People suck…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

When the committee didn’t hear from Knoblauch or a representative, it issued a subpoena to force the 1991 AL Rookie of the Year to submit to a deposition next Tuesday.

As of 7 p.m. Wednesday, though, that subpoena had not reached the former infielder who, like Clemens and more than 80 other players, was accused of using performance-enhancing drugs in last month’s Mitchell Report on baseball’s steroids era.

Knoblauch swiped 407 bases during his 12-year career. Presumably he’s slowed since then, so the question now becomes whether the feds have a rag-armed catcher or just don’t hold runners very well.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Pujols asked Cardinals media relations director Brian Bartow to make a reporter and cameraman from St. Louis Fox affiliate KTVI leave the room where Pujols’ news conference was taking place on the final day of the Cardinals’ winter warmup.

Not that you can blame Pujols. Assuming he’s clean, someone has tarnished his reputation, which is a bad thing in any line of work, much less one that involves such high visibility among its employees.

Sigh. When will it all end? Let’s get real; it probably won’t…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

On second thought, let’s take a look at someone else taking a look at Gossage. In this case, we’ll check in on a couple of guys with a vote, ESPN’s Phil Rogers and Sean McAdam.

As fascinating to me as the discussions of why a player is or isn’t deserving of enshrinement in Cooperstown are the discussions of why voters think a player is or isn’t. The former question is, for the most part, pretty straightforward. You look at some numbers, compare them against those of other great players, and go about your merry way. As for what the voters are thinking, well, that’s where things get… interesting.

Here are a few tidbits from the linked article. PR is Rogers, SM is McAdam. Note that these are only excerpts; read the whole thing to get context.

PR: I think a lot of us have just been slow to recognize relief pitchers. I’m hoping Bruce Sutter’s election two years ago serves as a springboard to get Gossage in this time around.

Yeah, I can buy the “slow to recognize” argument. I don’t see how it would take Sutter to “serve as a springboard” when Gossage was a better pitcher, but I see the logic more or less.

PR: I was probably one of the few voters who put three relievers on their ballots in previous years when I checked Sutter, Gossage and Lee Smith. I’m down to one this year, as Smith has been passed by Trevor Hoffman for the all-time save lead and my vote for Lee Arthur was based on his being the leader. Sorry, Lee.

I’m having trouble here. Smith was Hall of Fame material before his record was broken, but now that someone has surpassed him, he isn’t. How does that work? If the record is meaningful, which Rogers implies it is through his acknowledgment of Hoffman’s achievement, then how does the fact that Hoffman broke it diminish Smith’s accomplishment? I seriously don’t get that at all. Hoffman’s status as the new all-time saves leader should have no bearing on Smith’s place in history.

Anyway, we’re talking about Gossage:

SM: I remembered Gossage’s hanging on at the end of his distinguished 22-year career and having ordinary — at best — seasons with the Giants, Yankees (Part II), Rangers, A’s and Mariners. In those last five seasons combined, he had a grand total of eight saves. Not exactly the stuff of legends, right?

Uh, Steve Carlton sends his regards.

SM: By then, of course, relievers were routinely posting 40-save seasons — Gossage never had more than 33 in a single year — and his numbers began to look pretty ordinary by comparison. He never won a Cy Young Award or an MVP — like Dennis Eckersley, Willie Hernandez and Rollie Fingers each did.

The only way in which Gossage’s “numbers began to look pretty ordinary” is if you were looking at the wrong numbers. Here’s what the relievers McAdam mentions did when they won their awards, with one of Gossage’s seasons thrown in for good measure:

Okay, so based on the above numbers, please tell me who won the MVP and Cy Young, and who failed to garner a vote for either award. (Note that ‘81 was a strike-shortened season.) Ironically, over in the American League, future Gossage teammate Sparky Lyle did win the Cy Young in ‘77 with slightly inferior numbers.

I’m not necessarily arguing that Gossage should have won an award in ‘77 — Carlton was fantastic that year — but the fact that he wasn’t even named on a ballot gives me considerably less confidence in McAdam’s appeal to authority here. He’s essentially saying that because the writers didn’t vote for him back in the day, they shouldn’t vote for him now. More accurately, McAdam (who has come around on Gossage) is providing his reasons for resisting in the past. Good on him for getting it right, but it troubles me that this type of thinking was employed in the first place.

McAdam offers a nice parting shot:

SM: I suppose, Phil, one of the reasons that people’s vote totals change is because of instances exactly like this one: A voter re-examines someone and reserves the right to change his/her mind. The stats don’t change, but sometimes, your perspective does. I’m not afraid to admit I erred in not voting for Gossage earlier, and I have made amends.

