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July 13, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
I wrote a whole column last Thursday about how players don't owe it to their teams to waive their no-trade clauses. One weekend later, Randy Johnson comes out and says that if, maybe, he were to think about leaving Arizona, well... "The only way I'd probably want to leave is if a trade would benefit the Diamondbacks by my leaving. And maybe the way to do that is if they wouldn't have to pay my salary and it could go to some other players that would help them--and if I got to a situation that was going to work for me."
Randy's now saying he'd require that:
The Diamondbacks wouldn't have to pick up his salary
They would have to get players back who'd help them
His new team would have to be contending
Sure, there are players who have emotional ties to an organization and a city such that they'd like to see their soon-to-be-old team do well. Some players have tried to make sure that their new team doesn't give up too much. The most obvious example of this was Ken Griffey, Jr, who when demanding a trade from the Mariners to the Reds seemed to be actively involved in who'd be traded for, which is kind of weird since he instigated the whole thing. It'd be cool if us average people could do that for our jobs. ("I've decided you're going to offer me $125 grand to watch baseball and drink beer in the comfort of my house, and you're going to pay for the recliner." "Remember not to put your breakable mugs on the bottom of the box when you clean out your desk, because you're fired.")
July 8, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
There are going to be a lot of trades and trade rumors in the next month. More players will be approached, and more will be confused. I want to see this looked at evenly for once, that's all. It's not an issue of players being selfish; sometimes, when they're choosing between their families and a chance at a ring, it's an issue of them being unselfish. I'd like to see the story covered that way, just once.
July 6, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
When they brought him on as an instructor, Cashman said that Sojo wouldn't play for the team--he played anyway. When rosters expanded and Derek Jeter injured his ribs, they signed Sojo to a minor league deal and suited him up for real against the Blue Jays on Sept. 1.
After the season, Sojo signed on to become the Yankees' third-base coach where, I have no doubt, he's looking at Enrique Wilson and thinking he could outplay that kid if given the chance.
Though it rarely occurs, this could theoretically happen again, and not just on the Yankees ("Distributing championship rings to the undeserving since 1996!"). Many once-excellent players are hanging around currently-bad teams in coaching capacities, and it's easy to imagine that in a moment of weakness, a GM might consider a conversion.
July 1, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
How badly can cute and cuddly players hurt their team? With baseball's new market, more than ever in recent history. If your local community pillar signs for a charitable $2.5 million, in today's market, that's two and a half average outfielders on short-term deals. And if your guy got signed before the market crashed...it may hurt just to think about it.
So I went through looking for guys who are killing their teams. While the Rangers paid laughable service to "flexibility" when talking about trading the hugely productive Alex Rodriguez, it's true that when teams saddle themselves with giant unproductive contracts, it makes it much harder to build a good team on a necessarily limited budget. So here are the guys who are really grinding down their teams. Bonus points for easily replaceable position players, and guys who have huge, long contracts granted by virtue of being popular.
So who's out there to form our team?
June 29, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
I've been getting a lot of e-mail lately that runs like this:
I know you like Edgar Martinez, but don't you think he should retire? He can't run, he can't hit. He should have some pride.
It's true, I'm emotionally attached. But I know that, so I can recognize it, take a deep breath, and be rational about it.
And my answer is: "I have no business telling Edgar, or any player, to retire."
June 24, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
If you watch the home team broadcast, almost every start by a home pitcher isn't just good, it's great. No, it's outstanding. Just plain fantastic. It was a gritty, gutty start. And that's for a six-inning, 9-hit, 4-walk, 2-strikeout start where the pitcher sees four runs cross the plate. He worked himself out of some tough jams. He literally put out some fires (the use of literally to mean figuratively causing writers and English majors across the country to literally grind their teeth).
That's to be expected. After all, the broadcasts are, first and foremost, marketing tools for the team. I shouldn't get frustrated when baserunning gaffes are excused, or a hitter's awful hacks are ignored. I do, but I shouldn't. When we find nuggets of serious analysis, or discussions that aren't flattering to the team, or even criticism of botched plays, it's a bonus.
June 22, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
Earl Weaver in Weaver on Strategy presented a set of guidelines for running a team. The book is the best on managerial strategies and roles I've come across, and the respect accorded it is well earned. Don't play for one run unless it'll win you the game--James Click's series on bunting should be required reading for managers. Browsing any day's box scores shows you examples of managers bunting early, or for no good reason at all.
Weaver's Fourth Law, from the book: Your most precious possessions on offense are your 27 outs.
