Balls, Sticks, & Stuff | Phillies, Eagles, golf and other matters of great importance...

Factoring in the Park Factor

Aaron Gleeman, writing on The Hardball Times about ESPN.com's Park Factor, discusses some of the interesting trends regarding several stadiums around Major League Baseball, including among others the home parks of the Twins, Red Sox, Mariners, and of course Rockies. However, Gleeman does not mention anything about the Phillies new park for 2004, Citizens Bank Park. "Why would he do that?", one might ask, "hasn't the 'Money Pit' been a bandbox all year? Harold Reynolds says so every night on Baseball Tonight." In response to that question, I would say, "Because CBP has been average."

That's right, average. ESPN.com's Park Factor is essentially a ratio that compares the number of runs scored per game at home and the number of runs scored per game on the road. A ratio over 1.000 means a park is hitter-friendly, and then of course a ratio of less than 1.000 means a park is pitcher friendly. To add a little context, the most hitter-friendly park in baseball, Coors Launching Pad, has a ratio of 1.404. The most pitcher-friendly park is the cavernous ballpark in Seattle with a ratio of 0.826. And of the thirty parks in Major League baseball, Citizens Bank Park ranks 13th with a ratio of 1.024, nearly neutral. Now, go get your beverage of choice, comeback, and read that sentence again: Citizens Bank Park ranks 13th with a ratio of 1.024, nearly neutral to pitchers and hitters.

But should we be surprised by this? Nearly two months ago, at the height of the FenceGate Scandal when we learned that the fences of CBP were mysteriously closer to homeplate than we thought, I had this to say:

This is bothersome to me. It doesn't bother me because I feel like it is a conspiracy by Phillies ownership to inflate homerun numbers in order to fill seats, which will in turn fill their coffers with money. And it doesn't bother me because Pennsylvania taxpayers (I know a few) got a smaller ballpark than they thought they were getting with their tax dollars. It bothers me because it doesn't give Jim Thome and the other Phillies batters credit for having some serious pop. All season long, we have had to listen to the ESPN Baseball Tonight crew mock every homerun hit at CBP because the place is a bandbox. One night Harold Reynolds called the new stadium "a joke" about four times during that night's Phillies highlight reel. Has anyone ever thought to consider that maybe there are a lot of homeruns hit at CBP because the team that plays half of their games there hit their fair share of homeruns?

As the Philadelphia Inquirer article that exposed the "scandal" points out, Phillies pitchers have a better ERA on the road than at home and Phillies batters average just 0.4 homeruns per game higher at home than on the road. Jim Thome, who leads the majors in homeruns has hit nearly an identical number at home (16) as he has on the road (15) in nearly an identical amount of at-bats (161 AB's at home, 159 AB's on the road). The Phillies second leading homerun hitter, Bobby Abreu, has 10 homeruns at home and 10 home runs away from home.

Yes, the Phillies have hit a lot of homeruns so far this year but maybe, just maybe, it is because they have some good homerun hitters.

And a quick check of the numbers reveals that little has changed. Jim Thome for instance, now has more homeruns away from CBP (23) than he does at home (19), and the Phillies still have a higher ERA on the road (4.61) than at home (4.35).

In the end, it doesn't really matter that the nightly subjective observations have misled (to use the current political vernacular) phans and media commentators alike. But what really, really, really matters is the fact that it has misled the Phillies' pitchers. All season long, we have heard post-game comments such as "a lead is never safe in this park" and "we have to learn how to pitch here". And so, it is very easy to attribute the underperformance of the staff to attitude - being afraid of the gopher ball every time they take the mound.

The next logical question would be, if a non-rocket scientist phan like myself can quickly see that the ballpark is neutral, why hasn't the Phillies leadership - veteran players, coaches, and front office - tried to change that attitude among the pitchers? To be fair, if you isolate the Park Factor for just homeruns, CBP does rank among the most hitter-friendly parks, and homeruns stand out in one's memory more than singles (especially if you are the one that gave up the homers), but isn't that all the more reason for leadership to set the pitchers straight? And shouldn't the front office attempt to acquire high groundball percentage pitchers to negate the homers? Or, can't Joe Kerrigan or Larry Bowa get the pitchers to keep the ball down in the strike zone?

