave it at that. There is another, more accurate reason, that is just as quick and easy: its his control.

When Lowe is going good, he hits his spots, locates his fastball, and gets people to pound groundballs by throwing mostly sinkers at the knees. When his control is off, or when opposing batters lay off the sinker, or when some combination of the two exists, Derek Lowe is painful to watch.

I mean really, really, bamboo shoots under the fingernail, painful. And as if his 5.42 ERA wasn't painful enough, don't overlook the fact that he also had 28 more unearned runs (6.8 runs allowed per nine innings). And I watched them all, a lot of those should have been charged to Lowe. Here is how a typical DLowe implosion went: bleeder through the hole, bleeder through the hole, error, walk, walk, bleeder, towering home run off a 3-1 fastball letter high.

And with a poof, four or five earned-unearned runs later the Red Sox are down 6-0 before Tito could mercifully rescue Lowe from his own ineptitude.

Now, I'll go on the record as saying Lowe will have a good season next year. Dodger Stadium will help him, as will the best defensive shortstop in baseball in Cesar Izturis playing behind him. The Dodgers know that, but by nature of the four-year $36M deal, the Dodgers are also saying that the last two seasons were the flukes, and not 2002.

I think thats a very dangerous way to spend $36M. I could see some team giving Lowe a one or two year deal for around $4M plus incentives that could make it worth $9M. I certainly would have. But to risk $36M to see if his control will magically return is idiotic in my mind. And I like the guy.

Expect to see a lot of the "Derek Lowe Face" in LA next season. If you don't know what that is, you will soon.
Curt

Dispelling ignorance, one ignoramus at a time.

2005-01-11T19:12:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the abscence guys. You can blame Comcast, aka The Keepers of the Cable. I swear, hasn't Major League Baseball taught us that the anti-trust laws are good. By logical extension, large corporations are not good, nor are they even beneficial. I'm sure Comcast doesn't want to hear that though, nor do they care.

And before I go off on some Randy Johnson-Carlos Beltran related rant let me get something off my chest.

I am probablly preaching to the choir (the well-educated choir) but I got in a two-day argument this weekend with an ex-friend. The argument, mind you, was heated enough for me to declare him an ex-friend immediately following that awkward silence that follows when both sides are exhausted and have realized the other side is just too damn ignorant to realize how obviously wrong they are.

The argument stemmed from some mild Hall of Fame talk. At least it was mild until I walked into the bar.

Raise your hand if you think Roger Maris should be in the Hall of Fame.......You can put your hand down Mrs. Maris, as can my ignorant ex-friend. I swear those are the only two people who think so.

Let me come to the conclusion before I make the case. If you're mildly intelligent you can just nod your head, skip the rest of this article, and check out one of the links on the left.

Roger Maris should not be in the Hall of Fame.

Now, for a little exercise. Take a look at the career numbers of the two players below. Then tell me which one is Roger Maris and which is a player nobody has ever considered putting in the Hall of Fame.

            AB     H    HR  RBI   AVG   OBP   SLG

Player A:  5101  1325  275  851  .260  .345  .476

Player B:  4792  1219  275  845  .254  .351  .491

Player A is "Hall of the Decent" inductee, Roger Maris. Player B should be inducted as soon as he's eligible, its perennial fan favorite, Jeromy Burnitz.

Seriously, what's the difference? To me Burnitz looks like the better player, he's hit the same number of homers in 300 less at bats. How many people do you hear talking about Jeromy Burnitz for the Hall?

Of course, Jeromy Burnitz didn't play in New York, and Jeromy Burnitz didn't break a record that held for 37 years. And to keep in the spirit of fairness, the Hall of Fame, as it should, rewards a player's peak years. Just like Pedro Martinez should get credit for having a four year stretch of unprecedented dominance, so too should Roger Maris.

So lets look at his peak:

YEAR    R    H  HR  RBI   AVG   OBP   SLG

1960   98  141  39  112  .283  .371  .581

1961  132  159  61  142  .269  .372  .620

1962   92  151  33  100  .256  .356  .485

Now don't get me wrong, Maris's 1961 season was unquestionably deserving of the MVP. Even in 1960, Roger Maris was deserving of the award. But where do that three season peak rank in history?

Not too good, if you ask me. Even if you take the first two only, which are miles ahead of the third, Roger Maris isn't even close to having a peak worthy of the Hall.

Is Kevin Mitchell a Hall of Famer?

YEAR    R  HR  RBI   AVG   OBP   SLG

1989  100  47  125  .291  .388  .635

1990   90  35   93  .290  .360  .544

Shouldn't Jim Rice get in because of his peak before Maris?

YEAR    R  HR  RBI   AVG   OBP   SLG

1977  104  39  114  .320  .376  .593

1978  121  46  139  .315  .370  .600

1979  117  39  130  .325  .381  .596

And in all seriousness, Roger Maris best year, 1961, which was amazing, has also been topped by a lot of players nobody is itching to elect any time soon. Check out some more single-seasons that equal or top Maris' career year in 1961:

                YEAR    R  HR  RBI   AVG   OBP   SLG

Al Rosen        1953  115  43  145  .336  .422  .613

Luis Gonzalez   2001  128  57  142  .325  .429  .688

Brady Anderson  1996  117  50  110  .297  .396  .637

Nobody is jumping at the chance to put any of those guys in the Hall.

Now don't take this personally, all the two New York fans out there that haven't gotten fed up with me, but I don't see how any rational thought can put Roger Maris in the Hall.

The person I used to consider a friend told me it was a "travesty" that Maris is being "discriminated" against.

Please.

The only travesty involving the Hall of Fame is that it took them until 1971 to elect players from the Negro Leagues, and even then it took a "special" committee to do it.

Ignoring that, the biggest travesty is that Phil Rizzuto (and his 38 career home runs) is in, and Ron Santo (the best 3B of his era) is not.

Roger Maris was a pretty good ballplayer. Roger Maris had a great three year stretch. Roger Maris is NOT a Hall of Fame player. The day the Hall of Fame starts rewarding players for playing for the Yankees, or for having Billy Crystal make a cheesy movie about them, is the day I vow never to return to Cooperstown.

The third person who thinks Roger Maris should be in the Hall can email Curt to complain.

This world needs teachers, not heroes.

2005-01-06T01:21:00.000-06:00

I grew up to Wade Boggs. I loved the guy. Check out his stats.

Simply amazing.

The man hit over .300 in all but three of his eighteen seasons. He was a doubles machine. He was a career .328 hitter, and hit .301 at the tender age of 41. He could probablly still hit about .270, and he'd probablly still be one of the best hitters on the Devil Rays.

Boggs sprayed line drives all over Fenway, including the left field grandstand, where I used to sit before tickets cost more than my car. For those who were so unlucky as to not see Boggs play, he used to do something that nobody else in baseball could do, or even tried to do.

Boggs was one of the most patient hitters in the history of baseball. He was as patient as Ted Williams, Rickey Henderson, Barry Bonds. But Boggs did something none of them tried. If Boggs didn't like a pitch, but that pitch was still a strike or close enough to risk a called strike three, Boggs would check his swing, and foul the ball off into the left field grandstand. On purpose. Then, more times than not, on the very next pitch, he would either line a single into left-center, or EARN himself a walk.

Wade Boggs was practically inhuman at that. I've never seen anybody else do what Wade Boggs did with a baseball bat. Maybe some old buck can point out some player from the 50's who did what Boggs did, but if Mark Bellhorn could control the strike zone like Wade Boggs, he would be a modern day Babe Ruth.

I love Boggs so much, I don't even mind throwing up a picture of him in the Yankee pinstripes.

I'm proud of my boy. He deserved a ring.

Not only was Wade Boggs fun to watch, he made life interesting for the Boston media while he was at it.

Most people know that Boggs had several scandals involving his wife, his mistress, or his wife's mistress, I lost track. Less people know that Wade Boggs ate chicken every single day of his life. Even less people might know that Boggs warmed up on the sideline by throwing a knuckleball with a teammate, and his entire career he claimed that when he wasn't able to hit, he would come back as a knuckleball pitcher. Too bad you can still hit Wade, it would have been fun to watch.

Boggs also kept track of his batting average with a calculator in the dugout, after every at bat, and much to the disdain of his teammates. Boggs' teammates never liked him. When I realized this, it did something to my baseball fandom. Remember, I loved Wade Boggs. I collected all of his cards (notice the vintage 1987 Topps on the left). I was young and impressionable, and I thought of Boggs as some kind of a hero.

I could care less that Boggs had a girl on the side. Hell, I wanted a girl on the side. It did seem a little strange that Boggs ate chicken every day. I let it slide though, this world takes all kinds.

Learning that Boggs' was hated by his teammates, however, hit me much like the movie Trainspotting hit me. Not only have I learned that heroin ain't my thing, but I now know that atheletes are not to be looked up to.

So Wade Boggs introduced me to a world absent of heroes. It was shocking at first, but over time, it has come to comfort me. This world doesn't need heroes, it needs teachers.

Wade Boggs was a great teacher.

I wanted to hit just like him. I taught myself to hit the ball the other way, which I got real good at. I taught myself to hit line drives unless the situation called for a home run, when I would, just like Boggs. I even tried to teach myself to check swing and spoil a pitch to get a better one. I tried that, but failed miserably.

Last, but the opposite of least, I tried to learn to throw a knuckleball (with varying degree of success, depending on the weather). Just like my hero-turned-teacher Wade Boggs.

See his B-ref page again. Check out that career 3.86 ERA. Not many Hall of Fame hitters this side of Babe Ruth can claim that.

Yeah, Tim Wakefield may be my favorite active ballplayer (again, see blatant photo on left), but long before Timmy Ballgame put on The Uniform in '95, Wade Boggs had already been teaching me about the game of Baseball for years.
Curt

Well now, its almost done. I can talk about it.

2005-01-04T19:37:00.000-06:00

All types of people have been coming up to me and asking what I thought of the Yankees trading for Randy Johnson. What do I think?

Randy Johnson is tall. That's what I think. But would you want this mug pitching for your favorite team? Thats a face not even a mother could love.

And that's a good picture.

Now on to a topic only partially related, take a look at the career paths of two semi-annonymous pitchers:

Pitcher V:

AG     IP    H/9   K/9  BB/9  HR/9    ERA

21   172.3  10.2   7.3   3.6   1.6   6.06

22   154.7   9.0   6.6   3.0   1.2   5.00

23   217.7  10.2   8.1   2.5   1.0   4.05

24   223.7   7.9   8.4   1.8   1.0   3.42

25   230.7   9.5   7.0   1.9   1.1   3.91

26   230.7   7.7   9.4   2.2   1.1   3.24

27   198.0   8.9   6.8   2.7   1.5   4.91

  

Pitcher W:

AG     IP    H/9   K/9  BB/9  HR/9    ERA

22   163.7   9.7   6.3   3.1   1.5   5.55   

23   200.0   9.2   6.1   2.3   1.2   4.32

24   229.3   9.2   6.0   2.7   0.8   4.08

25   199.7   8.7   6.0   2.2   0.7   3.52

26   159.3  11.9   5.3   2.7   0.9   5.99

27   220.0   9.0   6.3   2.7   0.8   4.01

Okay, throw out Pitcher V's age 21 season, which he should have spent in the minors. Then what do you notice?

Both pitchers took their age 22 season to get accustomed to the majors. Then they both established themselves as 3.5-4.0 ERA pitchers and were pretty consistent at that. All except for one year. The off-year for each happened at a year apart, outlined in bold, but what do those two years have in common?

Both bold (bad) seasons were spent as a Yankee.

If you haven't guessed who they are yet you haven't been paying attention. Pitcher V is Javy Vazquez, and W is Jeff Weaver. The similarities of their career path staggers me. I've made this comparison before. It was before last season, before Javy Vazquez flopped in New York. I was half-joking when I made the comparison because Vazquez (in my mind at the time) was a much better pitcher.

I didn't think Vazquez would flop, but I liked to raise the possibiltiy, if for nothing else than to get under the skin of Yankee fans. I really didn't think it would come true and Vazquez would have a horrible year in 2004, like Weaver in 2003.

If we look a little closer at the numbers we'll see how each pitcher met his pitching doom with the Yankees. Weaver gave up a hell of a lot more hits, while Vazquez walked a ton more people and gave up a ton more home runs.

And obviously, this is where the comparison ends. Vazquez and Weaver are, of course, two entirely different pitchers with two completely different pitching styles.

But condsidering I view walks and home runs allowed to be much more indicitive of a pitcher's true ability, Weaver looks a lot better moving forward. In fact, Jeff Weaver's age 26 season looks much more flukey than Vazquez's age 27 season.

Even after moving to a pitchers park like Dodger stadium, Weaver gave up the same number of home runs. I have a hard time believing that the huge foul territory in LA resulted in 3 would-be-hits becoming foul pop-outs. On the other hand, Vazquez isn't exactly going to like his homerun-itis down in Arizona where balls fly out of the park more than all but two ballparks. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Vazquez to rebound.

It's amazing how much difference a year makes, but what does this have to do with Randy Johnson?

Randy Johnson, have you met Kevin Brown. Allow me to introduce the two of you.
Curt

What is "fiscal responsibility"?

2004-12-31T01:25:00.000-06:00

Another story out there about the apparent increase in spending this offseason:

GMs throw cash to the wind

Read my thoughts on this fallacy below first, but I would tend to argue that when the dust finally settles, the average salary for a player in the Major F. League will probablly not increase by much.

Consider that the avearage player salary decreased last season, for the first time since 1995. Now consider that player salaries should be increasing because baseball revenues are increasing. Then take a rough estimate. I don't trust the ESPN salaries against the database I have, but its updated, so if we take all the MLB salaries listed there, and find the average, then the average salary has only increased by 0.6% so far in 2005. Even if we take all the remaining free agents and say they will combine to make $100M in 2005 (which will never happen even with Beltran's $15-20M), player salaries would still only increase by 5.5%.

I don't see a problem with that. After decreasing by 3% in 2004, I would EXPECT player salaries to increase by 3-5% in 2005. Where's the problem?

Not that I want to reduce myself to a fact-checker for ESPN (they obviously don't have one) but Sean McAdam sees it another way,

Don't look now, but baseball is spending like sailors on shore leave.

Tired cliches aside, I don't think increasing the wages you pay your employees by 5% is revolutionary.

"It just goes to show that there are so many people out there who can't control themselves," sighed one general manager. "They talk a good game, but it doesn't last. I'll tell you what -- this game is in trouble. It needs a salary cap, and fast."

Why? The money has to be coming from somewhere, right? Baseball franchises surely are making money, if they're spending it on players (which they're really not) where is the problem? Even if player salaries increased by 10%, or 20%, why would that doom the sport of baseball? Wouldn't it just bankrupt the teams that were foolish enough to spend outside their means?

McAdam cites the oft-used Detroit Tigers as an example,

The Detroit Tigers, for example, have been one of the most aggressive bidders in the market....Thanks to the NHL lockout, Tigers owner Mike Illitch doesn't have the operating costs for his Red Wings, so he can afford to free more capital for his baseball club.

Wait a minute. Can people stop this nonsense. The Tigers are aggressive in the free agent market because they are finally seeing the end of some horrendous contracts signed during the Randy Smith debacle. Detroit is a pretty large market, and while it may be Hockey Town, the Tigers can still support a payroll of more than its current $46M. I'm sure that with a decent team the Tigers can support a payroll of about the $60-$70M they were spending not five years ago. That's why they're aggressive on the free agent market. Would people rather Mike Illitch pocket that money? Or invest it in his pizza chain?

Same goes for the Mets, the D-Backs, and the Mariners, other teams seemingly aggressive. The other teams out there making moves are like the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Angels: large market teams with plenty of money to toss around anyways.

But this is what really gets me,

Said another front office executive: "Everybody wants to talk about the betterment of the game, but at the end of the day, everyone covers their own ass. A team like the Mets wants to win; they don't care about setting the bar for everyone else."

Doesn't that sound like implied collusion to anyone else? Read between the lines. Members of baseball management are talking about the betterment of the game. Contrary to the betterment of the game (in management's eyes) runs an increase in player salaries. So owners have this idea of practicing "fiscal responsibility", which is most accurately called collusion.

Here we have an anonymous baseball executive lamenting the failure of other teams to adhere to the unspoken owner code to keep the help's wages under control. That's collusion, or at least implies collusion. Not that this is news or anything...

"Here's a guy [Glaus] who was injured for most of the last two seasons," offered another general manager, "and a team that everyone thought had enormous debt problems. And yet, somehow, (the Diamondbacks) give him $45 million over four years. How does that happen?"

It's because the Diamondbacks never had enormous debt problems. Its also because if they did, then even after signing Glaus (and Ortiz), their payroll still increased by less than a million. Ridding the $30M tied up in Sexson, Mantei, Finley, Dessens, and Bautista will do that for a franchise. No wonder they spent money. No contradiction here.

When you look only at the surface, as most good ESPN writers do, the executive is upset at the Diamondbacks for letting the cat out of the bag. "Listen D-Backs, you're supposed to be going bankrupt. How can we convince the players union that we need a salary cap if our best example of a team losing money is blowing four year deals on middle of the road free agents?"

Look, owners have been complaining about not making money since the beginning of sport. Baseball owners are no different and during the contraction talks, they were fond of citing that most teams in MLB were losing money. Then Forbes came out with a study of the financials of baseball and concluded that maybe one team out of thirty had lost money.

Who would you trust?

The money is there. It's being made, so it ought to be spent on the people that make it. I see absolutely no problem with a 5% increase in player salaries. I wouldn't even have a problem with a 20% one-year increase in player salaries. None. It would only tell me that the owners were making 40% more money this year.
Email Curt to ask him why he cares so much.

What is the point of a monopoly?

2004-12-30T01:01:00.000-06:00

Yanks, Red Sox, Angels to pay tax

The Associated Press released that story about this year's luxury tax. The Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels exceeded the player salary luxury tax of $120.5M in 2004. That tax threshold increases to $128M in 2005, and it looks certain the Yankees and Red Sox, and maybe Angels will blow through it again.

I don't see how this can be overlooked, (considering its an AP article) the AP suggests,

Many midlevel teams appear to be spending money on free agents this offseason, possibly because of the shift in economics created by increased revenue sharing. That could push the average salary higher next season.

I'll believe that when I see it.

Listen, the cry heard round baseball, initiated by the owners, and propagated by their media puppets, is about "competitive balance". It always has been about competitive balance and it always will be about competitive balance. That's what revenue sharing was supposed to help, and that's what the luxury tax was supposed to fix. There have been a number of free agents signed to large deals, but I don't see how that is different from any other season. And which midlevel teams is the article referring to?

I am, once again, confused. Who has actaully increased their payroll this offseason? I realize I am jumping the gun, with some free agents still to be signed, but it still needs to be said: revenue sharing and the luxury tax have not increased competitive balance.

But that's not to say these new measures haven't had an impact on the business of baseball, they certainly have. The revenues of "small" market teams has increased. Unfortunately, very few of those teams have re-invested this money, and instead the Yankees and their sidekicks are creating profit for the owners of mediocre franchises.

The AP article reveals a common misconception that I've heard quite a bit this offseason. It's true there have been some rather large contracts given out, and its true that some teams have been active in the free agent market. But lets look a little closer.

The most active teams this season, as in most offseasons, has been the high-payroll teams. The Red Sox, Yankees, Angels, Dodgers, Phillies, and Cubs. All teams above a $90M payroll, and all teams spending money. Check in Seattle and its ~$85M payroll right behind them.

The Braves, Cardinals, and Giants, three higher-payroll teams have maintained their current payrolls, and the Rangers have continued to slash payroll, trying their hardest to become a mid-payroll team.

So are any mid-payroll teams spending money? I don't see many. Have the Blue Jays, Royals, Twins, Marlins, Pirates, Reds, Rockies, Brewers, Devil Rays, Nationals, or Astros spent any more money this year?

I'm sure a lot of people would point to the Orioles, Tigers, Diamondbacks, or Mets. Not that the Mets (or the D-Backs) are mid-payroll teams, but despite some free agents signing, and an apparent payroll increase, all four teams will see their payrolls decrease (barring a major signing) in 2005. Payrolls for these four teams will decrease because some bad contracts they signed in the late 90's FINALLY come off the books. So don't look at these teams' signings as anything other than keeping payroll constant.

Which teams have actually increased salary?

Well, I'm sure the A's would suprise people, considering the rap they have for letting free agents walk, but they've now guarranteed a payroll increase in 2005, and it will be for the fourth consecutive year.

The White Sox have increased salary, but it comes on the heels of two straight years of decrease. Maybe they are the example the commissioners office should be using, but they are sadly short on company.

The only two good examples of (wisely) increased salary are the Indians and Padres, who have both begun to spend money as they prepare for the next step in two very well laid out rebuilding plans.

I get four. Four mid-payroll teams that have increased spending thus far. And two of those four teams play in large markets. Now things could change, but can anyone really imagine Carlos Beltran or Carlos Delgado anywhere but New York next season?

So there are four mid-payroll teams that have increased spending in 2005. What about the rest? Are they pocketing the cash from revenue sharing? Are they taking their share of the luxury tax and re-investing it in the minor leagues, as some have claimed.

One example familiar to many is the Brewers. Milwaukee has not only cut player salaries, but has also cut their total operating budget for three years running. So they've spent less despite increasing their total revenue for each of the three years, and Milwaukee is not alone. Where is all this money going?

