Local Teams Win, Dbacks Whine

Despite half a decade of lobbying that the Phoenix market presents unusual competitive challenges for pro sports teams, it turns out that every local pro sports team is winning - except the organization crying itself to regular season sleep - the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The football Cardinals are 5-3 and appear poised for another exciting playoff appearance. The Suns have bounded from the stifling confines of this godforsaken midmarket to the NBA's very best record (7-1). Even the talent-poor Coyotes, mired in bankruptcy and management-inflicted woe, are 10-7, thanks to gritty defense and superb goaltending. In light of this nearly uniform success, would mentioning the Mercury's second WNBA title this October be considered piling on?

Everyone in this 'challenged' market is winning, except the doomsday Diamondbacks. More than a barrage of familiar excuses, however, separate success from the last place baseball team. Each winning franchise recently hired a respected coach who instantly improved team performance and culture -Ken Whisenhunt, Alvin Gentry and Dave Tippett. Contrast these intelligent, results-driven changes with the esoteric, politically motivated hire of AJ Hinch, whose floundering arrival divided and profoundly discouraged players, all but ensuring a season of collective failure.

Perhaps if Earl "Horatio Alger" Kendrick managed his largely inherited baseball resources more astutely, yet another winner might emerge, against all odds, from this hardscrabble market of his carefully positioned imagination.

A Week At The Opera

I've been a baseball fan my whole life, but could hardly be less interested in this World Series. I flip to it every inning or two, get my snapshot, then change the channel to something less Wagnerian.

The Suns and Coyotes have both started well, and their early successes do more for me than the World Series I was brought up to revere. On Saturday, Oregon demolishing USC riveted me more than baseball's premier event. I'm not even much of a football fan.

What happened? Why dont I care? Does my relative disinterest portend trouble for the future of commerical baseball?

One issue is that I like an underdog, and this Series has none. We're watching a pair of favored bullies - the defending champions and the Yankees, whose starting infield oozes more market value than all but a handful of 25-man rosters. Who, outside of oblivious Yankee lifers, would be psyched by a thinly disguised All Star team bludgeoning its way to a long overdue title?

The principals are also numbingly familiar. No one can hit Rivera's cutter. Posada whines at strikes that are called such. Jeter sticks his ass into the next county on pitches anywhere near the inside corner, trying to coax a walk. Wake me after it stops. I'm not saying it's not good baseball - they're among the best players at their respective positions. It's just predictable, familiar and boring as hell. This "classic's" biggest novelty is that for the first time in his overchronicled playoff career, Alex Rodriguez hasnt completely soiled his diaper.

On Philadelphia's side, is it dramatic when Brad Lidge blows a save, or Jimmy Rollins steals a bag? Will it be surprising when Ryan Howard finally 'runs into one'? Chase Utley just hit his fifth homer, tying Reggie Jackson for most in a single Series, yet Jackson's performance electrified baseball, whereas Utley's heroics - in bandboxes in a homer era - barely register.

The FOX TV production is also deathly familiar. I actually like Buck and McCarver more than most fans seem to, but there's precious little new to attend to here. Tired storylines compete with almost painful media attempts to fabricate new ones. In a particularly myopic bit of "research", Countdown's Keith Olbermann knighted Damon's scamper to third, against the Teixeira shift, the "smartest play in World Series history". Smart play, but give it a rest, Keith. The pitcher forgot to cover third.

The games are consistently too long. It's okay to have a long game once in a while, for dramatic contrast. But all the games run three and a half hours now, even when they're well pitched. There's a hundred reasons; patient hitters, unrestricted trips to the mound, wildness, longer ad breaks between innings, small strike zone, pitching changes, etc. The once crisp cadence of the game now resembles cricket, a court case, or occasionally, a thirty years war.

Flipping channels between sporting events, I'm deflated at how little transpires during a World Series game these days. I can watch three crisp shifts of hockey or an eighty yard football drive in the time it takes Nick Swisher to eventually pop out or Jorge Posada to whisper signals to Sabathia before each pitch. It's very hard to watch this in real time, particularly when other sports and entertainments capture my imagination with new faces, and convey more respect for their audience, with less operatic pacing.

