MVN: Most Valuable Network

I haven't posted anything in a while for three reasons. First, I've had nothing to add to my last post. I could deploy different invective and focus on different targets But nothing, substantially, has changed since my last post. Second, I've had some personal stuff to deal with. But the third-- not to seem too conceited-- but I've been waiting for everyone to catch up to me...


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The title is one of my favorite words-- I like saying it ("skulking" is another; "feral" is pretty cool too).  But, unfortunately, both of the common meanings apply well to the Indians. One meaning (an acronym for Mash Until No Good) refers the practice (common in software development) of making "repeated changes which individually may be reversible, yet which ultimately result in an unintentional, irreversible destruction of large portions of the original item."That would apply to the Indians' outfield from 2005-09, wouldn't it? You start with Coco Crisp, Grady Sizemore and Casey Blake at the corner outfielder spots-- three guys who all have deficiencies, but also have strengths. Then it becomes Jason Michaels, Sizemore and Trot Nixon. Now we have Ben Francisco, Shin-soo Choo and Mr. Strikeout. At third, there was Aaron Boone. who morphed into Casey Blake and now we have Mark DeRosa. Meanwhile, Andy Marte got 456 at-bats... Read more

Like most people who've been paid to analyze data-- and get up close and personal with the normal daily fluctuations in performance-- I don't put much stock in intangibles. It's not that I don't care about mental outlook, or determination or discipline or momentum-- just that I think they happen a lot less than people believe. Human beings have a very strong urge to make connections between events. They create cause and effect relationships, even if they have no proof that the two events have anything in common. Jhonny Peralta doesn't play shortstop for three days in a row-- and then goes 11-17 in the next six games? You can say he needed a rest-- or that Eric Wedge put the fear of God into him by benching him. Or you can say "OK, A did follow B-- but we have no proof that A was caused by B." Which... Read more

Warren Spahn, I think, said "Hitting is making things happen. Pitching is preventing things from happening." If he didn't coin the phrase, he did say it to my Boy Scout troop when he spoke to them when he was the pitching coach of the Indians in 1972-73.As a result, I don't have much to say about this game. The Indians have historically beaten the daylights out of Mark Buehrle. Going into the game, he was 8-12 with a 4.85 ERA in 32 career starts. Even last year, he gave up 13 runs in 6.2 innings. So giving up 4 runs in 7 innings was Actually a good outing for him... or a reflection of the degree to which the lineup struggled.Cliff Lee pitched very well-- and it was a very, very unusual outing for him...... Read more

I have never, ever, understood the attraction of pitchers like Jeremy Sowers. I respond to skinny lefthanders with no stuff with the same visceral reaction I have to Siamese cats or any breed of dog that is normally used for "home defense." I don't like them, I don't want them around me, and I immediately question the judgment of anyone who has them.Much of it, I'm sure, stems from my upbringing. My aunts in St Louis-- the paramilitary psycho who lived down the street-- Gabe Paul and Phil Seghi. Guys like Sowers were always a part of the Indians' grand plan to win. Other teams coveted the guys who threw heat, or had the nuclear breaking pitches. Some clubs killed for guys who threw sinkers and got groundball outs.But not my team. My front office was always looking for these 6'1", 180-pound guys who looked like a good breeze might... Read more

Not to go all George Will or "Painful James Earl Jones soliloquies in Field of Dreams" on you,but baseball really is remarkable. You really can see something new every time you sit down.On Monday, Gavin Floyd threw 107 pitches against Cleveland. Only 58 were strikes. That's a 54% strike percentage. I have been looking at pitch data and ball-strike breakdowns since 1986, and that's the first non-knuckleball game I can remember seeing a pitcher (a) cross the 100-pitch line, (b) not throw at least 66% strikes, and (c) not come close to either dividing line. I mean, I've seen 101-pitch outings where the guy had 64 pitches  And I've gone back and looked at some of the records from the 60's and 70's, before anyone paid attention to this stuff and had my eyes boggled (Nolan Ryan had a bunch of them).But I've never seen a manager of a non-expansion... Read more

Three plate appearances... Nine pitches taken...Three ground balls... One guy left on base... Pinch-hit by Ryan Garko (when a pitcher with a 5.56 ERA entered the game).When the Indians lost 5-3 to the Tigers-- completing a 3-game sweep-- it was the 887th day since "Trader Mark" Shapiro signed David Dellucci and proclaimed "Mission Accomplished. " It was the fifth consecutive day that Dellucci had been in the lineup Dellucci's single during this game brought his average up to .059 (1-17) during that period. He obviously had no extra base hits-- but he also had no walks and 4 strikeouts. Because he grounded into one double-play during that stretch, Dellucci managed to remove as many baserunners as he added. In that five games, Matt LaPorta started one game. He went 1-3-- duplicating Dellucci's hit total. Because he walked, he managed to reach base twice as many times and Dellucci-- and did... Read more

