Baseballhead:
I Expectorate on the Electorate

Michael Cox

Soo-prise, soo-prise, soo-prise, it's Baseballhead again, and hell if we can figure out how Garth Brooks keeps selling records when he doesn't even show up for spring training anymore.

Before we get to the promised dressing-down of the dissenting postseason voters, an interesting item has just come off the newswire, with delicious implications for everyone's favorite inept Commissioner of Baseball. In the wake of the brouhaha which began when The Grim Selig all but pointed his bony finger of death at the Twins, a new voice has risen above the masses -- someone wants to buy the team.

And not just any someone, but a someone named Donald V. Watkins, who heads a commercial bank and an energy company, is a trustee at Alabama State University and a former special counsel to the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama. And oh yeah, more importantly for Selig, Watkins is African-American, and very aware of the place in baseball history he would assume as the game's first black owner.

You see, Selig has spent a lot of time wringing his hands publicly over the minority hiring practices of MLB's teams (in fact, he began shortly after leading the fight to censure the game's only female majority owner). Recently he ranted and raved after the Blue Jays decided to give their GM job to someone with a great track record instead of pitching coach Dave Stewart. In fact, Selig may be the only one besides Stewart who got mad about that.

So this becomes a golden opportunity for Selig to either walk his talk or add one more log to the bonfire of his vanity and admit he's only paying loud lip service (so who won the Hank Aaron Award this year anyway?). A bid by Watkins could be the best resolution for the current Minnesota mess, because I don't see the courts or the state of Minnesota giving up their legal recourse anytime soon.

Unfortunately, there is one issue that may prevent this scenario from playing out -- Watkins has recently submitted a bid for the Devil Rays. It's most likely that as a face-saving move Selig will push for approval of that bid, financial terms permitting, so he can have it both ways.

However, the Rays may find it more profitable to be "contracted" themselves, and if the Twins become uncontractable Tampa Bay is the easy second choice in the AL. (Fans in Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco would be likely to find such a move ironic, don't you think?) Thus, the Rays might refuse Watkins' bid out of hand, instead waiting to see how contraction plays out, and if they "survive," the bid can always be resubmitted.

This is all considering a modicum of intelligence and a taste for the Machiavellian on the part of the Tampa ownership -- something which has not yet been demonstrated in the actual day-to-day administration of their ballclub. But we can always hope, right? Think about it: maybe they did know what they were doing when they hired Cam Bonifay as their GM (now there's a snub Stewart could have been angry about).

Avoiding Low-Yield Bonds: As expected, Barry Bonds was not the unanimous choice for National League Most Valuable Player last week, as Thomas Boswell's learned, eloquent defense of Sammy Sosa apparently was at least enough to persuade the voters in Chicago. (I know, soo-prise, soo-prise, soo-prise.)

While not on the level of incompentence of Chris Assenheimer's defense of his Rookie of the Year vote, the Chicago Tribune's (hmm...who owns the Cubs again?) Teddy Greenstein offered little in the way of actual intelligent thought behind his vote:

Before you accuse me of being a homer - or, worse, a Homer Simpson - allow me to explain.

No, no, no -- the "I'm a homer" argument is actually your most defensible position! It's actually understandable!

Bonds' season might have been the greatest individual offensive season in baseball history, but Sosa had a better team offensive season.

Better team offensive season? Well, let's give him a chance, and maybe he'll introduce a viable stat like Bill James does when he invents new statistical terminology...

The game is about scoring runs, and Sosa beat Bonds in both RBIs and runs scored.

D'oh.

So we fall back on the sportswriter's favorite crutch, RBI. Hang tight -- this'll come up again later.

Sosa also had 37 intentional walks, the most ever for a right-handed hitter...

Breaking the IBB record for a right-hander is always a great measure of MVP-level performance...in Bizarro World. Just don't let on that Bonds' 177 total walks absolutely obliterated Sosa's 116.

...and was at his best when the game was on the line (he batted .324 with runners in scoring position...)

Translation: I didn't even look at Bonds' .382 average in the same situation, because I just assumed it would be worse.

...and when the games mattered most (he hit .385 in August and .369 after Sept. 1).

