Winner of the NL ROY from the newly-formed Internet Baseball Writers Association. Bonds, Vlad, the Unit, Johan ("Mr. President"), Bobbys Crosby and Cox, Buck Showalter, Walt Jocketty, and Theo Epstein also won blue ribbons.
My thanks to the other members of the IBWA for letting me vote. When do we learn the secret handshake?
Congratulations and all hail again. Story here. We'll learn about the baseball writers' award on November 8th.
Paul Meyer is back this week with another mailbag.
Two threads I'd recommend. First, on the quality of the play-by-play and color commentary Pirate fans get. What do you want? Second, on the curse of playing so many games in the Central time zone. (Don't get me started on the night games on the West Coast.) As Bob Dvorchak writes up in another article, the games are getting longer. More and more I find that I can only catch the first few innings of a game. More and more the idea that I'll listen to or watch a whole game, start to finish, is not coming into my head with the first pitch. That's not right.
The league could especially pay more attention to the east coast fans who easily lose track or forget about their team when it goes on a nine-game west coast road-trip. If the Pirates have to play a lot in San Diego, let them start half the games at noon pacific time. Baseball became the national pastime by coming on the radio every day. And baseball is most satisfying when it's part of a daily routine. It's hard to get interested in the team if you can only see or hear one Sunday game per week. This isn't football. Only catching one game a week is like reading every sixth chapter in a novel. No one does that.
If more games were ending while people were coming home from work in the evening rush hour, teams like the Pirates would have more fans who were excited to buy tickets. If the game is going to be three or four hours long, it can't start at 10pm if the league expects to build or hold a following among children, parents, and people who go to work pretty early every morning.
I'm a few days late linking to this, Ed Eagle's latest mailbag.
Eagle thinks J.J. Davis has no future with the team. If the Bucs hold him through the Rule V draft, and someone like Rajai Davis is taken by the Tigers, will the fans be mad as hell and not going to take it anymore when Davis is dealt as a throw-in in a two-for-one next spring?
Congratulations, Jason Bay, for winning the Rookie of the Year award selected by baseball fans with some internet savvy.
Ty Wigginton got a vote for NL MVP. So did Kendall. Jack Wilson got a number of votes. Oliver Perez finished eleventh in the Cy Young voting.
The only crime is Lloyd McClendon finishing in last place in the Manager of the Year voting. Larry Bowa, Art Howe, and Clint Hurdle got more votes. For doing what?
I sympathize with the central PA fans who have to watch the Ravens on TV. Fuller story here. Anyone who says it's "just three games" doesn't know what he's talking about. Three games of football is like thirty games of baseball. Some of us would rather watch any given football game than go to a friend's wedding. I'm not one of them, but I know some Steeler fans feel that way. Three games is a lot of football to miss.
Unless you like to get angry, or enjoy being taunted, make sure you don't read Dan Connolly's sarcastic and unprofessional column for the Daily Record/Sunday News.
When a reporter cherry-picks his email to publish reader thoughts, with the intention of mocking and embarrassing his readers, that's not much different than a baseball player who throws a chair at the fans.
Grow up, Dan Connolly. Those Steeler fans have a legitimate gripe. Just because they don't write as elegantly as you, that doesn't make them inferior to you. And it doesn't justify your attempt to belittle them in your column. The only person who looks bad in that column is Dan Connolly. Get a grip man, and exercise some self-control before you go into the stands to prove you're a bigger man.
Coach Cowher has helped call Mike Shanahan's attention to the quality of play along his offensive line.
I wonder why he gets into this. The Broncos aren't on our schedule. Does Cowher sit on some NFL committee that reviews such things?
Alan Robinson of the Associated Press quotes Plax talking about the favorable treatment accorded to the New England secondary.
Joe Byrd of the Greenville Sun catches up with local boy and former Tusculum All-American Ricardo Colclough.
If I owned a restaurant within 100 miles of Heniz Field, I'd put a "Roethlis" burger on the menu, too.
Here come the tortured meat puns. For an article that presents itself as "meaty," it sure contains a lot of fluff.
The Boston Dirt Dogs published an email Q&A with the mighty Schilling:
The Pittsburgh thingCurt can you explain to the folks your Pittsburgh sports history ties for the panicky Nation? And were you a Willie Stargell or Dave Parker guy?
CS: "My father was born and raised in Somerset, Pa. I was raised a Steeler and Pirate fan. My first and only ML game as a fan was Clemente's last game in 1971. Definitely a Stargell guy.
How cool would it be to see Curt Schilling pitching for the Pirates? It would be sweet to see him end his career with us.
P.S. Who could describe themselves as a Parker guy instead of a Stargell guy? Parker was good, but I don't see any statues of Dave Parker outside the stadium. It's like asking if you were an Al Oliver guy or a Roberto Clemente guy.
Thanks to reader AB for the link.
When you hear this sort of talk after your interview, you know you won't be getting the job. Still, it does sound like McClendon's understudy is highly regarded around the league and in line for a manager job one of these days.
VIS SPRD HME SCOOP BONES ROWDY
nyg 06.5 MIN ..MIN .MIN* ..nyg
bal 07.5 PHL ..PHL ..PHL .bal*
gnb -2.5 WAS ..WAS ..gnb ..WAS
jax 01.5 HOU ..HOU ..jax ..jax
arz 03.5 BUF ..BUF ..arz .BUF*
det 02.5 DAL ..det .det* ..DAL
cin 02.5 TEN .TEN* ..TEN .TEN*
ind -1.5 KSC .ind* ..ind ..ind
atl 06.5 DEN ..atl ..atl .atl*
car 07.5 SEA ..car ..car ..SEA
nwe -2.5 PIT ..nwe .PIT* ..PIT
oak 05.5 SND ..SND ..SND ..SND
snf 02.5 CHI ..snf .CHI* ..snf
mia 06.5 NYJ .NYJ* ..NYJ .mia*
Asterisks indicate best bets.
Season to date:
Scoop 61-41 .598
Bones 58-44 .567
Rowdy 52-50 .510
Best bets
Bones 17-14 .548
Rowdy 20-19 .513
Scoop 09-09 .500
Comments:
Scoop Jackson: My heart says pit, but the stillers haven't quite shown they belong in the nfl elite. I think things will go much like they went for the jets last weekend -- a good showing with some positives to take away, but I'll take borderline-arnsparger's-syndrome belichick's pats by a touchdown.
Dr. Bones has nothing to say.
Mister Rowdy: The play of the NFL generally reflects the mood of the country. With the election a day or two away, I expect the games, like the crowds, to be on edge. Everything's unsettled. So I'll take the rising team as a home dog against the "elite" squad that's overdue for a breakdown. The Steelers are good enough that they can exploit a clutch mental lapse or two.
Here's a specific question: with Hoke replacing Hampton, how good will Foote look? How good will Kendrell Bell look, if he can get in there and play this weekend? We all know that running backs are overrated and that their success depends, in large part, on the quality of the offensive line. The same is true with the defense. Hampton has been making the guys behind him look good. The measure of Hoke's performance on Sunday will also be seen in the effectiveness of the linebackers.
All you Red Sox fans are pretty happy this morning. All hail the Boston Red Sox.
And congratulations to the Cardinals. Redbird Nation, know that your men were the best the NL had to offer. You had a great season with lots to enjoy all summer long.
And of course, we look forward to pounding on the Cardinals all next summer.
Story here. He'll have to get permission from Colorado to take any job with Philadelphia.
