Over at the raindrops, Avkash looks at the sale of the Dodgers and a bit of a scandal at the Great American Ballpark.
Monthly Archives: January 2004
Dodger Sale
Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts has much more on the McCourt purchase of the Los Angeles National League franchise. He strikes a very cautionary tone. (Hat tip: Priorities and Frivolities)
Frank McCourt makes me feel powerless.
He could be the next great disaster for the Dodgers. Or, he could be a hidden treasure of, well, adequacy.
But how disturbing is it that after Thursday’s press conference to discuss his purchase of the team, there is nothing that actually inspires confidence? Every potential positive statement made by or about McCourt had to be qualified.
Whatever the future holds, good or bad … today, the Dodgers really seem to belong to someone else. Maybe this feeling will go away, but they don’t feel like the city’s team right now. They don’t feel like our team.
McCourt compares his ownership to that of the Red Sox. However, the Boston ownership moved immediately (and consistently) to impress upon Red Sox fans that they were running the team for the fans. From Jon’s post, McCourt failed to do this.
Also, congrats to Jon on being tapped for a radio interview about the purchase! I’ve believed for a while that weblogs and radio have a natural synergy, and I hope more of my fellow bloggers will be finding their way onto the airwaves soon.
The Balls in McCourt
Frank McCourt has been approved to buy the Dodgers:
“Welcome to a new era of Dodger baseball,” McCourt said during a news conference at Dodger Stadium. “I intend to restore the glory days of Dodger baseball with a team worthy of support from our fans.”
The price is the second-highest for a baseball team, trailing only the $660 million paid for the Boston Red Sox two years ago. The highly leveraged purchase, likely to be finalized within a week, probably will set off the third change in management in six years for the marquee franchise, which hasn’t advanced to the playoffs since 1996.
He’s missed most of the good free agents, so I wouldn’t expect the Dodgers offense to get much better this season. My guess is that by the end of the season, this will be a very different Dodgers organization.
New Money
I saw this link at Bronx Banter about Stuart Sternberg buying a controlling interest in the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. However, Vincent Naimoli remains the managing partner:
Sternberg, 44, is unknown to Major League Baseball. A former executive of the options-trading firm of Spear, Leeds and Kellogg, which Goldman Sachs bought on Sept. 11, 2000, for a reported $6.5 billion, Sternberg does not have an option to buy out Naimoli and become the team’s managing partner, a baseball official said.
There’s a man after my own heart. If I made 100’s of millions of dollars in a business deal, I’d go out and buy a baseball team. My guess is that Naimoli has a price, and eventually Sternberg will find it.
Sheffling the Defense
A number of people have pointed out that Gary Sheffield has offered to play third base for the Yankees (Dom Cento had suggested the idea here):
The Yankees’ newest outfielder offered his infield services to GM Brian Cashman, even though he hasn’t played third in 11 years. Cashman wouldn’t rule out the possibility – “you never know with this team,” he said – but added that, at this point, it’s not a realistic scenario.
Still, Cashman marveled at Sheffield’s willingness to help his team.
“This is a man I don’t know very well at all,” Cashman said. “But this showed me something. Let’s put it this way: (The offer) will go a long way.”
Sheffield has a reputation as a bit of a selfish player. I especially remember his time in Milwaukee, where it seemed to me he was not playing up to his potential because he didn’t want to play there. This seems like a pretty selfless move, but it could also be low risk. Gary may realize that there’s little chance of the Yankees making this switch, so he’ll come out looking like the good guy. Still, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and say, “Bravo.”
It also just goes to show how hard it is to find a good thirdbaseman. Compared to shortstops for example, how many really great third basemen are out there? Rolen, Chavez, maybe Glaus and who? Blalock is still young. Koskie’s pretty good, but doesn’t get a lot of publicity. After those, however, there’s not much. It will be interesting to see how creative (or uncreative) the Yankees get in solving the problem.
My solution to use Pudge
may not be viable much longer.
The Importance of OBP
Yesterday I got together for lunch with one of my readers, Dominic Rivers. Dominic graduated from the Sports Management program at UMass. He interned for the Pirates and has been looking for another job within baseball. Dominic told me about an article he published on-line, where he tries to determine how much weight on-base percentage should get in the on-base+slugging formula using linear regression. I find one statement very interesting:
Nevertheless, there are some aspects of this data that are difficult explain. Despite my deeply held intuitive belief that on-base percentage is always more important than slugging percentage, the two-year time period chart shows three eras where SLG appears to be more important than OBP. Those eras are 1981-1982, 1989-1990, and 1990-1991. Oddly enough, these periods happened to produce the lowest ?r-squared? totals. For those who haven?t taken a stats class, or who had one but didn?t pay attention, ?r-squared? tells you how much is explained by the regression equation. So for example, in the 2001-2002 time period ?runs scored? were approximately 88.2% (r-squared of .882) determined by OBP and SLG. The other 11.8% can be explained by other stuff. This ?other stuff? might include baserunning, clutch hitting, and number of times reaching base on an error. Why does a ?low r-squared? period correspond with a period where SLG is important? My opinion is that these eras, 1989 in particular, are characterized by a great deal of offensive parity. For example, in the National League in 1989, every team besides Atlanta had an on base percentage in the range of .305 to .321. In the American League in 1989, all but two teams scored between 4.13 and 4.78 runs per game. But these years are anomalies, and hence, I would not recommend that Major League GM?s attempt to build an offense based on numerous low-OBP/high-SLG Dave Kingman types.
