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Wednesday, March 31, 2004

NL Preview

Everybody knows the season preview column provides no forum whatsoever for meaningful analysis; nope, vague generalizations and snarky remarks are all that's on the menu today. So without further Adu...

NL East

The popular choice is to overlook the World Champion Marlins and go with the Phillies, and the logic is seductive: the Phillies and Marlins battled each other down to the wire last year, and the Phillies' sole move was to replace Jose Mesa (a.k.a. Joe Table) with Billy Wagner. All else being equal, the Phillies should win an additional 42 games. I say go with the Phils, but there is at least a 40 percent chance they will completely fall apart. Sure, the lineup is balanced, the rotation is promising, and the bullpen is actually not half bad. But Larry Bowa has a way of making everyone around him miserable. Philadelphians still seem unsure about him, though he's only been burning bridges there since the Ford Administration. Best case scenario: a slow start gives management the excuse and inclination to fire him, before things get out of hand. Bowa apologists only seem to say "he really wants to win." But that leaves him open for some flattering parallels. For example, the Nazis really wanted to win. The Japanese really wanted to win when they bombed Pearl Harbor. Nixon really wanted to win when he sent the Cubans over to DNC offices at the Watergate. Are you feeling warm and fuzzy yet? Maybe good guy Joe Kerrigan, the best pitching coach ever, will get his chance to be the boss just yet.

Anyway, the division is Philly's for the taking. The Marlins boast a cadre of young, large pitching prospects, and Miguel Cabrera, the next big thing. But their first two bullpen options are Armando Benitez and Chad Fox. Even Soriano could work these guys for a walk. The Braves have grown tired of success and have essentially declared themselves a mid-market team. This will not interrupt the tomahawk chant at Turner Field, where there is plenty of zombie cucumber for all the fans. But if they somehow remain in contention with a rotation of Ortiz, Hampton, Ramirez, Thompson and Jaret Wright, John Kerry should make Leo Mazzone his running mate. The Expos and Mets continue to exist as part of the collective bargaining agreement.

NL Central

Possibly the best division in baseball. My choice is the Astros, but the Cubs are virtually even, and in the end who wins the division versus the wild card only adds up to one more home game. The Cubs are a little banged up at the moment, or at least Mark Prior is, though it's just an achilles bruise, how bad can it be, right? Derrek Lee was a great pickup, especially given the otherwise patchwork nature of their lineup and the bizarre insistence on maintaining Joe Borowski as their closer rather than the mascot. The Astros are better balanced, as long as Biggio and Bagwell don't turn to dust, and the Juice will have some of baseball's best karma. With prodigal son Clemens on the mound, for each strikeout, instead of holding up a placard with a K on it, they can just trot out one of his kids: Kory, Koby, Krusty, Killme... The Cardinals can't match the starting rotations or even bullpens of their betters in Houston and Chicago, and Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Milwaukee are playing for revenue sharing checks.

NL West

It's the Diamondbacks, virtually by default. Sure, the one-two of Randy Johnson and Brandon Webb is the best duo not featured on Baseball Tonight every evening, sure the magic of Casey Fossum and Shea Hillenbrand is bound to rub off on this team in transition. But the dominant factor in their favor is the utter lack of competition.

The Dodgers? Few teams in recent memory have been so completely blase about assembling an offense. About the only encouraging sign is that they apparently determined Brian Jordan wasn't good enough for them. But that still leaves a murderer's row of Adrian Beltre, Shawn Green and Juan Encarnacion. If they could somehow merge with the Rockies they could assemble one pretty decent team, and one Rule 5 draft. The Rockies have an excuse, I suppose -- it's not their fault that they still owe Denny Neagle $693 million. But the Dodgers have lots of cash, and if Theo can build a juggernaut with a little creativity and some low-budget bats, maybe his colleague DePodesta will get things moving in LA eventually. Speaking of, have you noticed how many GMs have New England roots? DePodesta and Theo -- Harvard; Brian Sabean from NH; Jim Duquette from the Dalton Duquettes, Ricciardi from Worcester... My theory is that if the Red Sox ever win, some 10 million people will finally be able to get on with their lives. Anyway, the Padres and Giants play here too, but that shouldn't concern anyone.

Tomorrow... actually I am away on business. I'll preview the AL on Friday.
And the Winner Is???

The Boston Red Sox. In fifteen ratings, the Sox won seven categories: relief, DH, SS, 2b, LF, SP1 and SP2; the Yankees won seven: CF, RF, C, 3b, 1b, SP3-5 and Manager. Does it get more even?

I see the Sox as a better put-together team. The Yankees have a frightening lineup which, if it plays at its maximum potential, will win a hell of a lot. But the Sox were #1 in the league last year, and all they changed was from an overrated Todd Walker to a known commodity in Pokey Reese and a steadier bat in Mark Bellhorn. Just because Steinbrenner is assembling a rotisserie roster doesn't mean the league's best lineup last year should feel inferior to anyone. And the Sox' 1-2 starters and potentially devastating bullpen just seems more well-matched, with each other and against their surroundings. This is a well-assembled roster that has everything it needs, save for a few breaks, to go all the way. So too could the Yankees, but there's only one space at the top, and I like our chemistry and hunger better, even over the Yankees' experience and confidence.

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

And the rest...

