You learn Something New Every Day, Last Friday of the Semester

(A thanks to Jay Destro for the idea, and to Baseball Reference for being the G-d of baseball statistics!)


Right, for this week's YLSNED, I thought I'd take a look at some historical teams that had started a rotation with three or more pitchers under thirty, perhaps as some food for thought given the Yankees' probable rotation next year.

First of all, you have what I consider the 'classic, best scenario example', the 1993 Atlanta Braves, with John Smoltz, Greg Maddox and Tom Glavine.

Maddox and Glavine were both 27 and Smoltz was 26.

The Braves won 104 games. Glavine was 22-6, Maddox 20-10 and Smoltz 15-11. The Braves only made it to the NLCS that year, but the year before they had made it to the World Series, and in 1995 (with no WS in 1994), they won it all.

I consider the Braves the classic success story because of the fourteen straight chances at a World Series, and the team they were able to build around their 'big three' that lasted nearly all of the nineties and into the beginning of the new millennium.


Right. Next example:

The 2003 Chicago Cubs. They are a great example of having something great...and then having it go way, way astray.

Kerry Wood, at 26, was 14-11. Mark Prior, at 22 was 18-6. Carlos Zambrano, at 22, was 13-11.

The team went to the NLCS, and if not for a fan's interfering with a foul ball (and a curse of some sort of goat thingie) would have likely met either the Yankees or Red Sox in the World Series (THAT would have been some series!)

Of those three starters, however, only Carlos Zambrano now still pitches on a regular basis, having just signed a massive $90 million contract extension. Wood has not won more than 10 games since, and Mark Prior has battled serious injury concerns, going just 1-6 in 2006.

The culprit? Overuse of the young pitching arms, which has had almost immediate effects with other teams across the league, which for Yankee fans will be familiar with two words: "Joba Rules"


Third example:

The team that beat the Cubs, AND the Yankees in 2003. Also known as 'why Loria will never be my friend'.

The Florida Marlins in 2003 won the World Series with a pitching rotation that included Dontrelle Willis, Mark Redman, Josh Beckett, Carl Pavano and Brad Penny.

At 21, Willis went 14-6. At 23 Josh Becket was only 9-8, but came up huge in the postseason. At 27, Carl Pavano was 12-13, but the next year 18-8. At 25 Brad Penny was 14-10.

The rotation was largely kept in tact through the 2004 season, but by 2006 Dontrelle Willis was the only one still left, and as you probably know now, he has been traded to the Detroit Tigers.



So, as you might have guessed, there is no way to tell exactly how a rotation of young studs could pan out--for every Maddox, Smoltz and Glavine, there's a Mulder, Hudson or Zito, or Wood, Prior, Zambrano.

There is no question that Hughes, Chamberlain and Kennedy have the talent to be a Maddox, Smoltz, Glavine (or, who knows, even better...), but there are so many unknowns as well.

So, basically the message regarding the Trinity/the Three Musketeers is thus: hope for the best, but keep your feet on the ground.

You Learn Something New Every Day

So with all of this hullaballoo about Johan Santana, I thought I might as well make an actual post about Santana. Most of us know who he is and why we want him so bad, but I'm sure there are a couple that aren't quite familiar (aside from the Santana-is-great-pitcher thing).


Johan Santana

Born 13 March Venezuela in 1979

Santana was originally drafted by the Houston Astros, but picked up by the Florida Marlins in the Rule V draft (which I explained last week). The Marlins, in one of there classic general managing moments, proceeded to trade Santana to the Twins for Jared Camp (who?)


Santana throws a 91-95 fastball and a hard slide, and a changeup considered one of the best in baseball.

He also has exceptional control: In about 220 innings, he walked just over fifty batters. Not 220 batters, 220 innings.

In 2004, Santana went 13-0 in the second half, setting a modern day record.

In 2005, Santana had the AL's second-lowest ERA after Kevin Millwood.

In 2006, Santana won the AL pitching triple crown, the first to do so since 1999. He led in ERA, Strikeouts, and tied with CM Wang in wins.

On August 19 2007, Santana struck out 17 batters in a 1-0 win for the Twins.


Source has a wicked fastball

You Learn Something New Every Day, Week 5 (I think)

First, a moment of silence in memory of Joe Kennedy, a 28-year-old pitcher who has passed away (cause undetermined).


Okay, I'm still kind of out of it after all that food yesterday...okay, I'm lying, I had sushi. I am not really a fan of Thanksgiving food...however, I really still am out of it, so for this week's YLSNED, I'm going to go with something timely.

