Please allow me to direct you to a piece in this week’s New Yorker that paints a portrait of a manically successful, middle-aged Lenny Dykstra who acknowledges the post-career breakdown of an athlete’s toughness by answering the phone, “Thumbtacks.” The occasion for the article is the development of Dykstra’s new business venture, a magazine called The Players Club, that is designed to educate athletes on how to “Keep Living the Dream” (that’s the slogan) after their playing days are over — an important cause if today’s heros are to avoid the fates of yesterday’s stars. The magazine will be distributed to athletes in all the major professional sports leagues, and its column will be written by many former pros. Dykstra, perhaps one of the most notoriously addictive personalities in baseball of the 1980s-90s, seems like a strange success story to emulate. The piece gives insight, however, into how a nearly psychotic love for status symbols and capitalism (in the form of quite successful day trading) has replaced some of his more self-destructive tendencies. Dykstra has grown into a self-proclaimed “robes-and-room-service kind of guy,” and he proposes a way to get the next generation to successfully extended their lifestyles of stardom into the middle age years that start immediately upon retirement. He seems to be thoroughly insane, but, strangely, it undeniably seems to be working for him.

Who doesn’t love the knuckleball? It’s the most dizzying pitch in baseball and it is also one of the slowest. As longtime hitting coach Charlie Lau famously said, “There are two theories on hitting a knuckleball. Unfortunately, neither of them works.” So I was pleased when I saw one spring training comeback attempt story that was about a knuckleballer: R.A. Dickey. Dickey’s a strange pitcher–one who flamed out with his original repertoire after it was discovered that he has no ulnar collateral ligament (the ligament that gets replaced during Tommy John surgery) whatsoever. Most sports docs would tell you he shouldn’t be able to twist his forearm at all. Nevertheless, he refashioned his arsenal, adding a slow splitter that came to be known as “The Thing.” After leaving the Rangers organization, he was signed by the Twins as a minor league free agent before being snatched away by the Mariners in the Rule 5 draft. The Thing is now a legitimate knuckleball (though a fast one; he claims it maxes out around 81 mph). As the reigning Triple-A Pacific Coast League Most Valuable Player, it seems like Dickey might finally be able to get major league hitters out on a consistent basis. What’s more, because he’s a Rule 5 guy, the Mariners have to keep him on the big league roster or be forced to offer him back to the Twins. I wish him the best of luck.

Recently, ESPN.com’s Jim Caple took a trip to Arizona to try to learn how to catch the knuckler from Mr. Dickey himself. The results are entertaining. I loved the part where he talks about his fingernail maintenance.

Update: Here’s a link to the associated Caple article.

As this year’s crop of baseball video games stumble out of the gate, Yahoo! Sports’ Big League Stew blog sat down with Matt Holliday to talk about what is perhaps the best baseball video game ever: RBI Baseball for the Nintendo Entertainment System (and I say perhaps only because I cannot, in good faith, ignore the hours days months of my life that were lost to MVP Baseball 2004). It’s an interesting read, and it makes the Dodgers’ clubhouse sound totally awesome (as if we needed a reminder of that):

BLS: Wait. There’s a Nintendo in the Dodgers’ visitors clubhouse?

Holliday: No, it’s actually on one of those standup arcade machines. They’ve got it in the corner there and you can call up RBI and play it.

RBI Baseball definitely has inspired some amazing things. Take, for example, this video of the entirety of the bottom of the tenth inning of Game Six of the 1986 World Series (which has been circulating for more than a year now):

Note especially at the 7:51 marker the surprisingly good re-enactment of Bill Buckner’s ignominious moment. Also, I’m particularly impressed by the re-creation of Keith Hernandez‘ pop-up at 1:37, which must have taken a very long time indeed. If you’d like to compare it to the original, you can find the play by play (as always) at Retrosheet.

At least for this fan, love of all vintage things baseball extends to the digital realm as well.

Dear Cecil Cooper,

You have a difficult job. You stepped in as the interim manager of the struggling Astros in the middle of last season. Though it was hardly your fault, the team finished with its first losing season in almost a decade. The Astros offense was buoyed by a strong season from Carlos Lee, a solid–if down–year from Lance Berkman, and the emergence of rookie Swiss Army Knife Hunter Pence. With Ed Wade’s addition of Miguel Tejada, the Astros have both solidified a solid offensive core and announced their intentions to try to win now in a weak NL Central.

