Note: What follows contains little in the way of quantitative analysis. It does mention The Book, however, and that’s gotta count for something.

I believe the readership will agree that, of all the things that are great about wedding receptions, probably the best thing about them is that phenomenon known as the “open bar.” If you’re like me (intelligent, physically impressive), you like beer…a lot. You think that just as books such as Cod and Salt have tried to explain the world through the lens of those respective materials, that probably the world could, and ought to, be understood through the lens of beer. (Note: This is different than seeing the world through beer goggles. Those you should avoid at all times.) You think that, in particular, the concept of free beer — especially when consumed in the company of loved ones — goes a pretty good way to proving the existence of God. And whenever beer touches your lips, you feel compelled to echo Kanye West’s sentiments from Late Registration — i.e. “It’s a celebration, bitches.”

So, we’re agreed: beer is great. But this isn’t merely an ode to fermentation that I’m writing. It’s serious business. Because you see, drinking at a wedding is especially important if, as I was this past weekend, you’re expected to prepare and deliver a toast.

Nor when I say “toast” should you imagine one of those sprawling, nebulous accounts of late adolescence where the speaker recalls that one time he and the groom yelled “movie” in a crowded firehouse. No, the ideal toast requires structural rigor, not a little wisdom, and something of what the Surrealists refer to as “the marvelous” (and what Kanye West calls, once again, “a celebration, bitches”).

To attain the proper state of (what I’ll call) “enthusiasm,” one must drink. Beer, wine, something called a “Toasted Almond”: whatever. But as is made all-too-obvious by too many Facebook pages, excessive drinking causes sloppiness. There’s little that’s charming about watching an otherwise handsome young man vomit on his lapels in the presence of multiple grandmothers.

Excessive sobriety, however, has its own perils. Public speaking is one thing; speaking on the nature of love, quite another. Owing to the inter-generational nature of this blessed sacrament, one is forced to appeal beyond his own peer group. A Benny Goodman joke here or there is sometimes necessary. One must say to oneself what Arthur Rimbaud said to the world: “I have all the talents!”

In short, there is a “zone” — a state that one hopes to achieve in which one’s faculties are not so impaired as to render him inaudible, but in which one’s nerves are sufficiently dulled so’s to allow the speaker a breeziness and expansiveness appropriate for the occasion.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m probably preaching to the choir when I say that the MLB season is truly a grind for the analytically oriented baseball enthusiast. Oh sure, lay fans might see us and say stuff like “Get a life, nerd” or “Ghostly pallor much?” or “Put on pants!”, but it’s only because they don’t understand how much hustle and grit and whatever-all-else-David-Eckstein-has it takes to make it through a season at the top of one’s sabermetric game.

Every single day from basically the middle of February (when pitchers and catchers report) till the end of the World Series, it’s “prep for this fantasy draft” or “read that blog post” or “look up all these other guys’ WARs.” For real, it can be exhausting.

Which is why, when the offseason comes around, even the most sticktoitive of us are thankful for the rest. And sure, some downtime is good: catch up on the movie films, eat some pie (why not, it tastes so good!), visit all our babies’ mamas — you know, the regular stuff. That said, it’s also imperative that we don’t begin to rest on our laurels (wherever those are located). No, some form of offseason training regimen is absolutely necessary, especially as the bar for baseballing nerdom gets set higher and higher.

Now, I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’m not a licensed sabermetric trainer or anything like that (although I maybe accidentally performed CPR on a sleeping person once, if that counts). But I can introduce you to one exercise that helps me stay sharp as tacks. And here’s the best part about it: you can do it while drinking beer.

It’s called the Player Profile Exercise (PPE), and it’s the picture of simplicity. All you do is:

1. Pick up a a recent offseason annual (i.e. Baseball Prospectus, Hardball Times Season Preview, etc.).

2. Read aloud from any single player profile, being careful to omit player or team names that might give away the identity of this particular player.

3. Challenge your friends to guess whose profile you’re reading. (Oh yeah, I forgot, it’s for two or more people.)

4. Pass the book off and repeat.

Got it?

Let’s try a couple, how about. (Note: These are from the 2008 edition of BP, so set your mental gauges appropriately.)

All of the talk about how BLANK is going to become a better hitter is both misguided and unnecessary. BLANK’s 35 home runs in 2006 already seem like a bit of an outlier, and his career batting average in the minors was .261, but as he’s likely to hit 25-plus homers a year while drawing 100 walks, can play all three outfield positions and first base, and plays the game as hard as anyone in baseball, BLANK has a lot of value even when he hits .250 to .260. He’s not going to get much better, but he doesn’t need to.

Did you guess Eddie Stanky? I hope not, because if you did, you (a) are wrong and (b) probably have some kind of weird psychological disorder that only Oliver Sacks can cure. The actual answer is at the end of this post.

How about this one?

