Players

People’s Voice: Bonds polarizes –

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Dan Wetzel – MLB – Yahoo! Sports

I’ve written a few times about the ridiculous screeds of Dan Wetzel, but held off (for the most part) after he wrote an article about how Bonds breaking the record was “Hollow, not hallowed.” (He’s the guy who used the degree by which Bonds broke Maris’s record as proof that he was juiced.)

What’s interesting is that he comes off as a much more sensible, thoughtful and serious guy responding to people’s criticisms of that piece. He actually acknowledges all the gray areas he ignores when he puts down a column, and is clearer about what is known, not known, and why that matters.

Good for him.

Baseball Prospectus on Bonds

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http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6570

I haven’t actually paid much attention to Bonds breaking the record. The superficial reasons are because I’ve been busy with my family, and my life, and something has to give.

Also, big career records are the result of circumstance. Nobody broke Babe Ruth’s career record in the 50s or 60s or 70s or 80s or even 90s because people didn’t hit so many home runs then. Is that because there weren’t great home run hitters then? Or is it because fewer home runs were hit? You be the judge.

But plenty of homers were hit in the 90s and 00s, and while that was happening to many hitters Barry Bonds eventually hit more major league home runs than anyone else.

When you read the BP tales linked to here you’ll have to decide whose smart ideas are valid and whose are crap. I admired that guy Ehrhardt’s 12 Monkey’s approach, though it’s pretty much a stunt. But he’s right that the question isn’t really worth our memory.

So I offer my take: All baseball records reflect the era in which they were set. This is inevitable. The dead ball is different than the live ball. Mound heights changed, expansion happened again and again. Ballparks got bigger. Ballparks got smaller. The DH. And certainly PEDs have played a role. So when we compare records across eras we’re inevitably comparing apples to papayas.

I find it incredible that some people still offer up Cy Young’s 511 wins as baseball’s most unbreakable record. Um, yeah.

Bonds’ achievement came within a context that also created A-Rod and Junior and Slammin’ Sammy and Canseco. I read a story the other day that talked about the percentage increase in Bonds’ record over Maris’s, without talking about the intervening records of McGwire and Sosa. [Sure, they might all be tainted by ‘roids, but they happened. Bonds did not break Maris’s record.]

There will never be a Davenport Translation that eliminates PEDs from the record. Not everyone used, and no one knows how much help the drugs are. I think it suffices to look at such things in the context in which they were created. If Clay Davenport (and Will Carroll) tell me that the contextual adjustments make Ruth No. 1 Career Home Run hitter and Bonds No. . . . Whoops, I don’t recall what they tell me about Bonds. That he’s either second or third all time, and either is fine by me.

But that’s what our statistical evaluation can do. If Bonds were the only steroid user his advantage would be incalculable. He would soar over everyone else. But we know others used, and we have no evidence that he used more than them. We know that many of them (at least half) were pitchers. In any case, all of that comes out within the context. Bonds setting the record looks more like Bonds establishing that he’s the best home run hitter of his era. That he set the career mark as well is trivia.

Of all the BP essays in this package, the one I admired most is Christina Kahrl’s. She’s an ambitious stylist, but in this case I think she also gets the race thing right. Maris beating the Babe (in baseball’s first expansion year) was the triumph of man over legend. Feh, the traditionalists said! Legends don’t fall to flawed men. Asterisk, please.

Aaron has always been derided for his lack of flash, for the duration of his career, for never hitting lots of homers in one season. But now, illuminated by Bonds’ strange light, he’s the paragon of self-esteem and integrity, the wounded party when Barry Bonds’ nouveau race man comes to town. Christina says it much more elegantly than I am here. How much hatred accrues to Bonds because he’s (probably) used steroids? How much because he’s broken the record? How much because he’s uppity?

None of us knows the exact answer, but I agree with Christina that the issue still bites and is still in play here.

I’m here to say that in my book Ruth is the greatest home run hitter, based on 1921 and 1927, but that Bonds deserves all the respect you can stomach giving him. And if that’s not a lot, then a lot more. He’s clearly a driven talent with both skills and dedication enough to set gargantuan records. If you think it’s the drugs that put him over the top, you still have to admire all that he accomplished without drugs. And it makes more sense to devalue the record than to decry Bonds’ achievement besting an arbitrary number into some sort of symbol of moral decay.

At least I do.

The missing question

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It looks like I failed to sign one of the questions in today’s Ask Rotoman column, and my editor ditched it because the column was running long and without a witty sig what use was it?

But you shouldn’t suffer because I missed a stroke. So here it is:

TRADE

Rotoman:

Making a trade. If I have my choice of Cole Hamels or Erik Bedard (K and K/BB) make 6 categories; who do I go for?

“Starting Switch”

Dear Switch:

How many times am I going to pick someone over Hamels this year? This time, at least, I’m going with a guy who is already a Cy Young candidate after being named the AL’s Pitcher of the Month in July. That is Bedard, of course, who is older and more experienced and has bettered the impressive Hamels in every category this year. But not by that much.

Bashfully,
Rotoman

Ask Rotoman: Fantasy 411

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The Official Site of Major League Baseball

A reader asks for the best of a long list of free agents, considering he can only take one for the rest of the season. Another wants me to tell him who to offer to get Ichiro, since he needs batting average. A third, a bastard, asks me about my miserable Tout Wars NL team.

