Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Power Up
As you can see from below, I am starting to get interested in this baseball season, finally. Count me as one of those RSN types who view last year's breakthrough as an opportunity to get on with life. And yet, I can't shake this buzzing feeling in my brain every time I forget to record the Sox when Clement is pitching...
As you can see from below, I am starting to get interested in this baseball season, finally. Count me as one of those RSN types who view last year's breakthrough as an opportunity to get on with life. And yet, I can't shake this buzzing feeling in my brain every time I forget to record the Sox when Clement is pitching...
Diva Update
By any measure, Pedro Martinez has quickly established himself as one of -- if not the -- premier NL starting pitchers. He's fourth in ERA, first in strikeouts, third in innings, has a respectable seven wins, and allowed a ridiculous 52 hits in 95 frames. Hard to score runs when you're getting one knock for every six outs.
Still, I watched Pedro Sunday against the Angels, and there are three things you can definitively say about the guy:
1. He's made an instantaneous impact on the NL and the Mets;
2. He hasn't lost a thing; and
3. The Sox are probably still better off without him.
The going theory after he signed was that he was likely to bounce back from his substandard performance in 2004. Partly because those '04 numbers were somewhat fluky and misleading, but also because if there is one iron-clad truth about Pedro, it's that high pitch counts are his nemesis, and in switching to the aggressive, DH-free NL he wasn't going to run up his pitches as quickly. That has basically happened: despite being third in innings, he's only 19th in the NL in number of pitches thrown. His 13.68 pitches per inning is the most economical in the NL, third-fewest in baseball. And he's averaging about 7 innings and exactly 100 pitches in his 13 starts.
And on Sunday, for the first time this year, he faced an AL team -- the Angels -- who imitated the 1990s Yankee patient-hitting model all the way to a world title two years ago. What happens? He hits 75 pitches with a 3-0 lead, starts losing some zip, and before you look up the Angels (even without a DH) have wrung the tying runs out of him, en route to a 4-3 win against the Met "bullpen." Sound familiar?
The AL, with the DH, simply extends pitchers more. Worse, the AL East consists now of four teams (including the Sox, thankfully) who are totally sold on the patient-hitting approach, and to play in that division requires guys who tend more toward the rubber-arm workhorse model than not. For Pedro, it's the worst place to be. For the Sox, he was never going to be as valuable as he would to an NL team, and to pay the premium they were asked to pay was never gonna make sense. So when Pedro pitches a complete game against the Giants or Padres or some other team that can't contend with his post-80-pitch B-game, let alone his A-game, Sox fans shouldn't start feeling pangs of regret. He was never going to have that luxury in Boston, and we were never going to escape the continuous loop of low-scoring late-inning Yankee comebacks against a tiring Pedro.
Nothing has changed.
By any measure, Pedro Martinez has quickly established himself as one of -- if not the -- premier NL starting pitchers. He's fourth in ERA, first in strikeouts, third in innings, has a respectable seven wins, and allowed a ridiculous 52 hits in 95 frames. Hard to score runs when you're getting one knock for every six outs.
Still, I watched Pedro Sunday against the Angels, and there are three things you can definitively say about the guy:
1. He's made an instantaneous impact on the NL and the Mets;
2. He hasn't lost a thing; and
3. The Sox are probably still better off without him.
The going theory after he signed was that he was likely to bounce back from his substandard performance in 2004. Partly because those '04 numbers were somewhat fluky and misleading, but also because if there is one iron-clad truth about Pedro, it's that high pitch counts are his nemesis, and in switching to the aggressive, DH-free NL he wasn't going to run up his pitches as quickly. That has basically happened: despite being third in innings, he's only 19th in the NL in number of pitches thrown. His 13.68 pitches per inning is the most economical in the NL, third-fewest in baseball. And he's averaging about 7 innings and exactly 100 pitches in his 13 starts.
And on Sunday, for the first time this year, he faced an AL team -- the Angels -- who imitated the 1990s Yankee patient-hitting model all the way to a world title two years ago. What happens? He hits 75 pitches with a 3-0 lead, starts losing some zip, and before you look up the Angels (even without a DH) have wrung the tying runs out of him, en route to a 4-3 win against the Met "bullpen." Sound familiar?
