The Nats Blog

Final

2006-09-15T09:24:00.000-04:00

Ever-faithful Anonymous, who has been with us from the beginning, pokes the lifeless hulk that is Nats Blog.

Yes, we are, in fact, dead. I haven't posted in over a month, dexys and SuperNova haven't since the Brandon Watson era. Don't expect much in the future either. Nick Carr, talking about something else, said it best when it comes to blogging: "It's a fun diversion for a while - and then it turns into drudgery." I admire those, like many of those on the sidebar, who can keep it up. I can't.

One thing I've learned is that the phrase "user-generated content" is a euphemism of the worst kind, because it both obscures and denigrates its subject. It obscures the real hard work that creative writing and thinking require, as if good writing just emits from natural processes, like heat or CO2 from an organism. If we called it journalism, commentary or even just writing, it would connote the effort required in a way that is more accurate that "generating content", Bloggers do themselves a disservice by calling themselves bloggers -- they should start using the word "writer". I know, it feels funny, sounds pretentious and all that, but that's the point. Being a "writer" conveys a sense that you are committed to a craft and art that is likely difficult and nonremunerative. Why not use it, especially for serious bloggers? Why would you want to be known as a "generator"? These guys, and those on the sidebar, certainly aren't just generators, and I wish my only choice was not just to free ride off of their creative genius.

Anyway, "teh Internets" is great and all, but writing of any quality requires work, and that requires time, which requires money, the last two of which I do not have nearly enough of to support this hobby. I'll probably still hang out here to make fun of Bowden. Thanks to all of you who read and commented.

We're Not Dead Yet

2006-08-04T10:20:00.000-04:00

The title refers to this blog, not the Nationals, unfortunately. The 2006 season is very much dead, and I didn't want to wait until October to do the autopsy. Apparently we had the best OBP of any team for July, and we've been enjoying the offensive exploits of our new cornerstone LF all year, so a defective pitching staff clearly killed this patient. I went looking through the Hardball Times Win Shares database to see where it all went wrong.

Below is a list of pitchers from 2005 that had non-zero pitching Win Shares for the Nats, the first number listed. The next number is their pitching Win Shares (for the Nats) for 2006. For guys who went to other teams I tried to fill in a new guy for 2006 who is comparable. The color scheme is Red means lost pitching value, Green means gained pitching value and Yellow means a wash.

Patterson_14.7/1.8
Hernandez_12.8/1.8
Loaiza____12.6/0 (Ortiz 4.5)
Cordero___11.8/5.1
Carrasco__9.8/0 (Astacio 0.3)
Majewski__7.2/4.4
Ayala_____7.2/0 (Bray 1.4)
Ohka______3.7/0 (O'Connor 3.1)
Eischen___2.8/0
Armas_____2.8/5.2
Bergmann__2.0/0 (Bowie 1.3)
Rauch_____1.8/4.8
Stanton___1.8/2.5
Drese_____0.7/0
Rasner____0.3/0 (Hill 1.3)

Conclusions: Basically the workhorses of our starting staff last year completely deserted us this year -- Patterson to injury, Livan to suckiness, and Loaiza to the A's, replaced meekly by Ortiz. Chief's value is down but mostly due to opportunity, I guess, and by the end of the year will probably be close to a wash. We never replaced Carrasco and Ayala. Rauch and Armas improved, but only slightly, and the green at the bottom is a bit misleading, as all of those numbers are so small to be immaterial.

It is probably impossible for a team to essentially lose its starting rotation and expect to win. Perhaps that will make some feel better.

Ryan in Red

2006-07-07T14:56:00.000-04:00

It's not just your imagination. Ryan Zimmerman really does hit better in the Red jersey. Here's his line in Day games at RFK:

16 games, .360 AVG, 4 HRs, 20 RBI, .420 OBP, .607 SLG, 1.027 OPS

From: Major League Baseball : Individual Player Splits

More Intuitive ERV

2006-07-07T09:48:00.000-04:00

Tangotiger over at the blog for THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball points out that Carl Crawford's steal of home earlier this week was a very smart play, as he risked relatively little for a bigger gain. A few weeks ago I pointed to a interview with Jamie Moyer that revealed that he had an intiuitive understanding of the costs and benefits of men on base that matched the ERV table.

Bill James in his New Historical Baseball Abstract came up with a rough way to estimate "intelligence" of a ballplayer from the basic baseball stats. A more direct way of measuring that might be to assess different decisions of players based on the risk/reward as determined by Win Value or Win Expectancy or some other measure. Baserunning presents clear examples of such instances, but I bet there are others.

What Was Not Said (Cont.)

2006-07-03T23:55:00.000-04:00

Federal Baseball throws some Platonic cold water on our collective hyperventilating about Bowden's permanence by pointing out that we only see vague shadows on the cave wall -- the truth is not within our vision (Buck sez the "dawg" hand-shadow is Bowden's, though). This sobering post has prompted me to provide some clarification about my thoughts on the news.

First, it may be the case that Bowden actually has the qualities listed in the "Not Said" column. I doubt it, but I could be wrong. One piece of evidence in my favor is that Kasten didn't mention any of them, and if they didn't exist, he couldn't mention them.

But if they did exist, he still might not mention them. Under what circumstance would he not mention characteristics that seem to be more compelling to justify the selection of a General Manager? When he doesn't really care whether he convinces the audience or not. And this is the more important point I was trying to make. Kasten could care less whether the media or the fans are convinced that he made the right move -- he picked a GM that has some experience, including some minor success, which doesn't make his boss a laughingstock among the members of the dining club Lerner just paid $450M to join. (Though some of the new guard like Beane and Epstein aren't losing sleep over it and might be licking their chops). We won't know if it's the right move for a few years, and if it isn't, Bowden will be canned and replaced by a Dombrowski, Coletti, Duquette, ... hell, even a Minaya. And guess what? The Nats will still be in the big leagues, will be in a new stadium, will be drawing at least 20K per game, and the value of the franchise will be appreciating ... even if we remain mired in the 70-win slums of the National League.

If you believe this, it might depress you. But I'm reading a book that suggests that when you've "bought in" to something and it becomes yours, your mind helps you through it by accentuating the positive and making you think you made the right choice, and in the end, most people who face an inescapable situation end up happier than those with options. Well, we did win 9-1 tonight ....

What is Said, What is not Said

2006-07-02T07:12:00.000-04:00

Let's take a look at what Stan Kasten and others said about Jim Bowden Friday, and what they did not say.

What They Said

"Jim is very smart. By smart, I mean analytical."

This distinguishes Bowden from the guys who sell DeezNats t-shirts, Phillies fans and Bob Boone, but not any of the other 30 GMs or better candidates for the job.

"I also think he's very resourceful. . . . And right now, as we're building this -- needing to speed the process up as quickly as we can, needing to shave any unnecessary steps -- I need someone resourceful. I think Jim is really good at that."

This describes a candidate who would be good when "resources" are limited. What does that say about our new owners approach to the club? This is usually said in reference to Bowden's time with the miserly Marge Schott, who once gave her staff "Welcome to the 1990 World Series" chocolates on Opening Day 1996. Is Lerner thinking "If it worked for Marge ..."?

"He established a relationship with the winning group very early on. He was very smart about that, and he showed them how hard he worked at this"

He's very good at sucking up. How many people do you know who are good at sucking up are also good at their substantive job? Aren't they mutually exclusive?

"It's time for this franchise to have some stability," Tavares said. "This is a good step in that direction. You've got somebody who's smart, somebody with a plan, somebody who's been involved with building things here, who's going to keep it going in the right direction."

The right direction? Since July 2005, we've been heading for the bottom of the National League. Perhaps he's talking about keeping player salaries low.

What Was Not Said

He has a proven track record of success.

He has the respect of the other General Managers in the league.

He is expert at spotting and developing baseball talent.

He knows how to negotiate with player agents.

He is good at running an organization, and his employees respect him and would move mountains for him

Back in May, I asked what exactly did the Lerners buy with their $450 million, and pointed out that it was part of MLB's monopoly, not the on-field success of the Nats, which is economically rather low on their priority lists. This decision provide further evidence of that assertion.

End of the First Half, with the Score 33 to 48

2006-07-01T08:55:00.000-04:00

So a milestone has been reached. 81 games, one half of the season gone, one half remains. Time to take stock.

The Nats finished the half 33-48. Many will compare that to last year's first half, where we went 50-31, seventeen games better. What I'd like to do, though, is to look at our record over the past 162 games, the first half of this year plus the second half of last year, where we went 31-50. That provides a full-season record of 64-98.

That is a terrible record. Only 13 out of the 150 "team-seasons" in the past 5 years (30 MLB teams, 5 seasons each) had that record or worse, less than 9%. Let's look at those teams, and what happened to their managers:

2005 KC 56-106 (Tony Pena fired during season)
2004 KC 58-104 (Tony Pena keeps his job, probably because it was only one year removed from a 83-79 season, and because it's the Royals)
2004 ARI 51-111 (Bob Brenly fired during season)
2004 SEA 63-99 (Bob Melvin fired after season)
2003 SD 64-98 (Bruce Bochy keeps job, probably because he'd been to the playoffs and World Series)
2003 TB 63-99 (Piniella keeps job, it was his first year)
2003 DET 43-119 (Trammel keeps his job, it was his first year)
2002 TB 55-105 (Hal McRae fired after season)
2002 DET 55-106 (Phil Garner fired during season)
2002 MIL 56-106 (Davey Lopes fired during season)
2001 PIT 62-100 (Lloyd McLendon keeps job, it was his first year)
2001 BAL 63-98 (Mike Hargrove keeps his job -- it's the O's , who knows why.)
2001 TB 62-100 (Larry Rothschild fired during season)

So basically a non-first-year manager who compiles such a record gets fired, or keeps his job thanks to the wisdom of the baseball geniuses who run the Royals and Orioles. An exception is San Diego, who actually made the right call, as Bochy would lead the Padres -- yes, the 82-80 Padres -- to the playoffs in 2005. None of the other retentions worked out.

It is conventional wisdom that Frank Robinson will not be fired this season. It would make a lot of sense to do so, however. We all know what kind of manager he is, and how much he can get out of this group of players. We should replace with someone who does things differently, even an interim manager, to see what we have left in this team, to know better what to do in the offseason.

It only makes sense, but it won't be done. I wake up this morning to find that "stability" is the vision of the new owners. Though that article hints that Robinson might not last after this year, we will have wasted the next 81 games as an information gathering session. But hey, we'll be "stable" -- stable like the Royals.

Memory Lane

2006-06-28T22:56:00.000-04:00

Like my last post, I'm still thinking about last year. (Do you blame me, after the past two weeks, in which we are 3-12, having been outscored 101 to 55, and having scored more than 3 runs only 4 times?) In that one I compared the Mets' current record with ours from the 1st half of 2005, because I was surprised to find that the Mets did not have a better record than that. But that got me thinking about our second-half collapse, and wondered how the pre-All Star Break 2005 Nats stack up against the Mets in other categories besides wins and losses. Also, I decided to throw the "surprise" team of the year, the Tigers, into the comparison for fun (as of Tuesday's games).

Records and Runs

Nats 2005, 50-31, 4.13 RS/G, 4.11 RA/G, Pyth 41-40 (+9)
NYM_ 2006, 47-29, 5.33 RS/G, 4.32 RA/G, Pyth 45-31 (+2)
DET_ 2006, 53-25, 5.23 RS/G, 3.71 RA/G, Pyth 51-27 (+2)

Here, the obvious difference is offense, as our runs per game is more than 1 run below the Mets and Tigers. As a result, our Expected W/L was nine games below our actual, prompting the skeptics to predict our fall last year. As we'll see below, it was the power in our offense that was anemic, and in the second half it got worse, not better as expected, which caused the bottom to drop out. (I have not adjusted the numbers for ballpark, but all three teams play in pitcher's parks, so it should not make much difference).

As for 2006, note the Tigers and Mets defenses, the big difference between the two clubs. This bodes well for Detroit.

Batting

Nats 2005, .261/.332/.404/.735
NYM_ 2006, .268/.335/.461/.796
DET_ 2006, .275/.330/.461/.791

When it came to getting on base (the second number in the series -- AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS), we were just as good as the 2006 clubs, but our power was awful, which left a lot of those runners on base. I also suspect that the hit and runs and bad baserunning cost a lot too. We were 50% succesful on steals, about 25% less than you need to be to actually generate runs. In the second half we dropped to .243/.313/.373/.686. Thank you, Preston Wilson!

Note that the Mets and Tigers have very similar offenses this year.

Pitching

Nats 2005, 3.88 ERA, 0.76 HR/G, 3.39 BB/G, 5.60 K/G, 1.65 K/BB
NYM_ 2006, 3.90 ERA, 1.12 HR/G, 3.37 BB/G, 7.50 K/G, 2.23 K/BB
DET_ 2006, 3.50 ERA, 0.98 HR/G, 2.96 BB/G, 6.27 K/G, 2.12 K/BB

Here you see another weakness of the Nats last year -- the pitching was good, but not dominant, as indicated by the relatively low K/G and K/BB numbers. As a result, it could not save us when the offense went completely sour. One of the most depressing and telling stats from last year was our July team ERA, which was the best month of the year, at precisely the moment when we lost all those games and our lead.

As for the 2006 clubs, pitching is where the Tigers have excelled so far, nearly half a run better than the Mets in ERA, and under 3 walks per game.

Bottom Line

As I see it, both the Tigers and Mets have more solid fundamental numbers to support their records than the Nats had last year. If either club is to make a slide backwards in the second half, I'd bet on the Mets, and I'd predict it is a pitching problem that causes it. I doubt it will be 31-50 dramatic like ours last year, and the rest of the NL East is so weak that it won't cost them the division. The Tigers strike me as the real deal, and the bold prediction by some that the AL Wild Card will not come from the East is looking better and better.

The Benchmark

2006-06-26T10:24:00.000-04:00

By any measure, the New York Mets are having a superb season. The sit atop the NL East, 11.5 games ahead of the second place Phillies, and have controlled the division from Opening Day. Even their Tradesports contract for winning the division has gone from about 50 before the season to around 95 today, meaning the Mets likely have a 95% chance of winning the division.

But there is one measure that us Nats fan can take some pride in.

If the Mets split with the Red Sox and Yankees this week -- no small feat -- they will be 50-31, the same first-half record as our beloved nine in 2005.

Baseball on Television

2006-06-22T16:41:00.000-04:00

This post, which appears to reprint a Thomas Sowell column from 2002, has a lot of good thoughts about baseball on television. My favorite point asks why we never see a camera angle that shows the whole field. I'd be perfectly happy if the standard angle was from high behind the plate, perhaps with an inset showing the traditional "behind the pitcher" angle so you can see the pitches. I'm looking forward to this weekend's game between the Nats and O's because I'll be sitting behind the plate upper deck, which has become my favorite place to watch a game, because you can see the whole field, and judge the distances and angles best among runner, fielder and ball, which are indispensible to evaluating many plays.

Hat tip: Dan Agonistes

Baseball, Blackouts and Buyouts

2006-06-20T00:14:00.000-04:00

This weekend I was finalizing our summer vacation plans, and noticed that the house we are renting in the Outer Banks has WiFi. "Cool," I thought, "I'll bring the laptop and watch the Nats on vacation." But then I hesitated -- a few weeks ago I was in Princeton, NJ and tried to watch the Nats on my laptop, but was told I was in the blackout area. Wondering whether Corolla, NC would be subject to Nats blackout, I found a relevant Zip Code and checked out "the list," and sure enough, the Outer Banks is part of the Nats' empire, which we now know stretches from Eastern North Carolina to the middle of New Jersey and to Central Pennsylvania. So it looks like I won't be watching Nationals' games on vacation this summer.

I am not alone. This story on Yahoo chronicles similar frustrations of fans around the country. As Capitol Punishment points out, the reason for the blackout rules is not to protect ticket sales (well, not anymore), it's to protect advertising revenue, which is still the predominant way baseball telecasts are paid for.

Most clubs earn revenue from telecasts of their games by selling exclusive rights to the local broadcasters; "exclusive" being the key for the broadcaster, who wants to make sure that if you watch the Nats, you see the advertisements it has sold. If you can watch the Nats without seeing those ads, advertisers will soon take their money elsewhere. Also, because the broadcaster is local, the area of exclusivity is measured geographically -- Koons Toyota would pay WDCA-20 to reach people in Arlington, Bethesda and Landover, not people who are "out-of-market" in far away places. So no one cares whether someone in Texas watches Nats games on the Internet -- the advertisements have little value to those viewers. (Blackouts can also theoretically protect the attendance at RFK -- if I can watch on TV I won't go to the park -- but most people agree that TV actually promotes attendance, rather than detract from it.)

But there are several areas where this theory gets mangled by practice in the case of the Nats and MLB.tv. First, of course, is that there are no local broadcasters who paid anyone anything for exclusive rights to Nats games in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. If there were, I'd be perfectly happy watching those games on the local TV like I do here in the D.C. area. The blackout lists for MLB.tv are, at this point, little more than a game of Risk, where the U.S. has been divided up in concept, without any real marketplace analysis behind the assignment.

Second, even here in D.C., watching the games on the MLB.tv, you would still see the advertisements from the local advertisers (assuming MLB.tv didn't cover them up or replace them). The problem for MASN and DC-20 is that those viewers don't get counted in the Nielsen ratings, and thus they won't get paid by the advertisers for those viewers.

But that leads me to my main point -- since this is all about money and not about spite, why can't I choose to "buyout my blackout", or pay extra to watch Nats games anywhere I want, regardless of the exclusive rights sold to a local broadcaster. That premium I paid could go mostly to the local broadcaster affected by my viewing on MLB.tv, to cover any potential "losses" from me not watching on television.

To help me understand why this option is not presented by MLB.tv, I tried to figure out how much that premium would cost. To do this, I started with the basic metric for selling ads, the CPM, which stands for "cost per thousand" (the "M" is the Roman numeral for 1000). According to one website, the average CPM for broadcast television is $20 for a 30-second spot -- in other words, for every 1,000 people that watch that ad, the advertiser pays the broadcaster $20. I think that is a little high for the Nats, but I'll use it here for simplicity.

So, with that $20 CPM, number we can figure out how much I'm "costing" the broadcaster when I watch a game on MLB.tv instead of television: 2 cents for each 30-second ad ($20 divided by 1,000 viewers, or "cost per one" -- CPI?). It sounds like a pittance, but wait, it adds up, because there are a fair number of 30-second spots during a single game. If there are 3 commercials each half-inning, that would be 54 spots (9 innings X 2 halves X 3 spots), plus there are spots in pregame and during pitching changes. A decent estimate is 75 spots (18 inning breaks + 4 pitching changes + 3 pregame/postgame breaks, all X 3 spots). Now, this will be a little high, given that many of the spots will be "house" ads for DC-20 TV shows and ads for the Nats themselves ("Let yourself go!"), so let's reduce our total to 50 ads that will be truly "sold". Thus, for any one game, I am costing the broadcaster $1 (50 x 2 cents) by watching it on MLB.tv instead of television.

