The Futility Infielder

In which five topics are combined into one epically cumbersome entry, commemorating one of baseball history's more ridiculous trades...

The past week has seen not one but two announcements of new ballpark's for New York City's teams. First NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg drafted a proposed Shea Stadium replacement (ETA: 2009) to pinch-hit for the defeated Jets stadium (a real West Side Story) in a revised 2012 Olympic bid. Then on Wednesday the Yankees unveiled their plans for The House That George Built.

I'm elated to see the West Side stadium and with it the misguided and doomed attempt at securing the Olympics crash and burn. The $2.2 billion price tag on a stadium that would be used for its main purpose some eight times a year was outrageous, particularly with a cost to the taxpayers at some $600 million to over $1 billion, depending upon who's counting. I also have a strong desire to keep New York state free of the scourge of pro football; the current NFL blackout rules are bad enough that I'm forced to endure the plodding of two teams that have chosen the Meadowlands as their addresses if I want to watch football on any given Sunday. Go back to Jersey.

By contrast, I'm supportive of the much more justifiable prospect of a new ballpark to replace Shea, a not-particularly-pleasant place to see a game even if you're wearing blue and orange. In fact, my first choice would be to see the Mets get a new park along the lines of that Ebbets-esque contraption that was being pushed before September 11, with the Yankees double-bunking while the current Casa Bambino receives a much more aesthetically generous upgrade than the last time around. On that topic, the intrepid Neil deMause, who covers the stadium game via his Field of Schemes book and website as well as at Baseball Prospectus and beyond, had this to say via email on the topic of just such a renovation: "No reason they can't still do that. In fact, they could probably even do a phased-construction thing at Yankee Stadium over a couple of winters - that's what Save Fenway Park's architects had proposed for Fenway before John Henry & Co. found religion."

But while you can color me lukewarm at the proposition of a new Bronx ballpark for reasons I'll get to below, I have to admire the relatively savvy manner with which the Yanks have gone about this enterprise. As the New York Times' Richard Sandomir wrote recently:

In the coming weeks, the Yankees will call a news conference to unveil plans to build a ballpark in the Bronx that they will finance without public money for construction or discourtesy to egos and agendas in the State Legislature.

The $800 million stadium plan has been nurtured for years without any public fulminations from the team's principal owner, George Steinbrenner, who spent time in decades past threatening to move to Manhattan or New Jersey.

The stadium will rise on parkland that is far from the vitriolic political debate between developing the Far West Side of Manhattan and redeveloping post-Sept. 11 Lower Manhattan - a trap that has ensnared advocates of the proposed $2.2 billion Jets/Olympic stadium over the West Side rail yards.

In many ways, the process of creating the new Yankees ballpark will be the antithesis of the Jets' project- suddenly moribund after being spurned Monday by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in a vote of a potent state panel - which was the centerpiece of New York City's now close-to-impossible quest to be host to the 2012 Summer Games.

The Yankees' project has no urgent deadline (like July 6, when the International Olympic Committee is to make its host city decision); no land dispute over Macomb's Dam Park and no need to build atop a concrete platform (which the Jets' plan called for); no lengthy history of endemic opposition (like Westway); no semantic tap dancing over whether it is a stadium or a convention center (which the Jets perpetuated); and no reason for Cablevision to vehemently campaign against it (as it did to the Jets' stadium).

It's clear that the Yankees read and reacted to the trends in stadium financing against huge public subsidies that offer little in return to municipalities with better things to spend their money on. There will be about $300 million in government aid, much of it from the state to build garages, but the state will get the parking revenue.

My main beef with the new park isn't in the way it's being paid for; in this George Steinbrenner has proceeded in a manner which shames his peers (save for the Giants' Peter Magowan, whose park is privately financed) and sticks it to them at the same time. Nor is it with replacing the most hallowed venue in professional sports. This is one case where anybody wishing to nominate the admittedly superior aesthetics of Fenway or Wrigley as trumping the historical value of the Bronx park can count da ringzz, beeyatch; they can't claim a venue which plays host to a lineage that runs through Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson and Derek Jeter. Nor is it the prospect that the new park will be, as a Times architectural critic put it, "the worst of two worlds. It is neither a compelling design that speaks to its age, nor does it do justice to the memory of the past... the result is more suited to Las Vegas than to the Bronx."

No, it comes down to what it means for the fans like me in the cheap(er) seats; there will be significantly fewer of those in the new park. From a capacity of about 57,545 in the current model (down from as high as 82,000 according to Ballparks.com, the new stadium will have somewhere between 50,800 and 54,000, with 30,000 in the lower deck and 20,000 in the upper ones, a revers of the current configuration. "Field level" seats carry a cachet that equals higher prices, and the increased number of luxury boxes necessitates the elevation and recession of the upper deck, making it much further away from the players à la Shea. I love the Tier Box seating (lower part of the upper deck) in the current configuration; I much prefer the birds-eye view of the field to the distorted ground-floor one and though I've never caught a foul ball, would mourn the lost opportunity to spill my $8 beer and send my scorecard flying in the futile pursuit of one.