Is Leyland still a heavy smoker? It's been a while since I've seen a manager chain-smoking in the dugout.
Here's a DVD to purchase - when it's available - and save for distraction & inspiration during the next long, depressing losing streak. Here's to hoping we won't be seeing it for a few years.
For crying out loud:
Boston Red Sox fans think their team operates under a curse?HA! SOMEONE SHOULD TELL THEM to try the life of a Pirates fan. While the Sawx might live under the Curse of the Bambino, Pittsburgh baseball has a multitude of more tangible, authentic curses placed on it. They just don't have catchy names.
The Curse of Front-Office Ineptitude? No? How about The Curse of the Barren Farm System? Doesn't roll off the tongue, does it? OK, try The Curse of Talent Deficiency? Or The Curse of the Torn Elbow Ligament? (this one particularly seems to affect every single friggin' pitching prospect the organization has ever had).
I think I found a winner: The Curse of Having Really, Really Bad Players.
Click here to read the rest of Chris Adamski's juvenile screed. I don't know how he gets work writing about the Pirates for MLB.com when his specialty appears to be rooting for the Yankees and rubbing salt into the wounds of Pirates fans.
FWIW, I shit on the notion that the Pirates are a "cursed" franchise. I don't think Pirate fans are so irrational or superstitious. And more, I am annoyed by writers who peddle petty jollies by holding up the Pirates to ridicule.
Of course there's some truth to what he's saying, but the evidence does not support the conclusion and I object to the tone of the whole.
In a related story, the Bucs' president of marketing and sales, Mike Berry, resigned. I don't know anything about the circumstances of the resignation, but it can't be easy to sell tickets to the locals. It's unfortunate that so many fans are put in the position of defending the team when exaggerated or ill-informed interpretations of their progress are so commonplace in the newspapers, magazines, and television shows. Writers who would prefer, all things being equal, to do some good for the storied but struggling franchise, might consider the fact that the Pirates are dealing with a demoralized fan base when they frame their arguments and color their conclusions.
I'm not saying that it is some kind of crime to be critical of the team or to see the glass as half-empty: I don't complain when someone writes the truth. And it's not the duty of all baseball writers to encourage ticket sales. I know that. If someone wants to slam the Bucs, more power to him. But if those slams are exaggerated, childish, or just plain inaccurate, then the crowd will kindly part when I come forward to reprobate such criticism.
Reader AB saw Schilling's Steelers cap on TV and wrote to ask about it. A quick google search finds this story:
"I feel beat up a little bit," Schilling would say later on, wearing a yellow Pittsburgh Steelers cap and a weary disposition in the hour after throwing a six-inning, four-hit master work at the Cardinals last night, inching the Red Sox to within two games of Valhalla with a 6-2 win. "Honest to god, I didn't think I was taking the ball today. I didn't think I could. And then things just began to happen. We made it work. It happened."
Any idea why Schilling would be a Stiller fan? AB found more evidence. Is this a Casey Hampton jersey? If it's 2002, it's ... whose number? Hampton, Cushing, Vincent, Mathis?? Maybe it's a Lynn Swann jersey done up with the modern numbers.
He was born in Anchorage, Alaska, where his pop, a U.S. Army paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division, may have been (I'm just guessing) stationed at Elmendorf Air Force base. I can't find any evidence that Schilling has ever lived in Western Pennsylvania.
Of course, that doesn't make it surprising that Schill would support the black and gold. Plenty of people outside the area have the good taste to support the best franchise the NFL has to offer.
I was terribly wrong about Baltimore and/or Buffalo but otherwise enjoyed a fine week of amateur prophesy. Team Rowdy finished 8-6, Scoop 7-7, and Bones 7-7. In best bets, Rowdy went 4-2, Scoop 1-1, and Bones 1-3.
Year-to-date, Scoop still leads at 61-41. Twenty games above .500 in an ATS pool is pretty good. Bones is three games back at 58-44, and Rowdy trails at 52-50. The best bet scoreboard is tighter. Bones leads at 17-14, Rowdy next at 20-19, and Scoop trails at 9-9.
Week eight has some real barnburners. New England (6-0) at Pittsburgh (5-1) is surely your game of the week. The Patriots are favored by a field goal, which makes sense to me. And I could be wrong about this, but I don't think there's an advantage in coming off a bye when you do so to face this kind of competition.
The Padres have announced their 2005 schedule and the Pirates are coming to town to play their first 2005 games in Petco.
How come the Padres have announced their 2005 schedule, but the Pirates haven't?
Apparently, John Russell is still in contention for the job at Philadelphia. They drafted him. Another thing I didn't know: Russell was twice named "Best Manager Prospect" by Baseball America. Given that he's spent so much time watching and learning from McClendon, this makes sense.
Yes, this article caught my eye because it begins with the beautiful story of the Pirates roughing up Cy Young in the first inning of the first-ever World Series game.
But it's also worth reading to get Whitey's take on the damage wrought by the switch to night games. I agree. I think baseball, more than any other professional sport, is a radio product. With more day games, more working people can enjoy the games during the day. And more schoolkids can follow the game at school. I would guess that the Pirates could boost their attendance by playing more day games. The effect would be gradual and long-term, but well worth it. Since the Pirates don't play in the hottest of cities, you'd think that scheduling more home games in April and September would help the team draw crowds. Who wants to go to an April game when the evening high is set to be 55? It may also help the pitchers to avoid injury. And it would definitely help the team to avoid having to play so many doubleheaders: day games are less likely to get rained out than night games, for obvious reasons.
Craig Rutter (any relation, Joe?) sums up the Carolina League season for baseball.com, a site I've never read before.
Shorter version: Rajai Davis, Brad Eldred, Nick Gravelle, and Zach Duke are good.
This almost happened back in 1947. Sagamore native Dorothy Kovalchick, the AP reports, was offered a spot in the Pittsburgh system but her mother refused to let her accept it.
Fans of a A League of Their Own will enjoy the full story. This made the news because she has a book out. More here.
The Palm Springs, California Desert Sun features an excerpt from Kiner's book, Baseball Forever, that focusses on the down-and-out days he's endured in Palm Springs, that California slum, since retiring from baseball.
I didn't know that William Powell was a Pirates fan. The Thin Man is one of my all-time favorite movies and one of the few movies I'd recommend to total strangers. Go see it if it's new to you.
The Steelers don't play today so I may take the chance to completely blow off football and do something fun like raking the beautiful leaves, cleaning the beautiful gutters, assembling beautiful cribs, or cleaning the beautiful cat boxes.
Looking at today's games, here's a wish-list of best-case scenarios for the Steelers. The general wish, for humiliation and exposure, holds in all games. It's not right to wish for maimage, but it's OK to hope for humiliation. And of course we'd like to see every team in the NFL exposing large weaknesses in every other team in the NFL.
