Gutting It Out

I don't know a lot, or really anything about cars, so I rarely if ever give my input regarding them. I don't follow basketball and probably couldn't name the "star" player on every team in the league, so I won't stick my nose into a discussion about basketball. Football, ditto. European soccer, same thing. When someone with a background in politics raises a point regarding politics, I typically concede to that person, assuming they know what they are talking about.

Why then, can't radio personalities do the same?

(Maybe the greater question is why I continue to go to the sources I do for entertainment).

I have in my short time writing made mistakes, lot's to be certain. I even mistakenly called right handed pitcher Clay Buchholz a lefty, and at the time, that was much of the reason I liked him as a prospect. I've even started a second, yet short lived blog about my favorite OHLer, Andrew Shaw because I felt as though he deserved to be drafted - didn't happen.

On the radio this afternoon I heard Jim Rome (guh!) give a monologue about how Roy "Doc" Halladay had one of the gutsiest performances in recently history. Rome even asserted that this performance may have overshadowed the performance of Curt Schilling a couple years back. Rome attempted to make it out as if Halladay's performance was the fuel to ignite the fire that was the Phillies win. You can bet that if the Phillies take this series, Rome will talk about how Halladay went out there on "one leg".

Here's the scoop if you missed out on it.

Halladay claimed to have pulled his groin sometime in the second inning. And according to Rotoworld, "might explain why his stuff looked so shaky throughout the night".

Of course, his second inning groin pull had to do with how poorly he pitched in the first inning. It was entirely owed to the fact that Giants hitters were hammering the ball all night!

I'm sorry, maybe I'm beginning to sound like a Doc hater, but this is going too far! The guy is a fantastic pitcher who has had a memorable season and is probably destined for the hall of fame. It's tough to say negative things about him.

However, this wasn't a gutsy performance. What we saw was a pitcher who simply didn't have his best stuff that happened to pull his groin after 30 or so pitches.

Pitches...Pitcher...Throwing pitches. Wait, this gives me an idea...

Tom Verducci has the "rule of 30", where he asserts a pitcher under the age of 25 that increases his workload by more then 30 is vulnerable to injury. Entering last night's ballgame, Halladay had tossed 266.1 innings during the 2010 season (including the All Star Game and Post Season). This falls just 3.2 innings short of eclipsing the magic 30. Maybe we have something here?

We also see that Halladay has thrown 150 more pitches during 2010 then he did during his career high season in 2003. 2004, the season after his previous career high, also resulted in Halladay missing a significant amount of time.

I'm not saying this is an open and shut case, but could throwing a career high in innings and pitches result in Halladay running out of gas? If he were 25, almost everyone would be convinced this is true, so why not for a 33 year old? A 33 year old who year after year has been among the league leaders in pitches thrown and innings pitched.

Baseball Prospectus has a stat called "Pitcher Abuse Points". It hasn't been used to link many injuries recently, and I'll be the first to admit the premise isn't iron-clad. In fact, this stat was created over a decade ago and not much work has been done to further it. Even BP's ex-injury expert Will Carrol wasn't found utilizing this stat.

In any event, PAP is created using the following formula, as per BP,

These points are cumulative: a 115-pitch outing gets you 20 PAP's - 1 for each pitch from 101-110 (10 total), and 2 for each pitch from 111-115 (10 total). A 120-pitch outing is worth 30 PAP's, while a 140-pitch outing is worth 100 PAP's - more than 3 times as much. This seems fair; a pitcher doesn't get tired all at once, but fatigue sets on gradually, and with each pitch the danger of continuing to pitch grows.

Further, BP breaks the pitch tallies into a chart as follows:

Pitcher Abuse Points
Situation	PAP/Pitch
Pitches 1-100	0
Pitches 101-110	1
Pitches 111-120	2
Pitches 121-130	3
Pitches 131-140	4
Pitches 141-150	5
Pitches 151+	6

This is all a lead up to stating that Roy Halladay has finished in the top 5 in PAP for the last five seasons, possibly pointing to a breakdown in the pitcher. Maybe pitching into October has caused the otherwise indestructible Halladay to fall apart?


I need to again state that this isn't me hating on Roy Halladay, two years ago I fought tooth and nail to convince the writers at Baseball Daily Digest to use some critical thinking in making their selections. What I am doing here is proposing the idea that Halladay's "gutting it out" was possibly due to him being worn down due to overuse, something he displayed in the first inning. His "gutting it out" was not due to pulling his groin in the second inning, as his performance did not tail off after that point - he was arguably a better pitcher after the second inning.

