31 August 2008

Not As Close As You Think

The standings say the Rays have a 5.5 game lead in the AL East. Likewise the Cubs, a 4.5 game lead in the NL Central. With regard to their playoff chances though, the Rays actually have an 8.5 game head start over Minnesota and the Cubs are 10 clear of the Phils.

With 26 games left to play, it sure sounds a lot more like a sure thing now, doesn't it?

There is no discernible difference between making the playoffs with the best record in baseball or the Wild Card. The Marlins won two titles without winning their division. The Red Sox, Tigers and Rockies won berths in the last three World Series as Wild Cards.

So it's really not germane, from a post-season standpoint, whether the Cubs or Rays cede their division leads as long as they maintain their playoff positions. In that regard, the Rays aren't fending off the Red Sox, but the Twins. And the Cubs have little to worry about from the Brewers; it's the Phils they need keep at bay.

(Of course, the White Sox in the AL and the Mets in the NL might turn out to be the teams to beat for the Wild Card. Those teams would have to lose ground to be in that position. The Cards might also push their way into Wild Card contention, but they're even further back than Philly.)

With those kinds of leads, neither the Rays nor Cubs is going to lose its playoff spot unless the other teams take it from them. Even if the Cubs go 10-16 in their last 26 games, they still cruise into the post-season unless Philadelphia wins 20 of 26 games. It could happen, but it's only slightly more likely than a Nader presidency.

And for you Yankee haters out there -- (I'm talking to me) -- the news is equally good. The Yanks have to overtake Boston and Minnesota, which means they can't count on a Red Sox collapse to win the Wild Card. Down seven games with 26 left, they'd need a Rockiesque streak even to have a chance. Were they the Yankees who entered the season, that would be plausible, but there is little about the remaining collection that suggests they're capable.

Now Yankees, don't make me regret my words...

Sports Media: Wake Up!

"Alas, alack!" say the experts. With the young Rays poised for a 100-win season, why are so many Tampa Bay diehards dressing up as empty seats for games in St. Petersburg? The Rays will likely wear the AL East crown this year before fewer than 1.7 million fans? Why oh why?! Disaster! Catastrophe! Why isn't the government doing something?

Silly wabbits. Had any of those experts actually been paying attention anytime during the past 100 years, they might have noticed something: it's always like this.

Teams don't draw well the year they suddenly burst into contention. That bump comes the following year, regardless of their performance then. Apparently people make attendance decisions before the season begins. They buy their tickets in advance...or they don't.

Don't believe it? I looked up four teams roughly at random that came out of nowhere to contend or actually win the World Series recently. Here's what happened:

The 1985 Royals drew 2.1 million fans in 1985 when they won their only World Series. The following year they went 76-86...and drew 200,000 more fans.

The Oakland A's entered the 2000 season with a recent history of incompetence. That they earned a playoff spot is mostly a rumor in the East Bay: only 1.4 million fans saw it in person. But 3.3 million of them witnessed a reprise in 2001.

The Anaheim Angels, coming off a 75-87 year attracted 2.3 million customers while winning the World Series in 2002. Three million paid to see them lose 82 games the following year.

Roughly 2.3 million Chicagolanders saw the White Sox play their way to World Series supremecy in 2005. It was worth 700,000 rotations of the turnstiles the following year.

There may be some inherent barriers to ever attracting fans in large numbers to the Trop. There's lots to do in Tampa Bay; the stadium has the look, and charm, of a tissue box; and the population is on the other side of the bay. (Beyond that, Scott Kazmir, the people of Tampa Bay don't owe you a thing. If they're not buying your product, make it better; don't cry about their loyalty.) But the sky is not falling just because no one's coming out this year. And the baseball media would know that...if they knew anything about baseball.

30 August 2008

Scratch That About ARod

A couple of posts ago, I posited that Alex Rodriguez was so far the AL MVP, based on his ability to get on base, hit for power, run the bases and play an important defensive position. A fellow blogger, Dickie from Clifton Park, a particular form of partisan known as Soxus Rouges Fanaticus, scoffed at the ARod candidacy, pointing out that the Yankee cornerman has come up empty in key situations.

Over the last few days, ARod has done his best to support Dickie's conclusion. He struck out and hit into double plays in a host of key situations during two critical games against Boston and Toronto.

There are sabermetrician types who claim there is no such thing as clutch hitting. They point out that very few "clutch" hitters repeat their situational prowess from one year to the next. I believe that they are right up to a point. Most of what we perceive as "clutch" is merely getting hot at the right time, and the converse for "choking." But certainly there are a few players who are psychologically pre-disposed to bear down when playing for all the marbles, or become unglued when games are on the line.

Can there be much doubt that the greatest player of this generation is affected by the spotlight? Is anyone more eager to please everyone than ARod? Has anyone failed to answer the bell at more critical moments than he?

So for now, I'm withholding my MVP support for ARod. He has accumulated great numbers -- the best in the league. But he's come up short when he needed to stand tall, and that does matter.

28 August 2008

Capricious Moe

So your friend, Moe, is sitting in your team's dugout, quietly minding his own business. You know he's there, because he's always there when your team races out to a 7-0 lead over its archrival in a late August contest.

But suddenly, Moe bolts across the field to the first base dugout and the seemingly-vanquished foe piles up seven unanswered runs in the last five innings. Then, with Moe clearly on their side, they subdue your team in several key situations and scratch across the winning tally in the 13th inning.

"Woe is you!" everyone cries, because Moe has clearly switched allegiances and will accompany the Philistines the rest of the way, as he did the previous year. This becomes readily apparent when your homies fall behind the next evening by a run as your ace heads for the showers.

But wait, wasn't that Moe sprinting back to the northpaw side of the field? By golly, it was, sparking a comeback that leads to victory. Thank goodness we had Moe on our side!

Wait a second, says the annoying contrarian blogger type. What good is Moe if he's going to be so fickle and unpredictable? You'd be just as well off with a friend like Constance. Why are you so excited to see Moe when he's almost certain not to stick around. He's your friend until...he's not.

Come to think of it, it's not like you're even ever aware of his presence except in retrospect, based on the shadow he seems to cast. Could it be that Moe isn't even there? Could these advantage swings simply be the natural ebb and flow of athletic competition?

This notion is painful, I understand. All these years, everyone who loves baseball (and other sports too) had waxed poetic about Moe's myriad accomplishments, hale-fellow personality and abundant charisma. Now some second-rate flak comes along and takes a club to your Moe pinata.
You're suffering from some serious cognitive dissonance.

But here's the thing about the facts: they don't give a flying patootski about your feelings. And the fact is, Moe is a figment of everyone's imagination, as David Murphy made evident last night.

24 August 2008

Let Einstein Be Einstein

Albert Einstein said that not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts. Albert was a genius.

Baseball "analysts" are not geniuses. Most of them aren't even Bill James, Rob
Neyer, Joe Sheehan or Keith Law. They (the "analysts") have taken Einstein's tenet and distorted it into nonsense. Like this: The Twins have an advantage over the White Sox because there's no pressure on them.

I actually heard this morsel of twaddle from a supposed baseball expert on the radio. He was postulating that Minnesota could "play loose" because there were no expectations of a division title. I will leave to your imagination the many ways in which this twist of logic fails to dignify a response. But what particularly intrigues me is the way baseball people throw around these kinds of theories precisely because they're unknowable, unprovable and unreliable.

If I told you that the Twins had the edge over the
Sox because they have a weaker schedule from here on in, you could check my information. But no one knows what makes teams feel pressure or how teams react to pressure. In fact, just yesterday Leo Mazzone asserted the very opposite theory. He noted that Chipper Jones would have trouble focusing on the batting title because his team is out of it, whereas Albert Pujols has the pressure of a Wild Card race to focus him on every at bat.

Who's wrong? No one can know; isn't that great! Because if no one can know, we can continue to make these
irrefutable comments without fear of contradiction.

Consequently, you regularly hear and read accepted wisdom about the quality of some player's
leadership, or of the need to have veterans who know how to win in the lineup, or of the importance of chemistry in the clubhouse or of doing the little things that don't show up in the box score. (Or this one I heard on the same radio show -- the importance of playing well heading into the playoffs, which is provably stupid. Did these guys not watch the World Series two years ago, which pitted the two teams playing the worst heading into the post-season?)

