TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Dis-Parity

The Commissioner told a gathering of business folk the other day that there's parity in baseball. The rather funny part is that this gathering was in Detroit, and he held the Tigers up as an example of the current system working. He claimed more teams now have 'hope and faith' than ever before.

Far be it for me to dispute the Commish's economic pronouncements. I pick up the paper this morning and see that 12 of 14 teams in the AL have a 2-2 record, with the White Sox at 3-1 and the Rangers at 1-3. Perhaps we should declare baseball's economics fixed based on this sample size, and maybe just end the season here while we're ahead.

What I find fascinating about Mr. Selig's comments is the indifference to the historical record. I'm vaguely reminded of some of the recent "evidence" presented about items like job and economic growth, etc. For instance, the President, in stumping for social security reform and private social security accounts, touts figures on the historical growth patterns of the stock market showing a very nice little rate of return in the stock market compared to the "return" on social security. Looking a bit closer at the figures, it turns out the returns on the stock market were taken from a period starting in November 1987 -- just after the mini-crash of the market in October of that year -- and concluding in January 2000 -- just before the next market mini-crash. So based on the sample of April 3rd-April 9th 2005 in the AL, I've got to agree with MLB that parity has arrived in baseball.

Actually, for the first set of series, it's interesting to note that MLB's schedulers have been a bit clever. Did you notice that all the opening series featured teams that were more or less contiguous in the standings last year? Boston plays New York, Milwaukee plays Pittsburgh, Detroit plays Kansas City. (The teams that play on artificial surfaces in domes also faced off: Toronto and Tampa Bay, Seattle and Minnesota.) The thought occurs again that a more imbalanced schedule, with such teams playing against one another much more frequently, will definitely produce "parity". But I can't deny that having a close series between bottom-dwellers might stoke the fires of "hope and faith" as the Commish puts it, and that's a good thing, despite what the reality of the next 158 games might produce.

So, this indifference to the historical record to which I referred...in the ten-year period of 1949-1958, with 20 post-season qualification berths, as it were, a grand total of 3 teams outside of New York qualified. Since their last great team in 1931, the Athletics went 41 years without appearing in the post-season. The Phillies managed a stretch of 49 years without a post-season appearance, followed by another 26-year dry stretch. The St. Louis Browns-Baltimore Orioles managed one appearance in the post-season between 1901 and 1966. The Washington Senators-Minnesota Twins had a 32-year dry spell. Pity the poor Cleveland fan of 1951-1956: 570 wins, an average of 95 a year, back when it was only a 154-game schedule, and they had but one World Series appearance to show for it. They had to win 111 games that year to beat the Yankees, who finished first every other year.

All this to say: the golden era of baseball parity is indeed, right now. Or rather, the era dating back to the advent of free agency, and in particular the 1980s and 1990s. Whether or not the strike, or the new labor deal, or revenue sharing, or new ballparks, or the price of milk, have anything to do with that is debatable.

posted by The Crank 9:22 AM

Why the Florida Marlins will be celebrating in October

Over the past couple of months, every baseball publication, sports publication, and almost every sports internet site has listed their predictions for the 2005 baseball season. The so called "experts" inform baseball fans exactly how the season is going to play out, as if the 162 game regular season is meaningless. If you are a fan of the Yankees, Red Sox, Twins, Angels or Cardinals, you probably enjoy being informed that your team will once again be playing baseball in October, either by winning their respective division, or gaining a playoff berth via the wildcard. But I wonder how a Kansas City Royals fan feels after reading all these pre season previews and predictions informing them that their team will once again stink this season. Do Rockies fans really need to be reminded that they are in the early stages of a rebuild, and that there will be very little in the way of entertaining baseball being played at Coors Field in 2005- not by the Rockies anyway. In Pittsburgh, do fans have to be constantly reminded that the Pirates play in one of the nicest ballparks in all of baseball but that their team is downright ugly.

