The Astros were on the receiving end of a terrible policy from Major League Baseball in their June 14 contest with the Minnesota Twins. After surrendering a leadoff double, Astros phenom Roy Oswalt hit Twinkie outfielder Torii Hunter with an inside fastball to put runners on first and second with a 2-1 lead. Hunter began an aggressive stare-down with Oswalt and advanced toward the Astro righty, resulting in a benches-clearing breathing match. 

Hunter later admitted, “The pain, that’s what ticked me off. Dang, it was 96 miles per hour and in the ribs. Pain ticks me off. I knew he didn’t do it intentionally. After I cooled off, I understood the situation.” It’s also possible he was tense because of the embarrassment of playing his home games in a discarded set from the Jane Fonda classic Barbarella.

To his credit – and his manager Tom Kelly’s, who explained the situation to Hunter on the field in front of cameras, commentators, fans and the other team – the young outfielder came to understand his aggressiveness toward Oswalt was uncalled for. There was absolutely no reason Oswalt would intentionally plunk a batter at that time. It put the go-ahead run on base in that situation, and this was a team with which Houston has no rivalry and Oswalt has never seen before. There were no bad feelings and no cause for vengeance.

Then the umpires stepped in with an error in judgment. After the players had all been put back in their respective dugouts for a timeout, mister, the men in blue issued warnings to both benches. These warnings mean that if the umpires feel that a pitcher is throwing at a hitter they may eject him. No one has to actually be hit by a pitch – though that is a certain ejection, even if accidental – they just have to make the mistake of allowing one to go a little too far inside.

The problem here is not so much the policy itself, though it does seem to give the umpires a little too much leeway and change the nature of the game. It’s in the application – that the Houston bench was warned at all. That warning is a penalty of sorts; it governs pitching inside the rest of the game because the pitcher can then suffer immediate ejection for just that. Normally an umpire would need to see a batter hit, with cause, to eject a player. So rather than going with what was obvious even to the Twins, that Hunter was in error, the umps yellow-carded the Astros.

Torii Hunter caused the ridiculous disturbance, yet he was allowed to continue playing the game. He suffered no in-game penalty since batters do not get warnings and his team’s penalty was exactly equal to that of the Astros. That decision created the very real possibility that other players would later be ejected in light of Hunter’s actions while he remained on the field, which opens up serious cause for protest.

Torii Hunter revealed a very effective strategy if the rules are to be enforced this way. Whenever an Astros batter is hit, no matter the reason, he should glare toward the mound, maybe advance a few steps, and shout at the pitcher like a child. Who cares if the pitcher did nothing wrong? One just got away from him? So what. It’s time to go for the Oscar so the ump will warn the opposition. How pathetic. The last thing baseball needs is the Utah Jazz dynamic.

The point of this policy is supposed to be to prevent tense situations from escalating to altercations. But it is not mandatory to issue the warnings, and the umpires showed a distinct lack of judgment in doing so after the teams had already shown an understanding of what transpired. The situation was resolved; the additional onus of warnings on the players’ backs could easily have led to greater tension and created bad blood between the teams that was not there before. It’s when that feeling exists among teams that blood is eventually spilled on the field.

Leadoff Revisited

On May 24th, Brushback recommended Craig Biggio’s return to the leadoff role for the Astros. After getting swept in three games by Dodgers, Biggio and the Astros decided to give it a shot in San Diego. Since then the Astros have gone 8-7, 6-6 on the road and 2-1 at Enron in the brief Dodger visit. No big improvement revealed there, though that is a performance most teams would gladly take for 12 games on the road and 3 at home.

Biggio’s performance as leadoff man has been about what was expected. He has reached base safely in every game, scored 9 times in 14 games, and hit .310. He has stolen one base and been caught once. His lack of raw speed in the leadoff spot is reflective of the Astros overall approach. They are near the bottom of baseball with just 24 steals through 61 games, and they are the only team in the Major Leagues that has been caught stealing more often than they’ve been successful. They and the Cardinals are also the only two teams to have caught the opponents stealing more than they have allowed.

Speaking of Biggio, one recent article marveled at his influence with the Astros. The author affects shock that an All-Star veteran with deep community ties and 14 years of tenure with the same team is allowed to have any influence on his club, which contrasts interestingly with the affected shock registered by other authors when they claim Biggio is not a leader. Those stances do not seem to jibe very well.

Perhaps Biggio is highly influential. It’s been said for years that he led a faction that lobbied for Terry Collins’ tissue-free dismissal after a third consecutive second place finish in 1996. Mr. Biggio, I already owed you hearty thanks for your play. Your hard-nosed brand of playing the game right and showing up every day has brought me a great deal of enjoyment through the years. Now I add my thanks for whatever influence you wielded off the field that helped the Astros to three consecutive division titles.

“Leading off for the Houston Astros… Number 7… Second-baseman… Craig… Biggio.”

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard those familiar words. They’re warm and fuzzy and they feel like home… and it will help the Astros win if we hear them again. 

The Astros’ current leadoff man is shortstop Julio Lugo. He’s an exciting young hitter, with a good career average of .280, surprising power and excellent speed. What he brings to the table offensively is more than anyone has a right to expect from a shortstop, but it’s setting the table that’s at issue right now. Is Julio Lugo what the Astros need in the leadoff spot, or is he only there because there seems to be little alternative?

A leadoff hitter should be good at several things, but primarily he must get on base. Lugo’s on-base percentage is .338 for his career. That’s not good for a leadoff hitter, and so far this season it’s gotten even worse. His current .317 OBP is not just disappointing, it’s downright unacceptable in a leadoff capacity. Lugo’s hitting is not that bad – though he is treading at .270 right now – it’s what happens when he doesn’t hit the ball that’s a problem. He’s got only 12 walks through more than a quarter of the season and he’s on pace for 130 strikeouts.

On the plus side is the pop in Lugo’s bat. He’s got a slugging percentage of .458, and his 8 homeruns trail only Hidalgo, Bagwell and Berkman for most on the club. Some of that slugging is coming with no one on base though, when he leads off games, and it’s wasted to some degree. Not to knock his longballs and the much appreciated runs – it’s just that with only five doubles and one triple on the season, it’s tough to argue that it’s okay for him to get on base less because he’s farther along when he does get on. He isn’t.

It’s okay if he only gets to first as long as he’s there constantly or can advance himself via the stolen base. Last season Lugo swiped 22 bags and was caught 9 times. That’s a little better than a 2-to-1 ratio, which is the break-even point according to baseball theorists. Less than 2-to-1 and you should not bother, greater and you should go when the situation is favorable. Of course it takes some time to learn which side of 2-to-1 you’re on, and the threat of stealing alone has enough value to warrant giving it a shot when you can. This season Lugo has stolen 5 and been caught 4 times – another disappointing stat that suggests he is miscast in the leadoff role.

Right now Julio Lugo’s hitting numbers look very similar to those of another player with the “exciting” and “surprising power” labels, Jose Hernandez, and not like a leadoff man’s. That’s not an indictment of Julio Lugo, but a question of whether he’s ready, able, or suited to fill the role he’s being asked to for this team. Houston fans have been spoiled by Craig Biggio in the leadoff spot – he hasn’t had an on-base percentage below .380 since 1993 – but even St. Biggio had on OBP around .350 in his first 3+ seasons. He just wasn’t a leadoff hitter then, and Julio Lugo should not be now.

But if Lugo is not the man to lead off, who is? A general lack of speed on the Astros makes it a difficult question indeed. The obvious answer seems to be Biggio – he’s been doing it well for years and his on-base percentage is a robust .395 right now. Speed is an obvious concern for a 35-year-old in his 14th season who is coming off major knee surgery, yet speed is seemingly a non-factor anyway since Lugo has not been effective on the bases. Whether through ability, guile, favoritism from Joe Ump, or all of the above, Biggio would be definitely be on base much more often than Lugo. Even absent a strong stolen base threat, the Astros need the consistent ability to reach at the top of the order that Biggio brings. And it’s not as if Bidge is exactly slow. He can still advance two bases on singles and score from second on doubles.

