Category Archives: Words

Barry Bonds isn’t going to jail

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Just put yourself in our shoes when you get a second. Or in the shoes of Cardinals fans or Cubs fans. When 40,000 people get out of their chairs in Milwaukee next April and give Ryan Braun a standing ovation, don’t just assume that they’re all bleating goats who will chew on whatever tin cans they’re fed. This stuff’s complicated. Being a passionate fan of anything messes with your brain chemistry. That’s what made my brain spam me with feel-good chemicals after Bonds got off with a slap of the wrist. When I think of Bonds, I think about some of the fondest memories baseball has ever given me. Around these parts, that will give him a pass for an awful lot over the rest of his life, even if you can’t understand that.

– Grant Brisbee, McCoveyChronicles.com.

First: The frequency with which I’ve found myself linking to Brisbee’s posts lately suggests to me he’s having a hell of an offseason. Go click through and read this whole thing; it’s awesome.

Second: I’d guess every baseball fan in the country who came of age in the last 15-20 years feels for some now-tainted (or at least suspected) player the way Brisbee does for Bonds. Mine’s Mark McGwire, among others.

I strongly disagree with 61% of you

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I’m kind of surprised by the results of the earlier poll. As of right now, 61% of you would not trade Jon Niese for Gio Gonzalez. I voted “yes,” and I figured most of you would — in fact I thought it seemed like such a no-brainer I questioned whether I should even bother posting the poll. I hope the post itself didn’t sway any votes. If I were Sandy Alderson and that deal was on the table, I would trade Niese for Gonzalez before Billy Beane even had a chance to hang up and consult with Jonah Hill.

And yeah, though Niese’s xFIP and FIP might show signs that he could be better than Gonzalez, he just hasn’t been better than Gonzalez — or really anything close. He has been kind of bad and Gonzalez has been kind of awesome. I know there’s a lot to suggest they’ll both come back toward the middle, but I find it hard to believe they’ll cross. If that’s an indication that I lack faith in xFIP, then… well, actually yes: That’s an indication that I lack faith in xFIP.

And beyond that, what puts Gonzalez over the top is that he’s thrown 200 innings in each of the last two seasons. Niese’s injuries have been reasonably minor and trying to figure out which healthy pitcher is more likely to get hurt is silly, but I’ll take the guy who has started off his career showing the durability that Gonzalez has.

Riverhead kid gets suspended, famous for Tebowing

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Maybe young Connor Carroll is being completely earnest in that interview, but something about the way he twice stresses, “[Tebow] has great faith” suggests to me he’s either a) trolling everyone, or way more likely b) carefully asserting his own innocence in a manner particular to generally well-intentioned high-school wiseasses that I mastered myself at his age and still respected years later when I worked at a high school.

And to Carroll’s credit, this seems like a classic school-administration overreaction to a bunch of kids getting swept up in the latest craze, like the time my elementary school banned all items of Simpsons clothing and paraphernalia for some stupid reason. Probably some overwrought assistant principal accused these kids of making fun of Tim Tebow’s religion, which is likely eight or nine steps removed from what’s going through their heads when they Tebowing in the hallways. (UPDATE: I clearly should have read that article I linked, which says pretty explicitly, “The students were not suspended for bringing religion into the school, but instead for clogging the hallway.”)

Anyway, perhaps the least surprising part is that Tebowing-related news items like this one find their way into SportsCenter and onto ESPN.com. Some other headlines to look out for:

Colts and Ravens Continue NFL Tradition of Postgame Tebowing
BREAKING: Tim Tebow currently Tebowing
Area Man Dies Kneeling in Traffic: Is Tebowing to Blame?
Church Group Tebows at Advent Retreat

Just asking

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Before I get into this, I should note that I put about as much stock in recent rumors that the Mets are “in on Gio Gonzalez” as I do in any offseason trade rumors, which is to say basically none.

I bring it up only because it calls to light a reasonably interesting question about our faith in certain advanced stats, especially when comparing Gonzalez to Jon Niese, also the subject of nebulous recent trade rumors.

Spend some time with Niese’s Fangraphs and baseball-reference pages and Gonzalez’s entries on the same sites.

Both pitchers throw left-handed. Gonzalez is a year older than Niese and has pitched 71 2/3 more innings over the past two seasons. Both are set for free agency after the 2015 season, but Gonzalez has Super 2 status, meaning he is eligible for arbitration a year earlier than Niese (ie this season) and should collect substantially more money over the course of the next four seasons if both stay healthy.

(How much more money is very hard to say, both because it’s so difficult to assume pitchers will stay healthy and because, as you will see below, it’s not necessarily safe to assume both will continue performing the way they have so far. Also because I suck at this. But I’m guessing about $15 million more over the length of the contract? Anyone?)

Gonzalez has far outpaced Niese in terms of results the last two seasons. He posted a cumulative 129 ERA+ to Niese’s 89 and finished in the top 10 in the American League in the stat both years.

But by many rate stats, Niese has been just as good if not better than Gonzalez. Gonzalez strikes out a few more batters, but Niese has a way better strikeout to walk ratio. Niese has yielded a slightly higher ground-ball rate across his career but has fallen victim to (or, depending on whom you ask, been the perpetrator of) a much higher batting average on balls in play. Both pitch their home games in parks known for suppressing home runs, but Gonzalez has allowed fewer home runs per fly ball over the past two seasons.

All that adds up to mean that though Gonzalez has pitched to a much better ERA and ERA+ over the past two seasons, Niese has had a better xFIP both years and boasts a lower career FIP.

