Here's how win shares sees the all-star team:

AL                NL

Posada C          Lo Duca C

Thome 1B          Helton 1B

Soriano 2B        Vidro 2B

Chavez 3B         Lowell 3B

A Rod SS          Hernandez SS

M. Ordonez OF     Bonds OF

J. Jones OF       Dunn OF

Suzuki OF         Sosa OF

This is based on their first half stats. Both agree at 4 positions. Not bad.

Here's how the starting lineups matchup in win shares (short form, 1st half of the season):

AL Player          Win Shares            NL Player         Win Shares

Posasa                  10.5             Piazza                 11.6

Giambi                  15.6             Helton                 19.7

Soriano                 15.3             Vidro                  17.0

Hillenbrand             10.9             Rolen                   7.8

A Rod                   20.0             Rollins                 9.1

Ramirez                 10.3             Bonds                  25.0

Hunter                  10.6             Guerrero               13.5

Suzuki                  15.7             Sosa                   18.0

Total                  108.9                                   121.7

Looks like the NL has the advantage.

Just in case you are wondering, Thome has 17.9 win shares, Giambi 15.6.

Torii Hunter got elected. So we got one Twin, two Expos, and no Brewers. Way to go!

The BBTN crew is wondering who will be the CF for the NL. Isn't it obvious it should be Vlad? He's the youngest and fastest.

This was the biggest surprise to me. I thought there would be a number of shortstops with better numbers. But when I really look at it, Jose Hernandez of the Brewers is the only one I might pick over him. Too bad the Milwaukee fans didn't come out in stronger numbers for Hernandez. Maybe they were all voting for the Expos. :-)

Update: By the way, why are all the good SS in the AL?

Well, it looks like the push for the Expos brought Jose Vidro into the starting lineup. Way to go, computer voters!

I was just looking at the Braves boxscore from today and noticed Vinny Castilla batting 6th. His numbers: .247 BA, .275 OBA, .397 slugging. You want him for defense, fine, but don't bat him 6th. Plus, you have Javy Lopez who isn't much better at .239, .286, .368. Once again, they are all pitching. Chipper and Sheffield should be having better years, and luckily Andruw Jones is finally living up to expectations. Every year, though, the Braves go into the post-season with great pitching and minimal offense, and get shut down by teams with good pitching and great offense. Looks like it may happen again.

He'll probably go 5 for 5 with 2 HR tonight, but Bret Boone continues to show that last year was a fluke. He's probably having the worst year of his career, yet is still driving in a lot of runs due to the team around him. It was speculated last year that Boone used steriods. If he did, the effect doesn't seem to last very long. Which makes me wonder if using steroids is really worth it.

Mo Vaughn just hit his 5th career HR off Mussina. He's 23 for 70 off Mussina through his first two AB tonight. Half of Mussina's runs allowed now (28 of 56) have come on HR.

As a rule, I dislike talking about intangibles, but something to think about here. The players on the Expos now know that someone wants them to win. I think that would be a big deal to players. It also might be a boost to the fans. For the first time in a long time, the Expos are trading to win, not trading to dump salary. I wonder if this will cause more fans to come out to the ballpark?

Jorge Posada just hit a three-run HR to give the Yankees a 6-1 lead. Nine of his 12 HR have come with men on base this year.

Paul Konerko had quite a line today:

4 4 4 4 

Has anyone noticed he's turned into Frank Thomas without the walks? And big hurt still hasn't gotten his season together.

I love this trade. The Expos may never have another chance at winning, and they are going for it. They pick up a good pitcher having his best season. Colon has 14.6 win shares this year; the most an Expo starts has is Ohka with 7.6. The four pitchers who have been used in the 5th slot have 1.9 win shares (that's overall, they probably have less just as starters). This now gives the Expos a rotation that looks like:

Pitcher      WS

Colon      14.6

Ohka        7.6

Vazquez     6.8

Armas       4.0

Pavano, who had been used most as a fourth stater only had .3 win shares, and had fallen out of the rotation. What is really interesting is that Robinson appears to have gone to the La Russa 1990 strategy of not using the fifth starter when days off allow it. He's only used 4 starters the last two times through the rotation. Expos need to make up 5 games to get the wild card, and this deal should be good to make them 3 or 4 games better over the 2nd half of the season. That includes losing Lee Stevens, who's 4.5 win shares at first base was nothing special.

This is the sort of deal Cleveland should have made last year. Those of you who logged into BBTN on-line last year may remember be saying the Indians should trade Thome for a front line starter, either with the Angels or Marlins. Cleveland was clearly reaching the end of the run, and Hart, while producing a very good team, did not give Cleveland the championship they had long sought. They had plenty of offense, (and the Angels needed some power at first), and a deal could have given them enough to face the Mariners and Yankees. But they couldn't or wouldn't pull the trigger. Now Indians fans are going to wait a few more years as the team rebuilds. The Expos realize they can't wait any longer and are going for it. I'd love to see it work out for them. By the way, Expos attendance is about where it was last year through 39 games. In 2001, they were averaging 8500, this year 8427.

Bonds and Kent had a shoving match, but have put the situation behind them. Sure. This reminds me of Reggie Jackson and Thurman Munson. They hated each other. And with good reason, since both seemed to be loathsome individuals. Munson got better press, however, and was well liked by the manager. And the Yankees won.

You seem to have some elements of this here. Bonds is a jerk, but the manager likes him. Kent is a jerk, but got mostly good press until he allegedly lied about his motorcyle injury. They are both loathsome individuals, jealous of each other's success and extremely competitive. I love it. I hope it lights a fire under the team. Maybe it will teach Dusty Baker that it's a team, and you should treat all your players the same. Maybe it will get this team to play the way it should be, and take the NL West.

Give me the A's and Yankees of the 1970's. Never a dull moment. They didn't care about team chemistry. They just cared about winning.

This otherwise unreadable article in the Boston Globe Magazine did give me one thing to think about:

In April, Forbes magazine published a series in which it claimed that Major League Baseball had made $75 million last year. Of course, the commissioner of baseball responded to this particular outburst of optimism - with which he had a difference of opinion of a mere $307 million - by dismissing the reporting of the staid old financial publication, comparing it to a "supermarket tabloid."

...

Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, asked him a question that nobody likes to hear in any formal proceeding, and she asked it three times: ``Are you aware, sir, that you're under oath?''
Selig was testifying about his stated plan to eliminate two Major League teams in response to what he maintains is a looming fiscal catastrophe, while the committee wanted to talk about the antitrust exemption. The commissioner claimed, once again, that the 30 baseball owners lost a combined $232 million last year. Asked for specifics, Selig hedged. The committee members looked at him as if he were a space alien. ``He completely stupefied people,'' recalls one committee staffer.

WorldCom, Enron, Tyco and other coporate frauds have made publice investors very wary of the numbers being touted by all corporations. I don't know what the fallout will be, but my guess is that companies that want to keep their stock prices above $1 will become more and more transparent as to where money is coming and going. This will be especially true if executives start going to jail. I have no doubt that someone at WorldCom will be tried for fraud. Which brings us to Bud.

Selig has testified that baseball lost $232 million in 2001. Baseball's not a public company, so he really doesn't have to make the finances public. But he's testified under oath before Congress as to baseball's losses. What if he's cooking the books, as Forbes seems to be implying? If that's true, did Bud commit perjury? That seems to be what Rep. Waters' question was getting at. Maybe this is the way to get rid of Selig. Like getting Al Capone for tax evasion. Maybe, in the wake of Enron and WorldCom we should write our Congressmen and ask them to see if Selig committed perjury. Get them to supeona MLB records. (I wonder if Andersen was their accountant?) Then maybe they could work a deal where Selig leaves baseball or goes to jail. That would be a just reward.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Brian Kenny on the SportsCenter re-airs this morning mentioned how close offensively Jeter and Eckstein are this year. They are pretty even in runs scored and RBI, but Derek does have better BA, OBA and slugging averages. Jeter is clearly better, but how much?

Luckily, we have Bill James and win shares. Tonight I wrote a program to figure short form win shares. Wins shares through Monday assigns Jeter 13.9, Eckstein 11.6. That's pretty close, and closer than I thought it would be. It should also be pointed out that Eckstein's 11.6 is he highest on the Angels. Jeter ranks third behind Soriano (14.8) and Giambi (14.2). Good job by Brian Kenny and the research staff at ESPN.

A couple of my readers have started their own blogs on baseball. John J Perricone has started Only Baseball Matters. His writings are about the SF Giants, although he was originally a Yankees fan. Chris Hartjes is writing At the Ballpark. It's new, but he seems to like simulation games a lot. Hope you all enjoy these web logs. Maybe you'll get inspired to start your own.

I've been away on business. I'll be back writing tonight. I heard Brian Kenny compare David Eckstein favorably to Derek Jeter this morning. I love Eckstein, but I don't think he's Jeter. I'll try to explain why tonight.

This is the first since Munson's plane crashed in 1979. Happend two years in a row, with Bostock being killed by a gunman at the end of 1978. Most deaths seem to happen in the off-season to active players.

Raines hit a sac fly. Marlins win. Castillo left on deck without his fifth chance for a hit. It was a good run.

Fox ended up on third after a wild pitch. Any hit by Raines will end the game and kill the streak. Even a sac fly will do it. Strike out, Timmy! (Just kidding of course. The win is more important than the streak.)

I come down to look at the boxscore and Castillo is 0-4. It's the bottom of the ninth and the 4th hitter is leading off. The Marlins are down 4-1, which means they have to get 4 men on base and not score 4 runs to give Castillo a fifth chance to hit. Floyd makes the first out, but Lee triples, Wilson walks, goes to 2nd on a wild pitch, and C. Johnson doubles them in. Bush is running for Johnson, and and Andy Fox has a full count. Now Detroit has made an error and the game is tied. Raines pinch hitting, Castillo has to hope for anything but a long hit.

Bill James came up with the concept of the game score a long time ago to put a point value on a start, so you could compare how good one start is to another. You get points for IP, pitching deep into the game and strikeouts. You lose points for hits, walks and runs. It's set up so that most scores will be between 1 and 100, with anything over 90 being an excellent start. Lilly put up a 90 today, the 9th time this season a pitcher had a 90. The top scores so far:

Pitcher                Date     IP  H  R ER BB  K   GS  W  L

Schilling, Curt       4/07/02  9.0  1  0  0  2 17  100  1  0

Johnson, Randy        4/21/02  9.0  2  1  0  1 17   97  1  0

Weaver, Jeff          5/22/02  9.0  1  0  0  2 11   94  1  0

Lowe, Derek           4/27/02  9.0  0  0  0  1  6   92  1  0

Estes, Shawn          4/26/02  9.0  1  0  0  1  8   92  1  0

Perez, Odalis         4/26/02  9.0  1  0  0  0  6   91  1  0

Lilly, Ted            6/22/02  9.0  3  0  0  2 11   90  1  0

Loaiza, Esteban       5/19/02  9.0  2  0  0  0  7   90  1  0

Astacio, Pedro        5/14/02  9.0  2  0  0  2  9   90  1  0

So Lilly's had the best start by a Yankee this year.

Peter Gammons writes about how Kile cared about his teammates first.

Darryl Kile was found dead in his hotel room this afternoon. You can read about it at espn.com, including commentary from Dave Campbell. No word yet on how it happened, but from what La Russa said in an interview with Joe Buck, it looks like he died in his sleep. Today's game was postponed, but they will play tomorrow night. Tough week to be a Cardinals fan, despite the fact that they took a two game lead in the NL Central.

If you are an Orioles fan, you may want to check out Birds in the Belfry. Lots of research and articles about the Orioles, and they were nice enough to recommend this site to their readers.

Latest numbers on Castillo is that he has crossed the 1 in 100 barrier. I now estimate he has a 1 in 86 chance of breaking the hit streak record (about a 1.2% chance) based on this year's batting stats. Based on his career, he's still over 1 in 1000, at 1 in 1111.

just got a hit. Thirty-five and counting. And the ball didn't get out of the infield.

The chance of Luis Castillo breaking DiMaggio's record is 1 in 111 based on this season, one in 1430 based on his career. Let me note that the probability of Castillo having 92 hits in 297 plate appearances this year is about .01 (based on his career numbers), which some would call statistically significant (1 in 100 chance of happening). It still could be good luck, but it could also be that his hitting ability has changed.

Jayson Stark doesn't think there will be a strike, since few teams can afford it. I hope he's right.

