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May 5, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
It's weird...for all the power the Orioles supposedly added over the winter,
they're just 12th in the AL in home runs. Larry Bigbie leads
the team with four. They're fifth in runs, though, as the top five guys in the
lineup are all putting up at least a .320 BA and a .380 OBP.
If you were thinking about climbing on the bandwagon, don't: the rotation's
composite strikeout-to-walk ratio is 79/75.
With Nomar Garciaparra's return getting closer, the Red
Sox are going to have an interesting decision to make. Mark
Bellhorn is third on the team in OBP and out-hitting Pokey
Reese by what would be about 50 runs over a full season. I think
Reese has to be in the lineup behind Derek Lowe, but none of
the other Red Sox starters gets enough ground balls to justify playing him
over Bellhorn.
How Terry Francona handles this is the first real test for him as Red Sox
manager.
May 4, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
With Todd Walker in the lineup, Dusty Baker's bench on
most days consists of Todd Hollandsworth and four guys who
are 13-for-87 with three doubles and six walks this year. Not that Baker needs
another reason to leave his starting pitchers in, but at least three of them
are better hitters than the available pinch-hitters, save Hollandsworth.
I was hyping Ryan Wagner in the offseason, so I should
point out that he's the worst
reliever in baseball this year, with an ERA of 11.25, and just eight
innings pitched in 10 appearances. The league is hitting .488/.520/.707
against him, and at this point, he needs to be demoted before the words
"David Clyde" start seeping into stories about him. He'll be back,
though.
There has to be some category for what Hee Seop Choi is
up to: nine homers, no other extra-base hits. Choi, by the way, is at
.277/.405/.692 so far. Derrek Lee is a good player, but the
Cubs could have had Ivan Rodriguez and Choi for what they're
paying Lee and Michael Barrett. That they don't is a cost of
employing Dusty Baker.
May 3, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Last night, the Rangers added a few more people to their growing bandwagon
with a 4-1 win over the Red Sox. The victory completed a sweep and allowed
them to maintain sole possession of first place in the AL West. They have the
best record in the majors at 16-9, and that's no fluke; BP's Current
Adjusted Standings have them atop their division, and also with the game's
best mark.
There's something of a
groundswell developing around this team, with two storylines that have
nothing to do with their performance taking over the coverage. One is that
this hot start was made possible by the Alex Rodriguez trade, and the second, that they're playing so well because of great chemistry.
May 1, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
I've been getting a fair share of e-mail asking whether Barry Bonds' first few weeks of 2004 have been the hottest start to a
season any player has ever had. I've been hesitant to answer, in part because
the sample size was pretty small, and in part because that's not the easiest
thing to research.
With April all but in the books, however, I think it's safe to say that Bonds'
.472/.696/1.132 line is historic. It's not only the best start anyone has had
in the past 30 years, it's the best month any player has had in that
time.
Now, when I make a statement like that, you can be pretty sure it's been
researched by someone smarter than myself. In this case, Keith Woolner put
together a list of the best months, by OPS, as far back as 1972...
April 29, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Dayn Perry did some great work last week. His Can 'O Corn column pointed out
how much of the difference between MLB and NFL "competitive balance"
is really a function of the shorter schedule. Sixteen is a very small number
of games, and serves to increase the amount of turnover in the playoffs each
year. There's just not enough time to recover from slumps, while luck and
injuries are much greater determinants of success and failure.
I want to look at that issue from a slightly different perspective. Consider,
if you will, the MLB standings as they would have looked through everyone's
13th game this year...
April 27, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Despite living on the West Coast since 1989, I'm still an East Coast guy, and
as such, can occasionally show some of that famous East Coast media bias. That
was evident in yesterday's column, when I picked apart the lessons from the
weekend's big series in New York, while neglecting the games, just as big,
that division co-favorites played 3,000 miles away in Oakland.
Just as in the Bronx, the road team out west, the team generally considered to
be the underdog of the two, came out of the weekend with a sweep. Unlike in
the other series, however, the Angels and A's played without the apocalyptic
hype that surrounds their Eastern counterparts.
April 26, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
I was on Boston's WEEI radio just after Opening Day and was asked, in a very concerned manner, whether the Red Sox could stay with the Yankees in April given their depleted state. I'm thinking we have an answer.
