It May Be Heresy, But I Blame Sabermetrics for the Detroit Tigers Collapse

As I may have mentioned before, when I was a young student, I desperately wanted to be a sabermetrician ... someone who analyzed baseball statistics for a living. Of course, back then, there really weren't many of these roles (this was before "Moneyball" came out). To be sure, my interest in *watching* baseball has waned (it trails basketball and football, easily); but my love of the numbers, and my love of research of those numbers is still unparalleled.

I was driving home from Erie, Pa., last Sunday, and had the Red Sox-Tigers game on. Detroit had won the opener. 1-0, behind masterful pitching (something the Tigers had an abundance of this past year). Shutting out the Red Sox was no small task; they were the most proficient offensive team in baseball this year.

So, this was Game 2 ... in Boston ... Detroit leading 5-1 in the 8th inning, and sitting smugly. They were going to be heading back to Detroit up 2 games to none, and -- pretty much -- a sure thing for the World Series.

I think everyone knows what happened then. Leyland (the manager of the Tigers) pulled his starter, Max Scherzer, the odds-on favorite for the Cy Young Award, who had -- through 7 innings -- allowed *2* hits, 1 run and 13 strikeouts. Why was he pulled? He'd thrown 108 pitches.

The agony played out like this:

Jose Veras was brought in to pitch. After getting the first batter out, the next batter doubled.
Doug Smyly was brought in to pitch. He walked the only batter he faced.
Al Alberquerque was brought in to pitch. He struck out the first batter, and the next batter singled, loading the bases.

In 2/3 of an inning, the Detroit bullpen had let nearly as many runners reach base as Scherzer had all game.

The next pitcher -- the *fourth* pitching change of the inning -- was Joaquin Benoit, and, on his first pitch, David Ortiz hit a grand slam homerun, tying up the game (with the Red Sox winning in the 9th). It completely changed the dynamic of the series, and although Detroit grabbed on more win, they succumbed in 6 games.

So, why do I blame sabermetrics?

There was a movement, somewhere around the 1990s, where number-crunchers decided, beyond anything else, "pitch count" was the most important thing for a pitcher. So, although Scherzer was pitching a fantastic game, he'd pitched 100+ pitches. Whether the fear was that he'd lose his stuff or that he'd hurt himself, the logic was to pull him out.

I won't address the second concern here; but let's look at the first concern. He was pitching a magnificent game! And, four pitching changes later, the absolute worst case scenario had unfolded. Even if Scherzer had imploded, it couldn't have been worse than the actual reality that did occur.

This isn't new this year. Detroit had a great pitching staff ... well, starters, anyway. Third best WHIP and ERA in the league, the *best* SO/BB ratio. But the starters hid the relievers effectively.

In terms of WHIP -- just the starters alone would've been tops in the league. The relievers would've been 13th.
In terms of ERA -- again, the starters would've ranked first; relievers, 11th.
In terms of SO/BB ratio -- starters first; relievers 8th.

So, the point is, no one should've been surprised that the relievers got beat up, once the starter came out of the game.

Then, I decided to prod a little more. I sketched out the number of times pitchers pitched 250+ innings for the past 66 years (basically, back to 1945, removing the strike years of 1981, 1994 and 1995). And then, I decided to analyze these two groups -- breaking them (conveniently) into the 1945-1989 group (a total of 44 playing years) versus the 1990-present (a total of 22 years). Here's what I found:

1945-1989: 675 different occurrences
1990-present: 42

So, although 1945-1989 had only double the playing years, it had 16 TIMES the number of occurrences. This goes along with the increase of pitchers on the roster (from around 13-14 in the 1940s and 1950s, to around 15-16 in the 1970s, to 22-23 today).

But, surely, there's a reason for this -- lower innings must be resulting in far more dominating pitching, right? So, let's take a closer look.

The average age of the qualifying pitcher in the first group was 28.6; in the second group, it was 29.5, so the pitchers were roughly the same age. Here's a breakdown of the relevant statistics:

W/L - roughly the same, 18-12 for the first group, 18-10 for the second. They started the same number of games (36 for the first group, 35 for the second). The big change came in terms of complete games (16 average for the first group, 8 for the second), and -- on average -- the first group faced about 80 batters more each year.