The odds of Castillo getting a 57 game hit streak get better with every game he extends the streak. I now estimate he as about a 1 in 143 chance of breaking the record, based on his batting stats this season. It makes sense. He needs a 24 game hit streak, and those haven't been all that rare lately.

Update: Based on his career batting numbers, the odds of Castillo breaking the record are 1 in about 2080. The question is, which stats do you think represent the real Luis Castillo?

More from Dave Kindred's interview with Bud Selig:

TSN: Do you believe more than eight teams are in trouble? Selig: I'll stand with my six to eight. Maybe people will understand when, God forbid, teams can't make their payrolls. Why in life do you have to wait until something gets that bad before you do something about it?

TSN: Isn't that what revenue sharing is about?
Selig: Do the clubs understand that? Yes. Now, they do. Our first real revenue-sharing meeting was the roughest two or three days any of us had ever gone through.

It was horrible. It was about breaking this chain of no revenue sharing. Think of the wonderful vision of George Halas and the Maras and Bert Bell and Pete Rozelle and the Rooneys. All those NFL pioneers understood that these were your partners. That took a lot of vision. It took an absence of arrogance. It took an absence of selfishness.

It took people who cared about their sport more than they cared about themselves. This is a very rare thing in today's world.

TSN: And baseball lacked that?
Selig: We have people like that. John Fetzer, John Galbreath, Phil Wrigley, Gussie Busch, Tom Yawkey. But as things evolved we were more inclined to let selfishness and myopic views dominate rather than, as Pete Rozelle used to say, "Think league."

What changed for us in the late '80s and early '90s was the stunning difference in revenue because of local broadcast. In the 21st century, when you try to keep franchises in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and New York, L.A. or Chicago, you have this stunning difference.

You can't be healthy, then, without salary restraint and revenue sharing. The Maras, Bell and Rozelle were so smart they created a revenue-sharing structure from the start that saved them all. What's wrong with that?

Where do I start? I have never read anything that would lead me to think that Phil Wrigley and Gussie Busch cared more about the game than the cared about themselves. All they cared about was how much money they could make selling beer and gum. If they're baseball teams won, fine, and if they didn't, as long as people came out to the ball game, they were happy. They were not men of vision.

But the thing I really want to focus on is the last paragraph, where Bud says, "You can't be healthy, then, without salary restraint and revenue sharing." That statement there is the crux of all the problems in baseball. It's the crux of the large-small market battles, as well as the owner-player battles. I don't think anyone objects to revenue sharing. What two of the three groups object to is salary restraint. Players don't want salary restraint. They feel the market should set the salaries, and I agree. Large market owners don't really want salary restraint, because they need to bring in the big name players to draw fans to support the level of revenue they need. The group that wants restraint is Bud Selig's group; owners of small market teams that are too inept to create a winner with a smaller amout of revenue. Bud wants to put enough up enough roadblocks on the big clubs so that it's as easy for his Brewers to win as it is for the Yankees.

The problem is, it will never be easy for the Brewers as long as they are mis-managed. They do a poor job drafting and trading. The get low on-base players who strikeout a lot. If they drafted high on-base guys who put the ball in play, they would probably be an interesting and competitive team. They may not win, but they'd be fun to watch. And if you are competitive, luck will eventually put you over the top. Which brings me to another point:

TSN: Do you think the players association doesn't want to deal with any of what you see as problems?
Selig: Let's be honest about it. The status quo is what they want. From their perspective, I understand. I'm not even critical. But we just can't afford the status quo. The status quo is not producing.

In the last seven World Series, not one game has been won by a team that wasn't in the top quartile of payroll. Not one game. Forget a Series, not one game. We need to deal with this.

Selig is confusing probability with reality. Just because something hasn't happened doesn't mean it can't happen. The last two years, the Yankees were very lucky to get by the A's. The A's had better teams both years. The A's could easily have won the World Series the last two years. The A's were unlucky. But the A's have a lousy fan base, play in a lousy stadium, have another team to compete with across the bay, and manage to win. And they do it, not with tons of money, but with front office smarts. The Brewers have the owner in the commissioner's office manipulating things to make it easier for them to win, and they still are horrible.

Bud Selig is the problem with baseball. He has needed to form a partnership between the individual owners, and between the owners and the players. He's failed at both, because he's not believable. It's time for a new commissioner, payed equally by both the owners and the players, who's job it is to protect the best interests of the game, and to bring all parties together. I know it's not going to happen soon, but maybe when Bud screws this up again, everyone will come to their senses.

I just heard that Jack Buck is going to lie in state at home plate at Busch Stadium today. How wonderful for the people of St. Louis to be able to pay their respects at the place Jack worked for so many years. The Yankees did that for Babe Ruth; I had hoped they would do the same for Mantle and DiMaggio, but it didn't happen. Even though it's a morbid thought, I would hope that players like Ted Williams, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron would think about having this done when they pass away. Fans adore these players and would love to have a chance to bid them farewell.

Zachary Manprin sent me this link to a Dave Kindred interview with Selig. To read this, Selig makes you think he's had nothing to do with the labor problems of the last 30 years:

We showed the financial numbers to the clubs again in a meeting recently, left them up on the board, team by team. There wasn't a sound in the room. I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, these are the numbers that I've taken a fearful pounding over, that you submitted, that many bodies have had, that bankers have never raised questions about."

And I said, "Look, it's really competitive balance that we have to talk about. I don't think the average fan gives a damn whether a team has made money or lost money. It's, 'How does that affect the play on the field?' And, unfortunately, it's begun to affect play on the field. We can't ignore that."

So the last thing anybody wants is a work stoppage. But I don't think we have the option to ignore this. If I can fault baseball, I borrow a line my wife used to use. It's Scarlett O'Hara's line from Gone With the Wind -- a perfect repression mechanism: "I'll think about it tomorrow."

That's what we did. We did it in '76, in '80, in '81. Lee MacPhail, a great baseball man, said in '85, "We're fighting for the small markets. You can see the problem coming." We didn't do anything about it. In 1990, the same thing. Had a wonderful opportunity to address the problem. Didn't. In '94, we know what that was -- clubs attempting to change the system. So here we are today.

Now, Dave Kindred doesn't call him on any of this. First of all, plenty of people have questioned the numbers including Forbes. So Bud putting them on a blackboard doesn't add any veritas to them.

