The Cubs Chronicle

MLB.com Radio just announced that Ryne Sandberg has been elected to the Hall of Fame. He received 76% of the vote.

In BP’s latest edition of its “Baseball Prospectus Basics” series, Chris Kahrl tells us that we shouldn’t use OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) as a performance metric. OPS was devised as a simple replacement for batting average, given the relatively poor (though not bad) correlation batting average has to runs scored. OPS simply combined two other rate stats – OBP% and Slg% – with higher correlations to runs scored to give us something with an even higher correlation. But Kahrl’s essential argument is that we shouldn’t replace the flawed batting average with the flawed OPS simply for convenience purposes. There are better metrics, including Equivalent Average and Marginal Value Lineup rate.

I agree with one of Kahrl’s underlying points – we shouldn’t use one metric as a definitive statement of a player’s entire performance. However, while I understand the basis for more advanced metrics, if not how to compute them, I use OPS a lot and am not ready to discard it. Kahrl essentially argues that performance analysis isn’t simple and so we shouldn’t use simple metrics. Well sure, but it’s also true that the correlation OPS has to runs scored isn’t a whole lot lower than the correlation to runs scored that EqA and MVLr have, as BP noted in an earlier “Basics” article. And one of the problems Kahrl has with OPS is that it doesn’t adjust for ballpark factors. The solution to that is to merely use OPS+, which does account for ballpark factors (though unfortunately I’m not aware of any site that provides in-season OPS+ figures).

I do use more advanced metrics on this site, but I’m unconvinced that I should discard OPS. I like simple, and in any case OPS does have value beyond its simplicity.

Baseball Musings links to this ESPN editorial that proposes having “one player who exemplifies the best of [Jackie] Robinson’s attributes” wear his number, No. 42, for a full season, switching players each year. I note in the comments section why I think that idea is misguided: Players will not be able to live up to what the number 42 has come to signify.

Mystery of Baseball: Was William White Game’s First Black?: He Played a Big League Game In 1879 – Then Vanished; Mr. Morris Picks Up Trail (Stefan Fatsis, Wall Street Journal, 1/30/2004) (sub. req’d)

Fascinating Page One article in the Wall Street Journal today on SABR member Peter Morris’s efforts to track down the biographical data for William Edward White. Bill White played one game in the major leagues, filling in at first base for the Providence Greys on June 21, 1879. He went 1-4, scored a run, and made twelve putouts without an error. And he never played in the major leagues again. As the WSJ relates, “The Chicago Tribune reported the next day that Mr. White ‘played the position with remarkable activity and skill for an amateur.’ But even though the Greys’ regular first baseman was out for a month with a broken finger, Mr. White never returned to the lineup.”

Take a look at the photo, a picture of the 1879 Brown University baseball team. Bill White is the player directly behind the team manager. He appears darker complected than his teammates, but the photo isn’t completely clear. The WSJ notes that “Brown admitted black students, but Mr. White identified himself as white on the 1880 census.”

Brown records indicated that Mr. White’s father was an A.J. White. 1880 census records revealed an Andrew J. White, whose “household included a 35-year-old mulatto woman named Hannah White.”

Mr. Morris, the SABR reseracher, found A.J. White’s will in the probate records at the courthouse in Zebulan, Georgia. The will stated: “Item Fourth. All the balance of my Estate, both Real and Personal of Every Kind and description … I do hereby … bequeath unto William Edward White, Anna Nora White, and Sarah Adelaide White, the children of my servant Hannah.”

And there’s the proof. William White was mulatto.

Many people who study baseball history know that two black players – Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Welday – played in the major leagues for one year, in 1884, before Jackie Robinson re-broke the color barrier 63 years later. The Walker brothers played for Toledo of the American Association, a rival major league that merged with the National League after the 1891 season. The Toledo franchise only lasted that one year, 1884.

The Walker brothers had previously been thought to have been the first black players to play in the major leagues, and the only ones until Jackie Robinson in 1947. Add William White to that list, and call him the first. And credit the SABR, and its dedicated members, with another important find.

Just in case anyone was wondering why I voted for Northside Lounge as best Cubs blog, read this. Well done, Dennis.

Ryne Sandberg has been denied his rightful place in the Hall-of-Fame for the second straight year. He did go from 49% of the vote to 61%. The Cub Reporter has more.

SportsLine.com’s Scott Miller states his Hall-of-Fame picks. I give him credit for advocating both Bert Blyleven and Ryne Sandberg, both of whom deserve to be voted in. Miller also, however, thinks Jack Morris deserves a spot in the Hall, for the following reasons:

Morris dominated an entire decade. He was the winningest pitcher in the 1980s and he was the staff ace for three World Series winners (1984 Tigers, ‘91 Minnesota Twins and ‘92 Toronto Blue Jays). Some quibble with his 3.90 career ERA, but he was the best there was for a significant amount of time, period. And an overwhelming majority of voters ignore him? I don’t understand it.

I think it’s bordering on the absurd to say that Morris “dominated an entire decade.” Yes, he was a durable pitcher who pitched reasonably well, and sometimes really well. But to give him credit for his wins and for pitching for three World Series winners is to give him credit for the fortune of having pitched for some of the excellent run producing teams of his era. In other words, it is to give him individual credit for the accomplishments of his teammates.

As good as Morris was, he only finished in the top 10 in the league in adjusted ERA (which takes into account ballpark factors) three times during his eighteen year career. Three. That’s it. And never higher than fourth (1979; 33% above league average). Does that sound like one of the greats to you?