And because these things don't show up in the box score, and can't be measured or counted, the theorists feel free to assign value to them. That's why a weak-hitting, shortstop with average defensive skills gets MVP votes on the premise that he knows how to win and is great in the clubhouse and really shows the young guys how the game should be played. It's surprising that sportscasters and sportswriters have so far failed to credit players for liking dogs and children, long walks on the beach and peace on earth.

Certainly, leadership has value. So does team camaraderie. Being able to get down a bunt, or hit to the right side with a runner on first, or hit the cutoff man are important. I can't prove it, but I think you'll agree, that none of these things as is valuable as a three-run homer.

17 August 2008

Beating the Odds

If, at the beginning of the season, someone had given you 1,000-1 odds to place $20 on Carlos Quentin as AL MVP, would you have taken the plunge? How about on Ryan Ludwick as NL MVP? Unless you're a diehard baseball fan, you would have been less likely to say "yes" than to say "who?"

With six weeks left in the season, Quentin and Ludwick are, if not favorites for hardware, certainly contenders.
In his first two partial seasons with the White Sox, Carlos Quentin had struck out about as often as he had reached safely. In 455 plate appearances, Quentin had shown some pop -- 14 homers -- but little ability to get on base. His .230/.315/.431 "slash stats" -- batting average/on base percentage/slugging average -- in the hitter-friendly BOB, are minor league material for a corner outfielder.

Ludwick's resume was even less impressive. After six years bopping between the majors and minors of three different organizations, Ludwick had established himself as a first-rate bench warmer who could provide an occasional long ball. By age 28, Ludwick had managed just 600 at-bats, half of them last year. In that time, he posted a .258/.329/.466 line. That's a good fourth outfielder, but at age 29 entering 2008, Ludwick had to figure there wasn't much time for improvement.


Fast forward to today: Carlos Quentin and Ryan Ludwick are major reasons their teams are out-performing expectations. Quentin has banged out 33 homers and 91 RBI and improved to .289/.391/.574, while Ludwick had pounded 31 homers and 92 RBI while batting .304/.379/.611. That kind of play is worth 6-8 wins over a replacement level player, which both were, and can catapult a .500 team into contention in a weak division.

Because neither the White Sox nor Cardinals appeared to reach the level even of adequacy entering the season, neither Quention nor Ludwick is singularly responsible for their teams' success. But it takes these kinds of breakout seasons to help clubs pegged for 70 wins take 92 and a post-season berth.


Neither of these players is really a legitimate choice for MVP right now, particularly if you understand that a player's value is not dependent on his teammates. Ludwick isn't even the MVP of his team; that honor goes, as usual, to Prince Albert. Besides Pujols, Lance Berkman, Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes are all clearly better choices. Just by way of comparison, Pujols sports a superior .349/.459/.621 line, and plays a stellar first base. Ramirez and Reyes have their own unique virtues as middle infielders: Reyes's 14 triples and 40 steals compare favorably with the 12 triples and 32 steals of the base ball club in Pittsburgh. The whole thing. I'm not kidding.


In the Junior Circuit, Josh Hamilton is the sentimental choice, but the best candidate is (sorry) ARod. If voters are able to overcome their bias towards a) a compelling narrative, b) a gaggle of RBIs, and c) the irrational need to ascribe team success to a single player, they would see that ARod plays an important defensive position, steals 16 of 18 bases, and hits .308/.396/.587.

There's plenty of time in this race, and plenty of potential nominees, so let's wait six weeks before pronouncing anyone most valuable. Still, it's nice to see Carlos Quentin and Ryan Ludwick among the finalists this late in the season.


16 August 2008

Spitting the Bit

I've avoided any critique of the Olympic coverage because it's the same every year: America American Americans America's America. It's such a hallmark of Olympic coverage in this country that I won't belabor the point, except to say it'd be interesting to compile a list of greatest Olympic moments that Americans have never heard of. I'd vote for the 1984 bicycle race in which the East German slowed at the finish so he could grasp the hand of the West German chasing him and cross the line together. Or perhaps Nigeria upsetting the whole world to win the '96 soccer gold.

I've never understood the notion that athletes are putting shots or slalom skiing for anyone's glory but their own. Or the notion that Olympic victories somehow reflect national superiority. The execrable Soviet Union won bushels of medals while many perfectly pleasant industrialized democracies focus their attention on liberty, justice and prosperity rather than on sporting domination. Victories by Chinese athletes do nothing to mitigate the abysmal human rights record of the despicable Chinese government.

In the 2008 Olympics, the most compelling narrative has been Michael Phelps' assault on eight gold medals. With seven in the bank as of this writing, the story is about to reach its zenith and fulfill NBC's wildest dreams. As is often the case, the narrative is obscuring some of the facts.

On the surface, the genial and talented Phelps has accomplished an amazing feat and deserves all the accolades. It takes nothing away from him to note that he's been extraordinarily lucky in two of his races. But since that muddies the narrative, you've probably joined NBC's conspiracy to ignore some inconvenient facts.

First, Phelps owes one of his medals to Jason Lezak. Phelps did very little to earn the 4x100 freestyle relay gold. He wasn't noticeably faster than his French competitor. France was stronger in the two other legs. Lezak, however, swam a 46-second anchor leg, a full second faster than Alain Bernard's 100m world record time the next day. That's Lezak's gold and no one else's.

More significantly, Phelps gets credit for touching out Milorad Cavic by .01 seconds at the wall in the 100 butterfly. But Phelps didn't win anything: Cavic spit the bit. As any third-rate swimmer in a summer league (my pedigree at age 14) could tell you, when you don't have any room to stroke at the wall, kick like hell. Had Cavic simply complied with that Competitive Swimming 101 rule, he would have won by a visible margin. But if NBC acknowledges that Cavic choked, they let air out of the Michael Phelps float.

Reality is merely an illusion,
said Einstein, albeit, a very persistent one. NBC has proven more persistent.

11 August 2008

History in the Making

Tampa Bay Rays reliever Grant Balfour is having a good year. You have perhaps never heard of the Australian righty, but rest assured Elias Sports Bureau has him on speed dial.

That's because 130 American League hitters have had the misfortune of facing Balfour since his recall from Triple-A this season, and 26 of them have reached base safely. That, my friends, is a .200 on-base percentage, which looks mighty next to the .166 slugging average against him.

In 34 frames with the big club, Balfour has surrendered four doubles and a home run, while sending 49 gentlemen back to the bench on strikes. A dinger and four doubles is one bad inning for most pitchers.

The seamhead community would tell you that Balfour's .366 OPS-against means that opposing batters have performed at four percent of average against him. In other words, when average hitter Kevin Millar steps in against Grant Balfour, he suddenly becomes, well, me. And I'm the type of "hitter" whom Jamie Moyer could blow a change-up past.

Balfour's .109 batting average against is the lowest since they began keeping track, in 1956, by 24 points (Eric Gagne, 2003). Of course, Gagne pitched more than twice as many innings as Balfour has this year.

Fine, so let's examine the 24 innings of Triple-A employment Balfour completed in Durham to earn the call-up. (That would be the 24 innings in which he struck out 39 batters and posted an 0.38 ERA.) A grand total of five International Leaguers poked hits against Balfour, for an .069 batting average. So in 57 innings this season, Grant Balfour has been lit up for 17 hits and a .091 BA.

Balfour's got a nasty slider, some nice heat and a good defense behind him, but I can't explain his dominance and I haven't found anyone who can. So it's possible that the next 130 batters will act more like Albert Pujols than Jerry Kenney against him. But if he keeps up at anywhere near this pace, he'll be the answer to a great trivia question for an accomplishment that's not nearly trivial.

Blind Men and Elephants

The Mets paid the GDP of Belize for Johan Santana's services this year. Quick quiz: Are they getting their money's worth? Is Santana a Cy Young contender?

My guess is that you answered "no" to both questions. After all, Santana's middling 9-7 record attests to something less than dominance. He's been touched for more than a home run per full game and the league is putting 1.16 runners on base per inning, compared to .92 his first Cy Young year. It appears that the NL doesn't agree with him, right?

Not so much right. Santana is giving the Metropolitans everything they expected. He's averaging 6 2/3rds innings per start, with a 2.85 ERA, 44% better than league average. He's delivering way more free passes than usual for him, dropping his strikeout-to-walk ratio way down...to more than 3-1. He's still overmatching hitters, fanning nearly a batter an inning.

The problem has been the other 2 1/3rd innings. The bullpen has done more damage to this Venezuelan than Hugo Chavez, squandering leads in six of the Santana's starts. In all,
Santana has eight no-decisions and he's allowed two runs or fewer in seven of them.

