Defensive Indifference

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[fusion_text]When the Twins have a lead larger than one in the ninth and a baserunner reaches first, they routinely decline to hold him on, giving him a free run to second base but allowing the first baseman to play behind the runner in presumably a better defensive position. Rather than registeringing this a stolen base, baseball scores this a nullity,  calling it “defensive indifference.” There is one additional marginal benefit: it allows Twins closer Glen Perkins to focus all his attention on the batter.

I am waiting for the statheads to pronounce on the wisdom of this maneuver, but until I see the empirical evidence let me give my view: I hate it, and I shall now count the ways.

One: allowing the baserunner to move from first to second eliminates the force play at second. I have frequently seen the play – the ground ball up the middle, the ground ball in the shortstop hole – where an out was possible at second base but not at first. Rarer, in my experience, is the play where the first baseman could not get an out because he was holding the runner instead of playing behind him. Thus, defensively, the DI makes no sense.

Two: the pitcher’s ability to hold a runner on first atrophies. Perkins is the prime example. He so routinely allows the runner to take second that he has become terrible at holding on the runner when it is needed. You can look it up, but my sense is that he has one of the highest stolen-base percentages of any lefthanded pitcher. In his mind, all that is important is getting the batter out. Unfortunately, sometimes the batter gets a hit, and if a runner has stolen second that can mean a run and the lead.

Three: I don’t like to see “meaningless” runs. Sure, a 6-5 victory counts the same as 6-4, but it doesn’t feel the same. Someone has gotten an rbi and someone has scored a run they don’t deserve. The team gets credit for a “one-run win,” which some analysts down the line will use as a yardstick for clutch performance. And to the unwary distant observer, the game will look to have been closer than it actually was – just as an empty-net goal makes a hockey game appear more lopsided than it really was.

Four: Every athlete in professional sports should give full effort at all times. This is, admittedly, a moral view of sports that is subjective and personal. In club tennis we talk of giving a “courtesy game,” rather than winning 6-love, but no professional would expect, or probably want, such a courtesy. The extreme example was Brett Favre’s allowing Michael Strahan to tackle him at the end of a game so Strahan would set the sack record. Strahan’s record, as a result, is forever tainted. A run scored after DI is not as bad, but it’s in the same ballpark. Every run should be earned, is how I look at it.

My clincher on the inappropriateness of defensive indifference is this: baseball is a game of statistics, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. I have yet, however, to see a statistic relating in any way to DI (e.g., which team has given up the most). No one thinks of it as part of baseball, and it shouldn’t be.[/fusion_text][fusion_text]Click edit button to change this text.[/fusion_text]

Twins Report

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[fusion_text]It’s still early in the season, so perhaps it is not surprising that this year’s Twins are still searching for an identity. No pitcher has emerged as a stopper; no hitter has stepped up as clutch. They have won many more games than I feared they would after their disastrous opening series against the Tigers, but without any pattern. Each win has had a different hero.

The biggest hole so far seems to be the lack of a power hitter. Kennys Vargas showed strength and potential as a late call-up last year but has been too cold to even play everyday. Oswaldo Arcia has been similarly erratic, and neither of them is an asset defensively. Worse, the big hope for the future, Miguel Sano, missed last year with injury and is doing nothing in the minors this year. Every team needs a cleanup hitter, which the Twins just don’t have.

The offense, therefore, depends on Suzuki here, Santana there and the occasional pop from Plouffe. Mauer will hit .300, but many of those will be harmless singles and when he goes for power he just reaches the warning track. A lot of the other averages are closer to .200 than .300, which should correct itself; but I suspect that .250 will be enough to keep you in the Twins lineup this year. All this is enough to win some games but, depending on pitching, won’t get you above .500.

Aah, the pitching. Phil Hughes, the putative stopper, has yet to win, but has pitched okay. Kyle Gibson continues to be tough at home, worthless on the road. Then there are Ricky Nolasco and Mike Pelfrey, previous busts who may or may not regain form from a couple years ago. Since I started writing this report, the fifth starter, Tommy Milone, has been sent to the minors and replaced by Trevor May. In other words, the starting rotation is still in flux, and the relief corps even more so. Their only All-Star in the past is closer Glen Perkins, and while he is racking up saves, he isn’t blowing hitters away like he has. The rest of the bunch is pretty anonymous.

