TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Saturday, July 10, 2004

The Awesome Power of T.C.

As I mentioned earlier today, there's going to be a mascot softball game before tomorrow afternoon's game between the Tigers and the Twins. I was a little fearful that that would negate the normal Saturday pre-game homerun derby, as there was no sign of setup for it at 5:30 (first pitch was 6:10), but 10 minutes later the trappings of the derby made their way on to the field, and those in attendance were treated to another display of homerun-hitting prowess.

The format remains the same as before, a John Q. Public type and a couple of celebrities take on T.C. If JQP wins, two roundtrip airfares are awarded. I'm not sure what happens if one of the celebs wins, but if T.C. wins, all that happens is that everyone goes home with the knowledge that they were beaten by a guy in a mascot suit in Home Run Derby. This evening's celebs were 2000 USGA Amateur Champion Jeff Quinney and Christian folk-rock troubadour Matt Jones.

JQP struggles, and doesn't scratch until his seventh and final swing of the contest. Then Quinney connects on his fourth swing for his only homer of the night. I guess the muscle memory didn't kick in for him with the nearly-horizontal swing plane; perhaps if he had had low-and-inside pitches tossed to him he might have done better.

Then Jones steps in and alternates dingers and outs in his first four swings, going yard on the evens. But the homer on swing #4 turns out to be the first of four straight for Jones before he's done, and he winds up with 5 total. And since it delights me to no end to do so, I'll mention that this is one better than Dave Kingman's effort on May 1.

T.C. has his work cut out for him as he steps up to the plate, though it's unclear what besides pride is on the line. He has a weak effort on his first swing before connecting on four straight, including three that go at least half way up the stands. On swing #6 he gets under one and leaves it short of the track. Jones 5, T.C. 4 coming up on T.C's last swing. T.C. takes a pitch and then rifles fast liner maybe 10 rows back. Derby tied at 5.

Then it's announced that a one-pitch sudden death round takes place. Jones steps in and connects again, putting the pressure back on T.C. He responds by ripping a screamer that clears the fence by a foot.

At this point, I'm thinking this could be one of the all-time historic home run derby battles when it's announced that the contest ends in a tie. WHAT?! Apparently the Twins consulted Commissioner Selig on this one. This derby is crying to be finished, but it's not to be. Can't you just imagine a triumphant T.C. winning 11-10, and then running towards home ripping his costume head off, a la Brandi Chastain and the Women's World Cup back in '99? That hurt, Twinkies, I needed closure.

In the three derbys (derbies?) I've seen, something of dramatic interest has happened each time. In addition to T.C.'s 5-4 May 1st victory over Kingman, T.C. went a perfect 7-for-7 in June. T.C.'s aggregate total in the games I've attended stands at 18 homers in 22 swings. I can't decide whether it's steroids or the rabbit ball that accounts for this, but it's certain that T.C. has shattered the single-season record for most homers by a mascot, and there has to be some explanation for it.

Silva Vaccine Still In Effect

This may be a little unfair (both to Silva and Radke), but Brad Radke didn't have anywhere near his best outing tonight. Instead of the four singles in a shutout of the Royals as he had on Monday, Radke gave up five extra base hits and no singles in six innings. He actually worked out of the two jams he got in, set up by doubles early in the 2nd and 5th, but gave up three solo homeruns to Omar Infante, Pudge, and Dmitri Young. Aaron Fultz gave up the Tigers' fourth homer to Marcus Thames, who had earlier hit the roof of the Metrodome with a foul ball, in the 7th.

Johan Santana will get the start for the Twins' last game for the break, and assuming I can calm down enough to get to bed and get up in time for the 1:10 start, I'll be there. As a teaser for my next post, I'll mention in passing that Santana got passed over for Jake Westbrook to replace Curt Schilling on the AL's roster, making him the fifth Indian on the squad compared to one for the Twins. I'll break down why the Twins came up short for this year's All-Star game (it's really not that difficult to piece together) some time during the break. Suffice to say for now that Santana and Radke are the closest things to All-Stars the Twins have outside of Joe Nathan on their current roster, but late-blooming and lack of run support, respectively, killed Santana's and Radke's chances.

posted by Tom Renbarger 10:18 PM

Here Come The Cubs!

The Cubs have made up minus-4 games on that three game deficit to the Cards they had on the 4th. The bats have gone silent. Even in the three-game sweep against the Sox, the Cubs didn't exactly tear the cover off the ball.

