The Futility Infielder

In my quick jottings before the World Series opener, I noted that the Marlins don't really have a lefty to match up with the Yankee bats out of the bullpen, that rookie sensation Dontrelle Willis had looked pretty cooked in October, and that Fish head Jack McKeon could only mix and match his starters for so long without leaving his rotation shorthanded in a key game.

In Game One of the Series, McKeon gave a shot at killing all three of these birds with one stone. With two outs in the sixth, he turned the ball over to lefty Willis (a starter during the regular season) in relief of Brad Penny, and Dontrelle gave the Fish 2.1 innings of scoreless relief. Willis, with his funky motion, is especially tough on lefties, as Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan noted (.216 AVG/.293 OBP/.307 SLG), but the sample size isn't too big, only about 100 PA. Still, this looks to be a case of the Marlins' manager taking two negatives and turning them into a positive, and it's a good bet Willis will continue to be a factor in the Series.

On the third point that I mentioned, during Game Two, McKeon used Carl Pavano in relief for an inning. Best known for being one of the pitchers the Red Sox traded to Montreal for Pedro Martinez, Pavano had his best season in the majors as the Marlins' #5 starter. He's been performing admirably as a swingman duties athis October, with six scoreless appearances in relief, none longer than an inning, and one decent start (NLCS Game Six which the Marlins famously rallied to win). The Marlins have him slated to start Game Four, so the Fox announcers scoffed at McKeon's giving the Yanks a first look at him before what will undoubtably be a key start -- hey, they're all key now. In the postgame press conference, McKeon used words to the effect that this being Pavano's throw day, he was just getting his starter some work.

This consistent usage of his starters in relief has been McKeon's most impressive gambit this October, and it's the reason the Fish are still hanging around. Every starter except Mark Redman's done double duty. Here are their stats in relief:

         G   IP   ERA

Beckett  1   4.0  2.25

Penny    3   3.2  0.00

Willis   3   3.2  2.45

Pavano   6   5.2  0.00

TOTAL   13  17.0  1.06

Two runs in 17 innings? Yeah, that works, especially in comparison to the leavings at the bottom of the Fish tank -- Rick Helling, Nate Bump, and Michael Tejara have combined for a 6.92 ERA in 13 innings. So long as McKeon doesn't overdo it -- and he hasn't, with these guys averaging 1.08 innings per appearance if you throw out Beckett's four-inning Game Seven stint -- he should be able to keep the ball in the hands of his best men on this short staff. And as managers like Joe Torre have proven time and time again, that's what wins in October.

• • •

Several weeks ago, I told a couple of friends that I though that this winter, the Yanks might think about shipping second baseman Alfonso Soriano to Kansas City in exchange for centerfielder Carlos Beltran. The 26-year-old centerfielder, who hit .307/.389/.522 with 26 homers and 100 RBI, has one year remaining before free-agency.

Apparently, this rumor has some legs; the New York Daily News's Bill Madden reports that with Soriano's struggles this postseason, his welcome in pinstripes might be worn out:

If he is [still a Yankee next season], it isn't likely to be as either a leadoff hitter (where he had just a .338 on-base percentage this season) or at second base (where he committed 19 errors.)

Going into last night's Game 2 of the World Series, Soriano was hitting .222 with 18 strikeouts in 54 at-bats (or one in every three). "If the Yankees are smart, they'll look to deal Soriano now while his value is still high and before he starts to make big money," one NL scout observed last night.

The Yankee high command has had internal discussions about whether to pursue trade talks with the Royals about center fielder Carlos Beltran.

The Royals have conceded they're going to have to move Beltran, who is a free agent after next season, and Soriano, who likely will get a bump from $800,000 to over $2 million in arbitration, would still be a cheap alternative whom they could control for three years.

Of course, acquiring Beltran would plug the Yanks glaring hole in centerfield, where Bernie Williams has lost more than a step. But the problem becomes what to do with the rest of the Yankee outfield. Moving Williams to left is probably a no-win situation, because leftfield in Yankee Stadium requires centerfielder-like agility due to the ballpark's asymmetrical layout, and Hideki Matsui's arm isn't strong enough for right field. Williams' arm is nowhere near strong enough for rightfield either.

Far from a quick fix, it looks as though this deal would have to be part of a much larger blueprint for the Yanks to make it work. There will be plenty of cold nights to ponder those possibilities once the World Series is over.

But here's one scathing indictment of the Yankee leadoff hitter (and by extension, Joe Torre): the team's number 9 hitters (Karim Garcia, Juan Rivera, David Delluci and Nick Johnson) have a higher OBP (.333) than Sori in the leadoff slot (.281) this October. And that's excluding Sori's 0-for-3 in the 9-hole during the ALCS.

• • •

A couple of good pieces at Slate:

• A back-and-forth conversation between Allen Barra and Charles P. Pierce. Sez the latter, recounting the bag job which sent Expo owner Jeffrey Loria to Florida and Marlins owner John Henry to Boston: "The Florida Marlins—a toy franchise founded 11 minutes ago—are the perfect example of everything that's gone wrong with baseball under that bratwurst Machiavelli, Bud Selig, and the kabuki "fiscal crisis" that has been the presiding dynamic of his tenure at the head of the game."

• Sam Eifling writes that the best chance the Fish have of avoiding being gutted like they were in 1998 is to come up short: "Lost in the continual cursing of Huizenga is the fact that he did, blessedly, manage to buy the Marlins a fighting chance at a World Series. And for some Florida fans, lost in the astounding turnaround of the 2003 Marlins is the prospect that this team, too, will be torn apart after the season... The only way to save the Marlins, perhaps, is for them to get clobbered this week and have the owners bring everyone back for another run next year. Doomsday would be to win the whole shebang and again kick the best players to the curb. Presumably new owner Jeffrey Loria knows this and, despite Huizenga's continued stranglehold on the team's finances (he owns Pro Player Stadium, for one, and doesn't exactly give the Marlins a break on the rent), won't repeat the mistakes of 1998."

• • •

Nothing leaves a manager more open to second-guessing, as we've been reminded this postseason, than whether or not to remove a pitcher. The latest installment of Steven Goldman's Pinstriped Bible has some words of wisdom from the man with the most World Series wins of anybody:

So that Grady Little and Dusty Baker can avoid staircase moments in the future, here are the seven best things Casey Stengel said to a pitcher who didn't want to leave the game:

7. To Tracy Stallard, 1963: "At the end of the season they're gonna tear this place down. The way you're pitching, that right field section will be gone already."

6. To Roy Parmalee, who had just been struck by a line drive: "Make out like it's your pitching hand. I want to get you out of here gracefully."

5. Asked by a pitcher why he had to come out: "Up there, people are beginning to talk."

4. To Tug McGraw, who said that he got the batter out the last time he faced him: "Yeah, I know, but it was in the same inning."

3. To Ray Daviault, who said he had made a perfect pitch: "It couldn't have been a perfect pitch. Perfect pitches don't travel that far."

2. The pitcher said he wasn't tired: "Well, I'm tired of you."

1. To Walter Beck, who wouldn't leave on Stengel's second trip, July 4, 1934: "Give me the damn ball, Walter.

A smart man, that Casey.