The AL, with the DH, simply extends pitchers more. Worse, the AL East consists now of four teams (including the Sox, thankfully) who are totally sold on the patient-hitting approach, and to play in that division requires guys who tend more toward the rubber-arm workhorse model than not. For Pedro, it's the worst place to be. For the Sox, he was never going to be as valuable as he would to an NL team, and to pay the premium they were asked to pay was never gonna make sense. So when Pedro pitches a complete game against the Giants or Padres or some other team that can't contend with his post-80-pitch B-game, let alone his A-game, Sox fans shouldn't start feeling pangs of regret. He was never going to have that luxury in Boston, and we were never going to escape the continuous loop of low-scoring late-inning Yankee comebacks against a tiring Pedro.
Nothing has changed.
Monday, June 13, 2005
The Ghost in Him
OK, I'm not sure what that means, except that this is a column about how shitty Alex Rodriguez is. I've been traveling for work frequently and given to the temptations of AM sports radio, where the demise of the Yankees and the failures of their $25 mil golden boy are weekly fodder. Of course, the frequency with which such a topic arises is alarming, from Bud Selig's twisted point of view, because the league would be happy if A-Rod became some sort of Jordan-like figure on which to rest baseball's smiling, happy, admirable image. And therein begins the problem. Not that I was ever sold on Michael -- he'll never be as cool as Bird or Magic, he's just a better athlete. Anyway, by the Madison Avenue standard, A-Rod fails on several respects: he's a phony, he'll never live down l'affaire slappy, and above all else he is not clutch.
A-Rod's public persona is this polished, robotic guy who always says the right thing, even to the point of getting all smarmy about his love of and respect for the pinstripes. He seemingly NEVER breaks from his PR mode, however dishonest his cliche may sound. Pretty minor sin, really, except that it makes him impossible to like. If people know a guy isn't honest, they simply won't ever warm up to him. And after a while it just starts to insult our intelligence. If he were smart, he'd let loose once in a while.
Then there's the slappy incident. Now, this may only matter to people in Boston and, to a lesser degree in New York, so fans in other cities (assuming the baseball world still cares about fans in those other cities) may not follow along here. But A-Rod is destined in at least some minds to always be identified with one moment: his slap of Bronson Arroyo's tag in the ALCS. Is it fair for a guy who plays some 1500 innings a year to be remembered for one play? Not necessarily, but a great baseball player would never, ever pull that kind of bush league nonsense. And true Yankees and true Yankee fans know it.
Worst of all is the fact that A-Rod really isn't a winner, unless you count fantasy baseball. Take this season, for instance: the Yankees to date have played 62 games, exactly half of which -- 31 -- have been decided by three runs or fewer, including both wins and losses. This seems like a pretty generous definition of "close games," so even here we're stretching things. Alex Rodriguez has 14 RBI in those 31 games. Fourteen of his league-leading 56 RBI, or exactly one-fourth of his RBIs, have come so far in arguably the half of all games played when the Yankees needed him. In 31 relative "blowouts," Rodriguez has 42 RBI. By this metric, he is three times as likely to knock in a run in a laugher than in a close game.
Now, there are some mitigating circumstances, such as the night against the Angels when he knocked in ten runs, ensuring that it never became a close game. And without watching, it's possible that he got key RBIs in games that seemed close, only for his team's shabby pitching to give up another big inning. And it's also possible that in those close games, he is tattooing the ball, but unfortunately there's nobody on base. But I for one don't believe a word of it. 62 games isn't a huge sample, but these things tend to even out over time. And it would take some pretty remarkable circumstances to undo the obvious: that he is three times more likely to get a hit when it doesn't really matter.
Not enough of a sample? Consider his 2-for-17 performance in the last four games of the ALCS, chipping in a two-run homer early in game four and then one single the rest of the way. Of course, there are about 8 other seasons to look at, but (a) I have a day job, and (b) we know for a fact that none of them ended with A-Rod even appearing in the World Series, let alone winning it. With Texas, as he piled up massive statistics, he tended not to play a meaningful game after Memorial Day. Oh, and since his departure the Rangers have been in or near first place every day.
Anyway, the guy is a guaranteed fantasy monster, a fine and talented player, and still a guy who I will never respect. Never.