This is just what I would have expected. If teams are very close in OBP, slugging will dominate. If they are close in slugging, OBP will dominate. But there’s another lesson to be learned here as well. There’s more than one way to score runs. Having a team with a high OBP is a great way to score runs, maybe the best way to score runs, but it’s not the only way. You can do just fine with high slugging averages. You can do fine with high batting averages. You can do fine by being okay in all of those and just being lucky. As with so many things in life, there is no one right answer.
Stadium Names
I saw this note at Baseball Crank:
* The Giants have agreed to change the name of Pac Bell Park to the even-more-antiseptic-sounding SBC Park. Much as these corporate stadium names bug me, it wouldn?t be so bad if they didn?t keep changing all the time. Like your local bank, it?s getting altogether too difficult to keep some of these parks straight due to their frequent name changes. Grumble, grumble. (Check out this site, if you?re motivated to do more than grumble.)
It used to be easy to remember ball park names. Now, they are named after some business I haven’t heard of, or they change every other year. Let’s cut the corporate crap and go back to naming these parks after people and places. When I think about where the Padres play, I’d much rather remember Jack Murphy than a cell phone or a pet store.
Foot In The Door?
The Cleveland Indians may be paving the way for openly gay players in the major leagues:
Indians minor leaguer Kazuhito Tadano is asking for forgiveness for what he called a one-time mistake — his appearance in a gay porn video in which he engaged in a homosexual act.
I suppose we’ll know that MLB has become tolerant when a player only has to apologize for appearing in a porn video, not for what he did in it.
“I did participate in a video and I regret it very much,” he said. “It was a one-time incident that showed bad judgment and will never be repeated. I was young, playing baseball, and going to college and my teammates and I needed money.
“Frankly, if I were more mature and had really thought about the implications of what I did, it never would have happened.”
Through an interpreter, Tadano added: “I’m not gay. I’d like to clear that fact up right now.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 🙂
The players and management don’t seem to have a problem with this:
Twice in the minor leagues last season, Tadano stood before his teammates and confessed to his participation in the video, which Nero said can only be obtained on the black market in Japan.
Tadano received overwhelming support from players at Kinston, N.C., where he started the season and later at Akron, the Indians’ Double-A affiliate.
“I wanted to tell the truth to my teammates,” he said.
A former starter, he pitched in all three levels of the minors last season, going 6-2 with a 1.55 ERA and three saves. At Akron, he didn’t allow a run in his first 28 innings and struck out 78 in 72 2-3 innings.
Outfielder Grady Sizemore said Tadano’s speech last year was well received in the clubhouse.
“You could tell he was nervous,” said Sizemore, a top prospect who lived with Tadano this winter. “But I don’t think it changed anybody’s opinion of him. After it was said and done, nobody thought anything more of it. He’s a great guy and a great pitcher.”
If he pitches well during spring training, Tadano could win a spot in Cleveland’s bullpen. Whenever he joins the Indians, pitcher C.C. Sabathia says Tadano will be welcomed.
“This is the right team and the right organization for him,” Sabathia said. “We have good guys here. Everybody has done something that they regret in their lives. He’s a person just like everyone else.”
In the last year you have the Colorado Rockies publicly condemming Todd Jones for anti-gay remarks and the Indians management and players accepting a player who has appeared in a gay porn movie. It seems to me an openly gay ballplayer can’t be too far into the future. A team with young players, like Cleveland, may be the right place for the first homosexual ballplayer. After all, these young men have grown up in a much more tolerant society than I did (I was born in 1960), and may not think it’s such a big deal.
Sheffielder?
Dom Cento points out in the comments to this post on Boone that Gary Sheffield used to be a third baseman. Why not move him to third and have three center fielders in the outfield? It’ll be a really bad defensive infield, but you don’t have to out and buy anymore players.
Telling the Truth
Truisms is a new blog, mostly about baseball. I like some of his post titles, like, “Why is it so impressive that a man sprints to first base on a walk?” Give him a look.
