all this science i don’t understand

February 6, 2009 at 12:01 am | In Baseball, Rooting Hierarchies | 3 Comments
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Part of today’s entry gives me cause to clarify a metric I use: “schedule-weighted support” represents an approximation of the frequency with which I will root for any given team based on league- and division-weighted scheduling and my preferences within said league and division.  The overall ranking, however, is based on simple head-to-head matchups among all teams, with no consideration given to how often any two teams will actually meet.

28. Houston Astros (1.57% schedule-weighted support)
Last Ranking: 26
Added: SP Mike Hampton; RPs LaTroy Hawkins and Gilbert De La Vara; C Lou Palmisano; OF Jason Michaels; IF Aaron Boone
Lost: 3B Ty Wigginton; SPs Randy Wolf; 2B Mark Loretta; C Brad Ausmus*
Strengths: None.

To play Drayton’s advocate/trying-to-cover-everyone analyst, however, I’ll concede that unlike any team listed thus far, the Astros have a nice defense.  3B Geoff Blum, SS Miguel Tejada, and 1B Lance Berkman are all above-average at their positions, while Hunter Pence’s 16 assists were the most by any right fielder in the National League.

Beyond that, however, the Astros have little to praise.  Ausmus, now a Dodger, was a dubious “loss” for the club, as he consistently provided some of the worst offense in baseball; at least his replacements behind the plate have youth as some justification for optimism.

Pence gives Astros fans a sliver of hope for the future, and Berkman and pricey LF Carlos Lee are the only other offensive standouts on a club that simply doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing.
Weaknesses: Where does one even begin?  Whether the club goes with Blum or free agent signing Boone at third base, they seem set to have baseball’s worst player at the hot corner.  Similarly, their center field candidates – Michael Bourn, who had a dreadful 2008, and Darin Erstad – seem destined to provide some of the worst outfield offense in the game without any real defensive value.  Even staff ace Roy Oswalt isn’t what he used to be, having given up a career high 23 homers in 2008, and the pitching staff behind him is full of unremarkable has-beens like Hampton, never-wases like Brian Moehler, and overpaid relievers like Hawkins.

To add injury to insult, the status of one of the team’s few cost-controlled, homegrown players is questionable – reliever Chris Sampson, a once-retired hitter, had a career year cut short by elbow problems that resulted in offseason surgery.  It appears that the Astros have neither smarts nor luck on their side.
My Stake: I don’t base my rooting hierarchy entirely on smarts – several upcoming teams will be far from where they should be on a completely objective scale.  But the Astros are a rare combination of a team that is not only run with mind-boggling incompetence, but a franchise without any championships or truly compelling history.  If not for the history of bad trades and continued squandering of resources, I would see them sitting in the high teens, indistinguishable from other bland franchises.
‘09 Predictions: In a division with two potential wild-card contenders, I can’t see the Astros doing more than fighting Pittsburgh for 5th place, and 70 wins seems a reasonable expectation.  Whether Michael Bourn can cut down his strikeouts and return to some semblance of usefulness looks to be a big factor here, and if one of their catchers can establish himself as a respectable starter, they could conceivably have a leg up on the Pirates.

‘08 rooting hierarchy ii: why do you let me stay here?

March 25, 2008 at 9:41 pm | In Baseball, Rooting Hierarchies | 2 Comments
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While the Dodgers (and to a lesser extent lately, the Yankees) mask their front office blunders with high payrolls and overpaid players who still help their teams win, I can see no reason why the GMs of these teams keep their jobs.

27. Cincinnati Reds 10.34% unweighted; 4.97% weighted (0/10/14.29).
Last year: #26. 72-90, 5th in NL Central.
In 2008: Just when promising young players like Joey Votto, Homer Bailey, and Jay Bruce looked ready to contribute, the Reds went and hired veteran-favoring manager Dusty Baker. Baker, who opposes “clogging the bases” by letting slow players walk, is rather stubborn in his ignorance of reality, and is likely to hurt slow, walk-loving Adam Dunn’s production (as well as impede the development of Votto and Bruce). Amusingly, bullpen-fetishist GM Wayne Krivsky let the Padres (by way of the Marlins) pick up reliever Carlos Guevara in the Rule 5 draft, instead choosing to invest the team’s modest resources in “proven closer” Francisco Cordero and, less expectedly but more effectively, Jeremy Affeldt. The Reds have enough young players that a surge past 80 wins is possible, but under Baker, it seems particularly unlikely.
Prediction: 76-86, 3rd in NL Central

26. Seattle Mariners 13.79% unweighted; 12.58% weighted (0/20/12.5).
Last year: #20. 88-74, 2nd in AL West.
In 2008: I must confess that I did a bit of a double-take when I compared my Mariners prediction (which assumes the team refuses to give up early, and trades away its remaining prospects in a futile run at the division) to last year’s record. But as it turns, out, 2007’s “success” was largely the work of smoke and mirrors; the team was outscored by 19 runs over the course of the season. Even so, they decided to go for it in 2008, and Seattle fans will rue that decision for years to come. At first, trading reliever George Sherrill and prospect Adam Jones (and additional pitching prospects) for starter Erik Bedard didn’t seem that terrible. But on a team with many fading veterans, the 22-year-old Jones was one of few bright spots for the future, while Sherrill remains one of the most fantastic underrated relievers in baseball. Mortgaging the future to win in the present is one thing, but the Mariners essentially gave up their best prospect for a small upgrade whose salary makes the deal almost a wash for 2008. GM Bill Bavasi seems to have no idea where his team is in the cycle of building toward competitiveness, and with that in mind, how can he possibly know where the team is going? Combining an affinity for overrated, mediocre, and useless veterans with an undervaluation of young talent, Bavasi has scuttled the Mariners organization and gives no indication of an ability to right his ship.
Prediction: 80-82, 2nd in AL West

