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The 3-in-1 hit Was Fine

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So, like a demolition crew, the Giants won 9-0 last night in a eventually rain-soaked Game 7. The game’s signature play, however, was Hunter Pence’s double during the third inning. You can see a GIF of the play over at Deadspin, but in essence, as the bat broke into two the barrel hit the ball not once, not twice, but thrice. This, of course, caused some weird spin to come onto the ball, badly confusing Cardinals’ rookie SS Pete Kozma, who made a bad first move that allowed what could have been a double play to instead be a double that burst the game open.

Some online have said that there is a rule that anybody who hits the ball twice or more with the bat is out and the ball is dead. See rule 6.05 H:

(The batter is out if…) After hitting or bunting a fair ball, his bat hits the ball a second time in fair
territory. The ball is dead and no runners may advance.

 

Looking at this, you would think this would mean that Pence should have been out. But, well, that’s only if you don’t read a comment below that:

Rule 6.05(h) Comment: If a bat breaks and part of it is in fair territory and is hit by a batted
ball or part of it hits a runner or fielder, play shall continue and no interference called.

 

Pence’s bat broke, and this is part of the reason why it hit the ball several times, as it trampolined back into the ball. Therefore, the play is valid.

Now, of course, there would have been no way for the umpire to have seen the bat hit several times anyway, as the umpire didn’t have the super-slow-motion replay that FOX’s broadcast had. And, besides, this type of unintentional multi-bat-hitting isn’t what the rule is there for. Instead, it is there to stop, say, a guy bunting a ball in the air and then playing fungo with it.

And now you know.

Humor: The Laws of Game 7s

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Tonight is one of the greatest events in any sport: a Game 7. While I messed up and assumed that Adam Wainwright was starting tonight, it does not change the fact that it’s a Game 7. Win or lose, do-or-die, victory means the World Series, defeat means an early tee-time or a day out hunting something other than hanging curveballs.

So, with all of that in mind, it’s time to go over the LAWS OF GAME 7.
(Note: This is humor, and not all of them are meant to be serious.)

Rule One: All Hands on Deck

This is a rule for the managers. During Game 7, all hands are on deck. And I do mean all. Everyone needs to be ready to pitch: starters, relievers, outfielders who were stud pitchers back in High School… remember, there is no tomorrow if you lose. If you have to teach your backup catcher a knuckleball on short notice in the 24th inning, you do it.

Rule Two: Nothing else is on television during a Game 7.

There’s a debate on tonight. The Bears and Lions are playing tonight. Neither will be seen on my television, unless there is a rain delay. Apologies to the President of the United States and the esteemed ex-governor of Massachusetts.

By the way, can you imagine if tonight was an ALCS game between the White Sox and whatever Mitt Romney’s favorite team is (I’m presuming either the Tigers or Red Sox)?

Presumably it would mean stuff like this:

“Mister President, I have a question on China, and, by the way, it’s tied at two in the fifth…”

Rule Three: Everything that has ever happened in a Game 7 is relevant.

Oh, sure, it may seem like past Game 7s are unimportant to this current situation, but they are not. Carlos Beltran, for example, struck out to end Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS, when he was with the Mets. Matt Holliday may end up missing tonight’s game with an injury- he also missed Game 7 of last year’s World Series with an injury. Allen Craig hit a home run in last year’s World Series Game 7. The Giants have never won a best-of-7-series Game 7, falling in seven games to the Angels in 2002’s World Series, the Cardinals in the 1987 NLCS, the Yankees in 1962 and the Senators in 1924! The ghosts of Octobers past will be remembered!

Rule Four: Rain doesn’t matter.

It could rain tonight. But, guess what, the World Series is starting Wednesday, and the Tigers need to know where to fly to. Therefore, as Jayson Stark says:

Rule Five: There are no rules.

And anything can happen. That’s the beauty of Game 7.

Which team could “take” the Tigers? It could depend on how the LCS ends.

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Well, thanks to Barry Zito’s vintage performance last night, the Giants have forced the Cardinals back to San Francisco, where St. Louis and Chris Carpenter will have to beat Ryan Vogelsong in Game 6, or, failing that, will have to hope that they and Adam Wainwright can outdo Matt Cain in a climactic Game 7. In other words, it’s a whole new series that could go either way.

Meanwhile, in Michigan, the Tigers, having already swept away the complacent Yankees, are going to stay sharp by scrimmaging their Instructional League team. The Instructional Leagues are semi-formal affairs to get low-level minor leaguers- generally those who played in the short-season leagues- some more experience. It’s a win-win: the Tigers will be able to remain sharp, and the minor leaguers will be able to test themselves against, well, some of the best players on the planet.

So, assuming nobody gets hurt, the Tigers will still be relatively fresh against whoever the National League sends out against them. So, who would have a better shot against Detroit?