Many writers as well as many fans base their predictions on what team they believe has the best lineup from top to bottom . Others like to look at the pitchers on a team because many believe that you live and die with your pitching staff. Obviously pitching is an important part of a team and will certainly play a huge role in determining what kind of success a team will have over the course of a 162 game schedule. One could make an argument that a team doesn't necessarily need to have the strongest pitching staff in terms of talent, but that staying healthy is equally important. There are many teams in baseball that would be devastated by a serious injury to a number one or number two starter or even a closer. Most teams do not have the pitching depth to overcome such a significant loss. Of course predicting the overall health of a pitching staff during the course of the season is impossible, but I would argue that there wasn't one team in baseball that began the 2005 season without some concerns about their starting pitching, bullpen, or in some cases both.

I like to use simple math when trying to forecast the final standings in baseball. I've already been to two Seattle Mariners games this season and I have made observations about both the Mariners and the Minnesota Twins that I believe to be correct. The Mariners were inept on offense last season ranking at the bottom of the league in home runs (136) , runs scored (698) , and slugging percentage (.396) . Ichiro Suzuki broke the all time single season mark for most hits (262) and managed to score only 101 runs. A player who gets on base 311 times in a season should not rank seventeenth in the league in runs scored. The Mariners lost 99 games in 2005 after winning 302 games from 2001-2003. In the off season the organization opened up the vault and signed Adrian Beltre and Washington native Richie Sexson to large free agent contracts. Beltre had a monster season in LA where he hit 48 home runs and had 121 runs batted in. Sexson missed most of the season with the Diamondbacks but has twice hit more than 40 home runs in a season. Obviously adding these bats to any lineup is going to help but the question is how much? What I witnessed this past week is a team that has 6 spots in the lineup that contribute very little to run production. I can't justify picking them any higher than fourth place in the tough AL West. My heart tells me I'll be attending a parade in downtown Seattle in October, but my head tells me it's going to take a top tier starting pitcher and a whole lot more depth in their lineup before I'm watching a playoff game at Safeco Field.

In the Twins I saw an excellent baseball team that should once again be wrapping up the weak American League Central division by early September. They are strong on both sides of the ball. Every season they lose key players to free agency and every season General Manager Terry Ryan finds creative ways to fill those holes. I have seen more than one prediction that the Twins will win the World Series in 2005 and that is not unrealistic. If this is the year they manage to figure things out in the playoffs then there is no reason that cannot happen. Having starting pitchers like Johan Santana and Brad Radke, and a closer like Joe Nathan is not a bad way to head into the playoffs. Many are predicting big things from the Cleveland Indians this season and see them finishing atop the Central division. I fail to see how a team that has that many questions regarding their bullpen can knock off a team as solid as the Twins. Just the comparison between Joe Nathan and Indians closer Bob Wickman is enough to tell me that the Twins will finish the season with more wins than the Indians.

I am basing my predictions on common sense (Along with the simple math) knowing that I might possibly be wrong about where I have slotted many teams. However, I base my World Series winner prediction on what team I believe to have the best lineup in all of baseball. Certainly it must be the New York Yankees who added Randy Johnson to their already potent lineup. Maybe it's the Boston Red Sox who proved that playing as a team and being a bunch of "idiots" was the recipe for success. The St. Louis Cardinals look awfully strong and have arguably the best player in baseball in Albert Pujols. They field a team with enough talent to win the Fall Classic. Placing an early wager on any of these three teams would be a decent gamble, but I believe that the best team in baseball is the Florida Marlins and that they will be celebrating their third World Series title this October.

This is the lineup that Marlins manager Jack McKeon has the luxury of penciling in every day.

C-Paul LoDuca
1B-Carlos Delgado
2B-Luis Castillo
3B-Mike Lowell
SS-Alex Gonzalez
LF-Miguel Cabrera
CF-Juan Pierre
RF-Juan Encarnacion

Yankees fans more than likely prefer Alex Rodriguez over Mike Lowell, Derek Jeter over Alex Gonzalez and Gary Sheffield over Juan Encarnacion. But I will gladly take Carlos Delgado over Jason Giambi, Luis Castillo over Tony Womack and Juan Pierre over Bernie Williams on any given day. If I didn't respect the talent of Hideki Matsui as much as I do and what he brings to a lineup, I'd be taking Miguel Cabrera over him as well.

Send starters Josh Beckett, A.J. Burnett and Dontrelle Willis to the mound with this lineup and I believe that the fans in Miami go home happy on most nights. The rotation does have some question marks as veteran Al Leiter returns to Florida and Ismael Valdez is slotted at the back end of the rotation. Guillermo Mota has yet to prove himself as a closer, but the Marlins appear to have enough quality arms to compliment a potent lineup.

