Giants Offense

It's nice to see the Big Giant pitch a great game and get win 296.

It's worth noting that the score was 2-0. This year started well, with a three game series against Milwaukee where the Giants scored 19 runs or 6.3 per game. So far so good. But since then, they've scored 18 runs in the last nine games, just two per game. All told, it's 37 runs in 12 games, 3.1 per game. They are next to last in the National League in scoring.

This is not a new problem. I think it will be a long season for the Giants. Again. It's tough to win games when you can't score, and it's even tougher when your staff ERA is thirteenth in the National League.

Actually I think the pitching will come around. I'll be pretty surprised if the offense shows much improvement, though.

Carpenter Hurt

Well that didn't take long. After one great start, prematurely celebrated by some as indicative of a long term trend, Carpenter's hurt. Maybe for a month, maybe two.

I hereby revert to my previous doubts about the Cardinals chances this season.

The Franchise

Two bad starts in a row for the Franchise. This is not good.

Last year I was worried about how many innings he was throwing. I hope I was wrong. It doesn't sound like he's hurt this year, but I sure hope he's healthy.

Carpenter?

I think Chris Carpenter is the most pivotal player for the Cardinals. My earlier doubts about them were really about how he would pitch.

At least for one start, he's back, healthy, and dominant.

Joel Piñeiro won yesterday. Based on past history, I'm not confident that 6 2/3 innings of two run ball will be his standard outing, but a rotation of Carpenter, Wainwright, Lohse, Wellemeyer, and Piñeiro ain't bad. We just have to keep Carpenter healthy.

Mmmmm, baseball

I ran around Pac Bell Park SBC Park AT&T Park (aka The Phonebooth) yesterday. It looks good. One can look through the right field fence to the playing field, and they were cutting the grass in the outfield. The cleaning crews were at work on the outside of the stadium, and those red, white, and blue buntings are up above the entrance. I'm ready.


Incidentally, baseball is sometimes charmingly bizarre. Opening Day in Boston is Monday. At that game, Seal, an Englishman of Nigerian ancestry married to a German supermodel, will sing The Star Spangled Banner. And why not?

Sabathia

Rats. It seems that CC Sabathia is a terrific human being. It's much easier to hate the Yankees when they're jerks.

2009 Baseball Predictions

I went for a short run this morning around the Phonebooth. It was swarming with cleaning crews and there were two mowers in the outfield and life is good. My predictions for this year¹:

AL East

I think 95 wins will be enough to win this division. Due to the unbalanced schedule, the three good teams are going to beat each other up a lot.

1. Tampa Bay (Tampa? whatever)-Last year they were all around good. Add in David Price (yes, he'll be back in the Show soon, and another year, and I think they're as good as last year. Really, I'm picking them beacuse the Sox and Yankees have too many weaknesses to be dominant.

2. Sox-I think the pitching will be pretty good. Assuming Matsuzaka isn't burned out from the World Baseball Classic, a rotation of Beckett, Lester, Matsuzaka, Wakefield, and then some of Clay Buchholz, Smoltz (not impossible), or Brad Penny (why not?) looks pretty good. That looks like two #1 starters, a solid #2, a #4 and plenty of potential.

I worry about the offense. Papi had a down year last year. True, he doesn't have Manny in the lineup, but he's also 33 and a big dude. I like Mike Lowell, and he's supposedly healthy this year, but his offense is also slipping. Varitek is great with the staff, but can't hit anything anymore. Jason Bay is good, but he's no Manny.

The Sox scored a lot of runs last year. I think that number goes down a bit in 2009.

3. Yankees-Sort of like the Sox, but they look a little weaker across the board. Good, but not great pitching, and too many holes on offense, from a team that was average last year.

Their pitching is improved. Offense? Teixeira, unfortunately, is terrific. But Jeter seems to be (quickly!) trending down, Matsui's coming off an injury, Jorge Posada hits like Varitek (horrible to say about anyone, but it's true).

And who's going to play center field? Melky Cabrera? He hit .249 last year.
For that matter, is Xavier Nady really the rightfielder?