As for ignoring the problem in all those other years, there was no problem to ignore. This problem didn't arise until the national TV contract ran out in 1994. Up until that time, all teams shared enough money so everyone could afford 2 or 3 superstars. MacPhail may have seen it coming, but it took another 10 years to happen.

I was just reading Bud's biography on the MLB site, and while it mentions that he was "active in the governance of Major League Baseball during his tenure as President of the Milwaukee Brewers," it doesn't say that that activity was in labor relations. So if baseball was ignoring problems, Selig was right in the middle of it.

I find this interesting also:

TSN: Couldn't you take that local broadcast money and just divide it up among the clubs however you wanted?
Selig: No, revenue sharing is now a subject of bargaining with the players association. Do I agree? No. But we haven't wanted to go to court over that. Everybody keeps saying, "It's your revenue. Why don't you guys just do what you want?"

For years, Marvin Miller and Don Fehr (the players' last two executive directors) have said, "Why are you guys coming to us? Why should the players solve your problems? Do what you want to solve your problems. Share revenue anyway you want." Now things have changed. Now they want to talk about a different plan.

TSN: You mean, if the 30 owners sat down and said, "We've got $2 billion here; we're going to divide it up how we want," the players would have to pass on it?
Selig: Yes.

Well, the reason the players are involved is because the owners wanted revenue sharing to come out of the players' pockets. Remember the idea of a salary cap? Now, the players union is only really interested in protecting the interests of the very rich players, which is why they don't want to see the big market teams losing a lot of money to revenue sharing. But I'm sure they'll accept it as long as a cap isn't put on how much a player can make.

Bud's a great car salesman. You read this interview and think, "Gee, he makes sense." That's why you have to leave the showroom and think about it. Bud would kill free agency if he could. He'd love to go back to the days of the reserve clause forever. That's the only way he'll ever be able to make a winner out of the Brewers.

This game could be ugly. Yankees are already up 2-0 after the top of the first, with Jeter hitting a solo shot. Mussina is having his worst year giving up HR, and Butler just took him deep to make the score 2-1. A five hour game, anyone?

The Red Sox are scoring 6.03 runs per game on the road this year. The most any Sox team has ever scored on the road was 5.61, done 3 times (1995, 1939 and 1938). Not only are they hitting well on the road, but they are also pitching well on the road. They have allowed 3.44 runs per game on the road, a difference of 2.59. If that were to hold up, it would be the 2nd highest road difference of all time. The top five teams in run difference on the road each won their league championships:

Team On Road   Runs/Game   Opps. R/Game   Difference

Yankees 1939        7.80           3.93         3.87

Cubs 1906           4.74           2.20         2.54

Yankees 1953        6.14           3.95         2.19

Senators 1933       6.39           4.25         2.14

Giants 1912         5.59           3.45         2.14

Johan Santana (sounds like he should be playing classical electric guitar) is having what may be the best start of his career. The top four batters in the Mets order have 9 AB and 6 K through 6.

I was just watching the Royals-Expos game (I thought I'd watch the worst game on TV tonight) and Guerrero dropped a linedrive hit at him. The announcer said it was the 2nd time that happened tonight. Sure enough, I just looked at the defensive efficiency record for the Expos. DER is the percent of time a ball is put into play is turned into an out, taking out HR. Expos are last in the NL.

I wondered if the ballpark had something to do with (outfielders losing balls in the roof or the lights), but the Expos are much better at home. They have a .696 DER at home, only .649 on the road. This makes some sense, since artificial turf usually means cleaner bounces and fewer errors.

A career .268 hitter, Tyler Houston is hitting .311 (14/45) in games played in Houston. That includes a 7/22 at the Astrodome, and 7/23 at whatever they are calling the new park (you know, they should just call it LBJ field). I wonder if he considers it his home town? :-)

Vidro only trails Alomar by 11,000 votes. Keep voting for the Twins and the Expos! We can do this! Send the teams Bud wants to contract to his All-star Game! For more information, click here. Remember, you can stuff the ballot box at Subway stores, too. I can fill out half a dozen ballots while I down my 1/2 sub.

After all the hype, I think hitting a HR off Clemens is a much better way of retaliating than hitting him. And to have Estes do it also just put the icing on the cake.

I was a big Graig Nettles fan growing up. I remember a couple of times pitchers knocked Nettles down with a high inside pitch. He didn't charge the mound. He got up and hit a HR. (I was at a double header on July 4th, 1978 where this happened, and I remember watching games on TV where I saw it happen, but sometimes 25 years plays tricks with your memory.) Trying to intimidate a hitter with an inside pitch is part of the game. Showing that the intimidation doesn't work is great revenge.

John Burkett of the Boston Red Sox says he'll boycott the all-star game if chosen for the squad in this article on ESPN.com:

Burkett said he won't play in the Midsummer Classic -- played in Milwaukee on July 9 -- largely because of commissioner Bud Selig's connection to the Brewers. Burkett said he has been soured by Selig's handling of the labor situation.

''I don't want to go to Milwaukee and play in an All-Star Game that would benefit him,'' Burkett told The Globe. ''It's something I feel strongly about, and I'm willing to stand up and make that decision.''

Selig was owner of the Brewers before becoming baseball commissioner. His daughter now runs the team.

I think Burkett makes an important point about Selig here. Bud isn't commissioner for the benefit of baseball and baseball fans. He's commissioner for the benefit of the Milwaukee Brewers. That's why he wants a payroll tax instead of real revenue sharing. With a payroll tax, money flows in one direction, from rich clubs to poor clubs, like the Brewers. With real revenue sharing, like taking 50% of all local money and splitting it between all the teams, some money would flow out of the Brewers.

to all the fathers and fathers-to-be reading this. Share a ballgame with your dad when you get a chance.

Did you notice that the Twins were the only AL team to win a game yesterday? And against none other than the team owned by the man who wanted to get rid of them, Bud Selig. Of course, one could argue that the Brewers aren't really an NL team. Bud probably made the switch so he wouldn't have to pay a DH's salary. Remember, when you're filling out your all-star ballot, vote for all Twins and Expos and send a message to the commissioner.

I just noticed this and thought it was interesting. The A's are 7-2 when they blow a save, the Mariners 6-2. I guess those teams are never out of it.