"Illogic" - A Race for MVP

I will touch on this more in the coming days, but I simply could not pass up on the opportunity to call out one of the most stupid comments I have ever read. And let me tell you, that bar is quite low!

Cliff Corcoran of SI.com writes,

[Joe] Mauer might be the first player you'd eliminate from that list, if only because his performance this season (.331/.407/.473, 9 HR, 74 RBIs) falls so far short of his otherworldly MVP campaign of a year ago.

You can check out the list of obvious candidates for yourself. You can also ignore the fact that for some reason I keep going back to SI.com despite the continual abomination that is their baseball writing (although there is more to come).

Despite all of that I have to wonder where Corcoran gets off eliminating Mauer based on the fact that Mauer is failing to be Mauer. That is, Corcoran feels as though simply because Mauer's MVP season in 2009 was greater than his season in 2010 that he is undeserving of it this year. What he fails to mention is that there is a hippo standing on a banana in odd numbered months that make it impossible to vote for the Twins backstop.

What a joke!

Well thanks for eliminating Mauer out of the MVP race based on that logic, I was really scratching my head there!

But Corcoran goes on to oust his own logic time and time again.

First, he suggests that Troy Tulowitzki is undeserving of the NL MVP simply because he missed a month of the season (okay) and consequently his counting stats are down (okay, fault MVP voters). However, this "logic" only applies to Tulowitzki because...Well, because.

That is, Corcoran believes that despite not leading the league in any counting categories and missing a significant amount of time, Josh Hamilton is the favorite to win AL MVP. Sadly, Corcoran leaves out his rationale behind the pineapple taking home the Cy Young, but I can't imagine the logic would be much different then removing Tulo from the NL ballot for injuries and a lack of counting stats and adding Hamilton to the top of his despite the same inefficiencies.

Second, Corcoran uses his "Mauer defense" MINUS the counting stats argument to write why Albert Pujols deserves third instead of first in writing,

"The counting stats are there, but relative to his own absurd standard, Pujols' rate stats are down this season. In the course of winning the last two NL MVPs, he averaged 42 home runs and 125 RBIs, totals within his reach this year, but also hit .342/.452/.656, which is yet another level of awesomeness above what he has accomplished in 2010. Expect Pujols to be penalized a bit for failing to live up to his own past performance..."

Corcoran does mention that this may be "unfair" however is not willing to fully commit to the level of fairness in this discussion nor state if Pujols should be the winner.

Going against his own logic, Corcoran writes about the counting stats being there, but the failure of Pujols to be Pujols as his fault. There is an interesting comment about Coco the talking monkey and Afghanistan though, which certainly leads to a further understanding of who will win the NL MVP.


If I were a less serious baseball fan, or simply a casual observer of the sport. Maybe I'm from Minnesota and I'm bummed that the Vikings started off 0 and 2 and I'm looking for something to heal those wounds ending up at Corcoran's article. However, upon completion I'm not certain this person would have a better understanding of who the deserving MVP is in either league. Where an argument goes against one player, it supports another; where it disqualifies one, it inflates another. Simply put, the logic makes teaching flip cup to a class of 5 year olds seem like a great decision.

By the way, that's a decision I made while teaching in Korea, so thank you Mr. Corcoran.

(Take note that 3 of the students were one'n'done - I'm a great teacher!)

"Illogic" - I Really Tried...

I know, I know, I'm not going to make it in the business if I keep making enemies, burning bridges is not a good idea. I know my "elitist attitude is not going to get" me far. But when there are errors in baseball writing, I feel the need to point it out - I sure wish someone would do the same for me.

I found myself on SI.com reading one of the cover stories about Manny Ramirez, a perfect time given Ramirez's recent trade to the White Sox and the weekend set of the Whites versus the Reds (socks that is). I typically don't find myself reading SI.com too frequently as I find they mix real life emotions with that of sport. Yes, it is fine to get emotional over sports and to feel some semblance of joy or sorrow based on them, but at the end of the day, they are simply sports and are there for entertainment and nothing more.

In any event, the article mentioned the headaches that Manny will provide to the Chi Sox, as he had to the Red Sox, Indians, and Dodgers. The author mentions a couple highly publicized events which made Manny into some sort of anti-hero.

