Pennant Race
This is Gene Mauch, who should be the patron saint of lost causes (but hey, Jude got that one) and is most certainly the one man who got more out of little on the baseball diamond.
I knew Gene Mauch well as a baseball fan. He taught me about platooning, using the bench, the importance of veterans and that you can never (ever) have enough pitching.
This Oiler season is starting to remind me of the NL East in 1973. It was a crazy summer that wasn’t decided until the sun faded and the cool winds blew. Allow me to list the final standings:
- New York Mets 82-79 (–)
- St. Louis Cardinals 81-81 (1.5)
- Pittsburgh Pirates 80-82 (2.5)
- Montreal Expos 79-83 (3.5)
- Chicago Cubs 77-84 (5)
Only the lowly Philadelphia Phillies were out of the race and even they were starting to build toward their world championship club that would bear fruit in 1980. The Expos were the surprise team because it was still an expansion club and their starting pitching was a mess (Bill Stoneman was their ace starter and his arm fell off early) and they had no obvious hitting stars.
They did it using 4 vital things: Mike Marshall in the bullpen (14-11 w/31 saves in 73 appearances), phenom Steve Rogers arrived in time to go 10-5, Ken Singleton had a stunning offensive season (123 walks, 103 rbi’s, 100 runs scored, .425OBP) and Gene Mauch platooned that team to death.
And they were in it, baby. They brought in people (including Felipe Alou) during the stretch run and they played their hearts out. I can still remember the names:
- Jorgensen and Breeden were the platoon at 1b (combined for 90 rbi’s)
- Ron Hunt at second when healthy and when he was not, two of the most glorious names in baseball history–Pepe Frias and Larry Lintz–filled in.
- The fiery Tim Foli at shortstop. No one fights in baseball, they brawl. Everyone jumps on everyone else. Foli fought. I remember him fighting more than a couple of times. Fists and bruises. He was a beauty.
- Bob Bailey at third. Bob Bailey couldn’t play third base well (or really at all) but my God could that man hit a baseball.
- Ron Fairly in LF. Fairly had the most beautiful lefthanded swing, it was gorgeous. I don’t follow baseball anymore but there’s probably some lefty batter who makes a fluid motion from beginning to end that looks like every movement is perfectly choreographed. It was a sight to see.
- Ron Woods and Boots Day in a centerfield platoon. Woods was a fleet player who didn’t have a great bat, and Day could barely play CF but Mauch was always trying to get more lumber in the lineup. A very unlikely platoon.
- Ken Singleton was a wonderful player, he really was. Patient and strong, he could beat you with a walk, a double and rip a homer too. He was not a good runner and only average in the field even as a young man, but lordy he was a key player for the Expos in 1973.
- The rotation had veterans Steve Renko (who could hit a little), Mike Torrez (who had some poor outings that summer), Balor Moore (who was my favorite player, he was kind of like Billy Wagner if he’d been, you know, good) and Ernie McAnally who always lost (at least that’s how I remember it). Plus Steve Rogers, whose “exhale” on the mound must have broken his ribs a few times.
- Mike Marshall was an ass but man could he pitch. He had a weird screwball pitch that behaved strangely but apparently looked exactly like his slider (this is from memory so don’t quote me on it) and MLB hitters had no answer. Mauch also used a bunch of other guys in the bullpen but I can’t tell you much about them without checking and that would ruin the fun.
Anyway, that pennant race was just about the most fun I ever had as a baseball fan. Nothing mattered, not school, not homework, not the chores (we had goats and had to bring coal into the house every night) not even girls (that would happen later–Mauch was gone by then). I carried that pennant race with me in my brain everywhere I went that summer and it was pure joy.
–
I’m starting to feel the same way about this team. Don’t ask me why, this season is just like many in the MacT era–but for some reason this team has captured my imagination and they matter to me. A kid like Cogliano, who plays in front of his family (apparently, his whole family) and puts on a wonderful performance. A kid like Gagner, who has had a dreadful season but remains confident and is eventually rewarded with a nice little streak on the road which is long overdue. A kid like Liam Reddox, who matured late and must pinch himself when thinking about those Stockton road trips that weren’t that long ago. These kids are the modern Steve Rogers, the new Balor Moore, the latest Pepe Mangual.
