Paul Daugherty: Old-v-New schools of thought

One, two big schools
All the worlds are
Colliding all around you

I was going to write something today for SI.com re Votto. Specifically, that Votto represented one of the clearest cases of Old-v-New schools of thought, re hitting production. The idea was discussed when The Technician was sitting on 4 HR/20 BI. Now, he’s up to 7 and 22. Both #s are subpar for him and, in fact, for a No. 3 hitter. The obvious question being, can a guy who ranks 11th among NL 1Bs in BI be seen as having a typically good year?

Obviously, his new-school metrics are through the roof… OB, OPS, WAR, FBI, CIA, REM, DEA etc. He leads this world — and quite possibly, others — in walks. He’s top three last I checked, in runs.

Before he drove in 2 yesterday, he ranked 87th in MLB in that category. I’m not sure why, exactly, some savants consider RBI to be somewhat irrelevant these days. But, whatever.

The question remains, and it’s getting weaker every day: Do Votto’s new-age numbers so highly overshadow his old-school shortcomings as to make the SI piece irrelevant? I’m guessing you’ll say yes indeedy, OG.

Thumbs up or down?

* INTERESTING HOW SAVANTS also so easily dismiss BP as team MVP after six weeks. They live in the world of numbers. What number measures the runs he saves? The hits he takes away, practically nightly? The outs he creates? Is there a SABRE-fact for that?

What’s the number for his versatility as a hitter? We know he’s money in the clutch. There is a number for that. What about his ability to bat anywhere in the top six in the lineup? Would Choo be Choo if he had to hit cleanup? Maybe. We don’t know. He hasnt been asked. Phillips has. He has aaved this team’s rear, the way he has hit. He has us asking Ryan Who?

If you’re going to laud the ability of Choo and Votto to score runs and get on base, why no love for BP’s ability to drive them in? Votto’s had as many chances to drive in Choo as Phillips has. More, in fact, given that he hits ahead of Phillips. Doesnt BP’s RBI prowess make Votto and Choo look good, same as their ability to get aboard makes BP’s RBI total look impressive?

Riddle me that, Statman.

MLB: Don Sutton never shy about voicing his opinion

Sutton: Because that’s where the defaced money is.

The outspoken Sutton—who came up with the Dodgers in 1966 and pitched with them for 16 of his 23 seasons—has his own opinion about everything.

He said in an interview last week that he hates pitch counts.

“I say it with a laugh in my voice when I broadcast: ‘That’s 100 pitches. On the next one, he’s going to turn into a troll.’ At 101, you just disappear. Poof, you’re gone,” Sutton said.

...MLB.com: Did you cheat?

Sutton: No, I never got caught cheating.

MLB.com: About the Hall of Fame vote, what do you think about it as we move forward? Do you think that after a period of time some of these guys [who played in the “Steroid Era”] should get in? Or if you played in that era, it’s going to be hard to get in.

Sutton: I think it’s going to be hard to get in. I think you’re going to be hit with fallout and I think you’re going to be guilty by association. It’s going to be interesting to see the opinion of some of your younger peers, who have not been so actively involved in it, how their opinion changes. But when you get down to it, what I think is irrelevant. It’s like talking about clouds. I can do nothing to influence.

Fox Sports: McLouth catch earns thrown beverage

What a waste of damn fine Canadian beer.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, McLouth chased down a fly ball towards the left-field foul line off the bat of Cobly Rasmus. McLouth caught the ball, but his momentum carried him into the stands.

After disappearing into the (not-so filled) seats, an uninjured McLouth stood up and showed umpire Manny Gonzalez that the ball was still in his glove. Some Toronto fans claimed the nine-year veteran didn’t hold onto the ball, but Gonzalez ruled it an out.

