Author: Obstructed View Staff

Regarding the "save" statistic

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past 36 hours or so, you know that Mariano Rivera got his 602nd save yesterday.  As a former and currently-sometime Yankees fan (they like to win and I like winning), and also having a six degrees of Kevin Bacon association with the Rivera family, this was really cool to follow.

This article from HardballTalk somewhat encapsulates how I feel about the “save” statistic.  You can probably look up the MLB.com or wikipedia definition yourself, but basically a reliever has to conform to various arbitrary criteria in order to record a “save.”  I often mock this statistic as I think it’s useless and prevents managers from leveraging their relievers properly because they’re either set in their philosophies that certain relievers must always be used in certain innings, or because their relievers want to rack up “saves” for more money.  It was both amusing and sad to see the stupidity of the save statistic find its way into a great moment in baseball history as we see in the quote below:

“I couldn’t believe they were cheering me for hitting into a double play,” Swisher said. “I said: ‘Whoa, what’s this? And then I looked at the bullpen and saw Mo coming out and I said: ‘Now I get it!’ This was the greatest double play of my life.”

“Runners at first and second…it was unbelievable,” Rivera said. “I don’t ever want my teammates to do bad so I can pitch, but this time I was happy for the opportunity. I’m listening to the fans and I said: ‘Wow, these guys are into it!’”

I did make several jokes yesterday about this, when the Yankees were up big on the Twins and then threatening again late in the game.  I bet if the Yanks had kept the big lead, we wouldn’t have even seen Rivera yesterday.  

I love Mariano Rivera, and I think he’ll go into the Hall of Fame with no obstacles.  But I really do hate the “save” statistic.  

 

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Old Style to exit Wrigley Field following 2011 season

(I apologize if I don’t do this right. I didn’t pay attention when Al wrote the post about diary posts, or fan shots, or rim shots or whatever the hell they’re called.)

Old Style beer and the Chicago Cubs have been intertwined as long as I can remember. When I was a kid listening to Vinny and Lou call the games on WGN radio, it was fully krausened Old Style sponsoring the Cubs. When I would go to Wrigley Field it was the beer my father and uncles would share while they laughed at how bad Dave Kingman was in LF. Later on it was the beer I lined up on the backwall of the bleachers to avoid the end of beer sales for that game.

It seemed like most things Cub, the relationship between the Cubs and Old Style just felt right (maybe because both were charmingly lousy).

Well, today the news came down that Old Style will no longer be served at Wrigley Field following the season. Coors Light will replace Old Style as the alternative to the evil beer from St. Louis. It’s probably time, and honestly a relationship with Chicago based MillerCoors is probably going to be much more lucrative for the Cubs than a relationship with Pabst, who owns Old Style. From that perspective this all makes very logical sense. Still if you have an ounce of nostalgia and have watched this team for any amount of time you see a sixty+ year sponsorship arrangement ending. Those things don’t happen much any more, so for some reason it seems strange to imagine Cubs games, in Mesa or Chicago, withoutOld Style Beer.

An article on the new Pabst owners in the Tribune a month ago outlined the plan to leave Wrigley Field:

In an internal memo to top staff one month after purchasing the company, C. Dean Metropoulos outlined a plan to see PBR sales grow 30 percent per year, Lone Star’s sales to double and for the company to create a “Four Loko”-like version of Colt 45, backed by an African-American star and jingle.

“I also want to try to exit the ‘Cubs’ deal and divert this money behind Old Style ‘Light,'” C. Dean Metropoulos wrote. The relationship between Old Style and the Chicago Cubs baseball team has existed for 61 years.

B.R. Zoom, the ad agency, was fired per order of Metropoulos. And former Pabst employees said the Metropoulos brothers, in almost daily phone calls, demanded that a host of ideas be implemented, such as Pabst brands being sold in Madison Square Garden, comic actor Will Ferrell sponsoring Old Milwaukee, PBR gift bags being given away at the Country Music awards in Las Vegas sponsored by the Academy of Country Music.