No, sir, your problem does not lie in any bat. The problem is the run prevention, not the run scoring. In the rotation, behind Roy Oswalt, your team has more retreads than the shoulder of Interstate 10. And, like it or not, they aren’t going to be getting bailed out by the defense. In fact, your infield defense is one of the most sieve-like in all of baseball. The mere replacement of Adam Everett with Tejada makes an enormous impact on your team’s ability to turn batted balls into outs. And while Kaz Matsui is probably a defensive improvement over the Craig Biggio/Chris Burke timeshare at second, he’ll have to cover for some of Berkman’s mistakes at first as well. Many have talked about moving Tejada to third in attempt to keep his bat worthwhile as his defense declines, but the position is taken by Ty Wigginton. What’s a manager to do?

Well, Mr. Cooper, I sympathize with your position. And not only that, I’ve got an idea that I think might help you. It’s going to sound crazy, but I assure it’s not any crazier than trying to win now with this team. And, let’s be honest, if that’s the mandate from Mr. Wade, you’re going to need at least some crazy ideas.

So here goes: move Tejada to third, Wigginton to second and Matsui to short.

The word from spring training is that Tejada looks more and more like a liability at short every day. Sure it was in 2004 that Matsui last played shortstop, but he held his own, adding +6 runs above average (according to Baseball Prospectus’s RAA stat) to the Mets defense that year. Even with the time it would take to readjust, I think that’s a big improvement over Tejada. Moving Wigginton to second may seem dicier, but consider this. As a third baseman over the last two years, he has been worth 8 runs below average in 114 games. In the 82 games he played at second base with the then-Devil Rays over the same period, he rated a total of 4 runs below average. If nothing else, Wigginton is no worse at second than he is at third, and considering second is the harder of the two positions, it seems wise to move him across the infield. And while other defensive metrics show a slightly different picture (David Pinto’s PMR rates him below average at both positions, but worse at second, whereas UZR rates him as near-average at second but awful at third), any losses would likely be made up by playing Tejada at third, where he could be an above-average defender.

Tejada, of course, may be the sticking point. He has been a shortstop his entire career, and he will be reluctant to give that up. But perhaps there is hope: his childhood idol growing up in the Dominican Republic was another great shortstop who moved to the hot corner as his glove declined: Cal Ripken, Jr. Tejada’s last three years at shortstop: +2, -5, -15 RAA. Tejada simply is no longer the flashy fielder he was when he was an Athletic.

Mr. Cooper, you may balk at switching the position of three different players during spring training. But with all the question marks filling out your rotation, if you want any chance to win this season you need to have the best defensive alignment possible on the field at all times. Your outfield defense is something to be proud of, but they can’t knock down ground balls up the middle.

Defensively,
Tommy

Much virtual ink has been spilled over the managerial acrobatics that will be required to work in all the young talent the Dodgers have developed in the outfield (Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier) and infield (James Loney, the now-injured Andy LaRoche). A less common topic for soapbox rants is the future of the Dodgers’ young pitchers. Lefty phenom Clayton Kershaw is a consensus top 10, can’t miss prospect (contingent on health, of course). Hefty set-up man Jonathan Broxton will continue to mow down hitters in eighth innings as a close approximation to his future closer roll (when Takashi Saito finally starts acting his age). And finally, right-handed starter Chad Billingsley is coming off an extremely productive age-22 season in which he posted a 3.31 ERA and 141 strikeouts in 147 innings split between the bullpen and the rotation. Rightfully impressed by this performance, the Dodgers will be leaning heavily on Billingsley as their number three starter in front of a back end that includes question marks in Japanese import Hiroki Kuroda and reclamation projects like Esteban Loaiza and Jason Schmidt. Do they have anything to worry about?

Baseball Prospectus’ Kevin Goldstein calls Billingsley the best talent under 25 in the Dodgers system. He goes on to gush, “if you are looking for 2008 breakout candidates from a pitching perspective, don’t be surprised if Billingsley finishes in the top five of next year’s NL Cy Young Award voting.” Those are bold words that show us that KG foresees a similar follow-up performance from the big righty. But whither PECOTA, BP’s favorite, “deadly accurate” predictive tool? PECOTA expects Billingsley to wither a bit in his first full year in the rotation. It pegs his Collapse Rate at a nasty 59%, while limiting his chance of improvement to a mere 14%. While it seems reasonable to temper expectations of improvement on Billingsley’s 130 career ERA+, the sky high Collapse Rate should give fantasy owners, Dodgers fans, and Ned Colletti some anxiety. (more…)

Today, 3/14, is Pi Day. In commemoration of Pi Day’s 20th anniversary (and while I wait for my Buffon’s needle applet to approach 3.14159), I thought we would take a look at a few pi-related baseball statistics.