I’m not sure, but I feel like it would be the Cardinals. Well, unless if they have to win in seven games, in which case I’d probably go with the Giants. Well, maybe.

Here’s what I mean:
Game 1 of the World Series will be Wednesday, weather permitting. The Tigers will be starting Justin Verlander, probably followed by Scherzer, Fister and then Anibal Sanchez. A formidable group for any team.

If the Cardinals win Game 6 on Sunday, their rotation would likely have Adam Wainwright leading off, followed by Kyle Lohse (or maybe Lance Lynn)  on Thursday and then Chris Carpenter for Game 3 on Saturday. Given the fact the Cardinals have a better bullpen than the Tigers seem to have (so, is Coke officially the closer now?), this would give them a decided series advantage if the Tigers’ starters were to stumble.  But if they have to go 7, they will be stuck with sending Lohse/Lynn in the first two games with their two aces having to be held back for games 3 and 4. Sure, they will still have the bullpen and their playoff-veteran defending-championship lineup, but going against Verlander and Scherzer with your third and fourth starters seems like a recipe for going down 0-2.

By contrast, the Giants, although they will, by necessity, be unable to use Cain and Vogelsong in games 1 and 2 if they advance, will still have some good pitchers who can fill the shoes. Barry Zito, for example, still can “have it” like he did last night, and he is a veteran. Few would argue about him starting a Game 1. Madison Bumgarner and Tim Lincecum both are covered with question marks, but I’d probably rather pick between those two guys than possibly having to send out Lance Lynn against Miguel Cabrera and friends, especially after the number that the Giants offense did against him last night (with significant aid of an errant throw off second base by Lynn).

Finally, although it was admittedly an extremely small sample size, various Giants were able to get to Justin Verlander during this year’s All-Star Game. Again, extremely small sample size (and Verlander admitted later he wasn’t pitching it like he would a regular season or playoff game), but you do have to wonder if that might give the Giants something of a psychological edge.

Or maybe Verlander and the other Tigers pitchers will just embarrass whatever team comes against them, just as they did their 1966 Orioles vs. 1966 Dodgers impression on the Yankees. Actually, that might be the most likely outcome, isn’t it?

Victory has defeated the New York Yankees

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With the utter and definitive sweep that the Detroit Tigers have just finished doing to the New York Yankees, now is as good a time as any to finally post this, which has been in the works in one form or another since Game 3 of the ALDS.

In The Dark Knight Rises, Bane, during one of his beat-downs of Batman, declares this to the Caped Crusader:

Peace has cost you your strength! Victory has defeated you!

In context, it makes sense: a ruse by Batman and Commissioner Gordon had allowed Gotham to, seemingly, become free of the crime and corruption that had been long plaguing the city. But once a true threat emerged once again, the city, and the since-retired Batman, were not prepared to face it, having grown complacent and overconfident over the years. Only after being defeated do Batman and Gordon become the people they must be in order to rid Gotham of Bane’s threat.

The same can be said for the New York Yankees. It was once said that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for U.S. Steel, but, as Jim Caple noted in his seminal The Devil Wears Pinstripes, even U.S. Steel isn’t what it once was, but the Yankees have kept winning. Now, rooting for the Yankees must be like rooting for Wal-Mart, or, as Michael Rosenberg wrote, Goldman Sachs. There is no question whether they will be successful, the question is only whether they will be successful enough by their standards. “Their standards” are now a zero-sum game: they must win the World Series or their season- no matter what happened in it- will be a failure. They have won so much that they have changed their meaning for winning. They’ve won so much that they have their own definition of winning.

However, this seemingly-driving philosophy of a title or bust has, ironically, led to a complacency amongst both the team and their fans. They have seemingly decided that, since they are the Yankees, they should just be expected to make it to the World Series, as if putting on the pinstripes will cause their opponents to forfeit the regular season and first few rounds of the playoffs. The fans, judging by how many empty seats were present in the playoffs this year, feel the same way. Of course, this also is partly because of the complacency that the Yankees have acquired over the years as they’ve gotten drunk on success: they have become even more corporate, uncaring about the average fan. Once, back at the old stadium, it was a place for the people. Oh, sure, there were plenty of expensive seats that only hedgefund managers, rock stars, actors and politicians could afford, but there were also plenty of places for the common man, whether high up or deep in the bleachers. Then new stadium, however, dropped all pretense: the most expensive seats were literally separated from the rest by a moat of concrete walkways, and the number of upper-deck seats- traditionally the cheapest seats- were decreased.

The Yankees, no doubt, figured that their success would mean that people would pay any price for their ticket. They were wrong.

So now, the most successful franchise in baseball (but not sports) must look deep into it’s soul. It has been beaten and embarrassed. But will they rise, or will they continue with their old ways, ignoring the fans and their own history while sacrificing their happiness and soul?

