Baseball DIY

Sometimes bad things happen to good baseball players.

Fans around the St. Louis area have known this for years. In 2000, Cardinals catcher Mike Matheny severely cut his hand opening a hunting knife that he received as a gift, ending his season and keeping him out of the playoffs. On at least one occasion, J.D. Drew hurt himself on the dugout steps during his tenure in St. Louis. The 1985 Cardinals were without the services of speedster Vince Coleman in the World Series thanks to an unfortunate run-in with an automatic tarp machine. And though this may not count as an honest-to-goodness injury, Cardinals hurler Flint Rhem missed time during the 1930 pennant race because, he alleged, gamblers kidnapped him and forced him to drink bootleg whiskey for two days.

Now the St. Louis Unions have been dealt their first dumb-luck injury, and it couldn’t have happened to a better ballplayer. Private Matt “Scoops” Lurk, 2005 recipient of the Unions’ Silver Striker Award and superlative shortstop, was unintentionally struck on the right hand by an aluminum bat-wielding youngster at a batting cage on March 18. The blow chipped a bone below the knuckle of his little finger.

Lurk is expected to be out of action for four to six weeks, which puts him on schedule to return on May 6 against the Murphysboro Clarkes. A platoon of Corporal Eric “Buttermilk” Ferguson and others will hold down the fort at short until Scoops’ return. How the Unions will compensate for the lack of his offensive skills remains to be seen.

Though the injury could have been worse, in terms of both damage done and time missed, it serves as a reminder of the necessity of proper safety measures in baseball. The St. Louis Unions remind all baseball players to use the proper caution and common sense whenever they handle a bat, whether it be wooden or (if absolutely necessary) aluminum.

A career American League pitcher except for 10 starts with the San Francisco Giants in 2003, (new Cardinals pitcher Sidney) Ponson admitted Monday that he had never slid into a base.

In the same article: Could the Cardinals be trying to swing a deal for Alfonso Soriano? They play the Nats today ...

You know a baseball story's big when it makes NPR's Talk of the Nation. Such is the case with Alfonso Soriano's refusal to move to the outfield for his new team, the Washington Nationals.

I'm not here to weigh in on who's right in that little squabble (although I lean more toward Soriano's side than the Nats', mainly because the Nationals should have made sure he'd switch positions before they traded for him). Rather, I want to take a minute to explore a tangent of this issue: Alfonso Soriano's level of play as a defensive second baseman.

The consensus seems to be that a kitten wearing a satellite dish on its head would do as well at second as Soriano does. The main support for this theory is that Soriano commits a lot of errors, which is true (though the matter of how important a subjective metric like Errors really is merits its own discussion).

Soriano committed 21 errors last season, the most of by a major-league second baseman (Yankees rookie Robinson Cano was next with 17, followed by veterans Jeff Kent and Craig Biggio with 16 each). In fact, Soriano has "led" major-league second basemen in errors every year since 2001, his first full season in the bigs. But does he lead them by an egregious amount? Not really. The biggest margin of difference between Soriano and the second baseman with the second-most errors is 7 in 2004, when Soriano was charged with 23 errors to Ray Durham's 16. Soriano, though, bettered Durham in Range Factor and Zone Rating, while also collecting 176 more Total Chances than Durham.

What usually goes unsaid when discussing Soriano's defense is that Errors is not the only stat in which Soriano ranks highly. Here are Soriano's 2005 AL rankings (among players who played >100 games at second base): first in Total Chances, Double Plays and Assists; second in Putouts; fourth in Range Factor; and, yes, dead last in Zone Rating (however, had he played in the National League, he would have finished ahead of Ray Durham, Marcus Giles, and Craig Biggio).

It is not my contention that Soriano is a great fielder. He's not. But he's also not the defensive Gigli that people say he is. There's a big difference between being the majors' worst defensive second baseman and being the one that commits the most errors.

If you really want to pick on him for something, check out his 2005 OBP and home/away splits.

Around this time last year, I used this space to declare that I would not play fantasy baseball anymore. “It values the wrong stats,” I said. “It’s just a bunch of numbers thrown together, it’s not a real representation of how runs are scored. And what about defense? Fantasy baseball completely ignores fielding!”

All of which are true statements. And I proceeded to play fantasy baseball anyway, just as I will this year. In fact, you can see my team here.

You see, fantasy baseball does have its drawbacks. Traditional rotisserie scoring includes batting average and stolen bases, while I wish it took on-base plus slugging (OPS) and some form of fielding metric into account. But, you know, so what. It’s just a game, and holding its limitations against it is kind of like saying you won’t play Operation because the patient isn’t anatomically correct.

Here’s what fantasy baseball does for you: It gives you an excuse to read the box scores everyday. Do you know who Grady Sizemore is? How about Joe Blanton? Any idea how many home runs Jason Bay hit last year? I’ve become more familiar with all of these guys in the last month just preparing for my draft. It was a lot of fun ranking players at every position, discovering guys who, though they might not be on a great team, have the skills to become great players.

And if you start your own fantasy league, you can customize the stats any way you want. Many sites even give you the ability to weight the stats you use; if you, like me, think that runs are more valuable than RBIs, you can score accordingly.

Don’t get me wrong: The Cardinals are still my team of choice. But the players that comprise Appetite for Destruction (you know it’s the best name you’ve ever heard, admit it) will also be on my radar for the entire season, as will any other player in the majors who could maybe pump up my steals or whittle down my WHIP.

Simply put, fantasy baseball can make your dreams of total baseball immersion a reality.

Now that teams are in camp and the "Boy, that Manny sure is goofy" jokes are flying again, it seems like a good time to remind everyone of the finer points of fantasy baseball etiquette and common sense.

Do: Invite your “casual fan” friend to join your league because you think it would increase his enjoyment of the game.
Don’t: Invite your “casual fan” friend to join your league because he’s easy money.

Do: Name your team something like “Kneel Before Zod.”
Don’t: Name your team something like “You Had Me at Hello.”

Do: Pick a player because he’s your favorite.
Don’t: Pick a player because he’s his momma’s favorite.

Do: Call in sick on draft day.
Don’t: Call your boss in the middle of the sixth round and ask, “Chad Cordero: Fluke or find?”

Do: Expect to spend morning, noon and night thinking about your fantasy team.
Don't: Expect anyone else to care about your fantasy team. At all. Seriously.

One of the advantages of having a day off during the week is the feeling that you are playing hooky while everyone else is at work.

Case in point: ESPN broadcast the Braves/Dodgers game this afternoon, the first spring training game I'd seen this year. My feelings for both of those teams border on contempt, but it thrilled me to see any teams playing; I've never been so happy to see J.D. Drew. After a couple of innings of a nondescript 4-0 matchup, though, I got the itch.

I needed to take some swings.

So I grabbed the box of balls that I have on hand for just such an occasion and hopped in the car. Less than 90 seconds later, I arrived at the little league field that figured prominently in the first issue of Baseball DIY (hey, remember that magazine?).

The temperature probably hovered around 53 or so, but the sun shone and clouds were nowhere to be found. Good enough for me. For the next half-hour or so, I took some latchkey-kid batting practice, which is about 10% hitting and 90% shagging your own balls. Hey, it beats PlayStation anyday.

The outfield eventually gives way to a graveyard, but I never succeeded in hitting one that far. I estimate that to hit a tombstone you'd have to drive one about 300 feet or so, and I don't think I could do that even if someone pitched to me. It's something to shoot for, though.

Satisfied with my work for the day, I gathered up my baseballs and headed back home. Now I'm ready to concentrate on my fantasy baseball rankings.