More awkward old guys, please.

One of the great things about going back and watching the movie Major League is how aberrant junkballing pitcher Eddie Harris (played by awesome character actor Chelcie Ross) seems in 2011. An old, unathletic guy on the mound, looking like, really, just an everyman putting everything into a toss that may or may not make it to the plate. Mostly, it’s knuckleballers like Charlie Hough (left) and Phil Niekro, when you think about a shapeless guy on the mound heaving it towards far more athletic-looking batters.

*When Charlie Hough retired from the game in 1994 at the age of 46, he was 26th in career strikeouts with 2,362. He’s now 41st., passed by the likes of Clemens, Johnson, Pedro, Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Schilling, etc, and, the latest, Javier Vazquez last September. Charlie Hough. That has to be the strangest name on the current top 50 K leaders. He was only in the top 10 in strikeouts four out of his, um, 25 seasons. He was only in the top 10 for Ks/9 IP once. Hough is sandwiched between Sandy Koufax and Robin Roberts. According to Baseball-Reference, Hough’s Career Pitcher WAR is 37.5, or 156th all-time. Of the top 50 career strikeout leaders, Hough is second-to-last. Only Vazquez is behind him, and Vazquez will probably pass him this year. Hough was an All-Star once. He got four votes in the 2000 Hall of Fame ballot. I wish I could watch him pitch now. Watching Tim Wakefield isn’t the same. Sure, he’s a late-40s knuckleballer, but Niekro and Hough – they looked legitimately like grandparents.

Which brings me back to my point. Watching the faux Indians’ Eddie Harris laboring on the mound in Major League was kind of thrilling because he was clearly no ballplayer. And Niekro and Hough? Man, that looked like they were just having a day of catch in the park with their nurse. No Greek God physiques. Not even close. Man, they were a couple of pitches away from sipping lukewarm soup on a recliner in front of Matlock.

Mike O'Connor gawkily delivers

So watching a Mets game the other day, I had the pleasure of seeing Mike O’Connor come in. O’Connor’s a young guy. And he’s in shape. But man, he labors on the mound. His pitching motion is kind of like watching a prep school kid throw as hard as he can. But he’s fun to watch because of that, because I feel like I’m rooting for a normal guy against the Haywoods and the Pujolses, people whose physiques I can’t possibly fathom. Like Ted Lilly, who’s been quite a fine pitcher, but just doesn’t look like he’s a tremendous athlete. Maybe he is, but he doesn’t look like it up on the mound, struggling to put his all into a fastball. There’s something kind of thrilling in seeing that. But there isn’t enough of it. I’m pretty sure I could beat C.C. Sabathia or Bartolo Colon in a footrace, even handicapping them a foot, but they look really powerful on the mound. Seeing guys play the sport that makes you wonder how they’re getting the results they do – like Johnny Damon or Hunter Pence throwing a ball from the outfield – is pretty great. I just wish there were more weird grandpas on the mound.

Watching pre-1990 games on ESPN Classic or the MLB Network is quite satisfying for this itch. Seeing how strangely normal and everymanish some of the players were. It could be the mustaches, the garish uniforms, and the hairstyles, but very few of the players look like they could hit a ball 450 feet or throw 95 miles per hour. And it’s easy to see yourself as one of them. Because isn’t that one of the great things about baseball? That somebody who looks like Charlie Hough can indeed strike out somebody like Frank Thomas?

Not classically beautiful

*By the way, as I watched the Reds-Phillies game deep into Wednesday night, I was reminded that Ramon Hernandez has some pockmarks. This struck me, because generally, for one reason or another, baseball players have become fairly telegenic. And there were some certainly handsome guys playing – Joey Votto, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Brandon Phillips, Drew Stubbs. At least, I think they’re attractive. Their features are not disorientingly weird or out of place, like Luis Sojo trying to fill out a Yankees uniform in 2001, but coming off as a misshapen gargoyle. God, especially in the corporate Yankees uniform, which ever since 1995, has a completely new meaning in it. You couldn’t – well, you wouldn’t be allowed to – imagine Pete Vuckovich’s Haywood in a Yankee uniform now. Nick Swisher and Jason Giambi had to clean it up and embrace the corporation.

Neftali Feliz Gets his Preciouseses

A fair bit of brouhaha surrounded the strange end of the Rangers-Royals game on May 18th. And it leads to the possibility that one of the game’s best relievers just got maybe a little better, despite a mini-meltdown last night.

Starting with the bad: After Neftali Feliz gave up a game-tying, save-blowing homer on the first pitch phenom Eric Hosmer saw, he walked Jeff Francoeur.

Let’s not blow by that statement. It’s up in the air whether Feliz has suffered a little control trouble this year; following last night’s game, he’s walked 11 and struck out just 8 through 13.2 innings this year (albeit with a large DL stint); this is compared to his 71:18 K-to-walk ratio in 2010. But a closer look at his situational walks reveal perhaps a different story:

April 11th: His first walk of the season came on a two-out, intentional pass to Miguel Cabrera, with a guy on second and first base open.

April 15th: With two outs and first base open against the Yankees, Feliz walked Jorge Posada on five pitches (Posada at the time had hit five homers in the Yanks’ first ten games, and had already been walked twice before in the game).

April 20th: With two outs against the Angels, Feliz game up three consecutive full-count walks to Howie Kendrick, Torii Hunter, and Vernon Wells. Alberto Callaspo ended the threat with a deep fly ball out. Feliz was put on the DL the next day.

May 10th: Feliz enters for Darren Oliver in a blowout game against the Athletics. Why? Probably just to get a little work in. With Ryan Sweeney inherited on first, Feliz walks Josh Willingham on a full count, gets Hideki Matsui to pop out, and then walks Kurt Suzuki on four pitches to load the bases. A sac fly scores one, and the Feliz induces a game-ending groundout from Andy LaRoche.

