Posts filed under 'Sports'
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
Sorry it’s taken me so long to get to this. Unlike most people, I don’t feel as strongly about the American League MVP voting as I do about the NL voting, partly because I like Albert Pujols more than I like Derek Jeter, and partly because the AL doesn’t play real baseball. But anyway, here’s the short version on why Justin Morneau was not the correct choice for MVP:
When talking about value, you have to take position into account. Offensive production from a first baseman is not nearly as valuable as offensive production from a defensive position (middle infield, catcher, center field). You pay a first baseman to be an offensive force and try to catch as many balls as possible when the other infielders throw them to you. You pay the other guys to play solid defense and hopefully not be too terrible at the plate. (As Adam Everett shows, sometimes you pay a guy just for his defense, even though he IS terrible at the plate.) So if a shortstop and a first baseman have identical offensive stats, the shortstop is automatically more valuable (assuming, of course, that he’s at least average defensively).
So Justin Morneau has to be pretty special to be the MVP. And yes, he had a great season. But if you look at stats other than batting average (an overrated stat, by the way), his season was no better than Jason Giambi’s. A few more RBIs, a few fewer home runs, a lower OPS and OBP, a slightly higher SLG. Basically, Giambi and Morneau were interchangeable offensively, and you can throw Paul Konerko and Mark Texeira into the mix and not have much of a dropoff.
The other three guys who were in the conversation for MVP were Derek Jeter, Joe Mauer, and Johan Santana. Mauer was head and shoulders above every other catcher in the American League, and you can make a very strong case for him. Santana was so much better than every other starting pitcher in baseball that it’s ridiculous. And Jeter provided an amazing amount of value from a shortstop batting second in the lineup (lineup position is another value consideration, similar to defensive position).
In my mind, the MVP award should have gone to either Jeter or Mauer, because based on their positions and their spots in the lineup, they provided far more value to their teams than Morneau did. Look at it this way: if you were going to make trades based on last season’s performance, there are other first basemen you would consider trading Morneau for, but there is not a shortstop or a catcher you would trade Jeter and Mauer for, respectively.
If I had had an MVP vote, my ballot would have gone like this:
1. Derek Jeter
2. Joe Mauer
3. Justin Morneau
4. Johan Santana
Why Jeter over Mauer? Because with three guys in the top four, it’s tough to say that one Twin was the most valuable player in the league. (On a side note, imagine how good the Twins could have been if they had gotten contributions from ANYONE else.)
On the other hand, if the voting had gone Mauer, Jeter, Morneau, Santana, I would have no arguments.
December 4th, 2006 at 03:27pm
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
I had a feeling when I made my “On Notice” list last week that the people who vote for baseball’s postseason awards (the Baseball Writers Association of America, or BBWAA) would soon be joining. These are people who get paid to watch and write about baseball, yet they are often so fundamentally flawed that they can’t pick these awards correctly. That has been displayed again in the past couple days.
Don’t get me wrong — I don’t think they are always wrong. I don’t think that my opinions are necessarily more valid than anyone else’s just by virtue of being mine. But I DO believe that a solid understanding of the game of baseball would be a powerful arrow if added to the quiver of these baseball writers, and until they obtain that understanding, my opinions will continue to have a bit more fact to back them up.
Last year, we saw this in action when Bartolo Colon won the American League Cy Young Award even though Johan Santana was CLEARLY the best pitcher in the league. Colon led the league in wins, so he won the Cy Young. It was a simple, and as simply incorrect, as that. Of course, by attaching a team statistic (wins) to an individual (pitchers), baseball is just asking for it to be overvalued.
This year, the voters got the Cy Young Awards right, or at least not demonstrably wrong. Due to the mediocrity of the National League, there were two or four or six guy who could have gotten the NL award without too much evidence for or against. It ended up going to Brandon Webb, after I had said:
I think I have to give the edge to [Roy] Oswalt, but I would have absolutely no arguments with someone voting for Webb. Heck, if I were writing this on a different day, I might vote for Webb myself.
In the American League, there was truly only one choice — the same choice the voters missed last year. This year, though, they got it right, with every single voter putting Santana first on the ballot. It sure was nice of Roy Halladay and all the other contenders to take themselves out of the running.