$1 doesn't sound too bad, does it? But remember, there are 162 games, so in theory, the premium I'd have to pay to cover the "costs" to the local broadcaster is $162. Now that's probably way too high in reality -- for example, if the Nats are drawing only $15 CPM on only 35 spots per game, then the cost drops to $0.525 per game, or about $85 per season. You could probably think of other ways to whittle that number down, but ultimately my point is that the premium in the end would be a not insignificant number -- a number I'd probably still be willing to pay, but perhaps one that many would not. Now, I still shouldn't have to pay extra to watch in North Carolina or New Jersey or Pennsylvania or anywhere else where the local broadcaster is not showing Nats game. But there is value for where such games are televised.

But even if the number is big, there should still be an incentive to offer it to consumers. Why isn't it? There are transaction costs that must be considered -- it probably would cost something to keep track of my extra payment and make sure I could get the games I paid for -- but given those are probably absorbed in great part by MLB.tv generally, I doubt they would be very high. The real transaction costs is probably the fact that the deals with the broadcasters have already been struck, and don't allow for such a buyout. MLB.tv would have to repoen the deals with MASN and DC-20, and they probably don't want to do that. At least, it seems the additional revenue from allowing buyouts of blackouts isn't enough to make it worth their while.

Another important obstacle is fear of the unknown. Neither MLB.tv, the broadcasters or anyone else really knows what the demand is for Internet-based viewing of games -- it sure seems high, but judging such things is often harder than it looks. Going through the trouble of redoing the basic television deal, pricing the buyout premium, keeping track of additional payments, etc. may not be worth it if demand is lower than expected. But maybe when they have more experience with how people enjoy games on the Internet, there will be a better base on which to build new customer options.

But they'd better figure it out quickly. Because consumers like me can be impatient, and there are other solutions available to us, as the Yahoo story describes. I have heard of, but never used, technological tricks that help you get around the blackouts -- as demand increases for blacked out games, use of these tricks, which entail payment to no one -- will increase. Also, independent companies, such as Sling Media, will offer me a Slingbox to allow access to my Tivo recordings of the games from any Internet connection, even ones in the Outer Banks. I'll have to pay them some money for the technology and maybe a service fee, none of which will go to MLB, the Nats or the broadcaster. Both of these options may be of dubious legality, but that uncertainty cuts both ways. Again, if demand for blackout games increase, so will use of devices and technology like these. It's your choice, MLB.

Walk-off

2006-06-19T10:08:00.000-04:00

I'm not as bad as Needham. Sure, I too watched the USA-Italy match instead of the Nats on Saturday, but yesterday I listened to the game on radio as I built a basketball hoop in the driveway with Little DM and his brother. (And when I say "with", I mean it; at one point I said to myself, "Where's my mallet?" and Little DM said "It's in the shed. I'll get it. You focus on the hoop." A five-year-old supervisor.)

I had heard the Nats first run, but then lost track of the game and how the Yankees went ahead. Then I started to listen a bit more closely when the bottom of the ninth began. But of course some socket mishap distracted me, and the next thing I heard was Charlie's voice rise as Zimmerman hit the ball. I ran to the radio, heard "...Cabrera going back..." (a good sign) and then knew it was a walk-off. Charlie did a neat thing by not saying anything as the crowd roared, and for once I didn't care that he didn't tell me the score -- I knew what had happened, the details could wait.

Little DM was right beside me, even he knew it was good and we exchanged several high fives. Later I made a point to show him the highlights on ESPN, and this morning, in his room, when he thought he was alone, I caught a glimpse of him doing a Ryan Zimmerman impersonation: a swing, looking up, holding his fist up as a he ran, then jumping onto an imaginary home plate and being clobbered by his imaginary teammates. Bang, Zoom !!

Bullpen

2006-06-17T10:50:00.000-04:00

Pitchers, it seems to me, are like anyone else; they have good days and bad days. Sometimes they have their stuff, and sometimes they don't. One would think that the main job of the manager, pitching coach and bullpen coach is to figure out whether a guy has it or not in any given day.

Based on this, I've often wondered about managers who like to bring in lots of relief pitchers. It seems to me that by doing that, you are simply increasing the chance that you'll bring in a pitcher who is having a bad day. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that a particular relief pitcher has his stuff today is more important that the lefty-righty matchup, or whether he is coming to bat the next inning.

I don't think Frank ever considers this. This is an obvious second-guess, but I was really hoping at the time that he would have left Jon Rauch in last night after he struck out A-Rod and Cano to end the seventh. Those were huge outs, and Rauch has been struggling lately, I thought it would have been a good confidence boost to send him out there in the 8th to help keep the lid on the game.

But, of course, that didn't happen. Frank, as usual, brought in three more relievers, none of whom had anything, and we blew the game. Frank appears to expect that all of his relievers must be able to perform at the highest level in every game. While that is a reasonable expectation in general for professionals who get paid a lot of money to play this game, the reality of our bullpen requires more nuanced management that appears beyond the ken of our current skipper.

ERV Renovations -- Update

2006-06-12T11:42:00.000-04:00

As you know, last month I shut down the ERV Boxscores to redesign the process that creates them. The work has been going pretty well, and this weekend I finally constructed the guts of the new database that will hold the information. It can now calcuate the basic RV and WV for each event. Right now it ascribes all of the value to the batter and pitcher, even if the play has errors or other aspects that should be given to other players involved. I have to code the parts that account for errors, fielding and baserunning.

But the real advantage of this new system is that I have data for every team, not just the Nats. So we'll be able to compare RV and WV with other players in the league. For example, here are the 2005 NL Batting WV Leaders:

Name	Total RV	Total WV
Chipper Jones	38.314	54.142
Jason Bay	38.368	46.264
Derek Lee	50.645	44.553
Bobby Abreu	54.403	42.941
Carlos Delgado	40.527	41.785
Adam Dunn	37.805	37.268
Lyle Overbay	27.886	37.029
Chase Utley	38.659	36.416
Ken Griffey	33.148	34.526
Lance Berkman	29.000	33.585

Where's Albert? Pujols was 14th, with 44.76 RV and 30.42 WV. Nick Johnson was 11th, with 24.89 RV and 33.00 WV.

Here are the best NL pitchers:

Name	Total RV	Total WV
Roger Clemens	-50.246	-61.176
Andy Pettitte	-53.525	-56.694
Dontrelle Willis	-44.242	-56.627
Carlos Zambrano	-31.614	-50.201
Chris Caprenter	-39.947	-46.454
Tim Hudson	-32.968	-45.341
Todd Jones	-21.705	-42.636
John Patterson	-30.653	-39.580
Derrick Turnbow	-20.319	-39.184
Jake Peavy	-24.321	-38.769

What's interesting to me is that most of these guys are starters. I had thought that because closers pitch in high leverage (i.e. high Win Value) situations, the system would be biased in their favor, and they'd cluster near the top. But apparently that's not necesarily the case.

Keep in mind that these numbers are rough and I haven't checked the data thoroughly. But I do think it tells me that when I'm finished that the data will present some interesting things to think about.

The Draft -- Where Do You Stand?

2006-06-07T13:20:00.000-04:00

I don't have nearly enough knowledge to provide any meaningful commentary on the Nats draft selections, so please visit Nationals Farm Authority, Capital Punishment, and Federal Baseball for real information on that. But I will use it as an excuse to comment on an interesting segment I heard last night on XM Radio. Chuck Wilson, who is quite good and is vastly under-utilized on MLB Home Plate, replayed quotes surrounding the controversy over Luke Hochevar, the first overal pick of this year's draft. Hochevar was drafted by the Dodgers last year and nearly signed with them, but then swtiched to agent Scott Boras at the last minute, didn't sign, and opted to re-enter the draft this year.

First, Wilson played a quote from Hochevar's former agent (I didn't catch his name), who complained that Hochevar left a voicemail for some Dodgers executive 45 minutes before he backed out the deal saying how happy and excited he was to be a Dodger. He painted the picture of a kid who went back on his word at the last minute purely for more money. Then Wilson played Scott Boras' reaction to that quote, who argued that the former agent was inexperienced and, in doing the deal with the Dodgers, was essentially putting his interest in establishing relationships with the Dodgers and build up a stable of MLB players ahead of Hochevar's interest, and would have left, in Boras' view, millions of Hochevar's dollars on the table. Then Wilson played a quote from Hochevar, who pretty much echoed Boras' points by saying young players should go with experienced agents like Boras. To me, he'd been coached pretty well on that answer.

Who's right? Who knows. Economically, we'll find out if Hochevar made the right move when we learn the size of his contract with Kansas City, but it seems that being picked first overall will get more $$ than being picked 40th like he was last year. So Hochevar may have made a good gamble, which was largely good because of the weak draft this year. I will say that my first instinct was to side with the former agent, and to view Hochevar as a spoiled greedy kid, but I have to say Boras made a good argument to my rational side that the Dodgers' deal would not have been the best for Hochevar, and his claims about the former agent had the ring of truth to them.

But what struck me as really interesting was this question: On which side of the line, management or player, do we fans typically fall? We obviously identify with the players first and foremost, because we watch them all the time and root for them. But we typically only like players on our team, so when it comes to contract disputes, we can be quick to say that player is greedy if they are threaten to leave or not sign with our club. We also like to complain about large salaries and agents like Boras. On the other hand, if the player is beloved by most fans, then we curse management for not giving in to every demand he makes. In the end, I'm not sure there's a clear answer to the question, but I do think we are not careful enough to consider the different perspectives of the parties involved, and Chuck Wilson's segment on XM helped me understand where guys like Hochevar and Boras are coming from in making the decisions they make.

Intuitive ERV

2006-06-05T10:55:00.000-04:00

I heard an interesting interview on XM Radio this morning with Jamie Moyer of the Seattle Mariners, who pitched a 2-hit complete game shutout on Friday night. Here it is from memory:

Obviously you'd like to go out there and put 9 zeros on the board every night, but you can't do that. You give up a hit, then a run, then you have runners on 2nd and 3rd with less than 2 outs, and your trying to get that second out, and while you may let the runner on third score, you work hard to keep the runner on second from scoring.

(emphasis added). The expected run value with runners on second and third and 1 out is about 1.4 or 1.5, depending on which table you use. I like Moyer's quote because it shows he's developed a feel for when runs score over his 20+ years in the big leagues -- he knows, intuitively, that if only the runner on third scores, you've beaten the expectation by 0.4 runs. If the runner on second also scores, you lost by 0.6 runs. He also appears to have a good understanding of sunk costs -- runners on third with less than 2 outs usually score, so it may be better to focus on avoiding a big inning.

P.S. Wanna feel old? Buck Martinez on XM pointed out that the last time Moyer threw a 2-hit shutout, Ronald Reagan was President.

The Future's So Bright ...

2006-06-04T23:07:00.000-04:00

I was all set to post some optimistic thoughts about our hometown club. Something along the lines of "If the Mets go 13-13 the rest of the first half, and we just win 2 out 3 over the same time frame, we'll be five games out at the break, and anything can happen then." But then I read the pessimistic crap over at Capitol Punishment, and my heart's not in it anymore. Needham, you are the wind shear on my wings! Even the company men over at Nats Triple Play couldn't cheer me up. It really sucks when your season was effectively over May 15.

So now we're left with individual accomplishments to watch. Alfonso Soriano leads the American League in HRs, and with Albert Pujols headed to the DL, he could soon lead the majors. That'll be cool to watch. Speaking of Pujols, his injury becomes a dramatic new chapter in the long-running litigation of Non-Baseball Fans v. Baseball Fans. We can envision the cross-examination, and it won't be pretty:

Non-Baseball Fans Lawyer: How exactly did Mr. Pujols hurt himself?
Baseball Fan: He hurt his side going after a foul ball.
Lawyer: So, he was diving into the stands full-speed and bruised it against a seat, like Jeter?
Fan: No.
Lawyer: OK, so he fell into the dugout and banged it against the steps?
Fan: No.
Lawyer: He must have hurt it on a dive stretching out for foul pop headed down the RF line, right?
Fan: Ummm .. No.
Lawyer: Well, then, what exactly did he do?
Fan: [nervously] He just hurt it, that's all.
Lawyer: [beginning to shout] How did he hurt it ?!?
Fan: Ummm ... he turned to his left and started running.
Lawyer: "He turned to his left and started running." How old is Mr. Pujols, 87?
Fan: No, he's in his late 20s.
Lawyer: Late 20s. Is he obese?
Fan: No.
Lawyer: He's one of the worst players in the league right?
Fan: No, he's the best player in baseball!
Lawyer: So, the best player in baseball can't turn to his left and start running without hurting himself, right?
Fan: Well, he just turned too quickly ... it was the cross-over step ... it's a thinking man's game ... it's designed to break your heart ... [begins sobbing]
Lawyer: Nothing further. Your honor, I won't need to offer the videotape.

Another Project I'll Never Complete

2006-05-31T09:28:00.000-04:00

Back in November, I had an idea to create a database of statistics for General Managers, linking win shares data to transactions data to general manager tenure data to help evaluate the performance of GMs based on whom they signed, traded for and traded away. Despite the helpful tips from folks like Simon Oliver Lockwood, that project never got off the ground, given that I have a full-time job and three young kids.

Yesterday, I thought of another project that I'll never have time for when I stumbled on Retrosheet's Umpire Data. While Retrosheet tells you how many games the umpire worked at each base, they do not relate the umpire's presence to the result of the game. You can get the daily game log for each umpire, but it would be better if we got each umpire's "record" per team. For example, from this page you can tell that the Nats were 2-4 when Paul Schreiber worked their games. Some interesting stats to run would be (1) the home team's record when the ump worked the game; (2) whether teams fared better or worse when an umpire was behind the plate or in the field; and (3) number of strikeouts and walks in games when the umpire was behind the plate. Wouldn't it be interesting to find out that some teams performed better with certain umps? In the early 1990s, Barry Jacobs's Fans' Guide to the ACC use to publish data like this for all ACC referees -- it showed this Duke fan that we actually performed better with the villified Dick Paparo or Lenny Wirtz working the game.

I poked around Retrosheet but could not find data presented in this fashion. It does not seem like a difficult task to create a database from which these questions could be answered. If anyone knows of a place where this data can be found, I'd love to hear about it.

Sports & Economics: Further Reading.

2006-05-30T17:35:00.000-04:00

For the four of you who actually read my diatribe on reinventing baseball, you might be interested in a couple of blogs that talk more about the economics of sports. The Sports Economist looks to be very good, and has a lengthy post comparing MLB to the English Premier League that goes into more detail than my comments. See also The Wages of Wins blog, which is an adjunct to the new book of the same name (which I plan to read soon) analyzing the connection between the economics of sports and the performance on the field.

Random Thoughts at the 50-game Mark

2006-05-30T10:03:00.000-04:00

In no particular order:

-- Last year there were 1.38 HRs hit per game in RFK. So far this year there have been 1.78 HRs per game. One is tempted to call it "The Soriano Effect", but I'm just inclined to blame small sample size and media hype -- RFK isn't _that_ big and it's just regressing to the mean. On Soriano, I have learned that hitting is a lot more dynamic a process than our stats can measure. As Capital Punishment presciently explained back in December, Soriano hits the kinds of balls that can get out of RFK, unlike our "sluggers" from 2005. He is also just a better hitter than Jose Guillen, period, and perhaps by a long shot.

-- John Patterson last pitched on April 20. The Nats have gone 14-21 (.400) since then. They were 7-10 (.411) with him in the rotation. I know, I know, small sample size and silly to correlate record to a guy who plays every 5th day, but I found this a sobering reminder that the baseball is a team game, and the reason it feels like we don't really miss some players is because we're not that good a team.

-- Speaking of which, anyone else confused by all the good feeling from last week's tearful success and yet we're still 10 games below .500?

-- Speaking of tears, if Frank cares so much about his players who are likeable and work hard that it pains him deeply to put them in positions where they can't succeed and will embarass themselves, he must really hate Joey Eischen.

-- Mrs. DM's comment from Saturday's game against the Dodgers "I always thought Nomar was a scrawny dude, but he's pretty buff." I just noticed that his hair was much more Fonzi-like than TV leads you to think.

-- Little DM wanted to wear his San Francisco Giants cap to the game Saturday, but, with hopes a Dodger might throw him a ball, I had to explain the concept of a "rivalry" to him. He listened carefully and then asked "Who is the rivalry with the Nationals?" I was stumped, and just said "Bowie".

-- Mrs. DM asked if Saturday's start was Shawn Hill's MLB debut. I said yes, but was hesitant in answering. Then the RFK Jumbotron confirmed that is was, in fact, his MLB debut, which made me feel confident. I should have known better than to trust the RFK scoreboard operator.

Tears of a Clown

2006-05-26T03:24:00.000-04:00

There are times, to be sure, when a grown man crying about sports is both expected and accepted. The aging veteran, finally hanging up the spikes in retirement, usually can't make it through the press conference without choking up. The college hoops star, walking off the court in his last game -- usually a loss in the tournament -- often hides his tears by burying his head in the coach's shoulder. Cory Gibbs, who just learned his knee won't let him play for the United States in the World Cup, understandably shed a few tears at the news. Even cynical old me bawled like a newborn while watching the video of J-Mac, the kid with autism who finally got in a high school basketball game and scored 20 points.

Having to take the mask from a fat guy who can't play catcher, doesn't really want to play catcher, and shouldn't be playing catcher, should not, I submit, make anyone cry. Well, maybe his over-protective mom who has always been quick to feel her son's failures a little too closely, or his grade school child after being teased by classmates. But the last person who needs to be crying about the decision to replace LeCroy with a less awful catcher in a close game is his manager, Frank Robinson.

Yet, that's exactly what Frank did today after the game yesterday. He said he "trusts his veterans," but that "he had to do something" when LeCroy kept throwing the ball to Damian Jackson in CF when trying to get runners out at second. Apparently, Frank considers being pulled by your manager mid-inning a tragically sad event, especially for a veteran ballplayer. I think every other person in the park, even LeCroy, thought it was welcome, necessary step towards the Nats winning the game, and that any bruise to LeCroy's ego would be salved by a few Krispy Kremes in the clubhouse and the $850,000 he'll make this year.

This should have been a total non-event. But Frank's antics prompted ESPN SportsCenter to treat it as newsworthy, even though by any measure it was ordinary. Did you know the last time a catcher had 7 guys steal bases on him in a game was 2002? For those readers who weren't alive in 2002, it was a crazy time when MLB actually had 2 teams in Canada, the All-Star game did not "count", and Benny Agbayani was still playing.