It should be pointed out that this recent dry spell of the Cubs 'O' more or less corresponds with Aramis Ramirez's absence from the lineup. His groin strain has taken a little longer to heal than expected. It hasn't helped that Alou and Sosa have been silent in recent games. Derrek Lee has been the only guy really producing at a high level, continuing his torrid June pace.

In the meantime, the Cards look ready to bury the Cubs (and the rest of the NL Central) in the end zone of the Edward Jones Dome. The Cubs have only four games remaining left with the Cards, and they would be well-advised to win at least three of those if they want to retain a realistic chance at claiming the division title.

As of this writing the Cubs are down to the Cards this afternoon, 3-1 through 2 innings, which means by the 5th inning or so it should be 7-1, if my recent track record holds. Mr. Run Support himself, Matt Clement, has already walked three, and has been having control problems recently. If he starts losing the strike zone while Prior and Wood are returning to form and the Cubs bat continue to slumber, it may be a little while yet before the Cubs reverse the direction of their current charge.

Advances in Medical Research

If good pitching is contagious, Carlos Silva must have found a cure, as I found out at the Metrodome last night. The Twins' ERA in the first four games of their first half-ending homestand stood at 0.25 going into last night's action. Brad Radke, Johan Santana, and Kyle Lohse each threw shutouts at the Royals from Mon.-Wed., giving up only 13 hits, all singles. Terry Mulholland and the Twins' bullpen held the Tigers to one run in Thursday night's Twins victory.

Silva started out fine, getting the first two Tiger hitters before giving up five straight rockets. All-Star SS Carlos Guillen had a 420-foot homer in the middle of four singles, running his season RBI total to 65. Jason Smith tripled his season's homerun total in his first two at-bats, staking the Tigers to a 5-0 lead through four.

The Twins had three game-tying bids caught on the warning track in the 5th and the 9th. Joe Mauer came up with the bases loaded and one out in the 5th after the Twins had pulled to 5-1, and drove Bobby Higginson to the big baggy in right-center for a long sac. fly. Then in the bottom of the ninth, Cristian Guzman drew a one-out walk with the score 5-3, in front of some warning track-power flashed by Lew Ford and Mauer. Some nights it's just not meant to be.

I didn't arrive early enough to get an Al Newman bobblehead doll (I didn't realize this promotion was going on before heading out the door last night), but I was psyched to learn that there will be an all-mascot softball game before Sunday afternoon's game. I may have to take that in order to see what T.C. has in store for us before watching AL strikeout leader Johan Santana go to work.

posted by Tom Renbarger 11:06 AM

Friday, July 09, 2004

Double Down, Double Up, Doubles All Around

Lyle Overbay did not make the cut for the NL All-Star game roster, although arguably he's the best player on the Brewers this year. Overbay's .401 OBP and .944 OPS ranks him 11th in the league in both categories, and he's tired for third in RBI with 61 and sixth in batting average at .337. So whether you like the new-fangled or old-fashioned way of measuring a slugger, he should be ranked as among the best performers of the first half of the season.

What kept Overbay off the team is most likely his home run total -- 9 -- and the lack of an established track record or reputation. Playing in Milwaukee is a good way of staying off everybody's radar screen, and staying off the leader board in HR is going to get him typecast in the Mark Grace-Wil Clark zone in an era of Greenbergs and Gehrigs at first.

Take a look at Overbay's doubles rate, though. He's got 36 doubles. Second in the league is Derek Lee at 28, and there are 15 players between 23 and 27 doubles at this writing. What's the major league record for most homers in a season? Your mind might have briefly responded "61" before updating it to "73". Quick -- what's the major league record for most doubles in a season? If you said 67, by Earl Webb of the 1931 Red Sox, you're a scholar of the game. (Webb's 1931 campaign would be a good subject for an article sometime; the 67 doubles he hit that year are almost exactly half his career total.) Overbay is on "pace" for about 70. David Ortiz is first in the AL with 32 doubles, and the distribution after Ortiz in the AL is similar to the NL, but with linear extrapolation Ortiz would come out at around 60 for the season. (Still, maybe the Earl Webb Fenway Factor will help Ortiz out.)

One might argue that the power hitters of this day turn a lot of would-be doubles into dingers, and that's probably true. Everytime you watch some homer run hitter admiring his work and styling at the plate, only to watch the ball scrape off the fence and then be forced to hustle just to make it to second, the thin line between a two-bagger and a four-bagger is evident. Two is the number of paces you can get by muscling the ball and trotting.