I realize that a lot of this is a lot to ask, attitudes, mechanics, and rosters can't be changed overnight, but I don't think it is a lot to ask for the Phillies leadership to make it known that Citizen's Bank Park is not a bandbox. Not only will it help with the pitchers on the staff, but it will help in the effort to recruit free agents and it will help the development of pitchers in the minors if they know they are not going to be pitching in Coors Lite Field when they grow up.

Oh, and by the way, let's not let the Phillies hitters in on any of this. Or opposing pitchers.

An Open Bar

Every generation believes that the generation that proceeds them in school has it better and easier than they had it. But this is proof (pun most definitely intended) that school kids in Alexandria, VA have it good.

Baseball and Sim City

Several days ago, Michael Wilbon took time out from his daily screaming match with Tony Kornheiser to write a great column in the Washington Post, "A Stadium Grows, a City will Blossom". The article extols the virtues of building sports (slash entertainment) complexes in economically depressed urban areas, in particular what it will mean to Washington, DC to have a major league baseball in town:

...the existence of baseball means a minimum of 81 nights of attracting 25,000 hungry, thirsty people, the great majority of them with means.

I love the economists whose primary arguments against new arenas and stadiums is that such construction doesn't bring permanent and full-time jobs. Of course the construction doesn't bring that, nor do the stadiums themselves. But try to tell the folks in Detroit that the new Ford Field, home to the NFL Lions, hasn't been the centerpiece of radical economic development taking place in downtown Detroit. Stadiums for the Browns and Indians, plus the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, revitalized Cleveland's center city financially, culturally and psychologically. All those restaurants and bars and nightspots don't employ people permanently? Please. For anybody who has lived here 10 years or more, it's impossible not to walk through the area near MCI, particularly on an event night, and not see the wisdom of bringing 15,000 people or more to a central gathering place.

However, not everyone is impressed by the progress other cities have made using sports/entertainment complexes. Sally Jenkins, questioning the wisdom of financing the stadium deal with ticket taxes and concession taxes, wrote in Saturday's Washington Post:

Who will pay if the team is on a losing streak, and no one is buying beers? Who will pay when attendance sinks after the first season and that concession tax doesn't yield $10 million toward servicing the debt but instead yields only $4 million?

Interestingly, Jenkins also pointed to the same cities and complexes that Wilbon pointed to as reasoning against bringing the/les/los Expos to Washington, DC:

If you want hard evidence of what stadiums can do for a city, look no farther than Cleveland, which has new stadiums for the Indians and the Browns as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- and was just named the poorest city in the country.

My response to Jenkins would be, "Maybe the way you should look at it is 'imagine how poor Cleveland would be without the stadiums and the Rock Hall of Fame." Obviously I am biased, I enjoy sports, particularly baseball, and when I visit Washington, DC several times a year I always enjoy it. Besides that, I am an ear doc, not an economist like Andrew Zimbalist (quoted by Jenkins) who has studied these effects extensively, but no one can convince me that day after day in the summer, when thousands of people venture into downtown Washington to see the "hometown nine", they won't leave just a little bit of money in the local economy. And when that money is left in the economy, it will be taxed, and when it gets taxed it will create even more money for things like schools, trains, and police, the things that Jenkins would rather spend the 400 million stadium dollars on. Two old adages come to mind: (1) "You've got to spend money to make money." and (2) "A rising tide lifts all boats." As a matter of fact, I'm so sold on the idea, I even think it would be a good idea to put in a soccer stadium in as well.

Character Counts

Often, individual accomplishments on the field are so extraordinary that we overlook what those accomplishments mean in the context of that player's life, in other words, forgetting that prominent professional athletes are humans with lives outside of sports. Recently, we have seen several of these scenarios:

• Donovan McNabb has picked apart opposing defenses while his wife becomes exceedingly more "with child" and then finally giving birth to their first child, just days before McNabb's most impressive play of the season so far, against the Lions in Detroit.
• Johan Santana of the Minnesota Twins has had one of the most dominating seasons in recent memory. All season long, Santana has been extraordinary, but in his last 5 starts, he has 5 wins, an ERA of 0.26, and has held opposing batters to an average of .144, striking out 47 of them and walking only 6. All the while, he has had to concern himself with the safety of his family in Venezuela.
• Many PGA Tour players live in Florida ("golfable" temperatures year-round and no state income tax) and so certainly all have been affected in some way by the onslaught of hurricanes. But none have played as well as Vijay Singh has played. Singh has taken over the world rankings and in finishing off one of the greatest seasons in modern golf, all while having to worry about what the latest hurricane will do to his home.