May 13th: With two outs against the Angels, nursing a three-run lead, Alberto Callaspo reaches second on defensive indifference, leaving first base open; Feliz walks Hank Conger, and then retires Mark Trumbo to end the game.

May 15th: With one away and a one-run lead against the Angels, Feliz walks Howie Kendrick on a full count, and then gets Alberto Callaspo to ground into a double play. Game over.

Which brings us to the terribly strange game last night. May 18th. On his very first pitch, Feliz gives up the lead to a game-tying homer to Hosmer.

(For the record, Hosmer now has seven extra-base hits in 42 at-bats. Derek Jeter has five in 165. The Captain’s back!)

By the way, in 2010, Feliz gave up five dingers:

4/26/10 – Feliz gave up back-to-back homers in a loss to the Tigers (Miguel Cabrera and Brandon Inge).

7/9/10 – Feliz imploded against the Orioles, giving up a three-run homer to Corey Patterson before being yanked.

7/18/10 – Feliz gave up a leadoff solo shot to Mike Cameron of the Red Sox, but rebounded and still got the save.

8/22/10 – Feliz gave up a leadoff solo shot to Ty Wigginton of the Orioles, but then retired the next three batters.

And in keeping with the trend, Feliz gave up a solo shot to Hosmer. But what happened after is the fun stuff. To reiterate: He walked Jeff Francoeur. Francoeur is currently on pace to equal his single-season high for walks with 42. Francoeur hates walking. Abhors it. Nonetheless, walk he did.

So Ned Yost puts in Jarrod Dyson to run. Everybody knows Dyson’s going to run. Dyson has a huge lead. Feliz promptly picks him off first. Feliz then walks Billy Butler. Yost puts Mike Aviles in to run. Everybody knows Aviles is going to run. Aviles has a moderate lead. Feliz promptly picks him off first. And then strikes out Wilson Betemit.

After Aviles got nabbed, he complained to the first base umpire, sentiments that would be echoed both by Yost and Dyson later:

“He got both of us on the second pickoff move,” Dyson said. “The first throw-over, we saw it right away. If he was going to balk, he did it on the second pickoff.”

“My opinion was he was balking,” Yost said. “The umpires are going to have to keep their eye on that. It’s a good move, but he was breaking his front knee and coming back to first base, which is a balk.”

Ok. For what it’s worth, those were the first pickoffs in Feliz’s major league career. If he learned a pickoff move, maybe he learned it during his DL stint at the end of April.

The next inning, Feliz gives up two singles to, uh, Mitch Maier and Alcides Escobar. Not exactly heavy hitters (despite Maier’s hot start). He then walked Alex Gordon, a somewhat excusable action, considering Gordon’s fair batting eye, a rarity in KC…for now…

Arthur Rhodes entered and got the Rangers out of the jam. But what a great question. Did Feliz learn a tricksy balk-like pickoff move? If so, and the umps don’t catch it, one of the majors’ best relievers just got even more difficult.

Short Diabetic Statisticians Can Fly!

Sam Fuld has played above his head. He’s been a wonderful story so far, but a player with a career minor league slugging percentage of .405 who was old for each level of the minors won’t keep up his legendary status among baseball fans or even Rays fans. Since a 4-for-4 game against the White Sox on April 18th that raised his batting average to a season-high .396 and his OPS to 1.035, Fuld hit a 9-for-62 skid (as of May 5th), and is currently at .261, and will be relegated, most likely, to Fernando Perez-type status soon. Fourth outfielder with speed, possible defensive replacement. Oddly, Perez was included in the trade that sent Matt Garza to the Cubs and Sam Fuld (along with Chris Archer and Hak-Ju Lee to the Rays. Oddly again, Perez has his own Not-a-Jock column here.

But Sam Fuld is insanely mega-fun to watch, and kinda constitutes a nerd, and warms my damn heart. And he’s not a typical jock. For example:

*He’s Jewish. Not that being a member of the tribe makes one unjockish. But if one, um, wants to propagate stereotypes, then uh, the shortish guy who’s obsessed with stats, like, say, me, uh, fits into that. Baseball Reference lists his official height as 5’10”, but Fuld himself admits to being between 5’8” and 5’9”, reserving the “right to round up.” As for the bookish side of him: After Fuld tore his labrum in his penultimate game for Stanford in 2004, he had to put on-field activities on hold for a while, despite being drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 10th round that June. So after reading Michael Lewis’s seminal Moneyball, Fuld applied for an internship at STATS LLC, based outside of Chicago. The New York Times:

Joe Stillwell, a supervisor in data collection, sent Fuld a tape to analyze, asking him to track the type of pitch, the velocity and the location.

The internship would last only a month or two, so Stillwell needed a person who would not require much training. He picked a challenging pitcher for Fuld to analyze: Cory Lidle, who threw four different pitches at similar speeds, including a splitter and a changeup, which are often difficult to distinguish. Fuld logged in remotely, entered his findings, and easily passed the test.

“Seeing what he could decipher watching a game, he was almost too good to be true,” Stillwell said. “We needed to figure out a way to get him in here.”

Lots of ink has been poured over the cult-hero Brian Bannister’s love of sabermetrics, but Fuld has a better statistician’s resume. In that, you know, he actually became a STATS reporter:

 ”I was one of their reporters, which meant that I looked at game video and plotted the ‘TVL’ — type, velocity and location — of every pitch,” Fuld said. “They have this grid where you click on exactly where the ball crosses the plate. Play the tape, pause and repeat…It sounds tedious, and it was, but for whatever reason I handled it…I guess there’s a lot of baseball nerds out there.”

Yes. Yes there are. And you, sir, are one of them. /genuflects.

