The Futility Infielder

Stick a pair of chopsticks in me, because I'm done. We're just past mid-July, and I may as well concede this year's sushi bet to my pal Nick. Every so often, the two of us take up an impulsive sports-related wager, the prize being a sushi dinner at the East Village standby, Sandobe (or its sister restaurant, Jeoladdo). One year it was whether Bobby Valentine or Ray Miller would get fired first (I had Valentine and lost, but gained a new respect for the Mets' manager), once it was whether the New York Jets could come back in the AFC Championship (I enjoyed spearing that tuna), and last year it was the Minnesota Twins versus the rest of the AL Central (yum).

This year, in my preseason column, I predicted that the Detroit Tigers, who lost a near-record 119 games last season, would "bear some resemblance to a major-league club by losing only 100-110 games instead of pushing the 120 envelope." Nick shot back an email saying, "I'll bet you sushi dinner they don't lose 95," to which I responded, "You're taking the under at 95? Roll over, Lou Whitaker, and tell Alan Trammell to pass me the wasabe."

Nick emailed the next day to note that the Tigers had run their record to 4-0, but at the time I was still confident. But a half-season later, having gotten a good look at the team as they've battled the Yankees, I'm as cooked as a piece of eel atop of a tiny bed of rice. On Friday night, the Tigers matched last year's win total of 43 at the Yankees' expense, with Mike Maroth, who lost 21 of those 119 games, twirling a one-hitter. On Sunday they surpassed that total with a 4-2 win over the Bombers and a 4-3 season series win. In doing so, they bested the 1962 Philadelphia Phillies record of 106 games to reach their previous season's win total by a whopping 16 games. Through Sunday, the Tigers stand at 44-46.

The biggest reason for Detroit's resurgence is catcher Ivan Rodriguez, who signed with the team as a free-agent after leading the Florida Marlins to the World Championship. In addition to hitting .367/.409/.559 and leading the league in batting average, Rodriguez has obviously connected with Detroit's young pitchers and helped some of them improve dramatically:

               ----PRE-2004----   -----2004-----

               W-L    ERA   K/9   W-L  ERA   K/9

J. Bonderman    6-19  5.56  6.0   6-7  5.97  7.9

Jason Johnson  36-58  4.91  5.8   7-7  4.24  5.9 

Mike Maroth    15-31  5.23  4.1   6-7  4.65  4.5

Nate Robertson  1-3   6.45  6.1   8-4  4.11  8.1

As a whole, the Tigers have a 4.89 ERA with 6.4 K/9, compared to last year's 5.30 ERA and 4.8 K/9. But pitching is only part of the improvement; here's how the scoring on both sides of the ball has changed:

   2003  RS/G  2004  RA/G   NET

RS  591  3.65   478  5.31  +1.66  

RA  928  5.73   464  5.16  +0.57

As positive as the boost on the mound has been, on a per-game basis, the offense's improvement is nearly three times that margin, a 2.2 run per game swing. It's enough to put the Tigers within hailing distance of .500, a remarkable achievement. In addition to Rodriguez's addition, trade acquisitions Carlos Guillen (.322/.386/.553) and Rondell White (.275/.345/.459) have been big steps up, and the Tigers have gotten a real boost from a pair of players' -- call them the I-sores -- whose contributions were below replacement level last year. Catcher Brandon Inge was three runs below replacement level (RARP) with a .216 EQA (a nasty .206/.265/.339 line), while second baseman Omar Infante was six runs below with an even more anemic .199 EQA (.222/.278/.258). This year, Inge -- who has moved out of the catcher's slot and become a utilityman of sorts, playing third base and all three outfield spots -- is hitting for a .297 EQA (.297/.365/.480) and is 12.8 runs above replacement, not to mention eight miles higher than even his most optimistic PECOTA projection (90th percentile: .240/.353/.388 for a .277 EQA). Infante is at a .284 EQA (.274/.342/.465) and 14.2 RARP and a few steps above his 90th percentile PECOTA (.240/.353/.388 for a .273 EQA). Throw in the upgrade at shortstop from Ramon Santiago (.225/.292/.294 for a sickly .217 EQA and -5 RARP) to Guillen (.322 EQA and 40.4 RARP) and that's a swing of about 80 runs -- around eight games -- with the bat right there, in only half a season!