So, we will see. We can’t count on anything yet – not the pitching, nor the hitting, nor the defense and certainly not the baserunning. Yet after sweeping a home series against the White Sox, the Twins are looking better, surprisingly, than two of their four division foes. They are competitive. Whether they will be anything more is an open question. The Byron Buxton watch continues.[/fusion_text]

Instant Replay Redux

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[fusion_text]On consecutive nights, Jordan Schafer of the Twins 1) hit a soft liner to center that the outfielder dove for and appeared to catch, but when the play was challenged it was obvious that the ball had squirted out of the glove and rolled on the ground before being picked up again; and 2) made a diving catch to save a run that was ruled a trap until the replay showed that the ball never touched the ground. The same week, two runners that were called safe at first were shown, when challenged, to have reached the bag just after the ball. There was no manager running out of the dugout, kicking dirt, no complaints by either side, no discussions among umpires. How did baseball get along, one wondered, without replay challenges?

One reservation: when a White Sox base stealer was called out at second he hopped up, immediately asking his manager to challenge the call. It appeared to the Twins announcers (and me) that the call was incorrect, but after a review of the replay, the umpires confirmed their call. There simply wasn’t a camera angle that clearly showed when the tag was made. And thus, the Sox lost their challenge for the game.

Of all the sports that have adopted an instant replay challenge system, tennis is the cleanest. The camera technology always shows whether the ball is in or out, down to a millimeter. Plus, the replay is visible to spectators, so it becomes part of the entertainment.

Football probably has the longest history with replays – and the most problems. The principal one is that there are 22 big bodies around the ball, and sometimes there is no clear view of the play. Second, there is no clear line dividing when a player has control of the ball; thus, the question, did his knee touch the ground before the ball came loose is often debatable. The lack of clarity is evident when the TV announcers predict the review result and are wrong, which occurs regularly. The other problem in football is that the replay challenge, even when there is a clear result, can’t always undo the damage of a bad call. If the referee thinks the runner is down before he fumbles and, consequently, blows his whistle, and the fumble is recovered by the opposing team and run in for an apparent touchdown, the ball will be brought back to the spot of the fumble and the touchdown nullified, even if the replay shows the whistle should not have been blown.

In all, it is rather impressive how far and how fast instant replay challenges have infiltrated sports that have been around for years. The big question: how long until baseball allows the radar to call balls and strikes?[/fusion_text]

Super Bowl 2015

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However appropriate the hoorah over the Darrell Bevell/Pete Carroll call to throw a pass from the 1-yard line with 30 seconds to play, my lasting impression from the Patriots’ Super Bowl win will be that Malcolm Butler’s interception of Russell Wilson’s pass is the single greatest defensive play I have ever seen. First is the level of anticipation required to jump the route. I have seen hundreds of slant passes thrown and can’t remember a defensive back’s ever beating the receiver to the ball. The timing involved was exquisite, to get in the receiver’s path without interfering. Holding onto the ball, thrown directly at you from close range, with the receiver banging into you, raises the level of difficulty further. But what put this play in a category of its own was its impact on and the importance of the game. By itself, it turned a certain defeat into a certain victory, with no other factors playing a role. And the game was as big as they come: not only the Super Bowl, but a showdown between an aging dynasty and one in the making. The Immaculate Reception probably holds an equivalent spot in pro football offensive history (as does Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary pass for college football), but there was a lot of luck involved in the Steelers’ play (and, you could argue, in the B.C. play). Malcolm Butler’s interception, on the other hand, involved no luck, just great defense.