• • •

Speaking of the Yankees, pigs are flying past my window as they -- for two games against a team that's approached .500 after an abysmal first six weeks -- appear to be clicking on all cylinders: Mike Mussina twirling a gem, Hideki Matsui returning to his 2004 form, streak-threatening sprained ankle and all, Bernie Williams throwing out baserunners, Jason Giambi crushing pitches a long, long way, Andy Phillips drawing the ticket out of Columbus to replace Rey Sanchez on the roster instead of Fellix Escalona, Kevin Brown turning into a pumpkin.

I had the ballgame on last night when Brown came up lame, and though the initial guesstimate (later confirmed) was back spasms, YES analyst Jim Kaat suspected an elbow injury based on Brown's reaction. When Will Carroll inquired what happened via the BP mailing list, I admitted that I was "rooting for elbow. Add him to the [Tommy John] pile so he can *&%# off from my world forever." This drew a scolding reaction from one of my listmates, and while I'm not in the habit of rooting for injuries (baaaaad karma), I doubt there's a Yankee fan who feels any differently. In fact, I doubt you could find a Yankee fan who would piss on Brown if he were on fire, unless said urine had a high enough nitrogen content to increase the flames. The clubhouse wall punch combined with his taking the ball for Game Seven of last year's ALCS when he was physically unfit to do so have dug Brown a hole out of which he'll likely never climb while wearing pinstripes. In this road-to-nowhere season, I'd just as soon watch (or not watch) Your Name Here from Columbus fill his rotation spot until Jaret Wright returns.

Speaking of Wright, yes, I had him pegged to do well this season, and it looks as though I may be dining on crow at some point; let's just hope it tastes like chicken. It's worth noting Wright's trip to the DL is almost certain to be manipulated to the point that the injury clause buyout kicks in, saving the team $3 million. Whoopee!

• • •

Speaking of Tommy John surgery and bad karma, it should be pointed out I said this after already fretting privately that Dodger closer Eric Gagne's injury would need a second go-round of the procedure. Per Will Carroll, there's a glint of a glint of optimism that what's being termed a second-degree sprain (a/k/a a partial tear of the Ulnar Collateral Ligament, as opposed to a third-degree, complete tear) may be surmountable in six-to-eight weeks.

If Gagne does undergo surgery, I hope they can transplant some common sense into his thick skull, as his recent arm woes were triggered by two absolute no-no's that have me wondering how vapor-locked the closer is upstairs: pitching before his early-spring knee sprain had fully healed, altering his mechanics and leading to his late-spring elbow injury, and then the other day, reaching back for a few lost MPH on his fastball after Dodger pitching coach Jim Colborn mentioned that he'd lost some zip. Grrrr.

In my fantasy league, they laughed at me when I bypassed Gagne and chose Brad Lidge with the 11th pick, then grabbed Yhency Brazoban much later. Guess who's running away with the league lead?

• • •

One of the great advantages of being part of Baseball Prospectus is the sheer volume of data to which one has access. With a few exceptions, the BP suite of advanced statistics (Value Over Replacement Player, Pitcher Abuse Points, Reliever Expected Wins Above Replacement Level, Run Expectancy tables, etc.), is uniformly available back to 1972 thanks to the play-by-play data they own.

But actually being able to control the flow of that data is another matter entirely; it's something of a bottleneck because relatively few of the writers are database-savvy, leading to many late-night data queries such as "Looking for list of all the MLB hitters who've put up an EqA higher than .341 in the last 10 years" that while easy enough to fulfull, require the cooperation of multiple individuals.

Fortunately, BP has recently taking steps to resolve this problem, offering access and some level of instruction in SQL, the language of BP's databases, to us neophytes. Fifteen minutes of unsupervised poking around, and I had come up with a list of the worst Defensive Efficiency Ratios since 1972. Here they are:

Year   Team   DER
1999   TBA   .6617
1997   OAK   .6629
1999   COL   .6633
1994   COL   .6643
2005   COL   .6648
1996   BOS   .6666
1993   COL   .6674
1996   HOU   .6683
2005   NYA   .6685
2000   TEX   .6689
1997   COL   .6691
1998   TEX   .6697
2005   CIN   .6700
1986   SEA   .6704
1999   TEX   .6708
1996   DET   .6717
1994   SEA   .6717
2001   CLE   .6718
1995   PIT   .6728
2000   PIT   .6732

The current Yanks were once on pace for the worst DER of the post-'72 ERA, and as recently as a couple of nights ago were as high on this list as #5. It's worth note that two other teams from this year make the list, the Reds and the Rockies, who have seven of the bottom 21 slots on this list. That probably points to the necessity of park-adjusting these figures, something that's been attempted by BP's James Click but not applied across recent history.

