My Inevitable Post-2013 Napoli Post

It would be easy to look at Napoli's 2013 stats and say, "Hey, look, I was sorta right." In fact, why not do that?

Napoli in 2013: .259 BA / .360 OBP, 23 HR, 92 RBI, 38 2B

The stats show that this is a decent season, but we're not talking Cooperstown stuff here. But the question is should that matter?

Of course, to a certain extent, stats do matter because they show an aptitude of a player to be able to have success at the highest level of baseball. Physical fitness and potential alone just do not cut it when a player is at the MLB level - they have to have discipline at the plate to even produce a .240 batting average. If you need an example of raw physical talent not panning out, look no further than Wily Mo Pena.

Wily Mo, by the way, might have been the strongest person to ever play at the highest level of baseball. When he connected, the home runs he hit were majestic. He had an amazing amount of physical talent. Hell, 19% of Wily Mo's hits were home runs... 24% of Babe Ruth's hits were home runs; 22% of Mickey Mantle's hits were home runs. So Wily Mo is in pretty good company there. But the only thing Wily Mo could hit was a fastball. His approach to at bats sucked, and he never adjusted to Major League pitching in a way that enabled him to amass all of his talents to become a prolific slugger.

Strength and intelligence are important at the plate. Players like Wily Mo didn't have it, but Mike Napoli did.

Napoli provides a case where myself and the Sabermetric statheads both didn't get it right; and, in retrospect, I'm happy the Red Sox signed him for 2013. I'm also happy to see Napoli take a hometown discount to stay in Boston.

Around this time last year, the Sabr predictions for Napoli were ridiculous: a .280 AVG / 30+ HR season, yadda yadda. I didn't believe it, and one reason why is because I doubted Napoli could be a full time player without getting injured. I was wrong, and the Sabermetricians were wrong - Napoli played full time, but he didn't amass the stats many thought he would.

Instead, he hit 23 HR - mostly off bad pitchers - with a .259 batting average. But his OBP of .360 shows that pitchers feared him, and that's telling.

I'm not going to look up Napoli's playoff stats, because the playoffs shouldn't be about stats. In fact, I'm sure Napoli's playoff stats were worse than his regular season stats - but the playoffs are about memories. And I remember Napoli hitting a fucking moonshot off Verlander in Detroit during the ALCS. This was the moment where, for me, Napoli transcended stats.

Napoli might not be as strong as physical freaks like Wily Mo Pena, but the dude is built. And everyone in MLB knows that when Napoli connects, he can hit the ball the fucking mile. That's why you see a 100 point disparity between Napoli's batting average and his OBP - pitchers fear this man. Pitchers also knew that Napoli strikes out a ton, but when he connects... Forget it. That ball is long gone.

Baseball has a lot of players who can hit .259. Most of them are middle infielders with good gloves and Punching Judy swings - they'll hit singles and that's about it. Napoli is different. Napoli isn't the best contact hitter in the world, and his the rate he's able to strikeout at can be annoying. But what I learned from watching Napoli last season is that nothing can beat raw power when it's wielded with discipline.

Napoli won't be the best hitter in the league, but there are games when he slams a pitch into never-never land and you have to admit that he was the best player that night. Napoli always has the potential to become that, and most of the time he won't... But this talent to be the best player for even a night doesn't exist with most ballplayers. Napoli is special and has this talent - and pitchers fear becoming a victim to those few times that Napoli could eat them alive.

I didn't see this talent in Napoli during the offseason last year. To my credit, I don't think anyone did. On one side you had the Sabermetricians pulling fantasy stats out of their ass, and on the other side you had people like myself saying those stats were bullshit. Both sides missed the point. Napoli showed us what the point was in 2013, and I think all of us are happier for this.

The Lying Heart of WAR

David Pinto, over at his blog Baseball Musings, sort of inadvertently makes a very accurate observation regarding how infielders with high career WAR fair in MVP vote shares:

The most interesting thing about the lists is that they show a systematic bias. The underrated players tend to be skill infielders (2b, 3b, ss), and outfielders who did not hit a ton of home runs. Power hitting first basemen and outfielders dominate the overrated lists, although some catchers appear there as well. Over time, MVP voters overrated power and catching defense, while underrated OBP and infield defense.

