Radical Re-alignment

Inspired by two fangraphs items: Maury Brown's "Playing the God of Baseball" and a comment by Dave Cameron in a recent FanGraphs chat.

Maury Brown wants to balance the divisions and create a system that puts real restraint on the Yankee's runaway spending, and Dave Cameron thinks the only way to do the latter is to put a third team in New York. These ideas raise a lot of questions. To balance the divisions in the current setup, you would have to have one inter-league game every day--is that really a good idea?. And if you add a third team to New York, which league and division would have two New York teams? And where would that team come from--expansion or relocation?

Here's my idea about how to address these questions, through a truly radical realignment. (Is this going to happen. Probably not. But I had fun thinking about it.)

Here's the basic idea: rather than splitting 30 MLB teams into 2 leagues, and having a constant trickle of inter-league games, split the 30 teams into 3 Leagues. Each leagues plays 5 games per night. New York gets a team in each league.

I think expansion is unlikely--there are really not any more large markets without a baseball team, except Montreal. (See Al Streit's article). In my mind, the best candidate for relocation is Tampa Bay. The fifth smallest market, with a really bad 20-year old ballpark. Kansas City would be a prime target, except they recently renovated what was already a really nice park in Kauffman Stadium.

So with that said, here's my crack at the divisions:

National League		American League		Federal League
West	East	West	East	West	East
Arizona	Cincinnati	Milwaukee	Cleveland	Kansas City	Washington
SF Giants	Pittsburgh	Oakland	Baltimore	Texas	Florida
Chi. Cubs	St. Louis	Seattle	Detroit	San Diego	Atlanta
Houston	Philadelphia	Colorado	Boston	Minnesota	Toronto
LA Dodgers	NY Mets	LA Angels	NY Yankees	Chi. Sox	Brooklyn Rays

In structuring the division, I'm seeking to keep the oldest franchises in their respective divisions, with the Sox being the odd team bumped to the new league, keep the divisions balanced in terms of their competetiveness, and try to keep travel distances down. Competetiveness, of course, varies from year to year and decade to decade, so I'm trying to give each division it's share of small- and large-market teams. Currently, for instance, the average market size for an NL Central team is nearly half of the average for the NL East. My realigned divisions (along with the move from Tampa to New York) bring those averages closer together:

	Current Average Market Size	Average Market Size in Realignment
NL West	4.07 million	4.84 million
NL Central	2.98 million	--
NL East	5.72 million	4.04 million
AL West	5.12 million	3.91 million
AL Central	3.55 million	--
AL East	5.46 million	5.02 million
FL West	--	3.47 million
FL East	--	4.71 million

Structuring playoffs would be the most complicated and thorniest issue. Brown wants to expand the field of teams into the playoffs, but I'm in agreement with some of the commenters who say a 162-game season really should be enough to separate the cream. I think more teams in the baseball playoffs would take away the drama of pennant races (hey, most of us are getting in anyway!) and would make the post-season too long.

So here's how I would do it:
Each division champion plays in a League Championship--the NLCS, the ALCS, and the FLCS. Two wildcards are selected: one from the Eastern divisions, and one from the Western divisions. They play each other in the Wild Card Championship Series.

The remaining four teams--the NL Champion, the AL Champion, the FL Champion and the Wild Card winner, square off against each other. How these assignments are made is an open question for me, but I think I would avoid having the AL and NL champs play each other--it would recall too strongly the current World Series, even though it wouldn't be. Perhaps the AL or NL team with the best reg-season record would play the FL or WC team with the worst regular season record. The winners of these two series would square off again in the World Series.

The downside is, of course, that winning an AL pennant wouldn't carry the same weight. But the upside for traditionalist would be that only one wild card team could make the world series. The leagues might have to consider scheduling more interleague games, too, in order to allow each team to compete against the other teams in its "Wild Card Race." That would make interleague games more regional in focus (East vs. East), which is likely better for attendance, but it would mean some teams would never some play teams in other leagues (Cincinnati would never play Seattle, for instance.)

The All-Star game could easily be reformatted as and East-vs.-West contest. Or be more creative with it: fan selections vs. player selections (the tie goes to the side with the highest percentage of votes toward that player--i.e. Ichiro is the top fan-vote-getter, so he goes to the fan team).

Ahh, but what to do with the DH? Well, you could let the teams of the new league determine that. Alternatively, let the new Federal League have a Designated Pinch Hitter--a manager can pinch hit for a pitcher once in a game without removing the pitcher--but the pinch hitter can't go back in the game. (Thanks to a couple commenters on fangraphs for reminding me of this idea). As it is now, the home ballpark determines the rule (including in the All-Star game).

McGwire as a proxy for the steriod discussion

Surprise! Another 90's slugger took steroids! (Topic for another post: what does the existence of "The Steroid Era" do for Edgar Martinez' Hall of Fame candidacy?)

I understand people are tired of this. USSMariner and Fangraphs don't bother to mention it. Standard news outlets are reporting it, but it will go away tomorrow. People in my Facebook feed are posting stuff about Conan O'Brien and the Haitian earthquake, but the McGwire story is absent.

