Kickass Media 2007

Can't find the dumbbutt media thread, but this.

btw, all of Prospectus is free for all thru Sunday.

http://baseballprospectus.com/

It appears Silver is chatting during game tonight...

that's bullshit dogg, i clicked on the mauer interview and it was just like FUK U PAY ME

ps. post it on here plz~

Prospectus Q&A
Joe Mauer

by David Laurila

No one questions Joe Mauer’s ability to hit. One of the best young players in the game, the 24-year-old Mauer finished the 2006 season with a .347 average, becoming the first catcher ever to win an American League batting title. Among the tallest regular backstops in baseball history at 6’5”, the Twins standout does face questions about his power numbers and whether he’ll remain a catcher deep into his career. Mauer was out of action for five weeks with a strained quadriceps muscle earlier this season, but is hitting .302/396/.455 with four home runs.

David talked to Mauer about quality at-bats, his home run production, and his future behind the plate.

David Laurila: When you look at your offensive statistics, which are the most important to you?

Joe Mauer: I’m not a big numbers guy outside of win-loss, but offensively it would probably be on-base percentage. I’m hitting in the third spot, and the middle of our order is pretty good with Cuddyer, Hunter, and Morneau behind me, so if I get on base one of them will probably drive me in. Baseball is a numbers game, and that might be the most underappreciated one.

DL: How would you describe a quality at-bat?

JM: Seeing a lot of pitches, fighting bad pitches off--basically, just waiting for a pitch you can handle. Whether you’re a power guy, or more of a slap hitter guy, if you find a pitch you’re comfortable in handling, that’s a quality at-bat. If you get on base or drive a ball up the gap, you pretty much know you had a good plate appearance. But it’s mostly about making sure you get your pitch.

DL: Are you big on charts and video, or are you more of a see-it-and-hit-it guy?

JM: I’m more of a visual learner. There are a lot of guys who rely on those things, but the only time I really look at video is when I’m struggling.

DL: What are you typically looking for with video?

JM: Mostly little things. Being a catcher, there are times I go up to hit where I’m a little tired, and I tend to lean out over the plate--I’m bending down a bit. Little things like that can throw everything off, so that’s one thing I look at. I look at my front foot to see if it’s getting down on time or not. I look to see if my hands are still.

DL: What about charts? Do you like knowing a pitcher’s tendencies?

JM: I’ll look at them a little bit. That’s another thing--it seems like when I’m going bad, I’m guessing on pitches a lot. I like to go up there with a pretty good idea of what the pitcher wants to do to me, but I try not to put all my chips on the table, either.

DL: Because they spend so much time focusing on pitch selection, are catchers more susceptible to guessing?

JM: I guess that’s possible at times, yeah. On the pitch before, if I might have been cheating on a fastball, I’ll think an off-speed pitch might be coming next because it’s how I’d be thinking behind the plate. But, like I said, that’s usually when I’m not feeling too good at the plate.

DL: If you’re hitting in the late innings with your team down a run, is the at-bat any different than if you were ahead in the game? Does the hitter or the pitcher have more of an advantage in that situation?

JM: One thing about the game is that the pitcher always has the advantage, just because he has the ball. Successful hitters still fail seven times out of ten, and those odds aren’t very good. But there are different things that go into a situation. You’d like to think that you’re going to be the same every time you go up there, but we’re human, too. I remember last year, that last day, when I was going for the batting title. My first at-bat, there were a lot of nerves and emotions running, and I probably swung at some pitches I normally wouldn’t have. It almost felt like my first major league at-bat. After I got that out of the way I kind of settled down, but over 600 at-bats, or whatever you get in a season, they’re not going to all feel the same.

DL: Would you rather face a pitcher who is confident and comes right at you, or a guy who lacks confidence and maybe tries to pitch around you a little?

JM: The guy who’s not as confident tends to pick around the plate a bit, so he’s usually more susceptible to making a bad pitch. As a hitter, you want to face a guy who’s not as sure of himself, because he’s more likely to make a mistake than a guy who feels like he’s in control.

DL: What do you see when the ball is coming out of the pitcher’s hand?

JM: Well, right now it’s not that good! Everyone goes through slumps; it doesn’t matter how good of a hitter you are. I guess that what separates the good hitters is how fast they get out of them. As for what I see, when you’re going well at the plate you see the rotation, and it almost seems like the ball is coming at you in slow motion. The hitting background and the balls themselves--how they were rubbed up--are part of it, but it really depends on how I’m feeling.