Luis Castillo goes for a 30-game hit streak today. In this AP article on ESPN.com, I found this quote interesting:

The Marlins' leadoff man and second baseman is strictly a singles hitter. His 52 hits during the streak included just four for extra bases. He had walked only four times, partly because pitchers don't want to give the leading base-stealer in the major leagues a free pass.

In other words, he's the kind of scrappy batter likely to put together a hitting streak.

I've had some fun with the probabilities of hit streaks over the years. One thing I've found is that batters who walk a lot are a lot less likely to have hit streaks than batters that don't. Why? Because the probability of a hit streak depends on something I call hit average which I define as Hits/PA (plate appearances). If you have two players with the same batting average, the one with fewer walks will have the higher hit average (but a lower OBA), and will in general be more likely to have a longer hit streak.

For example, take two .300 hitters. One draws 100 walks and gets 165 hits in 550 AB. The other draws 50 walks and gets 180 hits in 600 AB. Both have 650 PA. The first player has a hit average of .254, while the 2nd player has a hit average of .277. The first player, however, has an OBA of .408, while the 2nd player has an OBA of .354. So if you need to get someone on base, send up the first player. If you need a hit, send the 2nd. Right now, Castillo is more like player 2.

The other factor in determining the probability of a long streak is the number of times you come to the plate in a game. The more times you step up to the plate in a game, the more likely you are to get a hit in one of those PA. Let's take our player with the .277 hit average as an example:

                Prob. of at

PA in Game      least 1 Hit

         1          .277

         2          .477

         3          .622

         4          .727

         5          .802

So if you can get 5 PA in a game, you have an 80% chance of getting a hit. Batting leadoff, Castillo is maximizing his chances of getting the extra AB. So things are looking good for a long streak by Castillo. His hit average this year is .302. That gives him an 83% chance of getting a hit in a 5 PA game. He gets 5 PA in roughly 3 out of 5 games he plays. Given those numbers, I give Castillo a little better than 21 in 500 chance of hitting in another 28 straight games. Not outlandish odds. Maybe this will generate some fan interest in the Marlins.

Jordan Ellel points me to this article by Joe Morgan. Toward the end, he makes a comment about intimidators Gibson and Drysdale:

In Baker's estimation, Clemens would be dodging pitches in the National League because he throws at too many hitters. Bonds became the 132nd batter Clemens has hit during his career, ranking him first among active pitchers. But Clemens, in 20 total plate appearances, has never been hit by a major-league pitch.

Like Clemens, Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale were intimidators on the mound. At the same time, they stood at the plate and took their lumps -- and that is the way it should be. Gibson was hit eight times in his career and Drysdale five times.

Bob Gibson hit 102 batters in his career. He was hit 8 times. Where's the retaliation? Where are teammates following the unwritten rule? Drysdale hit 154 batters and he was hit 5 times. That's taking your lumps? That's detering these famous headhunters from throwing at batters?

This whole issue is bogus. I'm going to have to do the research later, but my guess is that with or without the DH, retaliation has never been against the pitcher. It's been against the first guy up in the next inning, or the start slugger if your star slugger got hit. And that's exactly what happened in the game where Piazza got hit. Tino Martinez led off the next inning, and was plunked by Rusch. End of story.

This is all Bobby Valentine, the NY press, and former players who never look at statistics before they shoot their mouths off. If Estes wants to hit Clemens, he should be thrown out of the game. There is no unwritten rule here that requires him to do that. He's just buying into the hate of his manager. Don't give in to the dark side, Shawn!

The schedule makers did a pretty good job, but you have to wonder about the following matchups:

• Pittsburgh at Cincinnati


• Detroit at Arizona


• Cleveland at Colorado

They could have done Cleveland at Cincy, Detroit at Pittsburgh and had Colorado and Arizona play each other. I'm sure there were other variables that caused this to happen, but they almost had it perfect.

Rob Neyer talks about contraction in today's column and about how the Royals have to be on the short list despite denials by Glass. His arguments make sense.

I'm not opposed to contraction in general, but I am opposed to the way Bud Selig tried to pull it off. One reader wrote to tell me that he considers Bud a dictator. I'm not about to disagree with that. What Selig was doing was destroying two franchises. This is both unnecessary and unfair. You can have contraction without hurting any teams, and might even create better jobs for ballplayers at the same time.

I think the best configuration for a league is 12 teams, two 6 team divisions. (The AL 1969-1976 was an example of this, as was the NL from 1969-1992). This way, you play your division foes 18 times each (90 games) and the teams in the other division 12 times each (72 games). None of this interleague stuff. Save that for the World Series. Right now, we have 30 teams, which very nicely form five six-team divisions. All we need are 6 more teams.

I know what you are thinking. He wants another expansion! Nothing of the sort. The problem with MLB right now is that you have at least 6 teams that are not capable of competeing for a championship because of:

• Lack of money.


• Lack of a fan base.


• Incompetence

These teams could survive if they had a $20 million dollar payroll. And a winning team. Because then they could have low ticket prices and be competitive and the fans would come see them. They sound like minor league teams.

So rather than destroying franchises, let's recast them as a super-minor league. We can take 6 top AAA teams (like Buffalo and Louisville) who want to be in the majors and promote them to this super minor league. These teams would not be farm teams; they would compete for players with the major league teams. They would have farm systems. They would just be a smaller (cost wise) league.

Here's how I see it working. There would be one draft. ML teams get the first 24 picks, so you concentrate talent in the majors. The Super Minor (SM for short) would get the next 12, and each round would go on like that. There would be a separate labor agreement with the SM, with a lower base salary, but otherwise the same rules regarding free agency (and maybe they'll be smart and avoid arbitration by having a shorter period before free agency takes hold). They would respect the same commissioner, unless Congress gets smart and overturns the anti-trust exemption. I would expect all 36 clubs to trade with each other, and I would expect the SM clubs to sell players to the majors. National TV revenue would go the ML clubs; the SM would be free to sign it's own TV deals.

The AL and NL would go back to two rounds of playoffs. The SM would have one playoff round to determine it's champion. Every year, the SM champion would be given the option to move up to the majors, replacing the worst team in the majors. This way, if an SM teams decides it wants a piece of the ML television money, if it's stadium is selling out, if it develops a loyal and large TV audience, it can spend a lot of money and make it self into an ML team. This would be a great incentive for teams to be good, rather than trying to get rich putting a lousy, cheap team on the field and pocketing all the money. It also gives a great incentive to ML teams not to be bad. If they start losing, they may lose all that TV money.