Then things turned ugly — and embarrassing to real baseball fans — as someone in the second deck of the Rogers Centre threw a beverage at McLouth. Fortunately for McLouth, and the idiot in the second deck, the drink missed.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-24-2013

Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 24, 1913:

Excessive use of the spitball has injured Ed Walsh’s digestion and has thus affected his condition, so that he has not yet reached his best form of this year, according to Dr. James H. Blair, club physician of the Chicago Americans, in a report made today on the pitcher’s condition.
...
According to the doctor saliva needed for Walsh’s digestion has been used on the ball, but with care the pitcher may be in his old time form in a month.

Obviously the problem is misdirected saliva and not the 65 complete games and 761 innings Walsh threw in 1911-12. Walsh hung on until 1917, but was never fully healthy and was used extremely sparingly.

HHS: Autin: Miguel Cabrera to the max

Baseball Fates, please note (please?): I’m just playing around here! None of these things will actually come to pass; it’s just a way of expressing how hot he’s been so far.

Miguel Cabrera finished Thursday’s game #45 with a .391 BA, .701 slugging, 1.168 OPS, 14 HRs, 55 RBI, 39 Runs, 72 hits, 129 total bases, and an OPS+ well north of 200.

The projection multiplier from 45 to 162 is 3.6, so….

  Heads up, Hack? Bourn’s gift to Miggy (plus Thursday’s daily dinger) put him on a pace of 202 RBI.
  You, too, Babe? Cabrera’s on pace for 464 Total Bases. Ruth’s 1921 record is 457.
  The last qualified season of .680+ slugging: Bonds, 2004. Same goes for OPS of 1.120 or better or OPS+ of 200 or more.
  Last with 250+ hits: Ichiro, 2004, record 262 hits. Cabrera’s pace is 259 hits, which would be #2.
  Last with .380+ BA: Gwynn, 1994. Last in a full season: Brett, 1980. But Brett also played just 117 games that year. The last to hit .380 with 500+ ABs: Carew, 1977.
  Besides Ruth ’21, the only guy with 450+ Total Bases was Hornsby, 1922 (450 even). Last with 400+ Total Bases: Sosa, 2001.
  Cabrera’s batting .391 with a 50-HR pace. No one ever has batted .380+ with 45+ HRs. The most HRs with a .380+ BA is 42 by Hornsby ’22 (.402 BA). The highest BA with 45+ HRs is .378, by Ruth in ’21 (59 HRs) and in ’24 (46 HRs); Ruth is also #3 (.376, 54 HRs in 1920), and tied for #4 (.373, 46 HRs in ’31) along with Gehrig (.373, 47 HRs in ’27).

Cabrera over Detroit’s last 162 regular-season games (161 G for Cabrera):

  .355 BA, 1.092 OPS, 50 HRs, 159 RBI, 125 Runs, 222 Hits, 419 Total Bases, 97 strikeouts.

Thanks to Carlos.

Fay Vincent: THE UMPIRE FIX

TONY RANDAZZO NO MISTER ROCK AND ROLL, MR. COMMISSIONER.

Major League Baseball should immediately adopt reforms to the umpiring system. MLB is now a $7 billion dollar industry awash in cash so the costs of these changes can hardly be the reason to defer making them.

  1. MLB should buy the umpire schools and take over the training and development of all umpires in professional baseball. The recruitment, training and compensation of minor league and major league umpires should be controlled by the commissioner and modern personnel programs instituted to insure proper professional development.
  2. Minor league umpires as employees of MLB should be offered the opportunity to become members of the same union as major league umpires to insure all of them are properly represented and protected by Federal law.
  3. The use of technology to improve the accuracy of on field decisions should continue to be explored with the full involvement of the umpires. Additional use of replays should be carefully adopted with careful attention to the risks of further delays in the games.

Over the years the umpires have been the victims of benign neglect as generations of owners and commissioners were content to focus on what they believed were the more important economic and unions issues facing the game. Now, however, there is time and ample money sloshing throughout baseball to warrant the kind of broad changes I am suggesting.

