It was depressing to learn that the talented writers at Fire Joe Morgan are calling it quits
after years of providing entertaining criticism of the mainstream
sports media. From the Joe chats to food metaphors, Ken Tremendous,
Junior and dak used humor to spread the word about sabermetrics. During
college, visiting the site was one of the first things that I would do
every morning. Now, college is over and FJM is not more. The way I see
it, things can only go up from here.
Deadspin posted an entertaining, though sad, exit interview with the guys, each Hollywood writers. It is a great read.
Michael Schur, who writes under the pseudonym Ken Tremendous, has been a lead writer on The Office and
played Dwight Schrute's cousin, Mose, in a few guest cameos. It is
going to be hard to watch the show in the future without thinking about
David Eckstein or Darin Erstad.
*Jeff Passan, a survivor, offered an excellent tribute to the blog at Yahoo! Sports.
*Peter
Gammons has a new post up on his blog at ESPN.com. Gammons offers some
interesting insights. He wonders why Hanley Ramirez finished 11th in
the voting. I completely agree with him on that front.
Ramirez
is not a great defensive shortstop, but, considering his position, he
is a stud offensive player. He batted .301/.400/.540, with a 146 OPS+
and 33 home runs as the anchor of the Marlins' power-hitting infield.
He also scored 125 runs.
*Albert Pujols clearly deserved
to win the award, but the voters erred in a lot of their other
secondary votes. It was surprising that Lance Berkman did not garner
more serious consideration as well; he finished fifth.
Within
the piece, Gammons also says that the Atlanta Braves are still in the running
in the Jake Peavy sweepstakes. Frank Wren, according to the blog post,
is intent on getting a deal done. There is also word that the Yankees
are not in the running. In my opinion, it would be unwise for Peavy, the ace of the San Diego Padres, to
accept a deal to the American League, where his numbers would surely
suffer.
*According to Jon Heyman, Pedro Martinez is planning to pitch in 2009. Ben Reiter of SI.com ranked
Martinez 44 in his Top 50 available free agents. He is an injury risk,
of course, but his agent told Heyman that he is fully healthy for the
first time in a while. After missing the first four months of the
season with a hamstring injury, he posted a 75 ERA+ in 20 starts for
the New York Mets. I had Martinez ranked higher in my Top 50, which I
will be releasing later this week.
*Jeremy Affeldt signed
with the San Fransisco Giants on Monday. Affeldt was one of the premier
relief pitchers available in this free agent class, so credit the
Giants for locking him for only two years, at a relatively cheap price
of $8-million. As Dave Cameron writes,
the left-hander is seriously underrated, and is coming off an excellent
performance with the Cincinnati Reds. He posted a 3.33 ERA in 74
appearances, striking out 80 in 78.0 innings pitched. His 9.19 K/9 rate
was the best of his career as his average fastball velocity jumped from
92.4 to 94.6, according to FanGraphs.
Brian Sabean deserves some
praise for locking up one of the under-the-radar prizes in this class.
Sabean has had some blunders, from the infamous trade with the the
Minnesota Twins to the Barry Zito fiasco, but he pulled off a steal
here. It looks like that Eckerd College degree has done him some good
after all.
*Pujols won his second M.V.P. on Monday, and Joe Posnanski writes
that it is time to give him due credit for his
out-of-this-world-abilities as a baseball player. I have received some
emails arguing why Ryan Howard deserved to win the award.
Although I touched on this in an earlier post, let us look at the data one last time from a comment I left on the other article.
Pujols' monthly performance:
April-.365/.523/.594/1.117
May-.373/.454/.706/.1.160
June-.302/.444/.558/.1.002
July-.347/.413/.564/.977
August-.398/.491/.745/1.236
September-.321/.427/.702/.1.129
Howard's monthly performance:
April-.168/.298/.347/.645
May-.238/.344/.590/.934
June-.234/.287/.439/.726
July-.311/.366/.612/.978
August-.213/.328/.463/.791
September-.352/.422/.852/.1.274
Howard
was better in one month, September, but not by much. Take that away and
he would be hovering around near league average slash stat numbers at
the position. He was brutal in August, and a non-factor for half of the
year. Do those games not count?
Counting stats are misleading,
context-driven. In the stats that count, Pujols had better numbers. He
had more hits, doubles, walks, stolen bases, runs extra-base hits, and
a higher BA, OBP, slugging, OPS. In the advanced metrics, he ranked
first in the league-and considerably higher than Howard-in adjusted
OPS+, runs created, adjusted batting runs, batting wins and offensive
winning percentage (essentially, a team of nine Pujols in the lineup
would have had the highest winning percentage of any other player).
Pujols
also had a 98.7 VORP-value over replacement player-compared to Howard's
36.6. That does not account for defense, but is great at distinguishing
real offensive value. Nearly two-thirds higher.
Chase Utley and
Jimmy Rollins each finished with higher totals in VORP on the
Philadelphia Phillies, as did pitchers Cole Hamels and Jamie Moyer. The
stat is not perfect, but is pretty solid at determining actual value,
not perceived value-like if we took him away, and so forth.
The
Phillies still would have been dangerous even with an average offensive
1B-Mike Jacobs, for instance-instead of Howard, who was not the M.V.P.
of his own team let alone the entire league.
Pujols also grades out as a better defender in every metric.
Your honor, the defense rests.
*It
was shocking that Utley, who hit 32 home runs and played exceptional
defense at the keystone, finished 15th in the voting. Cameron agrees.
*And, on a sad note, former Rice star Wade Townsend underwent surgery
on his right shoulder this week. Towsend, the Tampa Bay Rays'
first-round pick back in 2005, has battled injuries since signing, and
is now likely to miss the 2009 season. His days in the organization may
be over as a result. The 25-year-old right-hander made three starts in the Arizona Fall League before sustaining the injury.
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