An extremely inadequate summary of the Feed
Hi, Derek, from lovely Sky Harbor International here in Phoenix.
I don’t have anything to say about the feed, because I missed it. Jonah and I had a flat off 51 on our way to the stadium and while I was trying to figure out the byzantine workings of a Dodge Caravan’s spare tire system (which involves a winch), Bavasi was intervening with stadium people to get everyone their tickets.
I want to point out that Bavasi, no matter what we think of the job he’s done, is the kind of guy who not only carved out a chunk of his time to talk to a bunch of fans, but realized something was up, figured out what went wrong, and solved it, making that bunch of fans happy. He’s a good dude. I wish I agreed with him on baseball stuff, I really do, because there are many, many people in baseball’s front offices who are legitimately jerks, and Bavasi’s one of the nicest guys.
So! I understand that, as you’d expect, once he got everyone in, he was fun and engaging in the short time he had left, and Kevin Towers cut short a meeting with ownership to come by, and was quite candid and enlightening in talking about the Padres.
Sorry I don’t have a better write-up, but you have to put together this tool, see, lower the spare tire using an internal winch, jack the van up, pull the spare assembly down, unhitch it (which is no mean feat), swap it for the tire, then winch the assembly back up…. took for-freaking-ever. Ugh.
Gary Matthews Jr implicated in new steroids probe
A New York state grand jury investigation started kicking off arrests, going after internet pharmacy operations. What’s the tie? The investigators are already leaking names
From the Albany Times Union:
The Times Union has learned that investigators in the year-old case, which has been kept quiet until now, uncovered evidence that testosterone and other performance-enhancing drugs may have been fraudulently prescribed over the Internet to current and former Major League Baseball players, National Football League players, college athletes, high school coaches, and a former Mr. Olympia champion and another top contender in the bodybuilding competition.
The customers include Los Angeles Angels center fielder Gary Matthews Jr., according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.
Skip for a moment the ethical and legal issues around leaking stuff like that…
It certainly could cast Matthews’ late-career upsurge in a different light. Weirdly, as Dave noted his career year in 2006 wasn’t based on power:
Then, 2006 rolls around, and at age 31, he has a career year, hitting .313/.371/.495 as an everyday center fielder. However, there wasn’t a significant change in his skillset – his walk rate declined slightly, his power was exactly where it was the previous two seasons, he didn’t hit any more line drives, and his HR rate actually fell. The improvement was completely and utterly tied to his ability to have balls fall into gaps where fielders weren’t standing.
Where raw power is really where the steroids are supposed to help. You have to go back to 2004 in Texas to see a power spike in ISO (.186 in 2004, .181 in 2005, .182 in 2006) — but then, not knowing the scope of evidence here, maybe that’s how far back it goes. Who knows.
Anyway, here’s hoping it’s all a crazy mixup and Matthews is totally innocent.
Ichiro and free agency, Lowe’s woes, and more
Ichiro’s comments yesterday on free agency are covered extensively.
“Ichiro may leave” in the PI.
Geoff Baker on the same subject. The picture of Ichiro hanging out in his pink shirt is worth it.
The Japanese star was taking live batting practice in his first spring workout here Tuesday when Seattle reliever George Sherrill sent him lunging out of the way on a pitch that ran inside. After the chuckles subsided all around him, Ichiro finished the workout, then let reporters know that Sherrill’s errant slider was about the only “pitch” he has seen yet from a Mariners squad he is thinking seriously about leaving.
That comes after not one but two blog entires (“Ichiro won’t rule out free agency” and “Agent confirms Ichiro “very disappointed,” mulling options“)
Lowe may go under the knife again, or Lowe still not cleared to throw. Short version: the arm’s not right, and they’re going to MRI it to see what the deal is. Results may drive another surgery.
The Times follows up on WSJ story on the M’s re-working their suites and includes this tidbit:
Safeco Field opened in 1999 with 67 luxury suites and subsequently added another suite on the press-box level. For the first few years, 98 to 99 percent of the suites were filled, said Aylward. He said last year’s percentage was in the mid- to upper-80s.
At the PI, the Go 2 Guy, who for some reason showed up at the wrong spring training league and is still filing Mariner stories, writes about Moyer and Garcia and Adam Eaton, who “In a better world, from a Seattle perspective, Adam Eaton would be wearing a blue uniform in Peoria instead of a red one in Clearwater, Fla.” In a better world, his asking price would have been reasonable for the team to pay. That was a good pass for the M’s.