I think this solutions helps everybody. It creates more jobs at a higher salary for players than they would get in AAA. It gives some place for veterans to go as their careers decline. It gives the small markets good, independent teams that can be competitive. It makes travel and scheduling much easier for the remaining ML teams, and gives them a financial boost by allowing them to keep a bigger slice of the TV pie. That will lead to higher salaries for stars, which will make the union happy. Andrew Zimbalist, who wrote Baseball and Billions, believes that baseball could easily expand to 40 teams. I don't thing 40 ML teams is feasible, but 24 ML teams and 12 independent minor league teams is.

This isn't that hard a problem to solve. The people running baseball need to show a little creativity, something that has been sorely lacking there.

Seems Tom Lampkin has some political connections. I had the idea last year to get Bush on BBTN on-line, but I never pushed it. Edward Boyd pointed this out at his blog.

I wonder what it is about Gary Matthews, Jr. that makes teams marginalize him. The Orioles have no one at the top of the order getting on base. Matthews has a .345 OBA, over .390 vs. RHP. Why isn't he at least leading off against righties? Hargrove was a great leadoff hitter, in that he got on base. Why isn't Matthews in there everyday? Why did the Cubs and Pirates give up on him? It's not like any of these clubs are brimming with offensive talent.

Someday he's going to go to a team with a manager that appreciates his strengths, and I think he'll be a good ballplayer.

How unusual. There were no games scheduled for today, and we have one because there is a rain out being made up. Although it makes sense, with teams from different parts of the country playing each other, you want to leave a space for a makeup game, because these teams aren't going to see each other again for a while.

Good to see Brenly use Kim in the 8th. The heart of the Yankees order was up, and Kim struck out Williams, Giambi and Posada. Most managers would have gone with a setup man because it wasn't the 9th. A closer should be your best relief pitcher, and come in for the tough situation, whether it's the 8th or the 9th, or even earlier if the situation warrants.

My friend Mike Wechsler has a son Avi that plays little league. With the bases loaded in the 9th yesterday, he caught a line drive at third, stepped on the bag, and tagged the runner coming from 2nd! Congrats, Avi!

I'd publish Mike's letter here, but his writing style is an embarassment to Harvard men everywhere. :-)

Here's Tom Glavine's lines vs. lefties and righties this year:

               Avg   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  SB CS TBB HBP SO GDP OBP  SLG

vs. Left      .279 ---  61 ---  17  5  0  1   4   1  0   4  1   7  0 .333 .410

vs. Right     .206 --- 296 ---  61 14  0  4  15   4  5  20  2  55  7 .259 .294

Notice that despite lefties hitting Glavine much better than righties, very few lefties get to face him. This isn't unusual for Glavine. His career numbers show the same thing:

               Avg    G   AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  SB CS  TBB   SO  OBP  SLG

vs. Left      .259 ---- 2379 ---  616  99 10  37 219  37 21  219  424 .323 .356

vs. Right     .249 ---- 9736 --- 2426 436 35 194 930 146 95  867 1565 .311 .361

His first three years in the majors, this wasn't true. But since that time, he's been one of the top pitchers in the game.

I've asked a number of players, including his former catcher Greg Olson, why Glavine is better against righties. Each told me the same thing. He throws a pitch that runs away from righties but right into a lefties wheelhouse. I've also asked them, since this seems to be well known, why managers don't start lefties against him. The answer from all of them was that managers don't want to be second guessed if they lose. Shouldn't it be the job of a manager to maximize the chance of winning? It seems to me the fear to start lefties vs. Glavine will put Tom in the hall of fame.

Just as an example, the Twins have benched lefties Mientkiewicz, Pierzynski and Ortiz tonight, and are being shutout by Glavine through 6.

Bartolo Colon pitched another great game tonight, giving up 1 run in 8 innings vs. the Phillies. One place Colon has improved is against lefties. Entering today:

Colon BA Allowed       Career      2002

Vs. LHB                  .262      .233

Vs. RHB                  .242      .248

He's also only allowed a .175 BA with runners in scoring position, 4th best in the AL. All this despite his strikeouts being down.

Coming into today, the Reds relievers have as many strikeouts as their starters do. Both groups have struck out 176, but the starters have taken 330.2 innings, while the relievers have accomplished this in 223.2 innings. Reds relievers have the 4th best ERA in the NL and the ML, 2.98. The starters ERA of 4.33 is 10th in the NL, but they have the fewest innings pitched of any NL team (Reds relievers have the most).

The offense is weak to okay. The starters are weak to okay. The bullpen is very good, but is being overworked. This reminds me of the Phillies of last year. They were able to hang in by bringing in some young arms to start. My feeling is if unless the bullpen can get some rest, the Reds will wear out the only strength they have and fall out of the NL Central race.

What has happened to offense at first base? When I look at a team by position, first is where I want to see the highest batting numbers. On-base + slugging by first basemen is way down this year. Five teams have OPS under .700 from the position:

Team           OPS at First Base

Mets                   .579

Giants                 .638

Red Sox                .658

Expos                  .694

Tigers                 .699

During the offensive explosion of 1994-2001, there were only 7 times that team first basemen had OPS below .700. In this time period, ML first baseman OPS averaged .853, while overall OPS was .765. So first basemen were about 90 points higher than the league average. This year, the overall numbers have dropped about 20 points to .743, but OPS at first has dropped 40 points to .812.

Of course, the good news is that if you don't have offense at first, it should be easy to find some. I can't believe every club doesn't have a pure power hitter sitting in the minors that is capable of catching a baseball thrown at his chest. (By the way, it's nice the see the Tigers did such a good job of replacing Tony Clark :-))

Daniel Altman sent me the link to this article by Tobias Seamon. I think Tobias gets it exactly right. For more on Hal Chase, read Bill James' Historical Abstract.

Rob Neyer has installed me as link of the week. Rob should be a must read for any baseball fan. He thinks clearly on the game and does great research. Thanks, Rob!

ESPN just finished taping. If they get the cassettes back in time, it will be on the 6 PM (eastern) SportsCenter. Probably toward the end of the show.

ESPN is coming up to tape me discussing the odds of the Lakers losing the NBA finals at this point. I'll let you know when and if it's going to air.