Now Old Style goes the way of Smokie Links and 81 day games at Wrigley Field. It becomes a fond memory. It’s a shame, but it is progress. Still it won’t seem right ordering a Coors product at Wrigley Field.

All good things must come to an end.

 

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Joe Posnanski on Barry Bonds

One of the best sportswriters, Joe Posnanski, recently got into a debate with Bob Costas about Barry Bonds as one of the best players of all time.  As a Bay Area native I followed the Giants and A’s after the whole steroid-fueled home run chase of 1998 (Sammy Sosa being the definitive reason why I’m a Cubs fan, bad choice, I know) and so I was pretty familiar with what Bonds did.  

I encourage you all to check out the article, where Joe Poz does his regular schtick and pulls out some numbers that show that Bonds really does deserve to be put in the pantheon of baseball awesomeness, steroids or no.  As a newly minted baseball fan since 1998, I pretty much knew that steroids were rampant in baseball, but I didn’t care…it was still tons of fun to watch Bonds beat the hell out of baseballs and put the fear of God into opposing pitchers.  

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Anatomy of a Rebound – 2006-2007 vs 2011

One thing that hasn’t been discussed much is how the Cubs went from a similarly unwatchable team in 2006 to the playoffs in 2007.  Just like the 2011 Cubs, the 2006 Cubs had some major black holes on their roster, trotted out numerous awful pitchers in the 5th starter spot, and were completely unwatchable and awful.

Somehow they managed to go from that trainwreck into a playoff team the next year.  I was curious how they did it, and curious if that success could be duplicated.

Free Agent Improvements

Of course the lazy answer here is that they spent their way into the playoffs, and that is partly true.  Here’s a table of who they brought on, who that person replaced, and what the marginal gain was in WAR:

Player added Position WAR Replaced WAR Net gain
Soriano LF 7 Pierre 3 4
Derosa 2b 3 Neifi / Walker 0.5 2.5
Lily SP 3.6 Maddux 3 0.6
Ward BN 1.1 Mabry -0.6 1.7
Marquis SP 1.7 Marmol / Mateo / Guzman 0 1.7
          10.5

The Ward / Mabry improvement is a little exaggerated here, mainly because Mabry accumulated that negative WAR largely by playing first.  He’d probably have been a 0 WAR player if Lee hadn’t forced him into increased playing time, so that should probably be closer to just Ward’s 1.1.  Still – that’s a 10 WAR improvement through free agency alone.

Bouncebacks

Like the 2011 Cubs, the narrative for the 2006 Cubs is that they were a bad team made worse by injuries and underperformance.  In particular, the Lee injury cost them dearly. 

Really though – the injury card is a little overplayed for both teams.  When I dug into the numbers, I just didn’t see as much of a bounceback year over year from players as I was expecting – here’s what there was:

  Bouncebacks      
Comeback player Position WAR Problem Previous WAR Net gain
Lee 1b 3.9 Hurt 0.9 3
Ramirez 3b 5.1 Sucked 4.2 0.9
          3.9
Mabry and Nevin basically combine for a 0 or negative WAR, and Lee put up .9 before he went down.  Ramirez was better in 2006 than I remembered, but definitely bounced back a bit for 2007.  Really though – bouncebacks were a non-factor here, since there was almost as much regression:
Player   2007 WAR   2006 WAR   Net Loss
Blanco -0.5   1 -1.5
Zambrano   2.8   3.9 -1.1
          -2.6
Zambrano and Blanco canceled out most of that improvement.  So that’s a bit of a net-net.  In terms of single players making a marginal benefit though – Lee’s return was right up there in terms of the Lily and Soriano signings though.
Development

