SB Nation User Blog: yurizanow

Shysterball doesn't want Mark Teixeira

yurizanow — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:57:28 -0000

http://shysterball.blogspot.com/2008/08/os-fans-dont-know-whats-good-for-them.html

The gist of the article seems to be that if the Orioles sign Teixeira, it will contradict the work Andy MacPhail has been doing to build the Orioles from the bottom up by reverting to Peter Angelos free-spending ways.

I don't know I necessarily buy that. Although I would go after Adam Dunn, who probably cost less money for similar offensive output, the Orioles will eventually have to sign somebody who didn't come up through their own system and Teixeira is young enough that he could meld nicely with the young players who will be coming up in the next few years and still have some productivity in him when the O's are ready to compete.

Please trade George Sherrill

yurizanow — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:03:55 -0000

The guy enters the game with a 7-3 lead and exits with a 7-6 lead. This guy has gotta go and sooner rather than later because eventually other teams are going to catch on.

The numbers don't lie. The guy is on pace to set career-highs for hits, runs, home runs, and walks and he's 31 years old. It's not likely he's going to get any better. If there is a team willing to give actual baseball players for him, do it. The O's should be grateful they got a player in a trade that they could turn into more players. That's the kind of slick front office action I would love to see come out of Baltimore.

The Ten Commandment of Sabermetrics

yurizanow — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:59:41 -0000

I mentioned this in an earlier post. I snooped around and eventually found the complete list.

Hey Dave Trembley, pay attention to rules number one, two, and four! Hey front office, pay attention to rules number five and nine (although they've been better about that lately).

Encouragingly enough, Trembley obeys the rules related to pitching.

The Ten Commandments of Sabermetrics

By Bill James

1) Thou Shalt not Bunt.

2) Thou Shalt Have no Low On Base Percentages Before the Cleanup Hitter

3) Honor the three-run homer and the leadoff walk.

4) Thou shalt not steal at anything less than a 70% success rate.

5) Thou shalt make no idol of the light-hitting middle infielder.

6) Thou shalt not count to the credit of the pitcher that which is done by his fielders or by his hitters, nor charge him with their failings.

7) Thou shalt not abuse thy starting pitchers.

8) Thou shalt make no effort to ride the hot hand, for the hot hand is but a shape in the wind.

9) Place thy faith not in veterans, when youth be available to ye.

10) Thou shalt not pass freely thy opponent's number eight hitter, nor his cleanup hitter, nor his left-handed pinch hitter, nor any hitter that is thy opponent's.

Small Ball Debate Returns!

yurizanow — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:19:39 -0000

I've decided that the one thing I want to contribute to this site is instigating heated arguments about small ball. In that spirit below is a link to a great posting on firejoemorgan.com on that subject. They're talking about an article about playing small ball (a.k.a. playing the game the right way) written by former shitty baseball player Jose Mota.

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/search/label/jose%20mota

Some highlights -

Aggressiveness is not a style, but the right way to play the game, and it is the right way to teach the game.

Oh. It's black and white. Home runs are wrong. Walking is wrong. Clogging the basepaths is wrong. We should accept this wisdom because...why again?

We can go back to our Little League days when our best coaches encouraged us to be aggressive and to have fun on the basepaths, to move a buddy over with a bunt so he can get closer to scoring that big run, to be unafraid of taking a chance on a wild pitch, to choke up on the bat with two strikes and make contact. Most of us can remember the coach who said, "I won’t be upset if you get thrown out as long as you are being aggressive and smart."

It's funny, because so many of these well-worn baseball ostensible truisms are diametrically opposed to say, Bill James' 10 Commandments of Sabermetrics, which include:

1) Thou Shalt not Bunt.

2) Thou Shalt Have no Low On Base Percentages Before the Cleanup Hitter.

3) Honor the three-run homer and the leadoff walk.

4) Thou shalt not steal at anything less than a 70% success rate.