More generally: WAR reflects more favorably upon any infielder that doesn't play first base, but those players generally don't make out well in MVP voting. Thus illustrating the heart of the Sabermetrics v. Old School Stats conflict.

One of David's commenters to this post, pft, digs deeper into how unfair WAR judges MLB players:

WAR basically gives middle IF’ers and CF’ers a huge handicap and introduces a bias against those playing lesser positions.

I am pretty sure there are many great defensive players in the minors who never make it to MLB, but great offensive players are so rare teams find room for them, even if they can’t field their position very well. Yet offensive talent in general is treated as a commodity in equal supply as defensive talent.

Also, there are likely a great many skilled LH players who simply were unable to play any IF position but 1B and they are docked -10 runs per every 600 PA (or 1 Win)...

I just think more weight should be given to how a fielder played his position than the position itself which in some cases is determined not by skill but by other factors such as team needs, or handedness.

This is one of the best retorts against WAR that I've read, and kudos to pft for not lacing it with profanities. Something I've been, uh, apt to do when discussing WAR.

pft brings organizational needs into account - an important point. Some prospects who are viewed as spectacularly talented hitters will be removed from more demanding fielding positions so they can focus on their hitting. Best example I can think of for this is Bryce Harper, who was a catcher in high school and junior college. After the Nationals drafted Harper, they didn't want to risk injuring his knees by having him behind the plate so they converted him into an outfielder. According to WAR, this defensive conversion makes Harper less valuable because a power hitting catcher is supposedly more valuable than a power hitting outfielder - but according to the Nationals, Harper's value lies in getting as many productive years as they can out of his bat.

So is it fair for WAR to penalize Harper? No, of course not. This is one reason why WAR isn't a stat. WAR is a judgement - and, in my view, it's a poor judgement.

There are other examples of organizations placing prospects in less demanding fielding positions to maximize their hitting... Dave Winfield and Mark McGwire were pitchers in college. They didn't pitch in MLB. The reasons for that are self-evident.

And the reasons for organizations doing what they can to maximize the offensive potential of talented power hitters should be self-evident: sluggers improve players hitting ahead of them. For example, let's look at the effect Frank Thomas had on White Sox hitters.

In 1995, Frank Thomas batted third for the White Sox and hit .308/.454 OBP, with 40 HR and 111 RBI. This guy was a force of fucking nature. The White Sox leadoff hitter in 1995 was Lance Johnson. Up until 1995, Johnson was a career .281/.321 OBP hitter - but he hit .306/.341 OBP in 1995. It can be argued that hitting in front of Frank Thomas improved Johnson's stats.

Other examples can be found - Thomas had another 40 HR campaign in 1996. Tony Phillips hit ahead of him, and the 37 year old career .266/.374 OBP hitter went .277/.404 OBP in 1996. Dave Martinez also batted ahead of Thomas in 1996. Martinez was a career .269/.329 OBP hitter before 1996, but he hit .318/.393 OBP in 1996.

Sabermetricians like to scoff at RBIs as being a useless stat, since sluggers need men on base to drive them home. What isn't mentioned in this argument is that elite sluggers make the hitters in front of them better. If you pay attention to just only WAR, then you could insert David Eckstein into the third spot on the lineup and expect him to amass the 134 RBIs that Frank Thomas raked in 1996 because the same hitters would be in front of him. But Eckstein wouldn't make those hitters better. Pitchers aren't afraid of batters like Eckstein, so they'll feel free to pitch around hitters in front of him.

But pitchers feared Frank Thomas - dude was a physical fucking freak. He was an NFL linebacker standing at the plate, just wanting to crush fucking balls over the goddamn fence. Pitchers shit themselves when he came to the plate. So, just in case Thomas unloaded on them, pitchers needed to attack hitters in front of him to try and get them out so they didn't become runs. This means those hitters would see more strikes to hit, and if they are capable Major Leaguers, they took advantage of that.