There are "non-slugging" doubles hitters, of course, guys who slap the ball down the line and use speed and hustle to grab an extra bag. These guys, though, tend to get more triples, and those triples cut into their doubles totals. And there are not that many of them now that the ballparks have been turning away from big gaps and fast astroturf to small walls close in and slow grass. There are only two seasons since the 1930s of 21 or more triples. In 1996, Lance Johnson hit 21 triples. If he'd stopped at second for all those triples, he'd still have only 52 doubles. If he'd stopped at second for all his nine homers as well (I recall at least one of those round trippers was an inside the parker), he'd still have had only 61 doubles. Cristian Guzman hit 20 triples for the 2000 Twins, with only 25 doubles and 8 HR.

George Brett, alone among players since the 1930s, seems to have had a shot at the doubles record in other circumstances. In 1979, he hit 20 triples and 42 doubles playing on astroturf in Kansas City (and 23 homers). Brett had speed and line-drive power, and surely his speed and the spacious dimensions and turf combined to turn a lot of doubles into triples that year. But turn all those triples into doubles, you're still at only 62.

Overbay is not among the triples-and-steals type of doubles hitter, and he's no George Brett. He has one career triple, and one career steal. He's just a line-drive hitter having a good breakout year. Nevertheless, he' on pace for an all-time record, and that's something to keep an eye out on.

The all-time single-season doubles record is one of those oddball records in that it really ought to have been broken by now. The distribution of all-time doubles season is pretty regular. Here are the numbers (omitting the hitters) for the top 10 doubles seasons: 67, 64, 64, 63, 62, 60, 59, 59, 59, 57 (x 3). Before 1997, here are the all-time single-season HR years: 61, 60, 59, 58, 58, 56, 54, 54, 54, 54.

Since 1997, we've had 11 different instances where 54 or more homers have been hit -- doubling the number all-time. Since 1997, we've had just as many 54 or more doubles seasons -- from Todd Helton (twice), Nomar Garciaparra, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Grudzielanek, Lance Berkman, Carlos Delgado, Craig Biggio, Garrett Anderson, and, good gravy, lead-footed John Olerud. Only Delgado's 57 in 2000, and Helton's 59 in 2000, have entered the top ten, and 59 is well-shy of 67.

So the doubles record really smells like one that ought to be broken.

The single-season triples mark of 36, set by John "Chief" Wilson for the 1912 Pirates, is among those records that have to be considered unbreakable. It's not just that the second-place season is 31 (set twice, in 1886 and 1884). You can't find another single-season triples mark in the top 9 set after the 19th century. You can't find a single-season triples mark among the top fifty all-time set in the last sixty years . In fact, with Stuffy Stirnweiss in 1945, Johnson, and Guzman, you can't find a 20+ triples season since Hoover was president, and by far most of these seasons are from the dead ball era (and probably related to the harder-to-hit, and harder-to-throw ball used back then.) Like, say, career wins, the single-season triples marks just represent a completely different and never-to-return style of play and player management that makes it off the charts.

Not so the doubles mark, because somebody's going to break it. If not this year, eventually, and probably fairly soon if you stare at those columns of single-season numbers. We'll monitor this for the rest of the season and see how Overbay (and Ortiz) are doing.

posted by The Crank 9:35 AM

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Diane Grassi returns to The Bullpen

Baseball's Supposed Big Divide

As we approach the second half of the 2004 Major League Baseball season, a lot of fans as well as prognosticators have been pleasantly surprised by the very teams which had miserable 2003 seasons. However, as much as parity in the Major Leagues provides for new interest, this has been more the pattern rather than the exception these past few years, by example of the past three World Series Champions, namely the Arizona Diamondbacks, Anaheim Angels and Florida Marlins. The Diamondbacks became the quickest expansion team ever to win a World Series (edging out the Florida Marlins, the previous expansion team to speedily win their first World Series in 1997) and the Angels and Marlins were badly losing clubs the season prior to winning their World Series rings.

For several years, Major League Baseball's team owners as well as MLB's executive officers have cried foul concerning the bad financial shape of MLB. This tired complaint is that not enough resources are available for the small market clubs to fairly compete. At the same time these owners will not open up their books to the public and expect everyone to blindly believe their tales of declared poverty. It is interesting however, that there has been money for new stadiums in most of the small market cities during the past 10 years from both public and private funds. And if the small market is so incapable of competing with the big market teams, then I guess the powers that be must have slept through the past three years of post-season play and the World Series!