How different does Santana look with wins in those games where he limited the opposition to two runs or fewer? With a 16-7, 2.85 line he's a serious Cy Young candidate, right? How can that be; he hasn't done a thing different? Is the Cy Young Award dependent on the quality of a starter's relief pitching?

Well, if you're paying attention to a pitcher's record, the quality of relief pitching is only part of the problem. There's the defense behind the candidate and his offensive support as well. The truth is, if you don't account for context, you're a blind man examining an elephant.

Of course, you can't stop there.
Santana makes half his starts in an offensive dead zone. When you adjust for his home park, his ERA ratchets up from great to very good. Then factor in the eight unearned runs and suddenly he's not competitive in the Cy Young race with guys like the Giants' Tim Lincecum and Dan Haren of Arizona.

Toxicity

The way I figure it, low expectations are the key to happiness. So if I announce that the trading deadlines will pass with the sounds of crickets chirping, I've set the stage for the Year of the Blockbuster.

You want to know how toxic Manny Ramirez had become to the Boston Red Sox? Consider this: they relinquished two young players and $7 million for the right to trade him for an inferior player.

Has any serious World Series contender ever before knowingly sacrificed the present for the future? It's hard to imagine, but that's what the Sox did. Jason Bay is a fine player, he'll save the franchise a few lira to dangle before CC Sabathia and he'll fill left field beyond the end of this season, but the Baysox are less likely to fly a banner than are the Mannysox.

This move is the counter-argument to my contention that teams ought to have signed Barry Bonds: the clubhouse does matter. But the circumstances are different: Barry doesn't loaf, he does care, and he doesn't criticize management in public. As for the argument that Bonds brings with him a "media circus," for New England's baseball team that would be like bringing a geek to a Star Trek convention.

As for the trade of the other Hall of Famer, Shakespeare already wrote this story -- Much Ado About Nothing. Ken Griffey Jr. is a pale shadow of the great Seattle player who hit for average and power and intercepted big flies in mid-flight. He does none of those things now, nor does he play an adequate center-field. In fact, the one thing about which we can be confident with regard to his position switch is that he'll get hurt. It may be an upgrade for the White Sox, at least as long as it lasts, but not a significant one.

Kudos to the Yankees for making three good short-term pickups without relinquishing anything they'll regret. New York's acquisitions, combined with Manny's departure, tighten that division even further.

A Trade Everyone's Mother Could Love

Last year I derided the Braves for swapping two diamonds in the rough and a fungible fifth starter for a one-year Mark Teixeira rental. Though Jarrod Saltalamacchia has done little to vindicate my raves, the deal did nothing for the Nokahoma crowd but cost them money and prospects as they placed their '08 contention hopes on the disabled list.

Today, Atlanta and Anaheim consummated a trade that simultaneously spotlights the weakness of the original Teixeira deal while delivering sufficient return to salve the Braves' wounds. It should also have Angel fans dancing in the streets, demonstrating yet again how context affects how we perceive things.

Casey Kotchman, for whom Frank Wren sent Teixeira west, is certainly not worthy of the package that brought Teixeira over in the first place. A 25-year-old former #1 pick, Kotchman wields wood and leather with the best shortstops in the league. Unfortunately, he's a first baseman. A slick fielder, he has yet to produce the plate prowess that earned him #1 organizational prospect designation for three years from Baseball America. On the other hand, he's young, has good plate discipline, plenty of potential and is just entering his arbitration years. He could be a key cog on a pennant-winning
Publish PostAtlanta side in '09 or '10.

That's fine, but the Halos are halfway to a pennant this year; it's World Series or bust for them. The acquisition of Teixeira gives the lineup extra giddy-up, and a third leg for the Vlad Guerrero and Torii Hunter stool. In his full year with Atlanta, Teixeira batted .295, poked 37 homers and pushed home 134 runs, while flashing a fine glove as well.

Will Teixeira flee Los Angeles first chance he gets this off-season? That's not Angels owner Arte Moreno's concern right now. World Champs are forever.

A Travesty in Cooperstown

Let's do a mind experiment together. You and I are boxers. I'm a heavyweight and you're a welterweight. We fight only each other. We fight 37 times. You win all 37, by knockout. Which one of us should go to the Hall of Fame?

Sorry to tax your brain. That was a tough one -- at least if you're a Baseball Hall of Fame voter.

Next week, Cooperstown will induct an ineffectual, counter-productive, retrograde Commissioner into its hallowed Hall. Bowie Kuhn spent his time as Commish sticking his finger in the dyke of baseball history while change flowed all around him. As the owners' mouthpiece, he presided over an antiquated and indefensible labor-management model that was roughly akin to serfdom. His attempts to thwart progress at every turn got him steamrolled repeatedly.

Red Smith once wrote "an empty car pulled up and Bowie Kuhn got out." But Kuhn, a Princeton-educated lawyer, was not quite the dolt that Smith made him out to be. He was simply over-matched by his chief tormentor, players union chief Marvin Miller.

Miller and Kuhn went toe-to-toe numerous times from 1969-84, from the strikes of '72 and '81, and the lockout of '76 to the McNally-Messersmith arbitration case, and Miller won every battle.
(Smith wrote, of the disastrous [for the owners] 1981 contretemps, "this strike wouldn't have happened if Bowie Kuhn were alive today.") Even when Kuhn's side claimed a rare victory in Curt Flood's reserve clause challenge, Miller out-maneuvered him and defeated the reserve clause anyway.

Over Kuhn's dead body, Miller won for the players
an end to the reserve clause, free agency, a hundredfold increase in the highest salaries, arbitration in labor disputes, the right for veteran players to veto trades, a vastly improved pension plan funded largely through television revenue and the use of agents to negotiate individual contracts.

Here's a list of Bowie Kuhn's great innovations: six new franchises, including the Seattle Pilots.

You may not like the gargantuan salaries now commanded by prima donna players, but they are the product, after all, and they have no more rights than any other worker in America.

Nonetheless, next week, the Hall of Fame will once again pass over Miller and instead present a bust of the now-confirmed-dead Kuhn. It is an act of futility, like ignoring Road Runner and electing Wiley Coyote into the Acme Hall of Fame. Cooperstown is poorer for it on both ends of the equation.

Silly Non-Baseball Dribble

I apologize in advance for this non-baseball tangent. It's just that football talk is in full swing now that it's July (!) and I wanted to get in a couple of contrarian NFL predictions before they become vogue.

The Packers are going to be a disaster this year, with or without Brett Favre. 6-10 will be a good year. Teams that suffer the sturm und drang they are currently enduring always seem to devolve into chaos. Football teams need order, advance planning and harmony.

The Jets will rebound to .500. Gang Green vastly over-performed in '06 thanks to a cake schedule and a few lucky breaks. They vastly under-performed in '07 because of meatier opponents and key injuries. All things being equal, they're an 8-8 team with the chance for more.

Sorry Cleveland, but it's going to be a tough year. Derek Anderson had his career year last season and there's nowhere to go but down. You're in a tough division in a tough conference. No playoffs...again.

The Colts' key players are aging. I think they have already peaked and are beginning a slow descent. They'll still make the playoffs, but they won't be untouchable and they might not win their division.

Houston will make the playoffs. The Texans were built intelligently from the inside out and now have Matt Schaub under center for a second year. Their front office gets it.

That's it. Back to your regularly scheduled baseball talk...

Getting Benched

Jeff from Mt. Pleasant, SC complains that I regularly shortchange the bench when I appraise teams and their chances going forward.

This observation is undeniable -- I don't follow all 30 teams sufficiently to comment on their backup middle infielders.

In previous years, this would be a real demerit. But consider how irrelevant most benches are in 2008. Most teams now carry 12 pitchers on their 25-man roster. In the AL, there are nine position players starting, leaving just four bench jockeys. Nobody's backup catcher can hit a lick, so that's a wash. One or two of the remaining players either share a platoon or are part of a regular OF-1B-DH rotation. I tend to account for guys who play semi-regularly.

That leaves a utility infielder beyond my purview. I admit it: I can't assemble a credible comparison of utility infielders.

But wait, there's more. I'm similarly unschooled in the relative merits of the bottom of a team's mound staff. The Long Reliever, the Lefty Specialist, the Last Resort and the Triple-A Ping Pong Ball escape my attention. These guys either throw a third of an inning at a time or earn hump time when the deficit hits six. I can't construct a compelling case for the Reds' Gary Majewski versus the Astros' Tim Byrdak, or vice versa. To be honest, I had to look them up.