The government is getting involved in investigating steriods. I'm glad they have time for this. They must have tax cuts, social security, education, energy and homeland security all taken care of. :-)

Marcus Thames just made his batting debut for the Yankees. On the first pitch from Randy Johnson, he hit a long HR into the Yankees bullpen. He's twenty six, so I don't expect great things from him, but he's in the record book, and not too many players can say that.

This is very funny. Thanks, Andy Borowitz!

David Schoenfield does his usual good job of breaking down Glavine vs. Schilling. One criticism, however:

It can be argued that since Schilling has relied so much on the strikeout, he hasn't had to rely on his defense as much as Glavine. Glavine has allowed five unearned runs (making his run per game average just over 2.00) and also has a below-average defense behind him, with the exception of the outstanding Andruw Jones in center field (corner outfielders Chipper Jones and Gary Sheffield have poor range, corner infielders Vinny Castilla and Julio Franco are old and middle infielders Rafael Furcal and Marcus Giles are hardly Gold Glove candidates). Glavine has been outstanding despite his defense, not because of it.

Actually, as I've pointed out before, the DBacks defense isn't that good. Per 1000 balls put in play against the defense (non-HR), the Braves turn 15 more into outs than does the DBacks defense. So part of Glavine's success is that he has a good defense behind him. Schilling has to strikeout a lot of batters because of his defense.

Henry Aaron now owns a Krispy Kreme franchise. Maybe he figures if he fattens Bonds up on doughnuts he won't be able to break the HR record. :-)

No, he's not taking them because he wants to be as big as Jon Miller. He's commenting that the burden of this scandal is on the Player's Association, since it is players who are accusing other players. Fair enough. The paragraphs that made me roll my eyes, however, are these two:

On a radio show recently, Bob Costas said he felt the explosion of power since the 1994 strike has been partly attributed to steroid use. He had aired the same opinion at least once before. When Bob and I were broadcasting the 2000 All-Star Game in Atlanta, he said that both the balls and the players were juiced.

The problem is, how does one know who is juiced? I have always maintained that poorer pitching, smaller ballparks and livelier balls have contributed to the increase in home runs. I cannot consider steroids a contributor without proof.

Starting in 1994, Joe would go around spouting about how the ball was juiced (along with a lot of others in the game) with absolutely no proof! He had not seen any tests of baseball. Although I tried to get ESPN to do an indepth piece on the manufacturing of baseball that would have asked for records of manufacturing changes and results of rebound tests, they never did. When a UMass professor finally did the test for MLB a few years ago, he found what I had suspected all along; balls were legal, but they were consistently manufactured at the high end of the legal limit. I believe this wasn't a conspiracy, but a result of better statistical analysis used in the manufacturing of baseballs making them more consistent.

Before the late 1980's, US manufactures would make millions of whatever they were building, then test them to see if they worked. If they didn't work, they threw them out, fixed the process, and started all over again. In the 1980's, Japan was kicking the US economically because they adpoted a statistical method of quality control that would catch manufacturing defects after a few hundred went wrong, not thousands or millions. To keep from going out of business, American manufacturers started adpoting these techniques.

How does this apply to baseball? Okay, you set your machines up and start making baseballs. There is a lot of leeway in the size and weight of a ball, and how far it's allowed to rebound. You set the machines to make a tight ball, and as time goes on, things don't work as efficiently, and you start making looser balls. So you get a distribution of balls across all legal levels. After you notice you've made thousands of bad balls, you go back and fix the machines and start all over. But now with the new technique, you see 100 balls getting out of whack, and even though they are still legal, you go fix the machine! And since fixing means a tight ball, you get so called juiced balls.

The solution, of course, is to set the machines to make balls at the midpoint of the rebound range. We're seeing less offense this year. I don't know how long it takes balls to work their way through the system, but my bet is something like this has happened.

Jose Canseco is writing a book. Or at least he's talking to a reporter who's going to write a book for him. Jose admits to steriod use. Alert the media! He's going to name names of others who are using steriods. This has to be the biggest news since the good unemployment report at 8:30 this morning. :-)

I'm sort of disappointed that the Wall Street Journal is involved in this. This is a crass story that is being sensationalized. I really don't care about Jose's failed marriages or his relationship with Madonna. Who hasn't had a relationship with Madonna? (Hands please?) :-)

We now have a few people who say they either used steriods illegally, or know of people who used them illegally, or both. People will be calling for baseball to clean up it's act. I disagree. It's time for law enforcement to get involved. Subpoena Canseco and Caminiti and Brian McRae. Start talking to Bonds and Boone and the other people who have doubled their size recently. Make some arrests. I believe it worked in the 1980's in putting the cocaine scandal behind us (although, who really knows if anything changed). A superstar in jail will do a lot more to curb steriod use than any policy the union and management produce.

Rob Neyer thinks MLB teams should ignore high school players in the draft. He bases this on a study Bill James did on how to best allocate resources for a draft. Read it, and think about it. It makes a lot of sense.

This is actually how I buy cars. I decide what kind of car I want (sedan, wagon), then read a little to get an idea of what the best cars in the class are, then drive 3 or 4 different models. Then I take my time to decide on which of those I want.

For his career, Derek Jeter's power is fairly evenly divided among all three fields:

Jeter, Career HR

To Field           HR

Left               29

Center             44

RF                 33

Jeter has hit 52 on the road and 54 in home games. The distribution by field shows the effect of Yankee Stadium:

Jeter, Career HR

To Field         Home     Road

Left               12       17

Center             22       22

RF                 20       13

Even as a right-handed batter, Jeter is good at taking advantage of the short right field porch in Yankee Stadium.

Bill James writing about the relationship between pitchers, hits allowed, defense and strikeouts has had me thinking about baseball statistics in a whole new way. It makes someone like Randall Simon of the Tigers seem a lot more interesting to me. He and Bonds are the only players in the majors with more HR than strikeouts. Simon doesn't take pitches; he has by far the lowest pitches seen per PA average in the AL. He doesn't walk. What he does is see a pitch he thinks he can hit and put it in play. In the past I would be very down on this type of player, but now I'm wondering if this isn't a perfectly good approach. I'll be doing more on this.

Looks like the vote for the Twins-Expos campaign is having an effect. Twins have a player in the top 5 at each position except catcher. Keep voting! Keep telling your friends! Here's the web site if you'd like to learn more.

