"Productive" Outs

By Mark Smith

My nephews came over on Saturday, and being about 18 months old, they aren’t really cognizant of anything. Well, they know where Grandma’s cookie jar is, that blowing bubbles outside is the bees’ knees, and that it’s fun to throw things at Uncle Mark’s head. But they don’t really understand what’s going on around them, and it’s fun to watch what grabs their attention. While my dad (their grandpa) and I were babysitting Midget and Widget, I was watching the Florida-Mississippi State game on ESPN, and those kids would sit there and watch the game and react to the ping of the bats. I’d rather them be awed by the crack of a bat, but at this point, I’ll take what I can get. The little balls of energy finally went to take a nap, and I got to watch more of the game. Unfortunately, I heard one of my pet peeves. With no outs and a runner on second, the announcer said, “He’s looking to make a productive out here.”

I guess I understand the sentiment. American culture is really weird. On one hand, few other cultures push the idea of “rugged individualism” more than that of the United States, but on the other hand, there’s still a fair amount of admiration for self-sacrifice. The two are not mutually exclusive (you don’t have to believe one or the other), but they are opposing ideas. Individualism is you putting yourself first, and self-sacrifice is putting something else first. While America promotes individualism, self-sacrifice has played key roles in American history, especially in times of war.

Baseball also intertwines the two. Individuals are celebrated. Each prospect works his way up the ladder. There are end-of-season awards for individual performance. At every stage where the team is crowned, an individual also gets an award, with the slight exception of winning a division series. Yet, the idea of team is essential. Baseball, after all, is a team sport. While each player is pushed to excel, he is supposed to excel so that the team wins (that is unless you’re RBI-whore Carlos Beltran).

SweetSpot Roundup 6/13

Baseballin’ on a Budget (Athletics): What’s Bob Melvin’s wOBA?

If I were to write a piece on the firing of Bob Geren, mine would look a lot like this one. Also, bonus points to the person who can find the sentence in this post that perfectly describes why I hate Fredi Gonzalez.

Ghostrunner on First (Blue Jays): John Farrell’s New High-Leverage Toy

I almost forgot Casey Janssen existed, but I’m glad to see a guy who was demoted earlier in the season doing well.

Capitol Avenue Club (Braves): Jonny Freakin’ Venters

I have nothing else to add.

Disciples of Uecker (Brewers): Carlos Gomez’s Fantastic Defense

Carlos Gomez has never really hit, but it’s plays like this that show why he needs to be on a major-league roster in some capacity.

Snakes on Jefferson (D-Backs): MLB Draft Results and Grade

Coming into the season, I thought the one thing the Diamondbacks really needed was pitching, and the Diamondbacks did an awesome job of getting some in the 2011 Draft.

Dodger Thoughts: A Tale of Two Signings: Jamey Carroll and Juan Uribe

“How does this happen?” If someone could answer that question, they would make a lot of money.

TPA Hits Fangraphs Audio Square In the Breadbox.

Miss the sound of our voices?  Of course you do.  So get your fill at Fangraphs Audio, where Bill and The Common Man sat for a friendly interview with friendly hipster Carson Cistulli.  Listen over and over to replenish your ears with our sonorous tones.  Also, enjoy:

Carson insulting the denizens of the Upper Midwest within the first 5 minutes.

The series of interlocking rectangles that make up TCM's body.

Bill's giant head.

The Minnesota Twins, and being a fan in good times and bad.

The secret origins of The Platoon Advantage and the TCM/Bill partnership.

Police sirens.

Carson asking Bill about pseudonymity, yet somehow not talking to The Common Man about his pseudonymity.

Scott Stahoviak and Matt Walbeck.

Why the Metrodome wasn't so bad if you were 8 years old.

What The Common Man and Mr. T have in common.

And much, much more.

Arbitrary MLB records by country of birth

By Bill


This morning at Hall of Very Good (and it may well have appeared in dozens of other places as well, but I happened to notice it on HOVG's Twitter feed), it was noted that by holding the Reds to a run on three hits in the Cubs' 4-1 win on Wednesday night, Ryan Dempster took over sole possession of second place on the all-time wins list among pitchers born in Canada, with 107. (Fergie Jenkins, of course, has a firm hold on first, at 284; Dempster surpassed the surprisingly-similar-to-him Kirk McCaskill.)

While that's just not a terribly impressive number (even if you care about pitcher "wins," as I do not) no matter how many your countrymen have managed, there's something pretty interesting about that. Canada is actually the fourth most prolific non-US country at producing baseball players, with 233 -- one more than Puerto Rico, 27 fewer than Venezuela, nearly three hundred fewer than the Dominican Republic. (By contrast, California has had 1,985.) It's just interesting that of all those Canadians, more than half (119) of whom have made pitching appearances in the bigs, (a) Dempster is your #2 in a big mainstream stat like wins, and (b) that number is as low as 107.

