Doc Baseball

Seeking an Even Keel

2005-04-29T23:45:00.000-04:00

"That was too easy," my Mom said after Game 4 of the World Series.

"I don't care," I responded. If the Series itself had been unexpectedly smooth sailing, the arduous journey that had brought us there--three months of .500 baseball, a 3-0 deficit in the LCS--more than made up for the luxurious bask of the sweep.

Even so, Mom had a point, which is why I'm not lurching around my apartment like I'm on the bridge of the USS Enterprise while it's under attack. Yes, it's tough losing forty percent of your starting rotation in the space of 48 hours. However, this stroke of misfortune has generated something that had been missing from my attitude toward the team this year: curiosity. I'm eager to see how the boys will handle it. I wonder if the boys can handle it.

Six weeks ago, a lot of folks were just assuming that the Sox would be around in October. There was even seem grousing from non-Boston fans that the Fenway crew was starting to feel a little inevitable in an Evil Empire kind of way. Now, instead of having a postseason ticket handed to them, the Red Sox will have to scrap and claw like everyone else, without the advantage of 17 to 20 million dollars worth of starting pitching for the next month. I'm looking forward to it, because I think these guys have a chance to prove that it's more than just a payroll. They have a chance to show that they can earn it even when it's not easy, and I think they will.

*****

Tonight's game, however, didn't provide a lot of evidence to reward a hopeful fan's confidence. It was closer than the 7-2 final score would indicate, but just enough went wrong that it never really felt like it was going to be our night. Chan Ho Park, he of the lethally bloated contract, rustled up a bunch of groundball outs against a line-up that seemed a little pull-happy. Tim Wakefield gave his usual professional effort, but he made that one bad pitch to Soriano, and he didn't have the margin for that kind of error tonight. Hopefully Arroyo can turn things around tomorrow.

Turnabout

2005-04-22T22:47:00.000-04:00

Culled from last night's sloppy 5-4 loss to the D-Rays.

Top of the fourth: Manny comes up to the plate with the left back pocket of his extra-baggy unifrom hanging inside out. All he needs is a shopping cart full of empty cans to complete the ensemble.

Top of the sixth: In hindsight, this innocent looking frame was probably the key to the game. Kazmir had been in charge through three, but had thrown roughly fifty pitches over the fourth and fifth, raising his total to eighty-three. The Sox work some counts in the sixth, and they probably get an extra inning against the ever-inspiring Tampa bullpen. Instead, three outs on eight pitches, and Kazmir has enough left to keep the door shut through seven.

Bottom of the seventh: Julio Lugo gets thrown out trying to go from first to third on a wild pitch. That's his second out on the bases tonight. Throw that in with Bellhorn getting picked off of second and the Rays losing a runner on the front end of a double steal, and I suspect that somewhere Wendell Kim is twitching on the floor in the throes of an out-of-body experience.

Top of the eighth: Manny ends up with his first triple in a year and a half because Alex Sanchez is playing center field with a dowsing rod instead of a glove. Interesting choice, that.

Bottom of the eighth: You've got to say this for Matt Mantei: he might not retire the first guy he sees, but he makes up for it with all the wild pitches. Yes, yes he is on my fantasy team. Why do you ask?

(As a sidenote, it's not until the scary unintentional brushback pitch after the third wild pitch before Dave Wallace makes a trip to the mound. What was he waiting for, Mantei to slice his finger and write "Ankiel" on the back of his jersey in his own blood?)

Bottom of the ninth: I've barely had time to enjoy the tying ninth inning rally when I recognize the name of the pinch hitter leading off the bottom half against Embree.

"Isn't he the guy who took Johnson deep twice earlier this week?" I think to myself.

Indeed he is, and indeed he does, on the very first pitch. It wasn't cheap.

Hmmmph. That's okay guys. We'll get 'em tomorrow.

Of balls "borne darkly, fearfully afar"

2005-04-21T14:41:00.000-04:00

(I had thought I could keep this rant in check, but eh.)

Before the Red Sox signed Edgar Renteria, I’m sure they ran an obscene variety of numbers: OBP vs. left-handers in innings one, two, and six; Zone Rating in day games following night games with pitchers sporting a GB/FB ratio of 1.68 or better; and so forth.

I’d be willing to bet they ran a bunch of numbers on David Wells before they signed him, too: DIPS on nights after all-you-can-eat lunch specials by restaurants within a three-mile radius of his home park; rates of decline by lefties over forty years old throughout history; and so forth.

So why can’t we get a freaking tale of the tape on home runs hit at Fenway Park? Are Theo and company the only people on Earth who aren’t interested?

There are two likely answers to this question. The first is that, no, they’re really not interested, and, from a sabermetric point of view, I can get why they wouldn’t be. Length of home runs simply isn’t useful information when it comes to making hard decisions with respect to personnel. I’m a little curious about the fact that so many of Manny’s extravagant forays beyond the 475 foot mark seem to come on breaking balls, because it runs counter to the old truism that a fastball turned around goes farther than a breaking ball sitting there asking to be walloped. Intriguing as this might be, though, I doubt very much that it would be make-or-break data in contract negotiations or free agent acquisitions.

The rest of us are interested in this information, though, because we're baseball fans, and baseball fans get to have animated conversations about useless things that fall outside a general manager's purview. Who threw harder, Walter Johnson or Nolan Ryan? Who was slower from first to third, Piano Legs Hickman or Kevin Millar? These kinds of generation-spanning head scratchers (as Bob Ryan has often observed) represent one of the most unique satisfactions baseball gives to its fans. Not having measurements on home runs like the one Manny hit Tuesday night hinders the pursuit of these conversations.

This brings me to the second likely answer to the absence of tales of the tape at Fenway, one that has also occurred to Big Papi (scroll a little): The Legend of the Red Seat must be preserved at all costs.

To which I say, no it does not.

Ted Williams was a lot of things, many admirable, some considerably less so. But of all the things that he was and continues to be in the minds of baseball fans, two things seem beyond dispute. He was no worse than the second greatest hitter who ever lived, and he was relentlessly candid. Because he was relentlessly candid he, more than anyone else, would want to know just how far Manny thumped that Roy Halladay pitch the other night. Because he was no worse than the second greatest hitter who ever lived, we won’t forget him, even if Manny or Papi hits one 602 feet. Ted Williams wanted to be part of the conversation. He wanted to compete. It is no service to his memory to stifle the conversation, or enshrine his pre-eminence unchallenged.

Why Wakefield Should Know How Mirabelli Feels

2005-04-20T11:23:00.000-04:00

It doesn't have to be Game 7 of the ALCS 2003. It can be mid-July in 1997, the Sox are going nowhere, but Wakefield on the mound will send me into fits anxiety and indigestion like no other pitcher. I mean, at least with Wasdin, you just know that dinger is coming. But with that knuckleball, all bets are off.

Timothy Wakefield has gotten a lot of crap from me, and most of it unfairly. However, since that crap is usually flung at a TV screen, or from my seats waaaaaaaay back in the Fenway bleachers, I feel safe in saying it hasn't really troubled him. Also, for all of my lamenting, he has made an appearence on all two of my fantasy teams, precisely for the reason the Sox just essentially signed him for life. Wakefield is a stand up guy who can and will pitch for his team whenever it's asked of him. Even when he's being handed a big ole gopher ball in Game 7 of the ALCS.

Let's talk about that Game 7 for a second. This is the same pitcher who killed the Yankees in two previous starts that series when Pedro and staff were faltering. Wakefield was poised to be the hero of the long sought after Pennant Win for Boston. Then Grady Little happened. Giving Wake that ball AFTER the Yankees tied was the most unfair gesture I've witnessed in the game. "Wow, Tim, we really got ourselves in a jam. Go out there and hold these Yanks off until we can score. And don't sweat it. If we lose, there's always next year. The fans won't mind. I'll be rooting for you from my getaway car." No, Wake, you didn't need to worry about being labled the New Buckner. We cried with you.

Yes, he will give up those dingers. In fact, he's given up the most of any pitcher in a Red Sox uniform. But he also has his All- Star seasons, his stretches when he's just unhittable, and damn if it isn't nice to have that arm to go to in when a game goes to 16 innings and-we-know-you-started-yesterday-but-we-could-really-use-
you-in-there-to-eat-up-some-innings-gee-thanks. So congrats to Wakefield on his new contract, and may we have many years and bottles of Tums together. And duck when you see my crap coming.

A Word from John Milton on Patriot's Day

2005-04-18T15:11:00.000-04:00

From Areopagitica:

Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed on Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out, and sort asunder, were not more intermixed.

Or, to put it another way, Manny at the plate:

and Manny in the field:

And now for something completely different

2005-04-16T10:26:00.000-04:00

Gleaned from last night's Sox/D-Rays game.

Old-school SAT analogy: Nomo is to brisk as Wells is to A) redolent, B) indignant, C) svelte, D) orange. I think Nomo must be auditioning for my roto-league rotation with all the walks he's giving up.

Thanks to a bit of overzealous outfield play by the Devil Rays, Edgar Renteria manages the rare triple off the left field wall at Fenway Park. I actually saw Todd Walker do the same thing late in 2003, when the carom off the Monster also caromed off the outfielder's foot, but Walker hit it closer to center field than Renteria did.

One of the nice things about getting up 8-0 early in the game is that I'm not consumed by seething resentment as Casey Fossum throws four shutout innings in garbage time. The guy helped bring us Schilling, after all; there's no reason to wish him anything other than the best. Especially if he blooms into the kind of crafty lefty that gets Hideki Matsui out at a key moment, facilitating a rare and humiliating loss for the Bombers.

Wells has the curve in working order this evening, but it helps that by the fifth inning the Rays are taking those "we're down eight and freezing our butts off" kind of swings.

A Dave McCarty sighting! They let him out of the "Break Glass in Case of Blowout" cage, and he responds with a two-run double.

Tonight turns out to be like the mini-bar at Casa de Clemens: nothing but gravy.

Six down, thirteen to go

2005-04-14T23:41:00.000-04:00

Tonight's 8-5 victory wasn't a must-have; it's crazy to talk that way in April. Nonetheless, to lose each of the first three series this season would have been tough to swallow. Salvaging this rubber game wasn't huge, but it was a most welcome step in the right direction.

Quickly:

This was a really disappointing performance from Arroyo tonight. Staked to a three-run lead, he fell in love with his breaking stuff, even though he wasn't getting strikes called on it. Whether or not he should have had some more called strikes is not terribly relevant. Major league pitchers make adjustments. Walking Jeter and Sheffield (yeah, he probably should have been rung up, but still) to bring up Matsui was just about the worst thing he could have done. We're going to see much more good than bad from Arroyo this year, but tonight the Paper Airplane simply folded.

Jason Varitek responded the way team captains should in the bottom of the inning. That homer off Johnson was real real gone. Happy 100th, 'Tek.

Okay, I've seen the clip of 'Tek's insurance triple in the bottom of the eighth, where a fan did about the stupidest thing he could do as Sheffield was making a play on the ball. The fan was ejected, and that should be that. This wasn't Game 3 of the 2003 ALCS, or July 23 last year. Sheffield kept his cool much better than he might have, and the fan was properly shown the door. Let's not make this a big thing.

Foulke is to be commended for picking up an extra inning tonight.

But.

Someone needs to tell the man he's not an Olympic diver. He doesn't get extra points for degree of difficulty. "That reverse-two-walk-bases-loaded pike really impressed the judges!"

This is the furthest Manny Ramirez has gone into the start of a season without a home run in his entire career. If I'm the Tampa Bay pitching staff, my dreams are haunted by a relentless ticking sound...

Seven things I Hate about 86 Things I Hate about the Red Sox

2005-04-13T17:01:00.000-04:00

I get it.

We've been celebrating a little bit too long and perhaps a little bit too loudly. We haven't acted like we've been there before.

But in fairness, we haven't. And it seems to me that the backlash has become just as exaggerated and stupid as the less restrained aspects of the celebration itself. In the spirit of this self-perpetuating gum-flappery, I'm going to look at David Schoenfield's Page 2 column from yesterday and, in the words of Hank Hill, "tell him whut."

2. Manny Ramirez's sudden and magical October transformation from absentminded, dim-witted slugger who makes costly baserunning gaffes to lovable, dreadlocked slugger who just plays the game with a little flair.

I don't think anybody's denying Manny's absent-mindedness in the field; to imply otherwise is to grossly overstate the extent of any purported "transformation." Further, to apply "dim-witted" to Manny's approach at the plate is short-sighted. When he's right (and he's right often enough to finish in the top five in OPS every year) few batters do a better job of working a pitcher. It's not like he just grips and rips.

5. Curt Schilling's bloody sock. Hockey players mock this.

I'm not real interested in Schilling's views on national politics or his relationship to his personal savior, either. Given that hockey players are presently taking the season off, though, I can't see how what they mock or don't mock has a bearing on this occasion. How many of them have risked an untested medical procedure at an advanced age to turn up like El Cid in the biggest game of the season?

23. "Yankees suck" T-shirts. Even more pathetic, lame and embarrassing.

Whatever you think of the t-shirts (and I can see the sense of both the pro and con camps), it's simply a mistake to assume that only Red Sox fans wear them or endorse the sentiment.

30. The ESPN specials. OK, we get the picture: Red Sox fans, prior to last season, had suffered immense, gut-wrenching, knee-dropping pain.

Who is Schoenfield writing for again? I forget. At any rate, it's not like Yawkey Way commissioned these specials. I don't exactly blame Tim McCarver's long and creepy on-air valentines to Derek Jeter on the Yankees. That's what the mute button is for.

36. All the bandwagon fans. As recently as 1998, the Red Sox ranked just ninth out of 14 teams in the American League in attendance.

This is just ignorant. At the time, Fenway's capacity was a shade over 34,000. The Red Sox drew 2.3 million fans that year, or 83 percent of total capacity. Keep in mind the Sox finished fourth the year before. Schoenfield's beloved Mariners drew 2.7 million in 1998. The Kingdome could also hold almost twice as many people as Fenway, and the Mariners had won the division the year before. Are there a few coat-tail riders under shiny new Boston caps? Most assuredly. Does this discount the devotion of the core base of fans? Not in the least.

10. Ted Williams. The best hitter of his day. But a bad apple. In other words, an old-school Barry Bonds.

45. Fans booing Ted Williams back in the day.

Can't have it both ways here. Either Williams was the beta version of Bonds, and so deserved the boos, or he didn't deserve fan hostility, and so was something less objectionable than Bonds.

59. Dan Shaughnessy's updated book.

Crap. Have to concede this one.

82. The strange infatuation with former reliever Rich "El Guapo" Garces.

C'mon, every team's fan base has a player like this. It's what separates the RAHs from the ROOTs, and El Guapo's as good a place to draw the line as any.

I don't doubt that there are reasons to hate my team, as there are reasons to hate any team. Free tip, though: the statute of limitations has expired on the use of the number 86 with respect to Red Sox misery. Even Yankees fans seem to get this. So let's keep a sense of proportion about these things, shall we?

The Aches and (Labor) Pains of Being a Red Sox Fan this Spring

2005-04-13T09:41:00.000-04:00

So there has been a tightness in my chest and a pit in my stomach that has been missing this spring. Perhaps a Yankee fan out there has spotted them? Seriously, I can't recall the last spring where baseball was just fun for me. Alright, actually I can. 1997. But it feels like F-O-R-E-V-E-R. I just don't have that sinking feeling in my gut every time I check a Red Sox score. I wash my Red Sox shirts on a regular basis, rally caps have been cast assunder and Jeter voodoo dolls shelved... for now. The smack talk has even taken a brief reprieve.

I'm sure come post- All Star break, the pit will slowly start to grow in my gut, and I may have trouble catching my breath come the 5th inning of a game. I don't think I could consider myself a true fan if the symptoms didn't return. I suspect the smack talk will return sooner.

As for the superstitions- it's just not baseball without them. I must confess, I have already caved in that category. And it's not the Jeter voodoo dolls. My second daughter was born exactly one month after Game 4 of the World Series. Coincidence? Most likely. But one can never be too sure. My husband and I are expecting our third child early November. Go Sox!

Portrait of a Loss as a Singing Kettle

2005-04-10T18:18:00.000-04:00

Some innings (mostly of the one-run variety) resemble someone flushing a toilet while you're in the shower. You're scalded momentarily, but you get over it and keep scrubbing behind your ears. Some innings are like a shaken two-liter of soda; they're barely started before it seems like you need to mop the whole floor.

The fifth inning Matt Clement had today against the Blue Jays was a tea kettle inning. Part of this effect comes from the mind-numbingly deliberate pace at which he starts working with runners on base. Part of it is the fact that nothing was hit really hard. The heat just keeps rising, gradually but undeniably, until you hear this long whistle and you're down two runs.

Sometimes the line between a tea kettle inning and a shaken soda inning is fine indeed. It looked like the Sox might have a soda inning going in the top of the ninth: the tying runs already in, runners at the corners, and Manny at the plate. Alas, the Blue Jays faithful found themselves stirred, but not shaken.

Friday Evening In

2005-04-08T18:04:00.000-04:00

As I still dwell in the outer darkness of television with no cable, my only chance to actually see the local nine regular like is UPN 38's Friday night broadcasts. I'll use this as an inducement to report in on a weekly basis. Deal? Deal.

While I'm waiting for the game to start, a couple of dribs and drabs from this week.

After the over-reaction to the events of Wednesday afternoon, most people seem to have come to their senses and concluded that reports of Mariano Rivera's demise are so far exaggerated. I'm a little surprised that we're not talking more about Judo Chop!'s game-breaking error. Rivera has a track record of handling the hot lights of the rivalry to fall back on. Judo Chop!? Let's see...getting thrown out pointlessly trying to steal third early last season, instigating a bench-clearing brawl in July, the play from Game 6 that made his name in this space, and now this. Tune in next week when Judo falls for the hidden ball trick. I wonder if the phone's been ringing at Casa de Brosius.

Nate Silver over at Baseball Prospectus (subscription required) ran some numbers to determine who got the most bang for the free agent buck this off-season while handing out long-term contracts. Surprisingly, Edgar Renteria rates as one of the five best signings of the year. Keep this in mind as he gets his Sox legs under him.

If Johnny Damon keeps this up, some day soon he's gonna look in the mirror and find Ben Affleck staring back. You're plenty visible at the top of the order every night, JD. We won't forget about you if you turn down that appearance on The Apprentice.

Yeah, I heard Pedro's noise about not wanting his ring. It gets harder and harder to believe he was one of the most engaging and quotable sports personalities in town his first three years here. Going to have a monster year with the Mets, though.

Okay, game time!

Top of the first: The Red Sox draw first blood on a Kevin Millar sacrifice fly after loading the bases on a single and a pair of walks. Characteristic patience from our guys; Toronto's David Bush throws (by my unofficial count) twenty-five pitches in the first.

Top of the second: Yikes, and away! 'Tek crushes one loud, long, and lost off a window in right field. I don't know what the tale of the tape on that one will be, but man was it starched.

Bottom of the second: The Paper Airplane loses a little focus after retiring the first five batters, letting in a two-out run on a double and single. The Blue Jays lineup is chock full of lefties tonight, so even if he isn't facing big names, this will be a good test for him. He's given up the corn rows in favor of, well, hard to say. A straight and strangely oval plate of blond hair is hanging out the back of his cap; it looks more than a little like a roadkilled tribble.

Bottom of the third: The Blue Jays match Trot Nixon's leadoff homer in the top of the frame with a leadoff blast from nine-hole hitter Russ Adams. Inconsistent night for Arroyo so far: great movement on the pitches, but he's having difficulty locating. Two batters later, he stops to pick up--this is too good to be true--a paper airplane! My minions are everywhere in our neighbor to the north. Arroyo promptly finishes off the side.

Bottom of the fifth: Still 3-2 Red Sox. With two out, Arroyo breaks a string of eight consecutive batters retired by walking the number nine hitter. It's not the kind of mistake you want to see a guy make in a one-run game. But he gets around it, retiring the next batter, and it feels like we've dodged a teensy bullet.

Top of the sixth: Bases loaded, one out, and 'Tek is at the plate. He has the most at-bats with the bases loaded of any active player who has never hit a grand slam. (Forget the exact number; it's over a hundred, and he trrails only Blanche DuBois, who's at 130-something.) He doesn't make it happen this time either, although a fielder's choice provides an insurance run. Still, they had the bases loaded and nobody out, and only pushed one guy across. This is the kind of missed opportunity you often regret later, although they just might get away with it tonight.

Top of the seventh: Blue Jays pitcher Brandon League induces what should be a double play ball from Nixon, a crisp roller right back to the mound. League turns and throws the ball directly into right field. He missed his guy by fifteen feet, and that's not even an exaggeration. The Sox make the Jays pay to the tune of two more runs.

Bottom of the seventh: Renteria spares Alan Embree some wear and tear by spearing a hot liner ankle high to end the inning. The last Red Sox Gold Glove winner? Tony Pena in 1991. Whatever else he brings this year, maybe Renetria will end the drought.

Bottom of the ninth: Man, oh man. Keith Foulke just gave us the ol' Mitch Williams memorial save. Entering the game with a three-run lead, he gives up three straight singles to make it 6-4 Sox. A ground out, a healthy drive to right, a walk, a hit batter (on an 0-2 pitch no less), and another ground out later, the Sox have an unexpectedly narrow 6-5 win. The hits don't worry me so much--they were all rollers with eyes--but that extra bit of wildness at the end was hairline-retracting. Still, it ended up in the right column tonight, so what the heck, we'll take it.

Kazmir To The Braves?

2005-04-01T11:10:00.000-05:00

This is the scariest thing I've seen in a long, long time...at least they'd give up Marte, though:

Apr. 1 - The Devil Rays are in talks to trade left-handers Scott Kazmir and Bobby Seay to the Atlanta Braves for third basemen Andy Marte and outfielder Ryan Langerhans, Peter Gammons reports. The Devil Rays, who have been looking for a power hitter to no avail, contacted the Braves earlier this week about parting with top prospect Marte.

“Our pitching is here,” manager Lou Piniella told the newspaper. “We’re not going anywhere for pitching. But we need to add another bat. We’re very thin, and one injury will really create a big problem for us.”

Marte, the Braves most promising prospect, would supplant Alex Gonzalez at third base to begin the season. While the Devil Rays had Kazmir penciled in as their number three starter, all indications are the Braves would have him start the season in Richmond, the home of their AAA minor league affiliate. Seay would remain in the Braves bullpen.

Position by Position for Opening Night

2005-03-31T12:17:00.000-05:00

You'll see a lot of people running stats over the next couple of days in an attempt to assess how the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry will look in the first year AP (After Papi). Me, I'm not big on long-range forecasting. I'm offering instead an inside look at the intangibles that will loom large for the most immediate business at hand: one game, in the Bronx, April 3.

Starting pitcher

Randy Johnson's paid endorsement: "I Can't Believe It's Not Cartilage!"

David Wells's paid endorsement: "areyougonnaeatthat.com"

EDGE: Yankees, though narrower than you might think.

Catcher

Jorge Posada's uniform alteration: Kevlar cup for those Randy Johnson sliders in the dirt. (Somehow this sounds way more obscene than I intended.)