Perhaps the difference this year as opposed to the past three seasons, is in the number of teams which have post-season potential and which performed so poorly in 2003. Many were losing teams in last place in their respective divisions which have turned out to be contending teams such as the Texas Rangers, San Diego Padres, New York Mets, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, while the Detroit Tigers (one of the most losing clubs in baseball history last season) and the Milwaukee Brewers have turned it around. The Texas Rangers have been in 1st place or tied with the low-payroll Oakland A's most of the season, proving their domination all year in the American League West. No one expected these guys to do anything, but A-Rod's trade to the Yankees left a void to fill and Alfonso Soriano has more than lived up to his end of the bargain, by becoming a team leader and working with a great mixture of talented young players. The Padres are contending in second place in the National League West and the New York Mets sit in second place in the National League East. Detroit and Milwaukee are both at or over .500 at mid-season, no longer the gloom and doom clubs in their divisions, and have surprised a great many including their own fans.

But the script from the owners does not match what has been happening on the field. Certainly all of these small market clubs, with the exception of the NY Mets, are drawing better in attendance and many have raised ticket and concession prices, while filling seats. The luxury tax has kicked in a couple of times now for George Steinbrenner and his Yankees, and although his payroll is at the top of the list, the NY Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox are following behind with payrolls well over 100 million dollars.

What is not given enough attention and may account for the improvement of many of these small market clubs is that they have learned to develop their farm systems and have made deals with other teams by trading players rather than laying out cash. While some of the big dogs were busy buying up the smaller teams' big stars, which some owners felt they could not unload soon enough, these previously losing teams were left with a well of up and coming talent, which they were forced to develop. During the past few years these noted cellar dwellers no doubt suffered, because they had not yet reached the stage of developing talent and were losing games, thus fans were not showing up. But in the long run, they have persevered, whether by design or by coincidence.

This will serve them well for the future as well. Clubs with larger payrolls have aged and have run out of reserves to trade or to develop. That is a far bigger issue which will come to a head in the not too distant future. While baseball, like everything else in life is cyclical, we have perhaps entered a new phase, where for a while we will enjoy more competitive battles during the course of the season rather than have to wait for the post-season for good games to transpire. And once again this year it is being proven that dollars alone will not win championships.

My hope is that the Baseball Commissioner's Office will devote its resources to the future of MLB and talent development rather than spending countless hours negotiating merchandising deals for use of the base paths by corporate America or transporting its teams abroad for Opening Day, all in the name of marketing, in a effort to keep baseball alive. A team's focus, talent, mix of the players and good management are the most important factors for winning and ultimately for baseball's longevity. Fans know this. If your team wins, the fans will come out, and will continue to pay the bills. Baseball owners need to appreciate this, and continue to build upon their teams for more than one season at a time. They owe it to their fans and to the integrity of the game of baseball. Through that effort baseball will be with us for a very long time, and its legacy will continue.

posted by David 11:18 PM

Sunday, July 04, 2004

M-E-T-S! Mets! Mets! Mets!

Coming into games on July 4th, the Mets are tied for second in the NL East, 2 games behind Philadelphia and ahead of Florida .5063 to .5062 in winning percentage. Given the way the Mets started off the season, this is pretty surprising, but lackluster efforts by would-be frontrunners Philly and Florida and a recent resurgence by New York has made things interesting in the East.

New York is 10-5 in their last 15 games. This more or less coincides with the arrival of Richard Hidalgo to the Big Apple. Hidalgo has hit 6 homers with New York in 14 games and 55 AB, after hitting only 4 in 58 games and 199 AB with Houston. I'm sure Astros fans are wondering where that punch was while Hidalgo was in Houston. If he can rediscover the form that allowed him to slug .575 with Houston last year, the middle of the Mets lineup of Mike Piazza, Cliff Floyd, and Hidalgo can do some serious damage. The Mets had enough bullpen depth that they were able to part with David Weathers, and Hidalgo will be a steal if he gives New York a big bat in the 5-hole for the remainder of the season.

We're going to find out soon whether this resurgence is for real or just a bubble about to undergo a market correction. The Mets' next 13 games are against the Phillies (8) and Marlins (5). The Mets have Tom Glavine, Al Leiter, and Steve Trachsel ready for the first three games of the 4-game series starting tomorrow in Philly, and can probably set their rotation so that Trachsel, Glavine, and Leiter start the 4-game Philly series in New York right after the break. At the very least Glavine and Leiter will pitch in the final two games, depending on if they make the All-Star team and how they are used. These upcoming games will undoubtedly decide whether New York becomes a buyer or a seller in the July trade market.

posted by Tom Renbarger 10:53 AM