Monthly Archives: March 2005

March 31, 2005

Selling Out

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Baseball merchandise is flying off the shelves:

Gross retail sales of licensed products are up by almost 100 percent in the first part of the year compared to the same period last season, according to Tim Brosnan, executive vice president of business for Major League Baseball.
“It’s in part due to the fact that we had fans with a lot of pent up desire, supporting a team that hadn’t won the World Series in 86 years,” said Bob DuPuy, baseball’s president and chief operating officer, referring to the Boston Red Sox.
According to SportsScanINFO, a retail tracking firm, licensed headwear is up 79 percent, with the New York Yankees and Red Sox making up 53 percent of total licensed merchandise sales.
At this time last year, Red Sox gear made up 12 percent of all merchandise sold. This year, that number has jumped to 21 percent, said Neil Schwartz, SportsScanINFO’s director of marketing.

This is another example that the steroid scandal isn’t really resonating with fans. It’s a good story to sell newspapers and garner votes, but your average baseball fan just wants to see his or her team win.
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March 31, 2005

LA Hot Corner

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While the Angels appear to have options at third to replace their departed hot corner slugger, Jon Weisman isn’t happy with the other LA team’s choices to replace the north bound Beltre. He’s also not happy with the changes to Choi.

Henson also passed along a third item, which is that the Dodgers have convinced Hee Seop Choi to try to hit home runs. In this Spring Training, I’ve read about two things that go directly against baseball lessons I’ve been taught for years: a player (Eric Gagne) purposely altering his mechanics as he comes back from an injury and a player trying to hit home runs instead of line drives (that will become home runs).

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Choi that a full season in one place won’t cure. He’ll hit home runs. Just play him every day.
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March 31, 2005

I Said Disk!

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Dallas McPherson will not start the season with the LA Angels.

The Angels thought enough of McPherson to allow power-hitting Troy Glaus to sign a free-agent contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks during the offseason. But McPherson has been limited this spring by a protruding disk in his lower back.

Robb Quinlan will get the starting job instead. He has excellent minor league numbers and has done well with the bat at the major league level in limited playing time. It looks like the Angels will okay at third base no matter whom they start.
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March 31, 2005

TV Deal

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The Orioles and Nationals (MLB) have reached a deal for co-ownership of a regional sports network. The Orioles ownership will be guaranteed $365 million if they sell the team as part of the settlement. At the moment, no Nationals games are scheduled for local cable broadcast. I assume that can change. Seventy games are scheduled for over the air viewing.
Correction: It’s $365 million.
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March 31, 2005 March 31, 2005 March 31, 2005

Pledge Drive, Last Day

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Today marks the end of the March Pledge Drive. So far 165 readers have donated over $2400. I want to thank every one of you from the bottom of my heart.
It’s been a great month working on this site. While I’ve always had interesting jobs, I’ve never had more fun working on anything. And the response has been tremendous. The feedback I’ve recieved on the Probabilistic Model of Range, Day by Day Database, and Range Charts tell me that there is a real desire to see this kind of work continue.
If you agree, please consider a donation. As it turns out, if every unique visitor to this site had left $1 Baseball Musings could run full out for two years. Traffic has grown enough that if everyone who visits today donated $10, this is a full time job for a year. So if you’ve been waiting for the last minute, now’s your chance. Amazon is working again and PayPal is always there. Thanks again to all who support this site, both with donations and with your visits.

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March 30, 2005

Baseball Idol

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My daughter is an American idol fan, and I just found out Ozzie Smith’s son is in the competition.
Idol does have a problem that was very obvious tonight. I caught the end when they announced the singer being voted off the island. The judges agreed neither of these singers should be at the bottom of the vote. They need a different voting system. Right now, I would guess the voting gets distributed pretty evenly between the contestants. But if they used something similar to the MVP voting in baseball, they would end up with a better ranking. In a popularity contest like this, the consensus 2nd choice would likely be first, and the poorest singer would likely end up on the bottom. It shouldn’t be too difficult to implement over the phone, and it would likely prevent a result like tonight’s from happening.
Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

March 30, 2005 March 30, 2005

Pachyderm Purchase

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Baseball approved Lewis Wolff as the new owner of the Athletics today. I can’t believe how little the franchise is worth:

The A’s, who planned a news conference back in Oakland in the next couple of days to formally introduce Wolff as the new owner, hoped to have everything complete by Monday’s season opener in Baltimore.
Wolff, the team’s vice president for venue development, and his group are paying about $180 million to purchase the team from Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann, co-owners since jointly buying the A’s in 1995.