If the goal of revenue sharing and a luxury tax has been to increase competitive balance, as the owners have claimed, then where is the evidence? Shouldn't we see some financial evidence to suggest that money has been re-invested to help lower income teams compete, neccessarily hurting higher income teams?

There has been no evidence to suggest this. In fact, the exact opposite has been true. Most of the teams investing money in their product are teams that already make the most money. The large majority of teams who benefit most from revenue sharing are either cutting or maintaining player salaries. Concurrently, the three teams paying the luxury tax (Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels) have continued to increase spending.

I know its a real dumb question, but am I missing something? Does nobody out there notice this? Does anyone have hope next year that any of the mid-level payroll teams other than A's, Twins, Padres, or Indians will have a chance at the playoffs next season? I don't. Where is the competitive balance?

Now to answer my own question: what is the point of a monopoly? Well, of course it's to make truckloads of cash. Baseball owners operate a monopoly, and they make truckloads of cash. Whenever you hear financial news about baseball teams, remember one thing. Anything said, done, or implied by the owners is with the single, solitary intention of making more money. There are very few owners in baseball who care about winning, so long as people show up to the ballpark. Its the way it is, and I'm not complaining. I just can't take the constant references to owners doing things in the "best interest of baseball".

"Competitive balance" is simply owner-speak for "hey its not fair George makes all the money."
Go ahead and email Curt to complain.

What does "formidable" mean?

2004-12-28T13:30:00.000-06:00

Oh this is too good. The Reds have added Eric Milton to an already "formidable" rotation.

Now, I am aware that articles on MLB.com are intended to get casual fans excited about their teams chances in the upcoming season, but this one is just too much.

for·mi·da·ble adjective
1 : causing fear, dread, or apprehension
2 : having qualities that discourage approach or attack
3 : tending to inspire awe or wonder

Lets throw out definition #2 for a second, and concentrate on the first and third. Eric Milton hasn't been formidable since he was a left-handed prospect in AA. Even then its debatable.

Wait. Eric Milton is formidable. He certainly causes fear, dread, AND apprehension in his homea fans. Unintended formidability. And I'm not sure how he inspires awe, but he at least inspired wonder in me as to how he finagled a 3-year $25.5M contract for being the exact opposite of a formidable starting pitcher.

The Reds are referred to as taking "yet another step toward contention". Let's instead talk about how this signing takes the Reds completely out of contention. They just signed Eric Milton to a 3-year $25.5M contract. That's the same exact contract Matt Clement got a few days earlier from the Red Sox. Who would you rather have?

Matt Clement

      GS   W-L    IP     H    K   BB  HR   ERA  WHIP

2002  32  12-11  205.0  162  215  85  18  3.60  1.20

2003  32  14-12  201.6  169  171  79  22  4.11  1.23

2004  30   9-13  181.0  155  190  77  23  3.68  1.28



Eric Milton

      GS   W-L    IP     H    K   BB  HR   ERA  WHIP

2002  29  13-9   171.0 	173  121  30  24  4.84  1.19

2003   3   0-0    17.0   15    7   1   2  2.65  0.94

2004  34  14-6   201.0  196  161  75  43  4.75  1.35

No, that 43 home runs in 2004 is not a typo. And before you get all crazy saying Citizens Bank was a hitters park, it sure played neutral in 2004 (101), while Clement pitched in the friendly confines of Wrigley (105).

Reds GM Dan O'Brien on the signing,

"Eric is only 29 years old and, in our opinion, is just reaching the peak years of his career,"

Oh good, I'm glad you think a 4.75 ERA and 43 home runs given up is the peak of his career. In that case I'm sure you'll enjoy blowing $25.5M. If Milton was a hitter, that $25.5M would be a bargain for 43 home runs a year.

Thankfully, O'Brien continues:

"But, in truth, I couldn't envision that the ultimate conclusion to our offseason plan would culminate today with the addition of a legitimate upper-tier Major League starting pitcher like Eric Milton."

Well Dan, thanks for letting us know you're done with offseason moves. Let me be the first, but not last, to tell you that your team will not contend in 2005. Let me also be the first, but not last, to tell you that there is no way in heaven Eric Milton is a "legitimate upper-tier Major League starting pitcher". What could possess a man to get up in front of a podium and delude himself and his team's fans into thinking that?

Now to be fair, Milton is talented. He's a lefty. He was once a big time prospect. He looks to be fully healthy once again. He could, conceivably, take a huge step forward an actually be worth $8.5M a year, but he hasn't done a single thing to establish himself as the type of pitcher who deserves this contract.

Eric Milton deserves an incentive-laden 2-year $8M contract, similar to whats being handed out to Woody Williams and David Wells. This contract is just insane and confirms the doom of 2005 (and beyond) Cincinnati Reds baseball. It's like Dan O'Brien is trying to recreate the 2004 Texas Rangers: some great young bats and several mediocre starting pitchers.

But I'm not sure if Dan O'Brien paid much attention to the American League last year, the Rangers faded miserably down the stretch. They got lucky to get such flukey good starts from such a horrible pitching staff.

The Reds will be going into 2005 attempting to ride a team similar to the 2004 Rangers, they'll have a decent offense around a few great young stars, and some mediocre pitching that they'll hope to get lucky on.

If the Reds do get lucky, and a few of their pitchers have good years, they've got a chance to do exactly as the 2004 Rangers: fade miserably down the stretch. Considering two of the pitchers the Reds are counting on (Ramon Ortiz & Paul Wilson) have already had their flukey good career years, it doesn't seem likely that they caught lightning in this bottle. Oh well, at least they have the Bengals.
Curt

Is 58 Wins Good Enough?

2004-12-24T01:28:00.000-06:00

Sure, why not. If you're the Kansas City Royals, anything is good enough.

Every once in awhile (okay, a lot) I like to browse through the team pages over at MLB.com. I like to check up on some minor moves I missed, the AAA Rule 5 draft, or maybe the progress of Will Ohman in the Mexican Leagues. You know, the usual.

I come across some interesting stories, and then, for some teams, I laugh. Like the Royals. Go to the Royals team page, check up on the flurry of moves Allard Baird has made.

Or listen to the crickets chirping. Nothing. No news for a bad, bad, bad Royals team, that won 58 games in 2004 and has so far done nothing. They haven't signed anybody, haven't lost anybody, and have no obvious help from within on the way, other than maybe 3B Mark Teahen, who looks to be a good bet to be about as good as the departed Joe Randa.

Their rotation is awful. Four of their five starting pitchers had an ERA over 5.00 last season. And they add nobody.

Their offense was afwul in 2004, only three teams were worse, and their big addition is Eli Marrero.

Wait, their only addition was Marrero, and they wont have a half-season of Carlos Beltran keeping them respectable. If Mike Sweeney is hurt again. I mean WHEN Mike Sweeney is hurt again, they might not have a single player on the team with an OPS above .800. And they add Eli Marrero.

The only hope for the Royals is their young players. They have quite a few, and I expect quite a few to get better. Zack Greinke, Mike Wood, and Jimmy Gobble could all be decent, Greinke could be great. I really like Jeremy Afeldt, but I think the Royals should concentrate on teaching him a third pitch, and not banish him to the bullpen. David DeJesus will get better, Angel Berroa couldn't possibly be worse, and its possible Mark Teahen, Ruben Gotay, and/or John Buck could contribute in '05.

This team will improve, if only by regressing back to 65 wins, but this isnt a club that even has the pieces to put up a fluky .500 season. They wont be a better team in 2005. They may win more games (its suprisingly difficult to lose 104 games), but the Royals are awful. I have no idea why an organization this awful would be sitting on their hands watching other teams get better.

At least do something. Make a trade, make it look like you're working. On a construction site, when you have no work to do, you're supposed to pick up a broom and sweep. You may not actually be sweeping up any dirt, but if the super walks by it looks like you're doing SOMETHING. Allard Baird isn't even doing that. He's sitting on his ass staring at the clouds, while other teams at least put up some semblance of improving.

The Royals payroll sits at $47M, about where it was last year. I don't expect that to rise, so I wouldn't expect much more activity. If I had to expect something, I would expect the Royals to be the worst team in baseball next season.
Curt

How did this organization ever win the World Series?

2004-12-22T01:43:00.000-06:00

Yes, the Diamondbacks. How indeed? Some teams do all the right things and fall, oh so short but once (Braves). Some teams do half right, but spend enough money to cover their mistakes (Yankees). Some teams wait for a collective career year (Anaheim), and some teams just roll the dice enough times, figuring its bound to happen eventually (Red Sox).

Then there are the Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks were inaugurated in 1998, spent an unconcious amount of money, and got hella hella lucky, winning the World Series in 2001.

That's the story of the Diamondbacks franchise. I didn't make it sound very exciting, did I? They won the World Series on the backs of Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, and a career year to top all career years from Luis Gonzalez. Wasn't that obvious to anyone else?

The fact that concurrent to winning the World Series, the Diamondbacks wasted tons of money on the likes of Brian Anderson, Jay Bell, Todd Stottlemyre, and Tony Womack is forgotten, especially by management. The D-Backs were the exception to a rule, not the example of how to run an organization. Overspending on bad or old or injured players handcuffed the new franchise and caused the ugly nadir we witness today. Basically nobody's wasted that much money since MC Hammer.

Does Joe Garagiola realize that he paid a 37 year old Matt Williams $10M for 135 ABs in 2003? You think he would have learned? Not a chance. He won the World Series at the same time he was throwing money around like a rap star, so he didn't notice the repercussions.

Well, the repercussions for the Diamondbacks are here, gift wrapped for the holiday season. They overspent, had to dump payroll, dumped the wrong payroll (Schilling), and ended up with a pathetic 51 win team in 2004.

I don't mind when someone screws up. I absolutely have to understand because I screw up everything I touch the first time too. But I have no tolerance for someone who doesn't learn from his mistakes. Joe Garagiola--or whoever the hell is pulling the strings to that puppet theatre--is walking through the same desert, with the same pieces, only missing the three reasons they actually won.

Now, I know the Randy Johnson deal looks like it fell through, so Randy might be around one more year, but the D-Backs don't have a Schilling or a Gonzalez (v.2001) to make them competitive.

What they do have is.......

another Matt Williams: Troy Glaus is coming off major shoulder surgery. Add that to wrist and back problems (am I missing anything?) and he is all but unable to play 3B anymore. So the D-Backs go and toss 4 years and $45M at him. Sound a little familiar?

another Tony Womack: Like Womack, Royce Clayton is not good. Like Womack, he is in Arizona for his defense, with the D-Backs giving up on Alex Cintron at short because of his mediocre D. Also like Womack, he is 35, and couldn't hit a round ball with a round bat at age 25. Hell, Clayton couldn't even top .279/.338/.397 in Coors Field. Plus, do you want that haircut/doorag combination as your starting shortstop? Only in the desert.

another Todd Stottlemyre: Russ Ortiz got a 4 year $33M deal. Ortiz isn't bad, I'll give him that. He eats innings consistently at about or a little better than the league average. Is that worth $8M a season for his age 31-34 seasons? Only in the desert. Only in the desert.

Maybe they're not done, maybe the D-Backs have more in them, but with a payroll now passing $70M, one would have to wonder what else? Heh. To make this team less of a laughing stock, and more of a serious example of what not to do with $70M, take a look at this list of free agent targets. Shawn Estes, Jeromy Burnitz, David Dellucci, and Craig Counsell. And the Diamondbacks were mentioned as "rolling out the red carpet" for these players. Oh my.

With Randy, this team may sniff .500. Without Randy, this team finishes last. Some franchises just don't deserve rings.
Curt

El Chiquito

2004-12-21T01:00:00.000-06:00

Presented without comment. None needed.

El Chiquito
Curt

Have the A's thrown in the towell? Part II.

2004-12-20T01:57:00.000-06:00

It wasn't too long ago that I was talking about the A's throwing in the towell. Turns out, they were. Go figure.

After rescinding on the reported trade of Tim Hudson to the Dodgers, the A's turned around and got what they must have thought of as a better deal from the Braves. On Thursday, the A's flipped Hudson to Atlanta for OF Charles Thomas, pitching prospect Dan Meyer, and the long forgotten Juan Cruz.

I'll agree, the A's got more in this deal than basically netting only Edwin Jackson from the Dodgers. So for one year of Hudson (and the draft picks they would have received when he left in free agency) the A's got an excellent pitching prospect who may be ready next year (Meyer), a competent 4th outfielder (Thomas), and a solid arm in the pen, who could possibly make it as a starter (Cruz). Three very useful parts, all will help the A's stay competitive.

If they had stopped there, I would have been okay with it. The A's have enough depth in the rotation to still win, even after losing Hudson, and there would be at least a decent shot that Meyer is as good as Hudson in a few years. Unfortunately, the A's didn't stop there.

Just three days later, the A's traded Mark Mulder to the Cardinals for Dan Haren, Kiko Calero, and catching prospect Daric Barton. Take a step back for a minute. Without question, the success of the Oakland A's (91, 102, 103, 96, 91 wins) has centered exclusively around the big three of Zito, Mulder, and Hudson. Now, within a span of three days, two-thirds of that success has been jettisoned.

For what? That's the big question. It almost looks like the A's got discouraged watching the Angels jump on and off the gravy train in an insane attempt to become Yankees-West. Did they give up?

It's not as bad as it may seem, because the A's got a considerable amount of talent in return for the two big names, but they also netted a hell of a lot more uncertainty. Rather than give it one more shot with the big three still in place, the A's have committed to being competitive in 2005, but not a contender.

Although the names might not be household yet, Dan Haren and Dan Meyer have a chance to be as good as Mulder and Hudson. A chance.

Its a chance you take with a team out of contention. In that case, with a star eyeing free agency, your best bet is to recount as much as you can, and at least try an net a player with the potential to be as good as the one you are giving up. In some cases (c.f. Randy Johnson, more on that later) this isn't possible, but you at least try. The A's tried, and succeeded, in netting enough potential to replace their two departed stars.

The problem I see is that the A's aren't a "team out of contention". The A's are a couple of breaks away from winning a World Series. Let's not forget so fast that this A's team missed the playoffs by ONLY ONE GAME last season. One break and they are in. Their staff gets hot in the playoffs, and they've just won the World Series.

I would have rode out the season and let Mulder and Hudson walk. The A's chose to go another route, and I can't fault them for the trades they made, which both make sense. I do, however, fault them for misunderstanding the position their team was in. I'm not sure they understand how close they are/were. Letting Hudson and Mulder play out the season would have given them the best chance for taking the next step. This trade seems to suggest the A's have more interest in remaining a 90 win team for eternity, rather than taking a shot at winning the big one.

Still, the 2005 A's are in no way out of the race. This is still a very good team. Their weakest area, the bullpen, is a lot better today. I think Dan Haren is going to be very good. I don't know so much about Meyer, but he's got a chance. Zito could rebound, Harden could learn some control, and Joe Blanton could be as good as advertised.

No matter how many of those magical 'ifs' come true, the A's will be a competitive ballclub next year. If most of them come true, the A's will be no worse in 2005, but I don't see them getting any better. They were in a position of stability, with a decent shot to win it all and they just took the biggest risk of any team this offseason.

Lets just say that before Thursday, the A's were a 93 win team, +/- 4 wins. Today they are an 85 win team +/- 8 wins. They could do better, but they could do a lot worse. Personally, I would like to be in the first situation, but the second isn't all that bad a place to be. It all depends on the performance metrics of an organization. The A's value 90 wins, the Angels want the rings.
Curt

But I don't live there anymore.

2004-12-17T01:08:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately for my non-baseball related free time, I still like the Damn Cubs. Why? I have no idea. Its a team, and a fan base, that grows on you.

They re-signed Nomar Garciaparra and Todd Walker for 1-year $8M and 1-year $2.5M respectively. Walker's deal has an option for a second year, and Nomar's deal could earn him as much as $11M if he meets these incentives,

Garciaparra would make $500,000 each for 535 and 550 plate appearances. He also gets $400,000 each for making 130, 135, 140, 145 and 150 starts.

Now if this were Montreal, the Cubs would bench Nomar after game #129, but they'll probablly be in a pennant race. So considering Nomar has EVERYTHING to prove, you'd have to imagine the Cubs know this. There's no motivation quite as effective as a dollar bill in this country, and the Cubs now get a Nomar that will probablly come into spring training in the best shape of his life ready to try and show he can still hit .360/.400/.600 before it's too late. While I don't think Nomar will be that good, I wouldn't be suprised to see him be the best SS in MLB next year.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that Nomar will be the best SS in MLB next year.

Todd Walker did a great job for Chicago last year. They couldn't have asked for more out of ol' stone hands, so its no question they brought him back for a full time gig. The best news for Cubs fans: This means no Tony Womack sigtings in Chicago. Phew.

The Cubs now have their infield set for 2005. Their outfield on the other hand.....

Moises Alou: gone. Sammy Sosa: will be gone. Corey Patterson will be there, but where do the Cubs go for help? Carlos Beltran? Not with Sosa and his $17M anchor weighing the Cubs down. Its amazing how fast one man can fall. Remember when people liked Sammy Sosa?

Wait, lets talk about what's really important to the Cubs:

GET RON SANTO IN THE HALL OF FAME! JANUARY 4TH, BASEBALL VETERANS CAST YOUR VOTE!
Curt

Will David Wells have a heart attack in 2005?

2004-12-15T01:48:00.000-06:00

R.I.P.

The votes are in. They're counted. The winner of the award for the worst timing in the history of the world, ever, goes to.....the Red Sox.

Why would you have a press conference to announce David Wells as your "big" free agent signing on the same day that Pedro Martinez signs the dotted line for the Amazing Mess v.2005?

Could the timing be any worse? Why not just have David Wells sit on my chest and end the pain? Well, in fairness, since I like Wells more than most, I think I ought to say that this is like replacing Halle Berry with Jeanine Garafolo as the next Bond Girl.

Regardless of how much I love Pedro, there still is good news. The good news is that Pedro had his worst year in 2004, and for those of you who missed it, the Red Sox won the World Series. Considering the biggest mass of innings the Red Sox have to replace is 400 innings of 4.50 ERA from Pedro and Derek Lowe, they aren't that far behind.

And with the $13M they were planning to pay Pedro, the Red Sox have no excuse not to improve next year. Sure, they would have improved with Pedro, there is no way he posts an ERA of 3.90 in 2005, but I still have a lot (probablly too much) faith in the Red Sox front office. When I heard the news of Pedro signing, I rubbed my W.W.T.D. bracelet and set out a plan. Actually a few. Flexibility is nice.

Sign Clement, Varitek, and Renteria. Easy. Work a deal for another reliever (not named Matt Mantei, thank you very much). Dont trade Dave Roberts. The Red Sox are a better team, and I don't even have a law degree from USD.

Or: Package Bill Mueller with Manny to the Mets for Floyd, some cash and oh, lets say, Jose Reyes. Then sign Clement and J.D. Drew, and then trade Floyd for a petrified turkey turd.

Or maybe let Varitek rot in L.A. and sign A.J. Pierzynski for peanuts, then use Varitek's money to sign Clement, Renteria, Drew, leaving Manny in left. Then the kicker: use Pedro AND Varitek's money to trade peanuts (Doug M) for Todd Helton (who is more untradeable than Manny or even Chan Ho Park at this point). Piece of cake. All I needed was my bracelet.

The Red Sox will win more regular season games with that team. Which team? I don't know, but it sure would be fun to be a GM with a very good team and $30M to spend.
Curt

Have the White Sox been watching Indians games?

2004-12-14T01:02:00.000-06:00

....because it sure looks like they haven't been paying the tiniest bit of attention. The Indians are getting better. Quickly. If they sign Matt Clement, as has been rumored, they will be one step closer. By himself Clement won't be enough to push them over the top, but it will put the Indians a starting pitcher and a couple of solid bullpen arms away from being World Series contenders.

So what do the White Sox do to counter?

Tread water. At best.

The White Sox are going to lose Magglio Ordonez. Granted, Mags didn't give them all that much last year, but it was greatly offset by a career year by Aaron Rowand. I see Rowand as more of a .280/.320/.450 hitter: solid in an everyday role, but not enough to replace Mags.

Speaking of career years...
Has anyone defined the term to White Sox GM Kenny Williams?

He also went out and traded for Scott Podsednik, a career minor leaguer who (predictably) went from being a very good leadoff hitter (.314/.379/.443) to being a bottom of the order guy (.244/.313/.364) who will hit leadoff because (and only because) he can steal bases.

It will be popular in fantasy leagues to split the difference when projecting Podsednik, but I'd lean towards the latter year being more predictive. I wrote about Podsednik in his likelihood to continue his success of 2003, and I'm sticking to my guns. In nine minor league seasons he hit .265/.344/.347, and I figure he'll be closer to that number. I certainly wouldnt expect him to slug over .400 any time soon.

So Podsednik replaces Carlos Lee in the outfield. Lee has quietly flown under the radar as a very good player. He wont hurt you in the outfield and he has been a pretty solid hitter. Certainly much better than Podsednik. Lee has one more year on his contract for $8.5M and an $8.5M option in 2006. Podsednik is cheap, he'll only be making about $4M over the next two years, so based on the talent disparity, I have to think Kenny Williams is doing this to cut salary. I've just been so unimpressed by Williams that I refuse to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The Wrong Sox also got relief pitcher Jose Vizcaino in the deal, which helps make up the gap. But Vizcaino, while good, has been inconsistent and isn't nearly good enough to make up the difference.