Sorry. But you're not missing much.

Set the RSS Feed!

Did you hear, the Mariners are weighing several packages in exchange for outfielder Raul Ibanez. The Royals' lefty reliever Ron Mahay is on the market and attracting a lot of interest. The Dodgers have their eye on Pirates' shortstop Jack Wilson.

Yes, it's silly season, that time of year just prior to the trade deadline when teams in contention (and Houston) consider swapping prospects for veterans playing out their contracts. Of course, like hurricane forecasters and stock analysts, reporters predict 15 out of every two trades. (Do the math.)

But this year is the silliest of all. In the past, there was at least some grandiosity to the conjecture. We talked about trades for difference-makers like Carlos Beltran and Mark McGwire. This year -- Raul Ibanez? Set the RSS feed! I don't want to miss the Jack Wilson update. Just imagine what a lift his .312 lifetime on base percentage and .375 lifetime slugging average could give a team.

Unless you're a nutcase fantasy player it's time to avoid the baseball sites, sports talk shows and newspaper back pages when the rumor mill starts spinning. Otherwise you might fail to notice that none of these deals makes a whole lot of difference.

Ex-Post Facto Brilliance

Woe unto Jerry Manuel, for having the short-sightedness not to see the future.

If we'd wanted a manager who wouldn't know in advance that his pen would cough up a three-run lead in the 9th to his team's chief rival, we would have kept Willie Randolph on. Willie looked like he could
never predict the unpredictable.

Everyone knows that with your closer out, you let your top starter finish a game in which he's tossed a mere 105 pitches. Had Manuel simply followed that formula, everyone would have applauded him for it, regardless of the outcome. Had the starter imploded in the 9th, or tripped over his shoelace and torn his labrum, the wise masses would certainly have given the manager a pass.

It's not as if Manuel will be needing the rest of the relief corps once his closer returns, which will happen anytime between tomorrow and never. Which is none too soon, because the closer has been a paragon of untouchability, not withstanding those six blown saves and other assorted piles of poo.

It's not as if Manuel should be able to rely on his second- or third-best relief guy to retire three batters before relinquishing three runs. After all, those kinds of leads are precarious and disappear in the ninth inning in a full three percent of games.

It's not as if squeezing an extra frame out of his starters is going to affect the Mets' playoff chances. Five starters and a closer should be enough, particularly in the weak NL East where the Phils have three of the top four NL home run hitters and the Marlins lead the league in dingers.

So to all you Met fans and sportswriters carving Manuel up for asking his relievers to get three outs on Tuesday night, I say, you tell 'em! And hey, give me the score of tomorrow's games so I can drop a few drachma on the winners.

Saving Jerome Holtzman

When Chicago sportswriter Jerome Holtzman died this week at the age of 82, it was a shame that he didn't take his best-known invention with him.

In 1959, Holtzman created a statistic designed to measure -- with sharper focus than won-loss record and ERA -- the effectiveness of relief pitchers. With the save, which was recognized by MLB in 1969 as an official stat, he succeeded.

In the early days of the save, relief pitchers entered the game when it was close and late, often in tight situations. That's when a team's best reliever was called a "fireman," not a "closer," because he entered contests to put out fires. A fireman like Goose Gossage or Rollie Fingers could throw two or three innings at a clip. Almost no one earning a save threatened the minimum save requirement of protecting a three-run lead or beginning with the tying run on deck.

The heroes of the story so far, Holtzman, Gossage and Fingers, are all Hall of Famers. The villain in the story is a future HOFer. If he didn't invent the notion of saving his best reliever exclusively for the 9th inning, Tony La Russa popularized it. All of a sudden, nearly every save was cheap -- meeting the minimum save requirement.

The fate of the save disgusted even Holtzman, as managers corrupted the stat by turning it on its head. Rather than reflect pitcher value, the save has become the guide for relief pitcher deployment. Managers won't insert their closer unless it's a "save situation." Effect has become cause.

Imagine the batter analogy. Threatening the single-season walk record, Jason Giambi gets the night off and Joe Girardi declines to use him as a pinch hitter in key situations until there are second and third with less than two outs -- an obvious walk situation. Giambi pads his stats, but doesn't help the team. His agent is ecstatic, as are the Red Sox.


I recognize that I've beaten this dead horse into steaks, but Holtzman's death (and the imminent shattering of the saves record) reminds us that the save needs to be updated or eliminated to reflect the new closer reality. Better yet, it's time that clubs recognize that reality bites and there's a better way to employ relievers.


There's a saying in economics that applies to baseball: "We only value what we measure." In 2008, we value a pitcher who enters a game with one out and a three-run lead in the ninth and proceeds to give up two hits, a walk, a hit batsman and a pair of runs before retiring two batters. It's time to stop measuring the irrelevant. Maybe then we'll get our firemen back and Jerome Holtzman can rest in peace.

Second Half NL-Style

Pete Rozelle would have loved the 2008 National League. There's such parity that the Pirates
are having trouble figuring out how to lose consistently. Along with the Giants, a team that
could take full swings in the Lincoln bedroom without denting a wall, they are the most
surprising first-half NL performers.

The Midgets are 40-55, two-thirds of the way towards my prediction of 60 wins. Their top
home run hitter is -- I'm sure you saw this coming -- a young gentlemen named John Bowker.
Mr. Bowker averaged 14 big flies a year in his three seasons of Single- and Double-A
experience. As the big club's team leader, he has bagged nine round-trippers, five fewer
than Rockies' catcher and noted slugger, Chris Iannetta.

The Bucs, at 44-51 may be an even greater surprise, given the almost total uselessness of
their promising young starters Ian Snell and Zach Duke. They've been carried entirely by their
outfield contingent of Nate McLouth, Xavier Nady, Jason Bay and catcher-rightfielder Ryan
Doumit. The quartet has a .375/.539 on-base/slugging line, with 61 of the team's 98 long
balls and 18 steals in 21attempts.

The real surprise of the season so far, inasmuch as they might compete for a post-season
spot, is the Miami nine. It's a nice story and they certainly have some legitimate stars in
Ramirez, Uggla, et. al., but they have fewer worthwhile arms than the Mozambiquan army.
Clock strikes midnight for this Cinderella outfit very soon.

The Braves have been a disappointment given all their talent, but losing three-fifths of your
starting rotation to injuries can have that effect. Throw in their confounding inability to
win one-run games and voila! -- they're five games under. On the other hand, that stuff is
likely to even out, particularly when you consider that they've won a majority of two-run
games. A rebound by Jeff Francouer and some improvement from the back of the rotation
could re-inject Atlanta into the division mix.

That the Phillies improved their pitching by acquiring a guy with a 5-12, 4.96 line tells you all
you need to know about that offense-only squad. Though I would argue that Joe Blanton
pitched better than his record in the DH league, I'd also note that he's a flyball pitcher entering
Citizens Bomb Ballpark, where pop-ups grow up to be Big Flies. Among the Phils, Mets and
Braves, this one's a tossup.

And then there's the NL West, the worst division since the 1994 lockout mercifully put the AL
West out of its misery. If you want to know why the Dodgers have under-performed
expectations, allow me to introduce you to Andruw Jones and his eight-figure salary.
Andruw -- or as he's affectionately know in L.A., "Go back to Aruba you worthless piece of
shit!" -- is making an historic attempt to improve the legacies of the Biff Pocorobas of the
world. With more than twice as many strikeouts as hits and a slugging percentage of .248,
Andruw is essentially Sandy Koufax at the plate, without being Sandy Koufax, or even
Scott Proctor, on the mound.

It's not just Jones, though. Here's how inept the Dodgers are at the plate: Shortstop Rafael
Furcal has been the team's second most productive hitter, behind catcher Russ Martin, despite
missing half of the team's games. At the rate he's contributing, it will take Matt Kemp, the
team's third best batsman, 144 games to equal Furcal's total offensive contribution. In the
Weak Weak West, Dodger pitching might be enough to carry them to the division title, but
they sure could use a couple of bats before the trade deadline.

What's happened to the Diamondbacks? Are they the team that started the season like the
cops were chasing them, or the junker that's sputtered to .500? Like their neighbors to the
west, the Snakes are all pitching, but they have two edges on their rivals: The Haren-Webb
tandem and a young lineup that is more likely to improve in-season. If the Big Unit's back
eases up and one or two of the kids approaches his potential, the D-backs can hiss the rest
of the division goodbye.