Biggio also offers the patience and experience to let his pitcher get a spell on the pine after his AB, and to force the opposing pitcher to show more than one type of pitch to start off the game. Are those things actually valuable? Some say yes, some say no; they’re probably just the last few straws on the camel’s back.

If Biggio were to lead off, Larry Dierker’s probable lineup would have Lance Berkman moving up to hit second, Richard Hidalgo fourth, and Jeff Bagwell and Moises Alou staying in the third and fifth spots. It’s also possible Lugo could hit second. He had some success there last season and his power would be more advantageous than at the top, but on balance the same problem with his on-base percentage persists in that scenario. Also, if Berkman is hitting second the Astros might be able to put Biggio in motion for the switch-hitter – something they would be leery of with the hit-or-miss Lugo at the dish.

Tilting at Windmills…

A statistic has reared its head repeatedly over the last few weeks, seemingly as some sort of defense against Enron Field’s ESPN-aided reputation as a homerun park. Varied sources have offered it up, but the best known culprit is Astros broadcaster Alan Ashby. He has repeatedly pointed out that the Astros have launched more big flies on the road than at home. After 42 games, 21 on the road and 21 at home, he was right – the ‘Stros had 32 yard-jobs at Enron and 35 on the circuit.

So what’s the problem with repeating those numbers? There really isn’t one if you are just yammering out statistics to fill up airtime or if you’re trying to say Houston’s lineup can probe the bleachers of any stadium in the land. It’s when you use those numbers to make implications about Enron Field that you run into trouble.

We start with the obvious: teams get more at-bats on the road than at home. Sometimes they will have a lead at home and not bat in the ninth inning. For that reason, additive statistics like homerun totals should be converted to rate statistics like homeruns per at-bat. That levels the playing field, and as long as the samples are similar, dispenses with the need to base it on an equal number of games.

Converting the Astros’ homerun totals over the first 42 games to homeruns per at-bat tells us they homered about once every 22 at-bats at home and once every 21 at-bats on the road. That isn’t much of a difference, especially through just a quarter of the season, but the numbers seem to hold up, right? Enron Field is not a homerun hitter’s dream.

Not exactly. The Astros are not the only team on the field when they play, so their performance alone is only half the story. Open-Star opposition has gone yard 34 times at Enron, but only 25 times on the road. In case you’re curious, that means Astros pitching allowed a homerun roughly every 5 2/3 innings at home versus every 7 2/3 innings on the road. The opposition’s total was +9 homeruns at EFUS, which easily outweighs the -3 the Astros tallied. All told, the Astros and their opponents combined to hit 66 homeruns at Enron compared to 60 on the road through 42 games.

We don’t have to stop there. We could compare Enron to other parks around the league to see whether it is one of the easier spots to go deep – it is – but the point is clear. Just because the Astros have hit homeruns more easily on the road to this point in the season doesn’t mean Enron is not a homerun park.

That said, Ashby’s statistic is far from worthless. While it says almost nothing about Enron Field, it does scratch at an important issue for the ballclub – whether the Astros have the kind of team that can take advantage of their home park.

One idea is that they do not need to stack their lineup with power hitters and out-slug the opposition. True mashers won’t get much of a boost from the dimensions at Enron, their taters will just go further beyond the fences than they would at Ted Turner’s Vanity Field, but line drive hitters with warning-track power could see a real boon. Right now it appears the average hitter around the league is getting more homerun benefit from Enron than the average Astro hitter.

It’ll be interesting to watch as the season wears on. For now the best bet is to accept that Enron Field is a pretty good homerun park – and realize that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Besides, isn’t everyone happy with all the media attention Houston is finally getting?

Note: The Astros have played three games since this piece was prepared – all losses at the hands of facial-hair artist Ryan Klesko and the Padres. In those games, the Astros allowed 6 adios muchachos to the Friars and tallied just 3 of their own, 2 of those by Jeffrey Robert Bagwell. That is 9 more yacks at Enron in three games, which makes the park seem homer-friendly, yet the Astros rate of one/game for the series continues to make them look better on the road.

With a fifth of the schedule complete and no real production from third base since the early weeks of the season, the Astros began to examine ways to solidify the starting eight. Despite his maturity, great attitude, and a healthy homerun binge to start the year, at .217/.289/.450 with an error every five starts, Chris Truby just was not getting it done.

That essentially left the Astros with three options. They could reduce Truby’s playing time and give more starts to Charlie Hayes, they could promote minor league third-sacker Morgan Ensberg, or they could look outside the organization. Then Tampa Bay waived Vinny Castilla, remaining on the hook for this final season of his contract. The Astros were able to pick him up for just the league minimum for the rest of the season – along with the promise he’d get a genuine shot as a starter, to prove his value as he enters the free agent market after the season. So what made the Astros choose that route?

Giving more time to Charlie Hayes was problematic, primarily because he was born in 1965. That is a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away. Hayes’ age may not be a hindrance exactly, but it certainly suggests he won’t be surprising anyone. It’s been five years since he was an everyday starter, eight since he put up his career-best numbers in a Coors-aided 1993 campaign. His glovework has never been superior except when charging the bunt, and his best offensive skill is fouling off pitches until he gets something he can handle. Best for the Astros that he continues to provide an experienced bat that can execute in close-and-late situations.

The Astros’ other option, Morgan Ensberg, seemed like a no-brainer to many. Ensberg did not do a ton of hitting in his two A-ball seasons, but he showed an excellent eye, with on-base percentages more than a hundred points greater than his batting average. That got him promoted to Round Rock in 2000, and he pounded Texas League pitching to the tune of .300/.416/.545 with 28 homers, 95 runs and 90 RBI in 137 games. This year he has advanced another level to Triple-A New Orleans. As a Zephyr, Ensberg is hitting .287/.356/.581 with 11 homeruns, 24 runs and 27 RBI through 34 games. That is fine production at the zenith of minor league competition, so what gives?

Despite those excellent numbers he’s built up now, Ensberg had a difficult start to the season and has what for him is an unusually high strikeout-to-walk ratio, eerily similar to Chris Truby’s. If he suffered the same start for the Astros, they would not get the injection of offense they were looking for in making a move in the first place. Further, reports had Ensberg a little erratic on defense at New Orleans, though the Astros are not concerned about that aspect of his game in the long-term.

There is also nothing at third base immediately behind Ensberg in the Astros system that looks like Major League material. If he were to come up and flop, Houston would have used its last bullet before the All-Star break, possibly harming the development of the young man they feel can be their next third baseman along the way. Inserting rookies as everyday starters is best done at the start of a season or in an absolute no-lose situation, neither of which applies to the Astros right now.

Yet the biggest single thing holding Ensberg back was that the Astros were not fully committed to giving up on Truby until Castilla became an option. It likely would have taken at least another few weeks with no improvement from Truby for Ensberg to get his shot, and even then it is difficult to gauge the potential reaction of Astros veterans to getting attuned to still more new youth on the left side of the infield.

Astros brass had to be mindful of all these issues and more in not promoting Ensberg, then the availability of Vinny Castilla nipped the decision-making process in the bud. But was Chris Truby something of an innocent in all this?

Larry Dierker is on record believing “He did nothing to deserve going to the minor leagues.” Had the Great Bill Spiers been available to hit the tough right-handers, maybe things would have been different. Had Brad Ausmus gotten off to a better start offensively or the pitching staff shown any acumen with the bats, maybe the bottom of the lineup would not have looked so weak.

Some of the numbers Truby accumulated compare nicely with other third basemen around the league. Just three had more longballs and six had more RBI on the young season. Driving in 22 runs is not easy with just 26 hits, though it is certainly helped by the on-base percentages of the guys that hit in front of him. Plenty of established players had disappointing starts in terms of batting average, and it’s plausible that given time Truby would have picked it up. He was not yet a fixture on the Astros though, and with a somewhat limited ceiling he did not have the luxury of time to sweat out a poor start – not with a free shot at Vinny Castilla.

