This means WAR: Jeter vs. Ripken. Ripken was better-including "in the clutch".

Had a bit of a dispute with a friend the other day about Derek Jeter. Yes, I agree that Jeter has had a wonderful career, and that he will deserve the HOF slot he will get in a few years' time.


Still, Cal Ripken Jr. was the better player. Better defense, more power. This is a view that drives a lot of people crazy. Why, Jeter is "Mr. Clutch"! He's "Mr. Yankee"! Nobody has been the hitter at SS that Jeter has been, year after year!


Well, as someone who's not a Yankee fan, calling him Mr. Yankee is hardly a compliment.  But I digress. The question has to be settled by the numbers. How else can you do it? Otherwise it's just opinions backed up by air. And when you put the facts forward, you see there's really no comparison-Ripken had a far more impressive career.


First, let's look at fielding. Jeter has always been a weak shortstop defensively. In all but three years of his 18 season career, he's had a negative defensive WAR, totaling up to -8.7 over those years. (In retrospect, it was foolish not to have moved Jeter to third when A-Rod was acquired).


By contrast, over his 21 year career, Ripken never had a negative defensive WAR. Some might say,  "I saw Ripken at the end of his career, after he'd been moved to third, and he wasn't very good." Maybe, but he still didn't lapse into negative territory, and at their peaks, when Jeter was a mediocrity defensively, Cal was worth 2-3 wins a year with his glove.

Next, compare them with the stick. While Rip was hitting 20-some HR's a year on average, with a peak of 34 in 1991, Derek was averaging in the teens, with a high of 24 in 1999. Jeter did have a higher career OPS (.838 to .788), and his offensive WAR is higher, 91.5 to 72.8.


But throw offense and defense together, and you see Ripken's edge-Cal's at 107.3 WAR total, Derek at 82.8. That's almost twenty five wins.

Before you say, "But Cal played longer!", yes, his career now exceeds Jeter's by about 500 games. But that means it includes more of the Oriole's decline phase. Certainly Jeter, if at all possible, will play a year or two more, which will equalize things a bit.


And on that clutch stuff-Cal still has the edge. Mr. Oriole had a .866 OPS in post-season play, compared with his .788 in regular season play (though it's true he didn't do much against the Phillies in the 1983 World Series). Mr. Clutch had a lower OPS in the playoffs than Cal, at .838, compared with his .829 regular season figure.

Philadelphia-a baseball or a football town?

There's been some controversy over whether Philadelphia is a "baseball town" or a "football town". Some guy named "guapo", in a Baseball Think Factory discusion of whether Boston is a baseball town (you have to be a true helmet-head to think otherwise), does a nice job in looking at various cities' loyalties.


This is how guapo sees it:

Anaheim: Disney town

Atlanta: Football town

Phoenix: Basketball town

Baltimore: Football town

Boston: Baseball town

Chicago: Basketball town

Cincinnati: Baseball town

Cleveland: Football town

Dallas: Football town

Denver: Football town

Detroit: Hockey town

Miami: Football town

Houston: Football town

Kansas City: Football town

Los Angeles: Basketball town

Milwaukee: Baseball town

Minneapolis: Hockey town

New York: Basketball town

Oakland: Football town

Philadelphia: Football town

Pittsburgh: Football town

San Diego: Baseball town

San Francisco: Football town

Seattle: Football town

St. Louis: Baseball town

Tampa: Football town

Toronto: Hockey town

Washington: Football town


Now, being Philadelphia born and bred, I can only weigh in on my city, although I think SF is more of a baseball town than guapo would claim. As to whether we're more partial to baseball or football, I can honestly say: Nether.

Philadelphia's favorite sport, a (well-informed) cynic would say, is to dump on the athletes it claims to love. It is sick, I tell you. Sick, sick, sick! An awful lot of fans seem to have a better time dumping on the "bums" when they lose than they have fun with winning teams, which, in all honesty, have been all too rare here. And there always has to be a scapegoat: Think, Von Hayes, Tom Bladon, and Norm Snead, for the Phillies, Flyers, and Eagles respectively.

And the guys who get it the worst are those from Philly themselves, like Del Ennis, who was a hell of a player for the Phils in the fifties. And Dick Allen, not from here but a guy with HOF talent, was essentially booed out of town.


For the region overall I guess the Eagles are number one-these are dumb, violent times and people enjoy their dumb, violent sport. Where I live, in Delaware County, I think the Phillies (and maybe the Flyers too) are bigger than the Eagles. I'm basing this on bumper stickers, clothes, etc. seen on the denizens of my fair county, or their vehicles.