More specifically, we'd like to see Jacksonville upset the Colts. We don't need competition for home-field throughout the playoffs. Philadelphia ruins Cleveland, Carolina upsets San Diego, who look poised to make a playoff run in the AFC, and Buffalo exposes and humiliates Baltimore. More: Detroit crushes the New York Giants, plunging them into a season-ending losing streak of incompetence and depression, thus softening them for our December 18 date. Minnesota crushes Tennessee, a team we don't want to see in the AFC playoffs. The Jets and Patriots can battle to a tie. Or no, the Patriots win in embarrassing fashion. The Steelers can snap their winning streak next week then. Oakland beats New Orleans. Since we beat Oakland on opening day, that would help the team in the BCS standings. And, why not root for Amos Zereoue? Dallas beats Green Bay, making the Steelers look even better for last week's game. Finally, we'd like to see the Bengals upset the Broncos, another candidate for home-field throughout the playoffs. In the other games - Chicago-Tampa Bay, St. Louis-Miami, Atlanta-Kansas City, Seattle-Arizona - it's hard to come up with a pro-Steelers angle. I guess we could hope for Atlanta to upset Kansas City. That would further reduce the chance that the Steelers would play at Kansas City on Monday Night Football next year (something that has happened way too often during Cowher's tenure).
Ed Eagle reports on the progress of the Bucs playing for the Arizona Fall League. The article ends with this:
Fellow Curve teammates Jeff Miller and Nate McLouth have more than held their own against top competition. Miller has tossed seven scoreless innings with eight strikeouts in his four appearances. McLouth has batted .265 (9-for-34) with a pair of doubles and three RBIs in nine games."Miller and McLouth have been especially impressive," said Graham. "I like the fact that they are competing and having success at a level that is higher than the level that they have performed at during the season. Both of those guys are very tough mentally. This is a very good challenge for them.
The front office will add these two to the 40-man roster before November 20 unless they enjoy being ridiculed by the fans and the rest of the baseball-loving nation.
The Phillies will get a new manager. John Russell is one of the candidates, as Joe Rutter reports.
Bob Smizik reports on the change or two the Pirates will make for the 2005 radio broadcasts. Sounds like Lanny Frattare will be back. Steve Blass will join him for home games only. Greg Brown might move on to greener pastures.
The best thing the Pirates could do to improve their radio broadcasts? Win more games.
The PG's Shelly Anderson wrote this brief biography of our Mormon in the Middle, Chris Hoke. Warning: scary picture included.
Just kidding, Chris. He talks about how he used to spook the French going door to door to talk about religion. His strategy, which needed refinement, included the greeting of door-openers with a hearty "Trick or Treat."
Rotowire (subscription req'd) reports that Jeff Miller and J.R. House are playing well in Peoria.
Shorter Littlefield: "Yes, we'll add a scrubby FA or two. Yes, Ramirez was traded for immediate money reasons but we'll keep Bobby Hill, we like him. Yes, we're still looking in the Dominican for the talent we know is out there. Sorry we haven't found it yet. In trade, the Bucs are looking for players who can play at the major-league level right now. No point trading for A-ball players. Brad Eldred will play at Indianapolis next year unless he really wows us. Finally, no, I won't share any strategy secrets with you the fans. Keep playing at "What is Dave thinking?" All I will say about general strategy questions is this: Look over there, at Minnesota and Oakland. And: Remember, running a ballclub is hard work."
The PG ran a pair of articles about physics and the Immaculate Reception this month. Here is the latest one. The earlier one was vague and unsatisfying, perhaps because it was a report about some Raider-demented physics professor who was speculating that the ball never hit Tatum. I'd have a hard time reporting that too.
The folks at Monday Night Football sure screwed up their selection of games this year. They play behind the curve and only pick teams that were good the previous year. How hard are they kicking themselves for not getting a Steelers game this year? Note to world: the Steelers are rarely bad two years in a row.
The only silver lining is that we won't be subjected to John Madden's always-peevish comments about the end of ye olde Raiders-Steelers game. Or maybe you enjoy them? The man has never gotten over it.
All hail Leeeny for the link.
VIS SPRD HME SCOOP BONES ROWDY
stl -6.5 MIA ..stl ..stl ..MIA
ten 06.5 MIN ..MIN .MIN* ..MIN
det 06.5 NYG ..NYG ..det ..NYG
chi 06.5 TAB ..chi ..chi .TAB*
snd 02.5 CAR .snd* ..snd .CAR*
buf 06.5 BAL ..buf ..buf .buf*
phl -7.5 CLE ..CLE .phl* ..CLE
jax 08.5 IND ..jax ..jax ..jax
atl 03.5 KSC ..KSC .atl* .KSC*
nyj 06.5 NWE .NWE* .NWE* ..NWE
sea -6.5 ARZ ..ARZ ..ARZ .ARZ*
dal 03.5 GNB ..dal ..GNB .GNB*
nwo 02.5 OAK ..nwo ..nwo ..OAK
den -5.5 CIN ..den .den* ..den
Asterisks indicate best bets.
Season to date:
Overall
Scoop 54-34 .614
Bones 51-37 .580
Rowdy 44-44 .500
Best Bets
Bones 16-11 .593
Scoop 08-08 .500
Rowdy 16-17 .485
Comments:
Dr. Bones made his picks in a great hurry & is out the door & on his way up the river.
Captain Scoop, responding to these comments, writes: You're right, except for a few games this is a week full of stinko matchups.
Eagles play the browns, ravens, and steelers on consecutive weeks. How each team fares against them could determine the winner of the AFC North.
I would love to hear any possible rationale for favoring either oak or nwo in their game this week. It's like setting a loaded crack pipe between two addicts and betting on who can hold out the longest. I guess I'll just take the points.
Rowdy: I'll take the home teams with no home wins: Miami, Kansas City, Green Bay, Carolina, and Tampa Bay. That group should deliver three covers and that will make me happy. Also, Baltimore is weak, easily the second-worst team in the AFC North. They are missing Jamal Lewis, facing the rallying Bills with Willis McGahee unleashed, and they spot the Bills a touchdown? I'm down with that. I'm in. Cleveland is scrappy, esp. at home, if mediocre in talent. They will hang around and make a game of it with Philadelphia. And the Jeff Garcia - Terrell Owens thing should make things fun. Finally, Seattle traded for that curse and troublemaker, Jerry Rice, so I expect they'll fall on their face against the better-than-expected Arizona team.
Lots of good stuff in this one.
We should come up with some questions based on the discussions we've had of his work in the comments.
We all looked smart in week six. It scares me how they speak in tongues, but I have to admit, Scoop and Bones continue to channel accurate picks from the fifth dimension. In my defense, I'll argue that even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. Week six: Scoop 10-4, Bones 9-5, Rowdy 9-5; best bets: Scoop 3-0, Bones 4-1, Rowdy 4-2.
Overall: Scoop 54-34 (.614), Bones 51-37 (.580), Rowdy 44-44 (.500). Those are against-the-spread records. Scoop and Bones are doing better, ATS, than most of the "talent" at ESPN has done picking games straight up.
We're a third of the way through the season and I am buried in the standings. That said, Scoop will tell you that I have rallied from deeper deficits in the past.
Overall, in best bets, the Honest Wagner scoreboard stands at Bones 16-11, Scoop 8-8, Rowdy 16-17. I expect all those numbers to improve over the next third of the season.
Looking ahead at week seven, I see a quality-starved schedule as the NFL rests its most exciting team (i.e., the Steelers) while MLB attempts to stage a World Series that will draw more viewers than the 1pm Philadelphia at Cleveland game. The marquee games appear to be 4-2 Jacksonville at 4-1 Indianapolis and 5-0 New York at 5-0 New England. The latter game is a gem, but the former game is a mismatch with the Jaguars getting something like ten points from the oddsmakers. Otherwise, unless you can get excited about Detroit or Cleveland, there's not much else in the realm of appetizing matchups. I mean, no Steelers, but I already said that, I know. Buffalo at Baltmore? St. Louis at Miami? Chicago at Tampa Bay? Yuck, yuck, and who cares.