As if on cue, Click -- a clutch god with the numbers to whom I owe countless thanks -- rolled out an article on the Yankee DER today, and accounts for the Rox field-driven futility as well:

Looking at the last 34 years (because we lack Reached On Error totals for earlier years), the worst defensive teams, adjusted for their park, are:

Team   Year      DE      LgDE      PF       PADE
----   ----     ----     ----    ------     ----
SEA    1986    .6704    .7012    1.0189    -5.29
CIN    2005    .6712    .6955    1.0381    -5.22
OAK    1979    .6800    .7029    1.0388    -5.10
SDN    1972    .6978    .7154    1.0410    -4.43
FLO    1998    .6737    .6902    1.0426    -4.42
DET    1989    .6909    .7053    1.0474    -4.31
HOU    1996    .6683    .6872    1.0318    -4.27
SDN    1974    .6862    .7056    1.0276    -4.07
NYA    2005    .6674    .6955     .9947    -4.06
SDN    2002    .6784    .6969    1.0279    -3.99
SDN    1997    .6752    .6883    1.0434    -3.99
NYA    1984    .6830    .6999    1.0320    -3.95
CHN    1987    .6765    .6981    1.0165    -3.89
CHN    2002    .6864    .6969    1.0490    -3.86
CHN    1981    .6859    .7097    1.0070    -3.68

(DE is the normal DE for the team including ROE, LgDE is the league average DE for that year, and PF is the team's DE Park Factor.)

PADE is a percentage, so a PADE of -4.06 as the Yanks have means they turn 4.06% fewer balls into outs than a league average defense in their park. Note that suddenly the Rockies fail to appear on the list at all while the '86 Mariners--doomed by an Alvin Davis/Ken Phelps platoon at first and Harold Reynolds at second--now suddenly top the list of the worst defensive teams of the last 34 years.

So it would appear that the Reds, not the Yankees, are the team giving closest chase to what I will call the Concrete Glove. None of which exonerates the Bronx Bumblers, by which I mean the ones who didn't sign Carlos Beltran.

• • •

Several months back, when I was culling through my referral logs to see where my site's traffic was coming from (a necessary part of maintaining a website but an incredibly nerdy thing to write about), I noticed I was getting hits via a blog called Can't Stop the Bleeding. Checking the link, I realized CSTB was the site of none other than Gerard Cosloy, head honcho of Matador Records, an independent label whose music I've spent the better part of the last 15 years listening to via bands like the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Railroad Jerk, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Guided by Voices, the Fall, and more (and yes I'm living in the past since their current roster includes hip bands like Interpol and Belle and Sebastian for which a ten-foot pole is not enough to keep me away). It's no stretch to say I probably have my hands on 100 Matador releases within my sub-500 square-foot Manhattan apartment, and if you added up the number of times I've seen the label's bands play live, you'd approach a similar number. So I was tickled to see that a link to Futility Infielder was featured prominently "above the fold," as they say.

Calling CSTB a baseball blog is flattery, however; whatever the sport, it specializes in the offbeat, the crime beat and the look-who-got-beat (usually the Mets, apparently Cosloy's favorite team). CSTB best approaches its true calling as a scandal sheet for the sports world. Cosloy's acerbic sense of humor is not for everybody, particularly the politically correct. Nonetheless, he most definitely does not suffer fools gladly. Here's his report of a recent trip to Wrigley Field, where he encountered one of FI's least favorite ballplayers, the vocally homophobic relief pitcher Todd Jones:

Florida reliever Todd Jones has long been CSTB’s journalistic hero. His old as-told-to columns for The Sporting News showed yours truly that if a big, burly dude like Todd wasn’t ashamed of flaunting his learning disabilities and backwards sexual politics in public, I’d have to get a lot bigger and burlier I wanted to manage the same thing.

Tonight while on a fact finding mission at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, I had the opportunity to observe Jones up close and personal. While sitting alongside the Marlins bullpen, I spied Todd bringing autographed baseballs to a couple of heavily made up / perfumed individuals sitting a few seats to my right. I’ve long heard that signing autographs during the game was forbidden (or so Red Sox backup catcher Bob Montgomery claimed many years ago), and as much as I’d like to credit Todd for being a nice guy, I hate to break it to him that both of these girls had penises. What’s more, since we’re in Illinois, I’m pretty sure they weren’t married to each other.

File under "Rednecks Duped by Drag Queens"... In a similar vein, Cosloy calls attention to the quizzical ramblings of White Sox outfielder Carl Everett (another FI anti-fave), whose views include advocating the demolition of Wrigley Field as well as the sadly all-too-common homophobia, which is apparently especially in vogue among relief pitchers (see Queer Eye-unfriendly Mike Timlin -- formerly thought to be a beacon of tolerance -- and the otherwises admirably gritty Cal Eldred, whose recent brush with death hasn't shaken his own prejudices). Anyway, CSTB is an entertaining read, guaranteed to amuse and outrage. Check it out.

•••

Five topics? Hell, I'll throw in a sixth for free. Perusing that Von Hayes trade, I noticed that not only was everyone's favorite 47-year-old bat wizard, Julio Franco, sent to Cleveland as part of the package, but so were Manny Trillo, a staple of my birthday bretheren Xmas All-Star team, and Jay Baller, whom I used in the title of my historical rundown of ballplayers with our shared first name. Funny how that works out.