This little awkward moment does confirm, however, what we've all thought -- that Frank is first and foremost a player, not a manager, and has a hard time seeing the world from a perspective other than that of a Hall-of-Famer who hit nearly 600 home runs and is probably still a little bummed that the time when he could grab a bat and send one into the seats passed away over 30 years ago. If Frank was pulled mid-inning by Earl Weaver, he'd have considered it the greatest indignity, as he apparently still does. But a manager who worries how a guy like Wil Cordero will take being replaced deserves the under-.500 career record he has.

How far did that one go?

2006-05-25T17:23:00.000-04:00

Lance Berkman crushes a ball into the 400-level in dead center earlier this week. Jose Guillen finally bombs one into the mezzanine in left field off of Zach Duke. Alfonso Soriano crushes a ball against the Braves. And Barry Bonds sends one to the back of Section 468 last September.

You may have noticed that for each of these dingers the announcers did not give an estimate of the distance they traveled. Apparently that is because the Nats have been too cheap to subscribe to the service that provides the measuring guide for home runs. No surprise there, but thanks to Studes over at The Hardball Times, I've learned of a new site, Hit Tracker, that does the work for us, and apparently in a much more thorough and accurate way.

According to the site's founder, Greg Rybarczyk, Berkman's blast went 466 feet, fifth longest in MLB for 2006 (that's under his measure of "True Distance," which accounts for altitude, atmosphere and other things to make comparison's more apt). Guillen's went 434 feet, and Soriano's 429 feet. The 2005 data does not yet contain Bonds' homer from last year.

Studes points out the interesting comparisons and lists you can make with Hit Tracker's data. I've only begun to explore the site, which looks like a real pleasant timewaster. They say "chicks dig the long ball", and if you dig the long ball, you'll dig Hit Tracker.

Random Thought on the Designated Hitter

2006-05-21T22:35:00.000-04:00

The interleague play this weekend always prompts a discussion of the designated hitter, given that many AL pitchers are forced to hit this weekend, and some DHs like David Ortiz of the Red Sox are forced to play the field. I am not a fan of the DH, but not primarily because it means the pitcher does not hit, and the double switch no longer becomes relevant. Bill James has argued that the DH might actually increase strategy by giving the manager more pinch-hitting options late in the game, and that the decision to pinch hit for the pitcher is usually obvious in most cases, as is the double-switch (unless, of course, you are Frank Robinson).

My main problem with the DH is the aspect related to guys like David Ortiz, which I like to call the "Greg Luzinski Dilemma." To me, it is a much more interesting strategic dilemma for a manager to be forced to play every guy he'd like to hit, and how he must "hide" good hitters with bricks for gloves in places like LF or 1B. I don't like it when this worry is lifted by the DH, which lets the manager send a guy like Ortiz up there 4 times a game without any cost. (The Post did an interesting story on how much time Ortiz actually spends on the bench in a typical AL game).

So that led me to this thought. What if the "DH" rule wasn't that you get to substitute a hitter for the pitcher, but that the pitcher simply did not hit, and you only had 8 batters in the lineup? In other words, you can't hid a bad fielder anymore -- if David Ortiz wants to hit, he must play somewhere in the field. But you would still have no "bad spots" in the lineup.

I don't think there is any magic to the lineup having 9 hitters. Having 8 would only give more plate appearances to everyone in the lineup. IIRC, the average game has about 42 plate appearances, meaning about 4.67 PAs per lineup spot. With an 8-man lineup, each guy would get, on average, 5.25 PAs. In other words, rather than giving the pitcher's plate appearances to one guy like Ortiz, you would spread them out over the 8 players, which seems, for some reason, more equitable to me.

What would be the effect of such a change? I'm not sure. Obviously, the counting stat records like hits or HRs in a season would be affected, as batters would get around 80 or so more plate appearances per season. I have not read of anyone discussing this option -- I wonder if it was considered back in 1972? I imagine that it would have been rejected because the primary point of the DH was to add offense, and this approach would not necessarily do that, because you could not add a good bat to the lineup. On the other hand, it would give some of your other hitters more at bats, so the effect is not that drastic. Perhaps it would reward teams with deeper lineups, and hurt those who need that extra bat.

Anyway, I had never thought of this before, and wonder if it has ever been discussed. If you know of any information on this approach, please let me know. And if I am missing something here, let me know that too.

ERV Boxscores -- Closed for Renovations

2006-05-21T22:05:00.000-04:00

You might have noticed that I have not been providing ERV boxscores the past few days. The time has come for me to bite the bullet and convert to a database program instead of using Excel to keep the data and produces the boxscores. The bad news is that this will require me to develop a database in MySQL and convert my Excel code, which I cannot do an keep updating the boxscores on a regular basis. The good news is that after this is complete, the system should be a lot more powerful. Some advantages I anticipate include:

more timely publication of boxscores
more complete fielding values assigned
more interesting analyses of the data
historical ERV boxscores and analysis (possible, not certain)
ERV values for teams beyond the Nats (possible, not certain)

Unfortunately I do not have an estimate of how long this will take. But my first experiments with MySQL have gone well, and if I can devote serious time to it, I am optimistic. Thank you in advance for being patient.

Revolution, Revisited (Part 4)

2006-05-18T08:51:00.000-04:00

[Note: This is the fourth and final part of the series. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here, and Part 3 is here.]

I can anticipate some common questions and criticisms about an "open" major league baseball system. In this post I'll try to set them out and respond.

1. More teams would dilute the quality of play among the "major" leagues.

There's no reason to believe that the clubs in the top league won't be able to attract and buy the best players. It hasn't hurt the Premiership in England. In fact it may be the case that an open system would allow talent to flow more efficiently to the top league, through both promotion and more free transfers of players from the minors, rather than be funneled through farm systems that may be managed poorly. Note also that in England it is possible for good players to negotiate a "relegation-release" clause in their contracts, so that if their club drops, they become free agents available to other top tier teams. These help ensure that the best talent remains in the top.

2. The rich teams would dominate even more than they do now in a "more free" market.

This is the competitive balance issue I touched on in earlier posts. With promotion and relegation, those rich successful teams don't get to beat up on the Royals and Pirates every year, but must face new competition that would dearly love to unseat them and prove their worth in the top league.

3. It would diminish the value and excitement of the playoffs.

If this turns out to be a problem, you could grant the World Series winner one year of being protected from relegation. Winning in the playoffs would, as it does now, make your club more attractive to everyone, players, fans, advertisers, so there are natural incentives to succeed there. Plus you are adding excitement of the relegation competition at the end of every year, which would keep interest in many more teams down the stretch.

4. The players would suffer, and they are the ones who make the game great.

I am not one to begrudge players a large, even obscene, income -- they undertake a demanding job which lasts only a short time, under intense scrutiny and pressure -- and among those involved in baseball they should receive a healthy portion of the revenues generated from the game. However, to the extent those profits are borne of monopoly power and anti-competitive behavior, they don't deserve them any more than the owners. Jim Bouton said a lot when he noted that the 1994 strike was the "first labor dispute in history to pit billionaires against millionaires." There is no doubt that the owners for decades kept the players from getting a fair share of the spoils, which in large part they created. But the MLBPA has only succeed in broadening the privileged class to include the players -- like many labor unions, it is not primarily concerned with free and open competition. The experience of European soccer demonstrates that player salaries do not suffer from open league structures, so in the end I doubt the players will suffer, and might even make out better, and more players will have a chance at success. Most importantly, we would end the pointless death struggles we've seen every few years between two monopolists trying to divy up billions of dollars.

5. It would destroy the beloved minor league system! What would happen to player development?

There would still be a fair amount of player development in the minor leagues, it just wouldn't be directly tied to a major league franchise. Again, we have examples from English soccer, where clubs in the lower division often develop players with an eye towards selling them to higher division clubs for profit. As Bill James points out, this happened as a matter of course in the early days of baseball, until the majors got control over it to lower their player acquisition costs. But each club would face the business choice of deciding whether it wanted to retain players and make a push for the championship and promotion, or sell them off to reinvest in new young players, much like the major league clubs decide today.

Also, there would not be any prohibition on clubs developing their own youth and reserve programs to develop new talent as well. A high school player would face a choice of signing with the Yankees youth program, presumably for less money but better experience and teaching, or striking out with a lower division club, presumably for more money and a chance at playing competitive ball earlier. Also, players from major league clubs could be loaned to minor league clubs to give them playing time and experience in competition -- David Beckham on Manchester United was loaned to Preston North End early in his career, where his talent quickly revealed itself. There would not be any prohibition on big league and minor league clubs creating such arrangements, so long as they were not exclusive.

Be sure to check out the comments to part 2 from Will on this point, they are excellent.

6. It's an idea from Europe!

Yes, my jingoistic American pride is wounded a bit by citing a European model that is more faithful to the free market than ours. (Especially when countries like Germany prevent Lands' End from doing business there because they offer unconditional money back guarantees to their customers.) But the experience from Europe, particularly England, shows that such a system does accomplish important goals of increasing economic welfare for the fans by making on-field success and failure more relevant to the overall success/failure of the clubs. It's not perfect, but it's better than what we have. As Bill James noted, this is a problem of comparing reality to a possible world, and it's hard to fully grasp that what we have now and are used to is not the only possible world, and not the best one.

7. You might end up with a World Series between Ft. Wayne, Indiana and Chyenne, Wyoming. Who wants that?

What are you, a network TV executive? Yes, there is that possibility, after years of promotion and relegation to allow clubs in such cities to have that success. But keep in mind, Mr. TV guy, that you likely would also have more than 2 clubs in NYC, LA and Chicago, which increases the chance of a high demographic market being involved in the post-season. So I think you might have more, not fewer, TV-friendly matchups under this system. You also have more potential geographic rivalries that baseball seems to love so much.

8. It would ruin baseball's tradition!

I would give this argument credence -- if it were 1959. But the tradition many people love to trot out has been beaten to an unrecognizable pulp by expansion, television, the designated hitter, divisional playoffs, free agency, player strikes, lockouts, wild card teams, astro-turf, inter-league play, revenue sharing, luxury taxes, baby-blue double-knits, steroids, air travel, and on and on. And I see this system as return to a more longstanding American tradition -- open and fair competition that provides opportunity and incentive for everyone, not just a privileged few.

As Bill James said in 1988, "Hey, buddy, I love tradition too."

9. The current owners would never allow it, and the Congress/Administration would never impose it on them.

The best objection yet. All true, and, apart from the steroids issue, the current state of baseball does not cry out for reform -- it has solved the "Montreal problem" (to our benefit, yay!) , no labor crisis is imminent, attention to the sport from the public seems relatively healthy. So it is not the most opportune political time to expect any reform like the one proposed here. Hell, Bill James's ideas have been around for nearly 20 years through 3 labor disputes, a missed World Series, the threat of contraction and other controversy, and never received much serious attention. But I wanted to lay it out here because it has helped me understand some of my frustration with the sport, and to help you think more about possible worlds, rather than just the one we know. And it's a lot more fun than watching Joey Eischen pitch.

ERV Boxscore for May 17, at Chicago

2006-05-17T23:47:00.000-04:00

Revolution, Revisited (Part 3)

2006-05-17T08:41:00.000-04:00

[Note: This is part 3 of a 4-part blog post. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here .]

What are the benefits of an "open" league system? They are several primary benefits for fans, in my view, stemming from the increased competition such a system allows. First, success or failure would have a more meaningful impact on a team's bottom line. Right now a team's income is largely determined by its city, rather than whether it wins or loses. With relegation and promotion, bad teams in large markets can be forced down into lower leagues with fewer revenue opportunities, which good teams in smaller markets can get the chance at bigger revenues in the "major" leagues.

Second, by allowing more teams into the same market, fans have the benefit of competition between local clubs. We Nats fans would be a lot better off if the idiocy that is Tavares/Bowden/Robinson were not the only game in town, and we could switch our allegiance to a second club in D.C. (To those who might suggest that the Orioles are competition for fans of baseball in D.C., please do so, because the owner of that club is a poster boy for monopoly power abuse). That, in turn, will make the Nats a better club, because the owners will not tolerate fan defection. And note that in an open system where a single A or double A team has a chance, even remote, to make it to the big leagues, that would provide even more competition to the Nats from Bowie, Frederick, Potomac and Richmond, especially where these clubs are freed from their major league masters and can devote resources to actually winning games for promotion purposes.

Another important benefit is the ability of outsiders to actually start new baseball teams that might make it to the major leagues. Andrew Zimbalist explains this benefit as it has played out in the English soccer leagues:

[B]ecause league membership is not fixed, teams do not have monopoly control over their territories. Any individual with sufficient capital and drive can create a lower-division team, invest in top players and coaches, and potentially rise up the divisional ladder to the top level. As a result of this characteristic, promotion/relegation leagues tend not to have monopolies or even duopolies in large cities. London has had nine different teams playing in the top-level EPL since 1990. If a city has too few teams relative to its economic potential to support teams, then entrepreneurs are free to increase supply without paying the existing league for the permission to become an expansion team. Thus London EPL teams do not enjoy the rent from the large market that is bestowed, for instance, upon baseball's Yankees.

As a result, even though clubs could no longer prohibit franchise relocation, it doesn't happen in practice in the European soccer leagues because there is no longer any geographic monopoly over cities, so the incentives for relocation diminish. In baseball, owners who would want to move to a city like New York or Los Angeles would be free to do so, knowing that they would likely have to compete with several other clubs for those large markets. New clubs would be formed (or exisiting minor league teams repurposed) to serve markets like Portland, Las Vegas, Charlotte and even Montreal. This approach, by taking away the geographic monopoly on the baseball business, avoids the wasteful, protracted drama we watched with the Nats and the D.C. Council -- cities will be in a much stronger position when negotiating stadium deals with clubs, and, as Zimbalist points out, public subsidies for stadia in English soccer are very low, with the clubs financing most of the development.

The importance of allowing new entrants into the baseball market should not be underestimated. Why should all of the "outsiders" who have begun to revolutionize baseball with new ways of evaluating talent and strategy be forced to compete for the handful of jobs in MLB? Shouldn't an entrepreneur be able to start a new club, hire those folks and see if the new theories actually work? If all of the current minor league teams were real baseball teams, who had to evaluate and deploy talent to win games themselves, then suddenly you have hundreds of real GM positions (and assistant GM and all other related jobs) available, rather than 30 as there is today. Baseball needs start-up clubs to help keep it strong and innovative.

This point addresses something that's been bugging me since last summer. In the middle of chat over at Yuda's, we tried to list the length of tenure for all current GMs in MLB. The crazy thing was that the guy with the longest tenure with his current club was the now departed Chuck LaMarr of Tampa Bay, perenially one of the worst teams in MLB, and a team that makes terrible personnel moves. Also, it seems to me odd that the same guys keep getting hired by MLB clubs, even when they suck or, at best, are mediocre (e.g. Bowden). These counter-intuitive observations flow directly from MLB's monopoly structure.

Of course, not all would be rosy from some particular teams. Bill James acknowledges that his "Revolution" would be painful to many clubs in the early going. Some, maybe many, existing minor league clubs, especially those accustomed to living off the majors and not developing talent to win ballgames, would suffer and even go under. Relegation of teams like the Royals and Pirates would be painful. But these pains are exactly what is needed to force owners like David Glass to actually improve his team. Even the vaunted Manchester United spent time in the lower divisions of the English soccer leagues in the mid-1970s, only to return in the 80s and 90s to dominate the sport.

In sum, the baseball fan has a lot to gain from an open league structure with promotion and relegation. The fear of relegation will "concentrate the mind" of the club's owner and management, prompting them to improve their teams. Multiple clubs in major markets will prompt clubs to try to appeal to fans, rather than dictate to a captured group in an exclusive territorial market. And by prompting the minor leagues to be real baseball teams, that opens up a whole new market of opportunity and enjoyment of baseball for the avid fan, and spreads real baseball around the country in all markets, not just the large ones.

In the next part, I'll try to answer some anticipated objections to such an approach.

ERV Boxscore for May 16, at Chicago

2006-05-16T22:46:00.000-04:00

Revolution, Revisited (Part 2)

2006-05-16T08:46:00.000-04:00

[Note: This is part 2 of a 4-part blog post. Part 1 can be found here.]

In his 1988 essay Revolution, Bill James describes the transformation of the minor leagues over the course of the 20th Century. He explains how the "minor" leagues went from being independent competitors to the American and National Leagues in the early part of the century to their status as wholly dependent organs for player development for the "major" leagues. For example, in the early 20th Century, the Baltimore minor league club started recruiting quality players and retaining them, thinking they might be able to compete with the likes of the St. Louis Browns. To respond to this competition, the major leagues entered into deals with minor league clubs restricting their sales of players, and standardizing the terms of such contracts. James notes that this change did not take place overnight, but gradually, the result of series of transactions with the major leagues that provided short-term benefit for the minor league clubs (usually cash and more certainty about their finances), in exchange for less and less control over their players and affairs in the long term.

He laments this change, because it fundamentally alters the incentives of the minor league clubs away from trying to win baseball games. He retells an amusing story from Earl Weaver, who, while managing in the minor leagues, was asked by the big league club to move a player from 1B to 3B. Weaver, knowing that the guy could never play 3B and trying to win the pennant, kept the guy at 1B but submitted false reports and boxscores back to the big league club showing him playing at 3B. Similarly, a few weeks ago XM radio interviewed the general manager of the Nats AAA club, the New Orleans Zephyrs. He explained that a AAA GM's duties have very little to do with player personnel decisions (those are made by the big club); he spends his time thinking up things like the Dizzy Bat Race and getting Al's Pizza and Pasta to pay for a sign in the left-field gap. I think I knew this, but it stands out as a clear example of James' point about the "point" of minor league teams.

So what does James think should be done? He recommends that the ties between major and minor league clubs be severed (essentially via antitrust law), so that the minor league clubs become free to develop and acquire players on their own, and regain the incentive to try to win their league. In other words, no longer would their be 30 MLB clubs, but potentially many more -- James thinks about 60 will be the right number, with another 150 in other independent leagues.

More recent work fleshes out this "open league" concept -- this article by Stephen Ross and Stefan Szymanski is a good introduction to the issues. It is also discussed in Andrew Zimbalist's "May the Best Team Win" and Zimbalist's and Szymanski's "National Pastime". These authors add to James's concept the idea of promotion and relegation, which would help put some order to the new open league system, and also provide incentives for teams to succeed on the field. Promotion and relegation, which is common in professional club soccer in Europe and elsewhere in the world, requires that the best teams in the lower divisions of clubs replace the worst teams in the next highest division, so that even the composition of the "major" or "Premier" leagues is not set but open to those clubs demonstrating success on the field. Szymanski and Zimbalist, in particular, make direct comparison of the economics of European soccer using promotion/relegation and the current MLB closed system.