Last year we said that BLANK could succeed as a starter if only the BLANKs would give him the opportunity. It still took an injury to BLANK for BLANK to get that chance, but there’s no looking back now. He’s basically Chien-Ming Wang with better stuff, and his strikeout rate grew throughout the season. If he turns out to be a better pitcher than BLANK for the remainder of the decade, we won’t be shocked.

I can’t tell if that’s harder or easier than the first. I do know that the Wang comp is incredibly helpful. (Semi-related challenge: say “Wang comp” five times fast. Go!) Once again, the answer for this one’s below.

As far as muscle groups go, the PPE works a number of them. In the absence of contextual signifiers like team names or teammates‘ names, the PPE forces one to pay close attention to other telling details — whether they be comparables (as in the second case), playing time or pitcher usage issues (also as in the second case), hitting approach (as with the first one), or defensive positioning (also in the first). Those are all categories of which a first rate baseball nerd should have intimate knowledge.

If you’ve ever listened to even five minutes of regional sports talk radio, it’s very possible that you’re familiar with a certain type of caller who’s all-too-ready to propose trades on behalf of the local team. Certainly, growing up in the Greater Boston Area and listening to WEEI (“The #1 rated sports radio talk station in America,” apparently), I was privy to these sorts of calls all the time.

Because I haven’t listened to said station willingly for like 12 years, I can’t say exactly what the callership has come up with recently, but I do remember some pretty choice suggestions from my youth, including but not limited to:

*Carlos Quintana and Bob Zupcic for Frank Thomas

*Tony Fossas and Joe Hesketh for Greg Maddux

*Randy Kutcher’s moustache for the entire roster of the 1989 World Series Champion Oakland A’s

Needless to say, these aren’t trades which would’ve been entertained for even three seconds by the receiving teams’ GMs (although it is well known that Sandy Alderson likes a good moustache). Still, that never seemed to stop the callers from proposing them…vehemently.

And even though I recognize the obviously clownish nature of those caller-inners, I can’t deny that it’s occasionally pleasant to imagine being in possession of roster-shaping powers. Of course, the fantasy is the nice part about it. I don’t want to wake up early for work. I don’t want to talk a whole bunch with the media. And I certainly don’t want to feel so trapped in my place of business that I feel compelled to escape in a gorilla costume.

But so long as we’re talking about fantasy GM positions, I’m thinking I’d like the Baltimore job.

Why? Check it: these are the Orioles’ present commitments for the 2010 season (courtesy of Tim Dierkes’ excellent Offseason Outlook over at MLB Trade Rumors):

Read the rest of this entry »

I hold in my hands the first of the big offseason publications: The Bill James Handbook 2010. “Carson,” you might be asking, “how are you holding the book in your hands, plural, and typing at the same time? Isn’t that difficult?” To which I reply: “Sure, it is. But it’s the sort of sacrifice I”m willing to make for the FanGraphs readership.”

I don’t presume to even guess how the reader attacks his baseball annuals. For me, the first thing I do, is I head straight to the projections. I don’t know why exactly, but it probably has to do with two reasons. First, the greatest joy in life is crushing one’s friends in fantasy baseball. I want all the information possible towards achieving this great and noble end. Second, I like finding those projections of a slightly daring nature, so’s to give me something to dream about as the next season gets closer and closer.

Of course, some of the projections aren’t real shockers. Like, James and Co. think Pujols will slash .333/.443/.642 next year with 44 HR in 579 AB. That’s about what you’d think.

Other of them are more surprising — particularly among players who’ve yet to cut their major league teeth.

Below are five such projections (with position, RC/27, and slash stats). I’m including only hitters here for now, and will either pick up the pitchers next week, or never ever.

Joshua Bell, 3B, 6.06, 288/370/455
According to his website, Bell has “enchanted audiences worldwide with his breathtaking virtuosity and tone of rare beauty” for more than two decades. Apparently, he’s turned his attention to baseball as of late. Bell was acquired by Baltimore from Los Angeles (N) in the George Sherrill trade. He posted a wOBA of .397 in Double-A last year. He’s currently slashing .320/.404/.500 in the Arizona Fall League.

Tyler Flowers, C, 6.01, 275/353/476
Flowers got the proverbial cup of coffee with the White Sox at the end of season, netting 20 unspectacular plate appearances. Before that, though, he put up a great year across two levels. In particular, his .302/.445/.548 at Double-A Birmingham was impressive. He remains the heir apparent to A.J. Pierzynski, who enters the final year of his contract in 2010. If James’s projections are accurate, Flowers could be a contributor even before that.

Todd Frazier, 2B/3B, 5.51, 278/336/471
Marc Hulet thinks Frazier might ultimately be the Reds’ answer at third base — although probably not till 2011, as Scott Rolen will be there (until he gets injured, that is). In the meantime, Frazier probably has value as a Chone Figgins-y utility player. He hit .290/.350/.481 as a Mudcat in the Double-A Southern League, and his brief time at Triple-A resulted in similar numbers (.302/.362/.476 in 69 PA).