Jason Varitek's uniform alteration: "C" sewn onto left shoulder.

EDGE: Red Sox

First Base

Tino Martinez, looking forward to: Using four-year-old punch card to get a free sub at that place down the street from the Stadium.

Kevin Millar, looking forward to: Hair of the dog, baby, hair of the dog.

EDGE: Yankees.

Second Base

Tony Womack's off-season: Renewing Rogaine prescription for his eyebrows.

Mark Bellhorn's off-season: Going to the batting cage to work on watching pitches go by.

EDGE: Red Sox

Shortstop

Blanche DuBois's off-season: Repertory production of "A Streetcar Named Desire," of course.

Edgar Renteria's off-season: Playing Double Elimination Rock-Paper-Scissors with Orlando Cabrera and David Eckstein.

EDGE: Red Sox

Third Base

Judo Chop!'s off-season: Developing moisturizer to conceal the dermatological ravages of 6 AM workouts.

Bill Mueller's off-season: Beating the crap out of Mariano Rivera's mailbox.

EDGE: Red Sox

Left Field

Hideki Matsui's favorite "Simpsons" quote: "No hustle, either, skip!"

Manny Ramirez's favorite "Simpsons" quote: "That dog has a puffy tail!"
EDGE: Red Sox

Center Field

Bernie Williams' media blitz: classical guitar cover of Perry Como's Anvilania anthem from Animaniacs.

Johnny Damon's media blitz: tell-all book, breakfast cereal, and lobbying to get himself digitally inserted into remastered Good Will Hunting.

EDGE: Yankees

Right Field

Gary Sheffield, thoughts in the batter's box: "I better get a hit or Paul O'Neill will chew me out."

Jay Payton, thoughts in the batter's box: "I better get a hit or Trot Nixon will chew me out."

EDGE: Red Sox

Designated Hitter:

Jason Giambi, batting for: Jaret from Subway

David Ortiz, batting for: Roy Hobbs

EDGE: Red Sox

Final Score: Red Sox 6, Yankees 4, on Nixon's pinch-hit home run off Tom Gordon.

Gleeman's Challenge

2005-03-28T12:30:00.000-05:00

I came a bit late to this party and it's a bit similar to something I had done before, but here's an unedited shuffle of all the stuff on my iTunes. I make no apologies for the showtunes. So there.

	Name	Artist
1	Midnight Rambler [Live]	The Rolling Stones
2	Last Ride In	Green Day
3	Devils Haircut	Beck
4	I Will Follow	U2
5	Get Ur Freak On	Missy Elliot
6	Take Me Or Leave Me	Rent: Broadway Cast
7	King of Pain	The Police
8	Where The Streets Have No Name	U2
9	Time Is On My Side	The Rolling Stones
10	Freedom 90	George Michael
11	Come Downstairs And Say Hello	Guster
12	Reset	Big Boi
13	Long Ago and Far Away	James Taylor
14	Flaming Moe's	The Simpsons
15	Get Gone	Fiona Apple
16	Short Skirt/Long Jacket	Cake
17	A Man I'll Never Be	Boston
18	Hitchin' A Ride	Green Day
19	Mosh	Eminem
20	Behind Blue Eyes	The Who
21	Apocalypse Please	Muse
22	Why Don't You Get a Job?	The Offspring
23	Swords Crossed	Pirates Of The Caribbean
24	Live With Me	The Rolling Stones
25	Modern Woman	Billy Joel
26	Overture / And All That Jazz	Chicago: Soundtrack
27	Self-Esteem	The Offspring
28	Keep Yourself Alive	Queen
29	The Waiting	Tom Petty
30	Mr.Cab Driver	Lenny Kravitz
31	You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)	Dead Or Alive
32	Battle Without Honor or Humanity	Kill Bill: Vol. 1
33	Feelin Good	Nina Simone
34	Walkin' On The Sun	Smash Mouth
35	I Hate the TV	Violent Femmes
36	Space and Time	The Verve
37	You're A Big Girl	Bob Dylan
38	Hitchin' A Ride	Green Day
39	Move Over	Janis Joplin
40	Somebody Told Me	The Killers

Enter The MetsGeek

2005-03-28T09:15:00.000-05:00

In case, you haven't seen it yet over at AA, I made a little announcement. Woohoo!

Today I'm proud to announce the arrival of MetsGeek, a great new Mets analysis and information site formed through the collaborative efforts of myself and several members of the Mets blogging community, including:

Matt Gelb of Gogs is the Greek God of Geeks
Ricardo Gonzalez (OFF) of Negative Seconds
Damien Heath of Shea Daily
Andrew Hintz of Chuck 'n' Duck
Jeremy Heit of Jeremy Heit's Blog
Michael Oliver of The Metropolitans
Eric Simon of SaberMets and Amazin' Avenue

To start you off today, Andrew has a fantastic interview with Bob Klapisch and the first part of a blogger roundtable on the Mets terrific offseason. There will be plenty of material and banter on a daily basis. I'll continue to blog here as always but I'll have extra content up on Metsgeek every week. Hope you come to enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed talkin' baseball with all these guys.

Sometimes A Fantasy

2005-03-19T12:03:00.000-05:00

[Note: Matt and I would like to extend a big round of applause to our good friend Missie, the newest member of this blog, a die-hard Red Sox fan now living in Virginia. Her passion for the Sox is only exceeded by her passion for David Duchovny. -Jay]

Jay: Two years ago, I ran a free Yahoo fantasy league with a group of friends. It was my first real foray in running a league and, due to my choice of league (point style, weekly transactions) it wasn't quite the success I hoped it would be. [Translation: Matt took the pennant, and it's still chafing me two years later. Matt] After playing in a rotisserie league last year (and loving it), I decided to give it another go. Keep in mind this league is NOT serious at all--it's more of a medium for trash-talking than anything else--but I thought it might be fun to follow the league as it progresses this summer, tag-team journal style. The league stats can be found here.

First off, a couple notes about who we're dealing with here:

Team	Manager
Hillcats North	Matt
The Wright Way	Jay
Lawsuit	Ben, brother to Jay and Evan
JosAsian Sensation	Stephen, Boston friend of all
No Name	Anthony, Jay's roommate
Concrete Donkeys	Craig, Ben's buddy
Little Orange	Kate, Ben's girlfriend, Yankee fan
Bombers	Mark, fellow Sinai student
ILDJ55NYY	Fumiko, Jay's co-worker, Yankee fan
shmets	Evan, brother to Jay and Ben
Sheadreaming	Dana, fellow Sinai student
Lost in C-Ville	Missie, Boston friend of all, now in Virginia

A motley crew, to be sure -- two things to point out here. Stephen's team, the Josasian Sensation, is almost entirely composed of Asian players and guys named "Jose." There aren't quite enough of them to fill the entire roster at every position, thus the inclusion of Jason Varitek. Fumiko is a huuuuuuuuuge Godzilla and Yankee fan, thus her selctions are somewhat skewed as well. It's also worth pointing out that the number "55" means "go-go" in Japan. Thus, Godzilla (who wears #55) is actually called "Go-Go Matsui" and her team name means "I Love Derek Jeter, Go-Go New York Yankees."

Yes, I know.

Anyway, we had the draft last Thursday and since Matt had the first pick, I'll let him have the first shot at it.

Team	Round 1	Round 2
Hillcats North	A. Pujols	M. Cabrera
The Wright Way	V. Guerrero	H. Blalock
Lawsuit	C. Beltran	C. Delgado
JosAsian Sensation	I. Suzuki	J. Reyes
No Name	A. Rodriguez	C. Crawford
Concrete Donkeys	M. Tejada	B. Abreu
Little Orange	A. Soriano	J. Posada
Bombers	R. Johnson	B. Bonds
ILDJ55NYY	H. Matsui	D. Jeter
shmets	M. Ramirez	S. Rolen
Sheadreaming	T. Helton	J. Schmidt
Lost in C-Ville	J. Santana	D. Ortiz

Matt: The first rule of Matt's roto-team: No Yankees. The second rule of Matt's roto-team? No Yankees. With the first pick, and the statistically attractive but supremely unconscionable Judo Chop! not an option, it boiled down to Pujols or Guerrero. The third rule of Matt's roto-team: as far as possible, avoid karmic entanglements with your real-world rooting interests. Vladi's a great player, and his steals make him slightly more versatile than the Neckless Wonder in St. Louis. Even so, I reserve the right to get angry if Vladi has another nine-RBI game against the Sox. No treasonous sliver of "at least that boosts my OPS" for me. I'll take the monstrous talent in the other league, thanks.

The downside of picking first: I don't get another choice until the end of the second round, where the fourth rule of Matt's roto-team comes into play. Where appropriate, pick the player whose exploits will most annoy the co-blogger. How about the burgeoning talent, still young enough to improve, on a key division rival? Miguel Cabrera, come on down!

Those Bombers! They don't look a day over forty, do they?

Jay: Don't worry, I get revenge on the irksome poet later on in the draft. As for my #2 pick, I have similar handicaps in my selection style as well: No Yankees OR Braves. None. Zip. Nada. Thus my rules also eliminated Slappy as a possibility and it came down to The Impaler or Beltran. Normally, Beltran would be the obvious choice being on my home towne team. But for some strange mystical reason, I find that Mets players I select tend to suck it up big time while they're on my active roster (see Phillips, Jason as Exhibit A). There are exceptions to this, which I'll come to later on, but here Guerrero seemed to be the safer choice.

Coming back around, I wanted a third baseman and Rolen was off the board. In retrospect, I probably should have taken a 2B or SS since they were much more scarce. I had my choice of Eric Chavez, Aramis Ramirez, Adrian Beltre, and Hank Blalock. I almost took Beltre but I honestly feel he was playing a bit over his head last year so I decided to go with Blalock. Foolish, eh? Perhaps. But he's still only 24 and could certainly be primed for a breakout year, especially in that lineup. Anyway, I made up for my foolishness with my next two picks (which were complete steals).

Missie: You will find very little in the way of strategy with my picks for 2 reasons. Reason 1, I did not participate in the live draft because my computer is older than Matt, that is to say, dirt. So I pre-ranked my players, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. I ended up with last picks. So much for hope. Reason 2: I'm a working mother of 2, 3 if you count the 100 lb puppy, and lack the time and energy to wax strategic on a fantasy baseball team. If there's justice in this world, I'll beat out Matt and Jay anyway.
That being said, I did still have the rule of No Yankees. Small and Petty I know, but that is the future title of my memoirs, despite what Matt says. Having done this league 2 years ago with Jay, I had great bats, not-so-great pitching. This landed me dead center at the end of the season. So I went after pitching first. Because as we all know, pitching wins championships. Of course this is fantasy and ordinary rules and steroid use need not apply. However the take home message here is that the Red Sox won the World Series last year.

Team	Round 3	Round 4
Hillcats North	A. Beltre	V. Martinez
The Wright Way	B. Sheets	P. Martinez
Lawsuit	A. Ramirez	M. Prior
JosAsian Sensation	J. Varitek	J. Vidro
No Name	J. Thome	M. Mora
Concrete Donkeys	M. Teixeira	E. Chavez
Little Orange	M. Rivera	J. Smoltz
Bombers	G. Sheffield	J. Pierre
ILDJ55NYY	M. Mussina	R. Clemens
shmets	E. Gagne	M. Piazza
Sheadreaming	J. Kent	I. Rodriguez
Lost in C-Ville	C. Schilling	N. Garciaparra

Matt: The fifth rule of Matt's roto-league is a little baffling, though it's derived from the endless font of wisdom that is The Simpsons: "Always do the opposite of what Matt says." In my pre-draft rankings, I'd shared Jay's sense that Beltre had played over his head last year, and had opted for Chavez as my first choice for third base. Faced with the actual moment in a live draft, however, I opted for the high-end gamble over the proven commodity. Safeco isn't very hitter friendly, but if he could hit forty-eight homers playing half his games in Dodger Stadium, he can probably handle Safeco just fine. I'm just hoping that he hasn't already bought sixty-four million dollars' worth of KFC Honey Barbecue Wings with his newly lucrative contract. 'Cause that, unfortunately, is exactly what I would do in his shoes.

During the long wait for my fourth pick, I decided I ought to snag some pitching. I was hoping that Pedro would fall to me. Everybody's concerned about his health, and I figured the Mets fans in the league wouldn't want to put the roto-jinx on him. Here he comes...three more picks...two more picks...curse you, Mastaitis. Now I have two picks in a row and I need an arm. First, though one of the strongest players at one of the more shallow positions: Victor, the other Martinez, even though he lit up the Sox even worse than Vladi did last year. Rule five, kids, rule five.

Jay: Bwah, hah, hah, hah! I really got kinda greedy these two rounds. I knew I wanted a top-flight starter before they all disappeared and I settled on Ben Sheets rather than Pedro in the third round, largely because 1) as Matt stated, I really didn't want to jinx Pedro and 2) I knew Dana would likely take Sheets if I let him fall. As I was watching the draft come back around, I had decided to take Victor Martinez if he wasn't already gone. When the queue came back to me, he indeed was still on the board but, inexplicably, so was Pedro. Thus I was torn.

On one hand, if I let Pedro slide, the greedy lemur would have snatched him up.

On the other hand, I really wanted Victor Martinez, who was far and away the best catcher on the board.

Now at the time, I wasn't sure if Matt would have taken Victor with one of his two picks before the queue came back to me and Pedro was just too good to pass up. So I snatched him away. And Matt quickly scooped up Victor. Having Matt fume was just icing on the cake. Mmmm...icing.

Having a 1-2 punch of Sheets and Pedro at the top of my rotation should win me several pitching categories, if not most of them. Especially when you see who I scooped up in Round 6.

Missie: Nomar, I will admit, is a sentimental favorite. However, I also have found through personal exprience that revenge is a fantastic motivator, (again, see Small and Petty), so I expect great things from Nomah this year. Especially if he cuts all pork products from his diet.
Schilling, again, trying to beef up pitching after my weak roster two years ago. Franken-ankle better hold, baby. ( I suppose if I really wanted to "beef up" pitching I would've gotten Wells and Clemens. Alas, there aren't enough pork rinds in all of cyberspace to support those two on one team.) You may have noticed the sacrifice this has caused in the bats. I'm hoping weekly urine tests will work to my advantage there. The rest of you can take your Bonds and Sheffields and shove them up your Pujols.

Team	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8
Hillcats North	Ol. Perez	B. Wagner	O. Cabrera	C. Patterson
The Wright Way	J. Kendall	B. Lidge	T. Hafner	S. Sosa
Lawsuit	J. Edmonds	M. Young	R. Oswalt	T. Hoffman
JosAsian Sensation	S. Takatsu	D. Roberts	J. Mesa	J. Guillen
No Name	J. Rollins	C. Jones	J. Lopez	O. Dotel
Concrete Donkeys	R. Furcal	M. Giles	J. Peavy	A. Benitez
Little Orange	C. Pavano	D. Wright	C. Guillen	B. Boone
Bombers	E. Renteria	A. Huff	M. Loretta	F. Cordero
ILDJ55NYY	T. Gordon	T. Hudson	P. Lo Duca	J. Beckett
shmets	J. Damon	D. Wells	J. Drew	K. Wood
Sheadreaming	Fr. Rodriguez	S. Podsednik	C. Zambrano	J. Nathan
Lost in C-Ville	K. Foulke	T. Wakefield	M. Mulder	E. Guardado

Matt: I tend to wait to draft pitching. It's tougher to predict from year to year, so that once you get past the premium arms it's more of a crapshoot than most of us would care to admit. Taking a Pirates pitcher is a little unsound, in that he's not likely to get a ton of run support. Perez, though, is young and left-handed, with great strikeout numbers. Plus, his home park can be tough on right-handed hitters (expansive alley in left-center), so I decided to snap him up.

At this point, my draft connection cut out, and while I got it back in time before I missed a pick, it made me a little panicky. Wagner's a plausible snag, especially in light of the run on relief pitching between my fifth and sixth picks, but there was no reason to take Cabrera so high. He'll probably turn out a little better than his season last year demonstrated--a few more steals, steadier defense--but his lack of plate discipline will no doubt add to my already exquisite collection of gray hairs. Corey Patterson brings a little bit of everything, and as a primarily AL fan I was a little paranoid about neglecting steals. Incidentally, steals is the one category where I can see JosAsian Sensation (Ichiro, Reyes, Roberts) rating highly.

Other items of note: Missie saved me from myself by grabbing Mulder. The warning lights are flashing, but I kept saying to myself, "League switch! Run support! Complete games!" I may be a roiling cauldron of regret and envy by June, but for now I'm sleeping more easily.

Missie: Pitching, pitching, and more pitching. What the hell was I smoking when I was pre-ranking? Hopefully it will all pay off come June when my pals Regret and Envy set up house in Matt's apartment, but honestly, had I been drafting live, I doubt this would've happened. Of course, had I been drafting live, a lot more of my life would look different besides my roto-team.
As an aside, I can't believe anybody picked up that sissy slapping ARod. Has Anthony not seen that he is instant death to any team he touches? Can he not learn from the mistakes of the Mariners, Rangers and Yankees? I was one of the few Boston fans not offering up my first born to get him to Beantown in the offseason of 2003-2004, and that was from the benefit of only two teams. I realize grudges will probably not serve me well in fantasy baseball, but a girl's gotta have her principles.

Jay: Did Missie just say that she had principles? Your powers have grown weak, woman.

With Matt snatching up Victor, I plucked Jason Kendall with my next pick and then watched as the queue came back around to me with Brad Lidge still out there. I thought I was dreaming -- I needed a relief pitcher at that point but never in my wildest dreams did I think Lidge would still be on the board. Between Lidge, Pedro, and Sheets I should take the strikeout category easily. Sammy Sosa was just too tempting not to take in the eighth round. While he has been declining the last few years, he seems like he has something to prove this year and hitting half of his games in Cadmen Yards hopefully will equal a bounce back season (not to mention another ten in Fenway Park. Bwah, hah, hah, hah!). So here are our complete teams:

Jay	Matt	Missie
V. Guerrero	A. Pujols	J. Santana
H. Blalock	M. Cabrera	D. Ortiz
B. Sheets	A. Beltre	C. Schilling
P. Martinez	V. Martinez	N. Garciaparra
J. Kendall	Ol. Perez	K. Foulke
B. Lidge	B. Wagner	T. Wakefield
T. Hafner	O. Cabrera	M. Mulder
S. Sosa	C. Patterson	E. Guardado
R. Halladay	J. Bonderman	B. Mueller
L. Castillo	L. Hernandez	R. Sexson
B. Looper	J. Uribe	T. Percival
B. Crosby	B. Wilkerson	D. Graves
R. Hidalgo	J. Rincon	B. Radke
L. Walker	B. Roberts	C. Sabathia
B. Webb	M. Barrett	M. Bradley
M. Olivo	B. Arroyo	R. Hernandez
K. Calero	P. Burrell	J. Lane
D. Willis	A. Kearns	Lu. Gonzalez
C. Floyd	J. Cruz	R. Durham
Y. Brazoban	M. Mantei	C. Crisp
M. Adams	A. Eaton	B. Schneider
G. Carrara	D. Haren	S. Casey
K. Greene	C. Silva	J. Lugo
M. Cameron	T. Nixon	W. Williams
M. Cuddyer	J. Suppan	S. Hillenbrand

Jay: I was fairly happy with my team in the end. It got kinda messy later on and it's worth noting here that I picked up both Mike Adams (Milwaukee's potential closer) and Mike Cuddyer (Minnesota's starting 3B -- I completely forgot they traded Koskie -- who is eligible for 1B, 2B, 3B, and OF) off the waiver wire after the draft! My team is pretty slow -- steals will likely be needed later on -- but otherwise I'm ready to bring everyone down. Yeah, I'm lookin' at you, VanWinkle.

Matt: That's super, Jay! It's good to have goals.

The steal of my draft as I see it is Juan Uribe, who's valuable for many of the reasons Jay went looking for Cuddyer (qualified at three infield positions). Plus, Uribe's twenty-seven years old and should be peaking.

If Bronson Arroyo flames out this year, he has grounds for a good civil suit against me. In the past six months I have A) attempted to coin a nickname (The Paper Airplane) for him, B) argued vociferously that he should be a part of the Sox rotation even if Wade Miller becomes an option and C) placed the dread "Roto-league plus real-life rooting interest equals epic karmic backlash" whammy on him. I might as well have picked him for the NCAA Final Four and set him up with Mia Hamm's closest available female relative just to finish him off.

I wonder if, on the night of the draft, a chill ran up the spine of Ramon Hernandez because, in some alternate reality engineered by Missie, he has to catch Tim Wakefield.

The last two rounds I got knocked off the draft connection, and Trot Nixon was the only remaining player on my list of pre-selections. This was a pleasant surprise. Jeff Suppan, whom I emphatically did not pre-select, rapidly became acquainted with the waiver wire. I think this was the shrewdest move I've made since that dream I had in 2001 where I traded Jose Offerman to a Siberian baseball team for a polar bear and a bottle of vodka. I wish I were making that last bit up, and I wonder why everyone asks me "what kind of vodka?" whenever I mention the dream. The vodka's just a throw-in; the bear's the centerpiece. The bear, dammit!

Missie: Final thoughts on my team? We'll need a whole lotta serendipity to get through the season. And vodka. However I feel Jay is a tad overconfident in his pitching roster. I can't really say why other than a gut feeling and a phone call I made to some friends. I also anticiapte Arroyo's arm falling off as he throws his first starting pitch- thank you very much VanWinkle. You killed Giambi the Lesser and you've come back for Arroyo! [Note: If I hadn't killed Jeremy Giambi, David Ortiz might well have asked for and received a trade in May 2003. But where's my medal? Matt] Really my only goal is to come ahead of JosAsian Sensation. Such lofty goals I have set for myself this season. Rumor has it that is also the top priority of Steinbrenner's for his Yanks.

"Professor Jenkins, my old nemesis..."

2005-03-15T13:05:00.000-05:00

Matt: On November 13, 1985, the Red Sox and the Mets made an apparently innocuous trade. Boston gave up (among other things) a journeyman lefty named Bob Ojeda in exchange for (among other things) a young arm named Calvin Schiraldi. Who could have known that the distant repercussions of this deal would jar two hemispheres? It was like the Red Sox gave away the gun that would kill them in exchange for the acid that would eat through the bulletproof vest.

Now, Ben Jacobs has rated the offseason moves of all thirty major league teams , and has the Mets and Red Sox first and second atop the list. I'm less sanguine about Boston's dealings than Jacobs (a Sox fan himself), and I'm sure Jay will be gushing to the point of dehydration about the incomparable machinations of the dread and puissant Omar. As well he should. But what if karma is the opposite of March? What if it is coming in like a lamb, to later become a lion? What if Pedro and Mientkiewicz are carrying with them imperceptible seeds waiting to ripen in a "time far and dissociate"? Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Errm, I mean, Jay's gonna talk about the Mets' offseason, and I'll break down the Sox transactions.

Jay: Whoa, Matt. A poet you may be, but I hadn't realized you had started down the long road to Xanadu so soon. Back in reality, we do indeed have a tale of two offseasons to tell and, frankly, I have to say that I do think the good Mr. Jacobs wrote his review of the Red Sox with some rose-colored reading glasses. The Mets, however, have had undisputably the best offseason this year and quite possibly the best offseason in their entire history.