Owners: You can actually look here for information about who has made campaign donations to whom, with a special link to the campaign donations of both the Red Sox and Yankees. I'm not sure how comprehensive this is; I couldn't find my name listed with my former employer, even after about 15 different donations, and it seems odd that no player is listed as ever having given anything... are baseball players so sweet and innocent, or detached from reality, that not a single one of them would choose to get involved in the political process? Anyway, if you look closely, you'll see that Steinbrenner is a regular benefactor to the bush/cheney campaign, while Sox brass have been steady Kerry supporters. The latter may be more geographics, but the former... could there be a better baseball/politics match than Steinbrenner and bush? The infallible bluster, the blunt, unapologetic reliance on outspending the competition, the stubborn intolerance of dissent or uncomfortable facts... the world would be a lot more entertaining (not to mention safe) if these two were running Coke and Pepsi, mano-a-mano, instead of the Yankees and the government.

Anyway, Steinbrenner's billions give the Yankees an advantage, and he is focused on winning, which is more than you can say for the owners in Cincinnati, Kansas City, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minnesota... you get the point. Henry and co. seem pretty likeable, occasionally amateurish, but definitely trying to do right -- which is an uphill struggle after 27 years of ownership follies. Many fences to mend. In the long run I like Henry much better, and if he had another $300 mil to play with, I suspect he could be a "great owner" too. Steinbrenner's "advantages" are in fact not related to him so much as to the built-in advantage of the franchise's revenues. And there is a lot to be said for the idea that the Yankees didn't get good in the 90s til he turned over the baseball side of things to Cashman and Torre. advantage: draw

GMs: Cashman's job is very different from Theo's. Theo gets to run a baseball team, like Cashman used to do, before he became more of a babysitter to the rich and boorish. I suspect he could go anywhere else and succeed in more measurable ways. But these days the team is focused on signing big names at every position, a task that requires very little subtlety or skill, just a raft of dollars. That's not to say Cashman didn't do a fine job of engineering the A-Rod deal, quietly, and with a position change and tom hicks dollars thrown in. But how hard is that, really?

Theo has nothing to complain about in his current circumstances, other than that the Sox are second in spending to the team in their own division. But there are 28 other teams unlikely to show much sympathy. Still, he too has had to face down numerous institutional obstacles, restoring the club's tattered credibility in the wake of the Duquette era. Sometimes he has done it by the sheer force of his personality, like with the Schilling deal. In that instance, at least, he was extremely impressive, even from a distant POV.

And he was masterful last season -- even going head to head with Cashman. The Sox and Yankees were shopping for the same needs, namely relievers, and the Sox outmaneuvered the Yankees for Williamson and Scott Sauerbeck; the Yankees had to settle for Orosco and Armando Benitez. Ouch. Cashman had some egg on his face... but he has four rings on his fingers too, at least two of which he deserves a ton of credit for. Advantage: another push

Managers: Moving right along... Advantage: Yankees
Whoops! The DHs

David Ortiz is the dessert in the Sox' lineup, so perhaps subconsciously I have been saving him for last. In any event, I mistakenly overlooked the DHs, and I completely forgot about Ortiz as a first baseman, which he may be for a while til Nixon is healthy and Millar has to cover right field (can the Massachusetts constitution be amended to prevent this?). Maybe I wanted to forget about him as a first baseman; despite his body type, he won't make old-timers forget George Scott's legendary exploits around the bag. Defensively, he's about what you'd expect from such a, um, powerful guy.

It's on offense where he needed just 128 games to finish fifth in the AL MVP race. His on-base average jumped 30 points while his slugging shot up 92 points, giving him a god-like .961 OPS. And that's including 116 at-bats against lefties where he continued to do his best impression of, well, all those punch-and-judy hitters I cite from time to time. Meanwhile, the other 75% of his at-bats resulted in a slew of clutch hits, bombs, and a Bondsian OPS of 1.058. I can accept that a guy with these platoon splits and no glove shouldn't be MVP. But,... have I mentioned the Yankees' rotation is all righthanded? Anyway, it says here (look for December 4 entries) that Poppa has been mashing righties for years, and although those numbers got a bit gaudier last year, he's 28... he's supposed to be better than when he was 25. Ellis Burks, the prodigal son, comes back to handle the occasional lefty, and to remind the younger players to sit up straight in the dugout.

Meanwhile, the Yankees turn their lonely eyes to whatever is left of Bernie Williams. For the most part he was horrible last year, hitting with no power and striking out a bit more easily than we'd seen before. This guy was money for a decade, and a pleasure to watch, I can grudgingly admit. It should come as no surprise from his peaceful demeanor that he doubles as a jazz guitarist. Few people look more relaxed in hitting a ball 450 feet; I have no idea how he does it. I just know that, if his body doesn't completely heal, he may not have much more of "it" left in the tank. As for ifs, he's currently recovering from an appendectomy, which apparently was the result of a junk food binge on a cross-Florida bus ride. No worries, though, they kept Ruben Sierra and signed Tony Clark to back him up. I am being completely serious.

Advantage: Sox
The Bullpens

Definitely one of the it factors is the performance of the bullpens. It's baseball gospel that starting pitching is the most valuable commodity in the game, because good starters can deliver victory by themselves, once a week or so, and the number of "good" starters by that definition is small. But anybody in Boston will tell you a bullpen can lose a game faster than you can say "Chad Fox." And bullpens are subject to great psychological forces... when they are going bad, they cause managers to leave in starters for 130 pitches, or fear the worst. When they get hot (see the October versions of Timlin, Williamson and Embree), they can get rolling, and make for a 7-inning game. So if you rate the starters of the Sox and Yanks about equal (which, for the record, I don't), perhaps here is where the game will be decided.

