from Amazon
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Are GMs as clueless as Boras implies?
I’m reading this feature-length on Scott Boras where he says:
“It says here Varitek is hitting .129 when the pitch count is no balls and two strikes,” he says ...
an agent or general manager would simply say, “Varitek struggles when he’s behind in the pitch count.”
Here’s what Boras says: “With one ball and two strikes he’s hitting a little better, about .138. But then, with two balls and no strikes, or two balls and one strike, he’s up around .315. So even with health issues last year, he’s still a better than average hitter.”
On 0-2, .129 is below average. At 1-2, .138 is below average. And 2-0 or 2-1, .315 is below average. And yet, he stands there and says: he’s still a better than average hitter on that basis? Wow.
Last year, another longtime Boras client, Jeff Weaver, was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals after a poor start with the Angels in Anaheim. Weaver was dominant in the postseason, and the Cardinals won the World Series, but St. Louis offered Weaver only a one-year, $5 million contract — which Boras found insulting. “That’s what you’d offer a relief pitcher,” he says.
Weaver eventually signed with the Seattle Mariners for $8.3 million. “You have to respect that teams have a right to make their own decisions,” Boras says, before turning around and passing judgment on Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty. “Here’s a GM who never played the game saying, ‘We’re going to go with our young guys,’ and I go, ‘You can’t.’”
The Cardinals simply blew it, Boras concludes. “The Cardinals not signing Jeff Weaver is how you don’t win divisions, and my prediction is the St. Louis Cardinals won’t win their division this year.” (At press time, the Cardinals were at the bottom of the National League Central.)
Uhhh… do you think the writer of the article could tell us how incredibly horrible Jeff Weaver was actually pitching this year? And in the earlier passage, Boras tells the Redsox that they won’t win without Damon. I suppose you can tell every single team they won’t win, and you’d be right 29 out of 30 times. At least we know Epstein and Jocketty are not clueless GMs.
When San Francisco reliever Kevin Correia faces Dodger pinch hitter Olmedo Saenz with a runner on third and two out, Giants catcher Bengie Molina has Correia pitch around Saenz — who gets hit by a pitch. Boras notes that now there’s a possible force out at second. “Molina is a smart catcher. He knows that was a bad matchup. Saenz is hitting .400 off this pitcher.” That Boras knows these sorts of things off the top of his head tells you just about everything you need to know about him.
According to baseball-reference.com, he’s 1-1, with 1 HBP. I guess that means he was 1-1, before that PA. Does the writer make no fact-checking at all?
Now this I like:
He says he wants MLB to scrap the current World Series format and adopt a nine-game series in one designated city per year — the way it was played in the early 20th century. He’s talked to owners and says some see nothing but upside.
“The TV and advertising and marketing revenue would explode,” he says. “Places that might never have a World Series could compete for the location like they do for the Olympics. Nine games would allow a greater chance for the best team, and not just the hottest team, to win. It would be like the Super Bowl, but better.
You can certainly make the case that MLB is not maximizing the profit potential of the World Series. So, let the market close the gap. Heck, who knows, the World Series can be played between the Yanks and Mets in Tokyo.
Jaw, meet floor. Floor, meet jaw. But then again, I’m someone who BSes for a living (I’m a psychologist) and this is some mighty fine psychology that Mr. Boras is using. Maybe he missed his calling. As my father told me, “If you can’t dazzle them with your knowledge, baffle them with your bull.”
On the World Series, I don’t mind a nine game series, but a neutral site? Forgive me a small traditionalist streak, but that just ain’t right.
I also worry that it might not have the same type of draw as the Super Bowl/Final Four. A nine game series would take two weeks to play, assuming that they’d still have the usual bunch of off-days. Are people going to camp out in (insert city here, which given that it’s October would have to be a warm-weather city)? The Super Bowl and NCAA are win-or-die games. If you lose Game 1 of the World Series, you come back the next day and play Game 2. The Super Bowl is one weekend in Miami or Atlanta or New Orleans, you go, get wasted, go to the game, someone wins, someone loses, and you’re back at work on Monday.