But then we get to the Most Valuable Player Award. The main confusion about the MVP comes in understanding the award itself. The Cy Young is for the player who pitched the best (in theory). The MVP is for, as the name suggests, the most VALUABLE player. So does that mean the best player on the best team? Does it mean the player with the most home runs or RBI? Does it mean the most inspirational player, regardless of whether the team was any good? And the crazy thing is, it has meant all these things at one time or another.
My definition of the MVP is the player who provided the most value to his team. This does not require that the team be great — just that it is quite a bit better than it would have been without him. It DOES require a bit of statistical dominance, as long as you are looking at statistics that accurately measure an individual’s contributions. It requires some comparison to other players at the same position, because the value of a shortstop is intrinsically different from the value of a first baseman. And it requires a bit of non-numerical understanding of some aspects of the game that don’t show up reliably in any stats: defense, baserunning, leadership, etc.
And the voters got both leagues wrong this year. I’ll start with the National League, because I believe a case can be made for Ryan Howard — I just believe that the case for Albert Pujols is much stronger. Let’s start by listing all the areas in which Pujols is clearly ahead of Howard: defense, baserunning, batting average, slugging percentage, and on-base percentage. Now let’s go with the areas where Howard is ahead of Pujols: home runs and RBI. So how did Howard get the nod over Pujols? Well, there is a significant subsection of the voters who are so in love with the HR and RBI stats that those alone were enough to earn the award. And then there is the common notion that Howard put the Phillies on his shoulders and almost carried them to the postseason.
I’m not going to spend much time explaining why HR and RBI alone aren’t enough to make you the most valuable player to your team. With regards to homers, let’s make it short by saying that I’d take a 4-for-4 with four run-scoring singles over a 1-for-4 with a solo homer any day. As for RBI, any stat that favors a guy who has better hitters surrounding him in the lineup is not an accurate gauge as an individual statistic. Sometimes the guys with the most HR and RBI are actually the best hitters in the league, but sometimes they’re not.
Now let’s talk about the idea that Howard carried the Phillies to the brink of the playoffs. This argument, when used to promote Howard over Pujols, implies that Pujols did NOT carry his team. Unfortunately, the statistics — which represent real facts — do not support that idea, for two main reasons:
- Howard had better hitters around him in the lineup.
Albert Pujols led the Cardinals in virtually every offensive category (Scott Rolen had more doubles, but that’s about it). Other than Pujols, no one in the Cardinals’ lineup who had over 300 at-bats batted over .300 or had an on-base percentage over .370 or had a slugging percentage over .520 or hit more than 22 homers. There were only three guys in the lineup who had over 500 at-bats, and one of them was Juan Encarnacion, for crying out loud.
By contrast, Howard had three teammates who hit at least 25 homers, four teammates with an OBP over .370, and one teammate who slugged .527. The Phillies’ lineup was not great, but it was better than the Cardinals.
- Howard was not nearly as good as Pujols in clutch situations.
Howard batted .256 with runners in scoring position; with RISP and two outs, that average dropped to .247. Pujols’ batting averages in those situations were .397 and .435, respectively. Howard had 38 more at-bats with RISP than Pujols, but drove in five fewer runs in those at-bats. Over the course of the season, Pujols came up to bat with 420 teammates on base; he drove in 88 of them (21%). Howard came up with 502 teammates on base and drove in 91 of them (18%). Howard struck out 95 times in 352 plate appearances with runners on (27%); Pujols struck out 16 times in 298 PA with runners on (5%).
Based on the numbers, if Pujols had had as many opportunities to drive in runs as Howard (see point #1), Pujols would have driven in somewhere between 17 and 26 more runs than he did, which would have put him well ahead of Howard.
So there you have it. Albert Pujols should have been MVP. I think Howard also benefited from the “he’s only in his second year~!” factor, but when you consider the fact that he is actually two months OLDER than Pujols, that shouldn’t have come into play. You can make a case for Howard, but that case can easily be shot down. There is no way he should have won the award.
Tomorrow (or sometime soon), I will explain why Justin Morneau was a lousy choice in the American League.
November 23rd, 2006 at 12:24am
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
I often rip on Joe Morgan for being an idiot, because he often is. In reading the transcript of his chat from yesterday, though, I have to give credit to him for making at least one intelligent observation.
Joey, FL: Joe…SOMEONE has gotta ask about A-Rod. Bold prediction for his future? Seems unlikely he’ll leave NY, right?
