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Sunday, March 14, 2004

Pickoff Moves

Gibbons Has A Role In Dodgers Decline And Fall?

The Dodgers are interested in Jay Gibbons in exchange for a pitcher, the Times says today.

No Giambis In This Lineup

And in the same story, it looks like Jeremy Giambi's back will keep him out of the Dodgers, or any other lineup, as he's due for surgery to "stabilize" it.

Vinny Through 2006

Vinny plans on fulfilling his contract through 2006. Vinny, whose prose we have been privileged to hear, says this of the McCourts:
"The new owner has borrowed a lot of money. We all know that," Scully said. "He has a tremendous passion to succeed. My only feeling is a simple one: Give him a chance. He's the one with everything at stake."
Well, Vinny, we did, and now lots of folks in the front office have either been fired or are quitting. But it's good to see you're a trouper, still, just like Alvarez. Of course, who knows if the Dodgers' other broadcasters are around much longer. It's not like there aren't those who want to see Monday or Porter go away. As Dodger Blues put it,
At some point, however—probably in the not too distant future—Vin Scully will retire. And at that time, there will be absolutely nothing that is consistently good about Dodger baseball.

OT: Found

Found, in our front yard this afternoon: one long-haired dachshund. No collar. Sweet-natured.

... and very, very tired, especially after a long walk around the neighborhood looking for possible owners. Our two dogs, a husky-shephard mix and an Australian Shephard/Keeshond mix, nearly killed him when we took him in our backyard, even after we did everything we were supposed to. We're not sure what we're going to do, but first we're putting up "found" posters around the neighborhood. After that, he probably will go to the Seal Beach or Huntington Beach shelters. ("Doosie", as my wife has taken to calling him, is curled up under my feet beneath my desk.) We're going to spring training in a week, and this dog just can't be here.

We find too many dogs like this one, really. A year and a half ago in October, while the Angels were busy winning their first championship, I found a little white mop of a dog in the elementary school behind our house. Like an idiot, I conned my parents into taking it, and it has subsequently proven to be a complete bust -- one of the few mean-tempered dogs I've ever known. And then there was another dog I found on one of our walks in the neighborhood, a sweet Lab mix we took to the shelter. That one was tough. Sometimes it works out okay, like the time the guy came and retrieved his dog from us.

Once, when I was in Arkansas visiting my in-laws a few years ago, the power went out in the middle of the worst ice storms in a decade. A sad, short-haired, liver-colored retriever of some kind -- maybe a Springer Spaniel or some kind of coon dog -- came up to my in-laws' house, naturally, wearing no tags. He was freezing -- literally, he had icicles hanging from his belly. With no time to observe formalities with my in-laws' dog, no place to put him besides a downstairs bathroom, and no real heat, we took turns watching him. The next morning, after I left for home (and of course the power came on -- I have a knack for causing natural disasters, a subject of some amusement), his real owner showed up. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, because my sister-in-law's kids had given him a name already.

I hope this little guy has a home. He sure deserves better than to be abandoned.

Update: We washed him and gave him a flea treatment or two. We forget, having used Advantage for years, that dogs really do have fleas, and they need to be kept in check. We hadn't seen a flea for ages, but caught sight of a bunch in the bathroom after we gave J. Random Dog his bath.


U.S. Out Of Baseball!

Raul apologizes for writing about non-baseball related issues, but it's really not. The government of the Dominican Republic is as advanced as any in the art of voting itself rich on the backs of everyone else. That is to say, their ruling class consists of parasites and nuisances who have no other talents than getting re-elected. This is no different than things in the United States, except that in the U.S.
  1. occaisionally, someone, frequently a judge, takes the rule of law seriously, and
  2. naked vote-buying is generally frowned upon.
But this has not stopped the likes of FDR and Johnson, who engineered schemes so enormous and expensive that their true costs must be hid from the public for fear of backlash. And, as senior citizens have nothing to occupy their time so much as voting down those who don't vote them enough largesse, we now have the spectre of intergenerational machine politics.

The government of the Dominican threatens baseball, and worse, the pocketbooks of their already poor citizens, by buying nearly a million dollars in tickets to give away to their friends, thereby associating the game with the Republic's native criminal class. In the U.S., the McCainiacs now threaten baseball with more anti-drug hysteria, when it is crystal clear that all the hype about steroids is election-year humbug on the order of Tell Your Children, aka Reefer Madness. Probably the biggest risk is for reporters, who must brave interviews with surly players, and it is for this reason we hear endless tirades against the stuff. No wonder the Senators left Washington -- twice.


You Could Look It Up

Now, at the very bottom of this here blog, a Google search box, for searching the contents of this fine blog. Enjoy.

Pickoff Moves

A Slippery Scale

"Monkey see, monkey do", goes the old saw, and if you''ve spent any time at all watching this offseason, you'd know that Frank's been watching the Red Sox a lot. Do the Sox have a young stathead brainiac in the GM's chair? Well, time for the Dodgers to pick up one, too. And when it came time to pick a new CEO, McCourt tried to raid the Sox front office by getting Mike Dee. In fact, I'm not sure he even understands he owns the Dodgers. So it is with some trepidation I present this Boston Globe news item about the Red Sox introducing variable pricing:
The right-field seats, which went on sale last week, are priced according to whom the Sox are playing. Tickets for Opening Day, for games against the Blue Jays, games against the Yankees, plus the interleague opponents (Dodgers and Phillies), will sell for $100 apiece. All other games will be for $75. Monster seats, which went for $50 apiece for every game last season, will have a new pricing scale, expected to be announced this week.

"There are about 14 or 15 teams in Major League Baseball that are engaged in some kind of variable pricing," Dee said. "Some are as simple as this. Others are crazy: day of the week, opponents. There's sort of a general migration toward the airline model: You fly on a Tuesday during the peak time on a 14-day advance ticket, you pay less than you would on a Saturday during a peak time, with a two-day advance.

We should look forward to $12 "cheap seats" in Giants matchups presently in Chavez Ravine. Update: should the Orioles take offense that their away games at Fenway aren't selling for a premium?

Lies, Lies, Lies, Yeah

Also in that same article, McCourt denies earlier reports in the Times that he vetoed the Vlad acquisition.
Eleven years ago, when the Giants were being sold by Bob Lurie to the current ownership group headed by Peter Magowan, Magowan was given the go-ahead by Lurie to sign Barry Bonds to what was then the game's biggest contract, a six-year, $43 million deal. Why couldn't McCourt have done something similar during his transition stage? "Baseball feels very, very strongly that prospective owners not act like presumptive owners," McCourt said. "They feel very, very strongly about that. I am familiar with the Giants situation. That caused a lot of consternation. That was not something we felt any need to replicate in this particular situation. We've already made a very big move here. The big move we made was to bring in Paul DePodesta [as GM].
Unfortunately, Paul cannot hit. I think it's altogether possible to draw two valid conclusions here:
  1. The Dodgers' 2004 is over. There will be no bats added one way or another.
  2. Frank is a pathological liar. Or, who do we believe more: McCourt, who's already broken several promises, or Bill Stoneman?

Hall of Shame

And speaking of the front office, Jason Reid in the Times reports that Director of Communications Derrick Hall has resigned due to "philosophical differences" with the McCourts:
The news disturbed All-Star right fielder Shawn Green.

"He's one of the unsung heroes in the organization," Green said. "He's the best in the business at what he does. I don't know all the dynamics of the situation, but I have a lot of respect for Derrick. I know he would only do this if he felt he had to."

Hall, who had left briefly in 1999 to become a sports radio talk-show host, declined to elaborate on the philosophical differences that drove him from the organization he joined in 1992 as a member of the Vero Beach Dodgers.

However, multiple team sources said Saturday that Hall was concerned about the new owners' handling of many situations and apparently feared his credibility would be called into question.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense: a man can only be so creative, and maybe he figured the position would go to the Coen brothers or somebody else with extensive screenwriting experience. (Update: Jon, I know you don't have extensive experience in Hollywood's tarpits, but think of the tongue-in-cheek fun you could have with official press releases!) God knows the truth is going to be pretty harsh in the upcoming weeks and years. I wonder how long it'll take before the peanut vendors develop "philosophical differences" with Frank-n-Jamie? Heck, forget the peanut guys -- what about Vinny?

"In Oakland, They Really Don't Karros"

Ross Newhan, with a brain as thick as a rhinoceros tusk (and, thanks to the Times circulation rates, nearly as deadly), goes back to beating dead horse Dan Evans, whom he today wails upon for not picking up an idled Eric Karros:
Deprived of first base in Chicago, Karros scanned the market, saw an opening with the Dodgers, thought about how it might be to possibly end his career where it started, and was relieved to learn over lunch with Tracy that their sometimes heated and closed-door talks involving playing time and other issues in 2002 had left no scars.

Ultimately, Karros said, he also talked with Evans and Chairman Bob Daly and came away thinking an offer was imminent, although he laughed in reflection and said:

"It's just that Daly would say he had to clear it with Evans, and Evans would say he had to make sure Trace was on board, and it obviously took Dan about three months to walk downstairs to check with Trace because that's about how long it was before I decided that I'd better find work. In the end, I guess, Dan felt he could go in another direction and there were other things he could do, although I don't know what they were."

Neither does anyone else.

Nothing like twisting the knife a little, eh Ross? Maybe you could have made it clear whether this was before or after the Vlad revelation, when it became crystal clear that Evans was unable to lift a finger? Update: ... and would Karros have been the answer to any offensive question in a full-time role anyway? I dunno. He might have made a decent acquisition as a bench player, especially now that the Dodgers don't have a full-time solid first baseman.

Saturday, March 13, 2004

One Big Bat, Revisited: Inserting Vlad

In the NL West roundup at All-Baseball.com, Jon has some interesting things to say about the one- (or two-) big-bat theory:
Jon: Regarding the Dodgers (and by the way, I don't know that a good year from Jeff Weaver is the key to their success any more than a good year from Neifi Perez is for the Giants), here are the questions:

* If the Dodgers add one legitimate bat, do they not become a division contender?
* If the Dodgers add two legitimate bats, do they not become division favorites?

I say yes to both.

Let's take a closer look at those contentions. Using Rob's New Favorite Toy, VORP, let's subtract Burnitz (-7.8), Jordan (11.3), and Henderson (-2.1) from the Dodgers' 2003 lineup and replace them with the 2002, uninjured version of Vlad (71.3). That is a difference of 70 runs, approximately. Plugging this in to last year's stats using Pythagorean projections, that would equate to a WPCT of .573 or a final record of 93-69, not enough to eclipse the Giants but enough to get into the postseason.

But that was last year.

I don't have time right now to do a 2004 projection justice, but it's conceivable that this might have worked. But I would be willing to bet that we'd have to keep Brown around.


Angels' 2004 Bullpen Preview

Tyler Bleszinski at Athletics Nation has released his 2004 bullpen preview for Oakland, and while that's fine, normally Fire Bavasi would have something going for the Halos. Since not, I'll just do it for him. First, I'll start off with links to the usual commentary about the ground rules: Now, on to the pitchers:

Brendan Donnelly

This one's easy: he's about to decline. You don't just step up, deliver a pre-All-Star-Break ERA of 0.36, and expect to repeat that the next year. Heck, he didn't even deliver that in the second half, once his elbow started breaking apart, he came back down to earth to finish the season with a 1.58 ERA. His age of 32 says he's on the downward slope.

Troy Percival

Another year of age-related decline as his K/9 took a big hit last year. Last year's degenerative hip condition isn't going away, and he'll continue to make me nervous. Of course, a lot of that nervousness is due to watching Misseur Gagné on the mound, as automatic a closer as I've ever seen.

Francisco Rodriguez

Frankie's going to bounce back this year with a terriffic year. Like Lackey in the starting rotation, he had an awful sophomore year, but Rodriguez's K/9 went through the roof in the last three months of 2003 even though his ERA took a hit. I see him a big candidate to improve substantially even if he doesn't become Mariano Rivera.

Scot Shields

Shields name, IMO, shouldn't even be on this list -- he should be in spring training working on a third or fourth pitch, working on pitch sequences so he can start. He's better than Lackey was last year. He's got very, very good stuff for five innings, and with some training, I think he could be extended to even more. That said, I'm going to suggest he'll decline a little as his K/9 regresses to his career average.

Ben Weber

Weber's 2003 and 2002 K/9 rates are nearly identical, but trending slightly down, and that's where I'm headed with Weber: decline.

The Rest

My guess is that Sele's most likely to enter the bullpen, which actually might solidify it further. Scioscia's plan to keep Aaron on a five-inning leash worked for a while, and I tend to think a bullpen job would help him out. If not Sele, then Ortiz, and if it is Ortiz, watch out; his walks ramped up while his strikeouts nosedived. Ortiz in the pen could be gasoline to the fire. I see once-highly-regarded Chris Bootcheck as a longshot to make the pen. Last year's spot starter Kevin Gregg is more likely to supplant Shields as a swingman if it comes to that, though it has been said he's liable to spend his days in AAA. Derrick Turnbow has one option left, and the Angels may deal him a similar fate. Too much depends on who actually ends up here, so I decline judgement until Scioscia and Stoneman make their picks.

Sele Released If He Has A Bad ST?

First I've heard of this: Doug Miller today says Aaron Sele could be released if he doesn't have a good spring training:
The good news for Sele is that he's finally healthy and ready to regain the form that helped him win 69 games from 1998 through 2001, the most in the American League in that span.

The bad news is that the offseason bolstering of the Angels' pitching rotation with flamethrowers Bartolo Colon has put the heat on Sele this spring. If he doesn't pitch well, he might not be on the team come Opening Day.

That's a lot of dough to be eating, Arte.

Testing 1 2 3

A stylesheet test.
Italicized words go here. Normal font words go here.

Pickoff Moves

Spiezio Wearing Cape And Tights In Seattle?

Strange and murky are the fever dreams of statheads and fantasy baseball players, projecting performance with statistical gimcrack and mudflap. Its mystics now divine a new superhero playing third base at Safeco. So read the Optimist's tea leaves. If true, Scott, we are so sorry.

Bonds Flat On His Back Through Monday

Barry's horizontal posture is likely to continue through the weekend. How will the curses flow, if Bonds misses large chunks of 2004? Especially since Sabean has gone into full savage-the-farm-win-at-all-costs mode over the last year?

Angels Could Use A Guardian Angel Themselves

As if to prove that aging superstars aren't the only ones who get injured in spring training, the Angels have absorbed quite a beating this year. Aside from Donnelly's nasal adventure, third baseman Glaus sprained an ankle, Guillen fouled a ball off his ankle, Anderson still hasn't played in ST thanks to biceps tendonitis, Benji Molina's got stiffness in his legs, and Vlad took a pitch on the hands. It already sounds horribly familiar...

Weaver... 15 K's... Zzzz

One hit. 8.0 innings, 15 K's. No big deal. Wake me when he's in the bigs, will ya?

Friday, March 12, 2004

Manifesto

Every blog must have a purpose, as a dog must have fleas. This one's is If I amuse, instruct, or edify in the process, well, so much the better.

Oh, Frank, You Slay Me!

Another unintentional humor moment courtesy of the Frankster. McCourt, on keeping the front office staff now that he's decided to be interim CEO:
McCourt also said he hasn't decided to bring in an entirely new front office staff.

"Everybody here is going to be given a chance," he said.

Just like Dan. I'm sure they all have their resumés faxed off to the Angels, Giants, A's, Diamondbacks, etc. by now.

Frank, on priorities:

"Spring training is great, but, really, what we're focused on is June 11, 12 and 13 in Fenway," McCourt said, "and, of course, playing in October is as good as it gets."
Apparently, the other games don't count for much. Or are you just going to the games you live close to?

