This didn’t show up on MLB’s transactions pages so I missed it, but Quinton McCracken signed a minor league deal with the Diamondbacks after his release from the Mariners (which also wasn’t on the transactions pages). It appears though that he’ll end up getting some regular playing time, at least for a while, given the state of that team.
Rant ahead. Skip to next post for more in-game relevant content.
Tonight was Spiderman 2 night at the ballpark, ending a week of Ronald Reagan Night at Safeco Field. It demonstrated what an enormous tool baseball is.
Spiderman 2 night included:
– Spiderman foam hands for the kids
– Spiderman home plate and pitching rubber, which were both removed before the game
– Spiderman 2 giveaways, which sucked (the “Spiderman 2” DVD pack included a Spiderman 1 DVD, for instace. They did not give away Kristen Dunst, which would have sparked interest
– The U.S. Bank Great Plays Video Vault had a bunch of short clips from Spiderman 2 interspersed with the highlights themselves. At the end of the video they had to show the Spiderman 2 vitals, of which only the PG-13 rating was legible, in order to ensure that you realized you’d just seen a trailer.
It beats every-night-is-Reagan night, though.
Why, last night we got
– a moment of silence before the game
– instead of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” a video retrospective on Reagan
Before I start, I want to make this totally clear– I grew up on Reagan. I loved to listen to Reagan’s speeches, and he’s the first political figure I knew about.
When Richard Nixon died in 1994, baseball didn’t honor Nixon like this. We didn’t get to see his “Checkers” speech in the 7th inning. And yet, Nixon’s accomplishments are admirable: he went to China in a move that had tremendous (if largely forgotten) consequences, the EPA was established, and every one of us in the country is better for it. The DEA… well, I’d argue we’re all worse fot that. Nixon finally got the country out of an unwinnable war in Vietnam (where, and I mention this just as an aside, widespread torture of America’s enemies did nothing but destroy our own morals and turn others against us).
And his failings were horrifying, too. Nixon waged a secret war against Cambodia that killed hundreds of thousands of people and, indirectly, led to the Hmer Rouge killing a million, two million more. And he abused the Presidency in all kinds of ways, yes (“When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal,” Nixon once said, which presages the Justice Department memos justifying Bush administration policy on treatment of captives), and healmost destroyed American democracy. And he liked baseball.
But so did Reagan. We can argue whether he won the cold war, but under Reagan the war on drugs eroded civil rights and introduced the forfeiture laws that addicted police departments to continuing those civil rights laws, he ran a secret government out of the White House in direct violation of U.S. law so he could arm our enemies and finance his own secret war in Nicaragua. Iran-Contra would have gotten him impeached if Nixon’s impeachment hadn’t left the presidency in such awful shape. The debt…
Doesn’t matter. If Bill Clinton died tomorrow (Lord forbid) do you think baseball would have a week of silent moments and video tributes?
If not, why not? No matter what reason you cite, wouldn’t a decision to make that evaluation, to base the time and manner a president is honored on subjective criteria be an endorsement of certain people and their ideology over others?
We come to baseball games to see baseball games, not to see baseball drape itself in patriotism, or honor a particular president. I’ve always only wanted to be left alone to enjoy the game.
But attending baseball is not far away from being like staying home and watching on television: constant ads, video ads between innings and during pitching changes, only with better views, extremely high prices for food, and that stupid Moose. And at home I’d have TiVo and at that point, I wouldn’t go see forty, fifty games a year — I might see four or five.
Notes on tonight’s game
Worst Swings of the Night
—
Innings 1-3: Endy Chavez’s long reach from his timtoes for a Moyer changeup that made Chavez look like he was doing some kind of crazy isometric exercise that threatened to take him out of his shoes.
Innings 4+ Nick Johnson’s half-squatting reach for a low curve on a hit-and-run that sent him spinning around twice. You only get bonus points for that in Tony Hawk Pro Skater there, big guy.
Ichiro’s throw to second on that scoop of a short hop to get Endy Chavez was the most impressive defensive play I’ve seen this year. The hit went up, Ichiro charged — “Maaaaaaaaaybe he’ll get there…”
The ball dropped just in front of him — “Craaaaap, guys at first and–
Somehow Ichiro took the ball on the short hop and threw to second almost in an instant, and Chavez was out. (jaw drop, no thoughts)
I still can’t believe he got that throw off that fast. Endy Chavez is a fast dude (watching him play center… he covers a ton of ground out there) and Ichiro.. man, that was awesome.
So, to try and spark the offense, Ichiro is hitting 3rd. Not that I think this would matter one way or another usually, but in order to accomodate this, Melvin has Winn (.319 OBP) and Aurilia (.301 OBP) hitting first and second. Regardless of what you think changes might do to spark a lineup that can’t score anyways, sticking out machines in front of your best hitter just isn’t very smart.
Fans, remember not to go to the ballpark Monday, June 29th, when the Mariners present Country Music Night at Safeco Field.
