Friday, August 22, 2003

Doubleheader 

Bronx Banter's Alex Belth has a pair of interviews to check out. The first is with Jane Leavy, author of the recent biography, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy. The second is with Jim Bouton, author of Foul Ball: My Life and Hard Times Trying to Save an Old Ballpark as well as the classic Ball Four. What with my tech woes (see below) and impending travel day, I haven't had a chance to read either of the interviews fully, but both look to live up to Alex's usual high standards, so check them out. Belth even drops Bouton's appearance in the Robert Altman movie, The Long Goodbye.

Speaking of Bouton, I'm pleased to announce that I'm the new sponsor of his Baseball-Reference page. The coolest website ever, B-R.com runs on user donations in the form of page sponsorships running from $2 to $565 (the Leagues Directory page) based on the amount of traffic they get. Last year I sponsored eight players: Luis Sojo, Mario Mendoza, Ron Gardenhire, Jay Buhner, Pedro Guerrero, Tommy Lasorda, David Cone, and Alfonso Soriano. Sori's page is up to $100 this year, so that's out of my budget, as is Coney's $45 page. But I renewed Sojo, Mendoza, Gardenhire, and Buhner, and haven't figured out what to do about Pedro and Lasorda. I'll probably add a couple more futility infielders instead. Anyway, if you use B-R.com one tenth as much as I do, you should spring for a page to help Sean Forman pay his server costs. There's plenty to be had in the $5-20 range, and it's a lot of fun to say that you sponsor a player. What the hell are you waiting for?

--posted by Jay at 10:42 AM LINK

The Reverse Midas Touch 

"If they're going to lose this game, I don't want to be around to see it." Those words, uttered on several occasions by my pal Nick, ran through my head during the top of the eighth inning of Wednesday's Yanks-Royals game. Having watched 16 innings of the Yanks kicking Royal butt over the previous 18 hours, I decided that the Bombers' 8-3 lead was safe enough for me to slip out early and run some important errands in anticipation of my upcoming trip. If the bullpen was going to collapse, I had better things to do.

It's a good thing I left. The Yankee bullpen did collapse, enough so that they allowed four ninth-inning runs. Joe Torre tried to give his a-listers a rest by starting off the ninth with Sterling Hitchcock, who gave up three hits and one run while getting one out. That was enough for Joe to look for alternatives, and with Jesse Orosco and Antonio Osuna (the Oh-Oh Brothers, as opposed to the 0-0 Brothers) done for the day and Jeff Nelson off limits because he'd pitched two straight days, Joe went for the easy decision to bring in Mariano Rivera, who'd at least had two days off. Mo made mo' trouble, allowing four straight singles. Carlos Beltran was thrown out rounding second base by Juan Rivera on the third of those four singles, and Mo finally struck out Desi Relaford to end the game. Ugggggly. Ugly enough that I'm grateful I missed it.

Juan Rivera was one of the bright spots for the Yanks, with an RBI double in their four-run second and an solo homer in the fifth, as well as his pivotal assist. Maybe he's a prospect after all, despite my disparaging comments. Aaron Boone started two rallies, leading off the second with a double and the fifth with a single. Nick Johnson poked a two-run homer following Boone's single. He was also hit by a pitch for the second game in a row after having gone unscathed all year. Recall that Johnson was notorious for getting hit by pitches both in the minors (he set an Eastern League record with 37 in 1999) and the majors (16 in 529 PA coming into this season).

Speaking of Johnson, B-Pro's Will Carroll really Yanked every Bomber fan's chain with this little snippet: "No one's talking about Nick Johnson's bones this week. Yet." I hurriedly emailed Will to ask if he knew something and he said that no, he just enjoyed reminding Yank fans of his fragility.

Or words to those effect; the actual response is on my seriously ill hard drive. I endured a cascade of computer disasters on Thursday, everything from a busted letter R on my laptop (new keyboard: $60) to the dreaded flashing question mark on my desktop computer to my girlfriend damn near chasing me around the East Village with a rolling pin when I applied my Reverse Midas touch to her iMac. I believe the term "shitrain" was invented to describe such days.

