Posts filed under 'Sports'
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
Well, I slept on it. I fired off my “I don’t like this!” post around midnight last night, immediately after I heard of the Andruw Jones signing. It’s been 12 hours or so, and I’ve had time to think about it. Guess what? I still don’t like it. But I think I’ve decided my dislike is far more related to the Juan Pierre situation than the Andruw Jones situation. So basically, this year’s free agent center fielder signing has me upset about last year’s free agent center fielder signing.
Last night, in my list of pros and cons, I had the following two cons:
CON: Oh yeah, and the guy we just signed for $18 million a year batted .222 last year with a .724 OPS. Yes, he gets a decent number of walks, but when all your walks only get your OBP up to .311, I am not impressed.
CON: Jones is listed at 6′1″, 170 pounds. If Jones weighs 170 pounds, I’ll eat my hat, unless he beats me to it and eats it first. He is at least 220, and he will not be an elite center fielder for much longer (if he still is).
I am willing to semi-retract some of this. Obviously, Jones had an off-year in 2007, but rumor has it that he was hurt. If he can put up his usual .260-.265 average with an OPS in the .850-.900 range, he will definitely be an offensive help that the Dodgers sorely need. The Dodgers haven’t had a bona fide 35 HR, 115 RBI guy in a while (especially if you don’t count Adrian Beltre’s fluke season).
And as for the defense, the guy has won 10 straight Gold Gloves, and even with the terrible track record of GG voters, I am willing to bet that he deserved at least seven or eight of them. So replacing Juan Pierre (who has NO value on the offensive OR defensive side) with Andruw Jones (who has proven value on both sides) is definitely a good thing.
But therein lies the rub, TimTim. I don’t think he’s replacing Juan Pierre. He’s moving him to left field, where his offensive woes will stick out even more. In center, he’s a sore thumb; in left, he’s a hand in a freaking wood chipper. If Juan Pierre is in the Dodgers’ starting lineup on opening day, it is for one reason only: they still owe him $36 million, and teams don’t bench players who make that much money.
Here is what Rob Neyer had to say about it this morning:
With Jones aboard, every inquisitive Dodger fan wants to know what happens to erstwhile center fielder Juan Pierre, who’s still owed $36.5 million over the next four years. The early speculation is that he gets pushed into left field, but that’s only because it’s hard to imagine the Dodgers benching somebody they still owe $36.5 million. I’m not sure how general manager Ned Colletti explains this to his boss, but Pierre simply must be benched or traded (and if traded, the Dodgers will have to eat an unhealthy chunk of that kooky contract).
It really is that simple. When you have Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier as alternatives, playing Juan Pierre hurts you in every way. Ethier doesn’t have nearly the upside of Kemp, but both are — right now, today — better than Pierre, and they are 23 (Kemp) and 25 (Ethier), both significantly younger than Pierre. Oh, and did I mention that they both cost the Dodgers roughly a nickel a year?
Keith Law chimed in on this too:
On the one hand, this could just be an acknowledgement that the Juan Pierre contract was one of the worst of our time, so the Dodgers are treating it as a sunk deal, which they should do. (This would make them the second team to do this with a bad center fielder signing from last winter, on the heels of the Angels signing Torii Hunter two weeks ago after getting Gary Matthews Jr. the year before.)
On the other hand, this could mean the Dodgers intend to deal either Matt Kemp or Andre Ethier in a deal for one of the top starting pitchers on the market, such as Erik Bedard. Trading either of those guys would hurt the Dodgers’ offense — any scheme that puts Pierre in an everyday role hurts their offense almost as much as it hurts my eyes — but trading Kemp for anything less than a Bedard or a Johan Santana will come back to haunt the Dodgers for years.
Or, should they keep Kemp but send him to Triple-A or relegate him to part-time duty, they’ll retard his development, since Kemp is still raw as a baseball player and needs reps at the big-league level to continue to work in areas like pitch recognition and reading flyballs off the bat. They could make out better if they trade Ethier, who is just a fringe-average corner outfielder and unlikely to produce at a higher level than this, but that still hurts their club by giving Pierre 600 at-bats that should go to someone who can hit.
Neyer had a bit to say about the financial aspects of the Jones signing, too, but I don’t care much about that. Do I think $18 million a year is at least 40 percent more than Jones deserves? Absolutely. But hey, it’s not my money, and it’s not like a) the Dodgers are going to run out of money or b) they are going to lower ticket prices if their payroll is lower. The money is a non-issue for me as a Dodger fan.
So really what this boils down to is this: if the Dodgers’ outfield on opening day is Kemp, Jones, and Ethier, I love this signing. If it’s Kemp, Jones, and Pierre, I am not happy, but it’s still probably an improvement (essentially trading Ethier for Jones). If it’s Ethier, Jones, and Pierre, that means Matt Kemp has probably been traded, and I will have lost faith that Ned Coletti knows how to run a baseball team.
Ned, if you’re reading this: bite the bullet on Pierre. Trade him for whatever you can get. Eat the contract. I don’t care. Just don’t play him in 2008!
