6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Feels Like A Long Time

I was over at McCovey Chronicles today, wanting to keep up on what the Evil Half does -- by the way, that is a joke, some of my best friends are Giants fans -- when I encountered this graf:

Counting on free agents for every single hole can force teams to overpay mediocre players, and only the rich teams can get away with doing that. In a lesser free agent market, even the Yankees had to panic. The Giants organization makes me nervous because they haven't gone after a premium free agent since Barry Bonds, depending on how you felt about Moises Alou in 2004. They've shown their preferred alternative is to acquire second- and third-tier free agents, hoping Bonds can make up the difference. That's the definition of putting all of your eggs in one basket, and it worked for the better part of a decade because Bonds was just that good. Without Bonds, that philosophy would be as desirable as drinking Egg Beaters straight from the carton.

While the gustatory delights of a Bonds-free Giants team would no doubt improve the Dodgers chances of escaping 162 games atop the pitiful heap known as the NL Worst, in the careful-what-you-wish-for department, an absurdly easy division leads to things like the being pecked to death by Redbirds in three straight. But it was the stretch in bold that caught my eye, namely, who has San Francisco picked up in that time frame? I can't think of a soul of any import, and that's because Bonds got his renewal before the 2002 season. The Giants, in 2002 were getting a .450 SLG out of their catcher, Benito Santiago in his what-can-you-say age 37 season, on a team that had four guys with a .450 SLG or better. (Jeff Kent and Reggie Sanders were the other two.) Every one of them, save Bonds, is gone; last year, not even one regular made it to .450.

For what it's worth, I'm predicting Bonds gets about 350 at bats, and manages a .300/.395/.550 line, which is a big drop in his production, but still not too shabby for an aging player on the downside. Now, Moises Alou on the other hand...

Jered Weaver's 10-K Game Makes Press-Telegram's Top 25 List

Jered Weaver's 10 strikeout performance against the Trojans in 2004 made the Press-Telegram's list of top sporting moments in Long Beach:

No. 25. Jered Weaver strikes out the first 10 Trojans in a game that set the tone for the best season ever by a Dirtbag, Blair Field, February 13, 2004.

Every start by the Dirtbags right-hander became a scene — big crowds, major league scouts, media types — after this start, when 3,163 saw him mow down the Trojans and launch one of the best and most successful seasons ever by a collegiate pitcher. He would repeat the 10 K performance later that season against BYU, strike out 16 batters in six innings against Wichita State, and then strike out 17 against Pacific in May.

His 213 strikeouts on the season set a school and Big West record and ranks sixth on the NCAA all-time list. He led the NCAA in wins with 16 and was third in ERA (1.62). The first two-time All-American in Long Beach State history, his career mark was 37-8 and he closed 2004 by winning all of the major player-of-the-year awards: the Golden Spikes, Dick Howser, Roger Clemens, Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball.

Look On The Bright Side Of A 103-Loss Season

The Dodgers are at least amusing when they stumble and fall, and you have some hope that they'll right the ship fairly soon. Not so with the Rockies, and if the bloggers there start taking local print media to task for overly optimistic assessments of the team's abilities in the coming season, we can't blame them. But it's hard to watch.

Roster Notes

• The Dodgers signed Brian Meadows to a minor league deal, says the Times.
• The Denver Post says that Josh Fogg will possibly end up in Colorado. “'Josh and his wife have friends in Denver and visit there once a year,' [agent Danny] Horwits said. 'He's not afraid to pitch in Coors Field.'" Probably that's because it's not possible for him to get lit up any more than he already is and stay in the majors. The team will probably have to trade for a utility infielder; given how late it is, it makes me wonder how much longer Jeff DaVanon will be on the market.

SABR Dance

It's a good thing I somehow got married, because if it wasn't for that, it's unlikely that women and I would be on speaking terms, let alone making it to a even a chaste appointment at first base. I bring this up because my experiences with some of the adepts at SABR's local meetings were, shall we say, eye-opening; the number of people, all but universally men, who could converse fluently about the extremest baseball arcana was simply frightening, and at times reminiscent of Rain Man in its disconnectedness with the real world, which girls are said to inhabit.

My fears of being labeled a geek are overdone, of course; my path to sociological Hell is assured, I'm told, and having long ago accepted the cross that is the life of a professional programmer, an additional layer of a different flavor is no great worry. Having become a member of SABR, I get their Baseball Research Journal, which this month contains an article by Bruce Cowgill, entitled "Should A 22-Game Season Sweep Have Occurred?" Cowgill starts:

After the Dodgers' win over the Pirates on August 5, 2004, the game's broadcasters announced that the Dodgers had just achieved a season sweep of the Pirates. The announcers added that it was the Dodgers' first season sweep since moving to the West Coast in 1958. First, I found it surprising that this was their first sweep, given the short season series on today's schedule. Second, a six-game season sweep did not sound like that great a feat.

It turns out that the Dodgers have swept several three-game season series over the last few years, including the Orioles just two months prior to the Pirates sweep. However, if we exclude these small series, the announcers were correct that the Dodgers' sweep of the Pirates was their first since 1958. Actually, the "Dodgers" franchise (including the Brooklyn Superbas) had never swept a season series in the 20th century. One has to go all the way back to 1899, when the Brooklyn Superbas swept a 14-game season series against the Cleveland Spiders.

To my second point, a six-game season sweep is no great feat. In 2004, four other teams achieved such a mark, and two teams had seven-game sweeps. In 2005, three teams swept: Twins vs. Devil Rays, Phillies vs. Padres, and Astros vs. Phillies (note, this is the Astros' second in a row season sweep of the Phillies, making it 12 straight).

He goes on to discover that no team has ever swept a 22-game series between 1904 and 1961, and only after 1970 have 12-game sweeps occurred.

Another fun piece comes from the pen of Phil Birnbaum, who asks, "Which Great Teams Were Just Lucky?" Birnbaum defines "lucky" in the usual Jamesian way, namely, by how many games did they outperform their Pythagorean record, but adds four other discriminators to make up a five-pronged test for finding luck's fingerprints on a team:

• Its hitters have career years, playing better than their talent can support.
• Its pitchers have career years, playing better than their talent can support.
• It was more successful at turning base runners into runs.
• Its opposition was less successful in turning base runners into runs.
• It won more games than expected from its Runs Scored and Runs Allowed.

Here's some random conclusions that he draws:

• The 1983 Phillies were the luckiest team of all time, a .500 team that picked up an extra 16 wins for a 97-65 season.
• Among lucky players, Billy Grabarkewitz in 1970 was the eighth luckiest player of all time. (The luckiest was Steve Carlton in 1972, followed closely by Norm Cash in 1961.)
• Stripped for luck factors, the 1974 Dodgers were one of the top five teams in the era 1960 through 2001, one of the "dynasty" teams, along with the late 90's ('98 and '99) Braves, and the 1969 and 1970 Orioles. (The first Yankees team of that era to make the list is the 1977 squad, at seventh place.)
• "[T]heoretically, a team that wins 109 games is, on average, only a 98-game talent."

Good stuff, though if you're single, I highly recommend you forget everything you just read under this subhed.