Myth: Catchers break down offensively after the All-Star break.
I’ve been a believer of this one for a long time, but I decided to challenge it. So I took the first- and second-half 2004 statistics of some of the top offensive catchers in baseball, and found that there is no significant difference between regular position players and catchers when it comes to late- and early-year batting prowess. All that squatting does not make them wear down in September – at least not significantly. (Please note that some guys – like Ivan Rodriguez in 2004 – have unconscious first halves and cannot in their right mind duplicate their first-half performance. But still, Pudge stayed respectable after the break.) And remember, players get less at-bats after the All-Star Game, since there are less games:

Jorge Posada: 1st half: .275, 11 HR, 40 RBI. 2nd half: .268, 10, 41.

Jason Varitek: 1st half: .275, 10, 34. 2nd half: .323, 8, 39.

Ivan Rodriguez: 1st half: .369, 12, 59. 2nd half: .284, 7, 27.

Johnny Estrada: 1st half: .332, 4, 47. 2nd half: .290, 5, 29.

Javy Lopez: 1st half: .321, 12, 42. 2nd half: .309, 11, 44.

Victor Martinez: 1st half: .290, 12, 63. 2nd half: .274, 11, 45.

My girlfriend Beth Carney, associate editor for the medical journal Current Psychiatry, pointed out that I should check out some serviceable-but-not-superstar catchers to see if my demolition of this theory is deserved: Here goes…

Michael Barrett: 1st half: .291, 10, 43. 2nd half: .282, 6, 22.

Toby Hall: 1st half: .287, 5, 34. 2nd half: .221, 3, 26.

Ramon Hernandez: 1st half: .266, 7, 25. 2nd half: .285, 11, 38.

A.J. Pierzynski: 1st half: .307, 7, 45. 2nd half: .232, 4, 32.

Okay, so let me get back to my point. Just like some other position players get hotter or colder in the second half, so do catchers. Just because they’re bending down all the time, does not automatically equal a bad second half. Maybe for Pierzynski and Hall, the squatting takes its toll. But tell that to Hernandez or Lopez. Catchers are just as likely to keep up at least some of their good hitting in the second half as first basemen and outfielders. I hope this proves it.

MYTH: A bloop hit gets a batter out of his slump.

Reminder: this is a continuation of my on-again, off-again series that will attempt to dispel baseball’s myths and other slices of Boar’s Head bologna.

For the love of Pope Benedict, can we please stop saying that if a batter is 0-for-39 in his last 11 games and then gets an infield single, “That was all he needed to get back on track?” This is a case of announcers speaking out loud just for the sake of making sure their microphone works. It’s such Oscar Meyer. I can remember so many times where a batter in the middle of a wretched slump got a Baltimore chop single and then proceded to slump for like two more weeks. I’ve even seen guys hit a few homers in the middle of a horrible slump: it means that every Golden Retriever can have his day. A full-season batting average is an AVERAGE, and one hit – or one game for that matter – does not constitute a slump or the breaking out of one.

And I know this blog is supposed to be about baseball only, but are you too getting sick and tired of hearing basketball announcers say, “Even though he’s missed 17 three-pointers in a row, all he needs to do is make a layup and see what it looks like for the ball to go into the basket, and then he’ll start getting hot?” Are you serious? Is this really what you think is going to happen? I remember hearing this argument after John Starks made a layup during game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals, a game the Knicks lost largely because Starks shot 2-for-18 from the field. I guess Starks was closing his eyes for the layup, and didn’t see what it looked like for the ball to go into the basket.

Paul Quantrill Can You Please Protect Me?
In case you missed it, Paul Quantrill – the 6’0, 200-pound enforcer disguised as a sometimes unreliable New York Yankees relief pitcher – played some good ol’ fashioned American hardball and then talked some serious Canadian-style trash during and after a game with the Detroit Tigers earlier this week.