In other bullpen news, the Wrong Sox signed Dustin Hermanson to a 2-year $5.5M contract. They actually have a pretty solid bullpen with Marte, Takatsu, Vizcaino, and Hermanson. My only problem: $5.5M. Huh? I know, I talked about the market for relief pitchers being really tight, but this is a little crazy. Apparently if you are designated a closer (Percival, Benitez) you make $7-9M, and if not, you make $3M. Cormier, Hermanson? There's not much better out there. Who cares, Hermanson might be solid, but he hasn't had a good season since 1998. He's talented, but ultimately replaceable, and now expensive. So Kenny Williams is cutting Carlos Lee's money to fill the roster with mediocrities like Hermanson.

Speaking of talented mediocrities....
The White Sox also felt the need to throw 2-years and $10.2M at Jermaine Dye. This completes the White Sox outfield trifecta of overrated career years. I'd be suprised to see Dye put up anything more than .280/.330/.460 next year. Hell, you could get Craig Wilson, Raul Ibanez, or Jose Cruz Jr. to give you that next year. I fearlessly predict Cruz will sign for about $2-3M a season and be the better player.

None of these moves suggest the Wrong Sox will improve next year. They need to, in order to re-invest in a fanbase that finally started showing up to The Cell. It's just too bad they lost their chance to compete in a weak AL Central and are watching the Cleveland Indians pass them by.

and now for the Brewers perspective.....
.....because everybody loves the Brewers. Wait.

Well, good trade for the Brewers, they finally look to be investing some of that luxury tax money scammed from the Yankees in an actual payroll increase. It's just too bad for Brewer fans that they don't still play in AL, they might have been able to compete in the Central next year.
Curt

Have the A's thrown in the towell?

2004-12-13T01:58:00.000-06:00

I go away for a few days, and look what happens. Chaos in the major leagues, lots of stuff going down. The biggest of what is an apparent deal involving Tim Hudson.

In a deal that hasn't yet been finalized, Hudson will be dealt to the Dodgers in return for Antonio Perez and Edwin Jackson. Perez is a good hitting second baseman who fills a organizational hole for the A's. He has a decent chance to play second in the bigs in the next few years, but the real name here is Jackson. Before last season, Jackson was considered one of, if not THE, top pitching prospect in baseball. He had a rough 2004, which included some bad pitching in the majors and an injury to his pitching arm, so his status has fallen somewhat.

Getting Jackson is great, from the A's point of view, but they gave up Tim Hudson. I mean, they gave up Tim Hudson, one of the best few pitchers in the bigs, and their best. For a contending team, its a confusing move. It has been widely reported that the A's would not be able to re-sign Hudson after the season, but wouldn't it be better for a contending team to take the one year of Hudson at a bargain price of $6.5M and let him walk after the season?

This move suggests that the A's are looking to the future a lot more than they should be. It also would appear to conflict with the acquisition of Jason Kendall, which increased their payroll in 2005. If, in order to keep their payroll at the $60M level, getting Kendall means losing Hudson, then why bother? And if you don't plan on competing in 2005, which trading your best pitcher would suggest, then going out and getting a catcher like Kendall makes no sense.

It wouldn't suprise me to see the A's turn around and flip Jackson for some help on the offensive side of the ball. In that case, the trade would look to make a little more sense. The Reds have, in the past, made offers to LA for Jackson that included Austin Kearns or Adam Dunn. Keep an eye out for some deal of that sort, which would give the A's a middle of the order bat that they desperately need. In that case they'd be trading one cheap year of Hudson for a big time bat and a mid-level 2B prospect. Depending on the bat they get back, it could make this deal decent-to-good for the A's. After all, the A's have Rich Harden and Joe Blanton, who offset the loss of Hudson.

We'll see about this deal when/if it gets finalized, but for right now it looks like the A's trade for Jason Kendall has forced them to lose their best pitcher.
Curt

This article is not about steroids.

2004-12-07T01:44:00.000-06:00

Enough about steroids already. For those of you who, like me, are sick of the steroids talk and want some real baseball content, I have to suggest a bit of baseball research that has been going on over at a place I haunt, Baseball Primer.

This is the reason why I spend a lot of time over there, because of this type of discussion that basically gets spawned out of idle talk. Little suggestion to all you out there: when you accept that there are smarter people than you out there, go and find those people. And if you like baseball, and the research that surrounds it (trying futilely to explain an unexplainable game), Primer is a good place to be.

It started with a thread dedicated to a study done at Sabernomics.com (December 3rd post) about the effect of Leo Mazzone on pitchers. Now, Mazzone is highly respected, but how good? JCS (another Primer poster) tells us,

So, what's the veridict? Leo Mazzone is a damn good coach! Working with Leo is shaves off between .55 and .85 points of a pitcher's ERA. And I promise you, the results are not some artifact of some manipulation of the numbers to prove a point. In fact, my bias when I started this project was that Leo was a bit overrated.

Now that statement struck a chord with me, because for the few that remember it, I took a look at the effect of Leo Mazzone a while back. What got my attention was that JCS started with the same the same goal, he wanted to prove that Mazzone was, in fact, overrated as a pitching coach.

I wanted to do the same, but like JCS, I failed. In Building a house out of three 2 x 4's and a bunch of straw, I took a look at Mazzone's effect on pitchers. Read it if you want, but the main conclusion I came to is that, very roughly, Leo Mazzone improved pitchers by 26%, lowering their ERA from on average 4.34 to 3.45. Now, my study was a hell of a lot rougher than JCS's, but I figure that after adjusting for park, the numbers would be pretty similar.

So I think we're on to something here. On the Primer thread, a discussion popped up about the relative effects of pitching coaches, managers, GMs, etc. It includes JCS, an appearance by Rob Neyer, some research by MGL (more of a celebrity in my book than Neyer), and most impressively, some excellent work by dks, another Primer poster.

dks is running many analyses similar to what I did with Mazzone, only much much better. They are still ongoing, so I don't want to come to any conclusions that will remain in print long after they're proven false, but it looks like Mazzone is the Babe Ruth of pitching coaches. The primitive study by me is backed up by three much better studies by JCS, dks, and MGL. Leo Mazzone is damn damn good.

dks is even separating the effects of Mazzone from Schuerholz and Bobby Cox, finding both Schuerholz and Cox to have NO EFFECT on pitchers. So its all Mazzone, or more probable, all three together combine to make the dream factory for ressurecting pitchers careers.

Leo Mazzone is damn, damn good, and I encourage everybody to check out the discussion in this thread. But I have to say that the only logical conclusion one can draw from all this is:

Leo Mazzone is on steroids!
Curt

Jason Giambi has a mancrush on Barry Bonds? And I have a mancrush on Jose Lima. Up is down once again.

2004-12-04T07:08:00.000-06:00

MLB news is picking up. The hotstove season is starting to really get going. Don't think I'll be able to keep up, but thats okay.

If you're looking for a comment on the Jason Giambi statement, you can go elsewhere. I got an email asking about it, and I figured I'd blurt out a quick statement here, to sum up my position.

I don't care.

Not entirely true. He's a Yankee. I smile internally when he comes down with benign tumors. While I'm not proud of that fact, I can't deny it. So seeing Jason Giambi at the center of controversy does make me smile a little, and I am hoping against hope that the Yankees are not able to weasel their way out of the rest of his contract.

But what goes on "outside the lines" is about as interesting to me as the proceedings of the House of Representatives. If you all knew how little non-sports related TV I watch, you'd probablly freak out and try to build a time machine to move me forward past the 50's. I don't care about celebrities, and anything "outside the lines" is exactly that, its exactly what I hate, its reducing athletes to the status of celebrity. Which is bad. For athletes.

To me, Giambi is missing next season. Or maybe he's not, I don't know, but talking about the possibility is as exciting to me as if he had an ankle injury. Is an ankle injury exciting?

On that note, this other story would be funny regardless of who it was. See there is a difference. Jose Lima is a funny guy. He's one of only two or three heroes that I have (the others being Toussaint L'Ouverture and a ex-IRA Roxbury Cop named Gallagher I met at a Wu-Tang Clan concert and who taught me the inherent beauty of the double ear clap). To see Jose Lima add another chapter to an already rich story is just too much to pass by.

A jury is actually making Jose Lima pay $500,000 to a woman he gave herpes to. Is that the going rate? I think I could deal with herpes for a half million. Any old dirty women out there want to have one last fling?

Er, I'm kidding. Guys, I'm kidding.

Anyways, if Jose Lima ever wants to write a book about his story, I'd love to be the ghostwriter. Not to mention I'd get a chance to meet his wife (who obviously also has herpes, maybe I can sue her).

I'd like to take this moment to point out Jose Lima's wife:
Real?

Well, regardless of real or not, the good news is there's still hope for all you STD carrying dirtbags out there.

Okay, no more of that, from now on its all inside the lines. I heard the Yankees are after another pitcher older than dirt.

Relatively clean STD carrying dirtbags and Jason Giambi's mom can email Curt to complain.

Another risky Cuban. For six more years?

2004-12-03T01:35:00.000-06:00

Okay, so maybe this one is a little less risky. The Angels signed Kendry Morales to a six-year deal.

By the way, he's not 21 like MLB is saying. He was 21 a few years ago. But whos counting? We'll have to wait and see if he's ready for the majors but he is supposed to be real good. He was clearly the best player in Cuba.

The Angels offered him a six-year deal. Six years? They haven't disclosed the terms of the deal, so it may not be for that much money, but do the Angels really want to risk a six-year major league deal on a prospect? If he's good, it will certainly be worth it, and since the Angels are attempting to become Yankees-west, they're probablly not worried in the least.

Lets go over a list off the top of baseball-reference's head of semi-recent Cuban defectors who played significant time in the MLB,
Rolando Arroyo
Danys Baez
Jose Canseco
Jose Contreras
Livan Hernandez
Orlando Hernandez
Eli Marrero
Rey Ordonez
Rafael Palmeiro

Don't forget the immortal Ozzie Canseco either. What do you notice about that list? Well besides the fact that its probablly not all-inclusive. The only thing I notice is that outside of Jose Canseco and Rafael Palmeiro, there hasn't been a good position player to leave Cuba in a long time.

Tony Perez, Minnie Minoso, and Tony Olivo were good back in the 70's, but on the surface, Cuban baseball looks very bleak when compared with the players coming out of the Dominican-Republic. It also looks like the stereotype about Cuban hitters being free swingers is correct; there are only eight Cuban born players with a over 500 games played with a career OBP over the 2004 league average of .333. Interesting.

Not that any of that affects Kendry Morales at all. Its just fun to look at. Well, it is for me at least, leave me alone already.

It will be great to watch this kid fight for a spot on the Angels next year. My fearless prediction: he will outhit Darin Erstad.
Curt

One more reliever off the board.

2004-12-02T01:09:00.000-06:00

I just finished talking about the extreme shortage of good relievers. Well, take another one off the list. A team looking for bullpen help better start getting creative.

The Giants signed Armando Benitez to a 3yr/$21M contract. Considering Troy Percival got 2yr/$12M, this is probablly about market value for a pitcher of basically the same value in a body three years younger.

The Giants needed real help in the bullpen. Last season they combined for a 4.53 ERA and a 1.54 WHIP. Only three teams were worse, one of which plays in Colorado, and the other two, Cincinnatti and Arizona both play in hitters parks. Those three teams also lost 86, 94, and 111 games last year. For a playoff contending team like San Francisco, that plays in a pitchers park, having such a poor excuse for a bullpen is unacceptable.

Benitez will certainly help, and with the list of good relievers dwindling fast, San Francisco needed to make this signing. The bad spin that people will try and put on it is in the constant reference to Armando Benitez's struggles to close out games. Those struggles have been pretty well documented. Benitez has mysteriously (Mitch Williams-like) lost his control, or at other key times, has given up game winning bombs.

It's true, but most people would be very suprised to learn that Benitez has actually been a pretty reliable closer in his career. And what a lot of people probablly don't realize is that Benitez has saved 86% of his games. Considering this includes some blown saves "earned" as a setup man, its pretty damn good. If you count the 52 holds he has, he's gotten the job done 88% of the time.

Any guesses on "THE GREATEST CLOSER IN THE HISTORY OF THE GAME"???? Any? Well, Mariano Rivera has also got the job done 88% of the time. Go figure.

The difference is that Benitez has blown some big games, and has the reputation of a big game choker. Okay, fine they were some REALLY big games, and there were quite a few of them, but his reputation as a choker is still a little unfair. Was there no pressure during the regular season?
Curt

UPDATE: Well, ignore that part about park factors, I was pretty wrong. Thanks to James for pointing that out, but did you have to be so mean about it. I have feelings, you know.

The Indians in 2006......next year, who knows.........

2004-11-30T01:03:00.000-06:00

The Cleveland Indians re-signed closer Bob Wickman to a one-year $2.75M contract. I've already mentioned here how much I like the Indians. I liked them and the Padres before last season (can we forget about the Mets already?), and I like the Indians even more moving forward.

Realistically, if the Indians' young starters take a step forward, they get one more quality SP, and fill out the bullpen, they have a very good chance at competing for a World Series next year. That is three really big "ifs" but I can see it happening.

With that said, Bob Wickman is not the answer. Wickman has consistently been an above average reliever, and I expect him to be that again in 2005, but the Indians' problems in the pen run much deeper. They need several more quality arms.

And now I'll separate my trust in an organization that makes sound moves (Cleveland) and one that makes me shake my head (see all previous entries below). The difference in my trust is that I think the brass in Cleveland knows Wickman is not the answer.

I also think the Indians' brass is planning on winning the division next year, and won't be making a big push for the World Series until 2006.

Attendance at Jacobs Field has plummeted from the 3.5 million in 2000 (when they set the record for consecutive sellouts) to 1.8 million last year. Fans in Cleveland loved the new ballpark, but they weren't willing to go watch a team in the rebuilding years.

I think it's safe to say casual (and ballpark-going) fans lag behind the hardcore baseball fan (that I assume is reading this now) and weren't aware of just how good the Indians were getting. After 2004, though, the word is out. It's about time for the fans in Cleveland to start getting excited again. Actually, its a little overdue.

Let Cleveland sign another solid bullpen arm, maybe pick up a Clement or a Radke off the free agent market. Make a couple relatively small moves for 2005. The fans will start coming back to the park. Then in 2006, when they start selling out Jacobs Field again, the Indians can take on some salary in trade or in free agency and they can patch any holes revealed during 2005.

The other reason it might not be Cleveland's time yet: Their biggest weakness, the bullpen, is an area of unbearable scarcity in the free agent market. There is no Keith Foulke out there to solidify a bullpen. The best arms available all have question marks next to their names, and after the top names, there is a pretty big drop-off.

Troy Percival already signed, good move by the Tigers jumping on the best arm early. Armando Benitez looks to be the best left. And then you have guys like Rob Nen, Rheal Cormier, Chris Hammond, who are probably the next best, but not really elite relievers. There are also guys like Jeff Nelson, Terry Adams, Chad Fox, Mike DeJean, Antonio Alfonseca, Buddy Groom, Matt Mantei, David Weathers, and Ramiro Mendoza, all guys who have had some success in the past, but are not exactly people to count on to solidify a bullpen.

Out of all those, you can hardly hope to build a bullpen from scratch, which is essentially what the Indians would be doing. So its probablly better for them to wait, or for them to acquire somebody closer to the trading deadline.

For anybody looking to add bullpen help (uh, everybody except the Angels) there isn't much to choose from. This is only good news to the sellers. Bad teams with a piece to trade, and Armando Benitez's agent are pretty much the only ones happy to receive that news.

All this means is that teams with major holes in the pen will be looking for creative ways to fill them. Expect a lot of AAA relievers to be drafted in the Rule V draft. Also expect a lot of interest in someone like an Ugueth Urbina come trading season. If I were a GM, and I needed to get creative, I'd explore the option of turning one of the starters out on the market into a reliever. Some marginal starting pitcher like a Paul Byrd, or a Paul Wilson might be open to the idea of pitching long relief for a contender. Maybe someone gets lucky and hits on a good one, kind of like the Cubs did last year with the thought-to-be-washed-up Glendon Rusch. But when even Rusch is getting two year deals, you know its going to be a tight race to fill out the pen.
Curt

A's deal for Kendall.

2004-11-29T01:42:00.000-06:00

The A's made a deal for catcher Jason Kendall this weekend, shipping starter Mark Redman and reliever Arthur Rhodes to the Pirates.

Kendall is going to be a great addition to the A's. His power has completely disappeared since his days before a horrific ankle injury, but he's an excellent bet for an OBP around .400. There is at least an outside chance his power magically returns, but even if he continues to be strictly a singles hitter, getting an .400 OBP from your catcher is incredibly valuable. He'll slide nicely into the top of Oakland's order.

Even if the A's are loaded with guys who get on base, and conspicuously lacking guys to drive them in, Kendall will be better than Damian Miller, and the A's offense will be better.

Suprisingly, (or maybe not if you follow the A's) their pitching doesn't really get any worse. Rhodes was pretty much expendable after last year. He's talented, and there is a decent chance he might rebound, but Rhodes is 35 and Oakland had the 3rd best pitching staff in the AL despite the damage of his 5.12 ERA.

Redman? Who cares. The A's don't need him. When they signed Redman, it was to be a placeholder. He got a 3 yr/$11.5M contract from the A's, but it was atypical because he only made $2.25M last year. So its no suprise the A's traded him. I remember talking about how the A's would trade him, and sure enough.....

The A's didn't need a starter for three years, with Joe Blanton ready in the pipeline. So they enticed Redman, who had a bad year but was a decent placeholder, with a three year deal that was heavily backloaded. Billy Beane was planning this the whole time. He got a 5th starter worth $4M for $2M, promptly traded him when he got expensive, and now the Pirates will be overpaying Redman to be mediocre in Pittsburgh.

And what about the Pirates? They'll be overpaying Redman, but not by all that much. There is a decent chance he could earn that $4M with a move back to the NL, where he had his best years. Rhodes, I wouldn't count on, but he could come back and be a valuable reliever. But in all reality, the Pirates picked up two average-ish players for one of the most reliable catchers in the league.

But they saved money.

The Pirates made this deal because of the cash they save. Make no mistake about it, on a purely personnel level, the Pirates got fleeced. But after taking into consideration the cash the Pirates sent to balance out the remainder of Kendall's 6yr/$60M contract, the Pirates will save $15M over the next three years.

So basically, the Pirates traded Jason Kendall for Redman, Rhodes, and whatever that $5M a year will buy.

Unfortunately, its the Pirates. That $5M will probablly go to some distant relative of Derek Bell, or maybe they won't even bother. Please excuse my negativity, but its really hard to get excited for any move the Pirates make. They haven't done anything but tread water for the last DECADE, so why should this year be any different.
Curt

This is not about Jason Varitek.

2004-11-26T01:21:00.000-06:00

Yes it is.

I'm not prepared yet to take down my Jason Varitek altar. I spent a whole seven seasons building it, and I'm not taking it down until I absolutely have to. I'm scared to see him go, and scared to see some combination of Kelly Shoppach and Doug Mirabelli starting for the Red Sox next season.

So when Damian Miller gets signed for 3yrs/$8.75M, I have to worry a little.

All this signing really means (a.k.a. means to contenders) is that one less viable option at catcher is available. Like it or not, removing the fallback option of Damian Miller only increases the value of Varitek. Not good news for me.

But for the Brewers (because EVERYONE cares about the Brewers) this signing should be good news, relatively speaking of course.

Yeah, Miller is a 35-year old catcher, so signing him to a three-year deal is a little like letting your dog loose on a busy street with no leash, but Miller can hit. He's a good bet to be a little above, or right at, league average for a catcher, and $3M for that is a decent bet.

Barring a major tragedy, Miller is bound to do better than the .213/.280/.311 Brewer catchers combined to hit last season. Which is, of course, atrociously bad, and almost downright Juan Castro-like bad.
For Curt

Why do I care so much about irrelevant signings? Nobody knows.

2004-11-24T16:53:00.000-06:00

The Minnesota Twins "filled" their hole at shortstop by signing Juan Castro to a 2yr/$2M deal.

I honestly think I could hit as well as Juan Castro. Seriously, I think I could. Now I'm not going to say I could play defense as well as he can, I definitely couldn't, but Castro is a career .226/.269/.331 hitter. I know I could do better than that.

Anyways, its not like he has a lot to live up to if he even makes the team. After all, he replaces Christian Guzman, who is a career .266/.303/.382 "hitter".

One million dollars a year to a defensive replacement? Strange. It's interesting that the Twins, a low budget team, don't have better ways to spend a million. It may not be a lot of money, but there are AT LEAST eight other shortstops not named Nomar still available on the free agent market who would be a better option than Juan Castro. Why do the Twins think Juan Castro is the answer? Wouldn't they be better off signing Pokey Reese for $1M? Unfortunately, Twins GM Terry Ryan doesn't see it that way.

"Our shortstop search is over," Twins general manager Terry Ryan said Tuesday. "We feel good about the people we already have in the organization and this man who is joining them."

I don't know how to interpret that statement. I really don't. I have to assume that Jason Bartlett, who last year hit .333/.415/.475 in AAA will be the opening day shortstop. That would take Terry Ryan off the hook for not pursuing a shortstop who belongs in the major leagues, but it definitely doesn't take him off the hook for wasting $2M on a replaceable player.