The Marlins have two World Series titles in their relatively short history. In 1997 they defeated the Cleveland Indians in 7 games with a team that had an inflated payroll with many high priced free agents. The team was gutted before the corks on the last bottles of celebratory champagne were even popped. 6 years later the Marlins won a second title with a modest payroll of roughly 54 million dollars. Now General Manager Larry Beinfest works with a reasonable budget, but a budget that was increased significantly this past winter with the signing of free agent Carlos Delgado.

If you are going to spend 52 million dollars on a free agent, directing it towards a player who has averaged 37 home runs and 116 runs batted in over the last eight seasons is not a bad idea. Delgado brings his big bat and strong clubhouse presence over from Toronto and will be a huge addition to what was already a solid lineup. Delgado had many suitors including the Seattle Mariners, the New York Mets and the Texas Rangers. Delgado stated that winning was going to be an important factor in his decision on which team to sign with . It's easy to see why he chose the Florida Marlins.

The Marlins captured both their World Series titles by entering the playoffs as the National League wildcard team. The Atlanta Braves head into the 2005 season with a string of 13 consecutive National League East division titles to their credit. The Marlins will end that streak in 2005 and city officials in Miami should be making plans for a downtown parade sometime this coming October.

Who do these "experts" think they are anyway?

posted by Dean Swanton 12:25 AM

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Why I Picked the Cubs to Win

Sportswriters who rely on cliches and tired story lines may still breathe easy after the 'curse' of the Bambino has been buried, since Chicago already has the 'curse of the Billy Goat' and the 'curse of Shoeless Joe' and the 'curse of Mayor Daley's Ghost' to contend with. With one franchise working on an 88-year schneid and the other now in its 99th year without a crown, it's a wonder anybody bothered with Boston's series of near misses. I'm sure Cubbies and Pale Hosers everywhere would've liked to get as close as losing in Game 7 of the World Series sometime over the past century. Of course, the truly accursed live in Kansas City, where not even the glimmer of hope intrudes on the gloomy days of spring. October may have been unendsurable for the Wrigleytown faithful in 2003, and September collapses in 2004 a frustrating follow-up for both North and South siders, but at Kauffman Stadium April is the cruelest month.

All this to say, I'm not picking the Cubs to win it all this year out of any sentiment, or in hope of another great storyline for the post-season. The alpha and the omega of this prediction comes down to one simple factor: starting pitching. The Cubs came up short the last couple of years because their starters were hurt at inopportune times, perhaps not coincidental to their misuse by notorious pitcher-abuser Dusty Baker. While Dusty's still at the tiller, pushing back and forth with great shoves when a steady hand would do to keep the club on course, there's a theoretical limit to the damage he can do if his starters keep that steady wind of quality pitching filling the sails off Lake Michigan. Mark Prior is starting the year on the DL, but his woes do not seem to be of the rather more catastrophic nature of Kerry Wood's problems of a few years back. Throw in the fact that the best Cubs starter is neither Prior nor Wood but the firy Carlos Zambrano, and a gent named Greg Maddux is the fourth starter on this club, that's a lot of depth even for a club with injury questions. Move along to the "fifth" starter(s) and you find Glendon Rusch and Ryan Dempster, either of whom would probably be the No. 2 guy in the rotation for half the clubs in the majors (KC for one, at least), you've got plenty of coverage for eating up innings and helping the top of the rotation guys stretch their seasons out to October. In fact, I think the only real question here is whether Dusty can be convinced to yank his starters a little earlier a little more often during the season, to save those extra 20 innings the big dogs will need in October.