And if you don't believe me, see the box score from the Yankees' opening day loss to Tampa.

Anyway, the Yankees' pen means Mariano, plus Flash Gordon, Paul Quantrill, Gabe White, Felix Heredia, and maybe Steve Karsay. In other words, Mariano and the leftovers. Mariano Rivera is currently in the news for his contract extension, which has given sportswriters the opportunity to nominate him as maybe the best reliever of all time. This is a pointless discussion, because until the mid-80s relievers had entirely different responsibilities, but fine, whatever. I prefer the description of him as the best one-pitch pitcher of all time, not that it denigrates him at all but rather that it captures his essence. Is there another pitcher who can tell you what's coming and still make you look so inept? Knuckleballers are comparable in this sense, but nobody has had the command of a knuckler that Mariano has of his cutter. Unlike Tim Wakefield, Rivera doesn't have many "off-days" or watch his pitch flatten out in domed stadiums. If Rivera is healthy, he is the best, or close enough.

As for the rest, they are bound to be an upgrade over the shambles of a middle relief corps the Yankees went with last year. Gone are punching bags Chris Hammond, Antonio Osuna, Armando Benitez... did I dream it or was there even a Jessie Orosco sighting here? Lordy... Anyway, Quantrill had his confidence restored by pitching in the world's best pitching environment, Chavez Ravine, for a couple productive, rubber-armed years, while Flash Gordon went off to have his shoulder reattached. Both are coming in from the wilderness to a heaping plate of expectations; both could be spectacular. But Quantrill has already left a game (this morning) after falling into A-Rod on a bunt, only to see Felix Heredia cough up the game. Gabe White lost his slot to Heredia. Karsay missed all last year. Translation: you still have eight innings to beat the Yankees.

Keith Foulke may not be as good as Mariano Rivera. One thing we know is he won't look as dominant, though having led the AL in saves last year, he will probably be close enough. After last year, Fenway is going to be a giant Keith Foulke love-in all year long, if he stays on form. Seriously, nobody in baseball has a better opportunity to be elected to high public office by the all-star break.

The brilliance of his signing, though, is twofold. Not only is he a true closer, but if the rest of the pen picks up where it left off in October, you may only have about 5-6 innings to beat the Sox. The three-headed hydra of Timlin, Embree and Williamson are an imposing set of vaguely similar flamethrowers who, when they have their command, don't give hitters much of a chance. Timlin's game, after all these years, is still sinking mid-90s heat, while Embree and Williamson are more traditional gassers with an offspeed pitch to mess with your head. Embree was off and on last year, and his good years are outnumbered by his mediocre ones so far, but for two years now the OPS against him has been a Quinton McCracken-like .630, and he seems to have found himself. Williamson, meanwhile, is the one with the most upside: he's 28, has had some good runs as a closer, and has only really stunk during the stretch of time around his family's near-death experiences. It doesn't take much to throw a major league ballplayer off his game; I'm thinking this kind of personal crisis will do it. But that is behind him, and was by last fall, when he suddenly emerged as a playoff ace. Ramiro Mendoza has been reported alive and well, and there's such a thing as a Jason Shiell in the pen somewhere too, though the immortal Mark Malaska may turn out to have a career as a situational lefty.

All these hard throwers will be following guys like Lowe, Wakefield and Arroyo/Kim, then giving way to the changeup artistry of Keith Foulke. That is a lot of different looks for one team in a single game. This staff may not have the track record the Yankees can boast, but the Sox' pen could be a seamless concoction of devastating effect, whereas the Yankees' corps, after Mariano, seems to raise as many questions as it solves. I could be proven wrong -- Quantrill and Gordon were both great last year, while the Sox struggled for four months before getting warmed up -- but I definitely like the Sox better in the late innings. Advantage: Boston

Friday, March 19, 2004

SP3-4-5: Vazquez/Contreras/Lieber v. Lowe/Wakefield/Kim

There's a common thread that runs through all of these guys: they reside in the echelon below the one occupied by Martinez, Schilling, Brown and Mussina. The latter are excellent pitchers who can be expected to produce; whereas the 3-4-5 guys on both teams could be great... or something noticeably less.

The buzz around Javier Vazquez is that he is breaking out like a teenager working at Papa Gino's. Check the improvement from '02 to '03: in both seasons he threw 230 innings, but in 2002 he yielded 243 hits, 100 earned runs, and struck out 179. Last year the same number of innings saw him allow 45 fewer hits and 17 fewer runs, while he rang up another 62 strikeouts. His progress has even inspired comparisons to Pedro.

Now, it's true that both Pedro and Javier were traded from the baseball wasteland of Montreal to the throes of the AL East at an age just short of their prime. And they are both hispanic. And.. that's about it. Some key differences include the fact that Pedro had made the leap to a Cy Young winner in his last year au nord, dropping a 1.90 ERA and 305 strikeouts on the National League. Since then, only one season saw his ERA above 2.40, he's continued striking out over 10 guys per nine innings, and limiting hitters to an OPS between .472 (not a typo) and .623. In other words, he found his game in Montreal and never lost it, even after transferring it to more intense and hitter-friendly environs.