*He’s diabetic. Well, a lot of ballplayers are. Among other active players, Brandon Morrow, Mark Lowe, Michael Taylor, and Dustin McGowan; most famously, the late, great Ron Santo. Fuld injects himself with insulin four to five times a day.

*Dude went to Phillips Exeter Academy. What the hell? Who goes to Exeter and becomes a professional baseball player? Here’s who f-ing went to Exeter: Franklin Pierce, David Rockefeller, George Plimpton, John Irving, James Agee, Gore Vidal, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Mark Frickin Zuckerberg. A bunch of nerds.

*He majored in economics at Stanford. Christ almighty. At least it was Stanford and not Princeton like this guy, this guy, or this guy. Then I’d start feeling terrible about myself. Following the 2006 season, Fuld began a masters statistics program at his alma mater, and wants to complete his grad degree in it.

*His father, Kenneth, is the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of New Hampshire. And he’s also a psychology professor. I can’t imagine being the son of a psychology professor and becoming a professional athlete.

Father: “How was the game today?”

Son: “Not bad, I went 2-for-4 with a double and a stolen base.”

Father: “How did you feel after you stole that base?”

Son: “Um.”

Father: “Maybe those two hits were really just an oedipal act of aggression.”

Son: /cries self to sleep.

*His mother, Amanda Merrill, is a New Hampshire state senator. And she’s a Democrat! And she’s an environmentalist! This is so wonderful, I can’t begin to explain. What’s that? Let’s see some bills she’s sponsored? Ok, here you go:

HB-311, concerning solar energy findings, its efficiency, and impact on businesses.

HB149, designating segments of the Lamprey, North Branch, Pawtuckaway, North, Little, and Piscassic Rivers as protected rivers and exempting certain portions of the Lamprey River from the provisions of the comprehensive shoreland protection act.

SB47, extending the commission to study water infrastructure sustainability fund.

Does this possibly mean that Sam Fuld might be that rare uber-environmentalist professional athlete? He’s got a fantastic role model if so.

*His favorite TV show is Mad Men. Seriously. A show about advertising executives during the profound cultural change of the early 1960s, in which nothing really happens. A show beloved by, well, nerdy wonks.

Fuld may not be long for the big leagues, and may find ample time to pursue that master’s in statistics; so it’s quite possible that Andrew Friedman finds a position for him in the front office. And then he’ll put solar panels on the Rays’ new stadium, invent a definitive defensive metric we’ve all been waiting for, and will trump Wrasslin’ John Irving as Exeter’s celebrated jock.

Bruuuuuce!

On December 9th, the Cincinnati Reds agreed to a six-year, $51 million deal with Bruce, a contract almost exactly the same as the Arizona Diamondbacks’ agreement with the slightly-younger Justin Upton last March (six years, $51.25 million).

And for some strange reason, the Reds’ multi-year signing of the fan favorite made almost no news. Well, in Cincinnati it did. But nationally, it was something of an afterthought next to the Rockies’ Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez mega-contracts, the Cliff Lee Sweepstakes, and the usual merry-go-round of veteran bats jumping teams.To be sure, Baseball Prospectus had a good piece (subscription required) on the win-win nature of the deal, but it really should be underlined: the Reds made out like fucking bandits. Maybe not as big as the Rays, who locked up Evan Longoria on April 18th, 2008, who at that point had six games as a major-leaguer under his belt, for $17.5 million over six years (with options on three subsequent years). But big. Possibly really big.

Bruce’s 2010 was enough for Cincy to give the young outfielder (he turns 24 in April) the gold. Defensively, Bruce was great the entire season. Though most fans will remember his costly error in the NLDS against the Phillies when he lost a ball in the lights at Citizens’ Bank Park, Bruce finished second out of all rightfielders to Ichiro in John Dewan’s Fielding Bible Awards; led the NL in Dewan’s plus/minus system with +24 (he made 24 more plays than an average right fielder would); led the league with 17 Runs Saved; and scored an NL fifth-best 1.5 defensive wins above replacement, behind Michael Bourn, Angel Pagan, Justin Upton, and Yadier Molina.

Offensively, Bruce made big strides. With the exception of his slumpicious July, he increased his batting average every month, and was as hot as any player in the National League in August and September. He put up a second-half OPS of .951, hitting 15 homers in the last two months alone, including a walk-off dinger to clinch a playoff berth for the Reds in the last week of the season. His slugging percentage was almost two hundred points higher at home, but that’s to be expected; the Great American Bandbox is a hitters’ park. The biggest thing Bruce did this past season was learn to hit lefties. And hit them he did — his BA and OBP are virtually the same versus both righties and southpaws, but his slugging was crazily almost 80 points better against lefties.

Bruce was a Super Two free agent going into this offseason The main thing the Reds did was buy out Bruce’s arbitration years of 2011 and 2012; even taking into consideration his inability to hit the market by only being eligible for arbitration, Baseball Prospectus estimates Bruce’s value over the next six years at $75 million, $24 million than he’ll actually be paid. And he’ll be in his prime – not even 30 yet – when he does hit the free agent market in December 2016.

The actual breakdown of Bruce’s salary will be $2.75 million this coming season, $5 in 2012, $7.5 in 2013, $10 in 2014, $12 each in 2015 and 2016. AND the Reds have a $13 million option for 2017, when, as we all know, money will grow on trees, and the Major League minimum will be a bajillion yuan.

While projections minutely disagree for this coming season (ZiPS foresees a slight decrease across the board; ever the optimist, Bill James sees a slight increase; Sports Illustrated calls him a breakout candidate), it’s probable that by 2013, Bruce will be one of the most undervalued players in the league as per his actual worth. Call me obscenely bullish, but his defense through his 20s with even a modest increase on his pretty good slash line of this past season will make Bruce one of the most valuable outfielders in the National League through the better half of this decade.