Logan Morrison, 1B, 6.26, 269/401/434
Who’s more likely to get injured, Scott Rolen or Nick Johnson? The answer to that question might inform who we see first: Frazier or Florida’s Logan Morrison. The thing that jumps out — about James’s projection and also Morrison’s 2009 season — is the walk rates. Morrison batted .277/.411/.442 this past year at Double-A Jacksonville, posting 63 walks versus only 46 strikeouts in 343 plate appearances.

Michael Taylor, COF, 5.89, 285/350/462
Physically speaking, Taylor’s almost the same size as former Pitt basketball standout DeJuan Blair. As such, you probably won’t be suprised to learn that, at 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds, Taylor has some natural power. But he’s got some other, more interesting features. According to John Sickels, he’s got basically all the baseball tools you want, plus developing plate discipline, plus the sort of intelligence you’d expect from a Stanford guy. (Unless you’re a Berkeley guy, that is, in which case you probably assume he’s a dope.)

Bonus: Yankee Center Fielders
Question: Who should play center field for the Yankers next year: Melky Cabrera or Brett Gardner?

Answer: According to James’s projections, neither. While Cabrera projects at .278/.341/.406 and Gardner at .277/.368/.375 (with an impressive 36-of-44 stolen base record), James has farmhand Austin Jackson at .294/.356/.411.

Note to Reader: What follows contains little in the way of quantitative analysis. On the plus side, there’re like 87 references to Marcel Proust.

On account of they were all rounded up and sent to Slovenia in 1987 as part of First Lady Nancy Reagan’s considerably less famous “Just Say No to Poetry” initiative, it’s hard to know much about poets these days.

That said, it’s a fact that American poet Robert Frost once said, “Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.” It’s also a fact that Eric Nusbaum and Ted Walker are the progenitors of a website, called Pitchers and Poets, that attempts to explore “why we watch, why they play, and what that stuff all means.”

While the site’s content is rather exclusive — accessible only by navigating a series of tubes — the payoff is pretty excellent. Messrs. Walker and Nusbaum discuss baseball the way you’d want your smart friends to: by engaging with the sport on every level that could be of interest — frequently with humor.

Recently, the pair have added the Rogue’s Baseball Index (RBI) to their steadily increasing empire. The RBI represents an attempt to catalogue baseball-related terminology for the new generation of fandom.

Walker and Nusbaum consented to be interviewed this previous Sunday by means of EtherPad, a program that allows multiple users to create and edit a document. Hence, the “etherview.”

***

Carson: So here’s the reason I’ve invited you here. I’ve known about Pitchers and Poets for a little bit now. It’s a good site, obviously. But recently, I got an email from my friend Ross, and the subject is “Move over Straight Cash Homey” — which, that’s a giant compliment already. And then I follow the link, and it’s to the Small Sample Size entry at RBI. It killed me, especially: “Small Sample Size is also what many bloggers point out just before ignoring it.” As hard as tried not to, I was forced to admit it: It’s funny because it’s true.

Then I knew I had to find out more about this project, yinz, etc.

So, if you would, maybe start off by talking a little about the Rogue’s Baseball Index (RBI).

Ted: RBI is a dictionary of baseball terms, but one that veers away from a dictionary in the traditional baseball sense. It’s a collection of terms that tries to catalogue the quirky experiences of the modern baseball fan. Maybe you see a term that describes something you’ve always known about, but hadn’t taken the time to voice as a distinct phenomenon.

We call it an alternative baseball lexicon. It’s a play on the old traditional baseball dictionary of terms like “seeing eye single” that have existed forever. We wanted to include terms that would instantly strike a chord, and seem familiar and funny.

Eric: One of the tag lines that we’ve played with is “Baseball like you’ve already thought it.” That’s kind of our guiding notion when we write the terms.

Carson: The interesting thing about it — and maybe about this very strain among all our smarter blogs — is the academic feel it has. It seems to take very seriously something that is decidedly not serious — or at least not something my mother thinks is serious (which seems like a decent gauge to use).

Eric: I think the tone is a pretty direct continuation of the Pitchers & Poets tone. We have a kind of unusual way of looking at baseball games. The voice and the way we overanalyze on PnP have translated well into the short entries of RBI. The RBI form has forced us to condense all our weird ideas and ramblings into something funnier, more manageable.

Carson: Do you guys have official academic training? I mean, because the site is smart and — like a Free Darko-type situation — definitely borrows from the lexicon (to use Ted’s word) of academia. But it’s not about, say, post-colonialism or diaspora or whatever. It’s about Milton Bradley and Mark Mulder.

Eric: That’s a huge compliment. You might one day regret calling us smart. I’ve got a bachelors from the Univ. of Washington in English and Political Science. But I’m actually in the process of applying for grad programs in writing.

Ted: Eric knows a lot more about world politics than I do. I’ve got an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and spent a good bit of that time thinking about how to think about baseball. My approach to baseball writing has been influenced more by the great essay writers than what I would call an academic approach.