Vazquez is terrific, but not only is he not near Pedro's level now, his apprenticeship in Montreal doesn't approach what Pedro did in his early nordic years; none of the numbers quite compare. Still, it's stupid to worry about who Vazquez isn't; who he is is a young tough pitcher who logs 230 innings, strikes guys out, moves the ball around, throws strikes, and shows brilliance if not consistency at his young age (27). Can he adjust to the pressure? Can he win consistently for the first time in his career? Can he reduce his homers from the high 20s pitching in a park with a pathetically easy right field poke? Big questions. He should be very good, but he hasn't proven all that much just yet.

Jose Contreras was an enigma last year. He came out looking, um, maladjusted -- forgivable for guy who fled Cuba for Manhattan with less than twelve years to decompress first. Then he got hurt and disappeared, before reemerging as the second coming of Mike Scott. He blew people away with an unhittable forkball or splitter or whatever you choose to call it... but stamina became an issue late in games, and in the end he didn't have much to show for his efforts. He also came undone in both the ALCS and World Series. Which leaves exactly what for this year? If he shows up on opening day in Tokyo feeling comfortable and ready for the rigors of a full MLB slate, he could be the staff ace. But these are big ifs, sorta like "if he were actually 32..." Still, look at last year as if he were a rookie. It's a promising, flashy start, but he has work to do, and at his age, he better get moving.

Then there is Jon Lieber, coming off major arm surgery. Before he blew out his elbow, he had lowered opposing hitters' OPS every year for five years -- even while pitching in Wrigley -- and had rounded out into a fair pitcher, notching 20 wins the last time he was healthy all year. His residual numbers are nothing special, more than a hit per inning, average strikeout totals, but for his career people have slugged him for only a .429 average -- a mark achieved by Tino Martinez last year, if that is any illustration. But that tough slider only kills righties; lefties have hit .302 off him the last three seasons, with a robust .817 OPS (Nomar/Jeter territory). And he's going to Yankee Stadium, with 18 months of rust and a short porch. And the Sox will bat 4-5 stud lefties in between Manny and Nomar against him. All these questions don't change the possibility that he could be a great #5, but they make you wonder.

Are Sox fans ready for another wild ride on the Derek Lowe express? Actually, from day to day you have an idea what you'll get from him; it's just from year to year there is no telling. In 2002 he was a wire-to-wire stud in his first year holding down a rotation spot. Last year, with tape covering up his skin cancer scars on his nose, Lowe came out shaky and stayed that way, going slightly fewer innings but yielding 50 more hits and 25 more walks. Lowe seems like a nice, sincere guy, so maybe it was karma that got him a boatload of run support that propped him up for 17 wins in '03.

Lowe is primarily a control pitcher, throwing sinkers, curves, fastballs and sliders at medium speeds but with wicked darting movement. Control is the difference between the 1.5 baserunners an inning he allowed last year, and the less than one he gave up in '02. When he has it -- good legs? feel? confidence? -- he gets ahead, keeping hitters on their heels where they can't do much more than tap little rollers around the infield. But without it, it is Lowe who falls behind and gives in. The last pitch he threw in Oakland was vintage Lowe; Durazo knew he was out before the ball got there. He sounds like he's in better condition than a year ago, so maybe the results will follow. But with a sensitive side and free agency looming, you never know.

The story on Tim Wakefield the last few years is that he's been a steady performer, in the bullpen and the rotation. Yeah, except for his pitching. His ERA has yo-yo'd from 5.48 to 3.90 to 2.81 to 4.09 in consecutive years ('00-'03), and opposing OPS went .820, .706, .608, .710. Only the last season saw him used primarily as a starter, and since they fall in the middle of the range, maybe we can call these his true numbers. About a hit per inning, 6 Ks per nine, wins a few more than he loses on average (which on a good team means a .600 winning percentage), NEVER pitches a shutout. All of which places him on par maybe with Lieber, if that. And yet, the Sox L-O-V-E him. He's a team guy, which is perfect because as a knuckler he can go nearly every other day, between starts, if needed. What's more, the Sox count on the knuckler effect on opposing teams, the theory being that watching that damn thing flutter on a good day can screw up hitters for the better part of a week. Dick Allen said it best, stating he had no problem with knucklers, he'd just take his three swings and go sit down. I doubt there are numbers anyplace, even in the deep, secretive file rooms of the Stats Inc. dungeon, that have demonstrated knucklers depressing hitting production on the day after they pitch. But it makes a hell of a story.

The last spot in the Sox' rotation will eventually go to B.K. Kim, once his shoulder comes around. Assuming it does. There's a nasty little buzz that follows this guy around these days, but the Sox just gave him $10 mil, so we can assume they have plans for him. And well they should. He is immature, hard to figure, a PR disaster, and an erratic closer at times. He is also extremely difficult to hit by any measure, and if Francona figures out what part of the game Kim is most comfortable with, he could really bust out. His numbers are sick: in 402 career innings he has allowed 298 hits, with 449 strikeouts. He has allowed a .618 OPS, and a .298 on base average. In other words, he makes hitters look anemic. His starter numbers look about the same, though in only 12 starts, so who knows? Yet it stands to reason that he'd be better off giving up that occasional longball in the fourth rather than the ninth. He can be a stud in the #5 spot... but will he? Will his shoulder and his temper let him, and will Sox fans give him a chance? Forgiveness isn't something that comes easy in Fenway. But the guy can really pitch, he doesn't cost much, and he's 25.