Obviously, we should be impressed by these accomplishments on the field of play, but even more so when you consider what was happening to these athletes off the field of play and these are just some examples. As the old saying goes, "Sports do not build character, they reveal it."

----

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Sammy Sosa. Several days ago, Sosa was thrown out sliding into second base while trying to make up for doing his trademark "homer hop" in the batter's box when he incorrectly thought he had hit a homerun. When asked if his trademark hop was a detriment to the Cubs effort to win the National League Wild Card, Sosa replied:

"I have been doing that a lot of years and I'm not changing now."

This sounds a lot more like Leon from the Budweiser TV ads ("There ain't no 'we' in team" and "If they're payin' - Leon's playin'") than one of the two players that helped to rescue baseball in 1998.

H.R.

ESPN's Harold Reynolds commenting on Jose Guillen's suspension from the Angels:

"...(by suspending him), it sets a president."

Really? I thought that would happen on November 2.

Pitching Needs to Git-R-Done

As you may have already noticed, much of the talk in the Phillies blogosPHere has turned to next year, thoroughly unimpressed with the fizzled Phightin's recent sweep of the Marlins in Miami. Naturally, talk of next year has phans wondering what moves will be made and what kind of roster we can expect for next year.

Several weeks ago, the major political parties had their national conventions and laid down their party's respective platforms for the direction they would like to see the country take. At roughly the same time, I laid down my platform for the direction I would like to see the Phillies take, and just like the GOP and the Democrats haven't changed their mind since August, neither have I in regards to the Phils.

If anything, my opinions have only strengthened, particularly after reading Rich Hoffman's analysis in yesterday's Daily News and The Berks Phillies Fans' follow-up. Despite the low number of base hits with runners in scoring position and the high number of strikeouts in the lineup, the Phillies rank second in the National League in runs scored in opponents' ballparks. On a game-by-game basis, Mike Lieberthal's poor clutch hitting, Pat Burrell's bail outs in the batter's box, and Jimmy Rollins's upper-cut hacks at high of the strikezone balls can drive a phan crazy, but the numbers don't lie - over the course of the season, the offense has held up its end of the bargain.

The pitching is a different story. As Hoffman points out, the Phillies starting pitchers rank near the bottom in the National League in terms of quality starts (a "quality start" is defined as a performance of 3 ER's or less in at least 6 IP, essentially an ERA of 4.50) and the pitching staff as a whole ranks 12th in the NL in ERA in opponents' parks (4.63). If the Phillies score the same number of runs next year and simply allow a median number of runs for a National League team, they will finish with about 93 wins.

Many fans however, wonder how the Phillies can possibly make such improvements, given the $50-$60 million designated already for players under contract. As I have stated before, it is quite possible to improve the pitching staff on less money:

Starters - The primary starters for the Phillies in 2004 have been Kevin Millwood (free agent), Randy Wolf, Eric Milton (free agent), Vicente Padilla, Brett Myers, Paul Abbot, and Corey Lidle, all of which have increased their career ERA's (except Milton, who is right at his career ERA despite switching to a more pitching-friendly league) and many have been injured. Recommendations: Fire Joe Kerrigan and Larry Bowa. Let Millwood and Lidle walk; don't let Paul Abbot come back; offer Eric Milton 4th-starter-type money and not 1st- or 2nd-starter money, and if he won't take it, find someone who will and can put up a 4.75 ERA; take Ryan Madson out of the bullpen and place him in the rotation; take the money Millwood's money and sign Carl Pavano, even if you have to overpay him because it will strengthen the Phils while weakening the Fish; if Myers can't be packaged in a trade for a centerfielder, then move him to the 'pen.

