The numbers behind the numbers (or something)

So the other day at the Phillies' home opener we were luckyenough to be graced with the presence of Kevin Roberts, the former baseball writer and columnist for the Camden Courier Post before the folks running the paper lost their minds and started cutting jobs. Anyway, Kevin only gets to do some baseball writing on a freelance basis so if you happen to run into a story with his byline on it, savor it. They don't appear as much as they should.

Though he's not hanging around the ballpark the way he used to, the mind of the ol' ball scribe is tough to reprogram. Writing about baseball on a daily basis for a number of years is not unlike being trapped on a deserted island after the plane went down. If surviving the crash and swimming through shark-invested waters to safety isn't harrowing enough, one then has to live closely with the other scribes, TV boobs, ballplayers, and coaches. You know, the dregs of society.

Though two seasons removed from steady baseball writing, Kevin's mind is still sharp. Better yet, because he is outside of the daily bubble, he has a more well rounded perspective. With that in mind, somehow the topic of Placido Polanco and his intangibles arose and Kevin proceeded to make my brain hurt.

If I were specify one player as a favorite on the Phillies, it would be Placido Polanco. It really isn't for any other reason than Polanco plays baseball by utilizing one of Charlie Manuel's great creedos to the hilt…

Know thyself.

If Polanco were a basketball player he would have been like Dennis Johnson. He would have guarded the opposition’s best player, run the point as steady as a clock, and if needed, he could drop 30. You know… all those clichés that go with one of those workhorse ballplayers that media types love to shower with all those images. That's idea of Dennis Johnson we have all these years removed from the end of the career, but the truth was he rarely scored 30 and let any other guard, he got posted up by Magic Johnson. It's the same thing with Polanco, too.

Hell, at this point it’s as if Polanco shows up to the ballpark every day with a hard hat and one of those lunch pails Jethro had in The Beverly Hillbillies.

“Peskiosity” or “scrappitude,” as Kevin called it.

“There is no metric to measure what Polanco does for a team,” I told Kevin. Actually, that might not be an exact quote, but it sounds like something I said before I launched into something about moving runners or whatever else it is guys like me put out there.

“Really?” Kevin probably said. “You’re going the hit-behind-the-runners route? How about the taking-pitches bit, too?”

Kevin is smart so his response was probably witty and pithy. Kind of like the time he punched me for ordering him a 4 a.m. wakeup call even though we were all up hanging out in his hotel room until about 3 a.m. after Game 1 of the ’08 World Series as a sort of baseball scribe version of the Algonquin Roundtable. I didn’t have to shout, “Ow! What was that for!?” when he delivered the hard right to my brachial plexus. I knew what it was for and couldn’t have come up with a better retort if I surveyed everyone in the ballpark. At least Kevin hit me... all John Gonzalez did was write about how he wanted to punch me.

What a pansy!

But during Monday's outing at the opener, the punch was delivered right between the eyes and it came in the guise of statistics. As if that wasn’t enough, Kevin retreated to the press box to compose a well-thought out argument in 20 seconds and e-mailed me. It was kind of like he was showing me just how smart he was.

Or how dumb I am.

So you think Polanco is scrappy and does all those little things that go unnoticed? Guess what? He’s not exactly the most patient hitter at the plate. For instance, Polanco is hitting .484 through the first week of games and has an on-base percentage of .500, but do you know how many of those times on base have come via a walk?

Try one.

In fact, Polanco walks less than Jimmy Rollins. Measured through 162 games, Polanco averages 35 walks for his career. In 2003 he set his career-high in walks when he got 42 of them. Better yet, throughout his career, the league average for on-base percentage is .340.

Polanco’s career on-base percentage? Try .349.

Of course Polanco strikes out approximately as much as he walks, which is where his brilliance lies. That’s where he shows what happens when a hitter does the most basic thing he can do by simply putting the ball in play.

But when Polanco gets up there, don’t blink—he’s not going to be long. Polanco is one of those see-ball, hit-ball dudes averaging 3.53 pitches per plate appearance when the league average is 3.75. For his career that figure is an impatient 3.37, as Kevin pointed out.