Joe Morgan: I think he stays in New York, because if he goes anywhere else, it will look like he’s quitting. I think he’ll stay in New York, and he’ll have a good year. Everyone forgets that he was the MVP last year. Every player, no matter how great, has an off year. I don’t even think his year was that off.
I never thought I’d say this, but … wait for it … wait for it …
Joe Morgan just took the words right out of my mouth.
There, I said it. I feel dirty, but I stand by it. I’m gonna go take a shower now.
November 1st, 2006 at 09:59am
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
This one is not even hard. There were only two real candidates all season: Johan Santana and Roy Halladay. Halladay got injured on September 20 and missed his last two starts, which hurt him. But even without that, Santana was the man (again). Sure, you could look at the fact that he led the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA. Or you could look at his 26-8 adjusted record (compared to 21-9 for Halladay).
But this is one case where you don’t even need statistics — Johan Santana is simply the best pitcher in baseball, and certainly the best in the American League. He wins his third straight Cy Young Award this year. (Wait a sec, you’re telling me that Bartolo Freaking Colon won last year? Even though anyone with enough of a brain to understand exactly how important win/loss records are/aren’t knew Santana deserved it? Well, excuse me while I pretend that never happened. It’s hard to take the Cy Young Award seriously if I can’t ignore that.)
October 21st, 2006 at 02:15pm
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
They say you can’t buy a championship. Just look at the Yankees, who are out of the playoffs (again) with a $200 million payroll (again). But here’s the thing: you probably CAN buy a championship, but you have to do more than just spend money.
Look, the Royals could pay their current roster $200 million next year, and they would still suck. I’m not saying the Yankees’ talent level isn’t higher than the Royals’, but let’s call a spade a spade. George Steinbrenner may be paying his team $200 million for 2006, but the 2006 Yankees are (were) not a $200-million team.
Here’s a breakdown of the Yankees’ payroll (courtesy Baseball-Reference.com):
* Alex Rodriguez $21,680,727
* Derek Jeter $20,600,000
** Jason Giambi $20,428,571
* Mike Mussina $19,000,000
** Randy Johnson $15,661,427
* Johnny Damon $13,000,000
* Hideki Matsui $13,000,000
* Jorge Posada $12,000,000
* Gary Sheffield $10,756,171
Mariano Rivera $10,500,000
** Carl Pavano $8,000,000
** Jaret Wright $7,666,667
Kyle Farnsworth $5,416,666
** Shawn Chacon $3,600,000
* Ron Villone $2,250,000
* Octavio Dotel $2,000,000
* Tanyon Sturtze $1,500,000
Bernie Williams $1,500,000
* Aaron Small $1,200,000
Mike Myers $1,150,000
Miguel Cairo $1,000,000
Kelly Stinnett $650,000
Robinson Cano $381,000
Nick Green $356,700
Bubba Crosby $354,250
Chien-Ming Wang $353,175
Scott Proctor $352,675
Andy Phillips $333,150
Wil Nieves $328,600
One star means the player is possibly overpaid; two stars means he is definitely overpaid. Let’s talk about a few of them, and let’s start where everyone else starts: with Alex Rodriguez.
I know A-Rod gets a lot of the blame for the Yankees’ lousy play, but here’s the bottom line: he drove in more runs than anyone else on the Yankees, and he was second in homers (two behind Giambi). He batted .290 with a .392 on-base percentage and a .523 slugging percentage. Despite all the talk about his failures in the clutch, he batted .302 with runners in scoring position, .313 with RISP and two outs, and .474 with the bases loaded. Despite all the talk about how he was lousy most of the season, he had only one truly bad month: June. In every other month of the season, if you quickly multiply his numbers by six to emulate a six-month season, you will get between 30 and 48 homers and between 96 and 168 RBI. Yes, he had a lousy season defensively, tying his career high with 24 errors. And no, no one is going to argue that he had a great offensive season by his lofty standards. But anyone who thinks he had a terrible year is simply a fool.
Is A-Rod overpaid? Sure. No one player is worth what he gets paid. And he was more overpaid than normal because his season didn’t live up to the expectations set by his remarkable greatness over the past eleven years. But he is not the biggest payroll problem for the Yankees, because there is a reasonable expectation that he is going to be great again next year — the last time he went back-to-back seasons with fewer than 40 home runs was 1996-97.