My personal preference is for Australian Rules Football, or, in a pinch, New Zealand RF. No, of course baseball's my first love. It is the great American sport. The NFL, as I've written elsewhere, isn't a sport at all.

Fenway at 100

The Yankees visit the Red Sox tonight as Fenway Park celebrates its 100th anniversary. I hear the Yanks' gift will be a 1/8th size model of the Titanic, which had a similar launch, also in April 1912.

Meanwhile, the Soxaholix grieve the Sox' 4-8 start, with yet another Titanic analogy. But, you know, there's really nothing wrong with the Sox that better pitching, hitting, and fielding wouldn't fix.


I guess I should say better managing, too, as Bobby Valentine is having his own set of issues, which are pretty much predictable, given his "quirky" personality.


UPDATE: Charlie Brown's favorite player, Joe Shlabotnik, never played for Boston, but he really should have.

Mark Reynolds not quite on pace to break his own K record

Reynolds still strikes out at an ungodly rate, to be sure. But his 161 whiffs in the Diamondbacks' first 119 games translates to "just" 219 for the season, falling just short of his record 223 of last year. It's not exactly Maris and Mantle in '61, but I'll want to keep an eye on the "race". (Yes, I'm pitiful).

In his Historical Baseball Abstract of 2000 or so, Bill James wondered why no one had yet broken Bobby Bonds' 1970 record for K's, considering the steady trend towards more strikeouts.  The obvious answer was that when guys got close, managers would start playing them less.

Now, there is little stigma attached to whiffing, which may be fine for someone like Reynolds, who is 5th in the NL in homers (26), and seventh in walks (61). But when rotten hitters strike out a ton, a common occurrence with so many teams having 3, 4, 5 100-K men, a little stigma might be order.


And of course, today's preponderance of aggressive swinging and missing probably accounts for the current rash of no-hitters, a trend we can expect to accelerate.


UPDATE: I haven't looked up anybody else, but Reynolds must be leading, or nearly leading MLB in Three True Outcomes-his 162 K, 62 BB, and 26 jacks in 467 PA amounts to a TTO rate of .535 (through 8/17).

Red Sox renovations

Boston club plans to return Fenway to 1912 conditions.

Pres. Taft, supported by a platform of reinforced concrete, will throw out this year's first pitch.

Taft's bitter rival Teddy Roosevelt will curry favor with the fans by leading a chorus of "Tessie" during the 7th inning stretch.

Thoughts on pitch counts

The thing about modern baseball that most seems to annoy old-timers, (for ex., Tim McCarver), who are an easily-annoyed bunch, is pitch counts. "Nolan Ryan didn't need 'em", they'll say. "Neither did Carlton. Imagine trying to put a pitch count on Bob Gibson!" But I argue here that pitch counts make sense-if pitchers are most likely to get hurt when they're tired, why not take them out before they reach that point? In a 162 game season, and with the possibility that even mediocrities like Brett Tomko can have careers of ten or fifteen years if they can stay healthy, why not put a serious priority on preventing pitching injuries where they happen-on the mound?

The first thought that might come to mind is, well, Ryan was a freak of nature. He was throwing 95 MPH at 46! (Of course, by then he couldn't stay healthy for very long). He had had 232 K's in 1990, leading the AL, at 43. Of course he didn't need pitch counts-he really was a freak! (It should be mentioned that he was in great shape, too.)

But there is one interesting fact about Ryan's workload that ought to be noted. While Nolan broke into the majors at 19 (though only pitching just three innings), and threw 152 innings in 1971, at age 24, he didn't reach a more or less career average number of IP till the following year, when at age 25, he threw 284 innings for the Angels after being traded from the Mets. If the "injury nexus" closes at 25 or so, then Nolan's workload, whether through injuries, ineffectiveness, or dumb luck, had actually been managed pretty well to that point.


The larger issue is that, obviously, most pitchers aren't Nolan Ryan. Most pitchers need their workload managed much more carefully. Think of Larry Dierker, who pitched serious innings for Houston as a teen-ager, had 305 IP at age 22 in 1969, had several more 200 IP years, and was out of baseball at 30. Or Catfish Hunter, who had 132 IP at age 19 for the A's, had two 300 IP seasons and eight 200 IP years, and was out of the game at 33, after several ineffective and/or injury shortened years. And there are dozens of other guys with similar career tracks, who could be mentioned, such as Jim Bouton.