As Schott and Hoffmann paid $90 million for the team in 1995, that’s a pretty good ten year return on investment. I think $180 million is a steal for a team of this caliber.
Mr. Wolff will continue the tradition started by the Haas family of having double letters in the owner’s last name.
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March 30, 2005 March 30, 2005 March 30, 2005

The End of Endy

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Endy Chavez will start the season in AAA. Frank Robinson and the Nationals tried to get Endy to get on base more so he could serve as the team’s leadoff hitter. It didn’t happen, so Chavez has lost his spot on the big league club.
Ryan Church will take over the centerfield duties for the Nationals. Church has a career .379 OBA in the minor leagues, but it’s not clear that Ryan will be the opening day leadoff man.

Leadoff duty, though, may fall to Brad Wilkerson, who hit first 107 times in 2004, most on the team. Wilkerson, who also can play center, slugged 32 homers but drove in just 67 runs last year. He hit fifth for most of the spring — and hit a homer from that spot Tuesday night — and would like to remain lower in the order so he could drive in more runs.

My feeling is to give Church a chance and see if his power develops. If he winds up being a better long-ball hitter than Wilkerson, swap them in the lineup.
Correction: Changed Expos to Nationals. Old habits die hard.
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March 30, 2005

Honor On

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It looks like the Amazon Honor System is working again. There’s a four week maximum allowed, but I just received one donation, so there’s some room to donate. PayPal still works also.

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Once again, thanks to every who has donated so far. I’ll sum up the drive once March is over, so get your donations in before the end of tomorrow!

March 30, 2005

Mile High Kim

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It looks like the Boston Red Sox have found a place to dump Byung-Hyun Kim. The Rockies will take him in a trade for cash and an unnamed minor leaguer. This fills the Rockies need for a closer and the Red Sox need to open up a roster spot and rid themselves of an unpopular player.
I wonder what it must be like for a pitcher to be told he’s being traded to Colorado. Something like this, I suppose. 🙂 For his career, Kim has a pretty normal ground out to air out ratio. He’ll give up more HR in Coors, but everyone does. The question is will he be able to strike out batters. Because the ball doesn’t break as much in Denver, it’s tougher to fool batters with curve balls. Maybe the unusual delivery will compensate for that.
Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

March 30, 2005

Doctor Discrepancies

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The New York Times has found errors and exaggerations in Dr. Elliot Pellman’s resume. Dr. Pellman is the medical adviser for Major League Baseball and testified before the house committee two weeks ago. I found him one of the more interesting witnesses.
It’s another case of baseball not being careful with what it sent to Congress. As much as I was against the hearings, they did serve a useful purpose in exposing the fine language. Whether is was baseball’s intention or not, it sure looked like they were sticking a loophole in the contract. Now, the one person they send to testify on their behalf, who came across as reasonable and credible to me, has his integrity called into question. It wasn’t a good day for building trust on the part of the lords of baseball.
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March 29, 2005 March 29, 2005

New Life for the Cat

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Andres Galarraga has retired. He ends his career with 399 home runs. Interestingly, not reaching 400 home runs might turn out to be good for his memory. People still talk about Al Kaline coming up one short; in 30 years they’ll still be talking about Andres quitting with class rather than hanging on trying to get to the round number.
Looking at the numbers, it’s amazing how Colorado turned around his career. Andres looked done at age 31. He had a season in St. Louis that would have been poor for a shortstop. A combination of thin air, Don Baylor and the league explosion in offense made Andres a dangerous power hitter. Through 1992, he had hit 116 HR and averaged 1 HR every 29.4 AB. Since, he hit 283 HR and averaged 1 HR every 16.6 AB.
He’ll be remembered, too, for his battle with cancer and his comeback from that disease. Every time you thought he was done, he managed to work his way back. Good luck to him in his retirement.
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March 29, 2005 March 29, 2005