For that reason and because reforms are so obviously warranted I believe the baseball leadership under Commissioner Selig will take the action all of us close to the game have believed is so long overdue. The game will be better as the umpiring improves.

And finally, moving the umpiring profession into the modern era of personnel and management development will surely result in more and better qualified young men – and women – deciding to join the profession. The reform makes so much sense it has to happen and soon.

Tangotiger Blog: Ensberg and Tango speak on being locked-in

“locked-in” with Tom Tango and Morgan Ensberg!...(also check out Kevin Goldstein’s FB page which has been having a terrific back/forth)

Below you will find an unedited transcript of an email correspondance between myself and Morgan Ensberg.  This exchange is a result of Ensberg taking a position with Brandon McCarthy on Twitter, and seemingly against me.  As this thread will show, we don’t really disagree on anything, once we were able to say more than 140 characters to each other.

As long-time readers of this blog know, Morgan is quite receptive to the kind of work and research that we produce.  He is also an extremely respectful person, and it’s a real pleasure to interact with him. ​  And the correspondance below is typical of how Morgan presents himself.  I am grateful that he was kind enough to have this exchange.

...To put it plainly, if you have Ryan Braun with 3 HR in 3 PA and you have Miguel Cabrera with 3 SO in 3 PA, then what we will expect to happen on the 4th PA is EXACTLY what their historical record would suggest: equal greatness.  We do not expect Braun to suddenly be like Barry Bonds, and we do not expect Cabrera to now be John MacDonald.

And your example of yourself is perfect: you were locked-in for 8 games, but you only acknowledge this after the event occurs.  And even if you felt the same way on game #9, outcomes didn’t follow you.  And it didn’t follow you for the next 8 games.  And that’s because these feelings are so transient that it becomes irrelevant in terms of it being actionable.

Tom

  Yes. I agree. But I think everyone would agree with that.

  Morgan

  I think I have to be clearer in my belief. Locked-in is being in the zone. It is real. But unpredictable in future events.

  Morgan

OMNICHATTER for May 24, 2013

Remember folks, it’s Miguel Cabrera’s world, we just live in it. Except for when it’s Mike Trout’s.

Five Notes On the Ridiculous Pablo Sandoval

A teaser:

I can’t … It’s just … that is so beautiful and hilarious. Again, that’s batting-average against from the catcher’s perspective, so picture a lefty-swinging Sandoval with his back to you over on the right side of your screen. The place you go in the strike zone is in on his hands but, for goodness sake, don’t go too far in! If you miss outside the zone and come close to hitting him, he kind of rakes those pitches. Which doesn’t make sense. But, hey, neither does Sandoval.

Richie Ashburn’s Widow in Tears Over His Endangered Gladwyne Grave

It has been nearly 16 years since Philadelphia lost Richie Ashburn, one of the greatest Phillies players of all time. The beloved Hall of Famer, who played for the team from 1948 through 1959, died of a heart attack in 1997 after broadcasting a Phillies-Mets game from Shea Stadium. His family buried him in the cemetery outside of Gladwyne Methodist Church, where all was quiet until some developers announced plans to turn the church into condos and put a parking lot next to the cemetery. Ashburn’s widow, Herberta, is calling foul.

Dig him up hand him a mitt and sit Ben Revere, I say.

FanGraphs: Cameron: The 2013 Cubs: Better Than We Think

Light at the end of the ridiculously low-ceilinged tunnel.

The Cubs have actually played pretty good baseball when sequencing is not considered. By wOBA differential, they’ve been a well above average team. Their record is almost entirely a reflection of the power of the timing of various events.

In our Win Probability section, we track a stat called “Clutch”, which basically looks at the wins a team has gained or lost due to the leverage of the game when their positive or negative events occurred. The Cubs are 28th in clutch hitting and 30th in clutch pitching. When you combine their clutch scores from both sides of the ball, you can see just how far removed they are from the rest of the teams in baseball in season-to-date “clutch” performance.

