Kitty Kaat in Limbo

George Steinbrenner’s decision to start a regional sports network which would broadcast Yankees, Nets and Devils games means the end of their relationship with the Madison Square Garden (MSG) Network. The YankeeNets recently paid MSG a $30 million buyout to end their current working relationship after the season.

The crew which announces the majority of the Yankees games thus finds itself in limbo. Jim Kaat and Ken Singleton are the A-team, with Al Trautwig and Suzyn Waldman in the support roles. Kaat and Singleton are a fine duo–I much prefer them to Fox’s Yankee team of Tim McCarver and Bobby Murcer. Whereas McCarver can’t resist acting as the know-it-all, and Murcer vacillates between demonstrating his mastery of the obvious and simply being a blatant homer, Kaat & Singleton are a smooth, even-keeled, knowledgable duo. Whereas Fox’s blaring production gets old real fast even in the most exciting of ballgames, MSG’s low-key approach is perfect for the long haul of a season.

It would be a shame to lose the duo. But Kaat says the MSG team’s not succumbing to lame-duck thinking. “I tried to condition myself just as I would if I was still a player,” Kaat says in this NY Daily News article. “When you hear trade rumors, and things like that, the only thing I can control is what I do on the field. That’s kind of the way I feel in the booth.”

Kaat says that being the voice of the Yankees is the best local gig in the majors. Here’s hoping he and his partner get to keep that gig on the Boss’s new channel.

This Could Get Ugly

I made the mistake of checking the headlines before bed, and the news for the Yankees does not look good. The NY Times and other outlets are reporting that the Yanks are seriously considering trading Chuck Knoblauch to the Seattle Mariners for Al Martin and Brett Tomko, and signing former Yankee outfielder Gerald Williams, recently released by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the worst team in baseball.

Friends, if ever we need evidence that the end of the Yankees reign as World Champions is nigh, it will be in the transaction lines that seal these deals. While Tomko would be a decent addition to the pitching staff, the moves will leave the moribund Yankee offense with even worse prospects, and go against the tenet around which the Yankee dynamo has been built: get on base.

                 career OBP   2001 OBP  career SLG*OBP    2001 SLG*OBP

Chuck Knoblauch    .384        .342         .159             .115

Al Martin          .340        .305         .153             .105

Gerald Williams    .306        .261         .128             .087

Slugging Percentage times On Base Percentage is a very crude stat I discussed a few days back; roughly speaking, it translates as runs created per at bat. Knoblauch has struggled this season, but even at his worst he is miles better than the competition at getting on base. If the Yanks plug one of these two cadavers in the leadoff spot, I will personally turn in my membership in the Joe Torre Is A Managerial Genius club card while the Yankee offense dies on the vine.

Gerald Williams hit 21 HR and drove in 89 runs for the last-place Rays last season. But he got on base at only a .312 clip and was as big a reason why the Rays remained the most pathetic offense in the league. He was released earlier this week because he was 66 plate appearances short of vesting a $4 million contract for 2002, and because the Rays seem to have caught on to his incompetence. Williams’s agent made some hysterical noises about the release being unjustified, but anybody who analyzes Williams’s stats can’t help but conclude he’s dragging an offense down.

Al Martin’s claim to big league fame is that he was arrested for bigamy. As Chevy Chase says, that’s illegal, even in Utah. Martin’s having a hard time getting arrested on a ballfield lately, to the tune of a 648 OPS. He’s a horrible LF as well, certainly no better than Knoblauch, who at least has the excuse of never playing out there before.

Knoblauch’s baggage, along with an unconfirmed but long-rumored handshake deal for 2 years at $9 million per, is probably a driving force behind the Seattle deal. It doesn’t help that he’s in the midst of a 38-for-192 slump (.198). Tomko is a servicable swingman, having shown flashes of competence as a starter but much more consistency as a reliever (4.82 ERA as a starter, 3.64 as a reliever coming into this season). Ostensibly, he would fill the role Ramiro Mendoza doesn’t seem capable of filling since coming back from surgery.

For the Yankees, losing Knoblauch at the top of the lineup would be the end of an era. He has never measured up to the player the Yanks thought they were getting from Minnesota in 1997, but his style of taking pitches and getting on base by any means necessary–including taking a pitch in the elbow–particularly in the midst of a rally, have earned him a spot near and dear to my heart. He’s the Lil’ Bastard Instant Rally Kit, as we say around here. The Yanks could move Derek Jeter to the leadoff spot–he’s fared very well there in the past–or could elevate Alfonso Soriano. A month ago this move would have been laughable, as Soriano drew only 3 walks in his first 50 games. But Soriano has started to draw walks and cut down on his strikeouts. His OBP for June is .372, and he and Knoblauch have been swapping the league lead in stolen bases. It would be a huge risk given his lack of established ability to get on base, but the Yanks have already banked a considerable portion of their future on him, and they may believe he’s turned a corner.