In the end, I think it’s fun to take something seriously that doesn’t seem on the surface to warrant it. That’s kind of what sports is in a nutshell. So we run with it, and have the kinds of conversations about RBI entries and Milton Bradley that some other folks might have about Kierkegaard and Proust.

Eric: Yeah, it’s definitely worth noting that almost all of these entries and posts are collaborative. We think a lot about what we’ll say and how we’ll say it.

Carson: Ted, I’m interested. What was the reaction at the Art Institute when you started writing all about baseball? I mean, did they break out the “What the what is this jock crap” on you?

Ted: Funny you should mention that. Lukewarm would describe it. But what I brought to the table was a single-minded commitment, and focus. Eventually, I brought people around with the cohesiveness of my efforts. It was an environment in which I had to really sell what I was doing to a group of skeptical people.

Carson: I can see that. Like, I teach once a week at a local high school. It’s mostly black and Latino students, but there’s this one nerdy white kid who L-O-V-E-S carnivorous plants. He’s like the opposite of a pimp. But sometimes he’ll talk about this obscure mycological junk, and the other kids are just like, “Keep doing your thing. Your weird, weird thing.”

Anyway, I ask because I can see your stuff either being wildly popular because it traverses readymade genres, or vigorously mocked for the same exact reason — by the literary types because it’s about sports and by the sporty types because it’s too literary.

What’s been the general reaction to PnP and RBI? Who are your readers? (Besides your mothers.)

Eric: The joke is that we are popular only amongst bloggers. The name Pitchers & Poets pretty much scares away any of the types of people who would threaten violence in the FanGraphs comment section — you kind of know what you are going to get with a blog like ours. That said, we are, you know, a pretty baseball-oriented baseball blog. Our readers are the types of fans who like to think about baseball in broad terms, whether that’s stylistically or politically or culturally or whatever else.

Carson: Well, that brings up a question for me. The current tagline for PnP is “FanGraphs this ain’t.” That might seem hostile to some of the readers here. I mean, I get the sense that it’s not meant that way; it’s just, it could seem aggressive.

Eric: PnP hearts FanGraphs. That tagline came from a throwaway line Ted used in a conversation post recently. I thought it was a funny way to be glib and explain PnP so I put it up. In all seriousness, this is a post-Moneyball world. We’re not on some mission to reignite wars about the value of sabrmetrics or Joe Morgan. We appreciate the numbers. It’s just not our niche, not our skillset. T and I are not Dave Cameron. We really dig FanGraphs, we just do something different.

Ted: It is very much not my skillset. I prefer not to limit myself to subject matter that can be proven or disproven with facts.

Carson: It seems one of the most successful ventures on PnP is the conversations you guys do. It’s funny, I’m actually teaching Plato’s Allegory of the Cave to a class of mine right now, and a student who’s gonna write a paper on it says, “Can I write my paper in the form of a dialogue?” My gut reaction was “No, no way, that’s crazy.” And yet, the dialogue has got to be one the most accessible, pleasant forms around. I had to wonder at my initial reaction.

Ted: I recently read a quote from Kurt Vonnegut suggesting that one should only write for one person, or one will likely die (I’m paraphrasing). It’s a hard thing to do. The dialogue form actually forces that little bit of wisdom. I think most of us are at our most creative when we’re hanging out with our friends, loose and relaxed. That’s what I enjoy about the conversations. It dissipates some of the inherent weirdness of the essay proclaiming universal baseball truths to the world.

Eric: Even before he came on board, I was basically writing PnP for Ted, or at least that kind of baseball fan.

Carson: Interesting. So, if you were to hazard a guess, why, do you think, is the dialogue form not more popular? I mean, I agree that it allows for better thinking. But it seems marginalized as far as a genre goes.

Eric: I think we have a lot of preconceived notions about the author as singular genius, as this tortured lonesome figure. I go for that image, too. I like to look up to my favorite authors as slaving away over a typewriter.

But in the new media landscape there are plenty of places for dialogue. My favorite baseball blog is probably Walkoff Walk, which operates as something of a dialogue between Iracane and Liakos (and the other members of that cadre). The podcast is another place where dialogue is valued highly.

Ted: We all love the dialogue format as long as it isn’t in print, like podcasts and sports talk radio and all of that. I just think writing is a medium that demands a lot, and the dialogue format asks for just that much more attention. That said, interview transcripts seem pretty popular online.

Eric: Interview transcripts make great reading. Especially with people more compelling than the two of us. I could spend weeks just reading those Paris Review Art of Fiction dialogues.

Carson: Yeah, I remember one with both George Saunders and Dave Eggers in it. I mean, I’m not sure if it was one of the Paris Review things, but essentially the same format. Eggers was okay, but Saunders was just hilarious.

Ted: I’m basically the Saunders of Pitchers and Poets. Eric is the Eggers. I appreciate the compliment.

Eric: I appreciate the book sales and movie royalties.

Carson: Eric used a phrase — “singular genius” — which reminds me of the most important question I need to ask. Actually, it’s more of a statement: Tell me about The Rogue.

