Rob Neyer points out this column by Michael Kay on why he thinks this deal might raise some eyebrows.

With 15 K tonight, Randy Johnson is only 13 behind Seaver for 15th on the all-time K list. He's also now within 1900 of Ryan. He'll be 40 in September, but his K per 9 remains very high at 11.2. Given he keeps this up for the rest of the year. He'll be within 1700 of Ryan at the end of the season. So he'll need to average a little less than 300 K a year for 6 years to pass Ryan. Here's Ryan from the age of 40 on (seasonal age):

Age   K           K/9

---  ----         ---

 40   270        11.48

 41   228         9.33

 42   301        11.32

 43   232        10.24

 44   203        10.56

 45   157         8.98

 46    46         6.24

That's a total of 1437 K. So even if Johnson matches the greatest pitching performance by anyone over 40, he'll still fall short. But let's say Johnson has two more 350 K seasons left in him. That would leave him about 1000 short of Ryan, and from age 42 on, Ryan had 939 K's.

Ryan's record looked insurmountable when it was set. It still may be, but until Johnson actually slows down, I wouldn't bet against him reaching that mark.

With his win today, Rodrigo Lopez probably should be pitcher of the month. He went 6-0 in July with a 2.57 ERA. All that despite allowing 7 HR, accounting for 9 of his 13 runs allowed (12 earned). With low strikeouts and a good number of HR allowed, I don't know if he's going to go far, but he's a bright spot in a season that turning out to be better than I would have expected.

Mussina had another bad outing tonight. He's not allowing that many men on base, but when batters do get on, he gets hit hard (entering tonight):

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

None on       .222 --- 333 ---  74 11  1 10  10  0  0  17  1  77 .262 .351

Runners on    .290 --- 186 ---  54 11  3  9  53  5  3  12  2  30 .333 .527

Mussina's ERA is now 4.83. That's more than 1.30 higher than his career average. Is he hurt? Or at age 33, has he lost something off his fastball, and hasn't made the adjustment?

Rob Neyer also senses something fishy in the Expos-Red Sox deal:

In case you didn't follow the story last winter, it's commonly believed that Commissioner Bud fixed the sale of the Red Sox, approving the purchase by a group that promised to support Selig's plans for revenue sharing and a luxury tax.

And of course, Selig is the de facto owner of the Montreal franchise. So when the Expos deal with the Red Sox, it's not unreasonable to assume the doings are shady in some sense.

And they probably are. However, if Selig fixed the sale of the Red Sox, wouldn't it be the Sox who owe Selig a favor, rather than the other way around?

Sure the Red Sox owe Selig a favor, and now they owe him two. Bud needs big market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox to support his revenue sharing and salary tax schemes. The Sox owners are now doubly indebted to him. He has the Yankees, since as commissioner, he allowed George Steinbrenner back into the game. Believe me, Bud will call in his favors.

Jordan Ellel writes:

In addition, I saw a piece briefly mentioned on the Sports Reporters about how Joe Torre spoke to Mondesi after he hit a home run against the D-Rays and took a little too long watching it (not to mention running with his bat still - reminds me of George Carlin's complaint about how unfair baseball is...you get this great weapon, and the first thing they make you do is throw it away). It just re-emphasizes something that has been apparent to most of the world for a long time - love the Yanks, or hate them - how great a manager is Joe Torre? I remember an article on Page 2 at the beginning of last season (or maybe this year) about how significant the little things Torre does that other managers don't make such a huge difference (not criticizing players in the media, being upfront with players about their roles, etc.) He's been perhaps the largest factor in the Yankees streak the past 6 years, and while he certainly gets credit, he doesn't get nearly enough talk for Manager of the Year and such. I know there is money and the Yanks are supposed to win, but he does so much to bring that team together and makes many ingenious moves that may be luck, but there are too many of them. Not to mention the fact that he's not only survived 6 years with Herr Steinbrenner as owner, but thrived is a testament unto itself.

I agree that Grady Little has done a tremendous job with Boston this year (although the changes up top helped too), but with Boston falling back in the standings, and the Yanks moving to the top, I hope Torre doesn't get overlooked again just because of the money. Sure the Yanks are supposed to win, but the money was there in the 80's and early 90's and plenty of managers couldn't win with it. Torre deserves to at least be talked about in those discussions and should be a shoo-in for the HoF when he hangs up his managerial spikes.

When Torre was still managing the Cardinals, Bill James wrote a piece on managers, in which he basically said that Torre was a good manager of people, but wasn't good at strategy. I still think that's true.

Two or three years ago I asked someone I met who seemed to like baseball who the best manager was. His answer was Joe Torre. I asked him if he thought that before Torre took over the Yankees. The reply was no. Did anyone think Torre was a great manager when he was with the Mets, Braves or Cardinals? Probably not, because he didn't win. Does Torre manage differently now? I don't think so. I think the difference comes from having a great team, and having bench coaches who are better at strategy than he is.

Torre is the exact opposite of Buck Showalter. Buck can position outfielders perfectly, construct a logical lineup, move people in and out of the game at just the right time, but he can't manage people. With the Yankees, Torre has had intelligent players with a lot of talent. He's very good at keeping them happy; he's very good at keeping Steinbrenner at a distance; he's great with the media. He's just what the Yankees need. But he needs Zimmer sitting there on the bench, or someone like that, making sure his game strategy doesn't get out of line. (I think that would be the perfect job for Buck Showalter, being the bench coach for a great people manager.)

So yes, every year for the last 7 Torre has deserved consideration for manager of the year. Hall of Fame? If he can stay with the Yankees for five more years, he'll be every bit as good as Casey or McCarthy and he'll go in easily. But it's important to realize what makes Torre a good manager, and what his weaknesses are.

Here's the story.

I don't get it. Montreal was 6 games out of the wild card when they got Floyd. They are 6 out now. And Floyd's been in a slump, so they haven't had a chance to feel an effect from his hitting. Yes, it's harder to make up 6 games now than it was 3 weeks ago, but much bigger leads have been overcome this late. And the Expos traded for prospects! Does this mean they expect to be around next year? Or do they have another deal in the works? And for you conspiracy theory mavens out there, the whole Boston-Montreal-Flordia axis is a little fishy. Was this the intention all along, to get Floyd to the Red Sox, and appease critics by making it look like the Expos were trying to win? Maybe we need an expose on the whole matter. :-)

Alex Rodriguez hit his 35th HR of the season tonight off David Wells. If he ends up with 50 for the season, he'll tie Jimmy Wynn for 100th on the all-time list with 291.

Kim K's Wilkerson. Going to the tenth in Montreal.

Tie game, the Expos have the bases loaded with two out in the bottom of the ninth. Wilkerson is up, and Brenly just went to the pen to bring in Kim to replace Fetters. Can't wait to see if we get the 8th walk-off slam of the season.

Bret Boone is still batting in the third slot, despite more than half a season of mediocrity. Last year, Boone went into the third slot when Martinez was hurt, and I said on BBTN Online at the time that I hoped Piniella didn't fall in love with this move; that half a good season didn't make Boone a #3 hitter. I caught a lot of flak from Mariners fans over this, and Boone proved me wrong over the course of the 2001 season. But how long is Lou going to stick with him now? He's returned to his low BA, low OBA days. Olerud and Martinez are much better choices. Come on, Lou, get your act together!