My other takeaway from the Patriot victory was their success with players who were undrafted, drafted in late rounds or released by other teams. I moan about the Vikings’ lack of talented players, especially at positions like running back, wide receiver and cornerback. Then I see the Patriots succeed with players like LaGarrette Blount, who was unused and allowed to walk away from his previous team, and the above-mentioned Malcolm Butler, who was out of football when the season started. They were perfectly available if the Vikings had wanted them. Do the Patriots have better scouts, better coaches, a better system? Whatever it is,  you can’t accuse them, like the old Yankees, of buying a championship. They set the standard, but it should be something any other team could do, too.

Birding in Cuba

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My claim to never have had a bad day birding was sorely tested a couple times during our ten days birding in Cuba, particularly when I had to get up at 5 a.m. so we could wait in the woods more than an hour – or was it two? – for a quail dove to cross the path. This was my first experience with a group birding trip and it was also my first experience of target birding. Each day we were told what the target birds were we were meant to see, and if they didn’t show up we had to return a second time or move the target to another day. Our target birds were principally the 26 Cuban endemic species, and indeed for those compiling a life list this was their only chance to check them off. For those who just wanted to see a lot of birds, which was most of us, I think, the overall experience was more important.

As for the endemics, because we had two of the best birders in Cuba leading us, the group ticked off all 24 that are considered findable. I missed one because I chose to sleep in one morning, and only our leader was confident he saw Gundlach’s Hawk, although we all spent several hours staring at its nest. Two of the endemics were owls, and we saw four owl species in all, rather remarkable, but again there is a caveat. These birds were all served up to us on platters; it was at the opposite end of going into the woods, finding and identifying a bird on your own, which is the kind of birding I like. The guide for another group found the Stygian Owl asleep in a tree and called all of us over to look. Our own local guide found the Bare-legged (Screech) Owl for us by tapping on dead palm trunks until he located their roost and they popped up to see what was happening.

Since I was not going to discover and identify a rare bird on my own, my enjoyment came from learning the new bird, so that I could find and identify it when we came across it again as the trip went on. The Western Spindalis (a tanager) and Cuban Oriole were prime examples. It was also great fun to run into 21 species of warblers, 18 of which were on winter vacation from the East and 2 of which, the charming Oriente and Yellow-Headed Warblers, were Cuban endemics. And as for trademark Cuban birds, I was quite happy with the Cuban Tody, Cuban Trogon and Bee Hummingbird.

As for Cuba itself, though, I found little to recommend. I suspect the art scene and the music scene, both centered in Havana, can provide more interesting destinations. They weren’t on our itinerary. (Havana itself was, in a one-day extension, and our city tour was certainly worthwhile.) Out in the country we stayed in hotels that were spartan and, in one case, not ready for international travelers. Cayo Coco was ready; international travelers were all that was there, and it provided a cheap Caribbean beach vacation for Canadians and Europeans on a budget. The food and entertainment, however, were below the standards of other resort islands, and there was nothing particularly “Cuban” about the hotels or the location, which was linked to the mainland by an 18km causeway. The towns we drove through, and even Havana, gave off a third-world feel, and the countryside was not particularly attractive. For most of the places we birded, you wouldn’t want to go there except to see a particular bird. We weren’t exposed to much Cuban culture or history, but we did visit the Bay of Pigs Museum, the Che Guevara Memorial and a tobacco store. The Hotel Nacional, where we spent our first night in Havana, is also historic: it seemed proudest of hosting a major Mafia sitdown.

As time goes by I will probably remember more fondly the birding highlights, including the 50 “lifers” – species I saw for the first time. But while I was in Cuba I was counting down the days, looking forward less to the next cement-block hotel than being back in Santa Barbara.

Adrian Peterson

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The Adrian Peterson case has been bungled on every side. For Peterson, hiring a famous and feisty defense lawyer is a mistake. His is not a case you want to fight, nor do you want to attract any more attention than necessary. He is not, like Roger Clemens, denying he did it; nor is he realistically facing jail time. Say you made a mistake, throw yourself on the mercy of the prosecutor and court, who have no grudge against a local football hero, and negotiate the best plea bargain you can. If you’re humble about it and accept your punishment, you have a chance of rehabilitating yourself in many, not all, people’s eyes. It’s also the quickest way to get back on the football field. Waiting for the “legal process” to resolve the case is a recipe for a slow death.