Maybe though, just maybe Terry Ryan is actually counting on Juan Castro as his everyday shortstop. Well good luck to him. Much like my fearless prediction that no NFL team will win with Tony Banks at quaterback, I will boldly predict that no MLB team will EVER win with Juan Castro starting.

The Twins were in the playoffs last year. They aren't that far away from being a serious contender. Throwing a million bucks at a player who could be replaced for the league minimum is hardly an attempt to take the next step.
Curt

Will the Mets be good in 2005?

2004-11-23T01:17:00.000-06:00

One quick note, Kris Benson has re-signed with the Mets.

The deal is for 3 years at $22.5M. Seems like a decent deal, market rate for a pitcher of his talent. The Mets also have a chance to have a bargain on their hands if Benson can develop into the pitcher he looked like he was about to develop into before Tommy John surgery in 2000.

It's a good deal for the Mets.

And now Met fans, turn away.

The problem with it is the Mets could have done this, and not given up Justin Huber and Matt Peterson to do it. Here's what I said at the trading deadline,

All I know is that the Mets just pawned off their #2 & #3 prospects for two months of Benson. Lets say he turns into a 3.50 ERA type pitcher, is it even worth that? The Mets obviously want to re-sign Benson after the year is out. Then why give up the prospects? Why not just wait until he is a free agent and go after him heavily? Then, the worst case is that you miss out on Benson and have to settle for someone like Matt Morris

Here's another fearless prediction. Matt Morris will sign for less money than Benson. I'm also saying its about a 50/50 shot that (after adjusting for home park) Matt Morris has a better year than Kris Benson.

Now I like Benson a lot more than Morris, but there is no way in heaven Kris Benson was worth two very good prospects just for the first crack at signing him.

But that's not important. The Mets will be better next year. Blah, blah, blah. The Mets will sign Sammy Sosa and Stan Musial and Oil Can Boyd, and they will be better. Blah, blah, blah.

Does anyone in their right mind think for one second that this team has their priorities in line to become a contender? Does anyone really think that the Mets ownership has a single collective head screwed on straight?

Oh, wait, I did.

My bad. I'll never go against my better judgement again. Good signing though. But take it with a grain of salt.
Curt

There is a baseball team in Washington. Who knew?

2004-11-21T13:49:00.000-06:00

The new Washington Nationals continue to make moves, cutting a deal for Jose Guillen. Jim Bowden, new GM for the Nationals has already made his prescence felt. Maybe, not in a good way, but a prescence is a prescence, even if this one reeks of mediocrity.

Now Guillen has shown that he can hit. I was one of his biggest skeptics, and he has proved me wrong. I have no problem admitting it. He looks like a good bet to hit .300/.350/.500 and play a pretty good right field. He's not the "proven run producer" you will hear about on the four letter when they're not showing slow motion replays of Jermaine O'Neal punching out a fat kid, but he will definitely help an offense that featured 500 ABs from Endy "I can't steal first, but I sure can lead off" Chavez.

Guillen will replace the man he was traded for, Juan Rivera, in right. Bowden also sent Maicer Izturis to Anaheim to complete the deal. Izturis had a pretty good year in AAA but doesn't look like any more than a utility player in the bigs. Guillen is a step up from Rivera, but Rivera very quietly hit .307/.364/.465 in 391 ABs last season. If he can recreate that over a full season then he's almost as good as Guillen, at a fraction of the cost.

So a lot of people are calling this a good risk for Bowden to take. The risk being Guillen turns into a Carl Everett type headcase. The reward, apparently, is that Guillen is the "proven run producer" the Nationals will need. But there's a reasonable chance that Guillen is only marginally better than the man he replaces, and while I don't think Guillen will turn into Ron Artest any time soon, you gotta love nuggets like this from Bowden,

Bowden spoke to Guillen five minutes before going on a conference call with the media, and believes the outfielder has learned his lesson from taking anger management courses.

So Bowden thinks Guillen has learned his lesson, but he hadn't even spoken to Guillen until AFTER he made a deal for him. So it wouldn't have mattered if Guillen had been a raving lunatic on the phone, swearing, and calling Bowden's mother a two-dollar whore, Guillen was still on his way to Washington.

Now for those of you with short memories, Jim Bowden is the former general manager of the Reds. He was there for 10 years, and he had a reasonable amount of success, but the front office under Bowden has never impressed me. He seems incabable of finding pitchers to fill out a staff and most of his trades have confused me. The Reds have had some good prospects come through their ranks recently so maybe there is some hope, maybe he can build a good scouting/developing department in Washington, but so far his moves at the head of the Nationals have, once again, confused me.

This move for Guillen, while most likely a popular one with the new fans, doesn't really make sense. The former Expos have holes all over the field. Right field wasn't one of them. Juan Rivera could have been a perfectly acceptable right fielder, a year younger than Guillen and at a savings of about $3M. If Bowden wasn't going to considerably upgrade from Rivera, he should have just left it alone and spent the money somewhere else.

But the money. Oh, the money. It isn't all about the money in Washington. How else then, could you explain the two other moves Bowden has made?

A little while ago, Bowden signed Vinny Castilla and Cristian Guzman to play 3rd and short. What Guzman? Oh, the Cristian Guzman of the .685 career OPS? I'm going to venture a guess that Maicer Izturis could have provided that.

Then again, whats another $16M to a major league baseball team?

And Castilla? Is Jim Bowden serious? The same Vinny Castilla who hit .218/.281/.493 away from Coors field last year? In fact, nobody this side of Dante Bichette has had more of a boost in his career from Coors field then Castilla. He is a career .334/.381/.614 hitter at Coors, and .256/.295/.433 hitter EVERYWHERE ELSE.

Welcome to Washington Vinny. Washington, meet Vinny Castilla, your 2005 version of Tony Batista (he hit .241/.272/.455 for the Expos last year, by the way). Not to mention, the Expos got Brendan Harris from the Cubs in the Nomar trade. Brendan Harris plays third and has shown he can hit in the minors, but now finds himself ostensibly blocked by Vinny F. Castilla for the next two years.

But, then again, whats another $3M a year over the next two years to the Washington Nationals?

I'll tell you what. I'll tell you exactly what. If Jim Bowden wasn't so concerned with bringing in veteran baseball players to appease the new fans in Washington, he might be able to put together a pretty decent squad.

Why not let Rivera play right and Harris play third? Why not use the $10M you save by leaving the "veteran prescence" exactly where it belongs, and sign Edgar Renteria to play short. Or Nomar. Or hell, block Brendan Harris and spend the $10M on Troy Glaus. I heard that Adrian Beltre character is pretty good too. A few more million could have gotten Beltre, and Bowden will undoubtedly spend that on some other mediocrity (I'm hearing Russ Ortiz or maybe even Cal Eldred, or both).

Fearless prediction: Vinny Castilla will have an OBP under .300 this year.

Look, Guillen is a pretty good baseball player. Cristian Guzman and Vinny Castilla are not. At least Guzman is young, and has a chance to get better, but Castilla has none. He will not be good. He will not even be average. Yet, he will probablly hit fifth and squeak out 30 HRs while making outs over 70% of the time. Bowden is setting up the fans of Washington to be disappointed, and he is doing it with indiscretion.

Throwing $3 and $4 million at mediocre veterans fills roster spots relatively cheaply, it helps your manager fill out his lineup with names he can recognize, and it keeps uneducated fans interested in the team.

At least until they start playing the games.

But when the 3 and 4 million dollar deals add up, and you've bought a $60M team that can't compete, and the fans start wondering how much more they can take of Cristian Guzman flailing hopelessly at a baseball, well then, what do you do?

Fire the coach.

I put the over-under on Frank Robinson's firing at a year and a half. It's impeccable baseball logic.
Curt

Percival to the still mediocre Tigers.

2004-11-19T10:41:00.000-06:00

The first big signing of the hotstove season took place, and as a random proud (and quite possibly drunk) Tiger fan informed us all, Troy Percival has signed with Detroit.

Percival is one of the better relief pitchers in the game, but I have some concern that this could end up a bad signing for Detroit. The cause for concern is of course that Percival is 35, has had arm problems, and has watched his K-rate deteriorate over the last four years (11.1, 10.9, 8.8, 6.0).

The 2yr/$12M deal is pretty reasonable for a "closer" of his talent, but despite what Troy will say about wanting to be in Detroit, it's pretty likely that because of the concerns I mentioned, nobody else was willing to guarrantee so much money.

It's a decent risk though, if Troy stays healthy he is an excellent bet to at least remain an above average pitcher. If last years K-rate was just a result of him getting healthy, therefore a fluke, Troy would return to one of the elite relief pitchers in the game.

It helps immensely when you sign an elite relief pitcher, just because everybody else in the pen slides down into less leveraged situations. Hopefully this means that Tiger fans won't be subjected to seeing someone like Al Levine in key spots next year.

There is a problem though. Ugie Urbina is not too happy with this. He has made plenty of public comments in the past reiterating his desire to be a "closer". He will not take kindly to being bumped back to pitching in a setup role. So that leaves the option of what I thought the Tigers should have done in the first place.

Trade Urbina.

This team isn't good enough to contend yet, and they keep giving these 2 year deals to a lot of players at a little bit above market value. I like the idea, and its helped them scratch back to respectability, but I think they can take it further. In the second year of these deals they need to unload them and try and restock a barren but improving farm system. A guy like Rondell White, Ugie, or even someone like Jason Johnson could probablly fetch a middle of the road prospect come trading deadline. Even more if they cut a deal in early July.

Re-stock the farm system, re-sign more 2 year deals, and eventually, the mid-level prospects might be able to replace the mid-level free agents for practically free, and the Tigers have enough money to really make a splash on the open market.

Cough, cough, starting pitching, cough.

But seriously, the Tigers have been talking to Jeff Kent, who would replace the .317 OBP of Omar Infante at 2nd. Jeremy Bonderman is good, and at times I've seen him be dominant. If he can continue his development, and the Tigers find some way to fill that rotation with anything less than stiffs, they have a chance to be pretty good next year.

I wouldn't start icing the champagne, but I'd also hold high expectations that the front office should be able to put together a playoff team as early as 2006. I think that's a realistic goal they should have and there's no reason why Tiger fans shouldn't expect it.

They deserve it after the Randy Smith debacle.
Curt

KMart is the funnest place on earth.

2004-11-17T02:22:00.000-06:00

I'd like to take a moment to welcome myself back to the world of the internet. Yes, they do have that on computers now, and I once again have one of those thingies. So that means the temporary hiatus is over. Over, I tell you.

I spent my non-internet time reading Ball Four (thanks Frank) and for those of you who haven't read it, I recommend it highly.

So the hotstove (as its called for a reason nobody really knows) has started. Free agents have filed, and since I'm behind the time, I better get caught up before the good ones start to sign and the anger begins to mount. After all, there's a pretty good chance I'm going to have to dis-erect my Jason Varitek altar, which pains my heart. Regardless, it has to be done.

Anyways, one thing I like to do in the offseason is put together a team from scratch. Well, not scratch, you'd of course need about $400 million, no aversion to being told what to do by a car salesman in a bad hairpiece, and a local government willing to stick the taxpayers for a brand new ballpark. But lets say I had all that and wanted to start a baseball team. Forget the draft, I'm starting with free agents only. Give me Scott Boras on line 1, and I'm going to build myself a team and move them to my new park in Mexico City.

I did this last year with a friend who unfortunately is a proud (as much as one could be) Tigers fan and we actually put together a pretty good squad. Not cheap, but pretty good. Here's this year's,

Nomar Garciaparra  SS

Carlos Beltran     CF

Carlos Delgado     1B

Troy Glaus         DH

Adrian Beltre      3B

J.D. Drew          LF

Magglio Ordonez    RF

Jeff Kent          2B

Jason Varitek      C



Bench:

Richie Sexson

Edgar Renteria

Moises Alou

Todd Walker

Quinton McCracken (for fun)



SP  Pedro Martinez

SP  Carl Pavano

SP  Matt Clement

SP  Brad Radke

SP  Kevin Millwood



CL  Troy Percival

RP  Armando Benitez

RP  Robb Nen

RP  Chris Hammond

RP  Jeff Nelson

RP  Rheal Cormier

A little weak in the relief core, but that lineup is a contender. Maybe we sign Derek Lowe and Matt Morris and move them back to the pen. The only problem with the whole deal is that by my (very) rough estimate, that 25 man roster sets its new owner back about $170 million. At least they would beat the Yankees.

Where's Mark Cuban when you need him?
Curt

Grow up......

2004-11-12T01:43:00.000-06:00

Josh Beckett impressed a national audience with his 2003 post-season heroics. Beckett is a talented pitcher with the potential to be one of the best. Unfortunately, the wonder kid acts exactly like a kid. I was somewhat suprised to hear it, but people closer to the team have been calling out his immaturity for awhile.

In this article, Joe Capozzi lays out the predicament of dealing with talented prima donnas, used to getting their own way. A relevant story:

After coming out of a start against the Braves in September, Beckett was stewing over a hit that had been credited to Rafael Furcal.

If Furcal had reached on an error, Beckett would have gotten a quality start. Sitting in the dugout, Beckett demanded Rosenthal call the press box — during the game — and persuade the official scorer to change the call to an error. (Never mind how many plays shortstop Alex Gonzalez had made for Beckett all year.)

Rosenthal refused, so Beckett called the press box himself, then bad-mouthed the pitching coach to his teammates.

All that to get another quality start in the stat book? That's the most idiotic thing I have ever heard. Maybe Beckett knows, but can anyone of you tell me who had the most quality starts in the league last year?

Didn't think so. (It was Randy Johnson by the way) Why should he care?

It always bothers me to hear about a ballplayer who follows his own stats closer than his fans do. That mentality screams of a player who cares for himself and cares only to get paid. He may be a great player, but I don't want him on my roster.

Meanwhile, I still don't have internet access at my new place, mostly because the MLB-like monopoly that is the cable company keeps screwing up. So not too much writing from me. And since I work for The Man, who likes to monitor my internet use at work, no access there for me either. I should be back online next week, at which time the hotstove season will officially begin.

Besides there's only been one big move, and it wasn't very big at all. It's the calm before the storm.
Curt

Where will the Cubs be next year?

2004-11-09T15:45:00.000-06:00

Its all to familiar..."Wait till next year"...... a common theme here in the windy city. What do we have to look forward to next year? Lets make a list:
1. Sosa staying put = more problems
2. Who is going to play left field?
3. Who will be the 2nd baseman?
4. Can the Cubs get a closer?

Sosa staying put means that the cubs will have the same mentality at the plate, HomeRun. Sosa and Alou have continually left runners stranded on 3rd base with less then 2 outs. Selfish play at its best. That's on field problems...What about the fact that every teammate hates Sosa. Kerry Wood took a bat to Sosa's boombox at the end of the season when Sammy left early. How does a manager repair that? Alou, Wood, and Prior had more comments about Steve Stone (who is the smartest man in baseball in my opinion) than worry about what the team was not doing on the field. This will be something to watch.

Left field will be a spot that the Cubs need to fill. Alou is a great hitter but very old. The Cubs could use a leadoff hitter in this spot. They also have options in their farm system such as Jason Dubois and the youngster Felix Pie. The right-handed Dubois is a slugger while Pie, a lefty, will steal a bunch of bases. Pie hit .297/.358/.441 this season in 431 at bats. He finished with 18 doubles, 10 triples, and a career-high 8 HR to go along with his 32 stolen bases. He is listed as a centerfielder but could be moved to left in favor of Patterson who is an excellent fielder. The last option is to depend on Todd Hollandsworth who has not been healthy for quite some time. His positive is he has a strong lefty bat and decent speed. But can he stay healthy?

2nd base is going to be another question mark. There are reports that the Cubs are looking to deal Sosa to the Orioles for Jay Gibbons and Jerry Hairston Jr. I think the Cubs should resign Todd Walker. He was consistent throughout the season and seems to be the best choice unless we somehow get Soriano in a trade with the Rangers.

We desperately need a closer. The name I have been hearing is Troy Percival. The Cubs have a knack for signing closers after their prime (Rick Aguilara, Rod Beck, Lee Smith, and Randy Meyers) to name a few. This has been a pretty successful route for the Cubs and I hope they do sign Percival. LaTroy Hawkins will then be put back into the set-up role where he belongs. The other options are Hawkins, Borowski, Dempster, and Farnsworth. These options are highly unlikely.

This will be an interesting offseason to say the least!

John

Some pretty cool news.......

2004-11-09T01:44:00.000-06:00

This is pretty cool news. XM radio has signed up to have the radio broadcast of every MLB game in 2005.

I like this a lot, since I already pay the $15.95 to MLB to get all the radio games over the computer. If XM radio is $9.95/month and I get that in addition to commercial-free radio, sounds like a pretty good deal (well as long as their 'radio' doesn't suck).
Curt

and so the new season begins......

2004-11-06T15:14:00.000-06:00

The World Series is long over. There's a tendency to live in the past once you have finally shedded the demons that used to reside there. I am not going to do it. Theres too much baseball to think about. The new season has started and, The Hotstove has to earn its name.

Hotstove season officially starts November 11th, at which time all players will officially have to file for free agency, and at which time the full baseball related rambling onslaught will continue. Feel free to listen, chime in, or remain respectfully silent, but at least for now I have a little problem to work out.

Thundersticks.

Yeah, those air filled plastic phallic symbols have swept the nation. Selling for $3.25 a pop, you too can piss the hell out of your neighbors.

I don't know where they started, may have been Angels games, or it may have been in Sacramento (or was that the cowbell?), but they need to go. I didn't used to care too much, because I had never actually been to a game where they were employed. That changed last night.

Last night I went to my first Celtics game since they beat the Pistons in the 2002 playoffs. I sat behind one of the baskets, (excellent seats since nobody in their right mind would actually consider going to watch that wretched team, well that and NBA basketball is horrible) and during the second half the cheerleaders started passing out thunderstix to the crowd behind the Pacers basket.

Now I may have gone on a small rant about the fact that there were Celtics' cheerleaders. For those not familiar, the Celtics have NEVER HAD CHEERLEADERS, and since I believe cheerleaders to be a waste of oxygen, I was happy to be a fan. Red Auerbach is my idol and he knows his basketball. He also knows that a basketball arena should not look like a circus, and people don't go for gimmicks. People go to watch a basketball game, not anorexic midgets dressed in skimpy clothing and pom-poms.

But in order to further shit on the grave of Red Auerbach, the Celtics brass has decided to complete the gimmicking of the Fleet Center and introduce thunderstix. Now I don't care that they are loud, its supposed to be loud in an arena. But people bang them without realizing one thing:

The noise produced by banging a pair of inflatable dildos is actually smaller (in decibel levels) than the noise produced by one PAIR OF CLAPPING HANDS.

If you want to make noise, get off your feet and yell at the sorry sack attempting a free throw. Stamp your feet, clap your hands, do something. Don't sit on your ass and bang those dildos together during timeouts, it just pisses off your neighbors.

Danny Ainge has officially shit on the grave of Red Auerbach with every move he has made since joining the organization. And yes I know Red isn't dead yet, but if he's got a grave picked out, its got a fresh steaming pile of Danny Ainge droppings waiting for him. If he hasn't got a grave picked out, Ainge has been shitting in a plastic bag for months now, in preparation to fertilize the good man's grave when he does go.

The second the Red Sox pass out thunderstix in Fenway Park, I will cease to be a fan of the organization. You can mark that down and save it if you want.

No more basketball talk here, the NBA is horrible, the NHL is cooler during a lockout. Baseball talk resumes next week. Continue on.
Curt

In the aftermath.......

2004-10-29T18:44:00.000-05:00

Some sort of post-traumatic syndrome has crept over me. Or post-something syndrome. I dont know, but its starting to set in. I don't think it will set in that the Red Sox actually won until they hoist the banners and dish out the big fat rings on opening day with none other than the Yankees at Fenway Park. It will be perfect. I can't wait to see the camera pan slowly across the faces of the Yankees as the Red Sox accept those rocks.

I also know I'm not the first to say this, but in the aftermath, my thoughts inevitably go out to Cubs fans worldwide. To all my friends in Chicago, I'm sorry. There is a pretty good chance that the "Curse" talk will only get louder and louder as the Cubs continue to add years to their World Series drought. It's a shame, it really is, and it starts to piss you off after awhile.

Curses and other such mularkey make easy columns for sportswriters, and there are plenty of fans who lap it up like stray cats. The endless references, video clips, sound bytes, and snide comments. I'm so glad I never have to hear it again, and I think there is a good chance all that nonsense starts to shift to Cubs fans.

On another note, I'll probablly take a quick breather from writing on baseball now. Not long, and I wont be going away from baseball at all. I'll still be getting my fix of the offseason moves, mostly Red Sox for now, and I can finally start getting excited about the second undefeated season in the history of the NFL.

In a week or so, maybe two, I'll probablly start throwing in my half-cent on the hotstove season. It's like a drug, this game, and you didn't really think I could stay away long, did you?
Curt

Insert catchy title here.......

2004-10-28T17:48:00.000-05:00

A week ago, I was questioning why, and a day ago, I was wondering how the World Series could be so anti-climatic. Both of those questions were answered last night.
It sure felt anti-climatic last night, at least until about the 7th inning. About then, I started to realize that Derek Lowe had just become the answer to a trivia question (the good kind). Soon after, it really started to sink in. Daresay, I was confident?