4. Toronto-I still believe that if you have to pick one pitcher for the upcoming season, you still have to go with Roy Halliday. I would not be surprised if he again leads the league in complete games and innings. But he can't pitch everyday, nor can he play other positions.

5. Baltimore-The Orioles are going to lose a lot of games. Again.

AL Central

I dunno. I figure the Twins are always good, and maybe the Tribe too.

AL West

Probably the Angels, again. I mean, Texas and the Mariners are both bad, so the only question is if the A's can make a run at them.

NL East

You gotta love Jamie Moyer. This will be his 23rd year in the bigs. His ERA last year was 3.71. The list of active pitchers with more wins the Moyer is (1) Randy Johnson and (2) Tom Glavine. Because of him, I'm rooting for the Phillies.

NL Central

Sigh. I don't know. The Cardinals aren't going to win many games if everyone's hurt. Chris Carpenter may be healthy, but he's started four games since the 2006 season. Adam Wainwright had a pretty good year last year, as did Kyle Lohse. Todd Wellemeyer wasn't bad either. To me, they're three solid #3 starters. As with years past, I think Carpenter's health is the key o the staff.

Obviously, Pujols is the #1 pick if you're choosing someone in the field, but other than him? I don't know.

NL West

1. Dodgers-It's all about Manny, obviously. When he plays hard, he's just dominant.

Then there are the Giants. It's deja vu. Last year their offense was awful. It's still going to be awful.

With the Franchise, the Old Creaky Unit, Matt Cain, Noah Lowry, and Zito, they may have the best rotation in baseball. (Quick, how good was Randy Johnson last year? His ERA was 3.91) I don't think you want to be going into the season hoping to win every game 1-0, espcially when your closer's ERA was 4.62 last year.



1-For teams and divisions I pay attention to

Schilling

Curt Schilling retired. Or rather, he announced he was finished, surprises no one.

I've wondered for a while now about whether his numbers are Hall of Fame worthy. I was on the fence, but now I'm thinking that he makes it.

216 wins isn't a lot of wins, but he did get them in the Steroid Era.

What pushes him over the top is the postseason. Everyone knows that he thrived (throve?) on pressure. But this ESPN article points out that he was 11-2 in the postseason, the best playoff winning percentage ever for guys with ten decisions. His postseason ERA is even more remarkable¹. These games are (obviously) games against the best teams, to have a 2.23 postseason ERA is amazing.

Does that matter for the Hall of Fame? I think it does. Postseason success matters.

The Hall of Fame is also comparative. If Mussina gets in, I think Schilling has to get in.

Since Schilling hasn't pitched since 2007, I believe he'll be eligible in 2012, a year earlier than Maddux. I don't think Schilling is a first ballot hall of famer, and it wouldn't surprise me if voters want to give Maddux the honor of going in alone, so it wouldn't surprise me if he has to wait a couple of years. But I think he gets in.


Tangentially, Schilling had an extremely unusual career, in that he was a late-bloomer. As Rob Neyer points out, Schilling's record at age 30 was 52-52. The only present player I can think of who's remotely similar is Jamie Moyer. Why Moyer? Astonishingly, Jamie Moyer's record at age 30 was far worse: 34-50.



1-It's worth noting that these statistics necessarily eliminate great money pitchers of the past like Bob Gibson, because they pitched in so many fewer playoff games.

Michigan Basketball

This is what I was talking about yesterday. We have a good team, a good coach, and (finally!) hope for the future of the program.

We even have a great blog (who knew?). I didn't start reading www.umhoops.com until the NCAA tournament started, but I'll remember it next year.

Michigan

It's disappointing Michigan lost in the second round, but all in all I'm pretty pleased. This was the best team in more than ten years, and all of the significant players come back for next year. We lose our starting point guard, a walkon who's a legitimate student athlete getting a master's degree in public policy, but that's about it. He's replaceable.

Now I can go back to ignoring college basketball, although I expect I'll be paying attention next season.

Go Blue!

I remember the last time Michigan was in the NCAA tournament. It was my final spring of law school, 1998. Robert Traylor, Lou Bullock, Maurice Taylor. I remember being late for some portrait (for the law school maybe?) because I was watching that team being upset in the tournament. I never would have imagined it would be 11 (!) years until I again got to watch Michigan in the NCAA tournament.