This isn't exactly News, as much as confirmation. People have long suspected McGwire of using PEDs (and not just Andro), and he's had paltry Hall of Fame support because of these suspicions. And because so many big names have admitted or been caught using PEDs, McGwire's admission just makes him normal. Graham at Lookout Landing can't get angry about McGwire. Fine.

I'm still bothered by it. Not destroy-my-love-of-baseball bothered. Not ruin-my-day bothered. I'm not even angry. But I do care. Here's why:

Steroids were against the rules. Even though there was no testing policy in place, steroids and other illegal drugs were banned by Commissioner Fay Vincent in 1991. If you used steroids, you broke the rules.

Taking PEDs is cheating. Sport is a quintessentially human activity. PEDs diminish athletes' humanity, because they make the athlete something closer to a machine than a human being au naturale. To quote Michael Sanders (of the Presidents Council on Bioethics):

It is one thing to hit 70 home runs as the result of disciplined training and effort, and something else, something less, to hit them with the help of steroids or genetically-enhanced muscles. Of course the role of effort and enhancement will be a matter of degree. But as the role of the enhancement increases, our admiration for the achievement fades. Or rather, our admiration for the achievement shifts from the player to his pharmacist. This suggests that our moral response to enhancement is a response to the diminished agency of the person whose achievement is enhanced. The more the athlete relies on drugs or genetic fixes, the less his performance represents his achievement. At the extreme, we might imagine a robotic, bionic athlete who, thanks to implanted computer chips that perfect the angle and timing of his swing, hits every pitch in the strike zone for a home run. The bionic athlete would not be an agent at all; "his" achievements would be those of his inventor. According to this account, enhancement threatens our humanity by eroding human agency. Its ultimate expression is a wholly mechanistic understanding of human action at odds with human freedom and moral responsibility.

Read the full paper here.

Peer, fan, and media pressure do not exempt players from personal responsibility. None of us is an island. We all come from somewhere, grow out of a set of circumstances, are influenced and limited by our environments. I think we often overestimate our ability to transcend our circumstances. I don't condemn McGwire for doing what all the fans, his fellow players, the league and the media, implicitly or explicitly, were telling him to do: "hit as many homeruns in a season as you can, whatever it takes, even if it means PEDs." But I do believe in real human agency. That taking PEDs was so easy, that the system was gamed to reward players who took them--these are not McGwire's doing. We, as fans, bear responsibility for that. But McGwire still made choices, and unless we believe that EVERY player took steroids, we can say that some players made different choices. Hence, McGwire could have refrained.

I will give McGwire credit for coming forward himself, for admitting, before someone produced damning evidence, that he used banned steroids. I give him credit for realizing that his actions affected others: his family, the commissioner, the Maris family, and the fans. He clearly regrets his decisions, and it clearly pains him to have let people down. On a personal level, I know firsthand how hard it is to admit to people you love that you have let them down, even betrayed their trust.

But I also give McGwire "credit" for taking steroids in the first place. And I do think it matters.

Where we are now

I hope to summarize here how I understand the Mariners current situation in the context of how I understand what makes a Baseball team win. Interspersed are the questions I still have (if there's an answer out there, I haven't read it, and if there isn't, I don't have the passion or skill to figure it out myself.)

It's nearly impossible to say anything new about the M's or Baseball in general these days. I don't know how Dave Cameron sleeps, but between USSMariner and Fangraphs, he must average more than three posts per day (955 posts in 15 months on Fangraphs alone!), and he is only one of several contributors to USSM. Add the often-insightful (and often "colorful," shall we say) commentary and analysis on Lookout Landing and the beat reporting found on the Seattle Times Mariners Blog, it's no surprise that most of us that started blogs during the early years of the Bavasi regime have quit, officially or unofficially. What is there to say?

Like many fields, quanitative baseball analysis is getting more and more technical. I used to be ahead of the curve using OPS and range factor, but you used to be ahead of the curve if you were using a modem. I later "upgraded" to VORP and Zone Rating, but I only have a vague idea about wOBA and xFIP and tRA in the same way my grandfather had a vague idea about what the Internet was. Needless to say, I have an easy time being convinced by the preeminent bloggers and a hard time adding anything to the discussion. What follows is not supposed to be an original argument, just an assessment of where one long-time fan sees going on in baseball in general and with the Mariners specifically.

Voros McCracken was mostly right
The only really reliable way to project pitching performance in the future is to assume pitchers can't control the batting average of balls in play (BABIP). The more groundballing a pitcher is, the better chance he has of avoiding home runs, but BABIP is higher on ground balls. The way to reduce BABIP is to have a great defense behind you.

For the Mariners, the spacious Safeco Field outfield allows flyball pitchers to succeed more than in other contexts, as long as they have a defense to turn those flyballs into outs. And the M's have that.

Ben Franklin should have coined aphorisms (no pun intended) about baseball
"A run prevented is a run scored," might have been his maxim. It doesn't matter if you win 3-1 or 10-8; what matters is that you score more runs than your opponent. (Is it that simple? Is it harder to reliably win low-scoring games, since the margin of victory is small?)

