Wednesday, December 31, 2003

The Stathead Blogger Rite of Passage

Now, I was ready to go ahead and write an article about the rumor Will Carrol might be revealing to the public sometime soon. So I figured, if I’m going to do this I want to give a prediction as to what the outcome will be. Knowing this I felt like I should head over to ESPN and see what my choices were for my prediction. Then something happened. I stumbled across an article by Phil Rogers. Now Phil is a columnist that has been beaten up by many a blogger and I never felt like I would do this type of post, but his article just struck me as too poor to be ignored, and I HAD to get my opinions about it off my chest.

One of the initial statements by Rogers that caught my eye was that “Rodriguez is languishing on a free-agent market that has rewarded many lesser players”, that within itself I have no problem with. After all, there ARE players lesser than Rodriguez than have been signed. My problem comes with what he intimates next, that that list of lesser players includes Miguel Tejada, Gary Sheffield, and Keith Foulke. The evidence for Tejada being less than Rodriguez is that Tejada is “arguably the fourth-best shortstop in his league”. What Mr. Rogers is making sure to do here is alert us that Tejada already received free agent compensation and he’s not that good, in fact, he’s so not that good that he doesn’t even rank within the top 3 in his own league, much less the entire majors.

This is pretty faulty logic for a few reasons. One is that sighting the league when comparing shortstops pigeonholes good shortstops in the American League because some guys named Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Nomar Garciaparra. For those keeping score at home, Rodriguez has a career 144 OPS+, Nomah has a 135 career OPS+, and Jeter has a 122 career OPS+. Aside from being great hitters, one is a good defensive player, one is a very good defensive player, and one has played on several championship teams. Between them they have 1 AL MVP, 3 Batting titles, 2 Gold Gloves, 2 Rookie of the Year awards, 1 All Star Game MVP, and 1 World Series MVP. Basically, they are just great and 3 of the best to ever play the shortstop position. Tejada is no slouch either, he is an above average hitter and an above average fielder. He is a good baseball player, however, by playing in the American League he is playing in the shadow of 3 all time great shortstops. Were Tejada in the National League he would undoubtedly be the best all around shortstop in that league, so his standing within the American League is no fault of his own, neither should it be an indictment of his talent.

Now, if Rogers is calling out Tejada for not ranking that great amongst fellow shortstops, and I would say he is about 4th overall, then Pudge must rank really high. Let’s find out. Amongst everyday backstops, Ivan Rodriguez’s rank in EQA last year was tied for 3rd amongst catchers:

EQA OPS+
Lopez .337 174
Posada .318 146
Rodriguez .293 124
Varitek .293 120

Not included in that list is Mike Piazza who hit for a .301 EQA and 124 OPS+ albeit in injury shortened playing time. What can we conclude from these stats? That Pudge was probably the 3rd best hitting catcher in all of baseball last season, with another catcher vying for that third position with him. In addition to that, Mike Piazza outhit Rodriguez last year and is defined by being the “best hitting catcher ever” so I feel it is safe to say that Pudge is tied for fourth amongst catchers in offensive prowess. I do not feel defense is an important part of being a catcher so I will disregard that for now. So, basically what we have here is Rodriguez is tied for the fourth spot amongst catchers. Hmmmm, Miguel Tejada is holding onto the fourth spot amongst shortstops yet that is not good enough, meanwhile, Pudge is tied for fourth amongst catchers and that IS good enough. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that makes much logical sense.

After his words on Tejada, Mr. Rogers also has some not so nice words for Yankee offseason signee, Gary Sheffield. Instead of attacking Sheffield’s production, Phil goes after him for being “a noted knucklehead old enough to run for the U.S. Senate”. There are two obvious points being made about Sheffield’s signing here, one is that he has character flaws that prove detrimental to a team’s success and the other is that his age is an issue. I have not followed the personal aspects of Gary Sheffield’s career close enough to know exactly what Rogers is referring to, but since Pudge was an American Leaguer for so long and I am a Yankees fan, there IS something I know about him. In the past, Pudge has been noted for frequently calling fastballs in order to have a better pitch to throw out potential baserunners on and improve that aspect of his numbers, if that is not a “knucklehead” activity to partake in, I don’t know what is. In regards to Sheffield’s age, let’s look at some numbers:

172 152
167 130
140 123
167 124

On the left, you have Gary Sheffield’s OPS+ over the last 4 years, on the right you have Ivan Rodriguez’s OPS+ over the last 4 years. From this we can gather that despite aging, both players have managed to pretty much maintain their offensive performance so they are even in that regard. However, hidden within that is that over the same 4 year stretch Gary Sheffield has played a total of 574 games, or 144 per year, Ivan Rodriguez has played a total of 454 games, or 114 per year, THAT is what I call a significant difference. During that time Pudge has suffered severe season ending injuries while Sheffield has stayed away from that. While Sheffield is 4 years older, this age difference is skewed because Pudge plays a more physically demanding position and has logged an incredible amount of innings at that position so in actual baseball mileage I would call them at least equal. Now if you have two players, equal in mileage, both having character issues, but one has proven to be significantly healthier than the other, and is willing to accept a 3 year deal versus vehemently seeking a 4 year deal, which player do you choose? That’s right, you choose Gary Sheffield who is not a lesser player than Pudge in that they both have character questions and Sheffield gives less reason for age related worry.

The next player mentioned by Rogers in comparison to Pudge is Kieth Foulke, “a closer whose best pitch is a changeup”. That statement, meant to indict Foulke is completely and utterly ridiculous. It is the equivalent of trying to downgrade A-Rod by saying he is “a shortstop who can hit” or even I-Rod by saying that he is “a catcher who can hit”, simply ridiculous. Just because a player does something that is not conventional does not make them any less of a player, the name of the game is getting results and since 1999 his body of relief work matches up favorably to any relief pitcher in the game. Once again, it is not how you do the job, but THAT you do the job. Otherwise we would never have had the A-Rods and Piazzas of the world.

Personally, I find what Rogers does near the end of the article quite humorous. He states that “[d]uring the regular season, Florida’s pitching staff had a 3.82 earned run average with him behind the plate and a 4.80 ERA without him”. Of course, what Rogers means here is that by being behind the plate, Pudge’s game calling allowed him to call for the perfect pitches to be thrown by the Marlins staff and their pitching success is attributable to him. All right, fine Mr. Rogers, if you want to believe that then fine. But wait, 5.35, 5.71, 5.20, those are Pudge’s catcher ERA’s from 2000-2002. Since he was so responsible for the success of Florida’s pitching staff in 2003, then he must theoretically also be responsible for the failure of every Rangers pitching staff ever. What counts more, 2 seasons of a CERA (Catcher ERA) below 4 or 9 seasons of a CERA above 4.5? I’m thinking 9, and that would mean Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate is bad for a pitching staff, this is using Rogers’ theories of course.

Before closing his article, Rogers engages in hyperbole. “He’s played 13 years and never had a bad season. He’s made every team he’s been on better”. That is in reference to Pudge of course. I would first like to ask how one would judge whether or not a player has made EVERY team he has been on better? Quite frankly, I am not sure, but the best I can come up with is that adding Pudge to a team makes them better than they were before he was added, well since Pudge has changed teams once there is only one example of this, that would be this past season’s Marlins. Yes, they did in fact get better, but because of sample size issues with Rodriguez making teams better and because he was not the Marlins only addition, I have no way judging of this and I won’t. Hopefully, Mr. Rogers sees this and can alert me as to how one would go about making such a judgment. More importantly however, Rogers said that Pudge has “never had a bad season”. I am going to have to disagree with that statement, because when a player has OPS+‘s of 75 and 88, I consider that a bad season, and that is what Rodriguez did in 1991 and 1992.

So, basically, what I am saying is that Phil Rogers is a horrible journalist who should never have been hired by ESPN. No, I’m joking. However, for Rogers to write an article touting Pudge as undeserving of not being signed by a team already, when considering his demands and track record is just a little far fetched, the “facts” and evidence he used to support his ideas were faulty. I had a problem with this, and I just felt particularly compelled to break down what he said. Happy New Year to all and remember, if you have questions, comments, suggestions: mcnallyf@taftschool.org

***
Wow, that was damn near Gleeman length, or Gleemanic if you will.

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