Yeah, I Do Think I'd Be An Awesome Commissioner

Still waiting to hear if I'm going to get an interview to step in when interim Commissioner Bud Selig steps aside, which I'm sure he's going to do any day now.  I say that because I'm working on an article discussing the proposed baseball realignment, and once it's posted, I fully expect MLB to come a-calling with any number of job offers.  I'm still hoping to hold out for the big one.  I also hope everyone's cool with me moving the Commissioner's office to the Bay Area.

This is the letter I received, on snappy Milwaukee Brewers letterhead, in response to my letter expressing interest in the MLB Commissioner position, August of 1993.

Yes, it's real. Some of you have seen it in person.
Feel free to validate it in the comments.

Fun With Stats: Strikeouts Per 9 Innings

While perusing the halls of Baseball-Reference.com for next Friday's Whose Line Is It Anyway, I strolled through the career leaders for most strikeouts per nine innings, with pitchers who have thrown a minimum of 1,000 innings.  You know what the first thing was to grab my attention?  Dwight Gooden, "Dr. K," at number 67, with 7.3686 K/9.  Sixty.  Seventh.  He doesn't even have the highest rate in that great rotation the Mets had in the second half of the 80's; that belongs to "El Sid" Fernandez, who ranks twenty-first with 8.4038.  Other pitchers I never, ever would have guessed to be ahead of Gooden include Brett Myers (65th, 7.3972), Ted Lilly (44th, 7.6577), Matt Clement (38th, 7.7534), and Bob Veale (32nd, 7.9579), but that last one is mostly just because I don't think I've ever heard of him.

Dr. 7.4 K/9

But those are Gooden's career numbers.  His numbers just with the Mets must be better, right?  Before his decline years, which started after he missed a year with a drug suspension, and before he got clean?  Is cocaine technically a "performance enhancing" drug?  Anyway, Dr. K's K/9 with the Mets, 1984-1994, is 7.4.  Which is possibly more than 7.3686, but not by much.  Or not at all, if B-R is employing any of that fancy "rounding" I've been hearing about.  In fact, the only season that Doc was above 10 strikeouts per 9 was his rookie year of 1984, when he racked up 11.4.

I think the lesson here (and who knew you could learn life lessons from baseball stats?) is that sometimes reputation supersedes reality.  People thought of Gooden as a strikeout pitcher, and I'm not saying he was Billy Swift (3.4859 K/9), but he never lived up to the Dr. K title.  So the lesson here is don't do drugs, kids.  Or give up big home runs to Mike Scioscia in a playoff game.  That's the lesson.

Why did they always
take his picture right
after he threw up?

A couple more quick things from the list.  Because it takes 1,000 career innings to qualify, there aren't nearly as many relief pitchers as there are starters.  Discounting Kerry Wood (47% of his appearances through 2010 are starts), the only reliever in the top 10 is Trevor Hoffman (5th, 9.3608 K/9), whom I haven't really considered a strikeout pitcher since around the time he broke Robby Thompson's cheekbone in 1993.  It's all the changeups.  The other relievers in the top 25 are Arthur Rhodes (11th, 8.7921), Dan Plesac (13th, 8.7397), Lee Smith (15th, 8.7324), Eric Plunk (20th, 8.4526), Tom Gordon (24th, 8.2315), and Mariano Rivera (25th, 8.2004).  Plesac and Plunk?  Really?  Those are names I did not expect to see.  For reference, longtime closer Roger McDowell is 599th with 4.4914.

Lastly, seventh on this list is Oliver Perez, with 9.1160 strikeouts per 9 innings.  That's seventh all time.  Oliver Perez.  The same Oliver Perez who the Mets cut before this season started, feeling they were better off paying him $12,000,000 to not pitch for them.  Perez has a career ERA of 4.63 and WHIP of 1.482.  Those numbers are what we, in the business, like to call "not good."  So the lesson we learn from this list of names and numbers is this: strikeouts are exciting and impressive, but not a terribly accurate way to evaluate a pitcher's overall effectiveness.  Lesson learned.

Whose Line: June 10 Winner

Hall of Famer
Eddie Murray

This week's Whose Line Is It Anyway winner is faithful reader (to the extent that's possible) Dan!  He correctly identified switch hitting slugger Eddie Murray.

While he tried to decline his fabulous prize, he gets one anyway.

But I did have to guess at what player he'd want, and what his monitor resolution is.  Hope I'm close.  As you can see, though, these are downloadable for everyone who visits the site, so in a sense when one person wins, everyone wins!