Here’s the Cubs’ 2003 team page. I can literally spend hours looking around this site.

Looks like Steve Stone still has a desire to be a major league GM. From Sunday’s Chicago Tribune:

Cubs broadcaster Steve Stone is part of a prospective ownership group that hopes to purchase the Montreal Expos and move them to Las Vegas. The group has been working behind the scenes for months and met with Major League Baseball representatives Friday in Las Vegas to discuss their proposal. Sources said MLB’s concerns about legalized gambling in Las Vegas have been allayed, although a new stadium would have to be built.

Teamscape Corp. and Ha-Lo Industries Chairman Lou Weisbach are behind the financing of the proposal, and Stone likely would be in charge of the baseball operations. Stone confirmed his involvement Saturday, saying Las Vegas was an untapped market for a major sports franchise with unlimited potential.

Stone was part of a group that tried to purchase the Oakland A’s a few years ago and still has a desire to run a major-league team. If Stone’s new partners succeed in convincing MLB to sell them the Expos, he would leave his broadcasting job at WGN-TV.

And here I was convinced that Chip and Steve would really be with us together for at least the next decade, perhaps more. Of course, they still could be. Stone’s bid seems to me more likely to fail than succeed.

Wild Pitches: Ozzy on the loose (Jayson Stark, ESPN.com, 8/20/2003)

There are some great quotes from Doug Glanville in this column on Ozzy Osbourne’s “rendition” of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” An excerpt:

“I saw it as a call of the wild,” Glanville theorized. “I was looking around to see if some herd of wild emu or wild water buffalo were coming to meet their master. But it never happened – because he was so off-key. But I’m sure there are probably many wild habitats where, if you played that, they would have really felt it. They’d have formed all kinds of mysterious formations, I bet. So we need to take this tape and play it in various habitats and jungles, wild-animal environments, and see how everything responds.”

There’s more, and there’s also some good stuff from Glanville later in the column on the 8 hour game (rain delay included) the Cubs and Diamondbacks played August 1.

The Return of Pete Rose: Exclusive–He’s Back in Baseball in 2004 (Derek Zumsteg & Will Carroll, Baseball Prospectus, 8/12/2003)

Pete Rose and Major League Baseball have reached an agreement that would allow him to return to baseball in 2004, and includes no admission of wrongdoing by Rose, Baseball Prospectus has learned. . . .

The agreement includes removal of Rose from baseball’s permanently ineligible list. This would allow Rose to appear on ballots for baseball’s Hall of Fame, which bars such banned players from consideration. The agreement allows Rose to be employed by a team in the 2004 season, as long as that position does not involve the day to day operations. That employment restriction would be removed after a year, allowing Rose to return to managing a team as early as the 2005 season if a position is offered to him.

BP attributes its report to unnamed sources. Major League Baseball has come out with a denial that they have an agreement with Rose.

I have written about Rose in another forum. In short, if the BP story is accurate, I believe MLB would be making a significant mistake.

Baseball Musings has more here and here.

Dusty Baker needs to decide who’s going to be his DH in the All-Star game. Understandably, Tony La Russa wants Albert Pujols to be the DH, according to Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune. Pujols, after all, has been playing with a bum elbow and is one wrong throw away from being done for the year. But Baker told La Russa to hang on a second. He has to ask Barry Bonds what Bonds wants to do because “Barry deserves the right to DH first.”

Talk about your conflict of interest: Former manager of one of the all-time great players defers to said all-time great player instead of DHing the injured player, who just happens to be playing for said manager’s current team’s divisional rival.

As far as I know, Bonds is completely healthy. Consequently, the right thing to do is play Bonds in the field and DH Pujols, without asking anyone first.

One of my biggest pet peaves regarding baseball is the way that MLB has failed to properly market itself. In some ways, MLB’s efforts could be classified as anti-marketing. Along those lines, Joe Sheehan has a good quote in his Monday Baseball Prospectus column (subscription req’d):

This year’s standings have absolutely nothing to do with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement; the situation we see this year is more or less the same one that you could have found in 2001 or 2002. Competitive balance in baseball is good, has been good, and will continue to be good, and it’s a shame that the powers that be can’t sell that the way they want to sell goofy All-Star gimmicks.

In the picture are Royals third baseman Desi Relaford and pitcher Chris George (who, incidentally, may have the highest ERA – 6.86 – for a 9-5 pitcher ever). I took this at Sunday’s Cards-Royals game. The Royals were wearing throwback Kansas City Monarchs jerseys. But, whatever you do, don’t show Brian Carstens this picture. Mr. Carstens doesn’t like the throwback jersey trend.

It is rare for The Clark & Addison Chronicle to disagree with Mr. Carstens, but I must on this occasion. It is the official position of The C&A Chron. that throwback jerseys are inherently cool.

In completely unrelated news, Mr. Carstens also notes, in the same post, how great Kerry Wood has been lately. Just two weeks ago, I wrote that Wood has been really good, but that it wasn’t much of a travesty that he wasn’t likely to make the All-Star team. In that short time-frame, however, Wood has vaulted to being the 5th best starter in the National League entering play on Monday, according to Baseball Prospectus’s starting pitcher metrics. Wood’s superb pitching is making one of the most exciting pitchers in the league even more of a joy to watch.

In case you missed it, Baseball Prospectus’s Joe Sheehan had an excellent article yesterday, as part of BP’s free content, discussing why pitchers aren’t able to pitch as deep into games as they used to. Hint: It has nothing to do with manhood and everything to do with the way the offensive game has changed.