Ted: The Rogue is like the George W. Bush of the Rogue’s Baseball Index. He’s the decider. He’s not the voice of the RBI, but he’s the soul of it.

Eric: It was actually supposed to be Rogie’s Baseball Index, after the hockey player Rogie Vachon. Ted and I have a fascination with French Canadian goaltenders from the 70s. Unfortunately, RogiesBaseballIndex.com was taken, so we settled on Rogue’s. The U and I are right next to each other on the keyboard.

Carson: I thought this might be of some use to you guys when I came across it. It’s from the Allegory of the Cave:

… the virtue of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or, on the other hand, hurtful and useless. Did you never observe the narrow intelligence flashing from the keen eye of A CLEVER ROGUE — how eager he is, how clearly his paltry soul sees the way to his end; he is the reverse of blind, but his keen eyesight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness?

Ted: The great thing about a rogue is that he can take a step back from the toils of mankind and laugh at it, maybe wag a finger. That’s an important trait when you’re attempting to catalogue the human experience, or the baseball experience. A sense of humor, the knowledge that you are poking fun not only at others but at yourself.

Eric: The Rogue is what we strive for.

A couple days ago, Dave Cameron suggested that, on account of some of the moves Joe Girardi was making, that he (Girardi, not Cameron) might be nuts.

Here’s a question: Is it possible that Mike Scioscia is nutsier? Some of his moves involving Mike Napoli in Game Six of the ALCS suggest that it’s possible. Regard:

SORTA NUTS: Scioscia starts Jeff Mathis over Napoli.
You know the drill here: Napoli is the superior hitter; Mathis, the superior defender. Does Mathis’s D make up for Napoli’s O? The numbers are inconclusive. My gut says no. That said, my gut does a lot of disgusting things for which I’m incredibly ashamed.

Yeah, Mathis had allofasudden become a doubles-hitting maching in the ALCS, but Napoli was more or less Saunders’ personal catcher during the regular season, having caught over two-thirds of the lefty’s starts. Here are this year’s splits (courtesy of Baseball Reference, with basic stolen base numbers):

Catcher		G	PA	SB 	CS 
Jeff Mathis    	9 	253 	5  	1
Mike Napoli   	22 	552 	13  	6

Moreover, Napoli had started both of Saunders’ postseason starts — including Game Three of the ALDS, during which Napoli went 3-for-5 with two dongers and a HBP.

GENUINELY NUTS: Scioscia pinch hits for Mathis with Maicer Izturis.
This is only Sorta Nuts until you consider the fact that, after Izturis grounded out 6-4, Napoli replaced Mathis at catcher. To consider this a reasonable move, you have to believe three things:

1. That Izturis has a better chance of producing versus Mariano Rivera than Mathis.

2. That Izturis has a better chance of producing versus Rivera than Napoli.

3. That Izturis — the only middle infielder on the bench — will very probably not be needed later on.

Given the numbers, the first of these propositions is credible. Basically anyone, including Scioscia himself, would be a good bet in Mathis’s stead. The second, on the other hand, is hard to believe. Not only is Napoli both a more significant power and on-base threat overall, he also probably stood a better chance than Izturis simply by batting from the right side. As you may very well know, One Pitch Wonder Mariano Rivera has been more effective against lefties over his career. Regard:

Split   PA	BA  	OBP  	SLG  
vs RHB 	2085 	.218 	.272 	.326 
vs LHB 	2266 	.206 	.256 	.261

As for number three, it’s not a huge deal. Still, it’s enough of a reason that, if you think Napoli is anywhere near the batter Izturis is, you should leave Izturis on the bench.

SUPER NUTS: Scioscia pinch hits for Napoli with Gary Matthews, Jr.
There’s barely even anything to say about this. Dave Cameron covered almost the same exact scenario earlier in the series, writing:

I don’t even really know what to say. Matthews is a bad hitter. Napoli is a good hitter. Add in the pinch hitting penalty (players perform below their true talent level when coming off the bench to hit), and the gap just grows to a point where it’s unfathomable to think that Scioscia really believed that Matthews was the better choice to hit in that situation.

But wait, there’s more! Remember how Dave wrote this?

As a bonus, by removing Napoli in a tie game, you were then forced to go with Jeff Mathis as the catcher if the game went to extra innings (which, of course, it did). Mathis’ career wOBA is .263. He’s got all the offensive punch of Rey Ordonez, yet because of the decision to hit for Napoli in the 8th, he’d have to finish the game behind the dish.

Well, in this case, instead of finishing the game with the punchless Jeff Mathis as catcher, the Angels (had they tied, or gone ahead) would’ve had to finish off the game with [cue drum roll] Bobby Wilson. It’s hard to say exactly how punchy Wilson is on account of he’s the owner of only 13 career plate appearances. I mean, his minor league numbers are fine (.271/.316/.398 this year at Triple-A Salt Lake, with some other, better Triple-A seasons in his past), but it’s certainly not an ideal circumstance under which to give a rookie his first taste of postseason baseball.