The Vikings are up there with AD when it comes to bungling. Suspending Peterson for the game the day after the indictment was the right call, and an easy one. How they came to reinstate him two days later is unfathomable. When they did suspend him again the next day it no longer had the sense of being right in any moral sense because it appeared to be a reaction to the unanimous protests from the sponsors, press, public and politicians.

Roger Goodell and the NFL round out the triangle of bunglers. Goodell was already in an untenable position as a result of his mishandling of the Ray Rice fiasco and the glaring inconsistencies in his treatment of player misconduct. He suspended Rice indefinitely for the same conduct he had previously suspended him only two games for, and Rice was facing no criminal charges. At the same time, he has taken no action against the Panthers’ Greg Hardy, who was not only indicted, but convicted, of domestic violence. Nor had he set up a system of standards for these issues, preferring instead to make himself judge and jury. The NFL would do itself a favor if it left Goodell take early retirement.

What should happen to Peterson? There should be punishment, but it should fit the crime. Whipping your child is bad, but it doesn’t disqualify you from ever playing football again. Without excusing Peterson, there is a strong element of cultural ignorance in his conduct, not malice. I have no reason to doubt the many voices from the South, especially among African-American athletes, who testify to having been beaten by their parents. Peterson was, at best, an absentee father, which no doubt contributed to his ignorance. If he was suspended for, say, six games, the NFL would have made its point – that’s enough to disrupt the Vikings’ season – and Peterson would surely have learned from his mistake. Our society believes in reinstating wrongdoers after they “pay their debt,” and this situation surely fits that bill.

There is one more factor that I briefly alluded to above that causes me to wonder. Peterson was not married to this boy’s mother. In fact, we are told, Peterson has fathered six children by different women, none his wife (although he did get married, I presume to one of them, earlier this year). Isn’t this an equal cause for opprobrium?, yet no one seems to be condemning Peterson on these grounds. Is this our implicitly racist view that these things will happen in the black community? We saw some of the same in the case of Magic Johnson, where any criticism of his sleeping with other women while married was drowned out by sympathy for AIDS interrupting his basketball career. If the NFL is intent on enforcing the moral qualities of its employees, shouldn’t it frown on sexual promiscuity with consequences along with domestic violence and dogfighting?

Trade Deadline

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It’s almost humorous to read that the Twins players are worried that the front office will break the team up as the trade deadline approaches, looking for future prospects at the expense of fielding a winning team this year. The necessary implication of this concern is that there is somebody on the current Twins roster whom a contending team would be interested in! Maybe Josh Willingham, a below-average outfielder who is hitting .212? How about the many players who have been cut, or traded away, by better teams in the not-too-distant past: Sam Fuld, Eduardo Escobar, Eduardo Nunez, even Phil Hughes? Or a third baseman hitting .240 who has had three years to improve, in vain? Kurt Suzuki would be a useful addition to a number of teams, but as the team’s best hitter and everyday catcher he is more valuable in Minnesota than he would be anywhere else. Glen Perkins is a valuable chip, but he has so identified with Minnesota that a trade would be a major betrayal, which the Twins can’t afford. No, the only player I see as possible trade bait is 8th-inning setup man Casey Fien. But what would the Twins realistically get in return? Given the Twins’ traditional reticence to make trades, I’m not holding my breath.