Sports and Technology
Tyler Cowen at the Volokh Conspiracy gives a nice review of Transition Game, a new blog about sports and technology. Nick Schulz is the author, and to my delight he’s linked to Baseball Musings. Check out this post on steroids. I’m in agreement with Nick, especially his last paragraph. And this post on uncertainty is the type of thing I like to study. Maybe we can do it with pitchers instead of tennis players.
Stop by and wish Nick good luck with his new blog.
Research Today
Jay Jaffe at Futility Infielder was nice enough to calcuate DIPS for 2003.
The Baseball Crank continues his research on win shares with a look at the established win share levels of players in the AL West.
Boone Bust
Bronx Banter is reporting that Aaron Boone injured his knee playing basketball last week and may miss the entire season.
Offensively, this doesn’t hurt the Yankees too much. You can replace Boone’s bat. Defensively, it is a problem. Can Drew Henson step up and finally realize his potential? Or will the Yankees take this as an opportunity to move Jeter to third and find someone who can really play shortstop? Who can they trade for A-Rod?
Update: An intriguing solution would be to sign Ivan Rodriguez and move him to third base. Peter Gammons did a piece on Pudge’s footwork a few years ago in which it was noted that he moved like a second baseman. Pudge could have easily been in fielder. He has the arm for third base, he has a great bat for third base, and no one else seems to want him. Why not give it a try?
Baseball Musings Gets Results?
I don’t know if this post and the comments made a difference, but copying appears to be working on ESPN articles again.
New Readers
The political blog kausfiles has been sending a lot of readers this way over the weekend. Welcome! I hope you come back for more baseball news as the season heats up. This is a great place to get an understanding of all those sports analogies the pundits like to toss around. 🙂
Hurt Feelings
Roger Clemens had his feelings hurt at the New York BBWAA dinner:
The Rocket, who ended his “retirement” after 78 days to sign with the Houston Astros, was greeted with a mix of boos and cheers last night as he picked up the award at the New York Baseball Writers Association of America dinner at the Sheraton New York.
Yankee GM Brian Cashman presented the plaque to his former ace, who spent five seasons with the Yankees.
The reaction from Yankee fans and local media didn’t sit well with Clemens, who won his 300th game and recorded his 4,000th strikeout in the same game last season.
“I don’t see a lot of papers, but obviously I heard it once I made the commitment to go home,” Clemens said. “I heard some of the things that were on the back pages and it was hurtful. It did bother me because I poured my heart out here and did the best I could.”
Clemens played for some of the toughest fans around in Boston and New York for most of his career. What did he expect? I’m surprised Steinbrenner didn’t fire Cashman for presenting the award!
Staying Put
RSS Feeds
I’m now using a news aggregator called Feed Demon to try to do a better job of reading as many baseball blogs as I can every day. I’ve found the ones with obvious RSS feeds, but sometimes they don’t stick out. So if you have a baseball blog with an RSS feed, please either e-mail me with the URL or leave it in the comments for this post. Thanks.
One for the Ages
Avkash at the raindrops has an interesting chart on plate appearances by age for teams last year. One thing, I disagree with his assumption that prime time for players is ages 26 to 34. Most of that time, the players are falling off from the top of their games at age 27. I would have prefered to see age ranges of
- Through 24
- 25-29
- 30-34
- 35+
Then age group 2 would capture players at their peak. Given his data, however, I really like the way Toronto and Cleveland are set up. They have a lot of players moving into prime years together, which is just what you want from a rebuilding program. Also, with the Expos concentrated in ages 26-29, their offense isn’t going to get any better than they are right now.
Difficult Blogging
ESPN has made blogging more difficult. When you are on the page of an ESPN news story, you can no longer select text for copying. You can try it yourself with this article about Rick Reed signing with the Pirates. This makes it a lot more work to quote and comment on articles (you can still do it, you just have to type the text). I don’t know what the reason is, but it’s going to make blogging their articles more time consuming.
Which means that I may not link to as many articles from their site. And that’s bad for them. The way Google works, the more you are linked, the more likely you are to bubble to the top of searches. The higher you’re seen in a search, the more likely you are to be visited. The more you are visited, the more you can charge for advertising.
ESPN has the best and most diverse set of baseball writers of any on-line site I read. They are the first place I go for baseball news. But now, I’ll probably get my ideas there, but link to similar stories from other sources. It’s too bad. I assume they are doing this to stop what they see as theft, but baseball thought for many years that radio and TV would decrease attendance, when the two in fact made the game much more popular. This policy will lead to less links, and less links means a lower Google standing. I think it’s a mistake.
