This NY Times article reports on the criminal investigation into alleged illegal use of steroids and human growth hormone by journeyman Major League Baseball pitcher Jason Grimsley, who retired from the Arizona Diamondbacks yesterday after the media reported on the search of his home by federal authorities. Here is a pdf file of Special Agent Jeff Novitzky’s affidavit (redacted of names of other MLB players involved) in support of the search warrant on Grimsley’s home, and here is an NY Times profile on Grimsley. Novitzky has also been involved in the investigation of Barry Bonds’ use of steroids and other related performance-enhancing drugs.
Prior to this latest development, Grimsley was most well-known in MLB circles for slithering through a ceiling to retrieve his Cleveland Indians teammate Albert Belle’s corked bat from the umpires’ room at Chicago’s Comiskey Park after the umps had confiscated it during a 1994 game. However, Grimsley has apparently been the focus of the investigation for some time and, as noted in this earlier article of unverified allegations, the investigation could very well lead to the Stros clubhouse, as well as the clubhouses of most other MLB teams.
Grimsley has apparently made a statement to investigators in which he has named over 20 teams and team-related drug sources, and the contents of that statement will almost certainly be leaked in the upcoming days. Within MLB, the crossword puzzle of identifying the redacted names in Novitzky’s affidavit is already going full blast, not only because many of the names are easily connected to Grimsley, but also because some are big MLB stars. As a result, the Grimsley Affair — even more than the situation involving Bonds — has the potential to blow the lid off MLB’s ongoing public relations nightmare involving use of performance-enhancing drugs by its players.

The Roger Clemens Family Traveling Show was in Lexington, Kentucky last night as the Rocket pitched three innings of a minor league game in preparation for returning to the Stros’ rotation later this month. It will likely be the only game that Clemens pitches in this season that also features a wiper fluid promotion and a milking contest involving a ceramic cow.
By the way, Clemens’ son, who plays third base for Lexington, has coined a new nickname for his father — “Bernie Mac,” the name of the actor who stars in the forgettable 2004 movie Mr. 3000, about a washed-up ballplayer who comes out of retirement to collect one last hit.

Amidst the Stros’ free fall over the past month, the worst news to arise to date is All-Star pitcher Roy Oswalt‘s back injury that forced him to miss a start on Sunday afternoon against the Reds. Major League Baseball injury expert Will Carroll passes along the latest information on Oswalt’s back injury, which came on the heels of a pulled hamstring that Oswalt endured in his previous start:

There is no question in my mind that Roy Oswalt has a cascade injury. In the always-great Alyson Footerís article at MLB.com, Oswalt all but says so himself. ìI may have altered my mechanics,î he says, referring to what he did after straining his hamstring. Oswalt is now dealing with mid-back spasms, an unusual location. Elsewhere in the article, we get clues. Oswaltís back only acted up when he threw curves, meaning that his mechanics remained altered into this session. Mid-back spasms usually involve some muscles rather than structural problems, so this isnít as bad as it sounds. The Astros medical staff will have to stop the pain-spasm cycle, the Astros field staff will have to keep Oswalt from altering his mechanics, and Oswalt will have to listen. A decision on the DL wonít be made until mid-week and would follow an as-yet-unscheduled MRI.

The Stros have one of the best medical staffs in Major League Baseball, so Roy O’s injury will be handled conservatively. But make no doubt about it — this Stros club is barely a .500 team with Oswalt; the club is not close to being even a .500 club without him.