So what would an "open" major league baseball system look like? Probably a lot like the system we have today, but with some fundamental underlying differences. You could keep the existing MLB, AAA, AA, A leagues in place, but just permit movement of clubs between the leagues. For example, the bottom team in each division could be replaced with the top six teams from AAA, probably with a geographic and regional classification (e.g. Pacific Coast League teams move into the West divisions) to minimize travel burdens. (Promotion and relegation work well in English soccer in part because all of the teams live in a region that is not much bigger than Virginia and North Carolina combined). Goodbye Kansas City, Hello Charlotte. Similar trade-offs would be made between AAA and AA and A.

Another change that I think would work nicely is to have the AL and NL realign into 2 divisions each, with 8 teams in each division (you could add two more teams to the AL, or have two 7-team divisons). The top 2 teams in each division make the playoffs, and the bottom team in each division (4 total) are relegated. For example, based on 2005 standings, Colorado and Pittsburgh would have been relegated in the NL, and Tampa Bay and Kansas City in the AL. You would fill these slots from the four best teams in the AAA minors (2 "western" teams and 2 "eastern" teams).

While the existing exclusive dealing arrangements that prohibit franchise sale and relocation without approval and minor league affiliates would be gone, baseball would be allowed to agree on how the league competition operates, namely how promotion and relegation would work in practice. The key point would be that new clubs could be formed (after meeting some initial criteria) and start participating in the system, probably at the lowest ranks.

What are the benefits of such a system? That will be discussed in Part 3.

Revolution, Revisited (Part 1)

2006-05-15T08:54:00.000-04:00

Editor's Note: Ever faithful reader Anonymous pointed out that we here at Nats Blog have not said a word about the ownership situation in wake of the developments last week. I won't speak for SuperNoVa or dexys, but to be honest, I received the news with the same attitude that Alfonso Soriano pursues doubles down the line when the Nats are behind -- I just couldn't muster enough effort to care. The reasons for that reaction are complicated, and these posts are designed, in part, to explain them. They are long, though, so I've split them into four parts.

Just last week Bud Selig finally selected which group of billionaires is entitled to the privilege of spending $450 million dollars to join the exclusive club that is MLB. It should be a time for Nats fans (finally) to put 18 months of off-the-field unrest behind us, and look forward to a Bowden-free era of direction and purpose that typically comes from having a real owner and executives who actually have a stake in the fortunes of our local nine.

But before we do that, we should ask this question: What exactly did the Lerners spend their $450 million on? Livan Hernandez, Brian Schneider, Nick Johnson? Frank Robinson, Jim Bowden, Tony Tavares? RFK? 81-81 in 2005? The expected 70 wins this year? Each of these things are, at best, of average quality relative to other major league teams, and most of these things are below average. Perhaps if the Nats had talent like the White Sox, management like the Braves, wins like the Yankees and a ballpark like SBC Park, the price would be higher, maybe even significantly higher, but I don't think anyone can say that a change in players, management or park would lower the price. To be sure, a fair amount of that price is related to the new ballpark, but that sort of gets to my ultimate point: very little, if any, of the purchase price is related to the things we as fans spend so much time griping and worrying about: the players, the games, the wins/losses. The ballpark, on the other hand, does relate to the price, but fans have very little say in the existence and nature of the ballpark. The bottom line is that the Lerners are paying for something that has very little to do with the success or failure of the Nats on the field.

What they paid for was the exclusive right to the Washington, D.C. market for major league baseball. That in and of itself is valuable, regardless of what happens on the field. As Andrew Zimbalist pointed out in May the Best Team Win, Fay Vincent referred to Washington, D.C. as an "asset" even when no franchise existed in the city. The D.C. area is one of the top five media markets, with millions of residents who would be attracted to baseball and thereby attractive to advertisers and marketers who will pay the Lerners to get in front of that crowd. But it is important that the majority of the value to the Lerners does not come from the baseball played on the field, but from the exclusivity offered to them from MLB. So it's no wonder that Lerners are untroubled by the Nats current awful start, the decimated farm system, and the incompetent management. None of that matters. Getting in the exclusive club that is MLB will earn its rewards by itself. How else can one explain the existence of the Royals, Devil Rays and Pirates?

And therein lies the problem for those of us who spend a fair amount of time thinking, worrying and caring about the on-field fortunes of the Nats. If someone is willing to spend $450 million without much care as to the actual on-field success/failure, then how do you think the fans' complaining about the on-field failure will figure into their calculus? I suspect it will be received like my request for a hot dog from an RFK concession stand -- with something between bemused indifference and annoyed hostility.

Back in February, we had a colloquy with Dave of Nats Triple Play about whether and how fans could voice their displeasure over the mismanagement by Jim Bowden. Dave took the "company" line, chiding those who renounced their season tickets. I disagreed with that view, but upon re-reading that post, it's clear I was half-hearted in my stance, given that I ultimately had no idea how and to what extent fans could influence the management decisions of a team. But ever since that exchange, I've been thinking about what product, exactly, does MLB produce, what type of product we consumers want from MLB, and how we could influence MLB and our favorite teams to make that product?

Now, however, I'm reasonably confident on the answer to that last question. We don't really have any influence at all. We might as well be rooting for the weather. And the reason for this is that we don't have the one tool that we can use in almost any other case to effect change: competition. The monopoly MLB holds over DC, and over the business of baseball in this country, prevents consumers from having a meaningful say in the operations of that business. Until that situation changes, it is delusional (although, like many delusions, a reasonably pleasant one) to think we can effect change.

What has prompted this conclusion? Primarily reading Bill James's 1988 essay, Revolution (which can be found in James' 1989 collection This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones), along with some other books and articles by Andrew Zimbalist and Stefan Szymanski. These writings describe the relatively simple steps, although far-reaching and unprecedented, that would vastly improve the lot of us fans in our relationship with the sport we love. The more I think about these changes, and the effects they would have, the less interested I am in discussing salary caps, revenue sharing, luxury taxes, collective bargaining and the like, all of which, when you think about the game as it could be, start to look like what they really are -- hastily constructed artifices designed to symbolize and represent the beneficial effects of the free market without actually changing the most pernicious aspects of the monopoly of baseball, and which, in some cases, do more harm than good in making teams accountable to the fans.

In the next few posts I'll try to describe what I've learned from James et al. about the structure of baseball and the alternatives that would be preferable. In part 2, we start with a description of Revolution.

ERV Boxscore for May 13, at Atlanta

2006-05-13T22:48:00.000-04:00

Pass.

ERV Win: FrancoeurJ
ERV Loss: Cordero (0-1)

3 Most Valuable Plays:

(1) Obvious (7.10)
(2) Soriano's HR in the 6th (2.62)
(3) Andruw Jones' K in the 9th (-2.24)

ERV Boxscore for May 12, at Atlanta

2006-05-12T21:56:00.000-04:00

I haven't been commenting on these games, because they've been pretty depressing. This one is the worst kind of loss -- a banal drubbing, with us not showing life enough to make the contest last more than 2 hours and 15 minutes. And there are still 6 games left on this road trip.

ERV Win: Smoltz
ERV Loss: Byrd (1-1)

3 most valuable plays:

(1) Zimm's HR in the 5th (1.95)
(2) Byrd's GIDP in the 4th (-1.03)
(3) McCann's Single in the 1st (1.02)

ERV Boxscore for May 11, at Cincinnati

2006-05-12T09:58:00.000-04:00

ERV Win: Griffey
ERV Loss: Eischen (0-1)

3 Most Valuable Plays:
(1) Griffey HR in 11th (8.51)
(2) Johnson HR in the 11th (2.77)
(3) Freel's Flyout in the 9th (-2.53)

Griffey's WV is the largest for a single play, comparable only to Guzman's mudball last year. Both plays reversed a win into a loss, hence the value.

Not a good line

2006-05-11T14:57:00.000-04:00

Here are some pitching stats worth cringing over:

168.2 IP
4 wins-12 losses
5.23 ERA
202 Hits and 54 walks given up for a 1.52 WHIP
29 Home runs given up

Those are Livan's stats over his last 25 starts.
I'm not sure at what point he needs to be shut down or traded or seriously medically examined, or have his birth certificate looked over more carefully or what, but we are getting close to that point. The most amazing part of those stats is that 168+ innings in 25 starts means that despite being consistently shelled, he is averaging close to 7 innings per start. This is clearly a combination of the fact that a) he seems to be able to pitch his arm off no matter what, b) that Frank knows this and since Livan is supposed to be a #1 pitcher, the bullpen has to get rest at some point, and c) in his "defense," Livan at least this year gets shelled early and then appears to settle down relatively speaking. But a 5.23 ERA (add on another 0.43 for 5.66 runs allowed per 9 if you want to include his 8 unearned runs) in a severe pitcher's park with our offense is never going to cut it, which explains why in 25 starts, we've only seen 4 wins out of Livan.

ERV Boxscore for May 10, at Cincinnati

2006-05-10T22:35:00.000-04:00

ERV Win: Kearns
ERV Loss: Stanton (0-3)

3 Most Valuable Plays:

(1) LeCroy's Single in the 8th (2.81)
(2) Kearns' Double in the 8th (2.08)
(3) Schneider's double in the 8th (1.85)

ERV Boxscore for May 9, at Cincinnati

2006-05-09T23:17:00.000-04:00

ERV Win: Armas (1-1)
ERV Loss: Claussen

3 Most Valuable Plays:

(1) Zimm's HR in the 4th (1.34)
(2) Clayton getting thrown out at home in the 4th (-1.33)
(3) Guillen's HR in the 6th (1.02)

Sunday Night Stats

2006-05-01T20:07:00.000-04:00

Through Sunday, 4/30/06

ERV Boxscore for April 30, at St. Louis

2006-05-01T20:05:00.000-04:00

ERV Boxscore for April 29, at St. Louis

2006-04-30T16:46:00.000-04:00

ERV Win: Carpenter
ERV Loss: Nick Johnson (1-1)

3 Most Valuable Plays:
(1) Pujols HR in the 8th (3.07)
(2) Johnson's GO in the 9th (-2.25)
(3) Guillen's HR in the 4th (1.39)

Nats to Pujols: We Surrender

2006-04-30T12:43:00.000-04:00

Where do the Nats get a guy like Albert Pujols? Seriously. The man has created his own verb and is doing the best impression of...well, there's really no precedent for what he is doing from the right side of the plate. Joe Dimaggio, maybe, with more power. Jimmie Foxx, maybe, with fewer strikeouts. If it weren't for Barry Bonds, he'd be the best hitter I'd ever seen, and I've seen the Big Hurt at his absurd zenith. He's the National League assassin. Like Gilbert Arenas, only he's actually doing the assassinations (Gilbert is not).

But a better question is: Where do the Cardinals get off getting a guy like Albert Pujols? Seriously. This is a franchise that has already had its Man. It already had Rogers Hornsby. Its cup overflows. Historically speaking, the Baseball Gods have smiled on the St. Louis Cardinals. (While at the same time, they frowned on the Browns, only to smile and wink at them in Baltimore, and the curse them again with Peter Angelos. But I digress).

So here's my new rule for the Major Leagues. It will enhance parity and revenues for every ball club, and leave all children happy:

Albert Pujols is to be cloned. And every team gets an Albert Pujols.

ERV Boxscore for April 28, at St. Louis

2006-04-28T23:12:00.000-04:00

How nutty is the game of baseball? Right now I'm thinking, "Thank God for Tony Armas", that's how crazy it is.

ERV Win: Nick Johnson (1-0)
ERV Loss: Jason Marquis

Three Most Valuable Plays:
(1) Dutch's HR in the 1st (1.71)
(2) Johnson's HR in the 1st (1.54)
(3) Soriano's single in the 3rd (0.84)

ERV Boxscore for April 27, at St. Louis

2006-04-27T23:07:00.000-04:00

Pitching, Pitching, Pitching.

~~I'll have more in the morning.~~

I lied. Everything I wanted to say was said by Capitol Punishment.

-------

SNV here. I actually disagree with Capitol Punishment. Not about Bowden being a fool with an ego too big to admit he's wrong - no one can reasonably argue with that. But about pitching.

The problem with the Nats' pitching is that it is much too fragile. Way too fragile. Patterson is flaky at best, Armas is beyond injury prone, and the rest of the guys are simply below replacement level, and are predictably blown out when asked to actually give the team major league innings.

Oddly, the Nats have essentially the baseline of what you want from a pitcher for RFK and the NL East in Livan. He's extraordinarily durable and lets the opposition put the ball in play. For the most part, that is going to keep runs down in a low-ERA environment like the NL East. Patterson, to me, would be the best of all worlds if healthy - a high strikeout AND absurdly fly-ball oriented. So they do have a solid pitching foundation.

The Nats only need to scour the league for dependable, league-average arms. They usually can be had cheaply - they picked up Loaiza at a reasonable price last year, and there is no reason that they couldn't do it again. How about picking up a knuckleballer like Chuck Haeger from the White Sox organization? Flyballs are outs in RFK, so there isn't much risk in putting him out there, and his arm isn't going to get hurt. Eric Milton would work. Seriously (once he is back from knee surgery). And Cincy would undoubtedly pick up some of his salary. Casey Fossum would have to be another candidate, if you can get him away from Tampa Bay.

What they need is good defense (to create a high defensive effeciency) and on base percentage skills. So far, only two players meet that goal - Nick Johnson and Ryan Church, when he's not in centerfield. Everyone else needs to improve (I'm talking to you, Dutch) or be replaced (I'm talking to you, ClaytonGuzman).

ERV Boxscore for April 26, vs. Reds

2006-04-27T22:16:00.000-04:00

Salt for the Wounds

2006-04-26T01:14:00.000-04:00

I probably shouldn't do this when the Nats current pitching staff is so tender, but last night was ex-Nat starter night in MLB. How did they fare?

Hector Carrasco struggled in a 5-2 loss to the Tigers, going only 5.0 innings, but giving up 5 earned runs on 7 hits, with only 3 Ks.

Tomo Ohka outpitched Tim Hudson in a 4-2 win over the Braves, 7.0 innings, 2 earned runs, 3 Ks, no walks.

Claudio Vargas had the best night, 7.0 innings of shutout ball in a 7-0 win over the Padres, giving up only 4 hits, no walks, with 4 Ks.

I'll stop there. Conclusions and rants are left as an exercise for the reader.

---------------------

SNV here. I'll pick up where DM left off. The history of trading off quality major leaguers didn't start with Jim Bowden, it started with Omar Minaya. Minaya made a concerted effort to run the Expo franchise into the ground.

Begin at the beginning:

Traded Lee Stevens, Brandon Phillips, Cliff Lee, and Grady Sizemore to the Cleveland Indians. Received Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew.

Ouch. A half season of Colon (Colon was later traded for Rocky Biddle, El Duque - who never pitched, and Jeff Liefer) for a #2 starter, an All-Star centerfielder, and a useful second baseman. This one really hurts.

Another bad one:

Traded Michael Barrett to the Oakland Athletics. Received a player to be named later. The Oakland Athletics sent Bret Price (minors) (December 19, 2003) to the Montreal Expos to complete the trade.

Ouch. Michael Barrett is going to be an All-Star catcher this year.

Another bad one:

Traded Chris Young and Josh McKinley (minors) to the Texas Rangers. Received Einar Diaz and Justin Echols (minors).

On the other hand, Minaya did make several good trades. He got Livan Hernandez when San Francisco dumped his salary. He got Ryan Church from the Indians for nothing. He picked John Patterson up from Arizona for Randy Choate (part of the Vazquez/Johnson deal). It's hard to give him too hard a time, but his ledger is still negative:

Positives	Negatives
John Patterson	Cliff Lee
Livan Hernandez	Grady Sizemore
Ryan Church	Michael Barrett
Majewski	Chris Young
Luis Ayala	Brandon Phillips

All in all, I'd probably take the guys on the right - two #3 type starters, an All-Star centerfielder, an All-Star catcher, and an interesting second baseman vs. a #2 starter, a #3 starter, a platooning corner outfielder, and two setup/middle relief guys.

Who would be the All-ex-Expo team?

ERV Boxscore for April 25, vs. Reds

2006-04-26T00:46:00.000-04:00

That was an exhausting game. I'm getting tired of looking for silver linings, although coming back again from a 4-0 deficit is a good thing, I guess. This game was the first where the official scorer annoyed me -- Soriano should have gotten an error on the second ball that hit his glove. But I'm going by the scorer this year, so no fielding debit for Alfonso.

ERV Win: Encarnacion
ERV Loss: Traber

3 Most Valuable Plays:
(1) LeCroy's GIDP in the 6th (-1.76)
(2) Zimmerman's GIDP in the 7th (-1.73)
(3) Encarnacion's "Double" in the 5th (1.57)

Soriano: Early Returns

2006-04-25T13:41:00.000-04:00

A trio of good posts has been penned by Federal Baseball, Nats Triple Play, and OMG assessing the status of the Alfonso Soriano trade in light of his good start at the plate and avoidance of disaster in left field. The Feds and NTP are bullish, essentially ready to give Jim Bowden mad props for unloading the whiff machine Brad Wilkerson and change for a real major league hitter. OMG remains wary, figuring that Soriano will retreat somewhat and Wilkerson will advance as time moves on.

I think the cautionary approach from OMG is the right one, but I will say that I've been surprised by how much I enjoy watching Soriano hit, and I think that is the source of the optimism in Nate's and Basil's posts. He is unlike any hitter we've seen on the Nats -- quick hands, unexpected strength from a wiry frame, casual but potent speed on the bases. It seems like he hits the ball harder than any other Nat, even the singles.

This image of him is in direct contrast to the surly malcontent we heard about all winter -- there is an enthusiasm in the way he plays the game that was not evident in the offseason. In left field, a different story, of course. He makes bad judgments on balls and will loaf at times. But I spent a childhood watching Greg Luzinski "play" left field, so I'm not losing sleep over that.

Now that he's ours for this year, let's hope he continues this good work and truly does make us forget Brad Wilkerson.

ERV Boxscore for April 25, vs. Reds

2006-04-24T23:31:00.000-04:00

Licked by the Lizard. It's hard to say anything more about this game, than you just never know in baseball. We had the pitching matchup here, but Elizardo Ramirez dominated.

But the hit and runs are getting tedious now. I'm fine with Soriano trying to steal in the 8th, and it looked like he got a good jump, so why should Vidro have to worry about protecting him?

ERV Win: Ramirez
ERV Loss: Zimmerman

Three Most Valuable Plays:
(1) Guillen's Single in the 6th (1.35)
(2) Guillen's groundout in the 8th (-1.10)
(3) Church's popout in the 6th (-1.06)

Sunday Night Stats

2006-04-23T23:30:00.000-04:00

Here's the latest ERV totals, sorted by Total WV, complete through Sunday night's game. The Wins and Losses columns record ERV Wins and Losses, which are explained here.