In the Matter of Neyer v. Ausmus

ESPN.com columnist Rob Neyer recently turned his attention to the Astros, specifically to whittle at the notion that Brad Ausmus is helping the Astros pitching staff and to suggest he is actually hurting the team with his bat.

First things first. Brushback usually finds Rob Neyer an interesting, thought-provoking read. True, he criticized this column at one point, but it was, in all fairness, not as organized and coherent as it might have been. So no axe to grind beyond the current issue. And if he did not so famously use his space to critique other writers, Brushback might not be comfortable running his words about the Astros through the grinder. But he does, and Brushback is.

On to the matter of Neyer v. Ausmus. To back up his assertion that Ausmus is not making a difference with the pitching staff, Neyer presents the following:

Pitcher       2000   2001    Diff
————————————
S. Elarton       4.81   6.22   +1.41
W. Miller        5.14   3.02   -2.12
J. Lima          6.65   7.04   +0.39
K. Bottenfield   4.50   4.88   +0.38
O. Dotel         5.40   4.72   -0.68

The first thing you might ask yourself is why Kent Bottenfield was so utterly available after putting up that ERA last season. It’s simple – he didn’t. His actual ERA for the season was 5.40. Maybe Neyer just got his numbers crossed, and maybe he accidentally used only Bottenfield’s 8-game ERA with Philadelphia, but turning a decline into a decent-sized improvement for 20 percent of his sample changes things a lot.

Now we turn to Scott Elarton, the biggest culprit on the list with an ERA of 6.22. At this same point in 2000, 8 starts into his season, Elarton’s ERA was 7.17. He did not get below 6.22 until his fourteenth start, so it could pretty easily be argued he is ahead of his pace from last season.

Obviously the same argument holds with another bad guy, Jose Lima, who was shellacked in his fifth start of 2000 and never recovered. Last season he had seven starts in which he allowed 7 or more earned runs and 2 with double-digit earned runs. This season he has allowed 7 once, probably only because he’s been yanked more quickly. If that’s true though, it’s still Larry Dierker doing the yanking. Who is telling Dierk to stick a fork in Lima?

Anyway, quibbling with the samples probably takes away from the real argument, sample size. Not in the statistical sense – Brushback is mathematically-challenged – but in the “it’s still early” sense. It seems logical that if a catcher indeed has impact on a pitching staff, that impact will reveal itself more clearly as time passes, not starkly at the beginning. The catcher learns (or relearns) the pitchers’ tendencies, strengths, and mechanics; the pitchers get familiar with how the catcher works and what he expects.

In short, Neyer sets up a straw man – that Ausmus has “some sort of magical, staff-improving ability” that should work overnight and become evident to numerical analysis if it exists – then proceeds to clumsily knock it down with stats that come from small samples or are just plain false.

As far as offense from Ausmus goes, Neyer gets that one for now. But it is only fair to note that there are players all over baseball who’ve gotten off to bad starts. A student of the statistical analysis of baseball should understand the symmetry involved. For every Albert Pujols there will be a Brad Ausmus. His career says he will eventually gravitate to better numbers, unless folks willing to react to blips get him out of the lineup first.

Clearly Astros pitching has improved tremendously. Right now the staff sits at 9-6 with a smooth 4.03 ERA. That falls in the middle of the NL pack – excellent coupled with the team’s potent offense and a half-run better than the next best team. In 2000, their ERA of 5.41 was dead last in the National League, and the biggest culprit in the rotation was Jose Lima. So why is El Loco still a Stro when given Brad Ausmus, winter-ball, and time for an attitude adjustment he has shown no improvement? 

There should be no doubt Gerry Hunsicker looked for a way to move the mercurial righty during the offseason. It is not easy to find someone to swallow hard and roll the dice on a guy whose 2000 was so negatively epic though, and Lima’s paycheck doesn’t help. It would buy Sally Struthers’ kids all the cups of coffee they could drink. Who knows, maybe she could set Jose up with some correspondence courses on pitching.

Still there is another reason Jose Lima is a tough sell – Jose Lima. Yes, GM’s all over the contiguous forty-eight and Canada can obviously still smell what he cooked up in 2000, but his ’98 and ’99 seasons were excellent. Yes, he is on the receiving end of a fat paycheck, but owners are notorious for compounding one another’s financial mistakes.

The biggest sticking point has got to be that if Jose Lima is not on your team, you hate Jose Lima. His mannerisms on the mound were an embarrassment to many when he was winning. Now that he is losing, they are an embarrassment to all. You get the feeling his picture is in the middle of more than a few dartboards. It is simply hard to imagine any GM wants the head occupant of the hitters’ top-ten most wanted list on his team.

That leaves the Astros with just a few options regarding the Loco Kid. They can keep trotting Lima to the mound, getting enough good performances here and there to tease them into continuing the cycle until he either gets it back completely or loses it completely. They could drop him in the pen and give his slot to either Kent Bottenfield or Tony McKnight, who pitched well for the big club last season and looks solid again at New Orleans, or even Olympian Roy Oswalt. They could even assign him to the minors for the purpose of granting his unconditional release.

Putting Lima in the pen may seem a little harsh, but consider some of the humility going around baseball. Kent Bottenfield, Chris Holt, and Andy Benes are all established starters, all had better seasons than Jose Lima in 2000, and all have been moved to various pens already this season. No one could say the Astros did not give Lima a chance.

Releasing Lima would be drastic indeed. Drayton McLane would have no chance at getting his money’s worth, and the Astros rotation might suddenly look a little thin on innings-eaters. But Wade Miller has shown he can work deep with regularity, Scott Elarton has picked up where he left off in 2000, Shane Reynolds is back, and the same options that go for replacing Lima would be available if Octavio Dotel cannot get a handle on going through an opposing lineup three times.

There is one more slim possibility, which is to trade Lima. It is a bad time of the season for trades, and it’s doubtful they would find many, if any, interested parties, but there are ways it could work.

They could try to staple him to a highly touted player, much as they did with Mike Hampton and Derek Bell, but to a lesser degree. He might not look so bad in a case such as that to a pitching-poor team with nowhere to go this season like the Devil Rays or the Angels.

A trade might also be easier if the Astros agree to eat a good portion of Lima’s contract. If they paid around four million, the two million difference picked up on the receiving end would defray the incentives cost of having Bottenfield in the rotation for the rest of the season. Four million sounds like a lot, but the Astros are paying it either way.

It is possible the Astros can continue as they are, with Lima, and keep winning. He only pitches every fifth day, and despite his ridiculous 7.17 ERA, his record is 1-1 and the Astros are .500 in his starts. But the goal should not be to get by – it should be to improve. The question has become whether having Lima start every fifth game gives the Astros a better chance to win than if they ran out any of their other options. The answer has become no.

Sandwiching Lima’s pathetic Saturday showing against the Cardinals were two of the finest pitching performances Astros fans have seen in big games in some time. Scott Elarton was masterful in allowing just one run on three hits over seven against the Division champs Friday, and although he gave up three runs – all on two Albert Pujols yard jobs – Wade Miller was flat-out dominant Sunday night. The list of pitchers who have had strikeout totals in the teens is pretty selective, and now includes this young righty.

Wade Miller’s rubber game with the Cards was a hard-fought one-run affair, the Astros’ Achilles’ heel last season. The story was different Sunday though, as Miller hit for himself late in a tie game and stayed in an extra inning to get the win after Craig Biggio found a way to get on and score with help from Lance Berkman and Richard Hidalgo in the bottom of the eighth.

Billy Wagner slammed the door shut, and while the Astros made no errors, the Cardinals were not so lucky with Jim Edmonds getting picked off first by Miller. That is what it takes to win the tight ones.

The game was a very exciting finish to what had been a feast or famine series with rival Cards. Combined with a Cubs loss, the Astros moved up to just a game-and-a-half out of first and a .588 winning percentage.

