Daily Archives: May 30, 2004

Stros beat Cards; season evaluation to date

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Bags, Lance Berkman and Mike Lamb all cranked two-run dingers Sunday afternoon and Tim Redding pitched seven and a third shutout innings as the Stros won the final game of their weekend series with the Cardinals, 7-1.
Redding (3-3) allowed just four hits and, after a first inning single, retired 16 of the next 18 batters. The Stros got to Matt Morris (4-5) for three runs and four hits in seven innings with Lamb’s yak being the big blow, and then Bags and Berkman’s homers in the bottom of the eighth against Cal Eldred put the game away. Berkman has now hit eight home runs in his last 12 games.
The Stros now become road warriors for the next two weeks as they go on a 13 game road trip to Chicago, St. Louis, Seattle, and Milwaukee. Roy O starts tomorrow’s Memorial Day game against the Cubs’ Greg Maddux at Wrigley Field.
The Stros (27-22) are inching their way to the one-third mark of the season, and its an appropriate time to assess how the club is doing. This post from yesterday explained the helpful hitting statistic of “runs created against average,” or “RCAA,” which computes the number of outs that a particular player uses in creating runs for his team and then compares that number to the amount of runs that an average player in the league would create while using an equivalent number of outs.
Through yesterday’s games, here are the National League leaders in RCAA, courtesy of Lee Sinins:
1 Barry Bonds 41
2 Lance Berkman 33
3 Mike Lowell 30
4 Sean Casey 26
5 Craig Wilson 25
T6 Bobby Abreu 20
T6 Scott Rolen 20
8 Jim Thome 19
T9 Adam Dunn 18
T9 Todd Helton 18
Consequently, in case you didn’t know it already, Lance Berkman is currently the second best hitter in the National League behind Barry Bonds, who happens to be one of the best hitters of all-time. Why on earth does manager Jimy Williams continue to bat Berkman either fifth or sixth in the order?
Although the Stros are currently a respectable fourth in the National League in team RCAA, the individual numbers are more revealing:
Lance Berkman 33
Jeff Bagwell 10
Craig Biggio 6
Jeff Kent 4
Mike Lamb 3
Eric Bruntlett 1
Jason Lane 0
Orlando Palmeiro -2
Raul Chavez -3
Richard Hidalgo -3
Morgan Ensberg -5
Adam Everett -5
Jose Vizcaino -6
Brad Ausmus -9
Thus, Berkman is having a monster season, and Bags is solid. However, after a fast start (the peril of relying on a small sample of games), Biggio is falling back to his declining trend over the past several seasons of not being much better than an average NL player. The reality is that the Stros would probably get at least as good offense and much better defense by replacing Bidg with Jason Lane as the season wears on, but don’t expect Manager “I love my veterans” Williams to make such a move.
Moreover, despite the media’s touting of Jeff Kent‘s meaningless 15 game hitting streak, Kent also is hitting just barely above an average NL hitter and has no business batting in front of the torrid Berkman in the lineup. Likewise Richard Hidalgo has slumped badly in May after a hot start and Williams’ use of Palmeiro and Lamb in his place is actually a good move. Why can’t Jimy do that in regard to Biggio?
The perception is that Adam Everett is having a much better season to date than Morgan Ensberg, but the facts indicate that, at least from a hitting standpoint, they are doing the same. Of course, Everett is the best defensive player on the team, so some indulgence of mediocre hitting is more justified than with other players. Ensberg had a horrendous April and a better May, but his power numbers are still way down from last season. After hitting 25 yaks last season, Ensberg still does not have one this season.
And, as readers of this blog already know, Brad Ausmus and Jose Vizcaino are among the worst hitters in Major League Baseball and, thus, should be used as little as possible. Of course, under veteran-entranced Williams, Ausmus is a starter and Viz is a key regular. I’m not certain that the rest of the Astros’ hitters are good enough to make up for the regular negative hitting contributions of these two.
The equivalent RCAA statistic for pitchers is called “runs saved against average” or “RSAA.” RSAA basically computes the number of runs that a pitcher saves for his team relative to the number of runs that an average pitcher in the league would give up while obtaining an equivalent number of outs for his team (as with RCAA, RSAA is park-adjusted). As with RCAA, a pitcher can have either a positive RSAA, which indicates he is an above average pitcher, or a negative RSAA, which means he is performing below average.
The following are the current NL leaders in RSAA:
1 Randy Johnson 18
T2 Tom Glavine 17
T2 Livan Hernandez 17
T4 Roger Clemens 14
T4 Brad Penny 14
6 Ben Sheets 13
T7 Armando Benitez 12
T7 Horacio Ramirez 12
T9 Chad Cordero 11
T9 Zach Day 11
T9 Ryan Madson 11
T9 Tomo Ohka 11
T9 Jake Peavy 11
T9 Carlos Zambrano 11
Again, the Stros are a solid third in the NL in team RSAA, but as with RCAA, the individual RSAA stats are more revealing:
Roger Clemens 14
Roy Oswalt 8
Andy Pettitte 4
Octavio Dotel 3
Mike Gallo 3
Brad Lidge 3
Wade Miller 3
Dan Miceli 1
Chad Harville 0
Brandon Backe -2
Ricky Stone -3
Brandon Duckworth -4
Tim Redding -5
Jared Fernandez -6
The Rocket and Roy O are off to solid starts, but the rest of the pitchers are just barely above average or below average (note that Redding’s solid start of today is not included in the above statistics and will improve his negative RSAA considerably). The biggest disappointment has been Dotel, who has been one of the Astros’ leaders in RSAA over the past three seasons.
Consequently, the Stros are solidly in contention in the NL Central, but they are being carried by strong performances by a relatively small group of players (Berkman, Bags, Clemens and Oswalt) while the other players are grinding away at either just above or below average seasons. Inasmuch as older players such as Bags and Clemens will likely trend downward as the season wears on, other Astros will likely have to pick up their performances considerably if the Stros are going to remain in contention for the NL Central title. That’s certainly possible, as Hidalgo, Ensberg, Kent, Redding and Dotel are all candidates to improve their performance from the first third of the season. But it’s also far from a certainty.
The final element — and admittedly the least important — is manager Jimy Williams. As noted here earlier, Williams’ mishandling of Ensberg last season may have cost the Astros the NL Central title that they lost to the Cubs by a game. This season, Williams has continued his inconsistent use of Ensberg, inexplicably bats his best hitter in the five or six hole rather than third, and continues to overuse poor performers Ausmus and Vizcaino.
Again, these may appear to be relatively small errors in isolated circumstances, but over 162 games, those errors in judgment add up and can make a difference, particularly in a close race. The NL Central race looks like it will be a barnburner this season, and its doubtful that the Astros will have any margin for error. Here’s hoping Williams’ illogical prejudices don’t end up costing the Stros in a close race.