The other NL surprise this year is St. Louis, a balanced club with solid starting pitching,
defense and enough hitting to carry a pair of glove-only middle-infielders. The Cards need
some relief help and a couple more bats off the bench, flaws that are sufficiently piddling to
warrant little concern in either of the other two divisions. The bad karma from their undeserved
'06 championship has the Redbirds playing in the division with the two best teams -- Chicago
and Milwaukee, and those shortcomings are probably too much to over-come in the Central.

It's going to be a wild 11 weeks in the Senior Circuit. In the meantime, go amuse yourself.

The Mets' Second Half

Marking the one-month anniversary of Willie Randolph's firing, the Mets won their 10th striaght game, which catapulted them into first place. Clearly Jerry Manuel is a baseball savant and Randolph is a rube, right?

Not so fast.

Besides the obvious -- that no manager is ever responsible for a 10-game winning streak -- correlation is not causation. I don't see many Met games, so I don't know what changes Manuel has wrought. The lineup looks the same -- Reyes, Wright, Delgado and Beltran the backbone with an outfield mishmash of fifth wheels like Endy Chavez and Fernando Tatis. The pitching rotation and relief corps don't look any different to me. Grandpa is still masquerading as Pedro Martinez.

The end of the circus surrounding Willie's tenure may have relieved stress in the clubhouse; otherwise the Mets appear to be doing nothing more complicated than playing better. They certainly have some talent and also some glaring flaws. Teams with that profile tend to win inconsistently, as the Mets have.

What's the prognosis? In the NL, it's so hard to say. Several teams with big holes are going to make the playoffs, and the Mets could certainly be one of them. There's nothing about the pitching-challenged Phillies or anyone else in the East to prevent Met games in October. Picking up a decent outfielder -- I hear Omar has his eye on Seattle's Raul Ibanez -- and some bullpen help could really solidify their chances, but the same could be said for every Senior Circuit squad but the Cubs.

It'll be fun to watch.

The Not-Quite Second Half

The All-Star Game's in the rearview mirror, a "classic" whose exciting conclusion nobody but sportswriters and half the attendees actually saw.

But the best thing about the game for me was always the demarcation in the season, a place to breathe, look backward and forward and to take stock of the proceedings.

Some AL surprises:

Some sabermetricians had the Rays winning 89 games, but I didn't buy it. It's rare for a bevy of young players to improve simultaneously on the same schedule, but that's what the Rays have done. Because they've been carried by pitching and defense, they appear for real. Whether they secure a playoff spot, I'm dubious.

The White Sox are harder to dismiss. As I noted in March (The Delusions of Kenny Williams) this team entered the season with two reliable starters, a dismal outfield and a lot of waning stars. That was before Carlos Quentin won the role of Samson, John Danks turned off the home run spigot and Gavin Floyd discovered that he didn't have to suck. Throw in a splendid bullpen, generally good health for Jim Thome and a bounceback year for Jermaine Dye at age 34, and you've got a contender. Subtract Cleveland and, so far, Detroit, and the Sox have a chance.

I don't see much improvement ahead for the Tigers. Their pitching is predictably mediocre and their muscular lineup appears permanently atrophied. Sheff's bat speed has retreated to the bat cave forever. Renteria and Jacque Jones are disasters. There isn't much upside in the rest of the lineup, which has already been carrying the load.

The Twins are a nice story, but I don't think they're this good and I doubt they can keep it up. It's barely hyperbole to mention that Chase Utley has out-homered Minnesota. One day now, Nick Blackburn, the ace of the staff, is going to wake up and say, "Hey, I'm Nick Blackburn," and that will be the end.

The demise of the Mariners wasn't a shock to me, as I noted in February (Hot Stove Musings). Look at their roster: Mario Mendoza could start. I didn't realize their hurlers would make Seattle fans hurl, but Eric Bedard's semi-annual visit to the Disabled List certainly is no surprise. They never really were a contender.

Finally there's the Bronx Bombers, who cannot be counted out, despite their diddling. The bad news for Yankee fans is that the team is old and slow, doesn't have an ace and displays the defensive prowess of the Maginot Line. The bad news for Wild Card contenders is that the Yankees have four #2 starters and several young guys who can contribute in the #5 slot, the Greek God of Relief Pitching, and enough power in the lineup to light Saskatchewan for a week. And that's without the acquisition of Richie Sexson! (Snicker.) They're just six games out with 70 to play. The Yanks aren't a strong World Series candidate, but they are as good a bet for the playoffs as those named above.

Next post, I'll examine the confounding National League. In the meantime, here's America's Finest News Source.

Beat That, NFL

I just watched the very moving opening ceremony at the All-Star game, and the only word I can think of is, "magic."

Did you hear the ovation for Josh Hamilton, who could have lost himself in the NYC hordes two days ago? Did your skin tingle when you saw Willie Mays, Bob Feller, Whitey Ford and the other 70+ Hall of Famers? How about that lump in your throat when Yogi teared up amid the adulation.

The moment that got me above the others was actually two -- when Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter took their places in the pantheon of greats on the field in the House That Ruth Built. Among all the active players arrayed on the field, only those two are sure to have their busts enshrined beside the very men next to whom they stood. (I suspect Manny will do so as well, and Albert will too, but not at DH.)

It's beyond cliche to note that the Mid-Summer Classic has no equal in sport. No other All-Star game matters.

More to the point, there is no sport like baseball. When was the last time a football game weakened your knees? Do the traditions of the NBA make your heart skip a beat? Can you name the last Stanley Cup winner? Do you reminisce about the golf event that your dad took you to?

Jim Bouton said, "you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time."

Tribe-ulations

The Cleveland Indians, who have now lost five consecutive times since I called them the best team in the AL Central, played a game last night that was an exact microcosm of their season.

Which is to say they lost.
In excrutiating fashion.
A game they should have won.
Relinquished by the bullpen after solid starting pitching.
With absolutely no offense from a power-packed lineup.
Except for Grady Sizemore, who smacked two homers, a single and walk in five plate appreances, stole a base and scored four of the team's five runs.
Which helped C.C. Sabathia, who got off to a brutal start but then righted himself and was strong for the remainder of his eight innings.

The 10th inning triumph by the White Sox drops the last place Tribe 11 games under .500 and 12.5 games out of first place. It came the day after the shell of Travis Hafner, who's batting .217 with four home runs, took a trip to the DL with a
quasi-operational right shoulder.

So please, ignore my previous exhortations about Cleveland keeping Sabathia and getting second base and bullpen help. Feel free to discuss whom the Indians will trade Sabathia to, because unless they turn the ship around in dramatic fashion in the next two weeks, they will have to concede the season.

Yum...crow.

Addendum to Previous Post

As if to prove my previous point, Toronto presented a lineup the following day that included Eckstein and his lifetime .362 slugging average as designated hitter.

Fans of an American League team whose best choice for DH is a slap-hitting middle infielder can go ahead and make wedding plans in October. The Blue Jays' season will drag to an end September 28.

Pesky Analysis That Knows How To Win

You may have noticed that the Toronto Blue Jays bring up the rear in the American League East, five games below.500. The Jays have struggled to compete since their early 90s World Championships and have made their share of bad personel moves.

Two of those moves are playing the left side of the Toronto infield today and go a long way towards explaining why the Jays' imminent challenge to Boston/New York hegemony never materializes.

At shortstop is David Eckstein, a 33-year-old journeyman whose value has always been overblown because of his diminutive stature and his consistent hustle. The standard Eckstein narrative emphasizes his pluck, his "heart," and his family's health struggles. It obscures the truth about him, that he's never been more than a decent leadoff hitter with absolutely no power. Toronto signed him to a $4.5 million contract, but he's fallen to second on the depth chart behind the immortal Marco Scutaro.

At third is Scott Rolen, whose accomplishments have obviously far outstripped Eckstein's, but who's missed 176 games in the last three years. Toronto and St. Louis swapped third base headaches during the off-season, and so far, Troy Glaus has given the Cardinals the better of the deal, particularly considering Rolen's $11.6 million salary. I'm not knocking the defensible trade for Rolen, but if Ontarians believed it would do anything to solve the Blue Jays' offensive deficits, they were sadly misguided.