The Mariners have applied this principle to the extreme, improving due to their increased run prevention, having allowed the fewest runs of any American League team this year. In fact, if you add the runs scored and runs allowed totals together, the Mariners have the lowest total in the AL by far. They have taken the low-scoring offense, low-run-allowing defense model as far as you can take it. (The AL comparison makes more sense here than all-MLB, since NL offenses have to include pitchers.) Can the M's improve any further by improving their defense? Or must they look to other areas?

The Mariners drive an Acura, but not a Porsche (of which the Yankees own a fleet)
The M's still rank tenth in MLB payroll this year, but indications from the front office are that we won't likely increase our ranking signficantly. In the last ten years, the M's have been as low as 15th and as high as 7th, but they have never been the highest spenders in their division.

For the last eight years, the Yankee's payroll has been twice the median MLB payroll, despite the increase in revenue sharing and luxury tax:


So, the M's can spend some money, but don't have a money tree in the backyard.

Defense is a Bargain and Pitching is a ripoff, and hitting is...
...you get what you pay for?

Dave Cameron has repeatedly (and for the most part, convincingly) argued that what many have called good pitching is really mostly good defense. Jarrod Washburn is Exhibit A in this case. Washburn was marginally better this year than last, but the defense was exponentially better. He's come back to earth, and we've lost little by replacing him with Ryan Rowland-Smith.

Free Agent pitchers are almost always a bad deal. And again we are reminded that the attrition rate for pitching prospects is much higher than for hitters.

Which brings me to the set of my most pressing questions:
Since the Mariners have limited resources, doesn't it make sense to focus on acquiring--through free agency or player development--good hitters?
Can they offset a lack of elite pitching talent with enough hitting and defense to make them competetive for a playoff spot?
How much should they pay to retain the valuable players they have (in particular, Felix Hernandez)?

And finally: if the Mariners can go from forehead-slapping dumb to giddy-laughter smart in one season, how much longer will they be able to exploit market inefficiencies caused by other ignorant front offices? How much longer until every front office knows how to rightly evaluate defense? How much longer before the advantages of being smart can't overcome the advantages of being rich?

Remember that at-bat, Yuni

Dear Yuni,

It was probably a fluke, not a sign of a change in your approach. But let's take a look at that second-inning at-bat:

Wait for a pitch to drive, and VOILA!

(We need to see more of these to offset the giant sieve that your defense has become. )

Jose Lopez: does hope spring eternal?

There is a fantastic discussion about what we might expect (and hope for) regarding Jose Lopez over on USS Mariner. Some commenters are taking on Dave Cameron's argument in a compelling way, no easy feat. Which is why you should go vote for Dave in his blogging scholarship contest--where would we fans be without USSM sanity?

You heard it here first

The most anticlimatic World Series victory will occur if this Game 5 is called on account of rain.

Armstrong still doesn't get it

Mariner's president Chuck Armstrong nixed the deal for Jarrod Washburn, according to Geoff Baker. Several theories about about why he did show up on Baker's blog entry and the comments:

• Armstrong wanted a valuable player in return, not just the savings of not having to pay him. The problem is that Washburn isn't just under contract for 2008; he's due $10M in 2009. This is about like going to a store and insisting on an exchange instead of a refund.
• Having let Bavasi run a little wild with spending and payroll, Armstrong decided he'd be taking a more involved roll in personell/payroll decisions. Fine. Except this decision was to save money, not spend it. Armstrong's interference increases payroll next year. How is that being more fiscally responsible?

No matter how you want to dress it up, it comes down to this: Chuck Armstrong thinks he can evaluate baseball talent. He thinks Jarrod Washburn is worth something. More than that, he thinks that his opinion about Washburn is so trustworthy, he's going to override his interim GM. Moreover, nobody was going to give up a decent player for Washburn; Armstrong thinks his opinion of Washburn is more accurate than the entire league.

Bavasi may be gone, but the M's management won't really undergo a significant change until Armstrong steps aside.

Re-Examining the A-Rod myth

DMZ at USSMariner recently posted an essay on the fans' attitudes toward Alex Rodriguez, then and now. Though I appreciate his generally thoughtful examination, I disagree on several points.

First, I think the reason Seattle fans felt betrayed (and certainly the the reason I did) was that he was so unbelievably good. We're not crying over the Randy Winns that left. The vitriol spouted at A-rod indicates the fans' passionate about baseball and the Mariners, not their ignorance.

In addition, my memory is that A-rod seemed to make a BIG deal that his decision wouldn't be based on the financials, that he wasn't just looking for the highest bidder. And after the deal, A-rod still tried to defend the decision without acknowledging that the money had played a big part. That disingenuousness after the deal was not only kind of pathetic, but also called into question the sincerity of his earlier claims. DMZ is right to say we felt played for fools, but he isn't nearly as charitable to us for feeling that way as he is to A-rod for taking the deal.