Also, my “Bugs Bunny, Greatest Banned Player Ever” post here at USSM is going to be in the next Best American Sports Writing annual. I’m super excited.
The Angels can bite our gray or teal-wearing butt, sort of
I’ve written before that the division’s up for grabs and there’s no reason in particular to think that the Angels are the favorites, much less clear favorites. Geoff Baker at the Times is the most public advocate of the contrary position, in his blog entries from spring training.
I will now spend some time on why I don’t think the Angels are quite that good.
Pitching!
Angels rotation: Lackey, Escobar, Santana the Lesser, Weaver the Greater, probably Saunders
Seattle rotation: King Felix, Washburn, Ho Ramirez, Miguel Batista, Weaver the Lesser
Lackey’s gotta be one of the highest value/ink expended writing about him pitchers, but Felix is his equal. No, really. I’m assuming that Colon stays out or is ineffective this season after returning.
Overall, the Angels’ rotation is way better – pick your projection engine of choice, their ERA runs out to about ~.6 runs/nine innings lower. That’s pretty huge, and you can now feel to free discuss why Ho Ramirez should outperform/Washburn is going to put up a low 3 ERA, etc. I’d argue with Woods/Baek the M’s are better able to take a rotation hit, but right now, Baker & Co. are right – their rotation kicks our rotation’s asssssssss. The extra ‘s’s are for extra superiority.
Bullpen-wise, the Angels run out Fransisco Rodriguez, Scot Shields, and a pick ’em of pretty good options behind them. As long as the M’s are running Mateo out there, it’s tough, but as a unit, they can pretty easily put together the Angels’ equal even with Putz returning to earth a little. It’d be nice if the M’s had a manager who could run a bullpen as well as the Angels, but that’s not an option yet.
What’s that worth, then? It puts the Angels potentially up ~70-80 runs on the pitching side. Whooooo. That is pretty huge. The gap last year between the two teams was 60 runs. So the M’s are losing ground, unless (again) you see Ramirez/Batista outperforming. Or, heck, Weaver.
Defensively, the Angels are a little worse looking to next year than in 2006, which I mentioned – Mathews is not an upgrade on Figgins, Figgins at third would not be an upgrade, and so on. The two teams were pretty close defensively last year, and the Mariners, getting a full season in center out of Ichiro and (cross fingers) a healthy Guillen, should improve over last year. Call it a wash, but if the M’s aren’t ahead of the Angels in defensive efficiency next year, I’d be surprised.
Now, offensively. Last year the Mariners were 12 runs behind the Angels. As much as I hate hate hate this offseason’s moves, I can’t argue the offense isn’t likely to perform better. Last year, overall:
M’s DHs hit .235/.300/.366
M’s CFers hit .249/.294/.362
That’s horrrrrible. Now the projection systems all seem to think that Vidro’s done, but here’s Vidro-is-done projection from PECOTA: .266/.330/.368. That’s a fair upgrade. And if you’re smoking what the M’s are passing, well, you’re looking forward to a bounty of runs. Similarly, the Guillen move helps the overall outfield offense (hopefully). They’d be even better if they’d let Lopez be Lopez, but I’ve ranted enough about that. Or if they’d keep Bloomquist from getting 200 at-bats. Or… sorry. Moving on.
What do the Angels have? Napoli was great and then stank, and I’m not that optimistic about his chances, or the possibility his backups will do well. A full season of Kendrick’s a huge upgrade at second. But Garret Anderson sucks. Mathews’ projections are about what the Angels got out of center last year. Cabrera/Aybar won’t produce more than last year. Shea Hillenbrand, if he DHs, is going to be a huge, huge step back for the team. They managed to get .295/.356/.492 out of their DHs last year, and that’s about Hillenbrand’s 90% PECOTA forecast.
Is it enough to close the gap? It’s unlikely, but the M’s are easily 20-30 runs better than the Angels now, and it could be a lot more than that. We’ll see, what with Guillen’s shoulder and how some of the other issues sort themselves out (for instance, check out the difference in projected performances for Vidro and Broussard – there’s still room to squeeze more out of this lineup).
