Beaneball

A quote from Joe Roderick's story today: "Last season's statistics did not paint a pretty picture for the A's, who nonetheless won 91 games. They ranked 11th in the American League in sacrifice bunts (25), last in stolen bases (47) and had the third-most grounded into double plays (142)." Roderick goes one for three with this sentence. Yes, third-most DP's is bad. They're rally-killers. On the other hand, a whopping sixteen of those (Jermaine Dye) are gone to Chicago, replaced with a speedier sometime-lefty, Nick Swisher. Damian Miller took his twenty (!) twin-killings to Milwaukee, to be replaced by the speedy Jason Kendall. Now, Kendall does ground into a number of DP's, himself, largely because he's a ground-ball oriented (1.49 G/F career) right-handed contact-hitter, but I'd expect him to cut about 6-8 DP's off the catcher total this year. Finally, Eric Chavez grounded into 21 DP's last year, which is a preposterous sum. His ground/fly ratio was about at his career average, but he managed to hit into the double play about 16% of the time he had the chance (according to BP's numbers). 16%! Compare that to 7%, 5%, and 14% the previous three years and you've got one of two things: a worrisome trend or a bit of a fluke. I'd guess a combination of the two, meaning that he should cut out some DP's this year. Back to that sentence, though, let's look at those sacrifices. The only way in which it could be construed as a negative that the A's only gave away 25 outs last year is if we said, "Well, they should have finished last, not third from last." I guess the A's lack of steals isn't a good thing, in the way that their lack of sacrifices is, but this should also be looked at this way: the A's gave away the fewest outs in baseball on caught stealings last year, with 22, one fewer than the Giants and Mets. And that's only a negative when we realize that the A's were only successful on 68% of their steal attempts. I'd use that number to justify calling for fewer steals and hit-and-runs, not more. (Side note: The Mets were actually good at something last year! They led everybody in stolen base percentage, racking up extra bags at an 82% clip, beating out second-place [perpetually in everything?] Philadelphia by three percentage points.)

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 16:02 | |

Most important quote of the spring so far:

Will Beane remain in Oakland to watch his grand plan take shape again? He has an escape clause in his contract if the team is sold. Prospective owner Lew Wolff could assume control sometime after spring training, and Beane said he's begun preliminary talks with Wolff. "My first impression was very, very good," Beane said. "I'm not looking for a reason to leave. I know a lot of things have to happen before the transition is complete."

--CoCoTimes

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 15:38 | |

Daric Barton just can't get going this spring. He's already been fighting off an elbow injury that was keeping him from throwing, and then on Sunday came the report (I first saw it here) that Barton has appendicitis and was scheduled for surgery. I guess this is why the A's wanted catching depth. Also, for Barton, this is a good time to get an injury pile-up out of the way, so long as he doesn't make it a yearly habit. He's not losing a shot at the major leagues or anything by not being able to play, and, by doing this in spring training, it just means that his season start could be delayed a little. He'll end up with fewer at-bats at the end of the year, maybe, but it seems to me to be far better to lose those at-bats in April than in July or August, in terms of getting into a groove and not having to come back from missing a few weeks and get back into a groove. Of course, ugly memories of Adrian Beltre always loom.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 15:30 | |

This is about the nation's high schools being broken and not challenging enough. As someone who's teaching high school, though, I'm going to pass the buck. Instead of all the focus on what we're not teaching high school kids, how about some focus on what they're learning in middle and elementary school to prepare them for high school? High school can't prepare kids for college if those kids don't have the proper foundation when they get to high school. Now, I come from a very particular background on this: the kids in my school are unselected, in a sense. Had they done better in middle school, they might have gotten in to high schools with tougher admissions requirements. That's not to say that we don't have smart kids, because we do have some students who should go on and be very successful in college and life beyond that. What we don't have is enough of those kids, and what the city doesn't have is enough of those kids. I think Bill Gates is right about something: the system might need to be torn down and rebuilt from the beginning. My professor this summer was adamant, and somewhat convincing, in his belief that the nation's mandatory education system grew out of a need to keep kids out of the labor force, for economic reasons. This meant that schools were essentially babysitters, time-occupiers to keep kids doing something semi-productive while the parents were free to have jobs. Supposing this is true, perhaps the way school works ought to be re-thought from the perspective that everybody actually needs an education. Even supposing it isn't true, if our schools aren't working, we can't be afraid of radical change. What kind of radical change? Look around at various alternative schools in the country: small classes with mixed ages; curricula driven by skills and abilities, rather than by rote knowledge; less textbooks, more hands-on work; more art and music, particularly with respect to appreciation of those subjects; cross- or inter-disciplinary work; meaningful, real-world questions and problems in classes, rather than knowledge-based exercises and ridiculous hypotheticals; etc. Some of these ideas are slowly gaining traction in the mainstream educational world (though they're often poorly implemented because they try to compromise with the old ideals rather than realizing that the old ideals ought to be completely replaced), but not enough of them and not quickly enough. My path from traditional public-school student to non-traditional private college student to traditional public-school teacher has disillusioned me in some ways about the educational system, but I do have some hope. I do think things can be changed. They can't be changed effectively from the front lines, the teachers, not with the top-down systems being implemented, but there are places where change can be effected.

