All data is courtesy of Baseball Reference.
Needless to say, this list of quick thoughts is by no means comprehensive. Do your own digging and research to learn more, and if you think you can contradict me on any opinions, I imagine you're right.
- There's very little substantial difference between age groups in batting average or OBP. The only difference is that slugging about 20 points for hitters older than 30.
- Hitters who swung at the first pitch slugged .442, compared to hitters who didn't at .395. Their OBP improved by 20 points after the 1st pitch but their average dropped 23 points.
- Hitters who took a 1st pitch strike batted 218/264/349. Maybe swinging away at that first pitch is a better idea.
- When teams didn't IBB the hitter with a man on 2nd and 1st base empty, the hitter batted 240/328/390, compared to 241/308/402 with the bases empty.
- With the bases loaded and 2 out, batters hit a paltry 231/296/409, with a run expectancy in that situation of 0.616. Pitchers are probably best off just piping it and hoping for the best.
- High leverage: 249/322/402. Medium leverage: 251/320/414. Low leverage: 245/315/409. The slashes are all basically the same. Perhaps the leverage doesn't matter as much to a hitter's performance as people think.
- Aside from obviously the 1st inning, the highest OPS by inning came in the 4th-6th innings, indicating that tiring starters and long relievers are easier to hit off of. Along with the idea of the opener, perhaps managers would benefit plugging another quality reliever in one or more of the middle innings... or at least pulling struggling starters before the 5th and letting a good reliever bridge the gap. The notion of a pitching staff of 12 power relievers that can consistently work multiple innings doesn't seem too bad.
- Three True Outcomes OPS (out of play HR, walks and strikeouts only) is .836.
- Balls pulled to LF: .416 average, 1.203 OPS. Balls pulled to RF: .326 average, .950 OPS. This may be selective memory, but I believe LH power hitters get shifted a lot more often, because a RHB shift makes it harder for the 1B to cover the bag in time on a grounder. However, LHBs who go opposite field OPS 88 points higher (.784 to .696) than RHBs who go oppo to RF.
- No park saw more walks than Wrigley Field (614), with the next closest being Yankee Stadium at 596 (granted, the Cubs hosted a one game playoff tiebreaker after the season). No park saw fewer than Safeco Field (402), with the next closest (Comerica Park) seeing 443.
Showing posts with label MLB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MLB. Show all posts
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Jose Bautista's Gambit: The Game Theory behind the failed takeout slide
Over two weeks after Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista became one of the first victims of MLB's new takeout slide rule, I can't get over the fact that Joey Bats actually made what was a smart decision.
The slide itself seemed borderline. This wasn't the traditional spikes-up M.Bison from Street Fighter Slide Kick Into the 2nd Baseman takeout slide that Chase Utley used to injure Ruben Tejada in the 2015 playoffs. Bautista's slide was in line with the bag. His hand made contact with Logan Forsythe's leg as Forsythe tried to turn the potential game ending double play. The booth umpire decided that Bautista had reached for Forsythe's leg on the slide, and called the batter out due to runner interference. Game over, Rays win.
Bautista's no dummy. He knows as well as anyone that interference with the middle infielder on slides into 2nd is now illegal. And I don't believe for a second that his outstretched left hand was circumstantial. Every player knows to keep his upper body compact to maximize speed when sliding into a base. The only reason Bautista happened to extend the hand on the same side as the 2nd baseman was to interfere with his throw.
While that seems rather dumb, to knowingly interfere when it's not legal... Bautista's play was a great game theory move, and the best play for his situation.
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See, if Bautista slides normally, Forsythe, a competent 2B, turns the easy double play to throw out the not so fleet footed Jays batter Edwin Encarnacion at 1B to end the game. Of course, if Bautista blatantly slides into Forsythe, it's not only obvious interference and the game is over... but he could also be suspended.
However, when Bautista slides normally into the bag and subtlely extends his hand, there is a chance that the umpires overlook his interference, with the more substantial chance that Forsythe doesn't complete his play (which is what happened: Forsythe in fact made a throwing error due to interference from the outstretched hand), tying the game (Josh Donaldson would score from 3B) and keeping the game alive with two outs in the top 9th. Having a runner on 1st with two outs, obviously, gives you a better chance of winning than the game being over.
Yes, Bautista is often cited for interference and the game is over anyway. But it took an astute challenge from Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash and a conclusive booth review for that ruling to occur. Bautista's interference was subtle, and there appeared such a substantial chance that he could get away with it that many argued (incorrectly) that Bautista hadn't intended to interfere at all! The umpires on the field in fact had not ruled he done so.
Of course, the opposing manager and the booth were a little sharper than that, and Bautista's gambit did not pay off. It also sent a message that this subtle hand-checking-like attempt at interference will get called, so it's unlikely players will attempt it in the future.
But before we knew all that, Bautista made the game theory optimal decision that it was worth a try. It wasn't clean, and he got caught, but it was a very smart move on his part... smarter than playing it clean and taking the certain defeat. There was greater expected value for him and the Jays in attempting to get away with interference, than there was in sliding normally... even with the high odds that his gambit would not succeed.
Friday, February 5, 2016
MLB's qualifying offer system needs to change, but it doesn't need to go.
MLB's qualifying offer system is the latest attempt to even the playing field for smaller market teams who can't afford to retain their free agents. However, like the Type A/B system that preceded it, the system is ham fistedly simple. You can submit a default qualifying contract offer of one season for about $15M, and if the player declines it to sign elsewhere, you get a sandwich draft pick (end of 1st round) and the signing team loses their top qualifying draft pick.
However, this vastly discourages teams with departing free agents from making the qualifying offer, since they now add a relative ton of money to the payroll if the player re-signs with them (which they may not want). It also vastly discourages other teams from signing such a player since they lose a prized draft pick if they do.
The system also has rules in place preventing offers to midseason acquisitions, which increases the organization hit to a team acquiring such a player, since they can't recoup a draft pick.
Agent-friendly baseball writers recommend the system be scrapped entirely, forgetting why such a system exists in the first place. Prior to its existence, MLB's richest teams stockpiled talent at will and left lesser teams to flounder, watch their developed young talent leave via free agency, or both.
What the qualifying offer system needs is nuance. Neither the Type A/B system or the QO had much nuance at all. Type A/B somewhat arbitrarily attached a label to a subset of free agents that could net sandwich picks, while the QO gives teams a single blunt instrument offer to levy in exchange for a draft pick. And both systems heavily penalized the drafts of any team that signed such a player.
First of all, the blanket 1st/2nd round sandwich picks and 1st/2nd round draft penalties need not be so ham fisted. It should be possible to open up lower picks in the draft, from the 3rd round down to the teens, to exchange and compensation. The expected value of these picks are far lower, and would levy a substantially smaller penalty to teams that sign a qualifying free agent... yet still aiding the draft of an organization that loses a player.
I think the $15 million qualifying offer is not a bad number... as a maximum. You should be able to offer smaller qualifying offers, that net lesser draft picks in return should the player sign elsewhere.
This can be determined by, say, average WAR per draft pick in each round over, say, the five years prior to the last six years (the span of a team's initial control over a prospect). For this season that period would be 2006-2010. This allows a complete picture of the recent relative value of picks made in that round.
Using WAR as an approximate barometer, you can make the qualifying offers relative to that $15 million total.
For example, a $15M qualifying offer would cost a team their highest available pick (top 10 picks are protected, so if a team's 1st selection is protected, they'd lose their 2nd pick). But then a team could offer, say, $7M, and if that player signs elsewhere the new team could lose their 3rd round pick. The compensated team gets a sandwich pick for that round. Or, you could offer $6M, and losing the player nets you a 4th round pick while the signing team loses theirs, and so on.
Eventually, you'll want to set a minimum qualifying offer amount, maybe $2 million or so, but you could go as low as the 10th-20th rounds in terms of compensation if you wanted, depending on how much of a qualifying offer is levied.
If the signing team has already lost their pick in the relevant round, they can exercise one of two options:
- Forfeit the next round's pick as well in this draft. If you're slated to lose a 4th round pick that you've already lost, you can choose to lose your 5th original pick as well. (Any sandwich picks you have gained are protected, so if you got a 4th round sandwich pick while losing your original 4th round pick, you won't lose the sandwich pick)
- Defer the lost pick to a future draft, losing the relevant pick in the next draft after this coming one. So in this case you could just decide to lose your 4th round pick next year.
This would soften the blow to your draft in signing a QO player. And it would make sure the team losing such players could offer more flexible QO's and get some compensation for more of their losses. A team rebuilding could load up on picks, without ruining the draft of whoever signs their departing free agents. It's much easier to lose a 3rd or 5th rounder than your top pick.
I realize this would dramatically increase the number of qualifying offers, and would send draft picks and draft orders flying all over the place. This would level the playing field, and also better encourage teams to sign these players, rather than discouraging them as the current system does.
However, this vastly discourages teams with departing free agents from making the qualifying offer, since they now add a relative ton of money to the payroll if the player re-signs with them (which they may not want). It also vastly discourages other teams from signing such a player since they lose a prized draft pick if they do.
The system also has rules in place preventing offers to midseason acquisitions, which increases the organization hit to a team acquiring such a player, since they can't recoup a draft pick.
Agent-friendly baseball writers recommend the system be scrapped entirely, forgetting why such a system exists in the first place. Prior to its existence, MLB's richest teams stockpiled talent at will and left lesser teams to flounder, watch their developed young talent leave via free agency, or both.
What the qualifying offer system needs is nuance. Neither the Type A/B system or the QO had much nuance at all. Type A/B somewhat arbitrarily attached a label to a subset of free agents that could net sandwich picks, while the QO gives teams a single blunt instrument offer to levy in exchange for a draft pick. And both systems heavily penalized the drafts of any team that signed such a player.
First of all, the blanket 1st/2nd round sandwich picks and 1st/2nd round draft penalties need not be so ham fisted. It should be possible to open up lower picks in the draft, from the 3rd round down to the teens, to exchange and compensation. The expected value of these picks are far lower, and would levy a substantially smaller penalty to teams that sign a qualifying free agent... yet still aiding the draft of an organization that loses a player.
I think the $15 million qualifying offer is not a bad number... as a maximum. You should be able to offer smaller qualifying offers, that net lesser draft picks in return should the player sign elsewhere.
This can be determined by, say, average WAR per draft pick in each round over, say, the five years prior to the last six years (the span of a team's initial control over a prospect). For this season that period would be 2006-2010. This allows a complete picture of the recent relative value of picks made in that round.
Using WAR as an approximate barometer, you can make the qualifying offers relative to that $15 million total.
For example, a $15M qualifying offer would cost a team their highest available pick (top 10 picks are protected, so if a team's 1st selection is protected, they'd lose their 2nd pick). But then a team could offer, say, $7M, and if that player signs elsewhere the new team could lose their 3rd round pick. The compensated team gets a sandwich pick for that round. Or, you could offer $6M, and losing the player nets you a 4th round pick while the signing team loses theirs, and so on.
Eventually, you'll want to set a minimum qualifying offer amount, maybe $2 million or so, but you could go as low as the 10th-20th rounds in terms of compensation if you wanted, depending on how much of a qualifying offer is levied.
If the signing team has already lost their pick in the relevant round, they can exercise one of two options:
- Forfeit the next round's pick as well in this draft. If you're slated to lose a 4th round pick that you've already lost, you can choose to lose your 5th original pick as well. (Any sandwich picks you have gained are protected, so if you got a 4th round sandwich pick while losing your original 4th round pick, you won't lose the sandwich pick)
- Defer the lost pick to a future draft, losing the relevant pick in the next draft after this coming one. So in this case you could just decide to lose your 4th round pick next year.
This would soften the blow to your draft in signing a QO player. And it would make sure the team losing such players could offer more flexible QO's and get some compensation for more of their losses. A team rebuilding could load up on picks, without ruining the draft of whoever signs their departing free agents. It's much easier to lose a 3rd or 5th rounder than your top pick.
I realize this would dramatically increase the number of qualifying offers, and would send draft picks and draft orders flying all over the place. This would level the playing field, and also better encourage teams to sign these players, rather than discouraging them as the current system does.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
An idea for MLB realignment, Part Two: How to Realign the Revised Major Leagues
Part One looked at two likely candidates for expansion if/when MLB decides to expand within the next ten years. This next part will look at how the two new teams and the resulting realignment will help MLB's scheduling logistics.
Right now the two Major Leagues, American League and National League, are fractured into an uneven arrangement. The AL has 14 teams frayed into three uneven divisions of five, five and four teams while the NL has 16 teams frayed into divisions of five, six and five. This arrangement was made necessary after the addition of teams in Tampa Bay and Arizona back in 1997 in order to assure that every team had a league opponent. Had they been divided evenly into two leagues of 15 teams, each league would have had an odd number of teams, meaning there would always be at least one team without an league opponent, which would have necessitated constant interleague play, taking away the unique draw of interleague play.
Adding two teams would now give us two leagues with 16 teams, which would allow more even division distributions and give every team a mathematically equal chance of winning their division. As the NFL did when they expanded to 32, MLB would have to expand to 8 divisions, each holding four teams. This would make the playoff system simpler and eliminate the need for the wildcard: Every four-team division's champion makes the playoffs, and that's it.
