Jimy’s penchant for the sacrifice bunt

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The next time you hear the Stros’ propaganda machine touting the brilliance of Jimy Williams‘ strategy of having Adam Everett‘s sacrifice at virtually every opportunity, please recall this Baseball Prospectus analysis:

Waste Not, Want Not: We’ll use an example from the Astros game against St. Louis on June 4, but any Houston fan could name a half-dozen others. Craig Biggio led off the game with a double to left field, bringing up shortstop Adam Everett.
Nice start, right? On the way to a big inning, right? Wrong, if you’re Jimy Williams, who’s never met a pointless sacrifice bunt that didn’t seem like a good strategic decision, especially with Everett at the plate. So far in 2004, Everett has 19 sacrifice bunts in 61 games, by far the most in the majors.
So, as ever, Williams asked Everett to lay down a bunt. He couldn’t get the bunt down, and the Astros eventually stranded Biggio at second base.
In James Click’s series on the sacrifice bunt, we learned that the threshold for a bunt in a runner on second, no out situation is .249/.305/.363–that is, if the batter’s numbers are below that threshold, a bunt makes sense. Otherwise, the batter should hit away.
Everett is currently at .282/.316/.370 this year, which means that a bunt with a runner on second and no one out is a bad play with Everett at the plate (although, not as bad a play as you might think). And keep in mind, that situation is the best situation for a sacrifice bunt when you’re trying to maximize the number of runs you score; any other situation early in a game is an even worse time to lay one down.
This is old news to most of you out there, but apparently Williams hasn’t gotten the memo on this. In a lineup that features four players with a VORP in double digits, Williams’ penchant for throwing away outs and runs early in games is especially baffling, and if Houston comes up short in the NL Central, he’ll deserve a great deal of the blame.

United goes back to the drawing board

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The federal Air Transportation Stabilization Board announced on Thursday that it has rejected Chicago-based United Airlines‘ application for a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee, which is the foundation of the second largest U.S. airline’s current reorganization plan to emerge from its pending chapter 11 bankruptcy case. The ATSB concluded that “the likelihood of United succeeding without a loan guarantee is sufficiently high so as to make a loan guarantee unnecessary.” The ATSB represents the Treasury Department, the Department of Transportation, and the Federal Reserve.
Nevertheless, the political pressure is already mounting to undermine the ATSB’s decision. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said he favors reconsideration of United’s application. Moreover, United said in a statement that it will bring important modifications to its application and request reconsideration. Finally, United’s union members have been hammered with deep pay cuts during the reorganization, so Union leadership reacted angrily to the ATSB’s announcement.
In that connection, a reconsideration appears at least reasonably possible because the ATSB decision was a split vote. Treasury Undersecretary Brian Roseboro and Fed Governor Edward Gramlich voted no, while Transportation Undersecretary Jeff Shane voted to defer a decision to give the airline more time.
By all accounts, United’s new business plan was far superior to its previous ones. During its chapter 11 case, the company has cut its annual expenses by about $5 billion. However, the airline industry has continued to change rapidly during United’s chapter 11 case as a group of successful discount carriers now controls 25% of the domestic market. With their much higher costs, big airlines such as United have been losing billions of dollars a year by matching the discounters’ fares. Meanwhile, fuel prices have skyrocketed, making matters worse for the big boys.
The ATSB’s decision continues an admirable Bush Administration policy of being relunctant to bail out airlines. The ATSB was set up by Congress three years ago to handle the doling out $5 billion in direct grants to the industry and administering up to $10 billion in loan guarantees. At that time, the then-secretary of the Treasury and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan criticized the idea of loan guarantees. The loan board received 16 applications for guarantees before the June 2002 deadline, and was tight-fisted in doling out aid. Eight applications were denied. The six that were issued amounted to about $1.5 billion.
The decision has no immediate effect on United’s operations in its pending chapter 11 case, which is a year and a half old now. Despite the political knashing of teeth over the ATSB’s decision, the decision is the correct one. Hopefully, the decision will stand and simply force the creditors with stakes in United’s survival to share the full economic risk of reorganizing United. As Professor Ribstein has articulated eloquently, risk of loss and threat of failure are powerful inducements to reorganize a big company the right way.