Archibald Cox dies

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Here is the NY Times obituary on Archibald Cox, the Harvard Law School constitutional law professor who became famous as the special prosecutor who investigated the Watergate scandal during the second Administration of the late president, Richard M. Nixon. President Nixon’s firing of Mr. Cox during a crucial phase of the investigation into the Watergate scandal eventually was a galvanizing event that eventually led to Nixon’s resignation of the presidency and the granting of a pardon to Nixon by his successor, Gerald R. Ford.
Mr. Cox was a solicitor general of the United States in the Kennedy Administration and a Harvard Law School professor when he took over the the Watergate scandal investigation in May, 1973. He was appointed to that position largely because of his friendship with his former student, then Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson. The appointment of Mr. Cox came on the heels of President Nixon’s announcement in late April 1973 of the forced departure from his administration of four top- level appointees after they were swept up in the Watergate affair. The scandals had begun with the June 1972 burglary of the Democratic National Committee’s offices in the Watergate office complex during 1972 Presidential election campaign between Nixon and Democratic nominee, George McGovern.
As the special prosecutor, Mr. Cox soon wound up in a constitutional confrontation with the White House. After the discovery of secret tape recordings of Nixon’s Oval Office conversations, Mr. Cox subpoenaed those tapes and, when the White House refused to comply with the subpoena under principles of Executive Privilege, Mr. Cox sought to enforce the subpoena through the federal courts and won.
When Nixon resisted the federal courts’ orders requiring him to turnover the tapes and Mr. Cox persisted, Nixon ordered Attorney General Richardson to fire Mr. Cox, but Richardson refused as a matter of principle. As a result, Richardson resigned and Nixon then ordered the deputy attorney general, William D. Ruckelshaus, to fire Mr. Cox. Mr. Ruckelshaus refused and was then fired. Finally, Robert H. Bork, the solicitor general, finally complied with Nixon’s order to fire Mr. Cox. Many powerful people in the U.S. government never forgave Mr. Bork’s compliance with Nixon’s order to fire Mr. Cox, and that probably had more to do with Mr. Bork’s eventual rejection years later as a Supreme Court Justice than any of his more relevant views on application of constitutional law.
These extraordinary events were eventually dubbed “the Saturday Night Massacre” of the Watergate scandal, and the resulting public outcry against Nixon was the beginning of the end of his Presidency. Nixon eventually appointed famed Houston trial attorney Leon Jaworski to replace Mr. Cox as special prosecutor, and Mr. Jaworski continued Mr. Cox’s relentless pursuit of the tapes. Nixon eventually turned them over to Mr. Jaworski, their contents proved Nixon’s involvement in the cover up of the Watergate burglary, and Nixon resigned the Presidency in disgrace shortly thereafter.
After his involement in the Watergate affair, Mr. Cox returned to Harvard, where he taught constitutional law and became a professor emeritus in 1984. Rest in peace, Professor Cox.