On the life expectancy of Dodger players:

"I have a lot of confidence in the players on the squad," McCourt said. "This team is a lot better than people give them credit for. That said, we're going to plug holes."
Hah! I knew it! He's going to finally plug Dreifort! I envision a scene like that from The Untouchables where Sean Connery has a violent staged argument with a corpse -- which he promptly and bloodily re-kills, the better to extract information from the live gangsters unaware of the street theater in their presence. After Dreifort, Hundley... and Beltre...

Update: As if that weren't enough, get this Ken Gurnick article. On the Dodgers picking up a hitter before opening day:

Continuing the general feeling around the club that a major acquisition is unlikely, McCourt lowered expectations on player movement.

"I promise to do what is necessary to win on the field," he said. "The emphasis on one bat, a fix-all and cure-all, is a little misguided.

Especially when you can't get one, right, Frank? Just as I suspected: firing Dan Evans had the same atavistic motivation as a dog peeing on a fire hydrant, and so far, with the same results. The lies, the brittle promises, they're all here on display, in as big a showcase as Fox Sports West has for 162 games -- or however many actually get televised. Oops -- there goes another blown promise. But that's okay, we can count on Frank to at least know which team he owns, right?
McCourt spoke to reporters before watching his old favorite team play his new favorite team Friday.

"I wouldn't say I have divided loyalties," McCourt said before the game between the Dodgers and Red Sox. "I have 430 million reasons to root for one team and not the other."

And just how many of those reasons are really yours, Frank? Go home, Frank. Just sell the team and go home.

OT: Atarimaggeddon

Thanks to Slashdot for this great read on the coming crash in the video game industry. While semi-satirical, David Wong makes some excellent points as to why video games are heading towards another mid-80's-like meltdown, fueled by many of the same problems that afflicted Atari, et al.
It's the Atari 2600 all over again. We didn't buy Sky Worm Attack once we realized it was just Missile Command in a different box. Will we line up for Grand Theft Auto 5 if it's the exact same thing, only with prettier texture-mapped bruises on the whores? What's the difference? Would the NES have taken off if it turned out to be just an Atari, only with eight colors of square blocks instead of four?

All it will take is some other fad, some toy, some other hobby to come along, and interest will fade. It's out there, on somebody's drawing board. Something truly new and different and novel, dammit. The market is ripe for it.

And, while the future crash he predicts provides little comfort now to the TV industry execs who are finding out that video gamers aren't watching TV during prime time these days, it might mean a wave of more folks looking for something else to do with their spare time in a few years. Something like... baseball? Nah, that'll never catch on.

Newest Dodger

The Dodgers hired Paul Depodesta
To bolster their woeful offensa
So far it's just Flores
And nobody mores
But he can't hit it over the fencea.

Update: Okay, never again.


Thursday, March 11, 2004

Joe Mauer, Joe Mauer, Let Mathis Come Over

Joe Mauer has had writers drooling over him for some time now. Baseball America ranked him the top prospect in baseball this year, and while Minnesota fans must be kicking themselves for missing out on drafting Mark Prior (by one pick), that's not a bad consolation prize. Still, it comes as something of a shock to read Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus take a contrarian view because of Joe Mauer's height (subscription required). Sheehan compares him against other 6'4" catchers, and concludes that Mauer's bat -- and the wear and tear of moving a large body combined with dish duties -- will ultimately eject him out of the catcher position, moving him to 1B. But, as Sheehan notes, "a .300/.370/.490 hitter has a much different value as a first baseman than as a catcher." Fair enough -- so you're talking about a plus version of Scott Spiezio: not much pop but good average.

Assume, then, that Mauer isn't the best catching prospect in the minors now. That means Jeff Mathis is, which, as an Angels fan, has got to make you feel pretty good.


In Mauer's defense, Aaron Gleeman deconstructs Sheehan's argument by looking at others of similar height, just one inch shorter. The bottom line is that anybody 6'4" in baseball is substantially far to the right on the bell curve, and you'd be lucky to find a decent number of comparables, period.

KNBR Interviews DePodesta

KNBR interviews Paul DePodesta. Highlights:

Vetting The NL Central

With my apologies to the Score Bard:

It's hard in lines so very terse
To say whether the Cubs are still cursed.
With Clemens and Pettitte
The Astros might get it
Is Maddux enough to take first?


Score One For The Bard

Regarding The Wars Between Sabremetrics And Scouting:
To rely on the wisdom of scouts
For projecting who hits or makes outs,
And just eyeball at-bats
Without using stats--
Well, that's like trying to write a poem without knowing anything about meter--you might write a good one if you're lucky, but I have my doubts.

Invitation: Blog At The Park

Many of the other Dodger bloggers, it seems to me, are busy with baby plans, meaning less blogging and more diapering in the weeks ahead. So: to all, an open invitation to one last game at the Ravine before the duties of fatherhood absorb all your free time. Allow me to suggest April 10th, Dodgers vs. Rockies, as the game, but I'm flexible on such details. Any others wishing to show up, why, sure. I'll even go so far as to purchase the tickets so we can all sit in one block. (That was not an offer of a gift, BTW. :-) Reply by e-mail if interested. Play ball!

The Good Soldier

Wilson, you deserved better. That's what I thought when I read that the Dodgers would put him back in the bullpen in order to keep rookie Jackson in the lineup. The stupidity of this decision seems to me compounded by Ishii's struggles, Weaver's annual gifts to the opposition hitters, and Dreifort's chronic injuries. And yet, here he is, talking about World Series rings as if that could happen now:
"It's about the ring on the finger," he said of that elusive championship. "It's more valuable than whatever money you make in your whole career. Family, friends, everybody remembers when they see the ring. When you're done playing, they don't talk about how much money you made. They talk about how many rings you won. That's what it's all about.

"That's all that matters to me now, is to win. I've done everything else in the game. But before I go home, I want a ring. Some guys don't see it that way. But when they get older, they'll know. When I was younger, I just wanted to play and have fun. Now I know you don't feel complete without winning. Thank God, I've got everything else in life. But for a baseball player, there's something else bigger than the money and the personal success."

God bless you, Wilson. After all the long injury-plagued years at Tampa Bay and the vain, hopeless offseason, after a clumsy and foolish new owner inhumanely fired the friend who brought you here, you're still ready to go, and at least, for the public, putting on a brave face.

One Big Bat, One Big Lie

I hear so much that the Dodgers neglect their offense and don't win with hitting that it seems meet to counter this with a few statistics. Following, the regular season OBP and OPS for the Dodgers in championship years:

Year# TeamsOPSRankOBPRank
198812.6579th.30511th
198112.6974th.3234th
196510.6478th.3126th
196310.6667th.3095th
19558.8041st.3561st

Now, if the outlier 1955 season is unusual, so is the magical year 1988, with it's woefully underperforming offense. Most Dodger championships are right in the middle offensively. One bat, by itself, couldn't have fixed the Dodgers last year, and it won't fix the team this year, either.


Wednesday, March 10, 2004

A-Mays-ing: Bonds Won't Set Record Against Dodgers -- Maybe

Baseball Guru reminds us that Barry Bonds is about to surpass his godfather's career home run record. Since he's only two jacks away from tying and three from breaking, I checked the Giants schedule, knowing how Bonds likes to break records whenever he's playing the Dodgers. Mercifully, he'd have to go on a drought for a week and a half where he hits only one or two homers. Three of these games will be played in the Juice Box, making it even more unlikely he heads up the all-time HR chart against the Blue.

Or, he'd have to start the season on the DL. Kinda like he is now.


Grumpy Old Pitchers

The 2004 offseason has been a banner year for older pitchers. With more senior marquee pitchers moved than in any previous hot stove I can think of, the question has to be, qui bono? Who benefits? Let us first state a few ground rules: This leaves us with the following names:

2004 Projected
PitcherAgeTeamVORPERA
Kevin Brown39Yankees38.93.58
Roger Clemens39Astros32.83.58
Greg Maddux38Cubs33.83.56
Kenny Rogers39Rangers16.35.32
Curt Schilling37Red Sox55.83.35
David Wells41Padres29.54.05

So, the question is, which of these guys is most likely to help his team the most? Based on VORP alone, the answer is Schilling, who towers over the rest. But that doesn't consider the replacement guys. Let's look at whose innings these guys will be eating:

Brown

Brown replaces, depending on how you look at it, either David Wells or Andy Pettite. Javier Vazquez and his 61.7 projected 2004 VORP will replace Clemens, essentially functioning as the staff ace. Looking at both pitchers' 2003 actual and 2004 VORP brings an interesting picture to bear:

2003 actual2004 Proj.
PitcherERAVORPERAVORP
Andy Pettitte4.0224.73.7934.6
David Wells4.1436.13.6829.5

Brown clearly marks a step up from the 2003 version of either of these guys, Wells especially so. But it's not a huge step up, and it has to come with the caveat that Brown has substantial injury risk at this point, as the Dodgers well know. Brown 2004 represents, essentially, David Wells 2003. If you're the Yankees, though, you're kicking yourself for not re-signing Pettitte, as Brown is done after 2005, but Pettitte still has a lot of gas left in the tank. I'm going to say Brown replaces Pettitte, as they are the most similar.

Clemens

Clemens' unretirement was something of a surprise to me, though Bosox fans might have a different opinion given his rancorous exit from that club. He replaces Ron Villone, for whom PECOTA projects a 7.9 VORP, one of the lowest in these ratings. Clemens should upgrade the rotation by nearly 25 runs, provided he actually pitches similar numbers of innings.

Maddux

The Cubs situation with Maddux bears startling resemblance to the Astros, except that Maddux is a year younger than Clemens, and he replaces Shawn Estes as the ERA-challenged pitcher getting the boot. As Estes projects to a VORP of only 1.8, though, the 2004 improvement is even bigger, 32 runs.

Rogers

Which awful pitcher does Kenny Rogers replace? Judging by the roster, I'll say it was John Thomson, he of the 22.1 2003 VORP. Thomson's projected 2004 VORP is 24.0; of everyone on this list, he actually represents a step down from what he replaced, leading me to question whether anyone in the Rangers organization can recognize quality pitching (or whether PECOTA has lost its mind on this one). This is a -7.7 run "improvement", or a drop of 7.7 runs.

Schilling

Curt replaces John Burkett, whose 13.7 2003 VORP got frighteningly close to zero. With the hitter-happy AL East, that just won't cut it, and the Sox wisely let him go. Burkett's 17.8 2004 projected VORP represents a bounceback, but with Schilling so much higher at 55.8, the run gap of 38 is insurmountable.

Wells

Of all the pitchers on this list, Wells' standalone effect on the team is most difficult to gauge, because he's actually going to replace not one but one and a quarter other pitchers, specifically, innings eaten in 2003 by Kevin Jarvis, and possibly, one of their 1-3 rotation guys, Lawrence, Peavy, and Eaton, the latter three returning in 2004. The Padres suffered mightily from injury last year, and it shows in their rotation's innings pitched. There's a steep cutoff after Eaton, whose 183 IP ranked third. Wells went the distance last year with 213 IP, but given his injury history, whether he gets that far in 2004 is a big question mark. His projected 29.5 VORP still towers over Jarvis' 10.4 2004 projection, for a 19.1 run improvement. But that has to be watered down with the knowledge that the gain won't, in practice be so large because Wells isn't going to replace just one player.

Conclusion

In short, the Sox accomplished the most by their offseason acquisition, followed by the Cubs, Astros, Padres, Yankees, and Rangers, the latter actually managing to make their pitching worse. That the Yanks pitching turns into a wash (at least, so far as Brown is concerned) shows how far down their player development has gone, and how foolish it was to let Pettitte go.

Bad Swing Shift For Barry

Age, claimer of ballplayers, punches Barry's ticket in a spring training incident:
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Barry Bonds hurt his back during batting practice Wednesday and was taken out of the lineup for the San Francisco Giants' game against Texas.

Bonds swung at a pitch, then walked out of the batting cage and threw his bat down.

He was flat on the grass behind cage as Giants assistant trainer Barney Nugent worked on his back. Several minutes later, Bonds stood up, walked back into the cage, swung at another pitch, then walked off the field.

Giants fans jitter. This is not serious, they murmur amongst themselves. He will return. He will hit. Won't he?

Portrait of the Pitcher As A Young Stud


Gagné avant Dodger uniform.

Thanks to the Texas League website for this one.


Fast, Fast, Fast Relief

Chad Cordero doesn't worry much about Montreal's financial instability, or its relocation to a city-to-be-named-later. No, he's just just glad to be playing in the majors. He should be: he was only drafted last year:
"It gives me an opportunity to play," he said. "All that stuff is going to be a little different, but the city is awesome and Frank [Robinson, the manager] is a great guy."

This time last year, Cordero was the closer for Cal State Fullerton. The Expos drafted him in June and called him up in August, and he posted a 1.64 earned-run average in 12 games.

And people worry about rushing Edwin Jackson! That's gotta be some special stuff. I hope his quick ascent to the show doesn't eventually ruin him.

Replacing Donnelly

Brendan Donnelly, bullpen stud, broke his nose shagging a fly ball, and while that's funnier than Odalis Perez's blistered finger in 2003 as an excuse for not pitching, it brings to mind something serious that Angels fans ought to be thinking about now: just how long we're going to have him around. As Jon observed with Eric Gagné, bullpen studs wither quickly, and at his age, 32, he's at the point where non-nose-related injury will likely sideline him for a substantial period of time. Looking at Baseball Prospectus' VORP for pitchers by team list for 2003, it becomes obvious who's in line to replace him: swingman Scot Shields. But that just opens another question, namely, who replaces him as swingman? In 2005, the answer might be a rookie Bobby Jenks, but this is 2004. For now, we have to keep our fingers crossed and hope Donnelly doesn't break anything more serious than his nose.

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

A Challenge to M's Bloggers

Which is worse? A rotten GM who can't even see the problems the team has, and acquires inappropriate players, alongside ownership with sufficient riches to be mentioned in the same breath as George Steinbrenner? Or ownership so poor the sale of the team stalled until the very last minute of the offseason, acquiring a supposedly great but untested GM -- who, thanks to that same ownership, now has no financial flexibility?

Start writing. You have thirty minutes. At the end of the period, please fold your blue books and hand them to the person on your right.

Update: The answer should be obvious. I'll take the Mariners' situation any day. A bad GM can be fired. Bad ownership cannot, save by the courts.


A National Disgrace

I'm not sure what to make of this, but according to a report on the Angels fan forum, McCourt has sent out a memo insisting that the team's fanbase be referred to as "Dodger Nation". (The poster said the team itself, but that's never been true, even among Bosox fans where it seems to have originated.) If true, it's more indication that McCourt doesn't know which team he really owns.

Even Nixon Had Pat

I had originally started this post as the straightforward excerpt of still more whistling-sounds-of-doom that keep eminating from Dodger Stadium lately. I'll start off with that, but I want to make it very, very clear that this is just one part of the McCourt Show that desperately needs the attention of all Dodger fans. If you haven't already, read this account of one Baltimorean's interactions with Frank-n-Jamie, forwarded by Jon. McCourt and Opryland were to join together to form a new operation in Baltimore, in what was the old fish market.
As the Director of Operations for the facility, I attended a number of meetings with Frank, and his lovely wife Jamie, and found them to be earnest, but totally incompetent people. Their ideas were useless...

Imagine my surprise when we began to have delays because, among other things, the diner for the building was sitting on a flatcar in New Jersey because Frank didn't have the money to pay for it. ... The $23M project could not even place the electronic signage for the main entrance into place, because the money wasn't available to get it delivered.

... I was pulled aside one day by the controller, a personal friend who had originally called me in Ohio to tell me about the job. He was ashen. He told me he had just finished a meeting with the McCourts and their financial people, and that the project was doomed.