Conclusion... Nobody has any business claiming to know that any one of these pitchers is definitely going to outperform any other one of them this season. They all bring great profiles and high ceilings to their performances, but all are surrounded by question marks that could make the difference between greatness and mediocrity. None of these guys will suck, given good health, but all of them project someplace between 5 and 22 wins. I would give a slight nod to the Yankees here, if only because Vazquez is the most likely to succeed of the whole lot; whereas none of the Sox' last three guarantee you much beyond a little unwelcomed excitement. The wildcard, as I have said 478 times, is that the Yankees are running five righties out in Yankee Stadium. I still can't believe they let this happen. Lieber and especially Vazquez are flyball pitchers. Strap on those seatbelts...
Slight, tentative advantage: Yankees

Thursday, March 18, 2004

SP2: Brown v. Schilling

If this matchup ever goes head to head it may be one to set the VCRs to. These are two gladiators, guys who pitched with Oil Can Boyd, Dennis Martinez, etc. In other words, they are my age. No doubt, in addition to the many miles on their golden right arms, they also possess a vague memory of Basic and Fortran, the music of the Cars, and a fondness for the days when professional wrestling was still pure. This matchup is, dare we say, Bruno Sammartino versus Bob Backlund?

OK, moving right along... what makes this matchup interesting is not so much that these guys are both old, but that they have both aged like an old saddle, tough and unyielding. Much is made (in Boston anyway) about Kevin Brown's flirtation with serious injuries, but those are the voices of disappointed roto-geeks who were counting on Brown's standard 200+ innings, decent win totals, excellent strikeouts and league-leading ERA. In fact, he has made at least 30 starts every year since 1996 except 2001 and 2002 -- two of the last three. Trouble? Sure, if you want to overlook the fact that he came back last year and posted a 2.39 ERA -- his third best such mark -- in 212 innings of solid work. The scouting reports are still saying he gets stronger as the game progresses. The guy is a horse.

In fact, a better argument can be made that Schilling is the more fragile. Five times since 1994 Schill has failed to make 30 starts, including last season. His eight wins in '03 were his lowest total since his two washout years in Philly in the mid 90s. Is this the start of his decline? Most power pitchers don't make it this far, after all.

Not that I buy this argument for a second. While Schilling made only 24 starts last year and logged a modest 168 innings, he still found time to strike out 194 batters in this truncated season. In other words, he brings it. Add in an ERA of 2.98 for further evidence.

Over time, Brown has registered a lower ERA (3.16 to 3.33) than Schilling, so if that's all you want to look at, he's your man. Opposing batters' OPSs have been in the high .500s or low .600s -- Carlos Baerga territory -- as opposed to Schilling's numbers in the mid to upper .600s. Brown has been mowing them down for years with steady efficiency. Given that he is more of a Derek Lowe-type, who relies on movement more than pure power, there is nothing slowing him down just yet, at age 39.

Schilling has his arguments to make, however. First, he hasn't had the luxury of pitching in LA, where even Hideo Nomo keeps guys in the ballpark. Schilling has been in the BOB the last few years, a middlin' hitters' park, and before that the Vet, another neither-here-nor-there place. Oh, and Schilling WINS. 45 games in '01-'02. Brown has one 20-win season -- back when the first Bush was muttering inanities in the White House. Brown starred for the champion Marlins, but went 0-2 in the World Series. Schilling was co-MVP of the D-Backs' win in 2001, pitching games 1 (shutdown win), 4 (in the bag til Kim choked) and 7 (kept them close).

It's really hard to separate these guys, you truly can't go wrong either way... but Brown looks more like Peyton Manning, and Schilling like Tom Brady. I'll take Brady any day. Slight Advantage: Sox

Monday, March 15, 2004

News Flash: Dish Network!

Thanks to advances in technology and regressions in our social life, Stacey and I are likely to succumb to subscribing to the Dish Network, satellite TV for homebound new parents. Now that you no longer need a dish the size of a basketball court to receive reception from on high, the Dish is both a bargain and a non-issue aesthetically. And just to further blur the line between satellite communication and the notion of God in Heaven, this signal includes NESN and Fox Sports New England! Add in tivo, and what you've got is a nightly routine of tubbie time, dinner, and the Sox game. This promises to make my observations from 3000 miles away slightly more relevant. Trust me.

In other news, the player-by-player analysis is getting a bit tedious, so I think I'll condense my views of the pitching staffs. it's time to move forward.

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Starting Pitching 1: Pedro Martinez v. Mike Mussina

Today, to kick off my Roto baseball preparations (there's something disturbing about the name "fantasy baseball"), I bought the 2004 Baseball Prospectus, a tome that rivals the bible for its sheer size and mind-numbing content. Despite boasting that Rob Neyer considers it the best baseball scouting report on the market, I am already growing wary of it. I have long since given up on baseball preview magazines offering anything worthwhile; a rough survey shows baseball preview magazines have reached a consensus that the Marlins will win the 2004 world series over the Yankees in six games, with Josh Beckett playing an integral role. How many sub-moronic ways can you predict a repeat of the previous season? Apparently a lot. This is third hand paraphrasing, but apparently the baseball firm of Street & Smiths did a five year projection of teams' records, using carefully developed mathematical formulae, showing conclusively that, say, the Toronto Blue Jays will follow up their 84 win season of 2003 with 85, 83, 86, 84 and 85 wins. And you thought macroinvertebrates couldn't type.