When the outs remaining could be counted on one hand, it really started to sink in and I said to myself, 'Self! You need to get to Kenmore Square!'

After a quick walk down Comm Ave, through an endless (un-armed) army of Red Sox Nation, I realized exactly why I follow this team so closely. I realized why I haven't taken a day off (offseason included) from this team since the late 80's. Being around the fans last night made everything worth it, knowing my irrationality about a kid's game is shared by countless others.

It's an atmosphere and a solidarity I've only felt at Boston sporting events and punk shows, with everybody there for the same purpose, and everybody there for those around them.

We don't follow these teams for the results. The results may make the journey worthwhile, but we follow these teams to become, be around, and be comfortable with intimate strangers. I was with them last night, and despite what people will tell you about riots and tear gas, there were thousands of people out last night with only one intention in mind, to celebrate the greatest sporting acheivement in their lifetimes.

For the most part, the celebration was subdued, at least in terms of random violence and vandalism, but when I saw two knuckleheads (in the words of our mayor) running down the street with no shirts on, American flags around their necks like capes, yelling "Hold the Line!" I knew it was time to go. My friend Corey turned to me and said, "I've seen this movie, here's where Mel Gibson comes in."

I have no idea what possesses someone to enter into trench warfare with cops in riot gear and tear gas guns. I mean, I'm all for revolution, but wake me when there's something worth resisting. Fenway Park is a rat-infested, crumbling mess (with charm), why would you mount a charge for it like it was Fort Sumner?

And if the cops really wanted a good weapon, why not bring back the firehoses? Or does that cojure up too many bad images? Tear gas sounds like fireworks, and people like fireworks. I thought someone was setting off a display and boy was I suprised when I peeked my head around a corner to see masses of people running towards me (away from the fireworks no less) followed by a quickly advancing envelope of green smoke.

Why no firehoses? Especially last night, an October night in Boston, you wouldn't even need any pressure. Just a fine mist would do. That would send the culprits running back to the holes (dorms) they crawled out of, shivering all the way.

I saw some moron get arrested for knocking over a mailbox. I'm not sure how high ripping out a mailbox is on on his list of things to do in a riot. It's not very high on mine, but at least he can die happy. Other than that, it was good times had by all. Plenty of chanting, plenty of woo-woo'ing, and more than anything, plenty of pure happiness. It's something these fans have never felt, and its something they deserved.

There was a game last night?
One thing that is getting to me a little on this glorious day after is listening to the recaps of the World Series. The general sentiment today about the Cardinals is summed up nicely over at Redbird Nation,

....it was like the Cards were throwing the World Series, but they were really bad actors and forgot to make it look like they were trying.

This popular sentiment conveniently ignores something that keeps getting glossed over. I hear a lot about how the Cardinals lost the series, but suprisingly less about how well the Red Sox played. The Cardinals pitching did not lose the series, they pitched about as well as they should have hoped for. Throw that staff up against the best offense in baseball and if they hold them to 11, 6, 4, and 3 runs, you ought to be ecstatic. You've got a chance at 3 of 4.

This series was won by the Red Sox, not lost by the Cardinals, and the Red Sox pitchers really made the difference. Schilling, Pedro, Lowe, Foulke. Good enough to shut down a scary but top-heavy Cardinal lineup. The Cardinal pitching was good, but not great enough to shut down the scary and well balanced Red Sox lineup. That was the difference.

The great thing about this Red Sox team is that everyone on the 25-man roster had a part in this win. Without Dave Roberts, without Pokey Reese, without Kevin Youkilis, the Red Sox aren't in the playoffs and/or they don't win the World Series. Maybe that is true for any team that wins, maybe not. I don't care, all I can think about was how good this team was, we're talking about the Red Sox here.
Curt

It's almost too easy......

2004-10-27T01:07:00.000-05:00

What's going on?

This has really been too easy. Just a little bit anti-climatic after the Yankees series.

All of which causes apprehension. I can't explain it, but that's the life of a Red Sox fan. The Red Sox have peaked as a team, the Cardinals have laid down quietly in three straight innocuous games, the Red Sox are one game from winning the World Series, and while all is good in Red Sox Nation, I am worried.

And I'm not the only one.

Is it negativity? Is it conditioning? Is it a self-defense mechanism? I don't know why, and I don't know if a win tommorrow would change it. I hope it would, because right now I have to honestly say I am confused.

If someone WERE scripting basball, and the Red Sox WERE to continue on their path of coming ever so close, what better way to keep the pain than by having the first team ever to come back from a 3-0 deficit lose the World Series in 7, after being UP 3-0.

"You can't script October."

I'll believe it when I see it. Until then I'll continue on with that uneasy pit in my stomach that just won't go away. If it were any other team, I'd tell them to take a couple days off and win it in Game 6, at home, in front of the fans.

With this team, though, I couldn't handle the stress. I'm calling on D-Lowe to end it now. One more sleepless night I can handle.

One more.
Curt

Game 1 and assorted digressions........

2004-10-24T01:06:00.000-05:00

The two highest scoring offenses go head to head, and both teams have tired pitching staffs. Something tells me we will see a lot more games end 11-9 than 3-2.

The defense was pretty wretched in this game. It looked like a little league game at times with balls thrown in dugouts, ground balls eating up infielders, and two horrendous back-to-back errors by Manny.

It's a good thing the Red Sox won the game, otherwise no one would ever had forgiven Manny for botching those two plays. Boston fans have a tendency to do that.

For all the talk of how good the Cardinals lineup is (I still think the Yankees lineup was much better) they still sent Marlon Anderson, Yadier Molina, and Roger Cedeno to the plate as their last three hopes.

Not exactly much of a hope against Keith Foulke, who still hasn't given up a postseason run despite giving up two hits tonight.

Truthfully, the Cardinals offense scares the heck out of me. I don't have any confidence in anyone out of the pen not named Foulke. Maybe Bronson, who has looked good, but they got to him tonight.

I also don't expect Pujols, Edmonds, and Rolen to go 1 for 12 again, nor would I expect the three to leave 12 men on base by themselves.

Quick update on David "MVP" Ortiz' postseason numbers in 11 games:

.458/.574/.917 with 6 HRs, 12 Rs, and 23 RBIs. In 11 games.

Wow.

It is amazing to me that people in Boston still think Mark Bellhorn is a bad player. Even after a game winning home run tonight and another homerun to deflate the Yankees comeback on Wednesday.

I heard people tonight talking about how Todd Walker is a much better player. I politely disagreed, but decided not to make an issue out of it. It's not even close, even leaving defense out of the equation.

Get over the striekouts already, why can't people look past that? Take a look at the career strikeout leaders. Out of the top 20 are 8 Hall of Famers, 5 others that will definitely be elected, and a number of other borderline Hall of Famers, or at least members of the Hall of Very Good.

Yeah, Bellhorn strikes out a lot. But he also plays a solid second base, hits with good power for a middle infielder, and gets on base 37% of the time. Even in this postseason, when everybody sees that he is only hitting .200 when it flashes on the screen, they don't remember that he has walked 12! times or that he has hit 3 home runs. Or maybe people just don't like him because he exudes an abnormal amount of grease.

One last thing, this series is going to be great, if for no other reason than we are guarranteed to see the David Ortiz vs. Ray King matchup at least a few more times.

vs.
Classic.

Tommorrow its Schilling on the bump against Matt Morris. If Schilling is as healthy as he claims, the advantage clearly is with the Red Sox, but my guess is it will once again come down to whose offense and bullpen steps it up.
vs.
Curt

And now for something completely different........

2004-10-22T00:16:00.000-05:00

VS.
It's Red Sox against Redbirds, and it ought to be good. There is something important here at stake that many people will forget to mention in the next week. Now that the Yankees are cursed, and will never win another World Series, the race to overtake their locked-in-stone-26 World Championships is on.

Current standings:

Yankees    26

Cardinals   9

A's         9  

Dodgers     6

Red Sox     5

Reds        5

Pirates     5

Giants      5

Now as for the games to be played starting this weekend, I refuse to talk any more about the future. That didn't work. I can't take the stress. Now I sit back and I watch and I comment on the present and the past, but I don't look forward. I refuse to.

That old strategy wasn't working and it may or may not have led to a nervous breakdown early this week.

I stopped that, it wasn't healthy and I feel much better for it....at least until the playoffs mercifully end. I've learned from the past, and all I know for sure is that the Red Sox and Cardinals are two very very good teams.

By the only measure that will matter in ten years, these two teams are even. They are both pennant winners, and neither is a dime better than the other. At the end of this series, however, one team will be remembered as champions, and the other will be the answer to a trivia question.

I don't know who will end up with the rings, and I don't care to waste my time thinking about it. I'm just going to sit back and let this ride take me where it wants.

See you guys Saturday night.
Curt

Pictures say it more eloquently than I could ever dream of.

2004-10-21T17:19:00.000-05:00

I've really never seen anything like this series.

The intensity of the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry has been well documented, so I wont get into that. One thing, however. Going into Game 7, over the last two years, the Red Sox and Yankees had played 51 times. The series was 26-25, in favor of the Red Sox, and even more amazingly, the Red Sox had outscored the Yankees by only four runs (275-271). Think about how close these two teams are for a moment. Four runs different in 51 games.

Now think about what has separated the two, causing anybody with a brain to recognize the Yankees as the better pre-Game 7 team.

Seriously, think about it.

I'll tell you exactly what has separated the two, in the minds of casual fans and baseball nuts alike. The only thing separating the Red Sox and Yankees was history. And on the day after the night where history was made, only a belated parade of (superlatives) will do.

That was the greatest series I have ever seen.

That was the greatest comeback I have ever seen, and the worst collapse I have ever seen.

There was more excitement, intensity, and anticipation leading into Game 7 than any I have ever seen.

There were more stories and subplots surrounding these two teams than any two in history.

There were more grey hairs and skipped heartbeats over the last eight days than any eight days in the history of the world.

Okay maybe that one was a little over the top........but not by much. Maybe not the world, but in the history of the game of baseball, definitely.

We all know what happened. If you don't know, you don't belong here. So without forcing more of my words, I give you:

Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4

Game 5

I kid you not. Those are actual pictures taken at those games. Talk about deja vu.

Game 5 was really for Wakefield, who has cemented his role as my favorite baseball player. Absolutley amazing, coming in and pitching 3 scoreless innings to allow the Red Sox to cycle through the lineup to Oritz for one more chance.

Game 6
Are you kidding? What more do I need to say?

Game 7
Wasn't all that exciting of a game, except for the outcome, but..

and,

and,

...pretty much say it all.

As does this,

And, just for fun:

Oh, and by the way, NLCS Game 7 in about 3 hours.
Curt

and The Curse rears its ugly head.......

2004-10-21T02:50:00.000-05:00

Once again, The Curse has taken its toll on the New York Yankees.

It doesn't matter if its the Diamondbacks in 2001, the Angels in 2002, the Marlins in 2003, or amazingly the Red Sox in 2004, the Yankees ALWAYS find a way to lose in the end. It must be hard for them, going up against so much pressure to overcome the four years of bitter agony. Always coming close, but falling just short in the end. Its a wonder the fans keep coming back after all the torture they have been through.

But you just knew the Yankees were going to choke, I mean they always do. It's really a bad idea for Yankee fans to get their hopes up, because it's in their nature to blow it right when the big game is on the line. I feel sorry for Yankee fans, who have endured nearly five years worth of misery and misfortune.

All I would ask them is: what did you expect? If you're cursed, well then, you're cursed. There's not much you can do about it.

You can't mess with fate.
Curt

Now, I'm no lawyer..........

2004-10-20T02:24:00.000-05:00

A man is suing the Florida Marlins after he was hit in the face by a thrown ball. In Game 4 of last year's World Series Juan Pierre threw a warm up ball into the stands and it hit 44-year old Steve Badillo in the face.

First question: Why is he suing them now? Why did he wait a year? Interesting, he says,

Badillo said Friday he fears his vision is damaged, which would make his work in the printing-press business difficult.

Obviously the printing press Badillo works at doesn't print ticket stubs for Major League Baseball. Because if they did, Badillo would know that on the back of every ticket is a disclaimer.

Here's what it says on a ticket stub for a recent game, not the Marlins, but I'm embarrassed to say what team, so anyways, it says,

The holder assumes all risk and danger incidental to the game of baseball inluding specifically (but not exclusively) the danger of being injured by thrown bats and thrown or batted balls and agrees that the participating clubs, their agents and players are not liable for injuries resulting from such causes.

Is that not clear enough? I don't get it, people like this turkey are the reason why its generally accepted that going to law school is a good idea.

I bet he wins the suit, collects some ridiculous sum of money, and next season Major League Baseball installs hockey-style enclosures to "protect" the fans.

Forget that, let's idiot-proof the whole world while we're at it. Baseball is a great place to start. We can play baseball in a glass enclosure. We can even put seats on top of it like the Thunderdome. Nobody will get any souveneirs, but then idiots like this clown, who go to a game and don't pay attention, won't get injured.

Though, I suppose we'd have to give them seatbelts too. Or else Badillo would jump to his death and sue the stadium builders for building something that was tall enough for him to fall off and hurt himself.
Curt

The Arizona Fall League is where its at.....

2004-10-18T22:44:00.000-05:00

Where else can I get to see Rickie Weeks play in October? Nowhere. Thank the heavens and the earth around me for the Arizona Fall League.

Early highlights:

Chris Shelton is tearing the cover off the ball. He's a catcher in the Tigers organization, picked in the Rule V draft from the Pirates (poor Pirate fans), who is hitting .520 with 3 home runs early. The Tigers are hoping that his growth wasn't stunted after only getting 108 at bats in 2004, but with a continued strong showing this fall, he could start getting more attention as a catching prospect.

Tied with Shelton for the early lead in home runs, with 3, is Ryan Howard of the Phillies. Howard is also hitting .441 (15 for 34) with 10 extra-base hits. Howard is highly regarded as a prospect but has his path blocked at first base by Jim Thome, who isn't going anywhere any time soon. It will be interesting to see what the Phillies do with Howard who showed he could handle AAA pitching at 24, and really has nothing left to prove as a minor leaguer.

On the pitching side, teams generally keep their top prospects away, with fears of overworking young arms, but I'm watching J.D. Durbin and Scott Baker of the Twins, two arms that might be around to help the Twins in the pen next year and possibly in the rotation in 2006.
Curt

Tough luck for Corey and Figueroa........

2004-10-18T01:26:00.000-05:00

Today, the Pittsburgh Pirates released two players, pitchers Mark Corey and Nelson Figueroa.

Corey is a 30-year old journeyman reliever with a career ERA of 6.02. Not exactly prime property, but the kind of guy you'd expect the Pirates to be locking up to a long-term deal. For Corey, its up to finding a minor league deal somewhere, then hoping for another shot. I predict he will be in Milwaukee for spring training.

Figueroa was a one-time prospect in the Mets system who has since bounced around a bit. He's got decent strikeout numbers, and he took a pretty good shot at it with a decent debut with the Phillies in 2001.

The problem for Figueroa is that he'll turn 31 next spring and his chance to develop into a useful major leaguer has probablly expired. Right now his best bet is a minor league deal, and to turn a hot spring training into a job as the 10th or 11th pitcher on the roster.

He has the potential to be somewhat valuable as a swingman (sort of an endangered species), a long reliever, or a spot starter for some club. Not a bad guy for some GM to take a chance on, but not somebody to worry about keeping on the 40-man roster.
Curt

Ramiro Mendoza is a SPY!!!!!

2004-10-17T10:30:00.000-05:00

I have no reason to be gladdened by the sun and I take good care not to be. --Samuel Beckett

Time to sleep it off has not helped one bit. The 2004 Red Sox are the WORST team EVER assembled. My only new revelation from last night is that I am now questioning the choice to even be a sports fan.

It just doesn't make sense.

Why be associated with that guy? But better yet, why does that guy care so much?

Why do I?

Do we all need something else in our lives? Are we missing that much that we need to root for men who are paid to play a child's game? Why does it feel so good to win, but tear me apart so much when my favorite team just got embarrassed like Michael Dukakis.

And if it tears me apart so much when they lose, why the hell would I go on as a Red Sox fan?

Talk about your lack of logic, or reason, or common sense. Maybe I'm just that sadistic.

Go Cardinals.

What ever caused me to actually put faith in this man:

I would run, if I ever saw that boob on the street. With his Gomer Pile voice, and the slow hook, and the over-confidence in horrible relief pitchers.

With Curtis "Let's Panic" on the mound, and absolutely no idea how to stop the bleeding, I knew it was over. When you really get down to it, in my heart, I knew it was over before the season ever started.

The next Red Sox team I get excited for will be the one that gives me ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO. The next Red Sox team that I root for will play like absolute shit for 162 games and will limp into the playoffs with scrubs and rookies and Placido Polanco at the helm. That team won't win a single come from behind win, won't have a single walk-off win, won't have done anything to get me excited. Wake me up when that team arrives, because they're going all the way.

I have come to the conclusion that if the Patriots weren't the greatest football team EVER assembled, my life as a sports fan would be over. It's just not worth it.

It's a good thing Hideki Matsui doesn't play for the Seahawks.

Why won't this season end? Derek Lowe pitches tonight. I boycotted his starts this season, he's bound to give up at least 8 runs, but to return to the (more famous) words of Samuel Beckett:

I can't go on, I'll go on.
Curt

Go home people.....

2004-10-17T02:58:00.000-05:00

The Red Sox have not come through when it matters. Not yet. It's like the Red Sox are holding an Ace-Ten. They have holes, they're not perfect, but if they would only sack up and play the cards they're dealt, they might be able to take those cards for a little ride..........From the other side, one might say that the Red Sox HAVE played the cards they were dealt. They are just on the river and finally realizing that they are up against kings.

One more card to come though. It comes in the form of three games at Fenway Park......

The card dropped. With a general lack of suspense, and internal "I told you so's" finally running naked, the river came a KING.

The King spoke to me tonight as I contemplated sleeping in the gutter where I belong. The King told me to go home.

Go home everybody. This Red Sox team is a joke, like every Red Sox team before it. A waste of hope.

If you will allow me one more time to channel the walking contradiction that is Lee Flowers. The Red Sox are now, and will, of course, remain, paper champions.
Curt

Wrong again........

2004-10-14T01:49:00.000-05:00

This is the playoffs, and this year will be different.

So wrong.

The player of the game was very clearly John Lieber. What a game he pitched, only allowing four baserunners in seven strong innings. There are a lot worse things that could happen than getting swept at Yankee stadium in the League Championship Series, but on a baseball scale, this is about as bad as it gets.

I still believe that the Red Sox can come back. I still believe that this Red Sox team is better than that Yankee team. I also am starting to come to my annual realization that it just doesn't matter.

I'm a stats guy who believes in the unmeasurable. What sabremetricians affectionately refer to as luck, I usually attribute to character or--even more simply--one player coming through when it matters.

In two games, the Yankees have, while the Red Sox have not. John Lieber steps up and pitches the game of his career. Johnny Damon strikes out four times in one game for the first time in his.

The Red Sox have not come through when it matters. Not yet. It's like the Red Sox are holding an Ace-Ten. They have holes, they're not perfect, but if they would only sack up and play the cards they're dealt, they might be able to take those cards for a little ride.

Which, of course, is not a good analogy, and some groupthink Yankee fan might stop by to interrupt my rambling self-pity. From the other side, one might say that the Red Sox HAVE played the cards they were dealt. They are just on the river and finally realizing that they are up against kings.

One more card to come though. It comes in the form of three games at Fenway Park where the Red Sox are 55-26 (43-38 on the road). They did so well at home because their offense is built for Fenway, where they hit .304/.378/.504 vs. .260/.342/.441 at stadiums that are not safety hazards.

But I suppose its only fair to mention that Game 3 starter Harmonica Arroyo has a 5.35 ERA at home vs. a 3.06 ERA on the road. I guess knowing that is sort of like knowing that only three cards in the deck give the Red Sox a winning hand.

It doesn't look good, especially now that Curt Schilling might be done for the remainder of the playoffs. If sometime in the next several days I start talking about off-season projections for the Milwaukee Brewers, please have a little sympathy.

For now though, I still have some faith. This is a very good team that could suprise everyone and pull something off. Baseball fans around the country ought not to hold their breath. Red Sox fans, I know you have no choice.
Curt

You thought it would be easy?

2004-10-13T13:50:00.000-05:00

As this season started, I was fond of saying a few things. One of which was that if the 2003 Red Sox had Curt Schilling instead of John Burkett, there was to be no doubt in my mind that they would have beat the Yankees last October.

Well tonight the Red Sox had Curt Schilling. Tonight Curt Schilling pitched like John Burkett.

Hurt or not, this game was painful.

And on an unrelated note, why can't I find a single bar in the United States where no loud mouthed Yankee fans need to make their presence felt? Is there no santuary on this planet outside of my own room?
Curt

Oh, and.......

2004-10-13T01:40:00.000-05:00

........head over to Sports Central to see the ol' opinions getting a little bad publicity. Consider:

Baseball Told the Right Way tells it absolutely the wrong way....

Way too easy, but nonetheless.....

He's got a point though. The Angels were not a good team. Well fine, they were good, but the Red Sox were far superior. So Scioscia didn't have much to lose. It still was a horrible pitching change, doesn't matter if it happened on the first or the last game of the season. Makes no difference what is at stake.
Curt

The way it was supposed to happen.