Two consecutive shutouts... If you haven't been keeping track, it brings the total for the season to three (On April 22, Zack Greinke beat them 2-0; another tough loss for Cliff Lee). The Indians have also been held to one run five times. They've had four games in which they scored wither two or three runs. That makes 12 games-- more than 1/3 of the games played this year-- where the offense has given the pitching virtually no chance to win-- even with a well-pitched game.Less than six weeks ago, some usually-reasonable people believed that the 2009 Indians were a playoff team. Maybe not a 95-win powerhouse, but at least an 86-win, "best of a pretty weak-ass division" winner. But these guys have played like they knew they weren't that good-- and they intended to prove it to everyone. It's taken them 30 games, but they've finally made believers of... Read more

Here's a tip-- an easy way to identify whether someone has any knowledge of baseball whatsoever. Ask him to complete the following sentence: In baseball,                is 90% of the game. If the person answers "pitching", it is safe to ignore anything else he or she has to say. The correct answer is "Nothing". There is no single factor that determines a team's success or failure 90% of the time. If such a skill existed-- if a team could assure its success 90% of the time by outperforming the opponent in that area-- every team in the league would move heaven and earth to achieve expertise in it. A team that could do that would win 90% of the time.If you spend a fair amount of time studying all the different numbers generated in the course of a baseball season, you would eventually come... Read more

Boy, howdy-- didn't that strategy pay out in spades? What a brilliant, brilliant idea: Take Aaron Laffey out of the rotation and put him in the bullpen, then bring up Jeremy Sowers and put him in the rotation. Dump 30-year-old journeyman Vinny Chulk and his 3.75 ERA, and replace him with Matt Herges-- a 39-year-old journeyman who took banned substances and still stunk..In spring training, I christened the Indians' GM "Trader Mark"-- after former GM "Trader Phil" Seghi-- because I saw some similarities between the guy currently in charge of the team, and the one who mismanaged it between 1973 and 1984.But I never would have imagined that the nickname would fit like a glove. Because what has transpired in the last 72 hours is exactly the sort of nonsense I spent 25 years watching...... Read more

Understatement of the Millennium Department: "What's happening here right now is unacceptable."-- Eric Wedge, discussing the bullpen, after the game.Part of me really wants to feel sorry for Wedge right now. With two exceptions-- his glass-armed closer who'd worked the day before, and the guy who gave him two scoreless innings in the same game-- he ran through every reliever he had tonight. The only guy who came even remotely close to doing his job was Masa Kobayashi, who came in to close the barn door.All managers take losing hard-- and losses like this are absolutely unbearable. But to a guy like Wedge-- who absolutely refuses to let anyone see him react-- this is especially brutal. An Ozzie Guillen or Jim Leyland has the release of throwing a temper tantrum. Wedge keeps it all bottled up inside.But there's one catch: A fair amount of what is happening is his fault...... Read more

The Indians' offense battled the Indians' pitching last night-- and won on a submission, two falls to one The lineup scored three runs in an inning not once, not twice but three times. On the first two occasions, the guys on the hill piddled it away-- and they came disturbingly close to doing it a third time.This really should be a "feel-good" win, in many respects. Fausto Carmona continued his gradual drift towards adequacy. He allowed two runs in the first six innings-- and If Vernon Wells hadn't singled with two outs and men on second and third in the seventh, he'd have had a pretty good day.Of course, it was the fourth different inning that Carmona had allowed runners to get into scoring position, so it's not like he was an innocent victim. He looks to be about 75% of the pitcher he was in 2007, and he needs... Read more

I try never to spit cliches after a game, but I have to go with the consensus here. Based on Justin Verlander's game line-- seven innings, one run, two hits, three walks, career-high 11 strikeouts-- all you can say is "Cliff Lee just ran into a great pitcher on a great day. It's a tough game for either guy to have to lose-- but according to the rules, one team has to."But I did do my homework before I said that. Verlander, in 15 starts against Cleveland, is 4-10 with a 6.70 ERA.  All four wins were games like this. He usually loses because a couple of guys kill him-- Victor Martinez (30 at-bats) hits .300 with four homers and two doubles. Grady Sizemore (39 at-bats) hits .282, with 6 hits for extra bases and 8 walks. Shin-soo Choo is 5-14 (3.57).  Both Travis Hafner (.222) and Ryan Garko (.217)... Read more