Congratulations Dan!
Clicking the thumbnail image takes you to a page with the image, then you'll need to click "download" on that page (right clicking doesn't give you the full sized image).

Big Mac 1280x1024

MacBook Friendly Mac 1440x900

Whose Line Is It Anyway: June 10, 2011

Look at the following career total stat line, and guess which player has those numbers.  Then leave your guess as a comment to this post.  First one with the right answer wins a custom desktop wallpaper featuring your favorite (non-dodger, non-o. smith) player, from any sport, built to the size of your screen.  Obviously, the "honor system" is at work here as far as not researching the answer.  You can submit more than one answer, but please make each guess a separate comment.  Come back every Friday for another game and chance to win!

Nobody guessed correctly last week, so we'll make it a little easier.  This week's player had an astounding 21 year Big League career, playing for 5 different franchises.
So ... whose line is this? (click to view larger image)

Hints: 

• 16 years in the AL, and 6 in the NL (so obviously a little overlap in there somewhere)
• During his 6 years in the NL, he had approximately 26,512 RBI against the Giants

Somebody is going to get this one pretty easily, so post your guess pronto!


Last week's answer after the jump:

Baseball's Best Nicknames

Adam: Hey look at the career of Chris Hoiles … why didn’t he have a job offer? Injury? Just hung them up? That’s a solid final year for a catcher. He had an OPS over 1.000 in ’93.

Chris Hoiles

Gabe: Those are definitely better numbers than I would have guessed. I have no idea why he stopped playing.

Adam: Yeah, I can’t remember either. Career OPS over .830 … nice.

Adam: One of McCann’s Baseball-Reference “most similar” players is “Bubbles Hargrave."  Ol’ Bubbles.

Gabe: That has got to be the worst baseball name ever.

Adam: And yes … Bubbles is Pinky Hargrave’s brother.

Gabe: Shut up. Neither of those are real.

Adam: Pinky was a lifetime .278 hitter … 39 bombs too. Bubbles was a lifetime .310 hitter.

Gabe: Still, though. I had an Uncle Pinky. He was a drummer. But how do you make it through years of team sports and still go by “Pinky?” Or “Bubbles?”

Adam: No idea. Pinky was a Brave for a bit, though.

Gabe: Pink doesn’t go with the Braves colors at all.

Adam: Bubbles spent most of his career with the Reds … was on the Yanks in 1930. I bet Babe Ruth had some fun with Bubbles.

Gabe: You’d have to think so. How many times do you think he heard “I know a stripper named Bubbles?”

Adam: Ruth probably knew more than one stripper named Bubbles. And Pinky.

Gabe: Yep. That’s a safe bet.

Adam: On the list of catchers similar to McCann there is a Bubbles … a Shanty a Babe and a Yogi. Catcher had to be the best nicknamed position right? (oh, and Ed Taubensee … which I am sure has McCann stoked)

Gabe: I’m sure. Spanky and Sluggo have got to be the best nicknames ever for teammates who played the same position.

Adam: Yeah, for sure … maybe we should do a top ten list of our favorite nicknames?

Just A Little Perspective

Aubrey Huff, one of the great clubhouse personalities of this generation, has saddled Giants rookie shortstop Brandon Crawford with the nickname "John Stamos."  Already, the hashtag #stamos gets plenty of run on Twitter during Giants games.

But Crawford is a young guy, and I found myself wondering whether or not he would even know who John Stamos is.  So I looked it up.  Brandon Crawford was born January 21, 1987.  Stamos' co-stars on Full House, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, were born June 13, 1986, roughly six months before Crawford.

Still, Huff isn't far off.  Also, I am old.

Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, John Stamos

Brandon Crawford, "John Stamos"

Whose Line Is It Anyway: June 3, 2011

Look at the following career total stat line, and guess which player has those numbers.  Then leave your guess as a comment to this post.  First one with the right answer wins a custom desktop wallpaper featuring your favorite (non-dodger, non-o. smith) player, from any sport, built to the size of your screen.  Obviously, the "honor system" is at work here as far as not researching the answer.  You can submit more than one answer, but please make each guess a separate comment.  Come back every Friday for another game and chance to win!

This week's player had a 14 year Big League career, playing for 4 different franchises.
So ... whose line is this? (click to view larger image)

Hints: 

• He spent 8 years in the NL, and 6 years in the AL.
• He won 1 major award in his career, and was an All Star 3 times.