Midseason Twins

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Amid a third consecutive floundering season by the Minnesota Twins I can sum up the main cause of my disappointment in two words: Joe Mauer. The rest is pretty much as expected: a free-agent flop at the top of the rotation – this year it’s Ricky Nolasco instead of Mike Pelfrey or Vance Worley. Then there are the various journeymen who show flashes of competence, even excitement, but eventually revert to norm: Chris Parmelee, Sam Fuld, Eduardo Escobar. Brian Dozier is being hailed as the answer at second base, and while he leads the AL in runs scored and adds dimension in base-stealing and defense, he is hitting only .234. Trevor Plouffe has also taken a step forward at third. Conversely, Oswaldo Arcia has regressed from the immense potential he briefly displayed last fall. The bullpen is above average, despite their excessive usage; even though Burton and Perkins aren’t quite the lockdown they were in 2013, Fien and Thielbar have shown they are more than flukes. Swarzak, Duensing and Guerrier can be very good or not, but every team will have weaknesses in relievers 5-7. Phil Hughes is the most professional of the starters, maybe because he was a Yankee for so long, and Kyle Gibson gives indications of being only one year away from the next Brad Radke. There are rumored arms down on the farm, and I should include the unseen Yohan Pino in this group, who should make Correia, Deduno and Nolasco expendable. And speaking of the farm, everyone is still counting on Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano, even though both have been hurt all year. So, as I said, it’s pretty much business as usual – beat up on the White Sox, fall flat before the Yankees – with one glaring exception. We all assumed another season of hitting .330 from Mauer – or perhaps more, and with fewer injuries because of his move to first base. Instead, despite a recent surge, he’s been hitting 60 points below his average most of the year, with a troubling jump in strikeouts. He’s never been known as a clutch hitter or a power hitter, and those numbers are also at all-time lows. When he comes up with two men on base and grounds meekly to second it’s dispiriting to us fans, and I wonder if it doesn’t have some effect on his teammates, as well. Adding insult to injury (which Mauer currently has), Justin Morneau, whom Mauer replaced at first,  is having an All-Star caliber season for the Rockies.

The Twins will have plenty of time to experiment the rest of this year. Among the questions to be answered: Is Danny Santana the shortstop the Twins have been looking for since Greg Gagne? Is Eduardo Nunez more than the journeyman he’s been for other teams, or is that enough? Can Arcia be taught better defense and will he grow as a hitter? Can Deduno be more consistent, and in what role, or does he have trade value? And where do they get help for Kurt Suzuki, both in the batting order and behind the plate? There is almost enough to care about going forward, but not quite enough to avoid saying, Wait for Next Year.

Who’s Your #1 Starter?

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Just as basketball positions have morphed from what we knew as kids – guard, center, forward – to specific numbered slots, starting pitchers are now referred to as a #2 starter, #5 starter, etc. So far as I can tell, this refers to the order of who’s the best, on down. But what does it matter? In basketball, the number refers to the characteristics of the position – the “4 slot” may be a “power forward,” the most physical of your forwards; the “2 guard” is more the shooter than the passer (I’m guessing here) – but that’s not the case with pitchers. Your #5 starter could be a power pitcher or a finesse pitcher; it just means he’s the fifth starter the team puts out there when the season starts. The #1 guy is your Opening Day starter, but after that, what’s the difference? Once the order is set, the pitchers follow one after another – that’s why it’s called the “rotation” – and you’re just as likely to start a series with #3 as #1. Yet every pitcher is now pegged, by quality if not practice, as a #1 to #5.

Twins Preview – 2014

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I can’t think of  a baseball season in which I was less excited about the prospects of “my” team, in this case still the Minnesota Twins. It’s not just that they are universally picked to finish last in their division – with projected losses between 90 and 100 – it’s that there’s no individual player whom I eager to follow. The starters are all players I watched last year without much enthusiasm; perhaps they will be better, but that would just raise their batting averages from .225 to .250. Their only consistent hitter, Joe Mauer, hits a quiet .320, with as often as not a meaningless single resulting in a 1-for-3 box score.

The touted upgrade comes in the pitching rotation, where the Twins added two free-agent starters, Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes, to their two free agents from last year, Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey. Both can generously be described as journeymen with their potential behind them. Hughes, it is said, pitched particularly well at Target Field for the Yankees last year, but let’s remember whom he was pitching against. I said last year that Glen Perkins was the only Twin not named Mauer (at that time a catcher) who could play for any team in the Majors, and his season justified my view. I was pleasantly surprised by other relievers – Jared Burton, Casey Fien and Caleb Thielbar in particular – but there’s not much they can do if the starters give up five runs and the offense can only muster two.

Are we already putting too much pressure on Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano and Alex Meyer to resurrect the Twins before they play a game?