Cubs sweep Stros

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The Stros once promising season sank to the bottom on Thursday night as the Cubs completed a four game sweep of the Stros at the Juice Box, 5-4.
The Stros are now 33-32 and in fifth place in the NL Central. Since peaking at a season-high 10 games over .500 at 21-11 and leading the NL Central by three games on May 11, the fifth-place Astros have gone 12-21 and are now four and a half games behind the Cards. They have lost four in a row, six of their last seven, and 17 of their last 26 games.
For the first part of this hideous past month, the Stros hitting was decent and the pitching generally — with the exception of Clemens — was below average. The pitching has turned around over the past two weeks, but the hitting has gone south as the Stros scored a total of eight runs in the four games with the Cubs.
Roy O battled gamely tonight, giving up 4 runs on 11 hits through seven tough innings. However, journeyman Glendon Rusch handcuffed the Stros, and a mini-uprising in the ninth spiced by Jason Lane‘s first homer of the season petered out.
The Angels come to town tomorrow for a weekend series at the Juice Box as the Stros search for that elusive winning formula. Pete Munro will likely start for the Stros, so expect some hard-hitting in this one, at least from the Angels.

More on Hidalgo trade

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The Chronicle reports today that the other player in the Stros’ probable trade of Richard Hidalgo is Mets’ right-handed relief pitcher, David Weathers. Here is what Baseball Prospectus says about Weathers:

Weathers can be a cheap, serviceable back-end piece of almost every team’s bullpen, fill 70 something innings, and not embarrass himself. There’s some value in that, but he’d be well-served to try and sneak onto a team with a bullpen in flux, steal 15-20 saves and then get someone to bite on him as a closer. Billy Beane would probably be willing to sign on for a cut of the proceeds from the subsequent free agent deal.

Weathers, who is 35 and a 14 year veteran, is earning $3,93 million this season. Hidalgo has been on the trading block for two years since he took a nosedive from a production standpoint after signing an absurdly overpriced contract on the heels of an outstanding 2000 season. Hidalgo is currently “earning” $12 million this season, and will be owed a $2 million buyout after the season because no team in their right mind would pick up his $15 million option for next season.
So, this proposed trade is a salary dump for the Stros for their mistake of grossly overpaying for Hidalgo. I think it is a mistake for the Stros to give up on Hidalgo, but there is no question that they badly overpaid him over the term of his current contract. Sometimes it’s easier for team management to trade a player rather than face their own mistakes.
UPDATE: The Stros and Mets pulled the string, as Hidalgo goes to the Mets for Weathers and minor leaguer Jeremy Griffiths, a 26 year old righthander who will begin in the Stros’ organization at AAA New Orleans. Griffiths is 5-2 with a 3.47 ERA in 13 starts for AAA Norfolk this season, allowing 63 hits while walking 29 and striking out 31. Here is Baseball Prospectus’ analysis of him coming into this season:

Griffiths managed to drop his walk and home runs allowed rate some last year, but NL hitters lit him up with a .328 batting average against. A pedestrian pitcher with a fastball that’s neither fast nor big on movement, the Mets’ 2004 season’s in big trouble if Griffiths gets those projected 15 starts.

Well, certainly not a great trade for the Stros by any stretch. However, a good trade for Hidalgo was a dream once the Stros overpaid for him after his great 2000 season.