For the last few years, the Mets have conducted their offseasons like they were browsing at a flea market; only look, never buy, and never, ever pay full price. Lowball was the game and the Mets hed perfected it. Granted because they had some terrible contracts to deal with (Roger Cedeno, Mo Vaughn, Rey Ordonez) and their surrounding talent just wasn't that good, it could be argued that they never were really in a good position to spend money. And furthermore, their network deal wasn't really finalized until last spring either so they also didn't have the promise of a new, boundless source of cash. But excuses aside, they never really even tried.

What Omar Minaya has done these past few months is breathe new life into a franchise that was sucking the fans' hope dry. He hired a popular, deserving rookie manager, signed the best position player available, the best starting pitcher available, and traded for arguably the best defensive first baseman out there. He filled an important hole at first, upgraded the rotation, and added Carlos Beltran to the young duo of Jose Reyes and David Wright to build around. So how much does this improve the Mets? Based on projections I alluded to before, these guys add about 69.3 in VORP over those they replaced, roughly the equivalent of seven wins. It was the best offseason in baseball by far. I think Matt is coming back to us now, so I'll give ya' back to him. Just watch out for his glittering eye...

Matt: I'd agree that the Red Sox ranking on Jacobs' list is a trifle overconfident. Matt Mantei "could end up as Boston's second option in the bullpen" and Wade Miller "could really help the rotation when he returns." I'm not saying these deals are bad, because they represent relatively little financial risk. Nevertheless, it sounds more and more like the Red Sox are relying on Wade Miller making a key contribution, and that is by no means guaranteed.

In fairness to Theo and co., they didn't get to go with Plan A this off-season. Plan A, no matter how disrespected the man in question may have felt, involved keeping Pedro Martinez. The back-up plan seems to me half-right; I like the Matt Clement pick-up. As I've said before, I'm not at all convinced that the David Wells signing will work out. I seem to be the last person in Boston to have reservations about this signing, but there you have it. Edgar Renteria they overpaid for, even if he's not a bad talent to have around.

Jacobs correctly notices that the Sox haven't really given away anything they'll regret, and that they managed to stockpile some draft choices. Even so, the question marks around this team's pitching remain considerable.

Speaking of, that's the one thing Omar rely didn't address this offseason: the bullpen crew at Shea. I only mention this because Byung-Hyun Kim is still available, and he in no way resembles Calvin Schiraldi. Plus, it might be nice to have some Trachsel insurance.

One final thought: most World Series match-ups, due to lack of familiarity between the two teams, can't really count as grudge matches. What if, though, Pedro and Mientkiewicz came back to Fenway in October wearing blue and orange? I'm not saying this is likely to happen, but could there be a bigger story than this in any possible 2005 postseason?

Jay: Will you please stop trying to ply BK on the Mets? Despite my penchant for crispy chicken sandwiches, the whole prospect of him coming out in the eighth inning for my team is incredibly unappetizing. I don't think there's any way Omar could stomach such a deal. (OK - I'm done now).

The Mets being in the World Series is a nice thought, but it ain't gonna happen this year. The Mets have far too many holes and question marks to win the wild card. Last year, the Mets won 71 games -- 76 if you go by their pythagorean record. Adding seven wins to 76 is still only 83 wins. The Mets certainly could win more if their bullpen comes together, if Jose Reyes stays healthy, if Kaz Matsui improves, if Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano drink Rick Peterson's kool-aid. If if if. Just too many if's for them all to pan out.

But the best part of this offseason is that the Mets will continue to feel its effects for the next decade. Carlos Beltran was a move for the future. Minky was a move to help the future infield adjust. Signing Pedro will only help the next year or two but the fans he'll bring into the park this year will keep coming back as the team gets better and better.

My only quibble with this offseason is the one piece of the future that the Mets sent the Red Sox' way: Ian Bladergroen. Minky is certainly not the Mets long term answer at first and Blade was the only 1B prospect in the Mets system that could be projected to replace him. I think the Sox are going to be very happy with this deal in a few years.

Matt: Bladergroen raises an interesting point about the potential discrepancy between the short and long term goals at Yawkey Way. I say "potential" because they are indeed loading up on draft picks and Hanley Ramirez indicates that the Sox seem to be back in the business of developing talent and not just purchasing it at some huge mark-up as they were during the Duquette regime. You can buy a title, but you have to build a dynasty from within; that's the big difference between the 1996-2000 Yankees and the 21st century version of the Bombers.

The Red Sox spent some money this offseason in an attempt to buy a title defense; here's hoping that Jacobs is right and Theo is keeping an eye on the future between the splashier outlays as well.

Of Blue-light specials, Big-Ticket Items, and Buyer's Remorse

2005-03-12T14:45:00.000-05:00

In our last post, you'll recall, the Fan Satisfaction Survey had the Red Sox rated as the fifth least efficient major league franchise when it comes to turning dollars into wins. Ben Murphy's year-end efficiency report for 2004 at Baseball Prospectus essentially confirms this finding, rating the Red Sox the seventh least efficient team in terms of its spending, "trailing" only the Diamondbacks, Mariners, Mets, Royals, Yankees, and Rockies. This has my curiosity piqued; where (if anywhere) is the leak in the Red Sox system, and why should we care as we nurse the vestiges of championship afterglow?

I'll get to that second question eventually, but to try to address the first I've set up a little statistical thought experiment. This is my first greased-elbow foray into combining sabermetrics (which I understand a little) and economics (which I understand even less). Consequently the tools I'm using are crude when compared to a sophisticated study like Harper's. All of which is to say a) I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to refine this experiment and b) allow the knowledge that you're dealing with a neophyte to temper your phrasing of any such suggestions.

First, I've taken the average payroll of the eight playoff teams ($98,666,863, using figures drawn from Murphy's study) and their average number of wins, 96. I realize this is a small sample size and that that average payroll probably exceeds what two-thirds of the major league teams are paying. But it didn't make sense to me to figure in teams that drastically overpaid for wretched teams (Arizona) or teams whose relative efficiency didn't really translate into notable success (Cleveland). Next, I switched those 96 wins to 288 win shares, and used that figure to determine how much, on average, a 2004 playoff team spent on each win share. Rounded off, this comes to $342,583 dollars per win share. If it makes a difference, I ran the numbers for the eight 2003 playoff teams as well, when more lower payroll teams participated, and the average amount spent per win share was remarkably similar ($330,000, give or take). Using the 2004 figure as a rough-and-tumble benchmark, then, we can figure which players were, relatively speaking, overpaid for their contributions and which were underpaid.

I've figured dollars spent per win share for every player on one of last year's eight playoff teams who earned ten win shares or more, using the win shares provided by the good folks at the Hardball Times and salary figures provided by baseball-reference.com. Here are the ten best bargains from last year's post-season participants.

Player (Team) Win Shares $ per win share

Lew Ford	(MIN)	22	13,636

Cesar Izturis	(LA)	25	14,340

Justin Morneau	(MIN)	10	15,000

Chone Figgins	(ANA)	20	16,000

Johnny Estrada	(ATL)	19	16,447

Brad Lidge	(HOU)	17	21,176

Mark Bellhorn	(BOS)	21	23,333

Marcus Giles	(ATL)	18	23,889

Carlos Silva	(MIN)	14	24,286

Joe Nathan	(MIN)	16	27,500

Juan Rincon	(MIN)	12	27,500

No surprise that Minnesota dominates the list, but it is a little unexpected to see two Atlanta Braves here. Perhaps their continued stranglehold on the NL East is less mysterious than it first appears. You'll notice, too, that most of these guys, while more than mere role players, are not the marquee names on their respective teams. With the exception of Izturis, we're looking at "fringe all-stars" at best, and it stands to reason that you'd have to shell out more for the big names since part of their salary is a surcharge for previous achievements. Here's another list, the dollars per win share for every player producing more than 25 win shares for a playoff team.

Player (Team) Win Shares $ per win share

Cesar Izturis	(LA)	25	14,340

Johan Santana	(MIN)	27	59,259

J.D. Drew	(ATL)	34	123,529

Adrian Beltre	(LA)	37	135,135

Albert Pujols	(STL)	40	175,000

David Ortiz	(BOS)	25	183,500

Lance Berkman	(HOU)	32	203,125

Scott Rolen	(STL)	38	226,974

Hideki Matsui	(NYY)	30	233,333

Jim Edmonds	(STL)	36	259,259

Johnny Damon	(BOS)	27	296,296

Vladi Guerrero	(ANA)	29	379,310

Gary Sheffield	(NYY)	31	419,355

Derek Jeter	(NYY)	26	715,384

JUDO CHOP!	(NYY)	30	733,333

Manny Ramirez	(BOS)	27	833,333

Bear in mind that the eight playoff teams spent, on average, $342,583 per win share. Here again, Minnesota looks shrewd; the Twins only had one bona fide all-star, and their return on him from a financial perspective was twice as good as the next most efficient all-star, J. D. Drew. The three MVP candidates in St. Louis weren't merely astoundingly productive; they provided better than average bang for the buck as well. The same can be said of Johnny Damon and David Ortiz for the Sox, and Hideki Matsui for the Yankees.

Of course the Yankees also overpaid, relatively speaking, for Sheffield, A-Rod, and Jeter. Scratch a little deeper, beneath the ten win share threshold, and it gets worse. Jason Giambi was paid 1.5 million dollars per win share, and this wasn't even the Yankees' grossest inefficiency. Kevin Brown earned $1,746,031 per win share, and that wasn't the Yankees' grossest inefficiency either. Mike Mussina earned $1,777,778 per win share. We're all aware of how stifling the former two contracts proved last year, but Mussina seems to have received a free pass when he was every bit as disappointing as Brown, dollar for dollar.

I began, though, by asking about the leaks in the Red Sox salary structure. Manny is clearly one, and this explains Theo Epstein's otherwise baffling desire to trade one of the best right-handed bats in the American League. It's not that Manny isn't productive; it's that his contract renders it nearly impossible for his production to make budgetary sense. To bring his contract into line with the going rate for win shares, he needed to post 66 win shares last year. To put this in perspective, the most productive season on record in terms of win shares is Honus Wagner's 59 in 1908.

Other leaks? Curt Schilling made $545,455 per win share, somewhat inefficient but not extravagantly so. Varitek was slightly inefficient, receiving $405,882 per win share, although it could be argued that his intangibles make up the $60,000 per share difference. The primary culprit? The now departed Pedro Martinez received just over a million dollars a win share, and Derek Lowe received $750,000 per win share, another substantial waste in relative terms.

So, again, why should we care? Consider the contracts of Jason Varitek and Edgar Renteria, each making roughly 10 million bucks this year. To "break even" in terms of efficiency, 'Tek and Renteria would need to post 29 win shares each. Last year they eached earned 17. Ten million dollars a year only makes financial sense if you're getting an MVP candidate. I like both these guys, but they'd have to drastically and improbably improve to earn what they're going to be paid next year. When you give out those kind of contracts, you need to find a lot of 2004 Mark Bellhorns to bring your budget back into line.

Is The Corn Well Pleased?

2005-03-01T21:14:00.000-05:00

Matt: Today ESPN released the results of this year's fan satisfaction survey, ranking all 92 franchises in the three major professional sports. The results were intriguing; my hometown team, fresh off one of the most inspiring runs in postseason history, rated a mere fourteenth out of thirty teams. Apparently Diamondbacks Nation gets more out of its baseball experience than Sox fans, as do the staunch devotees of the Milwaukee Brewers. My co-blogger will speak to this more in a moment, but the New York Mets finished a distant, call-a-hearse last. The Anaheim Angels finished first, which leads me to the conclusion that it must be considerably less difficult to please seven people than it is to minister to the needs of several million, conservatively estimated.

Satisfaction, as the poll defines it, consists of eight categories: Bang for the Buck (basically the efficiency with which an organization turns fan dollars into wins), Fan Relations, Ownership, Affordability, Stadium Experience, Players (effort and off-field likability), Coaching/Managing, and Championship Expectations. The breakdown ESPN provides shows each team's ranking with respect to all professional teams. Here's how the Red Sox rank with respect to other baseball teams, i. e. out of 30 rather than out of 92.

Red Sox Fan Rankings
Bang for the Buck	26th	Stadium Experience	13th
Fan Relations	12th	Players	9th
Ownership	3rd	Coaching/Managing	18th
Affordability	30th (last)	Championships Won/Expected	3rd

The Red Sox rate well in what I'll call competition factors; Boston fans like their players and they like their chances. Leadership factors are more ambiguous; we like our owners but aren't crazy about our coaches. A little unfair to Terry Francona, in my opinion, but only a little. Economic factors, predictably, are what really drag the organization down. The cost of the cheap seats at Fenway has tripled in fifteen years. I know that ticket prices are up all over baseball, but I'd wager that this increase far exceeds the industry standard rate of inflation. What is a little more surprising, perhaps, is that despite all the lip service paid to Moneyball theory on Yawkey Way, the Sox have not been particularly efficient with their revenues, although I doubt many fans would complain at this point. (Keep in mind that bang for the buck, according to the survey's methodology, is computed objectively rather than left to the fans to ascertain.)

The real surprise here is what I'll call outreach factors. Since the new ownership grabbed the reins in 2003, it has made a concerted effort to make Fenway more friendly. Even so, fans are finding the accessibility of the players and the ambience of the lyric little bandbox only middling. I'll have more to say about this in a minute, but I'll let Jay jump in here with his take on how the Mets rated.

Jay: Not surprisingly, after seasons in which the Mets scraped together 75, 66, and 71 wins while the payroll was 6th, 4th, and 3rd overall respectively, the Mets finished dead last in the fan rankings. And, as you can see, they stunk it up across the board:

Mets Fan Rankings
Mets Bang for the Buck	28th	Stadium	29th
Mets Fan Relations	28th	Players	29th
Ownership	13th	Coaching	28th
Affordability	29th	Championships Won/Expected	13th

The only two categories that the Mets fared halfway decent in were ownership and championships. The Mets ownership, which has actually been fairly brutalized the past few years by the NY media, may have gotten a bump in this survey by the hiring of Omar Minaya (which was back in late September). It's not very likely that the signings of Carlos Beltran and Pedro Martinez factored in since they came much, much later.

As for the championships, I think I speak for all Met fans when I say that as long as we have a talented, hard-working team, we're fairly happy. 1986 is still pretty fresh in the minds of most people my age and older and, since it was such a spectacular postseason (sorry Matt), I think that itch has still been scratched fairly well.

The Mets were pretty awful in everything else and, looking back at the last three years, I can't say I disagree with them. The teams were old and injured, Art Howe became a punch line, the Mets raised ticket prices and instituted that silly 'tiered' pricing plan, and Shea, as lovable as it is to us, really hasn't aged very well and honestly repels fans of any other team. As for Fan Relations, they've been non-existent.

That is, of course, until this offseason. I'll say a bit more about that in a sec but my co-blogger is hopping up and down faster than Homer waiting to go to the chili cookoff. OK! OK! Here's the blog again!

Matt: I just want to unpack, quick-like, the lukewarm figures the Sox posted in the outreach categories, and speculate a little on the methodology of the survey. The Red Sox have improved in these categories over the past couple of years, and I must admit that on the increasingly rare occasions that I make it to Fenway it does seem to be a more fan-friendly place. Note that "increasingly rare occasions," though. It is something of a vexation to me (and, I suspect, to other fans as well) that it has become so difficult to swing tickets, and an additional trial that the Red Sox are so rarely on free television. I know, I know, the isolated rantings of a quasi-indigent coot, except that they might partially account for the relatively low "accessibility" score the organization posted this time around. (I don't envy Mets fans much, but I'll frankly admit to being jealous of the fact that they don't have to plan a trip to the ballpark six months in advance.) It should be noted that these rankings don't register the massive trophy-sharing initiative undertaken by the Hair Club for Men this winter, so it might be the case that this problem is, in some sense, already solved.

Which brings me to the question of the study's methodology. What got me musing on this whole thing in the first place was the fact that my team's middling ranking seemed to confirm a popular misconception about Red Sox fans. We're whiny, insatiable, and utterly incapable of appreciating just how good we have it. This isn't true of most Sox fans my age, I don't think, and a closer look at how the survey was conducted will bear this out. The eight categories outlined above were weighted in accordance with fan priorities. "For example," the methodology explanation informs us, "fans rated Affordability about 20 percent more important than Stadium Experience, so that's the weight we assigned it." The methodology never makes this explicit, but my hunch is that this weighting is based on national results, rather than adjusted for the preferences of individual markets. Of the eight categories, Championships Expected or Won rated dead last in terms of importance. This simply isn't reflective of the priorities in Red Sox Nation. I don't know too many Sox fans who would rate "Stadium Experience" above Championships, especially when "Stadium Experience" is tied to "quality of game-day promotions." Bottom line: that fourteenth ranking aside, I suspect that most Sox fans are considerably more content than some of its more prominent "representatives" would have you believe, and that future rankings will likely bear this out. Here endeth the rant: back to the sane guy.

Jay: I think Matt may be using "sane" a bit too liberally. But he does bring up some good points on the methodology. My nitpick, however, doesn't concern any particular category but I do wonder about the time period of the survey. If you polled Mets fans today on those same eight categories, I'm willing to bet you would see substantial gains in virually all categories except Bang For Buck and Stadium.

We signed the top two free agents in the offseason. We have a new manager who's running a tightly controlled, discipline laden spring training and expectations for this team couldn't be higher. We have Jose Reyes healthy, happy, and running around like crazy. We have an owner who has stepped out of the spotlight and let the GM do his job. We finally have a team that seems to have a plan, a direction, and if you look closely you can see the backbone of a young talented team that will be able to contend for a very long time.

The last three years can't be erased and they won't be forgotten. They even may come back to haunt us, ala Scott Kazmir. But the Mets have eased the pain of the fan base, and totally changed their psyche, with all of the changes they've made in this spectacular offseason.

Next year, when this survey comes out, it will certainly be interesting to see how high the Mets rise.

(Note: The cryptic title of this piece comes from this creepy little story and is frequently quoted by our good friend Missie. As a Red Sox fan, she is currently very well pleased.)

"There can be only five!"

2005-02-28T16:33:00.000-05:00

This little nugget of potential strife lurks within an otherwise appropriately laudatory article on Tim Wakefield in today's Globe:

[Wakefield] assumes he will be a starter again this season, though a healthy Wade Miller seemingly would leave manager Terry Francona with a choice of bumping Wakefield or Bronson Arroyo from the rotation. [...] "I know the situation with Wade Miller, too," he said. "I don't see any reason why I should be the guy who goes to the bullpen."

I don't think I was happier for anyone in the champagne-soaked visitors' locker room in St. Louis last October than Tim Wakefield. He'd endured the most for this city and this team; he'd been the direct recipient of Aaron Boone's unkind cut the year before. Perhaps the most horrible sports-related feeling of my life was seeing the venerable knuckler in tears after that game, apologizing for letting the team down when he'd done no such thing. This was a man who deserved better, not just for his performance but for the sincerity of his pain in an era when excuses and ego so often preclude a real sense of responsibility, however admirably misguided.

Having said that, forced to choose between sending Wake or The Paper Airplane to the bullpen, I'd have to send Wake. I'll get to my reasons in a moment, but first let's examine Wakefield's elaboration of his own case for starting, drawn from the same link as above.

I think Bronson's the more likely candidate for [the bullpen]. He's more of a situational type of guy. He can come in and get righties out better than lefties out. I can get both guys out.

Many Red Sox fans would find this plausible on the surface, as Arroyo struggled conspicuously with lefties at times last year, but the numbers over the course of the season don't bear out Wakefield's assertion. Here are the lefty/ righty splits for each pitcher, in OBP/SLG/OPS format.

Wake vs. lefties: .295/.360/.656
Wake vs. righties: .366/.514/.879
Wake for the season: .333/.441/.775

Arroyo vs. lefties: .341/.429/.769
Arroyo vs. righties: .283/.375/.658
Arroyo for the season: .314/.403/.716

We might notice, at first, that Wakefield was really tough on lefties last year. However, Arroyo was just as tough on righties, and his struggles against southpaws seem to have been somewhat exaggerated in the popular imagination. At the very least, Arroyo is no more "situational" than Wakefield is, going by last year's numbers. Wait, though. Wakefield has another reason why Arroyo should be sent to the bullpen, should push come to shove.

At his age [28], he might be a little more resilient than I am right now.

This might actually be true, but I think that Arroyo's age argues for his inclusion in the rotation rather than against it. Last year was Arroyo's first year as a starter and he finished 11th in the league in ERA, 11th in K/9, and 6th in WHIP. He didn't pile up a ton of innings, and he hit a lot of batters. Stack him up against Yankee Auxiliary Rotation Savior Carl Pavano, though, and something interesting emerges. Arroyo had a better strikeout rate than Pavano and a comparable WHIP, in spite of the fact that he pitched in a tougher league and a much tougher home park. Plus, he's a year younger than Pavano. In other words, his age suggests that he could continue to develop, and the rotation is where he can best find the innings to do it.

It should be pointed out that there's no guarantee that Wade Miller will be ready by April, or that David Wells will be able to drag his Crisco-assisted guile to the mound 33 times this year. It's quite possible that the "odd man out" between Wakefield and Arroyo could end up making fifteen to twenty starts as health in the rest of the rotation waxes and wanes.

It should also be pointed out, however, that Wakefield's most valuable work last October came in Game 3 of the ALCS, when he spared his mates some worthless innings in a blowout so that they could contribute indispensable outs in the following two marathons, and in Game 5, when he refused to let three passed balls in an inning amount to a winning run. Both of those appearances were out of the bullpen, and a veteran handled them better than an emerging talent could have. I understand that Wakefield would prefer to start, but his signature virtue throughout his tenure in Boston has been his ability to subordinate his preferences to the needs of his team. Hopefully, if the time comes, he'll respond with as much character and dignity as he always has.

Attention Omar Minaya

2005-02-21T19:22:00.000-05:00

From Peter Gammons' most recent ESPN column:

There's also Byung-Hyun Kim, who actually has thrown the ball better thus far this spring than he has the last two years. The Kim who pitched in Arizona would be another welcome addition, but there are layers of issues that cloud his return to Boston. More likely, he will end up being traded to one of the teams that intend to come watch him this spring, among them the Mets, Astros, Brewers, Rockies and Dodgers. But with the concerns about the use of Timlin and Embree the last two years, the Sox will not give Kim away if he can pitch in the seventh or eighth inning.

Gammons is, if anything, grossly understating Kim's potential. He's clutch. He's a tremendous clubhouse presence. Highly coachable. You are getting sleepy. BK is the kind of talent that thrives in the bright lights of the major markets. The Mets are just one piece away. Very sleepy. And that missing piece is Byung-Hyun Kim. You can't afford to let the Brewers scoop him up. That would shift the balance of power in the National League. You are now completely relaxed. Hurry, Omar. Before it's too late.

Dammit, how does Billy Beane do it, anyway?