It is only April of course. There is a long way to go and much can change, but right now baseball’s schedule-makers look prescient. Thirteen of the Astros’ final sixteen games are against the Cubs and Cardinals. A six-game trainstand with both – sadly, the two most popular teams among Missouri denizens – is followed by a four-game set at Wrigley to wrap up the season.

The Astros started the season with a 4-2 homestand, then followed that up with a 4-4 showing on about as long a road trip as they will have all season. That puts them at 8-6, good for second place in the NL Central. An 8-6 record doesn’t sound very special, but if they were to go 8-6 every 14 games all season, the Astros would end with over 90 wins.

Going .500 on the road is viewed as acceptable for good teams, but this trip was a little disappointing anyway. With a chance to sweep Central-champion St. Louis last Sunday, the Astros came out on the short end of a 6-5 decision when they missed some chances to score after J.D. “Coppertop” Drew’s sixth-inning tie-breaker homer. It was the eventual game-winner for the Redbirds, as two potentially game-tying Astros runners were thrown out at home over the late innings and the decision slipped from Houston’s grasp.

Then the Astros made their way to Pittsburgh for their PNC Park debut. A limping Pirates team looked like world beaters by holding the Stros to only four runs in sweeping the abbreviated two game set. Two Pirates pitchers looked good, Bronson Arroyo in long relief and closer Mike Williams, but the starters – Jimmy Anderson and Omar Olivares – seemed in imminent danger throughout.

Unfortunately, Jeff Bagwell was the only healthy veteran threat in the middle of the Astros lineup, and he was not hitting well despite this not being his first rodeo. The rest of the road crew looked young and outsmarted with runners on. Fielding errors from Truby and Lugo on the left side of the infield did not help matters at all, and Shane Reynolds took a loss in his first start of the season.

The Astros face some problems that developed during the disappointing end to the road trip. It looks as though Doug Brocail is gone for months if not all season with a tear in an elbow ligament. He just had surgery last season to remove loose bodies from his elbow, so perhaps he came back too fast or tried to do too much in the spring.

Meanwhile, Bill Spiers has been diagnosed with a degenerative disc and will miss significant time. This brings Orlando Merced and Charlie Hayes’ readiness sharply into focus; Merced pinch-hitting left-handed and Hayes as the third-base backup. Jose Vizcaino may plug in at third too.

All are pleased to have Shane Reynolds back, but his initial outing and his facial hair were less than stellar, and Kent Bottenfield is not happy at all to be relegated to the bullpen. “This is just not what I do, bottom line,” said the thick man.

Now the Astros begin a nine-game homestand that should serve as the season’s first good barometer amidst this minor disillusionment and dissension. They start with another three against Central rival St. Louis, losers of 5 of 7 but coming off a victory over horribly ugly Randy Johnson behind their ace Darryl Kile. The Tweets will have to go to war without Big Mac, but it won’t be the first time.

Then the Astros face playoff nemesis Atlanta, currently averaging only 3 runs a game, before capping off the stand with a 3-game set against a Florida Marlins team that has gotten decent pitching but has yet to score double-digit runs.

Though they will have to play heady ball to win each of these series, the Astros have an excellent opportunity to get back to a division lead while the Cubs are taking their first nine-game trip.

Scouting the Central: Chicago

The Cubs are off to a cool 10-5 start behind very solid pitching. There is no established pitcher in the division more capable of dominating a game than either Jon Lieber and his wicked offspeed stuff or Kerry Wood with his heat, yet they have been the two weakest links for the Cubs’ rotation thus far. Kevin Tapani, Julian Tavarez, and Jason Bere are a combined 8-0, and the resurrected Jeff Fassero has dropped 8 saves on the opposition.

The rest of the pen was the Cubs’ biggest problem last year, but Kyle Farnsworth and Todd Van Poppel have offered good early returns on what must have seemed like a l-o-n-g-term investment last season. Nasty lefty Felix Heredia – the five-fingered Felix – has yet to allow a run through ten appearances.

The Cubs aren’t scaring anyone with their offense. Scammin’ Sammy Sosa is the only big-name bat. The parts are there for them to manufacture some runs in Eric Young, Ricky Gutierrez, Bill Mueller – along with Rondell White, these are all solid contributors at their positions.

A second consistent longball threat is vital for a team to avoid prolonged scoring droughts. Todd Hundley, the only lefty with power in this lineup, may heat up and be that guy when he plays and White offers a good deal of pop if he can stay healthy, yet their best power hope may be 6’6″ first baseman Julio Zuleta. The 26-year-old has looked good early, and anything that keeps Matt Stairs and Ron Coomer on the pine should help.

Right now everything is rosy in Chicagoland, but the season is a Marathon bar. The Cubs feature too many players who make extended stays on the DL an annual event, and they would have to consider themselves very, very lucky if the early performances of guys like Van Poppel, Farnsworth, Fassero, Tavarez, and Bere continue all season.

The lineup looks pretty feeble when they start both catcher Joe Girardi and centerfielder Damon Buford, and though their bench is more sound than it’s been in some time with veterans like Hundley available, there still is no good outfield backup. This is a likeable team, but there is not quite enough there to compete for first all season in the NL Central.

The NL Central by payroll (millions of dollars):
77 – St. Louis Cardinals
64 – Chicago Cubs
60 – Houston Astros
53 – Pittsburgh Pirates
45 – Cincinnati Reds
43 – Milwaukee Brewers

Train Wreck 2000 – The Astros’ pathetic inaugural display at Enron Field at Union Station.

While many in the Astros organization spent the last six months trying to wake up from that nightmare, Gerry Hunsicker had to relive it over and over to decide what had to be done to keep it from happening again. Much of his work goes on in the offseason, and it was his responsibility to use that time to ensure the Astros do not suffer a similar fate in 2001: A Baseball Odyssey. Here Brushback begins to openly wonder what hath Gerry wrought.

The most obvious need identified by the Hun was pitching, as the 2000 Astros suffered through the single most embarrassing staff performance in club history. There were a few bright spots, like 22-year-old right-hander Tony McKnight’s welcome showing (4-1, 3.86 in 6 starts). Gritty character on the mound and exceptional command netted Outlaw Scott Elarton an admirable 17 victories. Before his back cried no mas, Shane Reynolds’ performance earned him an overdue but respectful nod to the All-Star team from Bobby “Barefoot, Kitchen” Cox. By and large however, Astros pitching was a debacle in 2000.

Gerry Hunsicker clearly believed the unreliable bullpen was the chief culprit. Through the season and beyond he punched the tickets of practically everyone in the pen. A few notable dogies from 2000 continue to range the Open Star Ranch in Billy Wagner, Jay Powell, Wayne Franklin, and Jose Cabrera. Billy the Kid and Stonewall Powell have both been solid to amazing performers in the past and now look to come back strong after surgery. It would be a stretch to call Cabrera or Franklin solid, but they are young and likely as good as anyone’s eleventh and twelfth pitchers.

So long to Mike Maddux, as The Professor’s smarter brother stays on as the pitching coach for the AA Round Rock Express. Thanks but no thanks went out to Marc Exxon Valdes and Everyman Joe Slusarski, neither of which was offered a deal to stay with Houston and both of whom spent their springs trying to stick with the malignant Atlanta Braves. Alas, poor Yorkis Perez seems intent on remaining left-handed; thus he remains in baseball, but fortunately not as an Astro. Jason Green got his papers and got picked up by the Rockies – last report has him out with an arm injury. And adios to Nitro. After the trade that simultaneously brought Scott Linebrink to the Astros organization and relieved the TalkZone of its most annoying mantra until one man’s discovery that Julio Lugo can rake, Danger Doug Henry soaked a few innings for the Giants – and a couple of homerun balls in the bay – before an offseason deal sent him clucking to Kansas City.

To caulk these gaps in the pen the Hun has taken some gambles. In the controversial trade that sent Chris “No Fear” Holt, Roger “The Excuse” Cedeno, and Mitch “Expletive Deleted” Meluskey to Motown, he bargained for Nelson Cruz and Doug Brocail along with Brad Ausmus. Then he went out and signed free agents Mike Jackson and Kent Bottenfield.