Retaliating for the Tigers hitting Alex Rodriguez earlier in the game, Quantrill threw one behind Jason Smith, prompting the umpire to warn both dugouts that another shady pitch would result in a pitcher/manager dual-ejection. Quantrill fired the next pitch toward the bull’s eye on Smith’s upper back, and hit it squarely. Upon his ejection, Quantrill, who is extremely dorky looking if I can use an eighth grade word here, waved to the angry Tigers dugout, inviting them to come on out for a donnybrook. “If they want to come out, just come out," Quantrill was quoted as saying in The New York Times. "If they've got a problem with me, standing six feet in front of the dugout and chirping is just nonsense."

Even better was what he said the next day in response to Dmitri Young’s comments about how pitchers should not throw toward a batter’s head: “That's not close to his head," Quantrill said to the Times. "Dmitri, I think, wears his do-rag too tight. I don't need to hear Dmitri." (Good job by the Times finding "do-rag" in their newspaper style guide, by the way. Ya gotta spell that shiite right).

Dear Paul: Where did this fire come from you Canadian hockey hooligan? Paul Quantrill, I will engage in conventional or guerilla warfare with you any time. Unless, of course, that war involves you throwing a baseball. I’m only kidding man. Dude, I’m joking. My headband is too tight. Please don’t hit me.

Oh Danny Boy! Your Finger is so Beautiful!
In shocking news, the Cincinnati Reds designated closer Danny Graves for assignment. Danny got mad at the Cincinnati fans Sunday for inexplicably booing him, and he decided that he wanted to show them which of his fingers was the longest. It’s amazing that the crowd was down on Graves, who had just pitched a scintillating third of an inning, giving up five runs on four hits in a 9-2 loss to Cleveland. His May ERA was a nice, round 11.00. Good luck finding a new job Danny, and I am sincerely sorry that the fans booed you after your fantastic month of pitching. I love you. Please marry me.

MYTH: The double play is the pitcher's best friend.
I do agree that the double play is a very good friend of the pitcher. The double play is the guy that a pitcher can always count on, but that he sees too much of every now and then. Sometimes, the pitcher gets mad that the double play always wants to go to T.G.I. Friday’s instead of going to the new, hot, salsa dance club. The double play is the pitcher’s best friend in his hometown. But every man has that best friend that has since moved away – that REAL best friend – that comes back once every few years and makes it seem like old times. For the pitcher, that best friend is named the triple play.

Dispelling Baseball Myths and Cliches – Part One of About A Million
It’s true that when a pitcher thinks too much about a fast baserunner on first, he screws up on his pitches to home plate. It’s also true that every time a pitcher fakes to third and tries to throw to first; a) it never works; and b) every fat drunkard in the crowd yells “balk.” But I am here to explore the things that announcers say, the fans believe, and the things that even players might believe, that are not true, no longer valid or otherwise idiotic. This unscientific and out-of-order series will start with my next post. Are you hungry for it? Don’t answer that. It was rhetorical.

ESPN.Com: Please update your database

I'm sure everyone remembers the tragic death of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile during the 2002 Major League Baseball Season. Well almost three full years later, ESPN.com has not updated its player database to reflect Kile's sudden and shocking passing. On its alphabetical list of players, Kile is actually still listed. I'd be willing to give ESPN a pass on this, since some other former players such as Paul Abbott and Bobby Bonilla are still listed. What is disturbing, though, is if you click on Kile's name, and then on "fantasy," a ghost-white screen tells you, "This player does not exist." No mention of his death, or news items from the ceremony celebrating his life, adorns his player page. I think that in light of what happened to Kile, ESPN could have taken a few steps to either delete him from its database, or at least removed some of the ho-hum, and extremely insensitive information. "This player does not exist" makes sense for Bonilla's fantasy profile, but not for Kile's. And if you think this was just an oversight, click on Ken Caminiti on the player list, and check out his fantasy prognosis. Look familiar?

