Rocky Times

You have to admire the chutzpah of a front office which parts with an established manager in May to give its team a midseason boost. I speak, of course, of the born again Colorado Rockies, who found themselves ten games below .500, hired Jim Tracy, and have scarcely lost since.



The Diamondbacks, by contrast, fell five games below .500 after a mere 17 contests, then fought even up (6-6) against the NL's best for two weeks straight. That sort of "gross underperformance", according to club CEO Derrick Hall, got Bob Melvin fired in favor of favored favorite Andrew Jay Hinch, Esq.



Hinch, the Dream Team's answer to not only jumpstart the men, but "change the nature of the job a little bit" is himself five games below .500 - damning enough on its face (the one Josh Byrnes is falling flat on) - were it not for this reasoned, unseasoned protege's cupcake schedule and comparative roster advantages over Melvin.

Both managers suffered the loss of Brandon Webb, but Melvin also missed his two most reliable hitters from 2008 - Stephen Drew and Conor Jackson. Drew returned from the DL for Hinch, and is starting to rip the ball as expected, and Jackson's mysterious and crippling April has finally been diagnosed and mercifully replaced by the NL's Rookie of the Month. The one unusual challenge Hinch faced - and which Melvin was spared - was the sudden and relatively minor practical absence - but devastating personal loss - of LOOGY Scott Schoeneweis.



Beyond that, the club's alarming recent spike in runs allowed appears at least somewhat managerially related - in that limiting runs (RA) was an immutable strength of Bob Melvin teams. Simply carping at Hinch, however, misses the bigger picture. Without pitching guru Bryan Price, an inadvertent casualty of Josh Byrnes' deflective blame game, this novice skipper now produces more regularly scheduled, prime time situation comedies than Norman Lear.

Eighth inning. Must see TV. Just. You. Watch!

Not Hinch's fault, necessarily. It's on Josh Byrnes, who trashed a decent manager, in hopes of shifting blame from the GM's longstanding failure to meet on field expectations. De rigeur for Byrnes, on his fourth hitting coach since 2006, who's built just one squad since then barely capable of outscoring opponents in baseball's weakest division.


The religious Rockies appear largely above such tawdry political machinations, and not surprisingly, sit above us in the standings as well. They matter of factly replaced their below average manager with an above average one, and like the Diamondbacks, are reaping their just rewards on earth - as it so often is in heaven.

The Philosophy of Organizational Aggrandizement

Before AJ Hinch ever coached a game, Diamondhacks distilled what his auspicious arrival primarily portended. Quite apart from driving tangible improvement, his head scratching hire was wordsmithed and painstakingly timed, to position and ultimately seize organizational credit for generally expected short term performance regressions, following an injury plagued and uniformly disappointing April.




Not a month into Hinch's 12-14 reign (versus weaker foes than Melvin faced), the front office Dream Team unveiled Phase II of its campaign to assume and assign credit for their hand picked Success Agent. Amidst an 8-0 rout of the hapless Padres (projected by many to lose 100 games), play-by-play toadie Daron Sutton dutifuly chimed in that the club is hitting "almost a hundred points higher" with runners in scoring position (RISP) than they did "in their first twenty nine games". This is true (well, seventy-six points [.262 v .186] when he said it, so true "enough"), but this was no impromptu trivia, blurted in the booth to kill time in a laugher.

The less than cryptic "twenty nine games" is a measure of Bob Melvin (12-17), the 2007 NL Manager of the Year-turned-scapegoat, who predated Josh Byrnes and CEO Derrick Hall, and who was Ken Kendrick's reluctant second choice following the West Virginian's self-inflicted Wally Backman debacle. These high class movers and fakers are too classy, it appears, for mouthpiece Daron to actually name the skipper they aimed to implicitly malign last night.

Sutton couldnt simply observe, for example, the team's hitting better "in May than in April", which reflects an even clearer statistical distinction for the public. No, the ponderous '29 games' spiel is their rather purposeful cue that Melvin couldnt manage an offense (and Hinch can) - although it bears mentioning (because Sutton assuredly didnt) that Rick Schu (another Josh Byrnes hire) was hitting coach during this entire inoffensive stretch. Schu, we recall with limited amusement, was this GM's 'answer' to replace Kevin Seitzer, Byrnes' earlier, outside the box, personnel "failure".