Great to see Borders come through and the Mariners finally get a win. This was a perfect Franklin night: he took his lumps and kept plugging it in there, didn’t give up the walks and only had one ball aspire to home run length. The Expos kept him in business, and then Melvin brought in the closer with a tied-freaking-game. I was shocked and overjoyed, and it all paid off. Guardado got through the “power” section of the lineup, and notched the strikeout against the only guy the Expos were going to send up that can seriously rake in Nick Johnson.
Two huge baserunning gaffes tonight — aren’t those exactly the kind of boneheaded mistakes that alert, well-managed players aren’t supposed to make What was Cabrera thinking about when he got picked off, where they were going to dinner after the game? Nobody around me at the game saw what happened until they had him in the rundown because no one in their right mind would think he’d get picked off like that at third with two outs!
And Buntin’ Bob can’t.. stop.. calling.. for.. sacrifice.. arrrghhh.
Weirdest decision though is Robinson leaving Livan out for the ninth. Livan had thrown a ton of pitches, wasn’t all that effective at any point, letting the M’s do the work for him, and the Expos had fresh arms ready in the bullpen. Especially when Hansen pinch-hit: perfect time to bring in the lefty. Melvin’s burned Bloomquist early, and Bocachica’s on the basepaths. There’s no right-handed batter on the bench of any consequence left, so then you’ve got 1 out, 2 on, and if you get Hansen out the worst thing that happens is Borders gets on and then it’s a force-anywhere for groundball machine Ichiro with a really slow dude on first and none-too-speedy Aurilia at second: force anywhere in the infield.
I don’t get it.
The cool thing about Livan though was that 60mph pitch he threw to Edgar in the ninth to get the strikeout. That was straight ballsy, busting that out there, and I tip my hat to him for making it work.
Well, the Mariners aren’t worst in the AL, so this isn’t quite the worst v worst matchup it might have been (thank goodness Houston didn’t stick around for another day). And yet…
Friday, 7:05, RHP Franklin v RHP Hernandez.
Saturday, 7:05, LHP Moyer v RHP Vargas
Sunday, 1:05, RHP Pineiro v RHP Armas
Montreal has the worst offense in baseball, Mariners the 26th-best. The Expos, though, have been without Nick Johnson and Carl Everett, among others, while the Mariners really hadn’t suffered much from injuries before Ibanez went out. Still, the gap is so huge that even when I ran some numbers with Ibanez out, the Mariners only dropped one, two slots — the Expos are waayy behind. The park-adjusted gap between the #1 team and an average team is 25-35 runs so far this season, while the difference between those average teams and Montreal is 80-90 runs. The gap between the 26th-best Mariners and the Expos is 50 runs. That’s crazy, how bad the Expos offense has been.
Also, it doesn’t look like Ibanez is going to be back in the lineup in the immediate future. If he’s back in another 10 days, I’d be happy. Hamstring injuries aren’t easy rehabs, either — ask Edgar.
Montreal has a top-five starting rotation, and Livan’s arm still will not fall off, oppenly mocking those of us who worry about pitch counts. “Ha!” the arm says. “I mock your pitch counts and workload statistics!” The Mariners have a middle-of-the-road rotation.
Montreal’s bullpen’s been worse than Seattle’s by a fair sight, but overall, this looks like it’s going to be a low, low, low-scoring series, and the Mariners may well have a chance to threaten the major league scoreless innings streak (43). In fact, they could do it tonight if the game went into Bonus Baseball.
On the continuing Garcia-for-Contreras straight up rumors: I’d make this trade, no additional players involved. But we have to get Cashman for Bavasi too. This isn’t without precedent: Billy Beane was almost traded for Youklis.
In fact, I would trade Garcia and Bavasi for a state-of-the-art GM right now, mid-season, no throw ins required, because the payoff for the rest of the dumping would be so much greater it’d be worth it.
Stark has another column on interleague play and how it’s never ever going away (“Interleague play is now so ingrained in the baseball landscape, you couldn’t uproot it with an earthquake.”)
It’s not. I’m sorry, but it’s not. Nothing is. Sixty years ago, the three major sports in the US were baseball, boxing, and horse racing, and they were insanely popular. If you had told someone then that baseball would have interleague play, they’d have scoffed. Or re-alignment, or… there was a time there was no DH!
In another forty years, we might not have baseball at all. Baseball might be played in regional leagues, or one giant league, or in some kind of nutty round-robin divisionless format Commissioner Selig-Preib comes up with.
I still think interleague play is a crock of crap, but then I once argued that if baseball destroyed itself that might be pretty cool if it meant we got a crop of crazy PCL-type regional leagues across the country. Which must be one of the weirder arguments I’ve ever made, for sure.
Interleague play isn’t any more ingrained and integral part of baseball than the wild card. Things that are part of the game are things like nine innings, three outs a half-inning. Stuff about how the teams are organized, or when and how they play each other? It’s superficial, and to compare it to the three-strike rule is… I don’t know what Stark was thinking.
Yeah, Winn’s got a bad arm he makes up for with bad technique.