At -4.3 clutch wins, no one is even close to the Cubs in terms of underperformance by leverage. It’s not even just that they haven’t converted hits into runs, but that when they’ve scored those runs, they haven’t occurred at the right time to translate into wins.

So, as we approach Memorial Day, the Cubs stand at 18-27, and even if we just did a basic pythagorean adjustment to account for their run differential, we’d only upgrade that “expected” record to 22-23. But, when you look at the full accounting of all of their plays, the Cubs context neutral performance suggests something more like a 24-21 record. And that’s with Matt Garza spending basically the entire season on the DL.

The Cubs are in a ridiculously difficult division, and this isn’t their year to try and make a run for it, but the pieces that the team added over the off-season have made them a competitive team. Even if they end up selling off veterans for prospects at the trade deadline, don’t be surprised if the Cubs start winning more games over the next four months of the season. Based on their first 45 games, there are reasons to believe that this team is actually decent.

The night Ted Turner managed the Braves

Maybe Magic Johnson would like to try his hand in the Dodgers dugout?

Ted Turner was the “Mouth of the South,” “Terrible Ted” and “Captain Outrageous,” a brash, outspoken business mogul who had a golden touch.

He launched the first successful cable news network with CNN, sailed to victory in the America’s Cup and used his cable empire to turn his Atlanta Braves into “America’s Team.”

But 36 years ago this month, Turner discovered there was one thing he couldn’t do: manage his own baseball team.

USA Today: This college baseball team is the best at postgame interviews

Justin Turner, take notes.

Mariners sending Jesus Montero to Triple-A

Amen amen there’s a lower power.

Bold move in Seattle, as the Mariners are optioning catcher Jesus Montero to Triple-A Tacoma, reports Ryan Divish of the Tacoma News-Tribune.

Montero, whom the M’s acquired from the Yankees as part of the Michael Pineda deal, was ranked by Baseball America as the sixth-best overall prospect coming into 2012. This season, however, Montero has authored a grim batting line of .208/.264/.327 in addition to playing spotty defense in his 225 1/3 innings behind the plate.

Last season, Montero showed promise by putting up a passable 95 OPS+ and making strides in the second half. In 2013, though, he’s obviously failed to maintain those gains. Montero’s still just 23 years of age, so there’s plenty of time to right himself. Consider this a bold step in that direction.

Also worth noting is that Mike Zunino, the Mariners’ top prospect, is the regular catcher at Tacoma right now, and he already has a backup in place.

Demystifying Red Sox Ownership - What Do They Do? (WEEI)

“I have [former Red Sox CEO] John Harrington’s old office. The day he turned over the reins, he was sitting at the desk and handed me his pen with a warm smile,” Henry wrote in an email.“I still have it. Red ink. I work more of my hours though in my home offices in Florida and in Brookline. But there is nothing like driving into Fenway Park to go to work. I am thankful every day that I get to do that. It’s one big reason why these rumors of a potential sale of the Red Sox are so laughable.At the risk of a double negative, I don’t know of anyone, personally, who works for the Red Sox that doesn’t feel extraordinarily blessed to be working there.”

At an operational level, one can characterize six different levels of decisions in the organization, some of which require ownership input, some of which do not.

...

Fourth level: A decision on which the owners’ opinions will be sought at the outset before moving forward. For instance, ticket pricing decisions necessarily will involve ownership feedback at the outset (rather than a rubber stamp) before moving forward.

Fifth level: Collaboration and involvement from the outset. The trade between the Red Sox and Dodgers last August represented a notable and significant demonstration of such a case. The conversation started between Dodgers president Stan Kasten and his Red Sox peer, Lucchino. From the outset, and throughout the entirety of the deal, it necessarily involved not only the entire baseball operations department but also the full attention of the ownership group.