2004-10-11T02:57:00.000-05:00

VS.

Recent history between the Champions and their bastard step-childs to the north has come full circle. It would have been a disappointment to everyone if this matchup hadn't occurred. West Coast fans can whine all they want about East Coast media bias, but is there a League Championship that people would have rather seen?

Now I suppose a reader here might expect me to make some grand case as to why I believe the Red Sox will finally beat the Yankees and move on to the World Series. I won't do that, because I don't know.

The failure of the Red Sox over the years has been blamed on a made up curse. The curse is mostly the product of nonsensical blubbering morons, but lets look at the rationale behind it. A curse is a nice easy way to describe something that can't be explained. I can't even begin to explain it, so I usually devolve into random snippets of sanity. I get irrational. That's all there is to it.

At least I don't need a curse for comfort. I take comfort in the fact that I am not alone. There is just something different about Red Sox fans. I tried to make that case in my pre-season expectations. I'm not sure I did. It's something you can't put into words.

I recognize that this is a great team, with the potential to win it all, but at the same time I remember the pain, and I temper the optimism.

But as sure as the sun--like every Red Sox team before it--this team will do something, pull off some miracle comeback, or dominate so fully in the first round that all of my inherent cynicism will vanish.

I wrote that when the Red Sox clinched a playoff berth. Consider the prophecy fulfilled. Consider the cynicism vanished. This Red Sox team is VERY, VERY good. Unfortunately the Yankees are also VERY, VERY good.

I know this upcoming series might end in any of a million ways. I also KNOW the Red Sox are a better team, if only slightly. But it won't matter unless they are able to do something that nobody in Yankee Stadium on Tuesday was alive to see.

There are no ghosts.

I used an analogy to start the season, and it seems even more appropriate now. I feel like an inmate on the eve of my execution. Either that, or a virgin on prom night. Take your pick.
Curt

It's Lima Time??

2004-10-10T16:21:00.000-05:00

Jose Lima says it was the atmosphere in Dodger Stadium that helped him shutout the best-lineup-in-baseball Cardinals on Saturday night.

I don't doubt him.

That crowd on Saturday night was amazing, and Lima definitely fed off the energy. This game turned out to be the most exciting game of the playoffs so far. Who would have thunk it? Jose Lima: 9 innings, 5 hits, 1 walk, 0 runs.

Let's take a moment to remember Jason Schmidt's 3-hit shutout or Josh Beckett's 2-hit 11-strikeout masterpiece or his gem to close out the Yankees in 2003. And that was only last year.

This is exactly what I love about the playoffs so much. A pitcher, ANY pitcher, can turn in a performance like this and carry a team on his back. Hell, a pitcher goes out and throws a game like this and he carrys an entire city on his back.

Jose Lima did exactly that. He may have been an unlikely candidate, but that crowd in Dodger Stadium on Saturday was something to die for. Let's hope it can carry over to tonights game, as the Dodgers look to force a Game 5 in St. Louis.

I'm a sucker for great pitching. Old fashioned? Boring? Maybe, but I would much rather see a 1-0 pitchers duel than a back-and-forth, 5-lead change, 9-7 rumble.

Jose Lima's gem on Saturday may not have been 1-0, but on the biggest stage of all, it doesn't get much better than that. He was hitting his spots, he pitched with confidence, and when he needed it, the crowd was right there to remind him of what most ballplayers play for.
Curt

Because........

2004-10-09T22:00:00.000-05:00

Just to close the deal with the nine million or so of you who have been coming by to get a picture of Pedro's little friend, 28-inch Nelson de la Rosa. In full celebratory mode, enjoy,

Sometimes things are just too strange to put in words.
Curt

The ABSOLUTE worst pitching change in the history of baseball.....ever.

2004-10-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

Last year we saw the worst NON-pitching change in the history of the game. This morning, Mike Scioscia has joined the halls of Grady "Gump" Little.

After watching Francisco Rodriguez embarrass the best lineup in baseball for 2-2/3 innings, after watching only one solidly hit ball, after watching K-Rod make Manny Ramirez (the best non-Bonds hitter in baseball) look like a AAA callup TWICE. After all that, Scioscia decides that a lefty/lefty matchup is in order. Fine. Only problem: Scioscia doesn't have a lefty reliever.

What he does have is Jarrod Washburn, only there's several problems with that option. Mainly, he already pitched game 1 and gave up 7 runs in 3-1/3 IP (including a walk and a single by David Ortiz).

But for the moment lets not worry about that, or the fact that K-Rod's numbers against lefties (.213/.299/.265) are better than Washburn's (.225/.277/.387). The real problem with the move is that Washburn sucks and Francisco Rodriguez is really really good.

So predictably we got a good hefty dose of Papi, Cookie Monster, Ortizzle. Choose your own nickname, but I give you:

The Red Sox sweep. Arroyo pitched great, arguably better than Schilling, and just as good as Pedro. Tim Wakefield knew this would happen,

Playing in front of our home crowd gives us a huge advantage and I look forward to Bronson Arroyo pitching a masterpiece in Game 3 at Fenway Park..........I think performing on the bigger stage isn't going to affect him at all.

And it didn't. The Angels are a pretty good team, but Vlad can't pitch. And in the playoffs, only a pitcher can carry a team. Not even a bullpen can do that. After hearing so much about the Angels pen, and how that ensured close games, the Red Sox put up 10 earned in 15 innings of Angel relief pitching. After going 5-1 in the 2002 playoffs, Frankie Rodriguez is now 0-2 in this one.

All three of the Red Sox starters will be rested. Wakefield will be ready out of the pen, if any game should go to extras. The Twins will have more to say, throwing Santana at home to avoid elimination, forcing a game 5. Let Quantrill, Gordon, and Rivera pitch in two more games, and let the four-trick Twins wear out Santana, Radke, Nathan, and Rincon. Either or, Yankees or Twins, makes no difference to me. The Red Sox will enjoy watching those games on TV, waiting to see where they fly off to, in preparation to walk all over their next opponent.

It sure looks like its going to be Red Sox/Cardinals, but lets not get too far ahead. There are still plenty of games to play, mainly three big ones today. The Cards could clinch, the Astros and Braves are tied at 1, and the Yankees could clinch, but would have to go through Johan Santana to do it.

Starting Santana is either really really smart, or really really dumb. You have to win two games to advance, Santana will pitch one of those, but it's a lot to ask from a young kid with injuries in his past, and a cautious work usage in his present. If this doesn't work out for Ron Gardenhire, there is potential for two new inductees in the Grady Gump Hall of Champions.

And just one more:

Curt

One down, 10 to go......

2004-10-06T01:15:00.000-05:00

Red Sox: 9, Angels: 3.
Overall this game was actually pretty boring. A matchup of Curt Schilling and the best offense in the AL, versus Jarrod Washburn and the 7th best offense in the AL looked pretty lopsided on paper. The game ended up that way. I'll take a boring game though, with absolutely no complaints.

At first pitch, Angel Stadium was still half empty. I wonder if the same will be true in Boston. Prediction: There will be more fans in Fenway for batting practice on Friday. Prediction that will never be tested: There would have been more staggeringly drunk fans at Wrigley Field for first pitch than the total number of fans, drunk or sober, at Angel Stadium for first pitch. I don't care if the game did start at 1 PM, if it started at 4 AM you could expect the same.

On that note, starting a game at 4:00 should be a crime. Not to mention at 1:00. You should have seen the chaos driving in Boston as everyone tried sneaking out of work at the same time.

Courtesy of the ESPN announcing crew (Tony Gwynn is cool, but Chris Berman can go to hell for all I care, wheres the love for Jerry Remy?) the Angel's best right-handed pinch hitter is Adam Riggs. This Adam Riggs? I think Adam Riggs might be the worst player currently on a postseason roster.

Without Manny, the Red Sox offense would be merely good. Without Vlad, the Angels offense would be wretched. Either Vlad or Manny is the AL MVP, depending on your individual definition of the award.

But that doesn't matter now. Why, it's the playoffs, and the Angels have to wonder if they have the personnel to be able to compete with the Red Sox. Vegas lines have tommorrow's game only at -120 for Boston, and it seems popular to be picking against Pedro. If you promise to not be suprised when Pedro spins a gem, then I'll promise not to come in this space tommorrow and say "I told you so".

vs.

It's the vintage Afro of Bartolo Colon on the bump tommorrow against the vintage Jerry Curl of Pedro Martinez. The Rally Monkey against Nelson de la Rosa. You couldn't script this story.

Twins: 2, Yankees: 0.
Why MLB insists on scheduling only one game at a time is beyond my level of comprehension. Shouldn't their goal be acheiving the highest ratings possible? Are they really going to get more people watching games at 1:00 in the afternoon? Aren't 85% of the country at work at that time? And aren't the other 15% of the people at Wrigley, and the Cubs missed the playoffs. Makes no sense.

Regardless, I was only able to see two games last night (and had to listen to the beginnings of one as I cut off old ladies and ran down pedestrians in a mad dash home from work). This second one was a much better game than the first. I'm not too sure about the outcome though.

I can't decide if I want to root for the Yankees or the Twins. I want the Yankees to win because it just wont feel right if the Red Sox win without going right through that "curse" head on. The other half of me takes great pleasure at seeing the Twins--or any team--beat up on the Yankees. In fact, I get giddy as a schoolgirl when there is silence in Yankee Stadium. I love the look on New Yorkers' faces when they slowly file out of the Stadium in shock. Get used to that feeling you spoiled little brats. Mystique and aura, my ass.

Anyways, back to the game. Who's cooler: Ruben Sierra or Julio Franco? I'd say Julio just because he was born in the 50s, but Ruben is starting for the Yankees, a team that pride themselves on keeping people of character in the locker room.

Oh, that game? Well Santana wasn't at his best, and Mussina pretty much was, and the Twins still won game 1. I still like the Yankees to win this series, but if the Twins can win only one of the next three games, they'll have Santana going again in game 5. Even though the Yanks hit Santana pretty hard tonight, I'd really like the Twins chances if it gets to that.

Another Random Thought: how did John Olerud and Gary Sheffield end up on the same team? Even putting aside their opposing personalities for a second, their swings are exact opposites. Olerud has that smooth, effortless left-handed swing and Shef's righty swing threatens to send his arms flying out of their sockets at any moment. Both swings could win batting titles, and I love them both.

Lieber against Radke tommorrow. That game could go either way, but I'd be inclined to say the Yanks will not be shutout two night in a row.
Curt

Playoffs?

2004-10-04T02:15:00.000-05:00

Yes, that time of the year. Once again, the tension and intensity will inevitably build. The hope will follow. In all my years as a Red Sox fan, I still haven't found a way to slow it down. I try to keep telling myself that it will all end, almost assuredly it will all end in disasterous fashion.

I always believe that at first, and I can temper the optimism somewhat. But as sure as the sun, this team--like every Red Sox team before it--will do something, pull off some miracle comeback, or dominate so fully in the first round that all of my inherent cynicism will vanish.

Somehow, sometime in the next week or so, I will start to believe that this year will be different.

At the same time, in some small section in the back of my brain, I will know that its all for naught. But just like every year before this one, that small section of rationality will be inaudible. Even if I could hear it, I wouldn't be able to understand what it was saying. It's a language I only understand during the regular season.

This is the playoffs, and this year will be different.
Curt

Motor City Hockeytown Home Field Advantage

2004-10-03T14:07:00.000-05:00

I apologize to Jeff and Dan, and any other Detroit readers out there, but I did find this comment by White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen pretty funny. From the Chicago Sun-Times,

BLIGHT BRIGHT: Guillen, who calls the now-closed Tiger Stadium one of his favorites, poked a little fun at the city of Detroit as the Sox prepared for their third and final series here this season.

''The reason we don't do well here is as soon as we land we get depressed,'' Guillen joked. ''They should be an undefeated team. Everybody that comes here, they go, 'Oh my God, we're going back to Detroit.'''

Ozzie Guillen is a funny guy. I'm not sure its always intentional, but I like hearing him talk. When I can understand what he says, that is. And I'm sure glad he's not my manager.
Curt

The Cubbies death sentence........

2004-10-02T11:24:00.000-05:00

While not officially eliminated from the playoffs, the Cubs are pretty damn close. The game at Wrigley is about to start, and to make the playoffs, the Cubs will have to win today, tommorrow, and hope that both Houston and San Francisco lost their remaining two. Not impossible, but not very likely, so I am pre-maturely pronouncing the 2004 Cubs dead.

The Cubs may not even win 90 games, which is unacceptable for a team that was within five outs of the World Series and improved both over the off-season and mid-season with the trade for Nomar. It's never fair to dish out blame, but there has to be a reason for the disappointment. By all accounts, the Cubs fell drastically short of expectations. When they ABSOLUTELY had to win their games down the stretch, the Cubs instead have lost four in a row, and six of their last seven.

It's been painful week:
Last Saturday, the Cubs wasted 7-2/3 innings of four-hit scoreless ball from Mark Prior by bringing in Ryan "not a typo" Dumpster in the 9th. Dumpster predictably walked two to bring the tying run to the plate. Hawkins came in and gave up a three-run home run to rookie Victor Diaz to get a tough blown save. Its tough because if Dusty hadn't left Dumpster in a close game, its likely Hawkins and his 1.05 WHIP would have never even let the tying run get to the on-deck circle.

On Sunday, the Cubs wasted a strong 7 inning, 3-run start by Kerry Wood by managing a meager 3 hits off the Mets. The Cubs left 12 men on base.

Monday was the lone bright spot, beating the Reds 12-5. Although, they didn't really need 12 runs with Zambrano pitching well, maybe they should have bottled up some of that offense and saved it for the rest of the week.

Tuesday, well, the Cubs just lost on Tuesday. It wasn't a particularly painful loss, but it still hurt to see my boy Maddux struggle, knowing how much the game meant. But you take this loss and put it behind you.

On Wednesday, the heartbreak continued. I was talking with John on the phone at the end of this one, and given how much it hurt me just hearing about it, I'm suprised John didn't throw the phone through a window. The Cubs offense wasted another great pitched game, this time a 1-run outing from team-MVP Glendon Rusch. Even after leaving 19 men on base, the Cubs were still in a position to win, but Hawkins blew it in the 9th. With two outs, D'Angelo Jimenez tripled. Hawkins then threw two fastballs by Austin Kearns. Ahead in the count 0-2, instead of finishing off Kearns with some high cheese, LaTroy proceeds to do EXACTLY what John predicted (and advised against) and go to his breaking ball. Boom, tie ball game. Like I said, I am infinitely suprised that John's phone is still in one piece.

There is not much to say about Thursday. Mark Prior goes 9 innings, giving up three hits, one run, and striking out 16. Cubs leave 20 (20?!?!) men on base and lose 2-1 in extra innings. Then, on Friday, the Cubs stranded 15 more, lost by one run and effectively eliminated themselves from the playoffs.

What a week.

Who do we blame?
I've heard people put undue blame on LaTroy Hawkins. I don't think that is entirely fair. Hawkins has blown nine saves, as many as Octavio Dotel and Danny Graves, but its hard to fault someone with a 2.67 ERA in a team-leading 81 relief innings. If anything, LaTroy was the rock in that bullpen. But the two blown saves that hurt the most happened in his last two outings, and they will always be fresh on our memories. The blown leads against the Mets and the Reds were heartbreaking and do stick out, but overall, LaTroy was one of the best relievers in baseball this year.

The other thing that sticks out is the offense. Much has also been made about the Cubs striking out way too much as a team, especially in clutch situations, but it's hard to really back up that claim when the three division winners (Atlanta, LA, and St. Louis) all struck out more times than the Cubs. Also, the Cubs hit .270 on the season, and hit exactly .270 with runners in scoring position, striking out once every 5.8 plate appearances in both situations.

Instead of blaming it on the two obvious choices, I have two things Cub fans really ought to blame it on. Those two things are embodied in the persons of Jose "I can play short" Macias, and the long lost son of Bret Saberhagen, Mark Prior:

You're blaming Jose Macias?
No, I am not trying to pin all the blame on just Macias and Prior, but both are representative of what went wrong. Macias because he symbolizes the playing time that the Cubs have given to absolute schmucks this year, and Prior because he symbolizes the massive amounts of injuries the Cubs have sustained as a team. One may have a lot to do with the other, but regardless, these are the two best reasons I can come up with.

The Cubs had four offensive bats healthy all season, Alou, Patterson, Lee, and Barrett. Sammy missed time, and had a wretched season by his standards when he did play. Aramis missed time and wasn't healthy when he played the others. Todd Hollandsworth, their best bat off the bench missed most of the season. Nomar missed time down the stretch prompting a lot of starts from the Ramon Martinez, Neifi Perez, and Jose Macias triple headed monster.

In fact, a team that gives 808 ABs to some combination of Ramon Martinez, Jose Macias, Alex Gonzalez, Neifi Perez, Rey Ordonez, and Tom Goodwin is in trouble, whether or not their fans would like you to believe that.

Injuries to Kerry Wood and Mark Prior hurt too. They were offset somewhat by suprisingly solid pitching from Glendon Rusch, but its hard to win when you get 40 starts instead of 60 from your two best pitchers.

Taking the easy way out?
Yeah, lets be realistic, injuries are no excuse for falling this short. The rational thoughts inside me like to think that the Cubs bench was horribly inadequate to overcome injuries, that Jim Hendry was too slow in making deals to help fix the glaring holes, and that they really needed to improve on their team .327 OBP. I can't use rational thoughts at a time like this.

I started to like this team at the end of 2001. I followed them through their disappointing 2002, and started getting real excited during the playoff run of 2003. I look at the 2004 team and I see a team with a pretty good offense, a pretty decent bullpen, and the best rotation in the league. The Cubs outhit and outpitched their opponents this year.......just not by enough.

The statistics nut inside me like to think there was some reason, but the baseball fan inside me has come to the conclusion that the Cubs just didn't do the "little things". I hate saying that more than anything, but its all I can come up with for this team. They are just way too talented to be sitting at 88 wins right now. The playoffs are all but gone, but it's 0-0 in the 2nd--Braves at Cubs--theres still a sliver of hope.
Curt

Now I've seen everything...........

2004-09-28T01:48:00.000-05:00

See that little guy on the right. See him? Well that little dude sitting next to Marlon Brando is 28 inches tall, his name is Nelson de la Rosa, and he is Pedro Martinez' friend. As Tony Mas says, you can't make this stuff up.

One day after his increasingly notorious, "the Yankees are my daddies" comment, Pedro walked into the Red Sox clubhouse carrying de la Rosa in his arms. In his arms. Apparently they hang out.

'Dude, Pedro's bobblehead (doll) was bigger than him,' said awestruck Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo. 'It was unbelievable.'

I can't even imagine the scene as Pedro walked in before the game. From the Hartford Courant,

Kevin Millar said Red Sox manager Terry Francona thought de la Rosa was a toy when he walked into the manager's office.

"It was unbelievable," Millar said. "I didn't know what the hell it was. Are you [kidding] me with that thing? That scared the [heck] out of me. Good Lord. And it started talking, too. Whatever it was, it scared the [heck] out of us."

De la Rosa, 36, posed for pictures by sitting on the laps of players and coaches.

Throwing the distasteful comments from the Red Sox aside for a second (further evidence that Millar is a boob), what in the hell is Pedro doing hanging out with a 28 inch man. I can't even begin to fathom how this relationship started. Is Pedro planning on becoming a carney after he retires? In his arms?!?!

I think we can all agree that this is the most bizarre thing to happen to baseball since Jose Canseco bounced a fly ball off his head for a homerun.

Check out more of Pedro's little friend (including a picture) here.
Curt

Movin'........

2004-09-25T02:27:00.000-05:00

You guys might not here from me again for a little while. I'll be in the process of moving and starting a new job, so its likely I wont have too much to say until I can get settled.

In case you are wondering, I am moving from here:
to here:

Which means I'll be very close to here:

when October rolls around.

The timing couldn't be more perfect. The Sox magic number is falling rapidly, and I'll be there in plenty of time for the riots in late October.

Oh, I'm talking about the good kind of riots.
Curt

Please adjust you're expectations.

2004-09-23T14:47:00.000-05:00

Take a look at this quote from Kansas City Royals' GM Allan Baird, courtesy of BP's this week in quotes:

"I'm at fault...I made poor signings. I put this team together. I thought we were doing the right things. I thought we had a chance to win. But we have not, and it's my responsibility. Everybody underachieved. If three or four guys struggle, well, you overcome that. But when it's everybody--starting pitching, bullpen, offense, defense--well, what do you do.........If you want a headline, that's it: 'Everybody underachieved.'

Was anybody from that organization paying attention last year? The 2003 Royals were one of the most over-achieving teams this side of the 2002 Anaheim Angels. They allowed more runs then they scored and still managed to have a winning record. That in itself should send off giant warning flares.

The funny thing is, the Royals really haven't underachieved this year at all. It's just that nobody has overachieved. Ken Harvey and Joe Randa have had good years, and Zack Greinke has pitched pretty well since being called up. Other than that, however, there hasn't been much sunshine in Kansas City.

As for underachieving, what, Angel Berroa? The sophomore slump hit Berroa pretty hard, but consider that his minor league numbers of .271/.318/.440 don't really suggest that his .287/.338/.451 rookie of the year campaign was for real. I'll grant that both Aaron Guiel and Darrel May were disappointments, but if you are pinning the hopes of your team on role players like that you are in trouble.

