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The Cheater's Guide to Baseball
"Derek Zumsteg should be ashamed to have such comprehensive knowledge of the history of cheating in baseball. Pete Rose gave me two to one odds this book would become a classic." -- Allen Barra, author of The Last Coach: A Life of Paul "Bear" Bryant
Scraps
From the Improving Safeco thread:
Long time commenter scraps has had a stroke. You can learn more details at:
Our best wishes are with scraps and those close to him. Come back soon.
Game 162, Athletics at Mariners
Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn:
Seattle, 60-101
Washington, 59-101
Philly having clinched is scheduled to rest Hamels against Perez… please, pitch Hamels. Give him a couple of innings. Keep him loose.
Seattle, desperate for the loss, puts Dickey out. But Oakland attempts to block with Outman!
What’s the worst lineup the M’s could plausibly run out there without getting a nasty call from Selig? I’m thinking:
DH-L Valbuena
C-R Johnson
1B-L LaHair
2B-L Hulett
SS-R Betancourt
3B-R Cairo
LF-L Ibanez
CF-L Reed
RF-L Ichiro!
I’m playing for the platoon disadvantage there.
Officially The Worst Trade In Franchise History
John Hickey gets Bedard to talk, and it’s not good.
“The start after I hurt my hip, I felt discomfort in the last inning I pitched,” Bedard said. “I know exactly when I did it. After that it got worse and worse”.
“We knew what it was after the MRI — it’s a tear in the labrum and a cyst,” Bedard said. “Surgery was always an option, but you want it to be the last option. You’re never 100 percent sure what will happen in surgery.”
“The surgery we’re talking about can be six to nine months (of rehabilitation) or it can be longer,” Bedard said. “To not be able to pitch, that’s the most frustrating part of the whole season. To not be able to do what you love is hard.”
A torn labrum isn’t quite the career ender it used to be, but it’s still as bad an injury as a pitcher can have. Apparently, the whole “exploratory surgery” thing was a lie, as Bedard clearly believes he’s having his labrum repaired when they cut him open.
Realistically, this news puts Bedard out until at least June or July of 2009. Since Bedard’s eligible for arbitration this winter and the team would have to offer him at least $6 million, there’s a pretty good chance he’s going to be non-tendered. In which case, he’d almost certainly sign elsewhere, and the Erik Bedard era in Seattle would be over.
80 meaningless innings in the worst season ever - that’s potentially Bedard’s entire Mariner career. No trading him for some prospects to try to recoup the losses. No draft picks when he leaves as a free agent. Just labrum surgery and a potential release, while the M’s try to rebuild without the core of their farm system, now enjoying success in Baltimore.
In terms of results, this is easily the worst trade in franchise history. Everyone involved in making that trade should resign in disgrace.
Current GM Handicapping
A semi-random gauge of who’s likely to get the job. Based on current press coverage, rumors, substantiated and un, educated guesses, and so on. We claim no insight into front office machinations. Please, no wagering.
For names and brief resumes, check our potential GM candidates post.
| Who | Percent |
| LaCava | 30% |
| Woodfork | 20% |
| DePodesta | 10% |
| Pelekoudas | 7% |
| Antonetti | 5% |
| Avila | 5% |
| DiPoto/Hinch/Hoyer | 5% |
| Ng | 5% |
| White | 1% |
| Evans | 1% |
| Forst | 1% |
| Towers | 1% |
| Field | 10% |
“Field” is everyone not listed.
Rick Sutcliffe is a horrible person and ESPN’s no better
This is still bugging me hours later, so:
I was watching ESPN’s broadcast of the Braves game tonight, and there was a really, really weird moment where they were discussing Rick Sutcliffe taking time off to go get cancer treatment, and Erin Andrews was in the stands and wished him well or something — I wasn’t really paying attention, it seemed totally pointless — at which point Sutcliffe went off on a bizarre rant about her, how good she looked, her skirt, and how everyone was watching her and her skirt and when they cut to the broadcast booth, his partner had this weird look of terror and shock on his face, and they chatted about how distracting she was around the batting cage.
This should be Rick Sutcliffe’s last job announcing anything. He shouldn’t be hired to do dog races. He shouldn’t be able to ever get a quarter for hawking wares at garage sales.
I don’t care that he has cancer.
I don’t care that Erin Andrews is attractive, or that she wore a skirt.
He should be fired for making comments like that. More than that, he should be fired for this rant, about her.
I don’t care what your opinion of her is: Erin takes an enormous amount of entirely unjustified personal crap. She’s been treated badly by players, awkwardly clutched by coaches. If you put her name into a search engine you need to get decontaminated within minutes of just looking at the results or your eyes will melt. Erin is objectified and degraded in a way that no male sports media figure has ever had to face, and Rick Sutcliffe, working with her, should know that and, if he can’t support her, at least shut up.
It is amazing and embarrassing that no one on the broadcast crew stopped Sutcliffe. No one cut his mike, nothing, and his partner didn’t stop him but instead ended up playing along. The broadcast team and the network let someone use game time to slobber all over another broadcaster for absolutely no reason.
