David Ortiz's Book, Papi, Is A Huge Strikeout

Photo: from the book's Goodreads page, here.

Very disappointing book, more notable for the stuff he leaves out than for what he puts in. This is mostly a gripe session, with a surprising number of motherf---er bombs, considering his younger fanbase. If you want to read about what a motherf---er former Sox GM Theo Epstein was while they talked contracts, and about how much of a motherf---er Twins manager Tom Kelly was all the time, and about how much confidence he has in himself, which is necessary because everyone will disrespect you and you have to defend yourself and tell them who you really are, then this book is for you. He even takes a few stabs at Terry Francona, who he never respected again after Tito pinch-hit for him in Toronto three or four years ago. Yet wasn't he hitting about .220 at the time?

But I'd been hoping instead for a bit more about 2004, about the postseason. Those were covered in a few short pages. Or about 2007, and Curt Schilling's bloody sock, or something about J.D. Drew or Josh Beckett or, hell, anything at all about any of the more important games that year? Maybe something about Youkilis, who nobody remembers anymore. How about how Colorado finished the season 22-1 and then got swept in the World Series? Nope. Maybe 2013? How about some stories about Jonny Gomes, or Napoli, or anyone else? What about that ALCS against the Tigers, when Ortiz hit the season's most important homerun, before Napoli hit his against Verlander in that 1-0 game? How about how the Sox hit maybe the Mendoza line combined for the series, yet won it in 6 games? How about anything at all about Uehara? Maybe the World Series, which had a game that ended with a runner picked off third and was followed by a game that ended with a runner picked off first. Nope. Maybe a paragraph apiece, and nothing at all about any of the specific ALCS or World Series games. Not even anything about his World Series game-winning hits, except that he hit them, and who he hit them off. No commentary; no in-depth analysis, nothing. He proves he had a helluva memory for who threw what to him months ago, which he'd then look for months later, but that's it.

You get a really short chapter about what a butthole Bobby Valentine was, which I already knew, and I detested him then and now and for that whole year. Valentine was a baseball version of Trump, and it's no surprise to me at all that they're actually friends--if either guy can be said to have a friend, as opposed to a mutual, leech-like attraction. But there's nothing new here at all. The few things that may be news to some, like how his marriage almost fell apart, is never given specifics. I'm not expecting The Inquirer here, but give me something. Didn't get it.

I'm telling you, this book is at least 75% about how he was disrespected by contracts and PED accusations. He never mentions HGH, of course, and he never gave honest accolades to people he trashed, like Francona and Epstein. It all comes across as very bitter grapes from someone you might think doesn't have much to be bitter about. He has a few decent points that non-Sox fans may not know, like how the Sox underpays its stars (Pedroia notoriously got a home-discount contract that this book never mentions; Pedroia is more underpaid now than Ortiz ever was, dollar for dollar) and yet overpays its free agent signings--like Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez. And Carl Crawford. And Julio Lugo. And Edgar Renteria. And Rusney Castillo. You knew this already as a fan, but the sheer number of examples is staggering. Yet even this is harped on again and again, its repetition taking up space you wanted reserved for funny or interesting anecdotes about some players. Hell, how about Orsillo, or Remy, or Castig? How about how he was able to have the single-best last season of any hitter in history? How about any stories at all about fans he's spoken to over the years, especially in 2013?

Nope. You get a chapter about his charity, but nothing about other players' charities. Very disappointing. Ortiz was one of my favorite players, and still is, but as a baseball memoirist, he swings and misses. This book is truly a money-making grab off his retirement. Even non-Sox fans won't learn anything new here, which is a mystery because it's clearly written for a common Sox fan. And believe me, I'm no baseball prude, but the loud volume of motherf---ers and other punches and jibes is shocking, considering he has to know that kids and pre-teens will want to read this. But, Dads out there, beware: They probably shouldn't. Also shocking because it's otherwise such a light read, you'd think it was meant for a light (ie--young and/or new) fan. The diatribes and whining don't make it any less light, so it's essentially a fluff piece with a lot of whining, swears and overall negativity.

Shockingly disappointing.

Hall of Fame: Bert Blyleven

I'm glad Blyleven was elected to the HOF for many reasons, but mostly because he's the poster child for sabermetrics.  (The importance of sabermetrics will be the subject of another entry.)  His stats, superficially below the Hall's standards for so long, now show why those standards were superficial to begin with.