Posted by jason in Education at 18:58 | |

Alright, class, the exercise is to determine the apparent Hall-of-Fame-worthiness of three certain Oakland (and former Oakland) pitchers. I'll do this the simplest way possible. I'll take all the HOF pitchers I can get information for and figure out their WARP totals after their age-26 and -28 seasons (appropriate ages for Zito and Mulder, and Hudson, respectively) and after five and six seasons of major league play (again, for the pitchers in question, respectively). To make the exercise more fun and less a history lesson, I've also included certain great modern pitchers who are still playing (Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martinez). The below table organizes the appropriate data alphabetically, for the in-HOF stars, with the current players at the bottom of the list (in no particular order). The "Method" column tells how the player got into the Hall, whether by BBWAA vote or by the Veterans' Commitee. Votes, for the players who got in by BBWAA, tell what percentage of the writers' vote they received when they were elected. That information comes from the invaluable Baseball Almanac.

Alphabetical, with non-HOF at bottom

Name	Method	Votes	WARP_26	WARP_28	WARP_5	WARP_6
Chief Bender	Veterans		37.8	47.6	20.2	24
Mordecai Brown	Veterans		4.1	12.2	28.6	40
Jim Bunning	Veterans		16.6	32.3	23.5	32.3
Steve Carlton	BBWAA	95.82%	31.5	51.7	25.6	31.5
Jack Chesbro	Veterans		2.6	15.4	21	35.1
John Clarkson	Veterans		45.2	72.7	40.4	45.2
Stan Coveleski	Veterans		4.7	25	46.2	55
Dizzy Dean	BBWAA	79.17%	49.2	58.5	49.2	55.6
Don Drysdale	BBWAA	78.41%	60.3	80.3	36.8	43.6
Dennis Eckersley	BBWAA	83.20%	46.8	55.6	39.3	44.3
Red Faber	Veterans		9.1	17.5	19.5	19.5
Bob Feller	BBWAA	93.75%	51.6	75.1	38.4	49.2
Rollie Fingers	BBWAA	81.16%	20.3	31.3	20.5	25.5
Whitey Ford	BBWAA	77.81%	24.4	37.1	33.4	37.1
Pud Galvin	Veterans		30.1	50.7	21	30.1
Bob Gibson	BBWAA	84.04%	18.9	31.8	24.3	31.8
Lefty Gomez	Veterans		34.5	48.7	28.9	34.5
Burleigh Grimes	Veterans		19.4	33.6	19.4	29.7
Lefty Grove	BBWAA	76.40%	10.7	27.4	35.3	47.7
Jesse Haines	Veterans		3.8	10.9	18.6	21.7
Waite Hoyt	Veterans		37.8	52.4	20.9	26.7
Carl Hubbell	BBWAA	86.96%	9.3	21.7	32.2	45.5
Catfish Hunter	BBWAA	76.27%	41.9	48	21.1	25.6
Fergie Jenkins	BBWAA	75.40%	42	62.7	42	54.7
Walter Johnson	BBWAA	83.63%	88.1	115.5	37.9	54.4
Addie Joss	Veterans		30	48	30	38.2
Tim Keefe	Veterans		28.2	42.4	38.6	42.4
Sandy Koufax	BBWAA	86.87%	24.8	44.4	12.7	19.2
Bob Lemon	BBWAA	78.61%	7.6	30.7	39.9	47.3
Ted Lyons	BBWAA	86.45%	30.2	40.8	34.3	40.8
Juan Marichal	BBWAA	83.69%	29.3	54.2	29.3	42
Rube Marquard	Veterans		23.8	26.8	23.8	26.5
Christy Mathewson	BBWAA	90.71%	72.7	101	51.4	57.2
Joe McGinnity	Veterans		0	8.8	32.2	43.8
Hal Newhouser	Veterans		68.6	90	30.2	45
Kid Nichols	Veterans		71.8	93.6	52.4	62.9
Phil Niekro	BBWAA	80.34%	1.8	9.2	25.8	30.5
Jim Palmer	BBWAA	92.57%	37.8	51.5	21.5	29.1
Herb Pennock	BBWAA	77.69%	12.4	21	0.7	1.1
Gaylord Perry	BBWAA	77.20%	10.1	25.8	25.8	33.1
Eddie Plank	Veterans		12.5	30.3	38.9	44.6
Old Hoss Radbourn	Veterans		5.8	26.5	43	53.1
Eppa Rixey	Veterans		23.6	30.4	17.2	23.6
Robin Roberts	BBWAA	86.86%	55.9	76.4	42.4	55.9
Red Ruffing	BBWAA	86.93%	29.9	44.1	24	29.9
Amos Rusie	Veterans		85.8	93.3	50.2	66.8
Nolan Ryan	BBWAA	98.79%	27.8	42.1	16.1	27.8
Tom Seaver	BBWAA	98.84%	49.8	70.1	49.8	58.3
Warren Spahn	BBWAA	82.89%	14.5	28	37.5	48.5
Don Sutton	BBWAA	81.61%	31	47	23	31
Dazzy Vance	BBWAA	81.67%	0.3	0.1	39.5	48.8