April 23, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Today's column was supposed to be a game report from yesterday's Rangers/Angels tilt in Anaheim. Due to a series of events that, had they been filmed, would have been Oscar-worthy, my ticket went unused. I'm disappointed not only because I haven't been to a game yet this year, but because I would have enjoyed the company. I was invited by Stephen Roney, who is the president of the Allan Roth chapter--the L.A. area chapter--of the Society for American Baseball Research. SABR might be one of the most misunderstood organizations in the country, associated as it is primarily with baseball's statistics. Sabermetrics is much more than this; performance analysis is just a subset of the field, and any time spent with the historians and biographers and researchers of SABR shows you just how broad a knowledge base is represented in the group.
April 22, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Barry Bonds didn't hit a home run last night, and that makes me happy.
Don't get me wrong; I haven't climbed aboard the Hate Barry! bandwagon. I think Bonds is a remarkable baseball player, someone who I enjoy watching whenever I can. He's reached that level where no matter what I happen to be doing, I stop to watch his at-bats.
No, it's just that the record is held in part by a player whose at-bats also used to dictate my movements: Don Mattingly. Mattingly made history by roping homers in eight straight games in July of 1987. If you've read this column for a while, you know that Mattingly is my all-time favorite player. I'm glad to see him hold his distinction, his place in history, for a bit longer. Records are made to be broken; I just don't need to see this particular piece of my adolescence shattered.
April 21, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
I have a hard time thinking of someone who went to batting left-handed exclusively and thrived. Some guys, notably Mariano Duncan, have given up batting left-handed and had success. I think re-adjusting to breaking balls, as well as trying to pick up new arm slots, would doom most efforts to failure. Valentin was so bad against lefties that I can't blame him for trying, though. At worst, he's the same should-be-platooned guy he's long been. The Sox's bigger problem is that neither Harris nor Valentin is capable of a .330 OBP, and if you have two guys like that batting 1-2, you're screwed. All of this, of course, is Frank Thomas' fault.
April 19, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Why the hell is Justin Morneau in the minors?
Morneau, the 22-year-old hitting machine from British Columbia, nearly made
the Twins in spring training, losing out because Ron Gardenhire and Terry Ryan
didn't think they could give him enough playing time in the majors. Since
then, three of the Twins' Opening Day starters have made their way to the
disabled list, including Matt LeCroy, who nominally beat out
Morneau for the DH job.
When Joe Mauer injured his knee in the second game of the
season, I figured that would create the opening for the Twins to recall and
play Morneau. LeCroy could take over behind the plate, and Morneau could get
the majority of the DH at-bats until Mauer returned. When LeCroy himself was
hurt the next day, the move seemed even more logical. Now the Twins needed a
bat in a big way, and Morneau would have no competition in the DH role for at
least two weeks. The Twins instead went to 12 pitchers and no Morneau.
Torii Hunter's strained right hamstring didn't help him,
either; the Twins instead recalled Lew Ford, a decision that
actually made sense under the circumstances.
April 16, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
While I don't think the Anderson contract was a good one, I can at least see the rationale behind it, the organizational thought process. The Expos' commitment to Hernandez, an innings sponge coming off of his best season, makes much less sense to me. To justify it, you have to think that 2003 represented an Andersonesque leap in performance, and be comfortable with the idea that Hernandez's huge workload in his 20s isn't going to affect either his pitching or his availability over the next few years. I don't know that I can agree with either premise. Despite being the Pitcher Abuse Points poster boy throughout this career, Hernandez has remained healthy enough to make virtually all his starts since reaching the majors for good in 1997. He's established himself as a workhorse who, 2003 aside, provides league-average performance over 210 or more innings. That has value, but when you look at what pitchers of Hernandez's ilk got over the winter, it's hard to understand $7 million a season. Jeff Suppan, a pretty good comp for Hernandez, signed for two years and $6 million over the winter. Jason Johnson is a bit inferior to Hernandez, and got $7 million over two years. Steve Trachsel got his 2005 option picked up at $5 million and an option year--not guaranteed--tacked on at $7 million. In light of these signings, Hernandez was retained at a significant premium above his market value--assuming other teams don't think Livan's 2003 represented a new performance plateau.
April 15, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Since taking over the Angels less than two years ago, Arte Moreno has made
contract commitments of more than $200 million in an effort to fill Angels
Stadium and push his new team back to the World Series. Tuesday's agreement to
pay Garret Anderson $48 million from 2005-08 is just the latest big-money
signing. Joe Sheehan examines the deal.