Things of Note:
-- We've squandered nearly 10 runs on the bases, and no one has a positive Running RV or WV.

-- Armas, Cordero, Patterson, Rauch and Rodriguez are our best pitchers so far, but the rest of the staff is really dragging us down.

-- It's nice to see Church on top of the list, and with only a fraction of the plate appearances as the other starters.

-- Royce Clayton is filling Cristian Guzman's shoes quite well. Unfortunately, those shoes are made of cement.

ERV Boxscore for April 23, vs. Atlanta

2006-04-23T23:23:00.000-04:00

Should have won that one. Our paper-thin bullpen is easily torn these days. Armas still looks good, if not very overpowering. After Majewski gives up the triple and gets one out, it seemed to me that he could not get the strikeout that was needed. I would have brought in Cordero, since he's our best pitcher and that was the whole game right there.

BTW, ESPN's coverage is awful. The information provided in the graphics is so thin they might as well not even use them. Plus Miller and Morgan just chat during the game like they are fans watching it. It lulls you into not paying attention to what's going on. They could do a LOT better.

ERV Win: Betemit
ERV Loss: Majewski

Three most valuable plays:
(1) Betemit's HR in the 8th (4.05)
(2) Prado's Triple in the 8th (2.40)
(3) Schneider's GIDP in the 4th (-1.57)

To the Mailbag!

2006-04-23T15:33:00.000-04:00

On the right side of this page, you will find a link to e-mail Nats Blog. Now, I set up that gmail account for access by Dexy's, DM and I, but DM really checks it the most. He's carried on important correspondence with big, BIG figures in the baseball world, and has generally raised the profile of Nats Blog and the WV scoring system (which I still do not understand).

But we do get questions from time to time, and I thought I would dip into the e-mail bag for a quick post. Here we go:

Hello
How are you doing with the entire member of your family?
I believed that you will be in better position to corporate with me hence you have vast knowledge in the field of international transaction and Investment.I have been seeking a trust worthy person who understand investment ethics to enter into joint venture partnership on a good lucrative sectors in your country.
The money is ($25,000.000) Millions U.S. dollars and I want to invest this money in any good investment. I need your help urgently for both SAFE KEEPING and INVESTING this money in your country.
And also help me to invest this money in good and profitable sectors in your country because I do not have experience of investment.
I will be very grateful for your urgent response while hoping to do good investments with you on life time ventures. I am CharlesTaylor boy former
president of liberia you can contact me 00971 50 2443308 Kevin need partnership
to invest help.
My best regards.
Mr. Kevin.

Hello, Mr. Kevin! We are doing well with the entire members of our family! Thanks for reading.

I see that you are an astute reader of Nats Blog, recognizing our expertise in international transaction and investments. And thank you for the compliment, we at Nats Blog are trustworthy. I mean, after all, I trust my sanity each and every day with Dexy's. And DM is the last of the famous, international ~~playboys~~ civil servants.

Good and profitable sectors of the economy? Hmm. I see you have $25 million, which is just short of the amount necessary to buy the Washington Nationals. Ok. Have you thought of buying the Florida Marlins? You would have about $10 million left over. With the remainder, I'd recommend Halliburton. They are into two industries: oil and military contracts. Those are big in this town right now.

Hope that helps,

Mr. SuperNoVa

Bill James in a Box

2006-04-22T18:52:00.000-04:00

What is it about Bill James? The man who coined the term "sabermetrics", his name is the icon of the movement towards a more rigorous analysis of baseball through statistics. And he provokes a binary reaction: you either love him (Rob Neyer) or hate him (Joe Morgan). Why? The book, The Mind of Bill James, by Scott Gray, purportedly seeks to answer this question.

I was drawn to this book by the preview from The Baseball Crank, who noted that the book might be a disappointment to those who had grown up with Bill James and already read all of his stuff, given than it is largely a collection of excerpts from his 30 years of writings on baseball. That description appealed to me because I had not already devoured Bill James' work, which is, upon reflection, weird. It is a puzzle befitting James's analytical style because, by all the objective evidence, I should have been a James fanatic. I first tried to create a dice-based simulation in 1976, when I was 8, using the stats in the 1976 World Almanac. I played every conceivable baseball board game. I was a Baseball Digest and Sporting News subscriber from 1978 through 1983. My second-hand copies of the 1978 MacMillan's Baseball Encyclopedia and Neft & Cohen's Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball were worn in like my baseball mitt. I was even aware of the Baseball Abstracts when they arrived in the early 1980s, but for reasons lost in the fog I never bought one. So I come to this new work on James neither as a devoted follower nor an irritated skeptic. But it is very hard not to find James' writing, and the mind that produces it, irresistible.

James presents a rare combination of three important intellectual skills: (1) a deep, analytical mind capable of assimilating a vast array of facts on multiple levels of judgment and interpretation; (2) the ability to communicate complex ideas not only with clarity, but with a fierce brightness that is often unforgettable; and (3) the courage (perhaps it's just callousness) to express conclusions that often cast a cold, harsh light on the subject. There are several people who possess one or even two of these traits -- having all three puts James on the far right of the talent curve.

His appeal (or irritation) begins with the fact that he is a true wise-ass. His humor runs right along, and often sneaks under, the border of tastefulness. Consider this remark:

[I]f there is anyone in the Western Hemisphere who knows less about the Kansas City Royals than Sparky Anderson does, I don't know who it would be -- Karen Ann Quinlan, perhaps.

If you, like me, laughed out loud at that one, you will probably enjoy Bill James. It also helps explains his near-universal reverence in the caustic, sarcastic, ironic baseball blogosphere.

Next comes his use of analogies -- absolutely proper and effective, in that he employs them to illuminate, not prove. Take how he explains the effort to measure fielding:

Hitting is solid, pitching is liquid, defense is gaseous.

Hitting is firm, well-defined, easy to measure.

Pitching is liquid ... it assumes the shape of whatever form it is poured into. A 15-10 pitcher with a 3.80 ERA on one team is 10-15 with a 5.00 ERA on another team.

Defense is gaseous. It is damned hard to capture, formless, hard to see.

Also appealing his is his ability to make fresh observations about old issues, even one like racism, which probably has the highest noise to signal, heat to light ratio of any topic:

If there is anything in the world that can safely be said about racists, it is that they are mediocre. Nothing characterizes a racist like his mediocrity. Racists are people who can find no rational or apparent basis for believing in their own superiority, and so seek to identify themselves with a superior thing, with a badge that won't come off. The baseball world is not an exception to that. ... If you are looking for racism in baseball, start in the middle of the standings and read down.

The Phillies, my former team, had one of the worst records in the 50s and 60s of recruiting and hiring black players, and to call them mediocre back then is essentially a compliment.

But to me, what is most impressive about James is his tireless quest to illuminate the objective reality about baseball, even though he knows that it is not possible to complete such a quest:

Baseball is an infinite puzzle. You can never really understand why teams win and why they lose. You can understand a little bit more, and a little bit more, but you can never exhaust the subject.

And he understands that essential to this quest is the clear-eyed understanding of the paradox that "We shouldn't be too confident about the things we think we know." With this approach, James continues the tradition of Socrates, about whom the Oracle at Delphi said "No man is wiser than Socrates", which Socrates explained by noting that he knows that he doesn't know anything.

James's irreverent, sarcastic, and refreshingly shocking quest for the truth also reminds me of my favorite author, Flannery O'Connor (James was a literature major in college, which helps explain his writing talent). O'Connor would not compromise her goal to explain things as they are, rather than how her readers wanted them to be, and to do so with bracing wit. Her story A Good Man is Hard to Find ends with a escaped psychopath murdering a kindly grandmother in a ditch at the side of a road. One of O'Connor's readers complained about this ending, to which she replied, "Did you want me to keep writing until the police arrived?" I think that answer would make James smile.

Then there is just the simple pleasure of reading Bill James make a point. It resembles the joy of watching Ozzie Smith field a tough grounder -- he does it with such ease and grace you think it is uncomplicated. But when you actually try to do the same thing, you realize quickly how many unanticipated decisions you must make in a suddenly miniscule amount of time and space, and even if you manage to accomplish the same goal, your effort will be clumsy, wasteful and unremarkable.

Reading Scott Gray's exposition of Bill James's mind, unfortunately, is not as pleasing. As the Baseball Crank notes, the book is a bit of a mess, with very little organization or structure (e.g., he does not cite the source for many excerpts, which is frustrating, at least to an uptight lawyer like myself). It feels like you've just done a Google search for "Bill James", and somewhat randomly clicked through to page after page of excerpts -- enjoyable, to be sure, but not presented in a fashion conducive to getting a picture of the man. Some important things are given short shrift, like James's clashes with Seymour Siwoff of Elias Sports Bureau, MLB's official statisticians. Gray foreshadows his meandering style in the Preface, quoting New Yorker author Malcolm Gladwell's praise that Bill James has "mastered the tangent" -- the ability to depart from the expected path yet ultimately remain on point and not confuse or annoy the reader. One gets the sense that Gray has tried his hand at this feat, but he is more Royce Clayton than Ozzie Smith.

Also, some of the the best words in the book (other than James's) are not even from Gray, but from James's wife Susan McCarthy. A large part of the appeal of Bill James is his example of how Americans put the Enlightenment into practice. Without any baseball pedigree whatsoever, no link to McGraw or Mack or Rickey or Ruth or any of the nobility of the game, a lanky, bearded security guard from Kansas, by sheer dint of his intellect and powers of rational observation, managed to affect baseball in profound ways, and ultimately become part of the game with the 2004 World Champion Red Sox. McCarthy describes how she had to drag James onto the field at Busch Stadium to celebrate with the Red Sox. It is one of the rare moments in the book where we glimpse how James feels about his career and accomplishments. James is notoriously difficult to work with, so Gray's roundabout approach may be the only one any author could take in such a book.

In the end, it's hard not to recommend this book, especially if you have not read much Bill James; it is an introduction to his work, and right now the only one I know of. If you've already read a lot of his work, this collection will probably frustrate you, and you might be better revisiting some of those old books directly. In either case, if you're a fan of baseball, reading more Bill James will make you laugh, ponder and enjoy this great game.

The Importance of a Walk

2006-04-22T11:31:00.000-04:00

On Friday I took a sold-out Acela Express train from New York to D.C., and sat next to an older man with cream-white hair who did not say a word for two hours, until we approached Union Station. He noticed that I was reading "The Mind of Bill James" and asked about the book. I told him a bit about it, and asked if had read any of James' work. He said no, but that he knows a little bit about baseball, given that he was just out in Arizona pitching in the over-65 baseball championships. He also said he went to high school with Dick McAuliffe, and had a chance to play pro ball, but went to college instead. Among the players he has coached is Dayton Moore, current assistant GM with the Braves.

We talked some more about James, and I described the basics of his thinking, such as the importance of On-Base Percentage and looking at walks in evaluating the talent of hitters. The man smiled and proceeded to tell me a story about the importance of evaluating your players, and of a walk.

"I was coaching little league in 1971," he began, "and we were in the championship game. We were down by 1 run in the last inning with 2 outs, but we had the bases loaded. As luck would have it, though, our batter was a kid who had struck out every time at bat that season. He simply swung at every single pitch he saw.

"So I decided to send him up to the plate without a bat. Well, first the umpire came over and asked me what I was doing. I told him there was no rule against sending the batter up there without a bat, and he couldn't disagree. Then the opposing manager, who's kid was pitching, comes out and wants to know what's going on.

"Then the batter's father comes running down the bleachers and starts yelling at me through the chain link backstop, saying I was embarrassing his kid. I said, 'Just give me two minutes, and I'll explain everything.' Then the kid says, 'Coach, what am I supposed to do?' I told him, 'Just go stand in the batter's box and smile at the pitcher.'

"Sure enough, the kid walks to to tie the game, and we win on the next at bat with a base hit. But the father is still mad at me, and comes up to me after the game to yell at me some more. But his kid pulls him by the belt loop and says 'Dad, get out of here. I have to go to school tomorrow, and if I struck out to lose the game, I wouldn't hear the end of the razzing from the other kids.' Then he beamed, 'But now, I can say I drove in the tying run!' The dad stopped short, and walked away without saying another word."

As we got off the train, we exchanged business cards, and he told me he had seven children, and had taken care of over seventy foster kids. It was the least suprising thing he could have said.

ERV Boxscore for April 21 vs. Atlanta

2006-04-22T00:53:00.000-04:00

An exciting win, and good result, but we need to treat the Stanton-Eischen syndrome were are currently suffering. Patterson totally rocked, and it was a shame to see him not get the win.

ERV Win: Soriano
ERV Loss: Cormier

Three Most Valuable Plays
(1) Betemit's Single in the 8th (2.48)
(2) Church's Triple in the 8th (2.41)
(3) Soriano's HR in the 8th (1.47)

ERV Boxscore for April 20, at Philadelphia

2006-04-21T23:36:00.000-04:00

ERV Boxscore for April 19 at Philadelphia

2006-04-19T23:16:00.000-04:00

A frustrating loss, probably of the kind we can't afford to lose many of this year. The bullpen seriously let's us down -- good teams simply don't blow three run leads in the 8th.

ERV Win: Howard
ERV Loss: Stanton

Three most valuable plays:
(1) Howard's GW single in the 10th (3.44)
(2) Abreu's HR in the 8th (2.39)
(3) Howard's HR in the 2nd (1.76)

ERV Boxscore for April 18 at Philadelphia

2006-04-18T23:53:00.000-04:00

I didn't see much of this game, but I saw Church's grand slam, which was nice for him but largely irrelevant to this game -- it gets a 0.39 WV, because the chance of winning a 6-3 in the ninth is not much less than a 10-3 game.

ERV Win: Zimmerman
ERV Loss: Rhodes

3 Most Valuable Plays:
(1) Burrell's HR in the 4th (2.03)
(2) Zimmerman's Double in the 8th (1.56)
(3) Rollins getting thrown out in the first (-1.33)

Bowden arrested for DUI

2006-04-18T14:45:00.000-04:00

No cheap shots this time.

Jim Bowden was arrested Sunday night and charged with driving under the influence. While I have taken a lot of shots at Bowden's judgment over the past year and a half, I never expected this. Bowden says he will plead non-guilty, but all of the other words in the article lead one to the conclusion that it was a legitimate arrest. If it is, and if in addition to the charge, it comes out that Bowden has some sort of drinking problem, here's hoping he gets help for it.

If he doesn't have a problem and this was just an irresponsible lapse in judgment, one can also hope that he gets punished accordingly, be happy that no one got hurt, and maybe the Nats can move on with a fresh slate and a sad non-baseball ending to the Nats Bowden era.

ERV Boxscores for April 14, 15, 16 at Florida

2006-04-18T00:43:00.000-04:00

The Post and WPA

2006-04-16T22:45:00.000-04:00

I just noticed this today, and thought I would point out that the Post has added a real-time scoring page for Nats games that includes win-probability scoring! Not just any win probability scoring, but the Tangotiger/Studeman/Walk off Balk WPA scoring.

This is probably the most forward-looking move by a major newspaper and it embraces some of the leading-edge thought in baseball. I have my own hesitation on WPA scoring (I worry about sample size for some situations), but I do acknowledge its promise in understanding games and the contributions of players. Kudos to the Post for getting on board the train. If it was the vowel-less one behind this, thank you. We like you despite your Duke education.

The post I didn't have to write

2006-04-16T20:58:00.000-04:00

It's no secret that we here at Nats Blog, and myself in particular, have been big proponents of having Ryan Church on the Nats MLB roster and starting the vast majority of games. However, I have to say that around 1:30 this afternoon, I really did start to think to myself "Have I been backing a bad horse all this time"?

In the top of the first, with a man on second and two outs, Ryan Church struck out. And badly. On (I believe) 3 pitches. Against a guy with a career ERA of 5.90. Which made him 0 for 6 since his call-up with 4 Ks. And over the span of a minute or two, I thought: What if they were right that he should have played through pain last year? And why when faced in competition in Spring Training did he perform so badly? And what was up with that excuse for performing badly that infuriated the front office and Frank so much ("I'm worn down"--you're in your mid 20's and it's Spring Training)? And why since he was sent to the minors was he doing his best Cristian Guzman impersonation? And finally, why when actually given his job back has he looked so dreadful? I started doubting, Ryan. I really did.

Anyway...thank you for hitting two home runs over the next two hours, winning the game for the Nats, and making it so that I didn't have to write that post with such doubts still intact. I hope you make Frank cringe again and again by hitting the crap out of the ball and shoving his insults back in his face.

The cooling of Dutch

2006-04-16T12:42:00.000-04:00

Is it too late to ask for a second honeymoon? After a great September call-up and a hot first two games to start the season including a clutch game-tying homerun against the Mets in game 2, Ryan Zimmerman has cooled off considerably. Now, admittedly Ryan has a lot of pressure being the only young gun and a supposed savior to a really bad team. But every now and then, I think too much and start wondering that Bowden and team have overhyped him in Bowden's constant attempts to save his job. The main reason I have for this over-thinking is that Zim kept being touted as the next Scott Rolen before he committed error after error in the spring--and while he hasn't been error-prone in the first couple of regular season weeks, I have definitely seen him miss a couple of balls that most 3rd basemen would have gotten to or read earlier.

But obviously, right now, his bat is most troubling--especially for a guy that we have been batting in the meat of the order. Since game 2, the at-bat where he took Billy Wagner long, Zimmerman has been far from a dutch treat. 3 of his 10 hits (and both his extra base hits) were in the first 2 games and 3 of his 6 walks were in those games too. So in the last 10 games, he has had a .175 Avg, a .204 OBP and a .175 SLG (since all his hits have been singles) for a .379 OPS. You put a .379 OPS in the middle of your lineup for a 10 game span and you aren't going to win many games (especially with some of our other guys). Even when you include the first two games, Ryan's OPS with men on and 2 outs is only .321 with 7! K's in 16 plate appearances.

So, anyway, here is hoping that Ryan gets his act together. It's early in the season and I certainly think that he'll pull it together. I'd just like to see him do it sooner rather than later.

ERV Boxscore for April 13, 2006 vs. New York Mets

2006-04-14T23:18:00.000-04:00

I was all set. We had just got on the road, with about 3 hours of driving ahead of us. The kids were occupied, and my XM radio was hooked up and I was ready to listen to the entire Nats game in peace. About 8 minutes later, that dream was shattered. I tuned out after the second or third inning, only tuning back in just in time to hear Frank walk the 8th hitter to have Oliver stroke an RBI single. I was secretly pleased with that one, because it was a bonehead move by Frank.

What a miserable game.