A sidenote: Because I care about these things, I looked around the interweb to see if maybe Scioscia hated Napoli on account of some simmering blood feud going back to the Old Country. No luck on that front, unfortunately. What I did find, however, was this (courtesy of Wikipedia, which is never wrong):

When I made Mike the No. 1 catcher, the writers came to me and said, “[Competing catcher] Steve Yeager said you made Scioscia the No. 1 catcher because he’s Italian.” I said, “That’s a lie. I made him the No. 1 catcher because I’m Italian.”
—Tommy Lasorda

Were you to comb the annals of world literature in search of little nancy boys, you’d probably be hard-pressed to find anyone nancier than the very nancy Marcel Proust. In the first part of his Swann’s Way (itself only the first of the seven volume Remembrance of Things Past), we see little Prousty: crying at length for his mommy, describing breathlessly the winding paths about his family’s summer home, and (if memory serves) sending away for any number of American Girl dolls. Nancy, indeed.

Having said that, it’s in the same text that Proust also provides us with one of the more important moments of literature. Sitting down to tea one afternoon, Proust (or the character who resembles him in almost every way) dips one of his madeleine cookies in the aforementioned beverage. Then this happens:

And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could, no, indeed, be of the same nature. Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?

The passage has become famous for a lot of reasons, probably, but most notably as an early illustration of modern psychology in literature. Much is made of Proust’s description/exploration of the “involuntary memory” — the manner in which the senses are able to prompt a strong and, yes, involuntary reaction in the brain. [For info on this and more, see Jonah Lehrer’s Proust Was a Neuroscientist.]

Well, during the first inning of Thursday night’s Angels-Yankees game, I had a bit of a madeleine cookie moment — not with Proust’s attendant “shudders,” but the same experience of involuntary memory.

I don’t know that you’d agree with me, but, watching the bottom of the first inning of last night’s Angels-Yankees game, I couldn’t help but notice how hard the Angels were hitting the ball off New York starter A.J. Burnett. Like, real hard. Like, superhero hard.

To refresh your memory, here’s what that inning looked like:

Chone Figgins walked.
Bobby Abreu doubled to center (Liner). Chone Figgins advanced to 3B.
Torii Hunter singled to center (Grounder). Chone Figgins scored. Bobby Abreu scored.
Vladimir Guerrero doubled to center (Fliner (Liner)). Torii Hunter scored.
Kendry Morales singled to left (Liner). Vladimir Guerrero scored.
Maicer Izturis flied out to right (Fliner (Fly)).
Juan Rivera grounded into a double play to third (Grounder). Kendry Morales out at second.

Obviously, I’m not talking about Figgins; he walked. Nor was Rivera’s grounder to third particularly well-struck. Ditto for Hunter’s single (although it wasn’t some sort of nancy BS, either). But the other four batters in the inning — Abreu, Guerrero, Morales, even Izturis — all appeared to hit the ball as hard as each of them is respectively able to.

Hit f/x data isn’t available yet for public consumption. Were it, I’d include it so hard right [here]. In any case, our play-by-play data bears out the Angels’ onslaught: Abreu’s double is classified as a liner; Vlad’s double as a fliner; Morales’s single, a liner; Izturis’s fly-out, a fliner. That’s four out of five consecutive batters squaring up offerings from an above-average pitcher. Not impossible, sure; but unlikely. And probably more striking as it was the first inning of an important playoff game.

And just like that, having said to myself the word “line drive,” I was immediately brought back to the following. Remember this? [Thanks to Awful Announcing for the transcript.]

Joe Morgan: Jon, I gotta ask you a trivia question. I was fishing with Matt Franco, used to play for the Mets. I was fishing with him on a boat, and Matt Franco asked me this trivia question. He said he had talked to players past and present. He asked me, Which guy hit the hardest line drives most consistently of all I’d ever seen. Hardest line drives.

Jon Miller: That’s a trivia question?

Joe: Well, it was for me and him. We were playing trivia on the fishing boat.

Jon: Where would I look up the answer to that?

Joe: Well, you should know the answer!

Jon: Give me the question one more time.

Joe: All right. Who hits the hardest line drives of any player you ever saw on a consistent basis?

Jon: Dave Winfield.

Joe: All right, keep going. That’s one. That’s “A”. “A” wasn’t right.

Jon: [Loud Laughs] “Yes it was right! I beg to differ!

Joe: I’m gonna give you, uhh … I’m gonna give … I’m gonna give you a hint. You even broadcast games for him.

Jon: [Long Pause] “I broadcast Dave Winfield’s games.

Joe: No … for the answer, I’m talking about. I’m telling you, he asked all the other players. I’m not saying—

Jon: Well, I’m saying, this is a question for which there is no correct answer.

Joe: Yeah, there’s a correct answer.

Jon: Well, what did you say? What was your answer? Did you get it right?

Joe: Yes. [pause] Al Oliver.

Jon: Oh, Al Oliver. He was—

Joe: See!

Jon: He was a very good line drive hitter.