Doug Brocail is one tough hombre. His no-nonsense demeanor on the mound has earned him kudos from teammates everywhere he’s been, and alleged baseball expert Peter Gammons puts him in his top ten of baseball’s clubhouse guys. Besides intangibles though, Brocail brings a track record of exceptional performance. Over the last four seasons – three of which were in Tiger Stadium – Brocail averaged 60 appearances, 68 innings, a 3.07 ERA (to the league’s roughly 4.75 over the same stretch), and a better than 2-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio.

Pitching with pain from elbow inflammation, Brocail fell off from stellar to simply good last season. Surgery to remove loose bodies from his right elbow brought an early end to his 2000 and was a contributing factor in the Tigers’ willingness to deal him. Now the Astros are the team hoping he can rebuild the arm strength to continue to post good numbers. Brocail’s experience and skill should allow him to remain highly effective even if he never regains his full prior velocity. He keeps homeruns and baserunners to a minimum, has outstanding command, and knows how to work professional hitters. Perhaps most importantly, his attitude about pitching at Enron Field can be summed up in two words: big deal.

Despite his regal surname, Nelson Cruz is something of a wildcard. Twenty-eight years of age is a little late to break out, yet Cruz did it in style last season. He posted a 5-2 record and 3.07 ERA in relief for the Tigers after several years as an iffy starter prospect in their system. Hopefully relief work is his niche and it has just taken him a long time to get the opportunity to find it. A bad minor league starter with a good arm often becomes a reliever, and a good starter sometimes becomes a reliever through necessity on the big club, but mediocre starters like Cruz can get lost in the shuffle. However circuitously he got here though, Cruz has arrived. Yet no matter how good it was, the small sample provided last season should cause fans to suspend judgement, though the Astros believe 2000 was no fluke for Cruz and will give him every opportunity to be successful in Houston.

If Nelson Cruz is a wildcard, Mike Jackson makes it a pair of jokers. Jackson spent all of last season on the shelf after shoulder surgery before the season, so the market was thin when Astros made a hometown offer to the venerable righty. Getting his arm strength back is tedious work, but Jackson has had some solid spring outings, and he would really have to fall off from even his current level to resemble some of the detritus that filled the pen for the Astros last season.

The 6’2″ Jackson has had a tremendous career, spanning 14 seasons, 835 games and over a thousand innings. Many Astros fans are not familiar with him because he’s spent much of his career on the West Coast and in the American League, but Jackson’s ERA of 3.26 is about a run better than the league’s for his career. After years as a fantastic setup man, he became the full-time closer for the Indians during 1997 and responded with 79 saves in the next two seasons. Those same two seasons were Billy Wagner’s best – he posted 69 saves. If Mike Jackson is right, the Astros could flirt with having the best pen in the league; at a minimum they will have an option besides Dotel if Wagner cannot get back to form.

Big Kent Bottenfield gets mention here as he seems slated to work long relief in some capacity before the 2001 season is said and done. No chicanery like calling his stuff an arsenal will fly, but he can spot the ball, knows the hitters, works smart, and is willing to do anything on the field to get back to the form that allowed him to win 18 games for a mediocre St. Louis club in 1999. At 32, Bottenfield has relatively little wear on his arm because of usage patterns, so age should not be a concern. Nor should the bulk he’s been pitching with for years. For the first time in a while the Astros enter the season with a decent fifth starter/long relief option.

There is probably nothing more demoralizing to a team than failing to hold reasonably solid leads, and all signs point to a huge improvement there. It did not take a full season at Enron to show how important the bullpen between starter and closer is in today’s game. Totaling the ledger shows the Astros losing lone veteran contributor Doug Henry from the pen and a slew of guys who will likely spend 2001 in the minors, and gaining Mike Jackson, Doug Brocail, Nelson Cruz, and the option of Kent Bottenfield. To a man, these guys are hounded by question marks, just as Wagner and Powell are as they return from surgery. But Astro fans have every reason to hope, as even three of these six being effective would be three more than they had last season. Early returns give Gerry Hunsicker high marks for stitching together this potential monster. One way or another, it will be scary.

“Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.” — Sam Walton

Easily the biggest complaint of Astros fans is that Drayton McLane adheres too strongly to the business style of his old partner, the late Sam Walton. They say he runs the Astros too much like a business, with the notion–seemingly outdated in today’s dot-com world–of turning a profit, not enough like a hobby that a “good” owner would sink his millions into. But Astros fans have enjoyed a special benefit from the Walton/McLane business philosophy, and it’s a big part of what makes and keeps them fans. 

Whatever anyone thinks of Drayton McLane as an owner, it should begin with an acknowledgement that he has made a sincere effort to keep the Astros customer friendly. It’s an old-school idea — one that has enjoyed a revival in American business with the success of Wal-Mart but isn’t always present around Major League Baseball. It’s questionable whether Drayton McLane was more embarrassed by the Astros’ play on the field in 2000 or by the players, with the way some conducted themselves both on the field and in the media. He’s trying to repair both at once now. The strategy: Short on characters, long on character.

McLane recognizes that the players are the connection to the fans, the reason they come to the games. Controversial players do not wear the open star very long, and the ones fans fall in love with can count on Houston to try to keep them in town as long as they perform. Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Billy Spiers, Tony Eusebio, Richard Hidalgo, Billy Wagner, Shane Reynolds, and even Jose Lima can attest that the money has generally been there for the guys who do their jobs well while adding to the kinship between fans and players.

It’s been with regret that the Astros have said goodbye over the years to some players who fit the mold they are looking for. To McLane’s way of thinking, it’s a necessary compromise in the world of dollars and cents. After the 2001 season he will have to decide whether it makes sense to dedicate the dollars to Moises Alou — which will in some part be based on how well he fits the Astros mold.

At the tail end of a monstrous, MVP-caliber 1998 season, Moises Alou had a slow month heading into the playoffs. Then he topped a 3-for-16 showing at the plate against San Diego in the NLDS with memorably poor play in left field. During the offseason he blew out his knee, reportedly falling off a treadmill, and was lost to the Astros for the 1999 season. Fans raised their hopes for a timely return as that year’s playoffs approached. But Alou re-injured his knee and cemented the absence of his play. Then he did not make the trip to sit in the dugout and cheer his teammates on, and cemented the absence of his veteran leadership.

With that history, Mo Alou does not seem to fit Drayton McLane’s Astros mold. He has a semi-permanent half-smile that comes off as a smirk to those who don’t know him. He can be short, flippant, and sometimes sarcastic. Though friendly with teammates, he is anything but a camera hound and avoids giving interviews when possible, missing opportunities to defend himself — perhaps feeling he should not have to.

Alou’s teammates have defended his choice to not be present on the bench for the playoffs. They understood that after being gone all season he did not feel like part of the team and wouldn’t even know where to sit. They understood that injuries happen, even in the offseason, and did not blame him for that. They know how nasty the Padres pitching staff was in the 1998 playoffs, and they know the lights in left at Qualcomm really are a problem for opposing players. In short, they knew all along he wasn’t mailing it in.

It’s been the fans who haven’t known it, and that’s who McLane wants to connect with. Even after one of the great comebacks in the history of baseball in 2000, the popular sentiment among Astros faithful has been to deal Alou away. Maybe to find a spot for Daryle Ward, maybe to find some pitching, maybe just to find a way to say goodbye to some painful memories. Finally Moises Alou has opened up a little though, and the contrast between he and the Frank Thomas-Sammy Sosa-Gary Sheffields of the world should be apparent.

Attitude:
“Whether I stay here and get an extension or become a free agent, I’m in a good situation.”

Honesty:
“There is nothing else I need to show them, except to stay healthy. I didn’t do that very well last year.”

Grasp of reality:
“If I were (the Astros) I would do the same thing they are doing right now and wait and see what happens. Right now, an extension is not in the back of my mind.”

Humility:
“They took care of the people they needed to take care of. I understand that. Baggy and Biggio are their franchise players. I’m not. I came from another team.”