I have no doubt where I stand on this one, but I’ve tried to stay neutral in presenting the above facts because I don’t want to sway you. Keep in mind the distinctions in likely salary and recent injury history. Pure hypothetical:

[poll id=”47″]

 

I don’t think you’re getting it: The man’s first name and the English second-person pronoun are homophones

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According to widespread headline puns, the Blue Jays entered the winning bid for the rights to negotiate a contract with Yu Darvish.

If that’s true, it’s cool. I had been planning on rooting for Darvish, and the Jays are an eminently likable team, what with a) their new (old) uniforms, b) their smart-seeming front office, c) their uphill battle in the AL East, d) their drunk fans, and mostly e) their Jose Bautista.

I linked Eno Sarris’ analysis of Darvish’s NPB stats earlier this week, but I wanted to make a larger (and perhaps less coherent) point about them.

I wonder if there’s some form of diminishing returns in pitcher dominance due to the nature of pitching. You have to throw strikes to get guys out, and guys are sometimes going to swing at pitches in the zone, and every so often they’re going to make contact, and every so often a batted ball is going to fall in for a hit.

You won’t find many full seasons in modern-era Major League Baseball in which a pitcher posts an ERA better than the 1.50-1.80 range or a WHIP lower than about 0.85. There are a couple of exceptions (Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA in 1968 and Pedro Martinez’s 0.737 WHIP in 1999, basically), but I’d say those marks represent the absolute best a pitcher could ever hope to do given the amount of control he has over the results after the ball leaves his hand.

And it seems worth noting because Darvish has been right around those marks for five straight seasons now in Japan. So I wonder if it’s pointless to say, “Oh well his NPB stats are X% better than Daisuke Matsusaka’s and XX% better than Hideo Nomo’s so we can extrapolate that to mean he’ll be this much better than them stateside” because Darvish has been essentially pitching right up against the ceiling of dominance, and for all we know he’s like 30 times better than Matsusaka.

Does that make any sense? I guess it’d be important to know how often anyone has bettered or matched Darvish’s recent run of awesomeness in Japan, if ever.

Not that the above oversimplified extrapolation is what Eno did, at all, or anything like anything I’ve seen anyone do (though certainly someone has done it somewhere). I’m just saying there’s no reason to expect Darvish to disappoint just because at least one other big-name Japanese import fell short of expectations, if not for the obvious sample-size thing then because it might be impossible for Darvish to have consistently performed any better than he did over his last five seasons in Japan.

In other words, I’m holding on to the slim possibility he’ll exceed expectations. How cool would that be?

Projecting Lucas Duda

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Mike Salfino looks at some comps for our new hero after his first part-season of regular big-league work and likes the return. I’ll throw in that a quick survey of the guys listed shows that few of them flashed the type of power that Duda did in the high Minors. Ryan Howard’s numbers, somewhat predictably, demolish everyone else’s. But if you’ll recall, Howard spent a couple of seasons stuck behind Ol’ Jim Jam in the Phillies’ system.

Stonecutters’ mission complete

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Not only will Steve Guttenberg finally be given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday after years of oversights and outright snubbery, but the news is accompanied by what has to be one of the most fawning articles about Steve Guttenberg ever written by anyone outside of Steve Guttenberg’s family. Some highlights:

Steve Guttenberg, star of four movie franchises — namely “Police Academy,” “Three Men And A Baby,” “Short Circuit” and “Cocoon” — will receive the 2,455 star on the Hollywood Walk of  Fame Monday….

Considered one of Hollywood’s most enduring and endearing actors, Guttenberg has also starred in more than fifty movies, including “Diner,” “The Boys From Brazil” and “Bedroom Window.”…

Off-camera, Guttenberg is also known for his philanthropy and good works. He spent a week at the Houston Astrodome volunteering after Hurricane Katrina. He also started the Guttenhouse Project which houses at-risk foster care youth when they turn 18 and presumably have no place else to turn.

A) The Guttenhouse! B) Good for the Goot. He earned it, what with his work in the popular Cocoon franchise.

And even better: You know who’s speaking on Guttenberg’s behalf at the ceremony? Oh that’s right, it’s Jon Lovitz.

Via Scott.

Mets sign Chuck James, and it’s that time of year and that type of year when we cover this stuff like it’s important

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No one has ever accused TedQuarters of ignoring roster minutiae. The Mets signed left-handed pitcher Chuck James to a Minor League deal today and invited him to Major League Spring Training.

You may remember James from his time as a wholly unmemorable Braves starter in 2006 and 2007, before he tore his labrum and rotator cuff in 2008, missed the entire 2009 season recovering from surgery and wound up in the Nationals’ system in 2010.

James pitched out of the bullpen for the Twins’ Triple-A club in Rochester in 2011 and did a fine a job of it, posting a 2.30 ERA and striking out more than a batter per inning. He struggled in his 10 1/3-inning stint with the big-league Twins, but James pitched effectively against both lefty and righty hitters in the Minors, like an elusive “crossover” guy. And he pitched 62 2/3 innings in only 38 appearances, meaning — based on division alone — he’s apt to throw more than one inning at a time.

I’d say it’s better than even money James winds up in the Mets’ Major League bullpen next year, if not to start the season then at some point not long thereafter.

But wait, there’s more! If the Mets need to save money as badly as we all think they need to save money, they can call on James for double-duty. As recently as January, 2007 — after his successful first big-league season in 2006 — James worked as a glass installer for his local Lowe’s. Maybe that’ll prove useful, what with the Citi Field wall reconstruction and all.

Also, James was once bitten by a poisonous copperhead but elected not to seek treatment. “I decided I wasn’t going to die, so I didn’t do anything,” he said, apparently not realizing at the time he was lobbing a wide-open alley-oop pass for jokes about the Mets’ medical staff years later.