Update: A reader (see comments) reports that you can still cut-and-paste with Mozzilla. I’ll have to try it with Safari on my Mac at home, also. However, neither of those browsers support the MT B, i, U or URL buttons. Solve one problem, create another. Maybe ESPN should just change things back.
Update: As of Jan. 26, 2004, you can once again copy text from ESPN.com articles.
Ping Pong Balls
Captain Kangaroo has died. This was a show I watched every week day morning growing up. It’s hard to believe Bob Keeshan was only 76! He seemed so much older than his mid-30’s when I was watching him as a child.
The Captain’s show came from the treasure house. He’d start the show by opening the door with a key, go inside and hang the key on a hook. As the key went on the hook, the theme music would stop. I remember one show in which the key would not stay on the hook, and the music just kept playing! Kelloggs’ was the big advertiser, and they had a model train pull a car with a bowl of Rice Krispies to a water tower, which would fill the bowl with milk. That was pretty cool.
The Captain had puppet friends before Sesame Street was even thought of. Mr. Moose was a wise guy who would use knock-knock jokes to say the words “ping pong balls,” which would release hundreds onto the Captain’s head. Bunny Rabbit was a silent puppet who always managed to steal carrots from the Captain. The show had cartoons and entertaiment guests and of course, Mr. Greenjeans. A perfect children’s show.
My thoughts go out the the Keeshan family. Captain Kangaroo will be missed.
Mets and Yankees
Yankees, Mets and the Rest is a new blog by a pair of fans, one for the Yankees and one for the Mets. I just visited and learned that Homer Bush has come out of retirement! The Homer homer record may not be safe after all!
Update: Someone actually found Baseball Musings today with this search on Yahoo:
Homer Bush hit a homer players named
Amazing.
Cooler Heights
The Rockies have signed Shawn “The Wilting Man” Estes to a minor league contract. It shouldn’t be too hot for him there.
Estes’ specialty is the ground ball, which will come in handy at homer-friendly Coors Field if he makes the team. Since the start of the 1997 season, he has induced a major league-best 1.24 ground balls per nine innings.
In an interview with Basebal Musings last year, Bill James notes that Whitey Herzog thought sinker ballers were the right pitchers for Coors Field. We’ll see if it works out.
Thoughts on Orosco
The Mad Hibernian at the Baseball Crank has thoughts on the retirement of Jesse Orosco.
Nomination
Please go here and send the guy e-mail nominating me for the obvious character. 🙂
Hope and Crosby
Tim Kurkjian pens a piece on the players facing the most pressure this year. Number 9 on his list is Bobby Crosby, the A’s replacement for Miguel Tejada. Crosby had a great year with the Sacramento Rivercats, putting up a .939 OPS (.395 OBP and .544 slugging). His batting on the team was only exceeded by Graham Koonce, who is five years older. Crobsy is 24 years old, entering the prime of his career. I’m a little suspect of PCL numbers, so I would guess he won’t put up a .939 OPS. But if he plays well defensively and has a high OBP, he’ll be fine. Can wait to see how he does on the road. 🙂
Crap Shoot
A few weeks after admitting he bet on baseball, Pete Rose is going to an eastern Connecticut casino to sign his new book and dine with high-rollers.
The career hits leader, who agreed in 1989 to a lifetime ban from baseball following an investigation of his gambling, is to appear at Foxwoods Resort Casino on Saturday for an invitation-only signing of his book, “My Prison Without Bars,” the Day of New London and the Norwich Bulletin reported.
Fish Story
Here’s a speculative story about Ivan Rodriguez possibly going back to the Marlins:
Rodriguez, though, would have to wait until May 1 before signing with the Marlins, unless there is an unprecedented — and highly unconventional — sign-and-trade transaction involving a second team.
I don’t think it will happen before May 1. The union proved with the veto of the A-Rod deal that they won’t let the CBA be violated, and my bet is they will see a sign and trade as a clear violation of the CBA, and stiff I-Rod, too. (That would leave a month to stiff E-Rod, O-Rod, U-Rod and Sometimes Y-Rod.)
Of course, the Mariners may be interested in the catcher as well, and they are a lot more likely to win than the Tigers.
Who Looks Like Andrew Jackson?
David Berstein at the Volokh Conspiracy asks if John Kerry and Andrew Jackson were separated at birth. Actually, baseball fans know that it’s Peter Gammons who looks just like Andrew Jackson (Scroll down). Peter is often presented with $20 bills to autograph.
It’s interesting that people think both look like Jackson. Gammons and Kerry played hockey against each other in prep school, and Peter told me once that Kerry was the dirtiest hockey player he ever saw. Maybe ESPN can run a poll on who looks more like Old Hickory!
Athletics Nation
Just came across this Oakland Athletics blog, Athletics Nation. Stop by and say hi, and check out his Chad Bradford post.