25. Houston Astros 17.24% unweighted; 16.76% weighted (20/10/21.43).
Last year: #27. 73-89, 4th in NL Central.
In 2008: In an active offseason, the Astros signed several players (Geoff Blum, Darin Erstad, Doug Brocail, and the returning Brad Ausmus and Mark Loretta) who are expected to contribute next to nothing on the field. Yet wasted roster spots are less notable than some of the trades the club made to no apparent benefit. In a series of inexplicable events, the team ended up dealing away inconsistent closer Brad Lidge, solid setup man Chad Qualls, underrated 30-year-old outfielder Luke Scott, and assorted prospects, gaining “proven closer” Jose Valverde, former steroid-using 32-year-old shortstop Miguel Tejada, fourth outfielder Michael Bourn, and middle reliever Geoff Geary. The combination of Scott, Qualls, and Lidge will make less than Tejada alone in 2008, and the up-and-coming Scott has five more seasons before free agency. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how a team could make such moves – actively playing the trade market but not helping itself at all – but there is no possible empirical, analytical justification.
Prediction: 70-92, 6th in NL Central

24. San Francisco Giants 20.69% unweighted; 21.54% weighted (25/18.18/21.43).
Last year: #19. 71-91, 5th in NL West.
In 2008: The Giants’ biggest move this winter was the damaging yet understandable decision to let Barry Bonds go as a free agent. It’s not so much Bonds’ criminal charges that justify the move as it is San Francisco’s general futility; the team’s inability to get to .500 is about as sure a thing as there is in sports, and spending extra money on an annoying veteran didn’t make that much sense. Of course, GM Brian Sabean would have been well served by remembering this before throwing more than five million dollars at 41-year-old Omar Vizquel, who can’t hit and is already injured, and giving a five-year contract to Aaron Rowand, whose defense has slipped and whose offense is unlikely to return to its 2007 level. When we consider the unimpressive non-prospects who round out the roster and last winter’s insane contract to Barry Zito, it seems that only their futility and harmlessness (and the superb Tim Lincecum) let a team with the incompetence of the Giants rank this highly on my list.
Prediction: 71-91, 5th in NL West

2007 rooting hierarchy ii: because i’m bad, i’m bad, i’m really really bad

March 27, 2007 at 11:55 am | In Baseball, Rooting Hierarchies | Leave a Comment
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Today’s installment: clubs who are disliked but not outright hated. These teams are generally incompetent but either media-adored, or in contention thanks to a short-sighted plan or luck.

27. Houston Astros The franchise is heavily reliant on a handful of core players, and GM Tim Purpura made his big splash in the form of LF Carlos Lee, whose signing is projected as this winter’s most damaging contract. Instead, he should have put that money into a solid starter like John Thomson and signed a cheaper and/or better outfielder (such as J.D. Drew).
26. Cincinnati Reds “Wayne Krivsky” is something of a code phrase for a person who is obsessed with relief pitching. Last season, GM Krivsky dealt talented young hitters Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez to Washington for some insignificant bullpen arms. That alone doesn’t damn him, but this winter’s moves (including adding reliever Dave Weathers) were next to insignificant, and certainly aren’t the sort of things Krivsky has to do to right the ship. Hurting the team even more is just how little negative publicity the near-giveaway of Kearns received.
25. Baltimore Orioles Incompetent and a lengthy track record of it. While they’re too irrelevant to really hate, my mind is boggled by the caliber of players on whom they choose to spend their money. This winter, it was a bizarre and expensive bullpen upgrade that left them scraping together the likes of Steve Trachsel, Jay Payton, and Aubrey Huff to (supposely) fill other voids.
24. Chicago Cubs Well, at least they got rid of manager Dusty Baker. That aside, the team spent its winter on an ill-advised free-agent splurge. The additions should help the team contend, but that doesn’t justify the money they gave to Alfonso Soriano after a career year in 2006, much less the pricey signings of SPs Jason Marquis and Ted Lilly, who are (to put this gently) not very good.
23. Colorado Rockies The most notable thing here, from a non-baseball standpoint, is the team’s “let’s be overtly Christian!” philosophy. I’m not ardently anti-Christian, but religion should be a private decision, not a workplace consideration. That aside, the team recently reminded me why I used to dislike them – Byung-Hyun Kim is being screwed out of a roster spot by the likes of Josh Fogg. GM Dan O’Dowd just makes too many huge mistakes, and the religious stuff bumps them down a few extra spots.
22. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim You know, it’s hard for me to put the Angels this low on the list. The team has offed the Yankees in multiple postseasons this decade (2005 and my predicted stunner in 2002), and for that I must express my gratitude. But, a solid farm system aside, they’re very questionable judges of talent, with Garret Anderson, Gary Matthews, and Shea Hillenbrand among their below-average lineup. It’s not that the Angels are total idiots – it’s that with the money they have, they could be so much better if GM Bill Stoneman was complemented by better evaluators of major-league hitters.

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