Gathered Wool

2005-02-20T13:45:00.000-05:00

I just caught up with a smart piece over at RotoJunkie investigating the effect that switching from the NL to the AL has on starting pitchers. There's a lot of buzz about the boost Pedro will get from a free out every nine batters, but we don't often think about the reverse impact of suddenly being deprived of this luxury. In light of the fact that the marquee teams in the AL East have imported Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, Wade Miller and Matt Clement from the senior circuit, it will be interesing to see who makes the adjustment more quickly.

How the heck do you project VORP for a knuckleballer, anyway? Is there some poor equivalent of Doug Mirabelli slaving away in the thankless employ of the PECOTA people? Or do they just drop a jumping bean on a scattered pile of bingo cards and see where it stops?

The defending world champions haven't started the season with a new shortstop since the '92 Blue Jays replaced Manny Lee with Tony Fernandez for 1993.

Speaking of the offseason's Three Shortstop Monte, I'm not at all sorry that David Eckstein has taken his .332 slugging percentage to a place where he will trouble the Red Sox no longer (or at least much less...stupid interleague play). He was a mere 17 for 36 against Boston during the regular season last year. I know I should be inspired by his tireless efforts to maximize his modest physical gifts, but man do I hate that twerp.

Robert De Niro has charged headlong into so many bad movies of late that I'm led to believe that Wendell Kim is his agent.

Speaking of third base coaches, Varitek has nobly defended third-base coach Dale Sveum. I have the same concerns that most Sox fans do with respect to Sveum, but I also think his missteps are magnified by the fact that he follows someone who was actually pretty good. How many people remember leaving a game upset over a Mike Cubbage decision?

I just saw a box of new Chocolate Lucky Charms at the grocery store. Somewhere in the wilderness Bill Watterson is screaming "I told you so!"

David Wells is currently listed at a slim 248 pounds. Methinks that measurement is towel-rack assisted.

Bearing Repeating

2005-02-16T15:16:00.000-05:00

"Indulgent basking in success must end;
Turn now to spring, and see what it portends."
--Alexander Pope, "Epistle to a Feckless Seamhead"

So, can the Boston Red Sox do it again?

As Peter Gammons often reminds us, the question is frankly premature. In the previous two seasons, the teams that won it all didn't take their final and most effective shape until the July 31st trading deadline. At the very least, however, we can begin identifying the factors that will guide the 2004 world champions as they prepare their first title defense in 86 years.

I'm not going to offer a hard and fast prediction yet. What I'd like to do today is browse, in an anecdotal sort of way, a list of numbers that shed some light on the relationship between what happened last year and what's likely to happen this year

157. This is the number of starts that Boston's top five pitchers made last season. Given that three of the projected starters for this season (Schilling, Wells, and Wakefield) are 38 or older, this seems unlikely to happen again.

48. The number of games Trot Nixon played last year. It's hard to remember, given the exceptional run production of last year's line-up, that for roughly half the season our shortstop was Pokey (574 OPS) Reese and our right fielder was Gabe (701 OPS) Kapler. The Red Sox figure to be better offensively at each of these positions.

37. The number of home runs Johnny Damon and Mark Bellhorn combined to hit in 2004, with Damon recording a career best of 20. The odds are against the Sox getting this kind of production from these two again.

12. This is the margin by which the Yankees exceeded their Pythagorean expectation for wins last year. A lot of people in New England are looking south and seeing a rival that added arguably the greatest left-hander of all time. I look south and see a team that a) overachieved last season and b) chose to get older instead of younger as it attempted to fill its key needs.

3 (going into 2). If the bad news is that the rotation can't be expected to be as consistently durable this year as it was last year, the good news is that the Red Sox have more options should someone spring a leak. Even better, those options don't necessarily include Byung-Hyun Kim, last seen on QVC tethered to a sweetening box of Ginsu knives. Boston doesn't necessarily need 35 starts from either Wells or from Wade Miller. If they deliver thirty-five starts between them, we'll be in good shape. John Halama's around to make the emergency spot-start as needed. No, I am not crazy about John Halama. But, my provisional sanity aside, he's a more reliable stop-gap than anyone the Sox had available to them last year, had a similar situation occurred.

2...1? The number of prominent players in the Red Sox organization named Ramirez. Manny will continue to hold down left field at least through the end of this year. Hanley Ramirez, on the other hand, still has the kind of value that could pry a catalyzing ingredient from another club with the dog days looming.

1...2? The number of players likely to start on opening day who are a product of the Red Sox farm system. Trot Nixon is the definite "1" in question; Kevin Youkilis might become the second against the Yanks if Bill Mueller's surgically repaired knee isn't ready to go. If the Red Sox want to compete beyond, say, 2006, this number has to increase, which means Hanley Ramirez may not be someone they'd want to deal for help this year after all.

-11.5. According to Baseball Prospectus this is Derek Lowe's VORP for 2004 , which is the worst figure for any pitcher who logged enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. Take the October heroics (for which I'm grateful of course) out of the equation, and the Red Sox would almost have to improve on this "performance" by default.

What do these admittedly eclectic numbers add up to? Despite a roster with very little wiggle in it as spring training begins, there still seems to be a lot of room for the pendulum to swing among even the known quantities. Perhaps this spring is more like the springs we've known before than a fan of the defending champs would have expected.

Vorpal Swords, Part II

2005-02-15T19:28:00.000-05:00

Quick note here: I've finally posted the answers to my Friday Diversion for those of you interested. Sorry it took me so long, but my body's still recovering from the twin hits of a weekend of skiing and a bout of the flu. And yes, I did ski even though I was sick and I still had a spectacular time. Anyhoo...

Jacob Luft now turns his attention to the NL rotations (using DIPS too). He ranks 'em, but let's take a look at their changes and PECOTA projections for next year.

We're going to play by the same rules as last time: Only the top five starters will be considered for VORP purposes. I know this sucks for the Nats who only had one pitcher, the rubber-armed Livan Hernandez, made 30+ starts but I really don't care. For fairness purposes though, I have listed the number of starts each pitcher made in 2004. Again, we're looking for gross differences here.

We'll start with the home towne team:

Mets

'04 Rotation	GS	'04 VORP	'05 Rotation	ERA	dERA	'05 VORP
Tom Glavine	33	42	1. Pedro Martinez	3.9	3.7	53.3
Steve Trachsel	33	25.8	2. Tom Glavine	3.6	4.41	12.2
Al Leiter	30	46.2	3. Kris Benson	4.31	3.87	13.6
Jae Seo	21	8.3	4. Steve Trachsel	4	4.91	9.3
Matt Ginter	14	3.4	5. Victor Zambrano	4.37	5.19	4.7
Totals	131	125.7				93.1

Losses: Al Leiter, Jae Seo, Matt Ginter
Additions: Pedro Martinez, Kris Benson, Victor Zambrano
Lucky Guys: Trachsel, Glavine
VORP Differential: -32.6

Braves

'04 Rotation	GS	'04 VORP	'05 Rotation	ERA	dERA	'05 VORP
Russ Ortiz	34	33.1	1. John Smoltz	2.76	2.75	20.8
John Thomson	33	34	2. Tim Hudson	3.53	3.58	31.8
Jaret Wright	32	40.3	3. Mike Hampton	4.28	4.47	9.5
Mike Hampton	29	24.4	4. John Thomson	3.72	3.93	16.3
Paul Byrd	19	16.2	5. Horacio Ramirez	2.39	5.01	7.4
Totals	147	148				85.8

Losses: Russ Ortiz, Jaret Wright, Paul Byrd
Additions: Tim Hudson, John Smoltz, Horatio Ramirez
Lucky Guys: Ramirez
VORP Differential: -62.2
(Note: Smoltz is projected here as a reliever. His VORP will probably double when projected for a starter's innings)

Marlins

'04 Rotation	GS	'04 VORP	'05 Rotation	ERA	dERA	'05 VORP
Dontrelle Willis	32	27.2	1. Al Leiter	3.21	4.98	14.9
Carl Pavano	31	62.4	2. Josh Beckett	3.79	3.7	32.3
Josh Beckett	26	28.3	3. A.J. Burnett	3.68	3.39	23.3
Brad Penny	21	34.1	4. Dontrelle Willis	4.02	4.02	31.2
A.J. Burnett	19	26.8	5. Ismael Valdez	5.19	5.84	4.7
Totals	129	178.8				106.4

Losses: Carl Pavano, Brad Penny
Additions: Al Leiter, Ismael Valdez
Lucky Guys: Leiter
VORP Differential: -72.4

Phillies

'04 Rotation	GS	'04 VORP	'05 Rotation	ERA	dERA	'05 VORP
Eric Milton	34	18.7	1. Jon Lieber	4.33	3.77	19.1
Brett Myers	31	-0.3	2. Randy Wolf	4.28	4.5	20.9
Kevin Millwood	25	9.3	3. Vicente Padilla	4.53	4.46	17.6
Randy Wolf	23	14.5	4. Cory Lidle	4.9	4.47	13.8
Vicente Padilla	20	10.9	5. Brett Myers	5.52	5.02	17.3
Totals	133	53.1				88.7

Losses: Eric Milton, Kevin Millwood
Additions: Jon Lieber, Cory Lidle
Lucky Guys: No one really
VORP Differential: +35.6

Nationals

'04 Rotation	GS	'04 VORP	'05 Rotation	ERA	dERA	'05 VORP
Livan Hernandez	35	58.3	1. Livan Hernandez	3.6	4.02	30.7
John Patterson	19	5	2. Tony Armas Jr.	4.88	5.73	6.6
Zach Day	19	21.7	3. Tomo Ohka	3.4	4.61	18.7
Sunny Kim	17	6.5	4. Esteban Loaiza	5.7	4.91	17.9
Tony Armas	16	5.1	5. Zach Day	3.93	4.68	11.2
Totals	106	96.6				85.1

Losses: John Patterson, Sunny Kim
Additions: Tomo Ohka, Esteban Loaiza
Lucky Guys: Armas, Ohka
VORP Differential: -11.5

2005 Summary
1. Marlins 106.4 (-72.4)
2. Mets 93.1 (-32.6)
3. Phillies 88.7 (+35.6)
4. Braves 85.8 (-62.2)*
5. Nationals 85.1 (-11.5)

*Expect this to rise about 20 or so once Smoltz' new projection comes out.

So what can we say about this?

1) The Phillies rotation in 2004 was like the Mets lineup: So bad, they have no where to go but up in 2005. In fact, they're the only NL East team projected to improve by VORP. Over at RLYW, I was quite surprised at how well the Phillies did in a simulation of the 2005 season. I'm now starting to see why.

2) PECOTA projects a huge year for Pedro Martinez and doesn't think much of Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano. Rick Peterson has to come through here. Even with an off-year, Mike Cameron had a significant effect on the Mets pitching staff if you look at the dERA of Steve Trachsel, Al Leiter, and Tom Glavine. This of course, bodes well for the Mets pitching staff in general and doesn't bode very well for the good Senator.

3) Livan Hernandez is literally carrying a team on his shoulder. And if it were to fall off...

4) If everyone stays healthy, the Marlins could have a scary good rotation. That's a big if, though.

5) I'll factor John Smoltz' projection in when it comes out...and I'll bet that the Braves will jump to the top of the rotation list. But not by much.

So where do we stand overall? Let's add the VORP totals for the lineups and rotations.

	Rotation	Lineup	Total
Marlins	106.4	199.5	305.9
Phillies	88.7	216.8	305.5
Mets	93.1	207	300.1
Braves	85.8	180.9	266.7
Nationals	85.1	129	214.1

Again, the Braves will probably go up by about 20 or so once Smoltz is factored in, making the top four slots awfully tight. All else being equal, it's going to come down to health this year.

Of course, everything else isn't equal and that's why I'll look at the bullpens and benches of the NL East once the rosters are set.

Vorpal Swords

2005-02-07T19:46:00.000-05:00

Jacob Luft over at Sports Illustrated takes a look at the new Mets lineup by VORP (PECOTA projection) and position and comes away impressed:

	2004		2005
Pos.	Player	VORP	Player	VORP (Proj.)
C	Jason Phillips	-5.3	Mike Piazza	24.2
1B	Mike Piazza	29.9	Minky	12.7
2B	Jose Reyes	5.2	Kazuo Matsui	25.9
3B	David Wright	21.2	David Wright	32.4
SS	Kazuo Matsui	23.7	Jose Reyes	12.7
LF	Cliff Floyd	20	Cliff Floyd	23.1
CF	Mike Cameron	27	Carlos Beltran	51.6
RF	Richard Hidalgo	7.4	Mike Cameron	24.4
	Totals	129.1		207

Losses: Jason Phillips, Richard Hidalgo
Additions: Minky, Carlos Beltran
Estimated VORP differential: +77.9

A couple things to point out here:

1) The Mets lineup last year was, for lack of a better word, vomitous.

2) However, for 2005, PECOTA predicts improvements at every position but 1B and SS

Hitting rock bottom may suck in the current season but it certainly gives one hope for the future (oh, and Carlos Beltran gives a wee bit of hope as well). One can easily expect improvements from David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Kaz Matsui. Minky upgrades first over Jason Phillips (who should have a bounce back year as a backup) and Beltran is, well, god.

But do the Mets improvements catch them up to the rest of the NL East? Let's take a look at the changes in the other lineups using PECOTA. For the sake of my sanity, I'm only using the primary player at each position rather than adding in the backups. I know this doesn't work well for platoons but we're looking for gross differences here anyway.

Braves

	2004		2005
Pos.	Player	VORP	Player	VORP (Proj.)
C	Johnny Estrada	41	Johnny Estrada	20.5
1B	Adam LaRoche	19.1	Adam LaRoche	19.9
2B	Marcus Giles	35.9	Marcus Giles	35.8
3B	Chipper Jones	32	Chipper Jones	30.3
SS	Rafael Furcal	38	Rafael Furcal	28.3
LF	Charles Thomas	12.9	Brian Jordan	-0.7
CF	Andruw Jones	36.6	Andruw Jones	39.2
RF	J.D. Drew	78.7	Raul Mondesi	7.6
	Totals	294.2		180.9

Losses: JD Drew, Charles Thomas
Additions: Brian Frickin' Jordan, Raul Mondesi
Estimated VORP differential: -114.7

Marlins

	2004		2005
Pos.	Player	VORP	Player	VORP (Proj.)
C	Mike Redmond	3.7	Paul LoDuca	16.3
1B	Hee Seop Choi	27.5	Carlos Delgado	42.5
2B	Luis Castillo	33.5	Luis Castillo	20.3
3B	Mike Lowell	53.9	Mike Lowell	33
SS	Alex Gonzalez	11.3	Alex Gonzalez	14.7
LF	Jeff Conine	20.1	Jeff Conine	9.8
CF	Juan Pierre	44.6	Juan Pierre	19.9
RF	Miguel Cabrera	54.4	Miguel Cabrera	43
	Totals	249		199.5

Losses: Mike Redmond, Hee Seop Choi
Additions: Paul Lo Duca, Carlos Delgado
Estimated VORP differential: -49.5

Phillies

	2004		2005
Pos.	Player	VORP	Player	VORP (Proj.)
C	Mike Lieberthal	26.8	Mike Lieberthal	22.8
1B	Jim Thome	60.3	Jim Thome	47.2
2B	Placido Polanco	31.5	Chase Utley	21.9
3B	David Bell	32.2	David Bell	4.9
SS	Jimmy Rollins	50.9	Jimmy Rollins	34.9
LF	Pat Burrell	21.8	Pat Burrell	19.7
CF	Marlon Byrd	-8.7	Kenny Lofton	10.6
RF	Bobby Abreu	83.8	Bobby Abreu	54.8
	Totals	298.6		216.8

Losses: Placido Polanco, Marlon Byrd
Additions: Kenny Lofton, Chase Utley
Estimated VORP differential: -81.8

Nationals

	2004		2005
Pos.	Player	VORP	Player	VORP (Proj.)
C	Brian Schneider	16.6	Brian Schneider	7.3
1B	Brad Wilkerson	48.2	Nick Johnson	22.9
2B	Jose Vidro	36.9	Jose Vidro	30
3B	Tony Batista	10.3	Vinny Castilla	0.1
SS	Orlando Cabrera	5.3	Cristian Guzman	9.7
LF	Termel Sledge	18.1	Brad Wilkerson	23.5
CF	Endy Chavez	14.5	Endy Chavez	10.5
RF	Juan Rivera	30.2	Jose Guillen	25
	Totals	180.1		129

Losses: Tony Batista, Orlando Cabrera, Termel Sledge, Juan Rivera
Additions: Nick Johnson, Vinny Castilla, Cristian Guzman, Jose Guillen
Predicted VORP differential: -51.1

2005 Totals:

1) Phillies 216.8, (-81.8)
2) Mets 207, (+77.9)
3) Marlins 199.5, (-49.5)
4) Braves 180.9, (-114.7)
5) Nationals 129, (-51.1)

Looking these over there are several things that stand out:

1) The Mets are the only NL East team with a positive differential, and would have one even if all of their youngsters failed to improve thanks largely to Mr. Beltran.

2) JD Drew is a huge loss to the Braves that they haven't replaced at all.

3) The declines in VORP for the Marlins and Phillies is based largely upon declines in players who had outstanding (Bobby Abreu) or breakout (Juan Pierre) years. These are players that could sustain those levels of production even though PECOTA projects them to come back to earth a bit. In fact, I wouldn't be totally surprised to see the Marlins or Phillies improve offensively next year at all.

4) Nationals of 2005, meet the Mets of 2004 and welcome to hell.

5) I hate Brian Jordan, even if he sucks.

So what's the bottom line to take away from all of this?

Out of all the teams in the NL East, the Mets have the most potential for improvement offensively.

Of course, offense is only half of the game. I'll take a look at the projections for the NL East starting rotations sometime soon...

In the Meantime

2005-02-05T22:02:00.000-05:00

"In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of baseball."
--Not quite Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Locksley Hall"

While we anxiously look forward to pitchers and catchers reporting, something seems to be obstructing the vision of a certain segment of baseball fans. They can't see the sunflower seeds through, what's that, lace? They're pulled right past that favorite bar where the television is set at just the right angle. Some place sinister, insisting on reservations and definitely not serving nachos, is exerting an unspeakable gravity. They try to start their favorite "Let's go home team" chant, but a tepid, syrupy dribble of Hallmarkese is all that escapes their lips.

They're rounding third, heading for spring training and rotisserie drafts, but Valentine's Day is blocking the plate.

It is my custom to wax bitter and cynical about this little observance, and while my reasons for doing so are as strong as ever, I'm trying to be a little more generous about the whole thing. In this precariously renewed spirit, I'm listing ten quotes from some of my favorite love poems, with authors and titles removed in shameless imitation of my co-blogger's Friday diversion. The prize for correct identifications is the cozy glow of self-congratulation, and the knowledge that you're not the only person in the world who likes that bit from mystery poet four.

As is the case with Jay's lyrics-fest, a Google search would likely lift the veil on many of these. Let's stick to our wits, and the honor system, instead. One hint, and one caveat. The vast majority (not all) of these were written in the 20th century. (Bit of an upset, given my usual interests.) Finally, one of these quotes is not from a love poem, exactly, but rather from an extended meditation on love in a much longer poem. Within the narrower context, I thought it worth including. Happy hunting; I'll post identifications as intrepid readers provide them.

1.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

2.
After eleven years I was composing
Love-letters again, broaching the word 'wife'
Like a stored cask, as if its slender vowel
Had mutated into the night earth and air

Of California. The beautiful, useless
Tang of eucalyptus spelt your absence.
The aftermath of a mouthful of wine
Was like inhaling you off a cold pillow.

3.
Your glancing eye, your animal tongue,
Your hands that flew to mine and clung
Like birds on bough, with innocence
Masking those young experiments
Of flesh, persuaded me that nature
Formed us each other's god and creature.
Play out then, as it should be played,
The sweet illusion that has made
An eldorado of your hair
And our love an everywhere.

4.
I was ill, lying on my bed of old papers,
when you came with white rabbits in your arms;
and the doves scattered upwards, flying to mothers,
and the snails sighed under their baggage of stones...

5.
No voice as yet had made the air
Be music with your name; yet why
That asking look? that yearning sigh?
That sense of promise every where?
Beloved! flew your spirit by?

6.
Oh then
I stood up in my gold skin
and I beat down the psalms
and I beat down the clothes
and you undid the bridle
and you undid the reins
and I undid the buttons,
the bones, the confusions,
the New England postcards,
the January ten o'clock night,
and we rose up like wheat,
acre after acre of gold,
and we harvested,
we harvested.

7.
Half-close your eyelids, loosen your hair,
And dream about the great and their pride;
They have spoken against you everywhere,
But weigh this song with the great and their pride;
I made it out of a mouthful of air,
Their children's children will say they have lied.

8.
Tell me why, if it was no more than this,
the unmuddled tumble, the renegade kiss,
today, rapt in a still life and unaware,
my paintbrush dropped like an amber hawk;
thinking I'd heard your footfall on the stair,
I listened, heartwise, for the knock.

9.
Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).

10.
There it was, the valentine that Maya,
Kneeling on our threshold, drew to bless us:
Of white meal sprinkled then with rum and lit,
Heart once intricate as birdsong, it
Hardened on the spot. Much come-and-go
Has blackened, pared the scabby curlicue
Down to smatterings which, even so,
Promise to last this lifetime. That will do.

Friday Diversion

2005-02-04T13:30:00.000-05:00

I picked this one up from Shannon, among other places. Here's a fun exercise if you have iTunes.

1) Take a playlist or random shuffle of your library and post a stanza from 25-35 diffent songs.
2) If the first is too obvious, take a middle one instead.
3) Try to keep the artists and albums as diverse as possible (don't take five songs from the same album).
4) Now try and guess the song, group, and album in the comments. It can be a fun way of maybe discovering something new to try.
5) I'll post the answers as people guess correctly and put up the full list next week.

6) Now, of course, the answers to all of these can be found with several simple Google searches so only post the ones that you know off the top of your head. Honor system is in effect here.

(I've started updating some of the answers people have e-mailed me with. I'll continue as they come in -- let me know if you want credit .)

This is a fairly representative crossection of my musical tastes (it's actually my current gym/running rotation):

Answers in BOLD: Song/Artist/Album

1. What I Got/Sublime/Sublime
Early in the morning, risin' to the street
Light me up that cigarette and I strap shoes on my feet
Got to find a reason, a reason things went wrong
Got to find a reason why my money's all gone

2. Goodnight Moon/Shivaree/Kill Bill Vol. 2
There's a nail in the door
And there's glass on the lawn
Tacks on the floor
And the TV is on
And I always sleep with my guns when you're gone

3. World On Fire/Sarah McLachlan/Afterglow
Hearts are worn in these dark ages
You're not alone in this story's pages
Night has fallen amongst the living and the dying
And I try to hold it in, yeah I try to hold it in

4. I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)/The Proclaimers/Best Of
When I wake up
Well, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man that wakes up next to you

5. Jesus Of Suburbia/Green Day/American Idiot
Dearly beloved, are you listening?
I can't remember a word that you were saying,
Are we demented? Or am I disturbed?
The space that's in between insane and insecure

6. The Impression That I Get/Mighty Mighty Bosstones/Live From The Middle East
(I guess we know this fucking song)
Have you ever been close to tragedy
Or been close to folks who have
Have you ever felt a pain so powerful
So heavy you collapse

[Bonus points if you guess the correct album]

7. Harder To Breathe/Maroon 5/Songs About Jane
How dare you say that my behavior is unacceptable
So condescending unnecessarily critical
I have the tendency of getting very physical
So watch your step cause if I do you'll need a miracle

8. Hello, I Love You/The Doors/Best Of
She's walking down the street
Blind to every eye she meets
Do you think you'll be the guy
To make the queen of the angels sigh?