Sabernomic Projections

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Sabernomics has developed a new system to predict batting statistics. The interesting thing is that it’s simply based on the players’ previous season stats. For what he’s tried so far, it does a pretty good job.
Unfortunately, Sabernomics hasn’t posted the formulas, so the system is difficult to evaluate. Still it’s more that worth a look. Since at the moment, I have time, if Sabernomics wants to send me the formula, I’ll be happy to test it on a bigger set of data.
Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

March 29, 2005

Minor Tragic Poet

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The Brewers sent down three today, including the tragic poet of MTV, Corey Hart. More importantly, however; what does Prince Fielder have to do to make a major league roster? He had a fine spring and he’s hit well everywhere in the minor leagues. If you have both Overbay and Fielder clogging up first base, wouldn’t it be wise to trade one for something you need? Wouldn’t you love to see Fielder punching holes through the roof of Tropicana Field. Or Fielder and Pickering making Kaufmann Stadium tilt when they sit in the dugout together? Prince should be pounding balls out of a major league stadium somewhere.
That, of course, is the problem with starting your career at the offensive end of the defensive spectrum. You can play first or DH, or stay at AAA.
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March 29, 2005

Rotation, Rotation, Rotation

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A nice analysis of the Yankees rotation over at Bronx Banter. It looks like the Yankees are another team that starting to think about four man rotations. The Yankees are using days off in April to not start Jaret Wright until April 15th. In general, I believe more teams should take advantage of days off to skip the fifth starter as often as possible. He should really be a swing man, long relief/starter. That way, you can carry one less pitcher and diversify your hitting/fielding bench with another player.
The other thing that struck me in Alex’s piece was the bit about Mussina:

If there’s any concern it’s that Mike Mussina is still giving up too many hits and getting too few strike outs (19 IP, 26 H, 8 K), resulting in a 4.74 spring ERA. He has being stingy with his walks (just 3) and homers (1), which is a good sign, and word is he’s rounding in to shape as spring training draws to a close. Still, 2004 was the first time since 1996 that Mussina gave up significantly more hits than innings pitched, and his K-rate last year was his lowest since 1995. These are things to keep an eye on as the season progresses. Mussina is 36 and had his first real arm trouble last year, dropping below 200 innings in a non-strike year for the first time since his junior season of 1993. I’m a big fan of Mussina’s and he’s obviously crucial to the Yankees run at their eighth-straight division title, but these are not good signs.

I was thinking “right-handed David Wells” as I read that. That’s not bad, but it’s not Mike Mussina.
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March 29, 2005

The Wright Order

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The writers of Faith and Fear in Flushing were looking for a reason to be upset with the Mets lineup that has David Wright batting 8th. They found one.

“Experience-wise, too. It will be his first full season…”
Ah. Here’s the outrage.
I mean, is this a baseball team or a frat initiation? Wright is straight outta Boys’ Life — it’s not like he’s a bad seed who needs to be put in his place. If this is about Mike Cameron’s psyche, as the Daily News suggested, I don’t want to hear it — Mike Cameron is a fabulously well-paid adult, and Wright shouldn’t be punished for being a team guy. And Randolph and Down’s Yankee teams won because they worked counts, wore out pitchers and played solid situational baseball — not because Jeter and Rivera were fetching Gatorade for veterans. If they aren’t clear on this point, I’ve overestimated them.

Wright’s minor league numbers suggest he’d be a better top of the order hitter than either Matsui or Reyes. I’m willing to give Reyes the benefit of the doubt because at his age anything is possible. I’m not impressed at all with Matsui as a hitter; Reyes-Wright 1-2 is much better than the two middle infielders setting the table. Randolph can base the switching of Kaz and David in the lineup based on their spring training numbers. If it doesn’t work out, he can always make a change.
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March 29, 2005

Western Win Shares

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The Baseball Crank uses Established Win Share Levels to look at the NL West race. He has the Giants coming out on top with Bonds, 2nd to the Padres with Bonds gone for 1/2 a season or more. I like San Diego and the Dodgers this season; I think Bonds’ injury is only the tip of the iceberg for the geezers by the bay.
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March 29, 2005

Competitive Balance

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New research shows that Cuban baseball has less competitive balance than the major leagues:

“The organization of baseball in Cuba offers a stark contrast to that of baseball in the U.S.,” said Katie Baird, an economist at the University of Washington, Tacoma, and author of the new study on Cuban baseball. “Cuba’s system makes a great case study of how organizing sports through non-market rules has unintended consequences.”