The purpose of this article isn't to praise Manny Ramirez, I really don't care about him as a person, he's one of the greatest hitters regardless of performance enhancers (which, this just in, ONLY helped hitters, meaning that the stats from the past 20 years have only inflated the numbers of the hitters - great science Mr. Shaughnessy) and that's all that matters to me. The purpose of this article is to question why another author is making assumed claims about a hitter based on illogic (spell check confirms, I just made up a word and am now titling this series "Illogic").

So here goes...

The author writes,

It's harder for Manny to hit now that it's harder to juice.

Testing is not his friend. Some of the power and skill is gone.

Oh! That's the correlation?!? It's harder to hit now that Manny can't use steroids, and that's it? No other reasons it's harder for Manny to hit? Nothing? Okay, I'll give you a second to think about that....

Anything?

No, not yet?

How about now?

Here, I'll give you a couple hints...

#1 "Ballpark Factors" are a "factor" in the performance of a hitter and pitcher. Fenway, for example is consistently improving the numbers of a hitter, especially a right handed power hitter who needs to hit the ball 310 feet instead of over 370. Conversely, Dodger stadium tends to sap this power.

It's not a difficult concept. The numbers are fairly straight forward. Some ballparks help a hitter (Fenway) others hinder a hitter (Dodger Stadium).

Admittedly, Manny's Fenway vs. road OPS doesn't really display this. In fact, Manny managed to hit better (according to OPS) at Dodger stadium then at Fenway. OPS isn't the greatest statistic, but it shouldn't be dismissed.

In any event, ballpark factors ought to be considered, and the fact remains that Dodger stadium i less of a hitter friendly ballpark then Fenway Park. Regardless of "juice".

#2 Manny Ramirez is no longer in his late 20's/early 30's (aka the Prime of a hitters career). It is a well known fact that ball players typically get worse as they leave the prime of their career. I wouldn't expect a baseball writer to know this fact, as it doesn't draw reader interest the same way a headline including "Manny" and "badly" does.

In any event, Manny is simply an older hitter. With or without steroids, Manny would have seen a dip in production, the same way David Eckstein saw it - of course, we could chalk Eckstein's career ISO, which scored below "steroid era" league average up to steroids, after all, who knows what he would have been like without them? Positive test be damned, right Cox?

The point is, Manny's ISO peaked during his age 27 and 28 seasons at an amazing .330 and .348. During five of the next six seasons, Manny hovered around .300 having a low of a still impressive .262 in 2003 (presumably a statistical anomaly). Manny's age 35 season was easily the worst of his career and possibly signaled the end of what was an amazing career (keep in mind, that he still had an excellent season that year).

Then, the trade to LA occurred and Manny's career was, can I go as far as to say resurrected? He did, post a .270 ISO that season, which again, continued the negative trend that one would assume from an individual who is in his late 30s. This was then followed with a .241 season, and then the .188 he is posting this year.

We do see a trend forming here though. If you start at 2004 and run the numbers up to 2010 you see it clear as day - 305, 301, 298, 197, 270, 241, 188. That is Manny's age 32 season running through his age 38 season. It's tough to suggest that this isn't simply the normal aging pattern of a player (possibly to the extreme because Manny's peak was so incredibly high).

#3 Manny's "skills" have hardly diminished.

While Manny's power numbers have tailed off, his wOBA (weighted on base average) has seen only a marginal drop in production and remained well above that of the league average hitter. In fact, he is in the top 20 in all of baseball (among hitters with 200+ plate appearances) despite being clean - baffling, isn't it?

Another little factoid, he is one of only two hitters older then 35 in the top 20. I wonder how much of his career is to be blamed on steroids in the first place. That is, a hitter who is in the twilight of his career and is clean is still among the top 20 hitters in baseball, where does this put him for the prime of his career?


Instead of chalking Manny's decreasing power up to steroids, would it be so difficult to look a little further? Instead of assuming that steroids created Manny into the hitter he is/was, do some research, ask some questions. The fact is, there is very little to link PEDs to Performance Enhancement other then the name.

I really wish that writers who get paid would take some time and do a bit of research. Stop aiming for tabloid-style points and write concrete material that brings something to the discussion. Yes Manny will provide some headaches for this team's management, but he's also going to win the team some games.


The better headline would have been, "Kenny Williams admits letting Jim Thome go a HUGE mistake".