If that's all Sutton said, it wouldnt be a big deal, of course. Announcers say stuff like that all the time. In SedonaRedland, however, Daron's riff set up a pre-edited video segment with Jack Howell, this month's hitting guru. Howell emphasized working on batters' weaknesses and, unlike Seitzer, didnt say anything too aggrandizing. That came after, when Sutton proclaimed causality between recent BA/RISP gains and the efforts of Howell and Hinch.

It's not just happening, folks. It's the direct result of a philosophy.

There are substantive and political problems with this tone of declaration. Substantively, the samples are too small to draw that conclusion. The player samples (and circumstances) are also inconsistent. Is Schu culpable for trotting out his most consistent hitter (from 2008) with an undiagnosed case of valley fever? Or savaged for playing Augie and Josh Wilson, when Drew went on the DL? When it suited his agenda, Derrick Hall chirped about how TEP puts the whole team at an April disadvantage - now, the poor April hitting is on Melvin and Schu? How much credit does Howell deserve for a AA callup (Parra) hitting .667 (12/18) with RISP? I dont really know, but the point is, neither does Daron Sutton or anybody else.

The team is undoubtedly hitting better since Melvin left, but it's also a fact the three guys who hit for him (Upton, Lopez and Reynolds) have continued to hit under Hinch, and with the exception of a surging Snyder and reserve Ryan Roberts, the culprits who didnt hit for Bob in April (CY, Byrnes, Whitesell, Montero, even Drew for pity's sake), havent hit much since either. The biggest boost, so far and by far, has been Parra, who never played for Melvin, and Roberts, a 28 year old with a career .074 BA, who's been ethereally raking .400 for Howell. A month of this is being touted as a triumph of coaching philosophy? Seriously?

The more galling component of this quick and very dirty presumption is that Melvin and Schu are somehow responsible for the .186 BA in any meaningful sense; the idea that this young, ascendant offense might somehow be resigned to hit .186 w RiSP under Melvin going forward. Last night, Sutton praised Howell and Hinch for briefly overseeing a .262 RISP at Melvin's expense, despite the fact Melvin's 2008 squad, the one tirelessly lampooned for a lack of clutchness, hit .257 w RISP over an entire season. Talk about a disingenous, statistically insignificant comparison.

Is Daron unaware of such context? A big innocent earnestly trying to educate us, even if he doesnt "get" all the statistical implications?

Hardly.



Sutton himself is intensively 'coached', tutored, by statistical wonks - wizards if you must. Wizards well aware of data's limitations - and no doubt hip to Daron's contrived declaration and the disinformation campaign to come. That's the self-serving political aspect that's to be expected from a Dream Team with a long history of glossing over, and indeed blaming others for, their strategic and tactical missteps. The next time we're subjected to this sort of organizational blather, and I promise it wont be long, understand these sorts of things dont just just happen, folks - it's the direct result of a philosophy.

Big Ears and Alot of Integrity

There's no question the Diamondbacks hit quite a bit better in May than in April, and are winning slightly more often under cab-eared organizational advocate, Andrew Hinch. Beyond blind chance and brilliant advocacy, relative schedule strength may help explain why.

Here are the RPI ranks of Bob Melvin's 2009 opponents, followed by the number of games Arizona played against each. (For example, #1 represents the team with baseball's highest RPI, the Los Angeles Dodgers.) 2007's NL Manager of the Year began 12 and 17 versus this group, thus forfeiting his job.

# 1 - 5 games
# 2 - 4
# 5 - 3
#11 - 2
#12 - 6
#13 - 3
#26 -6

Here are the current RPI ranks of AJ Hinch's competition to date, against which the self proclaimed vessel of "alot of integrity" has earnestly gone 10 and 11:

#9 - 3 games
#11 - 3
#23 -5
#25 -4
#29 -3
#30- 3

Again, here's the simple ranks, side by side:

Melvin.........Hinch
1...................?
2..................9
5..................11
11................23
12...............25
13...............29
26...............30

Josh Byrnes, Sonora's square jawed Svengali, could scarcely concoct a cushier commencement for his floppy eared protege, short of arranging his Dbacks to play themselves (Arizona ranks #28 prior to today's extra inning win over the floundering Braves.) How has Andrew Jay Hinch, Esq. objectively fared to date? He's 1 and 5 against above average competition, and by "above average" we dont mean any of baseball's truly best teams, merely the Reds and Padres (who many projected to lose 100 games). The relatively good news is he's 9-6 against MLB's bottom feeders, six wins occuring on the road.

