The ruse of "small ball"

All through the baseball playoffs I kept hearing that the White Sox were devotees of "small ball" or "smart ball," in other words they succeeded by using bunts, sacrifices, and stolen bases. They did the little things to win, rather than swing for the fences a la Earl Weaver. And they were roundly applauded on tv and radio alike for this philosophy of play; many hoped it would harken a new era of the game, a back to the future movement opposed to the unpopular (with some) ideas of "money ball."

Seems all that was a bit overdone. According to this study, for all the talk of Chisox speed, it really didn't make that much difference. Their stolen bases added 3 runs to the total number of runs they scored all year (about 1/4 of a win) and, on top of that, they scored almost 1/2 of their runs by way of the homerun (second in all of baseball behind the Twins in that category). Which means the Chicago White Sox scored more runs and were more dependent on the homer than either the Yankees or Red Sox. So much for small ball.

Of course, not everyone agrees. Witness this writer in the Toronto Star who is dead wrong on so many levels. The stolen base canard aside, he suggests that money ball philosophy is only about OBP and not about pitching, which seems conveniently to forget that one whole chapter of the book "Money Ball" was about an undervalued pitcher named Chad Bradford that Billy Beane managed to pry away from Kenny Williams of (you guessed it) the White Sox. This writer clearly did not read the book. Where does it say that pitching is not important? Horse manure. Look for high OBP guys who walk a ton, don't strike out, and take a lot of pitches; find pitchers who don't walk a lot of guys, throw strikes, and keep the ball in the park. How radical is that?

He notes the importance of Scott Podsednik to the Chisox this year, and how the team traded away a power hitter to get the speedy leadoff man. True enough, but Podsednik was central to the White Sox because of his, ahem, OBP which if memory serves was north of .400. He helped them because of was the quintessential table setter, not because he stole bases. By the way, the White Sox led baseball in caught stealing -- think of how many extra outs they ran into because of their silly small ball tactics, taking the bat out of the hands of power hitters behind them. Why such bitterness against "Money Ball" anyway?

On a lighter baseball note, a funny little mock article about how Leo Strauss impacted the Pale Hose championship this year can be found here.