San Francisco Giants 2009

The Giants had a pretty good season. They were in contention for a playoff spot until the final couple of weeks. But they didn't make it. Folks around here are busy talking about what the Giants need to do to take the next step. The answer is obvious all at once: they need better hitting. However the problem is that the Giants don't actually know how to evaluate hitting talent. So they really don't have any chance at getting good hitting without paying a huge price for it. Let's take a look at some numbers to understand this.

One easy way to evaluate the Giants is by looking at the players who have come up through their farm system. Of their homegrown players that had at least 200 plate appearances, on average they saw 3.62 pitches per plate appearance and walked in 7.2% of their plate appearances. To be fair, Fred Lewis has very good plate discipline (and his plate appearances went way down this year.) If you take him out, then the numbers are 3.52 pitches per plate appearance and a 6.8% walk rate. For comparison's sake, if you look at the top seven teams (in terms of runs scored), they average a walk in 9.8% of their plate appearances.

So the Giants farm system sucks. Maybe they can sign good hitters? Nope. If you look at their top hitters that they signed from other teams, they see 3.58 pitches per plate appearance and a 5.9% walk rate. That's right, they see a few more pitches, but they walk even less. The Giants even made a "big" trade at midseason, for Freddy Sanchez. Everyone is concerned that Freddy might have become injury prone suddenly. What they should really be worrying about is that Freddy sucks. He sees 3.81 pitches per plate appearance, which is not too bad. However, he only walks 4.5% of the time. Further, his 0.417 career slugging percentage is just awful, even for a second baseman (which is generally a strong offensive position in modern baseball.) So he doesn't swing at everything (he also has a low strikeout rate) but yet he still does not try to get a good pitch to hit and winds up playing for a single. This is your blockbuster trade material? This is what you get in exchange for the second best pitcher in your farm system?

Yeah, so clearly the Giants front office has no idea what makes a good hitter. People like to say that the Giants home park is a great pitchers park, as it is a tough place to hit home runs. That does not make it a tough place to take a bad pitch or take a walk. In fact, you would think that in such a park, they would an even higher premium on hitters who can get on base any way they can. It's funny, you often hear that the reason that the A's are no longer a good offensive team is because other teams figured out what they were doing. If you look at the Yankees and Red Sox, or for that matter the Rays and the Rockies, you can see evidence of this. However, clearly there is one team that has not figured things out and that is the Giants.

Midseason Baseball Thoughts

It's the middle of the MLB season, and the All-Star Game is next week. This season has had its share of surprises so far. Since I live in the Bay Area, I must recognize the surprising season of the San Francisco Giants. They currently have the second best record in the National League. They are far back of the Dodgers, but would still be in the playoffs as the NL wildcard, if the season was over today. I have to admit that I keep wondering: are the Giants for real? The answer: Yes!

Based on the Giants runs scored vs. runs allowed, the Giants expected wins at this point is 46.9. Their actual wins are 46. So they have not been "lucky" in terms of wins and losses. Their 303 runs allowed is the best in baseball. The pitching has been awesome. The offense has been middle of the pack, but hey that is not as bad as many (including me) expected. So the Giants are for real because they have the best pitching in baseball. Will this continue to be true in the second half of the season?

It is not a slam dunk. Lincecum is even more dominating this year than he was last year when he won the Cy Young. Some people worry that he is pitching too many innings given his age, but I won't jump on that bandwagon. He is one of the Giants' two All-Stars. The other is Matt Cain. Now I love Matt Cain. He is from Dothan, Alabama. That is just two hours north of my hometown in Florida, and is where my brother lives. However, Cain has been a little lucky this year. On balls put in play, Cain's batting average against is a little. Plus he's been lucky with stranding base runners. If this luck does not continue, then you can expect his hits allowed and runs allowed to both jump up a bit. Cain's a flyball pitcher too, so a jump in home runs allowed is always possible. Randy Johnson has been ok, but more importantly healthy. He just suffered his first injury of the season, which does not look like it will be too bad. However, it's hard to expect him to stay healthy the rest of the season. Barry Zito has been better than last year (which is not saying much) but could actually do even better in the second half. The fifth spot in the rotation has been in flux, so things could really only get better for that spot.

Enough about the Giants... As for the rest of the NL. My favorite team, the Atlanta Braves, are mediocre and there's no reason to expect a lot different from them. The Phillies are better than their record, while the Marlins are a lot worse than their record. The Cardinals are also not quite as good as their record, but the rest of the NL Central is very mediocre. The Rockies have been a huge surprise, and they look a legitimate contender for the wildcard spot. They should be the strongest challenger to the Giants, and of course the two teams will get plenty of chances to play each other as they are both in the NL West.