Sixth level: Ownership suggest or initiates a program for the club and the front office executes it. Often times, these ownership-directed programs (in the case of the Red Sox) will relate to charitable undertakings, such as Werner’s Run to Home Base. The instances of ownership-mandated baseball operations decisions are virtually non-existent. Indeed, the instances of owner fiat are virtually non-existent, in part because of the philosophical commitment on the part of the organization to collaboration and consensus-building.

Leyland breaks his own rule, lets Verlander get win after delay

Must…let…him…tie…Bob…Purkey…in…career…wins…at…all…cost…...

Wednesday, though, Leyland got a little sentimental. After a 65-minute stoppage in the fifth inning, he let Justin Verlander go back into the game and get the two outs he needed to pick up the victory.

“Since I got here in 2006, that guy has been our horse, and tonight was a reward for that,” Leyland told FOX Sports Detroit’s Shannon Hogan after Detroit’s 11-7 win over the Indians. “I stretched it for five minutes because of what he’s done for us. I wouldn’t have gone 15 or 20 minutes, but I gave him five. Thank heavens it worked out.”

The decision wasn’t as easy as it sounds. While Verlander is considered one of the best starters in baseball, he’s been in a rare slump. He came into the game coming off two bad losses — allowing 11 runs in 7 2/3 innings — and was struggling again against Cleveland. He allowed single runs in each of the first two innings, then gave up a two-run homer to Carlos Santana just before the delay.

Leyland, though, thought he understood the problem.

“I think I’m right on this one,” he said. “He was a little jittery in the first couple innings after what’s happened to him, and then he got into a great rhythm in the third and fourth. In the fifth, he was trying to beat the Indians and trying to beat the rain and beat the umpires and get everything done before they pulled the tarp. He just started rushing everything and they got him.”

...Verlander used his best skills of persuasion to get the last two outs, and may have even resorted to simple bribery.

“I was lobbying him, but when it got to be close to an hour, I knew I was running out of time,” he said. “I might owe him a sleeve of golf balls. Or a dozen golf balls. Maybe a case of golf balls.”

Mets’ Ike Davis On Struggles: ‘I Can’t Do Any Worse’

IKEA: Join our free loyalty program!

Despite growing calls for his demotion, Davis won’t be sent down to Triple-A before Friday’s series opener against the Braves, according to the New York Daily News.

“Maybe after the weekend,” a source told the paper.

It’s been a frustrating season for Davis, batting .147 with nine RBIs after getting off to a miserable start last year, too.

“I know I’m going to play better, especially hitting-wise. I can’t do any worse,” he said. “If my teammates weren’t behind me, it’d be the worst thing in the world.”

Fans are losing patience, and plays like Wednesday’s killer in the ninth won’t do much to help his cause.

...Davis has one hit in his last 38 at-bats after going 0 for 2 with two walks Wednesday. He flied out to the center-field warning track to end the sixth, leaving him hitless in his last 25 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

“He feels absolutely great this year and had a great spring,” manager Terry Collins said. “So this is baffling to everybody. We base what we’re doing on the fact that we’re looking down the road, we’re trying to look at the big picture here, and we’ve got to get this guy going, because we’ve got to figure out, where is he going to fit?”

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 5-23-2013

Milwaukee Journal, May 23, 1913:

Big Ed Walsh, twirling star of the White Sox, announced today that he has joined the faculty of a correspondence school and hereafter must be addressed as “Professor”. For a paper dollar Walsh will send out to aspirants for fame six lessons on the science of moistening the ball and putting it where the batter’s bat isn’t. Walsh starts his classes Monday.

This is not something that strikes me as a useful service. Nonetheless, I’d love to be able to read Walsh’s lessons.