Overall, then, the Angels come out about 50 runs ahead, which is a lot more than I thought it would be when I started this, but their rotation really looks that much better right now, so I’m crossing my fingers for Ho and Miguel. But lining them up, the rotation’s the only place the Angels are clearly the better team (though, uh, they’re also clearly way better).
In the division, though, I don’t see that making them clear favorites. I see the A’s taking an offensive and rotation step back, which (and I freely admit I haven’t calculated this out either) puts them roughly on par with the Angels on both fronts, and the Rangers take a step back in center, but Catalanotto’s a huge upgrade at DH (Rangers DHs in 2006: .238/.309/.410)(bleeaaghh) and overall, they’re not a substantially better or worse team (the M’s, btw, should totally try and trade for McCarthy if his gopherball/flyball tendencies get him entirely rocked in Arlington and the Rangers sour on him).
Right now, then, I see the A’s and Angels as good teams, followed by the M’s and Rangers, who are both .500-ish teams. In that kind of environment, the division’s not the Angels’ to take, it’s anyone’s to take. The normal swings of luck, much less health, could easily bring either or both the Angels and A’s to earth, or boost the Mariners into contention.
Another weak news week
Fortunately, the spring training news machine cranks up as soon as… Thursday? Really? Awesome.
Young star Mauer signed a fat four-year deal with the Twins
Bernie Williams declined to return to the Yankees on a minor league deal. Fortunately, the M’s aren’t even mentioned as sniffing around.
Also, I talked to Jonah and it looks like we’re going to be able to take additional RSVPs for the March 3rd pre-game feed with M’s GM Bavasi and Padres GM Towers. Details after the break. Read more
How I would be a national baseball columnist
My rant about “managers about to be fired” goes to a problem national writers face: they can’t possibly be as informed about the state of 30 teams as a dedicated, smart fan of one team unless they’re cultivating inside information. But the age of the national columnist isn’t over – there’s still a call for people who can talk about industry-wide issues, compare team A to team B, and speak intelligently about things that cross team lines, like potential managerial changes, or trades.
How do you do that job well, then?
First, you have to make a choice about which side of the fence you’ll be on. Will you be peddling insider information, cultivating relationships within the industry so you can attempt to break news, with the inevitable compromises that come with that, or forsake that knowledge to be the informed outsider, and try and offer as much insight as you can without wearing your press pass into the locker room?
If I got a job as a full-time national baseball columnist, I’d be the latter (uh, obviously).
Then how to do that job well? Here’s what I’d do:
Find the good newspapers in every market, either bookmark them or subscribe to whatever electronic distribution they offer.
Throw every decent team blog that offers a feed into an RSS reader. Skim the headlines at least once a day. Repeat with decent high-level general baseball blogs. Seems like a huge load, but you’ll be able to blow through the repeat stories really fast, and still stop and read good pieces of analysis.
Send everyone of those people – everyone, beat reporters to the Batters Box – a nice email and say “hey, I’ve got this new gig, and while I’m going to try, I know I’m not going to be able to cover your team as closely as dedicated fans, so please, if you see me going wrong or if I’m not realizing a basic truth about the team, like their PR attachment to a player that makes trading him unlikely, please let me know.”
Then when you get things wrong, as much as possible, fess up. Unfortunately, unless you have a regular column that allows notes-style tidbits, that’s tough to get out there. If the outlet allows you to have a short-form blog, at the very least write them up there. Characterize someone’s platoon splits wrong, or read a statline badly? Fess up. Learn. One of the things that drives fans batty about columnists is they’ll do something like say Raul Ibanez is the only right-handed hitter in the outfield and you never know if they realized the error or not.
I’d say “answer emails” but I tried to do that at BP until I got overwhelmed and we can’t even manage it at USSM. Then again, as a full-timer, maybe you can pull it off.
Take notes. Tons of notes. I should be able to quickly summarize what the major strengths/weaknesses are of every one of the thirty GMs and managers, and even better, their ownership groups if they’re at all active in decision-making.
Research. Take the time to look stuff up. Even under deadline, I shouldn’t toss off a line about someone’s platoon splits to support a conclusion if it’s wrong. If I had an intern, that’s totally a great intern task: every time there’s a fact like that, do the three clicks to go to baseballreference.com and look it up. If you come across any other interesting nuggets, let me know.