Desire:
“Everybody knows that I really like it here. Everybody knows what kind of relationship I have with Bagwell and (Craig) Biggio. I get along well with everybody here and this is a good place for me.”

Thank you Joseph Duarte of the Houston Chronicle, who reeled these thoughts in from the most enigmatic presence on the Astros and revealed a full-color picture. Other writers have tried, but they always seem to end up casting Alou in sepia. This must be the man Jeff Bagwell stands behind through thick and thin. This must be the man whose father, Felipe Alou, is among the most respected in the sport. This must be the man Drayton McLane spoke with over the offseason, and this must be why he is still an Astro.

Moises Alou wants to be in Houston; he’s said so repeatedly, says so now in spring training, and even exercised a no-trade clause to remain in town. It’s time for the fans to befriend him, wholeheartedly, because wanting to be an Astro fits the mold. If only they all wanted it so bad.

While McLane keeps his philosophies on running a ballclub in place, it is possible there will never be a World Series winner in Houston. No matter how much business sense it seems to make to the owner, it’s not easy to win on half the Yankees’ payroll. Assembling the cast in an old-fashioned, fan-friendly mold is a good start for a team on a budget though, and if they ever do win, they’ll be among the teams most beloved by their town in history — even Moises Alou.

Besides, he comes cheap for a player with his ability, and you know what Sam Walton said about controlling expenses.

“Already, (the Tigers) feel more like a family than Houston ever did. I don’t respect that organization at all. It’s a joke, from top to bottom.”

He switch-hit. He hit .300. He hit with power. He had more offensive ability than any catcher in Astros history. Yet with these sickening words, Mitch Meluskey made clear to anyone with doubt remaining exactly why the Houston Astros dealt him to Detroit. He has less class than a substitute teacher and about as much professionalism as Mary Kay Letourneau. There is no player more fit to wear the tools of ignorance.

It is all too appropriate that this mindset of Meluskey’s is revealed just as Gary Sheffield says his double-digit millions simply will not do. It comes just as Barry Bonds demands to be able to tell his family whether they will be in San Francisco in five years. It comes just as Sammy Sosa tries to parlay showing up to spring training hours early into some semblance of commitment to the Cubs after months of threats. There is a common thread.

Meluskey’s remarks should come as no surprise. It is exactly how he carried himself on the field for the Houston Astros all last season. Still, to hear such thoughtless words from the mouth of a 27-year-old man is a little frightening. He calls a Detroit team he has spent mere hours with “more like family” after the commitment the Astros showed him. He calls the Astros organization “a joke, from top to bottom” after rising bottom to top through their system. He doesn’t respect the Astros organization at all–the organization that went fishing with a wide enough net to reel him in and had enough faith to make him their catcher.

From Minor Opinions on this site in April of 1998:

“Picked up as a Class A catcher in one of those moves that doesn’t even make the paper, Meluskey was traded by Cleveland for Buck McNabb, an outfielder who played in the Astro system for approximately 50 years. At the time, he looked like a dime-a-dozen, can’t-hit-his-way-out-of-a-wet-paper-bag catcher.”

The Astros saw something in this kid and traded for him. They endured his fits and spurts, then said goodbye to the starting catcher from a division-winning team and gave him a shot at playing Major League Baseball. He had serious shoulder problems along the way, but the club never gave up on his ability. The catcher spot was his, handed to him on a silver platter with the trade of Brad Ausmus. The Houston Astros gave Mitchell Wade Meluskey of Yakima, Washington the opportunity to cash in a winning lotto ticket every year for the next ten years.

Sure, there were strings attached. They asked that he perform, and they asked that he carry himself with a modicum of class.

Meluskey’s answer was to curse to the heavens–repeatedly–in front of a home crowd that included the Baptist grocer who signs his paychecks, Drayton McLane, some thirty feet away. Not just any curse word, but the one you still do not hear on television unless you get HBO. Meluskey got benched for that, but he did not change.

On one occasion Meluskey bickered so intensely and incessantly with an umpire in Arizona that he was benched so the team would not suffer the crew’s wrath the next day, and so he might understand his role as a catcher did not include antagonizing his pitcher’s judge and jury. He did not change.

Meluskey spent the 2000 season asleep on defense, showed no special inclination to improve, and came to blows with a teammate who had the nerve to get to batting practice on time. The Astros traded him for the very catcher they traded away to give him an opportunity, but the irony was lost on Meluskey somehow, and through all this he did not change.

“Already, (the Tigers) feel more like a family than Houston ever did.”

Sure they do, Mitch. Several hours with your new Motown friends should be plenty to make a comment like that. Robert Fick and the fightin’est team in baseball are probably just your speed. But it will be interesting to see if you still feel that way after Phil Garner asks you to change something.

“I don’t respect that organization at all.”

Wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, you don’t have the respect to spare, Mitch.

“(The Astros organization is) a joke from top to bottom.”

Here’s a joke for you Mitch:

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Ausmus.

The Astros pitchers and catchers report to spring training today and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. Apologies, folks, but we remain in the throes of Quiet Time. The big move since last we met was exercising the option on Brad Ausmus. While the sense of direction indicated by that move is pleasing, this space goes to a treatment on the dreaded OPS.

What The…? 

Exactly what is OPS? The short answer is On-base Plus Slugging, the sum of OBP (on-base percentage) and SLG (slugging percentage.) You just add the two numbers together and the total is OPS. Any baseball statistics source you find is likely to have OBP and SLG readily available; OPS may even be added together already. But just in case their makeups are useful to you, and they will be for this discussion, here are quick explanations of where OBP and SLG come from.

OBP is a player’s on-base percentage, a numerical reflection of how often he has gotten on base as a rate. The formula for OBP is (H+BB+HBP)/(AB+BB+HBP+SF). All of those letters translate into this: Add the number of hits (H) to the number of walks (BB) to the number of times hit by pitch (HBP). That gives the total number of times a player reached base successfully. Then add the number of at-bats (AB) to the number of walks (BB) to the number of times hit by pitch (HBP) to the number of sacrifices (SF). That gives you the total number of opportunities a player had to reach base successfully. Now divide the total of successful chances from the first part into the total of opportunities from the second part to get a ratio of success. More important than knowing the formula is understanding that OBP is simply the rate at which a player has reached base.

SLG is simpler than OBP to figure, but it’s a little more difficult concept. SLG is a player’s slugging percentage, a numerical reflection of how many bases he averages per at-bat. The formula for this one is (TB/AB), or total bases divided by at-bats. Both those numbers show up on stat lines, but here’s an explanation. Total bases is the cumulative number of bases for all the hits a player has gotten, (1B*1)+(2B*2)+(3B*3)+(HR*4). So figure out singles times one, doubles times two, triples times three, and home runs times four, and then add them all together; then divide that by the number of at-bats. Like OBP and batting average, SLG is represented to the third decimal place. And similar to OBP, it’s less important to know exactly how to figure SLG than it is to understand that it’s just the average number of bases a player gets per at-bat.

Caution: Deconstruction Ahead

Suppose we figure out the average number of prison terms served by criminals and call it their on-base percentage. Then we look at the average number of years served in each prison term and call it slugging percentage. A cold-blooded killer will have a huge slugging percentage, but if he serves a prison term it will probably be his last, so his OBP will be low. The local crack-fiend will always be on base, so to speak, but he’ll be bailed out and back on the corner tomorrow. These two are nowhere near the same type of criminal, yet they would have a similar OPS. The crack-fiend’s might even be higher — then I’d mistakenly call him when I need someone iced.

Ridiculous analogy? Maybe not. Problem one with OPS is that it offers absolutely no insight about a player’s ability in any one area. Baseball teams have specific needs, yet OPS moves away from the specific to the general. If a team needs a leadoff man, should it try to pull cold-blooded killer-esque Cecil Fielder from retirement? If it’s short on power should it chase the services of metaphorical crack-fiend Rickey Henderson? OPS is an attempt to stratify players by total offensive output, but tells surprisingly little about their abilities. Much more can be learned just by looking at the elements of OPS, OBP and SLG, separately. That’s not the worst of OPS, though.

