Daily Archives: December 18, 2009

Art Attack: Loria gets his art on

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I’ve always been interested in stadium architecture. I like sports and my father is an architect, so I guess it’s a natural fit.

I wrote my final grad school paper on the Bird’s Nest stadium that was, at the time, under construction for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. I touched on some of the themes of that essay in this column.

In this country, the term “stadium architecture” is often something of an oxymoron. Jeffrey Loria, for better or worse, is out to change that:

Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria’s vision has always been to turn the franchise’s new ballpark into a work of art.

OK, so that’s a bit pretentious. “I’m going to make a big awesome new stadium, and it’s going to be ART, dammit!” But you’ve got to respect the guy for trying to shake things up a bit in the stadium-design paradigm. I thought the Rays’ new stadium would be the first place to do that, but then the bottom fell out of the project.

Anyway, the Marlins got the Miami Art in Public Places Trust to commission a few local and international artists for installations at the new place, and at least a couple of them look to be pretty awesome. Ron Grooms’ home-run celebration feature looks a bit hokey, for sure, but it’s colorful and fan-friendly and a very Miami-appropriate take on the Shea Stadium apple.

What I love, though, is the proposed project by Daniel Arsham and Snarkitecture to commemorate the old Orange Bowl, which was demolished in 2008 to make room for the stadium. The plan is to create concrete replicas of the letters from the Orange Bowl’s original sign and scatter them around the stadium’s entrance plaza.

That’s sweet. The letters can serve as seating or identifiable meeting places for fans outside of the ballpark, and at the same time work as a memorial to a part of the city’s sports history. They’ll look a bit random, for sure, and I can imagine a bunch of incredulous Tweets from beat writers seeing the place for the first time, but they’re clearly fun.

There’s a lot about the new stadium and its design that’s a bit risky, and obviously it’s too soon to say if or how it will all look and work, but good for the Marlins for attempting something different.

Mark DeRosa: Not better than Fernando Tatis

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Matt Cerrone passes along an item from Jon Heyman saying that Mark DeRosa could be an option for the Mets at first base. Buster Olney at ESPN said yesterday that DeRosa is seeking a three-year, $18 million deal.

Pass.

I never really know what to believe in the hot-stove season, and I have no idea what kind of deal DeRosa will actually get. But it strikes me that whatever value DeRosa maintains is inherent in his versatility, and if the Mets see him as a right-handed complement to Daniel Murphy at first base, there are better options for less money.

DeRosa played mostly third base for the Cardinals and Indians in 2009, but the Mets are covered there. Sure it’s nice to have a guy who can spell David Wright every so often, but David Wright really doesn’t need much spelling.

In 2007 and 2008, DeRosa played mostly second base, meaning he could be a fallback plan should Luis Castillo get moved or get traded. But both UZR and Bill James’ +/- suggest that DeRosa was a pretty bad fielder there in 2008. He’s probably not a legitimate starting option at the position moving forward.

So DeRosa’s much-lauded versatility shouldn’t mean much to the Mets.

He can hit a bit, especially against left-handed pitching, and since his BABIP in 2009 was about 30 points below his career average, it’s reasonable to expect he was a bit unlucky to have a down year at the plate. Of course, his line-drive rate dipped, too, so it’s impossible to write off his .250/.319/.433 year as a complete fluke.

And here’s the thing: If the Mets are interested in a righty-hitting 35-year-old first baseman who can fill in at second, third and the outfield corners, they could likely get one for much smaller commitment by bringing back Fernando Tatis.

Yeah, him. That guy the Mets didn’t offer arbitration to, for fear he might actually accept it and take a raise on his $1.7 million salary from 2009.

So what does DeRosa offer over Tatis? Well, he plays more, for one. But when he does, it’s hard to identify how he’s better. Tatis actually posted slightly better offensive numbers than DeRosa over the past two years — a 113 OPS+ to DeRosa’s 108 — and was statistically better as a defensive infielder, albeit in much smaller samples.

DeRosa’s a local product, so he’s got that. And though I haven’t seen him play a full season of games, I can only assume he’s loaded up on grit and hustle and rampant clutchitude.

And of course, I can’t mention Tatis without bringing up all the double plays he hit into in 2009. That was bad, for sure.

But likely to continue? I doubt it. Remember that Tatis maintained a reputation as one of the most clutch Mets in 2008 — especially by Joe Benigno’s standards — and that eight of the 13 double plays he hit into came in June. At the time, he was often hitting behind David Wright or Ryan Church, players who got on base respectively at .432 and .361 clips that month, providing Tatis plenty of opportunities to be doubly penalized just for putting the ball in play.

Mets fans — myself included — gave Jerry Manuel a lot of grief for platooning Tatis with the younger, homegrown Daniel Murphy, who had more to prove at the big-league level than the 34-year-old journeyman. But that’s not really Tatis’ fault.

I understand the desire among fans to move on from players like Tatis, role players on a club that missed the playoffs in 2008 and stunk in 2009, just for the sake of change.

But whatever that’s worth, I am almost certain, is not as much as the difference between what Tatis will command and what DeRosa is demanding.

Items of note

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Mike D’Antoni said he’d “play Satan himself” if it helped the Knicks win. Donnie Walsh replied that he’d acquire Satan himself if he had an expiring contract. Unfortunately, contracts with Satan never expire.

Craig Calcaterra has an interesting theory about Jason Bay’s mystery bidder. It’s a bit out there, but the dots certainly connect.

Bob Raissman beats a drum I’ve hit myself a few times. Good for him for calling out newspapers, since I assume he means his own.

Buster Olney unironically uses the term “base-clogger” to describe Nick Johnson. The Mets won’t have too much trouble with clogged bases from the bottom of this lineup. Cliff Corcoran drops all sorts of logic while weighing in on the Johnson signing at Bronx Banter.

A breakthrough led to “a high level of serious hysteria” at a theoretical physics workshop. I have to imagine that looked at least a little bit like this:

“Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You’re beautiful!”