Plus the veterans: Fernando Pisani trying to stay healthy and contribute (and you know what? he does. Smart, smart guy–future coach), Dwayne Roloson willing this team to another deep spring, Shawn Horcoff doing the Dad work, Ales Hemsky batting cleanup. These are the Bob Bailey’s, the Ron Fairly’s, and in Hemsky’s case the Ken Singleton’s.
A hockey or baseball season is a massive investment when done right; for Oilers fans of this era it’s an “all or nothing” proposition. I’m older now, a husband and a father and grownup matters take much of my day.
Still, there’s not a lot of difference between watching Steve Rogers find his way as a rookie and seeing Sam Gagner struggle as a sophomore (Rogers would struggle too btw). It’s an emotional investment and a fan must choose well.
I did. And I have.
DBO: I wouldn’t fire MacT right now. Let him coach out the string and let’s hope (I’m not one of these guys who is cheering for the team to lose so the head coach gets fired) the team gets it’s act together, is able to make the playoffs and puts a scare into somebody. But regardless of what happens, either in or out of the playoffs, I think he’s done in Edmonton. Whenever the Oiler’s season ends, they should shake his hand, publicly thank him for everything he has done for this organization and use some of Katz’s money to find the best coach available. I always thought MacT was out there door after the 2006 season but he was saved and given his extension by the
“run”.
Man, that Penner interview was brutal. The guy is done with Mac, you can tell. On a healthy team a guy would be answering the “how tough has this year been?” with something like: “The important thing is that we’re in a playoff spot…”
Instead he just sighs, etc. The guy has been kicked to the curb by the coach and no longer feels like he’s a part of the whole operation. That kind of stuff isn’t sustainable — even Nilsson had no real answer as to why he’d been sent out.
Dennis/Bruce/LT/Jonathan
You guys seem connected to the MSM. Are they aware of what we at this blog know about Penner? Do they agree its bullshit?
I don’t live in Edmonton but if hfboards represents Joe-Fan, the smear campaign on Dustin Penner is working. They can’t stand the guy.
Someone in the MSM needs to make a stand against this just to prove that MacTavish can’t just ignore facts and get away with it.
Hemsky ES GF/20 w/ Penner: 1.258
Horcoff ES GF/20 w/ Penner: 1.104
Hey look, goal-a-game line.
Hemsky ES GF/20 w/o Penner: .650
Man, maybe the team already has that left-winger to unlock Hemsky.
Horcoff ES GF/20 w/ Penner: .879
Yeah, the Penner interview is awesome.
Wow, he’s done with MacT. The overwhelming tone was defeat with a side of indignation. I suspect we won’t see a rejuvinated Penner like after the last benching.
Seriously, this management of this team has me so frustrated (more than the players). MacT always says it’s a results oriented business…what a fucking hypocrite.
PBoy: agree on mact. just frustrated. Will have a hard time accepting him as a coach next year.
As for the lines. If you don’t want Penner on the 1st LW, then fine try O’Sullivan and Kotalik. But benching him makes no sense. he’s going with guys who won’t hurt the team (Pouliot, Reddox) but will never win them a game. No way he’s our 13th best forward. Even if you play him with brodziak and Stortini (which for the one game they played together went pretty well), at least give him a chance to play out of the doghouse. Don’t just sit him in the pressbox.
Knighttown:
Who do you think gave the fans the pitchforks?