FanGraphs: Sullivan: Vance Worley and Losing the Magic

Mescaline Mike, to me at the bar. “If you want a real sleeper for your fantasy team this year…think Vance Worley.” #mind-fogging

Vance Worley just got clobbered again, this time by the Braves. There’s no set and certain point at which a start turns into an official clobbering, but looking through Worley’s 2013 game log, I’d say this was the fifth or sixth time he’s been clobbered, in ten games. That’s an ugly ratio, and to make matters worse, recall that Worley was Minnesota’s opening-day starter. The Twins’ de facto ace owns an ERA over 7, with 82 hits allowed in just under 49 innings. His strikeouts are way down and on Wednesday he was chased by a double that followed an Evan Gattis grand slam. Two seasons ago, Worley finished third in the voting for the National League Rookie of the Year.

...There’ve been more swings at strikes, and since Worley throws hittable strikes, there’s been more contact and therefore more hits, at the expense of some strikeouts.

I don’t think this is Worley’s problem on its own. I think this is a symptom, indicative of a bigger problem. Worley’s command, perhaps, is worse than it was. Worley’s catchers, perhaps, aren’t setting up so much on the edges. Or Worley’s act, perhaps, has simply been adjusted to. I don’t know if it’s fair to suggest the league has adjusted to Worley, since he just switched from the NL to the AL, but if a guy relies on deception, then somewhat intuitively it makes sense he could be figured out. Yet Worley’s called strike ability didn’t change between 2011 and 2012, so. It would be weird for an adjustment to happen suddenly, instead of gradually. And as easy as it would be to pin this on Worley ending up in the AL, look at McCarthy up there, and remember that he just made the opposite switch. This, probably, is a complicated issue.

But it ought to be a high priority for the Twins and Worley to figure it out. When Worley’s been at his best, hitters have been caught in between. So far this year, hitters have been a lot more willing to swing, presumably getting better reads of the baseball, and Worley allows far too much contact for that to be a positive. Worley’s strength was throwing strikes that didn’t look to the hitters like strikes. Now they’re looking like strikes. Now they might just be looking like meatballs.

Daugherty: Brandon Phillips has been Reds’ MVP so far

Ow. Ow. Ow. Mouthbreathers/Mindbreathers now on full tilt boogie replay. (better now)

In some ways, we take Phillips for granted. Especially his glove. I’ve watched the Reds actively since I arrived here in ’88. Bret Boone was good. Pokey Reese could be spectacular, but not always steady. No one has been in BP’s universe. (Nor in the league. How he has only 3 Gold Gloves is a black hole mystery. Darwin Barney: Hahaha.)

But his offense is the MV reason he is his team’s best player now, and was last season. He’s not a cleanup hitter, but he leads the NL in RBI. Phillips has been the Reds MIP — Most Important — for several years, if only because he has been bounced around the lineup like a lottery ball, and has succeeded in every spot. And, of course, his glove has saved a lot of runs.

Peers have been turned off by his personality which, as my son might say, sucks for them. Baseball’s antiquated notions of conduct need to step aside, to make room for a player who actually smiles a lot. Phillips isn’t Showing People Up, OK? He’s enjoying himself. I’ve written this several thousand times, for what seems like a decade. MLB needs more players like DatDude, not more guys stuck with the behavioral conventions of 1950.

Jay Bruce is whacking the ball now. Joey Votto is hitting lots of singles. Choo has been more than the answer at leadoff. Phillips has been better than all of them. If the season ended tomorrow, he’s the Reds MVP.

Comes this analysis of BP, from ESPN. The author basically says BP should lead the league in BI, given he has Choo and Votto getting on base ahead of him. Well, duh.

Don Mattingly rips into players and makeup of Dodgers

Hitting Is Simple (and so is the manager).

Manager Don Mattingly benched Andre Ethier for the Dodgers’ series finale at Miller Park on Wednesday, saying he did so because he wanted to field a lineup “that’s going to fight and compete the whole day.”

Asked if he was trying to send a message to Ethier, Mattingly replied, “We’re last place in the National League West. Last year, at this point, we’re playing a lineup that basically has nobody in it, that fights and competes and battles you every day for every inch of the field. We talk about it as an organization. We’ve got to find the club with talent that will fight and compete like the club that doesn’t have that talent. If there’s going to be a message sent, it’s going to be over a period of time.”