As for the AL, arguably the four best teams are all in the AL East. The Yankees have a nice lead in the wildcard over Tampa Bay. Still, Tampa Bay has proven that last year was not a fluke. The Yankees are definitely getting a nice ROI on all the money they spent on pitching. They are only a game back of Boston. Both teams look to improve in the second half. The Yankees will get three months of Alex Rodriguez, and the Red Sox's David Ortiz seems to have finally regained his form. The AL Central is a mess, with three pretty good teams within 2 games of each other. It's easy to count out Minnesota, but statistically they have been the best of the three teams. Finally, the AL West is a two horse race, and the two teams, LA and Texas, are statistically very even.

Statistically Useless

One of the nice things about living in the Bay Area is that we have a lot of major professional sports teams: two NFL teams, two MLB teams, one NBA team, and one NHL team. Never you mind that they all stink currently, except for the Sharks. With so many teams, sports radio is a lot of fun. Today I was listening to Fitz & Brooks as they fielded a question from a listener about the Golden State Warriors and their lack of defense. They made the case that the Warriors have a lot of defensive talent because they are 6th in the league in steals and 1st in the league in blocked shots. They argued that the Warriors just needed to allow less "blow-bys." I looked around, but could not find this statistic.

I was almost really impressed by Fitz & Brooks. It seemed like they were on the verge of saying "NBA statistics are meaningless" but they could not go that far. The NBA keeps a lot of statistics, but they really are mostly meaningless. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, etc. None of these are particularly good at determining if a player will make his team more or less likely to win a game. That is why you see guys like David Lee, Troy Murphy, Jose Calderon, and Mario Chalmers as statistical leaders. Look at the league leaders in blocks. Their teams are ranked 8th, 18th, 25th, 30th, and and 20th in the league in points per game. In terms of team field goal% allowed, the ranks are 3rd, 4th, 25th, 23rd, and 19th.

The NBA is hardly the exception. Most sports have a lot of meaningless (from the standpoint of predicting team success) statistics. Baseball has terrible stats like batting average, runs batted in, stolen bases, and fielding percentage. Football is not quite as bad mostly just because there are less stats. Still things like rushing touchdowns and even passing yards are pretty worthless.

Of course baseball has seen a statistical renaissance and it is known as sabremetrics. Michael Lewis's Moneyball is a popular work that discusses the value of sabremetrics. It uses the success of the Oakland A's and their GM Billy Beane as proof, but if it was written today, then the success of the Boston Red Sox would be (more?) compelling. Lewis expanded this "nerdy numbers leading to unexpected success" plot to basketball recently by writing an article about the Houston Rockets' Shane Battier. Basketball is tougher sport to measure though. Maybe there will be sabremetrics in basketball eventually, who knows.

It was definitely easier in baseball, where some of the statistical ingredients for more meaningful sabremetrics were already measured (like number of walks, total bases, etc.) What would similar stats in basketball be? Certainly making shots is good, missing shots is bad. How do you measure a three point play vs. a three point field goal? If a player takes a shot and misses, but somebody else gets an offensive rebound and an easy field goal, how is this measured?

Spring is Here

Well not quite, but spring training is here. My local teams, the Giants and A's, both play their first spring training game today. Tim Lincecum is even pitching today. Very exciting!

Of course it's been an ugly time lately for Major League Baseball. Everyone is upset about Alex Rodriguez and his use of steroids in the past. I have mixed feelings on this. First, I don't care that A-Rod used steroids. I don't care who used them. I don't find any difference between a guy using steroids or using "legal" supplements or sophisticated weight training or getting a cadaver's ligament sewn to their knee when they tear their ACL. These are all examples of technology allowing athletes to be better athletes than has ever been possible before. They are bigger, stronger, faster, and they are able to play at a high level for a longer amount of time. Does this mean that as technology progresses, that the sports may change so much that it turns off fans? Yeah, maybe. Perhaps it has already started.

All of that being said, I hate dishonesty even when it is required. I don't blame A-Rod for lying about using steroids until evidence was surfaced that contradicted him. I just can't stand to hear the PR crap that he recites to Peter Gammons or at press conferences. How bad for A-Rod would it be if instead of saying "I was young and stupid" he said "I wanted to hit as many home runs as possible because the more I hit, the more money I made, so I took steroids." I know he's got to say that he's not using now and that he has to minimize the amount of time that he did use them, so I can live with these lies. But wouldn't we all be better off if people just said "I took it so that I could make more money, be more famous, see myself on SportsCenter more often."

MLB Final Four

What can you say about the Cubs ... but wow. Statistically they were favorites against the Dodgers. Most people would have said that they were "heavy" favorites, since they had the best record in the NL. As an Atlanta Braves fan, I can tell you how little that matters. Statistically there was a 48% chance of the Dodgers winning, vs. 52% for the Cubs. That being said, there was only about a 10% chance of a sweep...

