Say it loud and say it proud: I'm a Blogger.

Hello, my name is Greg, and I’m a sports blogger. My nom de internet is The Nachoman, but I don’t hide my identity as the mild-mannered physics teacher who gained his superpowers began writing a blog in 2005.[1] In the slang of sports bloggers, by revealing my identity to the world at large I have “come out of the basement.” Fortunately, I work in a community that is wholly supportive of my extracurricular writing; my school even hosted the blog for its first three years. Others are not so lucky. Seriously – folks have been fired from their jobs in mainstream media when they have been discovered as bloggers.

By reading this fabulous work of literature, you join the community of blog readers. Maybe you are aware that you are a part of a quiet but massive revolution in the making. It seems that I cannot open a browser window without finding another member of the “traditional” media[2] blasting bloggers, painting them with a uniformly negative brush. Bob Costas, Buzz Bissinger, Wilbon and Kornheiser, Joe Morgan, and more, all have expressed firm anti-blog sentiment. Yet, newspapers and television shows seem to steadily be losing fans and advertising dollars… to sports blogs.

This week, interspersed with the usual baseball references and witticisms, the Nachoman provides some rebuttals to blog critics. This isn’t to say that all blogs are wonderfully written, the heirs apparent to the Grantland Rice Chair of Sports Literature. Think of how many sports blogs are out there… many, maybe even MOST of them, deserve the criticism sent their way. I don’t read those.

My two major themes today are (1) the best blogs are usually of HIGHER quality than the sports coverage available through other sources, and (2) despite the fact that many blogs deserve to be criticized, the legacy media had better get their house in order before they throw stones from a glass porch. Or something like that.

Read on, because I promise not to mix any more metaphors.


The John Morrell Hot Dog Play of the Game
Monday night, Cubs-Reds… Ken Griffey leaped above the Great American Ballpark fence to rob Alfonso Soriano of a home run.

Turnabout is fair play, though – later in the game, Cubs center fielder Felix Pie leaped above the fence to rob Mr. Griffey of his own homer.


Prurient story of the week
Fir seal has relations with a king penguin

It’s actually a rather interesting event, from a zoological perspective. If one thinks that the mating habits of other species are worth studying – and millions of dollars worth of tax-funded NSF grants suggest that you DO think so – then deviant sexual behavior by a pinniped certainly bears mention.

Say the scientists who videotaped the incident: “This is thought to be the first recorded example of a mammal trying to [mate] with a member of another class of vertebrate, such as a bird, fish, reptile, or amphibian.”

These scientists have obviously never hung around an ape fraternity house.


More Cubs-Reds
Cubs fan Deep Dish watched the middle innings Monday with the Nachoman, during which things looked bad for the Cubs. I was alone by the ninth inning, when Francisco Cordero entered with a 2-run lead and a 92% probability of winning the game. Two leadoff singles made the game rather exciting, or nerve-rattling, depending on one’s point of view. The inning turned when Mike Fontenot attempted to score on a wild pitch with one out, and Mr. Cordero tagged him out.

Deep Dish emailed me after the game, referring to Fontenot’s failed attempt to score:
“I followed the ninth on Gameday -- what a fabulous way to blow an opportunity.”

“Exactly,” replied the Nachoman. “Why in the living heck would Cordero walk three guys, including the man in front of Derek Lee?”


So what do legacy journalists have that bloggers do not? Information?
Back in the day,

[3] sports news was generally acquired through three types of platforms. Local newspapers provided expansive coverage of local teams, by sending beat writers to the games and to interview the involved parties. National coverage was limited to standings, box scores and 2-sentence summaries. Maybe once a week the paper would provide statistics and commentary on out-of-town teams, but only if the local paper was good.

Local television stations would give 2 minutes or so of nightly highlights, mainly focusing on local teams unless a pitch hit a bird or something. Some stations provided a weekly 30 minute show giving some limited national highlights; some stations would air syndicated national shows like “This Week In Baseball;” otherwise, the only televised national sports information came from limited pre- and post- game shows for network telecasts.

Periodicals, such as Sports Illustrated or The Sporting News were really the sole reliable source for sportswriting on a national scale. They were sure to cover a pennant race, or an important regular season football game, or Auburn-Alabama (even if you didn't live in Alabama). In cities without NBA or NHL teams, periodicals were a fan's only link to goings-on in these leagues.

People often ask the Nachoman why I don’t enjoy the American League. Sure, part of my aversion is uppity anti-DH philosophical baloney. But the real reason is, I didn’t grow up with the American League. I have little connection with the history of those franchises. Cincinnati was an NL town, only NL teams came to the city, pretty much only NL teams were broadcast on the radio and on television. I can’t name more than a few notable players from AL teams pre-2001 (when I bought the satellite baseball package and began playing interleague fantasy baseball). In my baseball life, the AL might as well not have existed, unless NBC’s game of the week showed an AL broadcast.

Even out of town NL scores weren’t always readily available. In the late 1980s Marge Schott famously stopped showing scores on the Riverfront Stadium scoreboard – “fans come to see the Reds, not these other teams,” she commented. There was no “bottom line” ticker shouting constantly across the TV screen. Score updates might happen twice per game. Even the newspapers didn’t have all the scores the next morning, because west coast games often ended too late for the paper’s deadline.

Now, I can watch any game, any time, pretty much any where. Scores are available at a mouse click; in fact, I can choose from a number of competing sites as to which provides me with the information in my preferred format. I can find details of games that I might have missed even if I had attended. By paying mlb.com (or nfl.com, or various college websites), I can even see video highlights of whatever I want.

My readers are, of course, aware of the progress of technology. So are sportswriters in the legacy media. So why do I mention this? Well, it’s sometimes easy to lose perspective when in heated arguments. No logical person can possibly suggest that the internet has done anything but improve access to sports news and information. More to the point, it is more possible more than ever before for anyone, even Joe Schmo, to acquire a thorough knowledge of the daily happenings in a sports league. All it takes is a computer and the ability to read.

I would go as far as to suggest that a diligent, dedicated, and intelligent Mr. Schmo now can have far BETTER knowledge of the intricacies of a league than even the best professional journalists from two decades ago. Baseball-reference.com and mlb.com by themselves provide more information to me than a whole staff of production assistants could provide to professionals back in the day.


More queer baserunning, this time of the successful variety
Something was in the air on Monday night… about an hour after Cubs-Reds was decided on a failed attempt to advance home, the Cardinals and Rockies were tied in the top of the ninth with King Albert on second base.

Before I describe the relevant play, I must note that King Albert grew up in the Dominican Republic, and presumably he learned to play baseball there. On Hispañola, kids learn the game the Nachoman way – not much coaching, but lots and lots of playground-style, anarchic, but competitive games. Needless to say, Alberto Rex and his buddies developed baseball instincts.

Now back to the present day, or at least Monday. The Cards bullpen had been depleted the previous day, to the extent that only one reliever remained for possible extra innings. Rick Ankiel grounded slowly to second base, with A.R. sprinting for third on contact. Rookie second baseman Jonathan Herrera fielded the ball with his head down, wanting to ensure the out at first. As he cocked his arm to throw, he heard shouting: “four!”[4] Too late, Mr. Herrera finished his throw to first, retiring Mr. Ankiel while Albert Pujols sprinted home. Yes, the King had noticed Mr. Herrera’s deliberate fielding at second, and he charged for the plate, scoring the eventual winning run just in front of the tag.


So what else do legacy journalists have that bloggers do not? Access to players?
Well, yes. There’s no doubt that a credentialed reporter from a newspaper or television station is far more likely to obtain a locker room pass than Mr. Schmo.[5]

I ask, though… how important is “access?”

If a legacy journalist wants to do an in-depth feature on a team or a noted athlete, interviews and clubhouse access can be arranged more easily for him or her than for a blogger. “ESPN wants to talk to you for a feature article” carries far more weight with an athlete than “Joe Schmo of Schmo.com wants to do a story about you.” Furthermore, beat reporters, legacy journalists all, are regularly in the clubhouse and on road trips. They get to know the personalities associated with professional sports far more than a pimple-faced twentysomething living in his mother’s basement[6] possibly could.

Okay, but bloggers usually don’t file “feature articles.” Generally, a blog’s bread and butter is stories gained from openly available information sources, or from the blogger’s personal contacts. And, a good number of bloggers have become well-known enough to garner personal audience with professional athletes: Bill Simmons, TheBigLead, Deadspin, and others have done feature pieces with major figures in the sports world; big-time legacy journalists have deigned to interview these and other big-time bloggers.