Another segment in Houston’s favorite reality show — the Life and Times of Roger Clemens — unfolded yesterday as the almost 44 year-old, indefatigable Rocket announced that he would return in a couple of weeks for his third season with the Stros and 23rd season of Major League Baseball. Clemens’ career stats are here (pdf).
Clemens’ performance during his two previous seasons with the Stros is the stuff of legends as the club reached the National League Championship Series twice, won one of those for the first time in the club’s history, and reached the club’s first World Series. Clemens was arguably the best pitcher in the National League during 2004, was even better than that for the first half of last season, but then nagging injuries prompted him to be much less effective down the stretch and during the 2005 playoffs. Although Clemens is still likely to be better than any of the pitchers on the Stros’ staff other than Roy Oswalt this season, it’s unlikely that his return will be enough to push this Stros club into the playoffs unless the club’s hitters start generating more runs.
Assuming no injuries for Clemens, he will likely pitch between 140-150 innings over the remainder of the season. Assuming no dramatic drop-off in performance levels, Clemens will probably give up between 45-50 runs in those innings, which is probably about 25-35 runs better than the alternative pitcher (probably Fernando Nieve) would give up in those innings. That amount of run savings equates to between three and five extra wins for the Stros.
In a close race for a playoff spot, three to five extra wins is nothing to sniff at. Moreover, the Stros have an aging Major League roster and a farm system that is not stocked with strong hitters, so owner Drayton McLane and General Manager Tim Purpura realize that going for the gusto now is the best chance that the Stros will likely have to get back to the World Series any time soon. But adding Clemens doesn’t address the Stros’ chronic need for more hitting.
Clemens should help a pitching staff that is currently 15th out of the 16 National League pitching staffs in runs allowed, but that statistic is somewhat misleading because it is bloated by the troubles of the Stros’ bullpen; the Stros’ starters have actually been pretty good, currently sixth in the National League in terms of runs saved against average. On the other hand, the Stros are tied for ninth in the National League in on-base average and 14th in slugging percentage, and the club’s corner outfielders — Preston Wilson and Jason Lane — have been performing at below replacement-level this season. The Stros’ hitting woes are probably best summed up by the fact that Brad Ausmus — one of the worst hitters among regular National League players over the past decade — is the club’s fourth-best hitting regular player so far this season. Ouch!
Thus, Clemens should help the Stros, but whether the club ends up in the middle of the race for a playoff spot come September depends not so much on Clemens, but on whether the Stros hitters can generate more runs. With non-hitters such as Wilson, Lane, Taveras, Everett and Ausmus regularly filling up over half of the Stros’ lineup card, the prospects do not look promising.

My latest Stros review noted Stros skipper Phil Garner‘s limitations as a big-league manager. A reader asked me to elaborate.
First, let me be clear that I like Garner. He is a genuinely nice man and he represents the Stros well. He’s not the worst recent Stros manager by any stretch of the imagination (remember Jimy Williams?). He is just not as good a manager as Larry Dierker.
Apart from allowing the odious Mike Gallo (5.74 ERA/-3 RSAA) and Trevor Miller (4.63 ERA/0 RSAA) to be on the same pitching staff together, Garner gave us a good example of his limitations in the following recent Chronicle blurb regarding two of the Stros’ underachieving outfielders, Preston Wilson and Jason Lane:

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Where have you gone, Roger Rocket?
That’s the question that most Stros fans are asking at the 3/10’s pole of the season (prior 1/10th of a season posts are here), but it’s the wrong one. It’s highly unlikely that a return of Clemens would make a viable playoff contender out of this 25-23 club, which backslid with a poor 6-10 record during the most recent 1/10th of the season after going 11-5 and 8-8 in the first two sixteen game segments of the season.
The big problem for the Stros over the past several seasons — i.e., declining hitting production (see previous posts here and here) — is combining with far less effective pitching than the Stros have enjoyed over the past two seasons to make this club look very much like an also-ran. Indeed, the Stros already trail the NL Central-leading Cardinals (31-16) by 6.5 games less than a third of the way through the season.

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Regular readers of this blog know that I’m a stathead when it comes to analyzing baseball, primarily because statistics provide a testable measure of a player’s skills that are often misevaluated if left to anecdotal visual analysis of such characteristics as physical size, overall athleticism, fielding slickness, or speed of a pitcher’s fastball. As noted in this earlier post (with links to other posts), the statistical analysis of baseball — commonly known as sabermetrics — has improved the evaluation of baseball players markedly over the past 25 years or so.
Despite that overall improvement in evaluating baseball talent, some skills remain difficult to quantify. While watching slick-fielding Stros SS Adam Everett make his first error of the season last night (after making 177 straight plays), I came across this Washington Post article on a new John Dewan book on fielding, which is one of those difficult skills to quantify. The article notes that Dewan is now making progress on the statistical analysis of the defensive skills of baseball players:

Are such skills measurable? Author John Dewan has come closer than anyone else to quantifying defense in his book “The Fielding Bible,” but some skeptics suggest Dewan — with an assist from noted stats guru Bill James, Dewan’s business partner and friend — has just tried to do something that can’t be done. . .
Dewan’s company, Baseball Info Solutions, employs “video scouts” who review every major league game, charting every batted ball and recording its direction, location, speed, type (line drive, fly ball, etc.) and result. Given any combination of those factors, a computer can spit out how frequently such a play is made by the average major leaguer at that position. . .