Elite sluggers like Frank Thomas didn't benefit from having good hitters batting before him to drive in - they created great hitters in the lineup and then drove them in. That's why Frank Thomas put up multiple 100+ RBI seasons. And yes, the White Sox put him at 1B/DH: to maximize his value as a slugger by improving the hitters batting ahead of him.

I like to call this basic baseball strategy. This strategy should be incorporated into MVP voting, because if a slugger an organization chose to put at first base makes hitters in front of him better, doesn't that make him quite a valuable player?

But WAR doesn't recognize baseball strategy. That's why WAR doesn't have a lyin', cheatin' ole heart - WAR doesn't have a heart, period. The primary flaw of WAR lies in it judging all players as equal without noticing the role they have on the team; whereas baseball is played through roles. You have leadoff hitters, cleanup hitters, sluggers, and catchers who can provide pop in the seven hole of the lineup. These roles lie at the heart of baseball, and as a fan, I can't fathom some cold, supposedly all-encompassing "statistic" which refuses to take the heart of baseball into account.

On Baseball Gods and Metaphors

The biggest fallacy of the Hall of Fame vote is trying to apply one argument to all players, which is what the steroids question has become. Doing this ignores how baseball has intertwined with US history when the moment is right, a tradition that should continue - and it would continue if the current class of journalists could just connect the dots.

The "blanket argument" is the steroids debate: should a player who used/is suspected of using steroids be allowed into Cooperstown? What isn't taken into account with this argument is the motives of the individual players, though - and motive makes a difference. Let's say, just for sake of the argument, that Jeff Bagwell took steroids for a couple of seasons. Whether Bagwell used can never be proven (and I don't believe he did), but some baseball writers believe he cheated during his career year. Fine. The next question to be asked should be "What was his motivation for cheating?" Only when you ask this question can players be judged on an individual basis.

If Bagwell cheated, he may have wanted to boost his numbers for a couple of seasons. Maybe he wanted a larger contract. This motive is common, and universally shared by all baseball players. Bagwell didn't want to become a baseball deity.

Let's pose the same question of motive to Barry Bonds... And now we see how two supposed cheaters look completely different. Barry Bonds had a God complex, something he wasn't shy about expressing. Bonds put Babe Ruth is his sight lines and set out to destroy his legacy. Bonds doesn't want you to talk about Babe Ruth without expressing first reverence to Bonds' career. That was Barry Bonds' motivation to cheat.

Whether a Hall of Fame voter sees a moral difference in the motivation of players like Bonds and Bagwell is up to them, but players should be judged upon their individual motivation and not a blanket judgement.

If I were a Hall of Fame voter, I'd bring US history into the equation when judging the motivation of a player to cheat. This is where Barry Bonds wanting to become a baseball deity should be seen as highly insulting, and his behavior should be used against him when considering his case for Cooperstown.

Anyone can tell you that Bonds deserves to be in Cooperstown because he was good enough before he cheated. When Bonds was young, he hit for average and power; and he had speed. He was a run producing machine, and if he just aged without wanted to become the great home run hitter ever, he would be remembered as a player with a really good eye at the plate and stats worthy enough to get him into Cooperstown. Bonds wouldn't have been Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle, but he would have a place below them.

This wasn't good enough for Barry Bonds. He wanted to be the greatest player ever. Period, end of story. And he wanted to be the greatest during an unfortunate chapter of American history.

When Babe Ruth became the greatest player in baseball history, America was riding a wave of prosperity. We came out on the winning side of the largest war in history, we weren't mired in trying to keep a crumbling empire together (see Britain, France); and we weren't castigated with punishments meant to cripple a nation (see Germany and the former Ottoman Empire). The stock market was up, Americans were earning higher incomes, our country's place in the world was rising, and Babe Ruth helped to symbolize all of this with his larger than life style of playing baseball. The feats of the United States and Babe Ruth went hand in hand, and Ruth became a metaphor for the Roaring 1920's.