FanGraphs compared the CarGo and Bruce extensions back in January, coming to the conclusion that while CarGo may continue to be the better offensive weapon, there’s no question that Bruce will be the defensive star. While both players were lauded tools-wise in their minor league days (the Baseball America prospect lists ranked Bruce at #1 and CarGo at #22 in 2008; and Bruce at #14 and CarGo at #18 in 2007), there were more questions about Gonzalez’s attention. The 2007 BA handbook noted “(Gonzalez) didn’t always hustle last season, but he apologized after an early-season benching and played hard the rest of the way;” and in 2008, noted “Scouts and managers often have been turned off by Gonzalez’s approach to the game, accusing him of giving away at-bats or not hustling at times.”

That kind of knock on a player is usually a product of, well, sometimes, inherent racism against Latino players, but more regarding the player’s youth. And at this point, it seems safe to say that CarGo has proved his worth. Bruce, on the other hand, has long been admired for his demeanor. In this 2008 Sports Illustrated piece, the Reds’ Double-A manager Rick Sweet is quoted saying, “What impressed me most (about Bruce) was his opposite-field power. The other thing was how he went about the game—always having fun, always a smile on his face. Just like Junior.”

Regardless of those intangibles, it’s both probable and possible that Bruce’s value will be better and cheaper than CarGo’s – and soon.

He doesn't win ugly, but man does he fill out a uniform. Hubba hubba?

In the wake of the AL Cy Young voting, for some reason, and despite David Price coming in third place, stories abound pitting the Cy Young Award winner and best pitcher in the American League this past year against third-place winner C.C Sabathia with headlines noting his paltry win accumulation, like:

“With only 13 Wins, Hernandez Earns Cy Young” (New York Times)

“Hernandez, 13-12, Wins Cy Young” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

“Hernandez Overcomes 13-12 Record to Win Award” (the BBWAA itself)

This is kind of like writing “Hernandez, Owner of Argyle Socks, Wins Cy Young.” Or “King Felix, Whose Favorite Movie is Ghost Dad, Wins Award.”

Hernandez, by every metric except wins, was the best choice this year. And it’s fantastic that Hernandez got 21 out of 28 first-place votes. He was on every single ballot, though two writers – I’ll get to them in a second – named him fourth and fifth.Looking at each of his games, as SI writing legend and blogmaster general Joe Posnanski did, it’s really really clear that Hernandez was indeed supreme. Posnanski didn’t have a vote for the AL Cy Young. He did it because he’s a fan and a writer. Members of the BBWAA who don’t do that, who don’t do their basic homework, ought to be ashamed.

Yeah, awards shouldn’t mean so much. They’re just people’s opinions, and we’re really arguing between the four best pitchers in the world right now, and they’re all multi-millionaires.

But, well, there’s more at stake. In increasing order of importance: First, there’s the whole Baseball History™ and Nostalgia™ and What am I Going to Tell My Grandkids™. This may not mean a lot to some, but it’s a large reason why baseball is the national pastime. Second, when Hall of Fame voters look at a player’s body of work, they do, unfortunately, look at award selections. (Perhaps this should be highlighted more in the “Derek Jeter has more Gold Gloves than Chase Utley” argument.) Third, the players themselves, and the individual monetary accolades. Guess what? There are incentive clauses in contracts. There are owners and general managers who care about these things, and use them as bargaining chips in negotiations. As I said, yeah, these guys are multimillionaires. More money than the vast majority of people in America will ever see. But they’re still the labor of a multibillion dollar industry, and they deserve their rewards. For baseball writers to shirk their responsibility – and whether we like it or not, the BBWAA awards are still important because of these reasons – is irresponsible.

When Keith Law left Chris Carpenter off his three-person NL Cy Young list last year, he gave an intelligent defense of his reasoning the day the voting was announced.

Sheldon Ocker of the Akron Beacon Journal voted Hernandez fourth, saying: “For me, wins and losses matter. It also matters for a pitcher who pitches under the stress of a pennant race.” George King of the New York Post, who surely must have known what a firestorm his fifth-place voting for Hernandez would be, had yet to issue a defense of his ballot.

For a writer not to read arguments against the whole pitcher win thing is, I guess, understandable. They can say new stats are terrible, old stats are the way to go because of tradition, and they won’t have anybody’s respect because that argument doesn’t make sense.

If they don’t like the notion of statistics, then they should throw out their traditional markers like Earned Run Average and go merely on Presence, Guile, Guts, Heart, and Courage. In which case Jim Abbott should still be winning the award.

If they want to pay attention only to the markers that have been used for the last 100 years, then they should be devoting every single one of their columns to the advent of the designated hitter, divisional play, and integrated baseball.

If some writers don’t do a simple task of looking at each pitchers’ starts, and evaluating what happened and why, they should have their membership revoked. Do your homework, man. There actually is a bit at stake.

If the fences are at 300 feet, we'll win 162 games!

The Minnesota Twins made the playoffs this year. Easily, too. They finished six games ahead of the White Sox, and it wasn’t even much of a race for the last two months. They also had the best home record in the American League with a 53-28 record. Who can argue with that?

Justin Morneau, that’s who. In the latest ‘hitter who doesn’t like the spacious measurements of his ballpark,’ the concussed first baseman replied in an email to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune about how disappointed he was that the front office hasn’t decided to pull the fences in at the Twins’ gorgeous new Target Field.

So…a couple of things.