Kenny Lofton got off to a good start with SF, hitting a double, triple and drawing a walk and scoring two runs as the Giants win 10-3.

Rolen went 2 for 4 with a triple, an rbi and a run scored in the Cardinals 5-0 victory.

Correction: That should have been a home run, not a double for Lofton. I must have misread the boxscore.

I saw on Instapundit that MLB is trying to close down Mets Online. They have issued a Cease and Desist Order, and the web site is supposed to come down by five PM today.

The Mets have nothing to do with this. According to Mets Online, the Mets like their fan sites"

"We really appreciate our fan sites, because they promote the game and our product. We hope you'll be able to keep on doing what you've been doing, and that's creating a great resource for Mets fans."

This is baseball trying to control intellectual property rights. Baseball resisted radio, even though radio ended up making the game more popular. Baseball resisted television, even though TV made the game more popular. Fans sites will do nothing but make the game more popular. Someone should teach the hammer-heads at MLB some history. I hope Bryan Hoch fights them on this and wins.

Actually, I think MLB has been Ruthless since the middle of the 1935 season. :-)

Todd's Place has this thoughts on how a baseball strike might affect the mid-term elections.

I have to disagree with Todd here. I once asked Bill James why, during the 60's, especially the late 60's, no black baseball players converted to Islam. You certainly had basketball, boxing and football athletes do that. Even in the summer of 1968, I never remember stories of black ballplayers protesting. Bill told me that baseball is a conservative sport (I believe he used the word Republican). So I don't think a strike is going to drive basebal fans to the Democrats. However, I do see this as a reason for Bud Selig's unpopularity. Bud acts like a socialist. He wants revenue sharing and taxation of the rich. Those things go against the grain of conservatives in general, and most Republicans.

However, if you believe the strike would hurt Republicans, then the House should move immediately at the start of a strike to strip baseball of it's remaining anti-trust exemption. That should exempt Republicans from the political fallout.

The stand look mostly empty tonight, but at least the fans are cheering for the Devil Rays! :-) (See yesterday's story)

Al Bethke makes a good point about Trammell vs. Ozzie Smith in this post. In the 80's, Bill James wrote that the greatest shortstop since Honus Wagner was playing, and he didn't know who he was. Trammell was very good; unlike Ozzie and Cal and Robin, however, he played in a park that helped his offense. Plus, he never won an MVP like his AL counterparts. However, I still tend to agree with AL, and Trammell probably should be in there with the other three (this assumes, of course, that Cal is going in).

Jayson Stark writes a good column on the fans booing Bud Selig at the Hall of Fame ceremony. Can anyone remember the last time Bud showed up for something where he wasn't booed? At least some people in baseball still have some class:

Even George Grande -- normally the perfect, smiling, apolitical master of ceremonies on these normally joyous occasions -- seemed to sense the message these lovers of the game were sending.

So, during a brief intermission that preceded the induction of Ozzie Smith, Grande looked over his shoulder at Selig, then glanced out into the crowd at union chief Donald Fehr.

"They both care about this game," Grande said. "They both love this game. . . . So remember what Ted Williams told us long ago -- that this game is bigger than any one of us.

"Through compromise," Grande concluded, "Bud and Don -- with your love for this game -- let's get a settlement and let's keep baseball playing."

And with that, 19,000 people clapped as loudly as they clapped all day. Selig and Fehr were among them. Out there on the hillside, fans chanted: "No strike, no strike."

The trades are coming fast and furious, and the NL West seems to be the buyers. The White Sox seem to be Indian givers, dropping the two Indians they've picked up over the last couple of seasons, Alomar and Lofton. Lofton should be a big help to the Giants; their lead off men have a .314 OBA. And while Kenny is not what he once was at the plate, he's still a lot better than that. And the more men you put on in front of Bonds, the harder it becomes to pitch around him. Not sure why the Rockies wanted Alomar; granted, their catchers are hitting miserably, especially for Coors field, but I don't think Alomar is a long term solution with his history of injuries, and I don't think the Rockies will make a comeback this season. They are 11 games out of the wild card at this point, with 8 teams ahead of them.

Of course, the big trade is the much anticipated move of Rolen to St. Louis. Huge trade for the Cardinals, and as my good friend Jim "3rd Ball" Storer (it's a pinball reference, for all of you with dirty minds) said, "The Cardinals didn't have to give up a major league player." :-) Actually, I'm sure the Phillies like Bud Smith a lot. He's had an excellent minor league career, but trouble in the bigs this season, and has been on the DL with shoulder trouble. Still Rolen is the kind of player you should want on your team, and the failure of the Phillies to keep him has to be laid at the feet of Larry Bowa and Dallas Green. I think Bowa should be very worried about his job. He strikes me as a Billy Martin type. He can fire up a team at first, but then he wears on you quickly.

Update: Mike's Baseball Rant agrees with me about Alomar.

Johan Santana turned it around after his poor outing against the White Sox on July 23rd (3.2 IP, 8 ER). He pitched 8 shutout innings today against the Blue Jays, striking out 13. He's only had a couple of bad outings, otherwise he'd have an even more impressive ERA. His K per 9 is nonetheless quite good, having struck out 76 men in 59 2/3 innings (11.5 per 9). As a point of reference, Schilling is leading the majors with 11.25 K per 9. Keep your eye on this youngster.

I often wonder, with the very good farm system the Twins have, if contracting them wasn't more about raiding their system? If the players had to be drafted, the Brewers would have gotten low picks, after all.

Did you see the White Sox lineup today? They only had 2 players hitting over .260. Frank Thomas is now at .244. This team should have been competeing.

Jim Thome hit his 2nd walk off grand slam of the season today. That make 7 in the majors this year, which looks like a record. Dave Vincent of SABR can't find any more than 6 in a season, although he admits that the farther you go back in time, the less information they have on walk off HR. I talked about this earlier this morning.

I'm watching the Yankees at Tampa Bay. Jeter gets a single, Nick Johnson hustles to third, and the crowd goes wild! The Devil Rays are averaging about 20,700 before today with the Yankees, 12,800 otherwise. I guess all of Steinbrenners old friends are there.

And Robin Ventura hits a grand-slam, and the crowd is giving him a standing ovation!

This actually brings up something I've been thinking about for revenue sharing. One reason some teams don't like an unbalanced schedule is that they don't get to bring in the big draws as often. In my mind, the reason to share revenue is to pay your opponents for playing you, since without an opponent, you don't have a game. So why not bid to bring opponents into your ball park?

You could set up some rules, so each team would have to play a minimum number of opponents, and would be limited in the number of times a team could visit their stadium in a season. Teams like the Royals and DRays could bid to bring in draws like the Yankees 8 times a year. But teams like the Devil Rays and Royals would also try to develop players that would draw crowds, so other teams would bid for them.

As an example, the Royals with a Bo Jackson. Bo wasn't a great player, but he was an exciting player. I remember saying (before his injury), that he's one player I'd go out of my way to see play, because you never know what amazing thing he's going to do.

It's just a thought. It's a free market solution that just doesn't blindly transfer money from rich teams to poor teams, and encourages all teams to develop a product people want to see. I know it would never be implemented, but I can dream. :-)

Looks like George's foot is inserted tightly in his mouth. In an otherwise encouraging story about Clemen's rehab, Steinbrenner finds a way to criticize female umpires:

Steinbrenner also thought Clemens had a few things going against him, including female plate umpire Ria Cortesia.