So who are the bigger payroll problems? I’m only going to look at the guys who a reasonably intelligent person could have known would be drains on the checkbook.
Randy Johnson
Here is what I wrote on December 31, 2004, at the beginning of the Big Unit’s Yankee career:
Am I the only one who still remembers that Randy Johnson is 41 years old and has a history of back problems? I totally understand wanting him for 2005, but to give him a 2-year extension with crazy money? My favorite thing about this Johnson deal is playing the odds on how much money the Yankees will pay Johnson to sit on the bench, injured.
Johnson is now 43, and he is about to have surgery on a herniated disc in (SURPRISE!) his back. The Yankees paid him almost $16 million this year to put up a 5.00 ERA; they will pay him the same next year, and he will either a) not play at all, or b) not be much (or any) better than he was this year.
Jaret Wright
Before 2004, Jaret Wright had had exactly one season in which he had a winning record and more than ten wins — and in that season (1998), he had an ERA of 4.72. Then in 2004, he ended up with the Braves, and he somehow put together a pretty good season, going 15-8 with a 3.28 ERA. So the Yankees signed him to a big-money contract, despite the fact that all evidence pointed to 2004 being the fluke, rather than the previous seven years. In two seasons, the Yankees have paid him over $13 million, and he has pitched 204 innings. Now, I’d pay $13 million for 204 innings of a great pitcher, but this is 204 innings of 4.99 ERA!
Carl Pavano
In seven years, Pavano had more seasons with an ERA over 5.00 (three) than under 4.00 (two). He had started over 30 games in a season only twice. He had a career record of 57-58, with a 4.21 ERA. But he had a great season in 2004, so the Yankees threw money at him. Lots and lots of money. They paid $9 million for a 4-6, 4.77 season in 2005, and then paid him $8 million to be injured through all of 2006. That’s $17 million for 100 mediocre innings over 17 starts. And the signs were there.
Jorge Posada
This may seem like blasphemy to Yankee fans, but there’s no denying that Posada is overpaid. Yes, he has been solid throughout his career. But look at his 2006 stats, and then look at Mike Piazza’s 2006 stats. Pretty similar, eh? Where’s the big difference? Down at the bottom, in the salary section, where we learn that Posada made $12 million this year, while Piazza made $1.25 million. In reality, they probably each deserved somewhere between three and five million.
So there’s over $40 million that could have been spent more wisely, without ever touching the salaries of A-Rod, Jeter, Giambi, and Mussina. The Yankees have an advantage in bidding wars, but the problem with bidding wars is that they drive up the price for players who probably don’t deserve that much money. Would the Yankees be a lot better off if they had been outbid for the “services” of Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano? You bet your sweet bippy.
So A-Rod shoulders a lot of the blame, and Joe Torre almost got fired for not winning the World Series. But neither A-Rod nor Torre had anything to do with the pitchers the Yankees had on staff. It is very hard to win it all without good pitching, and the Yankees did not have good pitching. Their five main starters combined for a 4.35 ERA, thanks mostly to a surprisingly good season by Chien-Ming Wang (which he may or may not be able to duplicate) and an above average season by Mike Mussina (which he probably won’t duplicate, since he’s turning 38 this offseason). The other three starters (who combined to make about $25 million) combined for a 5.14 ERA.
Final analysis: the Yankees can spend $200 million every year, but until they start spending it on the right players at the right time, they will not match their previous success. That means no more signing (or trading for) players who are past their prime, and it means focusing on drafting and developing players internally. If George Steinbrenner can’t figure that out, he will continue to be disappointed.
October 11th, 2006 at 10:26am
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
[UPDATE: The votes are in, and the winner is Brandon Webb. I have no complaints about that choice.]
Now that the regular season is over, it is safe to make my picks for all the awards, since they don’t take postseason play into account. I figured I’d start with the hardest one to pick: National League Cy Young Award.
Why is it the hardest to pick? Because no one had an exceptionally great season. Lots of pitchers had good seasons, but there’s not a pitcher in the league whose performance would merit a top-5 Cy Young finish in a regular season. (Here’s an interesting note: before this year, no one had ever led the league in wins in a full season with anything less than 18; this year, six guys were tied for the lead with 16. I don’t believe that wins tell the whole story, but this stat is still pretty telling. And if Roy Oswalt hadn’t thrown seven shutout innings in his last start, he would have become only the second pitcher since before World War II to lead the league with an ERA over 3.00.) So let’s see what we can figure out.
