Jayhawk Bill

Did you bother to read what I posted regarding Park Factors for McAfee and Fenway before posting? Edit: Here are the 2007 stats for the pitchers you mentioned, with the Boston pitchers moved to Oakland and Blanton moved to Boston, assuming a 50-50 mix of home and away games and using the 2007 ESPN Park Factors for runs: [table]Name | 2007 Home | 2007 Road | 2007 Home Reversed | 2007 Reversed Schilling | 4.06 | 3.65 | 2.59 | 3.12 Matsuzaka | 4.86 | 4.02 | 2.85 | 3.44 Wakefield | 5.27 | 4.26 | 3.02 | 3.64 Lester | 4.30 | 4.72 | 3.35 | 4.03 Blanton | 2.69 | 5.11 | 3.79 | 4.45[/table] Home Reversed is the pitcher's home ERA converted to the other ballpark by ratio of Park Factors. Reversed is the pitchers' overall ERAs if their home ballparks were reversed. Blanton is worst in that metric; Blanton is worst at each of these except Home ERA without any Park Factor conversion. The only reason Blanton looks good is his home ballpark.

Pardon my asking, but you seem to be the White Sox local rep: What are they going to do if anybody is injured? My perception is that Chicago has traded away its depth for a starting lineup (nine hitters, five starters and a closer) that can come close to matching Detroit's and Cleveland's. It's the only way that they could contend, but I think that they're really gambling that there'll be no big injuries.

No problem with either your progressive local standards regarding recreational drug use or your speculation regarding Crisp and Blanton...even if the two might go together. Oakland is trading away some good players, but they're demanding quite a bounty. Oakland likes Crisp, per Gammons--maybe because they're a team that uses sophisticated metrics, and they realize that 80% of his value is defense--but for a 200+ innings per year starting pitcher with three arb years remaining, they'd want a better package--maybe Lowrie and Masterson as well, to cite two good prospects known to be on the trading block. OK, I'm with you...it's just that Boston has six starting pitchers I regard as better than Blanton. For most teams, Blanton is a durable #3-5 starter (I'd even say usually a #3 guy), and I agree that such players don't come cheap.

Nobody posted "Blanton for Crisp." Can we all have some of the s*** YOU'RE smokin? The discussion was Crisp plus prospects for Blanton. I took the moment to question whether or not this had ever been cited as a possibility in the media in my previous post...I don't think that there's any published reference to any offer on the table. Still, if "prospects" was the price for Swisher or Haren, "Crisp plus prospects" is a reasonable price for Blanton.

Thoughts: 1) If one can never have too much pitching, why don't we trade away Manny and Papi for pitching, too? See, I'll agree that a team needs SIX solid starting pitchers and two VERY good relief pitchers, along with four other MLB-average relievers/spot starters. But Boston already has Beckett Buchholz Lester Matsuzaka Schilling Wakefield Delcarmen Papelbon Hansen Lopez Okajima Snyder Tavarez Timlin plus six other pitchers on the 40-man each suitable for particular roles if needed. A great pitcher could make this even better, but another league-average starting pitcher just takes opportunities away from Wakefield, Lester and Buchholz. Boston also needs to be covered, with a good backup, at every position. There's already grounds for concern at catcher. If Crisp were traded, Brandon Moss (or Jonathan Van Every) would be the backup CF, and I'm not sure that either one of them--or JD Drew--can really play CF at an MLB level. That's why I'm reluctant to see Crisp traded away unless it's for a player that significantly helps the team. I'm not sure that Blanton is that good a pitcher. 2) Other teams' players road splits are important when considering trades because they're possibly leaving their old home ballpark and coming to Fenway. That's why a year ago we were checking Todd Helton's road stats so carefully. Oakland had a one-year Park Factor of 89% and a three-year Park Factor of 93%, so it strongly helped pitchers to do well. (Source BR, which excludes interleague play.) ESPN (which includes interleague stats) offers more detail for 2007: [table]Stat | Runs | HR | H | 2B | 3B | BB Fenway | 1.177 | 0.876 | 1.139 | 1.353 | 0.964 | 0.952 McAfee | 0.833 | 0.786 | 0.865 | 0.786 | 1.259 | 1.055 Ratio | 141.3% | 111.5% | 131.7% | 172.1% | 76.6% | 90.2%[/table] A pitcher coming from Oakland to Boston could be expected to allow far more runs in his home games--Fenway is a much better hitter's park than McAfee, as the ratios show. Blanton has a career 3.55 home ERA and 4.66 road ERA. If we multiply his home ERA by the 141.3% ratio shown above, suddenly he's got a 5.02 home ERA and a 4.66 road ERA and he's right in there with Julian Tavarez for spot starter, worse than all six of Boston's current starting pitchers. 3) A pitcher's home run totals rise and fall with two things: a) Fly balls allowed. Pitchers who avoid outfield fly balls avoid home runs, and that's a skill that can be used in forecasting pitchers' future performances. The percent of outfield fly balls that become home runs. There's little correlation between that percentage from one year to the next, excepting, maybe, home ballpark factors. An average MLB pitcher allows about 11% of his fly balls to become home runs. Blanton was barely above that in 2005 and well below that in 2006-7: [table]Year | HR/FB% 2005 | 11.2% 2006 | 7.6% 2007 | 7.8%[/table] As a rule, avoiding home runs is good, but pitchers with low HR/FB% are due for rebound to MLB norms. 4) Somebody mentioned an offer...I'd thought that speculation regarding Blanton's availability had led to further speculation that Blanton could be had for Crisp + prospects. :dunno: I don't think that there's a published rumor; I don't think that this would help the Red Sox if there were such an offer. Blanton WOULD help a whole bunch of other MLB teams, though. Just because Boston had the best pitching in the AL last year doesn't mean that every other team was so lucky, and Blanton is a workhorse who can top 200 IP. He's got value--I just don't think that he'd help Boston, especially if it cost Crisp plus prospects.