However, if we were to put both expansion teams in the 14 team AL, that would create a relative competitive imbalance in the short term, possibly the long term. Both teams would be relatively non-competitive their first few years, giving the other AL teams an easier schedule. However, awarding one expansion team to each league keeps the leagues uneven.
Therefore, as was done with Milwaukee's move to the NL during the 1994 expansion, you would need to move an NL team to the AL. You could make a case for a number of potential teams to make the move, but my pick to shift to the AL is the San Diego Padres.
- Geographically, there's a cluster of eight teams on or west of the Rockies, which makes forming the new AL and NL West divisions easy. However, among them are 5 NL teams and 3 AL teams, making an NL West team the best suited to make the move.
- The Padres don't have as much rivalry history with other NL teams and, sad to say, wouldn't be missed by NL West teams. The Giants and Dodgers have significant NL history, and the Diamondbacks are also one of the NL's World Series champions, plus their relative proximity to the Dodgers and Rockies makes it more sensible to keep them in the NL West
So the Padres would move to the AL, and each league would get one of the expansion teams. As I mentioned, teams would be clustered geographically in attempting to form the new divisions, to help reduce travel time between divisional cities. For example, right now the Texas Rangers are in the AL West, requiring a long flight to play one of their divisional foes. By moving them to a division with other southern AL teams, this would reduce their travel burden significantly. And vice versa: Seattle, Anaheim and Oakland would not have to fly to the central US as much, replacing those flights with flights to closer San Diego.
It turns out that all teams fit for the most part neatly into clusters of eight. Here is a map outlining all 32 teams in this scenario, with color coding to indicate how the divisions would be aligned. The only team that still gets shafted in terms of geography is Colorado, which is closer to the central and northern cluster of teams, but is the odd team out among those clusters, while helping the western cluster fill out their need for eight teams. Here in text is the new alignment:
AL West: Seattle, Anaheim, Oakland, San Diego
This division remains mostly intact, and would likely see a boost in pitching stats as the Rangers and their launchpad ballpark are ditched for San Diego's cavernous Petco Park. With all four teams boasting pitchers' parks, offensive numbers will take a tumble.
AL North: Minnesota, Chicago White Sox, Detroit, Cleveland
The AL Central stays mostly intact, losing only the perpetually non-competitive Kansas City Royals. This could become the most competitive four team division in the revised MLB.
AL South: Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Texas, Charlotte
This new division is a hodge-podge of castoffs plus the expansion team in Charlotte. It would be the anti-AL West, with all four teams boasting hitters parks (Charlotte would likely begin play in Knights Stadium, which is one of the International League's hitter friendliest parks). Tampa's probably got the most pitcher friendliest park, and only because it's generally neutral or slightly hitter friendly.
AL East: New York Yankees, Boston, Toronto, Baltimore
This division remains mostly intact, losing only the Tampa Bay Rays (much to the relief of the Yankees and Red Sox). Not to the relief of the Red Sox or Yankees, the new playoff format means no wildcard, and the division winner takes all.
NL West: San Francisco, Colorado, Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona
The NL West stays intact save for San Diego's defection. Losing the cavern in San Diego should provide a slight increase in ERAs and batting numbers for the division.
NL North: Milwaukee, Chicago Cubs, Omaha, Cincinnati
The NL Central gets exploded, with the largest fragment making up the NL North, joined by the expansion team from Omaha. Like the AL South, this should be a hitters division: the Cubs and Reds play in hitters parks, and while Milwaukee's park trends slightly towards pitching, Omaha's TD Ameritrade Park was modeled closely after old Rosenblatt Stadium, which was a friendly park for hitters.
NL South: St Louis, Houston, Atlanta, Florida
Two Central teams land in the new NL South with two NL East defectors. The Marlins will have a new stadium by this point and jury's out on how it will play, though the humidity has trended friendly towards hitters. However, Atlanta and St Louis have pitching friendly parks, which along with Houston's weirdo park should at least make things interesting.
NL East: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York Mets, Washington
Pittsburgh gets deposited with the remaining NL East teams in a revised NL East. Philly's launchpad provides a fine juxtaposition to the pitching-neutral parks of the other three teams.
Obviously, there's no way to know how these teams will play in 5-10 years (though it's likely that the Royals under their present penny-pinching ownership will not be competitive), so there's no way to know if these divisions will be fiercely competitive or a walkover for given teams. But the new alignment's geographical clustering will reduce travel time for every team, and will reduce costs as air travel's costs continue to rise.
Right now the two Major Leagues, American League and National League, are fractured into an uneven arrangement. The AL has 14 teams frayed into three uneven divisions of five, five and four teams while the NL has 16 teams frayed into divisions of five, six and five. This arrangement was made necessary after the addition of teams in Tampa Bay and Arizona back in 1997 in order to assure that every team had a league opponent. Had they been divided evenly into two leagues of 15 teams, each league would have had an odd number of teams, meaning there would always be at least one team without an league opponent, which would have necessitated constant interleague play, taking away the unique draw of interleague play.
Adding two teams would now give us two leagues with 16 teams, which would allow more even division distributions and give every team a mathematically equal chance of winning their division. As the NFL did when they expanded to 32, MLB would have to expand to 8 divisions, each holding four teams. This would make the playoff system simpler and eliminate the need for the wildcard: Every four-team division's champion makes the playoffs, and that's it.
However, if we were to put both expansion teams in the 14 team AL, that would create a relative competitive imbalance in the short term, possibly the long term. Both teams would be relatively non-competitive their first few years, giving the other AL teams an easier schedule. However, awarding one expansion team to each league keeps the leagues uneven.
Therefore, as was done with Milwaukee's move to the NL during the 1994 expansion, you would need to move an NL team to the AL. You could make a case for a number of potential teams to make the move, but my pick to shift to the AL is the San Diego Padres.
- Geographically, there's a cluster of eight teams on or west of the Rockies, which makes forming the new AL and NL West divisions easy. However, among them are 5 NL teams and 3 AL teams, making an NL West team the best suited to make the move.
- The Padres don't have as much rivalry history with other NL teams and, sad to say, wouldn't be missed by NL West teams. The Giants and Dodgers have significant NL history, and the Diamondbacks are also one of the NL's World Series champions, plus their relative proximity to the Dodgers and Rockies makes it more sensible to keep them in the NL West
So the Padres would move to the AL, and each league would get one of the expansion teams. As I mentioned, teams would be clustered geographically in attempting to form the new divisions, to help reduce travel time between divisional cities. For example, right now the Texas Rangers are in the AL West, requiring a long flight to play one of their divisional foes. By moving them to a division with other southern AL teams, this would reduce their travel burden significantly. And vice versa: Seattle, Anaheim and Oakland would not have to fly to the central US as much, replacing those flights with flights to closer San Diego.
It turns out that all teams fit for the most part neatly into clusters of eight. Here is a map outlining all 32 teams in this scenario, with color coding to indicate how the divisions would be aligned. The only team that still gets shafted in terms of geography is Colorado, which is closer to the central and northern cluster of teams, but is the odd team out among those clusters, while helping the western cluster fill out their need for eight teams. Here in text is the new alignment:
AL West: Seattle, Anaheim, Oakland, San Diego
This division remains mostly intact, and would likely see a boost in pitching stats as the Rangers and their launchpad ballpark are ditched for San Diego's cavernous Petco Park. With all four teams boasting pitchers' parks, offensive numbers will take a tumble.
AL North: Minnesota, Chicago White Sox, Detroit, Cleveland
The AL Central stays mostly intact, losing only the perpetually non-competitive Kansas City Royals. This could become the most competitive four team division in the revised MLB.
AL South: Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Texas, Charlotte
This new division is a hodge-podge of castoffs plus the expansion team in Charlotte. It would be the anti-AL West, with all four teams boasting hitters parks (Charlotte would likely begin play in Knights Stadium, which is one of the International League's hitter friendliest parks). Tampa's probably got the most pitcher friendliest park, and only because it's generally neutral or slightly hitter friendly.
AL East: New York Yankees, Boston, Toronto, Baltimore
This division remains mostly intact, losing only the Tampa Bay Rays (much to the relief of the Yankees and Red Sox). Not to the relief of the Red Sox or Yankees, the new playoff format means no wildcard, and the division winner takes all.
NL West: San Francisco, Colorado, Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona
The NL West stays intact save for San Diego's defection. Losing the cavern in San Diego should provide a slight increase in ERAs and batting numbers for the division.
NL North: Milwaukee, Chicago Cubs, Omaha, Cincinnati
The NL Central gets exploded, with the largest fragment making up the NL North, joined by the expansion team from Omaha. Like the AL South, this should be a hitters division: the Cubs and Reds play in hitters parks, and while Milwaukee's park trends slightly towards pitching, Omaha's TD Ameritrade Park was modeled closely after old Rosenblatt Stadium, which was a friendly park for hitters.
NL South: St Louis, Houston, Atlanta, Florida
Two Central teams land in the new NL South with two NL East defectors. The Marlins will have a new stadium by this point and jury's out on how it will play, though the humidity has trended friendly towards hitters. However, Atlanta and St Louis have pitching friendly parks, which along with Houston's weirdo park should at least make things interesting.
NL East: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York Mets, Washington
Pittsburgh gets deposited with the remaining NL East teams in a revised NL East. Philly's launchpad provides a fine juxtaposition to the pitching-neutral parks of the other three teams.
Obviously, there's no way to know how these teams will play in 5-10 years (though it's likely that the Royals under their present penny-pinching ownership will not be competitive), so there's no way to know if these divisions will be fiercely competitive or a walkover for given teams. But the new alignment's geographical clustering will reduce travel time for every team, and will reduce costs as air travel's costs continue to rise.
An idea for MLB realignment, Part One: Two Expansion Teams
This will run in two parts: Part One will look at two suitable, if not likely sites for MLB to expand, while Part Two will cover how the divisions and leagues would be best re-aligned.
I've talked about the idea of expansion before, and as things stand there's really not a market for MLB expanding domestically. However, time, an economic revival and rich men's ambition (including the rise of a new commissioner following Bud Selig's retirement) could lead to an opportunity for MLB to add two new teams in the next decade or so.
I don't foresee any potential expansion happening overseas or in Mexico. Every major US sports league has explored the idea of going to Europe, Mexico or Pacific Asia, but the reason you haven't seen it is simple: Travel logistics would simply make basing 1-2 teams overseas infeasible (domestic jet travel, let alone international jet travel, is expensive, and not getting any cheaper or easier), and Mexico's political and crime issues, not to mention the nation's relative poverty, make basing a team in Mexico City, Monterrey or similar cities too difficult to make it worth a league's while.
But while the recession has hit America hard, and while (as I mentioned before) many of MLB's potential markets aren't attractive fits right now, there could be development in two markets that would provide the opportunity to expand to 32 teams, even out the leagues and finally re-align the leagues and divisions in a way that makes competitive and geographical sense. This probably doesn't happen anytime in the next few years, but as the economy settles and evolves, and as Bud Selig hands the MLB keys to a new Commissioner, the league could look to finally fix their fractured league alignment, expand their revenue streams and give two new domestic markets an expansion team.
Here are the two markets that would be best equipped to take on an MLB franchise. One is fairly obvious. The other is such a psychological outlier than your first reaction may be "No way" but in light of the shortcomings in other markets and what this 2nd market has to offer, this market is probably the best fit for Expansion Franchise #2.
#1. Charlotte, NC: Yes, earlier I said that pro sports hadn't taken well to the area despite being a hotbed for college and minor league baseball. But continued economic growth despite the recession (even in banking, which was the hardest hit sector) and consistent or growing attendance figures in the NFL, NBA (as the Bobcats have finally began winning) and even with the AAA (not quite) Charlotte Knights indicates that interest in pro sports in the area is growing instead of waning, and that the economy not only hasn't swayed fans from buying tickets, but sees Charlotte fans patronizing major pro sports even more than ever before. The market Nate Silver once called the "one place that would clearly be viable for the 31st major league franchise" has tried in the past to lure an MLB team (Expos, Marlins), but their best bet for a team is likely as one of MLB's expansion markets should they expand to 32.
Charlotte's biggest challenge would be funding and building a baseball stadium. With no model in place to throw one up in the foreseeable future, the hard sell would be convincing an owner to eat a loss playing in MLB-capable Knights Stadium (which even with hasty expansion probably wouldn't seat more than 20K-25K) way out in Fort Mill, SC until a new stadium could be built in Downtown Charlotte. The AAA Knights have been repeatedly stymied in getting funding for a new stadium: Could it be civic interests are holding out for an MLB team, not wanting to spend money on a AAA facility with AAA capacity if they can get an MLB team later... and then have to build them a 35K seat facility?
Charlotte would serve at this point as a fine addition that few would argue with in the event of expansion. The 2nd best addition, however, will lead a lot of people to recoil.
#2. Omaha, NE: Now how in the hell could the 59th largest US metropolitan area have the inside track on an MLB expansion franchise over other major metropolitan areas like Portland, San Antonio, Indianapolis and Las Vegas? Well, there's one very big reason.