Joe: I knew you would say that. See, I knew that you’d eventually come up with the answer.

You’ll probably remember that little dialogue between Morgan and Miller. A lot of sites picked it up. And for good reason: it’s like Ionesco-level absurd.

But wait, there’s more!

It wasn’t long after Joe Morgan’s little trivia fest that, poring through the excellent Troubadour Books in Hatfield, MA, I found and purchased some of the old Bill James Baseball Books. They’re awesome, in case you haven’t read them. But what made buying them even awesomer — and relevant to the present discussion — is James’s capsule review of Rafael Palmeiro in the Player Ratings section of The Baseball Book 1992 (p 238, for those following along at home).

According to James, Frank Thomas is tops among AL first basemen. Palmeiro is second. Here’re the first two sentences about him:

An awesome hitter, too, Al Oliver-type hitter. Hard line drives three times a game.

Bizam! Line drives! Al Oliver! Madeleine cookies!

The irony of all this, obviously, is that Bill James and Joe Morgan both consider the name Al Oliver synonymous with the words “line drive” — even though Morgan hates-slash-hasn’t-read James’s famous book Moneyball.

In his first plate appearance last night versus CC Sabathia, well-known Walkaholic Bobby Abreu did his thing: he walked on four pitches, all fastballs. His second plate appearance began similarly — two fastpieces for balls (although GameDay appears to have the latter in the upper-inner part of the strike zone).

It’s an interesting situation, this: Sabathia, facing the only lefty in the Angels righty- and switchy-stacked lineup, has thrown six straight balls. Granted, we know Abreu is an uber-patient hitter, but this is CC Sabathia he’s facing. The same CC Sabathia, that is, who walked only about seven percent of the batters he faced this season. It’s certainly possible, but indeed unlikely, that Sabathia would throw six straight balls to Abreu, let alone walk him twice.

It was at this point that Mister Avuncular himself, Tim McCarver, said something along the lines of: “Sometimes, when you face a lineup of all righties, it’s harder to face the lefty.” His justification? Because the pitcher wouldn’t be used to it. A possibility, for sure. Certainly something to consider.

But here’s the thing: why state it as fact? This is the sort of thing that a thousand nerds in a thousand mothers’ basements all over this great nation are so ready to check. I don’t know exactly how they’d do it, but it seems like you could just find all the instances in which a lefty faced a lineup of all righties but one. Then, I’m surmising, you’d find out how the lefty batters fared in those games versus what you’d expect given their normal platoon splits and the platoon splits of the pitcher. Or something like that. Point is: there’s data. It’s check-up-on-able.

Of course, one could argue that by “harder,” McCarver intended only to comment on how it might feel to a pitcher — that is, as opposed to what the actual outcomes were of such situations. Players-turned-broadcaster are useful for this exact reason. But I think such an argument would be disingenuous in this case. It’s my contention that, in the context of the situation (Abreu having walked already and now halfway to a second walk), McCarver fully intended to comment on the outcome.

Let me make one point clear here: this is not to pick on Tim McCarver, per se. I’m almost positive that Tim McCarver is an excellent grandfather and probably also does a lot of good work with his local chapter of the Rotary. Tim McCarver isn’t really the bad guy here. He’s participating in a different national pastime besides baseball, one particularly native to television. I don’t know exactly what you’d call it, but it’s a pastime that values volume and the appearance of assuredness over dialogue and curiosity. It’s this same pastime that keeps Angry Shouting People like Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly in business and upon which George Saunders comments in his book The Braindead Megaphone.

How do we rival this influence? By asking questions. Modern Philosopher Bill James has built his entire empire on a single premise: that, instead of making claims, we ask simple, almost childish questions. That’s it. Just ask the question. Instead of saying, “Immigrants are bad for the country!” you ask, “How does immigration affect our country?” Instead of saying, “Facing only one lefty can make it hard for the lefty pitcher,” you say, “I wonder if, just maybe, facing only one lefty in a lineup of all righties could make it hard for a lefty pitcher.”

You couch it. You resist the temptation to make a claim. You ask a question. And you allow yourself to be amazed by the answer.

(P.S. Abreu struck out in that plate appearance and ended up 0-for-3 versus Sabathia with 2 K and 1 BB.)

Wow. (Or as the young women of the Greater Los Angeles area might say: Wowskis.) That was a great baseball game.

One day after I wrote about the rather predictable nature of Game One, this happened:

Some facts you might like to know about the game in question:

* The average Leverage Index (aLI) was 2.07. That’s higher than the Game 163 I used last time as, like, the platonic ideal of excitement. (It occurs to me now — as it should’ve done already — that an extra inning game will almost by definition feature more high-leverage situations. So I ask myself: Are extra inning games better than nine inning ones? Not as a rule. I mean, I’ve definitely seen some dull extra inning games.)

* Alex Rodriguez recorded both the highest and lowest single WPA plays of the evening. His home run off Angels reliever Brian Fuentes in the bottom of the 11th inning was worth .429 WPA. In the very next inning, he recorded a -.165 WPA when he flew out to center off Ervin Santana with two out and the bases loaded.