''It was tough, you had a second-string catcher, which was a mistake, a kid that didn't belong catching him. Our regular catcher is hurt,'' Steinbrenner said. ''And you've got a female umpire, that's a tough thing to cover. Nothing against females, but I mean for Roger, I think she was probably as excited as anybody in the stands.''

Cortesia said she umpired Clemens' kids in Little League in Texas a few years ago.

''Is that right? Well that's good, I guess she'll go back there,'' Steinbrenner said. ''She wasn't that good, she wasn't bad, but she wasn't that good.''

Can't wait to see what Maureen Dowd and Molly Ivins have to say about this. Yankee PR department must be scrambling. Clemens, as it turns out, thought she was fine:

''She was pretty good, she was great,'' he said. ''I told her before the last inning that this was probably it for me and that I enjoyed it, and she said, 'Thank you.' It was a great time.''

I think that's the difference between being born in the 30's and born in the 60's. Those of us born in the 60's have grown up with the women's movement, we've gone to co-ed schools, worked and competed with women all our lives. Why not women referees and umpires? But George is real old school and still thinks surface differences are a sign of something deeper. I think he's going to catch a lot of flack about this.

I believe A-Rod's walk-off slam last night was the 6th in the majors this season. That's very good. Even in the home run rich environment of the last few years, that's a lot. The last time there were six in a season was 1995, which was also a short season (144 games). Since 1987 (inclusive), we've only had three other seasons with as many as 5; 1991, 1992 and 2001 (1991-1992 were before the big HR barrage). I'll have to check with David Vincent to see if he can get a record for this.

With Curt Schilling picking up his 18th win last night, 30 wins becomes a legitimate question. He needs to win 12 games over the last two months of the season for this to happen. No one has done that since Saberhagen in 1989, when he went 13-1. Saberhagen pitched a lot down that stretch. He started 14 games, five on 3-days rest. His last start on 5 days rest was August 1. The Royals were in a pennant race with Oakland that year; Royals won 92 games but finished 7 games back. John Wathan was managing, and looks like he was trying to give the most starts to what he thought were his best pitchers. It worked with Saberhagen, but backfired with Tom Gordon. Gordon got 6 great starts in August, and was given 7 in Sept, which were a disaster, as he went 1-4 with a 7.20 ERA. Gordon also made five starts on 3-days rest, and all but one were a disaster. This stretch may have cost Saberhagen a Hall of Fame career, as he didn't start in 30 games again until 1998, when he started 31 for the Red Sox.

What Wathan was doing was trying to maximize the starts by his best pitchers. Brenly and Cox have been doing the same thing this year, using the schedule to get more starts for their best pitchers. Look at the list of most starts on 4-days rest:

Most Starts, 4 Days Rest, 2002


Pitcher         Starts

R. Johnson          20

T. Glavine          20

Burnett             18

Schilling           17

G. Maddux           17

Milton              17

I believe what's happening is that these managers are skipping a starter when the schedule gives them a day off. LaRussa did this effectively in 1990, and it's one of the reasons Welch won 27 that year.

Back to the point at hand. The DBacks have 58 games left, which in a full five-man rotation would give Schilling 12 starts, meaning he'd have to win all of them. However, with the skipping of 5th starters that Brenly does, Schilling should get 1 extra-start, or 13 remaining. Still not much of a margin of error. However, looking at the schedule, it doesn't work out right for 13 starts for Schilling, due to the number of days off and Randy Johnson being on the same schedule. Although you never know. If the race is tight down the stretch, I could see Brenly going to 3-days rest for Schilling and Johnson. At their ages, the probability of real damage isn't any higher than it would otherwise be, especially if pitch counts are kept low.

Schilling is going to have to be perfect down the stretch to have a shot at 30. One no-decision pretty much kills it for him. If the races stay really tight, however, I think that favors his getting more starts and more of a chance to reach 30.

Jeff Weaver got pounded again today. He's given up 9 HR in four starts for the Yankees, after having given up none early on in the season. When the trade was made, I was concerned the power would come back to haunt him.

Still he's pitching for a team with a great offense, so maybe he can get away with a high ERA.

Through 6 innings tonight, the Texas Rangers have turned 4 double plays, including a 3-6-3 started by Palmeiro (who also hit his 27th HR). Bell has allowed 7 hits and 3 BB through 6, but the DP's effectively drop his base runners per 9 to 1 for the game.

One more HR for Palmeiro and he'll tie Stargell and Musial at 475 for 20th on the all-time list.

The game's not over yet, but the Detroit 3-4-5 hitters are each 4 for 5 with 2 rbi each tonight. And Higginson scored 4 runs. It's an unusual night for them, as coming into today, only Tampa Bay's 3-4-5 had driven in fewer runs in the AL. (Detroit, 153. TB, 137)

Brian Giles has the third most HR as an outfielder this year, 28, only behind Sosa and Berkman who are tied at 31. (This is batting as an outfielder, only.) This is Giles 4th season with the Pirates. He's a player you should build a franchise around, but he's 31 years old and his best years are probably behind him. It took a long time for the Pirates to replace Bonds, but once they did, the intelligent management wasn't there to take advantage of this star.

Players seem to be extending their productivity later into their careers. Maybe it's not too late for Giles to lead this team to a championship.

On July 2nd I wondered if Biggio and Bagwell were in decline. Guess who had the two highest BA for the Astros in the month of July:

Batting in July

Statistics through JUL-25-2002


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

Biggio,C.     .355  19  76  19  27 10  1  1  11   2  0   4  2  13  1 .402 .553

Bagwell,J.    .352  21  71  11  25  4  0  5  21   2  0  17  1  12  3 .478 .620

I have to say most of the news I've been reading about labor talks makes me feel positive about things. At the moment, there is no grand-standing, no invective, no calling the other side a liar. Right now, there are two positions, with a reasonable splitting of the differences leading to a good increase in revenue sharing. I'm very encouraged by five straight sessions planned for next week. Let's hope they keep making progress.

Pedro Martinez pitched another gem tonight. He K'd 11 and walked 1. He also hit a batter. It's not unusual for Pedro to have at least as many HBP in a game as BB. In his starts since 1992, Pedro has done it 36 times. Greg Maddux has done it 45 times, and Kevin Brown 42 times. Pedro has started a lot less, due to his early years being spent as a reliever. (Pedro 250 starts, Maddux 349, Brown 316). These pitchers aren't wild. If they hit you, they probably meant to hit you, or at least scare you.

Are the A's looking to become thieves? They have the fewest SB attempts in the majors this year, 33. Next closest is Toronto with 58. Ray Durham has 25 all by himself!

I like this deal. Durham is an A's kind of player. He gets on base and has decent pop for a second baseman. And he plays almost everyday. He's also the favorite player of the former president of STATS, Inc., John Dewan.

Hard throwing left-hander gets traded away from Yankees and gets hurt. Remember the deal that sent Al Leiter to the Jays for Jesse Barfield? I thought that it was a terrible deal at the time. Then he got hurt (some wondered if he was hurt when he was traded). It took Leiter a long time to come back, not pitching regularly until 1993, but the wait was worth it. I certainly hope this doesn't happen to Lilly, and it's just a minor injury.