First of all, let’s get one thing out of the way: even though no starters had great seasons, the award should not go to a reliever, because no relievers had great seasons, either. Billy Wagner and Trevor Hoffman both get mentioned quite a bit, but neither of them is deserving. Each man blew five saves, and neither even had a career year. They are the best relievers the NL had to offer this year, but neither is even remotely worthy of the Cy Young Award.
So let’s look at the starters. As I detailed in last year’s thoughts on this topic, I think wins and losses are meaningless statistics when it comes to determining the quality of a pitcher. The same pitcher could win 20 games for the Yankees and lose 20 games for the Devil Rays, without doing anything differently. If the purpose of the Cy Young Award really is to find the best pitcher, and not the pitcher who played for the best team, then it is essential that we throw win/loss out the window immediately.
The two statistics I look at first are ERA and AWL, or Adjusted Win/Loss, which is a statistic I made up. Simply put, AWL looks at each game a pitcher pitched and gives the pitcher a win or a loss based on his game ERA compared to the league average runs-per-game. For example, the league average RPG this season was 4.86, so any game that a pitcher’s ERA is under 4.86 for that game, he gets an Adjusted Win. As I noted last year, this is not a perfect stat, because a pitcher with an ERA of 4.70 is in no way deserving of the Cy Young, but he could have a perfect AWL. But despite its shortcomings, this stat overcomes the advantages and disadvantages provided by a team’s offense and shows how often the pitcher put his team in a position where it should have been able to win. (The reason I also look at ERA is to avoid anyone who might have a great AWL but a mediocre ERA, because while he may have pitched well enough to win, he isn’t a deserving Cy Young candidate.)
So let’s take a look at the five starting pitchers with the best ERAs in the league, then take a look at their AWL records.
| Name |
ERA |
W/L |
AWL |
| Roy Oswalt |
2.98 |
15-8 |
26-7 |
| Chris Carpenter |
3.09 |
15-8 |
20-12 |
| Brandon Webb |
3.10 |
16-8 |
24-9 |
| Bronson Arroyo |
3.29 |
14-11 |
23-12 |
| Carlos Zambrano |
3.41 |
16-7 |
23-10 |
So Oswalt and Webb have the two best AWLs, and they are right at the top in ERA, too. Carpenter gets ruled out based on having the worst AWL of the five, even though his ERA was slightly better than Webb’s and not much worse than Oswalt’s. Arroyo and Zambrano both would have needed remarkable AWLs to make up for the large ERA gap, and that just didn’t happen.
So Roy Oswalt or Brandon Webb? Their other stats are mostly pretty similar, as far as strikeouts and innings and whatnot. Webb had three shutouts and five complete games, compared to zero and two for Oswalt, and Webb had a somewhat-significantly better OPS-Against (.650 to .702). Webb also averaged over 7.1 innings per start, while Oswalt was down just below 6.9. So Oswalt is slightly better in the two categories I deem most important, but Webb is slightly better in a few categories that I consider to be less important but not worthless.
I think I have to give the edge to Oswalt, but I would have absolutely no arguments with someone voting for Webb. Heck, if I were writing this on a different day, I might vote for Webb myself.
My top five:
1. Roy Oswalt
2. Brandon Webb
3. Chris Carpenter
4. Billy Wagner
5. Trevor Hoffman
My predictions for actual top five:
1. Chris Carpenter
2. Trevor Hoffman
3. Brandon Webb
4. Billy Wagner
5. Roy Oswalt
October 4th, 2006 at 01:41am
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
Last week, I talked about a few things that Steve Phillips could have done better in his chat on ESPN.com. But let’s face it, my bread and butter is talking about how stupid Joe Morgan is. And I happen to have two weeks of chats to support my opinions. Let’s do this.
From last week’s chat, we have a few items:
Alex (nyc): Joe fantastic work as always, Do you feel Jose Reyes can be as good and prolific as Ricky Henderson was?
Joe Morgan: No, but I think he could be close. I think Ricky Henderson was perfect as a leadoff hitter. He could walk, he could steal bases, he could hit .300. Reyes doesn’t walk. He doesn’t have the on-base percentage that Rickey did. I think it’s something that you have, taking pitches, I don’t think you can learn it. Jose Reyes is going to be a great player, but he’s not going to walk as much as Rickey. That’s the only difference. After that, you’re right, he could be a clone of Rickey.