Of course those numbers are based on season statistics, and many would point out that the Dodgers were a much better team with Manny Ramirez on the team. Is this true? Their record was 29-24 with Manny vs. 55-54 without him. They outscored their opponents 249-214 with Manny, which would translate to a ridiculous 40-13 expected record. Even with 53 games, you see the craziness of small sample sizes... The Dodgers actually gave up slightly more runs per game with Manny than without him, 4.04 vs. 3.98. So the improvement really was in the offense. They scored 4.7 runs per game with Manny, vs. 4.14 without him.

So, Viva la Manny? The small sample size skews things, but they sure look like good picks for the NLCS. The Phillies were a better team in the regular season, but nobody is as good as the Manny Dodgers. You're not going to find me picking the Dodgers. The Braves were in the NL West for a long time, so I learned to hate the Dodgers many years ago. Of course that's only gotten worse since I moved to the Bay Area nine years ago.

So what about the ALCS? Boston is statiscally a better team than Tampa Bay. What is unusual too is that these two teams had strong home vs. away stats. Both teams were much better home teams than road teams. Tampa Bay won the AL East, so they have home field advantage. Could the home team win every game in this series? Even with these teams it is statistically unlikely, but the home team bias suggests that this series will be very close.

By the way, it should be no surprise that the ALCS is between two AL East teams. Six of the top AL hitters in terms of runs created were from the AL East. Ten of the top twenty hitters in terms of runs created per 27 were also from the AL East. Eight of the top fifteen AL pithcers in terms of ERA were also from the AL East. And it's not just Boston, Tampa Bay, and New York. Baltimore and Toronto also had very good hitters (Nick Markakis, Aubrey Huff, Alex Rios) and pitchers (Roy Halladay, Jeremy Guthrie).

At Season's End

The regular season of Major League Baseball is at an end. That is always a bummer to me. One of the reasons that I like baseball so much is that it is played every day. Every day something interesting happens. Of course the playoffs are here, but there is not much joy in those for me this year. No Braves. No A's. No Giants. At least there are no Yankess or Mets, though...

It is always fun to look back at the season, and of course, to speculate on the future. Who should win the awards? And, who should win in the postseason? Being a numbers man, the awards are the most fun to examine.

AL MVP
This is a close race because there are no outstanding candidates. In fact, top AL hitters were significantly weaker than NL hitters this year. If Lance Berkman or Chipper Jones was in the AL, you could make a very strong case for them as MVP... Let's look at a couple of relevant stats. First, runs created:

1.) Grady Sizemore, 128
2.) Josh Hamilton, 122.8
3.) Dustin Pedroia, 120.2
4.) Nick Markakis, 118.4
5.) Aubrey Huff, 116.5

That is a nice advantage for Grady Sizemore. One reason for the advantage over the other players is that he played a lot and lead off, leading to a lot of plate appearances. Still he had a very good season. Who would guess that a lead-off hitter would have 33 home runs and 98 walks? Perhaps he should not be hitting lead-off... A more weighted number is runs created per 27 outs. Here is that top five.

1.) Milton Bradley, 8.97
2.) Alex Rodriguez, 7.89
3.) Kevin Youkilis, 7.8
4.) Carlos Quentin, 7.67
5.) Nick Markakis, 7.42

Only one hold-over from the previous top five, and that is the very underrated Markakis. Perhaps he is the MVP? Perhaps. The other leaders in total runs created are all in the top eleven in runs created per 27 outs. For a final measure, let's look at the top 5 in VORP.

1.) Alex Rodriguez, 65.6
2.) Grady Sizemore, 62.7
3.) Dustin Pedroia, 62.3
4.) Aubrey Huff, 58.4
5.) Josh Hamilton, 57.1

Another very different top five! Even missing some games, A-Rod provided the most "value" for his team. Don't tell Yankee fans this, as I am sure they are working on a way to blame their postseason absence on A-Rod. I can just imagine "Ah, Moose got us 20 wins, if only A-Rod could have hit some!"

From a pure statistical consideration, Milton Bradley was the most "potent" hitter, but only played 126 games. Throw him out, and it sure looks like you would have to go with A-Rod as MVP, once again. If I had a vote, that is who I would go with.

That is not going to happen, and everybody knows it. People like to vote for players who are on "winners". You have to be clearly the best (and even that is not good enough often) to get a MVP trophy and be on a team that is not playing in October. So the people they list are folks like Boston's Pedroia and Youkilis, as well as Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer from the Twins. If Carlos Quentin had not broken his hand during a temper tantrum, he would surely be a front runner. The other name I've heard is Francisco Rodriguez, from the Angels.

