The Futility Infielder

More Links Than Winks

On Tuesday night I attended an early-evening birthday party for a friend, pre-empting my ALDS Game One viewing plans. Fortunately, I had the miracle of TiVo at my disposal, enabling me to time-shift my viewing seamlessly. All told, I saved myself well over an hour's worth of commercials, pitching changes, pregnant pauses, and McCarver/Buck blathering. The result felt like missing out on a hangover. Suffice it to say that I not only heartily endorse TiVo, I recommend that any serious baseball fan who expects to lead a life beyond the couch in October purchase one.

My TiVo-ing, combined with a bit of watching the late late Cardinals-Diamondbacks game, made for a very late night, so I 'm going to clear the bases on a bunch of stuff and get some sleep tonight, rather than write about the Yanks game in depth...

• ...except to say that in one inning, Mike Scioscia may have undone all of the good press that he's generated thus far this season. The Angels manager (who will likely get my vote as AL Manager of the Year over at the Internet Baseball Awards if I'm strict about considering only regular-season performance), will be second-guessed until the cows come home for his decision not to bring in closer Troy Percival to put out the Yankee rally in the eighth inning. Scioscia brought in lefty Scott Schoenweis (his only southpaw in the pen, which should set off some alarms as the Halos go to battle with the Yanks) to face Jason Giambi with two on and two out in the eighth inning, rather than Percival. The G Man was 5 for 20 in his career against Schoeneweiss, including 2-for-3 this year, while Percival was 0-for-5 with 5 K's against him this season. Giambi's game-tying hit may have been something of a fluke as it richocheted off of Scott Spiezio's glove, but Scioscia stil had the option to go to his hoss before the barn burned down. Instead he brought in Brendan Donnelly, of whom Bernie Williams made short work with a long ball.

With the game on the line, obviously Percival should have been in there rather than being saved for the save situation in the 9th inning. As Around the Majors reporter Lee Sinins writes, "When the game's on the line and you're managing for the sake of a manager manipulated stat, rather than the victory, you deserve to lose."

• Speaking of cows coming home and barns burning down... no, I was never raised on a farm. Just a big fan of Keith Jackson. Whoa, Nellie!

• How about Alfonso Soriano, he of the meager 23 walks this season, laying off of Ben Weber's sliders once he'd fallen to 0-2 with 2 outs in the eighth? Sori's walk absolutely turned the game around. And man, isn't Weber one scary lookin' dude? His in-game demeanor and jerky pitching motion combines John Rocker, Ted Kaczynski, and a hari-kiri swordthrust.

• From Baseball Primer's thread on Game One: "Posted 11:44 p.m., October 1, 2002 (#212) - Mystique and Aura Told you we were showing up."

• The Internet Baseball Awards voting ends Friday. I'm trying to build up enough resistance to the peer pressure to vote for Alex Rodriguez as AL MVP. That's a column for another day, one when the Yanks arent' playing. Bull Magazine's Craig Calcaterra has an excellent piece on the contradictory criteria which the Baseball Writers of America invoke when voting for the MVP. Of closers, Calcaterra writes: "Rule #7: Disregard Rule #5 if the pitcher in question is able to hold a three-run lead in the ninth inning of every third game or so. If he can do this, he is magically transformed into a "closer" and is rewarded with his very own statistic, the save. Do not, under any circumstances, keep in mind that saves are just a measure of opportunity, and that some relievers routinely hold one-run leads in the seventh or eighth innings. These relievers have no special stat like saves, and therefore must be worthless. This rule explains Dennis Eckersley in 1992, Willie Hernandez in 1984, and Rollie Fingers in 1981."

• NY Daily News' Vic Ziegel on Game One of the Twins-A's series: "OAKLAND - Minnesota 7, Oakland 5, Skill 0, and congratulations to the decision-makers who determine the TV playoff schedule. They did the right thing keeping this afternoon game, this series, away from prime time."

• ESPN's Jim Caple reports that the Twins' early-game gaffes started with their trip to the ballpark, as several players, along with GM Terry Ryan got lost when they took the wrong train. Writes Caple:

Everyone knew the Twins were inexperienced but few realized that extended to public transportation.

"We've had guys go to the Astrodome even though the Astros don't play there anymore. We've had guys go to Shea Stadium when we played the Yankees," first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz said. "You just realize we're not the brightest group of players. But when you're with the general manager, you figure you ought to be in good hands."

• The Twins Geek offers his unique perspective on Game One, including the part where he was joined by his Australian friend (and baseball neophyte) Dave:

Dave: Joe Morgan had a baseball career of some kind?
Me: Well, he was the greatest second baseman that ever lived.
Dave: Oh. [pause] But that's debatable, right?
Me: No.

