May 17th, 2007 → 9:48 am @ Seth Mnookin
A recent SI survey asked almost 500 major leaguers who were the most and least friendly players in baseball. Four of the top seven friendliest players were on the 2004 Red Sox: Papi, Dave Roberts, Damon, and Millar. The least friendy list included one current Yankee (A-Rod, who came in in fourth place) and one Yankee of recent vintage (RJ). The only mar on the survey: Johnson tied for least friendly with his old Diamondback teammate…Curt Schilling. Still, no matter how you slice it, the Sox are a friendlier team: if you only consider players on the current roster, the Sox come out at 0 (Papi’s +4 and Schill’s -4 cancel each other out), while the Yankees come out at -10, with Damon’s +2 barely mitigating A-Rod’s -12. If you consider all players that’ve played for one of the teams in the past four years, the Sox come out at +8 (+4 for Papi and DR, +2 for JD and Kentucky Fried Kevin, -4 for Curt) while the Yankees weigh in at -14 (+2 for JD, -12 for A-Rod, -4 for Randy). My only question: Schilling tied with Johnson? I know he’s not always the most popular guy, but c’mon…
Post Categories: Red Sox & Sports Illustrated & Yankees
May 13th, 2007 → 10:29 am @ Seth Mnookin
There are days when I think Murray Chass is a bad writer, or a lazy reporter, or a grudge-carrying boob. Those are the good days. Then there are days like today, when I wonder if he knows anything about baseball at all.
Pretty much everyone who is involved with, reporters on, is a fan of, or reads about baseball is aware of the laughably porous PED-testing program MLB has in place. It’s been written about again and again and again.
But in today’s Times, Chass has a typical column, which is to say, one devoid of any new information. He also comes out with this gem, which is impressive even for him:
“Because baseball tests for steroids and other performance-enhancing substances, it is unlikely that Bonds is risking his career by using them. But baseball, as all other sports, doesn’t test for human growth hormone, so some Bonds critics believe that’s what he’s using.”
This may very well be the first time I’ve seen anyone write that the MLB testing program is so good as to all but ensure players aren’t using. In fact, Jack Curry, one of Chass’s colleagues at the Times, wrote a long, prominent story less than two months ago that highlighted just how porous baseball’s program is.
Some of the highlights of Curry’s article:
* Baseball doesn’t test for the blood booster EPO or 1GF-1, a hormone that mimics the effects of HGH.
* If a player faces a random test on game day, he has up until an hour after that night’s contest to actually give a sample. That prompted this quote: “If a guy can’t do it, he comes back in an hour?” said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, an associate professor of medicine at NYU and a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency. “Comes back in an hour? Give me a break. They should say that he will be chaperoned from the moment of notification. It shouldn’t even be 30 seconds later.” The players, Wadler pointed out, are not chaperoned during this time.
* A GM told Curry that, on days in which a collector comes to spring training, a player could alert teammates who hadn’t shown up yet that testing was taking place.
* Some players are notified the night before a test is going to take place.
Chass is also wrong when he says that “all other sports” are similar to baseball in that they don’t test for HGH…unless Chass doesn’t consider what takes place at the Olympics as “sport.” Finally, HGH is no small exclusion: two seasons ago, when I was with the Red Sox, HGH was widely acknowledged throughout baseball to have replaced steroids as the juicer of choice.
***
In cheerier news, it’s nice to see Baseball Prospectus’s Will Carroll agreeing with me when he says, “I love Tim Wakefield.” Check out his piece; it’s worth reading.
Post Categories: Baseball Prospectus & Murray Chass & Steroids & Tim Wakefield
May 11th, 2007 → 9:53 am @ Seth Mnookin
I, kid, I kid…but on a morning like this one, this story on “Pitchers You’d Pay to Watch” raises my hackles. (To be fair, Stark’s story isn’t supposed to be representative of his thinking; he queried 20 GMs, assistant GMs, and scouts. But that’s a group that’s been known to be fairly ignorant when it comes to baseball…)
You could probably more or less guess the makeup of this list after downing a half-case of Sam Adams: Santana, King Felix, Dice-K, Clemens, Oswalt, Wagner, Zumaya. Pedro and Peavy got votes, as did Beckett and Bedard. And — here I’ll quote Stark — “(believe it or not) Tim Wakefield.” Jamie Moyer did not get a “believe it or not.” Tim Lincecum did not get a “believe it or not.” But Wake did.
