Friday Mariner fun
M’s got whupped by the Sox. PI
TNT: Sean Green now has a kid and an invite to camp.
The Times: Lindsay Gulin, Foppert’s blister.
Meche and Pineiro
In life, we like to categorize. We lump things together to lessen the amount of thinking we have to do. Generally, we do this by how much we value certain objects. I might lump Chick-Fil-A, Photoshop CS2, and my Mazda Protege5 into the same “things I’m quite fond of” category, even though there’s no relation between terrific fast food chicken, photo editing software, and my fun new(ish) car.
We do this with baseball players too. I have a group of “my guys”, players like Beltre, Reed, and Soriano, guys I’ve said good things about and who I enjoy watching. We all do it. If you think about it, I’m sure you’ll find that you’ve categorized most of the players on the Mariners, too.
Which brings me to the point of this post. Almost every Mariner fan, it seems, has put Joel Pineiro and Gil Meche into the same category. They’re both perennial disappointments, guys who frustrate with their inconsistencies and who have failed to live up to a level of potential that we established for them. You’ll often see people talk about how the Mariners are counting on rebound seasons from Meche and Pineiro, almost like they’re one entity. As one goes, apparently, so does the other.
Well, I’d like to try to free Joel Pineiro from the clutches of Gil Meche, as much as I can, anyways. It’s odd that I’m now going to bat for Pineiro’s reputation, considering I’ve never been a big fan and always felt that the hype far outweighed the actual talent. But, at this point, it’s pretty much undeniable; Joel Pineiro is underrated by most Mariner fans, and his guilt-by-association pairing with Gil Meche is simply unfair.
Basically, Gil Meche sucks and Joel Pineiro doesn’t.
Lets just take a look at their 2005 seasons, when Pineiro’s ERA was higher than that of Meche, and see just who pitched better.
Innings: Pineiro-189, Meche-143. Winner, Pineiro.
BB/G: Pineiro-2.6, Meche-4.0. Winner, Pineiro.
K/G: Pineiro-5.0, Meche-5.0. Tie. This is as good as its going to get for Meche, by the way.
G/F: Pineiro-1.38, Meche-0.99. Winner, Pineiro.
Pineiro threw more innings, had vastly better control while maintaining a similar contact rate, and managed to induce way more groundballs. Those are all big advantages for Pineiro, yet somehow, Meche posted the lower ERA, and thus, in the eyes of casual fans everywhere, he gets more credit. How did he do it? Simple.
Joel Pineiro didn’t allow an unearned run all season.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone mention this, but it’s staggering. All 118 runs that crossed the plate against Pineiro were charged to his ERA, but 12 percent of the runs Meche allowed (11 of the 92) were ruled unearned, thus keeping his ERA superficially low. As most of you probably know by now, RA actually predicts pitcher performance better than ERA, and letting Meche off the hook for 12 percent of his runs allowed isn’t a very good way to evaluate his pitching ability.
You know that I love Fielding Independant ERA as a way to determine a pitcher’s real value, and the difference here is clear:
Pineiro-4.50, Meche-5.09.
Pineiro’s not a great pitcher. He’s not even good. But he’s not terrible. He might even be described as occassionally useful. Gil Meche is terrible. They don’t belong in the same category.
The M’s do need Joel Pineiro to pitch well this year. But they need Gil Meche to just go away.
State of the USSM ship, shirt sales, hosting drive
You’ve probably noticed that there are three tiny Google Ads on the USSM front page now, and one on normal story pages. And that we’ve been pushing the really cool USSM shirts and also the really awesome Limited Edition Top Ten list shirts (see, I’m pushing them right now). If you’ve read these site updates before, you’re probably vaguely aware that because our readership’s grown so vast, we’re no longer safe on the tiny little box I pay for, and, at a certain point, we decided it’d be better to try and squeeze enough money to upgrade our digs rather than die on the vine. In any event — the shirts sold well out of the gate (buy some, they’re cool) and the ads aren’t going gangbusters, but it looks like we’re going to make it. I’m in negotiations for hosting and hope to have it up before the start of the season.
Then, assuming someone buys a shirt and the modest ads do okay, we’ll run a breakeven (on dollars) operation through most of the season if growth keeps up, and we’ll figure out what happens then. Breakeven doesn’t sound so great, considering the time investment, but seriously, it’s a huge step up from out-of-pocket.
But let me throw this out there — if you run a site that takes donations (using Amazon or whatever), or if you’d rather see us put up something like that rather than run the current ads, drop us an email.
That’s the state of USSM. This’ll be three years since we started in on this, and it’s been rewarding, frustrating, and rewarding again. I could write for a while on how crazy it is that we’re looking for a beefier server because the one we moved to back in August of 2004 can’t take the strain anymore, or how weird it is to think that when Dave, Jason, and I started bouncing emails back and forth that we’d eventually join a community this large.