It's a stretch to think the Tigers, who entered Sunday only 5.5 games out of first place in the AL Central, can take the division, as they'll have to outdo not only the Middling, er, Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox but also the Cleveland Indians. Still, nobody, not even Tigers manager Trammell nor GM Dave Dombrowski, could have foreseen how short the road to respectability would be. Whether that road can be sustained over the rest of the season and beyond is the next question they'll need to answer, with fellow Centralmates the Kansas City Royals (83-79 last year after eight straight losing seasons, but currently 22 games below .500) as the cautionary tale. But they've given the Yankees all they could handle in their matchups this month, and they deserve a hell of a lot of credit for that.

The Tigers aren't the only team who has turned it around in 2004, of course. The Milwaukee Brewers, winners of only 190 games over the past three seasons, currently stand at 46-43, and they're looking up at the Cincinnati Reds (48-43), who won only 69 games last year. The Indians (44-46) are coming off a 68-win year. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays (43-47) are showing serious signs of breaking out of the 90+ loss ghetto for the first time in franchise history. The Texas Rangers (51-37) find themselves atop the AL West after averaging 72 wins over the past four years, and the San Diego Padres (49-41) are in contention in the NL West after five straight losing seasons, including recent 66-96 and 64-98 campaigns. Add it all up and you'll see a lot of writers throwing around terms like parity and competitive balance as if Bad Rug Bud had planted a bug in their ears. Selig himself is proclaiming victory for the results of the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement.

For a good long time, folks at Baseball Prospectus such as Joe Sheehan and the late Doug Pappas have been battling to show that baseball's competitive balance problem has more to do with the media buying what Selig was selling, lock, stock and barrel, than with what's actually been going on down on the field. Using this past July 9 as the control, Sheehan measured how many teams were "competitive," which is to say within six games of a playoff spot on that date. Here's what he found:

Year     Teams     Competitive Teams

2004        30          20

2003        30          19

2002        30          13

2001        30          13

2000        30          19

1999        30          17

1998        30          11

1997        28          17

1996        28          15

1995*       28          19

1994        28          11



*not representative, as the season started three weeks late

That's a 54% "competitive rate" over the past 11 years, with 2003-04 representing the data's two-year peak. Sheehan notes that the low points tend to be either years when one team (such as the '98 Yankees or the 2001 Mariners) runs away from the pack or years when the CBA is up for negotiation (1994, 2002) and the poorer clubs may have some disincentive to use their own resources to improve. Going back to the 1980s, he notes that while the extremes in the number of "competitive teams" are greater, from 8 to 17 (out of 26),

...the shape of the data is basically the same, with a slightly lower average. In other words, baseball seasons aren't much less competitive today than they were in the 1980s... Baseball's competitive balance is the same today as it was before the latest rules changes went into effect. The effect of the confiscatory revenue sharing and payroll taxes isn't to cause change on the field, but to shift money from players and the industry's highest-revenue teams to those in the third quartile of revenue. The line being drawn from the current CBA to the baseball we see today is a shaky one.

Shaky or not, Selig will doubtless continue to take credit for solving baseball's problems while imposing upon us for awhile longer. But as the Royals remind us, one season does not a turnaround make, and while the hosannas start to pour in, we should continue to be mindful of the crimes which Selig has wrought. In his "Open Letter to Commissioner Selig", BP's Dayn Perry notes some of them, including perjury before Congress, scamming the public with regards to new ballparks, threatening contraction of two ballclubs as quid pro quos to his friends, and questioning the integrity of anybody who dares counter his spurious claims with hard data. There may be something to Selig's changes -- I'd prefer to look at a sample size larger than two seasons before deciding -- but that one facet is no reason to let him off the hook.

But don't get me wrong. While I greatly enjoy watching the Yankees win, I'm equally excited that the long-suffering people in Detroit, Milwaukee, San Diego and other cities can get just as excited about their ballclubs. One way or another, that's always good for the game, even if it means some else eating the occasional Tiger Roll at my expense.