No “D” In OPS

The obvious flaw in comparing players by OPS is that it omits defense completely. Most stat-geeks don’t mind that a bit since defense doesn’t add up to much in rotisserie and fantasy leagues, but in the real world it is a huge part of the game. Many people have considered various methods of measuring the real value of a player’s defense, but no one has come up with anything satisfying yet. We have ways of measuring defense in a vacuum, but no way of measuring how well it accomplishes its goal, preventing runs from scoring. We credit all of that to the pitcher and just move on, trusting our eyes to tell us who is getting it done out there.

Theoretically we should eventually be able to remedy this. What we need are models based on game results that tell us what happens, on average, when a player boots a ball or makes a diving stab–how many runs are prevented by a great play, how many are allowed by an error. This still requires an arbitrarily defined standard, though. Someone has to decide what constitutes an exceptionally good or bad play. Still, the idea behind it is solid.

Another approach to valuing defense is to check all the innings played and see how many runs scored when there was an error versus when the play was clean. That would give you some idea of just how much damage an error causes on the scoreboard. Unfortunately, that suffers the same flaws as the error measure itself. The scorer arbitrarily assigns errors, and the greater a player’s range, the more chances for errors he will get. But again, the principle is sound.

With any luck you get the idea. Even though we can compare players defensively, there is no accounting for the real impact defense has on the score like there is for offense. Only defensive extremes get noticed, while on offense fine comparisons are attempted using metrics like OPS. Defense is largely ignored unless you’re Brooks Robinson or Dmitri Young. This is akin to having only Tim Bogar and Babe Ruth as examples of hitters.

Donut Truck?

Just how fine a metric is OPS anyway? What does it omit besides the 27-plus outs a player spends in the field? It must be a lot, because the list of the 100 all-time OPS leaders includes Ryan Klesko and Ellis Burks. If we break down OPS to its simplest level, we find that it is an attempt to describe, as a rate, how many bases a player accumulated. OBP tells you how often a player got at least one base and SLG tells you how many bases a player got per at-bat. It’s a fine idea in theory, since bases are what lead to runs. Yet if bases are the metric, isn’t something missing here? How do we account for the extra bases accumulated by a player but not caused by contact with a bat? To list a few:

– Going from first to third on a single instead of first to second
– Going from second to home on a single instead of second to third
– Scoring from first on a double
– Scoring from third on a sac-fly
– Taking second or third on a sacrifice of any kind
– Avoiding the double play by beating the throw
– Avoiding the double play by forcing a fielder’s choice
– Stealing bases

If you really want to count the bases that don’t show up in OPS, preventing bases from being gained by the opposition while on defense should be included here. If a player’s defense can stop the opposition from taking twenty bases over the course of a season that another player would have allowed, that must be close to as valuable as having contributed those twenty bases on offense. If he can prevent a hit another player would have allowed it must be near in value to getting a hit of his own. I’ll approach it from an outfield perspective:

– Preventing a liner to the gap from reaching the wall
– Hitting the cutoff man
– Throwing ahead of the runner and preventing an advance
– Throwing a runner out
– Recording an out instead of letting a ball drop (probably one-third of these are singles in front of the outfielder, two-thirds go beyond the outfielder’s range for extra-bases)

The big point here is the game is teeming with plays that become lurking variables. They never show up in stat lines, but their effect on scoring is tangible. Because we can rarely say with any certainty what would have happened had a play been made differently, we can’t really pin runs on fielders unless an overt error is made, and we tend to credit a player’s runs scored to the hitters behind him. Yet it’s fair to say that how often these plays do become runs–I’ll call them Secondary Runs–is highly dependent on the abilities of the players involved after the ball is put in play, whether on offense or defense. These abilities are not measured by OPS, yet every time Mike Cameron leaps over the centerfield wall in Safeco and pulls a homerun back in the yard it’s as good as if he hit one himself.

A speedy or heady player clearly has significant advantage in this area. If he can score from first on a two-out double, he has some advantage over the guy who can only go from first to third on the same hit. If he can stop a hit in the gap from reaching the wall with a man on base, at least some percentage of the time it will save a run. The fact that measuring these occurrences can only be done subjectively does not make Secondary Runs any less real. They don’t show up in OPS at all, but I’m convinced that as much as 100 points of OPS in extreme cases can be made up via the opportunities laid out above. So what makes 100 points of OPS?

First off, the 100 points is probably distributed something like this: .035 OBP/.065 SLG. Some portion of both OBP and SLG occurs simultaneously; when one player gets a hit more than another player, he has relatively improved both his OBP and his SLG at the same time, even though it is just one event. Over 500 at-bats, the OBP and SLG differences above translate to 17 to 20 or so extra hits and walks and add about 33 total bases. Those numbers are not insignificant, but with good baserunning and defense the gap can be made up. It’s not difficult to imagine a player gaining enough bases on offense and saving enough on defense to make up that 33-base gap. True, the player with a lower slugging percentage will not drive in runs at as great a rate, and he also requires a greater degree of success from the hitters behind him to score as often, but perhaps he can make that up, as we’ll see next.

Home Sweet Home

Runs scored are all that counts in baseball, and though that number is broadly controlled by how often a player gets on base, it is not determined by it. Good baserunning will allow some players to score more often after they reach base, as a rate. A player with a greater slugging percentage will start from a better average base, but not by much. It is significant that a homerun requires no success whatsoever from the hitters who follow to score at least one run. You can figure a player’s average start base by adding total bases to walks and dividing by hits plus walks, but for the following exercise we will assume equivalent average start base.

Suppose Player A reaches base 200 times and Player B reaches base 220 times, both over 500 at-bats. We’ll pretend neither takes a walk so their OBP’s are .400 and .440 respectively, a monstrous gap of 40 points. If both players score 40% of the time they reach base, Player B will outscore Player A by 8 runs.

However, if Player A can implement some of the methods for gaining bases above and outscore Player B as a rate, he will quickly equal or surpass B even though he is getting on base less often. Say Player A is faster and makes better decisions; he actually scores 43% of the time he reaches base while Player B only scores 38% of the time. Player A will score more often than B despite reaching base 20 fewer times. OPS has no means of accounting for this dynamic.

OPS is a decent approximation that allows simplistic stratification of offensive ability. It’s not useless, but there are too many factors hidden from and within OPS for it to work by its lonesome. Bill James, guru of the statistical world, has yet to convert to OPSism after thorough analysis, and even the biggest supporters of OPS acknowledge that its elements, OBP and SLG, are not equivalent and are not the same type of calculation. They should not be lumped together simply because they take the same final form, .XYZ. But they do it anyway, for the sake of convenience and because they think it’s still better than other measures.

Maybe OPS is better than the other common offensive statistical metrics — if you are too lazy to be bothered to understand a player’s real value. OPS is more flawed than other offensive metrics because it doesn’t measure any single ability, and differences in the elements of OPS are masked when they are lumped together. Perhaps a speed bump like a suggestion of how a player with an OPS 100 points lower could be equally effective with good defense and baserunning will slow the OPS bandwagon down a little. It’s doubtful though, since they keep running it out anyway knowing Rickey Henderson and Cecil Fielder have an identical career OPS of .827.

Apples And Apples

OPS supporters probably tire of hearing the same examples though. While crack-fiend vs. cold-blooded killer is possibly new, Rickey Henderson vs. Cecil Fielder has made the rounds. Their OPS numbers are comprised very differently — Henderson has a huge OBP and Fielder was a huge slugger. Let’s look instead at two guys who share a birthday. They have played the same position for almost the same amount of time, their OPS elements are similarly constructed, and both are headed to the Hall of Fame if they can play five more seasons or so at their current paces. Yet any Astros fan can tell you with zero calculation that Jeff Bagwell is a better ballplayer than Frank Thomas just by watching the games.