All I really want to say is thanks. I don’t know what happens next, but this has been pretty great so far.
BP: “What do statistics tell us about steroids”
I wrote a review of 
Thursday Mariner goodness
M’s versus Japan in an exhibition game yesterday got a ton of press (PI 1, PI 2, Times ).
Moyer likes Johjima. (TNT)
Unraveling records
This is a work of fiction. See the end for a detailed note on this.
“I wish we had a time machine,” the Commissioner of Major League Baseball said. Sitting on the couch made of bats and bases, Major League Baseball President Bob DuPuy nodded slowly. “Bob, you don’t have a time machine, do you?”
“If I had one, I’d already have gone back and told you not to buy the Brewers.”
Selig didn’t smile, but looked off. “It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
Selig sighed slowly. DuPuy watched, waiting.
“Well, let’s start making calls and get the team together,” Selig said quietly. “I’ll talk to the press tonight.”
“The Commissioner has always held wide power to act in the best interest of baseball,” Selig said, his eyes watering. The camera flashes were so constant all he could see nothing but white and, in some moments, the white-and-grey afterimage. Rumors of the announcement, true and false, had spread all day, and the room had been packed since morning. He couldn’t see the reporters or even his notes. “Following the release of grand jury testimony and an in-depth investigation by Major League Baseball, we have decided that we must act decisively to restore fan faith and integrity in the game. We will be removing from the record books the statistics-” he closed his eyes against the light “-of those players we have reasonable evidence to believe have used performance-enhancing drugs that were or are illegal or banned, and we will issue new statistics that will reflect the game that should have been, that fans wanted and deserved to see.”
George Will argued for deterrence. Players who’d used drugs should have their stats removed entirely, even parts of their career where they were known to have been clean. The other members of the Commisioner’s blue-ribbon panel disagreed. Two former players pushed for known users to only lose their record titles while leaving career and season statistics intact. Others argued for more statistical approaches that would result in overall statistics that matched pre-steroid years. The draft report to the Commissioner ran over two thousand pages with five separate and irreconcilable plans, and was filled with long math proofs and overwrought rhetoric.
“The problem,” Jeremy said, in the basement of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, “is that it’s not park adjusted.”
“It is soooooo ridiculously park adjusted, you wouldn’t even believe,” Aaron replied, tossing an official baseball back and forth from hand to hand, feet up on his desk.
“Go look it up then, prove me wrong.” Jeremy looked from his book to the screen and back again. “Why won’t this stupid thing of crap compile? All I want is hit location weighting. That’s not too much to ask.â€Â
“You look it up, you’re one that’s wrong.”
“Yeah, just like that time you wanted to argue range factor, you moron,” Jeremy said. Aaron stood up, his face red. “Ah.” Jeremy bent over to look at the O’Reilly book again and the ball cracked into his monitor, knocking the LCD off its stand and into his lap.
“What the hell!” Jeremy yelled, standing, monitor crashing onto his feet. Seeing their boss watching from the door, he bit off the next set of curses.
“Good news,” their boss said. He carried a bound volume that looked like a phone book in front of him, holding its bulk with both hands.
“What?”
“You two get to fix the stats.” Read more
Wednesday March Mariner News
Dan Wilson is retired. Beltre hit two home runs yesterday. That’s more than he hit in either June or September of last year.
Lots of people wrote angry columns about Barry Bonds. There’s no point to linking: you could click anywhere else on your monitor but this story and find four.
Save The Date
As a heads up, so we don’t have people complaining that we didn’t give them enough notice; Sunday, April 2nd, we’re having another USSM get together. Derek, Jason, Jeff, and I will all be in town, and barring Jeff getting any more communicable diseases, we’ll be hosting yet another awesome shindig at a really cool location with a pretty sweet special guest.
So, yea, that’s all the information you get right now. Stay tuned for more details, but April 2nd, you’re going to want to be available.
Baseball Poetry
One of the common shots leveled at statistical analysts of baseball is that they have no soul, no creativity, and that they’d rather stare at a sheet of numbers all day than enjoy the true beauty of baseball.
Keith Woolner gives that hypothesis the finger with a fantastic poem at Baseball Prospectus. It even gives Derek’s The Veteran a run for its money.
Mariner news of the day for Tuesday, March 7th
Deanna’s starting a baseball book club, which ties back into the review of Baseball Between the Numbers that ran here.
Horrible headline of the day: “Appier stops M’s bleeding” (PI, other versions at the TNT and in the weird world of Steve Kelley “The seasons in the sun are etched in the lines on his face.”). Also in the PI notebook: teams are getting into the supplement business (approved supplements).