So Many Statistics Are Just Meaningless. Meaningless!
On Sunday morning, The New York Times printed a list of statistical leaders from the 2004 interleague schedule. I bet you did not know that Derrek Lee of the Cubs led all batters with a .444 average in games against the other league, and that both Francisco Rodriguez of the Angels and B.J. Ryan of the Orioles sported 0.00 ERAs in interleague games, best among pitchers who threw at least 10 innings. These things are nice to know, aren’t they? Actually, no they are not.

Besides natural rivalries (Yankees vs. Mets, White Sox vs. Cubs), the interleague schedule changes every year. If a team plays the other league’s Central division in 2004, it plays the West in 2005. Different teams, different pitchers, different hitters, different ballparks, meaningless numbers. So here is today’s Aflac trivia question: What is the value of printing last year’s interleague statistics? Answer: None. Please print something more important, like the number of Hebrew National hot dogs sold during Wednesday Spring Training games in which the temperature was at least 79 degrees.

Baseball statistics in general – which I love to look at and analyze as much as anyone – are, sadly, often meaningless. Anybody in a sports bar who ever tries to form an argument using a pitcher’s win/loss record should have his pint glass rammed up his eye. Randy Johnson was 16-14 last year, but his ERA was 2.60. With a good team, he might have won 25 games. With the Arizona Diamondbacks, he was lucky to win 16 of their 51 games. “Oh but this guy,” the old Jack Morris argument used to go, “just knows how to win.”

For the most part, that argument is bologna. If a pitcher gets a 7-0 lead and then winds up winning 7-6, he won not because he “knows how to pitch to the scoreboard,” he won because he got good run support. Yes, some pitchers are better in clutch situations, and have the knack for getting a strikeout or double-play grounder when they need it, but wins and losses are the most overrated statistics for what they really say about an athlete’s performance.

Some of those crazy Society of American Baseball Research statistics such as “wins above team” and “runs per hitting win” or whatever the hell they are called, are fun to calculate if you have a graphing calculator and a protractor, but they are entirely too complicated to ever become mainstream. But some of the overly simple statistics like wins and losses are just the opposite – they are too simple and explain too little.

So let’s meet in the middle. Let’s not print last year’s interleague statistics (did you know the Devil Rays were 15-3 against the National League last year), let’s not base an argument on wins and losses (Bob Welch won 27 games in 1990, that says it all), and let’s not purchase a mathematics textbook for the sole purpose of figuring out how many singles to center David Eckstein would hit if he were playing in Japan.

Numbers do tell a lot of the story. Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth are the two best home run hitters of all time, because they have the most homers. Ty Cobb was the best hitter for average that has ever played, because he has the highest average.

But just looking blindly at numbers and judging a player based on them is a mistake that is made too often. Ask anyone who has played fantasy baseball. “Oh, Roberto Hernandez has an ERA of less than 1.20,” I said earlier this week of the New York Mets’ new setup man. So I picked him up, and played him on Saturday. The result: One inning, two runs and four baserunners allowed for Hernandez, and a drop in the standings for me.

Numbers are fun, but they do not mean everything, and they often mean nothing. Good luck trying to remember that when you are fumbling for evidence in your next sports argument. Just remember: wins and losses and interleague stats do not mean much, and neither do spring training frankfurter sales.

The Yankees are Wasting Their Time With Jason Giambi
When the Yankees first acquired Jason Giambi, I thought he was a perfect fit - the perfect buy. Here was a guy that could hit balls over buildings in right, and up the gap in Yankee Stadium’s cavernous left-center. A .300 hitter who could hit 40 homers and knock in 120: where do I sign up?

By the 2003 All-Star Game - most certainly the last All-Star Game he ever played in - he was second to Derek Jeter as the most recognizable face on the Yankees. He won the Home Run Derby, and his legend grew.