December 6th, 2007 at 01:12pm
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
What don’t I like? This.
So the Dodgers signed Andruw Jones. Let’s list some pros and cons about this:
PRO: It gets Juan Pierre and his range of a 300-pound legless sloth out of center field.
CON: Unless the Dodgers can get some stupid team to take him, it puts Juan Pierre somewhere else in the outfield.
CON: Having Juan Pierre in an outfield corner puts either Andre Ethier or Matt Kemp on the bench (or, more likely, the trading block).
CON: Juan Pierre does not have the offense to play a corner outfield spot.
CON: Oh yeah, and the guy we just signed for $18 million a year batted .222 last year with a .724 OPS. Yes, he gets a decent number of walks, but when all your walks only get your OBP up to .311, I am not impressed.
CON: Jones is listed at 6′1″, 170 pounds. If Jones weighs 170 pounds, I’ll eat my hat, unless he beats me to it and eats it first. He is at least 220, and he will not be an elite center fielder for much longer (if he still is).
PRO: It’s only two years. If the Big Dodger In The Sky smiles down on Chavez Ravine, Jones will have two monster years, culminating with a career-ending injury making the final catch in the World Series-clinching game for the Dodgers in 2009, so they won’t be tempted to throw more money at him for his 33-36-year-old seasons.
PRO: Rob Neyer told me this last week:
Jeff (Eagle Mountain, UT): Will Andruw Jones ever hit .270 in a season again?
Rob Neyer: Absolutely. He’s still got some big seasons in his future, and I think he’s still got a solid shot at Cooperstown.
CON: I don’t believe Rob Neyer.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope Andruw regains the form he had a few years ago, both offensively and defensively. I hope he leads the Dodgers to a World Series championship. I hope the Dodgers have the sense to unload Juan Pierre on one of the teams looking for a center fielder.
I hope I hope I hope.
December 6th, 2007 at 01:36am
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
It looks like maybe A-Rod is going back to the Yankees after all, despite Scott Boras’s best efforts. I find myself hoping he does, because the longer he’s a free agent, the longer I am bombarded by stupid, stupid people writing and talking about him.
Look, there’s only one good reason (and one decent reason) you wouldn’t want your favorite team to sign A-Rod. The decent reason is that your team already has a good third baseman, but it’s only a decent reason because no matter who you are, your team doesn’t have a third baseman as good as A-Rod. The only good reason is you know your team couldn’t afford to pay A-Rod what he will get and still pay other players to make a great team. Back in 2001, the Rangers took an interesting approach: pay A-Rod $100 million more than anyone else was offering, then spend the next three years complaining that you can’t afford anyone else. If you feel that your team would do that, that’s a good reason to not want A-Rod.
I am not kidding here. If you don’t want A-Rod on your team for ANY reason not mentioned in that last paragraph, you are a fool with absolutely no understanding of the game of baseball. Your name just might be Mike Philbrick, and you just might write an article for ESPN.com with a headline of “Your team should just say no to A-Rod.” Let me break this article down, in true FJM fashion:
Alex Rodriguez is going to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. He’s going to make everyone forget Barry Bonds’ home run record. He’s going to win his third MVP award in a few days. That’s great, Alex. Now do me one more favor … don’t come anywhere near my team.
Yeah, totally. Why would I want the best player in baseball on my team?
Apparently, I’m not alone in my thinking. Last time I checked the Page 2 poll results, 61 percent of you agreed with me. And here’s why: While he may put up ri-friggin’-diculous numbers, he’s much easier to boo than to cheer and will deliver countless awards that keep your team relevant but won’t deliver what you want — a World Series.
Okay, Mikey, so the first bit of evidence you use to support your ridiculous position is that the majority of people who took an online poll agree with you? And then the reason you give for WHY they agree with you really presents a Catch-22, because if that reason really IS the reason 61% of people don’t want him on their team, you should be using that as evidence that those 61% are clueless. Maybe you didn’t know this, but the regular season results are actually what determines who goes to the postseason (and, just to be clear, the World Series is played in the postseason). If you think the Yankees would have had a better chance of winning the 2007 World Series with Scott Brosius or Wade Boggs or Brooks Freaking Robinson manning the Hot Corner, you are sorely and laughably mistaken. The question has been posed elsewhere already, but do you really think A-Rod’s .820 postseason OPS (which, while below the standard of excellence he set in the regular season, would have put him in the top 40% of the league in the regular season) hurt the Yankees’ World Series chances more than Chien-Ming Wang’s 19.06 ERA or Derek Jeter’s .176 batting average? Do you realize that Jeter’s postseason OPS this year (.352) was one point less than A-Rod’s OBP (.353)? No matter how you slice it, A-Rod does not make the “Top Five Players to Blame for the Yankees Not Winning the 2007 World Series” list. And if you remember that they wouldn’t have made the postseason at all if he hadn’t put up one of the greatest seasons in history, your argument officially gets flushed down the toilet.
A-Rod defenders will recite career numbers and averages to you. Yes, they’re great. We never said they weren’t. But when are they great?
