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Did you know that All Star Stats and RotoWorld, when they show OBP on their player info pages, aren’t using the HBP and Sac data?

But the stat service does seem to use the right numbers in calculating league results.

Whew.

Major League Baseball : Lee Mazzili

I’m shocked, not because I know that Mazzili is going to a bad manager, but because the impression I got from his moments in the spotlight recently, wearing a mike during the World Series, were most notable for the lack of content in his utterances.

Grunts, repeated blurts, an occasional yelp, these seemed to be the building blocks of Mazzili’s expression. I found it kind of silly, but they do call them the “Sounds of the Game.” For good reason, it seemed.

But he was able to “wow” the Orioles brass, so maybe that’s his field guise. All I can say is, Good luck to him. Hungh!

The new Bill James book is out and available through Baseball Info Solutions, which is the new STATS now that the old STATS is FOX.

I can tell you that as much as I use the web for research, there is nothing easier than a book to look up stuff. It was sad last year when this book (and the green one) went away. At least we have half of them back so far.

Major League Baseball : Billy Wagner for Brandon Duckworth

Everyone knew the Astros were going to deal Wagner, and that the Phillies were going to get a closer. The interesting guy here is Duckworth. He throws hard but has so far looked a lot more like a short guy–maybe even a closer–than a starter.

Which leaves owners of the Dotel and Lidge keepers up in the air for now.

ESPN.com – Gammons: A ridiculous double standard

After listing the 20 or so most ridiculous contracts in baseball, Gammons speculates on where this year’s free agent are going to end up. Chief among them is Miguel Tejada, who along with Japanese import Kaz Matsui stands to make a ton of money this offseason.

What do you think the odds are in two years that some team is going to be trying to unload Tejada’s contact, just as they’re trying to unload all the others in this story.

I’d say the odds are pretty damned good.

ESPN.com – MLB/PLAYOFFS2003 – Klapisch: Yanks facing eventful offseason

Rumors that the Yankees will trade Alfonso Soriano are rampant, and for all I know they may be accurate. What’s funny is that for two years all the talk about Soriano’s profound free-swinging ways and his defensive deficiencies were overshadowed by his rather large talents. But a truly woeful stretch in the postseason has made it seem as if he’s a horrible ballplayer.

Soriano was screwed up for sure during the playoffs, and like all players who don’t really know what’s a strike and what isn’t, he’s going to have times when he looks dreadful. But we don’t have to look any further than Reggie Sanders, whose career seemed even more tenuous than Soriano’s last year at this time, but whose perfectly fine 2003 campaign demonstrates that even when pitchers know how to get hitters out, they can’t always do it.

ESPN.com – MLB – Kreidler: Got juice?

I’ve got to agree with Kreidler that this is just the tip of a substantial story that isn’t going to go away, ever. And certainly most all of us would prefer that everybody played on the up and up and nobody cheated (especially those we admire) and we could simply revel in the pure athleticism and smarts of all the best performers.

But it has never been that way and it will never be that way, and to raise holy hell about the immorality of it all seems to me to miss the point.

Athletes are special. They achieve the way they do because they work hard, but also because their bodies generate more aggressive muscular athletic hormones and who knows what else that helps them excel.

To excel even more some athletes exercise, take in good nutrition, avoid bad habits. Some take vitamin supplements. All of which helps them build bigger muscles and do other things that help. To outlaw performance enhancing drugs you have to draw a line, and then you have to make sure that line cannot be crossed by any hypothetical drug or activity (think of the process of drawing blood out of the system, pumping it full of oxygen and then returning it to the athlete’s system, aka blood doping).

No one has figured out how to do it, yet.

And they may not. If this up and coming scandal has legs it will be because Bonds and Giambi and others took this designer steroid that actually undermines the chemicals in tests that look for steroids. And if you think that’s the last possible innovation you’re sadly mistaken.

The only way to effectively police the use of performance enhancers is to measure and release each athlete’s “stats,” their blood chemistry, regularly. Maybe we should even limit the amount of each component they’re allowed to have. This is the technique used in women’s sports now, for testosterone, which is naturally produced in women’s bodies. But if the athlete has too high a ratio she is banned.