9. Here We Go/Dispatch/Bang Bang
I got the mean time slippin' down
the slide some uptight right wing,
political homicide, do what you
want, take what you will, take it in
like a south paw, flip it on the grill

10. The Dark Of The Matinee/Franz Ferdinand/Franz Ferdinand
You take your white finger
Slide the nail under the top and bottom buttons of my blazer
Relax the fraying wool, slacken ties
And I'm not to look at you in the shoe, but the eyes, find the eyes

11. Twenty-Five Miles/Edwin Starr/Best Of
It's twenty five miles from home
Girl, my feet are hurting mighty bad
Now I've been walking a three day, two lonely nights
You know that I'm mighty mad

12. Get Off This/Cracker/Kerosene Hat
All these cats with holey jeans,
Dirty hair and titty rings
Say "what's your scene man? We got these questions...

13. You Will You Won't/The Zutons/Who Killed...The Zutons
While your thinking, thinking, thinking up a storm in you
All the things you're thinking, are they false, are they true
You know the dipsydoodle rag, it tells no lie
But all the time you're thinking, well you're tricking your mind

14. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me/U2/Batman Forever
You don’t know how you took it
You just know what you got
Oh lordy you’ve been stealing
From the thieves and you got caught

15. Hardest Button To Button/White Stripes/Elephant
We started living in an old house
My ma gave birth and we were checking it out
It was a baby boy
So we bought him a toy
It was a ray gun
And it was 1981

16. The Real Slim Shady/Eminem/ The Marshall Mathers LP
I'm like a head trip to listen to, cause I'm only givin you
things you joke about with your friends inside your living room
The only difference is I got the balls to say it
in front of y'all and I don't gotta be false or sugarcoated at all

17. The Last Stop/Dave Matthews Band/Before These Crowded Streets (Jenn)
Fire
The sun is well asleep
Moon is high above
Fire grows from the east
How is this
Hate so deep
Lead us all so blindly killing killing

18. Sweet Home Alabama/Lynyrd Skynyrd/Forrest Gump
Well, I heard mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard 'ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don't need him around anyhow

19. Come Downstairs And Say Hello/Guster/Keep It Together
To tell you truth I've said it before
Tomorrow I start in a new direction
One last time these words from me
I'm never saying them again
And I shut the light
And listen as my watch unwinds

20. Get Off My Cloud/Rolling Stones/Hot Rocks
I live in an apartment on the ninety-ninth floor of my block
And I sit at home looking out the window
Imagining the world has stopped
Then in flies a guy who's all dressed up like a Union Jack
And says, I've won five pounds if I have his kind of detergent pack

21. The Fly/U2/Achtung Baby
It's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest.
It's no secret ambition bites the nails of success.
Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief;
All kill their inspiration and sing about the grief.

22. Hitchin' A Ride/Green Day/Nimrod
Hey mister, where you headed?
Are you in a hurry?
I need a lift to happy hour.
Say oh no.
Do you brake for distilled spirits?
I need a break as well.
The well that inebriates the guilt.

23. Kryptonite/3 Doors Down/The Better Life (Jenn)
I took a walk around the world to
Ease my troubled mind
I left my body laying somewhere
In the sands of time
I watched the world float to the dark
Side of the moon
I feel there is nothing I can do, yeah

24. Connected/Stereo MC's/Connected
If you make sure you're connected
The writing's on the wall
But if your mind's neglected
Stumble you might fall

25. About An Hour Ago/O.A.R./The Wanderer
Now we're kickin back and we're sippin beers
and there's a man telling stories about his inner fears
We was all choked up and too close to tears
Well then we moved on up to some margaritas
and we started makin faces at the senoritas
Playing drinking games but they were all too drunk to beat us

26. Devil's Haircut/Beck/Odelay
Somethin's wrong cause my mind is fadin'
And everywhere I look there's a dead end waiting,
Temperature's dropping at the rottin' oasis
Stealing kisses from the lepers faces

27. Curbside Prophet/Jason Mraz/Waiting For My Rocket To Come
You see it started way back in NYC
When I stole my first rhyme from the M-I-C
At a west end avenue at 63
It's the beginning of a leap year February ‘96
win a guitar picked it up in the mix
I committed to the licks like a nickel bag of tricks

28. Under African Skies/Paul Simon/Graceland
This is the story of how we begin to remember
This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein
After the dream of falling and calling your name out
These are the roots of rhythm
And the roots of rhythm remain

29. No Alibis/Eric Clapton/Journeyman
I beg your pardon, hello darlin'
This is me you're talkin' to
Sit down and tell me about it
You don't have to shout it at me
Tell me what you really want to do

30. The Rising/Bruce Springsteen/The Rising
Can’t see nothin’ in front of me
Can’t see nothin’ coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me

Of RAH and ROOT

2005-01-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

There are two distinct levels of fan immersion in a team's fortunes. At the more casual level, a fan of the 2004 Red Sox will remember Big Papi, Manny, Johnny Damon, and the Man in the Bloody Sock. This level might be called the Rung of Awareness, Historical (RAH). You don't have to have a day-to-day experience of the Red Sox to know these guys and have some sense of their contributions.

At a more intense level of devotion, what might be called the Rung of Obsession, Outrageously Tenacious (ROOT), a fan knows a team beyond its main characters. Who picks up the at-bats when the stars are in the dugout? Who eats the innings between the fourth starter and the closer? The names of these players don't often make it into the sweeping assessments of team history, and yet they often tell the story of how it feels to follow a team on a game-by-game, year-by-year basis. The meat of the 1997 Red Sox was Nomar's outstanding rookie year; know that and you probably know enough about that bumbling edition of the Fenway nine. But you don't really get the full savor of that year without remembering Jeff Frye playing a little bit of everywhere except for pitcher and catcher. For the RAH Red Sox fan, the grim year of 1992 is scarcely memorable as the last great Boston season for Roger Clemens. For the ROOTer, the year picks up a little extra (and much-needed) zest as the hey-day of Greg "I just might pitch lefty today" Harris.

Why tax you with these increasingly obscure names from recent Red Sox lore? A prime test case for the difference between RAH and ROOT fans, Rich "El Guapo" Garces, was rumored kidnapped this week, a report that to everyone's great relief has proven to be unfounded. El Guapo, from 1998 to 2000, was the guy you wanted to see coming out of the Red Sox bullpen in the seventh and eighth innings. It's not like he was hard to miss. And if you didn't see him the first time, you had two minutes to pick up his unmistakable form between the bullpen gate and the Fenway hill. He gave new meaning to "around the horn." The right fielder used to come to the mound after Guapo covered first base, just to give him the necessary recovery time.

If all these lazy zingers about Garces' obvious girth seem a little mean, you weren't there when it was happening. Garces became a fan favorite because he was so agreeably nonplussed about his apparent limitations. He often strolled out to the bullpen around the third inning, occasionally with something looking suspiciously like take-out in his hand. No one got a louder salutation from the right field bleachers, and no one seemed to take more delight in returning the greeting with a wave and a nod. In a way, he seemed in on and resistant to the jokes that were supposed to belittle him. He was a fat guy playing a lean guy's game, but he never failed to chase a bunt, and he never failed to cover first. History, with considerable justice, will remember the last Red Sox teams of the twentieth century as the squads of Pedro and Nomar, rah rah, RAH. But if you were rooting, really ROOTing for those teams, Guapo was part of the story too.

Anyone else want to name guys who show us the difference between RAH and ROOT?

Roster Schmoster

2005-01-29T13:50:00.000-05:00

It's twenty five miles from home
Girl, my feet are hurting mighty bad
Now I've been walking for three days and two lonely nights
You know that I'm mighty mad .
But I got a woman waiting for me
That's gonna make this trip worthwhile
You see she's got the kind of lovin' and a kissing
A make a man go stone wild -- Edwin Starr

We're almost across the finish line! Only three weeks until pitchers and catchers. Now that the offseason is pretty much over, how about some twenty five man roster predictions? Granted it's really only the bench and bullpen but it's fun to predict the lineup too. Here's mine:

Lineup:

Jose Reyes (S)
Kaz Matsui (S)
Carlos Beltran (S)
Mike Piazza (R)
Cliff Floyd (L)
David Wright (R)
Mike Cameron (R)
Minky (L)

Rotation:

Pedro Martinez
Tom Glavine
Kris Benson
Victor Zambrano
Steve Trachsel

Bullpen:

Braden Looper (CL)
Mike DeJean (R)
Orber Moreno (R)
Heath Bell (R)
Blake McGinely (L)
Dae Sung Koo (L)

I predict TRF is going to implode in spring training and be released outright. And if he isn't, well, I hear Tonya Harding is looking for work...

Bench:

Jason Phillips (C)
Miguel Cairo (MI)
Eric Valent (OF)
Victor Diaz (OF)
Andres Galarraga (1B)
Jeff Keppinger (MI)

Again kind of optimistic, but I have a funny feeling that Miguel Cairo spells the beginning of the end for Super Joe. And I can't see Ron Calloway making the team over Victor Diaz and Eric Valent. I'd rather see Danny Garcia than Jeff Keppinger but I have a sneaking suspicion that he's gone too since many in the organization don't seem to like his attitude. Can't win them all, I guess.

Thoughts? Questions? Queries? Bueller? Bueller?

Plug-O-Rama

2005-01-27T01:50:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to throw a few plugs out for a while now but I just haven't had the time. Procrastinating is a lot more work than you would think. Anyway, here's some of the stuff I've been wasting time with/looking forward to:

Trailers:

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: 42

Fantastic Four: I so want this movie to be good but alas. I'm going to see it anyway.

The Corpse Bride: Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Danny Elfman. 'Nuff said.

The Ring 2: Naomi Watts, *drool*

Sin City: This movie looks incredible. Frank Miller is god. And he helped direct it.

Cursed: Think 'Scream' meets 'The Howling'. With Christina Ricci too.

Webcomics:

Sinfest: Think if Calvin grew up and became a horny, perverted teenager. That's the main gist. The comic is actually fairly heavy, taking on a lot of theology that I often resonate with. It's funny, incredibly well drawn, thought provoking, and, at times, touching.

Check out all the archives too. Tatsuya Ishida can literally imitate any style -- look for some of the back strips that feature multiple styles. It doesn't matter what they are; Peanuts, Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Cathy. It's like they were drawn by their creators. Amazing.

Zebra Girl: OK, this is a serial so if you want the whole story you have to start from the beginning. Basically, it features a young woman who was accidentally turned into a demon and now is trying to cope in today's modern world (everyone thinks she's just a weird goth chick) and find someway to get back to normal. Joe England's art gets better and better as the strip progresses and this latest storyline just has some beautiful black and white panels.

I've linked Sinfest over at the sidebar and I'll be adding Zebra Girl very soon. Keenspot has dozens of strips you've probably never heard of -- I still haven't gone through them all. Check 'em out!

Lastly a small plug for Newmoanyeah, the pop-culture site run by Stephen Lin, a Boston friend of mine. The 2004 staff picks are up (including my own) -- it's one of the more fun things I get to write and read. That's all for now, enjoy!

The Art Of The Deal

2005-01-26T15:18:00.000-05:00

OK, let's say you're a GM and you had to choose one of two players:

Player A is an excellent defensive player, an average hitter, and would cost you cash and a very good minor leaguer in addition to his salary.

Player B is an excellent defensive player, an average hitter with the potential to be above average, and would cost you just his salary, probably slightly more than Player A.

If I were GM, I would choose Player B, largely because the cost:benefit ratio of acquiring him is less than that of Player A. We would still have the minor leaguer in our system and, regardless of whether he ever makes it to Shea, he would still be available for future trades.

The bottom line here is this: There was no reason to make this trade when a less costly option was still out there. Blade may not become a big time player but he's still a chip, a chip that could be used in the future to get something better than a replacement level defensive specialist. Furthermore, every chip you have serves as a buffer against your top prospects; the less you have, the more likely it is that you'll have to throw in a Yusmeiro Petit or a Lastings Milledge to get a deal done.

This has also been the Yankees problem the last few years, trading away every prospect they have for easily replaceable players. And their well has now run dry.

I got a ton of e-mail over at AA on Minky and Blade. We can argue until the cows come home over who is better Minky or Lee, but the bottom line is that Travis Lee was the better deal and Omar passed it up.

Overwhelming Questions

2005-01-24T21:45:00.000-05:00

Been a while since I posted over here -- largely due to my schedule, the lack of Mets news, and lack of inspiration. Not to mention, there are so many uncertain things about this team, it's hard to predict or comment on them...that is, unless you're commenting on the questions themselves!

Here are my top ten questions about the Mets that need to be answered between now and opening day:

1. Who's On First?

Hopefully this will be decided in the next day or two. If it's not Carlos Delgado (and I hope it is), it will probably be Travis Lee. At this point, the Mets are simply trying to keep Delgado away from the Marlins as much as they are trying to get him for themselves.

2. Will Cliff Floyd be traded?

My gut feeling is "no", simply because the Cubs seem to be the only willing trading partner should Omar Minaya re-open the Sammy Sosa talks. However, the siging of Carlos Beltran changes things significantly; the Mets are now trying to shed salary this year to stay under the luxury tax threshold. Any trade for Sosa would likely involve taking on salary this year (Sosa's $18 million+) to save next year (Floyd's $6.5 million over two years). They can't do this and sign Delgado; there's just not enough wiggle room.

If Deldago turns them down however then, as Bob Klapisch writes today, "Plan B is Sammy Sosa." And that would likely mean Floyd is gone.

Even without Delgado, however, I still have a hard time seeing how Omar could work such a deal. Of course, this also makes one wonder...

3. Will Sammy Sosa be coming here?

Again, unless the financial obstacles can be overcome, I really don't see it happening, regardless of whether Pedro "recruits" him or not. It really depends on how desperate Chicago is to unload him and whether or not they're willing to take on all the difference in salary.

Remember that Omar is under no pressure here, even without Delgado or Sosa, he has had a successful offseason and the Mets will be a better team. All the pressure is squarely on the Cubs shoulders and Sosa won't be coming here unless they flinch.

4. Will Mike Cameron be traded?

Klapisch also pretty much put the nail in the Cameron-Byrnes deal last week and one has to think that Cameron's trade value is fairly limited due to his injury and salary. Should the Mets fail to sign Deladgo however, this little scenario could rear it's ugly head again, especially since Omar will almost definitely include Magglio Ordonez in 'Plan B'. In addition, no matter what Billy Beane says publicly, I find it hard to believe he's totally given up on getting Cameron.

You know what happens once he puts his mind to something -- someone else gets screwed.

5. Will Joe McEwing be traded?

This is something that's been bandied about in the media that just makes too much sense not to happen. The addition of Miguel Cairo makes him expendable and despite the fact that Super Joe has posted OPS of .538, .600. and .609 the last three years, he still would have value to a team due to his 'versatility'.

There's no guarantee here but given the way Omar's been purging the team of the 'old guard', I wouldn't be surprised. Tony LaRussa, Super Joe's #1 fan, may be getting a call between now and opening day.

6. Will Felix Heredia be released?

Sadly I think the answer to this question is also 'no', simply because Heredia will be making $3 million this year (although $1 million of that has already been paid to the Yankees). Still this is a move that I wouldn't put past Omar should Heredia stink it up in spring training and should one of the kids, say Blake McGinley, step it up.

Come March, pray for TRF suckiness to ensue.

7. Will Victor Diaz make the team?

This is actually the question I'm the most interested in. While Omar has publicly stated that he's been very impressed with Diaz, he's also said that he needs to work on his plate discipline in AAA and is likely to start the season there.

However, right now the Mets aren't expecting Cameron to be able to play until late April/early May. If everything stays as it is right now regarding the outfield, then V-for-Victor could get a one month trial in The Show until Cameron returns.

Of course, this is also dependent on the composition of the bench and who gets traded/released by spring training. Sadly my best guess right now, assuming a gang of six, is the following:

Phillips, (R), c, 1B
McEwing (R), whatever
Valent (L), OF, 1B
Cairo (R), 2B, SS, 3B
Calloway, (L), OF
Galarraga (R), 1B

Not only is there no room for Diaz, there's no room for Ramon Castro (sad), Danny Garcia (bad) or Jeff Keppinger (good) either. I really think Galarraga is going to make the club unless he's physically unable to play. That means the only way a spot will open up is if Super Joe is traded (a possibility) or if Calloway sucks it up in spring training (a likely possibility).

If Super Joe goes, this likely opens a spot for Garcia or Keppinger. If Calloway goes, Diaz may get his shot.

In his last mailbag, Kevin Czerwinski also mentioned that the Mets were trying to trade Jason Phillips but have been unsuccessful so far. Obviously, if Phillips goes, it would open up a spot for Castro.

8. How do you spell R-E-L-I-E-F?

Big, huge, enormous, behemoth of a question. Many questions really. Right now, Braden Looper, Mike DeJean, and *shudder* Heredia are the only ones guaranteed spots. Hopefully Orber Moreno will be ready, Tyler Yates will be under control, and Bartolome Fortunato, Heath Bell, and Dae Sung Koo will fight it out for the last two spots.

But all of them have question marks and we really won't know anything until they start pitching to batters. Don't rule out on Omar trade for relief later on, especially with Chad Bradford still being dangled for Cameron.

9. How will Yusmeiro Petit and Philip Humber do in spring training?

While this isn't likely to affect the Mets on opening day, it could affect them at the trading deadline...in a good way.

Easy now. Breathe. They aren't going anywhere but if they perform well and advance quickly this year, we could see them in September. This could give Pedro some extra rest and if they pitch well, convince the Mets that Trachsel or Glavine is expendable for the following year.

Plus if anyone gets injured this year, the Mets might give them a midseason look (although that role is more likely to go to the forgotten man, Aaron Heilman). Speaking of which...

10. What happens to Aaron Heilman and Jae Seo?

Sadly I think they're both trade bait. I'd really like Heilman to get another shot, as he had a great strikeout rate in both the majors and minors last year. But, barring injury, I think he goes to AAA and is traded within a year. Seo seems to have worn out his welcome entirely and has certainly burned all his bridges with Rick Peterson. He's toast, one way or another.

This will be a better team next year. But the answers to these questions could be the difference between .500 and the playoffs. Just 69 days to opening day and, god help me, I can't wait!

Texas Hold 'Em

2005-01-21T16:19:00.000-05:00

If you're in the Houston area, and you're selling pork rinds, Jimmy Dean Sausage, or Jock Strap Ben Gay (specially formulated for groin pulls), I suggest instituting an immediate 360 percent mark-up.

Trust me. The market will bear it.

Some of us had been beguiled by an apparently kinder, gentler, less bat-throwing Roger Clemens pitching at less than market value for his hometown team. One last hurrah to try and put an adored, veteran roster featuring Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio over the top.

I shouldn't have said "us" just then. I wasn't buying it.

I still remember November 1996, when Clemens claimed to be leaving Boston for Toronto because he thought "the Blue Jays had a better shot at the World Series." The 1997 Red Sox without Roger Clemens won 78 games. The 1997 Blue Jays with Roger Clemens won 76. He wasn't telling the truth in 1996, and all this "hometown" crap in Houston was at best a veneer for the Rocket's true motivation: the care and feeding of the outsized ego of Roger Clemens.

He wants to pitch another year? Fine. Just don't pretend, after trying to hold up the Mom and Pop store, that you're still chasing a ring. You want to bring a championship to the home folks, you don't try and sandbag the available funds for recruiting talented teammates with a 22 million dollar arbitration claim.

I concede that Clemens is the most successful pitcher of his generation. His longevity is a testament to a profound work ethic and something closely resembling competitive desire. But the past year, Clemens has been shooting for something more, a kind of fondness from the observers of the game that has eluded even his considerable achievements. He has attempted to make the claim that he's not just one of those guys, in it for the bucks. He's represented himself as one of those rare figures who just can't say no to a sport he loves.

Who knows? Given the same opportunity, I might well try to cash in as extravagantly as Clemens has. I hope, though, that I'd be sufficiently honest that I wouldn't give such a decision a loftier rationale than it deserves.

Matt Versus New Year's Resolution Versus Potato Chips Versus Matt

2005-01-20T20:15:00.000-05:00

WARNING: ONLY TANGENTIALLY RELATED TO BASEBALL.

Sometime this summer, I got hooked on potato chips. I think it was the ups and downs of an ultimately rewarding but frequently ulcerrific baseball season. I eat all kinds of garbage, but it had been years since I craved potato chips with any regularity. Tortilla chips? Absolutely. Fritos? Sure, once in a while. Potato chips? Practically never, until this summer.

See, I know potato chips are gratuitously bad for me. Something about the crunch and the salt, though, nursed me through that peckish corridor between the end of the Sox game on the radio and my eventual, nightly cotton-mouthed oblivion. I tried to justify it by eating the baked Lays chips (less fatty than what I really wanted to munch), but I quickly graduated to Cape Cod's Sea Salt and Vinegar. Cholesterolicious.

As the elation of late October to mid-November gradually waned, however, I found myself incapable of forgoing what had become a quasi-ritualistic snack. When, one especially frigid and soggy night in December, I drove out to Store 24 at a quarter past midnight for a bag of chips, I knew I had a problem.

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions. To the extent that I've previously undertaken them, they've been either deliberately vague or simply impossible. Deliberately vague: "get more serious about my academic work." Right, I'll check that daily with the Seriousometer that no home can do without. Simply impossible: "charming Jennifer Connelly into dropping the restraining order and marrying me." This year, however, I have a goal that is modest, specific and attainable. Get off the chips.

I've held to this pledge admirably, dare I say heroically, so far. The refusal of potato chips has left me with a much clearer conscience in pursuing the thirty-seven other horribly unhealthy things I regularly ingest. I could have doughnuts for breakfast, a buffalo chicken sub for lunch, pizza for dinner, and wash it down with a tall, smooth glass of bacon grease (shaken, not stirred) and still feel like I'd eaten healthy, so long as I didn't trespass the forbidden cellophane. The drink, by the way, is called a Clemens.

The first real challenge to my resolve came today. Today I've got a sore throat. Where I grew up, there were three accepted ways of treating a sore throat, short of actually seeing a doctor. Treatment the first: hot tea. Treatment the second: butterscotch hard candy. Treatment the third: anything salty. The last one, as you might imagine, is proving a severe temptation.

The place where I buy fruit juice also just happens to be the place where I was wont to indulge my sordid spud habit. The sidewalks are crunchy with snow and ice this morning, and (in some places) salted for traction. I'm clomping to the convenience store with crunch crunch crunch in my ears and the crystalline glisten of salt in my eyes. I pause for a long time outside the door, mustering my feeble will power against the barking 0f my tongue and the shrugging of my arteries.

I make it back out, with my resolution intact. Barely. The sore throat's settling in, though, and I'm going to need more juice...