In 2007, A-Rod carried the Yankees in the early months with a record-setting offensive explosion … but in the ALDS he could manage only four hits in four games. A-Rod did manage to hit one homer … a solo shot in the bottom of the seventh inning while down 6-2 in an elimination game.
In 2006, A-Rod put up a 35-HR, 121-RBI, .290 performance … but in the ALDS against the Tigers, his .071 average so crippled the Yankees that manager Joe Torre dropped him to eighth in the lineup in Game 4 (he went hitless and the Yanks were eliminated).
In 2005, A-Rod won his second MVP award … but in the ALDS against the Angels he hit .133 with two hits and no RBIs. The Angels eliminated the Yankees in five games.
In the 2004 ALCS, A-Rod did hit .258 with five RBIs … but in Games 4 to 7 had only two RBIs and two hits. One of the defining moments of that series was when he slapped the ball out of Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo’s hand in Game 6, helping to kill a potential Yankee rally in a game they would lose 4-2.
Ah, selective memory. First of all, he jumps straight from the “early months” of 2007 to the 2007 postseason. So either “early months” is referring to the entire regular season (remember, the record-breaking one), or he is just glossing over the 1.058 OPS A-Rod put up after the All-Star break this year.
Then he lists all the huge, monumental, colossal postseason failures A-Rod has had. Of course, he discounts the good parts, like that A-Rod batted .368 in the first four games of the 2004 ALCS immediately after he batted .421 in the ALDS against the Twins. Oh, but at least he mentioned the worthless home run Rodriguez hit in game 4 of this year’s ALDS. Because, you know, if your team is down by four runs in an elimination game, you’d have to be some sort of selfish jerk to only hit a solo homer when your team obviously needs a grand slam. Jerkface.
And the Bronson Arroyo play. To hear this guy talk, you’d think A-Rod’s blunder cost the Yankees the two runs they needed to tie the game. Of course, what ACTUALLY happened is that because of the interference call, Derek Jeter was sent back to first base, instead of being on second. But when Gary Sheffield popped up to the catcher to end the inning, Jeter wasn’t going to score even if he was standing halfway between third and home. A-Rod’s groundout helped to kill the potential rally; his interference did virtually nothing.
You will get All-Star appearances (he already has 11 of them), Silver Slugger awards (nine of them) and home run titles (five so far). But you won’t get to the World Series. And in the end, isn’t that late October parade what you really want?
That’s quite a leap. Because the Yankees haven’t been to the World Series in A-Rod’s four years with them, your team won’t get to the World Series if they get A-Rod. Did you know that A-Rod’s career postseason OPS — even after the lousy performances everyone talks about — is only two points lower than Derek Jeter’s career postseason OPS (.844 to .846)? Somewhere in Mike Philbrick’s mind, there is some fundamental reason that A-Rod has struggled in a few postseasons, and he is convinced that he will ALWAYS struggle in every postseason from now until the end of time. Of course, Rodriguez struggled in April 2006, too; and in April 2007, he set records. People who want to look only at past performance sure do conveniently overlook the past performance of A-Rod being the best player in baseball the past ten years.
Philbrick then goes into a discussion of the money, which, remember, is the only good reason to not want A-Rod on your team. So I won’t argue that point, although I will pick a quick nit with this paragraph:
No debate over A-Rod would be complete without discussing his contract. If you’re going to argue the reality of his gaudy numbers, you need to discuss the reality of how much it will cost your team. Conservative estimates have A-Rod getting a $300 million deal (10 years at $30 million per).
Mike Philbrick made up this “conservative estimate.” Well, maybe Scott Boras made it up, but Mike Philbrick believed it. Is/was 10x$30M within the realm of possibility? Sure. Was it a conservative estimate? No. I read many estimates and opinions that had teams only wanting to sign him for seven years.
So after making the point about locking up too much money in one player, Philbrick gets back to silliness:
It’s not just the long-term financial implications — the reality is that his contract will forever be a story. Three years in? It will still be discussed with every spring training opening and every early October exit. You’ll get the writer who fires up the calculator on his laptop and tells you how much money A-Rod got for each one of those many homers he hit. And if he hits 50 home runs, there will be cries that he should have hit 60. Ask Alex about his treatment in New York: Two MVP awards in four seasons and he still couldn’t win over the fans.
Make up your mind, Mikey! Just a few paragraphs ago, you talked about what a failure A-Rod is. Now you act incredulous that he hasn’t won over the New York fans? Maybe the New York fans are as dumb as you are.
Then there’s the issue of chemistry. Many people will tell you it’s all bull and that it doesn’t matter. If you have talent, chemistry will come. Really? How did talent work out for the Yankees this season? Or the Dodgers? The Mets seemed pretty talented, too. Sure, everyone seems to get along when you’re winning. But if you’re a clubhouse divided, winning can be more difficult — and don’t look to A-Rod to eliminate that issue.