OK, I'm not sure what that means, except that this is a column about how shitty Alex Rodriguez is. I've been traveling for work frequently and given to the temptations of AM sports radio, where the demise of the Yankees and the failures of their $25 mil golden boy are weekly fodder. Of course, the frequency with which such a topic arises is alarming, from Bud Selig's twisted point of view, because the league would be happy if A-Rod became some sort of Jordan-like figure on which to rest baseball's smiling, happy, admirable image. And therein begins the problem. Not that I was ever sold on Michael -- he'll never be as cool as Bird or Magic, he's just a better athlete. Anyway, by the Madison Avenue standard, A-Rod fails on several respects: he's a phony, he'll never live down l'affaire slappy, and above all else he is not clutch.
A-Rod's public persona is this polished, robotic guy who always says the right thing, even to the point of getting all smarmy about his love of and respect for the pinstripes. He seemingly NEVER breaks from his PR mode, however dishonest his cliche may sound. Pretty minor sin, really, except that it makes him impossible to like. If people know a guy isn't honest, they simply won't ever warm up to him. And after a while it just starts to insult our intelligence. If he were smart, he'd let loose once in a while.
Then there's the slappy incident. Now, this may only matter to people in Boston and, to a lesser degree in New York, so fans in other cities (assuming the baseball world still cares about fans in those other cities) may not follow along here. But A-Rod is destined in at least some minds to always be identified with one moment: his slap of Bronson Arroyo's tag in the ALCS. Is it fair for a guy who plays some 1500 innings a year to be remembered for one play? Not necessarily, but a great baseball player would never, ever pull that kind of bush league nonsense. And true Yankees and true Yankee fans know it.
Worst of all is the fact that A-Rod really isn't a winner, unless you count fantasy baseball. Take this season, for instance: the Yankees to date have played 62 games, exactly half of which -- 31 -- have been decided by three runs or fewer, including both wins and losses. This seems like a pretty generous definition of "close games," so even here we're stretching things. Alex Rodriguez has 14 RBI in those 31 games. Fourteen of his league-leading 56 RBI, or exactly one-fourth of his RBIs, have come so far in arguably the half of all games played when the Yankees needed him. In 31 relative "blowouts," Rodriguez has 42 RBI. By this metric, he is three times as likely to knock in a run in a laugher than in a close game.
Now, there are some mitigating circumstances, such as the night against the Angels when he knocked in ten runs, ensuring that it never became a close game. And without watching, it's possible that he got key RBIs in games that seemed close, only for his team's shabby pitching to give up another big inning. And it's also possible that in those close games, he is tattooing the ball, but unfortunately there's nobody on base. But I for one don't believe a word of it. 62 games isn't a huge sample, but these things tend to even out over time. And it would take some pretty remarkable circumstances to undo the obvious: that he is three times more likely to get a hit when it doesn't really matter.
Not enough of a sample? Consider his 2-for-17 performance in the last four games of the ALCS, chipping in a two-run homer early in game four and then one single the rest of the way. Of course, there are about 8 other seasons to look at, but (a) I have a day job, and (b) we know for a fact that none of them ended with A-Rod even appearing in the World Series, let alone winning it. With Texas, as he piled up massive statistics, he tended not to play a meaningful game after Memorial Day. Oh, and since his departure the Rangers have been in or near first place every day.
Anyway, the guy is a guaranteed fantasy monster, a fine and talented player, and still a guy who I will never respect. Never.
Friday, June 10, 2005
not dead yet
The plan for this space is to keep it pretty mellow until August. First, my Cycling Blog is the priority during the spring and up through July and the Tour. Secondly, I accept the Billy Beane description of the baseball season as consisting of the first two months seeing what you have, the next two months seeing what you can do to address issues, and the final two months meant to bring it home. April and May have been utterly uninspiring as a reconstituted Sox team feels its way around the world of a defending champion. June looks about the same, as the Sox wait for Schilling to come back and for at least one other pitcher to do something. Sounds a lot like last year... we can hope? By August things should be happening, and if not, the Patriots are by far the most interesting team we have anyway.
The plan for this space is to keep it pretty mellow until August. First, my Cycling Blog is the priority during the spring and up through July and the Tour. Secondly, I accept the Billy Beane description of the baseball season as consisting of the first two months seeing what you have, the next two months seeing what you can do to address issues, and the final two months meant to bring it home. April and May have been utterly uninspiring as a reconstituted Sox team feels its way around the world of a defending champion. June looks about the same, as the Sox wait for Schilling to come back and for at least one other pitcher to do something. Sounds a lot like last year... we can hope? By August things should be happening, and if not, the Patriots are by far the most interesting team we have anyway.
