Steals, Wins and Wang

We get the sense that we're constantly being attacked by our co-worker here at Me and Pedro; that's okay, because we are. The other side refuses to admit such a beef, perhaps hardened by years of enduring barking-mad baseball rants from recently Sabermetrically-indoctrinated people such as myself, which we understand (we also hate the word "Sabermetrics" and any of its variants). For instance, in our last post, Ben writes:

I've been chided in the past for my fixation with the stolen base. But look here, thirty stolen base attempts for this Sox this season and only FOUR times have they been caught. Surely that kind of efficiency makes even the most hardened stolen base skeptics excited about the team's base running.

Let me parse this paragraph for you, Fire Joe Morgan-style:

I've been chided in the past for my fixation with the stolen base.

By Bryan.

But look here, thirty stolen base attempts for this Sox this season and only FOUR times have they been caught.

"Only four times have they been caught... asshole."

Surely that kind of efficiency makes even the most hardened stolen base skeptics

— and by that, Bryan, I mean YOU, on your couch in Queens —

excited about the team's base running.

"... asshole."

While I think Ben would be surprised by the amount that I've come around to many non-sabermetrically endorsed ideas, he's right: those type of numbers would make even the most hardened stolen base skeptics cock their eyebrow in interest. Quite simply, the Sox — led by (never-shhh) Ellsbury — steal bases very well. For any Sox fan familiar with the history of the team long or short, this is astonishing. The Sox have never been a base-stealing team. In their 107-year history, a Red Sock has led the league in steals a whopping six times, or the same number as Vince Coleman in the 80s (and five less than Rickey). I couldn't find team steals stats, but they'd be about the same. The last time a Sock won the steals title was in 1973, when Tommie Harper did it. So yes, this is rare. And yes, it's a lovely change of pace, especially when they never get caught.

For those of you who don't know why I was "shhh"-ing the boy wonder Jacoby's name above, it's because he's converted his first 20 SB attempts going back to last season, seven shy of the record held by Tim Raines to start a career. I think Ben is absolutely right when he says stolen bases are not entirely about speed, and that's what makes Ellsbury's achievement so impressive. While the kid's got speed to burn, he knows what to do with it at a young age. Contrast him with someone else who's got ridiculous speed like Jose Reyes and you see how impressive this is. Reyes is a valuable base stealer, and led the league with 78 swipes last year; he also was caught 21 times, which also led the league. The best base stealer on the Mets is Carlos Beltran, who swiped 25 bags and was caught three times. In fact, Beltran has the highest stolen base percentage in major league history, if I remember correctly, with players who have 250 or more steals (whatever his rank, it's 87.8%). The Sox' best base stealer is their fastest player. That's straight fire right there.

Also straight fire right now, as Ben said, is Kevin Youkilis, who's tearing sh*t up right now. To recap as of this morning:

Ranks 9th in AL in RBI
Ranks 8th in AL in Runs
Ranks 8th in AL in Walks
Ranks 7th in AL in OBP
Ranks 8th in AL in SLG
Ranks 6th in AL in OPS

Not that there's anything wrong with it, but Youkilis is a notorious hot starter/slow finisher (Hey, the games count the same in April and September!) To wit, here are his splits as a full-time starter:

2006
Pre All-Star: .297/.406./.467
Post All-Star: .257/.347/.381

2007
Pre All-Star: .328/.419/.502
Post All-Star: .238/.356/.391

This year, he's right in line with the early-season stats at .305/.397/.517. But the pattern is there and will probably repeat itself: dude is just better early on, for whatever reason. Contrast that with another Me and Pedro favorite, Baltimore Orioles outfielder Nick Markakis, who starts slow each year but rakes when the Mercury tops 90:

2006
Pre All-Star: .268/.335/.348
Post All-Star: .311/.364/.531

2007
Pre All-Star: .279/.340/.431
Post All-Star: .325/.389/.550

This year, he's at .263/.391/.456, having cooled down after an early hot streak. So what is it that causes these streaks? Youkilis is a bigger guy than Markakis, waistwise, and you'd have to figure there's an element of Youkilis wearing down as the year goes on and Markakis playing into shape. But there's got to be more to it than that, something that makes Markakis see the ball better in July and August and Youkilis to start hitting like Craig Counsell. The mind wonders what it could be. Summer television? Maryland crab?