I can’t commend McAdam enough for coming clean on all of this. He sets a great example for other voters by admitting that, upon further review, he is reversing his original assessment of Gossage’s candidacy. The next step would be to provide voters with tools (and understanding of how to use them) so that they avoid making these mistakes in the first place.

But that’s a battle for another day…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Ready for the Mitchell Report? Totally psyched? Man, it’s just like the World Series, only with allegations of drug use instead of baseball games. I can’t believe it’s almost here, just in time for [insert winter holiday of choice].

Howard Bryant at ESPN writes a detailed piece outlining the troublesome nature of this investigation (hat tip to Baseball Musings). You really need to read the entire article, but here are a few little nuggets worth mentioning:

The teams’ general managers, too, felt pressured by questions that led them to believe the Mitchell report will judge them harshly for condoning widespread drug use by not bringing it to the attention of club owners and baseball’s central office. That, they acquiesced, is an unfortunate but real byproduct of the enormous demands placed on player evaluators to win games in a billion-dollar business.

“If this thing comes out and pins everything on us, which is what I think will happen, then every GM in baseball should sue baseball,” one general manager said over the summer. “It’s not going to happen, but this report is going to be total B.S. It’s going to blame us for everything, because we don’t have anyone in our corner. The owners aren’t going to blame themselves, are they?”

And further down:

As ESPN.com spoke with baseball people interviewed during the investigation, a common theme emerged: Investigators, while generally cordial, often revealed an alarming lack of knowledge regarding the day-to-day workings of baseball. Instead of focusing on the elements of the game that might make drug use appealing, investigators asked surface-level questions such as which players suffer from back acne and who underwent the most dramatic body changes. One interviewer, for example, read off a list of players and asked the interviewee to say if he believed the player could have used steroids. No questions were asked, the source said, about the root causes of steroid use.

“They didn’t ask us those things because they didn’t have the level of sophistication about what we do,” said a National League strength coach. “They didn’t know the right questions to ask. At no point in my interview did anyone say to me, ‘What can we recommend to make sure this never happens again?’”

Sounds like the emphasis is more on assigning blame than actually trying to solve the problem. Disappointing, perhaps, but hardly surprising.

Let he who cast very small rocks…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the National League MVP race, while perhaps neglecting the AL side. It feels, at times, like a one-man race, but is it?

ESPN’s Jayson Stark assembled a list of key contenders a few weeks ago, and most of ‘em make sense (not sure about David Ortiz this year, and he’s a little too excited about J.J. Putz for my taste), although my personal opinion is that the real battle here is for second place. Then again, the writers are full of surprises, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Who do you like, and why?

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Like everyone else, Stark has San Diego’s Jake Peavy and Arizona’s Brandon Webb in the top two slots in the National League. Nice to see Stark also recognize what Aaron Harang is accomplishing on a very bad Cincinnati team.

I still think Dodgers closer Takashi Saito belongs in the discussion. Lefties are hitting just .194/.239/.311 against him this year. They are the lucky ones: right-handers are batting — I can hardly write this — .117/.170/.160. Saito has fanned 71 batters and allowed 47 total bases. That’s not quite vintage Eric Gagne, but it’s mighty impressive.

Over in the American League, the situation remains muddy. I’m with Stark on Chien-Ming Wang; I don’t see how that guy is even in the discussion. Then again, he finished second in the voting last season despite mostly pedestrian numbers. Put Harang on the Yankees and he’d win 20, no problem.

I’m also not sure that Cleveland’s C.C. Sabathia has as decided an advantage over Boston’s Josh Beckett as Stark seems to think. Beyond the media hype that will accompany Beckett because of the team he plays for, the guy has had a fantastic season. (So has Kelvim Escobar, with much less fanfare.)

Who do I think should win? Peavy and probably Sabathia (unless something weird happens over the next couple weeks). Who do I think will win? I don’t have a lot of faith in the writers: I’ll say Webb and Beckett.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

My adopted team, Irvine, plays Saturday against Arizona State. First pitch is 11 a.m. PT and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.

Here’s the thing about the Anteaters. Ordinarily you wouldn’t want your team to “suck” but if my understanding of anteater physiology is correct, that’s pretty much what this particular animal does to its prey.

It’s all very confusing…

Update: Upon further review, it appears that “lick” is a more appropriate verb. Very well, then; we’ll go with that instead.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Post from: Knuckle Curve