Forwards with ~13 minutes+ and 1+ GF/20 mins of ES TOI of ES time this year and their GF/20:
Player … GF/20min
RYDER, MICHAEL … 1.406
DATSYUK, PAVEL … 1.401
MALKIN, EVGENI … 1.377
WHEELER, BLAKE … 1.34
SAVARD, MARC … 1.327
KREJCI, DAVID … 1.316
BOURQUE, RENE … 1.304
CONROY, CRAIG … 1.285
Hemsky with Penner … 1.258
ZAJAC, TRAVIS … 1.253
MARLEAU, PATRICK … 1.251
WEISS, STEPHEN … 1.25
PARISE, ZACH … 1.237
OVECHKIN, ALEXANDER … 1.234
CROSBY, SIDNEY … 1.23
HAVLAT, MARTIN … 1.227
SETOGUCHI, DEVIN … 1.196
ARNOTT, JASON … 1.193
IGINLA, JAROME … 1.189
LADD, ANDREW … 1.189
HOSSA, MARIAN … 1.18
LANGENBRUNNER, JAMIE … 1.167
KOSTITSYN, ANDREI … 1.162
LITTLE, BRYAN … 1.16
THORNTON, JOE … 1.155
BACKSTROM, NICKLAS … 1.142
BOLLAND, DAVE … 1.136
REINPRECHT, STEVEN … 1.134
CAMMALLERI, MIKE … 1.132
HARTNELL, SCOTT … 1.129
CARTER, JEFF … 1.124
KESSEL, PHIL … 1.107
Horcoff with Penner … 1.104
PONIKAROVSKY, ALEXEI … 1.098
GAGNE, SIMON … 1.097
TOEWS, JONATHAN … 1.092
RICHARDS, MIKE … 1.091
ZEDNIK, RICHARD … 1.089
DUMONT, JEAN-PIERRE … 1.088
VANEK, THOMAS … 1.073
KOVALCHUK, ILYA … 1.072
ST. LOUIS, MARTIN … 1.069
ZHERDEV, NIKOLAI … 1.069
ANTROPOV, NIK … 1.066
LUCIC, MILAN … 1.066
MOORE, DOMINIC … 1.062
ZETTERBERG, HENRIK … 1.059
CLEARY, DANIEL … 1.057
BOOTH, DAVID … 1.054
SEDIN, DANIEL … 1.052
SEDIN, HENRIK … 1.047
MALONE, RYAN … 1.043
NASH, RICK … 1.039
LECAVALIER, VINCENT … 1.038
ALFREDSSON, DANIEL … 1.034
SYKORA, PETR … 1.034
ERIKSSON, LOUI … 1.028
ELIAS, PATRIK … 1.026
PERRY, COREY … 1.022
GIONTA, BRIAN … 1.022
DEMITRA, PAVOL … 1.022
WHITE, TODD … 1.014
AUCOIN, ADRIAN … 1.012
BURROWS, ALEX … 1.012
HORTON, NATHAN … 1.012
GETZLAF, RYAN … 1
BLAKE, JASON … 1
Lowetide: Brilliant post. Wasn’t Fairly the guy who always turned into the pitch so he’d get plunked? And how good was Steve Carlton when he won so often on a Phillies team that won so rarely?
Bruce: Classic heckling anecdote.
And then
PENNER, DUSTIN … 0.981
That’s not Penner with Hemsky, or Penner with Horcoff. Just Penner.
Goal a game line fellows. Goal a game line.
Rk … Player … +/- per 20 ES min
1 … WHEELER, BLAKE … 0.831
2 … RYDER, MICHAEL … 0.808
3 … KREJCI, DAVID … 0.77
4 … DATSYUK, PAVEL … 0.652
5 … ZAJAC, TRAVIS … 0.638
6 … SAVARD, MARC … 0.619
7 … LADD, ANDREW … 0.607
8 … WEISS, STEPHEN … 0.6
9 … MALKIN, EVGENI … 0.582
10 … LANGENBRUNNER, JAMIE … 0.571
11 … BOURQUE, RENE … 0.555
12 … THORNTON, JOE … 0.546
13 … PARISE, ZACH … 0.542
14 … BERGLUND, PATRIK … 0.528
15 … Hemsky with Penner … 0.514
16 … HAVLAT, MARTIN … 0.486
17 … MARLEAU, PATRICK … 0.474
18 … KESSEL, PHIL … 0.467
19 … BOLLAND, DAVE … 0.455
20 … GREEN, MIKE … 0.444
21 … SETOGUCHI, DEVIN … 0.439
22 … SEDIN, DANIEL … 0.438
23 … GAGNE, SIMON … 0.434
24 … LUCIC, MILAN … 0.421
25 … OVECHKIN, ALEXANDER … 0.418
26 … HOSSA, MARIAN … 0.402
27 … Horcoff with Penner … 0.397
28 … DEMITRA, PAVOL … 0.369
29 … CONROY, CRAIG … 0.367
30 … SEDIN, HENRIK … 0.342
31 … RICHARDS, MIKE … 0.341
32 … FRANZEN, JOHAN … 0.332
33 … BOOTH, DAVID … 0.324
34 … CLOWE, RYANE … 0.317
35 … PERRON, DAVID … 0.306
36 … ZETTERBERG, HENRIK … 0.296
37 … CROSBY, SIDNEY … 0.292
38 … STAFFORD, DREW … 0.287
39 … SYKORA, PETR … 0.284
40 … ELIAS, PATRIK … 0.262
41 … ZUBRUS, DAINIUS … 0.261
42 … TOEWS, JONATHAN … 0.261
43 … IGINLA, JAROME … 0.258
44 … GIONTA, BRIAN … 0.256
45 … KUNITZ, CHRIS … 0.241
46 … PERRY, COREY … 0.239
47 … FROLIK, MICHAEL … 0.238
48 … MALONE, RYAN … 0.238
49 … REINPRECHT, STEVEN … 0.227
50 … PAVELSKI, JOE … 0.223
51 … CAMMALLERI, MIKE … 0.222
52 PENNER, DUSTIN … 0.212
53 MICHALEK, MILAN … 0.207
54 ZHERDEV, NIKOLAI … 0.205
55 ZEDNIK, RICHARD … 0.201
Oops, I somehow got Mike Green in there. Oh well.