I agree with the general sentiment here, that Jose Reyes has a long way to go to be Rickey Henderson, and his 44 walks in about 600 plate appearances are not up to Rickey’s standards. The part I take issue with is saying Rickey Henderson “could hit .300.” Well yeah, he COULD, and he did seven times in 25 seasons. But Joe says it like it’s something Rickey did on a regular basis. It reminds me of when Ryne Sandberg referred to himself in his own Hall of Fame speech as someone who “could hit 40 home runs.” Yeah, you did it once, Ryno, but it’s not like you could do it any time you wanted to. And Henderson was a career .279 hitter who had a few seasons at .300 or higher, but he wasn’t a .300 hitter.
Marc (East Rockaway, NY): Braves are 19 games out. Can you even remember a time when they were this out of it?
Joe Morgan: No, but you have to remember, they are 19 behind the Mets who have the best record in the NL. But look to where they would be if they were in the West or even the Central. They’re just in the division with the best team in the NL.
I’m not sure what Joe’s point is, but at the time that he wrote this, the Braves would have been seven games out of first in either the Central or the West (not to mention 15-1/2 back in the AL East, 19-1/2 in the AL Central, and 13 in the AL West). So while it’s true that the Braves wouldn’t be as far back in the other NL divisions, to paint the picture as if they would be contending in the Central or West is just plain wrong.
kevin cali: Who is the best man to call a baseball game, if you had to pick one? (It’s a shame that baseball fan ouside of LA cannot listen to Vin S. everyday, he is the best.)
Joe Morgan: Well, I don’t think you’re alone. I think a lot of people think Vin’s the best, maybe ever. He used to do national broadcasts on TV. But I think he’s better on radio than on TV.
Vinnie’s style is to be the same whether he is on TV or on the radio; in fact, the first three innings of games he calls are generally “simulcasts,” going out over the TV and the radio at the same time. So Joe, if you like him more on the radio, close your eyes, because it’s exactly the same. (Coincidentally, I like Joe Morgan more when he is on the TV and Vin Scully is on the radio drowning him out.)
Dave (Florida): Todays pitchers are supposed to be stronger than pitchers 25-30 years ago, but in your day they threw 20-25 complete games a year. Now a days pitchers cant even get into double digits, why did that change?
Joe Morgan: Well, it changed because we started babying pitchers. By that I mean that we didn’t force them to finish what they started. Things are more specialized. Gibson, Koufax went out there to win. Now I see headlines where a guy goes five and gets the win. We don’t push the pitchers like we did before. They say they do to save the arms, but we have as many arm injuries as we had before.
I am so tired of Joe Morgan thinking everything was so much better back in the old days. First of all, it is rare for a pitcher to get a win in a game when he only pitches five innings. Does it happen more than it did in the 60s? Sure. But it’s not like it happens every day.
As for Joe’s assertion that “we have as many arm injuries as we had before,” well, that’s just not something he can prove. The only thing we can look at is the life expectancy of a pitcher, and even that is hard to look at because current pitchers are, well, still playing. But let’s look at these numbers from 1900 on. These are the average career lengths (in years) of pitchers who debuted in each of these decades:
1900s: 3.01
1910s: 3.57
1920s: 3.77
1930s: 4.73
1940s: 4.16
1950s: 4.86
1960s: 5.16
1970s: 5.37
1980s: 5.74
1990s: 4.47
Keep in mind that 20 of the 710 pitchers who made their debuts in the 1980s are still active, and 214 of the 1026 who debuted in the 1990s are still going, so the numbers for those decades will be higher (significantly higher, in the case of the 90s). What we are seeing is a steady upward trend in “life expectancy” for pitchers. It’s not proof of anything, but it’s better than any proof Joe Morgan can provide that limited workloads for starting pitchers don’t do any good.
That brings us to yesterday’s chat, which had a couple doozies.
Michael (Pittsford, NY): Hi Joe, Quick question about Robinson Cano. I think he’s going to be an amazing hitter. He sprays the ball around, and has a lot of power. I’m unsure about his fielding. Have you had much opportunity to watch Robinson Cano play the field? On the one hand, he looks very smooth, and makes some exceptional plays. On the other hand, he drops some routine balls, and seems to be a little non-chalant. What’s your opinion on Cano’s ability to play second?