TD Ameritrade Park is scheduled to be completed by 2011, and will open with 24,000 seats, with the capability to expand to 35,000 "if need be".
Now... with the AAA Omaha Royals moving to a smaller, suburban ballpark, why would the city of Omaha spend $128 million in public money to build such a large facility if its only tenants are the College World Series, an expansion UFL Football team and the Creighton University baseball team?
The likely, unspoken answer is that Omaha, a city of 430,000 that has seen steady population and economic growth with little recession over the last few decades, would like to net themselves an MLB team someday, and a big baseball stadium with a host of amenities gives them a big edge over other potential markets much bigger than the 830K Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area.
- Portland has a liberal civic government facing several civic projects and as a result they're very reluctant to earmark significant public money for a stadium to replace ancient and undersized PGE Park, which BTW is woefully insufficient to support an MLB team.
- Las Vegas' tourist economy collapsed with the recession (they have some of the nation's highest foreclosure and unemployment rates), like Portland they have a AAA park in Cashman Field unsuitable for MLB, and the population largely consists of expatriates who bring their allegiances of their hometown teams with them. As a Vegas native I can attest there is not a lot of civic pride among the locals, and they're not going to fill the seats in a new baseball stadium, especially for a struggling expansion team.
- San Antonio has a huge population but the average wage is very low for a large city, meaning very limited disposable income that won't fill the coffers for an MLB team, plus AA ballpark Nelson Wolff Stadium is like the others unsuitable for MLB.
- Indianpolis is a relatively sizable and centralized market, but like the other cities they lack the stadium needed to support a team in the short term, plus it's doubtful they can procure the funding for a new stadium given the region just invested heavily in building Lucas Oil Stadium. Plus much of their economy rests in manufacturing, which is highly prone to business and job losses that can debilitate the local economy (as we've seen with cities like Detroit and Cleveland).
Other similar markets like Oklahoma City, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville and Albuquerque don't have the economic stability, the regional centralization and hub-status and, of course, the stadium facilities to support an MLB team. Omaha provides a huge advantage that not only can they provide a ready-made facility to use at once, but a prospective team won't have to worry about procuring a new stadium, since the stadium they would need is already in place. The capacity at TD Ameritrade Stadium can be quickly and permanently expanded to 35,000 seats at minimal additional cost.
Alongside that, Omaha has a steady economy buoyed by a mix of a growing tech industry, banking, health administration, food production and the U.S. Military, which discounts the corporate and affiliated presence of several major corps. And plus, the locals are very much into sports: The College World Series routinely packs Rosenblatt Stadium (soon to be demolished). The AAA Omaha Royals have seen a spike in attendance over the last couple years despite fielding weak, non-competitive PCL teams. The newly created UFL, fresh off their first season, had the pick of the U.S. litter for expansion, yet decided to award an expansion team to Omaha. The city even created an Omaha Sports Commission to oversee the development of rec, amateur and pro sports in Omaha due to their consistent and growing popularity.
Omaha may not be the biggest market for MLB by numbers, but they'll bring the enthusiasm and ticket sales... and they've already got the stadium they need to host a new MLB team. All they need is an ambitious ownership group and an opportunistic MLB front office.
Economic concerns aside, the biggest logistical concerns would be the weather, namely Omaha's presence in the middle of Tornado Alley, and the College World Series. An expansion team could easily work around the latter by scheduling a long road trip during the CWS, and playing a larger slate of home games earlier in the season. You play them earlier instead of later for three reasons: 1) Keep the late-season schedule open in case games need to be made up. 2) The heavier early season schedule helps the team sidestep the spate of postponements that could result during the late summer tornado season. And 3) Since the early seasons of an expansion team will likely be rough, they're better off playing more home games early in the year while the season is fresh and fans still carry hope and enthusiasm... with fewer games towards the end as the team plays out the string.
Part Two covers how MLB would (or at least should) realign to even out the American and National League, while augmenting and improving the existing league structure. Of course, I'll cover which divisions the expansion teams would play in, as well as what teams get moved where.
I've talked about the idea of expansion before, and as things stand there's really not a market for MLB expanding domestically. However, time, an economic revival and rich men's ambition (including the rise of a new commissioner following Bud Selig's retirement) could lead to an opportunity for MLB to add two new teams in the next decade or so.
I don't foresee any potential expansion happening overseas or in Mexico. Every major US sports league has explored the idea of going to Europe, Mexico or Pacific Asia, but the reason you haven't seen it is simple: Travel logistics would simply make basing 1-2 teams overseas infeasible (domestic jet travel, let alone international jet travel, is expensive, and not getting any cheaper or easier), and Mexico's political and crime issues, not to mention the nation's relative poverty, make basing a team in Mexico City, Monterrey or similar cities too difficult to make it worth a league's while.
But while the recession has hit America hard, and while (as I mentioned before) many of MLB's potential markets aren't attractive fits right now, there could be development in two markets that would provide the opportunity to expand to 32 teams, even out the leagues and finally re-align the leagues and divisions in a way that makes competitive and geographical sense. This probably doesn't happen anytime in the next few years, but as the economy settles and evolves, and as Bud Selig hands the MLB keys to a new Commissioner, the league could look to finally fix their fractured league alignment, expand their revenue streams and give two new domestic markets an expansion team.
Here are the two markets that would be best equipped to take on an MLB franchise. One is fairly obvious. The other is such a psychological outlier than your first reaction may be "No way" but in light of the shortcomings in other markets and what this 2nd market has to offer, this market is probably the best fit for Expansion Franchise #2.
#1. Charlotte, NC: Yes, earlier I said that pro sports hadn't taken well to the area despite being a hotbed for college and minor league baseball. But continued economic growth despite the recession (even in banking, which was the hardest hit sector) and consistent or growing attendance figures in the NFL, NBA (as the Bobcats have finally began winning) and even with the AAA (not quite) Charlotte Knights indicates that interest in pro sports in the area is growing instead of waning, and that the economy not only hasn't swayed fans from buying tickets, but sees Charlotte fans patronizing major pro sports even more than ever before. The market Nate Silver once called the "one place that would clearly be viable for the 31st major league franchise" has tried in the past to lure an MLB team (Expos, Marlins), but their best bet for a team is likely as one of MLB's expansion markets should they expand to 32.
Charlotte's biggest challenge would be funding and building a baseball stadium. With no model in place to throw one up in the foreseeable future, the hard sell would be convincing an owner to eat a loss playing in MLB-capable Knights Stadium (which even with hasty expansion probably wouldn't seat more than 20K-25K) way out in Fort Mill, SC until a new stadium could be built in Downtown Charlotte. The AAA Knights have been repeatedly stymied in getting funding for a new stadium: Could it be civic interests are holding out for an MLB team, not wanting to spend money on a AAA facility with AAA capacity if they can get an MLB team later... and then have to build them a 35K seat facility?
Charlotte would serve at this point as a fine addition that few would argue with in the event of expansion. The 2nd best addition, however, will lead a lot of people to recoil.
#2. Omaha, NE: Now how in the hell could the 59th largest US metropolitan area have the inside track on an MLB expansion franchise over other major metropolitan areas like Portland, San Antonio, Indianapolis and Las Vegas? Well, there's one very big reason.
TD Ameritrade Park is scheduled to be completed by 2011, and will open with 24,000 seats, with the capability to expand to 35,000 "if need be".Now... with the AAA Omaha Royals moving to a smaller, suburban ballpark, why would the city of Omaha spend $128 million in public money to build such a large facility if its only tenants are the College World Series, an expansion UFL Football team and the Creighton University baseball team?
The likely, unspoken answer is that Omaha, a city of 430,000 that has seen steady population and economic growth with little recession over the last few decades, would like to net themselves an MLB team someday, and a big baseball stadium with a host of amenities gives them a big edge over other potential markets much bigger than the 830K Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area.
- Portland has a liberal civic government facing several civic projects and as a result they're very reluctant to earmark significant public money for a stadium to replace ancient and undersized PGE Park, which BTW is woefully insufficient to support an MLB team.
- Las Vegas' tourist economy collapsed with the recession (they have some of the nation's highest foreclosure and unemployment rates), like Portland they have a AAA park in Cashman Field unsuitable for MLB, and the population largely consists of expatriates who bring their allegiances of their hometown teams with them. As a Vegas native I can attest there is not a lot of civic pride among the locals, and they're not going to fill the seats in a new baseball stadium, especially for a struggling expansion team.
- San Antonio has a huge population but the average wage is very low for a large city, meaning very limited disposable income that won't fill the coffers for an MLB team, plus AA ballpark Nelson Wolff Stadium is like the others unsuitable for MLB.
- Indianpolis is a relatively sizable and centralized market, but like the other cities they lack the stadium needed to support a team in the short term, plus it's doubtful they can procure the funding for a new stadium given the region just invested heavily in building Lucas Oil Stadium. Plus much of their economy rests in manufacturing, which is highly prone to business and job losses that can debilitate the local economy (as we've seen with cities like Detroit and Cleveland).
Other similar markets like Oklahoma City, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville and Albuquerque don't have the economic stability, the regional centralization and hub-status and, of course, the stadium facilities to support an MLB team. Omaha provides a huge advantage that not only can they provide a ready-made facility to use at once, but a prospective team won't have to worry about procuring a new stadium, since the stadium they would need is already in place. The capacity at TD Ameritrade Stadium can be quickly and permanently expanded to 35,000 seats at minimal additional cost.
Alongside that, Omaha has a steady economy buoyed by a mix of a growing tech industry, banking, health administration, food production and the U.S. Military, which discounts the corporate and affiliated presence of several major corps. And plus, the locals are very much into sports: The College World Series routinely packs Rosenblatt Stadium (soon to be demolished). The AAA Omaha Royals have seen a spike in attendance over the last couple years despite fielding weak, non-competitive PCL teams. The newly created UFL, fresh off their first season, had the pick of the U.S. litter for expansion, yet decided to award an expansion team to Omaha. The city even created an Omaha Sports Commission to oversee the development of rec, amateur and pro sports in Omaha due to their consistent and growing popularity.
Omaha may not be the biggest market for MLB by numbers, but they'll bring the enthusiasm and ticket sales... and they've already got the stadium they need to host a new MLB team. All they need is an ambitious ownership group and an opportunistic MLB front office.
Economic concerns aside, the biggest logistical concerns would be the weather, namely Omaha's presence in the middle of Tornado Alley, and the College World Series. An expansion team could easily work around the latter by scheduling a long road trip during the CWS, and playing a larger slate of home games earlier in the season. You play them earlier instead of later for three reasons: 1) Keep the late-season schedule open in case games need to be made up. 2) The heavier early season schedule helps the team sidestep the spate of postponements that could result during the late summer tornado season. And 3) Since the early seasons of an expansion team will likely be rough, they're better off playing more home games early in the year while the season is fresh and fans still carry hope and enthusiasm... with fewer games towards the end as the team plays out the string.
Part Two covers how MLB would (or at least should) realign to even out the American and National League, while augmenting and improving the existing league structure. Of course, I'll cover which divisions the expansion teams would play in, as well as what teams get moved where.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
The Mariners can survive with 11 pitchers and without Cliff Lee
After news of Cliff Lee's strained abdomen raised the distinct possibility that he would be out the first couple weeks of the regular season, suddenly the Seattle Mariners' goal of breaking camp out of Spring Training with a six man bullpen instead of seven seems in jeopardy. This wouldn't matter that much except it cuts off a valuable bench spot, on a bench that's already limited due to the presence of Ken Griffey Jr as a pinch hit bench bat that can't really play any position well due to his balky knees. This limits the versatility of the bench, and may force the team to DFA a pitcher or two when Lee returns.
There's no need for this. This mindset assumes that you're going to burn your bullpen arms as specialists who only face two or three batters... a needlessly inefficient usage of the bullpen in the first place.
If you're facing life with six relievers that are going to get extra work due to the temporary loss of a star SP, the key is to stretch out your relievers and use them to face anywhere from six to nine batters at a time, regardless of how good or bad the outing goes. Instead of using three to five relievers a night, you only need to use two or three. While the outings will be longer and require more rest... your pitchers will get more time between outings since you'll be using fewer pitchers each game. At most, keep two short guys to work the end of a game. Aardsma can be your closer, and you can use the other short guy (Brandon League? Mark Lowe? If one's going to be a short man the other's got to be able to face 6-9 batters at a time) on alternate nights, to either set him up or close if Aardsma's been overworked. The other guys should be able to give you two innings or so if needed.
If someone outside of the short men can't be counted on to get you through 6-9 batters without damage, you send them away. If someone really struggles, you send them down and call up someone fresh, preferably a hot hand in Tacoma or West Tenn.
As for the starters, who likely will struggle to some extent, just make sure they face at least 27 batters regardless of the quality of their outing. That's a full three times through the lineup, and most pitchers can work 27 batters in about 95-105 pitches regardless of how they're doing... and 27 batters on average is about 6 innings of work. Sometimes it's 5. Sometimes it goes well and it's about 7 or 8.
