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A HOCKEY POST? REALLY?

Yes, really. I just had to comment on it, as I’m sure millions hundreds of not just Philadelphia Flyers fans, but hockey fans, are as well: the Flyers got jobbed in Game 1 against the Montreal Canadiens.

The Flyers went into the second period with a 2-0 lead and looking much better than the Canadiens, but the #### was only beginning to hit the fan when Alexei Kovalev used his stick to bat down the puck into the net behind goaltender Marty Biron. Everyone who isn’t a Canadiens fan could clearly see that it was a high-stick (above the crossbar) simply by the fact that… his stick hit the crossbar. The referees’ whistles, however, were silent.

That stuff happens, karma, yada yada yada…

With about a minute left in regulation in the third period and the orange and black up 3 to 2, center Mike Richards clearly knocked Kovalev down with his shoulder, but the refs claimed that Richards kneed him, and the Canadiens got a power play with 1:09 remaining on the clock. Unsurprisingly, they pulled their goaltender to create a 6-on-4 advantage, and, as luck would have it, Jeff Carter’s stick broke on the face-off — essentially making it 6-on-3 — and the puck glided right over to Kovalev who promptly tied the game at threes with 29 seconds left in the third period.

The Flyers’ bad luck continued when Tom Kostopoulos scored 48 seconds into overtime.

So, we can say that the referees were responsible for two Canadiens goals and indirectly responsible for another (Kostopoulos’).

Even worse is that Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL, calls the officiating “good” according to an article by Scott Cruickshank of the Calgary Herald:

“You know what? I think the officiating is good,” said Bettman. “I think it undergoes intense scrutiny this time of year. Of all the people on the ice and surrounding the ice, our officials probably make the fewest mistakes. This is a game of mistakes, including the officials, and we hold them accountable.”

It’s not just the labor issues that have the NHL lagging well behind the other three major sports organizations — it’s the blatantly awful officiating, and the commissioner of it all has not a clue.

Buckner Return to Boston a Stark Reminder of Media Hypocrisy

Baseball Digest Daily:

Buckner and Bartman are, unfortunately, victims of a predatory industry. And as long as profits are the chief motivator for businesses, this will never change.

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OPPORTUNITY CAME A-KNOCKIN'

Dave Rouleau of Baseball Digest Daily contacted me earlier today and expressed interest in having me write for their web site, and I happily accepted. He’d like me to focus on transaction analysis on the entire MLB with a daily article, and has a very loose leash on me, which is nice.

How that affects Crashburn Alley remains to be seen. If possible, I’d like to continue posting regularly here as well for my Phillies-specific and potpourri posts.

When their website is back up and running, make sure to bookmark their website and my section on there as well.

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A LITTLE THIS AND THAT

I was planning to do a recap of every game but I realized that you can basically get a recap on any major baseball website and I was just burdening myself with unnecessary writing. I’ll just stick to the analysis that I don’t see being done.

That said, posts may be cranked out at a slower rate for the time being because I finally upgraded from Microsoft Office 2000 to 2007 and now I can use Pitch F/X data in Excel. So, I’ll be trying to learn how to correctly use and analyze that, and I’ll try to implement it into my analysis when possible.

To anyone who does have expertise with Pitch F/X, I will be needing any pointers I can get, so please drop some hints for me if you can (my contact information is listed at the bottom of this page). I’m really interested in learning how to create graphs like the ones Mike Fast has in this article about Johnny Cueto’s first start. I’ve also read his tutorial on building a database for Pitch F/X data, and while my mind went numb almost immediately, it does sound like a cool idea, but I know very little about Perl and MySQL, so that’s another call to any experts out there willing to lend a few pointers.

But enough about me and my shortcomings (that’s your cue to offer a hug).

Kyle Lohse

Remember how I was whining about the Phillies preventing themselves from signing Kyle Lohse? Yeah, well, this happened:

• April 1 vs. Colorado Rockies: 5 IP, 0 R, 3 H, 3 BB, 3 K
• April 6 vs. Washington Nationals: 7 IP, 0 R, 4 H, 1 BB, 2 K
• Total: 12 IP, 0 R, 7 H, 4 BB (0.917 WHIP), 5 K

Yeah… and the St. Louis Cardinals signed him for one year at $4.25 million. Granted, he did face a Rockies lineup that has been struggling all season and a Nationals offense that isn’t expected to be much better than last year’s MLB-worst, but he’s pitched 12 innings without surrendering a single run. That’s impressive.

I will give credit where credit is due, however, and that’s to Adam Eaton. On April 5 in Cincinnati, Eaton held a decent Reds offense to three runs in 7 and two-thirds innings. He had nearly a 2-to-1 strikes-to-balls ratio, but he still managed to walk four. It’s an encouraging start from a pitcher almost everyone, myself included, gave up on a long time ago. If the Phillies can just get league-average production from Eaton, it’s a huge burden lifted off of the bullpen.

Pat Burrell

If the Phillies’ front office is thinking about letting Burrell walk when the season is over, they’re crazy. He’s started the season hitting 3 HR and driving in 9 runs in the first seven games, posting an OPS of 1.476.

On Monday night’s Baseball Tonight, Karl Ravech said, half-seriously, that people should be thinking about Burrell potentially completing the Philadelphia-themed MVP trifecta, since most people are predicting that if anyone is going to win it as a Phillie this year, it will be Chase Utley.

