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September 10, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
Will the last person out of Bank One Ballpark please turn out the lights?
The Diamondbacks have gone 21-29 since the All-Star break and look like they'll be the next team to exit the NL's wild-card race. With last night's 3-1 loss to the Dodgers (and 20-year-old, MLB-debut-making Edwin Jackson), the Snakes are seven games out in the race and trailing five teams, which is as good a comp for "done" as you'll find.
Now, the easy thing is to look at the injuries the D'backs suffered this season and excuse their disappointing performance. Twenty million or so dollars invested in Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson have produced just 36 starts with an ERA of 3.54 and an SNVA of 5.4. That's a lot of pitching to replace, and it would be difficult for any team to recover from that.
September 9, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
I could talk about roster/lineup/role optimization all day, which is just one of the many reasons it's a wonder I'm married. Back in the nascent days of baseballprospectus.com, I wrote a column called Lineupectomy (a couple of which actually show up in the archives), which got its name from something we used to do at Strat tournaments--taking people's teams and creating optimal lineups. It's a geek thing, and as has been pointed out, not remotely the right name for the process, but it's something I spend a lot of time doing.
There's a question as to how much the effort matters. It's something of a stathead truth that the difference between the optimal lineup and a reasonably constructed one is small, less than a win per year. I don't necessarily buy that; as Chris Kahrl pointed out in BP2K1, the simulations on which that idea is based are fairly old, done on ancient technology, and it's possible that we just haven't been able to model it properly yet. I find it hard to believe that doing simple things like getting your OBP guys in front of your SLG guys, making the lineup less vulnerable to attack relievers, and minimizing double plays aren't worthwhile endeavors that can add not just a few runs, but a few wins a year.
My thought process on the Yankees goes something like this: they have seven good hitters, so one of those seven ends up at the back of the line. Ideally, you'd like that to be the worst of the seven, but that's complicated by the fact that players don't change roles as easily as Strat cards, and the collective media and fan base is poised to make a very big deal over any radical changes. Ask Theo Epstein.
September 8, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
The National League playoff race has thinned out over the past few weeks, with the Rockies and, unfortunately, the Expos falling out of contention. Seven teams are still playing for two spots, however, which will mean plenty of meaningful baseball down the stretch. How does the remaining schedule affect the chase? As I've mentioned a few times, there's no team in this race that can't go 16-4 over three weeks, which is one of the things that makes the game great.
Check out the schedule for the week of the 15th. In the mid-week games, the Phillies and Marlins play in Philadelphia, the White Sox and Twins in Minnesota, and the Diamondbacks and Dodgers in L.A. That weekend, effectively showdown weekend, the Royals and Sox play in Chicago, the Astros and Cardinals in St. Louis, the Mariners and A's hook up in Oakland, and the Dodgers and Giants--just one contender, but these two could be 55-95 and play a great series--are in L.A. I'm not a fan of the Wild Card, but if there's ever going to be a week for the sport to steal the audience's attention and get some positive focus on the tremendous excitement generated by races, it's that week.
September 6, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
You can read Wednesday's column for a longer discussion of the principles behind this research, but the general idea is that you have to dig deeper than just looking at seasonal stats to see what a team has going for it down the stretch. That piece addressed the quality of rotations; this one looks at the quality of bullpens. As I wrote Thursday, I orginally researched this using Adjusted Runs Prevented (ARP). I had to throw out that data, though, because using a value stat distorted the results. I went back and used Runs Responsible Average--the rate equivalent of ARP--to generate the lists below. I determined each team's current core relievers by looking at game logs; most teams had six, but some had as few as five or as many as eight. The point is to pull out the pitchers whose performances show up in the seasonal numbers but who are no longer pitching, or pitching much, for their teams. This correction should give us a better idea of who has the best bullpens in baseball for the stretch drive.
September 4, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
I promised a second part to the study in which I would analyze team bullpens in the same manner, and I spent a good chunk of Wednesday doing the research and preparing the data. I used Michael Wolverton's Adjusted Runs Prevented, and separated team bullpens into current core relievers (five or six per team) and everyone else.
Now, even as I was doing the work I kind of thought ARP might not be the best tool for the job, because it's not a pure rate stat. It is a value metric that has performance, context and playing time components, the latter two of which make it a poor analogue for Support-Neutral Winning Percentage. Nevertheless, I went ahead with the research because I thought using ARP would still be useful while being a much simpler calculation than Runs Responsible Average, the rate stat from which ARP is derived. (Calculating RRAs for the core relievers and the others is a manual task, and no small one.)