What's that you say, naysayers? Sammy Sosa and Moises Alou are gone, how can Jeromy Burnitz and Todd Hollandsworth possibly replace that offense? Ladies and germs, I present to you the Seattle Mariners. They dropped Ken Griffey Junior, they won more games. They dropped Alex Rodriguez, they won even more games. They even dropped Randy Johnson, which is no mean feat given how big the dude is, and went on to win a gazillion games in 2001 and over 90 in 2002 and 2003 before burning out last year, all with a pitching staff of relatively modest overall accomplishment. Those M's gelled as a team, perhaps more so in the absence of stars, and as such the subtraction of Sosa, at least, may be properly viewed as an addition. No longer will the Nine taking the field in Wrigleytown be Sammy and his supporting posse; it can take its own identity as a team (assuming Nomar Garciaparra doesn't assume the kind of quiet primadonna role he had in Boston, which seems unlikely given he's got only a one-year contract with the Cubs.) Losing Alou hurt the club, to be sure, but Alou was getting along and had limited range in the outfield, so how much he'd've helped in 2005 is debatable at present. I don't mean to rationalize the potential loss of over 90 homers in the lineup, but you only need enough runs to beat the other guys, and healthy starting pitching really fixes that equation for you quite snappily. And the club has certainly improved defensively; any ball team that can keep Jerry Hairston, Jr. in reserve has some depth.

The final question mark for the Cubs is the bullpen, which has had some issues in the past couple of years. This again should come as no surprise to Dusty-watchers, as he ran his "dominant" closer, Robb Nen, out of a career through overuse in San Francisco and barely bothered with bridge guys from his starters. This disturbing pattern may yet be repeated, but with no established "dominant" closer -- Joe Borowski's on the DL, LaTroy Hawkins seemed better-suited to an 8th-inning role despite having dominating stuff -- perhaps Dusty will be a little more flexible in his approach to the latter innings of the game. MIke Remlinger returns as the regular lefty set-up guy, and Chad Fox, who has always seemed to me to have closer-stuff, takes over the Kyle Farnsworth righty role. It's not a bad group, and while not the best in the league, it should be plenty.

Because -- did I mention it? -- the Cubs have great starting pitching. There's no comparable staff in the league. With three potential dominators for the post-season, that means if the Cubs can get there, they should be the nose-on favorites. And they'll almost certainly add a big bat in mid-season via trade -- they have plenty of depth in the minor leagues to use as trade bait.

The only close team, methinks, is likely to be the Florida Marlins, who have Josh Beckett and AJ Burnett in the Prior and Wood roles, Dontrelle Willis as a somewhat lesser version of Zambrano, and in the role of the Aged Maddux Like Veteran, Al Leiter. The Marlins do have a great lineup, lots of power and a little speed, reasonable defense, and a reasonable bullpen headed by the fastballing Guillermo Mota and backed up with a few veteran ex-closers. It's a good club, and I think they come close to the Cubs, but I'm giving the Cubs the edge on the theory that the worm turns even towards Chicago, eventually. Beckett and Burnett have not had extended success from year to year, and both have had as many injury problems as Wood and Prior, and Willis flagged a bit down the stretch last year. If the Cubs and Phish match-up in the NLCS, we could have a very good one.

So what might the Cubbies face in the World Series? Well, using my own logic, the Yankees have the dominators in the rotation to get them through the post-season, now that they've added Randy Johnson. They are certainly deep. But I do see a lot of question marks in the Yanks, particularly with age, and Johnson has been "gotten to" on may occasions in the last couple of years. The Cubs batters will have seen him if they face Johnson in the series, so I don't think the domination will be as strong as, say, Johnson's domination of the Yankees in the 2001 World Series. The man is, one must note, over 40, and superhuman powers only take you so far during a long season. The Red Sox, Angels, Twins, Cleveland's club, and perhaps the Mariners all have reasonable shots to make it through to the series as well, but while a lot of these clubs have aces at the top of their rotations, they bottom out fairly quickly relative to the Cubs' trio. The Angels of 2002 proved you don't need a dominating staff if you've got a good pen, an awesome offense, and are lucky in your matchups, but the Cards of 2004 replied that a good pen, an awesome offense, and unlucky matchups will sink you without that dominating pair of starters.

Well, I'm wrong all the time, and fortunately there's a lot of baseball to be played in the next six months, otherwise it would be no fun. The beauty of the baseball season is its many changing facets, like a tree that buds, blossoms, and then drops its leaves. So too might the Cubs very well drop a few acorns short of a championship. But if you're a prognosticator, you have to pick somebody, and this year it might as well be the Cubs' turn.

White Sox fans, dream on.

posted by The Crank 8:29 AM