DL: How differently do you see the ball out of the pitcher’s hand when you’re catching? Are you focusing on the release-point and spin in much the same way?

JM: When you’re catching, you know what’s coming, so you can anticipate where the ball is going to go. You know that a slider from a right-hander is going to break to your right. Do I see how it’s coming out of the pitcher’s hand? I try to, because part of a catcher’s job is to help his pitchers make adjustments. If he’s flying open, or not finishing a pitch, you can see that from behind the plate. You’re seeing more than just following the ball.

DL: If a certain pitch isn’t working well for someone on a given day, how much does that impact what you’re calling?

JM: We have Johan Santana, who’s probably been the best pitcher in baseball over the last three years, but it’s pretty rare for a pitcher to have full command of all of his pitches in a game--something we call a lights-out performance. Even Johan is more likely to have two of his pitches going really well rather than all three. It’s kind of like hitting, where you’re not going to go 4-for-4 every night. You’re not going to be perfect very often.

DL: Curveballs have a downward break because of spin. How would you describe the rotation of a split-finger pitch?

JM: Well, there are some guys who have a really good split-finger pitch. I’ve faced Roger Clemens once, and his split looked just like a fastball coming in, so it was hard to read. With some splitters you can see the seams better. We don’t have anyone on our staff who throws one, but from hitting against them they kind of tumble over--they have a tumbling action. A fastball has this kind of rotation, and a split is more the other way.

DL: How about recognizing a conventional changeup, like a circle-change?

JM: When I’m seeing the ball really well, I’ll sometimes notice the pitcher turn his hand over. You know, on a fastball he’ll stay behind it and on a changeup he’ll kind of turn his hand over... With some guys it’s easier to see that, while with others it’s not.

DL: In March 2004, BP’s Joe Sheehan wrote, “If Mauer’s bat develops as his proponents expect, he’s not going to remain a catcher deep into his career.” Do you agree with that?

JM: I don’t know. I love catching, and hope to do it as long as I can, but if switching positions means that I can add years to my career, I’m all for that. I want to stay behind the plate as much as I can, though. I think I can be a great catcher for some time.

DL: From a statistical analysis standpoint, your value to the team would decrease if you moved to first base or left field and put up the same numbers. What are your thoughts on that?

JM: I think the demands of the position have something to do with it. Both physically and mentally, catching wears on you. Let’s say you take a Pudge Rodriguez and put him at first or third for his whole career--I’d bet you that his offensive numbers would go up. So I think it’s just the nature of the position. With me behind the plate, I think our team is better as a whole.

DL: When you look at your home run numbers, what do you see?

JM: Well, I think I can definitely improve upon them. As a player, I’m always trying to get better, and I think I will get better in that area. Still, I’m not losing any sleep over it.

DL: How does a hitter go about improving his power numbers?

JM: It’s mostly just looking for the right pitch and being more consistent when you get it--sitting on a pitch and putting a good swing on it. Maybe getting a little stronger. Sometimes I kid around with my teammates that I always seem to find the deepest part of the ballpark. But I think it will come.

DL: Two word question: Tony Oliva?

JM: That’s a guy who could hit. It’s great for us to have someone like Tony around; he’s at every home game, and he’s always smiling, laughing, and you can always ask him for advice, and he’ll tell you exactly what he thinks.

DL: What type of advice does he offer?

JM: He’s more hands-on in spring training, and down there I’ll ask about how he used to go about doing certain things. One piece of advice is that when you’re not going well, you should simplify things and concentrate on hitting the ball up the middle. Stuff like that. He obviously knows a lot about hitting, so he’s a great resource.

DL: It’s often said that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports. What’s second?

JM: Well, I agree with you that that’s probably the hardest. What’s second? That’s a good question. I suppose there are a lot of guys who couldn’t play in the NBA or NFL. I’d say being an NFL quarterback would be pretty tough. There are so many things, from trying to read defenses, to trying to not get your head ripped off, to finding the right guy to get the ball to. Just the speed of the game, at the top of every profession, is what’s really tough. That goes for everything from tennis, to football, to baseball.

DL: Doug Mirabelli told me that 90 percent of catchers throw a knuckleball. Do you?

JM: I used to when I pitched. It’s more than just catchers, though; I think 90 percent of all players throw a knuckleball, just messing around on the side. Everybody thinks they have one, especially pitchers. But while they think they have one, Tim Wakefield is someone who really does. That’s why he throws one every game and they don’t.

DL: If the Twins let you pitch in a blowout someday, what will you throw?

JM: Hopefully it won’t come to that, but I’d probably just throw fastballs--fastballs on the outside corner. I’d mostly be trying to get out of there quick and not hurt myself.