Given that, it would seem that Pedroia has the advantage over the other "candidates."

NL MVP
This one is a little easier. Albert Pujols lead the league in all of the stats mentioned previously. He was clearly the best hitter in the league, and nobody is really arguing this one. Ryan Howard's .251 average pretty much guaranteed that he is not in the mix. He is the only guy with "traditional" stats (HRs/RBIs) that beat Pujols, and he plays for a division winner. He also finished very strong, just as his team did, coming from behind to pass the Mets in the last month. But there's no chance of this argument working! Let us hope not at least...

AL Cy Young
This is viewed as a two horse race between Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. That is good, but that is how it should be. They were far and away the two best pitchers in the AL. Nobody was even remotely close. Most people think that Lee will win because, well because he is a winner. His 22 wins jumps out. He also led the league in ERA. It is rare for a pitcher to lead in both of those stats and not win the Cy Young. For what it's worth, he led the league in VORP as well, edging out Halladay. You can make nice arguments about how pitched against weaker compettition, but it's hard to imagine too many people buying that. Cliff Lee should win and will win.

NL Cy Young
Now this is more interesting. Once again a lot of people think it should be a two-horse race. Once again they are right, but they've got the wrong horses. Most people think it is between Brandon Webb and Tim Lincecum. This may indeed be the two "finalists" for the award, but it should not be that way. Webb was nowhere near as good as Lincecum. He just has a lot more wins, and people get carried away over wins. So Lincecum should be Cy Young, right?
I won't argue against it, especially since I root for the Giants against most teams. However, there is a guy who has been just as good, and maybe even a little better than Lincecum: Johan Santana. He edged Lincecum in ERA, and in VORP (73.4 to 72.5.) Statistically, over the course of the season, he was worth about one extra run (total) more than Lincecum. By comparison, Cliff Lee edged Halladay by about 3.5 runs in VORP.
If you start making the "they played for a winner" argument, then clearly Santana has the edge over Lincecum. You can take that one step further. The Mets were battling the Phillies for the NL East crown this weekend. On Saturday they sent Santana out on short rest and he delivered better than you could hope for by throwing a complete game shutout while striking out nine. I think "clutch" is an illusion, but most people belive in it and I am sure they would say that Santana was as clutch as it comes. He definitely did everything he could to get his team in to the playoffs.
So if people were talking about Lincecum vs. Santana, I would guess they would pick Santana. But they are not. They are only mentioning Lincecum vs. Webb. Lincecum is the clear choice there. Personally if I had a vote ... I would vote for Santana. He has been a little better. The NL East is much better (in terms of hitters) than the NL West.

MLB 2007

It's almost a week into the baseball season, and I haven't written about it at all! I am always psyched when baseball starts. This year is no different. Performance enhancing drugs be damned!
I am very optimistic about my favorite team, the Atlanta Braves. The Braves were really one of the top 2 or 3 teams in the National League last year. Their record did not show this, but their stats did. That makes them an easy pick to improve.
I am also optimistic about Jeff Francoeur. Jeff's big weakness has always been his plate discipline. He nearly doubled his walk total and rate last year. This was reflected in his increase in pitches per plate appearance. His home run total was down last year compared to 2006, but his doubles(40) were way up. It's easy to feel optimistic about a young player who is showing more patience and hitting a lot of doubles. Not to mention that he is hitting behind a pair of guys who regularly post .400+ OBP (Chipper Jones and Mark Texeira.)
So if the Braves can just get enough pitching out of their rather old rotation (Hudson, Smoltz, Glavine, Hampton) then it should be a great year. Contrary to popular belief, Turner Field is a hitter's park. People think it is great for pitching just because the Braves had so many great pitchers for so long. It's not. It's actually at the second highest altitude of any MLB park, next to Coors Field of course. So the Braves are going to once again going to score a lot of runs.
Finally, gotta mention the local teams. I don't know what to make of the Oakland A's. I think they will surprise, but then again expectations are so low that they almost have to. The Giants on the other hand are going to be miserable, and they deserve it. They were just a little too happy to get rid of Barry Bonds, the guy who built their current stadium and gave them a future as a big market team (once they finish paying for the stadium.) I do hope to catch a Tim Lincecum game though...

Dumb Baseball Analysis

The world is full of dumb baseball analysis. The popularity of fantasy sports has only lead to greater proliferation of this strain of stupidity. Here is some from a fantasy baseball newsletter I got this morning:

Question: Which players' new addresses have affected their Fantasy value the most?
Answer: Dontrelle Willis -- Only the Yankees scored more runs in the AL than the Tigers last year, and Willis brought Cabrera (who led the Marlins in batting average, homers, RBI and walks last year). Willis will also have an established closer (Todd Jones, whom he pitched with three seasons ago) and he won't be asked to lead the pitching staff anymore. He had some personal problems that might have attributed to his down season, but now, with less responsibility deeper back in the rotation, he can just pitch.