Rube Waddell	Veterans		29.3	50.9	21.7	29.3
Ed Walsh	Veterans		19.8	43.8	35	43.8
Mickey Welch	Veterans		32.4	45.7	22.4	29.2
Hoyt Wilhelm	BBWAA	83.80%	0	5.7	22.5	23.9
Vic Willis	Veterans		31.9	45.6	31.9	39.5
Early Wynn	BBWAA	76.01%	17.8	27.9	17.8	25.6
Cy Young	BBWAA	76.12%	39.4	63.7	50.4	63.7
Tim Hudson	Not in		29.7	45.8	39.7	45.8
Mark Mulder	Not in		33.3	33.3	33.3	33.3
Barry Zito	Not in		35.2	35.2	35.2	35.2
Roger Clemens	Not in		50	72.9	41.4	50
Greg Maddux	Not in		39.9	60.6	28.4	39.9
Randy Johnson	Not in		8	17.8	27.5	35.8
Pedro Martinez	Not in		41.6	68.1	32.1	41.6

Now, of course, the relevant averages. For players already in the Hall, the mean WARP_26 was 29.2; WARP_28 was 44.4; WARP_5 was 30.6; and WARP_6 was 38.7. Tim Hudson looks pretty good across the board. He's certainly matched the early careers of the pitchers in this list. The WARP_28 and WARP_6 scores are of little use for Mark Mulder and Barry Zito, but their WARP_26 and WARP_5 scores are excellent compared to their compatriots through history. Unfortunately, the Veterans' Commitee isn't known for its extreme judiciousness is choosing who gets to join the Hall of Fame. Let's weed out the Veterans' selections for a second and see what happens to the various averages: WARP_26 is now 30.9; WARP_28 is 46.3; WARP_5 is 31.3; and WARP_6 is 39.4. There's surprisingly little difference here, so Hudson, Mulder, and Zito end up looking almost as good in comparison to the group that might be regarded as the cream of the Hall of Fame crop as they do to the whole group. I won't put any more tables here, because they're rather unwieldy, but when I sort everybody, non-HOFers and HOFers (of all stripes) alike, by WARP_26, I find Zito 22nd, Mulder 24th, and Hudson 33rd, leaving only the now-Brave below the median (and even then, just so, with 65 members of the study group). When we sort by WARP_28, Hudson gets bumped up a few notches, to 30th. Mulder and Zito have a few more seasons before we can talk about their status here, but if they want to beat Hudson's standing, they'll have to put up 12.5 and 10.6 WARP, respectively, over the next two years. Those numbers seem far from out-of-reach since both players had their worst full seasons as pros (by the by: was it coincidence that Rick Peterson left town last year?) but still put up 5.9 and 4.9 WARP in 2004. By WARP_5, we find Hudson all the way up at the dizzying heights of 14th place, sandwiched between luminaries Bob Lemon and Dazzy Vance. Barry Zito is 24th and Mark Mulder 28th, very near their places in the WARP_26 rankings. Hudson loses a few spots in the WARP_6 standings, dropping to 18th, still a notch below Lemon. A lot can happen to pitchers, especially young ones, and Zito and Mulder are both definitely "young veterans," with the emphasis on young (at least when considering their health possibilities). There are probably any number of pitchers who, after five seasons or six seasons, or through the age of 26 or 28, could score well in this kind of exercise. What I'm trying to say is that these numbers don't make the former Three Aces a lock for the Hall, nor does it even say it's likely that they'll get in. All it really demonstrates is that the discussion of their chances of making it to the Hall isn't a ridiculous one to have. None of the three have any "ground to make up" to pitch like the greats have. All they're supposed to do going forward is maintain.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 18:16 | |