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Almost 40,000 spectators watched the Stros return home from a lousy road trip and beat the Colorado Rockies on Friday night at Houston’s Minute Maid Park. However, a ticket to the Stros-Rockies series is not close to being the toughest ticket for baseball in Houston this weekend.
That distinction belongs to the college baseball series taking place in the shadow of Houston’s Texas Medical Center at Rice University’s Reckling Park between the no. 1-rated Rice Owls and their cross-town rival, the 14th-ranked Houston Cougars. The Coogs — who are in second-place in the Conference USA standings behind the Owls — broke Rice’s 17-game winning streak before an overflow crowd of 5,000 in the first game of the series Friday night behind star pitcher Brad Lincoln, and games 2 and 3 of the series will take place this afternoon and Sunday afternoon at Reckling Park. The Cougars are now 35-17 (18-4 in CUSA) on the season and the Owls are 40-10 (17-2 in CUSA). UH Sports blogger Ronnie Turner’s report on the game is here.
The Rice-UH series holds special interest for me for a couple of reasons. Longtime UH baseball coach, Rayner Noble — who represents eveything that a college coach should be — is an old friend and golfing buddy. Moreover, for several years in youth baseball here in The Woodlands, I had the privilege of coaching Rice LF Jordan Dodson and Owls catcher Danny Lehmann, both of whom went on to become star players at the currently no. 1-ranked high school baseball program at The Woodlands High School before enrolling at Rice. The only credit that I can take for those two excellent players is that I somehow was able to avoid messing up their development into outstanding players and fine young men.
Meanwhile, in other Houston baseball news, Tory Gattis passes along this hilarious Onion article entitled “Roger Clemens’ Family Offers Him One-Year, $10 Million Contract.”

I don’t know about you, but it sure seems to me that the first 20% of the Major League Baseball season flew by quicker than a Roger Clemens fastball. Now, if we could only see a Clemens fastball.
As predicted in my first Stros review for this season, the Stros (19-13) as a team have cooled off, going 8-8 in their second 16 game segment of the season after their sterling 11-5 start, which is still good enough to keep the Stros in the thick of the Central Division race with the Cardinals (20-13), the surprising Reds (21-11), the Brewers (16-16) and the Cubs (14-17). But despite several members of the club enjoying All-Star caliber seasons to date, there are enough warning signs about the Stros that it’s still not clear to me — absent a comeback from Clemens, that is — that the Stros can remain in playoff contention throughout the season in the strong NL Central.

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As noted earlier here, the Stros have initiated a lawsuit against Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. over the insurer’s denial of the Stros’ claim under the disability insurance policy on the best player in Stros franchise history, Jeff Bagwell. Previous posts on the Bagwell disability claim are here.
Connecticut General has removed the Stros lawsuit from state district court to federal district court, and the case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison, who has set the initial scheduling conference in the case for August 4th. You can download a copy of the the Stros’ original petition in the lawsuit here.
According to the Stros’ petition, the policy defines disability as “any physical illness or condition . . . that renders [Bagwell] totally disabled from performing as a professional baseball player.” Thus, the issue in the lawsuit is whether not being able to throw a baseball, while at the same time still being able to hit one, renders Bagwell totally disabled under the terms of the policy. Connecticut General probably wishes that it could remove the lawsuit to the American League, where the existence of the designated hitter rule would mitigate in favor of the insurer’s position.
As noted earlier, the Stros are represented in the lawsuit by well-known Houston plaintiff’s lawyer Wayne Fisher, who is a longtime friend of Stros owner Drayton McLane. Tynan Buthod of Baker & Botts is lead counsel in the case for Connecticut General.