This nugget of wisdom is from David Gonos who holds the highly regarded title of "Senior Fantasy Writer" for CBS Sports. Now I will give him one thing, Willis will be playing for a team that scores more runs, so this should help his win total. That will increase his fantasy value. But what is this garbage about an established closer, ahem Todd Jones? Mr. Jones will be 40 in April. His ERA over the last three years is 2.10, 3.94, 4.26. His K/BB: 4.43, 2.55, 1.44. His GB/FB: 2.04, 1.85, 1.51. This guy is a disaster about to happen. Now the Marlins have the 29 year old Kevin Gregg who had a 3.54 ERA and 87 K in 84 IP last year. I'm not saying he's great, but compared to Todd Jones...

The Todd Jones stats raise another issue. Look at that 2.10 ERA he had three years ago. That was when he was pitching for Florida. His numbers have obviously declined since. Some of this can be attributed to age, but some of it must be attributed to switching to the AL. Guess what, Willis is making the same move. Would it really be shocking if his ERA went up from its already not-fit-for-fantasy-baseball 5.17?

Finally, you gotta love the last bit of logic from Mr. Gonos. Dontrelle won't have as much pressure on him because he will be at the back of the rotation. Maybe Mr. Gonos should get a new title "Senior Fantasy Psychiatrist."

Ok, now all of that being said, I would expect Dontrelle to post better stats then he did last year. This has very little to do with switching teams (though the extra run support should mean wins, as mentioned earlier.) He had bad luck last year. His BIPA was .311. In other words, of all the balls put in play (not strikeouts, walks, or home runs) there was a .311 probability the ball was a hist. This is very high for a pitcher, but pitchers have very little control over this. It is mostly a matter of luck. You can control strikeouts, walks, and home runs, but it's hard to control singles vs. ground ball outs, or a double vs. a fly-out. Of the 42 NL pitchers who pitched enough innings to "qualify" statistically, that is the third worst BIPA, behind only Matt Belisle and Scott Olsen. So if he just gets a little better luck, i.e. less balls in play are hits, then he will see significant improvement. Whether that is enough to overcome the move to the AL remains to be seen.

Mitchell Report

I don't care about athletes using drugs. Most people would agree that I have a minority opinion on this. But who cares about my opinion? Most people think that athletes using drugs is a form of cheating. It is bad. Period. If I was one of those people, I would be very happy about the Mitchell Report.

A lot of people have pointed out that the evidence in the Mitchell Report would not hold up in court. They point to Roger Clemens in particular. It's as if the Mitchell Report was supposed to produce evidence to be presented to a grand jury or something. If that would have been the purpose, then it would not have been worth releasing.

I think the point was to justify stricter measures to prevent the use of drugs in baseball. Obviously you can only prevent future use, you cannot change the past. If that is the purpose, then I think it does a very good job. It shows that by only getting two people to cooperate, they were able to find evidence against dozens of players. There is no way the public could not come away feeling that drug use is widespread in baseball. It's not just the guys hitting 40+ home runs. It's the starting pitchers, the relief pitchers. It's the low-power, fast running infielders and outfielders, as well as the sluggers and wannabe sluggers. It's the utility bench players. It's the upcoming players and aging veterans. It's future hall-of-famers and guys struggling to get at-bats.

If the public thinks that everyone is using, then it will be hard for the player's union to stop the owners from instituting testing that is on-par with the NFL or maybe even the Olympics. Smart and/or cynical folks will say that players will still find ways to use drugs to get an advantage, but it does not matter. All that matters is that most fans feel like order has been restored. They feel like they are watching a "fair" and "clean" game. The Mitchell Report forces the players' union to accept this kind of testing, or baseball will lose fans, and players' salaries will fall. It's that simple.

Now if three years from now, Alex Rios leads the majors with 25 homers... Well that would be pretty interesting, wouldn't it? I don't think it will be the case. There will the usual fluctuations in hitting vs. pitching, but no amount of drug testing will have much affect on the general proclivity of home runs.

A-Rod's The Man

Why is A-Rod leaving New York? Why did he announce it last night?

I think A-Rod is leaving because he can. He doesn't like it there, and can at least get the same money somewhere else. People keep saying "Boras must know that they can get better money from another team" but I don't think it has to be better. And that answers the second question.

The best way to sell A-Rod is not on his stats, as impressive as they are. The best way to sell him is on his potential economic impact to a team. The best way to emphasize that is to make sure that A-Rod is the story in baseball. That would not have happened if Boras had waited ten days past the World Series to announce A-Rod is opting out of his contract. Nope. But by announcing it while a lot of people were still paying attention to baseball, i.e. during the World Series, then he smoothly transitions all those World Series watchers into A-Rod watchers.