Management by Baseball is an always-excellent blog and this post is particularly excellent. It's about innovation without research, in broad ways, with the baseball application being that Juan Pierre ought to ignore Lenny Harris's advice to try to walk more. That last bit may sound heretical to the sabermetrically-minded, but give it a chance, because he's done his homework.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 10:24 | |

Joe Roderick reports in the CoCoTimes that

Joe Blanton, the A's 2002 first-round draft pick, has added a changeup to his repertoire. He threw a handful of them in practice and the A's brass were impressed.

Isn't it a little weird that he didn't have one already? How many starting pitchers are there who don't throw a changeup? In related news, Susan Slusser mentions that Huston Street has also added a changeup to his arsenal. As a reliever, it's not so weird that he didn't have the pitch before but it can't hurt to have one more thing for hitters to worry about him throwing. How nice is it that the A's made the trades for Cruz and Calero this off-season so that they can really work in Street and Jairo Garcia at their luxury, rather than pushing them in to fill a need gap?

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 11:25 | |

Today's notebook at the Press Democrat is just chock full of little tidbits, some of them a little worrisome. First, there's the idea that Ken Macha is experimenting with his lineup as he's worried about Eric Chavez's lack of protection. If such a thing actually exists, the best guy to put behind him is Erubiel Durazo, but the first lineup card of the spring will have Durazo in front of Chavez, with the third-sacker hitting cleanup. Frankly, I don't see the need to move guys around to try to get Chavez more hittable pitches to swing at. Sure, he has monster power and it'd be nice to let him use that, but at the same time, this isn't Barry Bonds we're talking about here, in the sense that it isn't even debatable whether walking him a lot is a good or bad strategy. Every time Chavez gets on base (and those 95 walks certainly put him on base a lot), the A's are helped. Durazo slugged well over .500 hitting behind Chavez last year. What more do the A's want? The next section in the article discusses Macha's devotion of a full practice field to bunting and situational hitting. His reason? Ramon Hernandez laid down that beautiful bunt two years ago to win a playoff game for the A's, so you never know when it might be a good thing to do. So long as it really is a "get ready for a weird special situation" kind of thing, this is fine. If it forebodes Macha getting all National League on us and having Bobby Crosby sacrifice Mark Kotsay from first to second with one out, then I'll get worried. That actively hurts the team and it's something I thought the A's avoided with Billy Beane running the show from upstairs. Finally, "Left-hander John Rheinecker will not be able to pitch for about a week because he hurt his hamstring when he slipped on the wet grass." This is the kind of thing that can be perceived to kill any tiny chance Rheinecker had of making the big club as the last bullpen guy or something. What's unfortunate is that, whether it actually kills his chances or not, he'll probably feel that way and try to get back from the injury as quickly as possible. Playing and working out on a bad anything, much less a hamstring, isn't a good idea, and, while Rheinecker is as unlikely as anybody to have an effect on the big club this year, you hate to see any chance of players hurting themselves further because they push a little too hard. This is where the education, communication, and respect aspects of a team's health and fitness program come in. If a team (and I don't know whether the A's do this well or not) communicates to its athletes that injuries are to be reported and dealt with completely and properly before they get back to work, then everybody benefits. The athlete gets to play fully healthy and doesn't have his ability impaired by an owie and the coaching staff doesn't have to worry about the root cause of a guy playing poorly. There's always media speculation that a guy is injured when they can't figure out why he all of a sudden can't hit, but if the team can rule that out because they know the player would come to them with any injury, they can go to work on mechanical factors, psychological issues, or whatever else might be bothering a player.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 10:50 | |