Not only is Horcoff a top 30 center, he’s a top 30 forward.
Three top 50 ES forwards – that’s a good thing, right?
i have a question re: penner:
is he good at zoneshift or is he a beneficiary of more offzone draws?
How I wish a so-called “reporter” would ask MacT why Hemsky is twice as productive offensively at even strength when Penner is on the ice!
Dennis/Bruce/LT/Jonathan
You guys seem connected to the MSM. Are they aware of what we at this blog know about Penner? Do they agree its bullshit?
My only contact is Staples, who I met through the Oilogosphere (and once, memorably, in person). I’ve participated in a couple of his projects, notably the Errors project, cuz I think he’s got a good idea and is sort of on the right track.
Anyway, all season long he’s been listing the individual plus/minus of Oiler forwards, calculated as even strength points plus “unofficial assists” minus “Errors”, the latter both being his own stats which he has maintained faithfully for the last one and two years respectively by analyzing carefully the video of every even strength goal. They are mirror image judgements meant to identify the guys involved in the goal (against), and to not credit/debit those who are not involved, whereas traditional plus/minus credits everyone on the ice.
All year long Penner has been leading the way in unofficial assists at both even strength and on the powerplay, and all year long Penner has been comfortably in front of the net result, with an adjusted individual plus of +19. Horcoff and Hemsky are next, tied at +15. Cogliano is at +11, and the rest of the forwards and most of the defencemen are in the single-digit plusses. Seems like a pretty reasonable outcome to my eye, and certainly mirrors the stuff I listed above from TOI and BtN. Penner is just damn good. Invisibly so, it seems. But how can MacT possible deny such results? Or is he just unaware of them?? Either answer is pretty close to a firing offence, to be brutally frank.
So I daresay if you asked David about the latest indignity to Penner, he would indeed agree it is bullshit, although he might use a slightly more diplomatic word.
Shep: Good question. He has been sheltered a little bit in this respect (I think I listed him at 0.90 defensive to offensive way up the page). So he should be expected to produce slightly on the plus side just from that.
Unleaded: Great stuff. I did the exact same calculation and didn’t post it cuz I didn’t consider the two to be linear: a DZone draw is just a potential result, whereas a GA is an actual result. So the one has to be unweighted considerably. Brodziak’s highly skewed result is surely proof of this he’s got a highly skewed workload, but he’s nowhere near the defensive player Horcoff is, as the GA/60 much more surely indicates than anything involving faceoffs. The adjustment is excessive.
My first attempt would be to take a ratio between GA/60 and the square root of the DZone faceoff ratio, a wild-ass guess but one that forces the result in the correct direction. Trial and error from there, but the two are in no way equal contributors.
Gotta run, but I might do the math later, if you don’t.
MacT
1) Wrong on Hejda.
2) Wrong on Glencross
3) Wrong on Penner
Not a particularly good pattern developing.
How I wish a so-called “reporter” would ask MacT why Hemsky is twice as productive offensively at even strength when Penner is on the ice!
They’d have to ask MacT if they could be done first.
Wasn’t Fairly the guy who always turned into the pitch so he’d get plunked?
Nope, that was another Ron of those early Expos, Ron Hunt. He set a still-extant major league record by getting hit 50 (fifty) times in one season.
And how good was Steve Carlton when he won so often on a Phillies team that won so rarely?
He was incredible. In 1972 Carlton posted a 27-10 record on a Phillies squad that finished the year 59-103. He had nearly half of their wins, <10% of their losses.
Bruce: Classic heckling anecdote.
Glad you liked it, Art.