So along comes the Major League Scouting Report, which for the last several years has been selling a pulp volume featuring a page on every active player, breaking down his various hitting or pitching tendencies and making some prediction for the next year. For a while this was satisfactory; the book made cases for various players dramatically improving or falling off, for one reason or another, and tried to back up a lot of the arguments in numbers. Still, the galleys were apparently due sometime during the previous world series, prior to the annual movement of about 20 percent of active players, and the writing went quickly from cheeky and fresh to repetitive to barely literate. In the end I got tired of reading "this is the year Adrian Beltre puts it all together!"

The baseball prospectus sports a highbrow pedigree, with Neyer's endorsement and some transparent efforts to link itself to Bill James. And what do they do next, but predict Mike Mussina is closing in on a hall-of-fame career. Moose is one of the top 30 pitchers in baseball, for certain, and when he is on he's a marvel to watch. But HOF... I am NOT seeing it.

Ignore my disparaging comments about wins yesterday... there is something to the fact that Mussina has never won 20 games. Wins are a poor measure because of all the other factors, but the great pitchers always manage a 20-win season somewhere along the way, if only through force of will. Great pitchers also tend to carry an ERA below 3.00 more often than not -- something else Mussina has not done, with the exception of his rookie year in 1992 (2.54). Last season he gave up at least three runs in 16 of his 31 starts, posted an ERA of 3.40, and won 17 games for the Yankees. Four fewer wins than Pettitte (who sported an ERA over 4.00); two more than Mr. Gout Farm, David Wells. It's what he does every year: wins 18 games and notches an ERA in the mid-threes. In short, he is a fine pitcher and a credit to his alma mater, a steady performer who occasionally revs it up. But most days hitters don't have any reason to fear him, and if the Hall of Fame can't find a place for Luis Tiant, then Mike Mussina has no business there either.

Pedro, by contrast, has accomplished feats that are unrivaled in this generation, and even some of the dead-ball ones too. He averages over 10 strikeouts per nine innings (versus 7 for Moose); he gave up seven homers last year in nearly 200 innings (versus Mussina's 21); his worst ERA in Boston is 2.89, with a low of 1.74. Hitters have posted a .578 OPS against Pedro for his career, compared to Mussina's .679. While .679 is the domain of the Terrence Longs and Christian Guzmans, only one batter in all of baseball -- the mighty "R. Santiago" of the Detroit Santiagos -- posted an OPS below .578 while still qualifying for the batting title. So while Mussina makes hitters look mediocre, Pedro makes them look hopeless.

Who would you rather have this year? If you believe the wags in the press box who look at Pedro's small frame and write, again and again, that his next pitch may be his last, then go with Mussina. If you believe your eyes, the hitters, or the statistics (including the one that says he has pitched 29-plus starts in 9 of 10 seasons), go with Pedro. Advantage: Red Sox

[Aside: the past several years, the Yankees have made a studied practice of not losing to Pedro. Last season, as brilliant as Pedro was, he went 0-2 in five starts versus the Yankees. One of the last vesitges of the go-go Yankees of the mid-90s is that hallmark plate discipline, which is effective against good pitchers on a pitch count, who depart in the 6th. And Pedro is ALWAYS on a pitch count. Plus, the Sox' shaky bullpen gave the Yankees all the more reason to tire out Pedro, so they could take their chances against Rich Garces or Chad Fox. Can't say I blame them. But will Pedro have the last laugh in '04? Nobody will be in a hurry to get to Keith Foulke, at least.]

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Sox v. Yanks: Pitching Preamble

Lately I have been reading the recent biography of Paul O'Neill, Bono confidante and deposed treasury secretary under the current president Bush. Without carrying on too long, and avoiding the temptation for a partisan rant, I will merely say that the book is an interesting look at the role of the honest broker. O'Neill's overarching point, other than voting no confidence in the current president, is that institutions as powerful as the U.S. government need honest brokers to balance out the political instincts of a given administration; otherwise you'll get what you have now, which is a leadership that places too great an emphasis on short-term political gains, such as repaying campaign favors or shoring up one's base, and not enough honest, thoughtful work on behalf of any other cause, such as programs that benefit the nation.

An honest broker's job is to examine the facts and see where that takes him/her, as opposed to starting with a desired outcome and merely looking for whatever facts will tend to justify it. Only by the former method can one arrive at the truth (and then, only if you know what you're doing). The latter, outcome-driven method ignores gaps in the record... in essence, the denial of reality. But truth is like oxygen, omnipresent, and though you can fend it off for a while, it is very difficult to fend it off forever. Like Clinton's affairs, or Bush's false war rationale, truth tends to come out eventually. Maybe someday we'll even know who shot JR. I mean Kennedy.

Anyway, honest brokers are cool. Just like this blog! OK, that may sound even more self-aggrandizing than some politician's biography, there is a point... that the only interesting goal for this blog is to attempt to ferret out the realities of baseball, where we can divine them from the facts. This is a little late for a mission statement, but seriously, who the hell cares how much I wish the Sox would win the world series? What could be interesting about more mindless cheerleading? And where am I to get any insider information, writing from my desk outside Sage's bedroom in Seattle? Bubkis. The best I can do is look at some statistics and apply some logic which may prove something worthwhile about baseball. Onto pitching...