Bullpen - Like the starting rotation, the bullpen has not lived up to expectations, much of it due to injuries to key players forcing other pitchers into roles for which they are unsuited. Fortunately, a bullpen is an area of a team where you can save money and improve it at the same time (many teams do it every year). Recommendations: Fire Joe Kerrigan and Larry Bowa; let Roberto Horrendez, Rheal Cormier (French for "over-priced gas can"), Todd Jones, and Felix Rodriguez (the 3.15 million he is due for next year is just too much) walk; pick up the option on Billy Wagner; Insert Gavin Floyd into the bullpen - I like the idea of easing pitching prospects into the rotation (first-year quarterbacks are rarely expected to start, why should we expect young pitchers?) - using him as a starter only after the All-Star break if someone goes down with an injury; as I stated earlier, move Brett Myers to the pen where he can hopefully manage to focus for just one inning; fill in the rest of the pen with cheap help the way other successful teams do, no more 3 million dollar incendiary devices thank you very much; groundball specialists or high percentage strikeout pitchers would be preferable in order to negate CBP's short porches.

Couple that with a managerial change (5-game difference?), and the Phils have a mighty good chance to git-r-done (as they say down South) next year.

Remember, This is the NFL

If you are an Eagles fan, this has been a great week. Monday night, the Eagles went to 2-0 on the season, their best start since 1993 and scanning the headlines of the Philly-area papers, its only a matter of time before names like "Andy Reid Karlewski" and "Donovan McNabb Carminetti" begin to pop up in newborn hopsital wards across the tri-state area. A few examples from Wednesday's headlines:

"Is this Offense Eagles' Best Ever?"

"A Blessing and a Kearse"

"Vermeil's Ghoset Can't Scare Reid"

"Eagles Young Cornerbacks Pass Big Test in Moss"

"J.R. Paying Off With Big Returns"

 

And there is no doubt the Eagles Phaithful have a lot of evidence to point towards. From the Trenton Times Matt Eckel:

-- Tight end L.J. Smith's two touchdown catches are more than any other tight end in the NFC.

-- Kicker David Akers' 16 points are tied for the NFC lead.

-- Donovan McNabb leads the NFL in quarterback rating (129.4) for the first time in his career.

-- Wide receiver Terrell Owens' four touchdowns are tied for the NFL lead.

-- Running back Brian Westbrook's 299 total yards leads the NFC.

-- Punt returner Reno Mahe's 13.0 yard average leads the NFC.

-- Kickoff returner J.R. Reed's 27.6 yard average is second in the NFC.

-- Reid now has 57 wins, which moves him ahead of Dick Vermeil into second place in Eagles history. He is nine wins short of leader Greasy Neale.

-- Defensive end Jevon Kearse got a lot of deserved credit for his play Monday night, but Walker played his best game in two years.

-- In two games, the Eagles have nine sacks. They did not record their ninth sack last year until Game 6.

It's a lot of fun to be impressed by a team after being depressed by a team all summer long. But I can't help but think about an old adage in golf, particularly match play, that says you should always expect your opponent to make his shot. In other words, never let your guard down, or you will end up losing a hole you should have won and that is the way I feel about this weekend's Eagles game against the Detroit Lions. Everyone is picking the Eagles to win, and they should, but this is still the NFL and so the Lions should be taken every bit as seriously this Sunday as the Vikings were Monday night. If the Eagles can do that, they should win handily.

DogPile SearchSpy

What to kill some time? Want to be perplexed by your fellow "netizens"? Dogpile.com, a prominent search engine, has developed a Search Spy (filtered or unfiltered) which displays a running text of what people are searching Dogpile for in real time. Here is just a sample:

"the diet of the tutsi tribe" - The next dieting fad? I wonder if it is low carb or high carb.

"redneck engineering" - What might prove to be more constructive would be "redneck genetic engineering".

"porn actor casting calls" - I waited a bit, but a search for "good porn actor aliases" never appeared.

"search engines" - Dude, you already found one.

"you light up my life lyrics" - Most likely an Eagles fan looking to serenade Andy Reid.

"free lactating breasts" - Just another slacker looking for a free lunch.

District Attractions

As Thomas Boswell summarizes in today's Washington Post, the District has several reasons to be extremely but cautiously optimistic about The/Les/Los Expos moving to the nation's capital, with an announcement coming soon: (1) city officials have announced the site of a future stadium should the Expos indeed move to Washington,DC, (2) the terms of city councilmen in favor of public financing for baseball will be running out in a matter of weeks, and (3) if RFK stadium is to be used in the interim until a permanent stadium can be built, the window of opportunity to adequately modify the facility for baseball in April is quickly closing. The only significant obstacles remain in the form of Peter Angelos.