Before it all came down, I'd intended to do a more in-depth look at the chamber of horrors that is the Yankee bullpen. Just as well. Instead, I'll note only a couple of points. First, the Yankee bullpen's Adjusted Runs Prevented rating (a Baseball Prospectus stat) fell almost two runs based on Wednesday's game, from -4.8 to -6.7, meaning that they're now 6.7 runs below average in preventing inherited runners from scoring, 17th in the majors and hardly the stuff of the patented Yankee October magic. Second, that pen seems to screw Roger Clemens on a regular basis. Eight times in his 26 starts, the pen has allowed three runs or more of its own, which is pretty sick even if I don't have anything else to compare it to right now. Those eight collapses include two notorious failures in June when Rocket was in pursuit of win number 300. Alas, I don't have time to examine how well the runners he left behind have fared, but my guess is that it would be worse than average as well.

So anyway, I'm headed out of town for the next twelve days, to Salt Lake City and then the wilds of Wyoming's Wind Rivers region for some backpacking. I might get a post or two in on the weekends, but I'll be far from the daily box scores in between. Maybe that's a good thing right now. Like the Yankee bullpen, the less I get my hands on, the better.

--posted by Jay at 12:29 AM LINK

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Kicking Royal Butt 

The Yanks looked good for eight innings last night and terrible for one, holding on to beat the Royals 6-3. Alfonso Soriano and Bernie Williams each hit 2-run homers off of Kevin Appier, Karim Garcia connected for a solo shot (his third homer in three games), Jason Giambi stole a base standing up (!), and Andy Pettitte pitched well until the Yankee defense let him down in the seventh inning, but the bullpen bailed him out.

Leading 6-0, the Yanks suddenly looked like a Little League team behind Pettitte, making three errors in the seventh. For starters, Alfonso Soriano snagged a tough Raul Ibanez grounder that he should have eaten and threw wildly past first. The ball bounced into the stands, sending Ibanez to second. Joe Randa punched a single, scoring him, and then Ken Harvey quickly followed with another single. Pettitte settled down to strike out Mendy Lopez and induce Mike DiFelice to fly out.

Two strikes away from getting out of the jam, Andy gave up a scorcher to Desi Relaford down the first-base line which Nick Johnson couldn't come up with. Relaford took second, Harvey took third, and Randa scored. Then Soriano made his second error of the inning, hurrying to pick up Angel Berroa's grounder. Another run.

Joe Torre mercifully yanked Pettitte, who'd pitched well, throwing 76 out of 107 pitches for strikes, walking none and striking out six (Dandy Andy's on a 10-1, 3.13 run since June 8). Jeff Nelson came on and got Mike Sweeney to hit a comebacker, ending the threat. Nelson took care of business in the eighth as well, striking out two, and Mo Rivera pitched a solid ninth, with the game ending on a 4-6-3 double-play. That's six in a row for the Yanks, only two off their longest winning streak of the season (June 24–30 vs. the Rays, Mets, and Orioles).

Soriano's been hitting the ball HARD lately. In the past nine games (going back to the beginning of the first K.C. series), he's 12-for-43 with 10 extra-base hits (seven doubles, one triple, two homers). His plate discipline's gone to hell, but that's another story.

The Yanks recalled Juan Rivera before last night's game. Rivera will get a shot in right, despite Garcia's recent hot streak. This is mostly to keep Rivera eligible for the postseason roster, but it's a fairly dubious move; he's hitting only .237/.285/.351 this season in 123 PA. He's at .244/.290/.348 for his young career in 218 PA, and it's pretty apparent to everyone beyond Joe Torre that he's more suspect than prospect.

Hopefully this won't disrupt Garcia too much, because he's really earned his playing time. He's now at .343/.403/.629 as a Yank, and his defense has been solid as well. His plate discipline has shown improvement -- he's walked once for every 10 ABs as a Yank, the magic threshold of a responsible hitter. With Cleveland he'd only walked five times in 93 AB this year and six in 202 AB last year. Maybe it's a sample-size fluke, maybe it's having Soriano behind him in the order. But maybe this guy is for real, returning to the level he showed last year when he drove in 52 runs in his 53 games with the Indians after August 6.

On the subject of roster controversy, here's a headline from the New York Times today: "Weaver Does Nothing to Secure Roster Spot." And it makes sense. With a 7.75 ERA since the All-Star break, Jeff Weaver's spot in the major leagues, much less the Yankees rotation, is now in question. With the return of Jose Conteras looming, and perhaps Jon Lieber as well (not to mention Gabe White), the Yanks may not feel obligated to send Weaver out there for his regular pounding. Only the questionable health of David Wells works in Wevo's favor right now, but Wells is reportedly coming along nicely.