Tomorrow I will start comparing the starting rotations of the Sox and Yankees, slot by slot. I'm using ESPN's projected rotations, meaning the Yankees' 1-5 is Mussina, Brown, Vazquez, Contreras and Lieber, versus our Pedro-Schilling-Lowe-Wakefield-Kim juggernaut. But how do you say one pitcher is better than another? I have swallowed the new math when it comes to offense, i.e. the Bill James/Rob Neyer emphasis on OPS as the best predictive stat, as it shows a player's tendency not to make outs and to drive the ball -- the two most critical element to scoring runs, which is how success is ultimately measured. Unless you're Juan Marichal, making outs is the worst thing you can do with a bat, so guys who make fewer outs contribute more to offense than guys who make more outs. But not all on-base machines are created equal: last year Jose Vidro, Doug Mientkiewicz and Alex Rodriguez had about the same on-base percentage (+/- .003). Adding in slugging helps separate table-setters (Vidro) and poseurs (Mientky) from forces of nature. Simple as that. Take it to the bank. etc. etc.

But the debate is a little more complex when it comes to identifying a statistic that defines the value of a pitcher. Wins haven't been taken seriously (by me, anyway) since Bob Welch stole the 1990 Cy Young Award with 27 wins on a deadly A's team, with a terrestrial 2.95 ERA in a severe pitchers' park, while Roger Clemens posted an impossible 1.93 ERA and 21 wins in Friendly Fenway. There are numerous reasons why a pitcher wins a game, including coming into the game with two outs in the fifth and a big lead and not blowing it (starters cannot get a win unless they finish five); or the Ugie Urbina method, where you cough up a lead in the top of the ninth and get rescued by your teammates in the next frame. Yep, even to a pitcher, the two sweetest words in the English language may be de-fault.

ERA has always been my favorite, being the game's best attempt to measure a pitcher's performance while minimizing those things that are beyond the pitcher's control: ERA counts baserunners who are the pitcher's fault who eventually score. ERA still fluctuates somewhat based on matters outside a pitcher's control, such as park factors or the quality of defense behind him. Derek Lowe, one of the world's more severe groundball pitchers, nearly won the Cy Young with a stellar Rey Sanchez at second, then doubled his ERA with Todd Walker applying his, um, creative talents. But Lowe also increased his walks by 60 percent. And nearly won the same number of games.

ERA can be dissatisfying, however. First, guys who don't pitch many innings can sometimes nurse a low ERA for a whole season, without revealing their inner Matt Young to the world. It takes years of ERA stats to get a definitive sense. And take three guys with about the same ERA last year (3.13-3.20), Mark Mulder, Livan Hernandez and Kerry Wood. Mulder gave up 180 hits in 186 innings; Hernandez surrendered 225 hits in 233 innings... and Wood gave up 152 in 211 innings, while striking out 266 batters, compared to half that for Mulder (128) and two thirds for Hernandez (178). Wood walked too many batters (100), so in the end each pitcher made about the same contribution to his team. Last season. But is there any question which one you'd want if you were putting a team together for 2004?

Roto-heads will also point to WHIP, a.k.a. walks and hits per inning, but that doesn't take into account what happens to these baserunners, so until they start counting runs for reaching first, this stat is limited. Strikeouts alone tell how good a pitcher's stuff is, but for every Clemens there are 2-3 Bobby Witts (of the Canton Witts), who will always blow guys away and will never win sheit until they do away with that pesky four-ball rule. Strikeouts fell out of vogue back in the 80s, when Nolan Ryan was setting records with a mid-threes ERA and Crash Davis was admonishing that strikeouts were fascist. But this is an overreaction... around the same time Bill James noticed that young pitchers who struck guys out from the moment they reached the majors tended to last a long time, while young pitchers who did not register many Ks -- even while winning and posting a low ERA -- tended to wash out after a few years. Strikeouts demonstrate pure stuff, which is usually a good foundation on which to build a career, even if there is ultimately much more to it than that. Whereas reality catches up quickly with the Steve Averys of the world, who strike out about 4-5 guys a game and try to slide by on guile. You can run, Tom Bolton, but you can't hide.

Anyway, with the Sox-Yanks pitching comparison starting tomorrow, the challenge will be to look at earned runs as a measure of past success while also searching for other clues to what the future offers. S/b fun...

WHOOPS: In my outfield comparisons I had Sheff ("hello children") in left and Matsui in right -- I now believe that should be reversed. Had I done it right, I'd have had Manny Ramirez eating Matsui for appetizers, and Sheff cleaning up on Nixon on the basis of his ability to hit both righties and lefties, and his failure to mention religion in post-game interviews. Trust me, this religion thing is an accurate predictor of future performance, and not a pretty one...

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Right Field: Trot Nixon versus Hideki Matsui

Hideki Matsui broke another of the many barriers historically separating Japanese professionals from MLB when he debuted with the Yankees as a middle-of-the-order power outfielder. I lived in Japan over a decade before movies made it look eerily hip. No, back in the early 90s, Japanese citizens were still dodging fire breathing dinosaurs and dreaming of the day when Japanese and American baseball players were on par with each other.

Then Hideo Nomo moved to LA and tore up the National League for a couple seasons before settling into a more earth-bound role. Then Hideki Irabu, who was effective before the clock struck midnight, turning him back into a fat toad. And suddenly the world discovered, or admitted, that some Asian guys can pitch. Then Ichiro lit up Seattle and the AL with his electrifying impersonation of a young, eastern Willie McGee, and the floodgates were wide open. But nobody came over to hit for power until Matsui arrived.

Problem is, he did more to reinforce the fundamentally sound slap-hitting Asian guy stereotype than undermine it. Oh, sure, he got on base, took his share of walks, knocked in 100 runs, and played very competent defense. But a mid-season power outage left his slugging at a mere .435. For reference, Junior Spivey notched a .433. In other words, if Matsui could play second, the Yankees would have themselves a steal.

