We've Moved - To Amazin' Avenue

I've joined the staff at Amazin' Avenue, and will be writing over there from now on. It's a saber-friendly blog, and my posts there will be the same as what I've been writing at Mets Tailgate. AA is unique because readers can post their own articles, and the comments section after each post is user-friendly. I will still be writing a weekly column at Mets Geek, and the archives of past posts will be here. Thanks for reading, and hopefully you'll continue to read my stuff at Amazin' Avenue. You can tell which posts are mine by my username "JamesK." Here are some of my favorite posts at Mets Tailgate:

• The Mets 25th Hour - The most viewed post of them all.
• Mets 2008: The Movie
• "Clutch" Hitting
• The Difference Between the Mets and Phillies in 2008
• Breaking Down the J.J. Putz Trade
• Mystery Pitchers A, B, C, and D
• FIP+ and the 2009 Mets Rotation
• Fun With Win Expectancy: June 30, 2000 - Mets 11, Braves 8
• How Could You Give $36 Million To Oliver Perez?

Talented NL East Shortstops

Over at Amazin' Avenue, I posted about the five excellent starting shortstops in the NL East. They are Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins, Yunel Escobar, and Cristian Guzman. Ramirez, Reyes, and Rollins were the three best in baseball in 2008, and it should stay that way in 2009.

In the post, I suggest that maybe Reyes's running game has hurt his stamina and is partly to blame for his fading down the stretch each of the last two seasons. Combine his running with never taking days off and playing a grueling position, and it might be smart to limit his stolen bases a bit this season. Sounds like blasphemy, but with a little more energy maybe he could avoid the annual September swoon.

Links: Interview, Grading the Offseason, Evans to 2B, and Dusty Baker hilarity

Some links to check out while wondering if the 17 lbs. Marlon Anderson lost this offseason will improve his 2008 OPS+ of 40:

1) I did an interview with Brian Joura at Mets Online about the 2009 Mets outlook. I answered questions about the Mets injury worries, whether the bullpen is as good as it seems, lineup formation and my prediction for the Mets W-L record. Brian also writes for Fangraphs and his work at both sites is highly recommended.

2) Sam at Amazin' Avenue grades the Mets offseason by looking at the projected WAR ("wins above replacement") of the players acquired and lost. It's a better approach for evaluating the offseason then the dozens of other subjective "report cards" by analysts like Jon Heyman. Heyman rated the Phillies offseason at #1, mainly because they locked up Cole Hamels and Ryan Howard to multi-year deals. That's all well and good, but their only major addition was Raul Ibanez, who they grossly overpaid.

3) Mets Fever noticed that Nick Evans is listed as 3rd on the Mets depth chart at 2nd base, per mets.com. It's an interesting possibility, because it seems Evans doesn't have a position. He isn't a good enough hitter to be valuable at 1B, and his OF defense is suspect.

4) Beyond the Boxscore announced the winner of their graph contest, and it's hilarious. It's a flowchart which takes you into the mind Dusty Baker. Fans of the late FireJoeMorgan know how terrible Baker's baseball analysis is and will especially appreciate it. But anyone who's heard Dusty announce a game and mention "clogging the basepaths" can have a laugh as well.

Evaluating Mets Baserunning

I wrote an evaluation of the 2008 Mets non-stolen base/caught stealing baserunning at Amazin' Avenue. Using Baseball Prospectus's baserunning stats, we can see how many runs above or below average a player contributes by advancing on groundouts, flyouts, hits, passed balls and wild pitches. Surprise surprise, in 2008 Jose Reyes was the best baserunner on the Mets, and also the best in the National League. David Wright was the worst baserunner on the Mets in 2008.

Should the Mets explore a trade with the Nationals for an OF?

I posted at Amazin' Avenue about the surplus of OF's that the Nationals have after signing Adam Dunn. Apparently Dunn will play 1B for the Nats, but the following OF's, 5 of whom bat right-handed, will be on their roster or at least compete for a spot:

- Elijah Dukes
- Willie Harris
- Austin Kearns
- Lastings Milledge
- Wily Mo Pena
- Josh Willingham

Should the Mets look to trade for one of these players?

Links: Castillo, Valentin, Athletes = Rock Stars, and Ichiro pitching

Some links to check out while wondering why JTIII's Hoyas have gone 3-8 since beating #1 UConn:

1) Rob at Amazin' Avenue wonders if Mets fans should be optimistic about Luis Castillo this season. His conclusion: yes. Castillo stunk in 2008, but he's been a valuable player throughout most of his career. I think it's feasible that he'll hit at a .275/.360/.350 clip. If he does, while playing serviceable defense, I'll be thrilled.