As for White, once he returns from his groin pull, expect the bell to toll for Jesse Orosco. At 46, Orosco appears to have finally reached his sell-by date. His ERA is 12.27 as a Yank and 8.16 overall. Nine out of the 20 batters he's faced have reached base, and when they hit him, they've hit him hard, for a .615 slugging percentage.

The Yanks are intent on carrying only 10 pitchers in the postseason. Add it up and you've got Clemens, Mussina, Pettitte, Wells, Hammond, Osuna, Nelson and Rivera as locks, leaving Weaver, Contreras, Hitchcock, Orosco, and White battling for the last two spots. White's almost a certainty IF he's healthy, and Conteras would appear to have the advantage on Weaver based solely on the fact that nobody's tattooed him lately. Hitchcock is insurance either way, but he could stick if the Yanks carry 11.

Fifteen position players means the Yanks have an imbalance to settle. They're heavy with outfielders (Williams, Matsui, Garcia, Sierra, Dellucci, Rivera) but have only one backup infielder in Enrique Wilson. Delluci's defense would appear to make him a lock as a reserve, and Garcia's surge ought to make him impossible to ignore. Ruben Sierra's been the forgotten man of late, and since he can't really play the field, he figures to be the one on the bubble. Erick Almonte might get a shot as an infielder, or the Yanks could make a waiver deal for a corner man. Adding it up we get: Posada, Flaherty, Giambi, Johnson, Soriano, Jeter, Boone, Wilson, Matsui, Williams, Dellucci, Garcia, Rivera. That's 13, leaving two spots up for grabs.

Lawrence Rocca of the Newark Star-Ledger suggest the Yanks look no further than their special-assignment coach, Luis Sojo, who still takes grounders every day. It's a half-crazy idea, but still more sane than Rocca's suggestion of Chuck Knoblauch, who was in the house last night and received a loud ovation. Sojo played briefly in the Mexican League earlier this year, hitting .410/.451/.590, though that tells you more about the level of play than it does about Looie Looie. As for Knoblauch, the Daily News reports that the 35-year old might attempt a comeback next year. Here's rooting for the Lil' Bastard to find a second act to his career.

--posted by Jay at 10:40 AM LINK

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Blasting Through 

I've had a tough time getting back on track since the blackout here, so at the risk of wallowing, I'm just going to blast through a quick rundown of the Yanks' recent games, along with a few more links.

I missed the first half of last weekend's Yankees-Orioles series in Baltimore, which was full of some appropriately weird stuff. Thursday night's game was played while New York City was blacked out, and with radio station WCBS carrying news coverage of the power outage, there was simply no way to follow the game here. Not that we didn't have better things to do. But I still haven't seen the game-saving catch Hideki Matsui made in the bottom of the seventh, and I'm not sure I ever will.

The Yanks won Friday night's game on a disputed 3-run home run by Aaron Boone. Mired in a 6-for-51 slump since joining the Yanks, Boone came to bat in the top of the 9th with two men on and the Yanks trailing 3-2. His drive down the left field line was initially ruled foul by third base umpire Jeff Nelson (no relation to the pitcher), but the crew overturned the ruling, allowing the home run to stand. The winning pitcher, of course, was the other Jeff Nelson. Like I said, weird stuff. Weirdo Larry Mahnken has a hilarious entry in his Replacement Level Yankees Weblog in which he envisions telling his grandchildren about Boone's blast. Larry's going to sound a lot like Abe Simpson in his old age.

Saturday's game turned into the Joe Torre Bonehead Festival. For starters, Torre failed to catch the Orioles batting out of turn in the first inning. With one out and men on second and third, Tony Batista brought his Samurai Chef batting stance to the box ahead of the listed cleanup hitter, Jay Gibbons. Batista delivered a sacrifice fly. Torre could have appealed under Rule 6.07 and nullified the run, but he didn't notice the flip-flop until after Gibbons batted. The error gnawed at Torre during the entire game: "I was beating myself up in the first inning, and I wasn't in the mood to really make an issue of it," he said. Mike C. has a thorough rantdown of the rule in question and another concerning other notable times this has happened.