Coincidentally I will be in the District this weekend visiting a friend while our wives tour Virginia wine country. Our original plans had been to watch college football on Saturday, NFL football Sunday, a trip to the Smithsonian to see the Baseball Hall of Fame's "Baseball as America" traveling exhibit (last time I was in town we checked out the Spy Museum, which I highly recommend), and of course a few of the requisite pubs. Now, we may have to add in a quick run by the Anacostia riverfront.

Nawruz tops Brusik, 10-7

We sure could stand to have more positive stories like this disseminated regarding the situation in Iraq. Who knows, maybe in twenty years it will be the Iraqi baseball team bouncing the American team out of the Olympics.

Update: I wasn't intentionally searching, but I stumbled across another positive story.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

At this point in the season, you have to believe that the sportswriters in the newsrooms of the Philadelphia area papers must get together in a circle every afternoon and play a game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors". The loser of course, gets the unenviable task of covering the Phillies for the next day's edition and coming up with an interesting article. Sunday night, one of the losers in the game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" was Marcus Hayes. Hayes acted like a true professional, hustled, gave 110%, and might have even gotten a pat on the behind from his editor. In Monday's Philadelphia Daily News Hayes covered the increasing likelihood of Gavin Floyd joining the rotation in 2005, the Wagner/DeMuth affair, goats' hooves, and a new perspective on the length of 60', 6''.

On Floyd:

The assured rotation of the future seems more and more likely to feature a grand total of 10 full seasons among the four probables - Randy Wolf, Vicente Padilla, Brett Myers and Gavin Floyd.

Yes, rookie prospect Gavin Floyd appears to have pitched himself into inclusion on the Opening Day 2005 staff at least a year sooner than expected when the Phillies made him the fourth overall pick in the 2001 draft. Two seasons of regular Class A advancement and a whirlwind tour through Double A and Triple A this year brought him to the Phillies as a promising, tiring, 21-year-old with control problems and poise issues.

Floyd's most impressive attributes since his debut on Sept. 3?

"His mound presence has been pretty good...He's basically staying within himself,'' manager Larry Bowa said. "And he's getting all his pitches over. That's been a pleasant surprise. That was the rap against him; his inability to throw strikes on a consistent basis.''

"He's shown better command at the big-league level than he did in Triple A,'' said Mike Arbuckle, the team's player development director. "I'd just like to see him work off his fastball more.''

So that means at least another half a season in the minors, huh?

"I don't think so," Arbuckle said. "Not if he continues to show the control he's shown. That's an adjustment that can be made at the big-league level."

Gavin Floyd has been mostly impressive since his first start, but it may be preferable to use Floyd in the capacity that Ryan Madson was used this year - an ever-ready long-man in the bullpen - and then insert Madson into the rotation along with a big free agent signing. If rookie quarterbacks aren't expected to start right away, why should young rookie pitchers?

On Wagner and DeMuth:

Wagner, outraged, threw a full cooler of water onto the field and shredded DeMuth verbally afterward, demanding a suspension for DeMuth. For that - not throwing at Floyd - he received a two-game suspension, served Friday and Saturday. Wagner, through the Phillies' front office, sought to apologize to DeMuth last week but they were told DeMuth was, coincidentally, on vacation that was scheduled before the incident.

The league does not announce umpire suspensions...but it is interesting timing for DeMuth's vacation, at least.

Conspiracy theories are usually just that, theories. But the Wagner/DeMuth incident was certainly a case where both the player (his temper tantrum) and the umpire (incredibly poor logic and judgment) were to blame, and so both deserved some type of "vacation".

On goats' hooves:

Amaury Telemaco's farm in the Dominican lost two plantain trees and his goats' hooves are softening with foot rot.

Good effort Mr. Hayes, good effort. Next time, pick "paper", it always works for me when The Missus and I realize we are out of milk.