5) Thou shalt make no idol of the light-hitting middle infielder.

But then again, I have no idea if Bill James ever coached Little League, and he certainly never accumulated 36 at bats for the 1991 San Diego Padres, so you can probably throw his opinions out the window. That's all they are, right? Opinions, from some nerd who's only pored over reams and reams of data and carefully used statistical analysis to determine what baseball plays actually contribute most to scoring baseball runs.

Who needs that kind of opinion?

I played with seven organizations during my 12-year career, including big league stints with the Padres and Royals, and I can tell you that every one of them emphasized what they thought were the key components to winning. During spring training, we spent countless hours not talking about hitting three-run homers, but on how to maximize opportunities when it was our turn to hit.

Argh. Back to the craziness. Those Padres and those Royals OPS+ed 94 and 87, respectively. Maybe you should've chatted more about power hitting, yeah?

Many lessons had to do with playing the game with a high level of awareness. Every morning during spring training the routines were similar when talking about creating runs: bunt runners over, execute the hit-and-run, move the runner over from second to third with nobody out by hitting the ball to the right side. And when baserunning, recognize where the outfielders are positioned and know their arm strength. Tag the bases and slide properly. The ways to gain an edge are endless.

Other ways to gain an edge:

1. Get on base more than the other guys.
2. Make the other guys throw more pitches than your guys.
3. Don't bunt (except for the rarest of circumstances).
4. Don't give away outs.
5. Have more powerful dudes.
6. Force Edwin Encarnacion to bunt, making him so angry he hits a gargantuan home run.
7. Repeat with Adam Dunn.
8. Hit nine 3-run home runs every game.
9. Fold your arms in the dugout and smile.

By the way, anyone who can find the Rob Neyer/Bill James 10 Commandments of Sabermetrics would be my hero for at least a day.

Matt Wieters

yurizanow — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:48:00 -0000

I don't know if anybody has noticed, but Matt Wieters is literally beating the shit out of the ball down in Frederick with a line of .324/.420/.566 and 12 home runs.

I realize that those are A ball stats, but I'm still pretty impressed. Does anybody have any idea when he will arrive on the big-league club or when he should arrive?

Second, jonnypops and I talked about him when we met at the New York meetup a few months ago. Jonny said that a guy with his stats shouldn't be a catcher. I thought "let him play where he wants", but now I'm reconsidering. He's supposed to be an amazing defensive catcher, but I worry that catching will detract from his potentially greater value as a hitter. Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, and Mike Piazza didn't seem to benefit from having their catching duties removed, but Jimmie Foxx, Dale Murphy, and Craig Biggio did. What do you guys think?

Allow Me To Flog A Dead Horse

yurizanow — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:05:41 -0000

I'm going to try and make this the last time I pick on perfectly good player and Oriole with a promising future Nick Markakis. I realize almost everybody here understands that the O's need better players than him if they're going to become an elite team, but I decided to illustrate this with the Orioles' own past success.

Nick Markakis' best season so far is his current one where he's hitting for an OPS+ of 125 making him pretty much tied with Luke Scott for the best hitter on the team this year. Not too shabby, but the 1966, 1971, and 1983 Orioles had five guys with over 300 at bats whose OPS+ were either almost or exceeding 125. The 1969 and 1970 Orioles had four and the 1979 team had three.

On the 1969-1971 Oriole pennant winners Don Buford's OPS+ was 128, 126, and 153 (and just for shits and giggles, it was 148 in 1968). Even though I think Buford is an underrated player, no one thinks about him as one of the standout players on those teams. I bet a lot of you are like me and sometimes get him mixed up with Don Baylor and Al Bumbry.

My point is not that Nick Markakis sucks or will never be a great player, it's that the Orioles own history shows you have to have better players than him to win it all. There are no shortcuts and as it stands now, he's just not good enough. He is valuable and if they're going to win they'll need players just like him, but they need players substantially better than him as well.