His e-mail read:

This why, when people say, “Stats -- pfft. I watch the games,” It means they are bleeping up. If you watch Polanco every day, because he's little and he's cute, you think he's a scrappy little bugger and the synapses in your brain fire away and tell you that scrappy little buggers foul off pitches and work the count. So you assume that Placido Polanco really knows how to work pitchers ... and right there, you bleeped it up.

What did I tell you about Kevin? He’s smart, right? Moreover, there’s probably an entire jag about stats and baseball and that tired, old argument about crusty baseball men not knowing a thing that short pop up here. But you know what… I’m not going to do it.

OK, here it goes:

I don’t consider myself a stats guy because once we move past basic math, my head starts to hurt and a tiny bit of drool starts to form on the corners of my mouth. I appreciate the innovation and the smart way of looking at the game the numbers presents. However, I’m trotting out the crusty cliché about knowing what my eyes tell me. I can see Polanco hit the ball behind the runner and get on base. I can also look at the box score and see no numbers beneath the strikeout column, which means when he got up there it was all action. The action is the best part.

But I don’t know how to prove that it’s good. I just know it is and maybe that’s why I like it so much.

Or something like that.

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon... baseball style

For regular readers of the Freakonomics blog – and you know who you are – this might be old news. Nevertheless, it’s still interesting. Anyway, a new study using some sort of science I don’t understand (which is pretty much every type of science) rated every single outcome from 1954 to 2008 and came up with the best players… in a cold, clinical way. Wired mag calls it the baseball version "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon," though performance-enhancing drugs, illness, technology, lucky hits, stadium effects and everything else was simply collateral.

As a result, the top three hitters since 1954 turned out to be Barry Bonds, Todd Helton, and Mickey Mantle. No Phillie made it into the top 10 of the list (which can be seen here and here), however, pitching is a different story.

According to the formula, Billy Wagner is the second-best reliever since 1954, Curt Schilling is the fourth-best starter and Pedro Martinez…

Numero uno.

It’s also worth mentioning that Roy Halladay was rated as the third-best pitcher of the ultra-modern era that ranks Bert Blyleven ahead of Hall of Famers Steve Carlton, Phil Niekro and Don Sutton.

Again, check out the Wired story for the finer details of the rankings system that puts Armando Benitez in the top 10 of relief pitchers since 1954…

But if Benitez was so good how come he couldn’t get Pat Burrell out?

As far as Pedro goes, check out this little graph CSN's Rob Kuestner came up with:

Pitcher A		Pitcher B
129	Wins	111
47	Losses	33
.732	Win Pct.	.771
2.19	ERA	2.00
3	Cy Youngs	3

Pitcher A is Sandy Koufax from 1961 to 1966.

Pitcher B is Pedro Martinez from 1997 to 2003.

The clown show is on hiatus

Note: Beginning now this site is going on a two-week hiatus. As most regular readers know, my wife and I are expecting our second child (a boy) any day. But now that we are more than a week past the due date and since her cervix is like one of those old-fashioned steel bear traps, the natural process needs some prodding. Therefore, we go to the hospital on Thursday night with the hope of delivering the big boy on Friday.

It should be noted that Friday is also the birth day for Yasser Arafat, Vince McMahon, Cal Ripken Jr., Reggie Miller and Dave Chappelle.

Anyway, I will be checking in from time to time, but I will not return with regular posts until September 7. When we return expect something of a new look, structure and organization… maybe even a redesign, too.

Like anyone who has devoted time to baseball, I know that statistics are not worth the paper they are printed on. They lie and can be manipulated to prove bogus points. Statistics also cannot quantify health, heart, ability and whether or not someone has put hard workouts to be prepared for a long season. Plus, stats don’t go into the clubhouse and get a feel of the mood of the room or have to go face-to-face with a player it may have lied about.

Statistics are cowards. Sports are for playing, not watching – we hold these truths to be self evident.

