TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Don't Look Now, But...

The Indians have pulled to within two games of the Twins in the AL Central race, and within three games in the loss column, with an 8-2 victory last night. The Indians are going to miss both Brad Radke and Johan Santana while the Twins are in town this weekend, so there's even more ground to gain while the Twins run out Kyle Lohse and Terry Mulholland to the mound. Suddenly the 5-1 disparity between Indians and Twins All-Stars isn't looking quite so crazy.

The thing I've been reading is that the Indians are a little too wet behind the ears to sustain this recent run. That may be true, but even though the Twins are two-time defending AL Central champs, they've got some youngsters manning key positions on their team as well. So while it's certainly true that Jake Westbrook and Cliff Lee have already set career highs in innings pitched in mid-August, so have Johan Santana and Carlos Silva. And while youngsters Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez play important roles in the middle of the Indians' lineup, so do rookies Lew Ford and Justin Morneau, who hit 3-4 in the Twins' lineup. When rookie catcher Joe Mauer comes back, there's a real possibility that 2-3-4 in the Twins' lineup will run Ford-Mauer-Morneau.

In the end, there's probably enough corporate memory of success on the Twins' side to carry the day for them, but they are going to have get some key contributions down the stretch from youngsters just the same as the Indians if they are to make it a third straight division crown.

ADDENDUM

What about the White Sox?! They're still lurking about, also three games back in the loss column, though 4 games back of the Twins in total. I guess mentally, toting up the fact that they're going to miss Frank Thomas for the rest of the year and likely Magglio Ordonez for most if not all the remainder of the season makes their climb a little more uphill. They do still have Carlos Lee, Paul Konerko and Jose Valentin in the middle of their lineup, and Willie Harris, Juan Uribe and Aaron Rowand all bring something to the table. Freddy Garcia and Mark Buerhle at the top of the rotation aren't too shabby, either, but they need big efforts from Jose Contreras and Jon Garland down the stretch to really be a factor. But it really should be considered a three-horse race in the AL Central for now.

posted by Tom Renbarger 10:04 AM

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Managing Catching Cliches

I tune into WGN to watch the Cubs when I feel like I'm rusty on my sports cliches. Chip Caray and Steve Stone have to be the world's source of the uttermost conventional wisdom about baseball, ranging from belief in the significance of the RBI as a stat to reminding people how important it is for a pitcher to qualify for a win with five innings pitched to a belief in the existence of "clutch" hitting. (We once took to calling Caray "V-Chip" because of the number of times his utterances on our TV made us swear at the tube.) The one that made my head spin again the other day was the utterance that "most" of the managers came up as catchers.

This is of course, absurd, but suppose we grant them a little leeway and assume they meant "many" current managers came up as catchers. This was also my subjective sense - but is it really significant? How many of the managers playing today were catchers?

I went through each of the current 30 major league managers' playing careers and identified the primary playing position of all 30. I also counted managers who had played catcher even once during the major league career, and compared it to the number of players who'd played even once at other positions (excluding slop/mo-up work as pitcher).

Position	DH	C	1B	2B	SS	3B	OF	P
Primary Position	1	6	1	2	5	3	8	0
Any ML game	13	10	16	9	8	15	14	n/a

Four of the current managers have no playing experience in the majors; of these, three were catchers, mostly, and only Buck Showalter, a minor league first-sacker, played mostly at another position. One -- Eric Wedge -- was primarily a catcher in the minors but a DH in the majors, catching only a handful of games.

I counted Joe Torre as a catcher, although he played many more games at first and third combined, the position he played most was catcher; he's a bit of an asterisk in that regard.

Obviously pitchers are not in favor as major league managers right now; once upon a time the major league dugouts were full of former pitchers, from Tommy Lasorda to Kid Gleason. Ray Miller, I think, was the last pitcher to manage in the bigs.

If we count our minor leaguers, one out of three major league managers was primarily a catcher. But nearly one of three was an outfielder, nearly one of three was a middle infielder. Corner men were scarcer, but if you look at time at any position, the corners dominate (maybe because that's where you stick a catcher with tired legs).

During my playing days, players were divided in practice into catchers, infielders, outfielders, and pitchers. By that count we don't have much of a split of dominance towards catching.