The poison pawn this week is Atlanta. They take a 5-1 record into Kansas City to play the 1-4 Chiefs. And the Chiefs are favored - by more than a field goal. I could see Atlanta minus one, but plus three or four? Even if Michael Vick is the next Kordell Stewart, (minus the crying jags,) Atlanta still has a good defense and a much better record.
In other news, what the heck has happened to the Raiders? I was stunned to see them roll over like that on Sunday. They'll play their NFC counterpart in inconsistency and incompetence, the New Orleans Saints, next week. I want no part of that game. Perhaps now that they have shed that notorious troublemaker, Jerry Rice, perhaps now the Raiders can get it together and win one at home.
In the print edition of today's USA Today, page 3C, a table of selected overnight weekend TV ratings lists the Steelers game as #1 draw around the nation. It garnered a 12.9 rating for CBS, edging the 12.1 rating for Fox's Seahawks-Patriots game and the 11.3 rating for game four of the ALCS. Game four of the NLCS was good for a 7.9 rating.
It won't get easier for the Steelers going forward. Or, for Ben as the season progresses. As Steve Young is quoted in Ed Bouchette's PG notebook:
Former quarterback Steve Young, on ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown" said, "He's like an old man in a young man's body with a lot of moxie. The evaluation process is in its median time. The rest of the league is evaluating him to see what his tendencies are. Watch for the next three games to be a little harder."
No doubt the league will find "tendencies" that Ben didn't know he had.
Chris Hoke will have a chance to become a household word taking over for Hampton at nose tackle.
Backups don't worry me; I'm sure Hoke will be fine. Generally, there's not that great a drop from starters to backups in the NFL. Or so I think. The big drop is from the starter to the backup of the backup. The first-and second-string are usually pretty interchangeable with a clear edge, of course, to the first-stringers. When a team begins to mix in a bunch of third-stringers, that's when things can get ugly fast.
Classic Vinny down the stretch. I remember when he used to do that kind of thing for the Browns.
Sweet, sweet victory. More later ...
...Ben's QB rating climbs to 100.1. This team has problems, for sure, but QB doesn't appear to be one of them.
More:
The Steelers have won four in a row. And it will be Roethlisberger, the cool rookie who stood in the pocket and made some tough throws against a rugged pass rush, who will be credited with guiding them to this one."I was trying not to get hurt," said Roethlisberger, who was sacked three times but avoided several others. "I was able to make some people miss and luckily I have the best receivers in the game."
Hines Ward, Plaxico Burress, Antwaan Randle El, Duce Staley, and with Riemersma healthy and looking like the guy we thought we had last year, and with Tuman making a catch like that: I say Ben's not exaggerating.
Roethlisberger was sharp at the outset. After Richie Anderson capped the Cowboys' first drive with a 21-yard TD run, the Steelers marched downfield to tie it on Roethlisberger's 5-yard pass to Burress.In that one play, Roethlisberger showed more mobility than Marino ever did, scrambling out of the pocket to his right and slinging the ball to Burress an instant before Marcellus Wiley tackled him from behind.
The play excited the many Steelers fans sprinkled throughout Texas Stadium who waved their signature "Terrible Towels" with every first down.
"For a minute there I thought we were in Pittsburgh," said Cowboys linebacker Dexter Coakley. "It felt like it was a home game for them."
I also loved the cries of "Duuuuuuuuuuce" every time he handled the ball.
The Pirates are not paying $3M for the services of Brian Boehringer next year. He'll get a buy-out and we should get another 40-man roster space.
Ed Eagle reports the Pirates are talking seriously about bringing back the 43-year-old Jose Mesa. I'm amused. I expected the Bucs to make an offer and this kind of respect is part of the offer. But I don't know what to make of this red-carpet treatment until I find out what kind of money the team is offering.
In other news, the Pirates signed Altoona catcher Ronny Paulino. He's 23 and, if my spreadsheet is right, just finished his seventh year in the minors. Eagle reports that Paulino was up for minor-league free agency if the Pirates didn't act to keep him in the organization.
The Pirates have a bunch of minor-league players worth adding to the 40-man. If Paulino's a surprise for addition number one, that's mainly because he's a catcher, and not because he's not worthy. The Pirates have a few catchers on the 40-man already. As Charlie mentioned in the comments, the fact that the Pirates moved to keep this catcher may suggest they plan on cutting (or trading) another one soon.
Remember when DL said that "we’ve got other things going on that will help explain this in time" when asked to explain why they sent out Corey to make room for Dave Williams? Not surprisingly, here's an other thing - the Bucs released Corey. Now he can go out and live the Duaner Sanchez career path that so outrages some Pirate fans.
Ed Eagle counts at least six players the Bucs will/might lose in the Rule 5 draft (see link above). The Bucs now have three roster spots and a little over a month to clear what room they will for those draftable prospects.
VIS SPRD HME SCOOP BONES ROWDY
snf 09.5 NYJ ..snf ..snf ..snf
car 08.5 PHL ..PHL ..PHL ..PHL
ksc -2.5 JAX ..JAX ..ksc ..JAX
snd 04.5 ATL ..ATL .snd* .snd*
mia 03.5 BUF ..BUF .BUF* ..BUF
was -0.5 CHI ..CHI ..CHI .CHI*
cin 02.5 CLE ..cin ..CLE .CLE*
sea 04.5 NWE .NWE* .NWE* .NWE*
gnb 02.5 DET ..DET .DET* ..DET
hou 06.5 TEN ..hou ..TEN ..TEN
den -1.5 OAK ..den ..den .OAK*
pit 02.5 DAL .pit* .pit* .pit*
min -3.5 NWO .min* ..min ..min
tab 06.5 STL ..STL ..tab ..tab
Asterisks indicate best bets.
Season to date:
Overall
Scoop 44-30 .595
Bones 42-32 .568
Rowdy 35-39 .473
Best Bets
Bones 12-10 .545
Rowdy 12-15 .444
Scoop 05-08 .385
Comments:
Dr. Bones has no comments this week, just straight up prognostication.
Scooper: Pit needs to win this dallas game more than they need to win either the new england or the steagle games that follow the bye. Both are at home, but to split those two would be doing real well, and a loss to both is more likely than a win against both. So if they lose at dallas that would put them at 4-2 and staring down possible 4-4 with a three game losing streak. The dallas game will set up how the next three weeks shake out. If they win they can play NWE and phl loose, and I think a split is likely, knowing that 5-3 at the turn is assured; if they lose they'll be playing those two games with a pucker factor that will not benefit their play.
Rowdy: sf: Ugly hunch here. PHL: I'll have my cheesesteak with mushrooms, swiss cheese, mayo, ketchup, lettuce and tomatoes. JAX: Chiefs find stump, axe, in locker room before game. snd*: Brees and LT over Kordell Vick. BUF: Bills usually tough at home. CHI*: Brian Urlacher returns, leading reinforcements. CLE*: Browns have been better at home. NWE*: Back on the cover train. DET: Favre in domes. TEN: Completes my overreaction to MNF. OAK*: House of horrors, forecast: pain. pit*: Steelers have owned Vinny since his days as a hapless Brown. min: Moss on big stage. tab: Just one calorie.