The 2007 Cubs got a lot of major improvement from a handful of young players who developed into contributors at the same time.  A lot of them had been on the 2006 team but were better used in 2007 (Marmol went from an awful starter to the best reliever in baseball; Theriot actually had a worse WAR in 2007 but was moved to SS to replace Cedeno and his -1.6 WAR).
Player  Pos 2007 WAR    Replaced  Net Gain
Marmol RP 1.7     1.7
Hill SP 3.1   1.3 1.8
Soto C 0.8   2.6 -1.8
Theriot SS 1.3   -1.6 2.9
          4.6
Note that the Cubs actually got worse at Catcher in 2007 – Barrett was a 2.6 win player in 2006, but fell off the map in 2007.  Kendall replaced him and was worse.  Soto came in for one torrid month to salvage some value there, but again it just shows you can bounce back even if you lost some value here and there.
Overall, the changes between 2006 and 2007 accounted for a roughtly 16 WAR improvement.  Most of that came through free agency.  How can the Cubs duplicate that success?  
Finding Black Holes

One of the reasons the Cubs were able to improve so dramatically is that there were some major, major black holes on the team, value-wise:
SS: -1.6 WAR
2b: 0 WAR (Neifi / Walker / Theriot)
SP: 0 (5th starter spot – Mateo / Marmol / Guzman)
1b: 0  (Lee / Mabry / Nevin)
When talking marginal improvements, this is an ideal situation – there’s no warm body there already, and you’re starting from nothing – so really anything, even a 1.3 WAR shortstop like Theriot, can net you a multi-win improvement.  So where can we improve?
Black holes – 2011   Best candidate Proj 2011 WAR
RF: -.4 WAR   Beltran 6
1B: 1 WAR   Fielder 6.8
SP: .7 WAR   Wilson 6
SP: -.2 WAR    
The column on the left is the total WAR at each position for 2011 so far. The first SP spot there is Stephens / Lopez / Davis.  Davis, surprisingly, buoys that WAR figure a bit with his surprisingly positive WAR (.7).  The second SP spot is Wells.  I’ll get to him in a minute.
In the column to the right, I’ve identified the free agents who would provide the largest net improvement, based on their current pace for total WAR in 2011.  Now, I don’t believe that Beltran will actually be able to duplicate his pace next year, but again you’re starting from nothing – if he can give you a 4-win season next year that’s a big step towards a double-digit improvement in WAR.
Wells should be a bounceback candidate.  If he can get back on track, he’s good for a 2-win improvement alone.
Based on all this, if you were to try and duplicate the 2007 success story (big spending + good use of developing players) here’s you’re recipe for success:
  • Sign Prince Fielder and CJ Wilson
  • Sign Carlos Beltran
  • Trade Marlon Byrd to clear his salary; replace him with Jackson
  • Get bounceback years from Geovany Soto and, to a lesser extent, Soriano
  • Get Randy Wells to stop sucking

Continue reading “Anatomy of a Rebound – 2006-2007 vs 2011”

African-Americans in baseball

This Texas newspaper story has been circulating around the blogosphere for a while so I thought it deserved a bit of attention.  

I think most everyone is aware that the number of star-quality or even major league-caliber African-American players in MLB has dwindled in recent years.  The article does mention how the population of African-Americans in basketball and American football are much bigger than in MLB (we won’t even mention the NHL because I am pretty sure I can count the number of non-goaltender black players on one hand).  There are several concerns that may or may not be significant, but they are there:

  1. Cost: as in ice hockey, baseball can be a very expensive sport with league fees, equipment (but who buys a $300 bat?!) and perhaps private instruction.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that as a whole, black Americans don’t have a lot of money.
  2. Support: baseball doesn’t offer as many scholarships, especially full-ride scholarships, as football or basketball.  
  3. Marketing: MLB is stupid and doesn’t know how to advertise their game to appeal to the African-American community.
  4. My own addition, but I’m guessing it’s easier to rise through the ranks in basketball and football than it is in baseball, plus the former sports don’t have as stringent of a period of indentured servitude as MLB does.

It’s a good, quick read if you guys have the time.

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