Barry Bonds, on the other hand, tried to become a baseball deity by cheating during a time when banks were cheating the economy. Banks were signing up new homeowners despite knowing that these people didn't have enough income to pay the bills on these new mortgages, then packing these crappy mortgages into securities, giving them an AAA bond rating, and selling these securities to investors. It was false prosperity. And, like a steroid abusing baseball player who suffers from injuries later in his career because his muscles grew to a point where his body could no long support them, the mortgage backed securities collapsed - they almost bought the whole economy down with them.

It is merely a coincidence that Bonds cheated during this particular time in US history, so does he deserve to be punished for it? Yes, absolutely, 100% yes yes yes. Bonds tried to become Babe Ruth, so he asked to be compared to Babe Ruth. What Bonds doesn't understand, though, is that Babe Ruth is more than a baseball player - he's a historical metaphor. Thinking about "Babe Ruth" brings us back to America's glory years. And thinking about Barry Bonds brings us back to, well... It was only a few years ago, I think you remember.

Barry's surname is "Bonds," and those mortgage backed securities were, essentially, bonds. I mean, the metaphors should write themselves here.

Should a player who can become a metaphor for everything wrong with America be enshrined in the Hall of Fame? No, because that player is definitely no Babe Ruth.

The Ellsbury Paradox

Jacoby Ellsbury has gotten himself into a fucked up situation by going to the Yankees. By going for the big money, Ellsbury (who will now, and forever, be known as "Ell$") has placed himself in a position where there's a good chance he'll tarnish his entire career. Here are four reasons why:

1) When the Yankees give you a big contract, they expect results - not just individual results, but world championships. But the Yankees are a total shitshow right now. Mariano is gone, Pettitte is gone, Jeter will be gone soon, nobody knows what's happening to A-Roid, there's a huge hole at second base if they can't pony up $200+ million for Cano; Sabathia and Teixeria look like they're declining, and the rest of the team sucks. By signing Ell$ and McCann, the Yankees sacrificed their first two picks in the 2014 draft - so getting prospects to come to the rescue will be a challenge. And if the Yankees have $100+ - $200+ million commitments to Ells$, A-Roid and Cano, then spending money to build right now will also be difficult. 

In short: the Yankees are in quite a bind, and they have to feed a relentless fanbase. Blaming Ell$ for the Yankees' future failures is unfair, but NYC isn't known for being "fair." Ell$ willingly placed himself in this situation, so he'll have to reap it. 

2) Ell$'s game primarily consists of being a speedster on the basepaths. Right now, he's the best leadoff hitter in baseball - but he's 30. Speed declines with age, so even if he has injury free seasons from now until the end of his contract (assuming the Yankees exercise their 8th year option on him), he'll be 39 with his speed declining each year. Elite sluggers like David Ortiz are able to weather the effects of age and still play at a high level, but speedsters cannot do this. So Ell$ is already setup to fail. 

3) And Ell$ has an injury history. Avoiding injuries as he ages is something even the best of players have trouble doing. The first time Ell$ hits the disabled list, he is going to feel the hatred of the rabid Yankees fan base. 

4) By going for the money, Ell$ burned all of his good will in Boston. 

Considering the situation Ell$ has placed himself in - possibly audacious bad press, hated by fans, little possibility of earning another World Series ring - how will this look on Ell$'s resume for Cooperstown? 

That resume would have looked a lot better if Ell$ took a hometown discount to continue playing for the Red Sox. Ortiz took a hometown discount, made it to another World Series, and he not only earned another ring but he placed himself in the "Best Postseason Hitter Ever" argument. Pedroia took the hometown discount and got himself a second ring. Both players have earned the love of the Boston fan base, have (or, almost in Ortiz's case, has had) secure careers, and all of this will look favorably upon them five years after each of them retire and find themselves on the ballot for Cooperstown.

Ell$ went for the money, but I doubt he comprehends the magnitude of his decision. Two decades from now, if he's a middling HOF candidate with little chance of being enshrined, I hope Ell$ is still enjoying all $153 million the Yankees paid to buy off his potential immortality. 