A Tale Of Two Quarterbacks

2005-01-17T11:54:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the pictures say it all (From the NY Times).

Of course, if you want some words, Scott Long has some good ones.

The Face Of A New Generation

2005-01-17T01:37:00.000-05:00

I'm alive
I'm being born
I just arrived, I'm at the door
Of the place I started out from
And I want back inside
All because of you - U2

In 1983, a nine year old boy on vacation with his parents in Wildwood, NJ glanced up at a TV screen in their hotel. He didn't have a great deal of interest in the sport, at the time being more concerned with the exploits of Spidey, the Hulk, and the Hardy Boys.

But the figure at the plate gave him a pause and a chuckle. After a moment of disbelief, he asked his mother, a die-hard Mets fan since 1969, who it was at the plate?

"Darryl Strawberry. He's the Mets' new outfielder and he's amazing!"

"His name's really Strawberry?", said the skeptical little boy.

"Yep. And he can hit the baseball a long, long way."

The boy nodded in quizzical admiration and went back to his books. He didn't watch but he remembered the name.

Upon returning from vacation, he began checking for this Strawberry fellow in the papers and, before long, began following the Mets in earnest.

Since then, I've been through a lot with this team. Not as much as the young woman who introduced him to Darryl Strawberry, who as a little girl was so sick during the summer of '69 that she had nothing to do but watch a miracle unfold on TV. But certainly enough so that I can appreciate where certain events fall with the history of Mets baseball.

I can remember being so disgusted that the Mets traded Hubie Brooks, my favorite player at the time, for some freakin' catcher named Gary Carter. I can remember coming so close in '85 only to be finally beaten out by Herzog's redbirds. I can remember '86. I can remember '88, the year Orel killed the Mets. I can remember the Coney years, the Pirate rivalries, and how much I always hated Willie McGee (and, god help me, I can't believe he got 5% of the HoF vote).

It has been over a decade since then. A decade ago, the Mets signed Bobby Bonilla, Vince Coleman, and traded for Juan Samuel and lost all the magic they generated in the '80s. Generation K collapsed, Jeff Kent was traded, and the Mets sank in the standings and in the minds of New Yorkers as they watched a young shortstop come up with the Yankees and take Manhattan by storm.

Since the Bonilla trade, since the collapse of the great Mets teams of the eighties, the Mets have been struggling against themselves. People may say they're just trying to compete with the Yankees, but it's really something more than that. Somehow, the failure of Bonilla and Generation K made the Mets afraid, and it seems like they've been running ever since.

Now, with the additions of Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran, the general feeling is that the Mets are poised for another run similar to the one in the mid-eighties. While that may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves, some of the similarities are striking:

In 1983, the Mets finished 68-94 but the lanky rookie Strawberry took home Rookie of the Year honors, a young (really) Jesse Orosco won 13 games in relief with a sparkling 1.73 ERA, and GM Frank Cashen made one of the deals of the decade when he acquired former MVP Keith Hernandez from the Cardinals for Neil Allen. Then, on October 13th, Davey Johnson, who had never managed a major league game in his life, was named their new manager.

In 2004, the Mets finished 71-91 but super stud David Wright hit 14 home runs in just 263 at bats, shortstop Jose Reyes dazzled when healthy, and GM Omar Minaya made the deals of the offseason signing both the top pitcher and hitter in Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran. Then, on November 3rd, Willie Randolph, who had never managed a major league game in his life, was named their manager.

Spooky eh? It certainly tempts one to jump onto the Mets World Series bandwagon but, as with most things, reality often intervenes. Let's look at what happened the next couple years to those eighties Mets:

In 1984, the Mets finished in second, 90-72, behind the new core of Strawberry, Henandez, and the trio of rookie pitching in Doc Gooden, Ron Darling, and Sid Fernandez. On December 10th of that year, GM Frank Cashen made the second trade of the decade, acquiring catcher Gary Carter from the Expos and pissing off a young lad in Albany.

In 1985, the Mets finished in second again, 98-64, behind Carter's Mets and Doc Gooden's MVP year. If not for Darryl Strawberry missing seven weeks of ball with a torn thumb ligament (in which the Mets went 20-23), they probably would have won the division.

And 1986, well, we all know what happened then.

Those Mets teams got really good in a hurry because of:

1) Young pitching. Specifically, young pitching that came up and succeeded immediately.

2) Davey Johnson turning out to be a genius of a rookie manager

3) The Carter and Hernandez trades that put them over the top

Taking them in reverse order for the 2005 Mets, #3 corresponds with the Pedro and Beltran signings (and Delgado, if it happens). Willie Randolph could be a genius but we really don't know yet. And #1 parallels the young core, only this time it's on the field rather than on the mound. If that core succeeds (and stays healthy), we could see an '84 redux next year. But without them, this will be another .500 team in the NL shuffle.

I'm already on the bandwagon. I've drunk the Minaya kool-aid. I haven't been this excited going into a season since 1986 after the Mets came so close the year before. But let's remember that an awful lot has to still go right before we can return to the Mets' glory days.

But methinks a lot of young kids in New York are going to be putting down their comics this year.

Omar Minaya And The Metropolitan Redemption

2005-01-10T21:19:00.000-05:00

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. - Andy Dufresne

I want you to try something with me. Think back to September 29th, a 6-3 loss to the hated Braves with the Mets coming home for their (literally) final series against the Montreal Expos.

Think back to how you felt on that day. Al Leiter was still with the team, likely to return for another year. John Franco still hadn't officially mentioned retirement (in fact, he still hasn't) and there were no indications that the front office was going to bar his return. Victor Zambrano was hurt, Kris Benson wasn't signed, and Scott Kazmir had shut down the future world champions twice. Carlos Beltran was destined for the Bronx and the names being associated with the Mets offseason -- Magglio Ordonez, Richie Sexson -- were the same types of names associated with the Mets in past offseasons, i.e. injury risks the Mets could take a flier on, cheap.

Think back to how you felt going into the offseason. Depressed? Indifferent? Hopeless?

I certainly did. This team had no direction and no hope for the future. We had a lame duck GM who didn't have any power, an owner of one of the wealthiest franchises in baseball in one of the biggest markets who refused to spend money on his team, and a roster filled with a few too many powerful and influential personalities. I think it's safe to say that my morale as a Met fan was at an all-time low.

Then along comes September 30th. Then along comes Omar Minaya. Then along comes hope.

What Omar has done this offseason is nothing short of remarkable given that he came back to this organization just three short months ago. First, he hired Willie Randolph as manager and re-signed Kris Benson (and Anna, we can't forget Anna). Then he cleaned house, ridding the team of Franco, Leiter, and Mike Stanton and stunned the baseball world by luring Pedro Martinez away from the world champs.

All of a sudden, a glimmer of summer sunshine appeared. Hey, maybe the Mets weren't going to skimp and save this year after all. And the way Minaya got Pedro, not just with money but by going to the Dominican and having dinner with him, a full court press on his part, was something we haven't seen out the Mets in years. On that day, I think I started to mentally heal as a fan.

A few months ago, I wrote the following on Always Amazin' in regards to Carlos Beltran:

The Mets have to recruit him and make him feel wanted. They have to commit themselves one hundered percent to getting Beltran and make him come here. Sell him on hitting behind the young core of David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Kaz Matsui. Sell him on having protection in front of Mike Piazza. Sell him on us, the fans, who would love to see him patrolling the outfield of Shea. And finally sell him on the fact that, believe it or not, the Mets as currently composed are better set up for the future than the Yankees.

The Mets can get Carlos Beltran. All they have to do is to try and commit themselves to going all the way.

There was no reason for the Mets to act like a small market team, afraid of competing with the big, bad Yankees. They're in the same town, they're in the same market, they have one of the highest payrolls in the game, and they're much better positioned for the future with their lack of long term contracts and homegrown youngsters. But for some reason, Fred Wilpon became scared the last couple years, afraid of being one-upped by Steinbrenner, afraid to commit to any sort of plan or player.

And that fear of commitment is largely what has held the Mets back. It's what has kept them from getting A-Rod and Vlad Guerrero. And it's seriously depressed many a Mets fan, as I'm sure you all well know.

By signing Beltran, Omar has not only won the ultimate prize of this offseason but he has manage to rid Met fans (and the Met ownership) of this inferiority complex they slowly developed in the 90's. He's given them reason to believe in this team, not only that they can win on the field, but that the ownership can win off of it. He's given all of us a reason to hold our heads high in this town, able to walk with our Irish Night Met caps and David Wright jerseys without feeling defensive. He's given us hope.

I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I imagine it's the excitement only a baseball fan can feel. A fan at the start of a new season, whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope David Wright continues to improve... I hope Pedro Martinez can dazzle the crowds like he did at Fenway... I hope Carlos Beltran someday becomes a world series MVP... I hope...

And hope, my friends, is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And we owe all our hope this offseason to Omar.

Physical Graffiti

2005-01-09T18:11:00.000-05:00

Soon to be seen on buildings throughout all of Queens

(With apologies to Eric Clapton, who is still a god as well.)

Failure of Duty

2005-01-08T11:42:00.000-05:00

I realize that as an American citizen of the twenty-first century I'm required to have an opinion (however fatuous and ill-informed) about everything, up to and including the personal lives of celebrities I've never met. It is with considerable embarrassment, then, that I must confess the following shortcoming.

I don't care about the ball that recorded the last out of the 2004 World Series. It doesn't bother me that Doug Mientkiewicz has kept it. It doesn't bother me that the Red Sox want it. It also doesn't matter to me in the least who prevails in this matter.

Amazing things happen to some baseballs. In 1954, a baseball ended up in the glove of Willie Mays, streaking full tilt from home plate in centerfield. In 1960, a ball off the bat of Bill Mazeroski, not known for his clout, ended up over the fence in Forbes Field, completing one of the more improbable upsets in World Series history. In 1986, a ball trickled...excuse me, I've got to throw up in a bucket and mail it to Charlie Sheen. Amazing things happened to these baseballs, and I'd pay good money to gawk at them.

The ball currently in the possession of Doug Mientkiewicz bounced once, landed in a glove, and was then tossed into another glove. Its progress concluded something remarkable, but what happened to the ball itself was pretty mundane. I can't imagine a group of school kids, twenty-five years from now, being stung by its absence in a display on the 2004 World Series.

If I have an opinion on any of this, it's that the writer who broke the story is an embittered, muck-raking troll, gratuitously interfering with a matter better conducted in private. But then, that largely squares with my pre-existing opinion of the writer in question, so I'm returned to my original sense of the story. It's a non-event.

Rogues Gallery

2005-01-05T20:34:00.000-05:00

(Special thanks to my co-blogger for retrieving the majority of the images below.)

The Yankees are getting Randy Johnson for Christmas, albeit belatedly. Me? I was fortunate enough to find the first season of Batman: The Animated Series on DVD under my tree. I'm not here to suggest that the two acquisitions are comparable, and yet the intersection of these respective changes in fortune is suffusing my mind in a peculiar way. The Yankees have always been the bad guys, but which bad guys are they, exactly?

Jason Giambi would have to be Bane: steroidally fuelled, and only fleetingly if sensationally relevant to a larger pop mythos. Memorable Batman villains need reasons for their actions other than "I'm a Batman villain," and this crucial ingredient was left out of Bane's recipe. Like Bane, Giambi's place in the rivalry will seem odd, quaint even, before too many more years have passed.

Randy Johnson is about to become the Scarecrow: lanky, sinister, and fear-inducing. One of the few Batman villains who was successful in other endeavors before turning to crime, the Scarecrow devotes considerable talents to a needlessly malevolent purpose. In migrating to the Bronx Johnson (as Eric Neel has so eloquently contended) is doing the same.

Gary Sheffield is Killer Croc: strong, violent (just check out that swing), intimidating, but somehow completely uninteresting. A prototype of Bane, debuting roughly ten years earlier, with slightly more staying power.

Mariano Rivera most resembles the Riddler. The Riddler bases crimes around hokey puzzles that most of us have solved or seen solved by the time we are ten, but he somehow makes us forget that we know the answer. Mariano Rivera bases his success around one pitch, but somehow makes hitters forget how he's successfully retired them the last seventeen times in a row. They're both brilliant within carefully delineated parameters, and they're both a lot more trouble than they should be.

Jorge Posada is the Penguin, pre-Danny DeVito and with apologies to Ron Cey. An underrated member of the rogues gallery, the Penguin is both more dangerous than you think he is and less dangerous than he thinks he is. Suits Posada to a T.

I'm tempted to assign A-Rod and Jeter to Scarface and the Ventriloquist, respectively. Scarface is a loud-mouthed wooden dummy/"crime boss" and the Ventriloquist is his mild-mannered "assistant." Whenever A-Rod talked last year, it seemed like Jeter's lips were moving. Plus A-Rod played the last four games of the ALCS like he had a hand up his ... anyway, much as I loathe them both, I decided this parallel would be too reductive to insist upon, although not too reductive to mention.

A-Rod, on *snicker* second thought, is Two-Face. He's the greatest shortstop to ever play the game! He's a greedy egomaniac! He's a former 40-40 man still in the prime of his career! He's a glove-slapping weasel who can't back up the trash he talks! Eh, flip a coin.

Derek Jeter, as might be expected, is the Joker, the first face you think of when you think of evil in Gotham. To be honest, this might be higher praise than ol' Blanche DuBois deserves. Menacing as he is--he was the only Yankee still putting up a fight in the last two games of the LCS--Jeter simply can't match the Clown Prince's macabre and inspired zaniness. Still, a history of inflicting pain counts for something. Besides, just look at that smirk. Tell me you haven't seen it on a Visa commercial.

The Bronx Zoo has closed, kids. It's Arkham Asylum now.

Beltran A Met?

2005-01-05T16:59:00.000-05:00

I'm posting this here because this little corner of the internet has "less credibility" (whatever that means) than Always Amazin' is supposed to have, despite the fact that they're both written by the same hack of a blogger.

NYFS is reporting that the Mets have reached a deal with Carlos Beltran. I really, really want to believe this is true but considering how wrong they were on Moises Alou, this is just too big a story for me to comment on over at NJ.com without any additional confirmation (and since I'm not a reporter, I really don't have the time to follow this up).

I hope they're right, not only for the Mets' sake, but because it would finally give NYFS, a site I dearly love for their minor league coverage, the credibility it needs to compete with the big boys of the NY media.

If they're wrong, however, they're going to need a Mo Vaughn sized towel to wipe all the egg from their faces. And I'm going to mourn from now until spring training for my team.

"All of this, all of this can be yours"

2005-01-02T20:35:00.000-05:00

This from today's Denver Post, with gratitude to the ever vigilant Hardball Times for the tip-off:

"The Red Sox want to unload [Byung-Hyun] Kim and are willing to eat about 80 percent of his $6 million salary. They are seeking multiple mid-level prospects, thus far preventing a match with the Rockies."

Byung-Hyun Kim's place in Red Sox lore, such as it is, results from his involvement in one of the best "addition by subtraction" trades of recent years, though it was not thought to be so at the time. Kim was supposed to be the point of the deal, brought in to shore up a bullpen that was crazy like a Chad Fox. Which he did, until the Red Sox really needed him, at which point he started giving up runs like he was channeling John Wasdin . The real enduring positive of the trade turned out to be the deportation of Shea Hillenbrand, whose absence cleared the way for David Ortiz to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting American League.

Had his Red Sox story ended in 2003, Kim might yet be remembered a little fondly. Instead, he shrewdly flipped off his home fans during pre-game playoff introductions, and the specter of the bullpen he failed to steady spooked Grady Little into Pedrogate. This was further compounded by Theo Epstein giving him what has proven in hindsight to be a terrible contract. To top it all off, Kim's recalcitrance about altering his workout routine in spite of a troubled arm cost him his spot in the rotation this April. Kim is still relatively young, and he might yet have a reasonable facsimile of a major league career in front of him. It is nevertheless apparent that no part of this hypothetical career will develop in Boston. (Nor is it likely to develop in Coors Field, I suppose, but as a Red Sox fan that's not my problem.)

Once again, Kim's greatest contribution to his present club would be to take his place in an "addition by subtraction" trade. Consequently, if I'm Theo Epstein, I'm not sure I'd hold out for "mid-level prospects," plural. I'd settle for a mid-level prospect, singular. I'd settle for an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle. Heck, I'd even settle for an autographed photo of Aaron Miles, provided it wasn't accompanied by Aaron Miles himself. I'd just want Kim off my roster. If the Rockies want him, I say pay for the shipping, if that's what it takes.

The Spreading "No Question"

2005-01-01T17:14:00.000-05:00

Compliments and apologies to James Thurber for the title.

I think I first noticed it about a year ago, during the NFL playoffs. Troy Aikman began nearly every other sentence of his commentary with two simple words: "no question." I didn't like it, in much the same way that I dislike any phrase that gets repeated a little too often. Then again, Troy Aikman is hardly our National Barometer of Eloquence. Maybe it was a concussion thing.

As football season eventually (thank heavens) turned into baseball season, I noticed that the same spores of unvarying diction clinging to Aikman's palate had spread to Tim McCarver as well. There was "no question" about a great many things: the desirability of dropping a sacrifice bunt, the necessity of slow runners trying to go from first to third on sterling outfield arms, the indisputable holiness of Blanche DuBois. I gritted my teeth a bit, and then I settled down into a shrug. Maybe it was just a Fox broadcasters thing.

Now, though, my ears were acutely tuned to these increasingly obnoxious two words. I was hearing them everywhere, from anyone who had an opinion about anything. Phrases like these come and go, but the spreading "no question" I find particularly objectionable for the following reasons.

1) Anything you say following "no question" is, by your own admission, stating the obvious. If there's no question, why do you need to make the point?

2) The phrase is often heard at the beginning of a response to a question. If someone asks you about something and you begin your answer with "no question," you are implying that your interlocutor is ignorant of well-known realities.

3) The phrase, as used in discussions of certain controversial policies, is a way of pre-empting a conversation about important issues of public life that are genuinely in dispute.

This third incongruity in the use of the phrase is, I would suggest, especially irritating. The people claiming there is "no question" about such matters are sufficiently well-spoken to know what they're doing, and sufficiently intelligent to know better than to do it.

Perhaps my sensitivity to this phrase is an occupational hazard. I don't think so, though, inasmuch as I have lacked a real occupation for quite some time. I have many wishes for 2005, some of them extravagant and likely unattainable, some of them so curious and petty that I won't task you with them here. Between these two extremes falls this wish: I hope to hear a vast reduction in the use of "no question" sprinkled throughout broadcast discourse. In return, I will gratefully become less of a hectoring word-badger, and expend my peevish wrath elsewhere.

There are a variety of words available for asserting the absolute correctness of one's position. A great many of them end in "ly." Let's use them.

Best And Worst Of 2004

2004-12-31T11:39:00.000-05:00

Best Met Game: I'm tempted to say the July 3rd Met/Yankee game where the Mets won a slugfest 10-9. I'm tempted to say the Randy Johnson/Tom Glavine duel where the Mets won 1-0 on a leadoff home run from Kaz Matsui.

But the honor goes to the May 16th game at Houston.

Roger Clemens, having won seven straight games to start the season, had pitched seven brilliant innings. Now it was top of the ninth, Astros up 2-0, two outs, one on, Mike Piazza at the plate, Octavio Dotel on the mound.

Bam.

And Gogs was the extra inning hero to boot.

I believed, at that moment, that this team was something special. And despite the results of the rest of the season, nothing will take away from this game, certain to be shown on the new network's 'Mets Classic' series.

Best Season: Going by VORP, you'd have to give it to Al Leiter and Tom Glavine, with 46.2 and 42 respectively. Piazza was the best position player at 29.9 followed closely by Mike Cameron with 27.

But we're not going to give it to any of them.

Nope. Looking at Rookie VORP, both Kaz Matsui and David Wright clock in at 5th and 8th in the major leagues with 23.7 and 21.2 respectively.

Just think what they'll be able to do in their sophomore seasons.

Best Surprise: I think this has to go to Eric Valent -- .818 OPS, 14.9 VORP. Not bad for a Rule V pickup, eh?

Best Move: David Weathers and Jeremy Griffiths for Richard Hidalgo. 'Nuff said.

Best Souvenir: The Mets Jersey Beer Bottle Koosie (right). Also comes in a home black version. Sweet.

Worst Met Game: Boy, you can take your pick but I think you have to go with the 'Black Saturday' game against the Braves which featured:

1) Kris Benson's debut to the tune of seven earned runs in five innings.

2) Jaret Freakin' Wright pitching seven innings of three-hit ball

3) Having to sit through this mess of a game thinking about Scott Kazmir becoming a star...for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Worst Season: I'm tempted to give it to Gogs but he's going to get a different award. No, this one goes to The Great James Baldwin Experiment who piled up an astounding ten runs in six innings over two disasterous starts for a -6.2 VORP. Gives me the willies just thinking about it.

Marv Throneberry Award: Instead of 'worst surprise'. Gogs really disappointed this year but you just can't dislike the guy. I want to see a United Way commerical next year with Gogs and a whole group of kids who challenge him to a foot race. Then, in true comedic fashion, you see a series of cuts across the screen with the kids racing by, back and forth, followed by a panting Phillips. Maybe they could have the kids lap him a few times too.

Worst Trade: Duh.

And now for something competely different...

Best Album: I'd love to give this to U2 but HTDAAB is so much weaker than ATYCLB, I just can't. And even though I love the album, I can't bring myself to give it to Maroon 5 either since everything on it has been played ad nauseum to the point where I'm tired of it.

So I'm giving this award to Franz Ferdinand's self titled album instead that's filled with some of the catchiest songs you'll ever hear. Just try to get "The Dark Of The Matinee" out of your head. I dare you.

Best Movie: I'm tempted to say Spider-Man 2 (and I haven't seen Ray yet) but Kinsey was fantastic and Jamie Foxx will certainly have some stiff competition from Liam Neeson.

Best Game: Okay. I'll fully and shamelessly admit to being raised as a Nintendo fanboy, something I can't seem to get out of my system so by default this award has to go to Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. And I refuse, for the sake of my thesis, to install either World of Warcraft or Half-Life 2 in my laptop.

Nope. Not going to do it. *starts shaking*

Happy New Year!

Free Agent Endgame

2004-12-30T16:45:00.000-05:00

In the next week or two, Carlos Beltran will likely decide where he's going to play for the majority of his remaining career. Once he does, all the remaining big name free agents will likely follow suit. So what does this mean for the Mets?

Here are the possibilities from best to worst --

If the Mets sign Beltran:

The Mets likely will abandon their pursuit of Carlos Delgado (unless Fred Wilpon really opens up his pocketbook, which is possible) and the Yankees will bid heavily. The Mets will then likely sign one of Doug Mientkiewicz, Travis Lee, Tino Martinez, or John Olerud to play first.

If the Mets further sign Delgado, a young man in Manhattan will be crying (for joy) like a little baby from now until spring training.

If the Mets lose Beltran to the Yankees:

Expect the Mets to win the Delgado bidding war and make a strong run at Magglio Ordonez for the outfield with an outside chance at Sammy Sosa or Manny Ramirez ending up in orange and blue.