And, how often does personal, individual access to players meaningfully improve a journalist’s sportswriting? I’ve heard the classic story many times about many different players: Player has a bad game, or has to bug out right after a game’s end. So, he hangs a sign on his locker, to the effect of “Dear media member, here is a list of quotations from me. Please take what you need.” Then he lists about five clichés which apply to that day’s game. If you’ve ever listened to postgame press conferences – those involving Dennis Green or Jim Mora excepted – the interviewee tends to spew a string of clichés, and the media horde dutifully writes them down, often changing the exact wording to suit their needs. Quotations from players are often published online very shortly after their utterance. So, tell me again… why is it so important for a writer to be in the clubhouse to hear these quotations personally? [7],[8]


Saves don’t mean Jack
Astros-Phillies April 15… Jose Valverde (and his catcher) cost the Astros 95% of a win. Mr. Valverde entered with a 3-0 lead, meaning his team should win 95% of the time. And then…

Homer.
Hit Batsman.
Strikeout.
Homer to tie the game.
Strikeout but the ball got by the catcher, runner to first base.
Double to score the (unearned) run and win the game.

I’ve been pretty hard on closers lately. Why? Because I think they get too much credit. And even that’s not a completely true statement… I think the WRONG CLOSERS get too much credit.

As always, I view baseball from the perspective of the probability of a team winning a game. A closer who enters in the ninth with a 3-run lead already has a 95% or so chance of winning; his successful outing only adds about a few percent to his team’s win probability. Working the ninth inning with only a 1-run lead can add more like 28% to a team’s win probability, but earns a save just like the 5% outing did.

Problem is, salary arbitration awards and, way, way too often, free-agent contract offers are heavily based on the silly “save” statistic. It's long been my thesis -- one of the Nachoman's 95 Baseball Theses that someday in a publicity stunt will be nailed to commissioner Bud Selig's door -- that "closers" are highly overrated merely because of the save. Just for fun, on Tuesday I compiled a list of all of the pitchers in baseball with at least 4 saves. I added up all of the win probability that these pitchers had added for their teams. When I say that Jonathan Papelbon has 168% of win probability added (WPA), this means that his pitching by itself has added 1.68 wins to his team’s record. On the other side, Jason Isringhausen BY HIMSELF has in net cost his team exactly one victory due to his -100% WPA.[9]

I don't know enough about statistics to run a true "correlation function", but I can see that saves don't seem to correlate much with a pitcher’s value. Look for yourself:

So what else do legacy journalists have that bloggers do not? An editor and a distinguished publication or TV network to which he or she is answerable?
This point in particular is made religiously by legacy journalists in their blog criticism, and is accepted uncritically: Since bloggers aren’t employed by anyone, they can write whatever they want, they aren’t checked, and they can’t be fired.

Deep Dish makes the first counterargument, grounded in his teaching of constitutional law: often the best independent voice is that which is unbeholden. Why are Supreme Court justices appointed for life? Because they can do what they think is right without answering to an employer or to an ignorant electorate.

We expect that legacy journalists to uphold principals of neutrality and objectivity. But conflicts of interest are ubiquitous in the world of sports media… perhaps an employer also has an ownership stake in a team (see Cubs, Chicago, or Braves, Atlanta, or .com, mlb). Even if a media outlet is free from direct entanglements with the team, its sponsors certainly are not. For example, Viagra might have just poured half of its advertising budget into an NFL promotion; how likely are they to buy ad space in a magazine that speaks negatively, if accurately, about the NFL’s many and varied scofflaws?

Furthermore, what does “accountability” really mean to a legacy journalist? It means an editor who demands accuracy before publication; and it means that the journalist holds a job only while he or she meets the high ethical standards of the profession.

Ha! Sorry, I told a bit of a whopper there. Hee. Hee. Accountability means that a journalist holds a job as long as said journalist helps to sell subscriptions and/or advertising, ethical standards be darned. I asked El Molé to list, off the top of his head, notable journalists who have lied, embellished, or otherwise peed in the fountain of truth:

Jayson Blair of the NYTimes (made up stories wholesale), Janet Cooke of the Washington Post (gave back a 1980 Pulitzer Prize for her story about an 8-year-old heroin addict), Stephen Glass of The New Republic (made up stories wholesale), Armstrong Williams (paid by Bush administration to write columns supporting its education policies), Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, Ann Coulter (if she's considered legitimate), Dan Rather (and the forged Bush National Guard memos), Dateline NBC (and the staged SUV explosions), Buzz Bissinger (accepted false Tony La Russa dogma as fact)… and there’s more, much more, at wikipedia.

These are only NOTABLE journalists who were CAUGHT finagling. I would suggest that it’s pretty darned easy for a print or television journalist to make things up and get away with it, especially back in the day. When average people see something in the paper or on TV, they believe it, even if it seems questionable. First of all, consumers are under the assumption, right or wrong, that an editor has already checked any facts. Secondly, an individual checking a fact must (a) remember the fact as stated, and (b) find time later on to do the necessary research. In 1986 such fact checking was virtually impossible for Joe Schmo. In 2008 a dedicated Mr. Schmo can use the internet, but he still must have access to the original fact to be checked.

It is much more difficult for a blogger to fabricate or misrepresent the truth. Why? Because BLOGS ARE USUALLY READ ONSCREEN AND ONLINE. How hard is it to alt-tab over to google, and to execute a search on a questionable claim? If a blogger misquotes someone, it’s child’s play to find the actual quotation from an alternate source. Blog readers check up on writers out of habit. Even I, puniest of the sportsbloggers, have been frequently corrected by readers when I am anything but 100% clear and correct. If the Nachoman, with a readership of about five, can’t get away with minor and innocent misstatements, think about the outpouring of email that would greet Bill Simmons[10] were he to fabricate a fact.


More about Jack
One of my favorite commercials of the past year involved Jack, the sphere-headed mascot of Jack-In-The-Box fast food restaurants. Competitors to Jack-In-The-Box had begun advertising “Angus Burgers,” which I believe had been selling well. Jack shot back. JINB is not franchised in the east, so many of my readers may never have seen this… I love how Jack, despite being nearly bereft of facial features, nevertheless makes me laugh with his facial expression at the end.

Come on, click on it, it’s only a 30 second video.



Emmitt Smith on Pacman Jones[11]
“If he’s not getting arrested, I’m OK. That’s just me. If he’s not getting arrested, I’m OK. As long as you’re not getting arrested, you’re OK.”

Emmitt, Pacman has been arrested. Many times.

“As long as you’re not killing nobody or getting anybody shot at and going to jail, I have no issues with that. Your personal life is your personal life.”

Um, Mr. Pacman has very likely done all of the above. But great job, Mr. Smith, earning your keep as a multi-million dollar television sports analyst!

So what else do legacy journalists have that bloggers do not? Better writers, better writing?
Here’s why so many legacy journalists have disingenuously dug in their heels to defend against the blog incursion. In the day, writers spent years at the Podunkville Star-Picayune covering middle school soccer while they built a portfolio that would catapult them to covering minor league baseball at the SlightlyLessPodunkville Times. Jobs with major newspapers or television networks were difficult to find, and usually went to already grey-haired gentlemen who held the position until they retired or died. Those who attained the coveted sinecures often reveled in their hard-earned status as a VIP. Even today, prominent members of the sports media are endlessly fascinated with themselves. I continually hear Dan Patrick, Michael Wilbon, and their ilk debating in all seriousness about the newsworthiness or non-newsworthiness of a story… in many cases, the story in question was a non-story until these very commentators started talking about it!

Blogs provide an outlet for every talented (or untalented) writer who can put fingers to keyboard. Many folks who otherwise might not have been given a chance by the legacy media now can be heard. It's now YOUR job as a consumer of information to decide who you want to read; it's no longer an editor's place to decide who's good enough. I sure like having the broader choice... and if a blog stinks, just DON'T READ IT.

They stole his joke!
Each spring Woodberry Forest School hosts “invite-back weekend” in which students who have been accepted into the school can come for a weekend to help make up their minds about whether or not to come. In conjunction with this event, the Atlanta Cracker and I (with help this year from El Molé) put on a science demonstration show complete with moderately funny bits.

In this year’s show, we asked the crowd multiple choice questions that they answered on the school’s new “classroom response system” which displays summaries of the crowd’s answers in real time. The Atlanta Cracker’s favorite question, which he made up and which I mistakenly didn’t manage to ask, was:

Which of the following is the LEAST likely new Nintendo Wii game for 2008?