Sabermetrician Douchebags (cc: @keithlaw)

It's awards time for baseball, that time of year when hardware is handed out to players and managers while Sabermetricians threaten to go on a five state killing spree if they don't get their way. I got tired of writing about this before the 2013 season and don't wish to start over again - hey, I need time to write a post about Mike Napoli where I eat some crow.

But I can't let this awards season pass without pointing out how pompous the Saber-douchebags are.

The BBWAA has failed its annual intelligence test. Again.

— keithlaw (@keithlaw) November 14, 2013

Keith Law's tweet encapsulates the attitude problem that Sabermetricians have: they're pompous, smug pricks. They won't listen to any voice outside of their echo chamber because they just assume they're the most intelligent people ever.

Blame can be applied to all parties for the pissing matches that happen during MLB awards time, but the lion's share of the blame must be given to Sabermetricians. Talking about baseball would be a lot more enjoyable if these douchebags got a fucking attitude adjustment.

On the Braves move, civil rights, and what baseball represents

Yesterday, regarding the Atlanta Braves announcement that they will move out of downtown Atlanta and into the suburbs, Grantland posted a map of the Greater Atlanta area that shows where Braves ticket buyers come from. Give it a look:


As you can see, Braves ticket buyers are coming from the north of the city of Atlanta - the suburbs. Not the generalize, but the suburban areas surrounding a city are usually pretty white in racial make up.

Looking at this map, I can't help but think of the bittersweet irony with the Braves organization wanting to move to Cobb County. Strictly as a business decision, does the move make sense? Yes. Despite the Braves currently playing in a relatively young stadium, they don't own it or control the surrounding area. Nor is the stadium close (relatively speaking) to where its fan base is located. That fan base, as you can generalize from looking at the map, is pretty white. But that's not what the Braves have traditionally represented.

The Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966, and they took Hank Aaron with them. This was a big fucking deal. Think of the social landscape of America at that time. The Civil Rights movement gained steam in the 1950's and getting into even just the summaries of landmark events of that movement would lead to an incredibly large blog post, so mentioning a couple of the remarkable names will need to suffice: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X just to scrape off the top of the list. The South was fighting against desegregation, which led to George Wallace's run for president as a third party candidate in 1968 with a racist platform and won most of the South - Georgia included. This was an explosive time in American History, yet in the middle of it, the South - the Deep South, not just some Mason-Dixon border city near the North - got its first Major League Baseball franchise. And it came with an all star player who was black.

Pretty amazing. Baseball meant a lot more to American culture (not to mention peace, harmony, and unity) back then.

Other cities in the South could have tried to get a franchise. In this age, we think of Atlanta as a major city but that wasn't the case in the 1960's. Political leaders in Atlanta at that time realized the city's potential for growth if it got with the program of embracing, instead of rejecting, culture; and they brought the Braves to town. This attitude shift in the politics of one city in the Deep South caused it to grow. Atlanta's population in 1960 was around 487,000 - now the population of the Greater Atlanta area is over 5,457,000.

Conversely, let's look at another Deep South city: Birmingham, AL, had a 340,000 in 1960. While not as large as Atlanta, it definitely had the potential for growth. But Birmingham didn't grow. The city's population has dipped to around 212,000; the Greater Birmingham area has a population of 1,136,000.

Birmingham faced the same choice that Atlanta had in the 1960's: accept normative cultural standards and be embraced by America or stay the same. Birmingham made their bed, and I'm sure you know how the cliche goes from there.

This is why the Braves moving away from the city of Atlanta is sad. In the 1960's, the Braves represented the best of America; what America was capable of achieving.

And now? Now they represent the cultural phenomenon of "white flight." When the Braves open their new stadium in Cobb County, it won't just be a sad day for Atlanta; or for baseball - it'll be a sad day for this country. That isolation you feel - be it culturally, socially, or politically - it's represented in this Braves move away from Atlanta. The Braves moving to the urban core of a Deep South city in the 1960's represented America going in the right direction, but this move reflects a cultural shift of present day America going in the wrong direction.