* Mariano Rivera recorded the highest total WPA: a mark of .393 in 2.1 innings of excellent high-leverage work.

On Kevin Jepsen

I’ve been meaning to set aside some space for Jepsen in this Angels playoff coverage, but’ve failed to do so. Well, some of the things he did in last night’s game made it hard to ignore him any longer.

For example, you might remember that, after Jepsen’s first offering to Jeter in the eighth inning, he (i.e. Jeter) stepped back from the plate, eyes wide and smiling a bit, and said something along the lines of, “Wow.” That pitch was Jepsen’s cutter — his only one of the night, actually. But Jepsen has thrown it about 25% of the time this year and recorded a 1.48 wCT/C on it. It’s been his main complement to the four-seam fastball.

After the cutter, two such four-seamers followed. They were both balls, but both featured about 13.5 inches of upward movement, a little over four inches of horizontal movement (towards Jeter), and were thrown at 96.6 and 96.5 mph, respectively. Not bad.

The last two pitches were excellent. The first (and fourth of the PA) was a fastball very similar to the two that preceded it, except basically right over the plate. It had a little less vertical movement (12.5 inches) than the two before it, a little more tail (-5.2 inches), and came in at 98.5 mph. Jeter swung and missed.

Finally, with the count at 2-2, Jepsen threw a slider. A nasty one. And even though, like many sliders, this one registered what seems like little movement (2.1 inches of x-movement and 1.7 inches z-movement), it makes more sense to look at pitches like these in context, I think. In particular, it makes sense to look at the break of a pitch as compared to its pitcher’s fastball.

In this case, we know the break of the fastball Jepsen had just thrown (12.5 x-inches, -5.2 z-inches). If we take the absolute value of (slider x-movement minus fastball x-movement) and also the absolute value of (slider z-movement minus fastball z-movement), we get something we can call Total Movement Delta (TMD). In this case the TMD of Jepsen’s slider to Jeter as compared to the fastball that immediately preceded it was 18.2 inches — for a pitch that was recorded at 89.9 mph by GameDay. By comparison, among the pitchers who threw at least 50 IP this year and threw the slider at least 2% of the time, the highest average velocity of said pitch was 90.0 mph even, recorded by Angel Guzman. Next on the list is Brandon Lyon at 89.2 mph. So Jepsen’s was up there, is the point.

And the larger point is, of course, is that Jepsen threw a pitch that was both (a) real fast and (b) had a ton of movement. That Jeter swung and missed is hardly surprising.

If one of the concerns of this space is to consider occasionally what about baseball is exciting, or to explore — as Ken Arneson puts it — the “why we watch” question, then last night’s contest between Los Angeles of Anaheim and New York of the Bronx makes an interesting study of three things we expressly don’t look for in a baseball game.

First, consider this graph:

With the exception of a brief downturn in the fourth inning — a frame which saw the Halos’ WE% improve from 25.4% after Torii Hunter’s fly-out to all of 34.9% after an RBI single by Kendry Morales — the slope of that line is depressingly even, inching ever upward to an increasingly predictable result: a Yankees victory.

Why? Because CC Sabathia and Mariano Rivera allowed only six baserunners between them on the night. Moreover, they allowed only one extra-base hit: a double by Vladimir Guerrero in that same fourth inning. In such a case when one team (in this case, the Yankees) scores early, Win Expectancy is unlikely to change dramatically unless the other team (read: the Angels) either (a) gets guys on and/or (b) moves them over. As L.A. was doing little of either after the fourth inning, the WE% of the game was unlikely to change.

Next, consider Leverage Index (LI). The average LI (aLI) of the game was 0.75 and the peak LI (pkLI) was 1.80 — just before Hideki Matsui’s fifth inning double with runners on first and second. By comparison, Game 163 between Minnesota and Detroit — what you might call an Instant Classic — had an average LI of 1.94. In other words, we can say roughly that the average plate appearance in Game 163 was more exciting than the most exciting plate appearance in Game One of the ALCS.

Egads, indeed.

Finally, on a more anecdotal note, Hideki Matsui’s first inning “single” — that is, the very catchable pop-up that fell between between hapless Angels infielders Chone Figgins and Erick Aybar — marked a sort of moment that one doesn’t particularly like to see in a game.

In his excellent Man, Play, and Games, Roger Caillois writes that an absolutely necessary component of the successful construction and/or playing of a game, is the impression that all parties involved are absolutely trying to win. It’s for this reason, I’m sure, that we hear color commentators, sports journalists, and whatever Skip Bayless is — it’s for this reason we hear those guys praising players for their competitiveness, or, less fortunately, their “want-to.” Despite the often repetitive and hyper masculine nature of this sort of eulogy, the reason it exists points to Caillois’ observation. That neither Figgins nor Aybar really seemed determined to catch Matsui’s pop-up inevitably left a sour taste in the spectator’s mouth.