(A) Wii Knitting
(B) Wii The People: Constitutional Convention!
(C) Wii Origami
(D) Open Heart Surge-Wii
(E) Dick Vitale presents Wii basketball broadcasting

Turns out that Strong Bad

stole the Atlanta Cracker’s joke. I think he (the Atlanta Cracker, not Strong Bad) is a bit bemused, but also secretly proud that a major humorist such as Mr. Bad also thought of this joke.


What, you’ve never heard of Strong Bad?
Strong Bad is a character on homestarrunner.com, home of the best cartoon series since Looney Tunes. Check out “Dragon” or “Englilish Paper.”


Do public relations professional ever earn their salaries?
El Molé, perhaps the Nachoman’s most prolific contributor, sent along this audio link to the official crappy theme song for the Nationals. One stanza of the lyrics:

We're nuts (nuts!) about the Nats
We're nuts about the Nats
We're crazy 'bout the Nationals
And nuts about the Nats

Please stop, this is a no retching zone.

Now, now, Nachoman, just because *you* think it crappy doesn’t mean that the rest of the world shares your opinion. To be fair, I let others come to their own conclusion. When this link arrived in my mailbox, my AP physics class was working diligently on their review assignments in preparation for Monday’s big exam. I had some classic rock playing on the classroom speakers. I shut off the classic rock and inserted the new theme song without saying anything. People looked up pretty quickly, with a “what the heck is THAT?” look on their faces.

My litmus test was Woodberry Forest’s senior center fielder, Luke Perry. I asked him if we could play this song on the new PA system at the baseball team’s final home game.

Luke just looked scared and shook his head emphatically.


Objections to blogs: Bloggers are in it for the money and the glory.
Um, most sports blogs are written out of love. Very, very few bloggers got started with the intent to make a living from their writing. Very, very few bloggers actually can make a living from their blogs. So, you say, the ESPN talking head who gets complimentary luxury box tickets to every sporting event imaginable has purely altruistic motives?

Objections to blogs: Bloggers too often put up tawdry stories, or pictures of nearly-naked women, just to draw traffic to their site.
Yeah, consider the primary audience for sports blogs: relatively young, heterosexual men. Certainly gay men read sports blogs, as do women of all sexual orientations. But I am prepared to wager substantial money that MOST – way, way over 50% – of sports blog readers either don’t mind or actively enjoy eye candy. I mean, why do teams provide cheerleaders?

And, of course, the Washington Post or Channel 9 News at 11 has never, ever catered to their lowbrow audience by including intrusive coverage of a celebrity who got in trouble for partying too hard. And Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star didn’t just write an article for Playboy. And if you believe that…


I’m done with ranting about legacy journalists.
Good.


I will NOT discuss this story, but I will link to it.
The White Sox are in trouble for using a Major League – style ploy to reduce their bad batting karma:

They brought in two inflatable women.


It’s gonna be a long night when…
… on Thursday night in Houston, BOTH seemingly nervous pitchers walk the first guy they face. On four pitches each. The Nationals ended up blowing out the Astros in just over three hours. Even once the blowout had been established, relievers such as Luis Ayala couldn’t throw strikes.

As you may have guessed, I worked this game for STATS. The upshot is that I got to see Lance Berkman, one of the hottest hitters in the game, go 2-3 with a walk. This is a scary-good hitter, folks… and remember, as a switch hitter Mr. Berkman takes more than half of his home at-bats from the left side, in a park which is deeply unfriendly to lefties.


Don Sutton’s Theory of Ballplayer Loquaciousness:
"A batter who hits a home run will talk nonstop to his teammates for the rest of the inning." My own observations in support of this theory do not yet encompass a sufficient sample size, but I haven’t found a counterexample yet.

I’m wondering if a Nachoman Corollary is necessary: "Especially when the home run hitter’s team is winning."

Next Week:

The fir seal gets an inflatable penguin.

NM

[1] Archives from the first three years of Nachoman’s Baseball are available here.
[2] Hmmm… “traditional” and “mainstream” are the words most used to describe radio, television, print periodicals, and newspaper journalism as distinct from blogs. I prefer to borrow a more appropriate euphemism from the airline and computer industry. I will rename “traditional” journalists as “legacy” journalists.
[3] June 23, 1986
[4] Aside: Such shouting at Woodberry’s varsity baseball field is hardly unusual, as the fourth hole of the golf course runs along the right field fence.
[5] Though that’s changing… The New Jersey Devils gained some positive press for allowing a set of bloggers to cover their games; the Dallas Mavericks have also opened doors to bloggers, though their owner’s motives were not so pure.
[6] The United Nations recently passed a resolution that the “lives in mom’s basement” stereotype of bloggers must be cited in all sports media discussions.
[7] Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times, and Mark Madden of Pittsburgh talk radio, among others, are notorious for avoiding the sports figures they defames in writing or on the air.
[8] When legacy journalists all rely on a single person for clubhouse access, that’s called using a “pool reporter.” Why should a blogger relying on second-hand postgame quotations be viewed any differently?
[9] And this does not include his Wednesday meltdown.
[10] Who I worship as the king of all sports bloggers
[11] Thanks to TheBigLead for the quotations

Ribbie Reporter -- Punching Doors

Yes, sometimes the Royals make me frustrated. There are days -- fewer this year than in years past -- when I just want to punch something after the Royals cough up an easy lead or fail to drive in a runner from third with one out. But at least the Royals have never made me so frustrated that I broke my hand. The same can't be said for pitcher John Bale, who is rehabbing from the mysterious "dead arm" ailment (what the heck does that mean? does all your skin turn black and die like you have gangrene?).
In any event, Mr. Bale, after a rehab session Friday afternoon, went back to his hotel room and punched a door. The Kansas City Star had full details:
http://www.kansascity.com/385/story/604981.html
The hand is broken, meaning Mr. Bale, who has seen AAA call-up Luke Hochevar pitch quite well in Bale's rotation slot, will get to stay in the bigs while Mr. Bale waits for his hand to heal.
Sigh.

I apologize for not posting in the last few weeks... I still have some thoughts saved up from my trip to Nicaragua, and last week was eaten up by a rain-soaked weekend calling two Washington and Lee games in their D-III conference tournament (we went from up 3-1 to down 13-3 in the first game, and 12 hours later had a 5-1 lead, our two best pitchers fresh and ready to go, only to blow the lead twice once in the 8th and once in the 9th -- before losing in the 12th). Assuming I don't get frustrated during the Royals' homestand, and assuming I don't punch any doors, I'll try to post again later this week.
Until then, keep the faith and hope that the Royals can finally learn how to score some runs.

--The Ribbie Reporter

Introducing the best site on the internet

No, folks, I’m not self promoting.[1] I have recently discovered the wealth of information available at baseball-reference.com. Last summer when I was researching the Everything Kids Baseball Book I found baseball-reference’s vault of historical information. But last week I tuned in for the first time during the season. My goodness, as a 12 year old I would have committed all sorts of heinous acts in order to get access to such statistics.

Each game’s summary consists of a clickable box score, a detailed play-by-play, and all of the other standard information necessary to convey exactly what happened at the ballpark. The advantage of baseball-reference over other sites such as espn.com or mlb.com is the comprehensiveness and ease of use. The lack of fancy graphics makes each page quick to load. Most of the important information is available on the game summary page itself, without having to load several separate pages. If I want to follow up on a nugget in the box score, it’s usually quite easy to figure out where to click for, say, a player’s specific performance in the previous games of a series.

Beyond the standard play-by-play and box score, baseball-reference offers deeper stats. For example, one of my favorite ways of understanding the flow of a ballgame can be expressed in terms of win probability. Each event in baseball either improves or reduces a team’s mathematical chances of winning the game. A 9th inning solo home run by a team that’s down 11-0 barely changes anything; a two-out walk-off grand salami might improve a team’s chance of winning by 90%. Baseball-reference provides each team’s win probability after each event in a game’s play-by-play. Furthermore, on their front page each day, they list the five biggest plays of the previous day’s games, ranked by the play’s impact on win probability. This is better than Sportscenter! At a glance I can see all of a day’s scores and the biggest plays; just a few clicks and I have a reasonable feel for the previous day’s action around the league.

Many might complain that baseball-reference.com includes far too many dry tables of numbers. Such criticism is a vile accuracy… and that’s the true beauty – to me – of the site. I love numbers. A huge, dense spreadsheet with meaningful data waiting to be mined is as a Summer Day or a Grecian Urn to the Nachoman. If I had the time, I might well spend hours reading game information each day. Had such a site existed in 1985, I may not have passed seventh grade. Here and now in 2008, I will limit my use of the site to Nachoman column research.

Hopefully.