The fact is that pitching in injurious to elbows and shoulders. Always has been, always will be. Limiting pitches and innings is the best way, along with proper mechanics and, perhaps to a lesser extent, conditioning (think of David Wells, CC Sabathia, Mickey Lolich, and many more-mechanics really do seem to be more critical than conditioning-if your mechanics aren't right, it won't matter whether you're in shape or not) to lengthen the careers of expensive pitching talent.

And now, even Dusty Baker seems to have seen the light, and along with the rest of baseball, isn't allowing his starters to hit 120 pitches very often. The average pitch count in baseball is settling in at just under 100 per game. This is a good thing, folks. And you old-timers-keep in mind that an idea isn't bad just because you didn't grow up with it.

Pitchers' hitting-Can you hit better than a utility guy?

The previous post discussed my view that baseball should keep the DH.

In looking up the batting stats of two pitchers who are well-known as guys who can swing the stick, I noticed that Mike Hampton and Dontrelle Willis have career OPS+ of 67. So I wondered-how do even the best-hitting pitchers hit compared with notoriously weak-hitting position players?


Let's use the Mendoza Line man himself, Mario Mendoza, as our baseline, and another couple notorious all-glove, no-hit types, then some renowned good-hitting pitchers. I'll list the player or pitcher, his career OPS+, and other notable hitting stats for that guy.

M. Mendoza: 41 OPS+; 4 HR in nine seasons.

B. Wine:  55 OPS+; he hit 30 HR in his 12 year career, which amazes me.

M. Belanger: 68 OPS+; Mark had one (exactly) 100 OPS+ season, 1976, whn he hit .270 with 51 BB. He wasn't a utility guy, of course, but the best SS of his generation.


To the pitchers:


I've already mentioned Willis and Hampton, who had career OPS+ of 67.

D. Drysdale: 45 OPS+; he did hit .300, with 7 HR and 19 RBI in 1965. He also had 7 HR in 66 AB in 1958.

R. Rhoden:  59 OPS+; he had several impressive hitting years, including 1984, when he hit .333 in 84 AB. The Pirates always seemed to have a lot of pitchers who could hit in that period.

S. Carlton:  33 OPS+; surprisingly low, but then again, Lefty never put any more effort into hitting or baserunning than absolutely necessary. He saved his energy for the mound. He did hit a memorable playoff HR against the Dodgers in 1978.

D. Newcombe:  85 OPS+; Newk is probably the first guy that comes to mind when you think of pitchers who can rip, and he lives up to his rep. Unlike some other pitchers who can handle the bat, he was mostly a singles hitter, except for 1955 (that magical year for the Dodgers), when he hit seven HR. Newk is still alive, one of the last of The Boys of Summer still with us-Duke Snider, Don Zimmer, and Sandy Koufax (who did make 12 appearances with the '55 club) among the few others. And Vin Scully, of course!


This is just a quicky look at the subject, but it is interesting to note that even someone like Don Newcombe was a below-average hitter, compared with all batters. Most teams are like the '09 Phillies, where most of the pitchers actually have negative OPS+'s. Who wants to watch that?

Keep the DH!

I don't think that the designated hitter is in any danger of being eliminated, as much antipathy as it (still) gets. But I thought I'd jot down a few thoughts on my changed views on the subject.

First of all, if the DH was good enough for Philadelphia baseball legend Connie Mack, it's good enough for me.

Second, as the above-referenced piece noted, with the consolidation of the umpiring crews and the elimination of the league offices, the DH is one of the few remaining differences between the leagues. This is especially true now that turf fields are on the way out-the NL, a few decades back, had the bulk of turf parks. Now, with Target Field, the new grass park in Minnesota, there are only two "non-grass" parks left-and they're both in the AL (Toronto and Tampa Bay).


I'm very much of the opinion that differences between the leagues that fan can talk about-and argue about-are good for the game. Now, it's true that sometimes the distinctions people assume are there, aren't-the AL may have the reputation as the "sluggers' league", but in 2009 the NL actually had fewer stolen bases than the AL-(1541-1429)-and that's with two more teams in the NL. Still, there are real differences between the circuits, otherwise the AL wouldn't be dominating interleague play, as it has in the last few years.

Putting all of that aside, I like the idea that AL pitchers have to face lineups with nine real hitters. It's a cliche', but nevertheless it's true, for me at least-watching a typically inept pitcher hit isn't much fun. Sure, I do enjoy those who can-Dontrelle Willis, say, or Mike Hampton.  But pitching is so demanding that few pitchers can maintain the hitting skills they likely had in high school and even college ball.