But for the first time since 1998, the A's aren't considered among the American League West front-runners. "We shouldn't be," Chavez said. "Anaheim should, without a doubt. They've got pretty much the best player in the league in Vlad (Vladimir Guerrero) and one of the best hitters in the league in Garret Anderson. They've got a really good team over there. It's going to be tough, but we've been able to compete with the New Yorks and Bostons the last four years pretty consistently. Our expectations aren't low, but in the baseball world you've got to look at things realistically, and on paper we're probably third or fourth in our division. We're definitely going to have an uphill battle."

He's right about one thing: Vlad was pretty much the best player in the American League last year. Garret Anderson, though? The man was about as valuable (offensively only, by VORP) as Frankie Menechino, and that was given two hundred more plate appearances to work with! Chavez flat out lied toward the end there: if the attitude throughout the clubhouse is that the team is the third or fourth best in the division (does he know there are only four teams?), then expectations are far too low. The offense is very solid, bordering on good and the pitching, particularly the bullpen, should still be a great strength for the team. For the offense added, I don't see much defense going away, except in the case of Keith Ginter, assuming he gets a lot of time at second base. Really, there's no basis for thinking that the A's can't be the best or second-best team in the division. The Rangers were luckier last year than they were good and, while you never really know what to expect out of the Angels, they're not really a powerhouse like New York or Boston. Wait, there's another team? Oh, right, the Mariners. Heh. ... So that wasn't very nice of me. The Mariners will have a better offense. That should be good enough to fight with the Rangers for third place. (Apologies for it having been forever since my last post. Internet and cable TV have been down for weeks, and we've only today gotten it back. We'll see if the signal holds strong, though.)

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 23:26 | |

I'm neither a Yankees nor a Red Sox blogger, but this little bit by Trot Nixon, criticizing Alex Rodriguez as "not the Yankees type" while simultaneously praising and feeling sorry for Jason Giambi, is just too much. First, my definition of "Yankees type" is pretty much any player who's (a) good (EDIT: This is obviously referring to the front-line players, not the usual scrubeenies who populate the bench and the high minors for the team.); and (b) paid a ton of money. I'm pretty sure that fits Rodriguez to a T. Nixon's implication that there is some kind of class or dignity that's supposed to come with being a Yankee is a crock. I'll always hate Jorge Posada for shoving Tony Phillips after a collision at the plate (and not being punished for it), but Posada is one of those guys that Nixon claims epitomizes the Yankee Way. And the second part, while it won't get the attention the criticisms of Rodriguez will, is at least as noxious. Whatever Giambi did with steroids or anything else he did to himself. He ended up with some fat paychecks, awards, adulation, endorsements, and the ability to play the game at the highest level due to some combination (it's impossible to name percentages, even approximate) of hard work, talent, and illegal drugs. What he's going through now sucks, to be sure, and you can talk about the immense pressure to succeed and the competition that created his perceived need for an edge over other players to reach the highest level, but in the end, it comes back to this: he did it to himself. I'm not the vindictive type (usually), so I certainly don't wish ill on Giambi, neither for the steroids nor for the defection to the Evil Empire, but I'll never once feel sorry for him either.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 08:53 | |

Signing Eric Byrnes for about $2.2 million means that, if the A's want to get their money's worth at the same rate they got last year (a little more than $1.2 million per win), he'll need to be worth around two wins over a replacement outfielder. In his first season of full-time play last year, Byrnes was worth a little over five wins over replacement, according to BP's WARP, and he compiled a little over 33 VORP. PECOTA's projection for him this year has him falling off to 22 VORP, figuring he peaked last year, at 28. I don't see any reason to argue with that estimate, and whether we use the "10 runs to a win" baseline or estimate that he'll pick up a WARP per every six VORP or so (5 to 33), he's over that "two wins" baseline I mentioned earlier. Now, with Byrnes being 29 and in the big money (relatively) years of his career, even if he lasts the year with Oakland, I wouldn't be surprised to see him traded next off-season, as he'll probably be due for another salary bump while being well into the decline phase of his career. What we can hope for, on two levels, is that he has a monster year. If he ends up just pounding the ball all season and finishes as, say, the third-best hitting outfielder in the AL, that can help push the A's toward the playoffs while also enhancing his trade value (perhaps the Pirates will still be interested). It's a little sad to talk about Byrnes being in decline because it seems like he just got here. I guess that's because he's been kicking around the high minors and the A's bench for so long that he's grown old (again, relatively) without getting much of a shot at a full-time job.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 12:15 | |