Joe Morgan: I won’t use the word non chalant but he does look a little too relaxed. You have to attack the ball in the field just like you do at the plate. I agree 100 percent about him as a hitter. The ball really jumps off his bat. That is how I view a hitter. He has power and can hit to all field. He is just a little too relaxed out in the field.
First of all: “I won’t use the word non chalant” is one of my favorite things anyone has ever written. If you don’t know why, we can’t be friends.
Second: what does nonchalant (or non chalant) mean if not “too relaxed”?
And now, get ready for this…
Rick (NYC): Is it possible for Joe Girardi to win Manager of the Year and get fired? Is Loria out of his mind?
Joe Morgan: I don’t think he will win Manager of the Year. What about Willie Randolph? He has been without Pedro and Glavine and dealt with so many injuries yet they have the best record in the league. How could Girardi be Manager of the Year with a .500 record? I don’t understand that.
It’s easy, Joe. One team was expected to win 60 games, and they are on pace to win 82 and make a push for the playoffs; the other team was expected to win 95 games and win their division, and they are on pace to win 100 games and win their division. I’m not saying Willie Randolph doesn’t deserve consideration for Manager of the Year, but dismissing Joe Girardi’s candidacy like that demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of some fundamental aspects of the game of baseball. But the debate went on. Check out this next one (try to ignore the unrelated first part about Derek Jeter):
Jenny (WVa): Then what is Jeter’s weakness? Also, Why would Willie Randolph win Manager of the Year when he is more or less a caretaker of an already stacked team?
Joe Morgan: How is the team stacked when they were without Cliff Floyd and all those injuries! I can’t argue with people who don’t understand the game. Just because you have talent doesn’t mean you will win. The manager has to put that talent to good use. Has Joe Torre been a caretaker his whole career? Of course not.
Here is Joe Morgan’s subtlety: make true statements and pretend they support the opinion he is presenting. It’s true that talent doesn’t automatically equal wins. It’s true that a manager has an important role. But it’s ALSO true that it is easier to win with great talent than with 20 rookies, which means that Willie Randolph exceeding expectations by five wins with a stacked team (and no matter how much Joe Morgan mentions Cliff Floyd, the Mets still have Delgado, Wright, Reyes, and Beltran on offense) might not be as impressive as Joe Girardi exceeding expectations by 20 wins with a rookie roster.
And “I can’t argue with people who don’t understand the game”??? I feel like saying that to Joe Morgan all the time.
A bit later, someone made about the same point I made above:
Joe (Detroit): How many wins did you have the Marlins slated for at the beginning of the season with a 14 million dollar payroll ? The Mets payroll is how much ? Girardi should be manager of the year hands down.
Joe Morgan: So the way you vote is on expectations from analysts before the season? What was the projection for the Mets? Didn’t most people pick the Mets to finish third with all that talent? If Girardi is Manager of the Year then Cabrera should be MVP. That’s not how you pick Manager of the Year. A lot of people want him to win but he won’t. But don’t get me wrong, he has done an outstanding job.
I’d be interested to find one expert who picked the Mets to finish third this season. A few may have picked them to finish second behind the Phillies, but the vast majority of people who know anything picked the Mets to win 95+ games and finish in first place.
And is Joe Morgan really saying that judging how well a manager does with the team he is given is not a good way to judge how well he did as a manager? Really???
And finally, Joe Morgan ended the chat with this:
Derek (CT): Hey everybody, stop being so hard on Joe Morgan! Everyone is entitled to their opinions, particularly a two time MVP and World Series champion!!
Joe Morgan: Thanks, Derek. But I like folks to have their opinions. We both deserve to have our own thoughts. Just don’t get upset if we don’t agree. We can disagree. That is what makes baseball and sports so much fun. There are varying opinions.
In other words: “Please forgive my evil twin for saying, just nine minutes ago, that Jenny from West Virginia doesn’t understand the game of baseball just because she disagrees with me. I am a moron.”
September 6th, 2006 at 01:48am
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
I generally read all the baseball-related chats on ESPN.com (except the Fantasy Baseball ones). I don’t usually participate while they are going on, what with having a job and all, but I always read them, and I often find myself wishing I were the one doing the answering. It’s not that I think I know everything; I just think I know more than Joe Morgan and Steve Phillips.