Trouble in the land of the Rocky Mountians
Colorado’s miracle September, along with their amazin’ playoff run of 2007, happened long ago. “What have you done for me lately?” is the mantra of the diehard fan. And lately, there’s been trouble in Rocky land.

The Rockies are 2-8 over their last 10. Some of these have been crazy snatch-defeat-from-the-jaws-of victory losses. For example, last Friday in Los Angeles, the Rockies lost to the Dodgers in ten innings when Manny Corpas (again – see below) gave up the winning run in the bottom of the 10th. But, in the top of the 9th, the Rockies had Scott Podsednik on third base, no one out, and their best chance of the night to take the lead. Troy Tulowitski hit a fly ball. Baseball-reference called it a “deep” fly, mlb.com shows the ball to be at least 60-75% of the way from second base to the center field fence. Yet, Mr. Podsednik remained at third base, and Matt Holliday grounded into a game-killing double play.

Why did Mr. Podsednik stay at third? Nachoman correspondent Mile High (A.K.A. Daniel Holst of the Nachoman’s AP physics class) notes that third base coach Mike Gallego is known for his conservatism. And sure, the next hitter should do better than a ground ball double play. Nevertheless, I wonder what kind of crazy-awesome outfield arm Andrew Jones must have to make it worth the risk NOT to send Mr. Podsednik. This defeat has been somewhat typical of the heartrending losses suffered by the men in purple.

Next, consider Manny Corpas. Last year, Mr. Corpas earned a spot on the Nachoman’s ENEMIES LIST for his consistent putzing on the mound. A Manny Corpas inning is as slow and painful as a trip to the dentist.[2] And that’s just for the Nachoman, who generally has no interest in the outcome of a Colorado Rockies game. For actual fans, a Corpas appearance must be a root canal sans anesthetic.

Look at Mr. Corpas’ appearances from the perspective of win probability. As the “closer,” he often pitches in high leverage situations – meaning, his pitching will have a major effect on the game’s outcome.

Mr. Corpas has significantly impacted four games positively this year. Those correspond to his four saves. In each of these games, he entered in the ninth with a 1-run lead, didn’t walk anyone, and held on to win. His work caused the team’s chance of victory go from about 80% at the start of his inning, to 100% at the end of his inning.[3] Great work.

Mr. Corpas has also entered four blowout games, in which his pitching, good or bad, barely made any impact on the result. For example, on April 4 he pitched the ninth inning when the team was losing 7-1 to Arizona. He gave up a run, but so what? The Rox were going to lose anyway.

In five of Mr. Corpas’ 13 appearances, he has hurt his team, sometimes BIG time. First there are the minor blowups, as when he blew 1-run leads against San Diego (allowing the Padres to tie the game in the bottom of the 14th) and Los Angeles (giving up the winning run in the bottom of the 10th). In each of these games, he worked more than one inning, and cost his team about 20% of a win. (His good work in the additional inning made up partially for his bad work giving up the tying or winning run.)

Three times, though, he has ruined the Rockies day:

· On April 6, he entered in the 9th inning with a 1-0 lead. He gave up a single and a homer, reducing the team’s chances of winning by 60%. (The Rockies forced extra innings, but ended up losing 5-2 to Arizona.)
· On April 22, Mr. Corpas entered in the 9th with a 1-run lead, and exited with a 2-run deficit after two singles, an intentional walk, and a three run double. He reduced the win probably by a whopping 72%.
· The very next night, he allowed a two run homer to Aramis Ramirez to put the Cubs ahead. He reduced the Rockies chances of winning from 90% (at the beginning of the 9th) to 22% (at the end of the 9th).

And this is the team’s closer, the pitcher who the team wants on the mound at the critical points in close games?

Well, there’s one crazy possibility to the recent Rocky struggles, and that comes courtesy of fanboy Briant McKellips, a Denver resident and the Nachoman’s partner this summer as an AP physics table leader: “I think the Rockies just like to make it interesting-- they hate to convincingly win for fear the fans won't get their money's worth.”


This fanboy gave up even before the event
The Cincinnati Bengals have been famously incompetent over the last 18 years in their drafting. Their high-profile duds such as David Klingler, Akili Smith, Peter Warrick, et cetera et al ad infinitum make their enthusiastic and knowledgeable fan base retch. I would go so far as to suggest a publicity stunt: next year, write the name of each potential draftee on a banana, and drop all these bananas into the residence of the Cincinnati Zoo’s famous lowland gorillas. Pick whoever’s banana gets eaten first. The gorillas can’t do worse than the team’s current braintrust…

This year’s crazy mistake on draft day happened even before draft day.[4] The Redskins offered Cincy three picks in exchange for the cancer otherwise known as Chad Johnson. Mr. Johnson has great skills, but he is poison as a team player. As soon as anything goes wrong he pouts. He doesn’t block. He shows up his all-pro quarterback at every opportunity. He has publicly demanded a trade. Were I an NFL GM, I would under no circumstances acquire Mr. Johnson for my team. Yet, Skins owner Daniel Snyder was offering draft picks for this practically worthless prima donna. Isn’t this a deal that Cincinnati should make quickly before the aliens that hijacked Mr. Snyder’s brain give it back?

Um, no. Cincinnati rejected the trade, opting to keep Chad Johnson, opting to experience a drawn out contract battle, opting to allow his negative influence in the locker room for another year. When I found out about the trade offer and the Bengals response, I screamed out loud, and pledged not to follow the draft at all.

And I didn’t. It was the NachoGrandpa who reported to me that the Bengals made the best draft pick EVER: safety Corey Lynch. Not because this guy is necessarily any good. I mean, the Bengals picked him, which is a sure indication of a doomed career. But, he’s the kind of pick I like – even though he played at division I-AA Appalachian State, he was a leader on a winning team. Mr. Lynch had a history of blocked kicks even entering the 2007 season. Now, he’s best known for being the guy who blocked the potential game-winning kick in the historic victory over Michigan. It’s less well known that App State has now won three straight I-AA national championships.

The principal reason Mr. Lynch was the best pick ever:

He’s a physics major. Really! Here’s the Appalachian State media guide. I object that his bio only barely mentions, in the last sentence fragment, that he’s majoring in physics. Next year when I give my class their mid-year discussion of possible career paths in physics, I will be sure to include “NFL safety” as an alternative for those who can’t hack it as a professor at Cal Tech.


This seems barse ackwards to me
On Thursday night, San Diego played Philadelphia. Adam Eaton pitched against Randy Wolf.

It took me a couple of innings to adjust to the fact that Mr. Wolf was pitching for the Phillies, and Mr. Eaton for the Padres. I’ve been used to the other way around for many years.


Sunday was foam finger day at Shea
Each fan was awarded a giant foam hand giving a “we’re number 1!” gesture with the index finger.

According to Braves announcers on SportSouth, out of town fans were confused. “That’s not the finger they’re used to seeing in New York,” they observed.


I’m copying this umpire’s style
I like Mike Everitt behind the plate. Let me quote the Braves announcers after a close pitch: “Outside, says plate umpire Mike Everitt.” Only, Mr. Everitt actually, honest-to-Bob said, “Outside!” Fans could hear him in the stadium and on TV. His ball call indicated the location: “Ball, low!” rather than just “ball.” I tried that out in my game Tuesday night, and it was effective helping me maintain communication with the players.


Tough breaks of the week
Braves-Mets Sunday… The seventh inning opened with Carlos Beltran running down a Kelly Johnson bomb about two feet from the warning track in center field, 400 feet from the plate. Then, with two outs and a runner on, Mark Teixeira crushed a shot to right center…that right fielder Ryan Church snagged with an outstretched glove, hurdled a diving Carlos Beltran, crashed into the wall, and held on to for the catch.

The score was 5-3 Mets at the time. The Mets held on to win. Mr. Church made the play of the game. If either of these, or if ANY of the five or so balls that the Braves hit to the warning track, carried just a bit farther, the Braves would likely have won. They say baseball is a game of inches, but I’d measure the Braves shortfall on Sunday in feet.


Payback is heck
In the 7th inning Sunday, Carlos Delgado hit his second homer of the day. The crowd begged for a curtain call, cheering and cajoling for several minutes. But, the Mets fans had been brutal to Mr. Delgado all week, booing, complaining about him on talk radio, and generally getting way down on their first baseman. So, Mr. Delgado smiled, and simply stayed in the dugout. No curtain call for you, New York.