Exactly how far is sixty feet-six inches? Just ask Todd Jones:

In a rare hitting appearance, reliever Todd Jones, wearing Jim Thome's never-cleaned, pine-tarred helmet, worked a two-out walk off Joe Horgan in the seventh. It was the first time Jones reached base since he doubled in 1995 (he thought he'd last reached in '96). "You don't realize the pitcher is so close to you,'' he said.

The look on my face when I read this was like the look that the duck has on his face in response to Yogi Berra in the AFLAC commercials. So Todd, how far away do you feel from the batter when you are pitching? Do you think this is why so many of your pitches since you have come to the Phillies have been targeted as if it were 70'6" to homeplate?

Pajama Blogging

Score one for people that like to write online in their pajamas.

Bug Me Not Dot Com

Have philosophical concerns about dwindling privacy on the internet? Or are you just like the rest of us and can't remember all of your usernames and passwords to free subscription sites? Then check out BugMeNot.com.

It's Trading Cats and Dogs

Paul Hagen examines the Phillies centerfield situation in Friday's edition of the Philadelphia Daily News. The 2004 season represented a significant regression in the development of Marlon Byrd, the former Phillies Centerfielder of the Phuture and if the Phightin's are to secure a playoff spot in 2005 they will need to make a significant upgrade.

Because of the expected dearth of centerfield free agents this offseason, I've suggested that the best route for the Phillies to take is to package some type of trade for a centerfielder, and Hagen seems to agree. One trade scenario that Hagen puts forth has the Phillies sending Ryan Howard to the increasingly salary conscious Atlanta Braves for Andruw Jones. This is a case where the needs of two teams do match-up, but the chances of the Phillies and Braves trading again are probably quite slim. But even if it could happen, Phans should hope it doesn't happen because Ryan Howard would surely hit 50 HR's, Andruw Jones would probably play centerfield like he had cinderblocks in his pants pockets, and the Braves would win their 587th division title in a row (I know, I preached optimism, but all the rain in Virginia of late has me thinking pessimistically and making Noah references).

An option that Hagen suggests that is worth considering is acquiring Shannon Stewart or Jacque Jones from the Minnesota Twins. The Twins may be willing to trade one or both of the two outfielders because they are another team that must be payroll conscious, they need starting pitching (maybe they see something in Brett Myers?), and they have a surplus of good young outfielders which makes the higher paid Stewart and Jones expendable. Yet another option may be Laynce Nix from the Texas Rangers. The Rangers need starting pitchers (maybe they see something in Brett Myers) and the Phillies have been seen scouting the Rangers in the past.

Worst case scenario? The Phillies could resign Rickey Ledee and platoon him with Jason Michaels in centerfield. According to Ruben Amaro's discussion with Hagen, Michaels role with the Phillies isn't likely to expand, but the more Michaels plays, the more willing I would be to settle for that scenario, as long as other needs on the roster are completely taken care of (just like phans thought entering the 2004 season).

Milton (not the pitcher)

I've often compared Larry Bowa to Tom Smykowski from the movie Office Space, but if he truly believes he is going to be in a Phillies uniform next year, he may be more like Milton. I'm willing to bet their is a red Swingline on Bowa's desk.

In Defense of Moneyball and Sabermetrics

One of the baseball blogs I read quite often is Swing and a Miss. The author, Tom Goodman, manages to create thoughtful posts on a daily basis. Today is no exception, though I must disagree with his post on the use of sabermetrics and what the book Moneyball means to baseball. I do not mean to pick on Tom, but I think his post is very representative of the traditionalist/anti-sabermetrics/anti-Moneyball school of thought. It isn't so much that I have a problem with traditionalists disagreeing with sabermetrics, the problem I have is when traditionalists disagree with sabermetrics only after they have mis-characterized it.

The Moneyball Philosophy
Traditionalists are mistaken on the nature of the teams sabermetrically inclined organizations try to build. It seems as if traditionalists believe that the A's are only interested in acquiring players with quirky wrinkles in their statistical histories. But that is not the case. If you were to have a panel of baseball traditionalists name the top ten hitters in baseball today and then asked a panel of sabermetricians to name the top ten hitters in baseball today, I am sure the two panels would name nearly the same ten hitters in nearly the same order. Teams like the A's, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Blue Jays use in-depth statistical analysis as an additional tool to evaluate players, to be used in conjunction with traditional scouting techniques. If Billy Beane and Theo Epstein didn't believe in the value of traditional scouting, they wouldn't retain traditional scouts on their payroll. In interview after interview, sabermetrically labeled GM's reiterate that they are not turning their back on traditional scouting, the use of sabermetrics is just an additional tool they emphasize when building a team.