The same could be said for testosterone and whatever other chemicals are deemed to make great male athletes great. This will help level the playing field, and could eliminate some freaks who are naturally juiced, but it would be fair. It might also lead to a great leveling, so that consistent good performance on the field could accurately be attributed to heretofore intangibles like heart and gameness, rather than having more muscles and roid rage.

All I know is that whining about the moral breakdown that steroids are causing is just plain silly. Competition makes competitive people do everything they can to win, and if there’s a way to beat the rules you can be sure someone will. We can either categorize players by their chemical makeup, or we can refuse to spend money on the corrupt athletes and the corrupt sporting leagues that exploit them.

But what happens when we find out that many artists used drugs to derange and rearrange their senses before painting their masterpieces? Eek.

ESPN.com – Gammons: Little certain in Grady’s future

At the risk of beating a long dead horse into submission, Peter Gammons makes the two points I’ve been trying to make about Grady Little. And Gammons comments are based on knowing Grady Little and how he kept a rather dysfunctional Boston squad from spinning out of control.

He deserves credit for that, but during the playoffs he screwed up over and over and over. You can argue that his decision to leave Pedro in was a judgment call. I don’t think it was. But he did so many other totally stupid things that he deserves all the blame he’s gotten, even if he doesn’t deserve all the blame there is to go around.

ESPN.com – MLB/PLAYOFFS2003 – Neyer: That’s inexcusable

My first thought last night was that Joe Torre should bring in Mariano, too, while the game was tied. But then I remembered that Mariano pitched two innings the night before–one that was crucial, one that earned him a save.

Should Mariano have come out Tuesday night, to be replaced by Jeff Weaver perhaps? In a clockwork world, sure. The game was decided and not having to throw 15-20 pitches has to be less stressful than throwing those pitches.

On the other hand, when Mariano comes into the game, he is essentially the Yankees last pitcher. I’m sure Joe didn’t have anyone warming up as the Yankees top of the ninth inning rally started. And if he didn’t have someone going at the start of the inning he probably wouldn’t have someone ready when the bottom of the ninth started.

Once Rivera’s out there does it make sense to pull him?

Also, given that Rivera pitched on Tuesday, even one inning, I don’t think Torre would lean on him to pitch two innings on Wednesday.

The fact is that the Yankees lost because they didn’t score in extra innings. If they had they would have had a huge advantage. Would it have been any greater if they used Rivera before they had the lead? I don’t see it. At all.

ESPN.com – MLB – Little defends not pulling Pedro sooner

I find this to be an incredible story. Pedro takes responsibility, Little takes responsibility. Now Jason Varitek takes responsibility.

The bottom line is that for three years Pedro has been on a pitch count. He rarely tops 100 pitches. What Grady Little did in Game 7 was to deviate from the system. He may say that Pedro was pitching as well in the 8th as he was earlier in the game, but if you were watching the game it sure didn’t look that way.

But even if that’s the case, even if Little thought Martinez’s control was as crisp as it had been earlier and his velocity was as strong, clearly there were good reasons to take Martinez out against Matsui, who had hit Martinez hard all game (and in Game 3 as well).

Little decided to ride his horse rather than trust the game to his untrustworthy (recent success notwithstanding) bullpen. He and Pedro have taken the blame for what happened. The rest of us are on to another series of games. A World Series.

I think Little may well deserve a ton of credit for making this Boston team resilient enough to survive and thrive this year. I’m not really in a position to judge overall whether or not he’s a good manager. But he made some of the dopiest most indefensible strategic decisions possible in the series against the Yankees. And nearly everyone could see that Martinez’ was losing his bite in the eighth inning.

It’s good to see him taking responsibility, but I think he clearly shoudl have been fired even if Boston beat the Yankees. Why go into battle with a manager who can’t parse the most simple of strategic situations?

Well, the reason is because making players comfortable and helping the to play at their best may well be worth more than all the genuinely strategic decisions a manager makes all year. But that’s just a theory. Until we have some evidence, strategy wins. And Little is out (or should be).