So I take the wife out shopping today. She shops, I sit in the car and read Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008, everyone’s happy.

On page 145 of the Annual, I come across an amusing anecdote about a gentleman named Clay Dalrymple:

One July day in Baltimore in 1969, the umpires were faced with a problem. Clay Dalrymple was to catch for Baltimore that evening, but he emerged from the dugout with both a catcher’s mitt (on his hand) and a fielder’s glove (in his back pocket).

“I asked him about it,” reported home plate umpire John Rice. “And he told me he was going to switch to the fielder’s glove if he had a play at the plate.”

The umpires huddled, and though they couldn’t think of a rule that specifically forbade the use of the second glove, they exacted a promise from Dalrymple that he wouldn’t use the glove until a ruling was made by the league office.

Oriole manager Earl Weaver argued, of course. “If nothing covers it in the rules,” offered Earl, “then why rule against the glove? Why not for?”

This incident (which thanks to the magic of Baseball-Reference, we know occurred in a game against the White Sox) led to the addition of Rule 1.12 to the Official Major League Rules Book. Gotta love Earl Weaver.

And Clay Dalrymple…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Instead of talking about “should win” and “luck,” we ought to be digging deeper. Perhaps there are reasons for Arizona’s success that aren’t immediately obvious? Wouldn’t be the first time.

In his 1982 Baseball Abstract, James identifies a team that regularly finished with better records than their run differential suggested they should. From 1977 through 1981, the Baltimore Orioles won a total of 25 games more than the Pythagorean formula predicted. They were +6 in ‘78, +7 in ‘81, and a whopping +9 in ‘77. That’s not just good, it’s freakish — the sort of thing that makes people scream “fluke” even when evidence hints at something else.

In the case of the Orioles, “something else” was manager Earl Weaver. James’ discussion of Weaver (pp. 41 & 42) is fascinating, but the secret to Weaver’s success can be distilled into two elements:

1. He possessed an uncanny ability to construct a bench — “…a collection of players who can each do two or three or four things, but who when added together make ballplayers.”
2. His managerial style fit the Orioles’ home park (Memorial Stadium) like a glove, or should I say, like a three-run homer. As James observes of Weaver’s approach, “…it is what works in Baltimore, and that is where the Orioles are. All successful teams adapt their talent to the design of their home park.”

So, how does any of this apply to the 2007 Diamondbacks? It’s beyond the scope of this humble article to suggest why Arizona is outperforming its Pythagorean. My intent here is to point out that these things can and do happen, and that to dismiss the phenomenon as “luck” without investigating further is to misapply one of the tools that James has given us. Numbers are never the end, they are always the beginning…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

A couple things stand out to me. First, it’s amazing how much mileage Earl Weaver got out of John Lowenstein and Gary Roenicke in left field. Both were good players with flaws. The genius of Weaver, of course, is that he found a way to maximize their utility while minimizing their flaws. (As an aside, I’m doing some research on the ‘73 draft — Roenicke was the third shortstop taken that year, behind Robin Yount and Johnnie LeMaster.)

Second, I remember as a kid watching Lee Lacy play for the Dodgers. He didn’t get into the game all that often, but when he did, he was pretty effective. As a part-timer, he posted some terrific numbers in 1975 and 1978 before moving on to Pittsburgh.

After several more productive seasons with the Pirates, Lacy got his first shot at a (mostly) everyday gig in 1984, hitting .321/.362/.464 in the process. How many guys do you suppose have (a) qualified for a league batting title for the first time at age 36 and (b) finished second in the league that year?

Post from: Knuckle Curve