Career ERA vs. Yankees: 9.39 Career ERA, road: 4.66 HR/FB, 2007: 7.8% (expect HR to increase 50% from 2006-2007 levels) I'd thought better of Blanton 'til I started checking.

I think that Crisp will be unavailable after he goes to Minnesota in the Santana trade.

Here's what Kevin Goldstein of BP had to say about the three White Sox prospects two months ago: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6912 The A's got the White Sox' first, second and eighth-best prospects, with the best-known being the eighth-best, for four guaranteed years of Swisher plus an option year. Swisher's contract: http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2004/12/oakland-athletics.html Look, Swisher is a valuable guy at a very reasonable salary, but he's already a LF-1B who gets put into CF and RF at the cost of several defensive runs allowed. He's really a first baseman, and I understand that the White Sox have a pretty good one. That outfield logjam is for real, and it'll probably lead to Swisher trying his best in CF with mixed results. If the Chicago White Sox don't reach the ALDS in 2008, I say that they lose the trade if any of the three prospects pan out. YMMV. Other thoughts: 1) With Chicago in a "Go for it now" mode, Detroit and Cleveland looking very strong, and KC refusing to roll over and give up, the Twins should (and will) trade away Santana. 2008 isn't going to be their year. 2) Oakland is going to look good in 2009-2010. They've really restocked their system with the Haren trade and this trade. 3) I'd like to congratulate the California Angels for winning the AL West in 2008.

Thanks for the clarification and explanation. My understanding is that there are two factors involved once one gets past the effects of food in one's stomach and body weight that influence what the BAC is. One is acquired tolerance; the other, more important, is genetic, dealing with baseline tolerance. There are two different genetic types, I've read, one of which has a baseline tolerance three times greater than the other. A conscious and fuctioning BAC anywhere over 0.30, I suspect, involves a person who has genetic tolerance and some acquired tolerance as well. I know someone who once consumed roughly two fifths of tequila in one afternoon, evening and early morning (about sixteen hours), so I've seen one similar feat, I guess. Still, it just seems extraordinary to see BAC over 0.30...I've seen lots of BAC levels reported through the decades of my career, and very few went far above 0.30. A good first step would be untying Federal Highway funds from any and all strings attached under the very sound perspective that states should be restricted as little as possible. Every state has had the opportunity to see the benefits of a 0.08 BAC--maybe it's time for each state to continue maintaining that standard or to come up with even better ways of maintaining the public safety and the common good. :dunno:

Peter Gammons on the possible Santana deal: http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2008/01/03/peter_gammons_red_sox_chat_transcript/ Gammons is out of his gourd predicting that Santana will probably last another ten years. He's good enough that he might, but pitchers still in MLB at age 38 are very rare...even Cy Young winners like Koufax and Hunter (and McLain and Jones) were gone by their late 30's. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and there's roughly a 15% chance each year that Santana will be washed up. But FWIW, even with his personal assumption that Santana will last ten more years, Gammons isn't sure that he's worth so much young talent. There he and I agree.