This leads to a short rant about bunts, particularly early in baseball games. The concept behind the rule runs throughout the book, though, and underlines the single biggest conflict in the game of baseball: The defense wants to get outs without giving up runs, and the offense doesn't want to give up those outs.
June 17, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
The state of umpiring today is amazing. While umpires are devoid of the kind of personality that, say, Ron Luciano had, as a group they have improved so markedly since baseball broke their union that it's amazing to watch old games on ESPN Classic. Umpires today are faster to get into position and more observant. They're willing to consult other umps who might have a better view of a disputed play. They're far more professional than their predecessors.
I am more convinced than ever that the umpires have demonstrated the need for better strike zone measurement tools. We haven't heard much about Questec this year, due in part to Tom Glavine enjoying a bounceback year. But I watch so much baseball it frightens small children, and I see blown balls and strike calls all the time. And I don't even mean close calls, either, I'm taking about clearly up, down, or off the plate and my favorite, Ye Olde Hit the Target Strike. Like the other parts of the umpire's game, it's gotten better, but it's still not as good as it needs to be.
June 15, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
I don't get along with my team. We've disagreed over how the team's been run, from who's been put in the lineup to who's being drafting. Since the ownership group bought the team to save it from possibly moving, they've seemed eager to support Bud Selig and MLB in whatever crazy scheme they come up with. I would bet there are many baseball fans with similarly strained relationships with the teams they support.
The Mariners have made it clear in the past that they're interested in acquiring only character guys who are good in the clubhouse, even at the expense of the on-field product. Someone ran some numbers and said "Lovable sells." So the clubhouse troublemakers, the lawyers and the quiet smart guys are all purged once the team takes a dislike to them.
The problem is that the M's are willing to do almost anything to get rid of players that fans perceive as having negative qualities or being a problem, while at the same time they're willing to pick up good clubhouse guys with baggage if they think they can get away with it. The Mariners will pick up a guy like Al Martin, who got into a nasty tussle with his backup wife in Arizona, resulting in a lot of counseling and a pinch of jail time. Martin, for his potential legal and character issues, was and remains known for having a great work ethic, an easy guy to get along with on a team, and a good clubhouse presence. The Mariners brought in a bigamist who'd bust up a much smaller secondary wife while running their "Refuse to Abuse" campaign against domestic violence...because they wanted a left-handed bat.
June 8, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
I'm tired of everyone focusing on the positive. Who's going to be elected to the All-Star team. Where the close races are. I'm more interested in the best of the abjectly bad. Who gets in only because there has to be a representative from every team?
I want the teams where not only aren't there any near-misses, but managers are going to have to stretch to make any selection at all. Who's the most likely of the least deserving to get recognized this year?
June 3, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
Fox Sports Net lies to you. I'm sure you're all shocked, since it's right next to Fox News Channel in the taxonomy of Rupert Murdoch's vast empire, a collection of businesses renowned for raising the level of intellectual discourse across the country. Not to make too much of this, but this is exactly the kind of easily tolerated lying that drives me insane. Fox Sports Net doesn't care about me.
June 2, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
While watching baseball this Memorial Day, I started to think about how different each team's offense is. Watching the Mariners lose this season has been tougher because they're so goddamned boring. There's no variety of in the outcomes: Pretty much, they're going to slap a single, or they'll make an out. But how many of those outs were Modestly Exciting Outs? And what can Modestly Exciting Outs tell us about a team's offense?
May 27, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
Many teams have built new stadiums only to see their teams fail and their attendance drop. But look at the Seattle Mariners: Could it be that they've struck upon the nightmare of the true fan? Are they turning into a team with a large fan base that thinks of games as good, clean entertainment, who will show up at a state-of-the-art stadium when the team is good or when they're bad, just as long as it features nice, wholesome young men with winning smiles?
May 25, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
Walking down Occidental to a Mariners game is a great experience. There's the smell of brats on grills, roasted peanuts and kettle corn, the bad music of persistent street musicians and the chatter of fellow fans walking south to the stadium...
...And guys selling programs. Independent programs. Many teams only have one program, the one the team puts out, but in Seattle, we have a choice.
I bought both this week to compare, and the results...man, I pity people in cities without competition, if their team-issued programs are anything like this.