It's certainly possible that the Red Sox would take Manny off the market once Beltran signs, since they most likely want to trade Manny so they can get Beltran. However, if Delgado signs with the Mets BEFORE Beltran signs, Manny to the Mets may suddenly make a spike in likelihood. Under this scenario, the Mets would decide to take Manny and let the Sox and Yankees bloody themselves over Beltran instead. Wouldn't that be entertaining?

Again, this is a pretty remote possibilty since Delgado seems to be waiting for the Yankees to get involved, something they won't do unless they don't get Beltran.

If the Mets lose Beltran to the Astros:

This would be a nightmare. While on one hand I'd be happy to see Steinbrenner not get his prize for once, the Mets would also likely end up in a bidding war with the Yankees for Delgado, a war they may not win. This would then lead to...

If the Mets lose Beltran AND Delgado:

The biggest nightmare of all. Under this scenario, Ordonez would certainly be a likely target but here Omar will definitely look into Sosa and/or Ramirez (if he's still on the market) with Sosa in Flushing likely becoming Plan A.

Bottom line here, we better hope the Mets at least one Carlos in the next two weeks. Otherwise there may be a gloomy start to the New Year in Flushing.

Byrnes, Baby, Byrnes

2004-12-22T14:45:00.000-05:00

Ew, I feel all dirty for using a Sterling-ism in my headline. I promise it will never happen again.

Bob Klapisch wrote the following in today's Record:

The Mets have expressed interest in the A's Eric Byrnes as a replacement for Mike Cameron while the center fielder recovers from wrist surgery, according to an industry source.

With the number of available outfielders dwindling this winter, Byrnes, a left fielder, appeals to Met officials because he can play all three positions, has both power and speed and is cheap enough to keep alive the Mets' pursuit of Carlos Delgado.

In return for Byrnes, the Mets would likely have to give up a minor league prospect such as Yusmeiro Petit or Lastings Milledge, a swap that, in the short term, would benefit the Mets. Byrnes, 28, batted .283 with 20 homers and 73 RBI, and stole 17 bases in 18 attempts.

Now, Eric Byrnes is a nice player, a player I happen to like a lot. But is it worth giving up one or two of your best prospects for him? Let's take a look:

Positives:

Over the last three seasons Byrnes' OPS has gone from .717 to .792 to .814 with much of that being in his plate discipline.
He's a gritty, hard-nosed player who reminds me a lot of Ty Wigginton when he first came up, is a fan favorite in Oakland and would sure become one here in NY with his style of play.

Negatives:

ZiPS projects a .279/.345/.459 line for him this year. Not too shabby but not what you really want out of a corner outfielder.
Furthermore, Brynes is already 28. He should have had his breakout season by now, one that would be fairly difficult to come by if he moves to to the NL and Shea.

Now if the Mets had, say, Carlos Beltran in center, perhaps they could skimp on the other two positions but Brynes is really more suited to a power bat off the bench role on a deep team. Then there's the cost to consider.

Yusmiero Petit is the only star hurler (aside from Humber, if he ever signs) we have that's close to the majors and Lastings Milledge was recently rated the #15 prospect in baseball by Scouts.com. If you're going to trade one of these guys, you'd better be getting an All-Star in return.

If Omar Minaya could put together a package of any of the others: Heilman, Seo, Musser, Keppel, Valent, Phillips, or even Aaron Baldaris who's blocked by David Wright, I'd say go for it. But if Beane wants to get rid of Byrnes because he doesn't want to pay him, that's his fault. The Mets certainly don't have to play ball here.

And the bottom line is that Beane's asking price is just too high, and if Omar isn't careful, he could get Byrned.

Calendar Daze

2004-12-21T20:04:00.000-05:00

Between the holidays and my experiments, I haven't really had much time to post additional things lately. I just spent about three hours running around New York City buying some last minute Christmas items, an event that's becoming all the more regular with every passing year.

Last week though, Fumiko, one of my fellow labmates, and I decided to purchase some new calendars for the lab off Calendars.com. Okay fine, you say. But what prompted this spontaneous purchase is kind of amusing.

Fumiko grew up in Japan as a Tokyo Giants fan so, the first few years she was in the states, she really didn't have a huge rooting interest in either NY baseball team. However, Godzilla's arrival in the Bronx prompted a Yankee love fest the likes of which have never been seen before (although Shannon's LJ comes fairly close).

She has a Yankee desktop, Yankee screen saver (that does rotate with Lord of the Rings, fortunately), Yankee keychains, even a Yankee neckstrap for her ID cards. *shudder*

So last week Fumiko casually mentioned how nice it would be to have a Derek Jeter calendar for the coming year.

Which would be hung on the wall.

Near her desk.

Which is right next to MY desk.

All year long.

The camel's back had been broken. Decisive action was needed!

So I agreed to order a calendar for her online provided we could come to a mutually acceptable selection. She pored over a number of different calendars including some generic baseball, anime (Inuyasha in particular), and the Lord of the Rings selections from this year (unacceptable without at least one month of Orlando Bloom), until we settled on this:

*sigh*

It's still better than looking at Jeter's smug mug all year long.

As for myself, I reluctantly bought the NY Mets 2005 calendar for over my desk. Why reluctantly? Here's the month-by-month lineup:
Mike Piazza
Jason Phillips
Cliff Floyd
Richard Hidalgo
Tom Glavine
Mike Cameron
Kazuo Matsui
Steve Trachsel
Ty Wigginton
Al Leiter
Jose Reyes
Braden Looper
Regardless of the guys who have been lost this offseason (and before), where the heck is David Wright? Obviously this calendar was made early in the season, before Wright had a chance to show his Major League magic, so he wasn't included. You think they could at least wait until the trading deadline before they put freaking next year's calendar together? Sheesh.

Ah well, the bottom line was that I dodged a horrifying pinstriped bullet.

I think.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Master Of His Domain

2004-12-16T23:12:00.000-05:00

Fark headline on the RJ trade to the Bombers:

Randy Johnson traded to Yankees in three-way deal. Steinbrenner quoted saying "It finally took a three-way for us to grasp the Big Unit, but now that we have Johnson, our holes are filled."

Brian Cashman must be so very relieved.

Renteria to Own?

2004-12-15T23:53:00.000-05:00

Edgar Renteria was a key contributor to my 2003 fantasy league champion Porlock Lycanthropes. He did everything that year: hit for average, hit for power, stole bases, and played exceptional defense. There were even a few days in June that year when I could actually see my floor. I can't prove this, of course, but I suspect Renteria must have taken time off from interleague play to tidy up around here when I wasn't looking.

He wasn't nearly the player in 2004 he was in 2003; all of the key production numbers were down, on top of which my apartment's a total sty. If you go by his adjusted OPS last season, Renteria was technically a below-average hitter, although I suspect he'd still stack up quite well compared to other shortstops. Granted, 2003 might have been a career year for him, but he's still too young to assume that his marked drop-off in 2004 is definitive. Split the difference between the last two seasons, and you come up with something remarkably like his 2002 campaign (.364 OBP/.439 SLG/ .803 OPS), which was still mighty good for a slick-fielding middle infielder.

On the whole, then, I'm happy with the move, considered exclusively on its own terms. Ten million per is a lot to shell out, but if Nomar's worth eight mil in 2005, I can see why one might think Renteria (younger, more durable) would be worth a little more. Considering the move in a larger context--examining not just the splash but the ripples--things get a little more complicated. Signing Renteria creates an intriguing possibility, but it also raises a crucial question.

First, the intriguing possibility. As has been widely noted, with Renteria in place Hanley Ramirez becomes primo trade bait. I'm fine with this, especially if he becomes part of a package that lands Tim Hudson. I'd be less fine with it if he is part of a deal that brings back A. J. Burnett, but I'd cope.

Now for the crucial question. Let's play the old Rob Neyer Player A/ Player B game.

OBP SLG OPS
Player A 2003 .394 .480 .874
Player A 2004 .327 .401 .728

Player B 2003 .351 .512 .863
Player B 2004 .390 .482 .872

Player A is Edgar Renteria. Player B is Jason Varitek.

I won't pretend that this is an easy calculation. Renteria's younger, more versatile offensively, and a better defender. Varitek's more consistently productive, a tremendous force in the clubhouse, and has proven capable of enduring the scrutiny generated by a passionate but demanding fan-base. Until yesterday, I though that the four years and 36 million the Sox had offered Varitek was more than fair, and I understood the reluctance to budge on it since no one else is really in the bidding at this point. But why is someone who's never played an inning for you at a position for which there are other options (Cabrera, for instance) worth more than a guy who's been taking bullets for you for seven years, was instrumental to an immortal season, and has no obvious replacement either in free agency or through a trade? Despite what you might have heard, A. J. Pierzynski is not a legitimate replacement, (scroll for it) even at the low low price of 1.5 million.

I get it. You don't simply roll over a twenty-five man roster from year to year, even if that roster wins it all. I knew going in that we weren't bringing back all of the big three. Is it possible, though, that in signing Renteria the Red Sox have guaranteed that none of them will be back?

Passing Grade

2004-12-15T19:38:00.000-05:00

Welcome to New York, Mr. Martinez:

Martinez passed his physical Wednesday, and the Mets finalized their $53 million, four-year contract with the pitcher they hope will take them to the postseason.

The Mets scheduled a news conference for Shea Stadium on Thursday to introduce Martinez, who turned down a $40.5 million, three-year offer from the Boston Red Sox and told his agent Monday to work out a deal with New York.

We got our ace. Now let's get us a first baseman and an outfielder. Booyah!

1998-2004

2004-12-14T13:24:00.000-05:00

Joe Gillis: You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.

Norma Desmond: I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.

--Sunset Boulevard

I need to get this off my chest first. Pedro Martinez may have just turned himself into Norma Desmond. Who would have thought, even two years ago, that his departure would produce such decidedly mixed feelings? I'm a little sorry to see him go. I'm a little relieved that the Sox didn't try to match the offer the Mets gave him. I hope he continues to do well at Shea. At the same time, with apologies to my co-blogger, I'm a little smug about the fact that nothing he does in his new uniform could possibly matter as much as what he did in the uniform he's handing in. "I am big. It's the games that got small."

Soon enough, we'll be slathered in recriminations and ill will, some of it more than justified, some of it decidedly overstated. Before this viscous revision completely obscures the delight Red Sox fans used to take in so rare and inspiring a talent, I'd like to recapitulate, in as much detail as I can muster, what it meant to have Pedro Martinez in my team's corner in his prime. It's a question of gratitude.

****

At one point, in the dark off-season between 1998 and 1999, I actually uttered the following absurdity: "I'm going to one game at Fenway this year, and then I'm through."

My friend Ed, less inclined to overstatement than I am, quickly pointed out the obvious: "I think that's a lie."

As it turned out, it was. If Mets fans can believe it, my disgust with my team erupted from its failure to resign Mo Vaughn. Mo had been the face of the team ever since I'd been in town, and his departure was the most significant of my rooting life. I'd never seen the team willingly give up a player who had been as sucessful the previous year as Mo had been in 1998. I was angry because I suspected that the decision had less to do with talent evaluation than with organizational arrogance.

Multiple factors conspired to extract me from my bitter and admittedly immature boycotting scheme. I couldn't have known, for example, that a buddy from work would have access to season tickets. Free seats behind home plate can salve a lot of hurt feelings. In addition, the Red Sox were unexpectedly and inexplicably good. They lost one of their best hitters, replaced him with Jose "OBP" Offerman, and improved from 92 wins to 94, securing a second consecutive playoff berth. Most importantly, though, there was Pedro, who transformed before our very eyes from excellent to historic.

The only game I wanted to see in 1999 was Mo's return to Fenway Park in another uniform. This happened to fall early in the year, May 7 to be exact. It also just so happened that Pedro was pitching that night: 8 innings, 6 hits, no runs, no walks, and (ahem) 15 strikeouts.

Interesting. I might make it back more than once this season, I thought to myself.

Understand that I wasn't the only one upset by Mo's departure and, consequently, less than enthused about the '99 Sox. (Mets fans are reading this with blank incomprehension. I'm telling you, though, it's true.) As a result, you didn't have to buy Red Sox tickets six months in advance. After seeing Pedro pitch on Friday I was able to scoop up tickets for his next start Wednesday against the Mariners. Keep in mind that this is 1999, and the Mariners still have Alex Rodriguez (before the conspicuous display of avarice) Ken Griffey Jr. (before the endless string of injuries) and Edgar Martinez (before the gradual fossilization had set in). Daunting. Pedro's line that night: 8 innings, 4 hits, 2 runs, 1 walk, and (ahem) 15 strikeouts.

Back-to-back starts with fifteen strikeouts. You might think that one of those starts would have qualified as my most memorable night at Fenway Park. That honor actually goes to his next start, which I also attended courtesy of my friend Joe, who had access to the aforementioned season tickets from his day job.

A little context is in order. First, that night's opponent was the Yankees, and it was Joe Torre's first night back after his fight with cancer. He brought out the line-up card before the game and received a standing ovation. Let it never be said that Red Sox fans are utterly lacking in class, even when it comes to the Evil Empire. Secondly, I was at the game in spite of having run a 101-degree fever thirty-six hours earlier. I knew braving a mid-May evening in Boston was a little stupid of me, but I couldn't help it. It was the Yankees, the tickets were free, and Pedro was on the hill. Finally, my friend Joe might, without injustice, be described as a gadfly. As a lifelong Dodgers fan, he had no rooting interest in the game, but he enjoyed twisting the needle. This will be important in about five paragraphs.

The game begins, and Pedro doesn't have his best stuff. The velocity's there, but he can't locate. He's working deep counts and even walking a guy here and there. After four and a half, he trails David Cone 2-0. Joe, being Joe, is rubbing it in a little.

Mike Stanley leads off the bottom of the inning with a homer. Nothing else comes of it, but the lead is halved. Then, in the bottom of the sixth, the Sox solve Cone and take a 3-2 lead.

Pedro comes out for the seventh. He's thrown a ton of pitches already, but this is pre-injury and pre-Gradygate. Petey gives up a leadoff single. Joe sees an opportunity to salt a wound and takes it. Pedro retires the next guy, but then gives up a hit-and-run single. Runners at the corners, one out. Pedro gets the next guy, but then walks Jorge Posada (I think, might have been Brosius). Joe's yapping the whole time, reminding me that Pedro's not that sharp. What Joe hasn't noticed is that, while the bases are loaded, the Yankees' hitter at this key moment is Chad Curtis.

For those of you keeping score: it's the '99 Yankees, they have the bases loaded, are only down a run, and Pedro, lacking his best stuff, has thrown a ton of pitches.

As I said, Joe enjoys twisting the needle. Nevertheless, he looks out at the mound, he looks in the batter's box, and says, "This guy doesn't have a chance."

He was right. Strikeout, inning over, and the Sox add welcome insurance over the next two innings to pull away. Pedro's line on his "off night": 7 innings, 10 hits, 2 runs, 4(!) walks, and 11 (ho-hum) strikeouts.

I saw Pedro in person at Fenway a total of four times in 1999, the final being a complete-game, three-hit shutout against the Blue Jays in September shortly after his favorite aunt died. His composite line from "My Evenings with Pedro": 32 innings, 23 hits, 4 runs, and 53 strikeouts. Four wins, no losses, with a 1.13 ERA. Gibsonian.

This is just 1999, and only the games I attended in person, that I'm talking about. This doesn't include that July night in 1998 when I was at Fenway to see Pedro outduel Bartolo Colon 1-0, back when the Indians could score five runs a night swinging blindfolded. This doesn't include the chilly April afternoon in 2001 when I was at Fenway to see him strikeout 16 Devil Rays over eight innings. It doesn't include the one-hitter in Yankee Stadium. Nor does it include six no-hit innings in a decisive playoff game against the only team in the last fifty years to score more than a thousand runs. That last one in spite of the fact that Pedro was hurting and had no fastball.

The numbers are impressive, but even they might not be enough to capture the feel of having Pedro in the house. Put it like this: when he was pitching, he completely reversed the usual sense of offense and defense. When he was dealing--sometimes even when he wasn't, by his stratospheric standards-- it felt like the Red Sox were on the attack, even though the other guys had the bats. Normally, people go to the concession stand when their team is in the field and try to make it back to see their boys hit. Not at Fenway, not when Pedro was pitching.

The Red Sox team I'll remember is, naturally, this year's edition. The Red Sox player that I'll remember, though, is Pedro Martinez. I'm choosing to remember him at his best becaue I might live to be a hundred and never see another player like him in his prime. Thanks, Petey.

Note: The raw numbers in this post were reconstructed with the help of Glenn Stout's game-by-game log of Pedro's 1999 season in Red Sox Century.

Leave The Bat, Take The Cannoli.

2004-12-14T13:20:00.000-05:00

So what are the odds that Pedro pitches in the series against the Yankees at Shea?

Where there's no DH...

Where he has to bat...

Against the Yankees.

Follow up question: If you were Joe Torre, who would you give the honor of drilling him?

I would say Moose, but he just seems like too much of a nice guy. Maybe El Duque, but all the other guys are just too fresh off the meat market. Maybe he'll let Jorge Posada pitch an inning.

Now that would be entertaining.

Question Marks

2004-12-13T18:37:00.000-05:00

So it looks like the Mets are going to get an ace.

If the Mets do indeed "seal the deal" on Pedro, it would set their 1-5 in stone for 2005-2006 (assuming Tom Glavine's option vests). I have decidedly mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I love Pedro, love watching him pitch, and think that a move to the NL and Shea will do nothing but prolong his career (although four years is decidedly risky). On the other hand, Pedro alone is not going to return the Mets to the playoffs. For that glorious event to happen, take a look at what the Mets have to do:

1) Sign a first baseman and at least one outfield bat

2) Trade or release Cliff Floyd.

3) The Mets need to completely re-structure their bullpen, beginning with sacrificing The Run Fairy up to Jobu so that...

4) ...Mike Piazza can have a bounce back year with the bat

5) Jose Reyes needs to be healthy for a full year and continue to develop

6) David Wright and Victor Diaz need to continue to develop and Diaz needs playing time

7) Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano need an IV of Rick Peterson kool-aid and have to become the aces he envisioned

If all this comes to pass, the Mets will compete next year. That's an awful lot to go right. So the question remains, would the Mets have been better off spending their money on numbers 1 or 3? Will Pedro's contract hinder the Mets from improving themselves down the line when they have fewer question marks? Only time will tell.

Omar may have put an exclamation point on the winter meetings but he hasn't answered any of the question marks surrounding this team. The only question now is what will he do next?

By the Same Logic...

2004-12-11T13:24:00.000-05:00

"Theo, can you explain the process that led to the Wells signing?"

"I'd be happy to. As we look ahead to defending our World Series championship in 2005, we felt we needed to do four things. We needed to get fatter. We needed to get lazier. We needed to get older and, finally, we needed to corner the market on those players who were previously pinstriped."

"Fatter, lazier, older, and previously pinstriped?"

"That's right. We're calling it the F.L.O.P.P. protocol."

"So who else are you pursuing, given those priorities?"

"We're talking with the Yankees about a deal for Luis Sojo. He would fill our hole at short, and greatly increase the number of chins we bring to the infield every day."

*****

Look, the David Wells signing isn't Matt Young crazy. It is, nevertheless, counter-intuitive at best. Admittedly, the numbers Boomer posted last year look fairly decent. Consider, though, that A) Petco Park was one of the most pitcher-friendly stadiums in baseball last year and B) beneath that 3.73 ERA lurks a K/9 inning ratio of 4.65. Bear in mind that Derek Lowe, the poster child for "contact is as contact does," posted a K/ 9 inning ratio of 5.17. So the raw numbers are cause for concern. Throw in the fact that Wells is 41 and has a history of letting himself go physically, and you've got a strange decision on Epstein's part.

Those defending the trade are saying that Wells will fit in with the "happy bunch of idiots" thing the Sox have going on in the clubhouse. I see two things wrong with this. First, Wells isn't a happy idiot; he's a surly obstreperous idiot. Secondly, and more importantly, the whole idiot thing has been blown out of all proportion. No, I don't see tenure at MIT in Manny's future. Nevertheless, the 2004 Red Sox, particularly their pitchers, prepared as well mentally as any team in the game. Holding the Cardinals to three runs over the last three games of the World Series speaks volumes about having the scouting to develop a good game plan and having the intelligence to implement it. How well do you think it will go over when Varitek tries to talk hitters with Wells, and Boomer blows him off for an Ultimate Fighting Championship at Denny's?

Obviously, Theo deserves the benefit of the doubt, and it's likely he knows something a mere keyboard jockey does not. From where I sit, though, this looks like a bad deal on multiple levels.

Just the Two of Us, Ryu and I

2004-12-10T21:46:00.000-05:00

Jay's Note:

Okay. This post does have a baseball connection.

Sort of.

About a week ago, I was writing a post over on Always Amazin' concerning the Mets possibly signing Henry Blanco. Without really thinking, I typed out the title "Blanco, Blanco Burning Bright" and dove into my pre-work post. Right before I was about to hit "publish", I re-read the title and paused. Something was wrong but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Obviously, the post title was supposed to be a take off of William Blake's "The Tyger" but having Blanco in there really didn't make any sense. On the other hand, dammit, it still sounded right to me. After thinking for another minute or two, it suddenly dawned on me where my cluttered brain pulled the reference from and I started to laugh out loud in the middle of the lab. I eventually changed the post title after realizing that only a handful of people in the world would get the joke.

A couple days later, still chortling to myself, I fired off an e-mail to Matt and asked him if he would be willing to put together a post on this silly little story to share with the rest of you. And so he agreed (bwah, hah, hah). So without further adieu...

There are at least eight levels of procrastination. I'll tell you all about them some other time. For now, I want to concentrate on the most beguiling form of procrastination ever to slip its anaesthetic claws into the soft underbelly of my productivity. Or I could have some chips and salsa. Yeah, chips and salsa would be...no. Focus, curse you! Focus on how you used to avoid focusing...

The year: 1992. The place: Shelton Hall, Boston University. The English major, flagrantly dodging a paper on Emily Dickinson, pokes his head around the corner to peer into the game room.

He's in luck. The Street Fighter II machine is unoccupied. This is a boon because the English major doesn't really like fighting other human players. He's not very good, and he's not a very good loser. He can beat the machine, though, while playing Ryu and using only one of the six available buttons. As you might expect, many quarters have been sacrificed in perfecting this strategy. He doesn't want to think about the number of quarters sacrificed, in much the some way he doesn't want to think about Emily Dickinson just now. Nor Walt Whitman for that matter.

He is not alone in his addiction. There's the one guy in Shelton Hall who's smaller than the English major. The smaller guy plays the only female character in the game. He's pretty effective, although the way in which he finds his alter ego quotable (her vocabulary consisting entirely of "Ya-ta!") is, well, creepy.

There's also the guy, one of the better players in the dorm, who carries a cell phone down to the console with him. The 1992 cell phone is so large it should come with back-up lights, but he's developed a knack for holding it in the crook of his neck while he plays. On he chats, never missing a block, never screwing up a combo. The English major suspects that whomever he is talking to on the phone is also, somewhere, playing Street Fighter II.

