TUESDAY PIRATES RANT™!! Best 59-86 Team in the League!!

I don't need to follow the "Good - Bad - Blog" format this week to Rant™ like I want to Rant™. Instead, I'll just discuss one simple item.

You remember a couple weeks ago (I know you do), when I linked to this bit of brilliance spilling out of Cubs Manager Dusty Baker's mouth?

"On-base percentage is great if you can score runs and do something with that on-base percentage," Baker said... "Clogging up the bases isn't that great to me."

As Pat from Where is Van Slyke? said at the time, things could always be worse. Well...they are. Here's a piece about brilliant Pirates Hitting Coach Jeff Manto from the Pittsburgh Propagand...I mean Tribune-Review, last week. I cannot possibly tell you how hard it's been to bite my tongue on this for an entire week.

"People with their numbers ... they are trying to get so particular," said Manto, whose club's batting average of .267 was sixth in the National League prior to last night.

"You can drive yourself crazy with these newer numbers."

Manto is admittedly biased against the "nu skool" numbers that have come to dominate discussions among a culture of statistics starved fans.

First of all, "nu skool"?? I didn't know sk8er punks were also baseball stat nerds. Second of all, yeah...why would you want to actually want to delve into statistics and find something that might actually work? Just look at that crazy Billy Beane out there in Oakland...talk about a failure. You can't all be successful small-market franchises like the Pirates.

For starters, Manto is no fan of on-base percentage, partly because he believes its emphasis on walks does not take into account that a base-on-balls is not always a desired or productive result.

While dismissing runs created, Manto offered his own statistical category: "runs produced" -- measured by adding runs and RBI, subtracting home runs from that total and dividing that number by games played.

"It's as important as on-base percentage," Manto said, "because it is a tremendous evaluator of who is a total offensive player."

That's correct. Whereas measures like On-Base Percentage and OPS (On-base plus Slugging %) can view things like how well somebody doesn't make outs (which would seem to me to be the most important thing a batter can do) and, you know, worthless things like that, Manto's wonderful Runs Produced measures the true heart of somebody's offensive capabilities: your ability to will somebody ahead of you to get on base so that you might drive them in, and your ability to will somebody behind you to knock you home in case you do get on base. In other words, Manto believes in The Force.

Adhering to Manto's formula, it should also come as no surprise that Bay (1.12) and Sanchez (1.07) rank as the Pirates' top total offensive players.

"Those two guys excel at scoring runs and knocking them in," Manto said.

Bay's 57 extra-base hits and Sanchez's 54 were most among Pirates prior to last night.

I have to pause here for dramatic effect. Take a deep breath, and don't take a drink of anything before you read the next paragraph.

"Somehow, some way, you have to get to second base," said Manto. "That's why, to me, on-base percentage doesn't mean a lot for an individual player ... I mean, it's great to get on base, but does the player get to second or beyond and score runs? If not, what good is him just getting on base?"

Exactly. Unless one can use The Force to get other people to drive him in from first or second or third base, then really all he's doing is being selfish and clogging up the bases that other players with a better handle of The Force could be occupying.

Pat had two responses to this in one post last week, one reactionary (which makes Manto look bad) and one well-thought-out (which makes Manto look worse).

First...

POP. Did you hear that? That was my brain exploding. Jeff Manto's method of evaluating offensive players invovles RBIs and runs scored, two categories that players have only marginal control over by themselves, and subtracting home runs, something that is completely under control of the player. So Jason Bay's worth as a baseball player accoring to Jeff Manto at least partially lies on Chris Duffy's ability to get on base and Jeromy Burnitz's ability to drive him in.

Second...

Some more thinking about this (which I don't recommend) even makes this seem more insane. Manto states that in order to be a good run producer, one should have a "Runs Produced" of 1.0 or greater. That means that each player on the team should either drive in or score one run a night. That means that over the course of the season, the team will score 4.5 runs per game. That's 729 runs total, less than the Yankees, Orioles, White Sox, Indians, Mets, and Phillies have scored to this point in the year and nearly the same amount that the Braves, Rangers, and Red Sox (three teams that even close to playoff spots) have right now. I feel the need to punch something. For even more perspective, we've already given up 705.

That's it for this week's Rant™. Never mind that the Pirates are 29-26 since the All-Star Break, leading the NL Central in the mythical "Second Half Division Race"...as long as they hire idiots, they will not win. The end.

Next year's major free agent acquisition.