A friend of mine–a Red Sox fan friend–just texted me from the Sox-Angels game in Anaheim. How did he score tickets to ALDS Game 1, you might ask yourself? Good question.

Well, it turns out that he walked up to the ticket window….

And paid them 40 bucks….

Two hours before game time.

Bite me.

Howard Bryant is quickly becoming my new favorite writer over at ESPN.com.

First I find that he wrote a column the other day which almost exactly duplicates the sentiments I expressed here on umpbump about the Sun setting on the Yankees dynasty .

And now I find that his latest column expresses almost exactly my amazement at Indians manager Eric Wedge’s decision to pitch Paul Byrd in game four tomorrow, instead of probable Cy Young winner C.C. Sabathia on three days rest.

I mean, seriously, Paul Byrd?

Eric Wedge obviously doesn’t understand what the playoffs are all about. Pitch counts and proper rest are all well and good in the regular season, but in the playoffs, if you lose, you go home. And cry into your Jack Daniels for six months about the one that got away.

Sure, Paul Byrd won 15 games this year. But those were just about the softest 15 victories you can get. Astonishingly, of those 15 wins, only 3 (yes, only three) were against teams with winning records!

This past season Byrd had a very middling ERA of 4.59, his 11.18 hits per 9 innings was the second worst of all qualified starting pitchers in the whole major leagues, and he was the beneficiary of more than 6 runs a game of run support. So despite the gaudy total of 15 wins Byrd was at best a major-league average pitcher this season.

And is major-league average really the kind of guy you want to be throwing in a do-or-die playoff series? Let alone throwing him against the best offense in the entire major leagues?

I mean, this isn’t some NL Central team that snuck into the playoffs with 84 wins. These are the freaking NEW YORK YANKEES. Yes, the are down 2-1, but they score more runs than God, have about 1,000 times more playoff experience than you, they just got up off the mat with a momentum-building 8-4 victory, and oh yeah, they are playing for their beloved manager’s job.

And sure enough, looking at the numbers, in his last four starts against the New York Yankees Paul Byrd is 0-3 with a 6.86 ERA.

I just don’t get it. Why bother with Byrd at all when your alternative is to come back-to-back in consecutive games with two 19-game winner, Cy Young types who have already shown their ability to dominate the Yankees? Sure, Sabathia will be going on short rest, but history has shown that working 3 days rest is quite doable in the playoffs, especially for an ace-type like Sabathia (See file: Becket, Josh, 2003 World Series), and even if Sabathia falters, the Indians could then bring on Fausto Carmona on full rest in game five. Given just how good these two guys are, and the fact that the Indians only need one more win, aren’t the odds pretty good that at least one of the two can get a victory, if you give them two shots in a row?

And it’s not even like you would be messing up the rotation for the ALCS. If C.C. were to pitch and win game 4, Wedge could go with Carmona and Sabathia in the first two games against Boston on full rest, whereas if Byrd loses, they are going to have to throw Westbrook in one of those games.

Not that Wedge should even be worrying about the ALCS anyway. In the playoffs nothing is assured, and you can’t afford to waste any games on mediocre 4th starters like Paul Byrd if you don’t absolutely have to.

And the Indian’s don’t have to, which is why this makes no sense.

After 19 years in the big leagues, 40 year-old Billy Chapel has trudged to the mound for over 4,000 innings. But tonight, he’s pitching against time, he’s pitching against the future, against age, against ending. Tonight, he will make the fateful walk to the loneliest spot in the world, the pitching mound at Yankee Stadium, to push the sun back into the sky and give us one more day of summer.

One of my all-time favorite baseball movie quotes, Vin Scully says this while playing himself in otherwise terrible Kevin Costner film For Love of the Game (the original script was so bad, that Scully reportedly rewrote all his lines himself). I can’t think of a more appropriate quotation about today’s matchup between the Indians and the Yankees in game three of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium, with Roger Clemens pitching and the Yankees down 2-0. To rephrase:

After 24 years in the big leagues, 45 year-old Roger Clemens has trudged to the mound for nearly 5,000 innings. But tonight, he’s pitching against time, he’s pitching against the future, against age, against ending. Tonight, he will make the fateful walk to the loneliest spot in the world, the pitching mound at Yankee Stadium, to push the sun back into the sky and give us one more day of summer.

Or winter, I suppose, if you are a Red Sox fan.

But the point is, that Roger really is pitching against time, both for his own career and against the countdown clock of the current Yankee dynasty, which is rapidly approaching the midnight hour.

Roger Clemens is indeed old. He is not the same pitcher who tossed decisive victories for the Yankees in the 1999 and 2001 World Series, and nearly saved them from the Diamonbacks in 2001. He’s not even the same pitcher who bowed before the youthful Marlins in 2003 and the go-go White Sox in 2005.

