TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, September 04, 2004

Blown Away

Poor Emergency Planning on MLB's Part

Today's game between the Marlins and the Cubs, scheduled for Miami, has been cancelled, as was yesterday's, due to Hurricane Frances. The Sunday game is still on, but it seems a dubious prospect that even if conditions allow the game to be played, anybody who's just survived a Category 4 storm is going to be in the mood to go to the ballpark.

This has the makings of a major disaster for baseball, because the Marlins and Cubs are battling one another for the NL wildcard spot, and anything short of a four-game lead in the loss column by one club or another will force the make-up of all of these games. Making up an entire three-game series in September is almost impossible. The Cubs have a grand total of two days off until the end of the season; the Marlins also have only two (one of them, ludicrously, the labor day Monday holiday. The one common free date is September 20; the Marlins will be in the middle of a homestand, and the Cubs will be between road series in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, so it looks like a Monday triple-header is in the works.

Of course that's absurd: the players wouldn't agree to it, the teams would balk at the loss of revenue. But it's equally absurd that major league baseball continues to construct its schedule year after year with potential disasters in it. The insistence that teams make up games at their home parks, largely because of revenue, is short-sighted when make-ups have to be sandwiched on Mondays in September when school's in session and nobody's going to come, anyway.

There was one exception this year: the Traveling Expos had to make up a "home" game at San Francisco last month when an appropriate date for a rained out game in San Juan couldn't be found at one of the Expos' several home parks, but major league baseball was willing to pass on the home gate since the road share at SBC would be better than the home share at either of the Expos' homes. Expos' management sure wasn't going to object, and the players' union just wanted to avoid two 10-hour plane trips for the Giants in the middle of a homestand sometime. But the poor Expos weren't even allowed the advantage of playing in the bottom of the inning, as they were forced to be the visitors for a "home" game ; the 2004 Giants will be the only team in major league history with 82 home games in a regular season.

One senses there's a feeling that, well, you can't predict the weather and you can't fight acts of God like hurricanes. But that's absurdly incorrect. If you put a team in Miami or St. Pete, you know for sure some games will be cancelled due to hurricanes. You don't know what year, but it's a certainty it will happen eventually. (Maybe baseball is just taking the same head in the sand, somebody-will-bail-us out attitude of Florida homeowners who build in hurricane alley in the first place.) And it's also a certainty it will happen late in the season, because that's when hurricane season comes up. All the domes in the world aren't going to make the game playable with 150 MPH winds outside.

Yet major league baseball continues to make full schedules in September for both Florida teams, and has only a one-day buffer between the end of the regular season and the scheduled start of the playoffs. Despite the fact that on a couple of seasons in the wiild-card era it's nearly become a necessity to have multiple play-off games to determine the wild card, MLB hasn't fixed this part of the schedule, but instead introduced some tie-breaking rules worthy of the NFL or maybe a penalty-kick shootout for a World Cup soccer game.

It's not just the weather MLB isn't prepared for: it's any unforeseen contingency. Wrigley Field may or may not be falling apart, yet there's no contingency plans for how to make up the rest of the season -- and possibly the post-season -- should the ballpark be shut down by the City of Chicago. Presumably at least Comiskey/Cellular One field could be made available for some games, but not every city has the luxury of two parks available. Remember the greatest road trip of all time -- the 1991 Montreal Expos' 28-game unscheduled and nearly random tour of North America? It was caused by the structural problems at the Big O that caused it to be closed for emergency repairs.

Stuff happens. Earthquakes, construction problems, chemical tanks exploding, and yes, Virginia, the weather happens. You can't predict when, but you can say for sure that something unexpected will happen.

There are some obvious reforms to suggest here:

• Schedule fewer games in September. Attendance drops off, anyway, particularly among non-playoff-contending teams. School's back in session, it's colder, it rains more everywhere except California. In general the schedule could use more time in September for make-ups, so why not also end the season a week early, and take a week off before the play-offs? That way there's a block of time for any make-ups necessary to determine the playoff teams. (One salutary side effect of that would be to allow all playoff clubs to rest their rotations, so all teams have an equal footing going into the post-season.)
  