Nah. The small samples versus the Guardians are meaningless. That I'll buy. The Yankees were, IMO, the second-best team in MLB last year, and they'll be strong competitors again in 2008.

Leyritz played for the Red Sox, too. *** Taliesin, I'm glad that we could find common ground on an issue. Thanks for the comments.

Postseason records, 2007: Yankees vs. Guardians: .250 Red Sox vs. Guardians: .571 If you're pushing for coin-flip parity, try looking back to how close both teams were over 162 games in the same division. Citing post-season records vs. the Guardians isn't your best case.

Good point. I previously posted in this thread that I couldn't understand why a man as affluent as Leyritz couldn't have called a taxi after drinking vodka tonics all night. I stand by that. At the same time, our society has gone overboard, IMO, in its pursuit of drunk drivers. The original standard of 0.10 BAC was set back before random drunk driving check points to ensure that drunk drivers were convicted. Police could tell that drivers were intoxicated at BACs around 0.12 to 0.16, so a legal limit of 0.10 ensured that all impaired drivers were convicted of DUI once test results were in. Fewer drunks now drive. DUI arrests have stayed roughly constant thanks to three changes: 1) DUI arrests weren't pursued for drivers trying to reach home safely a couple of decades back. Now any apparently impaired drivers are pulled over, even if they're obeying traffic laws, and all legally drunk drivers are prosecuted; 2) Random checkpoints are used to collect scads of drunk drivers, often from a particular demographic group such as college students. (My favorite example of this was in Lawrence, KS, where the local newspaper was read only by long-term residents, while college students read the student newspaper and the Kansas City Star. The police advertised the locations and times of upcoming random checkpoints in the local newspaper, maximizing the ratio of out-of-towners and college students arrested in contrast to local residents and taxpayers.) 3) The legal limit has been reduced to 0.08 in all US municipalities. Is a driver at a 0.08 BAC less capable than one at 0.00? Probably; usually. Is a driver at 0.08 BAC too impaired to drive? I don't know; I do believe that most drivers over age 70 are more impaired as drivers than young adults at 0.08 (or 0.12) BAC are. I know that attentive drivers at 0.08 BAC are probably safer than sober drivers engaged in cell phone calls or texting. I also know that angry or rowdy drivers emerging from bars after last call with BACs in the 0.20 range are killers. Japan has almost eliminated drunk driving. The laws are Draconian; the BAC limits are excruciatingly low (0.015%); the driver, the passengers and the owner of the vehicle are all guilty. They still face a serious highway safety problem: aged drivers. A majority of fatal accidents are the result of older drivers' actions. Japan could restrict seniors' rights to drive, but it's not politically accepted...just as it wouldn't be here. That leads to different standards of justice. Jim Leyritz killed a mother of two driving after drinking, driving on a license suspended in New York for failure to answer a court summons and soon to be suspended in Florida as well, awaiting administrative procedure. I've yet to see results of Leyritz's blood test, but the results of the field sobriety test suggest gross impairment of judgment, coordination, or both. The results of the Medical Examiner's testing on Ms. Veitch are unambiguous: she is dead. IMO Leyritz should do very significant prison time for his actions. The standard, though, should be degree of impairment and degree of injury caused. Drivers unable to perform for whatever reason should be held criminally responsible, and witch hunts for drivers performing well but slightly over an arbitrary BAC should be replaced with harsh penalties for unsafe driving, worsened for unsafe driving under the influence of any legal or illegal drug that impairs performance. *** That's my brief way of saying that I think Mr. Crunchy is right.

Torre had certainly declined, although I personally believe that Torre peaked in 2004-2005, long after the Yankees had started to decline as a team. I still consider the 2007 Joe Torre better than many MLB managers, including Terry Francona. We concur that Girardi looks promising for the 2008 Yankees. I personally hope that his big mouth gets him into trouble and that he gets canned before the Yankees FO realizes how good he is.