But we're back and we won. Whoo-hoo! Sweet victory!

Yeeech

I've bashed Dan Wetzel before, but now I think he has his place in the sportswriting firmament. He should be an old time investigative reporter.

I felt slimy just for reading this. It's all the worst parts of big time college sports.

I have no idea if Kevin Love is any good (and I can't make myself care), but he comes across as a decent guy trying to navigate a crowd of complete blood-suckers and bottom-feeders.


(Dan, seriously, stick with reporting. This is great stuff. Shine some sunlight into this dark corner. You are a terrible columnist, but a great reporter.)

A-Rod

So A-Rod needs hip surgery and will be out ten weeks? And from the sound of things, he didn't tell Girardi beforehand?

If this sad, sad development is true, on behalf of everyone here at drakethoughts, I wish him a healthy recovery. A long, healthy recovery. In fact, I would recommend he wait a bit to even have the surgery. There's no need to rush things.

Bonds Appeal

Prosecutors have appealed the judge's earlier ruling on perjury. Basically, it looks to me like the Feds don't have a case without this evidence. Anderson isn't going to testify, and if they can't introduce this evidence of Bonds' steroid use, prosecutors won't have anything to go on.

Legal Note: Normally you have to wait for a trial to be over to appeal. The idea is that if you appeal every ruling, you'd never finish the trial. Sometimes, though, you can file an interlocutory appeal, which is what this is. It's essentially a timeout in the trial.

However, this will irritate the judge, as noted in the Chronicle article. Trial was to start this week and the judge probably wants to (finally!) get rid of this case.



I predict that if the Ninth Circuit (the court that hears appeals from courts in California and other western states) doesn't allow this evidence, prosecutors will drop the case and Bonds will walk.

A Steal

The Franchise signed a one year contract for $650,000.

Considering the Giants are paying Randy Johnson $8 million, and Zito (ahem) $18 million, Lincecum's a steal.


More broadly, it's a small demonstration of how much sense it makes to go with young players. It's rather doubtful that the Big Creaky Unit will give the Giants 15 times the value they get from Lincecum.

Steroids

Rob Neyer at ESPN pointed out this article in Sports Illustrated about the popularity of steroids. It includes the following quote:

Are anabolic steroids widely used by Olympic weight men? Let me put it this way. If they had come into the village the day before competition and said we have just found a new test that will catch anyone who has used steroids, you would have had an awful lot of people dropping out of events because of instant muscle pulls."


This article was published in 1969.

Yes. 1969.

Something to consider next time Bud Selig refuses to take any responsibility for steroids or (seemingly) anything else.

TARP

The benefits and the costs of the TARP is a very complicated topic, with all sorts of nuance.

However, the New York Times linked to presentation that seems to be as helpful as anything else in explaining what it's all about:

The TARP, in Pictures

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Humor Creative Writing tarp

(It's available here.)

Bonds

The judge just tossed a lot of the evidence against Bonds for being inadmissible hearsay. For prosecutors, the problem is that Greg Anderson still isn't talking. He's the guy who could tell the story, and he's not going to say anything. (Why? Beats me.)

Is that all bad? Perjury is bad, of course, but does Bonds really deserve to go to jail? I dunno. If he does, it won't be for long. As I've said before, don't lie to the Feds.


Quick Hearsay Review: Inadmissible hearsay is evidence that exists (in this case the test results) but can't be used in court. I still remember my Evidence professor saying that hearsay is 'an out of court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.' Here, all those test results are statements that were made outside the court, and the prosecutors are trying to use them as evidence. Hearsay actually has lots of exceptions, but apparently the judge didn't think that this evidence fell within any of them. The reason the rule exists is that we would prefer that evidence be offered by a live witness. In this case that witness would be Bonds (who can't be forced to say anything due to the Fifth Amendment) or Anderson (who won't testify).

USA-Mexico: 2-0

Note the red card on Rafael Marquez (at 5:10). Why does this look familiar? Oh yeah....



(at 2:15) Marquez may be a solid defender at Barcelona, but still. That's his second straight red card when he plays against us. It seems he may be kept out of Mexico's next two games. Good.