Most amusing of all is the older Greek guy who can't defeat the machine. He's smelly, and he has an immense stack of quarters perched above his left wrist. He can't beat Vega, the second bonus character, and he's been working on it for a few months. It might be a little sad, really, except for the vociferous swearing in a foreign language. One night he pounds the console so hard that it flips open, revealing the machine's innards. The English major's friend Yuichi finds the switch that the quarters trip, and the entire dorm plays for free for about three weeks. When the English major, a semester later, shows up for a computer science discussion section, it turns out that the Greek guy who can't beat Vega is the teaching assistant.

The English major can dodge that Dickinson paper all he wants, but the truth is that the two major strands of his admittedly limited existence--a devotion to a cartoonish video game and a zeal for poetry--are drawing quietly together. Ryu walks into the sunset, successful again, and the English major heads upstairs, slipping comfortably into another procrastination tactic: forestalling the work of one class by pretending interest in another. To avoid Emily Dickinson, he turns to William Blake.
Something happens to William Blake's words as the English major considers them. They seem to occupy a certain kind of place, or, more accurately, fill a certain kind of shape. It wouldn't be that hard for other words to fill that same shape. And so, the English major begins to idly scribble:

Blanka, Blanka burning bright,
Green fur ablaze in electric light,
What moronic thought could cause
A foe to brave your hungry jaws?

Things get worse from there. Other Street Fighter characters slip into the shapes of other poems. The English major disrespects William Carlos Williams; he skewers e. e. cummings. He rips off Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He even parodies some writers he likes, such as Coleridge and Poe.

Embarassingly enough, the string of cheesy parodies proves to be one of the most popular things the English major writes. Some of his college friends charitably refuse to forget it.

James Speaks. Should We Listen?

2004-12-09T10:40:00.000-05:00

Hey All,

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Between a paucity of news and a tussle with the flu I haven't really had the inclination to write here over the past week or so. However since I've recovered and the Winter Meetings are in full swing there will be some reading material in the next few days.

In the meantime, Bill James has a tongue-in-cheek essay over at The Hardball Times basically chiding the media for declaring Barry Bonds Season officially open.

On one hand, he's correct in pointing out that all the evidence we have to go on in this whole steriod brouhaha is leaked testimony in a couple newspaper articles and that no real conclusions will be able to be drawn until the actual BALCO trial is over.

On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with speculation either. And if said speculation leads to more drug testing, harsher penalties, and cleaning up the sport I think the media should keep this topic burning bright throughout the cold, cold winter. After all, if Barry's truly innocent, then the BALCO trial will vindicate him and he can hit his 756th home run in 2006 with all the platitudes he deserves.

But part of me can't help but think of what happened to the other persecuted baseball star that James vehemently defended over several pages in his Baseball Abstract and the revelations that have come forth since then. Looking back at those pages now, they seem like a sorry last-ditch attempt to save a great baseball player and hero to many from the shame he brought upon himself.

And I can't help but wonder if we'll look back at this Bonds essay a couple years from now in the same sorry manner.

So How Much Is That Free Agent In The Window?

2004-12-02T18:21:00.000-05:00

One thing that always drives me bonkers every year is that when the Elias Sports Bureau releases its player rankings (which in turn determine the free agent compensation), they always list them by league and position (you can find the lists here for both the American and National League). Furthermore they release the rankings for all the major league players rather than just the free agents for this year. Therefore, in order to determine what compensation a team gets you have to sort through multiple lists and non-free agent players which takes time and patience that I don't really possess.

Therefore as a public service to all, I put together complete lists for the Type A, B, and C free agents. They're listed by their Elias Ranking and the number next to their name is their respective ranking at their position. If you want a review of the player compensation rules, I've listed them here.

Why am I interested in this? Well, next Tuesday, the Mets have to decide whether to offer Al Leiter (if he doesn't sign beforehand), Richard Hidalgo, Mike DeJean, and Ricky Bottalico arbitration. If the Mets were to offer all four arbitration and all four ended up signing elsewhere, the Mets could end up with a draft pick bonanza. This, however, is contingent on several things:

1) If a team picks in the first half of the first round, they can't lose their first round pick. In this case, the team gets the second round pick instead. The Mets, with the ninth pick overall this year (scroll way down for the draft order), can't lose their pick no matter who they sign.

2) If a team signs more than one free agent (and loses more than one draft pick), the team with the higher ranked player gets the higher draft pick. Ask BA has a good example of this:

The chronology of the transactions doesn't matter. The Giants signed Omar Vizquel 16 days before they grabbed Armando Benitez. Both are Type A free agents, with Benitez (85.478) outranking Vizquel (66.234). So the Marlins wind up with San Francisco's first-rounder (No. 22 overall) and the Indians got bumped down to the Giants' second-rounder. Florida and Cleveland also receive supplemental first-round choices.

So let's say Florida signs Leiter away from the Mets with the Mets getting compensation. With no other signings, the Mets will then get the Marlins first rounder (16th overall, the highest first rounder they can get) and a supplemental pick.

However let's say that then the Marlins decide to sign Rheal Cormier for the bullpen. Since Cormier (82.431) has a higher ranking than Leiter (82.333), Philadelphia would get the first rounder instead and the Mets would only get their second rounder. Remember these rankings take the past two years and position into consideration. Positions with less depth generally produce higher rankings.

From the first list, you can see all the players ranked above Leiter. Looking at the list, you can see it would much better for the Marlins to sign Leiter rather than the Phillies or the Yankees simply because they are much less likely to sign any of the players listed above him. Richard Hidalgo, who finds himself towards the bottom of the A list, has a much greater chance of producing only a second round pick.

The last thing these lists tell us is the order of the compensation picks at the end of their respective rounds. Therefore, should both teams offer compensation, the Blue Jays would get pick #31 for losing Carlos Delgado while Boston would get pick #32 should the Mets sign Pedro (Boston would also get the Mets second round pick).

So what's the best the Mets can do with draft picks next year? If they offer arbitration to all their free agents, they all end up signing elsewhere, and the Mets get the best possible compensation from their new teams, the Mets could end up with four first round picks (three plus their own), two first round supplementals, and a second round supplemental. Even if the Mets sign two additional Type A free agents (say Carlos Beltran and Richie Sexson), they will still only lose their normal second and third rounders. We're talking Moneyball draft territory here.

In reality, it will probably be a happy medium, with the Mets picking up a first rounder and giving away at least one of their lower rounders. This is what the Hot Stove is all about and it all starts next Tuesday. Woohoo!

2004 Type A Free Agent Rankings
1. Carlos Delgado	98.333
3. Pedro Martinez	94.444
3. Roger Clemens	92.25
6. Carlos Beltran	91.011
4. Edgar Renteria	89.655
5. Adrian Beltre	86.772
5. Russ Ortiz	86.667
8. Magglio Ordonez	85.75
7. Nomar Garciaparra	85.714
8. Armando Benitez	85.478
3. Jason Varitek	85.294
11. Moises Alou	84.719
9. Jeff Kent	83.673
12. J.D. Drew	83.371
10. Placido Polanco	82.653
10. Rheal Cormier	82.431
11. Al Leiter	82.333
13. Brad Radke	80.754
14. Esteban Loaiza	79.861
14. Carl Pavano	78.917
15. David Wells	78.667
16. Woody Williams	78.5
16. Vinny Castilla	76.72
14. Wilson Alvarez	76.693
15. Ugueth Urbina	76.366
20. Steve Finley	75.73
17. Dan Miceli	75.599
13. Orlando Cabrera	75.325
7. Damian Miller	74.79
18. Matt Morris	74.167
20. Kevin Millwood	73.833
7. Mike Matheny	72.973
15. Corey Koskie	72.222
26. Richard Hidalgo	72.135
20. Troy Percival	71.46
22. Scott Williamson	70.754
30. Edgar Martinez	70
26. Steve Kline	69.684
28. Odalis Perez	69
31. Matt Mantei	68.678
33. Jeromy Burnitz	68.315
25. Derek Lowe	68.254
26. Chris Hammond	68.19
34. Richie Sexson	68.148
37. Cal Eldred	67.14
22. Royce Clayton	66.502
21. Omar Vizquel	66.234
38. Kent Mercker	66.223
24. M. Grudzielanek	65.306
25. Tony Batista	64.815
22. Miguel Cairo	64.532
40. Jaret Wright	63.946
43. D. Hermanson	62.94
44. Paul Shuey	62.762
35. Jeff Nelson	62.282

2004 Type B Free Agent Rankings
34. Cory Lidle	65.333
35. Matt Clement	65.083
40. Tino Martinez	64.167
27. Barry Larkin	64.039
29. Rich Aurilia	63.054
32. Todd Walker	62.245
43. B.J. Surhoff	62
36. Ron Villone	61.315
34. Deivi Cruz	60.837
38. Terry Adams	60.089
27. Roberto Alomar	59.606
47. A. Alfonseca	59.184
48. Mike DeJean	59.154
28. Cristian Guzman	59.091
30. Eric Young	58.374
41. Chris Carpenter	58.333
52. Antonio Osuna	57.616
43. Curtis Leskanic	57.414
53. Steve Reed	57.025
51. John Olerud	56.667
12. Dan Wilson	55.882
33. Jose Valentin	55.844
44. Paul Wilson	55.833
44. Hideo Nomo	55.833
53. Juan Gonzalez	55.75
37. Alex Gonzalez	55.665
55. Danny Bautista	55.506
13. Greg Myers	55.462
38. Jon Lieber	54.563
59. Elmer Dessens	54.333
52. Esteban Yan	54.143
16. Todd Pratt	54.054
38. Jose Hernandez	53.695
17. Brent Mayne	53.668
51. Jose Lima	53.667
42. O. Hernandez	53.571
61. Gabe White	53.327
14. Doug Mirabelli	53.151
41. Robin Ventura	52.381
42. Craig Counsell	52.217
55. Ismael Valdez	52.167
64. Dave Burba	51.878
66. Chad Fox	51.464
16. Gregg Zaun	51.05
69. Jose Mesa	49.926
71. Todd Jones	49.364
18. Brook Fordyce	48.319

2004 Type C Free Agent Rankings
53. Eric Milton	53.083
38. Desi Relaford	52.709
61. Julio Franco	51.852
56. Shawn Estes	51.417
57. Kris Benson	51.167
63. T. Hollandsworth	50.112
61. Jim Mecir	49.238
62. John Halama	48.867
75. Ricky Bottalico	48.388
65. John Mabry	48.315
76. R. Hernandez	48.24
63. Al Levine	47.938
65. Bob Wickman	47.306
19. Sandy Alomar Jr.	47.059
68. Ben Grieve	46.742
22. Todd Greene	46.332
41. Troy Glaus	46.032
47. R. E. Martinez	45.813
72. Jermaine Dye	45.75
23. Mike Redmond	44.981
83. Todd Van Poppel	44.928
48. Tony Womack	44.898
86. Rudy Seanez	44.366
75. Travis Lee	43.333
49. Aaron Sele	43.254
71. Carlos Baerga	42.963
20. Henry Blanco	40.546

The Army Of The Twelve Rally Monkeys

2004-12-02T01:20:00.000-05:00

I meant to post this NY Daily News article the other day but problems with Blogger prevented me from doing so:

Still disturbed by the Boston Red Sox's Curse-ending success, Yankee fans now have to put up with seeing a likeness of Beantown sparkplug Johnny Damon on lampposts in Brooklyn.

A stenciled image of the long-haired outfielder with a red B on his cap has been popping up across Carroll Gardens, driving Bomber fans bananas.

This gave me a wonderful morning pickup the other day. It would have been even sweeter if this was in the Bronx but I can imagine even this ballsy artist has his or her limits.

Phew

2004-11-30T13:51:00.000-05:00

Looks like Sports Illustrated made the correct choice:

I'm kinda disappointed about the cover though. I suppose it's more impressive if you had it in front of you and were able to pour over the individual pics but I'd still rather have seen a team photo. Eh, what can you do?

To Pedro Or Not To Pedro

2004-11-28T13:07:00.000-05:00

That is the question.

The Pedro Martinez rumors are flying fast and furious and it appears that the Mets are ready to make a significant offer to the feisty righthander. So is this a good thing?

Jay Jaffe, who runs the wonderful Futility Infielder site, has put together a handy chart of all the free agent righthanders on the market this offseason (he's posted this in the context of revamping the Yankees so keep that in mind as I quote him), including both Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) and Defense Independent Pitching ERA (dERA). In a nutshell, these two stats measure how lucky or unlucky a pitcher was in the previous year and dERA is probably a better prediction on what the pitchers ERA will be in subsequent years. You can check out the whole chart but here's Pedro's line compared to some of the other pitchers the Mets are pursuing (ranked by dERA):

Team	Pitcher	W	L	IP	ERA	WHIP	K/9	K/W	HR/9	BABIP	dERA
FLA	Pavano	18	8	222	3.00	1.17	5.63	2.84	0.65	.282	3.60
BOS	Martinez	16	9	217	3.90	1.17	9.41	3.72	1.08	.291	3.70
NYM	Benson	12	12	200	4.31	1.31	6.02	2.20	0.67	.295	3.87
CHC	Clement	9	13	181	3.68	1.28	9.45	2.47	1.14	.279	3.95
NYM	Leiter	10	8	174	3.21	1.35	6.06	1.21	0.83	.240	4.98

From this chart, we can see a couple things.

1) Pedro, even though he's not as insanely dominating as he once was, is still a very a good pitcher. He also stayed healthy last year and threw 217 innings, the most in four years.

2) Matt Clement and Carl Pavano both compare very favorably to Pedro (and Kris Benson for that matter). However, with both being younger than Pedro, they would make a safer long term investment (despite both having been injured at some point in their career). It's also something to keep in mind that Pavano had an outstanding posteason in 2003, especially against the Yankees.

3) Signing Al Leiter would indeed be a DoUP. Leiter was extremely lucky last year, batters only hit .240 when they put the ball in play against him. Granted BABIP is partially a function of defense (so hopefully all Met pitchers will improve next year) but it's also a function of luck. And luck tends to fluctuate from year to year (as his dERA of 4.98 predicts).

Jay Jaffe has this to say about Pedro:

Over the first six years in Boston, Martinez's ERA+ was an astounding 210, meaning that his ERA was less than half of the adjusted league average. But last year, although he threw the most innings he had in four seasons, his line was considerably more ordinary. He allowed 26 homers, one more than he had in the previous three seasons combined. On the other hand, while his strikeout rate has steadily eroded from a high of 12.57 per nine innings, it's still above one hitter per inning. The same thing can be said about his control; his K/W rate was a criminally insane 8.88 back in 1999 (313 K to 37 walks) and it's now "down" to 3.72.

Those are still numbers that most of the 32 pitchers on this list who have fewer Cy Youngs than him would give their throwing arms for. They perfectly illustrate the reason why power pitchers last longer, career-wise, than finesse pitchers -- they have much more margin for error, much further to fall before they become "average". Pedro Martinez may no longer be one of the game's elite pitchers, but he's still pretty damn good.

Jay also goes on to talk about Pedro's diva-ish nature and fragility which are significant concerns in signing Pedro to a long term contract. Bottom line: he's still a very good pitcher, one of the best on the market, but his age carries more risk than the others. So would Pedro and the Mets be a good fit for each other?

Yankees fans and Pedro deliciously detest each other which really makes me think that Pedro was just using the Yanks to drive up his price tag. However this little feud does make me think that Pedro is genuinely thinking about coming to the Mets so he could still stick it to the Yanks a few times a year. In addition, Pedro would be both coming back to the National League and going from a great hitters park to a great pitchers park, something that would only help his career Hall of Fame numbers and certainly appeal to his nature (strangely enough, Shea was actually kind of neutral last year, although it was still better than Fenway.) He's also a marquee player and will sell lots of tickets out in Flushing, especially given the huge Dominican population of New York. Given these facts, the Mets are a good fit.

However Pedro me-me-me attitude is certainly something to consider, given the imprsssionable young players like Jose Reyes in the clubhouse and a first year manager that doesn't need an additional headache. I don't think these concerns are enough to outweigh the positives but they're certainly something to keep in mind. If all the intangables are a wash though, the question then boils down to how much for how long? The Red Sox have offered two years with a team option for a third year, $27.5 million guaranteed. The Mets would almost certainly have to guarantee a third year at at least the same money to get him to come to Shea, something they actually could afford over the next couple years. Four years, however, would be folly and if he demands such a contract, the Mets should start looking elsewhere.

Bottom line is that, for three years, Pedro is a decent risk with the potential to be a superstar at Shea. Personally, I would love to see him pitch in person again before he retires and I'd love to see him at Shea (especially since it's so hard to get Fenway tickets now. Grrrrrrr.) However should Pedro demand too much, the Mets should not hesitate to set their sights elsewhere.

A Disaster Of Unmitigated Proportions

2004-11-24T09:09:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, over at Always Amazin', I wrote the following in regards to Omar Minaya meeting with Al Leiter:

This is going to be an interesting test of Minaya's abilities. My gut feeling is that the contract offered to Leiter is pretty much for sentimental reasons; the question is whether or not Minaya can admit that honestly to Al without burning any bridges. He should thank him for all of his loyalty and dedication to the team but admit that 1) the Mets are probably not going to condend next year 2) they'd rather sign a younger pitcher (i.e. Carl Pavano, Matt Clement, Odalis Perez) to a long term contract rather than just sign him for a year. If Minaya caves though, it could be a disaster of unmitigated proportions.

While I do go on to justify my statement somewhat, a short while later this little e-mail shows up in my inbox from Matt:

Were I a Mets fan, I wouldn't want them to re-sign Al Leiter either, but "a disaster of unmitigated proportions"? Offering a one-year deal for a player in a season where you're only shooting for .500 anyway?

We've seen DoUPs in recent years, of course. The Kevin Brown trade might qualify. Much as I hate to say it, the Mo Vaughn deal would qualify. Albert Belle in Baltimore would count. And yes, the notorious Bagwell for Andersen would qualify. As would the Matt Young signing. But let's save the white-hot rhetoric for these catastrophic errors in judgment, okay?

This amused me to no end, and since I'm incapable of turning down the volume of my hyperbole, I've decided I'm going to use "DoUPs" on a regular basis to describe trades and signings I disagree with.

However the question still remains, "What are the worst DoUPs of all time?" How about the worst Mets DoUP? The worst Red Sox DoUP? Who is the DoUPiest GM or owner? I'd like to write a bit more about this but it's going to have to wait until after Thanksgiving. Have a great Turkey Day everyone!

Sportsmen Of The Year

2004-11-22T15:26:00.000-05:00

Hokay.

It's always a debate as to who should be awarded the Sports Illustrated Sportman of the Year award and there are many deserving athletes this year.

Michael Phelps

Tom Brady

Lance Armstrong

Pat Tillman, R.I.P.

Good choices all. But anyone who votes for these guys over the 2004 Boston Red Sox is smoking something serious. Not only are these guys a team. Not only is this the best baseball story in years. But this is the best sports story since, well, since these guys won the Sportsmen of the Year award 24 years ago.

So how about we all help out our good friends over at SI and vote in this online poll for the 2004 Boston Red Sox (you do need flash). You can also send in comments here. Think of this as performing a much needed public service. We're simply saving them from themselves.

"Pulling only makes it tighter."

2004-11-22T03:00:00.000-05:00

Eric Neel has an amusing piece on the perils of Pedro's contract negotiations over at ESPN Page 2 today.

All of the charges and counter-charges in this hackneyed saga seem to me like so much shadow-boxing: a great many punches thrown with no real sense that any of them are meant to hit a target. Pedro and the Red Sox are caught in opposite ends of a Chinese finger puzzle (hence Ralph Wiggum's incisive eloquence as the title for this post). His overtures to the Yankees aside, Pedro isn't going to get more money or more guaranteed years than the Sox offered. Its admittedly justifiable irritation with Pedro's ego aside, the Red Sox front office does not have the option of acquiring a comparable starting pitcher. In short, they're stuck with each other. So let's junk this knuckle-tugging back and forth and get the deal done, already.

*****

Hold on, though. Do the Red Sox have the option of acquiring a comparable starting pitcher after all? If you're thinking Carl Pavano, the answer is no. He'd be a nice pickup in lieu of Derek Lowe, but he wouldn't fill Pedro's shoes. (If you don't believe me, check out their respective strikeout numbers.) What if, though, Billy Beane really is dangling one of the Big Three in a potential trade? Tim Hudson instead of Petey? At the risk of sounding disloyal, that would do nicely.

There are some superficial reasons to think this could happen. The Red Sox and the A's have philosophical similarities, so it's possible, even plausible, that the Sox might have players in their system who would fit Beane's scheme. The A's could be looking to trim payroll, and Hudson comes due for a more lucrative deal at the end of this season. The problem is that the most desirable Red Sox prospects (Kevin Youkilis, Hanley Ramirez) play positions that are occupied by relatively young and superior players in Oakland (Eric Chavez and Bobby Crosby).

This, like much else in the air before the first week in December, is speculative anyway. Signing Pedro remains a likelier objective, provided the negotiations don't fester into further acrimony.

Roster Shenanigans

2004-11-22T01:01:00.000-05:00

A while ago, I wrote about the importance of a roster spot. What I didn't talk about was the now impending Rule V Draft which will take place December 13th at the Winter Meetings.

For those of you unfamiliar with the RVD, Baseball America has all you need to know:

The Rule 5 draft takes place every year during the Winter Meetings. Players who are not on a 40-man roster and have more than three years of minor league service (four years if they signed when they were younger than 19 on the June 5 immediately prior to their signing) are eligible to be selected in the major league phase of the draft. In order for a team to make a selection, it must have an opening on its 40-man roster. Teams must pay $50,000 to select a player in the draft, payable to the team which loses the player.

Players selected must remain on the selecting team's 25-man major league roster throughout the next season or be offered back to the team from which they were drafted (for $25,000).

Got that? Basically if three Rule V Drafts have passed since a player signed, that player is exposed. Last year, the Mets lost two players in the major league portion of the draft, righthander DJ Mattox to the Reds and lefty Lenny DiNardo to the Red Sox. They did, however, get some revenge on Cincy by stealing away Eric Valent in the AAA phase.

Now neither of the players lost last year would have contributed much. Maddox ended up having Tommy John surgery and DiNardo had a variety of arm problems (although I suspect many of these were exaggerated so that the Red Sox could keep him on the DL and not have to return him).

That's not the point however. The point is that neither of these players needed to be lost. Wouldn't you have rather had anyone in the place of John Franco last year, especially a 25 year old, 6-4 lefty? This year, unless something changes, the Mets stand to lose two more young lefties, Blake McGinley, who you may not have heard of but who has some staunch defenders in the community, and Royce Ring, who you have certainly about before. Both are not currently on the 40 man roster and both are not likely to make it.

Previously I argued that since the Mets are not likely to contend this year, they should simply release Mike Stanton and eat his salary. Why? Simply because I believe that the roster spot they free up will be worth more than whatever Stanton gives them in a .500 year.

In 2006, do you think the Mets will be looking back at 2005, thanking their lucky stars they kept Mike Stanton? Do you think Stanton will have been a key component of a bullpen that carried the Mets into the playoffs? Or perhaps do you think the Mets will be looking at Ring and McGinley pitching in other organizations as they look to find a lefty reliever to take Mike Stanton's place?

I think it's going to be the latter. And I think the Mets are going to seriously regret this down the road.