Then, according to reports of his grand jury testimony, he stopped taking steroids. But no investigative journalism is needed - no qualifiers like “according to reports” or “according to secret testimony” is needed - to say that at the same time he stopped with the steroids, he stopped with the hitting. A staph infection in his eye, benign tumor, strained forearm, shattered reputation, and almost two full seasons of unproductive at bats later, the Yankees want him to go to the Minor Leagues.

I think that is a mistake. Giambi cannot learn to hit the ball better in the minor leagues. Giambi, a spray hitter - a high average hitter - in the Minors, became a needle hitter as he got stronger in the Major Leagues. That is, he threw a needle into his arm, or butt, or wherever, and decided to try to muscle the ball over the fence in right field with every swing, rather than take it to left field when the pitches were outside. He kept gravitating toward that new style, and nobody noticed. Sure, he still hit some balls to left field, but not as much. Infields started shifting to the right, knowing that he would try and pull the outside pitch.

But when he stopped cheating, his muscles - and hence his margin for error - got smaller. A non-juiced Giambi, at his best, is probably a .315 hitter with 25 homers. Again, where do I sign up? But a non-juiced Giambi that tries to hit like the juiced Giambi is a waste of space on the Yankees, and would be a waste of space in their minor league system. It is only a matter of time before Brian Cashman, George Steinbrenner and Joe Torre figure that out.

Torre Might Be Getting Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired
I never thought I would say this, but I have been checking ESPN.com five times a day waiting for the announcement that Joe Torre has quit as manager of the Yankees. As the losses to the Devil Rays piled up this week, I even resorted to checking other sports sites, like cbssportsline.com and cnnsi.com to see if maybe they had beaten ESPN to the scoop.

There is no way to know whether George Steinbrenner is thinking of making the move first, but I sincerely doubt it. The old Steinbrenner would shake things up the moment something went wrong, but the old Steinbrenner was not dealing with Joe Torre. He was dealing with Stump Merrill, and Billy Martin, and Yogi Berra, and Dallas Green, and (you know the joke) Billy Martin and Billy Martin and Billy Martin.

The season is young, the Yankees are still talented, but Torre is probably getting sick and tired of hearing Steinbrenner’s statements through his press agent that he expects “Joe Torre and his staff” to get things together. The $200 million Yankees are expected to win the World Series, so even if they turn it around and wind up winning it all – which they won’t – what will be so different about 2005 that didn’t happen in 2000, 1999, 1998 and 1996? Is it worth it for Torre to trudge through this?

If the 1992 New York Mets were the “Worst Team Money Could Buy,” the 2005 Yankees are the “Oldest, Most Sluggish, Worst Pitching Team Money Could Buy.” Maybe the title is not as flashy, but they don’t deserve to be called anything flashy. Last year’s Yankees could fall behind 6-0 and end up winning 14-12, masking the reality that outslugging you was the only way they could consistently beat you.

And that was the beginning of the end for Torre. Torre is a National League guy. He played and managed in the National League his entire career, and he managed the 1996 Yankees like he was in the National League, bunting, encouraging hitters to move runners up and running like the Yankees never ran before. In interleague games, Torre has said he loves the added strategy of making double switches, figuring out when he should pinch-hit for his pitcher, and all the other fun stuff that makes National League ball different than American League ball.

When people think of these struggling Yankees right now, they think of guys like Jason Giambi and Kevin Brown. Everyone knows Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield are going to play well, and that Randy Johnson is going to consistently start pitching like himself real soon. That is not what concerns Torre. What concerns Torre is that players he needs to rely on – like Giambi, Brown and Tom Gordon – have lost it. The Yankees do not bother to grab early leads anymore, and when they do, the bullpen screws everything up. These are not your Joe Torre Yankees.

The Torre era officially began in late 1996 with a simple principle – the starting pitcher just needs to pitch six innings, and if he leaves with the lead, the game is over. Mariano Rivera, Jeff Nelson, Graeme Lloyd - mostly Rivera - for the seventh and eighth, and John Wetteland in the ninth. Since then, it has not been that easy, but pretty close. Not now.