I notice a ton of you pouring in from the A's site on scout.com, and I'm glad to have you. Things are a little dead around here, for a couple of reasons: one, it's the offseason, and the A's appear about ready to head to spring training with the roster they have (though you know I'll have something to say about Eric Byrnes getting a couple million bucks in just a bit); and two, because my internet access at my apartment has been out since last Friday. I'm doing this from school, to say I'm still alive and I encourage a lot of you to come back regularly. In fact, subscribe if you have an RSS reader (see the sidebar for subscription links) and leave plenty of comments!

Posted by jason in Baseball, Computer, Oakland A's, Personal, The Blog at 18:09 | |

Over at Athletics Minors, Brian has added a great new "Tool:" In the left bar, click Tools, then click Acquired Flow. The name ... well, the name's gotta change, but the tool is neat. If you're unwilling to go over there until I tell you what it is, then here's an example: Erubiel Durazo --Acquired via trade for Jason Arnold ----Jason Arnold acquired with Ted Lilly and John-Ford Griffin for Jeff Weaver in 2002 ------Jeff Weaver acquired via trade for Carlos Pena, Franklyn German and Jeremy Bonderman in 2002 --------Carlos Pena acquired via trade along with Mike Venafro for Jason Hart, Ryan Ludwick, Gerald Laird and Mario Ramos ----------Jason Hart drafted in 1998 ----------Ryan Ludwick drafted in 1999 ----------Gerald Laird drafted in 1998 ----------Mario Ramos drafted in 1999 --------Franklyn German signed as undrafted free agent in 1996 --------Jeremy Bonderman drafted in 2001, pick acquired for Kevin Appier ----------Kevin Appier acquired via trade for Jeff D'Amico, Brad Rigby and Blake Stein in 1999 ------------Jeff D'Amico drafted in 1993 ------------Brad Rigby drafted in 1994 ------------Blake Stein drafted in 1994 I've done some reformatting and whatnot, but you get the idea. For a whole bunch of A's players, we get an acqusition tree that shows every player involved in bringing that player to Oakland. Anyway, go see it. And encourage a name change. Acquired Flow sounds like a nasty disease that'd keep you in the bathroom awhile (though it ought to be noted that I say that in a fond way, not meaning to be harsh or anything).

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 16:17 | |

So I get the idea, from a comment left on my last post, that this is a baseball blog or something. I suppose I ought to post about baseball every once in a while. So here we go: Landon Powell is hurt with torn cartilage in his left knee. Maybe this isn't news to you because you caught it somewhere else, but it's news to me. Powell, a catcher, was the A's top draft pick last year and, as such, didn't play much, especially since the A's incredible minor league catching depth had him and Kurt Suzuki playing at the same level last year. The wire report at ESPN says that he should only miss spring training, though of course a knee injury to a catcher is a worrisome thing, as the public moaning and horror over Joe Mauer last year showed. On the other hand, that same depth that kept Powell from slotting in as an everday catcher somewhere also means that, even if this injury helps prevent him from panning out as the A's would hope, it's a small blow.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 15:57 | |