Getting off to a good start as a team is important and doing your best to set yourself up to win is important, sure, so I can see concern about leaving a guy out there if things aren't going well. Look at it this way: If your starter gets shelled for six runs in the first two frames and you fall behind by 4-6 runs, your chances of coming back aren't that great whether he stays in and faces his 27 batters, or if you bring in a bullpen relay of relievers to mop up. You may as well minimize the eventual load your pen will have to work and leave him in until he's faced a full 27, unless he's absolutely getting annihilated, taking 6-8 pitches to face every batter, walking the world or of course (and heaven forbid), he's hurt. If he's tiring early, you as an organization have screwed up because your starters should be in condition to throw 100 pitches under the usual pressure.
And when those relievers come in with the end of the game a ways away, may as well have each one face the whole 9-man lineup a single time and get as much mileage from them as you can. You might even finish the game using only two relievers, though it's likely in such a situation you'll need three. Just don't take a disposable approach to your bullpen. Bring guys in not with the intention of getting the next 1-2 guys out, but of facing the whole lineup once.
In tight games where matchups may be important and you're 1-3 innings from the closer... suck it up and trust the guy you bring in. Usually he'll get the job done, or at least not do any worse than if you played the matchups or brought in a fireman if he gets in trouble.
The Mariners can still get away with a six man bullpen, but it's going to take a bit of open mindedness on manager Don Wakamatsu's part and GM Jack Zduriencik's part, and possibly a concerted effort to stretch a couple people out. The guys who break camp in the Mariners bullpen (outside of League/Lowe and Aardsma) should be able to power through multiple innings. Many of the potential guys they still have in camp can do so. Shawn Kelley intends to stretch out and will at least be used in longer situations. Kanekoa Texeira did pitch a bit as a swingman in AA and would work well if the M's stretch him out. If Sean White stays healthy and gets stretched back out, he can pitch multiple innings. Jury's out on Luke French's abilities as a starter, but if he can get people out as a reliever then he's a good middle or long man.
Speaking of French, you can rotate the last two rotation spots between Doug Fister, Jason Vargas and French in case any of those three struggle. And when Lee returns, if you want to bring in someone from Tacoma to give you a better situational bullpen then you should be able to option any of the potential starters (Dave Cameron found documentation that indicates Vargas and Olson should have option years this season).
Ultimately, if it turns out these guys can't hold the fort as a six man bullpen, you can cave in, send off a bench player (and with some of the season gone you can flesh out who best fits your positional needs off the bench) and add a pitcher. But it's certainly in the realm of possibility that the Mariners can do fine with a six man bullpen, even if they have to live without Cliff Lee for a couple weeks.
Monday, March 1, 2010
On the idea behind my past and present research on batted ball rates
I started late last year with tracking batted ball rates for Mariners minor leaguers, then comparing them against MLB league average batted ball AVG/OBP/SLG rates to get a composite average, or how each player would have hit if his respective batted balls produced in line with league averages. I kept walks, strikeouts and other non-in-play outcomes constant. I devised the same composite AVG/OBP/SLG numbers for hitters and pitchers, since I was measuring the same rate stats. By MLE-adjusting the numbers, I could get a general sense of the progress a player made as he advanced through the system.
The idea was to get away from counting stats (singles, doubles, triples) in analyzing and projecting players, and look more towards stats that trended towards certain outcomes. Groundballs go for hits at a better rate than flyballs (.242 composite AVG over 2005-2009) but come with no power (.262 SLG). Flyballs go for hits the least (.223) but lead to the most isolated power (.594) and of course home runs... though that data includes home runs, which can't be fielded, and pop flies, which are almost always outs (.020 AVG). Line drives go for hits an amazing 73-74% of the time (.736), though they come with less isolated power than flyballs (1.004 SLG).
Dan Fox had some old batted ball data in 2007 that I used at the time, as it was the most reliable data I could get my hands on. I got as far as napkin adjusted numbers for several Mariners farm teams, but never much beyond that. Ultimately, I realized that, since Fox's data was outdated by several years, it wouldn't do me much good to continue until I had some present-day data.
Since the saber-community focuses their data on spitting out a single raw number centered around runs, and many of their formulas are built around the counting stats, not a whole lot of data was available on batted ball-in-play averages and slugging. According to Baseball Prospectus annual data from net run expectancy (which I pulled from their past three annual publications), MLB run averages per batted ball are typically 0.19 runs per flyball, 0.39 runs per line drive and 0.04 runs per groundball. But there's no data as to the breakdown by average and slugging, thus extrapolating an expected slash from that data is a fool's errand until you can find averages for each.
That is, until Baseball Reference began including GB/FB/LD splits in their recent year to year MLB league split data (here is the AL's 2009 breakdown). This allowed me to finally take a recent five year split of data and create a composite AVG/SLG for each batted ball based on actual MLB data... which is how I got the numbers parenthetically referenced above. As with the composite run expectancy matrix, the numbers are taken into account like so:
2009: 50%
2008: 30%
2007: 10%
2006: 6%
2005: 4%
I used the past five years to ensure a sufficiently sizable sample and minimize variance, while properly giving greater weight to recent data and lesser weight to data from the more distant past. This was especially important in light of the recent rollout of some new ballparks (Citi Field, Nationals Park) plus a slight but noticeable decline in offensive numbers over the last 2-3 years. That said, numbers consistently correlated across seasons and I'm sure the league average batted ball data is reliably consistent.
The idea was to get away from counting stats (singles, doubles, triples) in analyzing and projecting players, and look more towards stats that trended towards certain outcomes. Groundballs go for hits at a better rate than flyballs (.242 composite AVG over 2005-2009) but come with no power (.262 SLG). Flyballs go for hits the least (.223) but lead to the most isolated power (.594) and of course home runs... though that data includes home runs, which can't be fielded, and pop flies, which are almost always outs (.020 AVG). Line drives go for hits an amazing 73-74% of the time (.736), though they come with less isolated power than flyballs (1.004 SLG).
Dan Fox had some old batted ball data in 2007 that I used at the time, as it was the most reliable data I could get my hands on. I got as far as napkin adjusted numbers for several Mariners farm teams, but never much beyond that. Ultimately, I realized that, since Fox's data was outdated by several years, it wouldn't do me much good to continue until I had some present-day data.
Since the saber-community focuses their data on spitting out a single raw number centered around runs, and many of their formulas are built around the counting stats, not a whole lot of data was available on batted ball-in-play averages and slugging. According to Baseball Prospectus annual data from net run expectancy (which I pulled from their past three annual publications), MLB run averages per batted ball are typically 0.19 runs per flyball, 0.39 runs per line drive and 0.04 runs per groundball. But there's no data as to the breakdown by average and slugging, thus extrapolating an expected slash from that data is a fool's errand until you can find averages for each.
That is, until Baseball Reference began including GB/FB/LD splits in their recent year to year MLB league split data (here is the AL's 2009 breakdown). This allowed me to finally take a recent five year split of data and create a composite AVG/SLG for each batted ball based on actual MLB data... which is how I got the numbers parenthetically referenced above. As with the composite run expectancy matrix, the numbers are taken into account like so:
2009: 50%
2008: 30%
2007: 10%
2006: 6%
2005: 4%
I used the past five years to ensure a sufficiently sizable sample and minimize variance, while properly giving greater weight to recent data and lesser weight to data from the more distant past. This was especially important in light of the recent rollout of some new ballparks (Citi Field, Nationals Park) plus a slight but noticeable decline in offensive numbers over the last 2-3 years. That said, numbers consistently correlated across seasons and I'm sure the league average batted ball data is reliably consistent.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Brad Bergesen is a notable Baltimore Oriole... ?
To me, Brad Bergesen's freak shoulder injury suffered while filming a 2010 Orioles commercial raises not the question of how he could let his conditioning lapse during offseason recovery from another injury, then try to throw at full speed just for effect in a 30 second spot ad.
No, my question is why Brad Bergesen was the subject of an ad in the first place.
Now, Bergesen is a one of Baltimore's many young, reasonably talented hurlers, and at age 24 with a useful 88-91 mph fastball and a decent slider, he's got potential. Though his 3.43 ERA in 2009 was a bit of the product of smoke and mirrors (4.42 FIP) and his minor league numbers in pitcher friendly East Coast leagues were solid but not necessarily inspiring... there's no reason for Orioles fan to be down on their young prospect.
But giving him his own ad? What, was Adam Jones busy? Are they not expecting as much from Chris Tillman? After Jones, Matt Wieters, Nick Markakis and Miguel Tejada, were they just fishing for one more guy of substance to round out the set of commercials, and he was just at the top of the list?
Because we're not exactly talking about Baltimore's answer to Tim Lincecum or Felix Hernandez here: Bergesen is a top pitching prospect, sure. But his numbers indicate more of a potentially reliable starter in the rotation, rather than Baltimore's next star hurler. If anything, Tillman and Brian Matusz are bigger possibilities to emerge as the next star pitcher for Baltimore's future.
If nothing else, it indicates how thin the star power pool is in Baltimore, which rivals DC's Nationals not just as a regional sister team, but in their competitive irrelevance and lack of household names.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
A long list of thoughts on Jeff Sullivan's ten ideas to fix baseball in the next decade
Jeff Sullivan wrote about ten ideas he had to improve baseball in the next decade. It's a well written article with plenty of ideas: Read and enjoy. There are parts I agree with and parts I don't agree with.
Ideas of his I like:
- Phase in replay and robots. I say this knowing a lot of people, friends acquaintances and the like, who make the argument that the umpire's human element is a valuable part of the game. I personally can take or leave the human element concept, and to a greater extent I'm tired of the biases of an umpire swinging the outcome of games. There is a reason Curt Schilling busted up a Questec machine in frustration during its trial period a decade ago: A machine can't be swayed by Schilling's Star Veteran Status into calling strikes on pitches out of the zone that a typical pitcher would not receive.
And on the flip side, with automated strike zones a young pitcher isn't going to get screwed in a pressure situation against a popular team's star hitter by having all his borderline pitches automatically called balls by an umpire favoring the star team and player. Having an automated system call the balls and strikes would ensure every pitcher a fair, equitable opportunity to get batters out that they currently don't have.
Umpires still can be used on bang-bang base and slide calls, as well as be on hand to back up in case the strike-zone system fails. So they won't lose their jobs: You'll still need four umpires: The home plate ump still needs to act as crew chief and make miscellaneous on-field decisions as well as base calls at home plate and out calls on nearby balls in play. It's just that the ball and strike counts will be handle mechanically, perhaps with an automated system relaying the call or the umpire relaying it from a headset or something.
One added advantage: Ball-strike bickering will virtually disappear, since who will argue with an in-discriminative machine? The only situation where I can see a need to argue balls and strikes is if either side thinks the machine is off-center and needs to be recalibrated or something.
- Quicken pitcher pace on the mound. I'd even go as far as to take a page from other sports and institute a pitch clock. Limit mound visits to 60 seconds from the moment a manager/coach calls time, or 30 seconds from when the coach/manager reaches the mound, or even 15 seconds from when the catcher reaches the pitcher. For the pitch clock itself, I'd say 20 or 30 seconds, and after a pickoff attempt, make it 15 or 20. Throwing the ball to the plate is not rocket science nor a rocket launch. Pitchers are only taking time because they're nervous, tired or stalling.
- Resolve the payroll problem. It's clear that several MLB teams will never have a realistic chance of making the postseason or even posting a winning season while some teams can always buy their way into contention every year as long as they aren't stupid with their money. A salary cap would create parity but the MLBPA would flip out (though to be honest they would flip at any attempt to regulate payroll spending) and as we see with the NFL it could overdo parity and make every offseason a near-total reshuffle of the balances of power. Revenue sharing has not worked as many lesser teams simply pocket the extra money without spending it to improve their teams as intended.
I would suggest a strict limit on draft pick bonuses and maybe even a player salary maximum. Before you question the ethics of a salary maximum, keep in mind most businesses and governments have a set salary structure for every listed position, with minimum and maximum salaries that are subject to cost of living increases as well as negotiated raises in union positions.
- Condense the playoff schedule. Sullivan makes a great argument about the excessive number of off days turning the playoffs into a different situation where teams can lean on top pitchers more than in the regular season, which conversely emphasizes depth over a long haul. Cramming the series into consecutive days forces teams to go deep into their rotations and bullpens as they would in the regular season, ensuring that the teams we see in October resemble the teams we saw from April to September.
- Take measures to reduce take-out slides and home plate collisions. I totally agree. Maybe ejections are a bit harsh, but you can just award a team with outs or runs as applicable. 1) If a player slides spikes-high in a double play situation, both the slider and the batter are automatically out, an auto double play. 2) If a catcher's foot impedes an oncoming baserunner's path to more than half of home plate, the runner is automatically safe and a run will score. Any baserunner in transit to a base at this time will automatically be safe at that forthcoming base and play will end.
Institute those rules and the problem will solve itself.