Sportswomanship
El Molé, a continual source of offbeat sports stories, forwarded to me an account of events at the Central Washington vs. Western Oregon game last weekend. The article in the link does a wonderful job of describing the action in detail, but here’s the summary:

On Senior Day at Central Washington, in a critical game for both teams, a Western Oregon senior hit her first home run of the year to give her team a 2-run lead. She collapsed in a heap just past first base when her surgically repaired knee gave out. This would not have been a problem in baseball – the rules state that in the case of an injury preventing a runner from touching all of his awarded bases, a substitute can complete the award. Apparently, this is not the case in NCAA softball. The umpires ruled that this injured senior could be replaced, but the replacement must remain at first base. Furthermore, (and consistent with baseball rules), no one from her team could help the home run hitter around the bases – physically assisting a runner is a form of interference, and causes the runner to be declared out. The Western Oregon team didn’t know what else to do – the coach called for a pinch runner. But then…

The Nachoman’s Sportswoman of the Week stepped up to the plate (figuratively, not literally). Senior Mallory Holtman of Central Washington asked the umpire if it would be okay for HER and her CW teammates to carry the Western Oregon player around the bases. Well, um, that’s fine, the umpire said, though I doubt that he noted any specific rule support for his decision. And there they went – several Central Washington players carrying an opponent around the bases, gingerly allowing her foot to brush each base in turn, until her home run was complete.


Can I hire Mallory Holtman to umpire with me?
Contrast Ms. Holtman’s gesture to behavior at the Madison vs. Rappahannock high school varsity baseball game Tuesday night, at which the Nachoman was the plate umpire.

With one out in the first inning, a player grounded to third base, and the runner from third was caught in a rundown. Thinking that the third out was imminent, the batter took off his helmet and headed for the dugout, where his coaches hustled him back to first base. My partner and I were – properly – engrossed in the rundown. When we looked back to the runner at first, he was returning to the base from an odd angle.

Well, the Madison coach was angry. He politely but firmly asked me to call the batter out for abandoning his effort to run the bases. I told him I could not make that call – I did not actually see him abandon his effort, though I could logically conclude that he might have done so. Was Madison within their rights to insist that the letter of the law be enforced? Of course.

Later, it was the Rappahannock coach who went a bit nuts. The Madison batters had moved up in the batter’s box, the better to react to a nasty curveball. Unfortunately, the batter’s box had not been drawn prior to the game. Now, I know the official dimensions of the box (6 by 4 feet, starting 6 inches away from the edge of the plate), and I know that the batter’s box extends into fair territory. I also know that it is not illegal for a batter to take his stance near the edge of the box (though in high school his feet must begin entirely inside the box) – and he is only penalized if he contacts the ball with at least one foot out of the box. But this coach went off, telling me that I had to make a Madison player stand in the box. My response was (1) he was already in the batter’s box, since the box extends into fair territory, (2) even if he was near the edge of the box, it is not my place to tell him where in the box to stand, (3) I can't tell whether he's in the box, because we started the game on a non-regulation facility, and by agreeing to start the game, both coaches negated their right to protest about the undrawn box; (4) I only would apply a penalty if the batter made contact with the ball with a foot on the ground entirely outside the box. Nevertheless, this coach incited his crowd. They screamed at me… “He’s out of the box! What, are you blind? Everyone sees it but you!” This coach had no clue about the rule, and neither did his fans. Yet, did he do anything wrong? Did he do anything that would be considered out of the ordinary for a baseball coach? “He was just trying anything he could to win the game,” would be the mantra of support lent by the common fan.

The one majorly bad call that I made – the first such call I’ve made, thank goodness, and hopefully but not likely the last – occurred in the sixth inning, when Madison had a runner on first base with two out. I heard a double-thump on a pitch that was low and inside. I looked at the batter, I thought that I saw his trousers jiggling around his ankle. I’ve been taught that, in such a situation, go with your first instinct unless you see evidence to the contrary. My conclusion: the pitch hit the batter’s ankle. So I awarded him first base.

I knew immediately that I had screwed up, when the batter smirked and laughed as he jogged away. In this case, the Rappahannock coach was eminently reasonable in his discussion. He simply asked what happened; I told him that the pitch hit the batter on the ankle. One of his crazy fans shrieked, “but it hit the ground first!” That doesn’t matter, a hit batsman is a hit batsman. But that gave me a clue about how I had screwed up – the double-thump was most likely the pitch hitting the dirt and short-hopping into the catcher’s mitt. I’ve got to see that correctly. I’ll take my lumps, but thank the Almighty Bob that Rappahannock got out of the inning unscathed. Now, the batter knew he hadn’t been hit. But was he within his rights to take his base? Of course.

So nothing, nothing at all, unsportsmanlike occurred at Tuesday’s game. The teams were polite to each other, and to me, even when they disagreed with my calls. When a player ripped off his helmet to scream at me after I called him out on strikes, the Madison coach angirly snapped at the player to get his butt back in the dugout – I appreciate that support. The Rappahannock coach didn’t holler or kick dirt even when everyone in the ballpark knew that I had kicked the hit batsman call.

But would Mallory Holtman have approved?

What if the Madison batter had turned and quietly said, “Mr. Umpire, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but the pitch didn’t hit me. I just want you to know.” What if the Rappahannock coach had just kept his mouth shut once I told him that no batter’s box rule had been violated? What if the Madison coach had seen the poor confused batter head to the dugout, but had deliberately and consciously ignored the offense? The game would most likely have come out the same. I would now be writing about how baseball in rural Virginia lives up to the same high standards as does softball in the rural northwest. Everyone involved in the game would have been happier.

And we would be living in cities on the moon.


Speaking of being blinded by your team…
A Yankee fan, a student whom I respect highly, sent me this note regarding my praise of Kosuke Fukudome:

"Kosuke [stinks] if you want an Asian who will deliver the goods who isn't Ichiro go with Matsui."

First of all, I’m glad he’s reading my column. I appreciate it. The more the merrier. Spread the word.

I guess this happens to real sportswriters all the time. Rabid fans of a team write in to object to reasoned, logical arguments, on the grounds of “i like guyes on my team and hate goys on other teams.” The most obvious example is the San Francisco fans who believed with an inner fire that Barry Bonds was a good teammate who never used performance enhancers. As I noted last week, these fans are beginning to pay their penance for their deliberate ignorance – I believe the divine retribution includes seven years of famine pestilence stinkage.

So here’s my response to this enthusiastic and intelligent but fan-blinded reader:

(1) A sportswriter cannot simply say that someone "[stinks]" without evidence. I spent an hour this morning searching for and writing up evidence that boils down to "Manny Corpas [stinks]." Yet, the 500 word essay provides context, background, and something a bit more than vitriolic, unsubstantiated opinion.

(2) I don't think you can find such evidence about Kosuke Fukudome. So far, at least, he hasn't [stunk] by any definition.

(3) I agree that Ichiro has been the best of the Asian players in mlb.

(4) I agree that Matsui -- Hideki, certainly not Kazuo -- has done well for the Yankees, and has proven himself so far to be the next-best of the Asian players in mlb.

(5) Why the bitterness towards Kosuke? Because he doesn't play for your team? Because your team payed a washed-up, 'roided up freak $22 million last year for about three good starts, is still paying another washed-up, 'roided up freak more than the entire Florida Marlins team to hit .167, yet your team didn't think it worthwhile to try to outbid the Cubs for Kosuke?


Roy Halladay pitched *another* complete game… and lost.
Tuesday on Yahoo sports, Jeff Passan wrote a three page article about why complete games are a rarity in baseball today. He spent much of the article in praise of Blue Jay Roy Halladay, whose focus on pitching to contact leads to low pitch-per-inning numbers which leads to numerous complete games. In fact, the day after the article was published, Mr. Halladay pitched his fourth consecutive complete game.

Problem is, he’s 2-2 in those four games.

On Wednesday, Mr. Halladay dominated the defending world champs on three hits through eight shutout innings. He was matched by Jon Lester, who threw eight innings of 1-hit ball. Mr. Halladay got two quick outs in the ninth, but walked David Ortiz – not the worst thing in the world when facing the man whom some have called the world’s greatest clutch hitter. Problem is, Manny Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis singled, Mr. Ortiz came home, and the game ended. Toronto has to do better than 2.9 runs of support for Mr. Halladay per game.

Despite Mr. Halladay’s failure to win every game he pitches, he has done his team tremendous service by working so deep into games. A team’s starters are usually their best pitchers; the more innings they pitch, the fewer innings get eaten by borderline major leaguers. If all of a team’s starters worked as many complete games as Mr. Halladay, then the team could even reduce the number of pitchers on the roster, leaving room for a third catcher or an extra pinch runner. So why don’t more pitchers pitch complete games? In the Yahoo article, Mr. Passan suggests several causes: pitch count-obsessed general managers, pitchers focusing on strikeouts (thus driving up the pitch count), a seven inning mentality among starters. I have more thoughts, which I am saving for next week.