Which is odd: the knuckleball is a dying art, and when a knuckleballer is on his game, there’s little that’s more fun to watch. I know Zumaya can throw 100 mph gas; I also know I can’t distinguish between a three-digit heater and a 92-mph heater, and if you say you can with your naked eye, you’re a stone-cold liar. Felix’s slider is a nasty, nasty weapon; Oswalt is fun just because he’s a fucking tiger, and Dice-K is, well, Dice-K. But watching a dumpy 40-something toss up paper airplanes that make professional ballplayers’ eyes bug out like Wile E. Coyote’s (and make them swing with such ferocity as to risk throwing out their backs)…now that I’d pay to watch. Especially because you’re likely to see it less and less as time goes on.
There’s also the fact that, at the moment, Wake is, hands down, the best starter in the league. He leads the AL in ERA (1.79.) He leads the league in BAA (.189). He’s put up six quality starts in seven games, compared to five each for Beckett and Schill. After last night’s absolute beauty of a game, he has a May ERA of 0.00, a May WHIP of .714, and lefties are hitting .132 off him for the month. On the season, he’s given up about 20 percent fewer hits than Beckett (38 vs. 31) and a little more than 30 percent fewer than Schilling (45 vs. 31). Even taking into account the fact that he obviously won’t keep this up all year, I’m still willing to bet he’ll have been year-end stats than Roger “Give me $8,000-per-pitch or I’ll stay in Texas” Clemens.
The lack of respect for Wake has been a bit of a bete noire for me as of late, and when I get something stuck in my craw, I’m likely to keep on gnawing on it until I can force it down. I’m thrilled that Beckett seems to have given up the bullheaded ways of his (recent) past. I’m also excited that Schilling appears to be closer to the ’04 model than the ’05 model; the Sox need both of these guys to play deep into October. But it would be nice if, instead of another SportsCenter or Baseball Tonight segment on one of these two, or instead of another full-length feature about Dice-K, someone, somewhere (besides here, I mean) decided to highlight a 40-year old pitcher who’s demonstrated the beauty of a skill that looks to be in its twilight years. After all, if you were a kid, wouldn’t you want to get noticed (and paid) for bringing the high heat (even if it resulted in a mediocre record) instead of getting looked over (and underpaid) for quietly making the best hitters in the world look like fools?
***
There’s no better time to read about your favorite team than when they’re doing well; it’s a truth that I quite well growing up in Boston. Which is why this is an absolutely perfect time to read Feeding the Monster, which is available from Amazon for only $17.16 (cheap!). And, of course, free signed and personalized bookplates are here for the asking. They’re really nice. Seriously: ask anyone you know who has one. Or just write in. But whatever you do, act today. There’s no better way to add to the glow of this springtime dominance than to revel in the victories and triumphs of the last several years.
Post Categories: Sports Reporters & Tim Wakefield
May 9th, 2007 → 11:13 am @ Seth Mnookin
Yesterday I had an hour-long, lunch-time chat on Boston.com, the subject of which was my Sunday Globe Magazine article on sports injuries and the pressures athletes face to play when injured. I know some of you are cursing the fact that you forgot to check it out at the time. Don’t worry: the transcript is now available online.
Post Categories: Boston Globe & Online chats & Sports injuries
May 7th, 2007 → 2:55 pm @ Seth Mnookin
The Clemens news will — as it should — dominate the local headlines for a while. For the most part, I feel a sense of relief. As I’ve said before, I think there’s been a quasi-irresponsible lack of coverage concerning the various ‘roid rumors (and circumstantial evidence) that’ve been swirling around the Rocket for years. And my interest in the steroid issue has less to do with the sanctity of baseball or any of that crap than with the effect all of this idolatry has on kids, a subject I wrote about at some length in yesterday’s Globe Magazine. (The Times‘s Selena Roberts does focus on the issue in her column on the front of today’s Sports section: “The threat to the Yankees has nothing to do with Clemens’s age, but how he hasn’t aged at all on the approach to 45 when he once seemed kaput at age 35. Maybe Clemens has developed a natural youth potion, an organic Botox for his old bones. Certainly, Clemens deserves credit for his greatness — with a talent that is an understandable siren’s song for the Yankees — but he has also witnessed his aura undermined by a steroid whisper campaign.” Whatever risk that poses to the Yankees, it would have been magnified a lot in Boston…)
I also kind of think Roger’s a self-satisfied prick, and it sure looks from what’s come out thus far like Clemens and agent Randy Hendricks played the Sox in order to get a couple million more per New York. (Interesting fact: assuming his pitch count averages around 100 pitches per game, he’ll be making $8,000 bucks per pitch. Apparently the $120 million or so he’s made thus far in salary alone isn’t quite enough…) I also think his demands — to have the freedom to take off when he’s not on the mound (no emergency relief appearances for him) — wouldn’t have worked out all that well on the Sox.