Now, the nitty-gritty stuff:

1945-1989
ERA: 3.08
WHIP: 1.192
HR/9: 0.7
K/9: 5.6
K/BB: 2.1

1990-Present
ERA: 3.02
WHIP: 1.138
HR/9: 0.74
K/9: 7.7
K/BB: 3.29

Aside from the increased strikeouts (which can be attributed, in part, to the increased focus on "all or nothing" swinging from the batters), there's no marked difference in ERA, WHIP or HR allowed.

Now, let's look at the players who have achieved this lofty plateau:

1945-1989
Warren Spahn:  16 times
Gaylord Perry:  12 times
Steve Carlton:  12 times
Phil Niekro:  11times
Tom Seaver:  11 times
Fergie Jenkins:  10 times
Robin Roberts:  10 times
Bert Blyleven:  9 times
Mel Stottlemyre:  9 times
Bob Gibson:  8 times
Bob Lemon:  8 times
Catfish Hunter:  8 times
Claude Osteen:  8 times
Don Drysdale:  8 times
Don Sutton:  8 times
Jim Bunning:  8 times
Jim Palmer:  8 times
Juan Marichal:  8 times
Larry Jackson:  8 times
Early Wynn:  7 times
Jim Kaat:  7 times
Vida Blue:  7 times
Bob Friend:  6 times
Fernando Valenzuela:  6 times
Jack Morris:  6 times
Ken Holtzman:  6 times
Lew Burdette:  6 times
Mickey Lolich:  6 times
Mike Cuellar:  6 times
Nolan Ryan:  6 times
Steve Rogers:  6 times
Charlie Hough:  5 times
Dave McNally:  5 times
Frank Viola:  5 times
Hal Newhouser:  5 times
Jim Perry:  5 times
Luis Tiant:  5 times
Wilbur Wood:  5 times
Andy Messersmith:  4 times
Billy Pierce:  4 times
Carl Morton:  4 times
Clyde Wright:  4 times
Dave Stieb:  4 times
Dean Chance:  4 times
Dennis Leonard:  4 times
Frank Lary:  4 times
Fritz Peterson:  4 times
JR Richard:  4 times
Jerry Koosman:  4 times
Joe Coleman:  4 times
Joe Niekro:  4 times
Johnny Sain:  4 times
Larry Jansen:  4 times
Mike Garcia:  4 times
Mike Torrez:  4 times
Pat Dobson:  4 times
Randy Jones:  4 times
Rick Wise:  4 times
Roger Clemens:  4 times
Sam McDowell:  4 times
Sandy Koufax:  4 times
Whitey Ford:  4 times

1990-present
Curt Schilling (4 times)
Greg Maddux (4 times)
Jack McDowell (3 times)
Kevin Brown (3 times)
Randy Johnson (3 times)

Or, maybe that's not dramatic enough for you ... how about this:

Number of pitchers that have pitched more than 250 innings five times in their career:
1945-1989: 38
1990-present: Zero

I'm not disparaging the 1990-present pitchers. I consider Maddux one of the greatest pitchers of all time; and Johnson and Schilling are also amazing. But, ponder over that top list -- there are a ton of all-time greats there.

And, I think Schilling and Johnson would've fought with a manager who wanted to take them out (I do think Maddux wouldn't put up much of a fight), but, can you imagine the manager who tries to take out Perry? Carlton? Seaver? Gibson? Marichal? Drysdale?

If one of them had been pitching in the Red Sox game, they would've not-so-politely told Jim Leyland to get his *&$* back to the dugout, before they cracked open his skull on live television.

And then, they would've continued pitching, and won the game. And they would be in the World Series today.

Personal Brand -- A Twist on a Newsday Article

This past weekend, I appeared in Newsday. The reason wasn't entirely great -- it was a spotlight on the long-term unemployed (which the Department of Labor defines as those who have been out of work for more than 26 weeks).

After the interview, I had some concerns: concerns that the tenor of the article could paint me as "unemployable" -- which I certainly didn't want. I didn't love the way the original spotlight ended; so I asked the author to include the quote which appears (which, I felt, put more of a positive spin on the situation.)

When it came out, I saw the amount of space allotted, and I understood why many of my comments and suggestions hadn't been incorporated. Still, I saw the opportunity to use the article as a jumping point.

As I said to the author, I wasn't opposed to being included, but I needed to ensure it had a positive impact on my job search (and my personal brand). I didn't want someone to read it and say, "wow, he's been out a long time ..." I'd rather have them say, "how has no one scooped this guy up yet?"