But sometimes it is difficult to debate the statistics. For instance, in pushing the streak of not winning a series in Pittsburgh since June of 2001, the Phillies were outscored by the Pirates 15-2 from the seventh inning on last weekend at PNC Park or whatever the hell corporation owns the naming rights now.

Yeah, that’s right, 15-2… against the Pirates… the worst team in the National League.

So I’m going to cherry pick that one specific statistic to show that the Phillies might not have the pitching needed to get to the playoffs. Then again, it wasn’t like anyone needed a stat for that.

Pitching aside, the Phillies should have a really good idea of how the last month of the season will play out at the end of the next 10 days. With three games against the Dodgers and three more against both the Padres and the Mets – the two teams the Phillies are chasing in different playoff races – the playoff race is right in front of the team.

For the Phillies, 5-5 is treading water, 6-4 is reasonable; and 7-3 and better is ideal. But anything worse than .a 500 homestand could be the beginning of the beginning of the end.

According to Ryan Howard the Phillies control their own destiny... they also take them one game at a time and give 110 percent.

“This is a big series for us and the good thing is that we control our own destiny,” Howard said before Tuesday’s game against the Dodgers. “There will be a little bit of scoreboard watching going on, but most of it will be us trying to handle our own business.”

Scoreboard watching, huh?

“The scoreboard sits right there in front of us so we can’t help but not look at it,” manager Charlie Manuel said on Tuesday. “It’s about that time of the year and that can be good.”

***
Meanwhile, Chase Utley could return in a week after being cleared to take some swings with a bat for the first time after breaking his wrist at the end of July.

“(I) took some swings off the tee – started with the fungo and moved to my regular bat. I didn’t swing 100 percent but it felt pretty good,” Utley offered.

Based on his recovery from day to day, Utley hopes to add a little more volume to his workouts as he looks to his return.

***
But the injury bug has reared its head again… Cole Hamels has been scratched from tomorrow’s start with some left elbow tenderness. From the initial, knee-jerk reaction it doesn’t seem to be anything other than late-season tiredness, but pitchers’ arms are quite mysterious.

Regardless, Hamels is being diagnosed with a mild elbow strain and will have a precautionary MRI tomorrow.

“He was up front with us so I hope we got it early,” pitching coach Rich Dubee said.

***
Though one current Dodger pitcher once told me that “sometimes injuries just happen,” I respectfully disagreed. Injuries always happen for a reason – sometimes we can’t figure out what the reason is, but as our boy Floyd said, all it takes is the proper training:

“There's only one rule: The guy who trains the hardest, the most, wins. Period. Because you won't die. Even though you feel like you'll die, you don't actually die. Like when you're training, you can always do one more. Always. As tired as you might think you are, you can always, always do one more.

“If you overtrained, it means that you didn't train hard enough to handle that level of training. So you weren't overtrained; you were actually undertrained to begin with. So there's the rule again: The guy who trains the hardest, the most, wins."”

Learn it. Live it. Love it.

Not to beat a dead horse but someone get my whip…

Salon.com’s King Kaufman wrote in today’s column that he talked to a stathead friend following the Eagles’ loss to the Saints on Saturday night and his knee-jerk reaction that punting on 4th-and-15 with 1:56 to go was the wrong move was, well, statistically correct.

Kaufman writes: The bottom line: “We estimate that Philadelphia's win probability is about 0.11 if they go for the first down, compared to about 0.05 if they punt. By choosing to punt with 1:56 left against New Orleans, Andy Reid halved his team's likelihood of winning.”

Crunch time

Third quarter vitals:
Saints ran 16 plays for 147 yards and 14 points.
Eagles ran 11 plays for 124 yards and 7 points.

This is a really good game.

On another note, it’s good to see the Punt, Pass & Kick kids out on the field at the end of the third quarter. Better yet, get a good look at those kids now because they’re going places – after all, you’re reading the words of the 1979 trophy winner from the Washington, D.C. area.

Damn right.

Howard is the MVP

Forget the numbers for a second. Often in baseball people get too hung up on the numbers and lose sight of the people and the game. After all, that's what draws us to the game, right?