Which is weird… some of baseball’s bad habits, I understand — if a player comes up with a weird hitch in their swing and they don’t hit without it, well, maybe they live with it. But stuff like “when you catch the ball, be ready to throw it”? Why couldn’t Winn figure that out? Couldn’t someone tell him? Isn’t that part of Melvin’s job? It’s a thirty-second conversation:
“Randy, I don’t want to embarass you, but you know as well as I do that every team’s starting to run on you. I think they read the U.S.S. Mariner or something.”
“I’ve noticed that, skip. I love their commentary but I wish they hadn’t been so vocal about the advantage to be gained by exploiting my defensive inadequacy.”
“Here’s the thing, Randy. You’re not going to suddenly grow a third arm that’s really good at throwing.”
“I have been trying.”
“It’s not going to happen. What you need to do, Randy, is set up to throw when you can get under a ball and need to throw it back in.”
“Huh? How would I do that, skip?”
“I’m happy you asked. I’ve asked Ichiro to demonstrate.”
“There he is, in right field. I didn’t notice. And hey, you have a bat and a bag of balls here at home plate.”
“Yes. Now watch what happens when I hit an easy fly ball to Ichiro….”
“Wow, skip, I see exactly what you meant! Now maybe I can be as good an outfielder as Ichiro!”
(everyone has a good laugh, fade out)
So let’s talk about something else. I recently off-handedly referred to the A’s draft as a “flop”. I’d like to be a little clearer about that. The A’s draft was obviously not a Mariners-with-Mattox-like disaster. It produced a bunch of productive players. What I meant, and I should have explained this a lot better, is that in many places, not just in Moneyball, their college-heavy draft was held up as an example of a triumph of statistics over scouting, that the tide had finally changed, and the Blue Jays followed in their footsteps, and so forth.
It wasn’t a triumph, by any means. As I’m sure Dave will be happy to explain at length, because he Dave’s forgotten more about the drafts than I’ll ever learn, the great finds the A’s made in going against the traditional scouting views and signed for little money, relative to their position (but not, we should point out, relative to where they might otherwise have been drafted) are almost as a whole not doing well. And relative to the impression you’d get reading the book and the publicity that draft got, the draft didn’t approach the greatness it was set up as.
So flop? Sort of. Not really. If no one had said anything about it: no book, no coverage either way, we’d probably think they overachieved, because Baseball America would have rated it as extremely bad but it’s already looking like there are some good players there.
And to tie this all together with Dave’s post on Neyer’s column: while I’m sympathetic to Dave’s view here, Neyer’s got a point, which is this: “But you read those reports, and you understand just why at least a few baseball executives think they have to add at least a modicum of precision to the process.”
Now, they’re not reports, really, so Rob’s wrong in that sense, sure, but Rob’s right. This is why scouts aren’t respected — the every player carries a team. The descriptions of players as if they’re being introduced in a bodice-ripper of a romance novel (“His tanned, long limbs stretched out before her in a loose, graceful action. Oh, he would put on muscle as he matured, and Melinda saw the man she would make of Gary the Pac-10 shortstop…”). There’s such a wide gap between the “this player can clearly hit .300, because he hits .300 every year” performance analysis and the world of the scouts that it’s hard to meld the two. The language each side uses plays a big role in this. That’s not the issue Rob really raises, but his column demonstrates it clearly.
Now, there’s a legitimate gripe here that Rob’s making fun not of an actual scouting report but sort of a 50-word scouting report summary, but at the same time, that is the kind of language real scouting reports use. And it’s part of what frustrates Beane, who if he got that kind of a report would want to know “Can he hit or not? Because I’m a long-limbed guy with graceful actions, and I sucked.”
He wouldn’t have that reaction of course, because an actual scouting report has a lot more objective analysis, space for ratings, and is a lot longer than 50 words.
Does that make any sense? I feel like I’ve written this whole thing and I still haven’t explained what I meant well enough. Ah well, it’s late, my sleep patterns are totally screwed for this week.
DMZ
So I went to the game last night, and a funny thing happened — a fight broke out in my section. No, seriously. First time I’ve ever seen that at an M’s game, but there it was. I missed the first punch (this all happened about 20 rows ahead of me), but saw the usher go tearing down the aisle and attempt to keep the two guys apart. Unfortunately the usher wasn’t very big, and they managed to get back together. At this point everyone in our section — and on each side — is standing, trying to see what’s going on. Based on the cheers and which guy got dragged out (the other guy was simply escorted), it appears one guy was being a jerk and the other guy finally couldn’t take it anymore. Come to think of it, our entire section (115) was pretty rowdy last night. Apparently this is what I’ve been missing by sitting in the 300 level all these years.
In other news, Jeff Bagwell tagged up on Randy Winn, moving from second to third on a not-so-deep flyball. I know it’s popular to rag on Winn’s arm, but I wonder how much of it is technique — last night, when Bagwell was tagging, Winn didn’t set up the way you’re supposed to. Instead of being in that “ready to throw” position when he caught the ball, he was still drifting back, meaning he made the throw without really being able to step into it and subsequently didn’t get anything on it. In any event, poor technique + weak arm = bad throw.