From this week's love in the USAToday, here is Sunday's opposing coach on our new QB:
"He is the best prospect I've seen in the last 10 to 15 years," Dallas coach Bill Parcells said Wednesday in a conference call in advance of Sunday's game against the visiting Steelers in what promises to be Roethlisberger's toughest test by far."I have not seen anybody come into the league like that," said Parcells. "The only guy that I can say came in and in the first year started playing like he's been playing, is Dan Marino."
Coaches typically flatter the opposing players, but that's beyond the range of typical flattery.
As expected, Big Ben and the Steelers get a little Wednesday love from one of the big outlets. (Links to front page now featuring this story.)
Brian O'Neill compares the two teams in today's Stats Geek.
The Pirates can contend on a small budget provided they draft a coherent, winning plan and then have the patience to see it through to fruition. Under Littlefield the overall picture is so far, so good: more steps forward than backward.
Right now, for me, the goal is not winning the World Series, but patching together a 92-win team that can get into the playoffs. I don't know how you feel about this, but for me baseball is an everday thing, a daily hobby, something like a soap opera obsession that keeps you both in and out of the larger world, depending on your current mood and inclination. I can exact considerable satisfaction from the most run-of-the-mill regular-season victory. The difference between winning 92 games and winning 72 is three solid weeks of winning. That's a huge difference for the fan who follows the team day after day.
All the talk about building not a winner but a team that can win in the playoffs, common among some fans of some other teams, goes right over my head. I just want to win consistently during the season. When we get that accomplished, then we can think about the playoffs.
The question of whether or not a small-market team can win a World Series is pretty moot. Right now the task is piloting this small-market team to 92 wins. And I think the team is headed in that direction. So far, so good. I'm not saying I expect or know that it will happen, or happen soon, but in the last few years I think the team has made progress and I'll be sticking around to see if this plan works out.
Paul Meyer suggests the idea in last week's Q & A, which I just got around to reading. We'll have to wait another week for another installment since they are taking this one off.
With Bay in left or center, either way, the Bucs need another CF-caliber outfielder.
Ten underdogs covered in week 5 and the pick 'em results are not for the faint of heart. The junto was badly fooled in the tb-NO game and the oak-IND game: not one of us had the right answer there. No one can claim to have had a good week, but Scoop and his horse sense best survived the storm. Week 5: Scoop 7-7 (0-1 best bets), Rowdy 6-8 (2-4), Bones 4-10 (2-3). Scoop and Bones continue to hold sparkling YTD records, with Scoop at 44-30, Bones at 42-32, and Rowdy far behind at 35-39. No one is doing well with the best bets; good thing we never wager real cash on our genius. Bones leads in that department, 12-10. Rowdy has gone 12-15, and Scoop is hanging back at 5-8.
Week 6 features some surprising lines. I look at the matchups for the next week on Sunday night and guess who will be favored. This week, I'm surprised to see Washington favored at Chicago, Denver favored at Oakland, and Kansas City favored at Jacksonville. Jacksonville gets no respect from Vegas ... there were also underdogs when hosting Indy a week or two ago and when hosting Denver even earlier in the season. They've been a persistent bargain this year.
I smell a trap. In chess such things are called "poison pawns." You know there's something fishy about their availability, but you can't resist taking what you're given. A few moves later, you understand you've been a sucker. Chicago, Oakland, and Jacksonville look like poison pawns to me. I guess I'll be taking them regardless.
Joe Rutter has a M.A. Thesis on the state of the Bucs as the annual organizational meetings begin.
There's just a little over a month until the November 19 deadline for submitting the 40-man roster. Pirate fans should be prepared and Pirate fans should participate in the process by paying attention and threatening to get upset if the team looks prepared to cut someone we really ought to keep.
Here's Wilbur Miller's overview of the current situation with the the minors and the 40-man. It doesn't square exactly with the overview provided by Joe Rutter. We have a month or so to learn why the organization might value a Rajai Davis over a Javier Guzman, or where guys like Ray Sadler and Chris Duffy stand, or what the organization expects to get out of the crop of guys - J.J. Davis, Carlos Rivera, etc. - who have yet to deliver on their promise.
Pirate fans can live with disappointment (we're still here, yes?) but we don't need any more Rule 5 surprises. I hope the front office does a good job communicating a rationale for the big decisions they'll make in the next four months.
Robert Dvorchak reports on talks between LA and Pittsburgh involving Kendall, Craig Wilson, and Yencey Brazoban. We have a lot of guys in the system worth a look at a corner position; it might be wise to move Craiggers (a bargain) with Kendall (not a bargain) to a big-payroll team like LA.
There's a breakeven point, though. Any deal has to value Kendall appropriately. If a team will take him as valued at $8M per year, that works. At some lower number, we pay too much to save too little.
That's the kind of game that, if I had taped it, I would watch again every day until next Sunday.
In the mid-90s I did that. Scoop thought I was a little nuts but the games get better each time you watch them again.
Also taking me back to the mid-90s is our matchup next week. No doubt Seattle at New England will be the game of the week, but Pittsburgh at Dallas will be pretty damn good too. The bloom is off the Carolina-Philadelphia game, the Colts and Giants are on the bye, and the Sunday and Monday night games feature some sorry teams. Atlanta may still be overrated by many but I doubt too many are buying into the strong start from the power-blue Bolts. The Jets host the one-win Niners. That won't get the andrenaline flowing. We'll get the Jets ad nauseum before week 7, when they face the Patriots. So ... I'm guessing our Steelers are in for some national attention this week.
It's hard to stay below radar when there are so many newcomers to the ranks of division leaders. With the exception of New England and Philadelphia, the usual stories about the usual teams don't have much life to them. Ben Roethlisberger might wind up in an article for SI. Or maybe the USAT will run a feature on them for Tuesday or Wednesday. Regardless, if the Steelers can manage a win in Dallas, they'll be one of the big stories of the 2004 season and people will start talking about the playoffs.
Bones and Scoop are mopping the floor with my sorry game-pickin' swami headscarf.
I see Pro Football Weekly is pimping the picks of their man Jeff for his 33-23-3 record, and they make you pay for them.
If you can't beat them, jinx them, that's what I"m thinking.
Good luck, gentlemen, with your picks for week 5.
Gerry Dulac has this great report on the state of the running game. More zone blocking, less 38 boss.
One of these days, Verron Haynes will have a big game. I've always linked him, in my mind, with the Browns' William Green because of 2001 Music City Bowl. I thought the Steelers picked themselves a great player when they got Haynes, who emerged from deep in the depth chart as a bruising, move-the-pile college runner. And as Coach Cowher would say, Haynes finished college with most of "his body," i.e., with little wear, since he only started for the second half of his senior year at Georgia. Looking over his college career on draft day - reading recaps of the various games Haynes starred in - I thought to myself that this would be the next great Steeler back.
He's been kind of fragile but he hasn't had enough chances to say he's been a disappointment.
VIS SPRD HME BONES SCOOP ROWDY
det 06.5 ATL (det) ..ATL (det)
mia 12.5 NWE ..mia ..NWE (mia)
tab 03.5 NWO ..NWO ..NWO (NWO)
cle 05.5 PIT ..cle ..PIT ..cle
min -4.5 HOU ..min ..min (HOU)
nyg 03.5 DAL (nyg) ..nyg ..nyg
oak 09.5 IND (oak) ..oak ..oak
jax -2.5 SND ..SND (jax) ..SND
buf 06.5 NYJ ..NYJ ..buf (NYJ)
arz 01.5 SNF ..arz ..arz (SNF)
stl 06.5 SEA (SEA) ..stl ..SEA
car 05.5 DEN (DEN) ..DEN ..car
bal 00.5 WAS ..WAS ..bal ..WAS
ten 02.5 GNB ..GNB ..GNB ..ten
Parentheses indicate best bets.