Torre's second gaffe of the game was a bit more subjective, but no less excusable. In the ninth inning he called upon closer Mariano Rivera for the third straight day. Now, the Yanks' bullpen has been extremely spotty this season, but Torre's dependence on Rivera hasn't helped matters. This was the third time since the end of July that Torre called upon Rivera for at least three consecutive days, and all three of those streaks had brought trouble:

1) July 31-August 3: In this four-game run, Rivera blew two saves against the Oakland A's and took the loss, his first of the season, in the latter one. Those were only his third and fourth blown saves of the season.

2) August 6-August 8: Rivera not only blew a save against the Rangers, he also made a throwing error on a bunt, setting up a two-run single which hung him with his second loss in as many games. He converted his next two saves, though he allowed a run in one of them.

3) August 14-16: Rivera had allowed a three hits and a homer in the 9th inning of the second game after Boone hit his 3-run shot, but he converted the save.

So sure enough, Torre brought Rivera in for the third straight day, and Rivera yielded a game-tying leadoff homer to Luis Matos, his fourth blown save in 16 days. Hey, I know that's just a week in the office for Armando Benitez, and that Mo's a better pitcher than that, but it wouldn't kill Torre to have rested his closer for a day against a sub-.500 ballclub.

The game, which also featured the weirdness of backup catcher John Flaherty going yard twice, ended up lasting 12 innings. Jason Giambi homered in the top of the 12th, but the Orioles nearly tied the game in the bottom half. With two outs, Jeff Nelson walked Jack Cust, then yielded a double by Larry Bigbie into the right-centerfield gap. In one of the craziest sequences I've ever seen, rightfielder Karim Garcia relayed the ball to Alfonso Soriano, who threw to Aaron Boone at third, where the roly-poly Cust had slipped while rounding the bag. Boone dropped the ball but recovered in time, throwing to Jorge Posada at home to snag Cust in a rundown. Posada chased Cust back to third, but when he threw to Boone, Cust turned again, realizing nobody was covering home plate. Nelson, who should have been covering home, had headed to back up third on the relay. Boone frantically chased Cust toward home as the poor Oriole wiped out about 10 feet from the plate and was tagged out to end the game. That's 9-4-5-2-5 for those of you scoring at home.

Sunday's ballgame, fortunately for the Yanks, was anything but weird. Mike Mussina pitched his best game of the season, slamming the door on his former team with a three-hit, no-walk shutout and giving the bullpen a much-needed day off. Which was a good thing, since the Yanks needed that pen to start their series with the Kansas City Royals on the good foot last night. They piled on K.C. starter Jose Lima (making his first appearance since a trip to the DL) for six runs in four innings, enabling them to feast on the creamy nougat of the Royals' bullpen. Karim Garcia tagged Paul Abbott for a three-run shot, continuing his hot streak (.338/.392/.588 in pinstripes).

The Yanks needed most of those runs. Jeff Weaver slopped his way through 5.2 innings, allowing four, and Antonio Osuna gave up two more. Osuna's now allowed five runs and eight hits in his last 4.2 innings. But Nelson and Chris Hammond managed to close the shop for the Yanks. An ugly win, but a win nonetheless, their fifth in a row. Their lead over Boston is now 5.5 games, and the Sox have their next seven against the A's and Mariners in Fenway. Where would they be without Jeff Suppan?

I'm headed to the other two games of the K.C.-N.Y. series, one tonight and the other tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully the Yanks will have better luck against Kevin Appier this time around. Ape shut down the Yanks last Wednesday, and in his return to Royal blue, he's allowed only two runs in 11 innings.

• • •

I spoke to Baseball Prospectus injury guru/Rose reporter Will Carroll for the first time yesterday. Turns out he's a regular reader here just as I am at his Under the Knife column. Will thanked me for my even-handed coverage of BP's scoop and gave me a bit of a peek inside the case, pointing out that there's a distinction between "Rose reaching an agreeement with Major League Baseball" (which is what B-Pro's report said) and reaching an agreement with Commissioner Bud Selig, the man who can reinstate Rose.

Our conversation moved on to Mariano Rivera. I asked if he'd heard whether Rivera's latest struggles are injury-related and he sad no, he's pretty certain it's just fatigue and bad mechanics. He pointed to something I believe I recall from one his UTK columns: Baseball Tonight's Jeff Brantley mentioned recently that when Rivera is fatigued, his elbow drops and his arm slot gets all messed up. Keep an eye out for that. This means you, Joe Torre.

