David Wadler’s Assorted Thoughts

The White Sox have won, so is this it for Ozzie Guillen? (During Chicago’s late season swoon, he said that he might call it a career if his team took the World Series.) His players must not want him to stick around — they swept. Guillen hasn’t backed off in recent days: “It’s still in my mind. I would like to win first and think about it. It’s not because I want to quit; it’s because I would do something I always wanted to do, winning with this ball club. The main thing to me is winning here. Then I will make up my mind.”

Nike contact lenses? They’re coming to stores near you in a matter of time. And odds are that they will improve your chances of hitting a major league fastball as much as the old Nike pumps improved your ability to dunk. What’s interesting is that, according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, Nike is making Brian Roberts, who remains largely obscure despite enjoying a career year, a centerpiece of its campaign.

From “Nike hopes contacts will be big business“:

The best thing that happened to the MaxSight project was Baltimore Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts. In the 384 games Roberts played in his major-league career heading into this season, the 27-year-old hit 16 home runs. In his 110-game 2005 season, he’s smacked 17 homers. Before this year, he had a .264 batting average. This year, he’s batting .321 and started in his first All-Star Game.

Although Roberts doesn’t wear the lenses at night, he partly credits his improvement to MaxSight.

While Roberts may see a bump in his bank account, the campaign diminishes his efforts to improve himself as a baseball player. I don’t know anything about his offseason routing, but if one can draw any conclusions from the numbers, it’s that the contact lenses have impeded his progress. At this point, I don’t think there is a statistically significant sample to validate such an assertion, but Nike’s decision to build a campaign around Roberts has more to do with perceived marketability than it does data that the MaxSight lenses improved his performance. But hey, what is marketing other the creating a perception?

Here are the triple crown stats (for you traditionalists) as well as OBP, SLG, and OPS for the sabermetrically/sabremetrically inclined.

Brian Roberts Day/Night Splits 2002-2004
Day:    411 AB   4 HR  43 RBI  .280 AVG .340 OBP  .414 SLG  .754 OPS
Night:  818 AB   6 HR  62 RBI  .260 AVG	.336 OBP  .340 SLG  .676 OPS

Brian Roberts Day/Night Splits 2005 (through August 15, 2005)
Day:    148 AB   6 HR  19 RBI  .311 AVG	.383 OBP  .500 SLG  .883 OPS
Night:  292 AB  11 HR  41 RBI  .329 AVG	.396 OBP  .555 SLG  .951 OPS

OPS % improvement
Day:   17.1%
Night: 40.7%

I think Joe Torre has done a wonderful job keeping an even keel during his tenure as Yankee manager. However — and this has been pointed out before — he was not exactly on the Hall of Fame managerial track until he took over the team with the largest payroll in baseball. Hate to say it, but if you’re the Yankees manager in the current economic system, you’re supposed to win 95+ games per year. Torre’s strength is his demeanor and I think, for that reason, he’s well-suited to work for George Steinbrenner. However, someone needs to talk a little strategy.

Torre announced that he is committed to keeping Hideki Matsui in centerfield, Tony Womack in left, and leaving Bernie Williams on the bench. I don’t understand this. I’m not a Yankees fan and there’s little nostalgic impact for me in watching Bernie patrol the outfield of The House That Ruth Built. And I would argue that there’s no way a player of his (current) ability should be starting for a $200 million team. But look at the alternative. Tom Verducci correctly points out that Tony Womack isn’t just a run-of-the-mill offensively challenged outfielder, but a historically bad offensively challenged outfielder. Torre has an opportunity to do the right thing for his team AND make Yankee fans (who love Bernie) happy. Let’s hope he does.

The NY Times ran a good article about relief pitchers today that focused, in particular, on what it takes to close games. A couple of year’s ago, Red Sox GM Theo Epstein turned conventional wisdom on its head by fielding a team that hoped to contend without a “true closer.” After a few shaky outings by the bullpen, the Sox yielded to public pressure and installed someone to finish games. I still think that the idea is a valid one, especially in light of how relief pitching has evolved. The era of the speciality closer, i.e. the guy who enters the game in the ninth almost exclusively in save situations, is relatively new. And statistics indicate that most relievers will post similar numbers when closing or not. So why not use your best pitcher in the most crucial situations?

“Researchers who study human behavior know that people tend to focus on evidence that supports ideas they believe, and baseball executives are no exception.” I think that about sums it up.