Still, these moves do not bode well for the Yankee offense, unless Torre can take At-Bats from some of the stiffs in the Yankee lineup. 200 plate appearances by Gerald Williams will not solve their problems, it will doom them.

Site Admin Notes

This past weekend I sent out an email marking the official launch of this site. I’ve been building it for two and a half months and updating this web log almost daily for about 3 weeks, but I resisted the temptation to tell EVERYBODY about it until certain issues were solved. Unfortunately, some glitches occurred in sending it out (less than half of the people in my ad hoc “focus group” reported receiving the launch letter), so last night I sent it again; apologies if this bothered anyone.

And apparently more glitches are happening; I’ve been told that emails to me at jay@futilityinfielder.com have been bouncing occasionally. If that happens to you, please email me at jayjaffe@nyc.rr.com.

Both the home page and the web log page have a small graphic which links to a counter service that compiles stats about how many people are visiting my site.

I have visits to two brand-new ballparks scheduled in the next month. The first is the new ballpark in Brooklyn, home of the Class A Brooklyn Cyclones farm team. My friend Lille went to Opening Night on Monday and had a great time. She says the new park is pretty impressive. Also on my schedule is a trip to Milwaukee which will include a game at Miller Park, courtesy of my girlfriend’s parents (thank you!). I’m looking forward to seeing both of these and reporting back.

Stolen from the Book of Earl

Pittsburgh Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon, who may have the worst job in baseball, got in an argument last night over a close play at first base. Routine enough, but after McClendon blew a gasket, he then pulled the first base bag out of the ground and stormed off the field with it. The umps ejected him and the grounds crew supplied a replacement bag before the game continued. There’s a streaming video from this page; McClendon’s hilarious antics are about a minute and a half in.

I recall reading about Earl Weaver, Baltimore’s great spitfire manager, doing a similar thing when he was managing in the minors. This is the first I’ve heard of a manager doing it in the majors though.

Living and Dye-ing with the Boss

Bob Klapisch reports here that the Yankees turned down a deal for Kansas City outfielder Jermaine Dye. Desperate for a bat to prop up the Yanks sagging offense, GM Brian Cashman nevertheless deemed the price–second baseman Alfonso Soriano and AAA first baseman Nick Johnson–too steep.

The Yankees have won the World Series each of Brian Cashman’s three years in the GM chair. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that other members of the Yankee brass have a significant input into his job, the fact that Cashman doesn’t have a contract beyond this year speaks volumes about what it’s like to work for The Man from Tampa. Still, Cashman refused to pull the trigger on a deal that has ramifications he may not be around to see.

“[N]o matter what happens to me, I don’t want to be remembered as the Yankee general manager who sold the future of the franchise down the river, just for the sake of one more championship,” says Cashman.

Privately, according to Klapisch, the Yanks brass has acknowledged that 2001 is a transitional year. Next year, shed of Paul O’Neill and Tino Martinez, and probably others, the future is brighter. But it is probably premature to expect the Infield of Tomorrow–Nick Johnson, Soriano, Derek Jeter, and Drew Henson–to be in place by next Opening Day. Still, the Yanks have a strong home-grown nucleus to build around.

Neither Cashman nor Manager Joe Torre have contracts yet for next year. Even if the Yanks don’t win it all this year, both of them have track records and commitments to the long-term health of the organization which should be rewarded with extensions. Not to mention the fact that both have lasted longer and held up better under the strains of working for the Boss than anybody ever thought possible. Now that the Man from Tampa has wrapped up his TV plans, he should take care of these fine leaders.

Do Managers Ever Learn?

Sometimes it appears that managers have taken the information revealed by the sabermetric revolution to heart. Falling pitch counts are one area, the increased emphasis in On Base Percentage is another.

But there’s one area in particular where the statistical evidence points towards exactly the opposite of what most managers seem to do. And it’s something that often costs them the ballgame. I’m talking about the tendency of a manager to let a tiring pitcher start off an inning in which he will be pulled if he gets into trouble.

First off there’s the pitch count issue; the current working theory is that pitches beyond a certain threshold (say, 120 pitches) are more likely to lead to ineffectiveness and injury. That’s a topic for another day, however.