Contrast with the discarded Melvin, who was 3 and 3 against lowly Colorado, and 9-14 versus above average teams, including 12 against baseball's best (LAD, MIL, STL). Let's look at that graphically:

Manager....... v. abv ave teams......v. below ave teams
Melvin ..................9-14 ....................3-3
Hinch ....................1-5......................9-6

Twenty three of Melvin's 29 were against better teams, per RPI; just six of AJ's twenty one. None of this is to imply one manager is better than the other. It's way to early for that. But when paid spokesmen and the usual online apparatchicks eagerly confuse unsustainable hitting and wide open games against weak sisters for meaningful progress, some perspective is probably in order. According to the club CEO, the 12-17 guy with the Mgr of the Yr award got fired for his squad's five months of "gross underperformance", and suddenly we're chattering about progress because the new guy went 10-11 against the league's doormats? It's a long season and I'm not shutting the door on it, but neither am I that easily impressed.

After the Dbacks dispose of some kid tomorrow with a 9.72 ERA and no bullpen support, it's off to Los Angeles and San Diego. They're not big games in the traditional sense, but they're serious games against division rivals on the road, hinting at a truer early measure of organizational progress, if any. I've discerned this because I have, among other marketable and hard to find qualities, big ears and alot of integrity.

Managing Illusions

Hinch is such a desperate choice. What does his unusual hire say about our front office? AJ Hinch went to Stanford, which by this point, it's pretty clear is awfully important to Josh Byrnes. The Haverford alum's staff is famously dotted with similarly credentialed grunts from Harvard and MIT. It's not so much that Melvin (Cal) didnt make the grade, it's just telling, that for all the usual candidates milling around with managerial experience - even some within the org - our ivied brain trust opted for a Stanford man who never managed a team in his life.

It's a form of insecurity, and defiance, I think. The idea that "people near Josh" are somehow better qualified to manage a ballclub than, say, people who've managed ballclubs. In a way only "they" can understand. It reminds me of George W Bush's nomination of his personal counsel, Harriet Miers , to the United States Supreme Court, and may reveal an insulated, perhaps even bunker, mentality digging in on Jefferson Street.

The other "statement" here regards so called player development. Hinch was in charge of minor league progress. Melvin was criticised for not furthering those production arcs, most recently by CEO Derrick Hall, who observed the team has "grossly underperformed" for more than five months.

While it's true that regulars, young and old, endured miserable Aprils, the fact is several youngsters blossomed under Melvin's watch. Mark Reynolds came from nowhere to be a serviceable, if errratic, major league starter and is likely to hit thirty homers. Stephen Drew broke out in 2008. Prior to his mysterious ailment, Conor Jackson transformed himself from an inadequate first baseman to a base stealing, left fielding OBP mainstay. Justin Upton, amidst a fourteen game hitting streak, appears to "finally" be on the cusp of superstardom, at all of 21. And Max Scherzer is perhaps the greatest starting pitcher in major league history never to win a game.

Maybe this team has grossly underperformed for five days or weeks (maybe it hasnt), but the claim of five months is predictable, self-serving, front office swill. If Derrick Hall genuinely felt the final four to five months of the 2008 season represented "gross underperformance", wouldnt this winter have been the appropriate time for the newly minted CEO to part with the inadequate Melvin? Why would you stick with a skipper, responsible for nearly a season's worth of "gross underperformance" if you're serious about competing with the Dodgers, with this marvelous, kick ass team of yours? Wouldnt that be counterproductive? To let him screw up April as well?

What's closer to the truth, is that Bob Melvin's being scapegoated for a slow, injury-riddled start and for the strategic "sins" of his bosses. Scapegoated for structurally anemic rosters fashioned by Josh Byrnes and reluctant financier, Ken Kendrick. Scapegoated for pie in the sky fan "experience" and expectations, unabashedly oversold by Hall.

