One thing that has been really bothering me ever since Joe Torre took over as manager of the Dodgers last year is that he basically never ever uses the double switch.

A perfect example was tonight’s game on the road against the Chicago Cubs.  In a very tight game with the Dodgers leading 2-1, Torre yanked starter Randy Wolf after he allowed a leadoff homer to start the eighth, and brought in relief ace Ramon Troncoso.

With closer Jonathan Broxton having thrown a ton of pitches the day before, Torre was obviously hoping that his second-best reliever Troncoso would be able to go two innings for the save (which was why he had even allowed starter Wolf to come out for the eighth).

But the pitcher’s spot was also due to bat 5th in the top of the ninth.  This meant that there was absolutely no reason not to make a double switch, because if the pitcher’s spot came up in the 9th, it would almost certainly mean there were runners on base and in scoring position, and in a one-run ball game you would certainly not want to have to bat a relief pitcher in a situation where runs were definitely needed.

But sure enough, as he has done ever since he returned to the National League, Torre did not make a double switch of any kind, and sure enough Troncoso made it through the 8th just fine, and sure enough the Dodgers got something going in the 9th, and sure enough Torre sent a relief pitcher up to bat with two runners on base and two outs, and Troncoso struck out swinging to end any chance of scoring further insurance runs.

Now, Troncoso was able to close out the Cubs in the bottom of the 9th for the save, but that is almost besides the point, because he did so in spite of some flat-out terrible managing by Torre.

There was absolutely no excuse not to make a double switch in the 8th inning, as the game was almost over, Torre was *clearly* planning to go with Troncoso for two innings, and he had his entire bench available.  Torre clearly never even considered it, however, nor did any of the Dodger coaches suggest it.

An artfully executed double switch is not only one of the most beautiful strategic maneuvers in baseball (and one of the main reasons why the DH is an abomination), but it is also a crucial tool in an NL manager’s toolbox to ensure that he maximizes his teams ability to score runs and his own ability to get more innings out of his best pitchers.

I’m not sure if Torre just spend too long in the AL, is getting too old, or if he never used the double switch, even back when he managed in the NL before, but it is shocking and simply unacceptable how many times this season (and last year as well) he found himself having to send a reliever to the plate just to keep him in the game, or found himself having to pinch hit for a reliever who was pitching really well, when these problems could have easily been avoided with a simple double switch.

But Joe Torre never makes double switches.

While arguing a call made following a play at the plate in this afternoon’s Cubs-Pirates matchup, Carlos Zambrano (let’s face it, the man has some serious problems) nudged umpire Mark Carlson, earning him an ejection. But then Zambrano decided to give himself more authoritative powers and proceeded to eject Carlson in turn.

I’m still debating whether or not this is awesome or incredibly idiotic.

Unfortunately, the video does not show what Zambrano did following this, namely, throwing a ball into leftfield, taking a bat to the watercooler and of course, slamming his glove into the fence. Like I said. The dude has some serious problems.

UPDATE: Found a video of the post ejection Godzilla impression:

It’s graduation season! A lot of honors handed out (unless you’re Obama).

So what better time to tackle a topic like Albert Belle’s Hall of Fame candidacy? No better time, says I.

There are two ways to get into the Hall: You’ve got to be very good over a long peroid of time and rack up counting stats, or you’ve got to be dominant.

The chief knock against Belle’s HOF case is that he didn’t play long enough, and therefore didn’t reach any of the milestones that equal automatic HOF induction. No 3,000 hits. No 500 home runs. No 1,500 runs batted in.

But he was pretty dang dominant.

Belle played 12 seasons, longer than Kirby Puckett, Sandy Koufax, and Ralph Kiner. He didn’t quit because he couldn’t hack it. He was forced out by an arthritic hip. He played in 10 full seasons (and parts of two others) and during that peak decade he averaged 37 HR, 120 RBI and a roughly .360 OBP. In 1995 he became the first player to hit 50 doubles and 50 home runs in a season. Even in his last season, when he was hobbling around the bases, he hit .281 with 23 HRs and 103 RBI.

Belle had a better OPS+ than Harmon Kilebrew, Reggie Jackson, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Jim Rice (even if you ignore Rice’s pedestrian final three seasons). And if you’re interested in hardware, Belle made five all-star teams and won five Silver Slugger awards and surely should have won the 1995 AL MVP, except the voters hated him and instead awarded the MVP to Mo Vaughn, who had vastly inferior stats.

