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Featuring: Larry Mahnken SG sjohnny TVerik Sean McNally Fabian McNally John Brattain This is an awesome FREE site, where you can win money and gift certificates with no skill involved! If you're bored, I HIGHLY recommend checking it out!  
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"you blog sucks, it reeds as it was written by the queer son of mike lupica and roids clemens. i could write a better column by letting a monkey fuk a typewriter. i dont need no 181 million dollar team to write a blog fukkk the spankeees"
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Disclaimer: If you think this is the official website of the New York Yankees, you're an idiot. Go away. March 31, 2005
2005 RLYW Staff predictions by SG Predictions  Comments Sean Injuries fell Boston's rotation as Schilling never really gets going and Wells is average in the ballpark he once wanted burned down. Wade Miller doesn't throw a pitch in anger this season and Matt Clement is the de facto ace. The Yanks finally post that 1000 run season that Gammons talked about last season. Mussina wins 20, along with Johnson and Kevin Brown throws 180 innings. Wright and Pavano are both slightly above average. In the Central, Minnesota and Cleveland feast on the weak sisters in the division -Chicago and Kansas City-and both win over 90 games. Out West, the Angels break out to a Mickey Mantle dream season: Jump out to a big lead, come out of the all-star break and win 10 or 15 in a row and coast home. In the playoffs, Johan Santana dominates the Angels, winning three games - 1, 4 and 5 in relief. But the Yanks steamroll the Twinkies in the ALCS after Minnesota just runs outta gas. Atlanta and Florida provide a great pennant race, finishing 1-2 in the league in wins. San Diego wins a watered-down and Barryless NL West. St. Louis is never really challenged. In the playoffs, Florida's pitching quiets the Cards lineup and San Diego wins three games in Atlanta to beat the Braves. Florida's three aces of Burnett, Beckett and Willis dominate the Pads, who only win Peavy's two starts. In the World Series, the Yankees exact revenge for 2003 and erase a painful 2004 with a drubbing of Florida in the Fall Classic. TVerik AL East: Boston. I feel it in my bones. Their pitching holds up, ours doesn't. AL Central: Cleveland. I don't see Santana extending his pitching from great to historic by keeping this up. AL West: Anaheim. I want to, but I can't pick any of the other "contenders". AL Wild Card: New York. I see the Twins and the White Sox actually challenging for this. AL Playoffs: Boston beats Anaheim, New York beats Cleveland. Yanks over Sox in 6 games. NL East: Atlanta. I've been wrong too many times before. NL Central: Chicago. They have some pitching injuries, but it's enough to push St. Louis back. NL West: I see San Diego winning the thing. That would be back-to-back good years from that franchise; first time since the Eighties. NL Wild Card: St. Louis. There won't be much doubt about this unless the Mets are better than I think they are. NL Playoffs: Atlanta beats St. Louis, Chicago beats San Diego. Chicago beats Atlanta in five. World Series: Yankees beat Chicago in six. sjohnny Arod hits 800 in world series, yet still "not a real yankee" SG The Yankees storm out of the gate by sweeping Boston in the first series of the season, and go wire-to-wire to win the AL East by five games, winning 102 games in the process. Alex Rodriguez hits fifty homers and wins a Gold Glove, and gets several hits with runners in scoring position in winning the MVP. Randy Johnson wins 20 games and breaks Ron Guidry's Yankee strikeout record of 248. Boston gets the Wild Card with 97 wins. In the AL Central, something clicks for Jose Contreras, and he and El Duque combine for 35 wins. The Sox ride their starting pitching to an upset win in the AL Central, as Johan Santana regresses a bit and the Twins defense struggles after the losses of Koskie and Guzman. In the AL West, Oakland's young pitchers struggle to acclimate to the majors, and Los Angeles of Anaheim rides Vladimir Guerrero and Bartolo Colon's bounceback season to a fairly easy divisional title. In the playoffs, the Yankees lose to Contreras and El Duque but beat Mark Buehrle twice and Freddy Garcia once to advance to the ALCS. The Angels sweep the Red Sox, who don't have the hunger to win after their victory last season. In the ALCS, the Yankees lose the first two games of the ALCS, then storm back to win the next four. In the NL East, Tim Hudson and John Smoltz key another Braves division title. The Mets finish below .500, as Victor Zambrano and Kaz Ishii combine for 300 walks, and Carlos Beltran keeps his low batting average from last year but loses the power that