Another note from Mr. Halladay’s 1-0 complete game loss
Remember David Eckstein, that scrappy, old-school player who famously wills teams to victory? He was 0-3, with two groundouts to third, and a ground double play. He’s hitting .258 this year, with a .653 OPS – good for 159th among the 192 qualified[5] major leaguers.


Bad Journalism of the week
Firejoemorgan.com found a ridiculous piece of sportswriting. I won’t deconstruct the article myself, because FJM does such a better job than I of laying humorous smackdown on bad sports articles. I can't even attempt to live up to their standards.

The summary, though: Wallace Matthews of Newsday complains that Jose Reyes isn’t doing so well this year. He worries that Mr. Reyes’ career path might mimic that of Rey Ordonez rather than that of Derek Jeter.

Okay, fine so far. But, then Mr. Matthews gives statistics supporting his case. Never mind that 2008 statistics are still somewhat meaningless, in that even Babe Ruth had bad months. The problem with Mr. Matthews’ argument is…

For every subpar stat that Mr. Matthews quotes about Mr. Reyes, Derek Jeter’s stat is EVEN WORSE.

Oops. Guess he should have done some research.


Pot calls kettle black
I enjoy listening to “Pardon the Interruption” during my weightlifting sessions. Sure, hosts Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser are blowhards. But they INVENTED the now-ubiquitous TV genre of “men screaming at each other about sports without necessarily saying anything useful or relevant.” Two things unique to Mike and Tony make me like them, while I despise most of their imitators: (1) These guys started off as serious journalists, and actually made names for themselves as respected sportswriters before they began their TV gig; and (2) I’ve heard twice from these guys’ colleagues at the Washington Post that PTI is simply a carryover from Tony and Mike’s historic antics at the Post. Every day for 15 or more years these two would go at it by the water cooler, at lunch, or sometimes even shouting from office to office. They developed this authentic foux-antagonistic banter for their own amusement, before anyone important was listening. Thus, while they are certainly play-acting on TV, they are playing roles that have been perfected with love and over time.

ALL THAT SAID, I couldn’t believe what I heard from Mr. Wilbon on the subject of sports blogs. He supported Mark Cuban’s decision to ban bloggers from the Dallas Mavericks locker room. Mr. Wilbon’s justification included a rant about how bloggers generally provide nothing but opinion, and opinion for its own sake is not equivalent to the sports journalism done by credentialed beat writers.

Um, Mr. Wilbon, I do love your work… but please take a day off sometime to actually watch your own show.


Manny Acosta, oy!
Wednesday night, the Braves got yet another strong start from newbie Jair Francoise Jurrjens.[6] Two of his six starts have been Nachoman quality starts; five of six have met mlb’s definition of a quality start (and he won the one that didn’t).

But oh, that Braves bullpen! Blaine Boyer pitched a strong 1.2 innings, keeping the game tied at 1. Once again, Bobby Cox brought in pitchers to face individual batters, meaning that he had to bring Manny Acosta in for three innings.

* 10th inning for Mr. Acosta: two walks, a hit, but no runs. Phew.
* 11th inning for Mr. Acosta: one walk, a wild pitch, but no runs. Phew.
* 12th inning for Mr. Acosta, now with a one-run lead: a leadoff walk, a walk to force in a run, and an early shower.

That’s only Mr. Acosta’s second blowup of the year, the first occurring on opening night and also against the Nationals. But that’s also two of his last three appearances in which he’s had control problems. Against Florida, he walked one in each of his two innings.

Atlanta is now 0-9, yes, ZERO and nine, in 1-run games. They are now in fourth place, but if their bullpen improves, this team might still be dangerous.


Next week…
More thoughts on the demise of the complete game. And, the Nachoman complains about bloggers who talk about themselves in the third person and call themselves by dumb nicknames.

NM

[1] Anyone who knows anything knows that this is merely the second best site available.
[2] Not my dentist, because he actually sees me at the appointed time and gets done what he has to do as quickly as he can, and painlessly as well. I’m talkin’ ‘bout the stereotypical dentist, like the one from Finding Nemo: he makes you wait, tries to talk to you when his instruments are poking your back teeth, and interrupts his work in order to carry on a personal and highly amusing (to him) conversation with his secretary.
[3] 100%, because the Rockies won. Duh.
[4] If that makes any logical sense whatsoever. Keep reading, it will all come together.
[5] “Qualified” means they’ve accumulated 3.1 plate appearances per game.
[6] Can any non-Braves fan in my audience pronounce that name?

Introducing Deep Dish

This week, a new correspondent joins us for a discussion of Kosoke Fukudome and the various merits of plate discipline.[1] But first, the Nachoman fills both of his readers in on the middle school doubleheader he just worked:

Um, I don’t even remember who won the first game. We played two 5-inning games, both of which were intense. I called a batter out for 3-foot running lane interference. I had to make a close call as to whether it was too dark to play; we got in all 5 innings of game 2, which was won by Prospect Heights Middle school on a walk-off single. Thank goodness, too, because the high school rule is the same as the silly college rule – if a game is suspended, the score reverts to the end of the last completed inning. (And, I think the game wouldn't have counted at all, 'cause a regulation is five innings. No clue whether that rule applies to a scheduled 5-inning game.) See below for more discussion of the possible consequences of such a dumb rule.

After 10 innings behind the plate, I just want pizza and bed. The Nachoman feels tremendous sympathy for minor league umpires, who do this EVERY DAY. And, they often can’t just go to bed afterward – they might have to drive many hours to get to their next city. Remember to pity the umpires next time a game goes extra innings, especially 22-inning marathons like that worked by plate umpire Alfonzo Marquez. At least he got to fly first-class that morning.


Careful what you wish for
Thursday night’s Rockies – Padres game went 22 innings, finishing at 1:20 A.M. PACIFIC time. Final score: Colorado 2, San Diego 1. During the Nationals-Mets game, which went 14 innings and 4:45, the Gnats announcers mentioned the Padres game. “Wow, Jake Peavy vs. Jeff Francis. They’re in the 5th inning already. That could be a two hour game!” they commented wistfully, as the night wore on.

But, my goodness. I understand that Cat ‘n’ Dog Park is not hitter friendly, but really, 13 innings without scoring a run? And 22 innings of scoring three runs total? One of the runs came on a bases-loaded walk; another came as a result of two errors. These pitching staffs are good, but *that* good?


How well do you play the night after a 22 inning game?
You’re the starting pitcher. You’re up 6-0 in the bottom of the 1st, and the other team’s starting pitcher is already out of the game. Your team played 22 innings last night before flying halfway across the country, arriving in town at 9:00 a.m. Your bullpen was brutalized last night. But YOU got to fly out a day early, and you fell asleep at a normal hour.

What do you do?

Why, walk the second batter of the game, get behind every other hitter, show absolutely no control. You give up a bunch of hard-hit balls after falling behind hitters and coming in with hard but poorly located fastballs. You go 3-1 on the RELIEF PITCHER with two outs, having already given up four runs in the 1st inning.

You throw 100 pitches over the first four innings. You finally pitch a 1-2-3 inning in the 4th… but you went 3-2 on EVERY SINGLE HITTER that inning.

Franklin Morales of the Rockies, you earn a Stinky Cheese award from the Nachoman. YOU are the worst pitcher in the majors right now.


Au Contraire, says the Rockies fan
Says Daniel Holst, Colorado resident and physics student in the Nachoman’s class, about Mr. Morales:
“Perhaps you should give the poor kid a break. Although he is sometimes a bonehead on the mound (not throwing strikes, getting down in the count, etc.), he is in his first full season as a MLB pitcher and is only 22. Before giving him such a title, try watching a little more than his third/fourth start of the season. His stuff can be electric, though not as good as Ubaldo Jimenez's stuff.

In short, be careful what you say about young Morales. I'd hate for you to be eating your words in a couple years...”

Could be, Mr. Holst, could be. He might turn out great eventually, if he either has a frontal lobotomy or if he listens to his pitching coach.