I have never heard anyone say “If you have talent, chemistry will come.” What people actually say is that “chemistry” comes from winning, not vice versa. Yes, the Yankees had a lot of talent this year. They also had a lot of adversity with their pitching staff, AND the Red Sox and Indians both had a lot of talent, AND they drew the Indians (with the best 1-2 pitching punch in baseball) in a short series. Do you really think A-Rod comes to the plate with Jeter on second and thinks, “Well, back in 1997 when we were best friends, I totally would have driven him in right here. But now that we don’t like each other very much, I think I’ll just go ahead and ground out to third”? Exactly what role does chemistry play? The Red Sox have “great chemistry” because they won the World Series. If they had lost the World Series, they would have bad chemistry. Cause and effect get mixed up for some people.
We’ve all seen the interviews and the postgame comments delivered with the sincerity of a robot. We’ve also experienced the times when A-Rod needed a teammate to back him up and the silence was deafening. He comes across as an awkward CEO trapped in the body of a Hall of Famer. And while other teams may win with guys who are flaky or arrogant, there’s still something there that allows them to connect with their teammates. Is A-Rod capable of that? No. And for $30 million of your team’s payroll, you need a clubhouse leader.
Sorry, dude, but I think driving in those teammates 102 times, and being on base for them to drive you in 89 times, is probably going to connect with them. Is he best friends with all his teammates? Probably not (although I submit that the vast majority of people writing about it don’t have any idea what they’re talking about). But who cares? Teams don’t need their highest-paid player to be a clubhouse leader; they need him to produce on the field. And if a guy has one of the best seasons anyone can remember, I suspect that has more of a positive impact on the clubhouse than negative.
Finally, there’s the issue of being a fan. It sounds crazy, but people want their team to win a certain way. They don’t want to win with cheaters. They don’t want to win if the opposing team was without its staff ace or team MVP. That just wouldn’t feel as good. And you certainly don’t want to be accused of buying a title. If your team brings A-Rod on board, let the unfriendly dollar sign e-mails begin. You don’t want any part of a situation in which your friends can toss in the dreaded conversational asterisk while you bask in your championship glory.
What world does this dude live in? What fan cares about “buying a title”? Has he ever heard how much the fans in San Francisco adore Barry Bonds? Has he ever been to Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park? I could see this argument being valid if a team bumped up their payroll to $800 million or something outrageous and won the World Series, but not in today’s atmosphere. The Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, etc., have proven that a huge payroll doesn’t necessarily mean a World Championship (I have a lot more to say about that, but I’ll save it for another day), so no fan in their right mind would feel bad winning with the best player in baseball as their third baseman, no matter how much he was paid.
I asked Phillies fans Justin Isabell and Brian Waldron if they would want A-Rod for the chance to put their team over the hump. Remember, these guys are from Philadelphia, which is Iroquois for “city where the sports teams shred your soul.”
“I wouldn’t want A-Rod on my team, because it’s just that — a team,” said Isabell. “As nice as his glove and offensive production would be at the hot corner in Philadelphia, the most fun teams to watch and cheer for are true teams, not one player.”
Waldron added, “If they signed A-Rod I would be totally pissed. That means there’s no way they’re getting any pitching. Besides, there’s no way I can root for that guy.”
Brian Waldron makes a good point, the same point I made above: if your team can’t afford to put players around A-Rod, they shouldn’t sign him. But Justin Isabell is flat-out wrong. “The most fun teams to watch and cheer for are true teams, not one player.” Well duh. Every team has the same number of players, and I guarantee you no one would enjoy watching a team of 25 average players play the game (and finish in last place). Find me a team that has EVER won the World Series with no big stars on the team. Go ahead, I’ll wait. I didn’t think so. It’s easy to say you want to watch a “true team” play, but “true teams” are just “lousy teams” unless they have a big star or two.
Since Alex reached the majors in 1994, the Braves, Yankees, Marlins, Diamondbacks, Angels, Red Sox, White Sox and Cardinals have managed to win the World Series without him. The Indians, Padres, Mets, Giants, Astros, Tigers and Rockies have reached the World Series without him.
The Mariners, Rangers and Yankees — the three teams he’s played for — have never reached the World Series with him on their roster.
Which list do you want your team on?
First of all, I will knock the Braves off the list of teams that have won the World Series, since A-Rod didn’t play his first full season until 1996. So seven teams have won the World Series in A-Rod’s 12-year career, and eight others have lost the World Series. Know what this means? Absolutely nothing. TEAMS go to the World Series. No player has ever won a World Series. No matter how dominant Josh Beckett is, the best he can do on his own is a 0-0 tie game. Derek Jeter could hit a home run every time up, but if Chien-Ming Wang is pitching the way he did this postseason, they will lose every game 19.06 to 4. Teams win World Series.
I will not say A-Rod has been outstanding in the postseason the past few years. He has struggled, especially compared to his excellent regular season numbers. But looking into the future, I would much rather have the best hitter in baseball on my team than some “proven winner” who happened to play for a lot of good teams.