DMZ calls his years with Seattle "an act of generosity," but that really hinges on 1) an inequitable contract system for which Alex had no part in creating and 2) a decision to sign an extension. He claims his agent was advising him not to sign the extension, but that, it appears, is a conjecture, not based on any verifiable source. If he wants to refrain from condemning A-rod based on conjecture, he has to refrain from exonerating him in the same manner.

DMZ claims he is not "refuting" the myth, as he did with Randy Johnson, but "examining" it, but I think that is misleading. He is clearly refuting the myth, arguing that A-rod did not deserve the anger bestowed on him. His worst conclusion about Alex Rodriguez is "we don't really know."

Personally, I'm over the whole saga now, it having been several years. My reaction at the time, which was echoed by many fans, was probably too heated, more vicious that A-rod really deserved. But DMZ's examination is too charitable toward A-rod.

I come to this conclusion: Alex Rodriguez is a fantastic player and a lousy celebrity, good on the field and terrible with the press. He would have done better (and would still do better, even now) to stop trying to ingratiate himself to the press and the public, and let his play on the field do the talking.

Engaging a wider audience with statistical arguments

Rather than bandy about all kinds of excuses for how long it has been since I posted here, let me get to my topic: the accessibility of a stats-based understanding of baseball. Mostly in response to Graham's post over at Lookout Landing, I want to suggest ways that the statistically minded baseball fans might better engage the general public (We'll call them 'GP' from here on out).

A large part of the problem with these conversation is a lot of snarkiness on both sides. Much like talk-show personalities of either political persuasion, I hear a lot of arguments that ooze contempt, as the proponent of one point of view constructs a straw man to ridicule his or her opponent. We can start to change that tone by admitting when we were wrong and what are the limits of our analyses. For example, the guys over at USSM have admitted (though I can't seem to find a specific reference) they've been wrong about Raul Ibanez, that his late-career production has been a pleasant surprise. More directly in response to Graham: yes, we should explain why VORP makes sense, but also freely admit that it doesn't account for defense at all, making it only a useful tool for comparing offensive production.

Another suggestion: rather than simply roll our eyes at the mention of 'intangibles,' we need to argue how any intangibles that have real value are going to show up in the stats. "Hustle" is going to show up in defensive evaluations, baserunning statistics, infield hits, etc. "Veteran Leadership" is going to show up in consistently successful pinch- and clutch-hitting situations, a lack of hitting slumps, or an improved performance by teammates. If it doesn't show up in the stats, then it doesn't help the team win, and we shouldn't care about it.

Finally, effective arguments from statistics acknowledge the GP's perception, even if that perception turns out to be an illusion. For example, a pitcher may appear to have a run of effective seasons with a low ERA, but those gaudy numbers are more a result of the defense behind him, and a likely unrepeatable streak of stranding runners. (Hello, Jarrod Washburn.) Simply saying, "ERA is meaningless, so Jarrod Washburn is a mediocre pitcher" lessens our credibility.

My hope is that the more clearly we can articulate the value of statistics in evaluating talent, the more clear it will become to Seattle sportwriters (and ultimately, the M's front office), that the team needs to take quantitative tools for talent evaluation much more seriously. That is, the smarter everyone else is, the dumber the front office will look.

The Off-season...

...for blogging, too.

I think what has been most puzzling about this off-season is the way the M's have made a lot of moves that don't seem to have any possibility of improving the team in a meaningful way. What do these moves say?

First, that they weren't convinced that they were going to get any help from their promising young players. Signing Jose Guillen says you don't expect Jeremy Reed to do anything. Trading away Soriano and Snelling for players that, to put it mildly, don't create much enthusiasm says you only expected them to be marginal contributors.

Second, that a drastic change in course was unnecessary. The easiest way to say this is to fire your manager, a move that in this case has the added benefit of actually improving the team. In fact, none of Bavasi's major moves (Reed, Sexson, Beltre, Hargrove, Washburn, Betancourt) have been traded away--he either won't cut his losses or can't see that any of them are a drag on the team's production.

So if you think a major change in course is unnecessary, why all the activity? The M's are spinning their wheels as an organization, and that, I think, is what is most depressing about the state of this franchise now.

I've had a great off-season, however, thanks to a new, er, development that has taken priority over blogging:



Here's to a good year, baseball-wise or other.

Eyewitness from 9-15 Game at Kauffman Stadium

Went to the game tonight, and thought I'd jot down a few thoughts:

• I'm glad the M's are limiting Felix's workload. I'm bummed that the start he skipped happened to be the one game I knew I was going to watch in person this season.
• Crucetta didn't have a bad inning to start, getting the first batter out and inducing the next two to hit groundballs. The second grounder was part of a hit-and-run, made successful by the inexplicable choice to have Betancourt cover second on the steal instead of Lopez. But Crucetta couldn't keep his head, and fell apart. I'm really ignorant when it comes to pitching mechanics, but it did look like his delivery was way out-of-whack when he went to the stretch, especially when employing the slide step.
• Snelling had his work cut out for him in right field, and made some solid plays. Ichiro had a nice grab in center, but Ibanez didn't look to great in left, especially when he couldn't come close to throwing a runner out tagging from third on a fairly shallow fly ball.
• It's fun to watch Betancourt make plays.
• My dad (in town this week) and I both wondered what the purpose of replacing Snelling with TJ Bohn in what was still a close game at the time (albeit between two last-place teams in September). Bohn promptly hit his first Major League home run. It's fun when baseball surprises you.