Chuck Finder of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an article on the Pirates poor offense. He thinks the pitchers should pinch-hit:

Entering Monday's date in Montreal, Benson had as many doubles as Benjamin and Osik (one). Dave Williams and Kip Wells had as many homers (two) as Craig Wilson , twice as many homers as Kendall and Brown and Osik, and a shutout going on Jack Wilson, Armando Rios, Reese, Nunez and Benjamin. Combined, the starting pitchers owned a .171 average with eight RBIs and one of the eight triples mustered by the punchless Pirates.

"Pitchers just try to put it in play," said Wells, an All-Star candidate already -- on the mound more so than at the plate. "Sometimes in hitting that's what guys need to do if you're struggling.

"Just try to put it in play and hit it the other way. Generally that's what pitchers try to do. Even though we generally don't do it well."

They do it well enough that Wells offered this thought: Now pinch-hitting for the pitcher ... pitcher Jimmy Anderson.

"Jimmy's probably the best hitter of the pitchers," Wells said of the lefty with the .238 average. "He might get to pinch-hit one of these days. He gets to wear his cleats every other outing. 'Cause you never know."

Putting the ball in play was a strategy I was advocating for trying to beat Johnson and Schilling, so it's good to see others are thinking about it.

Also, given my recent comments about Bonds and Sosa's frustration with their poor offensive teams, Brian Giles is probably feeling the same way. He has 26 extra-base hits, a .444 OBA, but only 32 RBI, despite hitting .314 with men in scoring position. Another player who would be getting lots of MVP consideration on a better team.

ESPN.com has an AP article speculating on Schilling winning 30. Thirty wins has become almost impossible to achieve for two reasons:

1. Real five man rotations


2. The disappearance of the complete game

By real five man rotations, I mean what the Red Sox are doing. When the Red Sox have a day off, they don't drop their fifth starter from the rotation. So their best pitchers start every five games instead of every five days. The DBacks, on the other had, seem to have adapted Tony La Russa's strategy of 1990, where he used his fifth starters in only 24 games. That gave each of his big four about two more starts (that was the year Welch won 27 with 35 starts). Schilling is going every 5 days, so he could get up to 37 starts. That gives him a better shot.

The tendancy of managers to go to the bullpen earlier and earlier also hurts starters decisions. There's more of a chance that someone else will blow the game and cost you a win. In the NL, the average starter goes 6 innings. So there is a 1/3 of a game that is out of his control. Schilling is averaging 7 1/3 innings per game, so his relievers only have to get 5 outs on average. That also gives him a better shot.

I don't think Schilling will get 30. I really think pitchers need to get over 40 starts to have a shot at that. But it looks like things are as favorable as can be for him to make a run at it.

I just read that Buck Martinez will be fired today. I have mixed feelings about this. I worked with Buck at ESPN, and it was always a pleasure dealing with him. He was intelligent, well spoken, polite and would remember you even if he hadn't seen you for years. He was one of the few announcers who would use the computer to research statistics, even in the days before the popularity of the internet. This shouldn't happen to nice guys like Buck Martinez.

Unfortunately, he wasn't a good manager. I thought last year's Toronto team was pretty good. When they started failing, Buck wasn't able to revive them. I had a feeling when he took the job he might be in over his head. It's too bad. I hope he returns to the broadcast booth.

I was going to revisit my post of May 2nd about Bret Boone's swoon yesterday, but I'm glad I didn't, as he ended up hitting a grand slam. My even thinking about Bret doing poorly spurs him to action! I remember having the same effect on Todd Benzinger. He was a light hitting first baseman who came up with the Red Sox. Everytime I complained about his lack of power to someone, he'd hit a HR.

I think the only way to describe Robert Person's day is Ruthian. To start off, here's his batting line:

Philadelphia    ab  r  h bi  w  k  avg

Person, p        3  3  2  7  1  1 .154

Those two hits were both HR. On top of that, he also pitched real well:

Philadelphia                 IP    H  R ER BB  K #Pit   ERA

Person                        5    3  1  0  4  5  86   4.79

The Phillies aren't getting much offense out of CF. Maybe Person can become an outfielder!

Update: It's 17-3 in that game in the 9th. Expos probably wish they had been contracted. :-)

Chuck Finley pitched 7 shutout innings today, throwing only 99 pitches. Of course, that means you have to get him out of the game and go to the setup man and closer. Shuey and Wickman combined for 5 hits and 3 runs in two innings, nearly blowing the game. Finley's not a 20 year-old rookie. He should be able to go past 100 pitches, especially if he's going well. I see Bobby Cox do this with Maddux all the time. If there's nothing wrong, and the pitch count is low, why not leave the veteran in the game?

Red Sox are now 7-4 vs. the Yankees this year after the win today. With a 2 game lead, these games have made all the difference. They have almost identical runs per game and ERA. Red Sox have done much better in 1-run games, however, going 7-2 vs. the Yankees 6-7. Best sight at today's game, however, was General Tommy Franks swaying to the music between innings. :-)

Do you think these two players are totally frustrated? Bonds has 18 HR and 33 RBI. That means he has driven himself in more (18) than he's driven in other runners(15). Same with Sosa; 19 HR, and 35 RBI (16 not himself). Bonds has only had 96 runners on in front of him (Giambi leads with 183), and he's been intentionally walked 20 times. Sosa has had a few more opportunities, with 126 runners on base and only 8 IBB. But unlike last year, Sosa is not hitting with runners in scoring position, putting up only a .216 BA, while Bonds has made the most of his opportunites with a .316 BA in those situations. Still, neither player has anyone really setting the table, and both have no support batting behind. They are each having MVP seasons again, but their poor teams may cost them each a shot at the title.

From yesterday's White Sox-Indians game:

Chicago                      IP    H  R ER BB  K #Pit   ERA

Ritchie (L,3-7)               5    4  8  0  2  3  89   4.37

Although there were two errors in the inning, the first one caused all the runs to be unearned. Ritchie pitched badly in the inning, giving up 4 hits, 2 walks, and a Thome HR. I've always wondered if pitchers think, "I'm not getting charged with these runs, I don't care if I allow them." I often get that feeling with relievers. "These men on base aren't my responsibility, they aren't going to hurt my ERA." If you've played fantasy baseball and had a relief pitcher allow runners charged to one of your starters score, you know what I mean.