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Thursday, May 15, 2008
Portfolio: Jelveh: Baseball Ex-Steroids
Always good to hear from Steve Phillips...who’s looking more and more like John Slattery every noisy day.
Former New York Mets G.M. and current ESPN on-air talent Steve Phillips has a new theory: Thanks to the Mitchell report, drug testing, and overall increased scrutiny, the steroids era is over and teams that play small-ball can thrive.
On the Mike and Mike Show yesterday, Phillips said “at the current pace we’re on this season, Major League Baseball would be down over a thousand home runs in 2008 compared to the 2006 season.” (emphasis mine)
He also points to the success of teams like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (middle of the pack in home runs, last in doubles, near the top in steals) as evidence that clubs not reliant on power can now succeed.
But remember, Phillips is the guy who thought the Mets could get back to the World Series in 2001 with Ray Ordonez and Todd Zeile in the starting lineup. (Todd Zeile!!!) So let’s take a look at some other numbers.
...Taken together, it appears that Phillips is about as great a statistician as he was a general manager.
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HR/PA
Year Mar/Apr/May RestOfSeason
2008 2.32%
2007 2.46% 2.71%
2006 2.88% 2.85%
2005 2.58% 2.75%
2004 2.76% 2.95%
Phillips might have a point, however. The April/May HR/PA rate was relatively low in 2007, and the Rest-Of-Season HR/PA rate was relatively low as well. That season ended with 4,957 HR, the first time since 1997 that there were fewer than 5,000 HR. And 2008 is already behind that pace.
I don't know if testing has made a difference, but the 2007 HR rates were low relative to recent history, and it wasn't just an April/May thing. If last year's June-Sep rate repeats this year, there will be roughly 500 fewer HR in 2008 than there were in 2006. So maybe Steve Phillips is half right.
I agree with the point that Phillips shouldn't be projecting April/May rates through the rest of the year, and that he shouldn't try to guess at what is causing the "effects" he sees in those projections. But there could be some merit to the argument that there has been a drop in HR rate that we should expect to persist.
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