How can that be? Frank Thomas has a career OPS of 1.019 and Jeff Bagwell’s is just .969, a difference of 50 points. And that’s over a ten-year sample, so it must be meaningful. In answering that question we’ll ignore the lineups around them — for every Craig Biggio, Moises Alou, and Ken Caminiti there’s an Albert Belle, Magglio Ordonez, or Robin Ventura, and an extra hitter in an AL lineup. We’ll also ignore the quality of the teams–both have played on plenty of good and bad ones. We’ll even ignore how much the spacious Astrodome held Bagwell down — maybe Enron vs. New Comiskey will make up for it when it’s all said and done.

Since 1991, both Bagwell and Thomas have been full-time starters. Though he rarely misses single games, Bagwell has had some seasons cut short by broken bones in his hand. Thomas is prone to pulled muscles and sore groins–Big Hurt indeed–and they have played in a remarkably similar number of games over this stretch. The numbers are 1470 for Thomas and 1476 for Bagwell.

Through this time period, just counting walks, hits, and HBP, Frank Thomas has reached safely 2880 times while Bagwell has gotten on 2719 times. Jeff Bagwell has converted that into 1073 runs, Thomas to 1044. That bears repeating: despite reaching base 161 fewer times, Bagwell has outscored Thomas by 29 runs; that’s with Thomas getting a built-in 31-run advantage through having hit more homeruns that scored himself.

Thomas has the advantage in RBI, 1152 to 1093, and we already know where 31 of that comes from. So after ten years and literally thousands of at-bats, the difference in RBI plus runs scored, their total runs produced, is thirty. That number is strikingly similar to the difference in homeruns, which many people like to subtract once from runs produced so they don’t get double counted. Thirty runs in ten years sounds like three a season to me. Fifty points of OPS is three runs a season?

Some of the similarity in total runs produced comes from Bagwell having stolen 167 bases while Thomas has stolen 29. Some comes from Bagwell being a heady baserunner who aggressively moves on contact, taking extra bases and forcing throwing errors. Some comes from Bagwell being able to stay out of the double play, or being able to take and score from third on a sac-fly.

While their extra-base hits already figure into OPS, it’s worth noting their doubles are almost identical, 351 for Bagwell to 350 for Thomas since ’91, and Bagwell has 22 triples to Thomas’s 7. The big picture here is that Bagwell and Thomas have made nearly identical total offensive contributions despite a 50-point gap in OPS.

Now let’s look at defense, which is where Bagwell really shines over Thomas. Bagwell has a career fielding percentage of .993, identical to the league fielding percentage. Thomas has a career fielding percentage of .991. Bagwell has a Range Factor of 9.24, way over the league average, Thomas 8.66. Range Factor is putouts and assists every nine innings, and since some games go extra innings, that is pretty close to one more putout or assist every single game.

Additionally, Bagwell’s greater Range Factor means he’s had chances on tough plays that Thomas could never dream of getting to, yet his fielding percentage is still better. And anyone who has watched Bagwell play knows he starts more double plays from first than everyone on the planet. None of this defensive edge is any secret, as the White Sox have made Frank Thomas mostly a DH these days.

Is there any chance Bagwell’s defense has prevented enough runs over the last ten years to make up any gap he might suffer in comparison with Thomas on offense? You bet. Easily. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Bagwell’s superior fielding has prevented more than three runs a season. Yet Thomas has the gaudy OPS, and he will probably, mistakenly, be remembered as the better player. OPS is simply unreliable, and using it to compare players without a complete treatment is a joke.

Super Bowl XXXV is now in the books. The Baltimore Ravens are the National Football League champions by virtue of defeating soundly the New York Army Ants, and they were so scary-good they should have gotten two trophies. It will never be said in baseball that one team beat the other simply because they were bigger, stronger, faster and more feral. Baseball remains a pursuit that treasures skill as much as talent and smarts as much as brawn. There is no such equivocation in football, where a Big Apple team can have the body language of the undersized child pretending not to hear his tormentor’s comments from the back of the bus. 

In baseball there is no halftime, ergo no E-Trade MTV halftime show. That’s very good. Surely Bud Selig would feel the same need to have more bodies on the stage than in the stands. And surely Bud would distribute similar homemade-looking poster-board signs for all the on-field crowd extras to display. Someone else must have noticed the inside joke when Young Extra 1 held up the Marry Me, Mr. Rock Star sign and Young Extra 2 held up a nearly identical sign: No, Mr. Rock Star, Marry Me! The laughter along MTV corridors doubtless continues even now.

There were at least two good things going on at the Super Bowl. Two guys and two guys only were in the booth, and that is just perfect. When there are three I’m always a little surprised when the third one perks up and I have to think about who it is speaking to me now. In football it is poor, but in baseball, FOX take note, a third man is a hanging offense. Next was the EyeVideo gadget. I don’t think it helped the game in the least and I don’t think it would add anything to baseball, but it was very cool and I’d like to have that setup here at the house.

Now the Super Bowl is over and to a baseball fan this is Quiet Time. The seven weeks or so from late January through the middle of March are the absolute worst time of the year. It’s not just the offseason, which conjures images of trades, free agents, and winter ball; it’s this particular period that is grimly reminiscent of an Astrodome crowd in the Seventies. It drags and drags and then takes a breather when someone reports to Florida and then drags some more. Quiet Time. Over the six such stretches since his stewardship of the Astros began in November of 1995, Gerry Hunsicker has made exactly one deal, and that was the signing of free agent pitcher Tom Martin.

Martin made his Major League debut with the Astros at 27 years of age during their Division-winning 1997 campaign. Over the course of the season he appeared in 55 games, typically one left-handed inning at a time, and compiled a 5-3 record and 2.09 ERA. He did a fantastic job on the cheap and made Gerry the Hun look like a genius. He even threw a couple of innings in the Division Series against the Exercise Your Choppers ATL: one scoreless in the Kile 2-1 loss to Maddux, and a one-run eighth that was the fourth Atlanta tally in their 4-1 win in Game Three before 53,688 victory-starved freaks. Let the record reflect that no more than 10,000 engaged in chanting the Florida State battle cry or openly wet themselves at the sight of Chipper Jones.

Another expansion draft hit after the 1997 season, and with more lefties than they could ever hope to go through before requiring the services of someone like Yorkis Perez, the Astros left Tom Martin unprotected. Martin soon entered the federal witness protection program in Arizona, from whence he was promptly dealt to Cleveland for Someone Special during that club’s annual take-my-prospects-please pitching hunt. In three years on the reservation he has managed less than sixty total innings and he’s racked up some Nasdaq ERA’s. That is, he shot up to 13.00, then fell to 9.00, and has now come back down to near 4.00. Just about what everyone thought he was worth way back when he was a 2.00 during his Damn Yankees season.

It is probably for the best that this time of the baseball year is so dead. Quiet Time gives the clever authors of a gazillion columns and previews and magazines and books a chance to catch their collective breath before making futile attempts at declaring with authority what will happen next season. Having attended at least one Lollapalooza that I can recall suggests that I too will take a flying leap aboard the bandwagon and venture a futile attempt of my own. Not just yet – who can predict anything without a Diamond Mind simulation – but soon.

In the meantime I wonder how I will justify picking the Astros to win the Central Division. The Cardinals have some pitching and the Reds have some hitting and all the others are trying hard to abandon old habits. My most frank belief is that if everything were to go exactly right for every team in the division, the Houston Astros would be the clear favorites. That unfortunately seems to rely on an entire pitching staff returning from either surgery or the worst seasons of their careers and performing at its optimum level, along with the left side of the infield taking care of itself. In other words, the Astros are further from exactly right than some others.

Perhaps there are lessons to be absorbed and hope to be gained from the ridiculous parade of torment the Ravens of Baltimore unleashed on the Giants. An Astros player who saw that game might await redemption in 2001 if he ruminates over where the Ravens were last season, or when that franchise last won a Super Bowl. He might recall the ignominious suffering it endured at the hands of John Elway, or just how deep a hole from which Ray Lewis asked them to climb. That team won for many reasons, and many will be the reasons if the Astros can do the same. They’ll certainly need a healthy dose of belief, and probably at least one Tom Martin.