First, I wonder if he discussed this with the pitchers, like Francisco Liriano:

FL Home: .641 OPS against – 107 IP in 16 games (6 2/3 IP / g)

FL Away: .704 OPS against – 84.2 in 15 games (5 2/3 IP / g)

or Scott Baker:

SB Home: .746 OPS against – 86.1 IP in 15 g – 8 HRA! (5 3/4 IP / g)

SB Away: .839 OPS against – 84 IP in 14 g – 15 HRA! (6 IP / g)

or Nick Blackburn:

NB Home: .726 OPS against – 89.2 IP in 14 g – 10 HRA (6 2/5 IP / g)

NB Away: .968 OPS against – 71.1 IP in 14 g  – 15 HRA (5 IP / g)

or Kevin Slowey:

KS Home: .713 OPS against – 91.2 IP in 17 g – 12 HRA (5 1/3 IP / g)

KS Away: .846 OPS against – 64 IP in 13 g – 9 HRA (< 5 IP /g)

Of course, Carl Pavano is the one of the five that bucks the trend, but he’s usually the exception to the rule. Such as, the rule that most adults given bucketloads of money to pitch a baseball in New York would be kind of excited and do what they can to stay in shape and not piss off their teammates.

En masse, Twins pitching had a .709 OPS against at home, and a .758 OPS against on the road; they gave up a homer every 44.4 at-bats at home, and a homer every 30.34 at-bats on the road. This reduces strain on the bullpen. The defensive help from the ballpark is not as dramatic a good effect as the Rockies’ offense, but it’s a boon for the pitchers who are playing half of their games there.

Morneau finished his email response by saying that he didn’t want to sound selfish, and that he was more concerned with the team’s success, adding “Home wins are the most important thing at the end of the day, but I believe we would have done that no matter what with the team we had. I think we had a team built around power and offense and were not able to take full advantage of it.”

Right. So if you’re going to win either way at home, wouldn’t you rather have the ballpark be less of a burden on your pitchers? The Rockies –

Wait a minute. Can we not gloss over something for a second? Built around power and offense? J.J Hardy, Orlando Hudson, Denard Span, Danny Valencia, Alexi Casilla, Nick Punto…built for offense? Turns out that’s not necessarily false. The Twins hit 90 home runs on the road. That would be third in the league behind the Red Sox (113 road dingers) and the Blue Jays (111). Huh. That’s interesting.

Joe Mauer had the most pronounced split, hitting eight homers away from Target Field and just one at home. Morneau himself hit 14 away and four at home. What about those other power hitters? Jim Thome, future Hall of Famer? 15 at home! And…ten away. Hmm. Michael Cuddyer? Seven at home! And…seven away. Double hmm. Justin, are you just talking about your own offensive prowess?

Well. Ok, let’s catch up with what I was gonna say.

The Rockies hit 108 homers at home and 65 on the road. They had preposterously large home-away splits. They brought the same habits they had at home on the road, and it didn’t work. They won 52 games at home, one less than the Twins.

Baseball America’s Tracey Ringolsby brought to mind George Brett’s quote from 1984, when he was asked what he thought of Tiger Stadium and its right-field porch that Detroit brought in over the decades:

“I’d probably have had a Darrell Evans type of career, hitting 40, 45 home runs a year with a .260 average. The reason I became the type of hitter I am is because of Royals Stadium. As a hitter, you adjust to your home park to take advantage of what it has to offer. Remember, you play 81 games a year, half your schedule in that park.

So adjust, Justin. Because, um, the Twins as a team had a difference of one-one-thousandth of a point between their slugging at home and their slugging on the road. Their OPS was 26 points better at home. They scored 17 more runs at home than they did on the field. They struck out 117 fewer times and walked 33 more times at home.

Whatever the hell Morneau is talking about, maybe he should take a page out of George Brett’s book and adjust. It seems the rest of the team did just fine.

Bring in the worst possible choices. We have a game to lose. (Photo: AP / Chris O'Meara)

What some managers still can’t seem to understand is that you use your best reliever in the most tense, “clutch” spot. You do not bring in Darren O’Day over, say, Neftali Feliz or Frank Francisco, when the bases are loaded in a three-run game in the eighth liver-humping inning.

Sorry. Let’s go back a sec. It’s the top of the 8th in the ALCS. Rangers up over the Yankees 5-2. The eighth starts with Hustlin’ Brett Gardner sliding – headfirst! – safely into first on an infield single. He scores on a Derek Jeter double. Ron Washington gets economical starter C.J. Wilson off the mound and calls for Darren Oliver, who had decent numbers this year as a spot reliever. Oliver, long man for – christ, the Rangers initially, then the Cardinals, Red Sox, Rockies, Marlins, Astros, Mets, Angels, and once again, the Rangers. Oliver, whose decent numbers this year masked the fact that he’s very good against lefties, but not so against righties.

Oliver’s line against lefties: 14.33 Ks to BB ratio. .200 BAA. .529 OPS against. Wonderful! Fantastic!

Oliver’s line against righties: 1.83 Ks to BB. .281 BAA. .765 OPS against. Boo, hiss, etc.So the southpaw Oliver is now facing two switch-hitters in Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira, both of whom did quite well against lefty pitching as righty batters.

Swisher: .848 OPS with a 32:29 BB:K ratio.

Big Tex: .940 OPS with a 38:33 BB:K ratio.

See anything interesting? Yeah, more walks than Ks for both guys. Both guys who on the year had more total Ks than BBs. So what the living lobsterfuck happens? They both walk, loading the bases.

Ok, 5-2 Rangers, nobody out, top of the eighth. HUGE PRESSURE SITUATION. Let me reiterate. The most pressure-filled situation in the game so far. A righty named Ol’ Whistlin’ Bat Alex Rodriguez coming up. The bullpen opens, and here comes…Darren O’Day. The side-armed ROOGY (righty one-out guy), who sports a fine line against righties. .181 BAA; 37 Ks, 7 BBs; .542 OPS against. He promptly throws one pitch. Which turns into another goddamned A-Rod piece of history. Two-run single. 5-4. Washington comes to the mound and replaces him with…

Not Neftali Feliz. Or Frank Francisco. But Clay Ra-frickin-Pada. Clay Rapada. He of the NINE INNINGS PITCHED IN 2010 IN THE MAJOR LEAGUES THIS YEAR. Granted, huge year in the PCL as a middle reliever. But come the hell on.

Rapada makes one pitch…and gives up an RBI single to the Yanks’ potentially most dangerous hitter, Robinson Cano. Finally Washington brings in future #2 starter, Derek Holland, to clean up the mess. Ron Washington, potential – and probable – motherhumping AL Manager of the Year.

The ninth inning save doesn’t mean a goddamn thing if you don’t have the chance to get that save. Listen, Washington. You blew this game. I don’t care about Ian Kinsler getting picked the hell off first base in the ninth. Washington, you blew this. You did. Bring in Feliz. Bring him  in with the bases goddamn loaded in the eighth inning. Lord.

Oh no! It's Mitch McConnell! Kinda.

Last year, Zack Greinke won the AL Cy Young by being the best pitcher in the league. By which I mean, the BBWAA got it absolutely right, signaling a major step forward in dismissing won-lost results as a dominant factor in voters’ minds. Keith Law did a fantastic job (as usual) in detailing why a starting pitcher has minimal control over whether his team wins the game. Unless you believe that a pitcher can use Jedi telekinesis to will his offense to score runs and make defensive plays. Not to mention that “the average MLB start this year has lasted almost exactly six innings.” (Just fer instances, Charles Carsten Sabathia’s very impressive 234.2 innings this year, over 34 games started, comes out to 6.99 IP/start – with two complete games.) Giving a modern-day starting pitcher – especially an AL pitcher, who doesn’t even bat – credit for a team win is like crediting Christine O’Donnell for Tea Party success without looking at where the funds are coming from.

Which is about as good a segue for my point I’m gonna get.

The war between the statheads and the old-timey writers is a strange mirror of the blue state – red state divide. The fringes of both groups dismiss the other as detrimental to the health of the body. Statheads see columnists as relics of a past age that aren’t able to assess accurately the value of players and the game, and who prop up gut-based theories like “Jack Morris was a better pitcher than Bert Blyleven.” Columnists see statheads as reductivist bloggers who take away the humanity of baseball, and who would rather let a computer determine the outcome of games. Liberals see conservatives as red-necked, gun-toting conspiracy theorists; conservatives see liberals as elitist, pencil-necked socialists who hate America.

The exaggerations of each sides’ convictions notwithstanding – I don’t really think Joe Morgan would hire nine David Ecksteins if he had the choice – there is a similarity worth exploring here. Conservatives and old-timey baseball folk are both convinced that their opponents, at their essence, don’t like the institution in question.

Murray Chass might be the standard-bearer for the older writer group who’s dead-set against new-fangled acronyms like VORP and WAR, statistics that try to come up with a ranking/statistical system for ballplayers. (Regardless of the fact that the beloved and “simple” batting average itself does just that, and has been for more than 120 years.) Chass’s tirades – and to be fair, he too has taken a tremendous amount of vitriol from the wily internets – have been going on for a while on his non-blog blog. But three and a half years ago, he ran the following paragraph in a New York Times article that kind of sums up my point about how statheads hate America:

I suppose that if stats mongers want to sit at their computers and play with these things all day long, that’s their prerogative. But their attempt to introduce these new-age statistics into the game threatens to undermine most fans’ enjoyment of baseball and the human factor therein.

Right. See, there’s the assumption that because these people are looking at new empirical evidence to find a player’s value, and banishing non-quantifiable ideas like “guts” and “heart” and “tenacity” and “clutchiness,” they’re trying to undermine the institution. Socialists, all. And who are these people? Statheads, nerds, bloggers who – sigh- “live in their mother’s basement,” which is a nice way of dismissing them as people who don’t have the credentials to really write about and enjoy baseball. Elitist poindexters who throw like girls.

Traditionalism makes sense as part of human character. We grow up used to a set paradigm, and if that shifts – be it because wins stop mattering for pitchers, or the ethnic demographic of a hometown changes – that can be strange and unsettling and oh, I don’t know, reminders that we get older and the world around us isn’t, in fact, static.

Baseball writers and thinkers and bloggers and statheads wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t for the fact that they love the game. I want to see the Mets win, and would rather they use the evidence and statistics available to field the best team they can. But at the same time, I have an irrational – well, quite rational, if you know me – love for undersized second basemen whose uniforms are dirty before they leave the dugout. Brilliant Sports Illustrated writer, blogger, and Bill-James-lover Joe Posnanski has been quite vocal about his favorite ballplayer of all-time, the decidedly mediocre Duane Kuiper. I don’t think the two things are mutually exclusive.

For Murray Chass to deride the efforts of “stats mongers” as a threat to our enjoyment of the game is as ridiculous as, say, deriding liberals as Nazi Muslim Socialists. Well, maybe less ridiculous, but they stem from the same place, which is fear of a changing world.

So for the statheads, 2009 was a bellwether year. By every metric except wins, Greinke was a superior pitcher to the other AL pitchers. Greinke easily took the award last year, though Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander both received first-place votes. Tim Lincecum, with just 15 “wins,” took the NL Cy Young award. But the conservative backlash against some of the voters – most notably, ESPN’s Law, who left Chris Carpenter off his three-person ballot completely – was vociferous.

So will there be a change in power this year? A reversion back to the values we knew and loved before all this nasty new evidence and examples of a changing world started piling up? By which I mean, will Sabathia somehow get the Cy Young over the much more qualified – by every statistical measure except pitcher wins - Felix Hernandez? Chass has already made his feelings known on the matter, as has equally grumbly Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Some backlash against the statistical thinkers is possible but probably won’t weigh too heavily in award voting. Overall, it seems as if there’s confidence that King Felix will indeed be getting it this year.

But that doesn’t mean the Republicans won’t be taking the House in ridiculous numbers.

Don't worry, Aroldis. We know Masset was to blame.

With the relatively new way of utilizing pitchers (by relatively new, I mean in the context of baseball history), starting pitchers have even less effect on the outcome of a game than they did, say, seventy years ago. With starting pitchers going about six innings now, more dependence is placed on the revolving door of middle relievers, whose efforts become more dramatic.

The hold was created in 1986 by the illustrious John Dewan and Mike O’Donnell in an attempt to give a statistic of worth to said middle relievers. The hold – not an official MLB statistic – was originally credited “any time a relief pitcher enters a game in a Save Situation, records at least one out, and leaves the game never having relinquished the lead.”

Which is problematic in and of itself. In theory, I find it very difficult to believe that a player should be credited with anything that can be construed as a positive statistic if the player makes it much more difficult for his team to win the game than the situation he was originally presented with. So if, say, Mark Buehrle is staked to a 10-0 lead before he pitches a single inning, and he then gives up eight runs, ethically I do not want to see this train wreck of a hurler honored with a “win.” He did not win the game. But that specific argument has been going on for thirty years now, so let’s just focus on holds.

In 1994, SportsTicker changed the definition of a hold, making it even easier for a middle reliever to earn a hold with a shitty performance. That is, SportsTicker eliminated the requisite of recording an out.

In 2000, Rob Neyer spoke to that discrepancy here, in which he in rather even-handed tones, explains why he favors the Dewan model.

(For what it’s worth, Dewan created STATS, Inc. in 1981, ushering in the legitimization of expanding recorded baseball statistics. STATS was purchased by Fox Sports in 2000, six years after SportsTicker was bought by ESPN. Oddly enough, STATS purchased the newly-available SportsTicker in 2009.)

It’s really, really difficult to assess a middle reliever’s worth, and I’m pretty damn sure that looking at holds isn’t a very good way to go about it. And admittedly, the only reason I wrote this intro is to highlight this strange game from September 11th.

Case Study!

September 11th, 2010.

The Reds are playing the Pirates. Edinson Volquez has pitched one hell of a game. Of course it’s frickin’ Pittsburgh Pirates, who, granted, have a better offense than the sad monstrosity they threw out against Stephen Strasburg’s first-ever, holy-crap start earlier this year. Neil Walker’s put together a fine season, Pedro Alvarez and Andrew McCutchen are slowly developing, and, uh, Ryan Doumit has never intentionally clubbed a baby seal. That we know of.

Anyhoo, in his first start since being recalled from the minors, Volquez goes seven innings, giving up one hit and striking out ten guys. He’s pulled in the bottom of the seventh for a pinch-hitter, Yonder Alonso. So it’s the top of the eighth, Nick Masset strides to the mound trying to preserve a 3-0 Reds lead.

Masset strikes out Ryan Doumit. Doumit’s about a league-average hitter this year, posting – as of today, September 22nd – a 102 OPS+. (.255 BA / .335 OBP / .441 SLG.) Fair enough. One out.

Masset then gives up a single to Ronny Cedeno. Ronny Cedeno is a terrible, terrible hitter. Awful. Just frickin’ unbelievably bad. His career 65 OPS+ makes me want to put a pot on my head and hit it with a metal spoon. By most metrics, he’s one of the five or ten worst batters this year.

One out, guy on first, pinch-hitter John Bowker at the plate.

Masset gives up a double to Bowker on an 0-2 count. The last time Bowker had recorded a hit in a major league game was May 25th, when he was with the Giants. Since then, he had gone 0-for-19 in the bigs. (Granted, he had a good campaign in the minors.) Bowker’s OPS this year has been .598 over 123 at-bats. So Cedeno scores.

One out, guy on second, one run in, Delwyn Young at the plate.

Masset induces a groundout from yet another Pirate who has a sub-.300 OBP; Bowker advances to third base.

Two outs, guy on third, one run in, McCutchen at the plate.

Masset walks McCutchen. Ok, whatever. McCutchen has a good batting eye. But it’s still two damn outs. Pitch to him.

Two outs, guys on first and third, one run in, Jose Tabata at the plate.

Masset yields an infield single to Tabata. Bowker scores. Tabata’s hit wasn’t a dribbler. (Here’s the video of it.) This was legitimately in between third and short, and Orlando Cabrera made a good play to keep it in the infield before dropping it in the transition from glove to hand.

Two outs, guys on first and second, two runs in, Neil Walker at the plate, and Aroldis Chapman comes in.

The Pirates pull of a double steal (Chapman doesn’t do a good job of holding runners), and Neil Walker drives in both guys with a single up the middle. The Pirates take a 4-3 lead. Chapman catches Walker trying to steal; in the ninth inning, Chapman records a 1-2-3 inning.

All four runs were attributed to Masset; he also – somehow – earned the hold, while Chapman earned the blown save. Boo on all accounts. These things don’t make sense.

The Pittsburgh Tribune doesn’t mention Nick Masset or his role in the near-loss, but instead attributes the blame to Chapman. Same with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

And MLB.com phrases the Cincy implosion this way:

Nick Masset struck out Ryan Doumit to open the eighth inning, but the Pirates responded with four runs on four hits. Masset was charged with all four runs, although it was Neil Walker’s two-out, two-run single off phenom Aroldis Chapman that put Pittsburgh into the lead.

Once again, the lone hit (and baserunner) that Chapman allowed, in a situation much more difficult than Masset’s scenario, focus of culpability.

Parcel the blame! Baseball’s a democracy! Etc.

Self-Portrait in a Convex Home Plate?

Oooh, I’ve been waiting to write about Fernando Perez for a while. I think I have a man-crush on him. As I’ve written before, the Not a Jock column celebrates those professional baseball players – like Jeremy Guthrie and Miguel Batista – who have interests beyond playing video games, luxury SUVs, and, uh, livin’ large. A more well-rounded worldview, one that includes books beyond lifestyle magazines and the Bible and activities beyond their own occupation.

Things that depress me: I had a running subscription to Sports Illustrated from December 1984 (Eric Dickerson! Old Rams unis! Unbelievable!) through 2007 before I cancelled with them. And it was tough to do. But the Pop Culture Grid, like this one and this one really destroyed any love I had for reading the magazine. Though this one, thanks to Kevin Goldthwaite, restores a little faith.

So let us now praise Fernando Perez, who’s been laboring in the minors for a little now…and is reportedly trying to pursue an MFA in writing. Perez grew up in New Jersey (his folks emigrated from Cuba before hitting Brooklyn and finally the Garden State) and attended the fairly tony private Peddie School in Highstown, whose graduates apparently attend UPenn and Cornell more than any other school. Perez went across the river to Columbia University, where he majored in English with a concentration in creative writing, while playing baseball for the Lions. In 2004 he batted .317 and led the Ivy League in stolen bases (18); that June he was the third of 14 Ivy Leaguers drafted by MLB clubs, when the Rays took him in the seventh round.

Perez was picked 195th overall. Other notables include the Princetonites Ross Ohlendorf (116th) and Will Venable (439th). Ohlendorf was the subject of many articles last year when he interned for the Department of Agriculture in the offseason. And yes, he’s very worthy of a future Not a Jock.

Perez signed with the Rays eight days after being drafted, and was immediately sent to the Hudson Valley League. He was promoted every year following that, including a stint with the Visalia Oaks of the California League in 2006, where he led the minors in runs scored with 123. In 2007, while with the Montgomery Biscuits, Perez made his first combinations of baseball and writing widely known – MLB.com picked him to keep a “minor league journal,” along with Ricky Romero, Jose Tabata, and Donnie Veal.

It’s not really fair to compare the four journals, but Perez is taking note of some sociological aspects of the game and life in the minor leagues, and what immigration means for foreign-born players, while, you know, Tabata and Romero are essentially writing about taking it one day at a time, giving 100%, and God willing, etc, etc.

In his final entry that October, Perez wrote, with possibly the most eloquent objectivity and perspicacity we’ll see out of a professional ballplayer:

I notice when I’m catching up with old friends that baseball is a place where we can hide out from real life and never really grow up. Amongst the stress of needing to remain progressive and evolve with the competition, a little bit of hustle and sweat is something like a halo out here.

In this way I see baseball as an ‘anti-modernity.’ It feels as though the men who play and stay in the game indulge in a counter culture, the lifestyle in which all you have to do each day is play. It’s rustic. These are reasons why I’m here.

It’s no wonder that baseball is the sport that’s written about the most. There’s something about it that strikes a chord with people who have the patience to understand it.

Some people like to say that baseball is boring. They prefer something with more action, maybe some controlled violence or something where athleticism is more significantly featured.

But it’s baseball that is written about most prominently. Why? It’s a long answer I don’t have. If I had to point to something, I’d say that aesthetes are drawn to the way that it’s played with calculated civility.

Speed is Perez’s main (baseball-related) attribute. He’s stolen 223 bases over parts of seven seasons, and was a powerful weapon off the bench for the major-league Rays late in ‘08. In the second game of the 2008 ALCS, in the bottom of the 11th inning against the Red Sox, Perez pinch-ran for catcher Dioner Navarro, whom Mike Timlin walked. After another walk and a fielder’s choice, Perez was at third when BJ Upton hit a short fly ball to right fielder JD Drew. Perez tagged and slid home safely, winning the game for the Rays. The New York Times had written this article about him just six days prior to his mad dash home.

That winter, Perez traveled down to Venezuela, where he played winter ball; while down there, he wrote this piece for Poetry Magazine, which was published like eight months later. He talks about, once again, the strangeness of being a professional ballplayer; how it’s a kind of counter-culture thing. (This is something that Perez returns to; the Peter-Pan-ness of baseball, playing a game for a living and thus refusing to grow up.)

I thought heavily about drafting him for my keeper league fantasy team in the offseason. Though his strikeout numbers were alarming for a speed guy – 156 in 129 games in Triple-A in 2008! – his OBP was quite good, buoyed by his speed and high walk rate.

Unfortunately, Perez injured his wrist in spring training 2009 and only played 17 games (all in the minors) that year. So, of course, Perez briefly wrote for the Times’ Bats blog.

One of the best passages, in which he mused about at-bat music, Perez sardonically wrote that in the California League:

I was trying to forge a dialectic that was personal, even climactic — there was experimental electronica (Prefuse 73’s “With Dirt and Two Texts — Afternoon Version), which I used in the throes of heat exhaustion to feel less human, more machine-like at the plate. There were desolate rock ballads to put pitchers to sleep like Wings’ “Band on the Run.” It was a little too decadent, though I was just about the only one listening to really judge.

In September ’09, right when his article in Poetry came out, Perez was interviewed on NPR. He talked about John Ashbery and a reporter discovering a “secret item” in his locker – the 1980 poetic narrative My Life by Lyn Hejinian.

And finally, here’s my favorite thing ever. Fernando Perez, who hangs out in Williamsburg and Park Slope in the offseason – his buddies from Columbia live there – appeared in this hipster-snark ironic video. And he’s funny. Like, funnier and more ironic/aware than possibly any professional baseball player not named Jim Bouton.

Fernando Perez. Not a Jock.