Boras doesn't have a deal in place already. He's going to have to work for his money, and this is part of how he's going to do it. His client wanted out of New York, and he's just doing his best given that situation.

So all the idiot Yankees fans (which is not all of them...) are getting their wish. No more A-Rod. The Yanks have a lot of money to spend on replacing A-Rod, so that should make for an interesting offseason in the Bronx.

For what it's worth, A-Rod has clearly made the right decision. Any other city would have worshiped A-Rod unconditionally before this season, and would be ready to rename their city after him at this point. I should know, I live in the Bay Area. Barry Bonds is the worst player to root for in baseball history since Ty Cobb, and he is completely adored in San Francisco. A-Rod is nowhere near as unlikeable as Bonds and is almost as good (especially if you consider position.) Plus look at the "new" ownership of the Yankees. They parted ways with Joe Torre and now A-Rod, and in both cases the owners felt the need to talk trash to the press. How old are these guys? It's just amazingly juvenile.

MoneySox

Obviously the Red Sox sweep was not surprising to me. I'm not a particular fan of the Red Sox, even though I thought they would win the World Series. If there is one endearing quality about them it's that the Red Sox are in a lot of ways an affirmation of Billy Beane and his analytic approach to baseball made famous in Michael Lewis's Moneyball. Theo Epstein is definitely from the same school of thought as Beane and it shows. The 2007 had a distinctive Moneyball feel to them, with patient hitters like Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis (Beane's "Greek god of walks" after all). Hideki Okajima is so reminiscent of Chad Bradford in Moneyball, and you could easily imagine Billy Bean building big stats for his hard-tossing closer, Jonathan Papelbon, and then trading him for a slew of underrated talent. Of course The A's would never have the money to sign other guys that Beane would love like David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew, and Mike Lowell. Would Beane like a guy like Josh Beckett? He typifies a lot of what Beane avoids (big, hard throwing right hander) though he certainly has put up some impressive numbers over the years. Anyways, if you're a fan of Billy Beane and Moneyball, then you probably had to root for the Red Sox.

World Series Predictions

My LCS predictions wound up being pretty good! I started writing this a couple of days ago and forgot about it. Now I've got to finish it as the first pitch is being thrown...

Rob Neyer speculated a 60% probability of Boston winning. That seems pretty plausible from a statistical point of view. Boston has better hitting and much better pitching. I've seen some nonsense about how Colorado's pitching was great after the All-Star break, but that is a cherry-picked stat. Maybe it was great because they played more road games and against lesser competition? Their line-up stands up pretty well side-by-side to the Red Sox, but their pitching is not even close.

So... yeah Red Sox in 5 seems appealing. That would have Beckett getting a chance to clinch, though it would be at Coors Field. 

League Championship Series Predictions

Well at least I got the American League right... The biggest surprise by far was Arizona beating Chicago. Arizona does have good pitching (114 ERA+) but their hitting is terrible (88 OPS+.) I don't just mean below average either, it was the worst hitting in the NL. They had a .321 OBP as a team in a hitter-friendly park.

So obviously I must pick against Arizona, again. Everyone is billing this as the great offense (Colorado) vs. the great pitching (Arizona.) Colorado's pitching is actually quite good as well. Not as good as Arizona's, but much closer than most people would think. Colorado's pitching was 4th best in the NL (110 ERA+, behind Arizona, Chicago, and San Diego.) Coors Field was once again the most hitter friendly ballpark which lead to the second most runs scored. If you're not an idiot and take into account Coors Field, then their hitting was only 6th best in the NL, but still much better than the Chicago. Whatever, Colorado is Murder's Row when compared to Arizona. Colorado in 5.

Boston and Cleveland both had a little easier time with their opponents than expected, but you had to expect these two teams to be here. They were both very balanced, very good teams. Boston had the third best hitting, Cleveland was tied for fourth. Boston had the best pitching, and Cleveland had the third best pitching. Boston has a clear edge over Cleveland, but this should be a very close series... The Sabathia/Carmona combo looks a lot more intimidating against Boston than it did against New York. However, I had really forgotten just how bad Joe Borowski is until I had to watch him pitch the last two days. Boston's pitching is so good that Borowski will have to notch 2-3 saves for Cleveland to win. I just can't see that happening. Boston in 7.

Division Series Predictions

I have no emotional ties to any of the teams in the playoffs, so from a purely statistical standpoint... 

