Daily Archives: June 10, 2007

Stros 2007 Season Review, Part Three

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Berkman%20throwing%20ball%20on%20field.jpgBack when the Stros were close to a .500 ball club, I concluded the previous periodic Stros season review (all previous 2007 reviews are here) as follows:

Thus, my sense is that Stros management, for all their declarations of trying to field a playoff contender, is really biding its time this season as Biggio trudges toward his 3,000th hit. There is simply no way that this club will be much better than a .500 ballclub with its current starting pitching staff and Biggio, Everett, Ausmus and the pitcher burdening the hitting lineup on most nights. The Stros should be honest and concede that the club is attempting to compete as well as possible while supporting Biggio’s climb toward 3,000 hits and dispense with the ruse that this club, as presently configured, has any meaningful shot at the playoffs.

Well, as if on the cue, the Stros (26-35) went into the tank immediately thereafter, posting a 6-14 record during the past 20 games (after going 9-12 and 11-9 in the first two eighth segments of the season), including an excruciating 10 game losing streak in which the club gave up a total of 72 runs while scoring only 20. To make matters worse, overmatched Stros Manager Phil Garner panicked as the streak worsened, using nine different lineups, four right fielders, three first basemen, three third basemen and three leadoff hitters. The Stros responded by scoring fewer than two runs in a game five times and allowing eight or more runs in a game five times.
So, just a little over a year and a half since the club’s first World Series appearance, the Stros have turned into one of the worst teams in the National League — only the Reds (24-38) and the Nationals (25-36) have worse records through 37% of the season than the Stros. In fact, the Stros are not much better than the worst teams in all of Major League Baseball, the Rangers (23-39) and the Royals (23-40).
The Stros have continued their long trend of poor overall team hitting, scoring 12 fewer runs than an average National League team would have scored using the same number of outs as the Stros have used through this point in the season (“runs created against average” of “RCAA,” explained here), which is 10th among the 16 National League clubs. But the pitching overall has been even worse, giving up a total of 21 more runs than an average National League staff would have given up through this point of the season (“runs saved against average” or “RSAA,” explained here), which is 12th among the NL clubs. When a club is running a net deficit of -33 runs to what an average National League club would generate hitting or give up pitching, you know that team’s record will be decidedly below-average.
The season statistics for the Stros to date are below, courtesy of Lee Sinins‘ sabermetric Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. The abbreviations for the hitting stats are defined here and the same for the pitching stats are here. The Stros active roster is here with links to each individual player’s statistics:

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Is Barry Bonds this era’s Jack Johnson?

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Inasmuch as I have never been comfortable with the characterization of Barry Bonds as a fraud because of his steroid use (prior posts here), this Skip Sauer/Sports Economist post comparing Bonds’ situation to that of former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson caught my eye:

This week’s Chronicle of Higher Education has a piece worth reading by historian Warren Goldstein, on the simmering feud between Barry Bonds and his critics in baseball and the media. Goldstein sees an analogy between Bonds and the black superstars who were run out of sport in the 19th and 20th Century as racism became institutionalized in American society. The list, borrowing from William Rhoden’s recent book, $40 Million Dollar Slaves, includes Isaac Murphy, a three-time winner of the Kentucky Derby, Major Taylor, the top cyclist exiled to France, and boxer Jack Johnson. Since watching Ken Burns’ documentary on Johnson a few years ago, I’ve viewed Bonds and Johnson as soul mates of a sort. So I am predisposed to both Goldstein and Rhoden’s take on this.

Bonds plays in an era where overt racism is much diminished, and banishment akin to his predecessors seems unlikely. But he is caught front and center in the anti-drug witch-hunt, and he — like just about every other player of his cohort — is unapologetic. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if Bonds would not mind being immortalized in a manner similar to Murphy, Taylor, and Johnson. Just as Bud Selig and various members of the media shrink from celebrating Bond’s pending achievement, it is likely that Bonds finds the prospect of sharing the moment with his detractors to be repulsive. For reasons both valid and perhaps a bit petulant, he’d rather figuratively hang with his homies Murphy, Taylor, and Johnson. I can see his point: they’re an accomplished group.