In Bill James’s 1987 Baseball Abstract, James reported on research done by Gary Skoog with regards to how many runs a team would score based on a certain situation (i.e., runner on first, one out). Here is that matrix:

Expected number of runs    0 outs  1 out   2 outs

no one on                  0.454   0.249   0.095

runner on first            0.783   0.478   0.209

runner on second           1.068   0.699   0.348

runner on third            1.277   0.897   0.382

runners on first & second  1.380   0.888   0.457

runners on first & third   1.639   1.088   0.494

runners on second & third  1.946   1.371   0.661

bases loaded               2.254   1.546   0.798

What these numbers mean is that at the start of 1000 innings (0 on, 0 out), teams can be expected to score 454 runs. With a runner on first and no outs, that expectation rises to 783 runs per 1000 innings; with one out and nobody on, that expectation falls to 249 runs per 1000 innings.

The difference between those two states (runner on first, 0 out and no runner, 1 out) is greater than the expectation of runs at the start of the inning. The leadoff batter is THE MOST IMPORTANT BATTER. When he gets on, teams score runs–at LEAST three times as many runs as if the first batter makes an out.

So why in the HELL would a manager risk letting his (tiring) pitcher screw up the start of an inning? I’m sure it has something to do with instilling confidence in your starters (blah, blah, blah), wanting to save your bullpen (blah, blah, blah), or some bullshit along those lines. But unless your only relief options have been soaking in kerosene or are named Bobby Ayala, this tendency strikes me as an incredibly backward way of thinking.

I realize the limitations of this matrix. Since these are averages, certain situations, such as having Rey Ordoñez leading off your inning (lower run expectancy at 0,0) or Barry Bonds (much, much higher), might dictate a change in strategy. Managers might also choose their pitcher here based on the platoon advantage (righty pitching to righty), but that advantage is only on the order of 20-25 points of batting average. And then there’s the disadvantage of bringing in a reliever with men on base: pitching from the stretch, limited pitch selection, wild pitches… so much more can go wrong with a man on base.

I didn’t watch Yankees game today, but Ted Lilly’s pitch count was nearing 120 as he went back out for the 8th inning. He had a 4-1 lead, and had pitched a good ballgame, striking out 9 batters and allowing only 5 hits. Joe Torre had any number of options to get two innings out of the bullpen, including one of the best closers in the biz, Mariano Rivera. Rivera and setup man Mike Stanton have been overworked, but even if Torre didn’t want to use them, he should have put his pen in the best situation possible to finish the game. And that means starting with a clean slate at the beginning of an inning.

Lilly allowed a double to Steve Cox and was done for the day. With the number of pitches he’d thrown, he wasn’t going to throw a complete game, so why the hell was he still out there? Brian Boehringer came in, allowed a double and a walk before yielding to Stanton, who, with the roof on fire added just a little more Ronsonol, and when the ashes settled the Yanks were down 5-4.

It’s easy to sit here and second-guess an individual set of decisions a manager makes. That’s not my intention; Joe Torre has won four more World Championships than I have, and he’s a fine manager. But he, and dozens of other managers I’ve watched since I first read Bill James, keep making this mistake, and it drives me crazy.

[Somebody whose site I discovered (‘Rhoids Baseball, whatever the heck that is) in searching for the above table has updated the data based on more current run scoring tendencies. Here is the revised table. The current values of 0 on, 0 out (0.58), runner on 1st, 0 out (0.98), and 1 out, 0 on (0.31) are all higher, but their ratios are similar enough that they don’t change my argument.]

And Ye Shall Know Them by the Numbers on Their Backs

USA Today writer Steve Gardner chooses the best player ever to wear uniform numbers 1-50. One could quibble with his choices (mine starts with the lack of a 56 to award Jim Bouton), but it’s a fun little list.

So long as Gardner filled out spots with managers, he should have at least mentioned the only man I ever think of wearing #1: Billy Martin, five-time ex-Yankee manager, who’s probably running a great ballclub down in Hell right now.

The Hint of Greatness

Ray Ratto’s columns for ESPN have made him one of my favorite writers. His satire tends to be wittier and less ham-fisted than many of the other ESPN writers (Jim Caple, I’m looking in your direction). This piece on Jose Canseco isn’t satire, though.

Canseco’s ups and downs since his salad days with the Oakland A’s have made him an easy target every time he goes on the DL or switches teams. Road rage, ‘roids, and that awful haircut are usually the first places to start. But rather than roasting Canseco, Ratto cuts to the heart of his appeal: “[S]ome folks are just naturally gifted enough to convince others that their gifts can still be mined… All he needs is to get untracked, to find the swing that launched a lot of pitchers’ next careers. At least that’s the theory the White Sox are clinging to…”

There is something incredibly magnetic about Canseco, like Darryl Strawberry before he reached the Last Straw phase. Both were humbled by health difficulties and the consequences of their arrogance. Both went down to the minor leagues to prove that they still had the ability, on a good day, to hit a baseball further than most of us can even dream about. Both have the charisma to make you believe in them again, even when the rational part of your brain tells you otherwise.