On Josh's suggestion, I'm going to go ahead and explain the Rule V Draft.

The Draft, which is different from the amateur draft held each year in June (the amateur draft is the one most comparable to the NBA or NFL draft), is held at the Winter Meetings in December each year.

The goal of the draft is to prevent any one team (okay, the Yankees/Sox/Mets/Cubs/any large market team) from stockpiling their farm system with talent that other teams (like Tampa/Oakland/etc) would use at the major league level.

The selection order is as is usual with drafts--worst team goes first, best team goes last, those in the middle are roundly screwed.

Because any player selected is automatically added to a team's 40-man-roster, teams without an open spot are ineligible to participate. Additionally, any player chosen must be kept on the 25 man roster for the ENTIRE season of the selecting team--no optioning to the minors or DFAing.

You can read more about the Rule V Draft here.

You Learn Something New Every Day, Week 4

For this week's YLSNED, I thought I'd go and explore some of the terms that we keep hearing associated with Alex Rodriguez an his current limbo. I know a business lesson might seem boring...okay, it's not the world's most exciting thing...but there may come a time when such terms are of interest. Also, I need to build up my vocabulary for tomorrow!

Like, now, with Alex Rodriguez.

So, without further ado, here we go!

Arbitration: Occurs when a player and team cannot agree on a salary. A player and a team will each submit a contract offer, and an arbitrator (ie, an independent judge) chooses the one that he or she feels is most fair.

The player can then accept or decline the offer.

If, for example, A-Rod accepts arbitration, he would return to the Yankees, albeit likely taking a huge pay cut, and with compensation provided to the Yankees (this is the whole Texas money thing again). If A-Rod declines arbitration, he would thus be severing ties with the Yankees.



Tampering: This one we here a lot, albeit usually in whispers, and it's fairly easy to understand. The best way to think of it is to think of it as like a false start: if a player that is a free agent or FA to-be has a deal with another team in place before the free agency period officially begins, it's tampering.

The big problem with tampering is that it is incredibly hard to prove. It's very easy to have a verbal agreement in place, and there's absolutely no way to prove that unless you're Richard Nixon and tape your phone conversations...

It's also kind of like when someone plays around with the pills in the bottle of Tylenol before the bottle is sold, but I like the false start analogy better.



Collusion: Dude, this word is actually in my GRE book! Anyway, collusion is the banding together for 'fraudulent' purposes. For example, if baseball's owners all decided to band together to not sign A-Rod or to prevent him from getting top dollar, that would be considered 'collusion'. At least, it would be considered collusion by the MLBPA. I doubt the owners would call it that...


Right, back to the other vocabulary words. I'm making my way through the list. I'm on letter I.

You Learn Something New Every Day, Week 3

Hey--it took me a while to figure out what to do for today's YLSND, so if you guys have something you'd like to see here, feel free to email me or post it in the comments.

For this week's YLSNED, I thought originally I might try explaining free agency and everything that goes along with it, but a) it's kind of boring, and b) it's...uhh...kind of boring.

So, instead, I thought I'd go and explain some of the lesser-used pitches: the knuckleball and the gyroball.


A knuckleball is probably the one with which you are the most familiar. The knuckleball is thrown to minimize spin on the ball; if done correctly the ball will change directions mid-flight, but the pitch is incredibly hard to throw.

Originally, the pitch was gripped with the knuckles, hence the name, though nowadays it's common for pitchers to use their fingertips and using the thumb for balance.

Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox is one of the better known knuckleball pitchers today.

You can read more about the knuckleball here


The Gyroball has got nothing to do with the Greek food, though I'd be lying if I said it wasn't making me incredibly hungry right now...

The gyroball is a Japanese-developed pitch, designed to reduce the stress on a pitcher. A gyroball is thrown so that the arm does not move towards the body, but instead away from the body. The legs are key to the delivery; if done correctly, it flies like a fastball, but because of the delivery the batter is fooled by the spin, thinking that the pitch is faster or slower than it is.

You can read more about the gyroball here



The Yankees have until tonight to pick up Bobby Abreu's option; rumor is that they will do it.

[edit] Per ESPN News, the Yankees have picked up Abreu's 2008 option

You Learn Something New Every Day, Week 2

I was talking to my friend Bill, when I asked him what concept I should choose to explore for this week's YLSNED (ils-ned?). He suggested I go with saves, and I responded by saying that most people know what a save is, and then he, a life-long die-hard Red Sox fan (the horror, I know) said that he didn't completely understand the rule.