Conundrum

Here's a puzzler. See if you can figure it out.

The first time through a batting order, NL starters yield a cumulative OPS of .707. This is considerably lower (better) than they yield later in games, after they tire and batters have seen their repertoires.

First inning batters, by contrast, hit a whopping .771. We expect this, because a team's best hitters bat in the first. Given these two somewhat contradictory results, what would we expect OPS to be in the second and third innings?

If starters rip through the first 'round of nine' @ .707 , but first 'innings' are .771, might we expect second and third inning OPS well south of .700, to "counterbalance" big first innings?

Here's the conundrum. They're not. Batters' split in the second inning is .713, and in the third it rises to .727 - both higher than .707. How is this possible? How do these figures by inning reconcile with starters' superior proficiency first time through the order?

Break Up: The Dodgers

When most thirty year marriages end in court, the hilarity escapes me, but it's almost impossible to read up on the pending divorce of Dodger owners, Frank and Jamie McCourt, while maintaining a straight face. The AP account reports excess you'd expect from one of LA's most notable power couples:

Jamie McCourt's filing states she is seeking reinstatement as the team's CEO as well as access to perks including travel by private jet, stays at five-star resorts and use of the Dodgers owners' suite. She wants $321,000 a month in spousal support if reinstated to her former position. If not, she believes she should be paid nearly $488,000 per month.

Here's the LA lawyers, girding for battle:

There are estate records that list Frank McCourt as the team's sole owner, said Bert Fields, Jamie McCourt's attorney.However, the lawyer who drafted the documents alerted Jamie McCourt to the mistake last year in front of her husband who acknowledged the paperwork should have reflected the co-ownership of the Dodgers, Fields said.

"It was always supposed to 50-50," Fields said. "New documents were drafted, but they were never signed."

Frank McCourt's lawyer, Marshall Grossman, called the account a "fairy tale" and said the marital agreement lists the Dodgers and the adjoining property, including Dodger Stadium, as his client's separate assets and the couple's homes belonged to Jamie McCourt.

"This is the deal Mrs. McCourt wanted and got," Grossman said. "She now wants everything put back as community property. Even a chef knows you can't unscramble the eggs."

Wait, it gets better.

Frank McCourt:

...said he has allowed Jamie McCourt to identify herself as "co-owner" for the "interests of family harmony" but her claim has damaged the Dodger organization.

Wow. That's some family man. Once I offered my wife a club sandwich in the interests of family harmony, but never an actual club! This Frank is some sport.

Jamie McCourt

...claims her husband plotted to boot her from the team's front office as a way to "humiliate and ostracize" her. She said she was excluded from management decisions.

My impression is, if you're categorically "excluded from management decisions", you probably aint the CEO of much. Nevertheless, this is a formidable woman who sees herself as the engine behind Dodger success. From a 2007 issue of Jewish Woman:

Transforming the Dodgers into a family business is nothing new for McCourt. After 15 years with her own law practice, she spent a decade as vice president and general counsel of The McCourt Company, her husband’s real estate development firm. "We have completely different skill sets," she says of working successfully with her husband. "He’s the visionary and I’m the one who actualizes the vision."

This is what's hard to reconcile. If you're genuinely seen - within the organization - as an equal authority (ownership) figure and you've additionally established yourself as the hands on partner who 'actualizes the vision', how can you reasonably be "excluded from management decisions"? Practically speaking, how could that happen? It just doesnt sound to me like Jamie McCourt had much support or allegiance high up in the organization, and if that's true, she wasnt the CEO or co-anything, beyond ceremonial title.

Of potential interest to Dback fans, one of the McCourts' sons was installed as Dodgers' "Director of Marketing" a while back, although I couldnt pinpoint when. One would think this slot would've been right up Derrick Hall's alley, and I note Derrick left the Dodgers shortly after the McCourts arrived, as well as the fact the son has since left the post and returned to "business school". Interesting career path, to say the least, and one has to wonder if this nepotism hastened Hall's departure.