It remains to be seen whether Canseco can do for his new team, the Chicago White Sox, what Darryl did while wearing pinstripes (emphasis on wearing, please). For what it’s worth, Canseco did manage to get a hell of a lot more out of his talent than the Straw–his failure to get into the Hall of Fame would set a new benchmark for the most homers without enshrinement (he surpassed Dave Kingman’s 442 last season, and is holding at 446). And his life is nowhere near as tragic as Darryl’s, a lesson I’m sure is not lost on the man after his tour of duty with the Yankees.

So, cheers to Jose Canseco if he can hit a few more big flies without getting a swollen head. And cheers to Ratto for taking a thoughtful high road when the low one would have been so easy.

Bite Me!

This is a good one. It wasn’t enough for two Cincinnati Reds coaches, Ron Oester and Tim Foli (both scrappers in their playing days), to go at it after a loss. They took their fighting back to the schoolyard. Oester “had Foli in a headlock and Foli bit Oester on the leg,” according to the article. Now Foli can truthfully tell manager Bob Boone that he has bad taste in 3rd Base Coaches.

Oester, it may be recalled, turned down the job as Reds’ manager because the Cincinnati organization lowballed him. Oddly enough, he did agree to stay on as a coach, presumably drawing even less salary. Boone, desperate to prove once again that he could over-manage, took the job. But he wasn’t even allowed to choose his own coaches, except for Foli. It always amazes me how penny-pinching teams would rather suffer through their own incompence of their own staff decisions rather than firing a guy and paying him NOT to do his job.

Oester wasn’t even the first guy to turn the job down because the money stank; Yanks coach Willie Randolph was. Randolph’s gotta be smiling right about now…

Salon’s Allen Barra weighs in with an interesting piece on Barry Bonds. As we all know, Barry is well ahead of Mark McGwire’s 1998 home run pace, having tallied 37 home runs (unless he’s hit another since I had my morning coffee) in 70 games. But Barra proposes that Bonds may be on his way to the best season ever, based not on home runs but on another stat.

Barra uses a stat called SLOB, which is Slugging Percentage times On Base Percentage. He details the history of the stat, which was independently developed by two researchers in the ’70s. Then he goes on to claim that SLOB “does a remarkable job of calculating actual team runs”. So remarkable, to Barra at least, that he moves straight to an assertion that Bonds’ SLOB of .4418 means, roughly speaking, that he has “created” .4418 runs per at bat, or 44.18 per 100 at bats.

Whoa, hoss! Let’s back up. Over the past two decades, many statistical ways to accurately measure offensive contribution have sprung up. The best of these do a very good job of projecting how many runs a team will score based on certain offensive factors, such as hits, walks, and total bases.

Bill James devised a formula called Runs Created which is probably the most famous, thanks to James’s role as a pioneering sabermetrician (sabermetrics, an acronym derived from the Society for American Baseball Research, is, in James’s definition, the search for objective knowledge about baseball). Other formulas include Pete Palmer’s Batting Runs, Paul Johnson’s Estimated Runs Produced, Jim Furtado’s Extrapolated Runs, Clay Davenport’s Equivalent Runs, and Keith Woolner’s Value Over Replacement Player.

Some of these are formulas are easier to understand than others. I’ve always been partial to James’ system for a number of reasons: they are easy to calculate, their methods demonstrate an implicit understanding of the mechanics of offense (getting on base and advancing runners). James’s published work always took the time to clarify the details of his methods. But the recent work in the field seems to have moved past James’s formula, and even the man himself conceded the limitations of his work.

SLOB actually turns out to be something of a shorthand of James’ formula; when you multiply SLG * OBP * AB (the number of at bats) you get a pretty decent estimate of the number of runs a team will score. Looking at the two leagues last season:

Year Lg  SLOB Runs   Actual   Error
2000 AL   12039      11995     3.6%
2000 NL   12958      12976     1.7%
1999 AL   11798      11725     6.2%
1999 NL   12983      12966     1.3%

As I have a day job which I’m supposed to be doing right now, I’m not going to take this much further except to say that it works pretty damn well for a lazy person to calculate on a lunch break. It’s not the most accurate estimate, just a very easy one to deal with, and it also meshes very well with another stat growing in popularity, OPS, which is OBP + SLG. OPS has entered the mainstream thanks to the work of writers such as ESPN’s Rob Neyer. It’s a handy metric, but this appears to be even better and no more complicated.

So anyway, Barry Bonds, at .4418, is right now second only to Babe Ruth’s 1920 season, at .4506. The only other person besides the Babe whose SLOB is in the ballpark is Ted Williams, with .4049 in 1941. That’s some pretty good company—the two greatest hitters ever, in fact. It’s not likely Bonds can maintain his pace, in which he’s hit almost twice as many home runs as singles, but he’s got a clear shot at a season for the ages.