ERV Win: Wright
ERV Loss: Hernandez

Three most valuable plays:

(1) Wright's HR in the first (1.98)
(2) Zimmerman's GIDP in the 2nd (-1.22)
(3) Delgado's HR in the 3rd (0.91)

Ten Games In

2006-04-14T17:21:00.000-04:00

The vowel-less one wrote the story of the Nats' inevitable re-tooling of the roster today, as the Nats sent Brandon Watson and Wiki Gonzalez to the minors and totally recalled Ryan Church and Brendan Harris. ("Brandon." "Brendan.")

You knew they would eventually recall Church, but I didn't think it would be by Easter. So while Church definitely belongs on the roster vs. Brandon Watson, I'm still going to criticize this move.
Why? Because I'm pissed off that Bowden, et al. do not even have the courage of their convictions to let Brandon Watson play. If you want a speedy centerfielder on your team to serve as a leadoff man, Watson fits that mold. You aren't going to be able to judge his performance in that role in 10 games. There are any number of hitters starting poorly this year: Scott Podsednik, Rondell White, Mike Sweeney. No one thinks that the first ten games defines their ability to perform this year.

If Bowden and Robinson believed that Watson was ready for the major leagues, and that he was who they wanted in centerfield and the leadoff spot, they are making the wrong decision by assuming he can't fill that role based on 10 games. Another rookie centerfielder, Brian Anderson, is performing even worse, yet there isn't even a whiff that the White Sox are considering a change (but a 5-4 record makes it a bit easier for them to relax).

The bright side is that this desperation move indicates that, for some reason, the Nats' front office considers these April games especially meaningful and necessary to their futures. I think they think that new ownership will fire them absent a 2005-like team that stays in contention. Given that this team is not going to stay in contention, I hope they are right.

ERV Boxscore for April 12 vs. New York Mets

2006-04-12T22:57:00.000-04:00

With bases loaded and no outs, the average team scores eventually scores 2 runs. Sure, it's RFK and Pedro is pitching, but we had the meat of our lineup at the plate, and we get nothing. That problem is as depressing as it is serious.

Note: I've decided to make assignment of ERV Win and Loss very simple: highest WV for winning team, lowest for losing team gets the Win or Loss. One player, no more. I'll keep tabs on that as the season goes on.

ERV Win: Pedro Martinez
ERV Loss: Jose Guillen

Three most valuable plays:
(1)Jose Guillen's GIDP in the 6th (-2.26)
(2)David Wright's Triple (0.96)
(3) Jose Vidro's HR (0.93)

Meet the New Boss

2006-04-12T19:16:00.000-04:00

We earlier noted our amusement that our humble blog had been acquired by a gentleman named Michael Briggs. Dexy's, of course, speculated that Briggs was in fact, Jim Bowden under a nom de plume, and that we would have to alter our content accordingly.

Well, I just checked our ownership records, and, lo and behold, we have a new owner. According to this press release, a woman named Ann Wuyts has "pressured out" public shareholders to acquire an 80% ownership interest in Nats Blog.

We have this message to our new owner: we salute your hardball tactics! We look forward to the guile you will bring to running this blog, and pledge our fealty to the new order! After all, "What good is money if you can't inspire terror in your fellow man?"

From a brief Google search, it appears that Ms. Wuyts is Dutch. Which makes a lot of sense, given that our third baseman is named Dutch. Ms. Wuyts: with your next visit, please bring us a pancake and a smoke.

ERV Boxscore for April 11 vs. New York Mets

2006-04-12T00:20:00.000-04:00

Losses at RFK

2006-04-11T20:58:00.000-04:00

DM, Dexy's and I were at Opening Day today. Not quite as exciting as last year, but a beautiful day, and a day at the ballpark beats a day pretty much everywhere else. Here are my notes:

1. RFK Logistics. Surprisingly, I left the latest - 11:37 a.m. from my home in N.E. Alexandria, but arrived first at the game - about 12:05 or so. Folks, it's simple how to get to RFK. Take 395 to 6th Street S.E., go north on 6th St. to North Carolina, then take that to East Capitol. Left turn at RFK and boom, you are in Lot 3. Easy in, Easy out. OK, now if you would kindly take this information and forget it, so that I can continue to get to the game in 28 minutes or less.

2. Food / Beverage Changes. Since I got to the game earlier than DM and Dexy's, I did a quick tour of the lower and middle levels of the stadium for changes in the food and beverage at RFK. The first place I went was behind home plate, looking for the microbrew stand. It's now a Miller Lite stand, a massive bummer - I really liked the Foggybottom they served last year. DM reminded me there is a reason for this - Foggybottom is no more. So I looked around for new alternative beers. Guinness is back, paired with Harp, and I noticed Dos Equis and Heineken were being sold. I don't recall Heineken last year, but I had pretty much focused on Foggybottom by year end.

Food-wise, I was nearly irate during my walk-around because I couldn't find any chorizo. And you know how I like chorizo. But no, it's not gone. Chorizo has its own stands around the stadium, they just aren't marked. And the chorizo is just as good as ever. Salvation.

Also new is the fact that kettle corn is more evenly distributed around RFK stadium. It's really good, as DM, Dexy's and I enjoyed a $6.00 plastic bowl of it. Here's a tip - if you ask for fresh kettle corn, they will give it to you. Don't take one off the counter.

I also noticed on the 200 level, in front of the Beerpen, that Red Hot & Blue barbeque is being sold. There was a fairly significant line, so I held off buying some, but it did look delicious. You can be sure to look forward to a future report on it.

I didn't see regular ice cream being sold, but the Ice Cream of the Future - Deepin Dots - is still being sold.

3. The Game. As Dexy's hopefully will attest, I called Soriano's home run early in the game. I said that he would hit a home run in his first game at RFK to justify swinging for the fences the rest of the year. I also called Beltran's homer in the ninth, which was an absolute rocket. Dexy's may also confirm that, although he was picking up a voicemail at the time.

As anyone at the game will note, Soriano lollygagged Reyes' double in the 7th into a triple. That single play made me question his attitude towards left field. If he's going to play left field, he should play it right. There was discussion amongst our section whether Frank should bench him based on that. He homered in his next at bat, of course.

Ramon Ortiz (that's the Ortiz we have, right?) looked OK through 3 innings as the game really zipped along. But it doesn't take much to beat the Nationals these days, and the game was pretty much over when David Wright beat Zimmerman down the line with a double in the 4th. Worse, the game slowed considerably after that point.

ERV Boxscore for April 10 at Houston

2006-04-11T11:00:00.000-04:00

ERV Boxscore for April 9 at Houston

2006-04-09T23:55:00.000-04:00

A strange game. I didn't see much of it, only catching bits on the radio. Note that Win Values for individual players are pretty close to zero, meaning no ERV Win or Loss to hand out in this one.

ERV Win: Team
ERV Loss: Team

Three Most Valuable Plays
(1) Ensberg's double in the 3rd (1.53)
(2) Vidro's line out DP in the 7th (-1.31)
(3) Soriano's HR in the 6th (0.98)

ERV Boxscore for April 8 at Houston

2006-04-08T22:39:00.000-04:00

I listened to the first inning on the way to pick up dinner, and arrive home glum, convinced that there was no way, just no way, we give Oswalt 5 runs and win the game. But by the time the kids are in bed and I come back to the game, we're up 9-7, thanks to Chad Qualls doing his best Jason Bergmann impersonation. Un-be-liev-able. I'm starting to get the same feelings about this team as last year's -- just when they look truly awful, they manage to do something remarkable. Let's hope this ride continues.

ERV Win: Byrd (50%), Soriano (50%)
ERV Loss: Qualls

Three Most Valuable Plays:
(1) Soriano's double in the 7th (3.21)
(2) Byrd's double in the 7th (2.58)
(3) Berkman's HR in the 1st (2.14)

ERV Boxscore Guide

2006-04-08T17:42:00.000-04:00

New reader Bote Man requested a guide to the ERV Boxscores, so, within the limits of my meager graphic skills, I put together the image at right to help explain what the various headings on the box score mean. (Note: I didn't put it on the graphic, but PA is Plate Appearances and BFP is Batters Faced by the pitcher.)

Also, I'll explain here the new scoring rules I'm using. Last year I tried to judge great plays and screw-ups, not just official scoring errors, but that proved to be too much work. This year I am following the official scorer, and not trying to judge great plays. But I have implemented a new baserunning and fielding system.

Using the baserunning data compiled by Dan Fox, I've come up with rules as to who gets the credit when a runner takes an extra base. Where the data shows a runner advances more than 50% of the time, the batter gets the credit for that extra base. For times where it's less than 50%, the runner gets the credit (or the debit if they fail to advance when 50% of runners would have.) The outfielder who fields the ball gets a corresponding debit/credit for the runner's.

Here are the rules:

Single, 1st to 3rd -- Runner Credit every time
Single, 2nd to Home -- Batter Credit every time, except Single to Left or Right with no outs.
Double, 1st to Home -- Runner Credit on doubles to left and right, batter credit on doubles to center.
Sac Fly, runner scores-- Batter Credit every time
Sac Fly, runner to 3rd -- Runner Credit except on RF flies.
Sac Fly, runner to 2nd -- Runner Credit

I am also working on a system to give credit on routine plays like grounders and line drives, but I haven't implemented that yet.

The other change is the calculation of ERV Wins and Losses. I start with the winning margin base on Win Value adjusted runs (in the upper right corner of the boxscore). For the ERV Win, I look for all player or players who have a total WV above the winning margin. They share in the Win, in a proportion equal to their WV compared with the others. The logic behind this is if these players had played only an average game (0.00 WV), the team would have lost the game. If more than three players meet this criteria, the Win is given to the team.

If no player has a WV above the margin, then you start with the highest WV and keep adding the next highest until you are above the margin. the apportion the Win accordingly. Again, if it takes 4 or more players to reach the margin, nobody gets the Win.

For the ERV Loss, you follow the same procedure but use those with the most negative WV instead of the highest. If a player has a positive WV, he cannot get the loss, and vice versa.

UPDATE: I've decided to make ERV Wins and Losses simple. For the winning team, the player with the highest WV gets the ERV Win. For the losing team, lowest WV gets the ERV Loss. We'll see how that works over the season.

Note also that I publish the "Three Most Valuable Plays" with each boxscore. These are simply the individual events that had the highest absolute Win Value (i.e. positive or negative). The almost always indicate the points in the game that were most critical to the win or loss. For comparison purposes, a solo home run in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game would have a WV of around 6.0, meaning that run is worth 6 times the average run.

ERV Boxscore for April 7 at Houston

2006-04-07T23:26:00.000-04:00

On paper it looks like we had one bad inning, the Sixth, when the "human mercy rule" Jason Bergmann came in and handed the Astros a bunch of runs. But it feels a lot worse. I hope I'm wrong, but this team may be on the way to a dismal start to the season.

ERV Win: Berkman (60%), Backe (40%)
ERV Loss: Bergmann (70%), Soriano (30%)

Three Most Valuable Plays:
(1) Berkman's HR in the 6th (2.30)
(2) Biggio's Double in the 3rd (1.80)
(3) Vidro's HR in the 4th (1.24)

ERV Boxscore for April 6 at New York Mets

2006-04-06T23:06:00.000-04:00

Bah! Look, we didn't really expect to beat Pedro, did we? Sure mid-game we had a chance, but the result is the same. On to Houston.

ERV Win: Team (i.e. more than 3 Mets are needed to cover the run differential)
ERV Loss: Ortiz

3 Most Valuable Plays:

(1) Nick Johnson's HR in the 5th (2.89)
(2) Carlos Beltran's HR in the 7th (2.14)
(3) Jose Reyes single in the 4th (2.11)

ERV Boxscore for April 5 at New York Mets

2006-04-06T00:10:00.000-04:00

Chicks dig the long ball! What a terrific game. If that one doesn't give this group some spirit, I don't know what will. It's gonna be fun to watch Zimmerman all season.

ERV Win: Guillen (60%), Zimmerman (40%)
ERV Loss: Julio (70%), Wagner (30%)

Three Most Valuable Plays:

(1) Guillen's HR in the 10th (4.77)
(2) Dutch's HR in the 9th (4.01)
(3) LoDuca's FB in the 9th (-1.58)

The Talent Gap

2006-04-04T11:03:00.000-04:00

Criminy, there is a great article today in the Hardball Times about the "talent gap" between the National and American Leagues. We already knew last year that the American League teams were much better overall than their National League counterparts. The American League has dominated the All-Star Game for several years now, and two straight World Series sweeps indicates a bit of a talent imbalance.

But I was surprised by the article's argument that the National League has gotten a lot worse compared to the American League this offseason:

[Trades of players from the NL to the AL account for] a net transfer of 100 Win Shares (209 Win Shares to the AL, 109 going back to the NL). Add in the 103 gain through free agency, the AL has
sucked 203 Win Shares, about 68 wins, of talent out of the NL this offseason. That's about five wins per AL team, and that means that your typical AL team will need to be about five wins a year better (in terms of talent on hand) just to keep pace.
That's a lot. That's a major shift in the playing field; and it doesn't count the fact that a number of the new American Leaguers are coming off
of down seasons. I'm pretty confident that Jim Thome, Milton Bradley, LaTroy Hawkins and Corey Patterson aren't going to combine for 22 win shares again.
Conversely, if you're an NL team's fan despairing of the hemorrhage of good players your team
has suffered, keep the faith. The water level's a lot lower than it's been in the past. You'll probably contend yet.

I hadn't considered how much worse the National League was in figuring out how the Nats would do. We know that the Nats' pythagorean record was 77-85 last year, meaning they were +12 in the luck department. [Note - in the Hardball Times Baseball Annual (p. 138), the Nats are said to have a 69-93 Pythagorean record based on runs scored and runs allowed. This is just a flat out mistake - based on 639 runs scored and 673 runs allowed, you just can't get to 69 wins].

So my estimate was that the Nats were probably 12 games off their pythagorean record last year of 77-85. I think that I'd have to adjust that upwards by 5 games, meaning that my new prediction for the Nats is 70-92. Still a poor team and a poor record, but not flirting with 100 losses territory.

ERV Boxscore for April 1 at New York Mets

2006-04-03T22:35:00.000-04:00

Yes, ERV Boxscores are back! I've made two changes to how I score the games. First, I've decided to be as objective as possible this year -- no judgment of great plays in the field, and I'm following the official scorer this year. I'm hopeful that this will make it easier for me to sustain this throughout the year.

Second, I'm using a new scoring system for baserunning (and related fielding). Using data from Dan Agonistes and the Hardball Times, I've come up with rules for when the average runner advances or not. For example, where a runner is on first and the batter hits a single, the data show that runners advance to third less than 50% of the time. So, if the runner gets to third, he (not the batter) gets the credit for the difference between 1st & 2nd and 1st & 3rd, and the outfielder who fielded the ball gets the fielding debit for the advance. I have these rules for runner on first and batter doubles, runner on 2nd and batter singles, and for the sacrifice fly situations. I'll explain this in more detail in another post.

So you'll see more running and fielding values, especially among outfielders. I would have liked to include fielding credits on routine plays, but just haven't gotten the time to implement that. I might be able to do that later in the season.

Also, I will be using a more rigorous method to assign ERV Wins and Losses, and keep track of those throughout the year. In some cases a win or loss may be assigned to the team if no one really qualifies. I'll explain that in a separate post, too.

ERV Win: Cliff Floyd (40%), Tom Glavine (40%) Paul LoDuca (20%)
ERV Loss: Livan Hernandez (40%), Brian Schneider (40%), Alfonso Soriano (20%)

Three Most Valuable Plays:
(1) Soriano getting thrown at home (-2.67 WV)
(2) Zimmerman double in the 8th (2.28 WV)
(3) Guillen Double in the 5th (1.78 WV)

Vidro's (Potentially) Rational Play

2006-04-03T16:33:00.000-04:00

Wow, there is a LOT to blog about today's 3-2 loss to the Mets. Here are some thoughts from Dexy's and me (we went to Chili's to take in the game and get some free wings):

1. Notice something about this line from the play-by-play?

Washington - Top of 2nd
Tom Glavine pitching for New York

Alfonso Soriano - Ball, Ball, Ball, Ball, A Soriano walked

Washington - Top of 4th
Tom Glavine pitching for New York

Alfonso Soriano - Strike (looking), Ball, Ball, A Soriano singled to right

Soriano took seven consecutive pitches to begin his Nats career. My guess is that Soriano, with 157 total walks in 3,490 plate appearances coming into 2006, does not take seven consecutive pitches the rest of the year.

2. Dexy's thinks that Brian Schneider had one of the worst days ever at the plate. That's a little bit harsh, but his ERV today in four plate appearances was: -.443, -.307, -.549, -.372. That's a total ERV of -1.67. Of course, Jose Guillen went: -.108, -.237, +.866, -1.098. That's a total of -.577 ERV.

3. Dexy's set an interesting over/under for Livan's pitch count. He said 118. Any other pitcher, any other team, and I take that bet on Opening Day. But with Livan and Frank, it's just too hard to take. 113 pitches for Livan. Had he not been up in the 7th, I think he would have hit the number.

4. Couldn't tell - does Soriano play a wee bit deep in left field? Or does he just have a lot of friends in the left field bleachers at Shea?

5. Of course, Soriano was safe. But that's a difficult call for the ump to make - he was in the right position - and there's no way in HELL that Soriano should be sent home with nobody out. But since Jim Bowden is running this team, and it is little like hell, with Clayton and Schneider coming up, there may be an argument....nah, there's no argument.

6. Did Nick Johnson gain some weight? Did Marlon Byrd gain some weight? Seriously, aren't all the Nats about 10 pounds heavier this year?

7. My read on the team is that they are already going through the motions. This is Opening Day, kids. That is the most tragic statement I've ever made. Even Matt LeCroy looks depressed.

There's no little boy playing baseball in this team.

8. Ok, so that brings me to the subject of this post - Vidro's play to end the game. Dexy's was outraged, and I mean OUTRAGED, by Vidro getting thrown out at second. I laughed it off a bit, because it was just another poor play by a bad team. Then I thought - could Vidro have acted rationally by getting thrown out at second?

The theory would be this: Vidro would need two hits to score from first base, even with two outs. By getting to scoring position, the odds of him scoring and sending the game to extra innings increases dramatically (one fewer hit is necessary). So, if he were to be successful a reasonable number of times, it would be a good play.

I looked up the Win Probability of a visiting team with a man on 2nd and two outs in the top of the 9th down one run against the win probability with a man on 1st and two outs. Visiting teams win 8.8% of the time in the former situation, whereas the win 5.4% of the time in the latter. So getting to second base increases your odds of winning by 63%. Correspondingly, Vidro would have to be successful 61% of the time (roughly 3/5ths) to make it worthwhile.

My judgment was that any throw that was not cut-off and that was reasonably on-line with second base would have gotten Vidro out. I think that a reasonably on-line throw is going to happen about 70% of the time. Since Vidro needed at 61% success rate, he was off by quite a bit in trying to stretch.