You see, if Mr. Morales were throwing his good stuff for strikes, even if he were to get knocked around, I'd say fine. But, consider:

* He came into this start having already thrown a couple of games where he walked a bunch of hitters and got behind batters.
* He got to leave San Diego early, thus missing the 6.3 hour game.
* The entire bullpen pitched last night.
* He was staked to a 6-run lead in the first inning.
* He went to 3-ball counts on 10 of his 24 batters.
* He only threw first-pitch strikes to 9 of 24 batters.
* He threw 113 pitches in only 5 INNINGS!!! Only 63 of these pitches were strikes.
* He faced 9 batters in the first inning with that 6 run lead. That inning:
* cheap single
* walk (4 pitches)
* double on a 3-1 count
* ground out to score a run
* fly out
* double
* walk (5 pitches)
* single
* strikeout, after going 2-0 and 3-1 on the pitcher.
* Mr. Morales’ first inning overall: 4 runs, 4 hits, 2 walks, 44 pitches, letting the Astros back in the game after they had taken a first-inning beat-down.

Mr. Morales didn't get any better until the fifth. He was painful, painful to watch. He never hit his catcher's glove. He reared back and threw wildly, and got hit hard.

There are plenty of pitchers, both young and old, who can pitch smarter, better, and more effectively. Maybe this guy will be good someday. But Daniel, I can't see making your team suffer while he pitches stupidly. Send him to AAA until he shows he can throw strikes. Call up someone with less "potential", who doesn't light up the radar gun, but who throws strikes and uses what stuff he has.


Oops, they blew it again
The Padres bullpen has been lights-out this season… meaning, when they enter the game, might as well turn the lights out and go home, ‘cause they’re gonna blow it. On Tuesday night it was Heath Bell and Joe Thatcher giving up the game: Jake Peavy had an atypically rough outing, allowing four runs in six innings. The Pads offense responded, scoring seven runs. Too bad that Mr. Thatcher gave up three runs in his 2/3 of an inning. And, after the Padres heroically tied the game with a 4-spot in the top of the eighth, too bad that Mr. Bell’s inning included two walks, six hits, and four runs.

Oh, you say, but the Padres have four saves, which is just about the league average. They’re not that bad.

Um, saves are the least useful statistic since average velocity for a room’s air molecules.[2] The Padres starters rank 6th in ERA; their relievers rank 28th. The bullpen has eight of the Padres twelve losses on its record. I could go into more statistical detail, but you get the picture… this team needs better relief pitching.


Deep Dish on Fukudome
I am pleased to appoint Dr. Matt Boesen, Woodberry history professor, as assistant Nachoman for Chicago Cubs affairs. He shall heretofore be known as Deep Dish, a theme name chosen by Dr. Boesen himself.

Deep Dish sent the Nachoman the following commentary on the Cubs right fielder, which I quote nearly verbatim:

“Bottom of the eighth Tuesday -- two on, no out. Kosoku Fukudome runs up a 2-2 count and then fouls off five straight pitches -- before he hits a single to load the bases. I'm writing this to you because, well, he's doing this sort of thing ALL THE TIME. He seems to have 1-2 at-bats every game that go to 8-10 pitches, and more often than not it seems that he finishes off a long string of fouls with a hit. Fukodome leads the majors with 4.65 pitches per plate appearance. I'm still not quite sure exactly what "plate discipline" is, but it's clear that this guy has it.

Thanks for reading this far. Thought that you may be the only person around who could muster up the same kind of excitement about this sort of thing.”

Are you kidding, Deep Dish? I write 3500 words of this sort of stuff EVERY WEEK. :-)

Yeah, I could not be more impressed with Fukudome. I noticed Mr. Fukudome’s ability to make frustrating contact when I watched the entire Reds-Cubs series last week. Plate discipline is indeed a nebulous concept, but a fan knows it when he sees it -- e.g., Mr. Fukudome has it, Adam Dunn emphatically does NOT. I'd probably get the folks at Fire Joe Morgan extra-angry at me, but I want to explore this concept.

One could make the argument that hitters like Mr. Fukudome make a lot of contact, but they’d be more valuable if they struck out a few times but hit a lot more doubles and home runs. His OPS (on-base plus slugging) is .957, which is outstanding, good for 23rd in the majors; but some might point out that nearly half of that .957 is the on-base part, not the slugging part. I would argue that Mr. Fukudome is doing an awesome job with the first priority of a hitter – DO NOT MAKE AN OUT.

Mr. Fukudome’s plate discipline might be a product of Japanese training, but I doubt that he couldn’t hit for more power if he wanted to. I THINK that he just has enough game sense not to be swinging for the fences in every at-bat. I THINK that power-obsessed Americans who came up though the youth system have far less of a sense of the game than someone like Mr. Fukudome. Kosoke has a sense of when to swing hard, when just to get a base hit, a sense of the value of a solid single over the home run. Mike Maddux (Greg's brother) referred recently to "Academy Kids," young Brewers pitchers who have been trained to throw hard, to follow their coach's instruction, but whose sense of the game is utterly lacking. I'd say the same thing about, say, Reds hitters. But I wouldn’t say that about KF.

Dr. Dish responds once again:

“So, then, is the conclusion here that "plate discipline" simply can't be taught (at an "academy" or anywhere else)? -- is it temperament or just raw, god-given talent? Ichiro obviously "has it" -- could it be a by-product of growing up in Japanese culture, or is there something in the way the game is played in Japan that may illuminate the issue?”

I'm not sure, because the Japanese connection is antithetical to the Fundamental Theorem of Nachodom, which says that baseball is learned best by playing intense but unsupervised playground-style games against good competition between the ages of 10 and 15. I know Japanese youngsters are taught in a more regimented way than even American players. (Of course, there are what, 10 Japanese major leaguers, as opposed to 100 Latin players who learned the game the Nachoman way?) First of all, we're seeing only the best Japanese players. Secondly, the game is taught differently there, emphasizing the value of the single over the homer. I suspect that Japanese baseball might be improved by convincing the light-hitting high-average guys to develop more power via weightlifting and occasional hard swings.

I’d also like to continue this discussion in a future column. Anyone have any insights into whether the success of Mr. Fukudome (and Ichiro Suzuki, for that matter) has to do with Japanese upbringing, or with their own natural baseball instincts?


Yes, Duke was unsporsmanlike, classless, and evil… but it’s the NCAA’s fault.[3]
Rabid Duke-hater El Molé couldn’t contain his excitement when he brought the Nachoman the news of a Clemson-Duke baseball game that ended in a 6-6 tie. In the top of the 11th, Clemson took the lead with a 2-run homer. As the batter-runner crossed the plate with Clemson’s eighth run, a “Duke official” – I still can’t figure out exactly who from the accounts I’ve read – informed the umpire that lightning had been spotted in the area, and that the game must be suspended for a minimum of 30 minutes by rule.

After this, accounts differ. It’s not clear exactly who, if anyone, spotted lightning. Several sources indicate that the lightning warning came from a weather center in Wichita, which did not have the ability to determine how close to the ballpark the lightning hit. Clemson radio man Dan Scott did not see any lightning whatsoever, until the skies opened up and rain poured forth from the heavens – 32 minutes after play was stopped. However, the goduke.com report claimed otherwise.

Duke made no efforts to cover the field with the tarp. They had sent the grounds crew home earlier (?), and their coach hid behind safety rules – he claimed that during a lightning delay, he was not allowed to send players out of the dugout. So of course, the field was rendered unplayable by the storm.

My first thought was, who cares? By the rulebook – at least, by the rulebook I learned at Umpire School – if the game is called in these circumstances, it becomes suspended, and must be resumed later from the point of suspension. Okay, it’s pretty danged obvious that Duke was trying to weasel out of playing for the afternoon, but they still have to come back some other day from a 2-run deficit. Right?

Wrong. The NCAA rules for some silly reason state that if a game is called during an inning, the score reverts to the previously completed inning. Thus, Duke’s intransigence wiped Clemson’s 2-run dinger off the board. The final score was considered 6-6, and Duke has a much better chance of making the ACC baseball tournament.

Duke’s sports information office has defended their baseball coach’s actions, citing safety as the excuse for their malaise. If I were ACC commissioner or American Sports Czar, the Duke baseball coach would be banished to the nether reaches of heck, and the baseball program would be put on four years of probation for their shenanigans. They committed sacrilege against the game of baseball, and for that they should be held accountable.

HOWEVER… the NCAA is complicit here! Think about why the suspended game rule is written as it is in professional baseball. Rulebook writers foresaw the possibility of the manipulation of weather delays to a team’s advantage. Therefore, after five innings any game that is called during an inning in which the lead has changed is automatically suspended, to be picked up later. Even before five innings, if a game is called due to any device failure under the control of the home team (i.e. lights, sprinklers, etc.), the game must be resumed from the point of suspension. There is very little room to take advantage of the professional rule.

So, I ask… why is it that in high school and college ball, the score can revert to that of a previous completed inning? Doesn’t the NCAA *invite* dishonest programs to cheat, as it appears to me that Duke did?