he had (steroids?). Larry Bowa's departure and Jim Thome's monster season propel the Phillies into the wild card. The Cardinals romp through the NL Central, as the Cubs suffer injury after injury to their starters, and their tattered bullpen completely collapses. The Dodgers hold off the Padres in the NL West, as JD Drew stays healthy and makes up for the loss of Beltre. In the NLDS, the Braves leverage their starting pitching advantage to beat the Dodgers, and the Cardinals pound the Phillies pitchers to advance. In the NLCS, the Cardinals are too strong for Atlanta. In the World Series, Pujols and Rolen are too much for Randy Johnson, and the Cardinals beat the Yankees in six games. --posted at 5:25 PM by SG / |
March 28, 2005
One week to go by SG Make sure you scroll down and read Fabian's posts on Christian Garcia and Eric Abreu. Garcia in particular looks like a stud in the making. As spring training winds down, I figured it'd be a good time to look at what's been happening down in Tampa. The only job that is up for grabs right now is the spot of 25th man on the roster, whose primary job will be backing up Bernie Williams in CF. I grabbed the Yankees spring training statistics from USA Today to see how people are performing. Spring training statistics are largely meaningless, because of the dilution of competition as well as the small sample size, but they are often given significant weight by baseball management in the case of players "on the bubble".
Tony Womack has been doing a fine impression of Enrique Wilson, but it doesn't appear to have swayed Joe Torre's thought process as far as moving him to leadoff. I'd like to think this is because Torre understands small sample size and the importance of past performance when making decisions, but it's more likely that he just likes keeping Alex Rodriguez in the second spot and doesn't want to move Jeter down. I guess it doesn't matter as long as the right decision gets made. The best news for me so far on the offensive side has been Jason Giambi. He appears to healthy, is getting significant playing time, and has shown enough power to make me think he will be a force this season. He's even gotten into the field for a few games, although at this point the best Yankee lineup would have him as the DH and Tino Martinez (who is struggling) at first base. This is because Ruben Sierra should not be getting significant starting time, and also because I fear that Giambi at first will be pulled from close games in late innings for Tino's defense, which would be problematic. The "exciting" battle for 25th man appears to have come down to Bubba Crosby, Damian Rolls, Russ Johnson, and dark horse Colin Porter. Crosby has been the best hitter so far, but Torre seems to be infatuated with Rolls's and Johnson's ability to play the infield. With Rodriguez and Jeter expected to start every game if healthy, and Rey Sanchez already on the team, I don't see that this matters much, but Torre loves versatile defensive players who can't hit for crap. This is a complication of the foolish idea of going with 12 pitchers. Bernie Williams has been hampered again by injuries in spring training, and is really starting to show his age. I love Bernie, he has been one of my favorite players as a bridge from the Yankees of Mel Hall and Bob Geren to today's perennial AL East champion, but I am very concerned about him this year. Aside from his well-documented defensive issues, his health is a big concern. If he misses any significant time, the Yankees can move Matsui into CF, but then they have to choose from Ruben Sierra or the 25th man as the full-time LF, an even scarier proposition than Bernie costing 50 runs in CF. I hope Bernie can stay healthy and go out with a bang. He is 36 this year, the same age that Joe Dimaggio and Mickey Mantle played their final games for the Yankees. To avoid turning this into a full-fledged season preview, I'll go over to the pitching side now. All indications are that Randy Johnson's knee is a non-issue, and he appears to be gaining strength. In addition, newcomers Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright have been quite impressive so far. I was lukewarm on the Pavano signing, but everything I'm reading about him encourages me. He is apparently quite a student of the game, and is seeking guidance from Mike Mussina and Jorge Posada, and appears to be a very cerebral-type pitcher who studies opposing hitters extensively. I realize the numbers in his past history are cause for concern, but I am cautiously optimistic. Jaret Wright has been dominant so far in spring training. He appears to have matured quite a bit from his days in Cleveland. I still think he was a very risky signing, but he's making just a little more than Sterling Hitchcock did from 2002-2003 for a total of 80 innings of a 5+ ERA. If he can stay healthy, I think he can provide 180-200 league average innings, which will be an asset. I've only seen him pitch two innings this spring, but was very impressed with his command and poise. Kevin Brown's results have been mixed, but he appears to have his back problems worked out and has gotten some velocity back. Last year he was in the 88-90 mph range with his fastball, but this spring he has been clocked as high as 94. I still doubt he makes 30 starts this year, but have a good feeling that he will be solid when he takes the hill. I got to watch him earlier today, and outside of a shaky first inning he looked pretty good. And what about Tanyon Sturtze? I still am skeptical, but he has been very good since September of last year, with much better command, and with the new cutter that Mariano Rivera showed him. He's still a wild card, but as a spot starter and long man I think he will be decent. Sturtze and Tiger Wang look to be the best bets to take any starts that come up when one of the other starters get hurt, and Wang also acquitted himself decently in the spring, and looks to be fully recovered from his surgery a few years back. I don't know if Buddy Groom will take a spot in Columbus until an opportunity arises in the majors, but if so he may be a viable left-handed option if the need arises during the season. One thing that strikes me is how inflexible the Yankee roster is right now. The Yankees will likely carry no one with options with the possible exception of Bubba Crosby, so they won't be able to do much in-season manipulation unless injuries occur. I still hope that Andy Phillips, Colter Bean and Robinson Cano get to see some time this year. The Yankees are also trying to find takers for Alex Graman and Bret Prinz, who are both out of options. I don't think they'll get much for them, but some catching depth to stick at Columbus would be nice. As it stands now, the Yankees are very thin at catcher. We'll see what happens when the games start to count in a week, but the key thing right now is that the team looks healthy and ready to start the season at full strength. How long they'll stay there is an another issue. --posted at 12:16 AM by SG / |
March 25, 2005
One season out of 1000 by SG A few days ago, I posted the results of 1000 Diamond Mind Sims with a couple of different projection disks. With what looks like another close race looming in the AL East, I figured I'd look in depth at one of the Diamond Mind simulations that had a nice tight divisional race to see what kind of story played out. April At the end of the April, the Red Sox had stormed out of the gate, winning 16 of 24 games and opening up a big 7 game lead on the Yankees, who struggled in losing 15 of their first 26 games. The Yankee offense was lousy, putting up a cumulative batting line of .244/.342/.406. Alex Rodriguez in particular put up the putrid line of .191/.303/.287. The pitching staff did not help either, putting up a 5.19 ERA, with Mussina and Pavano getting pounded. Moose went 1-1, but posted a 6.67 ERA. Pavano went 0-4, with a 6.67 ERA. Could the Yankees recover from this dreadful start? May May went much better, as the Yankees rebounded to win 17 of 27 games. Unfortunately for them, they lost 1.5 games in the standings, as Boston continued to play well, winning 19 of their 28 games. At this point, the Yankees were looking at an 8.5 game deficit. The Yankee offense improved slightly in May, hitting .264/.343/.440. Jason Giambi clubbed 7 HRs, and Derek Jeter hit .364/.442/.586, scoring 26 runs in the process. On the pitching side, Mussina rebounded to go 3-1 with a 2.89 ERA, as the staff went 17-10 with a 4.27 ERA. Joe Torre overused Mariano Rivera, as he pitched in 14 of the 27 games, notching 5 saves, 2 wins, and posting a 2.35 ERA. June Things began to turn in June, as the Yankees picked up 5 games on Boston by going a whopping 20-7. The team hit a cumulative .259/.348/.445. Hideki Matsui had a monstrous(get it?) month, hitting .363/.449/.706, clubbing 10! HRs and driving in 31 runs. Jorge Posada did quite well himself, chipping in a .327/.393/.618 line. In this month, it was the pitchng staff which keyed the resurgence, chief amongst them Jaret Wright, who went 4-0 with a stellar 2.23 ERA. through the All Star Break With the All Star Break beginning after games of July 10, here's how the AL standings were shaping up:
The team's statistics at the All Star Break:
Post All Star Break July The Yankees began the All Star Break at Fenway Park against the hated Red Sox. In the first game, Carl Pavano tried to recover from a terrible beginning to his Yankee career vs. Matt Clement whom many felt would've been a better signing, and who had begun the season 9-3 for Boston.
Pavano's masterful game pulled the Yankees within 3 games of Boston. The excitement was building as the Yankees tried to continue their momentum as Jaret Wright faced off against Wade Miller in the second game of the series.
Another fine performance by the Yankees' starter, as Wright pulled the Yankees within 2 games. In the third game of the series, the much-maligned Kevin Brown tried to continue a great run of pitching by the Yankees.
Giambi's third inning HR was all the offense Brown needed, as he and Rivera combined on a four-hit shutout to blank the Red Sox 1-0. Could this be the Boston Massacre part 2? With the Yankees sweeping the first three games of the series to pull within one game of Boston, the two teams sent their aces to the mound. Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling faced off in a much-hyped matchup that turned out to be a blowout.
Johnson pitched well, but Boston worked his pitch count enough to get him out of the game after a little more than five innings. Luckily Felix Rodriguez and Paul Quantrill were able to close out the game as the Yankee offense managed to pound seven runs off of Schilling and his replacement, John Halama. It is not known if this game caused Schilling to start crying. July ended with the Yankees and Boston tied for the division with identical 62-42 records. August August saw the Yankees and Boston basically hold even, the Yankees falling 1/2 game behind Boston by going 18-11 to Boston's 18-10. Jason Giambi and Alex Rodriguez paced the offense, as Giambi went .305/.445/621 with 8 HR and 23 RBI, and Rodriguez hitting .339/415/.559 with 6 HR ans 22 RBI. Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Mike Mussina, and Mariano Rivera each went 3-1. Rivera went through WWWMW™(What's wrong with Mariano Week) in August, with a 7.30 ERA, blowing 3 of 4 save opportunities, and allowing 6 of his 8 inherited runners to score. September With 1/2 game separating Boston and New York, it all came down to September. Boston began the month by winning their first 4 games, with the Yankees winning 3 of 4 games. Heading into a three game series at home with Boston on September 9, the Yankees still trailed by 1.5 games. Luckily, the Yankees were able to throw RJ vs. Wakefield in the first game,
Now facing a slim 1/2 game deficit, the Yankees sent Mike Mussina to the mound to try and give the Yankees their first sole divisional lead of the season, against noted Republican and loudmouth Curt Schilling.
After six solid innings by Mussina, the Yankees turned a 2-1 lead over to Flash Gordon. However, a Johnny Damon single was followed by a Mark Bellhorn groundout, bringing up the dangerous David Ortiz. Ortiz cranked a homer into the short porch in right, giving Boston a 3-2 lead. Gordon got out of the inning, but the damage was done. Alan Embree cruised through Matsui, Posada, and Giambi in the bottom of the seventh. In the top of the eighth, Felix Rodriguez attempted to hold Boston. A single by Mueller, a walk by Ramon Vazquez, and a double by Johnny Damon got Boston a big insurance run. September callup Jason Kershner retired Bernie, Tino, and Womack 1-2-3 in the bottom of the eighth. Boston failed to score in the top of the ninth, giving the Yankees the daunting task of scoring two runs off Keith Foulke in one inning. Derek Jeter led off the inning with a double down the third base line (he is clutch after all). Foulke then threw a wild pitch moving Jeter to third. A flustered Foulke walked Alex Rodriguez on a 3-1 pitch, bringing up Gary Sheffield. Another wild pitch scored Jeter and moved Rodriguez to second. Sheffield then followed with another double, putting the winning run on second with no outs, and Matsui, Posada and Giambi coming up. However, Foulke sacked up, fanning Matsui and Posada, then inducing a popup to short from Giambi. On to extra innings. It was Mariano time for the Yankees, as Joe Torre brought him in to keep Boston scoreless. Boston asked Mike Timlin to do the same. Rivera pitched three shutout innings, and Timlin matched him in the 10th and 11th. Then, in a scene eerily reminiscent of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS, Jorge Posada led of the bottom of the 12th with a game winning HR, putting the Yankees into sole possession of first place for the first time. That lasted for one day, as Boston managed to come back the following day.
An exhausted Yankee bullpen had to try and use Mike Stanton and Buddy Groom to preserve a two run lead. The Yankees fell another half game behind Boston heading into the final series of the season, and trailed Boston by one game heading into Fenway for a three game set. The Yankees managed to pull even with Boston in the first game of the series thanks to Kevin Brown's 10th win of the season.
In Game 2, another Johnson vs. Schilling matchup led to another Yankee win.
The final game of the season came down to Mike Mussina vs. former Yankee David Wells, going for his 20th victory. A win by Boston would force a tie in the AL East.
And with that game, the Yankees clinch the AL East by two games.
The Yankee hitters' final season line:
There are some weird numbers in there on both sides. Sturtze didn't get any relief appearances for some reason, I'll have to see why that is. Also, Rodriguez had a lousy season by his standards, a bit surprising to me. Pavano was horrendous. I find this very encouraging actually, The Yankees won the division despite some pretty bad performances. I don't know if anyone else will find this interesting, but I figured I'd throw it up here for the hell of it. Update: I made a site using Diamond Mind's web report generation feature if anyone wants to see how other teams/players did. --posted at 8:00 AM by SG / |
March 20, 2005
More Diamond Mind Sims - What do two different projection systems say? by SG This post is bumping two of Fabian's prospect posts down, so make sure you scroll down and read his writeups on Sean Henn and Estee Harris. A couple of months ago, I posted the results of 100 Diamond Mind simulations that I ran with Dan Szymborski's ZiPS projection disk for Diamond Mind baseball, which can be found at Baseball Think Factory. Since then, there have been some roster changes, so I set up my computer to re-run 1000 more with the latest build of ZiPS. Here were the *results for those 1000 seasons.
ZiPS likes Boston in the AL East, hates the whole AL Central, sees a dogfight in the AL West, and the AL East runner-up as the wild card. It also likes Philadelphia and the Mets in the NL East, LOVES the Cardinals(which it did last year as well), really likes the Dodgers, and sees the Cubs as the most likely wild card. The Yankee projection was a bit troubling to me, as they missed the postseason 35% of the time. Of course, a healthy Jason Giambi could make most of that difference up. In addition to running these with ZiPS, I ran another 1000 with Diamond Mind's own projection disk. Here's some background information about Diamond Mind's projection system. The *results for those sims were:
In the only league that really matters, the Yankees were about 6 wins better on average, and made the postseason 89% of the time. Minnesota projected as a stronger favorite in the Central, Oakland projected as better than Los Angeles of Anaheim of Orange County of California of the United States of North America, but worse overall. Again the AL East runner-up looks like the most likely wild card. In the inferior league, Philadelphis still projected as the favorite, although Atlanta improved and the Mets plummeted by about eight wins. So Mets fans can take their ZiPS-induced delusions of grandeur with a big grain of salt. San Francisco improved the most of any team, and looks about even with Los Angeles according to Diamond Mind's projection disk. Again the Cubs look like the team with the best chance for the wild card. *For both sets of runs, W = average wins, L = average losses, RF = average Runs For, RA = average Runs Allowed, Div = division titles won, WC = wild cards won, and High and low W are self-explanatory. I kept ties in there, giving partial credit, which is why those numbers are not all integers. Upon noticing the divergent results for several teams, I compared the two sets of data.
Here, W, RF, and RA are the difference between what ZiPS projected and what Diamond Mind projected, The last six columns are the combined totals of the 2000 runs. Obviously, the most striking difference was in San Francisco's projection. I also noticed that Diamond Mind was far more favorable to the Yankees. If you look at the differences in RF and RA, that will give you some insight into why teams performed differently in the two runs. For example, the Yankees projected to score 26 more runs in Diamond Mind, and allow 37 fewer, an overall run differential improvement of 63. Statistically, 10 runs is roughly equivalent to a win, so the Yankees 6 win improvement from ZiPS to Diamond Mind is due to Diamond Mind having a more favorable projection for both their offense and defense(including pitching). One of the biggest differences that I am aware of between the two projection systems is that ZiPS uses Voros McCracken's controversial DIPS theory when projecting pitchers. DIPS basically focuses on a pitcher's strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed, and assumes that their control of hits on balls in play(non-homer hits and outs) is minimal. Tom Tippet of Diamond Mind did his own research on this theory, and concluded that pitchers "have more influence over in-play hit rates than McCracken suggested", so he uses a pitcher's hits allowed totals in his projections. ZiPS also uses comparisons with similar players in building its projections, whereas Diamond Mind uses a Marcel type projection system which only focuses on what a player himself has done. I am also pretty sure that ZiPS is harsher to older players than Diamond Mind, which would be another reason why San Francisco and the Yankees would project better in the system. I would tend to give Diamond Mind a little more faith because they know the intricacies of their game when they are building projections, not to take anything away from Dan Szymborski, because he does a great service by building his disk and providing it for free. I always caution about reading too much into projections. Projection systems can only use available data to calculate what a player will do going forward. These are still athletes playing games, and their true talent level can always change. A pitcher can learn a new pitch, or just find themselves (look at Jason Schmidt prior to joining San Francisco for example). Also, injuries always turns out to be a big factor, and Diamond Mind uses a random injury system which would even that out over a large number of sims. I just like running these to get a baseline feel for how the season would play out if teams and players do what they're supposed to do, which never happens in baseball. I think the more data you have the better, so I'd look at the combination of what the two systems project. Anyway, in a couple of weeks, none of these things will really matter all that much. Of course, to me that's one of the many great things about the game. First pitch in two weeks. --posted at 6:27 PM by SG / |
March 11, 2005
The Inexplicable Cult of "Anything but Moneyball" by Larry Mahnken In last week's sophomorically written column, Toronto Star write Richard Griffin praised the Blue Jays for apparently moving away from the "Moneyball" philoposhy of the A's and towards the more traditional philosophy of the Twins. "It seems the Jays are finally headed in the right direction," Griffin wrote. There's a really obvious problem with this reasoning: the A's are a more successful organization than the Twins. Since 2002, the Twins have won 276 games, the A's have won 290 games. The A's have done this while playing in what is pretty much universally considered a far tougher division than the one the Twins play in. The Twins have, of course, won a postseason series (in 2002), which the A's have not done, and that series was against the A's. But the A's actually have a better postseason record than the Twins since 2000: 8-12 to 6-12. The A's may have lost every series they played, but they always took the series to five games, while the Twins have been crushed in the three series' they've played since squeaking past Oakland in 2002. So while Minnesota may have had more postseason success than Oakland, that's hardly indisputable, and would be by only the smallest margin if true. So why does Griffin prefer the Twins? Because they're not the A's. Griffin simply doesn't like the way the A's play baseball, he prefers teams that hit-and-run, steal bases, sacrifice bunt. Griffin, like Buster Olney, remains convinced that this is how baseball games are won, despite not only not having any evidence that this is the case, but mountains of evidence that exactly the opposite is true. The Boston Red Sox were dead-last in all of baseball in "Productive Out Percentage". They laid down a total of twelve sacrifice bunts all season, they stole only 68 bases. But they were second in the league in walks, hit 222 home runs, and led MLB in OBP and SLG. They were the epitome of a "Moneyball" team. And they won the World Series. And along the way, they swept the Anaheim Angels and St. Louis Cardinals, teams whose offensive strategies prominently featured bunts, hit-and-runs and steals. They didn't just beat them, the beat the