I often have issues with these chats, generally when the chatter agrees with (or doesn’t vociferously disagree with) a stupid question. Other times, the questions are fine and it’s just the chatter who is stupid. In reading today’s chat with Steve Phillips, I came across a couple question/answer combos that merited my attention.
Matt (Philly): would 62 homers by Ortiz or Howard be recognized in the public eye as the single season record?
Steve Phillips: Great question. Yes, some would probably recognize that. Some would still say Sosa because we don’t have any real evidence at least not like with McGwire, Bonds. I do think a lot of people would recognize 62 as the record.
I agree that it is a very thought-provoking question, and I have to believe that a lot of people WOULD recognize it as some sort of unofficial record if Howard or Ortiz hit 62 homers. My problem is with Steve’s answer, where he implies that we have more “real evidence” of steroid use against Mark McGwire than Sammy Sosa. Ummm, Stevie, the only evidence we have of McGwire’s steroid use is this: he didn’t deny using them. But one thing that everyone forgets in the rush to condemn McGwire for his testimony to Congress is that he started his testimony by saying, in effect, “If I say I didn’t take steroids, people will call me a liar; if I say I did, people will call me a cheater; so I am choosing not to answer the question.” His silence was no more an admission of guilt than it was a declaration of innocence; it was simply silence.
Other than that silence, we have no “real evidence” of cheating by McGwire. On the contrary, we have the fact that he hit 49 homers as a relatively skinny rookie. Sosa, on the other hand, never did anything offensively until he suddenly buffed up, and his stats went downhill very quickly once MLB started the steroid testing. That evidence seems just as real to me as McGwire’s silence.
John (Hopewell Jct, NY): Steve, why hasn’t David Ortiz’ name come up in the performance enhancing drug conversation? Here’s a guy who never had more than 20 HRs and 75 RBIs in any season but doubled those numbers and raise his slugging pct by over 100 points when he got to Boston.
Steve Phillips: I’ve never heard of donuts being referred to as PEDs. I think Ortiz is explainable by his great plate discipline. He did show it early in his career, but like most good hitters it takes time to recognize which pitch in which count they can look to to drive it out. It has just taken him time to develop the power.
I don’t think Steve’s donut joke does nearly enough to mock the stupidity of this question. First of all, John from Hopewell does the classic moronic move of comparing raw numbers instead of percentages. “He never had more than 20 HRs and 75 RBIs in a season” blah blah blah. In his last two years in Minnesota, Ortiz’s averages per 600 plate appearances were 28 homers and 91 RBI; in his first three years in Boston, those averages went up to 38 and 124. Yes, that is quite an increase, but it’s not the same as what John was implying, which was that Ortiz had no power as a Twin. Of course, Steve Phillips did nothing to alleviate the problem when he confirms that it just took Ortiz some time “to develop the power.” Hey guys, the power was always there! Know what wasn’t there? The ability to hit left-handed pitchers!
And then there’s the obvious reason this was an absolutely ridiculous question, the one Phillips was trying to make with the lame donut joke: The great-hitting David Ortiz of the Red Sox is physically identical to the lousy-hitting David Ortiz of the Twins. So John, here’s the short answer to your question of why Ortiz’s name doesn’t come up in steroid discussions: because most people in the world are more intelligent than you are.
August 28th, 2006 at 11:15pm
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
I have a new goal in life. It is simply this: to become unbelievably wealthy, buy the Chicago White Sox, and fire Ken Harrelson and Darrin Jackson (”Hawk and DJ,” to themselves and other morons).
August 20th, 2006 at 11:58pm
Jeff J. Snider
Sports
Do you realize that the National League could realistically have only one team over .500 in each division? Currently the Mets are the only one in the East, the Cardinals and Reds in the Central, and the Dodgers and Padres in the West (and the D-Backs, if they can pull off this extra-inning game they are playing right now). The Reds, Padres, and D-Backs are not what you would call “good teams,” so it wouldn’t be surprising to see any or all of them finish under .500. That would be a perfect illustration of this year’s NL, where you have one good team (the Mets) and a lot of decent to lousy teams. But hey, it might be the perfect year for my Dodgers to get hot at the end, because they could stay hot enough to roll into the World Series and get mopped by an AL team.
August 16th, 2006 at 12:03am
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