Fink on friends for reduced sentence!
The “Drug Free Sports Act” has a crazy 2-year penalty on first test, but skip that for a minute.
From the Associated Press article:
The legislation offered by Davis allows for reduced penalties if a player can prove in an appeal he didn’t know he was using a prohibited substance or if he were to provide information on someone else violating the drug policy.
First, how do you prove that? Produce a tainted supplement? Couldn’t you just taint it yourself?
All kinds of problems there. But the really disturbing part —
if he were to provide information on someone else violating the drug policy
This has so many possible unintended consequences that it’s crazy. The first thing I thought of was that it would behoove a player to get their friends to violate the drug policy so you could fink on them. Then I started to think what you should do is fink on someone for something they didn’t do — using a drug with a really short cycle, for instance, or something undetectable like HGH.
It’s a huge incentive to lie, cheat, and steal to save your own hide, and a particularly misguided piece of a bad bit of legislation.
Mike Cameron
Not sure if anyone noticed this or not, but Cameron has been hitting like crazy since missing the entire month of April: .367/.472/.700 in 60 at-bats with 10 walks and nearly half (10 of 22) his hits going for extra bases. He’s even getting to play a bit of center lately with Carlos Beltran banged up. Go Mike go.
Tonight’s baseball fix
May I recommend Nashville at Tacoma, 6:05 start? Featuring the fine play-by-play of Mike Curto and available on the internet.
Otherise, your only game is Arizona @ Houston if you’ve got MLB Extra Innings. The Bob Melvin-led Diamondbacks are 24-17 and got to Clemens early.
The Dodgers, the Mariners
If you hung out here during the off-season (and I’m guessing you did) you probably heard Dave and I (at least) say that the Dodgers had the worst off-season of any team.
They’re 20-14, while the Mariners (who I applauded for the Beltre signing) are 13-21 and are ahead of only KC and Tampa in the overall AL standings.
So what the heck?
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#504
It’s been nearly 16 years in the making. And I can’t help feeling just a little inadequate in making this confession as a contributor to this little corner of the interweb-thingy. But here goes anyway.
I witnessed tonight my first live and in-person Junior Griffey home run.
There I said it.
I was there. He led off the 4th. Blast to right-center. No doubt about it. He tied Eddie Murray for 19th on the all-time list.
He also robbed Milton Bradley in the top of that same inning. Back against the “404” sign in dead center, glove just over the wall. He seemed most surprised to find the ball in his glove.
Ex-Mariners on the night:
Junior Griffey – 1-for-3, solo homer, Weaver beaned him his next time up
Rich Aurilia – 0-for-3, two strikeouts, flung his helmet and bat nearly as far as Griffey’s moonshot when he struckout with the bases loaded to end the 6th and the Reds down 5-2
Giovanni Carrera – 1 IP, 2 K (including Griffey) and 1 run on back-to-back hits to Dunn and Randa
Investment tax numbers
On Yahoo, many other places. Based on initial projections, only two teams will be penalized for investing in their teams:
Yankees pay $30,637,531
Red Sox pay $969,177
And that’s it.
Important to note, as you see these numbers float around, is that “For the luxury tax, payrolls are based on the average annual values of contracts for all players on the 40-man roster and include benefits.”
Benefits is a huge, huge number. We’ve discussed this here before (and sorry, but I don’t have time right now to dig it up) and this is medical, pension, probably meal and other per-diem costs. So when you see Seattle on there at $109.3m — that’s not payroll.
Red Sox yank moron’s tickets
I’m happy to see the Red Sox have revoked the tickets of the guy who took a swing at Sheffield and the other guy who poured beer on him. That’s totally awesome.
Of course, the fan, House, denies any kind of wrongdoing (“It is ridiculous for anyone to even suggest that I punched him or even attempted to,” his statement said. I’d like to be ridiculous for a second and suggest that he either punched Sheffield or took a good shot at it.). As if he’d fess up (“The Red Sox are entirely justified in yanking my tickets, and I am a doofus.”).
I’m not sure if this is going to be some big thing where the fan base splits between support for this poor, victimized fellow and running away from being associated with that kind of behavior. I hope not.
The Red Sox aren’t dumb, and they’re fully aware that this kind of thing could expose them to legal action, all kinds of criticism, and yet they probably also felt like they needed to do something. And while it’s easy for me to watch it replay on Tivo and say “boy, it looks like a swing but it’s not conclusive” I’m sure the Sox spent the last week arguing this and looking at all the footage and photos they could get before making a decision.
I hope this is the start of something, though: if you can’t behave reasonably in seats where your behavior is so important, you don’t get to sit there any more.
Davenport on pitcher control of balls in play
As a sort of follow-up to the Franklin arguments we’ve had here lately (summary: “Pitchers have an extremely limited ability to affect whether a ball is put into play and becomes an out or a hit”), I wanted to bring this up. One of the theories on why major league pitchers differ so little in hit prevention is that they’re selected for this ability as they advance — pitchers who aren’t good at this don’t advance.
Conveniently, Clay Davenport looked at this throughout the minors today, while the argument’s still fresh.
The pitchers who made the major leagues are, not surprisingly, better than their counterparts who did not, by every measure of pitching you may desire–including giving up fewer hits per ball in play.
Pitchers who aren’t any good at getting outs when a batter makes contact (their fastball is straight, or they’re no good at changing speeds — whatever) don’t advance, not only because they get shelled continually, but because as a group, their strikeout, home run, and walk rates aren’t as good.
This doesn’t answer a new question (why is the variation in a pitcher’s ability to prevent hits on balls in play so small at the major league level, while strikeout rate, walk rate, and home run rate have a wide variation) but it’s an interesting addition to the puzzle.
Game 10, Mariners at White Sox
If you think Mike Hargrove has made some questionable managerial decisions to start the season, I’ve got just one sentence for you. Think of Michael Buffer when I say:
Are. You. Ready. For. Oooooooooozzzzzie Guuuuuuuillen?
Thrill as Ozzie pinch-hits Willie Harris for Juan Uribe! Marvel as he removes Paul Konerko in favor of Scott Podsednik! Wonder at the White Sox’ early winning record! Become nauseous at the head-swim-inducing moves!
Joel Pineiro vs. John Garland, 5:05 p.m., PDT. The M’s return to TV on KSTW.
As a sidenote: does it say more about me or about Alex Rodriguez that, when I see the headline “A-Rod yanks 8-year-old-boy from path of truck,” I think “P.R. set-up.”
Don’t answer that.
Lou Piniella’s Winning Ways
Folks, for only $8 you can see a 1991 version of Lou Piniella talking about hitting fundamentals. It’s on eBay.
How much will Lou Piniella’s instruction help you? Check this out:
Year: AVG OBP SLG
2003 Devil Rays: .265 .320 .404
2004 Devil Rays: .258 .320 .405
Oooooh yeah. Weirdly, I came across that listing while attempting to answer the question “how big did Lou’s gut ever become before he started to shape up?” as part of an argument today.