Seriously, how good did Baird really expect this team to be? He replaced a decent year of Raul Ibanez with Juan Gonzalez. Thats reasonable to expect in terms of production, but Juan-gone hasn't been healthy since the late 80's. If you are planning on counting on Gonzalez for more than 200 ABs you ought to get you're head checked. Other than Gonzalez, Baird's "big" signings were Matt Stairs, Tony Graffanino, Dennys Reyes, and the 39-year old Fossil Santiago. To an already mediocre team, this doesn't exactly look like calling in the reinforcements.

Overall, the Royals have hit worse, .262/.325/.401 in 2004 compared to .274/.336/.427 in 2003. I'm going to attribute most of that difference to moving the fences out 10 feet in Kauffman Stadium, so overall the offense has been about the same, and its been about as good as can be expected from this group of players. The pitching, on the other hand, hasn't benefitted from the fences being moved out (or they have, but they've just been that much worse). 5.13 ERA in 2004 vs. 5.06 in 2003, but its not like they had a good staff to work with; they were counting on Darrel May and Brian Anderson to be aces.

Really, Baird must have expected some more career years, or at least some of the young guys to further develop into players they aren't. Its too bad it didn't happen because the Royals could have been a pretty good story. Comments like these from Baird offer further proof that the Royals organization just really doesn't get it.
Curt

Gammons is senile.

2004-09-22T01:17:00.000-05:00

I really think so. I like Peter Gammons, I like listening to him, and I have always regretted not being old enough to remember when he was a Boston writer only (though I'm glad he covers the whole game now). I don't agree with him all that much, but I let a lot slide because I at least think he approaches things with an open mind and some semblance of rationality.

Now I think he is senile.

Gammons has been on TV several times the last few days starting his own MVP push for none other than Mariano Rivera.

It's not like a relief pitcher winning the MVP is without precedence, but the difference between this year and 1992 is that we have plenty of everyday players who are much more deserving. I don't care what metric you use: stats, objectivity, word of mouth, intangibles, or good looks (Mariano looks like an accountant so it can't be that).

Just for some quick comparison, VORP has Vlad worth about 75 runs over a replacement player. It has Mariano worth 35 runs. Using RCAA, Manny is worth 45 runs over an average player (by the way, Barry Bonds is worth 144, which is mind boggling). Mariano is only worth 21 runs over an average pitcher.

If its hard enough to make the case for a starting pitcher every 5 days, it ought to be even harder to make the case that a relief pitcher is more valuable in 70 innings than an everyday player. But Mariano's appearances are typically in late-game, high-leverage situations, so his appearances are more valuable in terms of win expectancy. That much is true, but even if Mariano's innings were worth 2 low leverage innings, and you double his runs saved, he still isn't as valuable as an everyday player.

In fact, Mariano might not even be the most valuable pitcher on the Yankees. Take a look at how Tom Gordon stacks up.

           IP     H/9  BB/9  HR/9   K/9    ERA

Rivera   73-2/3   7.5   2.2   0.4   7.7   1.96

Gordon   82-1/3   5.7   2.3   0.4   9.8   2.30

Gordon's appearances are only slightly less leveraged than Mariano's. Considering he has identical walk and home run rates, and has allowed fewer hits and struck out more in 10 more innings of work, you could certainly make the case that Gordon has been at least as valuable as Mariano, if not more. The only difference being, of course, that Joe Torre asks Gordon to pitch the 8th, and Mariano to pitch the 9th. Somehow the 49 saves doesn't impress me though. If it weren't for Gordon, he'd have half that many.

What scares me is that Gammons actually votes for the MVP. On top of that, he has a very loud voice in the media, and if he continues harping on Mariano for the MVP, he very well might convince some of the other ignorant voters. Why we have ignorant voters for the year-end awards is beyond me.

If Mariano Rivera wins the MVP award it will be the biggest travesty since, well, since the last time we held a popularity contest to determine an award winner. Manny or Vlad are the MVP's. Maybe Sheffield. But not a relief pitcher who has participated in only 5% of his teams innings.
Curt

Cubs Are On Track

2004-09-21T18:20:00.000-05:00

It seems as though all of the writers that counted the Cubs out just a month ago are back to realizing that they are going to the playoffs. I always find it amazing how Peter Gammons always changes his tune when he realizes he is wrong and then act as if that's what he had been preaching the whole time. The key will be Mark Prior. If he pitches the way he did in his last start it will be nearly impossible to beat the Cubs. More important is that he threw over 120 pitches and didn't look tired one bit. With that said, Matt Clement has appeared to lose his for and has been batted around quite a bit.

Assuming the Cubs make it to the Playoffs, they should go with a 3 man rotation:

Wood
Maddux
Zambrano

My reasoning for leaving Prior out of this is that he can be a long-relief guy for all three starts and then make the game a 5-6 inning game rather than a 7-8 inning game for the starter. This will keep everyone fresh. Then maybe Clement can rest up his shoulder and maybe make a later playoff start.

Another issue that I keep seeing in the stretch run is Dusty Baker resting his star players and the front end of double headers. When a team is vying for a playoff spot the last thing he should do is bench the best hitters on the team, in particular Aramis Ramirez who has been hitting out of this world of late. The Cubs got by in the first game despite the terrible managing of Baker with key games from Jose Macias and Todd Walker. On the other hand, Paul Bako left four men on base that could have proved costly. I know its sad when you wish you could see Mike DiFeliece behind the plate.
John

Re-evaluating the un-re-evaluatable......

2004-09-20T01:40:00.000-05:00

It's very hard to criticize trades after the fact, when we have perfect hindsight, that beautiful tool of talk-radio. In some cases though, we have access to information suggesting the teams involved had information unavailable to us at the time. With that said, I think it's about time to re-evaluate my stance on the Cubs trade for Nomar.

I was highly critical of the Red Sox for swinging this deal. The way I figured it, in the very best case, they treaded water by improving the defense at the cost of the offense. This figuring I did, however, assumed Nomar was completely healthy. He's not, and I think the front office knew this.

The Cubs, on the other hand, never expressed concern over Nomar's health. When the publicity typical of an ugly divorce started to surface, Nomar was rumored to have told Boston that he wasn't completely healthy and would probablly have to miss considerable time. When asked about this, Jim Hendry reiterated that Nomar's health was not a concern, and that the Red Sox had provided him with all the relevant information.

So should the Cubs have made the trade? I still think so. The chance was there to fix the most glaring hole on the roster, and the cost was three semi-redundant parts. The upside of the deal was enormous. A healthy Nomar would have been a perfect fit.

Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out, Nomar has only played in 31 of the teams 41 games, and is currently out for the near future with groin problems. Jim Hendry probablly ought to have made the deal, but given up a lot less for 30 games of Nomar. Those 30 games of Nomar implicitly contain the remaining 10-20 games of Ramon Martinez and Neifi Perez, which takes away from any value Nomar has brought to the team. Even when playing, there is no way in Hades that Nomar is fully healthy. A non-fully healthy Nomar may have hit pretty well, but instead of being an average defensive shortstop, he was a liability. Small sample size issues pertain, of course, but his zone rating and range factor were both way down from his career norms.

Nomar is a very quiet and reserved guy. He was always somewhat of an outsider in the Red Sox clubhouse. It's not that teammates disliked Nomar, they just never really knew him. Without the ability to introduce himself to his teammates on the field in Chicago, I can imagine his status as an outsider in the Cubs locker room is cemented. Don't expect to see him sign with the Cubs for any less than another team is willing to pay him.

Overall this move points to a more telling generalization about the Cubs front office and ownership. To me, the Cubs FO makes moves with the intention of impressing their fans, rather than actually improving the ballclub. The next time I see the Cubs make an unpopular personnel decision will be the first. Completely coincidentally, the next time I see the Cubs outperform expectations will also be the first. I can see a long term deal coming for Sammy, the most popular Cub who is quickly approaching the inevitable cliff at the end of his career.
Curt

Its not Hoodoo its baseball for crying out loud.....

2004-09-17T13:27:00.000-05:00

Well, here is the obligatory pre-Brawl post. The Red Sox and Yankees go at it again tonight. Read my slightly irrational thoughts on the subject, here, here, or here. I'm not really going to talk about the series too much, but if the Red Sox don't take at least 2 of 3 this weekend, the division race is probablly over.

What really gets to me, what I really can't stand is listening to the media hype surrounding these games. Every time these two teams match up, I have to see every image, every sound byte, and every audio clip of every failure and every near miss. The national media eats it up, especially the four letter, and they have sunken to new lows today. Tonight, after the Sox/Yankees game they are going to show Who's Cursed Worse: Red Sox and Cubs on Trial.

DIRECTLY after the game thousands of baseball fans will stick around to see the four letter's take on the imaginary construct known as "the curse". I can already see it, they'll show clips of Bostonians saying how horrible it is to be a Red Sox fan, what it feels like to be cursed, and how much the 'Yankees Suck!' (the real black eye on Boston fans is that damn chant).

The problem is that they'll only show complete idiots. The Red Sox fans on that program will be the lowest of the low, completely mindless boobs who do nothing but repeat the party line. What party that is? Its not my party, thats for sure. Here is what 99% of their interviews for that show went like:

The Four Letter: Hey would you like to be interviewed for an ESPN special?
Random Intelligent Baseball Fan: Yeah, sure.
ESPN: Are you a Red Sox fan?
RIBF: You're damn right I am!
ESPN: How does it feel to be cursed?
RIBF: Shut the F up, there is no curse. Go back to Bristol you moron.

They can't play that though, it doesn't make for good TV.

For those of you not familiar with the Boston media, there is a clown (aptly nicknamed the Curly Haired Boyfriend by Carl Everett) who wrote The Curse of the Bambino. He also is a columnist for the Boston Globe although if I had my way, he'd be out on the street. Every column he writes is filled with negativity, with self-pity, and with rampant animosity towards the Red Sox. I'm not even sure he believes in all that crap, but he found a niche, and he fills his columns with loads of crap perpetuating this belief that Red Sox fans are all like him.

He should be thrown out on the street because he has the optimism of a one-armed blind homeless midget. Unfortunately, this crap gets put off in the national media as representative of Red Sox fans in general. It just simply isn't true.

It makes good TV though. So we'll continue to hear it. It makes good TV for the same reasons why reality TV is such a success. Perpetuating "the curse" appeals to the lowest common denominator in the four letter's demographics. Unfortunately there are a lot of them, but if you've got half a brain, don't believe what you're told about Boston fans.

What will the national media do when there is no more "curse" to talk about? Will they actually have to cover BASEBALL instead? It would be a strange world indeed if ESPN were to actually talk about the games being played. Then they might have to hire some real journalists. Imagine.

They love this "curse" nonsense so much that they created a "curse" for the Cubs. The curse of the billy goat? Are you kidding? You can't retroactively put curses on people just to drum up ratings. I think its prohibited in the Hoodoo Constitution.

What if the Red Sox win the World Series? The media would then have to stop talking about the "curse" of the bambino and would re-focus their attention on the curse of the billy goat. Then, of course, the media would need another team to put a retroactive curse on.

The White Sox would be perfect. They haven't won since 1917, it must be the city of Chicago that is cursed after all. The curse of the Black Sox?? Nah, too easy. I am going to go out on a limb and call it the curse of Death Valley Jim Scott, but they'll probablly take the easy route and call it the curse of Chicago.

Hoodoo activists can email Curt to complain about being associated with mindless media boobs.

Ozzie Smith he is not.

2004-09-16T02:38:00.000-05:00

The Cardnials defense has gotten a lot of credit for that team being 14-1/2 games up. Brian over at Redbird Nation gives a pretty good assesment of that defense, which is definitely excellent overall. One thing caught my eye though,

Edgar Renteria -- well, he's won a couple Gold Gloves, but I've never seen what the hubbub was about. I think he's good to his left, and I know he's sure-handed, but I've never found him very impressive going to his right and/or in the hole, and his arm seems pretty middling. And I don't think he has the same rhythm on double plays that he shared with Fernando Vina. Win Shares agrees with me on this one -- it has Edgar 7th, just ahead of a couple guys with less playing time. There are plenty of reasons to re-sign Renteria in the off-season, but I hope defense isn't one of the primary ones.

I have to agree with this, but I'm glad my limited observation is backed up by someone paying closer attention to the Cardinals than me.

Win Shares backs it up, but UZR also supports this, although I dont know how Renteria fared in individual years. ESPN's range factor has him ranked 11th in the NL in 2002, 10th in 2003, and 6th so far this year. He's very good, very sure-handed as Brian says, but certainly not the best. He won the Gold Glove the last two years, but the GG award is really nothing more than a popularity contest. Once you get known as a good defensive player nobody questions it, even after you start declining (see Derek Jeter). Conversely, once you get known as a bad defensive player, you are stuck with that stigmata forever (see Jose Valentin).

Renteria is certainly very good, but he's not the best. It wouldn't suprise me to see him win another Gold Glove, but some of the less heralded shortstops like Adam Everett, Jack Wilson, or Cesar Izturis really ought to win it.
Curt

More debauchery.

2004-09-16T01:22:00.000-05:00

One of the best takes on the chair throwing incident in Oakland is over at Elephant's in Oakland. Admittidly biased, but I dont think its a biased take on the story. It is pretty strange to see anybody try and blame the fans for being fans. Its happening though, here, here, and here. It always scares me when I see the nonsense that can come from people with relatively loud voices. Can some people not see the difference between yelling obscenities and throwing punches, let alone chairs?
Curt

Heckling is cool.........

2004-09-14T08:52:00.000-05:00

This isn't. Stay in the godamn stands people. Must have been some Raider fans, they've got class. Unless, of course, the Rangers started it, pulled a Jeff Nelson you might say. If that's the case, I apologize to the ~~Raiders~~ A's fans, and I instead ask the players, why would you go into the stands? Are you insane?

Regardless of who started it though, if Frankie Francisco really did throw a chair into the stands, then he belongs in court, right next to Nelson and Garcia. What is this the WWF?

Watch the chair toss video here, and you be the judge. Assault with a deadly weapon?
Curt

Holy crappy shit!

2004-09-09T18:06:00.000-05:00

Excuse the language, but I doubt there's many toddlers dropping by and this game deserves at least a mention.

The hapless Kansas City Royals went out and dropped 26 on the Tigers today. This is the same team that had scored the fewest runs in the AL, before today obviously.

26 runs! Its the most ever in Royals history, though I'm pretty sure that doesn't include the Kansas City A's. What's really impressive (or depressing) is that 26 runs is consequently the most EVER allowed by the Tigers franchise, which was one of the original AL teams way back in 1900.

The Royals had 13 consecutive men reach base in the third, when they scored 11 runs and almost batted around TWICE. Thats insane.

Its not like the Royals did it all on home runs either, they only hit one. For the game the Royals had an on-base percentage of .567 and a slugging percentage of .692. Wow. This year Barry Bonds has an OBP of .611 and a SLG% of .830. So now you know what a team would do if they had 9 Barry Bonds's in the lineup. They would score MORE than 26 runs a game. CAN WE PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT WHO WILL WIN THE NL MVP AWARD????? PLEASE?????

Lino Urdaneta made his major league debut today for Detroit. What a debut. He faced 6 batters, gave up 5 hits and a walk, retired nobody. Five earned runs in 0 IP. Welcome to the bigs kid. Hows that ERA of infinity treating you?

I feel for him, I once had an ERA of infinity (anyone know the HTML tag for a sideways 8?). I was 15, playing on a team with all 18+ kids, way over my head. They brought me in. I walked the first guy. The next batter is this monster from Lowell, MA; big gigantic Kevin Mench sized head, full beard and everything (I was 15, it was intimidating at the time). He rips one that was still going up as it whistled through a tree growing beyond the left field fence. It took off branches on the way by and cleared some train tracks and probablly several blocks on the other side as well. People still talk about it. Nobody saw it come down. Heck, I was amazed. And I was laughing too, actually the two of us shared a special moment there laughing at how much he just embarrassed me. That also inspired my coach to pull me and I never got in another game to pitch, finishing up the summer league with an ERA of infinity. But back to my new boy Lino, welcome to the big leagues, the worst team in the league just torched your ass.

Not his fault really. Only the Tigers would bring up a 24 year old reliever who has never even had a good minor league season and had a 9.69 ERA at AAA this year. Give em the ball Trammell. I mean, AAA guys torched him, maybe he'd do okay in the majors. The Tigers have to be feeling like a rented mule right now. Wait, nope, they just returned the favor and stomped the Royals 8-0 in the second game of the double header. Somehow it doesn't have the same feel to it though.

The Red Sox have taken a temporary back seat tonight. Im now off to watch the Patriots start their undefeated campaign towards a 3rd Super Bowl in 4 years. Let the dynasty talk begin.

Oh, and if by some miracle you are a big-headed, bearded monster from Lowell, who destroyed some tree limbs, and laughed at a scrawny little kid as you rounded the bases, and you happen to be reading this, you can keep telling your kids the story, because even 10 years later, people are still talking about that home run.
Curt

So far, so good.

2004-09-08T14:02:00.000-05:00

Just updating on the Rick Ankiel saga. He pitched an inning of relief last night for the Cardinals. Here's his line:

                  IP   H   R  BB  SO   PC-ST

R. Ankiel (H, 1)   1   1   0   0   0   15-12

Pretty uneventful, and I'm sure that's exactly the way Ankiel (and Tony LaRussa) wants it. Speaking of LaRussa, he is showing a ton of confidence in the kid, bringing him in a close game with the lead. I suppose you can do that when you have a 17-1/2 game lead in the division, though. I also suppose you can do that in San Diego where nobody is paying attention to the game anyways. You can bet LaRussa wouldn't have brought him in to a game in New York.

"WILD PITCH, WILD PITCH, WILD PITCH!"
Curt

Someone Stop the Astros For Real!!

2004-09-08T01:03:00.000-05:00

The Houston Astros were out of the race not too long ago. Right?

It doesn't seem too long ago that there was clamoring in the media (here, here, and here) that the Astros should cut their losses and re-trade Carlos Beltran (who they acquired earlier in the year from KC). Well, so much for that idea, it turns out all they really needed to do was fire Jimy Williams.

After dumping Ol' Boy Jimy the Astros caught fire. Since being 44-44 at the break, the Astros have gone 30-19 under new coach Phil Garner to claw their way within 1 1/2 of the Wild Card leading (and now terrified) Cubs.

I've usually hated firing a manager mid-season, especially with a team playing around .500, but watching the Marlins under Jack McKeon, and now the Astros has converted me. Makes you wonder what the front office of other listless teams are thinking. When you lack ingenuity, why not copy?

Listless club + new manager = chance to turn around a doomed season.

Ahem. Phillies. Cough. Mets. Everybody has theories about what caused the turnaround. Its real easy to give all the credit to Phil Garner, but don't forget about the biggest change come the All-Star break. Remember that trade for Beltran? Oh, yeah, Beltran hitting .266/.381/.612 for the Astros might have helped.

Harold Reynolds and John Kruk (I know, I know) have a theory. Last night on the four letter they claimed the turnaround was due to the new Astros manager. Under Garner, the Astros have been stealing more bases, moving runners up, hit & running more. Under Jimy Williams, the Astros just waited around for the 3-run homer "that never seemed to come". While its nice that they have sympathy for the way the game used to be played, its just wrong. Observe,

            W-L   RS/G   HR/G   BAA/OBP/SLG    ERA   WHIP

Pre ASB    44-44   4.5    1.0   264/338/415   4.14   1.33

Post ASB   30-19   6.0    1.6   279/360/481   4.13   1.35

Thats an improvement from a home run every 35 at bats to a HR every 22 ABs. Much of this is a result of Beltran's 22 home runs, but Berkman, Bagwell, and Kent have also been hitting better after the break. So overall, the Astros are hitting much better and pitching about the same. They are scoring a run and a half more a game, and all of their offensive component stats are better. But the Parrot that Is Harold Reynolds is required by contract to state the phrase "they're manufacturing runs" at least twice every half hour show, so lets at least look at that.

For those of you paying attention, Jimy Williams was getting press for bunting TOO MUCH this year. Under Jimy in the first half the Astros bunted more often than any major league team, with 0.7 sacrifices a game. Since he left, the Astros have only had 0.5 a game. So no small ball there. And if Jimy was waiting around for the 3-run homer, then he must have flunked Earl Weaver School.

Maybe they are hit & running more, I have no idea, but at least they are running more. Thats easy, the stat guys for Baseball Tonight must have looked at the team stats page. They've stolen 47 bases since the break to the 25 pre-All Star steals. Uh, guys, remember this guy Carlos Beltran? Enter his 22 steals and the best base-stealing % in MLB history. Does anybody want to guess that the rest of the increase is due to the 24 point in their team's OBP? They're not running more often, they've just had more chances to run. Wih 2 more baserunners a game, OF COURSE they are going to steal more bases.

Its just one more chance for the Run Manufacturing Parrots to speak up about the good ol' days. And one more chance for me to waste my breath. The Astros are hitting more home runs. They getting on base more. They're hitting the snot out of the ball. Only the Red Sox have scored more runs since the All-Star break, and they don't have a pitcher batting four times a game. I don't know why they are hitting better, it may be the new coach. But can we at least drop this manufacturing runs malarkey.
Curt

He's back.........for now.

2004-09-07T01:40:00.000-05:00

The Cardinals have called up Rick Ankiel, famous for his meteoric rise and subsequent fall. Its not really a "disease" but people like to call this Steve Blass disease. Its when a guy (it doesn't have to be a pitcher) loses all ability to throw a baseball in a straight line.