He can't play second, as far as we know, but he can show up at spring training better acclimated to American culture, distance from home, changeups, and so forth. One season of hitting .200 OPS points below his 1.000 numbers in Japan is, for now, a statistically insignificant sample. But it's all we got so far.

Nixon, meanwhile, is very acclimated to America, growing up in North Carolina playing outfield like a free safety and thanking his personal lord and savior Jesus Christ for every time he fouled off a 1-2 fastball. The former skill has served him well in Boston's spacious right field, with its treacherous sunlight and kneecap level retaining walls. The latter... well, if Jesus is taking a hiatus from his policy of leaving us to clean up our own messes, he apparently either loves Trot Nixon or hates righthanded pitchers. Nixon killed righthanded pitching at an A-Rod-like level, pounding them for a .635 slugging percentage, 25 homers, and a glittering .423 on-base average. The bad news is, there are still a few lefties around in the AL, and Nixon's best reply to them is "say hello to my friend Gabe Kapler!" But Nixon (345 ABs vs righties) and the Sox got to face righties about 75% of the time, and that was with Pettitte and Wells around to torment them. They're gone, and add to that Nixon's flair for beating the Yankees, including a two-run shot off Roger Clemens in the first-ever Yankee-based Roger/Pedro matchup two years ago, and you have a solid contributor, coming into his own as a hitter. Nixon has potential to be a clubhouse leader too, with his intensity and hard-nosed play, as long as he keeps the proselytizing to a minimum.

I've said several times that the Sox' lefthanded power is a significant advantage. As a team they mash righthanded pitching, at a cost of being somewhat vulnerable versus lefties. This was a great tradeoff last year, and with the Yankees' all-righty rotation, it becomes ever more important. This one is easy: Advantage: Red Sox

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Newsflash: Steroids!

Check it out here or here.

This is explosive. Remember the comment I made about team chemistry? No pun intended... but this is big trouble for two guys -- Sheffield and Giambi -- the Yankees are really counting on. If true, it could really hamper their seasons, assuming they are even allowed to play. Stay tuned.

Monday, March 01, 2004

Center Field: Damon vs. Lofton

To recap where we are so far, counting the infield, catcher, and left, the Yankees have an edge at four positions to Boston's two. But the real story emerging so far, and likely to continue, is the evenness of the comparisons. Although as advertised I am making a call at each position, five of the six choices are by razor-thin margins. The only mismatch on the field so far is at third base, where with the Yankees grabbing A-Rod, the Sox are left to console themselves with a gold-glove defending batting champ who makes less money annually than A-Rod gets in a month... from Texas. I think Theo can make his peace with this.

Assuming the trend continues, as is likely, this raises the question of what exactly is going to separate one of these teams from the other. There are two answers: mismatches and chemistry. As we see at virtually every significant juncture in a baseball season, when it matters good pitching beats good hitting. Also, bullpens are important, but a good rotation is the foundation of a pitching staff, and thus the team. So the pitching comparison bears close scrutiny, in this column and on the field throughout the year. And if that doesn't sort it out... then it comes down to chemistry. Last year the Yankees had more talent but the Sox nearly closed the gap thanks to surprising chemistry, much of it player-driven. Much has been said about the potential for poor chemistry on the other side, where George keeps adding all-stars from other teams, but Torre and the original 1998-2000 Yankees do a remarkable job of keeping things even-keeled, in even the worst Steinbrenner squalls of madness.

Anyway, Johnny Damon and Kenny Lofton (let's assume Bernie Williams stays with DH for a while, especially with his appendix operation shelving him for a month) are pretty equal if you look at recent offensive numbers. Three seasons ago it looked like the end was near for Lofton, when his on-base percentage fell to a truly mediocre .322, fifty points below his lifetime average. But bouncing around the White Sox, Giants, Cubs and Pirates has somehow been good for him the last two years, as he got his OBP back up to a respectable .350, stole about thirty bases, put the ball in play (51 Ks in 540 ABs), knocked around a few doubles and homers (32, 12), scored 96 times, and earned every cent of his minimal $1.025 mil.

Damon is a slight mystery, having put up monster seasons three and four years ago, then tailing off toward mediocrity. Or at least on par with a late-stage Kenny Lofton. After coming into his own as a guy who got on nearly 40 percent of the time with decent power and 40 steals a year, Damon's trend has taken his on-base back to the .350 range, not quite low enough to fuel talk of switching him out of leadoff, but close. He also hit 32 doubles and 12 homers, just like Lofton, walked and fanned at normal rates, and scored his normal 100+ runs. Separated from Lofton at birth?

The crucial difference is fielding. Damon anchors the Boston outfield effectively, as he is often cited for his defensive prowess. In two years with the Sox he has made two errors. One each year. Lofton isn't that far beind, statistically speaking, but no serious commentator has cited Lofton for his defense. Thus, since the numbers can't close this chapter, we will accept the word of the wags and make Damon, the on-field general for his club, the winner.

BTW, is the Boston media ever going to give Damon a moment's peace concerning his thick beard? I mean, what is so damaging about it? It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where they put Homer in an asylum because he wore a pink shirt. My corner of the world is full of guys in beards. It's not a mutiny, it's just fashion. Or laziness.

Oh, one more number to throw out. Lofton is 36; Damon 30. Take the latter going forward. Advantage: Red Sox
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