Of course, Guillen would have choked in the clutch anyway, wouldn't he?

From DEXY:
I don't have that much to add. Part of my outrage was the idea that with Guillen coming up, I am doubting you are going to see a single anyway. I figure Guillen for a) choke or b) a double drive to the gap or a homer, things that would score Vidro from first anyway (even if Vidro is Slow with a capital "Luzinski").

The thing that upset me the most about this game is that we lost it in exactly the same way we lost games the second half of last year. We made stupid plays in the field (Soriano's break back gets a pass for now, but the botched run-down and Zimmerman not playing remotely close to the line to give up a 2-out double were both bad) and on the bases and couldn't hit in the clutch, losing another one-run game (and while Livan pitched pretty well, he gave up a couple of pretty silly runs due to lack of concentration--2 out rallies, 0-2 homerun, not covering first on a rundown).
It really pained me to see us have:
2nd inning: 1st and 2nd, 1 out--no runs.
4th inning: a Sac to score 1 run with bases loaded no outs, so then 1st and 2nd, 1 out--no runs.
5th inning: 2nd and 3rd, 1 out--no runs
7th inning: 1st and 2nd, 0 out--no runs
and then run ourselves out of the 8th and 9th.
Anyway, we've got a lot of games to change course, so let's hope we do.

p.s. We're listening to the Phillies game now and Jimmy Rollins got a hit in the 8th with a 3-0 count (rightfully green-lighted down 13-5, although at 6-5, you'd have to make him take a pitch). I'm still not sold on DiMaggio's streak being the greatest sports accomplishment ever, but I'll tell you...if Rollins can have a 36-game streak, sit down for over 4 months, play over 20 games that don't count for Spring Training and then pick up and hit in 20 straight games from Opening Day? That would be absolutely freakin' incredible.

DM Update:

Sorry I couldn't make it today, guys. I only watched the last 3 innings or so. As I say in the comments, trying to get to second was the right play but by the wrong guy. Damian Jackson should have tried to steal after pinch-running for Vidro.

I thought Dutch played with enthusiasm, and there were some hard hit balls (Marlon Byrd's pinch-hit AB was very solid). I'm not ready to write these guys off on effort just yet. ;)

Sooth Saying, Part Deux

2006-04-03T09:46:00.000-04:00

I think DM is crazy to think this team can win 74 games. Dexy's just told me that Frank Robinson should be manager of the year if this team wins 74 games. I think he would be manager of the century.

Let's begin with first principles. Pitching, to me, is the very first principle. And the Nationals' starting pitching is as horrible as I've ever seen in my 33 years. After a solid 1-2 combination of Patterson and Hernandez, the Nats have a bunch of guys who would be the fifth starters on a last place team. Since 5th starters on bad teams win about 33% of the time (based on my knowledge and experience), the Nats look to be about 32-64 in the 96 or so games that will be started by Armas, Ortiz, et al. If they win 55% of the time with Patterson and Livan, then they will go about 36-30, for a 68-94 season.

I think 68-94 is on the high side, and assumes that Patterson and Livan will be healthy enough to make 33 starts each. My guess is that this is a 65-97 team, last place in the NL East.

Bring on the new owners.

Soothsaying

2006-04-02T21:59:00.000-04:00

I suck at predictions. I'm really bad at trying to pick how teams are going to finish. I spend a lot of time following the Nats, and have barely any left to follow the other clubs, so I have no clue about them. So I'm outsourcing my predictions to TradeSports. Here's what they have to say about the percentage chance each team has to win the divisions, the league pennants and the World Series:

NL East
New York 46.0%
Atlanta 35.8%
Philadelphia 15.3%
Washington 3.0%
Florida 0.7%

My take: Meet the Mets, Greet the Mets, Sell the Mets! That'll be down to 25 by mid-June. I also think Florida will do better, so that's a cheap risk to take. For the Nats, see below.

NL Central
St. Louis 64%
Chicago 15.0%
Houston 10.4%
Milwaukee 8.0%
Pittsburgh 3.0%
Cincinnati 2.5%

My take: The guys buying the Cubs might as well stand on their roofs and throw money into the wind. Better yet, take it from them. Milwaukee is a darling pick, but I'd stay away, since the division race isn't a giant weiner run.

NL West
Los Angeles 36.5%
San Francisco 33.9%
San Diego 20.1%
Arizona 8.0%
Colorado 2.0%

My take: Sell the Giants. Bonds won't play much due to injury, but even then it won't matter. I think Arizona is a nice risk that you could probably cash in by the end of May, as is Colorado.

AL East
New York 65.9%
Boston 24.0%
Toronto 9.6%
Baltimore 1.4%
Tampa Bay 0.1%

My take: Sell the Yankees. The Bosox are about right. Toronto is probably cheap. The guy who bought the Rays at 0.1 probably hit the wrong button and thought he was getting Toronto.

AL Central
Chicago 54.0%
Cleveland 32.9%
Minnesota 15.0%
Detroit 6.5%
Kansas City 0.1%

My take: Chicago is a bit high, but I wouldn't sell them. Minnesota is the team to sell and then root against.

AL West
Oakland 50.0%
Los Angeles 38.0%
Texas 10.0%
Seattle 4.0%

My take: Seattle is a nice buy, based on what I heard from the Seattle radio guys over the weekend. They're not biased, are they?

NL Pennant
St. Louis 22.6%
New York 19.0%
Atlanta 10.0%
Chicago 8.0%

My take: Why the Cubs are even near the top is idiocy. Selling them is like a license to print money.

AL Pennant
New York 30.0%
Chicago 15.5%
Boston 14.5%
Oakland 11.3%

My take: Why Boston is even near the top is lunacy. Selling them is like a license to print licenses to print money.

World Series Champion
New York Yankees 19.4%
Chicago White Sox 12.5%
St. Louis Cardinals 10.4%
New York Mets 9.1%

My take: None of these team will win it all. I have no idea who will.

As for our homeown nine, we will finish 74-88. I believe we were lucky last year to finish 81-81. Our lineup and bench are slightly better than last year, but our starters and bullpen are worse, and I think the bullpen will be much worse. And Frank and Eddy are still around to make dumb moves that ensure we won't get any cheap wins.

And Then There's This

2006-04-01T23:26:00.000-05:00

Pedro Astacio, we hardly knew ye.

Looks like DM, or perhaps even little DM, will be pitching for the Nats this year. If you did not know, DM has a sinker / slider and generally tries to run the ball in on lefties. He's not tricky. He doesn't light up the radar gun. But he's got guts, and sometimes that's all that counts.

In all seriousness, this leaves the rotation in utter shambles. It's likely that a guy like Jon Rauch slides into the fifth spot, but he needs to be stretched out to be able to even pitch five innings. Luckily, they won't need a fifth starter for a while, and one would think they could get someone up to 100 pitches in two weeks.

This is looking more and more like a 57-105 debacle.

Anna, You Made the List

2006-03-31T21:44:00.000-05:00

Mrs. DM and Little DM were in 7-11 this afternoon, about to enjoy a nice spring Slurpee, and near the counter there was a copy of FHM Magazine with this cover featuring Anna Benson. Little DM, who will be five in June, sees it and says "Look Mom! Baseballs!" Mrs. DM steams and leaves me a voicemail with this thought for the soon-to-be-ex Ms. Benson: "Thank you for ruining the National Pastime for my son!"

I'd stay away from D.C., Anna. I can't control what she might do.

SoriaNO!!!!

2006-03-31T16:59:00.000-05:00

Well, here's my official, unofficial prediction for Alfonso Soriano, left field / second base for the Washington Nationals in 2006 (assuming full season in Nats Pajamas):

.265 AVG. / .302 OBP / .435 SLG

77 runs, 32 doubles, 4 triples, 20 home runs, 82 RBI.

I don't know if the SLG figure works out with the other figures, but it is my rough estimate.

Dexy's? DM? Add to this post.

Spahn and Sain, Sabermetric Style

2006-03-30T22:59:00.000-05:00

I just received my copy of The Book, Playing the Percentages in Baseball, written by Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman and Andrew Dolphin, and so far it is really good. I'll try to have a review up sometime, but there's one idea in it that I think would work for the Nats.

They point out that a lineup without a pitcher batting scores about 5.25 runs per game. A lineup with the pitcher batting 65% of the time scores 4.83 runs per game. That 0.42 difference adds up to 68 runs per season, or about 6-7 wins. So, if you can avoid your pitcher hitting, you can get 6-7 cheap wins. How do you do that? Pinch-hit for the pitcher every time. They point out that quality starters earn you more than 0.42 runs per game, so you don't want to pull them for a pinch hitter in the second inning. But less than quality starters (which we have plenty) don't earn that much, so pulling them early would be beneficial. Here's how it would work:

Game 1: Livan
Game 2: Patterson
Game 3: Astacio, Armas, Rodriguez
Game 4: Ortiz
Game 5: Armas, Astacio, Rodriguez

You would pull the pinch hit move only in games 3 and 5. Given our weak rotation, we might even think about this for game 4, too, by using another reliever like Eischen instead of Rodriguez, something like:

Game 3: Astacio, Armas, Rodriguez
Game 4: Armas, Ortiz, Eischen
Game 5: Ortiz, Astacio, Rodriguez

This strategy costs some flexibility in using your third-best reliever (Rodriguez) and you lose 2 pinch-hitters, but the authors (and I) think it is worth it. The authors point out that 0.42 runs per game is like adding a Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez to your lineup. I suspect that our weak lineup and bench means we are not going to get that much increase, so maybe for us this is worth only about 4-5 wins rather than 6-7 over a season.

This would never happen in reality, of course. I can just picture trying to explain this to Frank Robinson -- he'd probably get so frustrated he'd punch me in the throat. But if I ran the Nats I'd try it, because we need help with the back end of our rotation and our offense. We don't have anything to lose.

The Illogic of Sports Radio

2006-03-30T09:18:00.000-05:00

Hot off the heels of a infuriatingly glib interview with Jim Bowden last night (transcription services provided by Federal Baseball), Tim Kurkjian appeared on ESPN Radio this morning to discuss the reports that MLB is launching an investigation of the steroids scandal, to be lead by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

Kurkjian's take, and Bowden's interview, are exemplars of why sports radio is repellent to those who can breath with their mouths closed. He said he doesn't understand why MLB is launching an investigation, given that it's too late to do anything like suspend those players who might have taken steroids, they are not going to remove any records or place any asterisks in the books, and people are still flocking to the ballparks in droves and don't seem to care about this issue. He also questioned the timing of the announcement given its proximity to Opening Day. He doesn't deny that many of the stars of the past decade like Bonds, McGwire, Giambi and Sosa most likely took steroids that improved their performance and numbers, but he said that there "will always be a story attached to those records now" which people can use to judge for themselves.

Well, Tim, who so far has written that story? Jose Canseco and Will Carroll are two that I know of, and I wouldn't trust those guys to judge a wet T-shirt contest. The San Francisco Chronicle reporters appear more credible, but their book, which seems to be the catalyst for the investigation, focuses on Bonds and BALCO and doesn't, as I understand it, get into McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro and other instances of steroid use. Reports are that the MLB investigation is not limited to Bonds, but will extend to other players, as it should. The "story that will be attached" to the records should come from more established sources than an idiot ex-jock and self-aggrandizing blogger trying to sell books.

Imagine if Bud Selig had taken the position that Kurkjian has, and said MLB doesn't need to investigate the steroid use because we can't do anything about it, fans are still coming to baseball games, and we don't want to sully the beauty of Opening Day. Tom Davis's head would have exploded if he had said that at one of the Congressional hearings. It is odd to find the "whitewash" position being taken by a journalist, not by the institution about which journalists make us so cynical.

I said here before that, despite being a hawk on the steroids issue, I don't think asterisks or changing the records are appropriate. But that position depends upon people having access to the facts about players' steroid use -- facts that so far have come to us piecemeal and from witnesses of varying credibility. A good investigation of all the circumstances will help us make those judgments about the players and the records they may or may not have deserved. It may also clear the names of players who have been unfairly lumped into the scandal by shoddy reporting or innuendo. Let's hope we get that good information from Senator Mitchell, because we sure ain't gonna get it from sportstalk radio.

Boswell's End

2006-03-29T11:27:00.000-05:00

If you have read Tom Boswell's column in the Washington Post's Baseball '06 Preview today, then you really need to read Capitol Punishment, where Chris Needham excoriates the soft-headed thinking that is so common in Boswell's writing these days. In fact, the fisking is so good and so complete that it's depressing -- the sad reality is that D.C. does not have any good baseball columnists.

Well, except for Chris.

An absolute freaking laughingstock

2006-03-28T21:05:00.000-05:00

That's paraphrasing SuperNova from my cell phone conversation with him on my drive home tonight after I informed him that the Nats sent their second best position player from last year (after Nick Johnson) to the minors. Paraphrased only because as much as I want to, I don't like spewing profanities on here not knowing who our reader base is. But if any move made by this pathetic administration deserves cursing, this is it.

Our beloved Nats optioned Ryan Church today, sending him down to Triple AAA, and I believe effectively ending his tour as a National--if he has any self-respect, he will immediately demand a trade, over which about 25 other clubs would salivate. Let's review the brief Nationals career of Mr. Church. In his one year with the Nats (taking away the few games he had in 2004), Ryan had an on-base percentage of .353, and was named the Rookie of the Month in May--after which he was promptly played less by Frank Robinson, who REFUSED to play him against lefties despite his staggering 1.075 OPS against them (reminding me of when Mr. Burns benched Darryl Strawberry in favor of Homer Simpson because he wanted a lefty-righty match-up). Admittedly, Ryan also had a couple of injuries--which for some reason irked Frank beyond belief even when Church came back.

I'd now like to take some time to list for you ALL of the Nationals (with 60 or more at bats) who had a higher on-base percentage than Ryan Church last year: Nick Johnson. As Tony Kornheiser would say, that's it. That's the list. #3 after Ryan, by the way, was Brad Wilkerson, so it's good to know that in a stadium where the ONLY workable strategy is to have high-OBP guys, we have managed to jettison two of our top three guys for a rookie and a guy who had a Guzman-esque .309 OBP, even including playing half his games at the hitter's wet dream that is Arlington.

Out of all the moves Bowden has made, this may be the worst. And you know what? I don't blame Jim Bowden anymore. We already knew Bowden was a complete idiot who has less baseball knowledge than my toddler (harsh, but undeserved?). I don't even blame Frank Robinson, who couldn't manage a Safeway because he might fire the best cashier in the place because she took a day off or looked at him the wrong way once. I place the blame squarely on Tony Tavares. Where the heck has he been while the inmates were running the asylum? How does he green light a Soriano trade when he knows Bowden hadn't talked to Soriano and that Soriano would refuse to play left? How does he green light that trade in any circumstance when we had Wilkerson and Church and what we needed for $10 million was a shortstop or a stud pitcher? How does he allow our best up and coming player (outside Zimmerman) to get optioned to the minors?!? This has gone on long enough. MLB: Get us a new owner so they can clean house already!

Meanwhile, poor Ryan Church, who admits he is in complete "shock." It's not like the guy is 19, or 22 even. He'll be 28 at the end of the year and Jim Bowden and Frank Robinson have thrown tear gas at this guy's career. He deserves a HECK of a lot better than this. I really hope for his sake he gets a trade and beats the living crap out of the Nats every time we play him (with the Nats still winning I hope--I'm not that spiteful). And maybe for good measure, he can run into Jimbo in the parking lot and do something less figurative.

I said to SuperNova that this move makes it so that with our current roster, we could be pushing 100 losses (remember, our Pythagorean win total last year was 69 or 70 as opposed to 81-81). His response: we're now the Kansas City Royals and we should be extremely happy with 100 losses. Let's hope we're both wrong. Let's also hope a new owner rights this ship, and soon.

The Steve Watkins Fan Club

2006-03-28T14:13:00.000-05:00

So, there's this guy....Steve Watkins...and SuperNova and I are looking at the Nats pre-season stats--which are awwwful with a capital AWE--and we both say "wow, look at S. Watkins!"

Of course, I then find out 5 seconds later that Steve Watkins has been reassigned to the minors today. But at least Steve, unlike pretty much every other minor leaguer given a chance in camp this spring training, served himself well. In 15 innings, Mr. Watkins registered a 1.20 ERA with only 10 hits and 5 walks given up against 18 strikeouts. Here's to you Mr. Watkins. While I'm not sure what more you needed to do to make THIS pitching staff given that we named a pitcher with a 10.50 ERA our #3 starter, I have a feeling we may be seeing you around in the future--hopefully still in a Nats uniform.

Follow-up on New Orleans

2006-03-23T10:20:00.000-05:00

A couple of days ago we noted the effort to renovate a hurricane-damaged Boys & Girls Club in New Orleans that the Nats AAA club was sponsoring. The link to donate is on the web now at:

Magical Builders Donations

Soriano Watch

2006-03-22T10:38:00.000-05:00

Will he or won't he? This is getting better all the time. Good gravy, the status of the Nats' team bus was on Mike & Mike in the Morning this morning. (It left at 8:15 a.m. No word on whether Soriano was on the bus, or whether they were serving bagels or doughnuts on the bus).

Well, Jim Bowden sure got his splash out of the Soriano deal. I mean, everyone is talking about the Nats...including Ms. SuperNoVa. A transcript of this morning's conversation:

Mrs. SNV: I don't understand why they want Soriano to play left field.
Our Hero: Well, he's really bad at second base.
Mrs. SNV: But doesn't Podsednik play left field?
Our Hero: Podsednik plays on the White Sox.

Hey, does YOUR wife know who plays left field for the White Sox? I didn't think so.
[DM, your wife doesn't count.]

Please keep checking this space over the day as we track the Soriano situation. We won't have new posts or updates. But you will run out hit count up. Thanks for stopping by and visiting our wonderful sponsors.

P.S., to the driver of a car with Virginia plates HIDIDLYHO on Chain Bridge Road two nights ago, I say, "Drop Dead Flanders."

UPDATE: Soriano takes the field! Soriano takes the field! Fonzie blinks, Bowden 1, Fonzie 0. Bowden's reputation, -3, Fonzie's reputation, -1.

The Opposite of Selfishness

2006-03-21T09:19:00.000-05:00

Is charity. There is a nice article on MiLB.com (Minor League Baseball's official site) about how the Nats' AAA affiliate, the New Orleans Zephyrs, is helping the victims of Katrina.

I find this story especially apropos today, where someone who makes $10 million per year - a whopping $60,000 plus per game - refuses to play left field because he thinks it will cost him a few million in free agency. Meanwhile, the majority of New Orleans' population - making less than $60,000 per year - is scattered in a diaspora around the country, away from their true homes.

Give what you can. We at Nats Blog heartily endorse this event or product.