Since the Baseball Writers Association of America doesn’t really know how to factor in a player’s true defensive contributions, it is actually a realistic thought to imagine Burrell being named the National League MVP. Burrell is not at all fleet of foot, and as a result, his defense is burdensome. If the BBWAA knew of any of the metrics that display this fact in all its glory, there’s not a chance in hell that Burrell wins the award outside of a 60 HR, 150 RBI season.

It will be a shame if Burrell is forced to sign elsewhere after the season because he has indicated that he relishes playing in Philadelphia, so he’d probably be willing to take a hometown discount. If the Phillies do decide to lock him up for a few more years, they know what they’ll be getting, as Burrell is as consistent as they come. From 2005 to ‘07, his slugging percentage ranged from .502 to .504 and his OBP ranged from .388 to .400; home runs from 29 to 32; doubles from 24 to 27, and all of this consistency comes while losing at-bats in ‘06 and ‘07 from Charlie Manuel taking him out after the sixth or seventh inning in a lot of games.

For me, though, the most satisfying statistic of his from 2007 is his 114 walks in just 598 plate appearances.

Jayson Werth vs. Geoff Jenkins

So far, Charlie Manuel has used the right field platoon as intended: Werth against left-handed starters, Jenkins against right-handers. However, Werth only has five at-bats in the Phillies’ first seven games. Granted, the Phillies have only faced one left-handed starter, and that was on Opening Day (Matt Chico of the Nationals), but you can’t just hold Werth for the lefty starter — you have to start him against a right-hander every now and then as well.

Geoff Jenkins is 33 years old and doesn’t appear to be getting any better, unsurprisingly. He’s been above-average over his career (115 OPS+) but in ‘06 and ‘07, he was just league average (101 OPS+ in both seasons). Definitely use Jenkins against right-handers only, but let him sit out one every now and then in favor of Werth.

Pedro Feliz

We saw this coming.

In 19 at-bats, Feliz has put up an uninspiring 22 OPS+ for the Phillies. That is not a misprint; that is a real, live, correctly calculated 22 OPS+. He has four hits — all of them singles — and one walk. There’s just nothing to say here. I know it’s early in the season, small sample sizes and all that good stuff, but… a 22 OPS+? Come on.

What we didn’t see coming is that he’d be a bottom-feeder defensively. Baseball’s best-fielding third baseman has sunk to the 12th out of 16 qualified NL third-sackers in Revised Zone Rating. It won’t stay that way forever, and I fully expect Feliz to climb his way back up, but it just illustrates how little value Feliz has to the Phillies right now. He’s worse than a black hole.

Brett Myers

What’s not to be concerned with? From the Phillies website:

Myers suspects he may have tipping his pitches, a problem he licked early in his career — which doesn’t mean it can’t re-occur.

[…]

“There were a few pitches that I had to question whether I was tipping or not,” said Myers, who added that he didn’t notice anything after looking at the game video. “They had good approaches. I’m not saying I was [tipping pitches]. I’m just saying they had good approaches.”

From the dugout, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel saw a pitcher whose fastball velocity appeared lower than normal. Myers normally throws in the 92-95 mph range. On Sunday, he reached 92 once, and mostly stayed in the 88-91-mph range.

Myers is way too important to the Phillies to have any extended stretch of bad pitching. Let’s hope he figures it out when he starts against the Chicago Cubs on Friday.

Three-Game Set at Shea

The Phillies begin a three-game series in Queens bright and early: a 1:10 EST start. Here are the pitching match-ups:

• Tues. 4/8, 1:10 PM EST: Jamie Moyer vs. Oliver Perez
• Wed. 4/9, 7:10 PM EST: Kyle Kendrick vs. Mike Pelfrey
• Thurs. 4/10, 7:10 PM EST: Adam Eaton vs. John Maine

The first thing you should notice about the match-ups is that the Phillies get to miss Johan Santana, as expected.

Second, Adam Eaton starts a game at Shea Stadium, and that has boded well for him. His starts at Shea last season:

• April 11: 7 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 3 BB, 5 K
• June 6: 6 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 2 BB, 4 K
• September 16: 4.2 IP, 5 R (4 ER), 7 H, 2 BB, 1 K

That last start aside, he was great in Queens last season. Over his career, Eaton has a 2.81 ERA in the Mets’ home ballpark and just over a 1.0 WHIP in 32 innings.

In Case You Hadn't Heard...

Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) is ignorant.

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A CALL FOR RESEARCH

Study Shows Those Who Buy 3 Or More Pairs Of Sneakers Annually Are Natural Leaders

It’s been said you can tell a lot about a person by her shoes. And now, as CBS 2’s Vince Gerasole reports, shoes may also say something about who takes the lead in a crisis and who follows in another’s footsteps.

New research suggests those buying three pairs of sneakers a year are more likely to be walking in the shoes of a serious leader.

We must know how many pairs of shoes Derek Jeter and Aaron Rowand buy per year!

It is only when we get a hold of these figures that we can take Sabermetric research seriously. Seriously, think of SPARP — Shoes Purchased Above Replacement Player and its partner, LQ — Leadership Quotient. What is being divided, I don’t know, but until then, you calculator nerds continue holding down the couch springs in your mothers’ basements.