Mattingly wouldn’t say if Ethier is now a part-time player.

“For me, today, I’m putting out my lineup that I feel is going to be the most competitive and going to compete the hardest,” he said.

Asked if Ethier is no longer a player he automatically writes into the lineup every day, Mattingly said, “Well, he wasn’t today.”

Does Mattingly think Ethier won’t fight?

“I can’t really say that,” he said. “I don’t really want to say that, but we’ve got to compete.”

Asked if he was dissatisfied with Ethier’s toughness and mental approach, Mattingly said, “I want to put a club out there that I think for the long range that you can trust, that’s going to fight and compete the whole day.”

Astros vendor brings snow cones into bathroom stall, gets fired

Astros snow cone vendor just doesn’t give a crap.

OMNICHATTER for MAY 23, 2013

Only five games today? Yeesh. Well, Kevin Gausman gets his MLB debut. Or, since he went to LSU, I guess it is his debeaux.

Mitchell: Pedroia, Cano and Magical Thinking

Pedroiadolia: The psychological phenomenon of seeing wacko images on dirty uniforms.

The narratives around the two players, however, could not be different. Pedroia is almost the prototype of the over-achieving “scrappy” player. He is a 5’8” middle infielder who does the little things well. This ignores that he was also a second round draft choice who played baseball at a top baseball school. Cano, on the other hand is bigger, more athletic and does not project scrappiness at all. Throughout his career Cano has been criticized for his playing style and even called lazy. It is disappointing that these epithets are still used against talented, and hard-working Latino players like Cano, but that has been part of the Cano narrative for years.

Cano’s intangibles are almost never mentioned, but an argument can, and probably should, be made for them. Cano handled a starting job in New York during a rough time for his team gracefully and smoothly. He has also transitioned from being a supporting player on a team of stars, to being the best player on an old team last year, and on a team of castoffs this year. There are many reasons why the Yankees are surprising so many people this year, but Cano has been a big part of that, hitting .290 while leading the league in home runs. Cano also starred on a Dominican team that, under a fair amount of pressure to succeed, completely dominated the recently concluded World Baseball Classic.

Pedroia and Cano are both excellent players, but the debate over who is better should not be settled by imaginary, unprovable or tautological concepts like intangibles. If, however, analysts and journalists want to go that way, Cano should get his due. Derek Jeter’s numbers and consistency make him one of the greatest players ever. Overhyping leadership and other characteristics have at times overshadowed that and made Jeter hated in many quarters outside New York. It would be unfortunate to see a similar thing happen to Pedroia as well.

Chase Utley ‘scared’ by injury, could be headed to DL

“I scare myself
and I don’t mean lightly
I scare myself
it can get frightenin’”

Chase Utley swung for the first time in batting practice Tuesday and it did not feel right. He took a second hack, then another, and one more. That is when he went to Charlie Manuel and told him his right side hurt.

“It definitely scared me a little bit,” Utley said Wednesday.

Depending on what an MRI examination Thursday in Philadelphia shows, the Phillies could be without their second baseman and top offensive performer for the foreseeable future. Utley and team officials would not speculate on whether his rib cage injury will require a stint on the disabled list, but they all prepared for that reality.

Utley consulted with teammates, past and present, who suffered similar injuries. Their advice was consistent.

“The main thing they said was, ‘Don’t rush back,’” Utley said. “That’s when you can make it worse and prolong the time you’re out.”

...Utley said he has never suffered an injury to his midsection like this, so he had nothing to compare. He said he felt about the same Wednesday as he did Tuesday. He was glad he did not attempt to play through the injury, something he may have tried in the past.

“I think it was a smart thing to do,” Utley said of informing Manuel. “You want to be careful with these things because they could linger and get worse if you try to play through it. I think we caught it early enough but it’s hard to know until we have some imaging on it.”