• RAB favorite and offensive-minded keystone man Robinson Cano sports a nifty career .314 batting average.
• Former Mariner’s closer Kaz Sasaki and longtime Orioles fireman Dick Hall both have career K/BB ratios of 3.14 (impressive!).
• In 1892 Wild Bill Hutchison struck out 314 batters for the Cubbies (albeit in 622 innings across 70 starts).
• Sandy Koufax made 314 starts in his injury-shortened career.
• Switch-hitter Reggie Smith hit a total of 314 home runs in his career.
• The Hawk swiped 314 bags in his career.

Got others? Add them in the comments section.

You might not guess that the set of people that enjoys political philosophy would overlap much with the set of people that enjoys baseball, but then again, a philosopher once revealed to me, upon seeing my Phillies hat, that his uncle had been dentist to the Phillies, and that he still loved the Phightins for that reason.

In any event, for those of us who represent the overlap on the Venn diagram, today is a good day. The late John Rawls was one of the great American philosophers of the 20th century, and he was a baseball fan. In his 1955 essay “Two Concepts of Rules,” Rawls describes very elegantly the complex web of rules that makes baseball baseball:

Many of the actions one performs in a game of baseball one can do by oneself or with others whether there is a game or not. For example, one can throw a ball, run, or swing a particularly shaped piece of wood. But one cannot steal base, or strike out, or draw a walk, or make an error, or balk; although one can do certain things which appear to resemble these actions such as sliding into a bag, missing a grounder and so on. Striking out, stealing a base, balking, etc., are all actions which can only happen in a game. No matter what a person did, what he did would not be described as stealing a base or striking out or drawing a walk unless he could also be described as playing baseball, and for him to be doing this presupposes the rule-like practice which constitutes the game.

Or, to translate to the language of ESPN commercials: (more…)

Note: This is the first in Breaking Balls’ new series, Monday Missives. These pieces will be posted on Mondays and will be written as an open letter. Let us know what you think of the addition.

Dear Los Angeles Dodgers,

I understand that baseball in Los Angeles has been somewhat of a rocky affair. You should be recognized for avoiding the nomenclatural excesses of your crosstown competitors. Even as you indulge in some of California’s gratification culture, you always seem to do it with a touch of old baseball class. Sure, Walter O’Malley may have ruined baseball for a generation of Brooklynites, but the rest of history has gone on to forgive him. Dodger Stadium is a baseball landmark, and despite the deep scar on your history that no amount of Botox can cover, you have regenerated organically around it, creating an American identity that spans both coasts. You broke the color barrier so you could put the best team on the field, and your team name has the best provenance of any in baseball.

So it is with a heavy heart that I write to you today. Your ongoing flirtation with moving your spring training facilities to Glendale, Arizona strikes me as shortsighted. When your franchise, then still in Brooklyn, opened spring training facilities in Vero Beach, Florida in 1948, you were one of the first clubs to do so. You created an annual tradition that marks the passing of the seasons as much as Punxsutawney Phil or the vernal equinox. No, sirs, in 1948 Branch Rickey took a decommissioned military base and created a part of American culture. You should be proud of that history.

By choosing Florida, you guaranteed an ongoing relationship with the former New Yorkers and New York fans who came to live there. People who might never have been able to make the trek to Ebbets Field flocked instead to Dodgertown. Although it only has a capacity of 6,500, the history of the stadium gives it a grander scale. The dugouts are literally dug out of the ground. Walking around the stadium, it’s a good bet you’ll catch sight of Tommy Lasorda or Sandy Koufax. For sixty years now, Dodger fans have come to Florida to relax, slow down, and perhaps exorcise the demons of 1958.