crap out of them, by the combined score of 49-24 (an average score of about 7-3). The only team to challenge them? The Yankees, who hit more home runs and drew more walks than them, and were the second-worst POP team in the playoffs. You'd think that this would at least put the so-called "Moneyball" strategy on an even respectability level with the traditional strategy, but of course not. The Red Sox had scored the tying run in Game Four of the ALCS after Dave Roberts stole second, then scored on a single. Never mind that Roberts was on base because Kevin Millar had walked, the fact that Roberts stole a base, and that it made a huge difference, does not refute the "Moneyball" philosophy. Whaaaaa? Sabermetrics does not espouse sitting around waiting for the three-run home run. Earl Weaver espouses that. Sabermetrics does not say that you shouldn't steal bases. Earl Weaver says that (you remember Earl, little guy, won four pennants). Sabermetrics says that you win by getting guys on base and bring them home, and conversely, keeping your opponents off base, and making sure the ones that get on don't get home. You win by scoring more than your oppponent, and that's how you score more than your opponent. So what's wrong with stealing bases? Nothing, a stolen base is a great thing, it moves a player up a base and brings him closer to scoring. The problem isn't stolen bases, it's when you get caught trying to steal a base. Moving up a base improves your chances of scoring, but getting thrown out -- losing both an out and the baserunner -- decreases your chances of scoring by about twice as much. But that doesn't mean don't try to steal, it means that if you're going to steal bases, do it with guys that will usually get there safely. Like, say, Dave Roberts, who has stolen bases at an 81% clip in his career. In the situation the Red Sox were in, stealing second wasn't just an acceptable call, it was the right call. That's not revisionist history, that's what the numbers say, and they didn't change since the playoffs. See, the problem is that guys like Richard Griffin hate sabermetrics, but they don't understand it. It's not about sitting around waiting for home runs, it's about getting on base and hitting for power. This isn't a new fangled idea, it's how baseball games have always been won. Moving guys up with the hit and run and stolen base can help if excuted succesfully the vast majority of the time, but not as much as a couple of home runs will help (In 2003, the Twins were 94/138 stealing, creating about 1.5 runs, while the A's were 48/62, creating about 6.5 runs). If you can do these with a high rate of success, then there's no reason not to, but you shouldn't choose a player who can do this over a player who can't, but gets on base more and hits for more power. The latter player will help you win more games. The sacrifice bunt, on the other hand, is the most overrated play in baseball. It's beloved because it's a "selfless" play, and people want something selfless to be valuable, but it simply isn't. There are very few scenarios where you're better off trading an out for a base. By choosing players who can bunt over those who can't, but get on base more and hit for more power, you'll be successful more often when those few scenarios come up, but you'll win fewer games. The Twins don't win because they hit-and-run, sac bunt, or steal bases. They win because they have good hitters, very good starters, and outstanding relievers. They win because they have the players, not because of how they deploy them. And the same is true of the A's. They win because they have good players. If they started bunting, stealing, hitting and running, they'd probably win fewer games, because they don't have the kinds of player that can do that, but they'd still be a good team, because they have good players. The problem with the Blue Jays has never been that they sit around and wait for a homer, it's that they haven't had enough good players. Playing "Minnyball" wouldn't have helped the Blue Jays a damned bit last year, or the year before, and it won't help them this year. What will help them is when they start bringing in good players. Which, incidentally, is what the Baseball Prospectus authors Griffin rips at the start of his column were critcizing the Blue Jays about. Griffin writes: The inexplicable "cult of J.P." appears dead. Baseball Prospectus, the Bible of stats seamheads, has come down hard on the Blue Jays in its sophomorically written 2005 edition.At no point in BPro's Blue Jays preview is Keith Law ripped or even called a traitor. At no point do they rip the Jays for changing their offensive philosophy. Their criticism of Toronto is:
Emulating the Twins is not a bad idea, they're an organization that's developed good talent, and has been successful with a small budget. You could write a wonderful column on the merits of following Minnesota's example. You can do it without taking a crap on Oakland, you can do it without misrepresenting the views of proponents of a different way of running a team, and you can do it without being petty and myopic. Or you could do it like Richard Griffin. --posted at 12:27 AM by Larry Mahnken / |
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