In 1986, Don Baylor played for the Red Sox, who lost the World Series in seven games. In 1987, Baylor played for the World Champion Minnesota Twins. In 1988, Baylor’s A’s lost to the Dodgers in the World Series. So obviously, Don Baylor was the most dominant player of the late 1980s, right? I mean, he went to the World Series three years in a row, with three different teams! That guy turns teams into winners!
November 17th, 2007 at 12:00pm
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
Goose Gossage is outspoken. He firmly believes that he belongs in the Hall of Fame, and he isn’t afraid to tell people about it. And let’s be honest: if we’re letting relief pitchers into the Hall, Goose should be there. (And even if Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley, and Bruce Sutter all got in based only on facial hair, Goose should be there.) I read an interview with Gossage a few weeks ago, but I was too distracted by my upcoming trip to Hawaii to do any research. Now I’m back on the mainland, and I’m ready to talk about Goose’s stroll down Memory Lane.
When I read this interview, one quote jumped out at me:
I think they (Hall of Fame voters) have forgotten about how much the role of the relief pitcher has changed. We pitched a lot more innings in that role. I used to come in in the seventh inning with the bases loaded, have to get out of that jam and then pitch the eighth and the ninth.
I have a confession to make. When I read that, I knew I would be writing about it here, and I expected to learn on thing in my research: that Goose Gossage rarely (or never) came in with the bases loaded in the seventh inning, got out of the jam, and then pitched the eighth and the ninth for the save. I just knew he was full of hot air, exaggerating his own greatness like so many of these old-timers do. So I looked at every game Goose ever pitched.
Guess what? He was good. And not only that, but he actually DID do what he said he did. No, it wasn’t as regular as he may have made it sound, but it happened several times. Four times he came in in the seventh inning of a close game with the bases loaded and finished the game for the save — including three times in two months in the summer of 1980. Another time, back in 1975, he came in in the SIXTH inning with the bases loaded — with his team nursing a 2-1 lead — got out of the jam, and finished the game for the save. And there was actually one more save that technically fits his description, although his team was up 7-1 when he came in with the bases loaded, and he actually allowed two of the runners to score before finishing the game for the save.
If that was all I had found, I may have been a jerk and made the point that six saves out of 310 hardly qualifies as what he “used to” do. But I found a lot more. Did you know that of Goose Gossage’s 310 career saves, 125 of them were at least two innings? Or that he only had 117 saves of one inning or less? Heck, 52 of his saves were MORE than two innings, including 24 of at least three innings.
Gossage said:
I take exception to hearing that Mariano (Rivera) is the greatest reliever of all time. I think he’s the greatest modern-day closer, but I would challenge him to do what we did. We’ll compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.
I think he’s right about his apples and Mariano’s oranges. In Rivera’s career, he has exactly 11 saves of two innings or more (actually, just two innings — he’s never had a save of more than two innings). He’s never had more than two such saves in any season (Gossage had 16 in 1977 alone). Simply put, Goose Gossage and Mariano Rivera are two vastly different fruit, despite both being “closers.”
Here’s the thing, though. Gossage says he wants to compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges. But it is clear from everything he has said that he believes his apples are better than Rivera’s oranges. Is a three-inning save inherently more valuable than a one-inning save? I can see arguments both ways. For one thing, Rivera is fresh and ready for service almost every time the Yankees have a save situation; Gossage surely couldn’t pitch three innings every night, or even 55 times a year.
Really, I think Gossage is hanging his hat on the wrong thing. The save statistic isn’t meaningless, but it certainly doesn’t mean much all by itself. You can’t look at a guy’s save total and know how effective he actually was; say all you want about whatever intangibles you want to discuss, but guys like Joe Borowski and Bob Wickman owe their teams a debt of gratitude for letting them rack up the saves despite being, you know, kind of lousy.
The reason Goose Gossage is not in the Hall of Fame is the save statistic. His 310 saves are only good for 17th place all time, behind some real pieces of crap like Tom Henke, Roberto Hernandez, and Jose Mesa. Hall of Fame voters get stuck on some meaningless stats, and I think some of them think if they vote for Gossage, they will someday have to vote for John Franco or Randy Myers. But Goose was not like those guys. Goose also pitched in 692 games where he DIDN’T get the save — and he went at least two innings in 285 of those! In the ten years of his prime (1975, 1976-85), he made the All-Star team eight times, and he got Cy Young and MVP votes in five of those seasons. His ERA for those ten seasons was 2.06, while the league ERA for that era ranged from 3.55 to 4.06. Simply put, Goose Gossage was one of the best pitchers of his era, and that’s the case he should be making for himself.
Let me end with one thought-provoking discussion topic: back in the good ol’ days, pitchers were tougher. I know because lots of old-timers have told me so. The evidence? Starters finished more games, and relievers pitched more innings. What?!?