• Great though he was as a player, Joe Morgan is an entirely different league as a commentator, especially when it comes to his online chat sessions. Mike of Mike's Baseball Rants does a brilliant and hilarious job of tackling Joe's ridiculous and often contradictory answers posed in the chat:

Joe is in actuality just an adherent to Reductio ad Absurdum. Reductio ad Absurdum is, of course, is a means to prove a given point by taking its reverse to an absurd conclusion. C’mon you use it everyday. Remember when you first said, “If Miguel Tejada is the MVP, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.” Well, start developing an appetite for bananas and flinging fecal matter.

The only reason that Joe is juxtaposing brilliant insights with inane tripe is to demonstrate to us mere mortals all the more the sagaciousness of said insight. The more he proffers preposterous pap, Batman, the more intelligent he really is. It’s sheer brilliance. By espousing a baseball philosophy awash in ancient, hackneyed saws, he is actually trying to rid the baseball discussion once and for all of all such tripe. You are a brave man of conviction, Joe Morgan. And we salute you along with those about to rock (Fire!).

• The Mets' season was a trainwreck wrapped in a disaster, buried under a shitpile of bad contracts. Proving that shit does indeed run downhill, they made manager Bobby Valentine the scapegoat for their miserable season, conveniently avoiding the fact that it was General Manger Steve Phillips who traded for Mo Vaughn, Jeromy Burnitz, and Roberto Alomar, and signed Roger Cedeño and Rey .000rdoñez to cumbersome contracts. Not that Valentine didn't contribute to his own demise, but by firing him, the Mets clearly did him a favor. They extricated him from an overpaid, underachieving, over-the-hill ballclub that had lost respect for him and seemed unwilling to take his input at any level. My hunch is that they'll be wallowing in the damage Steve Phillips has done long after Bobby V. has moved onto his next job (Texas, again?). And it'll be awhile before they're an interesting ballclub again.

• The Mets' managerial vacancy means it's speculatin' season in the Big Apple, with plenty of Yankee- and Met-related names surfacing as candidates: Lou Piniella, Buck Showalter, Chris Chambliss, current Yankee coaches Lee Mazzilli and Willie Randolph, as well as current Giants manager Dusty Baker. I'd love to see Randolph get a shot and wouldn't be surprised if Maz get it. But I won't complain too loudly if Sweet Lou finds his way back to NYC to give George Steinbrenner a bit more competion for headlines.

• Speaking of Yankee coaches, my pal Nick will sleep better at night knowing that Mel Stottlemyre and Don Zimmer have decided not to retire and will return to the Yankee coaching staff next season.

• Speaking of managerial firings, Brewers manager Jerry Royster got his just desserts. I've already filed my position paper regarding Royster's role in the Jose Hernandez strikeout fiasco, but I also think that Hernandez deserves some of the blame. If he'd gone to Royster and said words to the effect of "Hey skip, thanks for watching my back with the fans, but I'm man enough to handle this by showing up and playing ball the way I have been all season," the situation would probably have been defused. I doubt Royster would have been so protective without Hernandez's complicity. Perceptive Brewers fan Harvey's Wallbanger had a good prescription for the Brewers over at Baseball Primer: "... if any team needed Leo Durocher with a permanent hangover as manager this is the squad. They made indifference an art form... I rarely encourage the General Sherman modus operandi but if there was ever a time to just burn it all to the ground and rebuild with the remaining rubble this is it."

• Following up his fascinating interview with orthopedic surgeon Dr. Frank Jobe, Baseball Prospectus' Jonah Keri has a great Q & A with Tommy John, who's now a Double A pitching coach. John has some interesting, unorthodox views on arm care, and advocates pitchers throwing every day:

[W]hen I had the surgery, I was forced into throwing every day to rebuild my arm strength. All of a sudden, my arm felt better than it had in its life. I'm not talking about throwing five minutes. I would warm up in the bullpen for 10 or 15 minutes, 15, 20 minutes of BP, then 10, 15 minutes more back in the bullpen, six days a week. On days where I wasn't throwing batting practice, I'd throw off a mound a half hour to an hour... It's hard for people to buy into the fact that throwing will strengthen your arm. A lot of them think rest will strengthen it. It won't. It might make it feel better but it won't strengthen it.

Here's hoping Keri continues what could well turn out to be a fascinating series by interviewing other pitching iconoclasts such as Dr. Mike Marshall (he of the 106 appearances in 1974) and the legendary Johnny Sain.

• If ESPN "analyst" Rick Sutcliffe is good for anything besides sucking up all of the oxygen in the room, it's picking up when a pitcher is tipping his pitches. In last year's World Series it was Andy Pettitte, in the recent Dodgers-Giants series it was Jay Witasick, and now it's Curt Schilling. Will Sutcliffe's observations be enough to alter the course of the Cards-Snakes series? Tune in for the next episode of "As The Curve Turns".

• [4 hours and 20 minutes into Wednesday night's ballgame]: I'm ready for Raul Mondesi to retire already.