Favorite Slice

There's no shortage of ways to slice Diamondbacks' 2009 failure. Chronologically, there was April, June and September. Positionally, point your finger at left field, center and first base. Systematically, blame offense, defense or the pen. Strategically, lament GM moves topped by an unnecessary and disorienting managerial switch. Fatalistically, cry over Webby's shoulder and the 'bad luck' of being five games under pythag.

Bill James has a slice called Team Performance By Quality of Start, which may provide a crisper view of where, when and how our season went awry. His statistical cross reference breaks out a team's W/L by starter Game Scores - actually ranges or increments of game scores. It's no secret most clubs (incl Arizona) win at a very high rate when their starters pitch extremely well (70+ gs), and lose when starters are subpar (game scores below 50).

What's interesting is that the Dbacks had enormous difficulty winning when their starters were "above average" (50-69 game score). They were 35-35, which may not sound bad, but was the worst such split in the National League:

COL 58-21 .734
FLA 47-18 .723
LAD 56-24 .700

MILW 44-20 .687
PHI 41-22 .651
STL 46-25 .648
ATL 51-28 .645
SDG 42-24 .636
HOU 38-22 .633
SFO 43-26 .623

CHI 53-38 .582
NYM 40-29 .580
CIN 39-29 .573
WAS 36-32 .529
PIT 34-33 .507
ARI 35-35 .500

I've bolded NL West competitors to underscore just how far we lagged behind the division in this metric. Perhaps more curious than the striking chasms between Arizona and hard hitting, playoff bound Colorado and LA, are gaps between Arizona and most other weak hitting teams. Look at San Francisco. Despite a wretched offense, they excelled when starters were merely 'above average'. Remember, we're not looking at the best of the best (ie Lincecum's fourteen strongest starts, Sanchez no hitter, etc), simply 'above average', equivalently pitched (started) games.

Cincinnati also hit considerably worse than Arizona - yet they're ten games over .500 here. San Diego, Houston and the Mets all hit below league average, and were lousy teams - yet they average fifteen games over .500, when game scores meet the 50-69 parameter.

So, Arizona's problem was more than "hitting", at least in the traditional OPS+ sense. The James slice doesnt magically reveal what else contributed, but regular Diamondback observers might chime in with 'erratic bullpen', 'sloppy defense' and 'a rather glaring inability to execute small ball in close, well pitched games'. Less obvious factors, like random variaton or lack of competitive intangibles may factor in as well. For whatever combination of reasons, the Diamondbacks failed to consistently win in a favorable segment of games that comprised 43% of their schedule.

When Dback starters pitched lights out, the team did about as well (16-3) as expected. When starters struggled, the team did about as well, relative to league, maybe a little worse. However, when starters went six or seven innings, yielding two or three runs (above average), the Diamondbacks were terrible. Without confirming why, the slice statistically reinforces what many sensed all along - that the Dbacks' rotation, particularly the big three of Haren, Davis and Garland, received miserable "mid-range" support from the rest of their team, and that failure was broadly based.

**********

Here's some other favorite slices.

10. Banana Cream - dont puree the banana, leave it chunky
9. Pecan - the sweetest pah! Corn syrup and lots of it, Yum!
8. Peach Cobbler - cook the peaches down, almost mushy
7. Sweet Potato / Pumpkin - best dessert pie for breakfast, served cold
6. Razzleberry (Raspberry/Blackberry) - blackberries soften raspberries powerful tang
5. Lemon Meringue - best pie on a hot summer day
4. Apple - The Classic, hundreds of varieties. I'm partial to a crumb top
3. Blueberry - sweet, juicy with dense texture due to the small berries. An underrated pie.
2. Key Lime - graham crust, when done right, the most intense flavor of any fruit pie
1. Strawberry Rhubarb - Strawberry pie? Heaven forfend, you rube! Rhubarb elevates mere strawbs into an intriguing sweet and sour interplay of taste and texture. Served warm, with ginger ice cream.

Seen And Heard On Priest

Last night I saw Strasburg, with a couple thousand ballfans over at Muni. My son wouldnt go. Not even the draw of a 100 mph flamethrower could assuage the lingering trauma from his last AFL outing. So I hopped the Phoenix High Speed Electrotrain to Priest, marched north past a couple corporate parks and encountered this.