October 20th, 2007 at 12:37am
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
All this talk about whether the Yankees will bring back Joe Torre, and the one thing everyone forgot was that it’s a two-way relationship. Well, I didn’t forget. And as I suspected, neither did Joe Torre, who today told the Yankees to shove it. I like the Yankees just fine, but I am happy about this, and I hope it helps Hank&Hal wake up a little and realize that not everyone bows to the mighty power of the Yankees. I suspect Joe Torre has known for some time now that he wouldn’t be coming back — at the latest, surely the senile ramblings of a crazy old man made the decision for him — and I like to think he set a trap for the Yankees to walk into. Whatever the sequence of events, though, Joe Torre is out, which leaves one burning question:
Joe Torre was a mediocre-to-lousy manager before he came to the Yankees; will the next guy benefit as much from the payroll and the Hall of Fame roster as he did?
October 18th, 2007 at 04:40pm
Jeff J. Snider
General, Links, Sports
Just FYI, a couple weeks ago I started a new site just for focusing on Joe Morgan (and probably other people who say stupid things about baseball). You can find it at http://www.joemorgansaid.com/. It has several items from this site, but there are a few posts that are exclusive to that site, and all future Joe Morgan content will go there instead of here. Enjoy.
September 5th, 2007 at 09:48am
Jeff J. Snider
General, Sports
A week or two ago, there was a very interesting and thought-provoking article on ESPN.com about Michael Vick, the city of Atlanta, and the role that racism has played in the public response to the allegations against Vick. It is titled “A History of Mistrust,” but it was the little blurb below the title that caught my attention:
Having trouble understanding how so many black Atlantans see the Michael Vick case as a racial conspiracy?
Try walking a mile in their shoes.
I read the article. I tried “walking a mile in their shoes.” And while my opinions maybe aren’t quite as black-and-white as they were before I read it, I find my feelings mostly unchanged.
(more…)
August 24th, 2007 at 01:38am
Jeff J. Snider
General, Sports, Web Stuff
You wanna know what bugs me? People who fling around superlatives like they have no meaning.
Example 1: Greg Anthony, a former NBA player and now a basketball analyst on ESPN, was asked who he thought would win the Western Conference Finals series between the San Antonio Spurs and the Utah Jazz. In (correctly) predicting that the Spurs would win, Anthony said, “Not that the Jazz haven’t had an unbelievable season — they have — but…” and then went on to explain why the Spurs would win. I’m sorry, Greg, but what exactly is “unbelievable” about going 51-31? Sure, they had a good season. I’d even go so far as to say that they did significantly better than they were expected to do. But unbelievable? Not unless you have a VERY weird standard of believability.
Example 2: On May 26, Manny Ramirez had a great game, going 4-for-4 and having a key hit in the game-winning rally. In the ESPN.com article about the game, Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell had this to say:
Manny really looks like he’s in a groove. When he’s stinging the baseball like that, when he’s going up the middle, that’s when he’s the most dangerous. It seems like he’s done nothing so far, but he’s still on pace to have a great season.
So Mike Lowell said Manny was on pace to have a “great” season. Now, where I come from, “great” means “really, really good.” In fact, A-Rod proved last season that even a season that would be considered great by normal standards can be considered less-than-great when compared to an individual’s past performance. I certainly think that Manny Ramirez would fall in that same category, having averaged 40 homers and 127 RBIs a year over the past nine seasons (not to mention his .314 career batting average and 1.006 career OPS). So let’s take a look at Manny’s season as of May 26 and see if Mike Lowell was correct. At that point in time, Manny was on pace for:
–24 home runs
–103 RBIs
–.272 batting average
–.798 OPS
All four of those numbers would be far lower than Manny has put up in any full season in the Majors, and none of them really stand out as “great” even for an average player. Simply put, Manny was NOT, on May 26, “on pace to have a great season.” I’m just sayin’.
Example 3: On my brother’s website, he has a recurring feature called “Children’s Letters to Raven-Symone.” I won’t go into too many details; suffice it to say that Eric gets lots of emails from people who think he is Raven-Symone, and he publishes some of the funny ones. A recent edition included this tidbit from a letter:
I am of Spain i and seen your video of the cheetah girls a good pile of times
Lots of people enjoyed the phrase “a good pile of times,” and for good reason. But one commenter said this:
“I am of Spain” is quite possibly the greatest thing I’ve ever read.
For real? The second-best thing in that sentence is the greatest thing you have ever read? We all have different standards for greatness, but I feel safe in stating that this guy’s standard is all sort of screwed up.
Example 4: This one is only tangentially related, but I’m putting it here anyway. People on the Internet (at least the corners of the Internet I frequent) have a tendency, when they read a clever or funny phrase, to say something along the lines of, “I need to remember to use that.” (In the previously cited Reven-Symone blog entry, Eric himself did it when he said, “In other news, ‘a good pile of times’ is my new favorite figure of speech.” He even used the phrase in his very next humor column, when he said, “I’d been to this place a good pile of times for various reasons and had never seen the same doctor twice.”) I don’t really mind that; in fact, I am often incorporating things into my regular vocabulary that I read somewhere, either in a book or in a magazine or on the Internet.
But sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. Case in point: on my message board, there was a discussion about the latest Harry Potter book (caution: SPOILERS in that link), and one fellow said this about the word “Horcruxiness,” which another poster had just created:
…Horcruxiness (a great word, by the way, and one that I need to find a way to incorporate in my everyday life)…
So let me get this straight: you are going to find a way to discuss a very specific aspect of the Harry Potter books every day, just so you can use a made-up word? That seems a bit overboard to me. I guess if you wanted to incorporate it into every discussion you have about Harry Potter and Horcruxes, okay. But your everyday life? I don’t think so.
So there you have it: four (or three) examples of something that bugs me. Enjoy.
July 31st, 2007 at 01:11am
Jeff J. Snider
General, Sports
NOTE: I started writing this several weeks ago, and while I have tried to update all the references to time, I may have missed one or two. So if something doesn’t flow right, that’s why.
In mid-June on Sunday Night Baseball, Joe Morgan said the following (paraphrased):
You know I think wins are the most important stat to judge a pitcher by. There’s a big difference between pitching just well enough to win and pitching just bad enough to lose.
Then in his June 26th chat on ESPN.com, he had these two gems:
Bob (Brooklyn): What’s more important to evaluate a pitcher: Wins or ERA?
Joe Morgan: I’ve always believed that an ERA is like a batting average. It’s a personal thing. For instance, a guy could hit .300, but not be as valuable as a guy that hits .270. A guy that makes 7 outs out of 10 with guys on base, he’s not that valuable. But if you’re clutch, but hit .275, you’re more valuable. That’s why I think wins are better. It’s just as tough to win a game 7-6 as it is 1-0. The only thing that matters at the end of the year is how many games did we win.
Kyle (Kansas): What is the most overated stat in baseball?
Joe Morgan: Batting average and earned run average and this OPS stuff they do. OPS doesn’t tell you anything except about the individual. The same as the other stats. It doesn’t tell you anything about the team. A .300 average doesn’t help you win games, run production does.
Joe Morgan: I’m not saying those numbers don’t mean anything, I’m saying they’re overglorified.
I knew there were people out there who actually believed these things (based on the results of postseason awards voting), but it still surprises me to actually see someone put it that way. I want to address a couple things:
There’s a big difference between pitching just well enough to win and pitching just bad enough to lose.
That’s absolutely true, Joe. Unfortunately, you don’t actually find out where that fine line is for a given game until the game is over. So in the case of non-clairvoyant pitchers, the fact that this “big difference” exists does absolutely no good and makes no difference. The bottom line is this: a guy who pitches a no-hitter but loses on three errors by his teammates pitched a better game than a guy who gave up eight runs in five innings and wins 14-13. Sure, the one guy pitched well enough to win, but only because his teammates scored 14 runs. Wins and losses are a team statistic, and they are a very poor standalone judge of a pitcher’s effectiveness.
It’s just as tough to win a game 7-6 as it is 1-0. The only thing that matters at the end of the year is how many games did we win.
Now, Joe, you just took your true-but-pointless statement from above and ran it into the ditch of flat-out stupidity. First of all, no two 7-6 games are alike, just as no two 1-0 games are alike. So to lump them all together like that is silly. But more to the point, this statement is just false. In a 7-6 game, a pitcher can give up six runs. He may have felt just as much pressure as he would have in a 1-0 game (depending on when the runs were scored, etc.), but the bottom line is that he didn’t pitch as well, and if his team didn’t come through with the seven runs, he would have lost.
Let’s look at a hypothetical situation for a minute. Let’s say Josh Beckett pitches a complete game three-hitter with a dozen strikeouts and one run allowed. That’s a great game, right? Let’s say he pitches that exact game two starts in a row: the first time, the Red Sox don’t score, and Beckett loses 1-0; in the second game, the Sox pull it out and win 2-1. Beckett pitched the exact same excellent game both times, but he gets one win and one loss. Without doing anything different! Joe Morgan would have us believe that Beckett actually pitched better in the second game, because he pitched “just well enough to win,” whereas in the first game, he pitched “just bad enough to lose.” Those of us with brains can see that this is a stupid, ridiculous argument.
As for his point that wins are all that matters at the end of the season, that’s absolutely true — for a team. And the best way a pitcher can be a good team player is by putting his team in position to win every time out — by allowing as few runs as possible.
When I asked Rob Neyer if he was allowed to admit that Joe Morgan is a moron, he said:
I certainly wouldn’t say that Joe is a moron. He’s wrong about this, though. And frankly, I don’t think he really believes it. Just like you or me, he’d take Santana over Haren every time.
I want to believe that’s true. I really do. But at this point, I see no reason to think that Joe Morgan doesn’t actually believe that the guy with the best win/loss record is the best pitcher in the league. I’m sure it baffles Neyer, just as it baffles me, that anyone could actually be so dumb, but the only alternative is that Joe Morgan is some genius who is perpetuation the myth of his own idiocy for some reason that we mortals can’t quite grasp. Occam’s Razor tells me which is true.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:30am
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
At the beginning of the season, before Roger Clemens had made his decision to come back to the Yankees, I did some interesting research. At that point in time, National League teams had a total of eight former Cy Young Award winners (Brandon Webb, Chris Carpenter, Barry Zito, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Greg Maddux) who had combined to win the award 18 times; the American League, on the other hand, had only four former winners (Johan Santana, Bartolo Colon, Eric Gagne, and Roy Halladay) with a total of five awards (with Santana being the only repeater). If Clemens had gone back to the Astros, the NL would have had a 25-5 edge in awards and a 9-4 edge in winners. Instead, the edge is 18-12 and 8-5 — still pretty significant.