I’m not gonna blow smoke up your butts. I know Belle isn’t a slam dunk Hall of Famer. But surely he deserved better than the 3.5% of the vote he got in 2007, which was not enough to even merit another year on the ballot. When Belle retired in 2001, NY Daily News bloviator Bill Madden famously wrote:

Sorry, there’ll be no words of sympathy here for Albert Belle… Belle was a surly jerk before he got hurt and now he’s a hurt surly jerk… Belle’s boorish behavior should be remembered by every member of the Baseball Writers Association when it comes time to consider him for the Hall of Fame.

And they did.

Of course Belle was a jerk. But I don’t care about that. Count me among those who think the Hall of Fame should get rid of its character clause. Sports writers, as Joe Posnanski says, should not be in the business of making character judgments.

Belle should be measured by his on-the-field achievements, and they were numerous.

Look, it’s well known that we here at UmpBump are generally against most types of facial hair.  And aside from the soul destroying soul patch, which has deservedly earned our collective undying enmity, the facial hair that perhaps most affronts our basic sense of human decency is the beardless mustache on a white male.

But then along comes Diamondbacks reliever Clay Zavada. What can you say when a ballplayer, and a reliever no less, so lovingly resurrects the twirly, waxed, handlebar moustache of the great Rollie Fingers? Five or even ten years after Fingers it would have been mere imitation, but 30 years on, when basically nobody else has the balls to put wax to ’stache? That is nothing less than a tribute.

Then you throw in the fact that his name is “Zavada,” which in combination with the curly mustache makes him more likely to be the leader of a family of trapeze artists called the “Flying Zavadas” than appearing on a major league pitching mound.

So, what can you say, really, other than, Awesome!

As the New York Times recently chronicled, Zavada has had quite a trying journey making it to the show. Along the way, he tried all manner of facial hair, including goatee, full-on beard, soul patch, the Casey Blake never-quite-shaven look. But then he finally goes with the Rollie Fingers approach ( having been first inspired to dare the mustache-without-beard look by  minor league teammate and UFH alum Josh Collmenter) and he finally sticks in the Major Leagues.

Coincidence? Obviously not.

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and this week’s honoree is Heidi DeRosa, the wife of Cleveland Indians infielder Mark DeRosa.

Heidi is a retired fashion model, who used to work the cameras under her maiden name “Heidi Miller.” Other than that very little is known about her, at least on the internets. The couple was married in 2003, and they have one child, daughter Gabriella.

Last fall Heidi DeRosa was voted “hottest wife in baseball” by the readers of fantasy site Fantasy Baseball Dugout. Frankly, we here at UmpBump wouldn’t necessarily go quite that far, as there are many other contenders, but you can be the judge yourself.

More pictures after the jump…

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The Chicago White Sox are scuffling along this season with a 19-23 record, but are still only 5.5 games out of first in the AL Central, so Sox fans are holding out hope for a turnaround.

They probably should not hold their breath.

The Sox may actually be the worst team in baseball.  Although the Sox pitching staff is middle of the pack, their offense is last place in the American League in runs scored and third worst in the Majors ahead of only the Giants and Padres, both of whom play in extreme pitchers parks. Perhaps most fatal of all, the Sox are dead last in all of baseball in defensive efficiency, at a woeful 0.672.

Put it all together, and the White Sox have a pythagorean expected record of 16-26, tied with the Washington Nationals for the worst in all of baseball.

But out of the two teams, the Nats are far more likely to improve as the season goes along. For one thing, the Nats have been hammered by an almost inconceivably bad bullpen, which is bound to improve, even by putting replacement level minor leaguers in there. The Nats also have an extremely potent offensive attack and lots of young players who still have upside. And the Nats are less tied down to big contracts or even trying to compete this year, so they have the luxury of sorts of throwing lots of crap against the wall and seeing what sticks.

The White Sox, on the other hand, are almost a mirror image of the Nationals, burdened down with lots of big contracts and aging veterans on the downside, yet still thought of as a contender.

I’ve been calling for Kenny Williams to blow up the White Sox and rebuild since the end of the 2006 season. But his insistence that the Sox were contenders when in fact they were gradually getting farther and farther away from contention has finally led to the end of the road.