Beyond identifying the problem

I’ve taken such a long hiatus from this blog because, among other reasons, it’s hard to find something interesting and unique about the M’s these days. The guys at USSMariner and Lookout Landing are my regular reading, and the rest of the blogosphere gives some great perspectives, too.

But another reason I’ve been silent is that I usually like to address a problem with a solution. The Mariners’ problems have been well-documented by the aforementioned bloggers: an organizational approach to player development that discourages a patient, disciplined approach to hitting, a manager prone to obviously ridiculous decisions, poor starting pitching, underperformance by players expected to excel.

Identifying these problems are a good beginning, and it’s most frustrating as a fan to hear and see things from the organization that suggest they aren’t even aware of the magnitude, or even the existence, of some of these problems.

As we head into the off-season, though, simply identifying problems—pointing out actions to avoid—won’t provide a plan for what actions to take. It’s the classic role of the armchair GM: point out the foibles of the existing regime without suggesting a plausible course of action.

For example: most bloggers are pretty tired of Mike Hargrove’s shenanigans. Time and again, he employs strategies that work against his players’ strengths, routinely botches the management of his bullpen, and ignores plains facts. But what are the realistic alternatives? Hargrove himself is a replacement for incompetence, if you can remember far enough back to the Bob Melvin days. I’d love to see Tacoma’s Dan Rohn succeed, but I’m not sure there’s any guarantee that Rohn will be any better. Rohn’s predecessor, Dave Myers, had great success in Tacoma but bombed as a third base coach here. The point is, I think there's a good chance that a Hargrove replacement won't be much better than Grover himself.

Most recently, Dave Cameron reminds us that long-term contracts for veteran pitchers are a bad idea. We all know that the Mariner’s rotation is terrible. Optimists at the beginning of the season saw Joel Pineiro returning to his early success, Felix blowing everybody away, and Washburn serving as a serviceable innings-eater. That hasn’t worked out so well. Many fans are chomping at the bit for some big acquisitions, and Dave says that we’re more likely to be snakebit than strike it rich.

There are two problems with his critique: first, the free agent market isn’t linear, especially for pitchers. To get top quality talent, you have to pay a premium, above and beyond the market rate for pitching. Nate Silver demonstrated this a few years back at Baseball Prospectus, and Jeff did his own analysis at lookout landing a year later. Nate Silver’s graph illustrates how much more premium pitching costs. Contracts for premium pitching are nearly always going to look exorbitant, so in general, you can either “overpay” for pitching (in terms of dollars, duration, or both), or you let premier talent on the free agent market go to the teams that will.

There are some exceptions, of course, which is where Dave wants the team to look. Find the pitcher that won’t take a huge bite out of your payroll for five years straight, but that will help make your team a winner.

This is, of course, easier said than done. I’m not here to pick on Dave Cameron, but he has put forward a proposed plan for the offseason the last several years, and his plans are evidence of just how hard it is to find reasonably priced effective pitching talent. For example, last year, he wanted the team to go after A.J. Burnett. Now? His current contract “doesn’t look so hot” to Dave. He also advocated for Esteban Loaiza and Kevin Brown, neither of whom have impressed (though Loaiza, as it happens with the A’s every season, has looked strong in the second half). The previous year, Dave suggested Matt Clement, who for signed for only three years but has been a disappointment this year as well.

Certainly, long-term contracts for veteran pitchers are a very risky endeavor, with more failures than successes. But good alternatives are hard to find, and I don’t see the difference between having the same mediocre pitcher on your roster for five years, versus three mediocre pitchers in those same five years. If avoiding long-term contracts allows you to buy short-term mediocrity, you haven’t accomplished much.

Now, there are bad long-term contracts, including one Jarrod Washburn, whom Dave rightly predicted would be a poor choice. Washburn is not only an albatross on the payroll, he likely will never be a good pitcher for the M’s. But avoiding bad long-term contracts is not the same as categorically ruling them out.

Update: I won't flatter myself by suggesting that Dave Cameron read my post here and decided to respond, but I will give him credit for following up his first post with a concrete suggestion: read it here.

Report from the latest Northwest SABR meeting

My dad sends me this report of the latest Northwest SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) meeting. The report summary is Mike Rice, with my Dad's comments in italics (I interject things in brackets for explanation) . One important thing to note is that the 36th National SABR convention is being held in Seattle at the end of June. Click here for more details.