I was wrong. The playing-time effect dominates everything, so much so that using ARP in this manner only really tells you which teams are using pitchers who they haven't used all season. It's a worthless data set that clouds, rather than illuminates, the issue of which teams have the best bullpens right now.
September 3, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
I've been thinking about the way I use advanced performance metrics such as Michael Wolverton's Support-Neutral pitching statistics. In evaluating a team, I'll often quote aggregate data such as their relievers' Adjusted Runs Prevented or their starters' Support-Neutral Value Added as a way of showing how effective they've been, and as shorthand for what we can expect them to do going forward. This can be deceiving. Of course I know that past performance isn't an exact predictor of future results, and that a group of players can be over or under their heads in the short- or medium-term. That's not necessarily the problem; the problem is that the aggregate totals have been compiled by a group of players who are not necessarily representative of the team at the present time. For example, just last week I mentioned that the Expos' starters ranked sixth in the National League in SNVA. That's true, but it's past performance, and it includes six wretched starts by four pitchers who aren't going to be used again, as well as the good pitching of Claudio Vargas, who may not take the mound again this year due to a shoulder injury. The SNVA figure is useful in letting us know how the Expos' rotation has performed to date, but to get an idea of its current quality, it's best to look at the pitchers taking the ball every fifth day. Isolating the performance of the current five Expos starters yields an SNPct of .569, 20 points higher than the team's seasonal .549 mark. The Expos aren't special in this regard. Twenty-five of the 30 major league teams have current rotations with better SNPcts than their seasonal numbers, which you'd expect in a game so fiercely Darwinian.
September 2, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
The A's have ripped off nine straight wins, taking the lead in the American League West in the process. It's not the most impressive streak ever--the nine wins have come in equal parts against the Blue Jays, Orioles and Devil Rays--but it has allowed them to regain their balance after losing Mark Mulder for the season to a hip injury. Beating up weaker teams going into September has become something of a rite of passage for the good teams in the AL West. Last year, the Angels took advantage of a similar stretch to leap over the Mariners and become the team to beat in the Wild Card race. They went 10-2 in a two-week run covering late August and early September in which they played only the D-Rays and Orioles. At about the same time, the A's were winning 20 consecutive games, helped in part by a schedule that had them playing 21 in a row against the shaky AL Central. The practice of the teams in the game's best division inflating their records against the AL's weak sisters in August was actually set in 2001. The Mariners went 9-3 against the same bottom-feeders in the AL East in the same part of the season, setting up their September push to 116 wins. The A's did even better that year, going 11-1 against the Devil Rays and Orioles in the middle of their 58-17 second half. The point is that when judging the performance of teams in the short term, it is essential to look at the schedule. With the unbalanced schedule in the unbalanced American League, teams can go through extended stretches of playing only good or only bad teams. It's not enough to see that a team has won 15 of 18, or that they went 11-17 in a month. It's imperative to look beyond that, because the AL schedule largely sets up in four-week stretches of home-and-homes against blocks of opponents, and in the AL, those blocks are often widely disparate, say, two weeks against the Yankees and Red Sox, followed by two weeks against the Tigers and Indians.
August 29, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
I'm a baseball guy; some people even call me The Baseball Guy. But this chaotic week culminated in my fantasy football auction last night, and I'm pretty excited about a three-day weekend that includes the USC opener on Saturday, so I'm having trouble focusing on my first love.
Here's a brain dump for you to take to the beach, the mountains, the ballpark, or wherever you'll be waving goodbye to the summer over the next few days.
August 27, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
Boy, that was kinda cool. The Expos, down 8-0 in the bottom of the fifth inning, scored 14 runs in their next four ups to overtake the Phillies 14-10 and move to within two games of the wild-card slot. The win was the second-largest comeback in Expos history, the biggest comeback in the majors this season, and the biggest blown lead in Phillies history. It was just another night in the National League, where all but four teams are within nine games of a playoff spot, and just 2.5 games separate eight teams battling for the Wild Card and the NL Central title.