Here, now, with the White Sox arguably the worst team in baseball.

The rate at which home runs have been flying out of the new Yankee Stadium has been a hot topic since the first weeks of the season, but up to now the statheads have been urging caution and calm. “Small sample size” they have cried.

But as we close in on the two month mark, it is becoming increasingly more clear that New Yankee Stadium is one of the greatest home run parks of all time.

Indeed, in only its first season, the stadium is already on pace to smash the mark for most home runs hit at a ballpark in a single season.  The current record was set at pre-humidor Coors Field in 1999, when 303 homers were bashed (making Coors only stadium ever to surpass 300 thus far). But with 82 homers hit at Yankee Stadium already in only 22 games, the stadium is on pace for a ridiculous 317 homers this year.

Averaged out, an astounding 3.91 homers per game have been hit in the Bronx so far this season. By comparison, 1.98 homers were hit per game at Old Yankee Stadium last season, which is right around the typical American League average of about 2.00 per game.

What went wrong

So what exactly is wrong with New Yankee Stadium?  Well, recent wind studies have demonstrated that the new ballpark is about 20% more likely than the old one on any given day to have a wind blowing out to the outfield of 10 mph or more, with the likelihood increasing even further in the spring and fall. Given that a tail wind of 10 miles per hour will cause a typical borderline homerun ball to travel about 25 feet further, a significant assist that is only increased as the windspeed goes up.

Just watching the highlights of the homers hit out of New Yankee Stadium so far, this wind assist is plain to see. Anything hit fairly high in the air takes off once it gets into the wind, especially to right field. Guys are hitting home runs one handed, or even when they get jammed or get too far under the ball.  And when players actually do hit the ball right on the screws, they are hitting monstrous bombs.

Only adding to the homer woes, the stadium designers pulled a fast one with the dimensions in right field.  Although the most often cited dimensions, such as down the foul lines and to straightaway center are the same as the old park, thus preserving “Yankee tradition,” the designers flattened out the sharp dogleg in the right field wall, meaning that in some places, the right field wall is as much as nine feet closer to home plate in the new stadium.

This is pretty huge, and very significant when the old stadium was already legendary for having one of the shortest right field porches in the entire game (allegedly designed for the Babe).  Already this season somewhere in the region of ten homers have been hit out to right field that would not have gone out in the old stadium, just judging by distance alone, before wind is even taken into account.

What to do now

It’s obviously a little too late to go back and fix a $1.5 billion stadium.  And I’m actually of the opinion that having different stadiums that play differently is one of baseball’s charms, unlike football or basketball where the dimensions are always identical.

But what the Yankees do need to do is build a team that will be best suited to their stadium. And they need to start now.  Here are my recommendations:

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Don't cheer too hard Sox fans, you only get to play the Pirates three times this year.

What should a team do after getting rejected by Jake Peavy and then smacked around and dragged through 20 runs of humiliation at the hands of the Minnesota Twins? You play the Pittsburgh Pirates, of course!

To be fair, the White Sox did win two out of three from the Twinkies (all’s not lost Sox fans!), and their young ace Gavin Floyd gave no indication that the Peavy non-trade would become the albatross these Sox would carry all season long: He pitched a gem of a game on Friday, allowing no runs in eight innings, barely giving up two hits for his third win of the year.

Tonight, the Sox once again shut out the Bucs, getting another well pitched game from their starter, Clayton Richard, and with the offense flashing a little bit more lumber:  Jermaine Dye went deep, and Alexei Ramirez homered for the second time in as many games, possibly indicating he’s tired of riding both the bench and his manager’s patience.

Coincidentally, ESPN the Mag ran a feature in its current issue (available online here), lambasting the once great Pirates franchise for continuously sucking.

Of course, a three-game series versus the futility of the Pittsburgh Pirates is not going to turn the White Sox’ season around. They still have holes in center field (sigh), second base, third base, and left field. Carlos Quentin’s injuries are starting to become the issue they were feared to become at the time he was brought over from the Diamondbacks; the pitching has been spotty, and manager Kenny Williams is threatening to opt for a fire sale before this team gets further into the hole.

But at least for this series, I, for one White Sox fan, am glad the Pirates suck.