It's undeniable that a catcher sees far more of a game than any other player, and on paper that's probably better preparation for being a manager. Baserunning, pitching, hitting, all of these are the concern of the catcher. The catcher's the only guy who's in on every single play of the game. But it's hard to look at the current numbers and say that ex-catchers have a particular edge - a slight edge, yes, but that may be accounted for as much as a fashion (and similarly the paucity of ex-pitchers) as anything.

If there's a common theme among major league managers' playing careers, it's not playing at a given position - it's playing at multiple positions. Virtually all of the non-star players now managing in the majors spent chunks of time split among several positions. There are as many "utility infielders" managing as catchers.

One also hears the old saw that more managers come up as bad or untalented players who use their brains to get their position in the majors.

I also looked at the playing tenure in the majors of managers. One, Bob Melvin, was a back-up player long enough to qualify for a major league pension. Thirteen of thirty played as major league regulars. Of these, nine made all-star teams at least once and would be considered 'star' players. One, Frank Robinson, is a Hall of Famer based on his playing career and thus may be called a 'superstar'. As noted above, all but four of the current managers made the majors as players.

This is also apparently a trend in management - to get a guy the players will respect because he's performed, and performed well, on the major league level. That may also be why ex-pitchers are currently absent among major league managers: a pitcher's going to have less cred with the majority of the bench, and a pitching coach can be hired to manage the pitchers.

So, in any event, yes, there are a lot of ex-catchers represented, and intuitively one would like to believe this because of the way catchers are so involved mentally in the game, but it doesn't seem that significant if we look at the actual numbers.

I'd like to extend this someday to all major league managers, but that would take a couple of off-seasons. If anybody has more data, please post to the message board.

posted by The Crank 2:49 PM

A Tale of Two Hitters

Let's take a look at some stats (career to date up through yesterday) for two outfielders who turn 35 this year:

		G	AB	H	BB	SO	R	OPS
Player 1		1991	7135	2128	1177	851	1276	.928
Player 2		1997	7379	2156	984	1323	1320	.937

Player 1 started out as an infielder and had some adjustment problems before settling in to play well above-average outfield defense, which he still plays. Player 2 is a gold-glover who has played a bit less effectively in the field of late. Player 1 has averaged twice as many outfield assists as Player 2, though, over the last ten years.

Player 1 has been an all-star in eight different years, and finished in the top 10 in the MVP four times. He was, at one point, the highest-paid player in baseball.

Player 2 has been an 11-time all-star, and finished in the top 10 in MVP voting six times, winning it once. He has never been the highest-paid player in baseball, although was the Number 2 man one year.

Let's look at some less interesting stats:

	RBI	HR	SB	AVG
Player 1	1315	405	203	.298
Player 2	1444	501	178	.292

Player 2 spent most of his career batting third or fourth; Player 1, like Barry Bonds, spent a while at the leadoff spot and has been bounced around the lineup a lot.

Both players have been plagued by injuries through their careers; Player 1 mostly in the earlier part of his career, Player 2 mostly recently. Player 1 is currently bothered by chronic pain and is considering retirement at the end of the year. Player 2 is out for the season right now.

Player 2 has been lauded as a "no-brainer Hall of Famer" if he retired today. I keep my ear to the rail for Hall off Fame talk, and I haven't heard a thing spoken about Player 1. Not a peep.

Player 2, as many may have guessed from the home run total, is Ken Griffey, Jr.; player 1 is Gary Sheffield.

I haven't done the ballpark splits, but I suspect Sheffield's homer total was hampered by the parks he was playing in most of his career -- old County Stadium, Jack Murphy, Joe Robbie, and Dodger Stadium -- while Junior has been largely helped, playing in the Kingdome, Riverfront, and the new Great American Ballpark. That obviously won't erase the entire 94-HR gap betweenn the two of them, but it would make it seem a lot smaller.

Sheffield has always had a superb batting eye, and a reputation as a head case and a primadonna. Junior was well-loved to the point of sugar shock, but has taken some hits in the whining-reputation department over the last few years. I feel very sorry for the guy, with all the injuries he's had, but I suspect if I were making his salary I'd be able to suck it up a bit. In any event, this is not about a personality contest, since neither guy is likely to accept an invitation to dinner at my house anytime soon.