Season to date:
Overall
Bones 38-22 .633
Scoop 37-23 .617
Rowdy 29-31 .483
Best bets
Bones 10-7 .588
Rowdy 10-11 .476
Scoop 5-7 .417
Bones: Stillers win but don't cover. Lot of lines are too big this week, fixes must be in.
Scoop: No comment.
by Rowdy:
det: go ducks
mia: smarty jones
NWO: saints owe me big-time
cle: browns mediocre, sloppy, but scrappy, and they know the fans will forgive any amount of incompetence and embarrassment if they can only beat the steelers
HOU: fix is in
nyg: michael strahan
oak: amos zereoue
SND: powder blue
NYJ: mike mularkey
SNF: cardinals owe me too
SEA: mike martz
car: coin flip
WAS: by astragalomancy
ten: will be close, prob. favre getting gentleman's win
Kip Wells had carpal tunnel release surgery. My wife, like a lot of women, developed carpal tunnel during her pregnancy and we're waiting to see if it abates in the months after childbirth. The doc told us the surgery provides immediate relief and solves the problem dramatically. Hopefully she won't need it.
This explains Kip's numbness earlier in the season and I can understand why he would have trouble pitching with that condition. Even if it's only confined to one finger, it's tough to do things like typing with one numb finger.
Littlefield is talking like he has every intention of bringing Kip back. Last night I was thinking about the rotation for 2005 and realized that Oliver Perez, while he is our ace, may not be the guy we want to start the season as our #1 starter. I'd be more comfortable with 2003 Kip as the #1, Ollie as the #2, Fogg as the #3, and then determining the rest of the line in spring training.
I defended his decision to retire and walk the earth, but now Ricky just looks like a huge loser to me.
Fan voting appears to determine the winner of this award. You can vote here.
Beaver County columnist John Mehno debunks the notion that no one in Montreal cares for baseball.
He also has some words for Kip Wells for his role in the hazing of rookies. Hazing is a hideous, barbaric, undemocratic and profoundly un-American practice that brings out the worst in people. I'd be curious to learn if every front office around the league permits, colludes, approves, winks, or turns the other way at the hazing of rookies. It's bad enough among teenagers. When grown men do it, it's just sad all around.
Thanks to Walt for the link.
...8pm ok that was a little over the top. Hazing is stupid. Making another person wear a chicken suit is stupid and it undermines the spirit of equality that makes America a great and free nation, but it's not torture. I imagine stuff like this is a distraction but who am I to say the players can live without it.
Brian O'Neill lays out some of the reasons for trading Kendall now. I'm on board with this proposal. I don't expect the subtraction of Kendall to do for the Pirates what the trading of Alex Rodriguez did for the Rangers, but if it costs $10M to save $24M, that frees up $14M for retaining other guys. That could go a long way if managed wisely.
And we have plenty of catchers in the system who deserve a shot.
Dr. Bones went 12-1 ATS yesterday in our pick 'em pool.
Makes me dizzy. Huzza for that!
...final numbers: week 4 Bones 12-2, Scoop 8-6, Rowdy 4-10, b-bets Scoop 2-1, Bones 3-2, Rowdy 3-3. Overall Bones 38-22, Scoop 37-23, Rowdy 29-31; b-bets Bones 10-7, Rowdy 10-11, Scoop 5-7.
I love the decision to make Jerome the goal-line back, and so far at least, Duce is cool with it too, as Ed Bouchette reports in his notebook.
Joe Rutter reviews his season. He finished strong.
I believe in this guy and want to see him return for 2005.
He finished strong and finished with a high batting average, a miserable on-base percentage, and a very low slugging percentage.
I'd like to see the team start someone else out there in 2005. Tike had his chance and with a torrid finish, his overall numbers remain mediocre at best.
I'm surprised more teams don't cast about to hire a former Bucco when looking to rally their team into the playoffs.
Congratulations, Scrap Iron, but I'm still rooting for the Cardinals unless they get eliminated and then I'll root for Phil Garner.
Batting average is overrated, yeah, but whatever. Jack took a lot of abuse early as a guy who would never finish at .300. Like Adrian Beltre, he proved the doubters wrong with a strong year start to finish. As Robert Dvorchak points out today, "The only time this season Wilson's average was below .300 was after his first at-bat against the Phillies on opening day. He was a consistent contributor from Day 1."
The Michael Young comparison still make a lot of sense to me. Wilson's a legitimate asset at the plate and will continue to be that way, I expect, in 2005 and 2006.
Congratulations, Canadian guy. As Ed Eagle reports, other NL rookies who got votes included: San Francisco's Noah Lowry; David Wright of the Mets, Cincinnati's Luke Hudson; Adam LaRoche of the Braves; Colorado's Luis Gonzalez and Jeff Francis; Yhency Brazoban of the Dodgers; Montreal's Termell Sledge and Chad Cordero; and Gavin Floyd of the Phillies.
More Bay coverage here.
"Pre-closer" my ass. Let's retire Jose on a high note, promote everyone up a spot in the bullpen, and make room for other experiments.
If 2005 was going to be a make-or-break year because of impending retirements or losses to free agency, then I'd be more inclined to bring back Mesa.
The old-timers appreciate the fact that Jack stopped at 201 hits, only tying, and not breaking, the 1908 Pirate hit record owned by the great and reckless gorilla-armed beer barrel.
105 wins is pretty damn impressive. Going into the season, I thought 92 wins might win the division but alas, the Bucs, the Reds, and the Brewers weren't as competitive as I expected.
...besides having some world-class hitters, the key for the Cardinals was the stability and excellence of the rotation. It's not often, as I wrote before, that a team gets 30 or more starts from four different pitchers, and 28 from their fifth starter. Check it out. Only three starts were made by the number six and seven guys on their depth chart. Rotation-wise, the Cardinals achieved in 2004 what the Cubs achieved in 2003. As we saw this year with the Cubbies, the Cardinals have a window of opportunity now that will probably close sooner then they expect.
I'll be rooting for the Cardinals throughout the playoffs.
Ed Eagle has an interview with the GM at MLB.com.
Short version: lots of guys will play winter leagues, we're having a big organizational pow-wow in two weeks to go over lots of things, including who to protect from the Rule V draft, Kip Wells will be back, the Pirates will sign one or two veteran FA guys with pop, and Honest Wagner is the greatest blog in the universe. Actually, one of things he didn't say. You'll have to click over and read it for yourself to see which one of those things was just invented by me.
DL will answer questions from fans in the next one. Scroll to the bottom of the article to find the email address for submitting questions.
From the USAToday's Inside Slant on the Bungles:
Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer will make his second visit Sunday to Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. Last year, even though he didn't play, Palmer received a one-finger greeting from a particular Steelers fan."Little old ladies in the stands are going to be flipping us off and cussing at us," he "It's a great place to go in and play get a win."
How old was she? "She was pretty old. I'm not sure. I didn't get an age on her," Palmer said.
Coach Marvin Lewis lamented the general decline in civility by NFL fans. "The fact that people will use those kind of gestures before the game (and) after the game, as they're doing that, their 8-year-old son or daughter is right beside them," Lewis said. "So it doesn't say much for our society. Fortunately the game is decided by the guys on the field and not people's antics. I wish people would understand that."