DL: How often would you shake off the catcher?

JM: I probably wouldn’t, to be honest. It’s a different view on the mound than it is behind the plate, and while I’d see things out there, I’d just go with what he called for. You should always trust your catcher.

David Laurila is an author of Baseball Prospectus.

i was gonna be all like "aw morbz what a nice gesture ~*hugglez*~" but i c that it was by your hand alex~! thanks dogg~~~

cankles, if it's not free you must have the wrong browser. (gabbneb hommage)

some of it's free, but the older columns still give me "u must sign up" messages. example: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6060

boy these PECOTA cards are pretty interesting

2006

The park factor in Arlington has always been one of the highest in the AL. There`s no better example of that in 2005 than Soriano, who hit .315/.355/.656 at home and .224/.265/.374 on the road. As measured by MLVr, Soriano was the fourth-best hitter in baseball at home, and the third-worst on the road-essentially changing from Alex Rodriguez to Cesar Izturis. His 2004 was similar, though not as extreme. Now that Soriano has been dealt to the Nationals (for Brad Wilkerson and more), his offense will sink to the level of his defense-seeing Soriano move to his left is like watching a wagon train go west in real time-and if the Nats` plan to move him to the outfield sticks, they`ll discover what Derek Jeter pointed out years ago, that Soriano has the vertical leap of a sumo wrestler. He`s about to become a massive disappointment.

Steve Phillips on ESPN the Radio last evening, discussing the importance of a solid core: (STANDARD PHILLIPS THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TONE) "I have the six-pack abs."

(No, couldn't find the dumbass '07 media thread.)

(I mean TMI '07 media thread.)

Mike Lupica, New York Daily News: “J.D. Drew is so overpaid it’s hard to believe the Yankees passed on him, frankly.”

and oldie but a goodie:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/6960

from newly elected Hall of famer Rick Hummel:

Willie Mays, sitting across from me, had seen Sandy Koufax coming down the aisle and asked, "If you had knocked me down and I had charged the mound, would you have fought me?" Koufax looked down at Mays, smiled and said, "As little as you were?"

btw. the writers are not really "Hall of Famers." It's an award.

ohh, I was thinking it is kind of bullshit that theres like some mandatory media guy addition every year.

In praise of baseball-reference.com

According to an interview Forman gave to the Hardball Times, the site draws 500,000 unique page views a day, and yet has attracted just 600 subscribers. Together with other means of income from advertising and individual page sponsorships, that's enough to keep Forman working on the site full-time, and yet it seems preposterously small. Surely there are more than 600 working baseball writers who rely on the site in the course of their daily work. They ought to pay up-- and so should hardcore baseball fans.

They should make journalists pay for Barry's stats.

hey alex in sf, any chance u could post the full vers of this article? baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6566

actually this would be kewl too~

baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6560

freeloader!

You really should pay the $5 a month for the subscription, but I'll post the Sheehan article here cuz it's interesting:

August 7, 2007
Prospectus Today
The NL MVP Race

by Joe Sheehan

Who is the most valuable player in the National League? If you can answer that definitively, drop me a line, because I can’t make that call right now. The race is a jumbled mess, with few players having dominant seasons on either side of the ball, and the players who are providing the most balanced production having negative markers on their ledger.

Statistically, the best player in the league is…well, even that’s not clear. Here are two top 15s, the first is Value Over Replacement Player, the second Wins Above Replacement Player. The right-most column in the player’s rank on the other list (a "-" indicates he’s outside the top 20).

VORP Other
Hanley Ramirez 63.7 14
Miguel Cabrera 60.6 2
Chase Utley 53.7 7
Jake Peavy 51.7 3
Brad Penny 49.3 4
Matt Holliday 48.6 9
Chipper Jones 48.4 -
Tim Hudson 48.1 12
Albert Pujols 47.8 1
David Wright 45.2 5
Chris Young (SD) 45.0 -
Prince Fielder 44.6 -
Edgar Renteria 44.3 13
Jose Reyes 43.8 10
Barry Bonds 42.8 -

WARP Other
Albert Pujols 8.0 9
Miguel Cabrera 7.4 2
Jake Peavy 7.3 4
Brad Penny 7.2 5
David Wright 7.0 10
Kelly Johnson 6.9 -
Chase Utley 6.8 3
Dan Uggla 6.7 -
Matt Holliday 6.6 6
Jose Reyes 6.6 14
Jimmy Rollins 6.6 18
Tim Hudson 6.3 8
Edgar Renteria 6.3 13
Hanley Ramirez 6.2 1
Aaron Rowand 6.1 19