2) The Mets signed Jose Valentin to a minor league deal. Yes, the same Jose Valentin who hit 17 homers and was a nice surprise for the 2006 Mets. I have no problem with this signing, but it would be surprising to see him on the Opening Day roster. If Valentin logs a significant amount of plate appearances this season, the Mets might be in trouble.

3) I'm as sick of discussions about PED's as the next fan, but I really liked this from Tom Tango's blog (see response from Tango in the comments):

"The White American Male Adult (WAMA) thinks nothing of a rock star that is fueled by drugs. Indeed, even if the artist himself says that the drug improves his artistic qualities, this is seen as a good thing. You can take all the vices in the world, pump it into the body of a rock star, and if Sgt Pepper is the result, then the world will be at your feet."

A commenter countered by saying that this was a fallacy, i.e. rock stars are not competing against each other like pro athletes. Tango responded with this:

"The rock star / athlete is not a fallacy. Both are 'competing' against their peers. Rock stars are not subjected to daily competition, but they accumulate wealth in the same way as athletes: by performing better than their peers."

For whatever reason I was fascinated by this point. I've come full circle on this PED stuff. At first, I was like most fans - demonizing the players, hating Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, etc. However, I really don't hate any of the pre-2004 juicers (punishments for failing steroid tests were only instituted in 2004). Anyone who gets caught now, well that's a different story. I have no sympathy. That is why Bonds, Roger Clemens (although Clemens still sucks at life) and Alex Rodriguez are still Hall of Fame worthy in my book, while Rafael Palmeiro is not.

4) Here is video of a 22 year-old Ichiro pitching in the 1996 NPB All-Star Game (via Neyer). He was throwing 90+ mph back then and apparently he's still got it. He may even pitch in the upcoming WBC:

Graphs: Paul Lo Duca, Win % vs. Attendance, and Omar's roster building model

Beyond the Boxscore is holding a "graph contest", encouraging readers to make informative, interesting, or funny baseball related graphs. I didn't officially enter these, but took a few minutes out of my day to make them:


Note: wOBA ("weighted on base average") is a great stat which weighs every possible outcome of a plate appearance to gauge offensive value. It also incorporates stolen bases and is weighted against league performance in a given season. In that regard it's similar to OPS+, although wOBA is not adjusted for park factors just yet. wOBA is on a similar scale to OBP: .310 sucks, .330 is about average, anything above .370 is really good. Read here for more.

I never realized how poor the Mets attendance was in their opening season. This next one is courtesty of samt at Amazin' Avenue. I love the use of a Venn Diagram.

Links: Ollie's ice cream, Lederer vs. Heyman, 2008 Mets WAR, and HBO

Some links to peruse while wondering if you too could put up 50 points vs. the Knicks:

1) David Lennon at Newsday relays to us the real reason Oliver Perez re-signed with the Mets:

"Another three years means seeing Oliver Perez munch on his favorite frozen snack -- Nutty Buddies, King Cones, whatever you call them -- during his postgame interviews. That was perhaps the biggest indication that there was no way Perez was signing with the Yankees, not as long as Joe Girardi keeps a padlock on the ice cream freezer."

He can buy the Nutty Buddie company for $36 million.

2) Rich Lederer at Baseball Analysts offers up a conspiracy theory about Jon Heyman's connection to superagent Scott Boras. Lederer thinks Boras feeds Heyman information about his clients in return for manipulation of the free agent market. I have to say, the evidence Lederer presents is compelling. I'd like to think even Heyman wouldn't be that big of a tool though.

3) I "post-dicted" the 2008 Mets W-L record at Amazin' Avenue, using the WAR ("wins above replacement") spreadsheet from Beyond the Boxscore. Read the post for more details, but WAR says the Mets were an 87 win team in 2008. In reality, they won 89. Pretty close right? WAR is not 100% infallible, but I think it's the best all-encompassing stat we have easy access to.

4) David at NY Sports Dog was invited to an early screening of a new HBO comedy with a baseball connection called "Eastbound & Down." It's produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's production company and stars the hilarious Danny McBride, from "Pineapple Express" and "Tropic Thunder", so it's definitely worth a look. HBO has been surpassed by FX and AMC in producing original programming recently, so I hope for the channel's sake that this show is a hit.