Rockies vs. Phillies -- The Phillies had the best offense, but the Rockies were slightly better overall. Their pitching was much better despite playing at Coors Field. Turn it around and you can say that Philly's hitting was better even though they did not play at Coors Field. With teams like these, you must consider home park effects. Colorado score 1.11 more runs per game at home than on the road. Philly scored 0.1. Colorado surrendered 0.36 more runs per game at home than on the road, and Philly gaved up 0.26 more run per game at home. Seems like the pitching-sucks-because-we're-at-home angle cancels out. The hitting does not. So you gotta say big advantage to Philadelphia.

Prediction: Philadelphia in 3

Diamondbacks vs. Cubs -- Obviously Arizona was incredibly lucky this season. They are not a good team. Good teams outscore their opponents. Both teams pitch very well (#1 and #2 in ERA+ in the NL) but neither is partciularly good at swinging the bat (or taking a pitch for that matter.) Chicago is better though. Low scoring games tend to be more random though, so this series will be closer than it should be.

Prediction: Chicago in 4

Red Sox vs. Angels -- Boston is superior in every way. The Angels are a good team, don't get me wrong. They are notorious for their lack of power and plate discipline, but still managed a 105 OPS+ as a team. Their pitching is viewed as their strength, and it's good too with a 103 ERA+. Good, but they should be crushed by Boston.

Prediction: Boston in 4

Yankees vs. Indians -- The Yankees offense is amazing, but their pitching is so-so at best. Cleveland is solid on both offense and defense. I don't think they can shut down the Yankees offense, I don't care if they do have the two best pitchers in the league. This is going to be a wild series, as any series with the Yankees would be.

Prediction: Indians in 5

Fantasy Baseball

The baseball regular season is almost over, thus fantasy baseball is almost over. I had three teams this year, two on ESPN and one on Yahoo. All three were free, but ESPN's service is far superior to Yahoo's. With ESPN you get live scoring, so at any time you can login and see how your team is doing. That's enough reason right there to play ESPN over Yahoo. I found that Yahoo's player news was not nearly as good as ESPN's. There were numerous times that it didn't indicate that a pitcher was going to be starting until just hours before the game actually started. This info was always available 24-48 hours earlier on ESPN. I wound up relying on ESPN to figure out which of my pitchers on Yahoo were starting.

Of course maybe my opinions are horribly biased. My two ESPN teams are winning their leagues easily, but my Yahoo team is in 8th place. So maybe I think ESPN's game is superior just because I've had more success on there.

Anyways, the end of the season gives me a chance to reflect on players that I did a good job of predicting their performance as well as ones that I did not. I had several players that drafted in all of my leagues because I was sure that they would outperform expectations. I also had some that I was sure would under-perform. Here's the ones that I was especially high on.

Chase Utley
Matt Holliday
Mark Teahen
John Smoltz
C.C. Sabathia
Ben Sheets

Five of the six were pretty good, four of the six really good. Obviously Teahen was the big disappointment on the list, and the biggest reach. So it's ok that he bombed, since he was a very late round draft pick. Sheets was also fairly cheap. He may not have been a slam dunk, but his team yielded my best free agent pickup: Ryan Braun. I picked him up on all three teams, and he's been amazing.

I did have one huge screw-up though. That was Carlos Pena. I picked him up in May, and gave up on him because he wasn't playing everyday. This was especially bad for my Yahoo team that never had a good first basemen all season.

So what about predictions for next year... Eh, it's football season. Ask me again in January.

Unlucky Braves

My favorite baseball team, the Atlanta Braves, are just about out of the playoff picture. And that's too bad. Statistically, they are one of the best teams in the NL. If you use the Pythagorean formula, then Atlanta would have the second best record in the NL, just behind Arizona and just ahead of New York. In the "but that's why they play the game" world, the Braves have seven fewer wins then they should statistically. That's by far the most unlucky of any team in baseball. The most lucky by the way (no surprise here) is the Arizona Diamondbacks, who is in first place in the NL West despite having been outscored by their opponents.

Most people will blame the Braves pitching staff for their record. That's not really fair. They are middle of the pack in almost every pitching category, and are pretty (5th) in opponents on-base-percentage (despite the most intentional walks by far.) Oh, but it's the bullpen's fault, right? After all, the Braves cut their closer in the middle season. Nope, their bullpen is middle of the pack, too, in terms of blown saves and save percentage. It's not the pitching staff's fault. It's just bad luck. People hate to admit how important luck is in baseball.

If the Braves were having a luckier season, then Chipper Jones (my favorite player) would probably warrant some MVP votes. He had a DL stint which cost him in raw totals. Right now he leads the NL in batting, and is third in on-base percentage, second in slugging. He's second in runs created per 27 outs. He trails Barry Bonds in most of these categories. Yeah that Barry Bonds, the guy that everyone here in the Bay Area can't wait to get rid of at the end of the season.