How can anyone quantify that running catch Michael Bourn had in right field the other night in his big league debut? Well, yeah, I'm sure some egghead can whip up some type of formula to show that Bourn's catch was the 463rd best by a right fielder in his Major League debut. But that's not the point -- the point is that Bourn ran like a freakin' gazelle, extended his arm as high as it could go and softly cradled the ball into his black glove just before he nearly flattened himself into the outfield fence.

That, folks, is baseball. Leave the numbers to the stat geeks -- we'll take the game.

Digressing a bit, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with Scott Rolen a few years ago. When presented with the notion that he could very well be the best fielding third baseman ever to play the game, Rolen shifted his feet uncomfortably for a few seconds before answering, "You know, that's nice, but I really don't think there is any way you can determine that. Every game and every player is different and a lot of people being compared never played during the same time."

He was using an old but popular argument about how it was difficult to compare players from different eras, etc. It's a valid argument, of course, and it wasn't just a matter of Rolen trying to be diplomatic, either. He just didn't want to think about being better than anyone else. Something tells me he's like that in a lot of facets of his life.

Nevertheless, I told him that, yes, indeed, there are ways to determine who the best is. Smart people with real jobs and the ability to make numbers sing have come up with formulas and hyperbola showing who could do what and all that jazz.

Basically, living, breathing people had been reduced to cold, hard numbers in order to prove something that most baseball people think is silly. The numbers may show something, but they don't tell the story.

Numbers don't show how hard Randy Wolf and Rolen worked during the off season in order to play this year. Numbers don't show how Curt Schilling was able to get all of those strikeouts by studying all of the hitters with John Vukovich. Numbers don't show the size of Charlie Manuel's spirit after he battled a heart attack and cancer to return to a Major League bench.

You can have the numbers. Give me something I can touch.

You want to know what else the numbers don't show? How about how important Ryan Howard has been to the Phillies during their chase for the wild card. Oh sure, there are the home runs and the RBIs with the slugging, OBP, OPS and batting average that will put him in the horserace with Albert Pujols for the NL MVP Award. In that regard, yes, the numbers do tell a big portion of the story.

But they can't quantify the veteran things Howard has been doing since he has come to the big leagues to stay last summer.

Veteran things?

By that I mean making himself available to the media before and after every game no matter what happened previously. Win, lose, embarrassment, controversy, celebration or whatever the occasion, Howard has been dependable. In fact, last season there were times when Howard was the only player to speak for the team during a difficult period for the team. Now how is a rookie, who had not even played a complete Major League season, going to be the spokesman for the team? I guess that's just who Ryan Howard is.

Accountability is a lost art that transcends sports. When a "stand up" guy is identified, people have a way of gravitating toward that person. That's kind of the way it has been for the Phillies this year.

Certainly this group of Phillies has a lot of stand up guys. Howard, Wolf, Rowand, Conine, Gordon, Coste, Moyer, Madson, Victorino, Dellucci, Hamels... the list continues. But when one of the big stars is doing the dirty work -- like handling the media and all of the other extenuating non-baseball things – it doesn’t go unnoticed. It may not seem like a big deal to the casual fan or the number crunchers, but if Ryan Howard is standing up in front of the media, it means other players don’t have to. Instead, those guys can get the treatment they need, or they can go home and rest so they can be fresh for the game the next day.

In baseball, the little things matter just as much as the 56 homers, 138 RBIs and .311 batting average.

The numbers add up
Last season there was some debate whether Howard was going to win the rookie of the year award over Jeff Francoeur of Atlanta and Willy Taveras of Houston. Actually, let me rephrase that -- there was some debate amongst people who didn't know any better. For those of us who spoke with rookie of the year voters, we knew Howard was going to win the award easily and thought the idea of the debate was silly.

But sometimes sports media is very silly.

Nevertheless, it seems as if some of the MVP voters are giving Howard a really long look. And based on what's happening in the final month of the season, Howard just might be sprinting for the finish.

Whether or not he passes Pujols remains to be seen.