Reading my answer to the third question, now, later, I wonder if I gave enough explanation. Certainly a big part of why my team sucks is because Chris Carpenter, the linch pin of my pitching strategy, crashed on Opening Day. But my bigger point was that I bet on Clay Hensley, Jason Jennings and Zach Duke, hoping that one would be good and one would be okay, and all three failed.

That, more than Carpenter’s injury, crashed my season. And it is probably a good idea in next week’s Ask Rotoman to look at what $4-$9 starters paid dividends. Unless you think we should look at something else.

Ask away at askrotoman@gmail.com. Thanks.

Will Carroll talks to Mark Silva

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 bpr_070807_1.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

Mark Silva makes Barry Bonds’ elbow brace, which I guess a writer earlier today claimed gave Bonds a huge advantage when it comes to standing close to the plate (which makes some sense to me) and other physical advantages that Silva emphatically refutes.

That’s interesting, but the reason to listen to this mp3 is because Silva perhaps best knows about the size and definition of the muscles in Bonds’ arm, since he measures them every year. If steroids and other performance enhancing drugs are meant to build muscle mass, where’s the beef?

Excellent work, Will.

Fantasy 411: Trade Fallout

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The Official Site of Major League Baseball

I only bring this up because despite the awesome resources MLB and ESPN and CBS and YAHOO and other bring to the mix, and the changes it has made to the way we play fantasy baseball, I’ve seen scant attention to two players who have been added by subtraction, as it were.

Alexi Casillia is the new Twins second baseman. If his bat can keep him in the lineup his legs will help fantasy owners.

The early line on the Teixeira trade was that Brad Wilkerson would benefit, but in fact he’ll just keep limping on. Jason Botts is the guy who was promoted after an impressive Triple-A run and will get as many or more at bats than Wilkerson.

Both Casillia and Botts have had problems actually hitting the ball, which could be a major league problem, but they do take walks.  And they’re not known quantities, which make each a golden ticket at this late date.

(That I happen to have both on reserve in my AL only 4×4 ADL league is merely coincidence. Well, and maybe keen scouting.)

Bacsik in Play

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Baseball Musings

I took note of this little chart in part because Mike Bacsik was noted the other day as a guy who had held Barry Bonds to 1-15 in his career (the 1 was a dinger). Looking at the chart I got to thinking about the difference between the two extremes of balls put into play. 27 percent seems like a lot, but when hitters can be expected to hit about .300 on balls in play, it amounts to nine extra hits per 100 batters faced (or roughly about two and a half per game).

That could be a lot. The difference between a 1.2 WHIP and a 1.4 WHIP reflects those 2.5 hits. The issue here, as we so often see, is really baserunners allowed. If you don’t walk many the extra hits you allow pitching to contact aren’t a problem, just as the hits you don’t allow by not pitching to contact don’t help much if you give up a lot of walks.

The other issue is the type of ball put in play. Some pitchers do better than others controlling line drives (which almost always result in a hit). As we accumulate data about all these things we may well get a better idea of what works best, but I suspect that pitchers like Mike Bacsik, who simply get things done, will still find work.

Nothing succeeds like success. (In Bacsik’s case, recently.)

Matt Berry Rocks!

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Trade No. 3: Carl Crawford for Juan PierreOne gets tons of love and one gets no respect, but over the second half of the year, Juan Pierre is going to be the better fantasy player. I’m sorry. Continue to be the better fantasy player. You saw me mention Pierre briefly in last week’s newsletter but let’s put those numbers into even more of a perspective.

From June 1 through July 22:

Juan Pierre: 27 R, 24 SB, 0 HR, 12 RBI, .335 average
Carl Crawford: 32 R, 19 SB, 1 HR, 23 RBI, .278 average

The power is better for Crawford, but it’s not significant in the grand scheme of things and that’s not why you have either guy. Otherwise, they are basically the same, with Pierre hitting over 50 points higher. You could get Pierre plus something else for your Carl Crawford and not suffer any drop-off at all. Again, we play with numbers, not names.

The  words above are Matt Berry’s. Matt is a friend of mine. He was an annual contributor to the Guide until some scum sucking international conglomerate with the face of Mickey Mouse bought him off. Good for him. Weezil.

Or is that weasel?

The point here is that in his weekly newsletter to ESPN fantasy players he actually suggests taking Juan Pierre over Carl Crawford for the last two months of the season. And he does this without mentioning that Crawford is hurt.

But nobody knows how hurt Crawford is. He won the Devil Rays game today with a homer. His MRI was good enough. If Crawford misses significant time in the last two months because of injury then Pierre is certainly the better choice. And that could happen.

But when we’re considering names versus stats, Crawford is a star, Pierre is a role player. Unless you know something, the right answer is go with the star.

PS. Matt’s other example, going for Brandon Phillips over Derek Jeter, is similar. But closer. Phillips is a potential star aborning, so casting aside Jeter isn’t ridiculous, though it may not work out. For now, Phillips is the hot hand, Jeter the very steady one.

Depending on your situation, you can decide.