As it is, it seems all but given that Prince Fielder will be NL MVP. Maybe Matt Holiday or Ryan Howard can sneak in there, just because RBIs are so overrated. Fielder's huge lead in homers and Milwaukee's feel good story seem like too much to overcome. As for the other individual awards:

• NL Cy Yong: Jake Peavy in a landslide. If the season ended today, he'd win the triple crown!
• AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez in a landslide. Magglio Ordononez will get some votes, since he leads the league in batting and is second to A-Rod in RBIs, but that's just silly. A-Rod leads the AL in HRs by 12! Oh and if anybody cares, he's by far the leader in both runs created and runs created per 27 outs.
• AL Cy Young: Statistically no clear front runner. Can you believe there are eight AL pitchers with ERAs less than 3.50! Seems like most folks think it's a two pitcher race between Josh Beckett (leads the league in wins) and C.C. Sabathia. That's funny since C.C.'s teammate, Fausto Carmona, leads the league in ERA (just barely, but still) and has 17 wins just like C.C. I think Beckett will win it, just because Boston is the best team in AL by far.

Ozzie Guillen

I got a good chuckle when I read about Ozzie Guillen's latest tirade. This is just sweet justice. They so deserve to stink. Their lineup is full of the kind of players that ruin your team. Their love affair with small ball has their roster full of guys who can't take a pitch and just make outs constantly. Guys like Scott Podsednik, Darin Erstad, and Jerry Owens. They've gotten about what you would expect out of Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, and Jermaine Dye, but I'm sure that's where the blame will fall. The only guy in their whole lineup who has any plate discipline is Thome. He's had a slightly subpar year by his standards, but he's 37. What can you expect? They are dead last in the AL in runs scored, but this exactly what they should have expected. They're also dead last in OBP at .317 (!!!) -- funny that.

Their pitching has been bad, too. John Garland has been a little worse than you might have expected, and Jose Contreras has been truly awful. Mark Buehrle and Javier Vazquez have been about what you would expect. Their bullpen has been bad except for Bobby Jenks. Again most of these guys haven't been any worse than you would expect.

So yeah the White Sox are really bad, but they should be really bad. Their management put together a bad team. Who knows how much of that equation is Guillen. He's certainly shown a love for putting fast guys with no patience at the top of his batting order, and that is a major reason for their terrible offense.

#756

One of the great things about eBay is the endless opportunities for profit. It's like when the iPhone debuted. The only company (besides Apple) hoping for Apple stores to sell out quickly was eBay. Of course we would love to have #756 auctioned on our site. For that matter, how about #757 hit just last night? And don't forget #755. You get the picture.

Anyways, I was pretty surprised to see the Hank Aaron video message to Bonds after Barry hit #756. Everyone wants to be so righteous and hold Barry in contempt. At the same time, they realize that people everywhere were following the chase, so they wanted a piece of that action. Bud Selig may hate Barry, but how much coin has Barry put in his and the other owners' pockets?

I like having Barry Bonds as the top player of my generation. I like that we have a guy who was already the best in the sport, but who went out, broke the rules, used technology and took the game to levels it had never seen before. He did it and never apologized for being better than everybody else before him.

When Mark McGwire broke the single season record, I remember thinking "man if he suddenly stays healthy into his 40's, he could break Aaron's record." I am so glad that didn't happen. McGwire was always ashamed of his use of juice. He just wanted to fit in with the greats and be liked by the masses. He needed the juice to do that, but he also needed for people to not know about the juice at the same time. He was too weak to break the record, and too weak the represent my generation.

Barry is perfect. He doesn't care about people liking him. He doesn't want to fit in with the greats of the game, he wants to tower over them. He's egotistical, self-centered, and completely focussed on success at all costs. He's the modern day Ty Cobb.

All Star Game

The top story on ESPN starts out "Despite a lackluster season ... Barry Bonds will be right at home in the 78th All Star Game." A lackluster season? Bonds is #1 in the NL in OBP with a gaudy 0.513. OBP is arguably the most important stat in baseball, but it is often overlooked by sports writers. Fine. He's #2 in the NL in SLG at 0.599, and not surprisingly #1 in OPS at 1.112. He's not just #1, but #1 with a bullet. The difference between him and #2 Chase Utley is 0.128. If you subtracted 0.128 from Utley's OPS you would drop 24 slots in the rankings. Yet, Bonds is clearly having a lackluster season...

Father's Day Baseball Game

I took Michael, Jr. to his first baseball game on Saturday night.


We saw the A's host the Cardinals. Unfortunately the Cardinals blew out the A's 15-6. Here's a picture of Albert Pujols batting:


Michale made it into the 6th inning, which is pretty darn good for a three year old. He could've gone longer actually, but I think he would have fallen asleep. So we headed home. It was just another fun part of my Father's Day weekend.