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

Craig Calcaterra, who is one of my favorite follows on Twitter, has a great piece up about how to deal with advanced metrics and concepts in conventional baseball writing. Noticing that Anthony French at the Detroit Free Press casually drops a line about José Iglesias benefiting from a higher-than-usual BABIP, Calcaterra observes that, in the 1960's and 70's, Taco Bell needed to explain what a burrito was, and yet:

Maybe there was a need for this in the late 60s and early 70s when burritos were still sort of exotic to a lot American fast food eaters, but they stopped doing that at some point. Why? Because Taco Bell realized that we can handle a burrito. Yes, we ate nothing but cheeseburgers for years and we probably still understand cheeseburgers better, but by some time in the 1970s we were totally are capable of processing what a burrito was as long as it was presented properly (i.e. fast, cheap and available at, like, midnight).

Mainstream baseball writing (i.e. newspaper baseball writing) still hasn’t figured that out for the most part. It probably was necessary in 2002 to explain advanced metrics, such as they were then, in greater detail. Batting average and RBI were our cheeseburgers, and we were being asked to process something new.  But we’ve been eating our SABRburritos for a good while now, so it’s not necessary for them to be over-explained to us. It’s actually sort of distracting and creates unnecessary controversy when they are. WAR debates and “geeks vs. jocks” cultural garbage. I’m rather tired of that. Aren’t you rather tired of that?

 It's a war that's all but won, save for holdouts like Murray Chass. That we're having this discussion is proof.

Labels: sabermetrics

It is probably not too strong to suggest that Darren Viola's Hall of Fame Ballot Collecting Gizmo — an annual event for a number of years now — has sparked a dialogue about transparency in BBWAA voting that is vastly overdue. That it must be crowdsourced is understandable (at least for a while), as is the humble and necessarily incomplete means by which it operates. I came across a piece today from one Steve Buckley in the Boston Herald which neatly encapsulated many of the problems I have with the process, while somehow managing never to mention the Gizmo (emboldening mine, as always):

Look, I get it: Nobody gets 100 percent of the votes. It’s supposed to have something to do with “tradition,” and something to do with the inconvenient truth that the original Hall of Fame class of 1936 — Ty Cobb! Honus Wagner! Babe Ruth! Christy Mathewson! Walter Johnson! — had no unanimous selections.

But it’s wrong, and it needs to stop. And so for housekeeping purposes, I’ll repeat what I wrote in December of 2012: “Fans should know our selections.” And I’ll also repeat what I wrote in January of 2008: “. . . this absolutely should not be limited to active members of the BBWAA. Retired writers should also be asked to name the names on their ballots.”

...

And if there’s a retired baseball writer out there whose best case for not voting for Martinez is: “I never saw him pitch,” then said baseball writer shouldn’t be voting. Fair, right?

There's a bunch more there, including why we need to shame the anti-steroids voters, and especially the "they all did it" tar-and-featherers. It's one reason why I'm especially pleased to see Buster Olney's surprisingly principled protest empty ballot, even if I think the act is misguided in some wise. There's just no excuse for keeping Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens out of the Hall, and something needs to be done about it, sooner rather than later. Thank you, Darren, for helping to get this out in the open.

Labels: drugs, hall of fame

I know, I haven't said much about the many bigger deals — the Angels picking up Andrew Heaney from the Dodgers was likely more important to 2015 — but this one is such a puzzler that even I can't make heads or tails of it. The Angels traded Kevin Jepsen to the Rays for left-handed-hitting outfielder Matt Joyce. Joyce has typically manned the corners for the Rays, and has never surpassed 20 home runs, though he has some decent pop (.383 SLG in 2014, career .441). As expected, he hits righties well (career .261/.356/.463) but is largely powerless against lefties (.189/.258/.316). It seems likely he'll spell Josh Hamilton when he gets injured or is otherwise unable to play.

What's puzzling about this deal is why the Halos would do it when they possess both C.J. Cron and Cole Calhoun. Calhoun, especially, looks superficially like a younger version of Joyce, who still has three years of team control ahead of him and is putting up similar numbers. I expect this means Calhoun may be trade bait, or Cron will find himself optioned back to Salt Lake, whence he will return if Hamilton or Calhoun find themselves on the DL. Depth in the outfield is nice to have, but dropping pitching that has been a mainstay of the bullpen seems like a poor choice.

Labels: angels, rays, trades

I have added a new blog for my political and dog ravings, boringly named Scareduck Blog. Miscellany that used to end up here will go there from now on. You might stop by and say hello.

Labels: administrivia, blogs

• Yesterday was so intense — all of it — that I can only say I believe it was the craziest 24 hours of any offseason in my memory. Jonah Keri's piece at Grantland mostly encapsulates my at-the-moment take on the deals as well:
  • Matt Kemp:

    L.A. may well have sold Kemp at exactly the right time. Friedman and GM Farhan Zaidi aren’t slaves to the recency effect, recognizing that Kemp’s strong finish in 2014 didn’t really change any of the other factors that had led to the longtime trade rumors, including the outfield logjam and his hefty contract. Instead of viewing Kemp’s elite .311/.372/.561 performance over the final 99 games of the season as a sign of rebirth, they viewed it as a boost in trade value that would allow them to more easily move a guy still owed $21 million–plus a year for five seasons.

  • Dee Gordon:

    Gordon is a fun guy to watch, but comparing his projections to, say, Emilio Bonifacio’s should help assure Dodgers fans that they might not be giving up all that much.

  • Howie Kendrick:

    Kendrick is one of the best second basemen in baseball, and he’ll make the Dodgers significantly better in 2015. ... To get Kendrick, of course, the Dodgers had to give up Heaney, whom they possessed for a nanosecond before flipping him to the Angels. Though Kendrick should be a big gain, Heaney could prove to be an even bigger loss, as he has a chance to be good … really good.

    Here, I'm relying on Keri's prospect smarts, but it's a rare case of getting a quality prospect for an established veteran with only limited control. It's important to note this kind of deal rarely happens anymore.
  • Jimmy Rollins:

    Like Kendrick, Rollins offers the Dodgers only one year of guaranteed team control. But in this case, the lone year is a feature rather than a bug, since L.A. has 20-year-old top shortstop prospect Corey Seager not far from the Show.

  • Brandon McCarthy:

    McCarthy is the riskiest of all the moves, considering the length of his contract and his past health concerns.

  Read. It. All. I'm a big fan of moving Kemp, even with the big salary ditch; it strikes me as an example of Branch Rickey's maxim that it's better to move a player a year too early than a year too late.
• No comment on the Angels moves as of yet, but I generally find myself in agreement. My comments on Kemp? Apply equally to Howie.
• I cleaned out a mess of stale sidebar links; if your blog hasn't been updated in two years, or if you aren't named Tommy Lasorda, you don't get special consideration. I practically don't update this one, but I'm the king of this here domain. Angels blogs especially took a lot of hits; it seems generally that blogs are an affectation of the 2000's, to vanish in this decade. My heart haz a sad.

If I don't see y'all until next year, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Labels: administrivia, angels, dodgers, trades