Not so fast, Jenkens & Gilchrist

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This NY Times article reports on a scrape that Dallas-based law firm Jenkens & Gilchrist got into with a New York judge over an unauthorized letter that the firm recently sent to clients who bought tax shelters that the firm promoted. Here are earlier posts on Jenkens & Gilchrist’s tax shelter-related problems.
Jenkens & Gilchrist agreed in March to pay $75 million in settlement of a class-action lawsuit that had been brought on behalf of over 1,100 clients of the firm who had bought the disputed tax shelters. The settlement included some provisions for protecting the clients’ identities in court records that would be available to the general public.
However, in a letter that Jenkens & Gilchrist sent to its clients on May 28, the law firm offered the opportunity to stay completely out of the public record of the case by accepting just $100 from the firm rather than each client’s share in the $75 million settlement.
That offer went over about as well as a fart in church with the judge in the class action case. U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin sent a rather unusual letter of her own yesterday to the 1,100 Jenkens & Gilchrest clients instructing them that they should ignore the Jenkens & Gilchrest letter because she had not approved it as part of the settlement.
A lawyer representing Jenkens & Gilchrist said yesterday that the firm had withdrawn the offer to its clients contained in the letter and that the whole affair had been a big misunderstanding.
I guess so.
However, none of these machinations over the proposed class settlement will hide the Jenkens & Gilchrist clients’ identities from the Internal Revenue Service. In May, U.S. District Judge James Moran ordered the firm to turn over the names of all its tax shelter clients to the I.R.S.

Scruffin’ Stros lose again

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The Stros lost their third straight game to the Cubs on Wednesday night, 4-1.
The Stros wasted a good pitching performance be Tim Redding, who gave up two runs on eight hits over seven innings. But the Stros continue to scruff at the plate, scattering a bunch of singles off of Greg Maddux around one extra base hit (a game opening double by Bidg). Nothing is looking good for the Stros right now, as Everett has a hitch in his giddyup, Hidalgo is on the trading block and not playing much, and Berkman has cooled off after being the only consistently good hitter over the past month.
Roy O tries to avoid the sweep tomorrow night. The Stros are in free fall, and it’s getting ugly at the Juice Box, folks.

Andersen loses appeal of its criminal conviction related to Enron

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This Chronicle story reports that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans announced earlier this afternoon that it has affirmed the 2002 criminal conviction of Enron Corp‘s former accounting firm, Arthur Andersen for obstruction of justice.
Here is the Fifth Circuit’s opinion.

Hidalgo deal almost done?

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Reports out of New York are that the Mets and the Stros are close to a trade that would send the Stros’ Richard Hidalgo to the Mets.
The following is recently exiled Brandon Duckworth‘s pitching line from last night’s game at AAA New Orleans:
Player Name IP H R ER BB K HR ERA
B.Duckworth 2.2 7 6 6 1 1 0 20.25
Ouch!

Holman Jenkins on Reagan’s legacy to business

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Holman Jenkins, Jr.’s Wall Street Journal ($) Business World column today is a nice tribute to the late President Reagan’s legacy toward the business community. Here is a tidbit:

The late president came into his political maturity as a traveling spokesman for General Electric, a company that each age seems to rediscover as an icon of American industry. Mr. Reagan traversed the land and heard GE executives complain about taxes and regulation, and, lo, somehow he understood that this was a bad thing, which was an achievement for his time.
Mr. Reagan’s GE years are shrouded in mystery, or at least shrouded in the discarded newspaper morgues of a hundred defunct small-town newspapers in places he visited and spoke on GE’s behalf. He received a treatment not unlike the rigorous apprenticeship afflicted on future CEOs of GE, shipped from place to place, meeting the company’s far-flung employees, seeing its various businesses up close. His GE minder, Ed Langley, was fond of saying that Mr. Reagan was “marinated in the middle class” in a way no politician could match, an experience that would have “turned Jane Fonda into Margaret Thatcher.”
Mr. Reagan drew a novel lesson from this experience: that corporations were full of hardworking, inventive people creating things of practical use to their fellow Americans. He failed to notice the befouling of any wetlands or the extinction of any owls. To many critics who even now are starting to pipe up, Mr. Reagan was an enemy of the poor — because to be supportive of business was, ipso facto, to be an enemy of the poor. He would have understood; he was once a business basher himself. In 1948, Mr. Reagan stumped right along with Harry Truman, giving speeches that blamed the excessive profits of greedy businessmen for inflation.
Here resides the single most overlooked achievement of Mr. Reagan’s legacy, what Bear Stearns economist David Malpass calls his “reminding us that the private sector is OK.”

Read the whole piece.