--

There were some points I promised to touch on today, so I'll cover them now. The first was last night's Sox/Tigers game, which is only notable for the hocus-pocus Dice-K used to walk eight batters and still pick up a "W." We've been thinking a lot about the concept of a "win" recently, as it's been all but dismissed by the statistical community, but I think it still has some value. Certainly, wins and losses alone won't tell you very much about a pitcher, except a pitcher with 20 wins is unlikely to be terrible and a pitcher with 20 losses is unlikely to be Josh Beckett. But there's something about the W, when not haphazardly applied — as in, to a closer who blows the game to see his team rally for "him" — that's has an integrity we like. We recently saw Chien-Ming (F'ing) Wang beat C.C. Sabathia in a 1-0 twin masterpiece, which is about as tough an "L" the hefty lefty could earn. That's also about as tough a win as a pitcher can get, and if someone ever deserves one, it's Wang in that situation. And all Wang does is win. He doesn't have the best numbers of all the pitchers in the league, but the guy is on the mound when the Yankees win. That may be, as stat guys may argue, a matter of circumstances — circumstances like Wang being consistently good on a high-scoring team — but we only watch baseball for the circumstances that do happen. The win-loss system, as imperfect as it is, is something we smile when we're considering.

I think I've said enough for today without getting too in-depth into Bronson Arroyo and Hideki Okajima. The former Sock is getting roughed up in Cincy, and Okie keeps on rolling through smoke and mirrors, or so it seems. We still love that Gary Sheffield said that Okajima was the toughest lefty he had ever faced. Gary Sheffield said that. Gary Sheffield is going to the Hall of Fame. And Okie owns him.

God, I love baseball.

Which one of these is not like the other?

The Miami Herald fairly asserts that the stage is set for new sports icons:

Brett Favre retires. Polarizing Bob Knight walks away. Whether heroes or villains, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens don't have jobs. The once-dominant Diesel has been sent to the desert to finish the gloaming of his career.

So the stage is further cleared for the next crisply named, cultural touchstone sporting icons, branded names that stand for greatness, fan adoration, movie roles and hosting Saturday Night Live. And there will be stars to fill that space on the stage, if not always in the way the 35-and-up crowd prefers.

That's cool. But check out their list of 8 "young athletes most likely to become cultural touchstones over the next decade:"

Maria Sharapova
Tony Romo
LeBron James
Dwyane Wade
Adrian Peterson
Jacoby Ellsbury
Kevin Durant
Morgan Pressel
Sidney Crosby
Alexander Ovechkin

Well, actually, in looking at the names again there are a few things that need to be said before we get to the point. First, if LeBron James isn't a cultural touchstone no athlete is. Second, why include hockey players? Waste of ink. They'd have been better off bartering that ink for a ticket to Pens/Caps. And finally, the point, why is Jacoby Ellsbury on this list? Not only that, why is he the only baseball player on the list? Two hockey players, one baseball player; same number of baseball players as lady golfers. Reyes, Sizemore, Fielder, Howard, not only very good (and handsome!) also more than 116 Major League at bats. In fairness, the Herald does acknowledge they're jumping the gun on Ellsbury, "Could be a Mark Fidrych one-season wonder." But ummmm, Fidrych's year of wonder was... oh never mind. Look, I love Jacoby! I just don't want the pink hats to get sad when they realize he's not Fred Lynn (who am I kidding, the pink hats don't know who Fred Lynn is) he's Kenny Lofton minus some pop.*

*That's not meant to be a diss, I LOVED me some Kenny in his prime.

2008 Preview: Jacoco Crispbury

Name: Covelli Loyce Crisp
Bats: Switch
Throws: Right
Age: 28
2008 Salary: $4.75M
Fun Fact: Along with Carl Crawford, Jimmy Rollins and Dontrelle Willis, Coco Crisp is an RBI alumnus. Crisp grew up in Los Angeles and attended Inglewood High School with Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics.

It couldn’t have begun much better for Coco Crisp in Boston. Even though the pink hats were devastated to see Johnny Damon go, they were charmed by Crisp’s smile and amused by his name. Meanwhile, the stat heads were intrigued by a man who had improved in each of his previous four seasons in Cleveland and was only just entering his prime. Hell, Crisp was so popular in the early going that even his father had a NESN commercial.

Crisp batted .400 in his first spring training with the Sox and it seemed all but certain he would slide right in and be a younger, cheaper version of Johnny Damon. Bill James did little to dispel this notion, projecting that in 2006 Crisp would have an OPS of .790 with 13 homers while Damon would have a .786 OPS with 12 homers. Obviously those projections presaged a decline in Damon’s game more than continued improvement from Crisp. As in turns out, Crisp’s numbers in Boston have come somewhat close to replicating Damon’s. Unfortunately they have been much closer to 2003 Damon (12 HR, 67 RBI .273./345/.405) than 2004 Damon (20 HR 94 RB .304/.380/.477). Somehow we had been led to believed we might be getting 2004 Damon. We were bound to be disappointed.