That’s it, that’s all I have. Fuck you, Rick Sutcliffe. Fuck you, other guy in the booth. You’re embarrassments to my gender.
Update: here’s the video.
Felix Day!
“Ist das die Sonne? Day 45” by Arwen Abendstern, cc-licensed
Is it Felix Day?
Yes, it’s Felix Day, child.
moar funny pictures
Here’s a dog licking her* chops with excitement.
“Annie licks her chops” by Barbara L. Slavin, cc-licensed
* presumably
Season Salvaging Time
It’s May 4th, and believe it or not, the Mariners season is on the verge of extinction. They currently stand six games behind the Angels (who are winning 4-2, which would push the deficit to six and a half games) with 130 games to play. That sounds like a lot of time until you realize just how large of a hole that really is.
To win the division, the Mariners would have to outplay both the Angels and A’s by a significant margin. To put some context to this, here are the winning percentage pairs from here on out that would lead to the M’s ending up with just one more win then Los Angeles (ignoring the A’s for right now), ranging from 89 wins to 95 wins for the Mariners.
Angels - .527 - Mariners - .585
Angels - .535 - Mariners - .592
Angels - .543 - Mariners - .600
Angels - .550 - Mariners - .608
Angels - .558 - Mariners - .615
Angels - .566 - Mariners - .623
Angels - .574 - Mariners - .631
The Angels have played .594 baseball through their first 32 games without John Lackey or Kelvim Escobar and with Vladimir Guerrero off to the worst start he’s had in years. Even assuming they aren’t going to get Escobar back this year, Lackey takes a while to regain his previous form, and Guerrero doesn’t rebound all the way back to his prime levels of production, it’s still hard to see this Angels team playing much worse than .550 baseball the rest of the way.
A .550 winning percentage is an 89 win pace over a full season, and that’s about what I expected the Angels to finish with before the year started. If the Angels playing .550 ball from here on out, they’ll finish with 91 wins, and the Mariners would have to play .608 baseball to end the year at 92-70. No team has played a full season of .608 baseball or better since the 2005 White Sox and Cardinals won 99 and 100 games respectively.
It’s really freaking hard to play .608 baseball for any sustained period of time, even if you’re a truly excellent team. And let’s be honest, this Mariners team isn’t excellent. For a team of this quality to play .600 ball for five months is almost unheard of.
So, the M’s simply have to start winning, and doing so soon. They need to beat up on Texas, the White Sox, and the Padres, who they play their next 13 games against. They need a 9-4 or 10-3 stretch to make up some ground or else it just becomes too prohibitive to think they can close this gap.
It’s May, but it’s getting late for the Mariners. They don’t have any more time to struggle. They have to start winning, and they have to start tomorrow.
Game 27, Mariners at Indians
Silva v Carmona. 4:05 our time.
CF Ichiro
2B Lopez
LF Ibanez
3B Beltre
DH Vidro
1B Sexson
RF Wilkerson
C Johjima
SS Betancourt
Carlos Silva and Fausto Carmona both carry the sinkerballer label, but they are total opposites. Silva isn’t really a groundball guy anymore, but just throws a ton of strikes and hopes the results work out for him. Carmona throws a nasty, diving “turbo sinker”, but has lost his ability to put the ball in the strike zone with regularity.
The Mariners need to let Carmona get himself in trouble. An aggressive mindset against him is just going to lead to a lot of weak groundouts. Take the walk, boys.
Thank You, Mike Scioscia
Let’s see - bases loaded, 2 outs, bottom of the 9th, lefty reliever on the hill, and you’ve got two options:
LH Garret Anderson, career vs lefties: .290/.308/.443
RH Torii Hunter, career vs lefties: .282/.339/.490
It’s worth noting that Hunter’s posted an OPS of .900+ against LHPs in each of the last three years as well. His career numbers vs lefties are deflated by poor performances earlier in his career, and our expectation of his actual ability should be weighted towards more recent performances. So, Hunter’s likely an even better true talent hitter against southpaws than this shows.
If you’re Mike Scoiscia, this is a pretty easy call, right? Hunter’s the better hitter and has the platoon advantage. Even if you believe in stuff like playing the hot hand and clutch hitting, well, Torii Hunter wins there too. Anderson’s hitting like the broken down old shell of his former self that he is, and lefties have dominated him this year. Hunter, meanwhile, tore the cover off the ball all weekend.
As a Mariner fan, I’ll simply thank Scioscia for the gift. But man, what a terrible decision that was.
Sexson’s Strikeout
Tie game, bases loaded, one out in the 8th inning - this is a situation the Mariners created by having Lopez lay down a sacrifice bunt, knowing the Rangers would walk Ibanez to get to Richie Sexson. This is what Richie Sexson saw:
Six pitches, all of them out of the strike zone. Joaquin Benoit did everything he possibly could to walk in the go-ahead run, and Sexson just wouldn’t let him. If the Mariners continue to hit Sexson cleanup and ask Lopez to bunt Ichiro over every time he gets on base in high leverage situations, we’re going to see this a lot - Ibanez walks and Sexson leaves the man on.
There’s just no reason a team that wants to be a contender should be hitting Richie Sexson cleanup in 2008.
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