Links: Mets catchers, Heyman = clueless, Heilman, and perception vs. reality

Here's some links to check out while you wonder why only one Mets blogger heeded my advice to shut up about Manny Ramirez:

1) Rob at Amazin' Avenue takes a look at the Mets catching situation, namely Brian Schneider and Ramon Castro:

"Basically, what I'm saying is that our catching situation is fine. It's not great, but it's not bad either. Like I said, its league average, which is more than enough to win. I have just been amazed by how many people consider it one of Omar's cardinal necessities to improve the catching situation."

I agree, and I'm glad that Met fans have dialed down the support for an upgrade at catcher. Schneider and Castro's contracts expire after 2009, so catcher will need to be addressed next offseason.

2) R.J. Anderson at Beyond the Boxscore quickly and neatly takes apart Jon Heyman's ridiculous statement that free agent OF Garret Anderson has "been among the more productive outfielders in the AL over the last several years." Heyman is pretty good at being a baseball "insider", even if there are 5 false rumors for every 1 he has right. However, he is simply embarrassing at analysis.

3) Poor Aaron Heilman. He was traded again, this time to the Cubs. He was one of my favorite Mets (less so in 2008), and I hope he finds success in his post-Mets career. The Cubs don't come to Citi Field until September - imagine Heilman starting a game against the Mets in the heat of a pennant race.

4) The blog What's A Tarrarel? picks apart the classic Hall of Fame argument that usually goes something like this:

"I don't need numbers to tell me a player is Hall worthy - I saw him play, and that is enough for me! Only math geeks and losers living with their parents think Bert Blyleven and Tim Raines should make it!"

The Hall of Fame voting process is something of a fascination for me, and I wish every voter who put Jim Rice, Jack Morris, or Andre Dawson on their ballot could read this great little piece.

Links: Mets on SI covers, Strikeouts and the "Curious Case of Forrest Gump"

Some links to check out while you wonder why the Mets let Dwight Gooden pitch 744.2 innings before he turned 22 years old:

1) Eric Simon at Amazin' Avenue presents part 1 of a visual history of Mets who made the cover of Sports Illustrated. Check out the cover featuring Ron Swoboda from 1968. He bears a slight resemblance to David Wright, from the side atleast.

2) The always insightful Rich Lederer at Baseball Analysts writes about the stat "K/100", which is strikeouts per 100 pitches. Lederer says this is better than K/9 for measuring a starter's effectiveness, as it combines strikeout ability with pitch count maintenance. The average starter has lasted about 100 pitchers per start in recent years, so I think he's on to something here. In 2008, out of 142 pitchers that logged atleast 100 IP, Johan Santana was 18th with 5.73 K/100. Oliver Perez was 30th with 5.35 K/100 and Mike Pelfrey was 122nd with 3.31 K/100. Improve that strikeout rate Big Pelf.

3) At mlb.com, Matthew Leach writes about the changing perception of strikeouts for hitters. Leach writes:

"A player who strikes out 100 or more times can still be thought of as a winning player if he does the other things right: specifically, getting on base and hitting for power. For a hitter, the key question is: Did you make an out, or not? Above anything else, "statheads" rightly boil things down to that fundamental issue. Outs are bad. Any plate appearance that does not end in an out is good."

This concept is not anything new to informed baseball fans, but it's nice to see such a piece on mlb.com. Leach also discusses fielding independent pitching stats (such as FIP and tRA), which are better for predicting future performance and assessing a pitcher's value. Analysts on the MLB Network cited ERA+ recently, so maybe progress is being made on the advanced-statistics-as-mainstream front.

4) Unrelated to baseball, but check out this video from Funny or Die comparing "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" to "Forrest Gump." I haven't seen Button, but after watching the video it looks like I can save my $9.75 and just re-watch the DVD of Gump instead.

Links: Closer Music, Schneider's Defense, Hall of Fame, and a Rickey Drinking Game

Here's some links while wondering if Francisco Rodriguez loves the smell of napalm in the morning:

1) SNY's Ted Berg makes some non-traditional suggestions for Francisco Rodriguez's entrance music. Here is part 1 and here is part 2. These are my favorites:

"1. 4'33" - John Cage: Cage's piece, for the unfamiliar, consists of four minutes and thirty three seconds of no music at all. This would require a whole lot of fan participation. If everyone -- every fan, every vender, every usher, every bathroom attendant -- could remain silent while the pitcher walked in from the bullpen and threw his warm-ups, well, that'd be about as badass an entrance as I could imagine.

1. Ride of the Valkyries - Richard Wagner: As far as I know, no closer has even considered something classical and so, while using "Ride of the Valkyries" to herald impending doom a la Apocalypse Now may be old news in some settings, on a baseball field it'd be brand new. And triumphant."