  
• Pre-arrange "Neutral Site" venues. All of Florida is off-limits right now, Atlanta may be affected by the hurricane. If a hurricane goes ashore on the Mid-Atlantic coast, Baltimore, Philly, and New York would all be unable to host games. If there's a blizzard in April, Denver and the entire upper midwest might be unable to hold games. Why not pick out a handful of cities capable of hosting major league games in advance, in different parts of the country, and pre-arrange "contingency game" dates? That way the games could be played at the time they're scheduled, and make-ups for anything but the occasional rain-out wouldn't become the scheduling nightmares they are. If a few cities without major league teams could be lined up, that would also allow MLB to test-market baseball in a few cities for potential moves or future expansion. Say the Pirates and Marlins are likely to be rained out. Why not play a few games in Nashville, a growing city with a nice AAA park? Or have the Yankees and Mets go to Buffalo, one of the best-drawing minor league parks in history?
  
  
• Require each team to develop an emergency plan for its own home games should the stadium be unavailable. Emergency planning is done by most businesses (especially following 9/11), and certainly by every organ of government in this country, so why major league teams seem to have no clue about what to do when something unexpected comes up is beyond me.
  
  
• Take their heads out of the sand and do some planning in general.
  

Blame the hurricane on mother nature. Blame the falling chunks of concrete on some tired contractor back in the winter of 1912. Blame God for that power outage in the seventh inning in a tie game. But don't be caught unprepared. "Stuff" happens and good management and leadership anticipates the unexpected.

posted by The Crank 8:25 AM

Friday, September 03, 2004

Damon in the Rough

Another MVP Candidate Lurking in the Fenway Outfield Grass

Manny Ramirez and Gary Sheffield have been talked up a lot of late as MVP candidates, and their contributions to their teams have been prodigious indeed. But after watching a game like last night's 4-3 squeaker at Fenway, in which Manny Ramirez struck out nine times with the bases loaded, I have to confess to having some doubts about Manny's ability to carry the team. The "most valuable" monniker, after all, long subject to interpretations varying more than those for the second amendment, is nevertheless meant to embody a contribution to team above and beyond mere statistical merit.

That's one reason Johnny Damon might be considered for MVP this year. In this era where the voting for MVP seems to be moving from the tyranny of the RBI champ to the tyranny of the OPS champ, Damon might not get much notice. Damon's .862 OPS is 25th in the league; neither component, his .391 OBP nor his .471 SLG, is particularly remarkable. He's tenth in the league in that old saw, batting average, among a large cadre of similar batting averages in the .300-.320 range. He's got only 16 steals,

Looking beyond the strange equations of averages, though, there's another story.

Damon is leading the league right now with 106 runs scored. Of course Damon benefits from being the leadoff man for a potent offense. But similarly Manny benefits from being able to drive in Damon, et alia. The man has to be on base to drive him in, and except for Ichiro, nobody's been on base more. Among the league's hit leaders, he has by far the greatest number of walks, at 66, which has put him safely on first 231 times. For whatever this is worth, he's also managed 66 RBI from the top of the lineup.

Damon is also seventh in the league in number of pitches per plate appearance at 4.3 (Ichiro, by contrast, is way down there at 3.5). There is an increasing understanding that the club that wears down its opposition, independent of pure OBP, opens the door to late rallies. If you want your leadoff man to give the rest of the club a good look, Damon's the best in the league this season. If you want to go sabrmetric, he's seventh in the league in runs created, behind both Manny and Sheff, but ahead of A Rod and Matsui.

Johnny's a good centerfielder, although not exceptional. His arm isn't close to Ichiro's, although he's got a big and weird centerfield to patrol compared to Suzuki's right field porch. (It should be said that Manny's doing a decent job in left, albeit with occasional mental lapses, and Sheff's been one of the premier right fielders for years.) But contributions on defense are overrated to a degree, and rarely seem to enter into MVP voting, anyway.

I think the best case that could be made for Damon as MVP is that dreaded "intangible contributions" category which tends to be very subjective. But it's a subjective award -- and there's a strong case for Damon here. At least three times he's scored the winning run in a "sudden death" tie game (ninth inning or later) from first on a hit behind him. He seems constantly to be at the center of two-out rallies and tough Red Sox come from behind victories.