Were the writers put off by his 287 wins--13 wins shy of the magical 300?  Were the writers that stickly?  300 wins, or else?  Even without the knowledge of WAR and other newer sabermetric standards (some of which I am honestly ignorant of myself), these writers knew what ERA was, right?  And WHIPs?  (That's walks + hits divided by innings pitched.  Essentially this shows you the number of runners allowed on base by the pitcher per inning.  Statistically, this absolves good pitchers who work for bad defensive teams.  It also shows you the occasional pitcher who has high WHIPs but low ERAs.  How can that be?  Answer: He pitches well in the clutch, when he has to.  Think Dice-K from a few years ago.)  I don't doubt that this was actually an issue early on in the voting.  But how could it have been as the years went by?  287 wins means he probably should have had 300, so why didn't he?

Look at his stats from 1971 to 1974.  In order, his won/lost records were 16-15, 17-17, 20-17, 17-17.  His ERAs were 2.81, 2.73, 2.52 and 2.66.  Here you have the definitive "problem" of his career.  In those 4 years, he was among the league leaders in wins and ERA each year, yet, all told, he won only 4 more games than he lost.  How can a pitcher win so many games while losing so many games, and have good ERAs?  Simple: He pitched for teams who did not score for him, or did not field well for him.  This is odd, because (I'll have to research this) but the Twins at the time had Killebrew, Oliva and Carew and Olivo, didn't they?  They should've scored well, and often.  Maybe they just didn't for him, or they dropped the ball.  (sorry.)  That's odd, too, because Blyleven was a strikeout/flyball pitcher.  Hmmm...I'll have to come back to this.  The point is, though, that with a swing of 3 games a year--easily possible with his ERAs--then he's got a 19-win season and three consecutive 20-win seasons.  And 299 wins.  Pick up one more in all the years he pitched, you got your 300 wins, and your established peak value.  With those, there would not be a HOF discussion about him.  This also points out that win totals are often a lousy indicator of a pitcher's value.  With King Felix's Cy Young last year, this will be forever cemented in the minds of the voters.  He pitched for a lousy team that was one of the worst all-time scoring runs, and so he won just one more game than he lost.  But the voters, more savvy than in the past, correctly looked past that and gave him the Cy.  Imagine pitching for that team for most of your career--though not that bad a team--and you'd have a career much like Blyleven's.  Had Blyleven pitched for the A's or Yanks from 1971-1974, he would have easily won at least 22 games each year.  A quick glance at a Bill James Abstract shows that his teams were well below .500 teams in those years.  In 1973, he went 20-17 for a winning % of .541.  Not great on the surface, but spectacular when you see that his team played .488 without him.  In 1984, while with Cleveland, he went 19-7, for a .731 winning %, and the team played .412 ball without him.  That's an extreme example, of course, but it shows you what we're dealing with.  By the end of the 1986 season, he had 21.4 more wins above the rest of his team, according to James's Abstract published in 1988.  In other words, as mediocre as his .534 winning percentage is, it is far better than the combined winning % of the teams he played for.  In short, he played really well for some really bad teams.  (A quick glance at Nolan Ryan's stats shows you that, had he pitched for the Yanks for most of his career, rather than some very bad California and Texas teams, he would have won close to 400 games.)

To further prove this point, a few quick things I learned while gleaning other people's articles and blogs:

Joe Posnanski, a sportswriter for SI, points out that Blyleven won more 1-0 games than anyone else in the last 90 years.  Why?  Because he had to.  Blyleven, I mean.  At a guess, you'd have to imagine that he also lost more close games--or gotten a no-decision--than any pitcher in the last 90 years.

He's 13th all-time amongst pitchers in WAR.  This means that if you removed him from the roster, and replaced him with an average pitcher, that pitcher wouldn't be able to win as many games for that particular team than Blyleven did.  It takes a special pitcher to win for bad teams, and essentially Blyleven was the 13th best pitcher at doing that, all-time.  As a point of reference, Steve Carlton won 27 games and a Cy Young for a last-place team one year.  Blyleven (without pitching exactly as well as Carlton, in one year or for a career) did that almost every year of his career.

The obvious stats:

His 287 wins are 27th best, all-time.

His 3,701 Ks are 5th, all-time.