You have to laugh. The AFL promotes an accessible product sans big league hassles, and the first thing you see is a ticket line bending to accomodate the curvature of the earth. They finally opened a second window, preempting unseasonable riots, and since all tix were general admission, the line actually moved pretty quickly.

My six dollar GA ticket afforded me a seat seven rows from the third base dugout, and for just $7 more - a barely cool plastic bottle of Coors Light. (I dont normally drink at games, but with the Electrotrain, anything goes! Besides, this is accessible baseball sans big league hassles! Bottoms up!)

Here's Strasburg:



He gets his body behind the ball, although not as extraordinarily well as Lincecum. I bring it up only because Strasburg throws so hard. Comes across his body a little. The first couple batters fouled off heaters, over their off field dugouts, as late as Little Leaguers. Soon however, hitters like Dback Brandon Allen, fouled both hard and soft pitches straight back (Allen walked). Strasburg went three and a third scoreless, and MLB's game report confirms the excellent results. Struck out just two, and induced several grounders including a double play.

Right now, MLB hitters would eat him up pretty good. Allen's ABs were instructive, in that he fought off a variety of offerings as if he was Ichiro, despite whiffing quite alot in the show. Most of these AFL kids were sitting on Strasburg's fastball and still couldnt do much with it, however. It's a helluva fastball. I just think major league hitters will time it, until he throws slower stuff for strikes.

Here's my last picture of Strasburg, just before two UFO's from right field abducted the prized righthander, whilst rendering my sophisticated camera equipment even more useless.



I took the electrotrain home. Well, the electrotrain and a bus. That's how it works, unless you live in the shadow of a McDonalds right on the line, or use the Park 'n' Rides, "conveniently" located closer to your destination than to your house. Waiting at the Priest / Washington station at night, a white pickup full of guys roared by, mockingly inquiring if anyone on the platform "needed a ride". We're up the road from ASU and the college hijinks made me smile.

As the pickup idled at a red light, a black man near me repeatedly challenged the offer, shouting from a respectable (ie non-threatening) distance, in the same sort of vein. The truck fell silent, until finally its lane's green arrow lit, the cue for its young passengers to lean out the windows, courageously shout "Nigger" and give us the finger as they sped off.

Unpleasant, but no one on the platform seemed too worked up about it. Forget Strasburg. The night's biggest regret is that my absent teen missed the manifest fear inherent in such racist bufoonery.

Jokers

As a rule, Diamondhacks avoids disparaging people's physical features. It's less a moral code than simply the daunting challenge of coming up with zingers sufficiently funny or cruel. We called Jeff Moorad fat once, which seems sporting since he's been fat for a long time. Plus, he can help being fat. If he occasionally refused butter and Baco-bits on all those ballroom potatoes, or walked his damn dog, there'd be no issue.

So, it's somewhat out of character that we run this. Anyway, my wife and I were watching a September game on TV , or trying to, when CEO Derrick Hall hijacked the telecast, reciting something about being "excited". As we understandably glazed over, my wife blurts out this bombshell:

That's the smallest mouth I've ever seen on a man.

Wow. She's right. All these years, pouncing on Derrick's illocution like a crazed raptor - and I never noticed. My obsession with what came out of his mouth blinded me from the real story. His mouth is incredibly small for a man. Or a marmoset, since we've broached the subject. This doesnt impede Mr Hall from yakking up the Dbacks, of course, but raises a question whether the Barnum pushing "All You Can Eat" has bitten off more than he can physically chew. A mini sirloin burger looks to be his match, or perhaps yogurt.

If you think that's 'going too far', contrast Hall's feeble kisser with AJ Hinch's outrageous wraparound. The ostensible skipper's frogyap extends well beyond where a healthy orifice ends, traveling half way 'round his smug Execu-Dome.



















And when he opens that giant clamshell, a poor ump could lose his double chin faster than a rhubarb.



If there's ever a Batman sequel, where they need a Joker, who instead of terrorizing an American city, systematically destroys baseball fans' hopes in another, they know where to find him.