He has already “retired” three times. He sits out half the season these days. His fastball, for years a blazing 98 mph, and even in recent years always just managing to cling to the good side of 90, has finally fallen into the mid-80s danger zone. For the first time in recent memory, nagging old-age-type injuries started taking their toll on his famously well-conditioned frame, knocking him out of action for two extended stints this season despite his extra time off. Back pitching in the American League East, where weaknesses have nowhere to hide, his ERA soared into the 5’s before settling in the mid-4’s

But he is all the Yankees have left.

He is that guy left behind to hold the bridge against the barbarian hordes while the others escape. He is the EMT, frantically giving CPR to a victim he knows won’t make it. He is that Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, only much older, more arthritic, and with three grown sons all named Kibbles, or Kaliper or some other ridiculous name starting with’K’.

But the point is, he’s one of those guys who, if they do their job right, something gets to survive for a few more minutes. If Clemens can somehow win this game, the current Yankee dynasty gets to live for one more day.

So yeah, pushing the sun back up into the sky and making day last a bit longer before night is just about right.

Because next year, the Yankees as we have known them for all these years will be gone.

Bernie Williams has already faded out of the picture. Andy Pettite, A-Rod, and Bobby Abreu all have opt-out clauses. Working-class heroes Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada will be free agents. Mike Mussina is pitching on fumes and Clemens has nothing left to offer. Joe Torre is done. And Brian Cashman seems determined to start a youth movement.

A few of those guys might be re-signed, but certainly not all of them, and if they all went, who would be left? Depending how committed Cashman is to the youth, we could end up watching Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui, and a bunch of 24-year-olds.

I’m a bit late. The game’s on the top of the second already and the Red Sox are already up by a run thanks to a Youkilis home run.

I did catch half of the first inning, and a coupla things came to mind right off the bat.

* As Sarah pointed out, the Angels will run. Figgins, while on second, chose to run on contact with Vlad Guerrero at the plate. The force-out and ensuing strike out of Garret Anderson ends the inning.

* Speaking of which, what the hell is on Anderson’s right eye? The TBS guys say it’s pink-eye. I know for a fact that doesn’t affect his eyesight, but still.

* That Hank Aaron commercial sure seems to ignore (or fly in the face of) the new single season home run champ.

Read the rest of this entry »

That’s right. I’m predicting that the Sox will wrap this ALDS series up in four games. (Actually, I think they could do it in three with the injuries the Angels are facing right now, but I’m hedging my bets). The seven factors that will influence in this series (and which team has the edge in each) is the subject of this week’s Metro column.

This was a tricky column for me to write. I jotted the seven factors (starting pitching, bullpen, closer, defense, baserunning, overall offense, and power hitting) down in my notebook and then set out to evaluate each team independently. I was very much surprised by my findings: in every category, the teams are either even or the Red Sox have an edge. I struggled with writing such an apparently biased column, especially since I’m an unabashed Boston homer—would anyone take me seriously if I didn’t give the Halos an edge somewhere? But in the end, I had to go with what the data was telling me. To be sure, the Angels are a very good team, and in the playoffs anything can happen—a five-game series seems especially keyed to the possibility of upsets. But I was surprised at the edge the Red Sox have heading into this series, which starts tonight.

The most controversial call I made in the article was giving the Red Sox an edge in baserunning. Every talking head I’ve heard so far has handed this category to the Angels with ease. It seems like common sense. After all, the Angels love to steal. As a team, they’re second in the league in steals at 139 (all those double-steals helped them out here). Boston, with 96, is seventh. And Boston has never been known as a fast team. But as I looked at the numbers, the way the media is handing the Angels the edge in baserunning began to seem less like common sense and more like laziness.

With Coco Crisp, Julio Lugo, and Jacoby Ellsbury on the team, Boston’s slow days are over—at least temporarily. And when I looked at each team’s stolen base percentage, Boston had a huge advantage over Anaheim. Boston is actually first in the league with an 80% success rate, while Anaheim is eleventh, with a 72% success rate. (These numbers have changed slightly since I wrote the column—not sure what’s up with that, since the regular season is over. Thanks, ESPN.com! But the basic comparison is the same.) Smarter people than I have argued that, on an individual level, a player who can’t maintain a 75% stolen base percentage shouldn’t  be stealing bases, because he’s actually hurting his team. Where the Angels are concerned, however, stealing makes up for a lack of power hitting on their part. They clearly know how to get on base: they’re third on OBP and fourth in the league in hits. But they’re fifth in doubles (Boston is first) and eleventh in triples (and they’re a supposedly speedy team! even “slow” Boston ranks sixth in this category). When you look at home runs, the Angels are twelfth in the AL, ahead of only Minnesota and Kansas City. Clearly, Mike Scioscia feels that small ball is the way for this team to go—and it’s gotten them this far.