Lynchpins of the Lineup

I don't need to tell you that the Red Sox scored a bazillion runs last season. At first, I didn't know how to gauge the strength of Sox hitting by their runs scored since they teed off on bad pitchers spectacularly well but good pitching could stop them cold - a trend which continued for about 16 innings into the ALCS (and two near no hitters) before the Sox turned it around for good.

Can the Red Sox hit this well in 2014? Probably not. Why? Jacoby Ellsbury.

The beautiful thing about the 2013 Red Sox is that every player stepped up: Gomes, Nava, Victorino, Iglesias (remember when he batted .400 for a couple months?), and Salty all made contributions that nobody was expecting. Iggy is gone but couldn't be expected to repeat his performance anyway. Gomes, Nava and Victorino will be back, so why not bring Salty back? That's been a hot conversation topic lately.

Better options for catcher exist on the market right now - and that's discounting Brian McCann, who wants a big contract but has big attitude problems - but if everyone thought that Ellsbury was coming back then I'd lean towards the position that bringing Salty back isn't a huge issue. Salty will never be a middle of the order hitter, and he probably won't put up his 2013 numbers again at the plate; but he's definitely one of the better bottom of the order hitters in baseball right now. The Red Sox had a strong batting order from top to bottom and you don't want to disturb that.

Unfortunately for Salty (and for us, as Red Sox fans), Ellsbury's contributions at the top of the batting order are far more important. Ellsbury is not replaceable; and with him leaving, the Red Sox need to shore up their fielding.

And Salty just can't fucking field his position.

This doesn't just come down to close plays at the plate in the World Series - Salty was horrible throughout the 2013 season. He has difficulty performing basic tasks behind the plate, like quelling the opponent's running game. Salty allowed 89 stolen bases in 2013 (most in MLB), and he had the most baserunners try and steal off of him, too. Comparing Salty to an average catcher like A.J. Pierzynski (which is not only being generous to Salty, but rings with some irony since the Sox are talking to Pierzynski), A.J. had a 33% caught stealing percentage and allowed 49 stolen bases in 2013. Salty allowed 40 more stolen bases; coincidentally, he also hit 40 doubles. Since a stolen base is essentially a double (or more, in some instances), you see where Salty's defense really does negate his contributions at the plate.

Pierzynski provides better hitting and fielding than Salty. Alternatively, Dioner Navarro doesn't have as much gravitas at the plate but he has sure hands behind the plate. Even Ryan Lavarnway looks like a better option than Salty.

Lavarnway threw out 40% of baserunners in Pawtucket in 2013; and he hit .299 in 77 AB for Boston in 2013. It's worth remembering that many of Lavarnway's at-bats were against staff aces; and with a cold bat, since he went days between playing in games. Lavarnway got hits off of pitchers like David Price, James Shields, Justin Verlander, and Mark Buehrle (the Buehrle whose second half ERA was 3.18, not the sucky Buehrle at the beginning of the season). Farrell was wise to rest Salty on days when the Red Sox opposed a staff ace, but worth noting that Salty's hitting stats might be worse if he had to face the pitchers they forced Lavarnway to hit off of - and Lavarnway ended up hitting .299. That's a pretty good argument against everyone who says that Lavarnway isn't ready.

The argument about which catcher would be a better fit could go on until Christmas, but it doesn't take away from the Red Sox needing better defense behind the plate. The loss of Ellsbury will be a hit to the lineup that the Red Sox cannot recover from; the 2014 lineup will not be as strong as the 2013 one. That being the case, acquiring a catcher who may only hit .240 with little power but can hold off the opposing team's running game would make the Red Sox better than they would be with Salty behind the plate. The Red Sox won't have the excess hitting in 2014 to cover up for Salty's lack of ability to field his position.

I know the pink hats might bust out in tears. I know I've never been the biggest Salty fan. But, you have to admit, this is a pretty objective case for letting the Salty Era in Boston end.