I asked how he could know that, when we hadn't even yet opened the doors (the delayed opening, which had finally been settled when we informed Frank that he could not open the facility without the diner, since the liquor laws were going to require the eatery for us to get our license, was still about a month away)...and he said "for us to make this work, everything's going to have to be perfect. We're going to have to turn a profit within six months, and we told Frank that this was not realistic; our people had projected it would take 12 to 18 months. This place has to be a cash cow right off the bat, because the debt load is huge. I'd never seen those numbers before, I'd only seen Opryland's numbers. I swear that if I had seen McCourt's, I'd have never called you to fly in here for that interview."

And so the McCourts went down with the ship, with predictable lawsuits and countersuits, with Opryland (the employer of the individual writing this piece) settling for a fraction of its losses.

Back to the present, or something like it. In January, the Daily News ran an article including one anonymous baseball insider's estimate of McCourt's financial leash to be no more than three years. In October 2003, the Boston Globe interviewed Sportscorp's Marc Ganis, who said "The Dodgers are losing money. There is not the cash flow to support debt." Despite these reports, despite the litany of actual problems (as opposed to anonymous reports) associated with McCourt ownership, somehow, there are those who still insist that this guy is going to get us to the promised land. The arguments against skepticism all have the qualities of extreme naifdom swirling about them, as flies circle Pigpen. Consider one Tommy Naccarato's words:

Lets [sic] get behind McCourt for a couple of years; help him make the team a winner and hipefully [sic] we can enjoy winning again in Chaves [sic] Ravine. I know for a fact that I certainly miss it.

Oh yes, and about Kris Rone, well her job has nothing to do with the team's performance. I'm sorry she isn't going to be getting the chance to NOT stock my size of shirt at the Top of the Park this upcoming season--as if she ever intended too.

In other words, as he put it earlier, "this is a new era" and we should all close our eyes.

Right. I bet that works great if you're a wildebeest amidst lions.

And I've got some news for you, dude. Rone's job has plenty to do with the team's performance: she's the gal who gets the cash that the team plows back into player salaries, scouting operations, and the minor leagues. Losing somebody with her track record is no small matter.

But in the end, results don't -- or won't -- matter. When spring turns to summer and the Dodgers still don't have a hitter (or five, which is more like the number they need), the McCourt apologists will be back at it with their Pollyanna stories about how we all need to get behind the team, and so forth. Everybody needs a supporter come what may, no matter how slimy, or in this case, blatently stupid they might be. Even Nixon had Pat.


Don't Worry, Terry, They're Just Makin' It Up As They Go

Terry over at The Bench Coach wonders whether an overpaid Jason Kendall is headed for Chavez Ravine in Dodger Blue. I give that one about as much credibility as the noise from Ken Rosenthal that DePodesta is talking to other teams about moving Jackson. No meaningful games go on, and this is what the sportswriters do to amuse themselves -- stir up the animals.

Will The Yankees Bail Frank Out?

Yesterday we observed the first signs of spring, like robins or swarming termites, now include Frank's Götterdammerung maneuvers, pasted over with an oblivious smile and a barrel of Rotarian gee-whiz optimism. I expect him to add "I am not a crook" to his PR recitations any day now, immediately following substantial price hikes for the weak team he's about to field. Yet, Dodger fans roar up to the gate. As T.J. Simers asks today -- why?
The Angels added big-time attractions in Vladimir Guerrero and Bartolo Colon this off-season, and on Saturday, the first day that fans could purchase single-game tickets, the team sold 58,828.

The Dodgers did nothing this off-season, and continue to do nothing, and on Saturday, the first day that fans could purchase single-game tickets, the team sold more than 87,000, and close to 100,000 when including package deals. "This will be our biggest year in memory," ticket manager Billy Hunter told The Times.

Ah, later on, he clues us in:
In fact, 33,000 of the 87,000 single-game Dodger tickets sold Saturday were to just the Yankee series, and "I would imagine a number of people were turned away after the Yankee series was sold out," Hall said, "so rather than leave with nothing, they bought tickets for other games with the Giants, or maybe for July 4th."

It appears we're getting closer and closer to that time when the Dodgers, like the Clippers have been doing for years, begin urging fans to buy tickets for the chance to watch some of the game's greatest players — none, of course, who play for the Dodgers.

No kidding, T.J. Who knew that interleague play would bail out the Parking Lot Attendant this year? Well, that's only a few games. We've yet to see whether he's going to get an attendance drop over the course of 81 home games. But maybe it's not the Yanks the fans want to see. Maybe they want to see whether Sheffield even shows up ("Gaaaaryyyyyy..." as they used to chant over the Braves dugout when he was in town.)

Monday, March 08, 2004

"You Have Fifteen Minutes To Reach Minimum Safe Distance"

U.S.S. Mariner today accused Seattle Times columnist Bob Finnegan of resurfacing his favorite fairy tale, namely, the return of Griffey, Jr. to the M's. I understand their concern, as much of what passes for sports "journalism" is actually the manufacture of plausible trade rumors. So we read, with a jaundiced eye, the LA Times story Jon linked to today. It contains some amazing stuff -- if true, especially, the part about Graziano's alleged concern about McCourt's wild optimism regarding business matters. I can understand M's bloggers thinking Finnegan's back on the wacky weed -- any trade sending Griffey, Jr. anywhere would involve the recipient team's GM sharing from that same pipe. But in this case, too many other things are simultaneously going wrong, all at once, so Newhan's story gains instant credibility: Ahab has sighted his whale.

In the movie Aliens, before the colony's terraforming generator went supercritical, the automated warning voice cried, "You have fifteen minutes to reach minimum safe distance." Whether they have such machinery at Chavez Ravine or not, Graziano blasted off for deep space before the reactor blew. The rest of us will just have to sit and watch.


He's No Haas, Beane

The O'Malley's were so good for so long that you forget other teams have -- or have had -- great owners, too. MLB.com today runs a yearbook piece on the last game at the Coliseum under Walter Haas family ownership:
Oct. 9, 1995--For the last 15 years the Walter Haas family has been the flip side of George Steinbrenner: a shining model of altruistic, self-effacing, and successful sports franchise ownership. Now the Oakland A's have been sold to a couple of businessmen, Steve Schott and Ken Hoffman.

On the final home weekend of the A's season a crowd of 30,112 fans said goodbye to a tenor of baseball enjoyment that had been set by the shy and smiling Walter A. Haas, Jr., who bought the club in 1981 as a means of doing something positive for the economy and the spirits of the city.

The A's won a World Series and three league pennants during Haas' stewardship, but with him, pleasure in the day always outranked winning, and this game (against Minnesota) had the atmosphere of a company picnic. The players sat on folded chairs in the infield, with their wives beside them and their younger children on their laps. In the bleachers and outer stands, there were a half-dozen hand-lettered signs thanking the Haas family: "THANKS FOR HAASPITALITY," "HAASTA LAVISTA," "HAAS #1," and the like.

Haas, who had been in declining health for months was not present but the name "Haas" was spelled out on the green grass and brought the crowd to its feet in a spontaneous roar. The players stood and cheered, too -- and in an instant, it seemed, everyone was up again for Mark McGwire's second-inning 465-foot home run into the left-field bleachers: a shining meteor sent up, everyone knew, for Walter Haas. Three days later he died.

Of course, this begat the end of the Bash Brother era in Oakland, and the beginning of the Beane era, with treatment of baseball players -- or at least, position players -- as interchangeable parts. While I have to believe that Oakland's consistently winning ways on a strict budget may prove they have a point, it still makes me sorry to think the Dodgers will presently succumb to those bloodless ways. How did the O'Malley's leave? With a bang? With a whimper?

Return To Sender: Griffey Postmarked For Seattle?

Pity Stephen Nelson of Mariners Wheelhouse, or for that matter, any of the eighteen blogs covering Seattle's finest baseball team. When you're one of about a zillion guys writing about a single team, unique insights become tough to come by, and in the interregnum between the last of the hot stove moves and the start of the regular season -- i.e., Spring Training -- you've gotta feel like a mosquito in Alaska before the bears begin to stir. I got a missive from him last night suggesting that he, I, and Tyler Bleszinski of Athletics Nation should get together and launch a single, grand, unified blog for the western divisions of both leagues. It may yet happen, but before it does, I wanted to thank him for his kind words about my blog (isn't it nice that we all get along so well?).

Anyway, because the Safeco blogosphere is so heavily peopled, it surprises me that he didn't pick up on a rumored move of injury magnet Ken Griffey, Jr. back to Seattle whence he came*. Of course, as the article says,

The biggest hurdle to returning Griffey could be the five guaranteed years left on his contract, starting at age 34 with major injuries wiping out most of his past two seasons. Balanced against that is the fact that Griffey's money is spread out for years after he is done playing — $6.5 million a year is deferred.
Yeah, no surprise there. I wonder whether this is the fever dream of Bavasi along the same lines as Epstein's A-Rod-to-Boston disaster earlier, or just the imaginings of a bored Seattle sportswriter.
In other news, I introduce yet another new Angels blog, Vote For Lou. That makes five of us. He starts off with a post that should warm Nelson's heart, namely, just how badly the Angels have fared against Mariners pitching in recent years.
* Stephen wrote just now to inform me that I wasn't hallucinating: I did see this story on his blog, but he took it down because, well, U.S.S. Mariner already covered it in more detail than he had time for. Eh, don't let it get you down. I have Jon and Terry to compete with on the Dodgers, and at least Purgatory Online and The Pearly Gates for the Angels.

Sunday, March 07, 2004

Making a BeWeaver Out Of Me

The K's just keep on rolling: Jered Weaver strikes out fifteen in 7 2/3 innings. I can't believe I missed that one. Yesterday was a perfect day, too, but I was too busy rewiring my garage. First round pick? Heck, he'll be a top five, maybe top two pick. Go Dirtbags!

Payback, In the Jenks of An Eye

Payback, though not quite in kind, 5-2. My favorite Angel smacked one over the wall off Barry Zito. Bobby Jenks offered up three scoreless innings.

There's actually been a couple stories I missed on Jenks -- one here in the Daily Bulletin that says his stint in winter ball has lead, not to more alcohol-related violations, but to 47 strikeouts in 52 innings, and a frame fifteen pounds lighter. And Stephen Smith says he heard Mike Scioscia on the McDonnell-Douglas show say Bobby's developed a cut fastball in Puerto Rico. Bobby, if you're reading this, we're all pulling for you. I can't wait to see you at Angel Stadium.


Frank Only Makes It To C, Not Dee

Mike Dee, Red Sox exec, turned down McCourt's offer and will become COO of the Red Sox. Looks like Frank's alphabet still needs help getting past C.

Mailbag

A couple items here -- first, Dayn Perry stops by to correct some misapprehensions I might have had about his affiliation with Fox Sports interfering with his editorial content:
Rob-

Poking around and found your Dodgers/Angels blog. Good stuff and some very interesting and thoughtful takes. However, I think you may have misinterpreted my Fox column on DePodesta. Nowhere did I claim that free-spending owners weren't ready and willing to purchase teams (Broad and Checketts are but one example). My point was that, generally speaking, I think MLB selects owners who are willing to toe the "reduce labor costs now!" party line. I think McCourt will be of this mold. I never claimed that the Dodgers had only a group of insolvents to choose from. It's MLB's selection criteria more than anything. When I wrote "It would be better for everyone, the game included, if we had more John Henrys out there willing to invest in their own products. But we don't." I was referring to the current coterie of MLB owners--not prospective owners. I thought that was clear, but perhaps it wasn't. As for my shill status, well, I've critical of Bud Selig and baseball owners on many occasions, and I've yet to be called on the carpet. If I ever were, well, you can ask ESPN.com whether I'm willing to resign when I think I'm being treated unfairly. Many thanks.

dp

I apologized to Dayn for my labeling him a shill, and that's where things stand.

One thing I enjoy -- usually -- is being proven right, as in hearing my wife repeat, "I was wrong, you were right" several times over. But sometimes the satisfaction of being right doesn't offset the sickly feeling I get when my nominally pessimistic tendencies prove accurate. The Dodgers 2004 season keeps looking worse and worse. Today, Mariners Wheelhouse redoubles my efforts on Nomo, complete with charts and comparable pitchers. Note to DePodesta: don't trade Perez. Please.


Evolution: How A Salmon Almost Became A Snake

Richard Dawkins has spent much of his career explaining evolutionary biology in such a way as to make it comprehensible to ordinary folk, as well as taking the scientific world by storm. But even he would be surprised to see such a rapid change as when a (Tim) Salmon (and Arizona native) nearly became a Diamondback:
Before the 2001 season, the Diamondbacks were looking for help in right field.

"As much as I wanted to stay here with one club, that was weighing on me," said Salmon, a former Greenway High School and Grand Canyon University standout who resides with wife Marci and four children in the same Valley neighborhood as Diamondbacks left fielder Luis Gonzalez. " . . . I had a lot of family and friends waiting for me to come home and play."

But Salmon received a four-year contract extension, and the Angels finished third in the American League West. The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, signed Reggie Sanders, who slugged 33 home runs as the Diamondbacks made their championship run.

Salmon, 35, admitted he did some deep thinking after the Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series.

"For a little while, I was asking myself what could have been," Salmon said. "But to come back the next year and do it the way we did it with that club, it's ultimately the greatest satisfaction.

Phew. This from a guy that Bill James ranked 72nd all time in his Historical Baseball Abstract in right field:
An old-fashioned hard-hat kind of player, good arm, not too much speed, works hard and rarely goes into a slump. Ninety walks a year and a .290 average give him an on-base percentage near .400. Has gone over 200 this season (2000) and will probably hit a couple hundred more before the fastballs get too fast for him.
Of course, that was 2000. He proceeded to have a simply awful (for him) 2001, and thought about hanging it up shortly into 2002 when the team struggled early.

Salmon is in my mind an archetypal Angel, a quiet, no-nonsense guy who shows up to the park to get his job done. It's pretty obvious, to me at least, that his career is sloping downward faster than James thought four years ago; later in the Arizona Republic article, Salmon questions whether he'll finish his contract. Well, Tim, here's to a productive end.


Saturday, March 06, 2004

Repeat To Self: It's Only Spring Training

Shelled, shellacked, slammed, blown out, embarrassed, hammered 26-3. Colon only pitched two-thirds of an inning while giving up 2 runs, for a 27.00 ERA. Meanwhile, Blanton, Oakland's AA pitcher, made the Angels look like rookies (well, a lot of them were).

Meantime, the Dodgers hit and hit and hit.

It's only spring training, it's only spring training...


Can You Find The Ace In This Picture?

A few days ago, Dodger Hill ran a breakdown on Ishii showing that, pretty much, his line in 2003 was his line in 2002. But Hill didn't look closely enough at some of his other stats, in particular K/9 and K/BB, generally associated with dominance (does he strike out a lot of guys) and control (how many strikes does he throw). That got me thinking about our supposed staff ace for 2004, Hideo Nomo. Let's take a look at those numbers for the Dodgers staff with previous MLB experience in recent years. (Note this explicitly excludes rookie Edwin Jackson.)

AlvarezIshii NomoPerez
Year IPK/9K/BB IPK/9K/BB IPK/9K/BB IPK/9K/BB
2001 --- --- 198.010.002.24 95.16.701.82
2002 75.06.721.44 154.08.361.31 220.17.881.82 222.16.273.60
2003 95.07.773.42 147.08.571.33 218.17.301.70 185.16.852.82

This is not a pretty picture. Nomo's strikeout rate and control have been slipping for three years now. He's clearly on a downward slide, and Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections has even worse things to say about him: he's due for a loss of over half his VORP (subscription required? scroll halfway down). For an ace, that's scary news. I'm a lazy man: here, I'll just copy their 2004 VORP projections for the starting rotation:

2003 Actual2004 Projected
PlayerVORPPlayerVORP
Hideo Nomo48.7Hideo Nomo20.2
Odalis Perez 10.8 Odalis Perez 29.3
Kevin Brown 60.2 Jeff Weaver 17.9
Kazuhisa Ishii 14.7 Kazuhisa Ishii 4.9
Andy Ashby 0.6 Edwin Jackson 18.9
Darren Dreifort 6.6 Darren Dreifort 15.5
Wilson Alvarez 30.5 Wilson Alvarez 26.4
Total pitching VORP172.1Total pitching VORP133.1

So, PECOTA sees Nomo going down, hard, this year... but tradebait Perez rebounding nicely. Looking at the 2003 DIPS numbers for each of our starters, you see also that OP is on the leaderboard for ERA-dERA, that is, he's been pitching in bad luck, where our friends Ishii and Nomo both are on the dERA-ERA leaderboard -- pitching in good luck.

I've always been leery of trading Odalis. He said what needed to be said last year about the offense. For a combination of durability and dominance, he's going to be extremely hard to replace. I'd look to Perez (if he doesn't get traded), Alvarez, or (gulp) Ishii, in descending order of likelihood, to be the staff ace this year, not Nomo.

Margin Note: No, you're not hallucinating. I took this down for additional info and DIPS analysis.


For Pete's Sake, Don't Blow It, Frank

Reminding Frank that there used to be some class in this organization, Peter O'Malley makes some noise from Valhalla:
Former Dodger owner Peter O'Malley, reacting to the resignation of club president Bob Graziano and vice president of business Kris Rone, said Friday that he hoped this didn't portend another long period of instability for the organization and that new co-owner Frank McCourt needed to reveal his vision and agenda as soon as possible.

"We don't know what his vision and agenda is," O'Malley said. "When we do, maybe we'll have a better understanding and be better able to evaluate these changes.

"It's important he communicates and tells fans what his direction is. You can't fool the fans. My dad and I had their total support for decades because they understood what our direction was."

O'Malley said he wasn't being critical of McCourt. "With change of ownership comes change of management," he said. "I just hope there aren't too many changes in too short of time.

Well, don't you know, Peter, his vision apparently involves learning the A-B-C's beyond the third letter. You know, like H for "hitter". Fortunately, B encompasses "bat", but also "bonehead", which adequately describes many of McCourt's moves in the brief time he's run the show in Dodgertown. Not that Frank would listen to a word Peter would have to say -- after all, O'Malley washed his hands of the team in the end, and took up with Eli Broad on a competing bid when it became obvious the Parking Lot Attendant didn't have enough quarters to buy the team. But I'm sure we'll be treated to lots of fun future press conferences if Peter disagrees violently with the McCarpetbaggers.

OT: Tricksy, Thieving Bloggers!

With the search engine wars heating up now that Google has been reported to be near an IPO -- or not -- Wired News has an interesting story on something that could change the way search gets done. Researchers at what's left of Hewlett Packard (now just HP, thank you very much Carly Fiorina) have found something interesting: bloggers of high repute often steal links and topics from other bloggers. Now, that by itself isn't news, but what is fascinating is that the quality bloggers -- i.e., the guys providing the source material -- are often lesser known, and what's more, frequently don't receive credit:
These infectious people can be hard to find because they do not always receive attribution for being the first to point to an interesting idea or news item.

Indeed, the team at HP Labs found that when an idea infected at least 10 blogs, 70 percent of the blogs did not provide links back to another blog that had previously mentioned the idea.

To get past this obstacle, the researchers developed techniques to infer where information might have come from, based on the similarities in text, links and infection rates.

For instance, if Blog A used the words "furry germs" to link to an infectious topic like Giantmicrobes just days after Blog B in the same social circle used the exact same words and link, that would be a good sign that Blog A copied Blog B.

The researchers said that this is all part of an idea they call "iRank", a ranking of information spread based on who actually originated the material. With everybody hot for the Next Big Search Algorithm, this is actually exciting stuff. So stop stealin' my baseball links! (Note to Jon, Terry, etc.: that was supposed to be a joke.)

Friday, March 05, 2004

Sandy's Back

I'm not old enough to remember him pitch. I was one month old when about-to-be MVP Koufax and the Dodgers skunked the Yankees 4-0 in the World Series, the only time in history a team has blanked the Yanks in the Series. I don't know if McCourt deserves this. But whatever. Welcome back, Sandy.

Update: now, on mlb.com, too.

Update 3/6/04: Reader Ralph Rooney writes to mention that the MLB World Series link above is wrong about Sandy's won-loss record; he was actually a 25-game winner that year, and Whitey Ford won 24. Ah, the days of four-man rotations. And I should also correct myself: the Reds blanked the Yanks in 1976. But it was the first time anybody had done it.


National Hooky, Er, Pastime Day

Tyler Bleszinski prods me to direct your attention to his blog and the efforts to install "National Pastime Day" as a sort of un-holiday, something on the order of Mother's Day. As he wrote me in an e-mail, "You call it slacking, I call it family time." Sure, Tyler... if you count Barry Zito as a family member. Anyway, what the heck. Take the day off. Go to the park.

OT: An Unhappy Anniversary

Today is the tenth anniversary of spam. I was around and actually reading Usenet when the infamous "Green Card Spam" hit, and oh, was the hatred fierce -- and the sanctimonious smugness of Phoenix shysters Canter and Siegel even fiercer. Little did know they were on the cutting edge of something far more sinister: the endless flood of porn, body-part-enhancement, and MLM scams to everyone's inbox.

Stretching Jenks To Fit The Angels Lineup

Bobby Jenks has suffered through seemingly endless comparisons to the fictional Nuke Laloosh of Bull Durham, not to mention biting press in ESPN the Magazine and a rather candid and unflattering segment on the air, exposing his family's extensive problems. Through all that, Jenks has managed to come out in a lot of top prospect lists, including Baseball America, Future Angels, MLB, and Dayn Perry's on Fox Sports. Despite all the good work he's done in the last year -- losing weight and improving his control substantially -- it's still no surprise to read in today's Orange County Register that even Mike Scioscia is hedging his bets a little about their burly yet enigmatic right hander:
"We hope based on his progress that he comes onto our radar," Scioscia said. "It's a stretch to call him depth now, but at some point in the season we hope he jumps up onto the chart. We've got to give him time to get it together."
Well, I hope so. It isn't every day you see guys throwing 100+. Speaking of radar,
The story goes that Jenks threw a pitch clocked at 103mph over the winter in Puerto Rico. As usual, opinions are split about the reliability of the radar gun.

"I've got to think the battery might have been a little bad," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said.

Good luck, Bobby.

Dodger Staff Stirred, Not Shaken (Much)

Bizarre that the Times should publish two conflicting items on the same day. First, the news that DePodesta will retain the old baseball operations staff. He's said to be especially impressed with studette Kim Ng, the woman who talked the arbitrator down to the Dodgers' figure in Gagné's negotiations. This strikes me as odd because you'd think if he were looking to make big changes he'd, well, make big changes. So far as I can tell, the jury's still out on DePodesta, but I haven't seen anything strikingly negative about the man; score a half point for McCourt on this one.

But then there's the juicy part. As expected, Bob Graziano finally did, in fact, resign, but it's how he did it that fascinates, in a watching-a-car-wreck-as-it-happens manner:

"I met with Frank and Jamie at the beginning of February, at which time we decided [resignation] would be an appropriate course of action because we had decided to go our separate ways."

Word emerged of the Graziano-Dee shakeup on the same day Dodger executive Kris Rone, the fourth-highest-ranking woman in Major League Baseball, resigned because of philosophical differences with the McCourts.

...

"My responsibilities within the organization changed significantly" after his February meeting with the McCourts, prompting Graziano to instruct his attorney to send the letter of resignation to the Dodgers on Feb 20. He is scheduled to leave the organization March 22.

I suppose you expect a number of shakeups in an organization when a new boss takes over, but it seems every direct underling of McCourt has hit the door. Maybe it's needed -- the team wasn't exactly lighting the NL West on fire -- but it sure doesn't remind anybody of the O'Malley days, either. Well, maybe guys in the business of writing puff pieces about McCourt, but not the rest of us.

Man, would I love to hear what Rone's "philosophical differences" were.


Thursday, March 04, 2004

Recaption #1

Number 14: Jeff Weaver, 42 ms before his right arm and head detached. Courtesy Harold Edgerton, MIT.


The Effects of Competition Upon The Gate

Boy of Summer has a very good article on the effects of competition on the gate. The short answer is that it just isn't all that much unless the competition is winning. He's pretty thorough, looking at most (but not all) multi-franchise cities (he excludes Chicago, but they haven't had a new franchise drop in on them in a while). Give it a read.

That's Fine, Jeff, Just Don't Ask Me To Pitch

So Jeff Weaver is happy to be in LA 'cause he's been "a Dodgers fan my whole life". Careful what you wish for, Jeff. Todd Hundley's dad, Randy played for the Cubs; the Cubs were his hometown team. Ask him how much he loved it there, especially after the comments he made about asking the fans to come up and hit if they didn't like his slump.

They Could Do Worse

Adam Dunn, for Perez. Dunn is supposedly unhappy with his contract in Cincinnati, but so are any number of recent ex-minor leaguers fresh from a discovery of who pays the arbitrator.

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Eckstein Will Come Back

You heard it here first. Well, okay, you heard it here second. You heard it here first. Without a doubt, my favorite player. Look up "heart" in the dictionary, you'll find Eck's picture next to it. No kidding. He was playing hurt last year. He'll recover.

A-Rod he ain't. He doesn't have to be.


Another Swipe at DIPS

Mitchel Lichtman takes a swipe at DIPS today, going after the meat of McCracken's argument that pitchers have no discernable control over BABIP, in the main. I haven't finished reading it, but what I've read smells possibly like a rat. Or maybe some insight McCracken hadn't come up with. Regardless, the pens of both Voros and Bill James have been silenced by their acquisition by the Boston Red Sox, for which the sabremetric community can only be saddened. I'd sure love to read what Voros would have to say about this.

Update 6/6/04: Changed the link on this one to reflect the reorganization at Baseball Think Factory. They sure don't make it easy to find.


Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Whose Team Was It?

Stephen Smith gives me so many ideas for blog entries, I should pay him part of my commissions. His most recent column revisits a basic question of teambuilding: who really was responsible for building the team? He takes a slightly different view of the matter than most do, in that he assigns ownership of a particular player to the individual who actually signed that player:
A player comes into the organization by one of two ways. The scouting department runs the annual drafts and usually has the final call on which players are chosen. The scouts also sign the foreign free agents not eligible for the draft. Once a player turns pro, he comes into the organization by some transaction ultimately orchestrated by the general manager. The farm director may sign some minor league free agents but, for purposes of our analysis, I'm giving that credit to the general manager.
I think Stephen meant to say "Once a player makes it to the major league level", since players are pros even in the minor leagues. But be that as it may, his analysis of the 2002 Angel team that won it all breaks down to

PersonPlayers
Bob Fontaine, Scouting Director12
Bill Stoneman, GM 2000-200211
Bill Bavasi, GM 1994-19991

This came as something of a shock to me, so it's maybe worthwhile looking at the 2003 Dodgers through this same prism.

PlayerAcquired ByHow Acquired
Wilson AlvarezDan EvansFree Agent
Andy AshbyKevin MaloneFree Agent
Larry BarnesDan EvansFree Agent
Adrian BeltreTerry Reynolds1994 International Free Agent
Troy BrohawnDan EvansFree Agent
Kevin BrownKevin MaloneFree Agent
Jeromy BurnitzDan EvansTrade with Mets for three minor leaguers
Jolbert CabreraDan EvansAcquired from Cleveland for LHP Lance Caraccioli
Steve ColyerTerry Reynolds1997 amateur draft
Ron CoomerDan EvansFree Agent
Alex CoraTerry Reynolds1996 amateur draft
Bubba CrosbyTerry Reynolds1998 amateur draft, 1st round (!)
Darren DreifortTerry Reynolds1993 amateur draft
Eric GagnéTerry Reynolds1995 amateur draft
Shawn GreenKevin MaloneFree Agent
Rickey HendersonDan EvansFree Agent
Chad HermansenDan EvansFree Agent
Koyie HillEd Creech2000 amateur draft
Todd HundleyDan EvansTrade, with Cubs, for Grudzielanek and Karros
Chad HermansenDan EvansFree Agent
Kazuhisa IshiiLogan White2001 international free agent
Cesar IzturisDan EvansTrade with Toronto (for Luke Prokopec and Chad Ricketts)
Edwin JacksonEd Creech2001 amateur draft
Brian JordanDan EvansTrade, with Atlanta, for Gary Sheffield
Masao KidaDan EvansFree Agent
Mike KinkadeDan EvansFree Agent
Paul LoducaTerry Reynolds1993 amateur draft
Tom MartinDan EvansFree Agent
Fred McGriffDan EvansFree Agent
Guillermo MotaDan EvansTrade, with Expos, for Matt Herges and Jorge Nunez.
Scott MullenDan EvansFree Agent
Rodney MeyersDan EvansFree Agent
Hideo NomoDan EvansFree Agent
Odalis PerezDan EvansTrade, with Atlanta, for Gary Sheffield
Paul QuantrillDan EvansTrade with Toronto (for Luke Prokopec and Chad Ricketts)
Dave RobertsDan EvansTrade with Cleveland (for Christian Bridenbaugh and Nial Hughes)
Jason RomanoDan EvansTrade with Colorado (?)
Dave RossTerry Reynolds1998 amateur draft
Wilken RuanDan EvansTrade, with Expos, for Matt Herges and Jorge Nunez.
Paul ShueyDan EvansTrade, with Cleveland, for Terry Mulholland, Ricardo Rodriguez, and Francisco Cruceta.
Joe ThurstonEd Creech1999 amateur draft
Robin VenturaDan EvansTrade, with Yankees, for Bubba Crosby.
Daryle WardDan EvansFree Agent

So, in review, the blame for 2003 may be in some measure apportioned to

PersonPlayers
Dan Evans, GM 2002-200329
Terry Reynolds, Dir. of Scouting, 1991-19988
Kevin Malone, GM 1997-20013
Ed Creech, Dir. of Scouting, 1999-20013

What's interesting to note here is that Edwin Jackson, our phenom-or-not, was a Malone-era pick by Ed Creech. Greg Miller, ranked even better by some reports, is the highest-rated Logan White era pick. That's not surprising considering most of those guys have barely had a year and a half in the minors. Of Terry Reynolds picks, only Eric Gagné has gone on to anything like stardom, with Loduca a solid player, Beltre arguably a middling disappointment, Dreifort an experiment gone wrong (made far worse by Kevin Malone), and Ross an unknown at this point. It'll be interesting to see how well the Logan White picks progress this year.

Update 3/3/04: Jon writes that it's a bit negative to say an 85-win season requires "blame"; I intended that as a sardonic comment, but on re-reading that, it didn't come across that way. Also, the issue of Dan's salary limitations didn't come up. I hadn't intended them to; this was a simple exercise designed to trace responsibility for an individual player back to the initial signing.

Update 3/5/04: Forgot Ishii.


AL West Pitching Previews: Texas, At Last

The Rangers Blog has the 2004 pitching preview up. Well, at least it's not the Tigers.

Update: Ryan Drese is "still hanging around, hoping for one more chance", he says, and you'd have to believe that after his awful 2003 campaign that had him start the year with a 135.0 ERA. Seattle absolutely shelled him with six runs in 1/3 of an inning. Ouch.


Pickoff Moves

A Run In Tommy's Dodger Blue

Doug Krikorian in the Long Beach Press-Telegram recounts a couple good stories from Fred Claire's autobiography, Fred Claire ... My 30 Years in Dodger Blue. First, it turns out that in 1983, Lasorda seriously entertained an offer to become the field manager of the... Yankees? Blecch. And then, further impugning the man, he spreads the blame for the Martinez/Deshields trade around to Lasorda also, saying both Lasorda and Caribbean-area scout Ralph Avila had veto power over the trade. Both agreed to it. Deshields, of course, was a famous bust, while Martinez went on to become one of the most dominant pitchers of his generation. (Sorry, Doug, I won't agree he's the most dominant: see Johnson, Randy.) I'm gonna have to get that book.

A Grinning Magowan Looks Ahead

A story in today's Alameda Times-Star claims that
The Giants begin the season with a payroll just under $80 million, almost identical to their opening-day payroll of $81.5 million last season, and Magowan said he envisioned fairly similar levels over the next two to three years. With the Dodgers expected to retrench under new owner Frank McCourt, the Giants could become the biggest spenders in the division within two years. [emphasis mine]

The club also has flexibility to add payroll at the trade deadline, Magowan said.

Which, presumably, the Dodgers do not. Frank, there will be no forgiveness from these quarters if you take the Dodgers to bankruptcy. But I won't be surprised, either.

Monday, March 01, 2004

Canseco, Rickey Can't

"Jose Canseco, out of baseball three years, unimpressive in workout" says the headline on canada.com, and what else would you expect? At least the Dodgers won't have to deal with the embarrassment of signing another aging player -- even though the A's apparently have Rickey knocking on their door to give him one last shot. He blames the Dodgers, it seems, for not giving him a big enough chance to prove himself. Coach, Rickey, coach.

Vlad Injury Watch

From the What-Aren't-They-Telling-You-Dep't:
New right fielder Vladimir Guerrero has been wearing a brace to support his lower back during spring training workouts, and he plans to wear the brace during the regular season.

Guerrero, who signed a five-year, $70-million deal with the Angels this winter, began wearing the brace in July, when the former Montreal Expo star returned from a monthlong absence caused by a herniated disk in his lower back.

"I feel great, but I'm going to continue to use [the brace] because it gives me confidence, it makes me feel more comfortable," Guerrero said through an interpreter. "The day I feel extremely good will be the day I take it off."

So now he's got a brace on his back. And spring training has barely started.

Bloggers' AL West Pitching Preview

Most of the AL West bloggers have their 2004 season previews in for pitching: Athletics Nation for the A's, Mariners Wheelhouse for the M's, and Fire Bavasi doing the honors for the Angels. The Rangers Blog hasn't checked in with theirs, but given the state of Texas pitching, I wouldn't be too eager to discuss it, either. Maybe he's still out drinking.

Sunday, February 29, 2004

Farewell, Ted Williams

Searching for something else on Google, I stumbled across a New Yorker article by John Updike on Ted Williams' last game. Read it; it's beautiful.

OT: Calendar Tricks, and Second Chances

Today is a leap year's day, the first in eight years. We missed one in 2000 because the year was divisible by 400. This one leap year's day forgot was the great addition of the Gregorian calendar, now used throughout the world. To read it now, the adoption of Christoph Clavius' calendar -- it is more correctly his than the pope's -- in Protestant countries is nearly unimaginable; it was at first rejected in England, Germany, and the Netherlands. Imagine the rejection of Newtonian mechanics in an Iowa statehouse, or the operation of the circulatory system in Congress. Yet, we have those in power who wish to suppress stem cell research, and so our link to the progress-frustrating past continues.

Probably my favorite chronological anomaly is the leap second, made necessary by advances in timekeeping made in the 1950's, and in particular, the invention of the atomic clock. This unimaginably accurate instrument discovered the earth's slow deceleration by roughly one second per 18 months. To compensate, scientists running the world's time system created a leap second periodically if needed. I used to work for a company that made military surveillance satellites, and on the days we would get a leap second, one of the staff would bake a chocolate cake. So perhaps I have a Pavlovian fondness for leap seconds. But, things are speeding up, and the earth itself seems to be one of them. There hasn't been a leap second since 1999 because of that small acceleration, but it strikes me a little sad that the leap second seems destined to go away. Perhaps we should have a chocolate cake today, anyway.


The Emperor Seligula

Bud Selig now disputes an HBO report claiming he and family members took $2 million, combined, in salary from the Brewers while crying poor to the Wisconsin legislature, in effect committing a fraud upon them. While this happens as a matter of course -- it is quite normal for legislatures, great and small, to lie to the taxpayers they flog for their ill-gotten means -- it is quite another thing if (a) the target is the statehouse itself, and (b) it is done with the kleig lights applied in gale force. Bud needs to open his books and get it over with. Perhaps a move to Mexico or some suitable Caribbean nation with lax reciprocal extradition history is in order. Else, he might need to do some light reading.

It must comfort Frank McCourt to know the ball and chain attached to the Dodgers' hindquarters pays for such stuff. Revenue sharing will have no effect on small-market team competitiveness until the system is overhauled to require owners to either spend money on the field or return the cash to the league and its otherwise rightful owners.


Saturday, February 28, 2004

Stealing Against the A's

A few days ago, Tyler Bleszinski guffawed that the Angels had better watch out on the basepaths, as new sheriff Damien Miller was gonna gun down Eckstein et al. Well, the Angels' running game has only improved vs the A's in the last two years:

YearSBCSSB%
2002125.706
2003175.773

Ramon Hernandez' 2003 CS% of .330 was good, but not nearly as good as the .400 he sported the year before. While it's altogether possible that Miller may actually represent a step down given age and years behind the plate, it seems to me that something else is going on here. Consider this:

Tim Hudson
YearSBCSCS%
1999---
200086.428
2001188.308
200279.563
20031010.500
Mark Mulder
YearSBCSCS%
1999145.263
2000243.111
2001247.226
200258.615
200376.462
Barry Zito
YearSBCSCS%
1999---
200034.571
20012311.323
2002109.474
200376.350

So, it looks like something happened for all three here: a light came on in 2002 and suddenly steals against dropped dramatically. It couldn't have been Hernandez, as he caught most games back to 2000. Did they change coaches? Was there an anti-theft elixir put into the water coolers in the Oakland dugout? Whatever happened, it doesn't seem to coincide with the principle catcher. Despite what Tyler believes, I'd be more likely to bet that steals against will change only minimally with the addition of Miller. David Eckstein, you are cleared to take second.


Goliath, Chained

Jayson Stark's column today goes into round two of what has been hot on baseball's mind for well over a decade now: how to contain the Yankees. While I jokingly suggested that the Dodgers returning to Brooklyn could solve that problem indirectly, the eggheads within baseball have a less elegant plan, albeit one that would ensure the Dodgers stay put in Chavez Ravine. Namely, they want to audit the YES network's books:
The way the Yankees' critics see it, the YES network has been, essentially, a license for the Yankees to print funny money. They're reporting $50 million a year in rights fees. But MLB suspects the true value of YES to this club is actually much higher.

To determine how much higher, sources say that MLB is ready to bring in an independent auditor to determine YES's true market value to the team. If that value turns out to be more than $50 million, the Yankees would have to pay another 40 percent of that difference. Not just this year. Every year. Retroactively.

This doesn't affect the Angels much, a club with one of the worst TV rights deals in the majors, but it most assuredly will affect the Red Sox, Blue Jays, and a whole host of other teams -- including the Dodgers. You think McCourt will scream if MLB tries to get retroactive revenue out of the team? Wait 'til MLB tries to cash that check! It's remarkably bad timing for McCourt, who apparently has such a bad TV deal that he overpromised on the number of games that would be aired in order to conjure up some extra revenue. Earlier, he claimed all Dodger games would air, but it seems that this is a non-possibility thanks to national coverage rules (nationally televised games may not conflict with locally shown games). Promises are cheap, Frank. I can hardly wait to see what happens when the season is halfway through and the team is sunk firmly in the middle of the division -- again.


Wrong Pitch

Title of a spam in the inbox today:

CLICK HERE TO MAKE YOUR PENIS A GIANT

I get no offers to make it into a Padre, Diamondback, Athletic or Mariner. Not even the Rangers are so desperate. Hard times by the bay, I suppose...

Update: I beg your humble pardon if my blue humor may have offended...


Mortar and Trowel: Thoughts On Team Building

I was working on a tiling project in my bathroom Thursday night. It's taken me a lot longer than I thought it would, and I made at least one key discovery along the way: never use three-hour-old thinset mortar still in the bucket from before lunch. Throw it out and start over. (The tiles have a tendency to fall off if you don't.) But, be that as it may, my tiling project got me thinking about building other things, in particular, baseball teams, and how to go about it. In the span of five years, the Florida Marlins showed two very different approaches to this job.

The first pass came in the 1990's after Wayne Huizenga, the garbage magnate, bought the expansion Marlins. (Huizenga's involvement in the garbage industry, notorious for its mob connections, and subsequent creation of Blockbuster Video, an all-cash business, has never sit well with me. You can find an anti-Horatio Alger bio of him here if you're interested.) He decided he wanted to buy a title -- and proceeded to boost payroll buying players like Kevin Brown, Moises Alou, Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonilla, and Alex Fernandez. The team's collective salary was $47 million, an incredible figure at the time for a small market team. In fact, here's a breakdown of 1997 final standings with payroll rankings:

TeamDivisionFinishPayrollDiv. PR
Rank
BaltimoreAL East1st$54.9M2nd
NYAL East2nd (WC)$59.1M1st
ClevelandAL Central1st$54.1M2nd
SeattleAL West1st$39.7M2nd
AtlantaNL East1st$50.5M1st
FloridaNL East2nd (WC)$47.8M2nd
HoustonNL Central1st$32.9M3rd
San FranciscoNL West1st$33.5M3rd

For the most part, you had to be first or second in spending to win your division. The anomalous Giants (behind the Dodgers and, unbelievably, Padres) and Astros (trailing the Cards and Cubs) provided the exceptions to the rule, but since both were erased in the playoffs, attentive GM's learned a lesson that was about to get expensive for everybody. The path to the postseason was clear: purchase the services of free agents, and lots of them. But those free agents were about to get a lot more expensive.

Of course, the next year, Huizenga had a fire sale, his team unable to support the payroll level he had established. In 1998, the Marlins finished 54-108, dead last in the NL East and the worst record in baseball. The next year, in exchange for their awfulness, they acquired Josh Beckett in the first round, the second overall pick of the 1999 amateur draft. And thus began the recapitulation of a story about how winning might be possible: through the farm.

Push The Button, My Friend, Take Me Back Into Time

It's easy now to wax trite about the vices of free agency and the virtues of the farm, especially after the 2002 and 2003 World Series. But the evidence of the farm's long-term benefit was present even when Kevin Malone was drawing exactly the wrong conclusion from the 1997 postseason. Before I indulge myself, let's take a look at that year's postseason teams and ask a hopefully useful question: how many of their core starting players, defined by 300 or more at bats or listed as a starter (pitcher or player) on Baseball-Reference.com, were brought up from the farm?

TeamEligible
Players
Former
Farmhands
Notes
Orioles153
Yankees163Posada was on the team but contributed few AB's this year.
Indians147
Mariners145
Braves148Smoltz came up with the Braves but was not drafted by them. I count him as a farmhand.
Marlins155The Fish were an expansion team, which explains the large number of farmhands.
Astros125The Astros used a four-man rotation in 1997.
Giants153Shawn Estes came up with the Giants, so I count him as a farmhand. Wilson Alvarez and Osvaldo Hernandez, while counting as farmhands, both pitched so few innings as starters (66 1/3 and 56 1/3, respectively) that they have been dropped.

Clearly, the Braves had the most productive farm system, followed by the Indians, Marlins, Astros, and Mariners, and then the rest. And while the Marlins won the pennant that year, the Braves won their division, as they have continued to do to this day. Cleveland, in the Central, was in the midst of a surge that had them winning six division titles and two pennants. In a thread on the Angels' fan forum about Moneyball, Stephen Smith of Future Angels had this to say about the relationship between the Braves, the farm system, and solid teams:

... keep in mind that teams with poorer win-loss records in the prior year get higher draft picks. Given the natural cycle over time, the idea behind the draft was to at least provide all teams with an opportunity to improve themselves. It may take ten years or more for this cycle to play out.

The A's are the classic example. They had mini-dynasties in the early 1970s, the late 1980s-early 1990s, and then started upward again in the late 1990s. Inbetween, they had some horrific teams -- which meant they were drafting higher than other teams for several years in a row.

Last winter I began to research this "circle of life," to see if since the draft began what was the relationship between a parent club's win-loss record over time and the cumulative win-loss record each year of its minor league teams. Given the theory being tested, if correct we should see something like a helix, or put another way a "bubble" in the minors preceding a later "bubble" in the majors.

Sure enough, I saw that pattern with the A's.

It was less apparent in other organizations. Some organizations like the Angels were quite peripatetic, because player development philosophy constantly changed based on the whim of the owner. The Braves, certainly the most consistantly dominant team in the last decade, actually had a lot of losing years in the minors even though they were regularly pumping out minor league talent, because they signed more players than everyone else. While most teams carried five or six minor league teams, the Braves had seven or eight until Major League Baseball standardized the minor league structure with the 1997 Basic Agreement. So the Braves did it with volume. [emphasis mine]

So the Braves' large number of homegrown players should come as no surprise given their operations during that era. But even allowing for that, Smith's research -- which he unfortunately didn't present in more detail -- provides an interesting glimpse into forecasting major league teams' success on the field by looking at their minor league stats. And while it's a statement he would later amend, Atlanta's steady dominance of their division versus Florida's 1997 Wild Card supernova would seem to make the Braves the authors of "how to win" textbooks.

The Necessity Of Farmhands

Among those not reading from that textbook, however, was Kevin Malone, whose notorious squandering of club resources has been well-documented and lamented elsewhere. Most infamously, he neglected the team's once legendary farm system, leaving new GM Dan Evans to replenish a desert. Since Evans brought in Logan White to run the Dodgers' vast scouting department, the club has had two highly regarded drafts. Highly regarded by who, though? So far, it's two groups: Baseball America, and other GMs. Josh Boyd, now gone on to work as a scout for the Padres, said in his Dodgers system chat that the system is the best in the NL West. Jim Callis ranked the Dodgers system fourth in the majors overall. And, GMs all over baseball were hot for our top pitching prospects Greg Miller and Edwin Jackson, guys like Kenny Williams of the Chisox (for Magglio Ordoñez), Theo Epstein ( for Nomar), Doug Melvin (for Richie Sexson), and Dave Littlefield (last year, for Brian Giles).

While such speculation makes for good for watercooler fodder, whether it translates to wins on the field later is another story, a point Jon and Mariners Wheelhouse made earlier. The farm is great, the farm is good, but only the games at the major league level count. Trouble is, a strong farm is a requirement; few teams can afford to consistently (that word is important) buy their way to a pennant. It's commonly said that the exception to this rule is the Yankees... or is it? The 80's-era Yanks tried to buy their way to glory, to no avail; so have others tried in vain. This week in Baseball Prospectus, Steven Goldman discusses the Peter Angelos of his day: Thomas Yawkey. Yawkey tried to buy a championship in the 30's, an era when "rival teams [were] 'freely' giving away talent". But of course, we all know that it didn't work. Goldman says this is for two reasons:

[It's] almost impossible to buy enough [players] to staff an entire ballclub. Not only will the pool of available talent, at its deepest, be unequal to the demand (note that even this year's Yankees, who have acquired a number of big-ticket items from more conservative clubs, have not been able to buy certainty for their starting rotation) but buying off the rack forces a team to be overly dependent on making the right selections--that is, on luck. A team that chooses to bank on stars rather than on depth faces a greater risk of having no fallback should their star prove to be infirm, unreliable, or simply on the way down. The large influx of talent that comes with developing a strong minor league system gives a team the depth to survive its own misjudgments.
Even assuming those questioning the quality of the recent Dodger drafts have valid points, the fact that these players were established when the team had relatively low first-round picks is impressive. Maybe White got lucky, but based on baseball's reaction, he got awfully lucky, awfully fast, and frequently. More so with pitching than hitting -- this is a subject for another day -- but pitching can be traded for hitting. While the Dodgers aren't yet in a position to be able to do that, they soon will be. Even though there's a lot of variables -- McCourt's lack of scratch is a big one -- at least we can say the Dodgers have a strong farm system. That's one thing out of the way.

Friday, February 27, 2004

Frank, Too, Shall Pass

TeamYearsLifetime
WPCT
PennantsWS Wins
New York Yankees1901-2004.5663926
San Francisco/New York Giants1883-2004.541205
Los Angeles/Brooklyn Dodgers1884-2004.524226

Thanks to Baseball Reference for reminding me of that. Third highest career winning percentage of any franchise over ten years old. More World Series wins than any other National League team since 1950. This is the Dodgers, not some squeak toy. We shall outlast you, Frank. Get used to it.


Thursday, February 26, 2004

OT: Images of Occupation-Era Japan

Photographs of Occupation-era Japan, 1948-51, by John W. Bennett. Incredible to think that war's end is over 50 years gone now. A lot of the material here consists of his contemporaneous writings, which bear the dull echoes of the bureaucratese his position no doubt forced upon him. But Bennett's eye for composition more than compensated for his leaden pen.

Move Now, Paul

Aaron Boone was unconditionally released by the Yanks today. I see a starting second baseman in the Dodgers' future... or maybe fuel to light a fire under Adrian Beltre. Update: ... or not. Boone "is not expected to play this season." Update, 2/27 7:35 am: Boone says he thinks he will play in 2004. Believe what you want.

Microsoft Insecurity

So today I came in to the office and my computer had rebooted. I left it on because I always leave it on; Windows 2000 always takes too long to reboot and pick up my 700+ pieces of mail I get nightly from a cold start. (No, I am not kidding about that number. Probably two-thirds are spam, and most of the others are various and sundry automated work-related alerts I get.) At some point overnight, we had a brief outage that shut down every computer in the office. So I get in, and turn the thing on.

boot... boot ... boot ...

I log in.

chime ... background ... blah

Twenty minutes later it still hadn't finished coming up. I couldn't even see Outlook, which is set up to start at login. Fine. Get a browser window and check the news on Drudge, Yahoo, whatever. I click on a link. Nothing happens... then a flurry of activity, and from nowhere, a browser fullsizes itself and demands I click to a link that promises it will rid me of nasty spyware forever.

Yeah, right.

Somehow, I'm not quite sure how, I think I ended up saying "yes" to installing some malware on my machine, and all due to Windows' insistance on being only apparently ready to take my requests -- but then routing them randomly (from my point of view) when they are at last presented. It reset my browser to point to their unpleasant little site, and popped out the CD I was listening to (Lyle Lovett's "Live In Texas", thanks for the suggestion, Jon). So long as Microsoft thinks ease of use should come ahead of actual, meaningful security, so long will we have viruses and trojans.

And, did I mention I'm going to run Linux on my new work computer?


Staring at Steroids

From the Toronto Star:
"If you're a baseball purist like me," David Letterman once said, "you know the season doesn't really begin until Jose Canseco gets arrested."
Canseco's off-field performance bothers me, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today. It's his use of steroids. Today's Contra Costa Times called it "a nasty business", but I keep asking myself -- and the surrounding world -- what, specifically, is so nasty about it? In a universe where "everybody's doing it", players have a jones to keep up with the Joneses, or the Bonds, or the Cansecos. Steroids are the ticket to better performance. Baseball has had a long history of not caring. Nobody's dying from the stuff. The onus is on the people decrying steroids for their awfulness to make their case in a grownup manner, and not with transparent and lame "just say no to drugs" homilies.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

My Penance for Being Lazy and Incurious

... is reading Sean's excellent rebuttal to my earlier post about the Angels' 2002 championship run being the result of luck. It's a good, vigorous, piece of writing. As expected, I do have some quibbles with it.
1. The team stayed healthy, except for Sele, and they had Lackey to replace him. Well, no.
Got me on that one, Sean.
2. Several players had career years, including Benji Gil and Scott Spiezio.
Two does not equal "several." More to the point, one does not equal "several." As I said before, Scott Spiezio was the only Angel to post numbers significantly above his norm in 2002. Gil, like Palmeiro and Wooten, had above-average years, but none experienced the best year of their career. The rest of the lineup either put up numbers that were very close to what they could have been expected to do, or haven't been in baseball long enough to evaluate whether their 2002 season was a statistical outlier (like Washburn and Ortiz). In a few more years, I suspect we may conclude that Adam Kennedy had a career year in 2002, but we can't tell yet, as he's still in the portion of his career where he's likely to improve. For a while, I thought that Ben Weber and/or Brendan Donnelly had also topped out in 2002, but their performances in 2003 seem to indicate that they may just be that good (I'm not completely sold on that, but that's how the evidence looks now).
I can see there's some room for semantical quibbling here -- so, fine, I'll concede that we're dealing with less-than-career years for a number of players, (update: and that "several" does not equal "two" -- so more on this in a bit) but that doesn't mean that above-average years don't qualify as luck. For starters, let's look at Gil. His career average line hitherto was .236/.289/.359; in 2002, he posted .285/.307/.431, with an OPS of .738, well over his .647 average through 2001. Maybe not the absolute best year of his career (measured by OPS for years with more than 100 AB, that was 2001), but certainly the second best, and one I don't think anyone would have predicted -- except perhaps his one fan. (What a lonely job that must be!) I have to disagree about AK -- I think he'll continue to improve (for a while, at least -- he's still in that part of his career) -- and Weber and Donnelly as well. Washburn I'll cut some slack because he was injured last year, but frankly, I want to see him do it twice. Ortiz I'm not so sure about; I think what you see with him is what you get. Both are perfumed with luck to me -- and their appearance on the 2002 DIPS dERA-ERA leaderboard lends credence to that.

Moving right along:

Regardless, the fact is that it's actually normal for any given team to have a guy or two experience the best year of his career. I mean, you've got nine guys in the lineup and five starting pitchers, plus a closer - even if you don't pay any attention to the bench or the guys in the bullpen, that's fifteen chances for a career year.
And this finally gets to the meat of the matter. The more players you have, the more that can have bad seasons. Assume the chances of any one team member having a good season are 1 in 3. The odds of any n players having simultaneous good seasons becomes vanishingly small the larger n is.

Moreover, getting back to Gil, the bench guy you lose can be a worse than the starter who goes down. If the team loses a starter due to injury, you put your bench guy in, but if you lose the bench player, you get hosed when the starter needs a day off, or worse, also goes down, because then it's time to call up a AAAA type (read: Amezega). That's why I say the team got lucky losing Sele for two reasons: first, he was having trouble that year (4.89 ERA, anyone?), and second, Lackey was ready to go and actually excelled. Who knows but that we could have gotten the 2003 Lackey in 2002?

3. Appier had his last good year. Probably true, but so what?
So what is, if Appier falls apart as in 2003, there really isn't anybody ready in the minors to take over the starter role, i.e., you need two John Lackeys when only one is ready.
4. The Angels had great pitching in the minors to draw on. See, that's just not luck at all.
It is and it isn't. See above.

After reading Sean's blog, I still think the Halos had a guardian angel on their shoulder in 2002, who promptly went on vacation in 2003. But I'll give him kudos for a great rejoinder.


Recidivist

Shawn, Shawn, Shawn...
"Right now," Green said, "this lineup definitely requires me to have a year equal to or better than any I've ever had.

"I'm going to try and do it, but I still feel that what the club needs most is another hitter for the middle of the lineup.

"I mean, it's difficult going to spring training knowing your lineup is such that a lot of guys have to have career years if we're going to have a good offensive team.

"That's not the right way to go into the season."

Oh, you're right, Shawn. But I guess that must mean you're not a team player. You have too much entheta, or something. Repeat after me: the new regime's only been here a couple of weeks. They have a great game plan. It was much better than Cats, I want to see it again and again...

Why is Newhan publishing this stuff? Does he want Shawn gone?

Update: Another possibility: Shawn wants off the team, bad. Read this as a trade-me plea. After last year, I don't see how that could happen unless Greenie has a monster first half.


Not Oil And Water, Vinaigrette

Baseball America's cover story today is about an interesting possibility, the reverse of the one I posted yesterday. Jim Callis explains why Logan White and Paul DePodesta may actually work well together.
"What's going to surprise people is how well Paul and I get along," White says. "I think we'll learn a lot from each other." ...

"My sincere feelings are that we'll hit it off real well. We've talked about how our philosophies mix. I think everyone is visualizing he's going to tell me to take all college players. He's been pretty open. We haven't sat down to talk about all of the particulars, but we're going to get along tremendously. We just may surprise the industry."

What's shocking is that the A's have actually paid more in their drafts -- $14M -- on signings in 2002 and 2003 than the Dodgers, who paid out a mere $11M. And, as BA says, "It's still early, but it looks like Los Angeles had baseball's best draft in 2003." If DePodesta does keep White around, it could be a very good sign indeed.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Listening Comprehension Test

What We Say To Ballplayers

We're not rebuilding. My goal is to win this year, to win every year. It's a single focus like a laser beam, to win with the right people, with players that have the drive, that have the courage to be the best they can be. To have players that have respect and pride for the Dodger uniform. To wear it with respect and pride.
What They Hear

Blah Blah Blah Win This Year Blah Blah Blah Win Every Year Blah Blah Blah
Thanks to Gary Larson for the inspiration for this one...

Luck, Be A Lady (Or At Least, A Halo)

Richard over on Pearly Gates goes after the chestnut that the Angels 2002 title wasn't due principally to luck. I would remind him that luck did in fact play a large factor: It's not that the Angels didn't win their 2002 title, Richard -- it's that luck played so substantial a role in getting them to the finish line. I would believe luck had less to do with their positioning if the team repeated the following year for another postseason run. They didn't, and that's why their title was less than convincing.

A Regrooved Shawn Green

Comes now Green out of the general manager's office, buttocks and wrists smarting. He gives the now-standard speech:
"The new regime's only been here a couple of weeks," said Green, who is experimenting with a move from right field to first base this spring. "They've had a lot going on. It sounds like they've established a good game plan.

"I still feel right now the offense is much better than it was last year. There's the addition of Juan Encarnacion, who's a very solid guy and a really good run producer."

Jeez, Shawn, how does it feel to be a sock puppet? I guess I could stand it, too, if they were handing me Barry Bonds-sized tall dollars. But the humiliation... the frustration of having to backtrack on legitimate and wholly comprehensible anger and disbelief.

My boss in my first real job out of college told me that once you cross the $100,000 per year salary mark, the qualifications reduce to how much shit you can take. By that standard, Green currently labors in the Hyperion plant, moving the effluence one $92,500 shovelful at a time.


Turning Dodger Stadium Into An Abbattoir

One of my favorite Monty Python sketches is the "Architects Sketch", which, if you're not familiar with it, opens as follows:
Mr. Tid (Graham Chapman): Well, gentlemen, we have two architectural designs for this new residential block of yours and I thought it best if the architects themselves explained the particular advantages of their designs.

<There is a knock at the door.>

Mr. Tid: Ah! That's probably the first architect now. Come in.

<Mr. Wiggin enters. >

Mr. Wiggin (John Cleese): Good morning, gentlemen.
Clients: Good morning.
Mr. Wiggin: This is a 12-storey block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive here and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these....
Client 1: Excuse me.
Mr. Wiggin: Yes?
Client 1: Did you say 'knives'?
Mr. Wiggin: Rotating knives, yes.
Client 2: Do I take it that you are proposing to slaughter our tenants?
Mr. Wiggin: ...Does that not fit in with your plans?

Well, no, but that's about how I feel upon reading the very unsurprising rumor appearing in New York's Newsday that scouting director Logan White's job is in jeopardy. Paul DePodesta may be the architect of many things, but it's yet to be seen whether a championship team is one of them. And while, as Jon rightly points out, it's a bit premature for Jacksonmania, cutting the man who got us our highly-rated prospects chafes, badly.

Monday, February 23, 2004

New Angels News Site

I'm not sure if I should categorize this as an Angels new site or a blog -- I'm keeping it under the Blog listing, for now, though: Angels Win. Today's lead story builds a case for Troy Glaus to have a monster year now that we have Vlad in the lineup. Well, I hope so. Anyway, very professional looking.

Now Covering for Aretha Franklin, #38 -- Eric Gagné

Boras really needs to get his clients a better speechwriter, because they're all sounding like a broken record. Eric Gagné is just the latest to demand a multiyear contract while mouthing the R-word -- "respect". Eric, come now, you're a smart guy -- surely by now you should know the success rate of that mantra. Yours is now 10 of 11 arbitration cases Boras has lost. Of course, I should count the fact that Eric's beating the drum for a long-term contract as a positive move; in earlier times, Boras would just have his client hie to the free agency hills and so much for that. But the new economic reality seems to be steeping into his rock maple head. There is hope, even by the fiery lake.

Yet, the news is not all good. If Boras, through Gagné, speaks sweet words of conciliation and long-term contracts, it is because the number of teams requiring the services of an übercloser that can afford this one are small, and at the moment, perhaps zero. Even if DePodesta wanted to sell-the-Gagné for a bat, his franchise player might not have a home anywhere in baseball. This could be a bad marriage waiting to happen.


Memo

Frank McCourt
Chairman and President, Los Angeles Dodgers
1000 Elysian Park Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Dear Theo Paul,

Who is this Green fellow and when did he get on the team? We simply cannot have the players making comments like this to the press, especially that nasty little T.J. Simers fellow. I hear he's an awful bore -- but I can't find his column in the Globe anywhere. Are you sure he's a sportswriter? Please find a way to shut Green up; remind him that a trade to Texas is still possible. ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE!!!

Best,

Frank


The Big A: House of Pain?

Last year, the Angels got bit by injuries, hard: If injuries were bad luck last year, or in Erstad's case, just the rent coming due, then it's no good omen to read that Colón reported to camp overweight. While you don't want to believe every story that hits the press, you do have to worry about little omens like that one. The Angels site quoted Mike Scioscia on Washburn's shoulder problems as saying "His velocity was good and his pitch count was where we needed it. ... He'll be fine." Maybe so, but there are fine distinctions in "fine", and that Jarrod was not last year.

Sunday, February 22, 2004

So Much For "Decisive"

Way back when, back on, oh, January 29th, Frank McCourt promised he would be "decisive". Well, as Dan Evans can tell you, he was anything but that. So now, new GM Paul DePodesta says no trades are imminent.

Entracte

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Now that I've got that out of my system, Paul DePodesta is one of the smartest guys in baseball. Moneyball (and, I suppose, his Ivy League credentials) told me so, therefore I believe it. But -- I giggle at the Evans-haters now who howled for Beane Jr. to come and get them the One Big Bat that would transform the Dodgers' sluggish offense into a powerhouse like St. Louis.

Whack-A-Mole: DePodesta White Paper De/Rematerializes

DePodesta's white paper, which I re-found after it disappeared from the Legg Mason and CSFB websites, has once more disappeared, thanks to the wonder of massive traffic. Fine. So you can see the text here, archived on the Dodgers message boards, where they have plenty of capacity, and so far as I know, no restrictions on monthly viewing.

Pickoff Moves

More Mr. Happy News

Earlier, we recall the New Jersey Star-Ledger reporting that Paul Quantrill rejoiced moving to the Yanks because he was "getting away from Kevin Brown." So he thought, anyway. Well, we certainly send him our condolences over Steinbrenner's choice of teammates in the offseason, especially now that Brown let it be known he was "so unhappy in Los Angeles last year that he contemplated retirement before he was traded to the East Coast." I hope his millions and private jet were keeping him otherwise well comforted in the midst of his dispair.

Wile E. Throws From the Mound

With more comebacks than Wile E. Coyote (but equivalent success), Darren Dreifort once more throws on the mound. " Dreifort is not participating in fielding drills because of concerns about the strength of his right knee", says the Times, but it makes you wonder what will break next: will Wile E. plummet to the bottom of the canyon with an anvil this time, or will the rocket blow up on the ground? Dodger Blues used to break down player "performances" per observable feature, in Dreifort's case, per missed start. So many failures, so much entertainment value!*
*This is not to be confused with actually enjoying Mr. Dreifort's situation; he's shown a lot of heart in continuing to keep himself healthy, or try. Lesser men would have given up by now. But maybe it's time to give up now.

Ishii/Roberts Trade Rumor

Meanwhile, back on the east coast, according to the New Jersey Star-Ledger DePodesta is jiggling Kaz Ishii in front of the Orioles for Brian Roberts. The O's would prefer to move Jerry Hairston, however. But with rumors of owner Peter Angelos possibly selling the team this year, one wonders whether that complication won't hurt the chances of a deal going down, especially with Angelos looking to pad attendance numbers. Also, the Orioles are very high on their young pitchers about to come up to the majors. How much sense does it make for them to take on another starter?

Erstad At 1B Won't Keep Him Healthy

The theory about moving Ersty to first was that it would (a) plug the hole caused by Spiezio's absence, and (b) would keep him healthy by preventing him from beating his hamstrings to death in the outfield. Well, looks like part (b) might just be wishful thinking. Back in '97 when he played 1B,
Erstad had a sore right shoulder for much of the second half of 1997, didn't start the final 13 games and had surgery after the season. In 1998, when Erstad played 72 games in the outfield and 70 at first, he strained his left hamstring in early August, went on the disabled list, aggravated the hamstring in early September and missed 10 more games.
Mediocre as Ersty's bat has been throughout most of his career, it could be worse -- a lot worse.

Saturday, February 21, 2004

Brown Delivers... And Gets Nailed

The Yanks are about to find out what Kevin Brown is made of... Mr. Happy took a ball in the right ankle during fielding practice. "Torre said they did not expect the injury to be any cause for concern." Unknown was whether Brown splintered into many sharp pieces or crumbled. My vote is for the latter, as he is known for his temper.

Time For Your Morning Beatdown, Mr. McCourt

Good morning, Ferret-Face! Man, I just keep liking Arte more... and Frank less. Again, from today's Times:
Arte Moreno, who purchased the Angels from Disney in May, has an entirely different mind-set. He made it clear, as Angel pitchers and catchers began spring training workouts Friday, that this winter's $146-million free-agent splurge was the beginning of a major paradigm shift, not a one-time shopping spree.

"We're a big-market team and should act like one," said Moreno, who plans to be a regular at Tempe Diablo Stadium this spring. "We're in the No. 2 media market in the country. There's no reason we can't bring a championship-caliber team here every year."

... "We have a business plan," Moreno said, "and it's not like it's written on the back of a napkin." [emphasis mine]

Well. Nothing's in stone. They play the games for a reason. But, dayng. Get 'em, Arte!

Update: Man, that's doubly nasty: Arte would have been asked to vote his business proposal up or down, and therefore had to read the thing. Ouch!


Just the Koufax, Ma'am

Sandy's back, says the LA Times. If you believe McCourt to be the worst thing to hit the Dodgers ever, just the idea of him lending any support to this guy should make you cringe. I hope all that happened was he needed to stop and make a phone call, or visit his doctor. Of course, I have my own ideas about where Sandy ought to go...

You Know Your Team Is Screwed When...

... MLB.com news picks them to finish fourth in the NL West.

When Schlegel projects McPoor as "a boon" to the Dodgers, it makes you wonder what kind of mind-altering chemicals he's been taking. My wife once had a music prof like that; they called him "Professor Android" 'cause his brains were so fried. It's called, going from the frying pan to the fire. But maybe they don't let you write the obvious if your pay partially comes from one of the guys you're covering (i.e., the Dodgers' own Captain Ahab).


Friday, February 20, 2004

A Dreamier Jeff Weaver

The title of Jon's note about Jeff Weaver's brother, Jared, got me thinking about Jeff hisself. There's reason to be optimistic about Jeff, which, given my catechism is Murphy's Law, should surprise and delight the reading audience:
  1. He's not facing the batters in the AL East. I'm not sure if this is a huge factor, but getting shelled by Boston just can't be a good feeling, against whom he went 0-0 with four no decisions with a 5.21 ERA. Reviewing his record, however, he fared far worse, surprisingly, against the unlikelies of Kansas City and Tampa Bay.
  2. He's pitching in Dodger Stadium, the tonic effects of which have already been noted on other pitchers.
  3. He's out of Yankee Stadium minus the expectation of being some sort of Greek god.
  4. He's got better infield defense behind him. Beltre, Izturis, Cora, and Green (Green? Please say it ain't so...) will be better than anything he had in New York.
  5. He's moving to the NL minus the DH.
His K/9 ought to be closer to his career average of 5.93 rather than the fairly dangerous 5.25 he put up this year. What I think is most interesting about him, though, is his WHIP took a sudden rise in 2003, mostly due to a full two point H/9 increase. From Voros McCracken's work, we know that H/9 is, for most pitchers, not controllable (though there are a few exceptions) and should tend to regress to his career average. Weaver was, when he came up, principally a groundball pitcher, but that's changed over time, and he's now nearly balanced over the last two years. With more solid infield defense behind him, and reasonable support in the outfield, Weaver has a good shot at a 3.75-4.00 ERA -- no Cy Young candidate, but far from ineffective. In other words, a competent number 5. Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections agree, showing him having a 4.07 ERA year, which practically calls for celebration.

Update: Looking up Weaver's DIPS ERA lends a lot of credence to this -- he's on the leaderboard for dERA-ERA. Not that this necessarily matters; dERA-ERA discrepancies only tend to work if they're positive (i.e., they predict decline). It does make me wonder, though, whether the league suddenly get a read on him somehow.


Pickoff Moves

Most of these links are from Baseball Guru today, news from Japan --

A Cuppa, Cuppa, Cuppa -- Ahhh

The International Herald Tribune re-runs a piece from the NYT making the case for MLB to force a baseball World Cup. Frankly, I'm not all that excited by the prospect; none of the other baseball playing countries -- with the exceptions of Mexico and Japan, to my knowledge -- field leagues that would be competitive. It would be something like the Yankees asking for more Devil Rays.

YES Says Yes To Japan Opener, ESPN Says No

Looks like the Yankees' Japan season opener will be broadcast on YES -- and nowhere else. ESPN declined to air the games in the U.S. nationally. Too bad, because it'll be the only pro baseball with national interest.

Kinkade Tearing It Up, SYL News, Japanese ST Invitee At Vero

Also from Baseball Guru, former Dodger Mike Kinkade is tearing it up in Japanese ST, a frequent tonic for many former MLB players. (See the Hanshin report in the link just above.) Wannabe MLB star Seung-yeop Lee didn't look too good in defensive drills with the Chiba Lotte Marines, booting a grounder, but he's hitting well, "collecting 13 homers overall in 58 swings". The Dodgers have invited Norihiro Nakamura to ST (see Kintetsu).

Yu Who?

The Dodgers, Mets, and Angels are apparently interested in a 17-year-old Japanese Iranian prep pitcher, Yu Darvish, with five Japanese teams in the mix as well. Darvish, who already has a 92-mph fastball, "features a good sinker, slider, changeup, and knuckle curve ball." His parents met in the U.S.

Angels' Rotation Set

Update: According to the Orange County Register (registration required), the rotation is set as "Bartolo Colon, Kelvim Escobar, Jarrod Washburn, Ramon Ortiz and John Lackey - perhaps in that order", with Sele trying to break in during ST. Good luck, Aaron, you've got your work cut out for you.

Validation On MLBPA Reinstatement

Seth over at The Pearly Gates says he's got confirmation directly from the MLBPA that "scab ball" players have been reinstated to the union. Good work, Seth!

Thursday, February 19, 2004

A Pinstriped A-Rod Barely Moves Yanks' Vegas Odds

Thanks to San Shin for pointing out that the guys with the most on the line -- Vegas -- aren't buying the line that A-Rod will help the Yanks a bunch. The Yanks are currently 2-1 favorites to take it all this year, down from 3-1 earlier. The Red Sox tied at one point as co-favorites at 3-1, but have slipped to 5-2 odds. The Angels are next at 8-1, not bad.

Two Signings From Down Under

One for the Halos -- LHP/1B Matt Ryan, signed ironically because of his bat ("I'm a pitcher, not a hitter ... I don't even own a bat"), for a signing bonus of $200k. He developed shoulder problems before the National Championships:
[He] had grown in excess of 6’ and he appeared to have the baseball world at his feet when disaster struck. Just prior to going to Canberra with the Victorian U18 team Matt developed shoulder problems which saw him dropped from the team. He still went to Canberra but had to be content with watching the game from the stands, sitting most times with Trevor Jarrett. “That was so tough”, said Matt from his Grovedale home, “to sit each day and watch my team mates playing in the National Titles.” On returning to Geelong it was discovered that he had torn his labrum in his pitching shoulder which required an operation and a long period of rehabilitation. Not only had he had to sit out the National Championships but now he was unable to attend the MLBAAP Academy on the Gold Coast in July. However, instead of letting it get him down he showed the mental toughness which will get him through the pro leagues and set to work on his rehab to ensure his place in the Victorian team playing at the Championships in his hometown of Geelong this January.

“He hadn’t fully recovered at the time of the Tournament,” said Trevor Jarrett, “ and he was given duties as a hard hitting 1st baseman when he wasn’t being called upon to pitch.” With 6 other lefties the Victorians could afford the luxury of using Matt sparingly on the mound and so the pro scouts had the opportunity to witness his ability with the bat, and they liked what they saw and were soon in heavy negotiations with his agent.

And one for the Dodgers, C/1B/3B Mitchell Ayres, his teammate on the Victoria team. (Here's some photos of them together.) G'day, mates, and good luck!

Cy Who? Dodgers Win Gagné Arbitration

The Dodgers won Gagné's arbitration case, but I'm already thinking like an A's fan: we're going to lose him, just like we're going to lose any of our other stars (whoever they might eventually be), because McCheap can't afford them in the long haul. Bud Selig and all the owners are very, very bad men for saddling us with that deal.

Meantime, In St. Louis: Albert Pujols is reported to have a 7-year, $100M deal done. It may be a lonely ride for Albert much of that time; the Cards' farm system is in shambles now, Jim Edmonds is looking towards retirement, and the Cubs have arguably the best young starters in the game. I wouldn't want to be a Cards fan over the next few years; it's gonna get brutal.


Colón And Vlad's Wish List

A kindly Spanish-speaking Angels fan on the Halos board produced a couple of stories about recent additions Vladimir Guerrero and Bartolo Colón. First, Colón aspires to win 20 games and appear in the World Series:
Bartolo Colón tiene una corta lista de aspiraciones en la próxima temporada de grandes ligas: ganar 20 partidos y llegar a la Serie Mundial.

Colón, quien durante el receso firmó un contrato de 51 millones de dólares por cuatro temporadas con los Angelinos de Anaheim, ganó 20 juegos en el 2002 con Cleveland y Montreal.

Translated (roughly):
Bartolo Colón has a short list of aspirations in his next season in the big leagues: to win 20 games and get to the World Series.

Colon, who signed a $51 million, 4-year contract, won 20 games in 2002 with Cleveland and Montreal.

Also, in Vlad's wish list: a 50-homer season.
Vladimir Guerrero reveló que uno de sus sueños es disparar 50 jonrones en una temporada.

"Me gustaría pegar 50 jonrones. Es un sueño que tengo'', dijo Guerrero previo a su viaje a Estados Unidos para asistir a su primer campo de entrenamientos con los Angelinos de Anaheim, reseñó AP.

Translated:
Vladimir Guerrero revealed it is one of his dreams to hit 50 home runs in a season.

"I would like to hit 50 home runs. It is a dream I have," Guerrero said prior to his trip to the United States to attend his first training camp with the Anaheim Angels.

Thanks to everyone who helped translate this, and to guswe for posting these Spanish-language AP stories (which for some reason aren't available online in English).

"The Hell With the Pitchers"

Over on Athletics Nation, Tyler forwards a great article from a principally political blog, "The 2004 Yankees: Déjà Vu All Over Again". (I would have linked directly to the Rothenberg Political Report, but they don't offer permalinks.) In particular, he notes that Rickey Henderson ended up having to go to Oakland to get his ring because the Boss in those days had a peculiar fixation on offense:
That year [1986], the Red Sox went on the win the American League. If that happens again in 2004, more than heads will roll in New York. There may be bodies. Piles of bodies. But in light of the recent A-Rod trade, one thing is clear: Steinbrenner is the same old Steinbrenner. Focus on the hitting and "the hell with the pitchers."
At least, I hope it's déjà vu.

Vero Beach Update

Pitchers and catchers report today, and Ben Platt writes a spring training update today on the Dodger fan forums.

MLBPA Reinstates Brendan Donnelly?

I'm not quite sure what to make of this post, but if it's true, I'm glad for Donnelly. Donnelly played "scab ball" in 1994 and as a result lost his rights and privileges for certain things -- including having his name appear on any World Series merchandise. No premade T-shirt you can buy at the stadium will have his name on it. The MBLPA apprently voted to not only give Donnelly back his merchandise rights, but also to grant full reinstatement to all those who played that year. Congratulations to a real stud -- you deserve it.

DePodesta And The Draft

Stephen Smith of Future Angels espoused a particularly virulent contempt of Moneyball, observing its many inaccuracies, as did Baseball America*. While yesterday's brouhaha over Branch Rickey, ur-sabremetrician, lent credence to the idea that there might be something hidden in the numbers, looking back a few days at my reply to Jay Jaffe's comments about the DePodesta-era Dodgers made me curious to find out what influence he might have had on the success of the A's. In particular, did he have any say in drafting their triple threat of Zito (1999 first round), Mulder (1998 first round), and Hudson (1997 sixth round)? The answer is only for Zito, as DePodesta only started working for the A's in that year. So based on that superficial viewpoint, DePo hasn't done that much with the draft. I plan on looking at this in more detail later on, of course, but it seems to me that there is at least some question as to the efficacy of DePodesta's laptop.
* Please to note that I was hitherto unaware that Baseball America was a magazine first rather than just a website. The italicization was no accident, though you will find it previously sans italics. We regret the error.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Putting On Airs, Just Passing Gas

There are some Dodger fans out there -- I don't know who, poor naifs -- who believe McCourt's long-term plan is to have a payroll befitting the Dodgers' market, i.e., $100M or so. That is to say, they have Mercedes-sized appetites, but with Frank McCourt's Hyundai-sized wallet, we await a whole lotta nothing going down. Those of us cursed with clearer vision foretell of Gagne's "sell-the-closer" departure in what looks like a blue version of the Curse of the Bambino. With that in mind, I bring to bear yet another piece of calculated disinformation from McCourt's new accomplice, Paul DePodesta, a formerly good man brought low by his willing association with a known felon. As Mencken observed, a man who suppresses a good impulse can only become a knave -- that is, a politician. So it is with poor DePodesta. His ambition and vanity having led him to become the Dodgers' general manager, he now must hide the grotesque realities of his budget constraints from the paying public, issuing nonce press appearances. To wit:
Q (New owner) Frank McCourt said he wanted to keep the payroll around $100 million this year. Can you take on money beyond that?