- Penalize the HBP. Efforts at this time to crack down on beanball wars allow too much room for them to carry on as usual despite the warnings and ejections. Sullivan's proposed penalties are also a bit harsh here, and added to it is the fact that beanball wars usually happen in garbage time of a rout when the outcome's in hand or when the bases are empty, so adding an extra base penalty doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot. The best approach is to go with Sullivan's ejection/suspension proposal: If you as a pitcher headhunt or otherwise go after a guy, you're gone and suspended, no exceptions. The automatic suspension itself is a deterrent: You can make it stiff too, like 10 games, and not allow the offending team to replace the player on the 25 man except with special permission from the Commissioner's office (in unusual cases such as injuries to other players, but these can be rare to prevent loop-holing). Let umpires use their discretion as to whether a HBP was intentional or not: This goes back to the HP Umpire still having a use even if the ball/strike calls are automated.
I'm ambivalent about these:
- Limit or penalize mid-inning pitching changes. I too find most mid-inning pitching changes superfluous and annoying, but I also think managers who over-manage are penalized properly for their over-management in the status quo through overworked relievers wearing down during the season, and a lack of available relievers in later situations when they could be more useful. The inherent lack of modularity such a manager has is also a proper penalty, as he often loads the bullpen with one-dimensional specialists who are limited against other batters and thus have limited application... over more typical relievers who can work a full inning because they can face more batters in more situations.
There may also be situations where a mid-inning pitcher change is practical, not just when a guy is hurt but when a new pitcher clearly isn't able to pitch, as in a guy who walks back to back to back batters. At that point bringing in a new guy isn't about over-managing but about making sure the game doesn't get away due to a wild reliever.
- Even out the AL and NL. I also find the unbalanced league structure dumb (and can see why Bud Selig ill-advisedly tried to contract two teams a decade or so ago). But one obvious problem with going 15 and 15 is that you have to either a) play one inter-league series at all times or b) give one team in each league anywhere from 2 to 6 days off.
See, other leagues get around uneven league arrangements because they don't play series against each other. They play a team once, then immediately move on. Having one team idle at all times works because that team shouldn't be idle for more than a day or two. But in baseball, that's not possible because every team plays a 2 to 5 game series with an opponent (typically 3 or 4) at one time. If a team is idle, they're idle for several days. That opens up a can of worms with regard to competitive balance and rest periods.
If you're cool with eliminating the novelty of inter-league play and having one inter-league series at all times, then sure, move an NL team over (come on over, Rockies!) and make it 15 and 15. Otherwise, your best bet is to ignore the recession and somehow find two new viable markets for MLB teams in the AL, then split the divisions in four 4 team divisions. And good luck with that, because nobody with a remotely viable market has a suitable stadium or the money/financing to build one.
Forget about contraction: The MLBPA will choke a bitch if you even suggest eliminating 50 MLB player jobs (and hundreds of MiLB jobs), and there isn't an owner in MLB right now that would be cool with cashing out his organization: That ship sailed when the Expos were moved out of Montreal.
Ideas I'm not as fond of:
- Penalize intentional walks: I hate intentional walks as much as Sullivan does, and when I'm managing simulated teams I never intentionally walk a batter. But like a specialized bullpen for a micro-manager, the intentional walk comes with its own penalty: You just put an extra guy on base, and history along with pretty much any run expectancy matrix will show you that when you walk a guy, you just increased your opponent's chances of scoring.
That above all else is why I hate the IBB, and why I don't think anything needs to be done. If an old-school manager wants to shoot his team in the foot by intentionally passing a batter, then let him be stupid. Smart managers will pitch around a dangerous hitter and/or use defensive positioning to minimize the risk of damage, giving them an optimal chance of the slugger putting the ball in play and still getting him out, and the team out of a jam. To be fair, teams don't turn to the IBB all that often, even managers who like it more than others, and the leading targets of the free pass see maybe a dozen or so of them in a year.
- Resolve the PED problem. No, I'm in favor of addressing the PED situation and fixing the code for enforcing it. It's just that the definition of PED's problems as well as what the solution would be are each issues many of us see differently.
Whether or not they should be allowed has to keep in mind that Federal law bans most of these substances: Non-prescription steroids, Human Growth Hormone and several stimulants. Allowing their usage in light of their being illegal to possess or distribute in the United States sends a horrible message at best (an active defiance of Federal law by a major organization with a relationship with the U.S. Government) and is a P.R. black eye with a few other cans of worms unloaded on everyone's faces most likely. It would take a major fundamental upheaval of Federal law if you were to allow monitored roid and HGH usage, which FTR I actually would support if not for the existing laws.
As it stands, one of the great ethical issues is neither of the ones that everyone cites: The alleged performance advantage and the health risks. They're issues, yes, but manageable through regulation.
No, the real ethical issue with PED use is that, to use PEDs, you not only have to put your physical long-term health at risk but you also have to risk getting in trouble with the police and the DEA, which can lead to fines and prison time. It would be unethical to allow PEDs in light of the reality that acquiring them comes with a risk of jail time: Imagine telling someone that in order to keep a very lucrative and rewarding job, they have to rape and kill someone every week, and whether or not they can get away with it is their problem.
Extreme example, yes, but it gets to the root of what you're asking players to do if you blindly okay the use of PEDs. It's one thing to ask that a player put his health at risk... another entirely to send the message that he needs to risk going to prison or incurring serious sanctions otherwise in order to remain competitive.
Sullivan's argument that illegal things like fights are allowed in other sports doesn't really wash because the lines blur on the definition of basic assault (especially with consensual violence like tackles or in-game fights), and that not every case of assault is an arrestable offense. If I slap you in the face in a public place, for example, that may technically be assault and warrant legal action but if you walk away and don't file charges, or a cop shows up and realizes it's no big deal and walks away since both parties are cool with what happened, then it's not exactly a felony, is it?
However, possession of a banned narcotic is a fairly black and white, open and shut case. How many times does a cop find syringes and narcotics and walk away without issuing a ticket or arresting anyone? Save the argument about pot, Seattle and the I-75 decriminalization law: They can still cite you if they find it on you or pursue you for some other possible violation. They just can't seek you out solely for pot possession.
I'm not going to act like I know the answer to the PED problem right now. The problem's not solved: Hundreds of undetectable PED varieties exist (the chemical production of such PEDs predates BALCO by several years and continues today as BALCO takes the pariahic bullet on behalf of all such labs), HGH is undetectable in a drug test, and while steroids in particular may be nearly gone, cheaters are always a few steps ahead of the game, and it's very likely many players utilize some sort of otherwise illegal or dangerous PEDs today.
So it's still an issue. But MLB would take a great leap forward to give up the ghost and admit that many players used steroids during the "Steroid Era", that no they don't have much of an idea how many used or who, and that while they're making efforts to combat the problem now they accept that there will always be users among them all, all they can do is be vigilant and that anyone who uses does so at their own risk and will receive no mercy if discovered to be using something banned or illegal.
Ideas of his I like:
- Phase in replay and robots. I say this knowing a lot of people, friends acquaintances and the like, who make the argument that the umpire's human element is a valuable part of the game. I personally can take or leave the human element concept, and to a greater extent I'm tired of the biases of an umpire swinging the outcome of games. There is a reason Curt Schilling busted up a Questec machine in frustration during its trial period a decade ago: A machine can't be swayed by Schilling's Star Veteran Status into calling strikes on pitches out of the zone that a typical pitcher would not receive.
And on the flip side, with automated strike zones a young pitcher isn't going to get screwed in a pressure situation against a popular team's star hitter by having all his borderline pitches automatically called balls by an umpire favoring the star team and player. Having an automated system call the balls and strikes would ensure every pitcher a fair, equitable opportunity to get batters out that they currently don't have.
Umpires still can be used on bang-bang base and slide calls, as well as be on hand to back up in case the strike-zone system fails. So they won't lose their jobs: You'll still need four umpires: The home plate ump still needs to act as crew chief and make miscellaneous on-field decisions as well as base calls at home plate and out calls on nearby balls in play. It's just that the ball and strike counts will be handle mechanically, perhaps with an automated system relaying the call or the umpire relaying it from a headset or something.
One added advantage: Ball-strike bickering will virtually disappear, since who will argue with an in-discriminative machine? The only situation where I can see a need to argue balls and strikes is if either side thinks the machine is off-center and needs to be recalibrated or something.
- Quicken pitcher pace on the mound. I'd even go as far as to take a page from other sports and institute a pitch clock. Limit mound visits to 60 seconds from the moment a manager/coach calls time, or 30 seconds from when the coach/manager reaches the mound, or even 15 seconds from when the catcher reaches the pitcher. For the pitch clock itself, I'd say 20 or 30 seconds, and after a pickoff attempt, make it 15 or 20. Throwing the ball to the plate is not rocket science nor a rocket launch. Pitchers are only taking time because they're nervous, tired or stalling.
- Resolve the payroll problem. It's clear that several MLB teams will never have a realistic chance of making the postseason or even posting a winning season while some teams can always buy their way into contention every year as long as they aren't stupid with their money. A salary cap would create parity but the MLBPA would flip out (though to be honest they would flip at any attempt to regulate payroll spending) and as we see with the NFL it could overdo parity and make every offseason a near-total reshuffle of the balances of power. Revenue sharing has not worked as many lesser teams simply pocket the extra money without spending it to improve their teams as intended.
I would suggest a strict limit on draft pick bonuses and maybe even a player salary maximum. Before you question the ethics of a salary maximum, keep in mind most businesses and governments have a set salary structure for every listed position, with minimum and maximum salaries that are subject to cost of living increases as well as negotiated raises in union positions.
- Condense the playoff schedule. Sullivan makes a great argument about the excessive number of off days turning the playoffs into a different situation where teams can lean on top pitchers more than in the regular season, which conversely emphasizes depth over a long haul. Cramming the series into consecutive days forces teams to go deep into their rotations and bullpens as they would in the regular season, ensuring that the teams we see in October resemble the teams we saw from April to September.
- Take measures to reduce take-out slides and home plate collisions. I totally agree. Maybe ejections are a bit harsh, but you can just award a team with outs or runs as applicable. 1) If a player slides spikes-high in a double play situation, both the slider and the batter are automatically out, an auto double play. 2) If a catcher's foot impedes an oncoming baserunner's path to more than half of home plate, the runner is automatically safe and a run will score. Any baserunner in transit to a base at this time will automatically be safe at that forthcoming base and play will end.
Institute those rules and the problem will solve itself.
- Penalize the HBP. Efforts at this time to crack down on beanball wars allow too much room for them to carry on as usual despite the warnings and ejections. Sullivan's proposed penalties are also a bit harsh here, and added to it is the fact that beanball wars usually happen in garbage time of a rout when the outcome's in hand or when the bases are empty, so adding an extra base penalty doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot. The best approach is to go with Sullivan's ejection/suspension proposal: If you as a pitcher headhunt or otherwise go after a guy, you're gone and suspended, no exceptions. The automatic suspension itself is a deterrent: You can make it stiff too, like 10 games, and not allow the offending team to replace the player on the 25 man except with special permission from the Commissioner's office (in unusual cases such as injuries to other players, but these can be rare to prevent loop-holing). Let umpires use their discretion as to whether a HBP was intentional or not: This goes back to the HP Umpire still having a use even if the ball/strike calls are automated.
I'm ambivalent about these:
- Limit or penalize mid-inning pitching changes. I too find most mid-inning pitching changes superfluous and annoying, but I also think managers who over-manage are penalized properly for their over-management in the status quo through overworked relievers wearing down during the season, and a lack of available relievers in later situations when they could be more useful. The inherent lack of modularity such a manager has is also a proper penalty, as he often loads the bullpen with one-dimensional specialists who are limited against other batters and thus have limited application... over more typical relievers who can work a full inning because they can face more batters in more situations.
There may also be situations where a mid-inning pitcher change is practical, not just when a guy is hurt but when a new pitcher clearly isn't able to pitch, as in a guy who walks back to back to back batters. At that point bringing in a new guy isn't about over-managing but about making sure the game doesn't get away due to a wild reliever.
- Even out the AL and NL. I also find the unbalanced league structure dumb (and can see why Bud Selig ill-advisedly tried to contract two teams a decade or so ago). But one obvious problem with going 15 and 15 is that you have to either a) play one inter-league series at all times or b) give one team in each league anywhere from 2 to 6 days off.
See, other leagues get around uneven league arrangements because they don't play series against each other. They play a team once, then immediately move on. Having one team idle at all times works because that team shouldn't be idle for more than a day or two. But in baseball, that's not possible because every team plays a 2 to 5 game series with an opponent (typically 3 or 4) at one time. If a team is idle, they're idle for several days. That opens up a can of worms with regard to competitive balance and rest periods.
If you're cool with eliminating the novelty of inter-league play and having one inter-league series at all times, then sure, move an NL team over (come on over, Rockies!) and make it 15 and 15. Otherwise, your best bet is to ignore the recession and somehow find two new viable markets for MLB teams in the AL, then split the divisions in four 4 team divisions. And good luck with that, because nobody with a remotely viable market has a suitable stadium or the money/financing to build one.
Forget about contraction: The MLBPA will choke a bitch if you even suggest eliminating 50 MLB player jobs (and hundreds of MiLB jobs), and there isn't an owner in MLB right now that would be cool with cashing out his organization: That ship sailed when the Expos were moved out of Montreal.