May 19, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
I saw perfection tonight. I saw Randy Johnson when he came to the Seattle Mariners from the Montreal Expos as a wild flame-thrower, I saw him refine himself into an ace pitcher, a guy who could throw 200 innings, strike out almost 300 guys, walk about 75, and keep his ERA under 3 in one of the AL's more notorious launching pads. He threw a no-hitter in Seattle in his early days (1990--8 K, 6 BB). I missed him getting through an inning on nine strikes for three strikeouts in 2001, which is a weird but almost as rare historical achievement, and I'm still mad about it.
Today, I was flipping around watching games while writing something else up when I found the Diamondbacks game. The announcers were talking all about the perfect game he had going and I started yelling "Shut up! Shut up!" at the television. I'm a guy who'll rail at the stars against astrology, I'll talk until spoons bend about what a bunch of baloney telekinesis is, I'll bore you to death about my hatred for John Edward, but when it comes to baseball and a chance to see one of the great games in history, I flip back to the superstitious caveman in a second.
Johnson's performance tonight was one of the most impressive in baseball history. Thirteen strikeouts in a game is the second-most of the 17 perfect games in the modern era--only Sandy Koufax in 1965 topped him, setting down 14. One-hundred and seventeen pitches isn't the most in a perfect game, either--David Wells threw 120 in his 1998 perfect game (struck out 11), but it's the second-highest among the games that offered pitch-count totals.
May 18, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
I saw Khalil Greene down on the farm and I didn't see it. Whatever it was they were talking about, it wasn't there that game. Pushed through the minors, it's difficult to get a handle on whether he would hit or not, regain the walks he showed in college or not, if he could play shortstop well enough to hang there defensively. So far, he's hung in there, hitting .266/.348/.395 in the pitcher-friendly environment of Petco Park while starting at short. The surprising bit's been the walks, which are back in force. The Padres are investing playing time in the hopes that Greene will develop fast, and this may be the most interesting story to follow, as a contending team tries to break in a new shortstop while contending for a division race.
May 13, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
If you've scored games for any length of time--no matter if you were in the press box or the cheap seats--you've probably had this happen to you: 1) Someone mocks you for keeping score; 2) Later, the same person asks you for information off your card.
Scoring leaves a personal record of the game. Done well, it's like a familiar photograph that recalls the memories of a vacation. If I ever need to know what happened in some game, I can look up the results, or even the box score. But if I want to know how it felt to watch it, that's when I dig up my score cards. The long innings stretch out on the card, my chess-style notes next to great plays and weird manager decisions to revisit later. The guy who mocks the scorer goes home after the best game he's ever seen, but a week later remembers only what he saw on SportsCenter the next morning. The scorer has a hand-drawn portrait of the game he actually watched; what he experienced.
May 10, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
I was disappointed that baseball backed off its plans to put Spider-Man 2 logos on bases in order to bring more kids into the game. What's baseball coming to when you can sign an agreement with those guys and they back off it over a little negative publicity? Isn't a deal a deal?
It's bad enough that MLB turns out to be so cowardly that it'll turn its back on the children they were trying to help, but what about the other outreach campaigns to widen baseball's appeal? Once they're putting ads in the field of play, it's open season: We can change the field, the game, whatever we want, in order to reach new audiences by running advertisements that they'll identify with.
May 6, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
I was at Safeco Field on Tuesday, watching a fast-moving game that was on pace to wrap up 3-2 Mariners in about two and a half hours, and ended up with one of the longest, craziest games I've ever attended.
I scored this game. I've been working on an article about scoring and finding a good card to match your style, and thought I'd finally settled on one. This game, of course, became the torture-test for a scorecard:
April 29, 2004
by Derek Zumsteg
[Ed. Note: The Expos have scored 40 runs in 22 games through Wednesday, and are now 5-17]. That's not just league-worst, that's in the running for all-time worst. Thirty-six runs is a run-and-a-half a game in a season where normal teams are averaging five runs a game. They're hitting for a team line of .201/.283/.254. There are maybe--maybe--10 players qualifying for the batting title who are hitting worse than the Expos as a team. That's tough.
They would have to almost double their run-scoring to move up one spot in the standings (Tampa Bay, at 67, is second-worst). Of their five wins, one was 2-0 and the other four were one-run wins. They've been shut out six times. Over a quarter of the time, they score no runs at all.
And that's just run-scoring. They're dead last in walks. Dead last in home runs. They're in the middle of the pack in strikeouts, which I'm sure is small consolation to Frank Robinson. Their best regular, Jose Vidro, is down on the hitting leaderboard below the century mark, right alongside notable sluggers like Bobby Higginson and Omar Vizquel.
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