But didn't Sosa's team have a losing record in September/October? I thought you said his team season was better?

I've had two MVP votes in the past, and both went to players (Texas' Juan Gonzalez in 1998 and the Mets' Mike Piazza in 2000) who led their teams to the postseason.

Gonzalez? Okay, I finally understand. All hail the mighty RBI. I need a drink.

Had Bonds led his team to the playoffs, he would have been a better choice than Sosa.

Sosa led his team to its usual Hell in a handbasket, so I'm presuming the Cubs are getting extra credit here for not finishing last. Maybe that could be a tourist slogan: "Chicago -- where finishing third is a triumph."

All jibes aside, I love Chicago and believe Sosa had a very, very good season. Bonds simply had a very, very, very, very good season, possibly the best of all time. Getting around that requires a deft touch, and unfortunately Bill James doesn't vote.

Chicago Sun-Times beat writer Mike Kiley didn't even offer up a defense of his motives, and his paper instead ran a number of irate letters from Bay Area fans, because we all know it's only Giant fans who think Bonds deserved the first-place vote.

Schilling for Your Thoughts: As for the NL Cy Young Award, I have very little quarrel with the results. By and large, writers recognized that Randy Johnson had an incredible season, and Curt Schilling picked up a few first-pace votes by virtue of his also-great record and his earlier near-perfect (#@*$% bunt single) game.

But there's this AP sportswriter named Jim Litke who doesn't see things the same way. In fact, he was downright incensed that Johnson took the voting so handily...

An election that should have been close was a landslide. But not necessarily for the right reason (more on that later).

Nobody denies that Johnson is a deserving winner.

Just not that much more deserving.

Just what Litke is thinking here is beyond me. The sportswriters don't get together over cocktails and discuss splitting their first-place votes in honor of a worthy second-place pitcher. They pick the best and make him number one on their ballot, then they pick the second-best and make him number two. Then again, I could be missing something...

...Nope.

Nice use of the "one short sentence per paragraph" literary device, by the way.

But think about this: Arizona manager Bob Brenly risked serious heat for setting up his postseason roster to give Schilling -- not Johnson -- the maximum number of starts. He must have known something.

There you have it -- Jim Litke admitting that he didn't actually watch the Diamondbacks this postseason, because those who did watch got the distinct impression that Brenly knew very little.

The guess here is that Johnson's bulging strikeout totals skewed the result.

No, Johnson being better in 2001 skewed the result. And strikeout totals aren't exactly RBI -- they are in fact one excellent measure of effectiveness. If you believe a strikeout is the worst kind of out for a hitter because it doesn't advance runners or offer opportunity for the team on defense to commit an error, they're even better.

Randy Johnson struck out hitters at a rate unmatched in history. But hey, let's not get obsessed with them, okay?

This is what Brenly knew: The most important starts in the regular season are the ones that follow losses, especially for a team with championship ambitions. It's a chance to take some heat off your hitters and save the bullpen wear and tear.

I'm still trying to find where Brenly says he knew this. And I thought a pitcher who dominates the opposition for seven or eight innings at a time almost every time he starts "saves the bullpen wear and tear," but maybe that's just me.

In those games, Johnson was exceptional. He was 9-2 in 16 starts, with a 2.15 ERA. He struck out 177 and walked only 31.

But Schilling was even better. He was 13-1 in 17 starts, with a 1.72 ERA. He fanned 155 and walked only 16."

Litke has missed his calling as a surgeon, because it takes steady hands to split a hair like that. But there you have it, the crucial statistic that makes one pitcher better than another. Go forth and amaze your friends.

Again, Schilling had a great season, and like Sosa, in another year this performance might have deserved the Cy Young. But he's either the best or he's not, and next to Johnson's season he was not. If the vote had been unanimous for Johnson, as long as Schilling was getting a reasonable number of second-place votes I'd say the sportswriters got it right.

For a change.

Ooh, these one-sentence paragraphs are fun!

Whee!

about the author

Michael Cox takes pride in his ability to take an intentional walk. Help calm his irrational fear that Selig will widen the strike zone at mc@strikethree.com.