A.J. Burnett is awful, Sox now 6 - 0 vs. Yanks.

Quick check-in on Robinson Cano before I begin:

His OBP has declined to a Juan Pierre-like .335.

(Juan Pierre, meanwhile, has an OPS+ of 129 and an Adrian Gonzales-like OBP.)

Okay, and now...

A.J. Burnett is vastly overrated

Burnett pitched terribly last night against the Red Sox, which made me excited because it means the Sox still haven't lost to the Yankees yet, and it continues to foster my theory that A.J. Burnett is not as good a pitcher as conventional wisdom say he is. I would like to qualify this by saying that any major league pitcher that can potentially throw 200+ innings in a season and not suck too terribly is an asset to any major league team. However, this does not mean said nameless pitcher deserves a 5-year $82.5 million contract. So I'm thrilled the Yankees are stuck with him, and I look forward to many more beat-downs by the Sox over the years, as I would argue Burnett is exactly the kind of pitcher that team is prime to massacre.

What's that I hear you say? A.J. Burnett won 18 games last year?

Hogwash, I say, and smarmily mock your misguided notion whilst sipping port in my zeppelin.

Anyways, yes, this statistics is true, but it's very misleading when it comes to judging the merit of Burnett as a pitcher. Those 18 wins came shackled to a 4.07 ERA, or for those of us more statistically inclined, an ERA+ of 105. Essentially, he gave up runs at only a slightly above average rate. He was 4th in the AL in wins (placing him behind Roy Halladay and tied with Dice-K in this category), yet his ERA+ placed him 23rd among qualifying pitchers, placing him in the range of guys like Gil Meche and Jered Weaver (both fine pitchers, but not $82.5 million/5 years kind of guys). Burnett's 18 wins were luck.

Doth mine ears hear the voice of an unwashed peasant? Does it say Burnett's ERA is distorted because of a few bad games?

Phineas! More vintage! Tell the boys in the engine room to increase speed!

I heard the "bad games" argument a lot in the offseason, and I would like to counter it by saying that while good pitchers do occasionally have lousy outings, at some point it ceases becoming an anomaly and starts becoming a trend. Suffice to say, Burnett had more bad games than most pitchers with those number of wins. To illustrate this, I present an ordered list of all pitchers from 2008 that won at least 15 games, coupled with how many times they gave up at least 6 earned runs:

Pitcher - # outings with 6+ ER (final record)
Roy Halladay - 0 (20 - 11)
Ted Lilly - 0 (17 - 9)
Johan Santana - 0 (16 - 10)
Mike Mussina - 1 (20 - 9)
Tim Lincecum - 1 (18 - 5)
Edinson Volquez - 1 (17 - 6)
Ryan Dempster - 1 (17 - 6)
Gavin Floyd - 1 (17 - 8)
Dan Haren - 1 (16 - 8)
Chad Billingsley - 1 (16 - 10)
Cliff Lee - 2 (22 - 3)
Dice-K - 2 (18 - 3)
Roy Oswalt - 2 (17 - 10)
John Lester - 2 (16 - 6)
Joe Saunders - 3 (17 - 7)
Ervin Santana - 3 (16 - 6)
Jamie Moyer - 3 (16 - 7)
Kyle Lohse - 3 (15 - 6)
Ricky Nolasco - 3 (15 - 6)
Brandon Webb - 4 (22 - 7)
A.J. Burnett - 5 (18 - 10)
Aaron Cook - 5 (16 - 9)
Bronson Arroyo - 6 (15 - 11)
Mark Buerhle - 6 (15 - 12)

Furthermore, those 5 crappy starts mark his career high in this particular category. So Burnett won 18 games while still managing to throw more lousy games than ever before. Not the kind of consistency I'd want for 80 million dollars.

But...but...he lead the AL in strikeouts!

What drollery!

Sure, strikeouts are impressive, but lest it be forgotten A.J. Burnett was also 5th in the AL in walks, leaving him with a 2.69 K/BB walk ratio. Now, this isn't horrible (15th best in the AL; Roy Halladay was 1st with a 5.28 ratio), but it gets worse when you condiser that he was one of only 4 pitchers to strike out 200 batters. (In other words, he walked A LOT of guys.) Combine this with his half-decent (although not great) hits / 9 inning ratio, and you've got a pitcher with a downright pedestrian 1.342 WHIP, good for 26th in the AL. (For reference, Paul Byrd ranked 23rd in WHIP.) Essentially, a lot of guys got on base vs. Burnett, which is a recipe for disaster no matter how many guys he struck out.

Incidentally, before you accuse me of nit-picking Burnett based on one season, I would like to point out that 2008 was a roughly average year for him, plus it seems that the whole reason he got a big contract was based on this year anyways. (I highly doubt he would've reached anywhere near the $80 million mark if he'd never won more than 12 games in a season, as was the case before 2008.) Furthermore, all the problems he had in 2008 that I've outlined above are continuing in this season. In fact, he's been worse so far. His ERA, K/BB ratio, Hits/9 ratio, and WHIP are all up (along with his ERA+ going down to 92), plus he's giving up home runs at a downright Wasdin-esque rate of 1.5 per 9 innings. In other words, he's not pitching that great, just as I expected. But he's the Yankees' problem now, so I'm extremely happy about this. I look forward to him pitching many more games against the Sox, considering that their offense is an on-base-percentage machine (first in the AL right now) and Burnett excels at letting guys do just this.