Theo Epstein and the Red Sox are an example. Tom claims on Swing and a Miss that the Red Sox are only successful because Theo Epstein inherited players such as Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez from the previous Red Sox regime and because anyone can figure out Curt Schilling is a pitcher to trade for, Young Theo shouldn't deserve any credit there either. But what traditionalists leave out is that because Epstein used all the tools at his disposal, objective quantifiers and subjective qualifiers, he saw the value in players such as David Ortiz and Kevin Millar, both of which have been significant cogs in the Red Sox wheel over the last two years. Sabermetrics will tell you that all five of these players were valuable entering the 2003 season, whereas traditional baseball analysis will tell you that only Pedro and Manny and Curt were valuable.

Using the baseball traditionalists line of thinking, Noah would have had to build his ark with just a hammer and anything more would be egg-headed. Beane and Epstein would have been willing to let Noah use a hammer, wood glue, caulk, and whatever else he thought would help.

Sample Sizes and Historical Context
Sabermetrics relies on statistics, and statistics carry more and more weight as the sample size gets larger and larger. Statistics characterizing a small sample size mean nearly nothing, but statistics describing hundreds or even thousands of occurrences can carry serious weight. A .500 batting average after ten at-bats will garner little attention, but a career average of .285 after 5,000 at-bats means much more. Ironically, the track record of sabermetrically inclined baseball teams is suffering from judgments made on very small sample sizes: just a few playoff series over just four years. More traditional baseball thinkers point to the failures of the A's the last four years in the playoffs and say that is proof that Billy Beane's Moneyball-thinking does not work in Major League Baseball.

Traditionalists are correct in that an approach to building a team should be judged on the number of championships it acquires, but they are wrong in not allowing the sabermetric movement in baseball to develop over time and see where it leads. For instance, in football, the West Coast Offense has been the approach that the majority of Super Bowl winners have used in the past two decades, and because of that, nearly everyone can agree that it has been - and continues to be - a superior style of offense. But, we've made that judgment after two decades.

When Joe Montana connected with Dwight Clark in the back of the endzone in order to advance to the Super Bowl, the West Coast Offense was merely a blip in the history of the NFL. Sabermetrics is at a similar stage in history. It has taken the accumulation of time for us to appreciate the West Coast Offense, and it will take a similar accumulation of success - or failure - for us to finally understand the impact sabermetrics will have on Major League Baseball. To put it another way, at this point in baseball history after essentially four playoff series, to say that sabermetrics doesn't work in the Bigs is like saying in 1996 that Tiger Woods was never going to be a dominant player on the PGA Tour because he didn't win the first tournament he entered as a professional. And so, it is wrong for traditional baseball thinkers to quickly to shut the door on teams such as the A's, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Blue Jays.

---

Because I believe in the power of large sample sizes and the objectivity statistics can bring to any endeavor, I tend to lean towards the sabermetric side of the argument. However, I am not drinking from the Kool-Aid so much as to think it is the end-all-be-all for baseball.  There are certain things in baseball like baserunning and defense which are very difficult to quantify.  And anyone who has played a sport knows that chemistry is important, but measuring it in order to learn to create it is an entirely different story.  The one thing I am positive of is that I will enjoy every bit of watching it play out over the coming years.

District Hardball

Conventional wisdom believes that the Montreal Expos will move to the Washington, DC/Northern Virginia area. Obstacles include placating Orioles owner Peter Angelos and obtaining funding for a stadium. As parallel negotiations play out between Major League Baseball and groups representing Washington, DC and Northern Virginia, the issues seem to become more complicated.

Recent District elections will install leadership that is on the record as being against public funding of a stadium. This would probably push MLB towards the NoVa option, however, conventional wisdom also believes that RFK Stadium in the District will be used until a permanent stadium can be built, no matter which option is chosen by MLB. But RFK officials are on record as saying they will be quite tough on negotiating with MLB should they choose NoVa.