Yeah, at least in 2007 he was. Pedroia played his zone well, but he was bad at ranging beyond it. Some stats: [table]Stat | Cano | Pedroia FRAR | 50 | 21 FRAA | 26 | 2 RZR | .833 | .824 OOZ | 53 | 34 DPS | 60 | 36 DPT | 78 | 44[/table] Cano played only 23% more innings at second base. He had 56% more out-of-zone plays made, 67% more double plays started, and 77% more double plays turned. Cano and Pedroia were almost the same at fielding balls within their assigned zone, but Cano was better in every other respect. That said, two points in Pedroia's defense: 1) I don't have game-by-game breakdowns and monthly splits on fielding stats, but Pedroia got off to a horrible start defensively, just as he did at the plate. I bet he'll look much better in 2008. 2) Cano benefitted both from Chien-Ming Wang's propensity for inducing ground balls and Yankees groundskeepers propensity for soaking the infield at Yankee Stadium. There's a Park Factor benefitting Cano that I can't easily isolate. Cool. Joe Torre was and is among the best, too, so it may not be immediately evident, but I'm very confident that Girardi will be recognized, with hindsight, as one of the best, too. Passing thought: the Marlins went from fifth-best to fifteenth-best in the NL in pitching after Girardi left. If the Yankees young starters flourish as much under Girardi as the Marlins' young starters did, it'll be evident by the beginning of summer that something very special is going on in the Bronx. Except for Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez, Edgar Renteria, Alan Embree, Cla Meredith, Craig Hansen, Coco Crisp, Wily Mo Pena, Julio Lugo, JD Drew...Eric Gagne...Matt Clement... Lots of players have declined upon first playing for Terry Francona, improved upon their leaving, or both. The success of the team overall tends to make us forget that, but lots of players have failed to thrive under Terry Francona.

I strongly disagree. Terry Francona was given, far and away, the best team in MLB in 2004 and he almost screwed it up. In 2005 and 2006 he was unable to manage his team through injury challenges. In 2007 he managed four players to probably the worst years of their careers (JD Drew, Julio Lugo, Wily Mo Pena and Manny Ramirez--one could toss in Doug Mirabelli for good measure), but his pitching saved him. He again had the best team in baseball, and he won another World Series with it. Francona's good work with his 2007 bullpen was his first good year with any MLB bullpen. One must consider the positive impact of John Farrell: everything suddenly changed when he arrived. Yes, hypothetically Tito might not have listened, but notably the FO had canned his pitching coach after 2006 and left Tito without a 2008 contract until after the World Series win. Terry Francona's game-level decisions are Gawd-awful. He loves career splits batter vs. pitcher. He ignores current season and recent performance trends. That causes him to pick the wrong players for his starting lineup. Furthermore, he gets too few runs from his talent and too few wins from his runs. There's a little-known BP stat that measures exactly that, D3: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/standings.php Terry Francona's Red Sox won 7.1 fewer games in 2007 than they should have, given their performance on the ballfield. Francona does stick up for all of his players not named Jay Payton, and after troubles in 2004-2006 the team has learned to respect that. Firing Terry Francona would be unthinkable: he did win the World Series, and the players like him. He's not the best, but he's good enough that he can't be fired. But Joe Girardi has won Manager of the Year in 100% of his MLB seasons as manager. He kept his team in contention into September despite having just two players earning over a million dollars and just four more earning more than $25,000 above league minimum. Girardi IS a great manager; Francona is just a manager who has been blessed with great teams.

Glad to help, RB...we're in this together.

Officially? No. Juan Gonzalez was allegedly introduced to steroids along with Rafael Palmeiro and Ivan Rodriguez by Jose Canseco when he moved to Texas. Their names were all mentioned in Juiced. All three had permanent improvements in power hitting from that point onwards. The more that comes out regarding steroid use, the more Jose Canseco appears to have been telling the whole truth...however, his words in Juiced were not testimony under oath.

Concur, ksushi. Good call.

Josh Kalk's PITCHf/x data has Schilling at 89.8mph for a mean fastball velocity. I'm intrigued, though, that you trust Schilling's perception over any external metric. Lester was hitting 94.1 in the World Series per PITCHf/x raw data. Kalk's classification algorithm groups pitches by horizontal and vertical movement. Those "92mph changeups" that look mixed into the fastballs by velocity and vertical break had a different horizontal break than the fastballs. Hilarious? See, that's a subjective perception. One could criticize the clustering algorithm for clustering pitches over a whole season, not start-by-start--Eric Van has already raised that point--but Lester threw a few 90+mph pitches that moved as if they weren't fastballs. The chart reflects that. But I don't perceive hilarity in diligently tracking Lester's pitches by velocity and acceleration due to spin...YMMV. :dunno: