B-Log: Anatomy of a Bomb

Posted: July 8th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 26 Comments »

Start No. 18: Vs. Tampa Bay Rays
Innings: 5
Hits: 8
Earned runs allowed: 6.
Strikeouts: 6
Walks: 1
Homers: 1
Extra base hits: 3.
Decision: Loss (7-8)
Number of pitches: 102
Number of strikes: 62
BABIP: .500 (8 for 16)
Season BABIP: .300

Well, here would be my advice to every general manager in baseball … the next time a large, power hitting, underachieving first baseman from Santo Domingo gets released by a team, grab him. Hold him. Squeeze him. Try a little tenderness. Seriously. Take a look at these two lines:

Line 1: .266/.348/.461, 58 homers in 1477 at-bats.
Line 2: .241/.331/.459, 86 homers in 1685 at-bats.

Nothing special, obviously, though the slugging percentages showed some promise. You already know both guys got released. The first guy became Big Papi. The second guy was traded twice, released twice, granted free agency, and then he became Carlos Pena, who last year had one of the most remarkable seasons in memory … not only because nobody saw it coming but because a .282/.411/.627 line with 46 homers and 103 walks is pretty remarkable no matter who is doing it. His 172 OPS+, believe it or not, was better than ANY David Ortiz season.

Pena has taken a step backward this year, as many expected. His slugging is down 200 points, his walks are down, he’s hitting .232. He still has a 109 OPS+, which is 35 points higher than the Royals every day first baseman, so there is that. And you can see Pena’s getting hot — he homered off of Joakim Soria on Monday. Still, no question, Pena is not having anything like his season a year ago yet. He’s still a dangerous hitter.*

*Speaking of dangerous … how many fan votes do you think Jose Guillen will get in that Final Fan Vote for the All-Star Game? Three? Immediate family? Yep, the Guillen-o-Meter is pointing back down again. A couple of days ago, apparently, Jose Guillen got into a yelling match with Royals pitching coach Bob McClure. Apparently, McClure was as much at fault or more, but I think we could call Guillen “Landsbury” because he always seems to be at the scene of some tragedy.

And yes, after being duly awed and humbled during the remarkable Guillen hot streak, I am reminded again why I didn’t like the deal in the first place. Suddenly he’s six for his last 46, he’s acting hurt and not running out ground balls, he had to be separated from the pitching coach and he said he didn’t give a (bleep) what the fans thought. I find Jose to be a fascinating study — I really don’t think he’s a “bad” guy in the truest sense, but I also think that he’s trying very hard to prove me wrong. I have definitely learned that when he’s hot, he’s scorching, but when he’s cold and feeling mistreated you understand why nine other general managers traded, released or set him free. The Royals have paid for three years of this, and while I have waved the white flag and admitted that I underestimated Guillen’s bat speed and determination to produce, I have never stopped believing it still could be a long, long three years.

So, now we will try to break down the one at-bat Brian Bannister had in the fifth inning Friday against Carlos Pena. You have already seen the numbers for the game — Banny did not pitch well. But it was a weird outing for him. He struck out six in five innings, which is unusual for him. Banny got eight swings and misses, which is a high number for him, and five of those were strikeout pitches. He says he was working on a few things, and some of those things worked — he pitched up more, I suspect, and got most of his swings and misses up in the zone. Obviously, when you give up seven runs (six earned) in five innings, most of his things did not work.

Banny has told me he’s definitely working harder to get some more strikeouts … the numbers are telling him that, long-term, he will really beef up his strikeout to walk ratio in order to be successful. The numbers are telling him he needs to improve certain parts of his game to win in the big leagues. So he’s working on a lot of things … maybe too many things. I always remember what George Brett said about hitting: He will have people try to think of a number between one and 10 and say just they are flashing a DIFFERENT number of fingers. So say 7, but put up three fingers. Say eight and put four fingers. Say 5 and put up one finger. Do it fast and see how long you can keep it up.

Most people can only do it for two or three rounds before they are putting the SAME number of fingers as they are shouting out. George says this just shows the mind cannot really think two different things at once, not if you want to be successful. Banny’s strength is obviously his terrific baseball mind, but I hope he doesn’t have too many things happening in that mind. He’s been a successful pitcher his entire career. He was very good in the minor leagues (with some strikeouts thrown in) and he has pitched very well in the big leagues. I think it’s actually good for him to tinker some because I think that keeps him fresh and on edge, and if he can improve his strikeout numbers that would be helpful. In my mind, he should keep analyzing number, analyzing himself, all those things that make us love him. But all in all, I hope he also just stays confident and remembers that when he’s spotting his pitches he’s still very tough to hit.

Anyway, he went into the fifth inning in this game down 4-0, and he had been hit pretty good. But this has been where Banny, on most days, has tightened up, gutted out a couple of innings and kept the Royals in the game. He struck out Reid Brignac with a 90 mph fastball on the outside corner — I guess this was Reid’s first game in the big leagues, so he will forever be telling family, friends, whoever that Brian Bannister struck him out twice in his first game. Banny got Akinori Iwamura to foul out. Two outs no problem, only then he threw a low curveball to Carl Crawford who grounded it up the middle for a hit. He threw six pitches to B.J. Upton, and Upton did not swing at any of them, earning a walk. So, first and second, two outs, and here’s Carlos Pena.

And here’s what makes Pena tough: He’s not an easy pattern. There are batters who are first ball, fastball hitters. Jose Guillen is one of those. And there are batters who like to get comfortable in the box, they’re not afraid to be behind 0-1, they feel confident hitting behind the count. You can usually slip a fastball by them early in the count — they’ll give that to you the way most basketball teams will give you the dribble to halfcourt.

Then there’s Pena. He gives you a little of both kinds. MOST OF THE TIME, he likes to work into the count. There’s a reason he walked 103 times last year. He will make you come to him, he LOVES hitting cripple pitches — 3-0, 3-1, 2-0, he will make baseballs explode on those counts. He’s the kind of hitter, at his best, is looking to take advantage of the count and beat you over an extended at-bat.

So you could see why Banny would throw his 89-mph fastball over the plate — he’s hoping to get ahead. Pena will usually give you that. But this is what makes him tough; he won’t ALWAYS give you that. Sometimes the guy transforms and comes to the plate ready to crush the first pitch he sees. Last year, Pena put the first pitch in play 67 times — about one out of every 10 times he came to the plate. But man did he kill those — he hit .484 with 11 home runs on those first pitches. He has a sense about these things.

Banny, I suspect, guessed that he would be seeing the passive Carlos Pena. This is what makes baseball so much fun to watc. The more you look at it … every at-bat is such a little game of Battleship. Banny threw his fastball — catcher John Buck wanted it over the outside corner or, perhaps even, just off the plate. Banny got it a little too up a little too in, and Pena uncoiled and crushed the ball about 8,000 feet to straightaway center. There’s the bomb. And Banny’s tough outing turned into a disastrous one.

Whenever someone hits a home run, you will hear announcers beef about pitch location. And no question Banny missed his spot by a few inches. But I like what former Cy Young winner and everyone’s favorite baseball free thinker Mike Marshall says about that: “It’s not location. We can’t put it in a tea cup every time. When you see someone hit a home run, it was probably the wrong pitch to throw. That’s all.”

Agreed. It was the wrong pitch, wrong time. I haven’t asked Banny specifically, but as a fan it seemed to me that Banny had just walked Upton who had not even swung the bat. He naturally expected to be able to throw a first pitch strike to Pena without much resistance. Yep, he guessed wrong. And when you’re struggling, I suspect, you probably always feel like you’re guessing wrong.

B-Log: Lineups and Umpiring

Posted: June 24th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 52 Comments »

Start No. 16: Vs. Colorado Rockies
Innings: 7
Hits: 3
Earned runs allowed: 0.
Strikeouts: 5
Walks: 6 (Yikes!)
Homers: 1
Extra base hits: 1.
Decision: Win (7-6)
Number of pitches: 113
Number of strikes: 66
BABIP: .176 (3 for 17)
Season BABIP: .286

Well, Banny made it pretty clear after his last outing against St. Louis that he worked too much in the strike zone — he felt like he had to do that coming off a career-high 127 pitch performance. That wasn’t a problem on Monday; he walked a career-high six batters, including three in one inning.

I have not had a chance to ask him, but it sure looked to me like he got a little frustrated with the home plate umpire. Or maybe that was me … I don’t know. I probably say this every year, but doesn’t it seem like ball-strike umpiring is more inconsistent than ever before? I“m not saying it’s WORSE than before, because it isn’t, I don’t think that strike zone umpiring will ever be worse than it was during the S.E. when you basically had to pitch the ball between the patella and tibia to get a called strike*.

*Except against Barry Bonds or Frank Thomas … called strikes were purely theoretical against them.

No, the strike zone is generally better now. It’s generally a lot better. At least now umpires will generally call the waist-high pitch a strike. But you do have to keep using that word ”generally,“ because, honest to Pujols, it sure seems like the strike zone changes its look every other day, not unlike Charlize Theron. I suppose umpires have always had slightly different strike zones, but now it’s like you’ll get a Pat Buchanan strike zone one day, a Michael Moore strike zone the next day, a Roger Ebert strike zone one day, a Gene Siskel strike zone one day*, a John McCain in 2000 strike zone one day, a John McCain in 2008 strike zone the next day … it’s all over the place. And yes, I know, that was a McCain cheap shot, but these are the jokes people. I’ll get an Obama cheap shot in somewhere down the road to even things out.

*Roger Ebert turned 66 last week, and I’ve been thinking that if there was a legitimate Hollywood Hall of Fame rather than a Hollywood WALK of Fame where you pay to get your handprint in concrete, then Ebert would be a first ballot, no doubt Hall of Famer. Right? I’ve got to think that nobody, not even the biggest actors of the last 40 years, has done more to promote movies and enhance the experience of Hollywood than Ebert. I remember reading a business story once that said Ebert was worth something like a billion dollars to the movie rental business — that a movie was (I don’t remember the figures; I’m making this up as I go along), something like four times more likely to be rented if it had a thumbs up from Roger Ebert. But I also think that the Ebert factor has not been anything close to the same since the death of Gene Siskel. I know that the TV show has gone on — Ebert & Roeper, Ebert & Medved, Ebert & Kathy Lee, Ebert & Lewis, Ebert & Ginger Rogers — but it hasn’t been the same since Gene-O. Maybe they should go into the Hall together a la Whitaker and Trammell.

Anyway, the strike zone on Monday was just plain weird. In the second inning, Banny faced Brad Hawpe and he threw three different pitches that could have been called strikes but were not. One of those was the sort of pitch you would put in the rulebook as a strike definition — above the knees, middle of the plate. Anyway, Banny seems to keep his emotions more or less in check, but during that at-bat I definitely got a ”What the heck do I have to do here“ vibe. Against Chris Ianetta he threw another ball that could have been a strike — threw almost precisely the same pitch the next time and it WAS a strike, so he was one for two anyway — and he walked Ianetta too. And then he just seemed a little bit out of rhythm — between innings catcher John Buck said Banny didn’t like the way the ball was coming out of his hand or something like that.

I actually thought that despite the wildness, Banny was about as hard to hit as he had been this year. He was really working the plate, he was keeping the ball down. He made one bad pitch in the fifth — up and over the plate to Matt Holliday — but he should have been out of the inning anyway; Esteban German dropped a fly ball. If German catches that ball, Banny has a no hitter going through five innings. Just saying.*

*OK, I just cracked up reading Brilliant Reader Don’s usage of the word ”Molinas“ as a measurement of speed — he suggests it takes Jose Reyes .05 Molinas to get to first base. I heartily endorse this new measurement, which I would like to present to the International Board of Speed Measuring in Geneva this fall. I will question Don’s theory that it took Jason Phillips 1.5 Molinas to get to first base … I do not believe this to be true. I believe that when Einstein theorized that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, he proved conclusively that nothing moves slower than a Molina and, as such, matter can only be judged truly by their Molina speed.

A John Grisham novel: 0.03 Molinas.
Adrian Peterson: 0.00004 Molinas.
A Dustin Hoffman speech: .97 Molinas.
Barack Obama’s willingness to leave Reverend Wright’s church: 0.86 Molinas.
Barack Obama’s willingness to leave Reverant Wright’s church once he realized it could cost him the presidency: 0.00000000000000000001 Molinas.

Told you the cheap shot was coming. We’re ripping everybody today.

But beyond Banny, I’ve been thinking about lineups lately. Baseball Musings has a fun lineup analysis chart which allows you to plug in some numbers, and it then estimates how many runs different versions of the lineup would score. I don’t know how accurate it is of course — I would have to play about 10,000 games of Strat-o-Matic before I could tell — but it seems pretty good, and it reminds you that over time the difference between the best possible lineup and a lineup so stupid that even Bob Boone woudn’t try it is probably not worth even one run a game. For fun, I ran a lineup that featured five of the greatest seasons in baseball history and four of the worst just to see the difference.

This lineup averaged 7.24 runs per game.

Barry Bonds, LF
Ruth, RF,
McCovey, 1B
Mantle, CF
Brett, 3B
Pena Jr, SS
LaRue, C
Neifi, DH
Billy Ripken, 2B

This lineup averaged 6.09 runs per game

Pena Jr., SS
LaRue, C
McCovey, 1B
Neifi, DH
B. Ripken, 2B
Bonds, LF
Brett, 3B
Mantle, CF
Ruth, RF

Now, obviously, you will never have that contrasting a lineup … and even that difference is barely more than one run per game.

…

…

…

… Sorry for the pause, I was just trying to imagine the press session with the manager trying to explain why he was leading off Tony Pena Jr., and hitting Babe Ruth ninth. I have been around some baseball managers who would flat try to do it, they would tell you that they wanted power at the bottom of the lineup, and Pena’s swinging the bat better and so on. Anyway.

Yes, anyway, I punched in the Royals lineup numbers … I tinkered with them slightly because I suspect that Mike Aviles may not maintain his .632 slugging percentage — though I like him a lot, gave him a .513 slugging percentage for the heck of it — and I suspect that Mark Grudzielanek’s .359 on-base percentage might come down some because he’s 38 years old and his lifetime on-base percentage is 27 points lower than that. I considered tinkering with it a little more — but no, I left the others intact. I was just curious to see how the Musings System suggest Trey Hillman play the lineup.

Here was the most productive lineup, using the nine players the Royals seem to be using most:

Gordon, 3B
Aviles, SS
Teahen, RF
DeJesus, CF
Guillen, LF
Grudzielanek, 2B
Buck, C
Olivo, DH
Gload, 1B

This lineup scores 4.907 runs per game. You could also, apparently, flip Buck and Grud without losing or gaining anything.

Interestingly, the worst lineup ALSO had Teahen in the third spot.

Olivo, DH
Gload, 1B
Teahen, RF
Buck, C
Grudzielanek, 2B
DeJesus, CF
Aviles, SS
Gordon, 3B
Guillen, LF

This lineup scores 4.556 runs per game … so, about .35 runs per game fewer, which ain’t much. That’s only one run every three days — about 57 runs per year.

Still, you want to be as efficient as possible, so here’s what I take from these lineups:

1. Alex Gordon in the leadoff spot is an intriguing possibility to me. I personally like Mark Teahen in the leadoff spot and have said so on many occasions, but Gordon serves many of the same purposes. I noticed that a reader took from a previous comment that I am down on Gordon, and I really am not … I just don’t think he’s proven anything yet. I believe he’s going to be a very good player, an All-Star, but he isn’t one yet, and I’m leery of anticipatory stardom. In any case, Alex leads the Royals in walks, he has shown extra base power, I think he could be a pretty good fit as a leadoff guy. I still like Teahen a little better up there.

2. I am 100% in favor of moving David DeJesus down into a power spot in the lineup. I think David has been miscast as a leadoff hitter for a long time — as you can tell by his 56% stolen base percentage. He’s not fast, but he can sting the ball, he has gap power for sure, he gets on hot streaks, I would LOVE to see this guy hit No. 3 for a consistent period of time, I really think he would thrive in that atmopshere.

3. Miguel Olivo would definitely not make for a good leadoff man.

4. I think that the whole idea of ”backing up some speed“ at the bottom of the lineup is probably not based in much reality. The Royals try this pretty often when they put Joey Gathright in the ninth spot. Maybe there are studies that show it’s good to have a sort of second-leadoff man hitting ninth, but I doubt it … seems to me that the only thing you know for sure about the ninth hitter is that his spot will come up less often than anyone else’s.

5. This doesn’t have anything to do with the lineup itself, but I have two points to make about Jose Guillen.

First point, he’s about as hot as anyone I’ve ever seen — I mean hot in how hard he consistently hits the ball. It’s incredible. He is about guaranteed to hit three balls really, really hard every single game. I am on record, of course, in saying that the Guillen signing wasn’t a good one (and there are still two years left after this one), but I’m ready for all the crow that anyone can muster. The guy’s a phenomenon. The guy is like Augusta in July hot. The guy has had 14 multiple hit games in his last 21, and I’m telling you, he’s probably had 20 impossibly hard-hit outs during that time.

The Jose-Emil comparisons now look about as laughable as many had suggested:

Jose Guillen: .293/.313/.517, 28 doubles, 13 homers, 60 RBIs, 117 OPS+.
Emil Brown: .245/.287/.363, 9 doubles, 2 triples, 5 homers, 39 RBIs, 80 OPS+.

Fine, I’m an idiot, That’s the first point.

The second point, though, is that I would suggest that Jose Guillen is doing something that is probably pretty close to unprecedented — he is about as hot as you can possibly be and at the exact same time he has now gone 156 plate appearances without walking. I mean, that’s just flat incredible. Over that time, he’s hitting .359/.365/.634. But he has not walked even once. He’s had Miguel Olivo, Mark Teahen and Mark Grudzielanek hitting behind him. And he has still not walked. It’s an amazing streak, much more amazing than other great non-walk streaks like Tony Pena Jr.s’ or Mark Quinn’s or Pudge Rodriguez or whoever. There is absolutely NO REASON for pitchers to pitch to Jose Guillen. And they still can’t walk him.

In fact, they can rarely throw three balls by him. Jose has only faced five 3-0 counts all year and only fifteen 3-1 counts. This guy’s hacking … he puts the ball in play on the first two pitches about one-third of the time. Hey, no complaint here, when you’re squaring the ball up as well and as often as Jose does, you can’t question it. Still, I’ll bet this is unique — I’ll bet nobody has hit this well during a 150 PA no-walk streak. Of course, I could be wrong. In fact, I already was.

Death Cab For Banny

Posted: June 21st, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log, Pop Culture | 76 Comments »

I cannot begin to explain the series of events led to me standing here backstage at the aftershow party of a Death Cab For Cutie concert in Berkeley. Everyone who knows me knows that I do not go to meet-and-greet parties. Ever. Every big sporting event has a half dozen parties for media and VIP types, usually with little plates and finger foods and an open bar. Lots of people like them, which is just fine, I’m not judging, to each their own, all that. They’re not for me. That’s all. For me, I would rather eat leftovers at Denny’s alone at midnight then go to one of those things.

Obviously, this Death Cab aftershow is quite a bit different from, say, a World Series postame party in that everybody here is either 22 years old or claims to be, and generally and fortunately speaking sportswriters will not wear what the young woman standing to my right is wearing (although, whoa, you wouldn’t believe what Dan Le Batard will wear when he’s being crazy). There are probably 100-150 people back here, many of them obviously make a good living as underwear models, which is OK though I imagine that some of them are not working now. They’re just practicing, I guess.

Anyway, beyond the obvious visual differences, and beyond the fact that the conversations revolve around Guitar Hero and the new Hold Steady record rather than Jeter Hero and how the hold is a bad statistic, it’s pretty much the same party. Which means I would rather be at an In & Out Burger* right about now. Oh well. The mind wanders.

*There’s an In & Out Burger in Peoria, Ariz., near the place where the Padres and Mariners train, that has the single worst parking lot ever invented. No kidding, it’s like a miniature version of the highway structure outside of the Meadowlands. Once a few years ago, we were trying to get to the Meadowlands for a Giants-Bengals game, and we somehow ended up on the other side of the highway, and we asked a police officer how we could get across the 28 acres of tangled concrete, and he said in his beautiful Jersey accent: “There? You wanna get there? You gotta be BORN there.”

Same thing with this In & Out Burger in Peoria; you can see it from all angles, but there’s no way to actually get close to it, it’s like the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. My old colleague and buddy Wright Thompson, I believe, was the first one call it the “Out Burger.” Because there is no way in.

* * *

So … today I saw a can of some sort of air sanitizing spray that promises that it kills 99.9% of all bacteria that can cause odors. Thats impressive, I guess, but what about that .1% of bacteria that cannot be killed? Is this like the James Bond of odor-causing bacteria? I’m curious what this bacterium is doing to avoid the death ray? Is it just working harder than the others, sort of like David Eckstein, or is it just more naturally gifted?

Yeah, that’s right, I’m surrounded by Victoria and the people who know her confidential matter and also various Death Cab band members, and this is what I’m thinking about: Odor oozing bacterium. It’s really no wonder that I couldn’t get a date in college. What do I care anyway? I’m happily married now. The mysteries of Febreze are infinitely more real to my life than some 22-year-old girl trying to look like Scarlett Johansson.

* * *

While I was driving out of Oroville, I saw something great. It is called “Dingerville.” It is a public golf course/RV Park. Yeah. Golf. And a place to park your trailer. All in one place. I have all sorts of awesome images in my mind.

Well, anyway, I love slash places. The laundromat/video rental store. The Pizza Hut/Taco Bell/Car Wash. The post office/French boutique/John Deere tractor store. Whatever. In Kansas City, we have a great gas station/barbecue restaurant.*

*In fact, it is a perfectly acceptable opinion to say that the Oklahoma Joe’s in a gas station is the best barbecue in Kansas City. I happen to think it’s third, but the third best barbecue joint in Kansas City is like being the third-best baseball player of all time. Say you rank them like so: 1. Babe Ruth; 2. Barry Bonds; 3. Willie Mays. I’m not saying that’s my Top 3 — it isn’t — I’m just saying that in this case: (A) You could make a viable argument for the third place guy actually being the best ever and (B) it ain’t bad being the Willie Mays of barbecue.

My Top 5 barbecue joints in Kansas City:

1. Arthur Bryant’s.
2. Gates
3. Oklahome Joe’s.
4. Jackstack.
5. Guy & Mae’s — which is not technically in Kansas City (it’s at least an hour away) but is so good that it STILL gets into the Kansas City Top 5,.

ANYWAY, Dingerville is the greatest slash place I’ve ever seen — and one of the great concepts of all time. THAT is where they should play the U.S. Open. If you think Johnny Miller is tough on the golfers now*, could you imagine his call when someone is leading the U.S. Open and then he pulls out driver and hits a ball off an RV right into bridge game between the Polsters and the Starlings? Go ahead and try and hit out of that unplayable lie. Hit around the guy in the white T-shirt, shorts, black socks and sandals. Go ahead. He ain’t moving.

*I love Johnny Miller as an announcer. Love him. L-O-V-E. The guy is so honest and blunt and wicked — he doesn’t rip people like, say, that Simon guy might on American Idol or even the way Charles Barkley might (I love Charles too but for different reasons — he’s just hilarious). With Miller, there no sense of, “Look at me, I’m about to rip this guy.” He just does it so naturally. During the U.S. Open, Davis Love III, a nice guy who never did win as much as his talent suggested, was actually in contention. Davis then left short what the announcers seemed to think was a makable putt — it was one of those, “What are you, playing for a paycheck? Hit the damn putt” moments. And Miller, plain as day, says, “Um, yeah, Davis has had a lot of those in his career.” It was, to me, as devastating and crushing a picture/word evaluation of the career of Davis Love III as is possible without a cartoon-sized hammer.

Maybe it’s because of this, I don’t know, but the other great thing I love about Miller is how the other announcers are scared to death of him. Whenever he says ANYTHING, it is always followed by some announcer saying: “Yeah, you’re right John,” or “I think so, John,” or “That’s about right, John,” or “I would agree with you John,” or whatever. I mean, sometimes those other announcers just finished saying the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Miller is about to say, but even then, it’s like, “You bet, John,” “Whatever you say, John,” “I bow to you, John,” “I’m naming both of my children after you, John.” The guy is like the golf version of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

ANNOUNCER: “I got a good look at the ball, it looked to me like a good lie,”
MILLER: “It looks like the ball’s buried, huh?”
ANNOUNCER: “It sure is, John. It’s buried deep. It’s really a terrible lie. I’m not sure how he’s going to get his club face on the ball, but at least he has a full swing on this ball, which should allow him to put himself in a good lay-up position.”
MILLER: “Wow, I’m looking at this, tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think he even has a swing on this, does he?”
ANNOUNCER: “No he doesn’t, John. He doesn’t have any swing at all on it, He’s going to have to hit a little punch shot and hope that it carries far enough down to give him a wedge into the green.”
MILLER: “From that lie and with his swing so hampered, he can’t really play a punch shot, can he?”
ANNOUNCER: “No, he really can’t, John. He’s going to have to play something else, well, I don’t really know what he can do with this.”
MILLER: “These are not the droids you’re looking for.”
ANNNOUNCER: “They’re really not, John. They don’t look at all like the droids that I was looking for.”
MILLER: “You find Carrot Top to be hysterically funny.”
ANNOUNCER: “I really do, John. It’s the props, John.”

* * *

The lead singer and main guy from Death Cab — Ben Somethingorother* — is standing right next to me, and he just looks like a GUY, a GUY you would run into at a ballgame, a guy you might see at the bookstore, a GUY who you would like hanging out with even if he has made somewhat unfortunate sideburns decisions at times. I don’t know him, obviously, and I certainly am not going to talk to him now — I told you I don’t like these meet-and-greets, and anyway enough people are already coming up to tell him how great the show was, how great he was, how incredibly awesome he is and so on — but I do have to say that I have a new appreciation for him.

I was a moderate Death Cab fan before — I actually like Ben better in his “Postal Service” mode — but this was a great show. The whole band was great (Death Cab has GREAT drums). Still, by far the most mesmerizing moment of the night happened when everyone else in the band left the stage, and a spotlight dropped on Ben, and he sang, “I Will Follow You Into The Dark,” which might be the best love song of the last 20 years. I’m not sure how many people in the world can flat spellbind an audience with a single guitar, a soft spotlight and a microphone. To me that’s the real trick in life. It seems to me that any band with a couple of hits, trick lighting, and really loud “this goes to eleven” amps can overpower an audience. But can you wow them when it’s just you, them and no fire breathing floating heads overhead? I always say that 20 of the most magical minutes of my baseball-watching life was watching Ozzie Smith take infield practice. That’s all. Just infield. That’s the feeling I got watching and listening to Ben sing “I Will Follow You.”

*No, seriously, that’s his name. Or Ben Whateveryoucallit. One or the other.

* * *

I ran a little ground ball/fly ball data the other day to continue on the Banny Log theme. Everyone would agree that one of the keys to pitching for everyone, not just Banny, is preventing batters from getting extra base hits. Obvious stuff. If you give up three consecutive singles, you might not even give up one run. If you give up three consecutive doubles, you’ve given up two runs. If you give up two singles and a homer, you’ve given up three. Simple stuff.

In general, the way to prevent extra base hits is to be a ground ball pitcher. Take a look at the 2007 breakdown:

59,737 ground balls were hit in the Major Leagues.
14,647 went for hits … that’s a .245 batting average.

48,111 fly balls were hit in the Major Leagues.
10,443 went for hits … that’s a .211 batting average.

There’s also the line drive numbers — batters every year hit better than .700 on their line drives. But all hitters give up line drives (and none want to) so that’s a different discussion. This is just fly balls and ground balls, and as you see, you have a slightly better shot of getting an out on a fly ball than on a ground ball. I would bet even that gap is pretty much negated by double plays. Still, that’s just batting aveage. Here’s the difference.

Ground Ball Breakdown:
Singles: 91.46%
Doubles: 8.08%
Triples: 0.46%
Homers: 0.00%

There you go. The reason that ground ball pitchers are more effective is not necessarily because of double plays, though it’s a factor. More, the don’t give up extra base hits — and they ESPECIALLY don’t give up homers. Now, the fly ball pitchers.

Fly Ball Breakdown:
Singles: 83.31%
Doubles: 6.69%
Triples: 0.98%
Homers: 9.03%.

I would not have guessed this, but there’s actually a higher percentage of doubles hit on ground balls than fly balls. Hmm. Shows you how good the outfielders are in the game these days. But the home run difference is just enormous. I’m not entirely sure how Baseball Reference figures the runs part of this breakdown, but basically it says that you score more than twice as many runs on fly balls than you do on ground balls. I’ll bet that’s true.

What does this have to do with Banny? He’s mostly been a fly ball pitcher in his career, but the anomaly is that he really hasn’t given up that many home runs. One brilliant reader suggested that Banny could definitely have success if he can keep the ball in the ballpark. You hate simplifying anything to one sentence (unless it’s a Johnny Miller sentence) but that sentence is probably as close to accurate as you can get. Anyway, there’s nothing simple these days about a fly ball pitcher keeping the ball in the park.

* * *

More on Banny: He had a few thoughts about the last Banny Log, which is reason No. 483,948,374 why Banny is the single greatest guy in baseball. I’ll give you the rundown in my own words, but these are Banny’s thoughts as I understand them:

Banny only struck out only one in his outing against St. Louis … and he says this was a risk he felt he had to take. He very consciously was pitching to contact. He said that all year he has been trying to push up his strikeout totals — especially in relation to his walks (he wants 2.5 strikeouts per walk this year). This time, though, he felt like he had no choice but to hit some bats and hope for the bset.

Why? You might remember, he had thrown 127 pitches in his previous outing. That was a career high, it might FOREVER be his career high. That’s just a lot of pitches. And Banny understood that he could not afford to waste pitches this time around. He expected to be on a short lease, and anyway he had to give his arm a little rest. So, he pushed up his overall strike percentage to 72%, and his first pitch strike percentage to 70%. He felt like he HAD to come after the hitters.

He understood he risks. Banny says his line drive percentage really rises when he’s in the strike zone that much — this could explain the nine hits he allowed — but sometimes you have to just take the chance. Banny wanted to get through seven innings, and the only way he felt like he could do it was by play the, “OK, here’s your pitch, it it,” game. He won’t pitch like that the next time out.

He also makes a point that I missed: Five of his 15 starts this year have been against clubbing teams — Yankees, Red Sox and Rangers. This brings up something that I know Bill James has been working on, a sort of strength of schedule for pitchers. I think that could be very interesting.

It ‘s just plain truth that the schedule just doesn’t play fair with pitchers. Banny will probably not face Seattle or Toronto this year, and those are two offensive zeroes right now (and, obviously, he does not get to face the Royals — those are the three lowest scoring teams in the league). Banny is he’s 1-2 with a 9.51 ERA in those five starts against the Yanks, Red Sox and Rangers. If you take away those — not that you can take them away, but I’m just saying — he’s a much more appealing 5-4 with a 3.17 ERA in his other ten starts.

Maybe there could be a stat (maybe there even is a stat) called “Specific ERA+.” And it would actually show how a pitcher did against his specific competition. Say you have a 4.90 ERA against the Boston Red Sox, but the Red Sox actually score 5.10 runs per nine innings. Obviously the 4.90 ERA is not good overall — the league is averaging 4.58 runs per game — but against the Red Sox, it’s not bad at all. It actually would be an ERA+ of 104. I’m not saying a Specific ERA+ would be all that fair or telling, but I do think it could be interesting. Get to work on this, people.

One last thing: Banny says he plays baseball because he loves it.

* * *

OK, so here’s a California highway thought … and I just saw this too often for it to be a fluke. When you’re driving down a California interstate highway, you will see the very tall McDonald’s signs or Burger King billboards or whatever just like you see everywhere else in the country. One difference: In California, I have noticed, you only see the sign AFTER you have already passed the exit.

It’s true. This happened again and again, I was looking to stop, I would think, “Oh, OK, there’s the In & Out Burger sign and … wait, where’s the exit ramp? Damn. It’s like a half mile back. Well, what’s that all about? OK, well, here comes a Subway and … no, damn it, the exit ramp is back there? What is going on here?*”

*Every city has their traffic quirks, of course. My man Vackie and his wife Leigh coined the phrase: “Kansas City Jam.” This is a long and frustrating traffic jam … the quirk being that once you get to the end of the jam, once you break free, you look around and you have absolutely NO IDEA why there was a traffic jam in the first place. There are no lane closures. No signs of an accident. No police officers pointing radar guns like baseball scouts. No nothing. Traffic jams in Kansas City are like natural disasters.

B-Log: Live From Oroville

Posted: June 19th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 33 Comments »

In case you are wondering — and I just know that you are — Oroville, Calif., is the home of Gary Nolan, the starting pitcher everyone forgets when they think about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds (Did I mention that I’m writing this book …). In my mind, Gary is one of the most fascinating pitchers in baseball history. He made it to the big leagues when he was 18 years old, and he had one of the best 18-19 seasons in baseball history — 14-8, 2.58 ERA, 206 strikeouts in 226 innings (only Bob Feller and Dwight Gooden struck out more in the 19-year season), he became the first man to strike out Willie Mays four times in a game — and then he got hurt, then he pitched well again (he was almost matching Steve Carlton’s 1972 season through the All-Star break), then he really got hurt, then it looked like his career was over, then in ‘74 at almost exactly the time that Dr. Frank Jobe was performing Tommy John surgery on, you know, Tommy John, Jobe also performed a fairly cutting edge shoulder surgery on Nolan, removing a bone spur. Nolan came back as a whole different pitcher, but he still came back, and he was still really good, in ‘75 he went 15-9 with a 3.16 ERA, and he won the Hutch Award for his fighting spirit. The next year he REALLY messed up his shoulder, and he was soon out of baseball, and he went to Las Vegas and became a pit boss at the Mirage and Caesar’s. Yeah. You’re going to buy this book, people.

Anyway, he’s back in his old hometown of Oroville now, and he’s working at the Gold Country Casino here … so I’m writing this Banny Log with slot machine bells still ringing in my head. This is actually quite a nice little Casino with nice people, but I’ve always said that for me Vegas has a three-day expiration because of the slot machine bells. And since Margo and I were just in Vegas, I wasn’t quite ready to hear them again.

* * *

Start No. 15: Vs. St. Louis Cardinals
Innings: 7
Hits: 9
Earned runs allowed: 2.
Strikeouts: 1
Walks: 0
Homers: 0
Decision: Win (6-6)
Number of pitches: 81
Number of strikes: 58
BABIP: .346 (9 for 26)
Season BABIP: .296

Brian Bannister had what I would like to call the quintessential Banny performance on Wednesday even though he has not really had a performance quite like it all year. Does that make sense? I think maybe it does make sense … I remember a scene in the book Fever Pitch where Nick Hornby was talking with his father about all those dreadful nil-nil draws between Arsenal and some other team, can’t remember which (Aston Villa, maybe? I’m sure a reader will remind) and Hornby went back and found out that there had only been, I think, one nil-nil draw between the two. But that doesn’t really matter because that one nil-nil represented something larger, something more ominpresent about Arsenal of Hornby’s youth and the relationship with his father. It was the quintessential game, even though it hardly ever happened.

Wednesday, Banny pitched seven innings, threw only 85 pitches, gave up nine hits, gave up two runs (one on a botched defensive play by Mark Grudzielanek), walked nobody, struck out one. That, I think, is just about the perfect Banny outing, the outing that represents who he is as a man and a pitcher, When I think of Banny pitching, this is exactly how I see him, as a guy who gives up hits, works out of jams, throws strikes, doesn’t get strikeouts but does get batters to get themselves out.

The question here — and this has been the question all year long: Is this sort of outing repeatable? Can a pitcher semi-consistently strike out few batters, walk nobody, give up hits and still limit runs and win games?

There have been pitchers who have done it, but generally you have to go back a few years. In fact, since 1960, if you want to talk about the pitchers who have won 15 or more games with the fewest strikeouts, they’re pretty much all from the 1970s.

1. Bob Stanley, 1978, 15 wins, 38 Ks.
2. Dale Murray, 1975, 15 wins, 43 Ks.
3. Bob Stanley, 1979, 16 wins, 56 Ks.
4. Steve Kline, 1972, 16 wins, 58 Ks.
5. Jack Billingham, 1978, 15 wins, 59 Ks.
(tie). Bill Lee, 1979, 16 wins, 59 Ks.

And so on. I think of my friend Al Fitzmorris. In 1974, Al went 13-6 with a 2.79 ERA. He more or less repeated this in ’75 and ’76, with slightly higher ERAs. But let’s look at ‘74 — Al stared 27 games that year, he pitched 190 innings, and he struck out 53 batters. FIFTY THREE. Hell, he walked 63. His last two games pretty much represented his season. On Sept. 21 at Texas, he pitched nine innings, struck out one, walked four, gave up five hits and allowed zero earned runs. His next outing, at home against Texas this time, he went TWELVE innings, struck out one, walked six, gave up 10 hits, and allowed two earned runs. He won both games. Not bad.

How did he do it? Well, there were probably a few factors, but for me it more or less comes down to one thing: Al threw a hard sinking fastball, and nobody was all that strong in 1974 (only one player in the American League — Dick Allen — managed even 30 homers that year). So Al only gave up eight home runs and 19 doubles all year all year. You don’t want to oversimplify things but … yeah, I think that was it.

It’s very interesting to me … look at this:

In 1974, the American League hit .258/.323/.371.
In 2007, the American League hit .271/.338/.423

So that’s not even close. BUT what was the difference? Well, I looked back, and I ran into a few surprises. For instance: In 1974, batters walked 8.3% of the time, and in 2007 they walked 8.5% of the time … so that’s about the same. That shocked the heck out of me … I thought that with all our knowledge about the value of walks these days that batters would be walking A LOT more now. But they’re not. This is not entirely due to the Kansas City Royals either. If I had to guess, I would say it comes back to this: Walking is not something you can just do because you feel like it. Walking, I still suspect, is a tool.

OK … in 1974, batters struck out quite a bit less … they struck out 14.4% of the time, while batters in 2007 struck out 16.8% of the time. So batters back then did put the ball in play more. Because of this (I think) they hit a higher percentage of singles in 1974 then they did in 2007.

But here’s the difference: In 2007, players hit a much higher percentage of doubles (5.5% of the time players hit doubles in 2007 to 3.9% in 1974) and a higher percentage of home runs (2.9% to 2.1%). Triples, interestingly enough, were about the same.

So that was the difference — more homers, more doubles. That’s pretty much what it comes down to. That’s almost entirely why in 1974, teams averaged 4.1 runs per game, and in 2007 teams averaged 4.9 runs per game. Fly balls were fly balls in 1974. They became doubles and homers once stadiums shrunk, strike zones shrunk, and batters found the weight room.

What does all this mean to Banny? In his Wednesday outing, he gave up nine hits, yes, but only one extra base hit, a double. And he had a terrific outing. In all of his good outings this year he more or less pitched like it was 1974 — he didn’t give up extra base hits. In eight of his 15 starts he gave up two extra base hits or more and his ERA in those games is 7.31. In the other seven starts, when he gave up one or zero extra base hits, his ERA is 2.47.

Maybe that’s obvious … no, definitely that’s obvious. If you give up doubles and homers, you will give up runs. But obvious or not, I think that’s the simplest way to understand how Banny pitched like he did on Wednesday. Is it repeatable? Can he, even without big strikeout numbers, stay away from the home runs and the hard shots into gaps? It’s an open question. Banny Log says yes … or else, why would keep doing this even from California casinos?

B-Log: Pitches, Walks, 4-Run Leads

Posted: June 13th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 24 Comments »

Banny Log

Start No. 13: Vs. Texas Rangers
Innings: 7
Earned runs allowed: 4.
Strikeouts: 4
Walks: 0
Homers: 2
Decision: ND (5-6)
Number of pitches: 127 (!)
Number of strikes: 78
BABIP: .272 (6 for 22)
Season BABIP: .291

Well, that was certainly a gutty outing about our guy Brian Bannister, wasn’t it? He came out Thursday against a good offensive club, and he pretty much had nothing. Funny thing, his fastball was really popping on the radar gun — he actually hit 92 mph early in the game, which is three or four mph faster than normal — but maybe that’s the danger of relying on the radar gun*. I suspect that Banny’s fastballs flatten out somewhat at that speed, they lose some of their movement, and his 91-mph fastball to German Duran in the second inning was straighter than a Kansas highway. No, it was straighter than a Southern Baptist minister. No, it was straighter than a Fred Funk drive. No, it was straighter than a trip to the outhouse. No … let’s just say it was straight, and Duran homered.

Next batter, Ian Kinsler, got a 90-mph fastball up, heart of the plate, straighter than … OK, it was straight too. He homered. That made it 4-0, and it was clear that Banny did not have his stuff.

*I just had a long and fascinating conversation about this with everyone’s favorite pitch doctor, Mike Marshall, and maybe we’ll do a post on that.

Only from that point on, Banny got bold …he held the Rangers scoreless for the next five innings, and he did not walk anybody, and he threw those 127 pitches. I was utterly skeptical when Royals skipper Trey Hillman sent Banny out for the seventh after he had thrown 108 pitches … not so much because of pitch count but more because Banny’s style and movement tends to fool ‘em for only so long. But he was terrific in the seventh, battling his way to to strikeouts and an easy fly out. Seriously, how can you not love Banny?

Walk Update

Result: Beat Texas 6-5.
Royals Walks: 0 … 20th consecutive gave with 3 or fewer walks.
Rangers Walks: 1.
20-Game Streak total: Opponents 80 walks, Royals 20 walks.
Record during streak: 5-15.

It is almost impossible to believe that the Royals could face 22-year-old Eric Hurley in his first Major League start at Kauffman Stadium and not draw a single walk. But for the last month or so, this team has proven capable of doing amazing tricks when it comes to not-walking. Seriously, it now appears the Royals are trying to keep this streak going. Seriously, look at this:

Jose Guillen: 111 consecutive plate appearances without a walk.
Ross Gload: 79 consecutive plate appearances without a walk.
Mark Grudzielanek: 57 consecutive plate appearances without a walk.
Tony Pena Jr: 48 consecutive plate appearances without a walk (though this is nothing for TJ).
Miguel Olivo: One walk in his last 85 plate appearances.
Mike Aviles: One walk in his Major League career, and it was intentional. Welcome to the club!
Alex Gordon: Has walked twice in the last three games, but he went 70 plate appearances without a walk too.

I know it’s trendy to blame the Skipper for this sort of free-swinging hackery, especially when the Skipper made a big point about talking on-base percentage when he got the job. I agree with this to some point — if he really CARES about OBP and patient at-bats his vision is not getting through — but honestly, I’m not sure what he can do here. This is just a hacktastic team. I suppose you could fine people for swinging at the first pitch like a prospective owner of the Royals wanted to do, or you could make them do Lou Brown pushups for every ball out of the strike zone they swing at … but, bottom line, the Royals are just addicted to swing, and it’s going to take more than encouragement and dugout wisdom to fix that.

Four-Run Pain

Brilliant reader Erik suggests the Royals have been historically bad with a four-run lead this year. I have to admit, I had not noticed this. Hell, the Royals don’t SCORE four runs very often. But I thought, sure, it’s worth checking out.

April 2nd: Royals build 4-0 lead against Detroit and win 4-0.

April 9th: Royals build 4-0 lead against the Yankees and win 4-0.

April 13th: Royals build 5-1 lead against Twins and win 5-1.

April 14th: Royals build 5-1 lead against Seattle and win 5-1.

April 19th: Uh oh. Here’s the first. Royals build 4-0 lead in first two innings against Oakland and lose 6-5. So, that’s one. I remember this one … bad, bad loss.

April 25th: Royals score six in the bottom of the eighth to take an 8-4 lead over the Blue Jays, and they hold it.

April 29th: Royals build a 5-0 lead against Texas and hold on for the 9-5 victory. So far, this doesn’t look too bad. But the Royals were a very, very different team in April.

May 7th: Royals build a 9-1 lead over the California Angels and win 9-5.

May 11th: Royals build a 4-0 lead over the Orioles and hold on to that score.

May 15th: Royals build a 7-1 lead over Detroit and win the game 8-4.

May 16th: Royals build a 6-2 lead over Florida, and barely hold on, 7-6.

May 18th: Royals roll up a 5-2 lead over Florida and win 9-3. So, they are, what, 11-1 in games they led by four runs. Up to this point, the Royals don’t seem to have a problem blowing leads. But things are about to change.

May 28th: Yep, here’s the worst loss of the year. The took an 8-3 lead into the ninth and quite spectacularly blew the game and lost 9-8 to the Twins.

BONUS on May 30th: Did not have a four-run lead, but they did blow a three-run lead to the Indians.

June 7th: Make the record 11-3. Another worst loss of the year, the Royals had TWO DIFFERENT four run leads. They led the Yankees 5-1 and again 10-6, but blew the game anyway.

June 10th: Make the record 11-4. The Royals led this one 5-1 and, as seen on this blog, blew the game to the Rangers in the eighth and ninth.

June 11th: Yep. It happened again. Erik is right. The Royals led the Rangers 5-1 again, but unlike the previous night, they did not even put up a fight and lost 11-5 — which is also the Royals record in games they have led by four runs. That ain’t too good is it? Especially when you consider that they have now lost their last four games they led by four runs or more. And they blew a three-run lead in there too. Depressing. Very depressing.

B-log: Sure things and Copperfield

Posted: June 8th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 41 Comments »

Start No. 13: Vs. New York Yankees
Innings: 3 1/3
Earned runs allowed: 5.
Strikeouts: 1
Walks: 2
Homers: 0
Decision: ND (5-6)
Number of pitches: 71
Number of strikes: 43
BABIP: .500 (8 for 16)
Season BABIP: .299

Well, that’s obviously not too good. This being anniversary weekend, I did not see a single pitch of Brian Bannister’s awkward performance against the New York Yankees on Saturday. We were watching David Copperfield at the time. I suspect — I haven’t had the chance to ask yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m right — that Banny is probably more disgusted with this performance than any he’s had this year — if only because the Royals scored double digit runs for, get this, the first time all year*. Yeah. First time. And they still lost 12-11 thanks to Johnny Damon having one of his “I’m impossible to get out” days.

*The double-digit dance was mostly because of Jose Guillen, who hit two home runs and drove in a team-record 7 RBIs. This moved Guillen way, way ahead in the Jose-Emil steel cage match.

Jose Guillen: .262/.289/.460, 9 homers, 45 RBIs, 25 runs, 20 doubles, 1 stolen base, 98 OPS+.
Emil Brown: .252/.291/.378, 5 homers, 36 RBIs, 30 runs, 9 doubles, 3 stolen bases, 87 OPS+.

It would be nice if in this competition, one of them gladiators pushed his OPS+ to 100.

How bad is it that the Royals had not scored double digits all year? Bad. Pick a team, any team, OK, how about Minnesota. The Twins don’t score a lot of runs. The Twins have scored double digits five times this year. Texas had done it nine times (and scored nine runs three times in the last week). The White Sox — who have a manager threatening to set himself on fire if the GM doesn’t get him more offense — have scored double digits five times, including the last two games. A double-digit run explosion is like a high holiday for this Royals team, and so I would guess that Brian was crushed that he could not hold off the Yankees.

Not that this should be a huge surprise: The Yankees are a terrible match-up for Banny. They’re a tough match-up for everyone, you figure, but they really make it tough for Banny to do what he wants out there: They’re so patient, they hit where it’s pitched, they pound mistakes. In three starts, the Yankees are hitting .370/.461/.611 against Banny.

In any case, as mentioned, while Banny was getting clocked, we were watching David Copperfield do some of his special brand of, “Am I not the greatest thing you have ever seen in your life” magic. Before his show starts, a video screen lists off some of David Copperfield’s many accomplishments … Named magician of the century by some magic group or other, has his own Hollywood star*, is the only living magician to appear on a stamp (doesn’t mention which country), is in the Guinness Book of World Records for various things like largest Broadway audience and highest paid celebrity list and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on …

After a while, it was so ridiculous I started asking Margo David Copperfield trivia questions. Like: “Hey, do you know which magician has his own wax statue at Madame Tussaud’s in London?” And she would say, “I don’t know.” And I would say: “David Copperfield!” This proved to be amusing for about 12 seconds, but the show didn’t start on time so we kept it up for way too long.

*I must admit that I cannot see the words “Hollywood star” without smirking, and I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help it. A not-so-quick story — maybe this should have been my “Dark Side of the Locker Room” story for Deadspin: Kansas City used to have this Senior Tour (um, sorry, Champions Tour) golf tournament that was so cursed it could make a great movie with Will Ferrell. I’m serious, this tournament was hysterical. Every year, some biblical disaster would strike. Tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, pestilence, you name it. They tried everything. They would move the tournament around to different courses every year, they would chase down new sponsors every year, they would rename the thing and give it a new format every year. And it didn’t matter. Twice, the tournament got rained out on Sunday even though it was perfectly sunny on Sunday. Don’t ask. It was like that.

Anyway, one of the many disastrous choices the tournament elders made was to, at one point, make the golf tournament a celebrity pro-am. They wanted Kansas City to be the Pebble Beach of the Senior Tour (Champions Tour, dammit, I keep forgetting). They held a big press conference, brought in Tim Finchem and other golf dignitaries, and talked about this being the start of a new age in Kansas City golf. From what I remember, nobody at that press conference explained exactly HOW Kansas City was going to get these celebrities — Kansas City has its many charms, of course, but it might not offer quite all of the glamour of Pebble Beach or, you know, any of it.

I distinctly remember Jamie Farr said: “I have a Hollywood star” at least twice. The Jamie Farr Messages make up one of the odder experiences of my working career (he called back the next day to apologize for overreacting and to invite me to see him in “Catch Me If You Can” at the New Dinner Theater, which I sadly did not do). I will never forget the “I have a Hollywood star” part. He does have one too.

ANYWAY, back to David Copperfield. The show began, and two things stuck out. One was I kept getting crazy text messages during the show. One message said that the Royals had somehow lost to the Yankees even though they led 5-1 and 10-6. Sigh. Another message said that Big Brown had lost the Belmont.*

*I’m a moderate horse racing fan — I still love the Kentucky Derby, and I think the sport has some wonderful characters — but I never could get into the Big Brown thing. Maybe it was because Eight Belles was euthanized after this year’s Derby … I really have trouble getting too excited about a sport when one of the participants is, you know, killed afterward. Beyond that, though, there just seemed something phony to me about Big Brown … he seemed like one of those young boxers who builds up a 24-0 record fighting Don Knotts again and again and then get hyped up beyond all reason. Plus — this is from afar — the trainer seemed like a Grade A pinhead with all of his Triple Crown guarantees and cockiness and dismissiveness of the other horses. This is just me, but I say let the horse do the talking. Wilbur always did.

Sure, I still thought Big Brown would win … he went off 1-4, and everyone who seems to know about this stuff like my friend Pat Forde made the other horses sound like pigs. But I will say this: I always keep in mind the George M. Cohan line: “There is nothing so uncertain as a dead sure thing.” And sure enough, Pig Brown had nothing down the stretch. Finished last. After numerous medical checks showed that the horse was healthy, the media race was on to rip the trainer, rip the horse, rip the jockey, rip everybody involved with Big Brown. I’m all for it. There’s a great American truth: We don’t mind hype. Live up to it.

The second thing that stuck out was how uninterested David Copperfield seemed. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the guy can do some good magic, he made the napkin dance, he made the car appear out of nowhere, he made 13 people in the audience disappear and all that stuff. But … well, I kept thinking about Bruce Springsteen. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that post about how much I admire Springsteen because he’s there, all the time, rocking his heart out, giving you everything he has even on a Sunday night in Charlotte at the end of a long American tour.

True, this is something we here often mock in baseball because we’re tired of hearing how “gritty” 89 OPS+ shortstops are, or how valiant center fielders with .313 on-base percentages can be and all that. Even so, there is something pretty noble about those players and people who come at life with ferocity and enthusiasm and resolve and excellence even when the lights are dim, and the season is lost, and the boss isn’t watching, and the customer won’t notice, and it’s a Saturday matinee at the MGM Grand and the theater is half-filled with tourist schmucks from Kansas City, the Texas panhandle and various parts of the Far East.

And I thought David Copperfield failed the test. I don’t blame him exactly … the guy had three shows on Saturday, and I have no idea why a guy who (I’m told) has been one of the world’s best-paid entertainers for the last 20 years is even DOING a Saturday matinee for us schmucks in Vegas. But hey, we didn’t ASK him to do that show … we paid him an outrageous sum of money, in fact … and he flat went through the motions.

Yeah, here’s a card trick, ha ha, a stale joke, oh, are you from Mexico, ha ha, I don’t speak Spanish, OK, I’ll make a napkin into a rose, Huh? Clap for me. Here’s a video of me doing one of my great escapes back when I actually tried, and OK, let me get through this trick, and OK, good night! I mean good day! Stupid matinees.

This was, for reasons that I do not care to explain, the second time I had seen Copperfield, and I will say that the I thought he put on a good show the first time. He was still arrogant beyond all reason — he does have a Hollywood Star, I guess — but you could feel a little bit of enthusiasm and love of performing. This time, he looked like he would rather be anywhere else. In fact, it seemed like he was somewhere else. At the beginning of the show, he played an audio of his voice talking about how sometimes he imagines himself being halfway across the world — and he said “Tonight, I’m going to go there.” He sure did.

I don’t write this just to rip David Copperfield — though that’s fun too, freaking guy charges $100 bucks a pop and sleepwalks through his show — but because it made me realize yet again how special it is to find people in sports, in entertainment, in daily life who care, all the time, never allow themselves an off-day, never settle for something less because they can get away with it. Springsteen, of course, is right. It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.

Banny Days Are Here Again

Posted: June 2nd, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 28 Comments »

Start No. 12: Vs. Cleveland Indians
Innings: 7 1/3
Earned runs allowed: 1.
Strikeouts: 4
Walks: 1
Homers: 1
Decision: Win (5-6)
Number of pitches: 103
Number of strikes: 70
BABIP: .227 (5 for 22)
Season BABIP: .285

Brian Bannister was at his Banny best on Sunday, moving the ball around, changing speeds, getting out of a little jams. The one run he gave up was on a home run to Grady Sizemore in the eighth inning — Sizemore has now hit five home runs against the Royals this year. I have absolutely no idea why he is not hitting third in that suddenly dreadful Indians lineup. No idea. More on that in a minute.

I did not think that Royals manager Trey Hillman would pitch Banny in the eighth. He had thrown seven shutout innings, he’d gotten the Indians 1-2-3 in the seventh, Kansas City led 6-0, the bullpen was in good shape, the Royals have a day off today … seemed like a good time to take Banny out, leave him with a positive feeling for the next start. Banny had obviously been scuffling a little bit, he had not won a game in three weeks, he’d had some late inning woes … you know, I was absolutely sure Banny would not come out to start the eighth inning.

But … Banny had only thrown 97 pitches, and he was overpowering in the seventh, so Trey figured he had one more inning with him. Well, as the world’s biggest Brian Bannister fan — seriously, his DAD wouldn’t blog about him every start — I would like to offer the Skipper this general rule that he can use pretty much any time he is grappling with a decision: “Brian Bannister does not have one more inning in him.”

I don’t want that to sound like a knock … it isn’t. We all know the challenges Brian faces. He’s trying to win without the 95-mph fastball, without the nasty breaking ball (though he did uncork a Joakim Soria slow curve a couple of times on Sunday — a new weapon?), without being lefthanded, without a lot of stuff. He is effective with movement, with guile, with a gameplan and with a better-than-you-think fastball that cuts late. It’s often good two to three times through the lineup. At that point, though, batters might start noticing the mirrors, where the trap doors, who the magician planted in the audience.

Here are a few 2008 stats from Baseball Reference … small sample size but I think they’re pretty revealing.

Batters vs. Banny

Innings 1-3: .243/.295/.360
Innings 4-6: .271/.310/.347
Innings 7-9: .294/.333/.622

Notice, especially, that slugging percentage late. That’s a key, key number with Banny. We all know he does not strike out a lot of hitters, so it’s critical for pitching success that he does not give up extra base hits. In the early innings, when his fastball is really moving and cutting, Banny generally does not give up a lot of hard hit balls. But late … here’s the same story told through pitch count:

Batters vs. Banny

Pitches 1-25: .238/.284/.333
Pitches 26-50: .253/.300/.400
Pitches 51-75: .221/.284/.324
Pitches 76-100: .290/.319/.391
Pitches 101+: .438/.444/.813

It didn’t really matter on Sunday. Banny started the eighth, got one out, gave up a solo homer to Grady, and got taken out — no real harm. But it just seemed unnecessary … I think with Banny, like with any good magician, one of the keys is getting off stage before the audience catches on.

* * *

That Indians lineup really is brutal — it’s hard to believe that a lineup with the same core players scored 870 runs in 2006. Then again, it really isn’t that hard to believe when you look at the numbers so far — the 2008 numbers are projections:

Grady Sizemore
2006: .290/.375/.533, 53 doubles, 11 triples, 28 homers, 134 runs.
2008: .258/.371/.488, 33 doubles, 6 triples, 33 homers, 95 runs.

Victor Martinez
2006: .316/.391/.465, 37 doubles, 16 homers, 93 RBIs, 82 runs.
2008: .292/.333/.351, 34 doubles, 0 homers, 61 RBIs, 38 runs (!)

Travis Hafner
2006: .308/.439/.659, 31 doubles, 1 triple, 42 homers, 117 RBIs, 100 runs.
2008: .217/.326./350, 30 doubles, 0 triples, 13 homers, 73 RBIs, 63 runs

Casey Blake
2006: .282/.356/.479, 20 doubles, 1 triple, 19 homers, 68 RBIs, 63 runs in 400 at-bats.
2008: .225/.311/.369, 35 doubles, 13 homers, 92 RBIs, 70 runs in 500 at-bats.

And so on. Sizemore’s numbers are not so much down as they are different — he’s walking more, hitting fewer doubles and triples, banging more home runs, that’s why I think he makes much more sense as a No. 3 hitter. Martinez inexplicably has lost his power and Blake, who has been one of my favorite players, is 34 and his numbers figure to keep on falling.

And that leads us to to the big guy, Hafner, who continues his rapid decline into the abyss. You know, there’s an interesting discussion going over at my buddy Alex Belth’s site about whether or not Derek Jeter is finished as a great player. We’ve had more than our share of Jeter talk over here, but I think there’s something larger worth talking about. We baseball fans understand on an intellectual level that players generally start declining at a much younger age than we were led to believe. Bill James proved pretty convincingly that the old idea that a player’s prime years are age 27-32 is nonsense, and that at 30 and 31 the majority of players — especially players with old player skills* — tend to start declining and declining fast.

*This is a Bill James concept — that players with power and plate discipline, players who don’t necessarily hit for a high average and don’t have any speed — will decline much faster than others. And by “much faster” I mean “will decline so fast you will not even believe it.” Take Tom Brunansky … please.

Age 31: .266/.354/.445, 118 OPS+ in 450 or so at-bats.
Age 32: .183/..265/.321, 58 OPS+ in 200 or so at-bats.
Age 34: Out of baseball.

Yeah, like that. Bruno may have had injuries — I’m actually not sure — but that’s not an atypical decline for someone with old-player skills.

While we understand this intellectually, it’s much tougher emotionally. It’s tougher to believe that just because a guy turns 32 — or 34, or 37 or whatever that expiration date is for that player — that he will suddenly not be as good. But it’s just a hard fact of baseball life. Here we go around the horn with a few players in their 30s. Obviously, we’re only a third of the way through season, but it’s interesting just the same:

1B: Paul Konerko, Age 32
Numbers: .205/.320/.335
Comment: Old player skills (though he has hit for average in the past) … this might be a real decline.

2B: Jeff Kent, Age 40
Numbers: .250/.279/.339
Comment: This is not so much about old-player skills; Kent is just an old player. He actually put up good numbers in 2007, but it’s a funny thing about age … you never know when it’s going to get you. I like to think of age in terms of football cornerbacks. One day, you can no longer stay with receivers. And when that day comes — you’re old and you will never, ever be young again. Sigh.

SS: Derek Jeter, Almost 34
Numbers: .271/.329/.382
Comment: I know people here think I don’t like Jeter (I do!) so my opinion about him will probably not be taken seriously. And, unlike many, I think he will be a very good player for a few more years — I think his bad start this year is only that, a bad start. He very clearly does NOT have old player skills, and he does play hard and with a lot of intuition, so I think he should age pretty gracefully. But, let’s face it, he will turn 34 this month. That’s old for a baseball player, and older for a shortstop. There have not been many good-to-great 35 year old shortstops in baseball history. So I do think his days as an MVP candidate, a .340 hitter with 40 doubles and 20 homers are probably over. And at some point, the Yankees are going to have to face up to reality and move him from short … and that does not figure to be a happy day. Fortunately for the Yankees, Julio Lugo is playing shortstop in Boston, and he’s so brutal that Jeter can’t help but look good by comparison.*

*It’s like the cruel but hilarious old Garry Shandling line about how they purposely hire scary looking waiters and waitresses at Denny’s. This, he says, is to make the food look better.

Customer: “This omelet looks terrible.”
Waitress (holding the plate up by her face): “How about now?”
Customer: “Um, OK, give it to me.”

3B: Rich Aurillia, 36
Numbers: .245/.314/.396
Comment: This aging process began in earnest two years ago … just in time for the brilliant Giants to give him one more fat deal.

OF: Ken Griffey, 38
Numbers: .256/.343/.402
Comment: We’re about at the end of a beautiful Hall of Fame career that might have been even more special had young Griffey not suffered the injuries. I suspect he will still want to play — even in a reduced role — for a couple more years.

OF: Eric Byrnes, 32
Numbers: .219/.285/.388
Comment: Don’t you find it bizarre and funny that last year, at age 31, Eric Byrnes stole 50 bases even though he had never stolen more than 25 bases in a season before? Byrnes, of course, spent his younger days with the Moneyball A’s, who did not steal bases. So you almost got the feeling that when he got on the bases last year he felt like a thoroughbred finally being given the chance to run — you could almost hear him shouting, “I’m free! I’m free!” This year, Byrnes is on pace to steal 12 bases and be caught nine times, which isn’t as good.

OF: Gary Matthews, 33
Numbers: .215/.303/.344
Comment: Not sure if this is so much a case of a player aging and declining as it is a player who just cashed in one one good season in Texas (and one amazing catch that they showed on television over and over and over and over and over …).

C: Pudge v2.0, 36
Numbers: .251/.289/.366
Comment: Good! I can feel your anger! I am defenseless! Strike me down with all your hatred, and your journey toward Butch Wynegar will be complete.

DH: Travis Hafner, 31
Comment: Of course. The ultimate example of baseball aging. He (surely) will have his hot streaks again, but I think the trend is pretty clear now. He had a huge dropoff in 2007, and he’s hand an even larger dropoff in 2008, and I just don’t think that turns back around.

B-Log: An Ode to Gardy

Posted: May 28th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 40 Comments »

Start No. 11: Vs. Minnesota Twins
Innings: 5
Earned runs allowed: 3.
Strikeouts: 3
Walks: 2
Homers: 0
Decision: None (4-6 — first no decision of the year)
Number of pitches: 111
Number of strikes: 72
BABIP: .389 (7 of 18)
Season BABIP: .295

So, we were talking a little ball before the Royals ninth consecutive loss on Tuesday* and we were trying to name the best manager in baseball.

*OK, what do I do? Put off my sabbatical and keep going out to the yard until the Royals win a game? That seems very risky. That’s how I got stuck chasing around the Royals through their 19-game losing streak in 2005. I really thought coming into the year that these Royals were not a candidate for those energy-sapping long losing streaks because most nights they send out a pretty good starting pitcher, and they have a pretty good bullpen with a dominating closer. One of the little details I overlooked in my formula — you actually have to score runs to win games. These Royals have virtually no way of scoring runs. They can’t hit the ball out, and they can’t run, and they draw the fewest walks in the American League, and they’re Larry, Curly AND Moe on the bases. The Royals have scored five runs the last three games, and here is how:

Sunday’s game: Zero runs.
Monday’s game: Two runs score when — Alex Gordon is hit by a pitch; Jose Guillen is hit by a pitch; Billy Butler’s double play grounder is misplayed; Mark Teahen’s double play grounder is misplayed worse; wild pitch; Miguel Olivo hits a sacrifice fly.
Tuesday’s game: Three runs score when — Alex Gordon is hit by a pitch (that’s how all Royals rallies begin now), Miguel Olivo singles, Mark Teahen slices a fly ball down the left field line and Twins outfielder Delmon Young decides to do a belly flop for reasons that can only be clear in his head. Teahen rounds the bases for an inside-the-parker.

Sorry. Back to our discussion about the best manager in baseball. I mentioned Bobby Cox. It seems hard to argue with 2,283 victories and five pennants and a career .561 winning percentage and all that. And yet (this being Kansas City) someone immediately brought up 1985, when Cox was thoroughly outmanaged by Dick Howser in playoffs. At this point, Cox’s long and detailed history of playoff and World Series woes was rehashed … fair or not it’s tough to be considered numero uno when you go 1 for 5 in the World Series.

There’s Joe Torre, of course, and it’s tough to argue with what HE did in New York. He won four World Series, two more pennants, won 100 or more four times, made the playoffs every year … and yet, all during that time there were people chirping in the background (not all of them Steinbrenners) that he was simply a likable caretaker whose greatest feat was managing to keep baseball’s most expensive team from exploding. After all, someone said, Torre wasn’t exactly a sensation with the Mets, Braves or Cardinals the previous 20 years. Are you the best when you get dealt a full house every year?*

*People often talk about just how hard it is to keep all those egos in check when you’re the Yankees manager — and sure, I can see that. It is hard. I give a lot of credit to Torre. But still, it’s hard in a “Boy, I’m Buddy Bell and I’d sure like to try it” sort of way. To keep the poker analogy going, winning with the Yankees is hard in the same way that keeping a good poker face when you have a full house is hard.

Someone brought up Mike Scoscia, and he has led the California Angels to five playoff appearances and a World Series championship. He certainly moves his runners more than any manager in the American League. I don’t hear people talk about him very much — this too could be a huge point in his favor. To be honest, nobody at the table even seemed interested enough in him to discuss it.

There’s Terry Francona, of course, with his two World Series titles, but again there are those who say he’s a prince of circumstance — after all he didn’t look like much of a genius those four straight losing seasons in Philadelphia, did he? The Red Sox were a 95-win team when he took over. And we all know how many things had to go right in 2004 for Francona not to have a Very Grady playoffs that year.

Tony La Russa, of course, has his fans, and he has won a lot of games and a couple of World Series — it’s a Hall of Fame career. Without naming names, some people at the table don’t like his over-managing much. … Jim Leyland sometimes gets mentioned in these discussions. He has a career losing record, and it ended badly for him in various cities … Lots of people inside baseball like Eric Wedge, but you don’t have to look far to find dissenters. … So that leaves us with, um, Lou Piniella? No, he has plenty of critics. Bob Geren? I don’t think so. Bob Melvin? Can I hear a Dusty Baker?

I think the conclusion we came to is that there is no best manager in baseball, or at least no one manager we could agree upon. And I think that’s the human reaction to baseball. Generally speaking: The more we watch managers at work, the less impressed we are with them. I think there are at least four reasons for this:

1. Even the best managers will lose 60 to 70 times every season, and sometimes more. Think about this for a second … that’s a LOT of losses. I’ll give you an example … Vince Lombardi is probably viewed as the best coach in NFL history. Do you know how many games Lombardi lost in his entire head coaching career? Thirty-four. Yep. That’s it. Casey Stengel lost 34 games less than four months into his New York Yankees managing career. Bobby Cox lost 34 games in a nine week stretch last year. It’s easy for fans to fall in love with someone who almost never loses, like Pete Carroll at USC or Roy Williams and North Carolina. It’s harder to be in awe of a manager who piles up hundreds and then thousands of losses, no matter how many playoff appearances the teams make.

2. Baseball seems to me a sport where people will rarely notice or appreciate GOOD managing, certainly not as often as they will notice and appreciate BAD managing. In football, for instance, if someone designs a great offense gameplan, or if the defense seems to be one step ahead, yeah, you might leave the stadium talking about how well coached the team was (especially if it was the OTHER team). In baseball, though, if a team goes out there and plays a clean game, the manager uses pitchers wisely, the lineup scores a few runs, I suspect most people do not leave the park thinking about how well managed the game was. There are exceptions, of course. A well-time hit and run, a good pinch-hitting move, a well-maneuvered righty-lefty match-up will occasionally get people to offer a nod to the Skipper. But that stuff flops as often as it works (more often, actually — see No. 3), and anyway that’s not the key to winning and losing games long term.

3. Baseball is the easiest second-guess game on earth because most of the time offensive moves don’t work. Pinch hitters make outs a vast majority of the time. Hit and runs don’t work most of the time. You don’t want to oversimplify things but this year, players are getting on-base 33.1 percent of the time — meaning that 66.9 percent of the time they’re not getting on base. That means about two-thirds of the time you can look at a manager’s pinch hit move (or, especially, non pinch-hit move), a botched hit-and-run, a sacrifice that doesn’t pay off, whatever and say, “I wouldn’t have done that.” And the beautiful part is that second-guesses work ONE HUNDRED precent of the time.

4. And that leads to the biggest point of all which is this … to me the best managers to me are the ones who YOU HARDLY EVER NOTICE as your watching a game. I mean, you can notice them when they come out to argue with umpires, when they kick dirt, when they give great quotes to the newspaper (please?), when they inspire an uninspired team, when they get in a players face after a non-hustle play. I like that stuff as much as anyone, I guess. No, I mean, I think the best managers are like the best conservatives — they believe in small government. They don’t intentionally walk a lot, they don’t sacrifice a lot, they don’t play lineup roulette, they don’t replace pitcher after pitcher until they find the one guy who can’t get anyone out, they don’t make a lot of nonsensical moves based on hunches or small sample sizes. I’m fine with any manager doing some of this stuff — I mean, I don’t want the manager to get BORED in the dugout — but all in all I think a good manager doesn’t give the impression that he’s a good manager. You only notice at the end of the year that the team has won a lot of games.

And that brings me, finally, to Ron Gardenhire. I wrote the other day that I think Gardy is the best manager in baseball, and I’ve heard from more than few Twins fans who want to know when precisely I lost my mind. So let me say this: I don’t follow the Twins closely, and I certainly bow to the local knowledge of the excellent Star-Tribune, Pioneer Press, and the fine sports bloggers like Aaron Gleeman and Seth Stohs. Those people know a billion times more about Gardy and the Twins than I do. If they think Gardy is a disaster, they’re probably right. I’m only viewing it from afar.

BUT from my vantage point, this is what I see:

– Gardy’s teams consistently outperform their runs scored vs. runs allowed Pythagorean record.

You know that Bill James came up with a nifty little formula that shows, pretty closely, what a team’s expected won-loss record should be based on runs scored and runs allowed. Well, in Gardy’s time in Minnesota his teams have won 22 more games than expected. I don’t know how much this has to do with managing (maybe none of it) but … I’m throwing it out there.

– Gardy’s teams win more than their share of one-run games.

In his time with the Twins, Gardy has won about 56% of the one-run games. Again, I don’t know how much this has to do with managing (maybe none of it). I’m throwing it out there.

– Gardy’s teams seem to get better as the year goes along.

In his four championship years, the Twins played .606 ball after July 1. Again … read it as you like. Maybe he doesn’t have them ready to come out of spring training if you want to look at it that way. But I like a guy whose team improves as the year goes along.

– Gardy’s teams tend to avoid big losing streaks.

He might, as many have pointed out, have absolutely nothing to do with this either. But … just throw it into the pile.

– Gardy’s teams have won four division championships in seven years with what seems from the outside to be pretty modest talent.

Here are Ron Gardenhire’s regular No. 3 hitters in his four championship years:

2002: Doug Mientkiewicz.
2003: Doug Mientkiewicz and Corey Koskie.
2004: Lew Ford (and a little Dougie Baseball … and some Torii Hunter).
2006: Joe Mauer (nice … but Michael Cuddyer hit cleanup)

Now, you could argue here that it was Gardy who did put those guys into those slots … but my point is that he obviously wanted to have a good hitter at No. 3. And after much study … these were his best options. That’s the kind of team he has had to manage. His four championship teams finished 9th, 6th, 10th and 8th in runs scored.

Pitching? We all know about Johan Santana and his impact, but the first year Gardy’s team won the Central, they won 94 games and the best starter was Rick Reed. The next year, Brad Radke, Kyle Lohse, Kenny Rogers, Joe Mays and Rick Reed all started more games than Santana — and Radke’s 4.49 ERA was the lowest of that bunch.

The next year, Santana emerged, and Joe Nathan was unhittable, but even so he was throwing a Kyle Lohse and Terry Mullholand out there pretty often. Anyway, the Twins finished 10th in the American league in runs scored. TENTH! They still won 92 games.

Now, see, to an outsider, that stuff’s pretty amazing. I’ve seen quite a bit of Twins baseball, being in Kansas City, and I’m never impressed by the talent — the pitchers generally don’t throw hard enough to strike out anybody (again, excepting Santana and Joe Nathan), the lineup generally doesn’t get on base much or generate much power, but man that Twins team really does scrap out enough hits to score a few runs and they play good defense and they throw strikes and they beat you by a run or two more.

This year’s team feels different because Santana is gone and Mauer and Morneau make up a very legit 3-4 (though it’s worth mentioning that Mauer does not have a home run this year), and Carlos Gomez is just an interesting player (he’s probably the fastest guy in the game, he has some power, he never walks, he’s 22 …). Still, it’s hardly an intimidating group. And yet here they are again, playing just above .500, in contention, with the hot months ahead. That’s what I see from afar. I couldn’t tell you if Gardy makes horrendous in-game decisions (or makes no in-game decisions) or if players have actually underachieved under him of if he’s just lucked into most of his success. Like I say, I yield to the experts on that one.

All I do know is that as someone who has consistently watch the Royals play down to their talent (and, on rare occasions, even below their meager talent) I’ve looked at the standings many times over the last six or seven years, and I’ve asked myself, “How in the hell are the Twins doing it?” That’s why I think Gardy’s the best.

* * *

Quick Banny thought: He was nibbling a lot on Tuesday, and he conceded after the game that he was doing that because he felt like he needed to throw shutout innings. I do believe a bad offense can take a pitcher — especially a thinking pitcher — right out of his rhythm and make him try to be too fine.

Banny Log (Delayed)

Posted: May 24th, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 12 Comments »

Start No. 10: Vs. Boston Red Sox
Innings: 5 1/3
Earned runs allowed: 7.
Strikeouts: 4
Walks: 1
Homers: 1 (it was a salami)
Decision: Loss (4-6)
Number of pitches: 107
Number of strikes: 72
BABIP: .524 (11 or 21 — holy green monsters, Batman!)
Season BABIP: .286

I didn’t mean to not offer up a full Banny Log the other day … I had to leave for Cooperstown, and just didn’t have time to do one. Would I have found time if Banny had thrown 8 shutouts innings? Only you can decide that.

Banny was obviously not very good. There are no excuses here. He gave up three straight hits* and then the salami to J.D. Drew that pretty much ruined his outing. The Drew homer was an opposite field shot, just over the green monster, and it’s always tempting to blame the park when that happens. But I never like that. At Fenway Park, you know where the monster is at all times. Sometimes the monster will beat you. Sometimes you will get easy outs because people are aiming for it. You take what you get. It’s somewhat of a hidden fact but Fenway Park has turned into one of the toughest home run parks in baseball.

*There is some debate about two of those hits — one was hit up the middle, another was looped into the hole between short and third. The debate: Would shortstop Tony Pena have made either of those plays? I’m in the middle on it. Some people around the team think it’s guaranteed that Pena would have made those plays — I don’t see that. Pena’s a good defensive shorstop, but he’s not Ozzie Smith — I would guess that imaginary Pena makes many more plays than the real Pena.

On the other hand, MannyBeingManny hit the grounder up the middle, and we all know that he doesn’t exactly Pete Rose it to first base. And the grounder in the hole was hit by Mike Lowell, who doesn’t own any land speed records either. So I’d probably give Pena a 30-40 percent chance of getting Manny, maybe a 25 percent chance of getting Lowell. Either way, it doesn’t fundamentally change what happened — I think the reason it stuck out is because shortstop Alberto Callaspo did not get within walkie-talkie distance of either of those grounders.

Anyway, after that inning Banny sort of limited the damage. He gave up a lot of hits, but he was back to pitching his Banny style and in the fifth he got MannyBeingManny, Lowell and the Greek God in order, so he had given up five runs in five innings, a struggle but hey, the Red Sox are really good, and it was Fenway (which may not be a homer park, but is still the best hitting park in the AL) and that should have been Banny’s day.

Instead, he came out for the sixth. And I turned to our intrepid baseball writer Bob Dutton and said, “Um, this isn’t good. Banny’s toast.” And it wasn’t good. Banny was toast. You know, if Skipper Trey Hillman wants to just call me to ask if Banny has anything left, I would certainly be happy to offer advice. Banny gave up two hits, a long fly ball, finally got pulled, and then Jimmy Gobble came in and after plotzing around in all sorts of infuriating ways, he gave up a salami to Mike Lowell. And that closed out the scoring for the Banny Log.

Before we go, though we have to ask some questions about the Jimmy Gobble situation because … it’s startling. Banny was taken out, and Jacoby Ellsbury — a lefty hitter — was coming up. So Gobble was brought into the game. Got it. After that, though, we have lotsa lotsa questions:

1. When Gobble walked Jacoby Ellsbury, why exactly did he stay in the game to face Dustin Pedroia, who massacres lefties?

2. After Pedroia hit the inevitable run-scoring double, Gobble stayed in to face Papi — I get that part. Lefty-lefty. Fine. Gobble gets the out. Now, you have three righties in a row — you’re taking Gobble out right? You know there’s a big wall in left field, right?

3. Oh, I see, you’re NOT taking Gobble out. What you’re doing is — you intentionally walk Manny Ramirez. With two outs. Have I mentioned how much I hate non-strategic intentional walks? Yes? Well, let me mention it again. Sure, I realize that first base was open, but that’s irrelevant with two outs. You’re not trying to get a force out at any base. This ain’t tee ball. You’re walking Manny because you’re scared of Manny — in the sixth inning, of a day game that you are trailing 7-3. Gotta love that attitude. Hey, maybe next time you can send your pitcher to the mound with a white flag to wave or, better yet, a yellow vest to wear like quarterbacks do in those non-hitting drills. It’s not possible for me to hate this move more.

4. Well, wait, unless it’s this move. So let’s see here — you obviously believe that you’re still in the game … why else would you intentionally walk Manny Ramirez? You have to believe you’re in the game — and I can understand that reasoning at least, get an out here, you’re only down four runs, it’s Fenway Park, baseballs are flying out (or at least THEIR baseballs are flying out), you’ve lost three straight to these guys, you’re grinding as a manager, making every move you can to keep the game close and tight …

… and then you leave lefty Jimmy Gobble in the game to face right Mike Lowell with the bases loaded at Fenway Park.

Do I need to repeat that in all capital letters? AND THEN YOU LEAVE JIMMY GOBBLE IN TO FACE MIKE LOWELL.

This, um, no, I don’t have an explanation. We try with this blog to always understand the other side’s point of view, even if the other side’s point of view seems shaky. But there’s no other side here. Skipper Trey left Jimmy Gobble in the game to face Mike Lowell. I want to show you Jimmy Gobble’s righty/lefty splits … and I want you to keep in mind that this is a VERY small sample size, so you cannot take these numbers all that seriously. But I want to show them to you anyway.

Left-handed batters vs. Jimmy Gobble: .083/.154/.167.
Right-handed batters vs. Jimmy Gobble: .391/.464/.696.

I want you to look at that. Marvel at it. Take it in the way you might take in Mount Rushmore. You can also have Jimmy’s numbers from last year if you want — a little bit larger sample size.

Left-handed batters vs. Jimmy Gobble (2007): .241/.325/.398.
Right-handed batters vs. Jimmy Gobble (2008): .319/.377/.532.

Now, I want you to think about this again. Think about it. I am. There has to be some logic here. There has to be. Jimmy Gobble is in the big leagues to get lefties out. He’s good at this. But, like other LOOGYs, he has a pretty proven track record of not being able to get righties out. It’s pretty elemental. So why would Trey Hillman, um, maybe, no, um, there has to be something I’m missing here. I could spend weeks on this thing. This is like the math question in Good Will Hunting.

So, OF COURSE Lowell hit the grand slam — I mean, what choice did he have? And so this means that in four games in Boston, the Kansas City Royals (A) Got swept; (B) Got no-hit; (C) Gave up two salamis in a single game and (D) Did all that even though MannyBeingMani and Big Papi really didn’t do anything much. That’s a pretty bad series.

Banny Log: Reader’s Digest Version

Posted: May 22nd, 2008 | Filed under: Banny Log | 35 Comments »

2nd inning:

Manny Ramirez: Soft infield single up the middle.*
Mike Lowell: Soft singled in the hole between short and third.*
Kevin Youkilis: Hard single between short and third.
J.D. Drew: Grand slam.

*Both of these might have been fielded by shortstop Tony Pena. Unfortunately, shortstop Tony Pena is hitting .162 and was replaced in the lineup by Alberto Callaspo, who can hit better but has the range of the Pesky Pole. Let’s be honest, it ain’t easy putting together the Kansas City Royals lineup every day.

Fun Fenway fact: Did you know that there is not a Citgo station within 12 miles of the famous Citgo Sign behind the Green Monster?

Fun Fenway fact II: J.D. Drew’s home run did not hit the Citgo sign.