So why spend $16 million on a pair of 33-year-olds who offer little added value? According to the Braves' broadcast this afternoon it was to season the roster with "that winning attitude." You see, Rolen and Eckstein had the good fortune to share the roster with Albert Pujols two years ago and collect some lovely post-season hardware. Eckstein had the added good fortune in 2002 to play beside Tim Salmon, Troy Glaus and Troy Percival in Anaheim to share the same honor.

The Toronto Blue Jays do not lack a "winning attitude." "Winning attitudes" are things teams acquire when they win. The Blue Jays lack winning talent. David Eckstein similarly lacks winning talent, which means no matter how admirably hard he tries, he still can't help Toronto compete. But as long as he's "pesky" and has two World Series appearances on his resume, people will believe he "knows how to win."

Here's the fun irony of the Eckstein-Rolen saga. In 2006, Eckstein and his dirty uniform were named World Series MVP, mostly on the strength of his Little Engine That Could history. Eckstein collected all of eight singles and a walk in 23 plate appearances, making his one of the silliest MVP selections in MLB history. Who deserved the trophy? None other than Scott Rolen, who ripped a home run, three doubles and four singles and earned a pair of walks in 21 trips to the plate.

Apparently when it comes to MVP Awards, Eckstein is peskier than Rolen, and knows how to win.

A Good Trade...To Avoid

After a trade of C.C. Sabathia to any team willing to pony up a herd of minor league stallions, which I predict will never materialize, the most discussed mid-season swap out there in sports talkland is the Rays nabbing Ken Griffey, Jr. for a couple of their myriad stable hands.

Apparently, sports talkland believes that the dysfunctional 2000 Devil Rays management team that inked Greg Vaughn, Jose Canseco and other dilapidated statues to expensive contracts is still guiding the team. Because there is not one single redeeming feature of such a trade.

To wit:
1. The Rays were built for long-term success by amassing a great farm system. (It helps to pick first every year.) Trading the future for a one-year fix makes no sense. Trading it for a one-year fix and a one-year albatross is downright Littlefieldian.
2. The Rays don't have much need at Griffey's position. They are winning because of pitching and defense, but their outfield is above average and improving. BJ Upton, Carl Crawford and Cliff Floyd/Eric Hinske are an excellent defensive outfield with two good bats.
3. Junior is a marginal player at this point in his career. A constant injury risk, the future HOFer is hitting
.245/.354/.405. and not nearly the defender he once was. That's not good enough to supplant any of the above-named players.
4. Fourth outfielders aren't worth $16 million. They aren't even worth $1.6 million, particularly not on the Tampa payroll.
5. Whoever they'd have to give up has a whole career ahead of him and will be avaialable at below-market wages for the first six years. That $16 million could pay a whole infield and outfield of players with limited service time.
6. There's already a highly-valuable veteran outfielder available for less money. And he's a free agent, so the Rays wouldn't have to mortgage the future to get him. It is He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken. $3 million and a three-month commitment would get you .245/.420/.500.

I have heard some object to signing Darth Vader on the grounds that it would be anathema to the Rays' fans. Tell you what, get me both their phone numbers, and I'll allay their fears. Because last I looked the Rays didn't have enough fans to vent a large bathroom. They play in a space bubble, a living room with a blow-up roof, and they cram 7,000 people into the 40,000 seats. There are more Cubs fans at any given moment on the Dan Ryan Expressway than Rays fans in all of Tampa and St. Pete.

So please, spare me the silly Junior to Tampa talk. And the C.C. to anywhere talk too. The Indians are the best team in the Central, seven games out with 90 to play. They're more likely to pick up a second-baseman than ditch their best pitcher.

No Icing Needed

Recent surgical developments may have mootified it -- yes, I made up that fine new word -- but Curt Schilling's Hall credentials have been the subject of much discussion the last few days.

The consensus on Schill seems to be that he's a marginal candidate pushed over the line by spectacular post-season performances. I find two semi-fallacies here.

Post-season performances are not irrelevant, particularly now that players upon whom fate, and Mr. Steinbrenner, smiles can do a year's worth of toil in the playoffs. (See Jeter, Derek - 495 AB; Pettitte, Andy - 35 starts.)

For all of his World Series ubiquity, Whitey Ford pitched in 22 post-season games. (The World Series and post-season were synonymous before 1969.) Schilling has pitched in 19 post-season games, most of them brilliantly.

Nonetheless, 19 games, no matter how transcendent, do not merit a sculpture. Were Schilling really a borderline candidate for the HOF, I would hardly be swayed by a bloody sock.

Here's the rub: This cake needs no icing. Curt Schilling is a Yale lock, not a borderline case. Forget the won-loss record, although at 216-142 it's nothing to sneeze at even in allergy season. Curt Schilling has had a remarkable career. Amassing 3,116 strikeouts against just 711 walks puts Schilling among the very elite in K/BB ratio. While that's a fairly esoteric statistic, it's most telling, because pitchers who make their own outs, keep guys off the bases and the ball in the park are great no matter who's defending behind them. (He has a good HR/game ratio too.)

Schilling's 3.46 ERA looks mediocre by Hall standards, but remember that context is everything. Making just 60 of his 438 career starts before 1994, his career encompasses a big offensive era. Compared to him, Don Sutton's 3.26 ERA pales (it translates to 4.23 in an average offensive park and era), as does Catfish Hunter's 3.26 (translates to 4.43) and even Juan Marichal's 2.89 (3.90).

In fact, let's compare Schilling to Sutton, a borderline HOFer; Marichal, a surefire HOFer; and Fergie Jenkins, another HOF lock. (I left out Hunter because he's in the Hall primarily because he played for great teams and had a cool nickname. Better pitchers than Catfish should be shut out.)

With a 324-256 record and 3,574 strikeouts, Sutton managed more wins and whiffs than Schill, but at the cost of double the walks and a far worse winning percentage. Moreover, comparing how they pitched relative to contemporary league average, Schilling was twice the pitcher Sutton was. Sutton makes up a lot of the difference with longevity.

Like Schilling, Marichal lacked the voluminous win total but prevailed in a noteworthy percentage of his decisions. His contextual ERA is higher and he struck out 1,000 fewer batters while issuing the same number of free passes. Relative measures have Schilling at nearly twice the value and for longer.

Versus Jenkins, it's more of a hash. The Canadian chalks up 70 more wins, the Alaskan 80 fewer losses. Their relative ERAs are similar, though Schilling has the edge. Jenkins fanned a few more batters; Schilling walked 180 fewer. Schilling finished in the top 10 in ERA nine times during his career; Jenkins eight times. Over their careers, Schilling is slightly more valuable per game, but because Jenkins ate innings, he amassed more total value.

By the way, while those 60s, 70s and 80s hurlers manned up for 300 innings a year, Curt Schilling is no wuss. He finished in the top three in the league in complete games nine times.

Better than Juan Marichal and even with Fergie Jenkins: is that a career that needs help getting in the door at Cooperstown? Post-season schmost-season. Put Curt Schilling, his sock, his mouth, his blog, and his fastball in a display case on the banks of the Otsego.


The Devil (With the Pen) Made Me Do It

At the risk of piling on Omar Minaya, did you see his explanation of the Willie Randolph firing?

Not the how -- enough ink's been spilled over that to drown Sioux City. The why.

Here's the quote: "It is a distraction every day. You try to keep away from the papers, but they're always in the clubhouse and you read and they're always talking about firing Willie, firing Willie."

Did Lewis Carroll write this script? The media got Willie fired? I hadn't realized that Omar Minaya was the Mad Hatter.

If the media frenzy was becoming a distraction, why didn't Minaya just announce that Randolph was his manager for the rest of the year? That Billy Wagner might consider closing out a win now and then. That Met catchers might try hitting occasionally. That everyone making over $10 million/year might like to accumulate accomplishments worthy of All Star berths?

I don't know if Willie Randolph is a good manager or a bad manager. I doubt that it even makes much difference. But I sure know goofy GM talk when I hear it, and that's it.

Unless the papers tell me I'm wrong.

Do So At Your Own Risk

Ask your average baseball fan who will win the AL Wild Card, and he'll say the Tamp Bay Rays. I understand why. After 13 years of playoff appearances, the Yankees bore me too. But count them out at your own risk.

Sure baseball's most expensive team has been treading water for two-and-a-half months. They've also replaced the AL's best catcher since May with a .553 OPS. The game's best player has been on the shelf for a couple of weeks and the Hall of Fame shortstop and All Star second-sacker have been scuffling.