Jay Jaffe has a very nice site on baseball. You can find it here. It's called FutilityInfielder.com

Royals at Tigers went 1:41 tonight. Byrd pitched an 8 inning complete game and threw 83 pitches. Lima went 7 innings with 78 pitches, and the relievers threw 21 over two innings to finish the 3-0 shutout and get the win for Lima. There was only 1 walk in the game, and only 4 three-ball counts in the entire game. Eleven times a PA ended on the first pitch.

I moved to the Boston area in 1978 and enjoyed many broadcasts by Ned Martin and Bob Montgomery. Our favorite Ned-ism was, "Watch out, Monty," everytime a foul ball was hit back to the booth. If I'm at a game with my friends now, and a foul ball goes over our heads, we'll say, almost in unison, "Watch out, Monty!"

A few years ago at ESPN, I was sitting at my desk, and Jeff Bennett was watching a Red Sox game. Jeff's about 15 years younger than me. A foul ball was hit back toward the booth, and he says, "Watch out, Monty!" And I thought we were the only ones.

We'll miss you, Ned.

With the new Austin Power movie coming out this weekend, Vaughn seems to have his Mojo back. He hit his 7th HR of July tonight. Two more this month and he will have doubled his total through June. Good to see Mo hitting again.

In the Red Sox game 1 recap, there is the following:

Garciaparra, 29, became the first major leaguer to have a three home-run game on his birthday, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, baseball's statistician.

Now, Elias replaced STATS in supplying baseball statistics for ESPN in 2000, ending my work at ESPN. But my dislike for Elias goes back to the 80's, when I twice picked up their Analyst book because Bill James was late with his, only to put it down after the first two articles. This is a really good piece of trivia. But it's also an obvious piece of trivia. It's a question that would have been asked of me before the third HR landed in the stands. And it's a question that is answerable without Elias. I have the HR encyclopedia, which lists all dates of 3-HR games. David Vincent, who is the keeper of the HR database for SABR, has a mandate to answer any question posed by the media about HR. In other words, there are multiple sources for this answer. If I had slogged through the data and found this fact, you can bet the ESPN recap would not have said, "according to STATS, Inc." But Elias is very good at making themselves look like the only people who can come up with this stuff.

And they do come up with trivia. But sometimes I think that's all they are interested in. Who's the last guy to do this? What was the last team to do that? Partially, it's what their customers want. But they never challenge, never try to educate fans or media clients about the game. I've heard Steve Hirdt is a smart guy, but I'd like to see some evidence of that in their customers' broadcasts. For example, last year, there were 22 three-homer games, or one every 110.4 games. Nomar's was the 5th this year, 1 every 295.8 games. So three-run homer games are way down this year. Do you think the people at Elias are pointing this out to the press? Do you think they'll put it in their game notes? No, it's not trivia, it's just interesting.

Or how about since the offensive explosion in 1993, only the Rockies (9) and the Indians (8) have more individual 3-HR games than the Red Sox (7)? The Mariners, Blue Jays and Cubs also have 7. Or over that same period, Sammy Sosa leads the majors with 5? See, so many interesting things. We'll see how many end up on BBTN.

I'm back from vacation. Mike Carminati has a useful blog entry on the technology behind the umpire evaluations.

Update: Sorry, the link didn't work. Should work now. You'll have to scroll down to read the article.

Al Bethke, a loyal reader writes:

David,

Either take that stupid comment off of your blog or explain why. The whole contraction issue is about getting rid of teams with low revenue, which is exactly what MON and MIN are saddled with.

Until MIN catches the Brewers in attendance and/or builds a state of the art ballpark, the thought of contracting the Crew is hilarious.

That was what I'd expect from an idiot on talk radio. Very unintelligent remark.

Al

And:

Paying a guy $18 million to help a 60 win team win 65 games has to be the silliest thing I've ever read. If possible, it's dumber than paying Giambi that much when he's old and ineffective.

Al

Al is refering to this post, where I berate Bud Selig for making a profit but not doing anything with it to improve the team. His first point, that this is about getting rid of teams with low revenue may be MLB's line, but what it's really about is:

1. Punishing cities that won't build new stadiums.


2. Giving Bud Selig and the Brewers a bigger piece of the national TV pie.

As for the Twins catching the Brewers in attendance, take a closer look, Al. The Twins are currently ranked 23rd in average home attendance at 21,668, while those big draw Brewers are 19th at 23,923. And the Twins are gaining:

Average Home

Attendance          Twins         Brewers

April-May          20,246          23,401

June-July          23,208          24,679

Twins are actually ahead in July, but it's a small sample size at this point. The Twins are a slightly better draw on the road than the Brewers. (See this page on espn.com for the numbers.) So the Brewers held up the people of Milwaukee for a new ballpark, and in it's second year, their not exactly selling out. Meanwhile, a team that was supposed to be gone, playing in a horrible facility, is about even with the Brewers. Why? Because they are trying to win. Because the people running the baseball side of things have a clue, and know that in this environment, to be successful with a small payroll, you have to develop young talent and try to win with it while their young. And if you can, sign players to long term contracts to keep salary inflation from killing your franchise.

The Brewers have no idea how to run a baseball club. They have no idea of the value of a player getting on base. They have a lousy front office, they started the year with a lousy manager, and they have an owner who is only interested in lining his own pockets at the expense of the rich clubs. If the Brewers were to take that $18 million in profit and buy some good players and start winning, Bud's whole theory would go out the window. The A's winning, the Twins winning and the Expos winning has to make Bud seethe. At some point, the fans of the Brewers have to ask themselves, "When are we going to get something back from Bud making money." Yankee fans spend tons on tickets and merchandise, and in return get winners. Fans in Milwaukee get a richer owner, and a team only slighty better than Tampa Bay.

Al, the revenue stream won't last. People don't come out for last place clubs, especially last place clubs that are really bad. I have no doubt that by the end of the year, the Brewers will have a lower average attendance than the Twins.

Okay, you got me on Giambi. He only has 7 more win shares than Sexson. But Giambi is just an example. He could have given it to Bonds. The Brewers would have about 8 more wins (about 23 more win shares) with Bonds instead of Jenkins at this point in the season. And Miller park would be filling with fans to see Bonds sock the ball out. Bonds might start rubbing off on other players, that they should walk more.

Or don't spend the money on free agents. Spend the money on a GM and a farm system that encourages players to get on base. Hire Billy Beane away from Oakland, or Cashman away from the Yankees. Get a manager who knows what he's doing. Hire Duquette as a talent evaluator. He's great at coming up with ballplayers whose skills are undervalued. But put the damn money intelligently back into the team. Don't keep them losing just to prove that you can't win without revenue sharing.

Don't sit there and tell me an organization like the Twins is more deserving of contraction than the Brewers. The Twins are building to a sustainable model of winning at a lower level of payroll, just as the A's have, and just as the Indians did a decade ago. I have no doubt, that if they survive, the Twins will have a better baseball decade than the Brewers.

The Brewers lost their 62nd game today. This is the team that is making more money than any other franchise. Why didn't Selig (sorry, I mean, "Wendy") take the profit and give it to Giambi? Here Jason, here's 18 million a year, come play in Miller park and hit 80 HR a year. We'll fill the stands, and maybe win some games. No, Bud has to prove that small market teams can't win in this environment. Meanwhile, the A's, Twins and Expos are showing how you can do it.