But I digress. The real reason the Sox don’t need Clemens is because of the ace of their staff…Timothy Wakefield. Wakefield, who’s set to make $4 million a year in perpetuity (or approximately what Clemens will pull down per game), is going through another one of his brilliant, unhittable stretches: his 3-3 record is the result of nothing so much as the criminally low run support he gets, as evidenced by his 2.11 ERA and his .197 BAA(!). To put that in some context, Schill’s ERA is 3.28 and his BAA is .298; Beckett weighs in at 2.72 and .219. Wakefield is, in fact, at the top or near the top of virtually every metric that looks at opponents’ offensive averages.
It’s true that Wakefield goes through one or two lights-out stretches each year. It’s also true that, since 2004, he’s been the teams best starter. Don’t believe me? Look it up. In the last three years, Wake’s ERA is almost a half-run better than Schilling’s (4.13 vs. 4.55) and he’s thrown 55 more innings (403 vs. 348). The only reason his record isn’t better (26-26 over that time, compared to Curt’s 27-16) is because of aforementioned lousy run support.
I’m not, of course, saying that Wake is a better pitcher than Curt. To me, the real question is why Wake doesn’t get more consistent respect. My theory: the knuckleball. The knuckleball — and the knuckleballer — is seen as kind of a flakey, flukey pitch. When it’s on, who can say why? And when it’s not working, well, who can explain that one?*
But how is this really different from any pitcher (or any pitch)? Sometimes pitchers never get a good feel for the ball, or they never get in a good rhythm, or their mechanics are off. And sometimes the same thing happens to Wake. But if he’s not complaining, I shouldn’t be either; it’s the reason the Sox get away with paying him so little…
* Preemptive apologia: I may have read/heard something along these lines before; it’s also possible that I’ve simply thought this same thing to myself sometime in the past. I just can’t tell, but I’m not trying to steal anyone else’s thunder…
Post Categories: Curt Schilling & Knuckleball & Roger Clemens & Steroids & Tim Wakefield
May 6th, 2007 → 9:18 am @ Seth Mnookin
Well, if you subscribe to the Globe, anyway: I wrote the cover story in this week’s Globe Magazine on the risks and long-term health consequences of pro-athletics and the shifting allegiances among athletes, agents, team doctors, owners, and players. It was a sobering story to write, and nowhere are the risks (and consequences) more frightening than in pro-football, where players ritually abuse their bodies (and their minds) without the safety of a guaranteed contract. Let me know what you think…
Post Categories: Boston Globe & Sports injuries & Sports Reporters
May 6th, 2007 → 9:13 am @ Seth Mnookin
I’m in Boston this weekend (for an engagement party — my own, actually — which is why I’m going to need to split in a second), which gives me a chance to read the paper copy of the Globe with my morning cereal. I was very happy to see an article by Gordon Edes that looked at last year’s trades in the context of what’s been going on recently. It’s rare that you get this kind of retrospective look at recent history when there don’t seem to be clear cut answers, and rarer still when there’s a re-examination of moves that engendered criticism when they occurred (or soon afterwards). (I’m not holding my breath waiting for Shaughnessy to re-visit this statement: “Is anybody rethinking that Johnny Damon decision now? On a day when Coco Crisp was rested, Damon continued his Bang Bang tour through Boston…”)
As Gordo points out, things look a lot differently now than they did at various points last year: to take the most obvious example, Anibal Sanchez has just been shipped to AAA, and Josh Beckett looks like the pitcher everyone hoped he’d be. The one thing I would have liked to see: an acknowledgment that it’ll be many years still before we can fully appreciate the pros and cons of these deals…just as it won’t be until the end of next season before we’ll know whether it was a good idea for the Mets to offer Pedo four guaranteed years.
Post Categories: Gordon Edes & Sports Reporters & Trades