A We haven't gotten into that. My sense is Frank's definitely committed to putting together a winning team, so it's probably a case-by-case basis. He set an area where he feels the payroll needs to be, but he hasn't said this is an absolute ceiling. [No, in the same sense that a 757 can't go into low earth orbit.] He's committed to finding a way to put the best team out there possible. If that means going over budget, I'm sure he'll be open to discussion.

Ah, to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.
Q A lot of the players here have below average on-base percentages. Do you feel given how bad the on-base percentage was collectively and individually, you'd be comfortable starting the season with that this year?

A I'll say this. The good thing about having the pitching staff that we had here last year is this doesn't have to be the best offensive team in the league to win a lot of games. ... The one thing we have over last year is we have a healthy Shawn Green.

Oops. Sorry 'bout that one, Paul.

Coda (2/19): I claim DePodesta knows the oft-repeated $100M payroll figure is purely fictional and meant as a balm to the wounded pride of the typical Dodger fan, who -- rightly -- imagines his team should compete with the likes of the Yankees for both fiscal clout and star-studdedness. But imagine McCourt is lying even unto his general manager. Well: there is no honor among thieves. Would we expect less?


Hundley Re-re-re-injured, Green's Owie Still Hurts

Somebody please explain to me how Todd Hundley gets injured again? And, in the same story, the news that Green's shoulder is "not 100% healed". Jon, it's looking increasingly like you'll have nothing to apologize for.

Update: Today's Times indicates Hundley's injury is career threatening. Much as I hate to say it, I sure hope so...


Legg-ing One Out: DePodesta Resurfaces

While I'm at it, Paul DePodesta's infamous white paper about grading baseball players disappeared from both the Credit Suisse and Legg Mason websites, not to mention the Google cache. Thanks to the efforts of kottke.org, the article has been republished.

Aaron Hits One Out of the Park

Aaron's Baseball Blog, that is, in deconstructing yesterday's Bill Plaschke column about Paul DePodesta. In particular, he chides Plaschke over his laziness about researching the role of statistics in the Dodger organization, citing Branch Rickey as a pioneer in this regard. As well, he rips Bill a new one over the incredible sentence
"Last season, one study showed that Bonds reached base 1.1 times per plate appearance."
Well, you can't get on base more than 100 times out of 100, Bill. Silly sportswriter!

Jack Clark, Scapegoat?

Covering the story that Tim Wallach has been hired as the Dodgers' new hitting coach, Jon Weisman reminds us that he advocated firing ex-hitting coach Jack Clark way back when. While I was unaware of Jack's leap from one minor-league assignment to the big club, his pedigree as an active hitter is otherwise impeccable -- as Dodger fans watching his 1985 NLCS performance would attest. To me, what made Clark interesting as a hitting coach was his impressive OBP. His high walk totals, even factoring in intentional walks, shows he had tremendous plate discipline, despite his characterization by some as a "free-swinger". Except for the first three years of his career, his OBP was consistent -- and usually, well -- above league averages. So he knew how to hit -- or take a walk -- as a player.

Now, you could certainly argue against the idea that hitting is, at the major league level, a teachable skill, but Jon doesn't do that. Instead, he says that, well, because some people assign Jim Colburn the glory of the pitching staff, the same ignominy should have attached to the hitting coach. Fair enough. But when your raw material consists of Kevin Brown, Hideo Nomo, Wilson Alvarez, Guillermo Mota, Paul Quantrill, etc., etc., etc., how good do you actually have to be? I could be a hitting coach for Barry Bonds. I wouldn't be any help at all teaching Minnie Mendoza -- or, for that matter, Alex Cora. If you're going to be throwing comparisons like that around, Jon, ask yourself this: why hasn't Colborn somehow fixed Masao Kida? And, does Clark get credit for Alex Cora's completely respectable .291/ .371/ .434 line in 2002?

For the record, I was in favor of firing him at the time as well, but principally on the grounds that whatever was going on wasn't working. Unfortunately, in retrospect, it looks like the problem was in the front office, not the dugout.

Followup: Jon also worries about DePodesta's apparent casual assignment of the hitting coach position to someone equally inexperienced at coaching as Wallach. Well, say DePodesta believes the numbers tell all. Isn't is also possible he could have a sound basis for the opinion that coaching doesn't effect performance significantly? And if that's true, why not utter a few homilies for the press? After all, Moneyball made much of Beane's contempt for the field manager...


Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Pickoff Moves

A-Rod

I already weighed in with my less-than-compelling reasons why A-Rod will be a burden, rather than a help, to the Yankees. God, not that you've already read any of this or thought of it before, but here goes:

Finally, All The Cubs' Maddux Are In A Row

Well, I was wrong about Greg Maddux signing with the Cards -- looks like he's gone back to his roots and signed with the Cubs. (I found out because my wife was in the other room hooting and hollering.) Well, good luck to the Cubbies -- with Pettitte and Clemens in the Astros' lineup, they'll need it. (On second thought, maybe they won't -- there was a great ESPN article a while ago that I can't now find discussing final career years of great pitchers; most of them were below replacement value.)

And Now For Our Human Interest Story

Greatest Commercials Never Made Dep't: Johnny Cash's heirs and assigns have refused to allow his hit "Ring of Fire" to be used for a hemorrhoid commercial. In this era of garment failures, it warms me to the bottom of my heart that someone can have deep-seated convictions...

Arte's Littlest Billboards

The Angels Blog a couple days ago linked to a Yahoo news story pointing out the unflattering differences between the Angels and Dodgers this offseason. (The guy needs to switch to another blog; the one he's on doesn't offer permalinks.) As I've said before, Arte's a smart guy, and it just keeps coming: he's cutting the price of Angels-branded childrens' clothing. Keep those little billboards rolling, Arte! We'll see you in October.

Edit: lose that old hed, what was I thinking?


Taming the Beast

For Immediate Release

Thursday, September 13th, 2007

New York, (AP) -- Bud Selig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, today announced the long-expected purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers by a group led by David Checketts. As part of the bankruptcy settlement, former owner Frank McCourt will receive $150 million.

Checketts refused to answer questions regarding rumors of the team's relocation to Brooklyn. With the team slipping into insolvency and the Yankees' continued unrestrained spending, Selig has floated the idea of dividing the New York market by adding a third team, thereby increasing competition for the Yankees. Many baseball insiders consider the Dodgers, with their historic roots in Brooklyn, the ideal team for this task.


Monday, February 16, 2004

DePodesta Press Conference

Here's a link for the press conference announcing DePodesta's hiring. A couple highlights: Update: Ben Platt managed to squeeze in an interview with DePodesta (audio link; abbreviated transcript). Without commenting too much, he mentioned that the top farm prospects "usually aren't the guys that you look to trade". Well, there's some comfort: the Evans' boo-birds whining that the team hasn't moved any of the top prospects for a bat (this means you, Ross Newhan) will have the exact same thing to complain about under DePodesta.

Sayonara, Farewell, Adieu, &c.

Dan Evans' farewell speech, as published on the fan forums:
I have been visiting this message board frequently over the past two-plus years, and have enjoyed meeting and talking with many of you during my time as the Dodgers' General Manager.

First off, I want to thank Fox, Bob Daly, Bob Graziano, and Dave Wallace for the tremendous opportunity two and one-half years ago. I was honored to have had the chance to be the Dodgers' GM, and I wish we would have had the opportunity to complete our job here.

My staff deserves a huge compliment for their work, especially during this very difficult transition process. I know it has been a stressful offseason, and I wish them the very best and thank them for their support throughout.

I want to thank Dodger fans, because I have seen and felt your passion for your favorite team. My good friend Don Drysdale used to tell me great things about the Dodgers and their fans, and he was so right. You have been great, and while I know the past few months have been frustrating, the organization will benefit from the work our staff accomplished.

I feel good about what we had done in only two seasons -- we inherited the oldest roster, an inflexible one with over $200 million committed, and an organization rated 28th in talent -- near the bottom for the fifth consecutive year when we started.

After only two years, the Dodgers are now in the top four in talent as a result of great work by the amateur, international, and professional scouting staffs, along with an excellent, innovative player development staff. As a result, the Dodgers are on the right track for long-term success and you the fans will be the real winners.

This entire offseason has been extremely frustrating for everyone in the Dodger organization. The offseason is the worst possible time for an organization to go through an ownership change, since nearly all of the key personnel and financial decisions are made during that period. It has been very difficult and the entire organization was affected during the long process.

Everyone in our baseball decision-making group, including Bob Daly and Bob Graziano, knew that we needed to use the increased flexibility obtained in the Kevin Brown trade to the Yankees to improve our offense, and there is no question that we would have accomplished our goal of acquiring a prolific offensive player in his prime -- without giving up any of our prospects -- had it not been for the circumstances surrounding the ownership transition [emphasis mine].

We always took into account the best interests of the Dodgers, both short and long-term, whenever we made a baseball decision. The fans and the organization deserved that. I knew it was our responsibility to make the unpopular decisions which were actually in the best long-term interests of the Dodgers. We developed a gameplan and adhered to it in order to achieve our goal, and our philosophy had the complete support of upper management.

Lastly, I never realized that one pink shirt would cause so much discussion!

Best wishes to all of you and thanks.

  Dan Evans

So there you have it, Evans-haters. Straight from the horse's mouth. Vlad was in the bag, but for McCourt's ill-timed, poorly-conceived, underfunded bid.

Mr. DePodesta -- welcome to the furnace.


The Ominous Yankees

Bad omens for the Yanks:
  1. They have the highest paid player in baseball. I'd have to remember a ways back, but there have been very, very few teams with the highest paid player to even go to the postseason, let alone win. (There was a good article on this and unfortunately I can't find it at the moment.) Update: found it on Sean Lahman's site. A little old, but the story's basic facts remain unchanged, unless the Yanks defy history this year.
  2. They have four ex-Cubs - Kenny Lofton, Tom Gordon, Felix Heredia, and Jon Lieber. Outside of the Cubs themselves*, this gives them possibly the highest ex-Cub factor of any team in the majors.
  3. A-Rod will be playing with the number 13 on his back.

*My wife, the Cubs fan, reminds me that active roster Cubs don't count in ex-Cub factor calculations because by definition the players are not in fact ex-Cubs.

Baseball America Rates Angels Farmhands, More On AFL

Baseball America ranks the Halos' top ten prospects:
  1. 1B Casey Kotchman
  2. C Jeff Mathis
  3. 3B Dallas McPherson
  4. RHP Ervin Santana
  5. RHP Bobby Jenks
  6. 2B Alberto Callaspo
  7. SS Brendan Wood
  8. SS Erick Aybar
  9. RHP Rafael Rodriguez
  10. RHP Steven Shell
Aybar and Callaspo are supposed to be one of the flashiest double-play combinations in the minors. And I remember when they interviewed Brandon Wood during an Angels game -- he hit an impossible .500 in his Arizona high school league! Amazing. So a very deep crop, as they said on BA, of quality players. I only hope that the fact we replaced former Yankees scouting director Donny Rowland and national crosscheckers Hank Sargent and Guy Mader, the architects of the 2001 draft that got us these excellent prospects, with Devil Rays special assistant Eddie Bane isn't a bad omen. The Angels' first 2004 draft pick is twelfth, so there should be some good stuff available. Let's hope we don't blow it.

In other news, I had further discussion with Stephen Smith of Future Angels about the status of Arizona Fall League prospects:

[The] dirty secret is that not everyone sent to AFL is actually a prospect. Teams need to have a certain balance at each position, so sometimes teams will send pitchers or catchers or whatever who really aren't prospects just to help the AFL office balance out the rosters. Not all teams buy into the philosophy that the AFL is for "top prospects," and keep those guys at home where they won't get hurt, sending instead marginal players. Sometimes they send players coming off an injury who need work to catch up for the next season.
So we'll see. But I still think it's encouraging for Gorneault to see him both invited to AFL and spring training.

It's DePoDodger

Now batting for Oakland, er, Los Angeles, new general manager Paul DePodesta.

Billy Beane, you may start your vacuum cleaner.

Edit: One A's fan has already figured out the obvious: Dodger fans should get used to the idea of Chavez Ravine minus Eric Gagne, and sooner rather than later.


Sunday, February 15, 2004

Monkey Business

Allow me to say that first off -- I love the Rally Monkey. Baseball purists will sniff, but as they observed in Bull Durham, if you think you're having a streak because you don't shave, then you don't shave. You just don't mess with a streak, and you don't mess with the monkey. The monkey is about adrenalin and hope, two things dear to any team in need of some late-innings magic.

So last year, after the Angels' title run, I saw the improbable: blue rally monkeys in the Dodger concession stands. I don't think anyone was buying them, but it was ... ironic? Yeah, that's it. So now, I think I've heard everything: the anti-Angels, the Oakland A's (who I refuse to hate but enjoy beating nonetheless), are selling monkeys as well. Dang, who knew a little simian could be so popular?


New Angels Blog

Party Arte's deep-pocketed offseason seems to have spawned a flurry of new Angels blogs -- mine, of course, and now Richard Ceccarelli's The Pearly Gates. Richard's first pitch is what seems to be a popular topic, analyzing the Halos position-by-position, starting with the outfield and new starting pitchers. Welcome to the blogosphere, Richard, and here's to another heavenly season... it is the year of the monkey, you know.

This Just In

From the wire services:
ESPN is reporting that the Yankees are close to acquiring the Ralley Monkey from the Angels for an autographed Jorge Posada game-worn jersey and 110 million dollars.

There goes the pennant.

Damn Yankees!

Thanks, Vlad

Vladimir Guerrero, nice guy. Thanks again to Alfredo Griffin, who managed him as a boy, for selling him on Anaheim as the kind of place he could play without distractions. Let's let the man swing without too much difficulty.

Edit: Vlad Injury Watch: Did you see in the Times where it says

The back is fine, Guerrero says, but he has experienced tightness in his legs during winter workouts. He'll take it easy on his legs for two to three months, he says, but he still can steal 30 bases.
Oh, Christ, just what we don't need, another player with finicky hammys.

Cataclysm

In early May of 1940, after the fall of Czechoslovakia and Poland, after the anschluss of Austria, France expected a German invasion. Here is a brief excerpt from William Manchester's excellent biography of Winston Churchill, The Last Lion:
On May 9, in the Berlin suburb of Zehlendorf, Colonel Oster of the Abwehr [and a Nazi mole] dined for the last time with his friend Colonel Sas, the Dutch military attaché. Oster once more confirmed that Fall Gelb [the plan to attack France] would be unleashed at daybreak. ...

At 10:20 that Thursday morning ... [Prime Minister] Paul Reynaud announced he would present the premiership of France to anyone who could form a government, unless the cabinet agreed with his indictment of Gamelin, commander in chief of the French army; supreme commander of the Allied forces, British as well as French; and the officer to presided over both the Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre and the Haut Comité Militaire. ...

Reynaud then read a lengthy indictment of Gamelin, after which he "appealed to the other ministers to speak up." Being timid men, they did not, for fear of "offending a powerful figure". Reynaud took their silence as a vote of no-confidence.
"I consider the government as having resigned." They were dismayed. None had thought he would actually dissolve the government. Now they were all ex-ministers, as he was an ex-premier.

During the afternoon Gamelin, glooming around in his Vincennes dungeon, learned of the bill of particulars Reynaud had drawn up against him. Indignant, he too resigned.

At 1:00 A.M. he was awakened. A French agent behind the German lines had sent an urgent signal: "Colonnes en marche vers l'ouest" -- "Columns marching westward."

Hitler was on his way.

France had no government. The French Army had no commander.

Parallels between this situation and that now facing the Dodgers and the hole that is the general manager position are drawn at your own peril. But.

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