The Brewers organization is a sham, and they should be the team to go.

Colon beat the Mets 2-1 today, a complete game 13-hitter. Not the best pitching performance; he bent but he did not break. Mets were 3 for 11 with runners in scoring position, but only got 1 run out of the 3 hits. Expos were 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position, but had 2 HR. Expos are now 6 games behind the Dodgers for the Wild Card.

Paul Byrd picked up his 13th win today, nearly 1/3 of the Royals total. His 3 complete games are among the league leaders. Seems there is a little bit of luck here. The Royals have scored about a run more per game when Byrd pitches.

After a poor start by Rincon today, the Twins bullpen posted 6 scoreless innings to let the offense come back and beat the Indians. The Twins pen was 3rd in the AL in ERA coming into today. Guardado is getting the pub for the saves, but Hawkins and Romero are a combined 9-1 with a 1.72 ERA, 98 K and 27 walks in 109 2/3 innings including today's game.

I'd love to see the Twins win this year, just so we don't have to hear how teams with low payrolls can't compete, but overall I don't think the offense is good enough. Mientkiewicz has a higher OBA than slugging percentage (.375 OBA, .351 Slugging). You need power from first base. The Twins have a big guy named Todd Sears at Edmonton who is hitting .350 with power. Twins might want to think of trading Mientkiewicz to a team with a really poor first baseman and bringing up Sears. How about Doug to the Red Sox for Rickey Henderson? They you could DH Henderson at leadoff, increase power at first with Sears, and likely increase the team's scoring. And Mientkiewicz would be a big improvement offensively over Clark and defensively over Offerman.

Just as I was writing that last piece, Stanton blows the save, but the offense comes back, ties the game in the 7th and takes the lead in the 8th. It's like the 1998 team; the offense picks up the pitchers, and the pitchers pick up the offense.

I met a friendly Red Sox fan on the plane back today, so this entry is for Amy.

One reason Red Sox fans like Nomar is he has the best career BA vs. the Yankees among active players (entering today):

Best BA vs. Yankees, Active Players

150 PA


Batter           BA

Garciaparra    .354 (80/226)

Knoblauch      .336 (97/289)

A. Rodriguez   .333 (90/270)

B. Higginson   .327 (82/251)

Higginson is 1 for 4 today, but the game's not over. Red Sox are 7-4 vs. the Yankees this year. Tomorrow's night pitching matchup looks like the best one of the weekend, Martinez vs. Mussina. Despite a 2.66 ERA, Pedro is only 7-6 vs. the Yankees in his career in 18 regular season starts. Mussina is 15-9 career vs. the Red Sox, with a 4 to 1 K to BB ratio. However, Mussina has not pitched well this year, but he has the 4th highest run support per 9 innings in the AL, 6.99 (David Wells is 2nd at 7.35). But don't feel sorry for Pedro in this category, he's 7th at 6.66.

Think the Sox missed Ramirez? With him they are 34-19, without him they're at 21-18. They've scored 5.55 runs per game with him, only 4.82 without.

The Red Sox will also be facing a Yankee bullpen that has been battered lately. Since 6/20 (20 games with a bullpen apperance), the pen is 3-4 with a 6.49 ERA. Worst of all, 6 blown saves, 2 each by Rivera and Mendoza. Still, with the great offense NY has, they are 14-9 over that period. Enjoy the series, everyone!

Just got back from a business trip. Thought I would have internet access at the hotel, but it didn't work. I did get to see the Portland Beavers play on Monday night against the Edmonton Trappers. (Could you ask for a better matchup? Beavers vs. Trappers!) Wonderful ballpark in Portland, PGE Field, recently remodeled. It was a well played game; the pitcher threw strikes and kept things moving. We had home runs, lead changes, and a ninth inning two run rally to win the game by the Beavers. Sadly, not many people were at the game. Come on, Portland, you have a great facility and a fun team. Go out and watch!

I'll be going away again for a few days, so blogging will continue to be spotty.

With 2 HR tonight, Alfonso Soriano now has 56 extra-base hits on the year. At this pace, he could reach 100 for the season. The only other regular second baseman (100 games at 2nd) to have 100 extra-base hits in a season was Rogers Hornsby in 1922, when he had 102. Only 8 times has a second baseman had over 80 EXBH in a season, the last being Jeff Kent with 81 in 2000.

Cubs just beat the Marlins 5-4 in 16 innings, managing not to use up all their pitchers. Extremely impressive bullpen performances from both teams. The Cubs pen threw a complete game shutout, going 9 innings, only 5 hits, including 4 innings from Borowski. The Marlins pen lost the game, going 9 2/3 innings before surrendering the winning run. They only allowed 7 hits. Looks like it was a fun game if, like me, you like good pitching.

Update: I just saw the replay of the finish. Long fly ball to centerfield by Echevarria, Wilson went straight back looked like he made a basket catch with his back to the ball, but he hit the wall and the ball popped out. Tough loss.

The Taste page of the Wall Street Journal (link may require subscription) has has this article painting Donald Fehr as an obstructionist, standing in the way of baseball solving its problems.

So it's easy to dump on Mr. Selig. But amid the clamor for his head someone should point out that the commissioner does not control baseball. Donald Fehr and his Major League Baseball Players Association do. And today they're blocking the kind of reforms that have helped restore the NFL and NBA to competitive health.

Specifically, the union opposes a proposed luxury tax on teams that spend more than $98 million in salaries. Players also reject a bid to up from 20% to 50% the portion of their revenue that teams would have to share. Oh, yes, the union also opposes drug testing, this at a time when steroids are in the headlines and we all see once-skinny guys now belting out 50, 60, 70 home runs a year.

I agree that Don Fehr has a lot to say about whether there is a strike or not, and how much money the clubs end up sharing. I would even agree that he has too much power. But, the power has been given to him by Selig and his cronies' ineptitude and dishonesty over the years.

If you've seen the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life," there is a scene where Mr. Potter calls George Bailey into his office to offer him a position with his company. Potter has decided that he can't beat George, so he's going to try to get George to join him. Potter fails, because he's really trying to pull a scam, but the idea was a good one that MLB should think about. The owners can't beat the players, because the players are on higher ground than the owners. So why not form a partnership! This has been Bud's failing an owner/commissioner. He has done nothing in the past 7 years to bring the two sides into a partnership. Fehr is a smart man, an asset to have on your side. If you got Fehr and Orza and Beeston and Alderson working together, none of these problems would exist. Instead, we have a used car salesmen trying to sell us a Cadillac as if it were a lemon. We need more Don Fehrs in baseball, and less Bud Lights.

Jorden Ellel has an interesting idea: Bud protests at games.

With all of the attention being put on Bud, all of the bad media he creates, all of the fans coming out (many many many fans) saying he must go, how long until he does. Rather than schedule a fan protest where fans don't go to games, we need to schedule a Bud protest...where as many fans as possible go to the games, but we arrange to have people with Bud Must Go or other similar signs waiting to distribute them to all fans outside the stadium. I'll go to Kinko's and make my 10,000 fliers and stand outside the Vet distributing them...find me 30 people and we'll rock the world.

It's not a bad idea. E-Mail me with your thoughts.