On Saturday May 20th, over 30 SABR members and guests gather at the Renaissance Madison Hotel, site of SABR36, for the May meeting of NWSABR. As President of the chapter, I have to say it was a great meeting. Anthony Salazar led off the meeting with a convention update. 6 weeks out and we are ready to go. Salazar is a great promoter, a researcher of Latinos in baseball. It looks like it will be a fascinating convention, which I hope to attend some of. Not mentioned by Rice is that Mark Armour showed galley proofs of the book he edited, to be released at the convention, titled (wonderfully) “Rain Check: Baseball in the Pacific Northwest.” Only two of the articles are about major league teams, one on the Pilots and one on the Mariners. The rest is mostly about minor league experiences. I’ve decided I’m going to use it in my baseball seminar next fall. [My dad teaches a seminar on the history of Baseball at Seattle Pacific University, where he is a history professor] Mike Carter, who has umpired for over 30 years, passed out a very challenging rules quiz. We had till the end of the meeting to work on it and many of the questions left most of us stumped. You realize how little you know about this game, when you get quizzed on the rules. Some examples: What is the difference between a foul ball and a foul tip? Both starting pitchers throw a complete game and face the minimum number of batters: who won the game and what was the score? When a National League manager turns the order (“double-switch”), when do they go to umpire first to make the change? What defines a catch in baseball? When is a balk ignored? Who was the Executive Officer of Union Forces at Fort Sumter during the bombardment that started the Civil War? There was also one about batting out of order that was too complex to repeat here. I got 5, maybe 5.5. right out of 21. We then did introductions. Everyone introduced themselves and told the group what their favorite, earliest or most lasting baseball memory. As you can imagine the 1995 Mariner playoff run got several mentions, but what stood out most was just the love of the game that the people in the room shared. Many started with some quick things they WEREN’T going to mention (wink, wink), so I did likewise. I said I wasn’t going to cite the last game (loss to Cleveland) of 1995 when everyone stayed in the stadium demanding a curtain call, nor my childhood agony in 1964 as the Phillies were losing 10 in a row, tuning my radio to KMOX St. Louis after the Phils lost again to hear Harry Carey describe the Cardinal game to find out if they won again. Cardinals eventually edged the Phils for the NL title, ruining my childhood and warping me for life—at least until the Phils’ World Championship of 1980[My dad grew up just outside of Philadelphia, and yes, he was, incredibly, able to get KMOX out of St. Louis on his old radio. I had a similar experience in Santa Barbara...near the water one evening, I picked up a faint signal of the Mariner broadcast on 710 AM, all the way from Seattle]. What I did relate was the story in September 1998 when Will and I went to Camden Yards, got standing room only seats, and standing behind the right field seats caught a T-shirt fired from a giant slingshot that went a little farther than intended. It was a Cal Ripken T-shirt, and the next day we read that Cal would sit, i.e. the game we saw was the last of the Streak. (I also jotted down but didn’t mention: seeing my first MLB game—an 8-1 Robin Roberts victory over Pittsburgh--in stunningly green Connie Mack stadium with my father--and Griffey making a home-run-preventing catch in the very last game at the Kingdome.) Alex Cartwright (yes, of the baseball Cartwrights) then talked about his efforts to get a Vintage Baseball League going in the Northwest. This league will be playing 1880's rules. See http://www.mrbaseball.com/pnwvbl/index.php if you want more information. Very weird to be sitting next to the great-great grandson and namesake of the man who wrote the first set of rules for the game of baseball for the NY Knickerbockers club in 1845. He passed out equipment; the glove looked and felt like biker leather gloves. There are enough of these vintage leagues, especially in the Northeast, that there are specialty manufacturers that make the equipment. We had a very special guest. Mariner General Counsel Bart Waldman spoke. Bart gave a talk about what his duties are, how he got to be General Counsel and how much he loves his job. Bart them took questions from the group and was very candid and open with the group. I’ve had Bart guest-speak in my class; he’s very articulate. He also is a pitcher in a local senior hardball league that reached the national championship tournament last year. Jeff Angus spoke about his new book, "Management by Baseball". It is a book where Jeff shows how the worst MLB Manager (say Don Zimmer) is a better manager than 95% of the top managers in Fortune 500 companies. It seems like a very interesting topic. There’s mention of this book in the PI, apparently (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/270924_theinsider22.html) He’s a consultant, and this is actually a serious book on management. His line, which he says baseball has long known and business is just now discovering, is that “talent IS the product.” [The general premise of this seemed absurd--the worst manager is better than 95% of the top business managers? Jeff Angus obviously hasn't been paying attention to Hargrove. Here in Kansas City, we've seen some pretty dumb decisions by Buddy Bell, too. In both cases, these managers have been inhibiting the talent they've been given (see Jose Lopez and Justin Huber). How is that a good model for business? It's like promoting your 65-year old chief mechanic a database administrator, while telling your 24-year old assistant database admin that the copiers out of toner, and could he please figure out how to make the coffee pot brew automatically in the morning?] Jeff Bower then spoke about the demise of minor league baseball in Buffalo, New York in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Jeff grew up in that area and had always wondered what the story was. Jeff did a great job and it is now safe to say that NWSABR knows more about the history of Buffalo baseball than we thought possible. The best is that Jeff has promised to give a talk in November about the return of minor league baseball to Buffalo. This was a lot more interesting than it sounds. Buffalo was a possible choice for the expansion team that went to Montreal. Jonah Keri of Baseball Prospectus spoke briefly to the group about BP latest book, "Baseball Between the Numbers". As with all BP efforts, this book is very well researched and very well written. The book answers questions like, "Why Billy Beane's Stuff Doesn't Work in the Playoffs" and "Is A-Rod Overpaid?" among other questions. Saving the best for last, The Savvy Girls of Summer, Jackie and Diedre gave a very entertaining and informative talk about their project to write a book about baseball that is directed to women on an intelligent and entertaining level. As it has turned out, they have had such great response form women just wanting to do baseball related events and talk baseball that they are having a hard time actually writing the book!!!! These are savvy girls of marketing. Seattle women and long time friends, they have been juicing up the attention to their project with press kits, interviews etc as a way to attract a big publishing house when (and if) they finally get their book written. And of course they have a website: http://www.savvygirlsofsummer.com/. Despite the orchestrated approach, they were interesting to listen to, as much for their stories of winning the attention of the Mariners and other groups as their insights about what women want to know about baseball.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting, and thought I'd share it. It's tough finding things to say about the M's these days in part because they're so confusing due to their inconsistency.