Phineas! Set a course for Antartica!

Gambler's fallacy

If you flip a coin ten times, there is a good chance it will come up heads all ten times. Does this mean the coin is rigged? Probably no, and this is just a case of small sample size. Flip that coin 100 times, and you'll no doubt find that the coin comes up heads just about as many times as it does tails. Flip it 1,000 times, and the ratio of heads to tails should get even closer to 1:1. This is basically the Gambler's fallacy at its finest, and it seems the baseball world falls prey to it far too often. If we are to rise above it, however, it should come as no surprise, for instance, that the Yankees are in first place and the Royals are under .500 right now. Anomalies exist over a small sample size, but everything will eventually tend towards the expected result.

So on that note...

What the hell is up with Juan Pierre and when is it going to stop? Excluding tonight's game, Pierre currently has an EqA of .349. No, I am not making that up. Juan Pierre, the man who's never had an EqA of above .276, and hasn't been above league average (.260) since 2004, is putting up Albert Pujols-like numbers (career EqA of .345). Logic tells us that he'll eventually go back to being an exceptionally mediocre baseball player, but, for now, let's all bask in the supreme oddity of his current production.

Juan Pierre is a Hall of Famer

I've been away from baseball for a bit, and I'm sure all zero of the people that read my blog have been disappointed. Have no fear, however. I'm back and trying to catch up on the things I've missed. So I'd like to take a moment to touch on this whole Manny Ramirez thing. Ignoring the larger issue of what this means for baseball's image and Manny's legacy, it's a serious blow to a Dodger's team that has essentially built its lineup around Ramirez. They're facing 50 games without their most prolific hitter and there's no obvious stand-in.

Or is there?

Steve Phillips knows the answer to the Dodgers' problem. And it's Juan Pierre.

Ramirez clearly makes the Dodgers a deeper and stronger lineup. But his replacement, Juan Pierre, is a proven major leaguer who, although he is different from Manny, can still be a major force offensively. Remember, Pierre is hungry for playing time and has waited patiently for an opportunity to play. Now that it has arrived, look for him to explode.

This could be a brilliant piece of satire, except I'm pretty sure Steve is serious. This is the same man who thought it was a good idea to sign Mo Vaughn when he was GM of the Mets. Getting back to the point at hand, Juan Pierre is not a major force offensively, unless you count how much he sucks. He has one season with an OPS+ above 100 and that was in 2003. In fact, his OPS+ has declined every year since that point, down to the 73 he posted last year. You know who had a higher OPS+ last year? David Eckstein. Every inch of his 5'6" frame is packed with mediocrity, and Juan Pierre was WORSE offensively. The only way this can good for the Dodgers is if Pierre literally explodes, in which case they can put Xavier Paul in there for good. Even if he isn't as "good" as Juan Pierre, at least he's young and has time to develop.

There's no doubt the Dodgers' offense will be different, but it should still be highly productive. I don't have any doubt that on July 3, when Manny returns, the team will still be in first place and their young players will be even more confident in their own abilities.

WHAT? Does Steve Phillips have magical powers? How can he guarantee this? This...just doesn't make sense, unless Steve is some being from a parallel universe in which Juan Pierre is Hall of Fame caliber outfielder. (Random fact: Micah Owings had a higher OPS+ than Juan Pierre last year. Owings is a pitcher.)

Without Ramirez batting third in the order, expect manager Joe Torre to experiment a little bit before settling on a regular lineup. With the way second baseman (and 2-hitter) Orlando Hudson is swinging the bat, he certainly could hit in the third spot. Leadoff man Rafael Furcal could drop to second, behind Pierre in the top spot. Torre would also have the option of moving Ethier to the No. 3 spot, with Kemp hitting fourth.

The only way Juan Pierre should be batting lead-off in this lineup is if Joe Torre suffering from age-onset dementia. Ignoring the less-than-Jason Varitek-OPS+-in-2008, the lead-off hitter is supposed to be someone who gets on base. You know who doesn't get on base much? Juan Pierre. He hasn't had an OBP over .350 since 2004. In 2008, he got on base at a .327 clip. You know who had an OBP higher than that? Andre Ethier, Russel Martin, Jeff Kent, James Loney, Matt Kempt and Blake DeWitt. (The most frequent 2 - 7 hitters for the Dodgers in 2008. The only reason why this list doesn't extend to the 2 - 8 hitters is the most common 8th hitter for the team in 2008 was none other than Angel Berroa.) Juan Pierre has no business batting lead-off. He should barely be batting anywhere, for that matter. Out of 204 players with 400 at bats last year, Juan Pierre ranked 179th in VORP. This is the player who is going to keep the Dodgers offense going. Congrats, Steve Phillips, for writing what could be the most retarded thing I've read about this whole Manny nonsense. (And I read Bill Plaschke too.)