There was supposed to be a fan strike yesterday. It didn't work. Average attendance for a Thursday this year (including yesterday) is 24,921. Yesterday's average attendance was 25,728.

College roommate Dan Wechsler pointed me to this very funny commentary by Andy Borowitz.

Jeff Cooper has a blog entry on competitive balance, where he takes issue with an entry by Charles Kuffner. It strikes me that their definition of competitive balance (how often do different teams win) is different than the one Bill James uses in his revised Historical Abstract (I don't have the book with me, so I'll have to check later). I think Bill bases it on how far apart the best and worst teams were in the decade. According to Bill, the 1990's as a whole was the most competitive decade ever.

Jeff also thinks the competitive balance is due to the salary cap:

Even a quick glance will show that the results are very different in the NFL. In both eastern divisions and the NFC West, each of the five teams won at least one division title between 1995 and 2001. In the AFC West, four of the five teams won divisions; San Diego was shut out, but the Chargers had won the division and played in the Super Bowl in 1994, and they were the top AFC wild card team in 1995. In the NFC Central, only the Detroit Lions didn't win a title (and while they were never the top wild card, they did make the playoffs in 1995, 1997, and 1999). Only in the AFC Central was there more than one team that did not win a division title, and even this is a bit deceptive, as the Baltimore Ravens won a Super Bowl after finishing the 2000 season as the top wild card team. Only three teams—the expansion Browns, the hapless Bengals, and the three-time wild card Lions—are absent from the chart. And six different teams won championships in the seven-year period; ten different teams filled the fourteen Super Bowl slots.

We're operating from something of a limited data set here, but it sure looks like there's greater competitive balance in the NFL, operating under a salary cap, than there is in Major League Baseball, which lacks a cap. You can, I suppose, argue about whether competitive balance is a good or necessary thing. But as for whether it exists, I reach a different conclusion from Charles: in the recent past, football has had it, and baseball has not.

Now, the NFL does a number of things to promote competitive balance. It has a draft, so poor teams can get the best talent (you don't see free agent football players coming from Japan or Cuba). It makes it's schedule based on how well you did the previous year. So if you have a lousy record, you play other teams with lousy records when you are outside of your division. So a down year that's a fluke can give an NFL team a big advantage in the next season. And they have revenue sharing, which makes it difficult for one team to outspend another, even if there was no salary cap.

From 1978 through 1992, baseball had a different team win the world series every year. Why? Because it had revenue sharing. The revenue shared was from national TV contracts that were large enough to swamp local revenue advantages. (The other reason for this competitive balance was that Steinbrenner was stupid back then. He had Henderson, Mattingly and Winfield, but couldn't put a decent team around them, even though he had the money.) Teams had enough money from National TV to buy multiple superstars. Now they can barely afford 1 from the money they get from Fox.

The money is in the local markets right now. Sharing this will help. A cap will just make the owners richer.

Milton just struck out the side on 11 pitches, and has struck out 6 batters in a row on 20 pitches, two over the minimum. Unfortunately, he threw 51 pitches in the first two innings, so he's already up to 71 for the game.

Eric Milton just struck out 4 batters in a row on 12 pitches.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Eckstein and Jeter being a lot closer in wins shares than I thought they would be. Since then, however, Jeter has been much better:

Jeter 6/25 on:

Totals

  AVG    G    AB   R   H    2B  3B  HR   RBI   TBB   SO  SB  CS   ERR     PA

 .410   10    39  14  16     2   0   3     6     6    2   2   0     1     45

Eckstein 6/25 on:

Totals

  AVG    G    AB   R   H    2B  3B  HR   RBI   TBB   SO  SB  CS   ERR     PA

 .205   11    44   8   9     0   0   0     2     4    5   1   2     1     50

Jeter's win shares are now up to 15.9. Eckstein has fallen to 11.3. Half a season does not a star make!

Marlins finally traded Cliff Floyd to Montreal. It's sort of a three-way deal, since Wilton Guerrero goes from the Reds to the Marlins to the Expos. Maybe Montreal just should have kept those two in the first place. :-) However, if Montreal can't find a way to beat Atlanta, I don't think they will be good enough to take the wild card. However, all this may be generating some interest. There were over 11,000 fans at a Thursday afternoon game today, up from their usual 8,000.

As for the Reds, Dempster should help, but I don't see him being great. His K per 9, 7.4, is good, but he walks a lot and gives up HR, and Pro Player is a good pitcher's park.

I leave work, have dinner, sit down at the computer and two big stories. The first is Charlie Manuel being fired. I don't know much about Manuel, but it seems he was on the DL more often than some of his players, and he never struck me as the brightest bulb. I wonder if they miss Mike Hargrove. The players didn't like him, but he won, and he's doing a good job with a lousy Orioles team. Joel Skinner is younger than I am. I'm sure he's not the first manager to be younger than me, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.

The Indians are 2nd to last in average road attendance. I was surprised by this until I realized the Indians play most of their games in the AL Central, and nobody goes to White Sox, Royals, Tigers or Twins games. Take those 4 teams, the Brewers and the Blue Jays, and make a nice regional super minor league.

Yesterday, Selig said two teams were in trouble, and one may not be able to make its payroll. Now DuPuy says it's okay for the moment. What I don't understand is why these teams can't finish the season due to financial difficulties. Haven't these teams heard of bankruptcy? Isn't the whole point of bankruptcy to let corporations operate until they can settle their debts one way or another? The Orioles went bankrupt in the late 80's and they didn't disappear. I'm afraid this smacks of another Selig scare tactic.

John Geer sends this link to an article about Bud Selig blowing off Fox after the all-star game. Ed Goren is very upset. That's good. The article also points out that Fox treated baseball's problems with kid gloves during the all-star game. It will be intereseting to see how much the Fox broadcasters talk about baseball's problems on Saturday's games.

Just noticed this. Leave it to the Saints.

I heard the All-Star game ended in a tie last night. I heard it, because the game started so late that those of us on the east coast who work for a living can't stay up and watch.

Full disclosure here, I do consulting work for STATS, Inc, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fox Sports. I don't know who planned the schedule last night. But scheduling games so the west coast can see the whole thing has gone too far. In general, given the choice, I'd rather see the end of the game than the beginning of the game. If something interesting happens at the begining of the game, it will be shown to me in replays at least five times during the last four innings, and then again on SportsCenter, or that show with Mr. Roseanne Barr. But if I'm asleep, I miss a game ending HR, or a game saving catch, or Bud getting booed by his own fans.

Let's face it, people in southern California always get to see the end of the game. They get to get out of bed on Sunday morning, watch six hours of football, and still have time to go to the beach. If I want to watch Barry Bonds hit, I have to stay up until 1 in the morning. Start the game at 7:30 EDT. Or at least start the pregame show at 7:30, and get it over by 8:15. People on the west coast can have an excuse to leave work early; or they can listen to the game while stuck in traffic. Start the All-Star game, playoffs and World Series games so the people in the East (and there's a lot of us) can watch the whole game.