I guess without Mo on the mound, they just aren't as pretty.

So, in response to Bill, I present:

The Save Rule

A save occurs when a pitcher ends a game under a set of certain circumstances. The pitcher must NOT be the winning pitcher, have pitched at least one out, and he satisfies one of the following conditions:

1) He enters the game with his team up by three runs or less and pitches at least one complete inning. Easy enough. This is where Mo is at his kick-arse best.

2) He enters the game with the tying run on base, at bat or on deck. Thus it is possible to get a save if your team is up by five runs: let's say the Jays are up 5-0 on the Devil Rays in the ninth. Carl Crawford singles, BJ Upton walks, Delmon Young is hit by a pitch, so the bases are loaded. Some dude (Dioner Navarro?) is up at bat, and the dude on deck (oh, why not make it Carlos Peña) then represents the tying run. Thus, a save situation is created, because if Peña scores, the game will be tied, and the Jays' bullpen will have blown yet another ninth-inning lead, but that's besides the point.

3) He pitches at least three innings. This is the circumstance in which the last pitcher for the Texas Rangers, Wes Littleton, pitched on that 23 August (I think) game against Baltimore where they scored 30 runs. It didn't matter that Texas had a 27 run lead; because Littleton pitched three innings, he got a save. This is not a type of save that most closers will ever get, because most closers pitch only one inning, and only in a stretch will they pitch two. Unless you're Mo and it's game 7 of the 2003 ALCS, but then it's not a save because the game was tied and your team has to be winning to get a save.


A Blown Save occurs when a pitcher enters the game with an opportunity to earn a save (called, aptly, a save-situation), but allows the tying run to score.

Even if the pitcher (let's make him K-Rod, just 'cos), holds the game tied and then his team, on the road, comes back to take the lead and he, K-Rod, takes the mound in the bottom of that inning, he can't get a save. He can, however, get a win.

Blown saves are not officially kept, but most stat keepers keep track of it.


So that's the Save Rule as of 2007. It's generally not a very questioned rule, but when Littleton did get that three-inning save, there were a lot of '...buh?' and '...wha?' that went around.

Always give credit

And now I need to work on my costume, it needs to be finished by tomorrow night!

You Learn Something New Every Day, part I: What the heck is a Balk?

When is a pickoff move not a pickoff move?

When is a look to third or a look to second not a look?

When it's a balk, of course!

Yet, trying to figure out what's a balk and what's not a balk can be utterly confusing if you're not familiar with the rule.

So what's the deal?

A balk, quite simply, is an illegal motion made by the pitcher while there are runners on base.

Easy enough to understand, right? Now, the hard part: what constitutes an illegal motion? A lot, actually!

An illegal motion could be any of the following:

Switching pitching stance (windup/set/stretch...I think this might be next week's topic) without stepping off of the rubber.

Going from stretch to set without stopping.

This one's tricky: throwing to a base without stepping towards the base.

Throwing to the base when there's no runner there (I think this one falls under the 'what the hell were you thinking'? rule, as well.)

Stepping towards first base, but NOT throwing.

Pitches with the intent of catching the batter off guard. (Wha? Check the explanation here)

Pitches while not being on the rubber.

Drops the ball while on the rubber (also under the 'what the hell were you thinking?' rule)

Interrupting the pitching motion.

Pitching while catcher is out of the box during an intentional walk.

Removing pivot foot from the rubber while pitching, unless as a natural consequence of the motion.

Delays the game (Okay, if this is true then nearly every pitcher would be balking, as they take forever!)

Pitches facing away from the batter (okay, this one I'd like to see...)

Brings hands together while on the rubber, then separates, but does not complete the pitch.

Pretends to pitch without the ball.

Throws to first when the first basemen is not in a position to make the tag.




Wow, that's a lot, isn't it? Simple explanation: if you're a pitcher, and you step onto the rubber, you've got to pick a position, set or windup and stick to it, throw the ball to the batter and not interrupt the motion.

When there are runners on base and a balk is called, each runner is allowed to advance one base.

For a woeful illustration:



See, Curt Schilling's just completed a pitching motion...but he still has the ball! Thus, a balk is called and Derek Jeter is giddily allowed to go from second to third!

Okay, next time I'll try to make the picture a little bit prettier!


All hail the mighty Wikipedia!




Back later with ALCS preview!