Hey Marvin Lewis, you smug moralizing whiner, have a sense of humor and a little more respect for the "society" of the good NFL fans who make your job possible. (nasal whine) "I wish Marvin would understand that the game exists not because of the people on the field but because of the people in the stands who pay good money to come to the park and indulge whatever antics they find appropriate."
This week, I hope Grandma has a bird for Carson Palmer and Marvin Lewis.
Here's another one worth saving, printing, framing, and hanging in your drinking room.
VIS SPRD HME SCOOP ROWDY BONES
cin 03.5 PIT (PIT) (PIT) (PIT)
ind -3.5 JAX ..ind ..JAX (ind)
oak -2.5 HOU (oak) ..oak (oak)
nwe -5.5 BUF ..nwe ..nwe ..nwe
phl -9.5 CHI ..phl ..CHI ..phl
was -2.5 CLE ..CLE (was) ..CLE
nyg 06.5 GNB ..nyg (nyg) ..nyg
atl 03.5 CAR ..atl (CAR) (atl)
nwo -3.5 ARZ ..nwo ..nwo ..ARZ
nyj -5.5 MIA (nyj) (nyj) ..nyj
ten -2.5 SND ..ten ..ten ..SND
den -3.5 TAB ..den (den) ..TAB
stl -3.5 SNF ..SNF ..SNF ..stl
ksc 04.5 BAL ..BAL ..BAL (BAL)
Parentheses indicate best bets.
Season to date:
Overall
Scoop 29-17 .630
Bones 26-20 .565
Rowdy 25-21 .543
Best bets
Bones 7-5 .583
Rowdy 7-8 .467
Scoop 3-6 .333
Rowdy writes: So it's ten home dogs, not nine, now that we find a line for the Tennessee game. McNair will start and even if he didn't, Volek would be fine in his place. Earlier in the week, I asked if anyone thought it would be a good idea to take all the home dogs and hope for the 55% legend says you should expect to get from all home dogs. 55% is a decent showing. It will cover the vigorish and win a lot of pick 'em leagues. Theoretically, the strategy would be sound, but you'd still have to do something with games in which the home teams are favored. Off the top of my head, I'd guess the home team is favored in about two-thirds of all games.
You could save some time by taking all the home dogs in a pick 'em pool. But the 55% is history - if it's true - and it's not a guaranteed rate of return. You could do better or worse. I've been following the NFL long enough to see that the league changes a lot from year to year and, I'd guess, every five or ten years things are remarkably different than they were five or ten years ago. Just because the home dogs have covered 55% over the last three years (have they?), that doesn't mean they'll continue to do so over the next three years.
More important, there's that other two-thirds of the games you'll have to pick. If you blow off a third of the games every week, you blow off a week's worth of news for a third of the teams. Odds are that, in the two-thirds of the games you need to research, about half the teams played in a game you blew off the week before.
That's a recipe for failure. If you are going to catch up on two weeks' worth of news for every team you now have to research after blowing off the week before, then you aren't saving much time by not booking up on the games involving home dogs. If you don't bother to catch up on the old news, then you're unable to understand last week in the context of the unique yet typical unfolding drama, with ups and downs, that is the season each team experiences. And you'll get crushed, I think, because the point spreads are set to trap the casual fan who only remembers what happened last week and only slowly notices the always-ongoing changing of the guard. You have to pay some attention to all the teams every week. Otherwise you'll be hopelessly behind the curve when you evaluate and make picks in games between teams about which you know only hype, history, and superstition.
Forgive me while I indulge in the vain and possibly self-deluded belief that I profit from paying attention. Right now I'm asking myself, for example: why is New Orleans only favored by three and a half over Arizona? Because, I'd guess, Arizona shocked everyone by keeping the Falcons in check last week. But is that really much of an accomplishment? This week's line suggests the Cardinals deserve some respect for that game. Maybe they do. But if you've been looking in at the Falcons every week, you know that the offense was also pretty bad in San Francisco in week 1. And you know that the coach, Jim Mora Jr., has been under steady criticism for installing an offense that doesn't appear to be perfectly suited to maximize the effect of Michael Vick's unusual abilities. You also know that the Rams have been a steady disappointment. Vick's breakout game in week 2, against the Rams, now looks like the anomaly; that's only sinking in now because it has taken a while to realize that the Rams are actually a bad team this year. For Atlanta, weeks 1 and 3 look more like what we can expect going forward. The Cardinals did not suddenly get good last week. I see a con - or at least an opportunity - in the spreads coming out of that game. Both the Cardinals and the Falcons look overrated in this week's lines. The fact that the Cardinals played the Rams tough in week 1 and the Falcons tough in week 3 reflects more on their opponents than it does on them, I think. Right now, none of these teams - not St. Louis, not Atlanta, and not Arizona - look good enough to win eight games this year. Point spreads are set to provoke betting; that's the main rationale behind them. The Falcons at the Panthers, with a three and a half point line, looks like the game of the week. If the spread was seven, people who aren't paying attention might catch up with the fact that the Falcons have been playing poor football against poor teams.
You don't blow off a third of the games without looking at them if you want to stay ahead of the curve and have some success predicting the other two-thirds of the games. And, once you look at every game, there's no way you're going to want to take every single home dog. There's no way, for example, I'd take the Browns, the Bills, or the Texans after even ten minutes' consideration. The Cardinals, the Dolphins, the Bucs, and the Chargers don't appear to be poised for a strong showing, either. The Myth of Parity has a lot of people in denial about the quality of some of these home dogs. Scoop called the lines "skimpy." I definitely agree. I won't be shocked if six home dogs cover this week, but I think, with this batch, four is more likely.
As I wrote before, I'm on the name-the-D.C.-team-the-Grays bandwagon.
It would be tremendous for the league if the D.C. people went forward with that name and thus honored one of the better Negro League teams.
I wouldn't bring him back. Sounds like the team is at least considering it.
We need the bullpen spots to try to get something from our failed 300K starters.
And there's no way Mesa is only 38. I'd guess he's more like 41. I'm sure the team is aware of this. He'll want a lot more than 300K or whatever Torres will take to close and any pitcher his age is a pretty high-risk proposition. The Bucs should quit while they're ahead. Seriously, what are the odds Mesa will come back for 2006? Unless the Pirates want to go for broke and really believe that 2005 is their year, they've no business not attempting to groom a new closer from the younger in-house options.
Week 4 looks butt-ugly as many bad and sinking teams are at home against the good and rising teams. Many, many mismatches on the docket.
There's going to be nine home dogs - I can't remember there ever being that many in one week. Chris Berman, when he was doing his "Swami" segment for ESPN, asserted that home dogs cover the spread 55% of the time. Five of nine is 55%. I'd take that in a pick game every time. You'll win most pick leagues if you can finish with a .550 record.
So true or false: if you take all nine home dogs, you can expect to win five. Is this a sound strategy for week 4?
Jack Wilson is closing in on 200 hits. And when he gets them, I hope the feeling is a little anticlimatic. I read yesterday's article by Joe Rutter with mixed emotions.
On one hand, I'm disappointed and angry to hear that Jack fell into the vain delusion of believing his batting average and hit total matter more than winning any game at hand. On the other hand, I'm grateful that he's honest enough to admit that, and I admire Joe Rutter for reporting the story.