Feeling a bit like I haven't written anything in a while, I'm going to take a page from Entertainment Weekly Review and let you know whether or not you ought to buy the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Though I wonder, first, whether anybody still buys the venerable music magazine. Is it still relevant? Does anybody care? Of my six readers, are any of you subscribers? Regular newstand buyers? Occasional buyers? Or am I being too generous about the size of my readership? With an Erik Hedegaard cover story on Johnny Depp, there's an immediate pull, though the story turns out to be a bit boring. There's just not much that hasn't already been said about Depp, and it's hard to plumb new depths because he hasn't been particularly closed-off about his past before. It's not like getting the first truly candid interview with (insert star here), and, Hedegaard not being a critic but a professional profiler, we don't really get interesting insights or observations about Depp's role in modern America. On the other hand, I shouldn't fault Hedegaard for not being Tom Carson or somebody, because that's unfair. As we say in baseball analysis, look for what the player (here, story) does, not what it doesn't do. And in this case, the piece is well-written and engaging in a way that escapes the majority of RS's writers. Gavin Edwards on Dominic Monaghan (of Lord of the Rings and, now, Lost fame) is sort of the opposite. The piece is straightforward and can basically only be applauded for staying out of the way of the subject, but that subject is interesting and fresh, at least in the sense that I hadn't read anything before on Monaghan. The National Affairs desk produced a piece on the likelihood of a return to the draft. This being RS and not Fox News, you can guess that it's not an article full of happy reassurances that it'll never happen. The only really interesting bit of information is the note that a memo was uncovered in which two minor members of the Bush administration discuss how a draft might proceed. It's noted that the memo was made public with a Freedom of Information Act appeal, but it's unclear who asked for it. The story's author, Tom Dickinson? Some other (unnamed) writer? Regardless, it doesn't seem like it took a Hersh-ian level of sleuthery to pick up this tidbit, and it's not all that revealing anyway. Sure, it puts lie to the administration's claims that a draft hasn't even been discussed, but who cares, really? They've lied before, and they'll do it again. We know they're evil, and there doesn't really appear to be much to be done about it at this stage in the game. On a more substantive level, I'm glad these people are having these discussions. As the piece points out, if the administration keeps going as it's going and invades Iran or something, we're going to need some new soldiers. It's pure numbers. Thus, the fact that some new ideas are being bounced around for how to draft is good news, because I'd rather see them lying about it than have to have a draft with only a month to prepare. Peter Wilkinson contributed a piece on a police informant who's now in a no-man's land. The police won't use him or help him and various low-lifes throughout the Western United States want him dead. It's a bit astounding, actually, because the man allowed himself to be photographed for the story and, apparently, his real name was used (there was no note about names being changed to protect the not-so-innocent). The piece itself is sort of blah, par for the RS course. If you're jonesing for a bit of police-informant-and-drug-crazed biker action, go watch Beyond the Law, with Michael Madsen (following up Resevoir Dogs and who, by the way, is in nine movies (!) slated to hit in 2005), the ever-intense Charlie Sheen, and Linda Fiorentino. Sebastião Salgado's series of beautiful black-and-white photos of the natural world of South America continues this issue with a piece on whales. The pictures are, of course, beautiful, but I'll cop to not bothering to read the accompanying piece written by Salgado. The music reviews are nothing to write home about, and in this case, that means both that none of the albums sound terribly exciting and that none of the reviews provide any particular pleasure in themselves. On the other hand, it's pretty much only a Rob Sheffield review that I can really look forward to reading in any given issue, and his handful in this issue are as straight-forward as he can make them. His forté really seems to be the hilarious review of the forgettable teen pop album. Maybe I'm damning with faint praise here, but what else should I do? I'm a blogger. I saw the trailer for Bride and Prejudice this weekend, before Finding Neverland (a small ugh, by the way), and I was absolutely stunned by Aishwarya Rai. I'd read about her before, in a sort of teaser article meant to inspire all of us to get excited about her big American splash, but I didn't really buy the hype. Lots of people who are considered beautiful by the world-at-large aren't really my type, but for Rai, let's say that I'm on the bandwagon. Anyway, Peter Travers gave the film (wait, there's a movie involved here?) three stars (out of four), which sounds unlikely. Travers is notorious (to me) for giving star ratings that are wildly out of line with his actual reviews (of course, that his reviews are wildly out of line with reality is a separate issue which will, undoubtedly, be broached at a later date). In this case, he refers to Martin Henderson looking lost and the script falling apart when the action leaves India. Can a movie that falls apart in what I'm assuming is at least the last third really deserve 75% of the possible stars? Especially when he allows himself the luxury of half stars? I mean, if he was that in love with Rai (he is), he could give it two and a half and still be satisfied that she might acknowledge his presence at a screening or something, but he had to go overboard and hope she doesn't read.

Posted by jason in Magazines, Reading at 16:08 | |