Given the fact that the old ways bring lots of money, I’d doubt it. But, hey, you never know.

Profiles in Folly: The Aggressive At-Bat Stat, teaching kids to swing at everything

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I’ve got a book called The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, by Paul Dickson. It’s an expensive and expansive book, and I believe I was only able to afford it during the great Borders going-out-of-business sale of 2011. As the title suggest, it is a baseball dictionary, giving the definitions and origins of baseball terms, both common and uncommon.

Some of those terms, though, are weird, and, in other cases, kind of foolish.

Take, for example, the Aggressive At-Bat Stat. The page that has the “AAB” is available in preview format on Google, so you can check it out yourself, but in short, it is a stat, meant for Little League players, that tracks the number of times a plate-appearance ends with the batter swinging, a measure of the “determination” of the batter to try and hit the ball… even if that means him striking out or grounding weakly back to the pitcher. Dickson noted that the stat was introduced by a Stephen Barr and Brian Opitz in the New York Times in 1999, and that they believed that it was an important lesson to encourage trying to make contact no matter what, as even a strikeout would mean the kid was trying. Obviously, the stat hasn’t gained much (or any) leverage since then (a Google search on it brings up only references to Dickson or the New York Times article), and it isn’t hard to figure out why: It’s wrong way of going about it.

Okay, I’ll give that it is able to give a kid a lesson in never giving up and showing determination, but it is a bad way to teach baseball skills, particularly in our Moneyball days and especially in little league where all but the very best pitchers are going have to a hard time finding the strike zone. To encourage this stat would likely mean a great increase in strikeouts and a great decrease in base-on-balls, turning every little leaguer into a pint-sized Vladimir Guerrero, only without, y’know, being Vladimir Guerrero. The kids would easily be able to swing themselves out of a game flailing at pitches nowhere near the strike zone. Compare this to my greatest Little League moment: when I was walked, forcing in the winning run.

If I’d been going for an “Aggressive At-Bat”, I probably would have struck out and then, since I was six, been all angry about it until I got a post-game candy bar from the concession stand. Mmmm, candy bar….

Blog Dealings: Stats on this Site that probably only interest me

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WordPress has a feature where you can see from what countries people are looking at your blog from, as well as what they are searching for. The results for me are quite varied and in some cases surprising. So if you are bored, go after the jump to see some of the things I have gleaned from the data:

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How the series look right now

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It is, as I have noted before, almost impossible to predict October. Who would have thought, for example, that Derek Jeter would get hurt, that Robinson Cano would enter a record-breaking slump, or that the Reds would lose three straight at home to the Giants to end their season.

However, already we are getting some indication of how the rest of the two series might go.

ALCS: The Yankees are in big trouble. Very, very, big trouble. They can’t hit to save their lives, the one guy they had who was hitting (Jeter) is down for the count, they lost the first two games of the series at home. No team has ever come back from an 0-2 deficit in the Best-of-7 LCS when those two losses came at home. And, what’s more, there odds of winning game 3 must be considered perilously low, as they will be facing Justin Verlander. Perhaps they would have a good chance in Game 3 had they been able to run out C.C. Sabathia against him, but instead they will be sending out Phil Hughes. Hughes is hardly a scrub, but no sane man would say they’d want him on the mound instead of Verlander, especially in Comerica Park, which favors the pitcher.

With that in mind, one would probably want to say that the Tigers are in the driver’s seat. However, that would probably be overestimating things. You see, although it looks like the Tigers have this series in the bag, that isn’t necessarily true. If Verlander has a bad day (or Hughes has an unusually great day), they could very well lose tomorrow’s Game 3. They would then be facing C.C. Sabathia. Admittedly, the Tigers would be sending out Max Scherzer, who, while no Sabathia, would definitely have good odds of being able to meet and defeat the Yankees than Phil Hughes is to do the same against Verlander and the Tigers.

Even if the Yankees were to somehow win the next two games though, I would have to say the advantage still would preside with the Tigers. The reason, much like the reason they should be considered heavily favored tomorrow, lies with Verlander. Verlander would be pitching any Game 7… and Sabathia wouldn’t (at least, not on normal rest).