Did this bug anyone else?

yurizanow — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:51:18 -0000

I went to the Mets-Marlins game last night, so even though I live in New York I wasn't able to watch the Yankees-O's game. The only way I could keep tabs is by periodically checking the out-of-town scoreboard. When I went home I was pleased to see that I could watch the end of the game and was throughly happy with the outcome.

However, one thing bugged me and I wanted to know if it bugged anyone else. In the final inning, after the Yankees intentionally walked Kevin Millar, Dave Trembley Dave Trembley used Luis Hernandez, who I believe was the last man on the bench, to pinch run for Millar.

Why?

As far as I can tell there was no reason to do that. If the guy on third scores the game is over so it doesn't matter how slow the guy on first is. There was only one out, so even if they force Millar out on second, the game is probably over. If there is a double-play opportunity, the guy who will make the biggest difference in preventing it with his speed is batter, not the guy on first and I would think a bigger guy like Millar might do a better job of breaking it up than Luis Hernandez.

If the Orioles didn't score, then the game continues with no first baseman and nobody left on the bench. The move ultimately had no consequences for the Orioles, but it still struck me as strange.

Did anyone else notice or am I just nitpicking?

B.J. Surhoff - Rally Killing Home Run Hitter

yurizanow — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:20:36 -0000

dfa's mention of Adam Dunn's rally-killing home runs reminded me of something I heard Tim McCarver say eight or nine years ago about a B.J. Surhoff home run.

I live in New York and McCarver had been the color-commentator for the Mets until 1998 or 1999 when he was fired and immediately hired by the Yankees to do games on YES with Bobby Murcer. That was rich because I got to listen to him sourly bitch about how the Yankees didn't play the game the right way as they were dominating baseball like no one had done so since the 1970's Oakland A's (who he probably didn't think played the game the right way either, playing the game the right way isn't always compatible with winning baseball, you know).

Anyway, at some point during his stay on YES I was watching a Yankees-Orioles game where the Yankees were (surprise) beating the shit out of the Orioles something along the lines of 8-0. At the top of the sixth inning B.J. Surhoff came up to bat and cranked one into the seats. This set McCarver off for the rest of the game about how he didn't see the point of B.J. Surhoff's home run and didn't understand why he didn't get a walk or hit his way on base so he could start a rally. He was complaining about this until literally the final inning when he said that Surhoff killed any chance of the Orioles coming back by hitting a home run in the sixth.

Now this cracked me up for a several reasons. First, the whole idea that there was a better thing for Surhoff to do in that situation than hit a home run. Last time I checked, an inning that starts with a rally-killing home run is guaranteed to produce at least one run for the team at bat. An inning that starts with anything else is not guaranteed to produce at least one run. Second is the idea that Surhoff "meant" to hit a home run. It's like Surhoff saw the pitch and thought to himself "hmm, I could do a few different things with this pitch, I think I'll hit a home run." If that were the case, why would he ever chose anything but hitting a home run? That makes no sense. Now I've never played professional baseball but I'm going to guess Surhoff really thought something along the lines of - "That pitch is right in my wheelhouse, I'm swinging! Holy shit, I hit a home run!" Finally, I was amused by the whole idea that the Orioles were going to come back after being down by a lot in the sixth inning against the World Series champs and that that whole effort was derailed by Surhoff actually scoring.

Offensive Offenses - Cincinnati Edition

yurizanow — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:19:50 -0000

I read about this on firejoemorgan.com. It is proof that Dusty Baker is a moron and pretty much my nightmare of what Dave Trembley will turn the Orioles into.

Dusty Baker, fresh off his successful manufacturing of Edwin Encarnacion's game-winning home run earlier this season by making him try to bunt the tying run to third (or something like that), tried it again with the same results. With ADAM DUNN!