Surprises/Frustrations so far

Usually we think of pleasant surprises, but some of the surprises for the M's at this early point in the season are far from pleasant. The fact that they are problems we've had before makes them not only disappointments, but frustrations.

But first, the good surprises (from my subjective point of view, of course):

• Jose Lopez can actually hit at the major league level
• Joel Pineiro has stopped getting worse (thanks in part to an improved GB/FB ratio)
• Raul Ibanez hasn't fallen off the table (let's hope the M's can still realize that he's about at the end of his productive career, and follow Branch Rickey's advice that it's better to lose a player a year early than a year late)
• Kenji Jojima is all that we hoped for and more. There is no curse of the Mariner catcher
• Betancourt isn't completely futile at the plate, though his OBP is still below .300.

Disapointments and Frustrations:

• Where did the Ichiro that we all know go?
• Let's hope Richie Sexson is getting back on track. He's in the second of four years on his contract.
• Can we say Carl Everett is a disappointment, or did we expect him to be this far below replacement-level DH?
• Adrian Beltre. Let's play "Which one of these is not like the others?"
• 835, 721, 729, 714, 1017, 716
Those are Beltre's OPS numbers starting in 2000. The good news is that his current OPS of 417 isn't going to stay that low. The bad news is that he could improve a lot and still be way overpaid at ~$13M. Unfortunately, the curse of the Mariner third baseman is alive and well.

Not having been able to watch or listen to many games, I'm going to leave the critique of strategies of Mike Hargrove to others, but from all accounts, he's been quite frustrating as well.

The result is that the M's are neither hopeless or dominant, teasing us with excitement and ability at times, while aggravating us with incosistency and blown opportunities. (Four walks, Eddie? Ouch.) Every year in Kansas City, however, reminds me that it could always be worse--all I have to do is look at the local team.

"If he were just given a real chance, he'd be able to prove himself."

It used to be said about Willie Bloomquist. Maybe it's time we pick up that mantle for Jose Lopez. Bloomquist has had his shot at the major leagues, and has proven quite conclusively that he is a great 25th man. But let's be clear; for every ten plate appearance, Willie will average an out in more than seven of them. He's had four years and over 700 P.A.s.

It's time Lopez got his shot, an extended one (see: starting role, full season), if for no other reason than we need to know how soon we'll be in need of a good second baseman. If Lopez is the guy for the next four plus years, then we can turn our attention elsewhere.

But we hear from the skipper that there are three candidates for second?

The definition of insanity is to repeat the same behavior and expect a different outcome. How many hapless seasons will it take for the M's to question their approach instead of their luck?

How the mighty have fallen

Times Columnist Nicole Brodeur writes of the loneliest place on earth.

Soriano: a starter or a reliever?

With Soriano signed for the year, the question remains what role will he play? In his debut in 2002, when he was only 22 years old, he started 8 games, got hurt, and has pitched only in relief. He's coming off surgery, so he hasn't pitched competetively in some time, and is entering his prime, physically.

His track record seems clear at first: he struggled as a starter, but has done well as a reliever. In 42 innings as a starter (all in 2002), he compiled a 5.10 ERA, striking out 14% of batters faced and walking 9%. For comparison's sake, the 2005 Joel Pineiro struck out 13% of batters he faced and walked 6% (The league average is about 16% for Ks and 9% for BBs). One big problem for Soriano was facing lefties (.870 OPS allowed).

Conversely, in 69 2/3 career innings as a reliever, he has a 2.07 ERA. His K% is 16% and his walk rate is 6%. He still was more successful against righties, but he was still good against lefties.
Most qualitative observations I've heard note that Soriano lacks a good change. Conventional wisdom (and I've heard little dispute from even the most die-hard statheads) is that pitchers with two good pitches excel in relief roles, but struggle as starters, because hitters adjust to a smaller repertoire after fewer innings. Once Soriano makes it through the lineup twice, so the story goes, he has run out of things with which to fool batters.