Last year the Red Sox had the whole "cowboy up" thing as their theme. This year, it's been the Unfrozen Caveman Centerfielder, Johnny Damon flying around the bases in his long hair and cro-magnon beard. If the leadoff man sets the tone for the lineup and the game, the Red Sox have a clear MVP in Damon.

I'm a Genius, I'd Bet

(Apologies to Emo Phillips.) I was checking out some of my past pronouncements and punditry earlier today, and noticed this from my mid-season predictions-correction article:

Here's my pre-season predictions from this space from back in April, with some commentary.

AL East
1. Red Sox
2. Yankees
3. Orioles
4. Blue Jays
5. Devil Rays

You know, I'm going to stand by this predicted order of finish at the top, despite the Yankees' seeming dominance. Old teams fall apart in the second half, and Boston's pythagorean numbers are better than this. The Red Sox bullpen may be blowing games once again, but the Yankees are losing to Detroit and Tampa Bay this week, too.

It's always nice to look a little less like a lunatic than usual. Too bad it doesn't happen too often.

How Boring is This?

If the season ended today, six of eight playoff teams would be the same as last year -- and of the four division series, three would have exactly the same match-ups as last year. Boston-Oakland, Minnesota-New York, and Chicago-Atlanta. Only St. Louis-LA would be a new set.

posted by The Crank 9:00 AM

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Yankees Pitching Failures Not News

By Diane M. Grassi


The Yankees had an awful August, squandering their 10-1/2 game lead over the Boston Red Sox which was shaved down to 3-1/2 games. They were blown out of their own ballpark on August 31st in a 22-0 shutout by the Cleveland Indians in their worst loss in Yankees history. Then again, the Yankees had an awful April as well.

Those facts notwithstanding, the Yankees still own the best team record in the American League. However, they have had an Achilles heel since before the season ever started, which has remained their biggest fundamental problem all season long, and that is their starting rotation. It has been suspect and flawed since April. We know that championships are not won in April, but in October. But now that October is within sight, we see that the Yankees have squandered the whole season in failing to fortify their obvious need for starting pitching.

Everyone besides Yankees fans always seem to delight in their struggles, since they have the highest payroll in the Major Leagues, and it is also fashionable to hate New York. But as this baseball season nears its end, some realities were clear before the season ever began for the Bronx Bombers, and is not merely hindsight. The season's primary struggle started in December 2003, when George Steinbrenner failed to close a deal with pitcher, Andy Pettitte, previously lost Roger Clemens to his supposed retirement and David Wells packed his bags for San Diego.

We also will hear that since Pettitte eventually went down on the DL in Houston with season-ending elbow surgery, it was justifiable in not signing him. However, the fact is, the three most dominant and winning pitchers in the Yankees 2003 rotation which got them to the World Series were not going to be easily replaced. An injury-prone Kevin Brown, an unproven Javier Vazquez (having spent his entire career in Montreal), Jon Lieber, returning after two years from arm surgery, and wildly erratic Jose Contreras, who spent half the season t rying to correct his pitching woes and since traded to the Chicago White Sox, all started out as underdogs. Mike Mussina started the season as the Yankees only proven pitcher, but they lost his services for nearly two months on the DL.

Who would have thought that Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez would wind up being the Yankees' bright light at season's end? Having started the season unsigned to any team, after major shoulder surgery last year, and released by the Montreal Expos after spring training, Hernandez was picked up for a minor league contract by the Yankees in June. He has since been the most winning and consistent pitcher for the Yankees since July as Mike Mussina, Kevin Brown and even Vasquez shared time on the DL. Had it not been for the "El Duque Surprise," and an overworked bullpen, it would not be inconceivable that the Yankees would have been overcome by the Red Sox long ago.

The lack of a real pennant race in the American League East for most of the season says more about the lackluster play of its other teams rather than the Yankees' .618 winning percentage. Clearly with their All Star lineup the Yankees were expected to have a winning offense, but most of their games have been won with the long ball, rather than by creating runs. Even Alex Rodriguez has struggled miserably in knocking in runs with men on base, but has still been able to hit the ball out of the park.

With over 50 come-from-behind victories, the Yankees' pitching roster has shown all year that its pitchers on many occasions have given up numerous runs to their opponents in the first three innings, calling on sometimes ineffective long relievers and putting further stress on their short relievers, who have the most appearances in the American League.