See what I mean? Hanley Ramirez leads the circuit in VORP, but his defense rates so badly that he’s just 14th in WARP, which includes glovework. Albert Pujols (!) is the top-rated National Leaguer by WARP, but just ninth in VORP. That degree of disagreement is unusual for these metrics, and complicates the MVP question. As you move down the list you see a bit more consensus—Miguel Cabrera, Jake Peavy, and Brad Penny are consensus top-five guys—but none of the three “system” candidates seem likely to pull a lot of attention. Cabrera plays for a losing team and has gotten more negative attention this year for his weight than positive press for his bat. Starting pitchers are eligible for the MVP, but generally need an overwhelming win-loss record to be considered, and neither Peavy nor Penny is on track for that. Chase Utley would have been a terrific choice before losing August to a broken hand.

In the mainstream, Prince Fielder probably has the edge, as the home-run and RBI leader for a suprising division winner. Fielder, however, is far down the list on both metrics. As an average defensive first baseman, the standards for offense are high, and Fielder doesn’t meet them. He’s ninth in the league in EqA, and fourth in EqR. He’s not the best-hitting first baseman in his own division—that’s Pujols, who has small edges in both those categories and absolutely zero MVP chatter. Fielder is the 2006 version of Justin Morneau, who wasn’t really the best anything in the AL last year, but walked away with BBWAA hardware thanks to simplistic evaluations and two awesome teammates.

Others who fit the best-player-on-a-playoff-team model include David Wright and Jose Reyes. Reyes had some momentum early in the season, but it would be difficult for him to win the award given the presence of comparable and arguably superior players, one 40 feet to his right, and the other at his position a thousand miles to the south. Kelly Johnson and Chipper Jones are each top-ten players in one system, and off the board in another. The Diamondbacks, like the Padres and Dodgers, are led by a starting pitcher. Come to think of it, so are the Cubs.

This could and probably will all change in the next six weeks. If I had to vote now, I would probably go with Cabrera, followed by Peavy, Penny, Ramirez, and Utley. Ramirez’s defense really is that bad, and Pujols will likely pass Utley in the next few weeks. In the mainstream, I suspect that Fielder’s candidacy is tied to the Brewers holding off the Cubs; should that not occur, this could be a year similar to 1995, in which five players picked up first-place votes and Barry Larkin won the award in a highly-fractured ballot.

Utley wuz clear frontrunner to me til his break.

i wouldnt be able to live with myself if i paid cash money to read that stuff. it's like... paying for porn. or music. crazy!!!!!!

thank u tho :]]]]

http://ladiesdotdotdot.wordpress.com/2007/08/08/hump-day-hottie-pitcher-stares/

# Jess Says:
August 8th, 2007 at 10:23 am

Papyboo has the best, Children of the Corn, stare-down I’ve seen in ages.
Love him!

good profile on Wilson gloves:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/070815&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab4pos2

Has "Pitch f/x" been discussed here? (The King Felix story on page 2 is a corker.)

We live in the golden age of baseball statistics. The tubes of the Internet are nearly clogged with stats-based analysis. Dozens of sites function as a sort of ad hoc peer-review system that churns out answers to what were previously baseball's imponderables....

This season, Major League Baseball rolled out a new feature, "Pitch f/x," that's like the stathead equivalent of a particle accelerator-a technical marvel that might just yield answers to the fundamental questions of the baseball universe.

http://www.slate.com/id/2172223

More on this technology from Alan Nathan's Physics of Baseball site:

http://webusers.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/pitchtracker.html

Hah, that scientist figured out (PDF) what the world looks like through Varitek's eyes:

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/6919/varitekeu5.png

Christina Kahrl on how long the Angels stuck with Shea Hillenbrand as DH this year:

To paraphrase Seinfeld, finding a DH who's above replacement level is about as difficult as putting on pants. My question to Bill Stoneman is, "Who puts on your pants?"

Shit, misattributed by me ... Jay Jaffe wrote that.

From my Google Reader:

http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/562/sheehanex6.png

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/6919/varitekeu5.png

the one on the far left is pointing at a butt

RJ - Dallas: I think what Kevin in Wash was trying to ask, was that Jeter and Ortiz ARE clutch hitters, no matter what a certain faction of baseball observers believe. And then I think he was asking for you to comment

Rob Neyer: (12:41 PM ET ) Oh, okay. Here's a comment: Jeter's stats are worse against the Red Sox than any other team. Go figure.

possibly true for his career but this season cap'n is hitting .388 against the bosox with 6 HR and 14 RBI. i hate him.

lol at the Soser prediction in the first post. I guess you can't kick all the asses all the time.