Can't argue with his #1 choice - I wrote a few months back that Ride of the Valkyries would be my entrance music.

2) Adam Rubin at the Daily News posted a reader's email which claimed that Brian Schneider was the cause of the Mets bullpen failures in 2008. The stats presented seemed cherry-picked and strange to me, but before I could take a closer look samt at Amazin' Avenue posted a rebuttal. Needless to say, I'm with samt on this one - Schneider is not Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate, but he certainly did not make Aaron Heilman and Pedro Feliciano serve up gopher balls last summer.

3) The 70 year-old Hall of Fame voter named Corky Simpson who left Rickey Henderson off of his ballot regrets doing so. He says it was just an oversight and not an attempt to make a statement. Apparently he does not regret including Matt Williams on his ballot. Additionally, Simpson has some choice words for the Internet and presumably bloggers:

"I think of the literature on the Internet in the same way that I think of the literature on the walls of public bathrooms. With the exception that the literature on the walls of public bathrooms is a little higher class."

And

"The Internet is like a sewer. It’s very necessary, but you wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time there."

Someone please tell me why people like this are determining who gets into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

4) Fantasy baseball website Razzball gives us the "Rickey Henderson Hall of Fame Speech Drinking Game." It's pretty hilarious and my favorite is:

"Tells a story using himself in the 3rd person: chug a beer"

Better get a 30-rack ready for Rickey's big speech.

Links: Citi Field, Derek Lowe, Will Ohman and Rickey Henderson!

Here's some links to peruse while you ponder why Rickey Henderson's helmet always looked 3 sizes too small:

1) Eric Simon at Amazin' Avenue takes a look at how pitcher-friendly Citi Field will be. He interviews Greg Rybarczyk of the excellent home run tracking site Hit Tracker Online, who summed up his take on Citi Field in the Hardball Times Annual 2009 by writing:

"Citi Field, the new ballpark for the New York Mets, is poised to become MLB's new Grand Canyon." - YIKES!

2) Matt Cerrone at MetsBlog reports that today's meeting between Omar Minaya and Scott Boras (agent for Derek Lowe, Oliver Perez, and Manny Ramirez) went well. Apparently, they only discussed Lowe and it looks like it will take some kind of 4th year option to secure the tall sinkerballer.
***EDIT***: Anthony DiComo of mlb.com now says Minaya spoke with Boras about Lowe, Perez, and Ramirez. Maybe a package deal for all 3?

3) David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (via MLBTradeRumors) writes that free agent lefty reliever Will Ohman prefers to stay with the Braves "if offers are equal, etc." . This is code for "I'll sign wherever the money is." Last week I wrote at Mets Geek that the Mets need to sign another lefty reliever, just in case Pedro Feliciano gets hurt or is ineffective. Ohman is my top choice, especially because he's not just a lefty specialist - he held righties to a .700 OPS against in 2008.

4) Atleast one Hall of Fame voter left Rickey Henderson off of his ballot. This is sheer lunacy - even the biggest haters have to admit that Rickey is a no-doubt first-ballot Hall of Famer. Check out Home Run Derby's compilation of the published HOF votes by sportswriters across the country. It's a quick and easy way to see which voters have a brain and which don't. Hint: anyone who votes for Jack Morris and not Bert Blyleven is brainless.

Should a pitcher be considered for MVP?

In a post at Amazin' Avenue, Jessica Bader goes FJM on the latest Mets Mailbag from Marty Noble on mets.com. I'm not posting to call out Noble for his poor answers to questions (I already did that last offseason). I was struck by a great point Jessica makes regarding consideration of pitchers for the MVP Award. A common argument against doing this is that everyday players appear in 140-162 games whereas starting pitchers usually appear in 30-34 games. For instance, David Wright played in 160 games, while Johan Santana played in 34. Noble states that for this reason, Wright is the Mets MVP instead of Johan, and also more viable as a candidate for NL MVP. Jessica writes:

"This is the sort of argument that's usually advanced to justify excluding pitchers from MVP consideration, and quite frankly it's a load of bull. If you think of baseball as a series of pitcher/batter confrontations, it stands to reason that the more showdowns a player participates in, the more opportunities he has to impact the outcome of a game. In 2008, David Wright had 736 plate appearances. Johan Santana faced 964 batters."

This is fantastic, and something I had never thought of. Granted, it takes a truly special year for a pitcher to win MVP (Roger Clemens in 1986, Pedro Martinez in 1999 who should've won but didn't), and I'm not saying Johan or any other NL pitcher should be MVP. However, pitchers should not be discounted from consideration simply because they are pitchers.