Hall and Byrnes, some may remember, inked two of the lengthiest contracts in the game for themselves. (At the time, only Alex Rodriguez had more job security in baseball). The pair of alarming eight year deals, terms undisclosed, were bestowed by the dynamic duo's mentor, Jeff Moorad, the brazenly conflicted chief of your San Diego Padres. Curious gestures, to say the least, for a GM outscored by opponents during his tenure in a terrible division, and for a CEO leading a firm that doesnt make any profit for its principals. Or so the story's told.

Bob Melvin, or more likely unbelievable short term luck, propelled one of those outscored mediocrities to ninety wins and an NLCS, in one of the game's truly historic anomalies. You'd think that might earn a guy some security. It turns out, about five months worth - three inhabiting first place. Five months of alleged "gross underperformance". Not just poor performance. Under-performance, by Josh Byrnes' brilliant, cant miss phenoms.

The truth is, Josh Byrnes' phenoms have been missing for years. More accurately, our front office has stubbornly misdiagnosed their naturally youthful shortcomings and failed to sufficiently temper that with enough veterans worth a damn. Eric Byrnes had a nice 2007. Orlando Hudson was a solid player. But our leaders failed to pay for, or recognize (Quentin, Uggla, Hairston) significant inherited talent to help Josh's kids with the heavy lifting. Several (Upton, Jackson, Reynolds) were brought up before their time, or in the wrong positions, to save paying established stopgaps a million or three, while the chosen ones muddled along for pocket change. For years, the Diamondbacks front office has cloaked a sorry, shallow collection of veteran positional players behind excellent pitching and an illusion of ready for prime time offensive phenoms who really werent.

Bob Melvin finally took the fall for that illusion, courtesy of entrenched political operators who crafted it and strung it along. They've not only politely blamed Bob for their underlying failures (and deceptions), they've timed his departure to virtually ensure another self-serving illusion: the short term success of their hand-picked replacement. Hinch will open at home, against the league's weakest team, the Washington Nationals (no relation to the Washington Generals apparently), followed by the non-revolutionary Reds.

It's tougher after that, but that should get Hinch off on better terms than if he had encountered BoMel's last dozen opponents (Matt Cain @ home, Cubs @ home [3], at Milwaukee[4], at LA [2], at Jake Peavy and at Chris Tall Young). Melvin went 6 and 6 there, nothing great, but a solid indicator his team is playing better than the 6-11 start to open the season. Justin Upton appears ready to be a franchise player. The pitching staff is one of the best in the league, again. Last year's most valuable position player (Drew) will come off the DL shortly. The team's most valuable pitcher (Webb) may be available after that. Manny is out for 50 games. There is little question the Diamondbacks will play better than their 6-11 start. They already were, and should continue to, regardless of manager. This very public change isnt about playing better ball.

It's about taking credit for it.

Git Yer Diamonds, Git Yer Diamonds Here!

I wonder if I'm the only baseball blog with a sidebar ad for Diamond jewelry? I dont select the ads, Google AdSense does. And by the time you read this, the ad has probably rotated out. But there was an elegant, navy panel from Blue Nile Jewelry, hawking diamonds - from $200 to $200, 000.

I swear.

I always knew Diamondhacks drew the upper echelon of people, who nosh hors d'oeuvres and such, but the $200,000 ice crowd even arched by brow. With this economy and all.

Excuse me, I need to fetch today's mail, and collate some royalty checks.

The Last Big Game

The moment Conor Jackson lobbed a deep fly beyond a drawn in outfield, sealing Sunday's walkoff win in the twelfth, optimists opined on The Big Game. The momentum builder and desperately welcome confidence boost, before three with the Cubs, that would, could, or should turn the season.

But Sunday's ughfest with the happy ending was a small game. Not just the way it was played, which was hard and poorly, by two weak teams. It was rendered small even before it started.

We went out on an April limb, predicting the young, talented Diamondbacks needed to take this early Giants series to salvage reasonable playoff hope. By losing the first two "big" games, they failed, and rendered the final feelgood victory, small.

This team is 7 and 11. If they take two of three from a superior Chicago nine, they'll be 9 and 12. People will whoop and cheer about the magnitude of those moments, but dont be fooled. Those wins, if they materialize, will be small victories. It's not because the Dbacks cant climb back over .500 (they can), or because the Dodgers are unstoppable (they're not), or because a five or six game lead in April is insurmountable.

