EVIL~! alkeiper

A one credit course?

Absolutely. Its a gray area for Hall voters, but the precident is there with such players as Frank Chance. You do have to excel at some area. Dusty Baker, for example, is not likely to make the Hall.

I think that's often a misconstrued part of the strategy. You don't literally wait around for the three run home run. The main key is to reach base and avoid outs. That in turn translates into runs.

Yep. The 50k walk is longer than the marathon, at 31 miles and change. The 20k walk is a much more manageable 12 miles.

Track & Field starts in earnest today. The USA Womens' Soccer team starts quarterfinal action against Japan. And earlier, the USA Womens' Basketball team defeated Spain.

Division leaders meet as the Braves face the Dodgers in Los Angeles this weekend. Cleveland (4 games back) visits Minnesota, and we've got the Angels in New York.

For me, the problem is that young players like Jimmy Rollins, Marlon Byrd, Pat Burrell and Brett Myers have failed to develop under Larry Bowa. If one player fails its the player's fault. But when a group fails, you have to look for the root cause. And while I'm assigning blame, why hasn't Joe Kerrigan been fired yet?

Looking over the list, I doubt they'll include Cabrera's hit. There's no justification for putting it so much higher than Carter's HR. I'll also say I doubt Greg Norman's Masters Collapse will make the cut.

I'm on the ball today. I got an email entitled "Support Youth Charities with the Commissioner" and I replied by requesting they tell the commissioner to bite my ass.

1932 for the 50k walk, and 1956 for the 20k walk.

The 1994 Strike and WS Cancellation has to be on there.

I'd say that has more to do with knowing fundamentals than knowing team chemestry. Team chemestry, as commonly known, refers to the idea that players play at their best in a harmonious environment, which is best created by having the right players, a mix of an outspoken leader, good clubhouse guys, and whoever the media latches onto this week. It's a highly suspect area, because good "team chemestry" is commonly associated with a winning team, leading to the old chicken or the egg argument. When's the last time you read of a losing team with great team chemestry? OBP, by far, is the most important skill for the top of the order. Much moreso than speed. If you have doubts, here is an example. In 1929, the Philadelphia Athletics won the World Series. Al Simmons drove in 157 runs, and Jimmie Foxx drove in 118 runs. Now in order to drive in those runs, you need guys on base. Their #2 hitter, Max Bishop, hit .232 and stole 1 base. He scored 102 runs. How did he do it? He drew 128 walks, posting a .398 OBP. Every year, the A's big hitters drove in massive amounts of runs, and Max Bishop scored obscene numbers of runs, all thanks to OBP. This is an extreme example, but it shows the concept behind Moneyball. Baserunners equal more runs and less outs. Speed is a nice bonus, but it is just that, a bonus.

I suspect it will be more like Olympic Basketball, in that the big stars are reshuffled around, but I could be wrong. The big issue at this point is getting Japan on board.

There have been three or four moments where I've said, "ok, that's their cue to fire Bowa." He should've been gone after the Marlins sweep. Now its too late.

It didn't get much notice, but Eric Gagne blew just his second save of the season yesterday.

Its odd. In the last year especially, there's been a backlash against the book, with announcers going out of their way to express that it simply does not work, and small ball is not only good, but its the superior strategy. Instead of educating their fanbase, these commentators seem fit to denounce new ideas as poppycock. A lot of people think sabermetrics is simply about denouncing small ball. It is not. The purpose is to question conventional wisdom by asking the simple question, "Can this be proven?" Is there such a thing as clutch hitting? Team chemestry? Can it be measured? What does score runs? What predicts future performance?

Baseball Primer also has a good thread up.

Damn. We clearly should have guessed that.

Are you kidding me? The rare benefit of being a Philadelphia sports fan is that we NEVER get our hopes up. I am thinking about starting an "Alan Keiper for Philly GM" movement though.

The funny thing is that back before 1992, we were one of the countries that voted against using professionals.

I simply refer everyone to my last column. Fuck Bud Selig.

Then you've heard the backlash from announcers and columnists, who love to bash innovation, but have no real idea what Moneyball is about. They are called little things because they are exactly that, little things. They pale in comparison to true skills, whether they are hitting, fielding, or pitching. Fundamentals? This is the elite level of baseball, and any player completely incapable of doing the "little things" probably isn't a major league caliber player. First off, the stats CAN measure these things. Stats can tell you how good a fielder someone is, how many outs a team loses on the basepaths, and how many double plays they've made in comparison to their expected double plays. The question again is how important are these skills relative to other skills. Second, no sabermatrician worth his salt would recommend using stats entirely without the benefit of the naked eye. You use all the tools available at your disposal to make a balanced judgement. The stats don't match up with what you've seen? Look for the biases, and vice versa. Luck is something no system can account for, and Moneyball is no different. Of course, throwing $200 Million out there to field a baseball team doesn't account for luck either. Timely hitting is very much a factor of luck, because "clutch" hitters one season are usually not the clutch hitters the next season. Speed? Speed is nice, but the Marlins stole two bases last year during the World Series. The Marlins have speed, but their success is more dependant on whether Castillo or Pierre reach base than what they do afterward. The thing people forget about the Marlins and the Angels is that they were one year wonders. I compare a Moneyball-type team to a smart poker player. In a single hand, anyone can draw a straight flush and take the pot. But its a smart poker player who plays the odds, plays smart, and knows the game that wins more hands over time. Moneyball is a better system for winning long term than short term. Sometimes you need to gamble to win it all, but alot of small market teams can not afford to survive a few 70-92 seasons in order to grab the brass ring.

Don't you mean drafted out of college? And I think Jason Giambi was very much out of their ideal mold. An incredibly disciplined hitter, who took walks, waited for his pitch, and crushed the heck out of it. I would note that list doesn't include Joe Blanton, their next good pitcher. He was a college draftee as well. Same with Nick Swisher.

Yes, but I wasn't sure I'd be available this morning.

From MRK..... Moneyball barely mentioned Rick Peterson, and had little to say about Art Howe. Those guys were not part of the Moneyball strategists. From Strummer..... I would like to see Mike & the Mad Dog explain the last three seasons. The Yankees bullpen was slaughtered by the Anaheim Angels in 2002. Baseball itself is very much a random sport, and there is little a general manager can do about that. If the Tampa Bay Devil Rays take two of three from the Yankees, no one really notices. And considering the A's have played the Yankees twice, the Red Sox, and the Twins, its no surprise that luck hasn't shined their way. And I think its worth noting that every time, the Series goes five games. If their failures were due to some failure in strategy, or a fatal error in roster construction that caused them to be unsuitable for the Playoffs, they would get blown out. That hasn't happened. From NoCal Mike..... It cost them in 2002, but otherwise I wouldn't think its a serious problem. The fans like to see a dominant closer in the 9th for piece of mind, but their effects are overstated. After all, the A's win plenty of games with the revolving door system, and they can spend the cash elsewhere. From Vern Gagne.... In 1996, Bill James wrote a book analyzing baseball managers. Inside, he wrote an article about the sacrifice bunt. In the article, he attacked the notion that there was never a good time for a sacrifice. James argued that the studies were flawed, and there can be times where the sacrifice is successful. Sabermetricians are not set in stone. They are constantly exploring various strategies and methods. If the A's or another team find that the sacrifice can be a useful strategy, they would not be adverse to using it. From Cartman.... We have 125 years of league data at our fingertips. If you go through the statistics and compare each one to runs scored, you will find no statistic correlates better with runs than OBP. The benefits of OBP are not just getting a runner on base. It also avoids outs. A team which makes less outs prolongs the inning, and acquires more run scoring opportunities.