Phillies 70-61 --
Marlins 70-61 --
Astros* 69-62 --
Diamondbacks 69-63 1.5
Cubs 68-62 1.5
Cardinals 68-63 2
Expos 69-64 2
Dodgers 67-63 2.5
Those eight teams are 98-89 in August, by the way. Remember, it's not necessarily a great race, just an interesting and fun one. I've been saying for weeks now that I'm going to get to an analysis of this zoo, but every time I sit down and try to do so, the situation changes. The Phillies had control. Then the Diamondbacks made a run. The Marlins tried to become America's darlings. The NL Central's lead changes hourly on some days. The Expos lost a bunch of heartbreakers on the West Coast and seemed ready to join the Rockies in the bleachers, but have battled back to start a season-defining 17-game stretch 2-0. These next two-and-a-half weeks are the whole ball of wax for the Expos, who play no one but the Phillies and Marlins through Sept. 7, then host the Cubs in their last four Puerto Rico games. It will be the Expos' last crack at teams ahead of them in the Wild Card chase, and it's essential that they come out of this stretch no worse than second or third in the group and a couple of games back. Any further behind, and it may be too hard to climb over multiple teams who will be playing many, many head-to-head games in September. If they can somehow climb to the top of the pack, however, their lack of games against other contenders will make them hard to catch in the season's last two weeks.
August 26, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
A couple of weeks ago, I spelled out the argument that there's no such thing as a pitching prospect. Just as a follow-up, I want to point out something Rangers' Director of Player Development Grady Fuson said in an interview with Jamey Newberg:
"And most of these kids that we're signing out of high school or junior college or college, for the first three or four years of their careers they are still growing. They are still adding muscle mass and growth, and at least my perception of developing pitchers is most don't come into their prime until at least their mid-20s. And I think that all has to do with body growth and body mass and finding that one delivery that helps repeat. And I think that all takes two or three years to build into your system."
Fuson makes the point that is central to TNSTAAPP: Most pitchers in the minor leagues are still developing physically, which is what makes them such risks. Pitching professionally is hard enough on the arms of grown men; it's moreso on ones not fully mature.
August 25, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
Anybody else think Russ Ortiz looks a little like Pete Vuckovich?
Ortiz was credited with his 18th win yesterday, which gives him three more Ws than any other National League pitcher. Now, while there can be a lot of legitimate debate about who the best hurler in the NL is this year, Ortiz really shouldn't be part of any of it. His win total is entirely a function of durability and a great Braves' offense, which has scored 134 runs in his 179 1/3 innings pitched, good for third in the league in run support. In most other categories, he's unimpressive: 11th in Support-Neutral Wins Above Replacement, 13th in ERA and 19th in strikeouts (with a poor 121/83 K/BB ratio).
This is a weird year in the NL. The best pitchers in the league by Support-Neutral measures are all lacking in the traditional statistics, mostly because almost all of them have spent time on the disabled list or been hampered by insufficient run support.
August 22, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
I love day baseball. To me, there are few things better than sitting in the sunshine and watching a ballgame. Better still if it's a weekday, because it adds that sense that you're getting away with something, even when you don't work a 9-to-5 job. Well, a.m. to p.m., anyway. So when I was offered tickets to Thursday's Dodgers/Expos tilt at Chavez Ravine, I was all over it. Truth be told, I don't get to as many ballgames as you might think, thanks in large part to the availability of so many games on television. It's lazy, I guess, but seeing 25-30 teams in one night has a lot of appeal, especially when so many games right now have playoff implications. Like this one. Both teams started the day four games out of the Wild Card slot, having split the first two games of their series. Neither team has been able to get much traction in the Wild Card chase, in part because neither scores all that often. Both are heavily reliant on good starting pitching. The final was 2-1, Dodgers, but to say that the Dodgers won would be overstating things. It was more like they happened to be standing there when the Expos had a ballgame to give away.
August 20, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
I truly hope that Bobby Bonds got to see last night's Giants game.
If any other player was doing the kinds of things Barry Bonds is doing this year, they'd start a cable channel in his honor: ESPN 25. "651! Every Homer, Every Angle" "World's Scariest 3-1 Pitches" "Keen Eye of the Big Guy" "Thigh-High Fastball: My Short and Painful Life"
Forget the raw stats, the RBI Baseball numbers he's putting up for the third straight season. Forget how opposing managers handle him the way Arnold Schwarzenegger handles an issue question. Forget how he's about the only left-handed hitter in the world who hits homers at Pac Bell Park.
Just think about last night. The Giants were tied in the 10th inning with their likely NLCS opponent, carrying a five-game losing streak. The Diamondbacks had already won, drawing to within eight games of a team that had been two laps ahead just a minute ago. Injuries had forced almost the entire starting infield to the bench.
August 19, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
Friday's column never happened.
Had I written a Friday column, I definitely wouldn't have talked about how MLB hadn't rescheduled a Diamondbacks/Royals rainout yet, because they have (September 4), travel nightmares be damned. I certainly wouldn't have alluded to a Marlins/Braves matchup in the Division Series, which can't occur. There's no way I would have insinuated that the Mets and Rockies wouldn't play Friday night, because that would have been silly.