So this has not been the melt-down of the Yankees which the press would like us to believe. The Yankees have been remarkably consistently inconsistent, with extremely flawed starting pitching. And their other major problem has been their inconsistency in creating winning situations without the long ball. They have never really gelled as a team, perhaps because an All Star lineup does not make a team.

Unless their pitching has a miraculous revival, and they start playing as a unit, the Yankees future in the post-season remains cloudy. They get shut down and shut out too often because of their reliance on the long ball, and their starting pitching is easily overcome.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see what may be coming. Big payroll or not, it is the Yankees management which is largely to blame for their season-long struggles and its lack of real foresight in putting together a winning pitching staff. Whatever the eventual outcome this season, the Yankees 2004 legacy will be mostly about its failed management and ownership, not its players.

posted by David 9:31 AM

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Trivial Pursuits Part 907

It's not Hot Stove League time by a long shot, but I've nevertheless been distracted from time to time by playing with the Oracle of Baseball at Baseball-Reference.com. It's not actually an oracle per se, but a chain-of-connections generator that will link up any two baseball players in baseball history via a chain of team-mates. (The inspiration is that great parlor game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which one tries to link any given actor to Kevin Bacon via a chain of co-starring roles in movies.)

For example, to link up Barry Bonds to one of the first great star professionals, Harry Wright, we go as follows:

Barry Bonds played with Jim Morrison for the 1986 Pittsburgh Pirates;
Jim Morrison played with Minnie Minoso for the 1980 Chicago White Sox;
Minnie Minoso played with Phil Cavaretta for the 1954 Chicago White Sox;
Phil Cavaretta played with Charlie Grimm for the 1936 Chicago Cubs;
Charlie Grimm played with Red Ames for the 1918 St. Louis Cardinals;
Red Ames played with Jim O'Rourke for the 1904 New York Giants;
Jim O'Rourke played with Harry Wright for the 1873 Boston Red Stockings.

Wirght and his brother George, of course, played for the 1869 Cincinnati club, the first all-professional team. In a chain of eight players, we can get from the first great star to the biggest star of today.

The toy is interesting for suggesting some connections about the chain of baseball knowledge (I'd like to see a version using managers, to see what managers played as players for what previous managers), and it's a nice way of demonstrating the continuity of our game. But mostly it's a toy.

In preparation for the off-season, I'm issuing a challenge to our readers to find the following types of chains using the Baseball Oracle:

- See if you can find a chain longer than eight players; ground rule - the starting and ending player must be ten-year (minimum) veterans. I can't.

- Find the shortest and longest chains of team-mate All-Stars from the first All-Star game in 1933 to the 2004 All-Star game (the Oracle may not be useful in researching this, but will at least confirm it for you.)

- Find the shortest chain that covers the longest period of time for two, three, four, five, six, and seven players.

- Any other interesting chains.

There's no prize, save for the knowledge you accumulate along the way. Post your findings on the message board.

posted by The Crank 8:29 AM

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Bonds and OPB - What About September?

Here we go with our monthly look at Bonds' OBP and what he will need for the remainder of the year to break certain marks. I'm assuming another 101PA for a total of 600.

Target	Needs	Comments
600	564	Looking very good.
582	455	What he needs to break his own OBP record
553	332	This would be good for #2 ahead of Ted Williams
545	238	Beats Ruth for #3
512	041	This is Mantle, the highest non-Bonds/Williams/Ruth in the modern era

If we went 0 for 101 he would end up at .505, which would be good for #13 in the Modern Era (Bonds, Ruth, Williams, Mantle and Hornsby are the only players to post .500+ OBP seasons since 1900).

Todd Helton is second in the league at .459. Bonds would have to go 0 for 162 to drop to that mark. Here is what he would have to do to fall to the level of some suggested MVP candidates:

Rolen .411 0 for 238
Pujols .408 0 for 244
Beltre .385 0 for 288

Of course, most of this is due to Bonds' 185 walks. 95 of those are intentional, leaving him with 90 non-intentionals. Four players, Berkman, Helton, Abreu and Dunn, have more than 90 walks.

posted by David 10:52 AM