Projecting how a baseball player will perform is no magic science.

The Patrin on BP piece on the "best player in baseball" is really interesting.

lol, Joe Sheehan:

Think about 2004 for a second. I saw, read or heard any number of people, over the last couple of days, talk about the “psychological damage” that would result if the Red Sox didn’t win the division. There may have been one guy who looked like Frieda from “Peanuts” involved.

wow, a Newsday invocation of Pythag without an explanation for the uninitiated:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spken025399062oct02,0,5175117.column?coll=ny-mets-print

Consider that the Mets' Pythagorean record was 86-76, three games worse than the Braves'. So the Mets, widely and inaccurately viewed as the most talented team in the NL, actually overachieved by two games. Point to Willie.

Great Regular Season? Great, but So What?
By JOE SHEEHAN

The numbers make you scratch your head. Since Major League Baseball went to its current postseason format in 1995, including the recent division series, the teams with the better regular-season record are 41-43 in postseason series. (Four series featured teams tied or separated by half a game.)

The teams with the best record during the regular season have won one World Series in the four-division era, and the teams with the best league record advanced to the Series 37.5 percent of the time. Since 2002, 7 of the 10 World Series teams started October as the No. 3 or No. 4 team in their league’s playoff structure.

There are good reasons for this phenomenon. The postseason, with more downtime than the regular season and no need to rest players for the long haul, is less dependent on depth and less demanding of thin teams than the 162-game grind.

Although a team’s regular-season record is static, the team itself is dynamic. Looking at records alone, sometimes a team that has improved its personnel during the season can be underrated, as can one that has sustained injuries after securing its playoff spot.

Billy Beane assembled Oakland teams that reached the postseason in four consecutive years, 2000 through 2003, and were eliminated each time in the division series. He remains philosophical.

“I’ve always thought that the beauty of baseball is that 98 percent of the teams that get there deserve to go,” Beane said. “The difficult thing is that then the tournament starts, and particularly with the best-of-five format, random events can determine who goes on to the next round.”

A more concrete problem is that postseason series, best-of-five or best-of-seven sprints, are poor tools for separating the evenly matched teams that play them.

The gaps between even the best and the worst playoff teams are small when reduced to a week’s worth of games.

Last year, the Mets (97-65) met the Cardinals (83-78) in the National League Championship Series. That 14-victory gap made it seem as if the Mets should be a big favorite. In fact, that difference amounted to one victory every two weeks or so during the season. That is inconsequential over the course of a postseason series. The Cardinals went on to win the pennant and the World Series.

If a 14-victory advantage can be negated in a playoff series, how does one make meaningful distinctions when four contenders finish with 94 to 96 victories, as in the American League this year?

This is a crucial question for the Yankees. They were 12-1 in postseason series from 1996 to 2000 on their way to four World Series championships; they have since gone 5-7, with two World Series appearances and no titles. The Yankees have been eliminated in the first round the last three seasons.

When looking at the big picture, though, the Yankees’ recent futility does not stand out. What is notable and unusual is their four championships in five years. The correlation between regular-season quality and postseason success is weak, and the Yankees’ achievements from 1996 to 2000 are a statistical anomaly.

Some Yankees fans say that the championship teams had certain qualities that subsequent teams have lacked. Those dominant Yankees teams featured power pitching, good defense and a great closer — factors that correlate well with postseason success, according to a study by Baseball Prospectus — and managed to be on the good side of the random events to which Beane referred.

The important point is that the Yankees from 1996 through 2000, and not the more recent editions, are the odd case. It’s not unusual for a good baseball team to lose frequently in the postseason, as the Athletics and the Atlanta Braves have shown.

Holding the current Yankees to the standards of a statistical anomaly, and looking for scapegoats when they show themselves to be as vulnerable to short-season baseball as any other team, is a mistake. The regular season, not the postseason, remains the best test of a team’s quality.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Assorted year-end & hot stove stuff from Jay Jaffe, linked mostly bcz he calls Ned Colletti "Stupid Flanders":

http://futilityinfielder.com/blog/2007/11/getting-pade-and-other-notes.shtml

Here's a pretty cool article from the Houston Press about the Rockets' new General Manager and Bill James acolyte Daryl Morey:

http://www.houstonpress.com/2007-11-01/news/rocket-science/

HOOPS?!?

(u know there's a Basketball Prospectus now)