Write about good stuff. The remaking of the Devil Rays isn’t news to their fans, but what happens there in the next few years is a great story: how do you fix a broken franchise, and how long does it take? What lessons are there for fans of the Royals, for instance? How did the best teams last year build their staffs? Where do all the closers come from?
And for worn story ideas, make them good. Eight managers on the hot seat doesn’t have to be a nearly content-less piece. What qualities do those managers share? What are they criticized for, and are those complaints valid?
In a way, USSM is easier than being a national columnist. We don’t draw a salary, the money’s bad, but if because of the forum, when I mess something up (see:yesterday) I can fix it myself in minutes. It’s not in print for everyone to see forever. And in my experience, not getting a paycheck every two weeks means generally people are understanding when I mess up a stat. If I was writing for Sports Illustrated, there’d be an expectation that my salary paid for me to do fact checking.
It’s interesting that better-informed local fans have made the national writer’s job much harder, subject to quick, withering, valid criticism, but it’s also true that the changes that have made those local fans smarter about their teams offer national writers a chance to acquire the same knowledge and write wider-reaching pieces of higher quality than their predecessors did. I hope that we’ll see some take up that challenge and succeed. Baseball could use more prominent, sharp, and insightful voices in the mediums that reach most fans.
And if I could fly, I would be a superhero
ESPN.com’s baseball page lead story blurb for “Best In The Biz” story.
Gary Matthews Jr. had a career year last season for the Rangers. And if he can have another huge campaign in 2007, Matthews could help make the Angels’ outfield tops in the majors.
Yeaaaaaaaaaah.
Chan Ho Park signed somewhere.
Corey Patterson got a one-year, $4.3m deal from the Orioles
Jeff Fassero retired. I remember when he was pretty bas-ass. Good times.
Arroyo signed an extension with the team the Red Sox traded him to after they said they wouldn’t trade him.
Jon Heyman, over at SI, put Mike Hargove at #1 on his list of managers on the hot seat.
Seattle ownership has made clear that the small improvement the team made last season, from 69 wins in 2005 to 78 in ’06, wasn’t exactly what they were looking for. Hargrove, an all-time survivor and one of baseball’s nice guys, got a reprieve when few figured he would. But he won’t get two.
all-time survivor? What does that even mean? And one of baseball’s nice guys?
A) no
b) What does that even mean?
It’s times like this that I think there’s some coded message in there that I lack the necessary background to hear, like dog-whistle politics. It’s like when Peter Gammons writes about some prospect and says “Jerimiah Jake Johnson, of the Massachusetts Johnsons..” I always stare at the sentence and think “huh? What should that convey to me? Who’s he writing to there?”
Let me take a stab at this.
all-time survivor: he’s repeatedly walked away from horrible plane crashes caused in no small part to his failures as pilot
one of baseball’s nice guys: he’s deigned to be interviewed by me.
Feel free to submit your own interpretations.
Mariners GM Bill Bavasi didn’t get Barry Zito, despite offering close to $100 million and finishing second, but he did rebuild the rotation with the additions of Miguel Batista, Horacio Ramirez and Jeff Weaver. While none of the three is Zito, improvement will be expected. The Weaver signing could prove especially worthwhile, with a superb left side of the infield of third baseman Adrian Beltre and shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt.
Improvement will be expected. By you? By the team? By fans?
DMZ: Updated to delete this paragraph on account of I totally screwed it up in the most basic, obvious way possible
Especially worthwhile. Okay.
Hargrove’s strategy has come under fire in all three of his managerial stops, but he did right by moving Ichiro Suzuki to center field. What he needs most, though, is improved production from Beltre and Richie Sexson.
More of the passive-voice thing. Plus, Hargrove doesn’t have a strategy. He doesn’t. His strategy is “I’d like to win”. If you want to argue about his in-game tactics, or his player managing, or his horrible talent evaluation skills, sure, but to say that Hargrove’s strategy is under fire… I don’t understand.
And what he needs most is improved production from Beltre and Sexson? Where do you even get this stuff?
Hargrove has:
– a second baseman with a once-promising bat he’s turned into some shadow version of his own glory days
– a starting pitcher the Angels put out on the curb with a “free” sign taped to his forehead and no one picked him up
– another starting pitcher who has never struck batters out but the team thinks might be a #1 starter
– a broken-down, beat-up DH who hasn’t hit well in years that the team is praying will somehow rehabilitate his legs and return to glory
– a notorious clubhouse cancer also coming off injury and a wretched year at the plate
What he needs most is Beltre to play better? Beltre? Or Sexson? The team has two everyday lineup spots occupied by longshot gambles, with another two in the rotation, and he really needs Beltre and Sexson to step up.
Argh.
Mid-week news bonanza, feed reminder
First, a straight repeat reminder:
Come on out to sunny Peoria and meet two major league GMs March 3rd. Seattle Mariners GM Bill Bavasi and San Diego Padres GM Kevin Towers will talk and take questions from fans for a good 45 minutes, before seeing the two interleague rivals face off in a fierce spring training game at the Peoria Sports Complex. Afterwards, you can buy a signed copy of the newly updated, paperback version of Baseball Prospectus’ Baseball Between the Numbers
and chat with editor/co-author Jonah Keri or receive some kind of The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball promotional item from USSM author Derek Zumsteg. Game time is 1:05 p.m., and guests should plan to arrive NO LATER than 11:30 a.m. for pre-game festivities, to be held in the section where we’ll be sitting.
Cost is $21, which includes your ticket to the game and the money we have to pay TicketMaster to mail them to us so we can distribute them early.
RSVP by emailing to seattlefeed@yahoo.com. Please specify your full name and how many tickets you need. To ensure that we can secure/order a group of tickets all together, deadline to RSVP and pay for tickets will be Friday, Feb. 9. Once we’ve confirmed your RSVP by email, you can PayPal the funds, by no later than Friday, Feb. 9, to: derek@ussmariner.com
What else?
Lew Burdette passed away at 80. In The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball, I wrote
Lew Burdette was the greatest spitballer of the 1950s. He debuted in 1950 but didn’t start pitching regularly until 1952 at the age of 23. Everyone accused Burdette of throwing the spitball because of the dramatic downward break he could get on a pitch, but he always denied it. When he hung up the spikes in 1967, he had won 203 games, gone to two All-Star games in 1957 and 1959, and in 1958 finished third in Cy Young voting.
Burdette would get good hitters to come up to the plate and stare at him, waiting for the spitball, watching strike after strike go past them, right over the plate, and then they’d go sit down, angry they hadn’t seen a spitter.
Burdette, like other great cheaters, helped force a rule change that prohibited pitchers from going to their mouth while on the mound. Burdette, like some of the other great trick pitchers, eventually did admit he’d been putting something on the ball, but not what he was accused of: “I wet my fingers by bringing them to my mouth once in a while like a lot of other pitchers do. It’s a nervous habit. But I go to my eyebrows a lot more, and that’s when my fingers get real wet. I’m a pretty good perspirer, one of the best, and the sweat runs down my forehead and soaks my eyebrows.â€
Aaron Harang signed a four-year, $36.5m deal with the Reds, avoiding arbitration.
Eric Byrnes got a one-year deal.
John D in comments pointed out that “What about some love for ex-M FELIX FERMIN? He just managed the DR to his 3rd Caribbean title.” Nice.
Monday’s news in short
Guardado takes the Reds up on their offer, Sanchez and the Pirates avoid arbitration, Myers and the Phillies agree to a $26m deal.
On the fresh and (for now) extremely ugly Cheater’s Guide to Baseball blog, my first entry’s on the possibility of a valid HGH test.
Someone wins an advance reader’s copy of The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball
207 unique non-authors commented, some of who, ignoring instructions, registered today and made their first comment in that thread. They got thrown out. No one (surprisingly, given the subject matter) attempted to bribe me or otherwise cheat. So lacking a good n-sided die, I used Excel’s RANDBETWEEN, and we have a winner, which I’ll announce when I hear back from them. Unless they want to remain anonymous.
If I may make a pitch, though — it’s clear that at least 200 of you are interested in reading it. For only $11 more than free, you can pre-order the final version that features pictures with captions, corrected illustrations, and I promise that either at the USSM signing event (to be announced) or in some other fashion, I’ll make every effort to sign it for you.
Pre-orders will be hugely important in the book’s success, so if you’re thinking about it, please do go for it — it’s $11 and you’ve got months to cancel if all the readers and reviews this far turn out to be wrong.
Thanks to everyone who entered, it was good to see.