Posted 8:48 AM by bob
DAVE PAISLEY CONTINUES his forecasting ways, today looking at the NL East:

Team      OPS ERA  RS  RA  Wins 

Phillies .763 4.12 836 728 92 

Expos    .728 4.02 768 751 87 

Mets     .720 3.98 751 705 86 

Braves   .723 4.30 756 758 81 

Marlins  .696 4.40 702 774 73

He isn't real optimistic about the Braves' pitching - I think they will end up better than that. It'll be fun to see. :)

Posted 9:35 AM by bob
LOOKS LIKE THE MARINERS' 5th starter in 2003 won't be who wins the job in Spring Training - it will be whoever doesn't lose the job:

With one week to go before they depart for Japan, they don't have a No. 5 man established in the rotation.

After Gil Meche, a candidate for the job, made several costly mistakes Sunday against the Rockies, Colorado Seattle was looking for Jamey Wright to follow up his strong outing last week against Anaheim and secure it.

He did not. In yesterday's 9-4 loss to the Chicago White Sox, the big right-hander hardly gave himself a chance, walking four in four innings and giving up eight runs, three on two long homers by Frank Thomas.

With one start left for each before the Japan trip, and with Wright required to know by March 18 if he has made the team, the fifth-starter race is a dead heat.

"It would be all right if it was a dead heat because of good outings," Manager Bob Melvin said. "Instead, it's wide open because of poor outings. Jamey was nothing like his last time out. He wasn't getting ahead of hitters, so he was letting them dictate the situation."

I don't understand why Ken Cloude isn't even mentioned in this article - I thought he was one of the other candidates for the 5th-starter job. Let's compare spring training pitching lines for these three pitchers (Meche, Wright, and Cloude):

Pitchers  W-L ERA  G GS IP   H  R  ER BB SO BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB

-----------------------------------------------------------

K.Cloude  1-0 2.00 3 1  9.0  8  2  2  1  3  1.1  3.0  3.0

G.Meche   1-1 8.10 2 2  6.2  9  8  6  6  4  8.1  5.4  0.7

J.Wright  0-1 8.25 4 3  12.0 13 12 11 7  5  5.2  3.7  0.7

One of those lines is not like the other. True, Ken Cloude isn't striking many batters out. But, he isn't walking anybody either. Now, nine innings isn't enough to base anything on...but look at last year's stats:

Pitchers  Lg  W-L  ERA  G  GS IP    H   ER HR BB SO BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB HR/9

------------------------------------------------------------------------

K.Cloude  PCL 9-4  2.33 15 15 92.3  73  24 9  20 52 2.0  5.1  2.6   0.9

G.Meche   DNP INJURED 

J.Wright  NL  7-13 5.17 23 22 129.3 130 76 17 75 77 5.2  5.4  1.0   1.2

Who deserves this job? The Mariners should have a very good defense - they can afford to carry a pitcher (especially one who is the 5th starter) who lets the other team put the ball in play - as long as he doesn't walk very many and doesn't allow too many homers. That guy is Ken Cloude. No team can afford to carry a pitcher who walks a lot of batters and doesn't do anything else special. Ken Cloude should go to Seattle as the 5th starter. But the Mariners will probably take the "proven" veteran with them to Seattle. This just hurts.

UPDATE: I have posted an update to my take on the Mariners' ongoing Quest for a Fifth Starter.

Posted 3:51 PM by bob
THE FIRE GUIDES. Have to get some of these for my youngest brother; he's going to college next fall, I imagine.

Posted 1:58 PM by bob
THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE RIOT!

Q: What do you think happens when you throw a slice of processed cheese (without removing the plastic wrapping) onto a lit barbeque?

The plastic melts giving off highly toxic fumes and you are left with a pretty grim cheese/plastic mess welded on to your BBQ, right?

WRONG!

Unbelievably what actually happens, as discovered by the pioneers and inventors of the sport way back in 1997 (read their account of that historic night on a campsite in Osmington here), is that the plastic pouch does not melt - even when the cheese inside eventually boils! Even more incredibly, as the cheese melts and the strange chemicals found in processed cheese turn to gas - the plastic pouch inflates until eventually all four corners lift off the BBQ and the pouch is fully inflated!

Thanks to Dave Barry for the pointer.

Posted 1:15 PM by bob
GIDEON, OF BATTER'S BOX, NOTES that some of that sabermetric shine is coming off of the Padres organization.

I should feel sorry for the Padres organization, but I'm having difficulty, because I don't see why Nevin was out in left field in the first place. Nevin was a perfectly fine third baseman when the organization decided that Sean Burroughs, who'd never played a game in the major leagues, was important enough to bump Nevin over to first.

Posted 1:11 PM by bob
DON MALCOLM takes an interesting look at one of the Phillies' star acquisitions this winter: Kevin Millwood.

As you can see, it isn't that Kevin gets dramatically better in the second half; he doesn't tend to throw a lot more top hit prevention games (S12), for example. He simply stops having bad games, and the good games he has don't get more frequent (putting him in the class of a Greg Maddux or a Pedro Martinez, who've been known to have 80% of more of their games in the "success square" during the course of a season).

His second-half success stems from the fact that the good games he does have just get better.

Good article, though some of the tables are a bit hard to understand due to the obscure acronyms. He gets his point across, though.

Posted 10:35 AM by bob
WILL CARROLL'S TEAM HEALTH REPORTS (THR) have taken some flack in informal sabermetric circles, but you can't argue with success: In his THR for the San Diego Padres, he wrote this:

Nevin's had a history of shoulder problems and even after his return, Nevin was clearly not at full strength. Reports coming from San Diego have Nevin still not at full strength. Add in a positional change to left field, a push past the prime years, and a history of injury, and suddenly Nevin becomes not a feared hitter, but a risky player that you don't want to build a team around. I'll either look like a genius or moron with this, but I expect Nevin to have some sort of season-ending injury in the early stages of the season.

Emphasis mine
Like I said, you can't argue with success:

San Diego Padres slugger Phil Nevin said he'll have reconstructive surgery on his dislocated shoulder Tuesday and that he doesn't expect to play again until 2004.