Ideas I'm not as fond of:
- Penalize intentional walks: I hate intentional walks as much as Sullivan does, and when I'm managing simulated teams I never intentionally walk a batter. But like a specialized bullpen for a micro-manager, the intentional walk comes with its own penalty: You just put an extra guy on base, and history along with pretty much any run expectancy matrix will show you that when you walk a guy, you just increased your opponent's chances of scoring.
That above all else is why I hate the IBB, and why I don't think anything needs to be done. If an old-school manager wants to shoot his team in the foot by intentionally passing a batter, then let him be stupid. Smart managers will pitch around a dangerous hitter and/or use defensive positioning to minimize the risk of damage, giving them an optimal chance of the slugger putting the ball in play and still getting him out, and the team out of a jam. To be fair, teams don't turn to the IBB all that often, even managers who like it more than others, and the leading targets of the free pass see maybe a dozen or so of them in a year.
- Resolve the PED problem. No, I'm in favor of addressing the PED situation and fixing the code for enforcing it. It's just that the definition of PED's problems as well as what the solution would be are each issues many of us see differently.
Whether or not they should be allowed has to keep in mind that Federal law bans most of these substances: Non-prescription steroids, Human Growth Hormone and several stimulants. Allowing their usage in light of their being illegal to possess or distribute in the United States sends a horrible message at best (an active defiance of Federal law by a major organization with a relationship with the U.S. Government) and is a P.R. black eye with a few other cans of worms unloaded on everyone's faces most likely. It would take a major fundamental upheaval of Federal law if you were to allow monitored roid and HGH usage, which FTR I actually would support if not for the existing laws.
As it stands, one of the great ethical issues is neither of the ones that everyone cites: The alleged performance advantage and the health risks. They're issues, yes, but manageable through regulation.
No, the real ethical issue with PED use is that, to use PEDs, you not only have to put your physical long-term health at risk but you also have to risk getting in trouble with the police and the DEA, which can lead to fines and prison time. It would be unethical to allow PEDs in light of the reality that acquiring them comes with a risk of jail time: Imagine telling someone that in order to keep a very lucrative and rewarding job, they have to rape and kill someone every week, and whether or not they can get away with it is their problem.
Extreme example, yes, but it gets to the root of what you're asking players to do if you blindly okay the use of PEDs. It's one thing to ask that a player put his health at risk... another entirely to send the message that he needs to risk going to prison or incurring serious sanctions otherwise in order to remain competitive.
Sullivan's argument that illegal things like fights are allowed in other sports doesn't really wash because the lines blur on the definition of basic assault (especially with consensual violence like tackles or in-game fights), and that not every case of assault is an arrestable offense. If I slap you in the face in a public place, for example, that may technically be assault and warrant legal action but if you walk away and don't file charges, or a cop shows up and realizes it's no big deal and walks away since both parties are cool with what happened, then it's not exactly a felony, is it?
However, possession of a banned narcotic is a fairly black and white, open and shut case. How many times does a cop find syringes and narcotics and walk away without issuing a ticket or arresting anyone? Save the argument about pot, Seattle and the I-75 decriminalization law: They can still cite you if they find it on you or pursue you for some other possible violation. They just can't seek you out solely for pot possession.
I'm not going to act like I know the answer to the PED problem right now. The problem's not solved: Hundreds of undetectable PED varieties exist (the chemical production of such PEDs predates BALCO by several years and continues today as BALCO takes the pariahic bullet on behalf of all such labs), HGH is undetectable in a drug test, and while steroids in particular may be nearly gone, cheaters are always a few steps ahead of the game, and it's very likely many players utilize some sort of otherwise illegal or dangerous PEDs today.
So it's still an issue. But MLB would take a great leap forward to give up the ghost and admit that many players used steroids during the "Steroid Era", that no they don't have much of an idea how many used or who, and that while they're making efforts to combat the problem now they accept that there will always be users among them all, all they can do is be vigilant and that anyone who uses does so at their own risk and will receive no mercy if discovered to be using something banned or illegal.
Commonly suggested markets for MLB relocation/expansion teams and why they aren't capable of supporting a new team
Portland: PGE Park is so small even soccer's MLS (which doesn't draw the crowds of other major outdoor sports, maybe 15K-20K a game) demanded that Portland build a new, larger venue before the Timbers get promoted. The nearly century old park is built into the ground and has literally no room for expansion. And that discounts the debate over whether there's a market for an expansion team in a relative modest economic region that the Mariners have siphoned regional support from for three decades. You've got to put 25,000 asses in seats every game to succeed: I'm not sure Portland can drum up that kind of interest in what would definitely be a last place team for its first few seasons.
Las Vegas: In case you haven't noticed, the recession and housing crisis has chop-blocked Vegas' economy. On top of that, enthusiasm for AAA baseball and a host of other pro sports ventures has always been weak (Vegas' civic pride is minimal as a city of transplants with allegiances to teams of cities they left behind), and Cashman Field is poorly suited for expansion, as well as barely being a capable AAA venue. And give the summer temps hit 115-120 degrees, a new venue would have to have a roof, making any new proposed stadium a very expensive gamble. And that never minds the sports gambling issues, which may or may not be a real concern. Vegas is a place people go to gamble and be debaucherous... not a place where you can get 25,000 people a night to show up and cheer on a crappy expansion team.
"Virginia": Rarely mentioned whenever "Virginia" is mentioned as a potential market is exactly where in Virginia. Many suggest the Northern area near Washington DC, but eminent domain codes and two MLB teams with stubborn ownership (Orioles, Nationals) make that impossible.
Richmond just lost a AAA team due to a low-grade stadium (The Diamond is seriously just a granite block of stands built next to a baseball field) and barely managed to find a AA team to replace it. Norfolk's baseball venue for the minor-league Tides is AA-quality at best and the Virginia Beach market has never been that hot for sports. There's nowhere to go in Virginia, and nowhere near enough interest to sustain a franchise.
Charlotte and/or Raleigh: North Carolina is actually a hotbed for baseball... college and minor league baseball. The relatively expensive and disconnected MLB brand of baseball isn't assured of playing well here, as pro sports hasn't translated as well to the Carolina economy.
Forays into Charlotte by the NFL and NHL have struggled, and Charlotte lost their first NBA team to New Orleans due to rapidly lost interest (before getting a new team that's had middling results). After a host of newly built sports venues for the aforementioned pro teams, the civic resources are probably too tapped to finance a new baseball stadium, especially after having just paid to build one: The Charlotte Knights just financed a new AAA-quality arena that's nowhere near MLB ready: Their previous facility was actually located far down the road in South Carolina. Not quite up to snuff for an MLB team.
Montreal: The only period where Montreal gave viable attendance support to the Expos was during the early 80's, probably their most successful stretch as an MLB team. After that era sunk, the Expos sunk to the NL's bottom third in attendance and never left, not even during their fool's-gold contention run during the strike-shortened 1994 season. Montreal did get a good pocket of support for the Expos but it was not nearly enough of a fanbase to sustain a team, even before their losing and attendance took a turn for the worst during the late 90's. There's not enough of a baseball market in Montreal.
Las Vegas: In case you haven't noticed, the recession and housing crisis has chop-blocked Vegas' economy. On top of that, enthusiasm for AAA baseball and a host of other pro sports ventures has always been weak (Vegas' civic pride is minimal as a city of transplants with allegiances to teams of cities they left behind), and Cashman Field is poorly suited for expansion, as well as barely being a capable AAA venue. And give the summer temps hit 115-120 degrees, a new venue would have to have a roof, making any new proposed stadium a very expensive gamble. And that never minds the sports gambling issues, which may or may not be a real concern. Vegas is a place people go to gamble and be debaucherous... not a place where you can get 25,000 people a night to show up and cheer on a crappy expansion team.
"Virginia": Rarely mentioned whenever "Virginia" is mentioned as a potential market is exactly where in Virginia. Many suggest the Northern area near Washington DC, but eminent domain codes and two MLB teams with stubborn ownership (Orioles, Nationals) make that impossible.
Richmond just lost a AAA team due to a low-grade stadium (The Diamond is seriously just a granite block of stands built next to a baseball field) and barely managed to find a AA team to replace it. Norfolk's baseball venue for the minor-league Tides is AA-quality at best and the Virginia Beach market has never been that hot for sports. There's nowhere to go in Virginia, and nowhere near enough interest to sustain a franchise.
Charlotte and/or Raleigh: North Carolina is actually a hotbed for baseball... college and minor league baseball. The relatively expensive and disconnected MLB brand of baseball isn't assured of playing well here, as pro sports hasn't translated as well to the Carolina economy.
Forays into Charlotte by the NFL and NHL have struggled, and Charlotte lost their first NBA team to New Orleans due to rapidly lost interest (before getting a new team that's had middling results). After a host of newly built sports venues for the aforementioned pro teams, the civic resources are probably too tapped to finance a new baseball stadium, especially after having just paid to build one: The Charlotte Knights just financed a new AAA-quality arena that's nowhere near MLB ready: Their previous facility was actually located far down the road in South Carolina. Not quite up to snuff for an MLB team.
Montreal: The only period where Montreal gave viable attendance support to the Expos was during the early 80's, probably their most successful stretch as an MLB team. After that era sunk, the Expos sunk to the NL's bottom third in attendance and never left, not even during their fool's-gold contention run during the strike-shortened 1994 season. Montreal did get a good pocket of support for the Expos but it was not nearly enough of a fanbase to sustain a team, even before their losing and attendance took a turn for the worst during the late 90's. There's not enough of a baseball market in Montreal.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Three things about misgivings with the Brandon Morrow trade
A response to USSM's misgivings on the Mariners trade of Brandon Morrow to Toronto for fireballing reliever Brandon League and minor league slugger Yohermyn Chavez (and I single them out since they tend to speak for a larger audience of analysts and readers):
Now, three points:
1. "No one knows how Brandon Morrow is going to develop." Yes, and you could say that about every other prospect in the history of MLB player development. Some players have better chances than others, and at this point, Brandon Morrow's been jerked around so much, fallen into enough negative habits (or moreso falling further into existing negative habits) etc. that his chances of success are somewhat lower than other pitchers his age with his makeup, let alone lower than other supposed top pitching prospects with a good heater. To say that the trade isn't kosher because of the non-zero chance that Brandon Morrow may succeed is to say that every trade you've ever made of a prospect for a more established player with a lower ceiling (like Brandon League) isn't kosher. Making such a deal is a neat phenomenon called "risk". You take the risk that Morrow may self actualize despite every flaw he's ever shown you and despite your flaws (and the resulting setbacks) in developing him.
Every deal is a bet that the player(s) you acquire will help you more than the player(s) you deal away will help another team. Every deal. The Mariners took the same risk with Tyson Gillies, Phillippe Aumont and Juan Carlos Ramirez in thinking Cliff Lee and the compensation we get when he walks after next year will help us more. If you're okay with making trades, you have to accept that you don't know if the player you're dealing away is going to turn out great or not. That's part of the package.
2. Hey, wait a minute Dave, didn't you already give a few reasons why Morrow's chances at greatness were dim, expressing doubt on several occasions like this one?
By the way, for those interested, here’s the all-time list of pitchers who accumulated at least 150 innings before age 25 and had a BB/9 of 5.5 or higher at that point in their career. Morrow’s is 5.83 right now, by the way.
61 pitchers on the list. The successes – Nolan Ryan, Johnny Van Der Meer, Lefty Grove, and J.R. Richard if you ignore the fact that his career was over at age 30.
That’s it. There are a bunch of Bobby Witt/Jason Bere/Seth McClung/Daniel Cabrera types, who just never figured it out.
4 out of 60. Do you like those odds?
Why handwring at all about what history shows us is roughly a 15 to 1 longshot, especially a player that you on several occasions have shown is becoming more and more of a longshot to regularly contribute as a starting pitcher?
Is it because we burned the #5 pick in the 2006 draft on him, and there's a perceived need to maximize the return on a bad investment (and it was: Tim Lincecum, Andrew Miller, Clayton Kershaw and a ton of other better players were on the board)? Look, the pick is gone. We're not getting it back. Morrow's value in the present is not what it was in June 2006. You ought to evaluate him on what he is now, on the chances of the present player's success as a big league pitcher... not the chances of a top 10 draft pick at the time the player is picked.
The team blew it with Morrow's development (and to be fair Dave called that). It's not Z's fault that the current product is a 25 year old, fairly flawed 1.5 pitch pitcher with poor control that, three years later, still has a long way to go before he can be even a consistent starter, let alone a good one, let alone a great one.
3. All that said, pretty much this entire saga of angst can be pinpointed to the idea that Brandon Morrow is a valuable player that can command a Type A player's sort of return. But even Dave himself pointed out that Morrow is a lot closer to Daniel Cabrera or Seth McClung than Roy Halladay or Tim Lincecum or even John Danks. He might have had that sort of potential (allegedly) in 2006, but in 2009 he's just an overthrowing fireballer with little command of any of his pitches, not much of a secondary pitch selection, diabetes, and hints of an attitude to boot.