This is a broad generalization of Soriano's performance so far, however. It's normal for a younger, inexperienced pitcher to struggle at first, especially if his development has been quick (as Soriano's was). Moreover, his 2002 season ended with injury, suggesting that he was not only young and inexperienced at the time of his starts, but also may have been hurt. Comparing his starts to his relief appearances may be comparing apples to, you know, that other thing.

Furthermore, it's not entirely clear that Soriano was less effective the longer he stayed in the game:

Situation     Batters   K%      B%   Balls in
               faced                  play%

Pitches 1-15     34     15%     6%     79%
Pitches 16-30    40     18%     13%    65%
Pitches 31-45    34     12%     9%     76%
Pitches 46-60    29     21%     14%    66%
Pitches 61-75    30     10%     0%     90%
Pitches 76-90    20     25%     5%     50%
Pitches 91-105   11      9%     9%     73%
Inning 1-3       102    11%     12%    75%
Inning 4-6       74     18%     5%     72%
Inning 7-9       9      22%     0%     67%

If Soriano were easier to figure out after a couple times through the rotation, we'd expect his numbers to get consistenly worse the longer he pitched...but that's clear from these numbers. You might say that he stopped missing bats after about 60 pitches, but then he looks unhittable after 75 pitches. There's probably not a large enough sample size to draw many conclusions.

In the context of the Mariner's current rotation, Soriano could be one of the better starters, but only if he performs as well as his career reliever numbers, not his career starting numbers. As a starter, he had similar numbers as Gil Meche's last three years--both have K% and BB% of 16 and 9 respectively, and Soriano actually gave up HRs more frequently as a starter (4.7% to Meche's 3.5). As a reliever, Soriano's HR rate plummets to .4% (yes, that's right: a tenth of his % as a starter), and his K rate a walk rate improve significantly, too. But can Soriano bring his more recent effectiveness into a starting role? I don't think his numbers can tell us.

That leaves us with qualitative rather than quantitative analysis. Soriano does have electric stuff, but does he have enough pitches to make it as a starter? If Soriano makes an okay starter but a dynamite reliever, which do we want?

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day

Similarly, even Steve Kelley gets it right twice a year. This is one of those times. Kelley somehow sees that Washburn isn't the pitcher he used to be, though some would argue that saying Washburn is only good, not great, is still a gross overestimation of his abilities.

Off-topic rant: White Elephant Gift Exchanges

With news out of Marinerland being a bit depressing as of late, I'll turn to other subjects. In this case, the "White Elephant" gift exchange. This is important to any of you who are organizing christmas parties for your neighbors, friends, or co-workers and are thinking about or are asked about doing one.

A white elephant gift is a gag gift. It's not supposed to be cute, or pretty or nice. It's supposed to be innane, ugly, useless or generally innappropriate in a funny way--and always nearly worthless. It's a great opportunity for re-gifting, and the possibilities are nearly endless. For example, your cousin just went through a knitting phase and has given you four hand-knitted toilet-paper-holders. You are going through a junk drawer and find a happy-meal toy from 1993. You still have a pair of MC Hammer pants. You were sent a recruiting DVD in the mail entitled "The National Guard Experience." All good stuff.

Lamer but still acceptable white elephant gifts would be things that aren't quite so funny, but are still worthless. For example, a cell-phone charger to a broken and obsolete model. A 2004 wall calendar. A partially used can of burguny shoe polish.

But let's be clear about what a white elephant gift is NOT. It's not a $10 set of body lotions. It's not an animatronic singing snowman from a Hallmark store (possible exception: you were given it last year). It's not a christmas tree ornament. It's not a fruitcake (possible exception: you were given it 5 years ago). These are kitchy junk, but their not funny or useless or worthless.

If you want to do a sincere gift exchange that means something, organize a secret Santa, where each person is assigned one other person to go find a personalized gift. If you want to make things easy and funny, do a real white elephant gift exchange. But please...don't have everybody bring gift-bags filled with kitchy junk.

Be careful what you wish for...

Remember two years ago?

We were all ridiculing Bob Melvin and Pat Gillick and Seattle sportwriters for their allegiance to "Speed and Defense" ballplayers, their tentativity in the offseason, their emphasis on character and clubhouse leadership.

Well, we've now got Carl Everett, who represents none of that.

The biggest problem with signing Carl Everett is that he's not very good anymore, even as a hitter. But if you go read the comments and posts around other Mariner Blogs, you're going to find a lot of dismay over Everett's character. Well, we can't have it both ways. Either character matters or it doesn't. Carl Everett's history of outrageous, offensive, stupid behavior shouldn't matter any more than Dan Wilson's community service.

And I think it's also important to temper our criticism with humility, because our understanding of the importance of defense has and continues to evolve. We aren't the pantheons of baseball knowledge, and calling any Mariner official who doesn't do what we want an idiot is a little presumptuous.

That said, I still think signing Everett was a lot about desperation...the M's needed to make some move, and Everett was the closest guy available who fit the job description.