Left Out

2006-03-20T19:34:00.000-05:00

As our anonymous commenter has mentioned, Alfonso Soriano has refused to take the field this evening.

It even got to the point - and this is farcical at this point - that Soriano was in the lineup playing left field and did not show up in the top of the first. The Nats had Eight Men Out in the field.

Now, do not get me wrong. Alfonso Soriano is a jerk. A big selfish jerk who should never get another job in the major leagues. In fact, I doubt he gets signed as a free agent by anyone next year.

But this is an embarrassment. A total, unequivocal embarrassment to what has become, under the reign of Jim Bowden, the laughingstock of professional sports.

UPDATE - 8:34 PM

The Associated Press now has a story up about Soriano's refusal to take the field. It adds a little more light onto the situation, including this choice quote from Jim Bowden:

"We told him if we get to Thursday, and he refuses to play left field, we
told him at that point we will request that the commissioner's office place
him on the disqualified list, at that time -- no pay, no service time,"
Bowden said.

"If he refuses to play and goes home, and the commissioner's office
accepts our request to place him on the disqualified list, then at that point,
if he were to sit out this year, he would not be a free agent, he would stay our
property because his service time would stay the same."

In other words, Soriano will be in limbo - no pay, no free agency, no nothing - unless he picks up his glove and heads to left. If he does go to left field, Soriano could conceivably engage in a type of Operation Shutdown - playing poorly, not trying hard enough. That would kill his value in the free agent market - especially if he did so in a way that was obvious - and he would be cutting off his nose to spite his face. He'd get his $10 million, but would not get the big contract at the end of the season.

One wonders what his agent's role is at this point. He cannot be doing Soriano a service if he is advising him to refuse to play. Nothing good can come of this for Soriano. Assuming his agent is not totally incompetent, it looks like Soriano is driving this train. And he's driving it off a cliff. Thank heavens that he is taking Jim Bowden with him.

Trudging to Left

2006-03-20T18:52:00.000-05:00

Vowel-challenged Barry Svrluga reports that Soriano will play left field tonight for the Nats. Apparently, his one-on-one meeting with Frank Robinson went well enough to convince him to pick up an oversized glove and shag flies.

He, of course, took infield at second base today.

So the three-week period for resolving the Soriano situation has come and gone, and Soriano has apparently blinked.

Of course, Jim Bowden will tell you that he knew it all along. In an excellent, excellent article written by consonant-challenged Dave Sheinin today, Bowden admitted - and this made me take the Lord's name in vain at the morning breakfast table - that he knew that Soriano would not move to left field. Sheinin reports:

Before the Nationals would give their final approval to the deal, Vice President-General Manager Jim Bowden phoned the suite of his Texas counterparts with one final request: Would the Rangers grant Bowden permission to speak to
Soriano first, so that the Nationals could gauge his willingness to move to left field?

The Rangers, who had the power to grant or deny permission because Soriano was still under their control, said no, according to sources with firsthand knowledge of the request who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations were private.
"We certainly looked at [the Rangers' denial of permission] as a factor," Bowden said recently. "We took it [to mean that] if we talked to the player . . . [the Rangers felt] that the player would say no [to changing positions] and the deal would be killed."
However, as late afternoon turned to evening on Dec. 7, Bowden told the rest of the Nationals' contingent that he wanted to go ahead with the trade.

Now, we have been critical of the Soriano trade in this space before. But our assumptions were always that Bowden was willfully ignorant in thinking that Soriano would move to left field. That he just chose to ignore prior reports that Soriano wouldn't move for the Yankees or the Rangers. That he thought his power of persuasion would be better. We were wrong. Bowden was simply willful in screwing up this trade. He knew Soriano would refuse to play left. He knew he was creating a disaster - and giving up Brad Wilkerson to get that disaster.

His excuse? Frank Robinson is tough:

At one point, according to a person with firsthand knowledge of the internal discussions, Bowden told Robinson, "You can handle it."

Great. You know how Frank can handle it? He can bench him. Beyond that, there isn't much he can do. Which means you've traded Brad Wilkerson for the obligation to write a check to Soriano on the 15th and the 30th. Nice.

Folks, this is beyond us needing to demand that Jim Bowden to be fired. This is us needing to demand that Bowden to be fired with cause (i.e., no pay, Jimmy). This is us needing to demand that Bowden should never work in baseball again. He's too much of a threat. This is us needing to demand that Bowden be expunged.

As far as I know, expungejimbowden.com is available.

Nationals' Ayala Out for Year

2006-03-17T19:47:00.000-05:00

I don't think I need to tell any of the astute readers of this humble blog that today's announcement that Ayala is out for the year is a considerable blow to the Nats' bullpen. Ayala has born the brunt of Frank Robinson's bullpen needs over the past two years, pitching in a 149 games and throwing 161 1/3 innings in 2004-2005. He's done it with a sparkling ERA - 2.69 in 2004 and 2.66 in 2005.

Those innings will have to come from somewhere. The Nats' bullpen was excellent last year - starting at the top with the Chief and falling all the way down to Joey Eischen. By God, the Nats even got 30 games and a 3.58 ERA out of Mike Stanton, even if Stanton's MO was to clear the bases as soon as he came into the game. (Or so I'm told by Dexy's).

After being taxed so hard last year - probably something that led to Ayala's injury anyway - it's going to be hard for Robinson to lean on the 'pen much more this year. But since the starting pitching situation is woeful at best (and frightful at worst), there's fat chance that these guys will get much rest. Add the departure of bullpen star Hector Carrasco, and the Nats are really going to need some heroes to come through this season for the Nats to finish ahead of the Marlins.

So what does the 2007 draft look like again?

More Ballpark Thoughts

2006-03-16T08:13:00.000-05:00

I appreciate both DM and Dexy's statements concerning the ballpark and, as the person on this blog that has probably written the most about stadium finance and design, I feel like I need to add my own thoughts.

When I first saw the design, I had a weird reaction that I couldn't quite place. My thought was "bus station." I'm not sure why; I think it had to do with all the small windows facing the street. Upon reflection, and a little bit of research, I believe I know what my reaction was based upon - National Airport.

Sure, that's a little weird, isn't it. But I also realize that I drive past National everyday, and maybe what I was thinking of are the parking garages as much as the terminal itself:

So what we've got from the new Nationals stadium is a very urban, industrial design. It is a throwback to the 1960's - i.e., the way federal buildings were designed in the 1960's. I really should hate it.

I don't. Surprisingly enough, what I find compelling about it is the urban setting of the urban stadium. Camden Yards works so well because it is a brick structure set in a warehouse district of brick structures. It makes sense. Jacobs Field, by contrast, is a brick structure kind of pasted into Cleveland near I-90. I've never understood what my nagging objection to the Jake was, but that was it, lying their inchoate all the time - context.

The stadium design fits in well with the context of near Southwest / Southeast D.C. for some reason. If you've driven around the part of SW adjoining the stadium area to the west, that urban/industrial design seems like a natural fit.

The other amazing thing about it is that it feels like a city stadium. It's design looks jammed into a city block like Fenway or Yankee Stadium. It looks like the form followed its surroundings, giving it some additional harmony with the surroundings. Unlike Camden, it doesn't feel parachuted in to a neighborhood; it looks form fit, jammed in and bursting with energy. It's bizarre, but I do find myself kind of liking it.

We'll see. At this point, I think that Opening Day 2008 is absurdly ambitious - they probably needed to break ground months ago. When it's finished, we will know whether HOK pulled it off.

The New Ballpark is Here!

2006-03-14T11:21:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post has drawings of the new Nationals ballpark released today, with views from four directions.

First impression? A modern Cleveland Municipal Stadium, AKA the "mistake on the lake". The main seating bowl is round for some reason, which, I think, necessarily puts seats farther from the field.

I will need convincing on this one.

UPDATE: It's been a few hours, and I've seen some more images and the video. (Just a Nats Fan has some great shots from the announcement). I'm still not convinced. I didn't want a "olde time" brick faced like Camden Yards -- last year I said we should build something reminiscent of the Federal Triangle, and SuperNoVa found a good shot of the Reagan Building that captured the idea. I don't mind the decision to go modern with "steel and glass" -- the problem is that it is much harder to make something memorable taking that route. You run the risk of conjuring up a K Street office building rather than the monuments, and I fear that is what we have.

The curved facade is a problem, in my view, as is the super-high pressbox. I also think the "knife-edge" section looks silly, disconnected from the rest of the design, idiosyncratic. They do not convey the image of a "park" or "ballpark" or "yard" or "ballyard". They convey only "stadium". In fact, the more I look at the designs, the more it looks like a football stadium. The pressbox will make the reporters and broadcasters grumpy, and also put them farther away from the action, making their job of calling and reporting on the game harder.

I wish I could be more excited, like Banks of the Anacostia. And, to be sure, it will be a nice place to see a ballgame, and better than RFK in a lot of ways, other than proximity and height of the seats, which will be dramatically farther from the action. But my expectations were high, for something truly memorable. It may look much different in person, but I'm not optimistic.

In fact, what we have is a physical representation of the whole shoddy process that got our beloved Nats here. It is a monument to the lack of leadership from Mayor Williams, the absence of consensus he should have developed, the political games played by the DC council at the last minute. It lacks grand vision, and reflects tinkering to please indifferent and uncomitted kibitzers who whined loud enough to be heard. In five years we will forget all of that nonsense, but unfortunately we'll also forget what this design was supposed to be all about.

A Long Season?

2006-03-05T23:29:00.000-05:00

They recently posted the contracts for over/under wins for all the teams . Essentially the price reflects the percentage chance that the team will go over the win amount.

Right now the Nats over 76.5 wins is trading for around 40, which means the crowds are laughing at those who think we'll win 81 games this year.

Of course, the crowds also said Brokeback Mountain was an 85 percent chance to win the Best Picture Oscar.

UPDATE (3/10): As of Friday morning, the Nats have the lowest share price (39.0) of any team. Who is the crowd bullish on? Perennial losers DET, COL, MIL and PIT.

Yay!

2006-03-05T19:32:00.000-05:00

The Lease is signed, sealed, delivered. DC is yours, Nats.

On a more important note, the signing of the lease means the team is closer to having a new ownership group. Which also means that the Nats are closer to firing Jim Bowden.

After a winter of our discontent. . . with Brad Wilkerson traded for a guy who won't play where we need him, a bunch of never-weres in camp, and a dubious flirtation with Sammy Sosa . . . it is about time we are headed in the right direction.

And, oh by the way, we kicked some Oriole ass today. Our man Dutch hit his second homer of the spring.

Opening Day Lineup

2006-03-03T16:57:00.000-05:00

It's getting worse as the days past, so I'm hesitant in even writing this, but I suppose if the season started today, our lineup would be:

Brandon Watson CF
Jose Vidro 2B
Nick Johnson 1B
Ryan Zimmerman 3B
Ryan Church RF
Brian Schneider C
Marlon Byrd LF
Cristian Guzman SS
Livan Hernandez P

With our 2P: John Patterson; 3P: Ramon Ortiz; 4P Tony Armas; 5P: Jon Rauch

And a bench of Alfonso Soriano, Matt LeCroy, Robert Fick, maybe Michael Tucker, Damian Jackson, Marlon Anderson, and a couple of other guys perhaps. If Livan is back in form, that lineup gives us a chance with our top two pitchers. After that, it's anybody's guess.

Early predictions broken down by position

2006-02-27T11:09:00.000-05:00

So SuperNova and I had a debate today where we tried to break down each position on the Nats and deduce how many games the Nats would be better or worse with the 2006 version of x fielder/batter/pitcher than the 2005 version. From that we could extrapolate how the Nats would do compared to the 81-81 record of last year. Here's the results:

Catcher: Brian Schneider and Gary Bennett vs. Schneider/LeCroy/Fick.
SNV and I both think that Schneider will take a slight bump down in his offense (and I would say slightly in defense) from last year. The bat of LeCroy/Fick breaks even or a slight upgrade over the loss of Bennett's defense (but see bench rating). Overall, SNV and Dexy both say -1 game.

First Base: Not much comment here, as we both think Nick will stay relatively even. Dexy has 1B as a straight Even while SNV has -0.5 games.

Second base: If Vidro is truly healthy, it goes up more than this, but that is hard to know. This assumes Vidro playing second at moderate-good health. Dexy: +1 game; SNV: +1.5 games.

Shortstop: I have to believe that while Guzman will still be positively awful, he will a) be better than last year and b) they will get someone else in there if he is as bad. Dexy: +2 games; SNV: +1 game.

Third base: This is where we had a big difference. I think that Zimmerman will post an OBP in the .355-.360 range with a little upside above it. Add in a .445-.450 slugging and you get a guy with an .810 OPS (I'd say .800-.830). SNV sees Zim's stats at more like: .330 OBP and .420 SLG. Dexy is being way bullish and saying: + 4 games. SNV says Castilla wasn't horrible and Zim translates into: +1 game.

Left Field: Soriano (if he even plays) vs. Church/Byrd/Wilson platoon: I hate the Soriano signing, but I have this position staying relatively even (i.e. we could have saved $10 million) for this position. SNV says Soriano will definitely be worse than if we had the 2005 platoon in there. Dexy: Even; SNV: -1 game.

Center field: Another big difference of opinion here. I see Ryan Church, IF he gets most of the playing time, as being a slight downgrade from Wilkerson. SNV sees the Church/Byrd/Watson CF platoon as being disasterous compared to Wilky. Dexy: -1 game; SNV: -3 games. So, note that even if Soriano wasn't being paid $10 million, just Wilkerson money, Dexy views the Soriano/Wilkerson trade as costing the Nats 1 game total and SNV sees it costing the Nats 4 games. If Church rides the pine, it gets even more negative for me.

Right Field: SNV and I both worry about Guillen's injuries. Dexy: -2 games; SNV: -1.5 games.

Offensive bench: We did get better in this area, especially now that the lefty-killing LeCroy will see a lot of pinch hitting opportunities. Dexy: +1 game; SNV: +1 game.

Total offense: Dexy: +3 games; SNV: -3.5 games.

Starting pitching:
SP #1: Livan 2005 vs. Livan 2006. SNV sees this as a wash. Unfortunately, I think second half 2005 Livan was more like the pitcher we will see in 2006. Not that bad, but closer to that than first half Livan. Dexy: -2 games; SNV: Even.

SP #2: Patterson vs. Patterson. He's our real ace now. We both think he will come a little back to Earth this year though. Dexy and SNV both: -1 game.

SP #3: Ortiz vs. Loaiza: You go from a guy who was league average, maybe even slightly better, to a guy well below. We are assuming Lawrence is out for the season (or any real Brian Lawrence is). Dexy: -3 games; SNV: -4 games.

SP #4: Ohka/Carrasco/Armas to Armas: Ohka and Carrasco had some nice starts for the Nats. Armas didn't. We now get to see a guy that barely held on to a major league spot last year operate as a #4 pitcher. Dexy: -3 games; SNV: -3.5 games.

SP# 5: Armas/Drese to Drese/Rauch: It's hard to know what will happen here. I suppose there is a chance that Drese could be better, that Rauch will be as good or better than Armas and I am being too negative. That being said, this isn't going to be pretty (and I will be thrilled to apologize if I am wrong). Dexy: -3 games; SNV: -1 game.

Relief pitching. SNV didn't go position by position and says that the bullpen overall will be -1 game worse than last year. I wish I could believe that. With this starting pitching, I see them being overworked even faster this year. I'll say Eichen: Even; Ayala: -1 game; Majewski: -1 game; more use of Stanton: -1 game; Cordero: I hope I am wrong but can see him coming down a bit off his great 2005: -2 games. Total relief prediction for Dexy: -5 games.

After all of that, BOTH Dexy and SNV get to a total of: -13 games. We got there in different ways, with SNV thinking the offense will actually be a bit worse than last year and me thinking that Zimmerman will be a bunch better and the Soriano trade will only hurt a little, but that the bullpen will suffer more this year. We both believe that the majority of the Nats' decline will be due to the starting pitching. Take our 13 game prediction from the 2005 base of 81-81 and you get a 68-94 record assuming, of course, we start the season with the same info we have today.

Here's hoping we are completely wrong.

Maybe Kevin Towers Wasn't So Dumb

2006-02-27T10:35:00.000-05:00

So I come back from a weekend of playing Abraham Lincoln - chopping down trees with an ax, "bucking them" and splitting some old logs - to find out that the Nats lost Brian Lawrence to a torn labrum. Estimates are that he is out at least until the All-Star Break and possibly the whole year.

When I heard that the Nats lost Lawrence (from our anonymous poster), it was a real bummer. The guy who would be our ~~fifth~~ third starter being out for four months is bad in its own right. But oh, no! Not the dreaded torn labrum.

As a cradle White Sox fan, I know a bit about torn labrums - the Sox suffered a rash of them in the 2000/01 time period. In fact, the Sox's most painful torn labrum was suffered by one of our Nats - Jon Rauch.

It is inestimable what his torn labrum did to Jon Rauch's career. He was the 2000 Minor League Pitcher of the Year after putting up a 16-4 record with 187 strikeouts in 166 innings between the Carolina League (high-A) and the Southern League (AA). He walked only 49 against those 187 strikeouts and looked like a top, top prospect.

Then he was found to have a torn labrum in 2001 (an injury also suffered by Jim Parque), and did not pitch at all. He was a shell of his former self in Charlotte in 2002 and 2003, putting up ERA's of over 4.00 and his strikeout rate declined from 10 per 9 innings to less than 8 per 9 innings. He gave up a lot of hits and a lot of homers.

Now, at 28, Jon Rauch is something of a journeyman looking for, at best, a swing-man spot on a last-place team's roster. His luster has faded, and, what could have been his free-agent season in a lucrative career, is just another season of hanging around the bigs.

Will Carroll has written some excellent stuff on the torn labrum, including this piece in Slate from 2004, subtitled "Why the torn labrum is baseball's most fearsome injury." Here's the most ominous part:

But if pitchers with torn labrums were horses, they'd be destroyed. Of the 36 major-league hurlers diagnosed with labrum tears in the last five years, only midlevel reliever Rocky Biddle has returned to his previous level. Think about that when your favorite pitcher comes down with labrum trouble: He has a 3 percent chance of becoming Rocky Biddle. More likely, he'll turn into Mike Harkey, Robert Person, or Jim Parque, pitchers who lost stamina and velocity—and a major-league career—when their labrums began to fray.

Yeah, yikes. Mind you, Rocky Biddle's "prior form" that was regained was a high-walk-rate, high-homer-rate, borderline pitcher (who, by the way, was Les Expos
closer in 2003. I shudder to think and thank heavens for the Chief).

So things do not look good for Brian Lawrence. One wonders whether Lawrence's injury was known or could have been known to Kevin Towers before he made the trade for Vinny Castilla. One thing is for sure - that trade is not looking as lopsided as it once did.