Fat American Know It Alls

The Diamondbacks dont stand a ghost of a chance! Not this season and certainly not in Fenway Park!

Fat American know-it-alls favor such deterministic dreck. You hear them everywhere. In each of the largest cities in the land. Gorging on ostentatious pork chops as they predict everyone else's future. Believe me, I monitor such humiliations.

But perhaps one fat American know-it-all can justify talk of ghosts. Bill James tallies "Ghost RBIs", roughly defined as when a batter advances a runner who later scores as a result of that advancement. In other words, when a batter doesnt get credit for the official RBI, but is partially responsible for bringing the runner home. That's a ghost RBI.

Related to productive outs, but not quite the same thing. Regardless, here's the National League rankings of so called "Ghost RBI's", by team:


Florida 78

Atlanta 71

LAD 70

Houston 68

Wash DC 68

Chicago 67

Milw 67

Colorado 64

--League Median 63.5--

Cincy 63

NY Mets 63

--League Mean 61.3--

San Fran 61

San Diego 55

St Louis 54

Philly 52

Pittsburgh 45

Arizona 35

As even a typical American sports enthusiast can probably now discern, Arizona hitters do little to assist their batting brethren. They also rank MLB last in productive outs.

Take a tip from Jamaal. Cooperation and sacrifice are critical to acheiving everything from mundane to earthshattering, heavenly goals. We're not trying to re-establish a caliphate here. For the love of Allah, just move the man over once in a while!

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.

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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.

This Week's Hacks (Summer Squash)

Within MLBlogs, the opening of the baseball season, remarkably, took a back seat to...MLBlogs itself, which compromised - and in many cases, squashed - basic functionality to several hundred paying customers - with no meaningful advance warning, nor tech support worth a damn. It would take eons to catalogue the layers of ineptitude discovered to date, spread across the Planning, Design, Build, Test and Rollout stages of this embarrassment (is MLBAM even familiar with these phases?), and that is not the purpose of this post.

To begin to understand where MLBlogs fits into MLB's heirarchy, this article, written by the golden fellow (at left) "in charge" of MLBlogs (left), is illuminating.

To begin to understand how bluntly MLB implements much higher profile projects, read this, or this (hat tip: Russell)

When things are this wrong, you cant just say, "It's all Newman's fault." Well you can, but it's a little like blaming the President for everything wrong in the country. There's truth in it, but the approach isnt wholly instructive either. What you can say is this. Or this. Or this. And every MLBlogger absolutely has to read this.(hat tip:Russell)

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The questions posed to Bill James in this extensive New York Times Q&A are unusually cogent, and his responses characteristically provocative. It may squash some popular notions about James, and I promise it'll wake up your brain in the process (hat tip:Nick Piecoro)

Finally, here's a handful of Phoenix restaurants I recently reviewed on the Yelp network. Bon apetit.