It's because, when you play MLB's fourth easiest SOS thru an entire month, and turn that into the worst run differential in baseball, it says something about your team. It doesnt say everything, but it says something. When a young squad is gifted with 19 of 22 home starts, and winds up with a losing record, that says something too.

Sure, there have been injuries (Webb, Drew) and subpar performances (Jackson, Upton, Snyder and Rauch) bound to improve, yet several starters (Lopez, Haren, Ojeda and probably Reynolds) are playing over their heads, tempering the question of exactly how much better this team can play. They will have to win a great deal more, against ramped up competition, primarily on the road, to compete for this division.

This organization, well, it's predecessor really, started playing it's first big games a decade ago, when Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez and Matt Williams led an expansion team to 100 wins and it's first playof berth. Many big games followed. Then some down times. Ten years after, and four to five years into the new owners' rebuild, the Diamondbacks were favored this spring over midmarket brethren to battle Los Angeles for the NLW crown.

Whether the players or fans knew it or not, these early home games had playoff ramifications and possible long term implications about this organization's direction - two definions of "big games". After a lackluster 6-9 start, the biggest of all were the San Francisco set. Lincecum threw first, on Friday, and we lost. A great pitcher, but more importantly, the Giants arent a good team and baseball can be a very quirky game - just the previous week, Doug Davis outlasted Lincecum for a win - but this time that didnt happen.

On Saturday, our season was on the line. The Diamondbacks flailed against a pitcher with next to nothing. No stamina, no bite, no control. Seven walks in three and a third. They even hit a homer off this bum, and our pitcher (Max Scherzer) roped a deep double. Yet somehow, we found a way to fall, descending to 6 and 11.

The 'bum', of course, was Randy Johnson. The Big Unit has pitched so many of the Arizona Diamondbacks' landmark games, when the world was watching. Old and fragile now, he didnt win, but with more than a hint of irony, may've presided over the Diamondbacks' Last Big Game. Not merely for this season, but for the very core this franchise has built up, and around, for half a decade. It will be a while before this franchise plays a genuinely big game again. I hope I'm wrong, but my guess is it will not be this season.

Fifteen Games In

Fifteen games in, preparing to host the Giants for three more at The Lovely Morgan, the Dbacks find themselves at an unusually early crossroad. After dropping seven of their first dozen at home, and April's final set looming against the Cubs, it's imperative Arizona take two of three from the anemic Bay Boyz.

Imperative? In April? If the Dbacks dont take two of three from Lincecum, Johnson and Cain, with the back end of their currently Webb-less rotation, they'll find themselves no better than 7 and 11, with 144 games remaining. As mentioned, the first three of those will be against Chicago, arguably the NL's best team. After that, 78 of the final 141 contests (55%) are on the road.

Not too daunting? Baseball's home advantage pales next to that of football or hoops? Plenty recovery time for Arizona? Consider that this corps of young Diamondbacks have consistently struggled on the road since wresting playing time from their 2006 elders. The last two years, comprised of 162 home games and 162 road games, illustrate a stark contrast:

Home 98-64 .604%
Away 74-88 .456%

Arizona's certainly not predestined to play .456 away ball - each year's an independent pool of games and these kids are a year older. But this isnt a small sample either. It's 324 games, leaving little doubt that more than coincidence has driven this large a disparity.

Given LA's 11-5 start, mostly away from Chavez Ravine, let's conservatively assume the Dbacks need to win 88 games to have much postseason chance. A 7-11 start would require an 81- 63 (.562) finish - with 78 of those on the road. If they win half those remaining road games (39W, 39L), 88 W's still require them to finish 42-24 (.636) in Phoenix. You're asking them to win more (as a % going forward) than the historically fluky 90 win club - who actually got outscored in 2007 - and you're probably asking them to win more both at home and on the road. It's a bad division, once again, but that's not much of a window.

Not for a team that's parlayed its league's fifth weakest schedule (to date), almost exclusively at home, into that league's worst run differential. We're not this bad and the Dodgers arent this good - not over the long haul. But the long haul doesnt matter now. Or it wont, if the Diamondbacks dont take care of the short haul pretty quickly.

The medium haul doesnt look too comforting either. Starting with Lincecum tonight, the Dbacks play forty games in forty one nights. Lincecum, Johnson and Cain. We need to win two out of three, right now, or the Valley's typically unbearable summer may start a little early this year.