And the idea that there is "more strategy in the NL" is mostly untrue. Today, pitchers are pulled due to pitch counts (for the most part, a good idea, at least for younger pitchers, and for those with injury histories, which is pretty much everybody) or to get a setup man or closer into the game. It isn't due to needing to hit for the pitchers, for the most part. Note that each league had exactly 76 CG last year. And it's not as if the double-switch, when needed, should tax a capable manager's brain, though Charlie (I used to need a freakin') Manuel did struggle with it for a while.


All in all, I like the higher scoring game we see today. There is so much talent today (due to the money baseball can offer prospects who would otherwise play other sports professionally) that there is a nice balance of pitching, hitting, and fielding. We  haven't reached the excesses of scoring seen in the 30's, but happily we're a long way from the neo-deadball style of the late Sixties.

And a return to that level of scoring would be disastrous for the game's popularity.

Yet another lazy reporter

Here's a story about by Adam Rubin in The New York Daily News about the Mets deciding to lower their CF wall from 16 feet to eight to increase homers (no other walls or dimensions will be changed, apparently.) The Mets only hit 95 HR io 2009, nearly a deadball-era (or Whitey Herzog with the Cardinals in the 80's) sort of total.


Rubin says:

...David Wright may not be as inclined to frustratingly fling his Great Gazoo helmet, or whatever protective wear he uses, during the upcoming season.

It really wouldn't have taken much research for Rubin to have seen that Wright's power outage in '09 (he hit only ten, after averaging 29 in the previous four years) had nothing to do with Citi Field. He hit five at home, five on the road. Rubin need only have gone to Baseball-Reference for this info. Lordy.

Bashing the NFL for fun, if not profit

On the eve of yet another Roman-numeraled Super Bowl and a rescheduled Pro Bowl, herewith are one sports fan's gripes about football:

I guess on a basic level I don't really understand the appeal of football. It's not that I don't like sports. I'm a huge fan of sports that have an element of real competition.

It's just that professional football is a charade, as a competitive enterprise. There's so much national TV money, equally divided among the teams, that the notion that these teams compete with each other is silly. Each team makes huge profits, regardless of whether they go 0-16 or 16-0. And that's why the NFL Players' Association is so weak-putting together a good team is largely irrelevant to profitability, so the players have no leverage over management. It's hard to charge a premium for athletic talent when acquiring more talent doesn't significantly affect whether you make money. This isn't so with real sports.

I have a lot of other problems with football, but, to single out one more, as with all other sports with a clock, a decisive lead late in the game settles the issue. What could be more anti-climatic than the last few minutes of a football game when one team has a big lead? If they're ahead, they run out the clock, culminating with the thrilling walk off the field before the clock has even run out. If they're behind, they take a bunch of timeouts to organize hopeless plays, and two minutes of clock time can take 25 of real time. Dull as dishwater.

As George Will wrote, football features two of the worst aspects of contemporary American culture-violence interspersed with committee meetings (huddles.)
I'll add that the NFL also has a shameful record when it comes to taking care of its retired players with medical issues-which is most of them.

This isn't surprising, though, when you consider that history doesn't matter in the NFL. There was a poll in the Philadelphia Inquirer today asking if the current Patriots are the best team of all time. None of the other choices go back farther than 1962. Imagine a poll like that in baseball, or even basketball. Fans of other sports realize that their sports' history didn't begin with national television contracts, but nobody cared about football before the early '60's.


This was originally posted on my other blog, Rene's Apple, on Feb. 3, 2008.

Favorite Yogiism

Yes, I love the numbers of the sport...but I also love the look of the game-the geometric precision of the layout of the diamond, the sheer speed of fastballs, the grace of a Cole Hamels delivery-and the game's personalities.

Baseball has always been home to out-sized personalities, whether of an ugly sort-think Ty Cobb or Rogers Hornsby-or lovable-think Babe Ruth, or Yogi Berra.

Yogi was famous for "malaprops", as it's often said, but what he actually did is reduce the language to its most direct form. "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." "You can't think and hit at the same time." Direct, and true.

Plus, of course, like Lincoln (another deep thinker), a lot of what's been attributed to Berra he never actually uttered. Yogi even "wrote" a book called "I Really Didn't Say Everything I Said!", which is a fun read, by the way.

So Berra may never have actually said the following, but it's so perfect, I've got to quote it: When told Dublin had elected its first Jewish Mayor (Robert Briscoe, in 1956), Berra said, "Only in America!".

Thus extolling truths about America, as every good American should, even when America's not actually involved.