But what a sad and childish thing to chase. It requires discipline to keep priorities in order. Personal goals may be good for the team if they help a young player reach back and find an untapped resource of adrenaline or will, but that's debatable. If I was Mac, I'd try to learn to anticipate when personal goals might start to take over for players, and I'd ridicule them, gently but clearly, well in advance of their achievement. If Wilson strikes out chasing a pitch he should have taken, for example, I'd ask him, "You weren't thinking about that 200th hit there, were you?"
I've changed my mind about one personal goal - one not related directly to winning and losing - and that's the Rookie of the Year award. For one, unlike Jack's 200th hit, I do think a Jason Bay ROY would help the Pirates sell tickets and I see that as a key step in the rebuilding process. More important, I think he has earned it.
I also feel that Bay is getting shafted by some of the more irritating fashions in baseball analysis. Put simply, it's all the rage in baseball anaylsis to "translate" pure stats, and the respect for the "translated" stat has now reached a sad and ridiculous height. It baffles me that so many smart baseball people apparently believe that "translated" stats are more real than the real statistics.
In the Bay vs. Greene debate, Bay is getting screwed by the Gospel of Park Effects. Park effects can vary greatly from year to year based on the players who played in those parks and the weather they experienced in those parks. Anyone who paid a bunch of money for the Baseball Prospectus cheat sheet, for example, probably drafted a ton of Expos. They were too confident that Montreal's park inflated stats. The underestimated the hitting performance of 2003 Expos; they attributed too much of their success to park effects. They do make mistakes, people, and since they are in the business of selling information, we can't expect them to be forthcoming about this.
But think on this further. Petco and PNC are brand-new parks. Sure, it's common sense to say that Petco is a pitcher's park, but that doesn't mean it's not foolish to say you know exactly how much of a pitcher's park. We can agree that Khalil Greene's hitting performance was better than the numbers might suggest, but we're fools and suckers if we believe that know exactly how that performance would translate in the Neutral Ballpark in the Sky, which just doesn't exist in this material world of ours. Translations are just guesses. They may be educated guesses, but still, measures like Win Shares or VORP are just guessing at some "more real" value. They may be good guesses, but they are still guesses. Games are not won and lost by Win Shares and VORP. Actual "real" and material stats, on the other hand, are facts. Runs scored is a fact that's as well grounded in reality as any fact. To have real value, translations must be regarded with considerable skepticism.
I admire idealists. These are the people who believe that we live in a world of shadows, and that the "true" world is above us. That's what I see as the philosophic foundation of translating baseball statistics. Vinny Castilla didn't "truly" hit all those home runs; that's just a Coors field illusion. Khalil Greene wasn't "truly" that bad at the plate until August; that's just a Petco illusion. While I respect and deeply admire the Transcendentalism of Translations, I would remind translating gurus and translating disciples that it's a fundamental tenet of all good Idealistic philosophies that we can't access the higher, truer realms of existence. We're chained to the wall of the cave. All the confidence in the accuracy of translations is fundamentally misplaced and surely a cause of much error going forward.
Bay's also getting screwed in the Bay vs. Greene debate by the fact that he plays left field. In our current climate of snake-oil projection salesmen, everyone seems to have learned that you can't win a fantasy league unless you adjust projections by position. Again we have the whole problem of the accuracy of translation. What performance in left field is the equivalent of this performance at shortstop? I'll grant that there's a case to be made for taking the weaker hitting shortstop, but I won't agree that we know exactly how to compare the two players. The translations are guesses. Yet people will revere them as "true."
And don't forget that there is a case against measuring players, in real baseball or fantasy, only by some comparison to a "replacement level" benchmark. When did that become Gospel? Why do we agree that some calculation of "replacement level" is as accurate as, say, the number of runs a player scored? Currently it's the fad to draft in your fantasy league with position adjustments. Is that really the best strategy? There should be more debate about this. It looks I'm going to win my most competitve league this year by drafting with the Steeler way - taking the best available player, regardless of position - (do they still do that?) - in the belief that, while there may be a scarcity of good-hitting shortstops, there's no guarantee of which shortstops will hit well. A-Rod went #1 and I got Barry Bonds at #4. Who played shortstop for me? "Replacement level" guys like Melvin Mora, Jack Wilson, and odd months of streaky players like Bobby Crosby and Khalil Greene. Why should we measure players against a stable and abstract "replacement level" when that never exists? If teams had an "Auto Leftfielder" option - break glass, inflate, point toward field - who played with perfect robotic consistency, then such measures would be accurate. Otherwise it's a guess. We should have more skepticism for calculations of "total value" that assume there's some precisely known and stable measure of things like "park effect" and "replacement value."
I'm not saying that translations are worthless or wrong. I'm just saying we have to be more skeptical of their value. Fielding a baseball team is more like interior decorating than many people realize. You have a bare and empty room (the Pittsburgh Pirates), and you have your choice, an awesome HD television or a rare and choice carpet. The HD television may be less of an upgrade over the piece of shit color monitor than the rare and choice carpet over generic wall-to-wall, but what would you choose first? The TV or the carpet? There's no one mathematical formula to answer the question decisively.
I'm not a materialist myself. In most things I incline toward the ideal. Truth is Beauty and Beauty is Truth. Yes. But the mania for translating statistics has gone too far, I think. We need to keep translating them, for sure, but we need to recover some respect for the actual facts and remember that the translations are just guesses. The data is not perfect and the translations are not perfect and there's error everywhere. For all we know, ten years from now no one will translate by park effect and everyone will translate the stats by the field temperature or the current score. We have to be more skeptical when analysts such as Clay Davenport deliver the box score for last night's game in the Neutral Ballpark in the Sky. The analysts are mortal; they can't see that ballpark any better than you or I. They may have developed a complex Swedenborgian system of detecting correspondences between the real and ideal worlds, but they are still mortal.
Translations have value, but only as guesses. Let's not turn the ROY contest over to some one translating formula.
Brian O'Neill gives Littlefield a gentleman's C for his work as a horse-swapper.
I'd give him DL a better grade for the trade that dumped Ritchie for Fogg and Wells. And I think there were other trades that could have been included. But on the whole I'd grade Mr. O'Neill's effort as very good.
Armchair GMs like myself pay a lot of attention to trades, but isn't this just a small part of the GM's job?
Kip won't need surgery, Joseph Santoliquito reports for MLB.com.
Bones had a good week. Bones 9-5, Rowdy 9-5, Scoop 8-6. Best bets Bones 4-2, Scoop 1-2, Rowdy 2-4.
Season totals run to Scoop 29-17, Bones 26-20, Rowdy 25-21. Best bets Bones 7-5, Rowdy 7-8, Scoop 3-6.
Visitors covered 9 of 14, underdogs covered 7 of 14.
and the rest of the team for closing the home schedule in fine fashion.
Take Fogg to arbitration, pay him whatever he's worth, and bring him back for 2005. More and more he reminds me of Tim Wakefield. He's not overpowering but he gets results. He'll never be a superstar in fantasy baseball but so what. He's been great and he's shown an ability to get better.
Joe Starkey has a nice report today about some Steeler fans who made it to Pro Player for the full tailgate football game experience. For me, articles about the fans rank right behind articles about the o-line and articles about the d-line. We don't pay enough attention to what football actually means to the vast majority of people who participate in it.
That grill looks pretty stacked (see photo). But is that a confederate flag in the background? What the hell is wrong with Florida? You know that Steeler fans didn't bring that down there.
Ed Bouchette's recap is one for the scrapbook.