Junior, despite the spin I put above, was obviously a superior defensive player for a decade, relative to Sheff. But the net value of outfield defense to overall value of a player is an open question. I believe in the end a lot of it is aesthetic, although I'd pick a healthy primetime Junior over Sheff if the game was just defense.

I'm not advocating either player one way or the other as a Hall of Famer. But the similarities in the stats lines are pretty interesting.

posted by The Crank 10:38 AM

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

NOT TOO SOON TO TELL

By Diane M. Grassi


Even though it is still only August and there is still much more Major League Baseball left to play this season, the beginnings of what battles lie ahead in competition for the Playoffs have already taken shape. It is clear that the best two clubs in MLB are the New York Yankees in the American League East and the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Central. Both hover around 10 games or more ahead of their nearest challengers, the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, respectively. While New York has a much better home record than St. Louis, the Cardinals have excelled on the road.

Although it is quite the eye opener to witness the dominance of their lineups, New York and St. Louis most likely will take a back seat in the sports headlines to the remaining close contests in the American League West and the National and American Leagues' wild card races. At the July 31st no-waiver trading deadline, the experts claimed that 20 out of 30 clubs remained in contention for post-season play. Give us a little bit more credit than that! While we can do the math, the close division rivalries can more be more realistically pared down to the American League West, between the Texas Rangers and the Oakland A's and possibly the National League West between the Los Angeles Dodgers, the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants.

But the real spotlight during August will be on the wild card races taking place in both leagues. The wild card has historically been met by both criticism and delight from MLB's fans. The traditionalists want to see MLB have a battle to the finish for the division titles of its leagues, with the wild card a mere footnote to make it a bit more interesting. The advocates for the wild card have subscribed to it, citing the Florida Marlins and their World Series Championship as the direct result of it.

But this year the division races appear to be easier to predict with many more eyes on the wild card. And to make it even more interesting, either the Texas Rangers or the Oakland A's could win their division, which they have shared being in first place much of the season, or either one could wind up winning the AL wild card.

Yet, there is very little room for error between the wild card contenders as very few games separate the top three teams in each league's wild card standings. This is why August will be crucial for the various teams to separate themselves from the pack as the season winds down. Oakland, Anaheim, Texas and Boston are separated by no more than two games in the AL, while San Diego and San Francisco only trail Chicago by two and three games, respectively, in the NL.

There are also some trades which could be made in August for those players put on waivers, and which might be a determining factor in the tight races. Already the acquisition this week of Larry Walker by St. Louis has made their squad even more formidable, if that was even possible.

And many still hope for a Cinderella story such as the 2003 Florida Marlins. Whether a wild card advocate or a baseball purist, the fans must admit that the quest for the wild card spots this year may prove to be the most hotly contested races, and the wild card's most compelling story to date.

posted by Diane M. Grassi 6:11 PM

Olympian Task to Find Baseball Coverage on TV

What an exciting tournament we have this Olympiad. Australia, Cuba, Canada, and Japan will try to fend off Taiwan, Greece, the Netherlands, and Italy. Exciting like watching the weightlifters' weigh-in, the Team Handball warm-ups, and the Dressage preliminaries. Exciting like watching black paint dry in a dark room, since it will be nearly impossible to find on American TV.

The selection of these teams is not exactly done with high competitive balance in mind. Greece got an automatic bid because it's the host country. Canada and Cuba made it in via the North American bracket, when both Mexico and the weak US team tanked. Italy and the Netherlands made it in because, absurdly, for international representation Europe had to have two teams. Taiwan and Japan got in on their own hook, and Australia qualified in a bracket that can be called "other".

Let's dismiss the joke teams first. The Greek team is virtually all Americans -- anybody with an "opolos" in his last name who owned his own spikes was eligible for consideration. This really shows what a joke it is to require representation be "regionally" balanced, when only through the tenuous connection of "greek blood" could the host team put a squad together. Peter Angelos, owner of the Baltimore Orioles, was instrumental in making a greek team happen, and more power to him, but it hardly shows our sport off in its best light.