His 60 shutouts are 9th, all-time.  Since 1966, only Ryan and Seaver had more.  These last two things highlight another essential aspect of a HOF career: dominance.  If you strike 'em out, and you shut 'em out, you're dominating them.  If they can't hit you at all, and they can't score off you at all, you're dominating.  He was the 5th best and the 9th best at doing that.  Ever.

His 241 complete games is 91st all-time.  Not so hot on the surface, but from 1970 to the present, that'll be in the top ten.

He's a ROY winner, a two-time World Series winner, and he threw a no-hitter.

In 1985, he went 17-16 but led the league in games started, complete games, innings pitched, shutouts and strikeouts.  Again, if you finish what you start, and pitch more than anyone else, and they can't hit you or score off you, that's dominance.  He completed 24 games that year.  No one since 2000 has finished more than 10.  In 1985, when no one but Bill James was aware of these other benchmarks we've discussed, the Cy Young voters still looked past his won/lost record and he finished 3rd in the voting.

I could go on, but we've both probably had enough.  Why am I taking this so seriously?  First, it's very clear to me, and has been for a long time, before I ever knew anything about these other sabermetric benchmarks, that if you've pitched more innings than most, and you've struck out more than most, and you've shut down opposing teams more than most, then you're better than most.  And, if you're better than most, you should be in the HOF.  I knew this 14 years ago.  This is simple logic, and you don't have to be a sabermetrician to very clearly see this.

It is frustrating when people, in baseball and in real life, have a certain bias towards what they're looking for to the exclusion of everything else.  It is true that he doesn't have 300 wins.  It is true that he won 20 games just once.  It is true that he doesn't have a very obvious showing of peak value.  It is true that his peak years, statistically, may have come early, and since they came for a bad team, the stats they created don't look great on the surface.

But I hate on-the-surface thinking.  It annoys me--and often angers me--that sometimes that's the best that most people can do.  There's a lack of long-term, big-picture thinking here, of seeing the forest through the trees.  Blyleven wasn't the beautiful woman you can easily pick out of a crowd.  He's the beautiful woman who wears baggy sweatshirts who slips through the cracks of the minds of superficial thinkers.  He's the actually-attractive woman at the end of an 80s or 90s movie who the lunkheaded guy finally sees for who she is.  He's the guy who pitched for mediocre teams in the 70s and 80s that were not in NY or CA and therefore not on television most of the time for everyone to see.

He's the person you actually have to think about to appreciate.  And it took baseball's best 14 years to be able to do it.  And without a rabid fan base of sabermetricians and internet supporters, they wouldn't have.  He's not Pedro; he might not transcend eras like Pedro did.  But I tire of the articles and blogs today that make it seem like you have to be an expert in theoretical quantum physics to understand the numbers well enough to appreciate him.  It isn't so.  You just have to think.  A little.  Why is that so hard?

Parity

Cliff Lee to the Phillies.  That gives them an embarrassment of riches on pitching and offense.  I was surprised when Philly didn't go deeper in the playoffs last year, and I'll be shocked if they don't make the Series this year.

I'll go on a limb and pick a Sox/Phils World Series.  Sox in six.

Having said that, it seems to me now that the teams to beat in the majors now are the Red Sox, Yanks, Angels, Rangers (replacing the Rays as a potential division-leading team without deep pockets) and Twins (perennial leaders also without the cash of the first three teams) in the American League and, in the National League, the Dodgers, Phillies (which has more money now than ever before), Mets (constant disappointments despite deep pockets), Braves (which doesn't spend as much as the others, without reason), with the Giants contending for now, but with little money to keep up after The Freak leaves.  The Padres are an example of this now.

I say this because I suppose that there is better balance in MLB, yet the same teams--with the sporadic surprises every year--keep making the playoffs, don't they?  Anyone expect the Nationals or Royals to make the postseason?  I'm glad I'm a fan of a team constantly in contention, that's all I'm sayin'.

Take a look at my writers/readers blog, and look at the entry for this blog.  One of those subjects will be on this blog soon.  Topics include HOF voting (Why did Ruth, Williams, etc. have a surprisingly large percentage of voters vote against their inclusion in the Hall?); Pedro's greatness as measured in different ways than maybe you've seen before; a positional analysis of the Sox (and whatever other team I feel like); and a trip around the American League, and a coast through the National.  Lots to get to.  Just tryin' to find the time.