On to the tie. Jim Caple and Jayson Stark sum it up well. I don't have much to add, except that Bud, the man who's responsibility it is to lead baseball out of it's trouble, could not come up with an imaginative solution for the problem! Why not take the next three hitters and have their pitcher (Garcia for the AL, Padillia for the NL) throw batting practice to them, and see who hits the most HR? Five swings each hitter. If it's a tie, the next hitter in the lineup gets five swings. Garcia and Padilla don't need to worry about getting hurt. You could even put the screen in front of them. But Bud has no imagination. Also, this bothers me (from an AP story on ESPN.com):

Fans knew something was up in the middle of the 11th, when Chuck Torres of the commissioner's office brought American League manager manager Joe Torre across the field to Selig's box. Selig huddled for about five minutes with Torre, National League manager Bob Brenly, baseball executive vice president Sandy Alderson and Fox Sports president Ed Goren.

I'm curious to know Ed Goren's role. I hope he just sat there and said, "Whatever baseball wants to do is fine with us." I hope he didn't say, "We don't make any money on commerials during extra-innings, so you better get off the air." I'm very curious as to what Buck and McCarver said after the annoucement. If any one saw it and would write me, I'd appreciate it.

The fans at the game had it right last night. Bud must go!

Seems like both sides really don't want a strike. That's very good news. This article on ESPN.com gives some details. Fehr talks about the main issues to resolve:

Fehr said he thinks the sides could agree to a worldwide draft that covers all amateur players, an expansion of the current draft, which applies primarily to those in the United States and Canada.

He detailed the difference the sides have on revenue sharing, saying that using 2001 figures the clubs would like to increase the total from $167 million to $300 million and that the union would like it to be at about $230 million.

He also detailed the union's distaste for a luxury tax, which even teams readily admit would cause teams not to sign players they would without the limitation.

"A luxury tax is a significant penalty, because somebody hired someone,'' he said. "If you think about it that way, that's a pretty strange thing to do in the United States of America.''

The owners want 50% local revenue sharing and a 50% tax on payrolls above $98 million. Right now, the players and owners are $70 million apart on revenue sharing. My guess is the owners will get the 50% local revenue sharing, a 25% luxury tax at a higher level, and some payroll minimum.

That was fun, but too long. They need to do something to get these hitters to take less pitches. Highlight of the night was Curt Schilling mentioning Bill James, after Piazza used the term "cube root." It's been a long, slow journey, but sabremetrics has really changed the way we talk about baseball, even the players.

I was just looking at the top 100 home run list, and noticed Rickey Henderson still in the top 100 at 293. With all his other accomplishments, people don't realize that he was a good HR hitter. When he retires, he won't stay in the top 100 long (he's ranked 96th right now), but it shouldn't be overlooked that he was a decent power hitter. Other things from the list:

• Bagwell and Thomas, born on the same day, are only separated by 2 HR (364 for Bagwell, 362 for Thomas). Of players born on the exact same day, they have the most HR of any pair.


• Sosa is in 19th place, 12 away from 500 HR, and could easily end up ahead of McCovey and Williams by the end of the year, in 12th place.


• ESPN is bound to go live to every AB when Bonds gets 599. Wonder how many IBB they'll cut to? :)


• Fred McGriff, at 465 HR (tied with Winfield for 23rd) may be even a bigger Hall of Fame problem than Canseco. It's easy not to vote for Jose because he didn't care about winning. But McGriff has always been a team player, he's a great guy, never a bit of trouble, and has had a very good career. But I don't think many people think Fred McGriff and Hall of Fame at the same time.


• With Chuck Klein 94th at 300 HR, it won't be long until you have to have 300 HR to be in the top 100.
Posted by StatsGuru at 08:24 PM | Baseball
Maddux and 300 Wins:
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Greg Maddux got his 8th win of the season today, and 265th of his career. He's having on the surface a very good season; 8-2 with a 2.81 ERA. But I'm starting to wonder if he'll make it to 300 wins.

Bill James is a believer in pitcher's strikeouts being a great gauge of pitching ability. Maddux's K per 9 is down this year, hovering around 4.8. He's never been below 5.5 in a season before, and spent much of the 1990's well above 6.0. Maddux is surviving this year because he still doesn't walk anyone, doesn't give up HR, has a great defense behind him, and the Braves aren't leaving him in very long. But at some point hitters are going to realize that Maddux just can't sneak pitches by them anymore, and they are going to start hitting him harder. I like to think his hip is still healing, but it's something we should watch.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:03 PM | Baseball
I really like Ralph Wiley's
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I really like Ralph Wiley's columns, especially this one on Sosa and Rick Reilly. Of course, I have to include this paragraph:



Why wouldn't we? We're funny that way. It's a great, ongoing responsibility we have. We're the last line of defense, the keepers of the flame of humanitarians such as Granny Rice and D.W. (Doctor) Griff, and the great traditions of American life. We're like, I dunno, maybe the Spanish Inquisition, without the robes and the guillotines and gallows. We use ink and laser photos, cathode ray tubes and rear projection units. Few can handle being us. Fewer still want to try.



I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!
Posted by StatsGuru at 01:25 PM | Baseball
July 06, 2002
Bonds vs. Lefties:
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Bonds hit a HR off Randy Johnson today. Eleven of Bonds 26 HR have now come off lefties, despite the fact that he has had only 62 AB vs. LHP (vs. 167 vs. RHP). In fact, 17 of Bonds 22 hits vs. LHP have been for extra bases! Despite all of those extra-base hits vs. lefties, Bonds has only 20 RBI vs. lefties. It appears they only pitch to him with no one on base. Seven of his 11 HR vs. LHP have been with the bases empty.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:56 PM | Baseball
Expos Bunting:
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I was just looking at something for the Diamondbacks, and noticed that the Expos have 42 sac bunts by non-pitchers, the most in baseball by 12! (The Reds have 30.) Does this mean that Frank Robinson thinks his offense is only good for one run at a time? It's not like he's been using it only in the late innings of close games. He's had non-pitchers sacrifice 14 times in the first 3 innings! And I'm only counting successes here. I don't even want to think about how many times he's tried and failed. You would think he played more for Gene Mauch than Earl Weaver.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:12 PM | Baseball
Lilly-Weaver-Pena Trade:
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David Schoenfield has a good analysis of the trade. My main problem is that the Yankees should try to keep as many lefties in their rotation as possible. Lilly is a young lefty who strikes out a lot of batters. He seems to have learned to control the walks and HR this year. Looks like the Yankees gave up two more good prospects, that will help Oakland down the road. The other thing that doesn't make me like this deal from the Yankees point of view is that Weaver gets pounded by lefties for power, and now he's going to pitch half his games in a stadium that favors lefties.

Amazing how fast Carlos Pena's stock fell. Remember how the A's weren't going to miss Giambi because of Pena? Tigers, despite losing Tony Clark, have been terrible at first base. Tigers better be right about this, however, since a pitching ace is much harder to come by than a first baseman.

Overall, I'd have to chalk one up for Beane here. Dombrowsky usually makes good deals, but I'm skeptical here. I think Cashman has a lot to lose if Weaver doesn't pitch well.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:25 PM | Baseball
Baylor Bounced:
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Don Baylor was fired yesterday. Cubs had a lot of promise coming into the season, and they have been dismal. The only two productive offensive positions are 1B and RF. The starters haven't been bad, but the bullpen is terrible. I'm not a big Baylor fan, but it strikes me that this is more of a front office screw up, not finding talent to put on the field.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:09 PM | Baseball
Ted Williams:
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Go away for a couple of days and big things happen. The saddest, of course, is the death of Ted Williams.
It's interesting to see how the perception of people change over time. Joe DiMaggio was considered the greatest living player from the late 60's on, even though there was ample evidence that he wasn't. DiMaggio did a very good job of managing his public image. He was a beloved player, and stayed beloved through the rest of his life. Williams, on the other hand, had a poor relationship with the fans and the press during his career, and was not well liked at all. Yet, the people I've come across who have met DiMaggio have nothing good to say about him, and the people who have met Williams have nothing but good to say about him. We'll miss you, Ted.