Advantage: Tigers

NLCS: This series has only gone one game, and given how nuts last night’s game was, as well as the many twists and turns the NLDSes (NLDSii?) were, it may seem folly to predict what may still lie in store. One thing is for certain though: the Giants would be greatly helped if they win tonight. As I said earlier, losing the first two games at home in a LCS series is almost a death sentence, although admittedly the Giants were able to survive a similar situation in the NLDS. The result tonight is extremely up in the air: on paper, one would think having Ryan Vogelsong on the mound would put one in a better position than Chris Carpenter, who although the better pitcher only had limited playing time this year due to injury (it is a bit of a miracle that he is playing at all right now).  Carpenter, though, has done very well in the postseason so far, throwing 5.2 in his NLDS start without giving up a earned-run. Still,

Past tonight and Game 3 (when Matt Cain will presumably start), though, the Giants are facing a somewhat chaotic pitching situation. Madison Bumgarner has been dreadful this October so far, Barry Zito struggled greatly in his NLDS start, and Tim Lincecum was so dreadful during the later parts of this season (after seemingly recovering from first-half struggles) that he’s been used from the bullpen in the postseason. Although, admittedly, Lincecum has done very well out of the bullpen, so maybe he deserves another shot at starting this year. The Cardinals, on the other hand, have a relatively stable starting pitching staff, and they have Carlos Beltran and David Freese, players who have always (and are) stepped up in October.

So, come to think of it, maybe it’s more clear that I thought that it’s ADVANTAGE: CARDINALS.

 

2013 WBC Team USA projections Version 2.0

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(EDITED IN ON DEC. 31: As of this writing, the most recent projection for the United States can be found here.)

Since my last projection for the Team USA roster, some guys have said definitively they won’t take part, others have said they would like to, some have gotten injured, and still others haven’t said anything. Therefore, this is a total rebuild of my projections for Team USA, done from near-scratch as if I had never done my previous projections. I still will note the changes at the end of this post, however.

A refresher on my selection rules/assumptions:

  • Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers.
  • Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
  • Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
  • The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

So after much research and thought, go after the jump for my latest projections for Team USA.

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How FOX will be marketing the possible World Series matchups

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A fun game to play during the playoffs is: What series does FOX want? After all, it’s no secret that FOX cares not for parity or entertainment, they care only for the ratings and money. However, the sad truth for them is that they cannot control it. So, here’s some advice to FOX for how they can market each of the possible World Series matchups (in rough order of what FOX would like).

Yankees vs. Giants: Ancient Rivals Face Off!

What Joe Buck could say as the series opens: “Seven times the Giants and Yankees have faced off for the World Series Title. Once, they fought for supremacy of New York but in ’62 the Yankees broke San Francisco’s hearts. Now, for the eighth time, two of baseball’s most historic clubs face off… NEXT on FOX!”

Yankees vs. Cardinals: The Greatest Franchises

What Joe Buck could say as the series opens: “107 times the World Series has been held, and over a third of a time, one of these two teams have come out victorious. The New York Yankees, winners of a record 27 titles. The St. Louis Cardinals, defending champions and pride of the National League, winners of 11 titles. Five times these teams have met, three times the Cardinals have come out on top. And now, the two titans of baseball face each other once again. 28 or 12 is coming in the 108th World Series, NEXT on FOX!”

Giants vs. Tigers: Aces Incorporated

What Joe Buck could say as the series opens: “It is said that pitching wins titles. The San Francisco Giants and Detroit Tigers likely agree. The Giants won the NL West on the strength of their pitching, led by the perfection of Matt Cain. The Tigers,  although bolstered by the offseason acquisition of Prince Fielder, also were led by their staff: Verlander, Fister, Scherzer and Anibal Sanchez. Now, they face off, with the World Series at stake, NEXT on FOX!”

Tigers vs. Cardinals: FOX’s nightmare

What Joe Buck could say as the series opens:  “The Cardinals have  returned to the World Series, looking to defend their crown and win their 12th title. In their way stand the Detroit Tigers, led by Triple-Crown winner Miguel Cabrera and Cy-Young Candidate Justin Verlander. The World Series on FOX, next!”

HUMOR: Who, exactly, are the baseball gods? (Part 1 of an undetermined series)

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We often hear about the “baseball gods”, unseen deities who influence the fortunes of ballclubs and their players. It is this pantheon that brings about late-game rallies, fielding misfortunes and playoff runs. Last night, for example, it could be said that the baseball gods abandoned the Oakland Athletics.

However, little has ever been said about who the baseball gods are, beyond the fact that there there are many of them, making baseball a polytheistic religion. This puts the worship/prayer to the baseball gods, interestingly enough, in direct conflict with the vast majority of baseball fans, especially in North America, as well as the the vast majority of baseball players. This, perhaps, explains why none before have dared to give names to the baseball gods, as it would be like making them real, as opposed to an intangible force like luck or clutch-hitting.

They also lack any type of holy scripture about them, presumably because their names are written not in script but rather in THE UNWRITTEN RULES, the invisible text that all baseball players, fans, announcers and managers must follow, by punishment of being accused of breaking THE UNWRITTEN RULES. This has also helped obscure the names of the baseball gods.

Until now, because it is time to give the baseball gods names, and to write them. After the jump, of course:

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