The Yankees are long in the tooth on both sides of the ball. Partly as a consequence, they are a lousy defensive club that needs two green lights to get across the street. Their 33 stolen bases rank second in the Majors behind Jacoby Ellsbury.

Moreover, their rotation is a little tattered and their relievers are iffy despite the best closer in history. Assuming Wang isn't seriously hurt, he, Mussina, Chamberlain and Pettitte comprise a reasonable front four. If Rasner keeps up the good work, that's a viable mound staff, particularly considering the offensive potential.

Joba's shift to the rotation leaves Kyle Farnsworth and his 100 miles an hour of knucklehead as the centerpiece of the relief corps. Yankee trainers had better keep this year's Joe as stocked as last year's Joe in Rolaids.

The Yankees have less margin for error this year, but unless things come terribly undone, they have a monster lineup and sufficient pitching to tear up the league for long enough to grab the Wild Card. The Rays would be a better story, but don't let it get in the way of the facts.

Notes To Willie's Successor

Dear New Mets Manager, (if indeed there is one)

You've got your work cut out for you. Your new team is a $150 million mess that has played .500 ball over a full season's worth of games. You'll want to avoid your predecessor's mistakes:

1. Put Moises Alou in the lineup. Willie refused to play his best outfielder, despite the .347 batting average.
2. Stop skipping Pedro's starts. The Hall of Famer is undefeated (1-0), but Willie only gave him three starts.
3. Make Carlos Delgado younger. He got old under Willie and is hitting a paltry .243/.326/.404.
4. Tell Omar to get a catcher who can hit. Brian Schneider's .308 slugging average is below replacement level. I guess Willie didn't understand backstops.
5. While you're at it, force him to get a decent fourth outfielder. That sucking sound you hear is Endy Chavez's .552 OPS, which is roughly half of Lance Berkman's.
6. Quit using the bullpen. Billy Wagner's blowing saves like they're heated glass and the rest of the relief corps is giving up more than five runs per nine. Despite that, Willie kept pulling the starters.
7. Show Oliver Perez how to throw strikes. Six walks a game? Willie couldn't teach him discipline.
8. Quit playing such a tough schedule. Willie took the team to Philly, Atlanta, and an improved Miami team, plus interleague tilts against powerhouses like the Yankees and Angels.
9. Yell and scream a lot. Kick dirt at an umpire. Throw a (non-racial) tantrum before the assembled media. Eventually the team will compile a modest hot streak following one of your meltdowns and the press will attribute the winning to your tirade.

Follow my advice and I guarantee you'll last the season.

A Win-Win, Except for the Loss

We may one day look back at the off-season deal that sent rookie pitcher Edinson Volquez to Cincinnati and second-year outfielder Josh Hamilton to Texas as one of the all-time blockbusters.

It may turn out, as the baseball media reports, to be a great deal for both teams. But it isn't so right now. As of two months into the '08 season, Texas GM Jon Daniels has got to be sticking needles in his eyes over this one.

Sure, Hamilton is as close to the AL MVP leader as you can get in May with his .337 batting average and .606 slugging. The former first-rounder has put his drug problems behind him and clouted 31 home runs in his first 504 MLB at bats. According to Baseball Prospectus, he's on pace to be worth nearly 10 wins against a replacement level right fielder for the Rangers. And he can play a creditable center if you need him.

That Volquez is on pace to be worth almost 12 wins for the Reds is not nearly the problem with this deal. Nor is his relative youth; at 24 he's three years younger than Hamilton. His mid-90s fastball and heart-breaking 72 mph change, his 7-1 record, league-leading 1.34 ERA and 74 strikeouts in 60 innings are all Cy Young material, but not what should keep Texas brass up at night.

Let's recast this trade: two hungry bald men swapped a comb for a chicken dinner. They're worth about the same, but that doesn't make it a fair trade. The Rangers got the comb.

With eight of their nine regulars on base at a .340 or better clip, the Rangers have the best offense in the AL West by a Big D country mile. Their pitching? Let's just say that the ninth iteration of Sidney Ponson is their #3 starter. Pitchers with ERAs of 8.56, 9.12 and 10.51 have taken the ball in 20% of their games. The pitching corps -- or is it corpse -- has been below replacement value as a unit. You think they could use a guy with a 1.34 ERA?

Trading Volquez was the equivalent of the Yankees moving Joba Chamberlain for a third baseman or the Cleveland Browns dealing a pass rusher to get a quarterback.

The result has been an up-and-down Rangers team in a weak division and the promise of more all season.

Not that the Reds have brushed off the loss of Hamilton. Though they need Volquez badly -- the only other starter with an ERA under five-and-a-half is Aaron Harang -- their outfield has dragged down a productive offense. Ryan Freel has eight extra base hits -- none of them homers -- and Ken Griffey, Jr. is hanging on for his #600 curtain call. With Hamilton, Jr. could cool his heels most nights and fourth outfielder Corey Patterson could take his .630 OPS to Louisville. The Redlegs are also below .500 and depending on the night, bringing up the rear in the NL Central.

I teach my writing students never to call something "a win-win for both sides." It's redundant: win-win implies that both sides win. The problem here is that, so far, the Volquez-Hamilton trade is a win-lose.

At Least They're Not Schizophrenic

It's a common misconception that people who have multiple personalities are "schizophrenic." In fact, split personality is one kind of brain disease and schizophrenia is another, though they have multiple literary spawn in common.

Schizophrenics hear voices, endure hallucinations or delusions, become confused, disorganized, or speechless, present a flat affect, or have a host of other symptoms, but not
dissociative identity disorder. Thus, you may very well be alone with a schizophrenic...though it's generally not much fun.

Put simply, Sybil had multiple personalities. Raskolnikov was schizophrenic. James Frey is a lying schizophrenic-wannabe.

Nowhere among the four main schizophrenic groups -- paranoid, catatonic, undifferentiated, and my favorite, hebephrenic (often characterized by inappropriate mirth) -- is to be found the current incarnation of the 107-year-old baseball franchise in Cleveland, OH. But, oh my, does this club have a split
personality.

Cleveland appeared to sport a pennant contender at season's commencement, with a solid rotation, improved relief pitching, a powerful and mostly young lineup and good fielding. Those are the makings of a pretty delicious stew. But they're missing one ingredient, and it makes for a funny-tasting below-.500 record.

To be sure, the starting pitching staff has been a gourmet meal. All but six of the team's starts are represented by pitchers posting ERAs of 1.50, 1.60, 3.10, 4.10 and 5.14, and the liverwurst in that mix is C.C. Sabathia, the ace who will almost certainly improve.

Now for the banana and creamed spinach sandwich: an offensive attack so feckless that Victor Martinez is the only starter hitting over .257 -- and he's homerless. The two big sluggers, Travis Hafner and Ryan Garko, have combined to hit a .225/.324/.361, or roughly what you'd expect from reserve catcher Kelly Shoppach. Except that Shoppach's
.222/290/.302 has failed to reach even that modest measure. What Cleveland brass wouldn't give to have second-year second-baseman Asdrubal Cabrera tearing the cover off the ball at Shoppach's rate. Cabrera is mired in a .176/.273/.237 season that makes him about a third of a run worse per game than a typcial AAA replacement player.

The Indians are near the bottom in just about every offensive category (Team motto: Thank God for Kansas City!), although they have managed to swipe 25 bases in 34 attempts. If they can find a way to steal first, they may rise to the level of sour cream and escargot.

There certainly have been less balanced teams than this year's Tribe, but it's hard to remember a squad with similar offensive and defensive expectations to present such wildly imbalanced results. There's still plenty of time for the likes of Jhonny Peralta and Casey Blake to turn things around, so I wouldn't count out the Indians.

Until then, you may find Cleveland residents talking to themselves, which is, in fact, a sign of schizophrenia.

A Phyrric Victory?

I've seen enough baseball to be very worried about Jon Lester in the wake of his no-hitter. I can hardly count the number of times I've seen a pitcher stay longer than he should in a game in order to achieve a milestone only to crack thereafter.

The poster child for that is Kerry Wood's 20-strikeout game in May of '98. Wood, a rookie, threw 122 pitches that game and 166 innings that year before his arm fell off, an injury from which he has really never fully recovered.

Lester, whose injury and illness history is inspiring and well-documented, threw 120 pitches in his no-hit start, a workload not usually allowed by the Red Sox brass. It's hard to imagine that he would have finished that game had he been pitching a three-hitter.