The Netherlands similarly has what may be charitably described as a good pick-up team. I have great hope for the long-term prospects of Dutch baseball, but a serious team is at least a generation away. The Netherlands has one ex-major leaguer, Calvin Maduro, courtesy of its colonial connection to the island of Aruba. (Aruba is kind of an interesting place because it seceeded from an independent country, the Netherlands Antilles, to re-affiliate with its former Imperial masters; I digress a bit but there's some kind of parallel here I can't quite put my finger on.) I love team Netherlands because its coach is Robert Eenhorn, who didn't quite make it up through the Yankees organization but who was a good minor league player. I spoke with him once at the old Albany-Colonie ballpark and he was incredibly friendly. Also, he spoke English better than Brien Taylor did.

Team Italia once was made up primarily of Americans and Canadians with some Italian heritage in their family tree, but has taken more and more players from Italian club teams of late.

Taiwan at least has some of its better professional players on the team, and will probably dominate the loser's bracket. Dodger prospect Ching-Fen Chen is probably the best known name on the team, and probably the only serious threat to another team's pitching.

Cuba might be expected to be the traditional powerhouse, but with so many defections -- and rumored imprisonments -- in recent years, it's extremely hard to figure out what kind of team is going to show up.

Australia's a bit more interesting, with ex-major leaguers Dave Nilsson and Graeme Lloyd heading up the squad. Unfortunately, like Team Canada, it will be missing some of its better younger players, such as Travis Bickley, because their US major league teams won't release them to play in the Olympics. There's some revenge on Tommy Lasorda on the horizon for Jeff Williams. Loyal readers of my work will remember my rant back in 2000 when the Dodgers refused to let Williams, then a Dodger farm hand, play for the Australians while Tommy Lasorda got his pick of the cream of the minors for Team USA. Williams got his career sidetracked with injuries, and being an ashcan reject is now being allowed to represent his country. Good luck to you, mate, I say.

Team Canada is looking like a very good Northern League team, with lots of ex-major leaguers and prospects who are hurt or who washed out early. Justin Morneau was denied a shot at Olympic glory by the Twins, but how can you not like the chances of a team headed by Stubby Clapp?

Japan, to my eye, is the team to beat. They've got many of the best players from the professional ranks. They seem to have a strong pitching staff, lead by Hisashi Iwakuma and the mighty mite lefty Tsuyoshi Wada.

Baseball America's Team Capsules are here.

There's no firm commitment by the NBC Olympic juggernaut to show any particular game save the Championship, and even that will probably be shown only in part and on tape delay. But just in case we get some real games going, here's the actual schedule and the TV schedule as best I can figure out:

August 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22 are the preliminary rounds. It's a round-robin format with two divisions. The semifinals pitting the second place finisher of one division against the top finisher of the other division is a one-game elimination, both games schedued for August 24th. The championship game is August 25th, which should be in the afternoon ET, preceeded by the bronze medal game. The official schedule is here.

TV is another matter. In the US, games are being broadcast on MSNBC (and possibly some on Bravo) and Telemundo. One strongly suspects Telemundo will have better coverage, even without Team Mexico in the mix. Mixed in with other sports, MSNBC tentatively has baseball on the schedule as follows: 8 AM - 1 PM August 24th, 1 AM-7 AM August 25th, 10 AM - 4 PM August 25th on MSNBC/Bravo; 1:30 PM-11 PM August 24th, 3:55 AM-11 PM August 25th (yes, that's the complete time block, but that's as specific as the schedule is right now), and 4:30 - 6:30 AM August 26th on Telemundo.

If you do the math with the time zones, you can conclude the following. No preliminary games seem to be on the schedule. The only times when "live" games are likely to be shown is early morning on August 24th on MSNBC and possibly the championship game on Telemundo on August 25th, which technically ought to start at noon ET.

All this is subject to change, of course, and getting actual broadcast times for actual games from the official websites is pretty much impossible right now. Expect to have to either leave two TV sets on continuously for two days or do a lot of channel flipping and last-minute checking of the listings to find our game in Greece.

If you're adventurous, here's the link for the MSNBC and master TV schedule, and here's the link for Telemundo's linked-in Olympic Baseball coverage (in Spanish).

posted by The Crank 3:29 PM