April 13, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
The term "luck" is actually shorthand for a more difficult concept, that when two playoff-caliber teams square off in a best-of-five or best-of-seven series, any result is reasonably likely. Just because a particular one occurs doesn't reflect anything other than the events that made up that series: one player's hot week, or one pitcher's inability to throw his curve for strikes, or a baserunner's ill-fated decision to take an extra base. These events do not, despite the mythology of October, enlighten us about the character or fortitude of people any more than Nate Robertson's huge last week out of the bullpen does. Those things aren't luck, they're performance, and using the former word to describe them isn't helping us make the larger concept accessible to more people.
April 9, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Thanks to nine runs in two innings--a week's output for last April's squad--the Detroit Tigers moved to 4-0 with a 10-6 win over the Minnesota Twins. While the Tigers have gotten fairly good pitching, with all four starters notching wins and a team ERA of 3.00, the key to the start has been an offense gone haywire. The Bengals have 30 runs in four games, with at least six tallies in each contest. It's the first time since last May that the Tigers have scored six or more runs in at least four straight games (a streak that stretched to five at the time). I had a sense that what the Tigers had done this week was historic, so I decided to put on my researcher cap--two sizes too big, signed by Clay Davenport, and rarely worn--and check. I fired up my two favorite tools, the Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia and Retrosheet (God Bless Retrosheet!) and tried to ascertain how unique this was. Damned if I'll go down that particular rabbit hole again. Thinking this would be a quick process, I soon discovered that the Tigers have gone where no team of their ilk had gone before. Of the worst 50 teams by winning percentage in baseball history, none had ever started the following season 4-0 until Steve Colyer closed out the game yesterday.
April 8, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
I've been trying to write this column for about a month, but I wasn't sure how to frame it. What follows isn't a list of breakout players, or sleepers, or MVP candidates, or really anything that is easily describable. It's just a list of players who I really, really like going into this season. They range from a player with 67 games of Double-A experience to a six-year veteran with his fourth team, and in age from 21 to 29. I expect some of these guys to get MVP votes, some of them to contribute to playoff teams, and others to just establish themselves as solid major leaguers or future stars. But I can't lump all 10 of them into one category, unless, "guys who appear on almost all my fantasy teams," is a category. I guess this is just a column about...my guys.
April 7, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Since Sunday at 5 p.m., I've watched approximately 417 baseball games, or about half the number of college basketball games I watched in March. The opening of the new season has me more excited than any supposedly grown man should really be, but I can't help it: I'd missed baseball, and it was back in a big way the last few days. So what have we seen so far? Well, I've proven that I can jinx even the best pitchers: Mike Mussina, my pick for AL Cy Young, has now been blasted by the Devil Rays in two hemispheres to the tune of an 11.00 ERA. (Completely random note: Roy Halladay won the AL Cy Young Award last year despite having an ERA of 5.13 after eight starts.)
April 5, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Between the time I submit this and the time you read it, Paul DePodesta may
have made another half-dozen deals that move the Dodgers up from their current
standing. Here's what I'm going with for now...
April 3, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
Choosing between the top two teams in the American League is an exercise in predicting the future. Any analysis of the current rosters is going to be inadequate, because what will separate these two come September are the relative health of the teams' stars, what the two teams do to add players in-season, and what happens in the 19 games the two will play against each other. In light of that, my selection of the Red Sox seems a bit strange. After all, they'll play seven games against the Yankees this month without Nomar Garciaparra and Trot Nixon, two major parts of their lineup. Moreover, the Sox don't have any obvious holes that they can address in the trade market, whereas the Yankees can get better by acquiring a second baseman and a starting pitcher. Moreover, the Yankees' willingness to take on any contract at any time--a trait that should only become more pronounced after last week's court victory that assures the YES Network of considerable revenue--means that they are a threat to acquire any player in the game. I'll still take the Sox.
March 30, 2004
by Joe Sheehan
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Four years ago, when the Mets and Cubs became the first teams to open the season
with a short series in Tokyo, I went to bed early, set my alarm for 2 a.m. PST,
jumped out of bed right around that time, watched the game and fired off a
diary of the experience for posting that morning. It was a fun exercise,
especially since it was a pretty good game and I had at least a few hours'
sleep.
So with my…er, the Yankees opening their 2004 season in Japan, I
figured this would be another opportunity to get a fun column out of it. Being
on the East Coast now, though, and with no real sleep pattern to speak of, I
elected to stay up all night to do so.
I guess that was my first bad decision. My second was asking Grady Little to
be my insurance policy in case I dozed off. As you'd expect, Little eventually
got me, but just a few minutes too late. Figures.
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