Anyway, I want to do justice to some of the many other countries that have produced MLB players, but considerably fewer of them than Canada has. Here are some statistical leaders for players born in some other countries (* = min. 1000 IP or PA; click on the country name to see Baseball-Reference's full list from that country):

Re-Post: When You Change Horses

By The Common Man

Note: Today’s firing of Bob Geren, the first managerial change of 2011, gives The Common Man an excuse to update and re-present his data regarding the benefit of changing managers in the middle of the season, which he originally rolled out in just over a year ago. As he points out in the article below, however, all situations are unique. While TCM’s ultimate conclusions are that changing the manager tends not to actually help all that much, despite what talking heads on baseball broadcasts might tell you, those changes are clearly warranted in many cases. For instance, in this case, it sounds like Bob Geren has effectively lost the A’s clubhouse. In that case, to prevent a further poisoning of the environment around a team, making a move is actually the smartest move you can make. But for the most part, changing managers doesn’t do anything to change the actual performance of a team on the field, at least during the season in question. See below. (Note, all figures have been adjusted to reflect the six in-season managerial changes last year).

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Is it a good idea, in general, to fire the manager during the season? Since the Royals shuffled Trey Hillman out for Ned Yost last year, The Common Man has wondered whether changing horses in midstream is generally a good idea. So he went back and looked at every team that switched managers midseason from 1901 until today, to see what kind of differences a new manager might make.

The Twins Collapse: in which I sort of defend Bill Smith, who is a terrible GM

By Bill


Over at Baseball Prospectus yesterday, my friend Jay Jaffe (maybe I should put "friend" in quotes, as in, Facebook "friends," but anyway, we have actually met, and I like him) put up a piece on how the Twins went from division contenders to one of the worst teams in baseball. It's a very good piece, and certainly does a good job of identifying most of the major issues, including this depressing gem:

[T]he Twins have gotten just a .150/.186/.224 line from Drew Butera, who has started 31 of the team's games; his .157 True Average is the majors' lowest among players with at least 100 plate appearances. Throw in Rene Rivera, Steve Holm, and the minimal production from a weakened Mauer, and Twins catchers have combined to hit .178/.229/.252—far inferior to Livan Hernandez's career mark (.221/.231/.297)—while stinking at a level roughly one win below replacement level.

Yikes. Anyway, Jay's premise is that in addition to a lot of bad luck, Bill Smith and the Twins basically made five mistakes that helped turn a team that was 34-24 a year ago this morning into the 23-38 one you see today:

• They mishandled Joe Mauer and had no backup plan in place. As indicated in the quote above, it's bad enough that Mauer has been able to play just nine games so far this season (and with no success to speak of), but even worse that they're stuck with the worst hitter in the major leagues in Butera and a couple backups who aren't really any better.
   
• They messed up the middle infield. They traded J.J. Hardy for nothing and let Orlando Hudson walk, trusting in Alexi Casilla and bringing in Tsuyoshi Nishioka. Nishioka was forced to play second rather than his more comfortable short, which led to a devastating injury that's kept him out since game seven and forced them to play replacement players like Matt Tolbert and Luke Hughes in his place.
• They resigned Carl Pavano to a two-year deal and counted on him to anchor the rotation.
• They have all sorts of other rotation problems.
• They put together an offense with a serious lack of big bats.

I encourage you (as always) to RTFA, but there's a summary of the issues for you.

And I do think that Jay has identified most of the major issues with the team. Those five things and the bullpen (which he mentions toward the end) are pretty much the six things that have plagued the Twins most this year. (You could also argue that those six things pretty much encapsulate all that there is to baseball, but that's just how bad the Twins have been.)

But (and I can't believe I'm about to defend Billy Smith here) I don't think the front office is to blame for nearly as much of their struggles as Jay seems to think they are. A healthy portion, no doubt -- I think Smith, with a lot of urging from Gardenhire, took this team from a good one to a mediocre one -- but not as much as all this. Here's how I see the Twins' collapse breaking down, first the mostly-mistakes and then the mostly-luck factors, in order of importance within each category:

A Retweet Is the New Autograph

By Mark Smith

I’ll admit it. I love being retweeted. There are times when I have a quip or an observation, and I’ll actually be disappointed when it doesn’t get retweeted. How can this tweet pass without one person thinking it was as awesome as I did when I typed it? You know what I’m talking about. You don’t have to hide. We’re an open community here, and we don’t judge. Well, Bill judges, but the Twins suck so we don’t care about his opinion. Anyway, back toward something that resembles the title of this post. Retweets give everyone a sense of accomplishment. And this sense of accomplishment has led to the phenomenon of trying to get players to retweet you.

When I first saw this, I thought it was entirely pathetic. What exactly are you gaining? “Hi, I’m your biggest fan, and it’s my birthday. Retweet me!” First of all, you aren’t their biggest fan. Second, Happy Arbitrary Day of the Year When People Sort of Acknowledge Your Existence in a Special Way. Third, you realize the actual thinking and emotion that goes into the athlete reading the 59 characters (yes, I checked) not including his/her handle and clicking twice to retweet is like a mouse running on a wheel in a cage, right? Obviously, that’s a little harsh, but I’m not a sentimental guy. It made no sense until last week.

My roommates and I headed to the Cincinnati Reds-Milwaukee Brewers game in what Dave Gershman called Happy Greinke Day. Before the game, we were walking around the stadium, and per usual, there were people standing around the dugouts, hoping for autographs. Autographs have never made any sense to me. All it proves is that a celebrity of some sort signed an arbitrary object for you. It proves that, for one moment, you and this person were in close proximity, and due to the buying/selling and inheritance of these objects, that isn’t even necessarily the case. You and the person aren’t friends. You probably said no more than 6.73 words (the point 0.73 is the stuttered utterance or involuntary gag when you realized it was actually that person you were next to) to each other. What exactly do you gain?