Correlation does not imply causality
The 2000 book The Baseball Astrologer and other weird tales credulously examines baseball superstitions, coincidences, and “freakish occurences.” (If you buy the book from amazon.com, it comes with a free copy of Us Weekly!) As the title implies, one issue investigated is how a player’s astrological sign impacts his playing ability. Now, the Nachoman’s readers are (hopefully) familiar with the vast body of anti-evidence showing astrology to be, at best, bunk.[4] So, of course you expect the Nachoman to pitilessly and sarcastically deconstruct the book’s conclusions. Right?

Well, slate.com’s Greg Spira presents evidence that some of the conclusions of The Baseball Astrologer actually stand up to statistical scrutiny. Specifically, players born under Virgo, and a few late Leos, are significantly more likely to become major league ballplayers than others, especially moreso than early Leos or Cancers. Do the stars really affect baseball players’ fates? Should Jeane Dixon become the next commissioner of baseball?[5]

While the conclusions are correct, the fundamental causality proposed is, obviously, ridiculous. The key dates are not the August 23-24 Leo-Virgo boundary, but rather the July 31-August 1 youth baseball cutoff date. Until recently, most youth baseball leagues adhered to an August 1 birthday cutoff – to play in an under-12 league, you must be under 12 years old on the cutoff date. Thus, players born in August are 11 years and 11 months old, and are playing with players who are 1-2 years younger than they. Then, when these players graduate to the under-14 league, they are still on the high end of the age range.

A pubescent boy may grow substantially in a few months. The 12 year, 1 month boy is not likely to earn playing time over the 13 year, 11 month boy – the sheer size, strength, and speed difference is virtually guaranteed to give the older boy an insurmountable advantage, especially with a volunteer youth coach who is likely size, strength, and speed obsessed. But what if that July-born boy has more natural ability? How many such boys give up on baseball for lack of playing time, and find success in football or basketball? How many of these kids could have developed into excellent players had they been given an extra 11 months for their bodies to grow into their skills? We’ll never know…

I’m not proposing any radical action to help the poor, downtrodden Cancers. Mr. Spira notes that USA baseball has now pretty much uniformly changed this cutoff date to April 30 all over the country, making Aries replace Cancer as the oppressed sign. He does tantalizingly note that one easy solution would be for local groups to set their own cutoff dates, allowing players to “shop around” for advantageous leagues that meet their skill set rather than their age. With that not likely to happen, we can expect that, a decade or two from now, May will replace August as the most common birth month for major leaguers.


Mathematical reference of the week:
Firejoemorgan.com, a sort of sarcastic sports media watchdog site, noted that on numerous occasions recently, sportswriters have seemed to write articles in full consciousness of the potential for criticism from FJM and other, similar blogs. In fact, FJM suspects that some authors may be going out of their way to bait critics such as they, either as a publicity-seeking mechanism, or just for the sheer thrill of engaging in a battle of words with their intellectual superiors.

In any case, FJM notes that such articles might be called “sports journalism criticism criticism. This is one of those f(f(f(x))) deals that make [FJM author] Junior giddy.”


Biggest busts that GMs should have known would be busts
For Reds fans, there’s Corey Patterson and Josh Fogg… but I don’t count them in this category. Sure, anyone who does statistical analysis can show that Mr. Patterson has been practically useless over the latter stages of his career. His VORP – Value Over Replacement Player – has routinely been negative. That means he did not outperform a free agent off the streets, or a good AAA player. Sure enough, after a four-homer week, Mr. Patterson has batted around .100 and been replaced by a good AAA player as the Reds starting center fielder.

As for Mr. Fogg… Historically, he’s dared hitters to make contact, relying on a big ballpark and good defenders to win about half the games he started. His career ERA of 4.99 is pretty poor, but his strength has been to eat innings for his team while keeping them in the game sometimes. In Pittsburgh he benefited from the spectacular infield defense of Jose Castillo and Jack Wilson, the best double play combo since Ozzie Smith and the Busch Stadium peanut vendor. In Colorado his defense played well, plus spacious Coors Field turned a large number of potential home runs into long outs hit to speedy outfielders. Now, though, Mr. Fogg’s home field is the Great American Ballpark, a true pitcher’s Heck where pop flies turn into home runs. And, Mr. Fogg’s defense includes Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Dunn, the Nachoman’s early season nominees for the Coprolite Glove award.

These two gentlemen came to the Reds as stopgaps. Mr. Patterson was signed as a non-roster invitee; Mr. Fogg turned down a lucrative contract with Colorado, and ended up signing with the Reds for less. Neither man was projected as the savior of a poor franchise.[6] Thus, neither man qualifies as a “bust.”

I consider a true “bust” someone signed, promoted, or traded with great fanfare and monetary commitment, who subsequently performs as if he’s a minor leaguer. Presumably, major league GMs are aware of previous performance, and that past performance – all of it – is the best predictor of future results. When a GM “makes a splash” by signing a historically poor player, or a player with exactly one good season behind him, or a famous player on the downside of his career, that GM usually gets in trouble. These are busts that could have, should have been predicted. Two examples:


Matt Morris
He had three good years (1997, 2001, and 2002), and one not-bad year (2003). Since then, all the way through the first 21 games of 2007, his ERA has been well over 4.00. Why, oh why, would the moribund Pirates trade prospects for a bad pitcher in the twilight of his career? The team said, with some logic, that they wanted a veteran to lead their young pitchers. Okay, I can’t argue that Mr. Morris’s veteran presence would be worth it if he were hired instead of, say, a 20 year old with a 9.00 ERA who can’t throw strikes. But, a 20 year old with similar numbers to Mr. Morris is likely to improve with experience; a 33 year old with Mr. Morris’s numbers is likely to continue his slide. Furthermore, look at the economics of the situation. Just how much money is a “veteran presence” and a crappy ERA worth? Apparently, about $10 million. Think of how many Dominican pitchers could have been hired for that sum. And most would have been just as good as, or better than, Mr. Morris.


Eric Gagne
Milwaukee signed him despite his disastrous end-of-season gig with Boston, despite his HGH history.[7] The most likely explanation for Mr. Gagne’s recent decline is that he might be off of the juice.

As an aside, is a closer EVER worth this kind of money? I think of closers like I do running backs in football. Sure, there are good, even great, closers. But chances are, you can find one nearly as good within your organization who’s just dying for the opportunity. Check out sometime how some of the great closers got started. There aren’t many who were anointed from day 1, not even the Great Mariano (who was an unknown setup guy in 1996).


Barry Zito
Okay, I can forgive San Francisco’s management for this one. If you’re going to pay for anything, pay for proven starting pitching. Mr. Zito had three dominant years, 2001-03. He had a bad 2004 (when he still pitched more than 200 innings, and had a better ERA than Matt Morris of recent vintage), and decent 05 and 06 campaigns. I don’t know if I agree with the richest contract for a pitcher in baseball history, but certainly Mr. Zito had demonstrated his worth.

Too bad he hasn’t lived up to the hype. Mr. Zito’s 2007 season was poor by any measure; this year he has a 5.61 ERA, and has walked more than he’s struck out. Sorry, Giants fans, you’ve got seven more years in purgatory for your support of The Sourpuss.


Shut *UP*, Hank.
Apparently Hank Steinbrenner told the press, either instead of or in addition to manager Joe Girardi, how he wants his pitchers to be used.

Just once I’d like to see a major sports website or television entity simply ignore Mr. Steinbrenner. I will add to my list of people who should NEVER be quoted in sports journalism.


Next week, hopefully…
The Nachoman reacts to Hank Steinbrenner’s criticism of the Nachoman’s criticism, driving this site’s traffic into the stratosphere. Wouldn’t that be awesome…


NM



[1] If such a thing even exists.
[2] Since, on average, as many molecules are moving north as south, up as down, etc., the average velocity of the molecules is zero. The useful measure is called RMS speed, which gives a statistically meaningful idea of how fast a typical molecule moves. The answer, in a room-temperature room: a thousand or so miles per hour.
[3] It usually is.
[4] And at worst, a way to make money by exploiting the gullible masses. But buy this book!
[5] Sure. She’d be an improvement on Selig.
[6] Compare that with the fanfare over Eric Milton a few years ago, who had lifetime stats similar to those of Mr. Fogg, but who nevertheless got top dollar and top billing from the chumps in the Reds front office.
[7] Mr. Gagne was named in the Mitchell report, which was released a few days after Milwaukee signed him. Either Milwaukee knew about Gagne’s use of human growth hormone and didn’t care, or they were deliberately deaf, blind and dumb. Either way, the Brewers are paying the price ($10 million) right now.