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Friday, April 22, 2005 |
Pickoff Moves
Frank Fixes Foul Foulline Seats
As I mentioned in last Friday's post about Jackie Robinson Day, the new seats in the former foul ground at Dodger Stadium seem to have a lot of problems with sight lines, so much so that Frank's already come out and done the honorable thing: he plans on fixing them, in the offseason, probably. It's good news to hear that Frank can actually admit mistakes and change course.Fourth And Fifth And Sixth Outfielders
Looks like the All-Baseball gang has picked up a couple new writers at The Fourth Outfielder, namely Paul Scott and Antonio Siordia. For Antonio, who says he is "not knew to baseball or writing", we hope better proofreading will improve his future efforts, the first of which is this piece about Norihiro Nakamura. Scott's maiden voyage is a musing on whether Izzy will make a quality leadoff man.Love Is Not Love Which Alters When It Botches A Sliding Catch But The Routine Play Could Have Held The Batter To A Single
Idiots today bags on Oakland outfielder Eric Byrnes for screwing up a showy sliding catch of a routine single. As a result, the ball rolled to the wall, three runs scored instead of just one.With two outs, pinch-hitter Greg Dobbs looped a ball to left field. Ignoring a century of baseball wisdom that contends you try and keep the ball in front of you on such a play even if it means conceding the base hit, Byrnes opted to try for the spectacular catch — we shall be generous and say that he had maybe one chance in 20 of actually coming up with the ball. Instead the ball hit the ground, bounced past the sprawling Byrnes, and rolled all the way to the wall, plating all three Seattle runners. Byrnes does the sensible thing, and at worst, two runs score. (You could even argue that only one run might have come in on that play if Byrnes plays it safe — he had a better chance of keeping the runner on second from scoring with a decent throw than he did of making an improbable catch.) Instead, Seattle gets three runs.As I babbled on the comments over there, I consider this possibly a lesson learned by watching the donkey-kick Shawn Green took in 2003 for failing to get to a single that ended an Odalis Perez bid for a no-hitter. The press absolutely moiderized Green after that, but the point is that the guy who appears to try but fails to come up with the ball (and lets three runs go) is excused; the guy who allows the single but holds the opposing team to only one run receives a can of whoopass along with his morning newspaper. Mentioning Jackie Robinson's "invisible range", Bill James noted that the guy who positions himself correctly gets no credit by making it look easy, but the guy who has great athleticism but misses more balls receives the accolades. Call Byrnes the "before" poster boy.
Angels Still Awaiting Payoff From Morales
An article in the Register makes it clear that Bill Stoneman's having buyer's remorse about supposed phenom Kendry Morales. With the timetable for his release from Dominican paperwork snafus still up in the air, Morales is turning into a sunk cost for the Angels.Angels general manager Bill Stoneman said the club's experience with Cuban defector Kendry Morales will make him think long and hard about signing such players in the future."We might be asking different questions," Stoneman said. "We'll have to see."
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"If we jump in [and try to push the legal process along], we just muddy the waters down there," Stoneman said. "I think he will be here this year, but we've been saying, 'soon,' for a long time. I'm not sure right now what 'soon' means any more."
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