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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).

End of Year prices

It took me a week to get them out the door. Incorporating prices for the preseason projections proved to be a major pain. Remind me not to do that again.

One goal this winter is to find some way to figure won-loss percentages for each player. Jerry Heath, a legend in the rotisserie stat keeping industry, before it was an industry, used to look at all his real rotisserie leagues and count the number of times each player was on a first place team and the number of times he was on a last place team.

This seems a brilliant solution to the problem of measuring the effect of a player on the final standings. But over the years I’ve recommended to many others that they use the stats they spend all season collecting to do just such a report.

I can’t pay, but I would promote. My guess is Juan Pierre proves to be nearly as valuable as he appears in these prices. And if he doesn’t then we all know something of value more.

ESPN.com – MLB/PLAYOFFS2003 – A’s take issue with Lowe’s celebration

The shot I saw of Lowe’s celebration after crushing the A’s hopes was so close I got no sense of a sexual act. I did get a sense that Lowe was damned happy to have won the game.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing that player’s take these silly situations personally. The only thing that binds us to them is the sheer emotion that comes with winning or losing. If they treated things the way a doctor might we could end up healthier. Certainly Tim Hudson wouldn’t be involved in any barroom brawls, but I doubt that would make us feel richer.

I probably didn’t give the Yankees enough respect, especially after that first game. The pitchers are all very good and there is a hitter at every position. Still, the defense is bad and in a short series it takes just one or two bad breaks to change things. Which is why it’s great fun watching these guys play their hearts out, and doesn’t really seem to prove all that much about which is the better team.

Will anyone be rooting for Oakland tonight?

I think I make playoff picks here every year. I don’t like it, however, because the differences between the teams just isn’t great enough to offset the effect of individuals getting hot and the ball taking funny bounces.

Oh, and then there are umpires.

That said, I think the red hot Brad Radke gives the Twins an edge over the Yanks in the five game series. And Pedro gives the bashing Sox an edge over the A’s. The Sox, of course, would proceed to the Series.

Meanwhile, while the Cubs might stop the Braves in the short series, they won’t be able to score enough. Could the Marlins beat the Giants? Sure, but the Giants are the best balanced team and if Edgardo Alfonso and Ray Durham do anything they’re also the most powerful.

If the Sox and Giants meet in the World Series maybe I’ll revisit this (last year I think I got all the first round picks wrong), but my hunch says it is the Red Sox who will win.

XFL

Rotoman and Alex Patton teamed up in Ron Shandler’s new expert league for people interested in keepers and shallow leagues. Dubbed the XFL (xperts fantasy league) by Steve Moyer, Alex wanted to have nothing to do with it because he didn’t know how to figure values for a 12-team mixed league.

But I screwed up my plane reservations back from Ron’s Arizona Fall League do, which is where the first auction was to be held and Alex gamely sat in. I gave him a few basic concepts:

Get Vlad no matter how much he costs. Get ARod no matter how much he costs. Get Preston Wilson unless someone goes crazy for him. Get Mike Hampton for a buck at the end.

Alex freaked and didn’t get A-Rod. He got Barry Bonds instead. And he didn’t understand my concept on Hampton, which was that if was still in Colorado we could dump him, but if he changed teams he’s be worth way more than a buck. But by the time spring came and Hampton was in Atlanta, the bloom was so far off the rose I let him pass in three or four reserve rounds.

It didn’t matter. For much of the year we had such a big lead there didn’t seem to be much reason to pay attention. Fortunately we did, picking up Brandon Webb, who was an immeasurable help. Alas, Alex said, Go get Dontrelle, and I picked off Shane Reynolds instead. And so we missed the year’s big story. Fortunately, so did everyone else.

By August it was clear that two teams who had made good trades earlier in the year were chipping away at our lead. We had lost Vlad and Mike Lowell for a couple of months each, and we’d been unable to wrangle a SS from Greg Ambrosius for either Hideo Nomo or CC Sabathia. So I dealt Lance Carter for Craig Biggio and we held on while Todd Zola added Brian Giles and Perry Van Hook added Jeff Kent essentially for nothing.

The best comic relief? One day Alex added to my moves by promoting Mike Matheny and sitting Craig Wilson. Suffice it to say that neither of us expected Wilson to win the Player of the Week award that week.

Two days in September we were out of first place, but in the end the amazing pitching staff that Alex put together in the auction for half the money most other team’s spent, and the awesome offense that somehow managed to finish 6th in Runs, held on.

Just in case you were interested.

Bill James Win Shares

I just came upon this site via Rob Neyer. I have been wishing for someone to do this, and now my wish is a reality.

We can debate endlessly about the usefulness of the defensive ratings. But they are rigorously applied, and for roto purposes all we care about are the offensive measures. I don’t have any problem with those, though where they’re most useful is comparing players across the years.

Carl Pavano Starts Vs. Phillies, Phails

In today’s MLB.com column I took on the question of which two of four pitchers (Pavano, Beckett, Colon and Contreras) a H2H player should take this week in his playoffs. You can read the answer here.

The long and the short of it is I suggested going for two Pavano starts (against Philly and Atlanta) rather than a single Beckett start against Atlanta or a Contreras start against Tampa Bay. I’m just pointing it out here because I said it, I meant it and though it was a close call, I think I’d say it again.

The one reason not to say it, of course, is that Atlanta is team without much apparent motivation right now, while the Phillies have been on fire offensively in the second half and have something to prove right now.

Right now, that bit of wisdom is looking more right than mine. I hope you went with Beckett, Wired.

Rob Neyer on Livan Hernandez

Something Rob doesn’t note in this story, which may undercut its meaning (kind of like Raul Mondesi announcing in spring training each year that he’s lost weight and THIS time he’s serious) is that every year Livan Hernandez is better in the second half.

1st half 2nd half
2002 4.94 3.76
2001 6.07 4.20
2000 4.25 3.19

2003 5.09 3.70

I’m not a big believer in first half/second half splits, but I noted in the magazine this year that the oft-cited reason for Hernandez’s problems over the years have been the massive number of pitches he’s thrown since his rookie season. But the splits don’t support the idea that his problem is a tired arm.

One possibility is that the splits are random. It just so happens that he’s gotten better each year in the second half. It is also true that major league run production drops in September, when a lot of Triple-A players are called up and teams out of contention play out the string. That might account for some of it.

It’s possible that Rob’s right and that Hernandez has suddenly become a new and better pitcher by finding a consistent arm slot for all of his pitches. But for now, due to his history of streakiness, that is really just the sketchiest of conjectures.