When Craig Callan, your vice president for spring training and minor league facilities, told USA Today in 2007 that you have “had a great relationship with Vero Beach for 50 or 60 years, but nothing’s forever. It’s a business decision,” you were simply playing out events that we have seen before, and to which we know the conclusion. Time heals all wounds, and eventually you will come to love Glendale just as you love Los Angeles. But you must ask yourselves why you feel you must do this thing. Why, of all teams, is it again the Dodgers who vacate their historic home?

This season marks the 60th anniversary of Dodgertown, and the 50th anniversary of the most famous relocation in the history of professional sports. Should you really commemorate that legacy by retiring the best baseball stadium in Florida? What would Branch Rickey say?

Feeling blue,
Tommy

Last time out we looked at what separated Johan Santana on a good day from Johan Santana on a bad day. In the past week, much has been made of Santana’s nifty change up. First, the Times’ Jack Curry looked at the deceptiveness that makes it effective. Then Matt Cerrone of metsblog.com sat down with with the Venezuelan left-hander to learn all about the grip he uses on his change.

But commenter “dan” asks an interesting question:

Scouts claim that after his 17-K performance, he was reluctant to throw his slider, possibly due to an elbow injury. Is there any truth to this?

Let’s start with Santana’s performance after that 17 K day, which was one of the outings we looked at last time. Here are his numbers:

He gave up more home runs in this period (1.86/9IP versus 1.23/9IP the rest of the season), and he also gave up more hits. His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) over this period was .298, more or less average, but higher than his season as a whole (.273). Last season generally, Santana gave up fewer ground balls (more fly balls) than usual, which probably contributed to his home run woes (if we can call them that) but may have suppressed his BABIP–which does not include home runs–to some degree. His slightly lower ground ball percentage (38% versus a consistent average of about 40.5% over the previous three seasons) was compounded by an usually high home run per fly ball ratio (15.6% versus 11.5% and 10.9% the previous two years), meaning that even as he was giving up more fly balls, more of those were leaving the park. For Santana, this was an unfortunate combination. For Mets fans, it is a good sign that Santana just got a little unlucky last season.

But Dan’s question is about the slider. Last time, we noted how Santana shied away from his slider during his virtuosic 17K performance, choosing instead to rely on his fastball/change up combination (the less commonly cited corollary to the adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” “if it’s the best pitch in baseball, don’t fail to throw it,” would seem to apply here). So part of the answer is Santana, on his good days, don’t need no stinkin’ slider. But not every pitcher has his best pitch every day, and circle change ups like the one Santana throws are notoriously difficult to grip and throw. When he doesn’t have the right touch for it, we would expect him to rely more heavily on his breaking ball. Unless, that is, he wasn’t throwing it as often because of some lingering elbow pain, which is exactly what Dan is asking about.

The pitch F/X system captured a total of 130 sliders thrown by Santana last season, at an average speed of 85.11 miles per hour. Of these, 51 were balls. He threw the slider about an even number of times to lefties and righties–64 to southpaws and 66 to righties. He appeared to be very good at locating the breaking ball out of the zone (either low and away or at the letters in tight), particularly against righties, who might presumably be better able to recognize it coming out of his hand. To see for yourself, you can check out the indispensable PITCHf/x tool created by Josh Kalk. (…*Waits a few hours for readers to return*…) Okay, while we have uncovered a good bit about Santana’s breaking ball, we are not yet in a position to answer Dan’s question.

During the course of the whole season, pitchF/X captured 1025 Santana pitches, of which 130 were sliders. From this, we can approximate that Santana, over the course of the whole season, throws his slider 12.7% of the time. After the 17K performance, pitchF/X recorded 301 pitches thrown by Santana, 38 of which were sliders, representing 12.6% of his pitches. Similarly, up through that 17K game, Santana threw the slider 12.7% of the time. So it looks like Santana relied just as much on his slider during his late season skid as he did the rest of the season.

This isn’t to suggest that he definitely did not suffer from elbow pain late in the season. Rather, if he did, it didn’t cause him to adjust the frequency with which he threw sliders. Considering what we saw above with his increase in home run rates, you might be wondering what caused those home runs. Of the three pitches we have data for that resulted in home runs during this period, two were belt-high pitches over the middle of the plate to Josh Fields (one fastball, one change up) and another was a belt-high change up over the middle of the plate to Ryan Garko.

Chalk it up to loss of command due to fatigue at the end of the season, or perhaps his desire to leave Minnesota, but from the data we have it doesn’t appear that injuries were affecting his pitch selection.