Owner John Henry, GM Theo Epstein and consultant Bill James have forgotten more baseball data than you and I and 27 of our friends have ever seen (and I've read James's books), so maybe they know something about Lester that we don't. I understand that they have arranged the rotation so that Lester gets an extra day's rest.

But history is littered with pitchers whose crowning achievement cost them a labrum, ulnar nerve or patellar tendon, and was the last good game they threw. I hope Jon Lester isn't on that list.

All Together Now

Veteran pitcher A has a 4.41 ERA and just 18 strikeouts in 35 innings. He's lasted, on average, just five frames per start and is probably a fourth starter at this point.

Veteran pitcher B isn't fooling too many batters anymore. He has surrendered 61 hits in 54 innings and is fanning a batter every other inning. Despite pitching in an extreme pitcher's park, his ERA is 3.98, thanks mostly to a bagful of unearned runs.

Veteran pitcher C is a monster, the ace of his staff, except he's been summering on the Disabled List. His ERA of 2.00 and 36/8 K/BB rate are impressive, but there are questions about whether he'll be able to start again.

All three gentlemen are in their 40s and have to be thinking about retirement. May I respectfully suggest they do so at the end of this year, together?

I'm speaking, of course, of the Hall of Fame trio Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz. Each of them could choose to hang around another year or two, but to what end?

Smoltz's shoulder and elbow are clearly opposed even to continuing this year. Hitters and their .356 OBP are encouraging Glavine to cash out now.

And Maddux, he of the 350 wins, probably has the most incentive to call it a career. With Roger Clemens' reputation running through the shredder, Maddux rises one notch in the estimation of most baseball fans as the greatest pitcher of his generation. Continuing to demonstrate the degradation of his skills does nothing but diminish his place in baseball history and gives Clemens a window of opportunity to recover his pre-eminent position.

By retiring, each of them would leave millions on the table. But really, is there any purchase they can't make, besides an Indian Ocean archipelago, that another year's remuneration would allow?

Tom, John & Greg, go out together so you can go in together to the Hall in 2013. The greatest pitching staff of all time entering Cooperstown as a single starting rotation.


Not Bloody Likely

The baseball press has been all atwitter about the shocking state of affairs that has the two Florida teams moonwalking atop their respective Eastern divisions.

The Rays (nee Devil Rays) have taken five of six from the vaunted Yankees and the Marlins have clawed their way over favorites New York, Philadelphia and Atlanta.

Could it...? I mean actually...?

Well, far be it for me to get into the standings prediction business. But the sad truth is, it's not bloody likely.

The baseball media can't be expected to write articles explaining that it's just May. That any team can build a nice sand castle during low tide. That we've seen it all before and forgotten it two months later. That's it would be much ado about nothing if we were ignorant enough to make ado. After all, they have column inches to fill.

Some of you may recall the juggernaut that was the 2005 Baltimore Orioles, which spent two months as Kings of the AL East. Unfortunately for the good people of Charm City, those months were not August and September. By those late summer months, the swoon was old news, the manager was history and the disgrace of the star first baseman -- a former future Hall of Famer -- was soon to be current events.

Tampa Bay is undoubtedly an improved team with a future that crackles with potential. I suspect that potential will be fulfilled in some other year, perhaps a double-digit member of the 21st century.

Miami's entrant, on the other hand, while an even more compelling story, having traded away their superstar third baseman and their signature (though barely adequate) pitcher, smacks of a charlatan. Consider that the Marlins have nearly one-third of their wins against my beloved bottom feeders from the nation's capital and another four victories over San Diego, the team with the worst record in the NL.

Consider also how the Marlins are winning. Don't go measuring their starting rotation of Scott Olsen, Mark Hendrickson, Ricky Nolasco, Burke Badenhop and Andrew Miller for busts just yet. The latter three have been about what you would have expected, unless you were banking on Miller coming over from Detroit and lighting up the National League.

Hendrickson and Olsen, on the other hand, have been aces, with ERAs of 3.56 and 2.63 respectively. But a closer look shows that combined they walk as many batters as they strike out, which is a recipe for disaster. Their performance virtually guarantees regression, and right quick.

And just as they become a movable object, here come the irresistible forces. Having cashed in all their good karma at season's commencement, the Fish start next week with Arizona, (SF), Mets, Philly and Atlanta. If Mark Hendrickson walks Chipper Jones three times, Mark Texeira's going to make him pay. If Scott Olsen grooves a 3-0 straighty to David Wright, he's going to need a new ball.

But if the pitchers keep it real and Josh Willingham and Dan Uggla still have OPS over 1020 in July, let the baseball writers have at it. Just...it's not bloody likely.

At Least the Meal Money Is Good

An optimist might consider the case of John Van Benschoten's demotion to AAA and note how much worse it could have been. After a typical performance in which he surrendered 7 runs on 9 hits and two walks in four innings against the Braves, JVB could easily be headed to Double-A.

A pessimist might not agree that the new assignment will provide much salve. Van Benschoten, the eighth pick of the 2001 draft, was mis-converted by the Pirates (what a surprise!) from the nation's leading home run hitter out of Kent State to a starting pitcher. After two unsuccessful stints in the bigs, several unimpressive minor league seasons and long recovery from labrum surgery, the Bucs once again placed him in their woebegone rotation. Woe. Be gone.

Here's what the pessimist reasonably fears. John Van Benschoten's major league career is over and it will go down in history as one of the worst of all time. In 21 games over four years in which he lasted a mere 75 innings, Van Benschoten served up 54 walks and 101 hits. Of the 380 Major League batters who faced him, 162 reached base safely, an on base average of .426.
Not surprisingly, he compiled a 1-12 mark with an ERA of 8.84.

In one way, the optimists are right. This is well below the level of a Triple-A hurler. JVB's place is in Double-A, and given his history, that's roughly the level of his ability. It's unlikely that train to Altoona stops back in Pittsburgh.

The Trouble With High Expectations

Last night was a disaster for Cleveland righty Cliff Lee. Failing to notch a win, he doubled his yearly walk output and dropped his K/BB rate in half.

That's right, he issued two free passes during his nine-inning stint while fanning only five. His seven-hit shutout was insufficient for victory as the Blue Jays tallied three times in the 10th for a 3-0 win.

Such is life with a 0.81 ERA and a 39/2 K/BB record. While Lee's indulgent two-walk night still leaves him with 44K to 4BB, failing to return to the mound for extra frames prevented him from lowering his ERA beyond 0.67.

But as close followers of baseball analytics understand, limiting our consideration to earned runs can hide a pitcher's real difficulties. After all, Lee has also surrendered an unearned run this year, driving his run responsibility back up to 0.83. And he's uncorked a wild pitch. Heck, he's even once been the victim of a home run.

So let's not get crazy about his historic command and control, his unhittability and his unblemished won-loss mark. Anyday now he might lose all control and hit someone with a pitch.

Of Bengals and Bombers

While watching the Yankees and Tigers conclude a pair of three-game series (thanks to rain postponing game 7), it struck me how similar these two teams are. Tell me which one I'm describing:

1. They have a big payroll and face high expectations.
2. They have a well-respected manager.
3. They have a roster that's expected to mash.
4. Their rotation needs a rotation. It's aging in the middle.
5. The bullpen is stronger than the starting corps. The best hurler on the team is a reliever.
6. They've been inconsistent so far and have fallen behind their main competition.
7. Fans hold their breath every time a ball is hit near their first baseman.
8. Their defense is questionable.

Their destinies may also be linked. Detroit's pitching, which appears to be in worse shape than NY's right now, especially with Verlander and Bonderman spiraling out of control, seems to have little chance of reeling in a balanced Cleveland squad. And the Yanks have their work cut out for them if they expect to rise through the bloody waters of the AL East to get their heads above Boston. It's quite possible that NY and Detroit will compete for the Wild Card.

At this point, the Bombers appear to have a much better team. They have endured much of their troubles with ARod and Posada on the DL, while only Gary Sheffield has battled injuries for the Bengals. The two Yankee pitchers who have flamed out were expected to provide back end support, while the entire Detroit staff has been a disaster. As for defense, the Yankees are the French Resistance, but the Tigers are the Maginot Line.

But Detroit has one thing in its favor: The Twins, White Sox and Royals, not to mention the early struggles of the Tribe. Its race to respectability will be marked by little more than potholes. Of course it might all be moot unless 44-year-old Kenny Rogers starts pitching like it's 1995.