And it's tough to fathom that any of the other 29 MLB general managers share such an inflated sentiment of Brandon Morrow's abilities, and are willing or able (I'm sure the Astros or Royals love him but what could they possibly send the Mariners of value, let alone be willing to send?) to dispense a greater return than Brandon League and Yohermyn Chavez. Maybe Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik didn't so much think lightly of Brandon Morrow (as many including Dave Cameron speculate) as he and his front office team did their research and realized that this was the balance between the value Brandon Morrow had, and the value they were able to get another team to dispense in return (because remember, not every team is willing to deal for Morrow, nor does every team have enough in their organization they're willing or able to offer in return).
There's a general trend, not necessarily in analysis circles as much as in general among informed fans, towards valuing a top domestic MLB draft pick based on where he was selected in the draft, rather than what he actually is as a player. Living in the past is what leads you to wish it was 1995 again and re-sign a broken down 39 year old DH with knee problems after an injury plagued 214/324/411 season.
Here are all the #5 overall picks in the history of the June amateur draft, dating back to 1965, 45 years of picks. 24 were pitchers. 14 made it to the Majors (though to be fair Matthew Hobgood was just drafted this year and needs time). Of those 14, only nine pitched in more than 30 games (a benchmark selected because starters make roughly 30 starts in a single season, eliminating the guys with the briefest of stays). And one of those nine, Kurt Miller, only pitched in 44 career MLB games before hanging it up.
Only two of the remaining eight pitchers won more than 100 career games: Jack McDowell and Doc Gooden. Jack was an effective veteran forgotten to the annals of time (and thanks for serving up The Double, Jack ;P ), and Doc might have been greater if he didn't love the moon powder. Of the career relievers with more than 100 appearances (Morrow, journeyman Kent Mercker, Andy Hawkins (famous for throwing a no-hitter for a crappy Yankees team and still losing that game 4-0) and failed Padres starter Bob Owchinko of the 1970's), only Mercker could say he was anything better than a fungible, mediocre reliever, and only because he pitched during the Roids Era when league ERAs spiked across the board. None of them were shutdown closers: Mercker leads them all with 25 career saves in 18 seasons. None of them were shutdown anything: Only Morrow posted a career ERA under 4.00, and aside from Mercker the others pitched during an era where the average pitcher could run an ERA in the 3's.
So we're not talking about a draft pick position that produces pitching greatness. Only two of the 24 selected in history at that spot turned out being anything resembling great over their careers. And all due respect, but I don't consider McDowell or Gooden anything close to Hall of Fame material. Maybe All Stars once or twice in their best years, but certainly not HOFers. So to think you're pissing away gold with Morrow because of the draft pick investment made in him isn't really fair. You're talking about what history's shown us to be no less than a 12 to 1 shot.
Whether or not the odds are on a #5 pick's side... where Morrow was drafted in the past is immaterial in the present. Bill Bavasi blew the money on the signing bonus and he burned the pick. That's gone. Winning is about focusing on what you have in the present and how it can help you in the future, or how acquisitions can help you in the future. It is not about focusing on the past, except to look at a player's track record to help assess said present and future.
Now back to the present. In June 2006, Brandon Morrow was one of the top 10-20 amateur players in college baseball, out of Cal (though even then he never made more than 14 starts in an NCAA season). Today, he is a back-end starter, maybe (with some work), and definitely a functional reliever with a hot fastball that can sit 93-95 when starting and can hit 101 when relieving (though granted the latter number comes from Morrow rearing back and throwing the ball as hard as he can at the plate instead of actually pitching).
As far as I'm concerned, we're sending away Matt Thornton or Daniel Cabrera, and we got back a young, halfway decent reliever with similar problems and a talented but undisciplined 20 year old hitter that might be somebody if he can learn to take a pitch.
All that said, if Brandon Morrow gives the Blue Jays a bunch of 180-200 inning seasons, cuts down on his walks, learns to command three pitches, wins 15 games a year and becomes an effective regular in that Jays rotation or any rotation over an uninterrupted 7-10 year period, without any serious or recurring health issues, I will frankly be shocked.
A bonus item: Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik may say publically this deal had nothing to do with any notion of "completing" the Halladay/Lee and you may believe him, but public figures say things to the public all the time that turns out not to be true. If you seriously trust the word of a public statement, you are either gullible or showing a patronizingly willful ignorance. To be fair, I don't think Dave really does think this but is simply saying it to maintain good graces: At this point, with the relationship he's developed with the Mariners front office (which BTW do read USSM regularly), I think Dave realizes he has to make political statements on his blog like 'I believe everything our GM says to the media' and keep his disagreements penned in to the given surface logic of the personnel decisions, in order to not piss off the front office and risk losing his connections. Among other reasons, as point #1 indicated Dave isn't a big fan of taking risks, and he has the advantage of knowing his loyal-to-a-fault readership will never call him on it.
All that said, the truth as usual is probably somewhere in the middle: Z and Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos may have contacted each other during the Halladay/Lee negotiations and agreed to shake on the Halladay/Lee deal provided this separate deal. Because otherwise, why the hell would the Jays send off their no-doubt franchise player for three good but not great prospects? I don't know much about Alex Anthopoulos but I'm pretty sure he's not that stupid. Z and Anthopoulos making this deal themselves was probably what it took to get Anthopoulos to agree to the Halladay/Lee deal that gave the M's Cliff Lee, and I'm sure Z knew this when negotiating the Morrow deal.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Found: Mike Marshall's pitching rotation
Previously I mentioned an old article by Mike Marshall about how he would structure a rotation and bullpen that I could not find.
I finally found it. Why it didn't come up in my prior searches is beyond me, but this is definitely the article I read 10-11 years ago on how Marshall would construct a pitching rotation.
It mostly confirms what I remembered, but it turns out his pitching staff would only have 8-9 guys, and he would use the rotation pitchers more than I thought. They would in fact be his middle relievers, and he'd even go as far as to send them one time through an entire lineup if he had to. His bullpen would only have three men: Two alternating closers who worked the 9th inning on alternating games, and one mop up guy to get the team through the 6th if the starter got shelled.
I finally found it. Why it didn't come up in my prior searches is beyond me, but this is definitely the article I read 10-11 years ago on how Marshall would construct a pitching rotation.
It mostly confirms what I remembered, but it turns out his pitching staff would only have 8-9 guys, and he would use the rotation pitchers more than I thought. They would in fact be his middle relievers, and he'd even go as far as to send them one time through an entire lineup if he had to. His bullpen would only have three men: Two alternating closers who worked the 9th inning on alternating games, and one mop up guy to get the team through the 6th if the starter got shelled.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
If you won't punish one star for using drugs, then why punish the other?
Tim Lincecum got rung up for speeding on I-5 near Vancouver, WA and got caught with pot in his car, a charge that has since legally been settled. As for whether the Giants ought to punish him... if they're not going to punish their biggest star ever for using performance enhancing drugs, then why should they punish their star pitcher for smoking a bowl in the car en route to WA?
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The long lost Marshall Plan for bullpen management
Back in 1997 when I first started college at UNLV, despite studying theatre I still had a keen interest in sports. The old James Dickinson Library had a wealth of sports coaching materials: Old football playbooks, coaching guides for all sports, and a large archive of sports coaching magazines.
One day I stumbled upon an article featuring an interview with former pitcher and pitching coach Mike Marshall, blackballed from the Majors for a unique approach to developing pitchers that incumbent coaches, managers and owners consider a threat to the establishment and/or the health of their pitchers (even though there's a(n un)healthy rate of pitcher attrition under the status quo). (This and this are NOT from the interview in question. They're from a separate interview with BP's Jonah Keri, but will give you a good idea of where Marshall is coming from.)
What was interesting is that the article outlined a complete strategy from Marshall on managing an entire pitching staff. The plan, from memory:
- Every pitcher in the rotation would have a strict limit of 27 batters to face. If he got shelled, you could remove him early, but he is to face no more than 27 batters. The reason, which is discussed in the piece I linked above, is that familiarity and fatigue take away many of the pitcher's advantages once he faces hitters a 4th time.
- Instead of a closer, you would have two alternating short relievers commissioned to finish the final 1-2 innings (typically one) on alternating days, guaranteeing at least one day off after pitching for each reliever.
- You would also have two middle relievers to help bridge the gap between the 27th batter and the designated short reliever finishing the game, or to work in extra innings. Though you could make these relievers specialists (such as a lefty specialist and a groundball specialist for double play ball situations, as many managers do), Marshall's methods encourage the development of pitcher modularity (the ability to pitch effectively to any hitter in any situation) and thus there ideally wouldn't be a need for specialists per se.
- One other pitcher can then serve as the long reliever for those cases when the starter gets shelled or otherwise has to leave early, or if the game goes to extra innings and other available relievers have been used. This would give you a bullpen of 10 men (In this piece, Marshall used a five man rotation even though in the interview above he advocates usage of a four man rotation, likely deferring to the status quo in MLB and the minors).
- Here's the kicker: The starting pitcher that threw two days before is also made available in the bullpen if needed. He can throw to 1-2 batters in a pinch during the middle innings, or fill in a blank if several pitchers are for whatever reason already burned.
To date I have not been able to find the article online. I have found multiple interviews from Marshall, obviously (he is a somewhat popular interview) but have yet to find the piece where he outlines this strategy. As a result, in describing it from memory I may have omitted some details. If you are able to correct me, that is more than welcome because it means you've read the piece and might know where to find it.
One day I stumbled upon an article featuring an interview with former pitcher and pitching coach Mike Marshall, blackballed from the Majors for a unique approach to developing pitchers that incumbent coaches, managers and owners consider a threat to the establishment and/or the health of their pitchers (even though there's a(n un)healthy rate of pitcher attrition under the status quo). (This and this are NOT from the interview in question. They're from a separate interview with BP's Jonah Keri, but will give you a good idea of where Marshall is coming from.)
What was interesting is that the article outlined a complete strategy from Marshall on managing an entire pitching staff. The plan, from memory:
- Every pitcher in the rotation would have a strict limit of 27 batters to face. If he got shelled, you could remove him early, but he is to face no more than 27 batters. The reason, which is discussed in the piece I linked above, is that familiarity and fatigue take away many of the pitcher's advantages once he faces hitters a 4th time.
- Instead of a closer, you would have two alternating short relievers commissioned to finish the final 1-2 innings (typically one) on alternating days, guaranteeing at least one day off after pitching for each reliever.
- You would also have two middle relievers to help bridge the gap between the 27th batter and the designated short reliever finishing the game, or to work in extra innings. Though you could make these relievers specialists (such as a lefty specialist and a groundball specialist for double play ball situations, as many managers do), Marshall's methods encourage the development of pitcher modularity (the ability to pitch effectively to any hitter in any situation) and thus there ideally wouldn't be a need for specialists per se.
- One other pitcher can then serve as the long reliever for those cases when the starter gets shelled or otherwise has to leave early, or if the game goes to extra innings and other available relievers have been used. This would give you a bullpen of 10 men (In this piece, Marshall used a five man rotation even though in the interview above he advocates usage of a four man rotation, likely deferring to the status quo in MLB and the minors).
- Here's the kicker: The starting pitcher that threw two days before is also made available in the bullpen if needed. He can throw to 1-2 batters in a pinch during the middle innings, or fill in a blank if several pitchers are for whatever reason already burned.
To date I have not been able to find the article online. I have found multiple interviews from Marshall, obviously (he is a somewhat popular interview) but have yet to find the piece where he outlines this strategy. As a result, in describing it from memory I may have omitted some details. If you are able to correct me, that is more than welcome because it means you've read the piece and might know where to find it.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Chuck Armstrong uses his finesse and driving force to manipulate Geoff Baker and Seattle Times readers
Look, I'm among the few who still read and enjoys the guy's work, but Geoff Baker got played like a tourist by another heaping dose of Chuck Armstrong's bullshit.
Armstrong's voice shakes as he describes last September, a 101-loss season winding down, the Mariners in dire need of player, coaching and front-office makeovers, and fan ire directed mostly at him. Having just nixed a proposed trade of Jarrod Washburn to the Minnesota Twins, the longtime team president was getting lambasted in the mainstream press and in online forums. The full-on frontal assault shook him like past criticism never had.
The thing is that fans have been angry with Chuck Armstrong for well over a decade. But you see, most of Chuck Armstrong's fanbase recently discovered something called the internet, and as the media finally caught on to this strange internet's usage as a communication tool (like traditional TV/radio), more and more of this fan discontent became clear and finally, after years of closed-off silence, hit Armstrong unfiltered right in the face.
"No matter what we did, it seemed like it was wrong," he said. "And at the time, it seemed, they didn't trust us to do anything."
I have no idea why. Meddling to offer a mindless 3 year extension to aging Kenji Johjima. Killing a trade that would have sent off expensive, middling Jarrod Washburn (another curious Bavasi signing). Raising ticket prices after losing seasons. Hiring Bill Bavasi as GM and watching impotently for the better part of four seasons while he bloated the payroll, downgraded the roster and drained the farm system of hope.
Yeah, Chuck, I have no idea why the fanbase would think you couldn't do anything right. Beats me.
One year later, the Mariners, having rebounded to a winning season, are doing plenty right, largely because of hires overseen by Armstrong.