But I didn't write a Friday column, so none of that happened.
August 18, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
The DiSar Awards haven't been clinched just yet--I've learned better than to make an official announcement before the season is over--but they do appear to be in safe hands, at least in the American League. And no, it's not Rocco Baldelli's mitts holding the Golden Crutch.
I announced the contest to pick the 2003 award winners this spring a little bit late, not getting to it until a few days into the season. Because of that, the vast majority of the entrants selected Baldelli, the free-swinging Devil Rays rookie, as the eventual AL award winner. Baldelli made a nice run, reaching 60 at-bats before his first walk, but he only held the top AL mark for a few days, getting caught by Deivi Cruz soon afterwards.
Cruz didn't hold on, either; his 70 at-bats were passed by Matt Walbeck in July, but The Walbeck couldn't even garner this much glory. A week ago, he, too, saw his total of 75 walkless at-bats to start the season eclipsed. Walbeck was passed by a player who received no votes in the preseason balloting, although his brother was one of the most popular candidates after Baldelli.
August 15, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
Yesterday's Giants/Mets game almost certainly will not be made up, given that the Giants have a big lead in the NL West and the Mets won't need to play the game to determine their draft position. The cancellation does bring to mind that one game that appears very relevant has yet to be made up. The Diamondbacks and Royals have an interleague contest that hasn't been rescheduled yet, and share just one highly inconvenient off day for the rest of the season.
I like chaos, and the idea that the two teams might have to play on September 29 to determine who does or does not go to the playoffs--or better yet, who goes to a one-game playoff, or who's in a three-way tie--is just a delicious notion. I'm picturing the Marlins watching the game in an airport bar, bags packed, with plans to fly to Arizona if the Snakes win, and Atlanta if they don't.
In general, baseball won't be affected by the power outage. The Tigers, Yankees and Blue Jays are on the road. The Indians are home facing the Devil Rays, a series that can be cancelled as a public service. The Mets face the Rockies at home. Now, the Rockies are a fringe wild-card candidate at best, and are scheduled to be in the city through Monday. It's possible that the teams could make up cancellations tonight and tomorrow--I'd imagine powering up a ballpark is low on the priority list--with doubleheaders Sunday and Monday.
August 13, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
For the third season in a row, Barry Bonds is the best player in the National League. His overall performance is stupendous--.341/.521/.755--so good that even a peak performance by Albert Pujols--.370/.436/.686--doesn't quite measure up. Bonds' significant performance edge makes up for Pujols' extra playing time, so he leads in advanced metrics like Runs Above Replacement Position (RARP) and Value Over Replacement Player (VORP).
Whether Bonds will be able to win his sixth Most Valuable Player award is yet to be seen. He is the biggest reason for the Giants' runaway in the NL West, but he'll be fighting some biases. In recent years, BBWAA awards have become about the best story, and Pujols is seen in many quarters to be the better story. If the Cardinals earn a playoff spot, Pujols will be perceived as the reason, despite the fact that three of his teammates (Edgar Renteria, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen) are also among the 10 best players in the league.
August 12, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
There's no such thing as a pitching prospect.
I probably use that phrase a couple of times a week. It comes up a lot around trade-deadline time, as teams swap known quantities for unknowns in Double-A or lower and make a big deal about how those guys will be throwing 200 innings and saving 30 games in a few years' time. It doesn't happen that way.
What does it mean, though? Clearly, hundreds of young men pitch for baseball teams below the level of the major leagues, and many of them have the chance to become major-league pitchers. They're prospective ones, so literally, the phrase is untrue. Pithy, but untrue.
August 11, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
I've already ruined any number of Padres seasons by writing columns on them right as they were peaking, so I waited on the Fish. I can't wait anymore. Even after yesterday's 5-4 loss to the Brewers, the Marlins are at 64-53, tied with the Phillies for the NL Wild-Card lead. It's a great story for a team that has already provided some of the more interesting individual angles in the 2003 season. Dontrelle Willis made the All-Star team and will probably be the NL Rookie of the Year, even though he won't deserve it. Mike Lowell, cancer survivor, is having his best season. The Fish are now managed by Jack McKeon, who is 72 years old and has never been to the postseason as a manager.
August 8, 2003
by Joe Sheehan
Wednesday, the Yankees and Mariners swapped right-handed relievers, Armando Benitez for Jeff Nelson. At first glance, the trade seems like an exchange of headaches, given that Benitez had been erratic for the Yankees and Nelson had recently complained--not without reason--about the Mariners front office and its inability to make a deal at the trade deadline.
At first glance, the Mariners look like the big winners.
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