• • •

The Yanks made a roster move over the weekend, releasing Todd Zeile. With the return of Nick Johnson and the trade for Aaron Boone, Zeile's role had diminished while his bitching increased, making this an unsurprising move. It's been suggested that the Mariners might be interested in Zeile to play third base, and one look at their alternatives will tell you why. Here's a comparison of Zeile with the two organ donors who've been handling the hot corner for the M's:

                                   AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS HR RBI

Todd Zeile's rapidly aging corpse .214 .294 .349 .649  6  23

The Undead Jeff Cirillo           .210 .288 .278 .566  2  22

The Stillborn Willie Bloomquist   .250 .322 .322 .644  1  14

Barring a miracle, Cirillos' going to have to pay up on a wager he made with Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Jim Moore. If Cirillo doesn't hit .280, he will donate $20,000 to the Humane Society (and no, that's not like gambling on the outcome of a ballgame). Is it too harsh a suggestion that the most humane thing to do would be to put Cirillo down?

• • •

Brandon Claussen, the much-heralded prospect the Yanks sent to the Reds for Aaron Boone has been shut down for the season. ESPN's Jayson Stark had reported a couple weeks ago that scouts had noticed Claussen's velocity dropping. Said one scout:

I saw him in his first game (in the Reds' system), and his fastball was 86-88 mph. If he gets back to 90-92, then they've really got something, because his makeup is good, his knowledge of pitching is good and he throws his curve and change to both sides of the plate.

After struggling in two starts at AAA Louisville, the Reds wisely decided to protect the young lefty, who'd undergone Tommy John surgery late last June and had returned on a rapid timetable. The move obviously delays Claussen's arrival in Cincy until next season, but the pitcher isn't upset. Said Claussen, ""My innings and my pitch count were getting to the point where I was getting in that red zone, so we felt like it was a better fit if I shut it down now and got ready for next year."

This news does temper some of my criticism about the Yanks trading Claussen. Based on his impresive major-league debut and Jeff Weaver's continued struggles, I felt that the Yanks should have traded Weaver somewhere instead and inserted the rookie into the rotation, at least until Jose Contreras came around. But the Yanks probably realized that Claussen didn't have much left in the tank this season, easing their decision to pull the trigger on the Boone deal. That's not to say Claussen would qualify as damaged goods, however. In all likelihood the Reds knew exactly what they were getting.

• • •

Speaking of Stark, the ESPN columnist has a lengthy piece on TJ surgery which carries much of the same info as a segment on Outside the Lines I wrote up recently. On the evolution of the surgery from cutting-edge to commonplace, Stark writes:

So isn't it amazing to think that it was only 29 years ago that Tommy John headed into Dr. Frank Jobe's operating room to become the first ligament-transplant guinea pig?

Back then, what Tommy John was doing was almost as revolutionary as landing on the moon. Now, all these John Smoltzes and Kerry Woods later, it's almost as routine as going to the dentist... there's a better chance of something going wrong with the teeth-cleaning machine than there is of something going wrong when Dr. Andrews or Dr. Jobe is borrowing some tendon from your wrist or hamstring to replace your blown-out elbow ligament. There are no guarantees in medicine, but Tommy John surgery is about as close as it gets. Jobe and Andrews now estimate there is a 92-to-95-percent chance patients will recover from Tommy John surgery as good as new. Maybe better.

Stark runs through the litany of major-leaguers who have had the surgery and points to Jon Leiber, whom the Yanks signed to a two-year contract knowing that the first year (this one) would most likely be a wash as he rehabbed: "A two-year contract for a Tommy John patient isn't a sign that baseball contracts are now officially like hitting the lottery. It's a sign that the procedure has become probably the safest bet in modern sports medicine."

--posted by Jay at 5:10 PM LINK

Sunday, August 17, 2003

Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? 

Another crisis has come and gone in New York City, and I'm happy to say that I made it through the 2003 blackout -- the largest blackout in U.S. history -- unscathed and in good spirits. Here in the East Village, we lost power for 29 hours, from 4:10 PM on Thursday around 9:10 PM on Friday, making us just about the last people in New York City to get our juice back.

I'm working on a lengthy writeup of my experience during the blackout, including some photos taken by my girlfriend. It has almost nothing to do with baseball, but I thought my readers might enjoy a first-hand account of the situation beyond the usual news reports. My piece should be up in the next couple of days.

--posted by Jay at 5:10 PM LINK