Yes, like Bill Bavasi. And Bob Melvin. And Mike Hargrove.
Written off by many last year, Armstrong was the driving force behind the hiring of general manager Jack Zduriencik and had key input in the selection of manager Don Wakamatsu and his coaching staff.
Because every decision that Jack Zduriencik made has been under the expert puppet mastery of Chuck Armstrong. Because GMZ has not made a single personnel decision on his own that wasn't first directed by the driving force of Chuck Armstrong. Right. Jack Zduriencik was a mindless moron during his assistant GM days in Milwaukee, a moron incapable of tying his own shoes without Brewers GM Doug Melvin providing him step by step instructions, and that's why the Mariners hired him. Right, Chuck.
Not to mention his role in repatriating Ken Griffey Jr. to Seattle. Armstrong used finesse behind the scenes to sign the Mariner, which fit his plan to restore a sense of professionalism in the clubhouse.
Here's a demonstration of the finesse that led Ken Griffey Jr to sign with Seattle for the 2009 season.
Media: Um... Griffey-
Fans: ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES PLEASE COME BACK PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
Chuck: ZOMG $$$$$
Fans: ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES PLEASE COME BACK PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
Media: ZOMG AD DOLLAR$ AND RATING$
Fans: ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES PLEASE COME BACK PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
GMZ: Oh hey cheap veteran to fill a roster need and put butts in seats. Hey, Griffey
Griffey: Yo
GMZ: Anybody else call you?
Griffey: Nope, just Atlanta
Fans: ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES PLEASE COME BACK PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
GMZ: I'll give you a couple mil to DH this year, and throw in a couple more if you put butts in seats
Griffey: You think the fans want me back?
Fans: ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES PLEASE COME BACK PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
Media: ZOMG AD DOLLAR$ AND RATING$
Griffey:
Chuck: ZOMG $$$$$
Fans: ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES ZOMG YES PLEASE COME BACK PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
Griffey:
Griffey: Okay, sold
Fans: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Fans: [buys a shit-ton of tickets]
Chuck: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Advertisers: [blowing up KIRO and FSN's phones]
Media: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Sweeney: Hey, need a platoon partner?
I'm sure the finesse of Chuck Armstrong was the difference between Griffey signing here and not.
"I think the biggest accomplishment of the team this season was the whole turnaround in pride and discipline," Armstrong said.
Let's compare some numbers.
Selected Mariners' AVG/OBP/SLG/Fielding Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR):
1st base:
Richie Sexson (2008): 218/315/381/-7.6
Russell Branyan (2009): 251/347/520/+1.6
Center Field:
Jeremy Reed (2008): 269/314/360/-0.1
Willie Bloomquist (2008): 279/377/285/-2.2
Franklin Gutierrez (2009): 282/339/424/+27.1*
* #1 in baseball among all CF
Designated Hitter:
Jose Vidro (2008): 234/274/338
Ken Griffey Jr (2009): 213/323/405
Mike Sweeney (2009): 281/335/442
Left Field Defensive UZR:
Raul Ibañez (2008): -13.5
Michael Saunders (2009): +5.3
Bill Hall (2009): +2.3
Endy Chavez (2009): +5.9
SEA team UZR:
2008: -20.9 (#20 in MLB)
2009: +84.5 (#1 in MLB)
SEA Runs allowed per game:
2008: 5.01
2009: 4.30
But it wasn't swapping out the bad players for good players that made the team better. It was Chuck Armstrong's impact on pride and player discipline. Right.
Anyway, after Geoff Baker diverged into an essay on Armstrong's past and some standard platitudes, we get to this nugget.
Armstrong said the team won't know its 2010 payroll until mid-October. The team had budgeted for 2 million fans, and while it should exceed that by about 200,000, Armstrong says prices of tickets being bought are lower.
"People used to come to the ballpark and say 'Give me the best available ticket,' " he said. "Now they say 'Give me the cheapest available ticket.' "
The price of 2009 tickets did not go up, but they sure as hell didn't do down. All the Mariners ultimately did to offer "cheaper tickets" was... to offer variations of the same half price and 4-pack specials they offered during each of the last several seasons.
But you know Chuck will use the natural trend of the economy, especially given he won't drop the absurd $35-50 prices on box seats, and the team's improved record, to justify spiking prices for 2010 while cutting payroll yet again. Because if there's one quality to Chuck's finesse and driving force, it's his ability to shit on the fans' faces and call it a sundae.
Armstrong's lobbying helped play a vital role in Griffey's decision to return.
"He might be the biggest reason we still have baseball in Seattle," Griffey said of Armstrong. "He cares about the city, the fans and the team more than anybody I know. He's a great man, and a lot of people don't know how great he is."
Actually, it was Slate Gorton's endless legislative string pulling in Washington State... MLB's awarding of an expansion team to Tampa Bay, the one city that was the biggest target of the Mariners' threatened move... begging and pleading by local interests to Nintendo of Japan to finance the forcible purchase of the organization back in 1992... and about $500 million in forced-through bonds to finance the construction of Safeco Field... that kept the baseball team in Seattle.
And fan sentiment from 1995 saving the Mariners? Please. Actually, it was a 28 member task force that recommended using King County public funding for what eventually became Safeco Field. In fact, Chuck Armstrong and this very Mariners ownership held King County hostage and threatened to move the team in 1996 after King County refused to use public money to finance its construction, before King County caved into the threats.
As for Griffey? He was here way back in 1990 when Jeff Smuylan was lobbying to move the team to Tampa Bay, and was in Seattle during those 1996 threats from ownership. He sure as hell didn't do anything to stop those threats, and in fact was squawking for the team to trade him just a few years later.
So Chuck can talk all he wants about Griffey and 1995 saving Seattle. But really, he and Nintendo used mobster/blackmail style threats to get the new stadium built. If baseball in Seattle needed saving from anyone, it was from the threats of him and his fellow owners. He and the ownership were ready to high tail even after the miracle 1995 season.
Griffey's late February return eased the public heat on Armstrong. But Armstrong barely had time to savor it when blindsided by a serious family health issue.
Armstrong wants to keep the ongoing situation private.
While I wish no ill on the Armstrong family, that's a red herring to the fact that Chuck Armstrong has done more to damage baseball in Seattle than he has done or ever will do to help it, and a key reason that 2009 went so well is that he stayed out of the way.
Geoff Baker, to his credit, has only been in Seattle a couple years, and probably doesn't know enough of this team's history to understand that he was being bullshitted by one of Seattle's most famous bullshit artists.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Unseen differences in performance: The 2007 Rockies and Diamondbacks
Jeff Passan notes the divergent paths to 2009 between the two NL West 2007 playoff teams, the Rockies and Diamondbacks, and how the Rockies have returned to the spotlight while the Diamondbacks have fallen off the map. Passan laments one of the best young teams in baseball in the Diamondbacks sputtering while the Rockies returned to glory after an off 2008. A closer look shows that, while indeed one team has sputtered while another thrived, the difference between the two teams was evident even during their dual postseason runs.
In 2007, the Diamondbacks finished with the 3rd fewest runs scored and only the 5th best run prevention in the NL. At 712 runs scored and 732 allowed, their pythagorean record indicated they ought to have finished somewhere around 79-83, well off the pack... not 90-72 and 1st in the NL West. Brandon Webb fronted an unspectacular rotation: Livan Hernandez (4.93 ERA), Doug Davis (4.25), Micah Owings (4.30) and a spate of mediocre others alongside an injury-prone Randy Johnson (3.81, but only 10 starts and 56.2 IP), whose season was done after June.
In August the D-Backs took advantage of a stretch against weak opponents (Pittsburgh, Washington, Florida) to help ring up a 16-12 record despite getting outscored 141 to 127. In June they eked out a 14-13 record despite getting outscored 127 to 108, and went 8-7 in Interleague play despite getting outscored 80 to 71. With the help of such fortuitous stretches, they went 43-29 after the All Star Break to propel them to the NL West title.
How did they get so lucky? Like many teams that defy their pythag projected record, the D-Backs had one of the best bullpens in baseball that year, which helped them in close games. Their top five relievers had ERAs no worse than 3.27 (Tony Peña Jr.), and three of those five, including closer Jose Valverde, had sub-3 ERAs. Go figure they ran a solid 32-20 record in one run games. Arizona also led the NL with 51 saves (as Valverde rang up a career high 47) while only blowing 15 saves. Once the D-Backs had a lead, a deep bullpen did a good job of making sure they didn't (usually) give it up.
Now granted, if you crunch the numbers and consider the history of those pitchers you'll find the bullpen itself wasn't necessarily spectacular. The defense was a key reason they ruled it so hard: Arizona's defensive runs saved above average per Baseball Reference was +27.4, good for 4th in the NL. The key contributors were outfielders Eric Byrnes (+20.3) and Carlos Quentin (+11.5), and while CF Chris Young was the biggest liability (-13.3), having two effective corner outfielders on each side helped neutralize any shortcomings, plus defensive replacements Scott Hairston (+4.5) and Jeff Salazar (+4.5). Aside from Stephen Drew at SS (-7.2), no other D-Back cost his team more than 4 runs in the field. The bullpen had an added edge not just with the good corner outfielders, but Young could be replaced late in the game by a decent backup, turning the outfield into death for flyballs.
As for the lopsided run differential, here's an interesting breakdown:
Wins by 4 + runs: 30
Wins by 1-3 runs: 60
Loss by 1-3 runs: 36
Loss by 4 + runs: 36
While there's a fairly even ratio of routed wins to routed losses, with a few more rout losses, there are far more closer 1-3 run wins than losses. This is where the bullpen and defensive replacements came in: Once the D-Backs got a slim lead, they were able to hold it far more often than not. But they did not frequently dominate, nor did they frequently get dominated. Had they had more even fortune in those close games, their record might have been closer to that projected 79-83 mark and I probably am not discussing them.
Meanwhile, the Rockies finished one game back at 89-73, deadlocked with the San Diego Padres and making the playoffs only after winning a playoff game with help from a dubious sac fly run from Matt Holliday. Their Pythag record walks the walk (860 scored, 758 allowed, 91-72 expected), as did the Padres record (741 in and 666 out for a 89-74 expected record that exactly matched their final record). The Rockies were 2nd in the league in runs scored with obvious help from Coors Field, scoring 478 runs at home but a more average 382 on the road, while going 51-31 at home and a rather mediocre 39-42 on the road.
Colorado's run prevention was actually a tad above average (4.65 runs allowed; the NL average was 4.78). Their .701 defensive efficiency was 2nd best in the NL. Their defense saved an NL best 69.5 runs. They too had an effective bullpen, but even deeper, with six regulars finishing with ERAs below 4, even though none of their starting pitchers had an ERA below 4. Their lineup tied for the NL lead with a team .354 OBP. Their slugging and OPS, like their runs scored per game (5.28), were 2nd to Phialdelphia, which plays in one of baseball's hitter friendliest parks in Citizens Bank Park. This team was clearly, in most ways, better than the Diamondbacks.
Monday, June 15, 2009
The humidor did not turn Coors Field into a completely normal baseball climate
One misconception that popped up during the Mariners' weekend series with Colorado in Coors Field is that the Rockies' usage of a humidor completely negates the offense-happy conditions of Coors Field and that Coors Field is now a more typical playing environment.
While the humidor did cut down on the number of home runs, Coors still has an unusually large outfield, which gives outfielders more ground to cover and is an advantage for hitters, since chances are more likely a ball hit to the outfield will drop in.
Also, the Mariners broadcast team on FSN discussed this during the weekend's games, since they got to tour the humidor: The humidor doesn't weigh the balls down to counteract the high altitude. It simply maintains the temperature and humidity of normal conditions. Denver's climate dried out baseballs, which exacerbated the high altitude's effect on the ball's flight. That high altitude effect still remains to some degree.
Notice that the Rockies, as a team, still hit very well, and their pitchers still tend to sport higher ERAs.
While the humidor did cut down on the number of home runs, Coors still has an unusually large outfield, which gives outfielders more ground to cover and is an advantage for hitters, since chances are more likely a ball hit to the outfield will drop in.
Also, the Mariners broadcast team on FSN discussed this during the weekend's games, since they got to tour the humidor: The humidor doesn't weigh the balls down to counteract the high altitude. It simply maintains the temperature and humidity of normal conditions. Denver's climate dried out baseballs, which exacerbated the high altitude's effect on the ball's flight. That high altitude effect still remains to some degree.
Notice that the Rockies, as a team, still hit very well, and their pitchers still tend to sport higher ERAs.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
John Lackey's big return quickly leads to a big exit
John Lackey's return to the Anaheim Angels after rehabbing an injury lasted two pitches last night.
No, the Angels ace didn't get hurt. He got tossed. Lackey threw inside and plunked Ian Kinsler, and home plate umpire Bob Davidson decided Lackey was headhunting and tossed him. No warnings were issued.
Personally, while I think the ejection was unjustified (Lackey was amped up and I'm sure he had yet to rein himself in) and that Davidson was focused purely on precedent rather than the actual present, it's the division rival Angels and the end result was a 5-3 Angels loss at the hands of replacement Shane Loux, so can't say I'm too perturbed.
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