So because he cannot play little ball, and because he cannot rely on his bullpen, and because he is sick and tired of winning the World Series being a case of meeting expectations rather than exceeding them, I am going to continue checking ESPN.com for that breaking news headline on the top right hand corner of the screen.

“Torre Quits.”

Relax: It’s Still Early
If the 2005 Major League Baseball season ended today, the Baltimore Orioles would be hosting the Minnesota Twins in the American League Division Series and the Arizona Diamondbacks, one year removed from a 111-loss season, would be playing the Atlanta Braves in a one-game playoff to determine the National League wild card team. But for some really strange reason, the 2005 Major League Baseball season does not end today. It ends in October!

The cliché, “Baseball is a marathon and not a sprint,” is perhaps the truest one in all of sports, including “We just wanted it more today.” After a month of football, a quarter of the season is complete. After a month of basketball, for the most part, the best teams have the best records. The jostling later in the season is usually for the last few playoff spots. But in baseball, the first month represents less than a fifth of the season, and everything – from the weather conditions to the way the manager handles his starting pitchers’ workloads – is different than the rest of the year.

Brian Roberts, the tiny second baseman from the Baltimore Orioles, is on pace to hit 48 home runs and drive in 156 runs this year. Of course these are just rough estimates – I multiplied his eight homers and 26 RBI by six - for April, May, June, July, August and September – and came up with his obvious final 2005 stats. Roberts, who is by no means a bad player, is hitting like Gary Sheffield, who is hitting like Shea Hillenbrand, who is hitting like Joe DiMaggio. These out-of-character offensive beginnings do not mean 2005 is the year Major League Baseball changed forever, they just mean that they are offensive beginnings.

A batting average is a funny thing. A player who is 9-for-90 in April could easily go 40-for-90 in May, and all of a sudden a .100 hitter is a .272 hitter. Likewise, the 10-14 Yankees could become the 30-20 Yankees in one month’s time, once Randy Johnson’s left arm is warmer and Mike Mussina’s command returns from its winter hibernation. And would it be so shocking if John Patterson – he of the 4.51 career ERA – saw his 2005 ERA shoot up above 1.00 by the end of the season?

Last year, only two of the six teams that finished April in first place won their divisions. Kevin Brown was 4-0, and people were asking where the Yankees would be without him. Let us, for a moment, imagine that the same sort of stuff is going to happen in 2005. Here are some bold predictions, predicated on the idea that in all non-1994 baseball seasons, the regular season does not end until October:

- Mike Lowell will get his average up above .200 sometime before the end of the season.

- Roberts will have a good season, but will not break 60 home runs or 150 RBI.

- Sheffield will finish with more than two homers.

- Brett Myers of Philadelphia will not win the National League Cy Young Award.

- Carlos Guillen of Detroit will not become the first player since Ted Williams in 1941 to hit over .400.

- Danys Baez, the closer for Tampa Bay who is 3-0 this year, will not become the first closer in the history of baseball to win 20 games.

- Brandon Lyon, the by-default closer of the second-place D-backs, will not break the 60-save barrier.

There are some things that have really caught my eye early in the season:

- Alex Rodriguez is now “comfortable” in New York, and will break the 45-homer barrier and hit over .300 this year.

- Matt Morris of St. Louis is back, throwing with fluidity, velocity and command, and just might become an ace again.

- Kerry Wood will never be injury-free, and never win 15 games in a season his entire career.

- The Twins bullpen – with Juan Rincon, J.C. Romero, Jesse Crain and Joe Nathan – is like the not-so-long-ago Yankee bullpen of Ramiro Mendoza, Mike Stanton, Jeff Nelson and Mariano Rivera. Don’t laugh.

- The San Diego Padres have an ace with Cy Young stuff – Jacob Peavy. You knew that. What you may not have known is that despite up-and-down starts, their No. 2 through No. 4 starters – Brian Lawrence, Adam Eaton and Woody Williams – could help the team make a run at the postseason.