So -- here is *my* version of how I would've loved the article to appear, if I'd had unlimited space! I'm using the author's original material as a launching point:


Long-term unemployment isn't a new experience for Chris Palermo, who lost his communications manager job at a local educational technology company in January, after two years.

The last time the 44-year-old Ronkonkoma resident was unemployed was in October 2009, just one year after receiving the Achievement in Communications Award from the International Association of Business Communicators. It took him 14 months to find another job. He hasn't been lucky this time either. He is still jobless after sending out close to 500 resumes. He believes the intense competition from numerous other long-term unemployed people is the problem.

"The number of skilled workers that are out of work, really enables companies to be uber-specific with their hiring requirements," he says.

Despite the length of his unemployment, he remains hopeful.

Earlier this summer, Palermo published two blog posts on job seeking. One, in particular, discussed a new method he began using to overcome a potential weakness in the online networking site, LinkedIn.

"I check LinkedIn for every job I apply to, to see if I have connections to the company," he says. "A lot of times, my contacts respond that they don't really 'know' the person to whom they're connected.

"So, then I realized I was being hypocritical -- I noticed I had a number of connections I didn't know as well as I should," he says. "Rather than simply considering those connections to be 'not-so-useful,' or -- worse yet -- 'cleaning house' and deleting them, I emailed each and every one of those connections to arrange informational meetings, with the goal of having that connection leave the meeting, thinking, (a) I was knowledgeable about my craft and (b) I was a good person.

"Overall, I had pretty good success with that initiative. I still have a number of connections to follow up with, but I have faith in my persistence," he laughs.

Palermo believes networking is a key element in the job search, but it's not the only element.

"We're consistently told that 80 percent of the jobs aren't listed online," he says. "If that's true, why would anyone spend more than 20 percent of his time looking online? By significantly reducing the number of hours spent searching, it frees up time to do more meaningful things, like networking."

He created a job-search technique that enables the viewing and searching of thousands of jobs in only three hours each week.

"The technique uses technology -- nothing that costs any money (in fact, I don't even charge when I *teach* the class)," he says. The intent is to have a hands-on session where we set everything up, and -- after that -- people can simply check the information a few times a week; and they'll see exponentially more jobs than they have ever seen before."

Palermo has taught this technique in groups ranging from three to more than 40 job-seekers.

"I've actually received emails from participants after the class saying, 'Thank you for giving my life back!'" he says. "That's a great feeling; and it's certainly part of my pay-it-forward mentality."

This fall, Palermo enrolled in the Comprehensive Project Management Certificate Program at Stony Brook. For him, this has two purposes -- first, it's part of his personal belief that we should be life-long learners (especially when it comes to personal/professional development); and second, it validates his belief that business communications *is* business (and not that it's just an unnecessary/'fluff' part of the business). It should be woven into the business fabric.

"By taking this course, I hoping to gain the skills to ensure my role is even more ingrained into the business structure of my next company," he says. "On a personal note, it's amazing how much of the core concepts of project management I already used in my personal life.

He also joined a number of organizations to continue his learning and networking, including the Long Island chapters of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and American Society of Training and Development (ASTD), as well as the Public Relations Professionals of Long Island (PRPLI) and Social Media Association.

"I also joined Toastmasters," he adds. "which was recommended to me, and -- as I've learned more about the organization, I can see myself enjoying it as well as taking on a leadership role."

Finally, a long-term goal for Palermo is the construction of a knowledge-management/networking website specifically for Long Island Job Seekers -- something he plans to continue even after he's employed.

"There are numerous networking groups (including LinkedIn, of course)," he says. "My site would not be a competitor to LinkedIn, but, rather, a complementary site, specifically focused on Long Island people (not necessarily the LI Job Market, since many are willing to travel to NYC). The idea is to merge all the existing networking groups and job boards under one, easier-to-use site, with far more robust features for sharing job leads and search tips, while still offering an abundance of 'connectivity' between the members, without compromising their privacy."

It's easy to see how Palermo remains optimistic, even in the face of the long-term joblessness that continues to plague the nation.

"I'm still confident that my skills, my experience and my commitment to life-long learning will land me a great opportunity," he says.

(Admittedly, this article *would* have taken considerably more space than the allocated area available. On the other hand, for someone (like myself) who is typically super modest, it's almost cathartic writing something like this. I'd encourage any/all to share this -- my network can and will expand exponentially, based on the reach of this particular post).