Ironically I seem to recall it being Crisp’s defense that had Boston fans most skeptical about his ability to replace Damon. Crisp had relocated from center to left in 2005 and that could only mean, the skeptics believed, that he lacked some essential quality of centerfielding. It was only later they all caught onto the fact that Grady Sizemore, the man who displaced Crisp, is pretty handy with the leather—so good, in fact, that he robbed Crisp of a Gold Glove last year. After an occasionally discomfiting year in the field in 2006, Crisp’s 2007 season in center was kind of absurd. He caught everything!

Crisp’s two seasons in Boston have been defined by disappointment at the plate and nagging injuries all over the body. In year one it was the broken index finger in April that hampered him for the remainder of the season. Last year there was an oblique injury, a shoulder injury, and a toe injury that he played through, matching his career high with 145 games. In the second half of the season it seemed as though Sox fans had come to grips with what Crisp could offer at the plate and were beginning to embrace him for his defensive exploits and speed on the base paths. But then along came the young Navajo gentleman and everything changed.

Coco Crisp's 2008 ZiPS projection:
.271 AVG/.333 OBP/.410 SLG
82 Runs
143 Hits
33 Doubles
10 Home Runs
65 RBI
48 BB
79 K


Name: Jacoby McCabe Ellsbury
Bats: Left
Throws: Left
Age: 24
2008 Salary: $406,000
Fun Fact: Jacoby Ellsbury is the first Native American of Navajo descent to reach the Major Leagues. Other professional baseball players of Native American descent include Louis Sockalexis, Jim Thorpe, Chief Yellow Horse, and Joba Chamberlain.

Jacoby Ellsbury has only played 44 games in the majors but boy were they impressive. Aside from the jaw dropping speed and the .438 average in 16 World Series at bats, the thing that was most impressive about Ellsbury’s 2007 season was the surprising extra base power he exhibited (59 total bases in 33 games, .509 SLG—yeah, he out-slugged Manny Ramirez ). The infield hits will take care for of themselves, but he’ll be a very special player if he can continue to slap the ball off the Monster and improve the gap power he hinted at last season.

Ellsbury is not as polished as Crisp in the field, but then Crisp wasn't as polished as Crisp a little over a year ago so we must be patient with the 24-year-old. Fortunately whatever he lacks in his ability to judge fly balls he more than makes up for with he's speed. And he's just enough faster than Crisp that he can do some truly profound shit on the base paths, as when he scored from second on a wild pitch. If there was one play that made Ellsbury the fan favorite for the starting job in center, that was it. The free taco only cemented things further.

What, then, are Ellsbury's warts? Well, he has below average arm strength, but certainly in comparison to Crisp there is not a whole lot of difference. He has very little home run power, but again, if we compare him to Crisp of the previous two seasons there is not a tremendous amount of difference between the two. Perhaps the biggest question mark surrounding Ellsbury is that we have yet to see how he fares once he is forced to make adjustments when pitchers learn how to pitch him. There just isn't a lengthy enough Major League resume to be sure of what we've got just yet. Certainly he is the most exciting Sox' position player since Nomar Garciaparra was on the come up but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Have I made the case for Ellsbury as the starter? Do I really need to? In a perfect world Ellsbury wins the starting job out camp, Coco is the fourth outfielder but gets to start a couple of times a week with one of three scenarios: Ellsbury gets a day off, Ellsbury goes to left to spell Manny, Ellsbury goes to right to spell Drew. Unfortunately, Crisp does not find that world perfect. However, it does not seem likely that Crisp would pull a Jay Payton and dealing him would be short sighted—say you deal Crisp and Ellsbury pulls a hamstring in May, then what, a month of Kielty in center. No thank you. Then again, if they can somehow swing Crisp plus some pieces to Oakland for Joe Blanton.....

Jacoby Ellsbury's 2008 ZiPS projection:
.297 AVG/.349 OBP/.392 SLG
87 Runs
163 Hits
34 Doubles
4 Home Runs
58 RBI
37 BB
72 K

How Youkilis Will Spend His $3 million

Deal is done. Here's where the money is going:

• Recoup the investment loss in Slump Buster energy drink ($100,000)
• Impending Wedding ($500,000)
• Residual payments to Michael Lewis for placement in Moneyball ($200,000)
• 1 BR North End love nest ($1.1 million)
• Hitting the shit out of the ball (free)
• Donations to his foundation, now that he's out of hair ($200,000)
• Giving to Sean Casey mayoral campaign ($100,000)
• Ruling the Yankees ($138.48 for instructional 2004-07 DVD set with free Super Saver shipping)
• General owning of AL East ($500,000)
• Nancy Kerrigan-like takeout of Erik Bedard before Seattle series ($20,000)
• Bet on Pats to go undefeated next year ($181,000 at 25-1)
• Jacoby Ellsbury signed baseball ($159)
• Chips ($88,702.52)