It’s an interesting study. It also strikes me the Cuban government can easily solve the competitive imbalance problem by simply moving around players. Just force top teams to trade a good player to a lower ranked team. The fans may not like it, but you don’t complain much if you can be taken out and shot.
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March 29, 2005

How Old are You Now?

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The Boston Herald continues its series on the state of baseball with a look at the aging of players:

Take a guess how many of today’s major leaguers are under 21?
Zero, that’s how many.
The 40-year-old baseball player was once a genuine oddity. It’s still not as if the majors are teeming with geezers today, it’s just that they’re getting more attention. Forty-year-old Barry Bonds is the defending National League batting champion. Roger Clemens, at age 42, led the NL in winning percentage last year with an 18-4 record. And then there’s that absolute freak of nature, Braves first baseman Julio Franco, who hit .306 last season. Franco celebrated his 46th birthday last August.

Sometimes, however, perceptions don’t reflect reality. The Lahman database has enough information to create charts of age for the major leagues. Plotted below are the average age of batters, weighted by plate appearances, and the average age of pitchers, weighted by innings pitched. Click on each graph to get a larger view.
Chart of Average Age per Plate Apperance.
Chart of Average Age per Inning Pitched.
Indeed, the trend in age is up. It’s also pretty clear that the money generated by free agency is a big reason. There was a huge dip from around 1950 to 1970 in age. During that time, the owners cemented their grip on the players with the reserve clause and the amateur draft. Unless you were a superstar, there was no reason to stay in baseball into your late 30s. The start of the trend up corresponds to the free agent era. From the article:

There are good and plentiful reasons why today’s players hang around, or try to, longer than their counterparts of yesteryear. For one thing, superior conditioning methods (and in some cases, chemical enhancement) mean that they can linger. For another, modern-day salaries offer an irresistable inducement. A few generations back, a 35-year-old future Hall of Famer could make more money selling cars, with less risk of embarrassment, than he might have with another year’s baseball salary.
Moreover, in today’s free-spending baseball world, the only way some teams can sign free agents is by offering long-term, multi-year, guaranteed contracts likely to extend well beyond the useful shelf life of the player.

One thing many have noticed about the numbers generated by the probabilistic model of range is that it was a below average year for baseball in general. Could part of this be having older players taking the field? If not for the anomaly of World War II, 2004 would have had the oldest batters (and position players) in the history of baseball. I have to believe that’s hurting defense.
As I think about a number of teams this season, I’m struck by how old they are getting. The Giants, Yankees and Red Sox look especially long in the tooth to me. Last year was the year of the old player. Will this be the year that age catches up to them?
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March 29, 2005

History Lesson

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The New York Times has a very interesting article about a ticket found in an auctioned book that led to the discovery Jim Thorpe having a basketball career. Thorpe was the model for the multi-sport athlete, having success in baseball, football, track and field and now basketball. Don’t miss the slideshow that’s connected to the story.
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March 29, 2005

Tony Time

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NPR’s Morning edition had an interview with Tony La Russa and Buzz Bissinger, the author of the new book Three Nights. Three Nights explores the managing style of La Russa. At the web page for the story you can hear the interview as well as listen to excerpts that didn’t make air. There’s also a powerful excerpt from the book about the death of Darryl Kile.
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March 29, 2005 March 29, 2005

Like Father, Like Son

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Tony Armas Jr. has gone on the 15 Day DL with a groin pull.

The injury, suffered during the first inning of Sunday’s game against the New York Mets, is described as a grade 1 pull, the least severe of three levels. Still, the injury is extremely disappointing for Armas, who has now spent time on the disabled list in four straight seasons. In May 2003, he underwent shoulder surgery, and this spring was the first time since then that his arm felt good.

This reminds me of a Mike Barnicle column from the Boston Globe in the mid 1980’s. Mike was providing a preview of the Red Sox season, and one thing he looked forward to was the Tony Armas Memorial Groin Pull. Unfortunately, I can’t find it on-line, so I’ll have to trust my memory.
Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.