As to who is the greatest living players, I have to go with Mays. He has one fewer win share than Aaron, and Mays missed time in the military. I give it to Mays on defense. Jayson Stark has thoughts about this here.

Posted by StatsGuru at 01:59 PM | Baseball
July 04, 2002
Thome's HR Streak
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Looks like the year of big streaks. First Castillo, now Thome. One thing that makes the streak remarkable is that Thome plays for a poor offense (tied for 2nd lowest runs scored in the AL, and 4th worst in the ML), so he seldom gets to the plate more than 4 times in a game. He's only had 2 games in the streak where he came to the plate 5 times. Here's the odds of him tying the record based on his career and 2002 HR/PA:


Thome Odds

Based On                  Career           2002

HR/PA                     .0565           .0767

4 PA                        .21             .27

5 PA                        .25             .33

6 PA                        .29             .38


So he has roughly a 1 in 4 chance of tying the record.

When Griffey was on his HR streak, a Seattle newspaper got hold of me and asked what the odds would be of a 9 game streak for Griffey. Using Griffey's career to that point, I figured the odds would be about the same as Joe DiMaggio hitting in 56 games, given DiMaggio's stats at the start of 1941. (I don't remember the exact numbers, sorry.) A few days later I got a piece of hate mail, saying how dare I compare Griffey to DiMaggio. This guy had seen DiMaggio play, blah, blah blah. Of course, all I was talking about was probability of streaks, not comparison of abilities, so I don't know what the problem was. But you know you've arrived when people send you hate mail. :-)

For the record, DiMaggio had 387 win shares, Griffey has 313 coming into this year. If you give DiMaggio the benefit of the doubt for the war, he'd probably be around 470. While I do think Griffey will pass 387, with the injuries he's had, I'm not sure he'll reach the high 400's. One place where DiMaggio clearly outshnes Griffey is in defense. DiMaggio averaged 4.65 defensive win shares per season, while Griffey has averaged 3.93. Griffey could still turn out a great career total of win shares. He's extremely talented, but he just doesn't seem motivated anymore.

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:05 AM | Baseball
July 03, 2002
B-Boys Browse Blogs?
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Bagwell and Biggio both have homers against Cincy tonight. I wonder if they read last night's entry? :-)

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:30 PM | Baseball
Park Distortions:
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The big story last night was the HR barrage, but a story lost was LA's shutting down the Diamondbacks in Arizona two straight nights. Overall, the DBacks have the 2nd best offense in the NL (2nd in runs per game). The Dodgers are 8th. This is why it's important to look at teams in the context of their parks. One easy way to do this is to simply look at road stats. When you do that, the Dodgers are 2nd in runs per game, and the DBacks are 8th! The Dodgers actually have a much better offense than the DBacks. The Dodgers, with their deeper pitching staff, can shut down the DBacks. This Dodger team is not a fluke, it would appear.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:27 PM | Baseball
July 02, 2002
Welcome to Coors:
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Giants scored 8 runs in the first inning tonight. Reggie Sanders was the only player not to earn his way on base. Giants had 7 hits, 2 doubles, 2 HR and 3 walks. Aurilia and Kent each reached base twice. I guess they stopped keeping balls in the humidor. :-)

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:39 PM | Baseball
B-Boys Getting Old?
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Seems like yesterday they were up-and-coming superstars. But Craig Biggio at 36 and Jeff Bagwell at 34 are starting to show their age. Biggio isn't getting on base like he used to, and Bagwell's power has fallen off. If this continues for Biggio, it will be 2 out of 3 years where his offense has been off. Bagwell's not hitting for power in a hitters park. You have to wonder if he rushed back from the shoulder surgery, or it that in combination with his age has robbed him of his power. Two great players, I hope this isn't the signal of the end for both of them.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:33 PM | Baseball
What a relief:
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The Red Sox used two reliever today as starters; Wakefield got just his third start of the year, while Kim got his first in the nightcap. Each pitched 6 innings and combined for 3 runs. Kim went into the 6th but didn't get a batter and was charged with all 3 runs.

Through this afternoon's game, the Red Sox were 26-8, 3.45 ERA vs. the AL East, 22-23 with a 3.73 ERA vs. everyone else. They've scored 5.59 runs a game vs. the AL East, but only 4.82 vs. everyone else. Seems they've been very unlucky outside of their division.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:26 PM | Baseball
July 01, 2002
Mondesi Trade:
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Here's an article on the Yankees trade for Raul Mondesi. I was going to talk about this, but the sidebar by David Schoenfield says it all.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:05 PM | Baseball
Pay For What You Get?
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I found this site while I was looking up Bret Boone's contract, and thought the Boone fans might enjoy it.

Boone got over $8 million a year for 3 years. There was really no competitive bidding for him. There are a few possible reasons for this:




1. Other teams thought his year was a fluke.


2. Teams didn't want to spend money on free agents without a new CBA.


3. Teams colluded again.



I think it was mostly 2, but 1 might have had something to do with it. Anyway, I think it's safe to say that in most years since free agency came into being, Boone would have gotten a much more generous contract. Which brings me to the point of this essay: if you underpay a player, does he under perform?

There have been studies (see Baseball and Billions by Andrew Zimbalist) that point to declining performance when free agents sign big contracts. But what I think those studies haven't done well is analyze what really should be expected of those players. They look at year-to-year performance, and a player with a great option year is likely to get a big contract, but also likely to fall off since that option year may represent his best performance.

Let's take a look at two recent refugees from the Seattle Mariners, Ken Griffey and Alex Rodriguez. Griffey left, and made it clear that he just wanted out of Seattle. He signed way below his market value, and has been disappointing at best for the Reds. A-Rod, on the other hand, went the free agent route and got, what many believe, to be way too much money. He's been absolutely fabulous (thanks Eddie and Patsy). Boone signs below market value and he's been disappointing.

Now, let's think about how one might view his work. Let's say you think you are underpayed, and the situation isn't going to change any time soon. Are you going to do your best? Why work hard? You're not getting paid for it. Especially if someone else who's not as good as you is being paid much more.

Let's say you are overpayed. You might work a lot harder, because you feel guilt about being overpaid. You may feel you have to contribute a lot to justify your salary. Do you agree?

See, I think the fall off after signing a contract is that lots of baseball people don't know how to evaluate talent. They get a free agent who's 30 years old, who has had a couple of good years, give him a lot of money, and are surprised when he declines. But when you do it right, signing a 26 year-old like Alomar or Rodriguez, it's worth every penny. But signing a superstart like Griffey at bargain prices also seems to be a mistake, because there is really no motivation there for the player to perform well.

I'm going to try to come up with a way of studying this, to see if we can really find some objective evidence to support these claims.

Posted by StatsGuru at 12:47 PM | Baseball