So those numbers got me thinking: does the National League really have better pitching than the American League? Let’s explore that idea. (And to be honest, at this point, I don’t know what the final answer will be, although I have a somewhat-educated guess.) Things to consider:
The difference between the leagues
Let’s face it: not all Cy Young winners are created equal. Winning the National League Cy Young Award says nothing about a pitcher in comparison to an AL pitcher; all it says (in theory) is that you were the best pitcher in your league. So you could, theoretically, have a guy who wins a dozen awards in one league and wouldn’t have won any in the other. So I thought I would take a look at each of these winners and compare him to the winner and runner-up from the other league that year. Here’s what I found:
- In 2005, Bartolo Colon would have (or should have) finished no better than fifth in the voting if he had been in the National League. (More on Colon in our next topic.)
- Chris Carpenter would/should have been about third place in the AL voting in 2005.
Other than 2005, most of the guys on our list would have been roughly pretty competitive in the race in the other league. So while there are potential differences between the leagues, in actuality they even out pretty well.
The voters are sometimes idiots
The people who vote for the postseason awards — members of the Baseball Writers Association of America — are generally obsessed with counting statistics. The like home runs and RBIs and win/loss records. The don’t care as much for percentage statistics like batting average and ERA, and they absolutely crap all over anything more complicated than that. As such, they don’t always get things right. A simple example is last season, when Ryan Howard beat out Albert Pujols for the NL MVP Award because he had more homers and RBIs. Howard was clearly not as good as Pujols, but he won the award because he had the counting stats.
The same thing happens with the Cy Young Award, except worse. Home runs and RBIs reflect a hitter’s value far better than win/loss records do for pitchers, but the Cy Young voters often (stupidly) vote for the guy with the best record. In the past decade, I count five pitchers who won the award over a more qualified guy because of the record: Glavine over Kevin Brown in 1998; Zito over Pedro in 2002; Clemens over Johnson in 2004; Carpenter (and Dontrelle Willis) over Clemens in 2005; and Colon over Santana in 2005.
So, to put it simply, the Cy Young Award doesn’t actually mean you are the best pitcher in your league, which makes it a questionable tool when comparing talent.
Some of these mares just ain’t what they used to be
Of the 13 active former Cy Young winners, only two are still in their prime: Webb and Santana. Roger Clemens has been the best pitcher in the National League the past two seasons (and was the second best in 2004, when he won his last Cy Young), but he is undeniably 44 years old, and it is bound to catch up with him one of these days. Some of the guys are saddled by injuries (Colon, Gagne, Halladay, Carpenter, and Pedro); some are getting old (Clemens, Maddux, Smoltz, and Glavine); one is old AND frail (Johnson); and one just isn’t as good as he used to be (Zito). So among Cy Young winners in their prime, the AL has a distinct advantage in Santana over Webb.
Second place matters too
And so does third place, probably. The American League has Curt Schilling, who has finished second in the voting three times (twice to Johnson and once to Santana). Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera have each finished second a couple times. And several of our winners have other Top 3 finishes to their credit.
Youth will be served
Every pitcher who has ever won a Cy Young Award was once a young pitcher who had never won one. That’s a fact of life. So when we’re looking at the leagues, we have to take a look at the young (or youngish) guys who could, realistically, win the award at some point in their careers. I looked at the pitchers who qualified for the ERA title in each league last year (38 in the NL, 39 in the AL) and just made a list of guys who could, in my opinion, win a Cy Young sometime in the next five or ten years. I counted eight in the NL and eleven in the AL (including two former winners in each league). This obviously isn’t a perfect approach, but it’s not bad. Here’s who I have:
National League:
- Roy Oswalt
- Chris Carpenter
- Brandon Webb
- Carlos Zambrano
- Chris Young
- Dontrelle Willis
- Jake Peavy
- Matt Cain
American League:
- Johan Santana
- Roy Halladay
- C.C. Sabathia
- John Lackey
- Justin Verlander
- Chien-Ming Wang
- Erik Bedard
- Jeremy Bonderman
- Dan Haren
- Felix Hernandez
- Josh Beckett
The AL has the edge in numbers, and if you look closely, they have an edge in youth, too (among these guys, anyway). Based on this, here is my official declaration on this subject:
While the National League has more proven veterans who are past their respective primes, the American League seems poised to leave the NL in the dust over the next decade or so. If I were to write a blog entry five years from now with this same title (”Which league has the better pitchers?”), I suspect it would be a pretty stupid question.
May 25th, 2007 at 11:10pm
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