Ankiel never had Maddux-like control, but he was never particularly wild either. In 300 minor league innings, he walked 112 (3.4 BB/9). Not great, but its comparable to the walk rates of Cy Young candidates Mark Mulder (3.2), Roger Clemens (3.5) and Carlos Zambrano (3.7).

Ankiel got called up in September of 1999 at the age of 20, after embarrassing AA and AAA hitters. He pitched pretty well in 5 starts and things looked promising. In 2000, at only 21, Ankiel made the opening day Cardinal roster and didn't disappoint any Cardinal fans who were anxious to see this phenom. That is until the playoffs.

After putting up a 3.50 ERA and 194 strikeouts in 175 innings, Ankiel was poised to be the next big superstar pitcher. The next Roger Clemens. Nobody steps in at 20 and dominated big league hitters this way, hell Clemens was 22 or 23 before he did. Then the playoffs came.

This game, Ankiel started game 1 of the NLDS against Greg Maddux. First inning, he walked two, struck out one. Normal postseason jitters for a 20 year old. Right? Sure, 2nd inning he gives up a hit and retires the side. He's back on track. Then the third inning came and with it, the ghost of Steve Blass.

Maddux walked,
Furcal popped to first,
Wild pitch,
Wild pitch,
A. Jones walked,
Wild pitch,
C. Jones strikes out,
Galarraga walked,
Wild pitch,
Jordan singles,
Wild pitch,
Sanders walked,
Weiss singles.

Final line for Ankiel: 2-2/3 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 6 BB, 3 K, 5 WP.

And if you remember this game, those 5 wild pitches weren't you're ordinary breaking balls in the dirt. They were airmailed to the backstop, not even close. It was sad to see a guy out there with absolutely no idea where the ball was going.

Ankiel pitched again in the NLCS, not faring much better. In game 2 against the Mets, he couldn't even get out of the first inning. He retired 2 batters, walked 3, and threw 2 wild pitches to the backstop. Something clearly was wrong with the phenom.

The Cardinals were bounced in the championship series, but Ankiel was still just a nervous rookie who lost his mechanics in a high-pressure situation. Then after a scary spring training, and 24 scary (for opposing batters) innings in '01, the "something" wrong with Ankiel was clearly mental.

I have empathy for Ankiel because a similar thing happened to me, and pre-maturely ended my life as a pitcher. Something flipped in my head and I couldn't throw a pitch that wouldn't hit a left-handed batter in the head or a right-hand batter in the foot. I was never able to pitch again, and for a time I had trouble playing first base. I also had a teammate, a catcher with no previous problems, who showed up to a game and was unable to throw the ball back to his pitcher without bouncing it first. He had to be removed from the game, and his baseball life was never the same. If you've ever seen Shaquille O'Neal shooting free throws, you know this "disease" isn't confined to baseball players. Shaq is just lucky he can still be a good basketball player without being able to shoot free throws. Rick Ankiel cannot be a good pitcher unless he is able to throw strikes.

So can Ankiel put this behind him and throw strikes? He has so far this year, but will it continue? I'm not a sports psychologist so I don't know if something like this can be overcome. Today, I can throw a baseball (too often a softball) with no problems. I can throw relatively accurately and consistently. But I can't pitch. For some reason when it gets in my head that I am in the act of pitching, something changes. I can't pitch BP in a cage, I can't pitch a slow-pitch softball, and I can't pitch "lob" to anybody either. Even whiffle ball gives me problems. So I wouldn't be holding my breath on Rick Ankiel if I were a Cardinal fan. I like the guy, I like his stuff, he's a lefty, and he's got that pretty delivery where he kicks up his leg real high on the followthrough. I'm rooting for him, but I'm not holding my breath.
Curt

The Register.

2004-09-05T01:55:00.000-05:00

    Friday Aug. 6th         Saturday Sep.  4th

New York   69-39  ----     New York   83-51   ---

Boston     58-49  10.5     Boston     80-53   2.5

I'm not going to use this space to talk about the Red Sox. Kevin Brown pulled a Gus Ferrote, the Yankees' rotation (outside of Brown) is in relative shambles, and the 10 1/2 game lead in the AL East has been shattered. Everything seems to be going the way of the Red Sox.

I've learned over the years that when it comes to the Red Sox, you only talk about the present. You can't predict, you can't hope, you can't look to the future to say what will happen. It's dangerous territory to even say what is likely to happen. And we all know that when it comes to the Red Sox, you would be better off not looking to the past. I don't think much needs to be said here. You learn, as a Red Sox fan, not to dwell on things. When the obnoxious fans from that rather large city 2 1/2 hours south speak up, you just ignore it and do your best to forget.

There is a piece of paper out there, a register of some sorts. On one side is written, among other things, a list of 26 dates, printed in bold. The last date printed in bold is the year 2000. Under that date, there are a few more dates printed on there, but not in bold. The last date was in October of 2003, but even that had to be squeezed in small print, way in down the bottom corner. That side of the paper is full.

The other side of that paper is blank. It hasn't always been blank, but all its dates were once written in pencil, and have long been erased. There are a couple of spaces marked off, ready to be inked permantly. Theres a regular season series with good results. There is this game, and there is a 10 1/2 game lead dissolved.

But all those dates are written in pencil. They don't matter. Something has to happen first before we can start inking in the other side of the paper. We all know what that is, but as Red Sox fans have learned, you can't look forward. That would only be setting yourself up to to realize there is still a little bit of space to cram in one more date on the wrong side of that paper, at which point it will be time to wait till next year.

And oh, yeah, playoff magic numbers:
Cubs: 26
Red Sox: 25
Curt

Someone Peg Berkman For Real!

2004-08-30T16:13:00.000-05:00

Lance Berkman made a huge mistake on Sunday against the Chicago Cubs. He revealed his sexuality. Berkman faked getting pegged in the head by Mike Remlinger and was awarded first base and an RBI. He should be fined and suspended for his actions and the four umpires working the game should also be fined.

The Cubs are finished with the season series with the Astros so I propose a possible trade of Kyle Farnsworth to whoever the Astros play. Then Kyle can miss the strike zone for another team and take out Berkman. Everyone will be happy.

On another note, the Cubs really need to acquire bullpen help. I hear the Giants have claimed Mesa from the Pirates. The Cubs need to shore up the pen within the next couple weeks. I am tired of seeing the starters come out with a good lead and have it disappear time and time again.

John

Lenny Harris: Pinch hit hero.

2004-08-30T04:55:00.000-05:00

By LENNY HARRIS

Hero. Lenny Harris. Somehow it just doesn't fit. Lenny F. Harris is a hero only when he writes the title.
This article, by the good man himself, is a good read. Actually its comedic genious. Observe,

I've been in the big leagues since 1988. This is 2004. I'm sort of surprised that I'm still playing now....

Suprised? Well, hell Lenny, I'm suprised too. Your are a career .269/.318/.348 hitter. You've been around for 17 years, been with eight different teams, and none of them have figured out that you can't hit worth the paper and ink used to sign your contract.

The Mets and Reds have both acquired you twice, which speaks volumes about the intelligence of those two organizations.

But don't lose track. We're talking about Lenny F. Harris. Lenny "The Champion" Harris.

As for my World Series ring, I wear it all the time -- all the time. It's what everybody plays for. There's nothing like being a champion and that is something that I will have for the rest of my life now.

Yeah, as for the World Series ring. I hope you wear it all the time, good for you, and good for the Marlins for giving you 14 AT BATS!!!! I mean even though he never played a postseason inning, he did go 1 for 4 pinch-hitting in the postseason. I'm sure the Marlins are thankful for the presence of Lenny F. Harris on the roster. They surely would have fallen to the mighty Yankees had it not been for Lenny's ~~hitting~~ ~~fielding~~ camaraderie.

Wear that ring with pride Lenny. I'm sure half the guys on the team were asking: "who the hell is that guy spraying me with champagne?"
Honestly, Lenny is probablly a nice guy, probablly a fun guy to have around the clubhouse. Or something. Why would I care so much?

I care, because Lenny F. Harris, a.k.a. Captain Camaraderie, has been taking up a spot on a major league roster for 17 frickin' years, while guys like Calvin Pickering, Brian Daubach, Marcus Thames, Bryant Nelson, Howie Clark, or Adam Hyzdu toil away in the minors until they are 32 and give up on their dreams.

I'd tell Captain Camaraderie to just go away, but its not his fault. There are still idiotic GMs out there willing to lay $1M on the table for his ~~bat~~ ~~glove~~ sense of humor.

Why not just pay the minimum for some AAA-lifer to give them exactly the same non-hitting bat off the bench? Who knows.

The Lenny Harris Fan Club can mailbomb Curt at this address.

Manny For MVP!

2004-08-28T13:06:00.000-05:00

I'm officially starting the Manny Ramirez-for-MVP push.

It amazes me that Manny has never finished higher than third in MVP voting. In every year from 1998 until now, you could make a legitimate case for Manny being the MVP. In 1999 and 2003, he probablly should have won it, or at least you could make a VERY strong case. In '99 he split the votes with teammate Robbie Alomar, and in '03 he split the votes with teammate David Ortiz. A lot of those votes for Ortiz came because of some big hits down the stretch, but how does Ortiz get 4 first place MVP votes, despite having an OPS 53 points less than Manny in 170 fewer plate appearances? It looks like Manny will get some more votes stolen (deservedly) by Ortiz again this year. That's too bad, Manny has been "unfortunate" to have played on good teams where he wasn't the only star, and its meant no MVPs.

These things are just popularity contests anyways so why should I care? The MVP always goes to whoever the media decides to promote that year. Witness Tejada over Arod in '02 and Ichiro over Giambi in '01. There was so much hype surrounding those two that voters had no choice but to vote for them.

Ichiro will probablly win it this year. Arod proved that you don't need to be on a good team to win it, and there is going to be A TON of hype (mark my words) surrounding Ichiro's phony bid at breaking George Sisler's single-season hits record. Despite this hype, one of either Vlad Guerrero or Manny SHOULD win the MVP. I wouldn't mind if Vlad won it, but like Manny, he's a quiet guy who everybody forgets about until he hits a three-run bomb to beat your favorite team.

I still care though. Manny is one of my favorite players, and a lot of people take what he has done over the last 10 years for granted. Over the last 10 seasons, Manny Ramirez has been the best hitter in the American League. Arod has come close, but Manny's numbers have been better.

His career has been remarkable, and remarkably consistent. In his WORST year, he "only" hit .328/.415/.538. At age 32, Manny ranks 43rd all-time with a career BA of .317, 15th all-time with a carerr OBP of .412, 7th all-time with a career SLG% of .599. He's also climbing the home run charts rapidly. His 381 career bombs puts him tied with old teammate Albert Belle for 49th all-time. Manny's on pace for 10 more home runs this year, after which he will pass Jim Rice, Frank Howard, Harold Baines, Dwight Evans, Johnny Bench, and Craig Nettles. Some great company to be in, but really just some borderline Hall of Famers (besides Bench). Its after next season that Manny starts entering the fat part of that list. Nobody with more than 442 home runs (who is eligible) has been held out of the Hall of Fame (poor Dave Kingman). Manny could be there after two more healthy seasons.

Manny has a chance to go down as one of the best players to never win an MVP award. Although, Honus Wagner, Tony Gwynn, Al Kaline, Dwayne Hosey, Eddie Murray, or Josh Gibson never won an MVP, and I would rather be in that company than in the company of Ken Caminiti, Terry Pendleton, or Thurman Munson.

Check out Manny visiting Curt. Up there, in the top left corner, that's where I live. Not for long though.

Curt

Building a house out of three 2 X 4's and a bunch of straw......

2004-08-26T15:41:00.000-05:00

I was thinking a little more about what I wrote yesterday about the Braves. They have consistently outperformed their pythag, and one of the reasons that came to me was the strong bullpens they assemble year after year. Having a good bullpen will especially help in the close games, and help a team outperform their runs scored/runs allowed record.

The Braves have always had a good bullpen, but their pitching staffs, in general, have been great. They've been anchored by All-stars and Hall of Famers, but they've also got plenty of great performances out of average and obscure pitchers.

Take a look at the following chart. I took any Braves pitcher who pitched for significant time under the Cox & Mazzone reign. I set the cut-off at more than one season, and around 100 IP for relievers and 300 IP for starters. I then got rid of any pitchers who haven't had significant time in any other organization, (Millwood, Smoltz, Glavine, Maddux) and found out everybody else's ERAs with the Braves and without the braves. The last column is the percentage improvement under Cox and Mazzone (121 means 21% better, 87 means 13% worse). The results are staggering.

      Products of the Braves Farm System:

             Played   w/ Braves     Elsewhere

                   IP     ERA     IP     ERA  %Impr.  

Mark Wohlers      386.3  3.73    167.0  4.53    121

Bruce Chen        111.0  4.14    342.3  4.73    114

Brad Clontz       197.7  4.51     80.0  3.94     87

John Rocker       195.3  2.63     60.0  6.00    228 

Greg McMichael    334.3  2.69    189.0  4.24    157

Mike Stanton      258.7  3.86    610.3  3.79     98

Kent Mercker      480.0  3.36    688.7  4.90    146

Pedro Borbon       71.0  2.69    189.0  5.13    150



       Came to Braves in their Prime:

                   IP     ERA     IP     ERA  %Impr.  

Pete Smith        217.7  3.68    808.0  4.78    130

Denny Neagle      482.3  3.43   1408.0  4.52    132 

Marvin Freeman    136.0  3.64    457.7  4.94    136

Rudy Seanez       122.7  3.30    164.6  5.47    166

Mike Remlinger    299.3  2.65    481.0  4.49    170



      Came to Braves at the end of their career 

                      or out of Obscurity:

                   IP     ERA     IP     ERA  %Impr.  

Mike Bielecki     242.0  3.09    989.0  4.45    144

John Burkett      353.7  3.74   2294.7  4.40    118

Terry Mullholand  217.0  4.52   2173.3  4.35     96

Steve Bedrosian   123.7  3.27   1067.3  3.39    104

Charlie Leibrandt 585.0  3.35   1723.0  3.83    114



Grand Total:     4813.7  3.45  13893.0  4.34    126

That chart is amazing to me. I went into this intentionally trying to find some examples of pitchers who have performed WORSE under Cox and Mazzone. I really couldn't do it. I separated out the pitchers in their prime because I assumed that these guys would naturally perform better. Pitchers performed better with the Braves even if they only pitched for the Braves at the beggining or end of their career. I even excluded Steve Avery because of injuries. His 1200 innings of excellent pitching for the Braves, coupled with 250 innings with an ERA over 5 elsewhere might have skew the data.

Skewed the data? I might not have skewed the data if I misplaced a decimal point. Out of all the pitchers with significant innings, only Mike Stanton, Terry Mullholand, and Brad Clontz were worse as Braves, and only Clontz was noticably worse. Stanton and Mullholand were pretty much the same.

These numbers aren't park adjusted, though I would assume that to not make much difference. After all Fulton County Stadium played as a hitters park, and Turner field has been pretty neutral over the last four years. They still should be taken in context of some reverse park and league adjustment that would make guys like John Burkett (Texas) and Denny Neagle (Colorado) look a little better, but not 26% better.

Remember back when I talked about the Rick Peterson effect (and beat the national media to the punch, I might add). Well, that initial look suffered from a small sample size, 200 innings, and the gap has since closed somewhat thanks to Barry Zito, Tom Glavine, and Al Leiter's regression to the mean. This Braves data is based on almost 19,000 innings pitched, and it shows no signs of changing from 1991 to 2004!

The effect Bobby Cox and Leo Mazzone are having on pitchers is very real, and its very positive. On top of the strong work they've done in the above chart, they've also got single seasons way above the established level of guys like Jay Howell, Alan Embree, Russ Springer, Darren Holmes, Jose Cabrera, and who could forget the year Chris Hammond had in 2002 at age 36. Speaking of old guys, they got a decent 91 innings out of a 43 year old Dennis Martinez for crying out loud.

The one thing that anyone could try and hold against the Braves organization was giving up on some young guys that have turned out to be pretty good. Jason Schmidt, Odalis Perez, and Jason Marquis are all pitching in prominent roles this year.

Each one of those trades was defensible at the time, and doesn't look outrageously bad even now. They sent Schmidt to Pittsburgh at the trading deadline to pick up the afore-mentioned Denny Neagle who turned in two excellent seasons. Schmidt has since become a star, but it took five years of average pitching in Pittsburgh before he figured it all out. The Braves traded Perez to the Dodgers, but you can hardly blame them since Gary Sheffield came the other way and helped the Braves lead the league in runs scored in 2003. This offseason they traded Marquis to the Cardinals, but that trade worked out for both teams, as the Braves got J.D. Drew in return. So the Braves haven't even given up any of their good pitching prospects without receiving good value in return. They've also "given up" on guys like Rocker, Chen, Wohlers, Borbon, and Damian Moss who have gone on to become nothing in their post-Braves career.

There is a lot of credit to be dished out for the success of the Braves staffs over the last thirteen years. GM John Schuerholz deserves a ton of credit for not only building one of the best player development systems, but also for being able to recognize major league talent that can help the Braves immediately through trades and free agency.

Bobby Cox and Leo Mazzone deserve tons of credit for putting each of their pitchers in the situations where they can succeed. Cox and Mazzone recognize the pitchers they need, the pitchers they can make a success, and the coaches are able to communicate those needs up the chain. Schuerholz, Cox, and Mazzone, can communicate so well that Schuerholz always knows what pieces they need, and Cox and Mazzone know exactly how all those pieces will fit together. The result has been THIRTEEN straight division titles.

That's right, I have officially declared the NL East race OVER. Call the papers.

Masters of the obvious can email Curt to mention they only have one ring to show for it.

And by the way: Does anyone know whatever happened to Kevin McGlinchy? I mean, besides giving up the game winning home run to Robin ventura in this game. He disappeared faster than Bill Buckner after that one. Stupid Mets.

Wait 'till Next Year.....

2004-08-25T18:19:00.000-05:00

I think its about time to give Bobby Cox and Leo Mazzone their due. It amazes me how little credit these two get for putting a Braves team on the field that competes year after year. Any time I hear about the "Good" managers in baseball, Bobby Cox is always mentioned as an afterthought. As in, "oh yeah, that guy down in Atlanta is pretty good too."

Yeah, I'd say. Pretty good. Bobby Cox took over mid season in 1990 for an Atlanta Braves team that finished the year 65-97, and with the worst record in baseball. The very next year, the first full year under Bobby Cox, the Braves won 94 games and made it to the 7th game of the World Series.

Granted, Cox did have a young Steve Avery, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine stepping into the rotation, not to mention a young David Justice who would all anchor the lineup for the next several years. But that turnaround is nothing short of spectacular when viewed in the light of the TWELVE straight division titles that followed.

Under Bobby Cox they've gone 1374-846 including this year. They also look like they're about to wrap up division title #13. Ever since they squeaked out division title #10 in 2000, people have been predicting their demise. Not going to happen. At least not yet.

Where has it come from? To be completely honest, I didn't see how the Braves would do it this year. After looking at their team I still couldn't figure it out. They don't have a very deep staff, their lineup has holes up and down, and has suffered through injuries to key players. How has this team opened up a 7 1/2 game lead on the rest of the NL East? One reason. Its a simple answer but its the single reason the Braves are heading to the playoffs.

The Braves have absolutely DEMOLISHED the rest of the NL East this year. I mean really. If you look at the standings, you'll see the Braves at the top, the Expos at the bottom, and three clubs playing .500 ball, but what you see if you look closer is the Braves record against the NL East,

           Record Vs.

Florida        9-4

Philadelphia   7-6

New York       8-3

Montreal      10-3

Total         34-16

The Braves are 37-37 against everybody else. What's wrong with the rest of the NL East? Or what's right about the Braves? It very well could be some freakish occurence. In fact, it pretty much looks like it. Luckily Bobby Cox has been around a while, and we have a lot of data. Since the switch to the three divisions in 1994, the Braves have done the following,

              Record Vs.

Florida         79-65

Philadelphia    86-55   

New York        80-61

Montreal        92-50

Total NL East  337-231  .593

Everyone Else  966-562  .632

So they actually have done worse against the NL East over the years, and this is just some freak occurence.

There is something, however, that I hate to admit looks like its not a freak occurence: Bobby Cox' teams consistently outperform their Pythagorean winning percentage. Since 1994, his teams have won 25 games more than their Pythag's would suggest. Compare that to a couple of other managers who've been around for awhile, and also to a few of the all time best,

             Seasons   Pythag Diff.

Bobby Cox        10       +25         

Joe Torre        22       +18

Tony LaRussa     26       -1

Lou Pineilla     17       +6

Dusty Baker      11       +16

............

Connie Mack      51!      +26

Earl Weaver      16       +12

Casey Stengel    24       +4

Sparky Anderson  26       +20

John McGraw      18       -22

Now, I hate attributing this to a manager. What it usually tells us is that the teams that over-perform their pythag's are just a lot better winning the close 1-run and 2-run games, for whatever reason. MOST OFTEN its just luck. My question is when does it stops being luck, and starts to be a trend? For Bobby Cox, and also for Joe Torre's Yankees (+21 in 8 years as Yankee's manager) there might be some truth to it.

Lesson learned: Don't count the Braves out. Don't count the Braves out.
Curt