The Reds had guys on first and second with one out in the ninth inning of their Saturday game against the Indians and Adam Dunn at the plate. Dusty decided that was a great time to bunt them over so Paul Bako could hit one the other way and bring them in. To either his credit or discredit (you decide) Dunn gave it a shot and tried to lay down a couple of bunts, neither of which were successful. He then decided maybe hitting the pitch like a grown man was in order and launched one into the seats for a home run.

Now despite my extreme reservations, I am willing to believe (especially in the National League), there are times when a bunt, perhaps even a sacrifice bunt, is in order. I don't think that was one of those times. I've heard that the Cincinnati announcers and reporters really have it in for Dunn, so I can imagine him being given truckloads of shit for not being able to lay one down. Perhaps that's even continued after his home run. Also, apparently Dusty has been batting Dunn in the sixth or seventh spot. I know batting orders aren't supposed to have a huge effect, but what the fuck? I'll bet dollars for donuts that Dusty thinks Dunn is a lousy player and wishes he could trade him in for another Corey Patterson or some other player who does the little things and plays the game right the right way.

As some of you may recall, I am a bit in love with the idea of having Adam Dunn on the Orioles. A year or so ago we discussed about how awesome it would be to have both Adam Dunn and Mark Teixeira on the O's. I would love both, but I'm in the minority on having a bigger crush on Dunn because I think he's a better cleanup hitter and because because he's so disliked by the Joe Morgans and Tim McCarvers (and probably Dusty Bakers) of the world.

Offensive Offenses

yurizanow — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:58:12 -0000

An evil wind has blown into Orioleland.

25 years removed from their last championship I'm seeing signs that there are O's fans who have forgotten or never knew how the Orioles won so much in the past and are enchanted by that awful product of the National League - "Small Ball".

Before I bitch about this, I want everyone to click on this link and listen to what Earl Weaver thinks about small ball. I know everybody has heard this before, but listen to what he actually says

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YKxf3OkpJc'

"Get them big cocksuckers that can hit the fucking ball out of the ball park the and you can't make any goddamn mistake." Truer words were never spoken.

Baseball is a pretty simple game compared to football or basketball. You get guys on base, knock them in, and try to prevent the other team from doing the same. It's been the way it's been since 1920, but a significant part of the baseball world is in total denial about it. You ever wonder why the Yankees won so many World Series? Ever wonder why the National League isn't so good at the whole World Series thing? That's pretty much why. The rules of baseball allow lots of other ways to try and score runs, but there isn't a whole lot of evidence those other ways win many games on a consistent basis.

Earl Weaver understood how baseball offenses work probably better than any manager in history. He knew that wasting time worrying about the "little things" was pointless because they literally were little things and don't contribute very much to winning games. Look at the really successful teams, they usually were near the top in runs scored and runs allowed and they usually scored runs by getting on base and hitting for power. There are exceptions, but those exceptions tend to be confined to specific eras and rarely repeat. The Yankees won World Series like clockwork. The 2003 Marlins finished 4 games above 500 the next year.

Currently, the American League East has three teams that are in the top six in both runs scored and home runs. The idea that the Orioles will compete with them with single-run strategies is absurd. The Yankees, Red Sox, and Devil Rays have the ability to completely change a game with one swing of the bat. Dave Trembley is hoping to squeak out victories with a high-risk, low-return offense. If he worked on Wall Street he'd be out of a job in a week.

I know a lot of apologists for him say things like "well, the O's don't have any big hitters, we need to score runs another way." I don't think that holds a lot of water. Those teams that are successful with "small ball" have high percentage base stealers and guys who can bunt their way on base. The Orioles don't have that. They score so infrequently that they should be adopting a high-percentage, low-risk strategy and hope for the best. By giving away outs they're decreasing their already slim chances of scoring a run.

For reasons that elude me, a lot of people think small ball is "old school" and "the right way to play the game". It isn't. The right way to play the game is whatever way wins and in the American League East small ball doesn't. Old school for the Orioles is what Earl Weaver is talking about in that clip above. It's what Moneyball is all about. I'd like to see the Orioles to return to that.