However, Boston’s better stolen base percentage tells me that baserunning could be a factor that tilts in favor of the Red Sox this postseason. They’re not stealing to make up for a lack of extra-base hits. They’re stealing from a position of strength, not a position of competitive weakness. They’re stealing situationally, strategically—and successfully. And that makes them more effective baserunners in the playoffs.

Compared to last year, ranking the rookies for this season is pretty boring, since as Coley points out, most of the best rookies were in the NL, but even in the NL the choice is obvious given Ryan Braun’s utter dominance.

But I have been a bit surprised at some of the names that keep getting mentioned, as well as some of the names who haven’t been mentioned much.

So I decided to rank the top 15 rookies together in one group, including players from both leagues. Here is what I came up with:

1. Ryan Braun (NL)

2. Troy Tulowitzki (NL)

3. Daisuke Matsuzaka (AL)

4. Hunter Pence (NL)

5. Dustin Pedroia (AL)

6. Jeremy Guthrie (AL)

7. James Loney (NL)

8. Brian Bannister (AL)

9. Chris Young (NL)

10. Kyle Kendrick (NL)

11. Yovanni Gallardo (NL)

12. Peter Moylan (NL)

13. Reggie Willits (AL)

14. Joakim Soria (AL)

15. Hideki Okajima (AL)

Sure enough, 8 out of my top 12 rookies hail from the National League. Although I’m not sure if this necessarily means good things for inter-league balance, since the Red Sox and the Yankees are probably just going to sign away all these guys as soon as they hit free agency.

Also, as you can see, I agree with Coley’s contention that at least based on pure numbers, Troy Tulowitzki was really unlucky to have his rookie year in the same season as Ryan Braun. But in actuality I don’t really feel too bad for him, given that he benefitted greatly from playing half his games in Coors Field, posting a ridiculous .942/.720 home/road OPS split.

Hunter Pence had a heck of the year, hitting for both average and power and stealing bases as well, and even with his injury woes he still managed to play in 108 games and log 456 at-bats. He’s not the Rookie of the Year, but he has a heck of a future ahead of him.

After Braun, Dodgers first-baseman James Loney was actually the second-best rookie in the National League this season, and did get into 96 games, but couldn’t make as much of a contribution to his team as Pence or Tulowitzki since was pointlessly blocked for the first two months owing to Ned Colletti’s foolish decision to resign Nomar Garciaparra despite the fact that Loney led all of baseball in batting average at AAA in 2006.

Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone is even considering Delmon Young, and as you can see, I’ve left him off my list. In fact, he wouldn’t even make my top 20. Delmon Young led all rookies in at-bats with 654, yet only hit 13 home runs, walked a mere 26 times, and posted a woeful .723 OPS. 10 other rookies hit more home runs, most of them in far fewer at-bats. Out of the eight rookies who qualified for a batting title, five had a higher OBP than Young, including teammate Akinori Iwamura. The bottom line is, if you get 654 at-bats and OPS .723 as a corner outfielder, you are in fact severely hurting your team, even if you are a veteran. You are certainly not anywhere close to being the Rookie of the Year!

I’m also not sure why Hideki Okajima gets mentioned so much. Sure he had a great year, but Peter Moylan was by far the best rookie relief pitcher this year (although he was in the NL), and even in his own league Joakim Soria of the Royals put up nearly identical numbers while posting 17 saves to Okajima’s 5.

A guy who certainly deserves more consideration is D-Backs centerfielder Chris Young. He’s not the Rookie of the Year because his batting average and on-base percentage were atrocious, but he did contribute greatly at a defensive skill position while playing every day, and chipped in 32 home runs along with 27 stolen bases.

I’ve saved perhaps my most controversial call until last: I’m going to have to go with Daisuke Matsuzaka over Dustin Pedroia as my 2007 AL Rookie of the Year. First of all, I don’t buy the whole argument that Japanese players shouldn’t be eligible for ROY consideration given all their experience in Japan. Having watched a lot of Japanese baseball, I can say firsthand that it is nowhere near the level of the Majors. That’s why Matsuzaka’s ERA was 4.40 this year and not 2.35. Also, Matsuzaka was only 26, which isn’t really that old. If an American player gets lots of experience in the minors and then has a breakout season at 27 or 28, we don’t say he should be ineligible for the award.

But more importantly, Matsuzaka had a better year than Pedroia. Sure, he wasn’t *quite* as good as some of the more delierious Boston fans might have expected, but was still one of the better pitchers in the American League, posting 15 wins, pitching over 200 innings, and striking out 201 batters. Sure, Pedroia had a great season, but was he even the most valuable rookie on his own team? Put another way, would the Red Sox rather have played through this past season without Daisuke Matsuzaka, or without Dustin Pedroia? I think it’s clear that Matsuzaka made a greater contribution as a rookie in the AL.